Raphael had three brothers, each spread out across the world.

There was Leonardo up in the North Pole. He was a water bender. Their father Splinter had entrusted his sons training in an old friend. Leo had been living up there since he was six, but made regular visits at least twice a year to the Earth Kingdom to visit Raphael and his father.

Donatello was an air bender. Donatello had often used his talents to run away to an old Air Nomad temple that housed a mismatched group of engineers displaced by the war. He would leave early in the morning, leaving a note on the dining table, and would be back home before dinner like clockwork. Eventually Splinter found out exactly where his son went on his trips and was persuaded by a very talented show of air bending by his twelve year old son to let him stay at the temple for several nights at a time before he made a more permanent move when he was twenty one. Donatello's visits to him old home in the Earth Kingdom were in greater numbers than Leonard's but far more sporadic.

Raphael's final brother was a fire bender named Michelangelo. Splinter had a friend in the fire nation named Oroku Saki who he would say was more like a brother to him that he trusted Michelangelo to when he was five. Splinter knew Saki was strict so he told his other sons not to expect too many letters from Michelangelo. Raphael used to sit at the letter box or send Donatello to try and intercept the mail man before he showed up for the rare letter that never sounded like Michelangelo had written them. Saki only ever sent him home for New Years and he always came back having excelled in leaps and bounds in his bending. Raphael could remember Splinter expressing concern at the pace Saki was training his brother which Raphael felt in turn. Michelangelo never liked to talk about his training, no matter how much Leonardo pestered him in hopes of translating it to his water bending. He would always just smile and wiggle his finger in Leonardo's face saying, "Now now Leo, Master Saki is a nobleman. My training is a fire nation secret."

The day after Saki was assassinated in his own home Splinter ordered the maids to take care of Donatello and Raphael for a few days. They were barely eight and didn't know what was happening, they both mostly remember being excited because the maids liked to leave the boys alone so long as they were in their father's grounds, so they were practically home alone. Splinter went to the Fire Nation as Saki's brother and spent the week he was there delegating like the nobleman he was. After four days of casual bending and the very important mission of flying around the dining room, excitement pulsed through them when they received a messenger hawk from Splinter saying to prepare for Leonardo to visit and for himself to return the day after. They had thought they were having an impromptu family reunion, completely unaware of Saki's death. When Leonardo arrived the three of them gossiped and planned for heaps of fun because Leonard's sensei had said Leonardo would be staying in the Earth Kingdom indefinitely. They were excited to be seeing Michelangelo again, so excited that they missed the pitying looks of the maids as they served them dinner.

Splinter returned a day later than expected. He quickly ushered his confused sons to the dojo and sent maids on hurried errands.

The dojo was at the back of the grounds and made completely out of rock, a marvel of earth bending. They were rarely all in there together. When Splinter finally entered he wandered over to the east wall of the dojo and ran his hand down the scorch mark marring the otherwise perfect wall. Raphael was the first of his boys to show bending talents. He used to throw tantrums that would shake the ground and he would kick rocks and send them flying faster than any other child could. So Splinter assumed that the other three would be earth benders if they were benders at all. So he taught them simple things when they were four in hopes of triggering something. After a year of child grade martial arts training, Michelangelo complained one day that his hands were warm. Splinter poured some water on them, but his son complained that it didn't help. Splinter checked for rashes, any suspect looking bumps or bruises, and after determining that the rest of him was fine Splinter ordered that he continue. A frustration that Splinter had never seen crossed Michelangelo's face as his son squeezed his hands open and closed repeatedly. They continued training as per usual, until Michelangelo very suddenly turned his back on his father. He wouldn't respond to his name and just stayed very still. Splinter ushered his other sons behind him as he approached Michelangelo. Just as he was about to touch his sons shoulder, Michelangelo turned towards the east wall and sent two fiery punches flying from his tiny fists. The scorch marks left on the wall were at least three times the size his son had been at the time.

Splinter tried to grip the mark at the memory, as if he could pull its maker out of it. "My sons, I have some bad... Bad news."

Michelangelo was missing. Raphael remembered that he sent a huge crack up the dojo wall in his shock. Splinter said he knew very little of the circumstances surrounding the whole ordeal. The culprits were at large, a suspected earth bender and possible fire bender. Saki's home had been set a light, half had burnt down. His daughter and Michelangelo could not be accounted for.

"We looked up and down the Fire Nation, there was no sign of your brother. I meditated," Splinter took in a shaky breathe as he moved closer to his sons and kneeled down in front of them. "I could not find his spirit, my sons. I'm so sorry."

After that whisper the rest if the night was a blur for Raphael, not like the blurs he'd sometimes get when he raged, it was a blur far scarier to him than any of those.

He shook his head. Why did all of that have to come to him? Raphael, now twenty six, hitched his sack higher up his shoulder and stared down the imposing walls of Omashu. The sons of the Earth Kingdom noblemen had been called upon by the King, who was requesting a personal guard. The selection process would be a tournament style, where the prospective guards had to display their earth bending abilities while under attack. Raphael had begrudgingly gone under Splinters orders. Raphael was set to inherit his father's province, but that wasn't going to happen for a very long time given earth bender longevity, so he needed to fill in his time better than just mindlessly bending in the dojo. Splinter said it would be good for his training and would teach him some humility.

"Are you Raphael?"

Raphael looked down from the top of the wall to the bottom to find a large rectangle hole in the wall. Stepping out from the hole was a frog, draped head to toe in rich green robes with fluffy white fur accents.

"Who's asking?"

"I would have expected the son of a nobleman like Splinter to be better dressed, but I know you better than that." The frog tucked up each of his too long sleeves and placed his hands firmly on his hips. "I am the King of Omashu."

Raphael looked the guy up and down. He matched the description Splinter had given him, the guy was about his age, a frog, cocky and smelt like he hadn't bathed in several years. Raphael bowed.

"Your highness. Are you greeting everyone like this?"

"No, just you."

"Why?"

"You're very late."

He was never going to hear the end of from Splinter.

"Forgive me."

"It isn't a big deal. But we must start the tournament immediately!"

The King threw his fist towards the ground. The ground under their feet shifted and before Raphael could properly register what was happening, he and the King were flying through the streets of Omashu, the King's throaty laugher echoing off every wall. Raphael squeezed his eyes shut and bent down to grip the earth beneath him.

"What is wrong with you!?"

The earth stopped moving very suddenly and when Raphael looked up, he was in the middle of an arena, with very few seats taken up. He recognised some of the faces as the other sons of noblemen, with extremely smug looks on their faces.

"That's no way to speak to a King, gosh."

"By the King's decree, the tournament will start now!" A voice rumbled around the arena. Raphael tossed his sack into the closest stand and quickly took a defensive stance.

"I didn't realise you'd be auditioning yourself, your highness."

The smile slid off the King's face. "Your mistake."

The King stamped his foot on the ground and a rock the size of his head shot up into his waiting hand, but he did nothing with it. He just stared Raphael down.

But it didn't waver Raphael. So what that this guy is a King? He was looking for the most powerful body guard, he wasn't looking for someone who did nothing until danger happened; he was looking for someone to stop it before it happened.

Raphael dragged his left foot across the ground and kicked up. A boulder the size of his torso shot up from the ground. He let it hang in the air for a couple of seconds before punching it, sending it flying towards the King. The King shifted his shoulders slightly and the ground beneath him moved, swiftly carrying him out of Raphael's boulder's path. The boulder smashed against the wall and crumbled. The King cackled.

"Surely Splinter taught you better than that!"

Raphael smirked, shifting his feet and squatting slightly. He deftly moved his hands in swift jabs into the air. As he did, the crumbled remains of the boulder shot up from the ground and sharpened as they hurtled towards the King. Raphael dragged his feet and moved closer to the King, who was swiftly dodging the spikes of ground hurtling his way with much more effort than he did the boulder, but maintained his grip on his rock. The King wasn't moving his feet to dodge Raphael's assaults, rather he was using the movements of his shoulders to bend the ground beneath him. Roughly, Raphael reached a fist out and pulled back, dislodging a block from the arena wall. In the flurry of earth blurring past him, the King didn't notice the block until it knocked his rock out of his hand.

"Gosh!"

The King swooped low, dragging his fingers against the ground and stabbing them back up, bringing a wall of rock to shield himself from Raphael's now dwindling attack. He harshly pressed his fists to the wall and jerked towards Raphael. The wall went flying. Raphael stamped his foot and a pillar shot up under him, sending him into the air out of the wall's path. He twisted his body to the left and landed hard, ramming his fists into the ground and ripping them out, bringing huge spikes of rock up with them. Raphael knocked the tops off with the sides of his hands and sent them flying, and then he sent thick disks off the pointless spikes into the air, attacking the King from every angle.

Suddenly, the earth beneath Raphael shook and four precise spikes pierced through the ground; one for the front and one for the back of his neck and one for each side. Raphael brought his fists close to his chest and focused on taking over the spikes from the King. He felt the King let go of the earth as it inched closer to his neck, and he took it over. Raphael could hear the chuckles of the noblemen in the stands as the earth stopped millimetres from his skin.

"Well, Rapha-"

Swiftly, Raphael kicked his foot up and shifted the earth underneath the King, who fell flat on his back. Raphael threw his fists from his chests to his sides and the spikes disappeared into the ground.

"Yes?" He could hear a few murmurs from the stands, probably shock gossip at his audacity to trip up the King, who, quickly jumped back on his feet with a smile.

"That's all, you can sit down." The King waved for his guards to come and flatten the ground for the next match. "Ara! Son of Jot, come to the arena!"

Raphael strolled over to the stand where he threw his sack and took a seat. He flipped off a couple of people giving him glares – he wasn't very well regarded in his class, being rather brash and apparently unaffected by hierarchy and social order. He leaned back and kicked his feet up on the railing in front of him and watched the day's proceedings.

To begin with, most were flattened by the King seeing as how no one wanted to have to go back to their parents and explain how they broke the King (as if they could). But the few that went for an all-out offensive were quickly out smarted and buried in a hole. It was clear by the tenth fight the King was getting bored, as the fights were getting longer and the King's bending was getting sneakier. But he always started every fight the same way. By bending a head sized rock into his hand. And Raphael laughed the minute he realised the aim was to get the rock out of the King's hand and none of the other noble-headed-idiots had caught on. And he wasn't about to point it out. It was a lot more fun to watch the King drop people into the ground have them pop up somewhere different.

At some point though, Raphael had dozed off. When, he wasn't sure, but he work up with a start as a booming voice rang out over the arena.

"That is all for today! Please head back to the accommodation provided to you. Tomorrow you will head home and letters will be sent to your home detailing your success."

Raphael scoffed and grabbed his sack and head in the opposite direction of everyone else. He hated the accommodation at Omashu. It was small by any nobleman's standards and cold. He preferred to just head straight home. It was only a day trip from the city to his home province and he always made it quicker with some earth bending. Besides Donatello said he would visit and as if Raphael was going to miss that.

He made it home before midnight and Donatello was waiting up for him. But something was different.

"Holy heck dude, you got your tattoos!" Raphael dropped his sack and gave his brother a hug.

"Ow, careful! They're still a little tender," Donatello flinched a little and patted Raphael on the back. "It's good to see you. How did today go?"

"Good. I was late apparently so the King greeted me personally." They went and sat in the dining room and Raphael told his brother about his day, making sure to keep is voice down so he didn't disturb their father.

"Sound like you got it then." Donatello smiled and put his fist out for Raphael to bump it.

"So was Splinter upset that you didn't invite the whole family for a big shin-dig over your tattoos? I thought you said there's supposed to be a big ceremony."

"Yeah," Donatello scratched the side of his neck and looked at his feet, "Honestly, I could have gotten them ten years ago. But I wanted to wait, I really wanted Mikey to be there you know?"

"Yeah…"

"I just sort of panicked and had them done. I'm the only master at the moment. It was just a little thing with some of the bending kids and the engineers. It really kills me to say it, Raph but I don't think Mikey is ever coming back. He's gone."

He wanted to be mad, but he'd thought all these things himself and had come to accept it. "I just don't want to forget him, you know?"

They sat in silence for a little while, basking in each other's company before heading off to their rooms, willing that the pain might go away.

So here this is... :) Tell me what you think.