Woohoo! New chapter!!
Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT, or Irkens in concept, even though the specific two in the story so far are mine. Um…oh, I do own Janella, and Lightwing and her entire race. I am God! Bow to me Dae-uial, for I am your creator!!! *Blink blink* Yeah…power trip…just read it!
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"What is he?" "A turtle?" "No, look, he has antennae, like a bug or something…" the soft voices weren't really enough to keep Reno awake, but when a hand reached out and brushed his right antenna, the sensation jolted him into reality.
Where was he? Why was he here? And who the hell was touching his antenna? Only his mother touched those. No one else was allowed to. And he knew it wasn't mother. He couldn't sense her anywhere near, in fact. He struggled to sit up, and blinked his red eyes open.
His first thought when he saw the four creatures in front of him was 'really fat Irkens.' But no, Irkens just didn't look like that. Two of the creatures were sitting on the end of his bed. One was standing in the corner of the room watching him warily and the last was sitting on the edge of his bed to his right. The one who had touched his antenna.
He hissed, showing his zipper-like teeth, and flattened his antennae to his head. He pulled away from the creatures, and tried desperately to remember everything his mother had told him about hand-to-hand combat.
"Whoa, calm down, little dude," one of the creatures said, holding up its hands. "We don't want to hurt you!"
"Yeah right. That's what they say in the movies, and then POW! It's all over," Reno said mockingly. He decided to cut to the chase. "Who are you?" The creatures didn't seem to expect that. They stared at him. "What?" he said. "If I'm gonna be dissected, I'd like to know who's doing it." (Yes, Reno is quite paranoid!)
The one who had spoken to him laughed. "Someone's been watching too many sci-fi movies," it said. The creature continued. "My name's Michelangelo, and these are my brothers."
The one next to him on the bed raised a hand. "I'm Leonardo." The one leaning in the corned nodded curtly. "Raphael." The last one: "Donatello."
Reno looked warily around at them. "My name's Reno. Reno Luthuviel." There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then, in unison, Reno and the creature that had introduced itself as Michelangelo asked, "So what are you exactly?!"
Reno chuckled. "I'm an Irken!" he said proudly. All he got for that was four blank stares. He sighed. "An Irken. I'm an extraterrestrial. Or, I would be, if I had been born off-planet. I was born here on Earth, technically, but that doesn't change who I am genetically."
"Okay," Leonardo said slowly, as if he didn't believe him. "Well, we're turtles. Mutant turtles."
"Really?" Reno said. "That's fascinating. I mean, I've seen some extreme mutations on this planet, but this certainly takes the cake." Leonardo opened his mouth to reply, but a startled shout of "Hedgehog!" alerted them all to the awakening of another. Reno began to snicker.
"I don't know what she comes up with in that twisted little brain of hers," he said, "but she always, always, always wakes up that way."
"Who?" Leonardo asked.
"I'll show you," he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up. He took a few steps forward, but suddenly stumbled. Michelangelo, who was closest, moved to catch him, but before he could, four thin, spidery mechanical legs emerged from the hard, round pod on Reno's back. They caught and steadied him, and then returned to the pod. He walked out of the room, as if that was normal, calling softly for his friend.
"Fascinating," Donatello whispered, awestruck. He hurried out of the room, and caught up with Reno. "How'd you do that?" he asked.
"What? Oh, the mech leg thing. It's instinctive by now, actually. You see, all members of my kind have back-pods installed right after they are born." He reached up and tapped the thing protruding from his back. "They're quite useful, actually. Aside from the mech legs, there are all sorts of tools, a self-resuscitation system, and a hell of a lot of storage space."
"And how do you activate them?" Donatello asked.
Reno tapped the side of his head. "It's mental, my friend," he said. He paused by a couch, and peeked over. Janella was sitting there, legs drawn up to her chest. She was tapping nervously at the gold ring that hung on a chain around her neck. She began to run it between her fingers, reciting what was said by the engravings under her breath. She couldn't actually read the writing, it was in an unfamiliar script, but she had heard the meaning often enough to have memorized it:
"One ring to rule them all,
One ring to find them.
One ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them."
Reno pushed himself over the back of the couch and onto her legs.
"Hey!" she shouted playfully, pushing him off of her and onto the floor. "Where are we?"
"I'm not exactly sure…" Reno said uncertainly.
"You're in a sewer," Donatello interrupted. "Under New York city to be exact." Donatello wasn't sure what sort of reaction he expected from Janella, but it certainly wasn't the smooth and unsurprised acknowledgement of what he said. Reno introduced Janella to Donatello and the other three turtles when they came out. Reno was glad to see that Janella, who tended to be shy around anyone she didn't know, immediately took a liking to Michelangelo. Now he could concentrate on worrying solely about his mother, and not his mother and his best friend.
He remembered walking out of the restaurant with Janella, and then the sensation of flying, but that was it until he had woken up here. He was worried, even though he knew he shouldn't be. His mother had been through so, so much already. She could fend for herself. Still, he couldn't help it. He was sure she was worried about him, too.
Suddenly, almost in unison, Janella's stomach and Reno's both growled loudly. Janella's eyes opened wide, and she giggled.
"Guess I'm hungry," she said sheepishly.
"I can fix that," Michelangelo said, pulling her up off the couch, "I think we've got some left over pizza somewhere…"
Donatello rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry about him," he said to Reno. "Would you like something to eat?" Reno nodded enthusiastically. He got up, and walked with Donatello into the kitchen, where they found Janella and Michelangelo already seated at the table. He was laughing at some joke she must have told.
"-and you think that's bad, you should have seen the expression on his face the first time we went to the creek," she was saying excitedly. She snickered. "You see, the creek, where I get to it from my house, drops right off from the trail onto the creek itself. Usually, there's a little beach, but not all the time, you know? Anyway, he was walking in front of me, and all of a sudden, he drops out of sight. I get to the edge, and I see him hanging there, holding on to the branches of this tree over-hanging the river with his mech legs. He was, like, this close to the water!" She held up two fingers to show how far he had been. "He was furious. Refused to talk to me for a month. It was the funniest thing I ha-"
Reno hurried forward and clamped a hand over Janella's mouth. "Heh heh, no need to be telling people these things," he said, blushing. He poked Janella's temple with a pointed finger. "Spill anything else about me and I'll tell then about the go-cart incident," he threatened. Janella's eyes got wide, but she crossed her arms, looking very miffed. The sudden dinging of a microwave (Do they have a microwave? I'm not sure, so I put one in. I like 'em.) forestalled what may have become a clash of wills. The pizza was ready! Some of it, at least. Michelangelo got the slices out and gave one to Janella, keeping the other for himself. Donatello sighed, and put some more in for Reno.
Soon, everyone who wanted it was eating pizza. There wasn't much talk for a while, seeing as Janella and Reno were quite hungry, but when the leftover pizza had been demolished and the paper plates disposed of, conversation started up.
"So, what are you again?" Donatello asked Reno.
"An Irken," Reno replied. "It's an alien race. From what my mother tells me, we're very materialistic-one of those 'Conquer and Destroy' type of aliens you hear about in bad sci-fi movies. The original bug-eyed, green skinned invaders with antennae." He pauses for a moment. "I wouldn't know, though," he says sadly.
"What do you mean?" Donatello asked.
"Well," Reno thinks for a minute, trying to come up with a way to make his story short. "Let's see. My mom's an outcast, who, on returning by accident to the home planet, was raped by the more evil of their two rulers, resulting in pregnancy. She was back on Earth, her 'period' came to a conclusion, and, violà, me!"
Janella rolled her eyes. That wasn't even half the story, but if he didn't feel like elaborating, she wouldn't push him. She was one of the handful of people to know the whole story, and knew that she was privileged to know it. There was a moment of silence.
"So," Janella said, to break it. "I'm fourteen, female, and from New Jersey. How old are you guys?"
Michelangelo laughs. "Fifteen," he says. "All of us."
"And you live with no supervision? No parents or legal guardians?" Janella sighed. "That'd be so cool!"
"It would," Leonardo agreed. "But we do have a sensei. He's our mentor. He's just…not here right now."
"Really?" Reno asked. "Where is he?"
"Well, we're not really sure," Leonardo said sheepishly. "Sometimes he goes off on his own to meditate, but he never tells us where. We don't worry about him though."
Janella and Reno nod, accepting that. Lightwing does that a lot too; only she doesn't go for meditation, more like murder. The talk was about to turn to other things when a mechanical beeping sound filled the room.
"Someone's communicator," Donatello said. The four turtles checked theirs, but no one's was going off. Suddenly, it clicked.
"Reno, it's yours!" Janella said, tapping the Irken boy's back-pod.
"Oh," he said sheepishly. He activated the communicator arm, which reached around to in front of him from the pod. He took the handheld unit and clicked it on.
"Mom? Mom, is that you? Over," he said into it. All he got in reply was a staticky, garbled transmission, in which only a few words could be decipher: "-what…hell…let go…Red!…-sshole!…elp-…-eno…" Then there was a piercing scream, which was cut short as the communicator went dead.
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Gasp! Suspense! Yay! O.O
I just realized that I actually shouldn't be posting this story yet, since Reno hasn't technically been conceived, much less born and raised, but, hey! What can I say?
If you like, this, leave a review and tell me. If you hate this, leave a review and tell me. I'd like to know more than three people are actually reading this story. Um, yeah…that's all I have to say…