The five of us showed Master Splinter the weird cannister the moment we got back to the lair. I was surprised, actually, I think all of us were surprised when Splinter almost recoiled at the sight of it. He wasn't disgusted. He seemed more shocked than anything.
"Where did you get this?" He asked rather softly.
Leo explained, recapping our night's series of absurd events. Splinter stood, hanging onto every word that came from the eldest son's mouth. His eyes darted back to the canister often, flashing like he was seeing a ghost. When the story was finished, the only reply that Sensei gave was a few long seconds later.
"I will be meditating on what you have told me." He turned quickly, making a beeline for his sanctuary.
Leo glanced at the rest of us. We were just as confused as he was, "What's wrong, Sensei?"
No answer. The door to our masters room shut promptly.
"What's got him all worked up?" Raph asked.
Mikey was on the verge of a panic, "Do you think he's mad that we met Spider-man? Do you think he'll forbid us to ever see him again?"
I rolled my eyes, "No, Mikey. I think it's about that canister. Did you guys see the way he looked at that thing?"
"I did," Donnie held the canister to his face, eyes squinting a little from the brightness of the luminescent liquid inside, "Whatever this stuff is, it's got him all worked up."
"Is there something that we don't know?" I asked.
"I think so," Leo replied, eyeing Master Splinter's room, "But whatever it is, we won't be hearing about it for a little while. Get some sleep. He'll tell us eventually."
Donnie headed straight for the lab. He wasn't going to be sleeping too much tonight and I couldn't blame him. There was a new substance for him to research. The canister was his own little science experiment. I'm sure the excitement in all that was hard to contain. I ended up following him for moral support. I was curious too and not very sleepy. The events of the night still had my blood pumping a little. Hun. Fisk. The Kraang. That canister. Spider-man.
Hours passed. Donatello let me help him test the unknown liquid in the canister. It was… peculiar. It really just seemed like acid that someone mixed with a few glow sticks. The liquid melted practically anything it touched. Even the Petri dishes Donnie tried to use. It was near impossible to look at it under a microscope. We tried several options but as the night went on, our frustrations with the liquid grew. Neither of us could understand why this stuff was so important when any gang clan could get their hands on some nitric or hydrochloric acid right off the black market. What was so special about this glowing acid?
We eventually called it quits for the night. We were supposed to get up for training, as we usually did every morning, in a few hours. I could tell that being the least on sleep, I was going to be performing rather sluggishly. Donnie was rather accustomed to a lack of sleep.
However, in the morning, when I came downstairs for a quick bite of breakfast before training, Leo informed myself and the rest of my brothers that training had been canceled. Splinter was still meditating and gave us the morning off. This was unusual. We've never had training canceled before. One could say Splinter didn't believe in canceling morning training. Whatever was bothering him… it was consuming. So much so, that we were also forbidden from leaving for our patrol later that night. I called April and Casey, hoping they could help make my brothers feel a little better by bringing pizza and a movie or something. Mikey was up for the idea, of course, he was the only turtle, unfortunately. Donnie was back in his lab, goggling over the canister. Leo was too in his head, worried about Sensei to eat or sit down. And Raph, well, he was getting antsy. I didn't blame him. It helped at least, that Casey was up to spar in the dojo for that.
I explained last night's events to April at the table, the same story my family had told Splinter.
"And he's been in his room since?" She asked when I finished. I nodded, "Something is really bothering him then, huh? You have any ideas?"
I shook my head while also shrugging my shoulders in a deep dip. A huge sigh escaped my throat, "Couldn't say for sure, but I hope we get to find out what that is soon."
"And now Spider-Man is in the picture?" She crossed her arms, "We really are a strange crowd."
"As if our lives can get any weirder," I said, rolling my eyes.
"What was he like?"
I gave April a look, "Who? Spider-man?"
She nodded enthusiastically, "He's all over the news right now for some bust on a guy that can shoot electricity out of his hands."
Um. What? This would be the first I've heard of such a guy. Mikey, of course, had though, "Electro! Awh, I wish he wasn't a bad guy. It would be so cool to have powers like that!"
"Is that even possible?" I asked, glancing at Donatello. His shrug seemed skeptical.
"So the news says. I find that impossible to believe though. The human body could never handle electricity in their bones like that. Everything would kick into overdrive and then short out. He probably has some kind of weapon developed that makes it look like he can shoot electricity."
Mikey almost seemed disgusted in that logical answer, "No! He's a supervillain! And Spider-man took him out!"
"Remember that Jade has special abilities too," Leo pointed out. Donnie glanced at me.
"Uh… ya. Of course. Hers are just more believable?"
"Believable?" April asked, "She has telekinetic powers and can bring people back from the dead. I think Electro sounds pretty tame."
"She's got a point," I said. Donnie started to look flustered. Had he forgotten of his sister's capabilities? He babbled, trying to figure an explanation but luckily for him, he was interrupted. Sensei was standing in front of his room.
"Master Splinter?" Leo asked, "You've been meditating for many hours."
Sensei nodded, "Yes. And it is time. Join me in here."
We did as he asked. Leo went to the dojo and grabbed Raph and we filed into Master Splinter's room, Casey and April included. My brothers and I took our normal positions, kneeling in front of the low table in the middle of the room. April and Casey stood off the side.
I tried to let the soothing nature of my surroundings calm me, but I was having a hard time keeping my nerves under control. What made the suspense worse was that even Splinter didn't know where to start. He knelt across from us but didn't speak. He had his eyes on a bundle wrapped in a cloth on the table. Whatever was concealed, was bothering him.
The silence wasn't just getting to me. My brothers and I exchanged glances. Leo shifted uncomfortably, "Sensei?" He prompted.
A heavy exhale. Master Splinter's ear tweaked before he finally looked to us, "These past hours have been spent pondering many questions. Some are the very questions of our origin. The sewer. Our transformation. But the answers have always remained hidden in the past veiled by a shadow too deep to penetrate, until now." Sensei picked up the wrapped bundle on the table, " A light from the present reaches out to illuminate that shadow. You have never seen this, but know what it is."
When Sensei lifted the cloth, he revealed to us a broken… canister. It looked exactly like the one we had showed him from last night, just without the glowing liquid inside.
Donatello gasped, "Is that the… That's the canister that we…?"
Sensei nodded, "The canister with the green ooze that transformed us all. I have kept it these many years and have not heard or seen any relation to it until now."
"All these years that have gone by," Leo murmured. He studied the canister in Splinter's lap, "Do you think Shredder and the Foot had something to do with our mutation too?"
Sensei almost sighed. His ears twitched. I could sense that that was a question he'd been trying to find an answer to for hours, "I'm unsure but we must find out. If the contents of this are put into contact with the public, the city might be facing grave danger."
"I find it amazing that we had some kind of connection with the Foot the day we became mutated," Donnie said. His tone seemed a bit sad, "Could they really be the reason that we are what we are today?"
"We can never get away from those freaks, huh?" Raph asked. His eyes rolled with his words.
"That's not true," Mikey said. Heads turned to him. His brain was spinning. I swore I could see it. He had a Donnie face on, thoughtful and determined. It was not a natural expression for the orange-banded turtle to be wearing.
"What? That we can't get away from the Foot?" Raph asked, almost laughing, "We run into'em every other day."
"No, no. Not that," Mikey eyed us. He was so serious. It was almost unsetttling, "What Don said. That we had some kind of connection to the Foot the day we got mutated. I mean, that's true but when Sensei found us, that was a given. But guys, the Foot didn't have that canister. It was those Kraang dudes. They're the ones who've had it and they were the ones ready to hand it over to the Foot and that Fisk guy."
Mikey… was right. The two encounters we had with that canister, it had been in the hands of the Kraang. So really, my brothers have had a connection to the Kraang since their mutation but didn't know it until just a couple nights ago.
Our lives were getting weirder and weirder. I had a feeling we hadn't hit the peak of it all either.
