Saying nothing, the Foot advanced like a swarming mass of insects. Without warning there was a flurry of action. A brick was thrown and came whizzing across both of our heads. I dropped to my knees, avoiding its deadly path, and looked to Michaelangelo, who’s head had disappeared into his shell. The brick bounced harmlessly to the ground.
Of course! I hadn’t thought of that! Not that it would have mattered much, the brick still missed, but it might come in useful. There were some thing’s about being a turtle it would take a long time to get used to.
I changed my attention back to the more important matter at hand. Michaelangelo and I were set upon by about seven people who yanked our disguises off, tearing the material. However these ‘Foot’ members didn’t appear to want to do physical damage to us at this point.
“Hey! I hope you’re gonna replace those, dudes!” exclaimed Mikey, planting a kick in the middle of the nearest attacker and swiping his Katana’s. “Don’t I mind if I borrow these do you?” he asked. The Foot member just groaned, clutching his stomach. Mike handed me one of the blades. “Prezzy!” he grinned.
“Why thanks!” I smile back, raising the Katana to block an attack from a Foot armed with a Bo-staff which was aimed at my head. How come they wanted our disguises off? The only plausible explanation I could think of was that they wanted to be sure they were attacking the right people.
The light-hearted attitude that Mike and I had at the moment was quickly shattered as more Foot members arrived and managed to separate Mike and I up. I was backed up against a wall and although I managed to take out a couple more members, I knew that eventually I would be overpowered.
Without warning my wrists were grabbed and I was tugged away from the wall which was my only real defense. Someone grabbed me round the neck from behind and hung on.
I tried to call out to Mikey for help, but I saw Michaelangelo had his hands full with his share of Foot members. Making small strangled noises, I raised my hands to my neck, dropping the Katana. My left wrist was grabbed and yanked away from my body, pulling my arm straight. Everything was starting to go dark as the Oxygen my brain required was being deprived. Without warning a sharp stab of pain went into my shoulder and the pressure round my neck was released.
I yelped and dropped to the ground as my legs were knocked from under me. I dizzily looked up into the mass of people standing over me. One of them was holding an syringe. I could made a fairly good guess that the liquid which had once filled it was even now being pumped around my body.
"Whaaaa...?" My tongue felt like a lump of lead and I could feel my head starting to throb.
"Present from Master Shredder." the Foot member declared.
Was it poison? My mind screamed out as I struggled to keep my eyes open.
A blow to the back of my head had enough force to knock me into murky unconsciousness and I remembered nothing more of the fight.
My dark dreams were disturbed by unfamiliar voices speaking around me. As the fog continued to slowly clear from around my brain, I became aware that my wrists were tied behind my back and I was hunched over with the back of my shell resting against a wall.
Slowly opening my eyes, I looked blearily round at my surroundings. The more I looked, the more in focus everything became.
It took a while for what I saw to comprehend and I realized, to my horror, that I was in some kind of cage.
The cage had concrete walls on three sides and bars at the front, it was only a metre across and about two metres long. It reminded me of when sick dogs are kept in the vets. In fact the more I listened, the more aware I became of the sounds of other animals. At this point someone noticed that I was moving and aware of where I was.
"Its awake." he said to his companion. ''I'll go and get master Shredder."
The person who spoke left the room swiftly. I wondered what had happened to Mikey. Had the Foot got him too? Or did he escape?
The remaining person headed towards the cell in which I was contained and leant on the bars.
He examined me with his eyes whilst I continually glared at him.
''We were told that you were all male.'' he announced, watching to see if I reacted in anyway.
''So has one of you always been female, or are you a fifth mutant?''
Again, I failed to reply. I wondered briefly how they had managed to identify my sex. Feeling slightly nauseous, I forced myself not to think about it. The Foot scientist appeared to bore with the one sided conversation.
''Don't worry turtle, Shredder will loosen your tongue.'' he said, stalking back to his experiments.
It was only a couple of minutes later that I heard the steady clomp of heavy foot steps outside the door. The door was opened painfully slowly revealing a male wrapped in a large cloak with metal prongs attached to the shoulders.
A metal helmet with a mesh mask covered his face and the heavy breathing reminded me of Darth Vader, except that this wasn’t a SCI-fi movie. This was real.
He walked over to my cage and I could see his eyes narrow.
''So. There are more all you.'' he rasped. I said nothing, but stared sullenly towards him.
''Where are the others?'' the Shredder questioned, his voice fearfully quiet. I still said nothing. Even if I had wanted to talk, I doubt that I could have. My tongue felt like a piece of paper trapped between the guillotine of my teeth.
Shredder shifted his weight forwards and placed his hands on the bars before repeating the question, but this time louder and more angry. I refused to change my expression or react. This was a bad move and angered the Shredder further. Yanking the bar door off its hinges, he cast it behind him and then grasped my shoulders, lifting me off the ground. Shaking me violently he screamed...
“YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE THE OTHERS ARE!!!”
I spent about one second staring into his bloodshot eyes, which reminded me strongly of Raphael’s anger, before I let my muscles relax and dropped my head in a mock faint.
I heard the Shredder growl with anger and them he dropped me.
I landed heavily on my right ankle, twisting it painfully, but I managed to stop myself from crying out. I fell to one side, motionless.
“Continue with the experiments.” barked Shredder and I heard him stomp out of the doors. I then felt hands grasp the rim of my shell, just behind my neck and drag me back into a cell.
No sooner than I had been released, then I heard a loud commotion. Judging from the sounds I could hear, an animal had escaped and was causing havoc.
I heard the sound of breaking glass followed by the angry howls of a cat and the obscene language used by the Foot scientist. The cat was then thrown into the same cell as me before the door was slammed.
“Awwww shit, just look at this mess!” complained one of the men. “We’d better go get a mop and clear up.”
“We can also pick up those other chemicals from HQ while we’re out.” said the other.
“And how about picking up some lunch too?” was the last suggestion I heard.
I waited for a minute or so after the door had been closed to make sure the Foot had really gone. Once I was sure, I pulled myself into a sitting position with some minor difficulty due to my tied hands.
I glanced down at my ankle. It hurt like hell and was starting to swell slightly. I couldn’t tell whether it was broken or not though without being able to touch it, and I couldn’t do that with my wrists tied behind my back. I was hoping that the ankle was only twisted.
Using my other ankle I pushed myself up against the wall until I was in a sitting position. I rolled my head back and rested it on the smooth concrete wall. I gazed up at the ceiling and wondered what would happen next. Would I be rescued?
From what I could tell so far, Mikey hadn’t been caught. But I had no confirmation of that and I couldn’t prove anything. Maybe Don spotted the fight on his way back from Aprils and went to get help or something. Or maybe...
My thoughts were broken off by the cat, locked in the call with me, climbing up onto my plastron and head-butting my chin.
“Hi, Kitty!” I said, rubbing its head with my chin. “You a prisoner too, huh.” The cat proceeded to curl up on my knees.
It was only a fairly young cat, not quite fully grown, but not a kitten. A sort of teenage cat. It had soft white fur which almost looked slightly purple in places and fortunately the kitty appeared to like me. After about 20 seconds or so, it raised its head from my lap and glared at me as if to say ‘Why aren’t you stroking me then?’
“I would stroke you, Kitty.” I started in reply to the unspoken question, “But my hands are tied up, see, and I can’t move them.” The Kitty took one glance at me twitching my rope covered wrists about, before attacking the dangling piece of untied cord.
“Yiiiipppppee!” I called out in surprise as the cat’s claws sunk into my flesh. “Stop Kitty! Bad Kitty!” It paused and looked at me in a bemused sort of way. “That hurts!” I justified. The cat shot me a dirty look and stalked over to sit by the bars. I sighed and reclined back on the wall, wondering how long it would take for me to be either rescued, or killed.
I opened my eyes quickly as I realized that I must have fallen asleep. I looked round to see if anything had changed while I had been dozing. There didn’t seem to be anything until I glanced at the cat. I was sure it hadn’t been the deep lilac colour earlier. Not that deep anyway. It must have had something to do with one of those mixtures it knocked over. I decided.
“Poor Kitty.” I comforted, wishing I could stroke it. The Kitty just looked up at me with mournful eyes, before continuing to clean itself. There came a voice from the cell next to the one I was in.
“Andy? Is that you?!” asked Michaelangelo excitedly.
“Yes.” I replied, pulling myself more upright. Had Mikey been there since I was brought in? No, he couldn’t have. The cell he was in was the one Shredder had pulled the door off, from what I could see, it looked like the door had been fixed.
Mikey spoke again. “Are you okay?” he queried, concern full in his voice.
I glanced down at my ankle which was a beautiful range of blues and purples.
“Uh, well I’ve done something to my ankle, I don’t know how bad. And I have a few scrapes from the fight, but I’ll survive. What about you?”
“Well I reckon I’s got me a black eye.” he replied. I could almost hear his grin. “Those varmints which attacked us didn’t take ‘No’ for an answer.”
I giggled. “What about the rest of you? Is that okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” he stated, dropping the bad western accent. “But I’m trapped in this cell. What about you?”
“If I wasn’t trapped do you think I would still be here?” I asked jokingly. “Anyway, how do we get out of here?”
“With extreme difficulty.” said Mikey thoughtfully. “Geez I wish one of the others was here. Don, or Leo. Maybe even Raph.”
“Yeah.” I agreed. “Even Raph is less scary than that Shredder person.”
I heard Mikey take a sharp intake of breath.
“D, did you say Shredder?”
“Uh huh. Why?”
“But we killed him! He died, dead, deceased, finito.” wailed Michaelangelo.
“Who’s Shredder?” I asked. There was a dramatic pause.
“Your worst nightmare. And apparently we’re his prisoners.”