Any references to TMNT or anything from popular media and culture is NOT MINE. I only own my OC's. Any references to "TMNT Out of the Shadows" DO NOT BELONG TO ME. Only my additions that I came up with myself belong to me. Anything from the films or other series ARE NOT MINE, only my OC's and my ideas that I have added onto the story FOR /
Thank you.
p*Wednesday May 25th, 2016 about 9:00p.m. Still hiding and battling on Krang's ship*/p
pSam couldn't believe what she was looking at. She used the phone to analyze what she now looked like. Her hair was gone, but her eyes were still brown. Her red zip up...was no more. It didn't completely rip to shreds, but the entire back had ripped apart, leaving just the sleeves to somewhat cover her arms. Her crop top was very over-stretched, but luckily it wasn't too tight of a crop top, so it was still covering the upper part of her chest some. Her leggings, well, think of the Hulk and what his pants usually look like when he transforms and isn't prepared to do so. The black and white Adidas she had been wearing were still on her feet, but her toes were sticking out through the front, the sides of the shoes barely maintaining form and still remaining on her feet. .br /
/p
p"Sorry about your outift" Sam said with an awkward /
"The outift is what you're worried about?!" S2 /
"Shhhh! We can't be noisy! It could attract Kraang, or God knows what else that might be lurking around this ship" Sam replied in a hushed tone. .br /
"Well, was it worth it? For this to happen?"br /
"Let's find out." Sam closed her eyes, took a breath, and she threw her hands forward. To her amusement, her eyes turned black and blue and a huge gust of air thrusted forward. The power of the wind gust sent stools and other small items flying forward, and even moved the giant desk on the floor off its original place. Everything went crashing into glass cabinets on the other side of the room. She then took a step forward and punched the giant desk so that her hand went smashing through the thick material it was made out /
"I'd say it was pretty worth it" she said with a smirk."br /
/p
p "SERIOUSLY?!"br /
That quickly her smirk switched to a look of /
All 4 turtles now entered the room but quickly stood still, paralyzed with /
"Sam?" Mikey questioned /
"Mayyyybbeeee?" Sam replied /
"WHAT HAPPENED?! Raph /
"I ask again: was it worth it?" S2 chimed in /
"Was WHAT worth it?" Donnie /
"Getting my powers back" Sam /
"How? They were gone! How did you get them back? And how did you become this?!" Leo exclaimed, waving his hand up and down, emphasizing the obvious change to her /
/p
p "Guys lower your voices, you don't want to attract-"br /
"Kraang?" Raph cut in. "He's taken care of. For now at least. We trapped him another room so that we could try to escape with you. Only to come back and find you like this."br /
"Hey, I find that offensive" Sam /
"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO FEEL THAT WAY! Only WE can feel that way! And we're allowed to feel pissed that you look like us!" Raph practically growled towards /
/p
pMikey carefully made his way over towards S2 and gently grabbed her hand.
"You're gonna want to stand over here" he said gently with a timid smile, guiding her towards a spot where she would be away from everyone yelling and angrily swinging their arms as they laid into Sam./p
p"Look, I just didn't want to be left defenseless, okay? I-I wanted to be able to help from the shadows like before-"br /
/p
p "But we didn't need you in the shadows!" Donnie called /
Sam stopped her frantic chatter and just stared at /
"Wh...what?" she /
"You had a chance to stay safe. All you needed to do was get the others home safe and then later return to get us, April, and Jay-"br /
"SHIT WHERE'S JAY?!" Sam shouted, even more worried about what her brother would say when he saw her like /
"Calm down," Mikey say in a gentle voice. "Him and April are keeping watch back where we left Kraang so they can come give us a heads up that he's free."br /
"STOP CODDLING HER!" Raph bellowed as he walked up and nudged his brother.
Mikey took a long deep breath before facing his brother with a stone cold face.
/p
p
/p
p"Just because I'm not screaming at her doesn't mean I'm not as pissed as you are. In fact, I'll prove it" he said matter of factly before turning back towards /
"You know what Sam, as much as I hate myself for saying this, I was slightly, not a lot, but slightly relieved when you said that you had lost your powers."br /
Sam just pursed her lips and turned away from him, keeping her lips shut before she said something she /
"Oh you don't get to make a decision like this and then just ignore me. And act like everything's going to be hunky dory afterward" he said, storming around so that whichever way she looked she couldn't remove her gaze from /
"Fine! Keep going. Tell me how you really feel" she said through gritted /
/p
p
/p
p "You could have been safe. You had a chance to live a normal life and you purposefully put yourself at risk. How did you even do this?"br /
"I found documents from the Foot about the mutagen that was used to give me my powers" she practically whispered, knowing that she would get the upcoming /
"You MUST be joking. You took random mutagen with these crappy labels and what, crossed your fingers that they would be exactly like the ones that were on Earth?!" Donnie /
"Again, was it worth it?" S2 /
"Why are you even here?!" Raph shouted to the alternate /
"Excuse me?" S2 questioned /
"Did you encourage this? You were supposed to be gone as well!"br /
"Hey leave her alone! She has nothing to do with this! She was trying to convince me not to do this" Sam shouted, defending her /
/p
p *sigh*br /
Everyone stopped and then turned towards Leo, the one who had let out the long deep sigh. His hand was shaped so that his pointer finger and thumb finger were on the 'bridge' where his nose would be between his eyes, and then slowly dragged his hand down his face in /
/p
p "Why is this the circle we run around in every time something happens? Why? How many times are we going to do this? How many times do we watch you die and then thank God that you survived, just to watch you go back and throw yourself into another...stupid, ridiculous, irresponsible situation. How many times? I am genuinely asking you because I'll admit I was the same way as Mikey where I felt slightly relieved that you couldn't fight because then I wouldn't need another image of you dying in my head again. And then you do this. God forbid you used the wrong mutagen and you went into a coma, or the wrong mutagen turned you into a pile of toxic acid. Who knows what could have happened. But I guess it was worth risking your life over it."br /
/p
p The room was dead silent. Everyone looked and felt tense...but Leo was spitting facts. Everything he said was was accurate, a bit harsh, but accurate. Eyes slowly turned towards Sam to see how she would react. The turtles were expecting to see anger in her eyes or maybe sarcasm from thinking they were overreacting, but they were shocked at what they saw. Sam's eyes displayed nothing but sorrow and depression. They were glassy, as if a fog had just covered them while she stood there frozen and /
/p
p "Sam..." Leo began again, "I know I'm the tough love brother who shows he cares by being a total ass, and I'm trying to get better at not constantly being an ass...but it's really difficult when you do things like this. What were you thinking? How are you going to go to college like this? Get a job? Get married? How will you live a normal life-"br /
/p
p "I DON'T WANT A NORMAL LIFE!"br /
/p
p Again, everyone froze. Sam was fighting to compose herself, she didn't want to keep being the stereotypical female who cried every time these things happened, so she did her best to compose herself before she began talking since she could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on /
/p
p
"Look, I'm only in college since that's what everyone does. That's what humans do right? Go to college then get a job and do the same thing over and over each day. If it weren't for soccer and dance then honestly I don't know what I would go to college for. I don't care about daily shit. You know what I think about every day the second my classes end? What are the guys up to? Did they fight any bad guys? Do they need help? When was the last time I got to train with them? Work on the van with Donnie? Workout with Raph? Read comics with Mikey? Meditate with you? My life stopped being normal when the fucking Foot started killing everyone I cared about, okay? Normal life fucking sucks!"br /
She stopped momentarily, trying to hold back tears as her voice choked up and cracked /
"Dammit..." she mumbled, trying to get her act together.
"It's okay" S2 tried to reassure her alternate, but Sam just rapidly shook her /
"No it's not! I hate crying! None of the guys do this shit but I end up like this every time" she said, clenching her /
"And what the hell is wrong with that?!" Mikey chimed in, not being able to just sit back any longer. "What's wrong with crying? Just let it out!"br /
"I'm not a weak little girl!"br /
"Oh, so every time I've opened up to you and cried that meant I was a little girl?"br /
"Of course not!"br /
"Then why try and hide what you're feeling?"br /
"Because I'm not a damsel that needs help and to be saved and needs to hide in college and hide in a normal life! I can help, I can fight! I'm strong, I'm a tough fighter. Even on the side lines I can do great things with my powers."br /
/p
p "Well sometimes we need help, does that make us damsels?" Raph questioned in /
"No, but that proves that I should be there to provide help!"br /
"But there's 4 of us! We've trained since we were kids so we could protect one another. Have you helped us? Yes. But have you also put yourself in insane amounts of danger? Yes!"br /
"But fighting with you guys is like my purpose! Hell if that was a career then I'd do that! But not like an officer, like just helping you guys with crimes. Life got better when I met all of you and started helping stop the Foot and Kraang. This is what I do and where I belong!"br /
/p
p
"Sam..." Donnie cut in gently. The tone in voice caught everyon's attention and got Sam to stop for a moment. "Have you ever stopped and thought about what the Foot has done to you?"br /
Sam shot him a confused look. "What do you mean? They killed every family member I've ever loved other than Jay and you guys."br /
"And what has that done to you?" he asked /
Sam just shook her head, not comprehending what he was asking. "I-I don't know what you mean-"br /
"Are you serious?" S2 /
Sam was taken aback. "Oh, so you know what he's saying? You know me better than me now?" she asked rather /
"Yeah, you're traumatized bitch! I can talk in that tone too!" S2 bit /
/p
pSam stared at her. "What?"
"You've experienced trauma! You've lost so many people you care about, hell even all your friends abandoned you when you were a kid from what you've told me, so you literally can't stop worrying about the safety of the people in your life now. You're so terrified that they'll get hurt and die that you'd rather throw yourself in danger and put your life on the line than even consider that they may have as small as a scratch on them. And now you have a mutagen that's connected to the parts of your brain that affect decision making and trigger you to lose control when your family is in danger? You're literally biologically programmed to be reckless and protect people and that just feeds off your psychological and emotional trauma of not wanting to lose anyone ever again. You honestly can't see that? I've known you for a matter of days and I can see how it's affected you. You won't even allow yourself to be a typical woman because you have to be the tough guy. Girls can do the saving AND be saved honey! You can be the damsel and the hero depending on the situation, but your traumatized brain which is now infused with 'protective mutagen' literally only let's you be the steriod injected junky hero that acts impulsively!"br /
/p
p "That was elaborate, but basically what I was getting at" Donnie added. "We've been so focused on the decisions you've been making that we never worked with you and figured out why you were making them. Other than the mutagen kicking in. But it's so much more than that, and I never realized it until now. "br /
"Shit..." Raph muttered, now realizing that he'd never actually thought about why Sam acted the way she did. They gave her solutions, aka college and a normal life, but they had never really gotten to the root of /
"Sam..." Mikey mumbled. How could he have never had these talks with his best friend before? Why was this something they were ALL just now realizing?br /
"Did your therapists bring this up?" Leo asked calmly. "You hated therapy. Was this why?"br /
/p
p Sam took a deep breath and nodded her head. "I never wanted to hear them talk about 'things going back to normal' as if there's a normal after your family is murdered. After watching so many people die right in front of you, and then having all your friends abandon you to 'keep you safe' and have the whole world and everything in your life change in an instant. I just said whatever they wanted to hear so I could get out of those damn sessions. And then they wanted to 'keep me safe.' They didn't mind me taking some self-defense classes but they didn't like me taking martial arts and learning how to pick locks and getting into spyware. They wanted me to be 'normal.' Fuck normal. How the hell do you go back to normal? I adapted. Me adapting and becoming strong led me to you guys."br /
/p
p Sam finally looked up and around at the turtles. "I don't want to lose you guys" she said through emotional deep breaths. "I can't. I mean, I've already lost you to freaking reality. Instead of training I'm studying. Instead of making pizza in the lair I'm eating ramen as I complete assignments in my dorm room. And instead of hanging out with you guys I'm going to stupid college parties because that's the 'college experience.' I already lost you guys one way, and now that Kraang came back, how am I supposed to just sit back and lose you more? I mean you went to an alterante dimension without me-"br /
/p
p Sam was taken aback when all 4 brothers gently walked over and hugged /
"Even tomboy's need hugs" Raph /
"And to cry it out" added /
"And talk to their brothers" Mikey /
"And eat ice cream while watching Jupiter Jim and Space Heroes" Leo /
"You idiot" Sam teased with a small smile and a soft laugh, getting a small grin from the 4 boys before they backed up a bit and gave her some /
Raph turned around and nodded for S2 to join /
She smiled and walked over to join the group. "Sorry I wasn't as gentle as these guys" she said before unexpectedly having Sam walk over and throw her hands around the girl to give her a hug as /
"Thank you for being tough and telling me the truth. I needed to hear it."br /
S2 hugged the girl but also gently said "but you need to stop needing to hear it."br /
"Dang girl is cold" Raph /
/p
p
"Heh, I'm not trying to be. But Sam, everytime this happens, you need your brothers to bring you back to reality. You always need someone to be upset or yell at you, you always need to get into an argument with others in order to realize how you jumping into action is actually hurting the people you care about. You want to protect them, but acting recklessly is only hurting /
Sam nodded. "I know, and I promise, when we get home I'll meet with Dr. Perry and see if there's something he can do to help me become human again. And then I'll live a normal life. I promise, if that's what will keep you guys safe and help you out."br /
"Sam, please stop" Mikey begged. "Stop worrying about us. We're prepared to protect one another. That's why we train as a team. We can handle whatever is thrown at us. And the best part is that we have you, the most badass human to come in as our secret weapon when no one is expecting it. But that means you need to worry about keeping you safe, keeping you healthy. We can't stay safe unless we know you're safe."br /
"Hell, we'll be your therapists if that's what you need" Raph /
"Even adults need to see friends and family. Maybe not seeing each other enough also triggered some things" Donnie /
"I never thought of it that way" Sam admitted with a /
"We shouldn't have pushed you away either. We just wanted to make sure you were focused and taking life tasks seriously. We want what's best for you. But it doesn't help if we don't listen to your input about what you need" Leo /
"Like I said, I'll stay focused, I'll ease up on the extraccuriculars so I'm not draining myself. I'll live normally until you guys say you need me. Heh, maybe next time you won't leave me behind for a cool mission if I'm not always begging to join you."br /
"Man you're never going to let it go that we came to an alternate dimension without you, huh?" Donnie asked with a /
"Yeah, no" Sam laughed. "But seriously, I'll do better so that way you guys can focus on what you need to."br /
"But we're not going to leave you behind either" Raph added with a /
"Ummm may I ask for some assistance first?"br /
The group was so focused on their conversation that honestly everyone forgot where exactly they were, and no one noticed this random humanoid robot man enter the /
"Please don't be alarmed. My name is Fugitoid. I over heard your conversation and before you leave this dimension, I have a favor to ask."/p