April O'Neil (2012 TV series)

"April, it seems you have a rare gift: A Sensitivity I have trained my entire life to develop...''
 * -Splinter"

April O'Neil is an ally to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

History
April met the Turtles when she and her father (Kirby O'Neil) were attacked by the Kraang. She was afraid of the mutants at first, but started to trust them thanks to Donatello. The group was unable to fight effectively as a team, which resulted with the Kraang succeeding in kidnapping April and her father. While she was trapped in their hideout, April tried to trick the Kraang into letting her escape, but her plan failed. Later the Turtles came to her rescue. Eventually, they succeeded in saving April, but the Kraang got away with her father. Later, the Turtles met April at her aunt's apartment, where she would now be staying. April was safe, but upset over the loss of her father and determined to find him. The Turtles promised to help her get him back.

Since then April has become good friends with the Turtles and cooperated with them on various missions.

In, she shows Michelangelo how to use the Internet to make friends online.

In,, April reveals that she's set up an online message board "to collect unusual sightings around New York... People send in pics, videos...", amongst which she also gets stuff that might be able to help in her endeavor to find and save her father from the Kraang: She also played a very active role by infiltrating a Kraang hideout and learning their plans to put mutagen in the city's water supply. She was also able to defeat one of their guards on her own, and escape to inform the Turtles of the enemy plans.

As of, April has begun training with Splinter in the ways of the ninja. While she is not on the level of the Turtles in terms of fighting skills, she has shown improvement in matters of stealth and spying.

In, she refuses to let the turtles give up, and volunteers to spy on Shredder to find out his plan. At first, everyone rejects, but seeing they have no other way, they allow her to do it. She finds out Shredder's plan: To destroy the sewers with chlorosulfonic acid. After getting out of the building, April says she's going to hitch a ride and see where they go, but Leonardo objects. Because of Dogpound's acute hearing, he hears them over the phone and captures April. Later on, after Raph and Donnie stop Fong and the Foot Clan, she kicks the door of the van open, knocking him out.

In, April's phone is stolen by some Purple dragons as part of The Foot's scheme to locate Splinter. Her phone is later replaced with a "T-Phone".

In, April has found out that the Kraang are really after her, not her father. The reason for this is still unknown.

In, April asks Splinter to find her a weapon. After trying out several different weapons ending in horrible failures, Splinter settles on giving her a tessen that he had hoped to give to his long lost daughter. It looks like an ordinary fan, but it is in fact made of metal and has a razor-sharp edge.

In, she becomes a target for the Foot Clan. Karai, dressed in casual clothing, comes up to her, and quickly befriends her. However, April realizes who she is, and tries to run, aided by Mr. Murakami. However, while being good at running away, she is cornered, and pulls out her tessen. Karai compliments the weapon, yet quickly disarms April and utterly overpowers her. April keeps getting back up and fights back, but Karai toys with her and severely injures her. Karai questions what makes her so special, trapping her in an arm lock, and April angrily proclaims what has changed, including the death of her mother. This touches a nerve in Karai, lowering her guard and allowing April to send her tumbling down a subway staircase, and allowing her to escape. Despite her escape, Splinter states she should stay in the sewer temporarily. With the Foot now after her, along with the Kraang and likely thanks to her very narrow escape, she is unsafe out in the open. She reluctantly accepts, wanting the enemies of the turtles defeated so she can return to her normal life.

In, she hear something down in the sewer tunnel while training with Splinter. She pursue the sound discovers that it was a communicate device that The Kraang use to communicate and brought it back to the lair. Splinter is interested in how April could hear something that he couldn't. April says that it could be the reason that The Kraang need her.

In, she helps Donnie decode the alien communication orb and find out what the Kraang are planning. When the turtles leave the lair to go and stop the Kraang as well as save the world, April asks Splinter why he isn't going with them, to which he responses by saying that it is his job as a teacher to prepare them for the challenges that they face. She then counters that with the fate of the world and survival of the human race in the balance, he should help. He then angrily resorts that he doesn't have to explain himself to a child and storms out which upsets April a little. She is then approached by her father [Kirby O'Neil] in the lair, who asks where everybody is. April then explains that the turtles are on their way to the TCRI building. Kirby then informs her that the Kraang know the Turtles are coming and their plan for they have cracked the T-Phone's Encryption. He then convinces her that they must go find and warn the Turtles in person. As they leave, Splinter warns her that is very dangerous for her to be on the surface, to which she coldly replies by saying that unlike him, she can't just sit around and do nothing. As April and father walk through the sewers, she realizes that it isn't the way to the TCRI building. Suddenly, two foot clan ninjas appear and grab April. When she is secured, Karai appears referring to her as princess and if she remembered her to which April replies by saying that she did and she forget to give her something before she knees Karai in the stomach. Karai then compliments her father by saying ''you've done well. ''Karai then orders a brainwashed Kirby O'Neil to take a message to Splinter. April then finds out that he's been brainwashed. he then goes back to the lair with two mousers, ignoring April's cries for help. splinter leaves the lair and goes to rescue April himself. He makes his way to the headquarters of the foot clan and decimates a large squad of ninjas and enters the throne room. He then fights and defeats the mutants [Dogpound and Fishface] and rushes to April to free her only to discover that she's another mouser hologram. The Shredder then reveals that he used April as bait to lure splinter out and now that he has, he had no use of April, so he handed her over to the Kraang, who need her for their plans.

In, April awakens and finds herself aboard the massive Kraang warship known as the Technodrome. She then sees the gigantic form of Kraang prime who's starring down at her. It then explains that her mental energy is uniquely attuned to this universe and once Kraang prime gains this ability, it will use it to transform the earth into a world for Kraang [wiping out mankind and all other life on the planet in the process]. A swarm of electodes then converge on April and all goes black [April is heard screaming in the process]. The Turtles then come to April's rescue by sneaking aboard one of the capture pods that the Kraang are using to abduct people and animals and are brought to the technodrome. They hear her scream, but before they can get to her, they are set upon by dozens of Kraang. Within Kraang prime's chamber, April has been fitted with a terrifying-like helmet device that is siphoning her mental energies and transferring them to Kraang Prime. As Kraang Prime starts to use the energies to start the planet-wide mutation of earth, the turtles busts in, having battled their way here. While Raph distracts Kraang prime by kicking it right between the eyes, Donnie frees April, shutting down the mutation machine with her saying you're my hero, causing Donnie to blush. They then move to escape, but Kraang Prime pulls itself from the wall and pursues them all in it's gigantic robot body. April and the turtles escape the ship with Kraang Prime close behind them all. Leo then stays behind and fights Kraang Prime himself so April and his brothers can escape in the last escape pod aboard the ship. The escape pod jettisons into the sea followed shortly by the Technodrome itself, which sinks to the bottom of the ocean. April and the turtles then mourn over the loss of their brother until it is revealed that he managed to escape at the last moment. As the five celebrate their victory, the other pods with the abducted people surface as well. Back at the lair, as the Turtles continue to celebrate, April walks to a quiet Splinter and apologizes for her words earlier. He then tells her that there is no need for she spoke from her heart. Leo then comes over and asks him if something's troubling him. Splinter then replies by saying that he has learned something from Shredder but the revealing of those things is for another time. The Turtles and April continue to celebrate their victory with a dance party. However, unknown to them all, at the bottom of the ocean where the Technodrome lays, it slowly begins to light up and reactivate, indicating that the Technodrome and Kraang will indeed return.

In, April was nearly saved by her father from a mutagen canister falling from the sky. Unfortunately, her father came in contact with the mutagen, and then comes in contact with bats, causing him to mutate into a humanoid bat. When the Turtles capture him, they tell April they will save her father, but Michelangelo opens his big mouth by saying it was all their fault. April becomes extremely angered, and says she does not want to see the Turtles again.

In, She becomes the target for Timothy. Donnie talks about her while working on a cure for him and her father, and being lonely makes him go after her to be her friend. She tutors Casey Jones in trigometry and when Timothy finds them, they fend for themselves. She is still angry with the turtles and tries to avoid them contently, but still cares about them seeing as she distracts Casey so he wouldn't spot the turtles.

In ,  Karai tries to hunt April down again. Her friendship with the turtles is rekindled after they save her from Karai.

Personality
April is a smart, strange, tomboyish, and shy sixteen year-old girl with an indie rock vibe. The fact that April feels more comfortable with four mutant reptiles than with her high-school peers should tell you a lot. She is also feisty, determined and resourceful. She is fiercely loyal to her mutant friends, as seen in Panic in the Sewers. When the turtles are ready to give up, April volunteers to find out Shredder's plot. She is also somewhat reckless, too. She cares about her family, or what's left of it, above all else. Any threat to her father is one that she takes very seriously, and when she finds out that the Turtles are accidentally responsible for his mutation, she becomes enraged and severs her ties with them. However when she is attacked by Karai again she calls Donnie for help and after he and the others save her, they reconcile.

Friends
While she is friends with all the Turtles, April seems to have the closest friendship with Donatello. He has a crush on her, but she seems to be either oblivious, or indifferent about it. However, in,, April was upset when Donnie said Karai was a better kunoichi than her. Yet, she seemed a little annoyed by Donnie's attempts to flirt with her. In, April had a picture of him covered in flowers and hearts. Also in this episode, when Donnie yelled out, "My sweet princess is alive!", it is possible that she did in fact, hear what he said. She responded, "Let's agree that did" after he asked if he muted that, so that is another clue that she knows his obvious crush on her; she pretended she didn't hear that so that he wouldn't be embarrassed. So, it is unclear if she has feelings for Donnie or not. She is a really close friend of Donatello, since he keeps risking his life to save her, and complimenting her. The other turtles do care about her, especially Mikey and Leo. When she was upset, Mikey tried to comfort her by offering her a tissue, which she declined. When Leo didn't know what to do about Karai, he went to April for advice. The only one she doesn't seem close to or have a relationship with is Raph, as they rarely have conversations. However, they do seem to have a similar mindset, both warning Leo about Karai. Raph also seems to look after April in a way like all the turtles do, such as when they all opposed her to spying on The Shredder. Her relationship with the turtles broke up in. In this episode, her father turned into a mutant bat because of the turtles, causing April to run away from them and break their relationship temporarily. Their friendship is rekindled in

April seems to be on good terms with Splinter, despite knowing little about him. They share the student-teacher relationship like he has with the turtles. When he realized that she has empathy, Splinter decided to teach her to be a kunoichi. She seems to respect and care for him, especially when she was forced to fight him. Since training under him, April has learned much about Splinter's past (including the loss of his wife and daughter), showing that he now trusts her greatly, and he even gave her the weapon that he intended to give to his daughter, which April accepted honorably, showing that their bond as teacher and student has deepened greatly. He has also called her my child. This suggests that he considers April as one of his own (an adoptive daughter) like the turtles.

While April's relationship with her father has not yet been explored very deeply, her determination to rescue him shows that she cares for him very much. Her only other known relative is her aunt, whom she used to live with, until Master Splinter asked her to stay and live in the sewer until Shredder and the Kraang are stopped and quit looking for her. April's mother, Mrs. O'Neil, is presumably deceased.

She also has a friend named Irma, based on her 1987 cartoon counterpart. Not much is said or known about her, but she will be introduced in season two of the series. She called her in the episode,.

Murakami seems to be a close friend and mentor to her. They're always protecting each other from danger such as April protecting Murakami from the Purple Dragons, and Murakami with April from Karai. It's likely that he was the one who taught April basic Japanese words and parts of the Japanese culture.

Human Friends
While she has known Casey Jones for a few weeks, she does seem to have a close relationship with him. Unlike Donnie who lets his feelings for her slip out, Casey is more forward with his interest in her. She knows more about his grades and extracurricular activities than she does with Donnie.

Enemies
Karai is the only other girl human April has come in contact with. Although it's established that they are enemies, it's shown that of all the characters they actually have a lot in common. They both lost their mothers (probably at different points in their lives), they speak Japanese, they are both associated and are love interests of the Turtles, both of their biological fathers have been mutated into animals [both of which are mammals-rat and bat], they are both kunoichis and they know martial arts.it is suggested that April dislikes Karai due to the things that the turtles have told April about her[ which means april much like the others sees her as nothing but trouble]. That and the fact that Karai used Leo's feelings to divert his attention.

The Kraang have been April's archenemy from the very beginning of the show. She didn't know why she and her father were kidnapped, and hated them because of it. However, she's now discovered that there's something about her that's different than other humans. It's unknown what the truth behind April and the Kraang is, but it's likely that the Kraang want to use April for their invasion on the Earth. it is revealed in the season finale by kraang prime that the kraang need April because of her mental energy which is uniquely attuned to the universe and they need it to synthesize the mutagen as well as use it to mutate earth [wiping out all of life in the process] so they can live there and evolve.

The Shredder has used April as bait to lure out his enemies so he can destroy them. When he finds out that she's very important to the kraang so he sends his adopted daughter Karai to find and capture her. Luckily April uses her skills to narrowly beat Karai and escapes. The Shredder then forms an alliance with the Kraang. they then come up with a plan to find both Splinter and April involving her dad [Kirby O'Neil] who has been brainwashed by the Kraang. the plan works and April is captured. Once Splinter receives the message from Kirby and two mousers, he sets out to rescue April himself. After fighting and defeating dozens of foot clan soldiers and shredder's two top mutated henchmen [fishface and dogpound], he tries to set April free only to discover that it is another mouser hologram. The Shredder himself then appears and Splinter asks what he did with April. The Shredder then reveals that he only needed April as bate to lure him out and now that he has, he had no more use of April so he handed her over to the Kraang who need her for their plans. It is suggested that April dislikes the shredder.

April dislikes the Foot-clan as much as she dislikes the Kraang and shredder.

Powers and Abilities
April seems to have an ability to sense emotions (similarly to Splinter), and she can seemingly "see" into their soul, such as when she recognized a mutant monkey to be the missing Dr. Tyler Rockwell. This could indicate that since she is a soulful person, she can detect someone who has true emotions, as opposed to one who mimics them or is a malign individual. This seemed to be evident when she looked into the monkey's eyes, likely judging if he is a good person, though the way that she did it is unknown. As of more recently, we've discovered that she can hear something that Splinter (who has great hearing) couldn't. It is likely that these two abilities of her's are innate, or they could possibly be something in her genetics...that she never knew she had. This greatly fascinates Splinter, who claims that he's never developed such an ability/ies.

April is, thus far, an amateurish ninja, but she seems to be relatively competent with her weapon (a tessen that was given to her by Splinter) in combat, but she still has yet to broaden her skill-range.

Appearance
April appears as a young-looking shy 16 year old. She has ginger hair that appears to be tied up on a small ponytail and curved bangs that go to the right. She also has a yellow headband. April wears an elbow-length black shirt with a yellow and white sport shirt with the number "5" over it, blue denim shorts, black leggings, brown bandages/bracelets around her wrists, white high socks with two blue stripes on them, with black low-heeled boots. Though you may not notice it, April has a clip on her right back pocket of her shorts. The clip is colored gold and has a little ball with a heart. There also appears to be keys that we are guessing to be house keys. April is very slim and has blue eyes with one eyelash, and freckels. Donnie finds all of these features "attractive", leading to his crush on her.In 'New Girl In Town, she is seen wearing pajamas, which consists of a yellow long sleeve button up shirt, and floral pants.

Quotes
“I don’t know! I’m flunking trig, my friends are mutants, aliens got my dad, and I LOST MY MOTHER.”- Karai's Vendetta

"You guys wanna speed it up a little?!"- Never Say Xever

"This is it, April. A new start. Just pretend you're a normal girl. Don't talk about alien robots, or mutant dad, and don't even THINK about turtles- WHOA!"- Mutagen Man Unleashed

"It was an accident, and more importantly you're my friends. I don't want to hold a grudge ever again." -Target: April O' Neil

Trivia

 * April's name comes from the Latin "aprīlis", meaning "of the month of the goddess, Venus". April's surname, O'Neil, is of Irish origin; derived from Irish Gaelic, it means "descendant of Niall". Her surname implies that April has family roots in Ireland, making her ethnicity/nationality Irish-American.
 * April is called "April-chan" by Mr. Murakami, who she likewise addresses as "Murakami-san".
 * In Japanese, April's name would be 四月 (しがつ, shigatsu), meaning "the 4th Moon"; (moon = month and April is the 4th month) or 卯月 (うづき, uzuki), meaning "Moon of the Rabbit". In Katakana, April's name is spelt: アプリル (Apuriru).
 * In this incarnation, April is 16 years old: The reason for this is that Nickelodeon thought it would be odd for an adult woman to be hanging out with teenagers (the Turtles). In this incarnation, she is an only child, whereas in other incarnations of April in the franchise shows her with an older sister, Robyn.
 * After the events of "Rise of the Turtles, Part 2", April is currently staying with her Aunt, (though it as yet to be specified whether she is the sister of April's father, Dr. Kirby O'Neil, or of April's mother). April's Aunt is herself currently living in the same building as an antique store called "Second Time About". This is likely a reference to some of April's previous incarnations working in an antique store with a similar name, "Second Time Around". After the events of "Karai's Vendetta", April has to stay in the Lair with Splinter and the Turtles until they can defeat both the Foot and the Kraang.
 * April currently attends Roosevelt High School, (named after one of the American Presidents, and the school mascot is the "Roosevelt Viking"). After the events of "Karai's Vendetta", April cannot go back to school until both the Foot and the Kraang are defeated. According to her picture on her student ID, shown in "Panic in the Sewers", April used to have glasses and braces.
 * As of the events of "Baxter's Gambit", April is now armed with a Tessen, (lit. a "Iron Fan", better known as a Japanese war fan), a weapon that Splinter had one day hoped to give to his daughter, Miwa, who April reminds him of. April will now be focusing her fighting style around the real-life Japanese martial art of Tessenjutsu. The Tessen has a sharp edge when spread open, and can also be used as a throwing weapon.
 * Before settling on the Tessen, the weapons April went through are a Chigiriki, (a staff with chain), a Mace, (a club), a pair of Kama, (small scythes), and a Manriki (a length of chain with weights on both ends).
 * In "Karai's Vendetta", she comes in contact with the toxic water from the Kraang's home dimension yet is unharmed, despite it dissolving a piece of innoccent pizza moments earlier. It is unknown why.
 * April stands about a head shorter than all four Turtles. In all other incarnations she is several inches taller (her height usu. given in toys and related media as between five-five and five-eight). In the Season 2 model sheet for Casey Jones, his height is listed at 5"8 compared to April at 5"1, making April a full head shorter than Casey.
 * April has the phone number of Irma Langinstein, also called Weirdo McGee. One of her few or many human friends.

Gallery
See: April O'Neil (2012 TV Series) / Gallery