Goliath's claws, with their iron grip, didn't have any difficulty with the elevator cable. Leonardo used a small, hook-like device with a hand trigger attached to his belt–it stopped his movement down, unless he wished it, but he could move upwards freely.
Leonardo did his best to be very, very calm. But there was never going to be anything calming about being suspended from a cable, hundreds of feet above an unforgiving concrete floor, with death just an elevator call away. If they fell–either of them–it would be a very, very long time before anyone found their bodies.
Knowing this, he wanted to be out of this elevator shaft as quickly as possible. He wanted to be out of this building as quickly as possible. He wanted to be home, home, home…
"Which floor?"
Leonardo consulted the printed out building directory in his free hand. "We never figured out for sure. But all the time we've spent scouting this place, we're pretty sure that anything vital is going to be below, down in the lower levels of the building."
"How can you discern that?"
"There is no basement on the city's version of the map."
Goliath nodded. With a soft sound, almost like a zipper, he loosened his grip on the cable slightly, sinking down through the elevator shaft. Leonardo squeezed the trigger of his rappelling device, following suit. In his head, he counted floors. 30… 20… 10… 5… this should have been the ground floor, but the elevator shaft just continued downward, almost ten whole floors.
"Remember, we are only collecting information." Goliath warned him. "We cannot linger here, not alone."
Trust me, no one wants to be away from this place more than I do. Leonardo nodded grimly. "Right. Let's see what we can find behind–" His words were cut off by the dreadful mechanical hum. The elevator car was rapidly approaching!
Leo didn't have time to do anything but squeeze the trigger of his hook, hands burning as he rapidly dropped floor after floor after floor. Goliath followed, eyes white, wings close against his body. The floor was coming up fast, the mechanical whine of the elevator pulley near deafening. Leo unhooked from the line, landing on the ground, and falling flat. Goliath dropped prone over him, wings splayed over the turtle's body as he instinctively became a gargoyle shield.
Nothing happened.
Goliath looked up at the bottom of the elevator. It had stopped, three feet above their heads. "It did not crush us!"
"Safety zone, for elevator technicians." Leo replied, a little out of breath as he drew himself up to one knee. "Every elevator shaft has a crawlspace for the people who fix them. We're lucky we were so close to the bottom. If that elevator had been any earlier, we wouldn't be talking." There was the click and hum of the elevator door opening and closing. The car remained.
Goliath peered up at the steel box above them. "How long will it stay here?"
"Until someone calls it elsewhere. We need to figure out how to open this door without triggering the alarm."
Goliath smiled knowingly at Leonardo. "I can offer a solution to that." He lifted himself into a crouch, and dug his claws into the steel. With a powerful tug and a terrible metallic creak, he peeled the bottom corner of the elevator down, just as easily as Leo would open a can of tuna.
Leonardo's jaw hung agape. "You can tear steel?!"
"A gargoyle's strength is formidable. Count yourself lucky to be our allies." He offered a hand to him. Taking it, Goliath helped Leo up into the gap, pulling himself through after him. The elevator itself was clean, well-lit, and bare of any ornamentation. Goliath stared up at the light, and popped open the cover with his claws. A twist of his hand, a squeak of ceramic on metal, and the elevator was pitch black. Leonardo pressed the 'open door' button, pressing himself against the side of the car. Goliath did the same.
Peering carefully around the corner, Leonardo took a shallow breath. He palmed three bō-shuriken, points peeking out between his knuckles. "Alright. Cameras all up and down this floor. Wait here, keep the door open. No matter what."
Goliath growled, giving him a nod. There was a flash of movement, the tinkle of broken glass, and the hallway was suddenly bathed in shadow as the lights died.
Leonardo pattered down the hall, keeping his head low and his steps light. Bottom floor had to be the lab; they already knew Shredder's office was on the top floor. He peered into windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the inside. His breath caught in his chest, and fear flushed his system.
Shredder. Shredder, Shredder, he's right there. Leo found himself taking shallower, faster breaths, gritting his teeth and trying to slow down his heart. Standing there, in the lab, facing the near wall. He didn't dare to move, make any noise, but he couldn't help his fear.
Why hasn't he moved? Why hasn't he seen me?
The Shredder remained motionless. It took a moment for his fear to ebb away, and realize that this was only his armor. His fingers vibrated, his breath returning to him. He heard voices coming up the hall.
"–and I don't think that project will go anywhere. I'm more interested in the Tengu."
Two people: A boy, dark-skinned and dark-haired with a button up and a bowtie. A woman, pale and blonde with her hair in a bun, wearing a lab coat. The woman shrugged. "As long as you're here, you should at least know what else is on this floor. I'm sure that this is the next project he'll want you working on."
Is that Baxter Stockman? Leo wondered.
"Is that allowed?" The boy asked. He paused, looking down the hall. He squinted behind his thick glasses, suspicious. "Hey, the lights are out here."
"Huh. Well, that's not normal." The woman commented. "I'll call the janitor, see if a fuse blew. We get some heavy power draw here, sometimes it surges. Anyway, this is the Armory R&D." She took a plastic keycard attached to a clip on her belt, holding it up to the magnetic reader. It beeped, turned green, and the door popped open.
The boy and the woman entered the R&D lab, closing the door quietly behind them. The boy looked around at the trappings of the area and whistled. "Whoa. Is that a firing range?" He pointed at the end of the length of the lab, at an area cordoned off by red-and-white striped caution tape. Mannequins, some with bulletholes, were lined up against the wall.
"Well, Mr. Oroku wants to make sure our armor can withstand anything. Current test ratings hold up against an M4 carbine, in a full clip too. We were pretty proud of that–his chestplate is bulletproof."
"His?"
The woman smiled proudly. "The Foot Clan's pretty proud of the fact that our leader isn't one to shy away from the front lines. Where he goes, we follow. This is his." She gestured to the armor on the mannequin stand. "The Oni 4.0. We're working on 4.1."
The boy stepped forward, peering curiously at it. His fingers traced an empty slot in the chestplate. He pointed. "What's supposed to fit here?"
"Oh, that?" The woman beamed. "That's an emergency medical reservoir. We use a proprietary contact IV technology that's built into the chestplate. We've recently discovered a chemical compound that can instantaneously heal grievous wounds, and we're integrating it into the prototype." She opened a heavy cabinet, and withdrew a small tray of test tubes. Each one was small, the size of a human's middle finger, and filled with a pale yellow liquid. "I'm not sure about the chem profile behind these puppies–that's classified, even to me–but this is the juice."
The boy removed one of the vials, palming it in his hand. "It's warm."
"Incubator. It needs to be kept at body temp, or else it degrades. Something to do with how it's processed. You wanna see the JPL? We're working on new upgrades to the Tengu propulsion system. We have some motion capture footage from Xanatos Enterprises that I think you'll find very, very fascinating. Like nothing you've seen on earth before."
The boy's eyes lit up. "Sure, I'd love to!" He trailed the woman in the labcoat out of the lab, closing the door behind them.
Leonardo dropped from the ceiling. This is bad news. He thought. Shredder, recovering from his injuries mid-fight? He looked at the armor. Hate and fear circled each other in his throat, like wolves in a pit. He cast a glance at the tray of vials and at the wall of servers in the lab.
The empty helmet of the Shredder leered at him. Leonardo blinked, trying to rub a hallucination out of his eyes. Fire. Eyes full of hate, full of fire. Fire, falling around them. April screaming. Raph screaming. His screaming. His shell ached, every nerve in his broken carapace awake and vibrating. He felt nauseous, he felt afraid, he felt angry, he felt like he wanted to teleport. If he could vanish, and reappear anywhere, anywhere, anywhere, he'd be in Master Splinter's arms, sobbing.
Keep it down. Keep it in. You can't crack. Not here. God, not here.
Be brave.
Be like April.
Goliath tapped a foot impatiently. What was taking him so long? He said he'd be brief. He pushed the elevator open again as it began to close, the door beginning to beep and whine insistently. It tried to crawl shut, a little more forcefully, as though it no longer wished to be polite in its urgency.
He didn't hear or see Leonardo until he was an arm's length away. "Goliath?"
He jumped at the sound. "Leonardo?" He hissed.
"We got what we came for, let's get out of here." He slipped into the elevator, and Goliath removed his foot. The door slowly crawled shut, sealing them in the darkness. Goliath's eyes, glowing white, provided only the faintest light for them to see by.
Goliath's nightvision was good. Just good enough to see red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. He frowned, uttering a thoughtful growl. "You seem unwell."
"I'm fine."
A lie. But I will not press. He decided.
Leonardo tapped the 40th floor button with his elbow pad. It blinked on, a friendly little yellow circle. The elevator started to rise. The noise was much louder than Leonardo thought it would be, the creak and the whine more intense. He looked nervously at the bent metal floor panel, like the dog-eared corner of a book, worried it would give way beneath their combined weight.
He wasn't worried enough about the one thing they had both forgotten.
The door dinged open, too early. Panic rose, a look of fear exchanged between them, as the door opened on the 18th floor. Too late to hide, nowhere to run, they stood exposed. Before them two Foot ninja, bug-like eye lenses glinting, took a surprised step back.
"What the hell?!"
"Hey, fellas." Leonardo waved. "Going up?"
Goliath lunged with a snarl, grabbing both men by their heads and slamming them together like cymbals. They barely had time to cry out before they sank to the floor in a crumpled heap. He turned. "We shall have to exit from this floor. Come!"
"I thought you could only glide!" Leo protested, "Don't we need to be higher up?"
"Desperation is a cruel mistress." Goliath rounded the corner, Leonardo close on his heels.
"Trust me–I'm familiar with the bitch, and we aren't on good terms."
There were no windows in this area, and its construction was labyrinthine. Twists and turns, doors and doors, it was as if there was no end to the identical halls. The lights turned red, a klaxon alarm began to blare.
Leo groaned. He drew his long sword, holding it tightly in one hand. "Hard way it is, then!"
The hallway lights glowed red, casting the world in hues of black and blood. Thunder filled the corridors, countless footfalls making the very floor shake. They ran, whipping around corners, desperately following the hopeful green glow of each Exit sign. There was the window–and between them and escape was an army of ninjas.
They scattered down the hall like leaves blown in a breeze, rushing in to close on them. Leonardo met one sword with his own, blocking a cut and returning with a knee to the gut. His eyes widened. Armor? Under their shozoku?
Beside him, Goliath swept his tail in a circle, knocking down several Foot at once, throwing them into the fragile drywall. There was the electronic chirp and twitter of a machine dying as he drove a fist down on top of the head of a ninja, its metal skull sinking into its chest cavity. It staggered, arms fluttering for a moment, oil spilling from the wound, before sinking to the floor. Sparks crackled in the hole that was once its neck.
"Robots?!" Leonardo stared in disbelief. "Seriously?! That is so cheating!"
"You were–" Goliath grunted as he blocked a blow with his forearm. "–informed of this!"
"I was, yeah!" Leonardo leapt with a barked ki-ya! A split kick like the crack of a green whip snapped the heads of two foes, sending them to ground. He recovered with a somersault, diving between the legs of one foe, and swinging up into a kip-up, legs connecting and locking around his foe's neck. "I can still be surprised!" With a twist of his hips, he cracked the robot's spine and hurled his foe to the floor.
Goliath snarled, four ninjas dogpiling him. Two, three, five more piled on top of him. Leonardo found himself being backed down into the hall. He grit his teeth, drawing his companion sword as he tried to defend himself against this blistering onslaught, surrounded by a cloud of stinging blades and black shapes. Down the hall, boxing them in, reinforcements came closer.
"More Foot bots, incoming!" Leonardo called.
Goliath rumbled, like a volcano about to erupt. His roar felt as if it could shake the very building, as he rose to his feet, wings splayed wide, throwing iron soldiers in every direction. He dropped to his fours, leaping over their heads, kicking off from the wall, and touching down on the other side of the clot of foes. He reached Leonardo's side, pressing his back to his shell, facing the incoming army.
Leonardo shivered. The air felt colder. The cracks of his shell tingled, and his gut dropped. "Goliath, we need to go now."
"Victory is near, we can destroy them!" Goliath lowered his head, spread his arms, and charged, driving back a knot of automatons.
Leonardo desperately tried to grab Goliath's shoulder. "No, you don't understand, he's coming! I can sense it, he's coming!"
"Whom?"
A low, dark laugh echoed down the hall. "So… you did survive, Leonardo."
Leonardo froze. His heart stopped, his muscles losing strength.
"I underestimated you." The clank of each footstep, slow and deliberate, "A mistake I intend to correct!"
The sound. The sound that filled his nightmares, the sound of steel sliding on steel. The sound of his spring-loaded tekko-kagi sliding out of their sheath. The sound he heard before he…
Shredder stood at the end of the hall. His armor was dark steel, bristling with claw-like blades that ran across his shoulders, down his arms, his thighs, his shins. Three curved blades, like the horns of a demon, curled from his kabuto. He lifted one bladed gauntlet, and pointed. The army advanced, and Leonardo felt his fear steal the power from his limbs.
I can't move.
The Shredder's eyes glowed red behind his helmet. Fire. Fire and hatred.
I'm going to die.
He felt a powerful arm envelop him, darkness closing over his head. He smelled concrete and leather, blood and sweat. Moving. He was moving. He heard things crashing, things breaking, but they were distant. His blood throbbed in his ears, heart pounding on the walls of his shell.
He heard the shatter of glass, the sound of wings opening, felt the wind like an arctic blast shock him awake. The gold and red river of the road lit them from below as Goliath swooped through the canyon between skyscrapers. He heard the pop and snap of gunfire, felt the world lurch as Goliath dove and twisted, rolled and climbed to evade fire.
And all he could do was hold on.
The gunsmoke in the air made his nostrils sting. But it didn't sting nearly as much as the knowledge that one of his enemies had infiltrated his fortress, likely stolen and sabotaged valuable and important projects, and had escaped him.
With an angry growl, he marched back down the hallway, stepping over the torn and ruined shells of his mechanical army. He pressed his hand against a keypad, and it blinked green, permitting him inside one of the many offices on this floor. With carefully tempered anger, he removed his helmet, and picked up the phone on the desk. He dialed an extension, and waited for the tone.
"Yes?"
"Contact Draxum. I need a conference."