13. A Second Chance
Splinter was content remaining in the lair. He had trained his sons well, and trusted them to accomplish their goals swiftly and discretely. However, after being secluded in the lair for so long, he became very in-tune with the space. Which meant the arrival of anything or anyone outside of routine was easily detectable.
Especially when that someone or something was breathing so heavily it could be heard over the echo of the waterslide.
Splinter peaked his head out from his den, ears alert and eyes scanning the area. The source of the panting was another mutant, curled up on the floor of Donnie's lab and quietly sobbing. The mutant was apparently female, with large white-gray wings and a tail. Messy waves of dirty blonde hair fell to hunched shoulders that shook with her quiet cries.
She turned, hearing him enter, as if she was startled. Her glacier green eyes were familiar, but larger than before. Crystalline with tears over flushed cheeks.
"Ardyn?"
She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her feet closer to her body. They were larger too, with three toes and raised heels with a fourth claw on the end. Her clothes were torn and bloodstained, though she showed no injury on her body.
He approached cautiously, sympathy taking over. "Take deep breaths, now. You're safe. Everything will be alright."
He knelt beside her, putting a hand on her knee to steady her. Then she did something she'd never done before: she launched herself into his arms, clinging to his robes as if her life depended on it. Her cries were less quiet now, the cold tears soaking down to his fur. He patted her hair to soothe her.
"Everything is alright, you're safe now. Just breathe," he cooed.
She took a moment or two to calm herself before he gripped her shoulders and pulled back to look at her, "What happened?"
...
The turtles entered the lair boisterously, as per usual. Leo's mind was working overtime. They needed to track Ardyn. No doubt the Foot would be looking for her, if they hadn't already found her. She'd been through a hell of a night, according to April. And Ibis was most likely a casualty of the cause, but they would need to find her too. Despite their differences, she did what she had promised. She had wounded Shredder, and had gotten Ardyn out of their hands. In his opinion, she deserved better than being left to rot in whatever alley corner she'd landed in.
"Leonardo," Master Splinter called.
His head snapped up.
The gentle but urgent gesture from his father made him hustle. In the back of his room, the most secluded part of the lair aside from Master Splinter's den, sat a mutant he hand never met before.
He froze.
She was wrapped in one of Raphael's knit blankets, though there was something on her back beneath it. Her elongated feet were tucked as close to her as possible, and a long tail wrapped around her seated form. She looked up, crystalline eyes meeting his.
"Ardyn?"
She gave a silent nod, not trusting her voice.
He rushed in and knelt beside her. She was bigger now, not quite so humanly fragile. But she still looked so scared. Her clawed hands had fewer fingers than before, and her ears ended in a soft point. He wasn't sure what to do now. April had said she was mutated in the lab, but he wasn't sure exactly what she'd mutated into. If Bebop and Rocksteady were so recognizable in their animal forms, why wasn't he sure what Ardyn had become.
"Are you alright? What happened?"
She looked back down to her knees, "Shredder. He did this to me."
"What exactly is... 'this'?"
She looked offended immediately, standing and throwing off the blanket, "He made me a freak!"
She was taller now, too. She couldn't have been more than 5'7" before. Now she was pushing 5'11". Her tail swished clumsily behind her, as if subconsciously. The misshapen lumps under the blanket were wings... big wings, like a bat's. But they were a white-gray instead of black, and were only connected by two small arms beneath her shoulder blades.
In all honesty, she'd never seemed so beautiful.
"It wasn't enough to bleed me dry, he had to ruin me first!"
She may have sounded angry, but tears were starting to fall again. He pulled her in for a hug, careful not to squeeze her wings. she latched onto him, claws digging into his sides. He grit his teeth to ignore the pain. "You're not ruined. And you're not a freak. We're going to figure this out. Shredder won't get away with everything he's done, I swear to you."
"I can't say like this," she weeped, her tear ducts aching from overproduction.
"Everything is going to be okay. For now, just breathe. We need your help bringing him down," Leo tried his best to soothe.
"What am I going to do?" she breathed.
"You can stay with us in the lair," Leo held her arms as she pulled back to look at him. "You can work with Donnie until we figure something else out. You're not alone anymore, Ardyn. You don't have to be scared."
She took a shaky breath, "Okay."
He nodded his head to the others, "Come on, they'll want to know you're safe."
She gave a nervous nod.
They stepped out into the main room, where the other three turtles were talking to April and a face Ardyn had never met before.
Mikey was the first to see her. Despite how drastically different she felt, he recognized her immediately. His face broke out into a big smile and he rushed over to her.
He engulfed her in a hug that was a little too tight as Leo hovered protectively in the background. "Hi Angelcakes! Where have you been? Ibis said you got kidnapped and then April said you were in the lab and broke a window and- Oh! Cool wings! Do they work? Can you fly? You look buff now, can you pick me up?"
Leo put a hand on his shoulder to calm him.
"Good to see yer okay, shorty," Raphael gave her a pat on the top of the shoulder.
"Great, four swamp things and now a cave-dweller," the new guy remarked. "Anybody else missing? Does Bigfoot rent a room here too?"
Ardyn turned her cold eyes on him as the others turned. "Excuse me?"
He looked directly at her, as if surprised she could speak. She stomped over to him, hitting her wings on those closest by and dragging her tail on the concrete, "Say that to my face, you -"
Leo grabbed her arm, "Easy, there. Casey was just joking." He glared at Casey, "Weren't you."
Ardyn shrugged him off and turned, accidentally slapping Casey with a wing.
"Where'd Ibis end up?" Raphael asked.
Ardyn slapped her palm to her forehead, "Oh my god, Ibis!"
"Did you see where she went?"
"it would've been a miracle if she could've gone anywhere," Ardyn answered. "She shoved me through the window, and I nearly tore my arm out of socket to catch myself, but she was almost unconscious before we broke the glass."
Leo's head snapped over, "Raph, search the alleys around TCRI. We've got to find her before someone else does. Keep comms on and update Donnie on the half hour. We don't have long before sunup."
Raphael nodded gruffly and turned to go.
...
It took an hour of meticulously searching through back streets and narrow alleys before he found her. She hadn't made it far at all. In fact, it looked like she stayed right where she'd fallen. The scent of blood was thick on her, soaked into her clothing and running onto the ground beneath her. It sank a rock in his gut to look at. He'd never seen anything so broken in his life. Her facial features were distorted by bruising and swelling, and the twisting position she was lying in could only be comfortable to someone who couldn't feel anything.
"Donnie, come in."
"Go for Donnie."
"I found her."
Silence filled the line.
He wasn't sure what to do now. Surely he couldn't move her, but he definitely couldn't leave her there.
"Check for a pulse," Donnie instructed, as if he'd been waiting.
Raphael had seen people do it in the movies, two fingers to the neck, just under the jaw. He wasn't sure what it was supposed to feel like. She was cold, her skin was soft and her neck squished a little under the pressure of his huge finger. But that was it.
"Raph, did you find a pulse?" Donnie called again.
He should've felt something, right?
He moved his finger, brushing something cold and metal that was covered by her dark hair. It gave him pause. If it was something that had killed her, he wasn't sure he wanted to see it. A knife in someone's neck wasn't an image easily forgotten. But he found himself pushing the greasy locks away anyway, revealing a dart.
An empty dart.
"Raph, do you copy?"
"I- I'm not-"
Silence.
He pulled his hand back.
"Leo said to bring her back."
"Copy."
He'd never been so delicate with anything in his life. Her limp body was heavy, her head lolling back before he tipped her up to rest it on his shoulder. He didn't care about the mess, or the smell of blood and sweat that burned into his nose. He held her close and started the trek home.
Upon entering the lair, dawn peaking over the horizon, he found himself anxious. How would Ardyn react to seeing her sister like this? Sure they weren't close, but Ibis had just saved her life. Now she was a bloody mess, with nothing left to give.
Donnie was the first to see him, ushering him into the lab where he had cleared a table.
Raphael set her down as gently as he could, watching her head loll to the side.
Donnie checked for her pulse first on her wrist, then moved his hand to her neck expertly. His pause let Raphael know he'd found it.
"She's been injected," Donnie noted softly.
"Injected with what?" Leo asked as he stepped into the lab.
"It's the same as the dart April gave us," Donnie answered, moving Ibis's hair to see it better. "It's empty. The mutagen is in her system."
"Then why didn't she change like Ardyn did?" Leo asked.
"For the mutagen to take full affect, it has to circulate through the body," Donnie explained. "It's possible her heart stopped before the mutagen could make it's rounds."
"So, if we start her heart again, and the mutagen goes all the way around, it could save her?" Raphael asked.
Donnie looked pensive, "I guess it's possible, but-"
"Then do it," he ordered.
Donnie looked from him to Leo, who was also looking at Raphael.
"If she could hurt Shredder like this, then she could help us take him down," Raphael reasoned.
Leo nodded, "Do it, Donnie."
Donnie pushed up his glasses and turned back to grab something from his toolbox.
"Oh, first we should probably take out the-" he removed the dart from her neck.
Her eyes snapped open.
She started thrashing, her skin warming at an alarming rate. She whacked Donnie's hand away from her, sending the dart flying somewhere off into the lab.
"Pin her down!" Leo ordered.
They all grabbed a limb, each using their full weight to hold her down. She thrashed harder, her torso lifting from the metal table. Gutteral screams erupted from her throat, drawing in Mikey and Ardyn. Mikey grabbed one of the legs Donnie was struggling to detain. Ardyn watched in horror as her body convulsed and shifted on the table. She was growing taller, her muscles stretched and expanded as she thrashed. Raphael was thrown over the table, colliding with Leo and knocking him from his grip. She rolled and set her feet free before rolling off the opposite side of the table and falling to the ground.
The table flipped on it's side as Ibis stood, wings breaking from her back and spreading out to their full length. Her right arm was considerably larger than her left, and the markings of her tattoo were glowing like molten rock.
Ardyn dove in, tackling Ibis to the concrete and erupting in a bomb of cold smoke as her ice subdued the terrible heat that radiated from Ibis.
It halted her fits, forcing her burning red eyes to meet Ardyn's stare. Recognition flooded them as her breaths began to slow. The heat lessened and the stone armor on her arm faded away. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she reached up to touch Ardyn's face.
As soon as the clawed hand came into her field of view, Ibis stopped. She eyed it for a moment, turning it over and wiggling her fingers curiously. Her eyes trailed down to the rest of her body, where her mutation had torn through her clothing. The left leg of her jeans had torn, where her marking had become a long tail, and her already-ruined tank top was barely covering her chest. Ibis crossed her arms to cover herself, nearly jumping from her skin when her wings fell over her.
"Are you two okay?" Donnie called from the other side of the flipped table.
Ardyn stood, "Get me a blanket."
Raphael rushed out and was back within seconds, holding a tightly-knit red throw. He handed it to her, and she dropped down to wrap Ibis.
Ibis maneuvered the blanket under her wings and wrapped it around her like a towel, tugging the torn gray cloth from around her neck and standing. She wobbled a bit before pushing up onto her toes and looking down at her new feet. She wiggled her toes and brushed her hair from her face before looking up.
The shocked stares of the four brothers made her self conscious. "What?"
Leo and Donnie exchanged a look, then Donnie spoke, "What do you mean, 'what'? You just threw Raphael over a table with one arm."
A snort escaped Ibis's lips and she slapped the hand that wasn't holding the blanket up over her mouth. She cleared her throat, "Sorry, Red."
"Hey, don't worry about it, Sparky," he answered, a small, breathless smile on his face.
Ibis smiled back.