Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT. Also, nearly the end of the story, guys... Don't whether I'm happy or not about that...
Apparently years of being hated had made the Shredder immune to death glares, because the one Karai was directing at him had no effect. It didn't deter him at all, even, as he unlocked the cell and crouched beside her.
"My daughter..." His armoured hand stroked her cheek, then gently unhooked the mask around her mouth as he leaned in. Karai lay frozen, letting him get closer and closer-
"Aargh!"
-before she spat into his good eye.
"I told you: I'm not your daughter!" she snapped. "I belong with the Hamato Clan, and nothing you do or say will ever change that!"
He slapped her hard across the face. "Unappreciative child. I took you in, raised you, cared for you-"
"Cared for me?! You abused me and took advantage of me!" Karai glared up at him. "And I'm not a child; I'll be eighteen in two weeks. Though you forgetting my birthday wouldn't be anything new. You know, my family would never forget it - in fact, just yesterday Michelangelo was trying to make me write out a list of what gifts I wanted so they could try and find them for me."
"Material possessions are worthless, Karai."
"I never said I would've asked for material possessions. Especially not from Leonardo."
He growled lowly and Karai tensed for another blow, a rebellious smirk curving her lips. To her surprise, none came. Instead, Shredder left them in a stale silence for several long minutes, until finally, "... I could never forget your birthday."
Despite the colossal loss of respect she had experienced in regards to Oroku Saki, an old, childhood hope for affection flared inside her. "You couldn't?"
"No," he answered slowly, "for the day you were born was the day I..."
"Yes?" she prompted impatiently.
"The day I swore to take all Hamato Yoshi had from him!"
An involuntary cry of disappointment ripped through the girl before him. Over seventeen years on, and the sting of coming second to revenge still didn't hurt any less. However, Karai had too much pride in herself to weep in front of him. "... My mother would be ashamed of you."
His response was his palm striking her cheek again as the heel of his fist slammed into her stomach with so much force she thought she might vomit. Still, she gasped out, "Hate you! She'd hate you as much as I do!"
In spite of Shredder's continued assault, Karai shouted furiously at him until she didn't have enough breath, and which point she simply endured his wrath in silence. She squeezed her eyes shut and imagined herself in Splinter's dojo, sparring with an angry Raphael. For some reason this thought comforted her, so when she inevitably blacked out, it was to the warming falsehood that Donatello would be along soon to treat her injuries and give her a mug of tea like usual.
The exterior of Shredder's lair was lined with Foot-Bots, each scanning the area for danger. One stationed on the roof detected a flicker of movement in the road, but when it whipped its head around to look, there was nothing to be seen. What the robot didn't realise was that there had indeed been movement, it was just cleverly disguised. What looked like a slab of moving asphalt slid into an alleyway, then latched itself into the large van concealed within. As the Stealth Bike attached fully to the Shellraiser, Raph emerged and relayed the status of the security.
"They are all robotic?" Splinter inquired.
"Hai, Sensei," the red-clad turtle confirmed. "They normally are nowadays."
"Then we need not worry about holding back. Is everybody ready?"
"Hai, Sensei!"
"And is everybody clear on the plan?"
"Hai, Sensei!"
"Michelangelo?"
"Hai, Sensei," he whined, before hesitating and hastily adding, "but you might wanna run it out again real quick 'cause I don't think Casey got it."
"Hey, I get it just fine!"
"We will dispose of the robots on guard together as swiftly and efficiently as possible - remember, we do not want to cause a scene, so take the battle inside at the first chance we get." He went on to explain, "No doubt this will alert the other members of Shredder's circle; Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo and Casey will take care of them, while April uses her powers to help Leonardo and I find Miwa and the Shredder."
"What if they're not together, Sensei?" asked April.
"In that case, you would tell me where Shredder is, then go after Miwa with Leonardo."
"You can't find Shredder alone, Sensei," protested Leo.
"And I'll have Kar- uh, Miwa there to help me if I get in trouble," April added, before clarifying, "For your peace of mind, not 'cause I think I'm gonna need help." When Splinter still didn't seem convinced, she finished with, "Besides, if anything goes wrong I'll call one of the guys; I have my T-Phone."
"... Very well," he relented. "Please, remember to be careful, all of you."
"Yes, Master Splinter," they promised in unison.
"... You will too, right Sensei?"
Splinter's eyes softened. "Yes, Michelangelo. I will be careful too."
A moment of seriousness fell, each turtle's eyes turning white.
Leo frowned dangerously. "Let's go."
However, there was one stage quite early on in the plan that hadn't been fool-proofed.
Donatello had discovered a long time ago that being an inventor while living with three brothers often meant that prototypes and models were destroyed (especially when one of said brothers was Mikey). This led him to keep at least one secret, up-to-date copy of anything that was small enough for him to do so, and just detailed blueprints for anything too big. T-Phones weren't too big, and since they were so liable to break or self-destruct, Donnie had a small stash of them in his lab. A stash that was left in relatively plain view in case one of his siblings needed one in a hurry. A stash that Casey had casually mentioned once when he came home with a totalled phone. A stash that a black-gloved hand reached into and lessened by one.
Since it was out of action, there wasn't a passcode or anything personal on the device. Just the bare essentials programmed into a T-Phone: links to call the others on the network (with an emergency dial for the Cheese Phone), a camera, an Internet link, a bare music section, and a tracker. The tracker was coded, but Donnie had written the code in a notebook on his desk, so it wasn't hard to crack. As the device configured and a selection of colourful dots began blinking on the screen's map of New York, Angel smiled.
Foot-Bots may be adaptive, but in the Turtles' opinions, no matter how much they copied, they still fell just as hard.
"Dudes, you'd think Shred-Head would have these upgraded by now!" stated Mikey, snapping one of the robot's head off with his nunchaku.
"We banished the Kraang, remember?" Donnie reminded him. "There's only Stockman to work on the tech, and his focus is probably still retromutagen." He stabbed his naginata blade through another robot.
"Do not get overconfident, my sons," Splinter reprimanded. Though in all honesty, even he had to admit that the Foot-Bots seemed to be ridiculously easy opponents. Surely Saki has something else planned...
"Goongala!" cheered Casey as he whipped past on his skates, swinging his hockey stick side-to-side down a column of robots. Rapidly, they caught on to his strategy, and one seized the stick, twisted it, and jabbed it into Casey's stomach in one fluid movement. The boy was winded, allowing the robot to rip the hockey stick from his grasp and whack him over the head.
"Casey!" April cried, but her voice sounded far away. He wobbled on his skates as he struggled to regain focus.
A battle cry rang out over his head, and suddenly Raph was beside him, with Foot-Bots falling left, right and centre. Drawing a baseball bat, Casey chuckled sheepishly. "Thanks?"
"Focus, dimwit!"
Meanwhile, the Foot-Bot in possession of Casey's hockey stick had decided to take advantage of the new weapon, and was skilfully hitting debris at the Hamatos. April, who was thoroughly preoccupied with slicing her tessen through a robot's exposed circuitry, failed to notice the chunk of stone sailing towards her until it was too late. The rock connected with her temple with a sickening smack, and she was out cold before she even knew what hit her.
A few robots advanced on her, but were soon dispatched by twin katana blades. "Stay away from her!" Leo positioned himself between April and the robots, knowing that Shredder likely didn't programme them to take prisoners this time.
Mikey landed from a backflip beside him. "I'm taking back that upgrade comment; these guys totally just upped the difficulty!"
"Combat isn't a video game, Mikey," chided Leo, swiping both blades through a robot in an 'X'.
There seemed to be an infinite supply of the robots, at least two for each one they cut down. Leo had to give Mikey credit; his joke about the difficulty didn't actually seem to be far wrong. They swarmed the clan like insects, surrounding them in a whir of machinery.
"Hey Fearless, got a plan?" called Raph.
Leo didn't reply, because no, they didn't. They hadn't anticipated this much trouble with the Foot-Bots, and they hadn't anticipated anyone being knocked out of the fight - and the fact that April had been taken down was even worse, because now they had no way of finding Karai other than flat-out searching the place, which they would never have time to do.
Donnie's voice broke the leader from his thoughts. "Where are they coming from?"
"I don't know, bro!"
"No, really, can anyone see where they're coming from?"
Despite not knowing the objective, everyone began to search. Finally, Casey managed to catch a glimpse of their entrance. It was a room with no door, veiled in a sheet of shadow, and he only just caught sight of it in the sparks of an explosive puck. "Over there, Don! In that corner!"
It took a few moments, but soon he could spot it. "Okay..." Donnie was nervous. This was a last-reserve kind of plan; if all else failed. Just the sound of it would attract Shred-Head's inner circle, let alone the physical effects. Though, it was better than nothing, so the turtle pulled out a small, wrapped package from his belt. The only problem was that Donnie couldn't throw that far. "Raph, catch! But be careful!"
The red-clad turtle caught the object with ease. "What the heck is this?"
"Just press the red button and throw it into that room!"
Seeing no reason why not to, Raph did just that. At first, the only change was an incredibly annoying beeping. Then, an almighty crash and a flash of white light and heat, and a mushroom cloud of thick grey smoke billowed out from the now-devastated room, as red lights flashed and an alarm blared.
For a second, all were stunned, before:
"You made me catch a goddamn bomb and didn't tell me?!" yelled Raph irately.
The remaining Foot-Bots had been halted by the explosion, but were now recovering. "Take these robots down!" ordered Splinter, snapping his clan back into action.
The battle was a lot easier without the Foot-Bots flooding back in as they took them down, and soon enough the ground was littered with robotic parts. By this time, Shredder's henchmen had indeed begun arriving, armed and determined, but to the team's relief, the incessant noise of the alarm had awoken April.
"Man, my head..." she groaned. "Why is my alarm going off? I don't have school today..."
"Wake up," Leo instructed coolly. "A Foot-Bot knocked you out. Are you okay?"
She nodded. "Think so."
"Not for long," sneered Fishface, from across the room.
Growing frantic, Leo turned back to April, "Can you sense her?"
Ignoring the pounding in her head, the redhead pressed her fingers to her temples and concentrated. The faintest glimmer of Karai's aura shone through, and April struggled to pinpoint it. "Got her... She's... She's above us... Like, a lot above us... I can't tell by how many floors."
"So she's not in the dungeon," Leo muttered, but his musing was cut off as Shredder's hench-mutants attacked. He readied his katana, but Raph shook his head.
"Follow the plan," he urged. "Get 'er so we can get out!"
He was torn, but there wasn't time for hesitation. Leo grabbed April's arm and ran, Splinter joining them quickly.
Tiger Claw appeared before them, laser guns pointed towards them. "Where do you think you are going?"
Leo was formulating a smart response, when Splinter launched himself at the tiger with a cry of anger. Fighting with the desperation of a father trying to recover his missing child, Splinter attacked the other mutant relentlessly, switching between perfected ninjutsu and defensive techniques of a rat to throw Tiger Claw off-course, twisting and writhing to avoid the laser beams fired at him. A well-aimed jab to a sensitive pressure point sent the powerful creature to his knees, and Splinter called, "Go, find her!"
April was about to protest, but Leo was already dragging her away. "C'mon, Sensei can hold his own."
Seeing their retreat, Tiger Claw growled. "No!"
He fired a succession of beams at them, but Leo wrapped an arm around April and shot his grappling hook at the ceiling. They flew into the air just as the beams would have reached them. Once April had a good hold on his shell, Leo threw a shuriken into a glass window to break it, and ushered her through rapidly. They squashed themselves into an alcove in a wall, Leo's shell scraping against the edge.
"Is she any clearer now?" he pressed.
April concentrated hard, her lips pursing. "Kinda... Not so much clearer, but a little stronger... Like we're getting a little closer to her."
"Can you get any gauge on the distance?" Leo prompted. "We can't exactly stroll around this place seeing how the strength changes."
She sighed. "I... I don't know..." Suddenly there was a rush of energy, and April would have gasped aloud if Leo's hand hadn't covered her mouth.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"It just got a lot less fuzzy," she explained. "Maybe Karai was unconscious or something before."
"Is the location any better?"
"A bit. I'd say at least a good four floors up- How tall is this building?"
"Not sure," Leo admitted. "I guess we should just try and find a staircase."
The turtle moved to squeeze free, but April gripped his arm. "Wait, what about Master Splinter?"
Leo smirked. "Don't worry about him, he'll catch up in no time; our family has a knack for finding our way to trouble."
TBC next time :)
Thank you for reading this chapter, and I really hope you enjoyed it; action scenes aren't my forte, so any feedback is much appreciated. See you next week xD
