BUZZ BUZZ Once There Was...

“We’ll figure that out later—“ The shouting in the alleyway below picked up. More search lamps were lit. The reflected shine spilled over onto the roof, and the turtles shifted nervously as they cast shadows of their own. Leonardo frowned. “Sounds like they found something. Mike? Check it out.”

Mike moved to the lip of the building, silently signing to Leonardo. No one was headed upwards yet.

Donatello nodded and spoke quietly, “Probably where Raph climbed to the roof. He’s bleeding. He may have left a trail.” Over near the edge, Mike rubbed his own arms. Raphael had all his clothes now. He looked to Leonardo, hoping for a plan that would get them all moving again.

Leonardo did not disappoint. “Yeah. Let’s get him out of here. Don. Give me your net and climbing cord. We’re gonna make a sling and you’re gonna carry him. You think you can?”

‘He’s kidding. There’s no way!’ Donatello smothered his initial reaction. Logic and reason would have to take a back seat. His family needed him; no matter what Leo asked of him, he would do it. “Sure. No Problem.”

Leonardo wove the climbing cord under through portions of the netting, and got Don’s help wrapping it around Raph’s lower carapace. Mike lifted Raph and Leo strapped his brother to Don’s shell the best he could. “Don. You’re not going to be able to defend yourself. Just get Raph to the van. I won’t let anyone who sees you raise alarm.” Donatello nodded and shifted Raph’s weight, leaning forward to keep his balance. Leonardo turned to Mike. “They’re looking for a turtle. Give me your gear. Keep your weapons and your communicator. Draw them off. Make it loud.” Mike’s mouth made a grim line and he flashed a thumps up. Mike was all for it. “Just give us 15 minutes, then join us at the van. Casey’ll have it at the edge of Kissena Park.”

Mike, naked as his brother had been, disappeared over the dark sided edge of the roof and into the fog.

Donatello grimaced as Raphael’s weight pulled on him. The climbing rope was already cutting off his circulation. He wrapped an arm under each of Raph’s legs, supporting his mass piggyback style. It helped—a little. Leonardo drew a single katana and waited for Mike to get rid of the witnesses.


“I know it’s still inside these 12 blocks! No, I will not call the dogs in. Resume your search and recover your grid unit. It’s gone to ground!” Sergeant Ralston holstered his handheld radio and turned back to survey the situation. He had fifteen teams of men, each comprised of three ground personnel with two german shepherd trackers and their handlers. They had secured twelve square blocks of ghettos. Overkill and a half considering he had been assured by his employers that the missing lab specimen could be subdued by a maximum of five men.

They insisted the specimen had a tracker embedded in it—accurate up to 2 blocks. They swore the specimen had been drugged and subjected to behavioral controls. According to his superiors, he and his men would have a harder time gearing up than they would of retrieving the lost animal. Almost an hour after his pager had sounded, he and 75 men with 30 dogs had yet to locate a 150-pound ‘specimen.’

The dog-handlers had found something in this alley: a bloody bottle. The german shepherds were now nuzzling aside piles of trash by the opposite wall. Their handlers kept their flashlights trained in the mess. Officer Tan picked up something that glittered from the pile of old leaves, newspapers, cans and fast food wrappers.

“Shit.” Sergeant Ralston reached for his radio. It had ripped out its tracker. That meant two things: it was intelligent and it could be almost anywhere. “All units! Be advised. Scenario—OOF!”

A wet crack echoed sharply off the brick. Sergeant Ralston’s radio spun out of his hand and clattered across the sidewalk. Sergeant Ralston’s body hit the ground. Both dogs went ballistic, jerking on their leads. The handlers pulled back on the leashes, trying to contain their dogs and locate the attacker.

Officer Tan took two steps towards his fallen superior when a ripping snap twisted his right arm violently towards his back. “AOW!” He had time for a disbelieving exclamation of pain before he took a second blow across his face, dislocating his jaw and rocketing his head to the side. He toppled over on the spot.

“SHIT!” One of the german shepherds jerked its leash out of its handler’s hand. Snarling and barking, it leapt towards a dark patch in the fog just beyond the floodlight. Simultaneously, another of the ground personnel fired their gun wildly at the same shape, shattering the light. The dog yelped shrilly in sudden pain. “There it—FUCK!” Plunged into darkness, the whole alley reverberated with shouting. The dogs barked and bayed, calling to the other searchers. The remains of the attacked group shouted into their radios. One block down, the sharp expletives and gunshots attested that the ‘specimen’ had moved onward.

“ALL UNITS! Specimen found. HIGHLY DANGEROUS! Two men down! One dog down! Ambulance to grid unit B8! Specimen headed north, grid unit B9!” Dark uniformed men drew their guns and left the now dog-less handler to deal with the dead and wounded. Feet pounded, bouncing the sound up and down the narrow back streets as the search units converged, all heading for the next block up.

“That’s our cue.” Leonardo looked back at his brothers, one struggling to stay balanced and the other lolling nonresponsively against his shoulder. For both their sakes he would lead them straight to the van. He gestured at the edge of the roof, indicating the place where the fire escape met the wall. He surveyed the now empty alley. All clear. Leonardo descended the fire escape with Donatello awkwardly following. Raphael’s weight completely negated Donatello’s stealth, but Leonardo ghosted ahead. The occasional thud of a fallen body or the slick wet sound that preceded it were the only clues to his passage.


Three blocks up, Michaelangelo flinched as his nunchuku splintered the skull of the german shepherd snapping at his heels. Dogs. Why DOGS? He could handle killing humans. There was righteous rage there. These men had taken his brother from him. They had tortured his brother. They would kill his entire family without thought. They were shooting at him! Taking the men out was not only a necessity, but a just action. The dogs though… The dogs were doing what they were trained to do. They were hunting, biting, barking, snapping, tearing, and attacking the target. They were faster than the humans, and smarter than the bullets fired through the fog. One of them had bitten him on the back of the leg. It wouldn’t ever walk again, but Mike did not have time for guilt.

He vaulted a low wall, happy to put the brick and mortar between himself and any stray bullets. Sweat stung his eyes and he wiped it away. How far back were the humans? He had had to stay ahead of the dogs and bullets, but he could not afford to lose his pursuers. If he did, they may begin to search again, and that could leave Don, Raph, and Leo in the open. Yet Mike could not let them circle around him either. If he got boxed in, it would take even longer for them to get Raphael home.

The fog swirled and the wind whistled between the buildings, but the dogs had fallen silent. The humans were no longer shouting. The sudden quiet prickled at Mike’s skin. No more gun shots. No more squawking radios. No more footsteps.

Recognizing the sudden silence as a bad sign, Michaelangelo held his nunchukus firmly in one hand. He used window ledges and a drainpipe to shimmy up the darkened side of the building with the low wall. Once on the roof, he took stock of the situation. The men had pulled back, many still in the alleyways between himself and Kissena Park, but the majority swarmed a van parked just to the outside of the barricade. For a moment, Mike’s heart stopped. Where was Casey’s van?! Even as his adrenaline spiked sharply, he saw the glint of reflective paint. It was an official van. Police or security force or something. He wished he had some of Donatello’s goggles. He winced as the dog bite pulled painfully and wished for some bandages as well.

Mike reviewed his options. He was tiring, cold, and due at the park in 5 minutes or so. He could start making his way back by the ground and deal with any remaining witnesses—scratch that! His eyes widened. Three more vans pulled up! Who were these people?! One turtle versus against every rent-a-cop in the state were not good odds. He’d been lucky so far. The men had been less likely to shoot when the dogs were involved. Still! Dogs or no dogs, that many cops and guns made bad news. It was time to get out of Dodge!


Leonardo wiped the blood off his katanas on his pant leg. He sheathed the swords and ignored the way the new wet patches on his jeans clung to his skin. “C’mon Don. Turn around, I’ll untie you two and Casey and I can lower Raph into the van.”

“You’re going to have to cut the rope, Leo. Those knots have pulled tight.” Donatello backed towards the open doors of the van awkwardly. His arms hung limp at his side. He’d lost circulation in them ten minutes into carrying Raphael. Raph’s legs dangled unsupported downward, tangling occasionally with Donatello’s feet.

“Don’ worry ‘bout it Don. You found’im! God. He looks like complete shit! What the hell kinda assholes had’im?! Where WAS he?” Casey’s face was thunderheads. Whoever had done this to Raphael was in for a world of hurt.

“We don’t know right now, Casey. Just please. Help me.” Leonardo passed Casey one of his throwing knives. “Cut Raph down. Just don’t nick Donatello.” Casey grunted. He was better with a knife than that. One, two, three-four. The netting and climbing rope popped and unwound, and after an eternity of standing on the street, visible to anyone passing by, Raphael’s body slumped down towards the bumper. “Okay Casey, gently now. On the count of three. One. Two. Mike?!”

Michaelangelo nearly bowled into his brothers. His eyes were huge and his breathing came in gulps. “Van! NOW!” He leapt into the van, rocking the vehicle on its shocks. He reached out and gripping Raphael, hauled on the two conjoined brothers. Donatello squawked and fell backwards. If not for Leonardo and Casey, he would have landed on Raph. As it was, Mike was jerking Raphael backwards over the bumper and into the van.

“Mike?! What the HELL?!” Leonardo helped Donatello upright and led him to follow Mike and Raph into the van.

“Casey! Go! Front seat! DRIVE!” Mike looked desperate and Casey did not stop to ask questions. Once Donatello had been loaded into the van, Leo joined his brothers and slammed the door behind them.

“Mike? What did you see? What did you DO?” Leo scanned his brother for bullet holes or open wounds. Something on Michaelangelo was bleeding. It left streaks on the upholstery. April would not be pleased.

Michealangelo lowered his head into shaking hands, cradling Raphael’s head in his lap. “I dunno WHO Raphael ticked off, but the place is swarming now! We gotta get outta here and through the Queens tunnel before we get pulled over and searched. All that gunfire? All those dead people? I know I took out… plenty. And I saw what you did on the way back, Leo.” There was no accusation in Mike’s tone. Humans were disposable if it meant saving his brother. Casey pulled into traffic, merging as though he had every right to be there. Mike amended his thought. Humans that weren’t best friends sworn to secrecy were disposable. “Three more paddy wagons of non-police men showed up. Heck, maybe it was the real police! By the time we finished in there, the 911 board should have been flooded. We’ll be lucky to get out of Flushing without being strip searched!”

Leonardo paled. That many humans? All hunting for his family? When they were young, his tiny clan had fought the Foot. Many of the Foot were sentenced to jail time, many simply got absorbed by smaller gangs. As a result, ‘giant kung-fu turtles’ were an accepted urban legend among street thugs. Then there had been one terrible encounter with a photographer at a dance club. Over the years, Leonardo came to realize just how reckless that had been. They’d undone a decade of secrecy with one snapshot. The photo had appeared on the front page of an entertainment paper. Not many people took it seriously—but there were now plenty of occult and supernatural enthusiasts who insisted that these giant turtles were real.

In the years since the photo incident, the turtle clan had kept a much lower profile and whispers of their existence had died away until they had become myth. But this? If all those men were hunting for Raphael? The existence of the turtles may have just become fact. Would there be police search points along the road? Would there be military men in the sewers? Would he and his family end up taken back to wherever Raphael had just come from?

Forcibly distracting himself, Leonardo turned to Mike. “What’s bleeding on you?” Leo pulled off his own bandana, ready to bind Mike’s wound.

“What? Oh. Right.” Mike shifted a little bit, but refused to move Raph’s head out of his lap. “Here, back of my calf. Dog.” He extended the leg towards Leonardo, but his attention was on Raphael.

“Mike? How’re you doing? Are you cold?” Donatello did not wait for Michaelangelo to answer him. “Casey? Can you turn up the heater, please? Raphael’s body temperature is still way below normal. And Mike’s not got a coat.” Donatello had not moved to touch or exam Raphael yet. It struck Leo as odd, but he finished tying his bandana around Mike’s shin. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but if Mike started moving, it would no doubt open up again. His eyes returned to Donatello. He looked pained and still had not moved.

“Don? What’s wrong?” His brother startled and stared at him for a moment before he began to run through the list of answers.

“He’s too cold. He’s probably exhausted. He’s lost blood, though I don’t know how much. Just from the way his face looks, I’d say he’s malnourished. Anything else, will have to wait until after we’ve got him home.” He fell silent and closed his eyes tightly. Feeling was returning to his arms with sharp pins and needles.

“Not Raphael. You. What’s wrong?” Leo’s look of concern greeted him when he opened his eyes.

“Oh. Just blood returning. I’ll be able to move my hands again by the time we get home.” Leonardo’s gaze dropped to Donatello’s hands and his brow furrowed. “It’ll be okay, Leo. Really. Fuss on Mike for a bit. He could probably stand to borrow your coat.”

Leo could take a hint and left Donatello alone. “Here Mike, bundle up.” He spread his coat around Mike’s clammy shoulders. He breathed a sigh of relief when the strobing lights of the Queens Midtown tunnel played over the windows of the van. No roadblocks. The clan would just have to be extra careful from now on.






So, I went back to when I started disliking what i was writing yesterday and added some stuff. It hit me in the middle of the night that there's no way the turtles would have neglected to post at least ONE look-out while surrounded by hordes of humans, all hunting for them. So that got added. I fixed up the sound effects so that they were part of text and a larger picture.

I worry that once again, I lost track of the fog. I worry that I've skimped on what should have been massively visceral reactions. I feel like the characters are flat and the adrenaline peeters out before the chapter is over.

But. All of that is for my editor to help me with. the point is that i WROTE. And HAVING something to edit is the goal! :D Huzzah! Tomorrow we start on Chapter 2!! ...i have to look at my outline and figure out what's IN chapter 2...

but first, BED! :D

and my spiffy graphy thingy: