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Baron Draxum stared at the slip of paper. The slip of paper—its folded seam attached to the front door of his apartment by way of a few unceremonious staples —seemed to gaze back, fluttering in the breeze from the air vent above as if blinking.
Printed across the top in bright, arrogant letters was the word EVICTION. There were other words too, but Draxum didn’t bother to read them before tearing the page off his door and sweeping into the apartment.
Inside, he took stock of his surroundings: ominous-looking beakers? Check. Gratuitously large and self-indulgently ornate horned helmet? Check. Stack of irreplaceable tomes on forbidden sorcery? Right where he left them. Arcane weaponry, haphazardly stuffed into a golf club bag? Hadn’t moved an inch. The baron hummed and (in the absence of furniture aside from a moth-eaten futon and a secondhand dining table) sat down to rest on the tile floor with as much dignity as he could muster, content that all was in working order.
Well . He glanced down at the crumpled eviction notice in his hand. Maybe not all was in order.
. . .
Another notice appeared on his front door the next day. He tore it down with relish.
Subsequent notices appeared the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, increasing steadily in the intensity of their language and the size of their font. Draxum removed each one, adding to a mounting pile of scrap paper that grew in the corner like some kind of awful volcano.
Draxum looked at it and, on occasion, indulged in a sigh. Back when Huginn and Muninn had been with him, they’d have carried the groceries in and the trash out, and he’d have been left in peace to recuperate his strength and gather his power for a final assault on the humans’ pathetic excuse for a civilization. Alas, the gargoyles were nowhere to be found. In truth, Draxum couldn’t necessarily be sure they’d survived the Shredder’s rampage. He supposed he could rid the flat of the pile himself, but he didn’t particularly have the heart for it right now.
The following day, Draxum awoke to the sound of something wooden scraping across the linoleum. He found the small orange turtle— Michelangelo , if he remembered rightly—trying to drag a couch up the stairwell and into his apartment.
At this point, the baron had grown accustomed to the continual comings and going of The Small One. After all, he admitted grudgingly, it had been Michaelangelo who had assisted him in finding and securing this flimsy human dwelling as his new headquarters. But just because he’d acclimatized to the child’s interruptions, didn’t mean he had to take pleasure in them.
“What is that for?” he demanded in an extremely child-friendly and not-at-all-domineering tone.
“It’s a couch.” Michelangelo grinned, despite it all. “You sit on it and chill on it and watch movies on it, and sleep on it sometimes if you have guests or if your brother’s using your real bed to construct an automaton capable of—”
Did the child never cease chattering?
“Yes,” said the baron with great stoicism. “I know what a couch is. But why are you bringing it to me?”
The small orange mutant child blinked slowly at him. It made Draxum feel less like a warring warrior scientist and more like a dim-witted pigeon.
“So you can sit on it,” said Michaelangelo, “and chill on it and watch movies on it and—” he broke off to look around the barren apartment, scratching his head. “Okay, well, maybe not the movie bit. At least not yet. We gotta get you one of those lil portable DVD players first.”
Draxum bent to inspect the couch, trying to look as dignified as possible. Despite it all. The cushions smelled faintly of mildew, and it appeared that one of the couch’s previous owners had carved what looked like the phrase GENSHIN IMPACT SUCKS into the wooden arm of its frame. Draxum squinted, struggling to read the crude lettering. Some sort of primitive incantation, no doubt. Such a weak curse would never succeed in warding off an entity as powerful as Baron Draxum. Tentatively, he sat down on one of its moldering cushions—just to be certain.
“This is adequate,” he pronounced. “From whence did it come?”
Michelangelo looked like he was fighting the urge to laugh. “Why do you talk like that? If you’re trying to do some kinda Shakespeare impression, I gotta say, Donnie could crush you. He can recite half the monologues in Hamlet from memory.” He dusted himself off. “As for this thing, I just picked it up off the sidewalk. Everyone in the city gets their furniture this way, trust me. April says so.”
The baron watched him turn, hands on his hips, in the direction of the kitchen table.
“What’s this?” asked Michaelangelo, picking up two slips of paper that had been folded into the shape of a twin pair of ravens. “Whoa, Drax! Never would’a pegged you for an origami guy, but you got serious talent!”
The baron shifted uncomfortably. “They’re not. I mean. That is actually a critical science experiment . I have never heard of this origami.”
But Michaelangelo was peering down at the paper birds with suspicion.
“Hey… wait a minute.” The small orange one rounded on him, pointing an accusatory finger. On the table behind him, one of the former origami birds lay unfolded, its bold font and red ink plainly visible. “Is this an eviction notice?”
Draxum made an effort to look disinterested. “What, you mean this proclamation of exile?” He scoffed, waving a hand. “I have been exiled more times than you can count. Once more is nothing to me.”
But the little turtle looked alarmed. He shook his limbs in distress.
“What?! Baron, c’mon, this is no joke! If you don’t pay your rent, you’ll be back on the streets!” He shook a green limb one final time for emphasis. “The mean streets of the city!”
Draxum raised one eyebrow. It was an impressive skill, even by warrior scientist standards. “I have already paid the humans their paltry tithe.”
Michelangelo facepalmed. “No, dude, the rent is due every month . You gotta keep paying it.”
At that, Draxum felt the familiar sting of incredulity. “What, over and over again with no end in sight?”
Michelangelo gave him a thumbs-up sign. “Welcome to capitalism, babeyy.”
Draxum clenched his fist in defiance and fury. “I see…” he rumbled, “...we live in a society.”
“Nah,” said Michaelangelo, cheer recovered. “ You live in a society. I live in a sewer.”
Draxum fixed the orange child with a look that should have withered steel beams. On Michaelangelo, it had no effect whatsoever. Either the baron had lost even more power than he’d realized, or this kid was some kind of eldritch horror disguised beneath several layers of Hello Kitty stickers and a sunny disposition.
“Look,” said Michaelangelo, fishing around in his bag. “This ain’t no biggie. We’ll just get you a job somewhere!” He pulled out a pack of colored pencils, sharpies, and crayons in funky neon colors. The baron watched curiously over his shoulder as he flicked his sketchbook open to a blank page.
“C’mon,” Michelangelo grinned up at him, “We are gonna make you a resume!”
“What’s a resume?” asked Draxum.
. . .
A “resume” turned out to be a confounding laundry list of lies. In his long years on this planet that the humans had made their hellscape and playground in equal measure, Baron Draxum had committed many a heinous act, but never had he put pen to paper in service of such bold and transparent untruths.
“Alright,” Michelangelo had said to him at the beginning of this unsavory ordeal. “How would you describe your current occupation?”
Drax waved a gnarled, clawed hand vaguely about the lonely room. He found it rather depressing. He found he did not particularly want to describe his occupation, but he sat up straighter on his newfound couch and pressed on despite his misgivings.
“Falling to idleness and misapplication,” he answered with no small amount of lethargy.
“Uh-huh.” The turtle, who sat beside him, frowned down at the sheet of paper spread out on the hard surface of a skateboard balanced across his knobbly green knees. “I’m gonna say you’re in local politics. Closest thing.”
Draxum nodded his approval.
“Okay, how would you describe your previous occupation?”
Draxum did not even have to think about that one. “Why, a warring warrior scientist, of course.”
Mikey chewed on the end of his pencil and shot Draxum an appraising look that was deeply unnerving to receive from a tiny mutant child.
“What?!” he bristled in a tone that was definitely not defensive.
“Well, it’s a bit vague, isn’t it?” Mikey scratched at his head. “People are gonna want to know specifically what science you did and which war you, uh, warred in.”
“I practice a niche school of post-draconian alchemical biolomancy applied in the tradition of thaumaturgical pre-eldritch cryptozoology.”
Draxum glanced up to see the young turtle’s jaw was nearly on the floor. Astounded to hear of his prodigious and remarkable scientific exploits, no doubt. The baron preened a little.
“Cool, so I’m gonna put down biochemistry.”
Draxum snorted. “It does you no good to reduce my accomplishments thus. My work is groundbreaking stuff, I tell you! Why, I should have liked to pass on my craft, lest it be lost to the world when I inevitably go destitute to my grave. It doesn’t escape me, mind you, that an open-minded young person such as yourself may indeed make the perfect pupil. I might have taught you and your brothers, had you not run off with that scoundrel father of yours.” Draxum resisted the sudden perplexing urge to lay a hand on Michaelangelo’s shoulder.
“Oh, uh. That’s…” the turtle seemed to flounder. “That was kinda touching, right up ‘til the part where you called Dad a rascal.”
“A scoundrel.”
“Right. Okay. And the war stuff?”
Draxum puffed up his chest. “I am proud to have spearheaded the secret campaign to drive mankind to repent their ecologically disastrous ways for well nigh a century now!”
Michelangelo winced, scratched his head, and hunched over, scribbling furiously on the sheet of paper. Draxum couldn’t see what he wrote, but it looked as though Mikey had written several phrases, only to cross each of them out. A moment later the kid straightened up and cleared his throat.
“Let’s move on. What can I put on here in the Education Experience column, my guy?”
The baron informed Michaelangelo that he had initially done a degree in Cryptomagical Studies before continuing on, despite the stifling curriculum, to specialize postdoctorally in Horticultural Sorcery, all at the Harmony & Prosperity Pan-Underground Yokai Conservatory of the High Sciences.
Michelangelo blinked at him. “The high sciences?” He scooted closer and cupped a green hand around his mouth, whispering exaggeratedly. “You mean… like weed?”
They blinked at each other for a long moment, before Michaelangelo turned to scribble another unintelligible phrase on the page.
“Okay, so what about your other skills?”
“Other skills?”
Beside him, The Orange One was tapping his pencil thoughtfully against his cheek. “Yeah, like, Excel, Microsoft Office Sweet, Photoshop…”
The baron pondered this.
Eventually, he said, “I am proficient in various demonic arts related but not necessary to the central thrust of my calling.”
Michelangelo seemed to be enjoying this process of translation. There was a gleeful spark in his eyes. If Draxum didn’t know better, he’d say the young turtle probably thought of this whole thing as a creative exercise.
“I think…” said Michaelangelo slowly, “I am gonna put… coding.”
“Coding?”
“Hopefully they won’t ask about it in the interview, but if they do you can just tell them you meant that you know a thing or two about genetic sequencing and you apologize for the confusion.”
Interview? Draxum hadn’t realized this accursed ordeal was going to entail holding an actual conversation with a stranger. The thought felt… not daunting. No, not that. But… well, tiring, perhaps. Draining.
He let out a long sigh.
“Now,” said the Orange Child, “We have a bit of room to list your hobbies close to the end here.” He indicated a small section highlighted by ball-point glittery gel pen arrows.
“Hobbies?”
A gap-toothed grin stretched wide over Michelangelo’s face. “Y’know. Like stuff you do for fun.”
Draxum found himself staring blankly. “Fun?”
At that, the child faltered a bit. “Stuff you do for you .”
Draxum pondered. After all, pondering was all he was good for now, wasn’t it? His science experiments, his sorcery… they had been fun, immensely fun. His crusade against the humans could, at times, be described as fun; though mostly, it had been grueling and thankless with occasional pinpricks of moderate success and resulting satisfaction. But regardless of the degree to which fun was had, it occurred suddenly to Draxum that none of these endeavors had been undertaken for himself. No, not truly. The science and the… other stuff… it was in the name of the yokai, for the yokai. For his kind. Come to think of it, Draxum couldn’t remember the last time he’d done an activity for himself and himself alone. Curious.
Somewhere far off, Michelangelo was waving a marker in front of his face.
“Yo Drax! You still in there? Ya zoned out for a bit.”
The baron shook his head to clear it. “My apologies. Let us continue.”
And so they did.
. . .
The phone interview did not go smoothly.
“Mr. Draxum? Yeah, hi. It’s, uh, Ryan from HR, just calling back to touch base.”
The young man on the other end of the phone sounded nervous. Drax rotated his shoulders. He’d crammed himself into the minuscule human-sized booth down on the street corner by his apartment, and his spine ached from hunching over while Mikey had explained how to operate the communication device and supplied quarters.
“We received your application by mail-wild, since nearly no one submits by mail anymore, haha. Anyway, you seem like a great fit for the position, but there were some, uhhh. How do I put this? Discrepancies? There were some discrepancies with your application, so we wanted to give you a call to clear up some details.”
Drax rolled his eyes. “By all means, go ahead.”
“Okay, well. First of all, Baron-pardon me, but that’s your first name, isn’t it? I, uh, haha. I assume you’re not a high-ranking member of the feudal nobility.”
“No,” said Draxum flatly. “You presume too much. I am a baron.”
“Oh. Um, okay. In that case, it’s an honor to be interviewing someone of such elevated rank for a position as…” On the other end of the line, there came the sound of rustling paper, as if somebody was checking notes in a frenzy, “...assistant manager of Applebee’s.”
Draxum did not see in that comment an opportunity to respond, so he said nothing. An uncomfortable silence permeated the line.
“Well,” said Ryan, “What is your first name, if you don’t mind me asking? We’re going to need it for your I-9 form.”
“Um,” said Draxum. He glanced down at Michaelangelo, draped in an oversized purple hoodie and tugging on his dressing gown.
“Rupert,” Mikey whispered urgently. “Say Rupert.”
“Rupe-what? No!” Drax hissed, grimacing. “That sounds… silly.”
Michelangelo tugged harder on his dressing down. “Fine!” he whispered back, “Shawn! Say Shawn!”
“No! I don’t like that one either.”
“You have to tell him something . Why not just use your REAL FIRST NAME like a NORMAL PERSON?”
“RYAN won’t be able to PRONOUNCE my REAL FIRST NAME,” Drax hissed back. “HUMANS do not have a MARSUPIAL LARYNX like YOKAI.”
The whispering was getting cartoonishly over-the-top.
“Sorry?” Ryan said over the phone, “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Sh-upert!” Draxum spat haltingly into the receiver.
“Your name is… Shupert?”
“Ah, why yes indeed! Baron Shupert Draxum, at your service.”
Mikey glared daggers at him. “Shupert?” he hissed, “Are you for real right now?”
“I was flustered! Do not lecture me, small turtle.”
Drax turned his attention back to the phone call at hand.
“Okay, right. Moving on.” Ryan cleared his throat. “There’s one last thing that troubled us, concerning your resume. We’re going to need you to give us the number of your reference again.”
Draxum blinked. “Pardon?”
“The former client you listed as a reference? We, uh, we gave him a call earlier today and he said some frankly odd things about you.”
At that, Draxum’s ears pricked. Former client? Reference? What was this man talking about? He glanced back down at Mikey to find that the young mutant, who had been keenly eavesdropping up until this point, was suddenly inspecting his toes with intensity and looking rather sheepish.
“I’m…” Draxum paused, “Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s fine. This guy was ranting and raving like a lunatic, so we figured you must’ve accidentally written down the wrong number by mistake.” Ryan laughed aloud. “It was funny, actually. I asked him what it was like working with Baron Draxum and he started yelling about how you used mad science to turn him into a rat? Total weirdo.”
The dial tone sounded. Drax realized that in his shock and frustration, he had forgotten to continue feeding the phone booth quarters.
. . .
“I cannot believe you used LOU JITSU as a PROFESSIONAL REFERENCE.”
Back in the apartment, Draxum was pacing back and forth. Michelangelo sat on the couch looking mildly discouraged and perhaps a bit cross.
“You left me no choice, dude. You’re on the run! I couldn’t think of anyone else who knows you and wouldn’t immediately report you to the Underground authorities.”
Draxum sighed. “That was… considerate of you, I suppose. But I’m sure Lou Jitsu of all people has nothing good to say about me.”
At that, a strange expression came across Mikey’s face. If Drax didn’t know better, he’d have thought the turtle looked a little sad.
“Look,” Michaelangelo said, head hung low, “I know you and my dad have a rocky past with each other… but if you have it in you to be, I dunno, normal and not scary, then maybe Dad has it in him to forgive you.”
I don’t want his forgiveness. I don’t need it. What use would I have for a sentiment like that?
Draxum bit his lip. There was a proud, willful part of his brain that wanted to say exactly this. But for some reason, the words did not come out, and he didn’t have the energy to contemplate what that might mean.
“Well…” Mikey filled the silence, “We’ll never know for sure.” He paused, chin in hand. “Unless we call him and ask.”
Draxum felt he was on the verge of a heart attack. “Absolutely not.”
. . .
“Hiiiiiiiiiiiii, Daaaaaaaad~” Michaelangelo sang into the phone receiver.
They were standing on the street corner once again. Beyond the towering brownstones, the sky was beginning to pale around the edges: an indication of the oncoming dawn. A couple hours from now, the streets would be bustling with taxi cabs and freight vans, hauling goods and people from one end of the city to another. But now? The little street outside the baron’s apartment complex was dim and empty, save for a stray cat that lay curled up beside the phone booth in a nest of tattered newspapers. It was almost peaceful.
“ORANGE???!?!?! I SHOULD HAVE SUSPECTED YOU WERE BEHIND THIS.”
Almost.
“Soooooo,” drawled Mivchaelangelo in what Drax assumed was his sweetest, most childlike voice, “I’m guessing you got a phone call from a guy called Brian earlier-”
“Ryan,” Draxum whispered.
“Ryan. Anyway…”
There was a commotion on the other end of the line. It sounded as though Lou Jitsu was going—for want of a better word—absolutely bonkers .
“Look, Dad, I realize getting a call about Mr. Baron here was a bit of a shock and, in hindsight, I see that I shouldn’t have put your number down without giving you a heads-up. I’m sorry for-”
“No, no,” Lou Jitsu’s voice boomed out of the receiver. “Tell them to ring me up again! Rate my experience working with this applicant? Oh, I’ll RATE ME EXPERIENCE, ALL RIGHT. I’LL GIVE ‘EM A FULL REVIEW.”
Michaelangelo shot Draxum a pained look. Wordlessly, the baron dragged a hand across his face. He suddenly found himself saying, “Let me speak to him.”
“Huh?” Mikey looked shocked. Astounded. Flabbergasted. “Are you… are you sure you want to do this? Dad can be, uh, more than a little abrasive sometimes.”
Slowly, and with as much dignity as he could muster, the baron nodded.
When Michaelangelo handed over the phone, his touch was hesitant, careful; in the time Draxum had come to know him, he’d constructed an image of the young mutant as strong, but now the turtle moved the way some fragile, delicate creature might. As he passed the phone over, the baron realized belatedly that in this moment, Mikey viewed himself as a bridge—a bridge between two people he cared about—a bridge that might collapse at any moment, tossing its passengers (and whatever hopes anyone may have had for goodwill and reconciliation) down into the tumultuous rapids below. It was an awful lot of pressure, especially for one so young.
Looking Michaelangelo steadily in the eye, Draxum took the phone and edged his way into the cramped booth.
“Lou Jitsu?” he managed.
“Don’t you dare call me that! How dare you call me that?! I can never be Lou Jitsu ever again, thanks to you.”
Draxum swallowed. “Splinter, then. That’s what your sons call you, is it not?”
The voice on the other end spluttered in impotent rage, “What do you WANT?”
Ah.
An interesting question.
Draxum wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted, or whether he truly wanted anything . He had not planned this far. He had not planned to have this conversation at all .
“He wants you to ask you if you’d help him get a job!” Mikey supplied from the relative height of Draxum’s elbow. “Next time an employer calls, he wants you to act as a reference!”
The spluttering on the other end of the line increased in both volume and intensity. “MY SON YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME-”
“PLEASE DAD WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF QUARTERS-”
“I apologize,” said the baron.
The line fell silent. Michelangelo fell silent. It was as if the whole world had fallen silent, like a videotape put on pause.
Baron Draxum drew in a deep breath. Let it out again.
“I apologize for making you into a mutant,” he pressed on, voice placid. Placid was good, wasn’t it? He had been trying for calm, but placid would do. “I realize it made your life difficult and…” he searched, floundering for a moment, “and prevented you from continuing to act in your frivolous-OW!”
Michelangelo had elbowed him hard in the gut.
“-And prevented you from continuing your pursuit of a film career,” he finished.
The line had gone silent. The only noise the baron could hear was the sound of his own breathing. Something about it was… reflective, somehow. It gave him a moment to collect himself, gather his thoughts, examine how he really felt about this. Was he actually sorry? Well, no. Not really. The experiments he had performed using Splinter as a test subject had been done with the good of the planet in mind—the planet he loved, and the yokai culture that had raised him up. Those things were important. He would have died for them, he realized. He would die for them even now.
But he’d hurt someone badly.
That wasn’t nothing.
That was important too.
Splinter was important—to his children, to that human girl April, to the people of the city his kids protected… even if those citizens didn’t even know he existed.
Draxum had meant well, but he’d also done harm. There was no getting away from this.
“Splinter?” he asked. “Are you still there?”
It took Draxum a while to identify the next sound that came over the phone line as an insurmountable string of expletives.
“Um-”
The string of swears did not abate.
Draxum sighed. How immature.
“Splinter,” he said. “Should I remind you that your son is within earshot?”
Beside him, Mikey laughed. “That’s not gonna stop him from cussing you out, but nice try, dude.”
The swearing turned into heavy breathing. It looked like Splinter had tired himself out.
“Listen-” Draxum began.
“No. No. Shut up. I do not forgive you,” Splinter interrupted with gusto.
Draxum closed his mouth. Well, that was to be expected, wasn’t it? There was nothing else to be said.
“But,” said Splinter.
But?
“I take it you are trying to get a job so that you can give up being a mad scientist maniac menace to society,” Splinter took a deep breath, “So I will help you.”
Draxum could barely control himself. “Y-you will?” Of course he would. It was right and just of him. Draxum felt a wave of relief, followed immediately by a wave of smug satisfaction. “Excellent. How shall we proceed?”
At his side, Michelangelo began doing what appeared to be some kind of bizarre victory dance, complete with hollering and beatboxing.
“Well,” said Splinter. “That twink from HR who called me mentioned that your resume said you went to Harvard and fought in the Vietnam War. So let me be the first to tell you, you’re an idiot. Why would you put that on your resume? What’s wrong with you? Were you dropped on your head as an infant? Anyway, we need to rewrite your CV, so…”
As Splinter went on babbling, Draxum chanced a look at Michelangelo. The young turtle was blushing a bit from embarrassment, but he also looked strangely happy.
Baron Draxum smiled back.