This is just the boring intro that you have to read to understand the OCs in the rest of the story. Sorry if pieces of it get a little too sappy & full of "Southern Hospitality" and maybe even a little religion (but I tried not to make that the focus of the story), I can't help it, I grew up in the "Bible Belt".
I've said it before, & I'll say it again: I don't own the Turtles, just borrowing them from the NT:TNM series. (Back before they changed the spelling of "Michaelangelo" to "Michelangelo".) The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michaelangelo, Venus de Milo, April O'Neil, Splinter, and Shredder belong to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird at Mirage Studios. My portrayal of the characters however, is done in the way that I see them. Hopefully the essences of those characters are consistent with the way Eastman and Laird wrote them to be. But don't be too shocked if there are any surprises. ;)
The Mitchell family characters: Mitchell, Mitzi, Lisa, Sheila, and Eva are from the imagination and fantasy (role) play of my sweet little sister, Molly, and myself (LoaTurtle00).
I chose the "T" rating, because as the story goes on, there is a rape incident that is insinuated (it happened in the past, and the gory details are left to the imagination)
Introduction:
The Mitchell Family's Origin Story
Written by LoaTurtle00, March 1, 2000
It began in a laboratory. It was one of those animal research labs where they try new medicines on animals, to test whether or not they are safe for humans. The beginning almost resembles part of "The Secret of NIMH" in a way.
A bunch of "average turtles" were injected with a new chemical type of drug. Many of them died within a week as a result of this. Only five survived.
One was an adult male whom the scientists named "Mitchell," after the manager of the lab. The second was an adult female, Mitchell's mate, who was named "Mitzi," after the wife of the manager.
The other three survivors were baby females with no names at the time. One of these babies was the daughter of Mitchell and Mitzi, while the other two had various other parents that didn't survive the injection. So these three were not biologically related.
The chemical injection had an affect on the five survivors: it made them grow in size and in intellect.
One night, after the lab was closed and locked up for the evening, Mitchell found that he could read the directions for opening his cage. He also realized that he now had three-fingered hands with opposable thumbs. He was also getting too big for his cage, so he let himself out. He found his mate, Mitzi, in the next cage and let her out. (Scientists kept them in separate cages to control breeding activity, and to give them special treatments since they were the special ones that survived.)
Instantly, Mitzi began speaking to Mitchell in the same way the humans did; and what's more--Mitchell could understand her! She told him where the three baby turtles were, and Mitchell quickly freed them. But since they were babies, they had to be carried.
With a baby under each arm, Mitchell and Mitzi somehow managed to sneak quietly out of the lab facilities and into the wooded mountains beyond. They found a safe, quiet, and secluded spot in the woods to settle down and sleep for the night.
The following morning, the scientists came to the lab to discover that their turtle specimen group had escaped. When it was concluded that they had gotten out of the building and into the woods, a search party went out looking for the now larger-than-normal turtles.
Mitchell was by far the first of the turtles to wake up, so he decided to look for food for himself and his family.
Half an hour later, Mitzi awoke and she saw the search team. She knew that she and her family were being hunted. When she realized Mitchell was not with herself and the babies, she concluded that he was already captured. She was more than willing to be captured with him, but the thought of her precious babies taken from her care and abused in lab tests kept her from turning herself in. She carried all three of the babies with her and escaped to the other side of the mountain, where there was a small town.
Mitchell returned shortly with food, but he discovered that his family was gone. The search party had left by then, so he couldn't turn himself in. Instead, he walked along miserably until he came to a highway that wound through the woods and the mountains. A big truck had pulled over for the night by the roadside, and Mitchell decided to climb in the back and just go to wherever it took him. He wanted to be away from this miserable place that had taken away his family.
The truck drove him to another town that was strong in the steel industry. Mitchell had found old clothes in the back of the truck, and he used them as a disguise. Dressed as any of the other rednecks in that town, Mitchell managed to land a job in steel welding and construction.
His boss had somehow found out that he was a turtle, but had decided to keep him around as a worker, since he was very strong. But Mitchell wasn't paid with money, only with food and a bit of shelter. The people were nice to him, but not like people are nice to other people, more like how people are nice to their working barnyard animals. But since Mitchell could speak English, he was smarter than just a barnyard animal, and he learned about religion. He figured that he had a soul, so he soon became a Christian.
About ten years into Mitchell's steel job, he was involved in a terrible accident. During construction of a large building, one of the girders came crashing down on him, smashing his shell. If it weren't for the little protection of his shell, the accident would have killed him.
When Mitchell was involved in the accident that smashed his shell, his boss and fellow workers felt that he was too much of an asset to the company, so they found a way to take him to a specialized veterinarian to save his life. Since his shell couldn't be fixed, they decided to make him a new one--and since a steel company made it for him, it's not surprising that his new shell was of steel. It took almost a year to get used to his steel shell, but Mitchell was soon back on his feet stronger than before and able to move in his new shell just as well as he could in his old natural one.
While Mitchell was having his share of problems, Mitzi and the girls were having theirs, since many of the scientists lived in the town, and they were on the lookout for the large turtles. Mitzi was fully aware of this.
She kept to the alleyways of the small town, until she came to an old farmhouse with a clothesline full of laundry out in front. Thinking she was safe, she hid between the two lines of the clotheslines. Then the babies woke up and started to cry.
An elderly human lady with thick bifocals peered around the corner of one of the hanging sheets. Even with glasses, she was still visually impaired, so she didn't know that there were large turtles in her yard.
Mitzi apologized for intruding, and she told the woman that she and her children were hungry and in need of clothing and shelter. So the old woman took them inside and took care of them. She was still unaware that these refugees were not human, because the babies cried just like human babies.
This woman was also a seamstress, and she made several changes of clothes for the turtles. She also taught Mitzi how to sew, cook, and do other household chores.
She was such a kindhearted woman that Mitzi hated to keep secrets from her and she didn't like the thought of putting her in danger. If word got out that she was keeping mutant turtles in her home, the scientists might barge in and take them away, maybe even arrest the old woman.
So after a few months, Mitzi bade the kind lady good-bye and took her children on a bus ride to New York City.
By the way, during the stay at the quaint old farmhouse, Mitzi picked out names for the babies. (The old woman helped.) The oldest was named Lisa, after the old woman's late mother, who was among the first to live in the farmhouse. The second was given the name Sheila, after the lady's daughter-in-law, who lived with the lady's son halfway across the country. The youngest girl was Mitzi's biological daughter by Mitchell, and she was named Eva, after the old lady herself!
In New York, Mitzi was able to find a small apartment and work various homemaker jobs. No one even knew she was a turtle. But unfortunately, the only housing she could afford was in the inner city.
Well, maybe a few people found out that they were turtles. As the girls grew older, Mitzi sent them to preschool. They needed a last name, so Mitzi said that their last name was "Mitchell".
Mitzi had fears about the neighborhood, so when the girls were ready for grade school, she found a church-sponsored charter school nearby.
School became harder as the girls' childhoods passed. When junior high was over (the end of eighth grade), the whole family had been through a lot. The girls had grown into teenagers, and by that time Mitzi had a hard time keeping up with them. So she decided not to send them to high school, because she needed extra help with her jobs.
The girls stayed at home and helped support their mom, and by this time their personalities had grown in different directions. Lisa wanted to become a doctor, so she took some college correspondence courses. She had become the practical one that played "mother" when she was with her sisters. She was also the tattler, and mom's "pet".
Sheila was quiet and dreamy. She was also a loner, who would rather keep to her own thing. Her biggest problem was that she liked to wander about outside. Since it was the surrounding neighborhood that she mostly saw, she got to see the dirty, and often cruel side of the world. This depressed her and made her even more of a loner. However, her escape was through art. She took a few high school art classes, which turned her into quite an artist.
Then there was Eva, the biological daughter, who liked to stay in the house. She liked to cook and do other household chores. While Lisa was close to Mom on a mental and intellectual level, Eva was close to her on an emotional level. She was the most emotionally expressive. Usually, her emotions were positive, so she was always happy and cheerful. Her speaking voice didn't mature with the rest of her, but she could sing with a beautiful soprano voice. Her favorite singing times were while she was doing chores. Even her older sisters agreed that she was the cutest girl. Her cheerfulness made her easy to get along with, and it attracted Sheila with warmth that cured any depression she was in. Naturally, Eva and Sheila became best friends.
If only the human kids in the neighborhood became that nice. Instead, many of them were in gangs that got into trouble. This saddened the girls, especially Sheila, that they had no nice friends in the neighborhood. At least at one time or another, each one of the girls happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and these rough boys harassed them. Sheila especially got into the worst situations, and this drove her further away from trusting anyone.
One of the miraculous days in the life of the Mitchell family was when they were finally reunited after being lost from each other for seventeen years. Mitchell himself happened to be working on a construction project in New York City. During that time, Mitzi was taking the girls out to have some family fun in a safer part of town. They were walking by the construction site, when Mitzi happened to notice that one of the workers stood out from the rest. As she studied him, he looked more and more familiar to her.
He was dusting dirt off himself as he walked over to a bench to get his lunch. The bench was only twenty feet away from where Mitzi was standing. As this worker took out his sandwich, he noticed that someone was watching him. He looked in Mitzi's direction, their eyes met, and they recognized each other.
"Mitchell?" Mitzi gasped as she left her chattering daughters to meet her long, lost husband.
"Mitzi?" Mitchell was so startled that he dropped his sandwich without bothering to pick it up.
The two of them ran into each other's arms and shared a moment of mixed crying and laughter. Mitzi introduced Mitchell to his daughters all over again, and he shed several happy tears at the joy of seeing them all grown up.
Since Mitzi actually had a place to live, Mitchell moved in with them. He was happy to have a family--and female companionship, because he was tired of being with the redneck men everyday. He also got laid off work, sadly, because he was not as young and energetic as he used to be. Though he was still strong, he was tired beyond his years and he needed rest.
The girls were glad to have a father--and a male figure that was actually kind. With Mitchell around, they had less open "cat fights" over girly stuff. Not to mention the fact that he was great protection against the rough neighborhood boys. Eva in particular enjoyed the chance to be Daddy's Little Girl. Lisa liked to be his nurse and make sure that he could get enough good food and good rest. Sheila found that he was good at listening and keeping secrets, and she shared many of her inner feelings with him--some of which she didn't tell to the other girls in the house.
Eventually, Mitzi's jobs couldn't keep up with the family expenses, and the rent was raised a bit with an extra person living with them. So the Mitchell family was evicted. That's how they were when they met some other turtle family--the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.