His arms and hands were still twitching with phantom shocks hours later after dragging himself out of that cursed room.
Donatello didn't know how long the session had been until he had found a clock. Three hours.
It seemed that Dr. Roland was trying to make up for lost time. How great.
He was lucky it was only three hours, really. Lucky that Dr. Roland was his only punishment, lucky that his assistance was needed with the wearhouse and that Dr. Stockman had been ordered to work with him on a new project immediately.
Really, his luck hadn't been too bad these days.
Yet lucky was certainly not the word he would have used to describe himself right now. Not when he was being watched like a hawk by Karai and some of the other elite ninja, like they were waiting for a sign that he wasn't aware of. Not when a thousand questions still raced through his overactive mind that he knew if he asked, would only be met with more suspicion.
What were three mutant turtles doing in New York when he knew for certain that he should have been the only one?
Why had the red banded turtle looked at him in utter shock like he had on the rooftop?
And why the shell was his mind so focused on them?
Why-
"Donatello, hurry up and get those canisters over here."
Donatello shook his head at himself for getting distracted again and walked over to the crate that they had delivered to the docs earlier in the day and grabbed two canisters of the green liquid and handed them to Stockman.
Mutagen, that's what he said it was called. Able to turn humans into animals- or in Shredder's hope, monsters. He and Stockman had been tasked with examining the mutagen in hopes of being able to modify it to make the monster army that Shredder had plans of.
He knew little of mutagen but that it changed the anatomy of animals and humans alike, garnered through snippets of listening in to conversations that he wasn't supposed to. He had hacked into the Foot's mainframe rather easily a few years ago, just to ease his curiosity, but hadn't been able to break into the encrypted files on his limited time.
This would be the first real time that he would be able to study it, even if it was just for the purpose of modifying it.
The only setback, of course, was having to study it with Stockman.
Stockman was an over inflated egotistical man that held himself to the highest esteem and looked down upon anyone that he deemed inferior to him- which was everyone. Yes, Stockman was certainly a genius, he couldn't deny that. But so was Einstein, and he wasn't a self obsessed miscreant.
In all fairness, Stockman seemed no happier to be working together than Donatello was. He scowled whenever he looked his direction, barked out orders like he was only there to be an assistant to Stockman, wrinkled his nose distastefully whenever Donatello spoke like he had tasted something bad.
Really, the man was grating on his already fraught nerves.
The obviousness of their aversion to each other became even more clear when they separated the canisters of mutagen between them and began to work alone, but not silently. Oh not silently. Stockman had an uncanny ability to make the most obnoxious sounds, and to do so continuously and gaining volume each time.
Donatello swore that the big headed fool was doing it just to annoy him. And it wasn't helping that his head was pounding and his hands were shaking and his knees were wobbling.
All around, this was not his day. So much for being lucky.
Suck it up, he told himself as he slipped on his gloves that he would need. He had made them specifically for himself so that he could handle acidic elements without causing damage to himself.
Donatello shook his head and told himself to focus on his work, trying to ignore his surroundings as he did.
It wasn't that hard, really, when the makeup of the mutagen alone amazed him.
He had never seen anything like it!
Shifting and morphing with whatever mixed with it, creating something new each time.
It was fascinating!
But how to modify it, or could it even be done?
Curious, Donatello took one of the many lab rats from the cage and carefully placed it in a glass container.
The rat squealed in panic and scuttled to the far side of his new containment unit, using it's little paws in an attempt to climb out.
Donatello hesitated, not wanting to cause the poor animal any discomfort, but also knowing that Stockman would just as well use a human test dummy if he didn't beat him to the punch. Sighing, Donatello grabbed the canister, said a silent apology, and dipped the contents of the canister into the container with the rat.
The rat let out a high pitched squeal and attempted to jump out of the container, only to fail and fall on it's back into the goo.
The rat emitted several high pitched squeaks of terror and tried to jump out, but it's little body had gotten stuck in the goo and it seemed to have too good a hold on him, seeming to grow on him, literally.
"You moron!" Donatello heard Stockman yell before the container and the rat were yanked from the table by Stockman and he was rushing toward one of the cages.
The cage was yanked open by one hand and the container and screaming mouse thrown in by the other.
Stockman turned back to a dumbfounded Donatello with a glare.
"Do you know what you're doing? If that had gotten out, I would have no problem explaining to Shredder that it was your incompetence that led to the destruction of this building!" Stockman stated in an arrogant tone.
Donatello nearly laughed at the statement. What was a little of the goo going to do? And to make such a fuss over one tiny, little m-
Mouse? What the shell kind of mouse is that?
Donatello stared in shock as that same tiny, little mouse that he had put into the container grew several feet high, it's once cute face was one of animalistic fury as it snarled and bared it's abnormally long teeth at them.
Now, he was no expert on rats by any means, but he was quite certain that no animal was supposed to look like that, change like that, or act like that.
"What the shell was that?" Donatello heard himself demand.
"Have you never studied mutagen before?" Stockman asked with an obvious air of superiority. When Donatello managed a shake of his head, Stockman scoffed and muttered something about, "how far I've fallen, being made to team up with a Munnie who doesn't even know how mutagen works."
Donatello ignored Stockman's rant and watched in absolute amazement as the rat's fur changed from that soft silkiness that he had petted only a few moments ago into sharp steely-looking threats. It's tail was several feet longer than it was and even the thin fur on it looked razor sharp. Everything about the once cute animal had turned deadly, all the way to it's now blade like claws.
Donatello slowly made his way to the cage, fascinated in every sense of the word by what he was seeing. The transformation had lasted only a few minutes tops, and yet the animal's anatomy had been totally and irrevocably changed.
And yet, despite the fierce and deadly exterior that the animal possessed, Donatello watched as the obviously frightened animal cowered against the side of the cage, eyes flickering around it.
Donatello turned away from the animal and grabbed a syringe and then turned to where they kept the rat food, picking several small cubes of frozen meat, and carefully as not to startle the animal, tossed the meat inside the cage.
The rat's once cute nose sniffed the air experimentally and raised it's overgrown head at the scent of meat, carefully making it's way toward the cubes, which now seemed rather small in comparison to the creature before him. The rat didn't seem to care about the much too small portion of food and quickly swallowed it, putting itself in the perfect position for Donatello to stick the syringe in and quickly pull out a full measure of blood.
The animal roared it's fury at what he perceived as an attack, using it's claws in an attempt to get some much needed distance between them.
Donatello had quickly jumped out of the way as soon as he could pull out the syringe and put his speed to good use, getting as far away from the furious animal as he could, walking on shaking legs back to his microscope.
Donatello ignored Stockman's laughter and focused on not messing up the sample, certain that he didn't want to try that again, and dropped some of the red liquid on the thin glass under the microscope.
Setting the rest of the blood aside, Donatello leaned his head forward and rested his eyes to the eye piece, carefully adjusting the height until he could see the sample clearly.
It was like nothing that Donatello had ever seen before. He could clearly see how the mutagen had changed the rat's blood, how every drop of blood was fused with the other, like the mutagen had become intangled with it, which was what Donatello suspected. There was a slight green tint to the scarlet liquid that Donatello suspected was also because of the infusion of the mutagen.
I wonder...
Donatello glanced at Stockman out of the corner of his eyes and watched as the man attempted to strike up a conversation with a female Foot ninja, who so obviously wasn't interested that it was as painful to watch as it was hilarious.
Content that he wasn't being watched and wasn't about to be thwarted, Donatello picked up one of the scalpels and made a thin cut along his wrist. Blood quickly began to trickle out of the small wound and Donatello swiftly grabbed another piece of coverslip and allowed a few drops of blood to fall onto it before fitting the glass onto the stage. Donatello leaned his head down once more, staring intently at the eerily similar blood sample, complete with the green tint.
So this was how he was mutated. Not a huge surprise, but good to know nonetheless.
An image of the three turtles from the previous mission popped into his head before he could stop it. Okay, so they were all mutated. So what? Why did it bother him like this?
Shaking his head, he caught sight of the other canisters of unopened mutagen and a curiosity began to form. Ignoring the open canister beside him, Donatello grabbed one of the closed canisters and made his way to the other rats, picking one at random, and putting it inside a small glass container similar to the one he had put the previous rat in. He tilted the goo into the glass container and quickly opened another cage separate from the already mutated rat and placed it inside, locking the door securely behind him.
His eyes never left the rat as it squeaked and eventually roared it's disapproval as it's furry body grew in size. It's tail and teeth grew several feet but unlike the other rat, it's fur appeared to be the same soft hairs that it had been before, not seeming to be threatening in anything other than size. And yet, despite how nonthreatening it appeared- in comparison to the other rat, of course- it flared it's nostrils like a bull and continually charged at Donatello, ramming head long into the bars of the cage.
Donatello glanced at the canister of mutagen in his hand, then at the one on the desk.
They had both been the same type of rat, so that couldn't account for the change, same environment. Everything had been the same except that he had used two different canisters of mutagen.
Donatello's always overactive mind quickly supplied him the facts for his analysis.
So it had to be the mutagen, then. Each canister of mutagen creates something new with different characteristics each time, no matter how similar they are before hand.
If Donatello were to test it, he would be willing to bet that if he were to mutate two more rats with the same canisters, they would appear very akin to their counterpart.
So each canister produces something similar, but no two canisters can make an exact replica of the other. Some physical characteristic will always be different.
Something tug at the back of the genius turtle's mind, something that he couldn't quite reach.
It wasn't until he went to grab another rat to prove his hypothesis that it hit him, knocking the breath from his lungs and nearly made him drop the canister that he was holding.
His ever picture perfect memory helped to freeze him in his tracks as what should have been so obvious seemed to slap him in the face.
The three turtles didn't have a single different physical characteristic, and neither did he.
Sorry this took me so long. There have been a lot of family stuff going on and with Thanksgiving and all... So I got the whole 'each canister of mutagen creates something different' idea from the 2012 nickelodeon show when they introduced Slash. I had always wondered why Slash looked so different than our four turtles, and this was all I could think up to explain it to myself.
I will be updating the story evey Monday and Friday probably, just to give you a time frame. I meant to update yesterday but some family stuff happened.