A/N: This is a shout out to BubblyShell22 for being the first to review! Thanks :3 I appreciate the encouragement and criticism. Make sure you all leave a review for me too. And look at this, I'm actually doing A/N's now, just in time to start wrapping thing up. Enjoy this explosive chapter. And kids, don't make nitroglycerin at home. Oh, and a note of warning, there is some blood in this one.

Chapter 11: Nitroglycerin

The turtles scoped out the Foot base from a nearby rooftop. It was Shredder's headquarters: an old, rundown church. Their eyes were white with concentration as the moon light shone on their shells.

Leo signaled and they moved as one. They entered from the sewers, coming into one of the underground chambers. Donnie checked his T-Phone for Raph's location, it was still further down.

Leo signaled for absolute ninja stealth and the three of them made their way further into the Foot base. They ran into minimal guards, and managed to slip by most of them only slicing through Foot Bots as they deemed necessary.

"It's just up ahead," Donnie whispered, pointing towards a set of sliding doors which were of course locked. They were pretty far underground at this point. It only took a moment for Donnie to access the control panel, and the doors soon slid open.

"I can't believe we haven't set off any alarms," Mikey commented. Leo slapped him over the head, "Ouch!"

"Don't jinx it," he scolded. The three brothers cautiously stepped inside the room. The room was large and dim, with the green glow of the mutagen coming from a giant container in the middle of the room. There were a few desks with computers and science equipment, even a few wooden crates stacked up against one wall. The only detail that registered to the turtles was a metal table off to one side.

"Raph!" Mikey yelled out rushing forward, "What did they do?" Raph was strapped to the table, not moving. His right leg was in pretty bad shape, it looked like it had been cut or something and there was a pool of blood dripping onto the floor.

"Raph!" Leo shook his brother, trying to wake him up, "Raph wake up!"

Donnie figured out the mechanism to his bindings and they snapped open. He wrapped up Raph's leg with a cloth he found nearby.

"What the hell . . ." The turtles spun around at the sound of a new voice.

"Hey, it's the Whitten girl that was captured!" Mikey exclaimed.

"Oh, shit," Laura Whitten said.

"What happened to Raph," Leo said, eyes suspicious. He remembered his conversation with Splinter, Laura Whitten may not be in innocent victim she first appeared to be. Laura Whitten took a step back, fear in her eyes.

"I, I don't know what you're talking abo—" Leo jumped forward, drawing one of his katanas.

"What did you do to my brother," Leo demanded, leveling his sword to her chest.

"Leo, he's not waking up!" Mikey said, panic in his voice. Leo glanced back at his brothers trying to wake up Raph. Laura took this chance, and lunged toward a control panel. She reached for a big red button but Leo was faster. In a flash, Laura was on the ground with Leo's foot planted on her stomach, his katana in her face, as if daring her to try something again.

"Why are you helping the Foot?" Leo demanded, "Didn't they just kidnap you?"

"What I do is none of your business," Laura Whitten replied gritting her teeth.

"It is when you're experimenting on my brother." The anger Laura saw in the blue turtle's eyes was frightening, he didn't trust her at all. The whole damsel in distress image was out the window. There was no doubt in Leo's mind that this girl was his enemy.

Perfect, Laura thought.

"Leo," Donnie said, the urgency in his voice worried Leo, "I think he's been poisoned." Donnie held up a small, half empty vial he'd found on a tray next to the table along with a used syringe. Raph groaned and stirred.

No, not yet! Just a little longer, don't wake up yet. Laura thought desperately.

"He's not gonna wake up," Laura grunted from under the blue turtle, trying to speed things up. Leo rounded back on her, jabbing his sword further into her soft neck.

"Can you cure it Donnie?" Leo asked, not taking his eyes off Laura Whitten.

"Not here, we have to get him back to the lair."

"Then let's go," Leo removed the tip of his sword from Laura Whitten's throat. He noticed Raph's stuff all laid out on a nearby table. He grabbed Raph's sais and T-Phone and shoved them in his belt as Donnie helped Mikey carry the unconscious Raphael toward the exit.

Leo turned one last time and glared at Laura Whitten as she leaned on a work bench for support, rubbing her neck.

"This isn't over," he assured her as the door to the lab slide shut.

"I think it just about is," Laura said to herself before she sealed the doors to the lab.

O

The turtles hadn't made it far from the Laura Whitten's lab when Raph woke up.

"Flub—," Raph muttered as he was jostled around between his brothers.

"Hey, he's waking up," Donnie noticed, "set him down." Mikey propped Raph up against the wall, as his eyes opened and tried to focus.

"Guys?" Raph asked, his brothers' faces filling his field of view.

"Raph!" Mikey exclaimed, hugging his brother, "You're alive!"

"What's going on?" He tried to stand up, but Donnie pushed him back down.

"Don't move, you've been poisoned," Donnie checked Raph's eyes, "How do you feel? Any nausea? Dizziness?"

"Donnie, I'm fine," Raph pushed him away and stood up. Leo rushed forward to help him, knowing that his leg wouldn't be able to support him in its wounded state.

"You're legs pretty bad," Leo explained.

"What are you talking about?" Raph didn't feel anything.

"Dude, it was totally messed up!" Mikey said. Raph looked at the makeshift bandage on his leg and ripped if off.

"What are you doing?!" Donnie exclaimed, "You're gonna bleed ou—."

"What the . . .," Raph felt his head spin slightly as he saw all the blood. But his leg didn't hurt at all, it felt totally fine. He wiped the blood away, and found the unbroken skin underneath. No wound.

"But how—," Donnie bent down to examine his leg.

"It's fine," Raph explained, "I'm fine. Wait . . . Where's the Whitten girl?"

Leo's eyes narrowed, "Taken care of, now let's get out of here before we're spotted."

"What do mean, taken care of?" Raph blustered, "Don't tell me you just left her?"

"What was I supposed to do? She's the enemy! She poisoned you!"

"No she didn't! I told you I'm fine."

"Then why would she . . ." Leo though through the implications.

"She's not with the Foot. She's pretending to help them so she could look for her missing brother in their records," Raph remembered her face when she discovered her brother was dead, and what she said, "She's gonna do something really stupid."

Laura re-wrapped her leg that she cut on the broken glass. She was glad that the turtles got out before Red woke up. It better if they thought she was the enemy, then they wouldn't stop her from what she needed to do next.

She made sure that Red's brothers would find him. She remembered reading in the records that one of them was real tech savvy, a genius really. Laura figured that if he had made the shell shaped phones, he should have been smart enough to include a tracker. She simply turned on the phone and waited.

She had swept aside the broken glassware and was about to try and wipe up the pools of blood when she thought of something. Red's brothers, since they were like a family, would probably try to leave quicker is they thought he was hurt. She dipped her hand into the pool of her own blood and smeared it on the sleeping turtles face.

Not enough, there's got to be more.

She tried collecting more from the floor, but realized it wouldn't be enough. She noticed the arrangement of medical supplies that Baxter Stockman still hadn't put away, lying on a table. She approached it and picked out a scalpel.

She eyes the edge of the blade critically. She grabbed an empty beaker and sat down in her rolling chair, crossing one leg over the other. She positioned the beaker under her leg with one hand and made a deep cut with the other. The blood dripped into the beaker at a steady rate.

Before she passed out, Laura ripped the sleeve off of one of Bessy's ugly sweaters and tied it around the wound. Good enough. She grit her teeth through the pain as she limped back to Red's side and poured the blood over his leg. It ran onto the table and pooled onto the floor.

That outta make them mad enough, Laura had thought. She almost regretted it now, her leg hurt something bad, and she was only mildly concerned about infection. But infection was the least of her problems with what she had planned.

Laura now limped over to her work space and inspected the product of the reaction she had performed before the Red's brothers showed up. In a large beaker was approximately two litres of freshly synthesized nitroglycerin, in solution with cold water and sitting in an ice bath. Nitroglycerin is a powerful and very unstable explosive which can be set off with only a little heat or agitation. It's pretty old school, but it's all Laura could think of and it's relatively easy to make. But she pulled up a video on YouTube to refresh her memory.

Laura took the beaker out of the ice bath and placed it on a hot plate.

Time to detonate.

She was reaching for the temperature dial when a pounding on the door started her.

She whipped around to face the door. The control panel on the wall beside the door hung in pieces where Laura had smashed it, effectively locking herself in. To be extra sure, she had stacked a number of the wooden crates against the door to act as a blockade in case anyone did manage to get the doors open.

"Whitten!" a gruff and familiar voice yelled, "Open the door!"

"Red? Shit!" He woke up faster than she predicted, he should have been out for another twenty minutes. Laura wondered if it was part of his mutation, but only temporarily. She had hoped to be done and gone by the time he put anything together. But now . . . Laura looked back at the nitroglycerin hesitantly, then made a decision and flipped the switch. The plate started to heat up.

"Why won't this stupid thing open?!" Raph pounded on the door while Donnie messed around with the panel.

"It's not responding," Donnie said, "She must have broken it from the other side."

"Oh, come on!" Raph stabbed his sai into the crack between the doors and started prying them open. "Whitten! Don't do anything stupid!"

"If you don't leave now I can't guarantee your safety!" Laura yelled through the doors.

"Come on Whitten," Leo yelled, "You can't just . . . do whatever it is you're trying to do!" Leo realized that he didn't know what she was doing, but it couldn't be good.

"Blue? You were supposed to get everyone out! You're supposed to look after your family! And now I've got two litres of nitroglycerin set on a hot plate. If you want to make it out of here, you gotta go now!"

"Nitroglycerin? Two litres! ARE YOU CRAZY!" Donnie screamed, "That's enough to blow up the whole lab and send anyone around it to an early grave!"

Raph redoubled his efforts, pulling the doors open. The image of Laura chasing off Fish Face with her puny ruler flashed through his head, how she'd defended him against Baxter Stockman when he'd tried to inject him with mutagen, how broken she looked when she found her brother. He remembered her promise before he passed out: "I'll make sure your brothers find you." She didn't want him caught up in her scheme. She had been looking out for him.

"RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Raph ripped the doors open and smashed through the pile of crates. He charged forward into the lab, followed closely by his brothers.

Panicked, Laura backed toward the nitroglycerin, but Red was too quick. He grabbed her arms and pinned her against him. Donnie raced forward and quickly removed the nitroglycerin from the hot plate and placed it on the counter, careful not to agitate it too much.

"What were you thinking?" Raph yelled as Laura twisted out of his grasp and glared at him.

She eyes the beaker on the table. All it takes is a small impact . . . but they came back. Tears welled up in her eyes as she realized what she was doing. She blinked them back, gathering her resolve. This is for Tim. For what the Foot did to him!

She pulled her ruler from her back pocket and threw it at the beaker, hoping to knock it off the table. But her desperate play was in vain.

"Aah!" The turtle with the purple mask slapped the ruler out of the air and it clattered to the ground. "Are you crazy!?" He yelled, "There's enough nitroglycerin in there to blow this whole place up!"

"That's kind of the point!" Laura said, emotions running wild.

"With all of us in it!"

"Then hurry up and leave," Laura stood her ground, "I'm not gonna let a bunch of snot nosed brats stop me. Not now."

"Well I'm not gonna let some snarky, stuck up mad scientist blow herself up," Raph grabbed her arm.

"Let go!" She wrenched her arm, trying to shake loose, but his grip didn't budge.

"Not likely." Raph started to pull her towards the door. To his brothers he said, "Okay, we can leave now."

With her free hand flailing, Laura grabbed something off one of the tables as she was dragged past. She slapped the long metal object against the hand that held her.

"Ouch!" Raph snatched his hand back and noticed a small trail of blood start to leak from the under the small piece of metal imbedded in his skin.

"You wanted to know what I could do with a stapler," Laura growled, holding up her weapon. She backed up towards the table where her giant beaker lay.

"Oh no you don't," the purple turtle was there again, blocking her path.

"You wanna try your luck—," Laura stopped midsentence and fell forwards. Donnie caught her in his arms.

"Was that necessary?" Raph asked Leo who had just knocked Laura out. Pressure points.

"We've wasted enough time here," the leader replied, "We need to get out of here before we're discovered."

"Wait," Raph interrupted, "you guys made it all the way down here without being spotted? When does that ever happen?"

It was at that moment where coincidentally, Baxter Stockman decided to finally make it back. With him was Fish Face and Dog Pound, under orders to report on Laura Whitten's progress. They all rushed in when they noticed the door was ripped off its hinges. They stopped midstride and took in the scene in front of them.

"Not cool bro," Mikey spoke up, drawing his nunchakus, "you totally jinxed it!" Leo rolled his eyes recalling earlier when he said the same thing to Mikey.

"Turtles?" Fish Face said, "This far down?"

"I can't believe they haven't set off any alarms," Dog Pound smiled, cracking his knuckled.

"Alright, guys," Leo said, "Focus on escaping. We're not in a position to be dragging out the fight." For once Raph didn't argue. He looked towards Laura Whitten, draped across Donnie's arms.

Then Donnie got a bad idea. "Nitroglycerin," he muttered in awe.

"You have something, Donnie?" Leo asked as the two enemy mutants slowly paced forward.

"Yeah," Donnie passed Laura Whitten over to Mikey, "but . . . just be ready to take cover."

Leo and Raph fended off the first attacks as Mikey kept guard over Laura Whitten. Donnie searched through drawers until he found something he could use; an empty syringe. He stuck the needle end into the giant beaker and sucked up about two millilitres of the dense white solution sitting underneath a layer of water that wasn't so cold anymore.

"Fire in the hole!" Donnie yelled as he threw the glass needle toward their enemies. Leo, Raph and Mikey took cover behind crates and under desks. Donnie squatted next to the table and covered his head with his hands.

The syringe shattered on the ground in between Xever and Bradford. The impact was more enough to ignite the nitroglycerin in the shaft.

BANG!

Fish Face and Dog Pound screamed as they were hit by the blast. They flew in opposite directions each smashing into the walls. The explosion was short, fast and powerful as the liquid expanded to its gaseous phase at an incredible rate.

The turtles picked themselves up from their hiding places.

"Wah whoo!" Mikey exclaimed, "That was awesome! Donnie, do it again." Raph slapped the back of Mikey's head.

"Let's go, before they get back up," Leo said.

"Oh, they won't be getting up for a while," Donnie said with a smile.

"Well we should still leave before-,"

BEEP BEEP BEEP

"Before one of those," Leo sighed. The turtles had been too busy dealing with the mutants to notice Baxter Stockman had snuck around to the control panel and pushed a big red button.

"Dude, that's gotta be a record," Mikey said smiling.

A/N: Hoo, that was a long one. And look at that, notes at the beginning and end of the chapter, I'm on a role. Anyway, I just want to mention that the amount of nitroglycerin that exploded would have been enough to kill Dog Pound and Fish Face not just stun them, and would probably at least injure the turtles, especially Leo and Raph since they were closer to the enemies. But I figures it wouldn't be good if I start killing people off. So yeah. And yes, there are actual YouTube videos showing you how to make the stuff, but I repeat DO NOT try to make it at home. Dat's it fa now.