The sun was coming up as they returned to the apartment, but Leonardo shut the curtains tightly as soon as they carried Father inside. The mutant rat was unconscious, and had been the entire journey back to their temporary home. He showed no signs of waking as Mikey and Donnie lowered him gently onto the couch.
"How is he?" Casey asked anxiously.
"Exhausted," Donnie said. "I think he just needs to sleep and recover his strength."
He pulled a worn blanket over Splinter, carefully tucking it under him to keep him as warm as possible. A heavy silence settled over the room as the three brothers uneasily considered what had happened. As Donnie fussed over their father, Mikey crouched down in a chair and rested his head on his hands. Leo remained standing, his stance rigid and his arms crossed tightly across his chest, as if he were trying to remain stoic in the face of great pain.
"So that was really him, huh?" Casey said quietly.
"It can't have been anyone else," Leo said. "A mutant turtle named Raphael — the coincidence would be too great. Fate led us to him tonight."
Donnie sat back on his heels. "Has fate got any ideas about how we can get him back, or are we supposed to figure that part out ourselves?" he said sarcastically.
Leo bristled. "Donnie, even you can't deny that the chances of us encountering the one person we've been looking for for months among our enemies are miniscule."
Donnie shrugged dismissively. "It makes perfect sense without the whole fate and destiny thing, Leo. The Foot kidnapped Father because they wanted mutants — who's to say that they didn't do the same thing to Raphael for the same reason?"
Leo's hackles rose at his brother's scorn, and he felt burning words rising to his tongue. But before he could say any of them, Mikey suddenly spoke up. "So we've been lookin' and lookin' for months, and it turns out Raphael's a ninja like us, only he's with the bad guys," he said slowly.
"That about sums it up, Mikey," Leo said.
"So… what are we gonna do? I saw you guys tryin' to talk to him during the fight, and he was screamin' and tryin' to stab you."
"He's confused," Leo said, his brown eyes narrowing. "He doesn't know what he's doing. Not really." He had to admit that some childish part of him had hoped that when their brother saw them, recognized that they were like him, he would abandon the Foot and rejoin his family at long last. But instead he had fought a stranger — an enemy fighting against his father and brothers.
No, Leo told himself sternly. Not an enemy. A victim of their enemies. Someone who needed their help desperately.
"He might not be confused, Leo," Donnie said quietly.
"What are you suggesting?"
"We don't know anything about Raphael. Maybe he really feels he belongs in the Foot. Maybe he… likes it there."
"I won't believe that," Leo said sternly. "If he really felt that way, he wouldn't have been so upset when we spoke to him — some part of him knew we were right." He looked down at his clenched fist. "We haven't spent this long looking for Raphael to just abandon him to the Foot. We have to find a way to help him."
"Well, that's gonna be hard," Mikey said gloomily. "He won't even listen to us, so how are we s'posed to convince him that he should leave the Foot and come with us? He doesn't even know us."
Silence settled over the room again, heavier and gloomier than before. It was broken by the sound of footsteps pattering on the stairs outside the apartment, and a door opening. A slender girl with long red hair rushed in, her eyes wide.
"You got him back!" she cried, her gaze going to Splinter. Then she saw the grim faces of the young man and three turtles, and her fair skin went even paler. "He's not…"
"He'll be fine, April," Leo said gently. "We've… just had a nasty shock. It's Raphael. We found him."
"That's great news, isn't it?" April said.
"Not exactly," Mikey said gloomily. "He's one of the bad guys, and he doesn't know who we are." He related the story to April, who sank into a chair beside Casey, and listened with wide eyes to every word of it, her hands balling into fists.
Leo was lost in his own thoughts as Mikey explained everything, remembering the tortured expression on Raphael's face as they had fought — the wild eyes, the snarls. It had been more than just aggression. Something about seeing them had upset him deeply, though Leo had no idea what it had been. If only he had a few minutes to speak to Raphael… to find out how to get through his defenses… to find some way to convince him that they were his family, that he belonged with them, that they wouldn't rest until he came back where he belonged…
But how? How could he convince someone he had never even met before to abandon everything, for the sake of strangers? He had been in the Foot Clan for who knew how long — he had probably made friends, developed loyalties. He would think their way was right. He would believe in them.
It couldn't be impossible to bring him back. Leo refused to believe that his brother was irredeemable — that his soul was too entrenched in the Foot to come back to his family. Surely the forces that had reunited them with Raphael wouldn't be so cruel as to do that if there was no hope.
Suddenly Leo felt painfully tired. He hadn't slept in two days, and he had fought at least two arduous battles during that time, as well as suffering the shock of encountering Raphael. His muscles ached, and his eyes burned and itched with sleep that he was still resisting.
He knew that he needed rest. But at the same time, he felt like every minute that he wasted on sleep was another minute their brother was in the Foot, with the dark clan's tendrils getting deeper and deeper into his spirit. It made no sense — they wouldn't be able to do more in a few hours than they had done in all these months — but Leo couldn't stop feeling that way. Somberly, he began unbuckling his belt and unslinging the katanas on his back.
"Isn't there some way you could…. I don't know, talk to Raphael?" April said hesitantly.
"We tried," Donnie said bleakly. "He kept screaming at us to shut up and stay away from him."
"We need to find a way to corner him, away from the Foot," Leo said. "If we could just talk to him — break through what the Foot has told him—"
"Talking to him might not work, Leo," Donnie pointed out. "This isn't like brainwashing. This is about trying to get someone to abandon their whole life. He tried to kill our father — tried to kill us. They have him pretty deep."
"I know," Leo said. "But we have to try. I won't give up on him."
"I think I might have an idea," Casey spoke up, having been silent all this time. "I've been hearing rumors about this one area of town where a vigilante has been causing a ruckus — mostly knockin' around street thugs. A bunch of the people he's beaten up ended up in the hospital. Kidnappers, rapists, thieves, all sorts of nice people. Most of the people he's rescued haven't seen him clearly, but they say he carries around a couple of knives and fights with kung-fu. And one person who did see him clearly says he was… well, she said he was green."
"What? Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Leo exclaimed.
Casey looked abashed. "I was goin' to. I only heard about it the other day, and… well, lots of stuff happened with Splinter being kidnapped and the little robots eatin' your home, so… it kept slipping my mind."
Leo took a deep breath, and forced himself to be calm. Casey was right — the last few days had been chaotic, and even though he had been helping them for months with searching for Raphael, it was easy to see why he had forgotten.
Still, hearing about that made him feel a little better. It meant that his brother was helping others — that he was stopping crimes from being committed, even though it was no help to the Foot Clan. There was good in his heart.
"It certainly sounds like Raphael. Even the knives — that could just be what people think his sai look like," Donnie said. "Where can we find this vigilante?"
Casey sighed. "That's the hard part. Nobody sees him unless he's beating someone up, and he goes away right afterwards without even saying anything."
Leo sighed, and let his head droop. Cornering Raphael was easier said than done — even if they could draw him out of hiding, he would see them coming if they simply chased him over the rooftops. It was hard to use the element of surprise on someone else who was also using it.
Then April's voice unexpectedly piped up. "I have an idea…"