Disclaimer: I lay no claim to anything (darn!): not the characters, not the places, and certainly not any profits from anything even remotely TMNT. Please don't sue.

Chapter 5

As hard as Donatello tried to turn off the telepathy it seemed bent on going against his every attempt, and it actually seemed to be getting stronger. He was beginning to hear what his family members out in the main area were thinking, and it was disturbing. If he didn't learn to control this soon he wasn't sure his sanity could take it. He had already been caught doing repetitive tasks and talking to himself, which were two very dangerous signs in his mind.

Don looked over at the meditation mat sitting on his floor and decided to give it another try. If it had been tough to clear his head of his own thoughts in the past, it was nothing compared to clearing his head of OTHER people's thoughts. As much as he didn't want to do this, he knew that he had to. He put down his circuit board; he'd been doing little more than staring at it anyway, and sat down on the mat. He settled into the long familiar position on the floor and closed his eyes. Systematically trying everything he had ever been taught he found nothing that worked. Instead of focusing on his meditation he rolled his neck, trying to release the tension that had been building up within him. Feeling it drain away he realized that it had certainly been part of the problem. He shook his hands out at his sides and slowly rolled his head around again. As he did so he allowed his mind to drift. If I replace that 50 k resistor with a 68 k I think that new board could increase the resolution of the tracker by…

Everything stopped. There was no sound… no, that wasn't true. There was no noise. All the voices that had plagued him constantly for the past two weeks were gone. Then as quickly as it came the moment passed and he was inundated by the sounds of his family again and, oh, April was coming down.

It took him some time to figure out what he had done. Maybe he was going about this all wrong. He didn't need to clear his mind, which only made things worse; he needed to make it his own. The idea went against most of his training. You were supposed to be aware of ki-ai, be part of your surroundings, rather than separate yourself from them. Oh well, just another balancing act in the life of a ninja. He tried to repeat the incident. Calming himself and relaxing once again he focused on an internal monologue. He went back to his new circuit board and considered how it might be used to update some of his existing creations, or even some new thing that he might use it for.

He ignored the fact that April was in the lair, he didn't want to see anyone right now anyway, and tried to replicate what he had just done to separate himself from the awful noise of everyone's thoughts.

Raphael stood in the center of his room. He had tried sitting down, but that had only irritated him and he was doing a little better standing up. Visualization was the object of the exercise he was doing now. He imagined Michelangelo annoying him, pushing him right to the edge of the precipice. Raph imagined himself coming to that place where he usually blew up in his brothers' faces, and instead he saw himself stepping back, taking a deep breath and letting his anger roll away like water off a duck's back. He suddenly found a problem with his exercise. When he reached the edge of the cliff and took that step back Michelangelo backed off. That wasn't the way things actually worked. Mikey would push and push either until he was through or Raph blew. Or, maybe until Raphael diffused the situation on his own. Suddenly he realized that it wasn't the annoyance itself that he had to curb. It was the physical lashing out that he had to control, though the two often went hand-in-hand.

He sighed and started the exercise again. This time it was Leonardo who was bugging him. His brother was ragging on him for some stunt or other that he had pulled. Raph didn't want to hear it and told Leo as much, but Raphael knew his brother well enough to know that the statement wouldn't stop the lecture. He took a breath and tried another tactic. He told Leo that he was right and apologized. Yeah, like that will ever happen.

Raphael started the same scenario again. He let the words roll away. Envisioned them falling from Leo's mouth and hitting the floor before they ever got to him. He heard them, but didn't take them personally, just watched as they tumbled letter by letter to the floor. Leo vented by giving lectures. Raph vented by lashing out. There had to be something in between the two that was less dangerous. What did Mikey do? What about Donnie? Surely they got frustrated from time to time.

Mikey made jokes, and they gave him quite the thick skin when it came to him getting annoyed. Raph knew that Michelangelo did get mad. He'd seen his orange masked brother angry, but Mikey always disappeared almost immediately and Raphael had no idea what he did to blow off steam. It was a fair guess that his activities didn't involve beating anyone up though. Raphael pictured Michelangelo's bedroom trying to think of what his brother might do when angry. His mind wandered to the skateboards. One with wheels and the other his flying skateboard, the one Don had made to get Mikey to leave him alone for a while. Mikey went out skateboarding!

Raphael tried to think of things he enjoyed doing that might calm him down. He thought of his Shell Cycle sitting up in the warehouse. He loved that bike. Don had originally built it for him when they had been working on the Battle Shell. Raph remembered being well and truly ticked when Hun had wrecked it, but at the same time he had also known that Don would repair it for him. There was also his sewer sled. Those were fun. Maybe he could go take a ride on either the sled or the bike until he calmed down.

Don locked himself away with things that couldn't talk back at him. He occasionally threw things, but something was seriously wrong when it came to that. And it was always one thing, usually a pillow or something else that was handy but wouldn't break or hurt anyone, and after that his anger just evaporated like it had never been. Raphael remembered being chased with a sledgehammer by his normally passive brother. On the other hand Raph had just smashed the freshly repaired Sewer Slider to into little pieces. He didn't remember ever seeing his brother so ticked off in his life. Finally Don had slammed the sledgehammer into the floor and crumpled into a heap. All of his anger had been spent and all that remained was sadness and disappointment. Donnie did get mad. It took a lot, but when he blew, he really blew.

Raphael thought back on the day after Don had chased him around the lair. He had gone in to ask if there was anything he could do to help make up for the damage. At the time Donatello had been underneath the wrecked vehicle straightening what mangled parts he could and replacing the ones he couldn't on the bottom before working his way up. Donnie had tossed him a wrench which he caught easily. He had been covered in grease by the time Don let him go.

Another problem with his visualization exercise hit him. And it wasn't just that he wasn't visualizing anything at the moment. He had pictured Mikey making him mad, and Leo lecturing him, but this evening it would be Donatello trying to tick him off. Raphael wasn't sure what that particular brother would do to accomplish that goal.

Leonardo stood in the dojo. He worked his way though the kata focusing on each movement in turn. If he concentrated on the motions he didn't have to think about what had happened. As long as he was here in this state, he didn't change colors, he didn't see things before they happened, Raph hadn't knocked him across the room with a hit that had missed its mark and Donatello certainly couldn't read his mind. Here the status quo was maintained. The dojo was his haven, and his practice was his respite from the real world.

He didn't understand what was wrong with Raph and Don. Those two were hiding from their family. That wasn't what they needed right now. Some part of Leo couldn't blame them for running. He didn't want to think about it. There were more important things than these stupid changes, things that took priority in his mind, his katas for one. Leo continued his workout and allowed himself to be lost in the familiar movements, his undivided attention on his imaginary foe. The Foot Elite he battled attacked, and Leo blocked. When Leo attacked his foe sometimes blocked, and sometimes went down. He watched his imaginary Elite carefully, looking for mistakes, openings, anything that would help him take the guy out.

Finishing the kata Leo stopped for a moment to take water. He was frustrated with his two brothers who had yet to emerge from their rooms this week. Leo found himself angry that Donatello could read his mind and was just as happy that the purple masked turtle had opted to remain in his room. Raph too, sure the red masked turtle had come a long way in controlling his temper over the past few years, but the power in Raph's strike was just too much. While he was pleased that neither of their new mutations had been used on him lately Leo did have to admit that he missed his brothers. He missed Raphael's loud, argumentative presence and Donatello's quiet, knowledgeable one. This whole thing was tearing his family apart and Leo hated it. He envied Mike, who didn't have any stupid new mutations to worry about.

Leonardo put his water down and started in on another kata. He faced down his imaginary opponent and about half-way through realized that the Foot Elite he had originally been facing had morphed into Donatello. The next thing he noticed was that he was giving his brother the pounding of his life and Leo was horrified to find he didn't care.

"Why, Leo?" imaginary Donnie queried weakly from the floor, his voice laced with disbelief. Moments later he collapsed and disappeared.

Sickened, Leo threw his katana to the floor and backed away. Did I really just do that?

A/N: Sorry, that was kind of short. Also I apologize for the slow update. I lost my internet connection for a while. Also if any more updates are slow it is because I am dealing with a wreck I was involved in. There was lots of spinning around, not much fun then, less fun now. Everyone is ok though.