Ninja Turtles 1. First Capture - Donatello

First Capture - Donatello

"What the hell, Leo? Why are we waiting?" Raph asked, his voice low but the tone no less frustrated because of that.

"Something feels 'off'," Leo responded in a whisper.

"Is that your way of saying your gut's talking ta ya'?" Raph asked.

Leo glanced at him and saw that Raph was sincere. "Yes," Leo answered. "Ignore the things that are visible and tell me your impressions."

Raph frowned but did what Leo asked, closing his eyes so that his other senses would take over.

"I think I know what you're getting at," Raph said after a moment, his eyes still shut. "It looks like we're alone up here as usual, but it doesn't feel that way."

Don and Mikey came over to join them and Raph opened his eyes.

"What's up guys?" Mikey asked. "Why did we stop patrolling?"

"Do you remember how Master Splinter taught us to sense the presence of others?" Leo asked. "How when you walk into an empty room it feels hollow, but when you walk into a room that is occupied by a living being it does not? It doesn't matter if you can't see the other person, your sense of the size of the room changes because now there is a solid, breathing form that is altering the density of the space."

"What are you two talking about?" Don asked.

"Echolocation. Leo thinks something's 'off' out here and my gut agrees," Raph said.

Mikey's head swiveled as he surveyed the surrounding rooftops. "I don't know how you get a 'feeling' from open space, but okay, I'm not gonna argue with your gut. What do you wanna do?"

Leo was silent as he thought about it; his brothers waiting patiently for his decision. Raph was feeling edgy now; the way he felt when he thought someone was watching him.

Don must have begun to feel the same thing because he dug into his bag and pulled out his night vision goggles. Leo delayed his decision while Don carefully searched the darkness, but when Don shook his head, Leo frowned.

"Split up," Leo said finally. "Donny, you go with Raph; Mikey come with me. Keep your com links open and check in at fifteen minute intervals. I think something is brewing and I want to be able to catch it before it gets out of hand. No hero's, no cowboys – we do this as a team."

The four brought out their headsets and once those were firmly in place, they separated into pairs. Fifteen minutes later each pair had covered several city blocks without seeing anything. When they each reported in, Leo told them to widen the pattern and remain vigilante.

Into their third loop, Don and Raph still hadn't seen or heard a thing. There was eight minutes left before they had to check in again, but both of them stopped searching for a moment in order to regroup.

"I don't know about Leo, but I've still got that strange feeling that we're being watched," Raph said, peering down at the street five floors below them.

"Your perceptions are a bit sharper than mine, especially out here," Don said. "I think it's just more quiet than normal and that's what is setting off your radar."

"Yeah maybe," Raph agreed, his brow furrowed as he continued to survey the street.

Don shifted his duffel into a more comfortable position before turning to walk away. "Let's go find Leo and Mikey," he said over his shoulder. "There's no point in patrolling if it's this dead."

Raph lifted a hand and waved Don on. "Go ahead, I'll catch up ta ya' in a second."

"Better do it before Leo sees that we split up," Don said with a laugh.

Without waiting further, Don leaped across to the next building, taking the direct route back to where the brothers had all started the night.

The uneasy feeling refused to leave Raph and he finally shook his head in resignation, leaving the roof's edge. When he looked around he noticed that Don was already gone from sight, so Raph sprinted across the rooftop in order to catch up with his brother.

It was nearly time for Don to touch base with Leo, but he still hadn't seen his oldest or youngest brothers. Slowing down, Don waited for Raph to join him before reporting to Leo that they were together.

A faint swishing sound was the only warning Don had that anything was amiss. Only a lifetime of training that had honed his senses and reflexes to razor sharpness allowed Don to spin aside as something flashed right past his head. As the object flew by, Donatello realized that it was a large net.

The weighted ends of the net clattered as they hit the rooftop and Don slipped the duffel off his shoulder a millisecond later, drawing his bo almost simultaneously.

Coming at him from different directions were a half dozen men, all uniformly clad in black suits and each wearing dark glasses. There were no guns showing, but most of the men carried telescoping batons, already fully extended. His first quick glance told Don that one man also held a Taser, though not the kind that fired projectiles. They were probably concerned that his shell gave them too small a target to aim for.

There was a moment when no one moved and Don had time to wonder how the men could possibly see anything through their glasses. Then his surprise at the ambush gave way to his protective instincts.

"Raph!" Don yelled into his microphone. "Raph! Watch out, it's an ambush!"

Instead of hearing a reply from his brother, Don received nothing but static. Before he could call the name of a different sibling in order to change communication channels, the men leaped at him.

Don jabbed forward with the front end of his staff, catching the man directly in front of him in his chest and then snapped the rear part of the bo up so quickly that it caught the man on his left squarely on the chin.

When the man in front of Don fell back, Don leaped through the space he'd created and away from the press of attackers.

The men moved nearly as swiftly as Don in order to block his escape route, their numbers giving them an advantage as they swept out around him. It was obvious to Don that these particular men had been chosen because of their physical abilities and fighting skills; in fact, both of the men Don had hit were already on their feet again.

To Don's dismay, they closed in on him much faster than he had anticipated. One of the men swung his baton at Don's head and the turtle dipped to the side to avoid the intended blow, countering by using his staff to sweep the man's feet out from under him. The man hit the roof and rolled up onto his shoulders, then over to a standing position, barely slowed by Don's maneuver.

"Leo! Mikey! Can anyone hear me?" Don shouted, but his communication device continued to play static and Don realized this ambush must have been arranged by Agent John Bishop.

Bishop had learned of their patrol route and had chosen tonight to spring his trap. By monitoring their earlier communications, Bishop had found their com channel and then blocked the signal.

Two men darted in from opposite sides and Don whipped his staff around, catching one man on the temple. Dropping into a crouch, Don spun on his toes and slammed the bo into the back of the other man's legs.

Springing up, Don did a backflip to escape a blow from a baton and then lifted his staff to block another strike aimed at his head. The men were pressing in on him, giving him little room to maneuver, and Don used an elbow to drive a man backwards in order to bring his bo up.

Swinging it around, Don struck one man's arm, making him drop his baton and stumble, giving Don room to jump away from the crowd. When another man rushed him, Don thrust his bo directly into the man's forehead, breaking his dark glasses in the process.

As the man fell down, Don caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were bright silver with absolutely no pupil.

Clones. Don immediately understood that they weren't just dressed uniformly, they were also all exactly alike. This was another of Bishop's experiments with cloning a super soldier race. It explained why the men were getting right back up after Don hit them. He also realized that if they were anything like Bishop's first clone, he wasn't going to defeat them alone.

Whirling around with his bo, Don began to fight as hard as he could, striking, jabbing, and hitting the men with his bo staff. He used his feet and knuckles as well; when one of the men got too close, Don resorted to hand to hand techniques to beat him back.

Don had to warn his brothers; that was uppermost in his mind as he fought. Unless they had already been ambushed, he had to find a way to tell them what was happening. The only way to do that was to get away from the clones who were trying to pin him down.

Just as he had that thought, a baton came down on his left arm, the sting of the blow reverberating up his arm and nearly causing him to drop his weapon. Gritting his teeth, Don launched himself directly at one of his attackers, the surprise leap catching the man off guard and sending him to the ground.

Don rolled away from him and started back in the direction of the building where he'd left Raph. He could feel his pursuers right on his heels and skidded to a halt as he turned to swing his bo like a baseball bat, hitting one of the men as he leaped and sending him plowing into two of the others.

Fighting with every bit of the skill he possessed, Don tried to find a window of opportunity to flee. The clones were just too good, too perfect; their attacks too well coordinated for a group of men who didn't have to rely on verbal communication.

Suddenly Don noticed that he wasn't fighting six men anymore, only five. The man whose glasses he'd broken had never gotten back up.

Maybe not so perfect, Don thought with a surge of adrenaline. He twisted beneath a baton blow, catching the weapons force on his shell, and swept around and up with his bo, popping a clone's head to the side. The carefully aimed blow broke the temple piece from the man's glasses and Don could have sworn he saw the clone's silver eyes flash just before he hit the ground.

The action brought a rain of blows down on the purple banded turtle that he was hard pressed to dodge. He could feel welts rising on his skin where the batons hit him, though he blocked a number of them with his staff. They were not giving him breathing space and Don knew it was because Bishop had programmed them to understand the genius turtle's fighting style wasn't as effective when his attackers were so close.

Someone grabbed the ends of his mask and yanked him backwards. Before he could punch his bo into the man's gut, another of them grabbed it. In a tug of war over his staff, Don's head was being pulled back despite the over developed muscles in his neck.

A man darted in while Don was momentarily frozen and jammed the Taser into the turtle's exposed side. The backs of his teeth gnashed together as the electrical current made Don shake and then he twisted away from the prongs, releasing his grip on the bo in order to back fist the man holding the Taser.

Dipping low to the ground, Don flung his head back and slithered out of his mask, losing his headset in the process. Don then dove into a forward roll, smashing into the legs of one of the men as he escaped their circle. When he came up he threw his shuriken, sinking one of the spikes into a clone's arm and a second one catching another's leg. The third shuriken hit the Taser, forcing the man to drop it when it exploded into fiery sparks.

The shuriken bought Don the few seconds he needed to recover from being hit by the Taser. He and his brothers had each practiced enduring an electrical shock from just such a device and had learned to remain upright, but the after effects always left them shaky.

Don watched as the four remaining clones closed in on him. The two he'd struck with the shuriken pulled the spikes from their bodies and tossed them aside as they moved. Don didn't have to see their skin to guess that it was spontaneously sealing shut.

Backing away from them, Don's eyes darted to the left and right, looking for a way to slow them down so that he could escape. He passed one of the clones whose glasses he'd broken and saw that the man lay completely still, his eyes wide open. On each side of his temple was a small prong and Don guessed that the earpieces for their glasses, when attached to the prongs, allowed them to receive and relay signals.

Don's eyes fell on his com unit, smashed to smithereens during the fight, and his heart plummeted. Even if he could get away from the signal jamming their communications he now had no way to reach his brothers.

"Donny!"

The shout pulled Don's head around and he saw Raph on top of the next building over from his. Raph was rushing towards him but he'd only covered half the distance of the rooftop when another group of Bishop's clones jumped out of hiding and attacked him.

"It's Bishop's clones!" Don yelled, trying to warn his brother about what he was facing.

Don's adversaries ignored the battle on the other rooftop, intent on taking down the purple banded turtle. Once more they swarmed him, landing a hard blow for every two that Don was able to counter. He felt a baton hit the back of his legs and another struck his shoulder before he could turn his shell into the swing.

Leaping skyward, Don did a quick split kick that sent two of the clones flying. He could see the glint of Raph's sais as his brother fought the clones that were mobbing him and knew he needed to tell Raph about their weak spot.

"Glasses!" Don shouted, dodging a clone who tried to jump on his back. "Break their glasses!"

"Watch your shell!" Raph yelled back at him, slipping past the knot of clones and moving swiftly towards Don.

Don spun out of the way as two more clones charged him and then he began to sprint towards Raph. He was nearly to the roof's edge when he saw another clone rise up on top of a nearby maintenance shed, a large barreled device pressed against his shoulder. The man aimed it directly at Raphael and Don immediately knew his brother's danger.

"Net!" Don screamed, seeing a puff of smoke from the net launcher a split second later.

His feet left the ground as Don dove directly into the path of the projectile. It hit him full on, wrapping around his body and throwing him violently to the ground.

The momentum sent Don rolling across the rooftop. He could hear Raph bellowing his name and wished that his brother would get away so that he could warn Leo and Mikey.

Don's own desperate situation became apparent as he saw Bishop's humanized clones coming towards him. The net dug into his fingers as he tried to get out. He lashed out, kicked, clawed, and then gasped harshly as the panic began to set in.

The humans were chuckling; talking about him and about how their master would be glad that he'd been caught. Black and red, their fine leather shoes teased him with painful nudging.

A heavy weight settled onto him. Donatello grew silent and still, for just a second.

He looked over his shoulder.

Cold eyes behind dark glasses. A neutral face.

A needle appeared; a huge needle that caused his panic to grow as it came closer.

It sunk into his skin.

Soon enough, everything went dark.

TBC…


	2. Second Capture - Raphael

Second Capture – Raphael

"We have the one named Donatello," a clone said. "As instructed he is the first captured."

As Raph struggled to shake another of Bishop's clones off of his shell he heard the man reporting in, most probably to Bishop himself. The ambush was well planned; Bishop had known they would split up at some point in their patrol and had waited for the opportunity to grab Donatello before the others.

They had also planned for the inevitable rescue attempt, lying in wait for one of Don's brothers to show up. Before Raph could vault across to the building that Donny was on in order to save him, another set of clones had jumped on him.

If Don hadn't leaped in front of that net, Raph might be in the same predicament his genius brother was in now.

Raph could tell they had done something to Don because his brother was silent. Frantic to get to him, Raph's mind shut down and his fighter's instincts took over.

Throwing himself backwards, Raph smashed the man who was hanging on his shell against the asphalt roof and then flipped off of him. With a quick downward thrust, he sank his sai into the clone's belly, yanking it loose and striking twice more as his fist lashed out at an oncoming adversary.

Catching the man square in the face, Raph leaped over the clone he'd stabbed and rushed straight at the one he'd just hit. The clone was staggering backwards, the blow strengthened by the hilt of Raph's sai having broken a lens on his glasses.

Raph saw the silver shine of the clone's eye and his berserker fogged brain recalled Donny's words. _"Break their glasses."_

With an inarticulate growl, Raph ploughed into his target, the point of his sai driving solidly into the clone's eye. The strike sent the broken glasses flying in all directions and Raph pulled his weapon free as the clone fell, using the man's chest as a launching pad.

In mid-air, Raph spun and kicked one of the clones into the others. His feet barely touched the ground before he was once more diving into their midst.

From the corner of his eye, Raph saw two clones lift Don's net encased form onto their shoulders and carry him towards the roof access door. Bishop's clones were grabbing at Raph's arms, trying to weigh him down, and he kicked the knees out from under one of them to give himself some room.

The clone that Raph had stabbed in the chest was getting up but the one whose glasses he'd destroyed was unmoving. Donny was right as usual; the glasses were the key.

Reaching up with lighting fast speed, Raph fingers closed over the glasses of the man to his right and he wrenched them from the clone's face. The clone suddenly froze in mid-action and fell over.

Squeezing his fist tight, Raph crushed the glasses, tossing them down as he turned and slammed his sai into the face of another clone. The tip of his sai entered the man's face just below his right eye and when Raph twisted his weapon, the prongs shattered the man's glasses.

Raph tried to yank his weapon free as the remaining three clones converged on him, but the sai caught fast. As the man fell, Raph released his grip on his sai, delivering a quick front snap kick into the chest of the nearest clone.

Glancing over his shoulder, Raph saw the clones atop the other building go through the access door. Just as the door closed behind them, Raph spotted the man with the net launcher stand up on the maintenance shed to once more aim the device at Raphael.

Stabbing a clone in the neck with his sai, Raph yanked the pinned man around in front of him just as a net left the launcher. The net hit the clone and Raph threw him aside, his remaining sai still embedded in the clone's neck.

Raph's fingers dug into his belt as he raced for the roof top where Don had been. The last two clones that had tried to capture him gave chase, but Raph was enough ahead of them to clear the roof's edge before they could lay a hand on him.

As he flew over the alley below, Raph loosed all three of his shuriken, aiming directly at the man with the net launcher. The man was leveling the barrel of the device at Raph when the shuriken hit, all three burying themselves into the man's eyes.

Knowing his throws were accurate, Raph wrote off the threat of the net launcher. Glancing around, he saw two clones lying still on the rooftop, both minus their glasses.

_"Good job, Donny,"_ Raph thought, silently praising his smart brother.

Now he understood why Bishop had wanted Don first; these clones were strong, skilled, and fast, but they had a fatal flaw. While the other turtles might have figured out the trick with the glasses on their own, Donny was the only one who could learn exactly how the glasses worked. With that kind of knowledge, the turtles could easily defeat Bishop's clones, even given the fact that there were apparently so many of them.

One of the two clones who had followed Raph was leaning over a fallen comrade, carefully fitting an extra pair of glasses onto the man's face. The second clone advanced on Raph, a telescoping baton held ready to strike the unarmed mutant.

Even as Raph skillfully dodged the clone's first swing, he was mentally calculating how much time it would take Don's captors to reach the ground floor. He guessed that there would be a vehicle waiting for them, possible parked at the curb but more likely in the alley between buildings.

Raph estimated that he had about a minute and a half left before Don was beyond his reach.

Springing backwards away from his attacker, Raph landed on his hands and pushed off, coming down between the other two clones just as the repaired one was standing up again. Before either had a chance to react, Raph grabbed the backs of their heads and smashed their faces together.

Their glasses shattered with the force of the blow, pieces of metal and plastic embedded in their eyes as both slumped to the ground. Raph waited as his final adversary rushed towards him, catching the man's up flung wrist in one hand and driving a solid elbow into the man's eyes.

The clone staggered back, reaching up to feel for the glasses that now hung from only one ear. Raph didn't wait for him to try to replace them; he flung himself directly at the man, snatching the glasses completely off his face.

Shoving the clone to the ground, Raph threw the glasses down and stomped on them. In a flash he was off, diving for the roof's edge.

Just as he hurdled over the rooftop, Raph saw a door into the alley beneath him open and the clones that were carrying Don emerge. Raph latched onto the building's drain pipe, his weight yanking the braces out of the brickwork, and rode the falling pipe to the pavement below.

The loud squeaking sound made by the supports as they pulled out of the building brought the clones heads up and they saw the huge green form come hurtling down into their midst. They immediately dropped Donatello's unconscious body and turned to meet the attacker.

One of the clones reached into his waistband and pulled his Taser out, but before he could fully extend his arm, Raph kicked the weapon from his hand. As Raph landed, he drove his elbow backwards into the clone's gut, slamming the man against the back of the van that had been waiting for them. The clone bounced off the van's doors and collided with Raph's fist, the hard knot of bone and muscle pulverizing the man's glasses against his face.

A clone grabbed Raph's arm and pulled him backwards, tossing Raph onto the rough pavement. Rolling with the throw, Raph heard the crunch of his com unit and knew he couldn't call a warning out to Leo or Mikey, nor could he ask for help.

As the clone who'd thrown him blocked his way, the other two opened the back of the van. Growling madly, Raph charged the clone, ignoring the blows from the man's fists as he plunged two of his fingers into the man's eyes.

Tearing the glasses from the clone's face, Raph slammed a shoulder into the man's falling body to shove him aside. Blood and other fluids dripped unnoticed from Raph's fingertips as he bounded towards the two who were shoving Don into the back of the van.

They turned to meet his onslaught, one stepping to the side as his partner engaged Raph in a fight.

"Unit two requesting backup," the clone said. "The second target has evaded the capture team."

"Evaded my ass!" Raph shouted, catching the clone he was fighting by the neck and lifting him from the ground.

Kicking and punching at Raph's arm, the clone was unable to loosen the infuriated turtle's grip. Raph felt a blow against the backs of his knees, the harsh sting telling him the final clone was whipping him with his baton.

Raph swung the clone he was holding around in a circle, releasing him as he collided with his partner. Both clones fell in a tangled heap and Raph leaped on them before either could rise.

Punching down as hard as he could, Raph's strike practically caved in the face of the clone he'd hit, driving a now broken set of glasses into the man's mangled flesh. The final clone scrambled to his feet, kicking at Raph's head as he turned back to the turtle.

Raph caught the man's leg and shoved it skyward, flipping the clone onto his back. When he loomed over the man, the clone flung an arm across his eyes to protect his glasses, and swung at Raph with his free hand.

Slapping the wild blow aside, Raph slammed his fist into the clone's throat, crushing his larynx with the first strike. Again and again, Raph punched the man's throat until the clone gurgled and his arm slid away from his eyes.

Raph grabbed the glasses off of the clone's face and jumped off the man, crushing the glasses in his hand as he strode toward Don. A quick examination showed Raph that his brother was still breathing and with a sigh of relief, he dug into his belt for his small backup blade.

Cutting the net off of Don as quickly as he could, Raph listened for his brothers and the return of Bishop's clones. A quick glance into the front of the van showed him that the keys were not in the ignition and Raph doubted he'd have time to search for them or to hot wire the vehicle.

"Donny, can ya' hear me?" Raph asked as he pulled the last pieces of the net away from his brother.

Receiving no response, Raph lifted Don from the van, tossing him over one shoulder and heading towards the mouth of the alley. Stopping to survey the street, Raph saw that it was empty and then spotted a manhole cover about thirty yards away, which he quickly ran towards.

Wrenching the cover off of the entrance, Raph carefully lowered Don's unconscious body into the sewers. He didn't bother to slide the cover back into place as he leaped through the opening to land on the ground next to his brother.

Raph had no illusions about how much time he'd bought with his defeat of the first set of clones, so he wasted none as he lifted Don in a fireman's carry across his shoulders and began to run. His mind quickly processed the pros and cons of his position; Don was out of it and of no use to Raph, unable even to protect himself if they were attacked.

Their weapons had been forfeited in the battle to escape capture; the only thing Raph still had on him was the small backup blade he'd used in cutting the net off Don**.** Don's bag of tricks was gone and their ability to communicate with Leo or Mikey, which had been neutralized even before the fight, was now lost because the com devices had been destroyed.

Raph's best option was to run fast and hard, hoping that he could outpace Bishop's men. If he could get far enough in front of those clones he could lose them in the old part of the sewers, an area he knew wasn't on any map. That section of tunnels had been the turtle's childhood playground and they each knew it like the backs of their hands.

Donatello wasn't a light weight; his body was as solidly muscular as Raph's. Years of hauling junk parts around and working with them had built up some heavy muscle and Raph knew he couldn't run full out carrying his brother indefinitely. Raph understood that if he didn't press the advantage of his small lead now, he wouldn't get another chance.

From far behind him he heard Bishop's clones descend into the sewers and he put on a burst of speed to outdistance them. As the sounds of his pursuers lessened, a new and more frightening noise came from up ahead. Voices calling to one another informed Raph that the clones had raced along the street and were now dropping into the sewers in front of him.

"Crap," Raph murmured with feeling.

Turning abruptly, Raph made his way into a side tunnel, running for a short distance before changing course once more. If he were the one directing a group of pursuers, he'd have them drop into the sewers from different locations in a five mile radius and then tighten the perimeter. If he could think of that, Raph knew that Bishop could as well.

It took a few more turns to locate the spot he was looking for. Deep inside a narrow run off was a drop of about ten feet. Directly below that water flowed swiftly and continuously through a channel. Sometimes the water rose enough to deposit trash on either side; the piles dense and muddy.

Setting Don down, Raph pushed his brother feet first through the opening, letting him drop on the mud and debris. Then Raph squirmed through and joined his brother, squatting beside him. Raph removed his mask so that he could wet it in the churning water nearby, and bathed Don's face, hoping against hope that his brother would wake up.

The cold water did nothing to bring Don around, and Raph knew he was going to have to follow through with his plan to hide the genius. Unwilling to leave Don completely defenseless, Raph pulled his backup blade from his belt and tucked it into Don's.

Lifting a large, soggy cardboard box, Raph rolled Don underneath it and then set the flattened material on top of him. Careful to leave no evidence that the garbage had been shifted, Raph piled trash all around Don, effectively disguising his position.

Before rising, Raph whispered, "Don't get pissed bro'. The only way we're getting out of this mess is if ya' use that big brain of yours and that ain't gonna happen if Bishop gets his hands on ya'. I know you'll figure out what I did when ya' wake up, but hopefully you'll understand."

Leaping up, Raph caught the edge of the tunnel he'd just come through and pulled himself back inside. Running to the end of it, he listened for his pursuers, hearing them drawing closer.

Taking off at a fast jog, Raph stripped off his elbow and knee pads. After he'd gone a quarter of a mile, he wadded them into a heavy bundle and tossed them as far down an intersecting tunnel as he could, hoping that the clones would be misled into believing he'd gone in that direction.

Running full tilt for nearly ten minutes without seeing anyone, Raph began to think his ruse had worked. Just as he was trying to decide his next course of action, a clone jumped out in front of him.

Raph jammed the heel of his fist directly beneath the man's chin, snapping his head back and lifting him off his feet. As Raph reached down to grab the clone's glasses, another slammed into him, throwing Raph to the ground.

The pair wrestled for several precious moments, the clone holding onto Raph's carapace and striking the turtle's side repeatedly. Raph could hear others approaching their location and bunched his shoulders, bringing the clone's face closer to him. Tossing his head back as hard as he could, Raph smashed his skull against the clone's nose, snapping his glasses in two with the blow.

As the clone slid down Raph's carapace, the turtle started to run, only to discover that the man was clinging to his belt. Dragging the heavy body, Raph wrestled with the knot on his belt, finally removing it and the clone completely.

Taking a quick right, Raph raced away from his pursuers. As he turned a bend in the tunnel though, he skidded to a stop, cursing beneath his breath.

The tunnel dead ended against some metal bars, set deep inside the concrete blocks that lined an opening. Raph grasped one quickly, yanking on it to see if he could pull it loose, but it held tight.

Hearing voices coming towards him, Raph spun around, fists up. All he had to do was to keep them from pinning him down through sheer volume; as long as his arms and hands were free he could smash the glasses off of them and get away.

Before he could charge at the men who swarmed into the tunnel, one of them threw something at his face. When Raph lifted his arm to bat it aside, the weighted end of a manriki flew at him, smacking his shoulder as the chain attached to it spun around his wrist several times.

Raph instinctively pulled against the chain, trying to yank it out of his attacker's hands. While his attention was divided, something cold and hard snapped shut around his neck.

Snarling wildly, Raph grabbed at the metal ring that gripped his throat so tightly. A long metal bar attached to it was held by one of the clones, the length of the pole keeping the man safely out of range of Raph's kicking feet.

Struggling and fighting against his captors, Raph tried to free himself. Thoroughly enraged, he bucked and back pedaled, but the clone's held onto him. Then the one who controlled the choker on Raph's neck pressed a button on his end of the pole and an electric charge surged through the device.

Raph's entire body shook uncontrollably and he lost the use of his limbs. Crashing heavily to the ground, Raph lay panting, his eyes wide with fury, but his body unresponsive to commands.

Bishop's clones slowly closed in around him, still wary of the turtle. After staring at him for a moment, one of them kneeled on the ground near his head.

"Where is Donatello?" the clone asked.

Raph glared at him, refusing to answer. The clone nodded at the one holding the metal bar and that man once more pressed the button.

The shock shook Raph from head to toe. "Sh~it!" Raph yelled, his body trembling.

"Where is your brother?" the cloned asked again.

"Go to hell," Raph rasped out.

"You first," the clone responded as his partner sent another electric charge into Raph's prone form.

As Raph felt himself lose consciousness, he was vindictively pleased that they wouldn't find Donny.

TBC….


	3. Third Capture - Michelangelo

Third Capture - Michelangelo

"Don, Donatello, can you hear me? Raph, report in. Raphael!" Leo's voice lifted in frustration as he again received nothing but static in reply to his call.

"Anything bro'?" Mikey asked as he landed next to his brother.

Leo shook his head. "More of the same. I take it you couldn't reach either of them?"

"I tried from the high spot a couple of buildings over dude," Mikey said. "I even called you, but all I got was that same creepy static. Something's messing with our communications."

"Or someone," Leo said with a frown. "Don and Raph should have checked in over twenty minutes ago. I don't like this. If they couldn't reach us, they'd return to our starting point."

"That's here," Mikey pointed out unnecessarily. "Do you think they went back to the lair?"

"No," Leo said, the concerned look on his face speaking volumes. "They know the procedure. We'll back track their route; you take the other side of the street, I'll cover this one. Stay within sight of each other and signal if you see anything. No sound."

"Gotcha," Mikey said as he jogged to the edge of the building and disappeared from view.

Leo gave him a minute and once he saw Mikey appear on the opposite rooftop, he started running. It took all of his willpower to remain calm, although he felt like beating himself up for breaking their patrol into pairs. The strange feeling he'd had earlier should have been all the warning he needed; Raph would certainly have gone with his gut instincts if he'd been out here on his own.

Mikey kept abreast of Leo as they ran. This was one of those times when Mikey didn't feel like joking. He'd seen the expression on Leo's face and knew his oldest brother's burden as leader weighed heaviest in these types of situations. Leo would focus on getting them all safely home and then beat himself up for not being able to see into the future.

One of Mikey's functions in life was to not allow Leo to become too morose but if they didn't get Don or Raph back from wherever they were, there was no way Leo would ever recover.

They hadn't gone far when Mikey happened upon Don's mask. Stopping dead in his tracks, Mikey stared at the purple piece of fabric as though willing it to be a figment of his imagination.

Heart pounding in his chest, Mikey reached down and picked it up, turning to wave it in Leo's direction. Leo halted immediately and came to the edge of the building he was on, staring at the mask with the same look of anxiety that Mikey was himself feeling. Holding up a palm, Mikey signaled for Leo to stay where he was.

Once he knew that Leo would wait, Mikey began a quick but thorough search of the rooftop. It was easy to tell from the scuffed asphalt and the amount of disturbed dust that a major scuffle had taken place.

Then there was the blood. Droplets were scattered across the rooftop, but there was also a couple of larger pools.

Mikey squatted next to one, placing a finger in it to gauge how long it had been there. It was no longer warm, but it hadn't gotten tacky yet, which told him that the blood was a recent deposit.

Wide eyed, Mikey stood up and stepped over to the building's ledge so that he was directly across from Leo. Lifting the finger that he'd dipped into the blood, he watched as Leo processed the information.

Long ago the family had devised a sign language system unique to their three fingered hands. When Leo began signing to him, Mikey knew his eldest brother thought the danger was still nearby.

_"Did you find anything else?"_ Leo signed.

Mikey shook his head and signed back, _"More blood. Some drops; two pools. Footprints made by shoes. Bits of plastic. Looks like a big fight."_

Leo appeared to be thinking about that. Mikey carefully tucked the purple mask into his belt, knowing Don would want it when they found him.

The words, 'if we find him' tried to float through the back of Mikey's mind but he stomped on that thought.

If Leo asked Mikey for his suggestions on how to go about finding their brothers, Mikey wasn't going to be very helpful. Coming up with plans was Leo's job. If there was anything remotely resembling a useful clue, Mikey would be happy to point it out.

Their com links were useless and he and Leo both knew that probably meant Bishop. Without the shell cells, there was no way to track either Don or Raph. Without Don it was going to be near impossible to locate Bishop.

Since Leo knew this as well as Mikey did, there wasn't any reason to bring it up.

The dual slamming of what sounded like car doors snapped Mikey from his reverie and he leaned over the ledge to see what was going on. Six identically dressed men were climbing out of a black van that was parked almost two blocks away.

Turning his head, Mikey saw that Leo was watching the men as well. When Mikey looked towards the van again, he saw the men lift the cover off of a manhole and begin descending one by one into the sewers.

"Psst!"

Mikey glanced up to see Leo trying to get his attention.

_"Bishop is after one of them,"_ Leo signed.

It was pretty obvious who Leo meant. One or both of their brothers had managed to get underground before Bishop's people could grab them. Bishop was putting resources to work in trying to reacquire them and Mikey had no illusion about how many men were already in the sewer tunnels. Mikey guessed the six they just saw were the late arrivals to Bishop's little game of 'hide and seek'.

He and Leo clearly had no choice but to follow Bishop's men in the hopes that they would lead the turtles to their brothers. Mikey waited for Leo to make that decision official.

Leo pointed at Mikey, then to himself, and then down. Mikey nodded his understanding and then descended from his building into the alley below. Before he reached the ground he saw a van parked there, the back doors wide open. Approaching it cautiously, Mikey saw that it was empty and that someone had left it in a hurry.

Just inside the van on the floorboard were the remains of a sizeable net; sliced into pieces by a very sharp blade. He grabbed a section of it and tucked it into his belt before leaving the alley to join Leo on the opposite side of the street.

The pair met in a darkened alcove beneath a loading dock, the space cramped but completely hidden from view.

Before Leo could say anything, Mikey asked, "We're going after them right?"

Leo looked at him for a moment and then finally answered, "Yes. We have to rescue our brothers but we need to be smart about it."

"Dude, you didn't think I was gonna jump down after those guys and yell 'put 'em up' did you? That's Raph's gig. I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page," Mikey said.

That earned Mikey a quickly flashed smile from his otherwise stoic brother. "Our primary objective is to find Raph and Don, not to engage Bishop's men in a fight. There are probably a lot more down there than just those last six."

Leo's statement confirmed what Mikey had been thinking and then he remembered what he'd found in the alley. "Oh!" Mikey exclaimed as he dug out the piece of netting. "There's a van parked in the alley next to the building where I found Don's mask. The back is open and empty except for parts of a big net laying inside."

His brother took the section of net from Mikey and examined it. "This was cut," Leo said, verifying Mikey's own observation. "If I was going to hazard a guess, I'd say either Raph or Don got caught in this and the other rescued him. That means they're probably together."

"They're gonna get caught together too if we don't do something quick," Mikey said, beginning to feel anxious. "If Bishop has men going into the tunnels from different spots around here, they're gonna have our bro's boxed in."

"If we rush down there without thinking it through, Raph and Don won't be the only ones boxed in," Leo warned. "Now if I were Bishop, I'd establish a perimeter around this location in a five mile radius. At the outer edge of my circle I'd have enough men drop into the sewers to cut off my quarries escape. What we have to do is go in behind Bishop's people and clear a path by picking them off one by one."

"You know they're probably talking to each other," Mikey said.

Leo nodded, looking past Mikey as he concentrated. "It's a chance we'll have to take. If we move fast enough they won't have time to regroup before we get Don and Raph out of there."

Mikey wasn't the tactician that Leo was, but he understood strategy well enough to comprehend what Leo meant for them to do.

"We're gonna have to separate in order for this to work, right bro'? 'Cause if we don't we won't be able to punch a big enough hole in Bishop's goon squad to escape back through when we find Raph and Donny."

"I dislike having to separate since we have no way to communicate with each other," Leo said with a grimace. "How well do you remember this five mile stretch of tunnels?"

Mikey shrugged, getting antsy with each passing minute. "Well enough. Why, do you want to meet up someplace?"

"Next to the plumbing fixtures store on Harper is that service door the city uses to access the room where the electrical grid is for this section of their matrix. There's another door inside that leads into the tunnels. Do you know where that is?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, I used that once as a shortcut when Raphie and I were racing," Mikey said with a small grin.

"Okay then, it should take about ten minutes to backtrack five miles and get into the sewers," Leo said. "Once we're underground we'll have to move slower, so allow twenty minutes for making your way back to this location. If you don't find Raph or Don, go back towards your starting point, turn east for a little ways, and then repeat the search pattern.

"I'll work towards the west. We'll yo-yo like that two times each and then meet in that room. It should take us about an hour and a half each and we'll allow an extra half hour in case either of us needs to dodge Bishop's men. If one of us doesn't show in that time, the other should return to the lair and apprise Master Splinter of the situation."

"Do we really need to go the whole five miles back?" Mikey asked. "Bishop's men are all probably closer than that."

"We aren't going to take chances, Mikey," Leo said. "The five miles is just a guess on my part. As it is, if Bishop set his search radius out at ten miles we're going to be in trouble."

"Couldn't we just jump a group of them and commandeer one of their radios? It would save us having to meet up," Mikey said.

"What part of 'don't engage the enemy' didn't you understand?" Leo asked, a trifle impatiently. At the look on his youngest brother's face, Leo's voice softened. "I know you're worried; so am I, but right now our biggest assets are stealth and surprise. Would you know how to switch channels on one Bishop's radios to a frequency that Bishop couldn't overhear? I wouldn't, so let's depend on what we have right now and not on what we might be able to acquire."

Mikey took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wordlessly conceding Leo's point. "I head east, you go west. Sounds like a plan bro'."

Leo clapped Mikey on the shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Let's go."

They broke cover and separated, both taking to the rooftops in order to move faster. Mikey soon lost sight of Leo and felt a touch of dread in his gut; he hated not knowing where his brothers were when someone like Agent Bishop was after them.

Exactly five miles from the building where he'd found Don's mask, Mikey lifted the cover off of a manhole and dropped into the sewers. When he hit the ground he remained in a squat as his eyes adjusted to the change in light.

Though Mikey listened carefully he heard nothing and he wasn't sure if he was happy about that. Hearing sounds would mean he'd found someone, hopefully his brothers, but it could also mean he'd found Bishop's men. No noise meant he'd have to venture further into the tunnels, purposely making his way towards people who would love nothing more than to toss a net over him.

Settling into a slow jog, Mikey moved back in the direction from which he'd just come. A mile in he passed under an open manhole and knew that he'd found one of the spots where Bishop's men had entered the tunnels.

Proceeding more cautiously, Mikey kept one hand on his nunchucks, ready for a split second draw. Even at their widest points, the sewer tunnels were still a fairly confined space and coming up on six trained men in such quarters would place Mikey on the low end of any odds someone might care to give.

A low murmur of voices froze him in his tracks and Mikey pressed himself into the deep shadows. Scooting along a wall, Mikey peered around the corner into an intersecting tunnel and saw several men pass by, their flashlights shining in all directions. Neither Raph nor Don was with them and after waiting for a count of ten seconds, Mikey resumed his search.

Mikey guessed he'd gone a little over two miles in when he heard more voices. Dropping to his hands and knees, he crawled forward, coming up on a bend in the tunnel. Keeping his head near the ground, Mikey looked to see what was happening.

Ahead of him stood a low slung maintenance cart, its engine running and one man behind the wheel. A deep growl made Mikey's heart skip a beat and then Raph came into view, his hands behind his back and some sort of metal collar around his neck. The collar was attached to a long pole and the man who held it was trying to force Raph into the back of the cart.

"Do you want to be shocked again?" the man asked with a sneer. "Get in!"

"Fuck you!" Raph shouted, twisting his body and planting one foot against the side of the cart, pushing away from it even as two other men tried to force him inside.

The man who was controlling the collar attachment pressed something on the pole and Raph's body suddenly stiffened, a harsh grunt escaping his mouth. He slumped to the ground, knees and hands on the hard packed earth and his head lowered.

Mikey did a quick count and saw eight men, all identically dressed, all wearing dark shades, and all bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bishop.

_"Clones,"_ Mikey thought _"Bishop sure is in love with himself."_

Not giving himself time to think about it too much, Mikey slithered forward, getting as close to the group as he could without being seen. Sliding both nunchucks from his belt, Mikey started spinning them just before he leaped.

His surprise entry took one of the men down without a fight, the heavy nunchuck slamming into the man's head with a crunch. The blow broke the clone's glasses and as they fell off his face, Mikey had time to think that he hoped Bishop bought them by the bushel.

The sound of the clone's fall elicited shouts from his mates and they all turned in Mikey's direction. Figuring that the man controlling Raph's shock collar wouldn't relinquish his hold, Mikey ignored him and concentrated his fight on the other six.

Mikey bounced up quickly, flipping over the head of the nearest clone and simultaneously swinging backwards with his nunchuck. The strike caught the man on the back of his head and sent him crashing to the ground. Mentally erasing that man from the fight, Mikey no sooner landed than he was leaping again to avoid the baton that another clone swung at him.

Coming down on top of a clone's shoulders, Mikey dug his heels into the man's chest and swept his nunchucks around, aiming at the heads of the men who were trying to swarm him. Even as he struck, Mikey saw the man he'd just felled rising to his feet.

Using the handles on his nunchucks, Mikey smacked the man he was riding on the top of his head, dropping him to his knees. As the clone fell, Mikey rolled off of him, smashing against the other men's legs and bowling them over like giant pins.

The tight quarters might not allow him much space to maneuver, but it had its advantages. As the clones all tried to catch Mikey, they began to get in each other's way, giving him time to spring off a wall and fly into their midst with his nunchucks swinging.

Three men went down under his onslaught and Mikey kicked a fourth one away from him. "Haha, where'd you learn those moves? Klutzes are us?" Mikey taunted, facing one of the clones.

When the man charged at him, Mikey waited until the last second and then stepped aside, hitting the man's head as hard as he could. Blood splattered as the force of the nunchuck caved in the man's skull.

Thinking there were only two left in the battle, Mikey's eyes went wide as the men he'd hit began to stand up. Behind him, the man with the crushed skull staggered to his feet, twisting his head to the left and right before coming at the stunned turtle once more.

"Bishop's been experimenting again!" Mikey sang out as he darted away from the men, racing towards his brother.

Raph's head lifted and in a tight voice he rasped, "Get their glasses!"

_Glasses_? Mikey noticed then that the only man who had stayed down after being hit was the one whose glasses he'd busted.

Lunging at the man who was holding Raph, Mikey's nunchuck swept past the clone's upraised arm and landed unerringly against the center of his face. The glasses shattered into tiny pieces and the clone went stiff just before keeling over.

Raph slumped onto his side, panting heavily and Mikey raced past him, the deadly arc of his nunchucks making quick work of the glasses the other clones were wearing. Within minutes Mikey had smashed through the entire group, the reach of his weapon and his agility an advantage over their shorter batons.

Dropping to his knees next to Raph, Mikey pulled a shuriken from his belt and used the sharpened edge to cut the zip tie off of his brother's wrists.

"You okay Raphie?" Mikey asked, helping Raph to his feet.

"Yeah," Raph said, grabbing at the metal collar that still circled his neck. "Help me get this damn thing off."

Mikey found the button that kept the collar closed and released his brother. Raph tossed the thing aside and followed Mikey away from the downed clones.

Together they raced through the sewers with Mikey leading the way towards the rendezvous point.

"Where's Leo?" Raph asked gruffly.

"We split up to look for you," Mikey said. "Where's Donny?"

"They knocked him out with some kind of shot and I had ta stash him," Raph answered. "He had time ta tell me about the glasses before he went down. They waited until they could grab him first ta spring their trap; I heard 'em say so when they reported ta Bishop. Why did they want Don before anybody else?"

Mikey clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Shell bro', that's obvious. Didn't you say it was Don who told you to break their glasses? If they get Donny first, he can't figure out what makes those clones tick. Gotta be something about those glasses besides the fact they can't function without them."

Raph looked back over his shoulder and groaned. "I wish I'd have thought of that. Damn! I should have grabbed a pair so Don could study them."

"You mean like these?" Mikey said, displaying a pair of clone glasses. He grinned at the look on Raph's face. "I thought they were kinda cool looking, so I snagged a pair."

"Whatever ya' do, don't put them on," Raph warned. "Ain't no telling what they'd do ta ya'. Where the shell are we going?"

"To the city's electrical room over on Harper," Mikey answered, handing the glasses to Raph. "That's where I'm supposed to meet Leo."

Raph came to an abrupt stop, forcing Mikey to do so as well. "Ya' go meet him; I gotta go back and get Donny. I don't know how long that stuff they shot him up with is gonna last, but I don't want him coming to and wandering into Bishop's hands. I got a feeling Don and these glasses are the key ta beating Bishop."

"I'll go with . . . ." Mikey began.

"No, ya' go meet Leo. Ya' know how he is about sticking ta plans and ya' gotta tell him what's going on. Bishop's clones already searched the area where I hid Don so we'll be fine," Raph insisted.

Mikey reluctantly watched as Raph loped off, leaving before his younger brother could offer anymore arguments. Realizing that he was wasting time they didn't have, Mikey continued along their previous route, determined to get to Leo and tell him about Bishop's clone army.

It wasn't that he forgot to be cautious; Mikey had already traversed this set of tunnels without seeing anyone. His active mind was so busy harrying the problem they faced that he felt safe enough to travel on auto pilot.

When a group of clones stepped right out in front of him, Mikey nearly ran into them. As he reached for his nunchucks, his arms were seized and yanked backwards, making him drop his weapons.

Mikey quickly understood the mistake of allowing so many to jump him at once. With their combined weight piling on his carapace, the clones forced Mikey to the ground, neutralizing his ability to use his legs by sitting on them.

Still Mikey struggled, shifting his body from side to side and flexing his muscles as he tried to dislodge the men. Then one of them laughed and when Mikey looked up to see what was so funny, another of the clones smashed a fist into his jaw.

The blow jerked Mikey's head to the side, his chin scraping along the tunnel floor, taking a layer of skin from his face. It stung enough to make Mikey angry and he expanded his chest against the ground and bucked upwards, throwing one man off of him.

Before he had the chance to move further, another clone landed hard on Mikey's shoulders, driving the wind out of his lungs. Gasping for air, Mikey watched as the clone that had laughed squatted next to his head and displayed a syringe for Mikey's viewing pleasure.

Even as Mikey tried to slither away from the man, the needle bit into his skin and he felt liquid heat enter his body. Within seconds Mikey's eyelids grew heavy and when the effort to keep them open got to be too much of a battle, Mikey sank into unconsciousness.

Mikey's head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and something that sounded exactly like a vacuum cleaner roared inside his ears. He wanted to shout at Leo for waking him up; it was rude to vacuum the floor so early in the morning.

Prying his lids open, Mikey discovered through bleary eyes that he wasn't in his bedroom at the lair. It was only after he lifted a hand to rub at his eyes that he realized he wasn't tied up and in a flash his memory came back.

He'd been asleep at the wheel, wandering through tunnels full of Bishop's clones with his mind on something else and had walked right into a trap. Mikey knew he was going to have to come up with a feasible reason for his getting caught that wouldn't divulge his lapse in attention or Leo wouldn't let him hear the end of it for months.

Mikey began to look around and saw that he was in a lab of some sort. The walls were lined with desks covered in computer equipment, a section of tables held microscopes, test tubes, and other equipment Mikey didn't recognize but Don probably would.

All of those things look slightly distorted and Mikey thought that his eyes hadn't fully recovered yet, but then he noticed that his own hand was perfectly clear. Reaching out, Mikey's hand connected with a sheet of glass and then he understood the reason for his altered sight.

When Mikey tried to uncurl his body from the uncomfortable position he was lying in, his feet hit another wall. He was in some sort of small square enclosure, the walls made of glass and the floor and ceiling composed of metal.

Bringing his knees under him, Mikey managed to stand. The top of his prison was only a few inches above his head and he tried pushing at it, but it was a secure fit. Mikey knew he'd have to break the glass to get out but when he dipped his hand to his belt for his nunchucks, he remembered that the clones had made him drop them.

As much as he hated the thought of getting glass in the skin on his knuckles, Mikey doubled up his fist and punched a panel as hard as he could. Not only did it not break, but the wall didn't even vibrate beneath the blow.

Pulling his hand back, Mikey shook it and then opened and closed the hand a few times, trying to ignore the pain. If the space were larger he could take a running leap at it and possibly break through by kicking the panel loose, but the enclosure was maybe two feet by two feet at the most. He certainly wasn't going to build up enough momentum to do any good; shell, he wasn't even going to be able to extend his leg.

"Ah, Michelangelo. I see you've discovered that your new home is completely unbreakable," Agent John Bishop said, slowly walking towards the young turtle.

"I'll bet when one of my brothers shoves your head through it that it'll break," Mikey snapped back, hiding how unhappy he was to see this particular human.

"It would certainly be gratifying if they would try," Bishop said. "Then I wouldn't have to spend so much time and effort in attempting to locate them."

"I thought you said our DNA was useless," Mikey said. "Why are you after us again? The four of us can't possibly be a big enough blip on your radar that you'd waste resources on another attempt to capture us."

"You aren't all that significant other than as a thorn in my side," Bishop admitted, walking over to a set of control panels. "And you're right; normally I wouldn't allocate funds towards a mere attempt to catch you four turtles. It so happens that my scientists believe they are very close to a breakthrough that a minute study of your mutation would be a great help with.

"In fact, once they've reached a certain point in their research, they are going to need a number of your internal organs. Since the experiments have a short shelf life, we decided it would be best to capture all of you now and preserve you until you're needed."

"Preserve?" Mikey asked, glancing around again. That was when he noticed three containers identical to his own lined up to his left.

"Exactly," Bishop answered, pressing a series of buttons and then turning to face Mikey once more. "I would suggest you don't fight it; that only makes it painful. Of course you won't listen."

Mikey barely heard him because another sound caught his attention. A gurgling noise at the bottom of his enclosure drew his eyes down, and he saw a clear liquid seeping in around his feet. The smell told him it wasn't water.

Searching frantically for a way to stop the flow of the liquid, Mikey didn't notice that Bishop had started to chuckle. Standing with his arms folded across his chest, Bishop was clearly enjoying the show.

The liquid rose quickly, wetting his knee pads, then his belt, and finally coming up level with Mikey's neck. Panicked, the young turtle beat at the glass with the side of his fist, pushing against it with his other hand as he tried to separate the panels from each other. His eyes were wide as the liquid reached his chin and he saw the tails of his bandana floating in the foul smelling stuff.

As the liquid rose above his head and completely filled the enclosure, Mikey continued to struggle, holding his breath to keep the stuff out of his lungs. He held on as long as he could, but turtles required oxygen and eventually he succumbed to his natural instinct to inhale.

The last thing Mikey saw before the world went black was Agent Bishop cleaning his glasses.

TBC….


	4. Fourth Capture - Leonardo

Fourth Capture – Leonardo

Leo strode back and forth across the small room; eight steps up, eight steps back. Mikey was overdue and not by a little. According to their plans, the orange banded turtle should have met up with Leo over an hour ago.

His search of the tunnels lying to the west had yielded nothing. No Raph, no Donny, and none of Bishop's men. He'd seen footprints, all recently made, but that was the extent of his findings.

As Leo paced he berated himself. He should never have used the same patrol route for so many nights; their search patterns should have remained randomized so that neither Bishop nor any of their enemies could predict where they'd be. The very second that he felt their location had been compromised, he should have ordered his brothers back into the sewers.

If he had followed the instructions he'd give to Mikey, Leo would be halfway home by now. He would certainly have expected Mikey to adhere to those orders and been furious if his brother hadn't.

Leo had already removed the useless headset but on the off chance their communications might once more be online, he pulled his shell cell from his belt. When he tried to reach Mikey he received the same infuriating static, so one by one he called his father, Casey, and then April, hoping that someone, _anyone_, would answer.

The only response Leo received with each attempt was static and he finally accepted that communications were definitely out. Taking a deep breath, Leo decided to break his own rules and exited the room, turning east so that he could track Mikey.

Leo's decision was contrary to his battle tactics training; there were only one or two situations in which one purposely walked into a potential ambush, and this was neither of those. It was just that Leo had a feeling that minutes would make a difference now. He hadn't listened to his gut earlier and he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

Although it was dark in the tunnels, Leo had no problem seeing through eyes that had grown up with a limited amount of light. It did not take him long to find the tracks that Bishop's men made in the dirt and silt that covered the sewer floors.

To his dismay Leo noted that those footprints didn't merely go in one direction. The tracks had been stepped on at least two and often three times as the clones backtracked, retracing their steps as they searched the tunnels.

In amongst the prints he spotted Mikey's. They were lighter and harder to find because of his ninja training, but they too had other footprints on top of them. Mikey had passed through the tunnel in search of his brothers, no doubt seeing that Bishop's men had already been there and thinking that the tunnel was clear.

The extra sets of prints showed Leo that there was a very good possibility that Mikey had run right into a patrol.

Continuing to track Mikey's prints, Leo stayed alert, determined not to be caught unawares. At one point the sound of approaching steps made him meld into a shadowed wall just before a group of clones passed him, their flashlights nearly exposing his location.

Leo eventually found the place where Mikey had cautiously stalked something and by trailing along in Mikey's footsteps, Leo saw the scene of his brother's big fight.

Squatting just beyond the perimeter of scuffed earth and mud, Leo studied the markers in front of him. Tire tracks from a small four-wheeled vehicle showed that it had entered this wider section of tunnel and then turned around and gone out again.

The depth of the tracks told him that the vehicle was heavier in the front and his mind immediately pictured a maintenance cart, the kind used by the tunnel crews that he and his brothers often dodged. From the number of prints on the ground and the make of the shoes, Leo knew the no city worker had been driving that cart.

A plastic zip tie lay on the ground near where the cart had been parked. The tie had been severed by something fairly sharp and as his eyes roamed the ground, Leo noticed it was the only one inside the tunnel.

The area near the cut tie was a wealth of information. Leo could see the outline of a form in the dirt and from the size and shape knew that it was Raphael's. Near the outline were distinctive two-toed footprints, side by side, which Leo presumed were Mikey's. The positioning told him that Mikey had cut the tie from Raph's wrists while squatting, not kneeling, a good indication that the youngest was probably not injured.

Neither was there any sign of blood near the spot where his brothers had been, although there was plenty of it elsewhere. The ground had been literally showered with sprays of cast off blood, along with white flecks that Leo recognized as brain matter. Only one brother wielded a weapon that could do that kind of damage to a skull and that was Mikey.

So it appeared that Mikey had come upon Bishop's men as they were attempting to place what was no doubt a graphically protesting Raph into the cart for transportation. Mikey had charged in and succeeded in felling the clones, after which he'd rescued Raph.

Other than the zip tie, some shattered pieces of plastic and dark glass, there was nothing else in the tunnel. Bishop's people had done a thorough job of cleaning up behind themselves.

Leo stood up and approached the tire marks, walking along beside them to the point where they turned around and started back the way they'd come. Frowning, he noted that the depth of the marks did not change, which should have been the case if Mikey had rendered some of Bishop's clones incapable of walking on their own.

Images of the last clone Bishop had created flashed through Leo's mind as he turned and followed the cart's tracks. That clone had been self-healing and Leo was very concerned that these new clones had the same built in advantage. He hoped that his brothers realized that.

Along the ground in the tunnel that the cart had driven through were both Mikey and Raph's prints, each very distinctive in the pattern of scarring on the bottom of their feet. The cart had come through behind them; something Leo could tell from the fact that the cart had partially obliterated the two-toed prints in some places.

Leo soon found the spot where Mikey and Raph had split up. Stopping to stare at their footprints, Leo tried to reason through why they hadn't stayed together. The only thing that could come to mind had to do with Donatello; so far there had been no clues to the genius' whereabouts. The cut net Mikey had found earlier seemed to point at Raph and Don having escaped together, but Raph had been caught alone.

Eyes narrowed, Leo reasoned out a scenario that seemed to fit the clues he had. Bishop's men had somehow grabbed Donatello and Raph had gotten the genius away from them. They had retreated into the tunnels which were usually a safe sanctuary, but had been followed.

Despite the number of clones that Bishop had sent in after them, Raph and Don should have been able to elude them. The only thing that would have caused them any problems was if Don had been incapacitated in some way.

An injured Don, one who couldn't travel, would have narrowed Raph's options. Knowing Raphael, Leo figured that he had somehow hidden Don, placing him in a location where Bishop's men hopefully couldn't find him.

That done, Raph had set about luring the clones away from Don's hiding spot. It was not unheard of for Raph to sacrifice himself for a brother; it was that quality that both aggravated Leo and simultaneously filled him with pride.

Raph hadn't been able to elude the clones and been captured. It was while they were trying to load Raph into the cart to presumably take him to Bishop that Mikey had stumbled upon them.

Mikey had managed to overcome some fairly large odds to get to Raph and set him free. Leo guessed that Mikey's style of continuous movement combined with the size of the tunnel and the number of adversaries had worked in the young turtle's favor.

Together, Raph and Mikey had started back towards the electrical room where Mikey had agreed to meet Leo. Their splitting up hadn't been Mikey's idea, Leo could tell from the way Mikey's prints had started to follow Raph's and then stopped.

Raph had gone to get Donatello. It was the only thing that explained his voluntarily separating from one of his brothers while knowing they were in an extremely dangerous situation. If another brother hadn't had a greater need for his protection, Raph wouldn't have left Mikey alone.

That left Leo in a quandary; which of his brothers should he follow? His sense that one of them was in severe trouble had only intensified and he knew he had to choose wisely.

Both had gone in directions that showed signs of having been passed through by clones as well. However, Raph's prints were on top of the shoe prints left by the clones and nothing had marred the impressions his brother had left behind.

On the other hand, Mikey's prints were nearly obliterated by the cart's tire tracks and the shoes worn by Bishop's men. Either they had noticed his footprints and had chosen to follow him, or their choice of routes was coincidental.

It didn't matter which of those two it was, in any of those situations Mikey was in trouble. Leo chose to follow Mikey.

When Leo spotted Mikey's nunchaku lying on the ground his mind wanted to shout 'I was right' but he was far from elated by that fact. The dirt that made up the tunnel floor in this area was churned up, obviously the result of a massive struggle.

Leo could see where Mikey had been held down and where someone had squatted next to him. He could almost feel his kid brother's terror just before Mikey was rendered unconscious; Leo could see where his toes had twitched through a spasm.

Against the wall lay a used syringe and Leo lifted it, sniffing lightly at the barrel. Whatever they'd used, it wasn't any of the deadly liquids that Leo had become familiar with. They undoubtedly wanted the turtles alive.

The cart had come to a stop near where Mikey had lain. When it had begun moving again, the back end was much heavier.

Without another thought, Leo jammed the nunchucks into his belt and then jogged alongside the tracks. He focused on following them and remaining vigilant, not wanting to be caught off guard. Bishop had to know that the other turtles would attempt to find Mikey; in fact Leo wouldn't be surprised to learn that leaving such an easily traced trail was a part of Bishop's overall plans.

Leo estimated that he'd been running for about three miles when a solid brick wall rose up in front of him. Coming to an abrupt halt, Leo studied the bricks, noting that the cart tracks and footprints appeared to go right through it.

Just as Leo was about to put a hand on the bricks to see if he could move a section of the wall, something red flashed in the corner of his eye. Stepping back quickly, Leo looked up and saw a cylindrical object, about two inches long and no more than a half inch in diameter.

Reaching down, Leo picked up a handful of dirt and tossed it in the air. The small dust cloud he created illuminated a crisscrossed set of red lights that blocked access to the wall.

Leo also noticed that some of the smaller pebbles that were mixed into the dirt went _through_ the bricks, rather than bouncing off of them.

Drawing one of his katanas, Leo walked to within an inch of the red lights. With a steady hand, he slid the katana through an opening in the grid pattern and into the wall. When it passed through the bricks, Leo noticed that they shimmered for a moment, like the ripple effect of a pebble hitting water.

The wall itself was an optical illusion, Leo realized as he sheathed his weapon. Unfortunately the red lights were not; they were no doubt attached to a silent alarm that would notify Bishop of intruders.

Backing up a few steps, Leo briefly wondered if there was another grouping of lights set in a different pattern on the opposite side. He thought no further on the matter as he darted forward, leaping directly between two of the lights and through the mirage beyond them.

Leo tucked and rolled as he landed on the other side of the fake wall. His swords were in his hands even before he gained his feet.

No one was in sight as he looked around. Glancing up into the corners of the ceiling above the 'wall' he'd come through, Leo saw that there were no laser security systems inside the room. Bishop's security team apparently trusted that one set of alarms was enough.

Leo found himself in a garage of sorts. Along two walls were maintenance carts, all plugged into electrical outlets. Fresh mud clung to the tires of one of them and when Leo touched the back of his hand to its hood, he found that it was still warm.

Bits of dirt and mud had fallen onto the floor when the cart had been driven into the garage and continued on through an opening in the farthest wall. The cart had obviously not immediately been parked upon its return; no doubt it had been used to deliver its turtle payload.

The corridor into which the cart had traveled was dimly lit. Leo eyed it warily as he slid one katana back into place, retaining his hold on the other. Staying to one side, he stepped into the corridor.

With his carapace partially turned to the wall, Leo cautiously slipped down the corridor, following the faint trail of dried mud left behind by the cart. The floor was plain concrete; the walls brick and mortar. This wasn't the sort of facility that Leo was used to seeing Bishop operate from; it looked as though it had been hastily and recently erected.

Above him were various colored pipes which Leo assumed supplied water and electricity to the facility. Fluorescent tube lighting inside rectangular fixtures which hung from the ceiling supplied the illumination, although only half of them were actually on.

After Leo was about twenty feet in, other corridors began to intersect with the one he was in. They all had the same bunker type look to them; sparse, dark, and without color save for the coded pipes overhead. There were doors, few and far between, dotted along the walls. None of them were marked and when Leo carefully opened one, he saw a small room, empty save for a table and four chairs.

Leo paused at one intersection, turning his head to listen. The faint murmur of running water caught his hearing, the sound of the sewers one he knew well. Somewhere down that corridor was a way into the sewer system and Leo filed that information away for later use.

The splotches of dried mud extended onward and Leo continued to follow it. With no idea as to the size of Bishop's new facility, Leo had to stick with the best clue he had for locating his brother.

A door somewhere ahead of him slammed and then Leo heard voices coming in his direction. Leaping quickly, Leo grabbed onto the thick wire holding a light fixture in place and swung on top of it.

Flattening himself, Leo watched a half dozen men pass below him. All six were completely identical, from the top of their well-groomed hair to the tips of their polished shoes. Each of them was the spitting image of Bishop, including the same trademark dark glasses.

Once they were out of sight, Leo dropped from his perch, landing soundlessly. Backtracking the clones, Leo reached the door he presumed they'd come through and pressed the side of his head against it. When he didn't hear anything, he tried the door handle and found it to be unlocked.

Opening the door just a crack, Leo peeked inside. The room beyond was as dimly lit as the corridor and completely silent. Taking a quick look behind him, Leo edged past the door frame and crept into the room.

The first thing that struck him was the enormity of the space. Everything outside of the room was small and unpolished, but not in this room. The ceilings soared overhead and the interior was wide enough to park a passenger jet.

Beneath his feet were floors that gleamed with polished brilliance, so bright Leo could almost see himself in them. What caught his attention though, were the occupants of the room.

Leo sucked in a breath as he looked all around him. Standing completely still were hundreds of Bishop's clones, lined up in rows as far as the eye could see. Attached to each of them, just behind their ears, were wires that hung down from a large glowing device hooked into the ceiling.

It gave Leo a strange feeling along his spine not to be able to see their eyes. He was so tempted to take the dark glasses off of one of the clones that his hand actually lifted before he decided that would be a bad idea. He did not want to do anything that might wake this particular army.

As he walked past the lines of sleeping clones, Leo began to notice a brighter light coming from somewhere ahead of him. When he reached the spot, he saw that the light was spilling through a transom above another door.

Once more he listened for sounds of habitation and then ventured inside when he heard nothing. This room was smaller than the other and much more brightly lit. There were no clones inside, but it did contain the paraphernalia associated with a well-funded laboratory.

About five steps further inside Leo discovered that it contained his brother Michelangelo as well.

Mikey was suspended in a large rectangular container filled with some kind of liquid. His eyes were closed, his body motionless, and Leo couldn't even tell if he was still breathing.

Drawing his second katana, Leo leaped forward, unconcerned about traps or alarms. Slicing downwards at a diagonal from the top, Leo sheared off a section of the container, releasing enough of the liquid to uncover Mikey's head.

As Mikey's chin dipped down to his chest, Leo's katana flashed once more, breaking away a huge chunk of glass along with the rest of the control panel at the top of the container. A pattern of cracks and lines crawled down the remainder of the glass walls and Leo used the grip on one katana to smash his way through.

The water rushed out as the glass shattered and Leo quickly caught Mikey's falling body. Gently laying him on the floor, Leo turned Mikey's head to the side and straddled him, placing the heel of one hand on top of the other before pressing his hands in the center of Mikey's torso.

Leo swiftly administered five firm upward thrusts, using more strength than he would have with a human due to his brother's plastron. A foul smelling liquid rushed out of Mikey's mouth and Leo stopped his Heimlich maneuver in order to lean down and listen for the sounds of Mikey's breathing.

He heard a faint rasping and pressed a finger to Mikey's pulse point. For a second he felt nothing and forced himself to be calm. Just then a faint beat greeted his finger and Leo sat back, repeating the Heimlich and forcing more liquid out of Mikey's lungs.

Diving forward again, Leo covered Mikey's nostrils as he tipped his brother's head back. Placing his mouth over Mikey's, Leo breathed into his brother, watching Mikey's chest as he did so. Mikey's chest rose and fell as Leo sent his breathe into his brother's airways.

Suddenly Mikey's legs jerked and Leo jumped back. A hard cough racked Mikey's body and Leo scrambled off of him, rolling Mikey onto his side as the younger turtle began to hack up fluids.

"Mikey! Mikey!" Leo called. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

The last of the fluid left Mikey's lungs but he was still coughing. After a couple of minutes he rolled onto his carapace and stared up into Leo's concerned face.

"It's nothing a new comic book wouldn't fix," Mikey said with a weak grin.

"I'll buy you two," Leo told him with relief, grasping his brother's offered hand and pulling Mikey to his feet.

"We aren't gonna find them in here," Mikey said, swaying slightly as he tried to get his equilibrium back.

Leo steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. "Was it Bishop?"

Mikey looked up quickly. "Dude, it was totally Bishop. He said he needs our insides for his scientists. That nasty smelling stuff he stuck me in is some kind of preservative."

Yanking Mikey's nunchucks from his belt, Leo handed his brother's weapons over as he said, "Let's mess up that plan."

Smiling widely, Mikey spun his weapons, watching as Leo snatched his katanas off of the floor and marched over to one of the other three containment units. Before Leo had even finished slicing it into tiny shards of metal and glass, Mikey had smashed his way through the remaining two.

Breathing deeply, Mikey shoved his nunchucks into his belt. "That felt good."

"You'll feel better once we're home and you're dry," Leo said, leading the way to the exit.

When they stepped out into the cavernous outer room, Mikey's head swiveled, his eyes huge. "Whoa. I guess Bishop really is planning on marrying himself."

"I saw some of them when I was coming in to get you," Leo said, his katanas at the ready. "They even sound like him."

"They don't fight like him though," Mikey said confidently. "They're good and all, and they heal up just like that last freakish thing he created, but all you have to do to beat these guys is break their glasses. Raph said Donny figured that out."

"He told you that before he went back to get Don?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, he . . . hey, how'd you know . . . oh right, you tracked us," Mikey said. "Nevermind. Raph said they wanted Don first and they knocked him out after they grabbed him. Raph got Don away from them and had to stash him someplace safe. He apparently got himself caught on purpose so they wouldn't find Donny. That's not exactly how Raph tells it, but you know him. I had a pair of those glasses and I gave them to Raph to give to Don, 'cause I figure if Bishop wanted our smart bro' first it's because he knows Don can mess up his creations."

Mikey waved a hand toward the clones and added, "Though I don't know why we should worry since they're so easy to beat."

"If they were that easy, then how did the three of you manage to get caught?" Leo asked, listening to both his brother and paying attention to the noises around them.

Wrinkling his beak, Mikey said, "They swarmed us, dude. There were just too many . . . . "

He stopped in mid-sentence and glanced at Leo, who nodded without looking back.

"They don't need to be completely unbeatable," Leo said, "there just needs to be a lot of them. Bishop's primary concern is an alien invasion. He could take the time to create a perfect soldier and have a couple of them, or he could build thousands, even millions, of the not so perfect kind. He doesn't have to feed them or take care of them while they're on standby; he just builds warehouses like these to store them all over the world and then he waits."

"But why grab us?" Mikey asked.

"Exactly for the reason he told you," Leo answered. "With his enormous but flawed army in place, he has the time to turn his attention back to making the super soldier he wants so badly. These are the ground troops; the super soldiers are his elite forces."

"Very astute, Leonardo."

Bishop's voice rang out from somewhere overhead and the brothers spun around, looking up to see Bishop standing on a platform almost three stories above them.

"You need to leave us alone, Bishop!" Leo shouted at him.

"What I need is to see what's inside your shell," Bishop said. "I'm also rather fascinated by Donatello's mind, so I'll probably explore his brain while I'm at it. Too bad you've destroyed my containment chambers; I'll just have to hold you the old fashioned way until I build more."

Leo and Mikey were backing away as Bishop talked, making their way to the door and freedom.

"Going someplace?" Bishop asked, lifting his hands to his temples.

A crackling sound suddenly emanated from all around them and as the pair of turtles watched, the wires that were hooked into the clones began to snap loose. Once the wires had freed them, the clones started to turn.

Moving in tandem, Leo and Mikey sprang for the exit. Leo didn't bother to find out if it was locked or not, with a sweep of his weapon he cleaved the handle in two. The door swung on its hinges and Mikey yanked it open.

They could hear the heavy pounding of hundreds of running feet coming up behind them as the pair dashed down the corridor.

"I hope the way you came in is close!" Mikey exclaimed.

"Too far," Leo said. Then he remembered the sound of moving water he'd heard earlier. "Come on, this way."

Finding the intersecting passage quickly, Leo made a sharp turn and Mikey stayed on his heels. They ran another twenty feet before the concrete floor began to slope downwards and the sound of rushing water grew louder.

Almost before they knew it, the brothers had plunged thigh deep into the muddy water of a storm drainage tunnel. Wading deeper, they battled the strong flow as it swept past; noticing that one side of the tunnel was blocked by a heavy metal grate.

"That way!" Leo yelled, turning towards the open side of the tunnel.

"At least it's washing that other stuff off of me," Mikey said as the water rose as high as his rib cage.

A splash behind them made Leo turn his head. Barreling towards them were countless numbers of Bishop's clones.

Mikey heard them too and his nunchucks were out, spinning overhead. Leo faced the clones, his katanas at the ready as he continued to move backwards.

As one of the clones dived towards him, Leo swept down with his sword, slicing both the dark glasses and the man's face in half. The body slammed into the water and his fellows stepped on him as they rushed at Leo.

Directly behind them the wall rumbled and then another metal grate began to slide down from the ceiling. Leo had less than a second to assess their situation and quickly dropped one of his swords as he placed a hand to Mikey's chest and shoved with all his strength.

The hard push sent Mikey flying backwards just as the grate slid into place. Gurgling and choking on the water he'd swallowed, Mikey found his footing and jumped up to see Leo's carapace against the grate as his brother slashed and punched the clones that were swarming him.

"Leo!" Mikey shouted, grabbing the metal bars and yanking on them.

"Go Mikey!" Leo yelled. "Get out of here! Get Master Splinter!"

"No! No, Leo No!" Mikey screamed, slamming his nunchucks against the head of a clone that had grabbed his brother's arm.

Before he could do anything else, Leo disappeared under a mass of clones, his body splashing into the water. A clone grabbed the edge of Mikey's carapace through the bars and Mikey jerked away from him, falling back into the water once more.

When he clawed his way to the surface, he saw about twenty clones dragging Leo's still form up the embankment. Spaced out along the front of the grate and staring at Mikey were another dozen clones. The sound of the grate beginning to move again made Mikey turn and run, vowing that he'd return with his entire family to get Leo away from Bishop.

Dripping and coughing, Leo was hauled before Bishop, who stood in the corridor smiling at his captive. Leo's swords were gone, presumably under the water somewhere and completely out of reach.

"Strip him," Bishop ordered.

The clones flung Leo to the ground and then held him as they pulled his pads, belt, and mask from him. Once his body was unclothed, Bishop stepped up next to him.

Gasping for air, Leo glared up at Bishop. "My family is going to make you regret this," Leo told him.

"I sincerely doubt it," Bishop said. "But as I told Michelangelo earlier, I welcome their attempts. In fact, I'm counting on it. Put him in the 'room'."

This last was to his clones, who pulled a struggling Leo to his feet and propelled him into a small room further along the corridor. Once inside, they shoved him against a wall and forced his right arm above his head.

Leo felt something circle his wrist and looked up. One of the clones snapped an elaborate buckle on a thick leather band to his wrist. The band was on the end of a leather strap which was in turn attached to the wall by a fat metal ring.

When they stepped away from him, Leo yanked hard on the strap and found that it didn't give even a little. Reaching up with his free hand, he tried removing the band from his wrist, but not matter how he tried to tug or force it open, it was immovable.

The door slammed behind the clones as they left the room and then a large screen on the opposite wall flickered to life. Mounted on the ceiling above it was a camera, its lens pointed directly at Leo.

Bishop's face came into view on the screen. "When you get tired you can lean against the wall. I'd offer you a chair but I'm not that nice. I know your brothers will want to know you're all right, so I'm putting this show on all of the screens throughout my compound and even on a few that I've strategically placed in the sewer tunnels. As I told my clones, where there's one turtle, there are others. They are spreading out to look for them. You won't be in there by yourself for long."

Even if Leo had wanted to respond he didn't get the chance. Bishop disappeared from the viewing screen and a live picture of Leo took his place.

Leo scowled at himself and hoped his family wouldn't fall into another of Bishop's traps.

TBC….


	5. Final Capture - Master Splinter

Final Capture – Master Splinter

Raphael had nearly reached the end of the narrow sewer run off where he'd left Donatello when he heard a splash followed by a low groan.

Hurrying forward, he cautiously peered down into the tunnel below him and then jumped back before he could be skewered by his own knife clutched tightly in an olive green hand.

"Whoa Donny," Raph called in a low voice. "It's me."

"Raph?" Don's voice sounded thick, like he was having a hard time moving his tongue.

"Coming down bro', don't stick me," Raph said before squeezing through the opening and dropping to the ground in front of his brother.

Don was swaying on his feet, one side of his body covered in mud. Squinting at his brother, Don lowered the knife and Raph reached out, grabbing Don's arm to steady him.

"What happened?" Don asked, blinking owlishly.

"Bishop happened," Raph said. "He made a bunch of clones in his image and sicced them on us. I got ya' away from them after they shot ya' up with something, but they were on my heels so I had ta stash ya' down here and lure them away."

"I was wondering why I woke up to find myself buried under trash and mud," Don said with a grimace.

"You're welcome," Raph replied, grinning.

Don eyed him suspiciously then, his head clear enough to notice that Raph was devoid of his gear.

"Where's your belt and pads? What happened to your mask and weapons?" Don asked.

Raph's lips pressed together in a thin line before he opened them to answer, "My mask is over there." He pointed at the ground near where Don had lain. "I dipped it in water ta try and wake ya' up but that was useless. I ain't putting it on again either; it's muddy and covered in sewage water."

"But somehow it was okay to rub my face with it," Don murmured.

"Don't get knocked out next time," Raph told him. "I pulled off my own pads so I could leave a false trail away from your ass, thank you very much. In the process I got surrounded by those clones of Bishop's and they almost managed ta drag me back to that maniac."

"You fought them off?" Don asked, eyes wide.

Raph shook his head. "Much as I'd like ta be a hero, it was Mikey who got them off of me. He and Leo came down here looking for us. I sent him back ta meet up with Leo so our big bro' would know what the shell is going on. Bishop wanted ya' caught first so ya' couldn't figure out how ta stop him, which means I ain't leaving ya' alone."

"We don't have our weapons, our masks along with all of your gear are gone, we have no way to communicate with each other, my duffel is missing, and Bishop's clones are everywhere. Sounds like your kind of odds," Don observed.

"Don't be a spoil sport," Raph said, chuckling. "I suppose ya' wanna try ta make it back ta the lair."

"That is our protocol," Don said as he glared at his brother.

"If ya' stop giving me the stink eye, I'll give ya' a present," Raph said.

"Unless it's my bo staff, don't think you can bribe me out of my ill humor," Don told him. "That stuff they shot into me gave me a headache."

"Here," Raph handed over the dark glasses that he'd gotten from their youngest brother. "Mikey managed ta get his hands on an unbroken pair. Maybe ya' can figure out why those clones can't make a move without 'em."

Don turned the glasses over in his hand, examining the front and then the underside. Flipping the earpieces up, he noticed that they were wider and thicker than those on a normal pair of glasses, especially the temple tips.

Running his thumb over the tips, he felt a small protrusion and brought them closer to his face, trying to see what it was he was feeling. The light in the tunnel was too dim for a proper examination.

"I really need to take these back to my lab," Don said. "I need a magnifying lens and my tools."

"Mikey said he was supposed ta meet Leo in that electrical room just off Harper," Raph said. "We should head that way too. If they ain't there waiting for us, then we'll go ta the lair. Look around down here and see if there's anything we can use as a weapon."

Together they searched the muddy embankment, kicking aside piles of debris and rodent carcasses. Before long their feet and legs were mud spattered and they were both wet.

"All I've turned up is three quarters of a broken wine bottle," Don said. "Are you having any luck?"

"Nah, there's nothing but trash . . . wait a second," Raph said, squatting next to a pile of soggy newspapers.

Pulling the paper aside, he uncovered a broken and slightly rusty metal shoe rack. The rods that were once meant to hold shoes in place were over three feet long, thin but solid, and there were four of them.

Yanking on the ends that held the rods in place, Raph pulled them loose from the frame. Standing, he handed two of them to Don, who tossed the wine bottle aside.

Raph tried one of the rods by pounding it against his open palm. "Not the best weapon; it'll probably break after a few good hits, but it's better than nothing."

"Are we going back up through there?" Don asked, indicating the sewer run off Raph had come from.

"Not unless ya' wanna run into some more clones," Raph said. "If we follow this tunnel west we'll have ta go miles out of our way ta get back ta Harper. I'm pretty sure if we go east we'll come up on another run off about a mile and a half from here. That one will take us straight ta Dover, which is only a half mile from Harper."

Don glanced down at the swiftly running water. "We're going to get a lot wetter."

"It's better than getting caught," Raph said, slapping Don on the shoulder as he started walking.

It was difficult to walk fast through the tunnel with its steep sides and piles of debris. There was finally no choice for the brothers but to step into the water, which ran thigh high and was very cold.

They were both relieved to see the run off pipe up ahead of them; the thin trickle of water spilling from it a good indication that it wasn't flooded. As they drew closer, both of them heard the distinct sounds of something much larger than a sewer rat splashing in the water towards them.

Don and Raph looked at each other and began to jog through the water, their legs weighed down by its turbulence. Just as they reached the pipe, a figure shot around a bend in the tunnel, racing straight towards them.

Raph stepped in front of Don, the metal rods lifted in defense as he prepared to meet this newest onslaught.

"Don't hit me, don't hit me!" Mikey yelled, plummeting into their midst.

"What the shell?" Raph exclaimed. "Where's Leo? What the fuck are ya' doing down here?"

"Move, I'll explain later," Mikey said. "They're right behind me."

As if on cue, one of Bishop's clones barreled around the turn and rushed towards them, followed immediately by another. Both held telescoping batons in their hands, extended and ready for use.

Raph jumped on the first one before the man could swing, striking the man's forehead with his makeshift weapon as his body weight drove the clone under water. The clone thrashed beneath him, churning the water and trying to hit Raph with the baton, but Raph reached down with unerring accuracy and ripped the glasses from his face.

Mikey ducked under the second clone's swing and drove his fist into the man's stomach. When the clone bent over and stumbled forward, Don smacked the back of his head with a metal rod, dropping the man to his knees.

With an almost uncanny speed, the clone jumped to his feet, his dark glasses turning in Don's direction, ignoring Mikey completely. Arms out, he reached for the olive green turtle and Mikey shattered the clone's glasses and his face with a fast sweep on his nunchucks.

When Raph came back over to them, he said, "Did ya' see that? They still want Donny."

"Dude, let's talk about it later," Mikey said. "They've got Leo! There's a whole bunch more behind me; they got stuck waiting for a grate to open. We have to go."

"They've got Leo?" Raph growled, starting back in the direction Mikey had come from.

Mikey grabbed his arm. "You don't understand! There are hundreds of them! Leo said we have to get Master Splinter and we have to get Donny to his lab. He's the only one who can stop them."

Raph pulled away from him, hesitating as he looked down the tunnel. Turning his head, he saw Don leaning against the tunnel wall, obviously still feeling the effects of the sedative he'd been given.

Striding over to the drain pipe, he folded his fingers together and held his hands down in front of Mikey. "You go first. This pipe is narrow so we're gonna have ta crawl out. It's about thirty ta thirty five feet long. Don goes between us. If anybody's waiting on the other end, ya' try ta see how many before we slide out and get ambushed again."

Mikey nodded and stepped into Raph's hands, using his brother as a springboard. Once Mikey was inside the pipe, Don went next, grabbing the lip of the pipe and pulling himself into it.

As soon as Don's feet disappeared, Raph leaped up and caught the bottom edge of the pipe, pushing up with his hands until he could see into the pipe. Leaning into it, he wriggled and pulled himself all of the way in, the pipe a tight fit around his larger body.

None of them made a sound as they crawled through the pipe, each concentrated on getting to safety and finding a way to rescue Leo. When street lights told Mikey that he'd reached the end of the pipe, he carefully peered out.

There wasn't a soul in sight and he climbed out, double checking that the street was deserted before leaning down to look at his brothers.

"It's clear, come on," Mikey told them.

The three turtles wasted no time racing back to their home, though they kept a cautious eye out for more of Bishop's clones. On the way, Mikey filled them in on what had occurred from the time he and Leo had realized something had happened to their brothers up to Leo's capture.

Somehow none of them was surprised to find Master Splinter anxiously awaiting them when they burst into the lair.

"What has happened? Where is Leonardo?" Master Splinter demanded.

"Donny, you go work on those glasses, I'll explain everything to sensei," Mikey said.

Don nodded and went straight to his lab, closely followed by Raph. Setting the glasses on his worktable, Don flicked the switch on his large magnifier lamp and swung the arm down so that he could peer through the lens as he worked.

Raph was pacing; waiting always made him edgy. Finally he said, "I'm gonna call Casey and get him ta check those roofs we were on. Maybe he can find your bag and our weapons."

"Mikey said he didn't find anything but my mask," Don said without looking up. "If you need something to do, you could grab my spare mask from my room when you go up to get yours."

"I'm still gonna call him," Raph said. "Mikey was worried and maybe he missed our stuff. Maybe those clones shoved them into a storage shed. That was my favorite pair of sais."

"If you call him, Casey will want to go with us to rescue Leo," Don said, opening a drawer to reach the case that held his more delicate tools.

"Mikey said there's hundreds of those clones; maybe thousands," Raph said. "You got any problem with having an extra pair of hands when it's butt kicking time?"

Don glanced up and then back at what he was doing. "None whatsoever."

Raph left the room to make his phone call and to grab his extra gear, leaving Don immersed in the mystery of the dark glasses.

As Don worked, a part of his mind processed what he had observed about Bishop's newest clone creations. They were fast and strong, they were self-healing and nimble, and they worked well together. Almost too well; as though they thought with a collective mind rather than as individuals.

Don's agile brain worried that concept like a dog worries a bone; something about it seemed to hold the clue he needed. That and the fascinating piece of equipment he was discovering hidden inside a dark pair of glasses.

Outside the lab faint sounds reached him; Mikey's voice mingled with Master Splinters, something falling over in the rooms on the upper floor, the sound of Raph's voice calling to one of the others. Don attached no significance to any of them; lost in his mental world the background noises were normal in a house full of family and were somehow soothing.

Don had no idea how much time had passed when Raph came striding into the lab. He didn't bother trying to stay quiet because surprising Don was never a good idea, neither did he loudly announce his presence.

Instead, in a conversational tone of voice, Raph said, "I got hold of Casey; woke him up actually. He'll meet us back here after he goes up ta . . . . "

Raph stopped talking when Don looked up at him, the excitement on his face telling.

"This is amazing," Don said as his voice slightly trembled.

"What is? What's amazing?" Raph asked, staring at the glasses that had been systematically dismantled by his brother.

"This appears to be a miniaturized Tesla coil. Why would Bishop be using an electrical resonant transformer hidden in the temple pieces of a pair of glasses? Is he trying to manipulate electromagnetic functions of the brain through a wetware interface?" Don queried rhetorically.

Raph screwed up his face as he listened to Don's ramble. "Could ya' save the fan girling for later? We gotta rescue our bro'."

"You don't understand, Raph," Don explained eagerly, his eyes barely flicking over to Mikey and Master Splinter as they walked into the lab. "If this is how Bishop is controlling and directing his clones, I think I can rig up a way to disrupt the magnetic field that Bishop's device is giving off. The device Mikey told us the clones were hooked into. Even if the clones have been wire headed, a higher frequency alternating current should interrupt the signal from their glasses."

Raph glanced over at Mikey and back to Don. "I don't get half of what ya' said, but I think you're telling us ya' can bust up the signal that Bishop's sending to his clones. How long will it take ya' to make something that'll do that?"

"Wait," Mikey said, drawing his brother's attention. "Hey, Donny, if you could interrupt that signal, couldn't you somehow make yours strong enough to take control of Bishop's clones? I mean, it'd be nice to just shut them off, but we're still going into Bishop's strong hold and he's got real live humans working for him too."

"Your brother has a point," Master Splinter said. "Nullifying a portion of your enemy's defenses is advantageous, but turning his own forces against him is the straightest path to victory."

"I wish I knew more about his transmitter," Don said. "I know the glowing object that Mikey described has to be a larger, more powerful Tesla coil. It's the primary transformer that is sending signals to the smaller coils inside the glasses. But there has to be another device relaying instructions through that main circuit."

"It's Bishop dude," Mikey said. His family looked at him in surprise and he said, "I saw him put his hands to his temples just before this really loud noise came out of that machine overhead and the clones started to come alive."

"Ya' know, that makes sense in a cockeyed Bishop kind of way," Raph said. "He's a control freak, why would he allow anyone else ta order his clones around?"

"Agent Bishop would not require a device inside his head in order to control his clones," Master Splinter said. "His mind is capable of concentrating thoughts in much the same manner as we achieve during meditation. He has had many, many years to perfect the technique."

"Donny can do that too," Mikey said. "Remember when the Triceraton's took him captive?"

"If Donny's mind was strong enough ta reach through space ta call on Master Splinter for help, then he should be able ta override Bishops' control," Raph said.

"I was more than a little motivated by pain at the time," Don reminded them. "Maybe Master Splinter should be the one to take control of the clones."

Their father held up a hand. "No, I do not wish to be in charge of this device of yours. If past experiences have taught us anything, they have taught us that manipulating machinery is your 'thing', not mine. You will find the mental strength necessary to defeat Bishop because you are motivated this time by love for your brother."

Don frowned but didn't argue the point, realizing that it would take too long to explain to Master Splinter what he would have to do once he put the glasses on.

"Give me about twenty minutes to change this into a transmitter," Don said.

"Here," Raph handed him a clean purple mask and his spare bo staff. "Wish I could give ya' your bag too, but that's probably long gone."

"Don't make any bets on that," Casey sang out from behind them.

Turning, the family saw their human friend standing in the lab doorway, triumphantly displaying Don's bag, his bo, and Raph's sais.

"Where'd ya' find 'em?" Raph asked, eagerly accepting his weapons and looking them over for damage.

"Remember how ya' told me they carried Donny down that stairwell? I tried the alley entrance and it was still unlocked, so I took the stairs ta go up ta the roof. This stuff was sitting on the first landing," Casey said.

"Come, let us prepare for our fight and leave Donatello to finish his work," Master Splinter said, ushering the others out of the lab.

Raph hung back after everyone had left, his eyes on Don as his brother turned his attention back to the glasses. A couple of minutes passed before Don looked up again and read a question on his brother's face.

"What is it, Raph?" Don asked.

"Ya' shouldn't have dived in front of that net," Raph fussed in a low tone. "That was a crazy, dangerous thing ta do and ya' got yourself caught."

"My first instinct was to save you," Don explained fiercely. "You would have done the same if our roles were reversed. As it was, your fighting style was more effective than mine, so the decision was a judicious one."

Raph couldn't help but smile slightly at the forceful look on Don's face. "I'm gonna go look up that word, 'judicious', and get back ta ya' on that."

Don's expression altered and he made an attempt to smile back. "Sorry. I'm just really worried about Leo."

"Me too, bro'. Me too," Raph said as he left the room.

A little over a half an hour later, the team of five had entered the tunnels through the little electrical room where Leo had earlier asked Mikey to rendezvous with him. Don had supplied them each with new communication headsets that utilized a frequency that wasn't blocked by Bishop.

"We should try not to separate," Don said as he handed them out. "Bishop has had more practice controlling the clones and can probably see and hear everything that they can. There's no time for me to acquire that skill level, so I'm going to concentrate on controlling the ones I can see and that means I need to see you guys too."

Mikey grinned at him. "You look funny in those glasses, Donny."

"Thank you, Mikey," Don replied. "That was very helpful."

They walked in silence back towards the sewer run off where Raph, Don, and Mikey had their last encounter with Bishop's clones. Although they fully expected to run into more of them, they found the tunnels to be completely devoid of life.

"I can feel the energy being given off by the Tesla coil," Don said, his eyes masked by the pair of clone glasses he was wearing. "It's pretty powerful."

Master Splinter heard the edge in his voice and touched his arm reassuringly. "Let the energy flow through you, Donatello. Do not fight the nature of that power, allow your ki to embrace and merge with it."

One by one they dropped into the tunnel where Raph had hidden Don and stared into the darkness that lay in the direction of Bishop's secret facility. The splash and gurgle of the swiftly moving water echoed around them, adding another layer of eeriness to the surroundings.

"I hope they aren't under the water waiting for us," Mikey whispered, eyeing the current.

Raph ignored the comment as he asked, "Ya' remember how ta get back into Bishop's building don't ya' Mikey?"

"Yeah dude, straight down the tunnel until it curves, then in another fifty feet there's a concrete ramp to the right. But Bishop lowered a metal grate across the section of tunnel before you reach the ramp," Mikey said.

"Bishop's clones were after you when you ran into Raph and I," Don said. "That means the grate was lifted. I'll bet it's still raised too, because Bishop knows we'll come for Leo."

"That's why there weren't any clones in the tunnels. He's setting a trap," Raph said grimly.

"One we are forced to walk into," Master Splinter said. "However, it will not be sprung by Agent Bishop."

Mikey grinned as he slapped Don on the shoulder. "Don's gonna do the trapping and it won't be turtles getting caught."

"Just point me at something ta hit," Casey said. "All that sciency stuff gives me a headache."

Following Raph's example, the small group stepped into the water and moved cautiously but quickly. When they passed the spot where they'd escaped, Raph wasn't surprised to see that the clone's bodies were gone.

Just as they turned the bend in the tunnel, the sound of a familiar voice reached their ears. Recognizing it as Leo's, Raph started to surge forward but was stopped by the strong grip of his father's hand on his arm.

"Slowly," Master Splinter reminded him in a low tone. "We are not yet ready to be caught."

Raph took a deep breath in order to quell the urge to rush, instead lifting a hand and spreading his fingers. Behind him his family and Casey spread out in response to the silent order, separating from each other enough to make them difficult targets.

Ahead of them Raph could see the concrete ramp that Mikey had spoken of. Looking up, he spotted the metal grate as well, hanging over the tunnel and no doubt ready to be dropped behind them once they passed under it.

A glance at Don was all that was needed to have the genius turtle digging into his bag of tricks. Stepping onto Mikey's shoulders, Don attached a small explosive device to the railing that held the grate upright and activated the remote that was built into it.

When he jumped down, Don wrapped the detonator around his wrist and gave Raph the thumbs up signal. If they needed to go back out in this direction and found that the grate had been lowered, Don would simply blow it off of its tracks.

Again they heard Leo's voice, this time louder and much closer. Trekking up the ramp and out of the water, the group of rescuers simultaneously spotted a flat screen monitor suspended from the ceiling.

On the screen was Leo, his wrist caught by a thick band that was attached to a wall. The turtle leader was prying at the band with his free hand, but his eyes were focused in front of him, no doubt on the camera that he was facing.

"It's a trap, don't come in the usual way," Leo said, obviously repeating a mantra in the hopes his brothers would hear him. "It's a trap, don't come for me."

"What the shell," Raph whispered hoarsely, "he has ta know we ain't gonna leave him here."

"He knows," Mikey muttered in return. "He's trying to tell us not to go straight for him."

Behind them came the sound of the grate falling into place across the tunnel, the thump as it hit the ground making them jump.

"Too late now," Raph said, moving into the corridor. "Don't blow it just yet, Donny."

"I'll wait for your sig . . . ." Don began to say, but a loud voice interrupted him.

"Well, well, I didn't expect to catch Master Splinter in my little trap," Bishop gloated. "This is my lucky day."

The man stood alone in the center of the corridor to their left. He was exactly the same as always; dark suit, dark glasses, dark personality. Mikey inched over in front of Donatello in order to block Bishop's view of the olive turtle.

Pointing the tip of his sai at the man, Raph said, "Show us where Leo is."

"I'll do better than that," Bishop responded with a smile. "I'll put you in that room with him."

Doors all along the corridor were flung open at his words and dozens of clones poured out of them, effectively surrounding the small group of mutants and their human friend. Casey reached into his bag and extracted a golf club and bat, his mask already pulled down over his face.

"Donny," Mikey whispered.

"Time to try this out," Don said, closing his eyes behind the dark glasses.

"Get them," Bishop ordered.

The clones swarmed towards the group, batons raised. Raph and Casey shouted and dove into their midst, weapons swinging; each strike aimed directly for their eyes. Mikey's nunchucks were out and spinning as he held his ground in front of Donatello, slamming his weapons into the clones as they tried to reach his brother.

Master Splinter weaved his way through the throngs of clones that clogged the corridor, his cane smashing glasses with unerring accuracy as he leaped between the grasping hands of his adversaries. A shout from his youngest son had him spinning back towards his children as a new wave of clones closed in on Michelangelo and dragged him away from Donatello.

Don's back was to the wall, one hand clutching his bo as the clones moved to grab him. The other hand lifted to his temple as he tried to concentrate within the chaos.

Casey bounced off of a clone as he swung at another and his arms were seized from behind and pinned to his sides. Mikey was on the floor, seven clones holding him down as he struggled ineffectually against their combined weight.

As one of Raph's sais pierced the belly of a clone that was in front of him, the man grabbed his wrist and pushed forward, trapping the mutant's hand. Raph swung with the other one, smashing it into the man's temple, but before he could shove the clone off of him, two of them trapped his free arm.

Don's bo was wrenched from the genius' grip and he felt strong fingers close on his wrist. With one last effort, Don opened his eyes and focused completely on the clone that was holding him.

Something that felt like tiny prickles of electricity ran through Don's system and suddenly the clone released him. Concentrating, Don ordered the clone to turn away and push the others back.

Don heard Mikey gasp but didn't take his eyes off of the clone. The man began to shove his fellow clones away from Don and with a rush of adrenaline; Donatello looked towards the clones that were holding Mikey.

Again the surge of energy rushed across Don's body and the clones released Mikey, stood up, and began to pull the clones away from Casey. Don spun around to where Raph stood, still struggling with the clones that had piled on him, and ordered them off of the red banded turtle.

"No!" Bishop shouted, his hands to his temples as he tried to regain control of the clones.

Don felt his pushback and focused his ki, bringing his life energy forward to combine with the resonance of his Tesla transmitter. Unit by unit the clones fell back, redirected by Don towards their look-alike master.

"Fuck yeah!" Raph yelled at the top of his voice. "Take that ya' bastard!"

Bishop backed away from his clones and then two doors opened further along the corridor as armed men rushed to their boss's aid. The clones filled the corridor, forming an impenetrable barrier between Bishop, his men, and the rescue party.

A shot rang out, followed quickly by another. Master Splinter lifted his head and scented the air, ignoring the melee in front of them as he turned his attention back to their primary reason for being inside Bishop's stronghold in the first place.

Reaching towards Raph, Master Splinter quickly unsheathed one of the sword's that the red banded turtle had brought with him. Raph turned to look at his father as he felt the sword slide free.

"Stay here and make sure our path to freedom remains open. I am going after your brother," Master Splinter told him.

With a terse nod, Raph swung his attention back to Bishop's fight with his creations. The clones were pressing forward despite the gunfire in front of them, and now the turtles could see the bodies of some of them lying on the floor. Those who still retained their glasses were quick to stand back up, following the directions given to them by the purpled banded ninja who now controlled them.

Letting his nose guide him, Master Splinter sped along the corridor, finally stopping at a door with no markings on it. He tried the handle, found it to be locked, and used his son's katana to shear the handle completely off.

Leo turned to the sound of the door opening, pulling against the leather strap that was holding him captive. When he saw his father, he leaned away from the wall in order to fully extend the strap.

Master Splinter leaped forward and swiftly cleaved the strap in two, freeing his son.

"Is Mikey all right?" Leo asked. "Where are Raph and Don?"

"Your assistance allowed Michelangelo to escape and he found your brothers," Master Splinter said. "Donatello did something to a pair of glasses and now has control of the clones. We should not tarry; Agent Bishop will no doubt have a way to shut them down completely."

He handed the sword to Leo and led the way out of the room. They had only run a few feet when they heard shouting and Mikey lunged into view.

"Bishop's doing something to the clones and they're dropping like flies!" Mikey exclaimed.

The trio ran as fast as they could back to the others, who were standing at the head of the concrete ramp.

"We've worn out our welcome," Raph informed them, catching Leo's eye and silently turning leadership back over to his big brother.

"The grate?" Leo asked, urging the group down the ramp.

"I'm on it," Don said, pressing the tiny switch on his wrist detonator.

The explosion was immediate, followed almost simultaneously by the sound of the grate splashing into the water as it fell.

Plunging into the water, the group raced through the billowing dust, leaping over fallen rock and climbing the section of grate that was still partially suspended above the turbulence.

"Ow, shit!" Casey yelped as his toe caught in the grate. Arms pin wheeling, he tried to stay upright but lost his balance and fell headlong into the water.

"Crap Casey, you're a fucking klutz." Raph reached down and caught his friends arm, pulling him back to his feet.

"Look what I found!" Casey trumpeted gleefully.

Clutched in his hands were Leo's katanas. Handing his spare sword to Raph, Leo accepted his weapons from Casey, a quick smile lighting Leo's face before he turned his attention back to their escape.

Mikey, who had run on ahead of them, called over his shoulder, "Out through the same pipe?"

"Unless you know a faster way," Raph told him.

Once again Mikey took the lead, followed by Master Splinter, Donny, and then Casey. Raph had to yank the bag off of Casey's shoulder and toss it into the pipe before his friend climbed in, watching Casey slither inside while shaking his head at the human.

Leo stood guard over their back trail as Raph jumped up and slid into the pipe. Once his brother was far enough inside, Leo tossed his swords in and leaped in after them.

When Mikey exited the pipe this time, he found several clones had been left on the street to wait for them. All of them were lying motionless on the ground, apparently deactivated by Bishop now that Don had found a way to control them.

Casey split off from his friends once it was apparent their way home was clear, saying he wanted a hot shower, a cold beer, and his bed. The family put several miles between them and Bishop's underground facility before dropping back into the sewers.

There was no further excitement between them and the lair, and they entered their home gratefully. Mikey groaned, dragging himself into the kitchen and plopping into a chair, and Don sat down next to him a second later.

"Dude, you're still wearing those glasses," Mikey said.

"Shell, I forgot I had them on," Don said, removing the dark lenses and tossing them on the table. Rubbing his forehead tiredly, he added, "I've got the beginnings of a really fine headache."

The chair across from him scraped back along the floor and Don grimaced. "Sorry bro'," Raph said contritely, lifting the chair to pull it out so he could join his brothers.

Leo set his swords on the countertop and accepted the chair Mikey turned towards him.

Master Splinter stood near the refrigerator and looked at his sons, relieved that they were all in one piece, though obviously tired. Raph verified that observation a second later.

"Man, I'm beat." Raph rested his chin on his hand as he eyed his brothers.

"I'm hungry," Mikey said. "I'm just too exhausted to move."

"Donny, that was an amazing display of control back there," Leo told his genius brother.

"Yes Donatello, your brother is correct," Master Splinter said, opening the refrigerator door and removing cartons of leftover food. "You showed an incredible level of focus during our battle; your skill at concentration has grown . . . ."

A loud snap cut off his sentence and their father gave a sharp cry as he jumped back from the refrigerator. On his hand was a large rat trap, the wedge of cheese that had been on top of it falling to the floor near his feet.

"Who is responsible for this?" Master Splinter demanded, his voice deep and one eye closed in pain.

Don jumped up from the table and quickly freed his father's hand, checking that no bones had been broken by the device.

Mikey wore an abashed expression as he answered in a small voice. "That'd be me sensei. That's the special cheese I use for pizza and Raph kept eating it."

"Ya' set a rat trap for me?" Raph asked, his voice rising dangerously.

Sliding off of his chair, Mikey edged towards the door, sprinting through it when Raph leaped to his feet and charged after him.

Leo and Don turned back to Master Splinter when they heard him chuckling. As Don reached for his hand once more, the aged rat waved him back.

"Sit down, my son. I am fine. By the time I have finished preparing a meal your brothers will have returned," Master Splinter said.

"But father, what are we going to do about Bishop?" Leo asked. "You know he will try again."

"Our enemies always try again," Master Splinter told Leo, settling a reassuring hand on he and Don's shoulders. "Sometimes, as it was tonight, we are captured by them. Please remember that we have something that is too strong for them to overcome, and because of that, we will be forever victorious."

"Sensei?" Don looked at Leo, then back to Master Splinter, a puzzled expression on his face.

"Family, Donatello. We have family," Master Splinter said.

FIN


End file.
