“Ok, purple hoodie guy with the weird green pants was sus, but this one’s…”
“What?” Rosa looked at Jocelyn beside her as they walked out of the school towards the gates. Following her classmate’s gaze, she found River waiting in the same spot Donnie was two days before.
“Hi, Rosa,” he shyly greeted, hands in his pockets.
“Rosa, how do you know this guy??”
“I… we…” she stammered as she blushed.
“You're dating an underwear model??”
“W-we’re just friends!” River stammered, blushing.
Rosa’s jaw dropped, “Underw-...?!”
“That was a one-time thing!” he sputtered defensively.
She stared at him with wide eyes, “I never knew…!”
“His billboard’s still up in Times Square!”
“Nicetomeetyou,gottago!Bye!” the Japanese boy waved to the classmate as he grabbed Rosa’s hand and hurried off. Face still red, he quickly changed the subject, “Anyway, I’m sorry I spammed you with calls and messages for eight hours before I decided on a letter instead.”
“Spam? I never got anything from you since you called me back in the Hidden City.”
“What?” brows furrowed in confusion, he took out his phone and showed her the screen, “Huh, no wonder, they weren't even Seen.”
“I’ll ask Donnie,” she said, texting her boyfriend. “How’s Ice?”
“His lab needs an intern and he’s hoping you're up for it.”
She was about to answer when her phone gave a message alert, “Oh, Donnie said it was one of those errors the latest update fixed.” Texting back a quick thanks, she put her phone away, “And yeah, I’d love to join Ice’s lab!”
“Great! We can drop by there now if you want. It’s in Central University of New York’s Graduate School, about seventeen minutes by bus.”
“Orrr Ninja Express? I kinda miss it,” Rosa suggested with that cute look in her eyes River was never able to resist.
He laughed as he led her to an alley, “Alright.” He typed in his gold smartphone, “I've let him know we're on our way.”
“We could uncloak,” she suggested, mystic energy swirled around her as she transformed while settling into his left arm then secured her hands behind his neck, “No more secrets right?”
“R-right,” he responded, a similar sparkling mist swirled around him as he turned into his turtle yokai form before shooting his grappling gun.
Their scents hit them both, hard. Thankfully the wind as they sailed through the air made it bearable enough for them to keep their composure. They made their way to Ice’s lab swinging over rooftops.
Landing on Ice’s campus building, River cloaked again, “J-just in case there are humans around,” hoping she never noticed how affected he still gets by her scent, especially in their turtle forms.
“Um… yes, better to be safe,” she agreed, hoping the sunset was hiding her flushed face as she turned human again. The short girl followed her ex-boyfriend down the roof access stairs.
“Heyyy Ro’!” Ice swept her up in a spinning bear hug before she even reached the bottom of the steps. “How’s ma li’l lady?” the white haired teen asked as he settled her feet on the floor.
“I’ve missed you both!” she giggled in response after returning his greeting with a very tight hug of her own.
“Glad ta have ya on board!” the taller teen said as they entered through double doors, “Here's our Faculty of Information Technology and Telecoms lab,” he gestured at the wide open space with workstations, gadgets, and tech prototypes littered across the work tables, “Send me yer resume and transcript an’ I’ll take care of da rest.”
“Sure, I can send them over tomorrow, just give me your email address…”
“C’mere, I’ll add meself in yer contacts list,” he outstretched one hand, on which she placed her phone. He hurriedly connected her phone wirelessly to his online system, “Jus’ gimme a minute to figger out yer phone, m’kay? Y’can ask River whatcha gonna do once ya get started here,” he waved away with a chuckle.
River led her to a workstation, “We have been using this AI to support us with our missions,” gesturing at the multiple monitors, “But it needs a lot of work and we think you taking over will help run our operations more smoothly.”
Rosa peered into one of the screens, “Is this… hacking software?”
“I… I guess? I don't know much about computers.”
"But apparently you know enough about..." raising her voice to let Ice hear, "modelling underwear."
Rosa giggled, "How did you end up modelling anyway?"
"It's..." River pocketed his hands as his scowling face reddened, "Just another one of his pranks."
"Oi! I did need ya to put on the wearable tech I developed fer the investors," Ice countered.
"Then you told me you needed to demonstrate the cloakers!"
"And I did!"
"You did not tell me anything about a photoshoot that would plaster pictures of me on billboards!"
"Oh. some talent scout asked me about ya after dat investors presentation. Thought I'd multi-task," the bear simply flashed a wide grin as he shrugged innocently, "Musta slipped ma mind."
"Bull-..."
"River!" Rosa interrupted, "Could you tell me more about what I need to do?"
While the two were engrossed with her future workstation, Ice was brazenly snooping through her phone, 'What have we here??’ wondering who could have tampered with the system to install strangely-customized spyware, among other things. Could it be her current boyfriend?
A shoulder angel and a shoulder devil poofed into existence, his mind torn between them.
😇Ice: That’s creepy! You gotta tell ‘em!
👿Ice: Then Rosa would dump ‘im fer River.
He glanced over to the two cloaked turtles huddled in front of Rosa’s future workstation.
They looked so good together. Both raised their heads as Ice approached. Rosa piped up, “So I’m gonna be like... the Mission Control in your ninja operations? This is so exciting!”
“You know it!” The bespectacled teen grinned back. “If you can be without yer devices for the night I can help transition ya to use the campus-issued devices by tomorrow.”
“Oh, um… sure, I guess,” she shrugged, taking her laptop out, “Good thing I’ve finished all my homework.”
Ice took out the sim card and inserted it in a brand new silver smartphone before handing it to her, “You can use dis until I give ya yer stuff tomorrow.” He then hooked up her phone and laptop to one of his workstations, then sat down and started typing away. “I’m sure you'll get the hang of things by the time you start this February!”
“Can I ask for... a favor?”
Ice shrugged, “Anythin’.”
She looked out the shuttered windows to make sure the halls were empty, “Can I… see you both uncloaked? I’ll uncloak too…”
“Heh, I don't see why not,” Ice smirked as he transformed into his polarbear form, which she immediately hugged with a squeal as he heartily laughed.
“There,” River turned into a turtle, but kept his distance, “Happy now?”
“Y-... yes,” she hid her blushing face into the soft white fur, enjoying the bear’s gentle comforting scent as Ice returned her hug.
Uh-oh. The scents from both turtles and how affected they still were by each other further convinced the bear that he made the right decision hiding Donnie's phone tampering from them. He cloaked back into human form, prompting the two to do the same.
“Well... I need to go, school night and all. And Mikey would have dinner ready anytime soon.”
“Okay. May I walk you… uh, home?”
“That’s really sweet of you, River. You’ll get to meet the Hamatos!”
“‘Bye, Rosa! See ya tomorrow. River, I’ll see ya when I get home later.”
“I know, I know. You’ll be working late as usual. Don’t forget dinner again!”
“Yeah, yeah mom! I’m orderin’ pizza as we speak,” he slumped down in his chair in exasperation as he typed into his phone, showing the pizza order screen to the yellow turtle's satisfaction.
As Rosa and River left the campus, she called Michelangelo, “Hi, Mikey! I went to see some old friends and I’m wondering if one of them could join us for dinner? He’s a turtle like us!”
River nervously stammered, “Y-you don’t have to…!”
“Omigosh, a turtle?? I wanna meet him! Sure, I made plenty.”
He could only smile back at the very cheerful Rosa as he sighed and hoped dinner with Donnie and his family wouldn't be awkward later…
~🤍🐻~
4:44 PM
Ice was working late at night as usual in the campus lab when he heard an alert sound.
That alert sound.
He wheeled his chair to the workstation hooked up to Rosa’s old devices. Yep, thanks to his own software recently installed, he detected someone accessing her phone. He knew that someone (he doesn't need 3 guesses to know who it is) would discover his apps added there so he hurried to make his move and typed…
~💜🐢~
“Hey there, loverboy. 😘 Snooping into my phone?? Naughty naughty!”
Donnie jumped back, flailing right off his chair. He frantically got off the floor and whipped his head around his lab. The lair was empty and silent, as he found Rosa asleep in his bed earlier, similar to his father and brothers who all retired for the night after the most awkward dinner in his life thanks to his family welcoming that yokai dum-dum. He settled back in his chair and stared at the chat window that popped up while he was wondering about the mysterious new apps installed in Rosa’s phone. Hesitantly, he typed his reply…
“Rosa?”
“Why don’t we find out? 😉"
The turtle started again when the chat window changed into one ringing for a video call. Cautious, he moved his cursor to reject it. The call came through anyway.
“Ha! I knew it was you. Donnie, right?” the window turned into a camera feed, showing Donnie it was definitely not Rosa but some loudmouth bespectacled polar bear.
”Hiss!”
“Ah-ah ah!” the white bear waggled a scolding finger, “I’m recording right now so I’ve caught ya red-handed, with evidence. Ya ready ta listen?”
Donatello watched the smirking bear lean back in his ridiculously overpriced silver leather gamer chair. With a scowl he simply asked “...What do you want?”
“I wanna help yo’ dumb ass keep Rosa.”
“Stop calling me dumb. I’m certainly not dumb enough to believe the best friend of my rival would ever wish to help me with anything,” the purple genius sneered.
“Look, dumbass, since Rosa went back to ya I finally hadda chance wid River an’ I’m takin’ it. I ain't havin’ yer on-again off-again bullshit risking everything. Here's whutcha gonna do...”
“If you think you can order me around…”
“Cut the spyin’ crap. I’m keepin’ an eye on ya so don'tcha try nuthin’ funny, ya hear?”
The purple clad turtle gritted his teeth in silence. He decided to sweep his systems and wipe this bear’s hacking attempts off everything the first chance he gets.
“I’ll take yer playin’ dumb as agreement,” Ice grinned, fangs and piercings gleaming in the low light.
A love/hate relationship was born… Who are we kidding??
It’s a hate-hate relationship as the two try to outhack the other while outwardly conniving to keep their mates, using the old devices to communicate.
