Phoenix Feathers
Chapter 3.1
The Flour Boy (Per Request)
Raph flopped on his bed. The woman in his brother's lab was a mystery. He wondered about her, if sai's were her favorite weapons like his. It would be cool to have a human he practice with. He practiced his katas in his room a lot, because they were just so different from the others his brothers did. He didn't think they were flowing or graceful. To him, they were quick and to the point, much like himself, unrefined and wild. Raph twirled his weapons in his hands, he had begun to practice without really thinking about it, and he was really getting sweaty. Jeez, why did it always have to get so hot in here? He reached under a towel and turned the knob on the fan to 'on'. Instantly, he was coated in a fine, white powder, as was the rest of his room. Rage pooled in his stomach like the flour currently mixing with his sweat and pooling all over him.
"MIKEY!"
Chapter 3.2
Q&A
Amber sighed internally at the four curious stares directed at her. Splinter sat next to her, offering her more tea which she politely accepted. It was still surreal to her that she was sitting on a couch in the sewers with a rat and the four baby turtles she had bought for the lab testing 15 years ago. I told him, I told him, I told him!
"Um, ok Miss-"
"Please, don't call me Miss. My name is Amber Jennings. As you may have guessed, I had access to Project Renaissance, a project which all of you were a part of. I was not technically a lab assistant, but April's babysitter. Dr. O'Neil and I talked in the lab often when I would bring April by after picking her up from school. I was just as curious as little April about the experiments in the lab. I was always more than happy to help out with what I could."
Mikey claimed a position on the couch on the other side of Amber, pizza hanging halfway out of his mouth and baby blues staring up at her curiously. "Like, help out how?"
The woman hummed. "Like staying up all night to help work on formulas, giving a blood sample for them to work mutagen off of, or stopping at the local pet shop to buy four tiny baby turtles for the lab."
Donnie's eyes went wide. "Wait, you gave the blood sample to use in our batches of mutagen?"
Quizzical hazel eyes turned curiously to the intelligent turtle. "Yes. Is that significant? I know mutagen doesn't need DNA, per se, but Dr. O'Neil thought that perhaps for the cure he was searching for to work, it would need a human genome to bond with."
Leo's eyes narrowed. "What was he searching for a cure for?"
"I'm not sure, but I trusted Dr. O'Neil."
"There was a plot," Splinter interrupted softly, "hatched by the Foot Clan to poison the people of the city and take the lives of millions of innocents. The mutagen they were working on, the same that flows through us, my sons, is the cure he was seeking. When he realized the Foot had used him all along to create this cure to save themselves, he destroyed all of his research. He is the one who set the lab on fire, Amber, and himself with it."
Hazel eyes closed. "I remember that night. April and I were on our way to say our goodnights, as promised. When April saw the flames, she rushed into the building. I searched through the fire for her, and eventually found her across the street. I was so glad to find her that I never questioned what she was doing there."
"You're our mom."
All eyes turned to the brainy turtle. His doe brown eyes were wide and staring at Amber with a mixture of hope and disbelief. Raph scowled.
"You gotta repeat that, genius. I must not have heard that right."
"She gave her DNA to fuse with the DNA in our blood, thus creating a special mutagen that transformed us from baby turtles to baby turtle humanoids. We carry her genetic codes just like any biological child she would have."
Mikey's eyes lit up. "Sweet! I always wanted a mom!"