The warmth of the radiating sun over her head warmed her to the bone, a few droplets of sweat collecting on her forehead, only to be collected by the short red bands resting there. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, reaching up to thirty five degrees Celsius. It was times like these that April O'Neil wished she lived in some place a little cooler than the city, maybe out in the country side to avoid such intense heat waves that seemed to hit her home.
A mild glare took over the bright look in her blue eyes as a group of men walked by, all of them shirtless and strutting around as if they were on top of the world. These were also times that she wished she was a male, at least then she could be half naked without getting into trouble. A small smirk graced her lips as her thought drifted to four boys who could walk around fully naked and not expose anything. Unfortunately, they could not venture to the surface to test that theory.
April knew how much the boys loved the summer and the heat waves it could bring. Not only did it mean that they could venture to the surface a bit more often in the daylight, since most people would be in their air conditioned homes, but it also provided them extra warmth down in the sewers. As much as Donnie did an amazing job at fixing them space heaters for their home, it still wouldn't provide them with all the heat they required. And as much as they tried to deny it, April could see it quite clearly.
They were turtles after all and according to their anatomy, turtles required AND quite enjoyed basking out in the sun for hours on end, only taking breaks to replenish their warm bodies. A small frown graced the red head's face as she continued to walk, turning into an ally way for a short cut way home. She truly wished she could help her small family venture forth into the world she had grown up in. To walk around without fear of someone screaming and running, or some lab scientist trying to dissect them. Unfortunately, that outcome would never happen, people just weren't ready to learn what lived, breathed and talked just below their feet.
She came to a sudden halt, her eyes closing as she focused hard on her hearing. There it was again, the sound of something metal scraping with more metal. From experience, that could only mean one thing to the young teenage girl. The Kraang.
Faster than most eyes could see, April reached into the small bag she usually kept hanging off her left shoulder and pulled out the metallic fan Master Splinter had given her. He had told her the name of the weapon, but for the life of her she could neither say or remember it. Stupid complicated Japanese words.
Tossing the bag to the other side of the ally, April took a defensive stance as seven kraang bots emerged from the shadows surrounding her, each carrying a gun. However, something seemed off to Aril. Usually, the kraang would rush in and try to grab her, or they would begin firing immediately. They did neither, instead they just stood there and stared at her, as if waiting for something.
Before she could react, three kraang dropped down from the rooftops above, one landing in front of her while the other two landed behind her, seizing her arms before she could make any moves. The other kraang bots surrounding them turned, watching the exits and rooftops as if expecting the turtles to appear at any second. A small smirk graced her pink lips as she spoke.
"What? Is kraang afraid of the turtles kicking their sorry metallic butts?" She taunted, hoping to get some sort of response or hesitance so she could have her opening to escape. Unfortunately, the kraang said nothing. It only reach behind itself to grab a yellow can, spraying the contents all over her. violent coughs escaped from her lips as she inhaled the substance, her body curling in on itself at the velocity of the coughs.
'This is it... They finally got me...' Was the only thought coursing through her mind as she felt as though she would pass out. However, he fears were put to rest as the arms holding her up suddenly let go, her still coughing body hitting the ground with a soft 'thud'. They then took off, all of them vanishing before her watery eyes.
At first, she thought she was delusional. Why would the kraang attack her only to leave her in the same place she was apprehended? But as time went by and the coughing slowly disappeared, April realised that she wasn't imagining anything. The kraang had really left her there. Looking down at her body, April noticed that the yellow liquid had already mostly seeped into her skin and very little was left on her clothing.
She sat there for a moment, focusing on all of her senses as she searched for something that seemed off, something that wasn't quite right. But she couldn't find anything, she felt perfectly fine, as if the whole thing never happened. But just to be sure, April made her way to the manhole cover in the middle of the ally. She would consult Donnie and the rest of her mutated family about what happened.
But what she didn't know, was that her encounter with the kraang was just a taste of what would come.
"HEADS UP!" Don spun on his heels to face the voice, his hand coming up just in time to catch the projectile heading straight for his face. If he had been a second later, the Frisbee that was currently two centimetres from his beak, would have either given him a very sore nose, or if he had ducked, ruined three weeks of sleepless nights worth of work.
With a growl, Donnie threw the Frisbee back at the orange branded offender, hitting the unsuspecting turtle straight in the chest. A small girlish squeak left Mikey's mouth as he prevented the Frisbee from hitting the ground with one hand while the other rubbed his chest.
"Dude, ouch!" Mikey whined, his bottom lip sticking out in the childish pout he was well known for. Don stepped forward, opening his mouth to retort to Mikey's last statement when April bursts into the lair, her breathing rough and ragged as she kneels on one knee try to catch her breath.
Anger forgotten, Donnie rushed across the room, gently taking on of Aprils tiny yet muscled arms in his large olive green hand and leading her onto the couch. He could hear his two other brothers and sensei coming out from their respective rooms and joining himself and April on the couch. A few seconds afterwards, Mikey joined them, a glass of water in his hand and a worried expression on his normally care free face.
Once she downed the refreshing liquids, April took a few steady breath before speaking.
"Guys, something really weird happened with the kraang today... They stalked me into an ally and-" As she continued to speak, Don paid close attention to the way her teeth chattered slightly and how she would occasionally shiver and wrap her arms around herself. It was unusual for her to do something like that, especially when it was so hot. Even for the turtles, it seemed slightly stuffy down in the sewers and Raph had been bugging all day to go to the surface, which was turned down every time by Master Splinter. Something wasn't right.
"After they sprayed me they just left. They didn't try to take me away and no one was anywhere close by... They just left." She finished her story, bringing her legs up to her chest as she shivered yet again, cuddling close to herself in what seemed to be an attempt to keep warm. As Master Splinter began to speak, Don stood quickly retreating to his lab and gathering his sample. From what April explained, the yellow goo on her shirt was the stuff the Kraang sprayed her with, so he needed to get a sample if was to figure out exactly what the kraang were after.
When he re-entered the room, Everyone was looking at him as if it was a shock to see him randomly walk off. Then again, he usually would listen to what his Master had to say before leaving, it was just more respectful. However, judging by the way April's shivering continued to become more frequent by the minute, he needed to find the answers quickly.
Without saying anything, Don pulled April's knees away from her body in order to collect a sample from her. As he put the small amount of goo into a container, he noticed to ruby shade of red the teenagers face had become. With one look at where he had collected the sample from, Don also turned a deep red. Giggling erupted from beside him and Don turned to see Mikey rocking on the floor holding his stomach as if it pained him.
"Dude! You totally just tried to cop-a-feel!" Mikey exclaimed, making both Donnie and April turn an even deeper shade of red, if that was even possible at this point.
With a purposeful stance, Don made his way back to his lab, making sure to give Mikey a slightly hard kick in the side for his remark. A frown appeared on his olive toned beak as a small, high pitched squeak sounded from the one person who could make a sneeze sound so adorable. With a new determination, Don mentally promised to find a cure before getting started in his lab.
~~~~ 5 hours later ~~~~
Spinning in is heals, Donnie snatched the pale hand that was reaching out to touch the flames of the Bunsen burner he had on while trying to find out exactly what the kraang had done to April. It was seriously getting ridiculous the amount of things April would do to try and keep herself warm. According to Mikey, he had to pry her away from the stove in the kitchen because her hand was almost at the point of touching the hot pads.
She was currently wearing Mikey's two sweaters and one of his own, along with a thick blanket held snuggly against her tiny frame. With it already being hot and humid down in the sewers, and now the continuous attempts to get even hotter heat sources, Donnie feared that April could go into a heat stroke because of how hot her body temperature surely was.
April was like his sister, and he refused to let anything keep him from helping and protecting her. It had been some time since Don had realised his feelings for April were only one sided and would always be that way, no matter what. So he had been working on letting go of the once strong feelings he held for her, and it was working out quite well. There were the occasional times that he would be reminded of why he had crushed on her in the first place, but he would quickly vanish those thoughts from his mind before it could mentally hurt him.
It was still a work in progress, but he was quite impressed at how he was able to control himself so well. Now, all he wanted to do was help his sister without causing her more harm than good. And damnit, he was going to do anything to accomplish this.
"April, you seriously need to stop this, you are going to hurt yourself." Donnie scolded, walking towards the door of his lab with April in toll. She weakly tried to fight back, but she was unable to break his firm grip. Don glared at Leo as he continued past him and towards the couch. It had been Leo's shift to watch her, if Donnie hadn't been in the lab, then she could have been seriously hurt. She wasn't thinking straight.
"Let go if me! I can take care of myself! I'm not a baby!" April kept repeating, still pulling against Donnie. Finally, he stopped at the couch and turned to look at her. Using her free hand, April began to pound on Donnie's upper plastron, yelling for him to let her go. Catching her wrist in his second hand, Donnie held April against his plastron while giving Leo a pointed look.
Nodding and taking off at inhuman speeds, Leo went to retrieve the herbal tea they had been giving April so she would be relaxed enough to sleep and give her the inner warmth she was so desperately trying to get.
"Please, I'm just so cold... I just want to keep warm... Please..." April pleaded, hiding her face in Donnie's plastron as she began to shiver uncontrollably. It broke his heart to hear her begging for something he just couldn't give her. Bringing her even closer to himself, Donnie curled around April's smaller form, desperately trying to give her any warmth his thin body could provide.
Fortunately, Leo returned quickly, urging April to drink the tea, and soon enough, she was lost in peaceful dreams. Donnie gracefully laid her out on the bed, covering her with the blanket and making his way back into his laboratory, giving his leader another hard glare for not watching April.
Once back in his lab, Don continued to break down the substance he collected from April's... From April.
~~~~ 2 hours later ~~~~
According to his findings he didn't have the required items to create the cure, but from what he guess, the kraang would have a cure premade just in case the outcome of the serum was not one that they wanted. Also, judging by how knew he realised the serum was, it was pretty easy to tell that April was just the test subject, that the kraang had given up trying to catch her and were now just trying to get rid of her.
He had already explained this to his brothers and they had decided that they were going to infiltrate the TCRI building and find the cure for themselves. Donnie had already hacked into their systems and determined which floor held what they wanted and a battle plan was made. The only issue they now had was that April was demanding that they take her with them.
At first it seemed easy to refuse her. They could just leave when she wasn't paying attention, but then she brought up her own idea to counter all their thoughts.
"If you leave, i can just use Donnie's computer to figure out where you are going. Or I could track you using your T-phones. And if you block either of those options, i guess i can just walk into the TCRI building and demand that they give e the cure, see how well that turns out." She said with a smirk and a slight waver in her voice as a harsh shiver wracked though her body.
While normally they wouldn't believe that she would do it, April had been pretty unpredictable throughout this past day and not like her normal self. They couldn't judge her reaction when she was like this.
"I guess there really isn't any option... But you MUST listen to what we say without complaint. There is no ifs, ands, or buts, if you don't then you could end up getting yourself killed." Leo stressed, and Donnie noted how his leader left out the part where April could get them killed as well. It was smart, seeing as how normal April would react harshly to that, so this slightly irrational April would most likely react even worse.
Well, here goes nothing. Don just hoped no one lost their lives in this little adventure.
'STUPID!' Don though angrily as he ran down the corridor, April carelessly slung over his broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her tiny fists pounding on the back of his carapace. But in all honesty, Donnie could care less, he was fed up with her at the moment.
They were in the middle of a battle when April ran out from her hiding spot, right into the line of fire might he add, in an attempt to get near the generator that was producing a bunch of heat waves. Donnie barely made it there in time to pull her away from the machine and shield her with his own body as one of the kraang's laser shots hit the generator and it exploded.
Thankfully neither of them were seriously injured, only slightly disoriented from the loud band that followed the explosion. Once he could walk straight again, Don tossed April on his shoulder and ran, adrenalin, anxiety and anger coursing through his veins. Even as he dodged the continuous energy blasts following them down the corridor, April continued to yell and shout about being cold.
Don began to wonder, if the serum also effected the persons whininess level.
Running into the specific room they came for, Donnie threw April into a wheeled chair across from him, sending her sliding along the floor and away from the door as he took his bô staff and knocked back the two Kraang bots that were previously just behind him. Quickly before anything else could get threw the doors, Donnie closed and locked them, looking through an unbreakable window to meet Leo's eyes, nodding.
They had already determined that Don was to take April into the room and get the cure while his brothers held off the kraang. He watched his brothers fighting for a moment more before turning and grabbing April before she touched another, more advanced space heater. If he had hair, Don was sure it would have all fallen out.
Dragging her across the room, Donnie's crimson red eyes scanned along the shelves, a specific number etched into his brain. Instead of categorizing their experiments and cures by names, the kraang gave them specific numbers that could be logged into their robotic body's membrane. Fortunately, when Don hacked into the kraang's systems, he also determined this and the exact number in which he needed to search for.
"3375, 3375, 337- GOT IT!" He exclaimed in excitement as he pulled the canister from the shelve. When didn't the kraang use anything other than canisters to store their stuff? With a shake of his head, Don turned and grabbed a syringe from a pocket in his belt. Quickly remembering the calculations he had previously made for the amount required to cure April, he injected her with the cure.
While waiting for the cure to take affect, Don rushed to window of the room wanting to check the status of his brothers. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be injured, but one the kraang's new gorilla bodies was there and was nearing the point of taking out the three turtle brothers. With a low curse word slipping past his lips, Don went back to April's side, pulling her Tessen from his belt from when he had stored it there earlier.
"April, the guys need our help. How are you feeling?" He couldn't keep the worried tone from his voice even if he tried, his left hand resting on her knee while the other gripped her Tessen tightly. After shaking her head once, April turned her gaze down to his.
"I'm still a little cold, but not too bad, its fading away." She said, standing up and taking off the multiple sweaters from her frame. Once she was free, she grabbed her Tessen from Donnie and took off towards the door. Before joining her Don reached down, grabbed the sweaters and an EMP blade to take care of the gorilla machine. They quickly made their way out of the room and engaged in battle.
Tossing the sweaters to the ground, Don quickly hopped onto the metallic creature's back, shoving the electrified tanto deep into its shoulder just as it was about to take out his most hot headed brother.
"Thanks for the save Donnie-boy!" Said his red branded brother as Donnie leaped from the falling machine. As he landed, Don caught sight of April slicing away at any kraang bot foolish enough to get near her, showing off the moves Master Splinter had been teaching her. After grabbing the sweaters from the ground, Done threw his bô/naginata across the room like a spear, hitting one straight in its metallic head.
April flashed him a grateful smile as she yanked his weapon from its embedded position in the floor and ran up to him, handing it back. He flashed her one of his largest smiles, the gap between his from teeth showing enough to make the girl giggle and run off. Don never knew why, but April had always laughed when he did that and sometimes would tease him, saying he looked 'childishly adorable'. Every time it made him blush, but he found that he didn't mind that so much.
A nudge to the shoulder by his blue branded brother reminded Don of where he was and that it was a bad time to be spacing out with his own thoughts. Holding the sweaters tight to his body with is right hand and gripping his bô defensively with his left, Don followed after his family.
~~~~ back in the lair ~~~~
April collapsed on the couch face first, her head pounding with the two different chemicals slowly disappearing from her blood stream. One thing she was sure of though, was that she wasn't going o complain about it being to hot in the summers anymore, not after that experience. No, she had just gained a deep respect for the heat and the comfort it provides her.
Hearing the giggles from the ever playful Michelangelo made her smile into the cushions. There was no way she could express how grateful she was for such an amazing family. They had put up with her during the worst of things and kept her safe. They even risked their own lives to buy her time to be cured. She honestly couldn't ask for a more supportive or giving family.
Most of the stunts she pulled to get warm weren't even one out of her own accord or thought. Her body just seemed to know what she needed and took over every now and then to try and obtain its much needed heat, which made handling her more of a chore than babysitting a five year old.
"April?" She heard from above her. Rolling over part of the way, April looked into the deep crimson eyes of her genius brother, recognising the concern there. "Are you alright?" He asked, kneeling down to look her in the eyes and to not seem so intimidating.
That was Donnie for you. Always worried for her health and making sure she was okay. Even when she purposefully tried to shove him out of her life, He had still come to her aid and tried his best to be there for her. It was admirable to say the least.
"I'm fine Donnie." Her smile grew larger as she watched Raph drag Leo and Mikey into a double headlock. "In fact," She could feel her smile getting even larger as a giggle escaped her lips, it was pretty obvious Donnie had also seen Raph's public display of affection, as he began to smile that adorable smile she loved so much. "Everything is just perfect."