What am I doing posting this? Not entirely sure, I've been sick the last three days and this was the result. The idea for this story started with a famous Naruto Fic "Dreaming of Sunshine" But then... it kind of spiraled. All my ideas tend to in some way or another. Crack treated seriously is my main jam. Anyways, I've got the next two chapters already in rough draft, the rest of the fic is in formatted storyline so I'm know where I'm going, and finally this chapter has only had one read through so I'll go back next post and clean it up some more. If you'd like to help point out flaws I'm always grateful!
Also while you're here, standard disclaimers apply, and the main focus of this fic will be on the turtles, OC's in the beginning and kind of through out the rest aside, but the set up needs to be a thing for a few chapters hopefully you'll be surprised... the boys tend to sneak in more than expected :D
Enjoy!
Her eyes snapped open. She had married into a ninja clan, and while she wasn't one herself, things like the awareness of when you were alone seemed to rub off.
She was no longer alone.
Her breathing remained steady and her hand went under her husband's pillow to grasp the knife laying in the cold.
The room was silent save for the nearly inaudible breathing from the crib. The wind picked up from outside and when it faded the room was empty of sound.
The silence threw her out of bed and she fell across the room towards the corner gleaming metal in her hand, terror in her veins.
Faster than she could move her flight was halted, knife ripped away, and she hit the floor hard.
"Sorry my dear, you are too late." Male words dripped down and pooled into her breaking, disbelieving heart. "The baby is dead."
"No," She wasn't sure if she had spoken aloud until there was a chuckle.
"Oh, I'm afraid so, it's not your fault… or even hers. See, I am in need of a change. But those fools who think they can rule time have locked what they believe is the 'critical time period'." She tried to stand but found herself pinned to the ground by the end of a staff. "They are fools of course. So little understanding, time is one eternal round there is no part of it that is less important than the next. All it takes is the right push and all history can be molded. Future, past, similar in the fact that they change."
He was babbling nonsense but even as the words washed around her denial was clawing at her. Her baby, her baby, her baby!
"No," She cried out again and tried to struggle again towards the crib but the pressure increased and the breath left her.
"Ah, see now that wasn't very nice, I am in the middle of my exposition. There is something very, very satisfying about explaining what's going on, even if you won't remember it." The laughter came again, and panic edged across her vision. "It's a part of the thrill. You understand of course. Why would anyone face the end of everything and not get in their chance to speak?
"You, however, you won't get to see when it'll all end. See, that's the nice thing about being you, so inconsequential that the world won't even remember your name. You'll be a nameless mother of a named but not important mother."
This time there was a fury in her panic and thrashing as well as some choice words.
"See, even the great 'lords' of time don't see the power gifted to those who create the next generation. But, I digress. You see, your daughter is dead. I pulled the soul from her and sent it to the afterlife. It's nothing personal, like I said she was a named but ultimately unimportant plot point. However, I need someone I can control, someone who will cause changes and mold the supposed heroes into what they need to become."
With that he reached down and squeezed hard at her neck and her entire body went limp.
"Screw you." She managed to choke out.
The looming form just shrugged and moved away from her and back towards the crib. "Don't worry, the universe is doing a good job of screwing me over. See, this is just me reclaiming what's been taken from me."
The man leaned over the crib and despite the man's words about her baby being dead her protective instinct screamed at her to move to protect her child. The man started speaking again still talking to her like they were having an afternoon chat.
"I'm thinking an enslaved demon will be exactly what your daughter's empty husk needs right now. She'll be good don't worry, you won't even realize that your baby is different. She won't do much until the time is right… and by then you'll be dead."
Her head was still turned towards the crib and so she was able to see the figure raise the staff and start chanting. A glow took form above the silent crib and started swirling. Frozen as she was that didn't stop the tears from coming.
"Oi!" There was a flash somewhere behind her and the sound of sliding chains, the man turned and for the first time she saw his face, empty black eyes trapped in a rage filled mask which slacked into pain as a weighted chain slammed into his chest knocking him into the wall. Something large, and green landed on the edge of her vision, and a young voice echoed from the spot. "Stay away from my mom and grandma!"
"Impossible," the dark figures voice had turned furious for the first time, "There is no way that they could have traced my changes outside of their precious time lock."
"That's cause they didn't, I'm here on personal business." The voice though defensive seemed confident and for the first time since she had been pulled out of sleep there was hope. The chain flashed again and the green figure jumped. A snarl ripped through the room and the staff in the intruder's hand began to glow. Everything slowed down, the second figure smiled, the chain slid out, a knife was thrown, and the whole room lit up in a brilliant bright white.
The first figure screamed in rage and, incongruently, the second figure laughed. It wasn't until the light changed that she had been able to recognize that the first glow hadn't been a color that she could name, but now the swirling above the crib was almost too bright of a white to look at. It also shed light on both figures.
The first figure looked almost mundane save for his eyes. He wore traditional ninja garb but a cruelty to his stance that betrayed the monster hiding on the inside. In contrast the figure standing protectively in front of her looked almost like a turtle demon out of her childhood stories, but when it glanced back at her eyes as blue as the midday sky looked at her and a grin split his face.
"Don't worry grandma, I didn't come alone." he, for it had to be a he, and a young one at that, said even as the other figure lunged at him but then there was a whack and a bō stopped the staff just before it could hit the turtle facing her. The air shimmered in the light and a taller turtle like figure stepped into the room from seemingly no-where to join the chain wielding turtle.
"You fools! Now there is no telling what will come out of the portal. You could have just erased yourselves from existence!"
"Careful there," The tall one said as he shifted putting more weight against the glowing staff, "If you phrase it that way you might actually sound like you care."
"There was supposed to be a change! You should be bowing before me!"
Before anything else could be said the light suddenly flashed brighter. She was forced to close her eyes, another new distinct voice cried out "Get down!" there were four thuds and the ground shook. There was a cry of pain and suddenly the light was gone.
There was a brief moment of silence and then the sound of metal meeting metal sent goosebumps up her arms and she forced her eyes open only to flinch them closed again when a green foot nearly landed on her head.
The first man seemed to have regained some sense of balance as his face was placid and calm again even as his body was a flurry of too fast motion. Around the room four green forms blurred, bouncing off each other and off of walls always coming back towards the first figure.
"See, now this is intriguing. I admit you have caught me off guard. You can't be the versions that the time manipulators locked away, so you must be a new version. Something that I affected." His words were cut off when one of the green blurs got in a hit and sent the man flying into the wall.
The four turtles paused for just long enough for her to see the defensive way they stood in front of her and the crib before they moved forward again but the pause seemed to have been to the man's advantage as he was on his feet staff faced outward and another unidentifiable light shone from his staff causing the room to freeze.
"Enough, you are much better than I would anticipate from you at this age. You could have been my warriors." The man sighed, and she wanted to swear at his condescending tone but she knew better than to draw attention to herself, especially since feeling was tingling back into her arms. "No matter, while you aren't the versions I was hoping for you will still cause plenty of problems for the time masters, and that will be all the distraction I need to really get things moving."
With that the man started walking forward. "But you knew I would be here, and that is something I can not have, I'll have to bury that knowledge away. I'm not sure what my presence here has linked itself to in your minds, but I know that it can not stay."
He moved in closer to the turtle closest to him, and from her angle on the floor she could see absolute panic in surprisingly bright green eyes.
She didn't know what was going on. She didn't know who any of these figures were, but there was only one thing she cared about in that moment.
She hadn't been born into a ninja clan, but marrying into one meant that you picked up a few things.
Like how to throw a knife.
Scooped up from the floor the knife that usually rested underneath her husband's pillow flew silently and true. The figure had broken into her house, had claimed to kill her child, all the while chatting about her being unimportant enough to be forgotten. It seemed that he himself had forgotten her and now he was going to pay for his own lack of judgement. No one should ever threaten a child. Especially in front of their mother.
He seemed to sense the knife, but it was too late. Even as he turned his head and tried to lean out of the way the knife slid across the side of his head and managed to cut along his left eye. Black blood streamed from the cut and the light faded. The turtles started moving again but the man growled, low and inhuman and there was a flash of the same strange light and he was gone.
There was a silence that descended and then one of the turtles swore, "Sewer-apples, we almost had him!"
"We knew it wasn't likely we were going to catch him this time," The tallest one said though he remained tense. "Not after what mom told us."
"He's right, and when we do find him again we'll need the whole team." another one said and she slowly started bringing herself to her knees. Her whole body ached and she still didn't know what was going on but she had to get to the crib she had to see if…
"Hey grandma Tang, do you need help?" She looked up and met the eyes of the first turtle, sky blue and earnest in a way that she had never really seen before. He was reaching a large three fingered hand out to her and it showed something about her state of mind that she didn't even hesitate to put her hand into his. Her only focus was on the crib.
The other three turtles had gone silent and were staring at her in what could only be described as awe but she couldn't focus on that, leaning her shaking body against the incredibly stable form of the smallest turtle she made her way to the crib in four achingly long steps.
There laying in the moonlight was her little girl. "Shen," She finally whispered reaching for the baby. "Shen?" There was breath in the little infant body and she felt tears come to her eyes but still the moment of absolute silence that had flung her from her bed seemed to echo in her mind, and the man's words… he had claimed he wanted to replace her daughter with a demon.
Her hands brushed against the baby's head but they shook so much that she wasn't sure she would have the strength to pick her up. So instead she turned back to face the four beings who had come to her aid.
"Who are you?" She started. There were a million things that didn't make sense at the moment but she would start small. "You called me grandma Tang, you know my married name but I am not nearly old enough to be a grandmother, let alone yours."
There was a flinch from a couple of them and a foot scuffle from another and it struck her that despite their strange appearances they did seem very young. Now that they weren't jumping around and she wasn't quite as panicked she was able to see more of the differences. The most obvious to her was their heights but she could tell even in the dark that they each wore a different colored mask. After the intense white light from earlier her eyes had yet to adjust but the one who had helped her to the crib seemed to have the brightest of their four colors.
The ones with the red and blue masks exchanged glances and the red one gave a nod before looking back at her and she got a chance to look into his bright green eyes before the blue one cleared his throat.
"My name is Leonardo, and these are my brothers, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello. We know you because we're time travelers."
She raised an eyebrow at the obviously non-japanese names and then the other eyebrow joined the first at their 'explanation'.
"Do all time travelers look like you?" It was the first question that came out of her mouth.
"Nope," the one named Michelangelo started. "We're unique but we are your grandkids… kind of. You see Shen's our mom-"
"Before you freak out, we're adopted." The tallest one interjected.
"Nu-uh!" the orange one popped back up. "Mom said-" and the blue one grabbed onto Michelangelo's shell and pulled him to the side to whisper something in english into his ear. She had taken english in school but even so the sentence. "Let's not bring aliens and mutagen into this." didn't make any sense to her.
"Anyways," The one in red picked up. "To keep things simple since we don't have a lot of time," He directed this last part to the two turtles still whispering in english before turning his focus back to her. "Yes, we look weird, yes, we are from the future. That's how we knew to come back in time to help, because you tell this story to your daughter, who tells it to us."
"Is she still my daughter?" The question that had been burning inside finally slipped through her mouth. A part of her was fascinated by these boys who claimed to be of her line but more than anything she had to know… she had to know what had happened to her baby.
At this all four of the turtles froze and shared looks with each other and fear coupled with terrible despair gripped her heart.
"Biologically yes," The tallest one finally spoke, his voice gentle as he reached out to her placing his large hand on her arms keeping her from falling over. "What S-" he cut himself off. "What that man was trying to do was put a soul that he controlled into your baby. But, because we interrupted the ritual the portal went wild opened to a random place in the universe, and based on the fact that we are still here in front of you and not fading out of existence-"
"Try and keep it simple Donnie." The red one cut in.
"Right, sorry, well instead of a demon, a soul from another reality was pulled into this plane of reality." The words were said in what she assumed was supposed to be a tone of comfort but all she could pull from his explanation was the fact that her baby was dead.
"No she's not dead." The words answering her inner thoughts were spoken by the one in blue, Leonardo. "That girl right there is still your daughter. She's still a baby, a girl who was just pulled from her past life and into this one. She's not going to remember everything right away but she needs you. She'll still love you, and you'll still get to see her grow up. No one knows exactly who their child will turn out to be but that doesn't mean you don't still try and help them be the best they can be."
"Yah," Michelangelo said with a smile. "Take it from us, that baby in there is going to be an awesome daughter, because she's your daughter. And then someday she'll be an awesome mom! Because she got to see an awesome mom in you."
"This doesn't mean you shouldn't mourn who your baby was going to be." Donatello said softly. "But this is like a second chance. I'm so sorry we weren't able to make it in time to save your first daughters soul, but this daughter is going to love you too."
"And grandma Tang," The one in red started. "You won't have to worry about that guy ever again. We're going to get him, and make sure that your family is safe."
"Noma," She said finally, looking across the room to meet all of their eyes one by one. "My name is Noma."
Raphael smirked "We know, our mom told us."
With that another light filled the room and Leonardo looked over at her as he took a step into the light. "We've got to go, but it really is going to be okay, we promise."
"Love you grandma!" Michelangelo called out as he jumped through the glowing door.
"Remember we've got your back." Raphael said with a nod as he joined his brothers.
"They're right," Donatello finished off with a gap toothed smile. "We'll make sure it all works out."
And with that they were gone.
Noma took a deep breath and turned back towards the sleeping baby. She picked up the precious burden and started to cry. She was still half convinced that all of this was a dream but something deep inside told her that everything had just changed. She wanted to fall apart but looking down at the familiar face of her baby all she could do was hug the child closer. "Shen, my baby Shen."
I know the Ninja Turtle fandom isn't one of the biggest but it sure has a fun sand box to play in! I hope you all enjoyed and I'd love to hear your theories on what is going to happen. I'll be back next Wednesday for another update.
Till then!