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“Please don’t cry, my son,” Splinter pleaded, utter guilt shining in the rat’s eyes.
Raph swallowed thickly and squeezed his eyes shut.
“It is too much for me to ask of you. I know this, but I must ask it anyway,” Splinter continued, and Raph nodded. He swallowed again, like it might take with it the sting in his eyes and the feeling of hurt behind them.
“I know, Pops,” Raph said, and he tried to sound sincere. Between Raph and his brothers, Raph would pick himself every time. That was Raph’s job; protect his brothers.
“I will not let them hurt you,” Splinter assured, patting Raph’s cheek with a gentleness he didn’t show very often, and Raph’s heart only sank further. “I will not.”
Raph took a breath and nodded once more. Dad wouldn’t lie.
Raph kept his head down, allowing the sloppily sewn hood to fall over his eyes. Splinter pulled him along by a chain, attached to large metal cuffs on Raph’s wrists. They were heavy, but, luckily, they didn’t hurt to wear.
The underground market around them reminded Raph all too much of his misadventures with Heinous Green’s goons and the quick but not especially flattering stance the police had immediately taken over Raph. Mutants-- er, yokai-- wandered freely, most of them wearing dark cloaks no better than Raph’s own. Exotic creatures Raph couldn’t name were lined up in cages beside tables of glowing rocks and slime-filled jars, while vendors dressed to the nines with weaponry and leather accessories slunk up to every passerby, with greedy glints in their eyes. More than once Raph caught sight of large rolls of suspiciously person-shaped fabric being carried along behind the rows of booths.
Morbid curiousity drew his eye to another cuffed yokai or mutant being pulled into an alleyway. They stood with a slump and a look on their face Raph could only think to describe as grey. A moment passed after disappearing into the alleyway. Then there was a bang. Then the man that’d been pulling the chains walked back onto the streets alone, and a chill ran down Raph’s spine.
Raph turned to look at his dad.
Splinter wore Sunita’s cloaking brooch. What Raph was looking at less felt like Dad and more felt like fanart of an older Lou Jitsu (Raph’s Dad was Lou Jitsu, dummy).
Nevertheless, Raph was somewhat reassured by the sight. At least something about it was familiar, and he knew that was Dad. Even if Dad walked completely stone faced, seemingly unaffected by everything happening around them. How did he do that so easily anyway? It was almost like he’d seen it all before.
For months now the Hamato clan had been busy tracking the mysterious disappearances of mutants and yokai alike. It felt eerily familiar when it seemed at first to just be their usuals; Meatsweats, Repo Mantis, Ghostbear, Hypnopotamus. But then the Times Square mascot mutants were gone, too, and that stood out because they had always been discreet. Criminals though they were, that was something they excelled at.
Leo had heard through Señor Hueso that yokai had stopped visiting the surface, and a quick spy mission revealed that Big Mama had been losing business in her hotel, because any yokai not well enough disguised went missing as soon as they entered the human world.
One day, Donnie was shot at.
Raph had nearly lost his mind over it, but it told them what they had been missing: that this was the work of the EPF.
The Earth Protection Force, who had taken the Kraang sister-- Raph shuddered at the memory of that day-- was back, and with a vendetta. Why, no one knew, but the day Raph found the remains of what once was a yokai was the day that solidified the threat the EPF posed for this apparent bias they had.
Two other bodies were found after that, and now…
Now Splinter was leading Raph, in chains, directly to a red and black tent, lined with candles Raph suspected were only there to make them seem like they fit in with the rest of the market.
It was a tent labeled “EPF Trade”.
Raph had been angry but unsurprised to hear that the EPF had a part in dark markets like these on the outskirts of the Hidden City. The EPF was more resourceful than they had any right to be, he thought.
But to hear it coming from Splinter was a shock. How did his dad find out about this?
One vendor, one that looked like an enormous salamander, spat at Raph as he passed, and Raph had to take a step to the left to avoid it, a disgruntled sound of surprise rising from his throat.
A much, much larger yokai was what Raph’s back met at the movement. Raph turned slowly, eyes wide, to regard the larger yokai, and something that had to be a relative to Bigfoot snarled back at him. If he hadn’t felt out of place before, he sure did now.
A much smaller, goat-like yokai pulled Bigfoot along on a rope that Raph was certain made no difference. After a gruff huff of agitation that smelled so bad Raph had to resist the urge to gag, Bigfoot continued on in the other direction. Raph swallowed, watching over his shoulder.
“Here,” announced Splinter quietly in warning, raising a hand just before Raph would have bumped into him. Some small learned part of Raph got excited for just a moment; that was Lou Jitsu right in front of him. He reminded that part of his mind to be quiet and focus. This was serious. And terrifying, if he was honest.
A man wearing sunglasses and a black suit stood on the other side of a simple folding table with a red table cloth on it, and Raph frowned. He wondered sometimes if the EPF men were clones, because they all looked exactly the same.
A woman in a white lab coat, holding a clipboard, sat in a chair beside the man. She had a teal streak in her blonde hair, pulled back into a messy bun, and Raph couldn’t help thinking it strange how casually she was dressed.
“Business?” the man said flatly.
“Exotics trade,” answered Splinter in the same tone.
The man raised a brow, eyeing Raph briefly.
A cold feeling flooded Raph’s chest, sinking to his stomach like a stone in water and winding around his arms and legs until his entire body felt prickly with it. Raph had that feeling like something was right behind him, watching, following.
“I made arrangements. This is the… special case,” Splinter explained in a hushed voice.
The man stood in silence as if Splinter had said nothing. After a long moment, he nodded. Raph noticed Splinter’s subtle sigh of relief.
The cold feeling got worse, almost nauseating, as Raph followed Splinter into the tent. He tried not to look at the lady with the teal streak as they passed, but snuck a glance anyway. She was already looking at him, and he snapped his gaze away nervously.
Warm, stale air met them as they followed the EPF man into the black and red tent. Raph wished he could find it in any way comfortable, but it did nothing to abate the ice running through him.
His heart stopped.
So did Splinter, the older man’s feet coming to a halt, but the older man masked his reaction to what lay in the metal crate sitting in a circle of candles surprisingly well.
Mikey.
This time Raph thought he might actually be sick. His little brother was so pale, and didn’t seem to be aware that they were there. Or… aware of anything. Raph wasn’t sure if the smaller turtle was conscious or just propped up against the side of the too-small crate.
“Good. It’s in good condition,” Splinter said casually.
A horrible feeling of hurt squeezed Raph’s heart. He knew his dad didn’t mean it, not like that. He would never think Mikey or Raph or any of them were an “it”. Raph knew his dad was being business forward, trying to assure nothing else happened to Mikey before they could get him back and make a break for it, but the words sounded the way a plastron-cracking punch to the gut felt.
“Where did you get this one?” Said the man in the suit. He pulled on his shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles and highlighting the gun tucked against his side. Raph blanched.
“It was travelling with some smaller ones in the old Repo Man junkyard,” answered Splinter quickly. He gave Raph’s chains a small, performative tug, and Raph made a point to stumble forward. The look of fear on his face, unlike the stumble, however, was genuine. “Thought you could make better use of it. But not for nothing.”
“The price isn’t equitable.”
“Pardon?”
Splinter’s facade faltered for a brief moment and his shoulders sagged. Raph felt liquid terror dripping into his veins. The EPF wouldn’t give Mikey to Splinter?
“The price isn’t equitable,” the man repeated. “Your mutant isn’t worth as much as ours.”
“K-- Pf-- W--That’s impossible,” Splinter scoffed, stammering. “This mutant is easily twice the size of your smaller one. I simply do not have the space to contain it, you’d be missing a great deal, trust me. Much bigger, stronger mutant.”
“On the contrary,” cut in a female voice, and Raph’s head snapped around to the entrance of the tent. Teal Streak stood there, tapping her clipboard with the end of her pen. “This one is very strong. Its mystic readings aren’t comparable to brute force.”
“Oh, is that all this is about?” Splinter said with a nervous laugh, trying to play this out like it was a simple misunderstanding. “This one has mystic abilities as well, you can find out for yourselves. It’s quite comparable.”
“No,” Teal Streak said. “In fact, Raphael’s mystic readings are second lowest of the 4 turtles. Our mystics reader at the entrance only confirms my data on that.”
Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.
“But you must have known that, Lou,” said the man.
Splinter dropped Raph’s chain immediately and spun around so quickly Raph could have blinked and missed it.
Confidence touched at Raph’s anxiety and he spun around to face Teal Streak with his hands raised. This, he could do. This, he was good at, and if this is what it took to rescue Mikey then they’d be out of here in no time. Mystic energy crackled around his fists and furled up his arms in a familiar warmth, and with the boost to his strength he snapped the chain connecting his cuffs.
The confidence was stolen away as instantly as it had come.
Raph stumbled back with a quiet shout. He swatted at his thigh, brushing off the dart that had dug itself between his scales and stung him.
At first the spot just tingled. But in seconds it was spreading up and down his leg, and before long his knee buckled. The other knee was quick to follow, and Raph grunted when he hit the dirt.
A hand clamped down on his forearm and he startled with another shout.
Embarrassment for the unabashed reaction pulled at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t be sure why.
Why would he be embarrassed? Why was it a bad time to be embarrassed? What just happened to his leg, again?
Oh. It was Dad. Dad? His disguise was gone, and Splinter, in all his mutant glory and with legs limp beneath him, had a death grip on Raph’s arm. “My son. Forgive--”
The butt of a long gun-- a rifle, Donnie’s voice reminded Raph-- hit Dad squarely on the cheekbone. Dad crumpled, and Raph blinked.
Dad crumpled.
Raph blinked again, and again. He couldn’t clear his vision. The light of the candles in the tent streaked across his vision with a viciousness that made his head pound.
Raph blinked, and his head hit the ground.
Raph blinked, but the darkness remained.