April walked home by herself after her training session with Splinter. She had been kind of bummed that Holly had gone home early, but she could understand. Holly had sent her a text letting her know what had happened earlier when she had found out her mom was not coming home. April was giddy that it had been Raph to help her feel better, and from what Holly had said they had taken another step forward in their relationship.
However, as happy as she was for her friends, she couldn't help but wonder what was happening with her and Donnie. Holly had asked what was going on between them a while ago, but she hadn't brought it up since. To be honest she couldn't even answer the question herself. She knew Donnie had a crush on her, that much was obvious, and she knew she felt closer to him than she did the others. But did that count as love? She was only sixteen, her aunt kept telling her she was too young to know what love was, maybe she was right.
April walked through the door to her aunts' house and called out to see if anyone was home.
"In here dear." Came a reply. "How was your weekend?"
"It was good, we watched some old movies." April dumped her bag of clothes on the floor.
"Sounds like fun, are you hungry?" Aprils' aunt asked.
"Yeah, I could eat."
"Ok well go get cleaned up and I'll make you some dinner."
April threw her dirty clothes into the laundry room and rushed upstairs to shower. Once she was in fresh clothes, she ran downstairs and ate with her only relative left in the city.
"Can I ask you a question?" April said suddenly.
"Of course you can, what's up?" Aprils aunt chuckled slightly.
"How can you tell if you like someone as more than just a friend?" April spoke quietly and talked to her plate, she pushed her last bite around her plate nervously.
"What's brought this on? Have you met a boy? Oh, come on spill it!" Her aunt was giddy, bouncing slightly as she scooted closer to her only niece.
April sighed, "Well, there is a guy, but I don't really know if I like him that way or not."
"Does he like you?"
"Yeah, he's shy though, so he hasn't actually made a move." April smiled slightly thinking about all the times Donnie had stumbled over his words or been embarrassed by his brothers because of this.
"Well, do you like spending time with him?" Aprils' aunt asked. April nodded. "Do you think about him when you're not together?" Again, April nodded. "Is he kind and does he look out for you?"
"You have no idea." April said with a big smile.
"Ok, one last question, do you feel happy when you're with him and thinking about him?" Aprils' aunt had a grin on her face now too, she could see that April liked this boy even if she couldn't see it herself.
April didn't answer, she didn't need to.
The two women sat around talking about boys for a while, April asked her aunt about her first boyfriend and they laughed when her aunt told her how long it had taken the boy to ask her out. April and her aunt painted their nails and ate ice cream while watching some chick flicks until the sun went down, April decided she should probably head upstairs, she had had a long weekend and should probably get one decent nights' sleep. She bade her aunt goodnight just in case she decided to go to bed before April and headed upstairs to her room.
Once there, she threw herself on her bed, it was nice to lay on her own bed for a change, two nights on the turtle boys couch was starting to hurt her back. She rolled over and grabbed her phone out of her bag, checking to see if anyone had messaged her. She had one message from Leo's phone, but it was signed by Donnie. She opened the message, it was just asking if she got home ok? She quickly typed a response since she had been home for nearly four hours now. She smiled to herself again knowing that he was worried about her.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and she opened the new message, it was Donnie again, "Good, I was just about to start worrying" there was a little smiley emoji at the end of the message and April laughed. She decided she would give him a quick call, she didn't really like texting unless she was somewhere quiet, like at school or the movies. She pulled up his number and connected the call.
"Hello?" His voice came through and April smiled again, she had been doing that a lot today.
"Hey, I just thought I'd call you so you know I really am home, why are you using Leo's phone?" April asked.
"I haven't seen mine in a couple of days. I tried calling it, but the battery must be dead." He replied.
"That sucks, I hope you find it." She sighed to herself before asking, "How's it going?"
"Oh fine, I'm just sitting in the lab."
"What are you working on?" she asked curiously. He was always working on something.
"I'm drawing up designs for a van." He sounded excited.
"You'll have to show me later." there was a slight pause, April thought Donnie had put down the phone.
"Really?" He sounded surprised.
"Yeah! I think it's great you're always designing and building stuff." She laughed down the phone at him.
On the other end of the line, Donnie blushed. He wasn't used to people actually caring about what he was doing. Mikey always wanted to touch and break his things, and Raph just didn't care unless it was something he could use to break bad guys bones. Leo was always encouraging but he never really asked what he was doing, he was more interested in the final results.
"I'd be more than happy to show you." Both teens smiled into their phones, "Oh hey! Did you hear what happened today between Raph and Holly?" April said excitedly.
"No, what happened?" Donnie asked. April filled him in on all the juicy details she had gotten from Holly earlier that day. "He was unusually happy today." Then he remembered the conversation he had dragged them into. "Oh gees, I probably really embarrassed them."
"Why?" April asked frowning slightly.
"Well, you know the conversation we had earlier?" Donnie asked sheepishly.
"Yeah?" She replied
"Well, I was going to ask Holly her opinion, and Raph wouldn't leave the room, so..." He trailed off not really wanting to explain too much.
"Did she say anything? Did he say anything?" April sat up straight on her bed.
"She had plenty to say, he just sat there and didn't say a word." Donnie sighed.
"Like what?"
"She said something about all relationships requiring work, I don't really remember" He tried to sound disinterested but he was silently screaming in his head.
"Huh, oh well. I guess I had better let you go for now, I should get some sleep."
"Alright, well I'm glad you made it home safe."
"Thanks for looking out for me, goodnight." April said.
"I'll always be there for you." He said without thinking. "I mean, you know because it's dangerous out there." He giggled nervously.
"I know." She smiled again, he was so cute when he was nervous. "Goodnight Donnie."
"Goodnight April." The two teens hung up on each other and both sighed to themselves. April threw herself down on her bed, and grabbed a book she had been reading off her nightstand.
Donatello put his brothers' phone down and face-palmed himself, he could be an idiot sometimes. He looked back at his designs on the table, they were nearly finished then he could start building. He stood from his table and walked out into the living space. His brothers were all waiting for him to go out and do their patrol.
"We've been waiting for like an hour, what have you been doing?" Raph said impatiently.
"Working, not that you would know anything about that." Donnie said back tartly. Raph glared at him and took a breath to argue back.
"Chill out you two, we have more important things to do." Leo stepped between his two brothers and scowled at them. They needed to get topside, the cool air and wide open spaces would take the edge off everyone. They had been cooped up for far too long together.
As the four boys climbed up to the rooftops, the warm summer air whipped their mask tails around. They ran and leaped across the city skyline, heading back to the fortune cookie factory once more. They caught sight of a few of the thugs walking the streets clearly looking for something to steal.
The turtles followed them silently from high above, the goons shoved each other around laughing loudly. They stopped for a moment to terrorize some poor old man, but they moved on soon enough that Leo decided it was unnecessary to intervene. After a few more moments of shoving and laughing obnoxiously, the group made their way to their destination.
The four turtle ninjas crouched silently above the factory, a whole platoon of gang members were congregated outside the factory doors. The boys looked at each other worriedly, something was going on here.
"Let's go in for a closer look." Leo whispered. The others nodded. They crept around the buildings, not drawing attention to themselves. They made their way over to the skylight and cracked it open, Leo and Donnie slid through the crack and lowered themselves carefully to a girder. Inside were more Purple Dragon members, and Stockman.
"Alright, settle down." Stockman yelled over the babble. The gang members didn't settle down, they just laughed at Stockman, who in turn stomped his feet and huffed like a child. The gang members roared with laughter.
"Shut your traps or I'll shut them for you." A gruff voice boomed out over the rabble and silence fell immediately. "You had all better stop messing around, I'm getting tired of all the failures."
"Great," Leo whispered. "Dog Pound is involved here too." Donatello had a look on his face that matched Leo's thoughts exactly.
"Even though those wretched turtles destroyed my Mousers," Stockman balled his fists in rage, "All hope is not lost. I recovered a computer chip that is far more advanced that anything available in mainstream society today."
"Uh oh." Was all Donnie could say. Leo shot him a warning look, and Donnie could only grimace in reply. It was his chip from his cell phone.
"I have examined the chip and think I can start manufacturing my own version this week." Stockman paused expecting some kind of recognition for his work, when none came he continued his little speech. "Thanks to the turtles interference I should be able to make my next generation of Mousers far more sophisticated, even smart enough to learn while they are hunting." He rubbed his hands together excitedly, if this worked he would be able to sell the designs to a pest control company for billions.
"I don't care about your stupid hobby," Bellowed the gigantic dog man. "You should be focusing on finding and destroying the turtles." Dog Pound balled his enormous fists. "All of you should be looking for them."
The gang members all shrank back, they were starting to regret choosing a life of crime. They either got beat up by the turtles, or they would get annihilated by the mutant who had declared himself their boss. Either way, they were going to get hurt.
"Get out there and find those wretched turtles, I don't care how you do it." Dog pound growled at the group. The Purple Dragons rushed around, bumping into each other trying to grab their gear for tonight's crime spree.
Leo had heard enough, he and Donatello climbed back up to the roof to meet their brothers. Mikey and Raph were keeping an eye on the gang members as they fanned out from the factory. They saw dozens of them traveling in groups of three or four moving in every direction.
"This is bad, we can't let them do this." Mikey said once Leo and Donnie were back.
"We may not have a choice, they're looking for us on Dog Pounds orders." Leo quickly filled in the others on what had just happened. Mikey looked worried, Raph looked mad.
"That makes this worse, people are going to suffer because of us." Raph hated this. Innocent people might get hurt, and though they could try to help, they couldn't help everyone.
"What do you suggest we do? We can't stop them all Raph." Leo sympathized, he didn't like this any more than his brother, but what could they do?
"We have to try." Mikey said softly.
Leo looked at his siblings' expressions, they ranged from Mikey who looked down-right depressed to Raph whose green eyes burned with determination. Donnie just stood with his shoulders hunched with a guilty look on his face. Leo put an arm around his shoulders, "Alright, we'll split up and take out as many Purple Dragons as we can. If you can avoid a fight that would be best, and be careful."
Raph cracked his knuckles, "Lets do this." The turtle boys all sprang up and dashed off to take care of business.
Holly had been doing her laundry for most of the day. She had been lounging around in her pajamas and had been reading her books to pass the time. She had been sitting in the buildings laundry room for the last ten minutes now waiting for the dryer to finish its cycle. She hated doing laundry, there was only one laundry room in the building and it was in the basement.
The dryer beeped and Holly looked up from her book, "Finally." She grabbed the last load out of the drum and stuffed it into the basket at her feet. She made sure she had her keys, then left the laundry room and walked over to the elevator. She jabbed the up button and waited.
As the elevator started moving up, it stopped on the ground floor to let someone on, probably one of the other tenants. Holly knew most of the people in the building, granted there were only about eight apartments on each floor, but since she only saw them in the elevators she was doing pretty good. The doors opened, and a tall, skinny African American man stepped on followed closely by a trim Asian man in sunglasses. Holly resisted the urge to gasp and simply stepped to the side of the elevator to make room for them.
