A/N: After three weeks of family vacations and a long battle which my arch-nemesis, Writer's Block, I finally sat myself down to type, and I type I did. My ending turned out to be almost eighteen pages long! So, I've decided to chop it up into three parts. I've posted Part One and Two. Part Three, the epilogue, and the alternate ending will be up within the next few days. Once again, thanksto everyone who's read and reviewed,and I hopemy ending doesn't seemed too dragged out. Enjoy!

Chapter Ten:

What Lies Underneath: Part One

Donatello threw the bottled-up scientist a puzzling look as the laughter continued on.

"What do you mean by that, Stockman? What did he finally do?"

The maddening laughter came to an abrupt stop and the computerized face glared in Donatello's direction. "I have nothing to say to any of you! You four are one of the many reasons I am in this wretched state! What makes you think I would tell you anything?" An evil smile spread across Stockman's face as he propelled his glass body to a nearby computer panel. "I should just summon Master Shredder and let him decide what to do you with you." As one of his motorized arms reached for a large red button, the blade of a sword clashed with Stockman's metal fingers.

"You will do no such thing, Dr. Stockman." Karai replied in a cold tone. "I will not hesitate to finish what my Master had started."

"Please, Dr. Stockman!" Leonardo moved over to the panel, nodding to Karai to pull back her sword. "I'm begging you! You have to tell us what Dr. Hamilton did!"

"Never!" Stockman floated away again, heading back to his dark corner. "I refuse to help any of you! Now leave before I wake the entire house and see that all of you are destroyed!"

Leonardo watched Stockman disappear and his head hung down in shame, his brothers copying his mood.

"It's hopeless!" Raphael cried out, throwing his hands into the air. "We're gonna stuck like this forever!"

Karai's green eyes traveled along the sadden faces of her former enemies, and she suddenly felt an ache in her heart. "Leonardo, there might be a way to . . . persuade Dr. Stockman. However, it is a very rash and inhumane way, but it does seem to work with Hun and my Master."

Leonardo sighed heavily. "I guess anything is worth a try."

"Yeah, you're not exactly gettin' ta him with the nice guy beggin' approach, Leo." Raphael remarked, his fingers working on his aching temples.

Karai reached into a compartment on the panel and pulled out a small, blue remote. She gently placed the device into Leonardo's awaiting palm, quickly turning her blushing face away from the thankful smile on the teen's face.

"What does that thing do anyway?" Michelangelo studied the device from the safety of Raphael's back.

"Looks like we're going to find out." Leonardo led his brothers into the darkness of the lab, determined more than ever to find the answers they needed.

"No! No! Please! Stop!"

Leonardo leered at the scientist as he paced in front of the glass-encased brain, watching the massive pinkish-gray organ convulse from the latest round of electric shock. Across the room, Donatello sat crossed-legged on the floor while Raphael and Michelangelo sat in two high-backed office chairs.

"Leo's been goin' at that for an hour now, and that freak is finally givin' in?" Raphael shook his head in disgust.

"I don't see how Stockman could still be alive after all of that!" Donatello grabbed onto the computer desk behind him and pulled his thin frame up. "Each shock delivers about 12,000 volts, and he received about ten times that!"

"I'm sorry that I had to take such drastic measures, Stockman," Leonardo apologized as his brothers joined his side. " I had no other choice."

Stockman curled up his lips and sneered. "I'm sure you throughly enjoyed yourself."

"Enough chit chat!" Raphael pushed passed Leonardo and shoved his finger at Stockman's glass casing. "Now, start talkin', or I'm gonna take over and I won't be so nice about it!"

"No need to get testy about it, you long-haired punk!" Stockman brought his glass body down to the floor and sighed deeply, his false eyes burning a hole into the darkness in front of him.

"Richard Hamilton," the scientist hissed. "Even now I feel sick to my stomach when I hear that name."

"You don't have a stom-!" Michelangelo pointed out but was quickly cut off by Leonardo's hand across his mouth.

Stockman threw the blonde teen a dirty look before continuing. "It was nine years ago. I was on my way to make a name for myself in the scientific community. Fame and fortune were within my grasp! Then one day I received word that a young upstart from California was wishing to work with me, and I was very interested in his findings on stem cell research-,"

"What's that?"

A deafening silence filled the room as everyone turned to Donatello, who scratched at his short brown hair and shrugged.

"It's the extraction and reproducing of cells for cloning purposes, you feeble-minded idiot!" Stockman growled.

" Oh, okay." Donatello nodded, then noticed the blank stares he was receiving from his brothers. " What? You guys know I'm falling science class! This stuff goes right over my head!"

"If I may continue uninterrupted?" Stockman yelled, then scoffed at the brown haired teen. " And I thought you were the more intelligent one."

"So did we." Raphael said blankly as Donatello rubbed at his temples.

"The University sends Richard to me, and I was appalled by the fact that this brilliant and bright scientist was some twenty-two-year-old surfer punk who daydreamed about making the world a better place by curing the sick and mentally ill, which to me sounded like some ridiculous new age hippy idea! I tolerated his nice guy attitude for a long, long time, until I had stolen every piece of information he had discovered, which in turn put me light years ahead of the rest of my colleagues, and it allowed me to take all the credit, seeing as I was the elder scientist."

"How could you do something so heartless?" Leonardo curled his lips in disgust. "He spent all of that time helping the sick and you took everything from him!"

"Well, if you think me to be heartless, you will be pleased to know that it blew up in my face." Stockman sighed again. "All of that fame that I had wanted for so long slipped from my grasp when Richard received that idiotic humanitarian award for discovering a possible cure for memory loss in the elderly. But what really got to me was the fact that he brushed it all away! He didn't want the fame! He hated the publicity! The moron suddenly snapped one day, then hid himself in a small room within the walls of my research facility." Stockman lowered his eyes to the ground, and the former mutants could almost feel a sadness radiating from him.

"I never saw Richard much after that, but when I would pass him in the hallways, he would mumble like a mad man and he constantly talked to himself. And as my lab grew and my genius was finally put into good use by a certain Japanese business tycoon, Richard would stay trapped in his little room, growing crazier by the day, breaking into morgues and stealing the dead to examine."

"Which would explain the pickled body parts Donnie found." Michelangelo spoke up, adding a gagging sound to the end of his sentence.

"Then one day, I decided to put an end to the madness, and with some help from Master Shredder, I got rid of that sick maniac and sealed up his little chamber of horrors."

"Yeah I bet ya got rid of him!" Raphael crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the computerized head.

"I know what you may be thinking," Stockman snickered. "But I did not have him killed. Putting an end to his life would have been much too easy for someone as crazy as he clearly was. I instead had Master Shredder destroy his reputation as a scientific genius, making everyone believe that he stole his ideas from others, and after Richard was shamed, I kicked him out into the streets, and I never saw nor heard from him since then."

Stockman paused, as if the loss of his partner weighed heavily on his absent heart, and the teens glanced at each other, not knowing what to say. The scientist then sneered, seeing his chance to make his move. He began to laugh again as he spoke, knowing that his enemies were unaware that he was moving closer to a control panel behind him.

" I would love to continue this trip down memory lane, but I'm afraid our little Q&A session is over!" He jerked his glass body around and slammed a mechanical hand down onto a panel of buttons, sending a deafening alarm screaming above their heads.

"Quickly!" Karai motioned to the four teen boys as they covered their ears. "We must leave! The sentries will be here any moment!" She led them down a narrow flight of stairs to

another secret wall panel, which led straight into the sewers.

"EWWW!" Michelangelo whined as he and his brothers stepped into the murky water. "There is no way I'm walking through this!"

"I'm sorry I cannot show you the way out," Karai bowed to the teens. "I must go back and take care of Stockman's memory data to ensure that our conversation with him never existed."

Leonardo took a step forward and bowed gracefully in return. "Thank you so much for everything you have done, Karai. I am forever in your debt."

"No," Karai waved her hand. " This was something I owed to you, Leonardo. I wish you good luck in your quest."

"All right, already!" Raphael called out as he began to walk away. "Hurry up and kiss good-bye so we can leave!"

Leonardo narrowed his eyes at his brother, knocking into Raphael's shoulder as he pushed passed him through the dirty, brown tinted water. Raphael held back the smirk on his face and followed after him as Donatello and Michelangelo brought up the rear.

"Well, I'd say that little talk we had with Stockman was completely useless!" Michelangelo pointed out, throwing his arms into the air.

"I agree," Leonardo kept his eyes down to the water as he thought out loud. "Everything he said only raised more questions." He then stopped walking and turned to Donatello, who was glancing around at the moldy walls of the sewer tunnel. "Donnie, I know you've been reading up on stem cell research a lot lately. What can you tell us about it?"

Donatello brought his eyes back down to his black-haired brother. "Man, why does everyone think I know what that is?" He then quickly pointed to Michelangelo. "He's the genius of this group! Why don't you ask him?"

"Huh?" Raphael and Leonardo asked at the same time.

Michelangelo placed a hand on Donatello's extended finger and lowered it. "Uh, Donnie? Are you feeling okay?"

"And why do you guys keep calling me Donnie?" The teen reached for his head and held it in his open palms. " And why does my head hurt so much?"

"Well, this is great!" Raphael scoffed and stomped around, the water splashing up higher on his Foot uniform. " We have no idea what's goin' on and Mr. Egghead here decides ta have a mental episode!"

Leonardo sighed and grabbed Raphael's shoulder. " Calm down, Raph. Donnie, or whoever he is right now, isn't the only one who would know. April keeps up of this sort of thing too. We'll get her to do some research for us."

"In the meantime," Michelangelo said as they began walking again. "How are we gonna find the weirdo teacher guy? We don't even know where he lives!"

"Maybe Carrie might be able ta help us some more," Raphael shrugged. "She said these guys were close with him. They might of told her somethin'."

Leonardo came to a sudden stop, his brown eyes wide in a frightened look of shock. "New Jersey."

"New Jersey? Leo, I don't think going on a vacation would be the best thing to do right now." Michelangelo said, giving Leonardo the same confused look he had given Donatello.

" No! He lives in New Jersey! It's weird, but it's like I can see it." Leonardo's eyes stayed glued to the water, feeling a bit scared by the memories he was receiving in his mind's eye. "He lives . . . he lives down by a river."

"He wouldn't by any chance live in a van, would he?" Donatello joked and laughed, but stopped as he again caught weird looks from his brothers. "Never mind."

"Come on, " Leonardo motioned with his hand. "Let's get back to April's before we blank out and lose our way."

No sooner had Leonardo spoken when he felt a sudden pressure on his heel and he toppled forward, falling face first into the cloudy sewer water. Raphael grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him back up, and Leonardo immediately narrowed his eyes to Donatello, who was on his hands and knees in the water below them.

"Sorry. Me and my big feet." Donatello smiled nervously and let out a small chuckle. Leonardo shook his head and began to walk away with Raphael. Michelangelo bent down and help the brown haired boy to his feet and they moved fast to catch up.

The wall clock in April's apartment had just struck midnight, and the five teenagers and Splinter gathered around the red head, all of them watching intently as her fingers flew across the keyboard.

"Stem cells . . . " April said out loud, unable to keep her thoughts in her head. "I never would have guessed that. It's been around for so long, and I never thought anyone had perfected it."

"That was the farthest thing from my mind too!" Donatello replied, relieved that he was somewhat back to his old self.

"I think you were the farthest thing from your mind, Donnie!" Raphael said, half-jokingly.

"I don't remember any of those things I said. I really don't." Donatello rubbed at his aching forehead. "We've been having these episodes more and more. I'm afraid that if don't find Dr. Hamilton, that . . . that we might . . . forget . . . " His voice trailed off into nothing, but by the worried looks that surrounded him, Donatello knew that his brothers understood what he was getting at.

"Okay, is everyone ready for today's science lesson?" April broke through the uncomfortable silence and pointed a finger at the screen.

"We're not gonna be tested on this, are we?" Michelangelo joked and giggled as he turned to Donatello. " You might wanna take notes on this, bro. You know, just in case."

Donatello glared in his brothers' direction as Michelangelo's laughter increased, but it stopped abruptly when he received a smack on the back of his head from Raphael.

"OW! What?"

Leonardo sighed and shook his head. "Go ahead, April."

"Okay, Stem Cell research has been around practically since the invention of microscopes." April eyes went from the screen to the surrounding teens and the mutant rat. "The basic stem cell is the foundation for every organ, tissue and cell in the body. They are blank, meaning they can be programmed to perform any number of tasks. Stem cells are also self-sustaining, and can replicate themselves for long periods of time."

"Because of this, stem cells can be used to grow new organs and tissues to replace those that have been damaged or diseased. The process is called Cell Therapy, with is similar to the process of organ transplanting, only cells are replaced instead of the actual organ. Cell therapy is believed to be able to treat all debilitating diseases ranging from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes, to diseases as severe as cancer."

"Okay, so with all of that in mind," Leonardo crossed his arms over his chest. "How exactly does it work?"

April turned back to the computer and used the mouse to scroll down the Internet page on the screen. "It says that before stem cells can be used, they have to be identified, which is hard in adult tissues, which contain thousands of various cells, and it apparently takes a long time to do it. But once they are found, the extracted cells are implanted into the patient and they must 'learn' to function with the body's natural cells."

Donatello moved away from the computer, his eyes glued to the carpeting under his feet while he grabbed his chin in his right hand. "Okay, so then if Dr. Hamilton had actually accomplished all of this, then he must have extracted stem cells from us, and injected them into the brains of these kids." Donatello lifted his head back up and wrinkled his forehead in confusion. "But, that can't be possible!"

"Why not?" Leonardo asked.

"Because stem cells are blank! If he took cells out of us, they would just function as normal brain cells." Donatello rubbed at his face with his hands, his frustration very apparent to everyone around him. " Don't you see? If that was the case, we, us, as mutant turtles, would not be in these bodies! Our memories would not be up here!" He pounded his forefinger into his temple, the pain under it increasing by the second.

April leaned back from the screen, her eyes narrowed as the wheels in her head spun around. "Do you think he might have used that same concept and extracted your memory cells from your brain tissue instead?"

"Is that even possible?" Carrie asked, feeling a little confused by everything she was hearing.

Donatello took April's theory and pondered on it before he spoke, his pacing increasing as he spoke.

"Okay, say he did do that, he extracted our memory cells, then what? Do you actually think that our cells would survive in a foreign host? The mutated DNA structure in our cells is more complex than human DNA, and once it was put into the cerebral field, the human cells would just attack it and destroy it!"

Donatello then stopped his pacing, his eyes wide in shock.

"Wait a minute! This is how he did it!"

"But, you just said that wasn't possible," Leonardo joined his brother in the middle of the living room. "That our mutated cells would be destroyed."

"But, what if Dr. Hamilton used our memory cells along with stem cells, taking the time to mix the two so the stem cells would learn how to function like the memory sensors, which would explain why we were gone for that lengthy period of time. But once he extracted those cells into the minds of these kids and sent us back home . . . "

"The brain rejected the implants and we slowly began to forget who we really are." Leonardo finished breathlessly.

"Bingo!" Donatello threw his hands into the air and moved back the computer. "Which brings me back to what I said before: we need to find this guy and make him reverse all of this before we completely forget!"

"I have a question," Raphael pushed his thin lips together and crossed his arms. "WHY? Why the shell would he do somethin' like that ta us? This guy obviously ain't as nice as everyone makes him out ta be!"

Splinter nodded. "I, too, am curious as to why this unfortunate event has occurred. But, I am afraid only Dr. Hamilton knows the answer to his actions."

"And where our bodies are!" Michelangelo added.

"Carrie," Leonardo rejoined the group at the computer desk. "Did your brother ever mention anything about where Dr. Hamilton lived?"

"Yeah!" Carrie nodded her head, her blonde hair whipping over her shoulders. "Jon did say something about a farmhouse, right next to the Hudson River."

"In New Jersey, right?"

Carrie's jaw dropped. " How did you know that?"

"I don't know," Leonardo shrugged. "I guess you brother is trying to help us out or something."

"Come on!" Raphael shouted as he stormed for the front door. "Let's get goin'!"

Leonardo moved quickly behind him, then grabbed Raphael's arm and pulled him back. "And how are you going to get there? Walk? April, would you mind giving us a ride?"

April sighed, blowing air up at her bangs. "Do I have a choice? You guys always manage todrag me into these things."

"I will go along as well." Splinter stated as he moved to the door. "You will need protecting should we run into trouble."

"ROAD TRIP!" Michelangelo cried out, pushing past Leonardo and Raphael and out the door. "I call shotgun!"

"Are ya sure we can't just let Mikey forget who he is?" Raphael asked Leonardo before exiting the door with Donatello and Splinter. Leonardo shook his head, a slight smile on his face. He waited until April and Carrie left the apartment and he shut the door behind them. The smile on his face quickly faded away, and Leonardo knew he had no way to prepare himself for what was to come.

If anyone has ever seen Chris Farley on SNL back in the earlier 90's, then you probably got this. It was a sketch he did about a motivational speaker and the running gag was that if you didn't do well in school or whatever, you would end up like him, living in a van down by the river. Well, it was funnier when Chris Farley did it . . . trust me . . .