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[b]Raphael[/b] - [b]Location[/b]: Sanctum Sanctorum - [b]Tags[/b]: Open
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Tonight...could have gone better. 

The rhythmic scrape of worn out tennis shoes dragging the icy pavement echoed softly down the eerily quiet street. It was as if every sewer rat, petty thug, and stray drunk could sense the presence of something unnatural, something dangerous, lurking through the shadows.

The figure caught in the occasional glow of a street light wasn't human. Not entirely. It appeared to be a man with two large, bulky appendages hanging at his sides, just barely off the ground. He had the signature shamble of a classic Night of the Living Dead zombie. He was covered in blood, dressed in a frayed hoodie and hole riddled pants, with a trembling bundle tucked in his arms. One glimpse was enough to make any onlooker wonder if this was, indeed, a reanimated corpse. 

But no, unfortunately, Raphael was still very much alive.

It had started where most of his days did: a restaurant dumpster. Raph had just woken up from his most recent nap, his body demanding payment for keeping him alive. Winter was a miserable time of year for him. He couldn't sleep a whole night without food runs, lest his body fighting off the unforgiving cold run out of fuel. In this weather, it would take mere hours for him to become too weak to search. Perhaps if his diet consisted of more than burgers dug from the trash…

But tonight, even those didn't seem to be on the menu. Raph groaned with frustration at the signature smell of bleach. Restaurants in the area had begun pouring it all over their food waste to ward off the homeless scavengers such as himself. He supposed they preferred dead bodies over their precious trash being disturbed.

He moved on closer to his eventual target. Raph managed to score some fries dropped on the sidewalk on his way. It would hold him over until he found something better. For now, he had his sights set on something bigger. 

The innocuous medical facility seemed innocent enough, but Raph wasn't fooled. He'd beaten the intel out of a High Order clergy member during his last raid: this was the location of a hidden research compound. Whatever they were researching, it needed to be burned. 

He made his way inside, something he'd gotten good at in the last few years, and immediately set to work destroying anything even remotely important looking. It didn't take long for them to raise the alarms and send a swarm of guards his way. Raph didn't mind. In fact, this was his favorite part.

-

The winged hellion made his way up the corridor as smoke filled the air. He didn't have long. A door slammed up ahead of him; that was a mistake. Raph approached and all but tore the door from its hinges. He snarled into the darkened room, his wings spread just enough to block the exit for whomever was inside. He was covered in blood; some of it was his, most of it wasn't. 

In the corner by a row of computer monitors, a woman in a white coat pressed into the wall as if the shadows would conceal her. Too bad her former colleagues had given him enhanced night vision. Raph folded his wings in enough to fit through the door. The multiple fresh holes shot through them didn't seem to register. He was too pumped with adrenaline and rage. 

"Raphael!" The woman shouted, "That's your name, isn't it?" 

An angry growl was her only response as the man continued his advance. 

"Look, I never wanted anything to do with these people. They threatened me if I refused to work for them. They threatened my family. I had no choice! I couldn't let them get hurt."

"But you could let [i]me[/i] get hurt," Raph spat coldly, "You could let all those other kids get hurt. You [i]had[/i] a choice."

"Wait, take this!" She scrambled to pull a small notebook out of her pocket and shove it towards him. Raph snatched it without thinking and turned it over like he expected it to have some sort of visible significance. "It'll help you. I've been taking notes on High Order activity for weeks, I was going to try to go to the police with it-"

"The police know; they've been bought out." Raph gave the pages a quick flip through to double check her story. There were lines upon lines of addresses and footnotes. She wasn't lying. 

Raph seemed to consider this for a second as smoke slowly filled the room. Finally, he stepped aside. 

"Go," He snapped at the woman, "You better hope I never see you again." 

The woman certainly didn't wait for him to change his mind. She darted past him and down the hall. Raph was behind her, but he went the other way. The smoke was getting thick; he could already feel his lungs burning. But he needed to finish his walk through, just to be sure.

He was almost out when he found what he was looking for, but hoping not to find. The small figure was huddled in the corner of a large kennel. It appeared to be a little boy with bright red skin and a spaded tail. Small horns protruded from his forehead. It seemed that angels weren't enough for the Order anymore. 

The boy yelped and cried when Raph tore the cage open and pulled him out. Raph would have tried to comfort him, but he didn’t know how. So instead, he held the small, shaking form close to him and made for the nearest exit. 

The cold air bit at his wounds. His wheezy breaths billowed steam from his mouth as he tried to take in fresh air. His body was weak from the subpar nutrition he had given it, and now it was injured, cold, and carrying cargo. What exactly was he supposed to do with this kid, anyway?

Deep down, Raph felt pity for him. He knew exactly what the poor boy had endured at the hands of those monsters. But there was nothing he could do to change the past, he could only hope to change the future. 

This neighborhood looked familiar, he realized. This was near where Dr. Strange had once lived. Even under the enormous rock that Raph lived, he had heard of the Avengers. Maybe he and his colleagues could help. 

The oddly shaped building wasn't hard to find. It didn't exactly match the surrounding infrastructure. Raph approached the front door, each step up the stairs staggered and painful. He shifted the crying child in his arms over long enough to knock loudly on the old, wooden door.