Chapter 2-A Strained Brotherly Oath
As the dust cleared, the group finds Mikey now long gone. Leo came back to his senses in a matter of seconds after letting everything that just happened sink in before turning to look at Raph with angry, narrowed eyes.
"You and your despicable anger, Raph! Do you know what you just said to our little brother, who we swore by our oath as brothers to protect many years ago!?" He shouted as he slowly walked towards Raph, who was trying to calm himself down after his earlier outburst towards Mikey.
"Hey, I'm not da only one who felt da same way as me about Mikey, Leo, so don't pin dis all on me!" Raph shouted back in defence before Donnie stepped in.
"I know, Raph. I admit my part in scolding Mikey earlier, but Leo is right; we all made a brotherly oath to protect our baby brother, no matter what, and we just caused a strain in that oath by ganging up on him and not giving him a chance to explain himself."
"Yeah, I saw it all. The poor guy hardly got a word in and we pinned everything on him when he didn't mean to give away our position back there," Adam said to back Donnie up.
Everyone else nodded in agreement, realizing now that they were all wrong to pile all the blame on Mikey since what happened was accidental. It was then that a thought came into Leo's head and he turned to Raph again and asked him an important question.
"Come to think of it, Mikey said that you asked him to show off his newly-learned skills before the incident happened. Is that true?"
Raph took a moment to think back on what happened before the fight broke out and then his eyes widened; he did ask Mikey to perform a certain technique, but only as part of a bet to prove that he couldn't do it better than he did during their training. With this in mind, Raph looked down as he instantly felt a heavy wave of guilt suddenly hit him in the chest. "Ah, shell…" He said with a sigh and then nodded a 'yes' to confirm it, much to everyone's shock.
"So, it was true…, and you thought that it was alright to take all your anger out on your own brother just to avoid taking the blame yourself. That was a selfish act, Raphael!" Faragi said in anger and shock from Raph's confession.
"Calm down, Faragi, Raph knows now that what he did was wrong. All he needs to do now is to go and talk to Mikey and apologize to him," Leo said after placing a calming hand on Faragi's shoulder.
"No offence, Leo, but I doubt Mikey would want to speak to Raph or to any of us after what we did to him earlier," Joi said in a sad tone before Torra spoke next.
"Besides, Michelangelo said himself that we have a mission to complete, so we should respect his wish for us to continue on without him."
"But the question is; Can we do this without him?" Donnie said worriedly.
"Donnie, you and the others go on ahead. I'm going to go find Mikey and talk to him just to make sure that he's okay. Don't worry, I'll catch up with you," Leo instructed his brother before he started his journey back to the boat.
Raph watched on as his oldest brother disappeared into the forest in the same direction where Mikey ran away, before looking down slightly with regret in his eyes.
'I'm sorry, Mike,' he mentally said before he started to walk with the others to their next location.