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in this chapter: snurt to the left. snurt to the right. take it back now, y'all. one last time to get funky with it.


Birth of Serpents
part 12


"Marco!" Leonardo yells, his small voice so much louder here, in the older tunnels where Splinter takes them to play. The lair, although bigger than their old nest, is still too small for his sons, who need to run and climb and whatever else young boys must.

Somewhere in another tunnel, another voice rings out: "Pooooooooooooooooooooolo!"

Leonardo turns, sprints into another tunnel, and vanishes into the dark.

Splinter would like for his sons to have a playground — brightly-coloured swings, and slides and monkey-bars for them to climb all over, but instead they must make do here, with the best he can offer them. There are times he wonders: did he do the right thing in bringing them underground? Would it not have been better for him to steal a car, escape upstate, and become just another rumour in the forests? But he has to weigh the benefits — fresh air, nature, a place in the sun for his sons to bask and grow — with the downfalls: American winters are not kind, nor are Americans a generous people, not in the ways that matter. At least here, in New York, crime and coldness are unfortunate facts of life: nobody notices if a grocery store has been broken into, nobody cares if a homeless man talks about the creatures he's seen underground.

The New York Giant Rat is more than just a myth, but equally, there is more than just one type of New York Giant Rat.

Raphael runs past him, his feet slapping on the wet ground. "MARCO!" he yells, then yells louder as Michelangelo pounces on him from a ledge above. "That's not the game! Sensei!" He turns, still trying to pry Michelangelo off of his shell. "Sensei, tell him that's not the game!"

"Adaptation is the hallmark of the ninja," Splinter says placidly — it is remarkable how often the 'because ninjas' excuse works.

(Though they are still only five.)

"Ha!" Michelangelo crows, still clinging to Raphael, his chubby arms winding around his brother's neck and his toes curling into the bridge of his shell, and Raphael bears it all with the stoic tolerance of somebody who really doesn't quite mind. "See? I totally adapted you!"

"Whatever, Mikey."

Raphael folds his arms, the classic pose of one who is about to begin sulking, and so Splinter must intervene: "I seem to be missing two sons," he prompts. "Or does this mean that they have won this game?"

"NO," Raphael yells, stamping a foot. "C'mon, Mikey!" He reaches over and grabs Michelangelo's fat wrist and drags him off.

"MAAAAAAAAARCO!" Michelangelo bellows, his voice echoing through the old damp brickwork.

In the distance, two other little voices snicker, their voices echoing off of the walls and through the tunnels. Splinter edges closer to the water — the rains have been particularly heavy, of late, and sometimes things wash down from the surface; pieces of flotsam to shore up their home; beaten, yet still useful, toys for his sons; a wallet, with money and credit cards.

It is a short while later when, while fishing out what looks to be a particularly warm, if filthy, scarf, a pair of sad, slow footsteps plap up to Splinter's side. When he looks down, blue and brown eyes stare up. Leonardo has his arm around Donatello's thin shoulders, as Donatello clutches his left hand in his right.

Donatello thankfully does not know yet the effect his eyes could have if appropriately weaponised; for now, he stands woefully in front of Splinter, brown eyes brimming with tears as he tries to be very, very brave, holding the torn skin up for his father to see. "I hurt myself," he says dolefully. The tear in his palm is long and ragged, shiny with blood and sewer slime. It will need to be thoroughly cleaned, with water as hot as Donatello can stand.

"Do you think it will need stitches?" Splinter asks — and is pleased when Donatello shakes his head. Donatello has already started to become somewhat of an amateur medic, always first on hand to deal with bumps and bruises and scratches and scrapes; in perhaps another year, Splinter thinks, it may be time to introduce him to the medicinal herbs that Splinter keeps in his room. "Would you like to go home?"

Donatello hesitates. It is so rare that they are allowed out, and as much as he himself may want to leave, Donatello is not the type to try to spoil his brothers' fun.

Leonardo makes the decision for the three of them. He turns on his heel, cupping his hands around his mouth: "RAAAAAAAAAPH. MIKEY. GET BACK HERE. WE'RE GOIN' HOME."

Two whines answer back through the tunnels.

Perhaps tomorrow's training, Splinter thinks, will focus on the need for stealth, and silence.

Donatello sniffs once, rubbing his forearm along his eyes. Splinter allows him this — they are not old enough, yet, to really talk about levels of pain, and thresholds, and especially not during play. "Then let us go home," he says instead, reaching down to rest a gentle, careful hand on Donatello's head. Donatello stretches up, trying to get as much affectionate contact as he can, and this, Splinter does not allow. He pulls his hand away, but can't help but look down, ready to deal with Donatello's miserable expression.

Instead, Donatello's face is slack, and slick green eyes stare back up at him.


Deep within the tunnels, Splinter opens his eyes.

His sons are close.

His trail brought them through the tunnels of New York, taking them the long route from their home out towards the Shredder's hideaway. As snakes, his sons are fast, but he is faster, and smaller, able to sneak through tight tunnels and collapsed brickwork, forcing them to work to hunt him down. Here, less than a street away from the church, he has to strain his ears to hear them, trying to focus on the whisper of snakeskin on tunnel, and willing away the tight clench in his heart. His sons are finally the silent, quiet hunters he wanted them to become, and yet he would give everything for them to be loud, and noisy, and safe.

In the darkness, water drips.

The sound ricochets off the walls, echoing down the tunnels.

Another drip. Ricochet. Echo.

Another. And then—

The echo returns, the sound wrong, bounced back from a breathing hide.

His sons are close.

Splinter eases himself back onto his feet. His bad leg aches from the cold and the exertion, but here, he has led his three sons to a drainage junction close to the old church. The water here is not just old rain and sweat from the streets above, but the remnants of the fire. It smells of sewage and soot. Directly above could be either their salvation or their damnation.

The art historian in him almost — almost — wants to laugh.

"Sensei?" Leonardo asks. "We're hungry."

The soft, plaintive note in Leonardo's voice is too calculated to be real. Nonetheless it pulls at Splinter's heart, digging into memories of his small sons, hidden away from the world, with nothing but each-other.

I am sorry, my son, Splinter said once, so very very long ago, heavy with regret. I have nothing to give you.

This time, Splinter steps out into the thin glimmer of streetlight that has trickled into the sewer. "Perhaps when we go home," he says, above Raphael's keen, hungry hissing, "we will eat then."

Leonardo makes a soft hum. "Or," he says, playing with the word as it hangs between them. "We could eat now."

Behind him, Michelangelo smiles, jaw lax and teeth sharp, and Leonardo steps aside as Michelangelo steps forward, to take point.

Is this a kindness? Splinter wonders. Feeding the youngest, caring for the baby, the way his sons always do.

Either way, Splinter takes a step back, and then another. "We know what you're doing," Leonardo says. "We know what Donatello has been doing."

This, Splinter had guessed, and yet, he asks despite himself. "And what is that?"

Leonardo's smile is cold, and cruel, and Splinter does not need to hear the words underneath it, nor the implication.

"You have always been very intelligent, my son," he says instead.

All three of his sons blink once. Then, one by one, their eyes shutter, pupils narrowing to a tight, hungry focus. The fur rises on the back of Splinter's neck, and he is more than ready when Michelangelo launches first, teeth bared and throat rasping.

Splinter dodges, fending off Michelangelo's reforming hand with a sharp chop to his wrist, then pivots.

Michelangelo is already there.

Splinter does not have time to think of all the ways Michelangelo could be an impressive ninja if he cared to do so. Instead, he dips, ducking out of the way of Michelangelo's hungry jaws and leading his youngest son into Raphael's way. Michelangelo rears back, one of his smaller heads reaching out and smacking Raphael firmly across the back of the head. Raphael slinks back, momentarily cowed, before rearing up again.

Jaws come at him from either side, from above and below, from front to back, and Splinter dodges them all; the tunnel is small, the space is tight, and his sons are hungry, and unfocused. Splinter seizes a rusted metal rebar and thrusts it between Leonardo's jaws a heartbeat before Leonardo's teeth impale his arm. Splinter uses the control to wring Leonardo's body like a thick piece of string. A kick with his good foot knocks the wind out of Raphael, and both he and Leonardo are twisted into Michelangelo's rising bulk.

As they slump together, stunned, Splinter looks down at the seething ball.

His three boys, knotted together. They hiss and snarl and spit, twisting against each-other. Leonardo strains out of the ball, his body half-reforming as he reaches a hand towards Splinter.

Splinter slams his foot into Leonardo's fingers.

"If you want me, you will know where to find me," he says, and boosts himself upwards towards the street.


"Okay," April says. "We're all set."

Casey turns around from where he's been swinging his hockey stick into a nearby cabinet, trying to smack it with the quietest thump. It's one of the few exercises Splinter has taught him, all about how to control the power behind each blow, and knowing when to exact precision, not pain.

He doesn't agree with all of that, but what he does agree with is the murder-look April gave him when he smacked the cabinet too hard, the flat metallic thlank echoing around the lab loud enough to make her jump. Casey Jones likes staying alive.

But Casey Jones also likes not waiting.

He feels it in his shoulders — the denied promise of a fight, the beatings that he owes Shredder, the one he's really tempted to give Karai for pulling this shit; it itches and pulls at his muscles all at the same time, running down to his fingers until his fingers find nothing and he has to flex them once, twice, running a slow count of all the people he's going to beat down when this is over.

Shredder. Karai. Stockbug. Raph, just because.

Raph.

Right now, Raph, the big cuddly snuggle-snake from hell, is either chasing his giant rat dad/dinner through a tunnel, or he and his brothers are chowing down on their giant rat dad/dinner.

Vaguely, he's aware of just how metal the mental image is — giant snake monsters, covered in blood, tearing into their prey — it's like something off of a Norwegian Bear Troll Death Scream album, but then the thought sours in his gut – this is fucked up.

They're not snake monsters. They're supposed to be his friends.

"Yeah?" Casey asks. "Good."

The retromutagen has all been carefully poured into canisters — something Snotman wouldn't let anybody near until April casually reminded him who was in charge, and Casey made a helpful ripping-off-wings gesture. Then, they loaded it into ghetto guns made out of old caulking tubes — nothing fancy, but enough to squirt a giant snake in the face.

And now, they have to wait.

He checks his phone again, counting the minutes since he last spoke to Splinter.

When Casey called, he figured Splinter already had enough to deal with, what with Raph, and Mikey, and Leo, King of the Corn Children, so all he said was that Karai had gone AWOL, and taken Donnie with her.

Which was bad enough.

Telling Splinter also, Red thinks that Donnie is being ripped to shreds right now was something that probably wouldn't help. Raph always makes a pissy comment about how Leo is Splinter's favourite and how Mikey gets away with everything, but if Splinter is anything like Casey's own dad— Casey's been in a lot more trouble for a lot longer than his little sister has, but he knows full well that his big old bear of a hockey-player dad would rip through a building if he knew Casey was in trouble.

It's a lie, Casey knows, but one that he figures is more ninja than asshole. Not telling Splinter that his kid might be dead means that Splinter might be able to get the other three here to be cured without being turned into snake-chow.

Sorry, Dee, Casey thinks, and tells himself he'll make it up to Donnie when this is all over, by getting him the really good fertiliser from Home Depot.

Sighing, he turns back to April. "How long you think til Splinter gets here?"

April doesn't reply.

Casey whips around, ready to smush some bug across the floor if Stockman's tried any of his weird tricks, but instead, the giant flyman is just peering at where April has zoned out, again. "Red," Casey calls. April ignores him, her face blank and slack, and her eyes a freaky off-white. "Red!"

"Sorry," April slurs, coming back to herself. "I was just—"

"Using your Dondar, yeah, I figured."

"Don't be an asshole, Casey."

Casey bites back the flirt — aw Red, I thought that was how you liked me — and settles for a smirk instead. "He doin' okay?" he asks, then wishes he hadn't from the look on her face. It's clear, now, that Donnie isn't doing too great.

And Casey hates it but he can't squash the run of jealousy in his gut: would April be like this for him?

He'd like to think so.

Above, one of the windows cracks open, and a slim shape slips in, effectively changing the subject. "Master Splinter," April breathes, getting to her feet. "Are you okay?"

Splinter drops gracefully to the floor — until he lands, when his injured foot takes the brunt of the landing, and all six-foot-whatever of muscle-bound rat staggers to the side. Casey instantly reaches an arm out, trying to steady him, and almost buckles under the weight when Splinter presses a hand into his shoulder. "I am fine," he says, and Casey does not say dude, you are totally not fine, but he is definitely thinking it. "They are coming. Is everything ready?"

"Hai, sensei," April says, turning away from them to pick up one of the thrown-together retromutagen guns Stockman built. "We already tested it. It works."

Across the room, Chris Bradford huffs a big, sleepy dog sigh, his leg kicking under the tarp Casey threw over his ass. "Also, we got them dinner," he says, jerking a thumb in Bradford's direction.

Splinter's whiskers lift, though Casey isn't sure if it's in amusement or — most likely — irritation, but whatever, the joke was solid. He tenses his shoulder until Splinter lets go, then rotates it as Rat Dad glides across the room. "Good." He glances at the fly to April's left. "Baxter Stockman, I presume," he says, then doesn't pay attention to whatever response he gets. "Where is Karai?"

Casey interjects before April can say literally anything. "Still not back yet."

"And Donatello?"

"With Karai."

"Sensei—" April starts. Casey steels himself — here is where April tells Splinter about how Donnie is bleeding out somewhere on Shredder's fist, how Donnie has been stuck on one of Shredder's spikes like a weird creepy tribute, how all she can feel from him is pain — but Splinter interrupts her before she can say anything:

"She did not tell you of this plan?" Splinter says.

"Nope," Casey replies.

"Or any other plan," April snots in. Casey winces.

"I see," Splinter says, but doesn't say anything else.

Outside, a car alarm goes off.

April goes very still. "They're here," she says.

They all brace for impact, but it's not enough to really prepare them as the three snakes smash through a window, each landing in a coil on the floor. Glass rains down around them. Mikey shakes his heads like a dog, and then settles back into his coils.

Three big, green turds, Casey thinks, and clutches his hockey stick a little bit tighter. He looks over to Raph, no longer quiet and cowed, but angry and hungry, and it feels like someone kicked him in the gut with both misery and anger — this is going to end, one way or another.

As one, the three turtles raise their heads, green eyes wide and noses tilted towards the ceiling. They sniff the air delicately, and all three of them break into identical, fanged grins.


Splinter takes one step backwards. "My sons," he says, but the turtles ignore him. Raph and Leo take the lead, their eyes bright green and their mouths open, hissing slowly, eager to begin their meal.

April glances to Casey, tilting her head back towards the canisters of retromutagen. Carefully, she sidles backwards, hand reaching out and almost sighing in relief as Stockman presses a dispenser into her hand. She almost doesn't even care about the sticky, tacky mucus his hands have left on the barrel, nor the fetid stink his wings beat in her direction.

The turtles might speak, but April doesn't listen; instead, she focuses all of her senses on Splinter, waiting for him to move out of the way, for her, and Casey, and Stockman to take their shots.

She wonders which of his brothers tore into Donnie the most, and presses her finger more readily against the trigger.

Something in Leo's face breaks, his eyes slitting, and he launches himself at Raph. Mikey takes advantage of their distraction, and starts to shift towards Splinter, shoulders and head low, his green eyes hooded.

Above, a door slams open, and everything stops.

From a balcony, the Shredder stares down, Karai at his side, cowed and silent.

"Saki." Splinter turns, glaring upwards.

"I was wondering how long it would take before you came crawling back," Shredder says. He hefts the lump on his shoulder.

It takes a long, long moment for April to realise that the lump is Donnie, and longer still to realise that the Shredder has thrown him from the balcony, her eyes tracking him as Donnie tumbles gracelessly to the floor. The noise his plastron makes against the old floors echoes around the space, and he takes in a sharp, gasping breath, waking up for the smallest moment — and like that, the quiet, stunned spell is broken. Agony blooms across April's vision, thick and strong, and her legs buckle beneath her, her head swimming and chest pounding with everything released from Donnie's head — pain, and panic, and the stringy, pathetic thrum of a heart struggling to beat.

It's only when Casey hauls her back, bodily, that April realises that she's already five steps into a sprint across the room. "Casey let me go!" she shrieks, bucking against him, which only makes him tense his arms and pull her in close, her back to his chest. "Donnie!"

The worst of it all is, the pain she feels from Donnie; his pain, his terror, the hot writhing snake-like twist of his mind — they're nothing compared to the sight of his body.

Gashes are torn down his arms and legs, his face already swelling with the bruises along his cheek and head. The bridge on his side is weeping with blood from an open stab wound and, worst of all, his shell is cracked wide-open, a great cavern of flesh and blood.


Rage.

Rage is an emotion Splinter knows well — a double-edged sword that, when used effectively, can give a man the strength of a thousand others, but if used incorrectly, can damn him a thousand times over and over. It is a lesson he has tried to impress on Raphael his entire life; the strength in those big fists was one that needs to be controlled, harnessed, primed — like a bomb, waiting for the perfect moment to step off the trigger and destroy everything — not himself.

The rage he feels right now is enough to destroy half of New York, were he to let it out.

Saki has murdered his wife, stole his daughter, chased him from his homeland, and now, when Splinter has finally reached a strange resignation, a quiet peace with his lot in life — no, his family will never have what they truly deserve, but they have a life together, and his sons are inching their ways into the world making friends and allies and making a difference, in their own way — Saki came again, with fire, and steel, and a vicious thirst for revenge. Saki hurt his sons. Saki has hunted them down, and now—

Donatello drags in a rasping, hissing breath, his arms and feet trembling, smearing his own blood along the cracked tiles.

— now, his gentle boy lies dying on the floor. His remaining sons are wild and untamed things, and above it all, wreathed in fire, the man who was once his brother watches it all, Splinter's daughter in his grasp.

Rage is the only thing Splinter has room for in his heart. Control is all he will allow for it.

He focuses that control at the man who was once his brother.

"Saki!" Splinter roars.

Across the room, the Shredder inclines his head — the only sign that he has listened to what Splinter has said. At Splinter's back, his sons hiss, hungry and angry, though even they seem to know that this is something they should not interfere with. "Release my daughter," Splinter demands.

Even from across the room, even though the motion is so small he can barely see it, Splinter knows Saki well-enough to know that his grip would have tightened, fingers wrapped firmly around Miwa's arm, and Splinter spares a glance to his daughter, forcing down the anger that rises in his chest — that her disobedience, her need for hatred and revenge, has forced their hand this way. But the time for reprimands will come later, when this is over. For now, he meets her eyes, impressing on her the need to do as he says, to be obedient for the next few minutes while they finish what should have been finished long ago.

"No," the Shredder says. "She is my daughter."

"That is not true."

Miwa does not make a sound. Even though her arms are tense, even as she leans away from the Shredder's grip; but Miwa is well-trained, knowing when not to struggle, and when to pick her moment. "Karai is not yours," the Shredder spits. "I was the one who raised her, cared for her while you were hiding in filth. I was the one who taught her everything she knows. She is mine."

"She is not." Splinter forces down the possessiveness that flares up. Miwa is his daughter, it is him that she has called father, it is his blood that runs in her veins. "She is Shen's daughter. Release her."

"So you and your youkai can poison her with more of your lies?"

"My sons have told her nothing more than the truth. Where is your honour? Let Miwa go."

It is so easy to goad the Shredder into this, baiting him out of his high ground advantage, and into Splinter's claws and fists and teeth. He sees it in his sons, the way brothers know each-other as intimately as they know themselves; a word, a gesture, a look, can all press buttons that others do not even see.

The man who was once his brother laughs once. "You talk of honour?" he spits. "What does a ratknow of honour?"

"More than a man who murdered a woman and stole her daughter away." Splinter carefully eases his weight onto his good leg. "More than a man who waged war against my sons — against mere boys."

"Look at those creatures you call sons. Demons. Freaks. You claim them as family but they share none of your blood."

"No," Splinter agrees. "Neither did you, and yet you were still my brother." The talk of demons — of youkai — is something Splinter has not heard from his brother in decades, and for a brief, half-moment, he remembers the brother he loved, and pities him and his broken mind, to still think about spirits when — "The only demon in this room, Saki, is you. Let my daughter go. Cure my sons. Let us end this as men, not monsters. Shen would not want this of either of us."

"What would you know about what Shen wanted? You never deserved her. Always so obsessed with your clan. She needed you, and you turned her back; you failed her just like you have failed these sons of yours."

Splinter ignores the comment about his sons, even though it is right. Splinter has failed them in this. But unlike the Shredder, Splinter knows the feeling and weight of heavy failure on his shoulders, and how to bear its weight. No matter what happens at the end of tonight, he will go home alive, and take stock of his new burdens.

"Shen was my wife." Splinter carefully notes the path that the Shredder will take — down to the floor, past Donatello, a juggernaut made flesh. And Splinter carefully notes the advantages he has here; speed, agility, calmness amid the chaos that his three other sons will no doubt cause once this fragile, glass-thin stillness is broken. It is in this chaos, this frenzy, that April and Casey will have their chance to cure the others.

"I loved her first."

"You do not know how to love," Splinter shoots back. "Even now. Tell me, Saki, do you love my daughter, or do you love what she represents to you? A victory. A prize."

"Enough!"

"You love my daughter no more than you loved my wife."

The careful calculation pays off. Saki thrusts his arms out, shoving Miwa off-balance and out of his grasp. She stumbles to the side and slinks back towards the shadows— unarmed, but that can be changed; what matters is that for the immediate time being she is safe as Saki rants: "You did notlove Tang Shen! You wanted to keep her in a cage. What about what Shen wanted? She wanted to leave you. Where was she living, before you murdered her? Away from you, and from that filth of a clan. And how many times," the Shredder snarls, "did she come to my bed? You left her. You abandoned her. You never deserved her."

Splinter draws himself up to his full height; shoulders square, arms lax at his sides — pride, though it comes before a fall, can be so very satisfying. "And yet, in the end, she still chose me," he says, and waits for Saki to come.


tbc. we're almost done.