CHAPTER TWO: Here We Go Again
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Raph leapt toward a cluster of Foot Ninja, his sais swinging low as he muscled his way into their midst. Though his loved his weapons, he preferred a more hands on, physical approach when dealing with an enemy. Nothing was more satisfying to the red banded turtle than feeling the crunch of bone and the sound of unconscious flesh crumpling to the floor. One strike with the back of his meaty paw and two jaws snapped, their owners slumping to the floor in agony.
"Four points for me," Raph yelled to his brothers.
Mikey dodged a roundhouse kick intended for his head. He spun, extending his own leg and connected with an ear. "Dude, how many points for head shots?"
"One," Raph called, downing three more assailants. "Extra point if bone is broken."
"Right!" Mikey chimed in happily, swinging his nunchakus with deadly accuracy. Four Foot ninja went down into a crumpled heap. Mikey paused, finger on chin as he thought. "Let's see, seven points for head shots, extra points for the unconscious part, and I'm pretty sure I broke some bones, so we'll say fifty points to be on the safe side."
Raph flashed past Mikey, his sais warding off the blades intent on removing his head. He snarled at his little brother, "You and Donnie attend the same math class? Sheesh!"
"Hey!" Donnie barked, slipping past Raph to block an attempt at hitting Raph in the shell. Donnie's bo swept out a ninja's foot, knocking the black clad attacker to the ground. Donnie's shoe connected with the man's head before he could regain his feet.
"Would you idiots knock it off?" Leo asked, defending himself against a half dozen attackers. "Stay focused!"
"Hey, this is as focused as I get!" Mikey said, jumping onto a tall skinny ninja and flipping the man over his head. The wailing man went sailing through the air, taking out two of his comrades. "So, what's the plan? Other than not getting ourselves killed?"
"Eliminate the guards," Leo explained as he spun, dropping a ninja with a powerful back fisted strike. "Gain entry into the clean room. Take out scientists. Watch Donnie's shell while he grabs what he wants. Then retreat."
"Can we stop for pizza on the way home?" Mikey asked, punching a ninja and holding the dazed figure in front of him as a shield.
"Sure," Leo agreed readily. Fighting always built up his appetite.
"Chicago?" Mikey asked, dancing with his unconscious partner whom he spun away from, sending the man crashing into his unsuspecting friends.
"Deep dish," Leo added.
"Stuffed crust," Mikey corrected. "Meat lovers."
Leo paused, his katana a couple inches from a man's throat. The ninja stood frozen, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing in fear. "Kinda in the mood for double pepperoni."
"You're both crazy," Raph said, darting past Leo and knocking the scared ninja out cold with a strike to his jaw. "We're having pineapple and ham tonight."
"Oh, that sounds good," Donnie added, crisscrossing his brothers to block shurikens aiming for Raph's side. "Mind if we stop and get some sweet and sour chicken?"
"Fine by me," Leo quipped, noting there were only a couple of ninja left, and they were retreating to guard the door of the glass enclosure. "Need to get sensei some more ice cream, too."
"I won't let you forget," Donnie promised, punching a ninja in the face and dropping him with ease. He turned to grin at the scientist working around the alien artifact.
Usually when the enemy knew they were outmatched and about to get their butts handed to them, they tried to make an escape. But much to the four turtle's surprise, the scientists…smiled.
They didn't fear the turtles or worried over the outcome of the battle. Leo found their expressions troubling, getting a bad feeling in his shell. But Donnie wasn't phased. To him, the explanation was simple.
"Probably think they're safe behind bulletproof glass," Donnie said, advancing upon the handful of ninja standing in front of the door to the inner sanctum. He cocked his head, observing the scientists who appeared to be openly taunting their foes. "Wonder if they know we can pick locks?"
Raph sneered, spinning his sais in a deadly purr. "Want to wipe that smile off their faces?"
Leo opened his mouth to speak but a door on the opposite side of the room, left of the glass enclosure, opened up and began to disgorge a black mass of ninja trouble. "Uhh, guys?"
"Well, I know why they were smiling," Donnie sighed, bo whirling in his three fingered hand.
"More friends to play with," Raph said, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck.
"I would say play nice," Leo stared, meeting Raph's gaze. Raph smirked and waggled his brow. "But I don't think you know how."
"Sure I do," Raph argued, stealing himself up for the upcoming battle. Foot Ninja continued to fill the room, circling the glass enclosure and the turtles. "I play nice with all my new friends."
Leo swept the room with his calculating gaze. By his estimation, they were outnumbered nearly twenty to one. And there were a couple of ninja standing in the doorway, no doubt to watch the proceedings and send in reinforcements when it appeared the turtles had the advantage. If they weren't careful, they could become overcome by sheer numbers.
"Shell to shell, brothers,' Leo directed, turning slightly and feeling the comforting bump of three other shells as his brothers fell into a defensive posture. They had practiced such a thing so many times it was second nature.
Raph noticed the ninja by the door. "Think they're guarding the door to make sure their friends don't make a run for it?"
"Maybe they ordered a pizza and are waiting to hear the doorbell?" Mikey naturally assumed.
"Something's…off," Leo muttered, though his brothers heard him. "There's a reason they aren't joining their friends for the battle."
"Maybe they're supervisors?" Mikey hazarded a guess. Usually such a silly comment would earn a smack from one of his brothers but not this time. They were too focused on the encircling enemy. "Or coaches? When we knock out their players, they'll signal for new ones?"
That thought was unsettling.
Donnie shifted nervously, bumping his shell into Leo's for silent comfort. Raph growled, showing his teeth at a nearby ninja.
A swift bark in Japanese gave the signal to attack. As one unit the ninja advanced, closing ranks on the four turtles. But they underestimated their foes.
Leo's blades sang a heavenly aria, backed up by the low whirling bass of Mikey's nunchakus and Donnie's bo. Electricity cackled on the end of the bo, keeping even measure as the turtles moved as one unit. Raph added a rich, resounding vibrato of deadly sais that sliced through flesh with deadly accuracy. To add a little flavor to their symphony, Raph grabbed two ninja and slammed their heads together, getting the comical hollow, coconut sound.
"Don't let them get behind us in a pincer move," Leo called to his brothers.
"Dude, I am not that kind of turtle," Mikey crowed, punching a soldier in the face and knocking him cold.
"Stop yammering and watch your shell,' Donnie barked, bo sweeping the legs out from under two ninja. Instead of Raph's favorite habit of slicing into veins, Donnie opted to knock his opponents out with a quick whack to the head.
To accent Donnie's point, Mikey felt the vibrating thrum of metal striking his shell. He turned in slow motion, glaring at the guilty ninja holding a katana.
"Dude? Really?" Mikey quipped. His fist lashed out, striking the ninja and dropping him with a satisfying crunching of bone. Mikey shook his head and sighed, squaring off with three more Foot soldiers. He sighed, "Some ninjas."
"Mikey! Donnie! Assume formation!" Leo bellowed, seeing a pattern starting to develop.
Mikey noticed it, too.
The quartet had practiced such maneuvers extensively in the past couple of months. Leo had barely healed from his wounds before he implemented a new training program. Not only was it far more efficient, but quite brutal. His rehabilitation had given him time to devise new methods for thinning enemy forces.
"With me, brah?" Mikey called to Donnie, as he spun, readying for the maneuver Leo and Raph were preparing to make.
"In your vernacular, 'gotcha dude,'" Donnie grinned.
Donnie leapt high, Mikey mirroring his action opposite. They crossed paths in the middle, striking Foot soldiers on the head and sending them reeling in pain. Back and forth they worked, crisscrossing down the middle, as if lacing up their enemies.
While the Foot were distracted watching the leaping turtles, Raph and Leo took off running, gaining momentum to flip onto their shells and slide across the room, their blades slicing into legs.
Screaming and clutching their legs, Foot soldiers were shoved aside by their fellow ninja. Those who were conscious and badly injured, crawled to the exit where two ninja stood guard. New recruits flooded through the door, taking the place of the ones who were unable to fight.
Donnie spun behind the glass enclosure, his progress followed by several of the scientists, eyeing the unique specimen of mutated turtle. The others continued with their work, packing a metal shipping container. Donnie tried to catch a glimpse of what they were packing for transport, but the ninja kept coming, overcoming him with sheer numbers.
Mikey yelled from the opposite side of the room, his shell showing a nasty ding on the right side. The normally smooth edge was crinkled slightly from damage. He hissed in pain and drew back his hand, bitch slapping a ninja into unconsciousness. He didn't have time to gloat though, more pressed in all around him.
"Ut oh,' Mikey muttered, jumping into the middle of the fray, bellowing as a bull in a china shop.
Raph noticed his little brother being surrounded and grinned. "I always wanted to try the lily pond maneuver."
Showing surprising grace and dexterity, Raph gained altitude, landing on first one, then the next ninja's head, careful not to lose his balance as he alighted across the room toward Mikey.
When he landed, the last ninja grasping his neck and moaning in pain, Raph smiled triumphantly. "Ta-dah!"
Mikey shook his head, glancing at the line of downed ninja who were all writhing on the floor. "That's what happens when you let the heaviest think he's a dragonfly. Bad guys lose several inches in height."
One ninja openly wept at their feet.
Raph gave a one sided shrug, then noticed Donnie being surrounded. "Wanna play slingshot?"
"Do I?" Mikey cackled, allowing Raph to grasp his wrist and spin him around until he gained enough momentum to release Mikey like a shelled bullet toward Donnie. Mikey shot out, cackling all the way, spinning on his shell, his chucks a blur too fast for the eye to see.
Raph's aim was a little off. He missed launching Mikey in Donnie's direction, but close enough the turtle bullet was effective in helping Donnie to regain the upper hand.
Mikey slammed into the legs of a ninja, dropping him on top of the turtle, who halted his inertia and shoved the man off. "Dude, no passengers. Chicks only."
Donnie called, "What your shell, Mikey."
Mikey turned from his downed enemy to find several ninja coming through the doorway flanked by two guards. Donnie met them head on, battling his way toward the glass enclosure. He wanted to get in there and discover the treasure they were holding.
A strange man entered the room, Asian by origin, wearing traditional ninja garb, though his face was not covered. He sported a thin handlebar mustache that reached past his chin. His hands were tucked into his sleeves. He observed the room with a critical Stink Eye, especially the four turtle combatants.
He barked out clipped Japanese, making Leo, who was closest, draw up in alarm.
"Reinforcements coming," Leo called to his brothers. "Regroup!"
Trying to ward off attack, all the while keeping an eye on the door and the three Foot Elite that stood flanking it, Leo was beginning to wonder if the call was merely a distraction because no one answered the newcomer's command.
Until Leo received a blow to the head that came out of no where.
The ninja he was fighting stepped back, granting room, which Leo thought odd, until something heavy and hard impacted the side of his face.
"Invis…." Leo called, taking a blow to the jaw which robbed his voice. He swung out, clashing metal on metal, but the blows were raining down faster than he could deflect them.
He had been trained to track foes without the use of his sight, but with the battle raging all around, he lacked the ability to hear or concentrate on the location of his attackers. And there was more than one.
One laughed him. The other struck him along the face and arms with a heavy, blunt instrument. Leo staggered, losing ground.
Raph caught a glimpse of Leo battling the invisible foes. For a moment he thought Leo was shadow fighting, but when a gash appeared on Leo's arm, spilling his blood, Raph realized there were invisible attackers in the mix. Raph's heart stopped, watching as Leo's head whipped around, blood flying. His swords dropped at his sides while he fell to his knees, consciousness wavering.
Leo's eyes were half lidded as he struggled to remain alert. Raph was yelling at him from a distance, but Leo was unable to hear him. The world moved as a slow motion dream.
"Leo!" Raph bellowed, charging forward. He expected Leo to tuck into his shell to protect his head and neck, but Leo's eyes fluttered a few seconds before rolling back into his head. He fell forward bonelessly.
Raph went on a rampage.
Cursing fluently as a true New Yorker, Raph advanced toward Leo's unmoving form, his sais singing an aria as they severed tendons, and the occasional artery. When it came to the enemy, Raph's compassion was extremely limited. A ninja jumped in front of the steamrolling turtle, but Raph wasn't going to be deterred. A flick of his wrist and the man staggered away, clutching his neck as blood spurted between his fingers.
These ninja were going to pay for hurting Leo.
Mikey heard Raph bellow and searched the sea of black until he found Leo's shell on the ground. Unmoving. Blood forming around his head.
"Leo!" Mikey yelled lunging toward his downed brother.
He wasn't aware of the invisible danger until a blunt force struck his arm. Mikey flipped his chucks with perfect timing, searching for the thing that hit him, but like Leo, the surrounding noise made it impossible to detect sound or movement. Mikey lashed out, and while his arm was outstretched, something heavy landed across his forearm, snapping the bone with an audible crack!
Mikey screamed, tucking his limp arm close to his chest and doubling the speed of his remaining nunchakus. He felt rather than saw the connection to at least two bodies, one of which was cursing vehemently as a second turtle joined their fray.
Raph barreled into the brawl, arms stretched wide in a sweeping gesture. As he hoped, he got at least one of their invisible foes. Using his momentum and weight, Raph landed on top of the ghostly attacker, who yelled as his breath was expelled and his bones were broken under Raph's significant weight.
Raph didn't bother to care. He rolled to the side, slinging the limp, invisible form in his arms toward his comrades. Three went down in a heap.
"Donnie! Mikey! Time to go!" Raph yelled, gaining Leo's side and hoisting the unconscious turtle on his shoulders. "Haul shell!"
Mikey was furthest away from the door, his good arm swinging as he hobbled to Raph.
Knowing Mikey wasn't going to make it without help, Raph strode boldly through the remaining ninja, though now their numbers were greatly diminished. Most were crumpled, bleeding heaps on the floor.
Raph made sure to step on the human carpet, finding gratification from hearing their bones crunch and lungs expel pained wheezes. Considering all the pain and suffering the Foot had bestowed upon the city, Raph's punishment paled in comparison.
Balancing Leo on his shoulder, and helping Mikey struggle to the door, Raph swept the room for Donnie. Finding the room devoid of purple banded turtles, Raph extracted a shock grenade from his pocket and tossed it into the sea of black that roiled toward him as a tide of death. He and Mikey tucked their heads into their shells a second before the deafening blast went off.
Rattled, but still able to function, Raph grasped Mikey's uninjured arm and shoved him toward the door. He caught one final glimpse of the ninja writhing on the floor, including the immobile ones flanking the door with passive expressions, and the scientists scrambling in their glass cage, and slammed the door shut behind him. He yanked a shock grenade off Leo, (Mikey not allowed to carry such ordinance), and placed it by the door in case they were followed.
Down the stairs, through the subbasement and out into the maintenance tunnel they fled, Mikey getting worse with every step. By the time they reached the subway crossroad, Mikey could barely walk. Raph glanced around, searching for help.
"Where's Donnie?" he asked.
Mikey panted, searching the dimly lit tunnel. "Dunno. Thought he left first. Isn't he down here with us?"
Raph called out, "Donnie?"
His voice echoed in the stone chamber.
Raph let loose a string of curses that would have gotten him spanked by Master Splinter. Hiding in the shadow, he lowered Leo's inert form to the ground.
"Watch Leo," he ordered. "Donnie may have gone the other way."
Mikey nodded, withdrawing a nunchakus on his uninjured side and taking up guard duty over his downed brother. Raph retraced their steps, going up side tunnels every block and calling out Donnie's name. After five blocks with no luck, Raph returned to Mikey and Leo, calling out to Mikey as he approached so Mikey wouldn't attack.
"Has he shown up?" Raph asked.
Mikey leaned on the wall, sweat soaking his brow and running down his cheeks. "No. Haven't seen him. Think he went opposite direction? Ya know, to fool any one trying to follow?"
Well, that was a possibility.
Sadly, there were a lot of alternative routes in the underground catacombs. Far more than what people realized. Which is why they provided such excellent cover for four turtles and a rat.
Raph leaned in close, "There's a chance we're being followed by the invisible ninja. Let's go to a splash cove and wait. Can you make it?"
Mikey nodded, putting away his weapon. He waited while Raph maneuvered Leo onto his shoulders again and together they plodded down the tunnel that lead to one of the locations they affectionately called 'splash coves.'
The splash coves were nothing more than stunted tunnels where construction had inadvertently ended, but as they weren't considered passageways for subway or work crews, they were left neglected. Which meant their drains were never cleaned and they often filled with stagnated water. Having lived their entire lives in the sewer, the turtles knew how to navigate such a landscape.
Raph and Mikey stepped through the water with barely any ripples. Into the darkness they went, swallowed by the shadows, where Raph secured Leo's unconscious form before hunkering down near the entrance, ears sharp and eyes watching the water.
For twenty minutes they waited in the silence. Raph wasn't used to being so patient, but with both his brothers injured, and one currently unaccounted for, he had to exercise precaution. Leo was still out cold and Mikey's consciousness was wavering as he clutched his broken arm, whimpering softly in the dismal light.
The water remained still, a glassy surface ready to give away an unwanted trespasser. Deeming it safe, Raph tapped the radio on his shoulder, using the static to send a call sign to his brothers. The sound was echoed in the chamber by Mikey and Leo's walkies.
There was no answering code from Donnie.
Mikey's blue eyes shone as diamonds in the dim light. "Did… did we… leave him?"
Raph growled lowly, tapping the walkie again, hoping to hear the answering signal from their wayward brother.
Silence met his inquiry.
"He's gone," Mikey said fearfully. His breath came in rapid bursts. "They got him?"
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Thoughts? Fears? Threats? Congrats?
Anything?
Oh, and before I forget, yes, i'm gonna be torturing Donnie a little bit. I can't help it.
