Same As It Never Was

A Rescue Mission

Michelangelo woke up to the knocking on his bedroom door. He sat up in bed and he felt the bedside beside him move at the same sound of knocking. He looks down to see Gabby sit up and wrap the white bed sheets around her bare chest as she looked up at Mikey, confused. Mikey got out of bed and walked slowly and cautiously to the door. He opened it and in came Carly. She was out of breath until she looked over to see Gabby half naked, then her face just drops.

"What the shell?" Carly snapped.

Gabby stood up with the blanket wrapped tightly around her. "Carly! Um...what's wrong?"

"What's wrong? What's wrong?! I just walked in and YOU'RE NAKED?!"

"Wow. For someone so calm and collected as you, Carly...you look pretty pissed." Mikey scratched the back of his neck, nervously chuckling.

"Zip it, Hamato!" Carly snapped.

"Carly," Gabby warned her friend and gave her 'the look'. "What's REALLY wrong?"

Carly sighed, shrugging off her anger. "We checked the video cameras on top of the roof where Megan was snatched and...well...we got something."

Mikey and Gabby exchange glances and Mikey continues the conversation,

"Foot Clan?" He asked.

"No. This...guy." Carly questioned her voice. "He...was wearing a lab coat and weird glasses. He gagged Megan and dragged her off onto the fire escape. Leo looked up facial recognition and said before Shredder came along the guy was a famous doctor who dissected amphibians and reptiles...he also said that he experiments them at an abandon warehouse off of Houston."

Gabby gasped and Mikey tensed. The orange-clad turtle grabs his chin as a thinking motion he does.

"DISSECTION, huh?"

Then, all three friends look at each other in worry and ran out the door, except Gabby. She had to get changed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Megan's eyes fluttered open and she moaned. She was still tied to a chair and she woke up uncomfortably. Her neck was hurting and she was dying slowly from the loss of blood. She barely could keep her eyes open. Her eyelids felt heavy, the scent of death was close. She wishes he could just KILL her already so she could no longer feel this pain. She felt like she couldn't move a finger. She felt so dizzy she felt sick to her stomach.

She hears the door behind her shut, and she winces. She cowers away as the doctor stands over her. He straightens her up on her chair since she was too weak to do it herself. His hands weren't very kind about it and he tightened the rope, her bindings painfully digging into her flesh. Megan let out a loud, painful moan, since her lungs and rib cage shook together every time she would try to scream, and THAT was torture in itself. She sweated like crazy to the point her now freshly cut hair was wet and dripping in stringy clumps. Megan was way too skinny and pale, she looked like a sick ghost. If you lifted up her shirt, you could count off every one of her ribs and fit a perfectly shaped basketball onto her stomach and it would lay flat, proving how skinny she actually was. She was very unhealthy. The doctor leaned over her and got up in her face, his hot, stinky breath making tears fall down her cheek. He kissed her ear and whispered into it.

"It's really simple, darling. Tell me where the turtles are...and I'll let you go."

"R-Really?" Megan croaked into a very shy whisper.

"Yes..." He began, "I'll give you enough food to make you strong and healthy again and enough to feed the entire Rebel base. The families could live a better life. You can pretend this never happened and raise a family somewhere safe...and beautiful. Some island, perhaps? Someplace remote, maybe? Or maybe I can send you to your home place. I realized that your accent isn't right for a girl who lives in New York. Maybe from Washington? Florida? Actually...you sound like my Minnesotan cousin. Minnesota?"

Her body language changed at the mention of her home state. The thought of joining her brother in Minnesota sounded nice. She hasn't seen him in over 25 years...and she wondered how grown up her younger brother looked. Was he handsome with a beard like their dad? Did he grow his hair out? Did he shave off his beard? Or did he prefer a mustache? Megan just had to know. He can't be any older than thirty! Does he have a family? The curious Megan had grew well up inside her, making tears fall and missing her little brother. The offer was tempting...too tempting. Megan sniffles and coughed as the doctor grabbed her chin.

"Now...tell me where the turtles are at?" He asked more kindly.

How could Megan say 'no' now?

She whimpered as she squirmed in her ropes. In her mind, she kept screaming, 'I'm sorry, Gabby. I'm sorry, Raphael. Forgive me.' She swallowed.

"F-Fine...The...The turtles are...h-hiding in a-!!"

A loud crash was heard down the hallway from the sound of a closed door. Megan screamed in fright before the doctor tied a rag around her mouth, and she tried to squirm this time. She may not have the strength, but the moment she hears familiar voices down the hall she starts trying to scream, clinging onto hope, only to be muffled by the rag. She pants since she could barely breathe through both her nose and mouth. She hears yelling, swords clashing, and the doctor cursing and yelling. Her tears welled up and poured down her face, her body begging to finally get out of the chair she's been sitting in for days. She hears the doctor yell out in pain and he was no more. Megan could hear the slicing sound of knife against flesh and she knew her kidnapper was dead. Good riddance.

"Megan?!"

'Gabby?' Megan's tears were now full of joy.

"Meggie!? You in here?!"

A calm and collected voice. 30 years...Megan can STILL recognize that voice. Only because it sounds just like the sister she always wanted...the sister...she and Gabby grew up with.

'...Carly?'

After all these years...she just happened to show up now?

The door to Megan's keeper room bursts open and Megan screams in fear. Her back and chair is faced away from the door so she can't see who's entering the room. She winced as two pairs of fragile, female hands touch both of her shoulders. All three girls cry with joy as the childhood friends are reunited after 30 years. But Megan winces then screams as soon as she saw Mikey remove her rag around her mouth. Only her voice was quiet, not her screams.

"Carly! Gabby...I'm sorry...he...was going to hurt my brother..."

"Megan!" Gabby gasped as she brushed her fingers through her best friend's wet hair. "Your hair...what did he do to your hair?!" She gawked in awe.

Megan screamed out again as Carly accidentally touched her thigh. Carly jumped, panicked.

"What? What?"

Then Carly looks down to see blood all over her hand. She looks to Megan's left thigh as sees this unique looking hole and her friend bleeding out. Megan was sweating from head to toe and Carly checked her forehead.

"She's way too dehydrated to be healthy. And she's losing A LOT of blood."

The cuts and bruises all over Megan made Gabby sick to her stomach and she began to cry. Megan's vision has blurred and her throat raw from screaming as someone had kneeled down in front of her to untie her ropes. It was Raph and his one eye. Megan was too tired to be angry, she was just glad that she won't be tortured anymore.

"I thought..." Megan struggled to talk. "I thought I told you to never come...back."

Raph looked up at her as the ropes that held Megan up were cut and she fell forward from the chair, moaning. Raph caught her before she hit the pavement and scooped her up in his arms, her now weighing nothing more than a newborn infant. Her blood stained his plastron and her cuts covered every part of her body.

'What did that monster DO to her?!' Raph roared into his mind.

He shook the thought away and whispered in her ear,

"I couldn't stay away."