Biological Imperative

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or any of its characters. This is being written purely for fun with no profit being made whatsoever.

Author's Note: So this is a long awaited RaphxMikey story that I have been planning for a while now. It will contain turtlecest and mpreg, meaning a not so plutonic relationship between two brothers that will result in one of them being pregnant. If that is not your thing, please feel free to hit the back button and find something more to your liking.

Chapter One: Un-Planned

It was always a sad thing to see the end of a bloodline. Over the long centuries, she had seen this too many times to count. It seemed like a waste to let entire families die out, to let their names fade away like dust in the wind. The lucky ones, the ones that had somehow made an impact on their environment (be it good or bad), were remembered at least. A countless number of others were not so lucky.

She remembered all of them. Not that any single one was more significant to her than any other. She knew their names, and if asked politely enough, she could even tell you their stories—for both the sentient and non-sentient lives. That was both the blessing and curse of being the Preservationist, of being one of her Father's custodians over the life in the universe that they were charged in keeping. She got to watch her little beings as they lived their lives, but in the end whether a bloodline continued on or perished was ultimately up to the Plan. She could only intervene and save (or not save) a species as long as it did not interfere with the overall goal of the Plan.

The Plan was very specific and yet in a constant state of flux. It dictated who lived and who died on no uncertain terms. When and where could never be predicted, though, not even by Father. Death, after all, answered to no master, but the Plan was not so inflexible that it could not accommodate his whims. Not that he was really a problem; the Plan practically made Death's schedule, and he was more than happy to oblige.

He gets to have all the fun. Just because he's older. She pouted as she thought of her perfect brother and how their Father so often lauded his good work. Death didn't take his duties lightly, though. He, better than anyone else, knew the utmost importance of his work and the weight that it held, of the far-reaching consequences of each decision that he made. So the Plan was strictly adhered to—unless, on the extremely rare occasion, he had an important reason for putting any one being's demise off until later.

"Oi. This place again. It's been far too long, ne Juno?" she sighed as she took in the little blue globe that its inhabitants called Earth. She absently stroked the top of Juno's head; he purred and wrapped his scaly tail around her wrist in kind. His whiskers twitched in time with his head antennas, and his large golden eyes looked a pale green shade in the light emitted by Earth's image as it calmly spun in front of them.

"I was hoping my little Earthlings would have scaled it down some with all the breeding since the last time we looked in on them. They're certainly making brother look bad. How do he and his acolytes keep up? Whoa, whaaaat? Over seven billion in humans alone?!" She scowled and flicked her wrist to direct the rest of the information to feed onto the scroll floating in front of her. The more she saw, the more her mood darkened.

Entire species had disappeared in the time she'd been away monitoring other parts of the universe (the galactic war on the other side of the universe had been a treat not to be missed!). She double-checked the Plan and saw more than one species that had somehow been added to the Extinction list. Their entries had obviously been last minute judging by the hasty handwriting that she'd come to associate with one of Death's overworked (and massively underpaid) acolytes.

Oh this simply would not do! Some of her favorite feline species had made their way onto it! And two distinct species of whales that she'd had to bring back (twice!). And—what? Why and when had her precious passenger pigeons been eaten into extinction?! What in the world had these abominable humans been doing to the other species of their planet?!

"Too busy fucking and overpopulating my planet to take care of it. Little selfish, scum-sucking idiots. Well, what's another Dark Age or two? Maybe I should ask daddy for another restart," She snarled and slammed a fist down on the desk in her frustration. Juno skittered away with a startled mew as the room trembled with his mistress' rage.

Infuriatingly, tears pricked her eyes. She'd loved those little pigeons, but it wasn't even that. It was the principle of the matter. Could she ever step away from this miserable little ball of water without its reigning population wiping each other and everything around it out? The last time she'd taken a break had resulted in a near do-over of everything due to some stupid illness that the humans had let run rampant. Her Father had not been pleased when he'd reviewed how far behind the humans had fallen in terms of development, but it could not be helped. There was meddling and meddling, and even for them there were rules that had to be abided by.

"Arrrgg. How dumb. What a waste," she huffed after a good cry. She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes and rubbed until the tears were gone. It made her feel better. Calmer. A good, long cry always did that. Death often made fun of her for needing such an outlet, but hey! At least she wasn't taking out her tantrums on their little charges anymore, right? (There was a solar system that was still trying to recover when their sun went super nova for, ahem, no particular reason).

She took in a deep breath and released it in one long, cleansing exhale. By then Juno had come skulking back to her. She apologized with a few treats and by scratching in that sweet spot that turned him to a pile of purring goo. Then she fixed her eyes back on her list and began to assess what damage control she would have to do. It made her groan to think about the groveling that she would have to do to her sister in order to restore some of these lost species. She'd had to sit through an hours long lecture the last time she'd had to go ask her sister to undo one of her mistakes and was not relishing a repeat experience.

Ohhh, just get to it. She told herself and began scrolling until she could find the year that correlated with the last time she'd had her eyes set on Earth. To her dismay, a lot had happened while she had been away.

There were a few species that were beyond saving, whose time had run their course. She checked the Plan and signed where she was supposed to. In doing so, she transferred the rights of the species to her Sanctuary. It was there that the Plan allowed a reanimated representation of the lost species to remain under her care. She was able to enjoy what was lost to Earth (and the many other planets throughout) for the rest of eternity.

See you soon, my little darlings. She thought as she signed beside the entry that belonged to the passenger pigeon.

Despite her earlier tantrum, this small decision cheered her. A little. She hummed to herself as she went down the list, separating what to restore and what to retire forever. When she felt satisfied that she'd chosen wisely, she turned her attention to the scroll that recorded every single event that had transpired over the past few centuries of Earth's history. It couldn't get hurt to get caught up on what she had missed. And boy was a lot an understatement.

Look away for a second and they go through two major wars? How was that not enough to wipe out at least enough to give some other species some breathing room? It's not like…huh? What's this? She was quite unprepared when she came upon a mysterious entry that was flagged for her attention. She blinked. A low numbers alert on a new turtle species? O-only FOUR left?!

She frantically re-opened the Plan and scrolled back to the end. How had she missed this? Any number below twenty was considered critically low and automatically put at the top of her list for review. And a species that had only appeared in the past few decades or so? How could it be endangered already? Perhaps she could still save this one! Four was low, but she could work with it! Maybe. Hopefully. Let's see. Turtles…turtles…turtles…

But she didn't find anything, at least not anything that matched the species of turtles that her personal scrolls had logged. Turtles were interesting and hardy creatures, ones who seemed to appear on every endangered list that her little human idiots had put together (and yet couldn't do a damn thing about in their unfailing state of incompetence) over the years. Her Sanctuary housed some variations that she'd let die out, and they held a special place in her heart.

How come I don't see them in the Plan? How does something NOT exist in the Plan? She checked again and again, even going further back than she might normally have. No matter how long she looked, she couldn't seem to find the beginning of this mysterious turtle species' story. A look at her logs showed the same strange lack of information.

Puzzled and more than a little stunned, she sat back and stared at her personal logs as they floated calmly in front of her. On a whim she began to look through them more carefully and noted a curious series of events that seemed to pop up whenever any mention of this mysterious group of turtles appeared. She certainly couldn't remember any mention of humanoid red-eared slider turtles, well, EVER in her logs—even dating back to when Earth first formed!

"Juno, I think there has been interference from another dimension again. Ugghhh, like that last time," she groaned and slapped her hand to her face. That had been a disaster to clean up. But it made sense to her the more she thought about it. Only interference from another dimension could cause these enigmatic entries to appear in her daily observation logs but not in the Plan. The Plan could not dictate a path for what it did not know existed.

One thing was for sure, it would take some investigating. It had been a long time since anything about Earth really and truly piqued her interest. The stupidity of humans was just too much to bear sometimes so her attention often drifted to other parts of the universe. But this? This was interesting.

"Hold the fort, ne Juno? And, uh, don't tell daddy if he calls. I want to get to the bottom of this before he even finds out," She scratched him behind the ears and then turned her gaze to the Earth. Where to start?

Well, first things first, she wanted to observe. It had been a long time since she had set foot on Earth, and judging from what she had just read much had changed. Ah, well. Nevermind that. Got a job to do. Talking mutated turtles. Great googily moogily. I looked away for ONE century! ONE!