Prologue - Not Optional. Must Read!!!
Leona's POV
There are three things about me that everyone should know. As a side note, know that I thought these things would never change.
One, I will forever practice the art of ninjitsu, the way of the ninja.
Two, I am unique, and there is no one like me on the face of the earth. My mind is a complicated labyrinth, at time dark and depressing. No one--and I mean no one, not even my own sisters--will ever understand what goes on in my mind.
Three, I will eternally be unloved, not including the love my sisters have for me. I have trained my body to live without love, thanks to the abusive life I have lead for the past seventeen years. These seventeen years do include the first years of my life, when my mind was not advanced enough to even grasp the concept of love and its meaning. The bottom line is that I will be unloved forever, and in the chance that I do find love, I will completely reject it, for it is not a necessity and I do not need it to survive.
Again, I thought these things would never change, but little did I know that today would be the day things change.
Today would be the day two of these three things changed.
But how the hell was I supposed to know that?
Let's get off the subject of me. Talking about myself makes my soul—if I even have a soul—feel selfish and unkind. And I am a kind person. Ha, well, as kind as you can get after living in a prison cell for seventeen years hidden from the rest of the world. So as I said, I'd rather talk about something else…like my sisters.
Aside from me, I have three other sisters. That makes four of us. Our names our Leona, Donatella, Raphella, and Michelle. I know, right? How the hell did we come up with names like that? But I'll get to that story in a moment. For right now, there's my sisters.
There's Donatella. She's the second oldest of the bunch. Donatella's our smarty pants; the one who's always scratching math problems into the walls of our prison cell when she's not reading stories to Michelle. Donatella's got a thing about trying to figure out our purpose in life, or why we were created.
Yeah, I did say created. I'll get to that.
Oh, and did I mention we're ninjas? Yep, we're officially masters of ninjitsu. That would explain why we carry around weapons. Our weapons kinda describe us, if we were made of steel—or in Michelle and Donatella's case: wood.
I have two katanas, which are long, sharp Samurai swords with a single edged blade. Donatella's in possession of a bo staff, which is exactly what it sounds like: a long wooden stick. Donatella and Michelle have a thing about not killing people when they're fighting, so when it came to choosing weapons, they picked something they couldn't stab anybody with. Raphella has two sais, which look like two giant forks made of shiny steel. If it were up to me, I would've had the sais, but I was told that katanas are used by only the most skilled warriors, so I stuck with 'em. Michelle has two nunchuks—the most retarded weapons I have ever seen, and living where I do, I've seen a lot of weapons. I'm not even gonna touch on what nunchuks are.
Anyway, let's get back to my sisters.
Next in line, the third oldest is Raphella. Raphella's our secret weapon when it comes to fighting. In other words, she's about twenty tablets of speed. When I say this, I mean that Raphella's got a temper when she fights, and that temper can easily overflow and take over. This makes her very impulsive and kicks ass when she's fighting in a rage. Unfortunately, that temper is carried over in her everyday life, and makes her a bitch to be around.
(Hee hee…Raphella would literally kill me if she heard me calling her a bitch.)
And then there's Michelle, the youngest of the four of us. She's kinda quiet, but when she's comfortable she's real fun to be around and can crack jokes like nothing. She's the sticky stuff that keeps our family together. Without Michelle, we probably would have killed each other after knowing one another for less than an hour. No joke.
Just to touch on me, I am the oldest of all of my sisters. I am also the leader of our team, which means if we have an epic fail on an assignment, I'm the one who receives the blood curse.
You do not want to know what the blood curse is, but I'll explain it when I get around to that specific topic.
Now that you know each of us, I'll explain how our lives began:
It pretty much started with Oroku Saki and a gang called the Purple Dragons.
Saki was a terror all throughout Japan…China…where ever he came from, I'm not sure. You can't blame me; I've only heard the story once, and that was a LONG time ago. Anyway, Saki terrorized Japan/China as a villain called The Shredder. After many long years of being a total bastard to the Japanese/Chinese, he moved on to The Big Apple, New York City. There, he formed an alliance with a man named Hun, who is the leader of the Purple Dragons.
Afterwards, Saki started a group of ninjas and called them The Foot. The Foot were responsible for collecting rare and power artifacts from museums, and the occasional bank raid for funds. The Purple Dragons, due to their alliance with the Foot, also had to help in collecting funds, so they stuck to the streets and managed simple pick pocketing and sometimes big time bank and electronic store raids.
Not long afterwards, about fifteen years to be exact, a group of four vigilantes dedicated their lives to helping the people of NYC and most importantly, kicking Foot and Purple Dragon ass. And trust me, these guys were pretty good at kicking ass. At one point, the four had done so well in stopping the Foot and Dragons from collecting artifacts and cash that Saki himself went after them to put an end to the disruptions, as he called them. Now know that I'm not lying when I say Saki was the best of the best. He knew ALL kinds of martial arts, and somehow, he was defeated by the four. I mean DEFEATED. They fuckin' killed The Shredder.
Once he was defeated, Saki's daughter, my present master, Karai, took over the family business of running the foot. She was much better at her job than he father was, because she decided to have my sisters and I created.
That was simple. Karai had the vigilantes captured and brought to scientist that worked for her named Bishop. Bishop collected much from the vigilantes, including blood samples, DNA samples, skin samples; you name it, he got it. Bishop was able to successfully get enough samples from the vigilantes before they escaped from his lab to start what he called the Assassins X project. Assassins X was, in simple terms, my sisters and I. From each of the vigilantes' DNA samples, he was able to clone them and create us.
This gave us the characteristics of each of the vigilantes: their strengths, their weaknesses, their likes and dislikes, everything right down to what kind of weapons they used.
And saying clones, I really mean clones… 'cause, well, they vigilantes weren't exactly human.
They were more—erm—reptilian.
Yeah, my sisters and I, as well as our hated vigilante clones, are turtles.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Anyway, sooner or later, Karai got so pissed at the turtles that she went after them herself and was defeated, but she wasn't killed. Nor was she worried. After all, we were her back up plan. If we were exact copies (not EXACT copies…we're girls, and the vigilantes are boys) of her enemies, then we had their fighting skills, and therefore couldn't be defeated.
So for the last seventeen years, my sisters and I have hid in the Foot's hideout, mastering the art of ninjitsu, waiting for the day that Karai would send us on our merry way to kill the vigilantes. Not that we like living where we do. If we do something wrong, we're either beaten, bitch slapped, or blood cursed by Karai and Hun. Hun, the leader of the Purple Dragons, is our adopted father.
Oh, and one more thing. The Shredder once used a double hand blade that he killed his enemies with. When he died, Karai became its new owner, and she uses it to punish me when my team fails at anything. Trust me, it hurts like HELL. Getting foot long gashes on your back is not a thing that you enjoy receiving. That is what a blood curse is.
Thank God my team rarely fails and thank God Donatella knows first aid.
So as we train in our room today, bored out of our minds, Hun comes to the door and kicks it open, something we're accustomed to.
"Karai would like to see you girls," he says in his deep devil voice.
"Yes father." We say in unison just like we practiced so we don't get bitch slapped.
We leave our prison cell, smiling at each other.
We know today is the day when we kill our clones.