A/N: Hey, y'all! Let me know what you think of this chapter in the comments, and also, I'm holding a contest to see who can come up with the best nickname for Scarlett! Mikey's trying to come up with a nickname for her in this chapter, and I thought this would be a good contest to hold.
Chapter Five
Scarlett's P.O.V.
I was willing to get to learn more about my new friend, Raphael. All of the mutants interested me, but none more than Raphael, simply because of the way he acted.
"Sure!" he yelled in answer to me.
"Come on in." He climbed through the window quickly and glanced around. "Would you like a drink?" I asked.
"Nah... but this place-it's a lot nicer than the lair."
I laughed. "You don't say?"
"Smells better too."
"Yeah, well that's 'cause I pick out the air freshener scents; not Gabby."
He chuckled, then asked, "Who's Gabby?"
"That's my roommate." I walked over to our nightstand, picked up my phone, and searched for a picture of her. "Here she is. We've been best friends as long as I can remember. I knew her from the moment she was born."
"Really?"
"Uh-huh. We both went out for lunch today, and, oh my gosh! You wouldn't believe the things we saw on the way there!"
"What?" He seemed rather interested in what I had to say, but at the same time, still with that monotonous, ever-lasting, bland look on his face.
"Well, as we were going down the street, there were some naked girls standing there taking pictures of people! I and Gabby both just stood there shocked! We didn't know what to think! The girls both had American flags painted on their chests and-ugh! It was just sickening, and what're you supposed to do if you've got kids with you?"
"Wow... I guess you're just not used to New York!" He chuckled. "But that's alright, I bet you'll learn how it is here in no time!"
"I don't know, I been a country girl all my life," I said temptingly, playfully challenging his logic.
"Well, I could teach you, I guess. I just wish I coulda been there to see those two girls. Lucky."
"You pervert!" I gasped, soon jokingly punching him in the arm.
"Ouch!" he yelped, groping onto his arm where I'd hit him, a smile soon forming onto his lips.
"That's what you get!" I laughed.
Suddenly, a couple knocks sounded from the door.
"Oh, that's Gabby!" I shrieked, terrified of her coming in and finding Raphael. But as I turned and was about to tell him to escape as quickly and quietly as possible, he was already gone. Raphael had vanished out of thin air, and for a second, I began to contemplate whether or not he'd even been in this room at all.
Raphael's P.O.V.
"You want some mountain dew, bro?" Casey asked me as he opened the fridge. "Hey, Ice Kitty."
"Nah... I'm good," I said, laying my head down on the table.
I heard him slurping as he came to sit back down at the kitchen table, consumed in my thoughts of Scarlett. She didn't punch like April, who had soft, accurate punches, but rather, punched more like me. Just being with her, along with her bubbly personality and not just her tough streak, made me feel so much more sure of myself.
"So, tell me more about this 'Scarlett' girl," he said, propping his feet up on the table and sitting back in his chair. "She hot?"
For some reason, anger suddenly poured over me like a red-hot, spicy river of blood; I was clothed in it and couldn't get away. "No! Why would you think she'd be hot!?" I yelled, standing up and kicking back my chair.
"Dude, what's gotten into you? Chill."
"You know what? Whatever. I don't care! If you're gonna hit on every girl you see or get interested in every girl you hear about, not my problem!" I left off with that and stormed off, wishing that he would leave the lair, instead of me having to go to my room. Stupid Casey! He can be such an idiot sometimes, and it's not my problem, but I have to get caught in the middle of it all. I have to get caught in the middle of everything it seems.
It took me awhile to calm down, but I finally did after laying down on my bed for a bit. However, soon, more and more thoughts of Scarlett began to infiltrate my head. Why had I, all of a sudden, gotten mad at Casey over a question that I was used to him asking me?
The question soon drifted farther and farther away as I sank down into my bed, fading into a pure, crystal-clear background of sleep and rejuvenation.
Scarlett's P.O.V.
Gabby had already fallen asleep, and I was curious as to what the Turtles were up to. I tried to remember my way to the lair, and it took me a couple minutes once I got under the manhole, because of all the tunnels, but I did get there eventually.
Walking past the security markers of the old subway station, and into the lair, I noticed big smiles all around.
"Hey, Scarlett!" Mikey voiced, approaching. "Man, we gotta come up with a nickname for you. Scarlett's just too serious.
I laughed. "What? I like my name. I don't need a nickname!"
"Oh, yes you do, and fast! Hmm... let me put some thought into this."
Mikey turned back to the couch in thought, while a girl I'd never seen before walked up to me. "Hello!" she said. I noticed that she had bright, blue eyes and fiery red hair, the kind of hair I wish I could've inherited from my Irish grandmother. Her facial features were smooth and dotted with light freckles. "I'm April, and this is Casey." She gestured over to a sketchy-looking teenage boy, with hockey gear strapped around him. There was something that set me off about him, perhaps his menacing grin, but I decided not to dwell on it.
"Hi, I'm Scarlett."
"Come over here, I'm sure you've met the guys, right?"
"Yep! 'Bout scared me half to death the first time I saw them, but I guess I'm somewhat getting used to them."
"I got you. It was the same way with me at first too."
I glanced over to the purple-masked and blue-masked turtles. "I'm sorry, but I think I forgot y'all's names. Either that or I got them mixed up." I pointed to the one with the purple mask, and said, "You're Leonardo, right?"
"Donatello," he said, with a light smile.
"Oh, okay! I got them mixed up then. Where... where's Raphael? He came by my apartment earlier."
For the first time, I heard Casey speak. "Yeah, he just flipped out and bailed on me after I'd said-" Suddenly, Casey's expression went blank, and all the color drained from his face. "After I'd said something to him."
April laughed, and so did the others. "Uh-oh! What was it this time, Case?"
"Just something I'd said about him being a ninja." His head faced the floor, and for some reason, I still didn't believe him. I knew he was lying about something, but not quite sure what yet.
"Are you a ninja, Casey?" I asked.
"Heck, naw! I'm just fine without all that training crap!"
All the turtles and April laughed once again. "What about you, April? You a ninja?" I asked.
"No, I'm a Kunoichi, a female ninja."
"A female ninja!" All of a sudden, I was interested. I'd had no idea there was a name for a female ninja, and I also wanted to know more about possibly training to become one.
"If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."
~ Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind ~ (1936)
