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“This was a stupid trap,” Draxum growled, ears pinned back and a scowl on his face, “A very obvious trap.”
“And yet you came anyway,” The yokai purred with a smug smile, standing before an opaque curtain of sickly yellow mystic energy across the room.
Draxum stepped further into what was unmistakably a laboratory; far lighter and more polished than his old one had been. Clean tile floor, instruments of mystic and scientific varieties, bright white overhead lights, and the cloying stench of chemicals and cleaner barely covering the smell of blood. Insect-like creatures of various shapes and sizes were all over the place—tiny dragonfly-esq ones swirling together in a huge jar, massive beetles with iridescent shells crouching on top cabinets, butterflies twice as big as the ones from the human world perched quietly beneath a glass dome. Their wings buzzed through the air and their chitinous legs clicked against polished metal surfaces. The heavily armed guards stationed near the laboratory’s door tensed as he passed, watching him carefully. Draxum felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as thousands of compound eyes stared at him.
He was very much in danger here.
But he had come for a reason.
“Where are they.” It was more a demand than a question and Draxum let the threat hang heavy in his voice. His power thrummed down his arms, ready to lash out, ready to do whatever it took.
The yokai tsk’d at him, one of her long, pointed jackal ears twitching at his disrespect, “Now, now, there’s no need for such a hostile attitude, especially from you. Don’t forget your place, Baron, ” The word was spat with a mocking condescension, “You are in my house and you will behave yourself.”
“Since when did the Lady Dame Halima care about how bloody business was conducted in her presence?” Draxum sneered in reply.
Halima huffed, turning her nose up at him, “It’s Countess Halima now, actually. I’ve moved up in the world. Unlike yourself.”
“I care not for the petty squabbles of the Yokai Houses,” Draxum stomped a hoof into the floor with a resounding crack. The sound sent the insects in the room buzzing and made the guards take a half step towards him, “Where. Are. They.”
“You used to be fun,” Halima put on an exaggerated pout, but there was a mean glint in her bright green eyes, “Now look at you—disgraced, living on the surface, consorting with humans of all things…” Draxum’s growl made her smile, “Come now, Draxum, I only want to discuss a business proposition with you.”
“I want no deals with you and your lot.”
“Not even for the lives of those little abominations you made?”
Ice surged in Draxum’s veins. She did have them. He ground his teeth together, fists clenched so tightly it made his arms ache with the strain. The smile on Halima’s snout flashed her sharp canine teeth in a victorious grin; she knew she had him pinned.
“Let me see them,” Draxum forced his voice to stay steady and even, measured through his tight throat and clenched jaw, “Let me see that they are alive and unharmed. Then we will speak.”
Halima seemed to mull it over, tilting her head this way and that, dark hair swaying as she tapped a claw to her chin. Draxum desperately wanted to launch himself across the room and strangle her with his bare hands. She was just playing with him and he loathed her for it.
“Ooohhh, very well, I suppose that’s all right,” Halima gestured to the barrier of mystic energy with a flourish and it gave a crackle before fizzling away. It released from the ceiling, sparks dissipating into the air as it collapsed and vanished. Beyond the barrier was a further extension of the lab, with a clutter of new tools and more insects perched on different surfaces, flicking their iridescent wings in the release of mystic energy. But taking up most of the space were a series of large cages. They were glass, or something similar, transparent and reinforced with metal edges. There were six cages in all, separated into pairs, but only two of the cages were occupied.
Raphael and Donatello were shackled by their wrists and ankles with heavy metal cuffs, a dull glow of mystic energy reinforcing the bindings. Large bruises and fresh cuts littered their bodies, their gear and masks stripped. The second the barrier dropped enough for them to see the rest of the room, the two began to shout and struggle. The short cables attached to their cuffs didn’t give them much leeway, their hands held out to their sides at shoulder height, their heels skidding on the steel flooring of the cages and moving maybe half an inch with each struggle they made. The cacophony of their combined voices stirred up a cloud of insects that buzzed in agitation.
A searing hot rage curdled with icy horror in Draxum’s gut. His mystic powers flared dangerously and it was only decades of control that kept him from lashing out then and there.
He’d known, of course. But knowing and seeing where two very different things.
Draxum had walked into the lair that afternoon and smelled blood. He saw the signs of a fight, and found the family in dire shape with two of their number missing and a calling card left specifically for him. Donatello’s impressive security system had been almost completely destroyed and the family that still remained was incapacitated by insect toxins, in a dosage that would have been lethal to April had Draxum not arrived when he did. Thousands, if not millions, of insect corpses and pools reeking bug juice covered the lair—the Hamatos had been overwhelmed by sheer numbers alone, unable to escape to a more open area, trapped in their underground home until it was simply too much for them to handle.
And Halima had pinned a neat little invitation into Michelangelo’s plastron with an insect stinger the size a dagger, wedging it between his scutes and likely into the muscle beneath.
Draxum had done what he could for them, purging the poison from their systems and patching them up. He ignored Leo’s angry pleading to leave them and go after his missing brothers. When Leo tried to get up and go after them himself, Draxum had to pin him down and hide his swords before the boy could injure himself further.
“She wants me,” Draxum growled and something in his voice must have given Leonardo pause because he didn’t fight back when Draxum cuffed him to the hospital bed and gave Splinter the key, “I will retrieve your brothers. You will stay here and you will heal.”
Halima would not harm Raphael and Donatello, not when she wanted something from Draxum. He knew she would have them.
But the fury he felt upon seeing what she had done to them was unexpected.
He was stomping across the room before he’d registered he was moving. Peripherally, he saw the guards shift to intercept him, caught Halima’s raised hand to stop them in the corner of his eye. He paid them no mind as he stepped up to one of the cages and pressed his palm against the glass. The insects clustered around the cages buzzed threateningly but made no move towards him.
“Raphael,” The name came out in a breath, almost a whisper of air through the lump in his throat. Raph strained against the cuffs, wrenching forward as far as he could go, a desperate, angry fear on his face.
“Barry!” Raph’s voice was muffled by the cage walls, but the snapper had a set of lungs on him and Draxum could feel the glass shiver under his hand, “The lair—we were attacked! There were so many!”
“Bitch!” Donatello screamed, his sharp teeth gnashing in Halima’s direction, murder in his eyes, “Let us out and I’ll show you what happens when you fuck with my family! I’ll fucking kill you!”
Draxum had no words of comfort for the brothers. He whirled on Halima, a snarl baring his teeth. His fingers flexed, mystic power rippling through his veins, burrowing into the earth beneath the laboratory, ready to pull living roots from the ground and make them grow. H e may not have held a rank among the noble houses of the Hidden City anymore, but he was still an ancient and formidable force.
Halima looked entirely unbothered by Draxum’s rage. She was still wearing that same smug smile, mocking him, teasing him, thinking she was better than him.
“Let them go!” Draxum barked, his voice cracking the air and stirring the insects in a whirl of agitation again, “Now! Release them and I will spare you the torment you so readily deserve!”
A derisive snort, “No,” Halima replied simply, “And before you attack, you should know that I can inject those two with a lethal poison that would kill them faster than you could kill me. And even if you did somehow manage to stop me, I have plenty of contingencies in place.”
The clink of chitin against glass made Draxum look up. A huge, wasp looking bug with four wings and snapping madibles leered down at him from atop Donnie’s cage, making Donnie himself sag in his restraints, trying to pull away from the creature. It buzzed its wings threateningly and Draxum hissed out a breath through his teeth. He could just make out a long, barbed stinger as thick as his arm twitching behind the bug .
“Besides,” Halima purred in delight, “Didn’t you say you would talk business with me once I had shown you proof of life? I took you for a yokai of your word, Draxum. But perhaps I was mistaken…”
She could jab at his character all she liked, Draxum had stopped letting his ego bruise him nearly a year ago. Working and living in the human world with the Hamatos for company had a way of humbling a person. As did surviving an assault from an ancient evil.
“Fine,” He spat, keeping one hand on Raphael’s cage, “Speak your piece and be done with it.”
Halima’s smug smile was starting to get on his nerves.
“I want your mutagen.”
Draxum’s expression darkened as he glared at her, suspicion joining the cocktail of emotions frothing in his chest. He heard Raph gasp and saw Donnie’s eyes widen in worried curiosity.
“It is long gone,” He growled, “As I am sure you are aware, my labs were destroyed and any of my ooze mosquitoes have long since died off. There is none left.”
Halima tutted at him as if he were a stupid child. He was older than her by at least a century, though he r cleverness and brutality had given her quite the name in the Hidden City. There was a reason she was a Countess with a powerful and influential house. There was a reason she had managed to overwhelm the Hamato clan, the fighters that had managed to quell the Shredder.
“Then give me the mutagenic formula,” She looked down her long, narrow nose at him with a nasty smile, a jackal hunting a sheep, “Or have you lost your mind as well as your standing, Draxum?”
He snorted, crossing his arms as he drew himself up. He was taller than her, likely stronger than her in terms of mystic powers. He would not be cowed by her, “What could you possibly desire my mutagenic formula for? You are a Countess of the Hidden City Court, you have plenty of powerful warriors at your disposal. You have proved that well enough already.” His gaze flickered to the captured brothers and he caught the concerned glimmer in Raphael’s eye. Concern for Draxum .
Draxum looked away and met Halima’s hungry green stare instead.
“True, yes, all true,” She hummed, preening, acting like she was flattered by acknowledgment of her prowess. Perhaps she was, “But you know how things get, Draxum. Tensions between the houses have been rising lately and I seek to hold my position, if not increase it. So it’s rather unfortunate that I’ve lost so many of my forces recently. Your twisted freaks took out quite a number of them, you know.”
It was Draxum’s turn to sneer at her, lip curling as he tried to ignore the burst of pride going off like a firework inside him, “They were designed to be formidable. Nigh unstoppable. The strongest and most dangerous creatures anyone has ever seen.”
In his cage, Donnie rattled out a guttural hiss, a feral sounding threat display. His markings flickered with sparks of violet power for a moment until the runes on his cuffs glowed brighter, sinking tiny arcs of lighting into his body that made him twitch and writhe. Raph cried out in angry distress, leaning towards the wall that separated the two of them as Donnie slumped in his restraints with a gasp.
Halima watched in amusement before she glanced back at Draxum, “And yet, they fall apart so easily. I did try to reverse engineer your mutagen myself. But the results were...a bit messy.” Her snout wrinkled into something that was like a grimace but there was too much of a hungry smile behind it, “It mostly just seemed to turn the mutants I’d captured inside out. Quite horrifying , really. But at least my staff were well fed…” She laughed and the insects around her chittered and clicked in response.
Had Draxum been a weaker yokai, he might have been sick.
Raph whimpered in his cage and tugged at the cuffs hopelessly. He caught Draxum’s eye and Draxum saw fear there. Raphael was so young. They were both so young. They were children, babies compared to his centuries of living.
“Don’t—don’t do it!” Donnie gasped, trying to wear a brave face despite the way he was shaking, “She could destroy everything!”
Halima scoffed, rolling her eyes, “Please, I don’t care about the humans. I’m quite happy right where I am, thank you. All I want is to secure my place among the houses of the Hidden City.” She crossed her arms, tilting her head as she stared Draxum down, “So, Draxum. What will it be?”
Draxum had always intended to give her what she wanted. They both knew it.
Like Splinter before him, Draxum would let the world burn if it meant keeping the boys safe.
“I will give you the formula,” He said in a low voice, a thundercloud of resignation and rage and resolution all at one, “And you will not harm my sons.”
“No one will lay a finger on them,” Halima pressed a hand to her chest, her expression solemn and serious.
“And you will free them.”
“They will be released once things are finished.”
A part of Draxum, the part that had dealt with centuries of yokai paperwork and contracts and promises, clawed at him to get it all in writing. To make Halima keep her word with ink and paper and blood. But they didn’t have time for that and the anxious desire to get Raph and Donnie away was a roaring river that washed everything else from its path.
“Very well,” Draxum drew himself up, back straight, posture proud despite the circumstance, “The mutagenic formula is yours.”
Halima grinned, all teeth and victorious gloating, “A wise choice as always, Draxum. Come along then, to the console, if you please.” She gestured, indicating one of terminals against the wall. It was part machine, part organic, pulsing tubes tangling with metal piping, something like chitin containing monitor screens and button panels. Beside the station was a large, bulbous growth, a cocoon of silk and bruise purple flesh that clung to the wall, the pipes and tubes feeding into it.
Draxum grimaced at the musty stench of insects as he approached, trying to ignore the shouts of Donatello hurling insults and Raphael trying to calm his brother down. The panic in their voices made Draxum’s heart race in his chest. Halima’s sharp eyes watched him carefully for any sign of hesitation or betrayal. He had no such intentions. The only thing Draxum was thinking about was freeing the two children who were trapped, scared, and counting on him.
He punched the formula into the terminal and stepped back.
There was a delighted little ‘yip’ of excitement from Halima, almost childish in the way she bolted forward to read. Draxum let her, returning his attention back to Donnie and Raph. He was already planning on working with Donatello to add mystical protections to his security systems, when the sound of rapid typing snapped him back to the present. He turned to see Halima frantically imputing text and commands into her terminal.
“What are you doing!?” He snarled, taking a step towards her, “You said—”
“Your alchemic prowess is truly spectacular, Draxum,” Halima’s praise sounded mocking, her grin wild, something like madness in her excited eyes, “To think you would dare to breach the sacred grounds of the Crying Titan...genius, truly genius!” She slammed a final key into the console and straightened up, letting out a breathy sort of giggle as she turned to face him again, “You used insects to administer your mutagen, did you not?”
“You know this already! Let—”
Halima clapped her hands together, cutting him off, “Very clever! And something I can appreciate!” The semi-organic machines churned and hissed behind her, the gigantic cocoon on the wall throbbing as chemicals and magic and Titan only knew what else were pumped into it, “However, I think you’ll find that my bugs are a little more sophisticated than yours.”
“No…” Draxum breathed as the cocoon writhed and bulged. Cold fear flashed through him and was instantly chased out with burning rage, “No! You said you would let them go! You swore you would not touch them!”
“Oh Draxy,” Halima cooed, her wide grin turning her glowing eyes into wicked little slits, “I told you that no one would lay a finger on them. I never said anything about my hive.”
“NO!” Draxum launched himself towards the cages, dragging vines from the ground to burst through the floor. They exploded through the polish tile, whipping around the room, smashing bugs into gooey smears, slamming guards into walls, and trashing equipment. Halima was cackling in the background, a proper high-pitched howl of a wild dog, as her insects swarmed around her in a buzzing cloud. Draxum desperately swatted the bugs away, both with vines and his own hands, but they dive-bombed him with bites and stings and Draxum could feel their poison pumping through him, slowing his body, seizing his muscles, blocking his mystic energy.
He sagged against one of the lab tables, trying to stay on his feet, shaking hands clawing at the smooth surface of the table. He wasn’t dying, Halima didn’t want him dead or unconscious—she wanted him to watch .
Draxum roared in anger as his vines withered, his power drained, his body collapsing uselessly as the venom went to work. He was useless. He couldn’t save them. He couldn’t stop what was coming. Splinter would never forgive him. Leonardo would never forgive him. Michelangelo would hate him.
“DAD!” Raphael screamed and Draxum didn’t know who he was calling for. Donnie was thrashing savagely in his cuffs, chafing his wrists and ankles, blood beginning to well from beneath the metal.
“Let them go!” Draxum snarled, his voice cracking, desperation making his limbs shake as he tried to fight against the poison rendering him useless. He started to twitch and claw his way over the table until a massive beetle slammed onto his back, pinning him down. It’s jaws clicked threateningly just behind his head, “Halima, you wretch, liar! Thief! Lowborn scum! Betrayer! Let them go at once! Take me instead! You can have me, my work, everything I am! Just let them go!”
Halima just laughed at him. There was a wet tearing sound and even though Draxum could not see it from his position pinned belly down to the table, he knew it must mean that whatever had been brewing in the cocoon had hatched. He once again tried to fight back, tried to struggle free, but barely managed to twitch his arms a few inches. Raph was in tears, sparks of red power flickering around his fists, tangling with the yellow lashes from the cuffs that made him jerk and snap his jaws. Donnie was nearly feral in his attempts to escape, his eyes fury white and glowing beneath his nictitating membrane, spittle flying from his mouth as he bit at the air, twisting to try and reach the cables on his cuffs. Blood was trickling freely down his arms and pooling beneath his feet.
“I believe I know what was going wrong with my prior attempts,” Halima stepped into view, another huge wasp-like insect beating its four wings to hover behind her shoulder, “My poor bugs couldn’t process the Empyrean you’d used in your mutagen. But now...this darling…” She ran her palm over the shiny carapace of the bug beside her, “I think I’ve finally got it right. This will be quite a show either way. Go on, dear, you know what to do…”
“NO! DON’T DO THIS! THEY ARE CHILDREN!” Draxum shouted, still trying to get away and reach the boys, “THEY ARE CHILDREN, HALIMA! YOU DAMN COWARD! LET THEM GO!”
“They are warriors, Draxum,” Halima said with a cold smile as her newest insect buzzed over to alight atop the connected cages, “And I am going to improve on what you started.”
And Draxum could only watch in mute horror as the tops of the cages popped open with a hiss of displaced air. The giant wasp twitched its antenna and shuffled to that it was looking down into Raph’s cage, the barb on its back end pointing towards Donnie. Raphael tried to pull away, yanking as hard as he could on the cuffs holding him in place, straining to be free. The wasp didn’t seem to care what Raph was doing; it simply tilted its head and unfurled a proboscis from between its mandibles. Raph let out a cry of fear and disgust, scrambling to try and get away.
But there was no where to go.
The proboscis shot through the air and the barbed end lodged itself into the meat of Raph’s neck, digging in deep. Raph roared in pain, thrashing and trying to bite at the proboscis with his fangs. But he couldn’t reach it at a good angle and only ended up snapping his teeth at the empty air. In the cage beside him, Donnie was screaming and cursing with language so colorful, it might have made Splinter’s heart stop if he heard it.
He froze in fear when the wasp’s abdomen twitched and the barb on its tip eased out further, growing longer. Donnie, like Raph, tried to get away, but the stinger launched out in much the same way as the proboscis and dug into Donnie’s neck. He screamed, a high pitched and terrified sound that wrenched Draxum’s chest.
He couldn’t protect them.
It took a moment for Draxum to register that anything was happening. But Raphael’s struggles were slowing, growing weaker as the wasp visibly drank from him, pulled what Draxum had first assumed was blood . Raph’s eyes were losing focus and he seemed to be...getting smaller? Meanwhile, Donatello was stock still, his pupils blown wide and his throat working as he tried to swallow, his entire body shuddering with each throb of the stinger pumping Titan only knew what into him . Spasms made him buck against the cuffs, pulling taut against them with a creak of straining metal. Was it a trick of the light or was Donnie...growing?
Sick dread pushed nausea into the back of Draxum’s mouth, made his voice come out in a hoarse croak,
“What...what are you doing to them?”
“Improving them!” Halima said with glee, clapping her hands together in delight, her focus entirely on what was happening in the cages, “Such raw strength...such unprecedented brain power...why should they be separate?” Her eyes gleamed hungry and wild, all of her sharp canines flashing in a wide grin,
“Now it can have the brains...and the brawn.”
There was a host of things that Draxum wanted to say; insults and desperate pleas, screams and curses, endless demands and promises if it would mean the safety of his family.
But his words failed him.
His voice got stuck somewhere in the hollowed out pit of his stomach and he could only watch as Raphael was demutated. And Donatello was mutated a second time.
Raph was chirping and whimpering, sobs choking off as his body was drained of the mutagen that gave him form. He was getting smaller, but the cuffs were tightening with him, the cables lengthening to keep him in the air. His feet had left the floor, claws twitching and kicking helplessly. He let out a cry as his legs snapped and changed shape, muscles contracting smaller and smaller, bones shrinking and bending. With his mouth wide open, it was horrifically easy to see his teeth loosen, shrink, and then eventually fall out as his gums sealed and his mouth morphed back into the powerful beak of a regular snapper.
Poor Donnie was just screaming. As his brother’s mutagen flooded his veins, his body warped and twisted, tearing him apart and rebuilding him in seconds. Muscles bulged sickeningly, rippling and writhing beneath his stretching skin as they packed on layer after layer. His plastron creaked and forced new scutes to grow as his torso lengthened, bones snapped and grew thicker, stronger, widening his shoulders and making him taller, broader. Donnie’s voice cracked and his scream became an agonized roar, eyes rolling madly as his jaw cracked and popped, his own teeth getting longer and sharper. Spiny ridges forced their way through his skull and he hunched forward as his shell distended, hulking from his back and settling down again, before surging out and growing thick spikes, bony growths that tore through his softer flesh.
“Stop…” Draxum tried to say but his words were a horrified whisper, a prayer to whatever deity or divine force could possibly be listening, “Please...they—they are just children…”
There was nothing left of Raphael except a regular snapping turtle, panting in terror from where it was suspended in the cage.
And Donatello had become a monster, sobbing and screaming at his new shape as the last of the painful changes settled over him. He turned his massive head, seeking his big brother, and howled when he saw what remained of Raph. It was a cry of anguish, of anger and pain, of a despair so wretched and unknowably deep that it seemed for a moment to herald the end of the world.
For Donnie, perhaps it already had.
Halima was laughing and dancing on the spot in sheer delight, racing up to the cage to press herself against it and stare starry-eyed at what she had done. Her insect tugged its stinger and tongue from the two turtles and settled itself comfortably on the top of the cages—if it were possible, the damn thing almost looked smug. Donatello roared at Halima through the wall of the cage, showing off his serrated snaggled fangs and a jaw that looked powerful enough to crush a tire with a single bite. Halima only giggled and blew him a kiss.
And Draxum…
Draxum wished he was dead.
He wished the Shredder had killed him. He wished the Dark Armor had drained hi m completely and left a husk behind. He wished he had never met the turtles again. He wished he could undo what he had done.
He didn’t know if there would be any way to fix things this time.