Hi, it’s me, Donatello.

Today we celebrated Christmas together— It was

very important for all of us, our first Christmas
together out of the lair. I remember how we used to
celebrate then... we always tried to get a real holiday
meal, with the turkey and everything. It was hard:
back then a mutant couldn’t just walk into a grocery
store, but we would always find a way.

Today was good, very good. It’s the best day we had in
a long time, I think it’s important you know that. The
last few months have been weird. Most of the time, we
weren’t together, and it was tough. But today we’re
together and that’s good.

You probably want to know what happened, and I can

tell you, it’s just a little complicated. If you want me
to go ahead, it’s going to take some time. I do want to
tell you other things too, but I guess it’s better if I
catch you up to speed. Although, for this to make
sense, I’ll have to go all the way back, to September.
Actually, maybe I should go back to last February. I
don’t know what you know so it’s probably better get
that out of the way.

Back in February is when we defeated Shredder. You

already know how it went down so I’m not going to go
over it, but I’m mentioning it because from the
moment Shredder fell off the StockGen tower, nothing
would ever be the same again. We became heroes that
night, every newspaper confirmed that we were real,
and all those myths about us, the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles, were revealed to be true.

And after that night, Foot Ninjas disappeared from

the city, as if the entire Clan packed their things and
went back to Japan as soon as they learned their
leader was gone.

The weeks that came after just went by so quickly, I

can barely remember them. First, the police brought
us in, and then the TCRI handled us, ran all sorts of
tests on us, trying to figure out what we were,
making sure we weren’t contagious or anything.

It wasn’t just us, too; you probably remember what

the Shredder was up to that night. He was trying to
take over the StockGen Weather Generator and use it
to destroy the city. While we stopped him from causing
a hurricane or a tornado, the engine was damaged
during the fight and it caused a lot of rain, so much
rain that it flooded the city’s sewers.

We weren't the only ones living in the sewers, so when

they started to fill up with rainwater, mutants had to
escape to the surface. And just like that, right in the
middle of Times Square, with all those cameras
already pointed at us, the whole of New York and
pretty much the entire world saw hundreds of
mutants on camera for the first time.

Our lair got flooded too. A lot of our stuff was ruined.
We managed to save as much as we could, though.
We had to move in with April. Her home is nice, but it
gets a little small when we’re all here. The other
mutants, most of them, did not have a human friend
like us, so they were given homes around Queens.

Then, some humans were saying on TV that it was very

important that mutants, especially us children, should
get to go to school. A few months later, we all
received letters asking us to enroll at Riverside.

I think I liked the idea of school from the beginning, my

brothers not so much. They weren’t alone, most
mutants were very clearly against it too, many of
them just wanted to go back under the city, away
from humans, and live the way they’ve always lived,
and like everything else that happened that night, we
were blamed for the city forcing mutants to go to
school, just like we were blamed for the flood.

After everything we did it would have been a little nice

to get some recognition, I didn’t even want us to be
regarded as heroes, just, you know, a tap on the
shoulder. Ever since we were born we were raised to
fight the Shredder and his Foot Clan, and we fought
him for a very long time. Could we not be remembered
for that?

Instead, we were blamed for everything bad that

happened to New York since the flood. It sucked, and it
still does, but I think most people have moved past it.

These past few months have been tough, but we've

been adapting—going to school, staying with April,
and trying to do good. Living with April is a lot
different than the lair. Back in the sewer, we had to
keep things tidy, but given it was literally a sewer,
'cleanliness' had a different meaning.

April takes care of a lot of things for us, but she

insists we clean up after ourselves. Leo is just as
strict. Our room gets stuffy; all four of us share two
bunk beds, and we store all our things there. The floor
often gets cluttered, but what really gets Leo mad is
when we leave our weapons lying around.
Also, April's been getting better after we saved her
from the Foot Clan that night. She had to stay in the
hospital for a few days. She was hurt, but the doctors
said it was more because she was sick. Even after the
Foot Clan was gone, she was still scared. She didn't
like leaving her apartment much. And when she did,
she'd get really anxious.

And even though she had to go through that, she still

took good care of us. You don’t have to worry about
that. She does her best, but I know we are trouble. Not
me particularly, I’ve tried my best to be good, but my
brothers have been causing a lot of problems for her.

She really wants us to get along, but also, she wants

us to stop fighting and focus on being normal kids. Leo
and Raph had a hard time adapting to our new lives.

At first, Leonardo didn’t believe that the Foot was

gone. He thought the Shredder was still alive, and he
would go out, every night, trying to investigate. It’s
true that no one ever found Shredder’s body,
but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t dead. I think only
part of him believed that, the other part felt that he
was gone, for real this time. I remember once he said
that if he ever let his guard down and one of us got
hurt because of it, he'd never be able to forgive
himself.

Raph also went out at night to fight, but he was really

just fighting. I don’t think he believed the Foot was
still around, he just kept fighting bad guys. With the
Foot gone, other groups of bad guys are lurking around
New York City, and Raph had to keep them in check. He
rarely spent the night with us, I don’t know if it’s
because he stayed at a friend’s house, or if he just
stayed up all night fighting.

I used to like fighting too, I can understand why Leo

and Raph didn’t want to stop. I did also wish we could
go out fighting together again, just like we used to, but
for me, the fighting wasn’t what I missed.

I liked us when we were a team, when we beat up bad

guys and defeated villains. It was something we were
all good at, and that we could rely on each other on.
Now, with no more team, it started to feel like we
wouldn’t be brothers anymore either.

I need to tell you about what happened on our first

day of school. As I said, all teen mutants in NYC were
enrolled into Riverside. We had to do an entrance exam
to evaluate what we knew, and since most mutants
did not get a proper education, they were put in
special classes to catch up. We four were very well
taught (thanks to you), so we were allowed to join the
normal classes.

Following the tests the TCRI did on us, we received

sheets with all the results of our physical and medical
exams, and one of those results were our ages. I
always knew I was the youngest, but to see it on
paper, I thought it was fun. What was less fun,
however, was that even though we all scored about
the same on our entrance exams, they split us up in
different grades just because of our ages.
Leo and Raph ended up in 11th Grade together, which
was pretty cool for them. Mikey was fine being on his
own in 9th Grade, but that left me in 8th Grade, all by
myself. Being the only mutant in my grade sucked, but
it got better. I made a friend, a human friend, and it
didn't suck anymore.

But, sorry, I was about to tell you about our first day
of school. It started well enough, there was a lot of
tension since we didn’t know how the humans would
treat us. Some were nice, others not so much, but
where things got really bad was during the lunch
break.

At first, we were just playing a normal game of

basketball, Mikey’s idea. We played against some
human kids, and we had a lot of people looking at us. It
was probably their first time seeing turtles play any
sport.

I’m not sure what went wrong exactly, but Mikey was
joking around, as he always does, and almost
everyone looked like they were having fun, except for
Raph. I know he’s always been grumpy, and that it
only got worse after the flood, but that day was
different. I don’t know if he got mad at the humans, or
at Mikey, but at one point he lost it, and he hit him.

He punched Mikey right in the face, and he fell back

really hard. Instantly, Leo got really, really angry, and
he yelled at Raph, asking him how he could hit his own
brother. Not even a minute later, Leo and Raph were
fighting too. Some other mutants broke off the fight,
and Mikey was bleeding from the head, so he was
brought to the infirmary. Leo and Raph were
suspended for a week (on the very first day!). April
was furious.

I know we sometimes fought, we sparred a lot back at

the lair (as part of our ninja training), but this was
something else. They weren’t just wrestling, or play
fighting, they were clearly trying to hurt one another.
It was very hard to watch.
After that happened, we would never all be home at
the same time. Mikey would never come home to
April’s. We’d see him at school, but he avoided Raphael
as much as he could. Actually, he did come home a few
times to pick up some of his stuff, but he’d never stay.
Leo and Raph were often out already, but Raph
started avoiding home too, he couldn’t stand being
around Leo.

Every week I’d think, “Well, maybe they’ll make up

now, it’s been long enough”, but things would stay the
same. For a moment I thought it would always be like
this. I couldn’t stand not being brothers anymore, and
I tried my hardest trying to convince them to talk to
each other, but nothing worked.

I thought that without bad guys to fight, life would be

easier, but it was the opposite. Now, everything was
always so complicated.

Before, when we all still acted like a real team, if Leo

and Raph got mad at each other, they'd just forget all
about it as soon as we got a mission. They'd focus on
what we had to do as a team, and by the end, it's like
they weren't even mad anymore. I’m not sure how
we’re supposed to settle this normally, and in the end,
I didn’t have to figure it out.

It’s our very first mission after the flood, ten months
later, that brought us back together.

Raphael and Leonardo were both aware that some

very bad guys were looking around the city for Foot
Clan artefacts, one of which being the Jade Heart.
They didn’t know what it did, but with so many villains
looking for it, they knew it had to be really bad.

Apparently, the Purple Dragons got their hands on it,

and Raphael was trying to get it from them, but he
wasn’t the only one. That night, ten months after the
Shredder was defeated, ten months of nobody
catching the shadow of a single Foot Ninja, Raphael
was caught in a fight between the Foot and the
Dragons.
Raph tried to stop the Foot, but they got away with
the Jade Heart. He was able to trail them and find
their hideout, but before he stepped in, Raphael finally
went home and talked to Leonardo.

Just like they hadn't been at each other's throats for

months, the second Raph brought up the Foot, Leo was
in. I tagged along too; we were trying to stick together
as much as we could, and we did wish Mikey was there
too, but no one had a clue where he was.

We thought we would have to fight the Foot, just like

we used to, we were all prepared to fight them off, do
whatever it took to get the Jade Heart from them, but
we were mistaken.

The Shredder WAS dead. yes, the Foot was planning

something, but it wasn’t one of their evil schemes, it
was a funeral. If you had been there and we had asked
you, I’m sure you would've told us all about the Heart
and what it meant to the Foot. All they wanted was to
bury their leader with it. Nothing bad.
When we crashed the funeral, hundreds of Foot Ninja
were gathered around us. Then we saw the coffin, and
inside was Shredder’s body. At first it looked like we’d
have to fight hundreds of Foot Ninjas at once,
probably furious that we ruined their ceremony, but
they didn’t. They weren’t the Clan we used to know.

Their new leader told us that the Foot Clan died with
the Shredder. Her name is Oroku Karai, she is
Shredder’s only child, his daughter. We’ve never seen
her before, or even heard of her, but from the sound
of it, she didn’t seem to like her father very much. She
said that as soon as she heard about the death of
Shredder, she came to New York to take over his Clan.

She told us that her ambitions have never aligned with

her father’s, and that she had no interest in whatever
goals he had with the Foot. She told us, clearly, that
the Foot Clan was dead, and that with her will live the
Oroku Clan.
It’s hard to trust Shredder’s daughter, but she told
us that we wouldn’t hear of her or her Clan again.
That being said, considering she did not kill us for
interrupting his funerals, we decided to trust her. Of
course, I’m sure Leo and Raph will still keep an eye on
her anyway.

It wasn’t the fight we expected, but at least we knew

now that he Shredder really was dead, and we could
finally move on, all of us.

But we weren’t done.

That same night, when we came back from the

funeral, we thought we’d have good news for April,
but she had bad news for us.

As soon as we came in, the TV was on, and she was

standing behind the couch, staring at the screen. She
had her phone in hand, the wire stretched over the
kitchen table, I’m sure who she was on the phone
with. It doesn’t matter.
The Beast Kings had taken the TCRI labs hostage, the
whole place was on lockdown, and hundreds of
researchers were trapped inside.

I suppose I should finally tell you where Michelangelo

had been these past few months.

I should say that with the Foot out of New York, every
other criminal gang tried to take their place. The
Dragons were the main ones, and then some others
we'd fought before, but there was also a new gang on
that formed after the flood.

The Beast Kings are this mutant group who does the
same stuff the Dragons or the Foot Clan used to do,
but they say it's all for helping mutants. At school, a
lot of the mutant kids looks up to them, and lot of
them joined. Mikey was one of them. I’m sure he
wasn’t involved in any of the serious things they did,
but he did wear their jacket.
I don’t know why he joined them, maybe he saw some
good in them. The Beast Kings weren’t all bad; they
threw these giant parties in the New York
underground, in sewers and abandoned tunnels.
That’s probably what drew him in.

But that night, when we looked at the news, we all had

the same thought. We saw the Beast Kings on TV,
holding the TCRI researchers hostages, and we looked
closely, hoping Mikey wouldn’t appear on the screen.
We didn’t see him, but that’s when Leo took out his old
communicator. None of us carried it anymore, but Leo
had me put one in Mikey’s Gameboy, which we knew he
carried around constantly.

Of course, we couldn’t know that Mikey currently had

it on him, but when Leo looked at the GPS, Mikey’s
tracker pinged back, and of course, it was coming from
the TCRI labs. We headed over there as fast as we
could.
That too, I should tell you. Over the past few months,
we got to know a little more about what we were. It’s
mostly Raphael who found information around the city
while patrolling. He learned that some mutants
weren’t from the sewers like us, but that they had
been experimented on by the TCRI. They were lab
animals, injected with all sorts of serums, one of
which they called the mutagen.

Still today, I’m not sure where it came from, and we

still have very little details, but that’s something else
we’ll have to keep looking into. I’m not sure if we were
once at the TCRI labs as well, maybe you’d know
something about that.

The Beast Kings were holding them responsible for

creating them, they said they had been cursed with
humanity, and because of them were robbed of their
animal natures. They had one of the researchers on TV
confess everything. He explained how they used the
mutagen, how they created us, but he was so scared it
was hard to tell most of what he was saying.
The Kings claimed they wanted money as reparation,
so it first looked like a typical hostage situation, but
as soon as we arrived under the TCRI labs, we knew
that it was just a ploy to divert attention.

Bombs, dozens of them, strapped to the building’s

foundation. If they went off, the whole building would
collapse on itself. The plan, it seemed, was to get the
building on lockdown, which meant that when the
bombs would go off, the researchers would be
trapped inside as it was destroyed.

Now, we know there was at least a hundred people in

that building. If their plan went through, they would
have all died. They thought that it was a fair
punishment for what the TCRI did to them.

We knew that Mikey was somewhere in there, and for

a moment, we thought maybe he had helped them, but
when we found him, he was locked in a maintenance
room. He had refused to help them, so they locked him
up to make sure he couldn’t stop them.
When we found Mikey, he was crying, blaming himself
for everything going on. He couldn't believe he hadn't
seen what was happening right under his nose. We
tried reassuring him that it wasn't his fault, but he
wouldn’t listen.

What snapped him out of it was Raphael who, against

all odds, stepped in and hugged him. He didn’t
apologize for hitting him, which arguably started all of
this, but this was just as if he did.

Then, from that moment, the Teenage Mutant Ninja

Turtles were back. It was all easy from then on.

Mikey knew the bomb locations and led me to disarm

them, while Raph and Leo tackled the Kings head-on at
the labs. We successfully neutralized the bombs, and
they took care of the bad guys upstairs. It felt exactly
like one of our old missions, and just as it was before,
we were invincible.
Hours later, police was cuffing up the Kings, and a
bomb squad was discarding the bombs we scrapped.
The city was saved, once again.

I wish I had more information about the mutagen, the

TCRI, the Beast Kings or even Karai, but everything
went by so fast, it felt like a dream. I feel guilty
admitting that despite how terrifying this whole night
was, it was fun. I think I was just happy we were all
together again.

But today is more fun, because we get to be together,

and we don’t have to be scared about a hundred
people being blown up.

Just in time for Christmas, we are brothers again. We

celebrated together, and for the first time in a while
we just talked about everything. We caught everyone
up on what we had been through, and for the first
time since the flood, we talked about you.
It’s been hard without you, Master, I think that’s why
we’re so clueless, because if you were there, you’d tell
us what to do. You never told us what to do if we lost
you. We don’t know how to be a family without you. You
were the one to talk us through our fights, making
sure we kept looking after each other.

I wish you could be with us, but I suppose you wouldn’t

fit in April’s apartment, I can hardly imagine you
sleeping on the couch.

I wanted you to know what you missed, but I also

want you to know that there’s been good days too. I
think I’ll throw in some pages from my diary. The
others are writing you letters too, I’m sure they’ll tell
you how much they’ve missed you too.

I don’t know if you’re going to get to read this, but

somehow, I feel like you already everything.

Merry Christmas, Master. We miss you.

onnie
D