Okay! Here are the guys in all their teenage cuteness!

Chapter 6

The Princes

"Wow!" squealed the first little girl. "They really talkeded to him when he was asleep? Even though they were dead?"

"Is that even scientifically possible?" asked one of the boys.

"Who cares? Besides, dead people can do stuff not-dead people can't. Everybody knows that!" One of the other girls tossed her dark curls over her shoulder and turned back to the storyteller. "What happened then?"

"Well…"

The years passed.

And passed.

And passed some more.

It was thirteen years before anything extraordinary happened.

The boys were now fifteen years old and had long since left their baby years behind them.

Leonardo was now tall, slender and serious. He stood about five foot nine and seemed to shoot up another few inches when you turned your back. His wavy dark blond hair, coupled with his dark brown eyes, and handsome features made him intensely attractive to every girl in the kingdom. However, his looks were only the barest tip of the iceberg. The young man – even at such a young age – was showing signs of incredible wisdom and an extremely stern sense of honor and duty. He had been trained by the king himself in martial arts and swordsmanship, learning a versatile and powerful technique his father called ninjitsu. His skills became so advanced that soon he was able to fight with two swords at once and it was said that he was unmatched by any other swordsman in the kingdom and even those who specialized in other weapons were hard-pressed to defeat him. He was a fine young man and had been named heir to the king, first in line to the throne.

Raphael was another matter entirely. He was tall as well, though an inch or so below Leonardo, and lean, but whereas his brother was lithe and flexible, he was hard and muscular. Even at the tender age of fifteen he was stronger than most of the palace blacksmiths. He had curly jet black hair that was constantly falling onto his forehead and his amber eyes looked even more striking in his sharp, exotic bronze face. The young gypsy had also inherited his mother's alleged temper and his people's legendary independence; he could fly into a temper faster than any of his brothers, had a vocabulary that outdid most sailors' and was constantly clashing with Leonardo's more restrained attitude. Despite his irritability and his frequent brusqueness with everyone in the kingdom, the boy showed incredible gentleness and ease with horses to the point where he was the best rider of any of his brothers, able to ride harder, faster, and get the most out of the beast before it dropped of exhaustion. He was the fiercest and wildest of his brothers when it came to fighting and felt most at home when he had his strange, short weapons, sais he called them, in his big hands. A true wolf-child, as his people would say.

Donatello was the quietest of the four. Skinnier than he was slender, he put one in mind of the harebrained scholars that secluded themselves up in the astronomy towers for weeks on end, with his brown hair that generally looked grayer than it was due to the dust from the library and archives and intelligent pale hazel brown eyes that had a tendency to go dreamy and unfocussed when he was thinking of something, which happened to be quite often. He was not as tanned as his brothers, because of his long hours muttering over sketches and plans for all sorts of crazy inventions – at least that was until he took a sample of mysterious black powder that created mayhem and chaos with accompanying explosions and fire in the east and recreated it, calling it gunpowder, and then creating a weapon that used the gunpowder to launch large balls filled with gunpowder that exploded upon hitting an enemy. After this, he was generally regarded as a young genius with his impressive knowledge of just about everything from literature, medicine, anatomy, astronomy and chemistry. The young man was gentle and patient with everyone and rarely could be goaded in a fight. When he did fight, he showed impressive skills fighting hand-to-hand and with his staff.

Michelangelo defied most attempts to describe, but as his brothers were described, a basic sketch of him will be given. He was the shortest of his brothers and was lanky to the point of gawkiness. His hair was bleached blond from his constant exposure to the sun, with darker golden strands beneath the white-blond layer, his eyes were a bright crystalline blue, and he had an erratic spattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. To match his rather eccentric appearance, the young man had the personality of a hyper monkey, never standing still, performing acrobatic feats that would make circus acrobats weep with envy, and joking and teasing worse than any clown. He was so bright and cheerful that most people were hard-pressed not to like him immediately and because of this he was extremely well liked by all of the animals in the city except most of the horses who didn't like his constant motion and his pranks. As the baby of the family, he enjoyed the tolerance and protection of his three elder brothers and his father. He was faster than his brothers and specialized in the unpredictable weapons that his father called nunchaku.

On one clear spring morning, Lord Splinter came into the small room just off of the kitchen in which his small family ate their private meals to find his sons settling down to eat their breakfast.

"Good morning, Master," Leonardo said respectfully.

"Good morning, Father," Donatello smiled, offering the king a teacup.

"Morning," Raphael grunted, staring at his coffee cup blearily.

He smiled at his sons, before frowning. "Where is Michelangelo?"

"That knucklehead?" his gypsy child groaned. "He came screaming into my room and jumped on me before the crack of dawn. It'll take him at least another hour to get himself out of the closet."

Splinter sighed. "Raphael…"

"You should probably let him out before he starts screaming, Raph," Donatello advised.

"Relax, Donny. I'll let him out if he hasn't gotten out by noon."

"Raph," Leonardo began.

"Deep breaths, Leo. We both know he ain't going to starve in there, Mikey always has something to eat in his pockets."

This was entirely true, because of the insane metabolism of growing teenage boys, the palace cook had finally thrown up his hands and now each day he gave the young princes a handful of fruit and honey filled bread rolls to tide them over the long several hours between meals.

"But still…"

"Leo. Mikey ain't five anymore, he can deal with the dark for a few hours, okay?"

Sensing an argument coming on, their father hastily interrupted. "You are all aware of why there was no early morning training, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Yes, Master."

"Of course, the dignitary."

"Yes, the dignitary. He is coming to us from a land across the western seas and wishes to meet all of you. This means of course, Raphael, that you will have to release your brother from the closet."

His son sighed, "Okay. What's this guy want to meet us for, anyway?"

"He wishes to see if any of you could be a suitable match for the princess of his country."

The reactions to this explanation were very interesting. Leonardo choked on his tea, Donatello fell out of his chair with a crash, and Raphael jolted so much that he sloshed his coffee all over himself and yelped as the steaming liquid went right through his red tunic.

"What!!"

"Nothing is final," Splinter said quickly. "This dignitary is actually traveling the world to gather the names of those he believes are appropriate for the princess. He may decide that none of you are… well…"

"Good enough," Donatello finished, flatly.

"Appropriate. You see, my sons, the dignitary's king, the father of the princess, wants to find someone he thinks that his daughter could love. Therefore, he doesn't want to choose just anyone."

Raphael scoffed. "So what? He's just going to travel around and stare at a bunch of teenagers to see who the girl might like?"

"That's the basic idea, yes."

"Uh… in case it's slipped your notice, Sensei," Donatello said lightly. "We're only fifteen. We're not old enough to be marrying anyone."

"I agree fully," Splinter said fervently. "However, it would be good manners to at least meet with this man. Which means –" he gave his sons a sharp look " – I expect all of you to be on your best behavior. Is that clear?"

"Yes," the three chorused, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"Now. He will be here soon. Come, Raphael, we must find Michelangelo and inform of our visitor."

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