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Some TMNT stuff really isn't for little kids. |
Long Way From Home is the first story in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Alpha.
Appearing in Long Way From Home[]
Major characters[]
Minor characters[]
- Businessman
- Park guards
Species[]
- Humans
- Mutant ferret
- Mutant frog
- Mutant panda
- Mutant rabbit
- Mutant turtle
- Rat
Locations[]
Objects and vehicles[]
- Cattle prod
- Crowbar
- Mop
- Police baton
Synopsis[]
Sunshine Safari Park somewhere in the deep south. The park has a closed for business sign at the front gate, but lights spill from a large barn inside. The barn has metal doors on the entrance and inside is a guard station just outside a fence topped with razor wire. On the other side of the fence is a large open space surrounded by individual cages. This is where the kidnapped mutants, including Donatello, are kept. A guard ushers a businessman inside and tell him it’s two thousand dollars upfront and he can choose any pen. Once it’s opened, the man will have five minutes safari time. If he can't finish his "safari" by then, they go back in the pen. Another round, another two grand. No refunds. If he bags the game and wants a trophy to take home, they can do that for an extra eight hundred cash.
The businessman asks if this is legal, like hunting deer or turkeys. He's heard stories about how crazy New York has gotten, but at the end of the day, they're all just animals. He needs a reassurance and the guard agrees with him. The guard indicates the cages and says there is nothing but animals here. When the businessman says they look like they're starving, the guard says they have more fight in them when they're hungry. The guard asks if he wants a fighter, commenting that he doesn't just want something that'll lie down for him. The businessman says that the guys at the office laughed at him when he told them he wanted to come here. They thought he'd never go through with it, so yes, he wants a fighter. He asks to be shown the most ferocious beast they've got. Seated in the shadows of his cell, Donatello says that would be him.
The businessman looks through the bars and says it doesn't look ferocious. The guard says he's fierce, and has volunteered for every safari since they brought him here. When the businessman says he doesn't like they keep calling it "him", Donatello tells him he can call him whatever he wants, just open the pen. The businessman angrily says he doesn't like it when they talk. Donatello says he's got a brother he'd really hate and then asks if they have a safari. Loosening his tie, the businessman chooses Don. The guard tells him to choose his weapon. As the businessman looks over the choices, he asks if they're the best they've got. The guard, back in the guard station, reminds him he paid for the basic package. If he wants better weapons, it's an extra seven hundred. The other guard, holding a hero sandwich, says that something tells him this guy couldn't kill a fish with a flamethrower. The first guard asks if the businessman is ready. Holding a crowbar, the businessman tells him to open the cage.
In an inner monologue, Donatello says he feels like he used to be a guy who knew things - like, a lot of things. But now, he can't tell what day it is, what year. He doesn't know how he came to be here or even where here is. Sometimes he's not terribly certain about his own name. Today he knows it's Donatello and that somewhere out there he has brothers who are just like him. He thinks he really misses them. As he stands waiting, watching the businessman charge at him, he thinks that something tells him that before he ever reached this place, he'd already lost his brothers. He's lost so very much... Don reaches for the mop leaning against a bucket nearby... But he hasn't lost everything.
Donatello breaks the mop over the businessman's head and knocks him out cold. The guards are amused, saying that was record fast. The first guard has stepped outside the guard station and reacts in surprise when Don uses the mop stick to leap over the barbed wire fence. He uses the stick to hit both guards, ruminating on the hours upon hours of ninja training. Bō in hand, he is whole again. He is counting the steps between the cages and freedom, the guards' reaction speed. The time it takes the cattle prod to charge. Don presses the mop stick against the second guard's neck, but the first zaps the Turtle with the cattle prod, taking him down. They both start beating on his carapace with their batons and in his mind, Don calls out to Splinter, asking his father to help him.
The guards drag Don back into the enclosure as he continues his mental pleas to his father to help him be unbroken by the darkness. To help him keep on crawling toward the light. When Don is back in his cage, the little mutant ferret next door asks if he's okay, if he's alive. Don replies that he thinks so because being dead wouldn't hurt this much. The mutant fusses at him for such a crazy move, saying he'll never escape that way, taking the guards head-on like that. He tells Don that he's too weak, just like the rest of them. Don says he's right, which is why he wasn't trying to escape. He takes the stolen hero sandwich from his cloak and passes it to the ferret, telling him to take some and pass it on to the others. The ferret calls him a lifesaver, and asks if he kept some for himself. Don lies, smiling as he says he's eating it now and it sure is delicious. The ferret asks if Don thinks they'll ever get out of this place. Lying on his side, watching as a rat munches on some of the sandwich, Don says he knows they will. Splinter says it's going to happen any day now. He's the smartest rat in the world. He calls the rat "sensei". Then as his mind starts filling with smoke again, Don tells himself that somewhere out there is a place where he belongs. Where he once laughed and lived a life and had so much food he got to eat three times a day. But his brain keeps showing some dirty sewer. He says his name is Donatello of Clan Hamato and he will crawl his way back home. He then tries to repeat his name, but can't recall it, so he asks his father. Father?