Oh... no one got my reference to the best Mikey fight of all time...Boo
(2003 series, season 4, Episode titled 'Grudge Match')
Favorite. Mikester. Episode. Ever.
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Donatello reached the newest search grid, to find Leo and Raph returning from setting surveillance on the block.
"So the blister finally shows!" Raph complained.
"Blister, Raph? Really?" Leo rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Yeah Blister. Show's up when the work is done?" Raph waved him away. "Never mind that, where were you?" He looked at Donatello. "You try to convince April to give you a kiss goodnight?" He smirked.
"Actually," Don paused dramatically, "I was talking to Mikey and his new friend."
"YOU WHAT?!" Leo and Raph shouted at the same time.
Donatello fought laughing aloud. It was rare, but every so often when certain situations arose... they look exactly the same. He quickly suppressed the jocularity, and explained.
"April and i walked in on Mikey and, she calls herself Phoenix, in a fight with Kari and Dog-Pound. " Donnie explained, "They kicked the living shell out of them."
"Well, that's not too surprising." Raph commented, "We've had trouble with those two, and well... Mikey's Mikey!" He looked at Don. "What, you jump in and save the day?"
Don face-palmed at the comment. "You misunderstood the premise of the statement." Donnie shook his head. At their blank looks, he continued. "Kari and Dog-Pound where the ones who had their proverbial butts kicked, not vice versa."
A new respect mingled with a more intense fear filled Leonardo. "She must be one shell of a fighter."
Don nodded. "She is, but Mikey... he just... wow." He tried to verbalize what had happened. "She took out Kari without breaking a sweat, and then stood their and let Mikey take down Dog-Pound... ALONE."
Fury hardened Raphael's face. "Wait... she let him do that alone?! Where dose she get off putting him in danger like that?!" He whirled on Donnie. "And you just let him leave with her?!"
"Did you expect me to drag him back?" Don countered. "After he'd just proven he could take care of himself? Not my style." He pulled out his T-phone. "Now putting a tracking device on one of them..." he held up the display screen, it's little dot still blinking, "That's more my thing."
"Let's go!" Raph headed for the edge of the roof, but Leonardo stopped him with one hand, and pointed to the skyline with the other.
The horizon had already gone purple streaked with magenta and orange.
"We have to get back to the lair." Leo loathed the thought of waiting another day, but making the hard calls was what being a leader was all about.
The sound of hammering coming from Phoenix's studio woke Mikey a few hours later. He walked in, and almost caught a piece of wood paneling in the face. He ducked his head into his shell with an exclamation of surprise.
"Mike! Ohmygosh! Are you alright?" Phoenix asked quickly.
He popped his head up and gave her a grin. "Man, I LOVE being a turtle!" He looked around with a slightly puzzled expression. "What, did you join a construction company while I was asleep?" Shallow boxes and panels of wood littered the room, along with packing peanuts.
"Nothing so dramatic." She rolled her eyes, "It's just one of the many things that get me labeled as 'eccentric' in the art community." She lifted the canvas of 'Raphael' and placed it into one of the boxes, so it nestled snugly in the packing materials. "I pack the paintings myself, I oversee the framing, and I place them in the gallery." Phoenix flushed slightly. "A few people have gone as far as to call me obsessed."
Mikey looked at the portrait she had placed in the box, and smiled. "What will you call it?" He wondered out loud.
"This one? I think 'Aramusha' (Ara-moo-sha). It means 'Fierce Warrior'." She smiled. "Appropriate, don't you think?"
"And this?" Mike touched the one done in swirls of white and black, mingled with silver and red.
"That one I'm calling 'Yami ni ochita' (Ya-me nee o-chee-ta)." She didn't fight the sadness that filled her at that. "It means 'Fallen Into Darkness'... it's Kari." She explained, and touched it with the tip of one finger. "She always hated me... and I never knew why. Part of me thought that there had to be a way to show her I wasn't her enemy, but as it turns out, there wasn't." Phoenix smiled sadly. "So I stopped trying. Then the shit hit the fan, as you would say, and I left." She turned to the next canvas, and picked it up. "Unlike this one." She smiled, and looked at Mikey. "Idaina shisōka, (id-i-na she-sew-kaa) AKA 'Great thinker' AKA Donnie." She touched the next one. "Splinter, Waizu kyōshi (Why-zoo Keyo-she) or 'Wise Teacher'," The next, "Shredder, Aku de ressun (Ah-koo de re-sue-un)." She frowned. "Called 'A lesson in evil."
"What about you? Your self-portrait?" Mikey asked, gesturing towards one of the two left on the rack.
"That one? Easy." She picked it up and shrugged. " It's Tamashī no hansha, (Ta-ma-she no han shaa). A soul's reflection." Phoenix picked up the last one. "And then there's you." She couldn't explain why it was important that he understand why this painting was different than the others. It wasn't about who he was, but who he was becoming, who he would be.
"It's called 'Watashi wa anata o shitte itanode, watashi wa towa ni henkō sa remashita. (Wa-ta-she waa ana-ta oo Shi-te it-an-do, wa-ta-she waa to-wa nee hen-koo saa rema-shi-ta)"
He stared at he, and raised an eyebrow. "You call it what?" He shook his head when she opened her mouth to repeat it. "Never mind. That's a mouthful. What dose all that mean?"
She felt a surge of trust mixed with something warm; "This one needed more than two words. It's not just how you see yourself, but how I've come to see you." She handed him the painting. "It means, 'Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.'"
Leo and his brothers ducked underground as the city slowly stirred to life. Seconds after they pulled the man-hole cover shut, a garbage truck rumbled overhead rattling the iron circle.
"That was too close." Leonardo spoke as they dropped into the sewer tunnel. "We have to keep a closer eye on the time when we're topside."
"I'll set alarms on the T-phones," Don suggested, "That way we'll at least have a warning." He reached into his belt and checked the tracking device. It was still going strong, but appeared to have stopped for the time being. Donnie put his phone back, and felt a piece of paper tucked into the same pouch. 'Mikey's letter.' He thought. He didn't know why he'd kept it from Leo and Raph, but somehow reading it was crossing a line. 'The tracking device is to protect Mikey, but what ever he wrote is none of my business.' He frowned as they headed back to the lair. 'Of course his journal was none of my business, and I read that.'
The lair was awake and noisy when they returned. Obsidian attacked the practice dummy with a pair of wooden swords that Mikey had given her last Christmas... with her bandanna on backwards so her vision was obscured. Blow after blow fell perfectly. Lazuli watched TV... while standing on his head. His yellow mask kept slipping down his face, and he absent-mindedly fixed it with his left hand, maintaining his balance on his right hand. At the sound of their brothers entering, they both stopped and looked.
For the first time, Leonardo noticed they scanned the faces of the three, and their own fell in disappointment. His feelings surprised him... the fact that he'd let the two of them down bothered him. And... he had to admit, he was a little jealous of the relationship Mikey shared with their younger siblings. Even as the 'Leader', he had no idea how to get that kind of bond.
"You three find what you where looking for?" Sid asked casually, trying not to clue her little brother in that something was wrong.
Leonardo shot her a sudden look of un-natural anger at the question. For a moment he look like he was... well, like he was Raph.
Sid recoiled instinctively, trying not to let the hurt show through. Leo found himself in the wrong again, and had no idea how to fix it.