Ah... TMNT belong to Mirage... blahblahblah... Thanks to Kya and Terran... they know why.

Calamity

Don woke up sometime after midnight. He had something nagging at his subconscious, but for the life of him he couldn't figure it out. Perhaps something he'd been working on, or that tape of Leo getting his tail in trouble with Splinter...

With a sigh, he dropped to the floor from his top bunk (he had always liked sleeping up high like that-- made him feel "bigger") and padded quietly out and downstairs, through the living area and into his "lab".

As he tinkered around with various items, hoping that whatever it was that was niggling at his brain would reveal itself more clearly, he wondered if there were any coffee left in the pot? Shouldn't take too long to heat it up, and if worst came to worst he could always make some more.

Glancing up at the monitors that displayed all the activity from the various security cameras he had rigged up everywhere, something caught his eye.

"Oh, Man! Didn't he learn his lesson earlier when Splinter spanked his ass?" Don chuckled in gleeful disbelief! There was a turtle-shape on the ground again-- only this time it was climbing up to the roof of the next building.

Don fine-tuned the controls, hoping for a better shot-- and he got it-- along with a shock. On the roof, in the moonlight, Don's camera got a more detailed picture of the turtle in question.

"Damn!"

Quickly he was out of the lab, knocking on Splinter's door, heedless of the hour.

"Master Splinter! Master Splinter, come quick! Mikey has taken off for that warehouse!"

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Ten minutes later they were racing through the tunnels, well-equipped. Splinter was leading the way.

"I really need to implant tracking devices under all our skins," Don was saying for the tenth time. Normally, they would track each other through their shell cells, but Mikey's had been left in his room. Don had dreamed of micro chipping them like they did for pets, but the others had vehemently refused.

"What the hell possessed him to do such a thing?" Raph was wondering, angry that his baby brother was out like this. "He better be all right, 'cause I need to kill him!"

"I think Splinter gets first shot at him," Leo replied to Raph in a very low voice. Right now he was concerned about Mikey. Later, he knew that he was so going to enjoy watching someone else catch parental wrath for a change. Too bad it wasn't Don.

"I do not believe your brother is in his right mind," Splinter worried. "When I checked on him earlier, his fever seemed to be rising. We must find him before he does something stupid!"

"You mean like going out in this cold at three am with no protection to scope out a warehouse where hundreds of rats may be?" Leo couldn't help saying, as they exited the pipe and headed for the first warehouse. "I think it's a little late for that, Sensei!"

Splinter ignored Leonardo-- for the moment. He was only focusing on his youngest, who was an excellent warrior, like the other three-- but who was also not acting rational!

"Raph, you and Don take the roof," Leo's natural orders cut through Splinter's worried thoughts for his son. "Master Splinter and I will cover the sides! Don't do anything stupid!"

"You, too, Splinter Junior!" Raph happily replied, as he and Don scaled the side of the warehouse.

"Together, or separate?" Leo asked his master, motioning to which side (or both) they should take.

"I will take the waterfront side," Splinter decided. "You take street."

The two split up and quickly made their long way to their destinations.

In the moonlight, Splinter could see in the heavily trampled snow the vague footprints of Leonardo's earlier visit, overrun with the many paw prints of rats-- and the outline here and there of a large human foot, booted crudely. Sniffing the air, he could detect the scent of many rats, even over the stink of the river's many pollutants. Cautiously yet quickly he made his way past this first warehouse, his eyes, nose, and ears tuned to the one that was his objective.

The rat scent grew stronger; Splinter had never smelled this many of his kind together, not even when he was still a "normal" rat himself. The closer he drew to the building in question, the more he realized that he was sensing more than the presence of such a large number of fellow rodents; he was feeling-- something-- touching his thoughts.

For a brief second he hesitated; for a brief second he felt as if something were pulling him forward, and his natural instinct was to hold back.

He shook it off and continued forward, sticking to the shadows, sniffing as he went.

On Leo's side, the snow showed something gruesome-- blood. The panicked footprints of several human shoes, nearly obliterated by the multitude of rat paw prints were in the moonlight stained dark with the blood of someone.

"Heads up, guys!" Leo called into his shell cell headset. "I think someone got killed here tonight!"

"Can't be Mikey!" came Raph's growl into his ear. "His prints are all over up here. Looks like he leapt to the next building."

"Wait for us," Leo said, as he finally reached the end of the building. He was more on the moonlight side than Splinter; there were few shadows for him to take refuge in. Slipping the tech-goggles on, he could see that the tracks headed straight for a small door just to the left of a larger one that shielded a loading dock.

Leo saw the drag marks-- and a set of large human prints, roughly shod, leading the way. The entire thing made Leo think of a large, bloody slab of meat being dragged through the snow. It was stomach-churning enough, but the presence of the rat paw prints following all around, weaving in and out, circling, running-- and always beside or behind the set of human prints lent a horror-movie quality to the entire thing.

Splinter, too, was aware of the blood-- he did not need the special technology of his son to alert him to the fact that death hung in the air. The only thing that kept his heart from bursting in anxiety was that the scent of Michelangelo was not mingled with the rest.

"We're jumping over," Don advised Leo, and a moment later both father and brother saw the two on top effortlessly make the leap to the other roof.

"Damn! He was here and taken!" Raph nearly shouted-- Leo and Splinter both had to pull their headsets off quickly to save their eardrums. "The place is littered with prints-- you can tell he was dragged--"

"Any blood?" Leo, already running and beginning his climb, cut off his brother.

"No, but there are a ton of rat tracks up here," Don's grim voice relieved them even as it created more fear.

Now Splinter was making the climb as well, and very nearly beat Leonardo to the top. They quickly spotted Donatello and Raphael. The latter was already following the trail to a hole in the roof that used to probably be some sort of skylight.

"Look," Don said, finding one of Mikey's 'chuks lying trampled into the snow. Splinter took it from his son with a gentle yet determined movement, tucking it into some inner space of his robe.

In the moonlight the two Turtles recognized that special hard glint in Splinter's eyes, the one that warned any and all not to come between him and his offspring. Some sort of instinct from Nature, some type of primal reflex-- some special "parental gene"-- had kicked in, and Splinter would avenge himself on any who hurt his children.

"Here!" the whispered call of Raphael cut through the stillness as if he had bellowed at the top of his lungs. Quickly they joined him at the makeshift entrance. "Looks like the guy has made himself quite a home in here," he continued, gesturing down.

Don whistled silently. The "stairs" looked like some monster version of the type used to help passengers board airplanes, yet they had a kind of cobbled together, homemade feel to them. They ended in an office that had been gutted long ago, yet still held some of the old equipment left behind as useless even as scrap.

Splinter sniffed; the human's scent was strangely familiar. The rat scent was overpowering, but Splinter could detect this human-- and his son!

With hand gestures, he directed them. As one, they nodded; no questions or clarification was needed. Splinter first, then Raphael. Leo sent Don in next, while he kept a lookout for spies-- after all, that guy had somehow known Mikey was up here-- who was to say that their presence wasn't already being monitored?

At a nod from Splinter, Donatello carefully moved out of the room, quickly scanning to the right and the left. More offices, but not many-- none had doors left, and from what he could see, all were empty of even rats. Motioning the all-clear, the other three joined him, low and quiet and ready.

Once again, Splinter sniffed the air-- once again, something strange was nagging at him, almost pulling him-- calling to him--

With a determined growl, he shook himself and focused on Michelangelo; he almost looked as if he were meditating. Technological tracking devices were nice, but nothing compared to the instinctual tracking talents of a parent.

"Down below, to the right-- that small room," Splinter barely whispered, as they stared over a railing to the bottom-- a bottom that literally moved-- it was hard to realize that rats covered that floor. How would they reach the "room" in question?

As they studied the situation, Don suddenly smiled.

"Nothing like a panicky diversion!" he said, pulling several emergency flares from his bag of tricks. They were the type used to warn motorists of an accident ahead, but to rats they would be startling to say the least!

Each armed with a few of the flares, they moved out to strategic places, awaiting the signal.

Splinter made sure that he was closest to the room where he was convinced his son was being kept.

That pull again! That pull was stronger here! A call to his former nature; a song that only his previous life seemed to hear clearly-- and it was interfering with his need to find his son!

...hunger... anger... kill... eat... hunger...

Splinter, without a thought except for Michelangelo, activated his flares with a sudden twist and a toss, and at the same moment, the others released theirs.

Panic! Splinter suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to run, to flee, to get out of here as soon as possible-- and belatedly it occurred to him that he was picking up on the "thoughts" of the literally hundreds of rats that were screaming in fear as they tried to escape this previously safe haven.

In the confusion, Splinter saw the man! He had come tearing out of the room, screaming in pain, holding his head-- and his anguish seemed to add to Splinter's own desires to run, to escape, to hide from this nightmare!

With a determined battle cry, he leapt from above, kicking this human as hard as he could, sending him sprawling into the wildly moving mass of rats that covered the floor! But instead of getting up to face this enemy, this man, still screaming in pain, still acting as if he'd been mortally wounded, blindly fled from the building.

Without a backward glance at his other sons who were fighting their way through dozens of maddened rats, he quickly entered the room that the human had left-- and found Michelangelo sagging against some ropes that had firmly tied him to a wall.

"My son!" he could not help yelling, as he raced to him, trying to support him even as he tried to free him.

Michelangelo's eyes, swollen from fever and illness, managed to open for a moment, to focus on his father.

"Hey! Guess what? Victor is alive!"

And then he passed out.

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... up...

His eyes protested his brain's desire to see where they were.

Brain: We have to know what the hell is going on.

Eyes: Dude, you don't remember what scary shit we looked at last time we were open!

Brain: How can you talk about our father like that?

With that, Mikey opened his eyes to find Splinter looking at him.

"Hey, Dad," he mumbled, getting ready to close his eyes again. After a brief moment, they flew open, and he tried to bolt upright!

"Victor! Victor is alive! I saw him!"