Disclaimer: I do not own the Turtles, April, Splinter, Shredder or any other related character. All character are the property of Mirage Studios.

Suckers...

Now with Under The Skin done and out of the way, and that Writer's Block holding me back from finishing the Family Saga, I thought back into the days of my youth where I wrote my first Turtle fan fiction, back before I even knew what the heck fan fiction was! This story was based on an episode of the old cartoon in which Donatello narrated himself as a detective while he was out looking for his brothers, who had been kidnaped by some mob guy( does anyone remember this episode? I don't think I was dreaming...) Anyway, I created this story in the back of my Dad's Bronco while jamming the Footloose soundtrack, and from what I remembered, it turned out to be a good story. Well, good enough for an eleven year old anyway. So, I thought back, updated a few things, threw in some bad words for good measure, and voila!

An old timed, old fashioned detective story! So, pop in the Kenny Loggins, sit back, and enjoy!

Chapter One

New York City. The Big Apple. The city that never sleeps. Whatever it's referred as, it's still my home. I was born here, grew up here, saw things that would send most people packing. But as I stare down into the empty city streets below me, the city that never sleeps is sure as hell too quiet for me tonight.

It's raining again, like it has been for a week straight now, and I don't really realize that I'm lighting up another cigarette again. What's that make? Five in less than ten minutes? Damn chain smoking is gonna kill me someday, just like Leo said it would.

I leave the rain behind as I turn away from the window, the rattling of the mini blinds calling out from behind me, and I can't help but start laughing. The empty streets were far more welcoming than this empty apartment I'm looking at right now. It doesn't even qualify as an apartment really. It's more like a little hole dug in the ground, made especially for someone who wants to crawl into it and die. Well, I haven't become that depressed. Death is the last thing on my mind right now.

Sleep, now that sounds about right, if it even came to me once and awhile, that is. Maybe I'll try it again for tonight, just to see what will happened. I stub out my smoke in the ashtray on my sloppy-as-hell desk and head for that piece of shit mattress, with those annoying springs that stabs me in the back every time I roll over. Those springs squeak a welcome to me as I sit, taking my time to remove my brown oxfords, and I allow myself to fall back, feeling that pain stick into my shell, like it does every night.

Wait a minute. Did I forget to mention I had a shell? Sorry, I tend to get carried away in my thoughts. Explaining myself was the last thing on my mind.

I'm a turtle, a giant talking turtle. I have three thick fingers on each hand, I walk upright, and I'm green. Well, if you wanna get technical, I'm leaning a little closer to an olive tone.

How did I get this way? I was created, so to speak, accidently. A mistake, if you must. No reason behind it. I was just a pet turtle who happened to come in contact with a glowing puddle of a slimy, toxic compound called mutagen. Kind of a wrong place, wrong time scenario.

Are their others like me? Yeah, but we're not family or anything like that, not blood anyway, and you'll find out more about them, whenever I feel like talking about them, that is.

Now, I'm laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and you know that little moment just before you fall asleep when your unconscious wakes up and starts throwing at you all of the shit you've piled up during the day? Yeah, that's where I get stuck. I start thinking about things that I promised myself I never would ever think of again. Then I shake my head, rub at my dried out, sleep-deprived eyes, and sit back up, just like I am doing now. Then what happens next, you may ask? Well, I go over to my desk, pull out my bottle of Crown, pull out a glass, and pour myself a little something to take the pain away.

But, not tonight. For some reason, my head turns to the makeshift shelf above my bed, and right to that rust-spotted sliver picture frame. The cobwebs hanging around it means it's been awhile since I last looked at it, so I grab it and bring it down into my lap, and I can already feel the tears coming into my eyes. That's one empty well that getting refreshed tonight, at least.

Ah, Leo. Leo, Leo, Leo. I don't know what's going to win, the smile I'm trying to crack, or the dam that's trying to break above it. Old memories of better days coming flooding back to me as I look into this old black and white picture of me and my old partner, our faces lit up as we celebrated the closing of one of our cases. Damn, those were the good old days!

Leo had been in the force years longer than I had been. I was a rookie who he had taken in under his wing and he showed me everything there was to know about being a good cop and a good detective. The guy was so smart and had so much freakin' patience with me, I always wondered why he even bothered with me sometimes. Not that I was a stupid or anything. I'm smart. Well, I was back then, anyway, but I was still a handful. I was one of those 'dreamers', if you need a label for it, and my head was always up in the air. Hell, a dog had a longer attention span than I did. But Leo changed all of that. He made me pay attention, one of the first rules of police work. Whether it be field work collecting evidence, or in the middle of a shoot-out with a gang, you always paid attention to everything that was going on around you. Be aware of your surroundings.

Sounds like some kind of karate, self-defense crap, right? Well, Leo was into that whole Japanese culture thing, and he knew a lot of those karate moves. He offered to show me those moves, but I refused. I was a lover, not a fighter. Why the hell would I want to learn that? Then came Leo's second rule of thumb: always be prepared. So, I let teach me a thing or two, and it wasn't as bad as I thought, but the cramps in my muscles would have told you differently.

A few years down the line, our partnership grew as did our friendship, and we had basically become more than partners, more than friends. We were brothers, and something like that doesn't happen too often. Of course, the fact that he, too, was a mutated turtle, had nothing to do with it. Okay, maybe just a little, but it was more like a soul connection. But, like all things in life, they must come to an end.

We had been staking out this mobster for a few years, some Japanese guy that called himself the Shredder, which to me is a shitty mob name, but that didn't matter. He was the scariest son of a bitch in all of New England, even most of the guys on the force peed their pants at the mention of his name. If you were working with him, the world was your oyster. If you were against him, death was at your door at four in the morning with a bullet ready for your head when you stepped out to get your morning paper. He took no prisoners. Being a ruthless warlord was his specialty.

Leo was the only brave one to take on the Shredder, or the most stupid, depending on which cop you talked to, and I was dragged into the whole thing. I kept telling him it was a bad idea, and he would come back and say:

"We've been tailing this guy for years now! We know who he talks to, we know who he pays off, we know who he sleeps with. Hell, we even know what color shit paper he uses!"

To which I would ask:

"Which would be what? Pink?"

Sometimes I'd get a dirty look, a laugh, or a simple 'smartass'. It just depended on what mood he was in that day.

So, there we were, sitting in Leo's beat up Cadillac, the victim of one too many car chases, and we would wait. Wait, and wait, and wait. I think I even fell asleep at one point! But soon, the Shredder showed up, along with the rest of his Japanese posse, all dressed in their thousand dollar pinstripe black suits, their black hair slicked back, and machine guns by the boat load. And I remember that look Leo had on his green face, that look in his brown eyes. It wasn't just a look that a cop gives a guy when he hands him a speeding ticket. No, there was something else there, something that scared the living shit out of me. Leo was out for blood, and there would be no stopping him.

Everything from that point on was a blur to me. I remember shouting, gunfire, screams, more gunfire, then the pain of a bullet ripping into my side. Then I guess I passed out from the loss of blood cause everything went black around me. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in the hospital and they tell me that Leo didn't make it. And just like that, just like dropping that glass of Crown Royale onto the tiled floor under your feet, everything I had come to love shuttered around me.

So, here I am, laying on a shitty mattress, in a shit hole apartment, not knowing what to do next, and so many unanswered questions swarm my head. Dammit, Leo! If only you had listened to me, we'd be out celebrating that bastard's conviction right now! My forced smile fades, and I give way for the tears. I push myself back to my feet, retie my Oxfords and grab my coat and hat as I head for the door. Well, if I'm gonna cry tonight, why the hell should I be alone? I know a cozy little place a few blocks from here, I can drain my tears into something a little stronger. It's only midnight. The night has only just begun.

Oh, and if you're still wondering, the name's Donatello, but you can call me Don, and if you care to join me, I'm on my way to the Red Diamond.