Captured

Fourth Capture - Leonardo

Leo strode back and forth across the small room; eight steps up, eight steps back. Mikey was overdue and not by a little. According to their plans, the orange banded turtle should have met up with Leo over an hour ago.

His search of the tunnels lying to the west had yielded nothing. No Raph, no Donny, and none of Bishop's men. He'd seen footprints, all recently made, but that was the extent of his findings.

As Leo paced he berated himself. He should never have used the same patrol route for so many nights; their search patterns should have remained randomized so that neither Bishop nor any of their enemies could predict where they'd be. The very second that he felt their location had been compromised, he should have ordered his brothers back into the sewers.

If he had followed the instructions he'd give to Mikey, Leo would be halfway home by now. He would certainly have expected Mikey to adhere to those orders and been furious if his brother hadn't.

Leo had already removed the useless headset but on the off chance their communications might once more be online, he pulled his shell cell from his belt. When he tried to reach Mikey he received the same infuriating static, so one by one he called his father, Casey, and then April, hoping that someone, anyone, would answer.

The only response Leo received with each attempt was static and he finally accepted that communications were definitely out. Taking a deep breath, Leo decided to break his own rules and exited the room, turning east so that he could track Mikey.

Leo's decision was contrary to his battle tactics training; there were only one or two situations in which one purposely walked into a potential ambush, and this was neither of those. It was just that Leo had a feeling that minutes would make a difference now. He hadn't listened to his gut earlier and he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

Although it was dark in the tunnels, Leo had no problem seeing through eyes that had grown up with a limited amount of light. It did not take him long to find the tracks that Bishop's men made in the dirt and silt that covered the sewer floors.

To his dismay Leo noted that those footprints didn't merely go in one direction. The tracks had been stepped on at least two and often three times as the clones backtracked, retracing their steps as they searched the tunnels.

In amongst the prints he spotted Mikey's. They were lighter and harder to find because of his ninja training, but they too had other footprints on top of them. Mikey had passed through the tunnel in search of his brothers, no doubt seeing that Bishop's men had already been there and thinking that the tunnel was clear.

The extra sets of prints showed Leo that there was a very good possibility that Mikey had run right into a patrol.

Continuing to track Mikey's prints, Leo stayed alert, determined not to be caught unawares. At one point the sound of approaching steps made him meld into a shadowed wall just before a group of clones passed him, their flashlights nearly exposing his location.

Leo eventually found the place where Mikey had cautiously stalked something and by trailing along in Mikey's footsteps, Leo saw the scene of his brother's big fight.

Squatting just beyond the perimeter of scuffed earth and mud, Leo studied the markers in front of him. Tire tracks from a small four-wheeled vehicle showed that it had entered this wider section of tunnel and then turned around and gone out again.

The depth of the tracks told him that the vehicle was heavier in the front and his mind immediately pictured a maintenance cart, the kind used by the tunnel crews that he and his brothers often dodged. From the number of prints on the ground and the make of the shoes, Leo knew the no city worker had been driving that cart.