(4503 Words)
"So wait, what are we doing again?" The Hamato boys were walking down the street, a pumpkin in each of their arms. Mikey shrugs and shifts his pumpkin. "IDK dude, Dad didn't tell us anything either. I mean... He told Donnie..." They both glance at the long haired boy who had headphones plugged in and something playing just loud enough for the rest of them to hear a whisper.
"He's not telling us though." Leo says out of the blue. "The headphones are in for a reason." He says with a sly smile. Mikey chuckles and nudges Raph. "Heh heh, it's because he sucks at lying about almost anything." Raph looks at Donnie and nods. "Yeah, that makes sense." As they walk they wonder where they were going while Donnie points in different directions for them to turn.
It was Halloween finally and there was fake gravestones and blood splattered windows abound, the fake decorations making the whole city feel in the spirit.
Suddenly Donnie stops, holding up a hand to show the rest of them to stop as well. He takes out his headphones and folds them carefully into his pocket. "We're here." He says, opening the doors of a building none of them had seen before with a stripped sign above the doors. Once inside the boys realize what was happening.
They were standing inside a decent sized dojo, mats and punching bags were all set up already. Donnie's hand shakes against the side of his leg and a smile grows on his face. "Welcome to the new dojo guys!" He says excitedly. Mikey jumps around the room, touching everything. "You guys haven't even seen the best part!"
Donnie opens what looks like a closet door, revealing a staircase. Mikey sprints to the door, barely holding onto his pumpkin. They climb the stairs as a group, Mikey sprinting three stairs ahead of the rest of them into a mostly empty living-room connected to a kitchen. "This is nice..." Raph mumbles, looking around. They all end up setting their pumpkins in the living-room.
A short hallway on the left side of the room leads to four doors. The boys quickly move to explore. Leo opens the first door and looks inside to find the bathroom, a small one, but nice. He closes the door and walks to the next where Mikey was already barged in. "Yo dude! This room has a literal window seat!" Leo smiles and walks in. "It is pretty cool." He says, walking straight across the room to sit and look out the window.
Back in the hall Raph goes to the second to last door and tentatively opens it. It was an empty room with two large windows, one of them leading to the fire escape. He opens the window and climbs out, looking towards the street and feeling the cold fall wind hitting his face. It was nice, he felt like never leaving. "We'll have to share because I already chose this room before." Raph looks behind him, being dragged from his small portal of bliss.
Donnie was standing, inspecting the walls for imperfections and cracks. "We should decide where we should put what because I don't want to be putting things in here and not knowing where they're going or miscalculating the distance between things and stuff, you know?"
Raph shrugs. "Yeah, I guess." He says, looking around the room. "You know what? How about you just decide where everything'll go. I don't really care and you'll probably do it better without me anyways." Donnie tries to hold back a smile as Raph walks out of the room. He goes down the hall and back into the living-room where the pumpkins were just in time to see the door to the stairs swing open.
"Ah, my son, I'm glad you made it safely." Yoshi says as he enters with an armful of paper shopping bags. "Do you want me to take a couple bags or something?" Raph asks tentatively. Yoshi laughs. "Yes please." Raph takes two heavy bags and takes them over to the counter, setting them down and taking a peek inside.
"Wow... That's uh- That's a lot of newspaper... Planning on catching up on current events?" Raph says, tensing up at his own joke. "No, these are for the pumpkins. We're pumpkin carving!" Yoshi says in an uncharacteristically excited voice. Suddenly it clicks and Raph rolls his eyes at himself. "Ohhh..." He says, grabbing the back of his neck.
"Yoooo! What'd ya get!" Mikey shouts as he bounds into the room. He tears into the bags impulsively and yanks out a small carving set and a roll of newspaper. "We're carving pumpkins here! That's so rad dude!" Mikey shouts. Leo comes out of the bedroom he and Mikey had chosen, being drawn out by the noise.
"Hey..." Leo says awkwardly, adding himself to the group in the living-room. "Ah, Leonardo, I was just about to ask you to make sure your brothers don't run amok here while I pick up some things from the house." Leo nods curtly. "Of course." He says, making eye contact with his father. "Good, You boys go ahead and start on those pumpkins, I will be back soon."
As Yoshi leaves Mikey leaps over to his pumpkin and sticks it under his arm. "I love carving pumpkins!" Leo shrugs almost in reply. "I'm almost an adult, I probably shouldn't be doing this kind of kids stuff for much longer." Mikey glares at Leo as he pulls a roll of newspaper out of one of the bags. "Leo, that is such crap and you know it. If you think this is kids stuff then how come you haven't stopped watching that show yet, Space Heroes?"
"Mike, that show is an artistic masterpiece that knows no age and no time." Leo says almost angrily. "Apparently you don't know time either seeing as you'll watch it all day." Mikey snaps back with a smirk. Raph snorts, holding back a laugh. "Uh- Um- Ugh, let's just start already." Leo says, unable to think of a good comeback.
"Were's Donnie?" He asks. Mikey shrugs and Raph glances back at the hall. "He might still be in the room he chose?" Leo walks out of the room and returns shortly with Donnie who was obviously calculating something in his head. "Okay, now we may start."
The bags are lifted to the floor and tools taken out. All four boys sit in front of their pumpkins, all with blank stares except for Mikey who was using a marker to rapidly mark out lines on his pumpkin. "How the hell do you know what to do already?" Raph asks, picking up a larger carving knife and looking it over.
"How do you not?" Mikey replies. "There are so many things you can do, you just have to go with one!" Donnie frowns. "That's the problem." He mumbles, an open marker getting ink on his chin. Leo slowly carves the top part of the pumpkin out, getting ready to gut it. "I'll probably be doing something... traditional..." Leo says, pausing slightly in between the words.
Raph watches the brothers all working on their pumpkins while he softly runs his forefinger across the sharp end of the blade. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he felt awkward just sitting there. After a few minutes of sitting in thought he pulls the cap off his marker and starts drawing on the pumpkin.
Slowly they all carved into their pumpkins, their designs finished and pumpkins placed inside and lit. "It's a masterpiece!" Mikey shouts, hands on hips in front of his pumpkin. It was an impressively designed cartoony ninja, nun-chucks in either hand. Donnie stares at his own skeptically. "It's still not anatomically correct..." He mumbles, pointing out the flaws in his head.
There was a slightly lopsided brain carved into the oblong pumpkin, not all the way through which made it look even more impressive. Leo's just had an obviously Japanese symbol in it that no one but him and their father would recognize. And finally Raph's. In the center of his almost perfectly round pumpkin was a small turtle. It wasn't that bad either, just not Picasso.
"Guys..." Mikey hisses out, a smile creeping onto his face. "These. Are. Amazing!" Mikey wraps his arms around the three other's shoulders and pulls them close. "You know what we should do!? We should go trick or treating!" Leo looks at Mikey and frowns. "Mikey, even you're too old for that." Donnie shrugs and lifts Mikey's arm off his shoulder. "Na, Unless you're like an adult or something, you can totally trick or treat bro!"
Leo pushes away from the group. "I'm practically an adult Mikey." Mikey groans and rolls his eyes dramatically. "Fine." He groans out. "You can come as a chaperone, but you have to be in costume." Leo scowls but doesn't say anything. Donnie on the other hand starts mumbling in an increasingly louder voice. "- and then there could be cloak too..."
"What are you talking about?!" Raph says, almost annoyed that he was left out of something. "I- Just, um... Thinking about what I'd need for a costume." Raph scowls. "You're not actually thinking of going trick or treating. Isn't that like, for three year olds?" Mikey jumps over to Raph.
"No way dude! We all totally went last year!" Mikey, being the physical creature that he was, threw his arm around Raph and yanked him close, using his free arm to 'paint' an arch in the air. "Donnie was this mad scientist dude and Leo was this totally wicket samurai and I was this hella cool super hero! The turtle titan!"
Raph looks at Mikey, amused, and pushes him off. "Okay, I get it." He grumbles. "What am I even supposed to dress up as, we don't have anything to like use." Leo face palms as Mikey's face lights up. "We've got tons of stuff!" He shouts. "I mean, there's no way you could've known this, but we totally used to LARP!"
Leo groans and Donnie shrinks back slightly, a sheepish smile on his face. "We were always down one team member too! Had one person in only three of the four classes. But now we finally can have all four! Isn't that rad!?" Mikey bounces in excitement. Raph just stares at the redhead, obviously unimpressed.
Like another new idea popped into his head, making him near bursting, Mikey sequels. "You can be the dwarf barbarian!" Raph's face drops even more, if that was possible while the other two hold back chuckles. "No."
Raph huffs in annoyance as he walks down the sidewalk with the Hamatos, all in costume, himself a fitting dwarf barbarian. "I can't believe you talked me into this shit." Raph grumbles. Leo tugs on his clips holding up his cape. "He has a way with words." He sighs. Mikey chuckles as he shoves through his brothers to reach the next house as they made their way back to the city.
Mikey bounds up to the house, knocking on the door and shouting the famous "Trick or treat!" before the door even opened. At this point all three of the others groan, expressing their annoyance. "Do you have to stop at every house?" Donnie asks, stomping his makeshift wizard staff on the concrete.
Once Mikey gets down to the rest of them he smiles. "Yeah dude! The houses give way more candy than the apartments!" Donnie groans but continues on as the group moves down the street. "What I don't get-" Raph mutters mostly to himself. "Is why we're skipping over most of the houses if that's why we're even out here."
Leo glances back at him from the lead and shrugs. "Logically, if we go to the apartments we 'hit more houses' in one because we don't have to walk far in between doors." He smirks. "And we can be done faster." Raph shrugs and the group finally comes across the apartment buildings. "Let's make this fast." Raph says. "This costume itches like hell."
Mikey slinks past the grumpy teen. "That's how you know the magic is happening" he whispers in the most mystical voice he could summon. As the rest of the boys start inside Raph feels a wave of nausea hit him and he wraps an arm around his stomach. He suddenly realized going inside a bunch of different apartment buildings wasn't really the best for his sudden crippling anxiety.
He leans up against a post outside and crosses his arms. "I'm gonna wait out here." He says, a frown on his face. Both Leo and Donnie look back at him while Mikey sprints onward, slapping the hand of the lobby manager and jumping in the elevator, a huge grin on his face as the doors close. "What? Why?" Donnie asks, re gripping his staff.
"No." Leo says flatly. Raph's eyebrows drop low. "You don't get to tell me what to do." Raph challenges. "Yes. I do. My father put me in charge which means-" Raph cuts the leader off from his rant. "Which means I don't give a flying fuck." Leo fumes. "Listen. I know you're all lone wolf and stuff but we're kinda a family and we try to stick together, especially when trying to keep someone out of harms way."
Raph looks away, staring off to watch the cars go by. At this point Donnie had left to follow Mikey and Leo sighs. "Fine. Fine. Whatever. I don't care. But if I come out here and you're gone, I'm calling the police." Leo's face scrunches up and he leaves to follow his brothers up to the apartments.
Raph huffs, swinging his fake axe by his side. "Callin' the fucking police, who does he think he is? It's fucking ridiculous." He stands there for a while, feeling the cold fall air blow though his clothes, making him shiver. It was only a few minutes later that he hears heavy footfalls coming from his right. He turns just in time to see a girl run straight into him. At first she seems shocked but then she grabs Raph by the shoulders, holding him down. "WHO ARE YOU." She yells, keeping him pinned to the concrete.
She had dark skin and short curly hair, close to buzzed. Her eyes were piercing yellow. Raph struggles under her, hoping on his life that he could hold himself together in this position. "G-Get off'a me!" He shouts, trying to push the girl off. He wasn't weak by any means, but she wouldn't budge even an inch. "Who. Are. You." She says again, digging her nails into his skin.
"Arg-! I'm- I'm Raphael! Now get the fuck off of me!" She glares at him and leans in close. "Who do you work for." She demands. "Nobody! Please get off!" Raph says, struggling. He didn't feel the outward panic that he usually would, just panic building up in his chest, getting ready to explode. "If you work for no one then you will help me."
Raph squeezes his eyes shut. "Fine, whatever! Just get off!" He feels the pressure leave his shoulders and partially his chest as well. "Get up now, let's go." The girl says, adjusting her belt. Raph sits up, trying to steady his breathing to a normal state. The girl grabs his wrist, yanking him up and causing a sharp sting to flow through his arm.
He inhales sharply but doesn't have much recovery time as the girl drags him down the street and through an alley. "Leo's gonna kill me... If not the police..." At some point the girl lets go of Raph and he ends up running beside her, knowing she wouldn't let him go. "What- Where are we going? Who are you?" Raph huffs, out of breath.
"We're going to stop the kraang." The girl says. "My name is Y'Gythgba." She says curtly. At this point Raph really takes a look at her. She was tall, very tall for a girl that seemed to be around his age. She was pretty, no gorgeous. It was almost hard to take his eyes off her. The only problem was, in his own words, bat shit crazy.
"Uh, what's that, African?" Raph asks awkwardly. Suddenly she grabs him by the chest and slams him against a building. At first Raph thinks he was about to be mugged but the girl flattens herself against the building as well. She glares at him. "That's kind of racist. Just because I'm black doesn't mean I'm from Africa." She says with a roll of her eyes. "I'm from Salamandria." She whispers.
"Never heard of it." Raph drones flatly. "What are we doing, uh, Y'gif-uh... Is there literally anything else I can call you while you're keeping me hostage?" The girl rolls her eyes again and then puts her hand over Raph's mouth, keeping him silent as a group of four shadowy thug like men dash into a warehouse across from them.
"What did I tell you?" She says with an almost relieved smirk. Raph, surprised that she actually knew something was going on, stays silent even as she removes her hand from his mouth. Before she makes him move again she whispers. "Mona Lisa." It was barely audible. "What?" Raph asks. "What the commander calls me sometimes. Mona Lisa. It's a much less regal name but it'll do."
"I think it's nice." Raph says awkwardly. He's not normally one for complements. She starts sneaking towards the building the thugs had gone into, motioning for Raph to follow. His heart rate goes up and he stays frozen for a moment. "Shouldn't we like call the cops or something?" Raph says quietly. Mona keeps going and the tense boy feels obligated to go after her.
She climbs up onto a crate that made her tall enough to open the cracked window and climb in. Raph, not knowing where the window lead was hesitant but he goes anyways. He was just barely tall enough to get up and through. "Ugh, short guy problems." He mumbles as he scrambles inside.
He lands on a metal stair case where he takes in the new environment. Mona Lisa was up the stairs and on a higher platform, crouched down and watching the main area where the thugs were all gathered around a large duffel on a crate. "What's with all these crates?" Raph whispers to himself as he silently joins the vigilant girl. His gaze wanders to some faded words on one of the main walls. 'Eastman and Laird Crate Company'.
"Ah..." He looks down at the men and frowns. They were all dressed in suits like business men but they still had the thug air around them. Their hair cut the same way and the same color. It was unnerving. "What's going on?" Raph asks. He never gets an answer because the second the words are out of his mouth Mona is dashing down the stairs and jumping the railing, running to take down one of the thugs.
Suddenly the empty building was in a panic. The men start drawing guns and Raph takes action. He follows the same path as Mona and goes after one of the men who was coming up behind the girl. He punches the man in the gut, obviously knocking the wind out of him by the way he stumbled back coughing. Raph sends another blow to the head and hisses in pain.
Skulls are hard. He didn't have time to focus on the pain too long before he hears the cocking of a gun behind him. On instinct he whips around, yanking the gun away from the man who had made it up behind him and just barely getting the barrel away from his face before the man pulls the trigger, firing into the ceiling.
It was loud and painful but Raph keeps going. He shoves the man back and he falls on the floor, gun left in Raph's hands. He puts his finger on the trigger and gets the gun ready to fire. Everyone at this point freezes. Raph wished he looked confidant and ready to fire any second but he knew he looked like a scared kid with a loaded gun in his untrained hands.
Mona kicks one of the men who was lying on the ground. It was unclear what she had done to him but he wasn't moving. A minute passes by where Raph is standing, pointing the gun at the two thugs that remain conscious. He was shaking hard now but Mona doesn't do anything. She expected him to shoot.
He closes his eyes tight for a moment, hoping, praying, for anything to happen, for anyone to come stop this. There was a moment of silence after this thought. "Police! Drop your weapons!" Raph takes a gasping breath and literally drops the gun, luckily it didn't go off. He had had so much luck in his lifetime to get him here it was ridiculous.
Five police officers rush in, all holding their guns up and scoping out the scene. When they reach the middle of the room Raph starts trying to explain what happened. "These- these guys were doing something and she dragged me in here and when they saw us they pulled out a bunch of guns and wetookcareoftwoofthembutthenIgotagunfromoneandI-" He wasn't making any sense anymore.
The police handcuff the identical looking men and start looking through the duffel, checking for whatever was inside. "Chief, we got something." A female officer says. A man with a mustache looks inside the bag and then over to the two teenagers. "You kids might not know this but you just stopped what was the hardest to track down drug ring in Manhattan for five years."
Raph stands in shock while Mona Lisa smiles. "I know! I've been trying to tell you guys for months!" Raph looks at her, still shocked and confused. "I don't know what's going on... Can uh, can I just call my b- foster brother. I really gotta go." Raph says, his eyes almost glazed over. He felt like he wasn't 'in it'.
He didn't really hear the chief's response but he heard him ask for his name. "Raphael uh... Hamato." After that he was told to go outside and wait with the officers out there. So he did. Mona Lisa however stayed back, talking to the chief about every single detail of her own investigation and what she did that they didn't.
"I'm so done with police shit." Raph mutters to himself. He picks at his wrist, feeling very tired and out of it, until a van pulls up to the scene. Raph sighs and stands up. "Raphael! Wait!" He turns around, seeing Mona dashing towards him. "I couldn't have done that without your help." She says, holding out a hand. Raph reaches out tentatively and Mona shakes his hand firmly.
"Let's stay in touch." She says, slipping him a piece of paper. Raph was about to turn to leave when Mona calls him back again. "Oh, and one more thing." She leans down a bit and plants a kiss firmly on his lips. Raph's eyes were wide and Mona pulls away, her face lit with a smirk. "I'll see you again Raphael."
As she walks away, heading towards a large man with a scar running down the left side of his face and body, talking excitedly. Raph turns around almost stiffly just to see Mikey and Donnie hanging out of the van "Oooo!" they tease in unison. Raph huffs and looks away, crossing his arms. "Fuck you."
"Can we just forget everything about tonight? I'm so sick of... Everything." Raph mumbles as they settle into the living room. They were meant to start packing but instead the boys decided to stay in the living room, only with the sound of the odd candy being opened. Mikey had a growing pile of wrappers beside him as he digs through his bag of loot.
"Yo." Mikey says suddenly. He tosses candies one by one at Raph, some landing in his lap and some on the floor. "You didn't get any." Raph looks at the candies and picks one up, examining it. He throws it at Leo and picks up a mini chocolate bar. "I'll stick with the chocolate." He continues sorting through what Mikey threw at him, either throwing the non chocolate items back at Mikey or at Leo's face.
"Yeah, I don't really want any of this." Leo says, gathering up all of Raph's rejects and throwing them all at Mikey. "AH! It's like a shower of arrows on the battle field! Protect your elf!" Mikey shouts, falling over dramatically. "Leo, would you like some of my chocolates then?" Donnie asks. "You really didn't get much either and you just kinda split it for us?"
"No, guys I really just don't want anything." Leo insists. Mikey smiles as he digs through his bag of candy. "Oh? But what you don't know is that I got a pack of pocky sticks!" He holds up a pink package and waves it above his head. "I can't think of a single time where you turned down one of these babies!"
Leo shifts uncomfortably and sighs. "You're right, I can't turn those down." Leo reaches behind the couch and grabs the pocky sticks from Mikey's hands. "I'm going to bed." He pushes himself up from his seat and starts to leave, opening the package and making a show of eating one of the sticks before disappearing completely upstairs.
Mikey smiles cheekily. "I knew he couldn't resist."
Mona Lisa wear me out
Pleased to please ya
Mona Lisa wear me out
Say what you mean
Tell me I'm right
And let the sun rain down on me
Give me a sign
I want to believe
"Mona Lisa"
Panic at the disco
Euuughhhh, Halloween in January? Sure, why not? Heh heh, well I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Introducing a new character is always hard so I hope I did it right! As always constructive criticism is totally welcome!