The early rays of morning peeked through the tall windows that lined the hall, casting it's warm, orange and yellow rays along the fine red carpet. As the morning slowly progressed, the rays stretched further, touching Phoenix with their warmth were she knelt outside the huge double doors. Faithfully, she had knelt there since returning home the previous night. She had been told to wait when she wished to enter to tell her Master of her encounter with the two youngest turtles. Like a well-trained hound she had waited, fighting sleep and hunger.

The sun was fully up, higher in the sky than the skyscrapers when a servant passed her in the hall with a tray of food. She entered the double doors with no hesitation while Phoenix still waited. The sun climbed a bit higher by the time the servant came out with the empty tray. "He'll see you now." She said as she passed.

Phoenix tried to rise swiftly, but her legs were stiff from kneeling for so long and she was forced to take a second to stretch. A second was all she dared take though. While she was made to wait all through the night and most of the morning, she dared not make her Master wait more than the time it took to stand. Once in the room, she immediately took up a kneeling position again, her joints screaming as they bent once more. "Master." She said simply in greeting, waiting for him to continue the conversation.

"You returned earlier than expected. Why?"

She hesitated a moment, wanting to smooth over the fact that she had grown careless while on her mission. "I dropped my guard for a few moments and was found by two of the turtles."

"Careless. What happened?"

"It was the two youngest, the orange one and the red one." She never used their names around her Master. To him, they had no names and she learned early on that using them would only get her a swift backhand. "I played the pitiful servant and put more doubt in the orange one's mind. I think it just made the red one angrier. He... Challenged me to a fight and I ran away."

Master was silent for a while and she waited, eyes down. A terrible fear that he was angry with her, angry enough to punish her, started creeping up her spine. She shivered, recalling some of the earlier punishments as a child. The Dark Box was the worst. It wasn't physical punishment, but mental. She had stolen the figurine of a dog off of a shelf once when she was still very young, still new under her Master's care, and playing with it accidentally broke one of the ears off. That's when she was put in the box. A pitch black steel box, small enough she had to sit with her knees pulled to her chest and her head bowed forward. Two days she had been left in there, until she was covered in her own sweat and couldn't cry any more. Brought to her Master, he had explained to her in a very kind, loving voice that stealing from him was wrong, that it was only right to steal from the other greedy people in the world. Then he had fed her, and held her as she cried and apologized.

"You did well with the turtles. But since you were careless enough to be caught on their grounds and not your own, you will get no reward." Phoenix relaxed, letting her shoulders slump just a little as her Master's voice softened. "Now rest, Phoenix. Your mission continues tomorrow."

"Yes Master." She said, rising once more and bowing low before turning to leave. Once outside with the double door securely closed, she sighed. It wouldn't do to let her guard fall like that again. From now on, she'd have to be extra careful. If she failed, if she was the cause of her Master's plans falling short, she knew it could very well mean the end of her life. She had come close to death once as a child, and even now she wasn't sure she was ready for that final rest.

Back straight and head high, she returned to her room. He said she had done well with the turtles, she'd dwell on that instead of her mistake. No use filling herself with doubt. That would only lead to future mistakes, causing her to ignore the instincts her Master helped mold. No, it was just one careless mistake that would not happen again. She would rest, then return to the streets again that night. Everything was going as planned.

Raphael attacked the punching bag furiously, his eyes focused straight ahead, unaware of his surroundings. Almost a week had passed since he and Mikey had run into Phoenix on the rooftop and they had seen no sign of her since. He was frustrated, angry. He would never admit it to his brothers, but he was starting to doubt himself. Starting to doubt his abilities as a ninja, his ability to track and find his target. She always seemed to be just one step ahead of them, and sometimes he swore he caught a faint scent of cinnamon on this rooftop, or down that alley. But Phoenix was never there.

"Damn!" He yelled, kicking the punching bag with enough force that it finally tore free from the hook in the ceiling and went flying a good distance across the room. "Where da hell is she?"

"Is this a bad time?"

Raphael spun towards the lairs entrance, vaguely noticing Donatello's mouth half open and finger raised, preparing to lecture. April stood with a hand on her hip, a small folder held in the other.

"Of course not April." Leonardo said, stepping towards her. "Just Raph being... Raph. What did you bring us?"

"Something interesting the police are trying to hide from the public about the recent string of robberies in the city." She said, keeping her eyes on Raphael for a moment longer.

Raphael ignored it, taking his sais from his belt and spinning them restlessly in his hands as he paced back and forth. The robberies were her work, he knew. He felt it. Why else would she have been out that night? But who was she working for and why was she doing it? He paced near where April and his brothers had cleared a small spot from one of Donatello's desks, pretending not to listen but focusing on what April said.

"The robberies seemingly have nothing in common, except for two things. One that I don't think the cops put together but that I found interesting enough." She opened her folder and removed several pieces of paper, each with photographs of different store fronts with text underneath. "Every one of the robberies was done where there was some sort of link to criminal activity."

"A thief stealing from thieves." Donatello muttered thoughtfully. "Very Robin Hood."

"Exactly. Except no one knows where the money went. I researched local charities, homeless shelters, animal shelters, anything I could think of but found no recent donations that would make up for the amounts of money stolen."

They were all quiet for a moment, each thinking about what April had said. Raphael stopped his pacing, looking down at the list of places hit. From first glance, none of them looked even remotely connected. A toy store, hardware store, a general store, a porno shop. He shook his head, secretly admiring April's skill of seeing what most people missed. He supposed it's what made her such a good reporter.

"You said there were two things" Raphael said suddenly, breaking the silence. "What's da other?"

"Right." She turned a page in the folder. "The only real connection that the police have made, is that at each crime scene they found a piece of white cloth with a red and orange embroidered phoenix."

"I knew it!" Raph snapped, flinging a sai across the room to stick in the punching bag that was left lying on the floor where it landed. "I knew she was doin' 'em!"

"You know who's doing the robberies?" April asked, leaning towards Raph.

"Not really." Leonardo responded. "We ran into her once and only know what she's chosen to go by."

"Phoenix." Michelangelo said, almost reverently. "I knew she wasn't all bad! I mean, she's not takin' money from good guys, so that's not all bad, right?"

"What would you call stealin' dat sword, huh, Mikey?" Raph argued. He hated the pained and confused look that came across his younger brother's face, but he kept trying to feed Mikey the truth, so when he learned it for himself he wouldn't be so crushed. Raph didn't believe for a second that Phoenix was good. Maybe not evil, not like The Shredder had been, but she certainly wasn't good.

"She had a reason." Mikey muttered, pouting.

"What do you guys know about her?"

"Nothing much, April." Don answered. "She wears white, calls herself the Phoenix, and is well trained with fighting fans. She wasn't just recently made a ninja. She's been trained well by someone for a long time."

"Any idea who trained her?"

"No." Leo said, shaking his head. "I've described her fighting to Master Splinter, but he just grew quiet and said he must meditate."

"Do you think he has an idea?" April asked, tapping her chin.

"I don't know." Leo said, shaking his head with a sigh. "It's not my place to question."

"That's what she said." Mikey said with a grin.

"What?" Leo and Don said at the same time, eyes snapping to Michelangelo.

"Mikey..." Raph groaned, smacking his forehead.

"What does he mean Raphael?" Leonardo asked.

"Ah, we ran in ta Phoenix last week is what he means. But nothin' happened." He shrugged, trying to play it off like it was nothing even though it still burned him that she ran away. "She ran off."

"That would have been nice to know, Raph." Scolded Leo.

"We didn't learn anythin' from her. What good would it have done?"

"There may be something you're missing. Something about the way she acted that might give a clue as to who she is." April pipped in calmly, trying to break the tension between the two brothers.

"She's good. She knew I was hidin' nearby even though I was dead silent." Raph said. "We also know she's a coward. Took off runnin' when I challenged her."

"April," Donnie turned around in his desk chair, facing April. "Can you do some more digging? Maybe find some businesses that might be just a front for criminal activity? It's a long shot but we might be able to find her based on possible robbery locations."

"That will not be necessary."

All heads turned toward a small room at the very back of their home. It was the only room that had a real door still attached. The door was wide open and in the doorway stood an elderly looking half man, half rat. He stood resting his hands on the top of a cane.

"Master Splinter." Leonardo said.

"My sons. I have been thinking. This kunoichi you have been tracking, she could only have been taught by one man."

"Master Splinter... You don't mean?"

"Yes, Donatello. I am afraid I do. Her fighting style makes her a student of Oroku Saki."

"How can that be?" Raphael burst out, eyes wide with shock. He could see similar looks on the faces of his brothers. "He died. He was crushed by the weight of that dock."

"It is possible she was trained well before, Raphael. Her level of skill shows she has been training for many years."

"But we've never seen her before. Maybe she wouldn't do all the stuff Shredder wanted her to do." Michelangelo suggested, a hopeful look on his face. "She hasn't done anything really bad. Not really."

Raphael shook his head. He had been hoping to spare Mikey from the truth for a little while longer. It was out now though, and his little brother had to face the facts.

"Stealin' isn't right no matter how ya look at it, Mikey. To top it off, she's part of the foot clan." He shook his head. "She knows who we are. She has ta. She's been playin' us from the start."

"So," Donatello began. "What do we do?"

"We wait for her to come to us." Leonard said, facing his family and April. "No more chasing Phoenix. Now, we wait."