Raph and Leo sat poring over the files and folders of Gabby's plans. It was detailed and well thought out but they wanted to make sure there were no blind spots or issues that she hadn't foreseen.
"Wish Donnie was here." Raph said. "He's got a knack for this kinda thing."
Donnie and Saffron had been sent off to the property they were originally supposed to set up in to prepare a place for the new Weres coming in as well as to set up a medical outpost closer to the territory line. Most of the newcomers would be medical staff and prisoners. With Carl's allies and the werecats in the picture, there was no point in trying to steal more soldiers, especially when it was too hard for them to differentiate between those who were loyal and those who were not.
"It'll be fine, Raph." Leo reassured his younger brother. "We can do this. We've been strategizing since we were fifteen."
"I know." Raph said. "There's just a lot at stake here."
"There's always a lot at stake." Leo replied.
I just wish we could keep Gabby close. We can't protect her if she's off bein' bait." Raph said. "I can't believe I'm letting her do this."
"Why are you?" Leo asked. It wasn't something he would have allowed.
"You didn't see the way she asked me." He said, shaking his head. "I could feel how much she needed to do this. It would really hurt her if I benched this plan. She thinks she has something to prove."
Leo just nodded. Raph was closest to Gabby so he trusted his judgment. Raph had done a lot of growing the last couple of months. He was less edgy and a lot more considerate of others. Pack life was definitely agreeing with him. Leo couldn't help but be jealous though. Even though he hadn't been around, he still thought about Gabby all the time. He was lucky he had his missions to keep him busy during the season. He'd had enough fighting to keep him tired and clear minded. If it wasn't for his missions, he knew he would have been a hard bastard to get along with.
"I don't know how you did this all these years." Raph said. "It's scary planning something that puts the family in danger."
"I had faith in all of you." Leo replied. "I trusted you guys to be able to take on whatever was coming. You know how well all of them fight. We'll be fine."
Raph looked at his older brother. He was the one person Raph trusted the most in the world to have his back. If Leo said they could do it, he believed him.
"It'll be nice." Raph admitted. "Getting back into the game. It's been so long since I had a chance to actually do something."
"You've been needed here," Leo said, "but I know what you mean. It was nice to get back to fighting the bad guys."
"The Ninja Turtles, back together again at last." Raph chuckled. "I just want everything to work out."
"It will." Leo said. "We'll make it happen."
The next night, everyone loaded up and got into position. Gabby stood on the rise, right in the path of the night patrol. They would be passing that area any minute and she had made sure to leave just enough scent to be recognized. The dark wolf growled as she looked down on her place of misery and then turned, fleeing into the forest, giving herself the biggest head start she could manage. She heard the howls a few minutes later and knew the patrol had not only picked up her scent, but recognized it. She pushed herself hard, trying to put as much distance as possible between them so that she could start dealing out tricks. She hoped everyone else was okay.
At the compound, the supply trucks were rolling in, and Raph's friend Casey was driving the fake supply truck. They got past the guards no problem but then they heard the howls. People were running all over the place and in the back of the truck, Leo spoke.
"We need to get in there now. The alarm's already been raised and we have probably less than five minutes before the guards are in place."
As quickly as they could, they made a break for the medical center. They made it into the loading dock just as some wolves showed up to shut down the delivery. Saffron's friend was waiting for them inside along with a few other healers.
"Quick." She hissed and took off for the stairs.
The turtles, along with Gracie, Saffron, Carl, Renee, and Brandy piled out of the back of the truck and bolted after the woman. Submission was key here and everyone they came by submitted to them with just enough of a fight to satisfy the wolf in them. With most of the medical staff on board, they headed into the holding area where Aiden kept his prisoners. The guards were quickly killed based on the advice of the medical staff who knew what sick bastards they were. The keys to the rooms and cells were found and they began opening doors to free prisoners. Raph couldn't believe what he saw. Men, women, and children were beaten and scarred. Some stank of illness and most were too weak to do much more than support their own weight. Luckily, with the extra medical staff, they were more than capable of quickly moving the thirty-seven prisoners in two trips. They loaded them up into the supply truck and Saffron and the other medical staff quickly went to work.
Saffron shifted to wolf and began to lick at a severely infected wound across the back of a child. It was a foul smelling and tasting job but if she didn't start now, they might loose the little boy. The sight made her sick and reminded her of all of the horrors she had witnessed at the hands of the beast who called himself the Alpha. She saturated the child's terrible wound, her saliva slowly killing off the infection at the sight but she was worried the infection might have reached his blood. That she wouldn't know until they got to the medical post she and Donnie had set up. She moved on to her next patient who seemed to have no skin on her back. This woman also reeked of infection, Aiden's most favored tool of torture. Infection was the only way to keep a Weres wound from healing properly. It was the only way, other than marking bone, to make a wolf scar. Saffron began to lick at the woman's back, trying to patch together what little skin was left in the forest of claw marks and whip lashes. The truck began moving as soon as the last of them were loaded in, leaving the compound with almost no medical staff and with the guards being none the wiser. Hopefully that would help give them a chance to return for more, should the opportunity present itself.
It was an hour back to the medical outpost but they made it there safe without anyone dying. Patients were quickly rushed into the medical area and hooked up to IVs. Antibiotics were administered in doses that would have been dangerous to a human. Slowly but surely all but one patient was brought back from the brink of death. For the little boy that Saffron had first attended too, however, it was too late. His heart stuttered and then stopped and he breathed his last. The medical staff wept at the cruelness of his fate, tortured and punished for his father's defiance of Aiden. While they mourned the passing of the little boy, Raph hopped into a borrowed vehicle. Gabby was almost back to the Pack lands. He had to go get her before Aiden caught up.
Gabby doubled back over her own trail, using every trick in the book to shake Aiden and his Betas. They had been chasing her for hours and she was having a hell of a time trying to shake them but the river was coming up and she would use it to mask her scent. She dived in headlong, using the strong, icy current to propel herself forward. She was lucky it had been so warm the last two weeks and there was open water. She swam a long way, coming out in a rural neighborhood and sprinting for the Thompson Territory. She crossed streets and climbed fences and ran through every smelly thing she could find. She circled and backtracked and took leaping bounds onto and over fences. She even managed to make it onto a traveling bus without being noticed. She knew that one would throw them for a loop. She made it back to the Territory Boarder and waiting at the rendezvous point was Raph, leaning against a truck that she'd never seen before.
"Did you steal that?" The teased, trying to cover her strain and her worry.
"Just get in." He said. He opened the door and she jumped up in the passenger seat.
"Did you get them out?" She asked. "Are they okay?"
"We got them." He said. "They're hurt, Gabby. Saffron and Donnie and the other medical staff are looking after them. We lost a little boy." His voice trailed off, pained.
"Bastard." Gabby breathed, leaning back into the seat. She was exhausted. That was the most physically exhausting thing she had ever done. All of the fear and anxiety and adrenaline were leaving her system making her feel like she had just been through the wash and then hung out to dry.
"There were no problems with the chase?" Raph asked.
"Melody was a huge help. They definitely stopped to figure out what the hell a werecat was doing running with the one wolf in the world that would draw Aiden out of his compound. They almost caught me a few times but I'm not called Huntress for nothing." She answered.
The thought of those slimy wolves putting their slimy paws on her for even one second made Raph go tight with rage but after a minute, he heard soft snores and he looked over. Gabby had passed out from exhaustion, her head resting against the cool window. Raph relaxed a bit and headed for the outpost. She would want to see her family and friends, and Raph had to introduce her to the eleven new members of their pack.
They hadn't expected an immediate retaliation from the ever calculating Aiden but that's exactly what happened. It was an obvious suicide mission. Aiden's soldiers were sent in and told to kill until they were killed. No retreat, no surrender. Leo, Raph, Gabby, and Melody were all in that quick and bloody battle. Many fine Betas were lost and when the small battle was finally over, there were nearly two hundred dead. The one hundred of Aiden's men were all killed but seventy three of the Thompson Pack were killed before a counter force was able to form and activate. There was no victory that day. Extra patrols were set for the battle front and those who had fought were returned to the compound to be replaced with rested men and women.
Gabby, Leo, Melody and Raph all walked into the compound, relieved to be away from the horrors of the battlefield. They were all disgusting, covered in blood and gore. Leo removed his katana, sheaths and all and headed for his room to clean them before washing up himself. Raph, on the other hand, was being surly and overbearing. Gabby had some pretty deep wounds that were healing slowly and causing her some pain and he was enraged that anyone would dare lay their claws into his she-alpha. He followed her into her room.
"Get in the shower." He demanded. He wanted all of the blood gone. It made her smell wrong. Like bad men and death.
"You don't have to boss me, Raph. I'm an adult and I do know how to clean up after a fight. I need to get these wounds sealed up first."
"Who's here?" He asked.
"None of ours." Gabby replied. "They're still out on the front since they didn't make it to our end in time to help."
"Well we could go to the medical center." He suggested.
"I'll just call for Jayden." She replied, reaching for him with her mind. She had gotten really good at stretching her mind over the last few months. Practicing had really strengthened her reach and even revealed abilities she wasn't aware of.
"Jayden, will you come to my room? I need a couple of wounds to seal and I don't want Raph around other people right now." She said.
"Sure. That bad, huh?" He asked.
"Worse than usual." She replied.
He showed up a few minutes later in his wolf form and Raph let him in. He jumped up on the bed and licked at Gabby's shoulder wound until the skin knitted together in an angry red scar that would probably fade to nothing eventually. Then, with a grunt of pain, Gabby laid back and slid her sweatpants lower over her hips and lifted her shirt. There was a white bandage below her bellybutton that she removed with a hiss revealing two jagged and deep gashed where a Beta had attempted to disembowel her. Jayden had to coat the damaged muscle underneath in saliva causing Gabby to gasp in pain.
"Be careful." Raph snapped at Jayden.
"Shut up, Raph." Gabby ground out as Jayden licked between her hip bones, trying to get the skin to knit so she would be able to clean up.
Raph stewed in the corner. The rage of battle had wound him up and made him edgy. It didn't help that his Gabby had been injured and she was being snappy at him. He was tense. He stood up and began pacing. Finally Jayden got the skin to knit and then he beat it, not wanting to be on the receiving end of any more of Raph's displeasure.
"Shower. Now." Raph said to Gabby. She bit back a retort, knowing that it would help nothing. She started filling the bath but got into the shower instead of waiting which really confused Raph. She quickly rinsed all evidence of the battle away and stepped out of the shower, drying herself and then throwing on a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt. Raph was still a mess and so she pointed to the bath.
"Get in." She demanded and he gaped at her. She wanted him to take a bath? A bath?!
"But…" Raph started but an unusually loud growl came from deep in her chest, brooking no room for argument. She had let him boss her and now he would allow her to do the same. Raph dropped his belt and shoulder strap, setting his dirty Sais on her nightstand. The rest of his clothes followed and he got into the tub, giving Gabby a quick show of his gorgeously muscled body before he disappeared into the water. Gabby blushed when she realized she was staring. He didn't have a tail. She had always wondered.
Raph immediately began to scrub himself clean with the bar of soap and the washcloth but Gabby rummaged around until she found what she was looking for. It was a nail brush but it would be perfect for cleaning the patterns and groves of his shell. She set herself up on the wide ledge of the bath behind him.
"Lean forward." She requested and he did.
She dipped the brush in the water and slowly started scrubbing the dried blood and chunks of flesh and dirt away. He let out a satisfied groan as he felt the stiff bristles scratching all the good spots. When she finally finished, he took the brush from her and started scrubbing his plastron. The brush worked a lot better than the washcloth at getting the stuff out of there. As he was finishing up, he felt Gabby's hands running over his shoulders. Her strong fingers pressed into his muscles, driving out all of the lingering tension. She worked over his outer shoulders then in to his deltoids and up his neck. She smiled as Raph made noises she had never heard from him before. He let his head fall back against her leg as her talented hands work forward until they were pressing where his plastron met his skin. He felt like melting butter. He had never felt anything like it before. He closed his eyes as she worked, drifting in a barely aware state. She shifted over to give herself better access and requested his arm which he gave freely. She began to dig into his sore muscles but as she was moving, she caught a cut on the back of his arm that she hadn't noticed under the layers of blood and battle grime that had coated his skin. He flinched when she touched it, telling her it was tender. She brought his arm up and sealed her lips over the cut, tracing it gently with her tongue.
"I thought you had to be a wolf to do that." He said as he felt the familiar tingling as her saliva went to work.
"The composition of my saliva doesn't change just because I'm in a different form." She said when she pulled away from his arm. She watched as the cut slowly closed up. "You got any more of those?"
Raph pointed out a few more battle wounds that she ran her tongue over. He would have shown her the two on his right thigh but he was hard and aching after feeling her run her hot tongue all over him and she didn't need to know that. After all of his cuts were mostly healed, she resumed her massaging on his other arm until again he was a pile of relaxed mush.
"You gotta show me how to do that." He told her as she finished up. She got up and grabbed a towel and threw it to him as he rose from the now filthy water.
"Why, wanna impress all of your girlfriends?" She joked.
"Something like that." He laughed as he wrapped the towel around his waist. Gabby hadn't seen the evidence of his arousal.
"I'll teach you sometime." She promised as she rummaged through the cupboard for her brush.
"Well I'll see you tomorrow. It's been a long night and I'm tired." He said, grabbing his Sai and his soiled clothes.
"Good night." She called from the bathroom and he slipped out, eager to return to the privacy of his own room.