Victarion
Iron Captain
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This is meant to be a reboot of the TMNT movie universe. Totally original in that nothing is drawn from the old movieverse. I'm using a couple of baddies who went unrepresented in the movies, which was a shame. The story would be in script form, but a full load of classes has forced me to write it in standard writing form. Those of you who read "Wayward Sons", the second chapter is being written at the moment. Many revisions have been made to the first; these two titles will be ongoing series for myself. I hope you enjoy.
Chapter 1: Dragon Strike!
I
In the darkness of the old tunnels beneath Manhattan, a forgotten family sat around an open flame watching their dinner cook. The father, a man just over the fifty year mark, wore what had once been a fresh-pressed United States Army jacket with a jungle camouflage pattern. Any traces of olive-drab green were gone, leaving black and brown as the only visible color, and even these splotches were from mud, offal, and grime. He turned the spit slowly, staring thoughtfully into the dancing flame. The woman beside him, frail and wearing a ragged dress with a shawl draped around her shoulders spoke up.[/FONT]
“Looks about done, Dan?” Bad nerves had made given her voice a shaky quality. She stepped across the tracks to an old cabinet that had been scrounged up from the dump and removed four plates, stained with age and impurities from the water used to wash them.
Dan took a knife and began carving their meal, a nicely sized tunnel rabbit. He divided it equally among the four plates, inhaling the savory greasy smell. As he tucked into his portion, he heard a grumble from his oldest, Jared. He set down his utensils and looked up from his plate.
“Speak up, Son.” He said gruffly.
“Its not even cooked all the way; I can still taste the hairs.”
“Well” Olive began, “we’re in a hurry tonight—”
“Ousters again?” Jared asked, the disgust towards his mother’s timidity plain in his eyes. “Dad, after all your did for this “land of opportunity” you’d let them just—”
“Its not the boys in blue, Jared. I wish it were—”
“So do I,” Jared said quietly. “Then they’d learn what its like to be on the receiving end of their guns.” There was a mechanical click from within the pocket of Jared’s weather-beaten hoodie.
“We never repay evil for evil.” Dan said quietly. “Besides, the police are just doing their job.”
“An eye for an eye!” Jared said fiercely. “That’s what Jonah says!”
“Give me the gun.” Dan growled. Jared looked at his father with open defiance as he dropped the Beretta into his waiting hand. “And I don’t want you hanging around with Jonah again. Olive, keep a better eye on the boy.”
“Don’t blame her,” Jared interjected. Willy Jackson was looking up from his half-eaten portion of tunnel rabbit, following the rapid-fire argument with a mix of interest and worry. “I used those tricks you told me about. Remember? That stuff you used in the jungle—”
“Hunker down and finish your dinner, boy. I nearly lost my life fighting for you, your brother, and your mother, and I’m damn well not going to tolerate insubordination from my own son.”
Slowly, Jared sunk back to the floor, never breaking his eye contact with Dan until he went back to eating.
Dan continued: “Now as I was saying: When I was out hunting tunnel rabbit with Ollie and Reilly, I heard from another camp that there were strangers in the tunnels. They’ll be passing through here soon.”
“Then give me the gun.” Jared mumbled as he forked a bit of his roasted tunnel rabbit into his mouth. “Problem solved."
“Guns?” a voice echoed from down the tunnel. “A coward’s weapon, eh boys?”
The speaker emerged from the darkness, dragging a long line of chain with a nasty-looking hook on the end. He was a hunched, broad man, but his thick arms couldn’t be called muscular. A more appropriate term would’ve been hardened fat. On his denim jacket was a patch depicting a black three-toed dragon footprint within a red circle rimmed in black. His comrades—all smaller than he was, each with a similar insignia on their shirt or jacket sleeves—were armed with similar melee weapons: crowbars, iron pipes, nail-studded planks. The big man licked his fat lips.
“Give your little skeet the gun.” Meathook said. “I’ll be a good sport about it.”
Dan stood before his family defensively. Out of the corner of his mouth he whispered, “Run.”
Olive took Willy by the shoulders and began stepping back slowly towards the south tunnel; she let out a terrified scream when she bumped into another Purple Dragon that had sneaked up from behind and wrapped his big arms around her. Jared snatched the Beretta from his father’s hand and darted forward, knocking Dan aside. He trained the barrel on Meathook and squeezed the trigger. Meathook dove and rolled; the shots ricocheted off the tunnel wall. He stopped in a crouch and rose with a sharky grin.
“Pretty good, kid. Nice reflexes. But too slow.”
Meathook began to advance, swinging his chain in a wide arc. He raised it back over his head, still swinging it like a whip. As he brought it down, Dan dove forward, pushing Jared out of the way. The old man cried out in pain as the rusty hook buried itself in his ribs.
“Bastard!” Jared cried as he jumped up and sprinted for Meathook. The Purple Dragon swung his chain like a baseball bat, the hook missing Jared but the links digging into his side, batting the youth to the floor.
"Ross,” the Dragon holding Olive and Willy called, “what about the broad and the brat?”
“Boss only wanted males.” Ross “Meathook” said, leering unpleasantly. “Take the kid out of here and have the woman if you like.”
As the hoods closed in on Olive, Dan came out of nowhere and threw himself screaming on the mob of Purple Dragons. Jared lay on the floor wincing and holding the bloody wound Ross’s chain had inflicted. He cursed his inability to help his family. With a shaking hand he reached for the Beretta and grasped it by the handle. A few more minutes and hopefully he would be able to aim properly. Their home echoed with high-pitched shrieks like those of a wildcat or a mountain lion that drowned out Willy’s sobs. A loud crack caused Jared to raise his head. His father lay slumped at the base of a far wall. Disgust and anger filled young Jared.
Damn coward Jared thought as he raised the Beretta, pointing the gun with a shaking hand at the back of the Dragon gang, and the sight of their deed caused him to hold the trigger down, the thundering shots drowning out the maddening cacophony. The gun bucked in his hand five times, nearly jerking free of his grip. His shots went into one of the fatter Dragons that had surprised Olive from behind, each marked with a tiny eruption of blood followed by the big man keeling over. Olive, holding up the torn remains of her raggedy dress, took off down the south tunnel practically dragging little Willy behind her.
From the darkness of the south tunnel Jared heard a scream which was abruptly silenced, followed by the pitter-patter of his mother and little brother making their escape. Then a silvery projectile flew from the darkness and lodged itself in the neck of a Dragon picking up Dan’s unconscious form. The Dragons helping him stepped back, frozen in shock as blood began to burble and trickle from the wound. Finally one of them unbuckled his belt, stuck it in the man’s mouth, and yanked the three-pronged weapon free.
“What the hell is this? Some kinda fork?”
His question was answered when the weapon’s twin seemed to materialize out of nowhere, lodged in the side of his head just above the ear. The weight of the weapon caused him to stumble to the side. Ross turned to scoop up Dan’s grievously wounded body, saying: “We gotta get outta here right now. Come on guys—”
Ross’s words were lost upon the sight that awaited him. He turned from the task of hefting the hobo over his shoulder to find his comrades sprawled out before him, dead. The creatures he saw standing over their bodies left him speechless: skin with varying shades of green, colored masks (blue, purple, and red), and oval-shaped shells on their back.
Turtles Ross thought dumbly. Giant f****** turtles.
The one in the red mask stepped forward and jerked his three-pronged weapon from the dead Dragon’s neck.
“Its called a sai, genius” the turtle said as he wiped the blood off with the man’s jacket sleeve. As he went to retrieve his second sai, the turtle turned to Ross and scowled at Ross. “Drop him and get the hell out of here.”
To hell with Stockman and his money Ross thought as he let the body fall and took off running fast as his bulk would allow.
Jared had been watching the entire exchange with interest and admiration. The one in the blue mask turned his attention to Jared; the boy closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.
"Its okay, kid.” The turtle said. Jared heard the light padding as the turtle approached. He felt the creature lifting him, felt it gently prying the gun from his hand and tossing it away. “They’re gone now."
Jared slowly opened his eyes, pretending to be coming to from a state of unconsciousness. “What the…what the hell happened?”
“They roughed you up pretty bad,” the red-masked turtle said. “But don’t worry; these guys aren't gonna be roughing anyone up anytime soon.”
“All the same we should get them someplace else,” the purple-masked one interjected. “The Dragons have been pushing their way through the old tunnels. Maybe the old eastside industrial park. That’s where I told Mikey to take the woman and her boy”
The industrial park! Jared thought excitedly. Sounds like a plan, Purple!
“Donatello, go check on his father.” The blue-masked turtle said. Donatello, walked over the Dan and held a finger to his neck, then to his wrist to check the pulse. With the utmost care he gently prodded the man’s sides and all along his back.
“He’s alive,” Donatello said finally. “Leonardo, see if you can find anything that could work as a stretcher. You too, Raphael.”
The blue-masked turtle, Leonardo, sat Jared up against the wall. “Do you have any bed materials down here?”
“Yeah,” Jared said weakly. He stood up and laid a hand on the wall to steady himself. “This way."
He led the ones named Leonardo and Raphael down the tunnel a ways to a collection of old pallets covered with rat-eaten blankets. The two turtles selected the best looking of the pallets (the one with the least springs exposed) and returned to the spot where Dan lay. The one named Donatello had found a couple of lengths of piping as well as a large roll of duct tape. He set the pipes against each side of the mattress and ran several strips of duct tape over the mattress and around the pipes to secure them. Leonardo laid Dan across the pallet and Raphael took the belt from the mouth of his first kill among the Dragons. Donatello used it to bind Dan to the makeshift stretcher. As Jared followed them into the south tunnel, apprehension set in.
They’ve got swords, sais, and a really big pool stick…now under normal circumstances would you follow these freaks into total darkness? Ah, but what choice do you have? You know mom and Willy went down this way, and its possible they either led them to safety or have their bodies strung up in a lair somewhere. You could leave them…after all, what is dear old dad really worth to you?
The answer was simple: Not much.
Chapter 1: Dragon Strike!
I
In the darkness of the old tunnels beneath Manhattan, a forgotten family sat around an open flame watching their dinner cook. The father, a man just over the fifty year mark, wore what had once been a fresh-pressed United States Army jacket with a jungle camouflage pattern. Any traces of olive-drab green were gone, leaving black and brown as the only visible color, and even these splotches were from mud, offal, and grime. He turned the spit slowly, staring thoughtfully into the dancing flame. The woman beside him, frail and wearing a ragged dress with a shawl draped around her shoulders spoke up.[/FONT]
“Looks about done, Dan?” Bad nerves had made given her voice a shaky quality. She stepped across the tracks to an old cabinet that had been scrounged up from the dump and removed four plates, stained with age and impurities from the water used to wash them.
Dan took a knife and began carving their meal, a nicely sized tunnel rabbit. He divided it equally among the four plates, inhaling the savory greasy smell. As he tucked into his portion, he heard a grumble from his oldest, Jared. He set down his utensils and looked up from his plate.
“Speak up, Son.” He said gruffly.
“Its not even cooked all the way; I can still taste the hairs.”
“Well” Olive began, “we’re in a hurry tonight—”
“Ousters again?” Jared asked, the disgust towards his mother’s timidity plain in his eyes. “Dad, after all your did for this “land of opportunity” you’d let them just—”
“Its not the boys in blue, Jared. I wish it were—”
“So do I,” Jared said quietly. “Then they’d learn what its like to be on the receiving end of their guns.” There was a mechanical click from within the pocket of Jared’s weather-beaten hoodie.
“We never repay evil for evil.” Dan said quietly. “Besides, the police are just doing their job.”
“An eye for an eye!” Jared said fiercely. “That’s what Jonah says!”
“Give me the gun.” Dan growled. Jared looked at his father with open defiance as he dropped the Beretta into his waiting hand. “And I don’t want you hanging around with Jonah again. Olive, keep a better eye on the boy.”
“Don’t blame her,” Jared interjected. Willy Jackson was looking up from his half-eaten portion of tunnel rabbit, following the rapid-fire argument with a mix of interest and worry. “I used those tricks you told me about. Remember? That stuff you used in the jungle—”
“Hunker down and finish your dinner, boy. I nearly lost my life fighting for you, your brother, and your mother, and I’m damn well not going to tolerate insubordination from my own son.”
Slowly, Jared sunk back to the floor, never breaking his eye contact with Dan until he went back to eating.
Dan continued: “Now as I was saying: When I was out hunting tunnel rabbit with Ollie and Reilly, I heard from another camp that there were strangers in the tunnels. They’ll be passing through here soon.”
“Then give me the gun.” Jared mumbled as he forked a bit of his roasted tunnel rabbit into his mouth. “Problem solved."
“Guns?” a voice echoed from down the tunnel. “A coward’s weapon, eh boys?”
The speaker emerged from the darkness, dragging a long line of chain with a nasty-looking hook on the end. He was a hunched, broad man, but his thick arms couldn’t be called muscular. A more appropriate term would’ve been hardened fat. On his denim jacket was a patch depicting a black three-toed dragon footprint within a red circle rimmed in black. His comrades—all smaller than he was, each with a similar insignia on their shirt or jacket sleeves—were armed with similar melee weapons: crowbars, iron pipes, nail-studded planks. The big man licked his fat lips.
“Give your little skeet the gun.” Meathook said. “I’ll be a good sport about it.”
Dan stood before his family defensively. Out of the corner of his mouth he whispered, “Run.”
Olive took Willy by the shoulders and began stepping back slowly towards the south tunnel; she let out a terrified scream when she bumped into another Purple Dragon that had sneaked up from behind and wrapped his big arms around her. Jared snatched the Beretta from his father’s hand and darted forward, knocking Dan aside. He trained the barrel on Meathook and squeezed the trigger. Meathook dove and rolled; the shots ricocheted off the tunnel wall. He stopped in a crouch and rose with a sharky grin.
“Pretty good, kid. Nice reflexes. But too slow.”
Meathook began to advance, swinging his chain in a wide arc. He raised it back over his head, still swinging it like a whip. As he brought it down, Dan dove forward, pushing Jared out of the way. The old man cried out in pain as the rusty hook buried itself in his ribs.
“Bastard!” Jared cried as he jumped up and sprinted for Meathook. The Purple Dragon swung his chain like a baseball bat, the hook missing Jared but the links digging into his side, batting the youth to the floor.
"Ross,” the Dragon holding Olive and Willy called, “what about the broad and the brat?”
“Boss only wanted males.” Ross “Meathook” said, leering unpleasantly. “Take the kid out of here and have the woman if you like.”
As the hoods closed in on Olive, Dan came out of nowhere and threw himself screaming on the mob of Purple Dragons. Jared lay on the floor wincing and holding the bloody wound Ross’s chain had inflicted. He cursed his inability to help his family. With a shaking hand he reached for the Beretta and grasped it by the handle. A few more minutes and hopefully he would be able to aim properly. Their home echoed with high-pitched shrieks like those of a wildcat or a mountain lion that drowned out Willy’s sobs. A loud crack caused Jared to raise his head. His father lay slumped at the base of a far wall. Disgust and anger filled young Jared.
Damn coward Jared thought as he raised the Beretta, pointing the gun with a shaking hand at the back of the Dragon gang, and the sight of their deed caused him to hold the trigger down, the thundering shots drowning out the maddening cacophony. The gun bucked in his hand five times, nearly jerking free of his grip. His shots went into one of the fatter Dragons that had surprised Olive from behind, each marked with a tiny eruption of blood followed by the big man keeling over. Olive, holding up the torn remains of her raggedy dress, took off down the south tunnel practically dragging little Willy behind her.
From the darkness of the south tunnel Jared heard a scream which was abruptly silenced, followed by the pitter-patter of his mother and little brother making their escape. Then a silvery projectile flew from the darkness and lodged itself in the neck of a Dragon picking up Dan’s unconscious form. The Dragons helping him stepped back, frozen in shock as blood began to burble and trickle from the wound. Finally one of them unbuckled his belt, stuck it in the man’s mouth, and yanked the three-pronged weapon free.
“What the hell is this? Some kinda fork?”
His question was answered when the weapon’s twin seemed to materialize out of nowhere, lodged in the side of his head just above the ear. The weight of the weapon caused him to stumble to the side. Ross turned to scoop up Dan’s grievously wounded body, saying: “We gotta get outta here right now. Come on guys—”
Ross’s words were lost upon the sight that awaited him. He turned from the task of hefting the hobo over his shoulder to find his comrades sprawled out before him, dead. The creatures he saw standing over their bodies left him speechless: skin with varying shades of green, colored masks (blue, purple, and red), and oval-shaped shells on their back.
Turtles Ross thought dumbly. Giant f****** turtles.
The one in the red mask stepped forward and jerked his three-pronged weapon from the dead Dragon’s neck.
“Its called a sai, genius” the turtle said as he wiped the blood off with the man’s jacket sleeve. As he went to retrieve his second sai, the turtle turned to Ross and scowled at Ross. “Drop him and get the hell out of here.”
To hell with Stockman and his money Ross thought as he let the body fall and took off running fast as his bulk would allow.
Jared had been watching the entire exchange with interest and admiration. The one in the blue mask turned his attention to Jared; the boy closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.
"Its okay, kid.” The turtle said. Jared heard the light padding as the turtle approached. He felt the creature lifting him, felt it gently prying the gun from his hand and tossing it away. “They’re gone now."
Jared slowly opened his eyes, pretending to be coming to from a state of unconsciousness. “What the…what the hell happened?”
“They roughed you up pretty bad,” the red-masked turtle said. “But don’t worry; these guys aren't gonna be roughing anyone up anytime soon.”
“All the same we should get them someplace else,” the purple-masked one interjected. “The Dragons have been pushing their way through the old tunnels. Maybe the old eastside industrial park. That’s where I told Mikey to take the woman and her boy”
The industrial park! Jared thought excitedly. Sounds like a plan, Purple!
“Donatello, go check on his father.” The blue-masked turtle said. Donatello, walked over the Dan and held a finger to his neck, then to his wrist to check the pulse. With the utmost care he gently prodded the man’s sides and all along his back.
“He’s alive,” Donatello said finally. “Leonardo, see if you can find anything that could work as a stretcher. You too, Raphael.”
The blue-masked turtle, Leonardo, sat Jared up against the wall. “Do you have any bed materials down here?”
“Yeah,” Jared said weakly. He stood up and laid a hand on the wall to steady himself. “This way."
He led the ones named Leonardo and Raphael down the tunnel a ways to a collection of old pallets covered with rat-eaten blankets. The two turtles selected the best looking of the pallets (the one with the least springs exposed) and returned to the spot where Dan lay. The one named Donatello had found a couple of lengths of piping as well as a large roll of duct tape. He set the pipes against each side of the mattress and ran several strips of duct tape over the mattress and around the pipes to secure them. Leonardo laid Dan across the pallet and Raphael took the belt from the mouth of his first kill among the Dragons. Donatello used it to bind Dan to the makeshift stretcher. As Jared followed them into the south tunnel, apprehension set in.
They’ve got swords, sais, and a really big pool stick…now under normal circumstances would you follow these freaks into total darkness? Ah, but what choice do you have? You know mom and Willy went down this way, and its possible they either led them to safety or have their bodies strung up in a lair somewhere. You could leave them…after all, what is dear old dad really worth to you?
The answer was simple: Not much.
