No one could watch. Through the screams and the helpless wails of lives ending Raph and all three of his brothers had closed their eyes and silently stood with bowed heads, bearing witness to a massacre that seemed like it would never end. There was nothing they could do, and their wrists were now raw and bleeding from trying when the horror had all started. Now, they stood resigned but determined. The first chance they had, action would be taken.
"They're singling out the weak or injured." Donatello spoke, his words thinly veiling the emotion in his voice. He had developed a habit long ago to ramble information when he got nervous. It was the most obvious when he was trying to talk to that red haired angel, April O'niel, but there were times when his nerves just got the better of him and the only way for to cope was to hear himself talk. It usually annoyed his brothers, but right now, it gave them something to focus on instead of the dying throes of the helpless. "They're-" He gulped hard, eyes tightly wrenched shut, "-systematically surveying everyone here and holding them to some sort of standard. Separating the wheat from the chaff so to speak. If one falls short they're eliminated. They're acting on programming, they're not sentient so there's no thought or emotion, just action. Which means there is someone out there who put it into them to do this. Uh- I guess what's next is we figure out why they're keeping the rest of us alive."
The sound of grating metal footsteps approached them, and Raph lifted his chin to glare at the approaching droid. His teeth clenched and he could hear his molars grinding in his ears as he seethed venomously. Up close, he could see the robots more clearly. They had a skeletal design, wide shoulders, and a single red optical orb positioned in the center of it's metal cranium. Maybe Donnie would describe it more effectively, but all it looked like to him was something to smash to bits.
"Just try it." He spat challengingly as it came to a pause before him and his brothers, daring it to just try and make a move against his family. Even if his wrists snapped off from being pulled from his bonds he'd gladly pummel this piece of shit with whatever stubs he'd have left!
The robot of course didn't react to his jab. It walked past and stopped a few steps away.
In front of Inali.
It reached for her, and though her tail was tucked and she shrank away from its touch, she bared her teeth spiritedly with the most feral yowl she could muster.
"Oh no..." He heard Donatello breathe as they all realized what was about to happen.
Raphael's heart slammed against his ribs a few times as adrenaline began to enter his bloodstream. "Oh Shit-NO!"He yanked so hard on the chains above his head that the metal bowed with a mighty creak, crimson trickles of blood tracing the muscles of his arms as the cuffs sliced deep into his wrists!
"Raph!" Mikey shouted at the sight of him bleeding, "Leo, stop him!"
"Raphael, there's nothing you can do!"
"They're gonna kill her!" He strained harder as the robot took her out of her booth by the base of her tail, her body twisting and flipping around in it's iron grasp trying to get free! The robots other appendage came and caught her bruisingly by the back of the neck and shoved her into the protruding divider between the booths. She was pinned, her cheek flattened on the cold surface facing Raphael as it adjusted it's grip. Her golden eyes anchored desperately onto his and wouldn't look away. Moisture was rising in them rapidly.
Her little voice called to him. "Raph?"
"Inali!" Donnie called, trying to keep her looking at them and keep her calm, but Raphael's outraged screams were drowning him out.
The red masked turtle felt the hot anger bubbling acidicly through him, fueling his effort to get free! Watching faceless strangers die was bad enough but he was acquainted with this kid! He couldn't just watch her die! There had to be a way to get out!
The bot rose it's free hand, the claw opening and a tube that looked suspiciously like a gun elongating from the palm. Her eyes grew wide as she felt it brush the back of her neck.
"Raph!" She cried more urgently, her face going white as a sheet!
Leo had to look away as did Mikey, and Donnie closed his eyes as his name came tumbling from her lips next.
"RAPHIEL?!" The seizing panic in her voice was overwhelming Raphael's senses and he roared as the cannon lit up! No! He couldn't fail, he had to stop this from happening somehow! He was Raphael, son and student of the great Master Splinter! He was not a helpless bystander! Her eyes squinted closed and she screamed something incoherent in her native tongue and then the shot was fired!
The resounding boom of the blast echoed in the room, and Raph suddenly froze, staring at what he had been convinced would be a bloody mess. Instead, Inali's eyes opened again, her body trembling and expression confused. The bots canon pulled back from her neck, revealing that adhered to the nape was a metal disk, it's talons buried into her now swelling and reddening skin. There was a light on the back of it which blinked a pale blue every few seconds. It looked like it hurt, but it was a lot better than the death that they had been expecting. The machine lifted her limp form back into her booth and resecured her bonds.
Inali did nothing, still recoiling from shock.
A shaky breath shuddered from Donatello's lungs. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. His mind already churning to figure out what had just happened, he looked at the others in the room. The bots were taking out the others of her species and implanting those discs onto them as well.
He turned abruptly and demanded, "Mikey, lean forward and let me see your neck!"
Raph, finally snapped out of his own shock and turned to look as well. Mikey obeyed and leaned his head as far forward as he could manage. It was hard to make out, but covered by the upper lip of his shell, there was indeed a disc on him. A quick assessment of one another proved that they all had them.
"It must have happened while were were still under!" Donnie speculated.
"But what are they?" Leo asked.
"I have no way of figuring that out from here!" Donatello said, "But the light flashing makes me thing it's transmitting something."
"I don't feel it." Mikey said, rolling his head back as if to try to figure out why he hadn't noticed it before.
"If we felt it, we would have noticed it before."
Raphael let his brothers talk it out, closing his eyes and trying to breath through the adrenaline wave that was still fueling his body. He knew he was bleeding, but right now he didn't feel the wounds. It always happened this way when his anger got the best of him. He's pummeled robots, punched walls, and more but his body always remained numb throughout the thrumming surge of energy. It wasn't until he'd calmed sufficiently that he felt the wounds he sustained.
There was also another aspect of his rage that worked in his favor. He tended to be stronger and as his eyes looked up at the metal cord holding the brackets overhead, he saw the heavy pucker his straining had created in the metal. He smirked to himself, feeling pretty pleased with himself that he'd managed it.
"Rapheil."
Inali's hesitant call to him stole his attention and he managed to relax a little in spite of how she mispronounced his name. The pup was okay so maybe attempting communication again was an option. For the moment though, she appeared distracted. Her eyes were following his arms and he figured she was just now noticing that his struggling had injured him. Somehow the blood made him proud. They boasted the lengths he'd go to for the right cause, they declared his strength and stamina, and having a pretty girl take notice pleasurably stroked his already sizable ego. What could he say, he was a genuine badass!
"We should try to talk to her again." Donatello said in an exhale, stating what Raph had already determined on his own.
"Eureka," Raph snorted. "Thank goodness I have you here to tell me how to wipe my ass Donnie! You're a true genius!" How could someone so smart so consistently state the obvious like an epiphany was beyond him!
Donnie, affronted, retorted, "If we had time to make wise cracks about personal hygiene, trust me Raph, I'd be delighted to have a nice tete-a-tete with you, but the crutch of the matter is we don't have that luxury!"
"We'd all be delighted for some tit and tits Donnie but I can't see how bringing that up is helpful right now. Get your head in the game, man."
Raph felt a swell of satisfaction as his gap toothed brother blushed intensely at his rebuttal.
"Wait, what are you guys talking about?" Mikey called with interest.
"All you heard was 'tit', Mikey." Leo said, trying to cover over the turn in conversation. "Come on Raph, we need to be more productive than this."
"Hey, don't get mad at me, Donnie's the one who can't stop thinking about boobs." He said with a shrug. Another log on the fire and now to sit back and watch the blaze!
"Raphael I swear if I weren't bound head and foot-"
"You'd try to hit me with your walking stick? Try it and see how that works for you!" Snarkily, Raph quirked the brows over his bright green eyes, "That is if you can get your mind off of Aprils tit's long enough to actually give me a fight worth my time!"
Flustered, Donnie could only stammer angrily through a spreading redness, not forming anything coherant even as Mikey chimed in his two cents.
"You can't blame the guy Raph, April's got a habit of wearing that tight little yellow shirt and it's kinda distracting!"
Even Leo had to give a nervous laugh and nod. "Yeah, she's been wearing that shirt for quite some time now. Two years? I think it's her favorite."
"And she's only getting bigger too. Someone should tell her."
"Why? That shirt makes her boobs look great!" Mikey smiled and closed his eyes dreamily. "So perky and full!"
Donatello broke his bewildered silence at that, shouting wildly and without reserve, "Don't you talk about my sweet little Princess that way!"
"Why, does it get you frustrated?" Raph jabbed mercilessly, "You gonna drop outta your shell?"
Leo groaned, "Okay, that's enough, besides-" He gestured to Inali who was staring at them, mystified. "It's not polite conversation for mixed company."
Raph just snorted, "It's not like she can understand us."
"Yes I can."
Stunned, all four looked at the girl with wide eyes as their minds came to a screeching halt.
Mikey grinned happily, Donni averted his gaze with a blush, Leo blinked slowly a few times, and Raph stared dumbly.
Enthusiastically, Mikey spoke up, apparently oblivious to the awkward silence, "Whoa, she just learned English guys!"
Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Donatello tried to reason on the matter. "Actually Mikey, I think it's more likely that these discs we have been given have something to do with it. Perhaps a universal translator of some sort."
"A what?" the youngest asked.
"A device that breaks down multiple languages into one basic format. Like on Earth most all language have root meanings and derivatives, language having branched out into many forms from one or more original di...al...ects-?" He paused, seeing he was loosing his brothers attention. He sighed. "To our ears, when she speaks we hear English. To her, we probably sound like we're speaking her native tongue. It's the device that does all the hard work of breaking it all down."
"Like in Space Heros?" Leo asked hopefully.
He didn't like putting something so technologically fascinating and advanced on the same level as a bad 70's sitcom but Donnie digressed. "Well, basically the end result is the same!" He bit her lower lip a moment, eyes drawn to the back of Inali's neck longingly. "I wish I could get my hands on it and figure out how it works! The implications of a translator being implemented back on earth would be invaluable!"
"Try to contain your geek-out until we're all back home safely." Leo advised.
They all looked out into the room. Others were getting theirs as they spoke with similar struggles and slowly, the indistinguishable sounds of alien language were becoming something far more familiar! Odd sounds and vocal patterns slowly melted into clear, if not heavily accented, English.
The sweet melody of his native language was all Leo needed to hear to know they had to press for more answers. "Look, Inali was it?" She nodded, one ear drooping, bemused. "You and some of the others seem to know what's going on here but my brothers and I are struggling to get a complete picture."
"If you can shed any light on what's going on, it'd be of great help." Don agreed.
It looked like the fox girl was bristling, her untamed red hair and fur seeming to lift as she made an agitated pout.
"You want to fight the Terrack, but you do not know what the Terrack is?" Her speaking was a bit broken and of a strange accent, lacking the conjunctions that simplified the English language to those more familiar with it. Her tail lashed once behind her and her brow lowered worrisomely over her bold yellow gaze. "How does one not know of the Terrack?"
Leo piped up. "Let's just say if they've been to our Planet this is the first we've known about it."
Mikey stated the obvious question, craning his neck out of his booth to see her. "So the Terrack. Who are those guys? The robots we saw?"
"Or the one who programmed them?" Donnie offered.
Inali shook her head in the negative, her eyes looking a touch glassy for but a moment before her defiance overshadowed it. "Terrack are Hunters. Not as I am a hunter not as they." She gestured to the others in the room. "We hunt for our sustenance and to fill our bodies with the joy of meat! The Terrack hunt not for need, but for enjoyment. To feel power and superior over all others. They rape the mind and pillage the spirit and only when the prey does crumble do they destroy the body." Her ears flattened against her head and she glowered at the four brothers spitefully. "They pervert the hunt and prey on the innocent. There is no mercy, compassion, or need to their hunt. They are without honor!"
"I'm confused." Mikey said slowly, concentration gleaming in his cerulean eyes. "They're going around and drugging people? Putting them in here? Doesn't really seem like a hunt to me."
"The hunt has not yet begun." She explained. "We have been collected, not loosed."
Revelation dawned in Donatello's eyes, and he quickly explained, "Oh I get it! This is just like Richard Connell's short story, 'The Most Dangerous Game'!"
"Care to enlighten the rest of us?" Raphael pressed.
Nodding, Don explained excitedly. "It's a very famous short story from the nineteen twenties about a big game hunter that get's stranded on an island in the Caribbean! As it turns out, the island is owned and inhabited by a fellow big game hunter by the name of Zaroff, who uses his island as an arena to hunt down stranded sailors like wild game, even providing them with supplies and a three hour head start! The premise is that Zaroff actually had succeeded in hunting so many dangerous animals that he felt the only real challenge left for him was to hunt people!"
"Dude, don't sound so excited, you're about to live that story." Leonardo said with a scowl, trying to keep him grounded.
"Please tell me that Zaroff guy got what was coming to him." Mikey pleaded as he once more took stock of the conditions they were in. "I could really use good news right now."
Don laughed nervously. "Well, it's not that simple to explain. One of the beauties about this story in particular was its open ending. It eludes to the fact that Zaroff was defeated but there's a great deal left up to interpretation and ones imagination. It's actually quite the literary masterpiece-"
"I choose to belief Zaroff got raped in the ass with his hunting rifle," Raph muttered graphically, "-because that's what I plan on doing to the bastards who put us here as soon as they turn me loose."
That earned a yip of approval from Inali. "You four have fight and look to be great warriors! And Raphiel-"
He cringed when she mispronounced his name again and quickly corrected her "Raphael."
"Raphiel." She repeated without success.
"No, Raff-aye-elle!" He ground out with increasing volume.
She wrinkled her nose. "Raff-eye- eal!" She barked back.
The two glared each other down, the staring contest only broken when Leo chuckled at his brothers annoyance. "You can't be mad Raph. Translator or not, there are still going to be nuances between how we speak."
"It's true Raph." Donnie assured, "That accent's pretty thick. There's going to be some syllables her tongue isn't used to making."
"Well it's damn annoying!" He said gruffly, his own Brooklyn drawl tainting his words.
Inali turned her nose up, looking away with a saucy huff. Her pupils were dilated angrily and her tail was lashing wantonly. Unfortunately, while she was attempting to look displeased, she simply looked like an obstinate child who wasn't getting their way.
"I had intended on offering my thanks to Raphiel for trying so valiantly on my behalf when the sentries came for me." She paused to glare coldly at the red masked mutant, "-but now one must wonder if it were bravery or sheer stupidity that drove you to injure yourself so."
"Oh I like her." Leo said through a laugh, drawing Raphs displeased scowl.
"Hard to get insulted when it's coming from a pup like you." Raph jeered in return.
That struck a raw nerve and, incensed, Inali's eyes grew wide and all the hair on her tail and ears stood on end!
"Pup? I am no 'pup' you-you-" She stomped her feet a few times, caught mid tantrum with her face twisted up in a very unflattering expression. "You remarkably ugly pond slug!"
"Aww, how cute! The Pup is trying to bark!" Raphael leaned in and made beckoning smooching noises at her. "C'mere little puppy!"
She squealed angrily and Donnie sighed. "We're not getting anywhere with this."
Leo shrugged. "Yeah maybe, but you've gotta admit, this is pretty entertaining."
Donnie had to smile. "She really doesn't insult very well does she."
"Maybe she just needs more practice." Mikey belly laughed as Inali began barking loudly at their brother, so lost in her aggression that she had regressed into the one thing she could think to do. "It's still managing to get under Raphs skin though."
"Or maybe some of the wit is lost in translation?" Donnie thought aloud.
"Or maybe she just sucks at it." Leo said bluntly, but grinned just the same. "If she weren't so small I'd say her anger would be intimidating but like this it's just...well...it's-"
"Cute." Mikey finished shamelessly. "Just say it, she's too cute! It's like that time we stopped that Kraang bot in an alleyway and disturbed those kittens under the dumpster."
Donnie had to nod in agreement, shaking his head sympathetically at the girl trying to go toe to toe with the force of nature that is Raphael. "Yeah. Watching a tiny kitten hiss is hardly frightening. I see the correlation."
"Definitely triggers the 'awww' reflex, dude."
"Does she even know how small she is?" Leo wondered aloud. "I almost feel bad for her."
"Well, seeing as she is canine in nature, drawing from experience small dogs tend not to know their size in comparison to large ones."
Leo groaned a bit as Raph further mocked their alien ally by asking if she wanted to sniff his ass. "This is embarrassing." He looked to Donnie for help. "We should stop this."
"Come on guys." Mikey said kindly, his pure and clear eyes watching with ease the fight continue. "From the way it sounds, we're about to face some pretty hard shit, right? I say let's just enjoy a few minutes of peace before we don't have it anymore."
The affectionate smile that crossed Leonardo's face was reply enough. Sometimes Michelangelo's carefree nature dangerously bordered on the reckless and there were many times he wondered if their most innocent brother could grasp the gravity of some of the situations they found themselves in. Then, there were times like this when he'd say something so profoundly wise that he wished he could see life through those clear untainted eyes. Mikey may choose not to to bog himself down with excessive worry or stress, but he dealt with tense situations with blinding optimism. He wished more and more as they grew older that he could emulate that attitude. In the end, he knew it would make him a better leader.
"You're right, bro." He said warmly, wishing he could give his little brother a noogie. This was the calm before the storm. What was the harm in watching lightning strike a few times before they dug in their heals to weather it out.
