Thank you for the reviews, it's fun to hear that you like it!
Chapter 2: From this point forward
"So…" I started, looked at the two turtles fighting in front of me with one on them by my side. They reminded me of my older brother and I, who don't live with me and mom anymore but on his own with occasional girlfriends from time to time. We used to fight a lot when he lived together with me and mom, we fought a lot like they do now, and still do whenever I see him. The only bad part about this story, according to me at least, would be that I am always the one being defeated. A game or not, that sucks I tell you.
".. are they like this all the time?"
"More or less, my brothers has been fighting more than they usually do lately."
"Sounds like a pain in the ass..."
"Yeah, tell me about it!"
I wasn't really sure what to do next, but standing here watching two turtles fight wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I got here. If I wanted a fight I would have gone and visit my stupid brother.
"I feel for you bro, I got one myself.. He won't get off my back even if I wanted to."
"Yeah.. But Raph is really funny to tease when he has been in a fight with Leo. But if you decide to mess with him then you'd better be prepared to run!"
And I started to see myself more and more in him, that's just as I am towards my brother. Me and my brother's relationship is based on pranks and teasing, which makes it all fun.
"Sounds like fun." And I couldn't help but giggle to the memories of my own brother. Suddenly I got such a urge to see him again.
"Just like me and my brother." I said with a smile on my lips, and then it suddenly disappeared.
"The only problem is that I always loose…"
"That's because you're doing it all wrong! You need to have a special technique."
He suddenly said which made me to meet his eyes.
"And you're doing it right, I assume by those words of yours?"
"Duuh, I'm the one inventing the special technique!"
"I'm just sayin' that I have trouble believing in you." And I couldn't help myself but to let at smirk appear on my lips. The two other brothers stopped fighting, which perhaps was about time and went separate ways.
"Now check this out." Mikey said and I just looked after him, walking towards Raph when I saw a couple of televisions in the corner of my eye. Instead of looking at Mikey making his way towards Raph I dropped my chin of what I say by the collection of televisions.
"No way!" I said out loud, making my way over there.
"You guys have xbox 360, wii and playstation 3?!"
I said out loud as I crouched down in front of the different consoles, being utterly amazed and looked over to Mikey who had changed direction from his brother back to me.
"We found them in the city dump, so Don fixed them up so they'd work again. It's harder to find any games to play, but I usually download a few.." He tried to look as innocent as he possibly could, but I couldn't blame him with the killing prices on every single game on the market!
"Hey, what abou-" But my heart jumped up in my throat when my phone began to ring for the second time today and saw that it was my mother calling.
"Mom, I have told you before that I am-"
But now it was her time to interrupt me.
"Alexis Mayer, if you're not home within 15 minutes I'll chain you down to your desk and you'll be grounded for weeks!"
She almost screamed in my ear with a very angry tone, making me holding the phone on a distance and I would still be able to hear her loud and clear. It made Mikey make a face as well, wondering if hell had broken loose or something. But I took her threat seriously.
"Take it easy mom, why are you so mad?"
"Why? You should have been home hours ago! Where are you? I couldn't get a hold of your phone since you wasn't reachable till now!"
You could clearly see the surprise her words left me, now I was desperately searching for an excuse, one that sounded real instead of saying 'yeah, I'm down in the sewers with four giant talking turtles with badass ninja weapons.', that would defiantly get me grounded for weeks.
"Oh I totally forgot about the time mom! I'll go pack my things right away and if I'm lucky I might catch the next bus."
And she started talking about how her trust in me was going to disappear if I can't keep the track of time, how young girls like me can be caught up in many bad things on the streets. As always, I stopped listening.
"Mom, I won't make it to the bus if you don't stop talking!"
And with those reasonable words of mine she hung up so that I could get my ass on that bus, as she expressed it before ending our call. I may be a woman but multitasking, the only thing women are known to be good at, I suck at. Soon I won't be able to call myself a woman anymore, but I won't ever be as manly as a man… so perhaps.. I'll be a cat,
"Sorry Mikey, gotta go!"
I took my backpack which I'd put on the couch before and hurried to the exit where I came from.
"Oh, I'll stop by tomorrow after school with a surprise!"
Before he got the chance to answer me I started running, making notes of every turn I took till I founded a ladder which led to a manhole. Now I would be able to find my way back tomorrow. Mom wasn't that happy with me when I got home, for the matter of fact she was pissed off. I only got to escape the argument because of the time and that I had to go up to school in the morning. Sometimes you just gotta love school.
Next day went by really slow, all I could think about was my new discovery in the sewers. I spaced out during the lessons, looking out of the window. I was scolded by every teacher to pay more attention or my grades would go down even further than they already have. Even then I couldn't stop thinking about it, even though the conversation about my grades did pound in some sense into me. During the last lesson of the day I was just lying over my desk, staring on the clock and saw almost every second of an hour pass by. Almost as interesting as watching the grass grow in the park.
"Now class this period ends, see you tomorrow."
As my teacher said those words I just grabbed my bag and rushed out of the classroom, down to my locker to grab my leather jacket and was ready to go. I put my headphones on and jumped on a bus that would take me to the manhole that I got up from yesterday. Let me tell you one thing, the caps over the manhole are freaking heavy! So I made my way to the alley, looked around twice to make sure no one saw me before bending it open and disappeared into the sewers. As I made my way to their home I started singing slightly to the music since there was a good way to go before I'll be there, but then I could suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder.
I screamed really loud, like the little girl I am.
As I turned around I saw to my relief Don standing in front of me. I was breathing heavier than normal and held a hand over the left side of my chest.
"Oh my god Don! Don't scare me like that!" And removed my headphones and placed them around my neck.
"Sorry Alexis, I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's okay." I said taking a deep calming breath, still feeling my heart beat fast and hard. "What are you doing out here anyway?"
"I'm reinstalling and improving the surveillance sensors around the lair, in case of anymore… surprise visits."
I could feel that his words were aimed at me and only me, based on my visit yesterday.
"That sounds very high-tech. You're god at stuff like this?" I said with an impressed tone to my voice.
"Well, I know a lot." And he paused for a second. "I mean, I know a lot but there is so much to discover, create, develop and learn!"
"I see." I said with a smile, clearly hearing that this was his passion in life judging on the way he spoke about it. Now that he was here, it reminded me of something.
"Hey Don." And picked up my phone where I had my notes.
"If I am right your home should be if I turn right, right, left, right, forward, left, left, right, left, or am I wrong?" He had to think if I was correct or not, mostly because it was hard to follow with so many rights and lefts within one sentence.
"That should be correct, if you just hold on a few minutes I'll give you a ride in our hover-shell back to the lair. These are the last ones to install."
I raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Hover-shell?"
"Yes, it is a vehicle that floats by means of compressed air from a couple of small but powerful compressors that's unfortunately runs on a car battery. After some adjustments it should be driven on self-generated electricity, the question is just to find parts to.." He trailed off as he must have noticed the look on my face that practically said that I didn't follow a thing that he was saying. So he cleared his throat and looked at me once again to rephrase.
"It's basically a hovercraft that I've rebuild with some modifications to fit in the environment down here."
"Aaaah! I get it, but why the name?"
"Oh, that's Mikey's job for most of the time, or he just comes up to me and names anything 'cool' that I build and uses it whenever it's done. But I like to name my inventions."
"Hmm.. that makes sense I guess."
We continued talking and I helped him as much as I could and before I knew it we were on our way back to the lair. When finally there the others three were training.
"Back already?" Leo asked as he defended himself using his katanas from Raph and his sais.
"Yeah, I met Alexis on the way here and she helped me put the last sensors up."
"Hey Alexis!" Mikey shouted and didn't pay attention to either Raph or Leo, which he paid a price for. Leo hit his hotheaded brother, making him stumble backward and by accident collided with Mikey. Both of them ended up on the floor, Raph complaining about Mikey not moving out of the way.
"Don't take your eyes off your opponent Mikey." Leo warned him.
"Aren't you supposed to train as well?" I asked Don and looked up at him.
"Well, I should implement the different transmitters from the sensors into my surveillance system and make sure it is up and running soon."
"… You made a system for that? All on your own?"
"Yes, it wasn't that hard but it took me some time."
"Remind me of never trying to shine in anything that has to do with technology."
That just made him laugh, but I was serious! He's so smart that there is no point in me trying to brag about my technical skills when he's around. So he excused himself and walked over to his room, at least I assumed that it was his room, to implement those transmitters, what that now means. So I looked over at the three brothers that still trained, Raph getting angry on Mikey for provoking him, Mikey who avoided his punches with ease and laughed at his brother, just making things worse.
"Hey Mikey!" I called as I opened my backpack and got his attention, but he was tackled down by Raph and landed flat on his shell on the ground.
"Look what I got!" And I held up Halo 4 so that he could see it clearly. Let me just tell you that his face was priceless.
"Gentlemen, now there has come down to a very important matter that I got to attend to." He said with a silly but very sophisticated made up voice which made my face crank up in a smile.
"What are you waiting for?!" He asked me and grabbed my wrist, dragged me over to the couch and made me sit down.
"I've been dying to play this game!" He said with excitement in his voice and jumped down beside me with the controller in a firm grip.
"Let's start with co-op and go through the storyline, then we'll play one-on-one!" I suggested which he followed. We started playing and we both drooled rainbows over the graphics and level design, the new weapons and badass enemies. Even though I have played this game several times before it still amazes me!
"Respawn you stupid piece of…" I said about an hour into the game, enemies everywhere and Mikey was frantically pressing the buttons beside me to fight off some of them to make me come back to the game again.
"Mikey! You're losing!"
"No way!" He said determine and was like glued to the screen, completely focused on the game.
"If Mikey were this concentrated when training he wouldn't get his shell kicked all the time."
Judging on the accent on the voice, the heavy Brooklyn accent, I knew that it was Raph standing behind us, leaning against the back of the couch.
"But you concentrate on your training?"
"Yeah, so I can kick some punks ass up topside without breakin' a sweat."
"But how come then that Mikey beats you from time to time?"
He didn't say anything, but I could hear him growl behind gritted teeth.
"Easy Raph." Leo said with a calm voice and I could hear Raph relaxing for a bit.
"So this is what you skipped training to do?" Leo asked Mikey the moment when he died.
"Mikey! Now we have to do the whole thing over again!" I complained to him.
"I'm sorry! There were just too many enemies everywhere!"
We were now forced to start over from last checkpoint, which was a way back in the game. But then I came up with an idea and turned back to face Leo and Raph.
"You two wanna join? We can play against each other instead, it isn't that hard to play!"
Leo looked like he was seriously considering playing with us, Raph on the other hand places his arms over his chest and snorted to my suggestion.
"Who'd want to play a boring game like that?"
"Oooh, sounds to me like someone is afraid to lose." I said with a smirk and sounded perhaps to teasing for my own good right now, but Mikey wasn't late to support my words.
"Raphie-boy is afraid to lose to a girl." Mikey teased in his usual matter. "And I know you will bro, so don't even try."
That was when we had pushed his limit over the safe-zone.
"Oh you two just wait!" He said reaching for our necks. I seemed to have an reflex I didn't know of but both Mikey and I threw ourselves forward to avoid Raph's hands and threw the controllers in the sofa as we made our escape from him. As I expected he was chasing after us, making us both laugh. Mikey might be laughing because he was used to Raph chasing him, but I felt some kind of panic inside which made me run faster. I could keep up with Mikey but Raphael wasn't slow either.
"Everyone for themselves!" Mikey shouted and directly caught my attention.
"Traitor!" I shouted back and put a leg in front of his, he fell immediately. What I didn't expect was the he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back so that I fell too, the second later Raph was over us and was reminding both of us by the method of pain that we were still alive, definitely. But by the end of it I was still laughing, perhaps because I did all I could in my attempt to defeat Raphael. I should have known better. But he might as well feel a little bit better after getting back at me and Mikey, who surely will have to work on our teamwork. So we laid on the floor in the lair, Raph has already returned to his sandbag to burn some energy. I on the other hand didn't want to move.
"Tell me." I said after a few minutes of silence from both parts.
"Are Raph always this tough on you?"
"Tough?" He asked surprised. "This is not even close, I think he held back on you at least."
I don't wanna be that person to be able to say that I know how strong he could be by own experience, I think he might break a rib or two if he do demonstrate his power.
"Well, that's good to hear…"
And it was very clear in my voice that I was being ironic, this wasn't good at all but at the same time I couldn't help it but smiling. I had it coming.
"We need a better plan next time Mikey."
"Leave that to me."
I turned my head and looked at him, it was impossible to not notice the wide smirk on his face. So I raised my hand to grab his, he did the same and held it in a steady grip.
"Then it's a promise!"
I could feel that from this point forward that we'd be great friends.