She was looking him in the eye, Donnie realized. Hence, she was fully six inches shorter than April. Lighter, too. But her voice --
"It's not safe here," she said.
Mikey looked at the temporarily benign mousers, meandering over all the fresh Purple Dragon tracks. The Dragons were slowly coming to their senses, though one look at the mouser robots sent them staggering off as fast as they could manage. They took no notice of the four turtles backed into the shadows.
"She's got a point," Michaelangelo concluded.
"What about the sewers?" Leo suggested, pointing to a nearby manhole cover.
She turned white, plainly frightened by the thought. "We can't. They're crawling with rogue mousers. But I know a place --" She started to move off, then paused, waiting for them anxiously while snow swirled around her ankles. "There's room for all of you."
"Well, Leo?" Raphael asked quietly.
Leo looked at Donnie and Mikey, assessing their reactions. Donnie clearly wanted to go, and "It's not like we have any better ideas," Mikey summarized.
"Come on, then," Leo decided, swallowing his questions for now. It was, as Master Splinter might have said, a matter of trusting his gut.
She led them deeper into the city, moving at a rapid clip that belied her scrawny physique and pausing frequently to look and listen. Leo was reminded of a wild animal, circling warily back to its lair.
"Are we there yet?" Mikey stage whispered once, earning a smack on the head.
Yoshi peered around a corner, suppressing a smile. "Just a little further."
"Hey, why are the streets so empty?" Raphael asked. Aside from themselves, the Dragons and Yoshi, he hadn't seen another living soul. The emptiness was made doubly strange by the lightened windows visible here and there. The place wasn't deserted -- and yet it felt absolutely lifeless.
"It's after curfew," she whispered. "Only Dragon morons think they can break curfew without paying dearly."
Mikey scratched his head. "So... what about you?"
"That's different. I can get past the mousers." She stopped behind a dumpster and scoped the next street carefully, as she'd been doing every time they needed to cross open space. "Heads-up... warm patrol."
Leo took her shoulder and drew her back into the shadows with the rest of them. It felt smaller, frailer than April's. They held their collective breath as a dozen security personnel checked the area... all wearing Stockman's distinctive uniform
"Stockman runs this place now, huh?" Raphael whispered a few minutes after they'd passed.
"Like a prison," she assured him grimly, checking the area again. One of their greatest enemies, she knew, was impatience. She watched and waited for several minutes before deciding it was safe to cross.
Still no one in sight. She walked ahead, faltered -- and stopped.
"Uh... guys?" she asked in confusion. "What are we doing here?"
"Terrific." Mikey muttered under his breath, hooking his thumbs in his belt. "We're in the middle of a frozen wasteland full of rabid robots, neo-Dragons and Stockman flunkies, and suddenly our only ally can't remember diddlysquat."
Raph yanked his mask tails. Hard. "Could you be any more insensitive!"
"Probably not?" Mikey ventured, nearly earning himself another whiplash treatment.
Leo and Don exchanged glances. "You were taking us somewhere safer," Leo prompted the kid.
Her face cleared instantly. "Oh, that's right. We're almost there." She waved at the man-made mountain looming ahead in the twilight. "See? Home sweet home."
"Looks more like the junkyard to me," Raphael observed.
"It is," she said cheerfully. "Though I prefer to think of it as... oh, an unending supply of spare parts. Come on!"
"Uhh... Yoshi?" Mikey hung back. "What about all those 'Danger, Radioactive Waste, KEEP OUT' signs?"
"Oh, I put those up," she said proudly. "They work like a charm! We'll have the place pretty much to ourselves."
"What about the homeless people who used to live here?" Don asked. "The professor? Is he okay?"
Yoshi bowed her head and did not reply. The brothers exchanged looks of unhappy comprehension.
Leo expected that she had a little burrow dug into the rubbish somewhere, but she led them straight towards the biggest pile of junk and stopped beside the end of a large drainage pipe. It was set quite randomly into the rubble and so overhung with garbage as to be invisible from more than three feet away.
"Here we are," she announced. "The junker bunker. Watch your heads, gentlemen."
She wedged her fingers under the pipe cover, swinging the heavy metal disk with such ease that it must have been counterbalanced. Light flooded outward.
The brothers gaped as she led them in and downward, marveling at the hemispherical area that had been artfully carved from the junk pile's innards. Salvaged girders arched from side to side across the low ceiling, bracing up a motley assortment of corrugated sheet metal in fine quonset-hut style. Fluorescent lights dangled at intervals, fed by a lacework of electric cords. Framework bursting with vegetation and high-intensity lights stood in the near left corner; Donnie quickly identified it as a hydroponics setup. Further down was a curtained-off area -- a bathroom, probably. Oh, he hoped it had hot water...
To the right was a homey area complete with carpet, lamps, two couches, loose cushions, and electronic amenities such as a TV and radio. Beyond that was a very cobbled-together but fully functional kitchen; further yet, a partly curtained-off jumble of parts and benches and machinery that could only be a workshop.
"Who did all this, Yoshi?" Don asked incredulously.
"Oh, we did." She shut the cover carefully and came to stand beside him, and he ascertained that she was indeed even shorter than he was. In the fluorescent light, with her hood thrown back, he could see that her other eye was hidden by a single-lens wraparound goggle which did not entirely conceal the scar beneath.
But her good eye was the same emerald green, and her features were like an echo. It was as though someone had rewound April several years, half starved her, and then roughed her up to boot. Yoshi didn't look much older than twelve.
She was still talking. "I mean, I helped a little bit -- but most of the work was his." She pointed to the open body of water in the farthest part of the cavern; the surface was just beginning to heave with unseen movement.
"Dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun --"
Raph reached over and whacked Mikey, interrupting a fine rendition of the JAWS theme music. Right on cue, the surface of the water split, peeling away to reveal ridged green skin, razor-edged teeth, and gleaming yellow eyes. The crocodilian nightmare lifted itself from the dark waters, mouth opening wide as it spotted the four creatures gathered round Yoshi.
"Yoshi, dear child." The great mutant's voice was deep, but gentle and cultured. "Are those our friends with you? Or do my old eyes deceive me?"
"Leatherhead!" Mikey cried happily, running forward to greet his pal. The others were not far behind him.
"Michaelangelo. My dear friends." A beaming Leatherhead shook himself as they gathered round him, scattering liquid across the concrete floor, water streaming in rivers down his thick hide. His smile stretched literally from ear to ear. "I am so very glad to see you all... at last."