I do not own anything but my future character Brandy. Yep. That's about it. So I don't want any lawyers beating my door down because all they'll get outta me is about $8 and a picture of my baby cousin.

Anyway, just to let y'all know, this is my first attempt at NT fanfiction. Never ever done it. Nope. So be nice please. The set-up is rather typical, but the storyline becomes much more interesting and original. BELIEVE ME!! Happy reading!

New York, during the rush of all-night partiers and starry-eyed dreamers, is a questionably exciting place to be. Lights from every building craft a fantasy mirage of life. For the most part, New York is the origin of the American Dream; anyone can be whatever they want to be. America is the land of opportunity, and New York was somehow branded the "essence" of the common dreamer. People from all over want to go to New York and live there; they all want to experience the excitement of the night life, the buzz of the unstopping flow of chattering people in the streets, and the simplicity of a small little life of their own in a city that never sleeps.

All, that is, but Raphael.

Raph wandered the laid-out dirt trails of Central Park, keeping to the shadows as his sensei had always taught him. Notwithstanding his deep, passionate hatred for the life of secrecy and caution, there was a mental restriction -- a form of subconscious respect for the rat -- that kept him following the rules. Although Raph was the one never to be tied down, always a free spirit, (and an angry one at that,) he couldn't deny the love and regard he had for Splinter. To sum it all up, it was just a strangely successful father-son relationship.

Deep in thought, Raph passed by a bench pulled off to the side under the protection of trees. He found that the denizen of the bench was a pitiful looking bum. His tattered, weathered coat was pulled tightly around him, and a bag full of his collection of beer bottles and soda cans sat within arm's reach. 'No wonder Central Park hardly has any litter,' Raph thought to himself, chuckling at the thought. Raph regarded the bum with almost an admiration; he didn't have much, but he had a life of his own. Perhaps it was a hard, struggling and unsuccessful life, but it was a free life.

At this point, Raph's desire to become a human and talk with this old man became strong.

Raph kept walking, dismissing from his thoughts the sounds of light snoring and crumpled newspapers shifting under the weight of the bum's head. His eyes narrowed in hurt and anger. Nearby, an innocent rock, happening to have been sitting in Raph's path, didn't stay where it was. Into the unknown it went, crossing the dirt path and flying out into the wide stretch of grass to hit a tree somewhere. 'Maybe I underestimated the size of that thing,' Raph thought, acknowledging the pain in his foot.

Raph tugged his fedora to shade his eyes and pulled his trench coat tighter around him, folding the collar further up to better secrete his face. He found it reasonable to hate the constant need to hide his true self, but decided against getting worked up over it now; he had far too much on his mind already.

"Being a turtle bites ass," Raph grumbled out loud. He felt passionate about his opinion, but at the same time, felt an almost instinctive appreciation for the life of a turtle. He supposed it wasn't being a turtle that sucked, it was more the idea of being a mutant turtle.

'That sure leaves a bad taste in my mouth,' Raph thought bitterly. '"Mutant" turtle. Sounds like some sort of monster or freak or something.' His memories traced back to the time he and Casey Jones first met. When Casey had called him a freak, the truth of what he really was manifested into an emotional realization that Casey was probably right. Raphael, as well as his three brothers, were freaks. He felt so ashamed.

"Damn!" Raph cursed the ground, making sure to keep his volume fairly low despite his need to scream at the world. His anger, pain, stress and questions all fused together in a large knot, gathering up in the back of his mind and threatening to release. Raph had kept it inside him for too long, constantly hiding away from his brothers and going for walks, hardly even talking to himself about it. He was becoming dangerous, and he knew it. One spark would set off a sky-full of illegal fireworks.

Shuffling came from behind, and when Raph turned to see what, all that greeted him was a blur of dark shadows gathering around him and attacking him from some random direction. Before he knew it, he was on the ground and staring up at the blade of a knife.

"Give us all you got, and we won't cut your throat!" a single voice broke out. Raph rolled his eyes. He had heard crap along that line in too many movies, and from too many idiots trying to play "intimidator" with crap along that line.

"Look, kid, I've got loads on my mind right now. If you just get up and skip merrily away, I won't take my anger out on you, deal?" Raph very well knew he was provoking the guy on top of him, and truthfully that was what he wanted. He knew the kid wouldn't kill him; he could see the guy didn't have the guts to. For all Raph knew, that knife could've been made of rubber. Not to mention he needed to have good old-fashioned fight with a few people.

"Shut up! You're messing with the wrong crowd," the guy sneered. Raph rolled his eyes again at the emphasis the guy made on the words "the wrong crowd."

"So that's what you think you are, eh? 'The wrong crowd?' The bad-ass tough guys, eh? 'Oooh nobody mess with us 'cause we're the bad-ass "wrong crowd!"'" Raph's thick Brooklyn accent roared over Central Park, stirring the silence and echoing through the trees. His mocking was turning into his release from all of the stress and frustration from earlier. He shoved the guy off of him and stood up, immediately in his face and blowing off major steam. "Is that all you want in life!? Is to live a life where you feel like 'you've got da powa?' Huh!? Oooh everybody's scared of you, eh!? Right, punk!?" At that moment, all hell broke loose and Raph was indestructible.

Raph threw a too-long-restrained punch into the bewildered kid's jaw. He flew back in more shock than pain, hitting the dirt with, to Raph, a satisfying thump. At that moment, he knew he had let off a chain reaction. From every side came the blurred motions of defensive kids avenging their "leader," which only gave Raph the cue to pull out the big guns.

Out came Raph's sai, and with the sai came blocks, swings, jabs and slices that disoriented the gang members terribly. Raph threw a left-footed kick at one guy, then immediately slammed a dizzying roundhouse to attack a guy coming from the right. It almost (ALMOST) surprised Raph when he saw one of them emerge with a sword. When the blade came down on him to strike him, Raph caught the blade by throwing both sai in front of him and hooking it with the deadly prongs. With a quick twist and spin, the blade flew from the guy's hands, and, quickly turning his sai so the butt end pointed outward, Raph threw a punch and rendered the kid unconscious.

This was too much for the rest of the guys. All quickly fled from the scene, leaving their unconscious teammate where he was. Raph chuckled mockingly. 'They didn't put up much of a fight, did they?' With a sigh of relief from some of his angry energy being burned away, he returned his sai to their original location on his belt and continued walking again. Checking his watch, he decided to head home and dug his hands deep into his pockets.

"Mikey, pass a slice!" called Leonardo, making no effort to move himself from his comfy position on the couch. In front of him was the TV, and on the TV was a very close-in-score football game. "The 49ers are behind four points, dude! You're gonna loose this one!"

Michelangelo snorted. "Yeah right, dude! The 49ers always get revenge! You'll be the one buying ME pork rinds, my blue-masked buddy!" He tossed Leo a slice of pepperoni.

"As if, Mikey. For the past two games you've lost! Pull out your pocket money and stand by the door. You'll be headin' out anyway to buy ME pork rinds!"

"Shut up, Leo!"

In the distance, the faint sound of rapping on a keyboard was heard. Mikey and Leo turned in the same direction to see Donatello, the "genius" of the four turtles, on the Internet.

"What're ya doin', Donny?" Mikey asked, slapping a paper plate of pepperoni in front of Donny and eying the computer like he knew what he was looking at. Which, in fact, he only knew much of when he was visiting game sites.

"Checking the odds of you winning with the 49ers," Donny began. "From the records I've found, they got a new couch, so their performance has been unreliable and uncharacteristically substandard for their reputation."

Mikey looked at him with a dull look, the type a student often gives a teacher when they're pretending to be listening. "Uh huh," Mikey replied hesitantly. "So what does all that malarkey mean?"

"It means, my dear, dear brother, I am afraid the odds are against you and Leo will be munching the pork rinds."

"Aw the Internet knows squat! Just you wait, you guys. Those babes in the short skirts will be doin' those flip thingies over the victory of the 49ers! Go me!" Mikey jumped and danced and hollered, making a real spectacle of himself. Donny and Leo gave each other a look that said, "He's hopeless."

Before they could try and convince Mikey any further, Raph walked in, shrugged out of his trench coat and hung it with his pathetic excuse for a hat. He silently looked around and took into account the state of their old subway tunnel home. He walked across the spacious room, walking under the gentle light of the large stained glass dome in the center of the ceiling, disregarding the curious looks on his brothers' faces.

He found it funny that he could relate so well with the nature of their lair. It was secret, abandoned, apart from the real world...and Raph had to face it with a smirk of amusement...it was dome-shaped, just like his head. Raph headed into one of the subway cars that he had labeled his own room and slammed the door shut. Of course he didn't do it on purpose; it was more to him like an everyday thing. Come "home," hang his coat, walk past his quiet brothers, go to his room, slam the door. To Raph, he was just going through the motions of everyday life for him.

Leo and Donny always took this as a hint to leave Raph in peace. However, Mikey, not being as bright or as "ripe" as the other two, immediately walked his merry way over to Raph's door and tapped on it cheerfully. "Yo bro, got some pizza in the kitchen! Want some?"

No answer.

"Aww come on, dude! Don't be a hot-head! Maybe we should give you a different color mask. Red makes you a grouch."

Raph, from inside his room, was deeply considering pounding Mikey, but restrained himself. He didn't like the attention Mikey gave him, and if he had anything to do with it, would have put a stop to it long before he had even walked in. He knew, however, that it was Mikey. Mikey was going nowhere anytime soon.

"Like yellow..."

Raph cringed at the thought. He hated yellow.

Mikey opened the door. Leo and Donny held their breath and trembled as Mikey dared to open Raph's door when he was in a bad mood.

"Mikey! You're being suicidal!" Leo and Donny hissed from behind him.

"Yellow for bright happy sunshine!" Mikey poked his head into the room and gave Raph a smile. Raph looked up threateningly, wondering why the hell Mikey was making such a sincere death wish. However, he was defeated by the silly smile on Mikey's face, and he couldn't help but laugh. His laugh was stiff, unpracticed, a bit uncertain and awkward...but it felt good. 'Leave it to Mikey, eh?' He stood up rather laboriously, finally feeling the fatigue of the evening's events, and went to Mikey to lock him in a noogy.

"You goof," Raph murmured exhaustingly as he passed Mikey to head to the pizza box on their "dining" table. Masses of pizza boxes consumed it on top and around, some even organized into pizza box castles and forts. Undoubtedly it was Mikey's art.

Leo and Donny looked at Raph in sheer amazement, drop-jawed and wide-eyed. Raph took no notice of it, and dropped himself next to Leo on the couch and stared indifferently at the TV. Leo was reluctant to move...even breath. Eventually, he calmed down enough to continue eating his pizza.

By the time Donny and Leo had recovered, Raph had spoken, his Brooklyn accent spread thick again. "Who had their pork rinds bet on the 49ers?"

Mikey jumped from the pizza castles he had begun to work on again and replied, "That'd be me!"

"You just lost."

"WHAT?" Mikey jumped to the TV, grabbing hold of it and wailing dramatically, "NO! Mike Rumph, you have failed me!"

Donny looked at Mikey in confusion. "Mike Rumph? He's a cornerback! What's so special about him? He doesn't even do hardly any of the scoring!"

"Duh! His name's MIKE!"

Leo, Raph and Donny all broke out laughing at Mikey's silliness, noting how he had answered like it was a stupid question. Leo convinced Mikey to go buy the pork rinds, (though Donny and Mikey were questioning as to Leo's sudden taste for fried pig skin,) and while he was gone, the echoes of his skateboard drumming through the sewer tunnels, Donny and Leo dared to approach Raph with a few questions.

"Uh, Raph?" Leo began somewhat fearfully.

"What?" Raph grunted, flipping through the channels to find some good killing action.

"You okay, dude?"

Raph looked at Leo briefly before surfing more channels. They had been through these conversations more than once, and the repetitiveness was starting to get to him. "Your wasting your breath, Leo. I've always been okay and always will be okay. Lay off now, will ya?"

Donny decided that if their was gonna be a fight on this topic, he might as well chime in. "But Raph...you've been acting a little off lately, like you're not yourself. You haven't been...I dunno...you haven't been picking on Leo or nothin'. In fact, you didn't even kill Mike when he opened y--"

"GOD DAMN!" Raph threw the remote at Donny, who dodged automatically as it slammed into the back of his chair, but still in shock. "Lay off me, dammit! Do you really WANT me to pick on Leo? Huh!?" With that, he stood up and slammed Leo's arm, leaving Leo to clutch his arm robotically, but hardly noticing the pain. Leo was too much in shock of how his brother was reacting. "Do you WANT me to go find Mike and kill him for opening my door? DO YA? How about it, Donny? Wanna fight about something you don't need to start? All of you, lay the fuck off me! I'm fine! JUST LET ME HAVE A BIT OF SPACE!"

Raph stomped over to the coat hanger and snatched his trench coat and fedora, leaving his two brothers with no more but shock and exasperation. In the silence of the lair, Donny and Leo were pensive and regretful. The quiet made Leo uneasy, and he looked at Donny, whose eyes were cast down to his half-finished pizza.

"Do you think we've really been pushy with him, Don?" Leo asked, getting up to get an ice pack for his arm.

"I guess so." Donny was thinking, hardly aware of the TV quietly murmuring in the background. "Man. Every day ends like this. First, we practice with Splinter. Raph goes for a rest-of-the-day walk. He comes back and says nothing. Just stomps off to his room. Then one of us pisses him off and he's gone again."

"But he's never gotten THAT pissed off before," Leo commented, coming back to the couch and gesturing for the remote.

"Oh well," Donny sighed, tossing the remote to Leo. "Just let him be. We must promise not to pry into Raph at all. Just go about our day and strike up normal conversations...no questions about his well-being. Got it?"

"Got it."

Just as Leo had agreed, Mikey came bursting through the door completely out of breath.

"Dude! I'm never going to THAT supermarket ever again! When they say 'no skateboards' they MEAN no skateboards! All I was doing was--"

Donny and Leo looked up at Mikey and said in unison, "Mikey, shut up."

Mikey looked offended, and threw the bag of pork rinds in Leo's direction.

"Mikey, buddy, sit down. We gotta discuss something with you."

"Does it have anything to do with lemons?"

Donny and Leo gave each other inquisitive looks.

"I passed Raph on the way out and he was cussing at a rotten lemon." Mikey looked expectantly at Donny and Leo, hoping he could make sense of Raph's unnecessary hatred toward the innocent fruit.

"Whatever," Leo and Donny sighed in unison. This would be harder than they thought.

Meanwhile, Raph was walking angrily through Central Park like he had earlier. He had had a lot of stuff on his mind, and needed the fresh air. Being an 18-year-old, fully healthy young turtle was doing a real number on him. Hormones raging in his body, dreams and passions storming his mind mercilessly, and any other frustrations he hadn't filtered into categories yet gave him every right to be irritable. Despite his rather simple reasons for his actions, he wouldn't share any of them with his concerned brothers.

'What do they know?' Raph asked himself silently. 'Everything's a big deal to them. A wrong tone in your voice means the world's ending.'

He looked up at the moon peeking through the stormy clouds. "Damn rain. Go away!" he murmured.

An indescribable feeling of sadness swept over him. Somehow, he couldn't figure out what was making him so down, so melancholy...all he could really picture was his brother Donatello. Though he felt it was a little strange to think of one of his brothers in his mood changes, deep down it felt comforting. He thought hard about Donny, contemplating the reasons why Donny stayed up at ungodly hours researching and typing away, why it comforted him to learn things and answer questions, why he seemed so happy doing it. A pain in his chest strained his nerves, and he clutched the insides of his pockets in desperate fists.

Suddenly, he thought of Leonardo. Why did Leo always practiced his katas? Why did he meditate so often, staying so calm and seeming so passive of Raph's argument? Why did his eyes comfort Raph briefly when he screamed and yelled and stressed, feeling familiar, feeling safe? Why did Leo's aura make Raph feel that Leo somehow could relate to him?

That thought just made him even more angry.

His thoughts passed on to Michelangelo. Mikey seemed to find happiness in everything he did. Limitless jokes were his ways of making the best of things. Why did Mikey seem so oblivious to Raph's anger, his hate, his warnings, or his stress? Why did he talk to Raph like Raph would understand anything he said, like he would agree, or like he would reply with the same mood and feeling? Why was he so willing to forgive when all Raph did was hold the grudge? Why was Mikey so happy?

Why, why, why?

Raph's thoughts went off at a tangent when he felt a hot sensation touch his cheeks. Tears. His tears. Crying...something Raph was ashamed to do, but willing to let happen. They slid down his face in groups of waterfalls, stroking his cheeks in comfort and relief. He hadn't cried for years. It felt alleviating to release some of the secreted anguish, letting it flow freely from his ebony eyes now dark and profound, reflecting inward-bound pain. The agony accelerated behind each drop, flowing down to empty him of the pent-up anger, made Raph's body tremble with longing. He longed to be like his brothers; he longed to be normal. Or, at least, as normal as he was able to be.

Raph sucked in a harsh, trembling breath, sniffing in vocal response to his tears as he wiped his eyes with the palms of his three-fingered hands. He kept his hands covering his eyes, letting the tears seep through them and wash away the filth and throbbing pain in his callused hands.

Why did life have to be the hardest for him? Why couldn't he find something to make him happy? And most of all...why was he the only one who wasn't satisfied?