The Shrine

Raph stretched as he walked out of the dojo slightly sore from his workout. Flopping down onto the couch, he switched on the TV only to find that the newest episode of that robot show Mikey was into was on. Not really in the mood to deal with his brother's hyperactivity, Raph debated whether or not he should call the younger mutant in.

Brotherly love won out and Raph called out, "Hey Mikey, your robot garbage is on."

There was no response, much to Raph's surprise and he grew a little worried.

"Mikey," he tried again while getting up. Raph then noticed his brother kneeling in front of the small, wooden shrine in the corner of the lair. Hearing Raph approaching, Mikey turned around and smiled at his older sibling.

"Just saying hi to our bros, bro," Mikey laughed before turning back to the shrine.

Slightly irritated that he was being ignored, Raph couldn't stop himself before asking, "Why the heck do you spend time here anyway? It's not like we ever knew them, for all we know they could be-"

Raph managed to stop himself before saying the cutting words, but he still grabbed Mikey's attention.

"They're our brothers Raph, and I think that you should try talking to them," Mikey retorted before motioning his brother to sit down.

Rolling his eyes, Raph complied if only to make up for his earlier comment. He hadn't even glanced at the shrine for a few years and took a moment to study its contents. There were two masks, one purple, one blue, and a few candles. Splinter never had a picture of the other two turtles, but Mikey had more than made up for that fact with his various drawings.

Master Splinter had created the shrine in honor of the two other turtles, which had mutated, but had been left behind in his haste to get his two new sons to safety. While Raph had disregarded the shrine, as he saw no value in honoring those who they had never even known, Mikey took a much different approach. Sitting at the shrine and talking to his "brothers" was part of the orange-clad turtle's daily routine and over time he had created personalities for the two lost turtles and even insisted that they were still alive and that they would find them one day.

"This is blue," Mikey said while picking up the drawings situated behind the blue mask, "he is really cool, though not as cool as me, and he loves Robo Squad Five, and he has a great taste in music and he…"

Raph had tuned Mikey out as he studied the pictures that had been shoved into his hands. They were at varying degrees of quality as Mikey's art skills improved with age. The first few were of crude drawing of, Raph presumed, a mutant turtle with a blue mask. As time the drawings continued, they portrayed the blue turtle watching TV with Mikey and another showed Mikey and the blue turtle throwing water balloons at a rather angry Raph.

His first instinct was to tell Mikey to stop being stupid and to go and watch his dumb television show instead of wasting his time with a shrine for two turtles who were probably long gone. But words stuck in his throat. He looked at Mikey, who was talking excitedly about the adventures he and the blue masked turtle would go, and couldn't bring himself to destroy the younger turtle's happiness.

Raph handed the papers back to Mikey and shifted his position to kneeling like his brother.

"So how about you tell me about the purple one now."