End of the Good Ol' Days Pt1

The turtles thrived under the care of Yoshi and Shen. Shen doted on them, feeding them carefully prepared meals and reading to them from her favorite books. Yoshi, though quieter, often watched over them with a protective eye, making sure their tank was clean and that they had space to explore safely.

Antonello found himself drawn to Shen's gentle voice and Yoshi's steady presence. For the first time, he felt like he belonged. The other turtles, too, began to bond as a family. Well, as much as a family as it could be considering that his brothers were still just turtles now.

Life in the apartment was peaceful, a stark contrast to the noisy pet shop. Antonello spent hours watching Shen as she painted or listening to Yoshi's tales of his childhood as a street rat in New York, Each story seemed to have a lesson, but Antonello often found himself marveling more at the cadence of Yoshi's voice than the tales themselves. He began to understand that these two humans weren't just caretakers or characters in some story but they were parents way better of parents than his ever were. 

But their time together wasn't all sunshine and rainbows as one day Tang Shen just fell

She was painting the turtles at the time with Yoshi quietly observing her and as she got up to get more colors her knees buckled and she fell yoshi ran towards her in a panic and eventually took her to a hospital. 

Hours passed before the two came back and the looks in their eyes said it all, something was wrong fear swarmed Antonello's body as he knew his peaceful life with his new family might end soon but he couldn't do anything about it. he was a turtle after all. while he hadn't heard much since the two were speaking softly while being far away from the tank he was in he did hear a few keywords to understand the situation was dire, words like cancer, four, and terminal.

Those words shook him as although he knew she wasn't supposed to survive long into the story he had grown to love her and just like most children he didn't want to watch his mother wither away in front of him.

But she did. It took a while since she was strong but eventually even she couldn't hide the weakness and pain that knawed at her every day for the month after she collapsed 

That didn't stop her from spending time with he beloved turtles though even when bedridden she would move the tank closer to her so she could rant out her thoughts and fears that she didn't tell Yoshi 

Yoshi on the other hand had taken up a new job as a security guard at some research lab to pay her medical bills while acting as a test subject there and at other places for some of their experiments to get as much money as possible 

Antonello had guessed that one of these places would be TCRI and he wanted to voice his worries but as a turtle that wasn't really possible so he stayed quiet and watched as it all happened 

Author notes: I know the chapter is short but that is because I felt I had to split it this time it wasn't because I just didn't want to write more

I don't know how long this set of chapters will last but it shouldn't be more than 6 since I'm lazy I know it will end with them getting mutated but I don't know how much detail I want to put in beforehand I really should've written a plan before jumping in but I knew if I kept thinking abt it then I would probably never start this soo yeah

Anyways do things like usual write a review give me feedback and suggestions drop a power stone or don't 🤷‍♂️ 

I may be changing the release date to Wednesday or Friday since Thursdays aren't great for me and after the arc after this one I'm probably going to go to a bi-weekly release format which will make chapters longer as I'll have more time to focus and force myself to write