As usual I do not own Ninja Turtles and if you're starting here just know that this isn't Part 1; check out my profile page for a list.

And now, considering I left the turtles in kind of a evil place last time,

I'll stop ranting and just let you read.

The Trials We Face

Prologue:

(3rd:)

Leo coughed as he dug himself out of a mound of rubble and looked around to discover the radio station had been completely leveled; along with a few smaller buildings nearby.

Thankfully they had already made sure no one was living in the area; however there had been Black Gators in the vicinity. But thankfully it looked as though the museum had suffered very little damage so it was likely that no one had been seriously hurt.

Leo's attention was quickly brought back to the present when someone else coughed nearby in the process of disentangling themselves from a pile of cords. "Mikey?" He asked before getting up to gently removed a few bricks from the area and found his little brother covered from head to foot in fine white dust. "Are you okay?" He asked as the other turtle carefully crawled out of the heap to cough again.

"Yeah I'm fine." He answered before looking up at him and promptly burst into laugher. "Good grief Leo, you look like a ghost."

"Speak for yourself." Leo complained as he pulled his brother to his feet before looking around for his other two siblings. It didn't take long before the sound of something falling got their attention and they quickly climbed a small mountain of debris just as another large section of concrete was pushed over allowing Raph to maneuver himself out of the hole underneath.

"Well that was fun." He announced sourly before getting out-of-the-way and allowed Donnie to stand as well.

"I think we should try to get father away next time." Zira stated as the purple clad turtle reached down to help her to her feet.

"Very astute." Donnie informed her sarcastically while Leo and Mikey made their way down to them.

"Is everyone okay?" Leo ordered quickly and they all nodded or otherwise groaned in response.

"What is it with us and explosions lately?" Mikey added dryly as he attempted to dust himself off a little.

"Let's hope that's the last one for a while." Raph suggested during the process of popping his back loudly.

"You know I use to have pretty decent luck until I met you." Zira suddenly complained as she got up in Donnie's face threateningly.

"Damn – girl's got tude!" Mikey whispered in Leo's direction who promptly nodded in agreement.

"Tell me about it!" Raph growled as he folded his arms to glare at the girl but everything was promptly interrupted when Mikey noticed something about his previously missing brother and immediately brought everyone's attention to it.

"Donnie, what happened to your shoulder?" He asked in shock, taking in the large hole-shaped scar on both the front and back of his sibling's shell that had certainly not been there the last time they had seen him.

"I got shot." He announced sourly still glaring at the female alien from the corner of his eye.

"Don't look at me in that tone a voice, I didn't ask you to take a laser for me." She quailed cheerlessly causing his brothers to nearly defend him, but Donnie quickly waved them away and proceeded to ignore her again.

"Okay what happened here while I was gone?" He requested calmly before he seemed to remember something and added. "Did we miss Kale?"

"It's only been a couple hours; dude." Mikey announced causing Donnie to look at him in shock.

"Hours?" He repeated. "That can't be – how long was I gone?" He suddenly asked turning to Leo and Raph instead, who proceeded to think about that for a second before answering.

"No, he's right." Leo finally revealed while he turned to look at the sky in order to judge the position of the sun; which was just starting a show decent toward the end of the skyline. "It's only been about 3 hours." He added before reaching out to catch Donnie when he suddenly looked like he was about to pass out.

"But – I had to be gone for at least three days!" Donnie argued in shock.

"Oh; did I fail to mention that time passes differently in other parts of the Universe?" Zira asked causally causing Donnie to round on her.

"YES!" He roared and his brothers promptly jumped before staring at the normally passive turtle in shock while the woman smiled at him sheepishly.

"My bad." She offered sugarly.

"You – I – oh never mind!" Donnie tired to complain before quickly waving her away and turned back to his brothers. "What did I miss?" He demanded sternly; clearly not in the mood for any more surprises.

…

After several minutes of relaying general information that needed to be known at the time, they eventually realized that the Barron wasn't anywhere they could find him and decided to check on the man's troops. However as they arrived at the museum again and looked down inside; they only found the Black Gators just standing around doing nothing.

"Okay; let's – hey!" Leo started to command before Zira quietly dropped through the roof to land on a large display which allowed her to then gracefully make her way to the floor where she proceeded to walk through the crowd like they couldn't even see her.

"What are they waitin' for?" Raph asked curiously when the men continued to just stand around ignoring her.

"To die." Donnie realized sadly. "They were probably programmed to wait here until the explosion took them out."

"This Barron guy is really statin' ta piss me off." Raph added before the four of them maneuvered down into the building as well.

"What's going to happen to them now?" Mikey asked genuinely concerned for the people who continued to stand around like living statues.

"Most likely they'll just stand here until they starve." Zira answered, folding her arms to look somewhere else causing them all to stare at her in horror.

"Isn't there a way we can help them?" Mikey added quickly.

"Actually yes." Donnie proclaimed before turning to Zira and held out his hand for something; but she just proceeded to look from his face to his palm and back again. "Come on Zira; you can't do anything with it now anyway." He added sternly.

"I don't know what you mean." She announced innocently looking back at the wall beside her, obviously intending on just ignore him.

"Zira!" Donnie insisted still holding out his hand and she sighed before reaching into her suit to produce the nano-brain and tossed it at him roughly. "Thank you." He offered as he caught the thing and led the way back to the basement which was still full of the water-like, inactive nano-bots.

Here Donnie carefully activated his surface adapters again and walked out onto the surface where he was able to gently place the brain in the middle of the puddle and started messing with his gantlet again and in a matter of minutes the nano-flood under his feet started to pulse with color before finally settling on blue.

"Okay." He announced as his brothers watched him from the stairs. "They've been programmed to attack and decommission other nano-bots. All we need to do is have the Gators drink a little and it should free them."

"Should?" Zira repeated sourly causing the three turtles next to her to stare at her for a second, as they were not all that accustomed to people questioning Donnie's words, before turning back to their brother.

"Sounds like a plan." Leo agreed.

"Yeah but there are like – hundreds of Gators up there. Not to mention any others that might be floating around the city." Mikey complained truthfully. "This is gonna take days."

"Well we only have two before our ride gets here." Leo announced sternly as he stood at his full height again, ready to take command. "So we better get started."

…

Two days later

Kale stood with his arms folded as he watched the city for any sign of the turtles. Though his route no longer brought him to London on a usual basis he could still tell that the city skyline was very different than it had been before.

For one the Big Ben clock tower was no longer there and another section looked like it had been leveled by some kind of explosion, not to mention most of the city was once again under water.

He tried not to worry, but the more he looked at it, and the longer they waited; the more he had to wonder if something had happened to his friends.

"Captain." A voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts kindly and he turned to find Long standing there sadly. "The sun's starting to set; we'll need all the light we can get to navigate the channel."

"I understand." Kale answered simply before giving the man permission to pull the ship away from the docks and start back out to sea leaving Kale to stand in the same place as he watched the city disappeared then quietly made his way below deck.

However when he opened the door to his quarters his attitude became noticeably sunnier as he turned to close it again and smile at the door before turning around to find that his personal space had been overrun with turtles.

"You could have just knocked." He informed them sternly; but there was no real fire in his words.

Chapter 1 coming next Tuesday

(Reviews Welcome)