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Raphael always enjoyed going out on runs, especially alone. He could stretch his legs, move as fast or as slow as he wanted across the city’s moonlit rooftops. The air was crisp with early fall, and there was a thick, earthy scent in the air as the leaves turned, leaving the splashes of foliage throughout the city ablaze with the colors of autumn.
The cold season to follow wasn’t necessarily his favorite, no, but at least the in between period was pleasant enough. Not so cold that they felt chilled or lethargic, but not so hot that it was uncomfortable. He could patrol at his leisure, occasionally checking in through Donnie’s new tracking system, making sure the third son knew where he was. It seemed silly to him- their patrols were usually over very set areas. But he supposed he couldn’t fault him wanting to be able to keep tabs. Made it easier if they got separated in a fight, after all.
Of course, being topside did have its dangers. He had to be mindful not to run across a snooping human or worse, and he remained as alert and vigilant as he could to any nearby threats. Which was why, as he was moving across one rooftop, he found himself pausing, every muscle tensed and ready.
Someone was watching him, from somewhere nearby.
Hands slowly drifted towards his belt, and he barely had time to react and draw a sai when a kunai came flying from the shadows. The knife clanged off his drawn weapon, and he immediately dropped into a ready stance, staring in the direction the weapon had come from, searching for some hint… friend or foe.
At first, no one was readily visible. Then, a shadow seemed to shift, and what dim light was passing into the shade caught a pair of eyes that shined bright green, all but glowing against what he could now see was surprisingly well hidden pure white fur. It was tempting to just attack, but for now, whoever it was seemed content to just watch him. Then, slowly, they began to move from the shadows, the reflection of the moon giving way to brilliant golden eyes that never left him as the mutant - a fox, from the look of them - crept forward.
“Never exactly a good look to just go throwing kunai at people out of nowhere,” he commented as he watched the fox, spinning his sai idly. “I’m guessin’ you’re not here for playtime.”
Their ears twitched, and finally, the fox stood straight, hands resting at their side, muzzle lifted slightly as their thick, bushy tail came to rest against the ground behind them. “Astute, Hamato. I am Alopex- a hunter for the Foot Clan. My duty is to hunt, and eliminate, his enemies as ordered. But where’s the fun in chasing prey if there isn’t a chase?”
Raph’s eyes immediately narrowed, the protective nictitating membrane flicking over them in a blink as he let his beak curl into a faint grin. “Foot Clan, huh? Didn’t know they had cotton balls on the payroll, but hey, first time for everything. And it’s not Hamato- it’s Raphael. Only fair you get the name of the turtle that’s about to kick your butt straight back to Alaska.”
Alopex’s eyes narrowed at that, and for a moment her muzzle curled, baring her fangs. Her whole frame, small and compact, lowered with the readiness of any predator. “You shouldn’t underestimate me. But from what I’ve seen by watching you all as long as I have already? You’re just a temperamental blowhard. I know exactly what I need to do to best someone like you… but where’s the challenge in that?”
He didn’t have time to register. That word out of her mouth, the fox immediately darted forward, and he had to move quickly to keep from taking long, sharp claws directly to the face. He could feel the faint, unpleasant scrape as the tips caught his plastron, leaping to the rooftop ledge. She had stopped where she landed, but only for a moment, pivoting sharply to tear after him.
This wasn’t how he had expected his night to go, of course. The next rooftop had more openings, and he found himself moving quickly, tossing down smoke bombs only a second too late. She burst through them, letting out a sound unlike anything he’d heard before… and worse yet, she was gaining on him. He’d fought fast enemies before, but the little fox was clearly a lot quicker than he’d anticipated. Not the best situation for him, as easily the slowest of his siblings. His strength was in standing his ground and brute forcing an enemy.
Something told him, looking at the sleek white fox’s lean frame, that “brute force” wasn’t going to be what he could easily fall back on right now. Quick as she was, landing a hit was going to be hard in a straight fight… so a hunt it was.
Off the ledge and down the fire escape, darting into the alley. He could hear her after him, springing from wall to wall as she picked up speed. Up the next fire escape to a roof with more cover, but just as he reached the top, he felt something collide with his shell. The fox had landed a kick he had not anticipated, sending him tumbling across the rooftop before coming to a spinning stop on his shell, shouting angrily as he rolled himself to his feet. He could feel his temper starting to boil… he wasn’t about to let her get the better of him again.
Growling, Raph ducked himself low to rush the mutant, who crouched a little lower. She stayed still till the last moment, ducking her upper body into the ground as the back paws came up in a high kick. The move was quick and unexpected enough to catch him off-guard, her little paws cracking hard into his jaw, hurting enough to throw him off course.
“Slow, she growled. “Slow and sloppy. And here I thought you would at least try to give me a challenge.”
Again Raph growled, lifting a hand to scrub a trickle of blood from his mouth. “Do Foot Clan groupies always talk so much?”
She sniffed a bit, lifting herself to stand fully straight. While bipedal, she stood digitgrade - probably just a little taller than him from the look of her - and what he had at first assumed to be lanky thinness was more clearly seen as lean muscle beneath her billowy white coat. Those bright gold eyes stared back at him through a stained deep indigo marking across her face. “Only when they have stupid noisy prey that won’t shut up.”
“What, really? That the best you got? I’ve heard better comebacks from Mikey.”
Alopex padded to one side, pushing aside the dark cloak wrapped around her narrow shoulders. A belt, latched high on her waist, held two kama, which she drew as she faced him again. “The little squishy one that Bradford sensei captured, right? Maybe if he worked on his fighting skills more than his witty one-liners, he wouldn’t be so easy to trick.”
Her last few words had Raphael seeing red in an instant, and he growled, immediately squaring himself to fight again. “You think you’re so tough, fuzzbutt? Bring it!”
The fox wasted no time. She darted at him quickly, feinting left before moving right, slashing out with her kama. He deflected with his sai, trying to kick her out of the air, but she landed beneath the kick, twisting so she could kick up hard with both hind paws.
He was learning very quickly just how strong those thick haunches were, as this time - even with his plastron protecting him from most blunt damage - the blow knocked the wind out of him. For some random Foot goon, she was certainly a lot more impressive than he’d initially given her credit. In the back of his mind, he was already cursing the man who had trained this fox. Not only was she a surprisingly good fighter, but her speed and agility were far closer to Mikey’s level than his own.
Already she was recovering, coming at him again, and this time he managed to counter. He caught her kama with his sai, throwing her to the side, which only served to roll her before she was on her feet again, striking out at him with her kama, something he barely managed to avoid by turning, using his shell as a built-in shield.
The kama caught his shell once or twice, leaving deep divots, none of them even close to deep enough to cause any real harm. He caught her with a sharp blow to her side, sending her skittering across the rooftop as she panted to catch her breath from the blow.
She sheathed the kama, then, and instead extended impressive claws from her fingertips. Her heart was pounding, and something of a grin was starting to spread across her muzzle. This was no longer a simple fight: she was genuinely enjoying herself. So few of her targets had ever presented much of a challenge.
He had not been expecting that, and missed his counter when she lunged again. This time she slammed both back paws into his chest hard enough to stagger and topple him, and when he landed hard on his shell, she landed directly in the middle of his chest, fangs bared. The claws of one hand rested against his neck while the other hand was raised for the kill, gold eyes burning fiercely into green.
“You know, I’m kinda sad it looks like our playdate’s over,” he hissed up at her. “You’re pretty fun to fight, fluffy.”
She growled lowly, never once taking her eyes off his… but something flickered in that expression briefly before hardening. “You’re not too bad yourself, Raphael. But I have a job to do- and you’re standing in my master’s way.”
Immediately Raph squeezed his eyes shut, but the fatal blow did not come. Instead, he heard her yelp when something connected with her hand. Alopex jumped free, moving aside to get a bead on her new attacker. And when the source of his anonymous assist was heard, Raphael couldn’t help but groan.
“Up here havin’ all the fun without us, Raph? Who’s the new playmate?”
“Mikey, what the shell?!”
“Followed you, dude! Haha, good thing I did. You were about to get your shell waxed~!”
Raphael was getting to his feet, turning to watch as Alopex stood. She had taken a more defensive posture, but she matched his gaze still, puffing up slightly. It appeared she was bleeding where he had caught her with his sai a few times, matting her fur and turning the snowy white deep red. “...looks like this won’t be our last playdate after all.”
He snorted, narrowing his eyes at her. “Good. Next time we can finish this right.”
Her head inclined just slightly forward, and in the next instant, she slipped out a smoke bomb and slammed it hard into the ground. By the time the smoke had cleared… she was gone.
Letting out a deep breath, Raphael frowned, moving to place his sai back in their spot at his sides. He was still watching the spot from which Alopex had disappeared, as if waiting for her to come back. It was Mikey speaking up that finally drew him from his reverie. “Soooo~ who’s your new girlfriend?”
“Shut up, Mikey- she’s not my girlfriend. Just some new Foot Clan lackey. Come on… let’s just get out of here. Should probably tell the guys there’s a new Foot goon runnin’ around.”
This was, without question, her least favorite part of mission follow-up. In the ten years she had served the Foot, taken to Japan to train and grow within the ranks of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world, she had very few failures… and that was thanks to two separate things she had always been keenly aware of.
One, her master did not tolerate failure. Two, she was too good at what she did to fail. But tonight, she had been given a simple task: track and kill one of the turtle mutants, a creature more recently associated with her master’s old enemy Hamato Yoshi. In the moment, poised with her claws raised, she had no reason to pause. He was her enemy, and therefore her only goal was to kill him for the glory of Master Shredder. But something about the fight had been… different. He hadn’t necessarily been trying very hard to lose her, maybe catching on to the fact that she was considerably faster than he was, but when he fought it was more defensively. The wounds she’d taken were all superficial, like he was toying with her.
It had almost been fun. Fun! She was not supposed to have FUN; she was a hunter. A killer. That was all she was… all she would ever be good for. That was just the way of things.
Slowly, Alopex drew in a deep breath, standing quietly outside the dojo. Her teacher was likely inside, as her caretaker was away back in Japan on business for their master. So her teacher was who she deferred to. In the time she’d taken to stop and get her wounds treated, he would have undoubtedly been given her report by the Foot soldier she’d given it to before going to have her wounds bound. This was not going to go well. A little frown danced across her muzzle, and quietly she reached out, grasping the edge of the door to pull it open with both paws before stepping inside.
He was waiting, watching her as she stopped a short distance from him, lowering herself into dogeza with her head down, thick tail resting flat against the ground behind her. “I’ve returned, Bradford sensei.”
“So I can see. I'm unhappy with you, Alopex... after all, you didn't expect me to send you out on such an important mission without someone following you? I knew you'd failed before you even returned. You had the perfect opportunity.” Chris Bradford was not a man who took failure lightly. Trained by the Shredder himself, he was a stern man, and he easily towered over the arctic fox, cutting an impressive figure standing there, arms folded as he scowled down at her. “And yet you hesitated.”
Of course he'd had her followed. She tried to keep her composure, though she felt her shoulders tighten- she'd failed. She shouldn't be frustrated. This was on her, but how could she have expected that one of the turtles would follow as well? At the same time, however, she still couldn’t even wrap her own mind around why exactly she’d retreated- it was just one more turtle. Surely she could handle that? Why was this rolling so tightly in her head? “The turtle had backup, sensei.”
He scowled. “You are more than adequately trained to handle a couple of teenagers who haven’t had even so much as a sniff of the accelerated training you’ve had. Why flee?”
Again, she hesitated. She had been very well trained, under Bradford’s wing since she was young, a fresh escapee from a Kraang laboratory. She was perfectly capable of taking on multiple opponents, most of them humans who opposed the Foot or traitors in their ranks.
More than a few members of street gangs near where she had been trained had learned the hard way that her bite was far worse than her bark.
And yet she had frozen, standing up against a pair of teenage turtles, a goofball and a hothead who let emotion and anger control him. Slowly, though she didn’t dare to lift her head, her ears swiveled back to pin tightly against her skull. “I- I don’t know. I’m sorry, sensei. I will not fail next time.”
The man sighed heavily, shaking his head before crouching in front of the fox, observing her for a moment. Reaching down, he grabbed her roughly around her muzzle and lifted her head to face him. He could see the pain in those wild gold eyes as he squeezed and she wriggled out of instinct, trying to pull her muzzle free of his grip. “See that you don’t. I don’t tolerate failure from anyone… least of all my own pupil.”
He shoved her head roughly back down against the floor with enough force that her chin smacked painfully against the tatami before standing and striding out, and it was only after he was gone that Alopex growled, her lip curling back over sharp fangs. “Of course… sensei.”
It took a moment for her to be able to push herself to her feet again, shaking a little bit as her ears remained pinned tightly back against her skull. Her chin was smarting, and she could feel her hackles lifting. This wasn’t the worst punishment she’d ever gotten by a longshot, but she was… frustrated. Frustrated at her own inability to manage the fight better than she had. Frustrated at having hesitated when she had the perfect opportunity in the moments before the second turtle had hit her arm with his nunchaku. And yet, here she stood. Watching after her teacher, words stinging more sharply than her injuries.
But she couldn’t dwell on that now. She needed to focus, get herself settled. After all… tomorrow was another night.
The mood in the lair was not quite as heavy as the one Alopex had encountered, but Raph still felt an unpleasant swell of anxiety in his chest all the same. It was mostly just his pride that had gotten injured, faring better than his opponent had only by the grace of having a shell to take the worst of her claws and kama. Had he not benefited from that, it would have been a very distant story. Still, he felt himself tensing as their brothers joined them at the turnstiles, in from their own solo patrols elsewhere in town.
And, as he fully expected, Donnie was the first to notice the fresh gashes in his shell and plastron.
“Holy- Raph what in the world happened out there? These are definitely fresh.”
Mikey didn’t give Raph a chance to speak back, chiming in cheerfully as he rocked back on his heels. “He was fightin’ with some fox mutant that was with the Foot Clan. Looked like he was having a good time~.”
“A fox mutant?” Leo turned slightly, eyes following his next youngest brother as Raph grumbled, walking further into the lair. “Since when did the Shredder have mutants on the payroll? Raph…?”
The second son threw one hand in the air, twisting it in a faint dismissive wave. “How’m I supposed to know, Leo? Didn’t exactly ask her when she made it through their interview process. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m not hurt, and she ran off.”
He tried to ignore as Donnie hopped over the turnstiles to follow him, those dark eyes already analyzing the divots freshly marring his shell. The genius very commonly had to fill the role of medic for the entire team, but while his fussing wasn’t exactly something new, it wasn’t really wanted at the moment, either. Green eyes narrowed as he heard his brother start to speak. “I’m not particularly concerned about the fact that there’s a new mutant running around, though that’s cause for alarm on its own. You really should let me fill these with resin-”
“It’s fine, Donnie, leave it alone. I’ve had way worse.”
“Just let Donnie look at it, Raph. Besides, he’s not wrong about the second part: if there’s some new mutant around, we’re gonna want to be a lot more vigilant. Sounds like they might have tried to corner you alone.”
Raph just rolled his eyes, but he was too sore and tired to push for an argument right now. He still didn’t stop, but he did change his tack, moving over towards the lab instead. In his silence, Mikey was taking the opportunity to speak up instead. “I just caught the tail end of the fight, but there was this skinny white fox mutant, and she was totally kicking Raph’s tail. Had him pinned and everything. Y’know, he’s lucky I showed up.”
Bristling slightly, Raph glanced over his shoulder as he shoved open the door to Donnie’s lab. “She wasn’t kicking my tail! I was just gettin’ her to let down her guard, that’s all.”
“Yeah right, dude,” Mikey retorted. “She totally had you down. If I hadn’t got there when I did...”
“Raph, why didn’t you call for backup?” Leo’s tone was sharp, and Raph could just feel a scolding building up. “If this fox is really that dangerous, it’s probably best if we try to work in pairs.”
Snorting slightly, Raph all but threw himself down onto one of the stools by Donnie’s desk. He never particularly liked being in here. The whole room had a funny smell - Donnie said it was “ozone,” whatever that meant - and always felt a little too tidy and clinical. For someone who always had at least thirty projects going at any given time, he was impressed at just how well he managed to keep this place NOT falling apart. “Look, she just caught me off-guard this time. That’s it, end of story. I’ll have her on the ropes next time.”
Leo’s eyes narrowed, focusing on Raph as Donnie headed to get his first aid kit, leaving the oldest son standing next to the youngest with his arms folded across his plastron. “There shouldn’t be a next time. I don’t have anything against these solo runs, but it sounds like whoever this is will have a bead on us.”
“And what if they don’t got a bead on us? Could’ve been a fluke.” He didn’t even believe himself saying that. She’d said she was a hunter… and that meant her job was, specifically, to track them. To fight them. And, if she could, to kill them. It left a sour taste in his mouth. He couldn’t let this turn into a situation like Leo with Karai. Alopex was a stone cold killer, and that was the final word on the matter. “Look, she said she’s a hunter. So that means she’ll be tracking us on our own or not.”
The sigh that came out of Leo was so tight that Raph could feel the annoyance. “All the more reason we should work as a team and not just go running off alone for whatever reason! All I’m saying is that it’s probably gonna be more beneficial for us to work as a team on this. Besides, Master Splinter said we need to work on our teamwork. What better way to do that than dealing with some crazy fox? How stealthy can a big white fox be in the middle of the city, anyway?”
Raph chose not to answer that, though the way Donnie was prodding at the gashes on his shell was helping with that distraction. Wincing slightly, he glanced over his shoulder at his younger brother, frowning. “Dunno, don’t care. Donnie, cripes, could you not try to jerk my shell open any more than it already is? That hurts!”
“I’m just trying to make sure your shell integrity wasn’t compromised.” Donnie gave an indignant sniff, standing straight to get some containers off a shelf. “Won’t be more than a patch job, but you should be careful not to take any more damage or it could worsen it.”
While Raph would have retorted, Leo was already speaking up again. “Well that settles it. From now on, we don’t go anywhere outside of pairs. If she can’t catch us alone, she’s less likely to be able to get as close to cracking any of us open as she apparently got tonight.”
Raph frowned as his oldest brother spoke, but he said nothing, scowling as Donnie got to work on preparing the materials to patch the fresh cracks in his shell. Surely he could take one fox by himself. And besides that, something didn’t seem right with her. She couldn’t have been much older than them, and this wasn’t like Karai. Karai had shown her loyalty very clearly, but Alopex just seemed to be following orders.
Like some animal.
His fingers tightened against his biceps. Leave it to the Shredder to treat someone with that level of disrespect. If he was right, anyway. Over near the door, Mikey was still grinning, and he folded his hands behind his head. “Bet Raph’s just unhappy he won’t be able to meet up with his new girlfriend all alone-”
“Shut UP, Mikey!” Despite his protests, he could feel his face heating up. Not that Mikey was right, but at the insinuation at all. “She’s not my girlfriend, she’s just some dumb fox. Whatever. She won’t get away so easy next time.”
“WIth any luck,” Leo sighed, “there won’t be a next time.”
Leo’s leadership had always been a point of contention. Though Raph knew, deep down, that his oldest brother was the best choice, that didn’t stop him from chafing under the idea. In skill, he and Leo were fairly evenly matched. In physical strength, he outclassed the older turtle by far. It was his temper, though, that always got in the way. It was hard to admit, to the point of never wanting to bring it up directly to anyone in his family… but deep down, for all his squabbles with Leo and the pushback he gave his brother, he knew.
Which made it all the more frustrating on tonight’s patrol. Leo had continued to insist on the “buddy” system, so he found himself on the far side of town with Mikey at his heels. He never bothered to pull ahead of his older brother, though he was easily faster in a run. It just wasn’t his nature; he preferred to be close to his brothers. A far cry from Raph’s preference for going solo.
Honestly, he wished he could be solo now. That fox was still out there, somewhere, and while he was sure she wouldn’t hesitate again if they were in pairs? He almost didn’t want that. Fighting her wasn’t like fighting Mikey; his little brother tended to pull his punches, unsure about hurting him. But even when he’d fought with Alopex that first time, it was almost like she was testing the water. What sort of fighter would she be in a real spar?
What brought someone like her to even work for the Shredder at all, anyway?
His thoughts were interrupted when a sound nearby caught his attention, almost as faint as the soft slide of a foot on concrete. It wasn’t his brother. Which meant…
All at once, Raph pulled back, shouldering Mikey out of the way as three shuriken landed in quick succession where he’d been primed to land. In an instant, the two brothers were on high alert. They were being hunted. And judging by the whisper silence of the unknown predator, their new run buddy could be none other than the mysterious fox mutant from a few nights before.
“You know, it’s impolite to just throw something at someone without fair warning.”
A moment passed before a slim white form dropped from seemingly nowhere, crouched as her bright gold eyes focused up at him, reaching out with one paw to pluck a shuriken from where it had embedded itself in the gravelled rooftop. “Who said anything about this was fair? I’m hunting you. This isn’t a game.”
That caught Mikey’s attention, and he blinked before scrunching up his snout. “Uh… hello? You weren’t even really trying to hit him, lady, and you came right out, sooo… I think you’re playin’ more than you let on.”
“I don’t play.”
Her ears flicked, and though Mikey was the one who spoke to her, she at first didn’t look away from Raph. She seemed mostly unbothered by the younger turtle’s presence, and in Raph’s approximation, the two of them together could easily take down the speedy fox mutant. But her eyes were drifting- something else was going on.
Before he had time to really register the remainder of the threat, the sound of more bodies landing on the roof clued him in to just how complicated this was becoming. The newcomers were a small contingent of Foot soldiers, easy for any one of the boys to take in a single fight, but including the fox? That made things far more difficult. She wasn’t smiling, though, her tail slowly swishing back and forth across the rooftop as she stood to her full height, hackles raised slightly, everything about her poised and ready for the fight. With one fist lifted, she kept her attention fully on the pair… and then her hand dropped.
The Foot soldiers moved quickly, zeroing in on the pair, but while Raph and Mikey were easily able to keep them as far back as they could manage, Alopex did not join the fight. Why? Why hold back? Raph gritted his teeth, glancing over… just in time to spot her disappearing off the ledge.
“Hey-! Hey get back here!”
Violently throwing aside one of the Foot soldiers pinning him, leaving only a few for Mikey to deal with, he bolted for the ledge himself with barely enough time for Mikey to call after him to come back. Not that Raph was stopping. He immediately vaulted over, catching sight of the fox mutant watching him from the opposite fire escape before scaling up. She was getting him to chase her!
Growling lowly, he moved to follow. Realistically, he knew he should turn back. Help Mikey. But his youngest brother was the best fighter whether any of the others realized it, and there were only a few Foot soldiers left. Easy for him to mop up. So ignoring Mikey continuing to yell after him, he vaulted to the next rooftop.
It was several rooftops further ahead that he finally saw her stop, and he had his sai out to strike as soon as he landed, though Alopex neatly dodged back, her movements quick and graceful as he remembered them. He’d been close enough when Mikey had finished with the Foot soldiers that he knew the youngest wouldn’t be far behind- Alopex had taken a winding enough route that he may have some trouble finding them initially, even if Raph knew from the sound of the fading fight as he’d gotten a few rooftops away that he was fine. This time, though, he wasn’t going to get interrupted. This fight was his.
For her part, Alopex was only dodging at first, taking steps back or to the side, rolling as needed, but eventually she drew her kama. The grin that crossed Raph’s face was genuine. She may not “play,” but he felt the rush as they continued to clash, and from her expression, she was enjoying the fight as much as he was.
Their weapons clashed, loud and sharp, as they collided again and again. Eventually, the weapons were knocked away or otherwise discarded, and the fight became even more of a game, with Alopex leaping gracefully over his kicks with a bright, excited grin. She may not have thought of this as a game, but what had started as a serious fight had blended into something else. It was while they continued to clash, however, that something caught his attention, and Raph found himself taking a few steps back.
“Wait- wait wait, hold up! Hey, stop!”
To his surprise, Alopex actually took a few steps aside at that, her head cocked to the side and ears slightly leaned. Every bit of her expression was baffled. “Wh- why? We’re supposed to be fighting to the death here.”
He snorted, moving to walk past her. He knew he was leaving himself vulnerable, but she didn’t strike at the disadvantage, just watching in confusion. “That wasn’t a fight to the death. Anyway, I just wanna stop for a minute. Hang on, okay, then we can get back to this stupid deathmatch or whatever.”
She said nothing at first, just watching him, paws hanging uselessly at her side. But she blinked a few times when she caught what he was doing, her head cocking the other way entirely. “Is that… a nest?”
“It’s a pigeon nest.” He was very carefully scooping up the nest with both hands. “Poor things… not a great place to build a nest. You almost stepped on it.”
It would’ve been hard for Alopex to look more confused than she already was, and yet she managed, resting her paws on her hips now as she shifted her weight to one side. “You stopped our fight for… pigeons?”
Raph gave her a look that was very nearly incredulous as he carefully moved the nest to a safe spot over a door, double checking to make sure none of the eggs inside were harmed. “Uh… duh? Just because we’re up here tryin’ to knock each other’s brains out doesn’t mean they gotta suffer for it. They’re just birds. Dunno about you, but my master taught me to try not to harm someone unless we could help it. No use takin’ lives if you don’t gotta.”
His own words gave him pause- while he was having fun with this little spar of theirs, for Alopex, it was far more serious. She was a trained hunter for the Foot Clan. Her only purpose out here should’ve been to try to kill him. But something felt different when they fought. She seemed bouncier, more energetic, and she didn’t seem to be trying outright to kill him. She was having fun.
Like him.
Her ears pinned back, then, and she looked away before moving to pick up her kama, sinking into a fighting stance. If she’d been having fun before, any of that seemed gone, like something had clicked over in her brain. She was already prepared to fight again, and all he could do was sigh, walking over to pick up his sai.
But before they could truly get back into their fight, a line of kunai planted neatly in a line in front of the fox, and Raph cursed under his breath. With that precision, it could only be one of his brothers… and if it was who he thought it was, then their little playdate was over.
And just like he’d suspected, Donnie landed first on the opposite side of the pair, Leo right behind him. Mikey popped up not long after, and he suspected his little brother must have called them. In the presence of so many adversaries, Alopex cast an uneasy glance around before carefully sliding her kama back into place. Those bright gold eyes found Raph’s, and in the next moment she bolted, leaping to the top of the rooftop shed before turning to look down at him, shoulders tense. She looked almost remorseful.
Then, just as quickly as the moment struck, she was gone.
Raph sighed, his brow furrowing as he heard Leo moving forward to speak up, reaching out for his arm. “Raph, what in the world were you thinking? You left Mikey in the lurch back there- he could’ve been hurt!”
“He looks fine to me,” Raph grumbled in reply, jerking his arm out of Leo’s reach. “Come on. Let’s just go home. I’m sick of patrol for tonight.”
He didn’t give his brothers the time to respond, moving to scale down the fire escape to the alley below. He couldn’t explain what had happened right there, facing off against Alopex. She’d been clearly enjoying herself, which surprised him, but he couldn’t exactly complain. She was young, from the look of her, and he doubted that she ever really got to just be a kid with the Foot Clan. And he’d been thoroughly enjoying himself too! But something had changed in just a few words… and maybe someday, he would be able to find out exactly what that thing was.
Nothing left for them there, the four turned to make their way home, but on a nearby rooftop, a snow white fox watched quietly as the procession carried on. Why? Why had she just stopped when he had gone to move that stupid nest out of the way? She could’ve killed him, ended it right there. Her ears turned back, and Alopex frowned to herself, sitting back on her haunches.
“This isn’t the last time we’ll meet, Hamato Raphael. Next time… next time, there’ll be blood.”