Courting a Salamandrian

Chapter 13: Blame

After Raphael had his realization at the Mutanimal's lair, he quickly left without saying a word to his brothers and friends. The Mutanimals stayed behind at their home to recover from the Utrom's attack. Plus, no one was prepared to get involved in one of Raph's famous tantrums. The three turtles, April and Casey, however, followed Raph back to the lair where they found him in Donnie's lab. Raph's determined search distracted him from their presence.

"Raph! What are you doing?!" Donnie says, following his furious brother into his laboratory.

"It's Fugitoid's fault all of this is happening!" Raph says as he begins searching through his brother's stuff. "He's the reason Bishop is going on his crazy power trip, hurting our friends, and keeping Mona and I apart!"

"Is it really his fault though?" Mikey asked as he, Leo, and their two human friends watched Raph wreck Donnie's lab. They stayed by the lab's entrance, to what they considered to be a safe distance between them and Raph. The only one who seemed to be enjoying the chaos occurring in front of them was Casey, who found it amusing to see Donnie being the poor victim of Raph's tantrum.

"I mean, he's our friend," Mikey adds, "he wouldn't do this on purpose."

"Mikey's right. I'm sure Fugitoid has an explanation for why he told Bishop," Donnie says as he tries to clean up the mess his brother is leaving behind during his frantic search. "Would you stop wrecking my stuff?!"

"I'll stop when I find that stupid portal generator!" Raph says.

"Why do you need it anyway?" Mikey asked.

"He wants to confront Fugitoid," Leo guessed. He watches Raph go through his search with a look of annoyed disappointment. "Raph, stop destroying Donnie's lab!"

Raph ignores his brother and continues his search. He then opens the bottom drawer of Donnie's desk and finds a small piece of technology he was looking for.

"Finally!" he says, grabbing the small portal generator.

He presses the button, activating the device. It glows a light blue as it hovers out of Raph's hands, and once again creates a triangle shaped portal to Dimension X.

"Well?" Raph said, looking at his brothers and friends as he straps the breather to his face. If nothing else, he will survive the dimension's toxic air. "You all coming or what?"

"I'm not. I gotta clean up this mess that YOU caused!" Donnie says, "You know, you could've just asked me where the portal generator was, right??"

"I was in a rush," Raph said with a shrug. He has calmed down slightly. "Plus this helped me blow off some steam."

"Oh, good to know you destroying my lab made you feel better!" Donnie says sarcastically as he starts picking up papers that were scattered on the floor thanks to Raph's search just seconds ago.

April then approaches Donnie and kneels down next to him, gently placing her hand on his, stopping him from his stressful clean up, "I'll stay here and clean up the lab," she says to him calmly, "You should go with Raph and help him. He needs your support. Also to make sure he doesn't kill anyone."

"Yeah, and if he does, can you get it on video?" Casey adds with a joyful smile.

April rolls her eyes at Casey's joke and continues, "And don't worry. I know where everything goes and how you like certain things to be," April tells Donnie, "I've hung out and helped you in here many times with multiple experiments to know how your lab should be. Casey will help too!"

Casey looks at April confused, "I will?"

April turns back and glares at the hockey player.

"I mean, I will!"