Here I am again! After a very long time, I know. I´m sorry. And ashamed. Really. University took to much time the week, and right now, I should learn, because there´ll be two exams, but instead, I sit long after midnight at my desk, with a cup of hot tea and some uneatable stone-hard peaches, and try to write a new chapter. Even had to reread my last chapter, otherwise I wouldn´t have known where to begin. Puhh! But the show must go on…
Thanks again to Cynlee for correcting!
Chapter 5: Rat Quest
"Leo!"…pant,pant…"Please tell me"…pant, pant…"again whose"…pant, pant, pant … "STUPID IDEA THIS WAS!"
"Not mine! I wanted to go through the sewers, remember? You wanted to come from above!"
"Right now I think this is just an academic question."
The two brothers ran for their lives- with nearly the complete New Yorker Foot clan at their heels.
So far, they had managed to infiltrate the new Foot HQ- fine. They climbed on the roof to enter the building-as Donnie argued: "IF they've caught Sensei, they will expect us to come, and they will expect us to come from the sewers."
So far, so good.
Then problems started!
Of course, Don managed to switch off the security system, so that they could open a rooftop window without alerting the whole bunch of Ninja. But then one of his inventions failed. The small hook, which attached their climbing rope to the housetop, wouldn´t detach when Donatello pressed the button on his remote control.
Fan-tas-tic!
Possibility number one: One of the Turtles must climb up again, remove the rope and hope, that the other one would be able to search- and rescue, if he was here- their Master alone.
Possibility number two: They would just leave the rope dangling where it was and hope, that every eventually incoming Foot Ninja was either blind or to stupid to recognize what a rope hanging down from an open window might mean.
After a short, fervid and much too loud argument Don prevailed. Searching alone was nearly impossible, and for sure the Foot would notice the switch off of the security system in this section, so this was their only chance. Leonardo had no other choice than to agree. He, too, was so worried about their father, that he didn´t care much about the risk at the moment.
And they made it- partly. They managed to hide within the airducts system as the alert broke out.
"See, Leo?" whispered Donatello. "I told you it would be easy. In and out, no risk. They will never find us!"
Leo was not convinced.
They reached the prison section undetected, but there was no sign of their master- not even in the high- security section. They weren´t sure if this were good or bad news. Oh yes, they found a few rats in a lab, but none of them was theirs. Disgustedly Leo sliced the cages open with his katana.
"Let´s hurry out of here! I´m sure Master Splinter isn´t here, and it wouldn´t help him if we get hurt or caught!"
Donatello nodded, bent over a computer terminal. "Nothing about if they caught him, just that a soldier has managed to throw him overboard." He curled up his face. "His family got a high reward." He stood up. "Let´s see what the others found out. This place is making me sick!-Ohhh!"
"What?" Leo swirled around as Don pointed at the door.
"Are you so eager to join your furry master?" asked Hun, a perfidious grin in his face, blocking the door frame completely with his body. "I´m so gonna to enjoy fulfilling your last wish!" And he jumped forward.
At the last moment, Don leaped sideways and Hun struck the computer desk. Unfortunately this stopped him only for a few seconds. But the door frame was blocked again-more or less, the few Foot were not really a problem, just an annoyance. Leo and Don went through them like a knife through hot butter. One or two or three or even a half dozen Foot Ninja were no challenge- but the trouble was…
"Why do this bozos always appear in packs?" complained Donatello. "Never ever heard something about that the bad guys are only allowed to attack the good guys one by one?"
"Later, Don", responded Leo and wrenched his brother down. A few shuriken swirled just a few inches over their heads through the air.
They couldn´t escape the same way they'd entered. They would be a perfect target dangling at that rope. Not that this would matter at the moment, they wouldn´t find the room anyway. Although Donatello had learned the floor plan by heart, they had irredeemable lost their way.
Right know they just hoped that Shredder wasn´t at home. That would be the cherry on the cake.
"There!" Don gestured to an open metal door. They hastened through, Leo banging it closed immediately- not a second too soon, as he heard how shuriken and katana met the metal. He stared at the closed door.
"We definitely need a Plan B!"
"Leo…"
"Don, I´m thinking-"
"But Leo…"
"Not now, Don!" Leo kneeled down to examine the door. It looked very solid, so it should hold a few minutes. Meanwhile, he could-
"LEO!"
"What?" he snapped and turned around, "Oh!"
"Yes", said Don and looked at the tank, "seems as if we already have a Plan B!"
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"… and I bet it´ll take weeks to clean this place", Don snorted with laughter, "It wasn´t that easy to drive that stupid thing, so I damaged the other vehicles, the walls, the garage door and a few Foot which tried to stop us!"
Everyone in the Lair listened eagerly – and laughing- to Don's report, except Leonardo, who polished his swords in silence.
"We parked it right before the Police Department. Geez, I would have liked to see their faces. Imagine, to find a tank in the entrance! Wonder why the Foot needed it."
"Who cares", Leo's calm voice cut down the giggling atmosphere at once. "No one found a sign of Master Splinter, and that's the only thing which counts at the moment."
April sighed.
"Mikey and me searched on the whole waterside. We drove along the road four times and went in the bushes and so on, but there was no sign- no footprints, no fragments of a robe, no flushed gulls. After the fourth round, an officer from the coast guard took notice of us, so we couldn´t continue, but I´m pretty sure he isn´t there."
Leo nodded.
"And you two?"
Raph and Casey shook their heads.
"We searched for a highly decorated guy, towed him in a back road and threatened him to trash the crap out of him if he wouldn´t tell us where our furry rat friend is," Casey reported, "Then Raph wrenched his trench coat. The dumbcase pissed himself, but he couldn´t even speak any more. If he had known about Splinter, he would´ve told us."
Leonardo stood silent for a moment. Then he spoke.
"You really showed yourself to an army officer?"
Raphael shrugged.
"Thought it was the fastest way."
"FOR HEAVENS SAKE! HAVE YOU TOTALLY LOST YOUR MIND?"
"Hey, I got the information we needed, no one got hurt, so what´s the problem? And believe me, with regard to his trousers, he had had other problems. No one would believe him!"
"I just hope you´re right, bro," said Don. Leonardo was so furious that he couldn´t speak. "I just hope you´re right."
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The day proceeded more or less calmly, partly because they were all too tired to argue and partly because Leo refused to speak with Raphael, which stopped their usual fighting.
Professor Honeycutt came over. Don had fallen asleep over his keypad and woke up startled.
"What? Oh, it´s just you. I´m sorry, Honeycutt, that I didn´t come as promised, but Sensei is missing and we were pretty busy in finding him."
Honeycutt peered at the monitor.
"You didn´t find him? Maybe I can help. Where have you searched so far?"
Donatello gave a status report.
"And currently Leo thinks we shouldn´t go out during daylight because the Army could be searching for us."
"This was alarmingly careless of Raphael."
"I´ve hacked into their computer system. Nothing about an officer being attacked by an alien, monster or anything else."
"And what are you planning to do now?"
Donatello sighed and stood up.
"I do not even have a hint of an idea. He could be anywhere" he gulped, "or fish food."
Raphael, meanwhile, strolled through the sewer tunnels, kicking thoughtlessly at cans and pieces of garbage. After a few tunnels he stopped and looked up. From his position he saw only two feet dangling from a pipe. For a moment he paused, unsure whether he should disturb his baby bro or not. They all loved their master dearly, were afraid and missed him, but his youngest brother still needed- more than the others- his father, now more then ever.
So Raph climbed on that pipe too and perched down next to his brother. Neither of them spoke, they just sat there, listen to the scurrying rats, the trickling of water and letting their legs dangle. Raphael could see by the traces in his brothers face that he has been crying. Very carefully, he placed a hand at Mikey´s shoulder; his brother immediately turned around and buried his face at Raph's chest, sobbing soundlessly, and Raph, the cold-blooded fighter, who could sometimes kill his brother because of his pranks-- Raph hugged his brother tightly and stayed like this until the evening,
Leonardo stood before the closed doors of his master's room. Normally they just went in when invited, but this day was no one in his room, who could say with a warm, calm voice, which let all sorrows disappear: Please enter, my son.
He gulped hard and felt guilty as he opened the door. Splinters bed was neatly made, the floor was clean, the few books, candles and vases were placed accurately at racks.
Leonardo knelt down before the futon bed of his Sensei. Carefully he flattened the sheets, although it was unnecessary. Beneath the pillow laid two hackneyed, often read books, carefully repaired with sticky tape. Leonardo knew them both very well. The book at the top, oh he remembered so well when he first read it, and then again and again, until he knew it complete by heart: The Art of War by Sun Tzu. He was sure that Splinter knew this book as well inside out, but he still liked to read it. And the other book…
It was the book, Splinters first, the Art illustrated book he had fished out of the sewers, the book after which he had named his sons.
Leo's eyes ran over the pages. Though Splinter was one of the most clean people he know – he was sure that his master would never touch a book with dirty hands- the borders of the pages had gray edges.
He read a few sentences here and there, remembering the time when he was younger and used to sit at Splinters lap, listening to him read out loud, or tell stories. He had to fight for this place; there were three brothers who wanted to be as near to their father as they could as well, and only two (until they grew and then it was only one) could sit on his lap. Splinter told them to take turns, but sometimes, he snuck into his father's room and listened not to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but to Sun Tzu and Miyamoto Musashi.
Carefully he placed the books back. He didn´t know what to do. He was sure that his father was alive, he must be alive, but he'd fallen in the water and Leo hadn´t rescued him…he had failed. He had let down his father.
Closing his eyes, he got into the Lotus position and started to meditate. He still could feel his Sensei in this room, and if there was any chance to get even the glimpse of a vision which would help him to find Splinter, he would get it in this room.
The afternoon passed, as well as the evening.
Donatello stood before the freezer. He was not really hungry, but he had the feeling that he should eat at least a little bit. He hadn´t seen Leo for the rest of the day, probably he was meditating somewhere, and Raph and Mikey were out as well. Maybe he should go alone or with the Professor and Leatherhead to search again. Just as he closed the door of the freezer- he decided that he was really not hungry- the door of the Lair opened up and two of his brothers entered. It was nearly midnight.
The three Turtles stood in the kitchen and looked at each other.
"And?" Raphael was the first to speak. "What now?"
Don shrugged.
"Don´t know. Did anyone see Leo?"
His brothers shook their heads.
"Fine. I do really not know how we would best proceed. I have been on the Internet the whole day, and there was absolutely nothing, not even the usual " I saw an alien and it tried to kidnap me" rubbish."
Michaelangelo went to the Living Area and switched on the TV. Raph sighed.
"Mikey´s really in a bad mood. Never saw him in this state, not even during the time the Utroms had had Master Splinter."
"That was another situation", said Don sadly, "at least we were sure that he was not… you know". Raph nodded, then they joined Mikey.
Round about four o´clock in the morning Leonardo left Splinters room.
The others didn´t comment it. They all had their own ways to deal with their loss.
Leonardo sat on the couch next to Raphael and looked at the TV. There was a late-night wrestling show, but none of his brothers paid attention.
"Maybe…" he tried to begin, but he was abruptly interrupted. Don's security system had activated and a siren was whining trough the whole lair. "Donnie, what´s up?"
"There´s someone in the warehouse", answered his brother watching at a monitor, "a woman, I would say."
"Uniformed?" growled Leo and glared at Raphael, who did not even look bashful.
"No, normal clothes, but she looks pretty hounded. Hey!"
"What?" his brothers asked unison.
"Listen to the loudspeakers".
And they could all hear her voice: "Raphael?"
"Okay", said Leonardo grimly. "Raph, you come with me above. Don, Mikey, you stay here. Gotta go."
He and Raph went to the elevator. At least it was an interruption out of their sorrows- even though an unwelcome one.
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Okay, I know, much too long time since my last update, but I hope the next one will be sooner. After all, I had to get Splinter out of that cage, because I´m the one who brought him in it- literally. Please, please, please review, I will write faster the more reviews I get, I promise!
And I will write slower the fewer I get (yes, that was a threat -smile-)!