A Rose by Any Other Name

Chapter 14 (Rose)

I follow Donnie into probably his portion of their sewer cave.

It was unnerving when their dad, who happened to be a huge rat, suddenly teleported me to their house. At least Leo was there and seemed a little angered by his father for doing that but still explained what happened. Thats how we ended up in the arcade and played air hockey.

And beat the champion! It makes it easier when you play against other mutants at the cafe you work at which just so happens to have an air hockey table. Convenient right?

Donnie opens a huge steel door and I walk into a room with a ton of gadgets all colored purple. Everything in this room was purple. The bed, the couch, even the walls and carpet.

I see some of Donnie's shells on the wall. They look like the one that he has on now but maybe have some different purposes. Looking at the ceiling I see prototypes dangling so he can lift himself up and work under it. Looks a little unstable though. 

There is a huge computer monitor set up next to the bed. Its got a big screen with a bunch of smaller monitors on the sides. At least three for each side. On his bed lays a purple satin jacket with a dragon print on the back. 

I walk over to it and inspect it further. I've seen this symbol before... 

"Do you work for the purple dragons...?" I give Donnie the side eye. 

He was putting his shell from his back onto his wall with his other shells. He seems to tense when I ask the question.

He turns to me. "You see. I'm not actually one of them. Well, I was one of them but they betrayed me for my tech so now we are enemies so." He goes to his computer. 

I nod. Sounds legit. Who am I to judge him when him and his brothers never left me for mentioning I was made by Draxum... Speaking of...

"Why didn't you guys run off when I mentioned I was made by Draxum...?" I asked.

Donnie looks at the monitor and keeps typing stuff in not looking at me.

"Because we were made by Draxum too." He sits in a swivel chair still clacking on his keyboard.

This takes me a step back. "What?" I ask.

Donnie stops and looks at me. "We were made by Draxum. We were one of his experiments too. But we were made with our father's DNA. Or Lou Jitsu's DNA." 

"Wait. Your telling me. That the rat currently sitting on the couch, eating week old chips, and drinking flat cola... is Lou Jitsu?" I say in disbelief. "I watched him growing up. How did he turn...rat?" I ask trying to be polite. Although I think I already failed calling his father a rat.

"Oh. When Draxum was turning us into mutants with our Dad's DNA, some of the mutant juice fell on him as he was saving us. Or so thats what he tells us."

"Huh." I say too baffled to process. 

Donnie turns back to his computer again. 

I plop onto the couch unsure of what else to do. 

Donnie pushes his swivel chair towards the door and starts the coffee machine sitting near it. He grabs something that looks like three fingered gloves with wires coming out of it, and swivels to sit in front of me.

I sit forward to see what he has when Donnie makes an L shape with both his hands and moves this around.

A hologram pops up in purple showing blueprints for what looks like a new shell design.

"What's this?" I ask in awe. 

"Well. If you ever needed to defend yourself from the foot clan, I figured you would need your own weapon?" He grins as he swipes through the blueprints.

I smile at the thought. 

He swipes through different prototypes and stuff that seems to be in data. I can tell by a colored marking on the corner. It has red for undecided, yellow for BETA testing, and green for already made. 

There's new hover shell designs, a grappling hook, a drill of some sort?

He gets to a prototype that looks like an archer's bow and I stop him. It has a blue marking in the corner.

"What's this one?" I ask.

"Oh this one is a failed experiment." He says. "I was trying to find a way to make the arrows for the bow to open up to use a net but the mechanism wouldn't work."

I tap my chin. "Did you try using hinges?" I ask.

He looks confused. 

"Have you made it yet? Can I see?" I ask excited.

He nods and closes the hologram.

He grabs a rope with a handle for each of his hands and feet. He pushes a button on the wall near it and the rope pulls him up fast. It weaves him through the designs he has hanging from the ceiling until it stops at one hidden in a box.

I get up from the couch and walk around so I can see him. 

The rope lowers him next to me and Donnie moves near the bed. There is a bookshelf on the wall and he pulls a book about physics out. It slides away to reveal a room with a huge table in the center and a bunch of parts lying around.

"This is so cool." I say delighted.