A/N: It occurred to me that there must be many off screen mutants in TMNT, those whose stories will never be told. I wanted to write something about some of them, and what their lives and cultures might be like. Therefore, there are no Turtles or Turtle friends in this story (yet).

OoOoOo

The night had gone splendidly, even if she did say so herself. To be able to do a poetry reading at The Brewery Poetry Club in New York City was like a dream come true. They had called her, asked her, to come and read! It was the first time she'd not booked herself somewhere, the first time that she'd been sought out. The buzz of the evening, and maybe even the champagne, still tingled at the ends of her limbs, at the tips of her ears. The sparkles in her navy blue velvet gown twinkled like stars in the light of the subway train.

Stephane would kill her when she got home, but she didn't care at the moment. The smile on her face made her cheeks hurt. She had passed a little boutique on 5th Avenue and seen the gown in the window. She had stopped at stared at it, like a kid in a candy store. Put it on, she told herself, glancing at her watch. You have three hours until you have to be there. The woman in the store eyed her warily when she asked to try the gown on, but when she had, it was perfect. She'd looked perfect in it. So she bought it, having to use her credit card. It would take her three months of her part time salary as a gymnastics and yoga instructor to pay it off, but she would. That is what she'd tell Stephane when she got home to him, she'd pay it all with her own money. Of course, that argument might not work since it was 'their' money and not 'her' money. Funny thing how that happens when one gets married. Maybe telling him how fabulous the night had been would allay some of his wrath. There was, always, if she had to use them, her feminine wiles.

She had two stops on her way to the train all the way back to Connecticut. She laughed out loud, "My feminine wiles," she muttered. She was small, light, and lean, with her pale skin looking porcelain against the navy velvet of her gown. Her auburn hair looked especially dark drawn up in a bun, tendrils curling down to show off a long, elegant, pale neck to the passengers of the subway car. Her expressive, dark green eyes did not tend to show off a sexiness that would be characterized as wily, but rather a wide-eyed wonder at the world around her. A wonder that made her an excellent poet, and that got her booked at The Brewery Poetry Club.

She bounced a little at the door of the car as it pulled into the station. Nervous energy coursed through her, and the excited tingling began to include her solar plexus as well as her limbs and ears. Waiting on the other side of the door were two men, obviously identical twins, in smart dark suits, each holding an identical briefcase, each having a blank expression on their faces. It struck her as odd, but she shrugged it off, I'd have a pretty blank face too if I was coming home from work at this hour. She glanced at her watch, more of a bracelet with a timepiece on it, and it said 1:23 am.

Don't get off the train, the unbidden thought popped into her head. The excited tingling in her body began to change in a charged fear in her chest. Don't get off the train, the unbidden thought said again. It came from the same place that told her not to go on that date with Greg Foreman in high school. He was convicted of date rape only six months later. It came from the place that told her that if she had the guts to put her hand in the knothole of that old tree, she'd be grateful. The old locket she'd found there, and then returned to the police, garnered her a $4000 reward, which paid for she and Stephane's honeymoon to Haiti. It came from the same place that the poetry came from, whispering in her ears secrets that she could hear, write down in cadence, if she only chose to listen. Don't get off the train, the unbidden thought was loud, so loud, she moved away from the door and sat down once again.

The two men came on when the door opened, both still blank faced. Her gut twisted, and she was quite sure it was not the champagne. She stood up, her legs feeling weak, and walked toward the end of the car, opened the door, and entered the next one. A glance behind her saw the two men had stood up, and were walking toward the adjacent car. She sped up her steps, her high heels making it hard to take a normal step forward, so she was forced to pump her legs like a toddler in little steps. She went through the next car, where a woman in a worn cardigan and pants looked up at her briefly, and then back out the window. The men in suits were still behind her. She went in the next car, empty of passengers, only to find it was the last, and the last door was an emergency exit. The tracks, illuminated for a moment from the tail lights of the train, sped away at an unfathomable speed.

She twirled around, the skirt of her dress swirling lightly with the movement, to see the two men come in the door, and it close automatically behind them.

"The one known as Phoebe Laferriere will come with Kraang from this place to the place she is not yet," one of them said, advancing toward her.

The ridiculous way in which he spoke threw her off guard. This must be some sort of joke, she thought. But the fear in her gut didn't subside. "What?" it came out like a manic laugh. The men did not answer her, but the one who had previously spoken continued toward her. When he grabbed her arm, she knew this was no joke. A ,bolt of pain from the grip stabbed down to her hand, she'd never felt a grip this before. He pulled her toward him like she was weighed no more than paper.

The fear in her gut went away, all the thought in her head went away. You have to get away from this man, the unbidden thought told her. She lifted her leg in a hard kick, using all the force of her strong gymnast thighs, and her shin collided with the man's crotch. Pain ricocheted through her leg, and she let out a loud cry. The man didn't even flinch, and his arm stayed outstretched, her own upper arm firm in his grip. She tried to twist away from, but his arm didn't budge. She placed her other hand on his outstretched upper arm, if she could use it has a bar, she could volt out of his grip. Jumping off of the floor, using her hand to push on the man's arm, she lifted herself in the air into a twisting volt, and hurled through the air. I am not going in the right direction, she thought errantly as the wall of the car came closer to her face. She realized that she hadn't vaulted out of his grip. He had thrown her. Then the pain of the wall hit her, and everything went black.

OoOoOo

When Phoebe came to, she was lying on a smooth, cold floor. Her temples burned and her shoulders and hips ached. She had a vague recollection of being strapped to a table, of electrodes being placed on her, of a searing pain bearing through her.

She opened her eyes slowly, and got a sense of vertigo. She could see through the floor, down to another floor made of gray metal sheets bolted together. She closed her eyes again, her temples hurt. She touched them gently, and felt the soft bubble of a blister. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, and decided to open her eyes ahead of her.

She blinked. This can't be happening, she thought. All around her, at different level, were floating transparent cells. Each one contained a thing. That was the only way her brain would describe it. Things. Things everywhere. In the cell across from her was a giant lizard, but the lizard had arms and legs like a human being. Another looked like a cross between a man and a bird. His neck was elongated, and his nose was a grotesque imitation of a beak. His legs were skinny, with claws at the feet. Another on held what looked like a werewolf, an insect of some kind with a human mouth and one human arm and hand. There were so many of them, and they were all over the room. Flying among them, on a kind of personal strange space ship, were brain-like things with eyes and tentacles. She looked down again, and saw bodies, transparent themselves, with the brain-like creatures in their bellies. This can't be happening, she moaned her head. I have fallen asleep somewhere and am having an awful nightmare. I am still at the poetry reading, and I have too much to drink. Someone has put a drug in my drink and I am having some sort of bad trip...the excuses faded away as one of the brains cruised toward her cell.

She crammed herself to the far side of the glass-like canister, but the spaceship riding brain passed her cell by and stopped in front of the lizard man's. As she watched them, she thought that the lizard might have been an iguana, or a gila monster, something wide and powerfully muscled. It let out a high pitched roar, and sails came up on the back of its head, bright red and shaking.

The spaceship riding brain reached out a tentacle and pressed a button on the lizard man's cell. It slowly began to descend toward the ground, a group of the body riding brains gathering around where it would land. The sides disappeared, and all that was left was a round, glass like disc on the floor. The body riding brains were aiming guns at the lizard man, and two of them had long poles that looked like antennae. The lizard man let out another high pitched roar, and one of the poles buzzed with an electric current that visibly transversed the lizard man.

He let out another roar, his sails set out huge around his head, and grabbed the closest body riding brain he could reach. He threw it , and it crashed against the wall. The body riding brains converged on the lizard man, but he flung one of his great human-like arms and set several flying from him. He jumped down from his disc, grabbed a body riding brain, and body slammed it into some sort of console in the middle of the room.

Suddenly the walls to Phoebe's cell disappeared, and the disc began to fall. Her stomach traveled into her throat, and the breath was knocked out of her when she hit the floor. She heard cries of all different kinds of animals, and she heard words, English words, coming from voice that sounded as if they shouldn't speak. A 'spew' flew by her head, and she snapped her eyes open. Pink beams of light streaked by, hitting the ground around her with soft 'thhh's. She crawled along the floor, her legs slipping behind her as they slid on the material of her dress. She finally got a foot hold, hoisted herself up off of the floor, and ran to the door that all of the other things were running toward. They were passing her in what seemed like herds. She kept her eyes on the door, half running half crawling, and then tumbled over something.

Looking down, she saw a group of the things beneath her. She screamed, and edged away from them, landing on her rear-end. They were small, very small, and she was suddenly aware they were all crying plaintively. Then it hit her-they were children!

The lizard man was in what seemed to be a loosing battle. Phoebe looked to the door, then looked at the things near her. She looked into the eyes of one that was a mixture of a human and a gray tabby cat. It cried, it's mouth opening to show kitten milk teeth.

She scrambled toward them, and scooped up the cat. It jumped nimbly on her back, and when it did so, she was assailed by the others. A bear followed the cat onto her back, which caused the cat to move to her shoulders. A goat, or a sheep began to try to climb also, but she managed to stop it, and tuck it under one of her arms. A tiny snake wound its way around her forearm, and she felt a searing pain and the wetness of a burst blister. A bird was the last one, it seemed unable to stand, and she scooped it up and tucked it to her chest with the arm that the snake clung to. Then she ran for the door.

The door lead to a hallway-an normal looking hallway. The things were all around, crashing into the walls, and breaking down doors. One of the doors was torn off of its hinges by the human-insect hybrid, and it disappeared inside. When Phoebe reached the doorway, she saw stairs leading downward.

She flew down the stairs. They seemed to go on forever. The insect man had disappeared, and several other things passed her on her down. She wasn't sure how she didn't trip sooner, but she finally did, and her and all the little things clinging to her rolled down the flight of stairs, and landed in the lobby of a building.

She landed on her hip, the little bird thing underneath her. It let out a 'awww' weak and pitiful, but it only hit the periphery of her ears. She hoisted herself up, ignored the pain in her hip, and the burning in her arm, and at her temples, and ran out of the front door, broken open by some creature that escaped with her.

Her legs began to shake with her running, her chest heaved. She made herself go onward, the farther she got from the building, the less animal sounds from the other things she heard. She was vaguely aware she was in the business district of a city, skyscrapers with fancy logos, their windows darkened in the night sped by as she ran. Finally, her chest would not allow her to run any longer, and she ducked into an alleyway between two buildings, and sank down against a wall at the end of it.

The cat began to cry again, a high pitched little sound like a kitten mewing for its mother. The others all began to join it, and Phoebe felt panic rising in her again.

"Shhh," she hissed, "shush, you have to be quiet!" It didn't seem to do any good, they all kept making noises, a cacophany of sound in the silent darkness. "Shhhhh," spit flew from her mouth as she made the sound. The cat, mewing in her ear, was loud and incessant. She let go of the lamb, and reached up to grab the cat. "Shush," she whispered, and pressed the cat's face into her chest to muffle its cries. The bird in her other arm awwked, and she desperately grabbed its beak and clamped it shut with her hand, leaving its body in her lap.

This seemed to quiet the other three, as soon as the cat and bird stopped, so did they. "You have to be quiet," Phoebe whispered, "or they will find us." She let the cat up slightly, and sighed when it didn't cry. Letting go of the bird's beak, it awwked again, and she clamped her hand back closed.

The only sound in the night air now was their breathing, six heavy rasps catching their breath. The cat put its arms around her torso, and the bear had done the same thing to her back. The lamb came up beside her, pushing the cat into the bird, and sat on her now free leg. The snake stayed wrapped tightly around her forearm. She lowered her head, the smell of animal overwhelming her and she closed her eyes.

The sounds of their breathing slowed, but no more cries came from the things. She kept her head lowered, she wasn't sure how long, until she heard the sound of walking on the sidewalk along the front of the alley.

She snapped her head up, and held her breath. A woman in a business suit, with high heels and briefcase, clicked-clacked across the front of the alleyway, disappearing as she walk on. Phoebe could see her clearly, she could see the alley clearly. The sky was a gray blue, and the stars of the night were no longer visible.

It was morning, and people were on their way to work. She was stuck in an alleyway, in a torn party dress, with five wierd mutated animal people clinging to her, and people were going to begin walking by at any minute. If someone saw her, they would all the authorities. If they called the authorities, one of two things would happen. They would take her to the loony bin for the story she told, or the brain things would find her. Neither option was acceptable.

She looked around desperately, and saw that the wall she was leaning against had a chain link gate on the far end of it. She gently placed the cat, bear, and lamb on the ground, and stood up, gasping at the pain in her hip. She limped to the gate, the bird in her hand, the snake wound about her forearm, and saw it was locked.

"We have to go over it," she said softly. The other three mutated animal people followed her, like a line of ducklings. She pointed to the gate, "We have to go over it," she said again.

None of them moved.

"Over," she said again, placing her free hand on the chain link, and hoisting herself up.

The cat seemed to understand immediately, and sprang onto the gate, scrambled up it, and was over like a flash. The bear followed her, albeit more slowly and much more loudly. The lamb had a good deal of trouble, his feet were like foot-hooves, and his hands didn't bend much. She thought at first she'd vault over the fence, but the pain in her hip reminded her she was not going to do that. She hoisted herself up with her free hand, still holding the bird, and helped the lamb up the fence with her shoulder. Both she and lamb fell onto the side.

Phoebe limped along the alley, turning and twisting, and avoiding anymore climbing, until she found a small alcove off the back of a building. Crates of goods were in front of it, blocking it from view from the street. She crawled into it, the other following, and she fell to the floor. No sooner had she closed her eyes, then she fell asleep.