Here ... finally ... is the next chapter. I don't own the bad guys seen and heard in this chapter. Or the good guys, TMNT and Splinter, mentioned, but not seen.

I begin walking the halls. My mind slips into that slate-like state: hard, uncluttered, reflective waiting for information. I can hear things in the distance coming down the halls. Whirrs and squeals, hisses and roars. I can't hear my brother's steps behind me, but I can feel them. Memories threaten to clutter my hard, clean mind.

This isn't me when Splinter, the kids, and I just played ninja games together. I take that seriously to prepare them for moments like these, but I also want them to have fun with it too. I haven't wanted their training times to be like Maverick's and mine. Right now, I have to be who I trained with Maverick to be.

Kraang are out there wanting April O'Neil so they can take over the earth, wanting to get her location out of me. A wild, giant Salamander is out there attacking everything in sight too. What if I get in its sight, or Maverick? Actually, the latter scenario might end up worse for the Salamander, but also for Maverick if the giant's Salamander's skin or blood are poisonous.

Splinter and the kids will step back into all of this for me if I don't get out and find them before they do. Even Maverick can still decide I'm a threat, or worse, a liar ...

Even if I am who I claim to be, and I am, I've done the one thing he'd begged me not to. I left him. I didn't even die. Trying to explain things without sending him into a rampage is something that is between difficult and impossible. The last thing I want is to make things worse than if I'd just brought him along with me. I had my reasons for leaving him behind then. I just, don't know if he'll understand them. Even if he does, I can get exactly what I tried to avoid by explaining them now, or soon.

Right now, I have to put all that in the "Deal with it if you survive this" box. I have to escape first. Both my brother, and I have to escape. I'm not even sure yet what kinda shape Maverick is in.

Since I haven't seen anything trying to kill us, yet, I turn to examine what I can see of him. That was when I notice his eyes are tightly shut. "Maverick, what's wrong with your eyes?"

He growls softly, "Stop acting like you care, I ain't falling for that again."

I give an even more silent sigh. Then I wonder if he knows I've done so. Had he been able to feel the air I let out since he hadn't seen me mime the movement. Either way, I whisper back even softer (he has good ears if they're still as good as when I knew him.) "I always cared. Right now, if you have any other reason to live other than me, even if it's getting even with me in private, help both of us out of here. Then we can discuss what a jerk I am. Deal?"

"Make a deal with a liar?"

"Just answer the question."

There is a pause, and Maverick puts his hand out. I grip it hard in my own and give it one shake before looking around again for any enemies who may have come nearer in the meantime. "Now, what all is wrong with you that might impede your observation and fighting skills, including your eyes?"

"I'm dehydrated, starving, and since some dead-man splashed blue gunk into my eyes, I can only see blinding, white light when I open them. Other than that, I'm fine."

I feel a lump in my throat. A. "Dead-man" for Maverick can mean already dead, or on his list. B. Blue gunk? Uh-oh. I manage to force out, "How is your hearing and sense of smell?"

"I smell pizza on you, and I hear electricity buzzing like a chainsaw."

My eyes widen in horror at the first part of his answer and in amazement at the second. "Can you smell the sewers at all?"

"Unfortunately."

"Lead me there."

"Not so fast. We have to drop by their weapons hold."

"What, why?"

"They took my knives!"

"So?"

"So, I ain't leaving my blades in their tentacles!"

"Maverick! Are you telling me there is nothing outside these walls dearer to your weapons?"

"They were my parents twin Ulakes!"

I let out a breath. They had to be that. "Fine. Hoist me up into the vents so I can crawl in there and get your parents knives!"

"How can I trust you not to just ditch me again?"

"If I just disappear, you'll still be better off than you were in the cell, and your distrust will be confirmed. If I come back with the knives, you'll be better off than now!"

Not too long after that, I'm climbing through the vents. They are fairly large. I'm fairly small, short and 'really' slender. Thankfully, all of this makes it easier to be a ninja and do things like infiltrate armories.

I peer down through vents as I crawl over the rooms beneath. I see robots still trying to creep through the hallways, heads turning slowly, and making nervous sounds. I pray for Maverick. I pray for my boys and Splinter, April and her father, and I pray for myself. I throw all of earth in for good measure. From what I've seen, it's in great need of it. I also thank God I'm not dead, yet, and neither is Maverick. He hates me, but ... it's good to see him again even if he is starved, dehydrated, and possibly, partially mutated, I still imagined and dreamed him even worse off over the years.

Through the slits in a vent covering, I can clearly see a weapons' racks beneath me. It takes some silent, difficult, squirming to get out from my belt a small, but potent ray creating device Donnie made to cut through stubborn metal. I use it to melt through the screws holding the vent in place. I pray more as I do the fairly slow work. All the while, I hold up the vent with one hand even as I cut it loose with the other. Sensei always said, and Splinter agreed, and so has experience, so it must be true, "Control and patience are very large portions of what it meant to be a true ninja and warrior."

When I'm through, I push it gently out, turn it sideways, and draw it in to lay it down beneath me on the floor of the vent system, so it doesn't seem to make a sound. Sensei would be proud. I'm more worried about God and Maverick's point of view right now though. I crawl over the vent covering and grip the sides where the vent covering was attached. I fold my body up and push through before hanging by my hands and letting go to then land on my feet. Then I look up from my squat.

A giant, orange and black salamander apparently putting on a gauntlet is staring down at me. "Not" appearing right in front of possibly hostile people without a plan is a big part of being ninja too. I grin at the creature. "Hi! We met! I freed you. Remember?"

It narrows its eyes at me. The it raises its head and says "Racka, racka!"

I take the moment its eyes are off me to dive behind a rack of arms. Then a voice, inhuman, hissing and growling behind the words, but speaking American English, comes from the other side of my hiding place. "Where are you? Do you want the Kraang dead as much as I?"

I remain silent. I have so many questions. Are they being mind-controlled, manipulated, only haughty or truly desperate in their bid to take earth? Apparently, I take too long to answer.

Lazars begin to shoot around the room, and she fall almost flat to the floor. The voice cries out again. "If your only answer is silence then you are no friend of mine!"

I hear banging from a door. "Rein! Get this door open!"

Giant Salamander turned toward the door and leveled his gauntlet at it. My eyes widen. I spring at his arm shove it. His lazar fire hits the door's control panel rather than the door itself and man behind it. The door slides open. I only just see this out of the corner of my eye.

Giant-Salamander-enfolds me in his arms and it's not a hug more like a alligator's death-roll. We go spinning across the floor. If this guy's skin is poisonous, it might be a blessing if my head runs into a large weapon, rack of weapons, or wall to knock me out before I feel the effects. He "is" really heavy, so maybe he'll just crush my ribcage.

Maverick jumps at him and stabs his tail. He shout-hisses and loosens his grip on me while turning on my brother. So, I get an arm free and give him a blow with my elbow where the liver would be on a human. If his physiology is human-like enough this should be effective. It is. Giant Salamander slumps over.

I get up and away and grab Maverick's arm pulling him away. I scan the walls and see a pair of knives hanging from a peg. They are Ulakes. I lunge out and grab them before escaping through the doorway and dragging my brother along behind with the hand not holding the handles of his knives. "Let's go! Back to plan A! Lead the way!" I'm pretty sure that fight has grabbed the Kraang's attention already.

I was right. I hear metal footsteps clanging down multiple halls. I guess they didn't fear us as much as Giant Salamander. Now he's down they are advancing. I apologize inwardly to my kids, Splinter, and my church for taking this detour that would now get me caught.

Then, I turn a corner and grin. In this hallway, a grate lays beside a square hole in the floor. "Stop!"

I slide to a stop in front of the hole, then look up at Maverick. "It's a three and a half by three and a half square hole that leads into the sewers. Who wants to go first?" Then I hear Kraang droids coming, a lot of them. I look back to Maverick anyway. "Whoever goes second should put the grate back on the way down. Maybe they won't notice our way out."

Maverick pushes me into the hole. I grit my teeth to prevent myself from screaming at my brother and drawing the attention of the Kraang. But I still splash in some water. My brother lands next to me, after leaving the grate in place. I glare up at him. "Happy now?"

"Yeah," he replies.

He tries to slap the back of my head, but I dodge the blow. His growling voice then says in the dark, "if I had landed that blow."

I grab his hand and put it on my own shoulder before turning and walking in the direction of the nearest safe place as far as I could figure due to what I can smell in the distance. "You know, I've had fifteen years to think about it. I don't need something knocked loose to tell me I did wrong by you."

"Actions speak louder, thoughts not so much."

"My rescuing you from the Kraang doesn't count?"

"You didn't even know I was there. You ran into me by chance."

"I wouldn't call it chance. But I after I found you again, I made a choice not to leave you there."

"Why? It was easy for you the first time."

"No, it wasn't. Someone else killed sensei before I got back from my last mission. They were still there, and I saw the aftermath, they offered me a place on their team. I didn't think you two would get along well, and I thought if he killed sensei, he could kill you too. So, I went with him and left you behind, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, that all makes sense. It's not like you could have stalled that mysterious killer long enough for me to get there, so we could take them on together. Then, instead of framing your sensei before killing her ourselves, like we planned, we could've just blamed the guy who actually killed her and then looked good to the Association for taking them out after they killed her."

"A. He offered me a job where I wouldn't have to kill anyone. B. I kinda ruined his life, so killing him felt like just adding to that. C. I thought maybe with sensei and me gone, and you 'maybe' having learned something about undercover work and research being with us they'd finally let you look for the person who murdered your parents. But I didn't really want to be around for that, cause I was pretty sure what you had planned for them, would be worse than murder!"

"There's one problem with that Rein."

"What?"

He tightens his hold on my shoulder, turns me, and answers staring right into my face. Somehow, he's managed to open his eyes. Maybe because it's so dark down here. I'm a bit surprised to see that they're silver now and glow. His words though, take my thoughts away from that immediately. "It was the Association that killed my parents."

My mouth opens a little. I feel his fingernails trying to dig through the fabric Donnie made to deflect blades as he continues. "My parents were the Association's American Sensei and Student! My mother was a prodigy like you! But she was fine with working for them! My father was her sensei one of the youngest ever!"

He falls to his knees. "When the Association learned she'd conceived a child with her sensei, they turned us into guinea pigs! For months, they would cut, prod, and inject wherever drugs and chemicals they wanted into us! My father helped her escape, and they ran and hid in Japan, but the Association found them there and killed them both! They killed my father before I was born, and killed my mom right after, she died before she could even hold me, they did all that so they could have me to themselves!"

He closes those glowing eyes and sobs. It takes me a moment of blinking to process all this. I've had a few shocks tonight, but in the end, I'm less surprised than even I expect. Perfection in the art of murder. That was the Association's goal. To deliver the death ordered and have no one know any more about us than before. That was their obsession. They had no morals, no ethos that didn't encourage the reaching of that goal. Of course, they'd consider a second-generation Association member an opportunity to push things farther, experiment, literally, with what was possible.

I lay a hand on one of my brother's shoulders. "Maverick, if I had known all that … I definitely would have taken you with me and just run from the Association with you. I thought … you still wanted to avenge your parents' deaths by staying 'with' the Association. You told me before the lies they told you, that someone else in revenge killed your parents: Association sensei and student with you born barley before your mom died so you had no opportunity to know them. To tell the truth, I thought at the time you deserved the chance to pursue those answers and not just run and hide with me."

What do you think?
God bless

ScribeofHeroes