The corridor was cleared by Ari, who ran ahead. Warning anyone walking the halls to not get in front of the still angry turtles who followed. Then she wisely held the door open to the lab/medbay, before Raph kicked it in. Jessica followed, just watching for now.
Tony, who was browsing through some charts at the time, looked up. Just a bit startled at the sudden entrance of the turtles. "Holy shit! They found you! Are you-" He cut off the obvious question, his face taking on an incredulous confused look when he noticed the changed women. "What happened to them?"
Thane sighed as he turned towards Ty. "We are going to be answering that question a lot i think."
Ty just nodded in agreement while Leo just clenched his jaw. With a slight shake of his head, the message was relayed to Tony that he didn't want to talk about this right now. Not until his anger had calmed a lot more. Tony knew Leonard well enough to humor him, and to understand the reason for his grumpy mood, and tailored his words in an understanding tone "Bring them over here guys." pointing to the row of human sized beds opposite the bot sized berths. "We'll talk about that part later."
Leo followed, then looked at the bed, then down at Vicky in his arms, then back to the bed. His eyes fully of frustration now instead of anger as he struggled to figure out how in the hell to lay her down without...without accidentally hurting these new appendages. No matter which way he turned her, she was going to get one of those wings pinned or shooting off at a painful angle.
Lavi could see the frustration and helplessness, build in her father. He had been through so much already and Vicky's transformation wasn't helping ease that tired soul. But she also knew that he would not rest if his mate wasn't cared for properly. It was just the way he was. "Just lay her on her side for now, Dad." The young female stepped forward and held the wings up so he could do just that. "It might be easier to clean them anyway like that. So we don't have to move her too much."
Leo nodded, placing his burden ever so gently down. Then his eyes were transfixed on those wings. Those bloodstained wings that hadn't been there the last time he saw her. And it was the sight of her dried blood that started his own to boil. He calmed himself with a deep, long sigh before turning to face Jessica. His eyes steely. "I hope your fathers fully understand that they will answer for what they did. if not, I'll make them understand."
Every single turtle tot winced at that, and even Tony pursed his lips and looked off in a different direction a moment. No one really wanted to see that fight. Though Jessica did raise a somewhat amused brow at him, she remained quiet. Probably because she would be eating popcorn and rooting for the turtle.
Ty immediately moved in to distract his father once the mates had been all settled down. Gently turning Leo by the arm so he had his sire's full attention. "We'll go back to the lair and get some clean things for them to wear. I have a feeling Mom at least is going to be in a sweats and bathrobe mood for a few days."
Leo nodded before turning back to Vicky, but someone else wanted to add onto that list. "Grab some pizzas too!" Mikey called from across the room. That was met with a quiet giggle from Ari. Ty just rolled his eyes as he led his team back out.
Lavi was stopped from following, now it was her turn to have a hand placed on her arm to halt her movement and she turned to questiongly look at her father, who was in return watching her intently. Then he smiled. "Is it true?" His tone was now soft, and a little hope sparkled in his eyes.
Lavi let her excited grin show before she nodded happily. Now grinning himself, Leo pulled her into a fierce hug. "I'm so happy for you, turtle dove, but you shouldn't have been out there." He mixed his scolding with a kiss to her forehead.
"Da-ad!" Lavi blushed. Both the scolding and the signs of affection from her sometimes stern father embarrassing her to no end. "Do you have to do that?"
"What part? The scolding, or the kiss?" He was smiling now, his eyes holding that mischevious gleam in them.
"Both." Lavi answered in a flat tone.
"Well...then yes to both. I'm your father and I'll yell at you and kiss your forehead if I want."
She sighed in exasperation, he just laughed and hugged her again.
Mikey had settled in a chair, his feet propped carefully on Caitlin's bed as he watched. Then he grinned towards Jessica, not having any problem trying to break the ice between the two groups. "That's the Leo we all know and love. See? He's not always a sourpuss."
Lavi cracked up laughing at Leo's expression as he attempted to glare a grinning Mikey down. Mikey wasn't phased one bit by it. Leo finally gave up and addressed his next words to jessica, who had sofar remained silent. He regarded her a long, quiet moment. Everything playing again in his mind, then he spoke. "My brothers and I owe you and your team a thanks it seems. Not only for helping us, but for helping my family as well."
"No need for that." Jessica replied. "We were just doing our job. Besides. If it wasn't for us. They wouldn't have been turned anyway. Least I can do is help them adjust. Help all of you adjust. As for our fathers? There's no hope for them. They've been due for a pounding, for a long time now" Jessica couldn't help but to be bitter taste at the mention of Photo, but she is ADD and her mind was taken off of it, she gave Lavi a genuine smile "and congratulations by the way."
Lavi blushed again, but was still smiling as she started passing out blankets. "Thank you." She handed Leo a blanket, and he in return promptly turned to cover Vicky.
Raph, however had his own two cents to put in. "I'll be happy ta give them that pounding."
Leo's jaw clenched, wholeheartedly agreeing with his brother for once, but he was calm again when he turned back to Jessica. "To be honest, I don't really blame you for what happened." Once more the muscles in his jaw moved to press his teeth together. Lavi began to slightly worry that he was going to crack his teeth if he kept that up. "I fully understand the gods are difficult to deal with."
"Most of them." Mikey corrected from his chair, leaning back comfortably in it and clasping his hands behind his head as the front legs lifted off of the floor. "One of them ain't so bad. Shame she is the only one, until now." Mikey winked at their new companion.
Jessica blinked at Mikey with curiosity, internally grateful Leo didn't hold her responsible. She wasn't kidding when she said her "father" and uncles' reputation was so bad they've been dragged into shit. "How do you know I'm not blessed enough to be a demigod? Regardless. We're still a pain. Just. For different reasons." she reassured. "But, I must thank you. For staying calm enough to hear us out. And to have a sliver of trust in us. I know it's not easy to trust strangers, especially in a panicked state. Believe me. I have to admit I have a lot of respect for all of you guys for being able to pull that off. Especially with your wives and children." Jess was insanely bad with trust, and when it came to her family? Forget about it, there was a time not trusting someone or someones could have ruined her life.
Leo offered a small smile, finally dropping his own walls. A little. "Honestly, it's their trust in you that kept me calm. I'm...not so sure i would have listened if they hadn't been there."
Raph snorted and rolled his eyes "Oh yeah. He tends to hit first and ask questions later where Vicky is concerned." Leo just shrugged his agreement.
"Like you are any better." Donnie deadpanned at Raph, which earned him a glare, that he ignored.
Mikey raised a ridge, fully understanding the trust thing. How careful did they have to be in their lives? He chose to drop that touchy line of conversation. Each built trust in their own way. "You say your dads are gods...it doesn't take much to make the connection." He was now very comfortable in his chair, and also leaning dangerously far back. "Besides, demigods are still gods. Just lesser gods."
"Well, god dad doesn't necessarily mean god mom, but I see where you're coming from." her green/blue eyes turned to the red banded turtle. "Meh, if it makes you guys feel better I already know a ton of people like that." her entire family, cousins, sister, and said mates of family.
Speak of the devils by the way, Ariel was strolling in, Starblast, Clayshah, Inferna, tailing her, she was holding something in her hands, a homemade container full of solvent. "Ratchet is checking up on stuff and should be in pretty quickly."
"Why are you up and walking around? Where is Aquarius?" Jessica decided to give the gig up, the turtles and their family weren't like a regular nest team they were working with for a day, and never seeing again, this might be a bit more long termed.
"Couldn't sleep. Especially in the medbay like that. Aqua on the other hand passed thee HELL out." Ariel or bailey, she nodded at her leader as a heads up before tossing her the solvent.
"Ah. Guys? These three are my cousins. Clayshah, Ariel, Inferna, and that is my sister: Starblast"
Leo nodded his greeting, watching them all with probing eyes as he stayed carefully near his mate. Force of habit placing his body between them and Vicky. "My brothers: Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo."
"Hi!" Ariel beamed at them like nothing happened at all, she is the best with people out of all of them, she's the least violent and easy going to be honest. But man you cross her in any way, especially when it comes to family or innocent people, she will destroy you and everything you love. Twice.
Clayshah simply nodded respectively in greeting, she is far more reserved and stand offish, she doesn't know how to "people" to put it lightly.
Mikey eyeballed Ariel/Baily a moment. Then "Sorry i sat on you."
Inferna got a total kick out of that from behind Ariel, releasing a large puff of air as laughter muffled by her hand.
Ariel scoffed at Inferna in more of a: "bitch like you have any room to freaking talk, oh my shit~"
"Yeah Yeah. Laugh it up. Though I did think you were a Geo considering how deep in the earth you were at one point. She smiled innocently at Inferna/Maranda whose shoulder sagged a bit as the wind was stolen from her sails. The air pusher smirked, then looked at Mikey "It's all good, to be honest I got a pretty good laugh out of it later on." See? Easy going, a lot of air pushers of the species were, the more philosophical ones.
"Alright. I give you that one..." Inferna was still brooding, shocker, a being of fire still acting salty.
"I'll need to start an energon IV for the ladies. That'll help them recover faster." Yup, straight to the point as Clayshah/Carrie was doing that thing of narrowing her eyes while thinking, and of course clicking her tongue, that was her thinking face.
Donnie's thinking face was a scrunched nose that made his eyes bug out more behind his glasses. Which he was doing now as he walked over. "They can tolerate it?"
Clayshah was first distracted in the retort her cousin gave, slight delayed reaction, giving her a high five. "Burn.. And to answer your question, Donatello, our race had to survive off of energon for a very long time. We had to put additives in it to get the proper nutrients, but our bodies are more evolved than earth humans. Even the ones that weren't blessed by Gods drank it. And when you have a core or entity of any type. An energy source like that becomes vital, or a means of a recovery" She explained with a little nod.
"Interesting." Donnie pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Would you mind if I watched and gather information on this? I have a feeling I'm going to have to expand my field of expertese now."
Shortly after you had Ratchet walking in with Perceptor, First Aid, and Jolt, he immediately started clicking at Clayshah in Cybertronian rapidly
Clayshah felt the need to take a sassy posture looking up at her partner of the medbay, with a hand on her hip, and raised a brow "Ratch, I don't know. I just got here. Yeesh."
Raph was giving them all his signature glare at that. "It'd be nice if we could understand what you are babbling about. I mean, it's not like it's our wives passed the fuck out in here and we'd like to know what's going on or anything."
"Force of habit Raphael." Ratchet said casually, as he looked through some medical records, urging his colleagues to get started, the med bots and scientists spread out and start to get to work. He was well aware of Raph's temper, and chose to ignore it at the moment. Was too busy to get a wrench out.
Jessica spread her wings and took off to search the cabinets for a bucket and towels, easily maneuvering around despite the fact her wings were massive.
Mikey was watching her in undisguised wonder, right up until Caitlin whimpered and a look of pain crossed his features and he toppled backwards in his chair, hitting the floor hard.
Raph was immeadiately on the move, concern showing on his face. "Mikey!"
With his larger brother's help, Mikey sat up. His eyes wide as saucers as he stared at Caitlin. "I...felt that..." Now he was looking around in confusion. "She's hurting...and I felt it..."
Jessica watched the confused turtle, a small smile on her lips. "You have a bond now. YOur mates can feel you, and you them. Even in your Dragon forms, that's how they snapped you out of it without removing the tech."
"Oooooooooh..." Now Mikey had that look of wonder on his face as he stared at Caitlin.
"Out of curiosity. How much do you guys remember?" Clayshah was nonchalant and made sure not to be too pushy, it would probably be better on their psyche to not remember, and she truly did wish that for them.
Leo shook his head as he thought. "Not everything." he reached out his hand and picked up Vicky's, his thumb stroking the back of her hand lightly as his voice lowered. "I tried to fight it and was able to catch a few glimpses of things. But there is so much I don't remember."
Mikey was nodding his agreement as he righted his chair back up. "Yeah, just flashes here and there." He sat back down, but was very careful to keep all the chair legs on the floor. "But I...do remember our fights more than...the other times. Though they are blurry too." He was now focused on Caitlin, that wonder still in his eyes as he began to stroke her blonde hair.
"We gathered that much. You were actually able to snap out of it a few times. Did you happen to know what Bishop was planning?" Bre/Starblast was watching the blue banded turtle thoughtfully, one of her wings twitching.
It was Donnie who answered her though. "Yes...and no. He was very smug about the fact he caught us and hinted very strongly that we were only one step to something bigger. He's learning I think. He was very careful not to fully fill us in on what."
"Probably because we've managed to slip from his fingers one too many times." Raph groused. "He's learned to keep his trap shut."
"For the most part anyway." Donnie agreed "He still had to rub it in just because he could."
Starblast looked at them thoughtfully and shrugged "More than what we used to know. We'll figure everything out. One thing at a time though. We've worked off of far less"
"Imma kill that guy..." Ariel said. Hey, someone crossed her, she was in revenge mode.
For the countless time, Leo's jaw tightened again, and Lavi began to fear for teeth, while his free hand grasped the headrail, and began to bend it. The words came out in a furious, harsh, growl. "He was already supposed to be dead."
Lavi stepped closer, and gently pried his hand from the still bending rail. "Stop. You are going to gouge our hand open on the metal. Think of something calming to do."
The family patriarch closed his eyes and took a deep breath in before letting it slowly back out. When they opened again, they settled on the still bloody wings. "Someone show me how to clean them...please... I can't stand to look at them like that anymore." But he was now brave enough to touch them, his hand reaching out to gently caress the new appendages. "They are soft..."
"Sorry, got distracted" Jessica got the buckets and several rags, a sheepish posture, she got distracted very easy sometimes. She flew down and put some of the solvent into the buckets and put some water in them then set a bucket it by each turtle, with a few rags. "It's easy, especially with the solvent. Get the rag wet and go into the direction of their feathers. If you don't it feels awkward, sometimes tickles. She might twitch her wings when you touch them, she's just not used to them yet. And if she coos that is normal too"
"What about their healing capabilities?" Donnie asked. "Will it interfere with their more advanced healing the mutagen gave them?"
Clayshah shook her head "our bodies are very adaptable. Even when we do something like go to live on another planet. The rate we were able to adapt to the atmosphere was quite unexpected. Of course we'll keep an eye on them just in case. But any troubles between the mixed DNA should be resolved by now. Passing out like they did is completely normal."
"Interesting. What else has changed in them?"
"They have wings!" Mikey happily chirped.
"Besides the wings, you dip." Donnie wasn't really in the mood to deal with Mikey's shenanigans right now. It was more important to him that he learn.
"Just about everything." Clayshah replied. "Their bone density, their physical strength, their recovery, even their skin is thicker. Our species was a warrior class race. The wing sabers, what they have turned into, were protectors, they served people, and would fight off anything, spiritual or any force the humans couldn't fight. Photo pretty much turned them into super soldiers. Only thing that isn't strong right now is their wings. They are still tough, but being so new they are soft. They are a lot like hands, while there's are like baby hands, ours are tough and callused from harsh use, but very sensitive to touch still"
"Oh yeah, we've beaten ours to the point we can deflect gun fire off of them" Inferna was proud of that fact it appeared.
"Ha!" Mikey grinned "We can do that with our shells."
Inferna laughed a little at Mikey "Useful shit, am I right?"
Ratchet was putting the datapads down now, and pulling out machinery to do a deep scan, using Donatello as his target "Primus. That technology is biological. It was continuing to grow along your spine" he looked at Perceptor "we can't remove it without damaging their spinal column."
Jessica shrugged "Repair it as you go along."
"it's not that simple! There is bone, nerves, discs!" Ratchet reasoned
"You use stem cell methods to grow them more bone, copy nerve frequencies."
"Both of you, over here now. We'll need your help, you have weapon advancements in organic healing."
"Just organic healing?" Clayshah did that little innocent/not so innocent looking smile only short people of 4'9 are capable of pulling off.
"You will never let me live that down that Elemental tech is more advanced…. Will you…." It wasn't a question, Ratchet knew better.
"Woah what? Why me?" Jess asked, she was a soldier, leader, and worked on cars and heavy equipment. Which is not medical equipment. Not even close.
"Just do it." Jessica's earth cousin dragged her to Ratchet and his team.
Donnie watched this exchange, then facepalmed. "Well, isn't this great. going to get paralyzed while you try and get it out."
"Dude!" mikey's face actually looked panicked. "Don't say shit like that! I'd go nuts if i couldn't ride my board!"
"We'll find a way around it. Calm down" Clayshah's voice came from the other side of the medbay.
Raph rolled his eyes at her.
Leo just tuned it all out, his attention firmly focused on his new task. Cleaning those wings. He was careful, meticulous. he didn't want to hurt her or aggrevate her wings in anyway. This was all still so new to him. Even as careful as he was, he had to stop, a very surprised ridge shooting up when a long, soft, moan slipped out of her. A sound he usually only heard in the bedroom. This, was not a coo. A coo was a content, happy sound. Not a sound that indicated that Vicky needed a bedroom exercise regimen.
Mikey bust out laughing at Leo's expression. "Might need to get a separate room there bro."
In turn the remaining NEST girls snickered, being able to relate, except Inferna, she was all grumbling "Heatwave did that to me in public on purpose one time. Lil bastard"
"Ha!" Ariel grinned "That is totally something he would do." Apparently that statement earned a seal of approving from the wind flinger.
"Yeah, when she said they are sensitive to touch? She really meant it. And it does. It feels nicer than when someone plays with your hair, even better than when someone massages your back! It can go from soothing to heated very quickly. So have caution with your touch" Starblast informed, laughing a little
"Yeah. It's embarassing to coo in public, not being able to control it" Well, it was for the flame girl.
Leo just shook his head slightly, then continued on unpreturbed.
"Nothing phases him." Mikey chuckled.
"That's a good way to be." Starblast noted with a smile. "You guys probably see a lot. And it won't get any more normal working with us if we are going to try to figure out what Bishop is doing.
It was about then the younger turtles came back, all of them loaded down with comfort items not only for their mothers, but their fathers as well. Leo was especially pleased to see his tea kettle in Ty's hand.
"Whoa, full house in here." Ari noted even has her bouncy steps led her towards her parents. "Whatcha guys doing?"
"Cleaning them up a bit." Mikey took a momet to smile at his daughter before returning to the task of wing sanitizing.
"Cool, can I help?" Mikey nodded and Ari picked up her own rag before peering around Mikey, then smiled. "Why am I not surprised..."
Lavi walked over curiously, and her smile mirrored Ari's. "Orange. Mom's are blue."
The Elementals withdrew to the lab section of medbay, allowing the turtles the time and somewhat privacy needed to clean the wings, and to reestablish connections. Ty and Lavi moved in to help their father. Talking quietly to him while their mother slept on. Lavi in particular hung close to Leo, the scare of him having been taken still fresh in her mind and she needed that reassurance that he was indeed here. And Leo, smiling gently at her, gave her that reassurance. Now that she was carrying her own little one, Leo would take extra precautions with her to make sure her pregnancy was as stress free as possible as could be expected from this lifestyle.
He was still going to have words with Kyle though. Lengthy ones.
