"Maybe they like anime!" Mikey bounced in his seat. "Or manga! I could totally show them my Naruto collection!"
"If they don't backstab us first." Raph harrumphed.
"Kinda hard to backstab us, dude." Mikey rapped his knuckles on Raph's shell. "Besides! Maybe they're cool!"
"Don't ever trust cops." April fiddled with her backpack strap in her hand. "Hell, I still don't know if I like this detective or not. But she seemed like she was on the level. If what she said about her brother is true…"
At the front of the van, Leo tugged on his scarf to keep it up over his beak. He only wore a light jacket, scarf, and hat to hide his face from drivers. Donatello, in the passenger's seat, wore something similar. The conversation between them was quiet, tuning out the back-and-forth between Raph, Mikey, and April as they drove.
"Stay in the right lane, our exit's coming up." Don urged.
Leo flicked on the blinker, merging smoothly into traffic. His eyes were on the road, but his mind was a million lightyears away, his thoughts orbiting in the gravity of one single worry.
She knew about us. He tapped the brakes at the stop light, engine idling a dull rumble that blended in with the din in the background. And she knows the ones who attacked us that night. What if they're attacking us again? What if they all work for the Shredder?
It was a disquieting thought.
In his mind, he went over every possible scenario. Betrayal? Fight and escape. Ambush? Confuse and disperse.
Alliance? Well… that possibility was probably what vexed his mind the most. He knew how to protect his family from enemies. How in the world do you protect them from friends?
"Leo!" Don called out a warning. Leo's arms jerked, swerving the steering wheel away from the divider in the highway.
Leo swore a string of curses in English as well as Japanese. "Is everyone alright?!"
"Peachy." "All good here." "Watch the road, Leo!"
There were no more near-misses the rest of the way to the pier. The security guard at the gate was easy enough to foil; a small firecracker tossed a distance away lured him away from the booth and gave April ample time to sneak into the glass shack, press the button, and lift the gate to let them in. They drove back around to the warehouse on the distant side of the docks.
The water here stank something incredible. Sewage and algae and other unspeakable things filled the air. It smelled like home, in other words. They quietly opened the van doors, melting into the shadows on the dark side of the warehouse. Two whizzing throwing stars knocked out the weak lights that illuminated the shipping area.
It was quiet.
April put a hand on the door to the van. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Are you guys ready for this?"
Mikey grinned, "Ready to kick butt, or ready to make new friends? Cuz I'm ready for both!"
Raphael laced his fingers together, scowling at the floor of the van. He wanted to say 'No'.
Five days in the tub was an awfully long time. By rights, he shouldn't have been out and about this fast. Don's fretting and worrying over his health was annoying on the best of days, but this time? He wished he'd had more time to heal. He'd insisted on cutting the cast off early, just in case they needed to swim or fight. But the three red wires that formed the closure on his ribs still ached. His right foot was marred by a dark green bruise, just starting to turn yellowish at the edges.
Achy leg and achy shell. He scoffed at himself. You could almost be Leo.
That thought made rage boil in his chest for some reason he couldn't quite place. He looked at his brother, quietly removing the flimsy disguise he wore for driving.
Haven't complained once, have you big brother? He thought. Even when you were dying on us, you still didn't say shit.
It wasn't hard to remember that night on the bridge. The cold wind, the roar of the flying monster, the agony when he felt his side raked by its claws. And yet, here they were. All of them. Even when April had said the detective had mentioned the Shredder by name, Leo hadn't flinched at the thought of coming to this meeting.
Wish I could… I dunno. He stumbled on the thought. Wished he could do what, exactly? Take it all back? Turn back time, convince Leo to stay home the night the Shredder found him, tortured him, threw him through April's window and set her home on fire? Or go back in time to that night last week, maybe decide to take out his angst in the dojo instead of at a football stadium?
Maybe. But he wasn't a time-traveler. He wasn't a chicken either. He was a ninja turtle. And if Leo wasn't backing down, then he couldn't either. Life didn't give do-overs. So why bother pining for them?
"Yeah. Let's do it."
The wind gusted across the pier. Elisa zipped up her jacket, curling her toes inside her boots to try and preserve some kind of feeling in them. She shivered slightly. The days were getting shorter, so solar thermals vanished earlier and earlier in the night. But the wind got stronger as the tide changed.
It was odd. A week ago, she couldn't have cared less about what the wind was like, or sunset and sunrise times. Now, she kept an almanac in her pocket and referred to the weather reports almost religiously.
She heard the crunch of clumsy shoes scrambling on the broken pier. A short silhouette with a fluffy cloud of hair tamed into two puffs slowly made her way over the loose boards and crumbling pylons.
Elisa smiled, raising her voice. "I'm glad you made it."
"Nice place you picked." April called. She squawked with surprise as she lost her footing on a loose board. Quick as a flash, Elisa's hand whipped out and caught her under the elbow before she tumbled headfirst into the bay.
"Careful."
April tugged her arm away, dusting off her jacket. "...Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Elisa shrugged. "So, where are your friends?"
April looked back over her shoulder. A single blue light blinked once, next to a shipping container beside a stack of enormous iron pipes a distance away. "They're close. Where are yours?"
Elisa studied the sky, raising an eyebrow. The sky was never totally dark in New York. The lights of the city were so powerful they painted the sky in a kind of perpetual twilight. She spied a circling column of flying shapes. Five shadows, miles above them, wheeled overhead. "They're nearby."
April crossed her arms. "So…" She peered around Elisa's shoulder, the Manhattan skyline rising behind her. But she saw nothing except a late night patrol boat coasting through the waters. "First things first, my friends don't like guns."
Elisa smiled knowingly. "I figured that they wouldn't." She opened her coat, lifting it and slowly turning in a circle to show she wasn't wearing her sidearm. She put it down, zipping it back up. "Now, I've given my gesture of good faith. You give yours."
April took off her yellow coat, and she shivered in her Last Dragon movie t-shirt. She held her arms straight out at her sides. She gulped quietly, but tried to keep her eyes hard. "Are you going to stop and frisk me, or what?"
"No." Elisa shook her head. "I asked for trust, and you've given it. I respect you enough to take your word at face value."
"That's… square, I guess." April shrugged her coat back on.
"Now," She took three steps forward, walking past April. "Just give them some room, and try to keep an open mind." She looked up at the sky and raised her arms, slowly waving them over her head.
April couldn't see anything at first. But slowly, five dark shapes that she'd mistaken for birds in the distance grew closer, larger, coming in fast.
"You might want to take a step back." Elisa advised. April heeded, taking five giant steps away from the approaching shapes. She flinched, covering her face as a blast of wind buffeted the pier, throwing up a cloud of dust that flew in her eyes. But Elisa only walked forward.
"Goliath," Elisa gestured towards the young girl. "This is April O'Neil."
"I am honored." A deep voice rumbled. "I have heard much about you."
April slowly lowered her elbows, peering over her coat sleeve at the towering giant before her. Her breath caught in her chest, eyes climbing the tower of a gargoyle before her. "Whoa…"
He smiled. "She is as you described her, Elisa."
At his left and right, four more gargoyles paced around her in the sand. One, with white hair and red skin, folded his arms over his chest. He lifted his head, sniffing the air. "Man. So, you're the one Elisa had so much trouble with?"
April startled at the voice. But, deep under her fears that bubbled to the surface, she unearthed a smile. "Y-yeah. You must be Brooklyn."
A smile quirked at the corner of his beak. "It's what your friend named me. Speaking of, is Raphael around?"
"Sure am." A gruff voice spoke.
Brooklyn slowly turned around. Four silhouettes stood dark against the streetlights in the distance. Four long mask tails drifted in the breeze, the only movement that gargoyle eyes could pick out. To a human, the light of the half-moon overhead was just enough for them to make out the shapes that stood above them.
April walked forward past the gargoyles, towards the pile of pipes at the edge of the pier. Four shadows leapt from the darkness, landing silently beside her, just out of reach of the light.
"I've never seen anything like you." One shape rested a long bō staff across his shoulders. "What are you? Taxonomically speaking, you don't resemble any other mutants we've encountered."
"We are gargoyles, son." The oldest one spoke, voice clear. "But we still dinnae know what ye are. So, tell us, lads. What are you?"
One of them stepped forward into the wan light, just out of the shadows of the shipping yard, to stand beside April. The hilts of two swords jutted above each shoulder where they were strapped across the back of his shell. "Blades of grass. Kage. Shinobi." He folded his arms. "Turtles. But you can think of us as allies if Oroku Saki is your enemy."
Goliath strode forward, leaving deep footprints in the earth. His tail swished above his ankles. He came within arm's length of Leonardo. They peered at each other, the turtle craning his neck to study the gargoyle's face.
"When last we encountered one another," Goliath intoned. "We were enemies."
"Mistakes were made." Leonardo held out his hand. "If you're willing to overlook them, then so are we."
Goliath's face was dark. Leonardo's pale eyes were hard.
"For the sake of a friend, I believe we can." Goliath's hand engulfed Leonardo's own, shaking it firmly.
Leonardo's face broke open with a grin. He returned the shake in earnest. "All right, then!" He grinned. "My name is Leonardo. You've met our friend, April. These are my brothers: Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo."
Maza raised another eyebrow. "Italian Renaissance painters?"
"Our father almost named us after the Beatles." Donatello chuckled.
"I coulda been Ringo Starr!" Mikey wailed.
Maza chuckled, also shaking Leo's outstretched hand. "Gargoyles on the skyscrapers, ninjas in the sewers… What's next? Aliens in the UN?"
"Not yet. But knock on wood." April winked.
"So… really, what are you?" The smallest gargoyle crept forward, looking up at Donatello quizzically.
"Well," Don answered. "We're mutants. Organisms that carry traits that are atypical for their species."
"So you… aren't just turtles? How do you talk? How old are you?" A gargoyle, blue as granite at dusk, gently plucked at Michelangelo's mask tails with one hand. Mikey tugged them out of the gargoyle's hands.
"Well, we're teenagers." Mikey replied. "But we're chill. Y'know?"
"You called yourselves 'blades of grass'," Brooklyn approached Raphael. "I've never seen grass take a gargoyle out of the air like you did me."
Raphael smirked with pride. "We're ninjas. We strike hard, and fade into the night."
"Turtle-mutant, teenage ninjas?" Maza raised her eyebrows, clearly a little underwhelmed. "Really?"
Raph scowled, hocking a loogie into the dirt. "We showed you our faces, and you ain't been knocked out. You wanna look closer? I can give you the VIP tour of my knuckles."
"Ease off, Raph." Leo ordered. He faced Goliath, bowing politely at the waist, and then straightening up. "I'm sorry about my brother. Honestly, we aren't the most experienced with people, let alone allies. Before today, April was one of the only humans we could ever trust."
"Then we have much in common." Goliath looked down at Leonardo. "Our own past with humans is checkered and fraught with conflict."
"Aye," The elder said, an edge in his voice. "The last time we trusted our allies, it ended with disaster. To trust Elisa is one thing. But you?" He drew his bearded face close to Michelangelo's. "Trust is earned by blood."
"Sounds sticky." Mikey grimaced, leaning away. "Honestly, I was hoping we could just… like, I dunno, get together, pop some popcorn, watch some movies and–"
"We love movies!" The blue gargoyle blurted out. "Do you watch Star Trek?"
Mikey's eyes brightened. Slowly, a grin spread across his face. He lowered his voice, doing his best impression of William Shatner. "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise."
The blue gargoyle's grin widened, eyes alight as he recited the verse. "Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations…"
Their goofy smiles grew as they spoke in unison. "...to boldly go where no man has gone before!"
They looked at one another and laughed with joy. Broadway flung out his arms and threw them around both Michelangelo and Donatello, lifting them up off the ground. "I knew I was gonna like you! I had a good feeling about this!"
Mikey squealed with delight as his feet left the ground, but Donatello squawked protest as they were lifted and spun in a circle.
Goliath smiled, but he didn't show his teeth. "This is my clan, the last of Castle Wyvern. I am called Goliath. These are my rookery-sons and my mentor: Brooklyn, Lexington, Broadway, and Hudson."
Hudson shook his head. "I cannae believe it. We had our hands full with three. Now, there are eight of them."
"Eight of what?" April asked.
"Young people." Hudson growled.
Lexington approached Raphael, looking curiously up at him. "So…" He began, "What now?"
Raphael looked over to Leonardo. They nodded.
"I think it's time we compared notes." Leonardo said.