The fourth installment of the New Hero series. Once again I apologize for any deviations in canon, since I'm only going off what I saw in the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. I do not own the rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I winced as I rose into a sitting position. "I'm guessing your name is Donatello?" I asked the purple masked turtle.
"Yep, that's me. What's yours?" He asked as he kneeled next to the sofa and lifted my shirt up to reveal my side, which had already formed a nasty purple bruise.
"Michael." I replied, little tingles of pain running up my side as he lifted my shirt.
"Ouch. That looks like it hurt." Donatello commented as he touched the bruise with a finger.
"Mmmhmm… Tell me something I don't know. How bad is it?" I asked as the turtle flipped down a pair of what looked like scoped lenses and paused for a moment.
"You'll be fine. It's just some bruised ribs." He said finally as he got back to his feet. "Just give them a couple of days to heal up and you'll be fine."
"Good." I said as I slowly pushed my shirt back down.
"How's the champ doing?" A new, but familiar voice said from the window.
I looked over to see the turtle with the orange mask, leaning against the windowsill.
I raised an eyebrow. "I'll be fine. Thanks. And your name is?"
"Michelangelo bro, brothers call me Mike." He said as he walked over to the sofa and sat down besides me.
"Like the Renaissance painter?" I asked as I glanced over at April, who had been quiet for sometime.
She nodded as Michelangelo glanced between the two of us. "Guess April's been educating you on us."
"Hey, Mike. We should get back. Sensei wanted to speak to us." Donatello said as he moved to the window.
"Oh alright. I was just spending some quality time with the family." He said as he patted my shoulder then got to his feet. "See ya later April. " He said to her, giving her a wink as he and Donatello went out the window.
Once they were gone, I looked at April. "Wow. How many are there again?"
"Four." She said as she watched me closely. "Are you sure you're alright? I mean, this has to be a lot to take in."
I sighed as I looked at the window. "I mean. Yeah. I don't know. I admit it's all really kind of… out of this world. But I guess I'm alright." I grimaced as I laid myself length-wise on the sofa, using the arm as a headrest. "I'm sure it'll hit me pretty hard in a day or two." I said as I grinned at her, then glanced at the clock.
"Oh man… it's late…" I groaned as a wave of tiredness swept over me. "You mind if I sleep on your couch tonight? I don't see myself making it home tonight."
"Of course. I was going to suggest you stay here tonight." April said as she got to her feet. "Hold on, let me grab you a blanket."
I sighed as I sat up on the couch, then got to my feet. A dim morning light illuminated the room, but the sun hadn't quite risen yet. I looked around at her living room, then picked up a pen and paper and wrote, "Thanks for letting me stay the night. Call me if you want to meet up later. –Michael", then placed the notepad on the kitchen counter and grabbed my shoes and jacket before heading out the front door, closing it behind me quietly.
I pulled my jacket on as I stepped out into the brisk morning air. It was going to be a walk to my apartment. That was for sure. But I wasn't going to bother with hailing a taxi. The walk would give me time to think.
Four turtles. Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. I'd met all four of them back at the warehouse. But they still didn't know who I was yet. They didn't seem too dangerous, not towards me anyways, but I still had a feeling that I wanted to be sure of that.
They had to have a place where they went after each night. I needed to find it and see who exactly they were.
I sighed as I crossed a street, glancing both ways to check for traffic. It made me feel like a criminal, sneaking around like that.
It took me ten more minutes to reach my apartment.
I pulled off my jacket as the door closed behind me and tossed it towards the closet as I pulled my shirt off and walked into the bathroom. I stopped as I looked at my side, where there should have been a bruise. There wasn't even an indication that I had been kicked there.
I poked at it carefully. Nothing. It was completely healed.
"Fast healing? Damn, I'm full of surprises." I said as I turned around and flipped the shower on.
A quick rinse, and I was headed down to the café to check out where exactly the next target was.
"Let's see… a theater… What the hell do they want with a theater?" I muttered as I looked at the screen. "That can't be right…"
Slowly, I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window, my mind racing. It had to be a diversion, but for what? What could be so secret they couldn't inform their troops about it?
I leaned forward and began to type again. Chances are there was something containing the information; I just needed to know where.
There, a list of IP addresses that had accessed the site, and one that had posted to it. I traced it back to the source, but was stopped. Some kind of firewall was blocking me.
"Oh boy…" I thought as the firewall began to trace the hack backwards. "That's not good…" I began typing quickly to erase the electronic pathway created by my computer. It was getting close. Just a few more seconds and… there. I sighed in relief as the program halted in it's tracks, with no path to follow. But I was left with a location to pursue. Some place in the middle of Chinatown. Typical.
"Alright then. Time to break into a mainframe." I said as I closed my computer.
I leaned against the wall as I glanced at the brick building across the street. It had no windows, and no one was going in or what. But according to the hack, this was the place. I frowned. It felt wrong. No signs of security of any kind. As a matter of fact, the place looked abandoned.
I pushed myself off of the wall and crossed the street. Raising my fist, I knocked on the door. The wooden door swung inwards from my touch, the resulting breeze causing little clumps of dust to float into the air.
"Hello?" I called out as I stepped inside. No answer. It looked as though no one had been there for a while.
I walked through the building, glancing into each room. Many were empty. Some had a random chair or desk, but nothing significant. I reached the back of the building and found some wooden stairs, leading to the basement. There was a door at the bottom of the steps.
I walked down the stairs and pulled on the door handle. Locked. Wouldn't stop me though. Using telekinesis, I pulled aside the large deadbolt keeping the door shut aside, then pulled the door open.
There was a dark corridor ahead of me, with a small red light at the end.
"This looks promising." I thought to myself as I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
With the door closed, I puled off my backpack and opened it, then pulled out my 'hero' outfit. I wasn't going to be entering a terrorist organizations' secret lair unless I had a way of keeping my identity. I just hoped I wouldn't have to fight my way out.
After everything was on, I put my bag back on my shoulders and walked to the light. There was a locked door underneath the light, and I quickly unlocked it just like the other, then slowly pushed it open.
Light spilled into the dark hallway and I blinked a couple times, before noticing where I was. It was a well-furnished office. I stepped through and looked back at the opening as it closed behind me. A bookcase had been moved by the door, which was set into the wall, typical secret entrance. I pushed the bookcase against the wall, and stepped back. If I hadn't just come through the entrance, I wouldn't have even known it was there.
"Now, to find the mainframe." I thought to myself as I walked to the actual door of the office. The doorknob turned, and I quickly got behind the door just in time as it opened and two people walked in.
"Are your men prepared for tonight?" One, a woman, asked as I took the brief moment to slip through the door, closing it softly behind me. My heart racing, I hurried down the hallway quietly as I looked around for signs leading to a server room of some kind.
Reaching a junction, I looked down each hallway. One led to some stairs that went down further, and the others led to closed doors. Turning right, I went to the first closed door and put my ear to the door. Hearing no noise from inside I opened it and stepped inside.
Another office. A computer sat on the desk, which was covered in papers. "Whoever owns this office is messy." I went to the computer and turned on the monitor. Still logged in. "And probably going to be fired… Whatever that means in a terrorist organization."
Quickly, I accessed the database and started looking for operations and troop movements. Luckily for me, I didn't have a firewall to worry about inside of the base, so it was an easy task of finding the theater job and searching for jobs related to it.
"There we go…" I muttered as I found it. It was happening at the same time, at a chemical laboratory about a mile away from the theater job. Only a few select men had been selected for the job. Interesting.
With everything I needed, I exited the database and logged the computer out, then went to the door and cracked it open. Just before I opened the door more, the two people from before rounded the corner and headed to the stairs. Perfect. They wouldn't even know I was here.
As soon as they were out of sight, I left the room and hurried back into the first office. I pulled the bookcase away and opened the door, but paused before heading through.
If this office had a secret entrance, surely that meant someone important worked here. And that meant that there must be some good information as well.
Hearing the woman's voice rapidly approaching the door once more, I ducked through the secret entrance and closed both the door and bookcase quickly. It would have to wait for another day.
I looked down at the computer screen and bit my lip as I looked at the two locations getting hit tonight. I assumed that the Turtles would definitely be involving themselves, but I didn't know if they knew about the chemical laboratory. If they did, the hostages would be in trouble, if not, then they would be in hopefully good hands. I would have to assume that they didn't know about the lab and proceed to deal with it myself.
After that though, I would need to head over to the theater and follow the Turtles, who were ninja's, without them knowing I was following. That was going to be the difficult part.
Closing my laptop, I stood up and left the café, then headed back up to my apartment. I was going to go to the lab early, maybe finish off the terrorists quick so I could get to the theater in time.
I grabbed my backpack with my disguise in it from my apartment, dropping my laptop off while I was there, then headed into town. The sky was dark by the time I reached the lab.
It was a tall nondescript building. It practically screamed government, and there was no way anyone was going to enter from the front. There were at least three guards just inside the doors. I walked around the block and found an alleyway running along the back of the building.
A parking garage stood just on the other side of the narrow alley. I circled around to the parking garages entrance and began to make my way up each level until I reached the top. Nothing.
Seeing as now way as well be a good time, I pulled my disguise out and put it on quickly, glancing up at the building from time to time for any signs of the terrorists.
Just as I finished, movement caught my eye. About a mile away, there were police helicopters hovering over what I could only assume was Broadway. The time was now, but where were they?
The sound of chopper blades filled my ears as I looked up to see a black helicopter landing on the building.
From air, of course they would come from air. Draw the police away and no one's looking for the lone chopper across town.
I gritted my teeth as the chopper left almost as soon as it had come. They had out thought me, almost to the level of embarrassing, but I still had another matter on my mind. I had to get to the theater, and fast, which meant I was going to need a car…
5 minutes later I pulled up to the curb a street away from the theater and got out of the stolen vehicle. I felt a little bad for stealing someone's' car, but it would be found soon enough by the police anyways.
Quickly, I headed to a fire escape and climbed to the rooftops, then began looking around for signs of the turtles. There, three roofs over. Quickly, I began running across the rooftops after the quickly moving ninjas. I pushed myself to run faster, then, just like that, they were gone.
I jumped on to the roof and looked around. "Where the hell could they have gone?" I thought to myself as I looked around. "Dammit…" I muttered as I walked to the edge of the building and looked down.
Just an alleyway filled with a few dumpsters, some trash, and a couple manholes. The manholes…
"Oh…" I said as I realized where they went. The sewers. Of course. A city full of people and nowhere in it to live without being seen and immediately noticed, so they went beneath it.
As fast as I could, I climbed down into the alley and lifted the manhole before climbing down into the sewer. I paused to listen for a moment; nothing… and then a far off voice. I replaced the manhole then followed it quietly.
After a couple twists and turns, I heard the voices get closer. A few more minutes, and I realized they were right around the corner, so I stopped and pressed myself against the wall as I listened. "…guys were just too easy. They're not much of a cha-"
There was a grinding noise, then the voice stopped, as if muffled by something. Deciding to risk a peek, I looked around the corner. Nothing. They were gone. "What the…" I muttered as I stepped around the corner and looked around. It was a dead end. There was nowhere they could have gone except through the wall, which I quickly realized they probably did do as I stood there.
"There has to be like a secret switch or something…" I said to myself as I stepped forward and examined the wall. No odd protrusions, no buttons, except… I paused as my fingers found a slight seam running up and down the wall. "A secret door. That is cool."