A/N: I'm back with another chapter. A big thank you to everyone who left reviews and PMs-they serve as excellent motivation to really give my all on these chapters. And those of you who added this story to your favorites and/or put me on your author alert, just want you to know you totally made my day! A big thanks to Novus Ordo Seclorum for allowing me to talk out my ideas to him! This chapter is a little longer and a lot more visually imaginative so I hope it comes across well. I hope you enjoy it!

12/12/14 - A/N: Found some grammatical errors, reposted revised version. Content has not changed!

Chapter 4

Stroking his bearded chin, he watched curiously as Leonardo led his brothers in their morning katas. Something was not quite right; their movements were sloppy, unbalanced. They stood in their usual eldest to youngest order performing the katas, but even their stance lacked unison. Leonardo and Raphael stood closer together and farther to his left, while Donatello and Michelangelo stood farther to the right. He noticed they did not eat breakfast together as they usually did. Leonardo and Raphael were the only ones in the kitchen and appeared to be having a hushed conversation when he made his tea this morning. Michelangelo and Donatello were chatting on the couch. He only hoped it was not the 'A team vs. B team' nonsense. His sons took the internal competition too far on one too many occasions. He hoped they learned by now they were stronger as one.

"Use any good condiments this morning?"

"Shut up, Raph!"

"Silence!" Master Splinter bellowed for the third time in the past 20 minutes, "Raphael, straighten your stance! Michelangelo, balance from your center not your ankles!" Master Splinter looked back and forth between his students and saw the tension between them. Their behaviors were strangely opposing. Usually he reprimanded Michelangelo for his good-natured teasing and calmed Raphael's outbursts, not the other way around. Why Michelangelo was so irritated about food enhancements was beyond him. There was really no telling with sixteen year old mutant turtles. Raphael and Michelangelo were not the only ones acting strangely this morning.

Leonardo was generally his more focused student, always striving for perfection. However, he currently looked extremely anxious about something as his glance alternated from glaring at Raphael to smiling nervously at him.

So there is something going on after all, and it involves ketchup and mustard apparently?... Master Splinter thought curiously to himself. His eldest son's botheration was always a dead giveaway of his brothers' misconduct. What mischief were they covering up now?

Then there was Donatello, his quietest son. His movements were always concise and mechanical like a machine performing a series of preprogramed codes. His most intellectual student had the mechanics of ninjitsu down to a fine and unnerving art. It was merely a simple input/output formula to him.

Over the years, Master Splinter watched Donatello studied a variety of martial arts books, memorizing the proper stances and techniques, and permanently stored the knowledge into his expansive brain. Then, like an automated machine, the movements were reproduced—precise, but without personal rhythm; accurate, but without feeling. Splinter constantly encouraged him to be one with his movements; however, his encouragement was often met with trepidation and immediate mental shut down like a computer's defense system against a deadly virus. This more emotive aspect of ninjitsu at times seemed unattainable for Donatello, but it never stopped Splinter from trying to aid him in this area.

However, today there was something slightly awry with Donatello as well. Though his movements remained automated, if not a little sluggish, there was something just beyond the surface of his countenance that transfixed Splinter. Donatello was hardly one to be distracted by emotions while in practice, but there were obvious fragments of some sensation flashing briefly across his face before he made an attempt to mask it with indifference.

Something definitely transpired between last night and this morning, and Master Splinter planned to get to the bottom of it.

"Yame!" Master Splinter said sternly. The boys looked puzzled about being ordered to stop in the middle of a kata, but followed the instruction without question, "You will begin sparring now." He watched suspiciously as his sons looked at one another. Donatello walked toward Michelangelo as Leonardo walked toward Raphael.

"No," Their Sensei said stopping their current pairing, "Leonardo you will spar with Michelangelo and Donatello with Raphael." Both Leonardo and Donatello gave a collective sigh of complaint. Splinter emphasized his seriousness with the crack of his walking stick against the dojo floor. With lightening speed, his students immediately stood in position with their assigned sparring partner.

Donatello's body visibly tensed as he avoided any form of eye contact with Raphael. A brazen and cheeky smile was the only expression gracing Raphael's features. Both Leonardo and Michelangelo could hardly keep still, but it would appear, for different reasons. Splinter's careful observation found Leonardo's constant foot shuffling laced with subtle impatience as if he was ready for the sparring to end before it even started. Michelangelo, on the other hand, was practically bursting with eager anticipation of sparring with his oldest brother.

Splinter gave an inquisitive hum...Peculiar behavior indeed.

"Hajime!" Splinter shouted and the sparring began.

To an outsider, the four turtles appeared flawless in their ninjitsu training. However, Splinter was a master martial artist, trained to notice even the minutest details. He knew his sons' potentials on their best and worst days, and today was far from their best. Watching the spar between Leonardo and Michelangelo was interesting to say the least.

"For the last time, Not. Now." Leonardo said sharply between grinding teeth as he stood within inches of Michelangelo's face while his katana ground against the chain of his brother's nunchucks.

"Why not now? Raph's still ragging on me; how am I supposed to dish out a decent comeback if I don't even know what he's talking about?" Leonardo pushed away from Michelangelo with a firm kick to the plastron.

"You haven't told him yet?" Donatello deadpanned, while blocking a sai with the twirl of his bo staff.

Leonardo shot Donatello a look, which provoked an eye roll and a side-to-side head shake from the purple-banded mutant, before turning his attention back to Michelangelo, "If you don't know what he's talking about then don't worry about it, just ignore him." Leonardo retorted in a low tone, easily avoiding a counter-attack while stealing a watchful glance at Master Splinter.

"C'mon, Leo, at least give me a hint." Michelangelo whined as he breakdanced into a nunchuck spinning uprock, glided into a downrock, and ended in a handstand before flipping over Leonardo's head, "Is it a human thing? You know, something only humans use?"

"Nope! As long as ya got the right tools, you can pretty much use 'em as much as you want—hammer it down, screw it in—the possibilities are endless!" Raph interrupted with a sardonic quip, delivering a forceful blow to Donnie's unprotected side, "You can pretty much nail it as many times as you want, ain't that right, Brainiac?" Raphael gave a devilish grin as his sai met with the bo staff. Donatello mechanically blocked every attack, without responding to Raphael's baiting. "You got the right tools for the job, Donnie-Boy?" Donatello glared at Raph, smacking his bo staff defensively against Raphael's advancing attacks.

"Can it, Raph," Leonardo sneered over his shoulder dodging a foot aimed for his head, "And you," He said catching his youngest brother's foot in the middle of a high kick and tugging it forward, "Would you please just stop talking, please?" Leonard practically begged in a harsh whisper as he stole yet another glance at Master Splinter, who simply quirked a brow at the odd conversation.

"Aw, you guys never tell me anything!" Michelangelo whined using the twisting momentum of his other leg to perform an aerial corkscrew, nearly clipping Leonardo on the chin, but effectively causing him to let go of his leg. A whirling nunchuck made contact with Leonardo's shell. Splinter couldn't stop the amused smirk rising from the corner of his mouth. Sparring with Michelangelo was like sparring with a horsefly. No matter how often you swatted him away, he came flying back—occasionally making painful contact.

Leonardo grunted as nunchucks hit his forearm and calf simultaneously. Splinter shook his head in disapproval. Whatever it was his eldest son did not want him to know, was consuming his focus as Michelangelo continued to spar and pester him. His lack of focus was leaving him wide open for easy strikes.

"Leonardo! Focus on your opponent's attacks instead of whether I can hear your conversations," Splinter lectured with a narrowed brow.

His eldest son faltered at the accusation. Taking full advantage of the his brother's pause, Michelangelo knocked a katana out of his hand, wrapped his kusarigama's chain around his legs, and pulled Leonardo flat on his shell in one fluent movement.

"You just got shellshocked, son! Yeah, boy!" Michelangleo boasted throwing up some random hand gestures. Leonardo groaned in annoyance. A loud thud and surprised cry of pain resounded from the other side of the dojo as a bo staff clattered to the floor landing at Master Splinter's feet.

"Get off me you overgrown Neanderthal!" Donatello shouted from beneath Raphael. Using an unorthodox wrestling move, the red-banded turtle had him pinned on his shell. He leaned back on Donatello's chest and pulled his leg into a painfully awkward position.

"Say it."

"No," Donatello's voice strained as he struggled beneath his bulkier older brother.

"Say it," Raphael pulled his leg back a few more inches.

Donatello stubbornly resisted trying desperately to shove Raphael off his chest, but it only made him throw his weight down even harder. With a pained gasp, Donatello mumbled something.

"I can't hear ya, Donnie-Boy." Raph taunted in a sing-song voice.

Humiliation choked his voice as he spoke quickly, "I like playing my tools and I have a small-"

"Raphael, yame!" Splintered commanded hitting his walking stick against the floor. Raphael had been taunting his two younger brothers during the majority of practice, but he would not stand for this physical bullying, especially not with his more sensitive son.

Donatello yelped as Raphael mercilessly dropped his leg and elbowed him in the gut while rising to his feet. Donatello stood up bending his knee cautiously, before forcefully scratching his arm. He gave his immediate older brother a 'I hope you drop dead' glare. Raphael promptly dismissed the glare with smug chuckle.

"Kneel." Obediently, all four turtles kneeled before their Sensei. He silently and sternly, stared and walked around them. He was not always hip to the pop culture references and euphemisms his sons often immersed themselves in, but he was far from being born yesterday. From the ambiguous bickering, he pieced together the wayward topic of discussion. He was a teenager once and knew the 'desires' that dwelled in the minds of young boys. He also knew the ramifications of such untamed desires.

He briefly sniffed the air around them. He smelt nothing more than their usual boyish odors. Though he had no physical proof of wrongdoing, their aggravated interactions was enough for Splinter to know that something happened.

"Leonardo." Master Splintered said hovering over his knelt form.

"H-Hai, Sensei," Leonardo replied bowing his head a little lower.

"Would you care to explain the lack of balance and focus you and your brothers displayed during practice?"

"Well, we just, I mean," Leonardo fumbled over his words avoiding eye contact with Splinter.

"The truth fears no questions, Leonardo, I suggest you start there."

"It's Raph's fault!" Leonardo quickly blurted out, "He's the one that let Mikey believe—"

"And now you blame your brother? Is this the way a true leader behaves? Blaming his team instead of taking responsibility for his actions?"

"But I didn't do anything!"

"And maybe that is the problem."

Leonardo's eye ridges shot up in bewilderment and then furrowed in slight confusion, "How did you know…" his voice trailed off. He seemed uncertain of what to say without further incriminating himself.

"Know what?!" Michelangelo threw his arms in the air, "No one tells me anything, and now Sensei knows!" He grumbled from the end of the lineup.

"No he doesn't!" Leonardo snapped at the youngest, who promptly clamped his mouth shut, finally realizing his brother's irritation. Splinter observed the slight twitch in the leader's left eye, and calmly cleared his throat eliciting a nervous chuckle from the turtle in blue as he tried to smooth over his response, "I mean you don't know...because there's nothing to know, Sensei."

"Oh? Then I can assume your bickering was not about sexual double entendres?" Splinter asked watching Leonardo's face pale drastically. "That is what I thought. Your minds should be focused on more productive things instead of the use ofcondiments and your power tools." At the use of their innuendos, a muffled snicker was heard to his right, "Do you find this amusing, Raphael?"

"Actually, yeah, a little bit." Raphael said his voice low trying to control the laughter in the back of his throat.

"Then maybe you will find 50 backflips amusing as well." Raphael huffed, glowering at the floor as he clutched his fists at his sides. Donatello offered his brother a self-righteous smile, before Raphael punched him roughly in the arm. He grimaced before scratching his arm again.

Splinter sighed. He had no idea what sparked this sudden interest in condoms. The boys were growing up so fast, becoming young men. He wasn't one hundred percent sure what they were actually doing when they patrolled the city….Or were they even patrolling at all? The city held so many sexual immoralities just waiting to corrupt his boys. His furry brows rose at the possibilities. They had better not be doing what he thought they could be doing. No, not his boys. Maybe their squabbling was just innocently promiscuous, but just in case there were tainted actions involved….

"50 backflips. All of you."

Shocked eyes blinked at him before the simultaneous complaining began.

"I don't even know what's going on!" Michelangelo pouted.

"Now or it will be 150."

"Hai Sensei." They said dolefully.

"You should have just told him. You know how Mikey gets when we don't tell him things." Donatello said in an informative tone. Though judging from Leonardo's caustic expression, he probably came across as more of a know-it-all instead.

"Stop your complaining, Brainiac, you're just mad 'cause you can't—"

"I swear if you say, 'play with your tools' one more time…."

"That's what April said."

"Boys! More counting, less bickering!" Master Splinter massaged his temple as he listened to his students count their flips as they performed them.

60 backflips later (Raphael's heckling resulted in an extra ten for everyone), Splinter decided a meditation session would be benefical in clearing the minds of his lustful students. Sitting in front of their Sensei, the brothers took the traditional lotus position. Once certain all eyes were closed, Splinter relaxed, closing his eyes as he talked his sons into a meditative state.

"Continue to focus on your breathing. Let your thoughts pass by undisturbed; just focus on breathing as you find your inner balance." Splinter's breathing slowed to a peaceful rate as he allowed his corporal surroundings to melt away. "Your balance is in the natural rhythm of your breathing. Feel the coolness of the air drift past your nose and fill your lungs; now exhale."

After finding his own meditational balance, Splinter tuned in to his sons' presence. In the beginning their breathing was loud and rushed, but within minutes their panting mellowed into a slow rhythmic pace. Splinter allowed his spiritual eyes to open within the spiritual plane. Blinking away the last remnants of carnal sight, he no longer saw his sons before him, but a spiritual depiction of their beings. Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo were symbolized by blue, red, purple, and orange vapor-like apparitions, respectively.

The blue vapor making up his eldest son's essence formed an image of the scales of justice. A constant stream of water flowed in one scale and then the other, tethering the scale like a see-saw but never truly becoming balanced. There were constant struggles for balance within Leonardo: teenager or adult; boldness or reservation; leader or brother; self-perservation or self-sacrifice? Though the flow of water in the scale was always calm and gentle, these conundrums kept Leonardo's internal scales constantly shifting. Splinter expected him to find his balance and maintain it under the most strenous circumstances, yet a times he seemed to waver over the simpliest matters. He was confident with more meditation and training he would master this balance. As leader, this was not a option, but a necessity.

Raphael's aura was quite the opposite; more volatile and less controlled. His bright red aura moved more like a blazing flame, lapping this way and that. His soul burned with a compassion so fierce it threatened to consume him. Splinter observed his son's efforts to control the fiery emotions within him. He watched as the flame slowly simmered to a calm flicker before once again combusting into a wild fire that spread past the outlines of his body. The fiery cycle of flame-flicker-flame, would no doubt continue throughout the remainder of the meditation session. Splinter knew the temperamental struggle Raphael dealt with on a daily basis. Fear fanned the flames of his reckless anger. Fear of rejection, fear of losing loved ones, fear of self-worth, fear of simply being loved. Pointing this out to him often resulted in bigger unruly flames that took days to mellow back into a flicker again. Raphael's hotheadedness in full swing was harrowing, but his determination to control it was admirable.

As his eyes moved to his next son, Splinter frowned with concern at Donatello's meditative state, or rather his lack of meditation. Auras naturally gravitated toward one's center. Eerily, Donatello's center was a spiritual ghost town. The only mystical projection occupying Donatello's core was the illusion of a small metal box secured with a single padlock. Splinter sighed. Donatello's aura always appeared very reserved, retreating back on itself, much like his introverted personality. However, this mental 'box' was a fairly new development in the turtle's meditative state. It was dangerous to keep one's emotional state under lock and key in such a way.

Despite the grave quietness of his core, an array of activity occupied his headspace. The silhouette of Donatello's head displayed busy apparitions of purple gears clanking and turning to a numbered rhythm; long algorithm scripts warped around them like electrons orbiting an atom. The intellectual mindscape of his second youngest was staggering to Splinter. Donatello's meditative state was like standing in the middle of the stock exchange, but instead of stock prices, his mental screens displayed chemical equations with research notes scrolling across the bottom.

Splinter could barely focus on one scientific thought before a more complicated one overlapped and linked it to a mathematical equation somehow making perfect sense in Donatello's mind. Yet with all the commotion taking place in the young turtle's brain, his core remained motionless. Every now and then a shimmer of purple light glowed through the seams of the box before dying down into disquieting darkness. Such imbalances in the soul were unhealthy and chilling. Thinking about the ramifications of such inconsistencies sent a shudder through Splinter's soul.

Before Splinter could dwell on the issue any further, an orange vapor stretched into view. It clumsily extended toward the outskirts of Donatello's body. The lonely vapor was vibrant and fast, curiously clinging here and there in the meditative plane. Such a warm spirit, it felt like….

Splinter's eyes snapped open from the spiritual realm. Stumbling forward on his knees, he immediately grabbed his youngest son by the shoulders and shook him harshly.

"MICHELANGELO!" The sudden alarm in his voice startled his other three sons out of their meditation. Just as Splinter prepared to slap him across the face, his unconscious son abruptly inhaled. His weary blue eyes finally met his father's eyes.

"Mikey!...What happened?...Is he okay?" Master Splinter held up a single pawed finger effectively silencing his sons' collective voices of worry, but it didn't keep them from hovering around their Sensei and youngest brother.

"Michelangelo. My son, can you hear me?" Splinter said calmly, though his voice was laced with fatherly concern.

The youngest turtle blinked a few times, looking around as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm fine, Sensei…." He answered slowly looking around at Splinter then his brothers. He squirmed with embarassment under their apprehensive stares, "I fell asleep again, didn't I?"

"No, my son, you were not asleep," Splinter said touching the side of Michelangelo's face before letting his hand slide down to gently grip his shoulder. He sighed with relief at the sound of his son's voice and the warmth in his face, "Your spirit is very much awake...and drifting. It is very important that you focus while meditating, Michelangelo. Your wandering attention will not be as forgivable in the spiritual realm."

Splinter knew this would happen one day. Of all of his sons, Michelangelo was his most spirited. Strongly underestimated yet full of raw untapped potential. He didn't just think outside the box, he didn't see the box at all, never truly knowing his limitations. Both a unique and dangerous trait. He lived, learned, and even meditated without limitations. His lively aura often danced around the borders of his corporeal body, always testing its safety limits. This time, however, Michelangelo's aura actually left his body curiously floating beside his brother.

A wide yawn from the orange banded turtle, pulled Splinter from his thoughts. He needed to sit and talk to his youngest alone—without the distraction of his brothers—about his 'drifting' issue. But not now. The mere inches he drfited from his body had obviously taken a small toll on him. The talk would have to wait until later.

"Leonardo, Raphael. Take your brother to the kitchen and give him something to eat. Do not allow him to sleep."

"For how long, Sensei?" Leonardo asked as he and Raphael helped Michelangelo to his feet.

"Until Donatello and I are finished in the dojo." Splinter's response caused a wide-eyed double take from Donatello. He looked at his Sensei questioningly, but Splinter offered no further explanation. Leonardo nodded wrapping his arm across Michelangelo's shell to steady the drowsy turtle, "I also suggest you both take this time to clear up any confusion you and Raphael have caused your brother concerning….condiments and power tools, understood?"

"Hai, Sensei." The two oldest said in solemn unison as they left the dojo with Michelangelo between them.

Subcousiously scratching his arm, Donatello spoke in his usual quiet demeanor, "I should probably check on him, medically speaking, just to make sure-"

"Your brother is fine, Donatello. It is you I am concerned about. Sit." Master Splinter motioned to his son's previous spot on the dojo mat.

As Donatello's lips moved to form a protest, Splinter quirked a challenging brow silencing the teen. With a small sigh Donatello took his place on the mat.

TBC...

A/N: Poor Donatello. A meeting with Master Splinter can't be good, right? And how exactly does Leo plan to explain 'condiments and power tools' to Mikey?...are you guys even interested in seeing that conversation? Review! Let me know what you think so far! More chapters soon!

~Poetique