"Mike, are you okay?" Hope asked.

The turtle was in between the brink of exploding because of confusion, anger, and sorrow and because of joy and excitement. Too many emotions at once! He couldn't take it!

Today was a Sunday, and while Hope needed to study (like she always does, is that really the only thing she could think of doing nowadays?), she preferred to have some fun with Michelangelo before he decided it was a good time to disappear again. He was so excited. Mikey wasn't planning on going anywhere anytime soon, especially if it meant saving his family from a bunch of murders. Shoot, he was scared again.

"I'm better than okay, dude!" Mikey squealed, happy once more. "We're going to the maaaaaaaallllllll!" he yelled, throwing his hands up to the sky.

Hope's car was amazeballs! It was a subtle shade of tangerine with a convertible hood and a bunch of buttons that Mikey wasn't allowed to touch, which was fine by him. The black seats were made of leather but somehow, even in this heat, he didn't seem to be sweating. Hope wasn't even going any faster than twenty kilometers an hour! Woooooaaaaaahhhh!

Hope chuckled as she parked the car. She seemed happy. Her long blond hair was tied into a braid and she wore no make up. She seemed younger, younger than those who put on make-up to look like they're twelve when they're sixteen. She was wearing a light blue shirt made out of lightweight material, an orange mini skirt and a pair of knee high white boots along with a simple white headband and a matching purse which was kinda funny since he wore an orange shirt made out of similar material, a pair of light blue denim pants, and white trainers while he carried a white backpack. Mikey didn't know if she had planned this or not.

The hood of the car came up as the windows closed. Hope then opened the car door, but before she could even step out, Mikey was already bouncing towards the mall. He was so excited!

XxXxX

"Hey, is that a Super Robo Mecha Force Five limited edition T-shirt?!" Mikey asked the clerk excitedly.

The clerk who had a tag that said 'Clark' on his t-shirt sighed gloomily. "No, sir, that is not limited edition. It's a t-shirt from the newest series of Super Robo Mecha Force Five." Mikey stared at him in anticipation. Clark realized that this turtle was waiting for him to tell him the new series. Man, wasn't he too old for anime? Psh. Weebs. "It's Super Robo Mecha Force Five: Online, but the it's spelled as zero-n-one-i-n-three."

"Like this?" Hope asked, showing him a piece of sticky note she had with her that had '0n1in3' written on it.

"Yes."

XxXxX

If Mikey thought that they had matching clothes before, he was sure they looked like twins now.

Mikey wore a white shirt with a cute bag of popcorn printed on it while Hope wore a same colored shirt with a cute film on it. The shop they went to had this theme song wherein the first line was 'If you would be the popcorn; I would be the movie' and it seemed just about right to Mikey.

XxXxX

Mikey beat Hope in a game of Dance-off. Again. The arcade was fairly empty today, so they had the console all to themselves. Hope was pretty good, but at one point, she would mess up and it put her about ten points behind Mikey. She didn't seem to mind.

By the time they had run out of tokens and they were too exhausted to buy new ones and play more rounds, they had won enough tickets to buy Mikey the biggest stuffed crocodile they had, which was saying something because the toy was twice the size Mikey was and he looked ridiculous carrying it around the mall.

"I'm Leatherhead! Chomp, chomp! Fear my fists!" He yelled as he walked up to other mallers. The kids were super thrilled to see a big, fluffy croc sneak up on them and tickle them in the most sensitive places while the adults that got scared told him to ef off or whatever profane insults they could think of (like normal New Yorkers), but the guy didn't seem to care. After all, he had been dead for ten years. Give him a break.

XxXxX

As they drove back to the Hamato family's villa, where Mikey was staying for the time being, the turtle was happily sipping his boba while sitting of Leatherhead's lap and telling Hope about most of the things he saw in his dream. It didn't seem right, how they were peacefully sipping Mikey's new favorite drink while talking about the past that Mikey had spied on, but it didn't matter because it was Mikey. Nothing seemed right but it felt like it was.

"It seems… off. I will admit," Hope said, taking another sip from her plastic straw. "Donnie took up a job at TCRI after he graduated high school."

"Doesn't he need to go to college?" Mikey asked.

Hope chuckled, "Donnie's too smart for college. The only reason why other companies never hired him was because he didn't have any experience. He wanted to apply to an internship, even if he isn't paid, but he was so smart, people were afraid to hire him. Then this guy named Baxter Stockman came along and gave him a job on the spot, it…it was suspicious because Donnie didn't even try TCRI yet." Hope sighed sadly. "Unfortunately, because your family was so desperate for money, he took the job without hesitation."

Mikey remained silent for a few moments. Money? His family needed money, but that was one thing that they didn't need. They were financially stable and even if they strived for something more, they were content with what they had. So what did money have to do with this?

"Money," Mikey repeated out loud.

Hope shook her head sadly. "Your mom died of cancer. It…it was bad. Master Splinter gave her a chemo treatment in hopes of getting rid of the tumor, or at least— preventing it from getting any bigger. It was in its early stages, so they could still take it out by operation, but the surgery was scheduled six months after it was diagnosed, which was as soon as it could get. I'm not quite sure what happened, but her grave said that she died by tuberculosis and stomach cancer. So I guess…I guess it was really that bad. After that…Master Splinter…he went out to get groceries one day…and—"

"He never came back," Mikey finished.

Hope gripped the wheel so hard her knuckles turned white. Mikey looked out the window. With the private discussion going on, Hope decided to bring up the windows and the roof. They were going slower. As in, ten kilometers per hour slower. Hope was delaying their drive home. He couldn't blame her. This was something best discussed on the road, when nobody could walk in on them in person.

"Father was killed," Mikey continued. "This guy in this weird armor killed him. Threw his body into the ocean."

Hope was in so much shock, the car almost came into a complete stop. She shook it off and started again with thirty kilometers per hour. "They never found the body. Well…not until recently."

Mikey looked at her incredulously. "Recently?"

Hope nodded. "Like, last year recently. He went missing when I was ten. Mistress Shen died right before my birthday. So there was a time difference of about three-four months?" She didn't seem sure of herself. "Then when Splinter went missing… I don't know. I kinda thought that he was kidnapped by the Greek Prick—"

"Wait. What?" Mikey asked, turning his head to the blond.

Hope sighed, amused by his childishness, "Green Prick. Terrorist group that wants equality among mutants and humans, but they never got what they wanted. If anything, the only message they got to world must've been that they were to be feared alongside other mutants, like every terrorist group," Hope growled out the last part. Mikey couldn't blame her.

Muslim terrorists gave those people in general a bad reputation. Germanic tribes made some people think that Germans were barbarians. Mikey didn't know what other junk's out there, messing up entire populations with their sick attempt to get a message through the world's ego.

(Following paragraph is best read without too much visualization because you might get a very graphic idea, and this is a rated K plus story, so just don't, for your own sake.)

Hope blinked a few times, like she was trying to clear up a haze. She let out a bitter chuckle, "But anyway, Splinter's body was found floating by the walkways at Coney Island. He only had his clothes and…and his bones with bits of flesh stuck to it. Leo was horrified!" she gasped with a sad snicker, as if she was trying to keep herself from sobbing. "He kept describing how sick-looking and broken his bones were, how his clothes were torn to bits, his heart looking as it'd been ripped out of the ribcage!" Hope took a breath as she wiped away the tears at formed at the corners of her eyes. She took a few minutes to steady herself. "Leo was…Leo was on an internship at the local police station. You know…for college…and stuff. The policeman who was assigned to him was given the case…and…" she chuckled again. "The DNA tests only proved Leo's theory true. They had your dad stuffed into a carbon capsule so that he could grown into a tree… the little sapling's living in peace right now, doing its best to cover the stone grave of Hamato Shen…"

Mikey let it all sink in. His parents were dead, and his family was struggling for money. What had happened?

"Did…did you help them?" Mikey asked unsurely, "Financially…and emotionally, I mean."

Hope smiled as she turned to him, eyes twinkling with unshed tears. "'Course I did. Helped them with what I had, but when my dad found out he decided to ground me for what—four…five months?"

She drove in silence for what seemed like ages, slowing down and speeding up at random intervals, but Mikey knew that his best friend wasn't stupid. She was either keeping silent because she was gonna say something bad and was preparing herself, or it was better that Mikey didn't know at all.

"So…about Raph," Hope started. Oh, goodie. "Before you came back… we never heard from him ever since he left the Hamato household."

Mikey blinked in confusion, looking over at his friend skeptically. "Left?" Realization struck him. He felt his heart drop. "Yeah… I… I remember seeing him leave. Think he became a gang member or something."

"Gang member?" Hope squeaked.

"You want specification?" Mikey asked. "Don't answer that, I'm gonna tell you anyway," he joked half-heartedly. "There's this revolution he leads for some reason. I don't know the name, but it's got this —some sort of symbol. Do you have pen and paper?"

Hope handed Mikey a pad of sticky notes and a ballpoint pen from the glove compartment. In all honesty, Mikey had no idea what he was doing. He just had this blur of a constant shape in his head from his dream. It was scarier once he finished the drawing.

"That's a the Green Prick's emblem," Hope explained, pulling up on the driveway.

It all made some sort of sense in Mikey's mind now. Raph led a revolution against mankind. Raph was one of violence, so no surprise there, but… he didn't do it because of the wish for equality. No. It was because he wanted to avenge his family. He wanted to kill those who took his family away from him. Starting with making sure humanity knows what he stands for.

The emblem was a turtle's shell with a lighting shaped crack breaking through it. That one was still on jury, but it either meant the crack on Raph's shell, the one he got from one of Michelangelo's failed pranks, or Mikey's shell when he died.

"They wanted to pay Father to sell your shell," Raph had told him yesterday, on the car ride to Hope's house. "Said it was valuable. I told them to go away. They had no respect for the dead. Just because we're mutants doesn't give them an excuse to buy your bodies." Raph cursed a lot, most of them involving killing those men years ago and killing their families. Mikey was only half awake, so he guessed that Raph thought that he couldn't hear his ranting.

He was wrong.

Very wrong.

Now Mikey didn't know whether or not Raph and changed. He didn't know whether or not Raph as still the same protective brother he had known all those years.

What can he do?

…what should he do?