I'll warn you now. I wrote this a while a go, so if it's a bit rusty I'm sorry. I also had no idea that FanFiction even existed at the time so forgive me if this theme is a bit overused. I didn't know it was. I will try to post as quickly as possible so hand in there.

Oh, and I do not own the characters...I own a lot of their merchandise, but not them.
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Alright, I know you all think I'm crazy, my brothers sure do. They think I should have been admitted to a mental institution the day I was born. Oh well, too late now. If they tried, not only would they end up covered in bruises but if they did get me there, the doctors would probably admit themselves after seeing four turtle-shaped ninjas. But I doubt they would even get that far. Not because I'd be able to fight them all off but mostly because Katty would be upset if they ever tried, and making her cry is the last thing anyone wants to do. Isn't it great having a girlfriend? I know what you're thinking, how did I, Michelangelo, the comic book loving turtle of the shadows, get a girlfriend? Well, you can stop wondering now because I'm going to tell you. Like every other beautiful romance, it all started with an alleyway mugging.
===-===

"Donnie!" I called out from the living room. "The DVD player's broken!" I wacked it again with my chuck as I waited for his response. None came. "Donnie!" I looked over to his laboratory to see him studying something with his weird bug-like goggles. I walk over to his desk and stand there for a moment, thinking he would realize I was there eventually. But after about ten seconds I got bored. "DONATELLO!" I had to laugh when he nearly came out of his shell.

"Mikey! What do you want?!"

"The DVD player's broken." I explained again.

"I'll fix it later." He said, sounding like he had better things to do. But how could anything be better than a DVD player? You got me.

"But what about my movie?"

"Forget about it." I think he was starting to get annoyed with me because he was trying to do something a lot less important than my DVD player.

"But what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know, watch TV."

"It's Sunday, all that's on are infomercials."

"Then ride your skateboard."

"Casey's borrowing it."

"Do some training."

"Leo and Raph are settling a bet in there."

"Then play your video games."

"But you haven't fixed that either!"

"Mikey! I don't care what you do, just leave me be. I'm in the middle of recalibrating the battle shell's defense systems."

"Wha'?"

"GO!" Donnie exclaimed, pointing away from his desk.

"Fine." I walked away from the desk and dropped onto the couch. I lied there for a few seconds. Closed my eyes. Opened them again. Sat up. Grabbed the remote. Turned on the TV. Changed the channel. Turned off the TV. Tossed the remote. Flopped back down on the sofa. Man, was I bored. It was then that a brilliant idea hit me, almost literally. I jumped over the back of the sofa and walked over to the closet that has the trench coats. I grabbed one and a hat then put them on.

"Guys, I'm going out." I yell to them even though they're all too busy to listen. So, since none of them are hearing a word I'm saying, I decide to have a bit of fun. "I have plans with some foot ninjas. We're going out for a couple of drinks and maybe rob a few banks while we're there. I might even be able to convince them to make me their blood brother."

"That's nice Mikey." Donnie said, probably not noticing what I was actually saying, only that I was saying something. I snickered as I walked out the door.

It was a nice night. The sky was clear, the moon was gone, it was a new moon, and it was relatively warm with a cool breeze. I thought about going to see a movie but soon realized that the only thing green in my pockets were my hands, so that was out of the question. And all the other stores I like to stop in on are all closed on Sundays so I couldn't go there. Instead I decided to just walk. And walk. And walk, and walk, And walk. And then walk a little more. I just kept walking until I ended up nowhere near where I started.

I was in one of the bad parts of the city, you know the dark streets without a single working streetlight but plenty of run down alleyways in which gangs tend to hang out to do their dirty work. Truthfully, I wasn't scared. In fact, I was so bored that I wouldn't have minded getting into a fight. But since these gangs learned long ago not to jump the short guys with big trench coats, I doubted I would find much in entertainment. But just as I was to turn and head for the nearest manhole cover, I heard a scream.

"It's my lucky day." I said to myself as I ran towards the scream. Then I stopped short when I realized something. I had sounded just like Raph. I shrugged and pulled out my chucks. "Oh well, at least Raph doesn't have a pair of amazing chucks like these babies." Then I started running again. The familiar sounds of a fight were heard from down one of the alleyways. When I finally got there, I peaked in and despite the dark I was able to make out eight purple dragons trying to rob a feisty red head.

The would-be victim was a girl, probably a high school student. She was dressed more for comfort than for style, which at least gave her a fighting chance when it came to attacks like these. Another thing I noticed was that her fighting style wasn't that bad. If she could keep that up she probably could beat them to a bloody pulp or at least be able to get away. But she was tiring out, fast. And the eight huge guys that attacked her, well, they weren't. But even so, I watched for a moment longer as they struggled to pull her back pack out of her clenched hands. But when one of them knocked her down and another pulled out a knife, I decided that it was time to step in.

"Yo, fellas!" I called out in my best Angry-Raph imitation. I stepped into the entrance of the alley with my head down and my chucks behind my back, lying in wait (nice line, huh? I thought of it myself.)

"Get out' a here, chump! You don't wanna get involved!" One of the gang members yelled back to me.

"I don't? But it looks like fun." I said back, sounding like myself again. "It reminds me of this comic book I read. There were all these overconfident bad guys that surrounded the single good guy and they were all like 'you're going down, chump.' And the good guy was like 'I'd like to see you try,' and this huge fight broke out. Hey, you wanna know how it ends?" by this time the goons had left the girl in the hands of one guy while the rest stood in front of me, weapons in hand. When I asked my question one of them charged at me with a club. He swung at my head and I ducked underneath it.

"I guess not." He swung at me again, making me duck as I swiped his legs out with my foot. The others charged at me and the fight was on. I revealed my chucks and started cracking heads. In less than a minute all seven of them were unconscious at my feet. The last stood trembling by the girl.

"Did I forget to mention that the bad guys lose?" I ask, eyeing the last thug. I twitched one of my chucks like I was going to attack, causing him to drop everything and flea over the back wall. I thought of chasing him down but didn't see a real reason why so I put my weapons away and, instead, picked up the girl's back pack, that had somehow ended up closer to me than her, and brought it back to her.

"Are you alright little lady?" I asked with a wacky western accent. She starred at me with a surprised look as she grabbed her backpack.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She got up and dusted off her worn jeans. "Thank you for helping me."

"Awe, it was nothin'." I said and even though it was nice taking to her, I knew my job wasn't done. She had just began to say something when I interrupted her. "Can you hold that thought?" I grabbed a piece of rope and went back to the pile of bad guys, then tied them up against the fire escape.

"Why?" I heard her ask as I worked on the knots.

"Why what?"

"Why did you take on all of them?" she asked. "You could have been seriously hurt."

"I doubt it." I said with a laugh. "There were only eight of them."

"Only eight?"

"Yeah, Raph would have described them as 'barely enough for a good work out.'" I said with another laugh.

"Raph?"

"Yeah, he's strange like that." I finished off the knot and stood up. "You should probably go home now." I said, becoming serious. "That one dude will bring back more, stronger dudes and I think we shouldn't be here when they show up."

"Ok." She said, making me jump when I realized how close she had gotten when I was tying these guys up. She was standing right behind me and I didn't even hear her move. So much for my awesome ninja skills. Then I nearly came out of my shell when her hand touched my shoulder. I spun around to face her and saw that she was even closer than I had realized. She was only about a foot away from me. No human has ever gotten that close, well no strangers anyway. Well, some of the bad guys do, but that's only to beat me up so that doesn't count, and none of them are girls. Except Karai, but she usually fights Leo so that doesn't count. And April doesn't count either, though she's not an enemy and she's female, she is too old to be considered a girl. Oh, shell. I hope she doesn't read this or I'm turtle soup! Anyways, you get what I mean. She was really close and I didn't have much experience in how do deal with it.

"Thanks again." She said, trying to look me in the eyes but I had my hat pulled down to keep my face hidden.

"N-no problem, really." I said, a little nervously.

"Most people wouldn't have stopped to help me."

"I-I'm not… most people."

"I can tell." She said with a smile that made me shudder. She was treating me just a human and not a monster. She didn't know me from a hole in the ground but she was still treating me like a normal human being. For a couple moments I almost forgot that I wasn't human. It felt good being treated like everyone else, to not get beat up or screamed at after helping someone out. It was nice.

Unfortunately, like most things I like, all this had to come to a crashing end. You know that breeze I was talking about earlier? Well, I usually don't remember things like the weather unless it affects me. I remembered the breeze only because it was at this specific moment that it decided to strengthen a bit and blow my hat off. This girl, the one that was, just a moment ago, making me feel so normal with only a couple smiles and a nice conversation, stumbled back, her face full of fear. She opened her mouth and screamed. I had disappeared before she could stop to take a breath.
===-===

I ditched the coat as soon as I got on the roof. I wouldn't need it up here; no one ever looks at the roof tops. Even though she had been scared of me and all I really wanted to do was go home and mope, I felt responsible for making sure she got home safely. I couldn't hold her fear against her when everyone else acts in just the same way. So, I followed her on the roof tops until I saw her let herself into a rundown apartment complex. After that I turned around and slowly headed home.

I tried to think of something else like my comic books or my videogames, but no matter what I thought my mind kept going back to that ally. Back to that girl whose name… I forgot to ask for. At that moment, I could think of no bigger idiot than myself, what guy saves a pretty girl like that and doesn't even get her name?! Then I remembered that before I could that hat blew off and she became terrified of me. I wrestled with these thoughts all the way home, which was a long way considering I didn't feel like running.

When I got back Raph was standing by the door with his arms crossed.

"Blood brother?" he asked when I stepped in. "Plans with foot ninjas? What the shell was dat about?

"Nothing." I said, sounding depressed even to myself. "I was just checking if you were listening."

"Mikey, is there something wrong?" Leo came out of the practice room with a worried look on his face. "You're sounding strange."

"No, there's nothing wrong." I answered, not even noticing the slight sarcastic tone in my voice. But my brothers did. They glanced at each other and, as I took a step towards my room, Leo and Raph stood in my way.

"Mikey, what's wrong?" Donnie asked as he got up from his desk to stand in my way as well.

"Noth—"

"We know it's not nothing." Leo spoke up before I finished. "Now, what was it? Was there a problem on the surface? Were you attacked?"

"No, I fought a few purple dragons but there weren't even enough for a good work out." I smiled a bit before I remembered that I had said the same thing to the girl, which wiped the smile off my face real quick.

"There has to be something other than that." Donnie said as I just shook my head. I didn't want to tell them anything else. Everything that has ever truly mattered to me they've mocked me for, and I didn't want to make this another piece of ammunition for them to throw back in my face. "Then why are you acting strange?"

"Maybe he finally got a look at himself in a puddle." Raph suggested wryly.

"Shut up." I whispered quietly. Yeah, I know that Raph usually says these sorts of things all the time but today, after what happened, I couldn't handle it. He gave me a funny look. I had never said that to him before, well not in this context. To him it probably sounded like a threat, and I don't really threaten him because I know he can beat the shell out of me. But tonight I wasn't afraid of how hard he would hit me because that statement hurt more than anything he could have thrown. And this is Raph we're talking about! Of course he didn't know that, so after he sifted through what I'd said, he continued like nothing was different. But everything was.

"Yep, that's it. He finally got a glimpse and realized exactly how ugly he really is." Of course I knew he was just joking, per usual. He always rags on me like this. But, as I had said, this time he struck something that actually hurt. Without thinking, or even knowing what I was trying to do, I stepped forward and shoved Raph half way across the room. He laid there, stunned, as I stood there as shocked as he was about the whole ordeal. Without another word I turned and went to my room. I laid in my hammock for a while after that listening to my bothers talk about me.

"It's official, Mikey has gone off the deep end." I heard Donnie say to the others.

"Yes, but why?" Leo questioned, sounding very confused about it himself. "He never goes off the deep end."

"I didn' think he had a deep end." Raph said with the accompanying sounds of him getting to his feet.

"Well, something must have happened to cause this." Leo deduced. "And whatever it was, I doubt it had much to do with the purple dragons he fought and we need to figure it out."

"We don' even know where he was tonight." Raph pointed out. "How are we going to find somethin if we don' even have a clue 'bout it?"

"Hold on." Donnie piped up sounding as if he had a brilliant idea. A moment later his desk chair squeaked then rolled to somewhere relatively close. It was over the clicking of his keyboard that he explained his idea. "Where ever he went, he must have had his shell cell so, if I use the GPS tracker that I installed in them, I can look up the history of where it was for the past two hours."

"Great idea." Leo complimented.

"There's just one problem with dat." Raph said just before Donnie let out a confused "Huh?" as the typing abruptly stopped. "He lost it a week ago."

"Well, that explains why the signal's missing." Donnie said, exasperated. "But now we don't have a lead."

"Leave it to Mikey to accidentally cover his tracks." Leo commented, his tone similar to the one Donnie was using. "I guess we'll have to figure this out the old fashioned way." This was about the time I decided I had enough of listening and tuned out. It took me a while to go to sleep, and every time I did, that frightened girl would look back at me I knew I shouldn't be feeling this, these feelings are just too strong for something like this. I don't know the girl's name or even the first thing about her, but for some reason that look she gave me struck a chord. I don't know why, I had only just met her, but, for some reason, I actually cared that she had been terrified of me. That she screamed like I had just become the enemy instead of the savior. It was like I was on the starship Andromeda and no matter what I did I was being pulled into that black hole…of something or another. Alright I know, I suck at analogies, let's leave it at, I couldn't help it. No one could.