In the last chapter, Tyroth survived being shot straight through the chest and Jennifer met the rest of the gang and got the origin story of Tyroth and Sephie. Things are going to heat up in the next few chapters, so happy reading.
I own nothing except my OC's and plot.
Chapter 13
Tying Up Some Loose Ends
Jennifer was soundly asleep in the bed of the guest room, exhausted from the nights events and the fact that, for her, it was very late. Sephie had carried her there after she had fallen asleep, shortly after Tyroth had finished his story. Since Tyroth was to spend at least another day in the med-room, and that none of the mutants would go to bed for several hours, Sephie could sleep on the couch if need be.
"I hope that she'll be alright." Sephie said to her self "Wonder how my brothers and sisters are doing. Oh, how I wish that we could meet them again."
"The feeling is mutual." said a voice from the side. Sephie quickly turned and saw Mona walking up to her.
"Whew. You scared me."
"Sorry. I forgot that you don't have ninja-training like the rest of us, we always notice each other unless we try to stay hidden."
"Well, I don't unless I'm prepared for an attack, which I'm not in here."
"Again, I'm sorry for scaring you."
"Don't worry about it. Just... try not to do it again, okay?"
"No promises." said Mona with a smile, causing Sephie to roll her eyes.
The remainder of the night passed quietly as Jennifer slept. When she woke, it took some time before she remembered were she was. She didn't however, remember the room she was in or how she got there.
"I hope you slept well, Jen-Jen." she hear Tyroth say from the doorway.
"I did, but how did I get here?"
"Sephie carried you here after you fell asleep in the med-room."
"Huh? She did it all alone? Since when did she get so strong?"
"Our mutant bodies came with a few, let us say, upgrades. Increased strength and healing rate are some of them."
"Wow. That's cool. Speaking of which, how are your wounds?"
"They're better, I'm still sore all over but another twelve hours and I should be fine."
"That's good to hear. Wait, twelve hours? Have I been asleep that long? What time is it?"
"Around half past one, daytime." he said before yawning slightly. "The others are asleep, and unless something happens, won't be up until somewhere around six or seven. And before you start worrying, I got some sleep before I got here, so I'll be fine."
"You're my brother, I always worry about you." she said as she got out of bed. Once up her stomach gave of a loud growl. "Oops, sorry about that." Tyroth just chuckled.
"Sounds like you need some breakfast. Come on, I'll show you the kitchen and you can take what you like, within reason of course. And in the meantime, I'll make a call."
In one of the several districts of Chicago, commander Hugh Beauregard sat in his office with the same old paperwork as he usually does. He was in his late thirties with short almost orange colored hair and a large mustache, both with some stains of gray. Reaching for his cup of coffee, his cellphone started to ring. Picking it up from his desk, but not answering it, he looked at the display.
"Hidden number? That's unusual." he said before answering.
"Yeah, this is Beauregard."
"Hi, Hugh. It's T. How are you doing? Hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Just some paperwork, nothing important. Haven't heard from you for some time, T. I get the feeling that this isn't a random call to a friend."
"Unfortunately no. I need to call in the favor you owe me. You see, I have a close friend. She has had a hard time lately and was close to become a criminal, just to survive. What I want is for you to help her get a place to live and a job, using your contacts in Chicago."
"That's a pretty tall order, my friend. But, you did save my life, so I'll see what I can do. Just of curiosity, how close of a friend is this girl?"
"I'll tell you the next time we meet face to face, Hugh. And thanks. She should arrive in a few days, depending on how many loose ends she needs to take care of first. I'll make sure that she knows what to do."
"Okay then, I'll keep an eye out for her then. See you around."
"So long, Hugh."
When the conversation was over, Hugh thought for a moment, looking at the paperwork on his desk, that needed be done before three.
"Ah, to hell with it. My friend's more important, and it'll be a nice change of pace anyways. Wonder if she knows about his other friends 'down under'." he thought to himself as he started making calls.
After finishing his call to Hugh, Tyroth walked back to the kitchen and kept his sister company while she ate. They talked idly for several hours after Jennifer had finished her breakfast, before Tyroth felt that he needed to take a nap. While Tyroth headed to the med-room, Jennifer walked back to the room she was borrowing. She found a few books that she started reading to pass the time, the one that she liked the most was an old detective story.
"They don't make stories like that anymore." Jennifer thought as she put the book aside, just having finished it. "To think that the counts cousin was framed by her aunt. It sure beats the standard 'it was the butler'-plot."
Laying back on the bed she noticed that there were sounds coming from outside. It sounded like metal hitting metal. She had been so deep into her reading that she never noticed that the others were awake, and probably ad been for some time now. Walking out of the room, she headed for the sounds and found the mutants fighting in a large room.
No, not fighting, training. Tyroth and the old rat stood at the edge of the room, while the others were divided into three pairs. Liz, or Sephie as she called herself now, was using a pair of daggers against a turtle in a blue mask with two swords, the same one that she saw when she first arrived. The purple-masked one, Donnie she thought, was paired with the other lizard girl called Mona, they were using a staff and some dagger like weapons she couldn't get a good look at. And finally Raphael trained together with the orange-masked turtle, the former using what Jennifer would describe as large forks and the latter used weapons she recognized, but could never remember the name of. Much like she didn't remember the names of all the mutants.
The training lasted for at least another hour before the old rat said that it was enough. Jennifer decided that it was time for her to leave. After thanking them for everything they had done for her and her brother, she said good bye to the mutants, and was escorted by Tyroth to the nearest manhole. During their walk, Tyroth explained everything Jennifer needed to know for when she arrives in Chicago. Before parting ways in the alley the manhole led to, they shared a hug.
"Take care of yourself, Jen-Jen."
"I promise, Ray-Ray."
When Tyroth got back to the lair, he was met by a very excited Donatello.
"Good, you're back. Quick, follow me to the lab." he said. Before Tyroth even had the time to ask what was going on, Donnie grabbed his left hand and tried to drag the large mutant with him to the lab. Emphasis on the word tried, as they didn't move an inch.
"Calm down. What's going on, anyway?"
"I'm this close to establishing contact to Mutopia and I need your help to prove that we are friends."
"Why didn't you say so sooner. Let's go!" Tyroth said as he now dragged Donnie to the lab.
In the lab, Donnie quickly typed some commands on the keyboard to one of the computers.
"There. All we have to do now is to click on this button," he said pointing at a green start button on the screen, "and we'll have contact with Mutopia. May have to clear up eventual static, but that shouldn't be any problem."
Sure enough, there were static, but they could hear that there was someone on the other side of the line. Donnie started typing some more commands, and the static cleared up so they could hear what was said by the unknown voice.
"I repeat: who is this and how did you find this frequency?" said a man's voice. Tyroth smiled.
"It wasn't that hard to find, if you know what to look for, Hacker."
"Tyroth? Is that you, buddy? I thought that you'd be back by now."
"Things got... complicated. But the good news are that we found what we were looking for, and they're friendly. In fact we're calling from their place. We wanted to tell you guys that we'll be staying here for a while, maybe a week. They got some problems that could potentially become problems for us as well."
"Sounds... problematic."
"Yeah. So we're staying here so we can learn how to protect ourselves against them."
"Okay, I'll let Gramps know. But how did you manage to make a secure channel, if you don't mind me asking?"
"That would be my handiwork." Donnie spoke up. "The name's Donatello, but you can call me Donnie."
After the short introduction, the room was filled with, what Mikey would call, 'techno-blabber'. Seeing as he wouldn't understand half of what the two 'techies' were talking about, Tyroth decided to go and do something else. He made his way over to the gym-part of the dojo and picked up a weight, wanting to make sure that his right arm was in working order, so to speak. He spent the better part of the night lifting weights, increasing the the load every now and then. Satisfied with how much strength he had regained, he put the weights back were they belonged before leaving the dojo. It was on his way out that he noticed that all four of the turtles had left the lair. Splinter, Mona and Sephie were still around and were keeping themselves occupied.
Splinter was watching some soap on the TV, apparently his favorite hobby, while Sephie was braiding Mona's hair. Tyroth smiled at how close Sephie and Mona had become, Sephie used to braid the hair of both Jennifer and Sephies own sisters when they were still human. She even braided his hair in his sleep a few times, much to his annoyance and mostly to tease him. Though he would never admit it, he actually missed those times, not having any hair any longer.
After talking to Splinter, Tyroth learned that the turtles had gone topside some twenty minutes ago to examine the ambush-site in hopes of learning something about the strange attacker. Tyroth wanted to go after them but he knew that they had a better chance of staying hidden without him, yet he could not shake the feeling that something bad might happen. Hoping that it was nothing more than paranoia, he sat down to watch the soap with Splinter, he felt that he could use the distraction. Not that he followed what happened in the show, or had any interest in it.
"So that's the place it fell?" Donnie asked, looking at the cracks in the asphalt from his cover in the shadows.
"Yeah, and you saw the damage it did to Tyroth." Raph answered.
"Must have been some form of machine, an android or similar. With high-powered energy weapons." Donnie continued.
"Like that wasn't obvious." commented Mikey.
"Guys. Look." Leo pointed at the crash site. There on the asphalt were dried stains, barely visible in the faint light. The stains trailed off to the north.
"That thing must be leaking. We can follow the trail to whoever sent it after us." said Raph, brandishing his sais "And then, it's payback time."
"Cool it, Raph." said Leo "We'll follow it, but we will not engage our foe. Not until we know more about it. This will be strictly a scouting mission. Understand?"
"Fine." Raph growled.
For roughly two hours, the turtles followed the trail to the eastern side of the city, a task that would have taken less time if they didn't have to stay out of sight. As they searched for the attacker they noticed that the marks were getting fewer and smaller, indicating that either the leak was being fixed on the way or the fluid was almost gone. Finally they arrived at a building with darkened windows that looked rather new. The trail went inside through the side door.
"Is it just me, or does this place look familiar to you too, dudes?" Mikey asked his brothers.
"You're right, Mikey. I recognize this building as well." sais Leo.
"No wonder." Donnie cut in "This is the very same building were we first encountered Mona, but it's not as rundown as it was back then. Someone have repaired it and that takes money, maybe whoever built that thing also owns this building now."
"Then let's make a house call." Raph said as he pulled out one of his sais and jumped down to the ground. He then proceeded to pick the lock using his sai. The other turtles followed him down.
"What are you doing, Raph?" Leo said.
"You said it was a scouting mission, so I say that we scout the inside while we're here."
"I don't like saying this, but that might be a good idea." Donnie commented "We can't see anything through the windows, and I don't see any kind of security systems."
"Hmph, fine then. But we go in, check it out and leave. Stealthy." said Leo, reluctantly.
A few moments later, the lock clicked and the door slid inward. Entering through the door the turtles were in a dimly lit room with lots of large, wooden crates.
Leo whispered to his brothers. "Stay on your toes, this is a perfect place for an ambush."
He had barely finished his warning, when the door slammed behind them and two large steel beams rose from the floor, blocking the door. Expecting to be attacked at any time, the four turtles scanned their environment and were ready to dodge at any second. A red light, like that of the visor on the attacker lit up in the darkest area of the room and started to move towards the turtles, and two more followed.
"You had to jinx it, Fearless." Raph said as the four readied their weapons.
We say good bye to Jennifer, for now, and got to know a few new OC, if only briefly. A small tip to all how have played the Mass Effect games, is to try and imagine Beauregard with captain/commander Bailey's voice. That's just how I think he sounds, but there you have it.
Anyway, the turtles are in a tight spot. How will they get out of this one. See you in the next chapter.