Authors note: Due to a formating error I have to through and manually correct the spacing. If I miss a bit please bear with me.*****
The room they were pushed into was not the Hotel hallway they had started in nearly three months ago. There was no ubiquitous hotel carpeting or generic art on the walls. It was a sterile room, like an empty operating bay and the very lack of color or dimension in the room made them both dizzy for a minute then a voice like every voice past, present and future filled the room. It permeated their minds with a simple statement. "Your work is not yet done." Then the room vanished leaving them standing stunned and reeling in a busy modern street. Sirens blared, horns honked, the cacophony of thousands of voices speaking at once surrounded them, disorienting them and the light drizzle of rain dampened their skin and hair and gave everything a slick shine. Artemis and Tracey gasped when something scalding hot and smelling of chemicals doused them coating them from head to foot and both girls were shoved to the pavement as figures hurtled and leaped around them yelling. Then as soon as it had begun it was over. A hand reached down and helped Tracey up and a familiar voice made her freeze in the act of thanking the helping hand.
"Whoa… like did you girls just teleport or was I seeing things?"
"Mikey don't touch them! They're covered in Purple Ooze!"
Tracey could still feel her world spinning and at different angles she wasn't used to, even closing her eyes didn't stop everything from reeling out of control and she fell back onto her knees. Her hands were outstretched in front of her to keep her head from hitting the cold, solid ground beneath her and her breathing was laborious. She coughed and opened her eyes, blinking several times and looking wildly around for Artemis, hoping she was close by. "Artemis... are you alive?..." She coughed before looking down at the ground again. "I think I'm going to be sick." Right on cue, she wretched horribly and coughed sporadically. When she was finished, she wiped the back of her wrist across her mouth to rid her lips of the bile. Unfortunately while the bile was gone, it was replaced with a gel-like ooze that reminded her of ectoplasm from a ghost sliming or perhaps one of the alien vs predator movie. Tracey looked up at her surroundings and didn't quite know what to think. She sat back on her feet and looked up at Mikey, letting it sink in and she smirked.
"Booyha-kusha." She whispered and then put her head in her hands to try and dull the throb that threatened to lead into a full blown migraine. "Damn this is the worst time for a headache. Artemis, make a noise and let me know you're okay."
Artemis swore violently stringing cuss words together in increasingly inventive ways and Artemis saw Mikey blanch a little at the profanity. She heard clapping and saw
Raphael applauding. "I've never heard most of those words used together."
"None of us have." Donatello said looking a little anxious.
Artemis was on her feet looking like she wanted to hurt something in the worst way. Her hair was sticking out at odd angles from where she'd tried to run her hands through it and Tracey was surprised to note that her friend was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt and a pair of sneakers all thickly coated in drying purple gunk. She visibly tried to rein in her temper and Leonardo approached her cautiously. "Look we need to get off the street and you need to wash that stuff off before it mutates you into something."
Artemis pushed past his nearly seven foot frame and leaned down to help Tracey up checking her eyes. "I think you hit your head when we landed." She said. " Your pupils are pinpoints and I think you have a concussion… or are mutating. One or the other."
Tracey grabbed Artemis's hand and let herself be pulled to her feet.
"Language please, my sweet, there could be children present." She coughed and gave her a slight smirk.
She looked down at her own clothes and sighed. Tracey realized that her own attire had changed too, she no longer wore the Grecian dress that was given to her by Hercules when she and Artemis had been sent to Ancient Greece. Her clothes now consisted of a white, form fitting shirt with light blue stitching around the hem and flowing sleeves that were weighted down by the ooze. She wore hip-hugger jeans with a corded belt in its belt loops and black boots that zipped up to mid-shin on her.
"Where are we now?" She asked. "Mutating? Oh lord."
"What the Fuck ever." Artemis retorted. "We're in New York City. And yes, we're possibly mutating as we speak so let's take the nice Seven Foot Tall Talking Turtles advice and get off the street and into a shower." She looked at Leonardo. "Lead the way Leo."
He looked like he wanted to object but let it go and opened up a manhole cover letting everyone go in ahead of him before dropping down and pulling the cover back.
"You forgot four teenaged turtles." Tracey heaved, finding her balance again and quickly following behind her.
She looked over her shoulder at Leonardo and then at their passing surroundings. There was puddles of dirty water on all the floors they walked upon and at times they would turn corners and see rivers of the dirty water flowing down channels that led somewhere else. Everywhere she looked it was dark and dank, there was enough moisture on the walls to cause algae to grow there and the smell was rank and caused her to cough several times. The turtles seemed to unaffected by it and she looked at each of them in turn. There were four of them, each anywhere from six to seven feet tall. She and Artemis knew exactly who they were, these turtles were from their favorite T.V show, TMNT. They both could relate to them in one way or another. Tracey, herself, related mostly to Mikey the more rambunctious of his brothers. While Artemis had been deemed a combination of Leonardo and Donatello. Looking ahead of her, Tracey could just barely make out Donatello and Raphael leading the way and saw that just a pace in front of them was Mikey. She looked at him with her head tilted to one side and then gave him a smile when he looked back at her.
He gave her a shy smile back then turned to face forward. He looked at Donny and his brother looked back perplexed. "Dude… why do they seem totally unbothered? Is that normal?" He whispered.
Donny shrugged and pulled up his wrist device. "So what are your names?"
Tracey kept walking straight with them and tried to breath through her mouth so she wouldn't inhale the sour stench of the sewer they were traveling through, but it really didn't help with the awful taste that it left in her mouth. "Sorry about that, I guess introductions are in order. My name is Tracey and my friend and partner in crime is known as Artemis." She said, a sudden thought made her blink and grin. "That was a figure of speech by the way... oh did you guys finish your hip hop christmas album yet?"
Mikey stopped walking and stared down at her. "Whoa… are you like a psychic or something?"
Artemis rolled her eyes. "Or something." She replied still walking and gave Tracey a 'Be careful what you say' look.
Donny typed the names into his wrist device along with pictures that he took covertly and started searching for them citywide then statewide and finally nationally but came up with nothing which in this day and age of social media documenting every little detail they should have shown up somewhere. Especially since Artemis had a distinctive tattoo on her left forearm and the inside of her left arm had a scar that was very new, he wondered what had made it since it went from nearly wrist to elbow but he refrained from asking. He looked back at Leo and shook his head which made Leo nervous. There wasn't much his nerdy little brother couldn't find.
