Lost in the Fight

Chapter 15 - A Shocking End

Luckily, when the smallest turtle with the biggest mouth had gotten taken down, it had provided just the distraction that Tiger Claw had been waiting for. He couldn't have asked for a better stroke of luck. The scrawniest turtle had just been starting to stir when Grizzgore had cast the annoying little nunchuk-wielding runt into the wall. The other brothers had turned their attention to the orange-masked terrapin just long enough for Tiger Claw to grab their intellectual brother.

The timing had been impeccable.

When his partner had unknowingly created the perfect disruption, Tiger Claw had quickly dragged the semiconscious turtle down the catwalk and up the roof access ladder with minimal effort, and more importantly, without detection. The problem was, now that his hostage was fully awake, he wasn't being all that cooperative, making the mutant tiger's trek across the rooftop much more difficult than he had anticipated. What was going to be even more difficult was going down the fire escape ladder with an unwilling captive. Tiger Claw was half-tempted to knock the turtle back out, but he really wanted his prisoner to be lucid when he handed him over to Master Shredder. That way, his master could do as he pleased to the reptile, but the turtle's incessant resistance was trying the cat's patience and significantly impeding his progress.

Tiger Claw found himself wishing that he would have brought his jetpack along on this mission. It would have made things so much easier . . .

The turtle's increased fidgeting then snapped the enormous cat out of his mental grumbling and further pushed his patience to the limit.

"Unless you would like another jolt from my new shock gun, I suggest you stop your infernal struggling, little cub," Tiger Claw snarled into his captive's ear slit.

Donnie stiffened in the tiger's grasp, remembering all too well how unpleasant the last hit from the modified stun gun had felt. The genius turtle wasn't about to just give up without a fight, but at the same time, if Tiger Claw gave him another zap with his shock gun, Donnie wouldn't be able to put up any kind of a fight at all, nor would he be able to notify his brothers that he had been taken.

It was a regular catch-22 . . .

When Tiger Claw tightened his vice-like grip around him for the umpteenth time, Donnie temporarily stopped flailing about, not just to save his shell from getting shocked, but also, because being squashed like an orange when you had several broken ribs did not feel good at all.

Drawing in a murky breath, and then, letting out a long, sickly-sounding wheeze, the genius turtle attempted to calmly push away the pain. He needed to focus on trying to come up with some kind of a clever escape plan.

Once his breathing was somewhat steady and he was able to finally concentrate on something other than his own agony, Donatello's magnificent brain rapidly went to work.

Taking into account his extremely debilitated physical condition and the detrimental effects of the shock gun, Donnie quickly concluded that he would only have one shot at getting away and/or notifying his brothers of his potential kidnapping. He knew from experience that the shock gun could render him unconscious in a matter of seconds, which meant that his timing would have to be just right or he would get an all-expense paid trip to life in captivity courtesy of the Shredder himself.

Clearly, he needed to wait for a better opportunity to present itself, so he decided to play possum for a while. This would not only give him some time to contemplate, but also, allow him to conserve what little energy he still had left.

"That's a good boy," Tiger Claw goaded when he felt the turtle's body go limp in an obvious act of submission. The malicious cat then used the paw cupped firmly around Donatello's mouth to yank the terrapin's head back so that the weaker mutant was forced to look him in the eye. The tiger could see and feel the turtle gulp nervously and it brought yet another sinister smirk to his face.