"Thank you, George. I am here with Mutant Rights Activists April O'Neil and Casey Jones. What we have today is going to be a special on the nature of mutants, featuring a few of these beings themselves. But before we introduce our special guests, let's ask a few questions. First of all: Miss O'Neil, you have been researching the nature of mutants and how they come to be. Can you explain some of what you've found to us?"
April cleared her throat. "Well, I still don't understand half of it. Donnie will be able to answer your question more fully once he comes on, but here's how I understand it.
Mutants are a sort of mix of two DNAs. For whatever reason, the mutagen your body comes in contact with takes your DNA and another's and combines it. My guess on the reason the results are so varied is because the mutagen combines it in the best possible way. There are some combinations that would result in instant death, the body wouldn't be able to support itself. So the mutagen makes sure that doesn't happen."
The hostess looked surprised. "That doesn't seem possible! It can't be terrestrial."
"That's because it's not." Casey spoke up. "You remember the alien invasions we've had over the years?" She nodded. "Well, the mutagen comes from the invading aliens. They're called the Kraang, and were going to use it to terraform the planet into something they can live on."
Suddenly April's T-Phone rang. It was Donnie. "Hello?"
"Hey, April. Are you nearly ready yet? I've finally got everyone situated."
April laughed. She remembered how jumpy Mikey had been that morning. Of course he'd be nearly impossible to settle down. "Yeah, I think we're ready," she answered, glancing over at the hostess, who nodded back. She pressed a button underneath the desk and the television behind them flickered to life.
"Whoa, is it working?" Mikey's face was close up to the screen. April held in a giggle as she saw his amazed expression.
"Of course it's working, dimwit!" That was Raph. A hand grabbed Mikey's shoulder and pulled him back. "Now stay back. You're going to scare everyone." Mikey stuck out his tongue and sat on the bench up against Donnie's carefully arranged wall.
"Guys, just please don't touch anything. This setup took hours to perfect." Donnie moved into the picture, holding some sort of device. "Everything working on your end, April?"
"You're just a tad bit quiet."
"Okay. give me just a second." He fiddled with something on his device and tried again. "That any better?"
"Yeah." April smiled. "I don't even know how you this stuff, Donnie."
He gave his little dorky laugh. "It's just a simple matter of-"
"Cut the geekiness, dork squad. I doubt we want everyone to die of boredom while you babble tech talk." Raph had sat on the right end of the bench beside Mikey.
The hostess cleared her throat. "So, um, would you please introduce yourselves?"
"Oh, right." Donnie said. "Oldest to youngest?"
Leo, who was seated beside Mikey in the middle of the bench, nodded. Donnie sat on the left end of the bench, ready to get up if anything went wrong.
"My name's Leonardo. You can call me Leo, though."
"Raph. Short for Raphael."
"I'm Donatello. I prefer to be called Donnie."
Mikey sat up straight, a grin on his face. "And I'm Michelangelo! But everybody calls me Mikey. 'Cause it's much easier to say."
The hostess nodded. "So, you're turtle mutants?"
Donnie nodded. "Yes, turtle-human mutants."
April spoke up. "Donnie, we were just talking about the finer details of mutagen and how it works. Could you explain it a bit better?"
His eyes lit up in that excited way whenever someone got him talking about sciencey stuff. "Well, as far as I understand it, it's a type of bonding agent. Because it's from a different dimension, I still haven't worked out that much, but I do sort of understand how the mutation works. When someone is touched by mutagen, it immediately gets absorbed into their bloodstream. Nearly instantly, it's spread around in equal amounts in all parts of their body.
Before I explain the next part, you have to understand something. Everything you touch leaves a trace amount of the object on your skin. Once the mutagen is equally distributed throughout your body, it goes to you skin and searches for those small amounts of residue. It then takes those, compares them, and uses the freshest. So, in other words, whatever organism you had touched last would be the one you would mutate into."
"So, you guys touched turtles before getting hit with the mutagen?" queried the hostess.
"No, actually." Leo spoke up. "We've been turtles our entire lives. We were touched by humans before getting mutated."
Casey leaned forward. "Not that that should lower anybody's thoughts on you. I mean, you're just as smart as the rest of us. Smarter, in Donnie's case. Sometimes I can't understand half the things he says." Donnie blushed faintly but continued.
"That's about the extent of things I've discovered. The rest of the results of my research consists of facts I've used in developing a retromutagen."
The hostess' eyebrows shot up. "You've been developing a retromutagen?" It was a concept scientists had been researching for years now, after the existence of mutants became more widely known.
"Yeah, but I've only been successful once. And unfortunately I wasn't able to save any samples from that batch. I've been working on it, though."
The hostess glanced around at the other three turtles. "You three have been rather quiet."
Raph scoffed. "Yeah. Donnie's the brainiac. We couldn't explain things half as well as he just did."
"Well, why don't we ask a question that all of you can answer. What would you do if the Mutants act was passed?"
"I know, I know!" Mikey raised his hand. "I would become a professional skateboarder! No, I would get a job at a cute animal shelter so I could play with cats all day! Wait, no! I would open a totally awesome restaurant!" Mikey held his curled fists close to his face. "Ooohhh... There's too many good things to choose from!"
Casey laughed. "Well, you can't do all of them at once, Mikey. You might get cat hair in your pizzas. What about you, Donnie?"
"I know I want to work with a group of scientists. I'm not sure who, though. Maybe if I knew who was researching retromutagen I could join them." He looked to Leo.
"Oh, me? Um, I don't quite know. Maybe open a dojo to teach people self-defense? Either that or become an actor. What about you, Raph?"
Raph thought for a minute. "I don't really know. I haven't really thought about it until the past couple of months. I didn't have the options as a kid, and recently I haven't really known what to think. I have been toying with the idea of going into law enforcement, though."
One of the cameramen cleared his throat.
"I guess that's all we have time for today," concluded the hostess. "We will be doing a special on the nature of mutants all week long, so continue to tune in!"
The TV flickered off and people started moving around. April sighed and stood up. Hopefully that cleared up some confusion. And hopefully people were pacified by Mikey's innocence. He did seem to have that effect on people.
This was going to be a long week...
A/N: Finally back! This part's a tad bit longer, and I hope they'll continue to lengthen!
And also, if you have time, go check out Here to Stay by Life-without-L0ve! ( s/10584561/1/Here-to-Stay) I found this amazing story during my absence, and highly recommend it to you all, especially if you like the ideas presented in here! It's about the Turtles and their lives if the Mutants of America act was passed.
