Beginning: Part One

Day One

Disclaimer: This was written by Lady Leonardo and Leonardo Mystic. If it seems a little disjointed that's because it's translated from an RP we do nightly. We don't own TMNT, they belong to Eastman and Laird, and God knows who else at this point. We own Alisa, L and the myriad of other random characters who happen to come into this. This may start off a little slow but we wanted to get L and Alisa established before jumping into the TMNT-verse, hopefully you'll agree that it was a good idea. Also if you're familiar with Leonardo Mystic's other work (I recommend) this is not the same Alisa. Lastly, if you catch the vague Hellboy reference, you rock.

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L was a dish washer. She washed dishes in a crappy little diner that paid crappy little wages but didn't give a damn about the fact that she didn't have any references. Working with her in the crappy little diner was Alisa, a girl who had befriended her though L had no clue why. Alisa was just a nice girl she supposed. Given the two girls' financial situation or lack thereof they had moved in together in a small one room apartment not too terribly long after meeting. L slept on the couch but didn't mind, they didn't get cable but Alisa didn't seem to care much and though the neighborhood could have been better they were both fairly confident that they could take care of themselves.

"I'm tired," L complained as Alisa brought some dirty dishes back to her. "I'm tired and it's raining. I don't like the rain... well I do but I don't like walking home in the rain."

Alisa stacked the dishes on the sink counter, adding to the growing pile around her friend. "A little water won't hurt us."

She used the sleeve of her uniform shirt to wipe her forehead a bit. "I'm tired too, but don't worry. Our shift ends in half an hour. We can go home, and have a quiet evening."

"Yeah yeah I know. I want nothing more than to go home and relax... and to not wash dishes. The paper plates are worth the few extra dollars I think, even if we are stuck with the cheap ones."

While the two talked a rather pudgy man with big sausage fingers came in, blubbering his big blubbery lips and looking quite miffed.

"Aw crap, better get back out there before he eats you or something. He'd do it to, I know! I know things!"

Alisa dashed out of the kitchen back to the dining room, and continued her routine of taking orders, bringing drinks and food to the customers, and more empty dishes to L.

L grumbled with each new load of dishes but knew there was nothing Alisa could do about it. Besides they'd soon be leaving and by the rate the dishes were coming in it seemed like things were slowing down anyway. Soon it would be back to the tiny apartment, back to the lack of amenities but back to comfort.

Before long L was humming to herself, zoning out in her own pleasant little way and was only brought back by a crash she heard from the dining room. There were at least two new employees out there, one waitress and the cashier, chances are one of them had broken something. But a broken dish was one less she had to wash.

Alisa trotted in the kitchen, grabbing a broom and dustpan, and out again in the same minute. This confirmed L's suspicions of a broken dish, and the hard evidence was brought as her friend returned, emptying the contents of the dustpan in the trash. She sighed, put away both dustpan and broom, and then washed her hands. "That's the fifth one this week."

"Well the girls are new. If they don't straighten up Mister Fatass will eventually fire them, no matter how much cleavage they show." L stopped and thought a second. "Or he won't... that's always a possibility."

"Hurry up back there, it's closing time!" A deep southern voice said from the doorway. "Some of us want to go home!"

L glared at the girl holding open the door, she was one of the boss's favorites that hardly had to do any work because he'd rather ogle her goodies while Alisa did the work of both girls. "I don't like her... I don't like her at all."

Alisa shook her head. "Neither do I, but I'd rather try to get along with her than to be fired."

She helped L finish scrubbing the last of her dishes before the two weary girls were able to leave the kitchen after passing inspection, and clock out to go home.

Despite the rain the night air was a welcome change to the warm sticky and often foul smelling air of the diner. There was just something about the stink of crappy food that stuck to your hair and clothes and made your skin feel like a million tiny caterpillers were crawling all over you. L wanted a shower.

Alisa pulled at the holder in hair keeping it at her back in a pony tail, and let her waist-length blondish-dark brown locks flow free around her face once again. A few short blocks brought them to their drab little apartment building, and they mounted the stairs to their tiny apartment on the third floor.

As L climbed the stairs she repeatedly pulled back two of the three rubber bands she wore on her right wrist. It was something she'd picked up years ago, one rubber band meant she was depressed, two was impatient and three was nervous. She was impatient a good bit of the time it seemed.

"I want to get inside, I want to take a shower, and I want to enjoy my day off tomorrow," she mumbled as they walked.

"Yeah, I know." Alisa walked in the back of the apartment to her room, and stripped her uniform off. In only her bra and undies, she slipped into a robe, and tied it closed. Even though it was just them, she still had dignity. She padded back into the living room where L was unabashedly walking around in bra and undies. Alisa was used to it by now. "You can shower first, if you want."

"You are an angel my dear," L said before wasting no time making a mad dash for the bathroom. Thankfully she remembered to stop and grab some clean clothes before actually getting naked.

Stepping under the spray she washed carefully but quickly. As much as she'd love a long hot shower the water temperature in their apartment was very erratic and she wanted to be sure there was still some warm water left for Alisa. Once she got out however the smell of grease assaulted her nose. Her hair, her skin and even her fresh clothes reeked of dirty grease. With a deep sigh she leaned against the wall and let her head fall back with a light thud. "Alisa will you smell me!"

Alisa blinked as she heard L's voice through the bathroom door. "Will I do what?" She got up off the couch where she was currently sitting watching their basic four channel TV, and walked to the door. "Are you all right?"

"Well I stink... except I'm not sure I really stink... it could just y'know... be me..." Sighing again she opened the door and Alisa was very glad to see she'd already gotten dressed even if it wasn't anything more than what she'd previously been wearing. "I smell grease everywhere."

Poor Alisa was still getting used to the more bizarre bits of L's personality unfortunately.

"Well, I still do." She leaned towards L a bit, and sniffed the air around her. "You, however, smell clean."

Alisa walked in the bathroom as her friend walked out. "I'll be out in a little bit," she informed as she shut the door.

L nodded and headed to take Alisa's place on the couch. Her nose was still thick with the smell of grease but in her head she knew she was imagining it... that is unless Alisa was lying to her. Groaning, she shook her head. No, Alisa wouldn't lie to her that was merely her paranoia working. She decided that instead of thinking she needed to busy herself with the tv. After flipping quickly through the sparse channels she ended up on the news, snapping her rubber bands absent mindedly as she watched.

About twenty minutes later, Alisa emerged from the bathroom clad in her robe again, her hair hanging in damp limp strings. She walked to her room, with her dirty garments in one hand, and put on a clean pair of undies. Then she slipped into some light blue cotton pajamas. Once she finished, she joined L on the couch in the living room. "Anything interesting?"

"Oh just some dead people, y'know the norm. Apparently they just found some big important crime boss guy ripped to tiny pieces in his apartment, said something about the Purple Dragons. We really do live in such a cheery place you know?" Somewhere in the last twenty minutes she'd grabbed a juice box from the fridge and was now drinking it merrily.

Alisa made a face, and shook her head in disgust. "Isn't there anyone trying to stop those punks from doing things like this?" She stood up, and headed into the kitchen for a light snack.

"Well there's that one guy I saw a thing about the other day. Some weird crazy guy in a hockey mask. Granted that was on some stupid local talk show so it was probably all bunk but hey it's nice to think that someone is doing something... even if he is a crazy person." She snickered. "Where are all the superheroes of the world? Batman, Superman, y'know random guys in tights who mysteriously aren't gay."

"You know those are only in the comics." Alisa bit into an apple she grabbed from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, and chewed thoughtfully. "At least this vigilante is trying to make a difference. Just hope the nut doesn't get himself killed."

L leaned back into the couch's shabby cushions and smiled. "Hey, you're a ninja right? How about you go kick some bad guy butt? Go all kung fu on their asses or something."

"Now that is insane." She moved to the living room again. "I may know ninjitsu, but I barely escaped alive from those ninjas. So certainly I don't have nearly enough training to take down a whole group of knife-wielding, gun-toting hoodlums."

"Man... ninjas... what's up with them? I mean honestly we live in New York, I never in my wildest dreams thought ninjas would be a problem. That's just weird! WHY are there even ninjas here?" She sucked loudly on her now empty juice box, convinced that there was at least one drop left that she was missing.

"I would hardly know myself." Alisa glanced at her friend who was sucking nothing but air from her juice box. "I believe you have drank it all."

"But the air's all fruity though. Haven't you ever heard of air bars? People pay ridiculous amounts of money to sniff air that smells like stuff. It's really strange and pointless but I guess rich people have nothing better to do with their money." Eventually she did give up on her juice box and hopped off the couch to toss it in the trash. On her way back she let out an exaggerated yawn and walked right past Alisa and into her room. She returned seconds later with her pillow and a sheet. "Well I'm going to bed, if you want to stay up and watch tv some more it won't bother me."

Alisa shook her head. "No I was planning on going to bed anyway. Goodnight."

"Night!"