Author's Note: Whoo! Thank you for the reviews. These crazy kids. And it's only going to get crazier… So stick around.
This story makes me so happy.
The last of the customers disappeared with a jingle from the front door, but Mira was hardly paying attention; instead, she was half-heartedly wiping Table 20 with a filthy rag that had no business doing any cleaning at all.
"Yo, earth to Mira," her mother's curly head appeared in front of her. "You plan on cleaning any of the other tables any time soon, or are you just going to wear a hole in that one?" Mira blinked out of her stupor and scrunched her nose before tossing down the rag.
"Sorry," she muttered, her grumbling only intensifying when her mother looped an arm around her shoulders.
"Still upset about Dumpster Fest?" asked Mel.
"Stop calling it that!" groaned Mira, pulling away and marching up to the counter with a pout, where Dani leaned forward and sighed heavily.
"Oh, come on, you two! That was a week ago. I think you deserve credit for trying," said Mel as she pulled out the cash drawer. "Besides, it wasn't THAT bad." She paused. "I mean, one time Mikey got sucked into an interdimensional portal and spent like, two years in a weird space land all by himself."
Mira and Dani blinked.
"So," Mel continued pointedly. "At least you didn't screw up that bad!"
Daniella raised a slim brow. "Okay, so I don't think that's really a fair comparison. And just so you know, it WAS that bad. Even I was embarrassed. And that's saying something, because I have virtually no shame."
"It's true," came Damon's voice behind them as he sauntered inside, hands in the pockets of his jeans. "She stole a kindergartener's ice cream one time. And we were like… nine."
Roman entered behind him, and with a reach over his shoulders, he pulled Luka up onto his back and let his little cousin cling to his neck happily. "Damn, Dani. That's harsh."
"Hey!" Dani pointed a newly polished fork from her tray. "That little girl had been mean mugging me all day. She got what she deserved." With a toss of the last of her napkins, she pulled off her apron and stuffed it into the cubby hole under the counter. "Can we go now, Aunt Mel? I am starving."
"Starving?" Mel repeated. "You're in a restaurant! The best restaurant, might I remind you."
"Yeah, mom," Mira pulled off her own apron. "No offense, but we're sick of noodles."
"And pizza," Roman chipped in.
"And pizza on noodles," added Damon.
"And freakin' noodles on pizza, so – "
"Okay, okay! Go, you bunch of noodle haters." Mel planted a big, sloppy kiss on a disgusted Mira's face before the five teens ambled out of the restaurant into the warm night air, Roman at the front with Luka still on his back.
"Wanna go to the pier?" he asked. "I could totally go for some carnival food." They rounded the street corner and continued on foot as Mira skipped ahead, momentarily snapped out of her morose behavior by the thought of delicious, calorie-stuffed food.
"Ooh, man! I could so go for a chili-cheese dog!" she pointed to the sky. "I am going to embarrass myself and everyone around me!"
Dani rolled her eyes. "Well, that's nothing new."
The banter continued as the small group made their way past a series of closed stores and older buildings in Chinatown, with sirens wailing far in the distance and the heavy beats of a concert in the nearby park sounding in low, rhythmic thumps. The normal New York City noises – plus the chatter of the teens – might have disguised the strange clatters and thuds completely if not for Roman, who paused, brows furrowed and turned swiftly on his heels.
"What is it?" asked Luka, chin on his cousin's shoulder.
The others continued walking, but Roman stilled, eyes darting around the dimly lit street. "Something just – I don't know. I think I heard something weird." Mira, Dani and Damy all paused, looking back at Roman as he edged around a dark corner between some old apartment buildings.
Only to jump back sharply and land in a crouch, startling Luka on his back, because a body came flying out of the ally and crashed into a light pole, snapping it half with a loud crack. "Whoa!" The others jumped into defensive crouches and Luka hopped to the ground, his eyes wide behind his glasses.
"What the hell," Roman turned to the body only to see its various pieces sparking and popping like a busted radio. "Is that a robot?" The others rushed up beside him and then hurried down the ally, ducking into the dark shadows before peering into a lit area next to a warehouse loading dock.
"Holy balls," muttered Mira in disbelief.
The robot that crashed into the light pole was not alone. In fact, dozens of other identical human-like machines moved like ants over the open loading area, fighting, dodging and falling over and over again, only to be replaced by more.
At first, the origin of the red and blue laser blasts was difficult to place, but when the sea of fighting bots parted, a figure stood at the center with two large guns raised high. Clad in black and face obscured by a partial mask, the gunman fired off shot after shot with deadly accuracy, but the numbers were quickly becoming overwhelming and his seemingly endless supply of ammo was no good when five of the robots leaped down on him from above and tackled him to the ground, causing his weapons to fall out of his reach.
He managed to throw them off with an impressive kick of his legs, but no sooner had he leaped to his feet than others grabbed him with arms of steel.
"Dude!" Mira whispered from their hiding spot. "We've got to help him!" The twins yelped in unison.
"Are you insane?" Dani gestured wildly. "We don't even know that guy! He could be the bad one!"
Roman reached into the straps under his shirt and whipped out his weapons with a narrow, focused gaze that almost disguised his excitement. "Oh, right, because there are so many good guy robots. Let's kick some ass!"
The others gaped as Roman jumped up and straight into the fray, his chigiriki slamming into the first robot that dared get near him. Mira barely wasted a second before hurrying out after him, and with a clink her katana jumped to their full length and swiped at the nearest robot.
The twins and Luka looked to each other with matching groans before they ran out, because hell, they couldn't let their crazy cousins fight alone. "YAH!" Dani sent her tessen flying through the air and managed a quick spin kick before she rolled on the ground and caught it again, much to the dismay of Luka.
"You almost cut off my head!" he shrieked from his spot, bladed staff in hand as he whirled it around his torso and sliced into the torso of a robot.
"Sorry!" she called.
Damon ran to a wall and bounced off it with a swift kick, his momentum turning him just enough to send his kusarigama chain around two bots, which he yanked off their feet and slammed his blades into. "Hey, where'd that dude go?" he yelled out, looking around.
Across the lot, Roman looked up from a robot and spotted the figure in black just as he was slammed roughly into a brick wall and sank to the ground, bleeding heavily from one side. His body slumped and his eyes, barely visible under a mop of unruly black hair, slid closed. A group of robots turned to him and rushed forward with newly procured guns raised, but Roman was faster, and with one powerful swing of his chigiriki, he beheaded the lot of them and let the broken bots fall in front of the unconscious gunman.
Mira appeared at his side, panting heavily and scraped along her right arm. "That's all of them for now, but I think more are coming!" she pointed with her katana to the street, where mechanical noises and strange beeps sounded in alarming volume. "We gotta split, people!"
To their side, Damon let out a sudden yell and fell to his knees, clutching his left arm. "Damy!" Dani rushed over and swiped her sharp tessen at the robot who had shot Damon's arm, and it crumbled to the ground with a loud crackle.
"I'm okay," he managed, clutching the strange laser burn.
"Damn it," Roman hissed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Now that the fight was wearing off, he had to figure out what to do. "Damy, can you walk?"
"Yeah, I'm cool," he winced, and Dani put his good arm around her shoulder.
"Rome," she snapped. "Whatever is making you short circuit, get the hell over it! We've got to go!"
"Right!" he said, twirling in his spot. "But we can't just leave this guy here." Reaching forward, he picked up the slim body and hefted him over his large shoulder. "To the sewers! Go!"
Aniyah jogged into the lair, brown eyes darting around the living room to April and Donnie, who stood bewildered with Leo and Raph. "What's going on? Roman sent me a text and told me the kids needed me here," she said, worry creasing her features.
April worried her lip with her teeth. "They told us the same – "
"Coming through, got a body, make way!" Roman rushed through the group of parents with the unconscious gunman on his shoulder and the twins behind them, Damon struggling not to lean too much against Dani, but the pain in his arm was dizzying and he kind of just wanted to black out and also maybe vomit.
"Damy!" Donnie and April panicked for a split-second before going into science mode, dragging Damon into the lab, where Roman deposited the body on a table with perhaps a little less gentleness than he could have.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Raphael entered with Leonardo on his heels, but when they both stopped to stare, it was Leo who spoke.
"Roman, who is that? And why is he in our lair, where our family of mutants happens to be?"
The teen in question paused. "Uh, well…"
"And what happened to Damon? What happened to all of you?"
Roman slipped a hand through his dark hair. "Well, okay, so… so there was this fight, and uh, this guy… He was like, fighting robots and – "
"Hey!" Aniyah's sharp voice cut through her son's stumbling explanation. "I need some help here if you want this guy to live! Donnie!" Donatello looked up and tore himself away from Damon, who was currently basking in the relief of pain medicine and a salve for his injury, where April and Dani hovered over him with identical expressions of anxiety.
"What's the injury?" asked the tall turtle, instantly shifting into doctor mode.
"Multiple contusions, heavy bleeding, probably some internal damage. Damn it," she looked up at Roman, who continued to stand awkwardly, a pose which looked rather unnatural on his bulky and normally confident exterior. "Why didn't you take this guy to a hospital, Roman?"
All eyes looked to Roman, including Mira and Luka, who lingered nearby with arms linked to one another, each covered in scratches and cuts.
"Seriously, Roman," Raphael turned to his son. "What were you thinking?"
"I panicked, I'm sorry!" he defended. "The police were coming, there were – robots!" he waved his arms frantically. "It didn't occur to me to like, I don't know, call 911 or something!"
"And so you brought him here?" Leo shook his head, his disappointment burgeoning on disgust to the point where Roman could only tighten his jaw and look away, shame filling him. Before his father and uncle could berate him any further, however, Donnie pulled off the stranger's gloves and studied his hands, eyebrow ridges furrowed. After a few moments of close inspection, he looked up at the others.
"Hey guys," he said from where he stooped over the body. "You might want to stop giving Roman such a hard time."
"Yeah!" Roman piped up. "Wait – Why?" Aniyah looked up from where she had a thick cloth pressed over the stranger's wound as Donnie spoke.
"Because," the turtle continued, looking up at Leonardo and Raphael. "…I think this guy is a mutant."
Leo and Raph glanced at one another, and then to Roman, who stared, startled. "What, really?" asked Leo, but Aniyah waved away his inspection with an irritated huff.
"Well, mutant or not, he needs blood to live, so you guys are going to have to give us some space so Donnie and I can help him. Now go!"
Leo and the others retreated after a quick check on Damon, who appeared to be doing fine now that he wasn't in searing pain. Raphael grabbed him up and helped deposit him on the couch in the lair's living room, where he managed to drift off in a slumber with his head in Dani's lap, his arm now securely bandaged.
The remaining family members lingered in heavy silence for a few minutes before the doors to the lair burst open.
"Hey guys!" Michelangelo exclaimed with a boyish grin. "Man, you won't believe what I found stopping up the sink today!"
He paused, looking around at everyone. "Okayyy, so what'd I miss?"
Leonardo leaned against the doorway, watchful blue eyes on Donnie and Aniyah as they worked on the stranger, who at last seemed to be stabilizing. Wiping off her hands with an exhausted sigh, Aniyah stepped away and gestured to Leo, who signaled to Raphael and Mikey.
"So what's going on?" asked Leo in a low voice.
"He should be okay. His injuries weren't as bad as we first thought," admitted Aniyah. "He's going to take at least a week to recover from that injury on his side, but none of his ribs are broken and we've stopped the bleeding."
Mikey moved to the unconscious gunman, now unmasked, and blinked his blue eyes in surprise. "Wow, he looks so young. Barely older than Roman." Donnie nodded from the other side of the table.
"And that's not the only interesting thing about him," he said.
Leo looked to his brother. "So he is a mutant?"
"Not just a mutant," Donnie picked up a slide with a droplet of blood, which he turned carefully in his hands. "He's a hybrid. Just like Mira."
"You're kidding." Leo peered down at the strange young man's face, only just now seeing it clear of the mask – not to mention the blood and dirt, which Donnie and Aniyah had mostly washed away with a cloth. "No wonder he looks so human."
"Actually," Donnie moved closer and picked up the young man's limp hands. "He's got several mutant features, but they're subtle. See his hands? Claws." He moved one of the irregular digits, which was slim enough to not warrant a second glance unless one noticed the razor sharp points on its end. "He also has some faint discolorations on his skin. They're hard to see in this light, but they're definitely there."
Leo peered over the unconscious form. "They almost look like stripes."
"That's what we thought, too." Aniyah moved closer and reached up to push back the mop of shaggy black hair away from the young man's face. "He also has fangs and … well," she lifted an eyelid to display a blank, unseeing eyeball, almost neon in its shade of green, with distinct narrowed slits.
She let the eye slide closed once more as Donnie moved around her and crouched down. At Aniyah's questioning look, he pointed at the stranger's ear. "I noticed something earlier. Some kind of small device in both ear canals." He glanced up from his perusal at his brother's thoughtful hum.
"Duuuude," Mikey tapped his chin. "I wonder what he's doing here!"
Raphael folded his arms. "I say we dump him outside before he wakes up." At Aniyah's annoyed look, he tossed up his bulky arms. "Hey, you said he'd live! No reason for him to see us here!"
Leo straightened from the table. "Raph is probably right, Aniyah. We can make sure – "
"No way!" came a muffled voice from the far end of the lab, before it was quickly followed by muted shuffling and curses. "What?" came Mira's voice again. "We can't just let them throw him out!"
Scowling heavily, Raphael marched over to the storage cabinets and opened them, completely unsurprised when Mira, Roman and Luka all fell out. "How in the hell did you all even fit in there?" exclaimed Raphael. "And why're you always into stuff you shouldn't be, huh? This is your six grade graduation ceremony all over again!"
Mira jumped to her feet. "How many times do I have to tell you guys that wasn't my fault!" She shoved Roman out of her way just as he got his footing and then stepped over him. "What kind of teacher leaves an eleven year old pyromaniac unsupervised with a ceremonial tea candle anyway?" She marched past Raphael and looked to Leo.
"Please, Uncle Leo. Don't throw him out. He might need our help!"
"Mira," sighed Leo, rubbing his face. "This really isn't up to you." He looked to Roman and Luka, the latter of which was not so subtly trying to hide behind his larger cousin. "Or you, for that matter, considering your judgment lately hasn't been all that great."
"But Sensei, I – we were just trying to help."
"Your cousins almost got really hurt. Damon's lucky his injury isn't worse than it is," Leo told him firmly. "Not to mention the fact that this guy is obviously a threat, and we don't know that threat doesn't carry over to us."
"Yeah," Mikey pointed to a table filled with strange instruments. "Especially since he was packin' like, a ton of weapons. Look at all this stuff." He picked up a laser gun, which Raphael immediately snatched away. "Plus surveillance, radios, and a bunch of other stuff that looks like it came out of a James Bond movie," continued Mikey, unperturbed. "I don't even know what most of this junk is."
"But it's definitely not something a pedestrian would carry," interrupted Leonardo pointedly. "So he doesn't need to be here."
Roman's shoulders sagged. "Okay, sensei, but just so you know – " But he never got to say what Leonardo should know, because in that instant the young man jumped up from his spot on the table and vaulted over the group of turtles, landing with a roll on the opposite side of the lab and immediately rounding on them with a snarl, fangs bared.
"Hey!" Leonardo's katana made a swift appearance, his eyes suddenly hard. "Stand down! Now!"
Growing low in the back of his throat, the noise strangely guttural and loud, the hybrid backed away from the advancing turtles, now all crouched with their weapons drawn. Leo's request was ignored, and instead the stranger's eyes flickered to the table littered with his weapons. He made a leap for them but was cut off by Donatello's staff, which thwapped him hard in the stomach and sent him rolling back to the floor. He managed to stand again, but his side bled freely again and he clutched it with a wince.
Still, his snarl remained, but before he could react again, Daniella entered the lab, distracted by her inspection of a cut on her manicured hand. The young man reacted instantly and snatched an arm tight around Dani's neck, yanking her back to him and placing his clawed hand close at her throat.
"Let her go!" Donnie ordered fiercely, the blade of his staff pointed at them.
"What the – oh my god," Dani's expression shifted into her usual mask of extreme annoyance. "I do not have the patience for this crap today." With a quick glance over her shoulder at her captor, Dani pulled out one arm and slammed her elbow into the young man's rib cage, which was quickly followed by a stomp to his foot and, when she turned, a high-heeled kick straight to the chest, which sent him flying off his feet and onto his back with a heavy thud.
He rolled to his side with a loud, pained wheeze, which Dani ignored in favor of stepping over him so she could take the car keys off Donnie's desk.
"Dad, I'm going to the store for Damy. He keeps asking for a stupid Klondike bar. I think he's super messed up on pain meds right now, but I'm going to go anyway." She stepped over the still gasping hybrid on her way out, as Donnie and the others stared incredulously.
"Okay, sweetie," he said with a light wave as she disappeared through the door.
"Get him up," ordered Leo with a shake of his head, and Mikey and Raphael pulled up the young man between them. Roman stepped up behind Leo with a sympathetic wince for the stranger.
"Been there, felt that," he said, rubbing the center of his chest. "You're lucky she wasn't wearing those black boots. I think I actually died for a minute there after that one."
Donnie narrowed his eyes. "He deserves it, threatening her like that." The young man squinted at him, one eye barely open as he fought to regain his breath. However, no sooner had he finally managed to stand on his own two feet – still caught between Mikey and Raph – when something buzzed behind them. Leo and the others turned to the table of various instruments and weapons, only to see something vibrating in the center.
"Hey, we pulled that off his wrist," Aniyah stepped forward and picked up the small, cuff-like device. As soon as she did so, the young man's eyes widened and he exploded into movement, fighting to escape Mikey and Raphael's grip.
"Man, he's stronger than he looks," Mikey grunted, tightening his grip.
"Donnie?" questioned Leo.
"Looks like some kind of communication device," said the taller turtle, taking the device and pressing a few buttons. "Which might explain why this kid doesn't seem to want us to use it," he nodded in the struggling man's direction as his efforts grew in earnest.
Donnie flicked a switch at the side and the buzzing suddenly stopped, only to be replaced by a gruff, strangely familiar voice.
"Answer, already! I swear it, whenever I get a hold of you, boy – "
"Whoa, hey," Leo took the device from Donnie, his brows furrowed as he spoke into the communicator. "Who is this?" The other voice halted, as did the struggling young man, his features etched with horror. For a moment, silence filled the air.
"Who is this?" asked the gruff voice. "Where is Tanaka?"
Leo looked to the others, all of whom turned to look at the stranger, who stood frozen in his spot. Leo met his gaze for a moment before he shifted the device again. "If Tanaka is the young man who had this device, he's here with us."
"Is he injured?" asked the voice.
Leo took a few measured steps as he spoke. "He is, but he'll be okay. So long as he doesn't try to fight us anymore, that is. I will not tolerate any more threats to my family. So you can tell him – "
"... Hamato?"
The room fell silent once more, and the four brothers looked to one another with matching expressions of dismay. "Wait a minute," Leo glanced at Donnie, his grip tight on the device. "Tigerclaw?"
"No way!" Mikey whispered from his spot.
Leo waved a hand for his brother to be quiet. At the other end of the receiver, the speaker exhaled what might have been a show of relief. "So he is in New York City. Of course," he grunted in displeasure. "You are sure Tanaka will be alright?"
"Yeah," Leo looked to the young man as Donnie began muttering at his side, no doubt connecting all the pieces as he shuffled away to his microscope. "Tigerclaw, is this your … son?"
"Unfortunately," hissed the tiger mutant on the other end of the line. "Now, let me speak to him." Leo hesitated, but in the end he approached the young man, who had been watching him very closely. He gestured for Mikey and Raph to step away, and when they did, Tanaka did not fight them. Instead, he took the device with no small amount of irritation, though his features were largely resigned rather than hostile.
With a quick, familiar tap of buttons on the device, Tanaka slapped it onto his wrist and, to everyone's great surprise, looked up to a small, floating screen that appeared suddenly in front of him, projected from the wrist cuff.
On the screen was the aged face of Tigerclaw.
Tanaka dropped his arms, though the projected image remained stationary, allowing Tigerclaw to look him over for a long moment before his lips curled in a snarl. "What have you done, Tanaka? You infiltrate my database, steal my jet and leave on an unauthorized job to the one place on the entire planet where I expressly forbid you to go?"
As the turtles, Roman, Mira and Luka all watched, the young hybrid looked away from the screen with a narrowed glare on some far wall, only looking up at the screen again when Tigerclaw waved his arms to catch his attention. "I am talking to you, Tanaka! You have deliberately disobeyed me! You have dishonored yourself! You have acted like the foolish, rash, irresponsible child you are, and now you reap its consequences." When the young man remained silent, Tigerclaw growled, much like Tanaka had before. "Well?" he snapped.
Then, with sudden movement, Tanaka responded to Tigerclaw with a series of quick hand movements, gesturing to himself and to the turtles, making unusual motions and signs that were vaguely familiar, but also others that were entirely unique.
Tigerclaw watched from his side of the screen, stopping Tanaka's motions to scold him before the young man continued again, his gestures cross and exasperated as he tried to explain himself.
"Of course," Donnie whispered at Leo's side, slapping himself on the face. "They were hearing aids!" When his brother looked to him questioningly, he mentioned the small devices he'd noticed before. "The construction was so unusual, I didn't recognize them at first. But I bet you anything, they sense vibrations, to let him know when a sound is being made, even if he doesn't know what it is."
"Then how does he know what Tigerclaw is saying?" inquired Leo, astonished. Donnie gestured lowly to the still arguing pair.
"He's lip-reading. Watch how he looks at Tigerclaw. That's why he needs the screen."
Finally, Tigerclaw and Tanaka seemed to reach a very disagreeable end to their argument, as Tanaka leaned heavily against a table and huffed, but ceased his argumentative motions. Leonardo stepped forward into the view of the screen.
"Where are you, Tigerclaw? Can you come and get him?"
The tiger mutant scowled but nodded. "Yes, but it will take a day or so, as I am still in Japan and Tanaka took our only jet." He cast another annoyed glance to his son, who now very pointedly was looking away once more.
"I hate when my son steals our jet," said Leo wryly.
Tigerclaw didn't seem to get the joke, and only said, "You have my… gratitude for saving him."
Leo resisted a little smirk. "It was our kids, actually. Well, and Aniyah and Donnie. They patched him up." He straightened from his spot. "I'll send you a frequency you can reach us at. Let us know when you're in New York City. We'll keep him safe until then."
A stiff nod was Leo's only reply before the screen blinked and disappeared. Aniyah and Donnie helped the reluctant but no longer belligerent Tanaka back to the table, where they once again stitched up his wound, now with a nice matching shoe mark on the center of his chest.
Leo, Raph and Mikey gathered near the door, only giving brief looks of annoyance to Roman, Mira and Luka as they sidled up curiously to the discussion.
"So did I miss something," Mira said quietly, though she probably could've saved the whispering for someone who wasn't deaf. "Cause I thought Tigerclaw was your enemy from like, forever ago."
"And dead," Roman put in. "Didn't he get shot in the face when you guys killed Shredder?"
Raphael twirled a sai in one hand, obviously antsy. "He did," he confirmed with a nod. "But those damn Kraang never miss an opportunity to screw shit up, so they came behind us and dragged his sorry corpse back to one of their labs. Dunno what they did, but they managed to bring him back."
Mikey cut in, "And keep him captive for like, months until we banged that place up." He made an explosion noise and gestured with his hands. "Boom! Well, I mean, we got him out first, obviously. Total coincidence, to be honest. Didn't even know he was in there."
"He swore to never come back to New York City," added Leo. "And he's kept his promise. Until now, at least. And that was… what, almost twenty years ago? Before I went to Japan and met Ame, even."
Raphael glanced at the now docile young man across the room, who lay against the table and seemed more desirous of sleep than anything at the moment. "I just can't believe he's got a kid. A biological kid. I mean, damn. Shock the hell outta' me."
"Wonder how that happened," Leo agreed with a look before they moved to leave the lab. Mikey snickered behind them.
"Not really all that hard, guys," he teased, wrapping an arm around Mira.
Russia, 1994
The blaring sirens had long since faded, and the monotonous tones he'd grown so accustomed to were far gone, but each of the grating noises echoed in his head and threatened to pull his feet to a stop. Still, he pressed on. He had to get away.
He had to get far away.
But it was so, so cold. The tender pads of his feet had never felt the grass, nor the icy cold rocks that stabbed from underneath the unassuming snow, and so every step was twice as painful as it might've been. He continued still.
They couldn't find him. They wouldn't. He would never let them.
Whatever had caused the meltdown – whatever fantastic but perhaps ill-fated event had seen fit to spring him free of the prison that had kept him for the last three years – it had unsealed his door and sent the underground alien facility into chaos. He wasn't the only newly freed mutant roaming these powder white grounds, where the wind bit like a thousand angry insects and every hill was a pit of snow in disguise. Still, he was alone now.
He had gotten away from it all, and he was not going back. He would die here, crawling on all floors because he'd been stuffed into a low cage for so long, his spine stiff and not at all as straight as it should be. His eyes hurt, but that was nothing new. Their transformation had been among the slowest the strange ones had subjected him too. Their burn was a constant sensation, one that served as a painful reminder that he was still alive.
Now that burn felt like it was filling his entire body. How could cold air feel so hot? Some part of him wanted nothing more than a fire. The rest of him felt like he was already in an inferno.
When he collapsed into the snow, his young mind still reeling with disbelief that he was here to die, having finally escaped the worst treatment he'd ever known, he heard voices sound in the distance. Heavily accented in a lilt he'd never heard, the figures in the distance came close, but the dizziness in his head kept him from registering what was said.
Something tight jumped around his neck and yanked him from his spot, and only blearily did he register two human men peering down at him, their narrow faces dirty and unkind.
"Bloody hell! It's a cub! One of O'Malley's tigers, you think?"
"Maybe it got loose, who knows? He was in the next town over just a week ago."
He struggled weakly against the cord around his neck, but it only grew tighter, and one of the men hauled him to his four feet. "Well, it's kinda ugly looking," said the other man with a toothy grin. "But it's ours, now."
"A free tiger cub," said the first man with a happy yelp. "This'll make us a fortune! People'll come from all around to see our shows, now." Several minute went by in the snow, and only belatedly did the young cub realize he was being pulled to a village of dim lights and tents. The chatter of people and the warmth of fire – real fire – stirred him to some wakefulness, and he looked up to see the tallest of tents in front of him behind he was yanked inside.
"Tie him up to the pole, we gotta find it a cage," ordered one man, and the other did as he was told, tying up the poor young creature before loping off. The yellow warmth of the tent was offset by the strange smells, and he recoiled, exhausted but too wary to close his eyes.
"Oh!" came a small voice, and he turned sharply, baring his teeth in the wake of newer instincts, not those he was born with. In front of him stood a little girl, with hair the color of corn tied in two tight braids on either side of her heart-shaped face. He backed away, fearful, but the little girl dropped to both knees in the hay-strewn floor and smiled.
"It's alright," she whispered in an accent not unlike the men. "I'm not goin' hurt you."
Reaching out a hand, she edged forward with great patience for a child, waiting until he relaxed minutely before she touched the top of his furry, striped head, long absent of its once dark locks. After a few strokes, the little girl smiled and moved to sit next to him, her motions tender. She even scratched behind his ears, which made a small, pleased sound bubble in the back of his throat.
She giggled and did it again. "Do you like that?" she asked, delighted. "I'm glad. You're probably so cold, you poor thing. Here." She reached behind a crate and pulled out a blanket, which she fixed around him with great care.
Nice, thought the cub, words reaching his burdened mind for the first time in a very long while. For whatever reason, he didn't speak it out loud, perhaps because he was afraid he no longer could. But for the first time in so long, he was warm and content, and someone was being kind to him, so he let himself lay down his head and curl his body tight, striped tail thumping happily next to him.
The little girl moved to lie down next to him, her rosy cheeks perched high in a smile. "It's so nice to meet you," she murmured. "My name is Emily."
Author's Note: For a rather gruesome and sad one-shot on Tigerclaw's mutation, read Tora no Tsume. I decided not to put it in here, but it's canon for this story. (: