So… I have heard and seen people wanting more thus far, I wanted to write more, and so I will provide more! :D Thank you all so much for the positivity in the first chapter. I always go into every fanfic never knowing if anyone would even be interested in it and so I am so happy to see there is still an interest alive in the 2012 series of this fandom. :) Anyway, without delay, let's hop back in! This chapter takes place about a month after Chapter 1 and we open on the turtles down in the lair in a classic training session with Splinter. Enjoy!
5 weeks later
Raphael was blindfolded and standing balanced on an old railroad tie perched on two crates, standing in a defensive stance in preparation.
Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo were standing off to the side as Splinter was standing across from Raphael with several clay disks in hand.
It was silent until Splinter started, "Today, I am having each of you go through an exercise that will teach you all a lesson about teamwork through trust."
It didn't take long though for Raphael to interject in his usual sarcastic/snarky nature as he questioned, "Uh, no offense sensei, but how the heck is me standing blindfolded and balanced on a piece of wood while you chuck things at me supposed to teach any of that?"
But, Splinter was quick to respond as he answered matter of fact, "Because, for this exercise, you will have to rely on the direction of your brothers to help you evade what is being thrown at you. You must trust that they will give you good direction."
Raphael scoffed and said, rolling his eyes behind his blindfold, "Well, this outta be good."
Almost immediately Michelangelo chimed in as he said, sounding playful yet also slightly offended, "C'mon dude, what's that supposed to mean?! You seriously don't trust us?"
Raphael shrugged before saying offhandedly yet bluntly honestly, "Well, Leo and Donnie, maybe. But, I wouldn't trust you for sewer apples if I had to tiptoe through a minefield… No offense."
Michelangelo laughed for half a second until he realized what his brother just said as he retorted in offense, "Hey! Not cool! You really don't think you can trust me?"
Raphael shrugged again and replied, "Want me to answer that honestly?"
"Raphael!" Splinter cut in, causing Raphael to stand at attention before resuming his defensive stance.
After a beat of silence, Splinter stroked his chin in thought for a moment before commenting, "Raphael, you will follow Michelangelo's instruction and only Michelangelo for 3 rounds through this lesson."
Raphael looked very displeased as he immediately complained, wondering why Leo or Donnie were being fully sidelined during his turn, "What?! Sensei you can't be serious right now!"
"But, I am, Raphael. This lesson is about trusting your team in unideal situations. Therefore, you need to learn to trust all of your brothers… including Michelangelo." Splinter elaborated as Raphael stood there, still stewing for a second until he lifted his blindfold and looked specifically at Mikey, who was just looking directly at him with a wide smile and two thumbs up.
He just gave him specifically a hard look before saying, pointing at him for emphasis, "Mikey, I swear, if you…" "Chillax brah! I got you on this one. " Michelangelo cut in, waving off his brother's threat.
Raphael continued to give his youngest brother a skeptical look before eventually sighing and putting the blindfold back over his eyes and preparing himself for the exercise.
It was silent in the room again as Splinter without another word hurled one of the clay disks at Raphael.
"On your left!" Mikey called out as Raphael veered right, not getting hit by the clay disk whatsoever. Splinter threw another as Mikey called out, "Duck, bro!" Raphael crouched before smoothly transitioning back to an upright position, still not getting hit.
And the same thing happened again… and again… and again in the next round as well.
It kept continuing with Mikey continuing to give Raphael good directions (much to Raphael's shock) until Splinter was down to the final clay disk in the final round of his turn.
Raphael was smirking now as he said, cracking his neck and preparing himself, "Alright, let's do this. Whatcha got?"
Right then Splinter tossed the clay disk as Mikey called out, "Left!" Raph took that as a cue to veer right until the disk ended up hitting him on the top of his carapace that threw Raphael off balance and onto the floor of the dojo, not hard but definitely not pleasant for Raphael.
That plus getting laughed at by all three of his brothers probably wasn't helping either.
This was shown as Raphael quickly lept to his feet, pointed accusingly at Michelangelo, and fumed in displeasure and embarrassment, lifting up the blindfold, "Mikey?! WHAT THE HECK?! I thought you said I could trust you?!"
"Hey, I just promised on the first round, Raph. C'mon, I got you good, brah! You gotta give me that."
Raphael looked like he was brimming to the top with boiling rage until Splinter scolded, clearly upset that his youngest son just hindered the validity of his lesson in their training for a cheap prank/joke, "Michelangelo!"
The dojo, as well as all 4 turtles, went silent. Until Splinter stepped forward and put his arms behind his back as he started, "Michelangelo, this is no time for games when I am trying to teach a valuable lesson."
Right then, Raphael threw his blindfold on the ground with an annoyed growl before saying, "Agh! What's the point, sensei?! We took down a Kraang invasion as a team, so what the heck are we even doing this for?! We should be training to get stronger to make sure the Kraang can't come crawling back again!"
Splinter just kept observing his second son with a steady yet unreadable gaze.
Eventually, he put a hand on Raphael's shoulder before responding, "Strength is important my son, but when all else fails, you need to make sure that you can trust your allies to help you succeed, especially your brothers. Teamwork does not equate to weakness, my son. If anything, trust in your team will only make you stronger and much more focused. You just have to open up your mind to it."
Raphael's look tensed up as he grumbled before kicking one of the clay disks to the other side of the room as he said, "AGH! THIS IS STUPID!"
With that Raphael angrily stomped out of the dojo, causing Leonardo to furrow his brows and attempt to go after Raphael until Splinter cut in, putting a hand on his oldest's shoulder, "No, just leave him be."
Leonardo immediately gave his sensei/father a confused look before questioning, "But sensei, you can't just let him walk out of training like that and…" "Leonardo, I more than agree, but this is a lesson that cannot be forced onto anyone. Your brother, as well as all of you, need to learn to personally accept that lesson in trust with those you are sure you can, even if one doesn't want to. Raphael just needs to learn to open his mind enough to somehow accept that using teamwork is not a sign of weakness."
With that the other three turtles resumed the lesson as they heard what was clearly Raphael beating on his punching bag/attack dummy in the main room of the lair.
Later that night
The turtles were on patrol looking for more mutagen canisters, all of them trying to spread out to cover more ground.
They kept searching, but it seemed to be a 'dry night' in terms of recovering Mutagen as they kept scanning over an older section of the Bronx neighborhood.
Leonardo was looking around until he looked off in a nearby alley and saw a bunch of 'Missing Persons' posters plastered on the wall of this community center.
His eyes scanned over the posters in intrigue as he remembered seeing a news story earlier that day about various missing people who vanished without a motive or trace in the past couple of weeks.
Leonardo kept scanning over the missing individuals in the various posters until he heard his brothers and regrouped with them on the next rooftop.
As they regrouped, Leonardo asked, "Find anything guys?"
"Nope! Nothing." Michelangelo responded as Leonardo looked toward Donatello (who was still fixated on his Mutagen tracker in deep thought) and remarked, "Donnie, I thought you said there were Mutagen traces around here."
Donatello was immediately pulled out of his thought process as he responded in slight frustration, "I did! But… I don't know? My tracker almost seems to work too well with detecting traces of Mutagen?"
Raphael immediately scoffed and crossed his arms as he sarcastically responded, "Yeah, cuz it's done a bang-up job so far." Donatello grimaced at Raphael for bringing up how they hadn't found as many canisters as they'd hoped for before defensively elaborating, "Look Raph, the only reason I say that is because my tracker picks up things on a subatomic level rather than a full physical presence."
"In English for the rest of us, Einstein." Raphael pressed, getting frustrated with Donatello's 'scientist speak', causing Donatello to furrow his brows before retorting, getting right in Raphael's face for emphasis, "Meaning that just because my tracker can detect mutagen doesn't mean that the actual container is still even there anymore. It's like when someone sneezes on something. Just because the sick person isn't there anymore doesn't mean the germs that can get others sick still can't hang around for a while on stuff they touched. The canister may have been there, but that doesn't mean it is still there. It could have been moved and I still get the residual traces of where the cannister used to be."
"Wait, hold on, you're saying there's no guarantee that we can even find one based on your tracker?" Leonardo cut in.
"Cool, so we're basically chasing after stuff that may not even exist. Hey Donnie, tell me when you perfected your tooth fairy tracker and get back to me on it." Raphael remarked sarcastically.
"Well, then you come up with something! This is the best I have right now to find the canisters!" Donatello fired back in frustration, mainly at being mocked for his intelligence/inventor prowess.
It looked like Raphael was about to make yet another comment until they heard an unmistakable laser-plasma gun firing off, then a multitude more firing off from a couple of blocks over.
Kraang.
The turtles all exchanged looks before immediately springing into action to track down the source of the action.
Even though all of them were frustrated to a degree with not making much progress with tracking down the missing Mutagen canisters from the spill, they all seemed a bit relieved if not looking forward to at least stopping the Kraang in a more realistic sense.
Raphael in particular looked ready to work off his frustration between the 'dry night' and the 'dumb lesson' earlier in training by crushing some Kraang bots like empty soda cans.
They got to the rooftop and saw several Kraang bots in an attack formation and were about to take action, but… they stopped.
The Kraang droids were all frozen and almost looked 'confused' somehow as they started scanning around, almost like they lost track of something they were looking for.
Or at least they were until one of the Kraang droids looked at one of the others and started, "Kraang, what happened to the one that Kraang is looking for known as subject #0991?"
The other droid responded in the same cyclical speak, "Kraang is unsure, Kraang. The subject known as subject #0991 that Kraang is referring to has been…"
As the Kraang continued in their usual cyclical conversation, a new entity darted in out of nowhere and tackled one of the Kraang droids to the ground.
It wasn't until then that all the turtles went wide-eyed at what they were seeing. In front of them appeared to be a lizard/amphibious-looking humanoid something wearing sweats. At least based on the mottled grey and green colored striped tail and feet they saw sticking out from the figure's slightly tattered sweat black sweatpants that's what they thought.
Then all of them went wide-eyed when they saw this figure grab the Kraang droid it tackled by the arms before flinging it with a grunt as two other Kraang droids (disarming all 3) as the remaining 3 Kraang droids started firing again. Then the lizard-looking figure (although hooded and dressed in a pink athletic material-looking hoodie on top) was quick to evade as they darted with very impressive agility out of the way and even more impressively landed on and clung to a nearby brick wall in an alleyway and start crawling and leaping around between walls to evade being shot.
Some close calls happened in the process with the figure almost getting blasted by the lasers on several occasions, causing their hood to fly off and reveal their face and head. While too far away to see much detail on this individual, it was clear to the turtles they were at least somewhat right about the possible identity of this individual.
If anything they looked like a humanoid-salamander hybrid of some kind since their head looked like a salamander in structure for the most part, but also somehow had some characteristics to make it look human. No hair or anything, but just the general skeletal structure looked almost similar to the turtles in a way. Lacking hair and visible external ears as examples, but still somehow looking a bit human at the same time as well despite the mottled green and gray striped skin.
"Is that an alien or a mutant?" Leonardo questioned in intrigue.
Right, the salamander-humanoid hybrid got shot at and the laser grazed and singed off the left sleeve of the pink sweatshirt they were wearing, as they heard what sounded like a feminine yet enraged teenage human tone call out in response to what just happened to them as they kept evading the lasers, "AGH! First, you freaks won't leave me alone and now you ruined my favorite warm-ups?! THAT'S IT! YOU'RE messing with the wrong girl!"
Almost immediately after that, the salamander humanoid vaulted herself down from the wall she was crawling on and latched herself onto the Kraang droid, biting off its head with these sharp teeth she seemed to retract in her mouth to disarm it, showing the turtles that this individual has definitely been probably fighting the Kraang for a while to figure out their weak points.
"I'd say mutant," Donatello concluded confidently as all of them continued to just watch on in intrigue.
Raphael, who was normally never short on snarky words or quips, was watching on in wide-eyed intrigue more so than any of his brothers as he continued to watch this new mutant rip apart the remaining three Kraang droids single-handedly and tossing them around like rag dolls, showing even more the extend of her strength.
"Wow, it's like somehow looking at an angrier version of Raph." Michelangelo commented, causing Raphael to snap out of his intrigued fixation for a second to smack his little brother on the back of his head.
"Ow! Dude." Michelangelo complained as Raphael just shrugged and said, "You started it."
"Guys, stop. Be serious here. This is obviously a mutant who seems to have something going on with the Kraang like us. We should find a way to try and…"
But, in the midst of Raphael looking disinterested and annoyed in Leonardo's leader rambling. He saw the mutant girl's back was turned as she was surveying her sleeve and arm from the earlier graze (her tying a pink and black bandana over the graze) only to see one of the Kraang droids reactivating and attempting to lift its blaster to fire at her.
Instinctively, Raphael reacted and took off toward her as he called, "HEY! LOOK OUT!"
The shot fired off as Raphael threw one of his sai at the Kraang droid to pierce through its head to deactivate it and tackled the mutant out of the way just in time to knock her out of the way of the laser.
Both Raphael and the mutant girl were now on their backs on the asphalt after Raphael rolled off to the side to regain his footing. He stood up and looked down at her, really getting a better look at her now.
Her sharp teeth seemed to be gone and seemed to be replaced by normal omnivorous teeth, making even Raphael assume that the sharp teeth she had earlier must be some kind of extra ability she had due to her mutation to deploy at will to defend herself over her regular teeth.
But, at the same time, she also had another characteristic that made her look human. Her eyes did not look 'reptile' nor 'amphibian' at all.
Her eyes were these intense yet normal almond-shaped light brown eyes human-looking eyes as they kept staring at each other.
Because, as stupid as it sounded even to Raphael, he and his brothers never met a female mutant before.
Especially not one that looked kind of similar to them or even seemed remotely around their age. Plus, in Raph's mind, this girl already had some respect from him for how ruthlessly aggressive she just ripped apart a squadron of Kraang droids singlehandedly.
Anyone would have to be an idiot not to see that she was a trained fighter of some kind and again… Raph respected that.
But, not knowing what else to do, he decided to just try to see if she was fine as he offered, reaching a hand out to see if she wanted help to get up like he and his brothers did for each other, and because he was still interested after what he just saw from her and wanted to try and talk to her, "Hey, need a hand?"
But, that lasted for all of about 2 seconds as she furrowed her brows and narrowed her eyes at him as she aggressively smacked his hand away from her and sprung back to her feet on her own.
This caused Raphael to go wide-eyed as she accusingly pointed at him before snapping, "Hands off, jarhead! Does it look like I wanted any stupid help from you?!"
Immediately, Raphael snapped and was quick to match her aggressive energy as he pointed right back at her as he responded in an equally angry and fed-up tone, but also clearly just making the situation worse rather than better, "Uh, yeah, kinda looked like you did, princess! Considering your head would've turned into Swiss cheese if it wasn't for me! So maybe the least you could say is a stupid 'thank you' or something!"
But, the girl was quick to fire back as she retorted with an eye roll, almost mockingly and getting nose to nose with Raphael, "Oh, what? Cuz if you're expecting some 'damsel in distress' crud from me then you can just take a hike, shell boy! I can take care of myself by myself!"
But, Raphael just butted heads back with her as he retorted in an equally mockingly, enraged tone, "Shell boy?! Oh! You wanna play like that, sister?! I could take your sorry butt into next year and…"
The two of them just kept literally butting heads and bickering over each other through gritted teeth as Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo (who came over not long after Raphael for backup) just stood there and kept watching.
Raphael and the mutant girl just kept arguing and looking like they were staring fiery daggers into each other as Donatello inquired, more confused and unsure than anything, "Uh, Leo? Should we… do something about 'this'?"
Leonardo, who also looked confused about 'whatever was happening' between Raphael and this new mutant girl they just met, responded in equal confusion, "Well, they aren't technically fighting each other or anything? Maybe we should…"
Right then Michelangelo cut in as he "Don't worry, guys. I got this."
Right then, Leonardo and Donatello reacted a bit too late at their little brother's impulsive help that could end very badly judging by the thermonuclear levels of enraged Raphael and this girl were equally exhibiting right now at each other.
Although now it was seeming in some way comical as Raphael and this girl kept on trying to 'size each other up' by going up on their toes only to realize they were the same height and kept ending in a stalemate.
"Mikey, no! Don't!..." Donatello and Leonardo both started.
But, at that moment, Michelangelo put a hand on both Raphael's and the girl's shoulders and managed to separate them a bit as he started in his usual good-natured tone with a smile, "Guys, come on, just chill. Can't we all just get along here?"
Although, judging by the simultaneous glares of enraged fire glowering in both Raphael's and the girl's eyes at Michelangelo, no one in either party seemed remotely interested in 'getting along' whatsoever.
If anything, Raphael and the girl looked more interested in 'beating the other party' to a pulp at the moment.
Awkwardly and sheepishly Michelangelo let go of both of them and grinned while letting out an equally awkward laugh as he said, "Uh, okay. That's cool guys. Uh…"
Finally, Leonardo decided to take the initiative and intervened as he put a hand on Raphael's plastron to push him back a bit as he said, "Okay, everyone calm down. No one wants to hurt anyone here." "Speak for yourself." Raphael sputtered indignantly through a scoff as he glared back at the girl. "Ditto." The girl responded in surprising agreement with Raphael, glaring daggers right back at Raphael simultaneously.
Leonardo glared back at his brother for continuing to aggravate the already tense situation. Then making things unintentionally worse, Michelangelo cut in, "Aww! See? You guys are agreeing on something!"
"Not now, Mikey!" Raphael, Donatello, and Leonardo responded immediately.
Leonardo decided to salvage it as he looked back at the girl and started, "Look, seriously, we're not your enemy here, okay?"
Right then Raphael scoffed indignantly and rolled his eyes as he cut in, "Yeah, good luck telling ice princess over here that after I helped save her sorry butt."
Leonardo glared back at Raphael, but was taken back in as the girl retorted in threatening rage, "Call me 'princess' one more time and so help me I will!..."
Leonardo was quick to take command of the situation to calm things down as he said, "Look, let's just start over here, okay? I'm Leo. And these are my brothers. Donnie, Mikey, and Raph."
Raphael and the girl exchanged another hard glare with each other after Leonardo's introductions.
It was quiet for a second as the girl crossed her arms as she gave them all a very hesitant look and then looked back at Leonardo before responding pointedly, "It's Mona. Mona Lira Ramos. Or that's who I was anyway…"
Mona was quiet again as she looked down at her now salamander-like hands, almost looking like she was thinking a bit too much about something she had been trying to avoid as much as possible lately.
The turtles all exchanged confused looks as Mona kept looking at her hands. Well, until she scrunched her eyes shut and straightened up before changing the subject entirely as she looked back at Leonardo and said, "But, whatever, that doesn't matter. I have more important stuff to do right now than talking to you."
She looked ready to dart off until Leonardo started, "Hey, if it has to do with the Kraang, then maybe we can help each other out. You seem to know how to handle them and we're trying to…"
Mona immediately turned around and cut Leonardo off, "Forget it, blue blood. Not interested."
Raphael, who seemed to now be losing every ounce of his patience with her, finally spouted again, "Look, what's your problem?!" Mona glared at Raphael yet again before responding just as shortly as she did with Leonardo, "Well, sweetie, as much as I would LOVE to give you the mile-long list of all 'my problems' even before I turned into 'this'. I don't have time and honestly… I don't care. So, do me and you all a huge favor and just butt out and back off. I work alone."
Raphael clenched his fists and his jaw locked in livid rage at being called 'sweetie' by Mona, even though it was clear Mona did that in retaliation at him calling her 'princess'.
Then without another word, Mona pulled her hood over her head and started to vault back and forth between the alley walls until she got to the rooftops and started running off.
It was silent again until Donatello finally said sarcastically, "Well… she seemed peachy."
"Yeah, she's worse than you, Raph."
Right then, Raphael smacked his little brother on the back of the head again, causing Michelangelo to complain slightly.
Finally, Leonardo just rolled his eyes before saying, "C'mon guys, let's just forget about it. Like Master Splinter said, we've got Mutagen to find. Let's move."
All the turtles took off after Leo, except for Raphael. While still fuming from his infuriatingly annoying interaction with Mona, he stood there for a moment in intrigue as he looked off in the direction of where she took off.
Well, until he rolled his eyes and then proceeded to follow after his brothers and try his best to shake off what just happened and move on for the sake of his sanity.
Well, looks like Raphael 'met his match'... and then some. C'mon you know I could not resist that reference. Lol. XD But, seriously, I hope you all enjoyed this first look at the official introduction of my Mona Lisa character in this AU 'what-if' fic, aka Mona Lira Ramos. As the fic goes on, you all will get to know more about her. But, as you saw in the first chapter of what we know about her so far, Mona Lira Ramos prior to her mutation was a 16-year-old high school student who lives in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City with her overbearingly worrisome mother. After her mutation about a month ago, however, it seems like Mona has gotten involved somehow with the Kraang for reasons not yet known. But, again, all in due time so stay tuned. ;) Also, I hope you enjoyed her initial problematic interaction with the turtles, particularly Raphael. One thing I agree with a lot of critics on the 2012 series was how the series did not do much for developing relationships except for when it came to the turtles themselves as brothers. Everything from friendships to romantic relationships while not horrible just weren't really developed as well as they could have been. Even something as simple as Raphael and Casey's friendship did not seem as well developed as it should have been, but that's beside the point. So, that is why you may or may not be surprised to see that I have made Mona and Raph start off on a VERY bad foot to the point that they REALLY don't like each other at all. Actually, they pretty much can't stand each other. As you all saw, and as much attitude as Raphael has, it looks like Mona is his equal in snarkiness if not giving our favorite sarcastic red-clad turtle a run for his money. Mona is a very stubborn, hotheaded, distant, and independent girl who despises any and all help from anyone for reasons not yet known. But, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and let me know what you all thought so far. As always, constructive reviews are very much appreciated if you can spare them, and thank you all for taking the time to read. It really means a lot. :)
Stay classy all!
Dexter1995