Book One In The Ahh-Ness Of Things Series: April & Donnie were once inseparable, but now almost six years have passed since she left NYC. What if April O'Neil could set the record straight, once & for all! The only girl down enough to chill with the...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
That first day passed like a memory you know is not very important & it will fade. If only because it was the same as a million other memories, you know it happened but it was all the same as it always had been. It was a good day, if not strained because of Donnie's stand-offish attitude. Raph had seen the look that passed between us at breakfast, as Donnie was leaving & he had taken off after him. We could all hear hushed arguing from the little corridor to the hidden entrance. Mikey & Renet had gone to the couch to hang out with the kids & when Raph came back, he didn't mention a thing, but we all knew the fight was about me. Raphael & I had the kind of relationship that I think all girls should have with a big brother; he always had my back & wouldn't hesitate to put anyone in their place if he thought they were mistreating me. Although he preferred to let me handle my problems myself & trusted that I knew what I was doing, I could tell something was bothering him.
We spent the rest of the morning catching up. I had so many questions & they wanted to know where I had been, all of the places I had traveled to, what I had been doing. I came clean about Casey. There was no judgement. The guys just kind of shrugged it off with a 'yeah but you're home now' take on the matter. I didn't go into just how horrible things had ended between us; just like I knew there were things the guys weren't telling me, just yet. Like how everyone clearly knew where Donatello had gone, but they respectfully left it alone. I was careful not to try to read the thoughts they were keeping to themselves.
I guess I should explain some things. I'm sure a lot of this is hard to wrap your mind around. I forget, I'm writing this for someone other than myself. The thing is, I can tap into other people's feelings. Mostly those of mutants. Sometimes, I can even hear them speaking in my head, but it's usually just feelings. If the emotion is strong enough, at times I can even see their memories or I suddenly know things about them. It's kind of like having a memory of your own but it doesn't belong to you at all. The best way I can describe it is as if I just read a book or a watched a movie about you, but all in an instant.
I grew up here in the tunnels underneath of the East Village in New York, with an adoptive family of mutants in this; their hidden home, affectionately referred to as the "Lair". They were Japanese American & their father raised them in the traditions of Ninjutsu, which had been his up bringing. Physically; they're like giant walking, talking turtles. In every other way though; we were just normal kids. Ok wait, no we were never normal kids, but we tried to be. That was all we wanted.
They took me in when my own father, an experimental biologist was attacked by the Krang. When I decided to go to college after high school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I knew I needed to get away from my "brothers" for a while. This was not long after the Krang Invasion. The world had become so dark & we had fought very real monsters to try save humanity itself from the terrors the rest of you were only just beginning to know. Splinter, as he was known; my Sensei & the Turtles father had been murdered, my own father was still missing & my mother long suspected dead. I have no real family, just the guys, & they will never leave New York City. They really can't, the life they lead is one where you are either in or you are out. They have an obligation to their father's legacy & I was brought into it. I made obligations for myself to them & unlike the Turtles; I had chosen to make their life my own, I wasn't born into it like they were. Yet, like them, we were all a part of the Krang Invasion.
When I say that we don't really know what I am, let me be more clear; we have a good idea, but even I don't really know how it works. My mind & my body have never seemed to be one unit. It's always been as if I've walked through my whole life on auto pilot. I look human, I had made it through most of my childhood thinking I was human. I mean what else was I supposed to think; I had a normal family, a mom & a dad. We lived out in the country, in a farm house in the North Hamptons. My dad, John O'Neil worked for a laboratory called TCRI, in the city & my mom was a math teacher at my quiet rural high school. I was normal & my life was normal, except; I never really felt like I was normal. The world has this idea of how I should be because of how I look.
As for what I am. I am a Krang. Rather, I am neither human, nor a Krang. I had once thought about being a journalist but I bet you couldn't see that one coming out on the nightly news. Yeah so this little red head in the dress is actually the thing you fear the most. The world would have me be their cute kid sister, or the fantasy of feminine strength. Wait, what's another stereotypical female archetype? Oh yeah the sexy tough girl. When actually, I'm not anything you would be interested in all. I'm pretty in a unique sort of way, but I don't dress or act like it. I blamed it on growing up in the boondocks. Don't get me wrong; it's nice to make myself acceptably girly once in a while, but I would much rather happily eat apples while working on a greasy car with Donatello. Or see how many bruises I can put on Raphael in the dojo before he takes me down, & he always takes me down; I'm small. He's a hulk & they all have more physical strength than any human being. I still trained with them under their father, with a gleam in my eyes & blood on my lip, because this is who I am. As far as Donatello could tell in his attempts years ago to try to help me find meaning in all of this, I'm some kind of hybrid; a Krang experiment with results apparently they couldn't even explain. A strange chimera; but still a mutant. I was never exposed to the mutagen like the guys; I was created this way, but it wasn't until I was a teenager that I began to understand just how different I really was. Id always had this sense that I should be much stronger than I am. That I was powerful & only had to realize it.
As for my adoptive family, calling them "mutants" is at least the simplest explanation for their incredible story; they were exposed to the Krang's mutagen. They were to become almost shepards for the rest of us; the unwanted mutants of the Krang Invasion. I will explain, but for now I'm writing this down, because I don't know how much longer I will remember these things. I do not know who I am writing it for, if anyone, but i'm terrified my mind will soon no longer be clear & the memories mix with visions of other lives. I "see" the lives of others & it all becomes tangled in between somewhere in the timeline of the present & my own mind.
Yet when I think of my time here; this home & this life here with my brothers; that is the truth that matters. The collective experiences, the unbelievable childhood we shared, the traumas & the revelations. I want to document them, leave them for someone to know, maybe even for Donatello. What was it he wrote; "A DISTILLATION OF FACTS THAT GET CARRIED WITH ME DAILY... STRIVE TO REMEMBER NO MATTER WHAT..." I've never been completely sure how much he's known that I've seen. I know he himself saw into the void & I know his brief death had brought him closer to the awareness of the cosmos, & his soul was more awake than it had been before. I also know there is so much he keeps from everyone. Maybe if I write it all down; he might one day find himself in my reevaluations of all of this.
**The above quote is from Donatello's Credo & it is owned by Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird**
