A/N: - Next chapter is here and ready to go. Thank you for all your reviews – I am here to solve the mystery of the disappearing Raph…

"RAPH?" Leo yelled as he and his brothers searched the tunnels surrounded their lair for their hot-headed brother, "WHERE THE SHELL ARE YOU?"

"Leo?" a hoarse voice called back from somewhere straight ahead. Leo gasped and ran forward.

"Raph, where are you?" he called into the darkness.

"Leo…don't…it's a trap!" Raph's voice was strained. Leo stopped walking and froze, hardly even daring to breathe. Suddenly, there was a bright light and Leo found himself sinking and losing his grip on reality as he attempted to shield his eyes from the overpowering light.

Groaning, Leo opened his eyes and found himself hung upside-down by his feet. He looked about him and took in the gloominess of the tunnel. To his right was the tunnel from which he had come looking for Raph. And to his left was the temperamental turtle himself, arms folded and frowning at Leo.

"I did warn you." Stated Raph bluntly.

"Not until I was actually in the trap, you didn't!"

"You should have run then. If someone tells you you're walking right into a trap then you don't just keep walking – that's the sort of thing Mikey should be doing, not you."

"Well excuse me for wanting to find my brother!"

"You should stop trying to play the hero so much, Leo." Raph scowled, "give someone else a go for a change."

"Maybe I would let you lead every once in a while if you weren't so damn irresponsible, Raphael," Leo growled, using his brother's full name to emphasize his point.

"Shut up, oh fearless leader, and pull your head out your ass."

"Raph, you don't ever speak to me like that again when I'm in the process of saving our shells."

"Oh yeah? What you gonna do, fearless leader? You seem a little tied up at the moment. And, in case you haven't noticed, you're hanging upside-down from the roof of a tunnel in the middle of nowhere under the streets of New York with no food and no water."

"I had noticed," Leo sighed, "We shouldn't be fighting in a situation like this. We need to focus on the task at hand and get ourselves out of here."

"Yeah, you're right, but you started it."

"I did not!"

"Yeah you did!"

"No, I didn't!"

"You did!"

"Did not – and you know it!"

"DID, DID, DID!"

"I DID NOT!" screeched Leo.

"Well, well, well, isn't brotherly love just so beautiful?" a silky smooth female voice cackled.

"Shut up, you old hag!"

"I'm not old and I'm certainly not a hag. My man always loved me for my wild and daring nature and my looks aren't too shabby either. I believe you knew him – he was Oroku Saki, one of the most powerful men in the world and his plans would've turned out perfectly if it wasn't for you green freaks and your pet rat. Not to mention the reporter and her boyfriend with the hockey sticks."

"Marcie, we know that's you," Leo said venomously.

"Good, then there's no need for introductions, is there?"

"What do you want with us?"

"I simply wanted to congratulate you on defeating the best fighter in New York…and to give you a little message. If you give yourselves up to the authorities and reveal what you are then no-one needs to die…but if you remain stubborn then I'm afraid that I have a funny feeling you won't ever see your two human friends ever again!" Marcie gave one last cackle and ran off in the direction of the manhole, leaving Leo and Raph hanging about to wait until Donnie and Mikey found them.

"You guys ok?" Donnie asked as he and Mikey cut their brothers down.

"Why didn't you just use your katana to cut yourself free?" Mikey asked, as if stating the obvious. Leo just rolled his eyes,

"Because we would've fallen on our heads and that would've hurt!" Leo answered.

Life in the lair had been simple and sweet since they'd beaten the Shredder and now the last thing they wanted was to have to go through another load of battles and close encounters with death just as they'd got their lives back in order. The four brothers looked uneasily at each other – they were all thinking the same thing – how could one woman beat them and how far would she go to get her revenge?

"Guys," Leo sighed as he turned to face Mikey and Donnie, "Marcie's got Casey and April."

"What?"

"You aren't serious,"

"Deadly," Raph replied to his two younger brothers, "and we gotta get them back."

"What did she want in exchange for them?" Donnie asked softly.

"We have to reveal ourselves to New York and let ourselves be taken for experiments by the authorities."

"But we can't do that! If everyone knows who we are and starts experimenting on us then Marcie will be free to do what she likes in the city and there'll be no-one to stop her."

"Well figured out, Mikey," Raph clapped for his brother in a sarcastic manner.

"Hey, I'm the 'lazy, un-cooperative, smarmy one', remember?" Mikey counted off the insults Raph had made on his fingers. Raph growled menacingly and stomped back off towards the lair. His three brothers shot knowing looks at each other and also headed back to their home.

"My sons, we must not let Marcie take the lives of our human friends. But we must also remain hidden from the outside world. This is a difficult decision to make but we will have to make it. Did she say how long she would give us?"

"She didn't say."

"Then she will almost certainly be back within the next few weeks. In the meantime, we must try and discover the whereabouts of Marcie's headquarters." Splinter rose and shuffled into his room, sliding the door shut behind him.

"So, what do we do?" Mikey questioned, opening a bag of popcorn.

"We do what Master Splinter said and find the whereabouts of Marcie's HQ." Leo replied grimly. Mikey thrust several handfuls of toffee popcorn into his mouth at once and crunched loudly.

"Mmph mmmmph mmm mmmph mm mmmph mmph, mmm,"

"Mikey, don't talk with your mouth full – you're spraying popcorn everywhere!" exclaimed Donnie, wiping a chewed piece of popcorn off his face. Mikey swallowed and finished what he was trying to say,

"I said, but where the shell do we start?"

"How about the old Foot HQ?" Leo said thoughtfully, looking round for the opinions of his brothers.

"That sounds logical," Donnie agreed.

"Yeah, real logic going there, Leo," added Raph.

"Mikey, what do you think?" Leo prompted a response from his youngest brother.

"Sure, whatever."

"Good, we start tomorrow at the crack of dawn. Now everyone has to get some rest – we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Why is it always dawn?" grumbled a moody Raph as he walked off to his and Mikey's newly painted room. The paint had dried in the many hours they'd been out but they left the beds in the middle of the room anyway. Donnie and Leo stayed up a little longer than their brothers as they felt they needed to do some research into where there had been most crime recently.

"I don't believe it," gasped Donnie as he gazed, wide eyed with astonishment, at the screen of his computer, "all the crimes have been evenly distributed around different areas of New York."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that Marcie is making our lives difficult by having several hotspots for crime that all have the same amount of crimes committed in them. That way, we won't be able to tell where her headquarters are…"

"I get it…so we need to pick where to start and work methodically round each area, right?"

"Right – c'mon, we'd better get some sleep." Donnie shut down the computer, stretched and left Leo standing by the computer, still utterly dumbfounded. Shaking his head, he followed his brother back into their room and let himself drift off slowly.

"Wake up, Raph. And you, Mikey – come on!" Leo pulled the covers off each of his brothers in turn. Donnie was packing a few essentials and some equipment for any scientific evidence he would have to get along the way.

"Aw man, Leo," Mikey groaned, "way to wake a guy,"

"I was trying to sleep!"

"Raph, we have to find April and Casey, remember?"

"Oh crap," Raph was out of bed like a shot but Mikey still just sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing at his eyes and yawning until his brothers were all ready.

"Ok, guys, this is going to be harder than we thought it would be."

"Whaddaya mean, Don?" frowned Raph.

"Marcie has evenly targeted several different areas, making it extremely difficult to find her headquarters. And the areas she's targeted are all at opposite ends of the city. We really have our work cut out for us."

"Then let's get started," ordered Leo, slinging his bag over his shoulder and leading the way out of the lair.

"Ok, this is the first spot…" whispered Donnie as the four brothers peered out from behind a large pile of crates on a construction site for residential housing, "the people who work here are getting items stolen every day they come so many of them have stopped turning up for work."

"How'd you know that?"

"Do you see any evidence of people being here recently?"

"No, I guess not."

"Anyway, we need to check this place out. Come on," Donnie checked to see if the coast was clear before turning on his torch and moving onto the actual site itself. His brothers followed and the four of them shone the thin beams of light from the torch into every secret passage or hidey-hole that could be found.

"Hey, guys, over here!" Mikey called excitedly.

"Mikey, have you found something?"

"Yeah! Quick, come and see!" Mikey was practically jumping up and down, "it's beautiful!"

"Ok…" Leo hesitated, having a feeling that Mikey hadn't found what they were looking for. But he rushed over with Donnie and Raph anyway.

"Well, what did you find?" asked Raph anxiously.

"Tada!" Mikey brought a box out from behind his back and opened it to show his brothers, "How's this for breakfast?"

"Pizza?!" Donnie laughed, "Where the shell did you get that?"

"It was just on the floor, all lonely and waiting for someone to find it and eat it."

"I can't believe this."

"You found it on the floor?" Leo asked, tensing and slowly drawing one Katana.

"Yeah, so what?" Mikey shrugged. Leo froze and looked up fearfully.

"RUN!" he screeched.

"What---" Mikey didn't even finish before he was dragged off the site by Raph. As they ran, they heard a series of crashes behind them but they didn't dare to look back. Once safely off the site and several blocks away from it, they stopped to catch their breath. They were concealed in a pitch black alleyway, gasping for air.

"What was that about?" panted Raph, wiping an arm across his forehead and leaning heavily against the wall.

"I'm not sure…Leo?" Donnie turned to get his oldest brother's opinion but Leo was nowhere in sight.

"Man, where the shell is he?"

"If we knew then we wouldn't be looking, dimwit," snarled Raph.

"Geez, what side of the bed did you wake up on?" mumbled Mikey. He knew Raph blamed him for Leo's sudden disappearance but if it hadn't been him that had found the pizza then it would've been someone else. Damn, why did Raph always blame him for everything?

"LEO?" yelled Donnie as they retraced their steps back towards the construction site where they had last seen their brother.

"Argh!" Mikey suddenly screamed, "Something's got me!"

"Mikey, relax, it's just me," a familiar voice hissed in the orange clad turtle's ear.

"Leo? Where the shell did you get to?"

"Leo, thank shell!"

"You had us worried."

"I know, I'm sorry, but I had to see if anyone came off the site that might lead us to the HQ." Leo explained.

"And did they?"

"No-one. I even scanned the site again but no-one was there. The pipes and framework that was dropped on us had been tied up near the top of each house and the ropes had been cut. And yet there were no footprints and no-one left the site."

"They could have escaped from the other side…" suggested Raph.

"Not possible – There's a sixty foot fence on the other side and I checked it over and there weren't any holes in it and none of the houses were close enough for anyone to jump over it."

"We need to keep going and find another site. If we don't figure this out in the next few hours then we'll be in trouble." Donnie sighed and the four turtles left in search of the next site. And from a high roof-top, a solitary figure smirked down on them.

A/N: - Love it or hate it, review and let me know. I am donning my flame retardant clothing at this very moment, but I hope I won't need it! J See you the next time I update…which will be soon…hopefully! ;-)