So as I write this, it is the day after the TMNT 2012 second season finale. Irma has been revealed as… a Kraang robot. So naturally I am pretty peeved about that that. However, I refuse to let that dampen my spirits. Even if they don't bring her back in that series, she will be alive and well in my stories. Well… more or less. Unless she's being chased by something. But either way, I know that I'm not the only Irma lover out there, and so I want all of you fans to know that I dedicate this particular chapter to you, because Irma is pretty awesome here, as she has been in all the previous chapters. Thanks for sticking with me all this time, and hopefully these stories do her wonderful character justice.
Now here we go, guys… a very, very exiting chapter is now coming your way. Brace yourselves.
I do not in any way, shape or form own the characters related to TMNT. I am merely borrowing them for fun and enjoyment. They should be flattered.
Chapter Nine
It was staring to rain, I noted dully as I stood outside, clutching the strap to my black shoulder bag. I was so focused on the building in front of me with the letters TCRI placed above the door to pay any attention to the dampness that was seeping into my clothes. My hands were wrapped so tightly around the strap of my bag that my knuckles were turning white.
TCRI's building was an impressive monolith standing much higher than the other buildings sitting around it, making it seem almost oppressive and unquestionably powerful, which was undoubtedly their intention. Whoever their architect was, they certainly knew what they were doing. It looked like the kind of building where if you walked in and said the wrong thing, you'd never see the light of day again. I swallowed nervously and took a step forward.
The street was completely dark except for the streetlights and the lights above the door to the TCRI building. When I finally stood in front of the doors I felt completely dwarfed by the mere size of them. I could stand on my own head three times over and still miss the top of the doors by an arms-length. Okay, maybe it was a bit of an exaggeration, but I was terrified and they were still pretty big. But now was no time to get nervous.
Too late for that, I scoffed mentally. Besides, Mona needed me. I could be brave for her. With a deep breath, I reached for the door handle and wrapped my hand around it. I couldn't help but hesitate though, and I turned my head to look at the shadows in the alleyway across the street. I could barely make out two dark blobs sitting in the alley, but just seeing their outlines made me feel a little more reassured. One of them lifted a hand in what I could only assume was a thumbs up, and I gave them a weak smile. Without further ado, I opened the door and stepped inside.
The entrance hall felt… sterile. The walls and floor were pure white, with more lighting than I felt was strictly necessary shining down from the ceiling so brightly that I had t0 blink a few times. The hall was long, and devoid of any decoration save the letters of TCRI over the front desk. Both sides of the hall were lined with white chairs with black cushions, presumably for people who were waiting for something.
The desk was as pristine as the rest of the room, and the only other person I could see besides me sat behind the desk. She was a woman who wore a brown blouse, a black pencil skirt, a black belt, and black shoes. Her graying hair was pulled back into a bun, and she watched me walk towards her as I imagined a spider might watch a fly.
I walked towards her until I stood in front of the desk. Neither of us spoke for a moment. I was waiting for her to say something, but she didn't say anything. Finally I broke the silence by clearing my throat nervously and speaking. "Uh… I'm here to see Miss Mona Lisa Keating, please."
The woman, whose nameplate on the desk said Ms. Gamble, continued to watch me for another second, and then she spoke in the way that automatic voices you get on the phones for big businesses do. "Miss Keating is currently in our labs. Do you have an appointment with her?"
Okay, now it was time to start praying to all benevolent deities in the world. "There should be something on her schedule with me. I'm, ah, Mary Jonas."
Miss Gamble looked down at the computer screen in front of her, tapped a few keys, and then looked back up at me, speaking once again in that monotone, false-friendly, computer voice. "Your appointment is on the schedule. I will open the elevator so that you may wait for her in her office. The doors will automatically open on her office floor. The office number is eight-one-eight. Please, stay in Miss Keating's office and do not wander."
As soon as she was done talking, the elevator doors behind her slid open with a hiss. I gave Miss Gamble another weak smile and walked past her as quickly as I could into the elevator. The doors slid shut, and I let out a breath that I hadn't known I was holding in. I quickly pulled out my smart phone and opened a green, shell-shaped app on it, instantly giving me the numbers of all the turtles. I tapped on Donnie's and held it to my ear, waiting for him to pick it up. He answered almost immediately. "Are you in?"
"Yeah, I'm in the elevator. Quick hacking skills, by the way."
"No time for flirting, Irma."
"I wasn't flirting, I was complimen-"
"You're going up to the eighth floor, but according to the blueprints, the labs are in the basement. I'm reversing it so that you're going down instead of up." Two seconds after he said that, the elevator lurched to a halt, and began a slow decent. "Did it work?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I'm loading a program remotely into your phone right now, which will cause the security cameras to go on loop for ten minutes. Okay? You have ten minutes to find Mona, find an escape route, and get the hell out of Dodge."
"But where is Mona? Do you know?"
"No. But the lab layout should be printed when you get out." He was quiet for a moment, and then spoke again. "Irma, promise me you'll be careful. We can't go in there with you, and that terrifies me. Please, don't do anything reckless."
Despite the dire circumstances, I couldn't help but grin slightly. "I swear I will be as cautious as I can be. I have to make dinner for you guys tonight, you know that."
"Yeah, but you can only do that if you're in one piece."
I took a breath. "I'll be as careful and quick as I possibly can, I promise you, Don."
That seemed to satisfy him because he let the subject drop. "Okay. So the program is downloaded to your phone and it'll turn you invisible. I also have where Mona is working- Lab 3. Just go there and with any luck, that's where she'll be."
Even though he couldn't see me, I nodded. "What do I do afterwards?"
"Mona will hopefully be able to get you out quickly. We have a backup plan if that doesn't work like we'd hope."
"We'll cross that road when we get to it." I managed to keep the fear out of my voice rather admirably, I thought. "I'm almost to the floor. I'll talk to you when I'm out."
"See you outside." Then the line went dead.
The elevator doors went ding, and then slid open. My heart stopped.
The hallway it opened onto was completely empty- as white as the entrance room had been when I first came into the building. There were no markings on the wall as to where I should be walking, but fortunately when the elevator opened, there was a simple map on the wall. Apparently there was only one set of elevators that went down into the basement for security reasons, and I had just taken it. It was centrally located, and within two turns I was walking down another white hallway to a lab that had lights still on behind it. I hesitated going towards it- it might not even have been Mona- but it was the only occupied lab I had seen, and I had to start somewhere.
The Biohazard warning symbol on the door gave me pause, but I quickly overcame my initial worries and opened the door, thinking, somewhat irrationally, that Don could cure me if I contracted some horrible illness. Looking back I realize how very silly that thought was, but at the time it seemed perfectly logical.
The doors swung open easily, and I found myself in a room lined with animal cages and with several long tables covered in beakers and chemicals. The room was completely devoid of people- except for one figure standing in a lab coat, carrying a syringe in one hand and something wriggling in the other.
She didn't look up as she spoke, but the familiarity of her voice made me sigh with relief. I had some luck after all. She must have heard me come in, but assumed I was someone else, as she spoke with a somewhat detached voice that she had when concentrating on something else. "Oh, Mark, good. We need more of the third liquid we used in this. I forget what it was, hydrochloric something-or-other." I rushed up to her as she spoke and grabbed her by the shoulder. She jolted in surprise and turned around, speaking reproachfully. "Mark! Don't do that, you know it's-" Her eyes, which were covered in protective goggles, widened in shock as she recognized me. "Irma! Irma, what the hell are you doing here?!"
I could clearly see what she had in her hand now. It was a lizard of some kind, but its wriggling had someone managed to get a tear in the elastic glove she was wearing. Her skin showed beneath it, and for some reason I pointed it out instead of telling her I was there to begin with. "The lizard-thing tore your glove."
She looked down at her hand and put the creature and syringe down with a sigh before pulling off both gloves. "It wasn't the chameleon, it was- wait, why the hell am I telling you why there's a tear?! Why are you here?! How did you get in here?! Do you have any idea how illegal this is?! The corporate red tape you're destroying right now could get us both landed in prison!"
I ignored her and grabbed her wrist in an attempt to get her to be quiet. "Mona, we need to get out of here. We need to get out of here now."
"Are you nuts?! Do you have any idea how close I am to-"
I interrupted her again, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a little shake. "They know about you, Mona! They know! We have to get out of here now! I'll explain everything later, just please believe me now!"
My friend stared at me for what seemed like thirty years. Her big blue eyes stared into my green ones, and even though I had a good four inches on her, I felt so much smaller. I certainly couldn't force her to leave if she said no, and then we would both be screwed because I would not leave without her.
But when she finally nodded and said "Okay, I believe you," I almost collapsed on the floor right there. We still had plenty of time to get out. There had to be an emergency exit. We were going to be just fine, and everything would-
"You will halt!"
… go straight to hell in a hand basket.
We spun around to look at the door. A man in a black suit was standing there. I would have looked him over more closely, but all my attention was focused on a large gun that he held in both his hands that were aimed towards Mona and I.
"Tunnel vision," I mumbled, grasping for support from the table. "I'm getting tunnel vision."
Mona was also staring that the gun. "That thing cannot be legal."
The man walked closer to us, his eyes unblinking and his face expressionless. "The scientist known as Mona Lisa Keating and her friend will follow me."
Mona and I glanced at each other uncertainly. "What did he say?" I whispered.
The man spoke again, still not blinking, and in a very monotone voice. "Come with me."
Mona's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, I don't think so."
The man pressed a button on the gun, and suddenly parts of it began to glow and make noises that I did not particularly like. I slowly reached behind me with one hand for something I could throw at the man while Mona put up her hands. "Look, we don't want any trouble. What did we do wrong?"
"You have allowed an unlicensed person into the labs without clearance. This is a clear violation of the contract signed regarding the conditions of your employment."
My hand wrapped around something behind me, and I pulled it towards me as inconspicuously as possible. Mona continued talking to the man. I had to admire her courage in the face of a firearm that could probably take off her head in one blast. "Okay, yes, she shouldn't be down here. I'll take her outside and I'll come back in here and speak to the supervisor."
The gun didn't lower. "Your offer is unsatisfactory. You will both accompany me to the supervisor."
The man put pressure on the trigger. The sound on the gun became even louder and the lights began to glow brighter. Mona's attempts to calm the situation didn't seem to be making things any better.
So okay, yes, I freak out when presented with a terrifying situation. I admit it. This fear has, at times, propelled me to make very bad choices, which just leads me to panicking more and making even more bad choices. Mona really should have been expecting me to do something stupid when I picked up the object that I had in my hand and hurled it towards the man's face. It turned out to be a flask filled with some liquid inside.
All I heard before the bottle hit the man's face was Mona screeching, "Irma, NO!" Then there was the sound of shattered glass, and a horrible hissing sound filled the air, and I watched with complete horror as the man's face began to melt away. "Irma, that was acid," Mona moaned, her hands flying to her face.
Naturally I was sickened at the sight at first… but then I noticed something very, very weird.
The man was still standing. He didn't move even a fraction of an inch. He didn't make a sound of pain. So that was when I stopped screaming, because at that point he should have been writhing around in agony on the floor as blood, skin and nerves fell in puddles on the floor, but he wasn't. There was also no blood, or skin, or nerves being melted off. Don't get me wrong, I was happy about that, but what I saw probably freaked me out more than the sight of his face being melted off could have.
His face- his skin and features like mouth, nose, eyes- they were gone. But underneath that was a smooth, metal surface with a slot for a mouth, and two eyes that glowed with a bright, violet light. I stared at him (it), utterly stupefied. Now this, I was not expecting.
I was broken out of my trance when it spoke again.
"Hostiles of Kraang have been confirmed. Hostiles of Kraang will now be destroyed by Kraang." Then he lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger.
I don't know what power made me think that I should duck at that exact moment, but I did, dragging Mona down with me exactly as a beam of violet-pink light shot out of the barrel of the gun and hit the wall behind us, leaving a large, black, scorch mark. The robot- Kraang, I thought to myself- leveled the gun at us again. We wasted no time. Mona and I hurtled ourselves at the robot-man, causing us all to fall to the floor. I punched the thing's face and immediately regretted it, howling with pain as my knuckles met unrelenting metal. Mona's attack was more effective. Quickly standing up, she smashed her foot down on the creature's hand, forcing it to release its grip on the gun. She then picked it up and, without hesitation, shot the gun off at the robot's head. I jumped out of the way in time to avoid the blast. "Hey!" I shouted at her. "I'm still here!"
"I'm sorry, it was spur of the moment!"
Then we heard something click. The robot's head was now completely gone. All that was left were a couple of wires. But there was a sound coming from his stomach. There was a hiss of metal, a panel in the robot's stomach slid open, and inside was-
"A BRAIN! IT'S A BRAIN!" I screamed and screamed, and then screamed even louder when the brain suddenly sprouted legs, eyes, and opened a mouth with sharp teeth to start squealing. "KILL IT!" I screamed. "KILL IT! KILL IT! MONA, KILL IT!"
Mona had not, to her credit, started screaming like a ninny (unlike myself), but her eyes were as wide as saucers when she lifted the gun and fired at the brain-blob hunkering down in the stomach of the robot. It jumped up out of the robot stomach as she fired, and it scurried away under the tables. I, in the meantime, had clambered on top of one of the tables in a desperate attempt to keep myself away from the brain-thing, still screeching about shooting it dead. My attention snapped back to Mona when she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me towards her off the table.
"Yeah, we definitely need to get out of here."
I pointed in the direction the blob had gone. "What was that thing?!"
"I have no idea, but we're not sticking around any longer than we have to!"
"Yes! Good!" I jumped up at her words and began running to the door before Mona grabbed my arm again and pulled me back. "I said longer than we have to! I need to grab something!"
"Grab something?! Are you nuts?! We have to get out of here now!"
Mona was at this point ignoring me, and ran to another door on the other side of the lab, quickly tapping a series of numbers onto the keyboard. The doors slid open with a slight hiss, and she ran inside. I stood outside the door to the room she ran into, nervously moving from foot to foot. "We don't have time for this, Monie, we need to get out of here now!"
She stepped back out of the room carrying something in her arms and a satisfied expression on her face. "Not without this."
I stared down in her arms. "What the hell is that?" The that in question was a large, glass canister with metal at both ends. Inside the glass sat what I presumed was a liquid. It was green and blue, glowed in a very disconcerting way, and seemed to move within the bottle at a slow, sluggish pace. I knew looking at it that without a doubt, this was the substance that had baffled Donatello before.
"It's called Mutagen," said Mona. "And it's what they've been experimenting on. I'm taking this one with us."
Several thoughts flitted through my mind at this point, namely "Are you NUTS? You want to STEAL from the things that are SHOOTING at us?! Put it back!"
"I need th-"
"GODDAMNIT MONA, PUT IT BACK!"
"NO!" Mona's voice was even louder than mine, and she clung to the large, glowing container like it was an infant, refusing to back down. "You don't understand! I've been working on this ever since I've been here! This is it! This is the key! This is everything I need for Jason! This is FOR Jason!"
"Jason won't have a mother if we don't get out of here now!" I threw my hands up in the air. "Fine! Take the damn thing! We have to go!" Her arms were full of the container, so I picked up the gun myself. It was large and unwieldy, and I had to hold it in both hands. Fortunately it seemed easy enough to use. There was a trigger, but no slot to load ammo into. I gave it a cursory glance, trying to see if there was anything else I should be aware of on the gun. I had a gun license in my home state of Georgia, and I had been part of my college's Marksmen Club in High School and college, so I knew how to handle a firearm, but it was very unwise to handle a gun that was unfamiliar. Especially if it looked like something from another planet.
"Mona, we need a way out of here. Do you know of one?"
She frowned, closing her eyes briefly in thought before opening them again. "The garage. We have trucks that come in and pick up deliveries. We can get out through there because trucks come in at all hours."
"Can we get there from here?"
Mona hesitated slightly. "Y-esss. Probably. It might be tricky. There's emergency stairs which might be better for us, but that could take longer. We can't use the elevators, they can freeze them."
"Okay. Wait a second." I put down the gun and pulled the black shoulder bag off, quickly opening it and reaching inside to find a small, metal device that fit in the palm of my hand. At the top of it was a red button, which Mona stared at with wide eye. "What is THAT?"
"Backup emergency plan," I told her, and put it in one of my pockets before reaching back into the bag and pulling out several small balls, which I put into my other pocket. I also held out a handful to Mona. She shook her head, gripping the canister tightly. I noticed the glow from the liquid tinted the skin of her hands a green color, and a slight shiver ran though me. Whatever was in that liquid, I did not like it. Mona's voice brought my attention back to her. "I need both hands on this thing," she told me. "You hold on to those."
I put the balls in my pocket and stared at her. "Mona, if things get hairy, I want you to drop that canister and just run. It is not worth your life."
The scientist nodded, but didn't say anything. That was as good as I was going to get, I supposed. Hefting the gun into my hands, we both headed towards the door. I briefly thought about hunting down that brain thing and killing it, but we didn't have the time. The door to the hallway slid open. "Left," Mona said, and we slipped into the corridor, me first and Mona close behind. I kept the gun held close to my chest, my finger close to the trigger. Neither of us could run as the gun I held was easily fifteen pounds, and Mona's canister could possibly be even heavier. We moved as quickly as we could though.
"Where do we need to go?" I asked, keeping my eyes trained ahead of me.
"Up ahead, we'll come to a two-way hallway. We're going to turn left until the next cross, and then the one after that, a right."
"Left, right," I muttered to myself under my breath. "Let's pick up the pace." We got to the first cross without incident, but right as we turned onto the new corridor, an alarm started to sound. I turned to look at Mona, who knew what I was going to say before I said anything. We both immediately broke into a run, moving as fast as we could. We had just turned onto the other corridor when I heard another robotic voice coming our way. Spinning around, Mona ran ahead of me, and I quickly took aim and fired at another figure as it rounded the corner. Another man, who looked exactly the same as the other one, took the shot directly to the chest and fell backwards, sparks flying. I turned back and started running again, not even screaming when bolts of purple-pink light came shooting over and around me.
The Hamatos had told me at times that when they'd been in very harrowing situations, everything seems to slow down a little, because their adrenaline is pumping so hard that they don't even have time to be afraid. Looking back on that moment, I probably was going through something very similar. I knew it was a lot harder to hit a moving target, and I moved back and forth through the hallway to avoid being hit.
When I turned the corner, I pressed my back against the wall and then lifted the gun in my hands again, jumping out from around the corner to shoot at the robot-men coming towards me. There were four of them. I squeezed off three blasts. One of them went down. I ducked behind the corner again before jumping out once more, firing several more times. Two of them went down. Just as I was starting to think that these creatures were terrible shots, I felt an excruciating pain in my left leg. I did not allow myself to fall at that moment, and instead managed to fire another shot that hit the robot directly in the face. As soon as I heard the metal clang of it falling to the floor, I collapsed behind the corner, dropping the gun, grasping my leg where I had been shot. My eyes burned with tears of pain that I did not allow to fall. I had nothing to staunch the bleeding at that moment, and could only guess at the damage done. With great effort, I pulled myself to my feet again. With my speed greatly reduced I began to hobble towards the direction Mona had gone, trying to ignore the drops of blood that were falling to the ground from the wound. Within a minute, my pants leg was drenched.
Fortunately, the garage door was close by; after a couple of painful minutes, I caught up to Mona, who had just managed to bypass the security code and open the door. The canister was sitting beside her as she punched in the codes. As the door opened, she punched the air in victory and turned towards me, her brilliant grin quickly disappearing as she saw me, one hand supporting myself on the wall, a small trail of blood behind me.
"My god, Irma!" she shouted, running towards me. "We have to get you to a hospital!"
"We have to get out of here first," I told her.
"The enemies of Kraang will not be leaving the headquarters of Kraang! Enemies of Kraang will surrender to Kraang now!"
Three more Kraang had appeared behind us. But these were different. They didn't wear the false clothes of the previous Kraang- their bodies were fully metal, with the pink blobs sitting inside of their stomachs. I wasn't terribly shocked, having seen the brain thing before. But also I was getting lightheaded from blood loss, so that probably helped keep me calm. "Mona," I whispered quietly to her, "reach into my right pocket and pull out those little balls. Try to be discreet."
Mona came beside me with the pretence of supporting me, but her lab coat covered my right side, and with her left hand, she reached into my pocket, and grabbed a handful. "Throw them," I whispered to her.
Just as the Kraang started coming towards us, Mona pulled her arm back and threw them with all the strength she could muster. The balls fell at the feet of the Kraang, and exploded on impact, sending some sort of smoke and gas into the air. I had no idea what was in the smoke, but the other robots fell to the ground, sending up strange, electronic screeches.
Without waiting a second, the two of us, Mona supporting me on one shoulder and her canister under the other, went as quickly as we could into the garage. "Do you think we can get one of these trucks to work for us?"
Mona didn't answer as we hobbled towards the garage door, kicking it open with her foot and stopping for a moment while I searched for a light switch. I found it within seconds, and Mona and I stumbled forward to shot and lock the door behind us. Unfortunately, we were then met with yet another foreboding sight. There were indeed many trucks sitting in the garage, but all of the garage doors leading outside were closed. "Damnit," Mona groaned. "I forgot- you need a key to open up the garage doors!"
I bit my lip. "So what do we do?"
From the hallway behind us, a sound like a muffled thunderclap came from behind the closed door. Mona and I immediately leaned back against the door, futilely hoping that it would stall the robots coming after us.
BANG. BANG. BANG. "The ones that are female of the species known as human will open this door!" The door behind us vibrated with the force of the metal fists pounding on it.
"Over my dead body!" I shouted, pressing my shoulder against the door more firmly.
"Irma, don't give them ideas!"
"If the human female insists." I would never have thought a robot voice could sound smug, but they did it quite admirably. Before I knew what was happening, Mona had shoved me away from the door, and the two of us took a dive bomb onto the ground just as the door flew open with a crash, of its hinges now useless and broken. Several robots marched out of the room, their plasma rifles held at the ready at us.
Mona had thrown herself so that she landed on her back, her mutagen still cradled against her chest. The Kraang saw it, and the strange sounds they made began to resound in earnest as they came closer to take it from her. And also possibly to shoot us. We both began scooting backwards away from the robots until our backs hit one of the tires on a truck.
"I don't suppose you have any bombs in your pockets?" Mona asked me desperately, still clinging to that worthless jar.
I shook my head dejectedly, bracing myself against the rubber wheel behind me. "What we need here is a miracle."
Now, throughout most of my life I have swung back and forth between believing in a benevolent deity, and just thinking that my life is one gigantic joke. Even after meeting Donatello, the great love of my life, there were times when I felt like Someone In Power had it out for me. However, this moment was one of the moments that made me into a believer.
No sooner had the word miracle left my lips than one of the doors to the garage exploded inwardly in a fantastic display of destruction. Twisted metal rained down as what was left of the door crumpled like a cardboard cutout. Sparks flew everywhere and electrical wires sent out shoots of lighting. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. It was even more attractive when out of the debris came five familiar figures. Four of them were green, and one of them wore a hockey mask. I looked up at the sky. "You do love me!" I exclaimed wondrously.
"What the hell are those?!" screamed Mona.
My eyes widened. "Oh, CRAP."
Right as I were about to come up with an incredibly ludicrous and highly implausible lie as to what the four turtles actually were, a more pressing matter developed in front of us. "Kraang! The female known as Mona Lisa Keating of the species known as human has that which is known as Mutagen! Destroy her!"
"SCATTER!" I screamed, and the two of us dove to either side as the laser beams began firing again. I began crawling underneath the truck behind me, my injured leg all but forgotten in my hurry to escape my assailants. Suddenly, a cold, metal hand grasped me around the ankle and drug me back out, screaming and clawing at the ground. I was pulled out from beneath the truck just long enough to see the Kraang who had me get impaled in the head by a sai as Raphael and Michelangelo came crashing into the scene.
Complete and utter chaos broke out around me as Casey and the turtles went after the Kraang who continued to pour through the door. I was frozen for a moment, watching everything take place around me before I came to my senses and began crawling under the truck again, trying to reach the other side. When I reached the other side of the truck, I peeked out from behind the back of a tire to make sure that the coast was clear before I left my relatively safe spot. Instead I was met with the sight of Donatello taking on five Kraang at once.
He was fighting brilliantly, launching attacks from crates that gave him a height advantage over the Kraang-bots, leaping from one stack to another and whacking off a head or two as he fought.
A familiar sensation began to crawl its way through my nerves, and I had to fight it back with a blush. Of all the times to find Donatello sexy, it had to be then.
Fortunately, my mind was dragged back from the brink of perversion by the sound of an angry yelp coming from Mona, who was apparently playing tog-of-war with another robot on the other side of the garage. Clambering to my feet, I ran (or stumbled) over to her as quickly as I could, grabbing another fallen Kraang gun and firing at the one going after Mona. It fell to the ground with a metallic squeal, and Mona staggered trying to get the large canister of mutagen securely back into her arms. Seeing me with the gun, she rushed over, her eyes wide with multiple emotions. The most prominent one was, surprisingly enough, curiosity. "Irma! Who are those guys? Are they wearing costumes? What are the-"
Quickly interrupting what would no doubt be a long stream of questions, I grabbed her by the arms and turned her around so that she was facing the caved-in garage door. "They're friends, they aren't costumes, and we have to leave NOW. Let's go." Without waiting for her to respond, I began shoving her out the door, planning on taking her down into the nearest sewer entrance. Fortunately she was cooperative and followed along, the two of us running away from the fighting. I didn't look back as we ran out; Casey and the turtles had the Kraang all distracted, and they would make a getaway as soon as they knew we were out of danger. They wouldn't be stupid. I also made a mental note to myself to make sure that I fully expressed my gratitude to Don as soon as we were alone and I could tell him just how seeing him fight made me feel… and then I remembered my bad leg as a huge jolt of pain ran up and down it.
Mona, sensing my discomfort, put my arm around her neck to help support my weight, her other arm cradling her mutagen. The two of us managed to escape the garage unnoticed, which I was infinitely thankful for as we dashed out into the night. "Quick," I told Mona, "Let's duck into that alleyway. We can lose them in the sewers."
She stared at me as though I had grown a second head, but must have chalked my words up to feverish exclamations brought about by sudden stress at our circumstances. Nevertheless, she headed towards the alleyway.
The street was completely deserted, most likely due the rain which had earlier just been a drizzle and was now definitely a downpour. Had it not been for the sounds of fighting behind us, I would have believed the two of us to be completely alone. A small sigh of relief worked its way passed my lips and I released a shaky breath, believing us to be out of danger.
I was proven wrong when a man suddenly stepped out of the shadows towards us. He wore dark pants, a dark vest, fingerless gloves, and had a large, purple tattoo of a dragon spiraling up his left arm. He looked Asian, and grinned at us predatorily.
"Hello, ladies." He gave us a mocking bow with a sweep of his arm and sauntered closer, taking in our disheveled appearance, his gaze lingering specifically on my blood-drenched pants leg. He seemed to completely ignore the rain drenching the three of us, his focus completely on the two of us before him. "You look like you could use some help."
Deciding that it would be best to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible, I responded. "Thanks, but we've got someone waiting for us, so we'll just be on our way." But before we could even move, he stepped in front of us again, and out from behind a van parked on the street, four more men came out. The man who had been speaking to us, who was obviously the leader, continued to smile unsettlingly at us. "Now, sweetie," he said, "why not be honest here? We know that you two came from in there," and here he pointed at the TCRI building, "and you're obviously not a source of their well-wishes. So how about you hand over that little bottle you have there and we'll all go on our merry ways?"
Suddenly, it clicked. The purple dragon tattoo. The reason they wanted the bottle. "You're the ones who spoke with Paul, aren't you?" I blurted out before I could think. Mona sucked in a breath between her teeth. I could tell she was ready to kill me.
"Oh, you found out about that little deal, did you? Well, then you know that the Purple Dragons never back down from a deal." He pointed at Mona. "You're the sister, right? Look, you give us what we want, we'll give you the cash we owed your brother."
Mona perked up instantly. "Paul? Where is Paul? Tell me!"
The man shrugged. "Don't know and I don't care. The last time I saw him, he went into that building you just came out of and hasn't come back out.
"How can you not know anything?" Mona demanded. "We saw his notes. We know he was working with you. You had to have kept tabs on him!"
"Hey, we weren't his keeper. We don't care how we get the stuff, we just want it, whether it's from him or you." His expression turned dark and considerably more dangerous. "He was late getting this stuff to us. We have people who'll pay big time for what you've got there, and we're on a deadline here. Now, we plan to make that deadline. You can either cooperate with us and we'll part ways amicably, or you can say no. And before you ask," he said, stopping me from saying anything, "if you say no, then we just shoot you here and we take the stuff off your corpses."
I looked at Mona. Personally I was all for getting rid of the damn thing. It was the entire reason I was shot. We could have been out of the TCRI building so much faster had she not been so obsessed with it. But Mona's face hardened and she gritted her teeth. "I am not giving this up," she told the Purple Dragon. "You have no idea what I went through to get this. This is the key to the whole thing."
"Yeah, we know," he said calmly, and then pulled out a gun and aimed it at us. "That's why we want it." He cocked the trigger. "Last chance."
One of the other men leaned over and said something to another guy in what sounded like Mandarin. The second guy laughed and repeated it louder. Suddenly all of them were smirking and started slowly moving towards us. The one with the gun barked out a sharp order and they stopped. He looked back at us. "My associates here have suggested that we could… have some fun with you if you keep trying to say no."
My blood froze. The entire world seemed to darken for an instant in my eyes, and I could feel my heart stop beating for an instant. Mona was no better. I could tell from the way her body stiffened that she disliked that proposal as much as I did.
"Look, ladies, I don't want this to get uncomfortable. I just want what's mine." The polite tone in his voice disappeared completely and his face hardened. "Pass it over."
Before either of us could respond to the demand, their faces changed from being aggressive to surprised as their gazes turned to something over our shoulders. Before I could turn my head to see what it was, from behind us came a burst of violet light. A blast of power hit one of the men in the stomach, and he crumpled to the ground without a word. The ringleader swore, and suddenly all the men were pulling out guns and firing behind us. The next thing I knew, the metallic sounds of the Kraang and swearing from the Purple Dragons were mixing in the air, and I was falling to the ground, vaguely remembering my old shooting instructor telling me that hitting the floor was the best thing to do when in the unlikely scenario of being caught in a gun fight. Unfortunately, unlikely scenarios seemed to be my life now.
There's no way looking back that I could sufficiently describe all the details of what happened in the seconds after that- there was trampling feet, the sounds of guns going off, and I was on the ground trying to crawl away from it all as quickly as I possibly could. It was complete and utter bedlam- especially when the turtles then suddenly joined in. I knew it was them because I could hear their battle cries… or what passed as battle cries. Mostly it involved Mikey saying something ridiculous and the other three chastising him before they all jumped into the fray. They seemed to somehow continue to bicker when in the midst of a fight, which I never personally understood. But I felt much safer when I heard the four brothers plus Casey joining the fight.
While everyone with a weapon was distracted, I managed to crawl to the edge of the street and sit on the curb, taking a moment to look back and see what was happening. The Purple Dragons were caught in the middle of the fight, the Kraang on one side and the turtles moving back and forth between the two groups to attack and harass them both. I searched worriedly for Mona, hoping that she had also managed to get out. I finally saw her through the curtain of rain- her glowing mutagen helped me pick her out. She had managed to escape the fray and was rushing over to me when she heard me call her name. A sigh of relief began to make its way past my lips.
That was when it happened.
It was so fast, if I hadn't been watching it happen, I would never have caught it.
There was the sound of a gun going off. Mona turned ever so slightly towards the sound. I don't know why- probably just an instinct. But in that moment, her entire world changed. Time seemed to slow almost to a stop in that moment. I saw something small hit the glass of the canister- a bullet. The glass fractured at first, and then the glass collapsed in Mona's arms, shards falling to the ground and the liquid within spilling all over Mona's arms, hands, chest and legs as the remains of the canister fell to the ground, the tinkling of the broken glass following it.
Mona stared at her empty arms for a moment, as if unable to understand what had happened, why her arms were covered in green liquid. She seemed furious and devastated, both at once. I tried to stand to my feet to go towards her, draw her closer to me.
That was when she began to scream. And scream. And scream. And scream.
The green glow seemed to grow around her, spreading across her skin in flashes of bright light. She crumbled to the ground, seemingly stricken with unspeakable agony as her cries of anguish continued to fill the air. I got up, ignoring my earlier cautions about staying low, and rushed to her as quickly as I could. I reached my hands out to try to help her up, when I found myself suddenly yanked backwards by a pair of green arms. I looked back at the face that belonged to the arms- Leonardo. "Don't touch her!"
He pulled me back a few feet while Casey and Donatello joined us. Neither o f them touched her, but Donnie shouted something at Casey, who pulled off his jacket and carefully bundled up Mona in it, being especially cautions not to get any on himself. Fortunately, the rain seemed to have washed much of it off of her so that he was safe, but Mona was already suffering from whatever the mutagen was doing to her. "Don! Casey!" shouted Leo. "Mikey and Raph are distracting them. Back to the Lair!"
With that, I found myself being turned back towards an alleyway, Leo's supporting arms around me as he pulled me towards the entrance to the sewers. I thought sardonically to myself You know you're weird when the thought of going into the sewers is comforting to you. But when Leo pried open the manhole cover, I couldn't have been happier to have a refuge against the storm and the battle raging behind me.
Little did I know that the fight behind me would pale in comparison to what we would face in the near future…
Here you go, my friends. The chapter telling the story of Mona's mutation is complete. The future chapters will deal with Mona's personal issues dealing with her transformation and subsequent struggles. But we made it to this part, and now the fun Mona-Turtle bonding moments can begin. Eventually… at some point.
Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this point. I wish I had all the time in the world to write down the entire story into completion, but I just don't have that luxury any more. But I do have the next few chapters planned out and I'm well on my way to completing them all. I hope you guys have the patience to stick with me until the end. I promise I'll make it worth your while.
Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter. If you have any constructive criticism, questions, or if you just want to say you enjoyed it (which I love to read), please leave me a review! I'll see you in the next chapter!
