Usually, I'm all about saying thanks to readers and leaving review replies here so that people not signed in and stuff won't fee left out, but I am too exhausted right now. Seriously. It's 11pm and I need to go wash a shirt with my bare hands so I can use it for tomorow morning's shift at work. Why did I not do this with a machine earlier in the day? Cuz I had work. And it was raining so the washing hadn't been done. And we have no dryer.

Fun times.

So yeah, will leave review replies when I'm not exhausted enough to collapse, lol.

ENJOY!

Part 4

Donatello tried to get his hands to stop shaking, but that wasn't going to be happening on the short term. The robot pieces that'd helped the temporary loss of two brothers (he tried not to dwell on how they were still missing Mikey) was strewn in front of him, taunting him.

How is it that he had to fix something that'd torn his brother apart?

He gripped the edge of his desk, the skin over his knuckles straining. He was feeling sick again, despite the fact that everything should be fine, he was fine, his brother was fine now there shouldn't be-

The image of Raphael's cracked plastron forcefully pried open by his tools, leaking life-blood as he searched for bullets with a flashlight.

Donatello slammed his forehead between the space between his hands and told himself no, he wasn't going to hurl again, he really wasn't. He really, really wasn't okay he clearly was.

He retched and coughed into his scrap bin, the smell of bile-splattered metal reminding him too much of the haphazard surgery.

Donatello roughly shoved said bin away, coughing and gasping, eyes stinging. Gripping the edge of the desk again he hauled himself up from his hands and knees, glaring at the pieces he was meant to be studying, and in a fit of unadulterated rage he grabbed a large wrench and cleared his desk in a violent swoop, shattering metal and tearing wires asunder.

He needed to get out of his lab.

He stumbled out, hands still shaking, repulsed by the very idea of touching any of his equipment for anything right now. There was only one thing that would stop the shaking, so he went straight for it, opening the door, closing it gently behind him.

Raphael was sleeping in his hammock, not the bed that'd been provided him, and Donatello almost laughed. He should've been beside himself with indoctrinated ire, but he was just so glad that Raphael was as stubborn as usual, healthy enough to even climb onto his damned choice of bedding, alive enough to be sleeping instead of unconscious or dead.

Pain was written all over Raphael's face, even in his sleep, but even that was a wonderful relief. Pain meant life, in this stage of healing.

Donatello gently touched the bandages over Raph's chest, the trembling in his fingers slowly easing as he felt his brother's breathing through the cloth, the gentle rising and falling of the plastron. His other hand went to Raph's head, checking for a fever and just reassuring himself with skin on skin contact, and though his injured brother twitched, Raph slept on.

Don took a deep breath, let it out, and stayed there till his hands would stop their ridiculous shaking, before letting himself out.

He gathered his duffel-bag after checking the time. He probably had two hours before he would be missed.

He went through his mental Theft List. Painkillers. Lots of painkillers. Disinfectants, bandages, maybe some plaster to seal the plastron wounds closed, anything nutritious. Dare he risk looking for IV bags, and the wrath he would face on trying to stick the thing into his brother's arm?

Rope, he decided, in case he needed to hogtie Raph to a proper bed so he wouldn't hurt himself. And to make sure said injured brother took his IV with as little struggle as possible.

At the back of his head the word dishonourable was whispering at him, but he gave it a mental cold stare before heading out of the complex. Raphael was still facing a sheer cliff that he could easily tumble down because of the smallest infection. If Leo was going to take the lead in finding their missing brother, then he was going to do whatever it took to get Raph away from that fatal edge.

Between losing a sibling and dishonour, dishonour could take a place in the backseat. No, in fact, it could take the trunk and be tossed around in it as he drove the vehicle from one hospital to another, stealing from them all.

… … … … …

He woke up lying on his front, with a threadbare blanket over him and an even more battered pillow under his cheek. A distance away he could hear Lucinda singing the ukulele version of 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'. Wow. She really did have a nice voice.

He'd been moved into a room with more light as well, or they'd let in more light to where he'd been all this time; she really was too kind to a supposed prisoner. At this rate he was a guest.

Well, sleep overs were awesome anyway. "Hey…"

"Chucky!" there was a hiss of something being dragged against the ground, and her voice was right in front of his face. "You're awake! You're okay!"

He stared at her dubiously, and wiped his eyes. "Am I still dreaming?"

"Why?"

"You're a talking snake."

Said snake nodded. Her forked tongue flickered over her scaled lips, and she smiled widely, revealing rows of fangs. "Yep."

"A white talking snake." Just like his dream. So he must have been awake for that part. Just tripping on the fever.

"Yep."

"Uh… okay." Chucky just decided to accept it, since glancing at his own green three fingered arm and hand, he wasn't exactly normal, either. "So you're…"

She giggled, her eyes swirls of pink and red. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself, but I'm Lucinda, and I like being called Cindy. So I'm Cindy. Hi."

He managed a smile. He was tired, he was achy, his head felt hollow from hurting so much; he deserved a medal for smiling. "…Hi Cindy. Thanks for looking after me, gal. I'm… one handful of a prisoner, huh."

"Indeed," the second voice said, "You've been quite the handful."

Chucky froze, fear creeping into his heart. He remembered that voice from his dreams, and he remembered that it had sounded really angry. Also, if his fever dream had been so accurate with Lucinda being a snake…

He had a creature capable of tearing him in half sitting right behind him.

"…Who's there?"

"That's my mum," the snake explained, glancing back over from where she'd come, "Well, my sister. She's both."

Chucky gripped the ground, his arm muscles trembling. He had to turn around, had to see. Thankfully Cindy was a tiny thing, well, not tiny, her head was big as his palm, but still, if there was any chance that the cat was the size of, say, a Chihuahua…

He managed to turn his towards the voice, and flinched, giving a high-pitched meep.

It was a white lion. A white lion. Its black eyes flashed with malice and face was squashed and it had teeth too big for its mouth and it… it… it was really, really big. Did he mention that it was big? It was probably as big as him, thick in the torso and strong in the limbs, its white coat grimy from the sewers and the more terrifying for it. And he really didn't have the strength to scramble back, having just recovered from a fever or something. Oh, and bullet wounds.

Cindy laughed outright. "You sound like a girl!"

"I do not!" he squeaked, and shut his mouth up as the lion growled. Wait, no, from that tail, and the ears, it wasn't a cat. It was a dog. Oh, shell, a lion-dog thing that could talk and was probably going to eat him. No wonder they'd wanted him healthy; they didn't want to get indigestion.

Oh shell- shell- shell- shell- shell…

"Quiet." She growled, and Chucky obeyed. "Now, tell me who you are."

He shook his head at her, frantic. His voice was a squeak. "I swear I don't know. I swear."

"I can smell lies, boy."

"Then I should be fresh!" he burst out, scrambling back, vaguely surprised with himself that he could do that, but then again those teeth were freaking terrifying, "Like, pine-minty-air-freshener fresh, with no whiffy stink of a lie. Unless lies smell good? Do lies smell good? Either way, trust me, I don't smell of lies. I'm lie free I am! Honest!"

Cindy giggled again. "You're funny."

"Lucinda, come here." The lion-dog thing growled, making the snake pout. Chucky's side flared in agony, grabbing it, feeling that bandages wrapping his shell and plastron. "If he's feeling well enough to bellyache like this, then he's well enough to hurt you."

"But he won't-"

"I said come here."

Cindy grumbled and slithered over to her, and Chucky died a little inside. He was so going to be eaten. It was a certainty, now.

"Now," the lady-lion-dog snarled, stalking towards him, "What are you?"

Chucky stumbled back even further but his hands tripped and he was flat on his shell, making his head dizzy. Right, just recovered from a concussion, and fever and an injury to his side. His head hurt. He could see no route out; escape wasn't an option here. Still he tried, inching back till his shell hit a wall. "I really, really don't know. Please don't eat me."

"You wouldn't make a decent snack." She spat, which made him a little relieved, "I'll have to settle for a chew toy."

He moaned. "Can't we work this out like gentlemen? Emphasis on the gentle? Poor little turtle just recovered from concussion, as you know."

"Please? Mina?" the little snake flickered her tongue at the larger animal, "He seems nice."

The voice that replied was aggressively exasperated. "They all seem nice to you."

"Only the nice ones."

"I'm nice." Chucky shot his hand up into the air and waved it. Then he gritted his teeth and went back to holding his injury. "Candidate for the Nicest Person Ever Awards, right here. At least I would be if there was one."

Cindy looked utterly convinced. "See?"

"Both of you, quiet." The white dog rushed him and he gave another girly scream, and her massive weight nearly crushed his chest as she rammed a paw onto his plastron pinning him there to… sniff him?

Chucky blinked as the dog inhaled, twice, in long deep breaths. Her frown didn't move an iota, but when she got off him her tension had eased. "You're clean."

The turtle blinked again as the dog grunted away, the snake sweeping up to him to check him over for injuries. "How's your side?"

It was stinging like a couple of wasps were partying in there, dancing to the beat of his thundering painful heart, but it somehow felt a lot better than when he'd first been dragged in. "Better."

Something clattered to his side, knocked there by a swipe of the dog's paw. It was a bullet blackened by blood. It was pretty big. "That was what hurt you."

Chucky shuddered.

"Humans," the dog continued, settling back on its stomach, "Hunt with those. So obviously you're no friend to them, just as we are, but that doesn't mean you're exactly on our side, either."

"The enemy of an enemy, right?" he rubbed his face, wondering if it was okay to feel less terrified, now. "Uh… so, you're… what?"

"That means he can stay, doesn't it?" Cindy asked, her whole body undulating with hope, "We can't leave him out there if the humans are looking for him, right?"

"But that doesn't necessarily mean we can keep him, either, Lucinda," the dog growled, "He compromises our safety. If the humans were planning to kill him, then fine, he can stay long enough to uphold that illusion, but if they wanted to hunt him and keep his hide, they're going to keep looking. If they find you here, green boy, you're going to put us in danger. Put my daughter in danger."

"Mina…"

"I haven't dragged your sorry tail out of here yet because Lucinda insisted on looking after you. But now that you're better, I will say this: I want you gone. I take enough risks to keep us fed without you adding fuel to the fire. I'll give you the whole of a week to gather your strength and leave. If you're not gone by then, I will chew you out. Understood?"

Chucky gulped, and nodded.

… … … … …

"Leonardo. Were you able to find any clues?"

Reluctantly, Leo offered what he found to his father. Splinter's eyes flinched at the sight of so much blood on Michelangelo's mask, and the weapon that followed. "I think something took him. It wasn't the Foot, or Bishop, not by what I found, but… someone has him."

"Your reasoning?"

"There were no footprints, but there were tracks showing he was dragged away. He must have been unconscious at the time, and…" Leonardo winced. "That's all I have, Master Splinter. But he's in the sewers, underground. It's where the tracks led, I just need more time to figure out where he is."

The aging rat nodded, giving a soft sigh. "I see."

"How's Raph?"

"No worse than before." The rat assured his son as they headed towards the kitchen, "I suspect he has been doing some exercises that Donatello has strictly forbidden him from. Those two are currently in a session."

"…Session?"

There was a muffled curse and a noise that sounded like something being knocked over. It came from Raph's room. There were a few thuds, more curses, and then silence.

"Yes." Master Splinter said with a straight face, opening the fridge, "A session."

"Should I… be stopping them?"

"I suspect that in some ways, it should be encouraged," Splinter drawled, taking out a box of canned chickpeas from the door-shelf before retrieving a few plastic-wrapped bundles of pickled vegetables, and their precious supply of dried meat. He took a single strip of jerky from it, put the bundle back, and then closed the fridge door.

"Leonardo, if you would prepare the rice?"

"Yes, sensei," said son replied, getting a cup and measuring five scoops from their bucket, starting the process of washing the grains as Splinter cut the vegetables and jerky into bite size pieces and, on a whim, opened a can of fruit as well. The syrup of the can he kept in a jar to make preserves of his own, and the orange pieces he placed in four bowls. The vegetables and jerky went into the rice, followed by water and salt and a dash of ginger powder. They boiled it for just over an hour, giving Leonardo plenty of time to rest, prepare his swords, and ready plates at the table. It also gave Raph time to recover from his scuffle with Doctor-mode Don, who could be a terrible force to be reckoned with.

The okayu, once ready, was stirred, ladled out, and Splinter froze.

He'd readied a fifth bowl. Why not? There had been enough rice-porridge for the five of them, they'd prepared enough ingredients, without thinking. It was second nature, was it not?

But how could they have missed the fact that Michelangelo was not there, when that was what was constantly and achingly on their minds?

Splinter gathered himself, ladled out the last portion, and carefully plastic-wrapped it before placing it in the fridge. "For when he comes back."

Leo nodded, and on doing the same for the fruit-dessert, he called for Don and they had lunch together in Raph's room, who stubbornly ate with his own two hands even if it took him the rest of the day to do it.

He didn't have the stomach for dinner, and he really didn't want to take so many of those damned pills that Don was insisting he take (through needle or mouth, it was his choice) but the canned pieces of orange with custard and bits of cereal that Splinter dangled in front of him did the trick.

Raphael grumbled at himself as he drifted back to drug-addled sleep. He always fell for that.

… … … … …

Hunger.

It knew it. It was an old friend and enemy, hunger. It drove it to hunt, to provide for itself and others (others? What others?) and it was what beat it down and made it weak. Or it had used to.

Now it made it stronger and less merciful and all the while angry.

The rats weren't enough. The trash wasn't enough. The stray dog hadn't been enough and still it growled, its whole body and throat and mind growled for food, meat, white meat. A long sinuous strip of meat, thick haunches wrapped round tough bones just right for chewing, it knew it, they were here, somewhere, waiting for it.

A rat risked going over its talons, and it was the last decision it ever made as teeth and beak crunched its body into two.

… … … … …

Chucky had opened the bandages to his side, and winced. The wound was a nasty thing, sticky with blood and impossible to tell if it was being infected or not; the bridge that spanned between his plastron and shell was yellowish, so it was impossible to tell if it was leaking puss. Not to mention green was his natural colour, so flesh-rot was would be hard to spot too. But then again, it didn't hurt that much, not on a blood-poisoning scale (not that he would know about blood-poisoning-level-pain, right?)… so he was healing fine, right?

Cindy poked it with the tip of her tail. "How's that?"

He recoiled. "Ow. Oh wow this is ow-ness on a pretty high level."

"Then we'll disinfect it some more, kay?"

Chucky whimpered as the snake slithered over to a pile of medical supplies, combing through the battered boxes till she found what she sought. He glanced towards Azmina, who was scowling. No help from there, then.

"Hold still," Cindy grumbled with a spray-type disinfectant in her coils, which she was trying to use on the wound in Chucky's side, batting away his hand when he tried to clutch it. "I just-"

"I could do it myself," he offered, but she growled and determinedly sprayed him with radioactive-yellow ooze, missing the injury completely.

"Just because I don't have hands that doesn't mean I'm not useful," she snapped, and with another clench of her abdomen she sprayed him in the side, coating it in frothed medicine, and managed to get his eyes too.

Chucky screamed like a girl and Cindy scrambled on top of him apologising profusely.

Azmina growled and covered her head with her paws.

… … … … …

Leonardo was tracking Mikey's trail when he found something he really hadn't expected to find, and it sent chills to the marrow of his bones.

Foot prints. No, more like claw-prints as long as the span of his two hands, and the tracks could only belong to one thing.

He took out his shell-cell and just barely stopped himself from calling home. Cursing, he rubbed his hands against his head, frustration bubbling up to the base of his throat. An Outbreak mutant? Now? They'd combed through the sewers twice to make sure all those monsters had been cured, and one giant one decides to hop out of the brick-works now?

The possibility of Mikey getting eaten by something serpentine seemed less implausible, too. Damn it.

He had to prioritize. Mikey or Mutant? Mutant or Mikey? Of course his heart was screaming at him that it should be Michelangelo, he had to find his brother before the Mutant did, who cared if it found its way to the surface and terrorized the citizens above and gave Bishop another headache? It was a headache that Agent (of Hell and Nightmares and Beyond as far as Leonardo was concerned) well and truly deserved, and for once the humans could deal with their own problems whilst he dealt with theirs, a missing brother.

But then again, there was no guarantee that the Mutant wouldn't meet Mikey before he and Donatello found either of them.

Cursing, the katana-wielding ninja called Leatherhead.

It rung three times before there was a worried, "Hello?"

"Leatherhead, it's me, Leonardo. Bad news. There's an Outbreak mutant."

He heard the crocodile's hitched breath shudder through the phone, till it settled and he said, "I see."

"Is there any chance that you still have some antidote?" Leo didn't let himself hope that there would be even a drop, or a piece of paper with formula scribbled conveniently on it left around somewhere. He was already thinking of ways to break into research facilities to get whatever ingredients they'd need to cook up this cure, or even use one of Don's machines to herd it out of the sewers, at least, the idea of letting the humans handle their own problems gaining considerable favour in his mind.

"I do, in fact, have a batch freeze-dried in my storage."

Leonardo froze. "…You do?"

"I had… kept it, in case of a relapse."

He couldn't help but shudder. If Don had relapsed into being a spit-frothing monster, he didn't know what he and his family would have done.

So, there was an antidote. So it was up to them to capture the creature, or corner it, or something, and administer it before it did too much damage to anything in its path. And the herding it out of the sewers plan had been so tempting, but now that he knew that they had the means to actually fix the problem on a potentially permanent basis, it would be wrong to send it on its way to eat the next grandma walking in the park or something.

Sometimes he didn't like being so honourable and right, but being wrong was like having the grossest itchiest goo slathered all over his skin and doing anything less than right was just… wrong.

Leo asked Leatherhead to meet them at their new home to prepare the formula or something and figure out a plan to get rid of it. Once he hung up, he glanced at the track, confirmed ruefully that it was far too big to belong to anything naturally existing in New York sewers, called home.

It didn't even finish the first ring. "Leo?"

"Don, bad news. I found tracks of an Outbreak mutant."

There was a disturbing silence from the other side. Leo waited as Don processed the information, eliminated the chance that Leo was playing a very sick twisted joke, and said, "Right. You're sure."

"Think bird tracks but big enough to squash our heads in."

Another silence and a deep ragged sigh. "Thanks for the delightful visual, bro."

Leonardo winced. "Sorry."

"So what are we going to do?"

"I'll head back home; I've already called Leatherhead for some help, and we can figure out a strategy for cornering it and curing it. You think we could fill tranq guns with the antidote? At least then we'll reduce the risk of catching the virus ourselves…"

"What about…?"

The question was one Leo already had an answer for, though he really didn't like it. Maybe it had to do with pride, maybe with independence. Or maybe it felt like he was ten again and he was asking his father to help clean the mess that he'd made by himself. It was degrading, and borderline wrong. "We get Master Splinter to take over tracking him."

"And Raph? He won't just stay here."

"Can he be moved? We'll take him to April's or Casey's, though preferably April. Less likely that he'll do something stupid. Like following us." Oh, he could already imagine Raphael trying to crawl out of a window with his bandaged chest and cocooned leg, waving his sai around, cursing. Probably because it would be what any of them would be doing, especially himself.

"I don't know, Leo. I have the feeling that Raph would like that even less."

Shunted into a corner from a fight. He'd blow a gasket, and April's place was filled with delicate things, not to mention the last time they'd left a turtle there on Outbreak business…

"I'll contact Casey then," Leo sighed, "See if he can keep Raph distracted at home with Shell-cycle stuff. Are there any appliances that need fixing that Raph could do, too?"

There was a contemplative hum, and then silence. Leo patiently waited as a whump of something breaking in the distance made itself known, and Donatello returned. "He can fix the grill."

Leonardo couldn't help the wry smile that crept into his voice. "You're the best, Donnie."

The wryness came back tenfold, borderline cynical. "And don't you forget it."

So, yes, this is turning out to be one of those, ZOMG! THERE'RE MORE MUTANTS OUT THERE, kind of fic, but please, at least they're like, not female turtles, right?

I fucking love Lucinda. I wish I had a little sister like her, seriously.

Anyway, please leave a review reply, going to bed now so would LOVE to see some feedback, good or bad, when I wake up in the morning for another grueling day of part-time jobbing in the late-summer heat.

Sincerely,

S.S.

Seriously, please, review.