"Hello, Kraang," the Shredder greeted coldly as the holographic-communication system revealed their robotic faces and showed his to them.
"Greetings, Master Shredder," the five of them replied monotonously. "What does the one known as you request from Kraang?"
"I want all the information you have on the girl, Dalilah."
The alien robots turned to each other and conversed briefly before one scurried away. It returned a moment later, informing, "We accept the one known as Shredder's request."
Shredder narrowed his eyes at the Kraang, nodding once before he growled, "Good. Bring it to me immediately. I will meet you at the docks."
The call clicked off with one button press. The armored man stood and called, "Tiger Claw! Bradford!" The minions in question scurried into the throne room. "I am going to meet the Kraang for a delivery. Bradford, stay and watch Dalilah."
Rhazaar nodded once, turning on his heel as he exited.
"Tiger Claw, you will come with me."
~•~
Waiting for Shredder to return, Dalilah paced in the bedroom she'd been calling hers, impatient and nervous. She knew she had to go along with the turtles' plan, but she also knew she was going to take a peek in the file before she gave it to them. She did genuinely want to know, too, after all.
She mentally groaned when she remembered who would be accompanying her to the turtles' set-up. Dalilah had no way to warn to turtles of this because she would risk getting caught by Rhazaar, Fishface, or another one of Shredder's henchmen. This meant that the turtles would have to think on their feet; Dalilah knew they would never fight their friends. This was a huge blow to their plan! What would they do?
Dalilah was aware that they had to go through with the plan, no matter what. If they chickened out now, the Shredder would catch them, and it wouldn't end well for anyone.
Well, it might work out for Shredder, but that's the exact opposite of the objective.
Dalilah sighed, falling onto the bed. She could only hope the turtles' plan would work, even with the unexpected turn of events.
A short time later, she heard the loud bang! that indicated Shredder's return as he closed his throne rooms doors behind him. No sooner had Dalilah stood up than Tiger Claw knocked harshly on her door, announcing that the Shredder wanted to see her.
Dalilah exited the bedroom, shooting Tiger Claw a glare of annoyance for almost breaking her door down before hurrying to Shredder's throne room. As she approached, Dalilah could hear Shredder speaking with someone whose voice she didn't recognize.
"And any memories of the turtles and their allies are erased?" Shredder's voice questioned.
"Yeszzz, Maszzzter Szzzhredder," a terrifying voice confirmed. Dalilah felt her heart skip a beat; whoever's voice that was, they were very creepy. It almost sounded like a bug.
Dalilah never got to see the speaker as she hurried to enter the room and kneel before Shredder. The faint sound of something flapping could be heard down another hallway, and Dalilah resisted a shudder.
"Dalilah, I have retrieved your requested file from the Kraang."
She tilted her head up slightly, and saw that the Shredder's arm was held out. A manila folder was in his outstretched hand, and Dalilah slowly rose and took it. Her heart sped up; she did it! She had the file and now all she had to do was–
"It is time to show Kayla and Sarah to the turtles' hideout," Shredder ordered. Dalilah's smile almost dropped, but she stopped herself, knowing it might blow her cover. It didn't prevent her heart from sinking, though. Dalilah was tempted to ask, "Do we have to go right now?" but that would be 'disrespectful' and Dalilah would explode her cover.
It wasn't like she could notify the turtles, anyway. She'd just been sitting idle in her room trying to come up with a way to contact them. She couldn't call or text them; she didn't know their phone numbers. She didn't even know if they had phones. Sneaking out was a no go. Dalilah knew she wasn't skilled enough to do so, and it would completely ruin the plan. What other options were there? Sending a message to them telepathically?
Dalilah resisted the urge to laugh at herself as she forced a nod, eyes trained on the floor. She heard footsteps, and two teenage girls stepped into the throne room.
Dalilah knew one of them; it was Kayla, the girl she'd been training against only a few hours prior. She had seen the other girl, who Dalilah figured must be Sarah, but had never actually spoken to her. They bowed in unison, as if they were robots, and stared at Shredder, awaiting his orders obediently, almost like dogs.
'Robot dogs,' Dalilah thought to herself, and it was at that point that she fully accepted the turtles as the good guys. She'd been on the fence about it, dangling on the turtles' side but still having the chance to prove them false. As she observed their two friends, it finally sank in. The mind-controlled girls literally felt nothing; they just did what the Shredder said. Kayla, Sarah, and whoever the other friend was had no free will. At least, not anymore.
Dalilah clenched her teeth at the thought. She bit her tongue inside her mouth to prevent herself from snapping at Shredder and ruining everything.
"Go immediately. If there is any sign of the turtles, you are to return here. Kayla and Sarah can take care of themselves," Shredder ordered.
Dalilha nodded once more, and the Shredder dismissed her. As she exited, she heard Shredder say to Kayla and Sarah, "Bring me the turtles, alive. I want them to live to see the downfall of Hamato Yoshi."
With a monotonous bow, the two girls met Dalilah at the door to leave, and when they arrived, Dalilah led them to the planned alley way.
Dalilah approached their destination slowly, hoping to the the turtles enough time to prepare themselves. They really rushed their plan, she realized: the turtles had no way to contact her, so how would they know when to be at the meeting spot? Her heart raced as she led the turtles' friends farther into the alley.
"Um, here it is," she revealed in a low voice. The two other girls scanned the area, and Dalilah panicked, quickly gesturing to the manhole she'd escaped the sewers from a few days before. "Its in the sewers, of course. You know; because they live down there."
Out of the corner of her eye, Dalilah saw a shadow shift, and she became hyper aware of her surroundings. Six figures sat in the darkness, watching, but they couldn't advance. Not on their friends.
"It would be a shame if the turtles were here and kidnapped one of us," Dalilah announced loudly. She saw another shadow shift, and a green hand quickly flitted out the shadows in a thumbs-up shape before Kayla and Sarah could see it. The two girls' eyes snapped to Dalilah, making her gulp. "Luckily they aren't here, though. Shall we?"
She pointed at the manhole, implying for one of them to open it. Kayla walked over and easily removed the cover, and Dalilah pretended to nervously stand back. Sarah began to descend the ladder, and Kayla was close behind. Once Kayla's head disappeared below-ground, Dalilah felt a finger poke her back and turned around to see Mikey, who grinned before swiftly lifting Dalilah up and hauling her up the fire escape on the side of a building.
"Scream," Mikey whispered. Dalilah nodded, releasing a yell that Mikey quickly cut short with a hand over her mouth to make it sound legitimate. He then hopped down to the alley on the opposite side of the building, expertly lifting the manhole. Dalilah jumped down as quickly as possible and Mikey was right behind her, pulling the cover closed above them. The orange-clad turtle wasted no time in racing down a tunnel with Dalilah on his tail, and they arrived at the lair. Leo, Raph, Donnie, Sam, and Abby were just arriving too from another direction, and Dalilah smiled excitedly.
"I did it!" she gasped, grinning as she waved the file gripped in her hand. However, the turtles didn't seem impressed.
"We gotta get everything copied as fast as we can. Then we destroy the original, in case there's some sort of tracker," Donnie urged. "Can I see it?"
He held his hand out, waiting for Dalilah to give him the envelope. She hesitated, but soon decided to let him do what he needed to. She trusted them now, she reminded herself. They were the good guys.
Donnie made his way to his lab, everyone else close behind. He jumped in his chair and slid over to the computer, his fingers pulling out all the pages of the file and scanning them as he began to type rapidly.
"Why don't we take a picture?" Mikey suggested. "Then we can get rid of it faster."
"It'll be too hard to read on a T-Phone photo. Also, I'm pretty sure its illegal to take pictures of official business papers like this," Abby pointed out.
Raph snorted. "Since when do we care about what's legal? We break into TCRI all the time. Isn't that an 'official business' building?"
"I think there's an exception for saving the world from aliens, don't you?" Abby retorted. Raph shrugged, backing down from the argument. Behind him, Donnie pushed the first page aside.
Dalilah quickly snatched it, her eyes scanning the words. This page had useless information. Well, not necessarily useless, but it wasn't what they were looking for. Just her name, birthdate, and a load of notes about the tests they were going to run on her and what they observed about her behavior.
Dalilah waited patiently for Donnie to finish copying the second page before he handed it to her. This one was interesting. It showed a picture of a man Dalilah had never seen before. He had blonde hair and blue eyes that Dalilah recognized. Underneath the photo was some information on the man, whose name was simply filled in as "Mr. Simmons."
"That's my uncle," Abby muttered behind Dalilah, who looked up. Abby's eyes were reading the text beneath the picture. Dalilah realized she had the same eyes as her uncle.
"It says here he adopted you three days before he, ah, died," Abby pointed out. "Why wouldn't he tell anyone?"
"Maybe he was going to tell you but never got the chance," Leo suggested. Abby nodded slowly.
"My mom mentioned once that he was supposed to be coming over that night. I guess he was gonna surprise us..."
Donnie had moved on to the fourth and final page of the file, and swiftly finished. "Now we need to get this thing out of here and destroy it. Just in case."
Dalilah gave him the first two pages back, and Donnie sent them out with Leo and Raph. They were to take the file far away from the lair and get rid of it. In the meantime, Donnie printed out the new copy, and gave them to Dalilah. She flipped to the third page, which told more about what the Kraang were doing with her.
Mutagen Experiment
Trial 1
Mutagen Type: Mutgemia
Subject(s): Dalilah Simmons
Status: Testing Failed
Mutagemia Holder: Kraang
Uses: Mind control
Results of Test: Failure. Test Subject has had mutagemia injected but has not shown signs of being loyal to Kraang. Effect: many recent memories lost
"Oh my gosh," Abby gasped. "They tested MGE on you?!"
Dalilah stared at the experiment results with shock. "Apparently."
"When did they give you a shot?"
Dalilah was silent. Suddenly, something flashed in her mind. She sucked in a breath, shaking off the weird feeling. She tried to think back to her time with the Kraang, and if they ever tried to test anything on her. She came up blank. "I can't remember, if they did."
"It does say that her recent memories were lost, as a side effect," Donatello pointed out. Abby nodded slowly.
A yell tore out of Dalilah's throat as another flash of white covered her vision for a split second, this time bringing pain along with it.
"What's wrong?" Mikey gasped. Dalilah shook away the pain, a thought blossoming.
"I think I'm trying to remember what happened," she murmured. "But it's just a flash. I guess now that I know there's something I can't remember, it's trying to come back, but there's nothing there."
"Is there any way to reverse the memory loss?" Sam piped up.
Donatello pursed his lips. "I don't know..."
"Hey, remember how Kenzie told us about that machine she used to wipe Sarah's memory?" Mikey reminded. "What if we can use that, but backwards?"
"In theory, that could work. It depends on the properties of the machine, but most likely, it can get your memories back," Donnie pondered.
"Wait...can it bring back Kenzie, Kayla, and Sarah's memories? Did Shredder even take them away?" Sam suggested.
Dalilah's eyes widened. "I heard him talking about this when I was there! He asked some creepy-sounding guy if they would remember you guys. Whoever he was talking to said they wouldn't remember any of the memories of their time here..."
"So if we can reverse Kenzie's old machine, it could break, or at least weaken, the mind-control!" Donnie exclaimed.
Abby looked around. "Someone call Leo and Raph, and tell them to hurry. If we're gonna do this, we have to do it soon, before Shredder manages to make the MGE even more permanent."
~•~
Jeez I'm so sorry this took four months
:((( but its 2K words so hopefully that kinda makes up for it?
Also, WHO LIKES THE NEW COVER?!
~DY