Disclaimer: TMNT does not belong to me
Thug was so interested in Splinter's story - his master, his transformation, the accident with TCRI, the gang wars, the involvement in the Triceraton invasion, other dimensions, the trip to the future... It was just so surreal, all of these adventures were the kind of things that would happen to superheroes or metahuman teenagers in cartoons or comic books. It sounded almost like the kind of things that would happen to Thugs favorite book series hero, Alex Rider. Seriously, the Shredder. the scariest figure in all of the criminal underground who made Hun his bitch, is an alien squid thing?
"What was the future like? How did you get all of that stuff in the sewers? How did you educate Donatello? Does Michaelangelo realize how annoying he sounds? How does putting on a trench coat and a hat keep people from realizing they're turtles?" She wasn't giving Splinter time to answer but she didn't really care either, the questions just kept spewing out her mouth like word vomit.
Thug wasn't really good with people, let alone sentient rats, but even she could tell Splinter was trying hard to stay patient.
"Child slow down!" Splinter chastised. Thug pouted and stopped; they were at the harbors, she allowed the cloaked rat to drop from her back and they stared into the murky water of the Manhattan river. Thug sat down, but Splinter kept standing, after being on her back for so long he wanted to stretch his legs a bit.
"I don't like the water." Thug said; Shortstuff jumped onto the girls lap and rubbed her head against her chest, wanting affection "I can't swim." She admitted, scratching behind Shortstuff's ears.
"At your age?" Splinter responded "Why not?"
"My mom was... Very superstitious." Thug cryptically, the Ninjitsu master decided to leave that alone.
"I've told you my story, why not tell me yours?" Splinter asked, he then sat down next to her.
"If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future - Winston Churchill." Thug answered stubbornly "You really want to know though? I guess if I'm going to open up to somebody, it might as well be rat-Yoda(1). I was born to to a Greek-Canadian man and a woman from Samoa." Splinter looked at the girl; he couldn't seen her hair all wrapped up in the bandanna, but she had black eyebrows, light tan skin and gray eyes, a mix of sharp and soft facial features, tiny ears.
"I supposed the story goes as; my dad went to a bar in Somoa and met my mother... Fell in love and all of that jazz, they moved to America to eek out a decent living in New Jersey of all places. My dad was an accountant, my mom a homemaker. They had four kids, I was the second-to-last. Then two years ago..." Her voice faltered.
"Your parents died." Splinter finished, Thug just nodded, face solemn.
"They were out on a date, and their car was hit by a truck, fell off a bridge," Thug explained, and suddenly the disdain for cars that the Caldwells mentioned made sense "I wanted to find something to blame, someone to hate... But even at age fourteen I knew that I couldn't blame the truck driver, the guy was seriously sleep deprived and fell asleep, just for a microsecond... Anyways, the state tried to claim us, my siblings were all three adopted, but not me, they didn't want me."
There was bitterness dripping from her voice "And you know how things would have gone from there - puberty came with resentment for authority, I ran away from the orphanage and joined the Purple Dragons. I had somewhat of a home, a purpose, a way to vent out my anger." Thug paused and began to pick at her nails, but continued "Then one day, about a year ago, it became clear to me; I couldn't live that way forever, my dad wouldn't have wanted it that way."
"What event caused this revelation?"
"I almost died." Thug said "A fever - swine flu I believe, Dragonface though I would die so he left me in a warehouse to die alone. I was lying there on the concrete floor, nauseous but not able to retch up even bile, I hot hot inside and cold outside, thirsty and delusional as hell. The world was spinning, but then a man came up to me, and he was the only thing crystal clear."
"A man?" The ghost of her father, perhaps?
"Do not dispute with me when I say that I wholeheartedly believe that it was the Holy Spirit I was looking at - not an angel but Jesus himself, I wasn't very religious but I knew who it was the second I saw him. He told me something, he told me something, the message was so remarkably simple that it's almost stupid how I didn't think of it before."
"What did he tell you?" Splinter asked, though he was a bit sceptical, he himself was not one of Christian faith.
"It's going to be okay. That's it. He put his hand onto my burning forehead and I fell asleep, when I woke up I was completely better - fever and chills were gone, my mind was clear, I didn't even feel groggy. I knew what I saw and heard was real. I left the Purple Dragons, found a place, went back to school... And here we are."
They sat in silent for a while, Splinter contemplating her story - could what she have seen and heard really been real? Or was it the fever fogging her perception of reality? He believed in higher powers at work in creating the universe and directing it's energy flow, but he didn't believe in the God worshipped by the Catholics and Protestants.
"We should go, it's getting late and we need and a place to crash." Thug said and abruptly stood up, Splinter got up as well and climbed onto her back, knowing he couldn't argue at this point.
"What place is this?" Splinter asked.
"Let's just say I have friends." Thug answered with a shrug and started off, running again.
(1) Splinter was based both on Daredevils mentor, Stick, and more prominently, Yoda.
I feel like this chapter is disorganized but oh well.
