Disclaimer: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles belong to Mirage Studios, Peter A. Laird, and Kevin B. Eastman. I use them without permission, and without monetary profit.
Chapter Two:
Donatello and Raphael silently snuck into the school, on their guard. Together they checked every classroom down every hallway, ever vigilant. Years of fighting against the Foot taught them to never mistake silence for safety.
The school had the same neglected air as the NAMR building. It looked as if the people who had used the building just decided one day to stop coming.
Animals filled the area – mostly rats, cats, and raccoons. They skittered out of the way as the two silently roved around the classrooms, peeking into drawers and cabinets. Raphael nearly gotten bitten by territorial rats several times, which set him to cussing. Donatello tried to glare his brother into silence, but wasn't in the least bit surprised when he was ignored.
They continued to snoop about, retracing their steps once they'd gotten the lay of the school to go over the details, making sure every nook and cranny was poked and prodded.
The sun began to rise in the sky, taking away the comfortable shadows for the mutants to hide in. When Raphael loudly chased a raccoon out of it's hiding spot for biting him, Donatello decided it was time to call it quits.
"Raph, c'mon. Lets find a place to bunk down." Don said loudly while Raph retrieved his sai from the carcass of the raccoon.
"Breakfast?" The wicked gleam in Raph's eyes made Don cringe.
He sighed and gave in. "Sure, there's a first time for everything. Bet you raccoon tastes like chicken."
Raph cackled. "I don't care. It could taste like shit and I'd still eat the little fucker."
Don crooked an eyebrow as Raph picked up the dead raccoon by the neck. "You're such a city turtle."
"Hey, Mike. You wanna go bounty hunting?" Leo called, poking his head into Mikey's room. Mike was belly down on his cot playing with old transformers. One of them couldn't transform into his truck form, the other was missing an arm and a foot.
Mikey cocked his head to the side. He crashed one transformer into the other a few times, and then turned to look at Leo. "Maybe."
Leo snorted and stalked closer to the cot. Mikey tossed his transformers at Leo and curled himself into a ball, pulling his limbs close. Leo easily picked his little brother up and dropped him on the floor.
To keep from cracking his shell on the concrete floor, he flailed out his limbs and turned his body. Leo grabbed a lashing ankle and pulled the wailing turtle out of the door.
"You're scraping up my shell!"
"Then stand up and come with me."
"You're a cheater!"
"You're a pouter, c'mon. Lets go."
Mikey grumped and tried to peek at the damage Leo had done to his shell. Without giving Mikey a second glance Leo headed towards the entrance to the sewers. Mikey trailed behind complaining.
"You're lucky this isn't permanent! My shell is my best feature!"
Leo sent Mikey an amused 'give me a break' eye-roll and Mikey jogged to keep up with Leo alternately whining and chattering.
"Aren't you in the least bit curious about the person we're going to catch?" Leo raised his voice to interrupt a rant about the Foot.
Mikey's mouth shut with a click of his teeth. "Um… now I am?"
Leo narrowed his eyes for a moment at Mikey and the other turtle broke their eye contact. They both knew this entire thing was to get Mikey out of his room and keep him distracted. But Mikey's mood was bordering on desperation.
"I know you're trying hard, Mike." Leo said finally. "You don't have to try so hard. It's okay to be in love with her. But you were quickly turning the love into something that wasn't healthy."
Mike nodded. "I know."
Leo punched Mike in the shoulder. "You're doing good now, Mike. You're out of the danger zone."
Mikey's eyes were hot and intense as he returned his gaze to Leo, this time not turning away, letting his brother see into his heart. Leo blinked hard. "No I'm not." Michelangelo whispered. "I just pretend that I am. I want to be around her so bad it's like a bone-deep ache. It's not going to go away. It's not losing its intensity. I want to protect her and save her and coddle her and know that she's always okay."
Leo nodded slowly, took a deep breath and nodded his head towards the sewers. "Lets go catch some delinquents."
"Yeah." Mikey echoed, but his voice was empty.
"A little greasy, but not that bad. Better than squirrel." Raph announced, sucking juices off of his fingers.
Don nodded gnawing on a bone, distracted.
"Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear." Raph intoned seriously. Don nodded again and Raph threw a rock at his brother. Don flinched as the rock smacked him at the sensitive skin on his neck.
"Hey! What was that for?"
"Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear?"
Donny blinked, looking at Raph like he had grown a second head right before his eyes. "I'm happy for him?"
"You weren't paying attention." Raph rolled his eyes.
"I was thinking."
"Let me guess. It wasn't velvet roses and crystal tears, that's for sure."
Don furrowed his brow and sat up straighter. "Has anyone ever told you you're completely insane? When you get in a mood you're almost as annoying as Mikey!"
Raph inclined his head slightly a smirk pulling at the edge of his mouth. "You're just pissed off because you can't solve this problem within half an hour and strut about with your nose in the air because you're sooo smart."
"You're an asshole, Raph."
"You're just touchy because I'm right."
"I don't lord my intelligence over anyone. If anything you lord your strength over everyone!"
"S'not my fault I'm a brawny, muscled mo' fo'."
Donatello stood and stalked off towards the school.
"It's not dark yet." Raph called after him, his voice amused and casual.
"Kiss my tail!" Don called without turning around.
"Wow, someone's PMSing." Raph raised his voice, but Don didn't respond. Raph settled back and glared at the school. This entire situation was setting him on edge. He didn't like it. Something was going on but neither of them could figure out what. Don was mad at himself for not figuring it out within seconds, Raphael was mad at himself for relying so heavily on Don for answers. There was no one to beat up, no one to bully.
Raph knew he wasn't the easiest person to get along with. Sometimes he even hated himself.
"So, Leo." Mikey whispered from their vantage point on the roof the tallest building on the block. "he jumped bail for stealing a candy bar?" he tried to hide it, but a giggle escaped.
"I'm sure it's very embarrassing for him. He doesn't want to admit it, so instead of paying bail he ran." Leo sounded sarcastic but amused, and Mikey let his laughter break free.
"Dude. I don't know if I want to catch this guy or not!"
Leo snorted and shook his head, returning his attention to one of the known hideouts that George the Weasel used.
"What kind of candy bar?"
"Nutrageous, I think."
"Oh! Not worth it! Butterfinger, yes. Snickers, maybe. Nutrageous, no."
"Calm down." Leo hushed
When Raph finally got around to following Donatello into the school, he was set instantly on edge.
The silence of the school was no longer quiet. Something was different. Someone was in the school. Raph silently joined his brother and they shared a glance, each assuring the other they noticed the change in the air as well.
As they passed from room to room, they tested the air, following the silent tension until finally they entered the cafeteria. The feeling that passed over them was one of instant vulnerability. They kept their backs to the door they entered into, glancing at each other and then pointedly at the shadows that lurked in the corners.
As they watched the shadows took shape. After a long moment of stillness, one of the figures moved forward making the two brothers tense up like coiled snakes. But the figure kept walking forward, though slowly.
The closer the figure got, the more substantial the more details the brothers could see.
With the way the figure was hunched over, the way his body seemed to be made up, it was very obvious the figure wasn't human. As it stepped into the faint moonlight coming from one of the windows Don and Raph gasped. It wasn't a human. It was a mutant.
"Who are you and where did you come from?" It asked, the jaws and tongue working slowly to create the words. Alligator mouths weren't designed to speak. Granted the mutant's snout was a shortened, stubby version, but it was still glaringly obvious it was an alligator.
"We're mutants. Like you." Donatello finally answered. His chest and belly was thrumming with tension and excitement. He'd been right! He'd been right!
"Obviously." He made a gesture with his hands and the five other figures eased silently forward, into the light.
Donny's breathing started to become too fast, too loud. Raph shoved his shell hard against his brother, jolting the hyperventilating turtle out of his panic attack. Instead it made Don blurt out all of his thoughts.
"This is absolutely fascinating! You exist! Never in my wildest dreams did I think that all I had hypothesized was true! It was merely a bone for me to chew to give myself a purpose. To think, that perhaps maybe we weren't a mistake: a cosmic boo-boo. You were created for something. We were all created for something, for a reason!" Then the purple masked turtle covered his face and broke down into sobs.
Raphael was more than a little embarrassed. "Uh." He started, glancing from one mutant to the other. "This is my brother, Donatello, and I'm Raphael. We're from New York." Instantly the tension in the room rose another ten degrees. "We found the NAMR building and it led us to here."
"Were you experiments?"
"No, a canister of ooze fell and broke in the sewers. We crawled in it."
"So you were an accident, not another experiment." And with those words was a wealth of relief. The tension in the room eased greatly. "There will be no more of us. Thank the gods."
Donatello had gotten himself under control. It was beyond embarrassing, but for something to monumental to be so achingly true, and right before his very eyes, living and breathing – it was too much and his body needed the release. He felt like a baby crying like that, but his muscles and bones seemed to be putty now, the relief was so complete.
However he knew his training well and he wasn't going to embellish on how many of 'we' there was anymore than Raphael would.
"Other than us and now you, we have never seen other mutants. Until you we thought we were mere accidents of time and place. But I knew, I've always known that the ooze we crawled in came from somewhere, was created for some purpose. Now I know." Don took a deep breath to keep his frayed emotions under control.
"Yes. Your 'ooze' was created for a reason." The alligator intoned dangerously. Raphael's grip on his sai tightened.
"Come with us. We do not like being away from the safety of our den. We will explain everything you want to know there."
Raphael gave the alligator a curt nod and shoved home his sai into the band of his belt. "Understand that we're still a little twitchy. There's no reason for us to trust you," he warned.
"I was just thinking the same thing." The alligator confided, dark humor ripe in his voice.