Just wanted to thank all the followers and those who are kind enough to keep leaving me reviews. Means the world to me! Summer time is choatic with three different sets of Bible Camps that I help run, which make it difficult to stay up to date with new chapters. They WILL come! Hang in there and enjoy...

Lab Grab

"What? Why, what did you find?" Leo asked, eyeing the purple ninja with a scrutinizing glare.

"No, no, you go first. I'm curious what was in the cold storage. Did you find the mutagen containment?" Donnie asked, hopeful.

"Maybe, maybe not. We need your geek goggles to see through walls. Well, in this case, a fridge door. It's locked tighter than a nun's," Raph stopped, looked at Leo, who had two deep blue stones penetrating his hide. "You get the idea," Raph finished with a grim chuckle.

"What we did find was fairly interesting, though. Is it normal for a drug manufacturing company to house samples of animal blood, platelets, and plasma? They also had vials of plant based product. There were some chemicals stored in the refrigeration, but not as many as I expected. Like maybe thirty to forty small containers, and I'd never heard of any of them," Leo said, giving Donnie all the details he could remember.

Donatello cupped a large hand to his chin, tapping a finger to the side of his cheek in thought. "Hmmmm," he queried. "Sounds similar to our findings."

"Yeah, there was this weird caged closet in the middle of the room. Don said it was a med cabinet, or something. There were like hundreds of prescriptions inside. Literally, like tons," Mikey said.

Raph wrinkled his brow ridges. "How the shell is that similar, dumbass?" he said gruffly.

"What Mikey left out was the name printed on each. They were all labeled Herbal, Medical, Botanical, and most contained vitamins, supplements, or organic extracts. Thing is, I looked through all the company buy out paper work in the file cabinets; the name of the last company was North General Medicine abbreviated NGM for short. They were pretty low grade, practicing in pain killers mostly. Probably why it was a quick and easy deal to purchase them.

"When I read their drug trial lists, it appears that Howard Mitchell wasn't interested in their products, discarding most of their contents when the take over happened. Which is actually quite spendy, having to pay for proper disposal of narcotics or any lab samples."

"Where does this Botanical company fit in then?" Leo asked, blankly.

Donatello shook his head while wringing his green three fingered hands.

"Well, that sucks," Raphael said. "Now what? We're even more clueless than we were before." His broad shoulders heaved up and down. Deep in his chest a growl was forming.

"Raph," Mikey cooed, "stay cool. I don't want to take you down again."

Wrong thing to say. "TAKE ME down? The shell ya did. Yer just lucky the dull duo were there to save ya orange ass, or I'd have turtle waxed the floor with you, right in front of the lil' mischief maker."

"What is up with you? Why you keep picking on Trin, huh?" Mikey lashed out. Donnie stepped up, putting himself between the two bright colored ninjas.

"Stop this NOW, Raphael," Leonardo said, as he got right in his brother's face. "I thought we all agreed to let this go while on mission?"

Raph saw red. Mikey had it coming. He knew better than to poke sticks. "He started it," Raph spat.

"Then be the bigger turtle, for once," Leo hissed back.

Raph's emerald eyes flashed as they met Leo's sapphire. They glared at one another, seething. Blood surged through his veins, tempting him to release a fist. It took every restraint, every muscle to keep his body from flying into attack mode and pummeling his older brother. To clear the air he closed his eyes.

The leader leaned in, whispered into Raph's ear, "Just keep it together, through this recon. I'm not saying you're wrong, but don't react here."

With those words, the electric crimson faded to a dull maroon. When Raph opened his eyes Leo was standing near the center island, inspecting the goods with Donatello. Michelangelo stood a ways off by himself, shell turned to Raphael.

Fine. I can spy better alone. He thought.

—-

Mikey watched Raph walk towards the other side of the laboratory. A giant hand clutched his stomach, wrenching it in an ice cold grip. It twisted, making him want to hurl. Out of his three brothers, he and Raph used to be closest. Even when the red hot-head started having those severe temper tantrums, it was the lovable orange who stuck it out, endured the bruises, all to give him support and a laugh. Who would make Raph smile?

I still want to punch his lights out. I love the big lug, but he totally crossed the line, man. Until he admits it and agrees to lay off my girl, it won't be me running to his side when he gets like this.

Regretfully, Mikey walked over to Leo. All the doodads on the stainless table top were foreign to him, except for the ones that resembled Donnie's science tools at home. He was completely out of his element.

Leo cast a suspicious glance his way. "No more of that, understood?" he said in a low tone. Mikey knew what he spoke of, the comment to Raph. He nodded in submission and walked away, towards the side of the lab.

—-

"Well, they're efficient at cleaning up after themselves. I can't tell by looking at these what they've been studying," Donnie said, holding up a petri dish.

"Would using a microscope help?" Leo asked.

Donnie cocked his head, contemplated the thought. "Find me a slide or dish with residue and yes. Otherwise, if it has been cleaned, no good."

"Why not take a look at the samples they got stored?" Mikey asked from where he stood.

Donatello's brown eyes glistened with euphoria. To be in a real lab, where real scientist, did real in depth experiments, with their real expensive equipment was mind blowing, a dream come true. If he, Donatello Hamato, were able to use said equipment to study their mystery work would tickle him ten shades of green.

"Will they notice any missing?" Leo asked Donnie.

"Not if I use trace amount," he shot out instantly. "Do you think you can bend the rules and let me hack one cooler so I can grab some samples?" Donnie asked almost pleadingly.

Leonardo sighed. "Can you make a fair assumption about what is going on without doing so?"

"Honestly, and I am being very honest here Leo, no. I am clueless. If I can't hack the computer to read why they're interested in herbal and animal based science, I need to see what's in those samples," Donnie said, his brown eyes wide with concern.

After a moment of consideration Leo nodded. "Fine. Raph, bring Donnie to cold storage. Mikey and I will stay here. Hurry back you two."

The three brothers watched as Donnie practically pranced towards the door. Raphael rolled his eyes, nothing like a nerd with his toys. Once they entered the room stocked with refrigerators, and safely away from their other brothers, Donatello talked openly.

"So, how's that arm?"

"Huh, oh, it's fine. Why, you think that's how Mikey got the upper hand on me?" Raph asked, an edge to his voice.

"No, not at all, geese! I'm just following up, Raph. Man you're touchy. This is why I hate talking to you," Donnie said, heading to a cooler. "You take everything someone says out of context and twist their words. Believe it or not, the world doesn't revolve around you."

"I never said it did, dickhead!" Raph yelled.

As he began manipulating the keypad, Donnie remained cool, and spoke to the angry ninja in calm tones. "All I meant was, you take things personal. I was simply trying to be nice, making sure you aren't being hindered by your wound. It's not like I care what you and Mikey do, or who comes out on top. Honestly, you should learn to ignore the little motor mouth. If I can do it right now, you should be able to."

Raph had been leaning against a cooler, arms crossed in front of his plastron, disgruntled but listening. Something Don said caught his attention. "Whadda ya mean, if you can do it right now? How's Mikey irking yer tail?"

Donnie's thick green fingers froze, only for a split second, but it was enough of a hesitation for Raphael to catch.

"Ah-huh, what's up between the B-Team? He bust another precious toy of yours?" Raph asked snidely.

He chose to ignore. As he let out a loud sigh, he continued work on the alarm. A few more wires and it beeped, signaling its demise.

"All right, no more talk. Let's grab these and get back to the lab," Donnie said as he carefully selected which vials to test.

"Give me your goggles. We also need to look at these solid fridges. No tampering with locks. Leaders orders," Raph said, coming up beside Donatello. The purple ninja lowered down, which allowed Raph to swipe them off the top of his head. "Much obliged," he said sarcastically.

"Just, be gentle with them," Donnie said morosely. The confirmation he received was a chuckle.

—-

"Looks like algae," Donnie said, then removed the slide. Leo handed him another. "This is pure bovine blood, no tampering. Next." Leo handed him yet another.

They had lined thirteen glass slides with differing samples. To make testing quicker they had a routine, Leonardo passed the slides, Donnie looked through the microscope, and Mikey was to cautiously wipe and clean them.

"So far these are all natural, nothing out of the ordinary," Donnie said frowning. "I was hoping they would keep stuff they had already experimented on in there."

"So these are all untested samples?" Leo asked. Donatello nodded. "What about the chemicals?" He passed Don a slide that had one of the mystery ingredients.

"Hmm, looks like it is a combination of chemicals. Though, why they wouldn't label it as such is odd," Donnie said while twisting the microscopes knobs. "There is something, familiar about the makeup of these, like their derivative is mimicking another source…"

Leo handed him another slide. As he stared into the lenses, he said, "Same. I mean different chemical bases but the links are formulating the same chain, but attempting it differently." He brought his head up, and his brown eyes scanned the tabletop. "We need to bag a few samples for me to study back at the lair. I need to know what the components are. They're obviously testing these on the organic materials, or mixing it."

Just then, Raphael entered. "Our recon just got real boys and girls. We have mutagen."

"Where?" Leo asked.

"Right where I told you there'd be. The white fridges," Raph said, cocking a thumb over his shoulder. "I saw a glowing liquid with the goggles. Tell me that ain't mutagen."

"Now what? Do we break in and steal it?" Mikey asked, hopping on his toes.

Leonardo had to think a moment. Three sets of eyes bored into him. He could feel their steady beam, shooting like the lasers, directly into his plastron.

"We can't," he stated in a flat tone.

"WHAT?" Raphael barked.

"Are you crazy?" Mikey asked.

"Excuse me, did I hear you, correctly? Did you say we can't?" Donnie said, as his voice neared a squeak.

Leonardo knew they would question him, and had prepared for the onslaught. He pressed a green hand to his forehead, ready for the headache that would soon follow their tirade of arguments.

"Why the fuck we sneaking shells up in this lab for then, Fearless? To test our stealth? Was this justa damn game to ya? We found the mutagen! Let's flush the shit and git our asses home," Raph had moved from the doorway, to within four inches from Leo's ear, in case he couldn't hear the screaming from twenty feet away.

"I agree with Raph," Michelangelo said. "This blows! What'd we come here for, Leo? I thought the plan was to rid the world of mutagen, once and for all?"

He let out a low sigh, then answered. "It is, but in order to do that affectively-"

"If you say we have to do this without hacking into anything, I'm reeeeally going to be pissed," Donnie sneered, lips curled, revealing the gap in his front teeth.

"Uh-I, no. That's not what I was going to say. Listen, all of you, because everyone is on the edge of blowing up. I had a feeling SOME of the mutagen would be here.

"Donatello, with everything you've been able to intel from M&R, do you in logic trust this to be the only place they would store the last remaining supply of mutagen, three bio/hazard fridges in the lab of a new pharm. company?" Leo kept his sapphire eyes locked onto Donnie's dark brown.

"Oh, that's such a cop out! I'm changing your name to Dickless Leader," Raph said.

Donatello held Leo's gaze, deep in contemplation. His eyes closed. "Damnit," he cursed. "You're right, they would keep a virgin source somewhere, hidden and extremely protected. It may only be enough to fill a fraction of an authentic canister, but it would still be a deadly amount."

"What?" Mikey peeped. "You mean, we have more alien recon to do? Dude, I thought going up against some sneaky human scientists would be easier than Kraang crap."

After a few rounds of disputed opinions, the four ninja covered their tracks perfectly, bagged the few samples that wouldn't be missed, and exited the building in complete silence.