CH:28 Not So Secret

When I walk into Raphael's bedroom I silently close the door behind me as I notice he's eyes are still closed while he is laying on his back, perfectly in the dent of the bed.

I glance over at Spike too see him looking back at me expectantly. As I quietly chuckle thinking, 'I guess he demands to be first.' I walk over to the little guy and hand him a lettuce leaf that he immediately starts to eat right from my hand.

"Huh, he normally only takes food from me." I hear Raph's rough voice from the bed behind me.

As I watch Spike eat the leaf with a giggle I reply, "He has been eating the leaves that I've been giving him but this is the first time that he is taking it from my hand."

"Tsk, so that's why he hasn't been eating as much lately." Raph says as he sits up on his bed. He hangs his legs over the edge and extends is arms out, "How about a hug?" He asks with a very sly expression on his face.

I look over my shoulder at him and eye him up and down, "Oh I know a trap when I see one." I say with a half smile and shaking my head at him. Causing him to chuckle as he sheepishly scratches the back of his head at being busted so easily. "Besides your brothers sent me in here to get you up for breakfast. Since your up, let's go eat." And with that I turn on my heels and strut out of his room with a satisfied wiggle of my tail that I'm not letting him come up with any excuses. 'Mission accomplished with no bruises, in your face Donny.' I smugly thought to myself as my tail moves side to side a bit quicker.

With Raphael chuckling right behind me 'Probably checking out my tail', I couldn't help but think as it's currently impossible to stop it from wagging.

We head into the kitchen to see the other turtles and Splinter all sitting around the island. The island itself was covered in dishes from stacks of pancakes, bacon and toast, to mountains of eggs, sausages and little fried potatoes. Topped off with two huge pitchers of orange and apple juice and a bunch of toppings like jam, maple syrup and fresh fruit. The smell alone was enough to drive my taste buds crazy.

As I took my seat with wide eyes all I could ask was, "Mikey, where did you get all this food?"

With a chuckle he replies, "They have these huge stores filled with food, and only one guy watching it all at night. The dude was even asleep!" Mikey starts laughing at this as the rest of us just looked at each other.

I had to ask, "Mikey, did you steal all this food?"

He immediately stops laughing and says defensively, "No! I left Mr. Piggington to pay for it." With a little satisfied nod at the end.

Leo rolls his eyes and says as he is filling his plate with a fair bit of everything, "I highly doubt your little piggy bank had enough to cover all of this but at least it's still better than stealing bro."

With us all feeling better about the meal, we started to dig in. Well, all but Donny. While shoving a small piece of syrup drenched pancake in my mouth, I couldn't help but notice how he barely even played with his food. 'He looks a lot better, he should have an appetite by now... I wonder if he is okay...' I thought while enjoying the delicious morsel in my mouth. Apperently I wasn't the only one who noticed Donny. Just as that thought went through my mind, Master Splinter asked Donatello what's bothering him.

As Donny stabs at the pancake on his plate he complains, "I just don't get it. I mean, I'm a highly trained martial artist. How could I lose to something so mindless?" When he finishes he slams his fork down harder than he intended.

Master Splinter sits up a bit straighter as he looks compassionately at Donny, "You are very intelligent, my son. But in a fight, you cannot be up here." Splinter points to his head.

I'm in awe at how caring Splinter is towards the turtles. 'If only my kind hand an ounce of this compassion...' I couldn't help but think as I stopped chewing my food for a moment and just watched the interaction like it's something interesting on TV thinking, 'This food even beats popcorn...' As I eat only in the dips of the conversation.

Donny looks up to Splinter and says, "But I just don't understand how you can fight without thinking."

"You must clear your mind and just react to the situation around you. Find the space between your thoughts and learn to live there. That's what Michelangelo does." Sensei says confidently.

While Mikey was piling toppings upon toppings over his pancakes he looks over at Donny and says "Yeah man. Don't think, just do. Gotta live in the moment." Before going back to his masterpiece.

Donny glances over at Mikey with a very skeptical look, "True, but Mikey's got a lot more space between his thoughts than I do."

Raph just scoffs as he grabs more bacon and says to Mikey, "Yeah, that's a lot easier for you, shell-for-brains." Making all but Mikey chuckle. He was too busy trying to shove his topping mountain into his surprisingly large mouth.

Sensei chuckles and says, "Yes, well, Michelangelo has his challenges, too." Then runs a hand over his beard tuff, "Hmm, perhaps we should work on some training after breakfast, since it usually takes April a bit to get here."

Donny nods his head in agreement, "Yeah, and with her computer skills it shouldn't take us too long to get into that hard drive. Maybe then we can finally get some answers or atleast some more info before we go after that lab monkey again." Finally feeling better Donnie starts to dig in as well and in pure delight no one says another word until all the food is gone.

After breakfast I helped Leo with the dishes as Splinter made everyone else join him in the dojo. After we were done in the kitchen Leo offered me to join him with the others for practice, but I politely refused saying that I had something else I wanted to work on. Once again getting an odd eye from Leo as I head off to Raphs room.

In truth, I wanted to work on my meditation. Since Splinter wants me to keep this to myself, the only time I can really do it is when the guys are training. 'Unfortunately it's one or the other and right now I'm fuckin tired of loosing consciousness due to lack of energy.' I grumble to myself as I get into the Lotus position in the middle of the floor in Raph's room.

I focus on my energy and make it flow through my body in heavy amounts, feeling my ass leave the floor. With my inner eye I look towards the great white pool of energy that resides inside me and I noticed that it's a bit thicker around the edges but not by much. 'This is going to take a bit...' I continue to grumble to myself as I focus even harder to push even more energy through out of impatience.

After I've been meditating for about 20 minutes, I'm so engrossed into what I'm doing that I don't even notice the door to the bedroom open. Raph walks in and has to hold his hand up in front of his eyes to block the intense glow coming off my body. As he closes the door behind him, unable to believe what he is seeing, he shouts at me, 'Holly shell!! Are you flying?!"

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Hey readers!

Sorry I haven't written as often as I would like but I was going through my previous chapters and touching them up so the story flows better... Well that and life 😅 hopefully things will smoothen out soon and I can get back to wrighting like crazy but spring can get bonkers! I have quite the plan for this book so there are definitely a bunch more chapters to come, once I get time to sit down and write them that is.

Hope you all have a great day/night and enjoy future chapters!

Cheers!