Pain exploded through Donnie's body as soon as the mutagen hit him; pain and a strange, warping sensation, as if his body was shifting around, but neither feeling lasted long and now he was simply exhausted. Exhausted and terrified because he'd remutated. What was he now? He tried to remember what bits of foreign DNA he might have had on his skin and his mind was drawing a solid blank, choosing instead to supply him with mental images of all of the hideous and terrifying forms he'd seen other mutants take. What if he'd taken the same route as Timothy? How could he live like that?
These erratic thoughts drew to a halt when a timid voice whimpered, "Guys, what happened to us?"
Mikey. The fear in his brother's voice filled Donnie with determination. It didn't matter how hideous he was now, his family needed him and so he forced himself to open his eyes. The sight that met them made him gasp. Where his brothers had once stood now lay three creatures that looked, well, looked like humans. Very naked humans with… green skin? No, not green skin, skin that looked green because of the glowing ooze that they were laying in. Ooze that was, quite probably, still active!
That thought made Donnie's eyes widen as he jumped to his feet and scanned the room for an exit. What he saw made him groan. Not only did they have to deal with a pool of mutagen, but Rahzar was still here, watching the room with fascination and shock, but holding back from coming in. Why were he and his robots holding back?
Right, the ooze. Rahzar probably didn't want to go through a third mutation and who knew what this stuff would do to robots? Donnie really didn't want to find out and so he turned back towards his brothers as he cried, "Guys, we have to get out of here!"
The other three teens had been busily staring at each other, but Donnie's cry drew them from their stupors as they all looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes.
"Donnie?" asked the closest one, the one with Leo's eyes, Leo's mask, and, apparently, Leo's voice, but now wasn't the time to figure out who was who. They could do that once they were safe, so Donnie just nodded and said, "On your feet, hurry! This stuff's still active!"
That was all that he needed to say to get his brothers moving. Within seconds, they'd jumped to their feet as well and begun scanning for a way out of the room.
Barely a heartbeat passed before the boy with Leo's eyes called, "follow me," jumped onto a lab table, propelled himself up into the room's rafters, and then launched himself into the outside world through the broken skylight.
The others followed, letting the boy with Leo's eyes guide them away from the lab and across the rooftops in a desperate flight that lasted far longer than it needed to, only ending when they finally reached a gap that was too big for them to jump.
For a long time, the four of them just stood there, gasping for air and staring across the gap, too confused and terrified to speak.
Then the silence was broken as the boy with Mikey's eyes sat down on the hard surface of the rooftop and let out a tiny whimper that drew his brothers' gazes away from the street and down to their team's smallest member. They all knew that it was Mikey, no one else had those baby-blue eyes, but he certainly wasn't the Mikey that they were used to. Their Mikey was a green, adorkable, humanoid turtle. This Mikey was something else entirely. This Mikey had skin the color of peaches-and-cream, tan freckles that dotted his face and shoulders, and a distinct lack of turtle-like body parts. In fact, the teenager before them looked as if he'd never even had a shell and they'd certainly never seen a turtle with longish, curly, golden hair before.
After staring down at the new Mikey for a moment, the stockiest of the four boys, a young man with almond-colored skin and green eyes, turned to look at his other two brothers as he hissed out the words, "What the shell happened to us?"
"I think that the mutagen made us human!" replied the boy with sea-blue eyes and fair skin as he stared down at his hands and tried to keep himself from hyperventilating.
"Actually, I don't think that we're human," replied the fourth boy, the dark-eyed one with olive skin and a little gap between two of his front teeth. As this final teen stared down at his hands with a curious expression, he continued on, saying, "We're humanoid, certainly, but not fully human. That's not how mutagen works. I'd have to run some test and examine each of us further before I could say what…"
"Now is not the time, Donnie," growled the green-eyed boy, having no trouble recognizing his science-geek brother in spite of their new mutation. "Save your lecture for when we're a little less naked."
"Hey, being naked was never an issue before!" piped up the little one. "Besides, we've still got on our belts and stuff, so it's not like we're totally naked."
"Mikey," sighed the boy with sea-blue eyes, "the belts really don't count as… Donnie, what are you doing?"
The other three watch in confusion as Donnie practically threw off his mask, belt, and other weaponry. It was only when he was fully undressed that the tall boy sighed in relief and sank down to his knees while letting out a whispered, "Thank goodness!"
That was concerning and the other three found themselves exchanging worried looks before the teen with Leo's voice finally had the guts to ask, "What?"
"Well, when you mutate, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to what mutates with you. Sometimes what you're wearing gets attached and so I was worried that my stuff would be stuck to me," Donnie explained, making his brothers' eyes grow wide with fright as they realized the implications of the scientist's words. This realization was followed by a flurry of movement as the other three brothers quickly stripped off their own gear, tossing it onto the small pile that Donnie had already made.
It wasn't long before all three of them were completely naked, too, and the happy realization that their gear hadn't become fused to their bodies filled the three teens with a short-lived relief. Relief that ended as soon as they remembered that, while they were still able to take off their gear, everything else had changed.
As an aura of gloom settled over the teens, Mikey glanced around at his brothers, searching for their leader as he asked, "So, what'd we do now, Leo?"
"Go home, I guess," replied the teen with sea-blue eyes. "We need to tell Master Splinter what happened."
"And find some clothes," Donnie added as he began to gather up his tiny pile of belongings and place them back on his body.
"And how exactly do you plan on getting us home?" asked the green-eyed teen as he joined his scientist brother in the task of gathering up their things. "Do you even know where we are?"
The question made Leo frown as he glanced around the rooftop, looking for something familiar to let him know where they were because he honestly had no clue. When they'd left the lab, he'd been too focused on getting them away to pay any attention to where he was leading them. Had they gone east or west? Uptown or downtown? Given the state of this rooftop, the answer was probably downtown, but he really wasn't sure and, with their current state of nakedness, Leo really didn't want any of them to go down on the street and look for landmarks.
Luckily for him, they didn't need to.
"We're about twenty-four blocks away from where we parked the Shellraiser and only a couple of meters from the nearest sewer grate," Donnie explained casually, acting as if figuring out their current location was the easiest thing in the world. Of course, for him, it probably was.
As he offered up a silent thanks for Donnie's freaky, internal GPS, Leo turned to his tallest brother and said, "Okay, so, what's the quickest way home?"
Donnie thought about it for a moment before shrugging as he replied, "That depends on what you mean by quickest."
Leo arched a dirty-blonde eyebrow and then waited for Donnie to explain, which he did after a few more seconds of silent contemplation.
"Geographically speaking, the quickest route is to get into the sewers and go straight home. Time wise, the quickest route is to go through the sewers back to where we parked the Shellraiser and then take it home. I'd suggest the latter option since it's quite likely that our new forms are more susceptible to injury than our old ones, meaning that we're better off limiting the time we spend without proper clothing."
"More susceptible to injury?" Leo echoed worriedly as Mikey groaned, "Dude, what does that even mean?"
"It means that human skin is weaker than the skin of a terrapin and, since we've apparently become more humanoid, our skin is probably weaker, too," Donnie explain in exasperation before frowning lightly and glancing down at his feet as he added, "In fact, I'm surprised that we were able to run that far in bare feet. Human skin should have been torn on the…"
"As fascinating as this is, can we get moving?" Raph interjected harshly. "Those Foot goons are probably out there looking for us."
Silence fell in the wake of Raph's reminder as all four boys began to scan the nearby rooftops for signs of the Foot. Only when they were certain that they were truly alone did Leo speak up. "Right, let's get underground."
The others nodded and then silently followed their leader as he crept to the edge of the roof and began to prepare himself to jump into the alleyway below. Before Leo could make the leap, though, Donnie let out a startled gasp and grabbed his brother's arm, pulling the shorter male back onto the rooftop.
The action surprised Leo enough that he didn't even try to catch himself and so he landed on his backside with a thud. The jolt of pain that accompanied his landing made the teen let out a tiny whimper before glaring up at his brother as he hissed, "What was that for?"
"H-human bodies, remember," the scientist explained nervously. "We don't know how strong they are. What if jumping down there breaks our legs?"
"We were able to jump out of Stocker's lab just fine," Mikey offered, but Donnie just shook his head.
"We were jumping upwards, propelling ourselves forward and landing at the apex of our jumps. That doesn't stress your legs the same way falling does."
"So how exactly do you expect us to get off this roof if we can't jump, genius?" growled Raph as he glared daggers at the scientist, making Donnie gulp. Getting on Raph's bad side was never a good idea, but with their new bodies, it could be deadly. Who knew how much damage a punch would do now? Then again, that was a two-way street. Theoretically, a punch could do more damage to them now, but wouldn't a punch from them do less damage, too? What an interesting idea and how could he even test that? It wasn't as if he had ever taken the time to measure how much force one of his brother's punches actually did. Could he calculate it? It would be an estimate at best and a rough estimate at that, but such knowledge would certainly help them figure out…
Donnie's thoughts trailed off when his ears registered a low growling sound. Had Rahzar found them? Oh, no, it was just Raph, which was almost as bad, but not quite.
After allowing himself a brief pause to collect his thoughts and remember Raph's question, Donnie grinned and said, "We can use the fire escape!"
That response instantly squashed Raph's anger, replacing it with indignation as the team's resident muscle realized what his brother was suggesting. "What, you mean climb down it?"
"Yeah!"
For a moment, Raph just stared at his brother. Then he shook his head and said, "No way."
"It's the only way to guarantee that we reach the ground safely," Donnie retorted. "Humans don't jump off of buildings."
"Neither do turtles," Mikey pointed out unhelpfully as Raph frowned and muttered, "Casey jumps from buildings all the time."
"Yes, well, Casey is an idiot with a death wish who also happens to be covered in an impressive amount of padding," Donnie rejoined before carefully making his way across the roof towards the spot where the fire escape started. When he reached it, he glanced back at his brothers pleadingly as he said, "Come on guys, humor me."
"Whatever you say, D," Mikey replied with a grin as he hurried over to his brother and jumped onto the metal fire escape. After a shared glance and a pair of sighs, Leo and Raph followed suit, even if it was a little humiliating because, really, what kind of ninjas took the stairs?
