A/N: Well, I got very quickly moving on this new chapter thanks to a long weekend and a group of reviewers who seem to be chomping at the bit (much love for you guys!). Enjoy!

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Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo swept through the sewer tunnels towards the source of the alarm. As they rounded the bend before the perimeter station, their eyes met a most unwelcome sight. At least three score of Foot ninja, advancing toward them in neatly arranged ranks. Upon seeing the turtles, the soldiers in the front re-positioned themselves into battle stances, weapons at the ready.

Michelangelo pulled his nunchakus out from his belt and began twirling them experimentally. "Well, Donnie, the good news is, your early warning system went off like it was supposed to. The bad news is, your early warning system went off like it was supposed to."

Donnie shrugged as he positioned his bo for an attack. "Well, Mikey, I guess they could have come at you on the couch, in the middle of one of your video games. What I'd like to know is, how on earth did they even get this close."

Leonardo remained silent as he motioned for his brothers to take up their strategic positions. For just a moment, palpable tension hung in the air, and nothing happened. Then, as one, the deafening battle cries of all filled the tunnel and the turtles and humans rushed at each other with deadly intention.

The turtles fought as a well-oiled machine; in addition to their strength and skills as warriors, they were given the additional edge of fighting on their own turf. Every twist and turn, every small pipe, was known to them. However, these powerful advantages were not enough to overcome the sheer force of numbers. There were at least twenty Foot ninja for each turtle, and they could not easily be shaken off in such close quarters.

As the turtles began to wear down, their enemies pressed closer, as though they could smell exhaustion. Many of the Foot had been taken down; their bodies littered the tunnel floor. However, those remaining, as if on orders, turned in unison on the turtles' leader. Leonardo was holding his own, but even he could not see everywhere at once. A shadow approached behind him, and with lightning speed, he found himself pinned, with a tanto pressing none too gently into his throat, his katanas clattering uselessly to the ground.

The ninja focused his attention on his prisoner's companions. "Drop your weapons," his voice boomed out. Michelangelo's nunchakus swirled to a stop as though acting of their own volition. Next, without hesitation, came the sounds of wood and chains hitting the floor. Donatello's bo followed immediately behind. The remaining ninja, a surprising few, moved to surround the two younger brothers.

All time seemed to stop just then. Leonardo's nostrils took in the tangy mixture of sweat and blood as he observed the looks of horror on his brothers' faces, and the menacing glint of the weapons around him.

A figure emerged from the rear of the ranks. Leonardo narrowed his eyes. Karai. I should have known. The Japanese woman motioned for her ninja to stop. They froze, a picture of restrained impending violence, awaiting further orders.

"Ah, Leonardo. It seems that fate has a sense of irony, and would use it to mock us all. You are hiding something, something very important to me. An animal. A small turtle, in fact. His significance is meaningless to you, and you can avoid much pain and loss by doing as I demand. Give me the turtle."

Karai moved closer, until her face was inches from his. He did not blink, or relinquish his steady glare. "Leonardo," she hissed, "I will play no games here. I am on a very tight deadline, and there is no room for wasted time. Where. Is. He."

He took a breath, deep as he could with the enforced constriction on his throat. He was prepared for it to be his last, if necessary, to protect his brothers and their home.

It was then that Leonardo heard a faint sound. A sound he knew very well. The soft patter of the feet of a large rodent. A rodent who happened to be highly trained in matters of stealth. They might as well have been an insect's legs, as no one else in the tunnel could have ever picked out the whisper of a noise they made. Well, almost no one. Leonardo caught Mikey's eye. He had heard it too, and his eyes had widened. Fixing Mikey with what he hoped was a stern, earnest gaze, Leo shook his head almost imperceptibly, warning his youngest brother not to breathe a word.

The element of surprise was maintained, right up until the moment when a streak of gray came barreling from the shadows and flashed here and there among the evil ninja with deadly force. A split-second later, Leonardo felt the pressure release from the tanto at his throat, its wielder now thoroughly distracted. He wasted no time in joining his brothers and his Sensei in laying waste to the remaining soldiers that had, only moments ago, held the upper hand.

Unconscious and bleeding bodies carpeted the floor, dulling the echoes that normally filled the tunnel. Leonardo could still hear the shouts ringing, lingering, from the intense fighting that had now ceased.

Karai stood, statuesque, among the silent piles of her ninja, her ragged breathing borne more from a smoldering rage than from any previous exertion. She pulled herself together enough to speak.

"This was only a battle, Leonardo. You have no idea of the war that is about to rage upon you. This is but a fraction of the trained warriors that we can bring to you. With just a nod of our heads and a wave of our hands, they will surround you, choke you out, and reach our target. Your home is near, I can sense it. He is there, and we will have him. Would it not be easier, Leonardo, to hand him over to us now, to avoid this pain and suffering that would be unleashed upon you and your brothers? He is but a pet, he means nothing to you."

Splinter gazed quietly upon his oldest son. He would not interject, though the object of Karai's desire was as yet unknown to him.

Leonardo's eyes never left Karai. "You know as well as I, Karai, that what he means to us is irrelevant. It's what he means to you that matters, and what you represent. I would stake my life on it that there is no honor in your goal here, so why should we ever help you achieve it?"

Karai bowed ever so slightly, mockingly. She turned, preparing for her flight. She was now too far for any of the brothers to reach her, thus no one made a move to stop her. Her eyes lingered on the eldest turtle one last time. "Trust me Leonardo, you have staked your life on this." With that, she vanished into the tunnel junction from which her armies had emerged.

Michelangelo looked around at the unmoving forms of the ninja scattered everywhere, then held an imaginary device up to his mouth and ear. "Clean-up on Aisle 4 please."

Donatello snorted as he finally restored his bo staff. "Yeah, if only it were that easy. Just what I feel like doing after a battle, taking…" here his eyes scanned everyone in the area, conscious or otherwise, making an instant calculation, "twenty-two trips to the surface and back, and it's not even my day to take out the garbage!"

Leonardo stopped Michelangelo just as he was about to heave the first unconscious body over his shoulders. "Mikey, we will need your help in a moment, but first, run back to the Lair and make sure our new friend is secure. We need some answers, and he may be able to help us, as long as we don't lose him first."

Splinter regarded Leonardo once more, his eyes searching. "Perhaps, my son, you had better tell me about this 'friend' for whom Karai would set dozens of Foot ninja upon our home."

"Better than that, Master. We can introduce you."

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Raphael had almost given up hope. Many minutes had passed since the sounds of the approaching battle had ceased, and he feared the worst. What cruel fate was this, to finally meet his brothers only to see them dead, or in the hands of the enemy, within hours of the reunion.

Earlier in his desperation over the sudden silence, Raphael had lost all patience with sitting still. He had lifted his claws, allowing himself to fall onto a carpeted area next to the sofa arm. Regaining his composure, he stopped long enough to breathe a silent prayer of thanks that he had landed on his plastron.

Wasting no time, Raphael set off in a beeline for the exit to the tunnel where the battle had been taking place. After what had seemed like a lifetime had passed, he had made it only halfway across the lair's main room. Determination and willpower were in no short supply for Raphael, but in the end he was still just a turtle. If something had happened to his brothers, this was a race that would not be won by slow and steady.

Peachy. Maybe, with any luck, I'll be able to make it to the fight scene before the next scheduled renovation of this section of sewers begins, or before I die of old age, whichever comes first.

Raphael's pessimistic cloud dissipated in the next instant, as Michelangelo came flying into the room, looking much too happy to be bringing news of fallen brothers. He was headed over to the couch, eyes darting around the room, when he almost tripped over Raphael. Looking down, his grin widened until it threatened to consume his face, as he scooped up the little turtle.

"There you are, dude! What, were you trying to come save us or something?" He laughed jovially at his own joke.

Anger rippled through the pool of relief that had washed over Raphael at the sight of his cheerful sibling. He seethed at the innocent teasing. You have no idea how hard this is for me.

His irritation was abated, however, when Michelangelo lifted him to his face, announcing that "Leo said to get you, so we could all talk to you later. Gotta go clean up a mess of whupped Foot ninja first though!"

Mikey leapt over a chair and swept into the nearest bathroom. He gently set the little turtle down into the bathtub and ran the water for a moment, filling about a third of the tub's bottom. "Sorry little bud, but we'll all be back later to getcha." He sprinted away, leaving Raphael to his thoughts.

So everyone's ok? That's a relief… but it ain't a permanent one. They got to figure out she can track me, and she'll keep on tracking me, until the outcome's not so good the next time. Gotta warn them somehow… or maybe it'd be better if I just ran off? Seems like they're working on preventing that though. He looked around the bathtub with its high wall and impossibly smooth surface. Great. Just another day in a cage. And at the hands of my bros, no less.

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Raphael didn't realize he'd fallen asleep in the tub until he awoke to the sounds of intense chatter.

"And did you see the way I split-kicked those two into opposite walls?"

"Yes, Mikey, we all used some good fighting maneuvers to bring their numbers down, but that's not the point. We'd have been toast if Master Splinter hadn't come to our aid. And it would have been all my fault, for letting that guy get the jump on me."

"Oh, Leo, don't go getting into one of your guilty modes again. You saw how many of them there were. You can only turn in so many different directions at once."

By this time, the voices of Raphael's brothers had reached the bathroom door. The three turtles entered and stared down at their diminutive ward.

"Well, what I want to know is, what on earth could Karai want with a little innocent turtle?"

Leonardo frowned thoughtfully. "Brothers, I think there's more to this 'little innocent turtle' than meets the eye. You saw the way he seemed to understand us, and could respond? There is something very strange going on here. And what's more, how the shell did she find him here, anyway?"

"I don't know, but I am assuming he's got some sort of tracking device on board, and I plan to take him into my workshop and see if I can find it." Raphael instinctively tensed as Donatello reached down to pick him up.

"If I may make a suggestion, my sons." Splinter had been listening silently until this moment. All four turtles' heads swiveled toward the wise rat. "Donatello, perform a quick scan for a tracking device if you would, but I have a feeling you won't find any such thing. Leonardo, Michelangelo, begin packing. We must leave our home, indefinitely. I do not know what this small turtle means to Karai, I only know that we cannot allow her to take him, for her intentions are surely evil."

Solemnly, Leonardo and Michelangelo nodded and disappeared into their bedrooms to begin preparing for the journey, wherever it would lead them.

Donatello carried Raphael gently over to his lab, and placed him on top of his worktable. "Don't worry little fella, I don't want to hurt you, we just need to see if we can find out how Karai found you here."

Raphael peered up at his genius brother, and shook his head slowly. There's no tracker, bro, not really. Brainiac that you clearly are, you ain't gonna find some device like that. There are some things that science just can't explain.

Donatello didn't seem to notice the smaller turtle's gesture, and set about examining him thoroughly. He paused when he reached the leathery skin tucked just under Raphael's carapace. Noticing that it was ever-so-slightly raised here, he examined it closer.

"Hey, were you wounded here? That doesn't really feel like scar tissue though, it's too firm. It almost feels like an implant. I'm going to have to get in there."

Donatello left the table for a moment and when he returned, he was brandishing a small blade, a pair of forceps and some alcohol swabs. "I'm so sorry, little guy, this is going to hurt me more than it does you."

Raphael steeled himself for the coming incision, opening his beak threateningly. You got that right, bud. Before he had a chance to react, though, he felt one of Donatello's nimble fingers pressing down on his head, to keep him still. This is so not fair, but I guess he knows what he's doin'. 'Sides, I can take this. This is nothin'. Within a few seconds, Donatello had finished, and was holding the recording device implant triumphantly aloft with the forceps.

By the time Donnie had exited the lab with a fidgety Raphael in hand, his brothers were standing ready near the entrance with backpacks full of food, weapons and other necessities. Master Splinter left his meditation room to join them.

Leonardo looked to the next-eldest, cocking his head. "Well, Donnie, did you find anything?"

Donatello made a non-committal face and waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. "Well, I did make some progress. Looks like he was implanted with some sort of recording equipment. So I found that and removed it, which means that none of the Shredder's goons will be able to pick up on anything we are saying or doing. However, the chip did not have any sort of a homing signal attached to it, so it would seem they are tracing him another way. Using something I could not remove, let alone detect."

Here, the elderly rat interjected. "Come, my sons. We must leave now that we are ready. The Foot will waste no time in their relentless search for our little friend. We will have to stop infrequently, and then only briefly. It will not be easy, but we will stick together in this."

As the mutant turtles hefted their packs, Splinter let his gaze fall on Raphael, who was starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable with all the trouble he was causing. The rat continued. "When we are resting, I will attempt to search the mind of this mysterious little turtle, to see if I can find anything there to explain why Karai might be seeking him."

Tucked in Donatello's arms, Raphael looked on while the entrance to the Lair was sealed, until the main room was completely out of sight. He was saddened a bit by how briefly he'd been re-acquainted with a home he must certainly have known well.

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Karai arose from her slight bow in the Shredder's audience chamber. She would never kneel as the common soldiers knelt before their Master.

"Father, I do not know how it is possible, but he is with his brothers. We took more than sixty of your forces, but they were still no match for the three turtles and the rat. I did not reveal too much to them, but I fear they are on the run. We must increase our numbers, and cut them off while we can still find him. I am telling you, my Lord, he is not merely what you think he is. How could he have found his brothers in such short time?"

The Shredder rose wordlessly from his seat and strolled down to Karai a little too casually. Glowing red slits burned dangerously into her eyes, though she did not flinch.

"I will decide what I think, Karai. In fact, I had thought better of your abilities. How you could let this tiny reptile continually elude you escapes my imagination. If you do not retrieve him within the next 24 hours, there will be no point in keeping him in this world. In that case, we may have to resort to… other methods, for extracting information from the young professor directly. Though I have great confidence in my powers of persuasion, there is so much at stake here that I fear those methods will not be as effective as what this turtle could have offered. Let that risk be on your mind as you continue to hunt him down. And remember, you do not sit that far above my intolerance for failure, my daughter."

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The mutant family had settled down for the night in the corner of an old subway station. Leonardo had insisted upon first watch, and was kneeling out by the tracks, listening for any evidence of a disturbance. Splinter had taken Raphael into one of the old forgotten cars, and began to meditate. Raphael wasn't sure what the old rat was getting at, but he attempted to follow suit. After several minutes of agitation and extreme difficulty in attempting to concentrate, he suddenly felt, rather than heard, the rat speaking to him.

Little one, I sense that you are not from our world. I wonder how it is that you came to be here, and why it feels so karmic that you found us.

Hamato Splinter had not known what to expect, but nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.

Wise rat Sensei, I don't know what I'm doin' here either, or whether you can understand me right now. I do know that I am a part of your family, or was, in some other time and place. I also know that we are all in great danger because of some information that Karai wants to use me to obtain. She is working for this Oroku Saki character, and I think maybe I can help you to understand what he's after.

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Michelangelo awoke to find Donatello gently shaking him by the shoulders. "Rise and shine, Mikey, Master Splinter needs to talk to us."

"Man, is it time to get up already?" He didn't say more, however, because he noticed that his Sensei had returned with the small turtle, and that Leonardo was with him. The rat's posture and features spoke of urgency as he regarded his sons.

"What's up, Splinter? You look like you've seen a ghost – did Bob scare you?"

"His name, Michelangelo, is Raphael. And believe it or not, he is your brother."

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