Omagash we got more plot developmente here, guys! Something's cookin'...

Action and lots of Rasey bromance.

And remember that ninja clan from the first chapter?

Here's a short recap of the main Lotus characters:

Hachisu-no-Hana, the kashira.

Jiro, the old master.

Iwao, the veteran.

Atsuko, the fox.

Wakai, the eager one.

Anyone watching the street would probably not have been able to tell at first glance what those two figures crossing the pavement were. They would not have known whether to call the police, Animal Control or the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, because neither of the silhouettes appeared all that human. One bulky and green with a big, smooth, hairless head, the other with a white cadaverous face and long, stiff appendages jutting out in all directions that made him look like a four-armed stalking man-spider in the distance.

Hopefully, thought Raph, this part of town was as empty as it looked and nobody was there to see them as they stealthily made their way towards the dark warehouse.

That is, as stealthily as Casey's heavy gear would allow. Raph scowled when they pushed themselves flat against the wall in shadows and the hockey sticks clanked noisily against each other yet again.

Casey was getting a little better at it after a couple years of patrolling the streets with him and his brothers, but stealth missions were still definitely not his forte. With luck this mission wouldn't require much finesse, - just go in, find out what the Purple Dragons have been up to lately, and leave.

Raph was at the vanguard, looking out for any surveillance cameras as they moved close to the wall. They made it to the garage doors, where Raph had seen the Purple Dragons unload the mysterious crates last night. Each had a big tough lock as was to be expected, but that had never been a challenge for Raph. Crouched on the ground, he produced a lockpick from his belt and began to expertly pick the keyhole under Casey's fascinated eye.

"Yo, Raph, you gotta teach me how to do that," he whispered eagerly, and Raph briefly took his eyes off his task to send him a dubious sideways glance. "What? I would use it for the greater good, man!"

"Never doubt it," Raph replied with a crooked smile.

"Damn right!"

"Aren't you supposed to be keeping watch?"

Casey mumbled something and he turned away to the desolate street, tapping his foot. It wasn't long before the satisfying click that announced Raph's victory against the lock.

They pulled the garage door up enough to take a peek through. After checking it was safe and there was nothing in sight but darkness, they went in.

Inevitably the metal door clanked noisily as they rolled it back down, resounding through the cavernous room. Raph made them wait until the echo had died to make sure, and when everything was quiet again they took out their flashlights and shone them around.

Everything seemed pretty harmless at first glance. The vast open space was packed with rows and rows of cardboard boxes and wooden crates, some of them stacked as high as the upstairs catwalk, all labeled with Chinese hanzis that meant nothing to either of them. There could be anything in these containers. And there were literally hundreds of them, each one looking just as innocuous or suspicious as the next.

Raph let out a long heavy sigh. "This'll take a while."

"We don't have to…?"

"Look in every one of them? Yes." Raph walked over to the nearest pile.

"All of them?" Casey exclaimed with an agonized groan.

"Until we find something suspicious."

"Dude, have you seen the size of this place? We could be here for hours! Why don't you ever take me anywhere nice?"

"Come on, Casey, stop being a whiny little baby and get started over there!" Raph grumbled, signalling towards the opposite row as he picked up a crowbar and pried open the first crate.

Casey huffed, but picked up another crowbar and got to work on his aisle. One by one, the lids came off, but there was nothing inside the crates that could be deemed dangerous or shifty -or, maybe it was all shifty, but in a whole different sense. "Darbie" dolls, misshapen Spiderman figures, brand imitation clothing, and all sorts of office supplies and kitchen utensils made in China. By the looks of it, the Purple Dragons were running an import business of the highest caliber, and going by the sheer size of the place, they seemed to be providing for every convenience store around the city. Raph would bet his sais they weren't doing it in the most honorable or law-abiding of ways either.

"Damn, this place is full of crap," he said, opening the twentieth crate and shining his flashlight on the packaging to find dozens of some kind of little girl's purses with the face of a cheerful looking kitten on every one of them. "The hell- 'Hola Gato'?" Raph pronounced in awful Spanish. "This stuff is terrible!"

"This stuff is great!" Casey contradicted, already sounding much happier about the task commended to him. "The place is a gold mine!" he exclaimed, excitedly opening another crate to see what else he could find.

"A crap mine, more like." Raph laughed, but couldn't help wonder which of the color variations of the purse Mikey would like more.

"No way!" Casey cried, holding up a pair of jeans. "Raph, look! Brand new Levis! And I think they're my size!"

"And I think that says 'Lewis', Casey…"

"So? You can barely tell the difference." The sound of a zipper told Raph that Casey hadn't wasted any time taking off his pants to try the new pair on and he rolled his eyes as he turned to the next crate. He could hear Casey grunt behind him, struggling with his pants - he was trying to take them off over his Converse, the oaf- as Raph cranked open the crate. He hadn't noticed the faint greenish glow seeping from the cracks in the wood. When the lid came off with a crack, the light spilled out, flooding his field of vision.

"Whoa!" he cried, and heard the zipper again behind him, followed by the quick tapping of soles on concrete, and a moment later Casey was by his side, fake Levis still in his hand.

"What? What'd ya find?"

Raph greeted Casey with one glowing canister held aloft, its viscous light chiseling the kid's already strong features into a macabre mask, irises glowing a radioactive green.

"Mutagen." Raph spoke the word like a bad omen.

"What?" Casey said, taking the canister to make sure, draping the 'Lewis' jeans over his shoulder. "But… I thought you guys said all the mutagen was gone! I thought we were done with all this alien shit! Does this mean the Kraang are back?" he hissed once he confirmed that the entire crate was full of the stuff.

But Raph shook his head, brow knitted in thought.

"Not necessarily. The city cleaned up the mutagen that was left. Donnie used the last he had making Karai her retromutagen and we haven't been able to find any more since." He knelt to point his flashlight at the crate's label, then moved around the surrounding crates, inspecting them. "I'm guessing the government had it stored somewhere and the Purple Dragons managed to somehow get their mitts on it."

He grabbed the crowbar and cracked open another crate with a similar-looking label to confirm it was also full of canisters. The tall walls of containers on either side were illuminated by the open wells of light, like gates to the underworld. He couldn't really tell how much of it was in this warehouse, or what the Purple Dragons would want it for. Either way it certainly wasn't good news.

"We gotta tell-"

Casey's words were cut short by the sudden clatter of the garage door opening, followed by a few voices. Three silhouettes came into view, backlit by a pair of headlights.

"Damn cheap lock! We'll have to get a new one."

"Told you we shouldn't have used one of our own…"

"Leave that for later. Let's get the boss what he wants."

There was nowhere to hide among the tightly packed rows of crates. With a loud crack, the entire place was flooded in blinding fluorescent light, leaving Raph and Casey exposed, and in plain sight of the three figures standing between them and the exit. Staying still as mannequins didn't help and their old friend Fong, accompanied by his usual cohorts, Tsoi and Sid, froze in place, eyes wide in surprise.

"Hey! Put those jeans back!" Fong said, pointing a menacing finger at Casey.

Raph saw his friend sneer for a moment before the mask came down to hide his face, hockey stick now gripped tightly in his gloved fists.

Casey dumped the jeans on the ground, and kicked them away dismissively. His eyes lit up with wicked delight at Fong's reaction to the gesture, a snarl forming on the crook's lips as he readied his butcher knife.

Fong yelled in Chinese something Casey didn't understand. But a moment later an entire gang of men appeared through the garage doors to join them. Ten additional men now stood behind the trio, wielding anything from chains to crowbars and knives. But neither Raph nor Casey would've been the least bit intimidated if they had been three times as many. Some were even confident enough to use their own fists.

Adorable…

The rookies that formed most of the Purple Dragons' forces were at this point little more than warm-up for the pair of vigilantes, but these guys never seemed to get the message…

"Oh, yeah. Tonight's gonna be fun after all," Casey said with satisfaction, voice muffled by his mask as Raph whipped out his own weapons. He spun the sais, as though shaking them awake.

Raph and Casey looked at each other and shared a sneer. Then, with a single nod, they lunged forward.

At Fong's command, the small army of men ran at them, yelling, and Raph threw a couple of smoke bombs at the stampede of men. The pack was enveloped in a wall of smoke, stopping them in their tracks and scattering them. Raph might as well have wrapped them up for Casey and put a bow on them.

"Stay clear of the mutagen!" Raph warned.

"Right!"

The kid dashed through the already dissipating fog toward the disoriented Purple Dragons, tripping dudes to the floor with his hockey stick and hearing the satisfying grunts and yelps of surprise. But before he could make it through the crowd, one hand flew in out of nowhere and grabbed him by the hood. The momentum made Casey's feet lift off the ground as his torso fell with a dry thud. He gasped, and rolled away just in time to avoid getting hit by Tsoi's sledgehammer. A kick in the dude's shin had him on his knees and gave Casey time to get back up onto his feet and whack another attacker on the face while he was on it.

As he skated away back across another group of bad guys -most of which ended up on the floor- he crossed paths with Raph.

The turtle was charging at full speed. Casey saw him jump, wall kick himself off a pile of crates. He landed a kick on a thug's ear before landing on another one's shoulders, the weight of his bulk making the guy's knees buckle as Raph bounced off to tackle a third to the ground, knocking him out with one punch.

Raph roared his triumph, his hand meeting Casey's in a smack that resounded even over the tumult as they each picked their next target.

Casey only wished these idiots could see the sneer underneath his mask, his agitated breath blowing puffs of moisture over his own face. But it was exhilarating, standing here, shoulder to shoulder with his best friend, his partner. Nothing could top this. Combined they were like a cold front and a hot front colliding to make a cyclone of blunt force trauma.

Already a few of the thugs that were still standing looked like they were seriously considering calling it a night and running off home to hide under their mammas' skirts rather than trying to fight these two forces of nature. Those poor noobs were easiest to take down. Petrified, they barely put up resistance as Casey gave them each a quick taste of his sticks.

"Stage fright, buddy?" he said as he whacked one of them upside the head before turning to the other one. "You too? This'll help you relax! Ask your friend!" He held up his stick as though offering it to the man and the man shook from head to toe. But he still ran at Casey with a shrieking roar, pipe raised high. He swung, but Casey skated out of the way and the pipe hit another thug in the nose. He didn't stop there, chasing Casey around, wildly flinging the metallic pipe until someone else caught it in one hand.

"You worthless piece of-" Fong yelled and yanked the pipe from the other's hands to hit him with it. The distraction was enough for Casey to drop back in and a moment later Fong was landing butt-first -and noisily- into a box full of squeaky rubber ducks.

"Raph! Please, tell me you saw that!" Casey guffawed.

"Heard it! Wasn't looking though!" Raph cried as he blocked a blow from Tsoi's sledgehammer and returned the favor with a blow to the face. "You're gonna have to do it again!"

"With pleasure!" Casey said, repeating the move on Sid. The big oaf fell on top of Fong, who had been trying to get up from the pile of toys, the impact producing a chorus of deafening squeaks.

Now Raph joined Casey in his laughter. But the celebration did not last, as out of nowhere another Purple Dragon, taking advantage of the distraction, came at Raphael with his two-handed iron flail.

Casey didn't have time to warn him.

The heavy ball struck Raph's plastron with a crack, the impact propelling him backwards. Casey watched, wide-eyed, as the turtle's shell slammed into a wooden crate that burst into splinters, scattering the contents on the ground -in this case, bags of mochi.

"Raph!" Casey yelled and ran to his aid, but another Purple Dragon was in his way, already sporting a gash on the cheek. The poor guy was desperately flapping a butterfly knife at him. Deflecting a swing, Casey whacked the man on his wrist, the weapon falling out of his hand. Casey shoved his stick into the other's chest and used it to pin him against the crates. He turned his head, eyes searching for Raph. "You okay, man?"

"Sure," Raph gritted out with a wince of pain, heaving himself up off the pile of ripped bags. Luckily most of the enemies were already down -not to mention terrified of even coming close to the mutant- and he had time to shake off some of the food that had stuck to his lower shell before Guy With Flail was back.

Casey slammed a knee into his goon's crotch that left him slowly sliding to the ground with a prolonged wail of pain, as Casey ran over to assist Raph. But by the time he got there, Raph had already carried out his revenge, the brute lying face down on the ground like a log.

"Whoa!" Casey exclaimed, stepping over the dude's motionless form and picking up the weapon he had dropped. "Miniature demolition ball! I think I might keep it!"

"Look out!" Raph yelled, and threw a bag of frozen dim sum that flew right by Casey's ear. A split-second later he heard the impact behind him and a cry of surprise. It was Fong, who had almost caught them off their guard.

"Good throw, Raph!" shouted Casey, suddenly feeling like trying it out himself and so he picked up the first thing he found from another crate, a foldable beach chair, and threw it at the few men regrouping a little further down the aisle. The chair sprung open on impact and three men ended up sprawled on the ground as if a grenade had gone off between them.

"Hah!" Casey exclaimed, performing a victory fist pump.

Seeing the good results that this new tactic offered, both Raph and Casey started yanking various objects from the open crates and flinging them mercilessly at their adversaries. What had begun as your regular street fight had become a school lunchroom battle royal, with whole pre-cooked chickens, tubes of Chee-Z balls and cross-eyed dolls flying in all directions.

Before long, the group of goons had been decimated to just a few remaining masochists -because there was no other explanation for their persistence. Fong barely had any men left standing as one by one they had either fallen under the shower of once-vendibles or run away. But apparently he still had enough fight left in him to rise, in the middle of the battle field, and scream at the top of his lungs, "Stop ruining our merchandise!"

His defiant shriek earned him a basketball to the mouth. Fong's cry of pain was music to Casey's ears, and he guffawed jubilantly as the criminal scum made a shaking attempt to pick himself up off the floor while rubbing his bleeding nose. To one side, Raph was just finishing off the last of the hoodlums. Only one more left to go and then they could tie them all up in a big bunch while they and the rest of the turtles took the mutagen to a safe place.

So before Fong could get to his feet again, Casey was there, stick raised overhead and ready to swing until a shadow caught his eye.

Casey froze, watching the new silhouette slither into view, stage left. Like the image of a god come to Earth the figure paused at the entrance, dramatically lit against the truck's lights, before stepping inside into the well-lit space.

Hun stood there, nostrils flaring and sunglasses glinting menacingly, scanning the scene. One shout -what is going on in here!- and Fong scrambled away from Casey to welcome his boss, while all Casey could do was stare. Struck dumb, frozen in place, and covered in stray packing peanuts and cheese balls.

"You again," Hun said, his voice cold but his eyes ablaze.

Hun pulled his spiked brass knuckles from his back pockets and very slowly, very ceremoniously, slipped them on, flashing them with one of his shrill kung-fu battle shouts that made Casey's hairs stand on end. But not because he was scared. No, it was anticipation. He'd been craving for another chance at this for months and this was the moment of his revenge. Together with Raph they would finally-

"Casey, don't you dare!"

Casey spun around and spotted the warning glower in Raph's green eyes. He hadn't noticed him back there.

"I know what you're thinking," the turtle insisted, pointing his sai at Casey's head. "Don't. We're getting out of here."

"What?! Raph, this is our chance!"

"Our chance to be part of Hun's stamp collection?" Raphael gritted out, voice sharp with impatience.

Hun's shout had worked like a summoning spell for the dead, and the Purple Dragons that had been littering the floor -at least the ones who were conscious- started getting up and joining their boss. Some were limping, a few of them rubbing their aching bodies, but all of them revived with new confidence as they all stood by their leader, between the intruders and the exit.

This all just gave Casey a moment's pause as the rational part of his brain rebelled -the tiny, wuss puss kid nobody ever listened to. Now wasn't any different. Hun was the stain on Casey's pride, and Casey had won seemingly hopeless games before.

"Raph, you with me or not?"

"I'm with ya, Case! That's why you're not fighting Hun!"

Casey growled in frustration and poised himself for combat, facing down his already advancing enemy.

"Fine! I'll take him down myself!"

"Don't make me carry you, Casey! I'm warning you!"

Casey scoffed, getting ready to pounce. Raphael would have to do better than that. "Screw you, Ra-hck!"

He felt his body twitch involuntarily before he even registered the touch of Raph's finger on the hollow of his shoulder, a sharp jolt shooting down his arm, through his spine. His knees gave way and before he knew it he was on the ground, spasming, his limbs numb and unresponsive.

"Sorry, Casey. Not today," Raph said, moving quickly.

Casey could barely protest as he saw his revenge getting flung out the window. Raph threw two shurikens, and Hun deflected them with his brass knuckles as though shooing an irritating fly. But Raph had thrown a third one, a bit to Hun's right, that he had obviously taken for granted.

...until the fire extinguisher started whistling through its new hole.

The metal casing burst, a cloud of white engulfing the group of Purple Dragons for a few seconds, enough for Raph to promptly pick up Casey off the ground and carry him up a ladder through the nearest window.

"Where are they!" they heard Hun shout in the distance.

The two strange figures fled the scene and eventually got lost in the shadows.

What they didn't know was that someone had seen the whole thing, from beginning to end.

"They're a little unorthodox, to say the least," said Iwao, and squat atop the rooftop ledge overlooking the docks scratching an itchy scar on his face.

Jiro chuckled beside him.

"But effective."

"Of one thing we can be certain." Fourteen warriors turned to their kashira, perched at the edge like a bird of prey who has spotted something in the tall grass. "They are not your ordinary street brawlers."

Raph didn't stop until they were deep underground, a good distance away from the docks. Burdened with an extra 140 pounds on his back, it had taken him too long to lose their pursuers. Casey had recently started kicking and thrashing against his grip, the effects of Raph's disabling nerve strike finally wearing off.

"Let go o' me, man!"

Raph did as he was asked, unceremoniously so, and Casey landed on the dank sewer floor with a grunt. Arms and legs still unable to support him, Casey propped himself on his elbow to yell at the turtle.

"What in the hell did you have to do that for! What was that!"

"Funny, I was gonna ask you the same thing," Raph countered, arms crossed and mouth straight.

"We were trashing those guys, we had 'em! It was our chance!"

"We were out-matched."

"You can't know that until you actually fight!"

Raph stared in absolute incredulity.

"Man, I always knew you were crazy. That's alright, I can work with crazy. It's the stupid I can't stand," Raph spat. "And right now you're being very stupid."

"Hey, Raph, fuck you! Alright? That guy is a menace to the city, he needs to be put down and you know it!"

"Don't give me that hero bologna, you're just pissed 'cause he beat you up those other times and you wanna go all desperado on him, you blockhead. You think I can't tell?"

"You don't get it, Raph." Casey's teeth were bared, glinting with the little light that filtered from a grate as he hopelessly tried to push himself to his knees.

"I get it, Case. You gotta trust me on that. But do I need to remind you what happened last time you tried to take on this guy? I barely got there in time to drag your unconscious ass out to safety. You didn't wake up for like a day? I was scared shitless! We all were! Any of this ringin' any bells?" Raph shouted, hands balled-up into fists at his sides to keep himself from whacking the man upside his head. "You're the one who doesn't get it! He could've killed you! And you know, I'm not down with that!"

When Raph was finished he stood above Casey, who was still on the floor, and he tried to use his superior vantage to impose himself. A bad habit. It had never worked on Casey, not when the kid was being this stubborn, and it didn't work this time either. Casey looked straight up at him like he was threatening to pounce, his lips so tight they were turning into a thin white line.

But a few tense seconds passed and Casey sighed in resignation, a pout replacing the scowl. Rapha relaxed and reached for his pocket. All this precious time wasted fighting and running away and they still hadn't called the others. Now that it was safe, he pulled out his T-Phone to give his brothers the full report-only to realize it had been smashed during the fight. The phone had one big crack across the back, how appropriate; this was exactly how Raph's poor shell felt right now. The thing probably broke when he got thrown against that crate, too. Shit.

"Case, your phone."

"Uh," muttered Casey, slowly reaching for his back pocket, and handed Raph the device.

Raph sighed right after unblocking the screen, "No signal down here. Well, it's been awhile since we left the warehouse. Mutagen is probably gone by now."

They weren't far from the lair. It would be easier to just go back there and tell the guys in person -and while he was at it, wash off all the mochi smears off his skin before going back out. He turned back to Casey, ready to pick him up again.

"I'm gonna get you home to sleep this off. You gonna stop squirming now or am I gonna have to poke you again? I'll knock you out for good, Case."

Casey scoffed, but he took Raph's hand when he offered it to help him get on his feet.

"We'll get him, Casey. I just gotta make sure you're gonna be smart about it."

"Sheesh, when did you get so much like Leo, man?" Casey said, adopting a dramatized expression of disgust.

"Say that again and you'll be getting home by postage," Raph threatened, pulling Casey's arm over his shoulders, yanking just a little too hard on purpose when Casey started laughing again.

This idiot. Can't just stay mad like everybody else, Raph thought with a grin of his own.

Raph had to practically carry Casey through most obstacles like he was a brittle old man.

When he had dropped Casey off at his door, and when he was sure Casey had made it to his dad's apartment, the orange light of a bare bulb in his window and the slumping silhouette passing by, he made a final sprint home.

He hoped it wouldn't be too late and they could still at least trace the mutagen.

Everyone seemed to be asleep when Raph got back to the lair, all lights out, and not even Donnie was in his lab. He decided to take a moment to at least freshen up a bit before having to go out again and made a beeline for his room. But by the time he sat on his bed to replace the dirty bandages on his feet, he was so beat, so sore... and his back hurt like Hell... and the lair was so quiet... - and oh, his bed felt so soft and warm... To think he was going to have to wake everybody up right away and start giving explanations, after which they'd probably want to go all the way back there for the mutagen - yeah, totally looking forward to another expedition like that.

Before he even realized it, he was suddenly sprawled out on the bed. He just wanted to rest his eyes for a tiny bit. What's a couple more minutes now, anyway…? he reassured himself as he snuggled against the softness of his pillow, fighting to keep his eyes open.

After a while, once the goons had loaded the truck with the mysterious crates and left, and the warehouse was once again dark and silent, another group of silhouettes crossed the street; another lock was picked. The figures moved silently among the mess of toppled over crates and junk, like cats. One of them signalled another over and they both kneeled over the layer of fire extinguisher covering the ground. There was an object there glinting under the flashlight and Hachisu gingerly picked it up, wiping the white stuff off on her leg and turning it around in her hand to see it.

She sprung to her feet, brow furrowed as she stared at the symbol engraved on the shuriken.

"Jiro," she said, and the old man approached her at once. A little wary of the look on her face, Jiro glanced at the object she was showing him.

"The Hamato clan?" he breathed. "But… they live?"

"Apparently so. Somehow," Hachisu said, and she slipped the shuriken inside her sash where she kept her own.

"What now, kashira?"

"We find them, and we talk to their leader. With luck, we can make them our allies."

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