Chapter 1 - Patrol

(Please note, my knowledge of the recent TMNT series is limited to most of second season and part of the third. Plus my memory of the original '80s series is spotty at best. So kindly forgive any continuity errors on my part as I explore this potential off-shoot of one episode in the second season that caught my attention in particular. Also, since I have no idea what anyone's ages actually are, assume they are all of legal age (or equivalent) for whatever country you are reading this in.

I also apologize ahead of time if someone else has run with this idea already, I haven't had much luck finding TMNT fanfics. And now, on with the show.)

 

The moon, gibbous and heavy in the night sky, bore silent witness to the drone and humdrum of New York City. It was a relatively quiet night, vehicle traffic light and moving steadily as people mostly stayed indoors, all ignorant of the silent shadow flickering across the rooftops above them. Darting from ledge to antennae to chimney without slowing, pausing only briefly here and there to check streets below before smoothly dashing across a suspended traffic light wire to the other side of the street. Coming to the ledge on the far side of the new rooftop, the shadow paused again to check the street below.

“Well this has been a bust.” the shadow muttered. Moving more casually now, the figure stepped over to a nearby billboard, the lights finally giving clear form to the rounded shell and green skin of a six foot, humanoid tortoise wearing a brown belt around it's middle and a purple wrap mask over it's eyes. Thick elbow and knee pads pretty much completed what little clothing it wore. Glancing both ways down the street, Donatello ('Donnie' to his friends), checked the figures of the very few people walking around. “Not one Kraang droid.” The blank-faced drones were generally easy to pick out of a crowd, and the Kraang seemed to lack the imagination to make more than a couple different faces for their robotic suits.

Donnie and his brothers had split up for the last few days, trying to cover as much territory as possible to locate even a few drones with the hopes of following them back to their bases within the city. Once they had some targets, they'd have something to focus on to try and discover, and hopefully disrupt, Kraang operations in the city. Unfortunately, Donnie hadn't seen even one drone all night. Sighing, he pulled a shell-shaped cell phone out of a pouch on his belt. Quickly tapping it's lit face, he held it up to his ear and casually leaned on the billboard's supports.

After a brief ring tone, there was a click as the call went through. “Any news?” came Leonardo's voice.

“Not really,” Donnie answered. “I'm just checking in. Haven't seen a Kraang all night.”

Leo sighed softly on the other end. “Mikey and Raph haven't turned up anything either. I'm calling it a night, you might as well head on back to the lair.”

Donnie thought about that for a moment. He could probably get some more work done in his lab, maybe even grab a few slices of pizza before Mikey scarfed it all. “Eh, I think I'll do one more quick pass. Who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky.”

“Alright,” Leo said over the phone. “I'll try to save you some pizza, but no guarantees.” Acknowledging the semi-promise, Donnie closed the connection, pocketed the cell phone, then sighed, picked a direction, and started moving again.

He couldn't really say why he felt like being out on the New York rooftops. That was usually Raphael's thing. But something just felt like he should. Besides, one more quick pass couldn't hurt. Heck, he might even bump into some Shredder operation. Jumping and leaping across the rooftops, checking streets below, Donnie was about to call it a night as well when he noticed a particular figure down there.

His eyes locked on, a lump caught in his throat, and his heart beat in his chest. It was only the wobble of his foot that snapped him out of it, as he realized he'd just stepped onto a power wire strung between two buildings on autopilot without sufficient balance. Highly-trained ninja reflexes kicked in and he quickly made it across with only that small wobble giving a hint that he'd been caught off-guard. And then he looked back down at the street. At her...

A red-headed teenaged girl, yellow jersey t-shirt over a white long-sleeve shirt that hugged modest breasts and thin waist, going down to slightly wide hips and out-thrust butt in jean short-shorts, black stockings on her long legs and down into sensible sneakers. April O'Neil. Every time he saw her, Donnie felt thrown for a loop. She was just so beautiful and energetic and smart and oh gosh he's doing the stalker boy thing again...

Donnie cleared his throat quietly, looking away and pointedly observing some random stars in the sky before looking back down again. She was still there, casually walking down the street below him. He followed along, at first intending to just get her attention for a quiet chat in a convenient alleyway, but as he did, he realized that her being here was a bit odd. April's apartment was nowhere near here. And she hadn't mentioned any special plans when he'd seen her earlier that night. Thinking about it, Donnie mentally shrugged and decided it wasn't really his business. Still, wouldn't hurt to touch base and see if she'd noticed any drones around.

Estimating her path, Donnie ran over to a nearby ledge, then, leaning down, gave a quiet signal in her direction, a signal that she'd take as a sign to find somewhere out of sight to talk to one of her mutant turtle friends. She was close to an alley, it'd be easy for her to turn into it and Donnie to hop down to talk...

She walked right past the alley, not even giving it a glance.

Donnie frowned slightly. He leaned over a bit more and signaled her again, a bit louder.

April kept right on walking like she hadn't even heard him.

Donnie, silently wondering why she wasn't reacting, saw her turn and enter a building below him. “That's strange...” he muttered to himself. Perhaps she had heard him and just wanted to talk to him inside? The turtles tended to avoid indoors, New York City apartment walls tended to be uncomfortably thin. But, if April was confident enough to go inside after he'd signaled, maybe it was okay? A quick check over the other edges of the building turned up a fire escape, and after looking through some windows into hallways, he saw April coming out of a stairwell on the fourth floor. Easily defeating the window's simple lock, Donnie slipped silently inside, only to see April, her back to him, walking down the hall and around a corner.

Now fully confused as to April's intent, Donnie quietly walked forward, senses alert to any curious neighbors who might poke their heads out and see a giant mutant in their hallway. Coming to the corner, he poked his head around to see April rooting around in her shorts pocket and pulling out a key. Feeling a little like he was slipping into 'stalker boy' again, he decided to shake it off and just walk around the corner fully. “Hey, April,” he greeted, feeling his heart quicken slightly as her blue eyes turned his way...

...and widen in shock. “Uh...” She froze, hand halfway out of her pocket, key dangling forgotten. “Hey... Donatello.” Her eyes flickered over Donnie's shoulder, then she turned around to look down the hall in the other direction before turning his way again. “Um, fancy meeting you here?” Her perfect white teeth revealed themselves in a smile.

Normally, Donnie lived for April's smiles. So sweet and honest, making him feel like he was floating. He even did his best to try and get her to smile by giving her small gifts here and there. With, admittedly, mixed results, but he was honestly trying. And he was pretty sure he was getting better at it.

But this smile was different. It was much more like her 'Egads what is this thing Donnie just put in my hands' kind of smile. Donnie, his face turning confused, walked closer to April, asking, “What's wrong? And why the full name? Is something..?” Donnie stopped mid-sentence, as he realized he'd been slightly wrong. Her shirt wasn't yellow. In the gloom of the night, it had looked yellow, but under indoor lighting it clearly wasn't.

The shirt was orange. And there, in low-contrast white font between her breasts, was the number 4.

“Uh, new shirt?” Donnie asked, still feeling confused. Her behavior really didn't add up, even if she'd just decided to wear a new shirt today.

“Um... yeah.” April looked down at herself. “New... shirt.”

“Hey guys, we got pizza. Hope you're okay with pepperoni, mushrooms, and Oh Crap...”

“Wow, that doesn't sound so appetizing. Pretty sure we didn't order Oh Crap...”

Donnie quickly turned to the hallway behind him, as the voices came quickly to a halt.

Two identical faces looked back at him, with surprise in their eyes. Two April O'Neils. One in a red jersey with the number 1 on it, and the other in blue with 3 on it. In the red-shirted April's hands was a pizza box.

Donnie's mind flashed back to a moment not that long ago, as he and his brothers infiltrated a Kraang laboratory, and were pulled into an ambush by the one person they never expected to turn on them. And then, as they tried to rescue their trapped friend, were surrounded by dozens of identical Aprils all clamoring to be taken in as the 'real' April. Realization came crashing back to the present as he cried out, “Oh gosh, Kraang Clones!”

Donnie snapped into action, as his bo staff came out of it's holster on his back, turning to face the two clones behind him, staff at the ready. Movement out the corner of his eye caused him to turn his head as the single clone he'd been following came towards him, arms up. But she jerked back as he started to turn her way, and then Donnie was hit in the head with a pizza box before a clone grabbed his arm and locked the elbow. He let go with his free hand and tried to punch that clone, but another grabbed his fist. And then the third jumped on his back with her arm around his neck. Overburdened and off-balance, the entire group toppled over, still struggling mightily...

“What's going on...” Donnie barely registered the voice, but then it rose sharply and started shouting, “Whoa, hey, stop! Everyone, STOP!”

To Donnie's mild surprise, the fight completely froze. Even he stopped struggling. Four faces turned up from the floor to look at yet another clone who had just stepped out of the apartment that he'd been led to. This clone, again looking so identical to the April he knew, wore nearly identical clothes, save that her jersey was green with the number 2 on it. Holding her arms out in a calming gesture, she repeated, “Let's just stop, OK? Can we all just let go of each other and not be fighting for a minute?”

Donnie shared a glance out the corner of his eyes with the three clones that had grabbed onto him. “I guess. Sure. Yeah. Fine.” came the various overlapping responses, and they all simultaneously let go and slowly stood up. Donnie kept his staff in hand, however, shooting wary glances around him, ready for any sign that the fight was about to resume.

“Okay, good.” The green-shirted April lowered her arms as things seemed to settle. Glancing up and down the hallway, she looked at Donnie and asked, “Um, could we talk, Donatello? Just inside here, if we could.” She gestured to the apartment behind her. As Donnie raised a skeptical eyebrow at her, she added, “I promise there isn't any more of us inside, nor any kind of ambush. I'd just rather not do this out in the hallway where anyone could see us.”

Donnie silently agreed that that would be inconvenient for both sides. “Alright,” he said, guardedly. He waited until the green and orange shirted Aprils had quietly gone inside, noticing the red had come in behind him. The blue was still out in the hallway, trying to recover the pizza that had gotten a bit stepped on in all the chaos. It was probably still good, Donnie told himself. Heck, Mikey would eat it right off the floor if he was here.

“Um, would you like to sit?” Green April indicated a sofa against one wall of the apartment. Off Donnie's look, she amended, “Okay, I guess that's a bit silly.” She raised a hand to scratch her head briefly. “Well, I guess the next thing to say is... We're not April O'Neil.”

A beat passed. “No, really?” Donnie cranked the incredulity to sarcastic levels. “I never woulda guessed.”

An annoyed sigh drew Donnie's gaze over to the red shirt as she took a seat on a stool by the kitchen counter. “Yes, we're clones of April. Yes, the Kraang made us.”

“But we don't work with the Kraang.” Green shirt quickly added.

Donnie just looked at them for a while, trying to get any hint that this was some kind of trick. As he did, the orange-shirted April spoke up. “Well, I guess we should introduce ourselves. We know your name, Donatello, of course. I'm Four.” She indicated herself, then gestured to the blue, green, and red shirted clones in turn. “That's Three, Two, and One.”

“You go by numbers?” Donnie asked.

Four shrugged. “Well, for a while we thought of using names like May and June...”

Three interrupted, as she brought in the mangled pizza box and tossed it on the kitchen counter. “...But then I pointed out that two of us'd get stuck being July and August. Numbers seemed a better alternative.” She shrugged widely, then snagged one of the less-damaged slices of pizza to eat.

“Which is why you shouldn't have gone out with that orange shirt, Four,” Two added. She gestured to Four's shirt. “It looks too much like Five's. He probably mistook you for her.”

“Five?” Donnie asked pointedly.

“It's just what we call the original April O'Neil.” Two told him, as Four walked over to a closet and shucked her orange jersey in favor of a purple one, also with the number 4 on it. “She's always wearing that yellow shirt with '5' on it.”

An uncomfortable silence followed, as tense glances were shared all around.

Finally, it was broken by One. “Ugh, look, Donatello. We don't work for the Kraang. We don't like them any more than you do. We refused to do what they said right off the bat, and our reward for standing up for ourselves was being thrown into the 'Reject Bin'.”

“Trust me, you haven't suffered until you've spent a month with April Derp as your cellmate,” Three tossed out around a mouthful of pizza.

The memory of that horrifically twisted failed clone gave Donnie a brief shudder. Being stuck in the bin with her? Yeah, he could see how the clones might resent that. “Okay, say I believe you. Why are you here?”

Four took up the tale, saying, “We caught the very tail end of your fight with April Derp and the other clones. We were still trying to climb up out of the bin as you were making your escape with Five. Realizing you'd probably taken out most of the guards already, we made a break for it. Once we got free, we just wanted to have our own lives, and figured staying out of the whole war was a better idea than trying to explain ourselves to you. The Kraang programmed us with some knowledge of their operations. They don't operate around this neighborhood. No interest. And the Kraang's best guess was your territory wasn't near here either.”

The Turtles' lair was, in fact, on the other side of the city, near April's apartment. Donnie didn't say so, of course. But the Four's words did match up and explain his lack of success tonight. But when Two stepped forward to gently set a hand on his arm, looking into his eyes, she said, “Please, we don't want any trouble. The Kraang don't want us, and we didn't want to go stomping all over Five's life.”

Donnie couldn't withstand that blue-eyed gaze. His resistance melted away. “Alright, alright...” Putting his staff away, he finally relaxed. “If you really don't want to get involved, I can understand that.” He glanced around at the four of them, then continued, “I guess I better get going.”

As he turned to go, Three asked, casually, “Stay for a slice?” He glanced back over his shoulder towards her, and she waved the half-eaten slice of pizza in her hand. “Least we can do to apologize for the mixup.”

Donnie thought it over. The others had probably already gone through tonight's pizza supply without him. And it did look good, even damaged. “... Yeah, guess I could stay for a slice. Or two...”

“We'll order another,” Two smiled, pulling a cell phone out of her pocket...