This story was inspired by Hamster's awesome picture of Kraang!April which I have the honor of using here as a cover. Thank you so, so much for your awesome art, Hamster, and many thanks to BelatedBeliever1127 for doing the beta-reading on this chapter! And thanks to FaithfulWhispers as well for encouraging me to finally post this story. You guys are the best!

If someone had told me this a year ago, I would have laughed at him. Loudly. Incredulously. Thinking of it as a joke. Just a joke. A lie. A fairy tale meant to entertain me. Or scare me. Or maybe both.

But it is the truth, the terrible truth. Nothing to laugh about. Not now. Not ever.

I, April O'Neil, am not entirely human.

The first sixteen years of my life I had no clue about this. I grew up like a normal human child. I looked like a normal human child. I was eager to learn and loved to laugh like a human child.

Only, I wasn't.

There had been clues, yes, but nothing too obvious. I sometimes got a feeling about things, but that was it. It was only when the Kraang kidnapped me and I met the Turtles that evidence started emerging slowly.

It shocked me, sure, but I recovered pretty fast. Because, maybe, no, for sure I wasn't entirely human, but I still looked human. My friends, my teachers, my family, they still saw me as a human.

Even if I wasn't.

I, April O'Neil, am not entirely human.

But when Kraang Prime connected my brain to this weird machine, dragging out of my mind whatever it was they needed to mutate this world, this set something into motion. It stirred something inside my head, only a tingle at first at the back of my head, something that could easily be ignored when you felt totally exhausted and tired and dizzy because someone had tapped your brain.

And so I forgot about it.

But when the Kraang got a hold on me when we infiltrated TCRI and my mind did this weird blast-thing that knocked the Kraang off their feet, this something inside my head started stirring again, stronger this time, but again, I didn't really pay attention, because brain on fire, ready to pop, how I put it.

From then on, it wasn't only a tingle. No, something was rumbling in the back of my head, pulsating, growing, sometimes it felt like a very terrible headache.

I did my best to ignore it because it made no sense. Or I didn't want it to make sense. So I concentrated on other things, like helping Donnie with the retromutagen.

But it got bigger, louder, until one day, it stopped.

I tried to tell myself that it was over now. But I was just trying to sugarcoat whatever it was. The truth was that whatever had caused this rumbling was ready now, ready to break free. And I had known it all along.

It did break free, the night after my powers had kicked in again to save me and the guys from this creepy Kraang-clone of my mother.

The moment my mind had sent out this shockwave had also given this weird something the signal that it was time. I could feel the rumbling at the back of my head, the shivers it sent down my spine, the moving under my skin, but I could ignore it, my mind too occupied with the night's events.

But when I went to sleep the last barrier broke and I woke up the next morning completely changed.

I sigh as I look into the mirror, the long tentacles sticking out of the back of my head, waving slightly because I haven't totally figured out how to keep them under control, the smaller tentacles on the top of my head, shivering slightly, as if they waited for something they could connect to.

I squeeze my eyes shut with a flinch.

I, April O'Neil, am not entirely human.

And everyone can see.