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"In this life we only have each other. If one of us goes down, we all go down. So focus."
- Hamato Leonardo
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Hamato Leonardo woke to the sounds of screaming. His blood ran cold before he even realized why: it was his brothers who were screaming. Leo's eyes snapped open to reveal his brothers chained next to each other across the room from him. There was an unfamiliar, suited man between them, taunting them. They saw his eyes opened and faced him with tortured expressions. The man turned to him with an evil smile. His brothers began shouting, called his name and yelling at the man.
"Leo!"
"Leave him alone!"
"Don't touch him!"
Leo stared at the man who now looked at him like a piece of meat. He realized that he felt very sore, looked down and was surprised to see blood, bruises, and abrasions covering his body. His eyes snapped towards his brothers, terrified that they too had been tortured. Their bodies were free of injuries, so some of his tension relieved itself, but judging by their faces he could tell that they had been tortured in an all-together different way. Leo could tell that it was going to be a long night. How the shell did such a good day get so bad so quickly?
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Chapter 1
In This Life
Four brothers ran across the rooftops of Brooklyn in the early evening, just as the sun was going down. Their colored bandanas whipped behind them as they hurried to get to their destination in time for sunset. The one in blue carried three boxes of pizza and multiple bags of soda, chips, and movies. The others were laughing and chasing him. They had arranged to meet at this spot, caught up to him as he was arriving, and were now racing him to it. He laughed, delighted at the chase, easily dodging their attempts to steal the boxes of pizza from his nimble hands. That is, until they decided to work together. The ones in red and purple ganged up on him, distracting him with easily avoided attacks while the one in orange snuck up and sneakily snagged one of the boxes.
"Awesome! Hawaiian, my favorite!!!" The thief shouted, delighted, as he peeked in the box amidst a cloud of delicious smelling steam.
"Mikey!" The one in blue whipped around, distracted and breathless with laughter, then whirled back around as the one in purple snagged a second box from his slackened grip.
"Yes! Veggie Delight, my favorite!" He said, eyes shinning with glee.
"Donny! Those are for later!" He cried in mock anger, just as the one in red pounced on him from behind and wrestled the third out of his hands, whipping the box open and cracking a huge grin as he saw a pizza so weighed down by pepperoni, ham, sausage, and onions that the box was in danger of caving in.
"Raph, come on!" He cried in exasperation.
"This is the meatiest Meat Lover's pizza ever…Awesome." Raph breathed, completely in awe by the plethora of meat piled on the pizza in his hands. He turned to his brother in blue, who now stood pizza-less. "Leo, you put like triple-extra meat on it. I didn't even know they did that!"
"You got all of our favorite kinds; you didn't even get one for yourself," Donny said sheepishly. Leo just smiled.
"You're the best big brother ever!" Mikey said, jumping around and around Leo and hugging the Hawaiian to his chest as he sneaked a peak into the bag of movies. "And our favorite movies too!" He added, ecstatic. Leo smirked, amused.
"I like all of your favorites and I felt like treating you guys. Now come on, it's best at sunset!" Leo began the chase all over again, running more quickly without the pizzas weighing him down, his brothers now slowed by the pizza in their hands. He got their first. His brothers caught up with him, one by one, breathlessly setting the pizza down without really looking at the sky, but then rising slowly, eyes fixed upon the horizon where Leo gazed, silhouetted by the sunset and next to the American flag. They stood on the middle tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, facing the sunset against the New York City horizon. They could see for miles, and they had never seen such a beautiful sunset. They didn't get to see many due to their mutant-exile status and the whole living-underground-thing, so they really appreciated the beauty. They just stood and stared at it for a while, drinking it in. Leo smiled, seeing how relaxed his brothers were as they finally sat down, feet swinging off the side of the tower balcony, munching on their favorite pizzas.
"This is really nice Leo," Donny said simply, smiling as he took another bite.
"Mumph…yeah…mmff…this is awesome!" Mikey muttered, swallowing before peeling a pineapple off of his pizza and popping it into his mouth. Raph just grunted in ecstasy, leaning against the tower with an arm behind his head, head dipped back to take a bite from the slice of pizza he held above his head, eyes closed against the golden-pink light of the lowering sun. Leo smiled as he ate a piece of Donny's Veggie Delight, seeing how happy and content his brothers were.
"Just wait, you haven't seen anything yet," He chuckled, pointing towards the just visible stars as the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the horizon. His brothers looked up to where he was pointing in sync, as if they'd rehearsed it, just in time to see the very first shooting star. They missed the rest of the meteor shower, however, when they were distracted by the altogether more interesting dart now sticking out of Leo's jugular. Leo was just raising his hand to pull the dart out when another lodged itself into the vein in his antecubital fossa (elbow pit). He staggered a bit, his brothers looking on in horror as he began to topple over the edge.
"LEO!" Raph cried, leaping forward just in time to pull his brother back from over the edge. Donny and Mikey helped him to steady Leo, looking around desperately for their attacker.
"We have to get him down. If any of us get shot we could drop him or even all fall off. Come on!" Donny shouted, helping Mikey to guide Leo down into Raph's waiting arms on the ladder. They rushed down the ladder, unmolested until they were only ten feet from the bridge. Then the darts started flying. These were smaller, and while they were each hit, they made it to the bridge and hit the ground running, Leo out cold in their arms. They made it to the Manhattan side before they succumbed to the darts' soporific effect, falling to their knees under Leo's dead weight and looking up in trepidation as figures began emerging out of the surrounding shadows. One man stepped forward in front and center of the rest, dressed in a gray suit, with his arms folded behind his back. He addressed the turtles.
"My name is Colonel William Stryker. I am a military scientist studying mutants and aliens for a, how should I say it, covert government agency known as the E.P.A. I believe you are already acquainted with the E.P.A. and its Agent Bishop, are you not?" Stryker grinned evilly, seeing the narrowed eyes and hisses that accompanied that name. "Ah yes, I believe you have been captured by Agent Bishop before. Unfortunately, Bishop's ineptitude resulted in your subsequent escape. Almost no new information was gathered about you. Nothing that interested the rest of the E.P.A., but there was one thing that interested me: your family dynamics and hierarchical system. Your big brother and leader, in short, our Leonardo," he purred, gesturing to their unconscious brother, now clutched in Donny's arms. Raph growled and, along with his brothers, drew in more closely to and in front of Leo, protecting him.
"What do you want with Leo?" Mikey asked aggressively, snarling in overprotectiveness of his big brother and hero and also moving to block him from view. Stryker smiled hungrily at their reactions, seemingly relishing them.
"I want to see, learn more about, and understand exactly the behavior that you three are showing right now. This overprotectiveness of and aggression towards threats to your leader, your brother. I have never seen such loyalty in subordinates and wish to isolate it and instill it in my own agents as well as soldiers of the U.S. government. It fascinates me, how Raphael, for example, can behave so aggressively towards and rebel so much against Leonardo in every situation that you face except when he is threatened. In the face of that threat you put all animosity, all thirst for power and leadership, aside and rally around your leader, sometimes taking up the leadership position unwillingly, without realizing that you are doing so, and only in order to protect your brothers and get them out of that situation, giving it up willingly, maybe without even realizing that you held it, when Leonardo is again able to function as your leader." Stryker marveled.
"You understand nothing," Raph snarled, "and I swear to God, if you hurt him or any of my brothers you will wish you were dead before I'm done with you." Stryker only laughed, seemingly buoyed by this reaction.
"I wish to stretch the bounds of this loyalty, see what it takes to break you, turn you against each other, destroy your bonds of brotherhood, break you mentally and physically. I will study just how deep this goes in order to better understand every nuance of it and hopefully figure out the trick to isolate it and instill it in my subordinates." Stryker explained with a fervor that was nearly religious; he was playing God. He motioned to his surrounding agents to pick up the drugged and weakened turtles and throw them into the back of an armored van.
Mikey was submitting to the effects of the drugs and was easily shoved into the van, slumping to the floor and barely able to raise himself up by quivering arms to watch the fate of his brothers.
Donny would not let go of Leo and had to be pried from him by four agents.
"No! Leo!" He shouted, terrified and helpless in his drugged state as they pulled his brother from him.
"Leave him alone!" Raph screamed, turning and managing to break free from the agent holding him. He ran towards Leo, now slumped, still unconscious, over the shoulder of an agent walking away from them. Another agent clotheslined Raph as he approached them, knocking him down and tackling him before he could muster the energy to fight the drugs and get up again. Three agents picked him up roughly and threw him, along with Donny, into the back of the van with Mikey. The door was slammed in their faces as they turned to see Leo tossed into the back of a black car with tinted windows and were thrown into the closed door by the force of the van's movement as it lurched forwards. They were left in total darkness for the entirety of the ride, terrified and with no idea whether they would ever see their brother and leader again, and finally succumbing to the drugs in their systems.
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So again, please let me know what you think of the story so far. Reviews are wonderful and make me feel like I'm not just posting these stories to an empty forum. Sorry for the cliff hanger, but not really, because I think that they are the most delightful good-kind-of-evil plot devices. Lol, and yes, I really did add Colonel William Stryker from X-Men Wolverine. I just thought that, if he existed in the tmnt universe, he would totally fit on Bishop's team. There's another reason too, but to say it would spoil a later chapter. More to come in a day or so. ttfn!
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