Disclaimer: I don't own the TMNT

A/N: Thanks so much you guys! I'm glad that none of you seemed dissappointed that the other turtles didn't show up just quite yet. You'll have to strain through a few more chapters for that one.

Jessiy Landroz: You're happy that Amuke said something? Well, I guess it came as a surprise. Then again he was pretty upset...And Raph forget that he's pregnant? I'm sure that he blesses every second that something else manages to push it out of his mind. Reijiro: THANK YOU! I'm sorry to see that you're still confused on that action scene a couple of chapters ago, I must have really fizzled some brain cells on that one. Don't worry, it happens to all of us. I worry a lot that I don't do action scenes well so I'm glad to hear that I'm pulling it off. And nyuk nyuk? I LOVE Curly! Three stooges rule! Tewi: You all right? Calm down! Breath, (observes) good. Thank you. And once again, I am thrilled to hear that you liked it. Greshunkai: Once again, I live off of any good words directed at my stories. That has to be the biggest reward. RAPHAELFAN02: Aw! You saw the cuteness in the chappie! I'm glad for it. I didn't want the whole chapter to just be nonstop action. It seems to...dragging. Goofy mood? I know how it is, you come home from a long day, and that beer is just staring you right in the eye...just kidding! (snicker!) moonie016: Still glad to hear that I'm not dissapointing you. And yes, I'll answer all of your questions...eventually... SilentWater13: Thanx for the expo on the cookbook. It sounded familiar. Nitro...we use a form of that stuff in medicine. Well, I hope to see you visit at the next update!


Chapter 14

Hell in a Handbasket

That was one Hell of a ride, wasn't it! Man, I'll remember that fondly for a long while. I'm still buggin Don to get to build me one of them pinnaces for my own personal use, if ya know what I mean. I'd beat Casey in every single race till' the end of the Earth! I wouldn't mind going that fast any time. But still, it peeved me off. I mean, it's not like it was my home or nuthin' but it still felt, I don't know, personal. Ya know what I mean? Maybe it was just because it was Vivid's home or somehtin'. Hey, wait. Ignore that part. Yeah. I mean, at that point I was still kinda wonderin' well how can it be personal with Vivid, ya know? It's not like she's family or nuthin'...

(Ahem)

Well, anyway. I guess that you're kinda wondering what happens next, aren't ya? Alright then! I'm in a good mood, so let's get to it!


Finally! We were here!

It really seemed like the hours stretched on for days, and for a patient guy like me (hehe) that was kinda...infuriating. I swear that I almost killed Kartal at least seven times, the amusing thing about that is that Amuke seemed content to watch that particular show...

But we were here now and that's all that matters.

Well, not all that matters.

First we needed to figure out where they were. Amuke had an idea about that, luckily. Apparently the locale that they were checking out was a more, ah, shady part of town. Of course, that's my kinda place! So basically it wasn't clean and bright, even with continuous sunlight. More like dingy and dirty with the sunlight somehow filtering in. But it was the best place to get information. For a price, naturally.

The next problem was how we were going to go about unnoticed. Disguises was the first idea. Yeah, that really bombed. It couldn't be Amuke, cause there was no female alive on this planet that huge, not to mention the horns, frill and tail. Kartal was out of the question. There wasn't a single pregnant female on this planet so he'd be a dead giveaway. Yeah, who'd of thunk it, right? Then there was me...the other two immediately dissmissed the idea just like we did Amuke. Of course, I had to stop them on that. I didn't even need a disguise. Well, I guess that you could say that they didn't really believe me. Shame on them. Ye of little faith. You might not know it, but I can be persistently stubborn when I want to be. Yeah. Alright. Shut up. Anyways, it didn't even matter what they believed. 'Cause I knew that I could pull it off and that was all that mattered.

After all, they'd never met a ninja before.


The city was officially called 'Entrance' but was known to all of it's inhabitants and those around as 'Hell in a Handbasket.'

The tall buildings with narrow alleyways almost made it feel like home. Almost. The constant daylight were grating on my instincts, the only good point to that was that it really cast some sharp shadows. Big deep ones. My kinda shadows.

They had these things hangin' from the roofs, going rooftop to rooftop. It looked kinda like a net, where they dried their clothes or something, cause there sure was a lot of crap on them. Alright, so I had no friggin clue what it was, all I knew was that I liked it cause it cast even more shadows. The alleyways were littered with trash and the like. Yep, yet another endearing quality that just made it seem more like the good ole NYC.

Slowly I slinked down the alleyway. So far it was deserted, but I didn't know if it would stay that way. I had already turned down to several different paths, so yeah, I was basically getting myself lost.

But I'd also heard talk from open windows and from other conversations that I'd peeped in (the elentials don't really seem to be conscious that anyone can listen in on them). Apparently there were some elentials asking around covertly about the other renegades. And from what I heard they were doing it for nothing, for there seemed to be a lot of 'witch-hunts' going around and they were cleaned out of the area. It even made my toes curl when I heard about what they did. The area wasn't nearly as easygoing as it seemed like it used to be, less people were willing to look the other way. In fact, it sounded like many were being paid off.So basically Vivid and her family were about to tread in deep shit. Doggy doo doo. Whatever you want to call it (grumble, pansies).

I crept down the dirty passageway, my big feet hardly making a sound on the concrete (is it concrete? Well, it looks like it anyway so who gives a damn.) Ninja skills come in handy. hehehe I practically had to escape from Amuke and Kartal in order to do this, and still they thought they'd never see me again. Amuke looked like he was ready to sit on me to keep me from 'throwing my life away.' You'd think these blokes have never seen a ninja before! (probably haven't)

I was thinking these thoughts to myself as I got myself more and more lost. Or at least my brain was telling me that I was getting lost. All that I was really following was my gut, my gut was leading the way (and no, I'm not hungry!) So it was weird, maybe it was because of Vivid...

A door no less than fifteen feet in front of me slammed open and immediately I plastered myself against the wall in the deep shadows. I didn't move a muscle.

Two elentials followed by a tiny weird looking male servant followed them. The dude kinda reminded me of an elf. And the ladies...lets just say that elentials aren't as pristinely clean here as they are in other areas.

They were mumbling to themselves and I could see nimble fingers working through their tattered cloaks. Their hair (of who know's what it is color) hung in lanky strands around their dirty faces. They reminded me of a mixture between street urchins and drug dealers. They huddled together and hurriedlyfingered something that I can only guess could be money. They spoke in low, hushed voices. One of them said something in a demanding tone. The other apparently didn't like it and started to separate. Thenthe demanding onemoved and her figure suddenly wasn't so hidden anymore. In fact, she looked a bit cleaner than the other, like the dirt was purposely put there. Disguise!

The clean elential snatched the wrist of the other as it tried to get away. Her voice came out as a hiss. "Scum! Give me the information, now!"

I felt the wave. The clean elential was using power. The urchin one cried out and I saw her knees shake. I could recognize that anywhere. She was draining her power! That only meant one thing, a blueblood! Holy shit...

"Please, please stop m'lady. I didn't know it was you, honest! I sincerely apologize." The elential whimpered and pleaded as she slowly sunk to the ground. Her limbs trembled and shook. Then she spasmed and arched her back as she cried out in pain. Wow, now that's something that I haven't seen before.

"Speak!"

The elential said nothing, and once again she spasmed and this time her cry forpain was a stifled scream.

The clean one didn't say another word, simply tightened her hand on her wrist. The other one mumbled, "Please,m'lady Glory, I promised I did, I promised...AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Man, did I ever want to step in at this point. I really did. Not only because she was torturing that poor girl, but also because that bloody b!t#h was The Dame's sister! That was deserving of a thrashing if I ever heard one.

Glory continued. "Don't argue with me wench! The male we're looking forhas dissappeared and that b!t#h has to know where he is. Now tell me! Where is Vivid Larka!"

The elential whimpered and spoke: "I just spokeher just a few hours ago. She was seeking some more information to pass to her family."

"Where is her family!"

Shecringed. "I-I don't know! She wouldn't say, but I know that they're not here! Not in this part of town!"

"Where is she!"

"At Heaven. She's at Heaven."

Glory threw her down like a sack of old garbage and dropped some crumpled bills at her feet. Immediately the elential crawled around Glory's feet like a dog to pickup the bills.Before she could get up Glory kicked her. The blow caught her under herchin and sent her sprawling to the ground, colliding with some garbage.

She savagely stalked away as the elential bent down to pick up the freshly scattered bills once more. The little male-servant gave a littlesigh and backed away slowly as theelential started to growl fierce profanities in his direction. Guess someone has to take thebrunt ofher embarrassment.

Well, he continued backing up. In my defense,let mejust say that he was a tiny little sucker that was probably very used to blending in with everything to avoid his, ah, mistresses' wrath. So yeah, basicallyI didn't see himuntil he bumped into my stomach.

He started back and stared at me, his tiny mouth gaping open. Shit! Immediately the elential noticed that she nolonger held himat attention and whipped around to glare at him, bothclenched fists fullof the tiny bills.

Now, the thing about hiding in the shadows is that no one really knows preciselywhere to look for you. It works even better in cases like this when they don't even know that you're there. Unfortunately, when you have a little elf-man staring directly into your eyes it's kinda hard to miss your hiding spot. Yeah, that's what happened here.

Immediately she leaped at me. Just like a flash I had dodged her and was ready to assume the offensive. Why does this keep happening to me?

I swung at her with a kick and it caught her in the stomach, then she misted before the kick really hit where it hurt.

Now this is downright confusing. With all the other elentials that I've fought, if you manage to make physical contact with them, it breaks their misting. So from experience, she shouldn't have been able to do that. Great. Turtle luck working true to form.

I braced myself and tried to calm down with a deep breath. One thing that I learned about misting, is that you have to be real loose to catch them. Real loose...there!

My fist shot out in a fierce uppercut just as she was beginning to come together, but I hardly clipped her when she was gone again. What the hell is GOING ON HERE!

Again, again, again. My best efforts, efforts that worked against The Dame herself failed against this little urchin. I was getting friggin pissed off...

Suddenly she was right in front of me, weilding a wicked looking knife. I mean right in front of me, as in her nose was scant inches from mine. So close that my only course of action was either bearhug or fall flat on my ass. What the hell...

What the hell indeed. What I did next perplexes me to no end.

She jerked and looked at me goggle eyed like someone just socked her in the stomach. (which wasn't me, she was too damn close to be able to do that!) Her bugged out eyes just stared straight into mine as unseen wind was suddenly blowing her hair with increasing speed. Then she flew back like someone hooked a rope to her waist and was yanking behind her. She slammed so hard against the wall that crackes formed in the plaster-brick-stuff. She still had that goggle eyed, gape jawed look on her face when her knees buckled and she slumped to the ground like a sack of old laundry.

I looked at her still form in complete disbelief. What the hell did I just do! I had used that power that I supposedly have. But how... Furiously I ran it through my mind. Well, I was ticked off, there goes the emotion part I guess. But last time emotion ruled, I had drained Vivid's energy. This time... Suddenly it snapped in my brain. I knew the answer. It was instinct. She suddenly appeared closer than I could cope with and my instinct was to either get myself away or get her away so I don't get hurt. But could I do it again?

A light tapping on my leg made me jump out of my skin. I looked down to see the little male-servant. He smiled soundlessly, pointed at the fallen elential, took my hand and shook it vigorously, bobbing his head up and down. I understood. He was thanking me.

"What's you're name, uh, guy?"

He shook his head and pointed to his throat. I winced at the sight. There were scarred gashes on his throat right where his vocal cords should be. No wonder he couldn't speak. That crazy elential cut his throat to shut him up.

He then pointed to my stomach, made a rocking motion with his arms and bobbed his head again. My heart went ice cold as it sunk. How the Hell could he know! I looked down at my stomach and if it was possible for my heart to go any lower or get any colder it would: and it did. I had a pouche.

Yeah, a pouch. A start of a belly, a little rounded bump on my lower abs that could only indicate one thing...I WAS SHOWING! Aw HELL! How long has it been? I tried to calculate in my head but to be honest, with all the chaos recently and the fact that here there is no night confused the hell out of me. I couldn't tell off the top of my head how far along I was.I mean, c'mon! I couldn't be that far along, could I? Maybe it's because I'm a dude, I know that dudes don't have as big or as deep pelvis's as dames. Or maybe it's because of this fu#king race! Yeah. That's it...

He tapped my leg again. Pointing to his hears he pointed to the fallen elential, the direction Glory went and me again. Suddenly it all came back to me. Why I was here in the first place. How could I be so stupid as to forget!(well, a belly will do that to you I guess.)

I bent down so I was on his level (he was half the size of me) and asked "Where's this 'Heaven' place? I need to find Vivid." He started narrowing his eyes. "No no! Not for the same reason as that b!t#h." His eyes widened at the word "You see, I need to find her because, well, uh, I er, I like her. Of course, it's a little bit more than like I guess, it's more like l...or wait! Forget that! What I'm trying to say, uh is that, um, she's special to me. Oh, wait! Me and other people, yeah, that's it. To all of us. I mean..."

Damn I should shut up right about now.

The little elf-dude was grinning from ear to ear. Holy crap. What is it I said? I thought but not a single thing came to mind, except the...SHUT UP! I looked at him again. His eyes were kinda watery as he nodded and took my hand. I had to practically bend over backwards to keep a hold of it. With proud steps, little man led me away.


I thanked him quietly and wished him luck as he scampered off. Normally I'm not the type to do stuff like that but in my opinion he deserved it. That little dude's had a hard time her obviously.

Slowly I looked around the building corner that he had pointed to. Then I saw Heaven. It looked like many moons ago (hey wait, this place has no moons...maybe suns? Aw, who gives a shit) it was onse a nice, probably somewhat ritzyhotel or club. It was a very tall building. I'd say at least forty stories. I'd be able to give you a better estimate if I'd count it but I won't so you never will. All the windows were dark except for several on the seventh floor (yes I actually counted that!)

The entire front area (parking lot?) was littered with what I could only call bikers. Their bikes were hot stuff, too. Not only were they at least twice as large as normal Earth bikes, but they didn't have wheels. They must use some type of jet propulsion system, or some other type of gravity-defying thing. But oh, man they sure looked sweet. Real hot.

Remember boys, the one thing better than a hot woman is a hot rod.

To get past them, that wouldn't be so tricky. Even though there were thirty plus bikes out there, there were only three elentials leaning against the wall in the corner, reading a magazing and laughing at whatever it was saying. But one bike was in reach of me. As much as I'd love to ride it, I've got someone much more important to find.

I leaned forward carefully and studied the bike. It was a little bit more complicated than Earth bikes, but not nearly so as that of the Planet Racers. Peice of cake.

Luckily there was trash lying all over the place and I could find something that I could service as a rope. Reaching over I turned it on with a switch. Pretty easy. It automatically came to life. Not nearly as noisy as I expected it to be. It was pretty wuiet as it came off the double stands and floated in the air, waiting for direction. Man this thing was HOT!

Rooting around some more, I found the acceleration. It was a big mother switch, located on the hands like on earth bikes. I looped the rope around, got it ready and tugged hard.

The rope kept fast and the bike arched as it did a wheelie with the sudden accel and lurched forward. It stormed ahead like a bolt of lightning and crashed into five more parked bikes. But of course that didn't stop it. It kept right on going. The Elentials jumped to their feet and did a mad scramble for their own bikes. Hopping on, they tore after the thing, which was already shooting down an alley.

I wasted no time. Sprinting across the clearing, I made it to the wall and once again flattened myself against the wall as I scooted down to peer cautiously in the door. No guards. Just as carefully I slunk inside, my eyes and other senses taking everything in, ever watchful of guards or other security devices. I was in the middle of the entrance hall when I relaxed a bit. No guards, no cameras, no motion detectors...pretty lax security basically.

I jogged to the end and bypassed the elevators for the stairs. Too many things could go wrong with elevators, you were at the control of the machines...or whoever was running those machines. Not to mention the fact that you didn't know what was on the other side of those doors when it opened. Besides, maybe this little belly of mine is actually fat and I could work it off with some stair steps ('cough' yeah right 'cough')

If it was fat, it would be gone by now I'm sure. I may be in excellent shape and a martial artist, but I hardly ever experience the wonders of stair climbing. Needless to say, I was out of breath by the time I got to the top. Maybe the threat of death with the elevators wasn't so bad.

I tried to get my breathing under control as I crept down the hallway. It was very noisy behind the rooms, but the hall itself was deserted. I ducked as I passed each door to avoid casting shadows.

Then I heard a voice that I will always recognize. Vivid. I couldn't understand what she said, but I pinpointed the door.

As I got closer I heard her exclaim "Wait, wait. What are you doing! STOP!" Then there was a lot of movement: fighting

Oh shit.

My pace quickened and my sais slid into my hands. Ready to rumble and defend what's mine.


A/N: MAN! I hope that this chapter didn't drag itself on too long. At times it felt like it. It was only that, I knew exactly which point I wanted to stop at, but I wanted to add some stuff in between, and I couldn't help but add a few more as I was writing it...please like the chapter! AHHHHHHHHH! Yes, you are correct, I'm going crazy.

My work schedule's changing. For the past six weeks I've been working withsomepretty meanpeople and my mood has been dumpy. Now it's changing and hopefully I'll be happy enough to be in a writing mood more often. Please REVIEW! Toodles!