Chapter 4

A Ruined Start

A second night had passed for the group since they had evacuated from Earth, and arrived in this new world, and possibly new reality as well. So far, it had been a moderately trying time, if only because they were still coming to terms with the loss of their homes, while the forested areas never proved really challenging, only lacking in comforts.

The individuals that had previously been to Skyrim; Tyroth, Sephie, Monalisa, and the Turtles, had all taken time to change into the fur based attires that they had acquired there, while Devina, an original resident of that world, had swapped into her old clothes from that time, consisting of dark grey pants and tunic with long sleeves, a belt, and a hooded black cloak.

"I can't believe I have to wear these stupid clothes again." Raphael muttered loudly, constantly trying to readjust his fur armlets. He was also wearing a fur loincloth, shirt and boots, with his standard belt and pads for both elbows and knees, same as his brothers, though he and Michelangelo's shirts were sleeveless and they both had the armlets, while Leonardo and Donatello had sleeves that ended just above their elbows and their normal leather wristlets.

"Here we go again." Michelangelo sighed, rolling his eyes, to which his girlfriend, Kate, giggled a little, though she tried to stifle it.

"I take it he was like this the first time too then?" said Heather.

"Yep, I thought that he would at least have matured a little bit more since then."

"What'cha saying over there, Mikey?!" Raphael snapped.

"Nothing."

"Oh yeah? Well, I'll-"

"Honey, please." Monalisa said to her mate. She was wearing fur boots, a loincloth and a sleeveless top with a low neckline. "I know you don't like to wear clothes, but we don't want to cause any larger scene than we have to. In any way."

The red-masked turtle grumbled, but he knew that she was right, and while it wasn't cold at the moment, who knew how it might be in a few months, and cold and reptiles did not mix well.

From the front of the group, Sephie threw a glance over her shoulder at her friends. She was dressed in the same kind of clothes as Monalisa, but wore armlets similar to those of Raphael and Michelangelo, as well as her normal pads, while Tyroth only had a loincloth and a set of armlets.

"Good thing that you placed Raph and Mona on the same side, hun." she said in a low voice as they all kept walking through the forests. "She's one of the few that can keep him in check."

"Believe it or not, but I didn't actually think of that at first." the dragon answered. "I just know how much they care for each other, just like you and I, so I thought it would be for the best to keep them together. You do know how some can get if they are apart from their mate."

"Do I ever. Some might even do something as stupid as storming an enemy stronghold all alone." Sephie said with a small chuckle, remembering how she had done just that once.

"We all tend to go to the extremes to help our loved ones, that's for sure." said Jake. "Speaking of extremes, so far we've had a good lack of that here. Even the weather has been very pleasant."

"Yeah, it has." said Amber. "If a bit on the warmer side. And being a reptile, I'm fine with that."

"Sadly, that come with its own issues." said Leonardo. "If it stays this warm, or gets even warmer, we'll use more water, and we don't have enough to last us for more than a couple of more days left."

"I know, Leo." said Tyroth. "And so far, we haven't found even a small pond or stream, not for a lack of looking. But with how green everything is around here, there has to be water somewhere, even if it's only underground."

"Let's just hope we find some on the surface soon." said Sephie.

A few more hours passed, and the group had still not found any water, but they did find something else. A road.

Though, in all honesty, it wasn't much more than a dirt path, broad enough to allow a cart to be pulled by animals, pretty much like many less trafficked roads through forests and such on Earth, though this one didn't seem very well used, at least not recently if the scattered plants growing in it was anything to go by.

"So we found an old road. Now what?" said Rattletrap, looking first one direction and then the other. "Which way do we go?"

"Yeah, and how do we decide? Should we vote?" asked Bill.

"If no one's against it, we could always flip a coin." Devina suggested, fishing up a gold coin from one of several pouches she had attached to her belt.

After she and the others had returned from Skyrim, she was given what gold and gems they still had when she decided to explore the human world of Earth. Over the years, she had sold several gems to get the cash needed to pay for her expenses, as well as some things for the Mutopians, but she still had about two dozen gems left and several hundred coins, and they were their only currency at the moment.

"Heads, we follow the road to the left, tails, to the right. Sounds good?" she said, and received several nods of approval.

So she flipped the coin high into the air, catching it on the way down and placing it on the back of her hand, before lifting her other hand to show the result to the other. On the coin they saw the dragon seal of Akatosh, the Dragon God of Time.

"That's tails, so that means we go right." she proclaimed, pocketing the coin again.

"Let's hope that the dragon guides us to safety then." said Vincent the Owl.

For several hours the large group walked on the road, and judging by the sun, seemingly heading east according to Donatello, before eventually leaving the forested area behind them.

Spreading out in front of them were what looked like open fields covered in tall grass or similar, and farther ahead they could see a large number of scattered trees and buildings, and beyond them to the east, a large body of water, while a smaller mountain spread out to the north of it, no more than half an hour from the edge of the settlement.

"Look! A town!" said Leona the Fox.

"Man, it's good to see civilisation again." said Barry. "Wonder if the locals are friendly."

"That's a good question." said April. "Maybe we humans should go first, talk a bit with the inhabitants and tell them about us."

"Not a bad idea, but we don't know what people lives there, or what they think of humans, and should something go wrong, it would be best if there are more of us who can fight." said Tyroth.

"Tyroth's right." said Leonardo. "It's far safer if we all stay together."

The others agreed with this statement, and so the large group followed the road to the settlement in front of them, a walk that would take them about half an hour, but as they got closer, they noticed that there was a surprising lack of sound. They couldn't hear any people working, no children playing, and the only animals they heard were some seagulls near the water.

"Hello? Anyone in there?" Sephie called out as she knocked on the door of one of the houses, but she got no response.

"This place it abandoned." Kemeko said, trying to peer through a dirty window. "Like a ghost town. I don't like this, it's creepy."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Kemeko, I think this is cool." said Pandora. "I can't wait to check everything out."

"Not so fast, girls." master Splinter cautioned. "We do not yet know why this place is abandoned, and until we do, we must be careful.

As the group had entered the village, they found no evidence of activity for quite some time. The buildings they had seen so far showed a little wear and tear from weather and wind, but otherwise looked to be in fairly good quality.

However, once they reached the water, and found a small harbour, they saw that several of the buildings were in far worse shape, especially those closest to the beach. They showed signs of fire having ravaged them, some having large holes in the roofs, while a few were only half as much house as they used to be. One had even completely burnt to the ground, with only the stone foundation remaining.

"Looks like they were attacked, and from the water no less." said old George.

"I think it's safe to assume that the inhabitants evacuated either during or after the attack." said Richard.

"Must have been quite a while ago." said Patch. "I mean, just look at how overgrown the gardens are. I'd probably guess six months or more."

"So, what do we do know?" Alice the Chinchilla asked, her round ears nervously twitching slightly.

While the others started talking among themselves, Tyroth took a good look around them, thinking deeply as he did so.

"I think we should stay here." he finally said, catching everyone's attention.

"Stay here? In this ruin of a ghost town?" Rattletrap asked. "It looks worse than one of my failed projects."

"Nothing looks worse than your failed projects." said Donatello. "And I should know, I've had to fix a lot of them."

"Listen, guys." Tyroth continued. "We all know that Gramps founded Mutopia in the ruins left behind by other, and we've all worked hard to make sure that we could live a good life there. We're used to salvage and recycle what others throw away, and we can do that here too if we really set our minds to it. We can fix this, we can make this work, we can make this… home."

"Home… it's only been a few days, but I really miss it." said Amber. "And I'm not too fond of just wandering around like nomads, so having a place to call home would really lift a weight from my heart."

"I think that goes for most of us." said Monalisa. "And I do think that we can make this place our new home, just like Tyroth said."

"Let's put it to a vote then." said Leonardo, turning to the group and asking in a loud voice. "Anyone who thinks that we should try to live here, raise your hand."

It was easy to see that all of the people raised their hands, and as such the decision was made.

"Alright then, that means we have a lot of work ahead of us." said Tyroth, his smile never leaving his lips. "There was a large building at the plaza of the village, I think it was an inn or tavern, if we focus on that first, we can use that as a place to eat and sleep while we work on the rest of the village."

"The village… I wonder what it was called when people lived here." Leona wondered out aloud.

"We'll probably find out sooner or later." said Percy. "But I actually think that we should give this place a new name regardless."

"That's probably the smartest thing I've heard you say in a long time." said Kate.

"So what are we gonna call this place?" asked Michelangelo. "I'm sure I can think of a few names, but I'm also sure most of those will earn me a slap from Raph."

"If an old rat may share his thoughts on the matter, I have got one suggestion." Splinter said, gaining the attention of everyone. "Since this village is about to be reborn, I say that we, in honour of the home we lost, rename it Mutopia."

Cheers of agreement echoed throughout the village, as the new inhabitants adopted it as their new sanctuary, their new Mutopia.

Their new home.

And with that, our heroes have finally found a place where they can stay, so things are starting to look up for them. But who or what attacked the village before, and will the same thing happen again? Who knows.

And new to the cast is Alice the Chinchilla, yet another background character that gets a bit of spotlight, maybe she and the rest will get more in the future.

Anything mentioning Skyrim here is a reference to both that game and world, and another of my stories; 'Mutants Misplaced'.