After fighting the two mutants, Tyroth and Sephie, the turtles bring them with them down in the sewers. How will the gang back at the lair react to the new guests? And what past do they have?
I do not own TMNT, only my OC
Chapter 3
The Strangers Origin
Back at the lair, the gang were starting to get restless as they waited for the turtles to come home, so they could eat. Casey was watching a movie, while April and master Splinter were talking about a soap they both followed. Mona had decided to train some with her warfans before dinner and was in the dojo. She wore the white t-shirt and dark green shorts she'd worn when helping April prepare dinner, so she wouldn't mess up her dark red dress she planed to wear.
Suddenly they heard the entrance to the lair open.
"Finally, they're back." Mona thought as she folded her fans and started walking to the entrance.
The others had done the same.
"My sons, what took you so.." the gray old rat started, but stopped mid-sentence when he saw his son's bruises and the two strangers behind them.
"What is the meaning of this!?" he asked sharply as he, April and Casey stared at the newcomers, mainly at Tyroth, due to his size and appearance.
Mona however was frozen with horror as she stared at Sephie. A few seconds later she lunged at her lookalike with the fans drawn and hatred in her eyes.
Raph managed to stop her by throwing his arms around his mate, struggling to keep his grip.
"Let me go!" she screamed as she tried to get free. "Those bastards! Why can't they leave me alone?! Is it not enough that they tried to use me to make them stronger, now they have the nerves to make a copy of me!"
"Calm down Mona. Please." Raph said. "They're not gonna hurt you. Or so they claim."
"You actually trust them?!"
"No I don't, but our fearless leader does. And if they try anything, I'll help you gut them."
The old rat looked at his oldest son. "Leonardo. Care to explain?"
Leo sighed as he introduced Tyroth and Sephie to his friends and vice versa. Sephie waved a little with a small smile, while Tyroth bowed to the old rat.
"Oh. I almost forgot." Donnie said. "I'll need that blood sample now, if you don't mind"
"Not at all. Maybe that will calm down everyone."
"What are you doing, Donnie?" Casey asked as the purple masked turtle headed for the medical room.
"A DNA comparison between Mona and Sephie. To prove her claims of not being a clone, modified or otherwise."
He came out of the room a moment later with a syringe, some alcohol, a rubber tube and a cottonball. As he prepared Sephie's right arm, Leo told the story of how they met. By the time he was done, Donnie had already set his computers to work on the sample.
Mona had calmed down enough for Raph to let her go. She kept a close eye on her 'twin' as Splinter walked closer to the two.
Splinter held his left hand on his chin and studied the two for a moment.
"Would you be so kind to tell us your story?" he asked in a gentle tone, but still cautious.
"Certainly." Tyroth said, he then turned to Sephie. "Shall I tell it, or do you want to?"
"You can do it, I'll cut in every now and then." She said.
Tyroth smiled "Just as usual. Anyway, I believe that you have food on the table, judging by the smell, and it would be a shame if it went bad. So how about that we tell you our story, while you eat?"
A few minutes later, the turtles and friends had begun eating, slowly as Tyroth started to talk.
"It stared about a year ago. I had just gotten a job at a video-game store and was one step closer to us being able to move out of my parents house. However, one day I overheard my boss talking with someone over the phone. I don't usually eavesdrop on people, but this conversation was... disturbing.
He was cheating people on money and sold games that he hired thugs to steal from other stores, just to name a few things. I called the police as soon as I could and he got arrested. Unfortunately it cost me my job and I didn't get any wage."
"That's when we decided to travel somewhere else to try our luck." Sephie cut in. "So we went to Chicago roughly a week later."
"Excuse me for interrupting." said April "But are you brother and sister? I can't really tell."
"No, we're a couple. I kinda moved in with Tyroth five years ago. It saved us a lot of money as I lived rather far from him and was unemployed as well. Tough times." Sephie answered. Tyroth nodded and continued.
"They got tougher. My old boss was actually working for a local crime lord called the 'Overlord'."
"I've heard of him. Didn't he disappear a few weeks ago?" Casey asked.
"Yes, that was our work. But that's another story. At the time I was considered a threat, probably because of my involvement in the arrest of my boss, so he sent an assassin after me, paranoia I guess. Luckily he wasn't very skilled and we managed to flee down through the sewers and into a natural cave, with only some flesh wounds from bullets shot at us. At that point he had lost his patience and decided to use a grenade. I used my body to shield Sephie from the explosion. It flung us further into the cave and caused part of it to collapse."
The gang looked at Tyroth with a mix of fear and shock over what had been said, even Mona.
"How bad were the injuries?" Donnie asked with a bit of hesitation.
"Sephie got of lightly with only a few cracked ribs, a broken left arm and a real headache, I on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. My left thighbone was broken in a few places, my right arm was crushed under the remains of what used to be the ceiling, I couldn't feel much on the right side of my face and had internal injuries, I'm pretty sure I was bleeding internally as well." Tyroth stoped and let Sephie continue.
"He lost conscious a few minutes later while I was trying to dig out his arm, not an easy task when you have a broken arm yourself, especially in the dark. Roughly ten minutes later, I hear voices further inside the cave, which actually was more of a tunnel. I saw people with flashlights and as they came closer I saw that they weren't human."
"Mutants?" Leo asked.
"Yep." She continued. "Humanoid shark, cheetah and wolf. Needless to say, I fainted. My brain just couldn't handle any more at that moment."
"Let me guess, when you woke up you looked like that?" Raph said, his words dipped in sarcasm.
"Actually no. I woke up the next day to find my arm and chest in bandages and all the scrapes as well. That's when I met Gramps."
"You met your grandfather?" Mikey asked with a very confused look on his face.
"Eh... no. It's a nickname for George, the oldest of the mutants. He's a humanoid turtle to, but unlike you he appears to be part Galapagos tortoise and has white fuzzy eyebrows and a rather long beard. Anyway, he gave me some fruit and a cup of herbal tea, and comforted me. He said that he would tell me more when my friend woke up as well, pointing to another bed where Tyroth lied, covered in bandages."
"Took about a week before I came to. After getting the explanation of how they found us and took care of us. I was given an old wheelchair so we could get a tour of Mutopia."
"Mutopia?" The turtles said at the same time, looking very skeptical and confused.
"We didn't name the place. A mutant mole from the seventies did." Sephie commented. "He said it sounded 'radical', or was it 'gnarly'? Now I remember, it was 'radically gnarly'."
"I don't know about that," Mikey said scratching the back of his head, "but it does roll of the tongue nicely."
"It is a sanctuary for outcasts and the abandoned, housed in a ruin very much like this one you're living in, but much larger." Tyroth continued as all looked at him with amazement "Everyone who had been taken care of by the mutants and chose to remain live there in peace. As of now there lives around twentyfive mutants there, surviving by fishing and the use of a large room with crystals that works like a greenhouse. They often went to the surface at night to salvage what Chicago's inhabitants threw away, like mattresses, furniture and even the odd computer."
"I didn't know that there were more ruins, apart from the one we found even deeper underground. Let alone a entire mutant village." said Donnie with a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes. "Remind me to tell you the story about the other ruin we found."
"After a while we arrived at the main attraction outside the ruin, the well."
"What's so special about a well?" Casey asked with a raised eyebrow.
"The well was filled with the clearest water I've ever seen." Sephie took over. "Gramps said that drinking it could heal any physical injuries within seconds, but at the cost of one's human body. It is the source of our mutated forms."
"Did he make you drink it?" Mona asked, who had been quiet so far.
"Sort of." said Tyroth. "He didn't force us, only a few had been forced to drink it. And those were unconscious and dying, the well was the only way to save their lives. I was told that my internal injuries were worse than they feared, and that I didn't have much time left. They hadn't the equipment for the surgery needed to save me so the well was my only chance for survival. I hesitated."
"I had to reassure him that it was for the best and that I would always love him, no matter how he looked."
"You've always had a way of inspiring me." he said stroking Sephie's cheek with the outside of his hand.
"I was warned that while the transformation would be swift, it would also be very painful, and he was right. It felt like every cell of my body was pierced by red-hot, electrical needles, I have never felt anything like that. The mutation took only a few seconds but it seemed like it went on for hours."
"I was so shocked by it that I lost my balance and fell into the well. As you can see I swallowed some of the water and mutated too. It was not a pleasant experience. That will teach me not to stand too close to the edge."
"What was it in the water that caused the mutations?" Donnie asked highly curious.
"Nobody knows." Tyroth said. "Some think it is because of the crystals in the ruin, others that there is something in the rocks or some kind of radiation. There have even been theories that it might be magical. But one thing is certain, the wells powers don't stop there."
"What do you mean?" asked Leo.
"Aside from healing and mutating any one who drinks from it, it also permanently boosts our natural healing ability during the mutation."
"Yeah, we saw that during our fight." Raph commented.
"But Tyroth is an abnormality on that point, because of his dragon-part he heals much faster than anyone else." Sephie clarified.
"Speaking of which, Tyroth, how come you're part dragon in the first place?"
"I wish I knew, April. But that is also a mystery. For as long as Gramps has been in Mutopia, and he has lived a very long time, all mutants have been part animal, never part mythical being. There have been a few that were part bull and looked like minotaurs, though. My form might just be a strange coincidence." The look on his face told Splinter that the question troubled Tyroth more than he admitted. Nobody else noticed this however.
"Anyway" Tyroth continued "we took a couple of days to learn our new bodies, and I can't say that we are dissatisfied with them. Eventually we went to the surface, and would you believe our luck, when we found the assassin walking around in the alleys. We confronted him and gave him him a choice, either go to the police and confess or get beaten to a bloody pulp and then get dropped of with the police. A few days later, when he woke up, he confessed everything. That's when we learned that everyone thought that we were dead, killed in the explosion. Our old life was over so we started a new one, as crimefighters, and changed our names."
"Changed your names? So 'Tyroth' and 'Sephie' ain't your real names?" Mikey asked.
"Nope. We changed them to protect our families, in case anyone found out. Everyone in Mutopia have also changed their names after being mutated, symbolizing the start of a something new. It's kind of a tradition, even Gramps did it after he founded Mutopia." Sephie answered.
"How old is that gaffer anyway?" Casey asked and was about take a bite of a piece of bread, when he felt a slap on the back of his head.
"Casey!" April scolded him. Tyroth just smiled and shook his head at the two.
"If what he told us is true, he was somewhere in his eighties when he found the ruin and the well, one hundred and fifty years ago."
Tyroth's statement almost made some of the listeners choke on their food. Even Splinter was surprised over that the old mutant was over two hundred years.
"How can he be that old?" Leo said after clearing his throat.
"Well, he is part Galapagos tortoise, so he probably have a longer lifespan because of that, they can live well over hundred years. Some think that the well also prolongs lives, or at least slows down the aging process. But nobody's sure." Sephie said.
"Well, I think that sums up our origin, more or less." Tyroth continued. "We've made some enemies on the way, but also some friends among the humans. I think you know how it goes. We came here a few days ago after we heard some rumors about other mutants. That would be you I think."
"I have a question, if I may?" Splinter say in a soft tone. "Who taught you to fight? Seeing as you defeated my students, who are skilled ninja, I'm very interested to know where you trained."
"We're self-taught. Made it up as we went along. It makes us unpredictable in a fight." Sephie answered with a proud voice and a smile.
"What about your weapons?" Leo asked. "I doubt you just found them somewhere."
"They were gifts to us from a friend we made. Mister Sukiwara Haito had them made for us after Tyroth saved him from a mugger."
Hearing this, Donnie's face lit up, just like when kids just got what they wished for at Christmas.
"Sukiwara? The Sukiwara? Founder of Sukiwara Traditional Technologies in Japan?"
"I take it you know who that guy is, bro." Mikey said.
"He founded the most controversial tech-company ever, combining state of the art technology with teachings and methods of the past. Their equipment is the best there is. His company made your weapons?"
"Yep. My daggers and Tyroth's sword were apparently made in a similar way as the samurai swords of old, but with a more modern touch."
"Now, if there are no more questions at the moment, I'm very curious of your own past. If you wouldn't mind telling us that is."
Splinter nodded and told the tale of his and the turtles origin, about the ooze, Shredder and the attack on Hamato Yoshi years earlier, how they met April and Casey and how they took in Mona roughly eighteen months ago. However, Splinter left out the events that led to Mona's mutation.
While he told the story, Mona had her mind elsewhere. She still didn't trust the newcomers, but she felt a form of connection to Sephie.
"She never wanted to be a mutant, she was almost killed and her friends and family thinks she's dead, yet she have a new family and someone that loves her." she thought. "There are many things we have in common, and still, she is so different from me. But I can't shake the feeling that the Foot might have something to do with her, no matter what they've said. Oh Donnie, please hurry up with that test."
Much of the past of Tyroth and Sephie has been revealed, and the story is just getting started. Next time we'll see how things go between Monalisa and Sephie. And more. See you next time.