Unable to find her in the crowd, Sandro had apparently sent a fleet of peeping gator corgies after her, because Kinpōge was pounced first by one, then two, then all four tiny toothy rawrs. She laughed and had to have Michelangelo try to detangle them, and while half of them became obsessed with her dress, felt all over it, and peeked inside her sleeves, the other two tugged on her, and she managed to find her brother in the crowd.

"What are you wearing!?" Sandro demanded immediatley, looking as stricken and panicked as if he'd walked into a theatre of barfing cats, hundreds of thousands of them, with no possible way to stop them all.

"Konbanwa, Sandrohan!" Kinpōge cooed with a bow.

"Oh my god," he gushed, soundeding as disgusted as if he was ankle deep in that cat barf. "Your prank. This was it?"

"I don't know what you mean! Clearly I am an elegant fairy, gliding to and fro like a little boat, welcoming people to our humble abode!"

"You still don't live here..."

Shadow was horrified. "Can I punch her?" she asked seriously.

"Not this time," he moaned, "not even though she deserves it."

"Oh come on!" Kinpōge broke character to hold out her arms and plead, "at least tell me I'm pretty?" A bunch of gator children squealed.

"Comparatively..." Sandro sobbed through a face palm. "How'd Leo react?"

"Oh I got him good," she snickered. "Don't blow my cover with the visitors, by the way, I am treating that turtle to a hilarious reversal of being Kinpōge-chan in exchange for all the days I got to watch him sick with dread!"

"I don't get it," Shadow snorted. "This isn't a prank, it's just being nice. Isn't it?"

"He's probably hysterical," Sandro confirmed this was definitely a prank.

"Pranks don't have to be mean," Kinpōge giggled, adjusting her lotus bloom. "They just have to work! Oh! Hey. Sandro, why didn't you tell me Usagi had a son?"

Sandro lowered his hand and blinked. "He has a big family. At least, I think."

"Well one of them is here," she perked up. "And he's just a little older than us. Maybe fifteen or sixteen?"

"Really?" Sandro perked up, looking around through the throng. He could see farther than her, and his gaze steadied on a certain direction. "Holy crap. I've never met him."

"Sensei introduced him as 'Akihide.'"

"'Akihide?'" Sandro's nose wrinkled with amusement.

"Uh, does it mean something?"

"Yeah, it means," he swept a hand dramatically across the air, "'Dawn Hero.'"

Silence. Yin and Yang shared a look. Then they both cracked up laughing, till the latter decided: "I-I definitely prefer 'Shadow!'"

Shadow gave a fist-pump, possibly in imitation of the two of them, and they let her in on their secret handshake.

"Oh!" Sandro laughed harder. "Oh, you got introduced as 'Adorable Tiny Yellow Flower Girl in a Furisode' to 'The Dawn Hero!'"

"Why don't you go introduce yourself to The Dawn Hero, Golden Boy," Kinpōge joshed, punching his arm through laughter. "You two can argue about which one of you is the protagonist of this story while woefully underestimating me!"

Sandro saluted through laughter.

"Sandro!" Raphael's voice carried fantastically, even in the heavily populated room.

All three children looked up, startled, to see a surprisingly large number of turtles at the front door of the house, where Mikey had been welcoming in guests. Yang and Yin shared a look, and then both hurried up to see what all the hubbub was about, leaving Shadow behind with the toddlers.

"Sandro," Raphael's eye contact and the tilt of his head compelled him forward, and all of that wide body language easily made space for the household's littlest turtle to squeeze past bigger relatives. Then his father was settling a hand on his shell and introducing him to their newest visitors. "This is our son," he said, and the emphasis was the vital clue.

Sandro recognized Mary-Jane Parker immediately, because that one afternoon she'd given him with Wild in the Aikido room after practice had left a lasting impression. Instead of focusing on her, Sandro's gaze snapped immediately to the kid whose shoulders she was squeezing. Shawn Parker was as skinny as a rail, pale with dark eyes, and had a long, pin-straight sheet of red hair. Not auburn red like April's hair, either, this was red like carrots, red like Baby Damon's hair.

Both kids stared at each other, eyes widening in a moment of mutual, fearful, excited delirium deserving of its own caption: "You're real."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Mary-Jane was doing the talking for her family. "We've heard a bit about you."

Sandro felt Dad straighten a little, and it occurred to him nobody might have told him or Mom about the Parkers' second invitation to the Christmas Party. Fortunately, Raphael didn't have to respond, because, " I heard you had a run-in with my maniac," Sandro blurted, still staring at only one person. "My condolences for your burnt neurons."

Shawn made a tiny laugh that was almost like a flinch, like he was 80% terror and 20% bravery, and the latter was only born of desperation. He seemed frightened of Sandro, and Sandro got the immediate read that it had nothing to do with generalized social anxiety and even less to do with how unreal Sandro and his turtle relatives all looked. 'You're built like a high school quarterback,' Wild had told him.

"The Mouse," Raphael uttered, twisting about in search of a child who presently could not be seen (possibly because of height; possibly because she had the good sense to duck behind someone).

"It was fine," Peter Parker unexpectedly piped up, almost lost in the background of his own family.

"Can we maybe," Mary-Jane turned a little to address Apri, "talk with you in private for a few minutes? Just so everyone's up to speed."

"Of course," April wanted to do just that.

Peter nudged Shawn. "Do you want to go ahead of us?" he asked gently. To the party. A room full of strangers. Where the other kids were.

Shawn hesitated. That was understandable. He had a long history of not faring very well in these situations.

"Wanna see my reptile collection?" Sandro gushed, hoping this would be dorky enough to seem non-threatening. "Snakes, turtles, tortoises, lizards... mostly snakes. I have a dwarf crocodile, about..." He lifted up his hands to indicate the length from butt to nose. "Without the tail."

Shawn stared at him a moment. "Okay." Small smile (yes!) "Cool."

Sandro beamed, and stepped to the side a bit. Shawn got one more reassuring shoulder squeeze from his mom, and then hurried across the space between them, and Sandro turned shell to keep it protectively between this kid and the universe and ushered him encouragingly past all the parents and through the crowd. "I'm so sorry," Sandro mentioned, "that you had to experience Wildcard on full blast already."

"Is she always like that?" Shawn asked him.

"She's got a hell of a lot of personality," Sandro confirmed, pushing his bedroom door open. "Sometimes more than one." He stepped in and put his hands on his hips, looking around for his crocodile. He had to get down on hands and knees to find her under the bed. He pulled her out and scooped her up like his baby, and turned back to find Shawn standing almost petrified at the threshold, like he was scared of entering. Sandro glanced behind himself, almost expecting the boogieman. Then again, this was a personal bedroom. Not that Wild had ever noticed. He returned to the doorway so Shawn didn't have to decide whether it was safe to enter, and smiled reassuringly.

"Here," Sandro offered a hand palm up. "Give me your hand. I'll show you how to pet her."

"Do you have the package!?" Kinpōge-chan demanded, once more out of character as she threw herself across the doorway to Sandro's room.

"Package secure, Agent W," Sandro reported with a thumbs up and a wink. Shawn had gone giddy peering into every terrerium and picking his brain with a thousand questions about his collection. The kid was now holding a ball python like the world's more precious kitten, petting her luxuriously.

"Oh hiiiii!" Wildcard gushed, coming into the room with every intention to smother. Shawn stiffened like a deer in headlights. Sandro grabbed her by her kimono knot and hauled her backwards.

"Whoa there, crazy," Sandro forbade her. "Take it easy, kid's already been traumatized by you once this week."

"I didn't traumatize him, I rescued him, weren't you paying attention!?"

"Yeah well not everyone's happy to be a damsel in distress. Kay?"

Wild thought on this. "You're right. You're the only damsel for me," she agreed solemnly.

Sandro slumped. "Says the girl in the furisode."

"Oh yeah, look! My gender isn't ambiguous for once!" she agreed, holding up her skirts to admire them.

"Your gender's never ambiguous, you're just a bombastic nutcase with a height complex," Sandro sassed back, before it occurred to him that he did not know what gender Shawn was. Wild was using 'he,' right?" Sandro looked back to Shawn, jerked his thumb towards Wild, and figured he'd reintroduce them on lighter terms. "This is my surrogate sister. Her name's technically 'Anastasia' but no one uses it. And yes, yes she is always like this. Definitely an acquired taste."

"Hi." Shawn mustered a wincing smile and a tiny wave.

"I just wanted you and Sandro to have more friends!" she pleaded her case, but then tucked her chin and tapped her forefingers together. "Sorry if I did it wrong, I'm still learning."

"You did it the same way you do everything, which is like a bullet train pushing a steamroller," Sandro muttered.

"It did work," Shawn mentioned quietly. "I begged my parents to come." Oh. "That... that... um... it's a really nice dress."

"Ha! Onegai shimasu, Shawnhan!" Wildcard responded with an elegant bow.

Sandro pushed her over and she squeaked and laughed and regained her footing, and punched his arm. He elbowed her. She grabbed his mask tails. He got her in a headlock. Both of them snickered and struggled until they finally noticed Shawn looking stricken between the two of them.

"Oh," Sandro blinked, straightening a little with her still in the headlock. "Hey, we're only really rough with one another, that's our thing, we're not going to be rough with you."

Shawn didn't answer.

Sandro released Wild and she peeked out past his arm and then shared a concerned look with him.

"Okay," Wild extended a hand up to him. "New rule: No punching eachother in front of the new kid until he stops looking at us like that."

"Yeah, no kidding, deal," Sandro shook her hand. "I've never previously been part of anyone's post traumatic stress flashbacks, and I've no desire to start now."

"I-" Shawn stammered, "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's okay," Sandro waved both hands. "Wild mentioned you don't get treated very well out there."

The kid gnawed his lip. "Some days are better than others."

Sandro was quiet a moment. Then he looked to Wild. "Okay, now I want to punch whoever these assholes are."

"Thank you for saying that!" Wild gushed, raising both her hands towards their guest. "You see it now? Shell! Everyone's been treating me like a sociopathic crazy person for wanting to rescue this poor creature, isn't he the prettiest, sweetest looking thing you've ever seen?"

"Uh. It is 'he' right?" Sandro asked Shawn. "I have an excuse for being unable to tell: I'm a turtle."

Shawn flushed. "I'm. I'm a... a... a-a boy." He dropped his head as if in defeat.

Sandro listed back on his heels, appreciating how something big had just gone unsaid. He glanced to Wildcard, and then hesitantly, using the most nonthreatening body language he could muster, Sandro approached Shawn and turned his shell slightly to use it like a shared barricade. "What do I call you out loud?" Sandro asked. "And what do I call you in my head?"

"Out loud it's 'he,'" Shawn answered immediately, looking between the two of them. "In-in private it's..." he bit the bullet, he trusted them, he put his faith in the possibility people might like him despite everything odd about him, and he did it less than an hour after meeting one of them, which made him the bravest person in the room: "It's neither," he confessed. "Neither, or both. Y-you can use 'she,' if you need something, because it's the opposite and sounds better than 'it.' But not out loud, just..."

"Okay," Wildcard agreed.

"Sound easy enough," Sandro concurred.

Shawn looked up at them like he/she'd just been handed the moon.

Sandro cracked an understanding smile. "It's fine. Nobody can make Wildcard into a six-foot-seven watermelon-breasted Tyrannosaurus Rex lumberjack. Or turn me human. If all you need to feel like you're in the right skin is acknowledgement of a non-binary gender, then consider it our honor."

The visible, hard gulps Shawn was taking probably meant she was going through something very emotional right now. Sandro gently touched her back, trying not to be too invasive of eprsonal space while at the same time offering some comfort.

"Speaking of that, good thing we just taught Shadow why using the word 'fruit' is wrong, so there aren't going to be any hilarious conversations on the topic in front of you," Wildcard blathered aloud to herself. "Thank Splinter for conveniently timed learning opportunities, amirite? Oh! Sandro. Shadow's looking for you, us, all of us, she's mad she's gotten stuck doing coloring books with the girls, I told her I'd send help!"

"Right! Well then, Shawn, want to help us go color My Little Pony characters with four anthropomorphic albino alligators whom we technically shouldn't be responsible for babysitting right now?" Sandro asked.

"Yeah," Shawn whispered tightly. "I'd love that."

[Author's Note]

If you'd like to support my writing, check out "Patre on. com" (without the spaces), and look for my full user name, which is "Kyn - Spydrouge - Gaming Imperatrix." You can google it and it'll take you right where you wanna be! (There was another person with 'Kyn'! Gosh darn them!)