It takes a lot longer than Karai would like before they can actually talk. All of the turtles want to find their weapons and gear—Raphael follows the other three into the dojo, and when they emerge, they're all masked as well as armed, which is more comforting than Karai would have imagined. They look right that way, and it is easier to imagine them as allies, comrades in arms. But then Donatello starts asking April and Irma all about the formula they created, and wanders into the lab with them, and Michelangelo spends five minutes cooing at the thing in the freezer before insisting that they need food, real food, like now. And that leads to a lengthy discussion of what to get and where, with Karai vetoing several locations that she knows used to be watched by the Foot Clan before the other three humans are packed off to collect the food. Karai scowls after them as they go, uncomfortably aware of the time passing. How long before she's missed? Or before Xever or Stockman lets something slip to the wrong person?
And will she be able to persuade the turtles to be her allies, to do what must be done?
"You said you don't think we're safe," Leonardo says to her, after corralling his brothers and finally settling down, the five of them, around the kitchen table.
"No," Karai replies. "I found Shredder in my room once, watching you. He could come in again at any time. Or someone else could. The rank and file won't break into my rooms, but Tiger Claw might, or Bradford. It's only a matter of time."
Leonardo nods, eyes narrowed in thought, but Michelangelo speaks before he can. "Is he gonna care, though? I mean, he already... Sensei..." He swallows, suddenly downcast.
"He got his revenge," adds Donatello, putting an arm around Michelangelo's shoulders.
The four of them lower their heads, grief crashing across their faces. Karai swallows, remembering the sickening sound of blades piercing flesh and bone. She knows they are orphaned, now. They have only ever had one protector and mentor and guide, and now he is gone. But she feels a hot stab of envy, too, that their grief can be so pure and uncomplicated. That's something she'll never have.
"I don't think he'll let you go," she says. Her words fall hard into the silence, and when they look up, Raphael's face is already hardening into anger. "He's not—" She breaks off, struggling for the right words. "He used to be different. Before we knew about you. Since he learned that Hamato Yoshi lived, it's all he's talked about. Everything has been about that. Now he acts like he doesn't know what to do with himself." She hunches her shoulders, shaking her head. "The four of you, he thinks you're tainted. It's not just how much trouble you've caused for the Foot. He thinks of you as Hamato, and freaks. Once he knows you're back, he'll want to root you out. He says... he says that's what the Hamato clan did to his." Karai had been raised on a long catalog of the crimes of the Hamato. She wonders if the opposite was true of them.
The four of them exchange puzzled glances, though, quick and flickering, and Leonardo says slowly, "Sensei never told us anything about that. Though if it's true, he might not have said anything."
Raphael scoffs. "Why would it be true? It's Shredder. He lies all the time."
Karai's mouth twists, even though she knows it's true.
Donatello says, looking around, "We could leave. Pack up what we need and find a new place. Maybe out of the city entirely."
"What?" Michelangelo almost seems to shrink, leaning into him. "Where would we even go, bro?"
"No way," Raphael snaps. "He killed Sensei. We gotta take him out."
Leonardo and Donatello frown, but Karai says, "I was hoping you might see it that way."
Unsurprisingly, Raphael scowls at her now. "Don't think you're going to get another chance to stab us in the back."
"I helped you this far, didn't I?" Karai snaps, trying to hold onto her patience. "And if he finds out I helped you, he'll come after me, too." She closes her hands to keep them from shaking. It's too easy to remember the shock of being shoved into that cell. "We have to end this." She looks at each of them in turn—Raphael is still glaring, Michelangelo's eyes are wide and worried, Donatello looks thoughtful—and lands on Leonardo. They'll follow his lead, if she can just convince him.
Leonardo's eyes are narrowed in concentration. He takes his time before saying, "We do have to end this. But it's not about revenge."
Raphael growls, and Leonardo shoots him a look. "You know Sensei wouldn't want that. He lost everything he had before, and he didn't seek vengeance. He went into hiding. We could try to do the same, but we know Shredder would come after us. We need to end this so that we can all live safely, not to pay him back for what he's done."
"With Shredder gone, the vendetta ends," Karai says. Some small part of her is wondering how she can say that so easily, how she can discard the years he raised her. But he raised her on lies, and he used her as bait, and she can never trust a thing he says or does again. Besides, she's already tired of the whole concept of revenge. One last strike at the man she calls father, and it'll end.
They all look at her, Raphael frowning, and she insists, "I'm with you. I don't want this to go on any more than you do."
They exchange glances again, and a series of tiny nods, even from Raphael, and Karai finds herself envious again, this time of their silent rapport. When they face her again, all their gazes are steely, and Leonardo says, "Okay. Do you have a plan to propose?"
"None of us can take him in a stand-up fight," Karai says.
Raphael scoffs. "You so sure of that?"
She shoots him a withering look. "I'm the one who trains with him on a regular basis, so yeah, I'm sure of that."
"Come on," Donatello says. "The four of us couldn't beat him all together. Maybe if we could get another rocket launcher—"
"I can't get one that quickly," Karai says.
Donatello nods. "We could try it with five of us—" He gives Karai a wary look.
She says, "We need to get him alone. We need Tiger Claw out of the picture, especially."
Leonardo nods, eyes narrowed in concentration. Michelangelo says, "What about Fish-face? And Rahzar?" His face screws up. "That dude is like my nemesis."
His brothers all roll their eyes, and Karai's mouth twitches, against her will. "I have an idea about that," she says. "And Xever will side with us, or at least stand by."
Raphael frowns, dubious. "You can't trust that guy."
"I think I know him better than you do," she says.
"Fine." He folds his arms. "Maybe you do, but I don't think we can trust him."
She shrugs. "He can be motivated." There's also her word to Stockman to consider. She looks at Donatello. "We're going to need some more of that retro-mutagen."
It hardly takes a second for his eyes to widen in comprehension. "Oh! Yeah. I see. I'll get on that."
He dashes out of the room. Leonardo says, "Okay. How do we get to him alone? Tell me about the building's layout."
Karai glances at him with a raised eyebrow. "You lot never had any problem breaking in before."
He smiles, for the first time since this conversation started: sharp and tight and yet looking more like his old self again. "It's always good to have insider knowledge."
She smiles back. "Got pen and paper?"
#
By the time April gets back from the pizzeria with Casey and Irma, lugging boxes of pizza, a bag of garlic bread, and bottles of soda, the turtles and Karai are in a council of war. The cheerful mood the rest of them come in with cools off quickly. The boys all wolf down the pizza, with Donnie zipping back and forth from kitchen to lab, and Raph slipping out to check on the spare weapons and other equipment. Leo and Karai are leaning over a map of the Foot headquarters that Karai has drawn from memory.
April listens, and Casey gets into the discussion immediately, suggesting things to do with homemade explosives, but Irma quiets down, picking at her slice of pizza. "Um," she says, shrinking into herself a little bit. "Are you really planning on- on attacking that place? Because I don't know how I feel about that."
Leo's attention fixes on her immediately. "It's all right—Irma, right? Really, you've helped us so much already, we can't thank you enough. We certainly wouldn't expect you to do anything like this."
"Besides," says Mikey, popping up at Irma's side, "it's kind of a family secret thing."
She twitches at his sudden presence. "Right. The whole... ninja clan... thing."
"I know it's a lot to take in," says Donnie, just back from the lab. "I'm really impressed by the work you and April did on the retro-mutagen, though! And you cracked my cipher, we should totally talk about encryption sometime."
April throws him a sharp look, but he's not blushing or stammering, just smiling and eager, and Irma relaxes a little. "Yeah, that would be fun," she says.
Donnie smiles brighter, and says, "April, could I see you in the lab for a moment?"
"Sure," she says, quickly swallowing her last bite.
As they leave, Leo and Karai seem to be sinking back into a muttered conference, and Mikey is offering to show Irma his comics collection, which April is really not sure is going to go over well, but at least it should keep her from getting too nervous.
"What do you need?" she asks Donnie.
"Could I take another blood sample? We need to make more retro-mutagen."
"Sure," April says, rolling up her sleeve. "I started some of the regular kind when we started yours, though."
"Yeah, that'll help," he says. "I'd like an extra supply, though, just in case."
He takes the blood quickly and almost painlessly, and says quietly, "April, I'd like you to stay back when we attack the Foot base."
April's eyes widen. "What? No way! You guys aren't leaving me behind now. Look what happened last time!"
"That's what I'm worried about," Donnie says, his eyes anxious—in fact, his whole mood feels like an anxious cloud that seems to fill the room. "We didn't really have time to plan last time, and now we do, but we're— I just don't think it's a good idea for you to be involved."
April draws back, stung and furious. After all this, she's still on the outside? She thought she was part of the family. She carries the weapon that should have been Karai's, and she won't give it up. She scowls at Donnie and crosses her arms. "You can't make me stay. I loved Sensei, too."
Donnie flinches. "It's not that. None of us would doubt that."
"Then what?" she snaps.
He turns away to tuck the vial of blood safely away in a padded container. And, probably, so he doesn't have to look at her face. April sets her teeth. "What?" she demands again.
Donnie's shoulders hunch. When he turns his head to look at her, the light turns his eyes nearly blood-red. "We're setting out to kill someone this time, April. I'd rather not have that on your conscience."
April presses her lips together. She'd understood that, from the tone of the conversation in the other room, from the dark currents in the minds around her. They don't usually do that—goodness knows the Kraang always seem to scuttle away, and they might have killed in the heat of the moment before, but this is different. It's a plan. It's real, and serious, but April's not a child any more. She's been training as a kunoichi, and her master is dead, and her friends are going to fight for their lives. She's not going to stay home "What if I don't care?" she asks, raising her chin.
"You don't care?" Donnie turns back to face her, incredulous. "How could you not care about—" He shakes his head. "Do you think I want to have to do this?"
"But you are doing it!"
"Because it's the only way to keep ourselves safe," he says. "We have the advantage of surprise right now, and not for long. He doesn't know we're coming. Once Shredder's gone, there's no more vendetta. We can focus on the Kraang, or whatever else we need to."
"You can't just leave me out!" April protests, and takes a deep breath, trying to control the urge to shout. "I know this is serious, Donnie, but that's why I want to be involved. I'm part of this, too."
"What if the police get involved?" Donnie asks. "We don't exist, but what if they realized you were there? You could be in a lot of trouble. None of us want that, and what would your father think?"
April scowls but drops her head, letting her bangs shade her eyes. She hasn't figured out what to tell her father yet. "It feels like you're telling me I'm not part of this team. Am I or aren't I?"
"Of course you are!" Donnie takes a swift step toward her and reaches out, but hesitates, not quite touching her shoulder. "We owe you our lives, April. There's nothing we can do to repay that—"
"Don't be ridiculous," she says, reaching out to grab his hand. "I already owed you mine and my dad's, at least twice. This isn't about repaying anything. We're in this together, aren't we?"
Donnie smiles at her, but it's stiff and a little shaky. "Yeah," he says. "I just..."
She squeezes his hand, big and calloused, remembering all those nights she wasn't sure she could get him back. She wants to keep talking, assure him she'll do anything to help them, but instead she bites her lip and waits to see what he has to say.
"We already lost Sensei, and we have to do this," Donnie says, quietly. "I don't want to risk losing you, too."
"You won't," says April, and steps forward to throw her arms around him again. After a moment, she adds, turning so her cheek rests against the tough surface of his plastron, "I don't want to lose you, either. Not again. I was so scared I'd never see you again."
She can hear the rhythm of his heart under her ear. She takes comfort from that, and the way his arms slowly close around her. She'd be content to stand there together all night, but after a while, Donnie says, "I missed you, too. I mean—" He gives her a laugh and a weak smile when April tilts her head to look at him "—I couldn't think much, at all, but I felt like there was something missing."
She smiles back before stepping back, carefully, too aware of the way her own heart is hammering. Donnie says, "Just... really think about it, okay?"
"I've already thought about it," she says.
Donnie frowns, his eyes so troubled that April's almost tempted to give in. She frowns back instead, until he sighs and nods, and then she takes her leave, victorious.
Karai's gone when April gets back to the kitchen, though Leo's still staring at the schematic she sketched. "Where did she go?" April asks.
"Karai? She had to go back so she wouldn't be missed," Leo says. He looks up from the map. "What do you think? Can we really trust her?"
April chews on her lip, considering. Karai has deceived her before, but this time, she feels easier to read, less muddled."I think she's sincere. She believes what she's saying."
Leo nods anyway. "That's good enough."
April drifts closer as he looks down at the plans and says, "What can I do to help?"
"You've already done a lot," Leo says. "We can take things from here."
April isn't about to be put off again. "I want to help," she says firmly.
"Well—" Leo looks up and nods after a moment. "Okay, I have a few ideas. Especially if you and Casey are up for working together."
She smiles. "I think we can do that."
Leo smiles back before turning serious. "Thank you for everything, April. Without you, we'd—"
"Don't mention it," April says, cutting him off. She doesn't want to think about it. They're back now. She leans in for a one-armed hug. "What are friends for?"