OK, let me get this straight. You guys actually like me? You don't think I'm this stupid, annoying, needy girl that's only meaning in life is to write? And you think I'm good? Wow. Please try to convince my Computer/Creative Writing/Science teacher that! And while you're at it, tell ever person in my school who makes fun of me for liking this website (everyone!) that, too. They think I suck. Guess it kinda rubbed off.
Well, I'm sorry my last chapter was short. I was planning on making it longer, but I'm working on writing good fight scenes, and I'm not too sure if I have the best dialogue. But I promise to improve!
On a personal note, my baby sister should be here any time within the next two weeks! She's a little bit early, we weren't expecting her 'til April 3, but I think she'll be all right. She already weighs seven pounds!
Disclaimer: (checking bank account) If I owned them, there'd be a lot more zeroes attached to this number!
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Leo sighed. He could feel his youngest brother's eyes bore their way through him from behind.
The brothers were separated; he and Mikey were watching from a low rooftop across from the jeweler's place while Raph and Don watched from the alley close by. Casey was on the lookout in his apartment, where he could call the police before joining in on the action.
Leo had purposely set them up like that. He didn't want Donny or Raph asking him questions while they were waiting. Michaelangelo was the only one he thought that might not have noticed something different, but he wasn't surprised that he was wrong. Mikey might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he wasn't stupid.
The sun beat down on his shell between the clouds that trapped it, creating few, but wanted shadows. Usually, the ninja would've been uncomfortable in broad daylight, but anything was welcome after the walls of solid darkness in his dreams. And it wasn't so cold, either.
Across the street, the little old man who owned the store locked up, probably going on his lunch-break.
"Don," Leo said into his shell-cell, "the owner just left. Any sign of the Purple Dragons?"
A pause. "Yep, they just showed up. Raph's calling Casey. What do you want us to do?"
"Just make sure they don't get in. Mikey and I are on our way." He hung up.
"All right," Raph said, "there's six of 'em, and pretty quick, there'll be five of us. Maybe we should give 'em a chance to surrender."
The leader of the gang whipped out a semi-automatic.
Donny shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Fine by me." Raph growled, grinning maliciously.
All of the gang members had weapons out now. One guy, who had a pistol, was moving just a little to close to the lock on the backdoor. Raphael threw a sai and pinned him to the wall before moving to disarm him.
It took the other thugs a few moments to comprehend this so by the time one of them had gotten their gun pointed at him, Don's bo staff was only inches away from his right ankle.
"What the hell!" yelled a younger man. His hair was short and dyed blue. He didn't have a Purple Dragon's tattoo on him, yet. Raph figured he was probably going through his initiation rites. "You never said anything about giant frogs!"
The red-clad turtle rolled his eyes. How many times did you have to tell these numbskulls? "Turtles!" he corrected.
"Whatever, freak!" the youth spat, hyperventilating. He took off down the alley towards the street, where he was met with a dull thwack to the head from a nunchuck.
"Knock! Knock!" Mikey joked, always ready with a pun or two.
Leonardo moved over to the leader, avoiding the aim of the gun. "Mikey," he shouted back, "get away from the street before someone sees you!"
The youngest obeyed, going over to fight a guy swinging some chains around. Seconds later, Casey Jones dropped down on top of him, armed with baseball bat and hockey mask.
He tried to speak loud enough so they could all hear. "Guys, I called the cops! They'll be here any minute!"
Raph caught his sai as the man he'd pegged got it off of the wall. "Then we better make this quick." He kicked the guy as the pistol was raised, bringing it back down, again, to the pavement.
Donatello was fighting a blonde woman wearing a brown trench coat. She seemed to be scared shitless and was throwing all kinds of obscure items at him. Donny had already disarmed her thin metal pipe. After that came the rock, a brick, two shoes, and the worse yet. Pocket change. Finally, the woman gave up and ran back the way she came.
He smiled slightly, then turned around to see the man with the broken ankle throwing a knife at him. He barely had time to block it. "Jeez!" Don said, looking at the four-inch blade stuck in his bo staff.
Raph watched Leo's slow maneuvers fail as he tried to get rid of that semi-automatic. Anyone could tell he wasn't thinking clearly. Raph shook his head. Fine, my ass. He saw the man Don was fighting and punched him in the back of the head. Four down, two to go.
Eventually, Leo worked himself into a position that left his left shoulder open to attack. The gunman noticed this and wasted no time in swinging his firearm into it, hard.
With the turtle down, the leader of the failed operation laughed and went over to where Mike and Casey were fighting the chain-wielder. He lifted his weapon and fired, smiling as Casey's bat exploded into little wood chips.
His smile soon faded though. In the next moment after that, there was the sound of metal going through metal and then his gun was in pieces, along with the baseball bat, on the ground.
The thug turned to his right, glaring at Leo. "That was my favorite gun." He hissed.
Casey, being the hot-head that he is, got up in his face. "Yeah? Well that was my favorite bat!"
Everything had been so quiet after Leo had destroyed the weapon that the sounds of the fire engines going by were deafening. Then, chaos once more.
The guy with the chains swung them at Casey's arm, only to be blocked by Don's bo staff. Raph tackled the Purple Dragon leader and Mikey swung his nunchucks at the other guy, knocking him out.
Suddenly, more sirens. Police cars this time. Raph groaned. This guy wasn't going down without a fight.
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Leo had been fighting with his brothers for a few minutes when he heard screaming. He slowed down, cocking his head. He inhaled and smelled smoke.
Next thing he knew, Mikey was shoving him out of the way from a large piece of the semi-automatic that had been hurled towards him. Mikey helped him up. "You okay, bro?"
Leo nodded, staring at the Purple Dragon before him. More screaming.
Before anybody could have stopped him, Leo had lunged for the gangster with the ferocity he'd tried to hide his whole life. The man had just broken a glass bottle and was using it as his weapon. The glass slashed into Leo's bruised shoulder, causing blood to spill over his green skin.
It didn't even faze him.
The man was trying to send the broken glass through Leo's plastron now, but he didn't stand a chance. Leo caught his arm and twisted it 180 degrees, breaking it with a sickening crack. He brought his knee up into the thug's stomach and the guy was down, right as the police showed up.
The two policemen came into the alley to find five unconscious gang members and no one else in sight.
Up on the roof, above the alleyway, the flames of a burning building a block away were visible. From there, Leo could hear nothing but crying and screaming. He knew his brothers would be asking him what had just happened, so he didn't give them the chance. He jumped, in front of God and everybody, in the direction of the building.
At this point, he didn't know if the screams he was hearing now were the ones from his dreams, nor did he care. If he could stop anyone from crying out today, that would be good enough.
It was all that mattered.
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Mikey watched the scene in the alley with wide eyes. "Okay," he said, "that was weird." He turned to talk to his elder brother. "What was that-"
They all watched as Leo took off towards a fire.
Casey scratched his head. "What the hell is he thinkin'?"
Raph replied through grit teeth, "I don't know, but it's about bloody time that we find out."
They followed him.
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He had come in through a small window, the only one on the third floor not seething with flames. As if to confirm his worries, he immediately noticed it was an orphanage.
He'd been in here for about ten minutes now and the smoke inhalation was quickly becoming unbearable. He tried to imagine how hard it must be for the kids still stuck in here. There was a hoard of about five children around him. He was moving as fast as possible to get them out.
There! Leo had found the window again. He lifted each child up and jumped through and across to the roof of a close by warehouse. There he put them down, next to ten other children who were coughing horribly.
Leo grabbed a boy who seemed to be in the best condition. "Do you know how many other people are in there?"
The boy shook his head, staring at the giant turtle in front of him. "There's lots of kids that go here. And some of them were downstairs…"
"Do you remember anybody who was still there when this happened?"
He looked around nervously. "I-I don't see the babies-"
"There's babies in there?"
He nodded. "And I-I think the twins might be in there, too."
Leo groaned. The third floor was on the verge of collapsing. "Okay, you guys stay here. If the building goes down, I want you to climb down the fire escape and tell the firefighters that you were on the bottom floor and get out the back way."
A little girl asked through her coughs, "How come we have to lie to the firefighters?"
The ninja moved back towards the window, but shouted back the most reasonable thing he could think of. "They don't like me very much."
Back in the burning hell, Leo began his search for the other children. Where am I supposed to look? He'd been anywhere he could find on the floor.
But then, as if on cue, a swirl of gray smoke moved slightly, revealing a closed door. Leonardo knocked it down, coughing as he did so. Instantaneously, he heard the frightened cries of a baby.
In the corner, he found a little girl. At the rate of the smoke and her crying, he was surprised that she was still breathing. The thought made him realize how little time there was left, so he quickly took her into his arms and left the room, vomiting on his way out.
There had been two other babies in there. One had suffocated, the other, the flames had gotten to.
"We should go this way!" He heard the shouts of a young boy.
"Nun-uh! The stairs are better!" his companion argued.
The two were identical. The twins. He noticed how thin the floor was beneath them.
The floor crumbled under the weight the second Leo grabbed one in each hand by their shirt collars. If the baby hadn't been holding on to his neck so tight, she would've fell.
The two boys stared at Leo. "Whoa." They said simultaneously.
"Is there anyone else in here?"
They shook their heads.
"Good." He put the twins over his right shoulder and ran back to the window as the floor beneath him shifted.
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"Where the hell is he?" Raph yelled out. They'd searched the perimeter of the building for the last fifteen minutes without finding Leo.
Donny looked out a little in the distance. "Are those…kids?" he asked.
They looked at an old warehouse to see several children sitting on top of it.
"How'd they get up there?" Mikey asked as they moved towards it.
One of the little girls stared up at them as they landed on the roof. "Hey, you're like the blue guy!"
Casey looked at Michaelangelo. "There's your answer."
Donny crouched beside them kids. "Where is he?"
They coughed and pointed behind Raphael. There was an open window. Then it was gone, along with the rest of the building.
At that instant, a blur of green flew out and crashed beside them. Leo coughed as he moved the twins off of him.
"Leo!" Donny went over to his ash-covered brother. "Are you okay?"
He nodded and coughed, pointing to a baby clinging to his neck.
Don gently pried her off. The little girl was still crying. "We need to get her to a medic. She's inhaled a lot of smoke."
The kids all looked at Leo. He pointed to the fire escape. The children went over to it and climbed down, the bigger kids helping the smaller ones.
Raph stared at his elder brother until he turned around. He was still troubled. "We're gonna talk when we get home."
Leo said nothing.
All of a sudden, there was a metallic crash and an advanced robot came through. It carried the holographic image of Baxter Stockman.
"Let's see, let's see." The doctor lifted some of the children into his robotic hands. "Which one shall I choose?"
Donatello threw his bo staff and hit the metal arm, causing him to turn around.
"What's this?" he noticed the turtles. "Why you irksome, little reptiles! What do I have to do to be rid of you?"
Mikey swung his nunchucks. "Funny. I was thinking the same question!"
"Well, it's no matter. I think I can finally destroy you three today." He laughed, then stopped abruptly. "Wait… three? Well, there's the vigilante, but where's-"
He was cut off by the ramming of a katana into one of his robotic legs, then arm.
Leo continued to deal such blows until he had the reduced scientist in a corner. Raph recognized the same rage in him that had arose twice already that day. His brother had finally gotten his swords ready to penetrate the last remaining bit of Stockman's humanity when the doctor cried out.
"Wait! Wait! You can't kill me!"
Leo bent closer, breathing heavily. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."
Stockman's holographic face gulped before trying to put on a facade of authority. "Because, if-if you kill me," his voice became quieter, "you'll never find out why they scream."
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Dun-dun-dun-dun! Wow! Now I see what kind of twisted feeling of power you other writers get out of cliffhangers!
So what'd ya think? I hope I didn't go to fast. Tell me if I am. Oh yeah, if anybody thinks my story near its end, you are so wrong! It's barely begun!
I hope I did okay with my fight scenes. As I said, I'm workin' on it. How were the details? I'm workin' on that, too.
Well, I'll update soon! Please review!
(me: trying not to think negatively) I did good. They'll like this chapter. (humming) Find your happy place… Find your happy place… Ah, here come the reviews!