Donnie was grateful they had already made some transport arrangements due to earlier trips, it was decided Raph would carry Donnie to the bomb, while Leo and Mikey distracted the enemy. After that… it was a matter of keeping them off Donnie while he disarmed the bomb. It was not going to be easy.

"It's gonna be like a tower defense." Mikey realised as Leo explained their plan.

"I… guess. As long as you understand the plan." Leo kinda understood Mikey's analogy this time, and he wasn't wrong.

Raph cracked his neck. "Alright, ready?"

Don nodded, they got out of the van and snuck along the side, Donnie was strapped to Raph's back, he had packed some tools as well as brought some things he thought might be useful for him if an enemy did get too close. He hoped not though.

"..." Leo made a sign for them to stop, then he went ahead to scout the area, it didn't take him long to spot the big contraption with mutagen on the roof, and what looked to be the bomb triggering it.

"Okey… we got this.." He had an uneasy feeling, but their enemy wasn't known for having a massive army so maybe it would be okay.

Leo came back up around the corner.
"Finally." Mikey was getting tired of waiting. Plus this waiting was making him nervous. He wanted this mission over and done with, and then have a nice dinner with pizza and video games.

"It's go time."

They blended into the shadows and snuck up along the building, jumping over they looked around, no enemy in sight. Donnie pointed to the locker looking thing.

"There."

Raph quickly moved over and began to unstrap and put him down.

"..." Donnie was nervous, he had no idea what it was gonna look like, or how this was going to turn out.

He opened it and had to swallow the feeling of panic. This was a very alien bomb, a much more alien bomb than he had expected. He knew they could end up in a scenario where he would have been of as much help as Mikey, but going through all that trouble of getting him out there he very well couldn't admit that to his brothers. But he did have to inform them somehow..

"Guys, this is going to take a lot longer than I thought, it's alien and very complicated."

Leo didn't like the sound of that, this was bad.

"Just.. work as fast as you can!"

"Hey I thought there were only three ugly greenies, or am I seeing something wrong here?"

"Maybe you're seeing double! Hah."

Oh no, he knew those voices. That would be Bradford and Xever. They were idiots and he'd gladly beat them up any day, just not today. Couldn't they have taken at least one night off just this once?

"Shut yer trap! That is none of your business!" Raph shouted and angrily charged at his foe. "Far as you're concerned, you're going down!" Best defense is a good offense, he decided. He dove in at them immediately to keep them occupied. Not that they'd notice the difference, he was a heads on guy who charged in to begin with.

Donne propped himself up by the box-looking thing, put his tools out as well as his defensive measures. He sweated nervously as he stared at all the kraang tech, took a deep breath and tried to calmly follow the wires and just properly look at it. There had to be a logic to it, he would solve this with logic. And math.

The noise. It was a lot worse than when his brothers were just playing around at home.

It was getting harder to concentrate and he fought the urge to look towards the fighting to see how his brothers were doing. They hardly needed him to look after them, they'd been doing fine with the 3 of them so far. He just hoped he wasn't distracting them too much by being there.

With a sense of urgency he worked faster, and finally he was down to the red or the green wire.

"Which one.." He stared nervously at them. Maybe the red one..? But what if it was the green one? He moved in to cut it, but he was hesitating. He could be getting it wrong, it could be the red..

"DONNIE! Duck!" Mikey's shout made him jolt, he had no time to think so he heeded the call and ducked, cutting the green wire in the process.

"..." He stared at it, a moment of dread, but then.. nothing. The bomb had stopped.. it..

"It worked..! I did it! Thanks Mikey!"

"You're welcome!" He called, no idea what Donnie actually meant.

"Guys it's disarmed..!" As soon as that was done he pulled himself onto the skateboard and maneuvered around to hide behind and wait for pick-up as they'd agreed on.

That was their cue, it was time to leave, but the fight wasn't exactly going easy, they'd managed to keep them busy, but they were also cornered.

When Raph wasn't coming Donnie dared to peek around the corner, they were trapped on a ledge with Bradford and Xever on either side. He wanted to help them, he tried to figure out how..

But before he could something came flying and crashed into the mutagen tank, causing a big hole.

"?!" The mutagen hit Xever, leaving an opening the brothers immediately took.

"You clumsy..!" Bradford assumed Xever had tried to destroy it to hit the turtles, he didn't notice the entire thing was cracking. Before he could jump after his enemies he was swallowed up by a minor mutagen flood.

"..ew!" Mikey was glad they got away on time, that stuff didn't look nice to swim in. They looked like they were in pain. But Xever hadn't been the one to hit the tank.. As they moved to get away from there..

THUNK!

A big man clad in pointy armour landed on the roof in front of them.

"So, you are the turtles I've heard so much about.." The voice was deep and menacing.

Leo looked at him in surprise, was this.. the shredder?

"Where is your master?"

Donnie quickly put his hands over his mouth, shaking. He tried not to make a single noise as he heard the sounds of his brothers getting beaten up, he could feel his eyes prickle and sting, it was hard to stay completely still and silent.

Yet he didn't dare to move, there was no way for him to move silently and if he was found, he would only be a liability, he'd make things worse. But could they get much worse than they already were?

The shredder laughed as he approached Leonardo, cornered him and grabbed him by the edge of his plastron, Mikey gasped as he saw his brother lifted into the air. But he felt beat, there was no winning this fight.

"I'll ask you again, turtle. Where is your master? How did you come to be?"

"I…" Leo coughed as he tried to speak. "I'm not telling you.. anything."

"Fine, I'll just wring it out of one of you, and kill you off one by one."

They desperately tried to outmaneuver Shredder, but there was just no opening, he was much better than them, their only option was to run, but they had to somehow grab Donnie in the process, and trying to get away from the Shredder and turned out to be hard even without that in mind.

Donnie wasn't sure if he could take much more of this, it sounded like Leo was about to be killed! He sniffed and froze.

A thud was heard as Leo was dropped to the ground.

"It seems we have an eavesdropper, come forward and face me! Or I'll kill you painfully!"

Donnie froze up in utter fear, his eyes widening, he'd heard him. The Shredder had heard him! He felt his heart rate go up, he couldn't move and he literally couldn't step forward. He heard the soft clink of armour and the thud of steps as the Shredder approached his position, he closed his eyes as he couldn't stop the shaking.

This was it, he was going to get skewered, and then his brothers would be killed too, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"H-HEY!"

The steps stopped.

"…." Donnie dared to turn his head slightly.

"Come and face me, you coward!" Leo said, limping forward, towards the Shredder.

What was Leo thinking..?

Mikey had dreadfully been observing the whole event, he was sure the Shredder would find Donnie, but then Leo had drawn his attention. But now Leo was making himself the target again, and that didn't make him any less worried. They'd all suffered a number of injuries at this point, but Leo was the worst off.

Mikey gave Raph a desperate look, Raph looked firmly back at him and nodded. Despite their injuries they slowly helped each other up and charged again.

Donnie held his breath as he heard his brothers attack, there was no way they could win this, there was just no way. They were outmatched, and it was painfully obvious. And now they were getting beaten up in another round thanks to him not being able to be as still and quiet as he was supposed to be. They should just run for it, and leave him there, there was no way they could make it out otherwise. It was going to be hard to get away even if he wasn't there to sink them down..

"Fools! You stand no chance against me! Surrender and I might consider making your deaths less painful!" The Shredder bellowed threateningly.

Don took a deep breath, getting ready to shout, he was trembling in fear as he felt the air fill his lungs. If he wanted to make a distraction and save his brothers, now was the time, or they might really die. He didn't want that, he'd rather they lived and he died, if he had to make a choice.

Suddenly, before he could shout, something burst out of the ooze that had spilled out of the tank, it was a mutated big dog, which caught the Shredder off guard.

"Master.." The dog crawled towards him, then another mutant gasped as they emerged, a big fish-looking thing.

"Can't.. breathe!" Xever desperately grabbed at Shredder's legs.

".. Bradford?! Xever?!" The Shredder called in surprise, seemingly taken aback, finding his underlings mutated.

That gave all the distraction they needed, Mikey quickly grabbed a smoke bomb and threw it at their feet, then he dashed to the side and helped Leo while Raph darted around the corner and grabbed Donnie.

It all went so fast, one moment Donnie was sitting there, trying to get over his fear and shout , the next thing there were sudden shouts from someone else and a cloud of smoke. He felt himself get lifted off the ground and carried, he realised quite quickly it was Raph, to his relief.

They all ran as fast as they could, trying to ignore their injuries and the pain, all they could think about was to get away, and fast fast fast. Before the Shredder realised and could catch up.

As they snuck back into hiding they could hear the Shredder roar in anger.