Pie - Saga of Next Generation
By: Red Turtle
Hey guys. Man, these reviews are at least as good as my story. I have all my favorite reviewers so far, except Splinter (hint). I love reading them. I won't answer too many questions as they will come out through the course of the story, but it helps to see what I need to make sure I address.
I will lay this out clearly: Two years ago Donatello was killed while attending an international awards ceremony in his honor. He was shot to death as the whole thing was broadcast live, and a good portion of the world was watching so many people knew what happened. Besides being a tragedy among the turtle family it was a hugely publicized lost to the scientific world. Leonardo was there but did not catch the killer and looks for him still, hence he and Raph and their wives are often away on this quest, leaving the children in the care of maids and security guards. Why he was killed and by who remain a mystery and the sympathies of many of the world was extended to the remaining turtle family.
I did want to explain that there is time passing between the different perspectives, although I myself am vague on how much. Sometimes with in hours and sometimes a day or so, nothing more than that. Just to make it clearer for people reading.
This is going to be a long part, and should help deepen a lot of the relationship issues and give a clearer view of the family set up.
This will be the last sort of carefree chapter. All this was just to set up the whole family so people understood what was happening, as I said I haven't done this in a written form. I'm glad it worked out so well :) Anyway, the next part, starting with Romea, will be the sort of heart of the story, lots of things will happen, including death and such, and the original TMNT themselves will come into play.
Enjoy Pies perspective. He has better grammar than Chicken (but not perfect).
Wow.
This family tree JB put together is really something. It's a piece of art, I think. Currently it hangs on the refrigerator where we can all admire it, the teachers A marks the left top corner.
It's not just his drawing skill that makes this thing art, although he's good. It's the psychology behind it. I want to go to college, take a course on psycho-analyzation, come back and analyze this thing. I bet it has tremendous potential for realization of all kinds of emotions.
Take, for example, his part of the tree. He did his father in a red square. What the hell does that mean? His and Mickey's moms are blank, and Mickey is holding a baseball bat. I know this is because Mickey likes baseball, but none of the rest of us is depictured with anything. It seems weird, because it almost looks like Mickey is threatening their dad, the red square.
Then there's my Dad, which I found myself, staring at. My dad is a black square. He couldn't even bear to draw him. What an intense feeling that is, so much represented in this little black square. Wonder what the teacher thought when she saw that.
In a rare moment, no one else is in the kitchen with me. It is late, almost bedtime. Chicken is getting ready to sleep. We have separate rooms and we don't sleep together or anything. Chicken and I don't really do much together except fight other kids, and I only fight because he does. I think I am the more thoughtful of the set, I suppose as cliché as it is I got the brains and he got the brawn, so much as there is brawn between us.
I follow the impulse to trace the little black square that represents my Dad with my finger. I just wanted to touch it, maybe see if I could understand better what was going through JB's mind when he drew it. Did he try to draw him and failed, or did he just go with the black square to represent the loss? I wonder what it must have been like for him to witness the murder, right there on TV. He, William and Donatello all saw it happen. Donatello got the worst, of course, because he was actually on the stage. JB and William just saw it on TV, but still...I can't imagine. Sometimes, I realize that, since it was an international award ceremony, and it was being shown live, then somewhere there's a video of it. Somebody has a copy somewhere and I almost...I would like to see it. I just want to know what everyone saw, what they all went through, and it's not describable.
...
I don't mind read with Chicken or anything, but I know he doesn't feel the same way I do. I don't even know how much he thinks about Dad. He was shocked of course, and he bawled his eyes out at the funeral, but he just doesn't seem to feel it as deeply as I do. I think I was closure to Dad, I think maybe out of all of us, even his namesake Donatello.
Staring at the square, I remember the last real conversation I had with Dad. It was two days before he was killed, the next mourning he and Donatello had left for Korea for the ceremony and of course I never got to talk to him again. Coincidently, we talked about our family. Sometimes I would come over to his office before bedtime and he would tell me stuff, and this particular night I was curious about how our family worked, like how we were all different, mixed with humans and foxes and stuff.
So he was telling me some things that were very interesting especially now that I'm older and can appreciate them more. I'm going to write a paper about all of it, its so cool, the genetics and everything, like how the turtle part of us is dominant over the human parts, and how Katlin and Christopher are even more turtle than we are, so that they actually hatched from eggs instead of being born. Cool stuff like that interests me.
In the course of this he told me about my other cousins from Uncle Mike, a set of triplets whose mother is half human, half bird. The bird combination worked out really well; apparently, they are basically mutant turtles like us with wings, beaks, talons and some feathers over their bodies. That really got my imagination going.
Then he told me about my other brothers and sisters, whom I hadn't even heard about before. They are two years younger than me and Chicken, and their mother is a dragon. How cool is that? He showed me a picture, back then I was eight so they were six. The four of them posed together, one of them flying above the others. They had wings and claws, and they had shells like us and walked on two legs like us, but their heads were like dragons. They had tails, too, and spikes on their legs. He said that they didn't live with us because dragons raise themselves in their own land, which is over in Asia.
I say, "If their over in Asia, how did you meet their mom?"
"When I was traveling with Simon. We were doing research on the plants and animals over there."
Simon is a friend of my Dads, another mutant turtle. He's still around, but he doesn't live with us. He's not as out of it as uncle Mike, but he's...what is it, autistic. He's really smart, but not very social. He took Dad's death really hard. Dad was the only one he ever hung out with. He didn't have any kids; I guess the dragon lady didn't think he was as cute as my Dad.
"So this was two years ago that you met her?" I asked Dad, as a started formulating the time line in my head.
"Yeah", he replied, and he must have liked her cause just talking about her he got a sort of glow.
"But Dad", I say, "Weren't you still married to our mom?"
I don't usually make statements like that, and I had never commented on the abandonment of our mother before, but I was curious. They used to love each other, I see pictures of that, and well, obviously me and Chicken are here, but for all I remember of them was her arguing with him, and finally she up and left. I knew that there had been Donatello and Williams's mom before her, and she left. And I knew that now there was Tatiana. I didn't want Tatiana to leave to, so I was trying to, as much as my young age allowed, figure out the problem and solve it. Maybe if he didn't have kids with other women while he was married, then our mothers wouldn't leave him.
I must have hit on the mark; he got as embarrassed as I ever saw him. That's one of the things I loved about him, actually, was that uncle Leo and uncle Raph were always looking so bad ass and powerful, and Dad was just friendly and seemed so much more, I guess human. Course, maybe that's not fair since I don't know Uncle Leo and uncle Raph as well. Still, I always remember fondly the way he almost blushed when I said that, in so much as turtles can blush.
"I, uh, well...listen, Pie, I'll have to explain it to you when you're older."
"Shouldn't you explain it to me now?" I demanded.
"I can't, son. It involves things you have to be older to understand. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you", he assured me with a hug.
I had started crying then because I missed my Mom, and now two years later I started crying because I missed him. I blinked the tears back; I don't want anyone seeing me cry in the kitchen. I still had my hand on the family tree, and occupied my mind with whether I should go ahead and add the other members of the family to it. I wonder why JB didn't even bother to put his bird-siblings on it, he must know about them even if they never met.
"Hey Pie", Chicken interrupted the revelry suddenly. I hadn't notice him come into the kitchen.
"Yeah?" I snap, trying to hide the tears even though its okay for Chicken to know.
I turned to look at him, and the very vision made my body tingle uncomfortably. He looked very worried and concerned. He saw my hand on our Dad's square and didn't speak. I quickly removed it.
"What's up?" I prompted him.
"I think you should sleep in my room tonight. Rowdie and Mickey are up there already. Something's wrong with Mickey, I think we should all stay together, okay?"
I wanted to be alone right now in the worst way, the tears were burning my eyes as he spoke, but a request like this had to be honored. Mickey had been really upset earlier because none of us could play baseball with him.
"Is he still upset about the baseball?" I inquired.
"Its worse...", Chicken stopped and looked around, checking the immediate area for listeners, then leaned in closure, "Listen, I went in his room to check on him, and he had all these crazy numbers all over, and he broke down and told me that he thinks were all going to die. He's in there bawling about it, man. And he's really scared, that's why he wanted to play with us. So I took him into my bed, and I got Rowdie to comfort him a while and I think it'd be good if we all sleep together tonight."
"Why don't you tell JB?"
"What's JB going to do? I don't know, were closure to him, he's in our little set, you know? Besides, I don't want everyone flipping out over this, I'm sure he'll be fine in the mourning. Maybe we can teach him some new math equations tonight or something."
I almost laughed at the idea of Chicken trying to teach math to Mickey, but the seriousness of the situation quashed it before it escaped. I took a long drink of water instead.
"I'll be up there in a minute", I told him.
Still he lingered.
"Are you okay?" He finally asked.
"Yeah."
"You think maybe we're all flipping out because of...because of the anniversary?"
He stammered to say this, and it sounded like an abomination of the word. "Anniversary" is supposed to mark happy occasions, you have wedding anniversaries, not Dad's murder anniversaries. It made me flinch.
"Are you flipping out?", I asked him.
"No, but...if you all do, I'm gonna too."
"I'm not flipping out. I just miss him sometimes."
A strange quiet followed.
"Okay", he accepted my answer and headed upstairs.
I sighed and started to follow.
I hope I'm not flipping out.
Hey guys. Man, these reviews are at least as good as my story. I have all my favorite reviewers so far, except Splinter (hint). I love reading them. I won't answer too many questions as they will come out through the course of the story, but it helps to see what I need to make sure I address.
I will lay this out clearly: Two years ago Donatello was killed while attending an international awards ceremony in his honor. He was shot to death as the whole thing was broadcast live, and a good portion of the world was watching so many people knew what happened. Besides being a tragedy among the turtle family it was a hugely publicized lost to the scientific world. Leonardo was there but did not catch the killer and looks for him still, hence he and Raph and their wives are often away on this quest, leaving the children in the care of maids and security guards. Why he was killed and by who remain a mystery and the sympathies of many of the world was extended to the remaining turtle family.
I did want to explain that there is time passing between the different perspectives, although I myself am vague on how much. Sometimes with in hours and sometimes a day or so, nothing more than that. Just to make it clearer for people reading.
This is going to be a long part, and should help deepen a lot of the relationship issues and give a clearer view of the family set up.
This will be the last sort of carefree chapter. All this was just to set up the whole family so people understood what was happening, as I said I haven't done this in a written form. I'm glad it worked out so well :) Anyway, the next part, starting with Romea, will be the sort of heart of the story, lots of things will happen, including death and such, and the original TMNT themselves will come into play.
Enjoy Pies perspective. He has better grammar than Chicken (but not perfect).
Wow.
This family tree JB put together is really something. It's a piece of art, I think. Currently it hangs on the refrigerator where we can all admire it, the teachers A marks the left top corner.
It's not just his drawing skill that makes this thing art, although he's good. It's the psychology behind it. I want to go to college, take a course on psycho-analyzation, come back and analyze this thing. I bet it has tremendous potential for realization of all kinds of emotions.
Take, for example, his part of the tree. He did his father in a red square. What the hell does that mean? His and Mickey's moms are blank, and Mickey is holding a baseball bat. I know this is because Mickey likes baseball, but none of the rest of us is depictured with anything. It seems weird, because it almost looks like Mickey is threatening their dad, the red square.
Then there's my Dad, which I found myself, staring at. My dad is a black square. He couldn't even bear to draw him. What an intense feeling that is, so much represented in this little black square. Wonder what the teacher thought when she saw that.
In a rare moment, no one else is in the kitchen with me. It is late, almost bedtime. Chicken is getting ready to sleep. We have separate rooms and we don't sleep together or anything. Chicken and I don't really do much together except fight other kids, and I only fight because he does. I think I am the more thoughtful of the set, I suppose as cliché as it is I got the brains and he got the brawn, so much as there is brawn between us.
I follow the impulse to trace the little black square that represents my Dad with my finger. I just wanted to touch it, maybe see if I could understand better what was going through JB's mind when he drew it. Did he try to draw him and failed, or did he just go with the black square to represent the loss? I wonder what it must have been like for him to witness the murder, right there on TV. He, William and Donatello all saw it happen. Donatello got the worst, of course, because he was actually on the stage. JB and William just saw it on TV, but still...I can't imagine. Sometimes, I realize that, since it was an international award ceremony, and it was being shown live, then somewhere there's a video of it. Somebody has a copy somewhere and I almost...I would like to see it. I just want to know what everyone saw, what they all went through, and it's not describable.
...
I don't mind read with Chicken or anything, but I know he doesn't feel the same way I do. I don't even know how much he thinks about Dad. He was shocked of course, and he bawled his eyes out at the funeral, but he just doesn't seem to feel it as deeply as I do. I think I was closure to Dad, I think maybe out of all of us, even his namesake Donatello.
Staring at the square, I remember the last real conversation I had with Dad. It was two days before he was killed, the next mourning he and Donatello had left for Korea for the ceremony and of course I never got to talk to him again. Coincidently, we talked about our family. Sometimes I would come over to his office before bedtime and he would tell me stuff, and this particular night I was curious about how our family worked, like how we were all different, mixed with humans and foxes and stuff.
So he was telling me some things that were very interesting especially now that I'm older and can appreciate them more. I'm going to write a paper about all of it, its so cool, the genetics and everything, like how the turtle part of us is dominant over the human parts, and how Katlin and Christopher are even more turtle than we are, so that they actually hatched from eggs instead of being born. Cool stuff like that interests me.
In the course of this he told me about my other cousins from Uncle Mike, a set of triplets whose mother is half human, half bird. The bird combination worked out really well; apparently, they are basically mutant turtles like us with wings, beaks, talons and some feathers over their bodies. That really got my imagination going.
Then he told me about my other brothers and sisters, whom I hadn't even heard about before. They are two years younger than me and Chicken, and their mother is a dragon. How cool is that? He showed me a picture, back then I was eight so they were six. The four of them posed together, one of them flying above the others. They had wings and claws, and they had shells like us and walked on two legs like us, but their heads were like dragons. They had tails, too, and spikes on their legs. He said that they didn't live with us because dragons raise themselves in their own land, which is over in Asia.
I say, "If their over in Asia, how did you meet their mom?"
"When I was traveling with Simon. We were doing research on the plants and animals over there."
Simon is a friend of my Dads, another mutant turtle. He's still around, but he doesn't live with us. He's not as out of it as uncle Mike, but he's...what is it, autistic. He's really smart, but not very social. He took Dad's death really hard. Dad was the only one he ever hung out with. He didn't have any kids; I guess the dragon lady didn't think he was as cute as my Dad.
"So this was two years ago that you met her?" I asked Dad, as a started formulating the time line in my head.
"Yeah", he replied, and he must have liked her cause just talking about her he got a sort of glow.
"But Dad", I say, "Weren't you still married to our mom?"
I don't usually make statements like that, and I had never commented on the abandonment of our mother before, but I was curious. They used to love each other, I see pictures of that, and well, obviously me and Chicken are here, but for all I remember of them was her arguing with him, and finally she up and left. I knew that there had been Donatello and Williams's mom before her, and she left. And I knew that now there was Tatiana. I didn't want Tatiana to leave to, so I was trying to, as much as my young age allowed, figure out the problem and solve it. Maybe if he didn't have kids with other women while he was married, then our mothers wouldn't leave him.
I must have hit on the mark; he got as embarrassed as I ever saw him. That's one of the things I loved about him, actually, was that uncle Leo and uncle Raph were always looking so bad ass and powerful, and Dad was just friendly and seemed so much more, I guess human. Course, maybe that's not fair since I don't know Uncle Leo and uncle Raph as well. Still, I always remember fondly the way he almost blushed when I said that, in so much as turtles can blush.
"I, uh, well...listen, Pie, I'll have to explain it to you when you're older."
"Shouldn't you explain it to me now?" I demanded.
"I can't, son. It involves things you have to be older to understand. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you", he assured me with a hug.
I had started crying then because I missed my Mom, and now two years later I started crying because I missed him. I blinked the tears back; I don't want anyone seeing me cry in the kitchen. I still had my hand on the family tree, and occupied my mind with whether I should go ahead and add the other members of the family to it. I wonder why JB didn't even bother to put his bird-siblings on it, he must know about them even if they never met.
"Hey Pie", Chicken interrupted the revelry suddenly. I hadn't notice him come into the kitchen.
"Yeah?" I snap, trying to hide the tears even though its okay for Chicken to know.
I turned to look at him, and the very vision made my body tingle uncomfortably. He looked very worried and concerned. He saw my hand on our Dad's square and didn't speak. I quickly removed it.
"What's up?" I prompted him.
"I think you should sleep in my room tonight. Rowdie and Mickey are up there already. Something's wrong with Mickey, I think we should all stay together, okay?"
I wanted to be alone right now in the worst way, the tears were burning my eyes as he spoke, but a request like this had to be honored. Mickey had been really upset earlier because none of us could play baseball with him.
"Is he still upset about the baseball?" I inquired.
"Its worse...", Chicken stopped and looked around, checking the immediate area for listeners, then leaned in closure, "Listen, I went in his room to check on him, and he had all these crazy numbers all over, and he broke down and told me that he thinks were all going to die. He's in there bawling about it, man. And he's really scared, that's why he wanted to play with us. So I took him into my bed, and I got Rowdie to comfort him a while and I think it'd be good if we all sleep together tonight."
"Why don't you tell JB?"
"What's JB going to do? I don't know, were closure to him, he's in our little set, you know? Besides, I don't want everyone flipping out over this, I'm sure he'll be fine in the mourning. Maybe we can teach him some new math equations tonight or something."
I almost laughed at the idea of Chicken trying to teach math to Mickey, but the seriousness of the situation quashed it before it escaped. I took a long drink of water instead.
"I'll be up there in a minute", I told him.
Still he lingered.
"Are you okay?" He finally asked.
"Yeah."
"You think maybe we're all flipping out because of...because of the anniversary?"
He stammered to say this, and it sounded like an abomination of the word. "Anniversary" is supposed to mark happy occasions, you have wedding anniversaries, not Dad's murder anniversaries. It made me flinch.
"Are you flipping out?", I asked him.
"No, but...if you all do, I'm gonna too."
"I'm not flipping out. I just miss him sometimes."
A strange quiet followed.
"Okay", he accepted my answer and headed upstairs.
I sighed and started to follow.
I hope I'm not flipping out.