Chapter 38

The Great Hockey Heist

Being at the farm took some getting used too.

While everyone was ecstatic when Raph came down the third morning once again able to speak, it only solved one of the many problems they'd had.

Not that they didn't try to solve them all. With Raph talking again, he did his best to keep the promise he made to Leo, and look after his family and friends, all while keeping a close eye on their hibernating brother. He kept Casey and Mikey from getting too down about their situation, and he set up a training regiment for them all to follow and keep in shape. He led them through it every morning for as long as the cold would allow, and made sure they didn't slack off. No one was excluded from it, no matter how much they complained.

Miwa was the only one not to complain about training. The fall of New York and the absence of their family members took their toll on all of them, but with her it showed the most. The kunoichi threw herself into training with more fervor than she had ever shown before. Every minute of the day when she wasn't busy with something else, she was outside in the yard practicing with her tantō.

Donnie, meanwhile, threw himself into his projects with a fervor to help him bury the emotions left over from the Invasion. Without the Turtle Mech to fuss over, Donnie set about repairing and rebooting Metalhead. Soon enough the little robot was up and moving again, and helping Donnie in his barn lab as he worked both on an elixir to aid Leo when he woke up, and a batch of retro-mutagen to help the people of New York.

Casey also tried to bury himself in projects, and spent a good deal of time in the barn after finding an old roadster in there. Despite the decrepit condition the car was in, the vigilante believed he could get it up and running again with enough work. It gave him a project to work on, if nothing else. When he wasn't working on the car, he would go into town to do odd jobs. As one of the few still human looking members of their team, he took it on himself to make sure they'd have enough money to get by.

April also did odd jobs on occasion, and was often seen writing in a journal to pass the time, but mostly she worked around the house, and made sure they all didn't self-destruct from their situation. She spent a lot of time with Donnie and Miwa, trying to do her best to be supportive, and while Donnie was receptive to her attempts, Miwa didn't seem to care either way, which worried April.

Mikey, while he loved being able to wander around in the open again without fear, the isolation of the farm quickly bored him, and he more often then not was left looking for something to do. To help with that, he started doing a lot of chores around the house, from cooking all the meals, to helping Ice Cream Kitty settle in to her new freezer, to feeding the chickens that April brought home one day from the market.

But even with all of them keeping busy, there was no way to deny that a cloud of gloom was hanging over all their heads at the farmhouse.

Then, one day Casey believed he found a solution to cheer some of them up.

"Guys!" he said, rushing into the farmhouse one snowy day after coming back from the town with a backpack on his shoulder and a grin on his face. "You're never gonna guess what I got!"

With a wide grin, he held up a hand full of tickets. "There was this contest in town today to see who could score the most street hockey goals, and I won," the hockey nut said proudly. "The prize was four tickets to the Super Slam Hockey Tournament in the next city over! It's tonight, and we so gotta go!"

"Super Slam Hockey?" Mikey asked in confusion.

"It's an extra violent version of the regular sport," said Miwa with disinterest. "Loads of things like obstacles on the rink, and the players using extra padding and weapons to make it more extreme."

She then realized that the others were all staring at her for knowing that.

"What? Playing that is the excuse he always gives when going out in public with his gear," Miwa said, jerking her thumb at Casey.

Casey shot her a grin, "So does that mean you wanna go?"

Miwa made a face, and said, "Pass, I have better things to do," before heading out to train some more.

April sent Casey an apologetic smile. "Thanks, but I'm not that interested either."

Casey shrugged, and sent his grin at his fellow males. "So I guess it's just the four of us, awesome."

Raph frowned. "I'm all for violent sports, Case, but I think you're forgetting something here," he said gesturing to him and Mikey.

Donnie nodded in agreement. "He's right, how would you expect to sneak in a pair of giant turtles? Unless one of the teams is actually called the Turtles (which I doubt), there's no way no one would notice."

Mikey's eyes lit up, "Oh, I know!"

"I am not putting on a dress to cover up, Mikey," Raph snapped, having seen Mikey's idea of disguises before.

Casey laughed at the thought of that, but reached for his backpack. "No worries, man, I've already got you covered."

He the pulled out some oversized sweat suits, and hockey masks big enough to cover the turtles' faces. "It's a hockey event, so it wouldn't be too weird if you guys came wearing hockey masks. If you cover up, no one will be able to tell the difference."

"And our feet?" Mikey asked as he looked at the clothes Casey had brought.

Casey froze as he hadn't thought of that.

But April looked down at the round feet of the turtles, and said, "I think my grandmother's old ugg boots might fit you," she suggested. "She always did have big feet."

Raph made a face at the thought. "But those are girl's shoes," he protested.

"No one will be able to tell," April assured him. "And they're the only shoes I can think of that could fit your feet as they are."

After another few minutes of convincing, (and assuring them that April and Metalhead could handle looking after Leo and Donnie's science projects respectively) it was agreed that the boys were going to Super Slam Hockey.

During the tournament, Casey was having the time of his life cheering the teams on. The others weren't enjoying it quite as much as he was, but they were all still having fun. Being out of the farmhouse for a while was doing wonders for all of them.

After one team scored on the other, Casey let out a rousing whoop. "Super Slam Hockey's gotta be the best sport known to man!"

"Giant muscleheads beating each other senseless on ice," said Donnie dryly. "Yeah, I can see how it would appeal to you."

"Donnie, the violence is what makes it awesome," Raph said, looking happier than he had in months. "What do you think, Mikey?"

The youngest looked up in surprise. "What the huh?" he asked, his mouth full of the pizza he'd bought from a concession stand, and his hockey mask pushed up on his forehead. It was obvious he'd been so caught up in his snack that he hadn't even been paying attention.

As Raph shoved Mikey's mask back down on his face, Casey noticed Donnie send his brothers a wry look, but shook his head, and didn't say anything.

"What's with that look, D?" Casey asked softly, having recognized Donnie's expression as the one where he was holding something back for his brothers' own good.

Donnie made sure Raph and Mikey were too caught up in their own antics to pay attention, before leaning over to say, "I was just thinking that coming out here was a really good thing for Mikey and Raph. Just, not for the reasons you'd think."

At Casey's clueless look, Donnie explained, "Neither of them have been to a public event since they mutated. They've both had to hide for months from regular people, and while they haven't said anything, it's been taking its toll on them both. Neither one of them is made for isolation, Mikey especially. But being here, among people again, I think it's doing them a world of good."

Casey grinned, "Another reason why Super Slam Hockey is the best."

Donnie rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "It's not the hockey, meathead. They could be watching a ballet recital and still be happy. It's the fact they can be out in the open around other people that makes it worth it."

Casey made a face at that comparison, and it caught Mikey's attention. "What'cha guys talking about?" he asked curiously.

Spotting the warning look from Donnie, Casey pointed across the rink to where the trophy for the winning team was sitting. "I was just telling Donnie how that trophy is so going to belong to Casey Jones someday."

They all looked over at the golden trophy sitting in the glass case across from them.

"The trophy belongs to the team, not the individual players," Donnie said with a roll of his eyes. "Plus, they wouldn't let that trophy stay just anywhere. It was handcrafted for Frederick Henry, a prince in seventeenth century Holland. He played a variation of an old Dutch game called kolven, which some believe to be an early version of ice hockey."

Donnie then realized that the others were staring at him with bewildered expressions. "How the heck do you know this stuff?" Raph asked, sounding astonished.

"It was in the pamphlet they gave us when they let us in," said Donnie simply, holding said pamphlet up.

"You actually read that?" Mikey asked, his mouth once again full of food, but this time he'd ducked down to so no one could see his face.

"Well, unlike the rest of you, I actually like reading," Donnie snarked back.

But Casey had stopped paying attention as one hockey team started coming up on the other team's goal.

As the player with the puck scored the winning goal just as the buzzer sounded, the rink erupted into cheers, Casey being the loudest one.

But as the rink started to clear, and before the trophy could be awarded, a shadow passed overhead, and everyone looked up in surprise.

A helicopter was circling the rink purposefully like a shark that had spotted prey.

"Is this some kind of show now that the game's over?" asked Mikey, having finally finished his pizza.

Donnie frowned, and looked at the flyer in his hands. "It's not mentioned in the pamphlet."

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Raph muttered to himself.

Suddenly, people with cowboy hats and parachutes jumped from the helicopter, and fell directly towards the rink. As they got nearer, it became clear that they were all holding machine guns, and they began to open fire on the stands as they got close.

People immediately started screaming and bolting for the exits. The bullets had been to scare them rather than kill so no one was hurt, but that didn't mean it would stay that way.

Instead of running like the rest, the four teenagers ducked down in their seats to watch as the parachuting men landed on the ice, and smirked at the seemingly empty rink.

"Hurry up now, fellas," called the cowboy that seemed to be in charge in a deep southern accent. "Before the police get ta sniffen' around here."

The goons under the cowboy's employ nodded, and made their way for the pedestal with the golden puck.

Taking a minute to admire the golden trophy, the lead cowboy said, "There she is, boys. Now y'all bag 'er n' tag 'er."

One of the goons moved forward and smashed the glass on the case, and another reached out for the trophy.

But before the goon could lay a hand on it, a hockey puck flew out of nowhere and hit his hand with bone breaking force.

As the goon howled in pain, the others looked around to try and see where the puck had come from.

Casey, having left their hiding spot to stop the crooks, shot forward on the ice with a bellow of, "GOONGALA!"

Before the robbers knew what hit them, the vigilante used the discarded hockey stick he'd found, and knocked another robber flat on the ice, and swerved around to take out another.

Not happy that their heist was being interrupted by some kid, the robbers turned their guns on him, but before they could shoot him, a kusarigama chain flew out of the shadows and wrapped around one of the guns, and pulled it and its owner till he smacked into one of the super slam obstacles. While the bad guys were distracted by this, Casey took it as an opportunity to duck for cover.

Instantly, the thieves got more on their guard.

"Fellas," said the leader. "Looks like some fans don't wanna give up their box seats."

He then caught sight of where Casey was hiding, and grinned. "But Ah've got a way to make 'em do it."

He then pulled out a grenade, pulled out the pin, and threw it in Casey's direction.

The hockey nut paled at the sight of it, and tried to scramble to safety, but only manage to hop the fence of the rink before it went off, causing the bleachers to collapse on top of him.

"CASEY!" yelled Raph in alarm, only to have to dodge as a hail of bullets came in the direction of his voice.

Thinking that they'd hit Raph, the crooks smirked and turned their attention back to the Golden Puck. They grabbed it just as the helicopter they'd dropped out of landed on the ice and took off after they'd climbed inside.

What all of the robbers failed to see, was a small cockroach scuttle into the chopper before it lifted back off the ground.

Once the crooks were flying away, Donnie and Mikey burst from their hiding places to help Raph and Casey.

Raph, fortunately, pulled himself out of his own hiding place a second later, having narrowly avoided being shot.

Casey, however, wasn't so lucky, and the three brothers hurried over to dig him out of the rubble.

Once free of the bleachers, Casey was on his feet and hopping mad despite the rapidly forming bruises that now covered him.

We gotta go after those maniacs!" He insisted as Donnie and Raph quickly checked him for serious injuries. "They stole the Golden Puck, and they gotta pay for trying to blow me up!"

"A few splinters, and those bruises will be sore in the morning, but you'll live," said Donnie after finishing his examination of the vigilante.

But Raph had been paying more attention to Casey's words. "And how do you think we should do that?" he asked sarcastically.

"Are you saying we should leave it to the police?" Mikey asked his brother.

Casey looked livid at the idea, but Raph intervened quickly, "When have we ever left anything to the police? I just meant that we have no way to track a helicopter." He then shot a glance at Donnie, "Do we?"

Donnie looked smug and held up his phone. "As a matter of fact, I sent my spy-roach to climb aboard the helicopter before it took off. We can track it through that."

"Whoa, dude," said Mikey, looking impressed. "Way to think ahead."

"Then what are we waiting for!" asked Casey running for the exit.

The others heard the sound of sirens in the distance, and hurried after him. The last thing they needed was to have to explain to the cops why two mutant turtles had come to a Super Slam Hockey match.

The four boys followed Donnie's signal until they found the helicopter abandoned in the woods just outside of town. The spy-roach scuttled out of it when they got there, and into Donnie's pocket.

Raph sent his brother a disturbed look when he saw that. "You keep those things in your clothes?" he asked in revulsion.

"Well, where else am I supposed to keep them?" Donnie asked as he looked at the helicopter's serial number and looking it up on his phone.

Raph still looked sick at the idea, but Mikey and Casey were too busy looking over the helicopter.

"I don't get it," Casey said as he climbed inside the chopper and looked around. "I can understand leaving a car after a robbery. The bad guys can steal another one, or buy one with whatever money they get from what they steal. But helicopters are harder to buy, and why get a new one if you've already got one."

Raph nodded in agreement to Casey's question (thankful for the distraction from the roaches), but Mikey just beamed and hugged the helicopter. "Can we keep it?" he asked hopefully, looking at the rest of them with pleading eyes.

"Unfortunately, no," said Donnie looking up from his phone. "I just looked up the serial number of it, and it turns out those cowboys stole it a week ago. It belongs to someone else."

Mikey moaned in disappointment, and Casey nodded. "Then that explains why they dumped it," the vigilante said.

"So now what?" asked Mikey. "We follow the footprints in the snow?"

"Those footprints are heading back to the city, so they won't be much use by the time we get there," Raph pointed out. "Do you have another science doohickey that can help us track them, Donnie?"

Donnie shook his head. "Sorry, but since my roach wasn't able to keep on them, I have no way of following them."

"Then we do this the old fashion way," said Casey with a grin as he began looking through helicopter again.

"Old fashion way?" the three brothers chorused in confusion.

Casey looked back at them and grinned. "Detective work," he explained. "Start investigating, guys."

Raph smacked his forehead at the idea, Mikey let out an excited squeal, and Donnie looked intrigued at the thought.

"Jolly good, my dear sir," said Mikey as he bounced back to the chopper, speaking in his best imitation of Sherlock Holmes (or any stereotypical British person really).

"Mikey, if you keep talking like that, I will bury you in this snow," Raph growled as he followed.

"I wonder if I can make an app to find clues," Donnie said as he trailed behind, looking thoughtfully at his phone as he did so.

Casey had to snicker at their reactions, and they all turned their attention to turning the helicopter inside out looking for clues. Casey and Donnie were both careful not to leave fingerprints for when the police searched it later, but both Raph and Mikey didn't bother. Scales didn't leave readable fingerprints, and no investigator would believe someone had fingers that big anyway.

Surprisingly, it was Raph who found their only clue. "Check this out, guys," he said, holding up a matchbox with the words 'The Sierra' printed on the top.

"It's a complementary matchbox," said Donnie, looking it over. "Like the ones they used to give out at hotels and other places years ago. Kinda like those chocolates you sometimes find on your pillows in hotel rooms. But not many hotels still do that for matches anymore."

Mikey's eyes glazed over and he said, "Mmm, chocolate. Now I want some."

"Well, looks like some hotel is old fashioned enough to still do it," said Casey, studying the match box. "This thing looks practically new, so those creeps can't have had it for long."

Raph smirked. "Not to mention, I saw a place called the Sierra on the way here. It's a place back in town."

"Then our next step is elementary, my good fellows," said Mikey, taking up his British accent again. "We must go to that hotel, and catch these miscreants. The game is afoo-Gah!"

Mikey was cut off as Raph tackled him into a snowdrift. "I said knock off that accent, and I meant it," he growled.

"SO COLD!" Mikey wailed in reply.

Casey rolled his eyes. "Come on, let's go before you both start hibernating."

"I'll send the police a tip the helicopter's here, and we should leave the matchbox to for them to find," said Donnie as he put it back where Raph had found it. "Just because we're not waiting for the police, doesn't mean we should keep them from doing their job."

"Yeah, yeah, let's just go," said Raph impatiently as he pulled Mikey back up from the snowdrift.

Arriving at the Sierra hotel, the four boys hesitated in front of it as they tried to figure out what to do next.

"There's gotta be, like, a dozen floors on this place," said Raph staring up at the hotel. "How are we supposed to find if those guys?"

Casey nodded. "If they're even still here."

Donnie frowned thoughtfully. Then he glanced at Casey, and asked, "How good are you at faking a southern accent."

"Awesome at it," said Mikey brightly, referring to himself.

"He wasn't talking to you," Raph said, elbowing Mikey in his shell.

Casey made a face, then said, "Ah reckon I-er-Ah'm rooten' tooten' at it," he said in a painfully bad attempt at the accent.

Donnie winced at the sound of it, and shook his head. "Never mind, I'll handle it. Wait out here."

With that Donnie walked into the hotel and right up to the front desk. When the receptionist looked up at him, he gave her a friendly smile and said in his best southern accent, "Hello, ma'am, Ah'm supposed ta meet mah uncle here tonight, tall man, cowboy hat, an' an accent like mine. Could ya'll tell me wha' his room is?"

The receptionist stared at Donnie for a second, taking in his clearly Asian appearance, and said skeptically, "Mr. Slim is your uncle?"

Donnie frowned and pretended to look offended. "Yes ma'am he is. Ah may take more after mah mama's side, but that don't mean that we ain't the same blood. Do ya always ask such nosey questions ta yer customers? Is tha' the kinda place yer runnin' here?"

The receptionist turned pink at his rebuttal, and said, "I-I'm very sorry, sir," she said. "He is in room 213. The elevator is on your left."

Donnie dropped his offended act, and smiled at her politely. "Thank ya kindly, ma'am," he said before turning to head to the elevator.

Once inside, he quickly sent a text to the others which room it was.

Outside, Raph got the text, and pulled out his grappling gun and made his way to the hotel's alley. "Room 213, guys. We scale the wall and meet Donnie there."

He then noticed the sheepish looks on Casey and Mikey's faces. Realizing why, he gave them a deadpan glare. "You forgot your grappling guns, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Mikey weakly.

"We were just going to a hockey game," Casey said defensively. "How were we supposed to know we'd need them?"

"Rule number two of being a ninja is always be prepared," Raph said pointedly as he shot his grappling gun up, and stepped back to allow the others to climb up first. "Don't let me catch either of you without one again."

"I thought that was the Boy Scouts?" said Mikey, looking confused as he started climbing.

"Boy Scouts ripped it off from ninjas," Raph said dismissively.

Mikey blinked in surprise. "The Boy Scouts are ninjas?"

"Just climb already!"

Casey moved to climb up after Mikey, and said, "If that's rule number two, what's rule number one."

Raph smirked as he followed them up, and Mikey snickered above him. In unison they repeated what they'd heard their father tell them countless times. "The first rule of being a ninja is do no harm. Unless you mean to do harm, then do lots of harm."

Casey grinned. "Now there's a rule I can get behind."

The three of them climbed up the second floor, and then scaled along the side until Donnie picked the lock on the room, and opened the window for them.

"Coast is clear for now," Donnie said softly as the others climbed in. "We should try to find that puck, and call the police. If they find it here, they can grab those thieves when they come back."

"You mean we can't beat them up?" asked Casey in disappointment.

"Not if we don't have too," said Donnie. "After what happened in New York, we really shouldn't draw attention to ourselves again."

That took the wind out of Casey's sails, and he nodded grudgingly.

"Let's just find that trophy," said Raph as he began looking around the room, the others following his example.

Only to come up empty.

"I can't find it, dudes," Mikey said as he crawled out from under the bed.

"They must have put it somewhere else for safekeeping," said Donnie as he finished pawing through the vanity drawers.

"At least we know we're in the right room," said Raph dryly as he gazed into the closet, and finding it full of hatboxes, each containing another cowboy hat. "How many hats can one person need?"

"So what now?" asked Casey.

"We wait until they show up, and we follow them to see where they took it," said Raph with a shrug.

"So how long do you think until they get back?" Casey asked.

On cue, the door started to rattle.

"Hide!" Raph hissed, and the three ninjas vanished. Casey took a few seconds longer, but Mikey reached out from his hiding spot in the closet, and dragged the vigilante in with him an instant before the door opened and the cowboys from the hockey rink stepped inside.

"All I'm saying," said one cowboy they didn't recognize, and didn't have a southern accent like the rest, "is that you didn't need to blow up that kid at the hockey rink. He was just a crazy fan, you could have taken him out without killing him."

The lead cowboy, Slim, gave a scoff. "Ya'll was always a stick in the mud, Howard. 'S why we had ya flyin' the chopper." He then shot a glare at the Howard. "Ah did what Ah had to, now yer gonna shut yer trap 'r else. We're about ta score the payment of a lifetime, and if ya keep puttin' up a fuss, ya'll be joinin' that dumb kid at the rink. Ya hear?"

Howard looked peeved, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Jes get what we came for and le's go," said Slim. "The big man himself will be waitin' for us, an' we'd best not keep 'im."

Howard's scowl deepened, but he turned to do what Slim said, and made his way towards the closet Mikey and Casey were hiding in. Seeing this, the two hiding there shrank back as far as they could into the closet, and tried to hide themselves among the hat boxes.

From their own hiding places of hanging out the window, Raph and Donnie exchanged panicked glances, and Raph climbed his way across to the next window, and climbed through the thankfully empty room.

Running from there out into the hallway, he reached over and pulled the fire alarm in the hallway, making a piercing wail fill the hotel, and people started exiting their rooms to leave the building. But before any of them did so, the turtle who pulled the alarm had already vanished back out the window to hide next to Donnie.

Back in the room, the cowboy crooks exchanged worried glances as the sound of the alarm hit their ears.

"We gotta get movin'," said one of the hat-wearing thugs.

Slim nodded for them all to start heading out, and Howard barely opened the closet in his haste to catch up to them, and blindly grabbed a set of keys hanging on a hook in the closet before taking off, not even noticing the two teenagers hidden there.

The second the crooks were gone, the four teens came out of hiding, and began scaling back down the rope Raph's grappling gun, and hurried to the party wagon to wait for the cowboys to come out of the hotel.

The group came out of the building a minute later and piled into a van before driving off into the night. Casey drove the party wagon after them at a subtle distance (or at least as subtle as a brightly colored hippie van could be).

Eventually, the van pulled to a stop outside a broken down warehouse outside of town. The teens parked their own van a safe distance away, and made their way to the meeting spot on foot and crouched behind a large fallen log to not to be seen.

The cowboys had gotten out of their van, and seemed to be milling around waiting for something.

What they were waiting for became clear very soon, as three fancy looking black cars drove up to the warehouse and parked not too far from the crooks.

Various armed guards got out of two of the cars, and out of the third stepped a short, chubby, old man also wearing a cowboy hat. The second he set foot on the ground, the guards moved to flank him, making it clear that he was the boss.

The boss gave them a smile that looked like it belonged on a kindly old grandpa, not on a man about to buy stolen property from a bunch of thieves. "Well boys," he said, "ya'll got what I asked ye?"

The cowboys moved over to their van, and displayed the golden puck trophy for the man to see.

"We got it, Mr. Arboost," said Slim proudly. "But it cost a bit more than we figured. Had to ditch that helicopter we boosted."

Mr. Arboost waved his hand to dismiss the problem. "Well, you know me, boys," he said. "Money don' mean a thing. Send me the bill, and let me know when you want me to run interference so you can take another."

The cowboys all smirked at that. "Why thank you, Mr. Arboost."

Mr. Arboost's smile suddenly took a more greedy turn, and he looked less like a grandpa and more like the Grinch. "Ah can't wait to see the faces on those suits when Ah tell them Ah got their precious golden puck. Wouldn't give me a Super Slam hockey team, said my image was all wrong. Well so what if Ah jes got out'a jail? Ah want mah own team, and Ah got mahself a gold barginin' chip, ain't that righ' boys."

The cowboys nodded in agreement, but suddenly a voice rang out over the group.

"Are you kidding me?"

The Hamato brothers smacked their foreheads as Casey suddenly surged to his feet, and looked at the group of criminals with a scandalized expression.

"You bozos stole a helicopter, shot up a hockey rink full of people, stole a priceless historic trophy, and nearly killed me and my friends, just because this idiot was too lame to be able to buy a hockey team?" Casey shouted at the stunned looking crooks. "You guys are some of the dumbest criminals I've ever seen, and having met the Purple Dragons, that's saying something."

There was a lengthy silence after Casey's declaration, before Slim recovered his wits, and yelled at his flunkies, "Well, what r' ya'll waitin' for, shoot him!"

Donnie and Raph reached on either side of Casey, and forced him back down and out of the line of fire.

Casey, realizing what he just did, winced and said, "Sorry about that."

The Hamatos looked annoyed at him, but Donnie said, "Oh no, I quite agree with everything you just said. Their stupidity is astounding, and that Mr. Arboost's plan would never have worked anyway."

"But it'd have been better to say all that after we'd kicked their butts," said Mikey. "Even I know that."

"Doesn't matter anymore," said Raph. "Mikey, you and me stick to the shadows, do not let any of these guys see you. Donnie, Casey, while we distract them from a distance, you guys try and get close enough to take them out."

The others stared at him strangely, momentarily forgetting that there were killer cowboys with guns trying to shoot at them.

"You okay, Raph?" Mikey asked. "You've been acting Leo-ish all night. You keep telling us what we should do."

Raph's face turned stony. "Leo's not here," he said bluntly. "And just until he's back, I'll step up."

"Why you?" asked Casey in confusion.

Raph sent the three of them a dark look. "You want the job?" he asked sarcastically.

The three boys grimaced, and shook their heads.

"Neither do I," admitted Raph. "But someone's gotta do it, so it might as well be me."

Just then, a bullet pierced the log they were hiding behind, and shot past them far too close for comfort.

Realizing their cover wouldn't last much longer, Raph said, "Just do what I say, we can argue leadership later!"

The other three nodded, and they hurried to follow Raph's orders.

Raph and Mikey vanished into the shadow, circling the bad guys among the trees, and pelting them with shuriken.

While the cowboys shot wildly into the trees, Casey and Donnie did their best to sneak closer to take them out.

But as the two of them found a hiding place close by, they were surprised to see Howard break off from the group, and hide himself behind a tree. Pulling out a cell phone, he hit something on speed dial, and whispered into it, "This is Howard Laird. I'm at the warehouse alongside Eastman street. Send backup."

Casey's jaw dropped as he heard that. "Dude," he hissed to Donnie, "he's an undercover cop."

"He's probably trying to stop this before they shoot one of us," Donnie said, also coming to that conclusion.

Unfortunately, Howard hadn't been quiet enough, and one of the cowboys had heard him.

"Hey, Slim!" shouted one of the goons, grabbing Howard on the arm and yanking him from his hiding place and stealing his gun from him as she did so. "Looks like we've got a here spy."

The cowboys momentarily forgot about the teenagers, and turned their attention to Howard and the goon.

Slim scowled and got up in Howard's face. "'S that so?" he sneered.

Howard glared back at him, but knew better than to talk back to the criminals with guns pointed at him.

Slim took his silence as an answer, and slugged Howard across the face, knocking him from the goon's grip and into the snow.

"Ah'll show ye what happens to people who spy on us," said Slim leveling his gun at Howard.

"Now hold on, Slim," said Mr. Arboost, stepping in. "Killin' him would be a waste. Usin' him as a hostage would be a better way to get past that backup he just called."

Slim scowled, but grunted in agreement, then nodded at one of his goons to grab Howard again. The undercover police officer struggled against the man pinning him, but wasn't able to get free.

From the corner of his eye, Casey caught a glimpse of movement. Looking over, he saw Raph signaling him from behind a tree. As he watched, the turtle held up one of his smoke bomb eggs, and mimed throwing it at the cowboys, then pretended to pull something away.

Casey nodded, shoved his hokey mask down over his face, and whispered the plan to Donnie to get him on board.

A second later, a smoke bomb burst among the cowboys, and Casey and Donnie darted forwards into smoke. Donnie used his bō to knock the man holding Howard over the head, and Casey grabbed the cop and pulled him along with them out of the smoke. By the time it had cleared, the teens and the cop were hiding again, and the cowboys were looking around furiously.

Howard was blinking in surprise at the fact he was no longer being held hostage, but he got over it quickly and glared at his two saviors. "What the hell do you kids think you're doing?" he hissed quietly so as not to draw the cowboys' attention.

Casey gave a scoff behind his mask, "You're welcome."

"This is dangerous," Howard continued, ignoring Casey's sarcasm. "You two should take your friends and get out of here."

Donnie tugged nervously on the hood of his coat to make sure it was covering his face, before saying, "With all do respect, sir, what do you plan to do if we leave. They took your gun, and we at least have things to pass as weapons."

That gave Howard pause as he noticed the borrowed hockey stick still in Casey's hand, and the collapsible bō staff in Donnie's. But before he could give an answer, one of the cowboys seemed to catch sight of them, and started shooting in their direction.

The boys and cop bolted further into the forest to avoid them, and the cowboys chased after them, leaving Mr. Arboost alone next to the van with the golden puck still sitting inside.

Seeing this, Mikey's face broke into a wide grin, and he turned to Raph and said, "I just got an awesome idea."

Raph took one look at the smile on Mikey's face, and replied, "That's what worries me."

Nonetheless, the red wearing turtle followed after his baby brother as they both shoved their own hockey masks and hoods back on their heads, and bolted towards the van.

With a shout of "Booyakasha!" Mikey leaped from the cover of the trees and kicked Mr. Arboost away from the van.

Before the old man could recover, Raph and Mikey were already sitting in the van and gunning the engine.

Mikey the yanked on the steering wheel, and shot the van in the direction that Donnie and the others had run, and made the cowboys scatter to avoid being run over.

Bringing the van up along side the others, Raph shouted, "Get in!"

Seeing the cowboys already recovering to come after them again, the three piled into the van, and Mikey swerved it around to get back on the road.

"You're the cop," Raph called into the back to Howard. "Where do we go?"

Howard, who was looking like he was having a hard time believing a group of kids was practically doing his job for him, managed to say, "Back into town. If we don't meet the backup I called on the way there, we can get help from the police on arrival at the station."

"Works for me," said Raph, and Mikey started speeding back towards the city.

Glancing out the window behind them, Donnie paled and said, "Tenshi, you might want to step on it."

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Mikey instantly saw why Donnie had made that request. The cowboys had all piled into Mr. Arboost's cars, and were gaining on them, determined to get the puck back, and kill the five of them for their interference.

Mikey grinned wildly at the sight of them, and floored the pedal to shoot the van forward, and yanked on the steering wheel to pull sharp turn around a corner.

"Who taught you how to drive?" Casey yelled from the back seat as the turn had him falling against Donnie in the back seat.

"You want pretty, or you wanna get out of here?" Mikey said with a manic grin.

Donnie, meanwhile, looked thoughtful. "Now that I think about it, no one's taught him to drive. We never trusted him behind the wheel before. Well, unless you count video games."

Everyone else exchanged horrified glances, and scrambled for their seat belts.

Just then Mikey had to swerve again as the cowboys started leaning out of the windows and sunroofs of their cars and shooting at the van. The bullets smashed the glass on one of the windows, but thankfully, no one got hit.

Not wanting to put up with this, Casey glanced over at Donnie and said, "You got any Boom Stars on you?"

Donnie's face broke into a smirk as he caught on to Casey's plan, and pulled out the few he'd made since coming to the farmhouse. He activated them, and tossed them out the broken window onto the street. Similarly, Casey pulled out a few of his exploding hockey pucks, and tossed them out as well.

The chasing cars drove over the explosives, but only the last one was slow enough to drive over them as they blew, making the car spin out of control and crash into a tree. The last thing the teens saw before Raph swerved around another corner was the men in the car scrambling to get out of it before the whole thing blew.

Howard looked pale as he glanced over the four teenagers he was with. "Who the heck are you kids?"

Mikey turned back to grin at him, though it couldn't be seen behind the hockey mask obscuring his green face. "Totally awesome, that's who we are."

"EYES ON THE ROAD!" was the unanimous response.

Mikey shrugged as he turned back around, then gleefully tossed a shuriken out the window, which punctured the tires of a second car, making it spin out of control too. The angry cowboys climbed out of it once it had stopped and shook their fists at the van as it drove away.

Mikey glanced back at the flabbergasted police officer, and whispered dramatically, "Booyakasha."

Howard just groaned and leaned his head against the side of the van. "The paperwork for this case is going to be a nightmare."

Just then a bump from the back of the van had all of them pitching forward with cries of surprise.

The third and final car had caught up to them, and was now ramming the back of the van, trying to get them to loose control.

Mikey gritted his teeth and tried to keep the van straight, but one such hit had the vehicle skidding on the icy road out of his control.

The occupants of the van screamed as Mikey fought to regain control, in the back Howard yelled, "You kids are insane!"

"Move over!" shouted Casey, unbuckling his seatbelt to lean over Raph (smashing him against the window to make room) and grab the steering wheel. Yanking it from the orange wearing turtle's hands, the van managed to start driving straight again, but it was still skidding dangerously. "Now hit the brakes!" he called to Mikey.

Mike was feeling very peeved about being told what to do, but knowing Casey was a better driver than he was he did what the vigilante said, grumbling under his breath the entire time.

The van stopped skidding, and began shooting down the street towards the city again with relative safety. Not that that would last long if the cowboys following them had anything to say about it.

Mikey tried tossing more throwing stars out the window, but the last car managed to swerve and avoid them, all while still gaining on the van, and trying to ram them again.

"Now what?" he asked, glancing back at Donnie, who was trying to calm down Howard (who looked like he was having a panic attack by now).

Donnie glanced up, and said, "With how long it took for the explosives to go off, they wouldn't be much use, and if you can't get a shuriken to hit them, then we'll just have to out drive them."

"Yeah," grunted Casey, who was still leaning over Raph's seat to drive for Mikey. "That's looking real likely right now."

The car rammed their van again, and Casey barely was able to keep them under control.

Raph was now thoroughly fed up. He opened his door and balanced himself on the edge of it. He then reached over, grabbed Casey by the collar of his shirt, and plopped him down in the in the shotgun seat to keep them going.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Howard, staring at Raph like he was a mad man.

Raph shrugged. "Putting a stop to this," he said matter-of-factly. He then climbed up to the roof of the van, and waited for the perfect shot.

Mikey got a wide grin on his face when he realized what Raph was planning, but Donnie grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back into his seat before the youngest could go out and join him. "Not on your life, little brother."

From his perch, Raph glared down at the car chasing them, daring them to ram them again.

He could see Slim in the front seat looking back at him with a sneer on his face. Seeing the teenager in the mask staring down at him, Slim's face twisted into a smirk, and he sped his car up to ram the van again.

That was what Raph had been waiting for, and just as the car hit the van, he leaped down onto the hood of the car, and balanced there in front of the cowboy.

Slim only had a moment to goggle at Raph standing there, before Raph pulled out his sai, and thrust it hilt first through the windshield, and drove it straight into Slim's gut.

Slim yelped in pain, and hit the brakes of his car on reflex, pitching Raph off the hood and he managed to land back on the roof of the van.

Slim's car, meanwhile, lost control and crashed into a tree along the side of the road.

Seeing that, Casey pulled the van to a stop, and they climbed out to get a look at the wreck.

Slim and his crew in the car were all groaning unintelligibly from the wreck, but they would all live.

And at that moment, the sound of sirens hit their ears as the police cars Howard had called finally zoomed around the corner towards them.

"Typical," Casey grumbled. "The cops show up after all the crazy stuff happens."

Howard scowled down at the four of them with an extremely disapproving expression. "You four have a lot of explaining to do," he said firmly. "And we will be calling your parents about all this."

If the police officer noticed the four of them finch and look downcast at the mention of parents, he didn't say anything about it.

Howard instead glanced over at the approaching officers, before continuing, "To start, I need to get your names and addresses so that we can sort out this-"

He broke off as he turned back to see that all four teenagers had vanished without a trace, and not even a footprint in the snow could be seen to indicate where they went. The only thing left was the golden puck gleaming in the back seat of the van, and a discarded hockey mask on the ground.

"-Mess," he finished, and rubbed his temples as he felt a massive headache coming on. "The paperwork for all this is going to be hell."

Meanwhile, climbing through the trees to not leave tracks, four teenage boys moved quickly on their long cold trek to get back to their own vehicle before Raph and Mikey started hibernating.

They managed to make it back to the party wagon just as Raph and Mikey started shivering uncontrollably, and the turtles spent the entire ride back to the farmhouse huddled under blankets as Casey had the van's heat blast as high as it could go.

Finally, the welcome sight of the O'Neil farmhouse came into view, and the boys hurried inside to finally rest after their wild night.

Despite feeling bone tired, Mikey still had a spring in his step and he rushed into the house, and called, "Mi! April! Where are you at?!"

There was a beat of silence, before a loud thump came from Leo's bathroom.

Mikey grinned, and rushed up the stairs, the others following after him wondering what that thump was.

As Mikey hurried to the bathroom, he said, "You two'll never believe what happened tonight! It was totally crazy and-!"

He broke off as he entered the bathroom, and caught sight of the girls.

Both girls looked like utter messes. Their clothes were singed and ripped, and April's hair had fallen out of its usual ponytail and into a rat's nest. Metalhead stood next to them looking slightly dented, but otherwise unharmed.

Miwa gave her baby brother a deadpan glare and said, "Trust me, Mikey, there is no way it was crazier than ours."

A/N This was a combination of the episode, The Golden Puck from the 2003 series, and The Unmentionables storyline from the Mirage comics (which is mostly where Howard is from). What do you all think? I figured we needed something a little more light hearted after what these guys had just been through. You'll find out what April, Miwa, and Metalhead went through next week.

Disclaimer: I own nothing