-New York City, 11:35 PM-
The driver of the large armored truck yawned, and his partner handed him a thermos full of coffee from the passenger seat. He took a sip, keeping one hand on the wheel as they approached a set of traffic lights, and he stopped, as the light was red. The driver sighed as he took another sip of coffee, failing to notice the shadow darting past in his side view mirror. As soon as he pulled the thermos away from his lips, the doors opened on both sides of the vehicle, and the two men were dragged out into the street. Before either of them could react, cold steel swords sliced their throats, and the murderers left them on the empty streets to bleed out. The black and red ninjas sheathed their weapons and opened the back doors of the vehicle, looking at its contents. Two large racks held multiple cylindrical canisters, each containing glowing green liquid and labelled with the initials T.C.R.I. on the side.
"Two of you get in back. One of you come with me," the supposed leader of the group ordered. Once they all climbed inside the truck, it sped off, leaving the two dead guards in its dust. In the back of the truck, one of the ninjas looked over the canisters, marveled by the green liquid glowing inside. He then moved to the front of the truck and slid open a panel to speak to the driver. He asked his partner, "Will this be enough?"
"It better be. We can't-" The driver went silent as they heard a thud from the car roof. "What was that?"
Suddenly, the back doors of the van burst open, and a shadowy figure swung into the back of the truck. "Step out of the car, guys. I'll be commandeering this vehicle," he stated.
The ninjas stared in awe at the sight of the individual, mostly because he looked like a large, bipedal turtle. He wore a worn, orange bandanna mask, body armor where his shell didn't cover him, and held nun-chucks in both hands. One of the ninjas exclaimed, "I-It's the turtle!"
Both ninjas in the back of the truck drew their swords, while the driver sped up to throw the turtle off balance. Both ninjas charged, only for the turtle to knock both swords back with his nun-chucks. He rolled forward, dodging another sword swing, and kicked one of the ninjas in the back. They fell out of the back of the van, crying out as they hit the ground at high speeds. The second ninja continued swinging at the turtle, managing to nick him on the arm and drive the handle of his sword into his face.
The leader looked through the opening into the back of the truck and took note of how easily the turtle was dealing with them. He closed the panel and looked to the driver as he ordered, "We've been compromised! Ditch the truck!" The driver slammed his foot down on the accelerator, and both the turtle and the ninja stumbled in the back. Once at top speed, the driver drew his sword and cut both the accelerator and the brake. The leader and driver both opened their doors, leapt out, and landed in a roll.
Michelangelo noticed this and looks to the last ninja. "I think your buddies are taking off. You wouldn't want to get left behind," he quipped before grabbing the ninja by the shoulder and tossing them out into the street. With the targets taken care of, the turtle found that the truck was still moving, despite having no driver. He climbed onto the roof and moved across it to reach the driver's seat. Once there, he swung inside and saw the brake pedal.
"Crap," he muttered, looking ahead to see civilians in the street. He quickly took the wheel, hearing screams and angry shouts as he barely managed to avoid hitting anyone. He sighed in relief, only for his eyes to widen as he saw the park wall approaching fast.
"CRAP!" he repeated in a louder voice, bracing for the impact. The truck smashed through the wall, and bumped up and down as it crossed the uneven terrain of the park. With no other options, Michelangelo turned the wheel, inadvertently sending it into a barrel roll. With yet another loud crash, it broke through the entrance of the Central Park Zoo before coming to a halt. The lone turtle breathed heavily as he pulled himself from the wreckage. He propped himself against the side of the van, not wanting to think about the kind of attention this would soon receive. He quickly limped away from the scene, heading through the hole in the wall left by the truck.
Due to a mix of worry and shock from the crash, he failed to notice that the contents of the truck had been scattered, the glowing liquid making its way into different enclosures. A red fox innocently licked the water near her enclosure, not noticing the glowing liquid mixing with the stream. Meanwhile, a red panda put a paw into the liquid, probably too curious about what it is. A lone gorilla strode over to the liquid as it dripped into his enclosure, and he got some of it on his palm.
As each animal touched it, the glowing liquid was absorbed into their skin, and the changes began. The gorilla grunted loudly, bringing his hands to his head as the liquid altered his brain chemistry. He felt his body changing in the slightest of ways, as if he was being forced higher up in the evolutionary chain. The fox screamed as her forepaws become hand-like and her spine popped as she was forced onto two legs. The red panda felt similar changes, and became slightly larger, all her features growing to accommodate for that.
The gorilla let out a cry as the changes ceased, taking deep breaths, and he backed away from the glowing liquid. "Ugh...what hap-" The gorilla clasped a hand over his mouth at the noises he made. He was...speaking; he knew how to speak, but how was this possible? "H-Hello," he uttered, testing out his newfound ability.
"How are we speaking?!" the fox exclaimed, getting used to standing on two feet, feeling her fingers.
"How are we walking?!" the red panda asked, pulling herself up on her two feet by the bars surrounding her exhibit.
The gorilla climbed out of his enclosure, moving through the large dent in the bars left by the truck. He followed the voice and came across the other speaking animals. The fox and red panda exhibits are pretty close to each other. The fox looked at the gorilla, and... smiled a little, or at least tried to. "H-Hey. You...touched the stuff too, right?"
The gorilla looked at the green substance near their exhibits and nodded. "Do...you know what happened?" he asked, looking to them both.
"The truck crashed in, and it was carrying that, obviously," the fox explained, also looking at the truck. "I have no idea who was driving it, but I think they're gone."
"But...why did it do this to us?" the gorilla wondered as he approached the vehicle, taking note of the blood marks on the ground. "The driver...must have been hurt."
The fox hopped the fence to her exhibit with ease and followed the gorilla. She then followed the blood marks. "But where did they go...?" As she got closer to the blood, she found she was able to pick up its scent. She followed the scent, but felt nervous of who they'd meet at the end of the trail.
"Are you...coming?" the gorilla asked, looking over to the red panda.
"Y-Yeah, hold on..." It took the red panda a minute to climb up the bars of her exhibit and out of it. Soon, she followed the gorilla and fox as they tracked the scent. The three headed through the large hole in wall, and picked up speed at the sound of approaching sirens.
April O'Neil groaned, awoken by her phone as it buzzed on the nightstand. She reached for it and her arm quickly retreated under the warm covers as she checked the caller ID. Mikey. She quickly answered the phone and brought it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Hey, April. Sorry, did I wake you?"
"Nah. You're...you're okay." She paused to let out a yawn. "What's up?"
"Do you think you could bring some bandages down to the lair? I'm fresh out, and I'm bleeding pretty badly."
"What happened now, Mikey?" April groaned, getting up out of bed and weakly pulling on some clothes.
"Truck crash. You'll probably be reporting on it tomorrow."
"I'll grab what I can from the drugstore. Try not to die before I get to you." As she talked, she pulled on her coat and grabbed her bag.
"Later, April," Michelangelo bade before hanging up.
The gorilla peeked out from an alleyway, looking left and right for any signs of movement. "This way," he hissed to the fox and red panda, ushering them across the street. They managed to get into the shadows just as a car came speeding past.
"How can there be so many humans out at night?" the fox whispered. "I thought they were only up in the day."
"How would you know? You only sleep during the day," the red panda argued. "Then again, I do too..."
"We need to find somewhere to hide before the day comes," the gorilla insisted. He knew that many people visited the zoo daily, and he did not want to think about how many people would be walking the streets when the sun came up.
"Well, this is a city, and humans are gonna be everywhere," the red panda pointed out. "We need somewhere no human is gonna go, like... not-city."
The fox then noticed something: a metal cover on the ground. Could it be a door to someplace? "Hey, big guy." She nudged the gorilla's arm and pointed to the door-cover-thing. "Think you can move that metal cover?" The gorilla moved over to the cover and gripped the rim, pulling. He easily lifted it up, surprised by his strength; he was already strong as a gorilla, but this was pushing it.
The three of them climbed down the ladder, and the red panda asked, "Do we really have to stay down here? It smells like crap."
"Well, we have nowhere else to go," the gorilla sighed, "and if we return to the zoo, who knows what they will do to us." The fox and the red panda sighed too.
Once they get down to the sewers, the red panda stated, "You know, I wish we hadn't touched that goo. I wish I'd just stayed far away from it and hissed at it until a human came by and cleaned it up in the morning."
"But what if something happened to the humans?" the fox wondered. "Something worse than what happened to us?"
The gorilla said, "Those humans took care of us. I would not wish bad upon them."
As they spoke, the fox's ears picked up on the familiar sound of footsteps. "W-Wait, someone else is down here." The fox got up against the wall.
"I hear it too." The red panda did the same.
The gorilla hushed them, but then he whispered, "Can you follow it?"
The red panda went after the noise, since she was the smallest, trying to be as stealthy as possible. She came to the end of a tunnel and found the source of the footsteps: it was a woman, with fiery red hair, a yellow jacket with a white top, purple jeans, and pale red boots. She carried a bag over her shoulder and a paper bag in both hands. The red panda gasped, and then scurried away.
April stopped at the sound of scurrying and glanced back down the tunnel. Seeing nothing, she shrugged it off and continued walking, assuming that it was just a sewer rat.
"Guys," the red panda whispered to the fox and the gorilla when she got back to them. "I saw a human."
"Down here?" The fox folded her arms. "What did they do? Did they follow you?"
"I-I don't think so, but it is weird they were down there. They were carrying something, like they were taking it to somewhere else."
"...Maybe we should follow them."
"But we need to stay quiet," the gorilla warned.
"I'm just worried about you, big guy." The fox smirked and then looked to the red panda. "Where did you see them go?"
"This way." The red panda led them to where she saw the woman, and then they traveled further, trying to be sneaky while also catching up to her. They come around a corner to see the woman reach the end of a tunnel. She pushed one of the bricks on the wall, which activated a mechanism to make the wall slide out of the way, revealing a hidden chamber.
Once the woman came through and the stones went back into place, the fox came up to the wall. "Which one was it...?" She pushed on one of the bricks, hoping it was the right one.
Michelangelo rested on the Turtle Lair's threadbare sofa as his arm got wrapped in bandages by April. "I owe you one, April."
"Unless I've lost count, you owe me thirty," she points out, and then the two of them laugh at their shared sense of humor. Then, April frowns as she looks at the wound. "I can't keep doing this, Mikey."
The turtle looked at her with a raised brow. "It's okay, April. I can patch myself up next ti-"
"I'm not talking about patching you up. I can't keep letting you go out there if you're going to keep coming back in this state." Then April tied up the bandages and put the remaining ones back in the First Aid box.
"April, we've been over this. I can't just stop protecting the city," Michelangelo replied, getting up from the sofa and flexing his bandaged arm.
"Can't or won't?" April asked, looking over Michelangelo from her seat on the sofa. "Look at yourself, Mikey. You and your brothers used to take on whole hordes of Foot Clan ninjas without getting a scratch on you. Now I'm coming down here every few weeks to restock your medicine cabinet."
Michelangelo sighed, "Time have changed, April." He looked around the turtle lair, and everything he looked at brought back memories: the crappy ping-pong table he and Raph' brought down from the upper alleyway; the scorch mark on the wall left by Donnie after an attempt at making explosive shuriken; and Leo's swords, displayed proudly on the wall in an X pattern. "I'm on my own now."
"But you don't have to be. It's not just that- you've become reckless. You've lost your discipline," April replied, standing up from the sofa and approaching her friend. "You can't keep doing this alone, and you can't keep pushing your friends away." She reached out and took hold of Michelangelo's three-fingered hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.
But the turtle lowered his head and gently pulled his hand back from her. "I have to, April."
April gave Michelangelo a look of sympathy, her hand returning to her side. "I should probably go. Casey's probably wondering where I am. Will you be okay?"
"I'll be fine," Michelangelo assured her, not even flashing a smirk. April sighed, picking up her bag, and headed for the exit. She pressed a button on the wall and the secret door slid open. But Michelangelo's attention was brought immediately back to April as he hears her scream down the tunnel. He grabbed his nun-chucks from the sofa and ran to her aid. "April, what's...wrong?" He trailed off at the sight of three mutants standing in the doorway: a gorilla, a fox, and a red panda.