Be silent. Be quick. Don't let them see you coming. Keep your guard up. And finally never work alone, always as a team. These were the rules of a ninja but they were not the rules of teenage brothers.
Raphael and Leonardo fought again, this time over which channel to watch on TV. Donatello scolded Michelangelo for spilling grape soda all over his computer, essentially destroying it. Splinter couldn't be among the peace and quiet of his own mind, he hasn't for years, but he didn't mind it.
April threw a box of pizza on the table. She looked so much older, to Splinter, and so much wiser. She knew to quickly grab the slices she wanted before the brothers noticed the smell and Splinter followed her with quick hands. As always Michelangelo was the first to notice and he was the first to start eating. The other brothers followed behind him.
Splinter nibbled on his while he listened to their continuing arguments. He smiled. April was like a sister to their dysfunctional family.
Shock and sadness in her eyes made Splinter turn his head toward the television. The woman on the news was showing pictures and talking about a science lab. April turned up the volume and sat on the couch and listened intently.
"What's wrong, April?" Michelangelo asked. The brothers had stopped fighting at some point while the woman was trying to interview witnesses.
"That lab…I'm very familiar with it." She rubbed her forehead. "Everybody who pays attention to the science community is."
Donatello's face brightened with recognition. "Did anybody get out?" He asked her quickly.
"It doesn't look like it. All of those…" She stopped her sentence short. Her face saddened Splinter's heart. April was the type of person where you couldn't help but mimic her emotions. If she smiled, you smiled. If she was angry, you were angry. If she cried, you cried. Even Raphael couldn't escape the tight grip she held.
"What? What died?" Michelangelo, as usual, couldn't feel the gloom in the room. The rest of the unspoken sentence shot right over him.
"Not what. Who, Mikey." Donatello answered.
"They were all just children," April finally whispered. Everyone sat in silence. Splinter walked over to the TV and turned it off so that they were left in the peace of silence. This was the only time Splinter knew that the brothers were not fighting or making any noise at all.
Finally, April spoke, "I visited that place once or twice. I would visit periodically to check their progress or to help them out with something. It was…I guess almost five years ago when I last visited. They had a few teenagers still living. The oldest one was sixteen years and the youngest was only ten. There were five of them, all very nice kids. In fact, you guys kind of remind me a little of them." There was a smile but it wasn't a happy one, it was sad and full of memories that her eyes saw in the TV.
"What was the experiment?" Leonardo asked, his tone was respectfully dark.
"Creating the perfect weapon for the military is what they claimed. But honestly, I'm not too sure. The only thing I am sure of is they often said only one was successful." April leaned her head against her hand and she smiled at the memories but a tear ran down her cheek.
Splinter jumped at the loud alarms. He was getting too old for these sirens. The turtles rushed toward the screens. "One of them is offline," Donatello relayed.
"Then that's where they are!" Raphael's voice started sounding distant.
"Wait, Raph!" Leonardo followed and behind him, Splinter suspected, were the other two brothers.
Splinter calmly cleaned up the table.
"The youngest one," April started suddenly, "she was different than the rest of them. She wanted to be everyone's friend. She had no idea that the life she was leading wasn't normal. I think the other scientists even treated her differently. They favored her for some reason."
What could he say? There was nothing to say. Simply sitting by the girl seemed to calm her and comfort her. "Thank you, Splinter." He didn't know what she was thanking him for, but maybe they were words she felt she needed to say even if the meaning behind the words was different than he thought.
How could Raphael be so reckless? Why was Leo even surprised, he was often reckless! There was no time to scold him now. He followed Raph through the sewers. Raph was always a few feet ahead of them.
He stopped suddenly. "What the-" Before he could finish his sentence he was attacked by an oversized wolf. Something wasn't right about the about the wolf but there was no time to figure out why. Leo jumped with katana in hand and brought the katana down on the wolf. The wolf moved out of the way and focused its attention on them.
The shape of it was odd like it was hunched over and it stood on two instead of four legs. It had claws, like a wolf, but it stood taller than any man Leo had ever seen. It attacked Leo and he moved his katanas in an X to block its attack. Mikey tackled it to the ground and pinned its head to the ground. The creature stopped struggling and made a low growling sound.
"Why is there a wolf in the sewers?" Raph demanded.
"Guys, this isn't a wolf." Don was messing with his newest gadget that looked much like a tablet and out of it came a very slow song, almost like a lullaby. The creature stopped growling to listen.
"Hey, it's relaxing!"
"Shh!" Everyone shushed Mikey and waited until the song was over. Raph removed Mikey but the creature had disappeared and was replaced with a boy! The boy was fast asleep.
"What just happened?" Leo demanded of Don.
He only shrugged.
The fire, it surrounded her. The smog choked her. She saw them running but her feet wouldn't move. She couldn't scream. When she did run her legs melted into the floor and her eyes became heavy so she closed them, knowing she would die.
The floor was cold and hard. Kat realized soon that she was in a cage. Her auburn hair covered her face. Jason, Jeremy, Vince, and Nathan were nowhere around. Were they all free?
"You're awake." The voice made her heart sink to her stomach. Slowly she looked up and saw Nathan. He was the oldest out of all of them and the toughest, Kat thought. Nathan was in a cage next to hers. His black hair was matted and came down to his shoulders and his smile was just as warm as the fire.
"I thought you had escaped," she said quietly and sadly.
"Nah, I had to come back for you, Sis." He smiled.
"You shouldn't have, Nathan." The opening of a door made her jump and anger welled in her chest.
Nathan kept talking. "They nearly left me to burn but I convinced them that it was better to keep me." He explained even though they came. The men in white coats, playing doctor when they really didn't know what they were doing when they checked their forms.
On the clipboard that hung on the cages she knew it said Operation: Lycanthrope.