TMNT-Verse: 2012 (set many months after the episode Kagayake Kintaro of season 5 but a while before the Monster Arc.)
Both TMNT and Kung Fu Panda belong to their respective companies, I own nothing.
Chapter 1: Strangers in a Familiar Land
Nothing but darkness was all that Leonardo could see behind closed eye-lids. He felt almost at peace, as if nothing could disturb him.
"Leo? Leo, get up!"
Leo groaned as he felt something like a finger poke him. He shifted his body away from the hand that prodded him. "... five more minutes, sensei…" He mumbled incoherently.
Wait… was that grass he was laying on? It didn't feel at all like his bed as he felt something like short soft and coarse little blades touched his scaly forest green skin.
"Leo, I swear, I will kick your butt all the way to the stratosphere! GET UP!" Came the same voice again, one that was hoarse and angry and that was all too familiar to him.
Blinking his eyes open, Leo shot up with a gasp, heart beating against his chest as he looked to see Raphael staring at him with green eyes filled with confusion, anger, and underlying fear. The red clad turtle reached out and grabbed his older brother's shoulders. "Dude! Where the heck are we?!"
"If you'd let go, maybe I could find out!" Leo retorted, shoving himself out of his younger brother's panicked grip as he looked around at their new surroundings.
What the…?!
Leo's eyes were wide as he stared up at the warm orange sky as he stood up, the blades of grass tickling his feet as he found he was standing in a wide open field in a large valley.
Instead of the welcome rankness of their sewer home, or the smoke filled abrasive atmosphere of New York above, the air was clean and cool, refreshing even.
Just then, the sound of groaning caught his ears as he and Raph turned to see Michelangelo and Donatello stirring as well.
The two older brothers rushed over to them, helping them to their feet as Donnie and Mikey blinked their eyes open.
"Oh… my frontal sinus." Donnie muttered as he held his aching noggin. "What happened?"
"All I remember is that we were going out to do some patrol when suddenly I felt really weird and passed out." Mikey said, rubbing the bridge between his eyes.
"That's what happened to all of us." Leo said, keeping his arm around the party turtle's chest to keep him steady. He remembered that before all of this, after watching some episodes of Space Heroes: The Next Generation (which he thoroughly enjoyed, much to his brothers' chagrin), they had headed out for the usual evening patrol. They had originally planned to meet with April and Casey since Karai was out of town and the Mutanimals were taking care of something in Jersey when Leo remembered this strange feeling coming over him and he suddenly felt his consciousness leave him as he collapsed to the ground. It felt strange and very sudden, like how he felt when he and his brothers were summoned by Jei to that world of anthropomorphic animals. Hopefully, there wouldn't be some evil sorcerer looking to mind control them this time. "Donnie, do you think we could figure out where we are?"
"I think so." The smart turtle, pulling out his t-phone from his belt. Turning it on, he quickly looked at the GPS app, but got no results. "No signal." He said. "Maybe it was damaged."
His vision becoming clearer, Mikey spotted something in the distance. "Dudes! Look!" He shouted, pointing to a small building sitting comfortably in the middle of a large, wide lake connected by a flimsy wooden bridge, a building which also appeared to be Asian in design. "Maybe they know where we are." He mused, and he was about to head over when Leo grabbed his shoulder.
"Woah, hold it right there, Mikey." The blue clad turtle stated. "Last thing we want to do is give someone a heart attack."
Mikey pouted, even though his brother was right. Giant talking turtles weren't exactly a common sight.
"So what do you suggest we do, 'Fearless'?" Raph asked rhetorically.
Leo tried to think for a moment before an idea quickly came to his mind. "We'll move in, use stealth. Maybe find some disguises if we can."
And so the Turtles did just that, quietly sneaking across the bridge and up to the small building before spotting a small sign above, the words on the board written in what appeared to be Chinese.
Over to the side was a small coat rack, holding four brown hemp robes that came with four straw kasa hats.
Pulling out his T-phone again, Donnie clicked on the new nerd-approved translator app that he had programmed before holding it up to the sign to scan the hanzi.
"Knew this would come in handy one day." The purple clad turtle said with a bit of glee. "It says 'Wandering Warriors Inn'." He hummed a bit, lowering the phone. "Huh, that's rather convenient." He said aloud.
"Look, there's a window over there!" Mikey pointed to the side of the inn.
Leo's eyes narrowed. "C'mon, ninjas, let's check it out."
Going over to the window and peeking in, the Turtles looked around the inside of the shop. It was rather quaint, though a bit small. There were tables that lined the room and the smell of freshly cooked food was in the air.
But what really shocked them was that the people inside weren't exactly… human.
The people behind the glass and sitting at the tables were actually not people at all, but instead a whole selection of different animals that stood and acted like humans. Ranging from goats and rabbits to bulls, alligators, wolves, and even gorillas. It was as if they had stepped into mutant gangland.
"So… should we just go in?" Mikey asked out of the blue.
Leo, Donnie, and Raph all stared at him.
"What?" Mikey said, shrugging. "We'd fit right in." He was about to walk in through the front doors when Raph grabbed him and pulled him back.
"And how do you know we'll fit right in?" He questioned. "What happens if they freak out and run away from us?"
"And how do you know they will?" Donnie rebuked a little sassily.
Raph looked like he was about to retort physically when Leo quickly stopped him.
"How about this," He proposed, "why don't we go in there with our disguises and see if there's anyone who can tell us where exactly we are."
Donnie and Mikey both nodded, though Raph looked reluctant. "Just so we're clear, you do know what you're doing, right?"
Leo nodded. "I do, unless you have a better plan?"
Raph's silence was the only answer Leo needed.
So, putting on their disguises, the four ninja turtles entered the inn, pushing the doors wide open as bright rays of sunlight shone through the open oak wood entrance. The tavern was dark and smelled of smoke while large thugs like alligators and bulls were forcefully taking pouches of money from the waiters and waitresses.
Everyone in the inn seemed to stop what they were doing as they stared at the new arrivals, the silence filling the air.
Doing his best to ignore the stares, Leo led his brothers into the inn, lowering his hat to hide his face as Raph, Donnie, and Mikey did the same, before they all sat down at a nearby table.
As they sat down, a waitress, who was a small rabbit, at least decided to acknowledge the new arrivals as she put down a plate of dumplings for them.
Though it wasn't pizza by any means, Mikey quickly scooped one of the dumplings up and eagerly scarfed it down. His chewing noticeably slowed when a whole group of rough-looking, overly large thugs crowded their table, looking down at the disguised turtles with utter contempt.
"I see you like to chew," A large bull, who was clearly the leader, spat out, speaking directly to Mikey, "maybe you should chew… on my fist!" With this, the large bull brought down his huge fist on the table, making the bowl of dumplings jump.
With a nervous gulp, Mikey swallowed his dumplings as he shrunk back, whimpering slightly.
Luckily, his brothers were there by his side. "Hey, back off, pal!" Donnie warned, standing up from his seat, looking ready to reach for his staff.
The large bull simply brushed him off. "Mind your own business." He scoffed. He looked like he was about to punch the party turtle when his wrist was grabbed by Raph.
"He said, back off!" The red clad turtle rebuked, twisting the bull's wrist in a rather painful manner before shoving him back into the crowd.
Rubbing his sore wrist, the bull snorted. "Look, boys. We got ourselves a couple of heroes."
An alligator then stepped forward, taking out a small knife. "Well, this is our turf, kids. So pay up and we'll let this slide."
Leo observed his surroundings, quickly noticing a fight was going to break out. Everyone in the tavern was standing up from their tables, all of them looking ready to throw down at any given moment. Hey and his brothers were basically outnumbered a hundred to one.
But hey, when had that ever stopped them before?
"Sorry, but you're the ones who're gonna have to pay." The blue clad turtle stated, back for his katana.
"Is that a challenge, punk?" A cat hissed, unsheathing her claws in a threatening fashion. "Just who do you think you are?"
Mikey smirked confidently, "Enough talk, let's fight." Like a flash of lightning, Mikey whipped out his nunchucks and bashed the cat in the face, knocking her into several thugs. "Booyakasha!"
The thugs looked astonished for a moment before they all charged at the disguised turtles.
Raph shrugged, pulling out his sais as he kicked away a wolf thug. "Well, so much for subtly." He smirked, clashing his daggers with the knives of a gorilla thug.
"At least you get to hit something, Raph." Donnie remarked, deflecting a claw swipe from a cat thug with his staff before whacking him across the face.
"Yeah! You just got shell-shocked, fool!" Mikey cried, punching a bull in the face.
Leo blocked a cat with a knife with his sword while an alligator grabbed his right arm. Gritting his teeth as the two thugs tried to force him down, Leo pulled a desperate move as he flipped himself over and performed a split-kick that knocked them away.
Mikey winced, having seen the whole thing. "Dude, how do you do that?!" He cried, punching away one thug.
Flipping to his feet, Leo grinned. "Because I'm me!" He smirked before drop-kicking another thug.
Raph made short work of another cat thug while Donnie flipped another bull thug over his shoulder.
"I can do this all day!" Raph said gleefully, dodging a swing from a wolf thug before whacking him in the back with the blunt end of his sai and then kicking him away. He raised his sais, an eager grin on his face as he got ready for his next opponent…
… only to find everyone in the tavern had already been defeated.
"Aw man." Raph sighed, his shoulders slumping in disappointment.
"Raph, we've been over this. If you keep breaking your toys, we're not gonna buy you new ones." Leo teased, sheathing his swords.
"Dudes, it's like we just cleared a video game on easy mode." Mikey remarked.
Leo frowned sternly. "Mikey, if there's anything we've learned from Master Splinter, it's that real combat isn't like a video game."
"Hey, coins!" Donnie exclaimed, reaching down and picking up several gold yuan pieces on the ground.
"You were saying?" Raph smirked, folding his arms to which Leo rolled his eyes.
Just then, several of the waiters and waitresses came out from their hiding spots, staring at the four turtles in awe.
"You… you just fought off a hundred thugs all at once!" A small bunny waiter exclaimed as all the other staff cheered in joy, much to the Turtles' surprise. "Thank you so much!"
"Those felons have been raiding and terrorizing our inn for months now!" A sheep waitress added. "How can we ever repay you?"
Leo shifted his feet awkwardly, unused to such praise from strangers. "Well… we don't really need anything."
"Yeah, after all, there is no charge for awesomeness," Mikey stated dramatically before tipping his hat to one of the rabbit waitress, "or attractiveness~." He added flirtatiously, to which the rabbit waitress giggled while Raph lightly flicked the orange clad turtle in the back of the head.
"We're just four strangers trying to figure out where we are." Donnie explained. "In fact, we were wondering where we could find the nearest populated area."
"Nearest would be the Valley of Peace, just south of here and over the next the hill." One of the rabbit waiters stated.
"Thanks." Leo thanked him before he and his brothers left.
Stepping outside and crossing the bridge back to the mainland, the Turtles headed south like the waiter had instructed.
"Well, at least we know where we're going now." Mikey said.
"Yeah, and I got to bust some heads." Raph added, punching his fist into his palm.
"Let's move, boys." Leo ordered. "Next stop, the Valley of Peace."
Oogway opened his eyes as he stared into the small pool of water. He smiled as he gazed into the depths of the water, seeing the dragon scroll in the reflection of the ceiling.
The prophecy was now in motion, with the arrival of the Dragon Warrior's four guardians.
And there's the first chapter! This was a story I wanted to do for a while now so I hope you enjoyed it so far. Next chapter will be up soon.
