Okay, so… I am unsure if I should introduce myself or reintroduce myself since I haven't written for this fandom in forever and a couple new renditions have come out since I was last active in this fandom. I have been a fan of TMNT since I was a child, but it wasn't until the 2012 series that I felt inspired enough to write fanfiction for it when I was 16. It ultimately culminated in the "Flirting with the Enemy" series. It was the first big fanfiction project I ever tackled and to this day is my most popular series by a LONG shot which BAFFLES me for many reasons. Now granted, I was 16 and still honing my skills as a writer, so looking back and rereading my work… yeah, it was definitely not perfect. My grammar wasn't as polished and my writing quality just wasn't as good as I feel my writing is now in my more recent works. But, to this day (now a 28-year-old grown woman), I still get people communicating with me about this series all these years later telling me how much they enjoyed it and some even revisit it which is very heartwarming to hear! :) Then after receiving a nice comment from a reader recently, it inspired me to go back and rewatch TMNT 2012 since it is still one of my favorite adaptations of the series. I just enjoyed how much it focuses on the characters being teenagers and the lessons they learn to improve themselves. That and almost every episode is just such a fun time and the fighting animations are still pretty impressive to watch to this day. Which brings me back to my original TMNT fanfic series. In this series, one of the ships I focused on was Raphael and Mona Lisa and while I would not change how I wrote Mona's character in my fic for anything since that whole series is like a time capsule of my writing from when I was 16 all the way up until today. But, after rewatching the 2012 series again recently, and even though I appreciate it for bringing back Mona Lisa in a modified way (also Zelda Williams did a great job voicing her)… I now have a new opinion on where Mona Lisa should have been added and what her character should have been in the 2012 series. I'll elaborate more in the end notes, but I now stand by the opinion that a Mona Lisa character should have been introduced in season 2 during the mutagen spill incident at the beginning of the season that culminated in the creation of many mutants throughout NYC. Again, I will elaborate more in the end note, but this will be a mini-fic of how I could see Mona Lisa being incorporated as a Minor-recurring character in the 2012 series (much like Casey Jones) for the turtles and April to hang out and fight alongside with. I want to format this in a way that it could be a 'what-if' kind of situation integrated into the 2012 series. This begins with the night the mutagen spill occurs. Hope you all enjoy it!
({No POV})
It was late at night in the Bronx borough of New York City.
Nothing of note beyond the occasional car driving thorough and trash blowing through the streets in the breeze. A stray plastic grocery bag was floating through the streets until it landed on the street right in front of an aged yet local gym.
The gym's front door creaked open as a teenage girl stepped out about the age of 16 donned in a pink hoodie (hood up over her head), taped-up hands, and black sweatpants walked out of the building, readjusting the gym bag over her shoulder and appeared to be talking on the phone as she said, sounding slightly annoyed, "Yes… Sí… Ma, just… Look, I'm leaving the gym now. I'll be home soon. Ma… Mamá, will you just…"
The girl paused as a glow of annoyed embarrassment radiated from her light brown eyes that glowed from the street lights under her hood and made her grit her teeth in frustration as she almost looked like she was mock-strangling her cellphone as a show of annoyance toward what was clearly her mom being 'overbearingly worried' about her.
The girl sighed before finally cutting off her mom and saying, "Look, ma, stop. I'll be fine! I'm catching the bus in the next 5 minutes. I'll be home before you know it, promise. Okay?... Sí, mamá… Te amo tambien."
She hung up the phone call and rolled her eyes, clearly still in annoyance at her mom's overbearing worrying just now.
Eventually, she pulled her hood down and took out her hair tie from her loose curly dark brown almost black hair before ruffling her hands in it to resurrect its shape and volume (even if minimally) after she finished her solo training session.
The girl then put the hair tie around her wrist and pulled a pink and black bandana out of the side pocket of her gym bag and put the bandana over her head and tied it to keep her hair pulled back.
After which she pulled her hood back up over her head, keeping her expression neutral until she gained a more guarded expression and glanced around until she smirked and reached into the pocket of her hoodie and gently pulled out what looked to be a mottled grey and green tiger salamander.
The girl smirked as she put her pet on her shoulder before saying to her, sounding much calmer in her tone than she did talking to her mom moments ago, "Ready to head home, Nel?"
With that, she started looking at her phone as she walked to the corner bus stop to catch her bus home.
She kept scrolling on her phone until all of a sudden she noticed the entire area around her suddenly get much darker. Her expression contorted in confusion as she immediately looked up and her eyes went wide as she froze in her place at what she was currently seeing.
There was a silver alien-looking aircraft of some kind flying wildly over the neighborhood, noticing things dropping out from an opening in the bottom.
"What in the?..." She started to herself in total weirded-out confusion.
Well, until her eyes went wide when the aircraft circled back and started flying lower toward her on the street.
"CRUD!" She called out in panic as she dove to the side on reflex to avoid getting splattered by a UFO. When she landed on the sidewalk, she looked back to see the craft fly back up into the sky before flying off wildly in another direction.
She would have focused more on whatever just happened with 'that' if her expression hadn't contorted in mortified dread for a different reason as she started patting her hands frantically all over herself until she looked back to the gym and wave of relief rolled over herself when she saw her pet Salamander Nel safely stood on the sidewalk.
But, the girl's relief was short-lived as her expression became consumed by dread when she saw a glowing container of something perched precariously on the edge of the gym's roof… and that it was about to teeter off the roof and directly onto Nel.
The girl's eyes went wide as she scrambled and sprung to her feet as she called out in blind panic, "NEL!"
Somehow she managed to dive in and scoop Nel well before the container fell as the girl started in absolute concern for her pet as she sat up in a kneeling position, "Oh crud! Are you okay, Nel?! I got you! It's okay, I…"
But, in the midst of her freaked-out yet relieved rambling, the container fell off the building, shattered on the sidewalk, and caused the glowing contents to splatter onto anything in the immediate vicinity.
Unfortunately for the girl, she was standing just close enough for the glowing substance to land a drop right on the exposed skin of her fingers.
Mutagen.
The girl had no knowledge of it though as she immediately reacted and looked at it in unsure disgust, "Ugh! Gross! What the heck is?!..."
All of a sudden it was almost like she could feel the mutagen seeping through her skin, burning a little at first. It tingled a little until it started burning intensely, almost like she touched her hand to a hot stove.
She accidentally let go of Nel as she gasped and grabbed her burning left hand with her right one.
Well, until her breath hitched as she felt her chest tighten, her heart rapidly pounding against her chest, feeling almost like she started suffocating and having a cardiac episode simultaneously.
But… the worst was yet to come.
Right as she felt like she could breathe again her bones cracked violently and shifted around in her body and her muscles and skin started stretching in unnatural patterns and directions.
Eventually, she couldn't hold back as she started screaming in unimaginable pain as it was clear to her now that the 'gross goo' that landed on her skin was causing her to transform.
Somehow, it occurred to her to drag herself out of sight through the pain into a nearby alley (fighting back more pained yelling and screaming) as she did so.
She eventually collapsed on her hands and knees, gritting her teeth as she started pounding on the ground with her fists to hold on and fight through whatever was happening to her, even though she looked at one of her hands just in time to see her once medium olive-toned human skin morphing into the mottled grey and green striping patterned and slimy skin like her salamander Nel.
Her eyes went wide in horror at what was happening to her.
But, that was the least of her problems and she eventually couldn't hold back another pained scream as a salamander-like tail grew out from her tailbone as the rest of her body continued in its transformation.
So, this was just the introduction scene that I imagined would have happened at the beginning of the hypothetical episode before the intro theme and then into the episode before the main plot starts. But, as you have probably inferred, the nameless girl we see here is the 'Mona Lisa' character I'm pitching in this iteration and you will get to know more about her later and how she comes in contact with the turtles should you all want to see more. I won't give much away and even though I have said it before, I wish the turtles would have gotten more teenage friends other than April and Casey in the show. I mean, I was kind of excited about Irma being introduced until she was revealed to be Kraang Subprime the whole time and I was disappointed since I thought she would have been a cool friend for the turtles. So, in this fic, I'm introducing a 'Mona Lisa' character to be a part of the larger plot that goes on in this series. Next chapter we'll get more into this character and the turtles next chapter… again, should you want to see more. Just let me know! :) Also, feel free to make your predictions and leave constructive feedback on what you think of this little snip-it so far for this mini-fic-like episode. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Stay Classy!
Dexter1995