One day I open my eyes and yawn, stretching. I blink and look over at Raph. He's sleeping soundly and snoring loudly in a chair not far from the table/bed I'm lying on. Don steps in and looks cautiously at me.
"Uh...hi, Don...are you ok..?"
He nods and grins slightly. "You're one hell of a bad patient, ya know that?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind, can I take your temperature?"
"Depends...where ya gonna take it?"
Raph wakes up and grins at me. "Feelin' better?"
"Uh...I guess," I furrow my brows, not remembering the last few days.
"How long was I out?"
"Almost a week," Don answers, giving me a thermometer to put in my mouth under my tongue.
I raise my brows and put the thermometer in my mouth.
"Don't ya remember?" Raph asks, moving the chair closer to me.
I shake my head, holding the electric thermometer under my tongue until it beeps.
Don takes it and read it.
"101, much better than you were before. By all rights you should have died! Your temp was upwards of 107. It's no wonder you were delirious!"
"Damn," I murmur. "So THAT'S why I don't remember the last few days."
Raph nods. "Yeah, ya almost did die on us. Donnie had ta zap ya with those paddle things ta bring ya back. Scared the shit outa us."
"Oh man...I'm sorry for scaring you, but thanks so much for saving my life!"
I lean back, feeling weak again.
"You should rest," Don comments. "You may be better than you were before, but you're far from being totally recovered."
I nod and gently take the hand that Raph's resting on my forehead, and hold it in my own until I fall into a deep sleep, untroubled by fever dreams for the first time in a long time.
Within the week, I'm back on my feet and back to working. However, there's a big change in my life now.
Now I spend a great deal of time with the turtles.
Leo's big into training and that's pretty much all I end up doing with him. I do have a blast sparring with him. He really is an awesome fighter and I've learned a lot from him, as he has from me, but he's also gotta learn how to lighten up.
Mikey's pretty much the complete joker of the group. He's also one hell of a good cook, that is, when he's not making stomach turning concoctions.
Don's the science and math buff. He also passes as the resident doctor. He's a very nice guy and we have long conversations on different theories and things like that. He's got a gentle heart and I can tell he'd make an excellent father one day. Unfortunately, he's not really my type.
Splinter is another gentle soul, and wise, too. He's like the father I never had.
I spend the most time with Raph, though. He can be so sweet at times, but he's got one hell of a bad temper. I guess that's part of why the two of us mesh so well. We both have horrid tempers and we somehow sooth one another.
We also have a lot of fun together patrolling the streets for the trouble making punks or to beat the crap out of some FOH scum.
Sometimes we stay in; like tonight. Usually we spar, but tonight we do something different. (No, not that, ya hentais!)
Splinter had shown me a Tai Chi sequence, and being able to learn just by watching, I picked it up just like that.
There's one stance that Splinter had me hold for forty slow breaths. It's called "Golden Rooster Stands On One Leg". Lengthy name, I know, but it's even harder to do than to say ten times fast.
You stand on one leg, knee bent, while holding the other knee up in front of you like you're going to kick someone in front of you, toe pointed, while holding the arm on the same side as the leg you're holding up just over that leg, elbow bent, while holding your other hand, palm down, fingers pointed forward, at your waist.
Well, naturally I pounce Raph and dare him to hold this stance longer than me the next day. Of course, he accepts.
The challenge was several hours ago now, and I notice that we're both starting to shake from muscle fatigue.
"Ack!" I cry in surprise as Leo suddenly busts in and grabs the two of us.
"Whaddya think yer DOIN'?!?" Raph growls as Leo drags us into the living room area.
"There's something on the news you two have to see," is all he says.
I turn my gaze to the TV and feel my jaw drop at the program.
"...massive warehouse found filled with corpses of missing mutants. No word as of yet to the cause of these deaths," the reporter is finishing up.
I tighten my hands into fists, and my eyes glow with fierce anger. "I have a sneaky suspicion of who's behind all this," I growl through clenched teeth.
"Yeah," Raph answers, voice full of violence, "an' their names 're FOH."
Less than an hour later, the turtles and I are all holding a meeting, Splinter had left for Japan early that morning.
"I still say we should go out and take out that group of punks," I mumble, pacing and scratching the back of one of my wrists irately.
"We know," Leo starts, but Raph interrupts him with, "Yeah, ah'm wit' HLM! We gotta git these guys before they git us!"
He stands and comes over to me, standing at my side.
Leo sighs with exasperation. "So you two want to go take out an entire gang who was able to kill god only knows how many people and was able to get away with it? Are you crazy or just suicidal?"
I glare at Leo for that one. "And you'd rather wait around for these bigots to find you down here, kill you and use your shells for oversized ash trays?!" I shoot back.
"HLM..." Don starts.
"No! I've seen firsthand what even one individual from this group of sickos can do! Hell, so have you! You DO remember the incident at work, I assume," I blow up, stalking towards Leo who had stood up. He towers over me by quite a bit, being over 6 foot, but I don't care, I've defeated guys his size and larger.
He nods, looking down at me with quietly angry eyes.
"That was only six FOH! SIX!" I pull my shirt up so he can see the fading scars from the bullets. "THEY did this!" I thrust my hand with the pink scars from the bullet that tore through it into his face. "THEY did this! They almost KILLED me, and it is HARD to kill me!" I motion to the TV, "You've seen what they've done to all those people! Do you REALLY want them to get bigger and more powerful?!?"
"If you go out without a plan, they're going to kill you faster than I can swing my sword!"
"Hell! If we waste time trying to come up with something to do, we're just going to give them more time to get stronger 'n kill more innocent people!!"
I can see Leo's jaw muscles clenching and unclenching, but he doesn't answer.
I drop my hands to my sides and curl them into fists. I then step back and take an exaggerated bow, never taking my burning glare from Leo's eyes.
Once I'm sure he understands how POed I am, I turn on my heel and stalk out of the lair.
"Yo! HLM! Where ya goin'?!" I hear Raph shout after me.
"Ta do some research," I tell him before stalking the rest of the way out of the lair and down the tunnel.
Shortly, Raph catches up to me.
"Ya ain't goin' alone," he tells me as we approach the exit from the sewers.
"Thanks," I say softly, "Leo always like that?"
"When he cares 'bout someone 'r somethin', yeah, he does tend ta act like he's got somethin' stuck pretty far up his ass," Raph answers just before exiting through a manhole.
After a few moments of silence, Raph ducks into an ally and I duck in after him, having heard someone following us, as he did.
Both of our heads whip around as we hear a deep, nasty chuckling.
What we see scares us, but we sure as hell aren't gonna let them know. We're totally surrounded by about thirty FOH members, all armed with some kind of mean looking firearm, all training the weapons on us.
Laughing Boy comes over to me and starts to reach for my chest. Fast as a snake striking down its prey, I snap out my hand to grab his.
He grins wickedly. "Don't try anything, mutie bitch, unless of course you want yer boyfriend over there an' you full o' lead," he snatches his hand away, as I hear the cocking of guns. I let my clenched fist drop to my side.
"You two are comin' with us," he sneers, making another grab at my chest. I don't like it, but I let him have his fun, vowing to castrate him the first chance I get.
Looking over at Raph, I see a look of rage and disgust on his face. If not for half the guns being pointed at him and the other half being pointed at me, he'd have torn the hell outa the thugs holding him and gone after my tormentor.
The loser starts getting a bit too enthusiastic and I spit in his face. He snarls and smashes the butt of his gun into my jaw.
My head whips to the side and I feel my lip split. Warm blood splatters onto the dirty pavement.
I lick my lip instinctively, ears ringing, look back to the offender and do something he doesn't expect. I smile at him, tasting metallic-salty blood in my mouth even as I do so.
He glares at me before turning to the rest. "Let's get these freaks to HQ, Creed wants ta see 'em 'fore he decides what to do with 'em," he snarls in an angry voice.
Raph and I are shoved rudely into a nice office where an orange haired man with a broad chest is sitting behind a huge desk.
He looks up at us.
"Ah...good, I was hoping you'd fall for our little trap," he says, standing and slithering over to us.
He stops in front of Raph, smirks at his look of rage, and comes over to me, eyeing me up and down.
"So you two are the ones who slaughtered my men," he speaks, suddenly gripping my slender throat.
I simply glare into his eyes. My eyes flash, literally, when I see what's in them. He's intelligent, cunning, a good actor, therefore a good politician, but he's also a sick, insane, bigoted bastard. I look deeper and see the fear of us "freaks", as well as the disgust.
"Frightened, little boy?" I ask, hinting at my own sadistic side as I let my eyes glow even brighter. He grimaces, and I smirk. "Good. You should be."
He growls and squeezes harder. "Why should I be afraid of you? I could very easily snap your neck here and now."
"'Fraid not," I answer as I reach up and twist his hand away from my neck. His wrist breaks with a satisfying snap, proving that I am far stronger than I look.
At this signal, Raph brushes off the two thugs holding him, only to be faced with the barrel of a semi-automatic being pointed at his forehead.
"Take them to their cell!" Creed snarls, holding his now deformed wrist.
At that, we're both grabbed and roughly brought to a small cell. They then shove us unceremoniously into it after disarming and patting us down. Or rather, patting Raph down and feeling me up.
I sit down, and, as Raph sits by me. I mutter, "Geeze, seems like there are nothing but horney bastards here."
He nods and slips a reassuring arm around my shoulders.
"We'll get outa this hell hole, HLM," he tells me in a soft voice, hugging me close and wrapping me in his powerfully muscled arms.
I sigh and lean against him, resisting the urge to close my eyes. It's late, and Raph and I are both tired.
"Rest, they ain't gonna do anythin' else to us tonight, we need rest if we're gonna get outa here," he whispers, leaning back against the wall with me. "An' if they do try anythin', I won't let 'em get ta ya," he whispers in a barely audible tone.
I sigh softly as I relax into his arms. I close my eyes and soon we're both asleep.
Moron Story Index
Part Three
Part Five