“We’re all in this alone”

-Lily Tomlin

He’s dodging and he really can’t place his finger on why, but that’s probably because it’s just one of those things that Master Splinter drilled and carved into his head until nothing but Donnie’s super-size tweezers that he uses for who-knows-what could ever have a hope of yanking it out. And even that would still be up for grabs.

But the pizza’s gone, and that sucks, because it’s always him and it’s always when he’s grabbing the pizza, (okay, no, Leo gets ambushed more than he does, but that’s besides the point) even though he’s only been allowed to get it, what, three, four times? It’s not that he’s slow, or even really loud (though, that might be part of it) it’s just that nobody ever, ever seems to trust him not to eat it on the way home.

The incident of the Chinese take-out three years ago is never to be mentioned. Ever. His stomach still writhes in pain at the thought.

Oh, right! He’s dodging isn’t he? Huh. Either he’s been getting better or the standard, cardboard cutout lackeys that he’s been finding in the alleys lately are just getting worse. Honestly, no creativity at all. If one shoots his gun, they all do. ‘They’re clones!’ cries his inner sci-fi buff. Not too bad an idea actually…

Thrust out with the gun, feint to the side, jab with the elbow, but they keep on missing, missing, missing…

With this rather lacking amount of skill, he’s almost embarrassed that they caught a peek at his wonderfully dashing/charming/sexy/insert-compliment-here form.

He’s going to have to knock them out soon. Or he could always stick around and watch them knock themselves out, but it’d cut off the time he had to find a payphone and re-order the two large cheese pizzas plus garlic bread, (maybe grab some breath mints for Master Splinter as well) pick it all up, and then get home without Donnie freaking out about the curfew. Hah. Curfew. He’s a freaking ninja. Who ever heard of a ninja with a curfew?

“I’m serious Mikey! We don’t know what this guy is planning…insert explanation of why that’s a Very Bad Thing…so get your shell back here by two or I’m coming out after you and…!”

It had been an empty threat, but there had been no point in saying what they both knew. If Donnie left, who’d watch over Leo and Raph? Master Splinter was awake, sure, but-

-dammit, that’d been too close. Teeth snapped together as he hit the pavement, lashing out with his legs and tossing one guy into his buddies. It was instinct that brought the nunchuck around with his free arm, crunch as it struck some guy’s knee and a final thump as the throat caved inward with a not-so-well aimed kick. (Dammit, he’d been going for the gut…!) When the hell did those guys in suits get here, and where did they learn those moves?

They’re not as kick-ass as his though.

He can’t quite place where the line blurred, because one second it was just those punks with the baseball bats and second-hand guns, and now it’s the dudes in the suits with military-looking ninja moves (don’t ask him how that works, he doesn’t know) and no weaponry to speak of, which makes it that much harder, since you can pull a guy’s gun out of his hands if you work at it, but tearing off limbs was never really his thing.

Too thin, they always told him. Ya look like a stick Mikey. A walkin’ talkin’ cold-blooded stick. Now gimme the pizza. But still, shell and all, he’s weaving under their punches like nothing, because no turtles are not amazingly slow or fat thank-you-very-much. It’s called muscle. And he’s still dodging, because until push comes to shove, he’s not going to be throwing too many punches. He’s not Raph. He’s not Leo. Donnie gets it, but Donnie’s not here.

But there’s this dull roar in his head and it won’t leave him alone so he keeps on leaping out of the way like he’s dodging the bellowing that’s echoing in his skull instead of the fists aimed for the same place, and it’s just so much all at once, because he can’t really process it all anymore, and process is such a big word, kind of like those huge one Donnie uses all the time, but not so big, and definitely not as big as the guy that’s running towards him with his fists out, since elephant-man is way too big to dodge in time and…and this just plain sucks.

A lot.

Suddenly the guy’s holding him up against a chimney or something, and somewhere along the line he gained a cracked rib. Or two. Maybe more, he’ll finish counting when the stars have the good grace to stop dancing along his line of vision. But he should probably focus on what the guy is saying, right?

“…purple? Fa fanculo…!” The rest is gibberish. He should probably know the gibberish…but he doesn’t. Donnie would. (Name a language, he knows it) Leo would. (Favorite son can’t be shown up in communication skills now can he?) Hell, even Raph. (With the amount of time he spends out on patrol, he probably knows the most. Well, he knows the stuff that matters. Knows the “HELP!”s from the guys venting their problems for a purpose.) Final verdict? New York has way too many languages.

Oh. Right. He’s supposed to be paying attention.

Huh, Mammoth-man’s not from around these parts. Imported hands? Or is he just fresh from some little Mom and Pop town out in Russia; Maybe one of those random ‘stans that he can never tell apart…or something like that? Maybe Spanish, he sounds almost Spanish-ish. He’s definitely not Japanese; definitely not the Foot. But he knew that already, since Foot lackeys always ignore him. He’s still convinced that Karai probably ordered the lot of them to only go after Leo.

“Boss say its ah…okay. We take it. Good enough.”

…Good enough?

Yeah. He’s not taking that.

With a jerk that leaves his poor ribs screaming for mercy, up and out go the legs, striking the whale of a guy right in the gut and at the very least winding him. Maybe he’ll luck out and the guy won’t get up for another hour, or maybe today’s just a bad luck magnet, and the guy was wearing a Kevlar vest. Who knows?

He certainly doesn’t, since the guy’s fall is like a trigger that throws all these new guys at him, vaulting out of the shadows that he’d been hoarding and hiding in only a few minutes prior. (Hah, take that Mr. Perfect Ninja Leo. He was actually in the shadows and they found him. Down with stealth training, the ultimate evil!) Go figure. Its irony at it’s worst.

He flies under a leg just in time to avoid the punch aimed for his jaw, and he keeps going forward into a roll just to have a second punch graze the very tip of his bandanna. The chucksters are…are…where? There! Chasing after flash of orange under the approaching feet, he leaps up and over one guy, using the next as a springboard and nabbing one set of nunchuks off the ground before they can be confiscated by these guys. He doesn’t really remember dropping them, but his head’s still spinning from being rammed into that chimney thing, so he’s not all that surprised. He’s had worse, it’s not the end of the world.

But now he’s back on the ground, surrounded now, and it looks like nobody’s willing to be his trampoline again. Pity. Though, he’s armed again, so these bozos are going down. All…ten…eleven…thirteen…(is that another pair coming in from the roof?) of them. Piece of cake.

He charges first, upper swing with the chucks, bring back the elbow into another gut, swing the leg around into somebody’s face, flip off the momentum, trip ‘em up with chuck, handspring into somebody’s torso, keep flipping…and whaddia know! He’s on the guy’s shoulders. Too bad he’s not shooting or anything, it’s always hilarious to throw these kinda guys off balance and have them shoot into the mob of their own men.

Speaking of which, he doesn’t notice the mob beginning to thin out from behind him.

The fun has to finally end, so he leaps off, backwards, finally putting himself outside the circle and actually facing the growing group. He can’t see anybody behind him…but with the way his luck’s been going in the past five minutes, he wouldn’t be surprised if a chopper full of commandos landed behind him.

And then there’s a bang.

It takes about a second for him to realize that there are things worse than a chopper landing behind you. At least he would have been able to fight the guys in the chopper.

Donnie once told him that people only fall over when they’re shot because they’re programmed to. Their brains tell them that being shot means falling over and dying, even if they’re only hit in the arm and they’re perfectly okay otherwise. A bear won’t fall over when it’s shot in the head, it’ll keep charging until its dead and the initial motion to run forward has died out.

So he thinks about this, face first in the ground, knee giving off all kinds of crazy signals (is it going into shock or not?) and tries to start standing on his one good leg. The other one has a hole in the back of the knee, through the soft flesh and splattering somewhere around the bone and it’s pretty much useless to even try putting weight on it. His brain isn’t helping in the slightest, and all he can think is Shit.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

Shit.

Come on leg, you can do it!

Hah, not really. He wobbles for a second when he gets to his knees, then falls back to the face first position. Stupid, stupid of him not to think that they had some crazy sniper dude in the background. (The Foot never did that. He’s thankful for that much.) The military-looking gibberish-speaking ninjas are all looking at him funny, maybe they thought he’d keep going after getting shot. Huh. Nice to know that some people have confidence in him, even if it’s his enemies and it’s misplaced.

Shit.

“So you guys trying to take over the world or what?” It’s the first he’s spoken to these new guys, but no one’s impressed. He wants to throw the his chucks at them, but it’s really hard from the ground, and then they just might start laughing. (Though, he wouldn’t bet any money on it.)

Shit.

A boost of adrenaline would have been really nice right about then. Or righteous anger, or some other emotional state that would’ve given him enough strength to get up off the ground, beat them all into oblivion and make it home in time for the dinner he was supposed to be bringing. But he didn’t feel anything coming (Not even some gas), and again, luck wasn’t looking up today. Not at all.

Shit.

Thrown over somebody’s shoulders like a sack of rice, he’s happy that they respect him enough to do a quick crack of his neck, and then he’s out like a light, not due to make it back to the world of the conscious for another hour or two.

Shit.

He lost.

So I figure, there’s a lot of stories about Mikey getting kidnapped, captured, etc. There are also a lot of stories about Mikey getting rescued by his bros. That’s all and good, and a lot of them are well written. But I figured…hey! How about Mikey rescues himself? And so…this was born.

…Totally not written because I know I can’t write any of the other turtles. Really.