Well, I'm back. I mean, I guess I didn't really go anywhere. There's just been a lot of medical stuff in the lives of people I care about, so keeping track of weekends hasn't really been on my radar. Thus, forgot to update for a while. Sorry!

Don't own the TMNT, Godzilla the Series crew, Whack-a-Mole, or anything else I missed in my quick scan of the chapter that would get me sued. Just to honor the best!

I hope this lives up to the expectations you've set forth. But no worries. Yet more to come ahead!

Enjoy!

"Any ideas?" Raph shouted over his shoulder to his brothers. Beside him, Leo took a wicked swipe at one of the clones, causing dark blood to flow and the creature to recoil in pain. Nearby, Mikey swept a clear area around him, only to have it fill in again with the seemingly endless waves of mini-Godzillas.

"Not yet!" Leo shouted back. He broke from the fight for a moment to regard the situation to their rear. No clones had gotten through yet, but the impact of their presence was definitely making itself known. Godzilla was nowhere to be seen, which was a sign that something was wrong with Nick in the hiding place HEAT had adopted aboard the HEAT-Seeker. Randy and Monique, grim-faced, were doing their part to keep the clones from reaching the lab or the dock. And somewhere beyond them Donatello was probably suffering the same pain that had broken his mind already.

"Well, think faster, Leo!" Mikey called. "Playing real-life Whack-A-Mole is starting to be less fun!"

"I know that," the leader growled more to himself than anything else. Across the pavement, Bishop stood, his coat flapping in the wind, smirking. There was nothing the turtle would have liked more than to forcibly remove that smug look of triumph from his enemy's face, but he couldn't leave his position. But their situation was bad, really bad – all they were doing was delaying Bishop's attack, not reflecting it or escaping it.

"We could really use Donnie right about now," Raph grunted as he punched a clone with the knuckle of his sai.

"You're telling me!" Mikey agreed.

Leo didn't say anything, but he felt the absence of his fourth turtle all the way to his toes. Their brother's calm head, his clever plans, his upbeat personality, Don could really turn the tide on this one. But he was dying, albeit very slowly, and lost in a world of pain, the same that consumed Nick just yards away. They were on their own. And it was all Bishop's fault. Rage burned in the eldest turtle then, and he turned his eyes back to their enemy, who laughed, easily reading the thoughts evidenced in his expression.

"For all your strength," Bishop taunted, "without Donatello you really cannot hope to defeat me. His brain is the only possible threat to me now. Thankfully," and a sinister grin grew from his smirk, "his brain is halfway to mush by now."

The three brothers flinched as if struck. But before they could even think about counterattacking in rage, another voice rang out.

"Hate to disappoint, but my brain's just fine!"

"Don!"

The olive-green turtle dropped from his perch on top of the ferry-house, bo swinging. With the grace of a lifetime of practice and weeks of time to build up his own fury, Donatello cleared a path for himself, sending clones smashing into each other. Though he should have been in agony, Don showed not even a hint of pain as he strode forward. He stepped into the gap between Leonardo and Michelangelo, making them four brothers, a whole team, once more.

"How…?" Raph began, but Don shook his head.

"Later. First this." He held up a gadget. "Buy me one minute."

"You got it, bro!" Leo replied, a bright sense of hope welling up in his chest. Don was looking like himself, confident and scientific and calm, and he obviously had a plan. As he'd said what felt like so long ago, he trusted his brother completely – if Don needed time, he'd use it wisely. The blue-clad turtle threw himself into the fight more fully, freed of the fear he'd been carrying for his brother.

While three green whirlwinds exploded around him, Don, with one eye on Bishop, began making the final modifications to the device in his hands. The governmental agent was watching him with a certain suppressed fury, and not a little surprise. Donatello hid a grin – he so loved rubbing it in Bishop's face that he had overcome what had been done to him, and now he would take Bishop's whole plan down right in front of him.

Assuming this worked. Otherwise he would go down right in front of Bishop instead. He knew he was gambling a lot of lives, his own included, on this particular crazy plan, but it was all he could do. Donatello just hoped he was right, and if not, he hoped they would forgive him. Not that he'd survive to be forgiven, of course.

"Leo," he said under his breath, just loud enough for his older brother to hear him. "This is a wild-card shot at best. If it doesn't work, you've got to be ready to run."

"It'll work, Don. I believe in you." For an instant, their eyes met, and Leonardo nodded once, his faith and his trust solid as his blades. There was so much Don wanted to say, wanted to tell his brothers, his father, his friends, just in case, but there was no time. So he nodded back, gathered his courage, closed his eyes, and flipped the switch in his hands.

-==OOO==-

Around the pain, Nick suddenly became aware of a new sensation, a slight pressure in his ears. He cracked open a streaming eye and realized that he was detecting an ear-splitting keening sound, which was no more than a footnote to the lancing agony in his skull. The pressure increased steadily, and with it, the worst of the pain receded. He shifted, ignoring the wash of dizziness that came with any movement, so he could see beyond the encircling arms that held him. His mind barely worked, and it took what felt like forever for his brain to understand what his eyes showed him through the window of the HEAT-Seeker.

Swarming the docks and pavement were dozens of little clone Godzillas, all of which were shrieking, crouched on the ground and batting at their malformed heads. The source of their suffering could only be the awful noise Nick could just hear above everything else, but it sounded oddly hollow to him, like the sound were insubstantial, somehow.

A memory ghosted to the front of his mind: standing on the deck of the HEAT-Seeker days ago, watching Godzilla battle Bishop until some kind of sonic attack rendered both him and Donatello nearly catatonic. And then, mere moments prior, the turtle had appeared at his side, melting out of shadows with a whispered order to send Godzilla as far away as possible or at least hold him back. The doctor wasn't actually sure if he had been able to reach his charge through their shared pain, but he had tried with all his might, anyway; Don had not waited around with an explanation but had again slipped into obscurity. Putting the pieces together, Nick's scientific thinking finally kicked in and he understood.

"The sound…it hurts mutations," he rasped. "Don found a way to hurt them all."

"But not the turtles," Elsie pointed. In the center of the area, surrounded by clones, the brothers seemed largely unaffected by the noise, unlike what had happened to Don the first time around. Nick looked more closely, and saw three of the turtles standing around the forth, who appeared to be struggling to remain upright. Donatello.

And suddenly the pain in his mind was gone. Nick almost choked on the dryness of his throat in surprise at the amazing peace and quiet that had replaced the burning agony. Even as he stood, finding himself a little disoriented but otherwise sound in body as well, he instinctively reached for Godzilla, seeking the bond between them. Far off, he could distantly sense his mutant lizard, but the bond was weak, as though Godzilla himself were muffled. Still, they were both alive, and he could tell enough to be sure that his charge was still sane. That was all that mattered.

"Nick!" a strangled cry sounded thinly over the din of the clones. The doctor was moving before he was even really aware at it, drawn by something in the voice. He abandoned Mendel and Elsie, jumping from the deck of the boat to the nearby platform and began sprinting for the knot of turtles in the middle of the fight outside on the docks, feeling the rest of his team following at his heels. Bishop began to sprint towards the brothers, too; Monique peeled off from them to one side to intercept him.

"Donnie! What's happening?" Nick asked as he stopped just shy of crashing into Michelangelo's shell. Before him, Donatello was trembling, sweating, leaning nearly all his weight on Raphael, who held his brother firmly, fire barely concealed in his face.

"Modified sonic attack, tuned to the same nuclear frequency Godzilla's brainwaves operate on," the turtle managed. "Interrupting thought patterns, arresting cognitive function and psychic transference. But temporary."

A shout from one side drew the group's attention as Monique took a nasty blow to the ribs from Bishop's kick. Without a word, Michelangelo moved to assist her.

"So what do we do?" Elsie asked urgently.

"They'll be paralyzed for as long as this holds out," he gripped the device in his hands more tightly. He took a breath and seemed to regain a bit more strength. "Unless you think Godzilla can survive as a hive mind, we have to destroy them all."

"Agreed," Nick nodded decisively. "Craven, Randy, get the emergency weaponry out of the storage locker. Elsie, you're on biological duty."

"Poison?" she asked. Randy and Mendel didn't wait around, rushing back to the lab as quickly as they could manage.

"Whatever it takes. These aren't normal mutations. We can't capture and study them – we have to eliminate them, all of them." Elsie nodded, a bit shocked, and headed off to acquire what she needed. Nick turned back to Don, who seemed to be regaining his control with every moment. "Is it safe to call Godzilla here to help?"

"No," Don replied, pushing Raph a little as he regained his footing. "The signal will probably incapacitate him, too, if it hasn't already."

"How come you're not okay but we are?" Leo put in. Don looked at him through hooded eyes.

"'Cause I've got one in my brain. I calibrated the device to leave us alone, but it's still impacting the embryo in here. So when it twitches, my brain kind of spazzes."

"Donnie, you sure that's okay?" Raph asked, openly worried.

"No, but it's what worked," the genius shrugged. "Come on. We've got to get rid of them fast." He looked over his shoulder as Michelangelo gave a decidedly girly shriek before being sent flying by Bishop. "Here," he handed the gadget to Nick. "Keep it going no matter what. I'm going to go help Mikey."

"Sure you're up to it, bro?" the red-banded turtle put a hand on Don's shoulder. He was surprised to see a fierce light reflect back at him, a fierce smile spreading over his pinched face even as he straightened his shoulders proudly.

"Oh, yeah. I've been waiting to have a little conversation with Bishop about his unwanted attention." Don hefted his bo and turned away. He could feel Raphael's grin even without looking.

"Sounds fun. Count me in!"

"We'll handle Bishop," Leonardo confirmed to Nick. "You and your team deal with these things," he pointed a katana at a writhing form beside him. "But move fast. Bishop's a handful even for us, and he'll be gunning for you."

"Understood." Nick strode back towards the ferry building, the humming device held protectively against his body. Craven, Randy, and Elsie met him coming, each armed and determined. Elsie handed over a modified tranquilizer gun, one that was marked with an orange X – these were the lethal compounds HEAT reserved for last resorts against mutations as tough as their own Godzilla. Nick took the gun in one arm, Donatello's creation in his other, and set himself.

"Every one of them," he ordered, looking across a sea of twitching and suffering bodies. "Remember that he's weak right under the jaw and under the forearms."

"Jefe, are you sure we really have to, you know, kill a bunch of the G-man babies?" Randy hesitated. His face spoke clearly that he felt somehow wrong about what he had been asked to do to creatures that looked so like the one they liked and trusted.

"I'm sure. They aren't Godzilla's children, they're like mental parasites, and they're killing us both. We can't let Bishop have them, we can't let them overwhelm Godzilla, and we can't let them suffer." He took a deep breath, looking at the one closest to him. It did, from a cursory glance, look like his own charge. But it wasn't – he could feel it. This shell of a creature had no mind of its own, no will, nothing but what Bishop had forced into the void.

Nick set the gun against the clone's shoulder and fired, expertly aiming the dart for the big artery that ran up one side of the head. The clone shrieked even louder for a moment, then collapsed. The doctor ignored the twinge inside his heart, telling himself firmly that this was not Godzilla. Not his Godzilla.

"Let's move, people."

-==OOO==-

"I'm so sorry to disrupt your plans, Bishop," Donnie yelled as he launched a strike at the agent, "but did you know you look like a fish when you're surprised?"

"Yeah, a big stinkin' ugly fish!" Raph added, appearing in his brother's wake with a strike of his own. Bishop deflected both, turning at the very last minute before a katana found its way into his arm.

"This is a temporary setback," he proclaimed, ducking Leo's kick and turning so the blow actually tangled an incoming attack from Michelangelo. "You have not defeated me."

"Oh, but we will," Monique promised, attempting to sweep his feet out from under him.

Bishop evaded her and jumped lightly to one side. The four turtles and one human ally had circled him, positioning themselves so he was effectively cut off from any escape. The agent allowed himself a slight sniff at them as he adjusted his stance. He could not permit himself to be baited into any sort of emotional response to the apparent weakness of his clones. Sloppiness at this juncture would end in only further victory to the turtles.

"I assure you, immobilizing my clones, while tactically sound, will not gain you much," he said confidently. Casting his eyes at his five opponents, he decided that the turtle Raphael was the easiest to manipulate at this juncture, and he leered at him. As expected, the red-banded turtle growled and charged, breaking formation.

"You are so smug! I'm gonna wipe that grin off your face!"

"Raph!" came the warning cry of Leonardo, but it was too late. Bishop smoothly disarmed the turtle and pushed him into the self-proclaimed leader, taking them both out of the fight momentarily. With only three opponents left, he rushed the one named Monique, who, to her credit, was not surprised.

The woman blocked his first punch, moving with surprising agility under his second attack and finding an opening to his knee. However, skilled as she was, her human strength could not match the improvements to his body from his study and experimentation. Her kick was designed to shatter his knee – instead, it merely bruised and turned his leg to one side.

Before he could reset his position, however, a weight was on his shoulders, and to his surprise, he found Michelangelo standing on him.

"Hi!" the orange-banded turtle grinned before swinging the baton of his nunchuk straight into the agent's face. Bishop had not been expecting something so aggressive from the youngest turtle, and did not have a ready defense. Even as the weapon impacted and he felt his nose and sunglasses break, he felt the unmistakable sensation of a bo knocking his knees from under him. As he fell, there was a sharp jab of the same bo to his midsection, not enough to do serious damage, but he was winded when he landed.

"Do not move," Monique's voice was curt as he heard the sound of a gun being cocked. Against the order, he wiped the blood – how astonishing that they had actually injured him this time! – from his eyes and picked away the pieces of lenses that had stuck to him. The two turtles flanked him, with the human a yard from his feet with a weapon trained on his head.

"Nice job!" Raphael said, finally disentangling himself from the eldest turtle and joining them. "Way to take 'im down!"

"I would not be so hasty." The agent's mind moved calmly even as it raced through his options, finally settling on a course of action.

Bishop made a move as if he were intending to reach for Donatello's nearby legs, causing the other three turtles to lunge to protect their brother; he almost laughed at their predictable reactions. But it was a feint, and he turned the motion into a handstand while kicking the gun from Monique's grip and striking the side of her head with the roundhouse maneuver. A heartbeat later, he was on his feet, the turtles were clustered in front of him, and the woman was on her way to the ground behind him.

"Now, this is a situation that calls for calm," he said, smoothly retrieving the gun from where it had fallen and pointing it at Monique without even sparing her a glance. "You won't risk one of your own, but will you risk her?"

The stillness that overtook the four turtles told the agent everything he needed to know. He allowed himself a small, triumphant smile. Not only did he again have the upper hand in battle, but he also had the upper hand in dealing with both the turtles and Godzilla's human allies. How foolish those quasi-human emotions seemed to make the freaks.

"Since you are having such trouble deciding on a course of action, allow me to select one for you," he continued.

Bishop pulled the trigger.

-==OOO==-

The shouts reached him at the same time as the sharp pain. Nick looked absently down to where he had tucked Donatello's gadget into his belt for safekeeping while waging war on the Godzilla clones, and was only a little surprised to see the device starting to spark around a bullet-sized hole. A moment later, pain shot through his hip at the same place.

But that was forgotten when the mental connection to Godzilla came back.

Death. Dying. Pain. Pain pain pain pain.

Hitting the ground, he curled into a ball, only vaguely aware of his surroundings. His hip hurt abominably, but it was a mere whisper to the pain in his mind. To the sensation of dying again and again and again.

It was too much. It was more than his brain could process. As Nick slid into unconsciousness, he had one last thought.

"What if killing the clones kills Godzilla and me too?"

-==OOO==-

"Nick!" Elsie shouted, seeing the doctor go down. As she raced to him, practically leaping over fallen clone bodies to get there, she was appalled to see blood on the ground. "He's hurt! Bishop shot him!" she called to anyone who would listen.

"Looks like you've got other problems," Bishop said, turning to the stricken turtles before him. "I know when I've overstayed my welcome. Do give my regards to the doctor when he wakes up."

The agent evaded the sneak attack Monique launched from behind, and with the remarkable and inhuman speed he'd demonstrated in the past, dashed to the shadows and disappeared.

"What now?" Mikey turned to Leo, tense and somehow helpless.

"We've got to finish what Nick started and get rid of the last of the clones," the turtle answered. "Don, see if he's okay," he gestured with a katana. "We'll have your back."

"On it, Leo." Without the keening of the sonic weapon in his ears, Donatello felt himself move even more easily. The clone inside was no longer spazzing with his device, but was apparently still being held in check by Master Splinter. By the time he reached his friend's side, he was thinking as fast as ever.

"Don! He's…" Elsie looked up, terror in her eyes. She had turned him over and was just starting to pull at the gadget at his side.

"Leave it," Don ordered, settling into place. He was vaguely aware of his brothers and Monique setting up a perimeter around them while Randy and Mendel continued dealing with the clones from their position near the lab. And it was a good thing, too – with the sound gone, the clones were no longer immobilized and were resuming their attacks. "Depending on how bad he's hurt, we might need to leave it there a while."

Even as he began looking over his friend, Donatello cursed whatever fates had decided that the resident family engineer was also the medic. If he could be fixing the sonic disruptor, he could be saving everyone from a lot of dangerous close-in fighting with Godzilla clones. But personal interest and the necessity of their lives had required that he absorb medical knowledge like the sponge he was to better take care of his family, and therefore he was the one most qualified to help right now. Don could not let himself be distracted by what might be happening around him or what might have been if the situation were different. Nick's life might depend on his ability to focus.

As quickly and as gently as possible, the turtle examined the area. Bishop was an expert marksman, that much was apparent: he'd hit the disruptor straight-on at more than 50 yards. Don ran some lightning-quick mental calculations – the shell of the device should have taken most of the momentum from the shot. He felt around the back of the casing for shrapnel that might have broken off, but found nothing too sizeable.

"Elsie, I'm going to need a first-aid kit and fast. Can you get one?" he asked without looking up. She must have nodded, for a moment later she was running through the war-zone of the dock towards the lab.

"Didn't want her to see," he muttered to himself as he carefully lifted what remained of his poor gadget from where it had been held against Nick's side.

There was no immediate spurt of blood, which was a good sign. Don pulled Nick's shirt out of the way and looked carefully. Then he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Not too bad at all." Then, as he began to think, inspiration struck. "Of course! He didn't pass out from the wound, but from the link with Godzilla being restored! But it sure looked to all of us like it was the shot that took him down, so probably Bishop assumes the same!" Don allowed himself to grin. "For once, the turtle luck decided to stay home. This is the best-possible outcome – Nick's not seriously hurt and Bishop still has no way of knowing about the connection between him and Godzilla."

By the time Elsie made her way back through the last of the clone war with the medical supplies, Donnie was already seeing the bleeding slow and he could assure her that Nick would be fine. They had big problems looming, most of them having to do with Bishop, but this was one medical emergency that didn't require any amount of panic.