April couldn't stop stuttering in shock.
She simply didn't know how to react to her friend Ichi practically announcing to them over the phone that she knew about their existence. Not that it mattered all that much. As curious as Splinter and the guys were about how she could have found out about them, they didn't exactly get the impression that Ichi had mentioned them out of anger or fear or any other sort of malicious feeling or thought.
In fact, if anything they got the sort of impression that Ichi didn't seem to care all that much that they were mutants. Or that weirdo's in black PJ's tended to run around and fight them.
If anything, her peculiar offer to assist them when it came to the Foot was...strangely sweet.
Despite the fact that they probably wouldn't ever take her up on it due to the fact that they didn't know her. Something that they had decided to remedy as quickly as they could in an effort to learn a little more about her and gauge whether or not she was in fact a threat to them.
If so- they would find a way to deal with her. Hopefully peaceably given April's long standing attachment to her. Another reason that they were reluctant to deal with Ichi using any form of excessive force also had to do with her age. Something that they had learned from April when Splinter had asked her a few before.
Ichi's actual name was Ichigo. She was currently seventeen.
Just four years younger than the Leo, Raph, Don and Mikey. Which meant that she was still very much a child in the eyes of the law and themselves. Which meant that lethal force wasn't possible.
The turtles were a lot of things- ninja's, protectors, defender's of the innocent- but killers of children, simply wasn't one of those things.
If they couldn't reason with her. Then they would try to intimidate her instead.
Though they weren't all that sure how effective that method would be. Anyone who had their home set on fire by a little old lady suffering mental illness- and still went after said person- must have either nerves of steel or absolutely no sense of self preservation whatsoever.
So that night after sending April home to sleep off the shock, Splinter and the others packed up some stuff and decided to head out to the country figuring that they would be gone for a week at least. And none of them wanted to be gone longer than absolutely necessary.
And since most of their stakeouts usually lasted about a week- it only stood to reasons that they would have some sort of answer to most of their concerns by then.
The trip out to the country took the better part of the night. Making placing their arrival time between the early morning hours, between four am and five thirty am.
However upon reaching April's childhood home, the guys promptly jumped out of the battle shell, and began to unload the van and settle in for their week long stint away from home.
Once that was done, they spent two hours or so catching some sleep, and then upon waking ate a quick breakfast of granola bars, a cup or two of coffee, and whatever else they had managed to bring with them from home to assure that they didn't starve to death during the week.
However they hadn't been able to stock up before leaving. And likely wouldn't be able to stock up out here either due to the fact that their costumes were far too crude to hide their green, scaly skin from the intense scrutiny of the country folk.
They would have to use their food supplies sparingly.
Though Mikey did mention that maybe they could find a farm close by with a fruit and vegetable garden that they could hit up for some extra food supplies. After which Don mentioned some wild berry plants that grew around April's childhood home, that they could also make use of.
Once Leo agreed to both plans to get some extra food stuffs, the four decided to scope out the area and see if they could find April's friend so that they could get down to business.
Ichigo had gone into town as soon as she had rolled out of bed to stock up on groceries and some new art supplies. Currently she was sitting inside of a small diner that she tended to frequent, munching on what was left of her early bird special.
She'd had a funny dream the night before where April's big green friends had decided to stop by for a spell and visit. She didn't exactly know why. But she knew that it gave her a strange feeling.
Almost similar to the feeling that someone got when a person stepped over their grave.
She had woken up at four forty am with the odd feeling of something cold crawling down her spine. It wasn't exactly...pleasant. In fact, to Ichigo, such feelings were far more useful as warnings for things like Hollows and such.
However even though it wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling, she also felt oddly...warm whenever she mentally went over the dream in her mind.
Popping the last bite of bacon in her mouth, she glanced down at her wrist watch to check the time while she slowly chewed and frowned at her watch. Either the damned thing was busted again, or something was going to happen in the near future at six fifteen.
Tapping the glass with her fingernail, she took a moment to hold it up to her ear to see if she could hear it making any sort of noise and made a low growling sound as her waitress walked up with her check and blinked at her before asking in a friendly manner, "Is your watch busted again, Ichi?"
Ichigo's eyes flickered to the woman's face for a second as she reluctantly dropped her arm back to the table and nodded curtly. "Yeah, looks like." She said in a slightly sullen tone eliciting a soft laugh from the woman.
"Oh hon, you have such terrible luck with watches and clocks don't you?" Ichigo didn't bother dignifying the woman's teasing question with a response since the woman was right. It was embarrassing to admit to anyone in town just how often she was having to replace her watches and clocks due to the damned things either breaking, or flat out being destroyed, or because they simply stopped functioning for one reason or another.
Not that everyone and their cousin didn't somehow find that fact interesting enough to gossip about. In fact her weird trouble with watches and clocks had been always been speculated/gossiped about. She supposed since people didn't know her well enough to laugh about something more interesting about.
But whatever.
She'd figure out what time it was once she left.
"Was you're breakfast good, Ichi?" The woman asked, just like she always did as she started to dig out her wallet. Ichigo gave her a small smile and ran her tongue over her teeth like she always did when she was asked such questions. And then handed her waitress a ten telling her to keep the change as a tip, as she got up off of her stool and waved to the woman as she headed towards the door.
Once outside, she tipped her head back and looked up at the sky, to gauge the time since she couldn't rely on her wrist watch, again. And figured the time to be between seven thirty and eight. Which was perfect since that meant that the craft shops and grocery stores were now open.
She figured that she'd hit up the craft shops and see if she could find a little bit of everything for painting, sketching, doing some floral arrangements, and making some scented candles, lotions, bath bombs and such. She had been hired to do a few commission pieces that she needed to send out within the next two weeks.
Plus she had some new stuff that she wanted to add to her art galley too.
After she was done getting her supplies, the time was slowly approaching ten. Quickly shoving her art supplies in the back of her car, she was careful to arrange them from breakable (like jars, and vases) to least breakable (her paints, brushes, canvases, lotion bases, scented oils, bath bomb and candle making supplies, her many, many, many bags of multi colored silk flowers, wire cutters, gardening tape) ect. and then firmly closed the door and locked it before then heading towards the nearest grocery store.
She supposed that she should maybe get some extra stuff for the green guys.
Maybe some nice frozen stuff, coffee, a few herbal teas, sugar, honey, sandwich meats, cheese, soup, bread, butter, veggies, meats and some nice fruits since she wasn't all that sure what they ate, she figured that she would simply cover everything.
Walking into the store, she grabbed a buggy and started for the nearest isle with a weirdly determined look on her face. She would give them food, or die trying!
