Part 4: The Lemon Phrase
"Oh no! My little Raph!!!"
Lola was fully aware of how stupid she sounded, but didn't give a pair
of dingo's kidneys.
She picked up the battered pieces of her beloved hand puppet, and stalked
out of the room, leaving everybody staring after her. She found him in
the kitchen, eating a jar of peanut butter with a spoon.
"Raph!" she practically screamed.
"Wha'?" he looked up, but knew exactly what she was yelling at him for.
Lola tried to calm herself.
"Raph," she muttered, "I've tried to be understanding about you, tried to ignore your little insults and everything, but man, now I have had it!"
"Hey, whaddaya think y--"
"Zip it," Lola said with more venom than Raph had ever heard, "This is just about the stupidest thing you've ever done! This is just a doll, see? He can't hurt you!" she threw the doll at Raph, who kept it from hitting his face by shielding it with his arms, in a reflex movement.
"Looks like you're scared of it!" Lola said, and didn't even let Raph open his mouth to protest.
"This was my doll, Raph! I didn't do anything-- why did you have to take it out on me? Can't you get into your fat little head that I'm not a spy? That was my last piece of home, Raph..." her voice started to get thick, and she knew she was about to cry, "Can't you just leave me alone? It's not easy for me to be all alone in another dimension for crissakes! I'm still hoping that I'll wake up and all this will be a dream! You, you-- din forbannade jævla drittsekk! Jævla drittsekk!"
She stormed out of the room.
Raph blinked and put down the jar of peanut butter. Jawala dreettsac?
What the hell does that mean?
Lola sat on top of the roof. She had always dreamed of sitting on a
roof like that, looking down on the lights of New York.
She had thought she was going to have that experience in her own
dimension first, however...
She wiped her tears off with the back of her hand. She didn't want anybody,
let alone Raph, to see her cry.
I look helpless enough as it is, she thought.
Lola didn't hear his footsteps, but she knew he was there. It kind of irritated her how predictable they were to her now.
"Hey, Raph," she whispered.
"What does jawala dreettsac mean?"
She turned around to face him, and saw that his facial expression was battling, and at last settled uneasily, somewhere between "Look, I'm sorry I trashed your doll," and "Why the hell should I give a fuck? It's just a a stupid piece of fluff!"
She's been crying... Raph noticed.
"What it means?" Lola said in the end, "It's Norwegian."
"But what does it mean?" Raph repeated, moving closer to her.
Lola watched him sit down beside her. "I don't know exactly what it means in American, but I'd say it means something in the neighbourhood of 'fucking scumbag'," she replied calmly.
Raph grinned unexpectadly. "Didn't know you knew such naughty words,"
Lola ignored him for the umpteenth time. "I know it's just a doll, but--
well, haven't you ever gotten attached to anything?"
She watched his face, and suddenly came up with something, "Like your
sais!" she said, now eager, "I know you're attached to them, I know you
think it's reassuring to hold that cold steel when--"
Yeah, you know too much...
Raph touched the hilt of one of his sais and snorted. "You comparin'
my sais to a doll?"
Lola lifted her chin, annoyed. "Why not? It's just another object-- two metal things that look like big forks, by the way,"
Forks, my ass...!
Raph decided not to comment any further on this, only blew an irritated breath through his nostrils.
"That doll," Lola mused, "sat on my bedpost for nine straight years. I actually removed it once and couldn't sleep," she smiled when she thought about this, but then fixed her gaze on Raphael, "I got it from my grandmother."
Raph shrugged non-commentally, and Lola was aware that he probably wouldn't be able to relate to the feeling of having a grandmother.
"Well, I guess now it'll never sit on that bedpost again," Lola said quietly, oddly feeling like a whining, poor little rich girl.
"Well," Raph echoed, stretching the word, "it would never do that anyway, since it ain't looking like you'll ever get back home again,"
For a fleeting moment, Lola thought about a certain scene in the first TMNT movie where Casey was trying to tell April about the fact that she just got fired from her job.
Well, you just saved yourself from that walk.
Saved myself?
Yeah, cause you-- you just got fired.
I what? How do you know that?
Your boss left a message on your machine.
I, wh-- I just saved myself? What did you do? Take classes in insensitivity?!
Lola broke her thoughts off. "Raph," she glared at him, "that was mean."
"A lot of things I say are mean,"
Yeah, I've got that impression alright...!
"Look, Raph-- are you being mean to me because you still think I'm a spy?"
Raph seemed to ignore her question, just answering it with another one.
"You didn't actually think I'd fall for that cockamamie 'another dimension'
explanation, did you?"
No, cause you never seem to trust anyone...
Lola sighed. "I don't know what else to say, Raph...it's the truth, okay?"
Raph crossed his arms over his plastron.
She gave him a pleading look, and he almost gave up, but didn't. "Please
just believe me? I need you to."
His mouth was still shut, and he didn't do a thing to indicate that
he would say something very soon.
"Alright," Lola made a futile gesture, "just forget it."
She got up.
"Where are you going?" Raph said.
"Where do you think I'm going?" Lola exclaimed, "To tell The Foot on you, of course," she added sarcastically.
Raph could hear she was hurt.
Lola left him and walked down to the flat again.
Don was sitting watching TV under a wool blanket, and except from the
blue-tinted light that poured out of the TV, the room was dark.
Lola paused a second when she walked by, just to gaze at the screen,
and Don's eyes darted from "Blade Runner" to her.
"Um, wanna join me?" he asked politely, offering her some of his popcorn.
He's much nicer than Raph...Lola thought.
Lola said no thanks to the popcorn, but settled down on the end opposite
from Don on the four-seat couch.
They watched in silence for a while.
"You know...I really wanted you,"
Don's handful of popcorn came to a halt in midair, and he glanced at her. "Huh?"
Lola blinked. "The doll. You see, I really wanted you, but my grandmother bought the wrong doll and I ended up with Raph instead,"
Does that mean I'm her favorite? "Oh." Don said.
Lola nodded. "Yup, I was pretty upset about that,"
Why am I telling him these stupid bits of useless information?
"Actually, I started liking Raph just resently, a few months before I got here-- I guess it was the fiction that did it--" Lola babbled on.
"Fiction?"
"Um, yeah...heh, you know...stories about you guys? I've been reading a few...it's fan fiction."
"You mean the fans write about us?"
Lola nodded. Don't ask if I write, don't ask if I write...
"So, are you writing also?"
Damn...!
Lola put her head in her lap. "Yes," she mumbled.
"Would be interesting to read," Don remarked, a tiny smile playing on
his lips, but his eyes remaining on the female cyborg, falling through
a big glass monter after being shot. I wonder what she's been writing
about me?
"Have you changed your view on any of us now?" he inquired.
Lola heard the glass shatter, blushed, eager to change the subject.
"Not much-- a little I guess," she answered hastily. I've changed
my view of Raph, that's for sure...
"Know what?" she pointed at the screen, "We have that movie in my dimension too,"
"Really? You do?" he asked, surprised. I would like to visit that dimension...man, that would be fantastic...to compare the dimensions...
"Blade Runner? Sure! It's one of my favorites," Lola smiled.
Don ate another handful of popcorn. "It's pretty cool," he agreed.
Lola watched him chew for a moment, his muscular jaws working, and she
silently noticed now natural his movements were, not anything like the
animatronics they used in the movies.
She had to concentrate hard not to let out a silly, dreamy sigh as
she looked at him. She just couldn't get why people called them freaks
and thought they were ugly.
Of course, there's that whole 'different species' issue...but still, I think they're adorable...I must be weird...
"Don, how do you make a portal? Where do they come from?"
Don stopped chewing, and swallowed.
"Well, we haven't encountered many portals-- uh, or none, actually--
so I wouldn't know much about them," he shrugged and shot her an appologetic
look.
"Oh," Lola said, defeated. She felt very disappointed. She had kind
of hoped, deep down, that this intelligent turtle could somehow build her
one. She knew it was a naive way of thinking.
If even he doesn't know, then how am I supposed to
know?
Don looked at her troubled little face, and frowned. Gads, why do I suddenly feel so utterly useless? I feel like I'm letting her down in a way...but how's that?
Lola stared blankly at "Blade Runner", then rose from the couch.
"Well, uh, I think I'm gonna just--" she gestured towards the door
to April's guestroom, "Goodnight, Don,"
She went over and gave him an awkward goodnight hug, then slipped away
to the guestroom.
"Night, Lola," she heard Don whisper.
Lola hadn't felt very homesick, but now the longing for home washed
over her.
After what Raph had said to her, and after Don admitted having very
little knowledge about portals, she began to think about home, and began
to lose hope. How was she ever going to get home?
As she laid down in her sleeping bag on the floor, she hoped Splinter
couldn't hear her cry from where he laid on April's guest bed.
They woke at noon.
Leo found him himself, when he opened his eyelids, staring up in the face of a hostile-looking, black and white turtle.
Gee, he thought, how nice it is to wake up to such pleasant surprises every day. First the flood, and now this! We must really be a bunch of lucky turtles!
He tried to get up, but the black turtle pinned him down. "Hey, careful!" Leo shouted, "What do you want?"
"How about your head?" the turtle answered, in the deepest, most grinding voice Leo had ever heard. Even worse than Shredder's...!
"Sorry, but that's not going to be an issue," Leo answered dryly, slipping a foot under the foreign turtle's plastron, kicking him off of him and to the side. The turtle landed on his shell, but quickly got up. Too quickly, Leo thought.
Don woke up on the couch, cursing himself for falling asleep in a painful
position yet another time, cracked his knuckles, yawned-- and got thrown
to the floor.
"Hey...!" he yelped, "What's going on?" He rose to his feet and caught
sight of Leo battling the turtle intruder.
He also caught sight of the disturbingly big gun hanging on the turtle's
back. He lunged forward to trip him and get a hold of the gun. What he
did get a hold of was a fist in the mouth.
The turtle slipped his gun of his back and let it fly. The livingroom
walls were pierced with an array of heavy bullets.
Leo threw himself and Don down on the ground.
By this time, Raph had shown up, and a wide-eyed Mike had awoken on
the floor.
Raph snarled at the turtle and leaped forward to give him a couple of new airholes.
"Slash?"
Everybody but Raph turned to Lola who had appeared in the doorway. The turtle was distracted, and Raph landed on top of him, tearing away his gun from him, and punching his beak until he felt the wetness of his blood against his knuckles.
"Stop, Raph--" Lola shouted, "don't kill him,"
Raph looked up from the half unconscious turtle. "Why?"
Lola drew her breath. "I wanna know who he is, that's why-- don't you?" And I also don't want a corpse here...I just can't watch anyone die...
"I want to know who just tried to kill me, that's for sure," Leo interjected.
Mike went over to them and poked a harsh finger in the black intruders chest. "Who are you, dude?"
The turtle opened one of his eyes, and he didn't seem to have any eye colour. He looked blind with those completely white eyes of his. They could see he was looking for his gun, but when not finding it near by, he answered, since he obviously had no other choice.
"Chess," he muttered.
"Huh?" they all said.
"My name," he rasped, " is Chess,"
"Aha," Don said, studying the turtles black and white body, "that makes sense."
Chess's white eyes were covered momentarily by black eyelids as he coughed, and a little stream of something black and sticky trickled down the corner of his mouth.
He's even got black blood...Lola thought.
"We oughta tie him up," Lola and Raph said in unison, then scowled at each other.
"Yeah," Leo agreed, and started tying his bandanna around Chess's hands and parts of a torn curtain around his feet.
I'm sure glad April wasn't home when this happened, Leo thought,
examining the messy apartment, but I guess I'll be the one that has
to explain it to her...
Raph and Leo were interragating Chess, playing 'bad cop and good cop'.
There was no question who the 'bad cop' was.
Raphael hit Chess more than he asked questions, and Leo had to go in
between quite often to remind him that they had to keep him conscious to
ask him questions.
Lola was sitting on the couch, drooping posture, keeping Don and Mike
company as the three of them were eating cereal.
Splinter sat on a pillow on the floor, watching this new individual
with great puzzlement.
"Were do you come from?" he finally said, in a mild voice.
Chess looked up at him, white eyes revealing nothing, but his voice
did. "Andromeda 5," he replied, a little shaky.
Splinter should be the 'good cop', was the shared thought of
the turtles and Lola.
"He sure doesn't look local," Mike remarked.
"Mike," Don pointed out, "do we look local?"
"Oh great, another space jockey," Raph immediately put in, glancing at Lola, who would have flipped him the finger if she wasn't busy holding her cereal bowl.
"Do you know this character, by the way?" Leo asked, "You called him something when you came in here...like you knew him..." he narrowed his eyes, looking from Chess to Lola.
"Yeah," Raph agreed, frowning, " I heard that too,"
All eyes were set on Lola.
She put down her spoon and wiped her mouth. "Umm, do you mean when I called him Slash?" she raised her eyebrows, "Cause that was just a mistake, see. I thought he was this other turtle from the comics, called Slash. Slash was a turtle from another planet, and he was very mean-looking, but he had spikes on his shell and big spiky toes and he wasn't black-- but I figured, maybe it was Slash, since everything seems to be a little different in this dimension..."
"You sure about that? You don't know him?" Raph pressed.
Lola shook her head, forcing herself to keep calm."Never seen him before."
"My sons, watch out!"
Everybody turned, and saw that Chess was gone. Even Leo's bandanna and the curtain rags were missing.
"What the...?" Leo exclaimed.
"What happened, Splinter?" Mike asked.
"He was gone in the blink of an eye," Splinter whispered.
"Where'd he go?" Raph said.
Don began to silently wonder if he had been dreaming the whole ordeal. He noticed that the gun wasn't lying on the couch anymore.
"Well, he's gone," Don mumbled, "and he took the gun with him."
"Haven't we seen another person just suddenly appear like that lately?"
"Raph, please--"
"I mean, if he could do that, just like Lola, then there's bound to be some sort of connection--"
"Raph...it's not like an ability that I have-- it was a portal--"
"Maybe they've teamed up-- she get's us off guard, then he attacks--"
"Get you off guard? Raph--"
"Infected us with a virus, to weaken us--"
"Raph, please stop now-- it was the flu!"
"Yeah, Raph...lighten up...you're starting to sound like one of those conspiracy movies," Mike said, breaking the two-way conversation.
"Lighten up? I'm paranoid for a reason! And it looks like my caution has done me good! I mean, look at you guys!"
The turtles were lying around on whatever vacant, and fairly comfortable
places they could find.
The little rumble had obviously worn Leo out, because now he was dozing
off again, just barely listening to Raph's angry comments. At least the
sneezing and runny noses had been absent for the last two days, but all
in all they weren't well yet.
Aching backs and limbs and returning fevers were still troubling them.
Lola put her head in her hands and sighed. "Maybe you should capture this guy...he's gonna try to kill you again, so you better get to him first...and that way I can prove we're not connected," she mumbled.
"We're gonna capture him alright-- just as soon as Mr. Sandman here decides to wake up,"
"I am awake, Raph,"
"Doesn't look like it,"
Splinter cleared his throat. "My sons-- I think this Chess is dangerous. You overpowered him without much difficulty, but he does have firearms, and, evidently, the ability to vanish much quicklier than you. I kept my eyes on him the whole time, but even so, he disappeared without a trace. If he does have any connection with Lola, we will find out later. Lola is innocent until proven otherwise,"
Lola smiled to the old rat, but the smile was not returned. He must be suspicious also...
"I hate to break this to you, guys, but-- how are we gonna find him? We have no idea where he went." Don said.
"Oh, man..."
Part 5 Coming soon!