Author's Note THIS IS IT! The first chapter of this story!
However, I've created my story so that each episode of TMNT 2003 Season 1 will come in divided chapters, not as full stories. I kind of want to introduce you to my OC turtles and describe their family relationships with each other and to the original turtles and Master Splinter more detailed
I do not own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 series. I own only OC characters created by me and some plot twists added to the story by me.
Enjoy!
At night, a full moon illuminated a dark alleyway in New York, where was something going on. In the shadows of the corner was standing eight dark figures with glowing white eyes. All eight of them took a two steps forward, while from the entrance of the alley was approaching another tough-looking group.
My name is Leonardo. And right now my siblings and I are in the mess of trouble.
The other group consisted from a dozen of tough-looking street punks, whom were carrying baseball bats, crowbars, chains, staves, pipes, knives and even a firearms as a weapons. Their shadows in the moonlight fell upon the eight figures.
Our backs are up against the wall in some trash strewn alley. Cornered by the toughest street gang on the East Side.
These guys have a very notorious reputation. They don't like snoopers, and the only way they'll let their prey away is if they're dead.
Well, they haven't met US yet.
The gang, each wearing S-shaped crimson or purple-colored dragon symbols in their street clothes, eyed the eight figures they were facing.
"Hey, dudes! Look at the freaks!" One of them let out.
"What's with the dweeby costumes?!" The second one asked rudely.
"This ain't a Halloween!" The third snarled.
"And we ain't offering any candy!" The fourth remarked.
"You snoopers are in big trouble!" The fourth threatened.
The blue-haired guy wearing a crimson and yellow-sleeved jacked in the middle of the gang, who was an apparent leader, then stepped forward with the cruel smirk on his lips.
"You're all dead, freaks!" The leader said as he took out a wooden staff and started to spin it rapidly in front of him, before he pulled it behind of his back and pointed his finger at the figures.
"Nobody trespasses on Purple Dragons' territory and leaves to tell a tale… especially when they're wearing stupid-looking turtle costumes!" The leader declared.
One by one, the figures stepped out of the shadows to reveal themselves to the gang. The figures were then revealed to be eight giant turtles wearing a masks and carrying a traditional ninja weapons: One of them wore a purple mask and wielded a Bo staff, the second one a white mask with the pair of wooden Tonfas, the third one an orange mask with the pair of Nunchucks, the fourth female one a pink mask and with a pair of bladed Tessens, the fifth one a red mask and with the pair of Sai daggers, the sixth one a black mask and with a pair of Butterfly swords, the seventh one a blue mask and the pair of Katana-swords (one of which he was wielding in his right hand while another one was still in his back) and the eight one with a turquoise mask and with a Naginata spear.
The turtle in blue, who was the apparent leader, pulled out his another Katana and narrowed his eyes into a hard glare and gritted his teeth tightly.
He is wrong. We're not wearing costumes. And he'll soon find out why.
The eight figures then crouched down, ready to do something unexpected to the thugs.
"HAIIIIIIII...!" All turtles started in unison, until all of them then jumped at the same time towards the thugs, ready to fight them.
"... YAHHHHHHHH!" The turtles finished, as the turtle in orange took the lead and sent the kick with his right leg towards the screen.
= TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES =
= THINGS CHANGE PART 1 =
The peacefulness of the mid-night had fallen upon the the large American island town called New York City.
The citizens all across the city were going about their business: They were either on the night walk on the streets or Central Park's roads, visiting in the Night clubs or bars, driving across the town in their cars, heading for their night shifts or withdrawing to their homes for the night.
But beneath of the city's streets, unknown to anyone, was going on something.
And that "something" took place beneath of the city's streets, in the dark, stinky and rat-filled sewers.
In the secret and a long time abandoned sewer chamber that was located or hidden behind of the sealed wall, in middle of the darkness, was sitting in Japanese style a giant rat with humanoid features. The rat was visibly old and he had a grayish brown fur and grayish-white eye-brows, tied chin beard and Japanese styled mustache. He was dressed into a brown and from some points torn kimono and he had his rat-like feet bandaged from the ankles with the white bandages. The rat had also the scar than ran down from the bridge of his snout to his right cheek.(1)
The rat was holding in his hand the long wooden staff, in the end of which he was skillfully holding a lit candle in balance.
"Remember, to be a true ninja, you must become one with the shadows. Darkness gives the ninja power, while light reveals the ninja's presence." the old rat explained to someone(s) hiding in the darkness around him, with his gentle voice full of ancient wisdom.
"Now, can you extinguish this flame without revealing yourselves?" The rat asked before he flipped the candle off from the end of his staff and grabbed it from the air with his left hand, and remained calm and still.
It was dead silence, until there was a faint footsteps coming from his right.
Suddenly, a shadowed figure armed with the Bo-staff appeared out of nowhere and lunged towards the rat and the candle. The figure moved fast, but the rat moved his candle-holding arm out of the way even faster and the figure ended up to miss the candle and crash into the wall in the other side of the dark space.
"Too noisy, Donatello." the rat told the figure.
Next, Another shadowed figure armed with the pair of Nunchucks jumped towards the rat. Spinning one Nunchaku in his right arm, the figure leaped close of the rat and attempted with the simple dive-technique to get the candle.
However, he missed as well when the rat pulled the candle out of the turtle's way with ease while the figure, having lost the control of his own technique after missing the candle, crashed into the first figure called by name Donatello, knocking them both over to the ground.
"Too clumsy. Michelangelo." The rat commented, shaking his head slightly.
In distance, a third shadowed figure was standing within the darkness, waiting for the right moment with the bow in the hand and the arrow placed on it. The figure was much slender compared to the first two figures and had the physical characteristics of a woman, implying that this one was a female indeed.
When the figure saw her opportunity, she lifted her bow into upright position and pulled the string of her weapon back with another hand. She aimed her arrow at the candle in the rat's hand, tensed the string a little bit more before she released it and sent the arrow to flight.
The arrow flew across the dark air space of the room and towards the candle. However, the rat suddenly lifted his staff on the way and caught the arrow from mid-air. The rat then skillfully spun the arrow around of the end of his staff, before he swung his staff to the right and sent the arrow flying back towards the female turtle.
The arrow flew directly and twice through of the belt of the female turtle's fabric quiver full of arrows, without even touching her skin from her left shoulder. The arrow dragged the surprised turtle backwards before it pinned the female turtle against the wall.
"WOW!" the female figure yelped, surprised.
"Over-confident move, Artemisia" the rat told her.
The rat was then silently encircled by the fourth shadowed figure, who was armed with the pair of wooden Tonfās and was waiting for the right moment to strike.
The figure waited a bit longer than what the three first ones did, and the air between of him and the rat was filled with the tense silence and silent yet nervous-sounding breathing as the figure was looking for the perfect opportunity and spot to strike.
And then, standing behind of the rat's back on his left side, the figure finally swung one of his Tonfās he held in his right hand towards the candle in the rat's arm. But as he did so, the rat swiftly blocked the attempt strike by lifting his own staff on the way, before he spun it around once and placed one end beneath of the figure's Tonfā's handle. Then the rat pulled his staff hard down, pulling the figure over his head and sending him flying back ahead into the first two failed figures.
"Too much hesitation, Domenico. And your too tensed breathing revealed your presence."
And after that, the rat was then approached by the fifth shadowed figure, that was armed with the pair of Butterfly swords.
The figure started to walk calmly towards the rat until he slowly but certainly picked up the pace. The figure eventually leaped onto he wall behind the rat and ran along it for a moment before leaping off it and towards the candle. However, the rat turned around and took the candle with him, leaving the figure to slice the empty air with his blades, and ended up landing onto his shell to the ground.
"Too foolhardy, Lorenzo"
The rat was once again approached, this time from behind of his back, by the next shadowed and bulky figure, who was armed with the pair of Sai.
The figure lunged towards the candle but missed as the rat bowed down and lowered the candle out of the figure's way. However, unlike the previous figures, this one landed on his feet and turned around to face the rat again. The figure twirled his Sais in his hands and quickly switching his stance from defensive into hostile stance before the figure charged towards the rat again. The rat stepped backwards for a couple steps as the figure kept approaching him, until he swiftly and effortlessly sat down and stretched out his staff to make the figure to stumble to it, sending him flying into the pile of three failed figures. The three other figures groaned from the impact while the fourth growled over his failure.
"Poor choice, Raphael." the rat commented as he stood up and lifted the candle-holding arm a bit higher.
After the rat had made his comment, he almost failed to sense and notice the presence of another slender female-looking figure armed with the Naginata-spear standing right behind of his back. The female figure held her weapon in the air, ready to swing its blade towards the rat.
The figure leaped forward and swung her Naginata forward, aiming the candle, but the rat performed a frontal flip in the air, pulling the candle out of the way of figure's Naginata. In the mid stage of his flip, the rat placed one of his legs against over him flying figure's stomach and send her with the powerful kick flying across the air space of the room till she crashed into the pile of four other failed figures.
"Too hasty, Marietta." the rat commented to the female figure, who was struggling with the other four figures to get free from the mess of the limbs, after he had landed back on his feet to the ground.
It was silent again in the dark room.
Suddenly, the candle was swiftly and unexpectedly sliced in half, surprising the rat totally as he didn't saw it coming.
And after that, an eight shadowed figure armed with the pair of long two-handed Katanas landed out of the darkness on his feet in front of the rat, stretching out his Katana's long blade forward and catching the sliced upper part of the candle onto its flat side. The figure then lifted the candle in front of his face and extinguished the flame, covering the entire room into the darkness.
The lights were eventually turned on, revealing the sewer chamber having turned into the cozy underground apartment.
And when the lights were on, the figures that had attempted to take the candle from the rat one by one within the darkness were revealed to be a humanoid turtles with the size and age of teenagers. The turtles did not physically differ much from each other, except for two of them who were slimmer than the other six and had the physical characteristics of females. Each one of them was also wearing the pair of elbow and knee pads, utility belts, bandages on their arms (from the wrists to elbows) and legs (from ankles to the knees) and individually colored masks.
One called Donatello was recognized from his purple mask.
Second one called Michelangelo was recognized from his orange mask.
Third one, and first one of the female turtles around called Artemisia was recognized from her a pink do-rag-like mask that covered the whole topside of her head.(2)
Fourth one called Domenico was recognized from his white or grayish-white mask.
Fifth one called Lorenzo was recognized for his black colored mask which also was do-rag-like just like Arcee's.(2)
Sixth one called Raphael was recognized from the red mask.
Seventh one, and second one of the female turtles around called Marietta was recognized from her a turquoise mask with a ankle-length and braided ribbons and she had a black and white YIN-YANG symbol tattoos in her left arm, above of her elbow, and in her left thigh.(3)
And the eighth and last one, the turtle who'd managed to get the candle from the rat's hand, was recognized from the pure blue mask.
Because of the turtles having shells that covered most of their 'private' areas - and with the female turtles, their shells' frontal plastrons serving as their "natural bras" over their chests all the time - the turtles didn't wear much of other clothing and preferred to walk around topless and barefoot. However, the turtles did at least wear Iga-bakama Ninja pants(4), which colors were matching their owners masks' colors, though it was toned into much darker tones.
As the other turtles stood up from the ground, the rat turned to the blue turtle.
"Well done, Leonardo." the rat congratulated the turtle in blue with the pleased smile.
"Thank you, Master Splinter." the turtle called by name Leonardo said back to the rat called Master Splinter and bowed respectively to him, while the other turtles either looked at their big brother with humble approval or moped over their failure.
"Cheater! You used our failures to distract Master Splinter long enough to get close to him!" Domenico said with accusing tone, having seen Leonardo hiding in the ceiling of the lair, hanging on two pipes right above of master Splinter before he took him by surprise.
"Or else he was purposely allowed to get close enough! After all, he's the teacher's pet." Raphael claimed, definitely not too happy neither.
"Nope." Leonardo stated. "None of us has ever before got that closer of Splinter without being detected. I just got lucky but via of hard training only, unlike you, ninja dropouts." Leo said with the proud tone and smug grin as he tossed the candle to Raph.
"Oooooooh!" Donatello, Michelangelo, Lorenzo and Artemisia teased both Raphael and Domenico for them being called "dropouts" by Leonardo.
Domenico merely snorted at this, But Raphael, not taking kindly of what Leonardo had just called him, moved menacingly towards Leonardo like with intention to lunge at him to sweep the smug grin off his brother's face, prompting Leonardo to take the defensive stance.
However, Marietta jumped in between of the turtles, holding Raphael from attacking Leo with both hands on his chests.
"Raph! Back off, bro! There's no need to start the brawl! This was just a test, not a competition. Leo passed the test with fair and square. We just have to accept our failures humbly and consider how to improve ourselves in the future." Marietta said with the voice of reason, barely managing to calm down the hot-heated turtle.
"Marietta is right! Stand down, my son!" Master Splinter said, interfering to the situation and pointing with the tip of his staff at Raphael.
Raph, though a bit reluctantly, backed off but only because Master Splinter told him so.
Splinter then lifted his left hand over his forehead and let out the sigh, slightly annoyed that some of his children were taking their failures too seriously.
"My children. If you want to become true ninja, you must work harder than this." Splinter said, as the turtles knelt down in a circling line around of their master: Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo were sitting in the side of their lair's main room, their Dojo area, while Domenico, Lorenzo, Marietta and Artemisia were sitting in the opposite side of the lair, where their living room was.
Splinter then started to walk back and forth as he was about to explain some things to his children.
"Your path in life will not be an easy one. The outside world will be not a friendly place for you. You eight are different in ways the surface dwellers would never understand." Master Splinter explained.
Even though all turtles paid deeply attention to their master's speech, Michelangelo's attention was from the beginning distracted by the fly that was buzzing around of his head, distracting him from Splinter's speech and annoying him to the point that the turtle in orange attempted for the several times to catch the fly from the air with his hand.
Arcee saw from the corner of her right eye Mikey hunting the fly instead of paying attention to Splinter's speech.
"Stay focused, Mikey!" Artemisia whispered between of her teeth without taking her eyes from Splinter. However, Mikey ignored her and kept hunting the fly.
"To survive, you must master these skills I've been teaching you. Ninjutsu powers of stealth and secrecy. You must become kage - shadow warriors. And take this one seriously: You must never be discovered by the outside world." Master Splinter said with the lecturing tone.
When Mikey finally managed to capture the fly by slamming his both arms around of the flying insect, he grinned triumphantly, until his grin soon died away when Splinter stood in front of him, glaring down at him with the disapproval frown at his youngest son's lack of attention.
"Uh oh." Lorenzo chuckled before singing teasingly. "Mikey is in trouble."
"Lorenzo!" Master Splinter snapped as he swiftly turned towards the turtle in black and hit in to the back of his right hand with the end of his staff, making Lorenzo to wince with "OW!" cry in pain and grab with his other hand from his sore one, before he lifted his gaze up and found himself under of Splinter's disapproval frown.
"Uh... Sorry, Master Splinter." turtle in black apologized sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his hand
However, before Splinter could discipline his sons further, the whole chamber began suddenly shake. And along with it came a weird sound of rumbling.
"Huh? What is that noise?" Splinter questioned.
The shaking even worsened and some small debris started to fall off from the ceiling, prompting all eight turtles to stand up.
"What's going on here?!" Lorenzo demanded to know.
"Whoa! Donnie! Is this an earthquake?!" Michelangelo asked.
"In middle of New York City?" Donnie questioned. "Possible but mostly unlikely."
"Then how can you explain that sound and this shaking if this isn't an earthquake?" Domenico demanded to know.
"Well, during the earthquakes, the rumbling usually goes on all of time. That kind of rumbling is oddly repeating and sounds more likely... well… munching." Donnie theorized.
"MUNCHING?!" Everybody else exclaimed in disbelief.
"Yeah. Munching. Literally." Donatello added, before he quickly stepped back as a large part of the ceiling above of him fell off and landed directly to the spot where the turtle in purple had stood a moment ago.
Soon after, The wall next to their Dojo area was violently breached, raising the cloud-like dust all over the place.
The turtles interpreted this as a possible attack and quickly draw out their weapons and prepared themselves for the incoming invaders.
And as the dust faded off, they saw that there was a couple-three breached holes made to the chamber's wall and inside through of the holes walked in a group of two-legged tiny chicken-sized robots with one glowing eye on top of their heads and serrated jaws. When they opened their jaws, they let out a high-pitched metallic growls and revealed the buzzing buzz-saws inside of their mouths.
"Holly Shell!" Marietta exclaimed, as the robots turned on them.
"What the shell are those things?" Leo questioned.
Michelangelo rubbed with his middle-finger the top of his head while trying to come up with some sort of answer to his older brother's question.
"I don't know… New York City's cockroaches, I guess?" Mikey said.
"You guess, Mikey?!" Domenico exclaimed while glaring at Mikey.
"Well, whatever they are, they've come here without the permission." Raph stated before he lunged towards the first robot and kicked it away, causing it to land on its back to the floor and remain there to struggle to get back on its feet like the overturned bug.
Lorenzo attacked next, pulling his Butterfly swords out of their scabbards which were attached to the X-crossed belts on his bare chest. Spinning his short swords for a moment, Lorenzo ran them through of two robots' heads, before he then lifted them off the ground and hurled them into the other incoming robots, knocking a few individuals over to the ground. As the next robot lunged at him, Lorenzo put one of his Butterfly swords back into its scabbard and took out Manriki-gusari, pair of which the turtle in black was carrying as his extra weapons, and tossed its weighted end at the attacking robots. The chain wrapped itself around of one, which Lorenzo pulled back to him by the chain. And using the chained robot in the manner of flail, Lorenzo swung his chain weapon in horizontal arch at the next wave of robots, sweeping several of them into pieces with one swing.
Donnie engaged the robots next. First the turtle in purple swung his Bo-staff hard down and towards his robotic opponents and knocked the first one away. Donnie attempted to do the same to the next one, but the robot managed to capture his weapon's end between its jaws, prompting Donnie to lift both his staff and the robot up before he pulled it back down, smashing the robot's head against the ground.
Domenico, spinning his twin Tonfās in his hands, lunged at the trio of robots that charged at him with their jaws open. Swinging his right hand's Tonfā at them, Domenico knocked the head off from one before he stabbed his left hand's Tonfā straight through of the second one's head, before kicking it away. The third one managed to flank him from his left and nearly sunk its teeth into his left arm, only to be blocked by his Tonfā that was as thick as his arm. This narrowly blocked attack startled Domenico and, out of instincts, the turtle in white crushed the robot's head between of his Tonfā and the nearby wall.
As Mikey attacked incoming robots, the turtle in orange showed off his Nunchaku-skills and swiftness, like he always does. He kept repeatedly bouncing forward and made a few front flips in the air amongst of the invading robots while both swinging and spinning his Nunchucks wildly and toward the robots, either knocking them over, breaking their jaws and bashing their heads inside while the turtle in orange let out "HAI YAA!" and "HO YAA!" cries with each blow.
Artemisia followed right behind of the turtle in orange with the intent to finish off those Mikey "missed", but instead of using her long bow and arrows, Artemisia used her own favorite weapons: A pair of bladed and pink Tessens which had the golden Eastern turtle-like(6) dragons described on each side of them. She either swung her Tessens wildly and alternately to the left and right or swung them both at the same time from one side to another, either decapitating or slicing the robots heads in half. Artemisia also did a several front flips to avoid several too close reached robots' jaws, often landing with all her weight onto them and crushed them beneath of her.
Mikey suddenly stopped and picked one of the robots.
"Hey Leo! Think fast!" Mikey called as he tossed the robot towards Leo, who sliced the robot in half with one vertical slash of his Katana with ease.
Leo proceed by slicing many other robots, whom were attacking him both from the ground and the air, in half with his Katanas without much difficulty. In addition of that, some of his attacks with his Katanas were done with swift and clean cut that they left most of his robotic opponents visibly intact like he had never even hit them. Only then when they either stopped walking or landed still to the ground after their leap attacks, the effects of Leo's blows became visible. The robots the turtle in blue slashed started to shake violently for a moment before they fell over in two pieces, finished for good.
And last but not least, Marietta joined the fight too, charging towards the incoming robotic invaders while spinning her Naginata over her head with one hand. As the first three robots were about to engage her, the turtle in turquoise grabbed with both hands from her weapon and swung its blade in sideways down at the attacking robots. This left the head from the first robot on the right partially decapitated, split the torso in half from the second one in the middle and finally cut the legs off from the last robot on the left, crippling it. Two new robots then leaped into the air and flew towards her with their jaws open to kill, but Marietta flipped sideways into the air and flew over them, swinging her Naginata in the arch downwards and beheading the robots in the process. Marietta landed effortlessly back on her feet to the ground, while the decapitated robots' heads and headless bodies fell unceremoniously to the ground with the metallic thud. An then, out of instincts, Marietta made the front flip at the right moment as one robot was about to sink its metallic teeth into her neck and swung her Naginata upwards, making a swift and clean cut that split the robot in half.
There was a brief pause in Leo's fight when he saw that another group of those robots had managed to corner Master Splinter to the other side of the lair. Of course, master Splinter managed to defeat a many of those robots by crippling them, beheading them or knock them away with his staff, but he had to fall back step by step as they began to overwhelm him with vast numbers and started attacking him from each side.
"Guys! We gotta help Master Splinter! COME ON!" Leo ordered and led his brothers and sisters to their master's direction, fighting their way through of the herd of invading killer-robots and destroying multiple individuals in the process while making their way to their master.
However, they were so focused on fighting and destroying the killer-bots that they failed to see that some robots had turned their attentions to the lair's pillars and support beams in the middle part of the entire place, chewing them with their jaws.
Soon most of the pillars and support beams were chewed away or into a poor condition. And without any firm support, even more rocks started to fall from the ceiling and a large portion of it started to crack under of the heavy pressure of both rock and earth on it
Leo and Domenico noticed this just before the ceiling finally gave up and led into the devastating cave-in, And Raph, Marietta and Lorenzo were right beneath of it along with the remaining robots!
"RAPH! MARY! LOUIE! LOOK OUT!" Leo shouted as he and Domenico rushed forward and timely pulled their brothers and sister out of the way of the massive rain of debris that destroyed both the causers of it and all remaining robots beneath of it.
But the cave-in also buried Master Splinter alongside of the remaining robots under of the heavy rain of debris, that caused the massive cloud of dust.
The turtles gasped in horror!
"OH NO!" Leo shouted as he rushed through of the thick cloud of dust, caring nothing of it if the cave in was still going on.
"SENSEI!" Mary screamed as she followed Leo right behind.
"FATHER!" Artemisia cried loudly in horror.
"HE GOT CAUGHT IN THE CAVE IN!" Domenico shouted as he rushed in with the rest of the turtles.
"MASTER SPLINTER!" Raph shouted right behind of the Domenico.
"C'MON, GUYS!" Louie shouted as he ran into the cloud with Mikey and Donnie right behind of him.
As the dust cleared off, the turtles reached to the pile of rubble, that had totally sealed their part of the lair from the rest of the lair.
"Master Splinter? MASTER SPLINTER?!" Leo desperately called for his master.
There was no answer, meaning the worst…
"NOOOOOO!" Leo let out in despair.
To be continue...
Well, There was the first part of Things Change episode. Tell me what you liked.
Sorry my English if there's any errors in writing.
Trivia
(1) Splinter's look in this story is based on one of the concept arts of him for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014 film, because it resembles more closely to his 2003 version.
(2) I gave Lorenzo and Artemisia a do-rag like masks, similar to the one Raphael used in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles paramount films.
(3) Marietta's look is based on Venus de Milo's look with several inspirations from the arts of her from Deviantart. Her name also was originally going to be Venus de Milo with the nickname "Vee", until I decided to give her the name Marietta.
(4) The turtles in 2003 series don't wear any pants, maybe because of their shells. So I decided to give the turtles some extra regular clothing.
(5) Reference to Michelangelo's Dragon Avatar in the Lost Episodes, because Mikey's Dragon is the only Dragon that closely resembles the turtle.