Please read my notes at the end of this chapter. There's a lot to cover.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Safe

"I am so bored! I hate not having my games or comic books or anything. Being homeless stinks!"

Raph groaned for what felt like the tenth time. "Quit your whining, Mikey! Or I'll give you somethin' to whine about!"

Michelangelo gave a high-pitched squawk and darted across the room to hide behind April at the sink. "Save me! Save me!"

April looked up from the stack of dishes, her eyes falling across her crowded living room. Then she peered at Michelangelo. "Mikey, I think this is one fight you're going to have to handle on your own."

"April, not you too! Doesn't anybody in this family love me anymore?" He turned pleading eyes on the rest of the room.

At the table, Donatello looked up from his work with a huff of laughter. "Mikey, everybody loves you. But you have to admit, after the last couple of days, we've exceeded our usual tolerance for...certain things."

Casey nodded from where he was slouched on the couch beside Raph. "Yeah! I only met those goofballs for a few minutes and I got my fill. You can't blame us for wanting a little payback."

"Oh, leave him alone," Leo said. He was leaning against the windows at the front of the apartment, keeping an eye on the street from behind the curtains. "It's not his fault we discovered a whole set of dimensional doubles that could give him a run for the title of Most Annoying Turtle."

"Yeah!" Mikey cheered. Then, "Hey!"

"I believe what your brothers are trying to say, my son," Splinter tipped his head to Michelangelo, "is that in light of our recent encounters with your alternate selves, they would be gratified if you would behave less like you belong to their odd dimension."

"But Sensei, how come nobody's bothering Raph for being just like those Turtles Prime guys?" Mikey asked.

Splinter smiled serenely. "Because, my son, they were quiet."

Mikey sighed all the way to the middle of the room where he flopped unceremoniously onto the floor. "Fine. I'll be quieter if we can go soon. Please?"

Leo twitched a half smile. "We will, Mikey. I just want to make sure what's left of the Foot aren't going to follow us. It won't do us any good to find a new home and lead them right to it on the first day."

"I've already identified several good possibilities," Donatello said. "We just have to pick the best one. Then comes the fun part of retrieving everything we can from the old lair."

"It would be a lot easier on our shells if you could invent a shrink ray or something, Donnie," Raph looked over. "There's a lot of gear to haul, and I ain't looking forward to dragging it halfway across the sewers."

Don shrugged. "Would you believe it's easier to create a dimensional doorway from a flashlight than build a shrink ray? Because it is. But that's what we've got your muscles for, Raph."

"Yeah." Mikey waved and spun on his shell listlessly. "What's the point of having Don's brain if we don't have your dumb brawn to make up for it?"

"I'll show you some dumb brawn!"

But before he could surge off the couch and attack Michelangelo, Leo stepped between them. "All right. Let's go before we tear April's place apart. Again."

"Thank you, Leo!" April called with a relieved sigh.

"Want me to keep an eye out while you're gone? Or go play decoy or something?" Casey offered. He didn't even flinch anymore that the turtles still called the apartment over the 2nd Time Around shop 'April's place' even though he now lived with his wife; as often as not, Casey called it her place rather than theirs, too; some habits were too ingrained to break after so many years.

Leo shook his head. "I don't think it's necessary. I haven't seen anything like their previous surveillance, and there's nothing to show they're watching this place today. Besides, they're less likely to mess with us in daylight anyway. I don't think going a few hours earlier will make any difference. Except maybe to Michelangelo's patience."

Mikey jumped to his feet, though Raph managed to bop him on the head along the way, and Donatello packed away the equipment he had been working on into his temporary duffle bag.

"Good hunting, my sons," Splinter said. "Choose our new home wisely, for it is my hope to spend several years in one place."

The four turtles bowed to their father before heading out the door in a group – Raph and Mikey still trading insults and blows, Leo gamely trying to rein them in, and Don just snickering while he consulted his map. But their feet were silent upon the stairs (even if Mikey's yelling could shake the panes of glass in the windows) until the brothers reached the sewer tunnel in April's basement.

"Will they be okay?" April asked, drying her hands on a towel.

Casey shrugged. "Sure! Why wouldn't they be?"

"Is something the matter, Miss O'Neil?" Splinter asked.

April shook her head. "No, I don't think so. Just...nothing is ever easy with them, is it?"

"No, it is not." Splinter folded his hands and closed his eyes. "But I place my faith in them. Together, there is nothing they cannot achieve, no matter its difficulty."

-==OOO==-

"So, Donnie. What kind of place are we looking for, anyway?" Raph asked when Michelangelo finally retreated to walk with Leo rather than beside the brother who kept finding reasons to smack him. "Someplace easy to get to the surface from, right?"

"Someplace with enough room for a good dojo," Leo put in from behind.

"And someplace that isn't so wet." Three faces turned to Mikey and he shrugged. "Look, the reservoir station had a lot going for it, but you gotta admit that when the city did the annual sewer flush it smelled rank. And how many times did someone fall into the water while trying to get a midnight snack?"

"That was just you, Mike," Don said.

"Well, yeah. But I also don't ever want to have to fish slime out of the lair during mold season again either, okay?"

"He's got a point," Leo nodded. "Okay. No more water lairs. What else?"

"It needs to be within a reasonable distance of April's place," Don said, "and it needs to have a defined perimeter we can defend and monitor."

"What about city water lines and power hookups and stuff?" Raph asked.

"Nah." Don shook his head. "I can build extensions to that stuff on my own wherever we set up. I'd build the lair itself too except that I can't exactly just demolish a few tunnels down here and hope nobody notices."

"Well, let's start in on the list of possible locations and see which one we like," Leo said. Don handed over the map he had marked. "We'll begin closest to April's and work our way out."

Mikey and Raph peered over Leo's shoulder to the map. They exchanged a glance and took off running at the same time. "Last one there has to clean the bathroom first!" Mikey called.

Don and Leo looked at one another. A smile crept up Leo's face. "They're going the long way, aren't they?"

Don grinned. "Yep."

"Well." Leo's smile widened. "Let's not keep them waiting!"

And they headed off down a side tunnel that would cut their travel time in half.

The outing degenerated predictably from that point. Mikey and Raph were annoyed when they were beaten to the location by Leo and Don, Raph particularly because Mikey tripped him up at the very last instant which meant he was stuck with bathroom duty. This led to a four-way wrestling match on the threshold of the site they were meant to be exploring, and at least one dented water main along the way, before they sorted themselves out and got back to the purpose of their exploration – choosing their new home.

The first candidate for their new lair was determined unsuitable because it failed the water test (unlike the serene pool of water that had been the center of their second lair, this one had a noisy waterfall running through the middle) and the structural integrity test (when Leo put a foot through what would have been the wall of the dojo).

The second site they visited was currently serving as a crash spot for at least two dozen homeless people, and the turtles had to use their best stealth practices to get away without being seen.

The third seemed perfect until Don spotted the toxic mold growing along one wall that meant the whole place was contaminated.

The fourth had an interior structure that made absolutely no sense, the entire space broken up into awkward little rooms with bearing-walls that couldn't be torn down. After Raph got lost twice trying to figure out how to get from the area they would retrofit as a kitchen to the main living room, he refused to consider it – and by that time, his brothers agreed.

The fifth wasn't on Donatello's map. They found it by accident, or, more accurately, when the floor gave way under Mikey and he slid into what had clearly been one of the earliest subway stations long since forgotten and bricked up. It did take the brothers a few minutes to figure out how to get out of the place once they got down into it, but after that they universally agreed this was the ideal spot. It had a huge open area with a second floor that looked over it from which four soon-to-be bedrooms branched. There was a full subway car that even had colored glass in the windows that was old enough to be a museum piece they could make into a quieter, comfy space where Master Splinter could retreat. The dojo wouldn't be as big as it had been in the previous two lairs, but that was made up for by the sheer size of the main area.

Of course, the space hadn't been in use in decades and was more cobwebs than clear air, and the wiring, as Donatello groaned, wouldn't have been out of place in the 1930's, and it was pretty far from their previous lair which meant moving would be a painful process – but all in all, it was an excellent find.

Raph and Mikey dove straight into the work of identifying which random items already in their new space were junk and which they would keep, setting aside anything remotely mechanical or even just metal for Donatello. While they argued about a broken lamp whose shade had ratty green tassels (but Mikey wanted to put it on Splinter's head for some reason), Leo sidled up beside Don who was studying the main fuse box.

"Is it going to be okay?"

Don frowned but didn't look away from the circuit breakers. "Yeah. It'll need more work than the last one, though. And that took me months to get up and running even after I got well from the Outbreak virus."

Leo put a hand on his shoulder. "You know we'll help you out as much as we can."

"Yeah, but I almost wish you wouldn't. Any time I put tools in Mikey's hands, they wind up flying through the air. And Raph is definitely not allowed anywhere near this stuff until I get it grounded or he'll electrocute himself." Don sighed. "Honestly, it would take half the time if I didn't have help and didn't have any distractions."

Now Leo frowned. "Are we really in your way that much?"

Don looked up, surprised. "No, that's not what I mean. It's just...I can only do so much in a day, Leo. And practicing and chores and patrolling and having to explain everything fifty times, well, everything cuts into my time. That's all." He managed a wry smile. "It wouldn't be the same without at least one of you coming over at the worst possible moment to ask what I'm up to. Someday I really am going to fry our whole perimeter surveillance setup when someone sneaks up on me."

Leo smiled too. "All right, Donnie. Well, I'll try to leave you alone more until you get things up to speed if it helps. And I'll try to keep the others busy so you can work, too."

"Thanks, Leo."

"No, thank you."

Don blinked.

"Without you, we wouldn't even be able to think about putting in perimeter surveillance. We might not even have heat and running water. You make it all work, Don. We'll do whatever we can to help, even if that means giving you space."

Don's face heated slightly. "Well, it wouldn't be worth doing if we weren't all together. I probably do ten times more work than I have to just because it's for you guys than I would if I were on my own."

"Good thing you won't be, then." Leo looked up at a sudden, loud crash. "Come on. Let's get them back to April's so we can start making a plan to move in before they break the new lair. We don't have a clear space for Master Splinter to assign backflips yet!"

Donatello laughed and shut the fuse box, turning with Leo to find out what their brothers had done and if it was fixable.

-==OOO==-

There was something vaguely tragic about the fact that the Hamato Clan had developed an actual system for setting up a new lair. But given the number of times they had moved in the last decade, it was almost inevitable.

After identifying a suitable spot and testing it thoroughly (Master Splinter was fairly picky about its secrecy, space, and also its scent, while Donatello ran the potential lair through a battery of tests that made a human home inspection look like a casual glance at a photograph), the first step was cleaning it.

It wasn't that the family was not in a hurry to get out of April and Casey's apartment and back to their lives. And it wasn't that they were putting off the laborious process of hauling everything salvageable from a compromised location in secret to their new lair, either. But, as even Michelangelo was forced to agree, there was nowhere to put their belongings until they had cleared out the space fully. And nobody liked sleeping with cobwebs hanging inches above.

Out of consideration for Splinter's sensitive nose, the bulk of the initial cleaning part was accomplished by the turtles alone. First, of course, was the release of several bug bombs to clear the area of unwanted guests. Then, Raph and Leo hauled the collected garbage out and distributed it throughout the sewers so it could not be traced back to their new domain. Michelangelo scouted for supplies. They were particularly careful to dispose of any scrap of cloth in the space, and any carpeting was ripped out with a vengeance. Partially this was for hygienic reasons, and partially this was because Donatello had developed a system for the last lair which he easily replicated to save them all countless hours of scrubbing.

"Everybody get ready!"

And he let loose a torrent of water from a modified firehose.

Raph and Mikey steered the hose around the main room, poking into every crack and corner, shattering caked-on dust like glass. It took two turtles to handle the hose whose weight could easily lift someone like April off the ground and fling her about like a ragdoll. Leo dodged ahead of them, identifying spots that might get missed and also those like the pretty glass in the main room's ceiling that could be damaged by the hose's force; these they would hand-wash later.

Donatello himself stayed at the base of the hose where it connected to the water lines and the equipment he had fashioned to support it. The mixture that would follow the first rush of water had to be carefully monitored.

When the entire lair had been soaked in regular water and the worst dirt and dust and other debris had been washed to the floor, Donatello activated his contraption. This infused the water with a cleaning solution he had modified from a recipe of ammonia, dish soap, and rubbing alcohol which killed a lot of the germs and bacteria that inevitably lived in the sewers, scrubbed at the dirt and dust that remained, and bubbled and foamed to show where the water had been and if any spots were missed. Raph and Mikey repeated their sprays, ceiling to floor, until the entire inside of the lair was a sudsy mess.

Then Donatello removed the cleaning solution from the water for his brothers to make a third pass, rinsing the soap. The bubbles were bright yellow, making it easy to see if they had clearly gotten all of it in their rinse – which was important, because, as they had learned the hard way, if the soap was allowed to dry without rinsing, it solidified into a strangely durable mass which had to be scraped off later.

The floor would by this point be a cold mess of dirty, lumpy, slimy, soapy water, all draining away – because, thankfully, all subterranean construction, no matter how old, was built to drain rather than allow water to pool – which would have to be mopped. That was the worst job, which was usually decided by a series of one-on-one battles or several rounds of rock-paper-scissors-turtle-alien.

This time, it was Leo who won that dubious privilege, but he set to his mopping with a will, trying hard not to think about the opaque, blackened water slithering around his ankles. Meanwhile, the other three turtles climbed throughout their very wet lair with the biggest, strongest fan blowers Don could retrofit for them, blow drying the lair a yard at a time. When the worst of the floor had been sluiced clean and the walls and ceilings no longer dripped, they set up every box fan they could find from four junkyards of searching and left it for the night.

And nobody mocked Leo for picking his way carefully through the sewers so that he didn't have to step in any more cold, disgusting water. Nobody was surprised, either, when he made a beeline for the shower back at April and Casey's place that night.

But the next day, the lair damp but quickly drying, was when the moving began for real.

"Good thing Donnie always keeps a spare sewer sled in the dead-end under the old runoff," Raph said as he pulled up in their only remaining vehicle to what had been their home. "This would be a lot worse if we had to carry everything the long way."

Leo nodded, but he wasn't looking at Raph. He was studying the blown-apart entrance to their former lair for signs of an ambush.

"Do you really think the Foot are campin' out down here waiting on you guys?" Casey asked, climbing off the modified third seat.

"Honestly?" Leo shrugged. "I have no idea what to expect from Karai anymore."

"Personally, I'd vote we assume she still wants to skin us alive and eat out of our shells," Raph said.

Leo didn't bother to respond to that. "I think the coast is clear. Let's get started."

The very first gadget Donatello had built after returning from Turtle Prime had been a sensor to check for tracking devices and monitoring bugs that could have been planted in their former home. Leo swept the previous lair with it carefully. The attack by the Foot had been a smash-and-grab sort of operation, not likely to employ any subtlety, but he was happier being cautious.

"You sure we need to do all this?" Casey asked after a half hour of watching Leo crawl over every inch of the lair.

"I'm sure."

Raph smirked. "Besides, it ain't paranoia if someone really is out to get you."

Seven tracking beacons and four listening bugs destroyed later, Casey was forced to admit they were right.

"Yeah, but then why do we gotta do this? Doesn't it seem kind of...extreme?" He looked at the second, slightly sinister device in Raph's hands.

Leo shook his head. "Donatello says he has everything he really needs backed up elsewhere, and this is the only way to be absolutely sure nothing is going to give our position away. There's always a chance our scanner missed something the Foot left behind, and we can't take the risk that they put something in Don's computer, either"

"But...the TV!"

Raph snorted. "Don't sweat it, Case. Don'll build us a new one." He glanced over to Leo. "Sure the sewer sled is out of range?"

Leo nodded. "Yup. And our Shell Cells are with it, too. Go for it."

Raph couldn't help giving one last, sad look to their huge TV which had somehow survived the attack by the Foot. But it wouldn't survive this.

He activated Donatello's EMP bomb. In an instant, everything from the computer system to the lowliest radio was permanently and irrevocably fried – and any other unwelcome tech along with it.

Raph dropped the EMP bomb and cracked his knuckles. "Now we start the big moving."

Casey groaned.

Meanwhile, at the new lair, Michelangelo, April, and Splinter were all doing the last cleaning and preparing, from drying any still-damp surfaces to sketching with chalk on the floor where items would be placed if they had survived in the old pump station. Of course, Mikey had added some drawings of his own, including several things on the floor of the room Raph had claimed as his that would have the hotheaded turtle seeing red, but he had also dutifully diagrammed a place for everything from where they were putting the couch to where they should pile up what April called 'Don's indiscriminate gear.'

Donatello was buried half in the ceiling doing the rewiring while muttering to himself. Periodically he would stick his head down and shout for someone to hand him something or to try a certain lightswitch to see if it worked yet. When he finished one section, he would propel himself across the ceiling in his jerry-rigged safety harness to a new spot where he would continue reconstructing the network of wires and fuses that gave every non-engineering-minded member of the family a headache just to consider.

By the time Leo, Casey, and Raph arrived with the first load from the old lair, Donatello had gotten most of the main lights working. He barely emerged except to confirm everything was okay while the others unloaded the sewer sled before resuming. Then Mikey, April, and Splinter hauled items to their designated spots while the rest went back for another pass.

It took four days, all told, to empty out the previous lair and for Donatello to get the new one rewired enough that he didn't fear starting a fire by plugging in a Shell Cell to charge.

Of course, by that time, tempers were fraying.

"Listen, you shell-for-brains, if you sneak even one more phony spider into any of my stuff…"

"Raph, go beat up Mikey someplace I'm not trying to hang these screens for Master Splinter!"

"Well, if you'd only let me paint your room pink I wouldn't need to torment you with bugs! And how do you know they're all going to be phony, anyway?"

"Aaarrggh!"

"Hey! Watch it! Do you know how hot a soldering iron gets? Do you want to find out?"

"How come you guys haven't hooked up the bathroom yet, huh? It's a really long way back to the apartment and I gotta go, like now!"

"There's always Raph's room!"

"I am going to kill you! Get back here!"

"Knock it off! These screens are delicate!"

"If nobody's got any better ideas, I'm gonna make a little boys' room around the corner, okay?"

"That is disgusting!"

"You're just jealous because you can't pee behind a tree like a guy."

"I don't want to pee behind a tree or around a corner, thank you very much!"

"Michelangelo, that's an access panel, not a shield, and I don't want to have to bang the dents out of it from Raph's fist! Give it back!"

"Don't worry! Raph won't even be able to catch me, because I am still the Battle Nexus-"

"ENOUGH!"

Four turtles and two humans froze, Michelangelo with a foot in midair as he had been preparing to launch himself to the roof of the defunct subway car. Master Splinter strode out from the far door of the car, his eyes sharp and his glare pointed.

But when he spoke, it was in a very different tone, calm and almost sweet. "My sons, I believe you have over-extended yourselves. And while I applaud your dedication to your work, we must practice balance in all things." He turned to Leo, who had carefully eased the paper-screen door to the ground. "Leonardo."

"Yes, Sensei?"

"Please take your brothers to the surface. I believe you will all be better able to focus after a lengthy training run."

Mikey blinked. "Are you kicking us out, Master Splinter?"

"Yes." His nose twitched, the only outward sign of his amusement. "Now go. And Miss O'Neil, Mister Jones, while I appreciate your help as well, I believe you have earned an evening to yourselves. Elsewhere."

Casey threw his arms into the air. "Woohoo! Don't have to tell me twice! Let's go, babe!"

April more hesitantly stepped away from where she had been preparing things to hand back and forth with Donatello. She glanced to him.

Don rose, carefully placing his soldering iron in its cradle. He shrugged at her. Then he looked to his father. "Me, too, Sensei?"

Master Splinter nodded. "I know you might prefer some quiet of your own in which to work, Donatello, but even you must rest your mind and allow your body to refresh its training."

Raphael snorted. "You just don't wanna hear him banging around in here, either."

Master Splinter did not acknowledge that. "I will see you all later." He turned to go back into the subway car. "Much later, preferably."

Casey threw an arm around his wife's shoulders and steered her to the door of the lair at a jog, already beginning to negotiate to watch sports for the night. Donatello used their exit as cover to cross the open area of the lair and snatch his access panel back from Mikey, who was mostly keeping an eye on Raph in case of continued retaliation. While Don carried the panel back to the wall from which it had come to affix it, Leo got between Raph and Mikey and tried to glare them into submission.

Which, of course, just made him a target for both of them.

Don finished in time to see Leo getting it from both brothers, Mikey teasing and Raph insulting. Well, at least they're getting along again...sort of, he thought to himself.

Leo looked up, clearly grateful for any distraction. "Ready to go, Don?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Nothing's going to short out or explode, anyway."

"Come on, Leo! Let's move." Raph said, shoving past him.

"What's the plan?" Mikey wanted to know. The look on his face gave him away – if Leo said they were going to do some rooftop racing, he would be off like a shot from here just for the head start.

Leo smirked. "First, just some patrolling. We should get used to the neighborhood anyway. Then maybe some Hide and Seek."

"Assuming we don't run into anyone who needs their heads bashed in," Raph added, leading the way to the ladder to the nearest manhole.

Within moments, the four had reached the surface and were making their silent leaps up the adjacent fire-escape to the roof.

"Wow." Donatello closed his eyes. "Feels good to be out in the wind again."

"You've definitely been cooped up too long if even you notice that," Leo said, nudging him.

"Hey, do you have any idea how much work there is in setting up a new lair complete with the best possible security and detection equipment?" Don shot back.

Leo shrugged. "Not a clue. That's what we've got you for, bro."

"So now that we're here, where we goin'?" Raph asked. But he had his own head thrown back and seemed to be enjoying the clear, warm night as much as Don.

Leo glanced around. "Let's do a full circuit from here to April's. Then we'll wander around a little more."

"Aw, come on!" Mikey whined. "That's boring! Can't we at least make it fun?"

Leo's eyes fell on the bounciest turtle and a smirk crawled across his smile. "Okay." He glanced to Raph and Don who both read the plan in his eyes and grinned.

"Great! So, racing?"

"Not quite." Leo stepped over to Michelangelo, getting between him and the other two.

Mikey gulped.

Leo's hand flew forward in a blur.

Mikey shrieked and ducked.

And felt himself get poked right in the beak.

"Tag. You're it!"

Mikey opened his tightly-squeezed eyes to see three retreating shells, Raph cackling madly as he ran.

"Oh, not fair, Leo! So not fair! There's gonna be payback for that!"

And he darted after them.

There were two ways to play Ninja Tag, and how it was played mostly depended on who was It at the time. When Michelangelo and Raphael were It, it was a game of insults, yelled wisecracks, and near-misses; the goal became less to avoid getting tagged It and more finding out how close one could get to the turtle who was It without getting tagged. Mikey himself had set the record, actually having the sheer gall to bounce off Raph's shell one night without getting tagged. Raph's shout of fury could probably have been heard in Boston.

The other way to play Ninja Tag was more common when Leonardo and Donatello were It. Then, though it was still primarily a running and dodging game, it was done in total silence and shadow. Leo had the habit of vanishing into darkness and popping up beside one of his brothers when It, tagging them without them even knowing he was there. Don was no slouch at stealth, but he used it more to keep his brothers off-guard than to sneak up on them. His crowning glory had been the night he had manipulated Leo and Raph into chasing each other while he happily tagged Mikey and then hid under a gargoyle until the rest of them came to blows.

Tonight, with Mikey bellowing to their rear, the other three turtles gave voice to their chase, teasing Mikey – and one another – with every step. But Mikey gave as good as he got, relishing the opportunity to try out new insults.

Nobody could blame Raph for actually tripping over his own feet when Mikey called him an "eel-skinned walrus-head with buttery muscles and delusions of adequacy."

Leo would have tripped, too, except he was in the middle of a leap. After he managed a landing caught between laughing and staring, he looked up at Donatello a pace ahead of him.

Don shrugged. "I think he's been reading the comments sections on those articles online again…"

Raph got up just in time to avoid being tagged by Michelangelo and sprinted ahead spluttering incoherently.

Leo laughed and started to run, Don falling in beside him. "At least they're having fun."

"I WILL KILL YOU MICHELANGELO!"

Don grinned. "Yup."

After that point, Mikey seemed to decide that Ninja Tag was merely a vector for shouting more and more outrageous insults at his brothers, usually Raph, and made less of an attempt to actually catch any of them. Things collapsed into an insult-war then, though the best Don could offer was "atomic mouth" and Leo mostly abstained because his attempts at insults were even less funny. Leo figured his function was to actually critique his team, and those comments were just not meant for joyous bellowing even if he was saving them up for later.

It was just as well that Leo was not trying to come up with increasingly silly taunts, because that meant he was the one paying the most attention to his surroundings when he was first to a rooftop quite near their second lair. The instant his feet touched the concrete tiles, every instinct in Leo's body went into overdrive.

Without turning, he gave a sharp, shrill whistle. It imitated the cry of a very startled bird, but it was a clear signal with a very specific meaning to his brothers: danger.

The laughter and joking cut off at once and Raph, Don, and Mikey sped up to join Leo on the rooftop only a few seconds later. They dropped into formation, Leo at the head, Raph guarding from behind, and Mikey and Don facing to either side.

Leo drew his swords. "Show yourself."

"It is an interesting reversal, is it not? For usually it is the ninja who conceal themselves in shadow and the samurai who stride openly into battle. But in your dimension, I thought it wise to comport myself more like ninja. It was not easy for me."

A form emerged from the darkness at the base of a turbine and Leo felt his guard drop in shock.

"Usagi?"

"Greetings, Leonardo-san." Miyamoto Usagi offered a respectful bow.

Leo returned it after a moment of surprise. "Usagi, it's good to see you!"

"What the shell are you doing on the roof in New York City?" Raph asked. He moved around Mikey to cross his arms, not precisely glaring at the rabbit from another world. It was probably only his brothers who could tell his stance apart from his usual antagonistic one; this one was actually curious, for all it still looked angrily murderous.

"Did you come to help us move? 'Cause dude, we already got all the heavy stuff out of the way, but you could help me sort what remains of my comics collection. Unless Gen is here." Mikey's eyes narrowed. "That guy isn't getting near my stuff ever again!"

"No." Usagi smiled. "In fact, I did not realize you had been forced to relocate until I arrived in your former lair and found it rather in shambles. I must admit, I was becoming afraid I would not be able to find you at all in this vast city of yours. Had I not encountered you tonight, I was prepared to give up."

Donatello bowed to Usagi politely. "How long have you been looking for us?"

"Three nights. I intended to leave after last night's failure, but I thought I would make one last attempt before returning home alone."

Leo frowned. "If you've come all this way and you took that much time trying to find us, it must be serious."

Usagi nodded. "It is. Very serious, Leonardo-san. But perhaps I should tell my tale elsewhere, out of the open."

"Yeah, come on and see our new place. It's not super fantastic yet, but it will be. You can practically smell the potential!" Michelangelo waved grandly.

"No, that's just your laundry, Mike."

Before Mikey could snap back at Raph, Leo cut them off. "Let's go. I'm sure Master Splinter will want to hear whatever you have to say, too."

The five descended the building and returned to the sewers.

Even many years later, they would all wonder what would have happened if Usagi had gone home the night before instead.

A/N:

Hello all!

I am thrilled/terrified to debut the writing project which dominated almost the entirety of 2016. I began this project in November 2015 and wrapped it up in August 2016. This is not one novel, but rather 8 separate acts of the same story – one I very much needed to tell. It is Don-centric, but there is a LOT of room in these 8 acts for all the characters to shine and, trust me, they'll need it.

This picks up in the 2003 TMNT universe directly after the "Turtles Forever" movie, though it only references it in passing; the main thing is the destruction of the family lair in the movie which set up this first chapter and a lot of the subsequent events. Everything from the 2003 version is canon here, including Casey and April's wedding, various plotlines, etc. Some bits of the story will lean heavily on certain pivotal moments, and I'll try to call those out as they come.

The series is called "The Death-Knell of Silence" and I'll give a HUGE metaphorical hug to anyone who figures out why. But, fair warning – it's gonna be a while before things really get going. I'll be putting up 1 chapter every week (except a couple in the middle of the year when I'm super busy) and that will mean the whole series will wrap up in the 2nd or 3rd week of December. Seriously, it's that long.

Each act has a song associated with it from which I drew the chapter titles. I'll give a metaphorical hug and/or cookie to anyone who guesses the song before the end of the act.

We're gonna go some dark places, guys. Not darker than Bonds of Honor, but in that neighborhood. Okay? If you are concerned and want more specific warnings as we go, let me know. I'll be happy to provide them. Also, not all the acts will end at nice, happy places. Some are meant to break your heart. My beta has been waiting a year for you all to suffer the agony she went through waiting for me to finish each act for her to read. At least you only have to wait a week between chapters! She had to wait a month.

Lastly, I would like to solicit fanart for this story. I don't have a cover made and I really think this deserves one – I intend to put any and all art up at AO3 in the relevant chapters. I have seen some AMAZING work for TMNT so I'm hoping someone out there will help me put something together!

I think that's all I've got for now. I hope this story brings you joy and laughter and, yes, also heartache and angst, but mostly I hope it holds you up the way it held me up all last year. Come back every week – I'll be here with more.

All my love, guys.