One more chapter left. Any suggestions for part 3 are now being taken. I'd love to hear about what you would like to see in the next segment. Enjoy.
Please review! All advice, suggestions, and critiques are welcome.
-Katt B.
**DISCLAIMER: WE DO NOT OWN TMNT**
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Strike of the Dragon
PART 2
17
3-9: "Return to New York"
"What happened?" Leo demands as everyone rushes to the same point in the yard where the white van that Ryu and company had arrived in their first day used to sit, just in time to see it vanishing down the road in a cloud of dust.
"She saw this report on the news about-."
"She's going after Roy," Venus cuts him off, stuffing her hands in her pockets and staring off after the disappearing white van.
Venn glares at her, "You're standing in an ant pile."
"Yikes!" she jumps from her spot and rushes away from the danger, finding nothing there. "Hater."
"So let's go after her," Raph starts to open the driver door but Casey stops him with a sharp tug on his shoulder.
"Are you crazy?! You'll freak out every driver you pass!"
"Exactly, everyone in the back," Venus shoves past them all and climbs up into the driver's seat, slamming the door behind her on Casey's stunned expression.
"Who says I can't drive?! Casey Jones is a better driver than any of you," the hockey player complains.
Venus slips out a pair of her designer shades and pushes them onto the bridge of her nose as she glares at him, "Child, I've been driving all models of cars since I was nine years old. I said you can't drive. In the back, now."
Reluctantly, he follows the others into the back of the 'Party Wagon', leaving the front seat open for Venn and April. Venus pops the van into reverse and, adjusting the driver's side mirror for a brief moment, high tails it backwards down the driveway perfectly without a single glance back over her shoulder. She spins the vehicle the second it meets the asphalt and shifts gears, gunning it down the road after Ryu.
"I cannot believe she took my van," Venus grumbles.
"We hotwired and stole that van from the back alley behind a pizza joint," Venn glares at her.
"Yeah and I stuck my leftover gum under the steering wheel," she shoots back, "It's my van."
"That's…that's just nasty."
"Says the guy who eats cheese on doughnuts."
They turn onto the dirt driveway leading to the building and their breathing all stops at once the second they see the cop car in the way. A single police office is pacing outside, propping up the traditional 'yellow tape' to ward off any curious wanderers. No white van can be seen anywhere around other than the cop car, making Venus and Venn share a worried glance at each other.
"Might want to get in the back and see if you can figure out where her overdramatic behind is," she rolls her eyes as she pulls up behind the cop car. Venn quickly and somehow gracefully hops over the seat and into the back with the others. He unzips his bag and pulls out a small tablet, flipping it on and booting up an app.
Donnie tries to glance over at it curiously, but something else catches his eye. There's something small that starts flashing from inside Venn's bag and Donnie taps the guy's arm, pointing at it, "Should your bag be doing that?"
Venn looks down and rushes to pull the flashing object out. It's an ear piece, which he wraps over his right ear and flips out the second attachment so that a small square screen sits in front of his eye. In a second, the flashing stops and is replaced by a single beep, "Ryu?"
There's a muffled voice from the other end.
"Well, excuse us for not being able to read your mind," he growls back.
Another hushed response.
"You want me to what?" Venn presses the ear piece further into his ear, pausing. His eyes lift over the back of the seat to glance at the officer approaching Venus's window, "Riiight…yeah…cause that will…totally work…"
The response is louder, a shout, and Venn flinches.
"Alright, chill," he leans forward so that Venus can hear his lowered voice, "Keep him focused on you."
Venus fumbles, "What? How?!"
He shrugs, "She wants you to flirt with him."
Venus scoffs, rolling down the window, "Riiight…cause that'll totally work."
"My thoughts exactly."
"Hi, officer," Venus forces a smile as the uniformed man steps up to the driver's side window. Behind her head, all the turtles duck lower into the shadows. "How are you?"
"Fine, ma'am, but I'm going to have to ask you to vacate the premises," he answers in a business tone.
Venus widens her grin, "Oh, I understand, we're just pulling over cause a few of us need to use the bathroom and this is the only…business…we've seen…for a…um…can I ask what happened here?"
Venn looks up over the back of the seat when Venus's voice starts to grow tight and spots movement over at the far corner of the building. Raph follows his gaze and stares at the same corner. There's nothing save for the light from the sun that comes from through the clouds filling the sky with a gray overcast.
"That's classified at this time, ma'am. The investigation is still undergoing and all information about the case won't be released until further notice."
Venus drops her smile, glancing off to the side as she tries to come up with something else to say. He starts to turn back to his car, "Wait, uh…so I guess the bathroom is out of the question?"
Venn shakes his head in disbelief as another response comes through the earpiece. "She's working on it!" he hisses to the voice on the other end.
Another response comes and he looks up over the seat again. Venus is chatting away about the long 'trip' they've been on and how 'someone' didn't go to the bathroom before they left the house and the cop looks ready to gorge her eyes out of her skull. Raph spots her then, Ryu peeks over at them from around the corner of the building, making a move to come out into view.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I think you're doing a marvelous job out here," Venus carries on.
The police officer looks about ready to burst from boredom, "Thank you, ma'am, but I never said anything about my job out here."
Again, Venus ransacks her brain for something she can use, "Well, I just…know how hard a police officer's job is nowadays and I want to say thank you. I fully support you guys, one hundred percent."
The cop smiles a bit, "Thank you, miss."
She nods and carries on rambling, "Yeah, with having to deal with people calling with these crazy stories and their non-stop complaining…"
All the guys in the back watch in silence, holding their breath, as Ryu slides around the building, keeping her back against the wall and watching the policeman's back closely for any signs that he's going to turn around. It doesn't help much that there's nothing in front of the building for her to duck behind for cover. So inch by inch she crawls, the wooden building tugging at the hoody over her shoulders as she goes.
When she finally reaches the door, the handle doesn't move for her. Her face falls. Ryu plants her back against it, bringing her hands around behind her to work as she keeps her vision on the cop's back. Venus keeps him talking as much as she can, asking him about his average day on the clock and if he had ever had a K-9 dog to work with. The list of questions goes on and on for a good three minutes before the door finally budges and Ryu slips inside.
Venn sighs in relief and sits back down indian-style to start fiddling around on the laptop, a map is on the screen of the surrounding area and a small green dot blinking as it moves around across it. "See anything?" he asks into the headset.
At first the response doesn't come, but then the screen over Venn's eye flickers to life and he jerks his head up.
"What the-?"
Ryu's breath is lodged in her throat, her heart hammering so loud in her ears that she can hardly hear Venn's horrified whisper. The second she had closed the door she saw them.
Huge claw marks across the door and extending further onto the wall next to it. After Venn's inquire as to what she had seen, she flipped on the screen of her own headset and switched it on to send him an image. She backs away from the door to get a better look and finds even more evidence of claw marks dug into the wall here and there. This didn't look like someone had come in here and tried to rob Roy. This looked like a monster had come in with the sol-purpose to attack him…even kill him.
She spins slowly to take in the destruction of the room. The chairs in the waiting room are tossed around in a chaotic mess, pieces of the roof collapsed in random spots from above, the front counter where Roy normally sat to welcome people was covered in debris and the single chain with its 'employees only' sign has fallen to the floor at the gap in the counter. Ryu steps over it as she continues to the back.
To the left behind the counter is a small doorway leading to the room he had converted into a bedroom, the door hanging loosely from the bottom hinge, while to the right is a small bathroom with the door knocked all the way through. This door is nearly sliced through with claw marks.
Why would they need to get in here so badly?, she thinks.
"Whatever that thing was, it was huge," Venn's voice replies in her ear.
Ryu can only find the energy to nod as she wanders around to assess the rest of the damage. As she steps carefully into the bathroom, her eyes lift to the mirror front vanity hanging on the wall above the greasy sink; what she isn't prepared to see are the smeared blood stains across the glass and a few tiny drops on the floor.
She jerks away, her back slamming against the wall as her breathing accelerates to an alarming rate.
"Ryu? What's up? What is that?" Venn's voice comes through the headset.
She barely hears him past the ringing in her ears, the pounding from her heart, the gasping of her breath. She can feel her power stirring in her blood and burning under her skin like boiling lava trying to break free.
Not here, Ryu, not here! Calm down, calm down, calm down!, Ryu squeezes her eyes shut and squats low to the floor, grabbing her head against the pounding tearing through her.
"Ryu, calm down! You vitals just spiked! Ryu? Ryu?!" Venn calls to her.
She jumps to her feet, pressing her body hard against the wall, and tries to get her breathing under control again, but nothing is helping. Opening her eyes again when Venn's voice tries to get through to her again, she stares back at her reflection in the blood stained mirror. The reflection's eyes are wide too, the expression strained in terror, but there's something else. There, growing in brightness, are two pin-point lights of pink-purple in the center of the pupils.
Oh, God, no! Please!, she breathes harder, panicking. Calm down! I've got to calm down!
"Ryu! Calm yourself, now! There's a cop out here. An innocent! You've got to-!"
Venn's voice is cut off, replaced by a new one, "Ryu, listen to me. I know you can hear me. You've got to distract yourself. Think of something else to put your mind in a different direction. Look at what's around you—think!"
Ryu grabs hold of Raph's voice and tears her eyes away from the mirror, fearing the thought of having to watch herself change. Her vision is already beginning to tunnel, the black edges flinching in time with her thrashing heartbeat. She finds something else to focus on, but there's nothing beyond the destruction of the bathroom, only making the panic worse.
"Focus, Ryu, it's okay. Talk to me, tell me what you see," Raph chants smoothly to her.
Ryu can just make out his words over the thundering of her heart, "T-there's…so much…t-there's chaos everywhere and…I can't!"
"Ryu, easy. Keep talking to me."
"There's debris everywhere…blood on the floor…all over the mirror…it's not even broken…" Ryu trails off, staring at the mirror. Blood on the mirror, it's not broken, there's drops on the floor with no smears…why would blood be smeared on the mirror like this? It doesn't even look like someone's bloody hand slid over it; more like a little kids was experimenting with red finger paint and went nuts on the shiny surface. There's no rhyme or reason to the circular smears. She leans up off the wall, staggering a big on her shaking legs and broken door on the floor, and takes a better look at the mirror.
The glowing in her eyes dim, the tunnel vision recedes, and the image sharpens.
Words are finely scratched into the smears, thin as paper: Don't judge a book by its cover.
Her eyes narrow in confusion, but then the realization hits her. Roy had said these words to her before, back home on the mountains. She had snuck into the library and wanted a bed time story when she was ten. It's where she first met him before he left a few weeks later.
He had found her in the library thumbing absentmindedly through the books and asked her if she'd found one of interest.
"No, they all look boring," she had replied in a flat tone, still deep in a dark place at that young age.
"Well, this one might be to your liking," he pulled out a book from the upper shelf that she couldn't reach and showed her the front cover of The "Little Mermaid".
She makes a look of disgust, "I don't believe in fish people. It's boring."
"Don't judge a book by its cover, darling," he smiled as he opened the book to reveal the beautiful pictures inside, "You may miss out on the good things within."
Ryu remembered how her eyes had opened wide in wonder as she took the book. The pictures and story had been enthralling despite the sad ending, but she had learned her lesson then and she remembers it now. Reaching up, she gently grabs the handle to the cabinet and it creaks open slowly.
There's bottles and toothbrushes and floss and all sorts of bathroom needs, but on the bottom shelf there's a white envelope with her name written on it with a few bloody finger prints along the side. She swallows before reaching forward with shaking fingers to pick it up and opening it up. Turning it upside down, something clings out into her awaiting hand and a sheet of thin, folded paper flutters down along with it.
The heavy object, shiny and brand new, is a set of keys. She flips open the paper.
Ryu, you're nuts, but I think your design worked. I haven't had time to test it yet because I figured that you would want the pleasure of doing that reckless deed yourself. Stay safe, stay true, stay free.
The edges of her eyes start to sting as unshed tears begin to build as she smiles. Squeezing her fist closed around the keys, she slips out of the bathroom and towards the back door that leads to the junkyard in the back yard. The back door swings open and Ryu closes it silently the second she overhears Venus's panicking voice echoing from the front yard. She's babbling now, running out of things to talk about, and Ryu can tell from the tone in the officer's voice that he's lost interest in the conversation.
Guess I need to hurry, Ryu thinks, shifting her gaze over the piles of old car parts and scrap metal lying around. It's not as large as the yard she has back in the city, but it's enough to impress her. Off near the bottom of the steps to her right sits something covered in a blue tarp; her smile widens. She takes the steps two at a time to the tarp and rips it off, revealing a motorcycle underneath. He'd changed it up a bit, buffing out the dents and chips, polishing the surface of the new paint job of dark green, and adding a different back wheel.
The back wheel is hollow, no rim, held on by metal cuff that curve over the back of the wheel and attach to the inner wall of the tire, but still allowing it to spin free when in motion. She swings her leg over to sit on the seat, sliding the key into the ignition and turning it. The motorcycle roars to life and the display speedometer floats as she revs the engine. Ryu looks back over her shoulder in disbelief, seeing the inside ring of the back wheel glowing with a pulse each time she revs the engine.
Holy cheese, she thinks, It worked!
A wide smile of excitement breaks out on her face as she continues to rev the engine, feeling the beast roar under her. Time to have some fun, the grin widens on her lips.
She switches the motorcycle into gear and rides a short ways around a nearby pile slowly, dragging her toes as she goes, before turning the back wheel around so that she's facing the fence overlooking the side yard. With a sharp stamp of her heel in the dirt, the ground shoots up at the base of the fence at an angle and a ramp is formed.
Ryu hits the gas and the motorcycle races forward like a lioness darting for her kill. The wheels hit the ramp and send her soaring into the sky.
"Ma'am, again, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the officer rubs his eyes in exhaustion.
"Hold on, please, I've just got one more to tell," Venus's smile has turned to one that rather reads 'shut-me-off-again-and-I'm-going-to-kill-you'.
"Ma'am, that was your last one. You have two minutes to leave the area or I'm going to have to call for back up to remove you."
"But-!"
Rrrrmmmm!
They all turn towards the sudden sound and the cop reaches for his gun at his hip, "What was that?"
There's a loud roar of a nearby engine as it tears into the area, a blur of dark forest green and black swinging around the backside of the police car and skids to a stop on the other side. The motorcycle leans as Ryu's foot sets down on the side to hold it up. The cop aims his gun at her and shouts at her to stop.
She revs the engine in response and then takes off again, spinning dirt and rocks at them all as she does.
"Shoot!" the cop slips the gun back into its clip as he runs to get in his car and take off after the girl.
Venus pops the van into gear and growls under her breath about how annoying Ryu is before propping her elbow out the window and looking back behind her to steer out of the driveway. The van tires scratch across the loose gravel of the dirt path and then squeal on the asphalt as she takes off after the police sirens.
"Did she say where she left my van?" Venus snaps.
Venn points over the back of the seat down towards a side road coming up on their left, "She parked it there."
"Didn't we pass this already?"
"Yeah, you didn't see it?"
"No."
"Shows why you shouldn't drive," Casey shoots with a cocky laugh.
Venus grabs his wrist and jerks him forward until his neck hits the back of the seat and he breaks out into coughing, "April, get ready to take the wheel. Venn, give Donnie a head com so we can all stay in touch while on the road. I got a feeling this is about to get real."
Author's Note:
Here's a layout of the text affects again:
Italics-any words in this affect are personal Thoughts or Sounds.
Bold-any words in this affect are Computer Messages/Text Messages.
"Bold"-any words in this affect inside quotation marks are Computer Voices.
"Italics"-any words in this affect inside quotation marks are Past words/Emphasizing.
"Bold/Italics"-any words in this dual affect inside quotation marks are Past Computer Messages/Past Text Messages.
Bold/Italics-any words in this dual affect are Voice of the Earth.
Italics/Underlined-any words in this dual affect are Voice of the Spirit Guides.
Bold Underlined-any words in this dual affect are an Unknown Voice.
Again, all reviews, suggestions, and critiques are welcome.
-Katt B.