Chapter Text
Donnie really doesn’t want to be doing this right now.
It’s a pleasant day out. A rainstorm rolled through the mountains the day, leaving the air smelling crisp and fresh. A few songbirds are out singing, flying between the forest trees, and ignoring the convoy passing through their domain. Dappled shadows provide ample coverage from the late morning sun that’s shining through the dense foliage of the trees. The hard dirt road is level and smooth, providing for a pleasant horseback bride.
And yet, Donnie really doesn’t want to be part of the entourage protecting the human princess. He could be doing much more important things right now, like testing the capabilities of the boom cannon he recently developed in the archery range. This updated weapon could improve the defensive and offensive capabilities of their kingdom! Or he could be doing a number of other things, like testing out mystically enhanced weapons in his lab, fixing some of the automatons roaming the castle halls, improving the furnaces in the kitchen, building Mikey a newer, sturdier easel… he could be doing anything else right now.
But no.
As the future co-captain of the Royal Guard, he must accompany the human princess on her trip home to the Kingdom of Old York. It would be irresponsible not to, or at least that’s what he was told.
Though if he had to be honest, he’s only doing this so he doesn’t disappoint his brother, Prince Raph. The first meeting between their kingdoms in decades was already stressful enough. His Raph-chasm seemed to have carved out a deeper divot in his forehead in less than a week—Donnie’s hoping that it’s not permanent.
Their father would also get on his case too, and Donnie didn’t want to endure another lecture.
So, begrudgingly, he’s accompanying the convoy, picking up the rear with his twin, Leo, while their boss, the Captain of the Royal Guard, leads up at the front with the human captain. They must show that they are trustworthy enough to ensure the human princess’s safe return to her kingdom. Speaking of which, the royal carriage carrying Her Royal Highness is flanked on all sides by more guards, though they are all human.
One of the human guards on the left keeps turning his head to give Donnie the stink eye every half hour. As much as he would like to give that guard a piece of his mind, he remembers Raph and swallows down any retort.
Instead, Donnie sighs as he leans down to pat Shelldon’s neck as they continue their trek through the forest. His beloved horse softly whinnies, nodding his head a few times as if in appreciation. The purple-clad turtle smiles; he’ll treat his steed to an apple when they take another stop to rest.
“So, do you think Captain will let us do some explorin’ once Princess April is safely back home?” Leo asks, riding closer to his brother so the human guards don’t overhear. “We’ve never been in a human settlement before. Kinda curious to see what they have for leisure.”
Donnie sighs, sitting upright and turning his head to look at his counterpart. “I highly doubt that we will be relieved of duty once we’ve ensured the safe transfer of the princess. We will more than likely be tasked to oversee the preparations for our trip back home this evening as well. I don’t think we will have the time.”
The blue-clad slider leans in a bit closer, his voice dropping down to a whisper. “Don’t even want to sneak out to see the sights?”
The image of Raph’s forehead chasm flashes in Donnie’s mind. “Absolutely not. If we were caught, we would never hear the end of it, and I don’t want Dr. Delicate Touch to pay a visit to my lab either.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Leo sighs, sitting upright and looking at the forest around them. “Guess we need to be ‘responsible’.”
Donnie hums, agreeing with his twin but saying nothing more.
They keep riding for a few more minutes, the constant but reassuring noise of horse hooves and carriage wheels against the dirt road filling the air.
The sound of a snapping branch catches Donnie’s attention, and he whips his head around only to be blasted in the face by a murder of crows! Shelldon rears back and whinnies while Leo swats at the air. The commotion is enough for the entire entourage to come to a halt.
“Leo! Donnie! Is everything alright back there?” Their Captain hollers from the front of the group.
>> Donnie decides to investigate where he heard the snapping noise.
Donnie sputters, spitting the feathers out of his mouth as the last few crows fly past. Once his mouth is free of dark plumage, he takes a few moments to calm down Sheldon before addressing his Captain.
“It was a swarm of crows, Captain! It’s–” he’s about to dismiss the occurrence when the image of Raph, brow furrowed with worry, flashes across his mind “–I think I heard something in the forest that disturbed the birds! I’ll investigate.”
He’s dismounting his horse as the Captain yells back at him. “Be quick and thorough! Princess April’s safety is our utmost importance, and we want to make sure she’s back home by sunset.”
Donnie internally grumbles at the mention of the princess, but he doesn’t make his displeasure known. He nods at his brother, who already has his hand on the pummel of his katana. The purple-clad turtle takes a peak at the human guards as he turns around, noting that they don’t seem to be as worried. The yokai guards, on the other hand, are ready to withdraw their weapons at a moment's notice like Leo.
As he approaches the forest’s edge, he withdraws his katana from his sheath and holds it out in front of him. It’s not his weapon of choice, and he’d greatly prefer to be using his bo staff right now, but he doesn’t need to hear potential ridicule from the human guards. So he just grips the sword tightly in his hands as he steps off the beaten path, making his way forward slowly.
His eyes dart side-to-side as well as up and down, trying to find the source of the disturbance. The forest is unfamiliar to him, with trees and vegetation that’s different from the fauna he’s used to back home. It’s difficult to discern what’s an irregularity and what could be considered normal. Nevertheless, he scans his surroundings not once but twice.
He doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps he was being too cautious, and he certainly didn’t want his own Raph-chasm growing on his forehead.
But just as he’s about to turn around and call back to the group, he hears another twig snap close by. He whips around the source—a seemingly inconspicuous bush. He narrows his eyes and approaches cautiously with his katana out in front of him. Once he’s close enough, he reaches out, using the tip of his blade to move aside one of the branches.
While he had his suspicions, seeing a pair of human eyes staring right back at him still makes his stomach drop.
Oh, this is bad.
“You idiot! You blew our cover!” A voice originating from what was definitely not a tree hisses out. “Now we gotta attack!”
Oh, this is really really bad!
“We’re being ambushed!” Donnie barely has time to sound the alarm before multiple bushes and trees transform in a cloud of red smoke, leaving behind several humans dressed completely in black.
Oh, this is really really REALLY bad!
Donnie takes on his first enemy, raising his katana in a defensive position against a pair of daggers, metal grinding on metal. He then pushes back and swipes down, forcing his opponent's daggers out of their hands. Defenseless, he wastes no time and swings his sword diagonally, aiming for a weakness near the neck. He lands his hit, the sharp edge of the blade digging into the human’s collarbone and slashing across their chest, leaving behind a mortal wound.
Huh. The humans aren’t wearing any armor?
But Donnie doesn’t have time to consider a lecture for these fools when he realizes that the majority of the group has left the forest. The sound of weapons clashing sounds out behind him, along with shouts from the guards to defend the princess. Without wasting another second, he turns on his heel and races back toward the convoy.
As purple-clad softshell approaches, he quickly assesses the scene in front of him. The other guards and warriors are holding their own against the ambushers, but there are a few fallen human soldiers on the road. Still, there is a swarm of enemies around the royal carriage. A few of them are even on the roof of the carriage attempting to hack their way in!
Without hesitation, Donnie waves his hand in the air, summoning several magical crossbows in his signature purple color above him. The weapons fire and arrows zip through the air, hitting their targets dead on. The dark-clad enemies cry out in pain, stumbling off the carriage and falling to the ground behind it.
With that problem taken care of, Donnie looks around him. There is an unbelievably large—and topless, for some reason—human with a foot symbol painted on his face fighting Leo. Then next to the carriage, several of the guards are fending off more enemies, keeping them from getting to the carriage door and the princess inside.
>> Donnie decides to help Leo.
There is a brief moment—a fraction of a second if Donnie really wants to be specific—where he considers using the boom cannon to deal with the problem in front of him. Only three problems with that.
First, the boom cannon was left within the walls of his kingdom, so he couldn’t even use it if he wanted to.
Second, he could expend his ninpo to create something similar, but he doesn’t have the experience nor the time to test the limits of his power.
And last but certainly not least, the weapon would just kill everyone at point-blank range.
Donnie doesn’t even need Mind Raph to tell him that!
Instead, he takes the remaining fraction of a second to reassess the situation. The human guards seem to be holding their own just fine, so he doesn’t need to race to the princess’s aid. Leo, on the other hand, looks like he’s about to get walloped.
And the only one who’s allowed to kick Leo’s ass is his twin!
The purple-clad samurai runs over, avoiding the few dead bodies littering the dirt path to get to the blue-clad slider.
“Get away from my brother, your honorless craven!” Donnie yells as he swings his katana, managing to nick the burly man’s bicep, blood dripping down his blade.
The man roars, swinging around his fists wildly to push the two turtles away from them. While it catches Donnie off-guard—forcing him to stumble backward to avoid getting hit—Leo successfully ducks and avoids the attack. He tries to swipe at the man’s legs, but the tips of his blades just barely miss his opponent’s kneecaps.
Donnie quickly regains his balance after stumbling backward as the burly man’s attention narrows in on him. He barely has a second to dodge another hit, the man’s fist smashing into the ground which sends dirt flying.
“Hey! No one gets to beat up my egghead brother except me!”
The man whips around but he doesn’t have time to defend himself before Leo’s blade is on him, slashing diagonally into the man’s chest. The man roars and stumbles, his body twisting toward Donnie. The purple-clad turtle takes advantage of the situation and lands a hit, his sword also cutting diagonally but in the opposite direction.
Their foot-branded opponent takes several steps back, his hand cradling the actively bleeding “X” mark on his chest. He glares at the two turtles, a frown contorting his wide face.
“Maybe you should have considered wearing some armor!” Donnie pats the custom light-weight armor adorning his chest. “It would have certainly helped.”
The man’s eyes flicker to something behind them briefly before his attention returns to Leo and Donnie, a sickening smile replacing his frown. “And yet, we will still accomplish our goal!”
Donnie doesn’t have a chance to respond before the man disappears in a familiar cloud of red smoke.
He also doesn’t have time to ask what the man meant before someone screams behind him.
“They kidnapping the princess!”
Oh no.
Both of the turtles turn around and see some of the black-clad assailants pulling the princess from her carriage. She’s putting up a fight, her legs swinging wildly and nailing a few of her kidnappers in the head. However, her iron grip on the carriage door doesn’t last long, and with one violent tug, she’s ripped away from it.
Before Mind Raph has a chance to yell at him, Donnie’s sprinting forward.
It’s a bit of a blur as Donnie charges toward the princess, stepping over dead human soldiers and shoving enemies aside. He reaches the princess just as one of the black-clad assailants lifts something in the air. He’s not sure what it is, but he doesn’t like the way it glints in the sunlight.
>> Without hesitation, Donnie sucker punches the assailant in the stomach.
Could this day get any worse?
It had been a pleasant day outside. April had watched the dense foliage of the forest—familiar and comforting—pass by within the safety of her royal carriage. And while it was nice to hear the familiar chirps and songs of the birds native to her kingdom, it could not distract her from her tumultuous thoughts.
No, all she could focus on were thoughts of her future. How this might be one of the last times she would see the familiar forest and mountains of her home. How she was being married off—for her kingdom—to the Crown Prince of Terrapathia, whom her people have had on-and-off wars with for decades.
But her father desperately wanted peace and stability. The Hamatos—the royal family of Terrapathia—seemed to have similar goals as well. So a marriage between her and the Crown Prince was arranged to symbolize peace and prosperity for the kingdoms and their people.
Of course, there would not be any peace or prosperity for her.
April’s stomach churned as she remembered the conversation she had with her father about the marriage—she had very little input on the matter. She was to be married off, a mere pawn on the political chessboard, whether she liked it or not.
At least Prince Raphael was kind.
She'd spent a little over a week in the foreign kingdom, meeting with her husband-to-be, his father, and a few other lords and ladies April couldn’t bother to remember the names of. While Prince Raphael was a towering beast of a yokai—a snapping turtle close to eight feet in height—he was surprisingly gentle and respectful of her.
He listened to her far more than her own father, though that was not a high bar to pass. It was still surprising, considering their kingdoms’ history.
But still, how would she be treated after she was married and stuck with the Crown Prince? Was he putting on an act in front of everyone?
Would he–
She didn’t have the time to finish the next question plaguing her mind when the sound of crows surrounded the carriage, halting her entourage in its place. There was some shouting, and one of the yokai guards announced they would investigate the disturbance.
When she had peaked her head closer to the window, she noticed that the turtle yokai dressed in purple—the one who had glared at her from behind Raph during important meetings—had ventured off into the forest. The other yokai guards looked on alert as well, some watching their brother-in-arms while others looked around the carriage for signs of mischief.
Well, at least the yokai guards were committed to fulfilling their sworn duty to defend her, even if she wasn’t their queen yet.
It was probably nothing…
But then all hell broke loose.
The next few moments are a blur, but April quickly finds herself being ripped from her carriage by black-robed assailants. She puts up a fight, kicking and punching at anyone who gets close to her. But she can’t fight in these foofy royal dresses she has to wear, so it’s all in vain. One of the kidnappers manages to get a firm grip on her and rips her from the carriage—no amount of continued struggle weakens his hold.
As fear truly starts to grip April’s heart, she notices a yokai guard—the same one as before—racing toward her. For a brief second, April feels a brief sense of relief that someone armed and ready is coming to her defense.
That is until the purple-clad idiot decides to sucker-punch one of her kidnappers in the stomach rather than use his katana.
“Idiot! You have a sword!” April screams, bewildered that this is the choice that the yokai guard thought to be appropriate.
But neither of them has time to consider the tactical blunder. The yokai guard grabs her arm just as a red glass orb drops from the hand of the winded kidnapper. No one has time to catch the object, and it shatters upon impact with the ground, surrounding them in red smoke.
Despite not moving, April’s stomach drops as the sensation of falling overwhelms her. She grips her kidnappers, if only for some stability, as the smoke swirls around them. The smoke dissipates, disappearing in whisp-like patterns to reveal they’re in a cave. Daylight is filtering in behind them, so the entrance must be close by.
But April doesn't have the time to take in her surroundings as she's jostled about.
“Dude! This ain’t headquarters!” One of the kidnappers shouts.
“Well, I didn’t exactly have time to–ahh!!!”
The other black-clothed assailant is unable to finish his retort before a katana plunges straight into his chest. He lets go of April and falls to the ground, mortally wounded. The other kidnapper pulls her away from the yokai guard, his arm firmly around April’s midsection as his other hand fishes for something in his pocket.
“Shit! Wrong thing!”
April watches as something neon green enters her peripheral vision and sails through the air toward the yokai guard. He blocks, but whatever it is breaks and spreads on the blade, consuming the metal rapidly. He curses and drops the handle of the katana, as that is all that remains.
Before April can say something snarky about how the kidnapper is bad at his job, the steel of a small dagger appears in front of her, its tip pointed at her throat.
“D-don’t move! Or the princess gets it!”
The guard halts in his tracks, eyes fixed on the man behind her. As the guard and black-clad assailant begin their staring contest, it gives April enough time to reassess her situation.
>> April decides to bite the arm of the kidnapper.
While her kidnapper’s gaze is steadfast in keeping eye contact with April’s guard, his hand wielding the knife lacks the same unwavering commitment. The white-knuckled fist clenching the dagger shakes mid-air, and the jitters are enough for the blade’s tip to leave her neck.
It’s a split-second decision. So fast in fact that April’s tasting blood in her mouth before she realizes she’s sunk her teeth into the flesh of her captor.
However, this isn't the first person she's bitten, and he won't be the last.
The man screeches as he tries to pull his hand out of her mouth. The muscles in his hand twitch and seize as April’s teeth sink deeper. The blade clatters to the floor, forgotten as the man tries to free himself.
“What are you? An animal?!” The kidnapper finally rips his hand from her mouth and shoves her away from him.
April throws her arms out in front of her, wincing as her arms collide with the rough surface of the cavern’s floor. Twinges of pain shoot up her arms, and she wouldn’t be surprised if the sharp gravel cut through the thin fabric of her sleeves.
“You’re gonna pay for tha-ack!”
April whips her head around to see the yokai guard thrusting the previously abandoned dagger into the man’s chest. The guard twists it, a sickening squelching noise originating from the open wound being shredded. The man wetly gasps, desperately trying to get air into his lungs—though it will certainly not save him.
The yokai guard pushes the kidnapper to the floor, leaving him to take his last gasps of life. He then looks at the dagger and scowls.
“Condescending hum, the weapon of thieves and criminals.” He holds the blade’s hilt between his thumb and index finger—like it’s covered in filth—before tossing the bloody blade aside, far away from April and her kidnappers.
April watches her guard as he looks over the bodies once more—presumably to make sure they’re dead—before his eyes fall on her. He jolts, his eyebrows—comically drawn onto his purple mask—shooting upward as if he’s surprised that she’s looking at him.
He rushes to her side, offering his weird three-fingered hands to her. “Ahem! Princess, ah… April. Are you alright?”
April narrows her eyes. Did he momentarily forget her name? And his question lacked any warmth and concern. She’s not gonna get anything but the bare minimum from him, is she?
But she doesn’t have time to wallow in self-pity.
She takes his hands, letting him pull her to her feet before wiping the blood from her mouth with her sleeve. “Y-yeah. I’m… I’m fine. The blade didn’t hurt me or anything like that.” Her gaze drops to her arms and she frowns at the blood blotching the shredded fabric. “Scraped my arms up a bit though.”
“Ah! Let me assist you, I have a small aid kit in my possession.”
He guides her over to one of the large rocks in the cave and sits her down. The torn sleeves of her dress are pushed past her shoulder, revealing the collection of small abrasions scattered across her forearms. April hisses as the open air touches the wounds, though she tries to swallow down her discomfort.
The yokai guard does not comment, only pulling a small sack out from underneath his armor and rummaging through the contents. He pulls out an amber bottle and gauze, popping the cork off and pouring the clear fluid onto the fabric strip.
He then places the bottle on the floor and takes one of April’s arms in his hands. “This will sting.”
That’s about all the warning April gets before the fluid-soaked gauze is wiped across her arms. She bites her tongue, trying not to cry in pain as the guard makes quick work of disinfecting her arms.
He’s certainly not being very gentle, but considering how he was glaring at her earlier this week, April’s just happy he’s taking the time to clean her wounds. He’s at least doing the bare minimum.
Once the guard is satisfied, he tosses the used gauze on the floor and delves back into his bag. April watches as he takes a large roll of gauze and wraps up her arms, covering all of her scraps and cuts completely.
He finishes securing the bindings before nodding his head. “There. Are you injured anywhere else?”
April runs her hands along the gauze, pleased with his work. “No. I think that’s good. Though... where are we?”