Prolgue

"This doesn't look so good Don" said Raph " how much longer?"

"Almost there!" shouted Don so his hot-tempered brother could hear.

Thing's had been going downhill ever since the last raid of areil mousers. Stockman was no longer a disembodied brain, in fact, ever since he had gained his new body a war had raged itself upon New York City. Areil mousers flooded the sky while Chapman's newly remodeled mousers 3.0 plagued the streets.

None of the turtles knew what had given Stockman so much power, but were determined to stop him either way. However the battle againist the mad sciencetist had had it's casualties. An attack on one of Stockman's factories resulted in the turtles losing Casey and April.

Raph had taken their death personally and once tried to face Stockman on his own, resulting in his own capture. Three days had passed before the turtles the turtles were finally able to find and rescue him.

Blinded by rage Rapheal accidently attcked Mikey thinking he was Stockman and ended up killing the orange clad turtle with one blow. Sometime passed when Don finally found the reason for the maddess behind Rapheal's rage.

It seemed that stockman had planted a chip in Rapheal to make him instantly attack on sight. even with this confirmation however Leo never forgave Raph for what he had done.

Raph, himself, had become distant from his two remaining brothers. Ocassionaly speaking, but only to Don and noone else. Then finally the dreadful day came. Stockman had unleashed a new hord of robots designed to destroy large building on a whim.

Rapheal was directly in the path of one of those robot's beams, there was no way that he would be able to dodge in time. However at the last second Leo leaped in the beam's path sheilding Rapheal from the blast. Both Rapheal and Donatello lay shocked as they watched Leo getting burned by the bot's beam.

As soon as the beam dimnished Leo stood for a moment and then fell forward laying face down on the ruined ground. In cold anger Rapheal destroyed the bot that had hit his brother and ordered Don to run back to the hideout. Don did as he was told while rapheal scooped up Leo and carried his blue clad brother and fell in behind his purple clad brother's path.

The two nights Leo spent in recovery were restless. At least the good news was that their brother was still alive. For how much longer noone could tell. There was a possible chance that he would be back in action in no time, but that didn't seem likely right now.

"Why Leo?" thought Raph "why did you save me? After all that I've done, why?"

Don had never seen his hot-headed brother look so forlorn. Not once did Rapheal leave Leo's side ever since the blue-masked turtle had saved his life. The red-masked turtle hadn't eaten in days. he just kept sitting there, unmoving and unaware of what forces of destruction had surrounded them.

By the second day Leo's hand rested on top of Rapheal's own bringing the red-masked turtle out of his depression.

"Leo?" said Raph not believing his eyes.

Leo nodded his head weakly to show that he was indeed alive. For the first time in years Rapheal cried. Leo smiled as he saw the tears line Rapheal's eyes. Raph, realizing that he was showing emotion, quickly wiped the tears away from his eyes staining his hands with their sadness.

"Why...why did you...?"

Leo sighed painfully and said " It wasn't your fault that Mikey died. You were being controlled. Even though Don told me about the chip I didn't want to believe it. I just wanted to stay mad, but losing you would be just as bad as losing Mike, Casey, and April. I don't if I'll fully recover from that blast, but I want you to promise me something,"

"What?" said Raph.

Leo smiled and said "Kick but, Fearless Leader,"

With that Leo once again fell asleep leaving Rapheal in stunned silence. Don, who had overheard the whole exchange, took Rapheal's reaction as a cue to enter the room Putting a hand on his brother's quievering shoulder he said "Come on Raph, we better go,"

Raph offered no resistance as Donatello led him out of the room, still stunned that Leonardo had just appionted him to be the new leader of the TMNT.

In the weeks that follwed Rapheal and Donatello had worked together on a plan that may save their world from total destruction. Salvaging parts from recent raids both turtles went to work on developing a time machince. Whenever Stockman's tin cans attacked Rapheal would fight them off while Don continued working.

Now, after all this time, the time machine was ready for use. However Stockman had soon learned about the turtles plan to travel back in time and lauched a full-scale attack on the turtles little base of operations.

"Done!" shouted Don to Rapheal just as the red clad turtle dashed inside "the only problem is that the time machine has only enough power to transport one person,"

"Then I'll go " said Raph " you just get Leo out of here and to safety, promise me Donny,"

"I promise" said Don and rushed to get Leo.

Stepping through the time portal Rapheal left Donatello behind to take care of their wounded brother. Remembering the promise he made to Leo Raph thought.

"Hang in there Bro. I'll stop this thing from ever happening to us, but for it to work I'm going to need a little help from the past,"