Raphael drove for hours until he was across the Maryland boarder. By then he needed more gas and had to stop. He picked a small station on a secluded side road. There was no one there but an old man working in the garage attached to the station.
The mutant was exhausted. He wanted to take his helmet off, to sleep, but it was noon. There were no sewers here. Nowhere to hide. Raph swore as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a fist full of cash. He let it on top of the pump and sped off, the old man, yelling at him in the dust cloud he left behind.
The turtle rode for another few long hours and crossed another couple of state lines. It was night time finally and Raph could loosen up his gear, let some air in and cool himself off. He was skirting Atlanta, a city, something he was used to. Pulling into an alley Raph kicked the bike into park and climbed off so he could stretch. Thick arms reached overhead as he stretched and tried to unkink his stiff muscles. Riding that long, trying to look normal and avoiding people…. It was never good on a body.
His eyes twitched when he heard something shuffle behind him in the darkness. Slowly he took off his Jacket and freed his weapons for access just as a black clothed human dove out of the shadow and tried to knock him down. Raph was ready though and skillfully dodged the attack, knocking him aside. But before he could turn and face the attacker, another one came at him from behind, flinging him into the wall. Bouncing off the bricks, Raph was knocked into his bike, the machine falling over with a loud clatter of metal scraping on pavement.
"What the hell?" Raph looked up as a crowd of people dressed all in black body suits surrounded him. The symbols on their chests were familiar but slightly different than the ones back home. "What are you guys? The Foot's inbred cousins?" He lashed out with a series of intricate moves but these guys were just as fast. Raphael took down a handful, but their supply of fighter's seemed endless, he was getting worn out. The gash on his arm was oozing blood, making his grip on his sai slippery and there had to be a kunai stuck in his shell; he felt something thunk there earlier.
They converged on him. Raph could feel himself taking more blows than he was deflecting. But a squeal of tires and a skidding van slammed into half of the crowd. As the awkward ninja attackers were batted away by the cargo van, Raph pushed himself up off the ground. The sliding door on the van slid open and the driver, a young woman looked back. "Get in!" She shouted.
Raph didn't hesitate. He scrambled in and slammed the door shut as the woman already had the tires squealing as she peeled out of there. The turtle was panting, lying on his side as he looked up at his rescuer. There was a part of him that was curious as to why a human had stopped to help him, there were very few that weren't scared of them, that treated them like they weren't freaks. And here was a random woman that had stopped and helped him like he was any normal person.
Pushing himself up to his forearms Raphael took a moment to actually look at his heroine. She was on the small side, it looked like she could barely see over the steering wheel. She had long golden hair that was tied back in a messy bun, bright green eyes stared out over a freckled nose as she turned them out onto the dark main road of the city. She was wearing a hoodie that was way too big, and baggy jeans, almost like she was trying to hide in them. But Raph could see the bruises on her face and the home made splint on her wrist, something had happened to her and it made his stomach turn.
"Who are you?" Raph asked as he poked his head up between the front seats.
The girl smiled a bit and gave him a quick glance. "My name is Jack." She turned down a busier street for this time of night. "You are… Raphael right?"
He recoiled a bit. "How do you know my name?" He snapped.
"Easy killer… Your brother told me. Leo. I found him too, a few months ago when he was in town." She explained.
"You know where Leo is?" Raph asked her.
Jack frowned a bit. "Kind of? Maybe?" She sighed. "See, when he found me I was kind of in a fight with the same goons you were…" If she could have seen the look on Raphael's face she'd see he didn't believe her. "He got me out of there and we talked a bit. Turns out those thugs are some kind of extension of something called The Foot back where you are from. They are down here protecting a man named Geoffery Xanus, he is the head of an organization called Xanus Pharmaceuticals, they are partners with T.C.R.I. My brother used to be a researcher for Xanus, trying to find a cure for cancer, you know, something noble. He was working with something called Retromu-something..."
"Retromutagen?" Raph hated saying that word.
"Yeah that's it." She continued. "The other researchers had animals from the swamps they brought up for the trials but, Anthony didn't like the way the products were coming out. He didn't want to risk testing something on an animal if he couldn't get it right in a peatri dish. He got into a big fight with Xanus… He wanted to start over, but it would have cost Xanus millions. When my brother threatened to leave and expose the company for improper testing procedures, they killed him." She sighed. "All because my brother had people's lives in mind and not money. I knew he should have never gone to work for them."
"I'm sorry about your brother." Raph went to put a hand on her shoulder, but the girl winced and he realized he hit a bruise, he pulled it back apologetically.
"It's okay. I was never that smart. Anthony was the college grad. I was a waitress… till this whole mess and those ninja guys ripped our apartment to pieces." She glanced back past him quick. "Now this piece of crap is home."
Raph looked back in the van. He saw an old mattress and a balled up blanket against the back doors. On the far wall was an unzipped suitcase full of clothes, some dirty some clean and old photographs still in the frames. Not much else left of her life. Raph frowned. He lived in a sewer but at least it was a home. It had a working kitchen, a training room, and bedrooms enough for everyone, a living room stocked with enough TVs for the family and Don's lab had enough electronics for the entire city… He almost felt guilty for having it all.
She was still talking. "…I guess they wanted to clean up loose ends after killing Anthony, so they came to the apartment. Lucky for me, I had just been fired so I was running late."
He didn't really know what to say. "Uh… Maybe we can help you then. But first I have to find my brother. You said you might know where he is?" He wanted to help the girl. He really did, but he couldn't abandon the search for Leo.
"Right… Well, After I told him about my brother, he wanted to look into it all. Said that Xanus was moving their corporation up to your neck of the woods so… that would mean more of these Foot guys." And more mutagen catastrophes Raph thought. "I told him if he was able to get inside one of the test animal vehicles, he might be able to sneak inside one of the buildings and get some answers. He seemed a lot more interested in that mutagen stuff than I seem to understand." She shrugged.
The pair was silent as she drove for another few minutes pulling into an abandoned lot. There were a couple of homeless people milling around but no one that looked threatening. Jack stopped the van and locked all the doors. Climbing in the back, past Raph she collapsed on the mattress and let out a ragged breath. "It's been a rough day." She grinned before she kicked him gently. "I think you can agree with me there." She reached over into a smaller bag and dug through it a bit before motioning to him. "Come 'ere."
Raph found himself hesitating.
She wrinkled her nose at him. "What? Think a little girl like me is gonna beat you up?" She laughed. Something about it seemed intoxicating as a warmth spread over Raphael's chest, the bubbly sound blocking out every other noise. "If I was going to do that' I'd have left you back in the alley. Now get over here so I can patch you up."
He scooted over, sitting before her. He watched her push up her sleeves, the action revealing the crude splint she had wrapped around her own wrist. Her small hands took his arm bringing it closer so she could dab away the blood that was clinging to his dark skin. Her pale hands were a sharp contrast to his own, her fingers traced a few scars as she cleaned away the blood and revealed them before finally getting to the fresh wound.
"Seems like you have quite a bit more scars than your brother." She didn't look up. "If I had to guess, I'd say it more than your other brother's too." Jack grabbed a roll of bandages and started to wrap it around the gash on him. She tied it tight and put what was left away in her little medical kit. She made a motion with her finger to have him turn around and once he obeyed she had to put a foot on his shell for leverage as she pulled on the kunai stuck in his shell. She pulled so hard when it finally came unstuck she smacked her head on the side of her van. Rubbing the back of her head with one hand she offered him the knife with the other.
"You alright?" Raph asked, his hand catching hers slightly as he took the knife.
She nodded and smiled. "I'll be fine. Nothing worse than what I've been handed before."
The expert martial artist let it go and scooted back to lean against the opposing wall. "So why are you doing all of this? Helping me and my brother I mean."
Jack shrugged. "Well, I'm not scared of you. If that's what you really mean." She smiled and Raph thought he caught a sparkle in her eye, something in the way she smiled at him, something… genuine about her. "I just think that, maybe by helping you guys, I can make up for the things I couldn't do before. I never did much with my life and then when it really mattered I let the one person I had down and now he's gone. So maybe if I help you guys stop Xanus from doing whatever it is he's doing, I can make up for that." She offered up a small smile.
Raph wasn't sure what to say. He knew what it was like to try and make up for a mistake but he couldn't imagine this woman having done something she was trying to right. It was a noble effort. Raph had to commend the girl for trying to get involved with a company that not only killed her brother, but that was involved with the mutagen that was responsible for transforming not only him and his brothers but numerous others as well.
A yawn escaped the girl and she pulled off her sweat shirt. The tank top she wore showed off more bruises, cuts and scrapes on her arms and shoulders, she had been through the ringer. "In the morning I can take you down to the area I sent Leo, where the Xanus research facility gets test animals. I'm not sure what else I can do, but maybe we can find your brother."
"That sounds like a good plan." Part of him was itching to move now, while it was still dark but he didn't know the south. Once they were outside of the city, he'd be out of his element. Raph was more at home in the concrete jungle than in the real one. Besides, Jack was the only one who knew exactly where to go so he'd have to wait for her. "You look tired. Get some sleep."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "You can sleep too ya know. I know it's not the Ritz but, the doors are locked and it'll keep you dry if it decides to rain." She threw the little blanket she had at him and smiled. "Goodnight Raphael." Jack laid down and curled up on her thin mattress. Balling up her sweatshirt she used it as a pillow, a few strands of pale hair fell over her eyes as she got situated.
Raphael just sat there for a while, watching the woman sleep. He ran a hand over his face, grumbling to himself as he struggled with what to do. He was here to find Leo. That was it. But after the help Jack had shown the both of them, could he just leave here there and not help her? But what could he do? Her brother was already dead, the only thing that would make him feel better in that situation would be to kill the ones responsible. He had to swallow down the anger he could feel swelling in his gut.
Letting out a breath he closed his eyes and crossed his legs, taking one of the many meditation poses Splinter tried to force him to use when he was younger. He tried to calm his mind and after a few moments he opened his eyes. Taking the blanket Jack had thrown at him, he draped it over the sleeping woman and almost smiled. "'Night Jack." He whispered before lying down and trying to force the sleep to come in the strange place.