Leonardo woke with a supreme headache. "Ugh…" he moaned.

Slowly opening his eyes, Leonardo found himself to be pinned against a wall, held up by a leather strap around his chest, his ankles, and wrists, his arms pulled overhead. He looked over to his left, and found his brothers to be in the same predicament. But they hadn't as yet regained consciousness. He closed his eyes once again, wishing to fall back asleep. His head felt as though somebody were pounding a nail dead center into his forehead.

Once again he opened his eyes, taking a look around the room. The dim light allowed him to recognize a bulky shape in the center of the room… a tall table? Whatever it was, it seemed to have a figure lying on top of it, covered with a thin blanket. Leonardo also spotted the door, to his left as well, on the wall opposite him.

A groan to his immediate left brought his attention back to his brothers. Raphael had apparently just come back to the land of the living, and found that he'd rather just stay dead. Leonardo looked down the line. He stood at the head of the line, Raphael being in the middle, Donatello next, and Michelangelo last.

"You ok, Raph?" Leonardo asked.

"Yeah," Raphael said bitterly. "Peachy."

Another groan let Leonardo and Raphael know that Michelangelo had just joined them.

"Man, I've got a majorly bad headache…" He mumbled.

"Join the club," Raphael said.

Leonardo began to twist his wrists a bit against their bonds. "I wonder if these things will give a bit…"

The leather strap was fastened pretty tight… they wouldn't give at all.

"Why couldn't I have just stayed asleep?" That was Donatello. Of course, he'd be the one to awake speaking full sentences, and not revert back to Neanderthalithic grunts and groans.

"Yo Donny, glad you could join us on, Who's Fault is it Anyhow?" That was Mikey. He seemed to be taking this a little hard, and felt extremely irritable.

"How is this my fault?" Donatello queried, getting defensive.

Raphael, feeling inclined to join Michelangelo's opinion said, "What? Too hard to assume that possibly we might run into a trap?" He taunted, "Couldn't have just scanned around a bit, perhaps for some possible harmful gasses, or booby traps, or—"

"Knock it off!" Leonardo interrupted. "We've got other problems to worry about than pointing fingers. We need to find a way out of here."

"Right, Leo." Michelangelo rolled his eyes. "I'll just use my magic wand to get loose and…"

Suddenly the door opened. An audible click sounded, followed by blinding light. All the turtles cried out as the pain of their eyes trying to suddenly adjust became doubled with their headaches.

"Welcome, guests." Said a silky smooth voice. "I have indeed been anxious to finally be able to speak to you."

Still squinting from the light, the turtles' eyes adjusted just enough to allow them to view a silhouette of a figure in the doorway. Tall, and rather gangly.

"Creepy…" Michelangelo muttered under his breath. His other three brothers had been thinking the same thing.

The creepy silhouette continued. "I have it on excellent authority that you four are extremely intelligent for your species… fortunately for me, not too intelligent."

The four brothers looked at each other. Something about the way he said that made their skins crawl. The man entered into the room, the light giving the silhouette depth and shape. His face was sallow, dark circles underneath his sagging eyelids indicating that this man either slept less than he should have, or led an extremely stress-filled life… or both. His pale face looked like a white sheet, and to top off the ghoulish look this man portrayed, the whites of his eyes had a yellowish hue, and his fingernails were in desperate need of a clip… all yellow, jagged, and long. The man wore a white laboratory overcoat, as if he had just been working on a science experiment in some science lab. As he moved in, he made his way to the center of the room, and laid a hand on the tall table-like thing.

Donatello gasped. "Ryanne…"

Indeed it was some sort of restraining table. And on top of it, with one of those odd devices attached to her temple, lay Ryanne.

The man looked down, stroking Ryanne's cheek in the process. "Yes. Ryanne. My little angel sent from heaven."

The steam visibly rose from all four turtles' ears. The lecherous man quite frankly made Michelangelo want to throw up. All of them felt almost brotherly protectiveness to this girl they had come to enjoy.

As if unaware of the tension in the room, (in truth he felt it, and enjoyed the power he felt) the man continued. "We must however discuss other far more pressing matters than my Ryanne's special little abilities."

"Like what?" Leonardo growled.

"Like what in the world I'm going to do with you."

"You could just let us go." Michelangelo suggested. "I like that idea!"

The man chuckled in good humor, shaking his head. "But now that I have you, you might imagine how curious I am about your… how should I put it? Uniqueness."

Donatello didn't like where this was going. "You mean you're going to experiment on us?"

The man stroked his chin, smiling an eerie smile. "Perhaps."

Ryanne shifted on the table she laid upon.

The man looked at her for a second or so. "You know, if it weren't for Ryanne, I would never have been able to lure you here. She performed perfectly, wouldn't you say?"

Leonardo shook his head. "Don't even try turning her into the enemy! She's not the one who chained us to a wall!" His anger began to grow.

The man ignored Leonardo. "I would never have even known…" The man's voice had a sing-song tone, as he stroked her hair lovingly. He mentioned, "Actually, I might use you the way I had first imagined. Your interesting display upstairs gave me an idea." He paused, letting his victims ponder just a bit on what his idea could possibly be. He really seemed to be enjoying this.

He continued. "You four seem to somehow be adept in martial arts, and the ability to get into places you shouldn't. It would be wonderful if you decided to work for me." His voice asked. His eyes told them that it wasn't an offer. It was a command.

This made all of them laugh in spite of themselves. "Yeah right." Raphael said for all of them.

"Uh uh uh." He scolded as a parent would some unruly children. "Don't forget that I have you in my power. Believe me when I say that killing you would certainly be a shameful waste, but I promise I wouldn't loose too much sleep."

Ryanne shifted again. Donatello looked at her closely, and noticed her eyes moving rapidly underneath her eyelids. Donatello thought she looked like she was awake, but that she was pretending to still be asleep. Luckily the creepy man was looking at the four turtles with narrowed eyes.

He walked up to Raphael, "If I told you that your brothers' lives depended upon the success of the task that I will set before you, I'm sure that your willingness to cooperate would greatly increase."

Raphael narrowed his eyes right back at the man. "Letting me go would be your biggest mistake."

The man wasn't toying anymore. He slammed a hand against the wall beside Raphael's head. Raphael didn't blink. "Don't even think about going to your lair for your pathetic pet rat. I know where it is, I know how to get in, and I'm having it watched!"

To say that this news came as a little bit of a shock would have been an understatement.

"How?" Donatello asked.

The man backed away from Raphael. His condescending demeanor back on his face, his composure gained. He smiled. " I'm glad you asked."

He began to pace in front of them. "It would have been horrendous stupidity on my part if I had allowed Ryanne to leave without a way to get her back, and with you in tow. These devices—" he walked over to Ryanne and laid a finger on her temple, on the silver device attached to it, "—were to ensure her safe arrival. They had been programmed to make her obey."

"By torturing her!" Leonardo burst out.

The man shook his head. "Call it 'shock therapy.'"

Donatello watched Ryanne for a reaction. Her face momentarily went dark, and then relaxed back into a neutral position. He hoped she wouldn't do that too often!

The man continued. "Any refusal on her part to do as I had programmed would result in an unpleasant experience for her." He let that hang in the air for a second. As if it were possible, Raphael became more angry, looking as if he were slowly becoming a fireball of anger on the inside.

The man finished. "Obviously, you discovered the device's second function. Even after it had been removed from Ryanne, and shut down, I knew the last place she'd been before the devices had been shut off. I simply had some well-paid spies locate her last known coordinates, and discovered where you lived. After that is was a simple matter to bug the place."
"Why didn't you just have us captured then and there?" Donatello asked.

The man smiled wryly. "You must know better than anybody that it's easier to kill a turtle after it comes out of its shell. As soon as I realized the objective of Ryanne was to come back to me, I made some preparations. The building's alarm system was to be re-routed to an alert module on my belt. Guards to try to keep you from getting in, and also to capture you."

"Yeah, but I foiled that one!" Raphael said with a smug smile.

The man shook his head. "And to back them up I placed the remote receiver device for Ryanne in a place where I could put a trap. Even you didn't escape, oh naïve one. Despite what you think, you really are not all that hard to capture."

Leonardo became aware of something dangling on the man's belt. A key. He looked at his wrists. The leather had a metal lock which was situated at the outside of his wrists. Even if he were to get a key, he could not unlock his own wrists. He looked over at Raphael. He seemed to be trying to contain a raging storm within his body. Raphael's wrists were four inches away… maybe if he had the key in his left hand, he'd be able to unlock Raphael's right wrists.

The man stood for a second, and then smiled. "You can't win now."

Donatello wasn't listening, because his heart was just about to leap into his mouth. Ryanne opened her eyes, and moved her head! Crazy girl! Donatello tried to school his face to remain neutral, but he worried that Ryanne wouldn't try to keep pretending to sleep. He hoped she would just wait until the man left, and try to free them later.

But Ryanne had no such plans. In one burst, she leaped from the table to the floor, and using a move that Master Splinter had taught her, did a spinning kick, catching the surprised man in the head, bringing him down to the ground.

Leonardo called, "Ryanne, there's a key hanging on his belt!"

Ryanne tried to go for it, but the man was back on his feet.

"Ryanne, my dear, you will be punished for this." He lifted up a black device, upon which was attached a button. He moved to press it.

Ryanne swiftly reached up and pulled the device on her temple out, and also the one that had been replaced on her side. "You have to catch me first!" She kicked again with a vengeance, this time at his hand. The black device flew from his hand, and hit Michelangelo in the face.

"Ow!" He said, "Watch where you're flinging things, Ry!"

"Sorry, Mikey!" She said.

This time, the man was really pissed off. He growled at her and came toward her menacingly. Ryanne backed away.

"Get him, Ry!" Leonardo called. The others began to cheer for her as well.

The man came in to grab her around her neck. She ducked, and brought her shoulder to bear at his middle, causing him to do a flip over her shoulders, landing on his back. Ryanne straightened a look of triumph on her face. She raised her arms. In one of her hands she held aloft the belt that the man had been wearing with the key.

Ryanne walked over to Leonardo, to unlock his wrists, so that he could get the rest of his brothers free, but the man stood up once more. This time he wasn't trying to go for Ryanne. He was headed out the door.

"Here Leo," Ryanne said, handing him the belt.

Leonardo grasped it, and said, "Ryanne, don't go after him. He probably has more tricks up his sleeve."

Ryanne said, "Not this time." She ran out the door to find the man that caused her life to fall apart at the seams.

Leonardo worked his fingers, and was able to unlock Raphael, and once Raphael got himself free, it was no time at all until all four of the turtles were unlocked, and running for the door. They found themselves back inside the room they had been trapped and gassed in. The main sliding door leading to the tunnel opened for them. They exited into the tunnel, and stopped short.

Ryanne had found herself in the midst of seven pretty angry looking guards. The same guards that Raphael himself had taken out. A thug went to grab her hair. She blocked his hand with a swift strike, and followed that with her other hand which connected with his torso. All that really did was serve to make him even grumpier. The creepy man was nowhere to be seen.

Ryanne spotted the four turtles, and made a hasty retreat to her friends. "He went up the stairs, and before I could get there these guys came down." She explained.

Michelangelo said, "I got dibs on that one dude!" He made his way up the stairs calling in a sing-song voice, "Oh evil creepy scary dude! Come out come out where ever you are!"

He disappeared through the entranceway. That left Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael. Raphael smiled.

"Dibs on these guys."

One of the guards did a double take, and then said, "Oh no, not you again!"

"You better believe it!" Raphael said, as he single handedly took out all of them.

As he blew off his steam on the ugly and dumb guards, Leonardo, Donatello, and Ryanne watched on.

"Don't you want to fight, guys?" Ryanne asked.

"Naw," Donatello said, "It seems like Raphie boy here needs to blow off some more steam than I do."

Leonardo didn't say anything.

Once Raphael was done having his fun, the four of them went up to the top—well to basement level, at least—to find out where Michelanglo had gotten. Little did they know, Michelangelo knew exactly where that one dude had been hiding. He was just toying with him a bit. Following his every move, Michelangelo the shadow-wraith made just enough noise to make the goulish guy jumpy. He'd make odd sounds with his voice, then laugh maniacally, much as a phantom would. Needless to say, the man was near a meltdown by the time Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Ryanne had caught up. It was no trouble at all to get the guy to stand still while they scrounged up all the evidence they needed to get the guy locked up for life. They left him blubbering in the room they had been locked up in.

This is where they had to come to the hard part. Saying goodbye.

The plan was to let Ryanne call the police. All she had to do was show them those devices she'd worn, and lay the blame on the dude inside the room. The police would find the rest on a desktop icon that Donatello had created with all the incriminating evidence. Video's of 'shock therapy' sessions with Ryanne, and other exploits that none of them, until that night, had known about. The turtles would be above, watching to make sure everything was going according to plan. The man would get sent to jail, and Ryanne would be able to return back to her family.

Ryanne was sitting at a chair near the computer consol, looking at all the precognitive dreams on the gigantic screen. Her eyes were dry, but she looked very depressed.

The four turtles gathered behind her. Donatello finally piped up, "We're gonna miss you, Ryanne."

"Yeah," Leonardo said, "You finally got your room, and now look. You're moving out."

Ryanne turned around. She smiled. "But I'm finally going home. After so long." She was silent for a minute, and then said, "Hey, I'll still come and visit sometimes."

All five of them fell silent, sharing a tender moment. Then Michelangelo spoke up. "Awe, c'mon! Can't we keep her?" He was trying to lighten the moment.

This earned a big laugh from Ryanne, and a slap over the head from Raphael.

Rapahel said, "Seriously though. Anytime you feel like it, you can come stay at our pad. You know where the warehouse is."

"Thanks, Raph. I'll definitely come."

Two weeks later, after a particularly grueling training session from Master Splinter, the turtles found their restful sleeps awakened by a clattering noise. Master Splinter was up in an instant, and the turtles a half second behind him.

It was Ryanne. She had apparently found the candelabras in the dojo, bumbling into them, and knocking them over with unconscious abandon. She was sleepwalking again.

"She's baaack!" The four turtles said, laughing.