Mao Mao — Roleplayer Guild

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
NEW YORK CITY
TURTLE LAIR
The kitchen admittedly had seen better days before yesterday, when the chief barred everyone from entering it. Mickey needed the space to shine. While the music blasting in the background was required to make the food taste better. No one believed it, but his family only allowed it (much to Raph's complaining) because today was Mutation Day—the day he and his brothers mutated. Mickey was seen as the only turtle who could make food taste so damn delicious. And with the items gathered by Senesi during the last grocery run, he spent the entire day in the kitchen cooking for tonight's dinner. Only the chocolate cake was left, with each of the four large slices having different toppings. Vanilla frosting for Donnie, leftover chocolate sprinkles for Raph, and powdered sugar made explicitly for Leo. Mickey was just going to coat his slice in deep, rich chocolate syrup and chocolate chips. He had an extreme sweet tooth for anything chocolate. As for Master Splinter…

He yet again refused a slice before retreating to the dojo as he had done every year. But he wasn't just meditating in there; he was mourning the death of his family, the loss of his own humanity. For Splinter, Mutation Day was the day that he had lost everything, so of course, he'd wanted to be alone to grieve. Mikey only wished he could do more to help him than just quietly place a plate of light cheesecake in front of the shoji each year, too afraid to disturb him. Perhaps a part of him wanted his fath- senesi to be more involved in the present—in his life—rather than reliving the past. It was selfish, callous even, to be thinking like that. He hadn't experienced a fraction of his pain, but he couldn't care less.

He just wanted his father senesi.

The timer on his "shell phone" went off, signaling that the garlic onion chicken was done cooking. He had forgotten the main course. Mikey took a deep breath and went over to the stove, checking if the chicken was cooked through. He smiled when the instant-read thermometer displayed 165ºF, and the juices ran clear. It smelled incredible. And after wiping off the excess oil with a paper towel, he added the reserved marinade to the pan and simmered it for three minutes. Then he coated the chicken with the garlic onion sauce, placed it on a large plate, and set it on the dining table. Mikey felt proud of what he accomplished with the multi-course dinner for tonight's party, one he nearly ruined by getting so damn sensitive.

This wasn't the time or the place to get upset. You're sixteen now, act like it. Mikey kept telling himself that as he went over to the sink to put away the dirty dishes and wash up. But he didn't even realize he had been crying the whole time until a tear started to drip from his chin. He pretended the onions had made his eyes all watery before splashing some cold water on his face. Mikey didn't want to make his bros worry over something as ridiculous as onions when they should be happy instead.

Mikey turned off the faucet and left the kitchen to retrieve his brothers from their rooms, humming a catchy tune. After all, who wants to be a killjoy at one's own party? 
Who would've thought building a 3D printer from scratch wasn't going to be simple? To the ordinary person with little understanding of engineering, that was obvious. For Donnie, however, it genuinely surprised him how annoying this project had become. Three months of designing the printer itself, gathering the finite materials left in the sewers, and assembling it together. All that effort, and the gantry wasn't rigid enough; more specifically, the left side was 2 mm out of alignment with the right side, a small enough difference to cause the prints to be slanted. An issue with a simple enough fix, or so he had thought. Another month was spent redesigning the printer itself and salvaging the whole project.

Donnie joined Discord servers and subreddits related to 3D printing to see if he could find the answer to his problem. But alas, the turtle had no such luck. None of the solutions provided to him worked, despite the back-and-forth conversation with other makers. He always preferred having someone physically there with him rather than staring at a screen and talking through his headset. Still, it wasn't as easy as asking his brothers for help—they weren't mechanically inclined or technically proficient. And Senesi... well, the first (and only) time he was invited to see the workshop, he simply told him not to let his "passion" interfere with his training, then left after looking around the room emotionless for a minute straight.

So yeah, Donnie was on his own as expected. Under normal circumstances, that would've been completely fine, even exciting, to face a challenge head-on. But after four months working on this project with nothing to show for it, it had gotten demotivating to keep going. The only reason he didn't just move on to something else was that he had to prove himself to his brothers. To his Senesi. 

Sure, having a 3D printer was, of course, beneficial because it offered more options than scouring the sewers for broken, discarded items or risking getting caught on the surface. But in all honesty, finishing the project would've shown everyone that one's intellect was simply as important as one's physical strength. And maybe it could be enough to make up for one's shortcomings... Donnie sat there, staring at the unfinished device with such shame it felt as if he was looking at a mirr-

"You alright?"

"Jesus!" Donnie nearly jumped out of his stool, caught completely off-guard by his youngest brother of all the people. He took a moment to collect himself before snapping at the turtle, "What did I say about startling me while I'm working here?!"

"My bad, dude," Mikey sheepishly smiled and then casually pointed out the mostly disassembled printer. "I didn't realize you were that focused on this here... do-thingy. A new side project?"

"No, it's the 3D printer that's been giving me trouble. I thought dismantling it would help-" Donnie stopped himself short of rambling about the project and its many issues, something that happened quite often. "No, wait, why are you here now?"

"No real reason. I just wanted to tell you the party's about to start," Mikey answered joyfully. 

Donnie would've usually shooed the turtle away from his personal space at this point, since he was starting to annoy him. He had done so before to his other brothers, even kicking them out of the workshop. But he scarcely did it to Mikey. For he was the only one who had expressed interest in his projects, despite not understanding their complexity in the slightest. He sat and listened to his ramblings for hours on end without much complaint, just questions and genuine curiosity. 

Quite simply, if his younger brother could do that, Donnie could afford to take a break and enjoy his mutation day with him and the others. So, he got up from his seat with a contented sigh and gestured towards the door, "Show me the way then."
"Remember, God is watching, and He blesses the people of New York."

Raph punched the worn-out boxing bag harder than he had been doing for the past five minutes, but he had just listened to the mayor's nightly address. He couldn't bear seeing that egoistic bastard's smug face on the screen anymore, so the mayor instead became background noise. Perhaps it would've been better to tune him out as Donnie suggested. But Raph couldn't do it. He couldn't just ignore the mayor of the largest city in the country, the very one he and his brothers were living underneath. Fisk's tenure so far has seen ordinary people's rights trampled, allowed corruption to persist at the NYPD, and used his task force to enforce his absolute rule over the city. 

All in the name of "safer streets, safer neighborhoods." What a load of shit.

Raph struck his boxing bag hard enough to make it slightly swing. He was angry at… everyone and everything. At the people who voted for and still support a tyrant. At the city council members for being spineless cowards. At his brothers for being incredulous while the world above them was crashing down. At his Senesi for refuting his pleas to go to the surface to fight back with his training and weaponry. And the one he was livid at was himself for caring about a world that would label him and his brothers as freaks of nature and treat them as such. It wasn't fair… why did he care so much? Why was he so compassionate? Why couldn't he be ignorant, detached, or cold like his brothers? Why was life so hard, so fucking unfair?

Raph kept on hitting the boxing bag with all of his strength, too mad to stop now. He would have kept on going till his knuckles bled if not for someone grabbing his shoulder from behind. He instinctively turned around and threw a mean right hook, not realizing it was Mikey. Fortunately, the turtle dodged the punch with ease by retracting his head into his shell momentarily. But Raph looked as if it had landed. 

"Mikey! I-I…"

"Y-your hands," Mikey said, still somewhat shaken up, as he grabbed hold of his hands. "They're bleeding." 

Raph couldn't care less about his hands right now. "I almost hit you."

"You didn't mean to, bro. I should have just said something." Mikey looked up at his brother and chucked rather weakly. "I was practically asking for trouble sneaking up on you like that."

Raph hugged his brother tightly. There was an unspoken rule in the family that violence was not allowed beyond the confines of the dojo. He almost broke that rule, all because he couldn't keep his anger in check. And this wasn't the first time either. Raph knew he had to do better, but he didn't necessarily know how. Regardless, he started with an apology, "I am so sorry. I was too focused a-and I just-"

"It's all good, dude," Mikey returned the hug, "I'm fine. You're the one who's bleeding, not me. It doesn't look too bad, but I think Donnie should check it anyway to be on the safe side."

Raph finally let go and looked down at his hands. His knuckles were bleeding through the athletic tape; other than that, however, he was still able to move his fingers around, albeit uncomfortably. He sighed. "Okay, a check-up won't hurt."

"Good. And can we agree not to make what happened into a big deal? I don't want all of my cooking to go to waste." Mikey asked rather sincerely, to which Raph nodded in agreement before they left his bedroom for the party.
Breathe in, breathe out. Concentrate on your surroundings. Leonardo breathed slowly, his hands gripping the bokutō ever so tightly. He then began to scan his bare-bones bedroom before getting ready for his daily training. Normally, he would be doing it at the dojo, but Master Splinter told them there would be no training and that the area was off-limits for today. His brothers were unsurprisingly ecstatic about the rare day off. Leo, on the other hand, was fine with the rest, so he could just read comics in bed all day long. But that got boring real quick. He decided to focus solely on practicing what Master Splinter had been teaching him recently: Niten Ichi, a two-sword technique conceived by swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. 

Musashi's works served as the basis for his training routine, his ideals and beliefs, and his weapons of choice: the katana and wakizashi. Leo felt eternally grateful to Senesi for the lessons and values instilled in him and his brothers from a young age. But a tiny part of him admittedly was ecstatic to have time for his own training routine nowadays. Not that it was bad or a chore to train and practice with his brothers, he still loved doing it every day. And yet he yearned to learn more about the arts, even though Senesi already taught him much (such as how to use his brother's weapons and properly administer emergency first aid, to name a few). Still, as Musashi wrote: "From one thing, know ten thousand things."    

There were still plenty of things left to learn in the world. And if there was something that would further protect his family, Leo was more than willing to learn it. He was seen as the oldest for a reason.

While Leo was practicing his swings with the bokutōs, there was a knock on his door. Don't let the noise distract you now, Leo told himself as he resumed the exercise, doing his best to avoid the knocking. But it persisted nevertheless. He hated when his brothers—and it was one of them at the door without a doubt—disturbed him while training or meditating. The wooden swords were tossed carelessly on the bed before Leo made his way to the door, visibly annoyed, ready to lash out.

"Oh." But when that door opened, Leo's demeanor changed instantly at the sight of his 'little' brother standing there with his arms behind his back. He looked down at the ground out of guilt as he said, "Hey, Mikey, what's up?"

Mikey, none the wiser, merely smiled and answered cheerfully, "Just came here to grab you for the party."

"Of course. Give me a few to freshen up, and I'll be there." Leo was about to shut the door until Mikey uncharacteristically placed his hand on it before he had the chance to. The turtle struggled to get his words, but eventually did with a question:

"Could I meditate with you?"

Leo was taken aback by the request because his brothers rarely meditated in their off-time, despite its numerous benefits. And they often did it alone during training. So the request was strange but welcoming. "S-sure! Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, bro." Mikey readily brushed off his concerns and said, "I'm just tired from cooking so much. Need to get into the zone for the party, you know?"

Leo studied his brother, wondering if he was hiding something, but backed off after realizing that probing could ruin the chance to hang with him. "Well, let's do the three-minute one then. You do remember how it starts, right?"

"Um..."
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