They left the apartment through the basement tunnel, only emerging from a manhole in a quiet, darkened alley once they were a safe distance away from their friends' home. Though Karai and the Foot had been quiet and inactive for over a year now, the Turtles still weren't going to risk letting themselves be seen entering or leaving the apartment above the antiques store. The Foot weren't the only ones they had to worry about.
In moments they had scaled the nearby fire escape and were on the rooftops, moving swiftly and silently. The night was cloudy and cold, the buildings and ground slicked with the remainder of rain from earlier in the day. It meant that they had to be a little more careful about their footing, but they still moved easily from one rooftop to the next, mostly unbothered by the chill and the damp. They remained silent and alert for trouble, steadily working their way towards the western docks.
The trip was uneventful though - it seemed the poor weather had kept most people indoors, and the streets were a little quieter than usual. It didn't take the Turtles long to reach their destination, and as they reached the edge of the warehouses that lined the western docks, Leo signalled a halt.
As the others gathered around him at the edge of the rooftop and crouched down in the sheltering shadows, Raph elbowed Leo in the side. "A hunch, huh?" he murmured, smirking in the dark. "Care to share just how you got this so-called hunch, bro?"
"I may or may not have overheard a few things," Leo replied casually, his expression somewhat smug. "It's amazing what you can learn with a little bit of patience."
Raph snorted quietly, and Mikey leaned in to grin at them both. "Too bad patience isn't really Raph's strong point, huh?" He quickly ducked, avoiding Raph's retaliatory smack as Raph's hand whooshed through the air just above Mikey's head.
Meanwhile Don had dug his night vision goggles out of his duffel bag and put them on, and was busy scanning the nearest warehouses. "No sign of movement around here," he informed the others. "If there is something going on, it's most likely further in. Less chance of any random passers-by catching sight of anything."
Leo nodded. "Agreed. Thanks, Donnie. Let's keep moving, but when we find them, no charging in straight off the bat, all right? I want to find out just who we're dealing with here first."
Raph just let out another soft snort, but nodded reluctantly as Leo looked at him, and Mikey gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "Recon and intel gathering first, gotchya!"
They began moving again, Don in the lead this time with his night vision goggles still on. The four of them ghosted carefully across the warehouse roofs, alert for any sound or movement. They'd covered almost half of the warehouses in the area before Don suddenly halted at the edge of a roof and gestured for his brothers to join him as he dropped down into a crouch, adjusting the settings on his goggles. The other three turtles swiftly gathered around him, also keeping low.
"What've you got, Donnie?" Leo murmured almost soundlessly as he knelt by Don's side, his head turning as he scanned the warehouses ahead for any sign of movement. Mikey was on Don's other side, doing the same as Leo and fidgeting with reined in energy, while Raph kept a wary eye on the rear.
"Heat signatures in the second warehouse over," Don replied, just loud enough for his brothers to hear him. "At least ten, maybe up to twenty people - I'll be able to get a better count when we're closer." He adjusted his goggles again and frowned. "And according to the readings I'm getting... I think they've got another batch of that modified alien weaponry. A big batch."
Mikey blinked and turned to stare wide-eyed at Don. "What?" he hissed, still careful to keep his voice down. "But I thought we'd taken care of the last of that stuff months ago!"
"So did I," Leo murmured with a frown. "But if Don's right about what they've got-"
"Which I usually am," Don interjected sagely.
Leo just let out a faint sigh and gave Don an unamused look before he continued. "Then we're going to need to find out where they got it from - and who it's going to. Could just be a cache that they've been keeping in reserve, could be they've figured out some way to manufacture it themselves. We need to know."
Raph glanced back at his brothers, frowning. "Which I'm guessin' means that we gotta play the silent little eavesdropper game for hours insteada just goin' in there and bustin' heads, huh," he grumbled.
"Unfortunately for your lack of patience and fondness for violence, yes, you guessed right," Leo replied dryly. He paused for a beat, then gave Raph a faint smile. "At least, until we can locate someone sufficiently high up in the chain of command for us to grab so you can scare the information we need out of them."
Raph blinked, then smirked toothily. "Works for me."
Mikey snickered but wisely refrained from commenting, and Don just rolled his eyes behind his goggles as he continued to peer over at the active warehouse. "There are a couple of guards at each corner of the warehouse, but we should be able to get onto the roof without any trouble," he murmured absently. "From there we'll be able to get to the catwalks and support beams inside - as far as I can tell, there's nobody in the upper levels of the warehouse. They're all on the ground floor."
"Do they have any other security?" Leo asked quietly. "Cameras, anything?"
"Can't tell for sure from here," Don replied. "Don't think so, though, I'm not getting much in the way of power readings apart from the weapons and the lights. These old warehouses don't usually have much in the way of built-in security, and it'd be a lot of effort for them to install their own, unless they're planning to use this place long-term."
"Only one way to find out!" Mikey broke in, shifting his weight impatiently. "C'mon, let's get moving, it's cold out here!"
Leo sighed. "All right, all right. Headsets on, guys." He pulled his headset out of one of the pouches in his belt and slipped it on, and his brothers followed suit. "Don, you've got point - let us know as soon as you find out anything new. Mikey, watch his back." They both nodded at the orders, and Leo continued. "Raph, I want you outside, keeping an eye on the perimeter. If anyone leaves or arrives, I want to know about it."
"Keepin' me away from temptation, huh?" Raph asked dryly, raising a brow ridge.
"That, and you're the best at breaking through anything that gets in your way if things go wrong," Leo pointed out crisply.
Raph considered this for a moment, then gave a short nod. "True," he conceded, then gave Leo a questioning look. "Speaking of which, what's the plan if things do go wrong?"
"Take down as many of them as necessary for all of us to get out safely, then regroup and leave the rest for the authorities to handle," Leo answered without hesitation, before his mouth quirked in a wry smile. "Of course, that depends on just how things go wrong. Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy, after all. We might need to destroy the weapons on the way out - Donnie, you got anything that can manage that?"
Don just patted the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and grinned, his goggles making the expression more ominous than usual. "I think I've got a few things in here that'll do the trick."
"Of course you do," Leo murmured blandly as Mikey snickered at him and gave Don's head an affectionate rub, which Don tolerated with good grace. "Silly question. All right, let's get going."
They silently crossed over to the next roof, moving slowly to give Don more time to better analyse the target warehouse as they drew nearer. After a few long moments, Don murmured a quiet update on the gang's numbers - closer to twenty, including the eight or so guards around the outside of the warehouse - and confirmed that there was no active surveillance. He gave the all-clear, and one by one they leapt over to the roof of the occupied warehouse and gathered at the edge of the dusty, grime-covered skylight.
The grime and dirt coating the glass prevented them from making out much detail of what was going on below, but they could at least see the vague shapes of almost a dozen people milling around a couple of large moving vans parked in the middle of the floor. Some of the people were loading crates into the vans, and more crates were stacked haphazardly around the walls of the warehouse.
One thing was clear though - whoever this gang was, they didn't look like Purple Dragons.
When they'd all had a good look at what they could see of the warehouse's interior, Don set about silently working open one of the skylight windows while the others kept watch. It didn't take him long, and once it was loose, Raph held it open while the others slipped through. Leo was the last one, and he paused for a moment to rest his hand on Raph's shoulder before he swung himself through the window and landed soundlessly on a support beam inside. Raph eased the window closed again, then ghosted off to the edge of the roof to keep an eye on the gang members around the outside of the warehouse.
The three turtles inside the warehouse lurked in the shadows near the ceiling, spreading out and carefully slinking along the support beams until they could get to the catwalks lower down. Now that they were inside and closer, they could get a better look at the gang members. They seemed a mismatched lot, with no apparent theme in the way they dressed. And despite the crates of alien-based weaponry they were loading into the vans, none of them were armed with any of said weaponry. Their equipment tended towards the more normal thug fare - pipes and crowbars, chains and knives.
Leo gradually worked his way along to the far end of the warehouse, trying to find someone who looked like they were in charge amongst the thugs below. Don and Mikey had gone the other way, likewise trying to spot anyone who seemed important.
But if there was anyone like that around, they weren't out on the floor amongst the goons loading the vans. Trying to find out anything useful via eavesdropping was also proving to be less than fruitful; apart from the occasional gripe about having to move the heavy crates around, the thugs weren't being particularly talkative. The stacks of crates around the sides of the warehouse were gradually diminishing, and the trucks were filling up.
Outside, Raph was getting bored and impatient. He silently circled the roof, checking on the guards posted at each corner, but they were doing nothing of interest. "Anything yet?" he murmured over the headset, idly flexing his hands to keep them warm and limber in the night's chill.
"Nothing yet," Leo replied, his voice whisper-quiet. "Don, Mikey?"
"Nothing of interest so far, but there's a room in this corner I want to check out," Don murmured. "It looks like an office of some sort. I think it's a safe bet that whoever's in charge would be holed up all nice and cozy-like in there."
Raph let out a faint snort. "Figures." He went back to prowling around the rooftop, occasionally pausing to listen. He could hear the occasional murmur of words over the headset as Don snuck into a position where he could see into the inner room and described what he could make out to Leo and Mikey. It didn't really interest or concern Raph, so he mostly tuned it out and focused instead on his surroundings.
After a few minutes, the sound of an engine drawing nearer caught Raph's attention, and he dropped down into a low crouch and moved across the roof towards it. The first thing he saw was the glow of headlights approaching, reflecting off the walls of the surrounding warehouses.
Then a gaudily painted muscle car turned off the narrow road that led between the clustered buildings and pulled up by the side of the warehouse's main doors. The engine cut out, and four figures exited the vehicle. Raphael recognised at least two of them; major players in the ranks of the Purple Dragons. The other two also looked vaguely familiar, in a generic Purple Dragon lackey sort of way, and they carried boxy looking briefcases with them.
"We got Dragons here," Raph hissed into his headset, his eyes never leaving the gangsters as they halted just outside the warehouse doors.
"A couple of the new guys just left the inner room," Don added, just as a small group of thugs emerged from the building to meet the Dragons, and the group began talking.
Even though Raph wasn't close enough to clearly hear what they were saying, there was no doubt who was in charge of the situation. "Four of them, an' I recognise two of Hun's top boys. Looks like they're here to make a deal for those guns."
"Roger that," Leo murmured back. "See if you can get a good look at whoever the Dragons are talking to."
Raphael just grunted softly in reply and crept along the edge of the roof, trying to get a better view of the people below while still remaining out of sight himself. Before he could get a decent look though, the group moved back inside the warehouse. "Damn, they've gone back in."
"I see 'em," Mikey's voice broke in quietly over the headsets. "Man, I'm not sure who's uglier - our old Dragon buddies or these new guys."
"Mikey…" Leo murmured reprovingly.
Mikey just replied with a faint snicker before continuing. "I don't recognise any of the new guys - I don't think they're any of the thugs or lowlifes we've encountered before." He paused for a moment. "They look almost… military."
"Bishop's men, maybe?" Don murmured back. "We haven't seen or heard anything from Bishop for months - maybe this is what he's been up to."
"It's possible," Leo replied, though he sounded doubtful. "But it doesn't make much sense. Why would Bishop be selling weapons to the Dragons?"
"Maybe he's strapped for cash," Mikey suggested. "Or they might not be related to Bishop at all - they could just be, like, a military unit gone rogue. Disillusioned by the current leadership and striking out on their own!"
"You've been readin' too many comic books, Mikey," Raph commented sourly, ignoring Mikey's huff of protest. "Doesn't really matter who they are right now. What's goin' on in there anyway?"
"They've just about finished loading the vans," Leo said quietly as he moved along the catwalk he was perched on to get a better view of the front of the warehouse. Below, the footsteps and movements of the gang members echoed hollowly, now that there were no longer any crates against the walls to dampen the sound.
"Looks like they're confirming the deal," Don added from his vantage point. "The Dragons have handed over what I'm assuming is the cash, and the other guys have just given the Dragons what I'm guessing are the keys to the trucks."
"We should jump 'em now, before they can leave," Raph suggested impatiently, resisting the urge to pace along the edge of the roof.
"Not yet," Leo replied sharply, then had to fall silent as one of the goons below apparently heard something and looked upwards suspiciously. Leo remained completely still, confident that he was well hidden enough that nobody would spot him, but he didn't want to risk being overheard again.
Meanwhile the two Dragon thugs had taken the keys and gotten into the driver's seat of the two trucks, and the interior of the warehouse was suddenly reverberating with the sounds of their engines starting up. The other two Dragons went back outside and got into the muscle car, starting it up as well. Its headlights flicked back on, and then it maneuvered its way around to face out towards the road.
The two trucks eased forward out of the warehouse, their own headlights cutting bright paths through the night's darkness outside, and lined up one behind the other. Once they were in position, the gaudy muscle car led the way, turning right onto the narrow road that led between the clustered warehouses. The trucks followed, one after the other, the sound of their engines echoing between the buildings as they turned onto the road and gradually accelerated.
"I'm goin' after them," Raph growled into his headset.
"Hold position, Raph!" Leo's voice crackled back in reply, still quiet but decidedly heated.
"There's no time for your overcautiousness, Leo," Raph replied sharply, already moving as he leapt to the next warehouse roof, following the trucks. "I ain't lettin' them get away with those weapons!"
"Raph, wait-" But the rest of Leo's words were lost as the driver of one of the trucks revved the engine, and Raphael had no intention of letting the Purple Dragons get away with their haul. He moved swiftly, his hand dipping into his belt and flicking out again to send a pair of shuriken skimming through the air. They hit the front tyre of the truck in the lead, making it blow out and fishtail sideways, out of control. The driver attempted to keep the unwieldy truck upright, but with no success, and it soon tipped over onto its side and skidded along the ground.
The second truck was following too closely; it had no time to stop and no room to maneuver as the first truck went over and blocked the narrow road. The second truck rammed into the first with a desperate squeal of brakes and a crunch of metal against metal, followed by the grating shriek of metal against pavement as its momentum pushed the first truck further along the road before finally grinding to a halt.
Up ahead, the car screeched to a stop, accompanied by startled shouting and swearing. More shouting was coming from the thugs in and around the warehouse, and a few of them rushed out of the building and towards the crashed trucks. The drivers of the two trucks clambered out and stumbled off to the side, shaken and unsteady. Raph ignored them and sped over the rooftops to get around the Dragons that'd got out of the muscle car, then dropped down behind them and felled them both with swift blows from the pommels of his sai.
He hadn't gone completely unnoticed though - some of the other thugs had seen him, silhouetted by the muscle car's headlights, and shouted a warning to the others. Raph growled and charged, determined to drop them and clear the way for his brothers to get out.
Back in the warehouse, Leo was resisting the urge to curse at Raph's rashness. He quickly drew his own shuriken out of his belt and sent them flying, each one taking out one of the lights inside the warehouse and plunging the area into sheltering darkness. Even more confused shouts echoed through the warehouse in response to the shattering of the lights, and Leo used the noise and the darkness to silently drop down to the floor and knock out the thugs closest to him, his swords still sheathed safely on his back. He began working his way towards the doors, and swore quietly as he caught a glimpse of the crashed vehicles outside.
"Don, get to those trucks and do whatever you need to do to take care of those weapons. Once that's done, we're all out of here," Leo ordered over the headsets. "Mikey and I will keep you clear."
"Got it," Don confirmed briefly, already moving towards the warehouse doors as he drew his bo staff out of its sheath on his back. He stuck to the deepest shadows to avoid being seen, and deftly knocked out any of the thugs that came too close to him on his way out of the warehouse. Mikey wasn't far behind Don, and Leo soon caught up with him. The three of them darted through the warehouse doors and dashed towards the trucks, avoiding the patches of light that still shone from the vehicles' headlights.
Not that it seemed to matter much - there were very few people left standing between them and the trucks, and even as Leo knocked out one, he saw another go down as a familiar figure charged out of the shadows at them. A moment later, Raphael swung around to join them, falling in beside Leo. Leo shot him a heated glare, which Raph returned defiantly, but neither said anything for the moment.
As they ran, Don sheathed his bo staff again and fished around in his duffel bag, then pulled out a couple of odd metallic discs. He tossed one at the nearest truck when they got close to it, and it attached to the metal with a dull clang and began beeping. "Keep going!" he called to the others even as he continued running and tossed the second disc at the crashed truck, where it stuck to the truck's exposed undercarriage. "We should leave now!"
"Right behind you!" Leo replied, following Don and Mikey as they leapt up onto one of the trucks and used it to reach the roof of the nearest building. Raph followed right behind Leo, and within moments they were up on the roof and leaping onto the next building.
Behind them, the metal discs that Don had planted beeped faster until they hit a solid tone, and then detonated with a brief, eye-searing flash of light and a short pulse of energy. The headlights of the trucks and the muscle car went out simultaneously, but there were no explosions, no flames, no visible damage.
"Uhh…" Mikey started, glancing back over his shoulder. "What just happened?"
"Electro-magnetic pulse… of a sort," Don replied as the four of them continued loping away across the warehouse rooftops. "Something I've been tinkering with lately. The pulse will have completely fried all the electronics in those guns - and anything else within the blast radius - turning them into pretty, useless paperweights."
"Nice!" Mikey gave Don an approving thumbs-up. "No collateral damage, no setting things on fire, very nice!" He looked over at Leo and Raph. "Wouldn't you agree?"
"We wouldn't have had to use them in the first place if someone had just listened to me," Leo said flatly, his gaze remaining straight ahead and his shoulders tense with restrained irritation. Raph growled in response, but before he could say anything Leo continued, ignoring him. "But we'll discuss that later, once we're back at the Lair. Splinter will be waiting for us." He sped up, forcing the others to speed up as well to keep up and cutting any more conversation off short.