"Take a deep breath," Honeycutt said soothingly, placing a hand on Donatello's shoulder.

Donatello did as he said, his breath quavering as it went in and out of his lungs. Honeycutt had rolled him onto his plastron, with his head turned to the side so that the robot could see his face, and know immediately if what he was doing was causing the Turtle pain. The last thing he wanted was for Donatello to suffer even more than he already was.

"It seems a little too magic-potiony for my taste," Harold grumped on the screen above them. "Inject it and everything heals."

"It does seem a little hard to believe," Honeycutt admitted. "Nevertheless, it really does have that effect."

Or at least, he prayed to the Creator that it would have that effect. He wasn't sure if the ooze would immediately neutralize the infections under his shell, or whether Donatello's body would just absorb it towards all of his injuries and infections at once. He hadn't made an extensive study of the substance and how it worked, let alone how it worked on the body of a mutated turtle. What he did know was that it had nearly limitless healing properties, and enough of it could work miracles.

And if he could neutralize the infections, he hoped that Donatello's fever would break. When that happened, he could begin the surgical procedure to replace the broken carapace and perhaps regenerate the damaged flesh and nerves underneath… if he had enough ooze, that was. That little problem kept screaming in the back of his mind as he worked.

"Professor," Donatello breathed.

"Yes, Donatello?" Honeycutt said gently.

"My family — I need to know —"

"I understand," Honeycutt said, feeling a pang of sympathy as he remembered his own lost family.

He straightened and addressed Harold. "If it's possible, could your associate feed information on what is happening to you? I need Donatello as calm as possible for this procedure, and right now he is preoccupied with what his family is experiencing. Any information about what is happening would be helpful."

He just hoped the news was good, that the Turtles were fighting off the Mousers and flyborgs effectively. Any bad news would just agitate Donatello more, and hamper his chances of recovery.

"I'll do what I can," Harold said, before muttering, "Not that the damn girl ever listens to me…"

Donatello took another wobbly breath, and Fugitoid placed a hand on the Turtle's head, stroking it gently. Once, when his son Ely had been very small, he had broken one of his legs trying to leap out of a tree. Honeycutt still vividly remembered his son's weeping as the leg was splinted, and afterwards when the pain was still throbbing. He had held Ely and stroked his head gently, until his son had been soothed enough to fall asleep. He didn't know if Donatello would be comforted by the same gesture — especially not from a cold metal hand — but he was willing to try.

After a few minutes, the Turtle's breath began to come more evenly and strongly, and his eyes grew steadier. "I'm ready," he whispered.

"Then I will begin," Honeycutt said quietly, picking up the hypodermic.

Leonardo had only a split second to react — to choose which one of his brothers to go after. Mikey was being hoisted into the air by flyborgs, while a suicidal pair had dragged Raph down into the depths of the murky river. Splinter was gone. He had to save one of them.

He made his choice — Raphael — and plunged into the icy water. He had confidence that Mikey could handle the flyborgs and being dragged up to a great height, but he had less confidence that Raph could breathe down there once his air was used up. Besides, he had no reliable way of getting up in the air towards Mikey.

He could see the figures down below him in the ghostly, wavering light below — one stocky, muscular figure wrestling with two smaller ones. Bubbles poured from Raph's throat as one of the flyborgs tried to strangle him from behind with a wiry, hairy arm; the other one had immobilized his thrashing legs so he couldn't try to swim against them.

Leo's eyes narrowed, and he kicked powerfully down towards the flyborgs, his sword already in his hand. The flyborgs were too absorbed in drowning Raph to notice the other Turtle approaching them, and the one gripping his legs didn't see the sword coming. Raph went limp as the katanas lashed out and beheaded the one clutching at his throat, his eyes drifting shut before he could see his brother coming to his rescue.

Grimly, Leo wrapped an arm around Raph's chest and began swimming as fast as his body would carry him, back to the surface. He wasn't sure if he could do C.P.R. on a chest covered in a rigid plastron — even if he could easily make it to dry ground — but he was willing to try if he had to. He had to make sure Raph was breathing…

But as they broke through the surface of the river, Raph suddenly gasped and flailed around against Leo's arm. "Gah… ah…." he wheezed. "Where—where's Mikey?"

A loud whoop overhead answered his question, followed by a Mouser crashing down into the water, its jaws smashed open. A moment later, a streak of green and orange landed in the water, curled up into a cannonball.

Leo began swimming to where Mikey had landed, his heart in his throat. "Mikey, are you al—"

The youngest Turtle emerged from the water, a giddy smile on his face. "And that's a perfect 10 from the South Korean judge," he yelled, raising his fists over his head. "Michelangelo wins the gold medal!"

"He's all right," Raph wheezed. "Idiot."

Relief flooded through Leo, as he looked at both his youngest brothers — bruised and a little battered from their adventures, but still alive and still ready to fight. Fight. He stiffened as he remembered that their battle was far from over — their father was up on the bridge, alone and undefended, and those shrieking flyborgs were still converging on it.

He glanced up at the bridge, and heard the far-off buzzing of rotors and oversized fly wings. They were still coming. Master Splinter was still in danger — he could still hear cries of "Kill the rat!" floating down from above, as if they hadn't figured out what their goal was.

Leo began swimming swiftly to the bridge itself, hearing the rush of water as Mikey and Raph followed just behind him. When he came to the massive square stone column rising out of the water, he dug his fingertips between the stone blocks and hoisted himself out of the river. My kingdom for some shuko, he thought darkly.

It took what seemed like an eternity to scale the side of the bridge, using nothing but fingers and toes to propel himself up the sheer surface. But as he approached the top of the bridge, Leo heard the sound of metal being smashed, and grunts of exertion. Feminine grunts. Two sets of them. It couldn't be…

"Watch your back!" a familiar voice called out, followed by a the sizzle of electricity.

Angel. And that meant the other voice had to be Alopex, the fox mutant who had defected from the Foot. Leo's heart almost sang as he seized a cable and swung himself up onto the bridge. Finally something good was happening to them, even if they were still wildly outnumbered and surrounded by hostile robots and cyborg flies. And of course, they still didn't know why Baxter Stockman was suddenly targeting them. But still, they had allies.

Splinter was standing with his back to Alopex and Angel, using his walking stick to smash a Mouser out of the air. Angel was tearing through flyborgs with almost reckless abandon, and Alopex was smashing Mousers out with precise kicks and strikes. But they were outnumbered — though diminished, Stockman's forces were still too numerous for just a handful of opponents to finish off.

With a cry, Leo leaped onto the bridge and unsheathed his katanas, cutting down a flyborg approaching his father. "Form a defensive circle!" he shouted as his brothers followed him.

Angel and Alopex did as he said — the human in her powerful, face-concealing exo-suit, and the fox snarling and baring her teeth. Raph and Mikey settled easily into the circle with their father and friends, their weapons ready to lash out as soon as anything came close enough.

"Not a good time, KirbyFan," Angel muttered. "We're kinda surrounded by giant bugs here."

Leo supposed she was talking to Harold — though why Harold was calling her was anyone's guess. His eyes darted around at the air around them — it was buzzing and alive with machines and fly parts, steel jaws and glittering compound eyes. There were so many of them — dozens at the very least — and the worst part was that even if they could kill every last one of them, Stockman probably had hundreds more on the way.

Still, there was nothing else to do. They were after his father for some reason, and Leo would let them have Splinter over his cold dead body. He gripped his swords more tightly, and raised them above his head.

Then something caught his eye — the glint of steel in the high arches and columns of the bridge rising above them. His eyes widened as he took in dark shapes on the far end of the bridge, moving swiftly among the shadows and leaping from steel cables to the asphalt down below. And his heart sank as if someone had ripped it out and thrown it into the river below.

Foot ninja.