Chapter Text
Upon waking up in an unfamiliar place with a head injury, Red really tried her very best to stay calm. Staying calm was necessary, she reminded herself. If she blacked out here, there was no telling what would happen. She might end up getting herself into an even bigger pickle than she was already in. She took a deep breath, counted to four, then let it out slowly.
A stab went through her head. The snapper hissed, hands reaching up to cradle the perceived injury. She found bandages. Huh. That was weird.
“Oh! You’re awake!”
Red peeled her beak back in a snarl and turned toward the intruder. The kid raised his hands in defense. “Shit, sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you! Look, look, if I was gonna hurt you, I wouldn’t have bandaged you up, okay?” What? Did they take her for leverage? Or did they realize what they were doing was wrong?
She dropped the snarl and examined the unknown. He was rather short, but then again, practically everyone was compared to her. A blue bandana was wrapped around his face- sorta like a ninja mask. He was some sort of turtle yokai. His skin was a light lime green, with yellow stripes spanning over his limbs and two symmetrical red slashes over his eyes.
“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” She signed.
The boy looked at her strangely. He threw himself onto a chair, which spun toward where Red was currently sitting. He stopped it finally at the platform’s side, taking a moment to get rid of the dizziness while still trying to look cool. He propped up his face on his palm, resting his elbow on the platform she was on. “My name’s Leo. What’s yours?”
“Red.”
Again, the little turtle seemed very confused. Oh. Of course, he would be. Why would he know TSL? No, she just had to be helped by someone who didn’t know what she was saying. Just her fantastic luck coming into play. Leo cocked his head. “You got a really weird case of the flappies or something?”
She snorted, which made the tiny turtle jump in surprise. “It is not the F-L-A-P-P-I-E-S,” She signed slowly, forgetting he wouldn’t understand, “This is how I talk.”
“Some sort of sign language, I presume?”
Red squawked in surprise, nearly jumping out of her skin at the new voice. Leo seemed to share the sentiment. “Jesus Christ, Donnie! We need to get you a bell or something, for real!”
‘Donnie’ leaned in with no regard for her personal space, red-blue goggles pulled over his eyes. This yokai seemed to be a bit smarter than the other one. His forearms were covered in miniature screens, and it seemed his goggles were running an analysis of some sorts. He was a darker shade of green than his little friend. Blocky purple stripes covered his long snout and shoulders, complimenting his purple accessories and the violet device covering his shell. His mask was purple too. This guy… he really liked purple.
“I didn’t detect any throat problems during the examination,” the boy mumbled idly. Then, over to his friend, “Did you find anything wrong with him apart from the head thing? Any problems with his larynx, perchance?”
“S-H-E.”
Surprisingly, this one caught it. His goggles flicked back up to the top of his head, revealing very thickly drawn-on eyebrows. “Ah. My sincerest apologies. Was there anything wrong with her larynx, Leo? Chop chop! We haven’t got all day.”
The red-slashed turtle in blue turned to him with confusion. “You can understand… her?”
“I know the ASL alphabet in case of emergencies. She’s using something kind of similar. Now, c’mon? Injuries?”
Leo jumped as if he’d been slapped. “OH! Yeah, no. Nothing’s wrong with her larynx as far as I can tell. There’s no swelling or redness in her throat, so she’s not sick or anything.”
The giant girl fingerspelled as slowly as she could manage. “M-U-T-E.”
He didn’t seem to get it, given the weird way he was squinting. “What the hell does wute mean?”
“M-U-T-E.” She repeated, making even slower motions than before.
Donnie just growled in frustration, dragging a hand down his face. “I don’t know what wute means! Look, can you write? That’ll probably be easier, yeah?”
Red hesitantly nodded. The turtles called one of their friends to get something to write with. She cringed internally. Yes, she was good at spelling when it came to sign. But when it came to putting pen to paper, it always came out garbled. Despite Draxum’s best efforts, she’d never been good at writing. She just wasn’t smart enough for it, she guessed.
Soon enough, the little orange-masked one she’d seen take the cursed kusari-fundo was in the room. This one was definitely small, even by her standards. He had stickers stuck all over his plastron, and yellow paint-like splotches coated his dark green skin. There was a little gap in his teeth. Scribbly faces were drawn on his knee pads. Everything about him contributed to one thing- he was a little kid.
This little one shoved a small whiteboard into her hands, along with a hot pink marker.
Red immediately took down her biggest question: Where did they take her?
It was obvious she was in a medbay of some sort. But the equipment and materials didn’t seem like the stuff you’d find in the Hidden City. It was a shiny sort of bluish-grey where most of the tools you’d find there would be made of this weird, slick, black material, or a dull gold.
The other turtles took several seconds to read over it. It was probably downright illegible, knowing her handwriting.
“Where are you? You’re in our- uh- lair,” Donnie answered, tapping his snout idly. “What the hell was that green stuff? Why is that sheep guy making fish people?”
“While we’re at it-” Leo added, “Where the hell was that? What was with the big old cavern beneath New York? And what are those yokai thingies goat dude was talking about?”
Oh. Were they mutants? Were these- NO. No time for this. Get your head in the game, Red. Instead of answering any of their questions, she wrote one of her own. Where is Draxum?
“What? Are you worried he’s going to find you?” Leo asked gingerly, “Cause, unless you’ve got a tracker on you or something, he’s not gonna. We’re hidden pretty well. He won’t be getting to you again.”
What?
“Yeah, don’t think we didn’t notice,” Donnie said with a venomous edge, “it’s pretty obvious who gave you those scars. He mutated that delivery guy for funsies! What sort of functional member of society does that? He’s obviously evil.”
All at once, Red realized they’d taken off her shirt during their ‘examination’. The cracks on her plastron were open to view, much like the splintering scars surrounding it. That was embarrassing. At least they’d had the decency to leave her with her hakama.
“If the quota for evil is nonconsensual experimentation, doesn’t that mean you’re evil too, Don?” The orange one questioned flatly.
Wait. Did they leave Draxum in that explosion? What did they mean it was ‘pretty obvious’? Were they implying-
Oh.
She wants to go home. Where was her dad? Would he even be alive after that explosion? No no no. He had to be alive. He had to be. She didn’t know what she would do if he died. He couldn’t be dead. Please. No. Her dad was alive.
A snarl peeled across her face when one of them moved to try and touch her. No. That wasn’t allowed. The three kids flinched away from her. They looked scared. That wasn’t fair. They were the ones who brought her here. They were the ones who left her dad to die. They were the ones who blew up Draxum’s lab. They were the ones who let the fox into the henhouse.
They were still asking her things, she realized. They were getting angrier and angrier at her refusal. She just wanted to go home.
Was there even a home to go back to?
The thought sent a shot of panic through her system. She had to get out. She had to get out right fucking now. She had to leave. She had t o g e t o u t ge t o u t g et ou t r i gh t n o w
O u t
g e
t o
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et o u t.
G ri m y g rey water waded against her knees. She came back into control with a shock, gasping for air. Her eyes shot across the surroundings. They were underground somewhere. She was covered in really gross water that made her feel grimy all over. She was holding someone. He was shaking. With a shock, she pulled back and quickly checked over the small turtle she had been holding. Had she hurt him?
The orange-masked turtle was crying. He was bleeding in two places. Okay, Red, which looks more severe? The bite on his bicep didn’t look too bad. It was just a small imprint. Savage had been courteous enough to not draw blood this time, she supposed. The bleeding was coming from the puncture of her snaggletooth. Figures. The stupid thing didn’t do much more than look cool.
Okay. The other wound now, Red. This one didn’t look like Savage’s doing. It was a straight cut down the front of his thigh. Did she drag him across something? It seemed to get much deeper the farther down it went, the surface wound stopping a few inches from his knee. The bleeding was pretty bad, though. It had to be a deep cut.
You need to stem the bleeding until his friends get here. What can you use to tie it off, Red? The obvious answer would be her hand wrappings, but those were all mucked up with this disgusting water. If she wrapped it with the wrong thing, this could turn into a nasty infection. She gently set him down on the concrete ledge beside them. Did the kid have anything on him she could use?
Her eyes flicked to his mask. She slowly peeled it off his head, trying to ignore his stare as she undid the knot. She knew exactly how weird this must’ve looked to him. Red swiftly tied the mask around the upper part of the cut. The boy hissed. She chose to ignore that. This was necessary.
She turned the tiny turtle’s face toward her. She made the sign for ‘phone. Hopefully it was obvious enough for him to realize what she meant. Luckily, he seemed to catch her drift. He pressed the button on his belt. It began to beep. Probably a homing signal of some sort. Good.
Red got out of the water, turning the boy on his shell and lifting his injured leg into the air. It should help with the bleeding. The kid giggled through his tears, an action that didn’t seem to fit the situation.
“You’re a real weirdo, huh?”
Red huffed. It wasn’t like she could deny it.
“My name is Mikey, by the way,” The yellow-splotched turtle informed her through bubbly tears, “Our dad thought it would be cool to name us all after renaissance artists. My guy Michelangelo was good at showing psychological tension and determining light and dark. So, you can say I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
Red snorted, resting his leg against a small divot in the brick wall so he wouldn’t accidentally pull it down.
“Hey! Sometimes names mean something, y’know?”
She gave an unconvincing look. Mikey frowned, squinting as if he was thinking real hard. “Like, you seem like a Raphael. His art was great at displaying emotion and color. And he had a real knack for anatomy. His art was very complex. Detailed. I think it suits you perfectly. He also reeeaaaallllly liked drawing babies. You like babies?”
She looked him over curiously. This kid was kind of a weirdo too. Gently, she traced the word ‘sorry’ into his lower leg with her claws.
Mikey giggled. “It’s okay. You were panicking. You dragged me here trying to protect me. That cut wasn’t you. I got knocked into Leo’s sword thingy. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
A churr rumbled in her throat. She wanted to wait until they got back to make sure that he was taken care of. No, Red, you have to go home. You have to look for dad. She pressed a small kiss to the tiny turtle’s forehead, then got up and turned away. They’d be coming soon.
“See ya later, Raph.”
She gave one last anxious chirp, looking back at the wounded boy. Mikey held out a thumbs-up. Red began to run. She couldn’t let the kid’s friends find her and take her away again. She had to get home. Did she still have that portal thingy in her shell?
--
To be honest, Mikey didn’t know what to expect from the giant stranger Leo was convinced was their long-lost sibling. He’d brought her a little whiteboard to ask them questions on, as she was apparently wute. Whatever that means.
A few questions in, and it was pretty obvious she was getting overwhelmed. He’d tried to butt in, he really did. But Leo and Donnie were very much twins. The both of them were equally loud and stubborn as all hell.
Then his brothers went too far. They brought up the scars across her chest. The poor girl started having a panic attack. But seeing as his brothers were complete and utter idiots, they pressed on with their questions, nonetheless. Being the touchy-feely sorta guy that he was, Mikey had reached forward to comfort her. She’d gnashed her jaws in anger. Understandable, but it only got his brothers even more frustrated.
After a few more seconds of their questioning, she broke. The giant snapper’s eyes went pure white. His brothers didn’t notice until she lept off the table with a roar.
Mikey started forward to stop her, but Donnie got in front of him like the stupid protective older brother he was. It didn’t work out too well for him. The girl almost immediately knocked him to the side with her massive tail. Okay. So, stay away from that particular appendage. Then the giant mutant turned tail (pun intended) and bolted.
Leo immediately snapped out of his shock-induced stupor. “WE CAN’T LET HER LEAVE!” He proudly proclaimed, running off to try and catch her.
The box turtle cursed vehemently under his breath and popped to his feet. He’d have to leave Donnie here for now. He was surrounded by medical equipment. It’d be fine. He shot off like a rocket after the two turtles.
Leo had the girl in a rather unfortunate position. He was perched on her shell, trying to reign her in by hooking his bandana around her neck and pulling. Mikey wasn’t too sure what to do. Come on, the slider was obviously just making this worse. Whatever sorta state she was in was panic induced. Strangling her definitely wasn’t gonna help.
He jumped at his brother, shoving him off the panicking snapper. There was a sharp pain in his leg when they hit the ground. Mikey screamed as Leo got up, ripping the sword on his shell out of his leg. The blue-masked turtle immediately scrambled, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“Mikey? MIKEY! Mikey what the hell?!”
The slider tried to check out the wound. Mikey winced. “Why the FUCK would you just tie a sword on your back like that? USE A SHEATH, DICKNIPS!!”
Then teeth clamped on his bicep. Their panicking ex-captive’s jaws were wrapped around his arm. Mikey took a deep breath through his nose. “Excuse me?” The girl looked at her like a dog who’d just been caught going through the trash.
Then she lifted him by the arm. Leo watched in horrified shock. The girl forced his injured leg into his shell roughly and he bit back a shout. Then she started running. Scratch running, actually. She was shooting through the shallow sewer water like a squirrel on crack cocaine. He could hear his brother shouting, but it was all drowned out by the sound of crashing water in his cutaneous plates.
Eventually, the sound stopped, and the girl was holding him out in front of her like he was a particularly special stuffed animal. He wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed before it did.
The snapper sat him down on the concrete beside the water and tugged out his injured leg. Michelangelo hissed in pain. Once he was all out there, the girl roughly pat him down despite his protests. It was like she was checking him for injuries even in her absent state.
This weird churr reverberated in her throat, coming out as a sort of coo put through deep reverb. She picked him up and hugged him tight. He was pressed hard against this giant, warm, and purring beast. And whether it was from the sharp pain in his thigh, or from the fact that he was being held like he was a five years old with his dad, he started to cry.
He pressed himself as far into the embrace as he could, sucking up every last ounce of warmth, and sobbed.
At some point during his fantastic breakdown, the behemoth woke up. She sat him back down on the concrete and tied off the slash in his leg to stem the bleeding. From what he could gather, she didn’t remember anything from when she was under. Thank Raffaele Esposito for that, honestly. It would be embarrassing to say the least if she remembered him falling apart at a simple hug.
So, his theory was correct. She was not in control of what happened when she went into that panicky state. It was pretty interesting, honestly. He wanted to dig through this guy’s brain like it was a piece of lore for a good video game. But this wasn’t a video game. It was a person. It may just be his long-lost sister. She was propping up his leg on a crack in the wall to slow the blood flow. This whole situation was insane.
He chose to extend the olive branch. It was a weird one, but it’d worked with that lizard he found when he was seven.
“Like, you seem like a Raphael. His art was great at displaying emotion and color. And he had a real knack for anatomy. His art was very complex. Detailed. I think it suits you perfectly. He also reeeaaaallllly liked drawing babies. You like babies?”
The newly dubbed Raphael seemed to take it pretty well. Her big black eyes lingered on the little fang mark in his bicep.
Mikey giggled. “It’s okay. You were panicking. You dragged me here trying to protect me. That cut wasn’t you. I got knocked into Leo’s sword thingy. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
That seemed to relieve her somewhat, but he didn’t miss the way her eyes kept looking for an exit. Raph churred and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then she turned and walked away.
“See ya later, Raph.”
The snapper gave one last glance back and an anxious chirp. He held out a thumbs-up to her. It was gonna be okay. He was gonna be okay. She was gonna be okay. They were all gonna be okay. She kept running.
He got it. She had to get back to her dad. He had to get back to his. That was just the way the wind blows.
He could hear footsteps.
His brothers were coming to get him.