Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ 3 Weeks ❯ 8 ( Chapter 8 )

I can't believe it! I have more than 20 reviews! That's, like, a huge deal to me. So thank you guys for taking the time, really! *applause and the passing out of party snacks*

 

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a party to get back to.

 

It's coming along surprisingly fast to me. Not in a rushed way, but a can't-stop-writing way. This chapter, we're cutting back a little. Time to join up with Casey Jones again. Err, a bit more foul language than I've previously used, perhaps. Lol, heads up, right?

 

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He'd taken his usual route through town. It wasn't the most active night, overall. No muggings, no carjackings, no old grudges to play up...Unusually quiet. Raph'd be dying of boredom by now, Casey thought with a wave of old exasperation, coming to a stop on the nearest roof. Hell, he was dying of boredom right now. But leaving wasn't an option while his pal was still out of the picture. All he needed was one good fight. Just a couple of guys to `interrogate.' He found himself wondering if Leo did any `interrogating' on his patrols. Didn't seem like him, not with his whole `honor and morals', boy scout take on things. Of course, he'd been more than willing to get in Casey's face earlier. It wouldn't be the first time one of the turtles surprised him.

 

Like the time he'd been out with Raph and gotten them into a huge throwdown with about 50 purple dragons. Not quite as many as they were used to, but still manageable. Or they had been, until Raph pushed him out of the way of a club and took a massive hit to the head. As if it wasn't bad enough that he had a huge cut across his right leg. They'd managed to get out of there (God only knew how, Casey thought, shaking his head), but then Casey'd had to walk a bleeding, heavily concussed Raphael back to the lair.

 

Well, it had started out as walking. Soon to turn into dragging. How the hell was he supposed to keep the only guy on the planet as stubborn as he was awake when he didn't wanna be? It was like asking a brick wall to please move outta the way: didn't matter how hard you tried, it just wasn't gonna happen.

 

Needless to say, the others had been royally pissed. Especially Leo. And Splinter. And Mikey. But they had nothing on a violent Donatello. The normally pacifistic turtle, once he'd looked Raph over, had given him a thorough beatdown, spouting off about how stupid it had been to take on so many guys, and why the hell hadn't he kept Raph awake, and why hadn't he just called him to pick them up instead of walking to the lair while the other turtle was losing blood, or just plain called for backup? There'd then been a good bit about how concussions were serious things, not to mention blood loss, followed by a very serious threatening of his well-being.

 

Don's exact words had been: “If he ends up in a coma, if he's anything less than his normal self when he wakes up, you better pray you have a place to hide out where I won't be able to track you down via satellite, because I will be on your ass so fast you won't know what hit you!”

Mikey stood off to the side and cheered his brother on (turned out he was just waiting his turn for a ride on the vigilante-beating train: and what a ride it had been) while Splinter and Leo retreated to the infirmary to keep an eye on Raph (the lectures came later, and Casey wondered which set of relatives had been worse to deal with). Meaning: Casey was left basically alone and getting the shit beat out of him without a supervisor to intervene on his behalf. Lessons learned: never lose track of Raph in a fight, always, always, always call the guys when someone's hurt or in over their head, and NEVER get Donnie angry. Well, at least Raph came out of it alright.

 

Casey was snapped out of his - er, fond reminiscence by the roar of an engine on its last legs. He could hear gruff voices shouting and snapping at each other as they exited the vehicle. Heading in the direction of the disturbance, the vigilante soon found the source.

 

Taking a quick sweep of his surroundings, he counted three guys in all. Easing himself onto a nearby fire escape and preparing to jump, Casey smirked. They obviously weren't very experienced in the trade of breaking and entering. For starters, they'd pulled up behind the storage building in an old, painfully obvious pickup truck. The engine alone made enough noise to wake the dead. Then these three idiots attacked the lock on the back door with all the stealth of a wrecking ball, swearing and arguing the whole while. The vigilante shook his head: sometimes they just made it too easy.

 

Two of the men were trying to ease a heavy trunk through the door while the other `kept watch.' Another rookie mistake. Didn't they know that the more guys you had actually lifting the stuff, the more stuff you could lift? They'd at least had the foresight to wear decent masks. Nothin' on mine, though, Casey amended smugly. The scrawnier of the two lost his grip on the edge, sending it slamming down onto his foot. Letting out a screaming curse, he hopped away on one foot, leaving his buddy to struggle alone with the luggage. Needless to say, he couldn't hold it up.

 

“Damn it!” He shouted, letting it drop to the ground with a loud `thunk.' Turning on his heel, he faced the lookout angrily. “I thoughcho' said there was another guy comin'!” The lookout put his hands on his hips.

 

“I said there was s'posed ta be, ya jackass! His arm's still broke from the last job we landed! I told ya that!” The first man stopped hopping, leaning against the wall of the building and rubbing his sore foot. With a grunt, they got back to toting the stolen goods.

 

“How the hell'd he break his arm robbin' a joint? You guys run inta that freak in th' hockey mask?” He huffed. Casey froze before he jumped, always hoping to hear secondhand accounts of personal ass-beatings he'd handed out. The lookout snorted.

 

“Nah, least then he'da had an excuse fer gettin' his ass handed to `im. He was just bein' stupid: we was only s'posed ta corner some kinda animal. Like a, a big frog `r somethin', ya know?” The vigilante could feel his pulse speed up. No way...There was no way...Could it really be this easy?

 

“Yer shittin' me.”

“I ain't! Some stiff `r another hunts us down in our usual place, y'know, offers us like five grand ta help him corner this huge fuckin' thing he caught sight of, I dunno what it was, kinda looked like a lizard, right? So Ace, the idiot, takes a good swipe at it, just gets it completely pissed, and the thing breaks his arm! Jus' threw him like it was nothin'! And `cause he hurt it, the guy knocked off-”

 

He cut off with a grunt as Casey's hockey stick slammed into his gut. The other two dropped the trunk, froze for a few seconds, then took off in the other direction. Now, on any normal night, the hockey-mask wearing human would have chased them down. But there were more pressing matters at hand. He jerked the injured man up by the front of his shirt with a growl, even as part of his mind reeled violently.

 

“H-hey! What're ya-? Ya can't just-” the criminal stuttered, struggling violently. Casey shook him before slamming him up against the building wall. The struggling quieted down immediately.

 

“Listen up and listen good, punk, yer gonna answer a few questions and yer gonna do it fast, `r else someone's gonna get hurt. Two guesses ta who that'll be. Got me?” He hissed, eyes attempting to burn holes through the man's head.

 

“Y-yeah, I got it, w-whatever ya say-” the man fumbled desperately. They were almost always yellow in the end, the vigilante considered bitterly.

 

“Yer last job - the one ya were fillin' yer little buddies in on. I wanna know details.”

 

“L-like what?” Casey thought for a moment.

 

“This thing ya were chasin' down - ya said it was like a big lizard. Green? Red mask? Trained ta fight?” He asked roughly. His captive nodded vigorously.

 

“Y-yeah. That's it. Threw Ace `cross the roof. Broke his arm.”

 

“Heard that part. Yer lucky Ace didn't get a helluva lot worse. What happened after that? How'd ya bring it down?” Casey asked urgently, wanting to throw himself in front of a speeding vehicle for referring to his best friend as an `it.' If Raph could hear him now, he'd be on him so fast that Casey doubted even Leo would be able to intervene. It was one thing to call each other names like `puke-face' and `moron.' Calling Raph or the guys animals was like sticking a human in a cage at the zoo. But letting this guy in on the fact that the turtle he'd taken down was anything more than that would just be asking for trouble.

 

“The guy - th' one that hired us - he gave us tranqs ta use once we made it where we was s'posed ta get to.”

 

“Was he there with ya? Ta move it?” Another series of frantic nods. “Where'd he take it?”

 

“I-I dunno, he jus' needed our help gettin' the thing inta th' trailer-”

 

“You better not be tryin' ta pull somethin', cause if it turns out ya know where he went-”

 

“N-no! I swear, it's the truth! We helped `im get it down from the roof, that's all! He paid us an' we left! Knocked off a thousand fer gettin' it hurt-” Casey growled again, and the criminal flinched slightly. “W-why d'ya care so much what happened to it? It yer pet `r somethin'? Cause I swear I wouldn'ta took the job if I knew-”

 

“PET? MY PET?” The vigilante screamed in full-blown outrage, giving the guy a good whack across the face. “THAT THING YOU HUNTED DOWN'S A HELLUVA LOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOME PET, YOU SICK LITTLE-” He cut himself off, struggling valiantly to bring his temper under control. Breath hurled in and out, uneven and ragged, eyes oozing no less than the utmost hatred. This was probably the biggest lead they were likely to get. Giving this guy the beat-down he deserved would have to take a backseat on his priorities list. Casey's head snapped up: he could hear sirens in the distance.

 

Shit. He turned back to the criminal in his grasp hurriedly.

 

“Looks like our little meetin's gonna be interrupted soon,” he hissed intimidatingly. “So I got one last question fer ya, and ya better pray ta God you know the answer.”

 

“I-I-” The captive stuttered, eyes darting towards the alley entrance. It gave Casey a small smug burst of pride. Wasn't often he could get the dirtbags to wish for the cops so openly. He shook him again, and the eyes shot back up.

 

“The guy that hired ya- What was his name?” Relief visibly passed through the other man, who proceeded to sing like a canary. Mentally, Casey roared in celebration as he carefully locked the name into his memory.

 

He had to remember this. If he got hit by a truck on the way to April's and forgot half of his childhood in the process, he had to make sure to remember this. Satisfied, the vigilante dropped the criminal to the alley floor and started to turn away. He paused for a moment, deliberated, then turned around again and hit the guy with so much force that the hockey stick snapped in half. The criminal sank to the ground immediately.

 

“Pet, my ass,” the vigilante muttered, leaping up onto the fire escape just in time to avoid the flashing red and blue lights coming from around front. His heart accelerated as he made his way across the rooftops towards April's place. He'd gotten a name. A definite lead. Stumbling a little, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and flipped it open to call Leo.

 

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Ok, it's not the best of the best. And decidedly lacking in the introspection department. But it is one of those chapters that I thought was needed to keep the plot on a roll. Besides, too much thinking can be bad for ya. This is where a particularly scribbly note on my Paper O' Planning led me, and I'm sticking with the method. Sorry, I'm rambling. Any thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Reviews are a request, not a demand. As long as you read.