Chapter 1

"MIKEY!"

The yell that resounded through the lair was a familiar one, but it was still sudden enough to catch him off guard. Leonardo gave a strangled grunt as his misstep sent his cut sideways, and instead of blocking his brother's lab like he had intended, he stumbled right into it. Crumpling in on himself as Donatello began to mutter quick apologies and help him back onto his feet, Leo groaned and got up, glancing at the archway with an annoyed look on his face. This wasn't the first time Raphael's yelling had interrupted his training, and he was quite sure it would be the last time either.

"Mikey! Get over here so I can bash your head back into your shell!"

"What did he get himself into now?" Leo sighed, one hand rubbing the lasting ache from his sore plastron. Sure, his shell had taken the brunt of the hit, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. It wasn't a bad enough injury that he would have to go get Master Splinter, though. He'd be fine in a few hours… once he handled whatever the shell was going on out in the living room. It wasn't uncommon to hear yelling or fighting, especially from their brothers, but it wasn't exactly pleasant to have to listen to. "This is the third time since this morning. It's like Mikey's asking to get his shell handed to him."

"You know what he's like when he can find easy ways to get on Raph's nerves." Donnie muttered, before the both of them cringed at the high-pitched shriek that came from their youngest brother. Shaking his head in exasperation, Leo led the way out to the living room, only to crash into his baby brother's fleeing form. He didn't get a chance to ask what was going on before Raphael was charging towards them with hellfire in his eyes.

"You are so dead-!"

"Raph, calm down! What the shell is going on? What is wrong with you?" Leo snapped, his voice gaining that deep 'leader tone' as Mikey called it. He didn't mind the comment, but he had other things to focus on right now. Like holding his hotheaded brother back so that he didn't break something or someone.

"What's wrong with me?! What's wrong with him!? He bent my sai, that's what's wrong!"

Mikey popped his head out from where he was hiding behind Donnie, blue eyes widening at the glare that he received from his older brothers. He shrank back a little, fumbling for words before he pointed at Raph, almost accusingly, voice squeaky as he tried to defend himself from the blame set upon him.

"I didn't know it was gonna bend! Maybe your weapons shouldn't be so fragile!"

Leo immediately winced at that. Mikey was just egging Raphael on now, and he wasn't exactly helping the situation to keep his brother calm. It was one thing to just make Raph mad, but now that they knew why he was mad, that brought up a whole different series of questions. The main one being how exactly they were going to get him to calm down again. Jerking back into the present as Raphael began to double his efforts to get to the freckled turtle and tear him apart, Leo shot a glance at Donnie, receiving a panicked look that screamed 'Do something!'

Putting a firm hand on Raph's shoulder to regain his attention, Leo set his shoulders, standing up a little straighter as he always did when he wanted his little brother to listen to what he had to say. But the glare he got from those flaming green eyes wasn't exactly comforting, and he honestly didn't think Raph was going to listen to a word he had to say unless it involved an order or permission to rip into Mikey. Leo knew he wouldn't actually hurt him, but they didn't need Mikey getting beat up again.

"Raph, you need to calm down. We've all broken weapons before, so there's no need to go nuts at Mikey for it. Okay? Donnie can fix your sai in no time, right Donnie?"

Quickly clueing in, Donatello gave a swift nod and a reassuring smile, shrugging as he looked to his red-masked brother. "It's easy enough. All I have to do is heat it up enough to mold it back, and then do a bit of fine adjustments to get it back to you ready for battle. It won't take more than an hour."

Raph was silent for a moment, before his shoulders relaxed at the reassurance. Only then did Leo loosen his grip, though he didn't pull away completely. With Raphael being so unpredictable all of the time, he had to be careful not to let his guard down too fast. It wouldn't be the first time that Raph had feigned acceptance only to dart away and attack once more. All Leo hoped now was that Mikey would keep his bloody mouth shut.

"Fine." Raph finally mumbled, voice soft but not free of the anger he had contained in it. Leo knew he'd probably go after Mikey again later, but at least for now, the tense ordeal seemed to be over. Leo let Raph jerk out of his grip and pass the damaged sai over to their genius brother. Glancing at Donnie again before watching the hothead storm back to his room, Leo gave a sigh and nodded for Donnie to go. The lanky scientist peered at the bent prong for a moment and ran his hand over it before giving a smile and heading off to the lab, while Leo reached out and snagged Mikey's shell as the youngest tried to scurry his way out of trouble.

Mikey squeaked as he was dragged back to Leo and looked up at his oldest brother, cringing away from the accusing look that he received from him. A sigh heaved from Leo's chest as he watched Mikey give an innocent grin before flicking his eyes away and avoiding his gaze, making Leo shake his head in exasperation.

"Mikey, you can't keep doing this. Are you nuts? You know how Raph gets about anybody touching his weapons, let alone breaking them."

"I just needed something to prop my bed up for a sec so I could grab Ice Cream Kitty. I didn't mean to break it." Mikey protested quickly, crossing his arms before scuffing the floor with his toes. "Maybe if Raph took care of his weapons, they wouldn't break when I messed around with them-"

"That's no excuse, Mikey. You can't just egg him on every chance you get. Because quite frankly, if I have to listen to him yell at you one more time, I'm going to let him get you. I can't defend you every time you do this." Leo reprimanded him in a stern voice, but there was a tone beneath it. Almost frustrated, but partly just… done. "You need to go talk to him, and no more bugging him today, alright?"

"What!?" Mikey snapped, whipping around and staring up at him with round eyes. Leo knew that look; he was going for the puppy-eyes to try and get himself out of trouble, but it wouldn't work on him this time. The youngest shook his head quickly, flinging his hands up into the air to emphasize his point. "I can't go talk to him, Leo! Not right now, he'll kill me! Well not really but you know what I mean!"

"It's your own fault you got yourself into this. I can't help you out of it again. So you will go talk to Raph, or you aren't going on the next mission." Leo shook his head before giving Mikey a gentle swat over the back of his head, sighing a little bit once again. "The sooner you get it over with, the sooner everything goes back to normal. And the sooner you can order pizza."

Mikey scowled, looking down. He knew Leo was right, and Leo knew he knew Leo was right. So with that, the leader rubbed his little brother's head and turned away, walking back to the dojo to clean up their training session. Mikey was going to have to figure out this one on his own, because one thing was for sure. Leo didn't want to have to be the one that gets to talk to Raph. He'd done it before, again and again, and it was never fun. Raph always knew how to get under someone's skin, and somehow, Leo could never figure out how to talk to him without sounding so… reprimanding all the time. Raph hated being talked down to, but somehow, it always came out that way.

Putting their training weapons back on the racks, he sighed, rubbing his plastron again. Donnie was sure excelling in their training now. He was really starting to focus more on the actual techniques rather than being preoccupied with about four other trains of thought. It had been a bit of a surprise to him this morning when Donnie entered and actually offered to train with him. That didn't happen often. Usually he was the only one enthusiastic about training, but perhaps with the ever-looming threat of Shredder slowly descending on them, that was changing. Raph always did well in training, though he tended to go a bit overboard a lot. Now if only he could get Mikey to focus…

Shrugging lightly, Leo departed the dojo, stretching for a moment before he leaped down onto the couch and grabbed the remote. Well there was one good thing coming from all of this. At least now with Raph in an angry pout and Mikey preoccupied with trying to figure out how to approach his brother, and Donnie working on the sai, he could have some time to himself. Smiling, Leo turned on the TV and glanced up at the clock. 10:57 A.M. Perfect.

Space Heroes was on in three minutes.

Leaning back against the couch, Leo turned on the right channel and waited for the commercials to pass so that he could rewatch his favourite series for the seventeenth time. Things would settle down in the lair and perhaps everything could go back to normal. Or, at least, as normal as it got for the four of them. He could at least hope so. Smiling as the familiar tune appeared, Leo relaxed, eyes locking on the screen as he allowed all the other worries of the day fade to the back of his mind, losing himself in the comforting bliss of his show.

Hey everybody! I'm back!

Sorry for taking so long to FINALLY get back into the game here. A lot has happened in the last few years and now that I'm in college, my life seems to have taken a more steady course. I've been able to finally get my muse back for this story, and I thought I might as well start off by rewriting the entire thing. These chapters might get revised and edited multiple times while I search for what I want, but this time, I'm getting back into it.
What's going to change? Well, I'm adjusting a bunch of it to actually fit back into the show, because there are characters I need for the story to progress that the show didn't contain at the time. Such as Rahzar and Falco's giant rat-horse things. They'll come in later in the story, and it'll be a good change. Don't worry.
Some minor plot details will be adjusted as well as one big one, but you won't find that out until later on. Its to make the story flow a lot smoother than it did before. I'm hoping it works!

Thank you all for your support, and I wish you well.

Love you guys!

~Jeli