I sighed and quickly shook my head at the red masked turtle.
"No, no. Hold the cables together. They'll create a reaction-"
"What cables?"
"Raph, just hold these two metal "do-hickies" together. That's all you gotta do." I made sure to use the sarcastic words he used earlier, grinning at his confused face before sighing. I'd been doing that a lot today.
"Tell me again why I'm helping you?"
"Because my life revolves around me being a total nerd, like you said, but other than that I've been trying to do this for the past two years and now that I can finally get it-" I stuck my tongue out and tapped the tiny box shut. Ever so carefully, I ran my hand over the cool metal shoulder blades underneath the wings of my newest robot. It was a bird this time.
Small, colorful... it could fly away from everything and I could only watch. Maybe that's why I spent years trying to create it. The blue eyes lit up and the bladed feathers twitched. Raph barely moved before it sprung to life. His eyes were wide in shock.
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"I did it... WE DID IT RAPH!! YEAH!!" I cheered and happily grabbed Raph into a hug. He was a bit taller then me so I jumped up and cling to him, nearly making him fall over.
"We?" He raised one end of his mask.
"Yes! You and I, we did it!" I watched Raphael as he rubbed the back of his neck and pointed to the bird.
"I only held the thing together."
"If you didn't, it wouldn't have worked-"
A loud screeching sound made me turn around to the bird. Raph covered his ears and gritted his teeth.
"The shell is it doin'?"
"Oh! I uh, programmed it to do that." I sheepishly smiled at the turtle who gave a look my way.
"Why the shell would you do that?"
"Well, when Chip is being ignored, she's programmed with a chip to give her the ability to want to exchange in interactions between the person or thing programmed as her leader or her fellow allies. When she is ignored, she screeches to get attention. It's like having a real pet, here, watch." I turn to the bird hopping on the table and smiled. "Hey Chip, this is Raph. Raphael is an allie. See?" I took Ralph's arm and brought him back up to the table. "Friend."
The small bird nodded and ticked before a friendly chirp filled the air. I smiled. "She knows you're a friend of mine now."
Raph smiled. It was a confused one, but a smile it was. "I'm- you- no. We are friends?" His eyes grew wide at the word. I nodded slowly.
"Unless you don't want to be?"
"No, you're actually pretty okay..." he turned his head. "For a nerd."
