Disclaimer: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles belong to Mirage Studios, Peter A. Laird, and Kevin B. Eastman. I use them without permission, and without monetary profit.

Chapter Eleven:

Michaelangelo was playing with Stone. He hopped out of reach, wriggled past him when Stone tried to maneuver him into a corner, and never laid a single blow in return. He was clutching his nunchucks, but all they seemed to be doing was occupying his hands.

Stone was tiring. He had a lot of endurance, but no real fight lasted very long. He slowed and then put himself on guard, gauging his opponent's stance.

"All done?" Mikey let the heels of his feet touch the ground for the first time. "My turn?"

Stone's eye twitched. His turn? Stone was ready to call a tie and slink away and this freak was just warming up? Familiar anger filled Stone so much so he felt as if his skin would boil off.

Taking his silence for agreement Michelangelo cracked his neck and shook his limbs loose. "Okay, here we go. Ready for me?"

"Bring it, Freak."

Stone was tense as Mikey dropped one half of the nunchucks and began to twirl them. From his own martial arts training he knew that it was more for show than anything else. Getting hit with a flying nunchuck wasn't as hard as getting hit with any other weapon because of the chains – it allowed it to rebound and lessen the blow.

Though Stone had to admit, the freak's form was impressive. The mutant was familiar with his weapons, sure of them. His body was loose and in no discernable stance. He shifted from one foot to the other as if impatient or bored. The longer he whipped the nunchucks around, the more embellished his moves became. He twisted his body around, did a small grapevine with his feet and added in a song.

By the time Mikey got in the first blow Stone was thoroughly off guard. He could not possibly wrap his mind around the audacity of the mutant to act this way in a serious fight. Of course that was what Mikey was waiting for. Stone looked like a fish out of water, his mouth gaping and his chest heaving with rising anger. So Mikey popped him right on the nose.

"AUGH! Son of a bitch!" Stone's head flew back, his hands automatically covering his abused appendage. The next blow was a heel to Stone's eye. "Fuck!"

A foot in the stomach and a fisted nunchuck butt to the back of the head ended the fight. Shoving his weapons into his belt and wiping his hands off he hummed the rest of the song he'd been singing and sauntered cockily to the manhole Chassidy had escaped down.

"No you caint al-ways get what you wa-an't…"

Chassidy was hopelessly lost.

She wasn't surprised, really, considering her escort had been fighting with Stone. She had only be lead to and from her friend's underground den, not truly paying attention to which tunnel lead to where. It all looked the same in the end, how could you tell what made the tunnel on the left any different than the one on the right.

She had no clue how to get back to the den, and knew that if she started to call out for help it would only lead Stone to her, so she kept quiet and continued to walk.

But the adrenaline rush was gone and the effects of a day of work as well as a small amount of sleep were all combining to make her brain fuzzy and her limbs heavy.

Deciding that a rest wouldn't hurt Chassidy found the highest dry spot possible to lay down on and rest her eyes for a little bit.

Michelangelo found her curled up in a ball, dead to the world half an hour later. When he picked her up she had the imprint of the cement on her arms and forehead where they were pressed hard from the weight of her body.

Trying to dust the grit and dirt off of her forehead only made a gross smear that Mikey cringed at. He'd just pretend that never happened and she wouldn't be any wiser. The ground wasn't that clean, and apparently neither was his hands.

Unfortunately for Michelangelo's muscles, Chassidy had picked the opposite direction of the den to run in. Fortunately for Chassidy, Michelangelo's superior sense of smell led him right to her.

Mikey was muttering under his breath by the time they were in the general vicinity of the den. "Had to pick the wrong direction, of course. Couldn't go the right way, no, that was too easy! I'm going to have to hijack April's bathtub for a year to relax this strain away. I think I just heard a tendon pop. Freaking hell, lady, how much do you weigh?"

Donny looked up from a thick book on genetics then put it down at the look of pain on Mikey's face.

"Take her!" He pleaded harshly. "I should have put her on my shell, but I didn't think that far!"

Donatello pulled the limp girl into his arms with some effort. "She's out like a light – dead weight is harder to carry. What happened?"

"Her Ex, Sir. Smack-A-Lot showed up and wanted her back. We fought, I told her to run and she ran, all right. In the wrong direction!"

Easing him and his burden backwards toward the bedrooms as Mikey's voice rose in decibel, Donatello shot over his shoulder, softly; "I'm going to put her to bed. Then you can start yelling."

Feeling chastised and sorry for yelling, Mikey flopped onto the sofa and stared at the floor until Don returned.

"So nothing really happened to her?"

"Nah. Not that I can tell. Probably conked out after all that stress. She slept very little before work and she works at a gym – not really sure what she does yet – so I figure she's been active all day. Then the stress doubled when Stone shows up and she gets this look on her face like the only thing keeping her from wetting her pants is because she's frozen."

Donny shook his head. "Did you beat him up, or just knock him out?"

His brother's face slowly transformed from a cranky pout to an evil grin. "Gave him what he gave her – a black eye and a broken nose."

"Her nose wasn't broken."

"Oh? Oops." Not, his grin silently added. It was obvious Mikey had already known.

Don snorted ruefully and picked up his abandoned book.

"It's fair. She had an almost broken nose and a split lip. I didn't give him a split lip so the broken nose makes it even."

Behind his book Don rolled his eyes.

Mikey fidgeted on the sofa for a few more minutes before retreating in the direction of the bedrooms. "I'm gonna go play in my room or something."

Donny wasn't fooled. "Mikey, leave her alone, she needs the rest." Though he got no response – which of course meant that Michelangelo was going to go into her room anyway – Don knew his brother wouldn't wake her up so he didn't make an issue out of it. The human girl held Mikey's interest for some reason. It was probably the fact that she exuded a fragile air. It was plain to anyone looking at her that she was broken and needed fixing.

Mikey always had been a Rescue the Damsel in Distress kinda guy. It made sense. But it wasn't wise. If he got in too deep all of his good intentions were going to turn around and bite him on the tail. He'd end up hurt if she didn't see him the same way he saw her.

Donatello knew and accepted that he was never going to find a life companion. He was fine with that. He didn't worry that Leonardo would fall prey to the love bug, but he worried for his softer hearted brothers Raphael and Michelangelo. Raphael's harsh and rude demeanor hid soft heart and Mikey didn't even bother to hide the heart he wore on his sleeve.

To avoid the mental images of a broken hearted Michelangelo – something that pulled at his heartstrings more than a broken hearted Raphael – Don turned his attention to his book again.

Raphael decided it was time to get rid of all of the broken stuff littering his room. He'd kicked and stepped on the broken bits and pieces too many times to put up with it anymore. His battery-killing boom box and the mattress were probably the two things he regretted the most. Without the boom box he had no gently murmuring music to fall asleep to and his mattress was lumpier than normal, and even had a spring popping out in the middle, which meant he had to keep himself contorted all night or wake up with the spring in his flesh.

He'd just have to go to the dump and see if he could find something salvageable. Or he could do some duck tape magic.

Throwing his broken stuff away also felt like a cleansing. His life pre-Jackie was over. He was a different person now and everything he had reminded him of her. Of the times he snuck her in here when his brothers didn't know. It was thrilling to have such a forbidden secret right under their noses. She had felt it too. But then again, that's all he was to her – a thrill. Forbidden. Once the novelty wore off she was flouncing off onto bigger and better things.

Raphael knocked over a candle onto his bed sheets when he kicked the dresser in reaction to his thoughts. Mad at himself and the candle that promptly set the sheets on fire, he cursed up a storm, yelling at the top of his lungs while stomping and smacking the fire out.

And so the sheets joined the rest of the broken stuff in garbage bag he'd gotten from the shelter. Good riddance. She's sat on his bed and got her stupid cooties all over the sheets anyway.

That's it, Raphael decided, everything was going. Everything. This chapter in his life was over. For good. No more hoping they'd get back together, no hoping she was just PMSing, no more groveling and begging for her to give him a second chance – not that he'd actually done, that of course, but it was contemplated and that was enough!

Feeling better for making the decision, Raphael shoved everything he could get his hands on into the garbage bag, and then shoved the rest in a corner. He'd need at least five more bags before he cleared the room. But this was a start.

Except for his only childhood mementoes – the red blanket-sized square of fabric his bandana had been cut from (there was no way he'd ever admit it was his equivalent of a baby blanket) and the patchwork black belt Splinter had given him to celebrate his mastery of ninjitsu. There was still so much to learn, but on that day his master had acknowledged that he knew everything that was needed to be a ninja. The other lower ranking belts he'd gotten rid of, but the black belt he'd kept. It was more a symbol than something he used. And Jackie had touched neither with her poison. So both were safe for him to keep.

Everything else was going into the trash heap.

Feeling accomplished and even a little happy he hefted the full garbage bag over his shoulder and made his way to the nearest dumpsite.

G'bye, bitch! I'm gonna be happy without you. I don't need you. Not anymore and never again.

The next night Leo and Don were once again doing surveillance and judging how much of a threat the Foot posed. They had created a blueprint of the entire complex, except for the one room in the middle with the most security. They were ninja, but so was the Foot, no matter how freshly trained they were. They acted with arrogance in the little they knew, but because they understood how to sneak one or two might get lucky and detect the brothers. And it was the possibility that had Splinter forbidding either to get into the room until otherwise alerted.

Donatello wanted to scream in frustration. He was almost positive information on the ooze that had mutated them was on the other side. Splinter's mandate meant it was achingly just beyond his reach. A small voice whispered in his head about sneaking past the guards, but what he had dubbed his Voice of Reason rebutted that there was no telling what lay beyond that door – fifty Foot or a million. Knowing that kept him hiding in the bushes with Leo.

To distract himself he thought about his missing brothers and what they would think of their situation. "If Raph were here, he'd suggest we make a distraction and lure all of the Foot out here and then count heads."

Leo turned a displeased glare on Donny. "Which is why I'm glad Raph isn't here."

Donny shrugged and turned his head so that Leo couldn't see him roll his eyes. Raphael and Leonardo's constant fighting was all a pointless pissing contest. Don didn't care one way or the other most of the time – just so long as they didn't drag him into it. Sometimes it made him want yell – do something to make them stop it. Leo was stronger of mind; Raph was stronger of body. They needed to realize that and move on.

"So then what should we do? We won't know how many there are of them while they're still in the building, and the only way to find out is to round them all up in one place."

"That big room in the middle of the building – the one with the guard and keypad password to get in – seems like it's their meeting place, where all of them seem to be going and coming from."

"But unless we tag them we won't know if we've already counted them; they're all wearing the same outfit. We could spend all night counting ten people over and over again."

"There's got to be another way."

The duo watched the lazy guard posted outside as they wracked their brains for a solution.

"Roster." Donny whispered suddenly.

"Huh?"

"A roster. The Foot is trying to gather more members, like a club. So they'd keep a tally or a record of who is part of them, and who drops out."

"Do you think they truly have one?"

"It's either that or shoot them with colored darts."

Leo didn't find that funny and Donny wanted to roll his eyes again. "Mikey would have laughed." Donny muttered under his breath after his brother turned his head back towards the building. Leo ignored it.

"Who goes in to find the roster?" Don asked after a long silence.

"I'll do it."

And with that Leo snuck closer to their still undiscovered slit in the fence.