It was the very second when April sealed her wish that an electrifying jolt of affliction kindled in the centre of her small palm, where the sphere was glowing. A wail ricocheted out of April's lips. Slowly, yet agonisingly, pure horror abruptly hooked her heart as the ball slowly sank into her hand. The intoxicating sensation died when it drowned into nothingness.
The world seemed to flicker as April checked the other side of her small hand. It looked normal.
The ball must've been used- must've disappeared.
Footsteps crashed the concrete sewer underfoot from behind. Each of their pitter-patters seemed to last eternities before the next. Gosh darn it. April was caught in the red light. Should she make an excuse? Should she tell the truth? Telling the truth might be easier- but they'll get really mad. Like even more than Raph-mad. How about running away? They'd catch up eventually with Splinter's four-legged rodent speed. How about-
"April!"
Her two oblivious friends were already by her side. It was Renet's voice which called her shameful name. April shrunk under both of their faces thundering with undying stupefaction- heck, why did she mess up everything today?
The next thing April knew, words flew out with her heart thumping and admitted, "it was me."
After realising the two were still solemn, having no idea what she was talking about, April angled her head towards the empty box where the shapeshifting sphere was supposed to be. "I used it on the turtles." There was no point of thinking of lying nor avoiding them anymore. "I'm... sorry."
Surprisingly, Renet's reaction stormed in the blink of an eye, though her bemusement wasn't directed at April. "That-that means the turtles are transforming about now when they're out in the city! That means they'll be na-" the frantic time travelling student snatched the sceptre from April's hands. "I'll go to the nearby Japanese clothing store I saw on the way to get clothes for them. Be right back!" Renet raced to the exit, puffing under her breath. A minute later and she was gone.
April blurted out with frustration as she felt her sensei's gaze cast down on her while they both sat down. "I didn't know what I was thinking, master! I just wanted the turtles to become human- I guess it was because I had no human friends, which I was scared to admit. And you know what's the worst? Feeling left out. Because-"
Her tumbling words died away as Splinter's claw radiated kind understanding from his grip on April's shoulder. The gift of his comprehension was like bathing in the sunlight on a hot day, watching the first snow with a friend, witnessing a beautiful flower blossom for the first time. Warmth spiralled inside April's heart as he spoke with empathy.
"I know that feeling, April. After all, people above the surface would not understand me. I only have you, Casey, and my four sons who can accept me." The rat pricked his ears with gentle curiosity. "Are you able to describe what happened at school today?"
The choking tide of trauma crashed over April, enticed to eat her was nearly tentative, for a drain of courage gulped it down, giving it a taste of its own medicine.
Three. Two. One.
"I got tricked during lunch- a popular girl led me to the bathroom after saying she had a gift for me- it turned out there were fourteen of her friends there waiting- then I got bullied- then I-" Breaths as deep as the ocean hauled in and out of her mouth once Splinter's claw balanced on her hand compassionately. That's right, April huffed, slow down. Slow down. You can tell him. "They flushed my face down the toilet, many times. The popular girl took a photo of me climbing down the sewer, and punched me. And... that was when I couldn't take it any longer. I lost control. I used my psychic powers at school and beat the girls up afterwards. By the time I regretted my actions, it was too late.
I got expelled."
Splinter's lasting placid manner was the first sign of electricity in a ghostly, lonely blackout. Even after being informed of the terrible news, his brown fur kept flat, his eyes remained soft, and his elderly aura tingled with chemistry. "It was not your fault..."
The ginger's heart felt an inner pang. At times like this she wondered if she even deserved Splinter as a master, let alone a father. It was when she met him that she truly experienced the phrase: 'Never judge a book by its cover.'
"...Many beings, even me, would've done the same thing if we were you, April. Bullying others is a vicious habit of stealing their confidence to leech out your own insecurities. To deflect it was the brave thing to do, my daughter. Do not blame yourself."
"But I still got expelled, Master Splinter." A heavy stone of doubt weighed in her mind. "I don't know if I'll get a second chance... I'll rarely ever see Casey again, my dad's going to be so disappointed, and Principal Hughes hates me..."
The rhythm of Splinter's voice was like sea waves the whole way through. "Minds in authority can be changed, April. But now you have to focus on a whole new task at hand." He squeezed her hand. "Renet was here for a reason. Protect your turtle brothers at all cost. Help people in need, and save our ancient Japanese ancestors from Savanti Romero."
Yes- that was right. It was only now that April realised the whole problem at stake, as she shamefully didn't label it as important before. Renet needed her. Sensei needed her. The turtles needed her. And once she has finished the journey, she would find a way to speak to Principal Hughes then reunite with her father again.
Determination flared inside the redhead's light blue eyes, unwavering and optimistic, as she turned her head to dive into her master's. "Thanks, sensei. I just needed to hear your advice." She cocked her head upwards in a thinking position and dispersed thoughts scrambled through her facial features. "I'll also do whatever it takes to turn your sons back. Hmm... I guess Renet can turn back time when they were still turtles, right? That'd be-"
A girl's high-pitched voice rang out of the blue, like a crack of the glass embodying the wholesome sensei-and-student moment: "unfortunately... I can't do that-"
The same pitter-patter of footsteps sounded at the sewer entrance, except it had portentously doubled. Behind Renet who was speaking, four boys with coloured bandanas pursued the assistant time master, listening the whole time about how she got expelled. Their image shot April a bullet of familiarity- Déjà vu.
"-the technology of the shapeshifting sphere is so advanced that it cannot be undone," Renet continued, solemness dragging her voice down low. "And I only have four chances to time travel, which I have saved for our travel to the Sengoku Era, the Renaissance Era, 1990, and our way back to twenty-thirteen."
Protest twisted April's facial expression to a scowl. "That can't be possible! There has to be a way, right?" There has to be!"
Renet and her male followers edged closer to the wide space where April and Splinter sat on the stairs. "Well," the time master student mused, "my teacher, Lord Simultaneous, has one other shapeshifting sphere inside another time sceptre that doesn't work, but the sphere still does. But that means I'll have to travel back in the future again, but it leaves me with only three chances for us to travel in time. We'll need four."
April flinched listening to her. That meant that the turtles could probably never transform back. Why? Why did everything have to be so hard? Why was she herself so dumb? All of a sudden the pit of fire inside her mind sparked again, but only a spark. No. She mustn't get angry.
A gentle hand on her shoulder whisked the irritated spark away. There, beside her, stood a boy, his upturned eyes of cobalt blue encountering hers. "April, it's okay. Being a person isn't half-bad." His mouth was cat-shaped as it moved around speaking, and his voice tone was brotherly and benevolent. Above his light-skinned, slightly wide yet sharp face was his black hair. The straight bangs emphasised his similarity to most of the Korean boy bands she'd see in magazines.
Blinking, the boy waved his arm which was wrapped in steely white bandages travelling to the tips of his fingers. "Um, hello, April?" The blue-masked guy also wore a black ninja suit with dark blue outlining the edges, his long grey-white boots intruding below. Red twin katanas diagonally suck out behind his back. April's eyes widened.
"I don't know if you can recognise me," he meowed- said with his cat-like mouth, "but I'm-"
"Leo!" April gasped. Before she knew it, her hands covered her hung-open mouth. "You look so different."
"Obviously." a grumpy voice raked the air behind them. April knew she would get another surprise when she turned around, and she was right. Above tightly crossed arms frowned a red-masked, green-eyed face the shape of a rock. His spiky red slick-backed hair was almost brown in the dull sewer shadows, yet portrayed his fiery nature which anyone could sense at first impression. He wore the same ninja suit but unlike Leo, possessed red edges instead of blue- black gloves and boots instead of white. At first glance of his hot-headed aspect, April knew it was Raphael. "You'd be as dumb as Mikey if you didn't realise."
With a swish of blonde hair that resembled a bush and a dramatic wink of his blue eyes behind an orange bandana, someone that seemed to be Michaelangelo skipped in front of them. "Says the guy who was wearing a princess dress a few minutes ago," he jeered. Oddly, the blondie batted his new human lashes at Renet like she was his crush. ""Thankfully, Renet bought us some clothes to change in the bathroom." His circular eyes shone as his brown boots, a shade lighter than Raph's, bounced with excitement. "Boy, our first ever human toilet was a-ma-zing. There were these small-" the smack of Raph's broad palm was enough to shut him up.
Renet crouched to pick up her time sceptre. "Yeah, but the clothes cost over a hundred dollars just to make you guys look stealthy," she sighed. "Now I only have one single gold coin left." She rose the glistening, circular object in the air, sadness clouding her gaze.
It was when the last boy emerged out of the sewer shadows when April realised her whole body had tensed.
It was him, wasn't it?
It had to be. It was.
Her heart drummed with recognition as from above refined tan bandaged boots, the same jet-black suits as his brothers, and a bo staff protruding out his shoulder, Donnie spoke. Donatello. "It's alright, Renet," he consolidated. The way he spoke to her was so soft and sweet like picking red cherries on a sunny day that April felt something she had never felt before distort inside her. "We'll find a way to repay you after we get a job, since we're people now." As a side of his lips coiled upwards, he ran each of his lengthly fingers through his brown hair, as if he was the hottest guy in the entire planet. The cheesy act snapped April out of her trance- trance? She didn't have no trance. Donnie was just a friend.
A friend.
"Being a human really beats a turtle, ey? If I stay like this, I might even grow up to be a famous scientist one day." The cinnamon brown eyes of the tall boy she'd only just seen but had known for a year appeared by April's side.
She avoided his gaze and blinked at the underground wall facing her. A friend. "Cool, right?" The aloofness of her voice was separated from the affability of her words.
The redhead half-blocked out the rest of Donnie's chatter with her, focusing her attention on Leo and Splinter having a conversation to her front. Donnie. A friend.
"My son," the elderly yet knowledgable mutant questioned the newly human Leonardo- their vast height difference craned the black-haired boy's neck skywards. "Did you find anything else when you went out?"
The young ninja's face shadowed with something unreadable, black bangs almost enveloping his feline-like orbs. "We... ran into Karai and her footboys on the rooftop... she said that her father, Shredder, was out in Japan. Then we transformed into this," Leo grazed his gaze over his human body, "while fighting." There was a sigh. "We then took some clothes on a laundry line- don't worry, we returned it- then we met her," he gestured to Renet politely, "on our way back home. She told us the whole story of Savanti Romero and Lord Simul-simultaneous..? Yeah, and then she explained how April turned us into people."
Although the sensei and his student didn't glance at April while mentioning her name, grubby mortification flooded in her stomach. They knew it was her fault but were too kind to snarl at her for it.
"Leo, do you remember after the attempted Kraang invasion, that I learned something severe?" Splinter's question was out of the blue. April noticed his raspy voice was a couple tads more quiet, more sorrowful. Curiosity narrowed April's big eyes.
Splinter leading Leo to the dojo to speak in private, leaving the rest of the clamorous team, was unfortunate. Yet April knew she was only barely part of their family and shouldn't stick her pointy nose deep within their business.
Nevertheless, what was there to speak in private? All four brothers got turned into humans. A time traveller was casually walking in their sewer like it was nothing. An evil demon was killing off people in the past right now. What else was there to talk about?
"Yeah, uh-huh, cool, wow," April murmured as she only listened with half an ear while the gap-toothed brunette blabbed his mouth off to her. She guessed he never knew about the passive-aggressive treatment you got from a girl that shouted: only a friend.
The navy-blue suited time traveller rose the oh so precious (ugh, snap out of it, April!) golden rod into the air above her silver helmet, the sheen of it rippling to grasp everyone's attention one by one. The silence of awe breezed its way over the chit-chat. That way, the gentle footsteps of Leo and Splinter returning to the main area was heard by April.
Before she could scan their facial expressions to determine what kind of secrets lay beneath, Renet's voice chimed imposingly in front of them all.
"I appreciate all of your guys' help," she called while gliding her brown eyes over the team, "but if we wanna stop Savanti, we'd better get going!"
Gasps of admiration were transmitted from the sight of a purple portal bursting from the sceptre. Although the swirling patterns of the magical phenomenon held mystical beauty, there was also an unintelligible sinister feeling overshadowing it, a tunnel to the midst of the unknown.
What stopped Renet from putting her boot inside was Raph's cautious utter. "Hold up, we don't even know you." The male redhead faced his team indignantly. "Why are we risking our lives through three whole time zones just for this girl we just met?"
"Dude, we can trust her!" Mikey insisted just as Raph finished his sentence.
"I doubt it."
"Renet's kind, brown-eyed, cool," the short boy purred as he snuggled up on the assistant time master, "and also, very pretty."
Donnie muttered tacitly, "Symptoms? I wanna barf."
Mental gears functioned inside April's brain, wrenching with effort. The more they turned, the more doubt they produced. Yes, she and the turtles didn't even owe anything to Renet. Yet the random girl had supposedly forced them to put all of their lives at risk just to save her master's friends. Did it seem a little unfair? Kind of.
What cruised the almost-dithering atmosphere to a grain of salt was Leo's magisterial colour of voice. "We were the teenage, mutated, ninja turtles of New York." The sound of his tight boots clanked to the front of his team. His blue eyes cognitively made everyone's insides flame with determination as he met each one of their gazes. "We still are. We're supposed to help people in need, whatever it takes. And right now, Renet needs ours." He paused for a few heartbeats thoughtfully. "Do we really deserve to call ourselves heroes if we allow people to get killed on purpose?" He edged to the side of a thankful-looking Renet. "Come on, she chose us for a reason."
Silence hung in the atmosphere. Then murmurs, soft with newly born inspiration, rippled through the team like a pebble plunging into a calm pond. Only that Raph was in the shallow water.
His faint growls of resentment were swiftly eclipsed by Mikey, Donnie, Renet, and April herself's cheers and claps of zest. "Let's do it!" Mikey enthused.
They assembled themselves in an orderly line, a sudden sharp ray of anxiety drowning their glee into an ocean of fear, although nobody wanted to admit it. Who wouldn't be scared of a huge purple ether that defined the unknown towering over them?
It's for the best. April forced herself to be brave and straightened up. It's for the best.
Leo was first in line, as Renet was supposed to be the one to close the portal door. Using April's psychic powers, she could receive beams of courage diffusing off of him. "Let's do this," the leader announced with confidence, with a little secretive but no so quiet "you can do this, Captain Leo." After giving a nod of goodbye to Master Splinter, his body whizzed right in, the last of his red katana stubs following behind.
Just like that, gone.
Each turtle- April meant human- followed the fearless leader, gulping down air as if they were diving into a deep, turbulent pool. Regardless of the mystical doorway's size, each of them leapt into its swallowing jaws of time. It only felt like a second flitted past before it was April's turn. Half of her team had left already. There was no turning back. She-
"Scared, are ya, April? Well I wanted to stay back, I actually cared for the lives of our team, and now we're following the girl with freaking weird clothes- ow!" Thankfully, Raph's whiny voice was killed off by a flick to the ear by Mikey.
The meaning behind his taunting instead alternated the effect- tenacity fuelled in April's stomach. She smirked upwards to face the portal. "You don't scare me," the girl whispered. "Me, the once turtles, and Renet will kick Savanti Romero's butt and save Emperor Hinata, King Ergi, and Principal Myers.
Watch us."
***
Leonardo barely took notice of the deep looks of respect conveying off his brothers, April, and Renet when he finished his short speech.
He also too barely took notice of the blinding flash clawing his eyes as the portal opened neither.
Only one thought revolved on and on inside his head, like in the midst of a never-ending dark subway. Ever since Sensei spoke those words to him privately, ever since regret made his veins throb and his heart ache, his mind was never close to empty.
Karai's Splinter's daughter, he thought. Karai is Splinter's daughter even though she's under the falsehood of Shredder because I couldn't bring her to the other side and she wouldn't believe me because I was being a jerk and she wants to kill me and Splinter and I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
