"What do you mean, you don't have it?" Donnie cried.
"I must've dropped it on the way here," Leo apologized, coaxing his brother over to the lock, "You can crack the combination, can't you?"
"That's not my point," Donnie countered, crouching to begin prying apart the security system. "We don't know how long Raph and Mikey will be able to hold off Shredder's goons. We're running out of time to talk to Karai – which I still don't understand why we're trusting her-"
"Because I said so." Leo rolled his eyes.
"—and now, someone might find that key and have direct access to Shredder's lair!"
"No one in this city knows the Foot Clan exists, let alone the location of their headquarters."
Donnie frowned in silent disagreement, tongue beginning to stick out the corner of his mouth as he delved into the complex mess of wires and gears inside the electronic lock.
"I'm in," he muttered as the door swung open, unable to stop the triumphant gap-toothed grin that spread across his face.
Leo nodded, unsheathing his katanas and leading his brother into the labyrinth of hallways inside the old church, his eyes darting between the various doors they passed until he came upon one with '裏切り者' sloppily painted across it in red.
"This is it," he crept forward and tried the knob. It didn't budge. "Damn."
Donnie's brow furrowed. "I don't recognize this."
"It's her room," Leo explained quickly, gesturing for the genius to pick the lock.
"How would you...?" Donnie's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "Wait a sec. All those solo missions you took last year? You... you were meeting her. Talking to her!"
"You think I was going to let her go without a fight?" Leo snapped, "She belongs with the Hamato Clan. No matter what she told us, I know this isn't where she's meant to stay."
"Yeah, but why-"
"I wasn't going to give up. My hope that she'd come around wasn't completely gone yet. I couldn't bring myself to stop the meetings, not for a while." Leo shot him a subtle glare. "You should be able to understand, of all people. Hanging onto something you know won't last."
Donatello was stunned into silence, stepping back with eyes full of hurt. Immediately, Leo regretted his words. Too soon, bringing up Donnie's heartbreak, and on top of it, he'd used it to defend his own wrongdoings. But it was true that both brothers had experienced some form of the same pain. The only difference was that Leo had found a way to mend, whereas Donnie remained completely infatuated with April from afar.
In fact, the moment he'd met Faline, Leo realized he'd forgotten all about his fascination with Karai.
Faline, he thought again, and his heart was set in motion, thinking about his encounter with the blonde earlier.
Faline, he repeated her name in his mind, remembering how his cheek had tingled ten minutes after she'd pressed her lips to his skin.
Faline. His stomach dropped, his memory traveling back to where her arms had been thrown around him, where her hands had rested while she embraced him.
Near his belt.
Right by the hidden pouch sewn into the leather.
Conveniently near where the key had been concealed.
"Oh no," he whispered frantically, glancing over at Donnie. "We need to find Karai. And then find Fae. Now."
"Fae? But we left her back home..." Donatello paused, registering Leo's words fully. "No. She's not foolish enough to – she couldn't have possibly...!" He rubbed his temples. "She stole the key, didn't she?"
Leo nodded, mumbling, "God, I'm such an idiot!"
"Yep. You are."
Donnie and Leo whirled around to face Karai, standing in her doorway.
"Karai," Don breathed, "We need to t-"
The next second, the intelligent ninja was on the floor, Karai's tanto poised at his throat.
"What are you doing?!" Leo knocked her sword away, shoving her away from Donnie.
"What are you doing?" she barked back, sweeping a leg under his feet and knocking him back. Leo glowered, until she leaned forward and whispered, "The camera, stupid."
Her eyes flicked to the ceiling, where a small lens swiveled toward the commotion.
"That's new," he muttered, playing along and pinning her against the opposite wall. "When did that happen?"
"Right after I paid you guys that little visit," Karai sighed, pretending to struggle against him. "Has she gained that morphing ability yet?"
Leo hesitated, surprised and then piqued that she'd known about Fae's new inclinations. "Yes. Thanks, by the way, for warning us about the whole leopard shape-shifting thing. Not."
She pushed him away, clashing their blades together. "I would have told you, but I got a bit sidetracked by the painful electrocution," she retorted sarcastically, pointing at the shock collar around her neck.
Donnie unsheathed his bo, whacking the tanto out of her grasp. "So what does this mean for Fae? Why is she morphing? What does this have to do with Shredder? How-"
An expert punch to his plastron shut him up. "Not really the best time for a Q and A!" she cried, turning back to Leo.
The leader rolled his eyes, pulling out a shuriken and throwing it in Karai's direction. She easily dodged, and the throwing star whizzed upward, embedding itself in the camera and making it crash to the floor, wires sparking.
"Start talking," he ordered, "we've got two minutes, tops."
"Until Shredder's yes-men get here, or until your little girlfriend shows up?" Karai set a hand on her hip.
The notion startled him. "What? She's not my girlfriend."
"Not my point. How could you be so stupid as to-"
"Will you cut it out? I get it, I'm an idiot. Now answer Don's questions. Why is this happening to Fae?"
Karai slumped, her rebelliousness deflating. "All I know is it's having to do with some prophecy. I heard Shredder and Tiger Claw talking about it the night the Foot attacked Faline."
"Is her ability something we need to be worried about?"
"Depends how you look at it. On one hand, the shape-shifting has given her incredible fighting advantages." Karai's arm twitched, and then transformed momentarily into a serpent's head for emphasis. "On the other, it's made her and interest for Shredder, and depending on her resiliency, she might have trouble controlling her animalistic instincts."
"Which brings us to the next question," Leo continued, "Why is Shredder so interested in her?"
"Again, the prophecy. Something in his past has made him anxious to eliminate her – and others like her – as a threat. Originally, he might've tried to sway her to his side, but now that she's rooming with you, I'd say killing her would be his more likely course of action."
Leo ran a hand down his face, trying to process how much, and yet how little she'd just told him. "And these...others? You told me we had to protect others like her, too."
This time, she hesitated. "It's... difficult to explain."
"Nothing you've explained so far has been easy to take in," Donnie pointed out.
Karai's front teeth tugged at her blood red bottom lip in sudden apprehension. "The prophecy. If you can get your hands on that, and some other documents Oroku Saki had, that would answer your question."
All three jumped at the sound of a clattering and several angry voices.
"Where's the info?" Leo asked quickly, raising his katanas.
"Not here."
"Then where?!"
Karai had leapt forward before he had even finished, resuming their battling façade and striking him in the temple. Leo crumpled, sucking in a shocked breath when he felt her mutated serpent hand slithering around his throat.
"When Shredder left for America – when he found out Splinter was alive all those years ago, we left in a bit of a hurry," she hissed into his ear, only closing off his airway enough to make him wheeze a bit. "He took only what was completely necessary, and nothing that could be lost and seen by unwanted eyes."
"Let him go!" Donnie protested, rushing forward to defend the leader, promptly smashed back against the wall by Karai's other snake hand.
"Quiet!" she told him, turning her attention back to Leonardo, "The docks. Saturday. At dusk. You can intercept the delivery there."
"Delivery?" Leo rasped.
"Yes, delivery! The shipment of the artifacts and papers from Japan, you idi—"
She was cut off by a parade of thundering footsteps rounding the corner.
"Karai?" a thick Russian accent pierced the air.
"I knew it! I knew the other Turtles would be here!"
Bebop's distinct voice cried out, followed by a shrill squeal of triumph.
"Sorry dudes," Mikey apologized, clinging to Rocksteady's thick leg as the rhino tried to shake him off, "Held 'em off as long as we could."
"What the – what are you doing?!" Raph shouted, spotting the kunoichi's mock chokehold on Leonardo.
"Let my friend go, Karai Saki!"
Leo's eyes widened at the voice behind him, and Karai's snake arm suddenly disappeared. He gulped in a fresh breath of oxygen, twisting to see Fae.
The blonde pulled Karai away by the back of her uniform, unsheathing the nagamaki and pointing the two-foot blade at the space between the ninja girl's brow. Her sky blue irises had turned to ice with anger, framed by her choppy platinum hair.
"Check it out, G! It's one 'a them Freeformers!" the gaudily-dressed warthog of the bunch exclaimed, elbowing Rocksteady. "Man, Shredder's gonna reward us big-time when we bring her in!"
"Not a chance, pig," Fae spat, an unusual poisonous tone seeping into her voice.
"Faline!" Leo cried out, "Get out of here!"
"Dude, when did she get here?" Mikey asked confusedly.
Fae ignored both of them, kicking back the kunoichi and rushing toward both massive enemy mutants, actually managing to catch them off guard and making a small gash on each of their arms.
"Are you crazy?!" Raph yelled, yanking Fae back as the rhinoceros and pig roared in pain.
"You got death wish, little girl?" Rocksteady bellowed, stomping his enormous feet angrily.
"Seriously, is everyone in your clan nuts?" Karai muttered under her breath to Leo.
"Faline, stop!" Leo pleaded, scrambling to his feet and pulling her away from the scene, "We need to get you out of—"
"No!" She screamed, wrenching her hand away. "I can take care of myself!"
"No, you can't!"
"It's alright, dawg. Let the little shape-shifter think she has a chance against us," Bebop snorted, charging forward.
"Bring it on, freak!" Faline shouted back, running full speed toward the adversaries.
Leo realized her intentions a second too late. "Fae, don't you dare—"
Her human body was already morphing. Faline, now in her leopard form, attacked Sterenko and Zeck head-on, raking her claws across their chests and making rivulets of red across their skin. She pounced onto Bebop first, whacking his head against the concrete floor with a swift blow from her large front paw.
Her feline eyes focused in on Rocksteady, clutching his hammer and sickle fearfully, ignoring the Turtles' pleas to stop. Her sharp teeth dug into the tough flesh of his neck, sending him tumbling backwards and nearly crushing Mikey as the cat and rhino struggled. Eventually, Sterenko fell, unconscious, beneath Faline's powerful claws.
"She's going savage," Donnie said, watching the leopard observe its prey with peaked interest, swiping her tongue out over the faint blood stains on her muzzle as she turned back to the five mutants still standing.
"Told you her animosity was something to reckon with." Karai quipped, and Fae's head swiveled to focus on her.
Her cat pupils shrunk in hostility, and in the blink of an eye, Karai was on the floor. Faline roared in her face, and the kunoichi gasped, squeezing her eyes shut and gritting her teeth.
"Fae, STOP!" Leo sprang forward, taking hold of the scruff of her neck and tugging as hard as he could. He definitely could not afford to get Karai killed, on top of the whole fiasco this day had turned out to be.
Fae snarled, whipping around and swinging at the leader, colliding with her target and sending him flying. She had pinned him in an instant, her retractable claws extending into his shoulder and making him cry out in pain.
"Faline," Leo begged, straining away from his friend's mouth full of teeth. "C'mon, come back to me."
His words fell upon deaf ears. Faline's canines glistened as they crept closer and closer to Leonardo's face, a snarl escaping her throat as she raised her other set of claws to finish him off...
Translation:
裏切り者 : Traitor