Enigma

AN: Thanks and welcome to Al, a new reader to the Enigma story. They have no official Fanfic penname so I can't thank them properly but they left a nice review and that did make me smile. Another chapter coming up. I had my senior portraits today and after doing two biology tests I decided to unwind by writing another chapter. Hopefully the readers will be just as fateful to Jezebelle's story as they were to Maeleyn's (although no title for Jezebelle's story has been made feel free to submit ideas because you never know! Something might jump out at me!)

April giggled as Casey regained his composure from tripping lightly on the raised curb of the street. In the moments he tried to be his cutest, his nicest, he was his clumsiest but that made him too adorable to her. It was nearly infectious. Actually…it made her love him more. The couple had ordered a sub party platter and planned to invite the guys over; April's maternal-esk instinct was calling to her now more than ever to ease the growing worry in her terrapin friends.

She, Casey, and the mutants they knew had been around long enough to know when danger was near and it was almost palpable. Something was definitely coming, and it was big. Vaguely she remembered the nerve-tingling, gut-wrenching feeling of peril hours before the Shredder had tried to incinerate them all in her basement. These feelings were the very same…just a few years apart. "Aren't you just a gentleman?" April teased as she kissed Casey on the cheek, ducking under his arm while he held the door open, large bag holding the platter creating a small space for her to slip through.

He grinned crookedly to her. "I may not be able to do a lot of things but I can be nice." Casey informed proudly as he let the door fall shut behind him, the echo of the tiny gold bell plastered above the door ringing merrily.

"You can keep being nice and go set up the platter in the living room for me?" April had a duty to her shop, and minimal cleaning needed to be done before she re-opened for the after-lunch hour where her sales were highest. Stuffed, lazy people liked to take street strolls and were more inclined to purchase as they became absorbed in the window shopping. She listened to her loveable Goliath's footsteps recede upwards and smiled fondly at him, sliding her hands casually off her hips to readjust minor disarray around her cash register. Her woman-inspired pickiness carried her up the stairs to assume takeover of platter arrangement and a small layout of condiments (which would be added to when the guys arrived. They ate nearly anything) before deeming Casey competent enough to have the living room comfortable and to call the guys over.

They deserved something nice, and besides, she needed more time to know Maeleyn. Although the conversations they had yesterday were very fulfilling to her highly unsatisfied female part that could only be filled by a fellow female. She and Maeleyn had nearly polar opposite tastes in movies, an understanding concerning music, and stern but acceptable defenses for their clothing preferences. The redhead giggled at the image of Raphael about to die of boredom once they hit the subject of eyeliner and which type worked better for who. The poor thing.

A bit more pep in her step April hit the shop level and smiled cheerily. At the prospect of having a female friend and to just see her boys relax everything around her seemed to be touched with golden warmth unable to be ruined. Given Maeleyn's healing status April left the backdoor open just in case the guys found that the easier route to take today (who knew how hard they were working themselves with this danger hanging in the air?) and moved to fix the door for them.

Crash! "If that was Robert again I'm calling his mother. I've told him once not to bring that bouncy ball in here." April scowled for a brief second before making her steps obnoxious and blatant as she moved to the front of the shop. Her eyes jumped back and forth, the redhead felt a shortness of breath in her. It felt like she was seeing a movie outside her shop windows, or that she was looking through the eyes of someone else, maybe in a dream. People were running around in all directions outside the windows, and she could see two different cars crushed in at points or completely ruined, glass twinkling on the concrete.

Smoke tinted the air and what police were on the street attempted to stop any speedy traffic from hitting any panicking pedestrians. She could see the cause for the panic, now. "Please…" this thin, sickly man was shaking hard as he gripped the side of her counter hard beneath his hand, knuckles whiter than snow, "please help me." he looked like he hadn't eaten in some time.

"Oh no!" he collapsed and she did her best to catch him. April hadn't had to lift anything heavy in a while, but he wasn't too heavy. Small, frail. "Casey! CASEY!" so Casey didn't have speed in him, and unless correctly channeled his adrenaline worked against him-which it did in his case-but he'd come faithfully to her shrill, worried call.

"April, babe, what is it?"

"I…I don't know. Casey, he needs help! Look at him!" Casey Jones took a look at this frail, sallow man slumped over in his fiancée's arms and swallowed hard. The poor male nearly looked like death warmed over with his unshaven beard accenting and drawing in the gauntness of his face like a drawstring bag. Evident in the bags under his eyes he hadn't been sleeping well, and by the way his trousers hung off his hips despite the extreme tightness of his belt he obviously wasn't being fed very well. Maybe neglected.

"Easy there, pal. You need help? You got someone we can get you to? You like hospitals? Wanna go to a hospital?" a small wheeze answered him and April cradled the head of the person gently, like a child. Rilien's once beautiful, wavy curls of hair so healthy and shiny were grungy and dim, like the last light of the only candle fighting total darkness. The two could make out a small negative headshake.

"Please…stay…Gustav…stay. Escape. Escape…freedom. Maeleyn…" the brown eyes of the figure rolled as the body succumbed to malnutrition and blacked out. April's heart thrust her body into fight or flight mode, utter panic.

"We need to feed him, or get some sort of liquid nutrition going. Call Donnie, call Maeleyn! More than likely we'll need a liquid transfusion until he's better. Help me get him up to the living room; if he escaped we need to hide him." she grabbed his feet as Casey slipped his hands under the man's armpits and together they hefted the body up and prepared to carry him up the steps.

Casey was no more than two steps past the cash register when he gave a startled cry and dropped his half of the human being. "CASEY!" April exclaimed. Whatever fiber of consciousness this man had was surely gone now. The sharp thud of his head on the wood floor had certainly been a good reason for his stillness. "Babe…" Casey tried to defend himself, holding his hands up like a criminal, "you gotta see this!" carefully setting their fallen escapee's feet down April peeked cautiously behind the cash register.

A large, black animal that almost didn't fit behind the counter was breathing low and hard behind it, almost as if in sleep. Red eyes gazed at them and the mouth of the animal opened a little wider, the labored breathing more pronounced. "Casey…I think it's hurt." she couldn't see any blood but that didn't mean it hadn't been hit. There were pretty large dents on the cars mere feet from her shop.

"My name…" it said in a whisper, "is Gustav. I have completed my mission. I have freed Rilien Spector. Please…help. Hide me until it's over."

"Until what's over?" April asked curiously, crouching down to the animal as she tentatively placed a hand on the fuzzy head and stroked it once like she would Klunk's silky fur. Were Leo and the others right? Was some sort of war really too close for anyone else to realize? Was humanity in danger again like the Triceratons had once made it?

"My termination," said the wise, almost melancholy voice as if it were the most obvious thing on the planet. "I was predicted to die before the war being. I just want to rest until it's over." Gustav hated to admit it but he'd taken almost a complete three-sixty turn in just a day. Only a day ago he was inspired by a fierce vengeance created from jealousy, but now he felt sicker than a dog. The deterioration must've been catalyzed by his anger. Rose!, he scowled, hating how the woman could kill him without being anywhere near him.

What was probably an estimated two weeks of life left to live may not even be three days at this rate. Bishop had failed to tell him the disease correlated with hormones and activity levels, with pulse. Then again, he wouldn't have counted on Bishop anyways. The animal knew far more about the man just from being on the other side of the cage than most of his associates would by dealing with him. Bishop was the type to use and throw away; to invite in and hide at the same time (why else would Kier be working for him unless he didn't really know why Bishop wanted the Spector family back together?). Gustav was just a piece past its prime, and the piece was being taken off the board.

"Can you still move?"

"Yes." whispered Gustav. His body felt heavy from the recent manic spurt of activity but he still had energy left. It just weighed heavy on his mind the fact he knew his bodily health wasn't very good, or reversible. With an airy groan Gustav hauled himself up and climbed the stairs with the energy of a drooping old dog. The pale female shivered relentlessly as the paranoia began to mount in her mind.

Once upon a time the government had hunted down her boys and exposed them in the streets under the impression of tanks and loaded weapons. She'd almost lost Leonardo as he took a chance and crashed a truck into one of the oncoming vehicles to give them more time. April would never forget the flames of that explosion. It was all happening again! They were closing in on them!

Her goals were clear though: get the boys where she could see them and protect them. Feed the science-dressed man passed out in her living room upstairs, make sure to hide the dying bull creature, and lie to the approaching police officer inquiring her as he stepped up with his shiny badge and the gun blatantly hanging off the side of his left hip.


Raphael was eaten up with amusement. He and Maeleyn had energy to rival live gunpowder. Clearly it was a mistake for the terrapin to think things would be taken slow and sweet, as TV often portrayed relationship but they just had to be different, didn't they? He didn't mind. Maybe it was from her previous relationships but whenever he and Maeleyn weren't putting on a show of being pissed at each other she came alive with the heated passion of a fire and the caress of starved lover. They played off of each other like that; she was rough, he was rough.

His brain went into a comfortable fog and he only felt the light scratches, bites, or even heard the noises after he came back. The turtle's lips would always pulse-the only real reminder they had made out again besides the darkening scrapes along his arms. Damn she was good. "I love how you smell…" her tail swished and flexed in a hypnotic, serpentine-like curl from left to right and back again as she sniffed him fondly.

It was the pheromones, but he loved the fact she thought he smelled good. "Mmm…"

"Don could explain it to you but you're finally startin' to smell like a turtle."

"So I don't smell human anymore?" Maeleyn asked curiously, drawing her gold-tinted eyes up to his, her left hand up on his shoulder and her right scratching idly at the grooves in his plastron. He grinned.

"You smell feminine and girly. Don't get me wrong…gotta be your soap or somethin' but your turtle nose is finally there. You smell us…or me. Turtle to turtle, you know?"

"Got'cha. You smell very…manly for a turtle." Maeleyn smiled brightly. Hell, he smelled great for a turtle. Manly was an understatement. The raw presence of male she'd only previously smelt on the bare chest of a freshly showered man was all over him with the unique musk only those in the animal kingdom could have, specific to turtles and their species and their chemical, biological signals. Raphael's smallest defining scent was sweat, nearly insignificant since he'd showered mere minutes ago, but he smelled strongly of pizza, his room, and some sort of motor oil.

Actually…the comforting smell of a garage area and gas was a perfect way to describe him. It was a comforting smell. "You smell like motor oil." Maeleyn mused. Raphael smirked, dangling one leg off the lab table and leaning back onto his arms. She didn't know how to not stroke his ego.

"Don's the main turtle for the mechanics but he did teach me how to tune up my bike, you know."

"A bike? What kind of bike? No one tells me about the cool stuff around here!"

"Hey," typical Mikey, typical of a little sibling, the youngest cut in with a big, goofy grin. "They told you about me!" he batted his eyes and Maeleyn smiled at him. He was too adorable for his own good.

"Get lost, Mike."

"Can't," the little brother informed with false solemnity, "Doctor Donnie told me to hunt down his patient and request she pay another visit to the Underground Manhattan Clinic." Raphael rolled his eyes. "That and I was out to see if you guys broke your face-sucking record yet or if you were actually not stuck together." sticking his tongue out and giggling he zipped out of the room, Raphael not too far behind him.

She grinned. This family…her family…made her feel so good. Normal, almost, which was funny because she never felt this happy when she was human. And she was far from normal here, but it was okay. After Don had explained to her and Raphael yesterday about her mysterious base DNA donator healing made more sense, the speed of it anyways.

Yesterday Donatello had gone deeper than he had yet in her blood analysis and compared hers and Raphael's DNA side by side to prove a point (just because it had been Raphael's wound courtesy of Leo he was stitching up at the time). They had Utrom inspired regenerative DNA; her DNA was somewhat similar, definitely alien class but not Utrom, and accented with steroids. Donatello chalked up the steroid part to governmental, genetic tampering to ease her discomfort with having steroids-which she'd protested thoroughly as a human-in her body. Her healing, by his logic and proofs he'd provided, was slightly faster than theirs which was good. It made up for her lack of lethal ability and complimented her endurance.

Her sides were still aching in pain but the darkness and tenderness the iron grip of Gustav were lesser than what it had been, especially since Don had been administering the numbing agent. Administering the usual pressure tests and waiting for a response for Maeleyn, or comparing it to her healthy vitals from his book, he answered the ringing shell cell without skipping a beat, eight pokes away from being done. "Hey April, what's up?" cradling the phone between his chin and shoulder the color left the olive turtle's face and his hand dropped from Maeleyn's side.

"We'll be right over."

"What's wrong brainiac?" Raphael didn't like the look on his little brother's face and leaned curiously over the couch. The tightness and fear on his little brother's face wasn't too usual. Don had quite the pair when facing danger and he only got the look he had now when something was really wrong. That same look stopped Michelangelo from making a technology-based joke.

"Maeleyn….we found your uncle."

"WHAT?" the she-turtle forgot about her side pains, forgot about the cold tingle of the drying numbing agent and let her head whirl crazily in a spin. Her uncle. Rilien, alive! He was okay!

"That-that's great! What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"We might have to hold off. April used the codeword for cops."

"Cops?" Leo responded at the trigger word and immediately turned to the TV. Cops don't just show up for nothing. Something had to have happened. Mikey, being the closest turned on the TV like a good channel surfer. The brothers crowded around the large collection of TVs as a long reel of interviewed pedestrians described a charging, large animal carrying a human through the streets before the camera footage panned to two crashed cars outside the antique shop, a crater-like footprint in the concrete.

"Looks like our big bull dude is back." Mikey noted.

"But why save Rilien?" Donnie asked aloud. "Why save the man that probably helped make you?" something was wrong. It just didn't make sense. Usually any creation, as displayed in the sci-fi movies he and Mikey liked to watch, turned on their creators. Splinter's whiskers twitched before he spoke; absorbing the new set of testimonies they played.

"It just came out of nowhere! I mean, here I am sitting in the coffee shop and it runs by with that poor man over it's shoulder! The poor guy was bouncing like a ragdoll!"

"So as you can see from our testimonials and footage the large animal is still, indeed alive. Still no news on its handler, Rose Chaplin, but it has been confirmed that this creature ran from north Manhattan to somewhere in the lower south."

"How much you wanna bet he busted out of Shredder's headquarters?" Raphael hissed in a growl. Maeleyn shook her head.

"I don't think so. When I escaped I had to go underwater. They had an underwater exit."

"Doesn't mean they didn't have a land one. You're a completely different species than Gustav, they probably kept you away from the land one, especially since they wanted to gear you towards aquatic activities." Don pointed out. She'd give him that.

"Call April back, Don. We need to get over there as soon as possible." Leo demanded. Surely the Shredder wouldn't let this go without a reaction for long. What could be his key developer was now gone, missing. This was surely a signal for the beginning.


"Find him, you idiots! I said find him!" Shredder slammed his hands down firmly on his table and scowled, getting up at last. Apparently the old saying still applied; if anything needed to be done he should do it himself. It seemed like all his underlings were doing happened to be running around with their heads cut off. His security system alerted him of a breach, Hun the one to report it but the Shredder was perplexed; no image of the turtles around whatsoever. Not one of his remaining employees described the green ninjas as a cause of the incident.

It took him a few minutes to realize that meant, then, the escape had been an internal thing. Shredder scowled, swiftly climbing in to his metal suit to be ready for whatever it was that had caused the pandemonium and stalked down to the twelfth floor where the breach had occurred. "Report, this instant!" someone had better or a lot of heads would roll.

Karai stepped up to his side and bowed in respect before answering for the quaking scientists. The room that had been breached was Gustav's room; instead of keeping the dying creature in a cage he was given a decent-sized room with equipment to maximize what was left of his usefulness. A treadmill in the bottom right corner four inches from the door, a set of weights along the back wall varying in sizes a normal human would weigh to something nearly impossible for a human to lift, and a mat for sleeping had stayed in place. They hadn't planned the structure of his room very well, apparently; the intelligent creature had swung the largest set of weights out the window creating a large open maw of glass and escaped with his 'doctor' out the glass teeth into Manhattan. To collect or not collect?

Most assuredly he was gone but this escape could prove useful. The turtles had been awfully quiet and if this 'Maeleyn' had escaped almost a month and a half ago undoubtedly she would've found the do-gooders by now. And if Rilien escaped she'd be looking for him. If he bided his time until the scientist was healthy it was almost set in stone that the turtles and the missing experiment would be hiding him; he could nail three birds with one stone if he was patient. By his calculations it would take Rilien a few weeks to recover from his malnourished state, if not a whole month.

He then called off the search for their large beast, the key to the experiment success. "But father!" Karai exclaimed incredulously, "If we let him go we might not catch him again! We've lost too much already!"

"You see, Karai, I'm thinking of the big picture. Predictability, my daughter. Where do all our victims seem to go?" it didn't take his brilliant daughter long.

"To the turtles."

"Indeed. Those green menaces are probably stumbling upon the professor and our misfit pet as we speak so if we want to finally annihilate our enemies why not wait until they're preoccupied with other things?"

"Their guard will be down…"

"It will." the Shredder purred evilly from his suit and Karai slowly tucked her sword back in the sheath. It made sense, but giving the enemy freedom to attract more enemies? The practice was uncommon but it had been done before; when they displayed Splinter kidnapped the turtle had run to them without a second thought. But now they were doing it backwards; letting the victims run to the turtles. Undoubtedly they would cry 'the Foot, the Foot!' in the fashion of a true victim and it would begin.

Leonardo's stern morals and predictability incited by honor would confirm a future meeting of the two warring sides. "As you wish, father." Karai bowed and went to help the underling Foot members clean and secure the rest of the building.

"We have other pressing matters…" the Shredder whispered as he looked to his small table to see a bloody chip about the size of a computer chip. It had been extracted from Gustav earlier this morning after it showed up on an X-ray scan. The Shredder smelled Bishop. Chaplin, brilliant Chaplin, figured out how to 'read' this chip and showed him the information on it.

On the chip was a rather cocky Bishop grinning coolly and telling him just how and why Gustav ran away, and where he was headed. Bishop was giving them the refuge of their victims. Why? the Shredder wanted to cry out angrily, why do this? To be so nice and generous with information made the alien think the turtles' had more allies than what he once assumed, and that Bishop was also aware of what they had been doing all along with the experiments.

The chip video played on. "Say I help you out. Say I get you a turtle. All you have to do is turn yourself in and give me some samples, Ch'rell. Leave your…daughter…to deal with the rest of what you call an empire, start off your army with a turtle hybrid and we'll call it even. A fair trade."

This perplexed the Shredder. Bishop was always against helping him because he was an alien, and Bishop was on the EPA. Why do it now? Obviously the turtles played as bait for the moment but the idea was nice. It was an option to have. Knowing Bishop, however, there was an ulterior motive and what he'd just promise would be a lie. "Feel free to contact me if you want to make a deal. And by the way, I'm aware of the weak status of your 'empire' and I could very well seize your whole fort at this very second but I won't. I'm a nice guy, Ch'rell. A lot nicer than I should be to you. If you're looking for someone to blame before you get your hands on the turtles blame your beloved Chaplin. He was feeding me this whole time."

END TRANSMISSION.

"CHAPLIN SEE ME AT ONCE!" Saki slammed the device down and scowled. To alleviate his anger the Shredder sharpened and polished his gauntlet. He continued to polish and sharpen his gauntlet as the weasel-esk redhead cautiously came into his room and shut the door. Just like last time, except it was the male instead of the female. The wide black eyes watched him polish and sharpen the gauntlet until it was clean enough for him to see his face and the arm Shredder was swinging towards him.

A great cry echoed the room and Karai popped her head up with a start. Chaplin? Chaplin had done this to her and her father? Why? How?

No…she tried to think positively. Chaplin wouldn't…clearly there's been a mistake! Why would Chaplin…? Of course! Karai turned sharply on her foot and went to seek out the other Chaplin. The one that had to be responsible for this escape of information. Karai didn't take into account Rose had been with them only a day or two but she'd been with them previously before disappearing. It could've easily been her to tell Bishop all of their secrets!

Karai always hated that bitch. Trying to steal Chaplin. She couldn't get it through her dumb, blonde head that her thoughts were immoral and of incest, and that her brother refused to love her in that way. Time to pay her a visit of her own. She came upon the blonde crying and bandaging the stump that once indicated Chaplin's right hand; Karai almost let a lone tear slip -she hadn't cried in a while, but then again…nothing her father had done yet could move her enough to make tears.

He was hurt. The man she'd been so afraid to say she loved was hurt. Missing an appendage, because of her father. Because of his sister and her insolence, actually. "Oh, Chaplin! You'll be okay! Stockman and I can make you a nice metal hand, or we can put some heated latex on the metal skeleton. It'll be alright!" she kissed his temple as Chaplin continued to shiver from shock.

"When you're done with your brother see me outside at once."

"Yes, Karai." thirty minutes later, after stopping the blood and correctly affixing a bandage and concealing part to her brother's latest deformity she cautiously stepped outside the room, the computerized door shutting softly behind her. Karai seized her by the throat and slammed her into the nearby wall.

"I know what you're doing, and I will not let you take down anyone else." she vowed. Rose smirked. A grim, thin line on her pretty face, cool as ice.

"I already have, Karai. And if it makes you sick at night I'll take down your daddy, too. Grant it I didn't expect Bishop to rat anyone out but he didn't specify which Chaplin, and the damage is already done. We're closing in. You just don't understand."

"Then explain, before I decide to specify which Chaplin." she hissed. Rose's smirk grew.

"Fine." the girl smirked cheerily. "You and your father's pathetic empire will fall, Bishop will still have his stock of experiments and I'll be with Chaplin. Clear enough for you?" she released Rose. It was the better thing to do; Karai knew herself and she knew if her grip had stayed she would've snapped her neck. Her father wouldn't have looked too nicely upon that; they were stretched so thin with employees in general that losing anymore scientists by any means was detrimental.

She walked away, trying not to hear the satisfied, maniacal giggle of Rose Chaplin.


"Rilien? Oh Rilien! Unkie Rilien!" Maeleyn felt like she was looking on a cherub baby in the hospital instead of her sickly uncle. Or at least seeing him was as beautiful as seeing a newborn baby. April and Casey had pried the cuffs off his wrists and the indentions were bright on his skin but he was alright! He was sleeping, and Don had just finished making the nutrition shots. His stomach was far too weak to handle solids for a while.

She kissed Rilien like crazy, smoothing back his dingy curls. There were no words to describe how ecstatic she was. "He's back. He's back! I'm so happy!" she fawned over the sleeping man like he was her idol. Don was very calm, quiet, serious, and doctor-like. Leonardo was waiting and peeking out the slightest bit of curtained window for Splinter who had gone back to the lair to retrieve something he wanted (though he wouldn't say what), Mikey munching on a sub and helping April cook some cookies he had a craving for, and Raphael was just looking at this human.

Maeleyn loved this man. Shredder had hurt this man. By rights of romancing his niece Raphael should be pissed; on the contrary he was scared shitless. What happened if her family didn't approve of him? What if they made her take the diffusion shot because they didn't like how she looked? Either thought killed him because in both he lost her. "Left over batter?" Mikey offered in hopes to cheer up his elder brother.

Cookie batter was by far Raphael's favorite rare food. They all knew Raphael was in some deep emotions if he declined cookie batter, which he did. Mikey pouted. His nervous energy was exhausted by intensive cooking and seeing his family still at odds with this discovery when they were trying to still solve the Otis Redding mystery wasn't helping. It had definitely been unsuspected, to see this man pop up at last.

"Dude's definitely out." Mikey commented as he quit waving the third sandwich under the man's nose. April rolled her eyes. Casey was nearly as tense as Leo, patting his bat rhythmically on his legs. The cop cars continued a slow-circling patrol. A faint scratching at the window made Leo jump to his feet.

Splinter was back.

The old rat smiled as he slipped through the window like smoke through the fingers of a hand. "I felt now was a better time than ever to talk of family expansion." Raphael flushed crimson, as did Maeleyn. He had a feeling this was coming. Master Splinter highly entertained the idea of grand children, especially since Mikey let it slip how they 'tolerated' each other yesterday.

"It is time for you to no longer be a number. It is time for you to be a daughter again, Miss Spector." he strained the material of a dark slate gray bandanna through his furry paws.

She felt lightheaded but recognized her own pulse in her body, telling her she was very much alive despite feeling short of breath. They wanted her in the family! They wanted her! Someone to call her daughter again and someone who would take her no matter how she looked…

"For now, let us eat and relax. If Mr. Spector was indeed able to escape then we most assuredly have enemies coming out of hiding to retrieve him. And soon."

"Alright guys, try to be quiet so you don't wake him." April easily moved around the sleeping man that took up only the couch as she situated the collection of sandwich condiments across her brown coffee table, adding much more to the original choices. They picked curiously and with some level of relaxation at the sandwich fixings before finding some way to mellow out. It was mostly found in hushed conversation.

They were absolutely shocked to see this scientist still alive, especially given the month he spent with the Shredder. A victim, captured. Disappeared off the face of the earth, erased until he was found. Her real family was home. Raphael felt torn, confused. He'd just told her that he loved her…or showed her…he wasn't good with words.

And now her real family, her original family, came back into the picture. Would she go with them? Or would she stay? Was he enough alone to convince her to stay with them, to stay as she was? He wasn't sure anymore. Raphael thought he was…hoped he was.


Bishop made his move early the next morning, close to two a.m. it was now or never to approach them and explain. Luckily he had the Shredder's reply video to help convince the turtles. A little bit of splicing may have been done to make it seem threatening but it would work. He had government orders to call off the snooping police, EPA and all related branches assuming a huge duty to cover up Gustav and the genetic experiments. Once the boys in blue pulled away he spied via the small, built-in computer camera on April O'Neil's computer to see the condition of the occupants.

"All there…" he whispered after counting them. Jones was armed with a bat; he'd have to be careful. But Maeleyn was there. Hacking into her computer he was able to zoom in and see the nutrition IV system one of the brighter minds had set up, and judging on the laptop monitoring the vitals the large portions of needed nutrients would decrease the amount of time Rilien needed to wake in a decent manner. However, two geniuses couldn't reverse a month of malnutrition.

He would bide his time but make the 'threat' from the Shredder known now. It would convince them in the long run to be his allies, and draw the suspicion somewhat off of him. The last of the experiments were being shifted to the Manhattan base today, anyways. He would have nothing pointing the finger at him; the worst they could do, if they ever found out anything, was complain about him manipulating others.

Nothing else. Files of the people that had once been people (and were now just numbers) were compromised and erased. They were all just numbers now. He jimmied the back door open and crept up the stairs, being especially quiet. Through the computer he could see that the turtle teens were all hard sleepers. Casey Jones was, too. Splinter was nowhere to be seen in the short range of the computer screen.

It was cruel but funny in his mind. To wake them all he'd give them a very real nightmare: Shredder's video recording played in April O'Neil's small VCR device.

"I will not stop until I am given Spector. Until my demand is met people will die, new monsters will be made. The monsters I have made will wreak havoc upon the city and the number will grow. I accept no interference; humanity will accept no other deity. I am the Shredder!"

The redhead woke up in a cold sweat, near screaming at the nauseatingly evil voice grumbling through her home. She felt violated almost. To hear such evil slip into her home. April really did scream whenever the light reflected off a pair of black shades, highlighting the slightly warmed human face in a ghoulish silvery-white glow.

"Hello Ms. O'Neil."

Leo, like the others, snapped up. He was the first to act - his swords out and thrust forward violently. If Mikey had gotten up any faster he could've injured his little brother.

"Bishop." hissed the leader. "What do you want?"

"A friendly exchange." Bishop smiled, easing out of his crooked lean on April's TV. "I have information you may want. Especially you…Maeleyn Spector. My name is Agent Bishop. I'm from the EPA, commonly known as the Earth Protection Agency, and I am the man that's helping your father to find you."

"Then what's your other motive?" Donatello asked instantly, without skipping a beat. Bishop wasn't the type of person to waltz around and be friendly just to be altruistic.

"Taking down the Shredder, and I think you can help." Splinter moved to the forefront of the triangle-like shape of people protecting the unconscious Rilien Spector.

"We are listening, Mr. Bishop."

"I thought you would."