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Fandom The New England Crytpid Society - A TMNT RP

Rylie jumped hearing the window and gave a sigh of relief when she realized it was just Donnie, no more cryptids breaking into her family restaurant or secret agents trying to find another way in.

Speaking of....

Rylie folded her arms over her chest and shifted her weight onto one foot in a very telling sign of 'you're in trouble'

"Yeah that was my mom on the stairs, and an Agent Bishop at the door." Rylie told him letting the latter statement hang for a moment as she tried to read his reaction
"So I'm no genius but I know I do enough investigating and research to know that coincidences such as, oh I don't know, mutants breaking into restaurants within twenty four hours of sketchy men in black appearing at your door and you haven't done anything illegal in a while, usually aren't actual coincidences." Rylie said to him quirking a brow at him before she gestured to the cot again

"Sit. You owe me an explanation for scaring off Agent-no-balls and why he's making a border around the town, other than he's supposedly 'looking for a dangerous fugitive' which I've got the sneaking suspicion is a six foot tall turtle in a purple mask that the government wants to cover up like they do most cryptids and I think I deserve to know if I'm about to start living the sketchy parts of ET." Rylie told him as she plopped herself down into the office chair and folded her legs over each other, staring him down with a remarkably similar look to that of what her mother had met her with just a short while earlier. Rylie knew her stuff, nothing happened like this in small towns like hers so when things actually happened it usually meant they were connected in more way than one.

If Rylie was going to stick her neck out to help her new friend she had a right to know what she was getting into after all, to hear both sides of this story and figure out what side she really should be on though with the creep-of-the-week vibes Agent had been giving off she was already pretty sure she'd picked the right side.
 
The creepy crawling feeling of wrongness hit him full force,

"Bishop was at the door??"

Don went three shades of green, unable to hide his shock even if he wanted to.
It was too soon. He wasn't far enough. How did Bishop find him? How did he turn up HERE of all places?

Everything spiralled.
He was so utterly FUCked,

The turtle sat heavily on the cot. Rylie's brief explanation didn't help him any as he tried and failed to put together how the agent had wound up on the literal doorstep of his hiding place, and what the hell Don could do about it.

Meanwhile, Rylie's expectant glower had all the intensity of a sunbeam; even without looking, he could feel it fixed, unwavering. He opened his mouth, thought better of it and shut it again. When he did finally look up, it was with the reluctant acceptance of someone who was going against his better judgement.

"Do you remember that 'trouble' I said I got into?" Don asked. His expression darkened.

"Well, he was that trouble. And before you ask, no, I didn't escape from any kind of crazy science facility where they birthed mutants in test tube. I'm a free range turtle," He tried to laugh at the dumb joke, but the idea of a crazy science facility was not far off from where Bishop most certainly wanted to ship him off to, that he found it hard to find levity in it. Instead, Don almost looked a little sick.

"I didn't know who he was until a few months ago, and he wasn't a problem until a day ago. I don't know what he wants other than-" He awkwardly gestured at himself.

"He's nuts. It doesn't matter to him that We- I've lived most of my life keeping a low profile. He's convinced he's saving 'humanity' from something, and for whatever reason, he thinks I can help him do it. He didn't exactly furnish the particulars, and I didn't plan on sticking around to find out. I think he took issue with that. "

Don fixed his attention to his feet. Even as he spoke, he looked distracted, like he was trying and failing to come up with some way to sneak out of a town while Bishop's 'Dangerous Fugitive' malarky penned him in.

"If there's one thing he's not lying about, it's that he's definitely a government agent, and he's got the people and the budget behind him. He's going to know everything about you and your family within the next hour. He...He KNOWS I'm here. He might not know that YOU know, and if he does,-" He looked desperately sorry for her, as if seeing how her small act of kindness was now going to forever ruin her life.

"I need to go and you need to forget you ever saw me."
 
Okay, so this got a little more Sci-Fi with every passing minute. Rylie’s expression softened a bit as he explained the whole situation, he actually looked scared and there wasn’t any of him lying anymore that she could tell. Rylie sighed and stood from her chair stretching

“First off, fuck all of that, you’re not going off to play one man soldier in a place you know nothing about. Second, The government probably keeps tabs on me anyway because of my creepy cryptid and true crime blogs. Believe it or not I’ve exposed some really weird corrupt things so just the fact that I’m ticking up another tier on the ladder means absolutely nothing. And Third, you need my help. You’ve got no supplies, clearly you’ve no idea how to navigate the woods to get back to…well where ever it is you’re going.” Rylie said to him it was then she noticed a small…thing sticking off the back of Donnie’s shell and she raised a brow before she approached him and looked over his shoulder totally ignoring the fact that she was probably invading his personal space a little bit, but there were more important things to be concerned about frankly.

“Excuse me,” Rylie added before she pushed his shoulder so she could get a better look at his back and found the small black device,

“Well either Bishop lost his new paperweight or I’m willing to bet this is how he’s tracking you.” Rylie said grabbing the small box and pulling a few times until it plopped off she was quick to drop it on the floor and jump on it, taking great satisfaction on the way it crunched under her feet.

“So, step one of whatever plan is brewing, I’m going to go get supplies and you’re going to hide out here. Use the computer, see what you can find on how to get from here to wherever we’re going. I’m leaving Binx and Dagger to Kappa-sit so don’t think you’re flying solo. The phone on the desk is speed dial four for my cell phone. Call me if you think of something you need that isn’t on my list and if you don’t hear from me in two hours then I’ve probably been arrested for something stupid and probably unrelated.” Rylie told him and with that she grabbed her bag ignoring the fluffy faces of her cats as they watched her head for the stairs.

“Seriously, stay here. They’re setting up perimeters everywhere and they will catch you if I don’t.” Rylie warned him. Seriously like she would ever let this chance of a lifetime pass up to go on an adventure with a real-life cryptid. Plus, who knew what the government was going to do to him if they got their hands on him. Every comic book logic she had said it wasn’t going to be pretty unless they ran into that one Nick Fury kind of agent that was going to turn them into superheroes and even that was a like 40-60 chance that things were going to go belly up in an ‘avengers civil war’ scenario. Rylie could take care of herself, she just had to figure out how to get him out of here without drawing too much attention to him.

She supposed she should burn that bridge when she came to it, for now she had to go to her storage unit and get her moped trailer- ooooh her Moped trailer! The gears in her head started turning at that idea, would it be too easy if she had him hide on the moped trailer amongst a ton of camping gear and she just tow him out of town or to somewhere safe? Probably. Was she still going to bring it up as an option anyway? Absolutely.
 
Who the hell was this woman?
Don stared at Rylie with a mix of dumbfounded disbelief. He couldn't tell if she was exceptionally brave or little crazy. He wouldn't be surprised if she was a bit of both.

This was potentially a bad idea. The worst idea. If Bishop even got an inkling that she knew anything about him, it could ruin her life in twelve different ways, but from the way she spoke, Rylie didn't seem to see that as a problem. And admittedly, he was relieved, because she was absolutely, 100% right.

Heading off without supplies, and with Bishop right on his tail was a ticket right back to that van. If he had any hope of getting home, he needed the help.

He just hoped neither of them would regret it.

"There's no talking you out of this, is there?" Don asked. Instead of an answer, Rylie's eyes seemed to fix on something just over his shell, before she was invading all concepts of personal space, bracing against his shoulder with an unhelpful 'excuse me' and practically pushing him over.

"Hey, do you MIND-" Don pushed back lightly, until he felt something tug at his shell as Rylie grabbed hold of whatever was back there. He leaned forward to give her a better grip, putting two and two together just as the human sprung back, triumphantly throwing what was very obviously a tracker to the floor, and promptly smashing it to bits.

Don couldn't help but stare at the sparking wire mess, grinding his teeth at the stupid, obvious, clear as day mistake that had quite literally almost cost him his freedom,

"I am an IdiOT!" He rose to his feet and kicked the destroyed tracker for good measure. There was no point, but it did make him feel a bit better. Of course they would have put a goddamn tracker on him. Hell, if they didn't wind up catching him down the road, he would have lead the fucking United States Government right to his fricken doorstep.

“So, step one of whatever plan is brewing, I’m going to go get supplies and you’re going to hide out here." Rylie said, entirely nonplussed like she did this for a living. He made a mental note to ask her what the hell kind of 'weird corrupt things' she apparently made it her business to stick her nose in, because the level of acuity and planning she was showing in the face of This Whole Situation would make Leo tip his mask in approval.

At the very least, it was calming to hear someone speak so matter of factedly, and Don was able to put aside the anger he felt at himself (and at Bishop and at EVERYTHING). He took a deep breath, held it for a count of eight, and let it go slowly. When Rylie told him his best bet was to hunker down, Don actually nodded in agreement, and made it clear he had no more arguements for her.

"I'll try to think of a way of bypassing the roadblocks. I don't think he's working with a big team. The group I saw him with was made up of twenty men. I don't know if he has more to pull in, but I don't think he wants to cause too much of a scene. There's got to be a way to slip through." He watched as Rylie headed towards the door, fearlessly ready to help him, no questions asked.

"Rylie, wait." Don wasn't sure what to say to her. A simple thank you didn't even begin to cover everything. The turtle hesitated.

"I'm really glad it was you I ran into. I guess I picked the right place to break into after all," He smiled.

"So try not to get arrested. It'll be hard to break you out in daylight. And be careful. Knowing Bishop, he's going to have someone casing the place. They'll probably try to follow you."
 
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Rylie paused when Donnie stopped her, she listened to him and smiled shoving her hands in her sweatshirt pockets

“Kind of expected being tailed, your Agent friend seems like he gets…clingy lets say. Plus, you know, creepy government agents tend to do that. I also can’t make any promises on getting arrested but I will say, it won’t be the first time. Being arrested by a government agent will be new I’m used to the sheriffs office.” Rylie said thoughtfully before she turned back to him and realized that probably sounded really bad

“That makes me sound sketchy, let me clarify. I run a blog that’s not just cryptids but also true crime of all sorts and sometimes that involves investigating places I’m not necessarily allowed to go. So it’s all trespassing and one or two cases of assault but only because my sister’s last boyfriend deserved it.” Rylie admitted she was not afraid to admit that when she’d found out Andrea’s high school boyfriend was cheating on her, she’d tracked the asshole down and beat him to a pulp before tying him to the schools flagpole in his underwear with “Cheater” written on his chest in Sharpie. She was weirdly proud of that even when she was getting taken away by the sheriff she had literally no regrets about that. Life was to short to dwell on things you couldn’t change after all.

“So ya, nothing terrible just that the local law enforcement knows me by name.” Rylie admitted to him with a rather sheepish smile “So if you don’t mind a little bit of crazy, I’m glad to help you out.”

With that sort of hanging she turned back to the door

“No worries Kappa, I got your back” she said grinning as she started down the stairs and headed out onto the town to get what she needed. She got on her scooter and strapped on her helmet, it didn’t take her very long to figure out the white car across the street was her new tail and she made a show of turning to the car and giving a sarcastic wave before she headed off.



Rylie would be out for a while, running errands and getting various camping gear and loading it onto her scooter’s tow trailer once she’d rescued it. Any time anyone asked her she made it a point to mention she was going on camping trip with some buddies from school, a few times she even name dropped a couple of friends who she knew if anyone asked would instantly agree. Mei from the comic shop would even come up with a whole story if she wanted her too.

What Rylie wasn’t expecting was the chaos that was about to hit her little restaurant about a half hour after she left. She’d made a call to the office to chat with Donnie

“Hey Kap. You don’t have a preference on sleeping bag color right? Camping shop is waiting for a shipment and they’ve got either neon orange or neon pink. I didn’t want to assume you’d want the orange especially considering the purple.” Rylie asked she was very careful not to use Donnie’s name or any variation of it. She would have called him Kappa again but if anyone knew what that was on Agent creeps-a-lot team they were six ways of screwed.



With Rylie being the distraction, Donnie wouldn’t have heard the door downstairs as Andrea arrived, She’d heard from her mother that Rylie was at the restaurant with the cats and that meant that Dagger was there. Dagger was actually her cat, she’d tried becoming an influencer with her cat as the main star of her channel but it wasn’t picking up much. It especially didn’t help when Dagger was convinced he was Binx’s shadow. Where Rylie and Binx went, Dagger was close behind and it had been that way pretty much since she’d adopted him, as much as it annoyed her. Whenever she couldn’t find him she was always certain that he was on some adventure with her sister and had gotten into the habit of just using her emergency key to Rylie’s apartment to let herself in, track him down and head out with her furbaby.

Andrea frowned when she didn’t immediately see her cat in the dining area, neither did she see Rylie or Binx. She checked the kitchen which was weirdly quiet, she was certain that Rylie would have been there but then she heard a voice upstairs in the office, what the hell would Rylie be doing up there?
 
And so, Donatello was left to his own devices. For a long while, the turtle didn't move from the cot. It was just past 8 in the morning and outside he could hear the sounds of a small town waking up. He had now been missing for 30 hours and the pang of homesickness urged him to his feet with more energy than he actually had.

"What I wouldn't give to have my phone," Don groaned, picking up the cell Rylie had left in his care and flipping through its settings. There was no way to install his personal firmware or networks without his homebrew software, and Bishop was just the kind of jerk who'd tap a town's phone network if given half an excuse.

He could potentially send a text message but after some consideration, Don frowned and placed the cell face down on the desk. His brothers deserved to know that he was okay, but he couldn't think of a single way to do it without inviting questions; and if they knew about his situation, and about Bishop, and about his undecided plan to somehow escape it all with the help of a very helpful and gungho stranger, they would be making the drive to Maine within minutes.

No texts. No calls.
Not until he and Rylie managed to get out of town. And to do that, he needed to get a better understanding of the situation outside.

That was another area where Don found himself missing his usual tools. The office computer was an old hunk of plastic that would have been outdated in the mid-2000's. It took a painfully long time to boot up, and an even more agonizing two (WHOLE) minutes to load an overflowing desktop, folders, files and excel sheets spanning from edge to low resolution edge. Don felt horror to his very core at this blasphemy of computing.

"WoW," He wondered when was the last time someone ever deleted a cache on this thing.

It didn't take long for him to get the computer within acceptable order; a couple of registry tricks, a quick antivirus scan and a whole wipe of all those junk and temporary files meant the old PC didn't have a conniption every time he had more than one window of the internet open. In this way, Donatello picked his way from maps of the region, to news articles on the roadblocks (Only three articles, one of which was an official release from the county judge), to trails and other information about the local environment that might help them sneak through. Briefly, he even let curiosity distract him and found Rylie's blog, skimming through the articles.

An hour later, Don was studying a local traffic map and marking the likely locations of Bishop's blockade on a printout, when Rylie called.

"Aw really, no purple?" Don hardly meant it, as literally anything Rylie could get her hands on would be a godsend anyway. Still, it was kind of her to consider that he might have a preference, so he gave it some thought, tapping his pencil. Somewhere downstairs a door creaked open, but the sound went unnoticed.

"The better option would be to avoid the neon colored sleeping bags, but if we don't have a choice, I want orange,"
 
Rylie nodded agreeing with him

“Yeah I know but with the blockades and a little electric scooter with a trailer I can’t really go out of town to the Outdoor pro shop. I’d have to borrow my sisters car and a snowball has a better chance in hell than I do of getting her to give up those keys.” Rylie said and she couldn’t help rolling her eyes. Rylie loved her sister she really did but the two of them got along like vampires and garlic, not deadly in small doses but best to have minimum contact.

“Next best bet would be my friend Mei and her batman sleeping bag but that’s not nearly as weather proof and I don’t know if she’d actually let me borrow it.” Rylie said shrugging as if Don could see her as she tossed the sleeping bag into the cart

“Besides if I can get a good tent the sleeping bag won’t be a problem.”



Andrea frowned that was definitely not her sisters voice. At first it gave her pause on the stairs but she also knew if she tried to go back down it was going to make too much noise. That and her cell phone was in her purse on the table. Shit. Andrea knew she had a choice to make in either trying to out run whoever was in the restaurant if they were an intruder or try to catch them by surprise hope for the best?

Andrea crept further up the stairs and was thankful to the closet beside the office door, very carefully opening it to look inside for an impromptu weapon and eventually settled on the old wooden broom her grandmother liked to threaten people with when the frying pan wasn’t in reach. Plus if it turned out to be her uncle or one of his friends then she could just say she was sweeping. Gathering up her courage Andrea put a hand on the doorknob, counted down from five….then did it a second time before she threw the door open to come face to face with…some creature at the computer. Andrea let out a scream that was clearly heard on the other end of the phone and Rylie swore



“RYLIE ONE OF YOUR FREAKISH MONSTERS BROKE INTO THE RESTAURANT!!” Andrea screamed hoping her sister could hear her and not knowing she was on the phone.

Rylie groaned and put her face in one hand, what the heck was andrea doing at the restaurant? Oh of course, Dagger was there.

“Don if you can still hear me put me on speaker.” Rylie said sounding tired as she abandoned her cart to hurry back to the scooter so she could go stop andrea from making turtle soup.
 
Don snorted under his breath, "And I'm sure that's without including the parts about the mutant turtle, a government agency and a half-cocked escape plan,"

Speaking of which, Don checked off another potential blockade, mentally doing the numbers in his head even as he listened to Rylie. There were only 2 officially reported roadblocks and several unnofficial ones he was tracking on social media. His new friend had been right about one thing; the citizens of Farmington weren't very thrilled with the black ops bullshit Bishop was trying to pull in their town, and every so often, a vague complaint would make itself known on someone's facebook page.

Datapoint by datapoint, Donatello was painting an ugly picture, but it wasn't completely without hope. A very incessed trucker had posted a photo of one of the checkpoints after having his vehicle thoroughly searched, and it gave Don the starting point to start calculating the agent's forces.

"Get a dark green tarp if you can find one. It'll at least help us camoflague the tent,-" Don thought he heard one of the cats, the biting one, jump off the nearby cot with a soft kerthump. He was surprised to turn around and find no cat in sight, and why would there be, Dagger and Binx had left when Rylie did,

What Don did hear was the sound of the door jerking open, and the sudden, stunned silence that always came with getting caught. A woman stood in the doorway staring at him with saucerwide eyes and brandishing a broom. The mutant only had a moment to spare for the teeny, tiny hope that ohhey,maybeshewon'tactuallyscream-

Nope, She screamed. Donatello held up his hands, shrinking a little. The window was not an option anymore, he could not leave this house, was Rylie's mom still downstairs? aw heck he'd only been JOKING about including the parts about the mutant turtle and a government agency

"Wait, wait! I'm not a freakish monster," Well, he supposed it was all the same thing to someone who was panicking because of an unexpected green turtle man sitting in her family restaurant. Don was mildly panicked himself, and was having a hell of a time trying to wordlessly work his mouth into a coherent explanation for....this whole situation.

Rylie's thinny voice hollared from the phone still clutched in his hand, something about speakers, and it was all the prompting Don needed to fumble with the device,

"I'm a friend of your sister's, I'm talking with her right now, listen!"

He switched the call to speakerphone, holding it out at Rylie's sister so she could focus her attention at something other than him.
 
Andrea had wound up with the broom ready to strike when Donnie put her on speaker

"ANDREA!" Rylie shouted into the phone and that was probably the only thing that stopped Andrea from actually swinging with all the force of the softball all-star she'd been in High School even if that had been a bit ago, When Rylie hadn't heard any turtle bashing as she strapped her helmet on and turned the Bluetooth on she figured it was her cue to keep going.

"Andrea, I know that Kap is there, he's my friend and he is already beaten to shit so kindly don't bludgeon him to death and we can explain everything but you have to stay open-minded and you have to stay-" Rylie said until her sister glared at the phone with a sudden intensity that could have melted the phone if she had been superhuman.

"Rylie Mae Barletta I swear to god-"
"Hey Mom already middle named me today, you don't get to add on that," Rylie said with a frustrated sigh as she started down the road on her moped back home pretty much the two ended up bickering like that back and forth a few times until Adrea finally took the phone and the two went back and forth until Andrea hung up and gave a frustrated sigh she ran her hand through her hair for a moment before she turned to look at Donnie

"Okay. So start explaining yourself here, Rylie said you would and you needed...help?" Andrea asked him quirking a brow she still seemed suspicious of Donnie and who could blame her? She'd walked into a turtle at her family computer talking to her sister when Turtles were not usually this big and they weren't usually very chatty either. Regardless she was still keeping the broom close to her just in case she suspected that her sister was too trusting in her new...what was it she called them? Cryptids? Oh god had she accidentally found some new lizard big foot? also, why did it wear a mask? so far a million and a half questions were buzzing through her head at a million miles an hour. Probably not as good as Rylie's reaction when she'd found Donnie but everyone reacted a little differently.

By the time Rylie finally arrived, Andrea seemed fairly calm but annoyed when her sister arrived

"So....you find a green guy in our restaurant and instead of calling the police you feed him?" She asked and Rylie rolled her eyes

"Hey that's what you always do when Rodney comes over," Rylie said dropping her backpack on the ground and Dagger crawled out and jumped into Andrea's lap purring, Andrea ignored the slight against her boyfriend
 
She squared up the same way he'd seen Casey do a bajillion times to hoodlums who got on the wrong side of his bat, and while Don was fairly sure he could manage one human with a broom if push came to shove, he was also fairly sure that it would HURT- That and it wasn't like disarming the woman would help him in any way, only add to the panic.

The phone practically rattled in his hand as Rylie shouted her sister's name, and to Donatello's great relief, Andrea froze. He watched her expression shift, from fearful, to confused, to disbelieving, before finally settling on a glare of such sibling ire, that she could have given Raph a run for his money. He decided that it was in his best interest to keep holding the device out like a ward, frozen in place with his other hand still vaguely held up in what Don hoped was a non-threatening gesture. The cell was unceremoniously snatched from his hands. Stunned, and surprisingly still in one piece, Don carefully lowered his arms, though the caution didn't seem necessary anymore; He watched as Andrea proceeded to chew out Rylie over the phone, while Rylie's voice bickered back and just like that, he was forgotten.

Hell, if the Bishop wasn't on to his location, he could have definitely slipped out the window without anyone being the wiser.

All at once, Andrea hung up the phone. His brief moment of anonimity was over. Don smiled awkwardly as she turned her suspicious gaze onto him. She had, at least, lowered the broom.
The turtle wasn't quite sure how to answer her at first. Secrecy was as much an instinct to him as keeping to the shadows, and it was an uncomfortable feeling to know that he couldn't rely on either at this moment. So Don took a breath and explained; He didn't tell her any more than he told Rylie, keeping his brothers and his whole upbringing a secret. He was sure meeting a talking mutant was already quite a shock for Andrea, and mentioning how his father was a master of ninjutsu who passed on his skills to his four sons, and oh, yeah, they regularly fought criminals, other mutants and ninjas, seemed a bit much.

"So I just need to get back home. Rylie practically insisted on helping me,"

Unfortunately, he couldn't avoid explaining about Bishop.

He didn't look at Andrea, because frankly he didn't know what she made of all this. Who would be okay with their sister helping a mutant across state lines, while a secret department of the United States government aimed to stop them? He was fairly sure this was literally the plot to E.T.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't need the help." Don finally admitted. Having already been surprised twice (with one near miss on the board), the turtle stopped talking when he heard the front door open. The hasty footsteps up the stairs told him it could only be Rylie. Don was thankful he didn't have to live through a third embarrassing sighting. He ventured a quick glance at Andrea, only to find that she seemed to have reached the same conclusion, because she looked irritated even before the door opened.

"So....you find a green guy in our restaurant and instead of calling the police you feed him?"
Click to expand...

It was good to know that he got the better deal out of the Barletta siblings. Don did not want to think about what would have happened if Andrea had stumbled in on him last night. He cleared his throat before the two sisters could go at it again, holding up his hands. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't want to involve anyone in this, but it's too late for that now."

Bishop already knew he was here. God only knew how Bishop would manipulate his levers of power to make this family's life miserable. He already showed himself capable of so much more.

"The only way this gets better is if I can leave. If I can make it out of town, then you'll have plausible deniability, and he'll leave too."
 
Andrea listened and for the most part she kept a mostly straight face as she listened and seemed to mull over the information Don gave her

”So you’re why all the roads are blocked off not some insane criminal? Or are you both?” Andrea asked the question sounded harsh but Andrea wasn’t one to sugarcoat things, unlike Rylie she was much more based in reality than chasing fantasies that could or could not exist and dreaming of fairies, Andrea had the full big sister energy where she wanted nothing more than to protect her family even though her and Rylie bickered like cats and dogs if anyone were to mess with her baby sister that wasn’t her, she’d take a softball bat to their kneecaps.

Rylie rolled her eyes at Andrea
“Pretty sure if he was a dangerous criminal, rather than eating grilled cheese he’d have just offed me and stuffed me in the walk in“ Rylie told her as she folded her arms and leaned back against the wall “the dangerous one is agent creepazoid blocking off the town and trying to dissect Don who just wants to get out of here and go home.” Rylie told her Andrea nodded a bit and seemed to think

“They’re stopping just about everyone that’s trying to go in or out of town to search their vehicles, even if somehow you could get around the blockades they’d search you and find him unless you can distract them.” Andrea said seeming to finally concede with the idea of helping them out, she’d seen ET she knew how this worked and she knew that Rylie wasn’t going to stop at the chance to help someone if she knew they were in the right and she had the ability to do so. She was a lot like their dad in that way and while Andrea tried to be as well she also knew her limits more so than tried to push them like Rylie did, unless it was sports then Andrea would sooner break a bone then quit. Their mom was the same way, she was way too stubborn for her own good. Gee wonder where the girls got it from.

Rylie nodded a little agreeing with her sister as she sank to the floor and let Binx curl up in her lap purring as she stopped to ponder the situation

”Fair enough,”

”Where are you going and what supplies do you have so far?” Andrea asked her and Rylie thought

”Well, I’ve got sleeping bags but they’re in the cart at the store still because someone tried to murder Kappa with a broom.” Rylie said looking pointedly at her sister

”Kappa?” Andrea asked and Rylie huffed frustrated that clearly her sister never listened to her (Shocker as if they didn’t know that earlier) and waved her hands dismissively at her

“I got some food, I was working on a tent, got grandpa’s survival kit, an emergency cell phone that’s a burner with some time on it.” Rylie said thinking of it she dug through her jacket pocket until she pulled out the little flip phone and tossed it to Don

“figured it was good for emergencies and you could keep calling me without having to worry about Agent tracking you back here.”

Andrea nodded a bit and seemed to think

“First aid kit?”

”I got one under the seat of my scooter,”

Andrea scoffed at that

”THat little thing? Get a better one.”

”Andi we’re not going to wrestle a cougar I don’t need one of the industrial ones like you carry in your car.” Rylie said with a deadpan
 
He supposed it was too much to hope that everyone could be like Rylie. Even though her sister was no longer actively trying to twack him, she still seemed to regard him suspiciously. Well placed or not, Don didn't appreciate the implication that he actually might be a murderous criminal, but before he could say anything, Rylie jumped to his defense with some frankly excellent points. The turtle smiled in gratitude, at least until the topic of dissection came up, at which point he leveled his new friend with a look that said 'You are not helping',

"I'm not a monster, not a murderer, and I'm not going to get dissected," Don countered flatly, to everyone.

Besides, if he put any real thought into it, Bishop wouldn't have bothered to keep him alive if that was the case. He couldn't exclude vivisection as an option, which was a fun fact Donatello kept to himself,

He wasn't going to think about it. Because it was NOT going to happen. What Don was going to focus on was checking off the mental list as Rylie sounded off on all the things she'd managed to collect. Despite being gone for only two hours, she'd managed to nab what sounded like a decent kit. She'd even found time to buy a burner phone, of all things, which told Don that this clearly wasn't her first rodeo. He caught the flip phone out of the air, looking impressed.

"All of that sounds great. But there's still one problem..."

Turning towards the computer, Don tapped at the keyboard. He clicked his tongue impatiently as the ancient technology took a few seconds to load a map of the eastern United States. "I need to get here," He said, hovered the mouse on New York City.

"It's a 6 day walk and that's calculating it as a straight shot following the highway. Without a car, it's too far. So I figure the next best thing is to get halfway. I have a friend who owns a place over here,"

Don tapped the mouse over mid-western Massachusetts."On foot, it's only three days, and there's actually a trail," Another tab, another painful moment of waiting for the computer to catch up as the fans chugged in the background. Finally, a state recreational website opened up, where Donatello presented a different kind of map.

"The Rockingham Recreational trail! 70 miles of abandoned railway repurposed as a popular multi-day challenge for serious hikers. There's several outposts along the route that are even hooked up to running water. And it's closed for the season," He added slyly, pretty proud of himself for the find.

"It's not a direct shot to New York, so I think once we are out of town, we'll be okay. And if I can get the the farmhouse in North Hampton, I can work out a way to get home."

He could call he brothers, and THEN they could barrel in to the rescue and he could gladly let them.
 
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Andrea and Rylie both listened as Donnie explained his idea about the hike to New York, Andrea admittedly thought it was kind of funny how irked he seemed to get with the computer though she was surprised he knew how to use one and, perhaps a little too like her sister, she wanted to ask a lot of questions.

“Three days or a few hours by car,” Rylie said smiling a little as she seemed to be forming some kind of idea and Andrea quirked a brow

“You’re not getting anywhere with a car, you don’t even have a car” Andrea reminded her and Rylie seemed to brush her off a bit

“No but your not-so-secret boyfriend drives a big rig for work, we make some kind of distraction across town, our not-so-secret-agent goes there and we can pretty much sneak out of town untouched.” Rylie said pointing out a few of the check points and ignoring the irritated look on Andrea’s face at being called out and then immediately brushed off.

“If we really want to throw them off, Rodney could meet us past the checkpoint and we could try to sneak through the woods to a meeting point so if they do end up searching Rodney they won’t find Donnie.” Rylie added looking between the other two for some inkling of approval or disapproval which Andrea quickly pitched in

“First off, how did you know about Rodney and second why would we rope him into this?” Andrea asked quirking a brow and Rylie seemed to sort of wave her sister off

“first off, I research information and mysteries for my blog and you’ve never been able to keep a secret from me, second, Half the town knows about you and Rodney except mom and that’s just because she’s too focused on cleaning up after Gerome.” Rylie told her making sure to mimic her sisters tone as she made her points which earned her another glare but Andrea tried to let it go at least until Rylie brought up her third point.

“And last, you’re going to convince Rodney to help us or I’m telling mom you’re dating that weird trucker who lit the gym on fire in High School and had to leave the state.” Rylie told her with a devious grin as Andrea narrowed her eyes at her younger sister and grit her teeth

“You. Wouldn’t. Dare” Andrea accused but Rylie already dangled her cell phone in front of her sister

“Hey Siri, call-“ Rylie began but Andrea was quick slapping the phone out of Rylie’s hand and sending it to the floor (Thank god for good cases)

“You little brat!” Andrea shouted standing up and Rylie was very careful to keep a chair between her and her sister as some sort of defense almost as if facing off with a circus lion which with some of the scrapes they’d gotten into over the years Rylie wasn’t too sure it would be that far off.

“Aw come on, you don’t want to introduce me to your ‘little Hot Rod’ “ Rylie teased her still grinning and Andrea gawked at her sister as her face lit up bright red in embarrassment

“YOU BROKE INTO MY PHONE?!”

“Your password is Dad’s birthday I wouldn’t call it breaking in.” Rylie said before jumping out of the way as Andrea tried to grapple her and the cats were smart enough to hide under the desk at Don’s feet though otherwise weren’t phased because clearly this was not an unusual occurrence
 
Three days still wasn't ideal, but it was better than six. In a perfect world, he and Rylie could make it in as little as four and a half hours if they had a car, but Donatello had reluctantly tabled that possibility.

He wasn't above stealing a means of transportation as a last resort, but the county police reports were probably already under the agent' eye.
He would rather avoid handing Bishop a clear, detailed description of their getaway vehicle. And committing grand theft auto in general...

Rylie, meanwhile, hadn't stopped smiling. She seemed to be mulling over something as if the answer to all their problems had landed right in front of her.

Clearly her sister saw it as a prelude for trouble.

“You’re not getting anywhere with a car, you don’t even have a car”
Click to expand...

“No, but your not-so-secret boyfriend drives a big rig for work, we make some kind of distraction across town, our not-so-secret-agent goes there and we can pretty much sneak out of town untouched.”
Click to expand...

"Huh..."

“First off, how did you know about Rodney and second why would we rope him into this?”
Click to expand...

Oh...
Well he was not going to get a word in was he?

At least no one is yelling at YOU, Don thought.

“And last, you’re going to convince Rodney to help us or I’m telling mom you’re dating that weird trucker who lit the gym on fire in High School and had to leave the state.”
Click to expand...

He didn't know wether to admire Rylie or fear for her. He knew some grade A sibling button pushing when he saw it, and Andrea exploded on cue,

Donatello found it weirdly comforting to have the cats join him. It didn't seem like it was going to be helpful (or healthy) to interject and Rylie seemed to have the uh...negotiation in hand-

Welp, there went the other chair-

The turtle peered down at Binx and Dagger and shrugged his shoulders,

"It might work, actually," Don said to himself. He went back to the trucker and the social media photo of the roadblock, groaning under his breath as it took so Gosh Dang LONG-

"He's got 10 men stationed here, and this is the most direct route south..." He paused for a moment, glanding back at the cats and wondering why he was telling THEM this. Then he pulled up yet another map, this one a paper copy of a roadmap of Farmington from the dinky office printer (getting that to work had been a torture he hoped to never again repeat).

Don had scribbled in notes all over, marking out noted trails and hazards (Cliff!! Two exclamations and underlined, all because of the one time Mikey nearly walked them off one and then whined it was because "I thought that said "Clip", dude, I swear!"). Most notably were the large X's on all the major roadways out of Farmington, and the circles that doted the outer landscape, intersecting known footpaths.

"Okay, so look at THIS" He called, hoping that if no one was dead yet, he could at least distract the sisters from further arguing.


"I did some math," Don said, as if that explained anything, but he pointed the pencil to where he'd outlined a range of numbers neatly penciled in the upper corner of each roadblock.
"Based on local reports and the average of minimums- I won't explain the statistics- but he's got 10 guys here, and I count at least 4 main roadblocks and 3 to 4, footed patrols. Give or take,"

The turtle resisted the urge to glare at an inanimate object, but Don knew he could have been more thorough if he hadn't been fighting the damn desktop at every turn.
Note to self, thank Rylie's family by anonymously sending them an unpossessed, super!antivirus protected computer.
 
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By the time Don had called for their attention, Rylie was standing on top of the cot in an attempt to stay as far out of her sisters reach as humanly possible while she was in murder mode which hadn't worked because Andrea had been half a second away from ripping Rylie off the bed if her arm around her sisters waist and her other hand tugging her ponytail was anything to go by but then it was a valid reminder that there were bigger problems at the moment and Andrea settled for shoving Rylie off the bed and onto the floor before she approached Donnie again to look over his shoulder. Rylie groaned as she sat up and Binx trotted over to meet her and purred as he rubbed his head against her as she gathered herself and stood she also made it a point to scoop Binx into her arms and join them looking at the map as she listened to Donnie's nerd speak.

"Ten guys per road block seems excessive." Andrea said frowning a little bit before she looked at Donnie "How did you even get all of this? I know the blocks are all over the internet right now because nothing ever stays secret for long in small towns but this is above that." Andrea pointed out, Rylie honestly hadn't considered it as she looked it over. Frankly Rylie had thought that Jerome had broken the printer forever ago as well which alluded too.....

"So you're a tech geek too Kappa?" Rylie asked him quirking a brow at him and smiling, Andrea didn't even hesitate as she slapped the back of her sisters head and earned a glare

"Rude." Andrea scolded her

"Abuse." Rylie countered but Andrea ignored her looking over the map again out of curiosity "So even if we did make a distraction across town there would also be the problem of not all of them would go unless it was a big distraction." Andrea said thoughtfully as she tried to debate before she looked at Rylie again

"How fast do you think Meimei could throw together a LARP group?" Andrea asked and Rylie perked up

"You think she could do one in the woods and maybe get some of the Dungeons and Dragons cosplayers to do turtle folk?" Rylie asked quirking a brow she very rarely got into the table top gaming scene but quite a few of her friends were into it and liked getting Rylie's input on their characters and seeing if she could make some cool art of them one that Rylie had noticed was becoming more popular (and she wondered if this might have been in part from Cryptid turtle sightings that had her wondering a lot now) but she was also pretty sure that on such short notice not even Meimei could pull that off.

"Good thinking but I don't think cosplay nerds can work that fast, they need a lot more time to get supplies." Rylie said and Andrea nodded seeming to understand and continued trying to think before she looked at Donnie then

"Tell us more about this agent guy, maybe that'll help us get an idea of what to expect." Andrea said she picked up one of the fallen chairs and sat in it backwards with her chin resting on the back of the chair so she could peer over the map seeming to ponder more
 
"Ten guys per road block IS excessive," Don concurred, "That would mean he has something like 80 men, and given the general tone of your town's social media page, a much bigger piece of news if they were all running around in plain sight."

He tapped the pencil towards the northmost parts of the map, where his estimates where more conservative.

At the end of the day, it was all speculation. Don couldn't be sure of how many boots Bishop had on the ground, but what he DID know was that Bishop wanted to keep this a secret. Otherwise the top new's story of the day would invovle a little less personal inconvenience and a little more 'Mutant Freak at Large in Charming Farm Town Community".

There were other details, of course, but to explain it all-
Well, Don was happy to take the compliment of Tech Geek and leave it at that,

"Let's just say I know how to filter information,"

Of course, all the information in the world couldn't help him if they didn't have a plan. Don remained silent as he listened to the two sisters pass ideas back and forth, staring at his numbers as if they might reveal a solution. In truth, Rylie had some solid ideas. But their problem lay in Time.
He had to leave. Tonight, at the latest. Bishop was only playing at law and order to keep things quiet and Don did not put it past the agent to fake a warrant if he thought it would get him what he wanted.

And there-in lay the problem. Don didn't actually know what Bishop wanted. Bishop had menaced him and his family on and off over the last few months and he couldn't answer the question as to why,

So when Andrea straight up Asked, Don.... didn't know how to answer. The turtle stared at the map he'd worked so hard to put together, silent as the time painfully ticked by and he offered nothing,

"I don't KnOW." Don said, angry with himself.

"He showed up three months ago. Just... introduced himself and said he knew who I was-"

Don would never forget the way the Name uncomfortably wormed its way into his bones, the sheer arrogance of the man as he blocked their exit with a small contigency of armed, black masked soldiers, clearing his throat and straightening his tie as he proclaimed himself Agent Bishop of the Earth Protection Forces. If it hadn't been for April and Casey's on point timing, Don wasn't sure he or his brothers would have made it out of that encounter with their freedom.

"Ever since, he's been trying to get the jump on me. He's tried to hack my systems, track my movements and harrass my friends..."

Bishop had tried to launch several hacking and phishing schemes against his systems since. Grimly, Don was grateful for his innate sense of paranoia. If there was a breach, they were minor, and not worth concerning his brothers with. Bishop was already testing them on every other front. April had to cut contact with them for days on end as Agents took over her shop under some faux-investigation into money laundering.

Don clenched his fists.

"It sucked- but that was it. And I was fine with that being all there was too it. I know how to keep a low profile. It wasn't worse than anything anyone else has ever tried to pull." Until...-

Until there were twenty men surrounding him. Until he was on the ground, fighting to stay awake against the tranqulizers surging through his bloodstream. Until Bishops smug face dipped into his quickly fading consciousness,

"Night night, abomination,"

Until he woke up in the back of a van, hours later.
Alone, without brothers or gear, and with only the paperclips his incorrigeable younger brother had knocked into his shell while trying to get his attention.

"I don't know what to tell you. This isn't anything,' Don said, dismissively waving at his own map and hard work, "I don't know what he's telling them, but the people he's got working for him are committed to his scheme. It's not going to be easy to trick them'
 
Rylie and andrea listened and honestly the emotions that crossed his face tugged at Rylie's heart strings, the life of a cryptid just wanting to live in peace. Rylie looked at Andrea and the girls had a silent agreement that they definitely had to help him.

"Alright, well for starters we gotta get you out of the restaurant. If Agent micro dick thinks you're here and he's anything like Rylie's comic book villains which he seems to be thus far from what we do know, he's going to find a way to get in here or the Sheriff is going to get him in here on some 'probable cause' bull shit." Andrea said with a roll of her eyes Rylie nodded agreeing. The local sheriff was not Rylie's biggest fan so he'd probably find an excuse to get her into trouble since she always had a habit of worming her way out of it and had caused his last divorce when she'd exposed that it was his son that had robbed the local grocery store and the sheriff had tried to cover it up. Not to mention Rylie had acquired a few choice photos of his affair that had gone over BEAUTIFULLY with his wife.

"So if we can get you to the house then that at least means if they get a warrant it's going to be for the restaurant and not the house plus they won't have 'probable cause' " Andrea said that startled Rylie as she gave her a questioning look

"House?" Rylie asked

"Ya you think you're gonna sneak a giant turtle into your apartment? We're gonna have to take him to Mom's house." Andrea said to her it would be the safest place but it would involve telling her, fooling her at the restaurant was one thing, in her own home was never going to happen. Rylie's mom didn't live far, all of her family that worked at the restaurant lived within 15 minutes of the place, Rylie ironically lived the furthest but that was what her moped was for and it still got her to work in fifteen ish minutes.

"Alright, hypothetically if we can't find anywhere else how the heck are we going to get him to moms house without anyone seeing him?" Rylie asked her as she started to pace the room and that even gave Andrea a little pause

"best case scenario? Uncle Gerome left his van at moms, I can go over, get her emotionally prepared and we can sneak him in the van under the disguise of a delivery or a catering event that got cancelled here in town so we wouldn't have to cross agent jackass's blockade and would give us a valid excuse to back the van straight to the delivery door and mom's basement door and he could get in that way and up the stairs." Andrea offered and Rylie looked at Don trying to gauge how he felt about all of this, she was sure he wouldn't be thrilled about telling anyone else about this whole scenario but they didn't really have any more options right now. Plus a fourth brain to add that could also play peacekeeper between Andrea and Rylie to make sure this gets solved in a timely manner would be a good idea.

"I know it isn't ideal for so many new people to know your secret Kappa, but we need the help and trust me no one knows this town better than my mother." Rylie said hoping it would offer some comfort "Plus the added bonus of she sees anyone that we approve of as immediate family so long as they're not a jerk. Mom is like that sitcom mom that ends up being everyones mom." Rylie explained and Andrea couldn't help but reluctantly nod in agreement, she wasn't wrong at all
 
"House?" Don said at the same time as Rylie, face falling as Andrea revealed her plan. "Hypothetically, how are you going to get me into your mom's house without her noticing??"

The turtle glanced between the two sisters, looking more ill-at-ease as they discussed what was potentially his one option to avoid capture. Rylie had been an...unfortunate, if not pleasant surprise.
He'd just been downright stupid when it came to Andrea.

But now they were apparently going to casually approach the Mrs. of the Barletta house hold and casually reveal they discovered a giant turtle breaking into their restaurant, and oh yeah, we need help sneaking him out of town.

Rylie seemed to pick up on his anxiety instantly.
Don didn't know what face he was making as she tried to reassure him, but he doubted he looked convinced.

"I'm sure she'd great, but these aren't normal circumstances. Is she really going to be okay with...THIS whole situation?" He vaguelly held out his hands, pointedly motioning at his turtle-ness. "Not to mention you two being involved in this whole situation?"

While he didn't know the two sisters well, Donatello did get the sense it wouldn't have been brought up if it was going to be a problem, no matter how much his instincts screamed otherwise. Secrecy was the first lesson Sensei had ever taught them. Secrecy was the base on which every other facet of his life rested. He couldn't help but wonder what his father would do if he was in Don's very situation, if he would have accepted the help knowing there was no other way...

He probably wouldn't have been caught in the first place.

"Okay," Don said finally, pinching his beak. "I'd rather dance a jig on a stage in front of the whole town than wind up back in that van and since staying where the evil government agent knows I'm hiding is the height of stupidity...-fine. If that's what we have to do. I can fake a catering reservation in your systems to cover your tracks in case Bishop does decide to make it a problem."

---------------------

Marco Barletta knew his daughters were up to something very, very stupid.
He'd known from the minute the call came in on the Ground channel for a pair of eyes on Zeta's Ristorante, and so he'd taken the job before anyone else could put the HUGE conflict of interest together and stop him.

When he'd first gotten the call in, he'd had mixed feelings about returning home. There wasn't a day that went by where he didn't miss his family, but it was a sacrifice he'd had to make to keep them safe and happy. So long as they were thriving, he could live without the phonecalls and the birthdays and all the holidays and growth he'd missed, albeit reluctantly; Knowing he was here to capture something dangerous, something that could potentially harm them, was what had pushed him to accept the assignment, regardless of his feelings.

Well, that and the money. Agent Bishop only paid for the best and he would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy knowing he was counted among an elite protection force that had prevented wars, stopped mass weapons of destruction and even circumvented an alien invasion or two. It was definitely a lot more fun than his military days.

It was surreal sitting outside his own family's restaurant after years of being gone. He sat low in the dark sedan, seat cranked all the way back like he was a teenage version of Gerome, trying to avoid getting caught skipping shifts, his eyes fixed on the door of the restaurant, watching. Two women had gone in the front door since he'd started watching, and it pained him to have not recognized his daughters at a glance.

And now they were in there with....the Thing.
Agent Bishop had not been very forthcoming with details, but that was nothing unusual. If it was important for him to know, he would have been informed. As it stood, Marco knew that there was some kind of creature in the house; something unlike anything they'd ever dealt with before. Agent Bishop had informed them all that it was intelligent, cunning and dangerous, a trained soldier who had managed to disappear from the inside of a locked van without leaving a single trace. He'd told them that while it was not human, it had to capacity to speak and act like one, manipulating those that came into contact with it into lowering their guard. There was too little information to determine where it came from, what it wanted and who it answered to, but the concensus was that it couldn't be alowed to roam free, not in a town full of innocent civilians,

And certainly NOT in his family's restaurant, where his two daughters had decided to hang out on the one day of the week it was closed.

"I guess I should be happy they're so...dedicated," Sure, that was the word. It took every ounce of training Marco had ever recieved to avoid bursting through the door himself. Agent Bishop had stressed the importance of avoiding a mass panic, and speculated that the creature would likely want to avoid one too. It wasn't stupid.

And if the reason he remained locked in the car was motivated by Fear rather than Duty, then Marco steadfastedly ignored it.
 
Rylie understood that Don’s concerns were valid, but she also knew her mom would sooner take an early grave than divulge secrets that were important to be kept. After all Rylie still hadn’t worked the recipe for her Grandmother’s tiramisu out of her mother even when half her dads family were pissed that she wasn’t a blood family member and out of spite her grandma had only told Jennifer because of how her family had treated her for a while.

Rylie loved how petty her family could be sometimes but this wasn’t the time to dwell on such things.

“Not normal circumstances but she raised Rylie,” Andrea pointed out jerking her thumb towards her younger sister “Miss Cryptid-ghost-bigfoot hunter who would build fairy houses to leave around Grandma’s garden hoping that something other than chipmunks would move in.” Andrea said Rylie rolled her eyes and folded her arms

“I was seven!”

“And you made traps to catch Leprechauns on St. Patrick’s day until you were twelve.” Andrea said to her and Rylie scowled her face turning bright pink as she folded her arms but ultimately didn’t argue as Andrea turned back to Don

“Point is, if mom is warned ahead of time she’ll be prepared for anything. Plus, we’ve always sort of joked about Rylie someday bringing a creature home ET style, I’m pretty sure this is a hypothetical that she has prepared for at least in some way.” Andrea explained to him as she stood up and cracked her back before she turned to Rylie who looked like if she could crawl into the void of her sweatshirt she would.

“I’m gonna go grab the catering van, take any pastries that you can pack out of the walk in and put them in boxes so we can sell it and ya know comfort food.” Andrea said patting her sister on the shoulder before she headed out making sure to grab an apron with the restaurants logo on it and tie it around her waist for good measure. Rylie sighed and ran a hand through her hair before she looked at Donnie

“Not a word or I’m telling her how you wiped out on cold pizza ninja boy” Rylie added still blushing a bit so she’d been an imaginative kid, now she had a successful blog writing about Cryptids, true crime and corruption. Occasionally she got in trouble for trespassing but everyone did weird things when they were a kid right?! Besides she’d been right! Weird things were out there and Donnie, no offense to him in anyway, was definitely proof.

Rylie just refused to be the bad guy and sell him to science unlike some people.

“Alright, Want to pick out your ride snacks?” Rylie asked him gesturing to the stairs

-----

Jennifer Barletta was a very strong independent woman, she was grateful that since her husbands disappearance most of his family had gathered round to help support and raise her daughters in this small town, she knew her kids were quite the handful between Andrea, the epitome of Class president-sports star energy who could handle anything that was a sport and get into trouble with boys, and Rylie her cryptid hunter who chased to expose the monsters that were actually human as well as the ones that went bump in the night.

So when her eldest came home and told her about a giant turtle that was hiding out in the restaurant Jennifer was shocked to say the least but managed to keep her cool, it explained why Rylie had been so weird earlier (Well weirder than usual) and why she was sneaking around the restaurant when it was closed. Part of her had always gone through that hypothetical 'what if Rylie brought home bigfoot' scenario in her head ad she was determined to think about it as logically as possible, so Andrea explaining to her that this creature was more like a person that just looked like a giant turtle admittedly gave Jennifer the thought that clearly they had to help him hide from the government creeps that were exploring the town and frankly, her husband had read her enough comic books when they were dating that she had an idea of what this sci-fi scenario could end in for him if they didn't help. So Jennifer agreed to help "Donnie" as Andrea called him and found herself prepping for guests already prepping to make snacks and wondering just how much jail time she could do for helping a creature that isn't supposed to exist escape the government.
 
“Miss Cryptid-ghost-bigfoot hunter who would build fairy houses to leave around Grandma’s garden hoping that something other than chipmunks would move in.”
Click to expand...

Don didn't mean to laugh out loud. It kind of came out of him by surprise, if only because he was vividly reminded of a childhood filled with following Mikey through sewer tunnels, searching for those mythical flushed sewer gators that graced the cover of all those 'Wild Weird World' tabloids they sometimes found floating amongst the garbage.

Don himself didn't share Mikey's enthusiasm for the subject, but he never knew how to say no to Mikey. Especially not the tiny child version of him that often mumbled in that too-quiet voice that Leo said he was too busy trainin' and Raphie said it was stupid.

So, it became a monthly occurence.
Mikey would burst into his lab and declare it was time for the CROCODILE HUNTERS TO ASSEMBLE, in the worst australian accent known to man, and Don would put away whatever he was doing to follow. Sometimes, he'd even made proper 'gear' for the expeditions, like his first radar kit and sonograph, and he and Mikey would spend time testing them in the field, his tiny, overexcitable brother weirdly interested in the 'nerd' stuff everyone else (including Mikey, usually) found overwhelming.

They never found anything, of course, because alligators couldn't survive in the sewers, and Donatello knew that even at 8 years old. But he also knew it probably wasn't ALL about finding alligators.

Rylie looked three shades redder than red, and was looking at him like he'd been handed a bunch of embarrassing baby photos. It didn't slip past him that the series of quirky childhood Rylie-isms where DEFINITELY Andrea's way at getting back at her sister for her earlier blackmailing. Which of course meant the only person left to blackmail was HIM-

“Not a word or I’m telling her how you wiped out on cold pizza ninja boy”
Click to expand...

Donatello had the good manners not to laugh this time.
"Who would I tell?" He asked with all the sincerity he could muster. The turtle had already vowed to take the whole 'Exposing his Existence by Slipping on Cold Pizza" debacle to his grave.

-----------------------------

Don left the restaurant through the same back door he'd broken into the night before, only this time it was under the cover of several table cloths as he tried to make himself small and inconspicuous amongst the decoy cupcakes. They were on their way within moments and when the catering truck managed to pull out of the alleyway without immediately being swarmed by the G.I. Joes casing the place, Donatello considered their mini escape a partial success.

The other half of that success all came down to Rylie's Mom, a woman, Don had to admit, he was a little terrified to meet. He didn't know what he was going to say, or if he even had it in him to explain about Bishop and the edited story of himself and Everything...

Hi, I'm Donatello, I'm a mutant, which explains nothing, but the distinction between alien, monster, kappa and abomination IS important,

He must have spent the entire time thinking too hard. Either that or the ride was short lived, because before Donatello could process how he was going to do this, they had stopped. He heard the sounds of a garage scrapping closed. On the driver's side, the door opened and shut as Rylie exited to let him out of the back, as they'd planned. He knew exactly where they were supposed to go, and exactly who they were supposed to meet, but Don suddenly felt utterly and achingly alone.

"I need a minute,"

Rylie had half loaded the van, leaving just enough space on the right for the red and white patterned bundle of Donatello to sit neatly behind the wheel hub. He hadn't taken the tablecloth off.

"I know it's going to be FIne, I just..." Don couldn't articulate the words. He reached for a cupcake instead, figuring if anyone deserved one, it was him right now. The red velvet disappeared under the cloth as it took a deep breath.

"Sorry. This is hard."
 
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Rylie had loaded the van and with some help from Andrea had gotten Don loaded into the van with no issues, Rylie was the one who drove to their mom's house while Andrea stayed back to clean up and make sure that it didn't look too suspicious, she'd join them in a little while. When Rylie had gone back to get Don she was surprised to hear him mention he needed a second but she gave it to him nonetheless, watching as he took one of the cupcakes and she offered a small smile sitting in the back of the van cross-legged as she looked at the red and white tablecloth where her new friend was

"I know, you're supposed to be secret and within twenty-four hours three new people know who you are and you barely know them," Rylie said reiterating the conversation she guessed this was emotional for anyone in a situation like his, it would be like those fake stories where Big Foot called a press conference to announce his engagement to Marilyn Monroe or some crap like that but on an actual realistic scale. Rylie slid the cupcake box closer to Don and went into another box herself to steal one of the tiramisu slices and take a bite of it herself.

"If I didn't think it was necessary for us to get you out of here safely I wouldn't have done it I swear and if it were possible to like Harry Potter her memory of the day I totally would consider it but I swear we just want to keep you safe. My mom is like the safest person you could be with without being home. She won't judge you for almost anything, she judges Rodney because he's a Pyro and so long as you don't hurt other people she doesn't really care about anything else otherwise I'd have been outcasted a long time ago for breaking into places and getting arrested for criminal mischief." Rylie said rolling her eyes she couldn't count the number of times that her mother had scolded her for doing something stupid but it was always followed by her emphasizing that she did it because she loved her and that she was happy she was safe, this usually ended up with Rylie being grounded but while she was grounded her mom would make sure it wasn't all bad. Rylie wasn't allowed on the computer except for school. She had plenty of comics to pass the time, would set up baking projects for Rylie to do with her grandma (Rylie wasn't supposed to know about that but Andrea let it slip), and other things to help with the lesson being learned but also making sure it wasn't total torture.

Rylie took another bite of her tiramisu and leaned back against the wall of the van

"So....do you have any family?" Rylie asked him curious, maybe just sitting and chatting for a bit would help him? "or are you like alone? Well, you mentioned having friends so you're not alone but like- " Rylie kind of trailed off trying to figure out how to deal with it, or hoping he might fill in the blanks for her so she didn't have to focus too much on how awkward the question could be.
 
The vehicle creaked as Rylie clambered into the back. At least, he assumed that's what she had done. Don had yet to vacate his cover, putting his trust in his hearing and the van's lackluster suspension as it settled with the extra weight.

"I know, you're supposed to be secret and within twenty-four hours three new people know who you are and you barely know them,"
Click to expand...

The tablecloth that was Donatello let out a sharp, humorless 'Hah'.

"Four," He corrected, "If you count us getting help from your friend, Rodney. Potentially five, if you count your other friend, Meimei. It's important to be accurate," He added in a quiet voice.

But Rylie was trying to make a point, so the tablecloth fell silent, save for the crinkling sounds of a cupcake being carefully extricated from its wrapper.

"I wasn't sure about trusting you, at first. But you've more than proven that not only can I trust you, I should. Getting out of the restaurant was the best move,"

There was a definite 'BUT' that was left unsaid at the end of that sentence, however Don didn't elaborate. If he didn't trust Rylie, he would not be sitting in the back of her van, still unabashedly hiding under a bunch of starchy fabric. If he trusted Rylie, then by extension, he should trust her mom.

It was going to be fine.

Don knew he was really stretching the concept of a moment, but Rylie had to good grace not to pressure him. The turtle decided that for as long as he was in this van, he wasn't going to focus on Rylie's mom or what he was going to say- He was going to eat a goddamn cupcake and when he was done, he would be ready and focused and every bit the ninja his brothers where.

"So..." Rylie's voice cut in. The question made the tableclothed turtle pause midchew, frozen as he contemplated his options. He trusted Rylie, but did he TRUST Rylie?

Careful not to get cupcake icing all over it, Don pulled down the tablecloth letting it settle over his shoulders like a blanket. The turtle stared at the floor and took a deep breath.

"I have three brothers. And our father, Splinter. There's Leo, Raph, me and Mikey. The way sensei tells tells it, he found all four of us when we were still just a bunch of pet store turtles, covered in this glowing green ooze. The ooze, the mutagen, changed all of us. We grew more human, while our father became more...-" Here, Donatello fell quiet.

"Well, it wasn't an easy process for anyone, and since Sensei wasn't human anymore- I mean, in appearance, at least, he decided the best thing for all of us would be to go underground. Literally. So that's where we grew up. Four mutant turtles and a rat living under one of the densest cities in the world."

Donatello finished his cupcake. He took the wrapper and began carefully folding it into squares. "We built our whole lives around the art of secrecy. We live where no one can find us and I'm the one who makes sure it stays that way."

Until Bishop, but Don left that unsaid. Raph had told him once that he had always believed something like this was only a matter of time. Between the Purple Dragons, the Foot Clan and any number of small time crooks they tangled with on the regular, Someone was one day going to say Something, Somewhere it would not be let go.

"If they were here, Leo would have a plan on how to get out within five minutes. Raph would say screw the plan, let's just hijack something and smash it through the nearest roadblock, we'll kick the ass of anyone who wants to complain otherwise. And Mikey would love these cupcakes and would'a probably already been begging your mom for the recipe," Don grinned a bit at the thought of teasing/bragging to his little brother about getting to hang out in an actual, bona-fide restaurant.

The wrapper in his hands was finally folded down as far as he could get it. Don placed it neatly back in the tray and frowned.

"But they're not here and I have to do this on my own. And it's hard."
 
Rylie listened to Donnie’s story, she wasn’t sure what exactly she’d been expecting him to say but it wasn’t that to say the least. Rylie nodded a bit and she had so many questions, she immediately wanted to know what mutagen was and where it came from, why it transformed people and animals alike, oh she definitely had some research to do if she could somehow leave Donnie out of it at least she wanted to make sure she could get an article out of this but only if she could do it while protecting Don and his family as well.

However when he mentioned doing it on his own she frowned a little and lifted the tablecloth that separated them so she could make him look at her

”hey! None of that,” Rylie said sternly as she pointed her free hand at him almost like a scolding parent “You are not alone. You have me, you’ve got Andrea, and my mom. Rodney doesn’t know yet and I haven’t told meimei, we’re not telling her unless we need another plan but still. You’ve got us and we’re going to get you out of here safely ok? I’m going to make sure you get home to your brothers if I have to walk you through Mordor to do it got me?” Rylie asked him when she was done with her serious scolding she took another cupcake and handed it to him

“And if you like the cupcakes so much, I’ll send you back with a box of them for your brothers. But you’ve got to stop acting like you’re alone, we’re not doing that Lone ninja ronin comic crap, those never end happy and if you keep insisting you’re alone I’m going to let Dagger chomp you again.” Rylie told him she then offered him a smile and took the cupcake wrapper flicking it at him playfully

“You gotta face facts Kappa, you’re stuck with me. Period end of story.” She giggled “Now if you need to hang out in the back of a catering van for a while to gather that ninja courage to face my mom, then that’s fine. I’ll hang out here with you because you. Are not. Alone.” Rylie told him emphasizing her point before she laid back on the floor of the van so she could stare at the roof with her arms folded behind her head

“Let me know when you’re ready and we’ll get the ball rolling.”
 
There was no escape from Rylie's sudden pep-talk, despite Don's very best attempts to prevent her stern finger from stabbing into his beak. He held up his hands placatingly

"I get it, I get it, I'm stuck with you and you're not ditching me and I'm not actually alone in this. You made that pretty clear this morning," The turtle conceeded. "Lone ninja ronin is more Raph's thing anyway,"

It was a poor choice of words considering Rylie had essentially dedicated herself to helping him from the minute he'd slipped up on her kitchen floor, but Don didn't know what word better described how it felt to be without his brothers.

He could be in the middle of a literal battlefield, elbows deep in wires while trying to dismantle some shoddily constructed bomb, and nothing could feel safer than knowing there were three shells watching his.

Don accepted the second cupcake, watching Rylie full on get comfortable in the back of the pastry van. "I guess the better way of putting it, is this is the first time we've been this far apart." And dammit, he missed them.

Don didn't say as much out loud. Instead, he thought about how Mikey, Raph and hell, even Leo, would all absolutely loose their masks over a box of fresh cupcakes, and how that would be the perfect way to celebrate coming home. He could tell them Rylie was certainly one of the good ones, and maybe the next trip they took out into the country could be to Maine.

"Before we go, I wanted to ask you something." Don said, "Where'd you get your unwavering enthusiasm for all things cryptid? Considering your sister said your mom might have a literal contingency for a 'daughter comes home with a non-human creature' scenario..."
 
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Rylie smiled happily seeing him sort of concede to her annoying little pep talk. She did feel a little bad when he mentioned the distance between them and she smiled sympathetically. She sort of felt the same way when her dad disappeared, she’d never been far from him for very long so when he just up and vanished it had been a whole rollercoaster of emotions for a long time.

Don must have heard her thoughts on the scenario when he asked about the cryptid thing

“Mostly my dad, so my grandmother and grandfather came here from Italy when they were younger and they‘re kind of superstitious out there so they passed it onto him and my uncle a little bit so my dad growing up and reading all those weird discoveries he liked investigating a lot and ended up working as an investigative reporter and got me into all kinds of true crime and cryptids comes with all of that when you get weird missing persons reports and ya know, you live as close as we do to the museum. Dad turned a lot of it into games like he and I would go hiking to ’lookf or bigfoot’ to make it fun, I used to have a floatie for the lake that looked like a dinosaur that he would call Nessie so it became the lochness monster, he’d take me to the comic shop too which never helped with any of that stuff you know?” Rylie asked with a smile as she reminisced a little bit remembering all the quirky fun they had when she was growing up, her dad and her were thick as thieves when she was younger and admittedly it really hit her hard when he disappeared. Rylie even still had a box in her closet where she tried to figure out what happened in her own investigations and she must have poured over the information a million times trying to figure out what had happened and where he’d gone. It didn’t take much of Rylie’s imagination to think that Donnie’s brothers were probably in a similar state looking for him, probably why she was so hell bent on getting him home and emphasizing that he wasn’t alone in this.

“Guess it all sorta stuck, then a couple of years ago I started my blog following true crime, exposing corrupt creeps in the area and I put out an article on a murder in Connecticut where the police couldn’t explain what happened and a deep dive into the house showed it was super haunted and it sort of blew up so I’ve been rolling with stuff like that ever since.” Rylie said shrugging at him she didn’t want to get into the whole missing dad bit, she didn’t want to bore him more than she probably already was. Rylie was used to boring most people with her stories about that kind of thing, her mom and sister weren’t really into it but her mom had always supported her even when she got into trouble because she knew Rylie was trying to do the right thing in the end and usually fessed up when she was wrong.
 
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