Chapter Nine:

I am so sorry about the wait! In all honesty, I have up until chapter fifteen written of this story, and have been uploading one chapter a day, but I am in a play (Rock of Ages) at the moment. I've been waking up at 7 in the morning for 12 hour work days of intense choreography, singing, and pretending to be a sexy 80's rock groupie (with is basically me acting the way I did when I found out about the new Harry Potter book coming out July 31 and had an intense fangril freak-out in the middle of Hastings XD ). Thank all of you for your views, reviews, favoriting, and following. It gives me warm a fuzzy feelings #^.^#

AJ92- Yes it will follow the 2012 TV show, BUT later in this book there will be separate, more original, adventures. Plus, there are the original stories between episodes like 'Raph and the Rapper.'

Tori was having her first official private training lesson with Master Splinter when it happened.

"Now, before we continue it is crucial that you understand that training to be a kunoichi will take more out of you than physical exhaustion. While-"

"Guys, guys, get in your spot!" Mikey's loud voice called from the living room, effectively distracting both of them. They exchanged an uneasy look.

Anything being conducted by Mikey couldn't be good.

"All right, Mikey, but this is the last time!" Raph said, a little quieter than his younger brother, but still very distracting.

Another exchanged look. Mikey and Raph? Something was definitely going to break, and Tori remembered the fact that her laptop was on the coffee table; right in the danger zone.

"Don't flip me this time, okay?" Donnie warned.

"I ate too much cheese," Leo complained distantly.

All three brothers following the instructions of Michelangelo? They both rushed out to stop the damage before it could not be undone.

There, at the top of a very tall, misshapen, wooden ramp, stood Mikey, grinning devilishly and holding a skateboard. At the bottom of the ramp, Raph, Leo, and Donnie were all crouched, oblivious to the appearance of Tori and their sensei.

"Please tell me they didn't..." Tori muttered.

"And now the kid goes for the world record! He will attempt to jump three mutant turtles!" Mikey crowed, look down proudly at his masterpiece.

"And he did," Tori sighed. At least her laptop wasn't in any danger.

"I can't believe he talked us into this," Raph muttered to Donnie, who nodded adamantly.

"Ya! Booyakasha!" Mikey jumped rolling down the steep ramp. Master Splinter finally chose that moment to intervene. Why he hadn't stepped in sooner, Tori had no idea. Perhaps he had hoped that one of his son's would come to their senses and stop this nonsense. Maybe he thought that Mikey couldn't really be that stupid. Either way he was wrong and finally stepped in to bring order to the chaos.

"What is going on in here!?" he bellowed, startling all four of them.

Leo, Raph, and Donnie all stood up in alarm.

"Sensei!" Leo gasped, horrified. All three of them were standing right in Mikey's path of travel.

"Whoa!" Mikey waved his arms and tried to stop the oncoming collision, but it was too late. All four of them shouted out in surprise before becoming one big turtle pile.

Tori could not help the snicker that escaped her, but then managed to turn it into a cough before Splinter caught on to her.

Splinter went to stand in front of them and as they all shook off the dizziness, they looked up at their intimidating rat father.

"How many times have I told you not to skateboard in the lair?" he growled.

Mikey seemed to be honestly confused.

"None, Sensei," he said honestly.

"I shouldn't have to tell you!" Splinter shouted in exasperation. It really should have been a given that a giant skateboard ramp in the living room of all places was a terrible idea.

Leo stood as he pushed himself out of the pile and took charge.

"You're right, Sensei. We definitely should have known better," a glare sent in Mikey's direction. "And we deserve to be punished." Leo bowed his head respectfully, before peaking up at his master. "Eh, some."

Splinter bent to Leo's level immediately making the eldest son stiffen.

"And what do you think would be a fitting punishment?" he asked sternly, face only inches from Leo's.

Leo blanched and look over his shoulder at his brother for support as they too stood, but they offered him nothing.

"Well, uh, we... we should clean up our mess?" Splinter raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "And then think about what we did," Leo finished, seeming to think that would fix the problem.

Behind him, his brother gave their own support for their leader.

"Yeah."

"Sounds about right."

"We were wrong."

"Wouldn't want to do too much."

"No worries."

Tori face palmed and knew this would not end pretty. And to top it off, she got to deal with an irritated Splinter for 2 hours after all of this was over.

"What about being grounded for a week?" Splinter suggested.

All of their eyes widened at the awful thought and immediately tried to backtrack.

"Oh, I'm not sure that's-"

"I'm cool with the thinking."

"Really, that's not necessary."

"Maybe next time."

They all smiled innocently.

This definitely did not work for Splinter as he again growled in anger.

"You're grounded for a week!"

They all slouched their shoulders and groaned. The ramp then chose that moment to tip over with a thunderous 'BOOM', almost hitting Tori as she retreated back into the hallway with a suspiciously girly squeak.

The guys all winced and rushed to clean it up before their punishment could be worsened tenfold.

This was going to be a loooooooooooong week...

? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ?

After her first private training lesson with Master Splinter, Tori was almost tempted to sleep the rest of the day. Almost.

The guys were already eating lunch when she went into the kitchen. Training, as she had expected, had not been easy, despite it only being her first day. Raph was surprised to say the least that she still wanted to train with him, but she was insistent. Now though, she was starting to regret it.

She fell to the padded floor again and the air rushed out of her lungs. She coughed violently and tried to catch her breath.

"You know, I'm starting to question your teaching methods Raph," she gasped. He smirked down at her and offered her a hand of assistance.

"You're the one who wanted help. I offered to wait for tomorrow."

"I wanted you to teach me," she said irritability. "Not use me as your punching bag Monsieur Macho."

Raph crossed his arms, almost seeming to enjoy her disheveled state. "Well, what do you want me to do instead?" he asked.

Tori rolled her eyes. "You could start by teaching me to block," she suggested.

Suddenly Raph felt a little sheepish.

"Oh. Right. Sure." He cleared his throat and Tori allowed herself a quick victory smile before become serious again. "Right, so the easiest block is going to be a cross block. Like this," he demonstrated and Tori imitated the way he crossed his arms like and 'X' in front of him.

He observed with a critical eye and shook his head. "Almost, but you need your elbow to stick it a little more to protect more of your front. Here."

He reached over and gently pulled her elbows out a bit further and suddenly became very aware of the fact that her skin felt very different from that of his brothers. Much softer with less scars and hardly any flaws. He held on to her arms a little longer than necessary, before blushing slightly and backing away.

"Right, good. That will block most blows to the head and chest if you brace your knees and take the shock not just through your arms, but your whole body. You'll break an arm if you try to just stop the hit with force of your own."

Tori nodded, and if she had noticed his curiosity involving smooth skin of all blasted things, she ignored it- much to his relief.

"So without weapons, a block should be a last resort, especially if your opponent is a lot bigger than you, evasion is usually better if you can manage it."

Tori nodded. "Right. How about we do a bit of that?"

Raph shrugged. "You seemed to be doing fine against Leo earlier."

"Leo follows every Kata to a tee, so he becomes a little predictable. I know not everyone will be like that."

Raph sat back a moment and thought on that

"You know what? Your right. What else did you notice?"

"I noticed that Donnie thinks too much about what he should do rather than just doing it," Tori said. "I noticed that Mikey has a hard time concentrating on a fight with someone for more than 10 Seconds and becomes distracted if it last longer. I noticed that the moment you get angry, you start to take the fight personally and become more sloppy with your actions, using brute strength rather than your training."

Raph scratched the back of his head. "I'm... working on that. So far nothing's working."

Tori shrugged. "Not that I have any right to talk. I'll probably have quite a few flaws to overcome myself."

Raph stared at her.

"You know, I can't get a read on you," he said finally.

Tori tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"Well I just can't figure you out. You act like a mother hen one minute, then you get all up in someone's face if they offend you," he tried to explain. "Obviously you have no problem taking care of yourself and you like to spend a lot of time by yourself reading or something, but I can't figure out what kind of person you are."

Tori smiled kindly. "Well, people are hardly just black and white are they? There are also a million different shades of grey in between."

Raph nodded, thinking about himself and his brothers.

"Yeah," he agreed then smiled. "If I'm going to be grounded for a week I might as well use the time to try and read you like a book."

Tori only laughed at this.

"Then you'll be trying to read me for a looooong time, because no one has been able to yet," she declared.

Raph laughed as well, and went back to teaching blocks and evasion.

'Challenge excepted,' he thought.

? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ?

Raph paced the length of the living room, and Tori could all but see the steam coming from his ears. While training, tutoring, and his one on one time with Tori took the edge off of his stress during the day, now that it was dark outside, the terms of their grounding were really starting to get to him. Mikey was absentmindedly flipping through a comic book and Tori leaned over to Leo.

"How much longer until he blows his top do you think?" she asked him.

"It'll be any second now."

"Gah! This bites!" Raph raged finally. "I can't believe we're stuck down here for a whole week!"

"Uh, correction; you're stuck down here for a whole week," Tori said. "Because you actually decided to listen to Mikey."

Leo shifted uncomfortably beside her. "Yeah... not one of our brightest moments."

Mikey pouted. "Hey, I'm right here..."

Donnie chose that moment to come rushing out of his lab and into the room. "Guys, guys! You wanna see what I made?"

"This is how bored I am," Raph groaned. "Yes, Donnie. I do."

"Ok, ok, ok! Remember the other day I was scrounging in that military junkyard?" he asked.

Mikey, Leo, and Raph all stared at him blankly. "No."

Donnie, who was far too used to this to care, was unperturbed. "Well, I found an incredibly advanced A.I. microchip, made from- Get this!- self-assembled chain-linked copolymers!"

Obviously none of them knew what that was, but Mikey humored him anyway.

"That's my favorite kind of copolymer!" he said.

Tori figured all of Donnie's excitement was due to being crowded in the lair, like Raph's temper rearing its ugly head, or Leo cleaning the kitchen almost obsessively.

"Mine too!" Donnie said in response to Mikey, pretending just for the moment that Mikey actually understood his 'science talk'. "And I used it to make this." He held out a UFO looking device. "The most advanced music player in the world."

Everyone leaned forward in fascination, even Raphael forgetting that he was in a bad mood.

"Whoa..." they all said in synchronized awe.

"So who wants to try it?" Donnie asked.

Mikey's hand shot up. "Ooh! I do! Toss me the tPod."

Donnie faltered momentarily. "The tPod?"

Mikey smirked all-knowingly. "Turtle. Pod. tPod." He shrugged. "I am so good at naming stuff."

"Or you stole the idea from my iPod," Tori pointed out. Mikey ignored her and put the earbuds in his ears under his mask. Leo, Raph, and Tori watched on worriedly.

"You're really gonna plug an advanced piece of military technology directly into Mikey's head?" Raph asked. "What if it melts his brain?"

Donnie brushed it off confidently. "It won't. And even if it did, who'd know the difference?"

Tori frowned and was about to object that maybe it should be tested on something not alive when Mikey screamed and fell to his knees in pain.

Immediately Donnie leapt forward, worried for his only younger brother, and thinking about Raph's melted brain comment. "What!? What's wrong!?"

"It's polka!" He screeched. "Make it stop! Make it stop!" Instantly, Donnie's shoulders slouched and he scowled at his little brother before pushing the skip button of the tPod.

"Thanks," Mikey sighed. He listened to the new song for a couple seconds then bobbed his head and starting dancing to the beat only he could hear. He hummed along, out of tune and completely unaware of his audience. His brothers and Tori just stared at him, unamused and once again bored almost to the point of tears.

Tori checked the time on her open laptop that was sitting on the coffee table (a recent addition to the furniture in the main room) and got to her feet.

"Well, I'm outta here," she said, waving absently at the boys as she headed for the turnstiles.

"Where are you going?" Raph asked, once again feeling irritable and almost trapped.

Tori still didn't turn around.

"Shopping with April," she called over her shoulder. "I seriously need more than what I brought with me to live down here."

Raph too checked the time and raised an eye ridge.

"At 10:30 p.m.?"

"Yep. Later!"

And then she was gone. Raph scowled at the exit for a moment longer before plopping onto the bench/couch. He couldn't really blame her for wanting to leave. If he had the chance, he would do it too.

Mikey finally exited fantasy land and shout at Donnie over his loud music- that only he could hear.

"Hey Donnie, you think we can get that song that Tori was rapping yesterday on here?"

Donnie pulled out one of Mikey's ear buds so he could actually hear his surroundings.

"Sure," he said. Then a little sheepishly he added, "Once I figure out a way to download songs."

Raph did a facepalm and all but growled in frustration.

"That's it. I gotta get out of here," he said leaping back to his feet and starting briskly heading for the exit, hoping that maybe he could catch up to Tori and "escort" her around town with the excuse that he needed to protect her from the Kraang.

"Where are you going?" Leo called, also standing up in alarm. "We're grounded."

"I don't care," Raph groaned. "I gotta do something or I'm gonna go nuts!" He picked up his own discarded skateboard from beside the turnstiles and turned around to face his brothers. "Let's find a skate spot!"

"Skate spot?" Mikey shouted, still forgetting only he could hear the loud music. "I'm totally in!"

"But what's Splinter gonna say?" Leo asked, casting a look over his shoulder. Splinter seemed to know everything; surely he would know about this and come out to stop them.

Raph crossed his arms and stuck out his bottom lip.

"'I don't know what's going on, because they snuck out while I was asleep'," he said, almost perfectly mimicking their sensei.

The oldest turtle crossed his own arms and laughed humorlessly. "Heh. Real mature. But I'm your leader. And as your leader, I say nobody's going."

Donnie and Mikey, each holding their own skateboards, went to stand next to Raph, and Leo felt his heartbeat quicken. He couldn't stop them if they all wanted to go.

"Well as your followers, we're going anyway," Raph said smoothly, knowing already that he had won the argument.

Leo had to admit, finding a fun skate spot sounded way better than sitting around in the lair all evening; but he wasn't about to admit that to Raph.

"Well as your leader, I'm going with you," he said. "To lead you... away from bad... stuff." He stood there awkwardly and knew he wasn't fooling anyone. Fortunately for him, Mikey chose that moment to scream again, falling to his knees in distress and clawing at his ears.

"What's wrong?" Leo gushed rushing forward.

"It's back to polka!" Mikey whined before glaring half heartedly at Donnie. "We've got to get some more tunes on this!"

? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ?

The brothers leapt from rooftop to rooftop, as silent and swift as the shadows they surrounded themselves with. Using their advanced ninja training, they avoided making a single sound and traveled not even alerting other that they were ever there.

Or, most of them anyway.

Mikey was already on his skateboard, using anything and everything as a prop for stunts, and even went as far as to make sound effects for himself. He was to preoccupied with his stunts and music player to even think about stealth.

"Hey, Donnie!" he shouted, breaking the silence. "Thanks for all the new songs!"

Donnie too forgot about absolute silence as he almost stumbled in surprise and curiously looked back as Mikey.

"Wait, what new songs?" He questioned.

Leo gritted his teeth in frustration. "Keep it down, you guys!"

Donnie flipped up to the taller building Mikey was boarding on and landed in a handstand on his younger brother's shoulders to see what Mikey was talking about. Raph slowed down to run beside them.

"What the?" Donnie exclaimed. "It's got thousands of songs and it keeps downloading new ones every second!"

"So?" Raph shrugged. No one was going to arrest 4 giant mutant turtles for pirating a few songs.

"So, I didn't program it to do that." Donnie jumped down to run on the other side of Mikey, and carefully thoughtful look decorating his face. "It's reconfiguring itself somehow." Then a sudden realization. "It's that chip!"

"Whatever it is, it's awesome!" Mikey crowed using a skylight as a ramp and flinging himself into the air.

"Guys!" Leo hissed. "We're ninjas, remember? We move swiftly and- here's the important part- silently!" So busy with lecturing was Leo that he forgot to look where he was going and promptly ran right off the side of a building, falling a good 20 feet and crashing through the roof of a greenhouse.

He screamed, managing to land on his feet on a table, tip flower pots to the ground, and his momentum was so great that he tipped forward, unable to stop himself as he ran right at a swarming, honey coated nest.

"Beehive!" he shouted, wind milling his arms in an attempt to stop himself, but luck was not on his side. He ran headlong into it, pitching forward and falling out a (now) shattered window onto the room's fire escape. He then proceed to fall down the entire flight of stairs until he finally met the ground.

He landed on a pile of garbage bags, arms splayed out as he tried to catch his breath and groaned.

The other three mutant turtles looked down from the rooftop, smiling almost cheerfully.

"That wasn't very silent, Leo," Raph called, trying not to cackle.

? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ?

Now once more traveling in a near silent pack, they came across what looked like a large example of modern architecture sitting in front of a dark business Complex.

Raph crouched down on the edge of the roof and peered down at it and the surrounding railings.

"Check that out," he said, jerking his head towards it.

"Let's grind it," Mikey said enthusiastically.

Donnie's attention was pulled elsewhere and he saw what looked like a dweeb-ish looking young man wearing a homemade metal vaporized suit.

"Who the heck is that guy?" he asked.

Raph eyed him mistrusting. "I don't know. But he needs a beat down."

Leo rolled his eyes at his immediate younger brother's rashness. "Hold on, Raph, we don't know that he's gonna do anything wrong. He could be on his way to..." What? Comic-Con? A birthday part? A geek-out freak-out? "...Church," he finished lamely.

Raph's eyes sparkled in amusement. The fresh air was definitely putting him in a better mood.

"Wearing powered battle armor?" He raised an eyebrow at his older brother. "What kind of church is that?"

"A really awesome one," Mikey chimed in.

"What are you guys doing?" piped up a voice from behind them.

All four of them gave a startled shout and whirled around to see Tori, arms crossed, hip cocked, and eyebrow raised. She looked like a suspicious and disapproving mom if ever Raph had seen one.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, trying to ease the tension and hoping she wouldn't tell Master Splinter. "I thought you were with April."

Tori shrugged casually. "I was. But then I heard what sounded like 4 grounded teenage mutant ninja turtles running around sounding less like ninja and more like a herd of stampeding buffalo."

Leo glared at his brothers. "This is what I meant by stealth guys!"

"Says the one who fell down a flight of stairs," Raph muttered. He glanced at Tori and could have sworn she smirked but when he did a double take, it was gone.

"Stupid half priced piece of junk," muttered the Iron-Man wannabe below them.

Tori nodded her head in his direction. "Who's that?"

"The butt we were just about to kick," Raph informed her nonchalantly.

"Look, it's my call," Leo said. "I decide who gets a beat down." They all looked back down at the man who walked right up to the garage door to the business complex and started trying to break in using a touch blower.

"That guy needs a beat down," Leo finally concluded.

They all jumped down from the rooftop (Tori hitching a ride from Raph so as not to break her much more fragile human bones) and landed in a silent semi circle around the man.

They saw the torch blower sizzle and fade out.

"Are you kidding me?" The man exclaimed angrily. "Come on Stupid shutter!" He started hitting the already damaged merchandise in frustration. Then he started kicking the metal door and tugging at it, trying to open it any way he could.

Tori suddenly felt a little pity for the pathetic man. He was kind of like some of the kids at her school without any friends that she would hang out with on occasion. some of them turned out to be pretty awesome people.

"It's just kind of sad," Donnie whispered, regarding his 'primitive' way of trying to fix the suit.

"Yeah," Mikey whispered. "I don't know if we should pound him or buy him an ice cream cone."

Leo took that moment to make their presence known.

"Halt, villain!" he cried in a deep false bravado voice, and easily taking on a fighting stance, katana drawn.

The man spun around in confusion. "Huh?"

Raph stared at his brother in horror. "'Halt, villain?'" he groaned. "When did we start talking like that?"

Leo's shoulders sagged a little.

"We're heroes," he said meekly. "That that's how heroes talk."

"Only if we're from a 1970's cartoon show," Tori said, to which Raph snickered appreciatively.

The man in the battle power suit seemed to be on the same page as Leo though. He struck a dramatic pose, pointing at them and started his monologuing.

"You will feel the fury of my powered battle-" he stopped suddenly noticing that most of his opponents were not even human. "Holy cow! You guys are turtles!" he exclaimed with begrudgingly awe.

"That's right," Leo said using the deep false voice again. "We're the turtles of justice!" Raph and Tori both flinched. Raph was even holding his head like he was actually in pain.

"Wow. I mean, just wow." he said.

Tori crossed her arms, feeling very aware that she was not a turtle.

"And what am I; chopped liver?" she asked.

Leo looked back at her guiltily.

"Turtles of Justice plus One?" he suggested half heartedly.

The Suit-Man was apparently getting bored already and decided to skip the (probably well rehearsed) monologue and go straight for the fight.

Tori, Raph, Leo, and Donnie all rushed up to meet him head on, but Mikey cried out.

"Wait!" Everyone froze and looked at him. He calmly pulled out his earbuds, wrapped them around the tPod and tucked it safely into his belt. "Okay," he said and everyone jumped back into motion.

The fight was particularly loud, but quick. This man definitely had no experience in fighting technique. Tori didn't even have any weapons and she still far overmatched him. He was slow, weak, and- most importantly- clumsy. He tripped right over a silver garbage can and fell back into a window. The moment the glass shattered, the security system's went off, and Tori cringed as the alarms assaulted her ears.

Raph, who was balanced on top of a dumpster, opened the lid and gestured to the inside. Leo nodded and all four of them lifted the man up in the air. He flailed angrily, and started shouted at them. Tori had the sudden mental image of a beetle stuck on its back.

"No! No! No! Ahh!" he shouted. "You're not the first to ever throw me in the trash, but I swear that you will be the last-"

His speech was cut off by the closing of the dumpster lid.

Tori crossed her arms and frowned unhappily. "Very mature guys, but this is crime stopping- not high school. We should drop him off at a police station, not in a dumpster."

'And we make more enemies by treating people that way,' She thought, but she kept that to herself. Even she couldn't see that man ever posing a real threat.

Raph crossed his own arms.

"In case you haven't noticed," he said. "We can't exactly go waltzing into a police station, and neither can you unless you want the child services to come and get you."

Tori still didn't look happy about it but she soon heard the sound of police sirens.

"And speaking of the police," Donnie said.

"Oh, snap!" Mikey laughed. "It's the poe-poe!"

They all started to flee for the rooftop, Tori managing to keep up by leaping up to the bottom rung of the fire escape and climbing upwards. She also took out the security cam and brought it with her. It was old fashioned with a tape on the inside rather than instant recording on a computer. Thank goodness. She hated to think what New York City would do if they knew there were mutant turtles running around in the sewers.

? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ? ゚ミᄁ

The quickest and quietest way to enter the layer was by swimming in from the ocean and coming up through the clear pool underneath the tire swing. Only problem was, Tori couldn't hold her breath for 6 minutes like the rest of them.

"It's alright," she had said. "I'll just pick up my bags from April and go down through the sewer tunnels. Unlike you, I had permission to go on a late night excursion and won't be in trouble for coming in so late."

Raph had relaxed as he realized this meant she wasn't going to cheat them out and sent her a grateful look. She nodded then went on her way as they went on theirs.

The water was frigid but the four brothers dealt with it and were home All right.

They peeked out into the empty living room before coming out.

"We made it home!" Raph sighed.

"Shh!" Leo hissed. "It's 2:00 A.M."

"And Splinter's still asleep," Mikey said grinning mischievously. "This is epic."

Leo shook his head as the feeling of guilt began to twist his stomach. "It's not epic. It was a really bad idea."

"No, it wasn't," Raph objected flopping back onto the bean bag chair. "We got out there and stomped a sleazeball. So what's the problem?"

"The fact that you guys have training in 5 hours," Tori said, coming in from the tunnel behind them.

Raph's eyes widened.

" ...Ah, shell."