Sargeant Egbert hated departmental meetings. Ever since bodies began showing up in and along the sewers, they were being called at least twice a week. He shows up five minutes late holding his third cup of coffee from the rec room that morning, hoping to dear God that he wasn't walking into another three-hour lecture from one of those 'tough on crime' types from the Central Attorney's Office.

To the blurry eyed sargeant's good fortune, he quickly pieces together that today's meeting was being handled by his long time chumps since his days in the academy, Detective Lalonde and Detective Strider. Behind them on the projector screen is a map of New York City with the layout of the sewers highlighted in blue. Strider stands by the map with his red marker at the ready, while Lalonde addresses the audience made up of police officers, detectives from Homicide, and undercover agents wearing disquises that ranged from the ever- popular '80s interpretation of street thugs to everyday janitors and the fine female officers of the ongoing prostitution bust. Egbert shifts his chair around, trying to get a better visual of Sargeant Debbie Bryant's epic rack in that halter top. On second thought, this might not be so bad after all.

"Now, there have been a total of five sewer-related incidents of assault and or murder reported to the police since May the sixth, of this year." Lalonde says. She nods at Strider who then draws a big red 'X' over the exact locations where the murders took place. "That was three months ago and it's been a tough case to crack ever since. However, Strider and I have as of yesterday come across new information." Lalonde clicks a button on the remote to switch to the next slide, showing mugshots of the man in the weird costume who was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder yesterday.

Egbert nudges the elbow of an officer dressed in a cheap Captain Jack Sparrow costume bought from a local Party Mart for the recently conceived Piracy bust. "I helped bring him in." He brags.

"This man was discovered at the scene of the most recent attack. We believe there may be others like him, living in or around the sewers." Lalonde drones on.

Looking down at her, Egbert couldn't help but appreciate how cute Lalonde is. Definitely not your average female cop, that's for sure - thin, blonde, delicately featured - and oh, she had the sweetest little lips. Half the time he couldn't even understand what she was saying but wowzers, the way her lips moved was simply magical. Still, what could he do when her partner Strider was always around? Word on the grapevine was that they were a couple and hell if he was going to make any moves on the woman of Veteran Homicide Detective David Strider. She was way out of ambitionless patrolman Egbert's league anyway and he knew it.

"Sargeant Egbert." She suddenly calls his name, jarring the hapless daydreaming virgin back to reality.

"Yes, sir?" He blurts out and does a salute, earning a few chuckles from the other officers.

"You're being assigned to the team handling the Sewer case." She repeats herself, totally unamused. "We believe you're well acquainted with what we're dealing with here, and could lend some valuable eyes and ears to the investigation."

"Sooo, who's leading the charge on this one?" Egbert asks, squinting in wait of the S-word.

Detective Rose Lalonde crosses her arms. "As was stated, I will be heading this investigation."

Egbert puts a hand to his mouth, barely able to contain his excitement. Just he and Lalonde all by themselves he thought, not at that time realizing teams are usually made up of more than two individuals. What a dweeb.

...

Donatello unplugs the cable box and plugs it back in but the television screen remains darkened.

"This piece of shit still isn't working." He complains, unaware of the fact that the power cord had been cut during last night's fighting. "We could be watching Cops right now."

"Shut up, Donnie." Raphael groans, rubbing the fresh bruise on his head that was partially covered by an ice pack. He is laying down on the sofa, taking up its full length. "Just fix the cable box and go do your nerd stuff somewhere else."

Donnie glares at him, but doesn't say anything back. Instead, he'll probably even the score by getting a little crazy with the baking soda next time they sniffed a line together. Speaking of illegal narcotics...

"If Mikey doesn't get back with our dope real soon, he'll be the one in a lot of pain." Leo says, hopelessly fingering through the remnants of a once mighty joint in the ashtray next to the lounge chair. He glances at pizza boxes strewn across the living room floor. He picks one up and wistfully throws it open. To his pleasure, there was one slice of Anchovie Supreme left over. "Do you think that Sam chick got home alright?" He asks then takes a huge bite from the cold yet suspiciously moist slice of pizza. Take note, kids - it probably isn't a good idea to eat a slice of pizza you find lying on the ground in the sewers.

"Who cares." Raphael snarls and winces from another jolt of pain courtesy of his head wound. "Damn, that hurts." Donatello suppresses a snicker.

"She seemed like a nice girl is all." Leonardo reflects, a slimey string of mozarella cheese connecting his mouth to the bitemark on the pizza.

"The kind of girl I'd like to get under my shell all day every day if you know what I'm saying." Raphael says with a devilish grin then laughs, wincing again. "It mostly hurts when I laugh."

Donatello snickers. "I'm sure any girl would be just as good for you, Raph."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Raphael hollers while the other two laugh. Peeved, the raging reptile instinctively reaches for the nearest ashtray but his fingers fail to procure even the pettiest puffable object. This was his fourth time reaching and finding nothing to smoke today, each time dying a little more inside. "This is beginning to really bum me out."

"Don't worry, Mikey should be back soon." Leonardo reassures him, although in his mind he of course had his doubts. It was Michaelangelo - there was always a slightly higher than normal chance that something might go wrong.

"Yeaaah, 'don't worry' and 'Mikey' don't go so well together." Raphael says, unconsciously bringing voice to the leader's worries.

Suddenly the doorbell rings, nearly making the turtles out of their shells. Could it be that an angel has finally arrived to replenish their depleted stash of beloved bulging burnables? "It's April." The girl at the door calls, rolling her eyes when she hears the obligatory chorus of groans respond from inside. "Still waiting on Mikey?"

Donatello opens the door a crack and once confirming April's identity, allows her passage.

"Mikey would usually be back by now." Leonardo says as Raphael sits up to give April room on the sofa. Donatello tries to coolly slip in beside the attractive redhead.

"Did you pass the skate park on your way here?" Donatello asks with a cracking voice. If a turtle of the teenage mutant ninja variety or otherwise could have sweaty palms, he'd have them right now.

"Yeah. I didn't see him there." She answers, shrugging. "And really, it's kind of hard to miss a skateboarding turtle."

Now the turtles were starting to get worried. Mikey always went to the skatepark on Mondays to hit up the lowbrow dealers that based their operations there; always on the lookout for an impressionable kid aiming to become the next Tony Hawk. Even he would have no trouble fighting through those losers if things got hairy. Or, you know, if they decided to overprice him or if he just didn't feel like coughing any cash up that day for what often only amounted to bundles of easily available Italian cooking herbs. After all, who's going to be bothered about drug dealers that hang around a children's skate park getting the snot kicked out of them? Mondays were a sweet deal for the turtles so they could not imagine how he would possibly screw things up.

"I'll try contacting him on the T-phone." Donatello announces, taking a palm-sized circular flip phone with a cover with a design that resembled a turtle shell. Of course. Donatello somehow manages to punch in the right keys and dial Mikey's number despite having incredibly, cartoonishly large fingers. He holds the ingeniously named T-phone up to his uhh...ear hole and waits. It is a while before somebody finally picks up.

"What's wrong, Donnie?" Leonardo asks, noticing his brother's face turn a slightly paler shade of green.

Donatello switches it to speaker, so the others could hear. Whoever picked up the phone was definitely not Mikey. Whoever it is, they had a message for them.

A voice with a thick New York accent - the screeching of nails against a chalkboard would be more preferable - crackles through the small speaker. "We have your brother, and will return him to you if you bring the seven grand that you owe us, in cash, to the pier at ten'o'clock tonight." The turtles exchange disbelieving glances. The voice of somebody in the background, evidently with a terrible lisp, breaks through, saying "Yesss, bring ussss ssssseven thoussssand in casssssh to the pier, at sssseven - I mean, ten." But, the man with the hideous accent was not finished yet. He was yet to make his most hideous demand of all. "Oh and uh, bring some tawtle soup. I promised my boys we'd have some tonight one way or another."

"Fuck you, pal!" Raphael shouts at the phone, compelling Leo and April to attempt to restrain him.

"Ah, what was that boys? You don't think you can hold off until dinnertime? You're hungry right now?" The voice taunts. A dopey sounding "No I'm not" slips through followed by a firm "Shut it, ya meathead" from the threatening New Yorker. Haha sorry, calling him that was a bit redundant.

"Okay, okay. You've got yourself a deal. We'll be there." Leonardo says, surprising the turtles and April. "Where the heck are you gonna get that much money?" Donatello asks in a whisper with his hand over the mouthpiece. Leonardo shakes his head and flashes his fist to the delight of Raphael, who always approved of the most violent course of action in any situation.

"Glad we could work this thing out all peaceful like. And you better not think of trying anything funny neither because there are five of us but only three of you." The voice adds threateningly. "Remember: pier, ten, bring tawtle soup and seven grand or else we's gonna eat your brother with a side of chow mein." After that, the call disconnects.

The turtles sit down in silence for a moment to let it all sink in. What made today different from any other day? Why weren't they swimming in marijuana right now? Who were the clowns that somehow got ahold of Michaelangelo, and what did he mean by the turtles owing them seven grand? There wasn't a lot of time to think - it was already six.

"They must be from the skatepark, finally cracking down on collecting all that dope money we owe them." Donatello infers aloud, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "But I didn't think they were any gangs operating in that area. Is there one we didn't know about, that we've actually been stealing from all this time?"

"Hey, Donnie." Raph says.

"What is it?"

"Fix the damn TV will ya?" Raph growls, thumping his fist against the sofa's springy armrest.

While Donnie begrudgingly resumes his misguided efforts on getting the TV to work, April gives Leonardo a fiery look.

"I'm coming with you guys." She says with finality. "I haven't gone out in a while."

"Are you sure about this? They might have guns." Leonardo warns her, but April remains resolved.

"Relax." She says, leaning back in the sofa comfortably. "Even if they have guns, they sound like a bunch of idiots."