I'm back!

Enjoy.

That day, lunch was a little late. Leonardo and Donatello had gone out two hours ago on what should be a 45-minute errand and had still not returned. Even a run-in with a street gang shouldn't take so long, and Splinter was beginning to worry. Just when he was going to send Raphael out to look for them, the door flew open.

"Um, Master Splinter, we have a problem," Leonardo declared. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, panting for breath. "Donatello and I went out for groceries, and we…um…"

"We got our tails kicked," Donatello finished for him. "Those alien monsters are still out there…"

"And still have a mondo attitude problem." Michelangelo piped up knowingly, "and it's probably cause they're hungry. The pizzaman says he won't deliver here anymore – they keep trying to kill him."

"I was kind of hoping they would just go away, maybe starve, but it looks like they've figured something out. I mean, they are clearly alive and kicking. And biting." Leonardo turned to their guest, who was sandwiched on the couch between Raphael and Michelangelo. "Um, Shredder, do you happen to know of a way to defeat them besides hunting them down one by one? Have you got another controller someplace?"

"No. It's possible that Baxter does…but I don't think so. If he could control the beasts he would have already sent them for me."

"For you?" Raphael cocked his head. "Why?"

Shredder turned on him with a look of withering contempt. "Because he can't get promoted while I'm still alive. Idiot." He shrugged. "And before you ask: no, Krang wouldn't care. If I can't take care of myself I'm of no use to him. My death would simply mean one less problem for him to deal with."

"Yeah," Donatello agreed sarcastically. "That way he can pay more attention to all the other important aspects of his rich emotional life."

"Yeah, like figuring out a way to eat pizza," suggested Michelangelo. "I've heard he gets fed through tubes. Gives new meaning to the word brain food, doesn't it?"

"That's two words, Mikey," Raphael informed him. He jumped to his feet. "But you missed the most important part of the conversation – the monsters are still out there! And Krang certainly won't take care of it. So we should!"

"It would give us something to do," Donatello suggested. "We haven't gone topside at all lately and we're all going stir-crazy in here."

"Why haven't you gone topside lately?" Shredder asked.

The turtles looked at one another uncomfortably. After a moment, Leonardo stepped up to the unpleasant task of explaining that even after nearly two weeks of eating at the same table and watching TV from the same couch, they still didn't trust their houseguest farther than they could throw him. No, scratch that – they could actually probably throw Shredder pretty far. They didn't trust him any farther than they could throw a pizza-monster, and Leonardo only got as far as, "Well, you see, um..." before Shredder understood.

"I see." After a moment he added, "I'm flattered that you all stay here because you know I could certainly beat any two or three of you at once."

Raphael crossed his arms. "The bottom line, can-head, is that if we leave to go monster-hunting, you have to come with us."

Shredder tried to cross his arms, too, but couldn't manage because of the sling. "I won't go monster-hunting without my armor."

Leonardo seemed a little uneasy but the broken arm reassured him. "Fair enough. I guess what you can do to help us will outweigh the dangers. But I'm warning you – any funny business and we'll kill you. Is that okay, Master Splinter?" he asked as an afterthought.

"You need permission to kill me?" Shredder demanded. "That's ridiculous."

Splinter finally weighed in. "Leonardo is right. You'll have your armor back, but if you betray this trust then they will destroy you."

"Awesome!" Michelangelo got up and performed a jubilant back handspring, then fell in a heap and tried to rub his aching back. "Ow. I'm not feeling so hot right now, guys."

"Well, we haven't been practicing especially hard lately," Leonardo reminded him. "I vote we should put off the expedition for a couple of days to give us a little time to prepare."

"Good idea," agreed Donatello. "There's no need to rush. We have tons of food in here, and we can wait until we're really ready. This mission could be dangerous, and I really need to get back in my groove. So. Who wants to do a little sparring? Raph?"

"No," Raphael said slowly, eyes glued to Shredder. "I already have my training partner."

"You can't train with Shredder," Leonardo said flatly. "He'll learn all our moves!"

Shredder snorted. "You fools, I already know all your-"

"Be that as it may…" Splinter's voice carried effortlessly over the bickering. "I am afraid I still cannot allow you to train with my son."

"Why?" Raphael demanded. "I practice with Leo and Mike and Donny all the time. I wanna try somebody new, andI think he-"

"Because you are no match for him and it will put you in danger," Splinter explained.

"How many times must I explain this to you?" Shredder was almost shouting. "You are worse than Bebop and Rocksteady! I've already sworn up and down that I will not-"

"Yeah, yeah, we know," Michelangelo cut him off. "We know what you said, amigo, we just don't believe you."

"I'm sorry, but isn't that a little ridiculous?" Raphael demanded. "We need him in top condition to help us out against those aliens. And besides, it's not like he's been taking every opportunity to attack us when our back is turned. He served dinner the other night and I didn't see him trying to slice anybody up with the pizza-cutter. Did you?"

Actually, Shredder had considered attacking with the pizza-cutter, but a surreptitious check against his own skin confirmed that the utensil probably couldn't cut through a turtle. So he'd abandoned that plan.

"—Besides," Raphael continued, "If he really is going to try and hurt me, it might as well be while I'm trying to fight back."

Splinter finally okayed it, with deep misgivings, and the six of them headed to the practice room.

TBC…..

A note on Shredder's workout routine and why I'm stressing his mad combat skillz: in the episode where Shredder first comes into the picture, Splinter is very clear on the point that this guy is "a Ninja master!" So I figure he must practice a lot. TBreader: yeah, he does bust out a laser gun on occasion, but it seems like it's usually because either there was one just conveniently lying around (ie Bebop just dropped his) or he wants to threaten somebody with it. I think that's reasonable – how do you threaten people with ninja skills? "Do it or I'll shoot" works; "Do it or I'll…chop" probably doesn't.

Pacphys: I considered myself a fan (of at least the old cartoons and the first movie) but wow! you really know your stuff.