11-12-12

Character study and such continued.

In case of confusion, it is rated for what I have planned for the future. And the reason its taking so long to upload stuff I already have written (albeit on a pad of paper) is that I am adding more stuff to it as well as transcribing from my legal pad with everything on it (more or less word for word).

Leonardo and Michelangelo

Leonardo

The night caresses me as I slink though the shadows, disregarded as a trick of the light. Our four forms flit across the rafters and we comb the city in search baddies. It has been a fairly quiet night, with very few infractions to the law. Die to this, our patrol was quickly coming to an end and turning more into a game between Mikey and Raph. They are racing to the nearest water tower, right now Mikey is winning because he is smaller, but Raph is using his superior strength to push himself faster. Donnie and I follow at a more reasonable pace. Mikey wins the race as expected (he is the fastest of us and wins about 80% of the races).

He is our resident game geek, and seems to have figured out how to wriggle a win out of any game without cheating. As far as I know, he has never pulled any cheat codes or anything, not wanting to 'anger the gods of games' by cheating. Yet he has beaten every game he has ever gotten, and memorized strategies to every single one of them (including board games monopoly anyone) without the aid of the internet. He will obsess over something and master it, largely ignoring much of what we ask of him. Because of this, we have to be careful when we get him something. He perks up immediately whenever we get a new game. He could be in his room asleep (I hear him snoring), and I open up the game to get a head start on it. But just when I turn on the game console, He rushes down and hoards the game for the next three days while he masters it.

Mikey is a complete closet strategist. In order to beat some of these games, he has to have some serious strategy. I know, I've tried playing them and none of my plans worked. I've seen Mikey pull out a game and go on a marathon and beat the game only losing two lives. Nearly every plan worked, and each was more complex than I would have thought of for the situation. He uses some of the most unconventional methods I have ever heard of. This is the main reason why he is so dangerous in a serious fight—there is no way to really predict his movements. He pulls information from his surroundings and puts it together into this huge, roundabout plan that gets the job done in an unpredictable method, albeit usually rather long. My style of strategy is generally much more to the point, making it much more predictable, but also more foolproof. His way brings you around the enemy, leaving them still operational but you are unharmed and it takes longer, my way brings you right to the action in a much more concise manner, taking out enemies along the way in exchange for blows to yourself.

I think that Mikey reveals his unconventional mindset primarily through his art. He (in addition to being a brilliant strategist) is the best artist in the family. The subjects of his drawings vary greatly, however me, Donatello, Raphael, Master Splinter, Casey, and April almost never appear. However when we do appear, it is particularly gruesome. Generally, his subject matter tends to stay within the realm of death. The victims lie sprawled across the cement, blood pooling around them, bodies mangled and twisted. Their faces are captured in a state of emptiness, fear, pain, and the occasional sadistic happiness. They are frozen forever in mid scream in the moments before their, usually untimely, death. The most terrifying part of it all is that this all comes from the mind of our Michelangelo. Our personal court fool, and the most innocent of us all created these works of death, pain, and terror. With each of his drawings, they become more and more lifelike as his skill improves. My brothers and I have seen a lot of scary shit over the years, so it is no real surprise how realistic the wounds on the victims are. We have all dealt similar wounds at some point, returning to the lair with crusted blood on our hands and weapons.

We head back to the lair, Mikey and Raph bickering amiably, falling into pattern built upon many nights worth of mindless repetition.

Michaelangelo

The buildings fly beneath me, the streetlights blending to form a collage of lights and dark alleys. The chains on my nunchucks rattle when I land, blending with the sounds from below to form a cacophony of sounds in my ears.

Leo sees a small gang breaking into an apartment and motions for us to hide. Raph reaches the scene first *No surprise there*. The rest of us burst from the shadows, bringers of death and pain all. We take them out before they see us. None of them are killed. We then have to carry the six men from a fourth floor apartment to the nearest alley while calling the police with one of their phones to they can track it. We fade into the shadows once again, and head back underground. It is now just after midnight. We open a manhole and head down into the depths of New York City.

I notice that my brothers seem a bit more introverted than usual, like they were thinking about something unpleasant. It is not quite unusual for them to be so quiet. Donnie I know I don't have to worry about as far as that goes; it seems like that, at any given time, he is thinking about something that we can only hope to ever understand. *Thinking of Don… He looks like whatever project he's thinking about is really bothering him… how about we prevent another marathon coffee drinking event and poke a little fun, shall we? Yes, I think we shall.* "Watcha hiding Don?" I say in the most know-it-all-iest voice I can manage without cracking a smile. I don't think he's hiding anything right now; it was the first thing that popped into my head. Leo and Raph looked mildly curious, however Don himself just got a bit twitchy."

"What on earth are you talking about Mikey?" Don replied, with a hint of unidentified hope hidden deep in his eyes. I smirk inwardly. *It seems like I've hit something you don't want me to know.* I morph my face to look confused, "That thing behind you, that's what. OOOH! It just moved over there!" I point at a random spot on the pipes. Running over to make more of a scene to make Raph and Leo (as they are particularly observant) forget about Don's fidgetiness when I asked him that question, I start to wave enthusiastically down the tunnel. "Leaving so soon? Ok, Bye!" Raph and Leo roll their eyes at my antics and continue on through the tunnel. Donnie, however looks somewhat relieved, like he was glad that I had not uncovered something. I grin evilly in my mind. *Total blackmail material. You're hiding something, Donnie. I don't know what the hell it is, but I can totally use it anyway. So putting this into my mental file cabinet.* We al continue back down the tunnel towards the lair.

What nobody seems to realize is that a lot of the silly, crazy guy-iness about me is just a front. I actually do really like everything that I say I like; I just employ the art of exaggeration, like I just did with Donnie back there. Under all that, I am keeping everything together. I always seem to be put into a background position, but that has both good and bad points. The good is that I can work behind the scenes, making sure everything goes right on stage without anyone really noticing my involvement. The bad is that it is harder to do bigger things since I have been typified into the role of the simplistic gamer. Fair trade I guess.

I hear Raph take out his sais as we meander through the sewers to our home. The soft whoosh of cutting air follows. Each of our weapons has a very distinctive sound to it. We each know the sound of each other's weapons, to the point of knowing if they are using a spare set. Leo's katanas, no matter how much he tries to silence the ring as he draws them, ring nonetheless. The rasp of his primary swords is different from his spares because his primary ones are more finely honed and more used, which causes differences in the metal. Raph's sais rub against the leather of his belt when he draws them, creating an interesting mixture of a ring and a rasp. Donnie's bo staff also scrapes against his shell and swooshes through the air when he draws it, the oak creating a resounding sound. The chains on my nunchucks rattle against each other, even though I hold them when I am trying to be silent.

We reenter the lair, tired and in need of showers.

This is the end of Ch.2. Don't expect me to keep uploading every day. I had both ch1 and ch2 written down together, and I had meant to post them as one chapter, but I just wanted to get that thing off of my screen for a bit and pull up a blank doc.

Next: A challenge is made, and a certain oversized fuzzball gets silently pisssed.