tmnt is property of viacom.

we're just about the half-way point of this story now! thank you everybody, again - I try to reply to reviews via PM and if I missed you I'm very sorry. feel free to hit me up with talk or just general turt-babbling!

in this chapter: things go slightly wrong and April does a thing.


Birth of Serpents
part 7


Karai doesn't have time to be impressed.

By the time she's out of Leo's bed, armed, and into the main room, Casey is loading tranqs, O'Neil is pulling at the heavy chains to the lab, and her father lingers at the ledge over the tire-pool. Everybody's in place, knowing what to do without her having to say a thing.

Casey straightens, the tranq gun held in his left hand, and steps aside as she lands neatly next to him. The hissing is now guttural snarling, and Donnie's howls are now bitten off sounds that don't count as sobs, but aren't horrified enough to be screams; instead, they're just sad and resigned — Donnie is making all of this noise because that's the only thing he can do.

O'Neil gets the last loop of chain off of the door, and Karai holds up her hand. O'Neil starts to look mutinous, but Karai knows that she knows what she's going to say: "This could be—"

"A trap," Casey finishes for her. He preens, twirling the tranq gun around his fingers. "Yeah. We know."

When Donnie howls again, Karai gives the signal. O'Neil pulls the door open and Karai catches a glimpse of Leo and Mikey standing over Donnie's shell, their hands bloody, before she throws flash-grenades through the gap.

While the turtles hiss and snarl in pain, Karai throws down a smoke-grenade too, and she and Casey slip through the door.

In the smoke, it's difficult to see much of anything, but Karai can hear the thunk-thunk of two tranq-darts finding their mark. When the air clears, her brief relief at this fight maybe being an easy one sinks down to her gut - Leo and Mikey have turned their backs on their brother, their shoulders are taut, and their bodies are tense.

Leo reaches up, plucking the dart from his bicep, and throws it down. The metal clink echoes in the lab. Karai ignores it, the same way all four of them are ignoring Donnie's shaking gasps in the corner, even as the sound curls around them.

Leo takes a step forward, his eyes narrowing as Mikey watches, and Casey laughs, a low, short he-eh before he beckons with his left hand. Lunging, Leo takes the bait, his hands reaching for Casey and snarling when Casey ducks out of reach and across the lab.

Karai turns to Mikey.

Karai knows Leo - knows how predictable he can be. She doesn't know Mikey, but she doesn't want to take chances, not while Leo is throwing himself at Casey. She kicks off from the ground, already reaching for her sword, and the white membrane slides over Mikey's eyes.

Mikey is faster than Leo, and the fact that one bite could end this means that Karai has to change her default strategy of beating the turtles and beating them as quickly and as humiliatingly as possible. Instead, now it's a matter of making Mikey move long enough that the toxins in his bloodstream take action, and he goes down that way instead. So the sword in her hand isn't her trusted blade anymore, and the lessons she's learned are the wrong ones.

Mikey, too, is wrong - she's never fought him, but she's watched him. Mikey is loud and brash and erratic. He wastes time and energy, focusing more on flair and fun than finesse - he kicks twice when one would be enough, and backflips when he should throw, and laughs when he needs to be quiet. But this Mikey is silent. His eyes are white as he comes at her, his mouth drawn into a tight line, and her heart freezes in the second that she blinks and Mikey is already throwing a punch at her throat.

She blocks his arm with the back of her blade and pushes him off, flinching despite herself when the sharp edge of her sword grazes his bare wrist before he springs back.

She doesn't want to kill him, after all.

Mikey says nothing. But he looks at his new wound, and then back at her. His eyes narrow.

Across the lab, Leo staggers as the dart finally kicks in, his knees buckling underneath him and sending him crashing heavily into one of the tall stools. "Casey!" O'Neil yelps, and Casey vaults the desk to where she's holding up Donnie's body, her hands under his arms and locked over his plastron.

Mikey doesn't pay them any attention, but Karai can tell in a twist of his muscles that he thought that she would; he arches slightly, as though to head in the direction of the lab door. So Karai feints that way, and then twists to the other side.

Mikey sways a little as he turns — the tranquiliser is starting to work; slower than with Leo, she notes — and she takes advantage of his momentary weakness to curl her fingers and slam the heel of her palm up into his face.

"Ow!"

Mikey claps both hands to his face, staggering, and Karai stops, her hands raised in front of her in defence, waiting to see what Mikey does.

What Mikey does is whine.

He sits crosslegged on the floor and gently dabs the base of his palm against his face, checking for bleeding, and Karai can almost hear his stuffy-nosed complaining — you hid mai dose! — and smirks despite herself.

She doesn't get cocky. She keeps her distance, and waits. There's no way that she just smacked the sense back into Mikey, no matter how much she might like the idea.

She's right.

An arm blurs out to the side, longer than it has any right to be and still stretching, and when Mikey hooks his elbow back, it slams into the backs of Karai's knees. As she goes down, she throws her hands out behind her and backflips out of it. She's backflipped thousands of times before; she is elegant, she is precise, but when her feet hit the floor again, Mikey swarms her, his whole body melting together with his legs and shell blurring into one long serpentine body. His jaw, still part of a turtle's face, unhinges.

Mikey's coils squeeze and the air wheezes out of her lungs in a rush, and then he squeezes tighter: she can't breathe, and she can't make a noise. She can't reach the small blade in her sleeve or the one at her thigh. Mikey's face presses closer to her, his mouth widening, his tongue flickering, his teeth sharp and glinting with spit and dim light.

He's going to eat me whole, Karai realises, and she still can't scream.

She has never imagined her death to be so quiet. She's been raised by fire and steel and blood, and dying in silence seems so cheap

The weighty thunk of a second dart hits Mikey's neck, and his teeth clack together as his mouth slams shut. The tight, cruel twist to his face slips, his body uncoiling and flopping ungracefully to the floor around Karai's feet.

"Karai," Casey says at the door, his voice blown-out. Through the gap, Karai can see Splinter on the ledge, his hands twisting. Donnie and O'Neil are gone. She turns back to Leo and Mikey, both out cold, and can't shake the feeling between her shoulders that there's something missing here, that she's missing something. "Karai, c'mon. Get out."


All of the turtles have scars. Every time Casey's next to Raph he can pick up on new ones; a set of tarmac scrapes along his plastron, or rug-burn on his forearms, or a twist on the way Raph walks that indicates he pulled his knee again. Mikey has scrapes in his shell too, though less than the others. From the few times Casey's been close enough to Donnie to see, his scars are mostly along his forearms — a couple of slashes from fights that got past his bo, and spattered burn marks that probably come from whatever weird stuff he does in the lab. One really cold night, back when Casey first got to know the turtles, Donnie favoured his left shoulder; other than that, Casey's pretty sure that most of Donnie's injuries have just been bruises, mainly on his pride.

Now, though, Donnie's legs are covered in deep gouges, and his blood is congealing, black and thick, between his toes.

Donnie doesn't move as April stitches up the final tear in his arm. He watches, and shifts obediently as she tells him to hold still, or to lift his arm up, but it's like he's so far gone he doesn't even feel anything; he doesn't flinch, or wince, or even hiss even when she pours antiseptic onto the thick tears down his arms and legs.

"Okay," April says, cupping her hands around the bloody tissues and cotton balls. "That's about as good as I can do." She casts an eye at Donnie's feet, then back to Casey. "He should probably shower."

Casey fidgets. "Yeah, I can do it," he says, because he knows that's what April wants to hear, even though lovingly giving Donnie a sponge bath is just one of the few things Casey never wanted to have on his bucket list. But Splinter can't do it, and something slithers, hot and jealous in his chest, at the idea of April doing it.

The smile he gets from her, though — tired though it is — is worth it. "Maybe give him a minute for the stitches to settle?" she offers, dumping the used-up supplies in the trash and scrubbing her hands.

Casey shrugs — Donnie's not going anywhere — and crosses the kitchen to the freezer, yanking the door open. Ice Cream Kitty yowls miserably until Casey chucks her gently under the chin, and she purrs while he reaches for the box of frozen pizza that Mikey once stressed was only for emergencies, bro, like Godzilla, and nukes, and Fleet Week, when the turtles couldn't go topside because all of Manhattan was drunk and awake until 3am. When he closes the freezer door again, Donnie is watching him, his mouth open slightly like he's about to say something, but the words don't come, and Casey turns towards the oven. "You doin' okay?" he asks quietly, shoving the pizza onto a dented baking tray and lighting the gas. April sucks in a deep breath, her shoulders straightening before she nods sharply. He takes it for what it is. It's better than she was before they went to bed, at least. "You get any sleep?" he asks, and April doesn't answer.

He looks at the clock on the microwave. It's barely 3 in the morning, so no wonder April looks like hell. Her eyes are baggy and bruised, and there's a smudge of blood down her left pyjama sleeve that Casey isn't going to tell her about. Instead, he stretches up and pulls open the cupboard above her head, revealing the catering-size tub of instant coffee and sets the kettle boiling.

Casey's been meaning to make coffee for the past half hour, ever since Karai knocked down April's slow spiral into we should have put Donnie somewhere else, this is my fault by shoving the medbox at her and swanning out of the kitchen to talk to Splinter. But then April needed his help, and the coffee got abandoned while they patched Donnie up.

He shoves a tablespoon of coffee into three chipped, scraped mugs, one each for him, April and Karai, then sloshes milk into two. Then he glances at Donnie — Donnie who eats this stuff when he thinks nobody's looking. April subtly shakes her head, and Casey nods. No caffeine for the crazy snake boy.

Donnie doesn't even look like he cares. Just keeps staring ahead, even when Casey pulls down the bag of brown sugar and tries to hack off a piece with his spoon.

April slides her own mug (Donnie's mug, Casey realises, black coffee and all) away and sips it carefully. "Maybe if we put them both in the lab," she suggests slowly. "I mean, Raph was protecting Donnie in there. Right?"

Casey shoves the sugar back in the cupboard louder than he intended.

It doesn't sit well at all with Casey — if Raph was Raph, there's no way he'd have left Donnie, not knowing that Leo and Mikey were getting ready to go full Hannibal on him.

But Raph's not Raph.

Raph's never been scared of his brothers a day in his life, Casey doesn't think. Raph is loud and noisy and he's got arms so thick he could crack a walnut by flexing. This Raph, the Raph who clings to Casey like a beloved plushtoy, and who right up until things went down with Donnie was trying to snuggle up to Casey in his sleep — this isn't the Raph that Casey knows.

"Yeah," Casey says, dragging the word out and setting the kettle down before he's even poured it. "I'm not sure he was."

"What? Why?"

Casey shrugs. "You don't think Raph would have stayed?" he asks. He doesn't need to, but he waves at the older tears on Donnie regardless, the ones that they cleaned up the first time and that have half-healed already, leaving shiny pink-green scars along his shoulders and thighs that glimmer in the kitchen light. "First chance he got, he booked it outta there. And it's not like he's breaking the doors down right now to get here and kiss it all better."

"But he—"

"Snakes nest," Casey interrupts. "Saw it on one of Mikey's nature shows. They do it to stay warm."

Mikey's nature shows are the one show that all the turtles agree on watching — Donnie downloads them in big torrents and they sit around and listen to some old English dude talk about the majestic African plains while watching lions tear pieces out of zebra.

"Then where do we put him?" April asks.

His shoulders hunch. Sure, they could put Raph and Donnie together, but who's to say that next time Raph won't take a turn trying to get a chunk of Donnie for dinner? The dojo is a no-go, and it's not like April and Donnie can bunk together, either.

"Donnie's smart, and—"

Donnie can get himself free if he has to. There's no lock Donnie can't pick, and if Donnie's still in there, that means that Donnie can still get out.

April doesn't say anything after that, trailing off and her eyes unfocusing — it looks, Casey thinks, like she's thinking the same thing he is, and how do they even check something like that? How much of Donnie is still in Donnie if all of Raph is gone?

Casey breathes in again; the kitchen smells of dusty concrete and industrial floor-cleaner, and the salty smell of pepperoni in the oven is undercut by the sweet stink of the compost bin in the far corner.

And the smell of coffee, and blood.

One of these things is not like the others.

Casey sighs. "C'mon, nerdzilla," he says, brushing himself off before reaching and gently, firmly, taking Donnie by the wrist. "Let's go clean you up."

Donnie plods slowly, a step or two behind Casey. If he's pissed about Casey being the one to clean him off, he doesn't show it, but without the mask, and the kneepads, it's hard to not look at Donnie like the giant walking mutant he is, all scales and green skin and green eyes — there's nothing about him that looks human.


Later, when Casey has Donnie showered and dried off and the worst of his wounds are bandaged in fresh white gauze, they sit around the kitchen table again and talk.

"I dunno if this is a good idea, Red." Casey chews on the leftover pizza crust, pressing it up against the gum where his front teeth used to be. It helps him think; the bread digs into the soft meat in his mouth and keeps him focused. Across the table, Donnie stares at the piece of oven pizza in front of him, and Casey wonders — is Donnie not hungry because he just got wrecked by his brothers, or is Donnie not hungry because he's the one who ate the rabbits?

April shoots a quick look in Donnie's direction, then turns back to Casey. "It's the only idea I have. And he's right here."

Casey nods. He gets it. But— "But what if Karai's got a plan?"

"Then she should have told us," April snips back smoothly. "I can get in there, Casey. I know I can."

Casey forces the wince down from his face and into his stomach, his gut clenching once. Karai took one look at Donnie when they got him into the kitchen, and then went up to the dojo to talk to Splinter. Things have changed again — first there was Stockman, and now there's Donnie, on his own two feet and barely talking. They need to sit down and regroup, probably, but honestly, Casey's not 100% sure how that will go.

Because April still doesn't know about the detour they made last night — that Karai made last night. She's still working against an old plan.

"Yeah, but," he hedges, then stops. He's not going to sell Karai out, but at the same time…

"This is mine," April adds, and there's more fight in April's voice than he likes being aimed his way. This isn't her usual Casey I will end you, instead, it's Casey stay out of my way and he doesn't want to be in her way or out of it — they're partners in this, and if she's going to do anything, he's going to be backing her up, or at her side, or both.

April's never been clear on what exactly her brain-powers are. All Casey knows is that sometimes April knows he's had a shitty day even when he's tried his hardest to hide it, and she knows to drag him down a different hallway in school seconds before Nick and the rest of Casey's old group of friends head towards the lockers, and once she blew the Kraang up using only her brain. She spends an hour with Splinter three times a week training alone, no turtles allowed.

(He's not entirely sure what, exactly, turned April from soulless redhead he never paid attention to in class to Actual Anime Character, but he's not exactly complaining, either.)

If there's something April can do that can fix this, or at least get through to Donnie without him ripping their faces off, they may as well try.

"What do you need me to do?" he asks, wiping the pizza grease off his fingers and onto his shirt.


There's nothing in her father's library of scrolls that talks about fighting off a forced mutation. Karai had watched as her father's ears had flattened as he flattened out the three he could find about demonic possession, but amid the flaking old ink and soft, worn papers, there was nothing there that looked like it could help. They spoke of the afflicted focusing his own ki, rallying his own spirit to fight off the invader. When Splinter had looked at her with tired, sad eyes as he restored the scrolls to their hiding place, Karai had felt the ugly slimy sensation of an impending failure rippling under her skin.

Very carefully, she had laid out her new alterations to her plans, now that Stockman is dealt with and Donatello is back in his own shell, and watched Splinter hm gently under his breath, give some gentle points of advice, and say nothing else.

Now that Splinter has gone back to bed — where he won't sleep, Karai's sure of that; he'll meditate and wait for the next thing to go wrong — Karai's realised that he's left her plans in her hands.

Back with Shredder, he would drill her again and again — what would she do if one aspect failed? How would she accommodate for unreliable intel? How would she punish for it later? And even when she was sure her plans were perfect, she knew that Shredder still was watching her, receiving reports of her successes and failures, making sure that his heir was worthy.

Instead, Splinter trusts her.

She's not altogether sure how to work with that.

The lair is dark and quiet when she slides the shoji closed. O'Neil and Casey are still in the kitchen with Donnie, which means they're occupied, which means that there's a good chance of her not being interrupted for a long while. Karai slips across the main room, her feet silent and sure, and she stops just outside of the lab, listening to the sounds of breathing inside.

"Hello, Leo."

In the lab, she can hear someone stirring, dragging themselves up with the scuff of shell on concrete. Leo's voice comes a moment later, rough and groggy. "Karai."

The tranquiliser wears off quicker and quicker each time as they adapt to it. Soon, it'll be useless. The box next to the door is already starting to empty — Karai's just not sure which will be first: the darts running out, or the darts not working.

"Where are Raphael and Donatello?" Leo asks. Karai doesn't reply — in truth, she doesn't know how to reply to that (one of them is bleeding out in the kitchen, and the other is hiding under his bed), but as she chews over a potential reply, Leo says, "Oh, that's where they are," and then scoffs, as though of course that's where they are — they couldn't be anywhere else.

Karai straightens her shoulders against the shiver that chases up her spine — she's been trained to be stronger than this, a better ninja than this, with no time for sentimentalities, but something in Karai needs to see Leo's face, even though she knows she'll see nothing of Leo in that face.

No matter what she's done to him in the past, Leo's always tried to reach her. It was only two nights ago that Leo looked at her through the bars of her own cage — she owes Leo a debt. She owes Leo a chance — one for every chance he gave her. "Can you behave yourself?" she asks, her fingers carefully tracing along the cold metal of the padlock.

"No," Leo replies, short and simple. "Not the way you want."

"Okay," she says, and picks the lock.

She wraps the chain differently this time, so it's loose enough to open the door a little, but not loose enough that any part of Leo could get out. When she eases the door open, and the chain strains, she steps back. Karai is not an idiot; she is not sticking her face up against where her enemy can see her.

And Leo is an enemy. As much as she doesn't want him to be, he is, and he's more dangerous now than he ever was back when he really was her enemy.

Through the gap, Leo — bruised, blank-faced — stares out, maybe a sword's length away from the door. He doesn't move. Behind him, Mikey stares at her, his third eyelids still down, but the way the light hits him makes his green eyes shine through the membrane, giving his face an eerie glow.

"How did you sleep?" she asks, and Leo smiles. "Should I ask about why you attacked your own brother?"

Leo just keeps smiling, his mouth shifting into something thin and mean, the type of smile Karai's used herself, when she wanted someone to just talk themselves into their own grave.

"Man on the outside?"

Still, a smile.

"You know we're going to be watching him. If you're expecting him to get us in our sleep, then that's not going to happen."

"Then bring him back," Leo offers. "We can deal with him instead."

"That's not happening either." It's not exactly subtle what Leo means when he says deal. "But if you want to make a deal, I have an idea." Leo's smile fades slightly. He raises one eyebrow, and Karai keeps going: "I want the smart one."

"Donatello," Leo fills in, then frowns. "Why?" He says it like the very concept of needing Donnie for anything is beyond him. "He's weak."

"He's smart," Karai replies. "I need to use him."

"And what's in it for us?"

"The rat," Karai says.

Both Leo and Mikey's mouths curl up in the same, vicious smile. It's unnerving in its cruelty — the cat enjoying watching the mouse scream before deciding it's bored of playing, and not entertained enough to strike the killing blow. "We don't need your help getting the rat," Leo says. "Sooner or later, we'll get out of here. And then we'll get him."

"Or, you could do what I want, and then you get him sooner. Besides, the smart one's still got a job to do."

"The retromutagen," Leo agrees. "But we don't really care about that anymore."

"But I do. And I have the keys."

Leo tilts his head back, so that even in the dim light of the lab she can see the small dark flecks and ridges on his snout where his nose is, and he breathes in, long and slow — smelling her. Her stomach rolls, repulsed, but she keeps her feet firmly on their spot. "That's not like you, sis," Leo says. "I thought you were a good girl now."

"Maybe I am," Karai says lightly. "Maybe not. But I think it's a fair deal. You four tore up half of the city. All I want is for you to give me control of him for a week so we can fix everything you broke. Then, you get the rat. Isn't it better to eat healthy prey than something you've let rot for a week first?"

Leo turns to Mikey, and something unspoken runs between them. Mikey's face doesn't shift, still cold and blank, but after a moment, he nods, lifting his chin in agreement.

"We want the rat," Leo says.

"And you'll get him. But not until I get what I want."

Leo goes still, his shoulders pulling back, taut, and the tendons in his neck popping out. His eyes, still wide open, roll back, until there's none of the split pupil, just thick acid green. He's silent, and as Karai looks to Mikey, he's doing the same thing.

They're communicating — Karai realises this a moment before Leo fixes his eyes back on her. "Okay," he says. "Take him. But we're waiting."


Once Casey has stood in front of the kitchen's main door, the one closest to the dojo, April takes a deep breath through her nose and steps closer to Donnie, all of her senses trained on him. He doesn't move, but there's a thin spike in the air that tells her that he's noticed her.

She raises a hand.

Instead of attacking, Donnie reels back, the stool clattering behind him as his shell clacks against the counter-top. Casey starts, all of him flaring up ready for a fight he really doesn't want, but April shakes her head. "Donnie," she says, as gently as she can, and those green eyes focus on her. "It's okay. C'mon, just—" She reaches out, and Donnie hisses at her. It's a warning, and April heeds it, carefully backing off in small steps until Donnie calms down again.

Behind her, Casey snorts softly. April whips her head around. "Seriously, Jones? You think this is funny?"

Casey waves a hand in front of himself, his face twisted up into the I'm-not-gonna-laugh-but-only-because-I-like-not-being-murdered face that he uses half the time in school. "No, no, it's just— you gotta laugh, right? Snake Donnie?"

April raises an eyebrow, and Casey drops into a wheezing cackle before rapping, "The Donaconda don't want none—"

"Oh my god," April groans, pressing the heel of her hand into her forehead and turning away from him again. "Can we focus here?"

"Okay, okay," Casey shakes himself out behind her. "Focused and ready."

Donnie is still pressed up against the countertop, watching them. His eyes are fixed on her, and his breathing, still a little harsh, hisses through his slightly-open mouth. She can still see his teeth.

But.

This is Donnie. "It's okay," she says. She's not sure which hurts more, the idea that Donnie would hurt her, or the idea that Donnie would be scared of her, but she presses forward, stepping closer until she's almost pressed against him. "It's okay," she says again.

It had all been based on theory.

Back when her powers had first started to manifest, Donnie had juggled his (barely) polite disinterest in all things spiritual with his barely-reined-in interest in all things to do with her, and it hadn't been until the Kraang had gotten ahold of her, and everything that happened afterwards, that he'd really taken notice. Now that there was physical, visible evidence of what she could do, there was something for Donnie to work with. He theorised that her empathy could go both ways — what April could feel, April could make others feel. If April could sense outward intention, she could go in and steal inward intention. She could steal information.

She could be a spy.

A spy that could blow things up with her brain, but still, a spy, and when she had broached the topic — "what, you mean I could be in your head? Finding out all your dark, dirty secrets?" — Donnie had laughed nervously, cleared this throat and changed the subject.

But Donnie's theories were always sound. Crazy, a lot of the times, but he'd never been wrong.

She'd just never wanted to put his theories to the test like this.

This time, when she walks towards Donnie, she tunes everything out except for her and for him, focusing on Donnie and sending forward trust, and affection. Donnie needs to know that he's safe with her, that he can trust her, that he can let her in.

She's met with a barrage of white noise. It's weaker now that he's alone, and it's not as strong. There isn't as much intent, either — keeping her out this time isn't an act of malice but of something else.

April builds on the tight knot in her chest, the one that's two nights old and full of her exhaustion and her grief, and she draws it up until it lumps in her throat, and makes her nose prickle and sting, and she sends it forward in a long, constant stream — Donnie is her friend, Donnie is important, Donnie is safe with her, she loves him even if she's not sure if it's in the way she knows he wants, he saved her and now it's her turn to save him

When she opens her eyes again, Donnie has leaned forward, tilting his forehead towards her. There's none of Donnie's warm longing in the gesture, but what there is is a lack of resistance. The white noise in his head is quieting down.

"Hey, Donnie," she murmurs, sliding her hands up his face.

Her thumb smoothes gently against the thin pale scratches clustered on his left cheekbone, left over from Slash and almost healed completely. Under her fingertips, Donnie's temples pulse as his jaw works, teeth clenching and unclenching at the intrusion into his personal space. April closes her eyes, looking for that fold in the corner of Donnie's mind that she can pull back and slide through.

Piece by piece, the kitchen falls away; the oven, the fridge, the table, Casey, Donnie—

And then she's gone too.


tbc.