The next morning, Akane woke up late. Her tail twitched as the morning sun shone through the window of the apartment her father had rented for their stay in the United States.
The newt girl would have wished to sleep a bit longer, but Nabiki wouldn't let her. Her older sister stuck her short muzzle through her sister's door and smiled. "Mornin! Rise and shine, sleepyhead!"
"Nooo, it's way too early..." Akane grumbled as she turned around to face away from her sibling.
"Get up, or there's no breakfast for you!"
Those words were enough to rouse Akane. "Breakfast?"
"Not yet, little sis! Kasumi has left to do some shopping, we're short short of food, you know that."
"Shopping?" Akane frowned as she sat up. "This early? Awww, but I wanted to tell her about the guy I met tonight BEFORE the next time she left... also, don't you think it's a bit risky for her to leave the apartment? I mean, she can't defend herself if she gets attacked..."
"That's why she's going through the sewers," Nabiki explained. "I mean, sure, it's stinky and filthy down there, but at least this new skin of ours is easy to clean, isn't it?" She smirked as she rubbed her hand along her green, amphibian skin. "Besides, you know she's only going to shop at Ucchan's. Ukyo knows about our special condition and only opens up her shop at ten, so we have enough time to buy some supplies if we need 'em."
"Ranma could have done the shopping..." Akane frowned.
"But Ranma and Genma are not here yet," said their father as he suddenly appeared next to Nabiki. "They have stayed back in Japan so they can find out more about why you are stuck like this. You know that, don't you?"
Akane sighed. Of course she knew. It was just that she felt... abandoned. Now that she was trapped in this strange body, Ranma wasn't at her side. She knew that the most people who could know something about Jusenkyo magic (including Cologne and her clan) were either in Japan or China at the moment.
"I don't like it either that Kasumi left by herself," Soun continued. "I even offered to go instead of her."
"So why didn't you do it, then?" Akane asked.
Soun smiled at his magically changed daughters. "She insisted that I wouldn't know what we need for dinner anyways." He shook his head. "She so reminds me of your mother when she does that..."
"Think about it like that, Akane," Nabiki said. "Do you think any robber would go down into the sewers to rob people? I'm telling you, she's absolutely safe down there!"
"Let's see..." Kasumi murmured as she pulled the map out of the handbag that was hanging around her shoulder. "Which was the right tunnel, again?"
She was currently below the earth, in the sewers below Manhattan, at an intersection of tunnels. Nabiki was right, it stunk horribly down here, but at least the Tendo sisters' sense of smell wasn't quite as delicate as it used to be. On the other hand, Kasumi was now able to see in the dark with her big, round eyes.
The tip of her tail twitched, scaring off a rat that had tried nibbling on it. Kasumi looked left, then right, trying to ignore the stuff that floated past her in the sewage.
She sighed. "Oh my... looks like this map father managed to acquire is an old one... I don't think all of these tunnels are on here. Now how am I supposed to know which way to go to reach Ukyo's new restaurant?"
For a moment, she contemplated if she should head back the way she came... but that wouldn't fill their fridge either.
"I guess it's no use," she finally murmured and picked a tunnel at random. "I guess I'm just gonna go that way." She put the map back in her bag and kept on walking.
Some time later, her feeling of being lost hadn't changed for the better. On the contrary, she felt like she was running around in circles. On top of that, she was hearing some strange, scratching noises that seemed to follow her everywhere she went. At first, she thought it was more rats, but when she looked around, she couldn't see any of the furry critters.
'Maybe... maybe I should climb out at the next manhole and ask for the right way...'
Just when she scolded herself for having such a stupid though, it happened: The wall right next to her crumbled apart, revealing a huge, gaping mouth that was filled with metal teeth. Attached to it was the body of a strange, metal creature that had only two short legs, a small body and a head that was almost completely mouth. And that mouth had aimed for her arm. It only missed because Kasumi had taken a step backwards in her surprise.
'What... what in the name of kami are those things?' she wondered.
The aggressive critter wasn't alone. Behind it, in the darkness of the hole, Kasumi could see dozens more of those strange robot things, and they all were snapping their mouths in her direction.
She couldn't know that the Mousers were programmed to attack anything that remotely resembled a human-sized turtle in the least... and while Kasumi was an amphibian instead of a reptile, and had a tail, she still could be mistaken for one of the four mutant turtles that lived down here in the sewers below Manhattan... especially by a robot who had next to no intelligence.
Kasumi yelped in fright when the robots she had no name for came swarming out of the hole, running and jumping at her with snapping jaws.
'It's moments like this when I wish that Ranma or Akane were around,' she thought as she ran down the tunnel, closely followed by the robots.
She quickly realized she wouldn't make it. She wasn't as physically fit as her youngest sister or even Nabiki, and those robots were relentless, fast and would never tire. It was just a matter of time before they caught up with her. She shuddered when she looked back over her shoulder and saw how many of them just bit through any obstacle that was lying in their way... their jaws were powerful enough to bite through rock and metal.
When she thought that the leading robot would reach her, she suddenly heard a whizzing sound, and something flew past her head, very close to her ear. It imbedded itself into the body of the robot that had just jumped at her and threw it backwards, until it hit the wall.
As one, the other robots stopped in their pursuit and turned their eyeless skull to where the attack had come from. Kasumi used that moment to take a look at what had hit the robot that was now lying limp on the floor.
She instantly recognized it as a shuriken, a throwing star used by ninjas.
"It's always the same with you Mousers, huh?" someone who came walking towards her through the darkness said. "As soon as you spot anything that is green and walk on two legs, you can't stop snapping your big, metal mouths, can you?"
The humanoid turtle with the purple bandana twirled around his bo staff as he stood in front of Kasumi, facing the robots he had called 'Mousers'.
"You should step back, lady," he said. "This is going to be messy..."
"Y-yes..." Kasumi nervously muttered. "Um, th-thank you..."
She then watched with awe how the stranger skillfully used his weapon to repel all of the attacks the savage robots were starting. His bo smacked against metal skulls, broke metal legs and flung metal bodies through the air, while the turtle-man himself was never hit or bitten once.
Finally, the last Mouser fell when the shelled warrior kicked it against a wall. Kasumi found herself surrounded by lots of scrapped metal, the remains of the robots that had chased her just minutes ago.
The turtle turned around to face her with a grin. "It's okay now, they won't be a bother to you anymore."
Kasumi meekly came forth, careful not to step onto any robot parts, and gave the stranger a short bow. "I thank you for assisting me, sir... I don't know what these... these machines wanted from me, but you just came in the right moment."
"Those things are called Mousers," he explained with a dark frown on his face. "A really bothersome invention by Baxter Stockman... and I thought we had seen the last of them." He sighed. "Oh well... say, if you don't mind me asking, are you related to the young girl my brother Michelangelo met last night?"
Kasumi blinked, not knowing about Akane's last night's encounter.
"Um, what did he say was her name again... Akane?"
Kasumi sighed. "Yes, that is my youngest sister... how typical of her, sneaking off at night like that... I hope she was no bother."
"Heh, from what Mikey told me, I think she was able to look out for herself just fine. You're from Japan, aren't you? I mean, it was able to see from the way you greeted me..."
Kasumi nodded. "Yes, my name is Kasumi Tendo."
"Charmed. The name's Donatello, pleased to meet you!"
Kasumi scratched her head. "Donatello? Michelangelo? My, that's exactly what a couple of artists from the renaissance period were called, isn't it?"
"Well, our Master Splinter gave us these names, and he always had a liking to the arts of those days... my other two brothers are called Raphael and Leonardo."
Kasumi giggled. Then she thought of something. "Say, Donatello-san... how come you look like this? Did you have an accident with Jusenkyo water as well?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Jusenkyo... you know? Cursed water that changed me and my sisters into this..."
"Aaah," Donatello nodded. "Now I see... for a moment, I thought you were mutants as well."
"Mutants..."
"Yes, my brothers and I were changed by green mutagen... but that's a long story. Say, my brothers and our master are waiting or my return back in our home, not far from here... how about you tell me everything there?"
"Oh, I'd love to accept this invitation, really... but I'm afraid my family is waiting for my return... oh my, and I still have to go to the store!"
"You... want to go to a store? Looking like this?" Donatello wondered. "I mean, my brothers and I always put on trenchcoats as a disguise whenever we need to go out..."
"Oh, but the owner of the shop I'm going to is an old friend of the family," Kasumi explained. "She knows about what happened to us and agreed to supply us with everything we need... she moved to the United States about the same time as we did, and she reopened her new restaurant 'Ucchan's', which also doubles as a Japanese grocery store..."
"Well, I can see that you don't want to keep your family waiting... but the very least I could do is to accompany you on your way. The sewers are not safe these days... and you look like you don't know which way to go."
"Yes, my father gave me this map... but I'm afraid it looks like it is not up-to-date anymore."
"You used this old map?" Donatello asked when Kasumi took it out of her bag to show it to him. "No wonder you were lost... this is a map from over ten years ago. They have added a lot of new tunnels ever since this one was made..."
"Oh my..." Kasumi sighed again. "I guess I was lucky to have run into you, then. You seem to know your way around these parts..."
"Well, I don't want to brag, but the sewers are my home," Donatello grinned. "If you need a guide, I can help you anytime. So, can you tell me the address of your friend's store?"
Kasumi told him, and together, they left.
Krang, the criminal overlord from the Dimension X, tapped his tentacle against the flabby layer of skin that was his chin.
He resembled a disembodied brain with a gruesome face on front, but everyone who knew him could tell that he was more than just a pile of flesh.
He stared at the screen which, just minutes ago, had shown him one of the tunnels underneath New York City... and also one of his most annoying enemies, the Ninja Turtles. But he had also seen something else, something very interesting... a new mutant he had never seen before, one that looked like a female newt...
He noticed that someone entered the room behind him. He didn't turn around, though.
"Well, Krang? How did it go? Did the Mousers we managed to build after the blueprints that Stockman left behind work just as we want them to?"
"They work just fine, Shredder," Krang grumbled. He hated it to be disturbed when he was brooding. "The group you sent down into the sewers was just too small."
"It was just a test anyways, wasn't it?" the Shredder shrugged. The human leader of the Foot Clan was, as usual, clad in his samurai helmet and spiked shoulder- and armpads. "We have enough machinery to build hundreds of Mousers. Even the turtles won't be able to defend themselves against an army of robots."
"Why does that sound so familiar?" Krang sighed, recalling the many times they had tried to defeat their enemies with robots. "Still, one of the cameras I installed in the Mousers showed be something really interesting..."
"What? Did the glass polish prizes drop?"
Krang seethed. He turned around his two-legged mech and looked through the dome of plexi glass he was sitting under (the very same one that Bebop loved to call his 'fishbowl'). "Stop making unneeded jokes about my battle suit and listen! When the Mousers recorded this video, they also recorded someone we've never seen in the sewers before... a new mutant. Female. A newt, to all appearances."
Shredder rubbed his chin. "A new mutant, really...? But where did she come from? We didn't use any mutagen in months... or did you sell anything on the black market and didn't tell me about it, Krang?"
"Of course I didn't!" Krang hissed. "That stuff is way too valuable for us, do you think I would just barter it away like that? Use your brain, Saki!" Like every time his partner-in-crime irritated him, he used his real-life name.
Shredder shrugged again. "Well, you seem to have something in mind, Krang... care to share your thoughts?"
Krang grinned as he rubbed his tentacles against each other. "From what I've learned, this creature is not the only one of its kind. And just imagine... what if... we had our own squad of loyal mutant warriors to fight the turtles?"
Shredder sighed mentally. 'Why does that plan sound so familiar?' he thought, recalling the many times they had tried to defeat the turtles with other mutants.
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(Posted Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:23)
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