First off, to all of you who submitted Tributes, you have earned yourself a big virtual hug! I would like you all to keep in mind that there are forty-eight of these Tributes and while I will try my hardest and may even give my character an eidetic memory (think Sheldon Cooper) to remember all of the names and traits, but the main character, the one from who the fanfic's POV is, can't remember everything about your Tributes and may not encounter them constantly.
Second, I would like to announce this for future reference and particularly for Mywinx14: the Hunger Games fanfic is NOT a crossover. It is a Quarter Quell, one of the special quarterly Hunger Games like in Catching Fire, but it does not involve any other fandoms.
And third, just as a response to the Guest who first requested that Fay have a pet, expect to see Delilah as soon as I find a good place to incorporate her. I would include Leatherhead, but if you remember, he left for Dimension X with that magma man. And while having Slash appear at the end would be cool, I have bigger plans for him. ;)
Without further ado or delays (I know, I'm sorry), Chapter 7!
Baxter gawked uncomprehendingly at Fay and asked stupidly, "What?"
Fay stared down the man, or more, the pixilated incarnation of the man, and repeated, "I. Am. A. Pacifist."
Stockman looked with unblinking eyes into nothingness for longer than a fully functioning mind would permit. Randomly he blinked, laughed loudly, and decreed, "Oh, nice one, sweetheart. You nearly had me there."
The brunette's eyebrow ridges rose slightly. She couldn't decide if his brushing off of the confession was disbelief, denial, or merely the fact that he thought she was pulling his leg. "I'm not kidding, Dad." Fay stated, nervously awaiting the answer she knew she would get, "I'm pacifistic. Didn't you notice how squeamish I got when you showed us that huge weapon arsenal, or when you guys were talking about plans to capture the other turtles?"
Baxter's eyes slowly changed from the disbelieving glaze of denial to the piercing glare of anger. "You're lying. You don't even know what the word 'pacifist' means, do you? This is just some plot of yours, isn't it? You're trying to throw me off! I always knew you were the one to be careful of. Not Leonara, not Mikelanjela, not…" Fay sank to the ground and let his words carry her to a sea of despair. THIS was why she hadn't told him, why she hadn't told anyone. "You're a disgrace, a disgust, a failure!" Baxter exclaimed. With that, he growled and hit the screen, sending sparks shuddering across its surface and breaking his face into pixilated bits before finally shutting off.
"I'm a failure." Fay murmured softly. With that, she began to cry softly, huddling up in a ball on the ground.
"Fay…" Elle whimpered. Lea shot her daggers, but it was too late. Fay glanced up, her eyes turning red and glistening wet, and spotted the seven sneaky turtles balanced on the white steps.
"What?!" Fay cried, her scratchy sob-ridden throat overriding any sound of anger in her voice, "You were listening?! Great, just great! Just dang GREAT!" She glared at the group with tears still running down her face. "What are you waiting for?!" she shouted, "GO!"
Her last words sent the girls scrambling over the guys in an attempt to get to the bottom faster. Shouts and screams and thwacks from slaps drifted up from the bottom. At this, Fay buried her head between her knees and cried even harder.
She heard fighting beneath her. Canine whimpers and yelps and growls from Dogpound, random bursts of Brazilian-accented trash talk from Fishface, shouts of Japanese and seemingly gibberish words from the male turtles, and shrieks and (in Leonara's case) swearing from the females, each noise making Fay weep harder until she was practically coughing her tears. She somehow managed to pull herself onto an island in the sea of despair when warm blood somehow soared from the ground to her leg, splattering her like desperate water.
Fay uncurled and slowly inched to the precipice, peering over the side. What she saw made her nearly lose her lunch on the mutants below. Fists and blades and other weapons flew everywhere at such speeds that they left holographic trails. Blurbs of green and tan and maroon danced around, spitting red. The laser-axe devices still swung mercilessly, and it appeared the spinning silver blade-balls were having a harder time distinguishing the girls from the guys. They occasionally ran for one of her sisters or avoided one of the guys. It seemed Mika was the only one without a bleeding cut.
Fay gulped and skittered back on her hands and knees, dipping back into the sea. "I have to get out of here." She thought desperately, "I have to get them and me out of here." She fumbled with the makeshift waistband that held her runcible spoons and pulled out the weapons. She held back a burst of tears at the thought of weapons in her hand amidst a battle and began sinking the Spork-like tines into the wall, attempting to pry off chunks of the black-and-white walls.
"What'cha doing?" a voice asked curiously behind her.
Fay whipped around and pointed the spoon not embedded in a wall in the voice's direction. Mikey merely blinked and twirled the nunchuk in his hand slightly threateningly, as if he had been through this all before. Fay, utterly mortified, dropped her weapon and slid it toward the edge, only to be saved by Mikey's foot.
"You should keep this." He declared, kicking it back towards her, "You might need it if anyone else comes up here." He walked over to her and plopped down next to her, as if he hadn't just intruded on her privacy moments ago. "So, what'cha doing?" he repeated.
She ignored him and asked in a choked voice, "Why?"
"You seemed sad." Mikey answered effortlessly, "I don't like it when people are sad. Sad people deserve hugs." With that, he gave Fay a squeeze and a warm smile.
Fay stared at the turtle that was kind enough to give his enemy a hug and whispered in her scratchy cried-out voice, "Thank…you." She glanced down at his ankle, which had been dripping warm liquid on her. A long bloody gash circled his ankle like a gory red bracelet bound to scar. "You're hurt." She stated.
"No biggie." Mikey answered, "Donnie will fix it up when we get back. Hate to break it to ya, but we WILL be getting back."
"Oh yeah, I know, I hope you do." Fay answered, "But you're still hurt." Before he could protest again, she undid her hair and tied the band around his cut tightly, knotting it in preference to a bow. "There you go." She chirped somewhat-happily, "Don't worry about bloodstains; it IS red."
Mikey stared at the ankle bracelet for a while, then at her. "Why?" he repeated.
"Why what?" Fay thought, "Why did I help you? Why didn't I hurt you? Why did I try to throw my spoon over the edge? Why am I a pacifist?" She focused on the red band and answered aloud, "I…I don't know." Her face burned as another wave of tears came on.
"Hey, no! Don't cry!" Mikey exclaimed, covering her eyes in a poor attempt to stop the onslaught of salty water, "Crying is not allowed! Stop it! If you don't stop crying I will slap you with one of your cool-looking spoony things!"
Fay glanced up, green eyes brimming. "Cool-looking?" she choked.
"Well, yeah." Mikey replied, "They're awesome! It's like you have killer ninja Sporks!"
Fay laughed hoarsely. "Killer ninja Sporks." She stated, "Not bad. So what are yours, the deathly samurai tongs?"
"I guess." He stated, giving a sideward glance to his nunchuks.
Fay chucked softly. "Hey, I meant to ask you." she said, "What does 'Booyakasha' mean?"
"That?" he replied, "I'm not entirely sure. It's just fun to yell."
"So is Metacomet, but we don't go around shouting about Indians, now do we?" Fay decreed.
Mikey laughed and asked, "Meta-what?" Just as Fay opened her mouth to explain, he interrupted and asked, "I meant to ask you, why are you sticking your ninja Sporks in the wall?"
"I have to get out of this place." Fay answered honestly, "You do too. I can't stand being in a place of so much…evil. I guess it's kind of ironic, considering a good portion of that evil comes from me."
Mikey looked at her with befuddled blue eyes. Unlike Mika's cold and calculating cotton candy eyes, Mikey's were sweeter than the treat they were colored after and brought a smile to Fay's face even amidst tears and sorrow. "I don't think you're evil." He said, "I think your dad's evil. I think Fishface is evil. I think your sister's evil. Oh my Gosh your sister is so evil!"
Fay laughed. How are you supposed to be enemies with someone who treats you so nice? Any doubts or thoughts of trickery had vanished with her earlier tears. But just as a mutant turtle's luck is wont to be like, a high-pitched wail echo pierced all the other noises emanating from below as well as the tranquility Fay and Mikey had created. "Elle!" Fay cried, standing up and bounding over Mikey in one fluid motion.
"I'm coming too!" He cried, tearing after her and trying his hardest not to limp.
Fay catapulted down the stairs, skipping as many steps as she could without falling on her face. She hit the ground running and froze when a butterfly knife shot past her, mere millimeters from sticking in the skin behind her shell's crack. Fishface clambered over and ripped the dagger out of her shell. "I still cannot work these with these stupid fish fingers!" he muttered in his exotic accent. He seemingly then noticed Fay standing there. "What are you looking at, turtle?" he sneered.
Fay revived and looked up at the fish. "Well?" he asked.
"I'm not sure." She answered, "Mahi Mahi maybe?" She dashed off before he could answer, knowing perfectly well that Mahi Mahi were green. She bobbed and weaved around lasers and mutants amidst their flurry of blood-spitting fighting. The metallic blade-balls were completely indifferent, not unlike the Bludgers of Harry Potter, zooming at the nearest moving object they could find. Fay hurdled over a small flat-topped black gun in the floor firing lasers and froze once more. Lying off to the side, moaning painfully, was Elle.
She was bloodied and bruised, her glimmering gold hair stuck to her skin with dry red-brown gunk. Crimson liquid cascaded into her eye from a long jagged scratch on her forehead, and she kept voicing her pain in loud groans and whimpers. "Elle!" Fay shrieked, skidding to her knees, "What happened?!"
"Dog man…knuckles spikes…oww…" Elle mumbled softly, her hand groping for the small metal staff a distance away.
Fay's still-damp eyes burned with enraged tears. She knew of battle injuries, but this? This was too far, even if you weren't a pacifist. She crawled over and reached for the stave. "Oh, no you don't." A deep voice declared, snatching up the staff.
Fay glanced up to see Raph glaring down at her. He waved the staff at her as he said, "If you think for one second I'm gonna let you have this, pacifist or not, you're stupider than Mikey."
"HEY!" Mikey shouted.
Fay's eyes twinkled as she replied, "Huh. I didn't think I asked your permission, Raphie." In the moment it took him to understand her remark and be angered by it, she slammed a fist down on his wrist and snatched the stave out of his fingers when they crumpled open.
"Sorry!" she exclaimed as she darted back over to her injured sister. Fay pressed the staff into her sister's hand and started unwrapping the tan straps around her wrists, knotting them together as tightly as you could with three fat blood-coated fingers.
"Fay…" Elle whimpered, "Doggies aren't nice."
"No they aren't, Elle." Fay agreed. She held up the four-wrap chain for inspections and circled it around Elle's head gently. She began salvaging the bloodless straps off Elle's feet to add to the rope. She created a long enough chain to span Elle's head and tied the strap. Fay positioned a knotless swath of cloth over the cut and it immediately blossomed red.
"I don't like fighting doggies. It hurts when you fight doggies." Elle rambled, "I can see why you don't like to fight people."
Fay silently nodded and hovered over her bleeding sister, unsure of what else she could do to help. Suddenly, a loud noise reminiscent of a squeaking hinge came from somewhere close by, followed by a loud thud and exhale. Fay turned just in time to see Leonara soar backwards through the air. She barreled straight through three red laser-axes before landing hard, charred and bruised on the floor.
"Lea!" Fay yelped, weaving around the swinging pole arms to get to her sister.
"I'll be fine!" the black-haired turtle barked, scrambling to her knees, "I'm perfectly…" She stood up quickly and rocked back and forth on her heels precariously before tipping back over woozily. "…fine."
"No, no you are not." Fay stated. She shoved Lea on her back and asked, "What happened? And don't you dare try lying!"
Leonara sighed and reluctantly admitted, "That Brazilian robo-fish, whatever his name was, he kicked me really hard in the gut with his heavy metal foot. I think the lasers that hit me gave me some burns on my shell too. Not to mention all the other scratches and bruises I've accumulated. The other turtles are easy, but the fish and the dog are relentless! You've gotta respect dedication like that."
"No I don't! It's not fair to hit the enemy while they're down, let alone hit them so hard they might go down and not come back up!" Fay exclaimed, "That's murder! That's assault! Someone needs to make a prison for mutants!"
"Yeah, and you know who'd be in there with dog-man and fish-boy? Me. And Elle. And Mika. And you. We'd all be in jail because we have to fight to survive. We aren't like people. Smell the bloody roses, Fay! Stop playing peacekeeper and get out your spoons!" Leonara raved. Fay rolled her eyes and pinned Lea's wrists to the ground with her leg as she inspected her plastron. The lower area above her stomach had been smashed in slightly, leaving a two-toed robotic footprint. Rivulets of blood oozed out from underneath the shell. Fay hissed; she would have to leave her father to deal with that. Meanwhile she busied herself using Lea's wraps to soak up the blood and laying cold metal shuriken on her shell burns, waiting until Stockman deemed they had suffered enough and let them out of this black-and-white hellhole.
"If mutants had a jail, it would be some government facility." Lea mumbled, "It'd be like Area 52 or something."
"Mhmm." Fay answered nonchalantly, maintaining a perfect poker face. Her anger at the bloodthirsty duo of mutants was overflowing. She didn't understand how something as calm as a fish could be so violent. She didn't understand how a mammalian dog could be so cold-blooded and snaky.
Fay glared at the brace as they fought against five turtles, four male and one female. The men, if they could be called men in this state, were viciously spitting insults and trash talk in the reptiles' direction and trying to land blows that would've surely resulted in death had they hit. Fay's peaceful blood boiled at their sadism, and however inconsistent it was with her nature, she desperately wanted to walk up to the pair and punch them both in the face.
"Fay, you should go help Mika with that dog. He's got one seriously bad punch." Lea declared, waving her sister toward the fight, "I'll be good. I mean, you can live without a pancreas, right?"
"Yes, but I think it involves insulin shots." Fay answered.
"Whatever! Just go! Leave! Vamoose! Sayonara!" Lea cried, "Take out some of that anger on the mean fishy-man!"
"No. I can't. Fighting is wrong." Fay forced herself to say. But inside every fiber of her body was screaming, "GO! Do to them what they did to your sisters! Pacifist or not, NOBODY touches your family!" Somewhere off in the corner there was that one lone fiber whispering tranquilly, "Stay true to yourself. Don't go over there. Don't hurt anybody. Violence can only lead to more violence, and then what good would you have done?"
A loud grunt interrupted Fay's thoughts. For the time-being, the warriors had been silent except for the clash of metal on metal as they fought. Now it seemed as if two of them, the dratted mutants who had bloodied Fay's sisters, were cheering happily. "Score! Three turtles down, four to go!" Dogpound exclaimed.
"But what about that other girl? The brown-haired one they call Fay?" Fishface's Brazilian clip questioned.
"That little thing? She couldn't beat up a fly!" Dogpound answered with a laugh.
Fishface chuckled. "Toss that one over by the others." He proclaimed, "I wonder how many dead turtles it will take to make that one cry." They laughed and one of them grunted as they picked up a heavy object and tossed it through the air. Fay, having not turned around, saw the shelled body out of the corner of her eye. Carrot-colored hair obscured the face from view. Mika. Then everything went red.
It seemed as if some other force, a fiery enraged force, had invaded Fay's mind and stolen control over her body. It was by that force's assent that she stomped away from Lea without a backwards glance until she stood next to the ocher dog mutant. He stood at least a head and a half taller than her and looked down on her like you would a young puppy that had licked your leg. "Well, what do we have here?" he asked with a sing-song voice, "A pretty little turt…"
He didn't finish his sentence before Fay socked him hard in the mouth, shoving her fist down his throat until he gagged. Dogpound choked and sputtered before coming to his senses and attempting to bite her. Fay quickly removed her hand and slapped him across the face with it, so that he bit his tongue hard.
Dogpound stared at his foe. "You will pay for that, turtle." He spat, along with bloodied saliva. In response, Fay's eyes slicked over with a pure white.
Punch punch kick kick slap slap feint. Fay lashed out blows on the two large mutants faster than the eye could see. Within a matter of minutes she had brought the pair to the ground several times. Every swipe the two aimed at her seemed clumsy next to her fluid graceful movements. She looked like a ballerina…of death.
For every punch or kick Dogpound or Fishface directed at her, Fay landed three. Neither of them ever got close to touching her, while she landed chains of roundhouse kicks and uppercuts that MMA fighters wished they could do. It wasn't long before the two mutants were slipping in pools of their own blood. Not a drop of it belonged to Fay.
Finally, they both sank to the ground, utterly defeated. Fishface lay on his back (as well as he could in his fishy form) and deliriously made some sort of blood angel on the ground, bleeding heavily from a blow to the head. Dogpound sat on his knees and stared down the pallid-eyed turtle. He attempted to snarl, but barely managed a choked whispery whimper.
The insipid coating on Fay's eyes flickered like an eyelid might before vanishing altogether, leaving the well-known emerald green iris and inky pupil of the true Rafayela. "Do your worst." Dogpound growled.
Fay blinked lightly twice and declared, "Actually, I think the worst I can do right now is faint." And she did.
"Fay? Faaaaay?" a soft voice permeated Fay's sleep, "Fay, wakey wakey lemon shakey! Please?"
"You're being too soft with her!" another voice declared, "Fay! WAKE UP!" A hard slap stung Fay's ear and cheek.
"Unnngh…I'm up…I'm up…Don't slap me again!" Fay cried, shielding her face with her hands. Her fuzzy eyes saw blurred green shapes before her.
"Fine. I won't hit you again." Lea promised, "As long as you promise to teach me whatever you did back there."
"Huh? Wha-did I do?" Fay slurred drowsily.
"What do you mean 'What did I do?'?! Only the most awesome thing in the history of melee fighting!"" Lea exclaimed.
"Yeah!" Elle added, waving her hands in hysterical motions, "You were like wham! And they were like oof! And you were like bam! And they were like ugh! And you were like…!"
Mika slapped a hand over the excited blonde's mouth. "We grasp it."
She moaned exasperatedly.
That was when Fay noticed the dried blood caking her thick green fingers. She squeaked nervously and looked herself over for wounds.
"Not a scratch on you." Stockman declared, "I believe what happened is you went into a rage-induced fighting trance, opposite of Raphael, who seems to become clumsier when enraged…" The words faded softly in the distance as Fay dashed away, leaving footprints of chalky red.
Meanwhile, the four original turtles strolled along the darkened back alleys of the city. "We're really lucky that one chick passed out. Otherwise we'd have been toast." Mikey decreed.
"I hate to admit it, but probably. If the other three hadn't made Dexter…" Leo began.
"Baxter." Donnie corrected.
"Whatever." Leo replied, "As I was saying, if her sisters hadn't forced Baxter to open up a door to take their sister to…wherever, we wouldn't have been able to follow them out. What do you think made that one girl go crazy?"
"I think I know." Donnie stated.
Simultaneously the other three groaned. "No big words!" Mikey pleaded, "They make my brain hurt."
Donnie rolled his eyes and said, "Fine. I have a theory." Another groan. "Be quiet!" he exclaimed, "I think whatever Stockman did to make his…clones, if you will, backfired in some way. He made replicas of us, but they're our opposite. The female version of Leo is rebellious and rude. The female version of Mikey is intelligent and strong to an extreme."
"And no fun!" Mikey added.
"That too." Donnie explained, "The female version of me is petite and…well, just plain stupid. So if the female version of Raph is his opposite, that means she works in the opposite way. Raph fights better when he's calm, or at least as calm as Raph can get." This elicited a growl from Raph. "So in turn, his feminine counterpart would fight better when she is angered. Since she is pacifistic, she is less likely to become enraged, just as Raph's nature makes it hard for him to maintain the calm she always has." More growling. "Raph is commonly temperamental. She is commonly tranquil."
"Just tell us why the girl went crazy and stop insulting me before I make you bleed." Raph threatened.
"Okay, okay, don't shoot the messenger!" Donnie exclaimed, holding up his hands innocently, "What I'm saying is this girl went into some sort of anger-induced trance almost. Her eyes went white, and her mind seemed to go blank."
"It's like she wasn't herself." Mikey declared.
For some reason, this comment seemed to enrage Raph. "You would know enough about that." He snarled.
"What?!" Mikey cried, "What did I do?!"
"You know exactly what you did." Raph retorted.
"No. No I don't." Mikey said.
Raph glared accusingly at him. "Then what were doing up there with her in the middle of the fight?! Huh?!" he shouted, "You don't FLIRT with the enemy, Mikey!"
"I wasn't flirting! I promise!" Mikey defended, crossing his heart, "Ninja's honor."
"You do realize that ninja were known to break promises." Donnie remarked.
"Turtle's honor then." Mikey proclaimed.
"You weren't flirting then?" Raph asked. Mikey shook his head hard in denial. "Then how do you explain THAT?!" Raph yelled, pointing an accusing finger at the red band around his ankle.
I know, I know. This chapter is long overdue. And I'm super duper duper duper DUPER sorry. Life is getting to me, and the Algebra homework is not helping.
