was going to upload this earlier, but I went bulb planting with the Rainbows and Brownies. And coursework and revision postponed this as well. But I did the chapter. :D


"What?" Mikey gasped. He rubbed his head, wincing.

"I said don't do it again," Leo told him. He took his eyes off his younger brother and placed his attention on Angel, who had been watching them anxiously. "Angel, are you sure any of these clothes are going to fit me?"

"Oh!" Angel blinked, picking up the dress closest to her. It was a bright green colour and hung loosely from her small hands. "This one might. I made a hole in the back of it for your shell. I know mutant turtles don't usually wear clothes, but it might help hide your appearance."

"Leo…" Mikey edged towards his brother, an apprehensive expression on his face. "I… how did you know I had been…" He didn't want to say it out loud, but he knew he had to. "… spying on you?"

"I'll tell you later," Leonardo told him, in a tone of voice that clearly showed that the conversation was over. Not that it had really started, of course, but Mikey decided to wait until later.

"Right." Angel placed the dress against Leo's chest, smoothing it out as she held it in place. Leonardo remained still, looking down at it with distaste. "I don't think my stuff's going to fit you. We're just about the same size height-wise, but you're far fa-" She stopped herself just in time. Angel coughed. "I mean, you're far more well-built than me, what with all that training you do."

"Yeah," agreed Leo, "I guess so."

"I'll see if my Nan has anything you can wear," Angel said, tiptoeing out of the room. "She has some really old clothes, and they might fit you."

When Angel had quietly closed the door behind her, Mikey confronted Leonardo. "I know you said you'd tell me later, but I can't wait that long." He clasped Leonardo's hands, squeezing them as he looked sadly into his eyes. "Please tell me how you knew I was with you… did you pretend to not notice me? Was I that loud and clumsy?"

"Mikey, you're automatically assuming that I knew you were there at the time." Leo smiled. "Why are you looking so worried? I'm not going to kill you or anything."

"You whacked me really hard a minute ago," Mikey stated uneasily. "How do I know you're not going to get your katana out and slice me like a loaf of bread?"

"Did I really hit you that hard?"

"Yeah, my bruise has a bruise to prove it," Mikey mumbled.

Leonardo quickly pulled his hands away from Mikey's and looked at the top of his head. "I bruised you? Where?"

"You didn't really." Mikey winked at him. Leo raised his hand, tempted to hit him again. Michelangelo squeaked, ducking away from him. He waited until his brother had lowered his hand before continuing, "So. Tell me how you knew I was there. Did Karai tell you?"

Had she broken the deal she had made with Michelangelo?

"Karai? Why would she know?" asked Leo, puzzled. "She went to find out who had listening in on us and came back saying that they had gotten away before she could see who they were."

"Oh, right." Mikey forced himself to laugh. It seemed like Karai had made a promise that she actually intended on keeping. "I… I just thought that she had spotted me, you know? So… answer the question I asked you earlier."

"What question?"

"How did you know I was spying on- oh…" Mikey smirked, pointing a finger at him. "I see your game. And you're not going to win."

Leo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What game?"

"You listen to me when I say this." Mikey stretched his pointed finger towards Leonardo, but didn't touch him. "I am the unrivalled king of Procrastination and I won't let some amateur like you try to dethrone me, got it?"

Leo blinked a few times, unsure whether to take him seriously or not. "Uh, okay."

Michelangelo cleared his throat louder than necessary, digging into Leonardo's right side with his elbow. Leo jumped. "Okay! Get a hold of yourself, Mikey. I'll tell you. So, I was on my way here, taking an unnecessary detour when this arrow came towards me and nearly struck me on the head."

"An invitation to join the Foot wasn't attached to it, was it," Michelangelo asked him, pretending to be worried, "because if it was, I hope you didn't fill in the application form."

"No." Leo shivered. The memory of being so close to joining the Shredder's alliance still made him sweat. He knew Mikey had meant it in a jokey way, but it still brought back bad memories. Leo continued, more to change the subject than anything else. "Anyway, so like I was saying, I was on my way here when this arrow came out of nowhere. Attached to it, was a note."

"Who was it from?" Mikey asked him, his heart thumping. He knew that if he didn't interrupt, Leo would finish explaining faster but he couldn't help it. Normal mail didn't travel this way. This was what Mikey called 'air mail'.

"I don't know who it was from," admitted Leonardo. He reached into his belt, pulling out a small piece of paper that had been tucked away. He unfolded it, holding it near his face. "But it says that me and Karai were talking above Pete's hamburger bar, and that 'the orange masked turtle' had been present."

"So… you decided to trust a random note that was attached to an arrow… that had been fired at your head like it was a target or something…" Michelangelo scratched his head. "Sorry bro, but you totally lost me."

"And I only know one group of people that communicate in such an original way," Leo said, ignoring him, "and that's the Foot. But who in the Foot would want to tell me that you were spying on me?"

"It doesn't matter." Mikey shrugged. "I just want to know why you believed it in the first place. I mean, it's from the Foot. Why would you even for one teeny tiny second believe what they say?"

Leonardo put his hands behind his shell, shrugging his shoulders. "The Foot aren't as bad as they were before. We're sort of on even terms now, since we teamed up to defeat the Demon Shredder."

"We are?" It didn't seem that way to Michelangelo. A week after the destruction of the Demon Shredder, Raphael and Casey had been ambushed by the Foot while on patrol. A month afterwards, Donatello had been sent a Trojan horse virus. And, when he had obtained the IP address of the sender, he had discovered that the email that had contained the virus originated from Doctor Chaplin. And then there were also the common appearances of damp death threats that found their way into the sewer system. He wasn't sure if Leonardo was simply overlooking this or if he just hadn't noticed. "But I don't get it."

"Get what? Mikey, you have to remember that other people can't read your mind."

"Why are you doing all this for me?" He gestured towards the dresses on Angel's bed. "I mean, this is totally out of character for you. Are you feeling okay Leo? You're actually all right with pretending to be my girlfriend? Even after I completely invaded your privacy?"

"Now that you mention it…" Leo chuckled at the look on his brother's face. "Mikey, you can stop looking like I'm about to go on a murderous rampage. Look, you didn't tell Raph and Don and Sensei that I had gone to see Karai yesterday, and I owe you one for that. I mean, I don't know what would have happened if they found out! Last time, Raph got… well, you remember, don't you?"

"Yeah," Mikey said. Raphael hadn't been pleased with Leo's idea of sneaking out and going to see Karai. "But, Leo, I need to tell you something. I didn't plan on telling them because-" At that moment, Angel entered the room with her arms full of flowery pieces of clothing. She dumped them on the floor in front of Leonardo, but kept hold of one of them. Michelangelo stopped talking, and looked at the… thing that Angel was holding.

It was large, so there was no problem about Leonardo not being able to fit into it. It was also long and Mikey predicted that it would nearly reach Leo's feet. He didn't think much of the colour (a boring, sandy brown colour) but it didn't matter much to him, seeing as Mikey wasn't going to be the one wearing it. Angel put it in Leonardo's hands, whose expression showed that he was thinking the same thing as his brother. "Here, try this on."

"What is it supposed to be?" Leo asked after a few seconds of shocked silence. "Is this actually a dress?"

"I thought it was a potato sack," Mikey commented.

Angel looked at it again, giggling. "Hey, the other stuff I got hold of make this look like a… pretty kimono or something." She picked up a pale flowery dress that was big enough for her to use as a cosy sleeping bag. "You want to wear this?"

"No!" Leo exclaimed, recoiling in horror. Mikey cringed, while Angel reached forward and placed her hands tightly on the blue masked turtle's mouth.

"Sh," Angel hissed, "we don't want Nan to wake up. 'Sides, she's been under the weather lately. But you see my point? This is the most decent piece of clothing that she owns, unless you wanna wear some of her other stuff?"

"I'm good," Leonardo assured her quickly, stuffing himself into the brown dress and falling over in his haste. Mikey helped him up, tugging the dress downwards. When Leo was back on his feet, he looked down at himself. "How do I look?"

"Self conscious about your looks…" Angel winked at him. "You're on your way, Leo, you're on your way." She giggled at the expression on the turtle's face. "Seriously, you look fine! We don't want you flaunting your figure, because then they might tell it's you. Now we've got the outfit, we should work on a name."

"A name, huh?" Mikey rested his chin on Leonardo's shoulders. "We need a good name. How about Michaela? Or… or Monet? Or we could call you…"

"That can be your homework," said Angel, getting her cell phone out and checking the time. "We've wasted enough time, and I'm going out soon to fetch some stuff for Nan. I promised her I'd get her some pills or something."

"So what does Leo do now?" Mikey asked her.

"Yes, what does Leo do now?" said Leonardo dryly.

"Leo learns the technique of being…" Angel rotated her left hand in a circle. "Uh… Feminine."

"There's a technique?" Leo said disbelievingly.

"Sure there is!" Mikey rolled his eyes. "They have to talk about clothes, what they're doing at the weekend…"

Angel hit him on the head, smirking. "That's what a silly boy would say. There's actually more to it than what you think. Okay, first rule. Posture. Take off that dress."

"But you just told me to put it on!" Leo told her.

"Just take it off. It's not that hard."

"Do I have to?"

"Leo," Mikey smiled, "do you like wearing clothes belonging to older women?"

"Of course not," Leonardo snapped, but he took off the dress nonetheless. Angel circled him, examining him carefully. Leo was facing forward but he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. Angel reached under her bed and pulled out a baseball bat. She rested it vertically against his back before pointing it towards the wall opposite them.

"Walk over there," Angel demanded. Leo sighed, before walking to her desired location. "Come back, but try and swing your hips a bit." Leonardo pulled a face, but he did as he was told. Michelangelo bit his tongue, loving the sheer novelty of his oldest brother- his leader- listening and obeying a young human girl.

"That's pretty good!" Angel complimented him. "It's like you've been practicing or something." Leonardo frowned, obviously not taking this as a flattering remark. "Okay, you can put the dress back on now."

"But… but I just took it off," complained Leonardo.

"That was for the last lesson," Angel explained, picking up the dress and putting it back in his hands. "This is the next lesson. Now, I want you to sit down on the edge of my bed."

Leo put the dress back on and sat down on the edge of the bed. Angel shook her head. "No no no. You're doing it all wrong. Look." She tapped his knees with the baseball bat. "Your legs are too spread out. You need to have them next to each other or have one of them crossed over the other."

"Why?" Mikey asked her curiously.

"Because… because it looks nicer," Angel groaned. "It's because of body language, but we'll go over that tomorrow. Now we have a few minutes, so we'll just quickly go over what you've learned today. Leo, what did you learn?"

"Uh…" Leonardo looked to Mikey for help, but he just shrugged his shoulders. Leo sighed. "Cross your legs over one another when you're sitting… try to dislocate your hips while you walk…"

"Good enough." Angel began jogging slightly, her eyes resting anxiously on her cell phone's screen. "Remember, I want you to think of a name by the time we meet up next. How about… a bit after lunch? Class is dismissed."

"Sounds like a plan." Mikey smiled. Leonardo nodded, pulling the dress over his head. Then, the two turtles left through her window and into the darkness of the night.