Here's part three. Enjoy!

Abducted Pt. 3

Ara

"And you're SURE you don't want me to walk you to your classroom?" Ara looked over at her dad sitting at the steering wheel, his brow furrowed with worry.

She sighed. "Dad, I'll be FINE. I'm thirteen…" He raised an eyebrow, prompting Ara to grudgingly correct herself. "Okay, I will be in a few months. But I'm a ninja. What could possibly go wrong? It's just SCHOOL." Even as the words left her mouth, Ara could feel her stomach flopping like a fish struggling for air. After being homeschooled for several years, this was her first time actually going to a "real" school. Though she tried not to show it, she was worried. What would the other kids be like? Would they make fun of her? Would her teachers be mean? Were her father's lessons going to be enough?

She was pulled back to reality as her father sighed. "I know, musume. It's just that you're growing up so fast. I don't want to let my little girl go just yet. Soon you're not going to need this old man anymore."

Ara reached over and gave him a hug. "C'mon, I'll ALWAYS need you."

"And I'll always be there for you."

"Promise?"

"Promise." He kissed the top of her head. "Now go out there and kick some butts."

Ara grinned and grabbed her backpack, jumping out of the car. "Hai, sensei!"

Her dad rolled down the window. "I did NOT mean that literally!"

Ara rolled her eyes. "I know!"

"I love you!"

"Love you too. See you tonight!" Ara waved as she watched her dad's car reluctantly pull away. Turning towards her school, she shouldered her backpack and took a deep breath as she brushed a dark brown lock of hair from her eyes. "Here goes nothing."

Cold. Ara's mind was fuzzy and slow, and it was only aware of one word, drummed over and over like some kind of sadistic mantra: cold. She was freezing from the tip of he toes to the top of her head. Ara was sitting on a frigid floor, tied to some kind of wood structure... crates, maybe? Sturdy ropes held her in place and dug into her skin. She shivered. Where am I? Ara forced her eyes open, but she might as well have left them closed. The room was pitch black. "Dad? D-dad?" Ara called out, frightened. Only the darkness answered her calls.

Ara wiggled her fingers, trying to coax some warmth into them. Wait… why did it feel as if there were only three of them? Could her fingers really be that cold? No, she wiggled them one at a time. One, two, three. Same on the other hand. Ara shook her aching head, struggling to make sense of this new development. Why did she only have three fingers?

Oh, wait. Everything came back to her in a huge rush of memories. Her father's death, the ooze and her subsequent mutation, running away from the orphanage, meeting the turtles, going for a walk with Mikey, meeting Dogpound, telling Mikey to run, slicing Dogpound's arm… and then… and then…she didn't remember anything after that.

Ara was suddenly blinded as a flood of light filled the room. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the brightness. For the first time, Ara got a good look at her surroundings. She was in some sort of storage room. There were several large boxes and crates scattered around the room. She turned to find the source of the light, her eyes coming to rest on a foot ninja. The person advanced towards Ara and sat down on a section of the floor about two or three yards in front of her. He set down a plate in front of him, then slid it towards her.

On the plate was a few slices of bread, cubes of cheese, and an apple. It wasn't until Ara saw the food that she realized just how hungry she was. All she had consumed the day before was breakfast, because she wouldn't allow herself to eat until she got ahold of that handkerchief. Jumping as high as you possibly can all day could really work up an appetite, but this morning she only had had one or two mouthfuls of Mikey's eggs. In short, Ara was starving. She gazed at the plate. The slices of bread looked soft and fresh. Their tempting aroma drifted up towards her, making her nose twitch with interest. The apple was without blemish, and she could just imagine her teeth sinking into the crisp white fruit, the juice dribbling down her chin… okay, now she was definitely torturing herself.

Ara looked up at the foot. "I would thank you, but unfortunately I haven't learned levitation yet, so your little offering is useless to me." She strained on her binds to emphasize her point. The foot stared at her through the bug-like eyes of its mask, unmoved. "Do you guys ever talk?"

Silence.

"No?"

Silence.

"Alrighty, then." She turned back to the plate of food. "It's probably poisoned, anyway."

At this, the foot gave a start. He jerked off his mask, his eyes flashing with anger. The foot had jet-black hair and intense, dark blue eyes. He looked younger than she had expected, somewhere in his older teens. "It's not poisoned," he hissed angrily. "Why would we poison it? If we wanted to kill you, Master Shredder would want to have the satisfaction."

"Makes sense. But as I pointed out before, it doesn't really matter." Ara jerked her head in the direction of her binds. "And could you turn off the freezing air?"

The foot stood, crossed the room, and flipped a switch. Ara's tense form relaxed as the frigid current that had been circling through the room immediately settled down. "We turned it on to keep you unconscious and out of the way while we made... arrangements," the foot ninja explained. "We figured you're at least partially reptile, so cold would slow down your metabolism and keep you under longer."

"Well, here I am," Ara retorted. "Guess I still have some warm-blooded traits in me. Anyway, who is "we" exactly? What are you guys planning to do with me?"

"We're an army of ninjas that could kick your shell any day of the week," the foot smirked. "That's all you need to know."

Ara snorted. "Let the fighting do the talking. I've finished off twenty of your so-called ninjas in a single day. But Raph's the record-holder… his best in 24 hours is thirty-one."

The foot's face flushed red with anger. "I could beat you with one hand behind my back."

"Ooooh… the tough ninja likes to attack girls who can't even move because they're tied up. Why am I not surprised? Typical foot behavior."

They sat there for several moments, glaring at each other. The foot broke the silence with a strained snort of forced amusement. "Are we even listening to ourselves? Maybe we started off on the wrong FOOT." He waggled his eyebrows as he said the last word.

Ara didn't even crack a smile. This had to be some sort of ruse to get her guard down. The boy didn't seem to notice her sullenness, because he just asked, "so what's your name?"

Deciding it was relatively harmless to answer, she replied, "Ara. And you?"

"Arashi."

Ara looked at him in disbelief. "Really? My grandfather was named that. I'm sorta named after him, only you pronounce my name like air-uh, not Ah-rah. It means Storm, right?"

The foot looked surprised. "Yeah, it does. That's a cool coincidence."

C'mon, Ara, she reprimanded herself, I'm not here to make small talk with the enemy. Ara shifted her attention from the ninja and onto the food. She slid her foot out and around, pushing the plate closer towards her. Then she wormed a piece of bread onto her foot and flipped it into the air, catching it easily in her mouth. In this manner, she finished off the whole plate, apple excluded.

When she finished, she looked up, but the foot had left. In his place stood Dogpound. Ara noticed the bandage on his arm and swallowed hard. "Bravo," the dog snarled, hate gleaming in his eyes. "Quite impressive. Too bad your food-flipping skills won't be enough to save you when I get my hands on you." He crossed the room and cut the ropes surrounding Ara with one swipe of his arm. Before Ara could move, Dogpound had her arm, locking it in his merciless grip. "If Master Shredder hadn't given orders that you were not to be harmed, you wouldn't be breathing right now." He roughly jerked at her arm, pushing her upright. "Come with me."