DISCLAIMER: I do not own ANY of the characters in this story. None, zero, zilch. However, Mona Lisa's personality is of my own headcanon since we've only met her once and we weren't ever really able to get to see who she is.

The Big Apple. The City of that never sleeps. New York City. Amongst the hustle and bustle of commuters and locals getting to their jobs, talking on their phones, not paying to the world, there lies a deep dark secret within the heart of the city of lights.

There is a building in the city that would look like your normal everyday building. Pristine white stone and perfectly clear glass hides a dark and disturbing secret down in the basement. This building is StockGen and is the home of some of the most dangerous creatures created by the namesake of the company, Dr. Baxter Stockman.

The firstborn was Old Hob, who was an ordinary tabby cat before he was caught by the scientists of StockGen and was the first of the this ragtag bunch to be exposed to horrors of the RetroMutagen that Stockman created. Now Hob stood at 6'5" with a well-muscled body and a patch over one eye from the many experiments done upon him.

The secondborn was Slash, but not much is known about him expect that he is now a humongous mutant turtle. Standing over 7 feet tall and obtaining the power to crush titanium, he aligned himself with Old Hob and did most of StockGen's dirty work of finding unsuspecting victims to be exposed to the RetroMutagen.

Then there was Bebop and Rocksteady, mutant warthog and rhino, respectively. There is nothing respectful about them though. Actually, they are nothing much to them anyway. They were stupid humans and now they are stupider mutants. At least that is what Hob and Slash believe. Bebop and Rocksteady would do anything though, to appease the ferocious feline and vicious turtle, as to not get in trouble or hurt.

But the most interesting and different of the mutants was the one named Mona Lisa. So named by Baxter Stockman because she the first Chimaera to be born in StockGen. She was a human/lizard mutant with attributes of other animals to make her into a great weapon. For what purpose, she did not know, nor did she care. Her personality ruined any chances of anyone taking her seriously as a fighter, but in a way, she was OK with that.

Mona Lisa was only 16 years old, but it would seem that she was well beyond her years. Quiet and attentive, Mona Lisa did her best to stay out of trouble but it seemed that trouble always found her. Old Hob and Slash would gang up on her ever since she was little, telling her it was "training" and that her getting pummeled everyday was only routine and should be looked at as a way of learning. She took it in stride, but there was a point that was about to break and it was going to be real soon.

One day while sitting in her small tiny room that she had lived in since her birth, Mona Lisa was reading her favorite book The Hobbit. She had read it over and over again, but couldn't get enough. She twirled her long dark chocolate brown hair around her finger as she imagined the scene she was reading. She didn't bother putting it up in a ponytail since Hob would find something else to hurt her with. Hearing a sound outside her room, she looked up and glared, seeing said feline mutant.

"Stockman wants to see you, Princess," Old Hob sneered at the lizard mutant while she looked up and looked at him with piercing pink eyes.

"What for? Tell him I'm busy and that I don't need to run anymore tests." Mona Lisa looked at Hob and returned to her book. Feet pounded, coming towards her, and her book was snatched out of her hand.

"Hey! Hob, give that back!" Mona Lisa tried fruitlessly to grab the book from Hob, but it was all in vain. She stood a foot shorter than him. Then, an idea popped into her head.

Backing up ever so slightly, Mona Lisa ran full speed, leapt up, and snatched her book back.

"Haha, see? Your training is paying off." Mona Lisa was backing out of her room when she bumped into something hard. Something sharp. She looked up and saw that now Slash had entered the fray. Old Hob just crossed his arms and smirked.

"You try to get cute and now you see what happens? Bad girls must be taught a lesson." Old Hob walked towards her and went to knock her in the gut, but she dodged and darted out of the room. Hob ended up hitting his partner in crime and noticed that she escaped.

"Dammit, she's getting away. Security! Patient is escaping!"

With that yell, Mona Lisa knew that she only had one choice: run.

Dodging every single scientist in StockGen, she ran and ran. Out of the building she went when a sudden debilitating fear came over her. She turned and saw that Old Hob and Slash were on her tail, literally. With a sudden burst of confidence, Mona Lisa bolted, climbing up the security fence, and jumping to her freedom. She looked back at the faces of her tormentors.

"I guess this is goodbye."

"For now. You won't survive out there. No one will be able to look at a monster like you and accept you." Old Hob stared at her with an angry expression.

"I'm not a monster."

With that, she turned and ran. She ran until she couldn't run anymore until she was near Times Square. Making sure to conceal herself as to not scare anyone, she jumped to the top on the Channel 6 New building and looked out in front of her. And one thought came to her mind.

"Freedom."