Odd Man Out: Part 4
Disclaimer: I don't own the turtles or Ranma 1/2. Any other characters like Ariel and Torrie belong to me. I created them.
Comments: Please. Any suggestions in my writing style would be greatly appreciated. Sorry if its too wordy.
"Hey Dianne, the cops are here to check on that kid we found earlier. Is he up yet?" the man called Marcus called.
"I don't know. Let me check." She called back to him.
Dianne walked down to the little room that they had put the kid in. She still couldn't understand what he had been doing naked in the middle of the night.
"Okay young man. Time to get up." she said walking into the little room where boy lay.
"Wha, what happened to me? Where am I?" he said sitting up slowly. His head was hurting and the boy had no idea where he was.
"You're at the Second Chance Youth Shelter. I'm Dianne. We found you in the streets last night after you were hit by a car." she told him, handing him a pile of folded clothes.
The boy sat up and looked down at his injured hand. Wonder how that happened, he thought examining it carefully. He was quickly becoming aware of other bruises bumps as he tried to get up.
"Put those on and meet me in my office. Down the hall third door on your left. The police are here to see you about the accident and they want to know who beat you beat up. Don't worry about your hand, we checked it last night. It's not as serious as it looks." she told him. She handed him two painkillers before leaving the room.
The only thing she could think about was the kid's eyes as she walked back to her office. She had never seen an oriental kid with such dark green eyes.
Getting up the boy walked over to the far wall where a mirror hung and looked at his reflection. Something wasn't right. The reflection didn't seem at all familiar to him.
I don't know who I am, he realized with a shock. I don't know who I am, what happened, or where I'm from.
He took a wary step forward towards the mirror until he was only a foot away from it and examined the reflection once again. The face an oriental boy, probably in his early twenties, stared back at him with dark green eyes. This was too weird. The face in the mirror didn't look at all familiar to him. It was like he was now seeing it for the first time ever.
Without a word he turned back to the bed and began to get dressed. Outside in the hallway he found a waterfountain and quickly swallowed the painkillers. He hoped they worked.
Maybe the police can help me, he thought.
But when he entered the office and the police began to question him he found he had only more questions than answers.
"Okay, I think that's enough questions for now. Why don't you go out to the cafeteria and grab a bite to eat. We're going to finish up here and by then that social worker should be here." the first officer said as the boy left the room.
"Well, what do you think? Is he telling the truth about not being able to remember anything?" Marcus asked as soon as he certain the boy was out of sight.
"We're not sure about that. They're sending down a social worker to check him out. She has a degree in psychology. If he's lying she'll find out. And if not, she'll set him up with a temporary identity until we find out just who he really is." the first officer said to them.
"In the meantime we'll run a check on his fingerprints, just to make sure he doesn't have any kind of a record. Other than that, there's not much else we can do. He seems to be at least twenty-three or twenty-four. We can't put him in a home." the second officer said.
"Yeah, legally he's an adult. And since he doesn't remember anything, we can't hold him on any charges." the first officer said.
"But what are we supposed to do with him? This shelter is for teens only. There's barely enough room for the kids we do have here. And with Fall just now starting there's no way he can stay here." Dianne added.
Outside in the hall the boy listened carefully with his head against the door.
What am I going to do now? I don't have any place to go, he thought. He didn't even notice the old Japanese man standing beside him until he tapped him on the shoulder.
"Are you looking for someone?" the old man said as the boy jumped at his touch.
"Umm, no. I was just wondering where the cafeteria was." the boy told him.
"Hmmm, follow me. My name is Mr. Chan. I am a volunteer worker here. Who are you?" the old man asked as he lead the boy towards the cafeteria. What strange green eyes he has, he thought.
Mr. Chan had been watching the boy for nearly ten minutes before approaching him. Immediately upon seeing him he knew there was something special about him. And it wasn't simply his eyes. He could sense there was something about the boy that few others had, he just couldn't place it yet.
"Umm, well, you see, I don't know" he replied to the old man. How long was he watching me? he thought to himself as they entered the cafeteria.
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Back at the turtle's home Leonardo was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea waiting for news of Raph.
"I can't take much more of this" he said as Venus came in.
"Don't worry, we'll find him. April and Casey said they'd check all of his usual spots. If they find him they will call." Venus told him, trying to reassure Leonardo that Raph would be okay.
"Hey dudes, any news on Raph yet?" Mikey asked as he and Torrie walked into the kitchen.
"No. Nothing yet. Here, let me make you guys some breakfast. We'll all need something to eat." Venus said getting up to fix something.
"I'll help you" Torrie said, giving Venus a hand.
"Thanks. You know, I keep thinking about that guy we saw last night. I don't know why but I think he had something to do with what happened to Raph."
"He better not have anything to do with it. Because if that guy hurt Raph, I'll kill him." Leonardo said feeling an intense anger building up inside of him.
At the mention of the boy the other's found themselves feeling a similar anger building as well. It was strange, since no one knew who he was or what he was doing there.
In a few hours, they would resume their search for Raph.
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"Well, I think we're done with your testing for now. Tell me, anything new pop into your mind at all?" Mrs. Layman, the social worker from the city asked the boy who sat in the chair in front of her. He shook his no.
"Okay, well since nobody has yet filed a missing person's report and the police haven't come up with anything, I guess you'll need some kind of identification." Mrs. Layman said handing a stack of papers to him.
"You can use the information on these papers to get a job, apartment, whatever. Memory loss is generally temporary, but we do need to have some kind file on you for now, until we figure out just where you belong. Anything can trigger the return of your memory, so if you do remember something you have to let us know immediately." she told him.
"But, what do I do now? Where do I go?" the boy asked.
"That's up to you to decide. You're obviously an adult, so our hands our basically tied on certain matters. You need a name, have you thought of one yet?" she asked.
"No, not really" he answered.
"Kin. Kin Lee. You look like a friend I had as a child who had that name. Kin Lee suits you well I beleive." Mr. Chan said from the doorway.
"Mr. Chan, I see you've met our new friend here. And you're right, Kin Lee, does fit him quite well."
"Could I use that name?" the boy, Kin Lee asked.
"Of course, if you like the name that is." Mrs. Layman told him.
"If you need a place to stay Kin, you are welcome to stay at my boarding house in China town. I have a spare room there, and most of the other tenants are old. I will not charge full price if you promise to help me with some minor repairs and run errands." Mr. Chan offered, already using his new name.
The boy had talked breifly with old man earlier in the cafeteria, he seemed nice enough. Maybe I should take him up on his offer, after all its the only one I have.
"Okay, sure. I'll keep the name for now, and if you really want I'll take you up on your offer." Kin told him.
"Great. Thank you very much Mr. Chan, you've helped us solve some of our problems for now. Kin, why don't go see if Dianne has found a couple more sets of old clothes and you and Mr. Chan can get you settled into your new home." Mrs. Layman said.
A few hours later and Kin Lee would start to remember everything that had happened to him. And that night, on his way back to his real home he'd meet someone who would greatly change his life.
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At the same time in Japan, Ranma Saotome was just arriving home after seeing a movie at a local theater. As he entered the house of the Tendos' where he and his father were staying, Akane Tendo approached and handed him a letter that had arrived earlier in the mail.
"What's this?" he asked, opening it.
"Its from your cousin in New York City. ShinaYoshida. Your fathers' really excited about it." she told him as Ranma read the contents.
"Oh man, we're invited to visit her. Pop must be planning to go pretty soon if he's excited about it."
"You can say that again" Mr. Tendo said walking out of the guest room where Ranma and his father stayed.
"Ranma, get in here and start packing. I already made flight reservations, we leave on Friday. And when we come back, your cousin will come with us, one way or another." Mr. Saotome said as he frantically threw numerous items into a suitcase.
"Ranma, what's with your father? I've never seen him this excited about anything. He's even offered to pay for everybody's tickets." Nabiki asked.
"Are you kidding? Every time somebody even mentions my cousin Pop goes into a frenzy about her living so far away. He'd do anything to get her to move in with us. And I do mean anything!!!" Ranma told them, wondering what his father would try this time.
"What do you mean?" both sisters asked.
"Well, you see Shina isn't just an ordinary girl. Her father was from Japan, my dad's brother, and her mother was Chinese. Anyway, when she was born she had green eyes. Most oriental people don't have green eyes. That made her one of the most sought after girls, until the accident that is...." Ranma said, remembering how beautiful his cousin was.
"Wow, so what do you mean by 'accident', what happened to her?" Akane asked him.
"On the way to school one day when she was about seven a drunk driver ran the bus she was riding in off the road. It flipped over several times. She was the only passenger on it at the time, and the accident left her cripled for life. She uses a wheelchair most of the time to get around. She can walk a little on crutches, but only for a short time. Pop thinks that if he can just get her over here for a few months that he could somehow 'cure' her and marry her off to some rich guy." Ranma explained.
He pulled an old photograph out of his coat pocket and handed to the three girls who now stood around him listening intently to the story he told them. Sitting on the floor not far away, Mr. Tendo was sobbing at the sad tale.
"What about her parents?" Kasumi asked.
"Them? They died six years ago during a robbery of her parents store. Shina was nineteen and just graduated from high school at the time. You see, after the accident most of their neighbors said the family was somehow cursed. Little things would go wrong and that would just fuel the fire of the rumors. Part of the reason Pop wants her to come live with us. He must have tried everything aside from kidnapping her to get her to come live with us after her parents died. But Shina wouldn't come, she said the store was the only thing she really had left of her parents." Ranma said, quietly explaining the rest of the story.
"How awful. No wonder your father wants to bring her back so badly. Why did she invite us to visit?" Akane asked, holding her pet pig, P-chan in her arms.
"We always went to visit her this time of year when I was younger. Then we stopped for a couple of years. The plane tickets were getting too expensive. The last time I saw her was about three years ago."
"Ranma!!! Get in here and start packing. And when you're done, help the others by making arrangements for someone to stay and look after the training hall. We're all going to visit your cousin." Ranma's father called from the bedroom as everyone else left the room to start their own packing.
P-chan, laid on Akane's bed in her room watching her pack, wondering what an interesting visit this would be when Ranma silently slipped in and plucked him off the bed.
"Listen Ryoga, I don't care if Akane decides to take you with us to New York. But if you even think of trying anything whatsoever while we're there, and I mean anything at all, I'll expose you to Akane without a second's thought. Is that clear to you? I'm not kidding this time. My cousin is one of only a handful people that I'd kill to keep safe." Ranma told the little pig.
Ryoga shook his head yes. He didn't want Akane to know that he had cursed to change into a little pig when he got wet. She'd hate him for sure. But he breifly wondered if Shina knew of her cousin's curse to change from a boy to a girl when he got wet. It didn't matter much to him though, considering that Ranma seemed deadly serious about his threat.
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In New York City, the turtles once again returned home empty handed from their search of Raphael. April and Casey had had no luck at all in finding any leads.
Splinter was getting anxious but tried not to let it show for the sake of his other sons, particularly Leonardo.
Leonardo was upset enough already at the fight that had occurred between himself and Raphael the day before. Venus had tried all day to comfort him, with no luck. The last thing he or the others needed was for Splinter to lose control. Splinter couldn't explain it, but somehow he felt that his son would return to them soon enough, beaten up, but okay at least.
Donatello and Ariel were busy in their little laboratory trying to locate Raphaels' energy signal on the tracking device they used when one of them were lost. But they didn't seem to be having any luck at all.
Mikey and Torrie were resting in their rooms from their earlier search. Like the others, they too hadn't had much luck in finding Raphael, but they did have an interesting run in with two thugs trying to rob a local restaurant.
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Kin Lee stood in the doorway to his room at the boarding house Mr. Chan was letting him stay. The place was more of a small one room apartment, but just the right size for one person.
It had a small kitchen, a tiny bathroom. The only furniture was a full-size futon bed, one end table and a little table in the kitchen with only two chairs.
Kin sighed and set his things on the futon before he went into the bathroom to shower. He didn't have much stuff with him, but Mr. Chan told him there were extra towels and blankets in the closet by the bathroom if he needed them.
Warily he started the water for his shower and after a few moments stepped in. The water felt good on his aching body and Kin didn't even realize he had changed until he stepped out of the shower and saw his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
As soon as he saw his reflection in the mirror he nearly screamed. He looked down at his hands and saw that his skin was now a deep green, and then he noticed the shell on his back.
Sinking to the floor, his mind spinning, he started to remember things. He slowly began to remember his real name, where he lived and just what had happened to him.
Mrs. Layman was right, he thought. Anything could trigger the return of his memories. But what he didn't understand was why he had changed to a human, and how he turned back to a turtle.