Before (Part 1)

Chapter One

Ten years later....

She sat on her bed, typing on her laptop. The teen was working on a story and she knew it was going to be one of her favroites. Her newest novel was like 'Beauty and the Beast', where the main character falls in love with a boy who thinks that he's a monster. Rejected by the world, she was the only one who truly cared about him, who understood him. The main character fought to be with him, knowing that he may never love her the same way.

Madeline lived with her mother and her pet German Shepard in their penthouse apartment on the thirtieth floor of the Diamond Hotel in New York City. She and her family were quite wealthy, considering the fact that Madi's father, Oroku Saki, had been a huge success before he had died an untimely death ten years earlier in a horrible car accident.

Samantha, Madi's German Shepard, jumped up onto her bed, walking in a circle several times, then finally laying down by Madi's side. The blonde teen gently scratched behind Sam's ears, causing the dog to smile at her owner. Madi smiled back, then continued to type on her laptop in silence. Moments later, the sound of Sam's snores filled the room, the dog's chest slowly rising up and down with each deep breath she took.

Suddenly, the sound of metal hitting metal was heard outside Madi's window. Sam's ears perked up and her head quickly lifted off of the bed-spread. The shepard lept off of the mattress, her paws hitting the carpetted floor as she ran to the window. Loud barks echoed off of the glass, nearly shattering it as Samantha tried to scare away whatever had been outside Madi's window.

"What is it, girl?" Madi asked as she set her laptop down bedside her, then standing up. She quickly walked over to investigate, wondering what had climbed up the fire-escape outside. Grabbing her pistol from her nightstand, Madi slowly slid the window open, stepping in her pajamas outside onto the big metal fire-escape. Sam yipped, whining as she looked at Madi with her big brown eyes, knowing that she wouldn't be joining her master on this adventure.

"Relax, I'll be safe." Madi said, gesturing to her pistol. Sam sniffed it, then let out a loud howl in agreement. Smiling, the teen scratched behind the dog's ears once more, then climbed up the fire-escape. The metal was cold in the dark of night as she wrapped her free hand around the hand-rail, slowly making her way up to the roof. Pulling herself up and over the short brick wall that bordered the roof, she looked around. Seeing nothing but the flat paved surface of the rooftop, she took a deep breath. Maybe she had just been imagining things.

Turning around, she heard the whoosh sound of someone running past her. She gasped and held the pistol out in front of her as she turned around, facing the dark and empty roof-top once again. But this time, the roof-top wasn't empty. Four large shadows stood in a row, four different weapons in their hands. One weilded a katana, another held twin sais, the next had nunchucks hanging from his grip, and the last carried a bo staff. Madi's eyes widened and she tried to remain calm. The shadow holding the nunchucks stepped forward, his blue eyes shining just as brightly as his weapon.

"Hey, relax, dude. We're not here to hurt you. You can put the gun down." the shadow said. Madi didn't budge.

"Who are you? Were you the thing that spooked my dog?" the teenager asked quickly.

"Sorry if we scared you, we were just passing through." the man with the katana said and took a step towards her. Madi immediately aimed her gun at him. The katana-weilder stopped in his tracks, seeing the weapon in her hands, realizing that it was more powerful and deadly than his own. "Look, we aren't going to hurt you. Just put the-"

"Please, don't take another step. I'd rather not shoot you, but seeing your Japanese weapons is making me uneasy. Who are you? Are you working for the Shredder? Is that why you're here? To finish me off, just like he killed my father and sister?" she asked them. The dark shadow who held the twin sais was the next to speak up.

"Woah, woah, woah, hold the phone. What does Shredder want with you?" the man asked. Madi just shrugged and took a step back, her hands shaking. Her finger inched towards the trigger as the shadow walked towards her, only a few feet away. With a swift kick, the un-seen stranger knocked her pistol from her hands, sending it sliding across the roof-top. He held the point of his sai against her neck, holding her right arm back against the brick wall. "Listen, girl, you tell us right now what's going on or-"

"Thank you, Raphael. I can take this from here." the one with the katana said, pulling the angry one off of Madi. Her knees began to shake in fear, realizing that these four meant buisness. She pressed her back against the wall, regretting coming up onto the roof without Sam after all. If her dog had been with you, she knew that she would've been more confident in the situation.

The one with the katana, who was obviously the leader, put his weapon away, so now all he was was a large dark silhouette in the black of night. His big blue eyes stared at Madi, and from the way he looked at her, she could tell he was concerned. She felt him gently place his hand on her shoulder and at that very second, she wanted to scream.

This man had only three large fingers.

"Are you alright?" the man asked. Relying on her training from when she was younger, she grabbed his arm and spun him around, kicking him in the back. But what she figured her bare-foot would feel would be the cloth of his shirt or the leather of a jacket, was not any of those things. There was no article of clothing on this man. What her foot felt instead was a hard shell.

A turtle shell.

Letting out a loud scream of fear, she jumped over the thick brick wall and landed with a loud THUD against the fire-escape. Her bare-feet tingled with pain from making contact with the metal after falling over six feet. But she didn't let that slow her down as she scurried down the metal stairs, trying to get to her apartment as fast as possible.

"Hurry! She's getting away!" she recognized that voice as the man with the sais. The sound of four more bodies climbing down the fire-escape could be heard, causing Madi's heart to pound with fear in her chest. These people were after her, just add them to the list of enemies who want her either dead or as a science experiment. Quickly climbing into her room, she slammed the window closed and locked it. Sam looked at her strangely, wondering what had happened.

"I'll tell you later, Sam." Madi whispered to her dog. She quickly ran over to her desk where he phone was charging. She un-plugged it, dialed the phone number, then waited for someone to pick up. Her mother was still at work at the local hospital, she was a nurse that was busy at nights, which meant Madi was alone with four monsters after her. She heard the phone ringing on the other end of the line, wondering if they were going to pick up.

"I think this is it, guys." she heard a muffled voice say from outside on the fire-escape. Putting her hand over her mouth to hold back a scream, she grabbed Sam's collar, her cell-phone in the other hand, and pulled her out of the bedroom, shutting the door and locking it behind her. Madi pressed her back against the door, sliding down and sitting on the wooden floor beneath her. Her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest with fright. The sound of the lock on her window breaking and the glass pane slowly sliding open could barely be heard over the ringing in her ears.

"Hello?" Madi finally heard the tired voice from the other end of the cell-phone.

"April, call 9-1-1." she quickly told her best friend. She and April had been friends for years, ever since Madi had moved to New York ten years earlier after her father's and sister's deaths in Japan. Sam quietly sat down beside her master, resting her head on Madi's knee.

"Why? What's wrong? What's happening?" April quickly asked, suddenly not so tired anymore.

"There are four monsters in my bedroom as we speak. They all have japanese weapons and one of them even tried to kill me!" Madi whispered in a quick few sentences. "Please, call for help. I'm really scared. My mom's still at work and won't be home for another few hours. I'm only here with Sam right now."

"Just hang tight, I'll be right over." April told her, then hung up the phone. Madi gasped in shock, surprised that her best friend would hang up on her in such a huge time of need. She tossed her phone to the side in anger, but then immediately regretted her actions as the phone clattered loudly against the wooden floor. Then everything was silent.

The four knew where she was.

They were coming for her.