**Note: I wrote this story years ago and left it unfinished. Now I'm coming back to it, tweaking the chapters with grammar mistakes, and working on finishing it. This story is based on the 2012 TMNT series and is very central on the first season, so don't expect to see Casey or references to things after him anytime soon. :P Anyway, if you're new, don't be afraid to dive in and enjoy!

Chapter 1: Ara

Ara Asato sat at her desk, drumming her fingers impatiently. There were ten minutes until the next period, then another agonizing forty minutes, and then freedom. Well, if you could call it that. When you lived at the Bruskwier Orphanage for Young Ladies, there was no freedom. At least during after school hours, you didn't just sit at a desk, trying to memorize date after tiring date of events that happened during the French Revolution. Ugggh! High school was harder than she had expected.

Being a freshman, just turned fifteen, she found it hard to believe that they expected you to do all this work. It almost made her wish that she had been shipped off to one of those horrible orphanages like the ones you read about in books. At least then there would be less homework, and more REAL work. Ara wasn't the type of girl who was afraid of getting her hands dirty. After all, her late father had been a Japanese ninjutsu master.

Ara's mother had died when she was a baby, which had made her father very protective of his little girl. He had taught her everything he knew about self-defense. Most little girls asked for barbies at Christmastime, but she asked for weapons. Her father was not one to refuse her. They were wooden at first, of course, but Ara had never forgotten that feeling of sheer joy when she received her first real sword on her tenth birthday.

Her father not only taught her how to use weapons, but also stealth and hand-to-hand combat. Despite all this, Ara had lead a normal life, going to fairs and zoos, and…. Ara was rudely interrupted from her memories by the loud ring of the bell. She snatched up her books and shuffled out of the door in a daze, still meditating on the past. She absent-mindedly bumped into a girl in the hallway.

"Hey, what's your problem?" a loud voice bellowed. Ara looked up, blinking in surprise. A huge girl advanced towards her, scowling and punching her fist into her palm. "Do you have eyes in that little head of yours? Or do you just like bumping into people for kicks?"

"Sorry," Ara murmured, "I didn't mean to…"

"Yeah right, you little weasel! Someone oughta teach you a lesson."

Ara turned around and walked away, calling over her shoulder, "I don't want to fight."

"Too bad!" The girl grabbed ahold of Ara's shoulder, spinning her around. The next thing Ara knew, a fist was flying towards her face. With a speed not much slower than lightning, Ara snatched the hand at the last moment. Using the girl's momentum, she thrust her over her shoulder and sent her crashing to the ground. The bully lay still, knocked out.

"Boy, that felt good," Ara murmured with satisfaction. Lately, she'd had nothing for targets besides the air and her pillow. But in a moment, the realization of what she had done hit her with the force of a hurricane. She glanced around to find every set of eyes focused on her, every mouth ajar. A few teachers were peering out of their classrooms in shocked silence.

Ara stood still for a moment, frozen in place, and then she turned and ran. She didn't know where she was going, she just…. ran. Through the orphanage doors, over the huge surrounding fence, (Ha, didn't know I could do that, did you, superintendent?) and into the street.

Tears of shame streaked down her cheeks. Hadn't her father taught her to control her temper? Couldn't she have simply blocked the punch and continued walking? But nooo, she had to lose it and let the ninja inside of her break loose. Even if that move HAD been completely basic, she'd still shown her teachers that she was different and dangerous.

Her father would have been sooo mad... that thought ground her panicked thoughts to a halt. Her father... her father… her sweet, loving, skilled, long-suffering, gentle father. The father who was gone… who was gone… Ara sat down heavily and cried.

This was the first time she had cried over her father. When she had learned about his death, she had metaphorically built armour around herself and tried to stay strong. She did everything in her power to just not think about him. It was her way of trying to heal. But it was a shaky, unstable armor. The second she really thought of him, it all came down in a collapsed heap. Ara sat and cried until she had no tears left. It felt good, as if she had just let out a breath she had been holding for an eternity.

Wiping her eyes, Ara stood up and looked around, taking note of her surroundings for what felt like the first time. She was in an ally full of trash cans. What now? Ara thought in dismay. She looked around and sighed. "Well, I better head back," she said to no one in particular. She cringed to think of what they might do back at the orphanage. It was times like these that made her thank heaven that she WAS sent to The Bruskwier Orphanage for Young Ladies instead of another one.

As Ara turned to go, a patch of light shimmering off of a piece of broken glass caught her attention. She turned and squatted down to see what it was. It was a broken canister, jaggedly cut through the middle. It was completely empty save for about three tablespoons worth of green, glowing ooze at the bottom.

Being the detective she was, Ara picked up the half of the cracked canister that contained the glowing ooze and took it with her. Maybe her science teacher (a kind old man by the name of Mr. Smith) could tell her what it was. With that, she turned for home… or at least her… living space. A half hour and two inquires for directions later, (see what comes of blindly running to no place in particular?) Ara quietly climbed up the large fence surrounding the orphanage, jumped down, scaled up the building's wall, and climbed into her bedroom window, all without making a sound or being noticed.

Her room was strangely quiet and empty. She supposed the superintendent hadn't wanted to make a fuss and had thought that she would eventually come home… but hadn't reckoned that she would stealthily climb up the side of the building.

Ara walked to the tank on her desk. It held her most prized possession: Pebbles, her turtle. She stroked her old pet fondly, refilled its food dish, and then settled down to examine the strange canister. She scraped its contents onto her desk with a letter opener and gazed down at it, almost expecting it to burn a hole through the wood. Nothing happened. Since it seemed harmless, Ara stuck a stray pencil into the goop, pulled it out, and inspected it. Hesitantly, she scraped a bit of the pencil with the very tip of her fingernail, as a test. Little droplets of goo covered the nail, but it did nothing. Ara rubbed the tiny droplets from her fingernail onto the skin of her finger, but she didn't feel tingling or anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps this was just a really big version of those ooze toys you could buy at different stores. Ara, growing bold, scraped all the goo off the desk and onto her hand.

"Interesting," Ara mused aloud. "Pebbles, what do you think?" Ara turned to her pet, but what she saw made her heart stop in her chest. Pebbles was lying on his back, his breathing shallow and quick. Thoughtless in her panic, Ara snatched the sick old turtle up into her hands… and the goop. Ara stared as the turtle struggled to breathe before going completely still. Pebbles was… dead! So was her father and everyone she cared about. The school was going to kill her, and… biting back a sob, Ara placed the turtle into his tank for the time being, shook the goo back onto the desk, and then collapsed on her bed, not wanting to deal with the day anymore. She was soon fast asleep.

When Ara opened her eyes several hours later, the sun was setting. She looked at the clock in her room: eight o'clock. Ara groggily stood up and stretched, but froze as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the full-length mirror across the room. She was completely green! Blinking in horror, Ara stumbled back, tripping on the edge of her bed and landing on the floor with a crash. This didn't hurt in the least because her shell… wait, her shell? Ara twisted about wildly, taking in her green, almost scaly skin, strong shell, and three-fingered hands. She was some kind of humanoid turtle!

This was all one bad dream. It had to be. Then why did everything feel so real? Ara's gaze flew around the room, taking in every crisp, perfect detail. Her old clothes were nothing but shreds on her bed, probably torn as she grew the shell. Would a detail like that be in a dream? Ara slapped herself across the face, but nothing happened. Ara began to hyperventilate as she recalled the glowing ooze and picking up her dying turtle... in that moment, she just knew. Knew that this wasn't just some horrifying dream; it was reality. Closing her eyes, Ara took three deep breaths, which turned into five deep breaths, which turned into ten. She tried to calm her racing mind, fighting hard to keep her composure as her father had taught her to do under every circumstance. But there was no way he could have ever predicted THIS.

When she felt she could trust herself, Ara opened one eye and looked at herself in the mirror. It wasn't all that bad. She needed to stay positive. Her smooth, darkish-green skin was almost an upgrade on the acne-riddled complexion her teenage self had been cursed with before. She didn't have hair, which was a bummer, but it was really just a nuisance anyway, right? Ara couldn't help but let out a short, sharp laugh. She'd just been mutated into a giant turtle, and here she was thinking about hair.

On a more serious note, though, she had to get out of the orphanage. One thing was certain, she couldn't stay. Not now, not when she looked like this. Without further thought, Ara climbed out of her window and (for the third time that crazy day) over the fence. She then dashed under the shadow of a building, her heart pounding. Where could she go? Nowhere in the city was safe. She would make a scene wherever she went. Her eyes strayed to a manhole leading to the sewers. The idea of surviving down there made her stomach churn with dread, but what other option did she have? No one would be down THERE.

Sighing, Ara tugged off the heavy cover and dropped easily inside. Ara started off down the tunnel, knowing she had no other choice. She kept walking through many twists and turns until she realized this was crazy. She couldn't live in the sewers! There was no food! No water! But it was too late. She had already lost her way. With a sigh, Ara trudged on. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't see the hole in the ground in front of her until it was too late. With a cry, Ara fell through the hole and landed belly-first on some sort of bottom.

Black.