ZOE/KARAI
As they pulled up, Zoe thought it looked like any other sleazy joint they'd busted up. Sometimes criminals lacked creativity. The ones that didn't, the ones that put their crimes on blatant display under thinly veiled guises, like they'd made her to be, those were the ones that scared her. Silent as she reached for her quiver, checked her arrow count and grabbed her bow, tessen already in her back pocket, she was ready.
Beside her, Raph had long since armed himself. His eyes were closed, as was a more frequent practice after a combination of becoming a parent, getting older, and maybe just plain experience. Life finally had him finding his center. It was something he did more so when he thought he might come loose. And if anything was going to bring that out of him, it was endangering their kids.
"Listen up," Leo stood hunched over in between the driver and passenger seats. "We're going full stealth," he paused as if bracing to have to call someone back, reprimand, or scramble out after someone.
Everyone stared at him expectantly.
"Well- this is- new." He mused.
April folded her tessen, put it in her pocket. "What is?"
Leo half-smiled, shook his head. "Nothing."
"Well that's great, Leo." Raph huffed, and Zoe pressed her lips together. Yeah, he was struggling already. "Thanks for wasting time goin' on about nothin,' think ya can get ta the part where we kill the fuckers that are messin' wit' our kids?"
"The plan is," Leo ignored him, "Zoe, April, Karai, you're going in the front."
Zoe peered beyond Leo, to the line of people waiting to get in glanced at her clothes and sighed. She pulled the strap of her quiver over her head, setting both it and her bow on the floor. That part of her weapon choice would be a no-go. April and Karai followed her gaze, their eyes met then each of them began undoing their hair from ponytails and braids. Zoe stood up, tugged her yoga pants off and kicked them aside.
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Aries held up his hands, shielding his face from where he sat on the floor with a perfect view of her ass. "I do not want to see those parts of my sister."
"Zoe, what the hell?" Raph snapped.
Leo's cheeks darkened as he looked to Karai, only to find her taking her shirt off. His hands flew up, trying to cover her bra. "Karai!"
"Get over it, Leo. We are never getting in dressed like three middle-aged mothers." She ripped out the collar of her shirt, pulled it back on and stood in her new off-the-shoulder piece. Now more than when she'd dressed that morning, she was grateful she'd been wearing leggings and the shirt was tunic length. It would have to do.
Zoe was glad for making the switch to boy-short undies. Her tank covered her ass, but barely so. At least she wouldn't be showing off a thong. She glanced at April, her sister tugging her shirt overhead, then pulling her pants off. "April!" Donnie shrieked.
After years of working together, the girls were in sync. Zoe grabbed her sister's bag, unzipped it and pulled out a yellow cami-dress. "I hate you," Zoe complained.
"Why?" April asked, accepting the dress.
"You're always prepared for anything." Karai answered before Zoe could.
"If the wardrobe change is over-" Leo's voice came out low, impatient, and Zoe mused at how some of both Karai and Raph had worn on him over the years. He had less and less patience for their family's combined antics. Or maybe he was just getting to be more like Splinter. "Girls in the front door. Raph and Aries," Leo smirked. "Replace those bouncers. Show them how the job should be done." He looked to Donnie. "You and I are going around back."
Donnie handed him six pins that looked like buttons with the Hamato clan crest in the center. "We'll be on com."
Leo took one, clipped it to his t-shirt and passed the rest down. "If any of us identify key players, keep them alive, bring them to the back. I'll be ready to interrogate. Priority one is the kids, priority two is shutting this operation down."
LEO
Leo slipped around back, silent and invisible in the shadows surrounding him, Donnie close at his heels.
He could just kick himself. He'd been so close before. This was mere blocks from Scout's first attack. He'd even noted it back then, but hadn't considered investigating. Scout was deaf. What need would she have for a music club? He'd failed to put the pieces together when he'd learned that Essence temporarily, if destructively, gave Scout the ability to hear. If he'd made the right leaps of logic, it would never have gotten this far.
In the alley, behind the building, was parked a van with the Marco's logo on the side. He'd been bested this long by people too stupid to be inconspicuous was galling. All that effort to obscure the plate, then leaving such a highly identifiable clue on the side. Straight up dumb. And he'd been stumped pursuing them for almost two months. Just embarrassing.
At the back door, Donnie pulled out his lock picks, but before he could start, Leo pushed on it and it swung open. Curious.
They slipped inside.
It looked like a storage room. Stacks and stacks of boxes, some desks, a few large, empty kennels, lots of miscellaneous junk.
They split up and looked around.
"I think this is the right place." Donnie whispered, opening a couple containers containing different colored pills, the pink Essence gel tabs among them.
In the hallway, just outside the door, Leo pulled one of several shuriken embedded in the wall. Shuriken bearing the Hamato crest. "Yes. Yes, it is."
ZOE
Zoe, Karai and April strolled to the back of the line. April immediately picking at the tape in a slow strumming motion that sent a ripple from one end of the material to the other. The bear-bouncer's hand on the other end lifted once he realized there was a pattern.
Eyes locked with his, April smiled, looked down, plucked the ribbon once more, then peeked at him through long red lashes. Casually she reached out, snaking an arm around Zoe's neck. Zoe pretended to look curiously at her sister, before following her gaze to the bouncer now breathing out his mouth. She flashed him a smile, turned her head and reached for Karai. Guiding her sister close, while keeping her eyes on the guard, Zoe pretended to whisper something in Karai's ear.
Karai grinned and nodded right as the guard pointed to them, waved the line to step back and beckoned them forward.
"How are you ladies, tonight?" he asked in a very Arcos-like voice.
"Ready for some fun," April replied. "How's the entertainment tonight?"
The bear smiled, and Zoe thought he might've been a cute-guy if he didn't reek of pot and something unknown to her. "You just missed the headliner. Seeker was back for one night only. But there's still some raw talent in there, ready to make it big just like her. Go on in, see for yourself. Free of charge."
April's weight shifted, but he reached out and grabbed her hand, trying to shove something in her palm. "Here, try these on the house. They'll really enhance the experience. If you want more see my friend at the bar. I'm Josh. Bartender is Zeke." His furry fingers lingered over April's hand and Zoe noticed her body tense.
Pressing her chest to April's back, she guided her forward. Curling her hand over April's she moved it away. "Come on, Sis, let's go."
Karai pressed closer to Zoe and the three stepped into the melee of people, mutants, and hybrids, dancing, standing at bar-counters and round top tables. Zoe looked around, seeing some tucked away in booths, openly smoking something that were definitely not cigarettes. Others sniffed lines of colored powder, several actually shot up out in the open. "Shit." Her heart picked up pace. "What was Scout into?"
April looked around before her eyes met with her sisters. "This. Is. Bad."
"Got eyes on Raph or Aries?" Karai asked looking around.
Zoe reached out internally to locate her mate, but was met with a fog of filth, depression, speed, numbness, excitement, lust, and daze. The myriad of emotions crashed into one another making her nauseous. "Not yet," she groaned.
"You okay, Z?" Karai asked, at the same time April let out an uncomfortable moan.
"Oh, I might be sick."
"What the hell is going on with you two?" Karai looked them back and forth.
"A lot of unnatural stuff in the air messing with people's natural rhythms." Zoe grimaced. "It's overwhelming. Just, really wrong. I can't. Give me somebody to kill and let's get out of here."
Karai huffed. "Well that's just great. Can't you two turn it off? We've got kids to find!"
April held her stomach as she looked around, spying the bartender. "Let's start with him."
"Can I just get straight to the beating part?" Zoe complained, holding her head. "I kind of need to refocus my energy."
"You're on standby, just don't fall apart on me." Karai complained. "I'll take point."
ARIES
Aries stepped up behind the bear mutant who was staring at the collective asses of his sisters as they entered the club and tapped him on the shoulder.
Startled, the bear turned. Right into Aries's oncoming fist. His head snapped back and he dropped like a stone. Arcos he was not.
Then Aries strode up to the front of the line, where a badger mutant stood guard over the entrance. Hey, hadn't he seen this guy at the underground fight?
The badger eyed him warily. "Look buddy, if you want in you're gonna have to wait like everyone else."
"Just thought you oughta know, that the bear-guy you were working with got jacked by one of the people in line." Aries pointed back behind him, where Yogi was sprawled out into the street.
"Shit." The badger muttered, moving to investigate. Except, when he got close, two green hands shot out from between the parked cars and pulled him away from the illumination around the line.
Several muffled thuds later, Raph stepped out alone and joined him at the front.
Aries looked out at the line of waiting people. "Sorry. We're full up. You're outta luck tonight."
The line erupted in protest and a guy with way too much glittery, black eyeliner stepped forward from the front of the line. "Hey, you're not the bouncers. We don't have to listen to you."
Aries snagged the chain connecting the guy's pierced ear to his pierced nose with his index finger and tugged him close. "Don't you?"
The guy's eyes darted back and forth between Aries and Raph, who crossed his arms and glared threateningly. "Uh, on second thought maybe I should go."
"Good choice." Aries released him and he took off running.
Eyes roving across the rest of the line, he smiled. "Anyone else got complaints?"
KARAI
Karai sidled up to the bar and smiled disarmingly at Zeke.
"Hey beautiful, what can I do you for?"
She leaned across the bar, well aware of how the motion would position her boobs. "I was hoping to see Tripp." She mentioned with a wink.
Distracted, his eyes flicked back and forth between her chest and her face. "Uh he's not in," a lie, he was either bad at this or not even trying "but I can take a message for you."
She traced a finger down his forearm, a wicked smile toying at her lips. "I guess you could, but it might be a little awkward here. I don't suppose you could step out a for a moment to join my friend and me somewhere more private." She tilted her head over to where April lounged against a wall, seeming to have capped a lid on her nausea, watching with eager, blue eyes.
His breath hitched as April's lips parted in a well-feigned gasp of sudden desire.
Karai, traced her lips with her tongue. "I think Tripp will be sad to have missed us." She chuckled.
Zeke shook himself, trying for a charming smile and just coming off hungry. "Uh, yeah. Right this way."
She and April followed him out of the main area and into a hallway, lined with wheeled clothing racks. Zeke looked around to make sure it was empty, before turning back to the girls, already panting. "This'll do."
He reached out for them and Karai shoved him back against the wall. "Whoa. Easy on the goods."
Karai's pupils stretched into a slit, her irises turning green. "You're going to tell usss where we can find Tripp."
"Who is here." April added.
His jaw clenched. "You don't scare me."
"Maybe not yet." Zoe approached from behind them as she spoke, holding up a hand and extending her claws. "But we will."
ALLI/SCOUT
Alli leaned against Scout's crate, wanting to gather her sister in her arms. She glanced over her shoulder to Scout's petite but lean-muscled frame, resting in seiza, eyes closed. Her younger sister's calm was unnerving. Her decision to stay, frustrating- yet- Alli sighed. The right thing to do. A wan smile crossed Alli's lips as she looked on her sister's smooth expression. "How long are you going to do that?"
Scout's eyelids flickered, an irritated expression crossing her still-slightly baby-faced features. Alli thought she resembled their father in that moment. Her face a little rounder than either hers or their mothers, her eyes equally so. Both of their parents were freckled so she couldn't accredit one or the other for the sprinkle of gold beneath Scout's eyes or across the bridge of her sweetly sloped nose.
"I need you to be quiet, Alli. As much as I've dreamt of hearing your voice all my life, I've accepted I'm not meant to. That said, I'm using a technique Uncle Leo taught me to help push the drugs from my system. I don't want to go back to rehab. I've got to do what I have to help others like me. But I also have to hope our parents will believe me. I don't want this life anymore." Scout's blue eyes opened, peered deep into Alli. "Please, help me."
Yeah. She had their dad's expression down. Maybe more than Jem even. Alli's eyes filled as she reached through the bars to brush hair back from Scout's face. "Yeah, Little Sister, I'll do what I can."
Scout nodded, reached up and placed her fingers over Alli's holding her hand as she lowered it to her side. Then, closing her eyes, Scout focused on her breath.
DREA/CHANE
Driving was awesome! Well it would be more awesome if she wasn't trailing a van carrying her cousin, but it was still pretty cool. She kind of wanted to turn on the radio and bump some music that would get her totally riled up for the coming fight. Because her gut told her there would be one.
The van switched lanes and Drea's eyes flickered up to the street sign indicating the upcoming Brooklyn Bridge. As they crossed, she felt the metaphysical strain and snap of her mother's invisible leash. "Well, they'll be calling any-"
Her phone started to ring, followed seconds later by Nik's, Chane's and Jem's. As Drea spied Shen on her mother's bike in her rearview, she knew hers was likely ringing too. Drea's gaze skipped to Chane questioningly before setting back on the task at hand. "When are we going to tell them? We found Scout- sort of."
Chane's brow furrowed as her phone displayed her dad's picture on the screen. They'd never ended they're earlier call, despite being mostly together, to keep Shen in the loop. So, as she ignored the incoming call, she knew he'd catch a busy signal. And she'd catch he'll for it later, but she'd made her choice.
"And tell them what? That we almost have Scout and no idea where we're going?" Chane shook her head. "We at least need a location to give them."
While Drea drove and Nik rode shotgun, she and Jem crouched in the back amid three large, empty, animal crates. They'd hopped a ride when Drea, driving side streets NASCAR style, had caught up with Shen and, apparently Scout, a few miles south of the bridge.
When Uncle Leo had demanded they practice free running in and out of moving vehicles, she'd thought he was over the top. Turned out he was right. Who knew what other insane skills from their unique brand of training would prove useful tonight.
What she couldn't figure out was what Alli had been doing in the van that Scout had been loaded into, but Nik had confirmed it to be her inside and restrained. At least when they'd left Tripp's. Nik would periodically look ahead and give them updates. Whatever the backstory was there, at least they had another ally if Nik was right about Scout being doped again.
And so, she sat and waited as they carefully trailed their prey, switching off with Shen every so often to avoid appearing as though they were following. After all this, it would suck to tip their hand now.
Finally, Scout's van entered a warehouse by the docks in Manhattan's seaport district. They pulled over, parking on the street and Shen came to a stop behind them.
"Nik?" Chane asked.
He stared at the building a moment. "The men are unloading them. And there are a lot of other life signs in containers."
"Ok. Drea, add Nik to our call. Jem and Shen, go up and look for rooftop access. Nik, Drea and I will split up and scope out the ground level exterior. Keep in contact. No one goes in until recon is done and we've chosen the best point of entry, or we agree there's an emergency that takes precedence. Right now, our priorities are Scout and Alli. We'll wait on back up before freeing the rest if we can."
Jem raised an eye ridge. "Back up?"
She minimized the call to text their location to her dad. "Yup. Back up that's gonna kick our butts for this. Let's move."