A/N: - This is quite a long chapter and I hope you all like it. I have upped the stakes for the Turtles in this chapter and they really are going to face a lot more problems now than I've ever made them face before. I hope they're ready for it!

"YEAH! WHOOOO!" Mikey yelled, lungs practically bursting, as he sped down the humungous heap of garbage. He was using his plank of wood as a surfboard and was dusty cloud was being kicked up behind him as he skidded, jumped and wove over and around every obstacle in his way until he reached the bottom and flipped up the wood and caught it in his right hand. His three brothers had taken a break from treasure seeking to watch and were clapping and cheering their younger brother as he took his bows and climbed back up the pile of trash to join them again.

"Have fun?" Raph asked.

"That so totally rocked, dude!" was Mikey's reply.

"Sure it did, Mike. So now you've had you fun you can get back to work, can't you?" Leo clapped his brother on the shell and grinned at Mikey's disappointed face.

"Sure you dudes don't want a go?" Mike offered, looking for any excuse not to work.

"We're sure, Mike…you're the surfer dude of this family." Donnie laughed.

"Are you guys coming?" April called up to them.

"Coming where?"

"To help decorate the shack. We've been given it as a gift for helping the homeless people and giving them more entertainment than they've had in a long time. They said it was also a late thank-you present for defeating the Garbage-man."

"Awesome!" Mikey used the plank of wood and surfed down to meet April but narrowly missing crashing into her as he did so. His brothers followed, but walked instead of surfed, and the five of them raced each other back to the shack. Raph would've won had Donnie, Mikey and Leo not bundled him last minute and unintentionally tripped April up in the process so they were all in a knot on the floor. April disentangled herself, giggling as she watched the brothers fight over who had one as the knot of turtles got over the finish line.

"My sons - stop this foolish nonsense this instance and get to work."

"Yes, Master Splinter," Leo pulled himself free of the knot he was tangled up in but was pulled back down with a thump when Mikey grabbed his foot.

"Heh heh, you shall not be the first to stand, my brother." Mikey said, being cut off when Leo hit him round the head and stood up again. Donnie was the next to free himself leaving Raph and Mikey tangled up on the floor and fighting to see who could stand up first. A pointless fight as if both were trying to bring down the other then neither of them would succeed in standing up at any time in the next ten or fifteen minutes.

"MICHELANGELO – RELEASE YOUR BROTHER RIGHT NOW!" Donnie roared, imitating Splinter rather effectively and making Mikey freeze, giving Raph the chance to get to his feet.

"Hey, I had him in a headlock – I was winning and you ruined my moment of glory and I don't usually get moments of glory. I just get called odd or ignored because you think I'm being stupid and then you eat my scrambled eggs and do I ever hear a 'thank-you' or a 'you rock, dude'? Nooo…"

"Mike," Leo cut in, "you were not winning. You had your arm round Raph's neck but he had a good grip on your throat so it was stalemate. You get called odd by Raph and should ask him if you want an explanation. We don't ignore you----"

"And believe me, we try," Raph interjected.

"Raph, that's enough. We eat your scrambled eggs because it's what you cook best and you're the best cook out of the four of us. And you never get any thanks because we thanked you the first thousand times you gave us scrambled eggs and then you told us, if I remember correctly although I'm sure Don will back me up, that you didn't need thanks because we are your brothers and it's just a part of everyday life."

"Well said, bro," Don whispered to his older brother.

"Thanks. Well Mikey?" Leo had his hands on his hips and he was looking expectantly at Mikey.

"Um, yeah…I remember…I'm just going to, um, clean up and decorate my corner of the shack…"

"Your corner?"

"Yeah, my corner. You know? The corner where I sleep?"

"Get on with it, Mikey. Raph – just leave it. Remember, Mikey happy is better than Mikey bored. At least this way he won't be wreaking havoc all over the island and driving the inhabitants so crazy that they isolate us to one area with no food or shelter." Donnie flung an arm out in front of his hot-tempered brother to stop him going for Mikey and Leo marked them off a corner of the shack each after Casey, April and Splinter said they would take an area in the middle of the floor if the four reptilian brothers really wanted the corners that badly. And it was probably a good idea, Leo thought, to keep all four of them separate before Raph completely flipped out and battered one of them to a pulp. Leo began setting up a few blankets in his corner while the others all did the same and soon they were ready to go back out and help with the rubbish sifting again…but not before Mikey had decorated the walls with several amusing drawings. They were humorous adaptations of each person staying in the shack. Raph was drawn in a bridesmaid's dress with smoke coming out of his ears. Leo was on all fours with a collar and lead being held by Splinter. Donnie was cross-eyed and had brains bulging out of his ears into the frying pans either side of him. April and Casey were dressed to get married except April was in a suit and Casey was in a dress. Mikey himself wasn't on there but he was certain that one of his brothers would add him to the collection of art at some point in the near future.

Sure enough, by that evening Mikey's portrait had joined the others in the shack…all four of them. Casey, Leo, Donnie and Raph had all made their own interpretation of Mikey. Casey's was of Mike in a tutu with exaggerated lips (obviously coated with lipstick although the portrait wasn't colour). Leo's was of Mikey's head on a scruffy mongrel's body and the scruffy mongrel had all four legs chained up and it was a very fat dog. Donnie's picture was of Mikey drowning in a sea of soda with pizza-fish biting Mikey's hands and legs. And Raph's picture was of Mikey in a dress with an apron over the top and extra long eyelashes. The apron read 'shoot the chef' and instead of arms Mikey had the wings of a chicken.

"That was uncalled for guys – couldn't you all have worked on one picture together?" Mikey asked, sniffing slightly when his brothers and Casey showed them their 'masterpieces'.

"You didn't exactly flatter us."

"I don't mind my picture," Casey admitted sheepishly, "I can even forgive you for drawing me in a dress. And Raph," he turned to his hot-headed friend, "you do make a great bridesmaid…"

"Casey that was not the thing to say to him!" Donnie hissed frantically in Casey's ear.

"See, Raph? I always said you would look good in a dress. Maybe I'll buy you one for Christmas or something…" Mikey beamed, backing off slightly when he realised that a low growl was emitting from Raphael and it was growing steadily louder with each comment made. Leo decided enough was enough and that he had to intervene.

"Come on guys, if Raph is feeling delicate and hormonal then we must respect his feelings and you mustn't irritate him in any way."

"Leo…" Raph snarled, "If you value your life then you'll shut up right now. And you will also run very, very fast."

"Running isn't my favourite sport – can't we settle this with a spar instead?"

"You just want to spar don't you?" Raph was disbelieving.

"We're all gonna get really out of shape if we don't keep up the training."

"Stuff sparring when I can wrestle with Casey and beat him to a pulp…you go practice your precious katas by yourself." Raph clapped Casey on the back and watched in satisfaction as Leo strode out of the small shack in a huff.

"And with Mr. Perfect out of the way I can get down to dealing with you and those comments you were making about my dress."

"Sorry, Raph," Mikey practically groveled at Raph's feet, "please don't hurt me!"

"Too late for apologies…" Raph cracked his knuckles.

"Haha – then I must side with Leo – LEO! RAPH'S ATTACKING ME!" Mikey screeched making his voice sound convincingly panicked. Before Raph could do anything he was pinned to the floor by his older brother who had thrown himself into the room when Mikey had called out. Mikey grinned at Casey, who was dumbfounded,

"That always gets them going. Raph was gonna fight me and Leo wanted to fight with Raph so this way Leo gets what he wants and I get to watch as he kicks Raph's stubborn butt!"

"Very cunning, Mikey," Donnie said, ducking as one of Raph's Sais flew dangerously close, "but may I suggest that we leave them to it. And may I also suggest that you oblige."

"You got it Don, my man." Mikey gave his brother the thumbs up and followed him and Casey out of the room. He turned in the doorway to look at his fighting brothers, "and you might want to improve your aim, Raph. And good luck, Leo – not that you need it or anything."

Casey, April, Donnie and Mike all returned to the shack to find Leo and Raph undergoing a lecture from Splinter, who had only just seen the drawings on the wall. But it seemed that Raph was getting the brunt of the telling off and Mikey tried to remain out of sight as they all entered the shack.

"Michelangelo," Splinter said, not even looking at his youngest and most mischievous son, "you will come here and explain to me why there are drawings all round the room of your brothers, Mr. Jones, Miss O'Neill and myself."

"Um, yeah, about that…" Mikey struggled to think of an excuse. April looked round and noticed the pictures for the first time and blushed a deep shade of crimson when she saw the picture of her and Casey. She caught Casey's eye and looked away quickly but didn't pull away when Casey took her hand. Donnie caught this gesture out of the corner of his eye but held his tongue. There would be no chance of Casey getting up the courage to officially ask April out if he was getting ceaseless ridicule from Raph and Mikey for it. Leo would probably join in with the joking but he wouldn't resort to blackmail, like Raph would, or pictures and blunt questions, like Mikey, so Don decided that he might mention it to his older brother at some point and then confront Casey and ask why he hadn't asked April to go out with him yet.

"I'm sorry, Sensei but when you said 'decorate the shack' I assumed you meant to literally decorate the shack so I waited until you'd gone and thought that this might lift the tension a bit."

"It did lift the tension for a while but now your two brothers are going to be punished severely and I think you should join them."

"But you just said---"

"I said it lifted the tension, yes, but it also caused embarrassment and fighting amongst yourselves and therefore you shall be punished."

"But Donnie and Casey did pictures of me."

"And, as much as I dislike retaliation, in this case you deserved it." Splinter held up his hand before Mikey could cut in again, showing that the conversation was closed.

"Great, so now I get punished too." Mikey mumbled as he joined his brothers to do twenty flips and then clean the drawings off the walls of the shack unless the subject of each drawing said that they could stay. But, as expected, everyone said they wanted their drawings taken down or at least replaced with a more flattering picture. The only people who didn't say anything were April and Casey. They didn't say anything and snubbed Raph when he asked them what they wanted done about the picture. So the three brothers who were cleaning the shack left the drawing up.

The rest of their group returned an hour later and everyone settled down to sleep. But when you have an entire army of ninjas, a gang of thugs, the leaders of each of those groups out to get you and the knowledge that you're putting everyone close to you in danger it's extremely difficult to have a peaceful and uninterrupted night's sleep. But it was not the nightmares that woke Raphael that night; it was the sound of panicked shouting. He leapt up and looked around but everyone was still asleep. He left the shack and was greeted by a chaotic scene. The homeless were running round and a thick cloud was making it near impossible to see more than three feet ahead at any one time. Raph took a deep breath but choked and his eyes widened in utter horror. It wasn't a cloud, it was smoke. The island was on fire!

"Shit," Raph cursed under his breath, backing into the shack and into the terrified form of his youngest brother, "Mike, wake the others. The island's on fire!"

"W…what?"

"Wake – the – others! Unless you want to be turtle toast, that is!" Raph pushed his little brother back towards the others in their group and woke Splinter and Donnie while Mikey woke Casey, April and Leo.

"Leo! Leo, wake up! The island's on fire, Leo, and I'm scared!" Mikey felt like he was five again. He was trembling in terror and was relieved when his older brother's arms hugged him and pulled him to his feet.

"We're going to get out of here." Leo said, quickly thinking of a plan of action to save their shells, "Raph, you take April and Casey with you and get them off the island. I'll take Mike and Don and we'll figure out what caused this. Sensei, what are you going to do?"

"I shall leave the island with your brother, Mr. Jones and Miss O'Neill. Once we are safe, I shall send Raphael back to help you. If you are confronted by a battle then you will need all four of you."

"Yes, Master Splinter," Leo bowed and then rushed out of the shack with Donnie and Mikey close behind him. They would have to keep in sight of each other if they were to succeed here.

"Raph, we can't get out that way! It's blocked!"

"We can shift it – you wanted the quickest way off the island and this is it. It's either this or we get split up in the mayhem back in the centre." Raph replied, helping Casey to move an abandoned car that was blocking the way to the water. There were several large obstacles in the way but it was the quickest route off the island and Raph was desperate to get back to his brothers.

"I'd rather chance the mayhem!"

"Don't worry, April, we'll get out this way." Casey reassured her as he and Raph shifted the first car. Next thing to shift was the large heap of tyres.

"Mind out the way, Case," Raph walked back and took a run up on the tyre heap, sending the tyres rolling all over the place. Now they just had to get over a couple of rubbish heaps. The fire was spreading fast and if it reached where they were then they would be caught in the blast from the abandoned car so they had to move quickly. Once at the top of the second heap they could see the water, reflecting the flames and also the exhausted looking reflections of a large turtle, two humans and a rat. Raph turned to look behind him and realised with a start that the fire was catching onto the car. Any minute it would explode.

"What is it, Raph?" Casey asked, turning round.

"JUMP!" was Raph's only reply and the three jumped as the car exploded, sending a fireball hurtling straight through the middle of the rubbish heap they were stood on and throwing a huge amount of the city's refuse into the water.

"Come on, we can do this." Leo and his two youngest brothers were fighting through the crowds of homeless people to get to the edge of the island. They had about five minutes before the entire island would be engulfed in the flames.

"It's no use, Leo; we'll never make it to the edge!" Don yelled to his brother.

"I'm not taking us to the edge," Leo called back over his shoulder and moving off up a still unlit pile of rubbish to get a view of the island. Donnie and Mikey followed him and soon the three of them could see the whole of the illuminated island, flames dancing round the centre like a ring of snakes waiting for someone to fall mercy to them so they could lap the victim up with their fiery tongues.

"It looks kinda pretty when you really think about it."

"Yeah, but it's deadly and we have to find who's responsible." Leo whispered.

"Look over there!" Don pointed. Leo's gaze followed Don's finger to where a small, black boat was leaving the island.

"Come on!" Leo ordered and the three of them dashed down the side of the rubbish heap and sprinting across the centre of the island where the fire had not yet spread and reaching the other side, gasping for breath. Without a second thought, Leo dived into the water leaving Donnie and Mikey on the shore where they were snapped into action by the roaring and crackling of fire behind them. They followed their brother and soon caught up with the rowing boat. Grabbing it from either side, they hauled themselves up to surprise whoever was on board…but what they got was what they least expected.

"Professor?!"

"I am most apologetic, gentlemen, but I am not the criminal for whom you search. I was merely trying to escape the blaze and from where I was on the island it would have been impossible to escape any other way."

"Sorry if we startled you, Professor," Donnie apologised, looking thoroughly guilty, "but we saw you rowing quickly away from here and on a different route from everyone else and assumed you were the person we were looking for."

"Don't worry about it, my friend, we all make mistakes at some point in our lives and I have a theory about that…"

"Uh, yeah, professor, I'm sure we'd all love to hear your theories but we can't right now because we have a total fyromaniac on the loose and need to catch him."

"That's pyromaniac, Mikey," Donnie corrected, rolling his eyes.

"That's what I said!"

"No, you said fyromaniac, shell for brains."

"Oh, ok, but they sound pretty much the same so I don't see the problem."

"Mikey, just shut your mouth for once." Raph snapped, "We need to catch this guy before he causes any more trouble."

"I may not be the filth you are looking for but I did see someone who looked rather suspicious."

"What did he look like?"

"He was clad in metal armour with deadly spikes protruding from various limbs on his armour. He could pierce any one of you with them."

"Oh that's real encouraging." Raph muttered impatiently, ducking back underwater and surfacing on the opposite side of the boat where he spoke to Leo in a low whisper. Leo just nodded solemnly and the two of them disappeared under the surface of the water. Donnie and Mikey excused themselves from the Professor's company and followed their older brothers.

Leo and Raph surfaced, gasping for air, under the docks. They clambered up onto the wooden decking and looked around for any signs of danger. But, as was now a tradition, the danger was looking for them and found them quicker than expected.

"I hope you liked my firework display."

"Nah, you needed some real rockets for a start so we could blast your ass into space and get rid of you and your stupid ninja goons once and for all."

"Harsh words from someone who is surrounded and about to meet his doom…after he's watched his precious brothers perish first." Shredder snarled maliciously.

"You will not touch him." Raph's voice was low and threatening as he stepped in front of Leo, Sais ready for a fight.

"Oh no, Leonardo will be the last of your brothers to die. I was thinking more along the lines of killing these pieces of garbage!" Shredder's Foot Elite brought out a struggling Mikey followed by Hun with a distressed Donnie.

"No," Raph gasped.

"But I am not a savage man and nor am I a murderer. So I will give you a choice. You may give yourself and Leonardo up in return for the lives of your brothers. Or you may give up your Sensei for all your lives or you can let these two pieces of filth die and then you die anyway."

"There is no choice in this."

"Not even giving yourself up?"

"Not if it means Leo has to die. You will fight us fairly. You may kill us in the fight at any point if you must but we must fight as a family. I will not die at your hand without a fight."

"Hun, break his neck," Shredder pointed at Donnie. Hun's lips curled into a vicious and murderous smile. Donnie's eyes widened and he kicked out at Hun, aiming for where he knew it would hurt. He had a direct hit and scrambled over to his two brothers stood opposite Shredder. Mikey was still struggling against the Foot Elite but Shredder waved his hand the Foot Elite released Mikey. He joined his brothers and was shaking nervously from a combination of his ordeal and the fact that Shredder had just released him.

"I do not need to fight you; I have a new weapon on my side…" he threw back the cloak he had been wearing and pulled out a pistol. It was not the most powerful gun he could've bought but it was probably all he needed. No amount of training could help the Turtles with guns. One shot and they would be dead. Shredder took aim but they were all stood so close together that they couldn't tell who he was aiming at. Shredder gave a short, bark-like laugh and shot. The noise the gun gave off as it shot was loud and it terrified the Turtles. One of them should have dies but Shredder's aim left something to be desired. But he hadn't missed…

"Hang in there. It's gonna be ok," Mikey reassured his brother. He and Raph were carrying their fallen brother while their remaining uninjured brother was scouting up ahead to make sure no-one was following them. They didn't know exactly where they were going but they had to get hold of some medical supplies.

"Hey, bro, is the coast clear up there?" Raph called into the darkness ahead of him.

"Yeah," came the reply, "now get up here right now, I found a garage we can hide in and I got some medical supplies from a pharmacy I found earlier."

"Right, we're there," Mikey and Raph ran towards the garage, carrying their bleeding brother as he moaned in agony as he drifted in and out of consciousness. They finally reached the garage and slumped to the floor and gave their brother as much reassurance and treatment as they could by cleaning the wound and wrapping a bandage tightly around him just above his abdomen. Now, they had to keep regular lookouts for Splinter, Casey, April or any kind of danger that could be approaching and also keep an eye on their brother, who was in agony even though the bullet had been removed. Mikey sat beside him, worrying about the dangers of this new weapon; it scared him.

"Come on, bro, I need you. You have to help us beat this."

A/N: - Evil, ain't I? I left it there because the very next sentence of this story reveals who has been shot. I have left you two turtles to choose from so while you're reviewing you can let me know who you think will be shot…or even who you want to be shot – but I don't want reviews containing just that or nothing else, thank you!