"Again, Raphael!"
Toshiro-sensei's voice cracked like a whip in the confines of the dojo, and Raphael winced without meaning to. He signaled Toshiro-sensei with a raised finger, seized a bottle of water and poured the contents down his throat, save for a few dribbles that ran down his chin.
He wiped his mouth on his arm and tossed the bottle back at the bench, then fell back into the stance his sensei had been trying to drill into him for the last half hour. It didn't help, he thought darkly, that his limbs kept trembling from fatigue, and his training-hardened muscles felt as though someone had been beating him with a bat.
But he didn't complain. Not ever. Toshiro-sensei was only doing what Raphael had asked him — practically begged him — to do. He was turning Raphael into a ninja faster than any other student he had ever taught, as quickly as possible, faster than even Raphael's mutant body was prepared for. That had to come with some kind of pain. Raphael was willing to suffer it.
Toshiro-sensei circled around him, studying the stance. "Your left foot is still too far out, but this will suffice. Now attack."
Raphael remained still, as if he had heard nothing.
"I said at-"
Raphael's hand lashed out with almost dizzying speed, his torso rotating to aim his strike in the correct direction. Toshiro's eyes widened, and he barely moved aside in time, feeling Raphael's fingers brush his beard as he did so.
"Clever tactic," he said approvingly. "You nearly had me that time."
Raphael responded with a pained grunt. "But not good enough," he said through gritted teeth.
"Not yet, no."
But Toshiro's eyes fell to Raphael's sweat-slicked body, and the heavy tremor that ran through his arms as he tried to fall back into the stance again, grunting softly as he tried to force his muscles to do his bidding. The mutant turtle had been working almost constantly since dawn that morning, pushing himself through sword training, practice with his sai, stealth, hand-to-hand combat. Toshiro had even taken him to the medical clinic to learn how to suture a wound, in case he ever needed to do it to himself in the field.
But he could tell that his student was rapidly reaching his limit. The long days of constant training were wearing him down, and Toshiro had begun to fear that Raphael would make himself ill. He had agreed to push the mutant turtle through accelerated training, he reflected. But he had not agreed to let him harm himself.
"That is enough for today," Toshiro said at last, placing a hand on Raphael's shoulder.
Raphael looked up at him, confused. "Sensei? We still have half an hour left…"
"I know, but I am an old man and need my rest," Toshiro said, deftly substituting a true statement for his real motive. "We shall pick up again in the morning, when both of us have rested."
Breathing hard, Raphael bowed respectfully to his sensei, and walked gingerly over to the bench. He could hardly complain if Toshiro-sensei needed to break their day short — the old man had already done so much for him, and these accelerated days of training were consuming all of his time, Raphael suspected. He just hoped he would be able to make Toshiro-sensei proud.
In the meantime, muscles he didn't even know he had were aching, twinging as he settled himself down. He wondered how many more things he had to learn, and how long it usually took a ninja to be trained.
"Sensei," he said hesitantly.
Toshiro-sensei raised his brows. "Yes, Raphael?"
"Do you think Master Shredder will be pleased by me when I'm done with trainin'?"
Toshiro-sensei did not answer right away, instead folding a towel with excessive care. "I do not know of a reason for him to be displeased by you," he said at last. "He is a man of… high expectations, but I have seen nothing in your skills that indicates you would not live up to them." He settled on the bench beside Raphael, and looked off into space. "But those high expectations mean that obedience is expected in all things. As important as skill is, the dedication to one's clan and loyalty to one's master are also important — more important, sometimes — to survive in the Foot Clan. Do you understand?"
"I think so," Raphael said.
Toshiro sighed. "And you are not an ordinary ninja, Raphael. You never will be. Master Shredder is sure to treat you differently than others because of what you are, and that may sometimes be… difficult for you. Certain things may be expected of you."
"What does that mean?"
Toshiro let his head droop forward and rubbed his brow. "I cannot explain it to you now," he said quietly. "But one day, I think you will understand of what I speak."
He could feel without looking that Raphael was troubled, but knew there was nothing he could truthfully say to alleviate the youth's doubts. And lulling Raphael into a false sense of safety would be the worst crime of all, since his life would only become more dangerous when he became a full-fledged ninja. Toshiro could only hope that Raphael was strong enough when the time came.
Toshiro-sensei's words haunted Raphael's thoughts as he prepared himself for bed. His nightly routine had become longer since his training had intensified, since he often had to bandage the small cuts and scrapes that his combat practice left him with. This evening his left shoulder was the sorest spot — he had landed on it when Toshiro-sensei had knocked him over, and it had been bruised on the lip of his shell. It wasn't very each to disinfect and bandage either, since Raphael couldn't twist around.
He hissed softly as he taped another pad of gauze on a particularly nasty slice on his elbow, where his arm had caught on a bit of a broken shuriken lodged in the wall. He had kept fighting through the pain until the training exercise was over, feeling blood dripping down his arm.
"Very good," Toshiro-sensei had praised him afterwards. "In the field, it's likely you will be wounded in a fight but have to continue in order to survive. Being used to fighting through pain will be an asset."
Finally he finished bandaging up his injuries, and gingerly lowered himself onto his bed. Time for another meeting with Mother — he could leave his aching, exhausted body behind for a few hours, and tell her what he had learned that day.
His eyes wandered to the night sky outside his window, with a crescent moon hanging overhead. It popped into his head that when he had been snatched away from StockGen, there had been three other turtles with him, or so Master Shredder had told them.
"They were lost in a sewer, to be eaten by rats," he had said. "But you survived, Raphael. You lived where they did not, because your destiny was to be a warrior, a ninja."
Raphael had straightened when he heard that, and felt a surge of pride in his master's faith in him.
Still… Raphael sometimes found himself wondering about those three lost turtles, and what his life would have been like if they had survived and mutated with him. If they had been part of the Foot with him, if they had lived and trained and worked with him… if he weren't alone. If there were three other mutants to share training, missions and life with.
With a groan, he rolled onto his side and hugged the coverlet to his chest. He had to stop thinking this way. All it would do was make sleep more elusive, and he needed his sleep. He needed to be rested by the morning, before another day of training.
So he closed his eyes tightly, and tried to slow his breathing, until he felt the aches of his body slipping away, and the darkness creeping over his mind.
And then there was Mother.
"What troubles you, my son?" she said softly, walking alongside him. A wind that didn't truly exist ruffled the sleeves of her kimono, and sent plum blossoms scattering across the path before them.
"I don't know, Mother. I guess I'm just… lonely," Raphael said reluctantly. He hated to say it to Mother, given how she kept him company almost every night and listened to every word he spoke to her. But the loneliness was deep inside him, a pervasive bone-deep ache that never went away.
"You are surrounded by people, and yet are lonely," she agreed sadly.
"I wish there were other mutants in the Foot. I… I'm the only one, and maybe if there were others I wouldn't be seen as such a freak. Or at least I'd have someone to understand what it feels like."
"Is there no one whom you can call your friend, child?" Mother asked.
Raphael opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. He had almost mentioned Toshiro-sensei, but he wasn't sure if one's sensei counted as a friend. "No one," he said at last. "Nobody like me."
Mother's eyes grew darker and sadder as she contemplated this, and she placed her hand on Raphael's. "You will find others like yourself soon enough," she promised. "But you must be patient."
"What exactly are you?"
Leo gritted his teeth, and wished for the ninth time in the last five minutes that Mikey had held back. They were all in plain sight, standing over the five unconscious men that they had managed to beat in only a few minutes, with a street light casting a dim glow over the entire alley. They had barely even started their quest for Raphael, and already they had screwed up.
The boy in front of them was in his late teens or early twenties, with a wide-eyed handsome face, a mess of dark hair, and a perplexed expression as he looked over the three strange figures before him. "Are you guys… turtles?" he said quizzically.
"Uh-huh," Mikey said cheerfully.
He seemed to digest this new information, then smiled broadly and held out his fist towards Mikey. The youngest turtle bumped his own fist against it. "Name's Casey Jones, and I appreciate the help," he said amiably. "I got a little in over my head."
Well, there was no help for it now, Leo reflected, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. Maybe if they were very lucky, this guy wouldn't cause any more trouble for them — the last thing they needed was for StockGen or Old Hob to get news of their whereabouts. "Why did those guys attack you?" he asked.
"Attack me?" Casey said blankly. "They didn't. I attacked them." He gestured to the bag on his back, containing a few bats and golf clubs, as if it were obvious.
Leo's eyes widened, then narrowed. "What?" he said.
"They broke into the pawn shop across the street just as I showed up," Casey explained. "So I was tryin' to stop 'em… and you guys showed up. Which was pretty awesome, especially with the swords."
"That is awesome," Mikey said admiringly. "You're kind of like a superhero, except you have bats instead of superpowers."
Casey grinned. "You know it."
The headache was there now, throbbing behind Leonardo's brow like a tiny hand drum. He pressed his fingers to his forehead and massaged it as best he could, but he could tell this headache wasn't going away anytime soon.
"So what are you guys doing out here at this time of night?" Casey said, as if he expected giant talking turtles to be wandering the streets during the day.
"That's-" Leo started to say.
But Mikey interjected, "We're out looking for our brother Raphael. He's been missin' for months and months, and now we gotta find him and bring him home."
"Which is what we're supposed to be doing now," Leo said sternly, casting a look at his baby brother. Mikey, for his part, seemed blissfully unaware of his eldest brother's mood.
Casey's brow crinkled, and he looked slowly at the three green faces surrounding him. "I might be able to help you guys, if you're okay with that," he said. "I know this 'hood like the back of my hand, and I got some connections that might help find someone who's missing."
Leo started to ask if that was possible, especially when the person being searched for was a giant turtle. But then his previous thoughts flashed through his mind, making him uncomfortably aware that Casey Jones might be the answer to their prayers. He had been lamenting that they didn't know a human who could go places they couldn't… and here was one willing to help them. Father, he reflected, would call it destiny.
"Okay," Leo said at last.