Chapter Three
Special Delivery


"Wise man say, 'forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.'" - Michelangelo,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles


"Okay, that'll be ten seventy-nine, kiddo." The man behind the counter summarized after ringing up an order for an extra large one topping pizza; the house special. Taking the offered twenty, the cashier entered the tender and with a cloud cha-ching, the drawer popped open and the change back was scooped out.

Pocketing the change handed over to her, and then taking the thin warm cardboard box containing dinner, Sara gave a friendly good-bye to the crew of DeFranco Brothers Pizzeriaand headed back out into the Manhattan night air. Luckily enough the beginning stages of the winter season were merciful enough to not begin its unloading of stored up snow, and for now the young teen dealt with the biting chill that tickled her nose upon immediate contact with the exposed appendage. Wrinkling her nose in response to the cold air, Sara focused her thoughts else where and not on the temperature; like getting home quickly to ensure that her family would at least be eating warm pizza versus having to toss one slice in the microwave at a time.

The streets of the area were rather quiet that night, a few cars passing by, many being taxis versus personally owned vehicles. Sara's grey eyes glanced off down the mouths of alleyways as they were passed, taking note of the small curls of steam that rose up from grates and manholes further inside. This gave the dimly lit, or barely lit, narrow passages a rather unsettling feel during the dark hours of the day. Grimacing at the thought of running into anything down those dark alleys (as cliché as it sounded), Sara tried to set her mind on something else other than the possibility of being ambushed by low life scum prowling the streets. The only people out on the street at this time of night are freaks and weirdos! Well, wait, it's only going on eight...okay maybe the semi freaks and weirdos. Cracking a rather cheeky grin at her own mental comments, Sara picked up the pace so as not be placed in her own self imposed category.

From the Pizzeria to the apartments, it was a good two blocks and that meant at least a decent twenty minute or so walk either way. Sighing in a quiet exhale, she adjusted the way she held the pizza box, the warmth coming from the food starting to make her arms feel damp beneath the sleeves of her hoodie. Pausing at the streetlight and smashing the button for the crosswalk, she could feel the fine hairs on the back of her neck start to prickle as ears twitched ever so slightly at the oddest of sounds that didn't register in her mind as being part of the normal city soundtrack. She wasn't alone on that street, a precognitive sixth sense warning her to this as she waited patiently for the crosswalk light to change. Oh hell, what am I waiting for?! There isn't even a car to worry about hitting me if I walk now! Muttering under her breath as she looked left and then right, Sara started to cross the street.

An extra pair of footsteps fell into line behind her, their sound thumping heavily as whoever it was following her walked without any care of how they placed their weight distribution with each step. She didn't need eyes in the back of her head to know that there were indeed several grimy looking individuals holding a place behind her some six feet or so. Lovely. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she listened closely to count the individual sets of steps coming up on her. They're walking with different strides, and by the sound of it...two tall and average, one short and heavy set, two more tall and junked out with metal "jewelery". None of them seem too sure in their walk, so either I'm just mistaking their intentions for the evening, or they're brand new to this whole ambush and mug thing. Sara's mind began calculating the possibilities and scenarios of what could transpire in the next five seconds...

"Hey baby." A male voice called out as the man himself ran up to her side, tossing an arm about her shoulders and hovered over her. "Looks like you got dinner plans. How's about you share them with me, eh?" He smirked, nose ring clinking and lip piercing scratching against his teeth.

A few more of his 'friends' caught up on her other side while the last kept up a close guard at the back. Each one of them held unfriendly and disgusting grins on their faces as dirty thoughts started to race through their minds. Each one of them had to at least be in his early twenties maybe twenty-five at the oldest. Dressed in ragged band t-shirts, black jeans, and all kinds of black and metal studded accessories decking out their play punk appearance, they weren't exactly GQ material.

Glancing briefly out of the corner of her eye, Sara took note of the arm draped about her shoulders. "Either you take your arm off, or I'll take it off for you." Her tone of voice was steady, oddly placid, and yet each spoken word was frost bitten and grew colder than the early winter chill to the very end.

The guy snorted a laugh while still hanging about her, and looked back towards his friends. "Looks like we got ourselves a keeper here boys!" He hooted while grabbing a handful of Sara's hoodie with his hand and jerked her into a violent stop so that way they could form a rather claustrophobic circle about her. "So now, you ready for the night of your life baby?" He sneered, face coming in dangerously close to her own, the foul stench of rancid alcohol on his breath.

However, the only answer he was going to receive was a swift palm into the face that sent his head snapping backwards on his neck while blood started to leak from either nostril as the force of the blow had been rather significant. The guy cried out in pain while clutching to his nose with both hands, swearing through his teeth in a slurred manner as his temper flared from being struck by a girl. Neither one of his friends came to his aid, as instead they stared with wide eyes after having been stunned stupid with such a display of self protection on the part of the girl they were so keen on harassing.

Still holding the pizza box, Sara stared at the demoralized guy who was still swearing and trying to shake off the pain after being being hit so hard. The expression on her own face held a bit more to it than the even look she had been maintaining for the better part of fifteen minutes. There was a sense of near wonder or even a smug satisfaction at what had happened, except, her whole body position suggested that she had yet to even really move. Finally gaining a grip over himself, the struck down punk shook his head while giving off an angry chuckle as he faced her once again. There were identical trails of blood coming down from either nostril, the crimson stain having been smeared over his mouth and up his cheek after he tried to wipe it away with a leather gloved hand. "You cocky little bitch. You're gonna regret that." He snapped before swinging out at her in a wild fashion.

As uneven of a wild swing as it had been, the blow hit its mark, striking her in the left side of her face. However, yet another surprise would overtake the small unruly gang as a loud pop sounded and a pillar of smoke was now all that took presence in the spot that Sara had been standing in. The smoke drifted away, leaving the gang to stumble backwards in fear at the empty spot within their circle. There was something just not right about what had happened, something very weird. All five of the punk gangsters looked about in every which direction possible to see if maybe they were being setup or there was a prank being pulled on them.

"Is it safe for me to guess that you five idiots of nothing else better to do with your time, other than harassing every female body that walks down the street?" Sara's voice spoke up from behind the shorter and huskier guy out of the group, causing his bloated and sweating face to look back over his heavily studded shoulder as best as his no-neck would allow. His large bulging eyes rimmed in cheap and smeared black eye liner looked as though they were about to pop out of his head like that wolf in the Droopy Dog cartoons.

"Seriously. Did the school system fail you idiots?" Her voice spoke up again in question, but her mouth didn't move and the direction in which came from had changed. Another guy jumped as he realized that she was almost standing right beside him. Looking quickly between where he stood and where his overweight friend stood, his mind started to reel and race with the rather obvious fact that there were now two of the same girl. Two exact girls of the same girl they had planned to snatch off the street. Two of the same girl, identical right down to the black and teal colored Pumas she wore on her feet.

"And here I thought they passed that whole 'Leave no child behind' crap a few years ago." Yet again, her voice spoke from still another direction. This time behind the guy she had struck in the nose, breaking the hooked appendage pierced with several rings. He stared slack jawed at the girl, looking back over either shoulder at the other two places in which she also was standing in with arms crossed over her chest and a rather obvious smirk on her face. "What's a matter? Confused?" Sara asked, her tone taking on a near baby talk to mock the confused group of wannabe punks.

The led guy, still bleeding from his broken nose, seemed to suddenly perk up as an idea struck him at that moment. "Hehe, I know what this is! Yeah, that mind-freak dude on TV did something like this before. It's all smoke and mirrors!" He assured his friends, who all chuckled in response but still held the same uneasy looks on their faces that they were so desperate to hide behind.

Sara couldn't help but further pull a widening grin across her face as she dropped her arms from their crossed position and brought up at a loosely bent position at her sides. Her right hand curled into a fist while her left hand came up before her at a slanted angle. "Sucks for you then." She muttered before rushing forward from all three directions at the group of now further panicking guys. Punch, kick, right upper cut, roundhouse, quick jabs, and a few other strikes were dished out on all five of them from the "smoke and mirror" replications that hit just as hard and fast as the real thing.

All five guys dropped to the ground, twitching and gurgling in response to the severe beating they had been dealt within five minutes at the hands of one girl times three. Dusting her hands off, the real Sara looked over at her two dopplegangers who were grinning like the Cheshire Cat and stood proudly over the rather pleasant smack down they had handed out. There were two loud pops and the dopplegangers of just one girl became puffs of smoke that wafted away on the incoming breeze. "Morons." She muttered while pulling out her cellphone to call the police, altering them to suspicious gang activity one block west of the DeFranco Brothers Pizzeria. Flipping her phone closed after the call ended, Sara stepped over the laid out bodies, not even pausing in her walk as she gave the broken nosed guy one last kick to the stomach as she passed just to make sure he stayed down.

A few jogging steps and she entered the alleyway nearby where she had stashed the pizza her mom had sent her out for. Yanking the box free of its up high hide-away between the brick wall of the building on her left and a steam pipe, Sara carefully moved it around and opened the lid to make sure it was still looking good.

However, "Dammit. This thing looks like the Noid got to it or something." She groaned at the sight of toppings dangling from the inside of the box lid and pizza sauce spewed everywhere but on the pizza itself. "Hey, what a minute." Her eyes had come to rest upon on rather odd looking void in the shape of the pizza wheel itself. There's a slice missing?!"What the...?! Ah man, mom's gonna kill me." Sara griped while shutting the box lid and tilted her head back to stare at the star spotted sky overhead, although it was rather difficult to actually see the stars in the city. "There is no god."

Exhaling in bitter defeat, Sara trudged out of the alleyway and started back on her path towards the apartment, the distant wailing of sirens overtaking the night and providing the only source of noise to break the silent walk home. While the teen walked home, her steps did not go unwatched even now. There were eyes watching her since she had departed from the pizzeria. Eyes that had grown worried when she had been surrounded by the gang, and then quickly changed to surprise after watching her produce skills that they had never seen before.

"Hey, Donny, what do you think she is?" A whispered voice asked from somewhere up on the roof line high above the streets. The whisper had been out of the need to stay quiet and unseen, but more from awe and surprise.

"She looks like any other human girl." Another voice replied, its tone of a normal level, but still held a rather curious tone to it. "But she moved like a ninja. Like us. But those techniques she used, replicating dopplegangers of herself, that's advanced ninjutsu that we haven't been taught yet."

"Still, gotta admire a girl who can take care of herself though. She put those idiots through the wringer." Yet another voice broke in with a rather Brooklyn influenced accent to its edge. There's more admiration and praise than curiosity with the words than the other two had expressed.

"We should let Splinter know about this. For all we know, this girl could be part of the Foot." A fourth voice stated, pointing what the other three seemed to neglect in their process of thinking. "Come on."

With that said, the four voices vanished, their watchful eyes not needed as the unseen escort to one lone teenage girl on the streets of Manhattan...for the moment anyways.