ya_assemble | [LN] Thank Goodness We're Well-rounded Characters

Kon was reading at relative superspeed. It wasn't at his usual brisk pace, because he found that the limitations of his powers meant he couldn't retain the knowledge for more than a few minutes at his usual speeds, so he had to slow it down a little, but he was still thumbing through far faster than some of the others were taking just to go through the study guides they'd quickly procured.

"Is it just the fact I'm reading this as superspeed or does this story make no sense?" Kon said, as he thumbed through page after page.

Another reality shard had fallen away and now that their brands had signaled it, it was time to go dimension-hopping. Fortunately, it was a very small shard in the middle of the wilderness in Siberia and the area of effect was spreading slowly, so they had time to prepare.

With his otherworldly wisdom, Manny had managed to help out on this one, communicating some clues about the world they were about to enter by flashing the image of a cover of a book.

A fairly terrible book. Apparently they were entering the world it was based on.

So they were doing their homework as they geared up to go and trying to make sense of the senseless.

"So what I'm getting from this is this is a world where you're not allowed to have more than one personality trait? I think? Under pain of death, you have to be a one-dimensional character."

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Nico chuckled.

"Guess you don't need me to hold your hand through this, huh?" she teased, craning her neck to get a look at the result. "Looks good!"

She wasn't sure what the symbol he'd chosen was, though. A flower? A turtle?

"I didn't know you did that much drawing," she said, offering him a hand up out of the chair so that they could scurry off to the bathroom before his myth healing digested the ink right off of his arm. "Or painting, I guess."

He shrugged, following along with her towards the unisex bathroom.

"Nothing really artsy. I just like doodling stuff. Lightning and skulls and stuff."

The kind of stuff people put on cars. Or that they doodled in notebooks during math class.

They ducked into a bathroom stall - in here, the bathroom actually had stalls - crowded in together. As soon as the door was closed and locked, he willed the illusion away, so they could see the actual tattoo on his skin. It was still strong and clear but it wasn't likely to stay that way for long.

The flames were pretty cool looking. The symbol inside, however, was a bit more delicate than one might have expected from Raph. It looked almost like a five-petaled flower with a circle around it.

Or a turtle, if you squinted at it right. But Nico was pretty sure it wasn't one, that would be a little weird.

"Well, it looks cool," she said, gripping her forearm with her hand and pulling the Staff of One from her body. It felt weird doing it this way instead of the normal way, but the normal way hadn't been working since she'd gotten here.

"Ack!"

The stall was crowded enough with a teenage girl and a teenage mutant turtle boy in it, adding over five feet of magic staff being pulled from the girl's arm definitely made everything more awkward.

"At least this thing isn't coming out of my chest," she muttered, adjusting her grip to try and deal with the awkward angle. "I'd probably put a hole through you."

Super awkward.

"Quick, quick, before it fades."

It did look cool so he didn't want it to disappear.

"Hang on--"

Whoops, that was almost clubbing him over the head.

"We should have found literally any other private place to do this," Nico said, finally getting everything positioned appropriately. Now she just had to come up with a spell...

"It's not gold, so it stays."

The tattoo stayed nice and clear, well past the point it should have.

"Yesss, it worked." He flashed her a huge smile. "Thank you."

He looked at the tattoo happily, pressing his fingers over it.

Nico watched the way he ran his fingers over it. Reverently. Like it wasn't just cool looking, but that it was also important.

"It's a family thing, isn't it?"

It looked kind of Japanese in design. And Raph didn't really strike her as the kind of guy who was really into flowers for their own sake, especially not enough to have them tattooed on his body and look at them like that.

He gave her a small smile, tinged just slightly with sadness.

"It was the symbol of Master Splinter's ninja clan," he said softly. "He made all our weapons, so we always had it on our shuriken."

It was important. And now he didn't need his father's symbol on his weapons. Now he had it etched in his skin to memorialize him.

"The flames are just 'cause flames are cool."

Nico smiled back, eyes flicking down to the tattoo again.

"Well, I'm glad I could help," she said. "...Now you might want to get out of here, because I'm going to have to flail around until I get this back inside me and it's entirely possible I'll clonk you upside the head."

Raph willed the illusion up again, peeking through the crack created by the stall door to make sure they were still alone, and opened it and walked out, hanging out near the sinks until she could join him.

Thunk! Bonk! Clatter!

Never doing this in the bathroom again.

"Ugh. Keeping secrets."

Nico exited the stall, rubbing her arm again.

"Here's hoping I don't have to do that again until it's time to go."

[LN] Thank Goodness We're Well-rounded Characters

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