"He actually let you do that?" Cindy laughed. "Oh my god!"

Lavi grinned. "Oh yeah. That I remember very well."

Kyle chuckled. "I just can't see the old Hatchet doing something like that..."

Ty was grinning right along with his sister. "Well, he did. He let us climb all over him. We hard the lights flashing, windshield wipers going, blared the siren a time or two, honked the horn. You name it and we turned it on."

Cindy and Kyle were laughing so hard now they had tears in their eyes.

Cindy wiped hers away, still laughing. "I'll never look at the grumpy ol' bot the same after that... I'll always have an image of him in my head of kids crawling all over his alt form now..."

"Think we might get a wrench to the head for even telling you that." Ty's grin grew wider.

"I'm thinking so too." They all grew quiet when Father dropped down from the rooftop next to them, landing in an easy crouch. "Not so sure he wants that to get spread around."

Kyle's eyes grew wide as Father straightened back up. His eyes looking at the elder turtle, them up at the distance he just so casually dropped down from. Then his face paled as he looked at Ty and Lavi. "How did he just hop down from a two story building like that?"

Ty shrugged. "He hopped off. We do it all the time actually."

Kyle's face paled even more as Father walked closer and he took a step back.

Ty could have sworn he heard someone laughing from the rooftop.

Cindy was looking at him just as wide eyed, and Ty realised with a start this was her first time being so close to the big turtle. Father just calmly stopped in between Ty and his sister as he looked the humans over. Then his eyes narrowed a bit as he looked at Kyle.

Lavi just sighed and rolled her eyes.

Ty tried to bite his own chuckles back and decided to distract his Father. "Dad, this is Cindy. Cindy, this is my Father, Leonardo."

A small smile found it's way onto Father's face as he held out his hand. Hers trembled a little as she took it. "My pleasure to meet you young lady. Heard a lot about you. Seems my son is quite smitten with you, he's got that moonstruck look in his eyes everytime he talks about you."

"Dad!" Just when he thought that he was getting control over his blushing, his face heated up all over again.

Cindy let out a light laugh, Kyle was trying to make himself as small as possible.

This time there was no mistaking the laughter coming from the rooftop. From more than one voice. Ty groaned and dropped his head into his palm. Father's smile just seemed to grow just a tiny bit.

"And nice to see you again Kyle. I trust you haven't had anymore meetings with the ground?" An eyeridge came up at that question.

"No sir. I remembered what you said. I've been behaving."

"Good. I'd hate to see you get hurt."

Kyle winced, and Uncle Mikey was by now very obvious about being up there. His laughter clearly came down to them by this point.

"Da-ad!" Lavi protested.

"What?"

"Do you have to do that?"

"I'm not doing anything." His eyes went wide with fake innocence. "I'm just having a pleasant conversation with your crushes."

Cindy blushed a bit as Kyle looked uncomfortable all of a sudden, eyeing Father warily. Ty and Lavi both groaned and rolled their eyes. Uncle Mikey wasn't the only one laughing out loud anymore.

"Did you come for a reason?" Lavi asked him as she crossed her arms. "Or did you just want to embarrass us?"

"Am I embarrassing you?" His eyes light up with amusement. So much different that earlier. In spite of himself, Ty smiled a bit.

"No...not at all..." Lavi rolled her eyes.

Father chuckled a little before his face grew serious. "Actually...I wanted to apologize for earlier."

Lavi's brow shot up as the smile died from Ty's face, knowing it wasn't appropriate right now.

"I was upset," Father continued "and I took it out on you two when I shouldn't have."

"Does that mean you are still going to train us?" Ty asked, kinda hoping the answer would be yes. He didn't want that to end, not yet.

"No." Father said quietly as his eyes wandered from one twin to the other. "I meant that." Then another small smile found it's way onto his face, a hesitant one this time. "But I was wondering if you two felt like sparring."

"Now?"

Father shrugged. "If you want too. I'm not ready to completely let go yet."

Ty and Lavi looked at each other, and grinned. "Two on one?" Lavi asked him.

Her answer was the swords coming out, and Kyle backing up a few steps. "Odds sound about right to me." Father smiled.

"Wait..." Cindy's eyes grew wide "you are going to actually fight him, with your actual weapons? No practice sticks or something?"

Ty winked at her. "Not the first time. Mother picked up a saying when she was in the military. 'Train as you fight.' It's something our fathers have always lived by even before they met her." His own katanas came out then. "But you might want to step back a bit."

She did so, her eyes still wide. Kyle took a few more steps back too. Ty didn't even notice as they squared off with their Father.

"This isn't a lesson." Father told them. "I'm not going to judge or critique your form. That part is done."

"What's the objective then?" Lavi asked him.

"Take me down." Was the simple answer. Then he came in, his katanas leading.

A wide grin found it's way onto Ty's face. In all honestly, this really wasn't so much different that training. It seemed to him that the only difference was, was the fact that Father was doing exactly what he told them, saying nothing. Besides the occasional friendly taunt. It was with a bit of shock that he realised that what was happening here was much the same thing that he had watched play out between the elder turtles numerous times. Father wasn't fighting as a master training his students, he was treating his children as equals.

Cindy and Kyle watched, breathless, as they fought. Not really sure what to think of the display of speed and precision that was taking place in front of them. "Turtles shouldn't move that fast..." Kyle mumbled in awe as he watched.

"Normal turtles wouldn't." Donnie said from right behind them and they both jumped about three feet in the air and spun around. And were suddenly face to face with the other three turtles. "I could take a few moments to explain while that goes on." His head nodded towards the now openly grinning turtles as they danced and weaved around each other.

Cindy turned her head back in time to see Leonardo nail Titian with a solid kick. She winced a little as he rolled backwards, then he stopped the roll, perfectly balanced on his feet and went back in again even as the elder turtle tried to hold his daughter back. "Can we watch while we listen?" She asked, unable to take her eyes away from the spectacle she was seeing."

"It is hypnotic to watch." Kyle admitted. Then his breath caught as Lavi landed a solid hit on her Father. "Ouch...that looked like that hurt..."

Raphael chuckled. "She may not be as big as her father and brother, but she does pack a punch."

"Hardly seems possible." Kyle said, his voice full of wonder.

Donatello chuckled this time. "Don't let the pretty turtle face fool you, she's got more under that shell than it seems." Then he thoughtfully watched his brother and the twins as he began to explain. "The substance that caused us all to turn into what we are now just didn't turn us into walking talking turtles. It changed a lot of other things as well."

"Like what?" Cindy asked.

"For one, turtles really don't have ears like humans do. They can hear, don't get me wrong, but they have no open ear like you do. Theirs is covered by skin, which makes hearing certain things hard. But Mother Nature balanced that out with exceptional senses of vision and smell. My brothers and I actually have ear holes, just no earflaps like you do."

"I never noticed."

"The masks cover them. We also have teeth, which a normal turtle doesn't have. Another thing is, you know most turtles are cold blooded, right?" Both humans nodded. "We aren't. Think about it, if we were, we wouldn't be able to work in some of the environments we've had to go to over the years. A simple snowstorm would slow us down to the point that we could die. We get cold, but we don't have to bask in the sun to get the energy to get going. Which is why we feel warm to the touch...which I'm sure you both have noticed by now."

Suddenly they both looked a little embarrassed.

He just smiled a knowing smile before he continued. "It also boosted our strength, endurance, bone and muscle structure and healing capabilities just to name a few. Which is why Leo, and the rest of us, can hop off tall structures like that building with ease. Or why Raph here could turn you into a pretzel if he really wanted too. Our reinforced bodies can handle the stress of it. We've passed that down to our children, though theirs is thinned somewhat by the human influence mixed in."

"That sounds like that might have hurt...a lot..." Cindy looked around at the large turtles surrounding her.

"We were too young to remember it." Raphael assured her. "We were only babies when we were given the stuff."

"So yes," Mikey grinned "Lavi has a lot of power stored in that pretty frame. If she really wanted too, she could use you for a rug to wipe her feet on."

Kyle was looking at her now with a look still full of wonder but now mixed with a healthy dose of respect. Then Lavi ducked under a swing that had came for her quicker than he could follow and she followed that up with a leg sweep that he rally didn't see happen. Leonardo went down, but he was quickly back up into a kneeling position to get his blades up to block his son's. Then, still holding those blades with his, the elder turtled rolled himself around his son as Lavi came in with a hit from behind. Leonardo dodged that hit, and it almost hit Ty before he released his hold so he could lean back out of the way. Leonardo was back on his feet in an instant. "Holy crap! All of you fight like that?"

"More or less." Donatello told him with a smile.

"No wonder the old timers around here respect you so much... I can see why you were able to take on the Cons too. You blink and you miss half the fight."

"It does make it easier if you move quicker than they can target you." Michelangelo grinned. "Gotta be quick if ya don't want to get busted in the ass."

"Or shot in it by a very pissed off Sunstreaker." Donnie grinned at him.

"That too."

"You deserved that one." Raph rumbled.

"Did not! It wasn't my fault he was parked in my landing zone."

Raphael rolled his eyes.

"I'm almost too scared to ask." Cindy chuckled. She was finding these older turtles to be quite amusing. She looked back at the fighting family. They were also quite deadly. And Titian was just as fierce.

Donatello smiled at her. "He was being an idiot and landed ontop Of Sunstreaker, scratching the paint in the process. I'm sure you can imagine how that went over."

Kyle grinned and shook his head. "Not well I'm assuming."

"Nope." Raphael grinned back at him. "Leo and I had to go save his ass while the Bots tried to calm him down."

Mikey just shrugged. "That's what family is for, right? You save me while I have fun." He just barely managed to duck the smack his red masked brother sent his way, but could dodge the one from Leonardo who had come up from behind. "Ow!"

Leonardo just smiled as he shook his head. "Which is why I have come to my decision. It may be slower, but we will go after them one at a time. Just so we can make sure Mikey stays out of trouble."

The faces of the turtles suddenly grew serious as the talk shifted to the current mission. "You sure Leo?" Donnie asked him.

"Positive. I'm getting a feeling that we should all stay together. Now that I can think clearly enough to hear it, I'm pretty sure on who is trying to tell me that."

The elder turtles seemed to catch on to what he was saying, and Donnie scrambled off to set things into motion with Jazz. The younger individuals seemed a little confused. Mikey looked at them a little sadly. "It's a long story, and I'm not sure you would believe us if we told you."

"Go get geared up and tell your cousins to do the same." Leo told his children. "We leave as soon as we are able too." Then he looked at Kyle and Cindy. "Could you please go get Lennox and Epps for me?"

"Sure thing."

Ty and Lavi dashed off with the two humans not far behind as Raph looked at his brother. "Fight cleared your head a little?"

Leo just nodded as he watched his children. "Not much really. I'm still confused about a lot of things, but this one issue does seem a bit clearer."

Raph sighed. "It's a start at least."