Donnie watched stockman from across the room, he had seemed to realize he couldn't do anything but he didn't look defeated, in fact he looked like he was forming a plan. He didn't like that, if Stockman had a backup plan this could all turn very bad, very quickly.

Stockman pulled a hand-held device out of his breast pocket, it didn't look like a cell phone so he wasn't going to call anyone. However, it did have an ominous big red button on the face plate. In typical bad-guy form, Stockman gave Donnie a vicious smile and dramatically pressed the button.

There was a distinct rumbling sound coming from one end of the factory. The three turtle boys on the lower floor looked around at the source of the sound. Side by side garage doors were sliding up on an automatic winch. Behind the doors was row upon row of shiny new Mouser units, their armor bodies glinted in the fluorescent lighting.

"Donnie?" Leo called, "What are those doing there?" the few Purple Dragon members who were still in the factory started running. They had already seen what those nasty little things could do and they weren't about to stick around.

"Looks like you're too late." Stockman said softly. He drew a little canister out of his jacket and sprayed Donnie before running out of the door. He then headed for the stairs only to find his way blocked by the remaining three turtles, they just made it too easy. Stockman sprayed the same red mist on the other, then vaulted over the railing to the factory floor. He hopped up on the conveyor and just laughed.

"You really like to go through the whole mad scientist bit, don't you?" Mikey said to the cackling maniac.

"What did you just spray on us?" Donatello asked

"It's a radioactive isotope that the Mousers are programmed to hunt, and destroy." Stockman answered. He pressed another button on his hand-held remote control and a hundred little robots purred to life. The red sensors on the front of the bots blinked on and a disturbing amount of movement started towards the turtle boys. A mechanical growling reached their ears, which was responded to be a whole chorus of the same cringe-worthy screech.

All of the bots launched themselves out of the garages and at the turtle at full speed, and at first, the boys battered and smashed their way through as many of the monsters as they could but soon they were being overrun and had to retreat back up to the roof.

"We can't keep fighting those things like this. We'll exhaust ourselves." panted Leo once they were back outside.

"Yeah but we can keep running either, and those things will follow us until this isotope wears off." Donnie snapped.

"Can't we just, like, wash it off?" Mikey offered hopefully.

"If I had made it, no. So I'm guessing that stockman was smart enough to do the same." Donnie replied.

The still night was punctured by the high-pitched sound of a woman screaming. The turtles looked at each other and rushed to the side of the building, the Mousers had crashed through the front of the factory and were spilling onto the city streets. People were running in every direction that was away from the mechanical beasts, they chewed their way through benches and street signs always keeping a mechanical eye on their targets.

"This is bad." Raph muttered more to himself than anyone. A metallic screech rang out directly behind the turtles. They turned to see a lone Mouser sneaking towards them. "How did that get up here?" Raph threw a shuriken at it, it sank deep into the sensor and the robot keeled over and shut down. The four turtles let out a sigh, only to inhale it back in a moment later. More and more of the Mouser units had found their way onto the roof top.

"What do we do Leo?" Mikey yelled, shaking his leader in exaggerated desperation.

"We have to run." No one waited to be told twice. They all took off over the rooftops as quickly as they could. The Mousers on street level turned and followed the turtles, more screaming was heard as more and more people caught sight of the miniature army rushing through the streets.

April and Holly had made a clean get-away and they were feeling quite proud of themselves. They had ditched their baggy boy clothes in a dumpster and had revealed jeans and tank tops that hugged their curves. April's hair was back in its usual pony, while Holly had elected for a messy bun since she had had to hide it under the hat earlier.

They were walking the streets surrounding the fortune cookie factory, they wanted to make sure the turtles had escaped unscathed. They had been separated for about thirty minutes now and they were starting to worry. It shouldn't have taken this long.

"We should do another lap around the block, and if we still don't find them we should climb up to the roof of one of the buildings." April suggested.

"Alright, let's go around the next block over though, we've already walked that way six times. We'll draw attention to ourselves if we go there again." Holly had been keeping tabs on where they had gone more than just a few times.

April nodded, and the girls set off. They had made it to the end of the block they were on when a woman behind them screamed. They turned to see what on earth was going on, and there was a battalion of Mousers advancing onto the streets.

"I thought they weren't operational yet?" April grabbed Hollys' arm.

"They weren't supposed to be." Holly said, eyes wide in shock. The Mousers started chewing on anything that was in their way. People were scattering everywhere, clearing off the streets as fast as they could.

Without warning, the Mousers turned and started directly at the girls. "Run!" April shouted, and they both tore off down the street.

"What the hell are they doing?" Holly shouted, "This doesn't make sense, they were supposed to hunt rats, not people.

"I don't know, but we need to get out of their way." April turned down an alley, hopped onto a trash can, up onto a dumpster, and launched herself at a fire escape. She scrambled up as fast as she could making room for Holly to do the same. Unfortunately, Holly was not as coordinated as her friend, and she tripped over the curb stumbling and crashing into the trash can. She rolled and got back to her feet and continued along the alley.

"Get to the roof and find the guys, I'll find another way up." she shouted as she continued running. The Mousers were close behind her.

April scrambled as fast as she could up to the roof, and when she reached it she pulled out her phone. She punched the speed dial and her phone instantly started ringing. A clearly running Donnie answered the other line.

"Hey April, I can't really talk right now." he panted into the speaker.

"What the hell is going on? The Mousers are running around in the streets." April cut him off.

"Yeah, they're after us." Donnie explained simply.

"How do we stop them?" April asked simply.

"Uhm." Was all Donnie offered. April felt a chill go through here body, if he didn't know what to do they really were in trouble. "Where are you? Are you safe?" Donnie asked.

"I'm fine for now, I'm on the roof. But Holly is a klutz and missed the jump. She's still on the street." April started searching the alleys around the building she was on, the Mousers were gone but there was no sign of Holly. April, braved a look over the edge of the building, before she hurled herself across the gap onto the building next to her. She tucked and rolled to avoid injury and put the phone back up to her ear. "Where are you guys?"

"Were a few buildings away, I can see you from here." April started searching frantically, she spotted the boys leaping from building to building with a swarm of Mousers following close behind them. So, the Mousers could climb. That wasn't good.

April hung up on Donnie and waved to him, the turtle boys made their way over to her along the roof-tops, smacking any Mousers that got too close to them.

"So I'm guessing things didn't go as planned?" April asked.

"Not exactly." admitted Donnie. "Stockman sprayed us with ions that the Mousers are designed to find. We can't go home until we take care of this."

"Right, so does anyone have a plan yet?" April got right to the point. They didn't have time to waste here.

"The only way to stop them is to either destroy the Mousers or wait for the ions to deteriorate." Donnie said. "Since waiting for the isotopes could take days, I think total destruction is our best option."

"And how are we going to do that exactly?" Raph asked, stabbing through three Mouser units with one strike.

"Ha! You made a Mouser kebab." Mikey pointed.

"Knock it off Mikey." Leo snapped, "We don't have time for fooling around."

"Can't we just drown them? They can't be water-proof." April offered.

"I don't think so, if they're going to be brought down it will be with an EMP or some kind of electric charge." Donnie shook his head, this was hopeless. "Have you heard from Holly?" He asked.

April shook her head, she had no idea where Holly was. "I just hope she found somewhere safe to hide out."

"Well let's get going, we need to keep moving until we have a plan." Leo motioned for the rest of the turtles to follow him.

Donnie threw April onto his back, "Hold on tight, it's going to be a bumpy ride." She just nodded.

As they leaped across the roof-tops, with the Mousers still on their trail, the little group kept bouncing ideas off one another. They couldn't just create an electromagnetic pulse out of thin air, so the next best thing was to create an artificial one. They kept moving, until Raph skidded to a stop and pointed to the other side of the road.

"I found Holly." He announced, he couldn't help but laugh at her situation. She had managed to climb onto a phone booth and was swinging at the Mousers with what looked like a crow-bar. She was holding them off fairly well until they started eating through the base of the booth. As it tipped, she launched herself at some awning over a storefront. She landed on it bouncing slightly and scrambled over to a drain pipe that she could climb up to the roof. Once she hauled herself to the roof she looked down at the street and let out a sigh.

"You look like you're doing well." Raph shouted to her across the street.

"Better than you apparently." she pointed at the Mousers that were advancing across their rooftop. The turtles and April looked at where she was pointing, they couldn't keep running like this, they needed to stop these things once and for all. Holly looked around, at this rate they would be Mouser meat before midnight. "Donnie, got any ideas?"

"Electrocution." Was all he could shout back, they were fighting off another wave of robots.

"What about that?" She shouted back.

He turned to her, and saw her eyeing up a fire hydrant. If they could get all the Mousers into a puddle of water and zap it with electricity it should overload their system. He turned back to his brothers and April, "Quick, get them all down to the street."

Holly grabbed her crowbbar, she needed to get back down to the street to try and open the fire hydrant. Great, she had just made it off the street. She jumped onto a fire escape and started climbing.

Donatello grabbed April and hurled himself and the girl over the ledge of the building, the two fell a short distance until Donnie's spare hand grabbed onto a telephone line and they slid over to the other buildings. April was deposited onto the awning Holly had landed on earlier, while the tallest turtle continued down to street level drawing the Mousers nearer and nearer. The rest of the turtles followed him down and soon they were standing back to back in the middle of a sea of killer robots.

Holly couldn't find anything to open the fire hydrant with, it's not like there was a hardware store nearby. She had her crowbar, but that wouldn't be much good, she needed a wrench. She dashed out from the alleyway she was in to see the turtle boys in the street surrounded on all sides, she was out of time. She dashed out and rammed the crowbar into the valve on the front of the hydrant, but nothing happened.

"Any time now." Raph yelled at her, stabbing and kicking any Mouser that tried to chomp on his foot.

Holly looked around, the only thing tough enough to break the valve off was the Mousers, but they wouldn't do it voluntarily. Holly had an idea. She smacked one of the Mousers that was near her over its head with her crow bar, it turned around and screeched at her.

"Come and get me." She stared the little beast down, it pounced at her aiming for her knees. Just as the Mouser leaped, Holly flung herself sideways out of the line of fire. The Mousers hydraulic jaws clamped down on the valve of the fire hydrant, and instantly the back-pressure blew the bot halfway across the street. A wave of cold water hit the tarmac and spread out under the feet of the Mousers and the turtles.

"Now what?" Asked Mikey.

"Get ready to jump." Leo threw his sword up and it severed a couple of power lines that were swinging above the street. As the wires swung towards the floor, the ninja boys jumped onto anything that was up and out of the forming lake. Raph picked Holly up off the floor and threw her over his shoulder, he jumped onto the concrete base of a street light just a second before an electrical discharge spread across all the wet surfaces. The Mousers screeched as their circuits got fried, their red sensors all blinking out one at a time.

The turtles and two girls just looked at each other, Donnie had climbed up to where April was and they were making their way back up to the rooftops. Raph shifted Holly onto his shell, they were going to have to climb the light post to get to the roof from where they were.

"Hold on tight, ok?" Raph said over his shoulder. Holly just nodded grimly. She was exhausted, this had been another troublesome night. Raph hopped up and grabbed onto the lights horizontal beam, he swung himself and his passenger up and then jumped over to the nearest building. The gang gathered on the roof, the sound of sirens could be heard from a few blocks away.

"It's time to go guys, are we good to go back to the lair Donnie?" Leo didn't want to lead those things down to their home. This encounter had wiped his team out and they needed rest.

"We should be good, I doubt Stockman has any more ready to go right now. And the ions probably only have a half-life of about an hour. Any longer and they could be cancerous." Donnie reassured his leader.

"Ok, let's get back below ground before the sirens get here." No one argued, even Raph kept his mouth shut for once. This had not been the best day, they had nearly been eaten by robots and it had taken all their resources to finally beat the little beasties.

Everyone got back to the lair and collapsed onto the couches. Holly took her contacts out and rubbed her eyes vigorously. April was lying face down groaning into the soft fabric. Mikey and Donnie were leaning against each other with matching looks of relief on their faces. Leo looked around, that was a disaster, it couldn't have gone much worse. Well, it could have gone worse, they had all made it home safely after all.

"Look on the bright side guys." He said to the room, "At least we destroyed all the Mousers."

"Oh yeah, we destroyed something that wasn't even supposed to be functioning at all. That's great news." Raph gave his brother a sarcastic thumbs up.

"I know it wasn't ideal, but we can't beat ourselves up about a few slip-ups." Leo reassured his team. A chorus of groans was all he got for a response. "How about we just watch some TV?" Leo grabbed the remote and found a spot to sit, he flipped through the channels until they found an old movie they all agreed on. Mikey quickly hopped up and grabbed some pizza and sodas for everyone with help from Raph.

Holly had scooted over to make room for Raph and Mikey on the couch. April had sat up to make extra room but she was getting tired and her head kept rolling from side to side. Holly was tired too, she was just going to rest her eyes for a while before she had to go home.

Raph felt something bump his shoulder, he looked over to see Hollys head resting against his shoulder, she was breathing softly and her hair had fallen out of its bun and over her face. He didn't really know what to do, he didn't want to move her in case she woke up but she couldn't be very comfortable leaning against him. He shifted uncomfortably, but she just mumbled something in her sleep and leaned in closer. She draped an arm over his, he was glad that everyone else was preoccupied since he was definitely blushing. He chanced a glance over at Donnie, he was watching the two of them enviously.

"What do I do?" Raph mouthed silently.

"Nothing, just relax." Donnie mouthed back. April had passed out and was laying on the section of the couch in between her and Holly. How he wished she had fallen the other way. Donatello had been waiting for the kind of opportunity Raph had right now, and Raph looked so uncomfortable. If it were him and April, he would brush her hair out of her face and put an arm around her shoulders pulling her in closer. And yet Raph was sitting rigid as stone looking awkward.

After an hour, Raph decided that he should probably try and wake Holly up. She hadn't moved much since she fell asleep on him, she just fidgeted until he had turned slightly and her head had come to rest on his plastron. He had his arm up on the back of the couch behind her and had started nodding off too until he had been disturbed by Mikey and Leo snickering with each other at his expense. If Holly hadn't been using him as a big green pillow he would have punched them, but then again, if she wasn't using him as a big green pillow, they wouldn't have anything to snicker at.

Raph tried to sit up straighter again, but Holly groaned in protest. He grasped her shoulders and pushed her into a seated position. "Holly, wake up." He spoke softly so as not to startle her. She just groaned again. "Holly?"

"I'll do it later." Holly mumbled. Raph shook his head, looks like they were having house guests tonight. He set her down softly on the couch and stretched, it was time to go to bed himself. Before he did though, he fetched a couple of spare pillows and blankets for the girls. He threw one set at Donnie and the two boys made sure their girls were warm and comfy.

Before he went to his room, Donnie leaned over April and brushed her hair out of her face. She smiled in her sleep and nuzzled his hand as it brushed over her skin. He couldn't help but smile himself, he looked up at Raph who was watching him. He smiled smugly and gestured that Raph might want to try the same thing.

Raphael looked down at the girl now sleeping soundly on the couch, he couldn't believe how easily Donnie had just interacted with April, like it was nothing. He just couldn't do it, sure it had been nice relaxing with her on the sofa, but that had been accidental. He had never been very affectionate, and it didn't feel right to pretend to be just because of a girl. If she really liked him, it wouldn't matter that he wasn't a hopeless romantic, that was Donatello. Instead of following his brother's lead, he just shrugged and walked to his bedroom door. If he needed to show his more sensitive side, it would be to her face, not to her sleeping frame on their family's couch.

Hello again readers, I again just wanted to thank all of the readers who have given me so many kind comments. I'm glad that you are enjoying my story and hope I can keep everyone happy with what I have planned. Thank you!