Expelled. The single word vibrated through the centre of her worn-out mind, again and again.
The ginger-haired high school girl, I mean, which now had no school, trudged through the streets of New York. Sweat flooded down her palms and met the soft fabric of her yellow t-shirt, lastingly slimed by the floor of the bathroom. The reminder of that hideous memory made April shiver with anxiety, the possibility of her father's reaction empowering the emotion. She gritted her teeth when another scenario emerged- maybe her father knew by email already.
The burning pit of rage still lived inside her, though it had quietened down a notch. It wasn't her fault she had to live in a sewer for her own survival. It wasn't her fault she was born with random psychic powers from the Kraang. And it wasn't her fault she had defended herself from those pathetic bullies. What was April supposed to do, wait for her head to pop out and swivel into the toilet drain along with her hair?
The downcast student had returned to school just for a normal life, but it backfired. However-
Ring ring ring.
A high, piercing sound seemed to shred April's ears into fragile pieces. It was something her telepathy could sense, strong all right. The object was also begging for her to come search for it having a mysterious alluring effect.
Her sensors observed that the object came from the left. The sharp sound came closer and closer, and April grunted in paint how strong of an effect the ringing had on her head.
Ring ring ring.
The item was just around a corner into an alleyway. April's leg's began to work faster for excitement pumped her muscles. What could it be?
Ring ring RING.
The ear-piercing sound cut itself off when April's blue eyes feasted on the object in front of her; a golden staff glinted under the afternoon sun, long and thin, yet elegant and entrancing. At the end of the staff intruded an ominous, colossal red demon's clear, which appeared to be holding an hourglass.
April's trance for the object shattered as she realised a person was holding it. A very.. odd person. A weird sort of silver hat covered with her head and ears, sticking out at the sides and hiding her hair. She was wearing a navy suit with random blue dots scattered across the front of it, and her hands were cloaked with white-and-cyan gloves. A dark cape cascaded behind her as if she were a hero from another dimension.
Definitely not an average citizen of New York City.
The person itself looked strange and intimidating. However, if it wasn't for the staff, April would've just veered back where she came from. Just by looking at it sent a wonderful chilling sensation down April's spine- charming ominous at once. It wasn't like anything she had seen before. It was precious.
The girl with the weird hat was scuffling around a corner, her back turned. She let out a gasp the moment she swerved around and took sight of April.
"Uh... hi?" April welcomed cautiously.
The weirdo's eyes stretched out wide and she hopped towards April eagerly, a little crow finding a shining piece of jewellery. When she got close, April noticed her figure was taller than her own with brown eyes and a slim face.
"Oh my gosh," the girl whispered. "April O'Neil."
April blinked, a little unattracted to her solid air of strangeness. "How do you know my-"
"You're a friend of the turtles! You saved the city and the world a number of times. You also have mind powers." Her voice was high-pitched, yet smooth and jovial. She placed her hand in front of her horizontally. "I'm Renet, nice to meet you!"
Instead of shaking Renet's gloved hand, April narrowed her pale blue eyes. "How do you know everything about us?"
Renet's gaze blazed in excitement while she held her staff up high. "I'm a time master!" As the girl exclaimed that, she accidentally dropped the staff having butter fingers. "Well-assistant time master in training- from the future. You guys are so famous there!"
April couldn't think straight- her mind was too boggled. Time master? Was she a time traveller of some sort? How was that possible? However, April's thoughts silenced as her eyes devoured the demon-claw staff Renet was clutching. "What even is that?" She couldn't help the overwhelming curiosity twinged with her voice.
The girl from the future followed April's gaze with a smile. Her voice melted soft with awe. "It's a time sceptre." Renet let her fingers glide through every inch of the glamorous object. "It's a piece of technology made in the future so advanced that it not only control time, but also bend reality itself."
Without warning, Renet shot up into the air with the sceptre, laughing during she drifted about as if not a care in the world. April hardly believed her own eyes.
"Look!" the time-master-in-training giggled, literally flapping about. "It can also make you fly!"
April scanned Renet's surroundings, making sure there wasn't a small string holding her up. There wasn't. It was actually happening.
"So," the ginger-haired kid pondered through all the craziness, "what brings you here, Renet?"
"Well," Renet floated back to where her two dainty feet met the gruesome ground of the alleyway. "My allies: Emperor Hinata, King Ergi, and Principle Myers all need me, you, and the turtle's help.
"A mutant named 'Savanti Romero' was also an assistant time-master-in-traning, just like me. One day, he turned evil for revenge and greed when he accidentally got mutated. The mutagen messed with his head. He blamed his transformation on our master, Lord Simultaneous, and I... don't wish to speak the reason.
"So now, Savanti's making trying to kill my master's dear friends who lived in the Sengoku period, The Renaissance Era and Oliver H. Berry High School. They were set in the 15th century, the 16th century and the early 2000's, respectively.
"Lord Simultaneous and I have spoken to them in the past and bonded. The reason why Savanti is going after them is because they're my Lord's closest friends, and boy he hates the lord.
"So now he's going back to the Sengoku period to kill the emperor and his whole clan before they were supposed to die, and I can't let that happen. If we don't stop him now, he's going to travel to the other time sections and murder them all too."
April blinked.
The processing of the mountain of information hurt her brain. It was hard to think straight ever since the incident happened at school this evening. At last, the perplexed girl exhaled a deep breath of air. People in history needed her help from the present. "So," she murmured, "what are we waiting for? Let's go find the turtles!"
***
"Yikes, it stinks."
The redheaded girl with the yellow headband smirked with amusement- that was what she herself had said when she first entered the sewer as well. "Yeah, who thought such heroes in the future lived in nasty sewers for all their lives?"
She and Renet matched each others pace as they ventured through the sewers of New York City. Renet appeared to be young, bubbly, and naive. She was also cheerful in whatever situation she was in. April wished she could acquire that same skill; rip the bathroom memory right out of her chest.
A jot of an idea lit up in April's brain. "Say," she said with caution, "what other powers does that... golden sceptre have?"
"Hmm, it can levitate other people and trap them bubbles. You can also trap others in confines of time for infinite years-"
"Sheesh, that's harsh," April commented.
"-And there's also this thing." From a tiny door inside the time sceptre behind the claws, Renet unveiled a glowing white sphere that lurched April's heart astonishingly.
Her telepathic powers signaled the object was powerful. Exceedingly powerful.
April stopped walking as she let her own eyes get hypnotised by the beautiful thing. Wow. Just, wow. It rippled off a mystical aura. It was as if an angel from heaven was an item.
Renet grinned. "Do you like it? This is called a shapeshifting sphere. If you squeeze it and tell it who and what they need to shapeshifter, it'll happen." To the shorter teen's disappointment, the training master of time whisper the ball back into its box. The effulgent white sheen dimmed away. "I only have one sphere though, so I'm going to have to save it for when I need it."
The rest of her words were inaudible to April. The ginger-haired girl's mind was still pinpointed onto that magical sphere. "Can it work for multiple animals- I mean people?" she questioned.
The weird-hatted person glanced upwards with her face written with wonder. 'I guess just one of these spheres can work with multiple people. Hm, maximum four."
Perfect.
***
The colossal, mutated rodent stretched his brown eyes, reflecting the same expression on Renet's face. Here goes the scream, April thought wryly. Renet's laugh was unexpected. It wasn't a mean laugh- it was a friendly one. One where you show your friend beside you a meme from your phone kinda laugh. Splinter's features softened with relief.
When they finished introducing themselves to one another, his face stormed with worry as he whipped around to face April. She dreaded the words that would come next.
"April," he whispered with a fatherly colour of sound. "Was everything at school okay today?"
April was about to spill out the emotional waterfall that materialised at school today, then hesitated. All she would get was embarrassment. It hurt to speak about it too. "No." Come on, sound happier. "Everything was great!"
Splinter's brown fur around his anthropomorphic eyebrows creased enough to make April see the dubiety in his eyes. To her luck, Renet groaned loudly. Both of them turned to the new girl.
"Ugh, I just realised I hadn't had anything to eat this morning, nor afternoon, and it's nearly nighttime," she complained. Then added hopefully, "do you guys have any food?"
Splinter's voice held a parent-level cloak of concern. He took Renet's shoulder and steadily led her to the kitchen. "Of course, Renet. We might still have half of Mikey's pizza..."
His voice trailed off as they echoed away from April.
The redhead's eyes were shadowed, and her movements were sedate as she tiptoed to the sceptre elegantly leaned on Donnie's lab, careful not to let anybody see her. Spike, Ralph's pet half-brained turtle, didn't count as he munched on green leaves robotically a few meters on the right of her.
The worry diminished like snow under hot sun as she realised the turtles had gone out for another patrol, searching for trouble in the city so they can pay off the ninjitsu they'd been learning their whole life.
Gosh. Just looking at the sceptre made her heart uncontrollably flutter. Once her gaze locked upon the jewel, she forgot how to blink.
Beneath the shield of the sewer's silent atmosphere, it spoke to her telepathically, defying the laws of sound. It was like April had three ears- two for hearing in the real world, and one for hearing things that stretched far beyond the six senses.
Touch me, It begged to her in an enticing, whispering voice that sounded like snippets of melody. Hold me.
It wasn't a tough decision whether to listen to it or not. April's and reached out and rested the striking sceptre in her hands. The memory of Renet's words were all sweeping into her mind now.. it could bend time and reality... it could make you and others levitate... and it carried a shapeshifting sphere, which could shapeshifter whoever you told it to shapeshift.
The last part appealed to April more than anything in her life ever did.
Remember all the rage she had stored in her mind for all the things that happened on her first day back to Roosevelt- the rumours, the bullying, how she got expelled without even explaining herself? April finally unlocked the strong metal door that was keeping it all back, and threw away the key.
The grip she had on the golden rod tightened and trembled with all the fury she gave off, not cooped up any longer. April flicked open the door which was on the back of the red demon's claw and it the beauty made her oogle her eyes at the captivating white gift. She let out a dark laugh without knowing she had done so. Apri loved it. Renet didn't need it; who would she want to shapeshift? Savanti Romero would just be killed with a slash of one of the turtle's weapons anyways. Or maybe, time travel was impossible itself and Renet was a psycho.
April squeezed the shapeshifting sphere. Hard. It was time for her to receive what she truly deserved: true normal friends. A normal life. She closed her eyes, diving into a pitch-black ether, breathing out a huff of air with placidity.
"I want," she whispered, "the turtles to turn human."
She pictured all of them in the blank void at the back of her mind, as clear as crystals- Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michaelangelo. Purple, blue, red, orange. The brains, the courage, the brawn, and... whatever Mikey was.
They'd make all such good people.266Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEXt1quHEDt
