City that Never Sleeps

[TheSmartOne]

“Move? Are you crazy?” Donnie said, giving his older brother a look as if Raph had just suggested they take a trip to the moon. “Do you have any idea how much work that would involve? We'd have to get everything out of the lair, fix it all, completely rewire our electrical grid-” Donnie paused. He'd pretty much described his 'after we get the water to stop flooding the lair' to-do list.
“Or, we could just move.” He conceded. Heck, at this point, the whole lair was pretty much a do-over. They were going to have a looot of cleaning up to do when the watery insanity died down. But while Raph did raise a perfectly logical point (Go figure), Donnie still wasn't convinced. Sewer or not, home was home. And if the problem was as simple as he thought it was, then he wasn't ready to give up on it just yet.
“Look, we're already here so we might as well check things out. I'm sure some old cardboard boxes just got caught over the grates or something”

The beam of his flashlight joined up over Raph's, illuminating a rusty metal door hanging open on one hinge. There wasn't much more to it then that: A narrow stairwell, a dark pit beyond, and water covering it all. Donnie remembered seeing this particular tunnel on an old sewer map once upon a time, and he had suspected that there'd be some swimming involved in their little quest to stop the flooding. But even so, he hadn't exactly counted on it looking so.... well...

“Creepy,”

It took Donnie a full two seconds to remember that April was standing right next to him.“I, uh- mean... I've seen scarier.”
Man. He really hoped she bought that. Hard to tell in the dark. All Donnie knew was that April had been far more enthusiastic at the prospect of venturing down an old, flooded subway tunnel then you would expect a human to be. It was impressive. Really impressive. Super impressive.
Was she amazing or what?
Oh, right, water...tunnels... Raph was saying something...
Or he was saying something. Something else was making a sound, far off at first, but growing louder and louder. The sound of splashing, like something moving through the water. A big something... Donnie turned, throwing his light out the way they;d came. And there, completely dwarfing the door with its sheer size, was one of the very last things Donnie every wanted to run into when taking a walk down a dark sewer tunnel.

"My friends!"

Oh no.... Nope, nope, nope, nope.
Now, Donnie didn't consider himself a coward. But there was something about Leatherhead and his freakish ability to fly off the handle at any given second that naturally made Donnie a little hesitant to be in the company of the massive reptile. The fact that Leatherhead had twice grabbed him by the face, made Donnie downright nervous.

“L-leatherhead!” Donnie's voice took on an embarrassing pitch. It was only by sheer force of will (And by his own code of “Don't look stupid in front of April”) that Donnie didn't make a beeline to hide behind Raph. He spent an awkward moment trying to fight off self preservation instead, eyes fixed on Leatherhead's massive hands. “What brings you t-to uh...t-this side of the sewer?"

Pleasedon'tgrabmyface,pleasedon'tgrabmyface,please don'tgrabmyface.

Preoccupied as Donnie was, he didn't notice the little red lights. They appeared from out of the maintenance stairwell, just one lone blink at first... It was difficult to see in the murkiness of the water, but as it drew closer to the surface, it became clearer- The silhouette of what looked like a fish, small fry washed up from the river, or so it seemed. Except for the light. A little red, blinking light, soon joined by another, and another, and another, until the little army of blinking fish swam off through the water. They followed the flow of the water, splitting where the water split, up and down the tunnels.

Some went harmlessly further up the sewer pipes.
The others, where swimming in the direction of the lair.

(So um. I should have warned you guys that sometimes I write a lot. I guess you might have figured that out on your own by now. I like to write. Sometimes I go overboard. >_> This is one of those cases. Don't worry, I never expect anyone to match my output)