Sacrifice

"There is no change without sacrifice."

Day 4. 09:17 PM.

Leo started hearing distant voices. There were lots of them. He tried to understand what they were saying, but they were too many and they sounded pretty distorted and echoey. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt heavy. He tried again and managed to open his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he was surrounded by doctors and that he was tied up to a stretcher. 'Oh no.' he thought.

"The blue one is awake." One of the people surrounding him announced.

Then, everything came up to his mind. Shredder killing his brothers. Where were they?

Leo tried to open his eyes one more time, but this time, a flash of light blocked his view, giving him a strong headache.

"Ugh." He complained, closing his eyes one more time.

"Pupils are dilating." He heard a woman say.

"Where are my brothers?" Leo asked weakly.

"His heart is pounding normally, and his breathing is fine." The woman kept talking.

"Where are my brothers?" Leo asked again, this time with a higher voice.

"So, the blue turtle is fine, take him to his cell." A man spoke up.

"No! Wait! Where are my brothers?" Leo continued shouting as a doctor pulled out the needle in his arm.

"Don't worry, you'll be feeling fine in some minutes." A woman told him as the doctors started pushing his stretcher out of the rooms and into the white hallways.

"Please! Where are my brothers? I need to know that they're alright!" Leo kept crying.

"Turtle, we need you to calm down or we will have to give you a sedative." One of the doctors said.

"I just want to know where are my brothers." Leo responded with tears in his eyes.

Before any of the doctors answered his question, they entered to the hallway of cells and the stretcher stopped moving.

"Unstrap him." One of the doctors ordered.

Leo was about to talk again, until a voice interrupted him.

"Leo!"

Leo lifted his head up with surprise.

"Mikey!" He yelled with a smile and tears in his eyes as the doctors helped him to get up from the stretcher.

"Thank god you're fine."

Leo looked to the cell on the other way and saw Raph.

"Oh, I'm so glad that you're okay." Leo sighed.

The doctors helped Leo walk to his cell. Leo felt kind of dizzy, but he was happy to see that his brothers were fine. Once inside, the doctors closed his cell and left the hallway.

"Leo, we were worried about you!" Mikey talked.

"You were worried about me? I was worried about you! When I woke up, you weren't there." Leo responded.

"Mikey and I woke up almost at the same time and those bastards took us here before we could see you wake up. We were worried about you." Raph talked from his cell. "How are you feeling, fearless?"

"I feel dizzy and my head's aching, but I'm alright."

"It'll go away in some minutes. I'm feeling fine now." Mikey spoke.

After that, a long silence filled the room.

"Guys… do any of you remember what you dreamed of?" Mikey asked, looking to the floor.

"That wasn't a dream. That was a freaking nightmare." Raph murmured.

"I… I dreamed that I was in a very beautiful forest and that we were all free but… Donnie was missing so I walked away from you and tried to find him. Then, the forest turned dark and I got lost until I found a lake full of dead bodies. Donnie was inside and he couldn't get out. He dragged me with him and told me that if I could help him remember how were we created, we would be able to get out of the lake. I… I didn't told him. He didn't looked like Donnie; he was more like a corpse so… I let him drown and… and then I drowned too." Raph and Leo remained silent as they remembered Donnie. "What did you guys dreamed about?" Mikey asked.

Leo didn't wanted to talk about it, so he remained silent. After a moment, Raph started talking.

"Well, mine didn't felt like a dream. It felt like my life. My whole nightmare I tried to succeed at something. They were all different things but, it didn't mattered what I did, you guys always won and… and Splinter was always disappointed." Raph stopped for a moment, trying to avoid crying. "At the end of my nightmare, I saw Master Splinter's head, telling me that I've always been a burden to the family. My anger took over me and I was about to… about to do something that I would really regret and I would never be able to fix, unless I responded to how were we created. I didn't responded, but at least I managed to avoid doing one of the things I fear the most."

"What were you going to…?" Mikey began asking with curiosity.

"I won't give more details." Raph interrupted.

"Okay… what did you dreamed about, Leo?" Mikey asked.

"I… I don't want to talk about it."

"Come on, we've already told you our nightmares." Mikey insisted.

Leo sighed.

"I lived through Master Splinter's death all over again. Every detail was there. The meditation session the night before, playing at Casey's, waking up late, arriving to our messy home… entering to the dojo… the blood, his body, everything." Leo cried. "But then, it got worse. You never entered the dojo with me as it happened before. You stayed outside and when I arrived to where you guys were, Shredder was killing all of you. I froze and I couldn't help you. He told me that if I didn't answer to how were we created, he would kill you all. I saw you all die until…"

Then, he stopped as he remembered what had happened next. Shredder killed Donnie and Mikey, but not Raph. He did answer the question. He told him everything. That only meant that the scientists and the doctors knew all about mutagen and their origins.

"Until what, Leo?" Mikey asked confused.

"Oh no." He murmured, wiping of his tears. "Guys, I…"

Suddenly, something interrupted him. A very loud alarm started ringing and all the building lighted up in red.

"What the hell is going on now?" Raph asked concerned.

As Raph was done talking, some guards passed through the hallway, running.

"Hey! What is happening?" Mikey tried to ask them, but they just ignored him and left the hallway.

"We were left unguarded." Raph murmured. "We have to get out now! It's our chance to escape!"

"But how do we get out of these cells?" Mikey asked.

"We break them!" Raph yelled as he began kicking the glass of his cell.

Leo was still trying to figure out what was going on. He didn't had the chance to tell his brothers that he had told the scientists about their origins because of that alarm. What was going on?

"Leo! Stop thinking and break your glass!" Mikey, who was also kicking the glass, interrupted his thoughts.

"You're right! We have to get out now!" He decided, beginning to kick the glass of his cell too.

After some moments, Mikey stopped to catch his breath.

"They're very hard to break." He spoke.

"I know, but at least one of us has to break his glass so that he can open the rest of the cells." Leo caught his breath too. He kicked the glass one more time but got no results. Before he could try again, they heard the door of the hallway opening. Two doctors got inside. Then, they recognized them. They were Dr. McKinney and Dr. Tran.

"Hello turtles." Dr. McKinney said, catching his breath.

The turtles didn't responded a thing, they were all confused.

"Remember that we promised to get you out of here? This is our only chance." He continued talking as he pressed the button to open the cells.

The turtles just looked at each other with amazement. They were really going to escape.

"I don't believe this." Mikey murmured.

"Well, you better do. Let's go." Dr. Tran said.

"What is going on?" Leo asked.

"We'll explain later, but right now we have to get to the roof of the building. They keep 10 helicopters there. You can take one and get the hell out of here." Dr. Tran explained as they began walking out of the hallway.

"How are we going to get to the roof?" Raph asked.

"By the stairs. There's two locks in the door that will take us there, but we got the keys." Dr. McKinney smiled.

"Now, we have to run and get to the 11th floor. That's the floor in which the keep the keys of the helicopters." Dr. Tran informed.

They all ran through the hallways, which were all empty. Suddenly, they started hearing footsteps.

"Oh, no. Hide! Take the keys with you and get to the roof as fast as you can." Dr. McKinney ordered, giving Leo the two keys of the locks to open the roof door.

"Good luck." Dr. Tran said.

"Same to you two. Thanks." Leo replied.

The first thing that the turtles saw, was a door to another room in which they all entered, leaving Dr. Tran and Dr. McKinney outside. They heard the footsteps of the guards approaching and then, they heard voices.

"You shouldn't be here, doctors."

"Sorry Darron, we were just on our way out." Dr. McKinney replied.

"Come with me, I'll get you out."

"Sure but, what is going on?" Dr. Tran asked.

"The purple freak managed to escape but don't worry, he won't be able to go too far. He's pretty injured." Darron responded as they started walking away.

"Donnie." Mikey murmured.

"He's alive!" Raph smiled with tears in his eyes.

"I knew it!" Leo cried. "And he escaped! We have to find him and get to the roof!"

"First, we need the keys to fly the helicopter. We need to go to the 11th floor."

Leo stayed quiet for a moment while thinking their next move.

"I'll go to the 11th floor to find the keys. You two, stay here and when I come back, we'll go, find Donnie and get out of here."

"Are you crazy, Leo? We're not letting you go by your own." Raph interrupted.

"That's a no, bro. We'll go with you."

"Guys, it will be easier for them to catch us if we go together."

"Okay, fine. You can go to the 11th floor by your own, but Mikey and I, we'll go and look for Donnie." Raph talked.

"Fine. We will meet here. Just be careful please. We can't screw this up." Leo sighed.

"Good luck, Leo." Mikey smiled.

With that said, the turtles got out of the room and separated. Raph and Mikey decided where to look first while Leo started to look for the stairs to make his way up to the 11th floor.

He ran for a moment until he saw a door with a sign next to it that said that it led to the stairs. A little smile lightened up Leo's face as he opened the door and climbed the stairs quickly. He then arrived to the 11th floor. He opened the door slowly and quietly in case that someone was still in that floor. He heard nothing. He proceeded and entered the hallway. It was full of doors and had crystal walls. They were all offices. He had to find the place where they kept the keys to the helicopter.

Leo walked silently through the hallway until he heard something. Were those voices? Leo's heart started beating faster, but he continued walking, following the voices. There was another door at the end of the hallway were the offices were. It had a sign outside of it. It said, 'Security guards only'. Leo too a deep breath and opened the door. He entered to another hallway, but it looked different. Maybe that was the place where they kept the keys of the helicopters.

The voices were now closer. Leo noticed that they were coming from one of the rooms of the hallway which door was closed. It had a sign outside. That was the surveillance room. That meant that the building had cameras and that those people were watching them. He heard to what the people inside were saying.

"Dude, if that turtle really escaped, I don't think that he would still be in the building. I don't know why are we still doing this."

"John, believe me, I don't want to keep doing this either, but if we find something to lead the others to that freak, I'm sure that Darron would finally promote us. We could be real guards."

"I know but… dude. I think I found something."

Leo's heart stopped for a second. Had they found Donnie? Or did they now knew that they had escaped too?

"It's that purple freak. He was on the sixth floor and went down using the stairs. He must be on the fifth floor."

"John! That's awesome! We have to tell Darron!"

With that said, Leo thought no more. He had to help Donnie. Leo opened the door and entered the surveillance room. Immediately, the two men looked at him terrified.

"What the hell? You're supposed to be in your cell!" One of them yelled.

In no time, Leo applied pressure points on them and left both guards unconscious.

"Well, not anymore, John." He murmured.

He ran to the computers and then, he saw him. It was really Donnie. In the video, Donnie was stumbling down the stairs. He looked very injured. He couldn't even walk.

"Oh, Donnie. We're coming to get you. Just hang on."

Before continuing to look for the keys, Leo decided that he had to turn down all the cameras so that, in case someone else was sent to check them, they wouldn't be able to find any more footage of him and his brothers. Leo looked to the console and saw a bunch on buttons. Finally, he found one that said 'off'. Leo sighed and prayed for that to be the correct button. He then pushed it.

In that moment, the cameras and the computers turned off, but also the rest of the building. The alarm stopped ringing and all the lights went off.

"Okay… this is not that bad. I was tired of that alarm anyways." He whispered to himself as he walked out of the room and continued looking for the keys.

In another part of the building, Darron was walking with Dr. Tran and Dr. McKinney, taking them outside with the other doctors when, suddenly, all the lights and the alarm went off.

"What the fuck is going on?" Darron murmured.

Dr. Tran and Dr. McKinney looked at each other confused and nervous.

"Darron, we know the way out. Why don't you take care of this?" Dr. McKinney asked.

"No, that freak is dangerous, and he could be in any part of this building. Just, give me a second." Darron said as he pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Darron Dozier calling John Gregory, is everything alright up there?" He waited for some seconds, but no one answered. "Dozier calling Gregory, what the fuck is going on in the surveillance room?" Still, no answer. "Shit, I swear that if those two idiots fell asleep again…" Darron murmured. He grabbed his walkie-talkie one more time. "Dozier calling Watson, do you copy?"

"Watson here, how can I help you, boss?"

"I need you to go to the surveillance room and check what the hell is going on up there. Gregory is not answering."

"Sure thing, boss. I'll let you know what's going on as soon as I arrive. Just give me five"

With that, Darron kept his walkie-talkie. "Come on, doctors, let's get you out of here."

As soon as Leo turned down the lights, he began searching through the fainted guard's stuff to see if he could find something useful. Sadly, they didn't had any tasers, but they did have flashlights. Leo grabbed one of them and got out of the surveillance room. Everything was pretty dark given the fact that the building didn't have any windows. Leo turned on the flashlight and started walking through the hallways once more. He had to find those keys quickly so that he could get back to Raph and Mikey, hope that they had already found Donnie and finally get out of that place.

Leo began opening doors, trying to find a place where it might be possible for him to find the keys. Mostly, he kept finding offices and conference rooms, but nothing else. The floor was enormous and, just like the rest of the building, it was like a maze. It was very difficult to know if he had been there before or not and not having any light in the building, just made it even more complicated.

Suddenly, something interrupted his thoughts and made his heart stop. He saw the shadow of a man, standing at the other side of the hallway he was walking through. Leo immediately lighted him with the flashlight.

"Watson to Dozier, the blue fucking mutant is here on the 11th floor! He escaped!"

Before the guard could say something else, Leo ran and knocked him down. Even though the walkie-talkie fell to the floor, Leo heard the answer to the message.

"Fuck, Watson, are you sure?... Watson! Do you copy?"

Leo's heart started accelerating as adrenaline took over him. He didn't had much time before Darron sent more guards to find him. He had to be quick.

"What is it Darron?" Dr. Tran asked.

Darron hesitated before talking.

"Doctors, what were you doing on the 10th floor?"

"What?" Dr. McKinney spoke.

"I'm just asking because I'm curious. I mean, the both of you work on the 8th floor, so I'll ask again, what were you doing on the 10th floor?"

"We were on our way up to the 11th floor, but we stopped to say hi to one of our colleges." Dr. Tran answered.

"Okay… actually, do you have 5 minutes to speak?"

"Raph, I found the stairs!" Mikey exclaimed.

"Finally! I hate this building." Raph answered.

The two brothers began running down the stairs.

"On what floor should we stop?" Mikey asked.

"Well, Leo mentioned that the last time we tried to escape he saw Donnie on the 5th floor, so we can try to look there."

Suddenly, something made them stop. As they were arriving to the 8th floor, they heard a gunshot. They looked at each other with fear. Could that be Donnie? Without even having to say it out loud, Raph and Mikey entered the 8th floor, trying to stay as quiet as possible until they heard a woman's voice crying. They decided to follow it. The voice lead them to one of the waiting rooms of the floor. The door was open. They decided to stay out and watch what was happening inside.

"Darron, listen to me, we didn't freed the turtles." It was Dr. Tran. She was crying.

There was a dead body on the floor. It was Dr. McKinney's corpse. Meanwhile, Dr. Tran was kneeling and facing the wall with her hands on the air and Darron was holding a gun up on her head.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Tran, but you're a very intelligent woman and I'm sure that you know that I won't fall for that. My men already checked the cells and they are convinced that someone opened them. Just think with me; the turtles were all inside their cells so they couldn't do it themselves. Some of my guards say that they passed through the cell's hallway and they claim that the turtles were still caged. When I arrived, there was no one else on that floor but you two. Dr. McKinney already suffered the consequences and forgive me, but you are next."

"You know what Darron? You're fucking right! We freed them and we sacrificed our lifes so that they could escape, and I don't freaking regret it! What you do in this lab is inhumane and believe me, those who you call 'mutants' are way more human than you could ever be!"

"I just want you to know that your sacrifice will be in bane. I already sent some of my men to get the blue freak and believe me, we will find the other two imbeciles."

Raph and Mikey looked at each other with terror. They were coming to get Leo.

Leo began running trough the hallways, trying to remember the places in which he had been before and trying also not to get lost until he found a door with a sign outside saying that only guards could enter.

"It must be here…" Leo murmured.

He ran and tried to open it, but he needed a fingerprint. He thought quickly and remembered the guard that had called Darron. He was fainted.

Leo ran one more time and tried to remember the place in which he had knocked the guard down. Finally, he found it and dragged the body all the way to the door. When he arrived, Leo placed the guard's finger to open the door.

"It worked!" Leo exclaimed happily.

He quickly entered the room and didn't even put much attention to what was inside, he just needed to find keys. After not much looking, he found keys hanging on the wall. He found the keys that had a label that said 'helicopter'. He had done it!

Leo grabbed the keys and ran out of the room. Now, he just had to stay hidden and find his brothers. He made his way to the stairs, but something made him stop. Ten guards were blocking his way.

"Going somewhere?" One of them asked.

Immediately, Leo hid the keys in his fists.

"I'm getting out of this building and my brothers are coming with me." He replied.

"C'mon, you know that's not going to happen. Why don't you surrender? That way we won't have to hurt you."

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass on that one!"

With that said, Leo began attacking the guards one by one, using the keys as weapons. He had placed them in between his fingers so that, when he gave a punch, the key would also stab the guards. Even though the guards tried to shock him, Leo kept dodging every strike. He was tired of that place and he was getting out of there.

The guards kept falling to the floor, one by one, until suddenly, one of the guards without anyone knowing, pulled out a jackknife and stabbed Leo's leg, making him scream in pain and fall to the floor. Leo felt a pool of blood growing under him as all of the other guards, which were mostly hurt, began to shock him with the tasers to immobilize him. Then, they handcuffed Leo, who could barely stay awake, and they dragged him to the surveillance room.

"Fuck, Miller, why the hell were you carrying a jackknife? Isn't it forbidden?" One guard asked.

"Shut up! I brought it just in case and it saved your ass." He answered as he dragged Leo.

When they arrived, one of the two guards who were there was beginning to wake up.

"Shit, Gregory, you had one job." One of the guards laughed.

"Ugh, shut up! There's a mutant on the loose!" He answered.

"Yeah, we got him, bonehead." Another guard responded.

"Oh! That's great! Those freaks are dangerous!" Gregory talked.

"No shit, Gregory! Now, stand up and do your fucking job! Turn on the damn lights!"

"What happened with the lights?" Gregory questioned confused.

"You tell us! Fix it!"

Gregory stood up and pushed some buttons to get the electricity back on, but it didn't work.

"Oh no… guys, I think something else is wrong. The lights are not working."

"Then fix it! Do whatever you need to do! Or is it that you can't do anything right?" Another guard yelled at him.

"Just so you know, yes, I can do many things right! I also found the purple mutant!"

"What? Where?" One of the guards asked.

"He was walking down the stairs to the 5th floor. I was about to tell you when the blue freak entered the room and knocked down my partner and me."

"Gregory! You, asshat! You should have told us before! He might be long gone by now!" Other guard shouted angrily.

Raph and Mikey were still outside the room, listening to Darron and to Dr. Tran.

"We have to help her. He will kill her." Mikey murmured.

"We can't, Mikey. He can't find us too. They're already trying to find Leo."

Suddenly, they heard a voice coming out of Darron's walkie-talkie.

"Miller to Dozier, do you copy?"

Darron pulled out his walkie-talkie.

"Dozier here."

"Boss, we have good and bad news. The bad news is that something's wrong with the lights and we can't turn them on, but the good news is that we have the blue freak and Gregory saw the purple one running down the stairs to the 5th floor."

"Miller that's great! I want you to question the blue monster. He has to know where the hell are the other two freaks hiding."

"Alright boss, he can barely stay away, but nothing that a good shot of adrenaline won't fix." The other guard laughed.

Darron kept his walkie-talkie and smiled.

"I told you, Dr. Tran, your sacrifice was in bane." He spoke as he pulled up his gun and aimed to her head.

"Go to hell, Darron!" She screamed as Darron pulled the trigger.

Raph and Mikey saw the blood spattering all over the wall and Dr. Tran's body falling to the floor as a pool of blood stained the room. Raph had covered his brother's mouth, trying to avoid him screaming, while Mikey's eyes were wide open and full of fear.

"I bet those freaks are not far from where they found the blue one." Darron murmured.

As quick as they could, Mikey and Raph ran to hide in the next room they found as Darron walked out to the hallways.

"He killed her…" Mikey murmured as soon as it was safe to speak.

"Mikey…"

"We could have helped her." He cried.

"Mikey listen to me. He was going to kill her anyways. The only difference would have been that he would have caught us too. Dr. McKinney and Dr. Tran gave their lifes so that we could escape and that's what we'll do. Now, we have to help Leo."

"But what about Donnie?" Mikey asked, still trying to catch his breath.

Raph thought about it for some seconds.

"Mikey, I hate this, but we have to separate. Donnie must have had escaped and went to the apartment looking for us. You have to go and look for him there and on the 5th floor. He has to be there. I'll go and help Leo."

Mikey hated the idea too, but he also knew that it was the only way. He nodded.

"Okay then. We can do this." Raph encouraged.

"I love you, bro, good luck."

"I love you too, Mikey."

With that said, they both gave a little hug to each other and then, they left the room, walking on different paths.

Mikey began walking but he decided that, before going to find Donnie, he needed something to defend himself. After not much walking, he found a medical room and decided to go inside. There had to be something there to help him defend himself.

The first thing he did, was to look on the drawers of the doctor's desk. He found lots of papers, pens, candy bars, cigarettes and a lighter, some books, but nothing really useful. Then, he started looking on one of the crystal shelves that the room had. He found lots of different medicines and all kinds of medical tools. Suddenly, he found one flask with the label of 'Midazolam', but that wasn't what draw his attention, but the fact that it also said that it was a sedative.

Mikey grabbed the flask and kept reading. Turned out that the medicine was injectable. Mikey hated the idea, but he was really going to carry a syringe with him. He looked through the medical tools on the shelf until he found them.

"Okay… I can do this." He murmured as he began filling the syringe with the medicine.

After the syringe was fully filled, Mikey placed the cap on the needle and kept it. Now, he had something to defend himself. He was about to leave the room when he sighted a crystal bottle of alcohol. Then, he remember the lighter that he had found on the drawer.

"Oh… I'm a genius." He smiled.

Mikey kept the bottle of alcohol, as well as the lighter. He was ready to go and find Donnie.

Finally, he got out of the room and started walking his way to the stairs again. It was very dark and hard to see. He had to remember the way to the stairs. Mikey kept running through the hallways when he heard a voice. It was Darron. Mikey hided near him. He saw that Darron was speaking on the phone.

"Hello, Dr. Olson. It's Darron… Well, we're trying to find them, but it's getting dangerous here. In fact, I call you to let you know that I just found the corpses of two of your doctors. I think that one of the mutants stole a gun from one of my guards and shoot them… Yes, their faces are mostly destroyed, the freak fired the gun right on their heads, but I took the liberty to check their IDs. The corpses belong to Dr. Tran and Dr. McKinney… I'm sorry, doctor. I'm sure that their families will be wrecked when they know that one of those monsters murdered them, but I just wanted to let you know. I have to go back to look for the freaks… Yes, you're welcome." Then, he hung the phone.

Mikey was furious. How did he dared to blame those deaths on one of them? He looked the syringe that he had kept. It was now or never. When Darron gave his back to where Mikey was hiding, Mikey took off the cap of the needle and, without even thinking about it, he attacked Darron and stabbed his neck with the syringe. Before Darron could even react, Mikey was done injecting the medicine and Darron fell to the floor unconscious.

"I did it." Mikey spoke happily.

He looked around until he found a stretcher with security belts on it. Mikey immediately carried Darron's body and placed him on the stretcher. Then, he tied him up so that he couldn't stand when he woke up. Finally, Darron was down.

Mikey smiled as he ran away, looking for the stairs one more time. Before he thought of it, he found the staircase. He entered and started running down the stairs until he arrived to the 6th floor. He looked down and saw some blood stains on the floor.

"Donnie…" Mikey murmured.

It looked like Donnie had gone down the stairs. When Mikey was about to go down, the door from the hallway of the 6th floor opened as a bunch of guards entered. All of them, the guards and Mikey, stayed in shock for a second, given the fact that none of them were expecting to find each other. Before the guards could react, Mikey thought faster and threw the alcohol bottle at them and then, as the crystal bottle broke, he pulled out the lighter, lightened it up and, as he threw it too, he jumped down the stairs.

Not even a second passed when fire took over the place, but also, Mikey forgot about the fact that the guards had guns, the guns had bullets and the bullets had gunpowder so, a huge explosion took over the place and, even though Mikey tried to jump away, the flames still got him.

Mikey fell to the floor and rolled down the stairs, hitting his head pretty hard. He opened his eyes, trying not to go unconscious when he started feeling a very intense pain in his left arm. He scram in pain as he saw his arm in flames. Mikey instinctively rolled on the floor, trying to make the fire go away. All of the sudden, the pain was gone. Mikey, barely conscious, looked at his arm. The skin in the upper part of his left arm was gone. All he saw was red and live flesh

Mikey knew that he had to stand up. He had to find Donnie. He could do it. He tried to stand up. He felt dizzy and all that he could hear was a strong beeping sound. Finally, he managed to stand up, helping himself with the stairs railing.

Before Mikey could continue to go down the stairs, he faced three guards climbing the stairs, who were trying to find out what was going on with their colleges. Mikey was so concentrated in going down the stairs that he didn't even noticed that one of the guards fired a sleeping dart. Mikey couldn't take it anymore. He fell to the floor unconscious.

Leo was lying on the floor and tied up to a chair. By now, he was pretty beaten up and he wouldn't be able to stay awake if it wasn't for the adrenaline shot that the guard gave him. Even though one of the guards had tied up a piece of cloth to his leg so that he would lose as little as possible, he had lost a lot of blood and one of the guards kept questioning him while the other guards had gone away to look for his brothers.

"Listen up, turtle. We are going to find them anyways, but if you tell us where they are, we promise that we won't hurt them as much."

"You can beat me up all you want, I won't tell you a damn thing."

At that point, the only thing that Leo was trying to do, was to make time for their brothers to find Donnie. He didn't even knew where Raph and Mikey were.

"Come on, freak, don't you care about them? If any other guard finds them, they will hurt them, believe me. If you tell us, that won't happen."

"You are pretty bad at interrogating people. I'm not even considering the option." Leo laughed weakly.

"Oh, really?" The guard asked angrily. "Am I bad at this? Then I'm gonna start having fun." He said as he pulled out his taser and electrocuted Leo, who could barely even scream.

Suddenly, Leo felt that the guard stopped electrocuting him and then, he saw that the guard fell to the floor. That was when he saw Raph standing behind him and dragging the guard's body away from his brother.

"Raph?" Leo exclaimed confused. "I thought that you were looking for Donnie."

"Yeah, you're welcome." He answered as he looked through the guard's uniform to find the keys of the handcuffs.

"I mean, thanks, but where's Mikey?" Leo asked concerned.

"Darron killed Dr. Tran and Dr. McKinney. We saw it all and we heard him talking with other guards who told him that they had caught you." Raph responded as he took off Leo's handcuffs.

"What? They're dead?" Leo said with amazement.

"Yeah…" Raph spoke sadly, looking down to his brother's leg. "What the hell happened to your leg?" He asked concerned.

"It's nothing... but you didn't answer my question. Where's Mikey?"

"Oh, right. We got separated. He's looking for Donnie while I came to help you."

Suddenly, the guard who was interrogating Leo interrupted them.

"Brooks to Dozier. I need backup on the 11th floor. The red mutant is also here." He spoke to the walkie-talkie.

"Shit!" Raph exclaimed as he kicked the guy's head, leaving him unconscious one more time.

"We have to get out of here." Leo said standing up, trying to hide all the pain in his leg.

"Are you sure you're okay? You look pale and that thing is starting to bleed again." Raph asked worried.

"Raph, we'll worry about that later. Right now, we just need to find Mikey and Donnie."

Before Raph could respond, they heard someone answering the walkie-talkie.

"Meyer speaking. We're on our way, Brooks. Darron is not picking up the calls, but we've got the orange one. I think the little monster created an explosion between the 5th and the 6th floor. Many of our colleagues were hurt, but the good news is that the freak got burned too. I'm sending the other guards left to help you."

Leo and Raph looked at each other in terror.

"Mikey…" Raph murmured.

Immediately, they ran to the staircase and began running down as the smoke coming from downstairs invaded their lungs.

"Let's go and get Mikey!" Leo ordered.

The two brothers ran down the stairs until they heard a group of guards who were putting down the fire. Mikey had to be down there.

"Where's our brother?" Raph shouted at the guards as soon as they arrived to the 6th floor stairs, which were full with dead bodies and more guards helping the injured ones.

"The two mutants!" One of the guards yelled.

"It's your fault our friends are dead!" Other one exclaimed angrily.

"Can you fight?" Raph murmured Leo, referring to the wound he had on his leg.

"Don't worry, the idiots gave me a shot of adrenaline." He responded as he ran, ready to attack.

Raph followed his older brother as all of the guards started fighting against the turtles, who were not willing to give up. They both started knocking every guard down with the help of all of the anger inside of them. They were getting out of that hell that night and they were taking their younger brothers with them.

After some minutes, most of the guards were passed out and the fight was over. They had to be quick, before more guards arrived to the spot. Raph was feeling weak now and he was sure that so was Leo. Walking by the stairs, Raph found a guard who could barely move, but was still awake. It was time to find out where those bastards had taken his little brother.

"I'm glad you're awake… Larry." He spoke up as he crouched to see the guard's name tag. "Where's Mikey?" Raph shouted angrily to the guard, lifting his weak body by his clothes.

"Are you talking about the freak who murdered our friends?" The guard yelled. "They already took him away. I suppose you're never going to see him again." He laughed.

"I asked you where the hell did they took him! Answer me!"

The guard kept laughing weakly. "We don't know, freak! They don't give us that information but, as far as I'm concerned, he may be locked up, ready to go through another experiment of theirs or maybe they're torturing him, asking where you're at. Hell, maybe he's already dead! The idiot got toasted!" He exclaimed as he laughed hysterically.

Raph replied with a small smile and his eyes full of hate. "You shouldn't have said that." He talked as he began hitting the guard time after time with all of the rage he had inside. Suddenly, Leo heard him and ran towards his brother.

"Raph, wait! You'll kill him!" He yelled as he tried to drag his brother away from the guard, whose face was unrecognizable by then.

"Well, he fucking had it coming!" Raph replied, pushing his brother away.

"We're better than them! Stop, please! We need to find Mikey and you're just losing time!"

Those were the magic words. Raph stopped, breathing heavily. His face was stained with the guard's blood.

"Sorry, Leo."

"It's fine, Raph. Let's go."

They both helped each other to stand up and began walking away but, the moment they turned their backs on him, the guard used his last bit of strength to pull out his sleeping darts gun and shot the two turtles. Before they could realize what had happened, they both fell to the floor unconscious.


I'm back :) It's been a while since I haven't posted new chapters for this story but that's about to change thanks to Framovesha927, whose review inspired me to continue this story.

Get ready for the ending of Bitter Science.