"You've got to realize, this sounds—"
Casey interrupts. "Look, Irma, if you don't believe it, just walk away now."
Irma drops her chopsticks and glares at him. "That's not what I was going to say, Casey Jones. I mean, it does sound incredible, but there have been a lot of weird things happening in the last year. Honestly, the alien stuff is easier to believe than the whole ninja clan feud thing. And I still don't completely understand about the mutations, either."
Casey groans, turning to April. "Why do you think we need her again?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because I know for a fact that Irma gets A's in math and chemistry and bio?" April snaps. Casey scowls, his lower lip jutting out, and Irma sits back in her seat, looking smug.
"Yeah, but can we trust her?" Casey asks.
Now it's Irma's turn to scowl. "I'm right here! Stop talking about me like I'm not!"
"Maybe I just wish you weren't."
"Guys!" April smacks her folded fan down on the table with a clang. "Cut it out!"
Casey protests, "I wasn't even doing anything!"
April glares at him until his shoulders hunch. "Stop being a jerk to Irma," she snaps. "Stop baiting her, stop acting like she's an intruder, just stop, okay?"
"Yeah, Casey."
"Irma, you're not helping!" April heaves a sigh and closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. A brief, stabbing sense of sympathy for Leo overwhelms her, followed by a surge of longing that he were actually here, and April didn't have to be in charge of these two. She sighs again and opens her eyes. Irma and Casey are both looking sullen and cross. "Look," she says. "You don't have to like each other. But if you're both serious about this, we all have to work together. We've got the notes deciphered now, but I still need help to figure out how to alter the formula, so yes, Casey, I need Irma's help. And I need Casey's help, too, Irma, because there's probably going to be some fighting before all this is done with. Okay?"
Irma gulps, biting her lip, while Casey mutters, "Hell yeah." When April looks at him, he straightens up a little and says, "Okay, Red, you know I'm in."
"Me too," says Irma quietly. "There's just kind of a lot to take in."
"I know," says April, relieved. "But if we work together, things should be okay. I mean, we're all on the same side, and we're trusting Karai, so we have to be able to trust each other, right?"
Casey nods, and after a moment Irma does, too. April lets out the breath she was holding. She feels better with both of them on her side.
#
The first thing Karai hears when she opens the door to her room is the snakes, hissing.
The first thing she sees is Oroku Saki, without his helmet or gauntlets, standing by their tank. In his shadow, the snakes twist and writhe, more active—more agitated—than Karai has seen them since they were put there. They twine together, coiling under and over each other in such a mass that she can hardly tell which snake is which. The man watches them, and she cannot read his expression.
She closes the door behind her, and does not let her voice tremble when she speaks. "Father?"
"Karai," he says. To any other ear, he sounds his normal self: forceful, authoritative. Master Shredder's word is not questioned among the Foot.
Karai, however, is his daughter, or was raised as such. She hears the moment of hesitation. "Yes, father?"
"How do the creatures fare?"
She lifts a shoulder into a shrug. "They drink and eat and sleep. I am not sure the temperature is right for them. They do not react much."
"They react to me," he says, as if to himself, and adds, "You care for them, then."
"I thought you put them here for me to care for them," she says, cautiously. It is possible she has failed whatever test was set for her.
He is silent for a long moment, staring into the tank. "Once, I called him brother."
Karai waits, and them prompts, "Father?"
"Hamato Yoshi, I mean." He says it with his usual sneer. "When we were young, we called each other brother. It was all a lie."
"I see," Karai says. She finds that she's bracing herself for something, unsure how to respond to this particular mood.
"It was folly," he says. "As much as teaching ninjutsu to these freaks." He raps the glass of the tank with his knuckles, a hollow sound that sets the snakes hissing and skittering once more. "He called them his sons. Mere beasts. Turtles. Ridiculous. He did not understand what it is to be a father." He looks at her, his scarred lip curling away from his teeth.
Karai can hardly breathe. She must force her chest to expand and contract. She must keep from her face that she is thinking about the four of them, all those nights she watched, and that one brief day she spent in their home: the joking, the squabbling, the exasperation, but most of all, how all the bickering fell away when they needed to act together. How Raphael had come for her even though he didn't like her, just because Leonardo had asked him to.
Fortunately, her father does not seem to require a response. "It is a mercy I ended his empty life for him," he says.
Karai blinks. "Yes, father."
He starts toward the door and she moves aside, almost stumbling in her haste. He says nothing more, and she bows her head as he passes, keeps her eyes on the floor until the door shuts behind him. Then she goes to the tank and peers in.
The snakes lie quiet now. One of them lifts its head, forked tongue flickering out. She looks into the cold yellow-green eyes, and lets herself breathe. Shredder's moods have been fey lately, and changeable. Perhaps the revenge he yearned for has not satisfied him, after all.
The phone hidden in Karai's pocket vibrates. She grits her teeth, counting the seconds, and swings into action when the signal continues long enough. She locks her door, douses the lights, mounds the spare blankets strategically in her bed, and then climbs silently into the ventilation shaft.
There is some risk every time she leaves the building alone, which is why they are only supposed to meet when its urgent. She spots the two figures on the rooftop before she gets there, and plans her approach so that she is nearly on top of them before she shows herself. "This had better be good, O'Neil," she says as she drops off the water tower.
They both jump, much to Karai's satisfaction. She ignores Jones, because it annoys him, and focuses her attention on the other girl.
April collects herself quickly. "I think we've got it," she says. "The formula, I mean."
"You and your little geek friend got it done?"
April's mouth purses. Karai is still not entirely pleased that April chose to involve someone else. It feels like family business, not for other eyes and ears. "Irma helped a lot," April says tightly. "And it seems to work on the samples you gave us."
Karai nods. It had been annoying enough to collect those bits of shed skin from the snakes' tank. They had a tendency to try to bite her. "You're sure?"
April's shoulders tense. "I'm... we're about as sure as we can be. We need to test it. I think we have just enough mutagen to make a dose for one."
Karai thinks about the logistics of sneaking one of the reptiles out of the building with her, and makes a face. "Okay. When do you want to do this?"
#
They're waiting for Karai in the lair this time.
April doesn't entirely like meeting her there, and neither does Casey, but... well. Karai already knows where it is, but it should be safe enough from the rest of the Foot. Besides, familiar surroundings might be helpful.
Still, April worries at her lower lip with her teeth as the minutes tick by. Casey lounges on the couch, fiddling with his baseball bat, and Irma sits with her arms wrapped around her knees and her eyes darting around the room. She says, "So... this girl Karai..."
"She's dangerous," April reminds her. "We're allies for now, but we can't count on that lasting."
Irma nods. April wishes she hadn't insisted on being here for this, saying it was her project as much as April's, and she wanted to see how it worked. She's tried to keep some separation between Irma and Karai so far, even though it wouldn't be hard for anyone to track down Irma if they wanted to. April didn't entirely want to bring Irma down here in the first place—it seemed wrong, without the turtles knowing. But the only place they really had to work in was Donnie's lab; they couldn't very well use their school's equipment. She's compromised, leading Irma down to the sewers blindfolded, so she still doesn't know the real location.
"It's okay," Casey says with a smirk. "I'm here to protect you, Irma."
Irma rolls her eyes at him and wrinkles her nose, drawing breath for a retort, but that's when Karai vaults over the turnstiles.
"You're late," Casey calls.
Karai scowls at him. "You try nabbing one of these jerks. They're twisty, and they bite."
"Good for them," Casey says, snickering.
April tries to hide her own giggle as Karai sets down a squirming sack. "You did get one, though."
"Obviously." Karai rolls her eyes. "This must be your lab partner friend, huh?"
"This is Irma," April says as Irma edges a little closer to April, looking from the sack to Karai in fascination. "And this is—"
"Karai." She cuts April off. "Let's hope this works."
"Do you know which one it is?" April approaches the bag cautiously, holding the vial of precious retro-mutagen. The sack has gone still, maybe because of the chilly air in the lair.
"I can't tell." Karai reaches down and unties the sack. "They all look too much alike. You'd think they'd keep their own eyes or something, but no."
April remembers her father's eyes watching her out of the bat-mutant's face, and shivers. "Maybe it's better this way," she says, looking down.
Karai grabs the snake as it slithers out of the sack, keeping it from darting away. April can see what she means. Its eyes are more yellow than anything else, glassy orbs that look at them with no particular intelligence. Its scales are mottled, green and yellow and brown. It's writhing enough that it's hard to tell just how long it is—at least four feet, she thinks, but she can't be sure. Irma peers around April's shoulder and pushes her glasses up her nose. "I don't recognize the species," she says.
"Does it matter?" Karai asks. The snake twitches at the sound of her voice, and she grimaces. "What are you waiting for, O'Neil? Un-mutate it, already."
"I thought ninjas were supposed to be patient," says Casey.
Karai bares her teeth at him. "Don't start with me, Jones."
"Fine," April says. Karai's right, this is what they're here for, after all. She takes the stopper out of the vial, trying to still the trembling of her hands. "Come on," she mutters under her breath as she tips the vial over. "Come on, come on..."
When the retro-mutagen first hits the snake's head, nothing happens. Then it hisses, thrashing wildly until Karai loses her grip on it. They all tense, but the snake doesn't attempt to flee. It continues thrashing, twitching side to side in sinuous curves. April reaches into her pocket and folds her fingers around the four masks she's been carrying there these last bitter weeks. "Come on," she keeps whispering, and thinks Please, let me get this right.
Even as she thinks it, the snake's body deforms. It's growing thicker in the middle, four buds branching out from its body. Its hisses drop in pitch and turn into a groan as the buds thicken into limbs and its back rounds into a dome. The shell seems to burst out, cracking into its pattern of scutes, while the snake's tail seems to shrink and disappear and its head re-forms into something rounder. April's heart beats faster, and she's clutching the masks so hard her knuckles hurt.
The turtle stays on all fours, panting, for a few long breaths. Then he lifts his head, gaze passing over them almost blankly, until his eyes land on Karai.
Then he lunges off the floor, hands going for her throat.
Irma shrieks and jumps back, which is just as well, because April's flinging herself forward, trying to grab his arm and pry his fingers away from Karai's neck, calling, "Wait! Don't! Calm down!"
Casey's doing the same, on the other side, and he's the one who manages to get through, shouting, "Raph, dude, chill, she's helping us!"
"Helping us—" Raphael allows himself to be pulled away from Karai only to whirl on Casey. "You can't trust her, Casey, it was all a trap, she—"
"I didn't know that." Karai backs away with one hand to her throat. She has a knife with her other hand.
"I saw what happened to Sensei," Raph spits in her direction. Karai's face twitches and hardens, while her shoulders hunch. Her regret washes through April's head like bitter, black coffee gone cold. Karai says nothing, though, just pulls away another step.
Trying to project calm, April says, "She helped us get you back, Raph."
"Back...?" Raph looks around, yanking his arm out of Casey's grip. "Where are my brothers?"
"We didn't—" April begins.
"They're safe back in my room," Karai says.
"The middle of Foot Central is not safe," Raph snarls. "So, what, they're still—" He swallows, and an expression crosses his face that April doesn't recognize. Raph's emotions are always easy to read; he's like a roiling cloud of anger standing next to her, a thunderstorm in mutant turtle form, but underneath that—
"Yes," April says, stopping herself from prying. "They're still... mutated. I'm sorry, Raph, but—"
His eyes widen. "You can't just leave them that way, April! What were you thinking?"
"We only had enough for one of you!" she says, stiffening. It was the right plan, it was; they don't have enough mutagen for all four, and they needed to test it on one. Donnie would have understood, if he were the one here.
"And you picked me?" Raph says. His eyes are so easy to read that April feels a stab of guilt at her own momentary wish.
"I would have grabbed one of the useful ones if I had known," Karai puts in.
Raph's expression hardens, and he turns on her with a growl. Casey shoves himself between the two of them, scowling at Karai.
April scowls at her, too. The least she could do is not be actively unhelpful. "But you're here now," she says, trying to defuse things, "and you can help us with the others."
Raph gives her what is supposed to be a scornful look, but without his mask his eyes are too wide and vulnerable for the right effect. "How? I mean, sure, but—" Glancing around, he seems to notice Irma for the first time. "Uh, who's this?"
Irma waggles her fingers and offers a nervous smile as April does the introductions: "This is my friend, Irma Langinstein. Irma, this is Raphael. Irma helped me make the retro-mutagen."
"And you brought her down here?" Raph asks.
"I don't actually know the way," Irma says. "April kept me blindfolded."
Raph considers that, eyes narrowing. "I guess that's okay, then. But what about her?" He jerks a thumb at Karai.
"She came to us," April says. "We need her."
"No, we don't, cause we can't trust her," Raph says.
"I didn't know it was a trap," Karai snaps.
Raph whirls on her again. "Then you're stupid, and you shouldn't have run off on your own, but you did and now Sensei's d-" He cuts himself off, grief crashing through his face and mind. "— gone," he says instead.
"He used me," Karai snarls, leaning forward. "Shredder used me as bait, because he knew you'd—he knew your father would come for me, and all of you." Her face crumples for a moment and then hardens. "He makes me call him father, he's called me daughter my whole life, and he just used me to get at your family."
"So, what, I'm supposed to feel sorry for you now?" Raph is leaning forward, too; Casey still has a hand on his arm, but he could probably break away easily, and April edges closer, not sure what she can do if the two of them really go at it. "Because excuse me, but my brothers are snakes and I saw what your father did to mine."
"I have no father any more," Karai cries, in a voice that makes them all flinch
"Neither do I," Raph snaps back.
They stare at each other for a moment before Karai's eyes narrow and she shakes her head. "Wait. You'd already transformed by then."
"I—" Raph draws back in momentary confusion. "I don't know. I saw it, and then— it seems like the last thing I really remember. Everything after that is weird. Like I couldn't think right, or something."
"Well, I was the one feeding you the whole time. You're welcome." Karai folds her arms. "Leonardo would have believed me," she mutters.
"Don't you dare say his name to me," Raph says. Not shouting, but in a quiet, deadly voice that makes them all twitch.
Karai meets his eyes and nods, a tiny movement, and then unfolds her arms with a jerk. "Look. Believe whatever you want about me, but believe this: I'll help you get them back. I want all of this to be over."
They hold each other's gaze for a long moment, and then Raph turns away. "Fine," he says. "Let's go get them right now."
It takes several minutes to convince him that they need more mutagen, a lot of it, to make enough retro-mutagen, and that they'll have to wait until Karai can steal the access codes to Stockman's lab before getting what they need. It takes even longer to persuade Raph that they can't just go take the snakes right now; if anyone notices they're gone from Karai's room, that's going to raise questions they can't answer, and they'll lose the advantage of surprise.
"So swap 'em with ordinary snakes," he says.
"We don't even know what kind of snake they are!" April says.
"A lot of breeds of tropical snakes aren't legal to sell in the U.S.," Irma puts in. April expects her to flinch when Raph glares at her in response, but she just looks at him seriously and adds, "I'm sorry."
"Fine," Raph says finally. "You go do whatever. I'll just, um—" He looks around, at the old television, the crate full of battered videotapes, the comic books. The silence of the rest of the lair, beyond.
April and Casey exchange glances. There's no way Raph should stay down here by himself, alone in a space that should have been full of family. She could take him home, April thinks, and try to explain to her father, but Casey clears his throat first and says, "Hey, um, my dad's out of town for a week, and my sister's staying with my mom in Connecticut. Why don't you come crash at my place? It'll be cool."
She can see Raph's shoulders slacken as he says, "Yeah. Okay."
With that settled, there's one more thing to do. "Here." April pulls her hand out of her pocket and holds it out.
Part of her is reluctant to let go of the masks, the talismans she's been holding onto ever since it happened. But when Raph looks down at the four folded bands of colored fabric in her hand, the tightness around his eyes and mouth eases, and that makes it worth it.
She was only ever holding them in trust, really. Giving them back to him is the right thing to do.
"Thanks," he says. "Let me get the rest of my stuff."
He goes to the dojo for a spare set of weapons and to his room. When he comes out, he looks like himself again: armed and masked and belted, and April thinks all of them, even Karai, stand a little straighter.