Thief in the Night Ch.7
Trap
Shredder headed over to the two turtles, his eyes landing on Leo first. He smirked from under his mask, grabbing Leo by the front of his shell and pulling him to his feet roughly. He stared into his eyes, his gaze full of revenge.
"Finally I can get revenge on you." Shredder growled. "I can finally destroy Hamato Yoshi's sons freely."
Leo glared at him, tempted to fight. But he knew he wouldn't be able to fight well due to his ankle being shackled.
"Put my brother down you freak." Raph said, his voice rumbling furiously. He was about to jump up and attack at any second if he was able.
Shredder only laughed at Raph's comment, making Leo wince from the sudden loud noise.
"Foolish turtle." Shredder laughed. "You can do nothing!"
His fist connected with Leo's stomach, making the blue masked turtle let out a grunt. Shredder didn't even pause after the blow and swiped his gauntlet at Leo's leg.
Leo let out a yell, feeling the blade pierce his skin. He looked down, seeing blood trickling down his thigh onto the cement floor. He then looked up at the Shredder, his anger rising more and more. Before Shredder could hit him again, Leo struck back.
With a yell, Leo jumped at Shredder, tackling him on the floor. He punched at his face, but Shredder's armor block most of them.
Raph stared in shock, surprised that Leo actually attacked. Knowing his brother, he thought the leader would just tough it out. He watch Leo hit the Shredder over and over, but he wasn't causing any damage. Raph then saw the Foot ninjas heading Leo's way to pull him off but Raph was determined to win. He jumped up and with the short length he had on his chain, tackled one of the ninjas.
Shredder threw off Leo and rose to his feet just as Raph tackled the Foot ninja.
Leo put himself on his knees, watching the incident. He then rose to his feet, wanting so badly to jump in and help. But his chain let him go no further. Shredder turned to him, much angrier than before.
"You will pay for that, turtle!" he yelled. His fist flew forward, connecting with Leo's jaw, sending the turtle on his knees again.
Leo lifted his head up, seeing that the Shredder was now heading towards Raph. Before the man could reach his brother though, the Foot ninjas threw the red masked turtle off of them. The Foot ninjas then rose to their feet, taking out the katanas from the holders on their backs.
Leo held his breath, watching his brother get on his knees. He wasn't sure what they were going to do but he had an idea. Leo couldn't break with pain. But watching his brothers go through it, that's what broke him the most. And Shredder knew that. He knew the only way to break the leader was to make his family suffer. The other three would break eventually from the suffering they'd endure.
Leo's eyes widened as he nodded towards the ninjas who had their weapons out. They charged towards Raph, their swords at the ready. Then, Leo saw a glint as the metal swung in the air and hit Raph's arm.
Raph let out a shout, but not too loud. He wasn't going to let Shredder hear a scream. The ninja who now had his sword in Raph's arm started to pull it downward, making Leo flinch where he sat.
The leader tugged at his chains, desperately wanting to be free. "Stop it!" he yelled, tugging harder. "Attack me! Attack me instead!"
Shredder simply chuckled to himself, sending a chill down Leo's spine. How could a man be so heartless to not care? How could someone laugh at something like this?
Raph gritted his teeth as the sword was slowly dragged down his arm. He could tell the ninja wasn't even bothering to avoid arteries. He let out a gasp as the Foot ninja ripped the sword out, but, of course, he still refuse to scream. He looked down at his arm, seeing the cut was from a few inches under his shoulder blade to where his elbow pad was. The blood trickled down, dripping onto the floor. Seeing his blood coming out of him like so was making him furious.
Leo just sat in horror, still continuing to pull at his chains, despite him knowing his attempts would fail. The Foot ninja approached his brother again and raised his fist. He couldn't let Shredder do this to his family, no way. His eyes narrowed in anger and he clenched his fists and then let out a yell of pure rage.
He flung himself at the Shredder, his chain stopping him. But he tried again, only to be stopped again. He saw the ninja punch Raph square in the face and his red masked brother dropped to his knees. He tried to get up to fight back but was kicked back down by the Shredder himself.
He looked over at Leo, who was still desperately trying to make the chain loosen just a little. Leo must've been expecting a miracle if he wanted that to happen. The chain was fasten securely on the cement wall. Unless he had super strength, there was no way he was ever going to rip that chain out of the wall. He slowly walked over to the leader, amused by his desperate struggling. He crouched down so that he could look the mutant in the face.
"You will always fail, turtle." Shredder said, keeping his voice low. "Do not try. I will win and you can not do anything about it!"
Leo frowned and narrowed his eyes more so that his glare met the evil man's eyes. "Evil will never win." he panted, his words full of venom. "It never will!"
"It already has." Shredder replied, letting out a devilish laugh. He rose to his feet and snapped his fingers at the Foot ninjas, signaling them to put away their weapons.
"Later tonight your genius brother will be in the hands of the Foot Clan." he sneered, watching his ninjas sheath their katanas. "And the first thing he shall see is blood on this cement floor." He nodded towards the Foot ninjas and they quickly filed out through the door without a word. And, with one last laugh, Shredder strided to the heavy door and slammed it shut.
Leo flinched from the loud sound and then listened to see if anyone would come back. After several seconds, he heard no one. The coast was clear. He crawled on his hands and knees towards Raph, grunting occasionally due to the cut on his leg. Raph looked over, not saying a word to his brother.
"Let me see." Leo ordered.
"It's fine, Leo I'll live." Raph protested.
"Just let me see." Leo repeated, his tone note firm this time.
Raph sighed and eventually gave in, showing his injury on his arm to Leo.
Leo looked it over, his expression full of worry. He knew it was bleeding a lot and with enough time, Raph could either bleed out or the gash could get terribly infected. He looked up at Raph, pressing his lips into a thin line.
"That bad, huh?" Raph muttered.
Leo just sighed in reply, not really knowing what to say. "Take off your mask. You need to stop the bleeding." he then said.
"Just my mask won't do much, Leo."
"Exactly, so you should use some wraps on your wrist too. It's cleaner than the ones on your feet."
"Cleaner than Mikey's…" Raph grumbled, untying his red mask from his face. He tied the mask on the top part of his arm, since it couldn't fit over the whole wound. He then unwrapped part of his wrist wrappings, carefully wrapping it over his mask and on the part that had not been covered yet. He still had maybe a foot of wrapping left, but he'd keep it just in case.
"What about your leg?" he asked.
"It's...not as bad as your arm." Leo sighed. "Just worry about that for now."
"Yeah and your leg could get infected just like my arm could." Raph said, narrowing his eyes.
"Just don't worry about it." Leo answered.
Silence washed over them for a few moments before one of them let out a soft sigh, which happened to be Raph. Leo heard Raph letting out soft grunts of pain and could hear the clinking on his chain as his brother tried to change his position. He looked over, seeing Raph trying to hold it together. He knew Raph would never admit that his arm hurt like heck. So Leo just looked at the truth in his features.
"We gotta escape." he grumbled, resting his head against the wall.
"I know." Leo answered. "But most importantly, survive."
"Well, duh." Raph scoffed.
"In order to do that, we need at least three things."
"Okay?"
"First, we need food. Any kind of food." Leo started.
"Of course, Captain Obvious. The last time we ate was...yesterday."
"I think it was a little past eight too. Because as soon as they brought you here, food was delivered soon after."
"And what time do you think it is now?" Raph asked.
"Judging by the position of the moon...maybe five am?"
"And the sun will rise later now because it's winter...stupid winter." Raph rolled his eyes. "So how long have we not eaten?"
"Judging by all that the last time we are was...uh…" Leo added it up in his head, trying to as fast as he could. He wasn't as good at numbers as Donnie but he was at least decent. "About nine hours?"
"Well my stomach is telling me it's breakfast." Raph mumbled.
"Second, we need water."
"Duh."
"Not just for drinking purposes but to also clean our bandages to avoid a quick infection."
"True." Raph answered with a nod.
"They are going after Donnie next and since they made us share food and water...they'd make all three of us share it which will be more difficult. We probably wouldn't have water left over to wash out the wraps."
"IF they get Donnie." Raph corrected. "It was already hard enough for us two to split."
"Exactly. So we need to plan how to split with three of us and all four of us. Just in case. That way, we get decent and equal rations."
"And last?"
"We try our best not to get these wounds infected quickly. Infection would get us sick and being sick will make it hard to escape."
"Not only that but we could die from it." Raph grimly added.
"Uhh…" Leo trailed off. "Y-yeah."
"So what do we do? Not like Shredder will happily patch us up or anything."
"He may do just that, actually." Leo replied. "He may have his Foot ninjas patch up our wounds and clean them just so they ain't get infected. After all, he wants us to die slowly. He wants us to die in his hands, not infections."
"...that's sick."
Leo just simply nodded in response to this.
"So...what can we do about this?"
"For now, nothing. We just have to survive and wait. That's...all we can do."
Mikey and Donnie didn't get much sleep that night. They only managed to sleep for a few hours but dread kept them up the rest of the night. They woke up early at seven, when they usually got up late since they were teens after all, and Mikey made them all breakfast. Splinter came out of his dojo about half an hour later and joined them.
They all ate slowly, everyone too worried about their family to worry about food. The day dragged on, all of them anxious for sundown. During the day though, they planned things out, despite the plan mostly being made last night. If they found any clues, they'd take it back to the Lair to their Sensei and be careful not to have anyone follow them. If they didn't, they'd have bad news to tell.
Donnie tried calling Leo and Raph's T-phones in his lab to see if they'd get any answers at all. But they went straight to voicemail every time so he assumed that they were either dead or broken. Broken seemed like the best option considering the Foot clan would've gladly smashed any form of communication. Time to make more T-phones, I guess.
The purple banded turtle sighed, looking at the clock near him to see it was two o'clock. Only a few more hours till sundown. But he knew those hours would drag on like molasses. He sat down, swiveling in his office chair and cupping his chin in his palms. He then rubbed his temples, letting out a groan of exhaustion. He closed his stinging eyes, leaning his head back in his seat. Maybe if he got a short nap in he' feel more refreshed…
But his nap was soon interrupted by shouting in his ear and a hand shaking his shoulder.
"D! Hey! Dude! What're you doin?"
"Ugh, Mikey…" Donnie groggily groaned as he rubbed his eyes. "I was trying to take a short nap…"
"Well apparently you did 'cause the sun is setting soon bro!"
Donnie whipped his head around to his clock seeing it was now four forty. Two hours and forty minutes had passed. But gosh did that nap feel great.
"You're right. The sun should start setting in about twenty minutes since it's winter." Donnie nodded. He stood up and cracked his stiff neck, Mikey watching the whole time. "Alright, let's pack up."
They both went out into the living room area, grabbing anything they thought they'd need. Donnie made sure to bring his T-phone as well as Mikey and they both packed a handful of throwing stars. Mikey even put a few smoke bombs in his belt for good measure. They put their weapons in their holders and hid pocket knives in their wraps. They were all set just in case they would get attacked.
Splinter watched them the whole time, asking them if they brought certain items, only to get "yes"'s the whole time. His sons frantically scurried about until they were ready to leave. The mutant rat motioned them to come over to him, just so he could give them some encouraging words. The two turtles walked over and bowed to their Sensei, and Splinter bowed back.
"You both must be very careful out there." Splinter advised. "You do not know what kind of dangers will be out there. Stay watchful."
"No problemo, Sensei!" Mikey replied, putting on a signature grin. "We've got it all covered!"
"If you run into danger and you are outnumbered, you must run away. Run back to the Lair but do not let anyone follow you."
"Hai, Sensei." they both said in unison.
"Good." Splinter answered with a dip of his head. "Good luck, my sons."
And with that, the two ran out of the Lair towards the manhole covers so they could have as much time as possible to search. They went to the first manhole cover they could find and started climbing up the ladder. They had fresh hope, hope that they would find some clues and know for certain that they were being kept in the area they were assuming.
"Alright, so let's start somewhere different today. We obviously didn't find anything over that way," Donnie said as he pointed in the direction. "So let's try just going straight forward this time?"
"Sounds fine to me." Mikey answered. Anywhere that would lead them to conclude their suspicions would be wonderful, even if it meant digging through dumpsters. He didn't care.
They began to jump across the rooftops, stopping at each one to look through it. They searched it top to bottom. They looked behind things, under things, above things, everywhere. They couldn't leave one thing in that roof untouched. If they didn't find something, they'd jump to the next roof and repeat the process.
"How long have we been out here, D?" Mikey whined, his adrenaline obviously wearing out due to no excitement.
"Only ten minutes, Mikey." Donnie replied, looking behind his shoulder at his brother. "Come on, let's stay out till midnight at least! That gives us a little less than six hours! That's plenty of time to find something!"
"I hope we do find something." Mikey answered solemnly.
Donnie spun his body around so he was facing his brother. He put one hand on his shoulder, forcing a tiny grin on his face. "We'll find SOMETHING." Donnie said enthusiastically. "I just know we will! I can feel it!"
Donnie's grin was apparently contagious because Mikey put on one of his signature smiles. "You think so?" he asked, his voice now full of hope.
"You betcha." Donnie replied, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Now come on, we still have a few miles to go." He turned himself around and continued to speed walk, Mikey following right beside him. The lanky turtle glanced at his T-phone every now and again to check the time, like if he didn't check the time, the time would speed by like a racecar. It's like he had to check it to make sure it wouldn't escape him.
Mikey could sense what Donnie was feeling. He was smarter than his brothers usually made him out to be. He could know what someone was feeling by just looking at them, and at the moment, Donnie was feeling nervous and confused. Donnie knew that if they DID find some clues, they just may know for sure that Leo and Raph really were being held by the Shredder. But, then they had to figure out if they were at his usual hideout or if they were hiding somewhere else, like an old shed or the basement of a building. But, Master Splinter did say Shredder probably was keeping them in his usual area, since the Shredder was obviously doing this to get to Splinter, after all.
But, if they didn't find anything at all, they'd have to barge in to Shredder's lair with no way of knowing. They wouldn't know if Raph got killed on the roof or where he was when he fought. If they knew where he was when the Foot ninjas ambushed him, maybe, just maybe, the Foot will find them again and the turtles could get answers out them by force. Either choice made both Mikey and Donnie nervous because either choice meant they would have to find the Shredder and get past him.
They had jumped across a few more rooftops, not finding anything at any of them. It wasn't until an hour later that they found a rooftop that was completely trashed. They jumped across the gap and landed on the roof, taking it all in.
A couple of corpses laid on the rooftop, bloody and bruised. They were Foot ninjas. This made Donnie's heart skip a beat. What if they found some important information?
"Woah, D!" Mikey gasped, his eyes falling on the dead ninjas. "What do you think happened?"
"By the looks of it, it possibly could've been an ambush." Donnie answered, turning his head towards Mikey. "And Raph may have been involved." He saw Mikey's lips press together in a thin line. He was nervous, he could tell. "So, let's see if we can find anything."
The two began search, avoiding the bodies. They were not planning on touching them but they knew they had to look under them or in their pockets to find something, anything. Donnie told Mikey to look on the other side and that left him to search the ninjas. He dug in their pockets, finding things like ninja stars and tiny throwing knives. He saw they had the Foot symbol on them, which he knew would be on there. But was Shredder really at his normal place?
Donnie dug in another pocket of the second ninja, finding an untraceable cell phone, probably what he used to contact the Shredder, or someone from the Foot. Donnie easily unlocked it, since it was a cheap phone with no passcode. All this phone had was a texting option and a phone calling option. He'd sort through this guy's texts first, but the phone only had ten percent left so he had to hurry. He lowered the brightness on the phone, just so he could conserve the battery and then began scrolling.
Stinkman: Yesterday, 8:12 PM: I assume you captured him?
Donnie still found it odd that they were texting. But maybe the Foot were trying something new. He shrugged, continuing to read.
You: Yesterday, 8:12 PM: Yes, we are about to head back, Stockman.
Donnie assumed this guy had been speaking into his phone. Shredder was probably leaving Stockman to do all the techy texting stuff, of course. And the fact that this Foot soldier had named his contact Stinkman was quite humorous.
Stinkman: Yesterday, 8:13 PM: Good, bring him back here. You remember where our place is right? You are only a new recruit after all.
You: Yesterday, 8:14 PM: Somewhat.
Stinkman: Yesterday, 8:16 PM: Figure it out. You have plenty of other guys with you. It's the same place as usual, you can find it.
You: Yesterday, 8:16 PM: Right. And we have casualties.
Like Stockman or Shredder would care.
Stinkman: Yesterday, 8:17 PM: Like Shredder cares? Report back here now.
You: Yesterday, 8:18 PM: We're almost there.
Donnie put the phone in his belt, just to search it later for more evidence. He then heard Mikey urgently calling him, fear showing in his voice. He got up from his crouch, speed walking over. "What is it?" he asked, seeing Mikey crouched on the ground next to something.
The purple banded turtle kneeled next to his brother, looking at the thing Mikey had been sniffling about. In his younger brother's hands lay one of Raph's sai, looking completely untouched. There was no dents or blood. It looked just like it normally did.
"Well, now we know that Raph was definitely captured by the Foot…" Donnie muttered, feeling his heartbeat increase.
"Is...is he with Leo?" Mikey whimpered.
"Possibly." Donnie answered.
Mikey nodded his head, letting out a sniffle. But Donnie continued to look around with his eyes. Something wasn't right, not at all. He couldn't shake off the bad feeling that was rising inside him.
"Does this...seem off to you?" Donnie asked, taking his attention away from the sai in Mikey's hands for a moment.
"Uh...I don't know…" Mikey answered, his quiet voice trailing off.
Donnie continued to study the area, his suspicious feeling growing more and more. When the Foot committed a crime, which they always did, they'd clean up the evidence so that the crime wouldn't get traced back to them by the turtles. So why would they not clean anything now? Why would they leave two corpses in the roof rotting away? Why didn't they pick up the throwing stars? Why would they leave drops of blood on the ground? It made no sense. It was like they were WANTING to get in trouble. Unless…
"Think about it. Why would the Foot leave evidence just...sitting out?" Donnie asked.
"I know, dude. Are they WANTING to get caught?" Mikey chuckled.
"Wanting to…" Donnie's voice trailed off and he stared ahead, absolutely speechless. He had eventually stared off for so long that Mikey had started waving his hand in front of his face.
"Uhh...D?" Mikey asked, waving his large hand and cocking his head. "Don't be going into fantasy land, dude. That's my thing."
"Sorry." Donnie mumbled. "But I know EXACTLY why they are keeping all this here, why none of it has been picked up." He stood to his feet and Mikey followed suit, shoving Raph's sai in a loop on his belt.
"Oh?" Mikey questioned.
"They always, and I mean ALWAYS come to clean their evidence." Donnie explained. "They're leaving it here for a reason. They WANTED us to come here, Mikey! They wanted us to search for clues! Have you noticed a pattern these past two days?"
Mikey simply shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't sure if there was a pattern or not.
"We all fought on the rooftop the first night." Donnie continued. "They had the perfect opportunity to capture all four of us a few times! But, they didn't! They only captured one."
"Leo…" Mikey whispered.
"Exactly. And the second night it was Raph. Same time too, I think. Think about it. This is going in birth order. If I was born first, they would've gotten me two days ago. They wouldn't have gotten Raph yesterday if he wasn't born second. They are looking for the third born Mikey. That's me."
"What?!" Mikey gasped. "N-no, Donnie! I can't be alone!"
"Don't worry!" Donnie said gently, putting his hand on Mikey's shoulder. "We're going to fight together okay?" He looked at the Foot soldier's phone that he had taken out of his belt, putting it towards Mikey. "If I get captured tonight, you NEED to take this. This has all kinds of evidence in it."
"But Donnie! What if I get captured? What then?"
"They...they will want me today. You tomorrow." Donnie sighed.
Mikey let out a whimper, throwing his arms around Donnie's torso. "No Donnie! Please don't go!" he wailed.
"Hey, I never said in leaving for sure." Donnie answered. This was making him feel depressed. He wanted to tell Mikey that he was going to go home with him but he honestly didn't know that for a fact himself. A gut twisting feeling was lingering, telling him he would have to spend the night somewhere else other than his bed.
Mikey opened his mouth to protest something else but before he could, they both heard Foot ninjas climbing up the building and jumping over to their rooftop. Mikey quickly grabbed the phone from his brother's hand, shoving it in his pocket like Donnie had told him to do. They took out their weapons, standing back to back from each other in order to look out for one another.
The Foot ninjas surrounded them in a circle, swinging weapons of their own. Donnie counted them all in a matter of seconds, nervous to find that there were over thirty ninjas, and there were probably more hiding in the shadows to strike at a later time. This was going to be tough for sure. He and Mikey both knew that.
Then, a few of the Foot charged towards them.
Authors note: Woah, I'm sorry I haven't uploaded in so dang long! I meant to have this uploaded before summer ended but I didn't end up getting it done. Then school started and I didn't have much time so I finally got a chance to work on it and finish it. So, sorry for the long wait, guys! Hopefully chapter 8 will be uploaded much sooner haha! Also, feel free to leave a review telling me how I'm doing so far :)