Together As Mutants (Book Six)

Chapter 18: The Birth of Pepperoni

"So...you're dog-sitting?" Leonardo asks.

Michelangelo nods, cuddling Pepper to his chest as the terrier wags her tail gleefully up at the other turtles. "Yeah! Annalise has photography club and Mrs. Hughes had to work later than she planned, so..."

"She couldn't just stay home?" Donatello asks.

"She's been cooped up all day, dude. Lisey is coming here after school anyway," Michelangelo insists. He scratches Pepper's ears. "So, I'll keep her company down here, then Lisey can take her home later!"

"Just make sure she doesn't chew up my comics," Raphael snorts.

"She won't! Pepper's a good doggo."

Leonardo eyes the two of them, taking in their matching dopey smiles, for a second more before he decides to go and train with Sarina and Destiny, who are already in the dojo with Splinter. Donatello and Raphael follow him.

And so, Michelangelo plays with Pepper. He never got to have a dog growing up, or any pets for that matter, as it was hard enough for Splinter to keep all of them fed and happy. The closest they got to a pet was Spike, and Raphael basically monopolized him to the point that Spike was his pet and no one else's.

This is his dream come true, which is why he spent so much energy leaping through metaphorical hoops, convincing Leanne and Annalise that this was a good idea. Sure, he has Ice Cream Kitty, but she's a mutant cat who can't go far from a freezer. A real live dog is whole new territory.

He runs around the lair with Pepper chasing him. He plays tug-o-war with her. They wrestle. He rubs her stomach and she leaps all over him, bathing his face in kisses.

After a while, he flops down on the living room bench with some leftover pizza and starts watching TV. Pepper lounges at his feet, staring up at the food in his hand with wide, brown eyes, and he tosses her the crusts every time he finishes a slice.

He gets so wrapped up in the TV show that he doesn't notice Pepper exploring the abandoned pizza boxes around the living room. When he finally does look up, he's greeted by a pleased but very messy dog.

He eyes the tomato sauce, bits of cheese, and discarded pepperoni littering her fur. "Uh, oh. Someone's messy," he teases. He leaps to his feet. "Bath time!"

Pepper runs.

Michelangelo may be a ninja, and a rather fast one, but trying to catch Pepper reminds him of when they tried to hunt down those squirrels that got into the lair. He tries to corner her, but she slips through his hands or between his legs like she's made of butter. She's just too slippery.

"Get back here! It's just a bath!" Michelangelo hollers.

Pepper yaps at him and despite her obvious dislike of baths, her tail is wagging. She thinks this is a game and Michelangelo would love to play, but he can't. He has to scrub pizza off her fur.

He lunges for her again and she leaps over him as he belly flops, scampering over his shell and dashing into the open lab doors. Michelangelo scrambles to his feet, turns around, and he hears a loud smash followed by whimpering yelps of pain.

His heart just about stops.

He rushes into the lab and searches the space, easily finding Pepper in the organized chaos. She scratches and rolls about, huffing and snorting as she goes, a puddle of mutagen beneath her with bits of the alien goop still clinging to her.

What's more, she's definitely been mutated. Her back, head, and ears are covered in melted cheese and bits of pepperoni. When she sniffs the ground, pizza sauce gets left behind by her nose. The rest of her seems almost normal at a glance, but Michelangelo fears the worst.

"Pepper?" Michelangelo squeaks.

The dog perks up and bounds towards him, leaving pizza sauce paw prints in her wake as the last flecks of mutagen fall off her. Michelangelo kneels to scoop her up, unafraid of the mess—after all, his own pet is a cat made of ice cream. When she curls up in his arms, he finds that her fur and belly have the consistency of baked dough to go with the sauce and cheese and toppings.

"Oh...oh, no," he mumbles. "I mutated Lisey's dog...sort of...is it my fault? I think so, I'm supposed to be watching you!" Pepper wags her cheesy tail. "Dang it..."

A shadow falls across the open door space and he looks up just as Sarina's eyes flash blue.

"Michelangelo..." she utters.

"I was trying to stop her!" he cries, clutching Pepper closer to him. She's very warm and gooey against his plastron. "I was! But she ran in here and knocked your mutagen over!"

Sarina moves into the lab, eyeing the spill and the shattered canister as her eyes flash again. "We have limited resources, Michelangelo," she says. "This was our test batch for Timothy's retromutagen. Now we'll have to dip into our other supplies..." She sighs, eyes closing just as they start to flash again, hands on her hips. "I will have to send someone for mutagen scouting missions. Such a pain..."

As she starts cleaning up, Michelangelo realizes that she's talking to herself more than to him, and he sneaks out of the lab on the silent feet of a practiced ninja.

Of course, he can't catch a break.

"Guess who's back?" Annalise's voice sings as she pushes through the turnstiles. "Back again! Uh-huh, guess who's back?"

Pepper yaps and slips out of Michelangelo's arms and bounds towards her owner. For a second, Annalise doesn't notice anything amiss about the terrier, and then shock invades her features and Michelangelo runs through his final wishes in his head.

"Pepper?!" Annalise gasps. "What—"

"I'M SORRY, LISEY!" Michelangelo wails, taking a few steps towards her before collapsing to his knees.

"Mikey?" she asks.

"Please don't break up with me! I promised to watch her but she got messy and when I tried to take her for a bath she—"

"Mikey, breathe."

He takes a big, gulping breath, hands still pressed together before him like he's praying. Annalise taps Pepper's head gently, then checks her fingers and pouts her lips a little.

"This...is not what I expected," she admits with a weak laugh. "But I'm not mad."

"I'm sorry..." he repeats as he slowly gets back to his feet. "I'll ask Donnie to make you some retromutagen, promise!"

She smiles a little and eyes her mutated dog. "Aw, but...she's kind of cute as a pizza pup," she says. "And besides, you need all the mutagen you can get. For the patches, you know?"

"But..."

"Let's talk to my mom, okay?" She steps closer, reaching out to take his hand. "No rush. I'm sure it'll be fine."

And so, Michelangelo and Annalise leave the lair (with Michelangelo shouting goodbye to his family just as they trickle from the dojo) and return to Annalise's house. Leanne Hughes takes one look at Pepper and has to sit down, already messaging her forehead.

Michelangelo explains, promises retromutagen when they can get it, and Leanne sighs.

"It's...it's fine," she says. "This...this is just my life now, it seems."

"Mom," Annalise says, tense.

"She's still our dog. We'll take the retromutagen when it comes, but for now...I don't know, perhaps she'll like a spot by the fireplace. And...we'll have to be on watch for sauce stains."

Michelangelo grins. "You're the coolest, Mama Hughes!"

She props her head in her hands and lets out another long sigh. Annalise thanks her mom, takes Michelangelo's hand, and drags him upstairs to distract themselves with video games.

"Are you sure she isn't mad?" he asks as they play Minecraft.

She shrugs. "Let's just try and cure her before my entire house gets covered in paw stains."

"Gotcha."