nextgenerationmarvel | Teenage Mutant Pizza Fail

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Teenage Mutant Pizza Fail

What did one feed a boy who could turn into various turtles? Brooke Wyngarde wasn’t all that sure, but internet research had pulled up many different things that a turtle ate or could eat - including greens, shrimp, cuttlefish, and pellets and flakes specifically created for the diet of a turtle. Dairy products, though, apparently weren’t one of the healthiest things you could give a turtle.

It was with this list that Brooke had created a pizza that she was sure would get Pete Eastman to open up to her, minus any of the empathic manipulation that Rachel Grey-Ramsey had expressly forbidden her to use on Pete. She looked down distastefully at the shrimp and cuttlefish mixed with butter lettuce, pellets, and calcium powder, and pushed the box away.

She’d already sent ~~a missive~~ an invitation for Pete to meet her in the kitchen, and was patiently waiting for him in what she considered to be one of her most approachable outfits.

Certainly the green would put them on some sort of even standing, no?

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"Oh!" Brooke's brow furrowed. "I'm sorry, are you a freshwater turtle instead?" She hadn't even considered that.

Once his tongue tasted less salty, he turned back to face Brooke. "I am a man-turtle. I sup the same as other men."

He scratched his jaw with his three-fingered, Nightcrawler-esque hands. "And how doth a pizza come that way?"

"Specially ordered," Brooke said. To be honest, she'd had Sharona make it for her and deliver it to the X-Mansion. It was the least her maid could do considering that she had the run of Brooke's Manhattan penthouse while Brooke was staying at Xavier's.

"Is that...not something you would eat?" Because shrimp and lettuce were totally people food.

He carefully poked at the box with a finger. It felt very real. "Why are there pellets and powder? I am honored by the gesture, but this repast looks... uneatable."

That powder did not look like Romano at all.

"Internet research?" Brooke said. "I looked up the diet of pet turtles and found...well, this. I mean, not on a pizza, but teenage boys love pizza, and teenage turtles love cuttlefish and pellets, and so I thought I'd bring the best of both worlds together in a gastronomically delicious mash-up, but clearly I was mistaken." Word vomit. Yes, Brooke Wyngarde was off her game and very uncomfortable. She hated not being the person in absolute power.

D'Artagnan's scaly brows knit together. "Lady Wyngarde, do I look like a pet?"

His voice was even and calm. He was mostly just baffled by the foods. He was not going to take offense for someone trying to appeal to him. Even if it was worlds away from what he actually ate.

"Well, no," Brooke admitted after a long pause. "You don't seem very pet-like at all. But," she added, "I really wasn't sure what dietary restrictions you might have had, if any." She stood up, took the pizza, and marched it over to where she thought the trash can may have been.

It wasn't there, though.

Hmm.

She turned around, pizza still in hand, and managed to find the trash. Disposing of the failed pizza, she turned to the fridge and pulled out a hunk of roast beef, horseradish sauce, and bread from the pantry. Fine. Roast beef sandwiches would do, right?

She paused. Did turtles eat meat not from the ocean?

"Wait. Before I start making this," or trying to, really, considering Brooke's lack of talent in the kitchen, "do you eat beef?"

D'Artagnan quietly and calmly watched Brooke wander around the kitchen with a pizza box in her hand. He leaned forward and rested his arms on the top of the chair back.

"Aye, I eat meat of the cow."

"Let's just call it beef, okay?" Brooke didn't like thinking about where her food came from.

"So, this turtle thing? Five of you, one body. How does this work?"

"However thine wishes run," he answered amenably. He was not bothered much where his food came from. Just that it ended up in his stomach.

"I am not aware of the others or how their being comes to flesh. When I see an opportunity to be free, I take it. Young Master Eastman would know such details better." He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"I see," Brooke said, carefully placing slices of roast beef on a slice of buttered and horseradished bread. "Have you ever...rescinded an opportunity to be free willingly? To let Pete come to the fore?"

D'Artagnan tapped under his mouth with a finger as he considered.

"Mayhap, I have. But what chances I don't take are usually spoken for by another." He was conscious of time passing when he wasn't at the fore. When it got too idle for him, he elbowed his way out.

"So you're all aware in there, and you're each fighting for a little piece of dominance?" That was actually very interesting. But how did Pete, the boy whose mutation this was, deal with that?

Was it at all similar to cases of MPD?

He was silent for a moment as he tried to figure out how to explain it. It was a natural part of being to him so he had no idea how to tell someone who didn't live that way.

"I am unaware of what happens when I am not at the fore, but I am aware of the passage of time." That was the best the forthright samurai could come up with.

"That's so...odd." She tilted her head to one side, deep in thought for a moment, before snapping out of it and walking a sandwich over to the turtle. She took a look at the glass of water she'd had specially prepared - half-drunk and also a failure - and replaced it with a glass of minty limeade.

"Who is the strongest personality of you five?" She wondered if Pete might be the weakest, being a victim of his own mutation.

"My thanks for the improved repast, Lady Wyngarde."

He shrugged his scaly shoulders before picking up the sandwich.

"We all have our strengths. Sometimes it depends on how Young Master Eastman feels on if we are able to garb or not."

"You're welcome," Brooke said as she took a seat next to him, with her own sandwich. She stared at it for a moment and then pushed it away. It wasn't really the sort of thing she would eat herself.

"Tell me," she said. "If you wanted to, would you be able to relinquish control to Pete? Or is it a Russian Roulette of personalities? Relinquish control and whomever has the strongest urge then comes to the fore?"

D'Artagnan politely as possible munched his sandwich. He tried not to get crumbs everywhere.

"Mm. Mayhap he will come out. But no guarantee. I am not knowledgeable on his motivations." Though if Brooke were trying, she would sense two different emotions from the turtle. A calmness right next to a nervousness.

Oh, Brooke felt it. But she couldn't reach out and manipulate it.

She'd promised Rachel, and for some ridiculous reason, she actually found herself respecting Rachel.

Still, she could discuss things. That's what she was there for. "You know I'm an empath, right? That means that I can feel and sense emotions?" She leaned back in her seat and studied the turtle. "I feel calmness and nervousness. Those are...two very opposing emotions."

There was a little surprise in the calmness now.

"Struth?" He managed after swallowing a bit. "I am unfamiliar with many of the powers wielded by people in this shire."

He set his almost finished sandwich down for a moment. He took in a breath and summoned his chi. He tried to bulk up his defenses to block being read. "Did that work?"

Brooke reached out with her powers again. Indeed, the readings of nervousness had died down. But she knew they were there, she'd felt the emotion, and now she knew what she was looking for.

Still, it all went unmanipulated.

"Yes. Though now I know what I'm looking for. How's the sandwich?"

He picked the sandwich back up to finish eating it.

"It is delicious, lady Wyngarde. Thank you for this repast." He went back to calmly eating his sandwich. Though this time he kept his chi defenses up so Brooke would not get unsightly emotions all over her senses.

"You're welcome." And then, without any segue, "Let's talk about those mixed emotions."

The turtle tilted his head quizzically at the un-segue.

"My emotions are steady," he noted. He had had a natural progression while seated with her in the kitchen. However, he couldn't feel Pete's emotions like Brooke could.

"Yes. Yours are. But there's another emotion there, and though you're masking it, I can still suss it out. Is that Pete?" She wasn't beating around the bush here.

But she also wasn't being her usual bitchy, tactless self.

Be proud, Rachel. Be proud!

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