Masked in Green

Lost And Found

In all my years of being a teenage mutant ninja turtle, I had always heeded the ancient saying ‘Never bite the hand that feeds you.’ Well at the moment I’d like to tear off the hand that feeds me. My name is Raphael and the hand that feeds me well the one who handles all the pizza transactions is my youngest brother Michelangelo. Why do I want to tear his hand off? Simple, he’s beating me.

“I am Michelangelo, Battle Nexus Champion!” He danced around me, blocking my every move. Finally Mikey stopped and I struck hard with my sai. “You know what your problem is Raph? You’re just a little too slow,” He grabbed my handle and threw me to the wall of our sewer home. “Actually a lot to slow.” I sat up gasping for air. My anger was well over boiling point.

“You think you’re better than me? Huh do you?!” Blocked again. With no sai I jumped and sent my feet straight out waiting with the foot-shell connection. Instead Mikey moved so he could grab my leg and send me flying into the table smashing it to bits.

“Winner and reigning champion, King of Ninjitsu, Michelangelo!” I stood and let my anger engulf me, clutching the only weapon close to me, one of Donatello’s wrenches, I jumped and struck Mike in the shell, spinning him around and pinning him to the ground I stood over him with the wrench. I could hear his muffled voice trying to reason with me but nothing broke through my wall of consciousness. I swung the wrench down with all my strength, my hand stopped; someone was pulling at my arm and shouting.

“Raphael have you completely lost your mind?” It was Leonardo, I dropped the wrench, my anger fading and I came back to reality. Don was helping Mikey to his feet as I turned to look over at my two youngest brothers.

“Leo I, Mikey…” My voice faltered as I struggled to explain but Master Splinter beat me to it.

“Anger, my son consumes the soul it is an unbeatable enemy.” My sensei’s heavy Japanese accent calmed me, but not enough.

“Master I… I need some air.” I sprinted from the room grabbing my sai in the process.

I was leaping from roof to roof until I couldn’t move a muscle. I knew this was the only way I would ever calm down enough to go home. I really didn’t know what calm was, I was always mad. Finally I collapsed on a roof overlooking central park. That’s what I needed, a shadowy walk in the park. I pulled the trench coat and hat from my shell, and jumped off the roof landing softly in the alley. Emerging I walked across busy east 60th street to central park. Sticking to the shadows like the ninja I am, I walked along the sidewalk. That’s when her voice carried over the hedge to me, a voice that my brothers and I would never forget.

“I still don’t know what I did to you!” She sounded angry and confused a dangerous combination if she was anything like me. I snuck into the hedge for a closer look. Three people stood in the clearing. A pretty, Asian girl with short thick black hair that I almost mistook for Shredder’s daughter, Karai, a tall boy with glasses and brown hair and another pretty girl with long brown hair tied up in a ponytail. She had a petite but agile figure that made her look like she had been practising in some kind of martial arts.

“More like what you didn’t do!” The Asian girl screamed in frustration not caring who heard. I could see both girls’ anger like the red on a thermometer rising steadily. The boy looked scared as he gazed between the two.  

“Kei, I don’t know what you're talking about!” So the Asian girl’s name was Kei. The brunette whose name had still not been said turned to the boy. “Erin you talk some sense into her, unless you know what in the Sam hill is going on here?” Her voice was tinged with a forgotten southern accent as she skewered Erin with a glare that lit her eyes on fire. With a smirk Kei realized what was going on.