Chapter Text
“NO! MY LIFE’S WORK!”
Draxum falls to the ground and stares at the burnt remains of his laboratory, green smoke can still be seen billowing from the rubble. Everything he had worked for up to this point, all those years of dedication had just burnt to a crisp before his eyes. It would take years, no, decades just to rebuild his research to where it once was just a few hours ago.
Huginn and Muninn fly up to kneel in front of the devastated goat yokai. They all sit in silence for a bit until one of the goyles opens their mouth to speak.
“We are so sorry that Lou Jitsu destroyed your lab. That’s L O U J I T S U.” Huginn spells out to Draxum.
He was obviously trying to pin the blame on their former “guest”, who now is likely to be no more than a burnt corpse amidst the debris. Draxum knew that this wasn’t that ex-moviestar’s fault though, if he hadn’t gone to that idiotic, waste of time battle nexus tournament, then he would’ve never seen its reigning champion’s fighting talents and superior genetics, he would have never wanted him as the DNA sample for his experiments. All of this was all his own fault.
“Yeah!” Muninn speaks up, “But at least your hard working gargoyles saved your life.”
Draxum dragged out a long sigh before standing back up onto his hooves, taking one last look at his now former laboratory. Nothing, not even this will stop him from achieving his goals. He was going to save his people no matter what got in his way or how many setbacks came across his path.
“It will take years to rebuild. I must begin again”.” he turns to his new assistants and says before walking away, “What are you waiting for?” Draxum stops his stroll for a second and patts his shoulders as an invitation to the goyles.
Huginn and Muninn look at him with confusion until they look back at each other with delight on their faces and yell, “Job security!” with a high five before zooming to take their perches on their new boss’s armored shoulders.
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A freshly mutated Hamato Yoshi sits in an old box in the middle of an alleyway, huddled in a blanket he had found in the dumpster. Just a few months ago he had been Lou Jitsu, the actor sensation with millions of dollars to his name. Women wanted him, men also wanted him, he had been on top of the world! Now? A disgusting rat man living in the garbage, who can’t even leave the sanctity of his little box out of fear of being ridiculed or hurt by ignorant people who would've been worshiping his name while also huddling in a thin blanket around four infant like mutated turtle babies to keep them all warm.
Wait a second, there had been four right? He could have sworn he had picked up four of them but looking closer into his hands there are only two, a very small turtle with yellow spots and the big spiked one that had bitten his face. He must have seen double, he had lost his glasses during his escape and assumed there was more than there actually was.
That didn’t matter though, that lunatic yokai’s lab had been destroyed and all three of his captors were most likely crushed under the rubble. He wouldn’t need to worry about more mutant weapons or and other people suffering like he was right now. The mutation process had felt like his whole body was freezing over while being burned alive, having your DNA rearranged in a few seconds was not a very pleasant experience that’s for sure.
He would have to go into hiding now, no one on the surface could see him because they would call the authorities and Yoshi was not up for even more experiments using his own DNA as well as the fact they would take these cute little babies away from him. It had been his own fault they were mutated in the first place and he was technically their father plus would take care of them even if they aren't biologically related to him anyways. They had no one to go to, and he was not one for abandoning helpless individuals in need.
While lost in thought he had not realized the turtles had woken up and were already cooing and babbling. Yoshi sighs at them, the reality of his situation had finally hit him, he really was some weird freaky rat man who was also now a single father with two babies under his inexperienced care.
Looking into the eyes of the smaller one, it looks at him with a face of sadness mirroring his own until Yoshi shifts his palm upward to hold the small turtle. Its face lights up and leans into his hand, hugging and nuzzling him with its little three fingered hands.
Oh, it was trying to cheer him up. This little creature had just wanted him to feel better and so it was comforting him. Yoshi smiled down at the baby and started petting its cheek with his thumb, the turtle in turn had smiled wide at him and snuggled deeper into his palm.
He would become a real father to them if that's what he had to do now, and by his disgraced Hamato name, he was going to try to be the very best dad for his two beautiful little boys.
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As Draxum continued to walk away from his lab until he felt something prick his leg. He stopped walking and looked at what had hurt him and instead of the steel cable or sharp rock he was expecting, it was a turtle. A small red eared slider turtle attached to his ankle, trying to drive away this large threat.
Draxum prys the small thing off of him and brings it to his face for closer inspection. Sure it was a red eared slider but it was much different than the normal form and instead bipedal and seemed to have intelligence, seeing that it immediately thought to attack the Baron as a threat.
It was one of the subjects! His experiment had worked and created the very first mutant, a turtle and human hybrid. Although it was much smaller than he had expected when first making the plans, much much smaller actually. It was in no shape to fight anyone let alone a human, if its behavior and visage was anything to go off of it looked more like an infant than a warrior.
It must have been a side effect of being released from the mutagen too early, but if this thing survived then that would mean he could deconstruct the formula from its blood. All wasn't lost after all.
“Hey, isn't that one of your little turtle experiment thingies?” Muninn looks over to look at what Draxum had picked up.
“Hey yeah! Look boss we didn’t- I mean Lou Jitsu didn’t destroy everything!” Huginn corrects himself in the middle of his sentence
“Indeed it is, do you know what this means?”
“You're a dad?”
“Congratulations!” Muginn cheers at Draxum while applauding.
“What? No!” he shuts them down, “It means that I can deconstruct its DNA and isolate the mutagen in its blood system.”
The gargoyles look at him with confused expressions.
The baron takes a long sigh, “It means this little thing is my key to rebuilding everything I lost much quicker than I had previously estima- OUCH!” Draxum yells at the end of his sentence.
“Ouch?” both goyles mirrors.
The Baron bends down to investigate why there was another sharp pain in his ankle and like before it was another one of his subjects he thought had been burnt to a crisp. He scoops it up with his other hand and looks intently at it. This one was not a Red-Eared Slider like the previous but was instead the Spiny-Backed Softshell he had also used for his experiments. It also seemed to be in a similar state of intellect as its counterpart but physically weaker due to the simple nature of its species.
“Oh wow boss look! Another one survived!” Huginn coos at both of the tiny beings who were currently trying to bite off Draxum’s pinky fingers, “Can we keep him too? Can we?”
“Yes, there would be no reason to not keep both of them anyways. If something were to happen to one of them we would always have the other.” Draxum explains to his compatriots.
He reaches up and hands both of the turtles to the gargoyles on his shoulders.
“You really are so cute! What should I call you?” Huginn says to the Slider in his hands, “How about… Green!”
“Green? Really Hugs is that the best you can come up with? I say we name them something cool like Apollo and Artiemus.”
“Ugh, Muns your mythology nerd is showing-”
“We are not going to be ‘naming’ the subjects, need I remind you both that these things aren’t even yokai? They are genetically spliced, mutated creatures I made with my serum formula for the sole purpose of building an army, not a product of traditional reproduction and thus are not even remotely under the category of yokai or human to begin with.” Draxum interrupts and says to the two, explaining how the banter between them both was completely futile anyways while already growing regretful of his decision to hire them.
“But Boss!” They whine in unison before devolving into various arguments as to why they needed to be named with the same argumentative prowess of a toddler. Draxum can already feel his veins popping out of his neck.
“Fine!” He yells at them both just to get them to stop talking for a moment, “We will name them at a later date, but for now we must focus on rebuilding my laboratory. Okay?”
“You got it boss!” Huginn and Muninn affirm to Draxum before flying away, holding both the turtles in their arms.
Draxum pinches his nose and sighs, it feels like everything is going to get much more complex around him in the coming years.