Chapter 7
Metamorphosis
"Are they going to be alright?"
"They've been out for hours."
"This is unbelievable!"
Leo was the first to come around. He heard the voices above his head. There were three: Splinter, April, and Casey.
Where am I? Leo's eyes flickered open. It took a while for him to gain focus on the shapes of the people above him, but eventually, April's and short red hair, and Casey's long blue-black hair swam into view. He moaned.
"Leo!" Someone pulled him up into a sitting position. Leo blinked a couple times. April was kneeling beside him, her bright green eyes and kind, thin face gleaming with relief. Casey and Splinter were standing above him. He found himself sitting on the floor of the lair, on top of a blanket that had been laid down behind the couch.
"Wh…What happened?" asked Leo. His head hurt really badly, and it itched pretty badly too. He looked blearily up at the three of them, seeing nervous glances flit from one face to another. Casey put his hand on the back of his head. His angular face, rimmed with a barely noticeable five-o'clock shadow, had a pained grimace drawn upon it, making his round brown eyes narrow up with embarrassment.
"Well…" he began, but he seemed to be having a hard time finding the right words to describe the situation.
"What?" Leo asked again. He slowly got to his feet, feeling unusually light. His eyes darted from one nervous face to another. "What?" he asked a third time.
"Leonardo." Leo turned to Splinter, who was looking at him with melancholy eyes.
"Master?"
"My son, you, your brothers, and the girls have gone through a bit of a change. It might have been a little too traumatic for you, but you have to remain calm…"
"What do you mean?" asked Leo, raising his hands up with palms facing upward and extended outward in a "Give-Me-An-Answer" gesture. "What ch…?" He froze. He looked down at his hands. Those weren't his hands! Those were…
"HOLY COW!" yelled Leo. He ran over to a mirror that hung on the wall outside of the weight room. Leo screamed. That was not his face! Instead of seeing the face of a teenage mutant ninja turtle staring back at him, Leo saw thin the face of a teenage human boy! His skin was pale, he had eyebrows, and he had hair! His nose was now pointy and had nostrils! His ears were noticeable. His new hair was brown, wavy, and thick. His mouth was small, and now he had lips! His teeth weren't flat and even any more: the two front teeth were bigger than the others, and he actually had pointed canine teeth. Leo noticed that his blue mask was gone, along with his elbow pads, knee pads, wrist bands, belt, katanas, katana scabbards, and, most importantly, HIS SHELL! His feet and hands were now human sized, complete with five digits on each hand and foot. Leo also noticed that he was actually wearing clothes! A large blue T-shirt was hanging off of his shoulders, and a pair of worn out jeans were covering his lower half. Leo touched his face. The skin felt softer, and a tiny bit smoother. He became very aware of how exposed his back and torso were now. The only things that were the same were his calf brown eyes.
"I'm…I'm…" he stuttered. Leo spun around, and screamed again. April, Casey, and Splinter were standing amongst a group of unconscious teenage boys and girls, undoubtedly his brothers and the girls turned into humans. It became evident that April and Casey had lent them some of their clothes to wear, because none of the garments that now covered their human bodies fit properly. At first, Leo couldn't tell who was who, but luckily they were wearing shirts that matched the colors of their masks. The boy who was Mikey was the next to stir. He was wearing an orange T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and a pair of denim surf shorts. Unlike Leo, Don, and Raph, Mikey was blonde. He looked so much like a surfer dude it wasn't even funny, with his neck-length, long banged, bleach colored hair. When he opened his eyes, Leo could see that they were still bright blue. Mikey sat up from where he'd been lying on the couch.
"Oh…my head," he groaned. He put a hand up to his head, felt his new hair, looked at his hand, and screamed. Mikey's scream woke everyone else up. They took on look at themselves and each other, and then all of them started screaming until they ran out of air.
"What the heck is going on?!" cried Freida, clutching at her new elbow-length black hair, "This is so wrong!"
Cleo, whose thick brunette hair dangled just below her new ears, was moving her hands up and down her new body, a look of utter horror on her pale face. She shrieked when she reached her chest.
"What are…? Are these…? Mammary glands?"
Lizzie was hugging herself, her shoulder-length golden blonde hair falling into her eyes.
"I feel so exposed!" she wailed, rocking back and forth.
Raph was feeling his arms, his eyes unnaturally wide.
"I…I think I've lost muscle mass," he choked. His hair was a very dark brown, short, and spiky.
"Hey, guys," said Leo, walking over to them.
"Leo?" asked Don, pushing his new flat brown hair out of his eyes. He squinted. Leo was only on the other side of the lair, and yet Don had a hard time focusing on him.
"I think we have a problem guys," said Leo, sitting down in an armchair. He fell kind of hard on the seat, forgetting that he didn't have a shell anymore.
"Ya think?" asked Raph.
"I just can't believe it!" said Don, "We've actually been turned into humans!"
"But we're not humans!" whined Mikey, "We're turtles!" Cleo snorted.
"Does this," she held up a hand, "look turtle-like to you?"
"I've got to run some tests on this," said Don, more to himself than to the others. Raph rolled his eyes.
"How'd we get back here anyway?" he asked. Splinter, April and Casey stepped forward. Splinter was the one to speak.
"When the eight of you lost consciousness, Yoshihiro Suzuki and his ninjas disappeared, along with the pulse cannon. I found a phone system and contacted April and Casey. They rented a speedboat and drove out to Liberty Island. We then brought you all back here."
"You guys were out for almost two hours," said April, "We thought you wouldn't make it."
"Thanks for letting us borrow your clothes," said Joan appreciatively, "I suppose we weren't in a very good state when you picked us up."
"It wasn't a problem; Casey just had to cover his eyes when we were loading you all up in the speedboat."
Two hours later, Don had completed a series of tests devised to see just how bad the situation was. Mikey winced as he flexed his arm. Don had decided to use him for blood work, but Don's new hands were hard to get used to. Poor Mikey had had to endure a couple of extra sticks. Don meanwhile had to resort to telling April what to type in for him on the computer, because he just couldn't figure out how to type with four extra fingers.
"So what's the verdict, Donny?" asked Leo.
"Well," said Don, "it's unbelievable, but it seems that the ray mutated our DNA even further than the ooze did." He was talking while looking over the data. "It happened almost too rapidly to be true, but our DNA has been completely altered. I mean, from reptile to mammal? It's extraordinary!"
"Yeah," drawled Raph, rolling his eyes, "It is soooo exciting!"
"I mean, we're completely human now! Human skeletal structures, human muscles, human organ systems, the list is endless!" said Don.
"How'd it mutate us, exactly?" asked Cleo.
"Well, my best guess is that that ray gun shot us with and extremely high amount of Gamma radiation," answered Don. "Since you can never really tell what kind of mutations Gamma rays can cause, Suzuki must have just planned on making us weak or vulnerable; being turned into humans is probably more than he could have hoped for. Quite frankly, I'm amazed that the radiation didn't kill us."
"Like this is any better," whispered Lizzie.
"But, as you guys may have noticed, there are a few drawbacks," said Don.
"A few?" asked Mikey.
"Yes. Let's see. Well, for one thing, we're not as…er…as muscular as we normally are."
"Say what?" asked Mikey, "You mean we're not buff anymore?" He sounded horrified.
"We're still fit!" said Don quickly, "But we're just not as strong we used to be."
Raph groaned loudly.
"Also," continued Don, "our eyesight isn't as sharp as it was. We most likely have all become either far or nearsighted. There is a good thing, however."
"A good thing?" asked Freida skeptically.
"Yeah. Now that we're not cold-blooded anymore, we're not as sensitive to temperature change."
"Wait," Raph interrupted. "Since when has temperature change ever bothered us?"
"Well, we've never really encountered real temperature change, since we always keep the lair heated to a stable temperature," explained Don. "And we've been going out at night since we were kids, so we're used to the night air. Besides, we never go out if it's too cold, or if it's snowing or raining really hard, so we've never experience what happens to us when we're exposed to extreme cold. Not to mention the fact that we never go out during the day, so we don't know what would happen to us if we were exposed to natural heat from the sun."
"Back home in Montana," said Cleo, "We get extreme summers and extreme winters, so we know what happens to us in either kinds of temperature."
"What happens?" asked Leo.
"In the winter time, we get really sluggish and lethargic. We can't train at all and we can't go outside for fear of collapsing and freezing up. Half the time we have to stay in our rooms and snuggle up by the space heaters," explained Cleo. "And then in the summer time, we're get super hyperactive and strong. We can run halfway up a mountain and back without getting tired. It's like we've got pure adrenaline pumping through our veins."
"So how come you haven't been effected by the temperature here at night?" asked Mikey.
"I guess it's because New York isn't as cold as Montana."
"So, back to the drawbacks," said Don, checking one more piece of data, "We're not going to be able to take a hit as easily, so no fighting."
"How long are we gonna be like this?" asked Raph. "It ain't permanent, is it?"
"Well, I think I could change us back, but it's definitely going to take some time," replied Don. Everyone groaned. "I'll do my best! Until then, we'll just have to learn to deal." There was an even louder groan.
"Uh oh," said Lizzie.
"What?" asked Joan, still itching her hair.
"I gotta go."
"Go where?" asked Mikey.
"You know, go!" Lizzie crossed her legs.
"Oh!" said Joan, alarmed. They all looked at each other, at a loss.
"Here," said April, "I'll help you." She took Lizzie by the hand and led her over to the guest's bathroom.
"Okay, do we really have to wear all this stuff?" asked Freida, tugging at her two sizes too large black T-shirt. It had the words "Fall Out Boy" printed on it in white.
"Yes, as a matter of fact you do," said Casey. "Humans have to cover themselves. You can't just walk around naked."
"Why not?" asked Mikey, "We do it all the time."
"And just what is this for?" asked Cleo, looking down her green long-sleeved shirt. Casey blushed.
"It…uh…supports your new chest," he said delicately. "Only girls wear them."
" Supports?" repeated Freida, "I feel like a trussed-up Thanksgiving turkey!"
"You know guys," said Leo, comprehension dawning on his face, "now that we're humans, we can go out in public during the day." The boys' faces lit up in excitement, and the girls giggled.
"You guys do look like you could use a little sun," admitted Casey. "I'll tell you what. We'll take you out for lunch, then I'll show you guys around, and April can take the girls out."
"That sounds good," said Leo.
"Yeah!" said Mikey. Raph and Don nodded enthusiastically. The girls gave a three-way nod. Splinter however was doubtful.
"Are you sure it's safe for them?" he asked. The boys laughed.
"Come on! We can take care of ourselves," said Raph.
"We've been around the city a million times!" said Mikey.
"You can trust us, Master," said Leo. Splinter hesitated, but the look of pleading on each of their faces won him over.
"Very well then," he said, "But be back before dark." The boys and girls cheered. Just then, they heard the sound of a toilet flushing. April walked out of the bathroom, followed by a terrified Lizzie.
"That," she said quietly, "will haunt me for the rest of my life."
After getting introduced to shoes and socks for the first time (a painful experience that involved a lot of screaming and an accidental fat lip), the group of eight teenagers and their two chaperones made their way through the sewers to find a manhole they could exit through. Mikey showed them the manhole inside the garage he used to park his van. The garage was hidden behind a removable section of an alley wall camouflaged with graffiti. When they first stepped out of the alleyway and into the sun, the boys had to cover their eyes; they weren't used to going out at high noon!
The sight of eight pasty-faced, grubby-looking teenagers wearing clothes that were too big for them and reeking of sewer pipes drew quite a lot of attention from passers-by, especially from other teenagers. The eight of them weren't used to walking on the sidewalk, so they were startled when people shouted at them to clear a pathway as they walked shoulder to shoulder along the narrow pavement. They grudgingly gave in and resorted to walking in two single-file lines. When they eight of them plus April and Casey entered the door of a Domino's restaurant, people near them wrinkled their noses and moved towards the bathrooms. As they sat down at a booth near the back of the restaurant, they drew scathing looks from a table full of high school cheerleaders and their football-playing boyfriends. April went up to order and Casey went to the restroom, so the boys and girls were left to feel the wrath of the condescending gazes from the high schoolers' booth across from them. They heard the cheerleaders whispering about the clothing choices and the lack of makeup, and they heard the jocks whispering about the grunginess and the sewer smell.
When their pizzas were ready and at the table, the former turtles had a hard time figuring out how to bite their food now that their mouths were at less than half their normal width. At the sight of the eight of them trying to ease the food into their mouths, the high schoolers sniggered loudly. Raph broke the plastic fork he was holding, which seemed to entertain the high schoolers even more.
"Easy Raph," cautioned Leo, "We don't want to attract attention."
"It's a little too late for that one Leo," said Mikey, nodding at the other table. Freida glared down at her plate.
"Jerk-offs," she muttered.
"Sure wish we get them to shut the heck up," said Raph.
"I've got this one guys," said Lizzie. She got up and walked over to the high schoolers' table. They stopped laughing as they saw her approach. "Hey," she greeted casually. The jocks and the cheerleaders looked at each other, confused.
"Um, hi?" said one of the cheerleaders, a brunette girl who had overdosed on the makeup. Lizzie grinned.
"D'you think I could borrow your guys' cheese?" she asked, pointing to the Parmesan shaker.
"Er, yeah." The brunette handed Lizzie the shaker, then drew her hand back as if she had been burned.
"Thanks." Lizzie started to walk away, but then a redhead cheerleader asked her friends, in a loud whisper,
"Why does she smell like a sewer pipe?" Lizzie stopped. She smirked triumphantly at the others, and then turned around.
"Sorry?" asked Lizzie. The redhead looked up.
"Nothing," she said pompously.
"No no," said Lizzie, hitching a look of angry confusion on her face, "you said I smell like a sewer pipe." The redhead paused for a moment, surprised that Lizzie had heard what she had uttered.
"Well, you do," she said at last.
"Do what?"
"You do smell like a sewer pipe. I mean you really reek!" The other high schoolers murmured in agreement, and then they started to laugh.
"Yeah!" said a blonde cheerleader, her tone sneering. "What's the matter? Don't believe in soap?" The jocks laughed stupidly. Lizzie laughed too.
"Wow!" she said cheerfully, "You guys are shallower than a day-old rain puddle, aren't you?" The high schoolers ceased their sniggering, while the former turtles burst into hysterical laughter.
"Come again?" asked one of the jocks, a curly haired blonde boy.
"And it looks like you're not that smart either!" said Lizzie. The jocks and the cheerleaders looked at each other incredulously. The turtles roared with laughter. Lizzie snapped her fingers and walked back to the booth, squeezing in next to Mikey.
"Nice one Liz!" said Mikey, slapping her hi-five.
"Well, you dorks are stinking up the restaurant!" called the blonde cheerleader. Her friends laughed again. Raph did a loud fake sneeze. The high schoolers stared at him. He sniffed.
"Sorry," he said, "I'm allergic to jerk-offs." The boys and girls broke out laughing again. Giggling, they finished their pizzas, paid the bill, and then followed a chuckling April and Casey out the door. Mikey quickly poked his head back into the restaurant. The high schoolers looked back at him.
"Cowabunga dudes!" he called, and slammed the door behind hi