The air stank like a toxic smog, an appalling mix of urine and blood that drowned out and killed all other scents. The combination was like fermented fear. It scalded the sensitive orifices of Raphael's nose and eyes and penetrated the thick death-like sleep he had been in. He grimaced groggily under the stink, jerking his hand to cover his nose only to find himself firmly restrained. It took him a moment, shaking his head as though to throw the sticky cobwebs in his mind loose, to realize he was strung up against a wall. Both hands were tightly clasped in metal brackets and stretched high over his head, and his feet were equally cuffed on the ankles. It effectively kept him stationary as he strained hard to test their , he wasn't budging. Dammit.
Finally his mind caught up to his body, and disgruntled by his inability to move, the first thing his thoughts could conjure was, 'What the hell...?' Last thing he remembered was sitting on the rooftop of Aprils apartment with the guys sharing a pizza. There was no Clan activity, and the Foot had been quiet for ages. It had been a pretty peaceful night. He opened his eyes, but the depth of his vision was pulsating and too blurry to make out anything and his head thrummed with the quiver of his pulse.
His hearing however was sharp and reliable, so as he closed his eyes again to try and clear his vision he concentrated on what sounds were going on around him. There were a lot of them, and each one more disturbing than the last. There was fearful whimpering, inconsolable sobbing, and what sounded like a mans voice on the other end of this room screaming his damn head off! Ugh, if his fists were free he'd shove one down his throat to shut him up! Beyond that he concentrated, and he could hear helpless pleading. If he'd been a lesser man, he'd have been unnerved, but living the life he did and taking down the dirtiest thugs New York City had to offer, his reaction to the sounds were simple. Lives were in danger and that meant there were skulls to be bashed, a prospect he was eager to dive into!
"Hey Leo, I think Raph's coming around!" Came the all too loud voice of his youngest brother.
"It does look like he's stopped drooling doesn't it?" Came a wiley quip from the eldest.
Raphael growled agitatedly, "Keep your damn voice down Leo, m'heads killin me!" At least he knew where his brothers were.
"The headache will pass pretty quick," He heard Donatello explain helpfully, "it's just the drugs wearing off."
'Drugs?' He wondered, turning that news over in his head for a second. That explained a lot. Not only the lack of memory but the odd haze he felt like he waded through. Also, they were ninjas. Sneaking up on them and attacking directly wasn't something easily accomplished, but drugging them?
He cracked open his eyes again, finding gratefully that his vision was steadily returning. They were in a circular metal paneled room, the walls lined with upright booths with metal restraints hanging from above and anchored below. Half the present booths had occupants chained within, some struggling to get free, some resigned, others angry, and many weeping. Raph let his eyes sweep the room, scowling as everything came into focus.
The room wouldn't appear so daunting, seeing as it was essentially a jail, if it were not for two things. One, the floors were filthy, smeared with streaks of blood and sticky with urine and other varieties of bodily waste. Yuck. That explained the smell. It was obvious someone couldn't be bothered to clean anything up around here. Second, there was a very distinct stench reaching his nose that could only be the decay of a dead body. It took only a moment of searching to identify where it was coming from, spying in a booth a bloated and blistering body of some indistinguishable figure about to burst it's decomposed contents onto the already disgusting floor.
He looked to his left, glad to see that his brothers looked unharmed. They looked to be just as confused as him and were surveying the room, just as he had.
"Wow, nice place." He muttered sarcastically, spitting to the side to try and get a taste he had inhaled off his tongue. Well, he had always thought it was impossible to taste a smell. Living in a sewer made him feel entitled to make such a claim. Now he knew better.
Mikey made a sour face and whined, "Yeah, real nice, Raph. The pee makes it real homey."
"Not to mention those decorative splatters of blood, very tasteful." Donnie added in disgust.
Leo looked about ready to be sick. "Can you guys stop before I add my own personal touch to it?"
"If you ask me, the room could use a bit more color!" Donatello offered with a chuckle, making Leo cringe queasily.
Raph laughed. Their bantering in tense situations always had a tendency to relax them and keep them from caving under pressure.
"Careful Leo," he warned, "if you do, Mikey might want to as well, and I dunno how all of us would handle that kinda chain reaction!"
Mikey belched unappetizingly and groaned, squinting his eyes shut before he shouted, "Okay okay okay, can we stop being gross for one minute and figure out where the hell we are!"
When steel stomach Mikey said it was time to stop being gross, the brothers knew how dire the situation was.
Leo wrenched his face upwards, looking very seriously to Donatello. "Okay then let's start with the basics. I'm coming up empty here. I don't remember a thing."
"Me either." Raphael agreed.
Mikey chimed in. "Ditto."
Donatello nodded, eyes scrutinizing the scene before him as his brothers all practically leaned in, waiting for him to begin to articulate his no doubt racing string of thoughts. It took him several long seconds to begin, and when he did, they all knew his mouth would run as fast as his agile mind. They just hoped they would be able to absorb it all.
"What I'm getting is that we've been abducted and judging by the way we roused and have no memory of anything before hand, it was administered by someone who knew exactly what they were doing and didn't want a direct confrontation. It would also explain why we're being restrained and why our weapons have been taken. Next, just by looking around us and listening to the others here, I believe we're part of a small collection of extraterrestrials being accrued and if my ears deceive me and I don't believe they are, I'm hearing engine propulsion but there's no problems with equilibrium as one might have in a plane or jet or-"
Raph rolled his eyes and barked, "Dumb it down!"
Donnie wrinkled his face slightly, and bluntly said, "I think we're on an alien space ship and part of a small variety of collected species."
Leo looked around them again, his face showing how troubled he was. With the rest of them remaining cool, Raph couldn't help but want to tell him to get it together. It wasn't the worst mess they'd been in.
"I've been listening to them talking, and I don't understand a damn thing any of them are saying, but they all sound pretty spooked." He was eying a small group of white scaled multi-limbed snakes who seemed particularly unsettled to be where they were. "You think they know something that we don't?"
At the mention of it, Raph payed closer attention to the cries of the other aliens around them, and quickly found Leo was right. There were ones that looked humanoid, like a small group of about five that by all appearances seemed human aside from tall fuzzy ears and matching tails. Another group was similar, but instead of the ears and tails they had wings and the maws of a bird of prey with teeth. Some looked confused and scared, others looked downright frantic.
Donnie nodded to himself as he tried to piece more of the puzzle together. "I want to say just looking around this cess pool would make anyone freak out, but I've gotta admit," Worriedly, he met Leos gaze, "I'm starting to agree. I think they know why we're here."
Leo's cerulean gaze went icy with resolve and narrowed. "We need to try and ask them, figure out what's going on."
Mikey had been relatively quiet as he squeamishly stood on his tip toes. He had apparently just discovered that the floor of his booth was tacky. He suddenly piped up. "This is fifty shades of nasty man! I think someone took a leak where I'm standing!"
All three brothers suddenly looked at him accusingly, making the youngest male freeze.
"I didn't say it was me!" He cried incredulously, his expressive words making his freckles bounce on his cheeks! "Why do you always gang up on me like that!"
"If you recall Mikey, none of us said anything!" Donnie had a hard time hiding his grin as he said it though.
"Yeah but you looked at me in that tone of voice!" He said defensively, huffing and resigning himself to just stand in the grime underfoot.
All three brothers sighed and hung their heads at his choice of wording. They wondered if he even realized what he'd just said himself.
Leonardo tested the metal coil that held the bracket holding his wrists, grunting a few times as he lifted his entire weight up onto it to test its strength. It firmly held fast. "I know one thing for sure." He said confidently, sending a smirk to his brothers. "We're here together, which means we're at our best! If we stay focused and on target there's nothing we can't-!"
Raphael let himself hang limp and interrupted him with a groan, "For fucks sake, Leo, will you stop quoting that damn space show!"
"Excuse me for trying to motivate my team!"
"There's no excuse for stupidity LeoTARDo!" Raph snapped back, feeling cheered on when Mikey snorted in laughter at the name calling. Even Donnie was chortling.
"Cut it out you two!" Donnie said with finality, still hiding the residual grin on his face, "Besides,he's right in the long run. We stick together and figure this out."
"Okay, then trying to communicate with other prisoners is phase one!" The blue masked terrapin said with certainty. "Got it?"
"Got it!" The others joined in unison.
Raph looked to his right side for the first time, a bit irritated by the numbness in his hands but doing a good job of ignoring it. He had to see if there was anyone on the other side of him. Immediately next to him, there was no one, just an empty space and the sickly rusty brown color of old dried blood. One booth further down however, there was one of those humanoid fox aliens. He found his eyes wandering her from head to toe, not out of any real interest, but out of curiosity. He'd shared space with alien life before, and usually the experience was fun. Lots and lots of good old fashioned brawling and ample opportunity to test his strength and skill! The Kraang sure had been fun to smash up!
This little slip of a thing was completely different. She didn't look like she'd hold her own against even the weakest of foes. She wasn't very tall, reaching maybe his mid chest in height. Her red furred ears were drooped low back against her head and her fluffy matching tail was tucked between her knees in a curve. She had long burgundy red hair that curtained her face as her head hung forward. She didn't seem hurt despite her tense posture, though. He heard her breathing, and watched her shoulders rising and falling as her breaths came and went. It was slow and unsteady, her body shaking with more than its share of anxiety. Those little hands were tightly clenched on the very ends of slender pale skinned arms. She wore two pieces of clothing, apparently cut from the same cloth as one another. One was a green skirt that looked like it had been stitched together by hand. It came up to the underside of her tail and was secured with a knot above it allowing the excess to fall down to her knees. The top looked like it was made from what was left of it, wrapped around her neck, crisscrossed over her breasts, and tied at the small of her back. The cloth had some white diamond patterning to it.
Overall she was unimpressive and tiny, and Raph began to wonder what would happen to her in a place like this if something wasn't done. She obviously couldn't defend herself like he and his brothers could. A spark flew in his mind suddenly and Leo's worry made so much more sense to him. His brother wasn't as much worried about what would happen to the team, but rather, what was going to happen to the other people caught here. Heh, he should have known that boyscout would be two steps ahead, thinking about everyone else here and not just of themselves. Raph felt the familiar twist of envy over Leonardo's insight. He snorted to himself, rationalizing that he had come to that conclusion too, it just took him a minute longer.
He glanced back to his brothers, intending to bring this up, but they were focused on trying to communicate with someone on the opposite side and having very little success. He decided to give it a go with this chick.
"Hey, you in there?" He asked, leaning as far forward as he could to try to get her attention. She didn't even twitch. "If you can understand me doll, say somethin."
At first she didn't seem to react and just hung there against her risen arms, breathing. He stared at her boredly, waiting for her to react.
Nothing.
With mounting annoyance he grunted, looking past her to anyone else that might be nearby, but there was no one that was within comfortable conversation distance.
"Kya terrack." Came a voice. It wasn't the shrinking tone he had expected, but rather, a soft but resolute whisper.
He looked back at the girl, startled to see that her gaze had risen to his. She had an exceptionally human looking face, complete with a few bold freckles and pouty pink lips turned down in a serious frown, but what grabbed him were the very bright golden yellow spheres that drilled into his own, very canine in nature.
"What?" He said dumbly. Crap, he wasn't suited for this kind of thing! He was a warrior of ninjitsu, not the dog whisperer! He tried to get Donnies attention.
Her head canted slightly to the side, her expression quizzical as she spoke again, louder this time. "Keh-Yah-Tee-Rack." She was saying it slower as though he'd magically understand her language just because she broke it down.
His brow twitched, trying desperately to be patient. "Yeaaaah, I don't understand what you're sayin."
She was better at discerning what he was saying though, because she wrinkled her nose at him and blew an offending strand of hair out of her face in frustration.
She jerked her head towards the center of the room, and he looked.
"Terrack." She then gestured up, then to the side. "Terrack." He caught on.
"Terrack." He repeated. "Is that was these goons are called, the guys who have us?"
She sucked her lower lip in between her teeth and bit with slightly elongated canines. Looking back out into the room with those moon-like eyes of hers, her brow lowered in concentration and making her fluffy bangs ruffle against the movement. She was thinking. Her attention shifted back to him quickly though with renewed interest. He smirked a bit, finding he liked her determination to communicate.
"Kya-" she restated patiently, and made a hard jerk in her bonds with ready fists.
His electric green eyes narrowed on those tightly clenched fingers. Now that was a language Raph understood! He grinned, nodding in approval. She meant fight! He made a fist and jerked it too, and her face brightened as she yipped what he assumed was an affirmative!
"Oh I hear ya sister." He purred in his chest. Damn, she may be a scrawny little thing but she was feisty! "Fight the Terrack!"
"Fight Terrack!" She mimicked him boldly. It was like throwing kindling on a fire and the anxiety she had been feeling burned away into something far more useful!
Though communication with him was still weak she understood body language much more clearly than words and his was an open book to her. His body was taut without any measure of relaxation, his stance wide to offer him a solid center of gravity, and his head was lowered slightly to emphasize the strong broadness of his shoulders. She also smelled heavy waves of testosterone coming off him, making her conclude his aggressive posture was more likely an itch to be free and battle as a virile male than to escape and struggle for ones life. It was a difference she appreciated in a setting like this.
"What's your name?"
She recognized his words as a question, but she didn't know what he was asking. She bit on her lip again, giving him an apologetic stare.
He took a breath. Yeah, he knew he hadn't given her much to go on when he asked, but hell his hands were quite literally tied! It wasn't like he could point to himself and make monkey talk with her! His ire was up and finally he called for his brother.
"Donnie!"
The purple masked ninja looked his way instantly, his mahogany eyes instantly discerning why Raph sounded so impatient. He was trying to communicate with someone and he had a hard enough time doing that in his native tongue! What would these guys do without him?
"Need help?" He offered, leaning forward ot get a look at the girl. His heart sank a bit when he saw how small she was and his mind went along the same track that Raphaels had earlier.
"I'd think that was obvious." He mumbled. "I'm pretty sure what I've gotten so far is that she wants to 'fight the Terrack'. She said 'Kya', and that meant fight. Terrack is I think whatever's got us. Or where we are, hell if I know."
Hearing something she understood she piped up with a soft yip that sounded like, "Ki." Her tail unconsciously began to wag a little. It payed to be a little optimistic.
Donatello studiously met her gaze. "Let's keep this simple then. Names come first. Say yours, then I'll say mine. Hopefully she'll get the picture."
"Raph."
"Don."
She looked back and forth between them, and they both could see the cogs grinding in her head to grasp the message trying to be conveyed. They each repeated it for emphasis and then gestured to each other, saying one anothers names. That seemed to do the trick.
"Inali!" she declared proudly with a lift of her chin and a smile that reached her eyes. "Don," She looked at the brother before looking back to the other. "Raph. Ki!"
"'Ki' means yes." Donnie observed, and repeated it with an affirmative nod as he tried out her name. "Ki, Inali!" He jerked his head towards Leo and Mikey who were still bickering about trying to communicate with a humanoid lizard that could apparently only hiss and churr. "Leo. Mike."
"Ki!"
Donnie laughed a bit, feeling a bit accomplished himself. "Okay, we have a basis for communication! Way to go Raph, she's a smart one!"
Raph leaned back and looked up at the ceiling in amusement. "Yeah, small dogs usually are, right?"
One of Inali's ears twitched then both went perfectly erect atop her head. Her attention was suddenly on the door on the far end of the room, watching it expectantly. Steadily her optimism looked like it was being siphoned out of her. Even though her expression remained rebellious, her eyes told of worry and she backed a bit further into her booth.
She looked at Raphael, her eyes searching his meaningfully in a way that made his gut clench.
"Raph?" came her anxious whisper. "Kya Terrack?"
The change in her was unsettling him. She'd gone from a confident and spunky little pup to a shrinking child right before his eyes. Leo was right and it gave him no pleasure to admit it. Inali knew what was going on here and she was spooked.
Would he fight the Terrack? How else could he answer her?
He met her eyes with a sidelong glance and smirked fearlessly, hoping his courage would reassure her. "Ki, Inali!" He said with brazen conviction. "Kya Terrack!"
The doors swung open with a heavy metallic bang and the room was suddenly alive with panic and confusion. Lanky robots lumbered in and began to approach the closest prisoners, their wails of terror falling on deaf ears.
Donnie jerked back where he stood, eyes wide in shock. His brothers all had similar reactions. The robots were bloodstained droids, mindlessly carrying out a preprogrammed mission. They emotionlessly surveyed the creatures before them before one reached out. It's vice like grasp shot forward around the neck of one of the winged aliens. It's wing had been twisted and hung uselessly at it's side and though there was a knowing look in the poor mans eyes, it didn't stop him from screaming as the machine began to slowly pull him by the neck. The agonized screams struck to the moral core of the mutant brothers with the violence of a lightning strike, but bound and helpless, all they could do was watch. The mans throat made a sickening crunch as the airways collapsed under the pressure, only a gurgle able to make it past now. The female beside him began to scream and thrash wildly, in a fit of mindless hysterics as her still living mate was ripped from his still fastened bonds and thrown to the floor like garbage.
Leo jerked forward, demanding for the droids to stop, afraid of what his eyes might be subjected to if this wasn't halted in the next few seconds, and Donnie cried for Mikey to close his eyes.
Raphael with wide horrified eyes watched the most inhuman display his eyes had ever seen, only to notice that Inali had hung her head once more and had resumed shaking. The screams of the witnesses around them didn't stop as he observed her, the snapping and crunching of wet flesh and bone unfortunately all too clear in this void of confusion. He heard the sick splash of one of his brothers vomiting beside him, and he closed his eyes and turned away from the scene.
"Who the hell would do something like this?" He heard Leo hiss in barely restrained anger. "This is soulless and twisted! It's sick! WHO?!"
Inali whimpered, offering only one explanation.
"Terrack."
