Bishop's Mutant

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."

— William Jennings Bryan

The silence was thick between them as they watched the creature. They were still, aside from the occasional jump to a new building as it ambled slowly along below them. The only movement was from the alleyway as the creature wandered from one side to the other and turned down new pathways seemingly at random.

Raph was pissed. His eyes were locked on the alleyway below them, but Don could still read the fury in the stiffness in his shoulders and jerking twitches of his fingers against the hilt of his sais. Don had nearly broken the silence a few times—to apologize, maybe, or ask about Bishop's clones again—but thought better of it. He didn't want another argument.

He'd radioed in the encounter as Raph had asked. The conversation had been kept short to reduce the chance of being intercepted, so they'd only shared a few curt sentences before disconnecting. It had been just enough for him to know they'd be sending an experienced group over to help take it out.

He and Raph would only have to watch over the creature for ten or fifteen minutes more before their backup arrived. Don would willingly back down from the fight then, once Raph had someone else to watch his back while they fought. Raph was technically in charge right now and Don would follow his orders—just not when they put him in danger for no good reason. And trying to get him out of the way so he wouldn't get hurt was not a good reason.

Don fidgeted and wished he had some way to keep track of time. The other Rebels had to be getting close by now, and they hadn't moved that far from where he'd radioed in. For a few moments he considered contacted the group again to see how close they were, but the transmission would count as taking an unnecessary risk.

They moved slightly farther along the rooftop again as the creature drifted over into the mouth of a new alleyway and wandered towards some shapes on the far side of the path. This time, instead of toying with whatever had caught its interest for a few seconds and moving on as it had before, the creature stopped moving a few paces away from it and cocked its head as if trying to figure something out.

Don couldn't see why. The creature had stopped at just another large pile of rusting material from a half-collapsed building behind it. The debris formed a large pile, taller than he was even, but it looked no different than any of the other large piles of metal and wood littering the city. Still, something about it had caught the creature's attention. It moved purposefully, for once, towards the pile and crouched down beside it. It nudged against one of the large steel beams for a moment and leaned even closer before snarling and starting to claw at the scrapheap.

Beside him, Raph moved even closer to the edge of the roof, brow furrowing in confusion as he tried to get a better view. "What the hell is it-" His breath hitched in some sort of realization, and he cursed vividly.

Don tensed and looked harder. He still couldn't see anything unusual. "What?"

"Dammit, there's people in there," he growled.

Don's eyes snapped back to the alleyway for another look at the scrap pile. Could somebody actually be inside that? It hadn't even occurred to him, but, now that he thought about it, the idea seemed disturbingly possible. The slightly too balanced look of the scrap, the abnormal size of it… If someone had managed to carve out a stable hollow in the material, then it would be the perfect spot for someone on the street or a refugee to hide. And if someone was in there now, then… ah, shell. They weren't going to have the time to wait for backup to arrive.

Raph glanced back at him, looking almost conflicted, but his face quickly hardened. "Stay here. That's an order," Raph growled

"What? No-" he half-whispered furiously, but Raph didn't wait for his reply before hurdling off the rooftop. He used a rusted fire escape as a vault to launch himself directly beside the creature. One swipe of his sai had it backpedaling away from the spot in surprise, but it didn't stay off balance for long. Within seconds, it lunged towards its new target, and Raph was pivoting out of its reach.

Up on the roof, Don hesitated, torn between jumping down to help his brother and obeying his orders. He didn't want to stay out of this fight. He really didn't want to leave Raph to fight something alone after he'd all but admitted it would be a bad idea. That was why he'd stayed, after all—to provide backup until the real ones arrived. But as bad as it was to leave Raph to fight something he'd willingly radioed for help over, it would be almost as bad to jump into a fight he wasn't prepared for. He didn't know what the creatures were capable of. He'd never fought anything that was… manufactured like this before, and he didn't know what it was capable of or why its body seemed so misshapen. The last thing he wanted was to force Raph into protecting him instead.

He relaxed his weight back down on his heels, though he stayed poised on the very edge of the rooftop. Raph was a good fighter. For now, at least, he'd trust his brother's experience and knowledge of the situation. As soon as it looked like he was having trouble, though, Don was going.

For now, at least, Raph seemed to be holding his own well. He was faster than his opponent and lighter on his feet, but he was also being unusually cautious compared to how he usually fought. He was keeping his distance from the creature, using his speed to dodge the creature's clumsy physical blows and stay easily out of its reach. Raph was stalling, trying to buy time before the other group arrived.

His patience was unexpected, but not altogether surprising. Raph had always fought by diving straight in and getting close to his opponent to better use his sais. Even when it really wasn't a good plan. Still, he wasn't surprised that Raph had learned some patience, or at least tactical planning, by now.

Something moved in the shadows at the edges of the alleyway, drawing his attention, and Don leaned forward for a better angle. He caught a glimpse of something dark green, long and thin and seeming to slither slowly across the cement. It blended in with the shadows easily, but Don could make out three of the thin forms making their way behind his brother. Tracing them back, the forms led toward the two fighting forms. Shell. It was part of the creature—some sort of… tentacle-like weapon or extension, of all things. And Raph hadn't noticed it.

He didn't have to think. He just moved. Within seconds he was off the rooftop and in the air, already pulling his bō staff into his hands. Instinct took over, and he was moving before he'd even hit the ground, crushing the soft body of one of the limbs with his bō staff with one hand while the other reached into a pouch for shuriken. The sharp metal left his hand a moment later and embedded themselves along the lengths of the other two tentacles. The tissue bled a mix of dark green and red where the shuriken hit and recoiled immediately.

The creature shrieked from the injuries, but the sound was of anger more than pain. It retreated for a moment, snarling and growling and coiling its tentacles close to his body. Its eyes held no intelligence—just a blind, animalistic fury. Don was grateful for that. It wasn't anything like him, no matter what Mike had suggested about him and cloning.

"Thought I told ya to stay out of this, Don," Raph growled. His eyes never left the creature in front of them. The clone paused for a moment at the sound of his voice, tilting its head as if trying to understand. It probably recognized the sound of the language. Don briefly considered seeing if it would respond to orders, but Bishop would have undoubtedly programmed it so it only responded to his commands.

"You hadn't noticed the, ah, tentacles sneaking up on you." It said something that, after everything he'd seen and fought, he still felt ridiculous saying the word tentacle.

Raph didn't seem to see the humor in it or appreciate his help. He was still glaring as he said, "I coulda handled it. Get back up there."

A quick glance around them provided an easy excuse. "I can't. There's no path back up there from here." Whatever sturdy handholds or outcroppings he could have used had either rotted or worn away over the years. If he was desperate, he could try to use the holes in the rotted wood and metal to climb his way out, but there was a good chance the material would be too weak to hold his weight. The fall wouldn't hurt him, but it would almost certainly leave him in a worse position in the fight.

Raph cursed again, and Don caught his head shifting slightly as he looked around them. He must have found the same thing Don had because he just growled again when he finished. They didn't have any time to figure out another solution. The creature had, apparently, gotten tired of waiting and charged them. It focused the attack on Raph, but that didn't mean Don was out of danger. Its tentacles had a far longer reach than he was used to, and Don blocked the thin limbs that darted towards him as he heard the first heavy impact between the two beside him. Closer to its body were several long, sharp claws that looked as dangerous as any sword.

Don followed Raph's lead. He stayed on the defensive, avoiding and deflecting any attacks and letting Raph position himself so he took on the bulk of the charge. It was easy to immerse himself in the fight. The familiar feel of the dark alleyway around him, the instinctual way his body reacted to each attack, the way his senses seemed to sharpen and his mind cleared… it was all achingly familiar, and he slipped into the balanced, focused mental state he'd been taught as if the past few weeks hadn't happened.

As he moved, Don felt a smile start to creep onto his face, and he didn't have the heart to repress it. He'd missed this. He'd missed the sharp bite of the wind and the brief, triumphant thrill every time he successfully pulled off a good blow and fighting alongside his brother, able to see the silver flash of a sai or dark green skin out of the corner of his eye. Most of all, he'd missed knowing that he was doing something right and helpful instead of being taught and protected and having to sneak knowledge just so he could catch up.

The creature was, predictably, strong. He could feel the strength in each blow as he deflected them with his bō. It was slower than they were, though not by much, and far less maneuverable. The tentacles were the most dangerous and easy to lose track of, but with the two of them they were able to keep the fight under control. Don was fairly certain that, if they pressed, they could take it down without too much of a risk, but Raph was still staying on the defensive.

A few minutes into the fight, the creature retreated for a moment, eyeing them warily from that short distance. Raph let it go, and Don followed his lead. They were fairly far away from where they'd started by then. Don was still trying to keep track of the time—it had to have been enough time for the other group to be nearly there.

Its undamaged tentacles flared up around its body and swayed lightly in the air. It looked like it was preparing for something, and Don had no clue what. He fingered his remaining shuriken as he debated trying to hit the thin appendages again, but the creature started moving again before he could decide. The tip of the tentacles swelled briefly for a moment, and Don tensed, readying his bō. The creature voiced a half-growling shout as it propelled some sort of green, viscous liquid from the tips.

He was quick enough to deflect most of it with his bō staff, but some of it still made it through to spatter against him. He hissed as the small droplets made contact. The thick liquid burned where it touched his skin. He quickly wiped as much as he could off of his skin, but it still left a faint, throbbing ache behind.

Shell. The creature was poisonous too. He could already feel some parts of his skin going numb as the ache faded, and he'd barely been hit with any of the fluid. Chancing a quick glance down where part of his forearm had been hit, he noticed that the skin hadn't actually been damaged, though it did look faintly irritated from the contact.

Besides him, Raph was flicking off the droplets that had landed on him with a grimace. He glanced over. "Ya okay, Don?"

"Yes. I think it's some sort of sedative." Which was dangerous in itself. Who knew how something like that would react to their biology?

Raph grunted in response, and then they both had to focus as the creature moved towards them and the fight continued. Now that the creature had accessed the poison deposits, it kept the pathways open as it fought. He had to be careful while blocking the tentacles to avoid the deep green trails that continually dripped and spattered into the air. No matter how well he blocked the attacks and dodged the residue, his skin ended up speckled with the irritating, itching burn every few blows. It wasn't even enough for him to call truly painful, but its presence did worry him. He didn't know what kind of long-term affects it could have or what it could react with, and he really didn't want to have to find out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught glimpses of red and deep green and flashing silver as Raph fought beside him. Raph was starting to fight more aggressively, to take more risks so he had the chance to start striking short, shallow slices into it with every flick of his sais. Where he cut into the tentacles, poison dripped slowly out along with tis blood. Don focused on his own fight. His bō staff couldn't damage the creature the way Raph could—he didn't have the leverage to use his bō the way he normally could—but it worked well enough to keep the tentacles from attacking his brother.

The flow of the fight was interrupted by a sound—something off; a deeper, flatter tone instead of the clearer ring of a sai. He turned just in time to see Raph's shell collide with the wall behind him. He slid onto a smaller pile of scrap with a grunt of pain.

"Raph!" he shouted. He almost took a step towards his brother, but he didn't have any time to see if he was hurt. He was immediately dragged back into the fight, this time with his opponent's undivided attention. It was harder to hold his own without Raph to help, but he didn't have to do it for long. Within seconds, he heard a loud clanging sound behind him as Raph pushed himself back up. His brother forced his way back into the fight furiously, sais flashing and face snarling, and Don was relieved to see that he didn't seem to be injured by the hit.

Raph managed to score a long, deep gash into the side of the creature, and they fell into a new pattern—one slightly more aggressive, slightly more effective... and slightly more risky as well. They had to move into the creatures range to get the change to attack, and he narrowly avoided being caught by its tentacles or deadly claws several times. Little by little they were wearing it down, but he was starting to worry. It would only take one mistake, one bit of bad luck, for the creature to do a lot of damage.

Movement above them. Don didn't have much of a chance to glance up, so he only caught sight of flickers of shadows on the rooftops above them. He really, really hoped it wasn't the Foot. A small handful of humans almost immediately landed on the other side of the creature, making just enough noise to draw its attention. Don tensed at the sight of them, but there was no sign of the Foot symbol on the dark clothing they wore. They were some of theirs.

The creature paused for a moment as it inspected the new arrivals, glancing quickly from one person to the next. Don lowered his bō a few inches as he did the same. A strong hand grabbed his shoulder and tugged him backwards, and Don followed the familiar grip. For a moment, he met Raph's eyes, and Don gave a short nod at the sharp look he received. He wouldn't try to get involved in the rest of it—he didn't need to. At the acknowledgement, Raph moved closer to the circle, sai at the ready, though he didn't join them.

Two more Rebels landed in front of them, on their side of the creature. They must have waited to jump until he and Raph were far enough away not to risk startling them into an attack—considerate of them. All of them—five in all—carried bladed weapons. Most of them were shorter, more knife than sword, but one of them was holding what looked like a full sized katana. At some unspoken signal, they started to move.

He could easily tell they had experience with this. They worked together well, smoothly transitioning from person to person and dancing out of reach of every attack before it could get into range. Whenever the creature would focus its attacks on one or two of the Rebels, the people on the other side would slice at its back until it twisted furiously around to focus on them and the cycle continued. They were good—quick. Maybe not as good as the Foot Elite he'd known had been or his brothers even as teenagers, but skilled nonetheless. More than anything, they didn't take risks.

Don had to wonder how many of Bishop's creatures they'd had to fight before perfecting that strategy, and how many unpleasant attacks they'd been surprised by to make that kind of caution necessary. The poison-spitting tentacles couldn't have been the only dangerous addition they'd stumbled across. With the kind of tech they had available, he could imagine how simple it would be to hide some nasty surprises.

Don watched how they wore the creature down carefully. Each person only had time for a few thin, shallow cuts each time, but they were starting to build up. The creature was visibly starting to tire. It was moving slower, almost sluggishly and was steadily bleeding thin lines of blood from dozens of fine cuts. Each bout only damaged it more, slowly enough that it didn't realize its predicament until it was too late.

It finally charged one of the fighters at full speed, completely ignoring the rest of his attackers even as they gave him new cuts, in one last, furious attack. The rebels seemed to have expected it. As the creature came almost within grabbing range, one of the fighters it was ignoring stepped forward and smoothly lifted his blade. The creature didn't even glance at him as he struck—a quick, neat slice through the side of its neck. It was dead almost before it hit the ground.

Don flinched at the sight, but he forced himself not to look away. This was… Life was different now, and he needed to get used to it. He needed to learn how to deal with the harsher pace of life, even if he couldn't be part of it yet. Blood began to puddle beneath the new corpse, and he could see the milky green strands of poison coiling through it. He finally let himself look away, sickened.

The other five gathered closer together—checking each other for injuries, maybe. Don rubbed his fingertips against the irritated skin where small droplets of the poison had landed. Still nothing worse than the small spots of numbness, but he'd feel better after he had a chance to wash all of it off. His eyes were drawn back to the middle of the alleyway where the body still laid and the poison gathering around it.

"What do we do with it?" he asked. They couldn't just leave it there where anyone could stumble upon it.

Raph shrugged. "Toss it in a dump, most likely. One a the scientists'll probably want ta harvest the poison and anythin' dangerous 'for that." Raph rubbed his forehead, grimacing, and Don didn't miss the way his face tightened in what seemed like pain.

Now that he was closer, something seemed off about Raph. It was nothing obvious, nothing he could put his finger on, but something was making Raph seem slightly… off balanced, he supposed. Raph wasn't holding himself quite the way he normally did. His footing wasn't quite as stable or his movements as sure

"Are you okay?" He took another step closer. The night was dark enough it was hard to see whether he was injured or not.

Raph nodded and visibly tried to strengthen his stance, but his legs betrayed him. He stumbled, just barely managing to get his arm out in time to catch himself on the wall next to him. Don was beside him in half a stride, automatically reaching out to steady his brother. He hesitated for a moment before making contact, uncertain how Raph would react, and then moved that last inch.

Immediately, he noticed that Raph's skin felt warmer than usual and weak tremors shook his body. A thin trickle of blood trailed down from his shoulder from a short, jagged cut—almost certainly a result of his collision with the scrap pile, it was too uneven to be from the fight—but it wasn't even deep enough to need stitches. Nowhere near bad enough to make him stumble like that. He brushed his finger lightly around the wound anyway, trying to figure out if he'd missed something, and his fingertip tingled painfully as he pulled it away.

His eyes widened in shock, and he bent down to get a closer look at the cut, praying that he was wrong. He wasn't. Up against the wound he could see faint traces of too-light green and the darkened, irritated skin surrounding it. Some had even dripped inside the wound. Don immediately tried to remove as much of it as he could, ignoring the way the tingling on his skin turned into burning, but it didn't seem to help. Whatever it was had to have already gotten into the exposed muscle.

Raph tried to push him away with his other hand. "'M find, Don," he said. "Just gimme a minute."

"I don't think you are," Don said distractedly, only half focusing on the conversation. He had more important problems to worry about.

Raph followed his gaze down to the gash on his arm and the faint traces of green around it. "Aw, shit," he said. He let his head fall back against the wall behind him with a muffled thump. "Shit."

Even with the wall at his back, Raph's knees were starting to buckle. Don helped steady him as he slid to the ground. Some of the scattered rubble behind them crunched as something moved closer, and Don looked over his shoulder to see one of the Rebels moving closer. He couldn't have been more than a few years older than Don was, with dark hair and sharp brown eyes. Don recognized him and the sword at his side as the one who'd struck the killing blow. His face was tight with matching worry.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked, crouching down nearby so they were at eye level.

"Some of the poison got inside his wound," Don answered quietly.

The man muttered a curse, and Don tuned him out to focus on his brother. His heartbeat was still strong, and though it was noticeably faster than normal, it wasn't dangerously so. His breathing was the same. Uncontrolled tremors still wracked his body and his muscle coordination was shot, but the rest of his vitals weren't at dangerous levels. Yet.

As he worked, the Rebel was watching him almost contemplatively. "You have medical training?" he asked when Don paused for a moment.

"I… wouldn't exactly call it training, but I have some experience," he said. He was intimately familiar with the basics, but poisons… Poisons were different. Even among humans it was an imprecise, broad field, and his family's unique biology only made it even more unpredictable.

The man scoffed lightly and sent a quick, concerned glance at Raph. "More than any of us then. Do you know what we need to do?"

Don thought for a moment, forcing himself to think clearly about what needed to happen. "Samples," he decided. "We need to collect a sample of the poison from the body. It'll help determine what's… what's going wrong. His vitals, at least, are stable enough."

A silent signal passed between the group of humans, and one of them moved over to the corpse to get the sample. Of the remaining three, the one closest to him still had his weapon out, and the rest of them had hands lingering suspiciously close to their weapons. They didn't trust him. Don ignored it—so long as they didn't act on their suspicion or try to keep him away from Raph, it didn't matter.

He needed to focus on what he could control. First things first, they needed to get Raph back to the base. They didn't have any of the tools he would need to help Raph with them, and there was too much of a risk of running into an enemy they couldn't afford to fight if they lingered too long. Leaning down, he swung one of Raph's arms over his shoulder and levied them both upright. If they pushed themselves, they could be back within ten minutes.

Raph was heavy, and, though he was still aware and muttering a quiet, continuous stream of profanity under his breath, he barely had enough coordination left to help support his weight. One of the Rebels—a young woman, he realized with a closer look at her face—bent down beside him and took hold of his other side. Together, they were able to half-support, half-carry Raph closer to the rest of the group without too much trouble. Don had to adjust his stride to match hers, though the first couple steps still sent him slightly off-balance before he got used to her longer footsteps.

The man who had spoken to him earlier had a radio in his hand and was speaking in quiet, clipped sentences to someone at the other end. As he put the radio back into a small pack at his side, he motioned to the rest of them, and they started to move. The other four Rebels fell into a loose circle around Raph, keeping him protected in case they ran into something else. Don could feel Raph shaking against him and the clammy, heated feel of his skin, and he prayed they wouldn't run into anything else. They were too vulnerable like this, and he wasn't sure Raph would be able to take the delay. Thankfully, the sky and buildings around them were clear, and they moved quickly, silently through the night.

~.*.~

AN: So… yeah. Raph's poisoned now, and we get an actual plot arc coming up ahead. At least this didn't take as long as last chapter, but it did have me stumped for a while. Next chapter will hopefully be easier and quicker to get out, but I'm planning on setting my deadline at two months at the latest, though hopefully I'll finish sooner than that. Thanks to anyone still reading, and particularly to anyone taking the time to review :).