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Donnie admits to having many vices, but none so strong, or persistent, as the simple delight of violence.
For a time this was something shared with Raph. As toddlers, both had been known for a Rottweiler-like intensity in their biting, where they would latch on long and hard enough to bruise whoever their unfortunate target happened to be. Donnie remembers how satisfying the deep pressure in his gums had felt, how right it made him feel. But he also remembers how hard Splinter worked to teach him it was bad. That it was mean. How Splinter had gotten book after book on child rearing to find the language necessary to get through to them both that it was unacceptable.
And while Raph grew out of it, shamed and determined, Donnie never did. Not truly.
He still bites his brothers. Never without provocation, and with enough sense to leave them unbloodied, he might add. If he's annoyed too long, or one too many warnings are ignored, he simply snaps his teeth in their direction. Not even out of anger. Raph had told Donnie a lot of what he used to do was out of anger, and maybe Donnie just needed to chill the fuck out. Donnie isn't sure what drives him to do it, but he's pretty sure the decline in biting incidents has much more to do with his brothers wising up to what gets them bit rather than Donnie's own feeble attempts at self-restraint.
What relative peace had been found in their Lair was unbalanced by going top-side to be heroes.
Sparring with his brothers, learning to defend himself; these are matters of meditation to Donnie. They don't inspire any crazy feelings or feral needs to claw or hiss or bite. But going up against actual foes? Who want to actually kill him? It's a different beast to wrangle. Donnie revels in his intelligence, always, but there's no reasoning with the looming youkai twice, thrice his size, or with Foot soldiers who outnumber him and drive him into some dark alley corners to be taken care of. He has to give everything he has, sometimes, to stay alive.
And it thrills something inside him he can't name.
To actually, truly be let loose. The care he nurtured when sparring with his brothers and learning alongside them is thrown out the window in favor of doing whatever needs to be done. Knocking someone unconscious? He'd only done that to Leo once-- on accident-- and it had shocked him how frightened he'd been in those few moments before Leo opened his eyes again. Now it feels like the norm. A broken bone or two isn't even out of order, or always avoidable depending on the opponent. In this Donnie finds he loses no sleep. Maybe the occasional lecture gets tossed his way if Raph thinks he's being a bit rough, but what can Donnie say! It's combat. There's a simplicity to that fact and how it engages with his willingness to do anything to avoid being the one prone on the ground.
It's when that half-buried need to actually lay in and bite comes back that Donnie becomes concerned. Leveling a titanium bō staff at an opponent isn't exactly safe; there's a lot of restraint and finesse that comes with fighting against humans-- and even some youkai-- to avoid a killing blow. It's not Leo's swords, but it's a very hard, very unforgiving instrument. Likewise, Donnie has done the math for what kind of damage he can do in those rare instances he's within range to bite into someone's arm, or leg, or, Lou Jitsu forbid, their necks.
As if compounded by the fear of lethality the neck becomes Donnie's main focal point, too.
It would not end in some put-upon lecture from Raph, or some only half-joking comments from Leo or Mikey. Donnie honestly isn't sure what the outcome of that would be, or why it would feel so much worse than hurting someone with his bō staff. He just knows it would be really, really bad and he really, really doesn't want to actually bathe in the blood of his enemies.
Unless they deserve it. But maybe not even then? Hm.
It's a confusing situation.
There's no precedent for the growing larynx-crushing desire that Donnie can figure out, and after talking to his dear Papa and being praised for how far he's come Donnie wavers in discussing it further. His thought process had been to keep it a secret, forever, and then die without anyone knowing he was one step removed from fantasizing about eating their enemies.
Eventually, with some desperation, he seeks out April's counsel. She feels safer to confide in for reasons too emotionally complex for Donnie to untangle. A sound assumption, it turns out, because she doesn't judge him.
As a human without behavioral issues her only advice is to seek out things he's allowed to maul and see if it helps.
Which, it hasn't. Not for a lack of trying, or imagination. As delightful as the world of stim toys ends up being they are not fitted for a mutant with jaw strength dozens of pounds stronger than the average person, leaving him to bite clean through every material he tries when he's too agitated, and for once the creations of his own mind, though durable enough, fail to soothe his needs.
Begrudgingly, after months of failure and a healthy dose of villain-to-antihero character development, this leads Donnie to consider Draxum for help.
Draxum, who built them with care (presumably) out of his ill-concocted desire to cull humanity in the face of some prophecy no one ever cared to elaborate on.
A prophecy. And the man calls himself an alchemist. That's science related enough (he thinks?!) in Donnie's book to expect a little more practicality from the man. Goat. Sheep.
Whatever.
All the mutants Donnie has met seem to bear some kind of mystic power, so his working hypothesis is that mysticism is the weapon Draxum meant to hone in their war on humans. Biting is not mysticism last Donnie checked, which means his desire to take out some random Foot recruit with finality, tooth to artery, couldn't be a side effect of the mutation. Like he was some…some emaciated vampire. Which! No longer feels so farfetched a thought when the existence of youkai clearly indicates some myths and legends are true!
Mikey will never let go of the fact that Donnie "lied" to him about the existence of dragons and their fangs after a mission where their objective involved a piece of tech called the Dragon's Tooth. As, not long after this, Mikey had indeed met a real dragon. Who even had real dragon teeth.
Donnie can be smart and still get things wrong without having to bare constant reminders of it, can't he? When he doesn't have all the facts?
That's what this entire situation really boils down to. Donnie doesn't know why he's afflicted with these feelings and Draxum knows the science, or alchemy or whatever-- of their creation. He has the answers to exactly what the mutagen components are, and what it's done to them. He can very easily eliminate any ideas that this lust for a crunching death doesn't come from some…some latent animal DNA spliced into them. Like a wolf. Or a tiger. Or any other go-to choices the furry communities loves for their unoriginal, predator fursonas.
One thing Donnie did know is neither humans nor spiny softshells are asphyxiation killers. That, at least, the internet could confirm for him.
Setting up a meeting with Draxum is surprisingly easy. After the defeat of Shredder the Hidden City granted some manner of pardon to Draxum, allowing him to not only return, but regain access to working in a lab again. Not his own, and not for his own research, but as a matter of community service to youkai society. Despite all this Draxum kept his shitty New York apartment, and this is where Donnie is invited to. No questions asked when Donnie said he wanted to talk. He was simply given a date and time to show up.
So Donnie shows up. And asks his questions on their biological reality.
"Of course there's no other animal splicing," Draxum sneers over his shoulder as he attends to his admittedly nice coffee machine for such a dingy apartment. He's either shored up amongst humans long enough that putting on a pot for Donnie's visit is some form of assimilation, or working with school children turned him to caffeine abuse, and having a teenager in his abode is triggering that.
"I didn't think so, but biology is very much not my playground. And one can never be too sure what's going on when…alchemy is involved."
Draxum's demeanor further sours at the contempt Donnie lathers the word with. Expected. Irrelevant. This is Draxum's life work he's speaking on, but as someone so deeply entwined with the sciences as himself Donnie simply needs more time to marinate in the realities of mysticism before accepting it with more grace. And maybe if he actually knew what alchemy entailed outside of it being something Draxum used to torment them with.
"And you thought canine DNA was the cause of your concerns?"
"It was a possibility! I don't know!"
Draxum snorts, turning away and busying his hands by poking through a cupboard by his head for mugs. He takes one down Donnie recognizes as a gag gift from Leo that says, in an appealing mix of fonts, Don't Talk to me Until I've Eaten This Mug, and another Donnie has never seen before that's a solid, deep purple. It makes him sit up a little straighter from where he's been accommodated at the dining room table, searching the dimness of the cupboard to catch a glimpse within for familiar blues, reds, or oranges, but sees nothing before Draxum closes it off from view.
"You and your brothers are a mix of turtle biology, Yoshi's DNA, and my own. Nothing more."
"Yes, yes, the Hamato--" Donnie blinks several times, caught off guard by Draxum using Splinter's legal name. When had that started? When he's not Splinter he's Lou Jitsu. So why-- "I'm sorry? I must have misheard you."
"What, did you not know you were a turtle?" Draxum belittles his guest eagerly, smile mean and exaggerated enough Donnie can note how sharp the canines therein are, and has to make an active effort to not compare their size and shape with his own.
Like- like that of a tiger. Or a wolf. Or--
"You're why I want to rip people's throats out?!" Donnie is out of his chair before thinking, which is a rarity. As is the amount of anger burning through him, how it fuels him to march across the small space to jut his finger impudently into Draxum's face. "You're the throat ripper gene!"
As if to lend credence to Donnie's claim Draxum snaps at the offending finger, the resulting clack of teeth on air only managed with Donnie's ninjatastic reflexes never slacking, even with his unraveling mental state.
Categorizing emotions has never been Donnie's strong suit in the best circumstances. He doesn't know what he's feeling outside of overwhelmed, and a nebulous sense of damnation. How cliché is it that the man Mikey tried so hard to laud as a Father figure actually shares something familial with them all.
"You speak nonsense, but I've had time to become fluent in your family's ravings to get the gist of accusation. Your natural spiny softshell," he gestures to Donnie's entire person, "unagreeableness, combined with my part in your creation likely has made you rather willing to fight tooth and nail. Primarily tooth."
"But you're a goat!" Donnie throws his hands into the air and whirls away from Draxum. He needs to pace. He makes it about halfway around his first lap of the small room before pausing to double check he has no evidence of hooves. Could he develop hooves?
"Despite the Hamato claims I am neither a sheep nor a goat. Did you not realize the horns were adornment of my armor?" Draxum gestures in the corner of Donnie's vision, presumably to his lack of organic horns.
Youkai just always seemed to be animals-- or a mix of them. Mutated themselves and empowered by the properties of empyrean. Big Mama comes to mind. Potentially the world's worst, but most accurate, recreation of Spider-Man's less beloved counterpart, Man-Spider, but--
But what? Donnie doesn't know.
His genius is nothing versus the gulf of not knowing shit, and there's no one he can blame for that but himself. Occupying the room with someone so recently categorized as an enemy, and very much having the knowledge Donnie lacks is not helping his spiraling. The relevance of youkai existence hadn't exactly escaped Donnie-- science fiction and fantasy come to life? Mind blowing! Amazing!
It simply hadn't been at the forefront of Donnie's varied, complex, and honestly insane thought processes as far as day-to-day life was concerned. They existed, like any other human or mutant, and wanted nothing to do with the turtles, or wanted to kill them.
Who, exactly, was he meant to have asked any of the questions he has to, anyways? The restaurant owning skeleton? The literal snuff ring runner?? He had other problems to think about and solve!
Like thwarting digital rivals online. Or learning to rewire electricity off the city grid and into the Lair without being caught by New York authorities, same with their water supply. He needed to keep his position of top five in his Hatsune Miku phone game. Had to learn and memorize every street sign in existence, along with the road laws within the entirety of the continental United States, so when he drove the Turtle Tank he understood what laws he was breaking (categorized into either accidental or purposefully committed).
Donnie shakes his head to stop his list of mental excuses, choosing instead to clear his throat and turn back to face his-- shudder-- other Father. Not Mikey's kumbaya bullshit but actual donor of genetics Father.
"How is it you would…" Donnie hates that he's starting to sweat. Turtles don't sweat. This is because of his apparently ample samplings of mammalian DNA he's been subjected to. Is Draxum a mammal? No, no wait, Donnie doesn't want to know that given how they're classified-- the embarrassment of the entire situation is getting to him, making his voice crack, "Identify? In terms of. Taxonomy."
Anyone familiar with Baron Draxum understand he has three separate expressions. Contempt, boredom, and villainous glee. The expression he's pinning Donnie with now is an entirely undocumented fourth emotion.
Befuddlement.
"This is a hate crime," Draxum deadpans, clearly as out of his element as Donnie is in the moment. The main difference being Donnie might actually lose his shit if this literal adult-- whose age Donnie realizes is on his growing list of things he doesn't know-- won't stop teasing slash bullying him.
It leaves Donnie to turn away, hopefully for the last time, to pace in a little circle to calm himself, unable to tamp down the need for irritated, clicking vocalizations before rounding back on his twice-over progenitor. He clasps his hands together and gestures them as if in mock prayer.
"Would you please enlighten me to the lineage I've been deprived of knowing due to you being an absolute deadbeat." It's a term Draxum used semi-frequently when referring to Splinter's less-than-stellar track record as a parent, and has its intended effect. It makes Draxum sigh heavily and relent without further fuss.
"I wondered when any of you would take appropriate curiosity in your origins. I don't care for blasé education--"
"Mhm, mhm, very apparent!"
"But," Draxum snaps warningly, "you are correct. I have failed you in this endeavor due to my own misguided negligence. Both as my sentient test subjects and my newfound…" his face puckers. "Family."
"We've been related for fourteen years but go on."
"Genetic relation means next to nothing in many parts of youkai society," Draxum starts to snarl down at Donnie before he's interrupted by a rather cheery tone from the coffee maker to let all know the brew is done. He mechanically takes the pot in hand and pours some into both mugs and gestures impatiently for Donnie to retake his seat at the table.
The mugs are set down and steaming while Draxum retrieves a pitcher of milk-- a pitcher, definitely imitation of human society learned through televised media-- to place between them. Neither move to take it, but both reach for the sugar dish at the same time.
"There is, evidently," Draxum starts, retracting his hand as Donnie piles sugar into his mug, "much more about our society you remain ignorant to. Expected, if I were not aware you hold an account with the Mystic Library."
"I've been a little preoccupied with teaching myself the basics of magic," Donnie replies, defensive. He drops a spoon into his purple mug and snaps his fingers to show a glowing, stable construct of Draxum's apartment key. Not exactly an impressive display, despite the keen attention to detail it possesses, but that only furthers his point in Donnie's opinion. "Mystic histories are sort of on the back burner to this."
"You can lie to yourself and your family all you like, I know what a mind like yours is capable of," Draxum flicks his fingers dismissively. "You've demonstrated your ability to handle multiple subjects of study beyond that of the average natural being. You have simply been wasting these avenues on things of lesser importance."
Donnie wrinkles his nose. "By whose standards?"
"The only one whose matter," Draxum's tone clearly indicates a duh tacked onto the end of that statement as he points at himself. "Your self-discipline is lacking."
"No more than your memory. I'm not here to discuss the exorbitant powers of my mind."
"Fine." Draxum leans back heavily into his chair and crosses his arms. "To begin simply; I am aware some youkai appear in human folklore. Mostly inaccurate, but human memory and retelling of it has never been their strong suit. I will admit ignorance to human society, but it is not as vast as your own ignorance to the youkai. Despite this, I'm unaware of any legends pertaining to one such as me."
Draxum pauses to think, one of his ears flicking as he does so. "For our needs the term chimera suits us best. Likewise, my title of Alchemist seems to have been mistaken by you lot to solely be my occupation. It is not. I am an Alchemist as a line of lineage. A youkai line that creates their young through deliberate experimentation. Like you boys, it is more accurate to say I was engineered than born."
This fits Draxum well, in Donnie's opinion. It's hard to picture the solid, grumpy physique of Draxum as a small, swaddled child. But a test tube baby? More fitting to his current image.
"Okaaay. So your parents were likewise engineered?"
"Yes. And theirs before them, through many generations and many centuries."
"Is that…unusual? For youkai, I mean."
"Others have dabbled in such forms of creation, but nothing so dedicated as that of an Alchemist."
"And this has been done historically, for what? Pursuit of perfection, the magnum opus known as Rebis? Or some kind of eugenics?"
Two for two, Donnie watches an unfamiliar expression of honest offense twist Draxum's face.
Donnie has offended him. Which, alright, the question had been a bit tactless, but Donnie wasn't aware Draxum could even be offended. Not past his intolerance for whimsy.
"Sorry," Donnie looks away, bracing an elbow on the table and covering his mouth with his hand, like he can take it back. Rusty from misuse, Donnie isn't sure what else to say to make his apology seem genuine, so he just repeats, "Sorry."
"It is a question many youkai ask. Some even expect us to do so on their behalf, with their own family trees," Draxum replies tersely, not really accepting the apology, and clearly having reason not to. That's fine. Donnie learned apologies, even those as rare as the ones he offers, don't need validation. It stings him, nonetheless. "In a vacuum perhaps the term offers some accuracy, but our children are never deemed undesirable or for termination, no matter the traits they bare. We do not forbid the continuation of lineage.
"The Rebis, as you put it, is a human concept for Alchemy, but bares some semblance to our beliefs. The aspiration to create the perfect being is defined by the individual, and many of us think we have achieved as much if our children grow up happily."
"That's. Heartwarming, actually?" Donnie scuffs a heel against the ground and thinks a little before he asks, "Is the Warrior in your title anything like Alchemist?"
"I did fight in the last War of the Alchemist. As you so tactfully inferred, those that question our ways have set their minds to stopping our main means of reproduction. We do not take kindly to these accusations of seeking eugenics, and it has led to conflict a number of times."
Wary of more uncultured blundering, and knowing speaking to a war veteran requires a measure of sensitivity whose threshold he feels unable to meet, Donnie merely nods his head. Just the concept of entire wars fought, out of the human eye and completely unknown to them, is enough for Donnie's head to spin. His mind shies back to the topic of discussion he'd actually come here for.
"So am I an Alchemist? And a turtle? And a mutant?"
"Oh, no," Draxum laughs, loud and braying, and Donnie scowls at him for it. "Ha! No. Even by my own peoples' standards what I attempted with you turtles is considered unnatural at best, and blasphemous at its worst. For my purposes I needed the ability to create an army at speed, and child soldiers need time to grow. I needed a shortcut, and mutation of the adult specimen was that shortcut.
"The birth of an Alchemist is more or less what I assume your own education on the matter is. Two parents, the introduction of gametes to one another, then splicing and/or mystic additions done unto the multiplying cell group."
"In what, test tubes?"
"At times."
"I knew you were a wanted man by the Hidden City law enforcement, but I didn't realize it was because of the mutagen rather than your. You know. Rash exposure of the unknown and uncanny to humanity. Breaking the secrecy, sort of, of your existence." Donnie takes a moment to consider that he's the product of law breaking and basks in a queer sense of pride for it. "I always felt illegal."
"Please. Your production may have been illegal, but youkai law has no means of persecuting you over your existing biology."
There has been...Way more information put on Donnie's plate in this visit than he could have fathomed happening. More than he could possibly digest in one sitting, but he starts on it by finally taking a sip of his coffee and remaining in silence for some time. Draxum, who has always thrived on silence, doesn't break it. He simply adds his forgotten sugar to his own drink, far more than Donnie had, and sits with him.
They've never been alone with one another, Donnie realizes. He wonders at the level of comfort it offers. Nothing like what he experiences with his family, but it's not something he he wants to get away from as quickly as possible, either. And he has to wonder if that has anything to do with his mind adding meaning to sharing DNA with Draxum, or if the man has simply displayed enough kindness to the Hamato family that this is something he's earned.
"If you didn't want child soldiers, why did you make us?"
"I wished to study the long term affects of the mutagen on a given specimen."
"So you wouldn't have made us child soldiers?" Donnie raises a disbelieving brow. "Kind of a waste, given how awesome we turned out."
"The minutiae of what ifs do not plague me. Though…" Draxum makes a considering noise, going on a face journey as he seems to deeply consider whether or not he wants to share his thoughts or not. "I have considered what it might have been like. Had I gotten to raise you boys. My mutagen was meant as a two-pronged attack. It reduces the number of humans, and, as I hypothesized, the mutated humans would be shunned and ostracized from their communities, where I could then recruit them as soldiers to further fight the human menace.
"As turtles I didn't consider the level of sentience and…compassion you would grow to be capable of. I often wonder, and will never know, how far I may have pushed you once discerning your true nature. I expected lab experiments with limited sentience, not legitimate children."
"You would have needed babysitters, for sure."
"I would have needed--" Draxum cuts himself off, snorting. "I don't know what I don't know. Dealing with the children at the human school gave me some insight to how sorely unprepared I would have been. It's a rather harrowing train of thoughts, so as I said. I don't dwell on it."
It's not something Donnie has ever lent much thought to either, to be fair. Growing up with Splinter hadn't been easy, but it's what Donnie knows, and he's happy with who he's become. As that was in no small part due to his upbringing, Donnie doesn't wish for anything different.
"I came to you because I had a single problem, and now I have a lot of questions."
"Anyone with an appropriately grooved brain would," Draxum shrugs, remarkably unaffected, all things considered. He must not have been lying about biological relation being irrelevant in some youkai circles, cause parting with this loosely held secret doesn't seem to have cost the man anything.
"I'm going to have to tell my brothers."
Here, Draxum winces. "Better you than me. You responded more calmly than I thought you might."
"What? What did you think I'd do?"
"I don't know, cry?"
"Being related to you isn't that awful." Something flickers across Draxum's face, not so fast that Donnie doesn't see it, but complex enough he has no fucking idea what it could have been. It's quick and easy to make the executive decision to not care about it. By no means had it been a lie, but Donnie also wasn't overly fond of Draxum at this point, either. It hadn't felt like any kind of grand confession to admit.
"I'm going to write a list. Of questions, I mean. For you to then answer, because you owe me." Donnie downs the rest of his coffee in one go, hoping the caffeine will get him through his return flight home as well as this new pressing endeavor.
"I owe you nothing, but your ignorance serves no one. And if you send it to me by email I will set the computer you gave me on fire."
"Fine," Donnie says, mind already creeping elsewhere as he takes his mug and brings it to the sink to quickly wash out. "I'll have it printed and then deliver it."
"In at least point fourteen font," Draxum demands, voice raising with each word as Donnie quickly finishes his task, leaves the mug on the counter to dry, and makes a beeline towards the window. "Anything smaller and I'll need my glasses, and you know those always give me a headache if I rely on them too long. And I know you will have many, many questions!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure."
"Why are you leaving through my window?"
Donnie pauses, one foot already braced on the window's sill to wriggle his way out into the night.
"Because you raised me poorly."
Draxum makes a waspish noise of discontent Donnie barely catches over the mechanical whirr of his Battle Shell as it catches him midair, fan blades thrumming as they bring him home.