Chapter Two – Meeting New Faces
It was damp, dark, and cold. Near the center of the room was a caged girl, trapped, scared to death, and wasn't sure if she was going to live through this pain. The cage that held the small frail girl wasn't in the best condition in fact it barely held the girl at all. The metal was covered in rust and mold giving the hostage nausea from the smell, not even the small blanket the kraang gave the girl wasn't enough to keep out the cold. But even through all of the smells, cold, bad hygiene, and occasionally small amounts of food, she gave it her all just to stay alive. All she could remember was the faces of her friends and family and nothing more, not where she came from, how this happened, when this happened, absolutely nothing. "he..lp…" she whispered, "he..lp…" even though she knew it was hopeless but she kept saying the same small word over and over. "he..l-" she continued her hopeless chant but was immediately interrupted by a loud bang coming from the other side of the room. Once she heard that familiar noise she cowered away into her little cell. Two dark figures emerged from the lite doorway which was the source of the sound.
"You that is known as the hostage must come with us to the room that is called the experiment chamber," one of the dark, tall figure said with a metallic voice.
"N-NOO!" the terrified girl said while trying to shrink into what's left of her cage. "NOOOO! PLEASE, NO MORE!" she screamed while the two figures grabbed her by the arm trying to get her out of her cage. She starts to bawl her eyes out while they dragged her off towards the experiment chamber. She kept crying knowing that this might be her last night alive, but not knowing if she will see the faces of her friends and family again. "N-nooo…I don't want to die!" she said halfheartedly knowing the two figures wouldn't listen to her pleas.
"A-AHHHHH!" Jasmine screamed while sitting straight up in her bed. She looked around her room trying to figure out her surroundings. Her heart was thumping so loud she thought her new cat could hear it in the other room. She fumbled with her blankets trying to get out of her bed but instead of standing on her feet she ended up on the floor of her room. Still foggy from her nightmare, she stood up and stumbled into her living room. Her cat greeted her with a small "meow" when she walked into her living room. She plopped down onto her couch trying to comprehend her nightmare's meaning. "Why is this happening to me!? It's the exactly the same dream from earlier in the restaurant." She thought to herself. "Only this dream felt like I was the one trapped in the cage…."
She looked at her clock on the wall behind her; it said 1:50 am. She sighed and shook off the leftover feelings from her nightmare and walked over to the window that connected to the balcony that she visited whenever she had a troubled mind. When she stepped out onto the balcony, she felt a rush of cold wind crawling up her bare legs. "I guess it's not the smartest thing to have your hair up in a ponytail and wear shorts and a tank top in the middle of August," she said to herself while shivering from the chilly air. She went to the edge of the balcony and sat on top of the railing. She continued to search through her brain for some clues to her nightmare. When she was thinking to herself she noticed something peculiar on top of the roof of the building across the street. The peculiar object moved swiftly through the shadows of the night, disturbing nothing. Making sure that it wasn't seen by anything and everything. But unfortunately Jasmine noticed it; even if it was just a tiny movement Jasmine would have spotted it with little or no effort. Curiosity struck Jasmine like a blow to the head. She hopped off of her look out post and ran inside her apartment. She grabbed her coat and ran out her door and down the stairs towards the front lobby and out the front door.
She ran across the empty street towards the building where the moving shadow was located. But in order to get up to the roof she had to find the fire escape and climb up to the top. She ran into the alley that held the fire escape. Once she got close to the stairwell she started to sprint with all of her strength and jumped to reach the hanging stairs. Her hands just barely reached them and she swung dangerously from the momentum left from her run-and-jump stunt. She climbed to the top of the stairs and ran towards the spot where she saw the shadow. Breathless, she reached the spot and found nothing but she was persistent to find out what that shadow was. She tip-toed around the roof looking for clues that the mysterious thing may have left behind. Nothing…just as she thought, Jasmine sighed and started to walk towards the stairs so she could go back to her apartment. But before she could get to the stairs she saw a small flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, it looked like a small piece of blue fabric that she saw. "AH-HA! That's where you snuck off to!" she yelled while pursuing her target.
She ran around the air conditioning unit that was humming from the working gears, once she was in view of the other side she sprinted towards the edge of the roof. Where she thought she saw the tip of the blue fabric again fall down into the alley. She slid to a stop near the edge of the roof, she inched closer to the edge and looked into the lightly lite alley. She heard a loud clank coming from the man-hole cover. "So that's where you went…" she whispered to herself. She looked around the side of the building trying to find a way down into the alley. But she couldn't find anything that would help her at the moment; the fire escape on the other side is her only way down to ground level. She sighed and walked towards the other side of the roof where the stairs were located. While climbing down the stairs, she suddenly felt exhausted from the wild goose chase, also from not getting enough sleep from waking up so early in the morning. Jasmine went back into her apartment, feeling a little sad that she couldn't catch her stealthy mystery person. She went back to sleep and didn't wake up till' the next morning.
"CLU-thunk!" went the manhole cover. Within the dark sewer a silent gasp escaped from someone's lips, hoping whoever was following him didn't hear the loud disturbance in the night. The silent ninja stood and listened for any type of noise that would give away his pursuer's location, seeing if his pursuer would actually come after him. Silence…that's all he could hear, well except for the normal car alarms and cries for help that came from the sleeping city during the night. Satisfied, he started to walk towards his secret haven while cursing himself for actually being seen by a human being. It was the first time he actually had someone chase after him after being spotted in the night.
He thought about the girl that was standing on the balcony with only a tank top and shorts on. Her hair was up into a tight ponytail that was centered on the back side of her head; she was also bare foot and was just sitting there on the railing looking off into the dark sky as if all of her trouble's would be answered and would just appear in front of her. The next thing he knew she was running across the street towards the location where he was hiding, with a hard look of determination on her face. He started to get a little anxious by this girl's actions, so he got up and ran towards the other side of the roof and turned around to see if she was still on his tail. Unfortunately, she was. She was walking around the roof, silently looking for anything that might lead her to him. "Man, she's fast…well for a human…" he thought silently. He crept towards the corner of the AC unit and peeked around it to see if she had any clue on where he was. At that exact moment she looked right at him with those warm chocolate eyes; he inhaled and cursed himself silently while quickly turning around to jump off of the building. When he reached level ground he ran towards the man hole where he could slid into it so the girl couldn't find him and he could be on his way towards his home. But just as he reached it his curiosity got to him and he looked over his shoulder. The girl just got to the edge of the roof and was looking around her surroundings to see if she could find him. "Luckily, from the looks of it, she still doesn't know what she is actually looking for," he thought to himself while opening the man hole as quietly as he can. Once there was a big enough space for him to slip through, he jumped into the sewers. "And that's how it happened," he said it out loud to no one in particular while standing in the entrance of his home.
"That's how what happened, Leo?" an intelligent voice said behind him.
The now discovered ninja gasped and quickly turned around to see who asked the question. He relaxed a little to see that it was only his younger brother, Donatello; his brother wore a purple bandana that was wrapped around his head concealing his identity, well sort of. He also loved to work with mechanics and anything that dealt with machines, technology, and hi-tech. Not only he loved messing with that stuff but he also had a "slight" crush on our newest friend, April O'Neil.
"OH-hhh…N-nothing in particular…I was just…thinking to myself…" Leo responded while putting his hand behind his head.
"Well….Splinter is looking for you; he wants to talk to you about your recent training progress…." Donnie responded still looking at his older brother with curiosity and wonder. "Are you sure you don't have something to tell me?"
"Yeah…yeah I'm sure and thanks…" Leo said while walking inside their lair. "That was way…too close…I can't tell them that I got spotted by the girl…." He thought to himself. Leo walked into the training room expecting to see his sensei in there but he was nowhere to be seen. All of the sudden there was a loud "clunk" coming from behind him. "Wu-ahh" Leo yelped while taking a few steps backward. When he turned around he saw that it was only his sensei, Splinter.
"Leonardo, it's seems something is troubling your mind…would you like to talk about it?" Splinter said while looking at his son with sincerity.
Leo sighed and looked at his father, "umm….ye-" he started to say but was immediately interrupted by a water balloon that came from his youngest brother, Michelangelo. Leo ducked just in time while the balloon sailed over his head; it smacked into Raphael while he was entering the training room making a loud "SPLASH!"
"MIKEY!" I'M GONNA GET YOU FOR THAT!" Raph yelled at Mikey while grabbing a wooden spoon from the other room.
"LEO! You're next. OH-YEAH! Dr. Prankenstein is making house calls!" Mikey yelled while being chased by his older brother, Raphael. Leo looks at Splinter and sighed while hanging his head as his younger brothers chased each other around the lair.
"Uhh…never mind, sensei…I think I'm just tried from the last evening patrol…" Leo said.
Splinter just looked at his son and said, "Alright…you may go, but remember my son, I'm always here if you ever want to talk about your troubles."
Leo turned around when his father said that and said, "I know sensei…I just need to think first, thanks." Leo walked out of the training arena and went to go sit onto the ground in front of the television. He turned it on and started to watch "Space Heroes" but for some odd reason he just couldn't keep his mind off of that girl. Even his all-time favorite TV show couldn't distract his mind, so he shut off the television and went to the surface.
"NYA-AAA!" Jasmine yawned while putting one arm in the air and the other in front of her mouth. She looked around her apartment with sleepy eyes; her cat was on top of her lap, purring lightly while sleeping. "Awwww….your soooo CUTE!" Jasmine squealed while picking up her cat lightly and setting him on her pillow when she got out of her bed. She walked out of her room and went into her small kitchen. She started to make breakfast and noticed that one of her windows was wide open. She set down her breakfast and walked cautiously towards her opened window. The curtains swayed with a gentle breeze while the morning sun came into her apartment. She put her head out the window once she was close enough, she looked around outside and found nothing out of the ordinary, only people walking by on the sidewalk just like every other day. "Huh…weird…" she said out loud while closing her window. "Oh-well."
She got dressed and set off towards the Roosevelt High School for her first day at that school. On the way she couldn't help but wonder about the mysterious event that went on last night. Who or what was I chasing on the roof? How did it get away so quickly? And most importantly will I ever find out what it was? These were the questions that were going through her mind when she accidently bumped into an orange haired girl. She had freckles that went across the bridge of her nose and onto her checks. Also she wore a yellow long shirt with shorts and boots. "Umm….Sorry about that….I wasn't watching where I was going…" Jasmine said nervously.
The orange haired girl just looked at her with a puzzled look on her face. All of the sudden the girl spoke up loudly, "OH! Now I know who you are!" she said.
"Wait…huh?" Jasmine said with some confusion in her voice. "I'm sorry but do I know you?"
"Huh…Oh-no, you don't but you're the new student that was transferred to this school, right?" the orange girl responded with a twine of excitement.
"…Yeah, I am…but how do you know that, I didn't tell anyone about this well…except my friends back at my old school." Jasmine told the excited girl.
"Oh…well the principle asked me to show you around once you got to the school on your first day. But I was going to wait for you in the hallway but I guess I don't have to now. Do you want to see the school now? Oh and don't worry about class we are excused since your new and all that." She told Jasmine. "Soo…that's the girl he was talking about…" April thought to herself.
"Yeah…sure and by the way my name is Jasmine Misaki. What's your name?" Jasmine asked her new friend.
"My name is April…April O'Neil. Nice to meet cha'!" April responded while holding out her hand, waiting for Jasmine to follow up with a hand shake.
"Likewise!" Jasmine said while taking April's hand and shook it.
The two girls went into the school and started the school's tour. They walked around the school while talking to each other about their lives and things that went on during their lives. While all of this was going on a certain someone was walking around the city still thinking about the night before.
Leo walked along the rooftops still thinking about the previse night and trying to stay hidden so he wouldn't be seen by humans. He recalled the recent talk he had with April:
After he left the lair he unconsciously walked towards April's house. He knocked on April's window and said, "Hey…April, you up?" April opened up the window with sleepy eyes.
"I'm up now…what are you doing here?" April asked Leo.
"Umm…we need to talk, I have had someone on my mind lately and I'm not sure why." Leo said while twirling his thumbs. "And….its….a…girl…"
Suddenly April was wide awake now, she grabbed Leo by the shoulders and asked, "Who, What, When, Where, and Why? And tell me everything!" Leo smiled at April by the way she was acting; he told her everything that happened that night until he got to the part where he ended up here. April suddenly got serious and asked what her name was and what she looked like.
"Well...she has long brown, red-ish hair that goes down to her knees; she also has warm chocolate eyes. And…." Leo stopped mid-sentence because April was giving him a weird look. "What?"
"Ohhh….it's nothing…" April said still looking at Leo with that same look.
"Seriously…What?" Leo asked April again.
"Well…it seems to me that you might have a small crush on this girl-" April said.
"WHAT! Pfffttt...N-Nooo….that can't be it…can it?" Leo asked while shaking his hands in the air uncontrollably.
"Well….you tell me…" April said while yawning and stretching. "But can it wait till' morning cause' I have school tomorrow and I need my rest since I'll be touring the school with our new transfer student."
"Huh…yeah, sure…" Leo said while April was closing her window. "Bye." He hopped onto the top of the roof of her house and started to walk around the city till' morning.
He blinked away the flashback and started to walk towards his home. Once he found a man hole; the sun was up and shining brightly. He went into the sewers and walked to the lair. Once he got there Mikey was watching TV, Donnie was in his lab working on his new invention, and Raph was in the kitchen feeding his pet turtle. Leo walk towards Mikey and sat down next to him, for next few hours he spent his time with his brothers and tried to keep his mind busy…but at one point or another his mind would wander off and get back on the mysterious girl.
Why is Leo's mind constantly on Jasmine? Will they ever meet? And what is going to happen when they finally meet?
*Again…sry for the long chapter ^^; I couldn't find the right spot to stop…haha…anyways if you have any suggestions/comments please tell me! Thxs a bunches! :happybounce: