Chasing Diamond (A TMNT fanfiction)

Chapter 6: A Giant Rat

Diamond was rather reluctant about her re-entrance to the lair.

"Come on," Donatello encouraged her. "We've already seen you."

"Yeah," Diamond muttered. "When it was a life and death situation."

"Diamond," Donatello said. "Please? You'll like them, I promise."

Said girl bit her lip as Ivy rubbed the side of her furry face against hers. Diamond turned her head and their green eyes locked. Ivy mewed encouragingly and pointed a paw to the entrance.

Diamond smiled. "Alright, Ivy," she gave in. "I'll do it for you." However, she hesitated again and pointed at Donatello. "You first." In all honesty, she kind of wanted to hide behind the purple clad turtle until she was forced into view. While Diamond continuously kicked herself again and again for being that cowardly, she couldn't change her feelings towards the looming event.

With a nod, Donatello stepped around the wall and jumped over the turnstiles. Diamond and Ivy did no fancy moves and instead simply walked through them.

"She's back!" Donatello announced loudly, gesturing to Diamond and Ivy.

Three heads in a couch pit in the middle of the room turned to said girl and cat at the same time.

"Errr," Diamond tried, feeling very awkward since their first chance to really talk to each other in a relaxed environment just happened to be their home. "... Hi? I'm Diamond... Koreha Ivy..." She kicked herself once more, this time for using Japanese just then, but then again, it was habit.

"Wassup!" The orange-clad turtle whom Diamond remembered as Mikey exclaimed. Said turtle instantly let out a yelp of surprise crossed with slight pain when the red-clad turtle slapped him on the head. Diamond was starting to wonder if said turtle had anger issues, because he certainly had a temper.

"You know me, and Leonardo's the blue clad turtle," Donatello told Diamond, who nodded. "Then there's Michelangelo, who just got slapped by Raphael."

"Raph," Raphael grumbled. "You call me Raph."

Diamond blinked. "Okay, ah... Raphae- ahem. Sorry, I mean Raph."

The red clad turtle turned away with an expression representing a negative feeling. Boredom or anger perhaps?

Raphael crossed his arms and one leg over the other.

"She hasn't met Sensei, has she?" Leonardo asked, earning a few shakes of Donatello's head. "I'll get him," Leonardo announced, getting up from his seat in one of the corners of the pit to run towards what looked like a Japanese dojo. She certainly recognised the designs on the rice paper walls to be said culture.

Diamond glanced at Ivy, hoping that it meant this odd family is, in some way, Japanese after all. At least that would make her a little more at ease.

When he walked up a set of stairs and entered the room, a few moments passed, and the remaining mutants, human and animal lapsed into silence. It was comfortable for the mutants, since they knew each other, and Diamond assumed they had been together for their whole lives. For Diamond and Ivy, however, it was a very awkward wait, even though they could still interact with each other to try and distract themselves from it. At least they were standing close to Donatello, whom she and Ivy were definitely growing a friendship with. Diamond decided to further distract herself from the silence by thinking about... she thought for a moment before deciding to think about some random anime she'd either watched back in Japan or looked at for a moment through windows in New York.

All the anime based thoughts lingering in Diamond's mind were flushed down the toilet when Leonardo re-entered the room with what Diamond realised to be a giant rat. A giant rat with brown, white and black fur wearing a red kimono with a faint, barely noticeable pattern of three flowers on one side. His hands folded over an emerald staff as he continued to walk towards the new visitors. Diamond frowned and dismissed the compassion and warmth brewing in his eyes for the time being while she hissed, "A giant rat."