Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.
"Are there things, about the universe, that will be forever beyond our grasp?
Are there things about the universe, that are, ungraspable?
One of the great revelations of space exploration,
Is the image of the Earth; finite and lonely.
Bearing the entire human species, through the oceans of space and time."
"Our place in the Cosmos" by Melodysheep.
"I wonder if father is looking for me?" Moth asked out loud to Jade – her visits with Jade did not just happen on the Astral plan, Jade often appeared in her dreams.
"Of course he is." Jade did not blink – then again, Moth can never recall a time when Jade did; in fact, Jade didn't even breathe. Must be a 'ghost' thing. "He is coming for you now, Moth."
"Really?" Moth asked, optimistic and threw her arms around Jade in a hug – Jade did not wrap her cold arms around Moth, in fact she did not react. She rarely ever did anything.
"I wonder why Leonardo chose now to attack us." Moth pondered as she drew away from her ghost friend.
"He has been spending the past twenty years searching for Venus DeMilo and Michaelangelo – it took that long to find that Michaelangelo lived in the mountains, near a county on the foothills in the middle of nowhere." Jade told her.
"You know, I never asked; how is it you know everything you do? You help me, even though my father killed you…" Moth asked, shifting; the subject of Master Michaelangelo murdering Jade was a subject they never spoke about.
"I hold grudges too." Jade answered cryptically, her green eyes did not waver.
Moth frowned; she hated riddles. "That makes no sense."
"For now." Jade reminded. Before Moth could respond, she was pulled out of her dream.
"Moth? Moth! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Master Michaelangelo's voice asked her; Moth opened her eyes; she had fallen asleep, slumped against the coyotes cave wall after spending much time dragging their dead bodies and burying them under layers dead leaves.
Raphael was lying on one side of her with his heads in his paws, his furry body pressed against the side of her legs. Raphael looked at Michaelangelo and growled, froth bubbled out of his mouth.
"Quiet, Raphael." Moth reprimanded sleepily and grabbed his ear, shoving his head against the cave floor, causing the coyote to whine. She looked up to see her father crouching in front of her and shaking her.
"What?" Michaelangelo asked with a raised ridge and looked at the coyote that still glared at him.
"He reminded me of the way you described your brother."
"How so?"
"He reacts violently and irrationally to everything."
"Sounds about right." Master Michaelangelo shrugged, before getting serious again "Are you okay? I saw the bodies of Foot ninja outside, but you have a huge bruise on your forehead." She did? Oh well, probably from the impact of hitting the stone wall.
Moth explained to her father what happened after she separated; the Foot chasing her, her face hitting the wall, her coyotes saving her while she was unconscious at the expense of their lives…..
"How do you explain this one?" Michaelangelo asked her, pointing at Raphael; when the coyote tried to bite his finger, Moth again snapped his head down with a tug of his ear.
"He's the only survivor – his mate and pups were killed too." Moth replied – a sad look dawned on her.
"So he lost his pack, and his family? Poor guy." Master Michaelangelo said, his voice strained. Moth knew that saying that must have been like swallowing an entire bag of salt at once for him.
'Like you…' Moth thought sadly, to this day she wondered if her father was completely crushed by grief.
Two days later….
Violet McLeod was doing her homework; the girls head occasionally bopped to the way-too-loud music blasting into her ears through her earphones.
In the middle of a particularly horrid Algebra problem, she felt as if there were eyes on her, and that there was a breeze in her room – when you have typical-teenager Agoraphobia, you tend to notice things like that.
She took off her earphones and turned around.
Behind her stood a giant turtle and a person dressed like and coyote and a bear. Both of them were very dirty, and heavily scarred, and the person wearing the fur also had bones used to cap their elbow/knee sleeves and as shoulder pads for their cowl. Both of these creatures also had very dangerous weapons about them.
Violet blinked once, and blinked again before saying something.
"Oh, hello."
"Good to see you again, Mike." Fred McLeod said and shook Master Michaelangelo's hand.
"Indeed." Michaelangelo greeted back; a genuine smile on his face, that of which was something normally Moth only saw, normally whenever she'd accomplished something.
"Wow, dude; you've gotten pretty big." Fritz said to Moth "But you still smell as bad." Moth often thought of Fred as a non-depressed, human version of her father; he was pretty bi-polar himself; though he was a very intelligent man, he was serious sometimes, but for the majority of the time (well, whenever he was at home at least) he was exceedingly goofy and humorous. Moth knew from what her Aunt Venus told her that her father used to be a quite a joker himself, though most of the time it was very hard to believe.
"I do not smell bad." Moth defended and crossed her arms "I smell like the woods – you other humans smell like car exhaust, soap, and fast food." One thing Moth found very unbearable (More unbearable than having to fish in Whiskey-Town lake during the winter – and believe it, that is a very unpleasant task when you don't use a fishing rod, and there's more meth needles in Whiskey Town lake than actual fish.) was being around human places – even a small town like Shasta county. She couldn't stand the hard concrete, the harsh glare of the glass of buildings and steel of cars, and all of the artificial sounds coming from reverberating everywhere. If she had been raised as a normal human, it would be reverse; but unfortunately, she was raised in the mountains by a ninja turtle.
"How is your face now?" Fred asked seriously and pushed the hair away from the left side of Moth's face, where slash fissures of scar tissue marred the side of her face, razing away some of her hairline at the side, and going as far enough to even nick the corner of her ear and a little bit of her nose. Part of the scar covered her left eye as well, luckily not ruining her vision but making her eye a bit misshapen. "Does it bother you?"
"Only when I have to look at it, or get reminded of it." Moth growled and rudely brushed out of the room, where she went down the hallway and entered Violet's.
Shame covered the faces of both Michaelangelo and Fred. "I'm sorry I brought it up Mikey – I just wanted to make sure it didn't re-open or get infected." Fritz apologized; feeling like an idiot. He knew it had been a sensitive subject for Moth and Michaelangelo.
"It's alright Fred." Michaelangelo said and sat on the edge of the second bed in the master bedroom – the master bedroom had two queen-sized beds, one for Fred and his wife Mary, and the other for their toddler boys. One of their toddler boys, Jay the three-year-old, was sound asleep and hugging his favorite teddy bear. "You were just doing your job – you're a nurse, twenty-four-seven." Fred was indeed a nurse, and had been for the past five years. "It's my fault after all." Michaelangelo continued, a self-loathing look appeared in his eyes.
Fred frowned; he and Michaelangelo had had this conversation so many times, he knew it would be fruitless to convince his turtle friend that it wasn't his fault it had happened.
"Want a beer?" Fred asked, handing the Ninjitsu master a can of Bud-Light.
"Thanks." Michaelangelo said and opened the can, downing a big gulp of the cold, alcoholic beverage.
Michaelangelo had met Fred around the time he and Moth first settled into the Shasta mountains – this was back when Moth was five, and Fred only had one child (His eldest daughter, Marie, who was four at the time.). The then-small human family was camping in the mountains and Michaelangelo just happened to be patrolling around that night when a saw a bear had wondered into the McLeod's camp sight.
The bear was terrorizing the family and was about to attack Fred, when Michaelangelo jumped out to save them, he drove off the bear when he cut its ear off with his tomahawk (the same one his daughter now used). Fred, though a little shocked at first, was a man of honor and thanked Michaelangelo. One thing led to another, and the McLeod's become close family friends.
"You know Fred," Michaelangelo mused "I have faced armies of Foot ninja, I have stood bay as my own brother tries to murder me, I had to find a replacement for my sisters hand, I have traveled trans-continental by hitching rides on the back of trucks and having to find my way to places without a map… And I can honestly say that being a single parent to a girl is the hardest challenge I have ever faced."
"Amen, brother." Fred with a nod of his own.
Michaelangelo noticed a small portrait of what looked like a very small, elfish-looking baby in pink with her eyes closed. He pointed at it "Did you have another baby, Fred?" He asked.
A sad look appeared in Fred's eyes "No; that's the only picture of my grandchild, Melony. Marie had a miscarriage on the seventh month."
A pain as sharp as a metal-splinter stabbed into Michelangelo's heart, deep within his mind, a memory bubbled to the surface, a memory of a happier time, back at April and Casey's place….
"I think it's going to be a girl, what do you think Mikey?"
Michaelangelo shook his head; his memories could only torment him with what could have been, with what wasn't, and with what was. Present was truth, truth was reality, and reality was often too painful.
He sipped the cold froth bubbling up at the edge of the soda can "Hey Fred, can I have another beer? It's been a long trek down the mountain…"
Moth was sitting on Violet's bed and watching TV as said McLeod girl typed away at her Laptop; Moth knew that Violet was a writer. Moth futz around with the remote to see if she could change the channel; but she kept pressing the wrong button "Violet," she called "can you make the colorful ponies on the screen go away?"
Violet turned the TV off "You can come watch Youtube with me, if you want."
Although Moth did not know what 'Youtube' was, she thought it to be entertaining if the twelve-year-old thought it was, so Moth sat on the floor next to the stool Violet sat on as Violet brought up a different screen on her computer.
She clicked on a few things and her fingers flew over the keyboard so fast Moth wondered how the girl could do that without looking at it; but then again, this was a 'normal' human thing – maybe they had the letters on the keyboard as memorized as katas were to Moth.
A video came up – moving pictures of stars were on, and a deep voice using many words Moth did not understand began to speak out of nowhere.
"What are we watching?" Moth asked her young friend.
"Around the universe with Stephen Hawkings." Violet said, and her brown eyes grew bright "I find the space the most interesting thing – it seems like we know so much about it, but we actually barely know anything, everything we know could very well be wrong and change tomorrow…." Violet rambled on about stars, galaxies and matter, Moth tried hard to understand but she could not.
Moth actually did have an education – her father taught her basic Math (how to count, add, subtract, divide and multiply), the alphabet, how to read and write, a little bit of politics, some history and how to speak fluently in Japanese (which was the Hamato's clan's second language.). When it came to things like science and pretty much everything else academic, Moth was pretty damn clueless. But Moth knew that science and astronomy seemed to be this girls passion – anything really in-depth like law, religion, science or medical-science was, Violet had gotten in from her father Fred. Moth could honestly say that she liked to hang out with Violet more than her siblings because she wasn't as into technology as her family seemed to be. She had a cell phone that she didn't 'text' with, an outdated laptop, and a TV, but that was it.
When Violet was done with her lecture, she re-focused and Moth and asked "So uh, why did you guys come down here anyways?"
Moth paused, how was she going to explain that she would leave for a very long time? "We are going to leave for a very long time." Apparently, like that.
"Where are you going?"
"To get Aunt Venus DeMilo and go back to New York."
A shiver passed through Violet's body "Venus? You mean that creepy female turtle with a hook hand who spent Christmas with us a couple years back?" A couple years back, Michaelangelo and Moth had spent Christmas with the McLeod's, and Venus had come down like the did every Thanksgiving-New Years time of year.
"Hey, she is not creepy she's just…. Not talkative….And doesn't like to blink…. And meditates a lot…." Moth trailed off; even she had to admit, her Aunt Venus was just as well on her way towards senility as Master Michaelangelo was.
"When will you be back?" Violet asked.
"Not for a very long time." Moth admitted "We have much to do in New York."
Violet snorted "Figures; even a giant, talking turtle and a ninja girl would be kept busy by New York. Are you going to fight crime?" Her eyes lit up again, as they always did when she was captivated by something interesting. Moth knew Violet had a love for comic books.
"You can say that; we'll take down a really bad guy." Moth wasn't telling the entire truth, but she wasn't lying; her uncle Leonardo was evil; he had to be destroyed. Karai and Kai had to be destroyed so the curse would finally be destroyed like it was originally supposed to be. And until the Oroku clan was dead, and the Foot clan was no more, Moth could not truly become a Ninjitsu master.
"Who? A mobster? Terrorist?" Violet asked.
"My uncle."
The other girl was frozen, her jaw set in place and her eyes wide as the full moon "Your uncle?" She gasped "But you can't kill family!"
"Tell that to him." Moth replied bitterly, a smirk came to her face when she though of attaching strings to Leonardo's dead body, and using it as a bloody puppet, for a gorey puppet show with his bound Foot ninja as audience. Okay, so maybe she was just a little wacko…. Just a little bit.
"Look," Violet said "I don't like my uncle that much either – he cheated on my aunt. But It's wrong to ate family, you can't kill family."
"He is not family anymore." Moth growled "He's the enemy! You do not understand, you ignorant human!"
"You're a human too." Violet replied quietly "What did your uncle do that was so bad that you have to try to murder him?"
"Well…." Moth had the story of the Hamato's memorized; from Yoshi and the Ninja Tribunal, all the way to the death of the majority of the Hamato's and their allies. But it seemed too personal, this was between the remaining Hamato's; her, Master Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo. Their trageties weren't anyone elses businuess.
Why should anyone else know that family had killed family, and now the remaining family was trying to hunt down former family member while said former family member hunted them down in turn? Why should anyone else know the reason her father was missing an eye, and her aunt was missing her hand? Why should anyone else know that her two uncles died horrible deaths at the hand of their own brother? Why should anyone else know that her father had killed an infant because of who her parents were…..
A voice called to her, drawing her somewhat but not all the way out of her thoughts "Moth? Are you alright? You're blanking out dude."
Moth glared at Violet: this….. this non-ninja dared ask? Violet had no clue what the Hamato clan was about.
"Moth-?" Violet was cut off by her brief cry of pain as Moth punched her square in the face; Violet fell to the ground, blood spurting out of her nose and flowing out of her lip, knocked unconscious.
When the untimed, random but extreme flair of anger died down a second after Violet was down, Moth was back to her senses.
"Oh my god." Moth gasped and couched down; aside from being unconscious, her young friends bottom lip was split and her nose shattered. "What have I done?" Shame was a pall over Moths heart; with it was the coldness of guilt. Violet didn't deserve that….. She was just curious, Violet had always been a rather curious child – bombarding her, Master Michaelangelo, Fred and everyone else with constant, random questions.
Moth waved her currently un-gloved hand in front of Violet's face – the younger girl did not move. Trying hard not to panic, Moth lifted Violet up bridal-style and ran out of her room to Fred.
"I want that turtle and his…. His savage, out of here, and away from our children!" Mary McLeod screamed.
"Honey, I don't disagree with you that, but….."
"But nothing! I want them out!"
Moth winced from outside of the McLeod's bedroom – next to her stood her turtle father, his arms crossed and his single blue eye settled on her in a sharp glare. She blew it – yesterday, Fred had taken Violet to the hospital, where she was operated on to re-construct her nose – luckily, besides for the nose and slight head trauma, Violet was going to be fine. Not fine enough though, because Mary, being a mother, did not want a savage like Moth around her children around her. Shell, Fred was probably rather pissed with her too, if Moth had been born a boy Fred would have probably broken her nose too.
"Moth Hamato," Master Michaelangelo said to her in a dangerously low voice "I'm very disappointed in you."
Moth was silent – she didn't cry out in pain when his fist collided with the scarred side of her face, the blow was so hard she felt her cheekbones bruise and the scar tissue tear right back open. Her father was far from abusive, for he never beat her or anything – but at the same time, he was from a family of mostly-male ninja's, and he treated Moth exactly the same as if she were a son, because he believed a daughter should not be raised any different. So she was physically punished when her wrong action was beyond grounding.
Even as one who had gone through torrents of physical pain through life, that punch still hurt – mostly because she knew she damn well deserved it.
Moth picked herself back up, trickles of blood running out from the re-open scars on her face and down to her neck, even down to her collarbone.
"Let's go." Michaelangelo told her coldly, as he went down the hallway – it was night, and they would leave now, instead of in three days like they planned.
Moth followed – still silent, still deep in shame. And that shame intensified when they passed Violet's room, where the episode of 'Around the Universe with Stephen Hawkings' would remain unwatched for a while.
"Sensei, I'm sorry." Were the first words that came out of Moth's mouth after three long, miserable days of shame-induced silence, silently feeling sorry for Violet and herself. Moth and Michaelangelo were currently in the back of a truck; yesterday, after much walking while staying hidden, they had finally gotten inside of a truck that was going straight to Chicago.
"I know." Master Michaelangelo grunted "But I'm not the one who you should be apologizing to." During the gamut of this trip, Master Michaelangelo had not once spoken to her unless if it was a order, it was obvious he was still upset with his daughter.
"I would apologize to Violet," Moth started and she hugged her knees "But she several hundred miles away."
"Don't get fresh." Michaelangelo reprimanded, and then looked at the watch under his wrist guard "We should be in Seattle soon."
"Do you think Venus DeMilo will be happy so see us?" Moth asked, trying to rev off of the past subject.
"As a clam." Michaelangelo nodded.
Venus DeMilo sighed as she clambered up the building to the abandoned water tower that served as her home.
If you asked her how her night was, she would punch you in the face and grab a beer – than, once she was calmed by the effects of alcohol she would tell you that her night sucked. Not only did her employer dock her pay earlier that day because she edited something wrong, but then she got in a heated argument with a Taxi driver because he was 'offended' by the black veil she wore over her face and he threw her ass out of Taxi cab, then she was chased by the police and their hounds for about an hour after a bystander called the cops on her when they saw her beat up the Taxi driver, then at night while patrolling she got shanked in the side and because she had to rush to the rooftops to stop the bleeding the gangsters got away with the loot. And to add to that, she had to scale up the side of a four-story building, which may not sound hard, unless if you factor in her missing hand.
With the stress of the day and night heavy in her shell, Venus DeMilo just wanted to get into her home, get inebriated as shell and go to sleep, where tomorrow would more-than-likely suck just as much.
Grumbling to herself (Venus did a lot of that – it happens when you're alone completely all of the time) Venus finally hoisted herself to the rooftop and walked over to the water tower and jumped up the wooden supports to the trapdoor-like bottom floor entrance, she popped it open and peered inside; her red-masked eyes narrowed, as one who can see in the darkness, she could clearly see the two inky shaped standing in her home – two human-looking shapes.
'Great, looks like two bozo's have to 'fall off' the edge of the building – again. ' Venus DeMilo thought morbidly, without alerting the two shadows, she slipped inside and quietly closed the entrance again. Grabbing her trademark long-sword strapped to the back of her shell with her remaining hand, Venus quietly crept up on the shorter, stout shadow and grabbed their shouder, she heard a grunt of pain when she pushed one of her three fingers into a pressure point. She whirled this person behind, slammed them against the rounded wall and pressed the side of her long-sword against their throat.
Suddenly, the light of her lamp flicked on – the other shadow had done it – and Venus could clearly see the face of the intruder…. The green, scarred, one-eyed, red-masked face of the intruder….
Nervously, the 'intruder' chuckled "Uh, hi Venus, been a while right?"
Yeah, Mikey and Venus drink - they are adults after all. I don't think alcohol is a bad thing - sure, being drunkard is bad, but they invented moderation for a reason.
This chapter wasn't exactly filler, there are some important points in this one.
Read and review, tell me what you think so far, or give me some idea's if you have any.