Disclaimer:

Mikey: MedaLink does not own the Ninja Turtles, never has, and never will. If she did, our lives would probably be a living hell.

MedaLink: Shut up! (does an evil glare)

Mikey: Meep!

OMG! I am SO sorry I haven't updated! It's just school's back and I'm starting Grade 9, and I am just REALLY SORRY!…Well, to make up for it I'll shut up and get writing on this chapter and get to work on the sixth.

The next morning of their cruise ship vacation, the turtles, Splinter, April, Casey, and Mari were eating their fill of breakfast at the buffet. Some of them were very pleased that for once they got to eat well-made fried eggs instead of the scrambled eggs Michelangelo always made when he cooked breakfast. He always tried, but his eggs would always come out as scrambled as his brain (in Raphael's opinion, anyway). Instead of eggs, Mikey was eating pancakes covered in so much syrup, that all of it would fill his glass.

Mari was sitting quietly at their table, barely even touching her breakfast. After Raphael took her back to his room that night, his brothers found him with Mari on his back. Luckily, she was asleep when Raphael was piggybacking her to his room and was too tired to even notice his back was really his hidden shell. She was sound asleep on their couch, covered in a big blanket and towel for her wet clothes, but she could still hear the fight between Raphael and his brother, Leonardo. Leo didn't like the situation that happened that night and had not taken a liking to Mari at all. Still, Raphael swore that he'd make sure that he'd look after Mari and an incident like that would never happen again. That's when Leonardo decided that Mari could stay with them as long as he kept his promise.

Despite Leo's judgement on her, she felt a little welcomed with Raphael and his friends and family. Unfortunately, what ruined the moment was another "unexpected" visit by Matthias D. Sorel.

"Well, it looks like you all seem to be enjoying yourselves," he said politely to them. He then looked at April. "You do look rather beautiful today, Miss O'Neil. Or should I say Mrs. Jones?"

Suddenly, Casey began to choke violently at his food after listening to Matthias. He was getting a little less uncomfortable with pretending to be April's husband, but the thought of it was still shocking. After taking a glass of water, his choking finally stopped.

"Uh…" Casey stammered. "I…guess… that's why…you should never bite off more than you can chew."

Everyone else at his table silently sighed in relief.

"I don't mean to interrupt your breakfast," Matthias half-lied,"but I am rather hoping you'll be able to dine with me tonight." He went down on one knee and held April's hand. "It would be quite a privilege for this lovely maiden to be with me."

He was about to plant a kiss on her hand, but Casey pulled April away in fury.

"Unless you want another black eye, you'd better keep your hands off of her!" he growled.

Matthias stood back up and straightened his tie. "Forgive me," he said. "My habit of charming the ladies made me forget for a moment that she was rightfully yours by the laws of marriage."

"You say that like April's an object!" Casey said angrily. "You make me sick, you self-worshipping pervert!"

Matthias just turned away in anger. "That ill-mannered fool," he thought. "If I were to rid him of this cruise, April would be all mine. No one defies Matthias D. Sorel."

When he finally left, the turtles, Splinter, and Mari looked at Casey and April in a sudden awkwardness. Mari was the most confused, since no one told her Casey and April were pretending to be married.

"Mr. Jones," Splinter said. "I know you are being very protective of April whether you are pretending to be her husband or not, but I think you can release her from your…ahem, grasp."

Casey and April didn't know what he was talking about, until they discovered that Casey locked April in a tight embrace when Matthias tried to kiss her hand. With a silent, quick yelp, they pulled apart as fast as they could.

When they were exploring the ship a little more, they noticed a flier for a special fighting tournament in one of the rooms. Excited, they followed the directions to the arena and entered the doors. The arena was not the size of a hockey arena, but it was bigger than any other room they've ever seen. There was a big stage in the centre with many seats surrounding it. Plenty of people came to sign up for the tournament--including Lily.

When Michelangelo saw Lily, he began to get nervous and hid behind a chair.

"She'll never find me here," he said.

When Lily spotted them, she waved to them and walked over to them.

"Hey, guys," she said. She then turned to Michelangelo's hiding spot. "Hey, Mikey."

"D'oh!" he cried.

Getting up from his spot, he faced Lily with his heart beating quickly in his chest.

"So…you're…signing up for the tournament…thingy?" he asked stammering.

"Yeah," she answered. "There was nothing else to do and it would be cool to see everyone else's fighting moves."

"Maybe we could…you know…fight each other. But I…I mean, I don't wanna hurt you or anything, but…"

"Relax, Mikey, it's cool. There are a lot of people signing up, so we just might face each other."

Mikey began to feel a little more confident. Thinking about facing off against Lily was taking his mind off of him having a monster crush on her. "Okay, then," he said, "but I'm not gonna go easy on you."

"I wouldn't want you to, anyway."

So Michelangelo and Lily, along with Leonardo, Raphael, and Mari went to the arena to participate. When everything was set, the tournament began.

The fighting tournament was a pretty exciting sight to see. There were many fighters with great skills willing to win the prize: $2000 to spend on the ship, and title of the S.S. Nenet's fighting champion. Many were very skilled martial artist, and some were…well, weren't as skilled and made total halfwits of themselves. The competitions, the skill, and the food were all still good, as the fights grew more intense. The terrapin heroes, Lily, and Mari even made to the final rounds.

When Lily was fighting in one the last three rounds however, she unfortunately lost the fight when her opponent, who was about her age, pulled a dirty trick that neither the judges nor the referee noticed by calling Lily offensive names to her like "hot doll" and "Catwoman", which threw her concentration off and allowed her opponent to cheat. Excited for the jerk to be his next opponent, Michelangelo took his kick-butt ninja skills into the ring and avenged Lily's defeat. A girl with honey coloured hair at mid-length and icy blue eyes then later defeated him with as much ninja skill as he had.

In the other block, Mari had the rematch with Raphael she had been waiting for and was somehow able to defeat him. He blamed his lack of concentration, but the truth was he didn't want her get hurt in any way. Mari finally evened the score with Raph, but she was no match for Raphael's brother, Leonardo.

It was only down to two competitors left: Leonardo, and the girl who defeated Mikey. When Leo saw her for the first time, she was wearing a tank top with a picture of Hello Kitty and words written in Japanese on it, jeans, and blue sneakers. There's was something about the girl that Leo couldn't get out of his head, but it wasn't going to stop him winning in an honourable way. When the bell rang, the fight began.

Leo cursed himself for underestimating the girl's fighting skills, because she was as equal to him in strength as she was with Mikey. As for the match, it was all dodge-and-block for the two competitors. There was a girl in the audience with shoulder-length brown hair cheering the other girl on. By an assumed guess, the two girls were friends.

As Leonardo blocked a punch from the girl, he smiled. "You're pretty good." He complimented. He threw in a kick, but the girl blocked it too.

"You're not bad yourself," she said.

Then something very odd happened to Leonardo. When the girl jumped into the air to perform a spin-kick, Leo was about to dodge it until he caught a glimpse of the girl's eyes. With a little bit of light, her eyes began to sparkle, and their heavenly beauty entranced Leonardo. He gasped and gazed at the twinkling eyes as his heart was pounding loudly like Mikey's and Raph's did. He was so mesmerized by them, he was too late to remember he was about to be kicked in the face and was knocked out of the ring.

While his brothers and friends tried to wake him up, the announcer declared victory to the girl, who's name was revealed as Tori O'Neil. April suddenly remembered the girl, as her baby cousin and was delighted to see one of her relatives on the cruise.

After the arena was cleared out, everyone headed to a small soda bar on the ship with Tori. She wanted her friend to come, but she had to get ready for something special. The link between April and Tori was that she was April's Uncle August's daughter, making them cousins. It seemed Tori was born a few years before her father went missing in one of his adventures. To ease the worry in her mother's heart, they went travelling in all sorts of parts of the world, which would explain the Japanese Hello Kitty shirt.

After meeting everyone, Tori continued to talk to April. Now she was quite curious about April's relationship with Casey Jones. "So, April," she said, "are you really going steady with that Casey Jones guy?" she asked.

April began to blush when she heard this. "Well…" she said, "we're only pretending to be married to fool an ex-boyfriend of mine so he won't hit on me."

"April, I'm really good at keeping secrets, so if you really think that Casey's cute, then you don't have to—"

Suddenly, April began to cover Tori's entire mouth to get her to shut up. Casey was looking at April oddly, but April gave him an "It's-only-girl-talk-so-don't-go-butting-into-places-you-don't-belong" look. Casey just backed away slowly.

Meanwhile, Leonardo was placing an ice pack over the spot where Tori kicked him in the tournament.

"I can't believe I lost," he groaned.

"Winning is not important, Leonardo," Splinter told him. "If you just fight with honour, then there is no meaning to a small battle and that you learn from your mistakes."

"I know that, sensei," Leo said, "but there was something about that girl that I-I-I-I-

He kept on going when he saw Tori sitting across from him at a table.

"Um…hi," was all he could say, and quite stupidly, one might add.

"Hi," said Tori. "I know we couldn't have a proper introduction, so how about we start over and try again?" She held out her hand to him. "Hi, my name is Tori."

It took Leo a long time, but Leo finally managed to finally shake her hand. "Hi. I'm Leo. That's short for Leonardo." He began to laugh nervously.

Raphael went over to his brother's ear. "Leo, are you feeling okay?" he asked. "You're acting like Mikey on a regular basis."

"I heard that!" Mikey whined.

After taking a very deep breath, he finally calmed down. "I was actually impressed by your ninjitsu skills. You're pretty girl-I mean girl-I mean good!"

"You were pretty awesome too." Tori said.

Now that that was settled, everyone clinked his or her pop bottles and cups together as a toast to another new friend.

Well, I think I just had my first writer's block :p

Once again, I'm really sorry I haven't updated in a long while. I'm sorry.

Anyway, if you don't know who August O'Neil is, you should watch the episode "April's Artifact". Since Tori is April's cousin I had to work something out.

And just because I'm tired and delirious, hooray for Casey/April-ness in "The People's Choice"! YAY!

One more thing: it was kind of late when I finished this; so if I made any mistakes, let me know.