Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.
"No one knows what it's like.
To be the bad man, to be the sad man,
Behind blue eyes.
No one knows what it's like,
To be hated, to be faded to telling only lies."
'Behind Blue Eyes', by Limp Bizkit
From the top of a building, Kai watched the punks hanging in the alley; typical, 'rebellious' teenagers with bad attitudes who thought living life out on the streets was cool. In this group there were about five of them, and about a few minutes ago they welcomed a 'newcomer', a girl who asked if this was where run-aways' hung out. Out of the six, about four of them were guys and only two of them were girls.
"Will these six do, sir?" One of the Foot ninja behind him asked, Kai glared at the six punks past his red mask and straightened his rice-hat; something about the newcomer made him uneasy, though he did not let it show. Clearly, even though these teenagers and young adults were out of shape, they were also at the age where they could be in the physical prime of their lives, making them exceptional candidates.
"They will do." Kai nodded "Give them the proposal, and collect the ones that accept." He ordered, a party of four Foot ninja jumped into the alley, surprising the run-aways'.
Kai watched; the head of the party explaining the proposal with the help of the other three, the run-away's glancing at each other uncertainly, some of them looked as if they were going to leave, but when the new comer came up with a wry grin and a statement of agreement, the others followed like ducklings; like stupid, dependant followers. Kai could have sworn the girl glanced at him, but he waved it off, he was just being paranoid, like his father often was….
The Foot ninja lead them to the rooftop, it took a while for most of recruits them to get to the rooftop… Except for the strange girl, she trailed right at the Foot ninja's heels and in fact could have probably made better time than they could judging by the impatient look she had.
'I do not trust that girl.' Kai decided, his instincts never failed him before. He tipped his rice-hat down to cover his head, he did not want to give the humans a heart-attack by letting them know he was a turtle first on.
The party of Foot ninja, and the group of six run-aways' were finally assembled in front of him; his Foot ninja were stoic as always, and the run-aways looked nervous….. Except for the girl, she held a grin that seemed almost crazed.
"I'm Elite guard of the Foot clan," Kai said to them "and head of recruiting, state your names."
A dark-skinned, skinny young man with a side-ways hat answered first "Kyle Reno.".
Next was a girl with short, spiky red hair and bas-relief freckles "Joyce Quinn."
Then a boy with dark red hair and light green eyes "Cody Jones." The girl whom Kai did not trust seemed to tense up at the name, but she immediately returned to normal.
Then a brown-hair brown-eyed boy "Patrick Keene."
Then, a boy with tan skin, wild blonde hair and brown eyes "Clay Travis."
Finally, the girl that Kai did not trust. Now that she was close, he could see her clearly; she had very ragged dusky-brown hair with bangs that covered one half of her face, she had many old and new scars along her form, and dangerous amber eyes. "Stella Marlowe." She answered.
Kai nodded "In this clan, if you are addressed, you will be addressed by your last names; in the Foot, you will receive food, shelter, uniforms and training, and in return you will use that training to serve us in combat."
They all nodded.
"The training will be in Ninjitsu; you will be trained at Foot ninja and after a bit of basic training, you will all receive weapons. As a Foot ninja, you will obey orders without question; you will not speak out of line either, unless if you wish to be punished." They, except for Marlowe, flinched "You will receive orders from our leader the Shredder, and the four Elite guards, one of which is me as I mentioned before." Kai then took off his rice-hat; all of them were shocked to see his bald, green head.
"Holy shit! An alien!" Marlowe gasped and moved back as if she were going to run away.
"Relax." Kai hissed "My name is Oroku Kai – and I am not the only mutant turtle, my father, another Elite guard and Sergeant of Subordinate training, is a mutant turtle as well. So you better get used to the idea of giant talking turtles."
All of the recruits nodded fearfully.
"Follow me; we are going to Foot head quarters." Kai demanded and led them down to the streets, where they would load into a truck. Once down to a different alley, he ordered they pack into the truck, while one of his Foot ninja drove them to Foot head-quarters.
"Hey," Marlowe said to him, Kai glared at her "what's the whole 'Elite guard' thing about?"
Curious cadet? He was inclined to answer even if he did not wish to "There are four of us, we are the Shredder's body guards and the greatest of her assassins, and we also take up different important tasks. Me, head of recruiting. My father, Leonardo, Sergeant of Subordinate training. Doctor Stockman, head of research and science. And Mashimi, Front line of combat."
Marlowe nodded, she probably understood their tasks just by his brief explanation, after all it was not hard. "By the way, nice hat." She commented.
"I get that a lot." Kai replied coldly, he studied Marlowe for a moment, he could see that with her slumped foreword, her hair was out from the side of her face and he could actually see her face "Nice scar." He commented, she did not seem bothered. He wondered how someone could get a wicked scar like that, three slashes, the shortest one somewhat lapped onto her nose, the longest one went over her eye and stopped at her forehead, and the last ended near the corner of her eye but lead all the way to the side of her head and nicked the corner of her ear even. It wasn't even a clean cut, so it could not have been made by knives or anything.
She shrugged "I get that a lot too." Marlowe replied and grinned madly.
'I definitely do not trust her' Kai ultimately decided; he would keep an eye on her. There was something off about her. What kind of Manhattan street-tough was sun-tanned, anyways? Not even the roughest street rat had that many scars anyways, or calloused hands. And Kai, having been recruiting street-rats for good portion of his life, never remembered seeing one so healthy; Marlowe had a fair amount of muscle and no rolling fat and wasn't malnourished. Most street kids were not exercised because they could not afford a gym membership, had poor grades so they did no sports, and had to eat cheap junk and fast food, putting them in less-than-great shape.
There was something off about Marlowe, but the Shredder had told him to turn away no recruits, so he would have to follow orders for now. But any funny business and Marlowe was done for; Kai couldn't afford to take risks if he was to be the Shredder one day.
Jones was also up for debate – Kai could tell by the boys name and appearance he was the offspring of Casey and April Jones. Cody would be turned away too and immediately considered a spy, if it weren't for the resentful gleam in his eyes that Kai had seen in many of the recruits, saying he truly believed he was deep in teenage bullshit and was rebelling against his parents, who must not have told him about Shadow Jones.
The rest of the trip was filled only with awkward silence.
After the 'Orientation', or rather the ritual of being given a Foot ninja Uniform and a small room, Moth came into the room that was now hers to live in. Legally, it was probably more of a closet, being a rectangular 10x9 room, with a tiny closet which was full only of extra uniforms, a mattress on the floor as a bed, a hardwood floor and a small dresser at the foot of the bed. The dresser had an alarm clock on it. The bed had a blue blanket, a simple white-cased pillow, and a brown quilt; there was also a tiny window and a shelf above the bed. There was also a rectangular white rug. Finally, there was a door leading to a tiny bathroom with a sink, a toilet and a small stall shower.
May have been small and simple, but it was a lot to Moth – seeing as she had lived her entire life in a cave. Moth dropped her backpack on the bed, and changed into the foot uniform, securing the full-face mask on her head. Admittedly, she did not like fabric – she was used to the roughness of animal pelts, and she preferred it over the smoothness of cloth, and she wanted her red mask too.
Being recruited, she made up a name – Stella, from a childhood favorite story about a bat named Stellaluna, and Marlowe from her favorite character from a book called King Rat. Of course, she could tell that creepy Kai already mis-trusted her, but that was okay, it would only be a slight setback, she would eventually gain his trust, making it all the more sweeter when she severs his head. Even though she had only exchanged few words with Kai, she already did not like him – his emotionless, cold exterior – and interior as well, the look in his eyes was clearly dead….. She felt kind of bad for him, actually, being raised by the flagrant lord and lordess of all evil, he probably didn't know anything about love or affection.
From her backpack, Moth took out a shell-cell, three of which Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo had been saving for years and used to keep touch with each other, they had not given one to Moth until tonight. Moth dialed her masters number and put it to her ear.
"Are you in?"
"Infiltration complete. Phase two begins tomorrow." Moth answered.
"Good… What's your alias anyways?"
"Marlowe."
"I knew you liked that book." Michaelangelo chuckled "Remember, no matter how much you want to show up, you have to pretend you don't know the first thing about Martial Arts, that means pretending to not a move the first couple of times."
"Roger that."
"Alright… Good night Moth."
"Good night, love you father."
"Love you too."
Click.
Moth stored the shellcell back into the backpack (which also had normal things a street rat would have; some junk food, human clothes, junk-food, a notebook and a chewed-up pencil.) Also, her favorite, a copy of King Rat, old, slightly ripped with many bent corners and faded cover that had suffered through nature.
Putting the backpack on the ground, Moth set the alarm clock at the time Kai had told her and the other street rats to set it to, not as early as she usually got up in the morning so it was an upside. Once done, she took off the full-face mask and rested her head on the pillow; she closed her eyes, she never turned the light of the room on, she was already trained to see in the dark after all, and fell asleep in the den of the enemy.
"This is wrong." Venus DeMilo growled to Michaelangelo as he hung up "You're putting your own daughter into mortal danger!"
"Moth can handle herself." Michaelangelo retorted "And what else do you propose we do? Moth is glad to help."
"Because you trained her that way." Venus shot back. "Does she really know anything besides vengeance."
"I taught her the most important thing a parent can teach their child, the same thing Master Splinter taught us." Michelangelo's single blue eye softened "How to love."
"And how to be a perfect weapon." Okay, that kind of stung.
"Venus, I thought you were with me on this!"
"I used to be, when you thought this up a long time ago! Twenty years ago! When we were both battered, maimed and filled with grief! I thought you went off the deep-end with that Jade thing, but I was wrong, this is low."
"Either I let Moth join our enemies and betray their trust, or we all perish in a fruitless fight against Leonardo!"
"Is that all you have come to? Your hatred of Leonardo? You weren't always that way Mike, you never hated so intensly before….."
Michaelangelo frowned, he struggled to keep his emotions in check before he quietly said "I'm…. Still me."
"Are you?" Venus frowned "Mikey, I understand why you're doing all of this, I really do, but I don't like it, I'm sorry if I say things that might hurt you….. But I hate seeing my little brother so bitter and hateful."
"I know," Michaelangelo sighed; feeling so old, but small, at the same time "I know. Grief crushed us both…"
So since this is an alternate-universe, a lot of the same characters show up, but in different forms. Baxter Stockman, for one, is not only a scientist, but one of the Elite guards. And Mashimi is again a member of the Foot clan, but not affiliated with Yoshi. The Foot clan is also somewhat of a society, run by the Shredder; the Elite guards are commanded by the Shredder, but each of them has different responcibilities in the Foot clan besides being a personal guard-dog and assassin.