Everyone immediately moved to cover Casey, who still held the tank with little Leo inside.

Donatello twirled his bo staff in his uninjured hand. "Would it kill them to leave us alone for one minute?"

"It really wouldn't kill us," Michelangelo said.

Raphael spun his sais. "If they won't leave us, let's give them a reason to. Teach these alien brains a lesson!"

"Agreed. School is in session!" Rockwell aimed his psychic burst at a Kraangdroid and hit it dead center, sending it flying back into one of the ramp's support poles with a loud metallic clang.

"BOOYAKASHA!"

Michelangelo jumped onto the ramp's barrier. He pushed off of it and backflipped, pointing his nunchuck at a Kraangdroid's skull. He triggered the nunchuck's blade mechanism when the weapon was in place, slicing through the droid's metal neck, then grabbed the severed head before sticking his landing on another Kraang's shoulders, forcing it to the ground, and then throwing the head at the exposed fleshy brain of another Kraangdroid at full force.

The head smacked the Kraang right in the face, and the little alien squealed, removing its tentacles from the controls inside its robot body to clutch at the afflicted area.

While it was distracted, Donatello rushed up to the droid and stabbed it through the chest with his naginata blade. He swung the robot, which staggered about with his motion, into its companions like a giant hammer, pausing for only calculated seconds to bring the bot back to shield him from the part of the laser blast pattern that he thought would reach him. When he estimated the Kraang were just about to catch onto his tactic and adapt, he stomped on the Kraangdroid's chest and pulled his blade out before switching back to his usual technique and backing up to cover Leo so that Raph could have a turn up at the heart of the action.

Raphael grinned, much obliged to have his fight up close and personal. His plan was simple, forceful, and aggressive, just the way he liked it: stab the Kraangs' stupid adapted lasers first so those couldn't stand in his way, then bash them to pieces with whatever he could, fists or feet or sais.

He chucked shurikens at their blasters, and before they could react, he had sunk his sais through their circuitry.

Raph caught the Kraang as they fled their robot bodies like they were nothing more than chickens, and pitched them at their companions.

One such unlucky Kraangdroid was right in the middle of firing when it got caught in the face by another alien brain flying right into its visual sensors. The droid peeled the Kraang brain away, only to be crushed the next second when Leatherhead flattened it, barrel-rolling it and its surrounding soldiers with his massive, crushing form.

Mondo Gecko stayed behind Leatherhead, wielding his skateboard, swatting down any brainy heads that dared try to pop up again after his friend had crushed them, like a very strange game of whack-a-mole.

Casey had the tank clutched in one arm, the side which April defended, skillfully swatting away lasers and slicing any enemies who dared come near with her tessen. With the other arm, he held his bat, swinging wildly about.

As far as the Kraang were concerned, Splinter left nothing but a path of silent destruction in his wake. When his allies had the time to glance his way between bits of fighting, they would wonder when he had grown such a large path of robotic remains and stunned Kraang brains behind him.

Donatello cut another robot down with his naginata, and stopped to glance around. "Uh-oh."

April, being the closest to the ramp where the clouds still rose, was the next to see.

More Kraangdroids surfaced from underneath the cover of the fog, red-orange mist pouring off their forms like water running back into the sea of gas.

Mikey screamed. "AAAAH! They're just like the zombies that came from the lake in Space Zombies 2: The Black Hole Strikes Again!"

"How many are there?" Donnie asked.

"I can't tell!" April said, backing up with Casey. "The fog is too thick, I can only see a few feet into it!"

"We must go," Splinter said. "We should not try to face an enemy we do not yet understand."

"Agreed," Rockwell said.

"This way!" Mondo called, dropping his skateboard on the ground and using it to climb the parking garage ramp to the next level.

Rockwell and Leatherhead followed suit. April and Casey followed them, steadying Leo's tank between the two of them as to not upset it too much, then the turtles and Splinter came last, covering their backs.

Mikey gave Raph Ice Cream Kitty's cooler and tossed a shuriken at a Kraang that had been coming too close.

The Kraangdroid fell to the ground.

They followed the turns of the ramps like flights of a staircase and came to the top of the garage: a balcony protected by more cement barriers to keep the cars from running off.

"They're close behind. We don't have much time," April said.

"The gas would have started rising at the city outskirts last," Donnie said. "It won't be as covered. We need to go there to buy ourselves time."

"Which way?" Leatherhead asked.

Donatello muttered to himself for a moment, eyes flicking left and right, following his mental calculations. "The facility was back… that way." He pointed. "So the closest city limit, without having to get any closer to its origin would be… there!" He pointed another way.

Casey handed Leo's tank to Splinter.

"I'm gonna get the Shellraiser and meet you there. Don't want you to lose your sweet ride in the middle of an alien invasion."

Donnie nodded.

Mondo ran to the edge of the building and peered at the ground. "The stuff's almost up to the rooftops now," he said.

Raph motioned for everyone to follow him, the handle of Ice Cream Kitty's cooler looped around his elbow. "Let's move!"

Raphael made haste, racing a few rooftops ahead of everyone to check them for potential threats. When he judged the coast was clear, he slipped out his phone and clicked Slash's contact.

The phone rang out.

Raph stared and waited.

"We're sorry. The number you tried to reach is unavailable at this time."

He hung up, slid his T-phone back into his belt, and kept going.

Splinter somehow managed to keep the tank steady even while running rooftop to rooftop. He only spilled a drop skidding to a halt when a laser blast flew by his head.

"Um, guys?" Mikey said. "I think they caught up."

Everyone turned to find the Kraang on the elevated rooftop behind them, pointing lasers amidst other weapons down at them.

Donnie narrowed his eyes at the unfamiliar weapons some of the Kraangdroids had in their grasp. "Are those…"

"The mutant-hunting weapons," Rockwell finished his sentence.

Raphael doubled back to help them.

Splinter turned the way he'd been running. "Let us hurry." He continued on.

"We're almost there!" Donnie said. "Just a few more blocks!" He pulled out his phone and texted Casey the location.

Everyone sprinted forth, scrambling over ledges and leaping over alleyways.

Michelangelo, bringing up the rear of the group, glanced behind him.

One of the Kraangdroids had stopped a few buildings back, and had a missile launcher-looking thing propped on the roof, the missile aimed at the retreating group.

"Not today, punk!" Mikey said.

He whizzed past the closeby Kraangdroids that were targeting his brothers.

The Kraangdroid with the missile aimed and centered on its target: Splinter, holding poor Leo's tank.

Michelangelo jumped atop the roof where the Kraangdroid fought.

He swung his nunchucks and struck the Kraangdroid in its robotic chest, forcing it away from the missile's scope.

The missile launcher-type weapon fell on its side and beeped. Something in it whirred, then the missile shot out of it and burst against the wall of a surrounding building.

At once, a cloud of fresh, undispersed fog released into the air. The cloud swarmed all walls of the building Michelangelo stood upon, blocking his view of anything that went on around him and trapping him on that roof.

Mikey grabbed the Kraangdroid who had been manning the launcher and threw it off the building's side.

Fighting sounds echoed distantly, the mingled calls of his allies and robotic chirps and code, all tied together by crashing and banging.

"Guys?" Mikey called towards the fighting sounds.

He didn't get a response from his allies.

However, several more Kraangdroids heard him and climbed up the building to where he was trapped.

"No, not you!" He cracked their fingers and bashed their skulls with his nunchucks as they came up. "Guys!" he called into the fog. "Guys, can you hear me?"

On the other side, the rest of the team was only a block away from the meeting place.

"Fall back," Donnie said. "We're wasting our time fighting them. We can easily run the rest of the way without them causing us trouble; it isn't that far." He turned and ran.

Alongside him, he heard the engine of a vehicle pass. Or was it two?

"That must be Casey," Raph said.

As they reached the end of the block, the fog grew shallower, thinning out until it was only knee-deep, exposing the Shellraiser and another vehicle coming to a stop.

Donatello descended the side fire escape of the last building on the block, then leapt atop the Shellraiser. He looked at the other vehicle. "The party wagon?" he muttered to the group as they joined him one by one. "But who's-"

The Party Wagon's door opened, and Kirby O'Neil stepped out.

Kirby looked around, then catching sight of the figures atop the Shellraiser, looked up.

"April!"

April slid off the Shellraiser's top and landed on a dumpster in the alley, knees bending for a moment with the impact before she sprung back up. "Dad!"

Kirby ran towards her and reached up.

April knelt down, and the two enveloped each other in a warm hug before breaking apart to talk face-to-face.

"Dad, where did you come from? How did you get the Party Wagon?"

"I ran into Casey as he was getting into the Shellraiser," Kirby explained. "He told me where it was; I swear I can't see a thing in this…" he held his palm out and looked at it, as if he were examining the fog in it. "Whatever this is."

"It's a mutant-eating compound," April explained. "The Kraang invented it to try to stop the guys from interfering with their plot.

Kirby started. "Mutant-eating? But you're…!"

April nodded, and gestured to the dumpster she was perched upon to avoid it. "I know. I can't touch it."

Kirby held a hand to his chest. "My dear baby girl… we need to get you out of here. We're leaving. Now."

"Retreat seems our best option," Splinter admitted.

Raph shook his head and met Splinter's gaze. "No. Slash is still out there!"

Splinter nodded solemnly. "I know. But we cannot afford to risk the safety of anyone else for his."

"We're not leaving without him!"

Rockwell shook his head. "Raphael, I'm truly sorry to say so, but Splinter is right. Slash urged us to go on without him if need be, and if we stay here any longer, we risk all the rest of our lives. We need to preserve ourselves for the moment, until we can find another way to end the Kraang plot. If we are not around to stop the Kraang, who will?"

"The farmhouse served as a good second base before," Donnie said.

Raphael shook his head in disbelief. He stopped to meet every person's gaze, something close to a plea in his eyes.

Everyone looked sorry.

But no one else objected to retreating. No one else objected to leaving their friend and ally behind. Did they not care?

Raph looked around the group once more, for any sign of doubt. His brow creased. He looked around again.

Splinter nodded. "Then that is where we will go."

Raph's head whipped from side to side. His eyes grew wide. "Guys, where's Mikey?"

Donnie gestured behind him. "He's right her-" Donnie jumped, and joined Raph in his frantic searching. "Mikey? Mikey!"

"Michelangelo!" Splinter called.

"Mikey!

"Michelangelo?"

"Aha!" said a voice above them. "Kraang has found the ones known as the ones to be destroyed."

Everyone looked at the top of the building they'd just come down from.

Kraang heads peeked out from over the ledge.

Leatherhead roared and lunged for the building. He climbed the flights of the fire escape like rungs of a ladder before disappearing over the top. Flashes of pink lit up the night sky, accompanied by roars, and crashes.

A stray laser hit the window of the building across the street, and bounced off the glass, sending it right between Mr. O'Neil and April.

Kirby yelped and ran to the Party Wagon's door, opening it before carrying April over, careful not to lower her into the gas, and shutting her safely inside. He hopped into the driver's seat.

Donatello gazed towards the hidden fight and drew his bo staff. "Mikey was just with us. I bet the Kraang right there have him!" He looked at Raph.

Raph went pale, eyes trained on his T-phone he held in front of him which rang out, chanting an almost incomprehensibly fast, "Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up."

Donatello grabbed Raph's wrist and shoulder and shook him, snapping him from his thoughts. "Raph! Mikey doesn't have his T-phone with him, remember? You can't reach him! You could, however, do the most you can in this situation right now and help me deal with these Kraang on the roof to see if they have him!"

Raph gasped and shook his head, pulling himself free, and nodded.

He drew his sais and stood beside Donatello.

Before they could move, however, Leatherhead fell over the side of the building.

Splinter swept them to the side of the Shellraiser's roof just before the gator landed, spine down, where they had been standing.

An ear-splitting bang resonated loud and clear in the closed-off alley.

Splinter knelt by Leatherhead's side. "Are you alright?"

Leatherhead took a few raspy breaths. "I… am fine. Do not worry about me." He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet.

"Mikey," Raph said. "Do they have Mikey up there?"

"I… did not see him," Leatherhead said.

Raph's shoulders drooped.

A Kraangdroid pointed a missile launcher over the edge of the building.

"We must go," Splinter said.

Raph stomped up to where Splinter stood. "No! No turtle left behind! That's our rule!"

"We cannot risk trying to find them, not with the odds stacked against us like this," Splinter said.

"So you want to leave them both behind in this mess?"

"Of course I do not want to," Splinter said, "But there is more at stake here than our family. We must stop the Kraang plot."

"Who's to stop the Kraang plot if we don't have any family left?"

BANG. The missile landed right beside the Shellraiser. A wave of fog rushed towards them.

Rockwell and Mondo twisted the Shellraiser's hatch open and fled inside.

Splinter leapt from the Shellraiser to the Party Wagon. Donatello and Leatherhead followed, then quickly ducked inside through the back when April opened it to let them in, Donnie carrying Leo's tank and Ice Cream Kitty's cooler.

April closed it behind them, as to not let the gas in, and pressed her face against the window so she could see right away when someone else wanted to come in.

The fog swallowed the back half of the Shellraiser and quickly snaked towards Raphael.

"Raphael, come here."

"No," Raph said. "I'm not going over there with you."

"My son, you'll get hurt."

"Oh, and that suddenly matters to you?" He jabbed his hand back the way they came, the other one clenched by his side. "Mikey and Slash are in the middle of this mess! What about how hurt they are! If we leave them behind, they could die! Don't they matter to you?"

"There is no way back," Splinter said. "Not without hurting yourself. Your life matters to me just as much!"

Raph stared him dead in the eye. "It shouldn't!"

Splinter started.

Raphael refused to look away. He stared Splinter down with what his father knew was supposed to be confidence, but he saw the tears at the corners of his son's eyes that Raphael tried to hide.

"Raphael."

Raph's eyes burned green－acid, poison that threatened to melt away Splinter's heart.

Splinter had seen that same look many years ago, in the eyes of Oroku Saki.

Different color, same intentions.

"Raphael." Splinter adopted a soothing tone. "The fog is coming too close to you. Step away from it."

Raphael stood still.

The fog brushed his foot.

Splinter gasped.

Raph still met his gaze; refused to look away.

The fog started to eat at the edge of his foot, turning the flesh pink and then beginning to bore holes in it.

Only then did Raph hiss and step back, finally breaking eye contact and looking around himself.

He glanced the way they'd come, searching that direction up and down and left and right for something. Anything. A path? A pocket? A gap?

There was nothing but the abyss of the fog that threatened to swallow them all and destroy them.

But there was movement, somewhere above. It got closer and closer, all too fast.

The missile screamed by and hit the driver's side window of the Party wagon.

The glass shattered. Mist started to seep in.

Raph gasped. "Donnie!"

Splinter ran to the back and tapped on the door.

April opened it for him, and shut it promptly when he was inside.

"We must go," Splinter said. "The missile is still outside. We must leave before enough fog invades to be harmful."

Kirby started the engine.

Splinter raced to the window and peered out to where Raph was still standing atop the Shellraiser.

Raphael cast one more glance around him, undoubtedly looking again for a path back to his brother.

The gas crept ever closer, though, and he retreated to the Shellraiser's hatch.

Splinter sunk against the van's wall with a sigh of relief.

The Shellraiser turned onto the main road, and the Party wagon was soon to follow.

As they left the city, the fog level shrunk lower and lower with any hope of finding their friend and family.

Splinter looked out the back window, watching it fade into the distance.

Something wouldn't let him let it go. Raphael's words tugged at his gut.

They still had family back there. Family they promised not to abandon.

Splinter threw the back door open and watched the road pass under the van.

Donatello leapt to his feet. "What are you doing?"

"Raphael is right," Splinter said. "So long as there is a chance of saving our family…"

Donnie shook his head. "Sensei?"

Splinter jumped from the van.

Time seemed to slow down. Even no longer in the van, the road still passed quickly under Splinter's feet. The world around him moved kind of strangely, and he became aware of something else moving towards them in the distance. He squinted at it.

He made out the shape of another missile, headed directly for him, and the van's back door, still gaping wide open.

Something tightened around his waist.

Leatherhead caught him and pulled him into the van.

Donnie slammed the doors just before the missile could impact, sending a loud jolt through the Party Wagon and momentarily lifting its back tires off the ground.

Leo's tank sloshed everywhere. The poor turtle dove to the bottom to avoid being thrown out.

The fog swallowed their way back.

Splinter just stared.

Everything was so surreal.

"My son…"

He watched the city grow smaller with distance.

Donatello stood beside him, stunned and utterly silent.

Leatherhead's breathing sounded close to hyperventilation, and no one even had to look to know April was sobbing.

Kirby kept his eyes on the road and one hand on the steering wheel, the other clutching his daughter's shaking hand.

Donatello reached down to grab Leo's tank and clutch it close to his chest like a lifeline.

He and Splinter stood in silence and watched the city shrink smaller, smaller, smaller, gone.

Just… gone.

Have a great day, y'all!