CHAPTER SEVEN

Pride.

It was forever a fragile thing.

At the most crucial of seconds, it can be dented, and all one can feel afterwards is a sense of strong humiliation.

As Donatello lit a candle and illuminated the now completely darkened lair, he felt such overwhelming humility wash over him. He stared at the oven, just a few minutes ago alive and vibrant with heat, cooking the large Christmas roast that would have more than sufficed for his fellow Turtles, his sensei, and their guests from Florida. Now the roast, after enjoying some many minutes of tantalising heat, would endure such heat no more and instead be subjected to a cooling off period that would delay the feast for much longer.

Donatello stared at the source of the power blackout, a small silver and emerald green tool connected to a series of wires plugged into a nearby adapter unit. The tool had a small blue orb attached to it, with several dents visible in it. Previously, it had no dents at all, but that was before he reversed the polarity of the neutron flow three whole times trying to get the job done quicker. The resulting surge had nullified all the power in the lair, including the power in his recharging Turtle-Com.

This sonic remote was one of his latest inventions. When it functioned properly, it could run well over fifty things at once. It could even operate machinery from a thousand mile radius with the right adjustments. Donatello was at least relieved he didn't guide the Turtle Van from the lair with it, otherwise Leonardo would never come back with his passengers.

Now that his carelessness and eagerness to do several things at once had led to the undoing of the lair, Donatello would now have to make repairs to Irma's teddy bear the old fashioned way. Using nothing more than a pair of hands, some tools, and his knowledge of computerized micro-chips.

What annoyed him more was that the process wouldn't even take him that long. It would take about twenty minutes in his estimation. Twenty minutes, and he had tried using the device to make the repairs in just one, with a fifteen minute roast taking about five had his invention ran smoothly.

He was a Turtle, and yet he couldn't seem to take anything slowly.

So he began to work, the candlelight his only companion, the only glimmer of warmth and hope in a mercilessly cold environment. He collected his tools and began to work away.

As the twenty minutes passed, Donatello kept going back to the chip in the bear, pressing it to see if the distortions were gradually being diminished with every adjustment.

He was delighted when he got "Merry..." followed by "Roses are red...", and then an utterance of "You better not...", it was nice to get such optimistic output from the thing at a time where he really needed a pick-me-up. The half-complete messages spurred him on and he continued to make repairs.

Eventually, the twenty minutes eventually passed and all seemed well. Donatello pressed the button down on the bear to hear the finished product in it's clearest form.

What he got made his heart and head sink.

"Merry Christmas...if that makes you go away for another twelve months, why not say it?" uttered the bear.

"Roses are red, violets are blue, Christmas brings cheer, which is why I hate you" followed.

"You better not hope, you best start to cry, Christmas is ruined, I'm telling you why...Santa Claus does not exist" followed that in a slightly out-of-tune melody, closely followed up by a raspberry blow.

Donatello didn't bother with the remaining messages. He was too incensed to continue.

Twenty minutes of his life wasted on a gift fit for pessimist adults and rebellious teens at a time of great benevolence. Twenty minutes that he tried to squeeze into one, which had cost him Christmas dinner, some free time to watch television and catch up on the news, and no way of communicating with the other Turtles to let them know what was going on.

All of it down the drain just to entertain Irma's dry and cruel sense of humour.

Donatello thought long and hard to himself, trying not to get too worked up at this time of the year, he tried to understand thing from Irma's perspective. The woman had recently lost her job, she'd broken up with her boyfriend, she was contemplating a different career path that could succeed or fail in the future. All these things coming to the surface WOULD make her edgy.

But what really irritated him was that she had begged him for help in this situation. He was not always this much of an optimist, but often tried to be around this time of year. After all, if he didn't have some encouragement and optimism, the need for invention and creativity of any sort would be non-existent.

Now he'd been taken for a ride, he had contributed to Irma's misery by succeeding in his repairs, and the very idea of contributing to someone's foul mood was eating away at him.

"Right, if that's the way that...that woman wants to play it, I know just how to pay her back" he said, and, scrambling for a few fresh micro-chips, he set to work on supplying her with the right kind of payback.