Chapter 15: Back To Normal

Talking to Splinter and knowing that he wasn't seen as a burden and useless, made Raph feel a lot better.

Maybe he could help his brothers on another mission, watching over them like he had done last night. He was good at this kind of stuff, after all, Raph thought the next morning. Maybe Leo was even planning their next mission already and thinking of making Raph watch over the mission again. Oh, this would be great! The Kraang had tried to trap them last night, so of course they had to get back at them for this. And although Raph could only be watching again – and he for sure would have preferred to hit one or two Kraang himself – he was fine with just watching them getting beat up.

So Raph was in rather high spirits when he entered the kitchen. Donnie and Mikey seemed a bit tired, which was no wonder after the events of last night.

Leo, of course, looked as fresh as a daisy, sipping his tea and reading a comic book, when Raph wished a good morning and had a seat at the table, leaning his crutches against the table next to him.

His brothers returned his greeting and Mikey handed him a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice, but except from that his brothers stuck to their morning routine.

With a frown Raph started eating his breakfast.

If they were going on another mission soon, shouldn't they be talking about it already and shouldn't Leo inform Raph about his task ahead?

Some more moments passed and still no one was talking about any mission plans. Raph shifted a bit in his seat.

Why weren't they talking about their next mission? They couldn't just plan this minutes before they left!

Maybe he should ask Leo, Raph thought.

But blurt it out like that? No. This would look too much as if he depended on them, wanted to go on a mission with them because he had nothing else to do. This was the truth, sure, but he didn't want to point it out.

So he started to munch a mouthful of cereal extra loudly, hoping it would bring him Leo's attention.

It failed, of course.

One problem with having no great table manners was that no one reacted when you actually tried to act as if you had absolutely no table manners.

He swallowed loudly, but still, no reaction.

"Sooooooo," he tried another tactic, "what's the big plan for today, Leo?"

Leo looked up from his comic.

"Training, evening patrol. The usual, I'd say." He shrugged.

"I see," Raph replied. "So when are we going to go after the Kraang again?"

Leo raised a brow. "Not anytime soon, I'm afraid."

"What!?" Raph called out. "But they tried to trap us yesterday!"

"And exactly that's the reason why we aren't going after them too soon. They nearly succeeded, so we better keep a low profile before we make another move against the Kraang again."

"But Leo…"

"I want us to be at our usual strength again before we go after them," Leo clarified. "Otherwise they might be luckier with their trap next time."

They won't because I'll be there to watch over you. I'll protect you! Raph wanted to say, but he bit his tongue.

No matter how much he hated it, Leo had a point there. Even he had to admit that.

"Sorry Raph," Leo said as he got up, placing a calming hand on Raph's shoulder as he walked past him.

"Donnie, Mikey, time for training," he called for his brothers and the three left the room.

Raph kept his eyes pinned on the table.

So this was it. From doing nothing over being a big help he was back to doing nothing. And thus everything was back to normal again. And this normal was a bad normal, a boring normal, a normal Raph hated.

In default of anything better to do, Raph walked back to his room after breakfast. And now he was lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling.

He could try another pillow-hitting, just to kill time, but then he remembered how quickly he had gotten exhausted the night before, so it wouldn't be much time he'd actually kill.

He could watch TV. But the shows that were on that time of the day usually bored him.

He could play a video game, but he could play all of them blindfolded and with his right arm tied to his back by now. And it didn't look like they would get any new video games soon.

He could call Casey. No, wait, he couldn't. Casey was at school and so was April.

So it looked he was stuck here in his room.

He glanced around the room, looking for some sort of activity until his eyes came to rest on the pile of the fantasy novels April had brought him.

He still had two more books to read, so he could just as well read a bit. The sixth book would be published in three weeks, so why not? As long as he didn't read too much, he should have enough reading material until April brought him the sixth book.

With a nod he sat up and reached for the favored book, shifted a bit until he was comfortable and opened it.

But before he started reading he mentally went over the events of the last books in his head.

The shadow zombies had attacked some villages on the border to the Shadow Woods, kidnapped villagers and turned them into shadow zombies as well, adding them to their army. So it was only a matter of time until they'd make their move.

The sorcerers from the Crystal Mountains had turned down the king, saying that after all the time he had been gone, he had no longer the right to think of himself as the true king.

The king had vowed vengeance for their betrayal, but at the moment his army was too small to even think of attacking sorcerers. So he was on his way to find himself some true allies. One of the false kings had died without leaving an heir. Well, he had a daughter which now was reigning his realm, but the other two kings doubted her hereditary title and were plotting to overthrow her, so they could divide her lands among themselves. But all their conspiracies to murder her had failed so far, and now they were getting ready to take her land with force.

She on the other hand was doing her best to be prepared to fight them back.

So, yes, this was the current status.

With a smile Raph opened the book. He'd only read a few chapters, he told himself, because he still needed to ration his reading material.

Two days later, he turned the last page of the forth book.

Crud…