Seventeen days. Seventeen days and April still had not woken up.
It made Donnie wonder why he was even working on the retro-mutagen. So that when Mr. O'Neil regained his humanity, he could wake to find his daughter lost between the boundaries of life and death?
Even as Donnie completed the formula, even as he ran his first successful tissue sample, his achievement was tainted by sadness and the lingering sensation of failure. At this point, what difference did it make?
Donnie consoled himself with the knowledge that even if April never woke up, she would still want her father to be human again.
"So, remind me why we are doing this again?" Mikey's voice, more subdued these days, broke through Donnie's reverie. "I mean, your little sample thingy worked, right?"
Donnie looked over at his brother. MIkey sat in front of his navigation console in the Shellraiser, ignoring it as per usual. "Just because it worked on a tissue sample doesn't mean it's one hundred percent perfect, Mikey." A different Donatello might have called him a 'shellbrain,' but that Donatello was gone. "I don't know how it will affect an entire living organism."
"Still, it seems like a waste to test it on Fishface or Dogpound," Raph said, looking over his shoulder. "I mean, you've got the Pulverizer waiting to be unfrozen right there in your lab."
"Come on, Raph," Leo said from the driver's seat. "If this stuff doesn't work right or kills the test subject, we don't want it to be a friendly."
"But if it does work, we've just done a nice favor for the enemy."
"To be honest, Bradford and Xever are probably less of a threat to us as humans than they are as mutants," Donnie said. While both of them were formidable fighters in their human forms, the mutation had given them some serious advantages. Raphael had suffered the consequences of Xever's venomous fangs, and Bradford's massive clawed fists were none too kind either.
"Hmph." Raph folded his arms.
"Well, we need to find one of them first," Leo said. "Any sign of them, guys?"
Sheepishly, Donnie returned his focus to the external monitors. He hadn't been paying attention at all. "Not yet."
They drove around the city for another hour or so when Raph shouted, "That building up there! I saw movement on the roof!"
Leo pulled the Shellraiser over and turned off the headlights. "Okay. Let's check it out. Donnie, you got your dart gun ready?"
"It's not a dart gun, Leo. It's a high-pressured hypodermic syringe projectile system."
His three brothers rolled their eyes in unison. "Just get the thing for the test ready, okay?" Leo said.
"Ready to go."
"Let's do this."
Like shadows, the four of them exited the vehicle and made their way silently up to the roof. Carefully, they made their way to the location where Raph had seen movement. At first, they saw nothing, but then a feminine form emerged from behind a smokestack.
Karai. For a brief moment, Donnie contemplated the just recompense that taking a loved one from Shredder might bring, but he knew that would be wrong. Karai was only the way she was because of her father. No, the only justice there could be would be Shredder's cold body six feet under.
Leonardo held out a hand, signaling them to stay put.
Karai glanced over her shoulder. "I thought you saw their stupid subway car on the street, Xever," she hissed.
Bingo, Donnie thought.
The sound of hydraulics grew increasingly louder as Fishface emerged into view. "I did. It's still there. They haven't moved."
Leo nodded to Donnie.
Frame by frame, as if time slowed down, Donnie raised the dart gun—darn it, Leo—to his shoulder and placed the crosshairs directly over Fishface's neck. His finger slipped inside the trigger guard, found the trigger, and squeezed.
Less than a second later, Xever yelped and reached a fin up to the place where the syringe had landed.
"Feels kinda weird hoping that Fishface won't die from this," Raphael said under his breath.
Immediately alert, Karai unsheathed her tanto and started looking around. "Show yourselves!" she shouted. "Footbots!"
At least a dozen Footbots leapt onto the roof.
"Oh, crud," Leo muttered. "Get ready, guys."
It took the Footbots less than ten seconds to find their location. They charged.
The high-pressure hypodermic syr—the dart gun fell to the roof with a clatter. Donnie drew out his bo-staff, ready to strike. He had to get over to Fishface soon, or he wouldn't be able to properly assess the retro-mutagen's effects. Clearly, pain was one of them. Fishface lay on the rooftop, writhing and moaning in agony.
But he couldn't think about that at this instant in time. As one with his brothers, he launched into a counter attack against the Footbots. Karai had joined in the assault. Predictably, she went straight for Leo. What was it with those two?
"Nice to see you're so worried about your henchman, Karai," Leo said.
"Nice to see that you're as easy to spot as ever," Karai quipped back.
As Donnie raised his bo to strike at the Footbot attacking him, a sai flew straight into the robot's head.
"We got this, Donnie," Raph said. His tone seemed to say, "I found a way to help April by stabbing something."
With a nod of thanks, Donnie dodged his way out of the fray and ran over to where Fishface lay squirming.
"What did you do to me?" Fishface hissed, right before losing consciousness.
"With any luck, I did you favor," Donnie replied. He glanced over at his brothers; they seemed to be handling the assault well enough, but it would only be a matter of time before reinforcements would arrive.
When he turned back to look at Xever, his stomach did a somersault. The transformation was taking place. It was hideous. Scales fell to the roof; Xever foamed at the mouth as the long fangs receded. His whole body convulsed and swelled like one of Mikey's overfilled water-balloons.
Disgusted and fearful, Donnie took a step back. Was it going to kill him?
Then, Xever's tail split in two. The swollen appendages receded into legs as scales cascaded to the rooftop, leaving behind human skin. The rest of the transformation happened in a similar chain reaction. Within a minute, Xever's human form, still encircled by robotic legs, lay naked on the rooftop.
I did not need to see that, Donnie thought grimly. He placed a trembling hand against Xever's carotid artery. The pulse was rapid, as might be expected, but steady.
"It worked!" Donnie shouted. "It really worked!"
"All right, let's bail!" Mikey shouted.
"What worked?" Karai snapped. She glanced over her shoulder, and her mouth fell open.
Taking advantage of her distraction, the four brothers quickly retreated from the roof. Once they were safely back inside the Shellraiser, Mikey let out a triumphant whoop. "High three!"
"Yeah!" For the first time in seventeen days, all four of them smiled.