Wisps of cloud veiled the moon, shrouding the world below in shadows that even the light reflecting blanket of snow on the ground could not dispel. A world of silver dimmed to shades of gray, fading the sharp outlines of objects as if they were cast in fog. Except for the low wind whistling through the leafless tree branches overhead, the night was still and quiet. Every pen was cast in gloom, its occupants rendered invisible unless they had eyes which were open and luminous.
In silence, the turtles roamed the aisles between the pens, doing a headcount, assessing which captives were apt to be most dangerous when released, and which were not to be released at all. For the plan to work, the non-mutants would have to remain behind. Mutants and non-mutants were largely separate, but some seemed to have been carelessly tossed together. Matched pairs of mutants were kept in their own pens, but if there was only one of a particular kind, or if they were both of the same gender, they were either isolated in their own pen or put in with other singletons. There seemed to be no reason for the difference but perhaps there was and it was merely unclear.
Because they were quiet, quick, and stuck to the protection of the shadows, the turtles went unnoticed by the sleepy and sleeping animals. All, that is, except for one. As he passed by the larger enclosure he had once broken into and then out of, Raph was startled by a sudden roar-like growl and the sense of something rushing at him from a wooden structure he'd failed to notice the first time. Eyes ablaze, the wolfdog hurled herself at the fence, hooking onto it with her claws and toes, and biting at it, glaring at Raph and making it clear what she would be doing to him if not for the barrier.
In an instant, she had leaped back, landing on her feet with her head lowered and fangs showing, still growling ferociously, every muddy and matted hair on end.
The noise attracted the notice of the other turtles, who abandoned their positions among the pens to investigate. As each of them joined Raph, the wolfdog began to crouch lower, her tail tucking to her belly. When Leo, the farthest from Raph and so last to arrive, joined the others, she choked down her growl and slunk back towards the wood structure, stopping frequently to peer warily over her shoulder at them as if she expected the turtles to chase her.
She had clearly recognized them as a pack at once. She had seen Raph's ability to fight with her own eyes, and knew by instinct what others might have to have been told, which was that all the turtles could fight, and Leonardo was their leader. She wanted no part of a fight with them, and so retreated, went into hiding. Though they could no longer see her, Raph could feel the wolfdog's eyes on them.
"That your wolfdog?" Donnie asked quietly.
"Yeah," Raph replied.
"Well she doesn't look very pregnant," Donnie observed.
Raph nodded slightly, but said nothing. From the moment she'd rushed him, he'd gotten the sense that she wasn't actually trying to attack him. She was too wise for that. She knew the fence would stop her. She wasn't trying to hunt him as prey. She was trying to warn him away from something she was protecting. The wolfdog had given birth, and her pups were somewhere under that wood structure.
"That changes things," Leo said, having picked up the logic trail on his own.
"It does?" Mikey asked.
"Yeah," Leo said, "It's way too cold out here for a newborn. Assuming the pups aren't dead already, we've got to get them in out of the cold, sooner rather than later."
"You want to climb in there and steal wolf pups?" Donnie asked incredulously, gesturing to the pen.
"I'm the one who knows her best," Raph said before Leo could answer, "If anyone goes in, it oughta be me."
"Your ability to move is compromised," Leo pointed out, "If she makes a rush for you, you may not be able to get out of the way fast enough."
"She may not be a mutant, but she's the smartest animal in this place," Raph said, not taking his eyes off the shadows where he sensed the wolfdog to be, "She won't do anything stupid."
Leo opened his mouth, then sighed deeply, a cloud of frost appearing in the air as he exhaled.
"Okay, but I'm going with you," he said finally, "Donnie and Mikey, you look for some place close by where we can put the pups, and try to make it secure. I think she'll go wherever her pups go, but we don't want her trying to take them away."
For a moment, Raph looked from the shadows to Leo, studying his brother's blue eyes, sensing there was something Leo hadn't said, wondering what it was, and it if was important. Often the things Leo didn't say were just as or even more important than the things he did. Raph sensed that this was one of those times, and he wished he was better at understanding Leo when he didn't talk. But Leo usually spent so much time talking that Raph couldn't get a lot of practice reading his silences.
Deciding he wouldn't be able to suss it out, Raph moved to the gate of the enclosure and popped the lock on it with his sai. It was ridiculously easy to get into the pens from the outside, especially when carrying the right tools for the job. Raph cast a brief glance at the barbed wire up top as he went through the gate, and felt relieved that he wouldn't be going over that again. Leo followed him through, and shut the gate behind him, not wanting the wolfdog to run away.
It wasn't that Leo thought she would escape. As he'd said, he believed she'd stay close to her pups. What concerned him was that, once she left the enclosure, he would no longer be able to keep tabs on her location. The wolfdog was quite dangerous enough when they knew where she was, especially as their objective was not to harm her, whereas there was every indication that she would harm them if they provoked her. Seeing as from her perspective they were about to be trying to steal her pups, it was very likely that the wolfdog would be provoked rather severely.
A warning growl issued from the shadows. Raph thought he could just make out the outline of the wolfdog's skull, her ears turned back and flattened against her neck, but in the dark he wasn't sure. He could feel her eyes on him, fearful and furious, and the sense of hunger that came off her was stronger than ever. If she decided to attack, she would do more than just try to drive them away.
"What's the plan, Raph?" Leo asked, apparently deferring to Raph's experience, "I don't think sweet talking is gonna cut it."
Eyes locked on where he felt the wolfdog's gaze to be, Raph replied in a low voice, "When she goes for me, let her. I'll handle the wolfdog. You worry about the pups."
"That's a terrible plan!" Leo objected.
"You could've stayed outside the fence," Raph retorted, not looking at Leo.
Separating from Leo, Raph moved around the wooden structure, approaching from the side opposite the gate. Leo, though unhappy about the plan, waited where he was, hanging back and letting Raph's movement draw the wolfdog's attention.
Raph was careful of his position, making sure he didn't close the gap between himself and the wolfdog by so much as an inch, revolving around her as if they were planets in space. He stopped when he could see Leo directly in front of him through the wooden structure.
This structure seemed almost formless, as if it had been a prototype of the one the mutant lizard used as a throne; a prototype that weather and time had begun to break apart. It was more like a disarranged heap of wood with some nails stuck in it than a true structure. It was no place to have a baby.
Briefly, Raph lifted his gaze to meet Leo's. He could not see Leo's eyes at this distance in the dark, but he felt their gazes lock anyway. Leo knew it was a signal, and knew what it meant. He was ready. Raph's gaze slid back to the shadows from which the wolfdog must begin her rush, and he took one measured step forward. One step was all that was necessary.
In utter silence, the wolfdog blazed from cover like an explosion of fire. No warning accompanied this attack, because it was not a threat, but a move for the kill. Raph had always known that, given the chance, the wolfdog would try to kill him. Her hunger was far greater now than it had been when they'd last met, and the combination of starvation and protective fury rendered her blind to the risk for just a few, breathless seconds. It was all Raph needed to bring her down.
Covering the ground in a dark flash, the wolfdog lunged upwards, aiming for Raph's throat or face, knowing that his exposed mid-section was not soft like the bellies of other creatures, knowing she must aim for the one vital part of him which was not protected by a shell. She was not aiming to cripple him to bring him down, as a lone assailant she could not take the time and energy cost, let alone the risk that he would fight back. So she aimed straight and true for a killing bite.
Raph intercepted her, catching her by the collar under her throat in one hand, halting her forward progress toward his neck with her front teeth a fraction of an inch out of range, her jaws snapping shut uselessly on air. Her weight threw him backward, though he had purposely braced with his good leg. He let her momentum take them to ground, twisting as he fell to place her underneath him, his free hand coming into position at the side of her skull, just at the hinge of her jaws. When she landed on her side, she sank through a couple inches of snow before hitting the frozen ground. Raph pinned her head with the hand at her jaws, aided by the one at her collar, rolling partially onto her so that his weight was on her shoulders.
Her teeth and powerful jaws disabled, she could not bite. Thrown off her feet, she didn't have the leverage to heave Raph's weight off, and his strength exceeded her own as she briefly writhed under him, seeking escape. The fight was over in a moment. The wolfdog was intelligent enough to know when she was beaten. And Raph was intelligent enough not to drop his guard, even as the wolfdog stared up at him. If he let her go, she would be on him again in a moment.
Though it had all taken no more than a few seconds, both Raph and the wolfdog were panting. The tension of preparation, and the effort of the execution had left them breathless.
After assuring himself that his hold on the wolfdog was as solid as he'd initially believed, Raph allowed himself to look up and see what Leo was doing. Leo had gone at once to the wooden structure, and now he exited its shadows into the curtained moonlight, carrying three tiny bundles.
One of those bundles had a grip on his thumb with something that looked very much like a hand. At sight of this, Raph understood what Leo had not said. The wolfdog was no mutant, but her mate might have been. There had been no way of telling what her pups would be like. It was clear that at least one of them -and therefore probably all of them- was a mutant.
Raph looked back at the wolfdog, feeling a pang of sorrow for her. No mere animal, however extraordinary, could hope to manage a litter of mutants, even with ideal circumstances, which these were not. It was a problem that Raph had not anticipated.
But of course Leo had recognized the possibility.
The wolfdog was no longer looking at Raph. She was gazing past him, across the enclosure, at Leo and the pups. Leo had reached the gate and opened it. Her body limp, but gaze intense, the wolfdog observed this. Though none of her muscles tensed, Raph felt her eagerness for the open gate, which seemed to exert a pull on her spirit stronger even than her hunger or her need to guard her pups.
More than life, more than breath, the wolfdog yearned to be free. Raph could feel it rolling off her in tidal waves, a feeling so strong it almost made him dizzy. In the moment, he felt he knew her better than he had ever known anyone in his life, that he understood her every thought and impulse.
Wondering, doubting, but compelled to obey the directives of this feeling, Raph let go of the wolfdog's collar, took his weight off of her, released his hold on her head and took a step back. He knew the consequences of a wrong guess. If he guessed wrongly, she would not go for him, but she would go after Leo. She would maul him to take her pups back, or he would have to kill her to defend himself.
But the wolfdog did not immediately get up. She lay on her side for a lengthy second, then rolled onto her belly, her head still on the ground, her eyes on the open gate.
Still unsure of himself, but trusting to the touch of instinct that had caught hold of him, Raph turned away from her and walked in the direction of the gate, taking his time to get there. When he reached it, he looked back and found the wolfdog had followed him, and stood about a foot away now. She looked at the gate, then up at him, cocking her head inquiringly.
The depth in her quiet gaze was unnerving. But it was clear she had read him as easily as he had read her. She understood, just as he did, what must now happen. He had bested her, and so now she yielded to him, knowing her fate would be decided by something he was going to do, and waiting patiently for him to do it. Raph shivered, not from cold but from some creeping sense of the known and unknown.
He moved through the gate, and the wolfdog followed after. He led the way to the barn, where Leo had taken the pups to. The wolfdog went with him, her eyes never leaving him, not even to rove over the long coveted forest surrounding them. As Leo had said, she would not leave without her pups.