First meeting
TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
Meet April
In New York City, a young teenage girl called April O’Neil had missed her bus and has to go home on foot. However, she goes through a bad neighborhood, where a bunch of thugs are ready to rob her.
Suddenly, she is saved. Five shadowy figures quickly take out the thugs, most notable she sees an arrow flying that cuts the belt of one thug and leaves his underwear showing. April’s saviors quickly flee. April picks up the arrowhead and something flake-like.
As she comes home, she runs into her older sister and guardian Robyn whom was worried sick about her. April just mentions having missed the bus, but not the robbery. She goes in her room and studies the flake, which turns out to be a turtle scale. She still can’t make head or tails of the arrowhead though.
The next day April has a test. She finishes it in minutes and starts taking notes on her findings. When she gets out of class her best friend Ramona asks if April can lend her brain because she struggles with the tests. April is sort of a girl genius but is stuck in high school since her family has no money to let her in college early.
April says she got saved last night from robbers, and she believes it to be ninjas. They were stealthy, powerful. She just doesn’t know where the turtle scale fits in. Ramona, whom owes a blog dedicated to cryptids and occults suspects kappas. April points out those are Japanese as Romana claims even cryptids take vacations abroad.
New student
The next day April’s class is introduced to a new student called Harmony Shores. The girl is odd. She appears Asian-American, she wears a backpack too big for her, a turtleneck sweater, and she talks in monotone and expresses little physically. She also talks odd like saying ‘it’s nice to be here among other humans’.
At lunch, she is seen eating a weird vegetable, as April and Ramona introduce themselves. They also ask what she’s eating. Harmony says it’s algae. When Ramona tastes it, she gags and Harmony says it’s an acquired taste.
Asking about herself, Harmony says she has a father and four brothers, but they have a…condition which prevents them from leaving the home. She is the only one whom can go to school.
They are approached by Taylor Martin, the local queen bee and alpha bitch. She notes that Harmony looks like a turtle. Harmony thanks her but Taylor says it’s not a compliment. Harmony asks why it wouldn’t be. As Taylor says she is a loser, Harmony deconstructs her as a lazy high school tv show stereotype, which causes Taylor to run away crying.
Taylor tries to get revenge during PE with dodgeball, but Harmony turns out to be a dodgeball warrior of the highest caliber and nearly single handedly deals with the opposing team. April and Ramona agree she is the weirdest and coolest girl they ever met.
After school Harmony thanks for them for their companionship and sees them tomorrow. They follow her in secret for a bit. Harmony stops by a Pizzeria and takes out five boxes and a basket of breadsticks. She goes into an alley but when April and Ramona check, she is gone. They only notice a sewer lid, but they think she couldn’t have gone down there.
Another day, another bout of trouble
The next day, Harmony continues to be weird, but friendly. She heads straight home after school, but April decides to stay a bit longer, to do a few experiments after school she can’t do at home. Ramona remains behind as she is supposed to remind her that she can’t miss the bus again.
As they head towards the bus stop, the bus has come unusually early and leaves without them. April says they’ll have to walk again. This time they take a different route to avoid muggers.
They run into something else. Identical people in business suit whom say in a robotic monotone that makes Harmony sound expressive. They are grabbed and thrown into a van. The two girls panic until the van stop and they hear fighting outside. They are able to get out of the van in the distraction and see the men in suits fight someone.
April is sure they are the same ‘ninjas’ from a few days ago. Though their shape is odd and the shadows don’t help. One of the men is knocked down and they see something pink and scary crawl out, leaving a shell behind that turns out to be an exoskeleton. The pink creature is taken by the other ‘men’ and they flee the scene.
They hear the ‘ninjas’ talk about it. One of them freaks out and said it was cool and scary. The second voice seems happy they kicked alien butt. The second says it is interesting and requires further research. The fourth says it may mean something much more serious going on. The fifth and only female says they have to talk about it later because they have company, and points at April and Ramona.
They now get a good look at their saviors. They are surprised to find four humanoid mutant turtles, and a girl in ninja garb that is themed after the Turtles. Said girl also carries a quiver on her back, showing she is the one whom fired the arrow in that alleyway. The turtle with the orange mask says ‘Don’t be afraid, it’s just a mask, see?’ as he takes it off…and April faints. The one with the red mask says ‘Nice going, bozo!’ as the one with the purple mask asks how that was supposed to soften the blow.
Introductions
April wakes up, and finds herself in a living space that appears to be an abandoned subway station from the New York underground. She sees herself surrounded by the Turtles, but Ramona is also there.
Ramona says these guys are chill, they saved them, brought them to their home so they could watch over them and gave her pizza. Their combinations of toppings are weird but she grew to like the sausage and banana one.
April notices the ninja girl, now with her hood down, is her classmate Harmony. Harmony says her real name is Hamato Miwa. And these Turtles are her brothers: Leonardo (the serious and disciplined red-eared slider), Raphael (the hot-headed sawback turtle), Donatello (the intelligent wood turtle) and Michelangelo (the chill and immature ornate box turtle). April asks why her siblings are turtles. Miwa just asks why April’s siblings aren’t turtles and she finds she can’t answer that.
Donatello says he doesn’t get to see many other humans aside his sister, so he asks if he can study April and Ramona and document the differences as he takes out a notepad.
Raphael wonders what there is to see about them, they are two dainty girls whom needed them to save their butts twice. Michelangelo says to not mind Raphael, he is a little grumpy guy as he patronizingly pats his brother’s head and also add he smells. Raph starts shaking a laughing Mikey across the lair. A worried Leo tries to break them up and apologizes to the two for his brothers’ behavior.
April asks if her brothers are always this crazy. Miwa takes a bite of a pickles and ranch pizza and says no, they are unusually well-behaved today. Must be because they have guests. April wonders why her life is weird now. Ramona says she thinks it’s the coolest thing that happened to them. They are teenagers, they are mutants, they are ninjas and they are turtles…and now she says it out loud it sounds weird but it’s still awesome.
Miwa says now that she’s awake their dad would want to meet her. April is introduced to their father…whom turns out to be a mutant rat. But after seeing the turtles and an alien she notes that it doesn’t seem that weird.
The rat introduces himself as Splinter, real name Hamato Yoshi. She apologizes that his children startled them. April says she is grateful for their help saving her life twice. But she wonders how a rat can be a father to four turtles and a human girl and how they became mutant ninjas to boot.
Splinter says they are owed an explanation. He says his real name is Hamato Yoshi and he was once human…and he has one hell of a story to tell.
TRIVIA
- Doing a new Turtles project.
- Instead of diving into the real backstory of the Turtles, I start off with building up to them, from April’s perspective.
- April is a teenager, though here she is portrayed as a young genius, her intelligence inspired by her 2003 TV series counterpart’s scientific background.
- Her sister Robyn is portrayed as April’s guardian here, being the older of the two siblings. While April will have the traits of both the 2003 and 2012 tv version, Robyn will be inspired by the 1987 April in that she’s a reporter.
- If you know my last Turtle project, you know whom Ramona will become eventually. If not…if you mind spoilers, just wait until future chapters.
- I had gone through several reimaginings in this chapter. I had an idea in that Splinter wasn’t Hamato Yoshi, but the rat like the mirage comics and 2003 tv show. I wanted a twist in which Splinter was already mutated and still a child as he was taken in by Hamato Yoshi and Tang Shen. Would be a good idea but I kept Splinter as Yoshi as it would make Splinter’s relation with the other characters more personal and easier to portray.
- Hamato Miwa is a separate character from Karai in this universe. A version of Miwa that has remained Yoshi’s biological daughter and got to be raised by him. Though she has some…quirks, and oddities that you can expect for being raised among Turtles.
- Miwa as an archer is inspired by Artemisia, of a character in Sophie Campbell's fan webcomic, Secrets of the Ooze, which got canonized when she wrote the IDW comics. In an earlier concept I planned to use a composite of Artemisia and Venus before settling on this new version of Miwa.
- As you guessed, the aliens are Utroms. Evil Utroms.
- The Turtles are all different subspecies in this universe like Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Its probably the only thing from that show I adapt…aside the alpha queen bitch Taylor.
- Leonardo is a red-eared slider and Michelangelo a box turtle like in Rise of the TMNT. But Donatello is a wood turtle instead of a softshell turtle, because Wood Turtles are the smartest turtle species. Fitting.
- Raph is a sawback turtle now. The alligator snapping turtle I plan to use for either Tokka or Slash. But a Sawback Turtle was pretty fierce looking and seemed right.