~Editted~
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Life isn't worth living unless you're willing to take some big chances and go for broke. ~ Eliot Wiggington
"She's made contact with one of her advisors," The voice of wisdom commented.
"Good. Which one?" The lead voice sounded optimistic.
"She has met the one of short temper, but he doesn't have a short temper."
"Then how do you know that it is he?" The doubtful threw in.
"All the others have the right personality, the one of leadership, the one of wisdom, and the one of light."
"But it is one of the key traits. How shall we know if he is the right one? If we can unite the empress with her advisors then the ancient peace shall truly live once again," The uninvited fifth voice commented.
"Yes, and they could be our link to the human world," The wise one commented.
"In order to do so, we will need to overthrow the Shredder when his work of restoring our power is done. How will we do that?" The voice of doubt said with logic.
"Maysa was the only known human to be able to use the power of the jewels. She is linked to us in some form. But just one human in control can be troublesome, that is why the four advisors are needed. Each of them plays a different role in leadership." The peacemaker was slowly seeing a world of perfection coming back to them. A world that had long since been forgotten.
There had been a world where these five ruled. They were unseen but believed in. The five used humans to carry out their will. These humans were called prophets. Every human knew that the power of the Ancient Peace came from six jewels that were located in the temple into which only the prophets could go. The most powerful prophet was known by the name of The Shredder. People respected him but he wanted more; he wanted the praise that The Five received. So he plotted without telling to steal the six jewels. Each prophet goes in alone and The Five are not directly connected to the human world so can only do things through other prophets. Taking the jewels therefore was easy. No one would suspect a prophet so it was assumed that The Five had left them- abandoned them. The world turned to chaos and The Five, without their power, could only watch their world fall apart. People turned to greediness, the desires of the heart, or just simply what your gut told you. But the heart is selfish and the gut filthy. The Shredder took over with his allies, and attempted to take over the world.
But because the people had turned into what they had, they wanted what The Shredder got and turned on him. Even his own allies turned against him in greed. He was brought down and buried, sworn never to be brought up again. The Five struggled to find a human to use to restore their world but never had. The only human who stayed true was Maysa and her four advisors.
"Do you forget that Maysa is in the form of but a child? She does not recall the memories of her past life." The doubtful remained as he was.
"But by the time our power is restored and Maysa and her advisors are needed, they will be 'teenagers.'" The lead voice threw its argument back.
"Is that good enough?"
"It will have to be."
"What about the jewel that lives inside her that we will need?" The peacemaker gave a question.
"We shall gather that one last. If we have trouble with The Shredder, Maysa will be our only hope."
"So we shall leave her be until needed?"
"As well as leaving the jewel entrusted with her. If we leave the jewel with her, then we shall be able to get through to her when she is needed."
"Why did we not do this earlier?" The doubtful demanded. "We could have fixed this world."
"Because, the human race needed to learn their own lesson. But it is now apparent that they shall not learn it on their own. For now we concentrate on gathering the other jewels needed to restore our power. Some is better than none and Maysa will no doubt give us the sixth one when we are ready."
Destiny and love have a complicated relationship. Sometimes they work together. Other times, love comes uninvited, causing complications. This time, it was causing complications. Raphael couldn't help it; it was just the way he felt. His father had warned he and his older brother of these 'feelings' but they both denied that they would ever fall into it since they had each other and didn't need anyone else neither did they thing they would ever even meet a girl.
Raph slipped down the ladder into the sewer, landing in the stinking water. They always took showers at night to get rid of the stench. Luckily for him, tonight had been garbage night, so Cally hadn't been able to register his smell. Standing there, he looked up, thinking about Cally which caused his face to gather a slight pinkish tint to his green face. He shook his head, trying to gather himself back up. He didn't need her. He did, but not like that.
"Raphael!" A voice made him jump.
Raph's heart dropped into his stomach. He was caught like a thief caught with the stolen items in hand. The sudden unsinkable plans that he and Cally had just went down with the Titanic. The voice was his older brother- Leo.
Leo spoke again. "You're not supposed to go up there." Raphael cringed at the tone. He hated when Leo got bossy with him. Leo had nothing over him but age, but that didn't stop him from telling Raph what he should and shouldn't do. Occasionally, they got along just fine, but not when Leo tried his luck at being in charge when he didn't need to be- or at least when Raph felt like he didn't need to be which was all the time.
Raph just frowned, turning away from Leonardo. "Shaddup, Leo. I'm almost ten; I think I can handle myself." He was very independent, and felt weakness when he was dependent. That's why even if he was allowed to talk to humans, he wouldn't tell anyone about Cally because he depended on her to show him that the whole world wasn't as bad as his father made it out to be.
"Are you stupid?" Leo snapped. He felt differently. Leo was only doing this to help Raphael even though it didn't seem like it. Not many siblings feel protected when the older one tells you what to do. Leo knew the horrors that would happen to his brother if he went up there, his father had warned him of them. It tore him apart to know he could lose any of his brothers from one little mistake. That was Leo's secret. That one worry that eats us inside out when we're alone in our beds at night- that was his. His family kept him sane and to lose a part of it would drive it out of him.
Raph snorted. "No. Ya went up there too when ya came with us ta tha surface when we met that kid and tried ta teach him what Masta Splinta taught us." He turned to face Leo, waiting a defense.
"I was stupid then." It was true; Leo had gone up to the surface before with his brothers. At the time, he hadn't thought of losing a brother but of helping another kid defend himself.
Raph grinned. "You didn't change." He enjoyed destroying his older brother's 'high-horse' ego, mostly because he was halfway jealous. Ninjitsu came naturally to Leo; Raph was pretty good but not as good.
Leo just sighed, knowing he couldn't win verbal battles with his brothers. "Of all the insane things to try, you had to try to go up there. By yourself. You're lucky I caught you before something bad happened." Stress twisted in his chest and he began to purposely be bossy.
Raph let out a whiff of relief but made it sound like a blow of hot air. He was clear. But still he knew he couldn't act relieved so he frowned. "You're soundin' like someone's mom, 'cause I know ya ain't mine." Leo sounded like a mom a lot. 'Master Splinter said not to do that' or 'if you do that, I'll tell Sensei' was what Leo usually said when he or one of his brothers started to do something against the rules. But all Raphael heard was 'blah, blah, blah.'
Agitated steam rolled in Leo's head and the stress twisted tighter, but he stayed physically calm, hiding his anger. "Just come on, Master Splinter's been looking for you."
Raph followed Leo with no reply. Silently, he called Leo what he had heard the men who were sometimes in the alleyway when call each other. No guilt ever built up in Raph and a good thing. Guilt leads to doubt which blocks destiny. Sometimes rules and true destiny contradict but you can't let it stop you.
A hidden room deep within the sewer system away from the sewer stream soon came into view. It wasn't quiet. One side with an old beat up television was blaring a black and white "Frankenstein" while a voice nearby was hollering, "Turn it down, Mikey! I'm trying to work!" Not quite chaotic and neither was it relaxing, but to Raphael it was home.
Mikey, who was laid out on the old beat up couch in front of the television, wailed back in return, "But it's better louder!" Though he still turned it down for his older brother.
Raph turned to see Don at his worktable with a screw-driver, messing with a TV antenna. Donny always had some kind of tool in his hand. The only time he didn't was during training or at meals when Splinter told him to put it away for then. Sometimes he made really cool stuff. He had fixed the old television so they could watch movies on it. But other times it either blew up or turned out 'not the way I planned'- or at least that was how Donatello explained why a project never turned up finished.
Leo made his way over to Don and peaked curiously over his shoulder. "What are you working on now?" He inquired, watching Donny's hands steadily adjust the arms of the antenna
Without looking up, Don replied, "I got the DVD player and TV to work; now I want to see if I can get channels on it. It would be nice."
"Hey, Raphy!" Mikey called, hanging over the couch. One of his hands was holding a bag of chips and the other was shoving them in his mouth. "Where were you? You, like, disappear every night, dude."
Sometimes destiny has to be covered up like a project that isn't ready to be shown yet. People just wouldn't understand it; they would discourage it or scorn it. And if criticized enough, the project would be abandoned, left just the way people hated it.
"I go on walks," Raph half-lied. He did go on walks, but he didn't said where he went. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Leo giving him a sharp, suspicious glance when he answered. He knew Leo doubted his answer. Raph felt like Leo always thought he was up to something bad.
"Like adventuring?" Mikey asked with a wide smile. Mike loved anything related to food or stuff that made him feel like a superhero. There had been an old superhero movie that their father had found in a dumpster one day and brought it home for them to watch. Michelangelo had been obsessed with superheroes ever since.
"I suppose." Raph assumed that if he didn't really answer he wouldn't really have to lie. Children do that all the time. They avoid the question so they don't have to answer or they give a half answer so they don't have to lie.
"Can I go too?" Mikey nearly fell off the couch as he used his arms to push himself over the back of the couch and closer to Raph. A wide grin was spread across his face and his eyes shone.
Raph instantly frowned, suddenly getting defensive. "No!"
Mikey shrank back, a little startled. Leo and Don had snapped their attention to Raph. It wasn't like him to get instantly mad. Yes, he had his limit, but it usually lasted a little longer than that.
"Uh…well, see, I um prefer to go alone…" Raph stuttered, feeling a drilling hard look from Leo.
"Hopefully these walks include practice, Raphael," A soft voice rasped from the shadows.
"Ah, well, not always," Raph admitted. He had snuck up on Cally that night and he planned on teaching her some ninjitsu. That was practice, right?
"Perhaps there should be more of that," The voice stepped out of the shadows. A tall slender rat with grey fur in a brown robe appeared in the light. He held a knobby staff in one hand, his tail slipping out from under his robe curled up and over.
"Y-yes, Master Splinter," Raph murmured. He expected Leo to mention him "almost" going up to the surface, but to his surprise, Leo said nothing.
Master Splinter nodded and gave Raphael an approving smile like he did all of his sons when they did something well. He trusted his sons- some more than others but did trust that Raph would come through to his word like he usually did. He then called Leonardo into the dojo to help him with his fear of heights. It was always known that Leo feared heights but it was never spoken of, for Master Splinter said that it would be disrespectful to do so. But Raphael would indirectly mention it from time to time when Leo made him angry.
After a moment of silence, except for the TV, which Mikey had turned back on, Raph walked over to the beaten up, old blue couch. He laid on the top of the back-board of it. The black-and-white screaming people of Frankenstein played on. Mikey just kept eating his chips.
Raph yawned, closing his eyes. Screams and growls lulled him to sleep and destiny worked away, proud of its masterpiece in progress.
