Chapter 3-Questioning Roles

Mikey's side…

Around half an hour had passed after Mikey arrived back to where the boat was docked without any problems, and since then he had been an emotional mess. When he arrived earlier, Mikey immediately collapsed on his knees and tried to catch his breath, but instead, he just covered his face with his hands and broke down crying.

He just couldn't believe the way everyone ganged up on him and blamed him for everything that happened in their earlier battle, but what made it worse was that they brought the past mission up and made it sound like Mikey would be the cause of everyone's downfall because of what happened to Leo and Faragi.

Then again, Mikey thought back to his past missions with his brothers and father/sensei in New York City;

He remembered a time when they were battling the Shredder after their return to New York from Casey's Farmhouse when Leo got badly wounded from the Foot's ambush, and he saw Master Splinter take a hit from the Shredder that was meant for him, which caused him to fall out of the Foot building and disappear without any traces of knowing where he was taken.

He then remembered when they battled the Shredder in his spaceship and he was left immobile after both of his legs were broken by the Shredder, resulting in his father to take another hit for him once again since he couldn't move. There were also times where he hardly got seriously involved in training and he would only focus on joking around which caused distractions during fights.

Mikey thought that those memories were enough to make him realise just how right Raph was; his role and purpose in the family and ninja team were rarely of any help to those he cares about, no matter how hard he tried to do better. He even thought that he should have been the one to have undergone a secondary mutation instead of Donnie since he doubted anyone would miss him if he was beyond saving in his monstrous form.

He too was surprised that the Ninja Tribunal didn't kick him out or let him die during lessons.

"Why…why am I seen as the less important family member…the useless ninja…?" Mikey said miserably whilst hiccupping before he lifted his head up to the sky and shouted, "WHY ME!?"

Mikey then curled himself into a ball whilst sitting up on the shore and continued to sob, not caring if any enemies heard his yelling or if anyone from his group was following after him when he took off earlier.

/

Leo's side...

Leo ran as fast as he could to try and get to his little brother before any more monstrous creatures could appear and attack either him or himself during the process.

Whilst he was running, he couldn't help but feel awful for Mikey. Even though he wasn't happy with how his youngest brother would easily be tempted to show off during an important mission, he knew that there were more ways to show Mikey how he was wrong to do so than ganging up on him and making him feel like he would never be useful to anyone. What was worse was that one of his own brothers, Raphael, who would always protect his baby brother and sometimes joke around with him, told Mikey in front of him that he was no longer his brother, without even thinking about how this would affect him.

Leo knew that Raph's anger would dominate over his true feelings towards others, causing him to speak without thinking about what to say first, which would result in causing a fight or hurting someone's feelings. However, Leo believed that Raph never meant to hurt anyone physically or emotionally and he would do anything to atone for his actions, especially if it involved Mikey, who would always try very hard to calm him down and keep the positive vibes going even through the hardest of times.

"WHY ME!?"

Leo was suddenly cut off from his thoughts and stopped when he heard a familiar voice shout out loudly in the far distance. It sounded hurt and upset.

"Mikey…?" Leo said quietly before darting off again towards the direction of his brother's voice.