"We really didn't discover anything tonight. The mission was a bust," Leonardo hung his head, disappointed in himself.

"Not necessarily," Donnie held up a flash drive in his hand, "We downloaded everything on that computer terminal. All their plans and research is right here.

I shook my head. "We can't read it though."

"You can't read it?" Leo asked, brows furrowed.

Donnie lowered the flash drive. Now it was his turn to look disappointed, "Uh. No. I can't. It's in a different language. One I don't recognize. Without some kind of dialect to help me decipher it, I can't do much with it. I can't even read the file they have on Jade."

Beside me, I could sense Raph's temper was beginning to spark up again. His frown was gradually growing, the ends of his lips nearly touching his chin, "They have some kind of wacko research on our sister and ya can't even read it?"

Donnie rubbed a hand on the back his neck, slightly embarrassed, "Uh… no?"

"So now what?" Raph turned his glare to Leo, "What now? We got a big pile of nothin'!"

The eldest made a face, "I don't know, Raphael. We'll just have to continue what we always do and look for more clues where we can."

"Where? There ain't nowhere to go looking!"

"I'll figure it out. I always do."

Alright, stop while you're ahead there, Leo. I shared an annoyed glance with Don.

"Oh, ya? And who put you in charge of telling us where to go where there's nothin' to go lookin' for?"

Both brothers were starting to face off now, moving closer as the argument started to ensue.

"You know who," Leo muttered, his tone was becoming a warning.

"Ooo, tension!" Mikey held his hands up, wiggling his fingers, "It's been like an hour since you guys had an argument. Can I just put in one more time that I was right about the aliens with brains theory?"

"Mikey!" Leo and Raph turned to glare at the same time before returning to their original argument. Who knows how long it would take for them to settle down.

Around me, I noticed that our small group was missing a member. Spider-Man was standing at the end of the building, arms crossed and staring at the city lights that were starting to fade as the sun edged to the horizon. I approached, hoping to get away from Leo and Raph for a moment but when I got closer, I realized I didn't know what to say. He had finally returned to the source of his powers only to find close to nothing. His best friend whom he thought had been dead, had been very much alive all this time. Spider-Mans night had ended with his friend's life taken again.

"The night didn't feel that long," He tried to sound casual but there was hurt laced in his words.

I leaned against the stone wall, interlocking my fingers and stared at the soft pinks and oranges that were slowly taking over the night, "Time flies when you're fighting alien robots."

"Alien robots," Spider-Man repeated, disbelieving, "I still can't believe it. Of all the weird in the world I've seen so far, mystical powers and things that defy science, and it's aliens that still have me geeked. Who would have thought?"

I chuckled, more to the "mystical powers" statement. Wait till he hears about how I can bring people back from the dead. I was willing to bet that that would blow his mind, "It's a first for me too."

A silence followed. Not completely, as I could still hear my brothers several feet behind us but between Spider-Man and I- silence. I was trying to think of what to say. "Sorry" didn't seem like enough but added words seemed like it would be too much. I felt like I should say something though. I would appreciate if the roles were reversed, no matter how I was feeling.

"I'm uh… I'm sorry about Curt," I said it softly and meant it sincerely though I still felt a twinge of a feeling I couldn't quite put a name to. Uncomfortable was the closest I could come up with. I couldn't understand why I felt that way though. When my family and I lost Leo, it was different. For obvious reasons, he was my brother. I'd known him for most my life. The grief of losing your own family member was immeasurable but it was within your own circle of family that dealt with that pain. Other than April and Casey, we knew no one else. We have never dealt with death outside our family.

That was why I feeling odd. I didn't know how to comfort someone who wasn't family. April and Casey haven't lost someone close to them since we've known them. I've never expressed condolences for someone before. I thought it would be easier, saying "I'm sorry."

But it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy in the slightest.

"Thank you," I didn't know if Spider-Man could sense my discomfort. If he did, I certainly couldn't tell, "I think… I think it hurts more now than it did before. I'd accepted it before, that he had died when he was shot. It was hard to accept I had to leave him behind but I could accept he died. Now… I'm not sure if I can get past it all. That he'd been alive this whole time only to…"

I nodded my head as if I understood. Getting out his feelings was a good step, I assumed. He had said before that no one else knew his identity, not even family. I was pretty sure I was the only one he could talk about it with. The idea of me being his listening ear was comforting. I knew how to do that but in this kind of situation, I wasn't sure if there were words that could help ease his feelings. I committed to trying though. I wasn't sure that silence was the best option.

"You couldn't have known he was still alive. Curt didn't even seem to know he'd lived until we woke him up."

"But then he was alive and I still managed to leave him behind a second time. I failed him."

I stared at my thumbs, rubbing them together, "I lost my…" I had to stop myself quickly and avoid saying my brother, "... I lost a friend a while back and it was devastating. I was exhausted but I couldn't sleep without seeing his death over and over again in my dreams. I blamed it on myself given the circumstances and it took a really long time to accept that there were things that had just been out of my hands. We can't control everything that happens in our lives and that's a really hard lesson on the mind."

I left out the part where my grief was short-lived.

Spider-Man leaned his forearms on the ledge as I did, "I don't remember my parents. I was only a baby when they died but my Uncle Ben was shot ten months ago. I remember that day so clearly and it hurts more when I remember that the guy who shot him was a man I had let go after stopping him from committing a robbery. I was there on the street and I heard the gunshot from a couple of blocks away. There was a crowd and Uncle Ben was the one they were surrounding on the sidewalk. It was my fault I let that guy go and it still haunts me to this day. Going on with life has gotten easier but remembering my failure is what's the hardest. Now I'm adding Curt to that list because I couldn't save him either."

There were hundreds of thousands of words available at my disposal but there wasn't a coherent sentence I could put together that could express my sympathies or ease the pain he was feeling. When Leo had died, it was really out of all our hands. We weren't prepared like we thought we had been. We weren't a team. We got separated and Leo received the worst end of our failure.

"The worst part about this job," Spider-Man continued, "Is that you can't save everyone."

I nodded slowly. My brothers and I had a pretty good track record so far despite Leo's situation. We hadn't lost any civilians that we knew of when we interfered with a crime but I did know that our record wasn't going to be clean forever. Master Splinter had taught us several times that the worst lesson we had yet to receive was casualties in battle. His love and loss of his beloved Tang Shen was a constant reminder of what we could lose.

"Thank you for saving me," I said suddenly, not really sure why I thought now was a good time for it, "Earlier when we were on the catwalk."

Spider-Man shifted, turning to face me. I couldn't tell what expression he held from behind his mask but his voice was gentle, "You're welcome."

"Hey, Jade! Spider-Man!" Leo called out to us before I could say anything more, "You guys are going to want to hear this."

Simultaneously, we stood away from the wall and joined my brothers. Donnie had his Shell Cell open, "Okay, April. Go ahead."

"I found Stockman and Shredder."

That made shocked faces between all of us. Stockman and Shredder?

"How's that possible?" Leo asked.

"I did some digging and Baxter isn't just the CEO of Stocktronics. He also owns a company called TGRI."

"Techno Global Research Industries," Spider-Man nodded. When he received confused looks from everyone, he explained, "They're an up and coming tech facility. Osbourne Industries, Stocktronics, and Winters Industries, Wayne Enterprises, and TGRI are all on a battlefront for the latest multibillion technologies. TGRI was only founded maybe four or five years ago. No one really knows too much about them. I'm not even sure where their headquarters are."

"Because their headquarters isn't officially marked. I'll send the location to your phones. There's not much information about the building itself other than that it looks like an ordinary firm from the outside. I hacked into their system though, and found plenty of fun activity inside. Guess what army lives there?"

"The Foot," Raph growled.

"Bingo."

My brothers and I shared equally shocked expressions. We thought it would be a lot longer until we would encounter Stockman, Shredder, and the Foot this way. When Stocktronics proved to be a waste of time, we thought that was it. Better luck next time.

"This is our chance to get him," Raph muttered, craning his neck to Leo. The eldest quirked his lips, still frowning at the news.

"We lost the element of surprise when Hun saw us alive. Shredder will know by now that we all survived his attack. Splinter may not be on board with an infiltration this time."

"Splinter already knows. He's mediating now but he was beside me when I discovered it."

"Shredder might know we're alive but he doesn't know when or if we'll attack. He thinks he's in hiding right now," I pointed out.

A short silence. Leo eyed Spider-Man, "You still want to join in this?"

The answer was immediate, a single nod.

"We're not going now, right?" Mikey asked, gesturing to the daylight seeping into the sky.

Leo shook his head, "No. We'll get back to Splinter and get a game plan set up," He turned to Spider-Man, "We'll let you know when we do this. Be ready at any time. We'll probably try sometime in the next day or two."

I felt shockwaves in my stomach but I was ready to end all of this, just like everyone else.