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She did not expect the knife to break through the glass.
It was sturdy stuff, one-way—for interrogations. She had been living behind it for a month or so now. Taken out for experimentation. Starved to the point where she could not fight back but could still stay alive.
She weakly rolled out from her place under the one-way window—a small solace in the fact that they couldn’t see her through the window from there. They had cameras. Nowhere was safe.
She tried pushing herself up on the windowsill but collapsed.
Right in time.
A man was thrown through the window—a mess of blood from the glass and a broken neck that made her feel sick. She had never felt sick at the sight of blood before, but she was already nauseous from the lack of food and water. For the last month, she had been given two pieces of toast and only enough water to keep her from dying.
She was a mutant, she could survive off of very little. But surviving only meant that she was alive, not that she was okay in any way. There was a noise of someone walking away.
No. No, no, no, no no no no nononononono
Summoning all of her strength she let out a tiny “Help.”
There was silence.
Had the person already left? Would they care about rescuing a mutant like her? Would they kill her? She opened her eyes, and then there was someone in front of her. Dressed all in black with some kind of armor and a mask covering all but their eyes.
This was not a human.
Her eyes fluttered shut and she felt herself being lifted up and carried. She was so weak. Pathetic. She should be stronger. What would Mama think?.
Why had she been so stupid to confront the woman who raised her? The woman who only seemed to speak of one person with love, and that same person she had kidnapped and forced to fight. Why? Why was she so weak without food? Why did her bruises hurt so badly, when she had been through worse—her shell was a testament to that. Her first fight in the ring leaving her with a crack down the middle from Rahzar's axe. But she had killed him. She had triumphed in every fight that had been punishment. Everything she did, she succeeded.
Until now.
She felt herself being carried and heard muffled shouts. She had to be conscious if she heard all of that.
Open your eyes. Do something. Anything. Don’t be so pathetic.
She found she could not.
She was likely drifting in and out of consciousness; she registered only a few things. Gunshots. Jostling. Being thrown over a shoulder? Jostling. Something soft. COLD.
COLD.
COLD.
COLD.
COLD.
WET.
She was shocked by it at first, but soon her eyes grew even heavier. There were more gunshots and shouting, but the world faded from her grasp.
When she awoke she was in a bed. It took a couple minutes to realize this, and then a couple more minutes to stop the panic because what if this was her old bed??? What if she was back???
Was it all a dream?
Would that be better?
Her hearing came back after her thoughts and touch. Slowly, like them. There was shuffling around her. Vision seemed to come back too, the light trickling through her eyes slowly. It became too bright too fast, and she winced in an attempt to shut the light out. The shuffling stopped. After a second there was soft mumbling, but she couldn’t quite make it out—her hearing still coming back. Two words stood out to her, even if it felt like hearing things under water.
“She’s awake.”
And awake she was.
She wanted to speak, but her throat hurt. Curiously, not everything did anymore.
How long had she been out? But then again, she was a mutant. She healed faster than most. She tried to move but felt a tug in her arm. Her thoughts tried to wrap around that.
“Hold on child, you’ll tear out your IV.” A male sounding voice said. An IV… what was that? When was the last time anyone had spoken to her that softly? Had acknowledged that she was a child?
“I’ll check it.” A female sounding voice said, seeming older than the other. She felt her arm being fidgeted with.
“Sto-stop.” She choked out before coughing. “B-bright.” The lights dimmed as she coughed from speaking. Her throat felt like it was being shredded by her tekko-kagi. After a little while she could think and—oh, that was what an IV was.
She stilled, letting the older helper fix it without complaint after the coughing fit ended.
It took a great deal of willpower to open her eyes, and when she did everything was blurry. She blinked.
“Where am I?” Cliche, but true.
“You’re safe. This is a base of operations. Location is secret, but you’ve been scanned for trackers so we should be okay. We… did have to do surgery on you to take two out. I apologize that it was without your consent, but you’ve been placed in someone else’s custody for the moment, and they agreed.”
What?
Who?
What?
“Let's give you some water.” The deeper voice said. “The IV gave you what you needed to recuperate, and we’ve been helping treat your throat, but I’m sure you want water too?” Frida nodded, a headache splitting her skull. She groaned as they helped her up and reached her temple with her non-IV occupied hand.
“Poor thing.” The older voice mumbled. Pathetic thing.
Water was lifted to her lips, but all too soon taken away. She made an embarrassing whining noise, but she couldn’t reach out. Her vision was clearing, and she saw who the deeper voice most likely belonged to. “I’m sorry.” He said. “But we have to be careful, you’re malnourished—you’ll throw up if you take more than this by mouth.” She felt tears fall down her face.
“Who are you?” The older voice asked. “What is your name?
What’s my name? I can’t remember. No one has asked that for months.
And then she did.
“Frida.” She choked out. “My name is Frida.”
Frida lay there for hours, healing fast—Just like someone else, apparently, though they didn’t say who. She was thankful when she noticed that she was in a sort of plasticky gown, as opposed to being naked for the tests that were run on her for the last months. She was less than human to them, they didn’t care that she was naked like she had been with him. By the time it was sunset she was able to talk without it burning (though it still hurt a bit). She had told a few things, but learned lots—even if less than she wanted.
She learned that she had been rescued by a team of operatives taking down an EPF base after rumours that they were doing experiments on yokai.
She told them that she was fifteen, almost sixteen.
She learned that she was the only one in the facility.
She told them that she was a mutant, though this they already knew, as Kappa have five fingers, and mutant turtles only have three.
She learned that she was in the custody of one of the people on the mission.
She told them that she had been experimented on for months, and how much she had eaten and drank for that time.
She learned that she had gone into brumation.
They refused to tell her who her temporary guardian was.
She refused to tell them about her past.
Then the time came that they announced her lucid enough to have visitors, and she accepted it, curious.
First a Goldfish yokai came in, but then…
A young man walked through the door.
A young man that seemed to be a Kappa, but only had three fingers.
Only mutants have three fingers.
There was a small kappa in Mona’s arms.
Raph only just registered it before he had to move his attention to their enemies. He made clones and shields and honestly had a little bit of fun. Piebald’s and his ninpo were one of the reasons the Nightwatchers had never failed a mission before. He wasn’t going to get arrogant, though, overestimating oneself is a surefire way to get yourself beat up. In the end, there were no others to rescue. The kappa had been thrown over Mona’s shoulder—clearly unconscious. They found themselves in the snow outside of the EPF base, and Wingnut threw down a mystic tech to create a forcefield so Raph could rest for a second. The kappa was put in the snow so Mona could grab her gun for when the forcefield wore off.
“Three… two… one.” Leatherhead counted down. Raph created a giant version of him with them all inside Mona and the others readied their weapons and fired as soon as the field dropped, stopping when Raph’s Solid Hologram Thing™ (Pie had thought it would be funny to name it that officially, and now even the hidden city officials and important suit and tie people had to refer to his powers like that).
The goldfish threw down a portal device and they went through to a street near one of the bases. Being a secret operative was incredibly taxing, but also fun in a way. It left Raph feeling like he had a purpose in life beyond his family. If he couldn’t be a police in The Hidden City, he might as well be the next best thing (actually, this was the best thing, he had come to realize).
He loved his family, he really did, but he also needed independence sometimes. He needed something to work on that wasn’t related to them at all times.
The kappa was immediately scanned for trackers and prepared for surgery to remove them (Piebald had taken custody and consented) but when she was getting scanned, Raph noticed something.
Three fingers.
She wasn’t a kappa.