Disclaimer: No own… No sue… No problem…

Another chapter up, go me! Three should be up later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Sharpshooter

Chapter Two

Something was wrong. He wasn't sure what but something was definitely wrong. He looked around the rooftop he had stopped on but didn't see any enemy. His brothers were all back in the lair, choosing to watch a movie marathon then going topside to bash some heads, so he knew they weren't playing Man Hunt with him.

Yet he knew someone was watching him.

"Hey Raph!" He looked at Casey who was standing on the roof he had been preparing to jump to before he felt that someone was watching him. The mask vigilante was the only other person he could see nearby. He looked around again as his buddy yelled, "What's the hold up?!"

Cautiously, he jumped over to stand next to his human friend. "Something's watching us," he said in a low voice, hoping to not alert whoever it was that he was on to them. "Not sure where they are or even who it is but something definitely watching us."

"You sure," Casey flipped his hockey mask up and looked around. "Raph," he said after a moment of fruitless looking. "We're the only ones up here."

Raphael shook his head back and forth. There was something out there, he just knew it. He wasn't good at 'sensing' things like Leo and Don but he knew that there was something out there. Something bad. If he was a dog, he knew his hackles would be up and a growl would be coming from his throat. "Casey," he said at length. "We're calling it a night."

"Dude! You're going to let a bad feeling spoil our fun?"

"Yeah. Let's get you home."

"You don't need to baby-sit me!"

Raphael knew that Casey could handle himself in most fights but there was just something about leaving him alone out in the open tonight that worried him. He didn't like it. "Whatever. Get moving."

"Awww man," he friends moaned as he started for the other side of the roof they were on. Casey would have rather stay out beating up punks and Foot ninjas but he had never seen Raphael act like he was. Though he was trying to appear tough, the turtle was acting almost skittish and that sent a chill down Casey's spine. Raph wasn't afraid of anything. "You ruin all my fun."

Almost a mile away, a lone figure was laying on her stomach on a roof in the shadow of a small shed. A breeze pushed at the figure and only succeeded in making a few of the loose hairs on the thick black braid to flap around and rustling the coat. In a barely noticeable movement, Sensei followed the turtle and human as they made their way across the rooftops.

It would have been easy to pull the trigger right then and there but Artemis stayed her hand. This was purely a reconnaissance mission to verify the information she had found and received. She was the best because she rarely fired off random shoots and alerted her targets to her presences unnecessarily.

Silently and patiently, she watched as the two reached the human's apartment and the man slipped inside. The turtle seemed to tell him something that the man disagreed with. After a quick and heated debate, the man slammed the pane down and the turtle headed for the manhole cover in the alley next to the building. He vanished into the sewers and Artemis sighed, disappointed that she hadn't learned anything more. At least I know they live in the sewers, she thought to herself.

He crouched down next to a pile of refuse and listen to the near silence of the night, trying to pinpoint any threat in the area. Yup, something was definitely there. Raphael had been right. There was some kind of new threat in the city.

His eyes slowly ran over the piles of junk surrounding him and up on the buildings around the junkyard. It was just as Raphael had said the previous night when he had came home winded and just generally spooked. You could senses danger yet there was nothing nearby. He listened closely to his surroundings but other then the faint roar of the city and a frog croaking nearby it was silent.

It had just been a quick trip up to the junkyard that Donatello hadn't thought to tell anyone of where he was going. He needed one last piece to finish his latest project and he knew right where it was. Even as he crouched there he could see the fuse pack sitting on a pile less then ten feet from him.

However, that meant he had ten feet of completely open space. There was no cover and he would be out in the open for a good twenty two point five four seconds. Something about that made him rethink his plan. Whatever was out there would definitely see him.

Yet his project just needed that last component to be complete. When you lived in a sewer you realized how vital it was to have waterproofed everything. Donatello waterproofed most everything in the lair except for the back up generator which he was always fussing with to keep in good working order. A hassle that had grown tiresome lately and needed to be dealt with swiftly so that other pursuits could be accomplished without the interruptions of the needed repairs.

Now his generator project was almost complete but he couldn't rationalize the lost of his life for a piece of machinery. He turned away from the pile of electronics facing the way home. He was so close yet so far from completing his job. Silently the brainy turtle ducked and weaved through the junk yard heading for the manhole cover he frequently used. He stayed as low as possible and moved swiftly. With every passing second he was above ground his mind urged him to get to cover.

He slid quickly into the manhole cover closing it behind him with a kur-thunk. He landed in the ankle deep water and paused, listening to see if anything was above him near the manhole. After a full minute he turned away frowning. Raph had said that the minute he was below ground he was safe and nothing had even tried to follow him home. With a frown Donatello headed towards the lair always checking over his shoulder for any unwanted company.

Up on street level, hiding in the supports of the nearby bridge, Artemis lowered Sensei with a frown. According to all the reading she had done, Donatello loved to explore the junkyard for gadgets and could almost always be found there poking around. Yet he had left before he had even begun to go through the trash. According to the reports they're mutated turtles. It could be that their animal instincts are alerting them to danger.

A sly smile twisted across her face. That just makes it more of a challenge.

And more fun…

The only movement on the rooftop was the dust being pushed about in the gentle breeze. The peacefulness was lost to him as a feeling of impending doom loomed in the air around them. His let his eyes close and used his other senses to try and sense the threat but he couldn't sense anything. Anything that was nearby, anyways.

He opened his eyes and looked out over the city. Both Raph and Don had been right, there was something new in the city. New and dangerous, especially for them. He watched the city lights for a moment before turning away.

"Any luck?" his younger brother asked. He was perched on a ventilation fan nearby keeping a look out. When Don had came back to the lair after a quick trip to the junkyard jumping at every little noise he had decided that it was time to figure out what this new threat was and how to best neutralize it.

Leonardo had split them into two recon teams. Donatello and Raphael had the East side while he and Mikey had taken the West. They had been on the look for this new threat and despite a threatening feeling in the air there was nothing out of the ordinary.

"No," he replied to Mikey as he thoughtfully put his hand to his chin. "It just doesn't make sense."

"I know what you mean. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end screaming 'hide before it gets you' but I don't see anything." The youngest turtle fidgeted with the nunchaku in his hands. "It's really creepy."

Leo opened his mouth to reply only to have his shell cell begin to ring. Michelangelo jumped a good three feet in the air and let out a high pitch scream which showed Leo how on edge he was. He answered the phone as he watched Mikey hold his chest panting as if he had just ran a marathon. "Yeah?"

"Nothing," Raphael's voice reported over the phone. "The goggles aren't picking up anything. There isn't even a creepy feeling in the air."

"Well, at least now we know whatever it is it's on the West side."

"But the junkyard's over here."

"So it moves?"

"Most likely," Don's voice suddenly came over the phone and Leonardo could nearly picture his genius brother listening to the conversation from over Raph's shoulder. "So that rules out any form of surveillance sensors."

"Geez Don," Raph groaned. "Try and deafen me why don'tcha?"

Leo smiled briefly, he had been right. The smile quickly vanished as the more serious question came up. "So what is it?"

There was a brief scuffle as the phone was handed over and Leo heard Raph tell Don to take the phone. "It's hard to say," Don was clearly holding the phone now because his voice was much clearer and louder then it had been. "Considering all the alien technology Shredder has acquired it could be anything. We're going to need more information to figure out what this thing is."

Leo sighed, he had been afraid of that. He had hoped that they would just be able to find a sensor or some other form of devices and put and end to this whole fiasco by kicking it off a building but if this thing was moving around then it could be any number of things. All of which he hoped weren't true. "Alright," he said at length. "What are we looking for?"

"Honestly? I have no idea, Leo," there was a soft sigh from the other end and Leo could understand Donnie's frustration. Rarely did his genius of a brother like to say anything even remotely close to 'I don't know'. "We need to find a clue or even whatever it is itself. There's not enough information to put together a logical explaination or even hypothesizes what this thing is."

"Then we'll find it," Leo said with determination. A familiar feeling of protectiveness filled him when he realized that he had to strike before this thing struck his family. "Right now we know it's over here. You and Raph swing up to the north and Mikey and I will head south. Keep in touch and stick to the shadows." He looked up at the sky line of the city, "Keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary." He found his eyes drawn to one part of the skyline in particular. His eyes bore into the building before adding, "And be careful." Even after hearing his brother sign off and flipping his own phone shut, Leo's eyes held that spot.

"Whatcha looking at?" Mikey's voice finally broke him out of his revere and he looked at his little brother who had come to stand next to him, peering over his shoulder and squinting his eyes as though it would help him to see what his brother was looking at.

Leo sighed and turned away. "Nothing."

As the two turtles headed south over the rooftops Artemis lowered her rifle with a frown. It had been like he had known where she was laying in wait. She had never had someone standing over a mile from her look right back at her through her own scope. To say she had been slightly unnerved was an understatement.

What had really sent a chill down her spine had been the mutant's eyes. The mask did and admirable job of making him appear menacing and intimidating but through the high power scope she could stare into his eyes. They were pools of deep thought, clouded over with a sense of justice and tinted with protectiveness. They reminded her of a mother bear see had seen once in a zoo with a cub. She was glaring at the visitors that stood above it on the walkway, leaning on the railing as if challenging them to get closer to her infant.

He was the most dangerous one she decided as she slithered back from the ledge. She stood and twisted Sensei around so that it rested with the tip of its barrel down near her left, the main chambers resting in the small of her back and the shoulder rest just barely peeking over her shoulder. She tightened the strap that crossed over her chest before walking away. As she neared the opposite edge of the building she reached into one of her belt pouches and pulled out a pair of suko spikes. Which she fit over her gloves seconds before she seemingly jumped of the edge of the building.

Just as the roof past her head, Artemis reached out and weakly dragged the tips of the suko spikes on the concrete. There wasn't enough power to stop her fall but it was enough to send back into towards the building. She landed with a dull thump on the window ledge below the roof. Again she leaped off the ledge and proceeded in that manner descending from her perch.

Ten stories later instead of leaping down, Artemis used a nearby flag pole to bounce over the street and land lightly on another building nearby. Then she was off running, leaping, and flipping over the concrete jungle. The suko spikes were used to slow her descent and help to give her and extra boast when climbing over obstacles. Sometimes they were lightly dragged over a surface to help her angle herself into better positions for advancement towards her goal.

She was soon kneeling on a roof of the building on the opposite side of the street that her goal rested on. The Second Time Around Antique Shop was as dark and quiet as the apartment above it. April O'Neil was another human promenade human companion to the turtles. There were reports of other human allies like a group of homeless men and a teenaged girl with pink hair but April and Casey seemed to have special ties to them.

That was the whole reason why she was there in the first place. Information was the key to her success for a reason she was methodical and rarely ever did anything on impulse. Silently as a ghost she bounded across the street and easily undid the lock on the window. She slid into the apartment and paused listening. From the other room she could hear gentle, steady breathing. Perfect.

From her belt she drew a small, thin rectangular object that looked like a PEZ dispenser with no articulated head on it. Pushing her finger forward along the top of the devices, she stopped when a small black disc -barely the size of a dime- began to emerge from the end. Place the tip of the black disc underneath the molding of the window sill she dragged the tip and pushed the side of her finger along the top of the rectangle. The small circular device was left in its wake.

She went around the apartment staying low and listening for any sounds from the bedroom. She liberally place the small microphones through out the kitchen and living room area. She left both the bathroom and bedroom untouched. Listening in on 'private activities' was something she didn't want to have any part in. She even took the time to slip one of her bugs into the seam of a jacket that was thrown over the arm of the couch. Just before she slipped out the window she checked a small PDA to make sure that all of her bugs were functioning perfectly.

She closed and relocked the window behind her before she headed home for the night. Her mind began going through a list of thing s she would need to do the following morning. She knew that the confrontation with the turtles was fast approaching. She moved the reinforced arm bands to the top of her list as well as cleaning her current weapons. Even thought they had yet to be fired, the wind was blowing dust into them as she lay still in the darkness for hours. She decided that if she had some free time the following day, she would call her favorite massage therapist. After all, she should be treated as well as she treated her weapons so she could stay in top condit-

She sighed in exasperation when she realized she was being followed.