𝚁𝙰𝙸𝚈𝙰


I crawled out through my window and onto the roof, hardly able to contain my excitement long enough to slide it shut behind me. I spun and rushed towards Leonardo, who wrapped me up in a tight hug.

"Did you miss me?" He teased.

"Go back to Australia," I mumbled. His resulting laugh told me that he knew as well as I did that I didn't mean it. Leo released me with a big smile.

"How've you been?"

I shrugged. "Bored. Tired. Dying at school and work every day. The usual." I shoved my hands into my hoodie pocket. "What about you? How was it Down Under?"

"Warmer than here. Everyone talked really weird, too.

"I love their accents," I said, grinning and speaking in an Australian accent, "they're really sweet."

"Don't," he begged. "Please, no. I don't wanna deal with you and your accents already, let's just go."

My grin was interrupted by a long yawn. "Sorry," I said, blinking hard to rid the heaviness from my eyelids. "I've been really tired lately. The others are already at the lair?"

But suddenly, there was that brotherly concern that'd been present since the day I met him.

"You sure you wanna come, Raiy? You should get some sleep."

I just smiled and shrugged, not wanting to worry him. But he was already worried.

"Have they been getting worse?"

I considered lying to him, but over the past two years Leo had developed this uncanny way of detecting every one of my lies, so I knew it was pointless.

"Yeah," I admitted quietly, looking down at my feet. "But I think it was because I was worried about you guys."

He watched me with sad eyes. "I'm sorry."

I shook my head. "It's fine, Leo, it's not even your fault. Let's just go."

"You sure?"

"Yes!" It's not like I could sleep anyways.

"Alright," he was grinning now, but still waiting for any sign of hesitation or reluctance from me. "Raph really wants to see you. It's kinda gross, actually."

"Absolutely disgusting," I agreed sarcastically, following him across the roof.

"It is. He would've came to get you himself, but he's a bit preoccupied."

I had to fight off another yawn. "Preoccupied with what?" I asked suspiciously. But that evil turtle's only intention was to pique my curiosity and piss me off by refusing to elaborate.

"Oh, nothing," he replied dismissively, then changed the subject. "I'll brief you on the mission when we get to the lair."

"You're such a dickhead."

─── ─ 影の啓示 ─ ───

The explosions from the Footclan's attack on the lair two years ago, unfortunately, left it irreparable, forcing the mutants to search for a new place. It took a while, but after a few weeks, Mikey came across what would soon become their new home. And by the end of the summer, they'd successfully transformed it. And maybe it was just my familiarity with the sewer's atmosphere, but the new location didn't seem to smell nearly as bad as the last.

Leo hopped over the turnstiles in the circular entrance to the lair and turned left, up the stairs to the first landing where the turtles and Sensei sat talking around two mismatched picnic tables. I followed close on his heels, anxious to see them. I heard one of the chairs fall over with a metallic clatter and then Mikey was pushing his brother aside to tackle me in his signature bear hug.

"Raiya! Oh man, I missed you!"

I laughed and hugged him back. "Hey, Mikey. I missed you too. It's been quiet without you around."

"Really?" He released me from his death grip, grinning broadly.

"Yes," Splinter agreed. "It's been quite relaxing."

I slapped a hand over my mouth, unable to believe the savagery Splinter had employed so calmly in that burn. The others were loving it. Leo and Raphael exploded in laughter. Donnie had the same reaction as me, while Splinter smiled amusedly. I guess years of listening to the boys bickering taught him something.

"You need some ice for that burn?" I teased, elbowing the youngest turtle. But he was too busy staring in awe at his father.

"When did Sensei get so savage?" He mused. I shrugged and stepped past him and Leo, smiling at Donnie.

"Hey, D." I held out my hand, hitting his open palm then the back of our hands together, fist bumping then flattening my hand and hooking our thumbs, and releasing to finger gun upwards in unison; a handshake we'd created as an alternative greeting when I discovered the reason Donnie was so awkward with hugging was that he didn't particularly like it.

Raphael stood from his seat, walking in my direction around the table and scooping me up into a hug. I grinned, throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face in the hollow of his neck, inhaling his smell and feeling his heart beating with mine after so long.

"I missed you," I whispered.

He squeezed me tighter. "Missed you too, Em."

Holy hell. Even after two years, my heart still caught on that name. Something tickled my hand—a hair. Oh my–

"Holy shit!" Immediately, I jumped out of Raph's arms, crying: "there's a rat on you!"

Mikey started laughing, and I shot him a glare. Rats are huge!

"I know," Raph said flatly. "It's annoying the hell outa me."

I stared at him incredulously, my eyes saying what the hell? Confused, I watched him reach a hand behind his head and bring it away with a ball of silver and black and white fur clinging to it.

"We found him right before we left."

"Oh my god." I stared down at the sugar glider joey. Its long black tail and perked ears and shiny black eyes and tiny, tiny hands. Everything about him was just so small. His pink little nose, his face, his whiskers. My heart clenched because the poor guy was too small. "He's too small," I said, looking up at Raph, then glancing at the brothers, who watched in interest. "He shouldn't be away from his parents for another month."

"We found him making some weird noise in the middle of the night," Leo explained.

"He was by his mom's body," Donnie finished.

Mikey nodded sadly and watched me with hopeful blue eyes. "But you know how to take care of him, right?"

"Sugar Gliders are illegal in the city," I pointed out, but Leo was prepared with an alternative.

"We were thinking you could give him to the zoo, if it's not too much trouble."

The zoo? Quickly, I ran the scenario through my head:

Hey, my friends illegally brought an orphaned sugar glider joey from Australia and were wondering if you could take him off their hands even though they're totally illegal to own here! You interested? Worst case scenario they say no and report me and the authorities kill the glider. Shit, I can't risk that happening. But I can't illegally take care of him either, Liv would kill me and if I get caught I'll get in way more trouble. I can't risk that either…So which is the lesser evil?

I sighed. "Yeah. Okay, I'll call and ask if they can take him." I looked down at the glider curled up in Raphael's palm, unable to believe how cute he was with his forefeet wrapped around one of the turtle's large fingers. "He likes you?"

"Yeah."

Mikey picked his chair off the ground and plopped down in it. "Bro's been chilling on Raph's head ever since we found him," he said absently, picking up a slice of pizza and shoving half of it in his mouth.

My eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Really?"

Donnie nodded. "I believe he's identified Raph as his new mother."

Raphael frowned, not liking that particular word, or the thought of having a child, probably. But it sure made Mikey snicker.

"That would make sense," I agreed, my eyes falling back to the glider, who was staring up at me with his dark, wide-set eyes, nose twitching and ears perked. I reached a tentative hand out slowly, allowing him to sniff my fingers before gently petting him.

"Holy shit," I murmured, making Raphael laugh. "He is so soft." The glider began furiously sniffing at my bracelet, a simple cord of red braided leather that looped twice around my wrist; a gift from Raphael before he left for Australia.

Then, the sugar glider was sniffing the sleeve of my red hoodie.

God, I wear a lot of red.

"Do you think he likes red?" I asked, holding my arm stationary as he migrated closer to it.

"No," Raphael replied dryly, his single word carrying more sarcasm than mine did. I grinned, feeling the tickle of the glider's claws gripping my thumb. He climbed into the palm of my hand, grasping and chewing on my bracelet.

"That's no fair," Mikey pouted. "He wouldn't even let me touch him."

"Raiya works at a zoo," Leo pointed out. "She's better with animals than with people. Of course it likes her."

"It is a he," I corrected, sitting down between Donnie and Raph. "And he is officially Red. And why are people assuming my job at a zoo gave me my abilities? I was born an animal whisperer."

Raph snorted and I kicked him under the table for it, ensuing an intense game of footsies.

"How'd the mission go?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could manage, trying to keep my focus divided equally between Red, winning footsies, and talking with the others.

"Boring," Mikey grumbled. Donnie nodded his agreement, sipping one of his favourite Japanese juice boxes.

"We didn't find anything," Leo admitted bitterly. "They weren't in their usual black getup so it wasn't easy to find them. And even when we did, we couldn't get close. They never moved at night and they never left the city. We tried following up every night, but we never found anything. It took Donnie three days to get into the traffic cameras–"

Said turtle all but slammed his juice box on the table. "There were triple the regulated amount of firewalls and I almost got a virus twice! Not to mention I've never hacked anything remotely Australian before! One wrong move and they would've locked us out of the system and tracked us down before we could say chimichanga." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, frowning deeply.

"Sounds like they were expecting you guys," I said, petting Red and kicking blindly at Raphael's foot.

Leonardo nodded, his eyes lighting up while the gears in his head turned. "I think they were," he agreed. "Why else would they be so careful? Daytime has the most risk and it's the only time they did anything. I've never seen the Foot so organized, they used decoys, fake identities, disguises, false leads, they even threatened the locals to keep quiet." He clenched his hands into fists. "They know how we work and they know how to keep us in the dark. They're not taking any chances this time."

"Yeah, cuz last time we kicked their butts," Mikey added knowledgeably, licking pizza sauce off his fingers.

"I wish I could've gone with you guys," I muttered, watching Red carefully crawl further up my arm. I bit my lip, containing my annoyance when Raph successfully kicked my ankle. "So you didn't find anything?"

The leader shook his head solemnly.

"They were looking for someone," Raph announced loudly, the first thing he'd said in a while surprising me enough to halt our game of footsie.

"We don't know that," Leo argued. It sounded as if they'd had this argument before. Multiple times.

"Well why else would they move to that shit hole?" He countered. "I didn't see them trying to blow anything up. Did you?" When his brother had no answer, he continued. "They didn't buy or trade anything, Donnie checked. So if they weren't trying to kill anyone, and they didn't buy any illegal weapons or some shit, why else would they be there? To admire the sand and melt their skin off?"

"Maybe it was intel," Leo offered.

His brother scoffed. "What would some dude across the world know that someone in New York doesn't?"

"It could've been a decoy mission," Donnie interjected. "To throw us off or distract us from something."

"They wouldn't pack their shit and fly to that desert without a reason."

I would, I thought to myself, recalling that Australia was very high on the list of places I wanted to see.

"Can't you track their flight?" I asked, petting Red as he nestled into a fold of my hoodie on my arm. "Donnie found their flight last time, can't you just do that again and see if they brought anything back? Maybe jack their ride, too."

The genius mulled over the idea for a moment, weighing the possibilities and whatnot, adjusting his glasses on his nose. "I mean, I–I guess, yeah. I could try. It might be impossible to tell, but I'll keep an eye on air traffic."

Leo nodded appreciatively, then said to me, "good call."

I grinned, sending a silent 'thanks' his way.

"So what'd you do without us?" Mikey asked.

"Well, I almost failed my first social exam," I recalled grimly. "So that was good. Um, but other than that, nothing exciting."

Leo raised an inquisitive brow. "You been training?"

"Hell yeah. I'm gonna kick your ass tomorrow. Right, Sensei?"

Everyone's attention turned to the rat, who hadn't contributed to the conversation in a while.

Initially, I was shocked. But then I almost exploded with laughter. "Is he asleep?"

Leo was laughing quietly as he stared at Splinter, sleeping soundly in his chair. "Yeah."

"You guys must've tired him already," I joked, petting Red and allowing him to grasp my index finger in his hands. "I should probably get back anyways. I got a shitload of homework to do tomorrow and I gotta call about Red."

"Already?" Mikey tilted his head back and released a loud groan, making me laugh.

"I'll be back tomorrow," I said, standing from my seat with Red still attached to my hoodie sleeve. Raphael got to his feet as well, which I didn't protest.

I held up my hand in a half wave goodbye. "I'll see you later."


author's note

I'm really sorry this took so long, but to make up for it, I made the chapter extra long!

Isn't Red adorable? Lolll I think it's hella cute that Raiya named him Red.

oMFG YOU GUYS RAIYA AND RAPH ARE TOO CUTE

AHHHHH DID Y'ALL CATCH HIS CUTE ASS NICKNAME FOR HER!?

HE LITERALLY CALLS HER EM BECAUSE IF Y'ALL REMEMBER FROM TSS RAIYA MENTIONED SHE GOES BY HER MIDDLE NAME WHILE HER FIRST NAME IS ACTUALLY EMMALYN I CAAAANT AHHH

Mmkay so I made a map of the turtles' new lair, it's on my Flickr (AfterDaybreak) and Quotev (AfterDaybreak) if you wanna check it out. It's not to scale and I couldn't get the dimensions and angles and shit exactly right so it's not super accurate but whatever lol it took forever to make.

Anyways, I'm back in school, which sucks ass but it's my last year so at least that's good. I'm gonna be spending a lot of my time not failing my classes, so updates are gonna be slow.. even though they're already kinda slow lol sorry! But ya girl finally got her license! so now I get to drive my ratchet ass car to school every day and im so (not) excited.

I have to deal with this annoying guy in my photography class for the third year in a row and I'm so done with him but I'm too nice to tell him to leave me alone so I have to pretend he's my best friend and it's honestly killing me. Just my luck that the only guy that notices me is annoying af and cant take a fcking hint ugghhh

But there's this hella cute guy in my math class and hes smart and we were dance partners in PE class a few years ago and hes so nice but he looks right through me so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that sucks but I'll keep y'all updated on this guy lol Operation: I Need A Grad Date is a go

WOW I got off topic.

I love you guys and I hope you all enjoyed this loooong chapter!

Please review! :D