April was only slightly reassured when her Aunt answered her phone. It turns out she had been at work all day and had not heard anything from anyone about Kirby. So either the Krang had lied, or they really had gone there first to try to find her. April did tell her Aunt about what happened at the school, chances were that the Principal was going to notify Carol anyway, provided he even remembered what had happened.

"You were attacked? By the same people who took your father?" Carol was livid. "Where are you now? Are you safe?"

"Yes, I didn't think it was smart to come home, just in case they knew where I lived." April said.
"Jesus, can you stay with Holly? She has that fancy security system now, right?" Carol asked.

"Yeah, I can stay with her for a couple of days." April said.

"I'm calling the police about this." Carol said. "This is unacceptable."
"I don't think there's a whole lot they can do," April told her aunt, "The principal thought this woman was a cop."

"Even worse! Impersonating an officer is a serious crime" Carol said. "I will not tell them where you are until they are certain its not someone in their ranks, and you do not go back to that school until I have words with the Superintendent"
"OK," April said, there was no use arguing with her Aunt when she got like this.

"I'm calling them now, you keep your phone on and If you don't answer I will come over with a crowbar myself." Carol threatened.

"I will answer!" April promised, and hung up the phone. "This is a nightmare."

"We'll keep you safe." Donnie said and gave her a squeeze of reassurance. Leo quickly went to let Splinter know that they had all made it home safe and returned to see April an Mikey peering over Donnie's shoulder at his computer.

Holly and Raph's voiced came through a speaker and they had all got to work.

"The Krang have never been this aggressive towards anyone so far, so something must have happened to make them get desperate." Donnie mused out loud.

"What could have changed?" April asked the group.

"Did they find your little do-dad?" Mikey asked.

Donnie's eyes opened wide, "They may have, Mikey you're a genius"

"I know," Mikey said and spun around on his stool until he was dizzy.

Donnie pulled up the last batches of data he had collected and saw that the last timestamp was for ten o'clock this morning. Stuff had been coming in almost constantly until that point so he relayed the information to everyone else. "They must have disabled my transmitter."

"How much information did you actually get from them?" Holly asked.

"I had it grabbing the files and that had most recently been updated, and we got about the last three years worth of notes." Donnie said,

"That's it?" April asked crestfallen.

"There were a lot of files," Donnie reassured her. "and this is still an huge amount of data to go through."

April remained silent, she was not convinced they were going to find what they needed to in such a small sample.

"We might as well get started, its not going to magically translate its self." Holly said.

For the next few hours Donnie, April and Holly worked together on speaker phone. Leo had decided he was better use keeping Mikey occupied since he would not stop talking. Raph was making himself comfortable at Holly's house and was listening to her music collection while reclining on her bed.

"Here's some more files that are supposed to be completed." Donnie sent an attachment to their little private group file storage system

April read them over Donnie's shoulder while Holly read them on her end, but it didn't seem quite right. They had to make some liberties when they were translating the files. There were some words that seemed completely unique to the Krang species, so they had needed to guess at some of them, and there were some gendered pronouns that didn't seem to fit since they had no idea if there even were Krang genders, but this file seemed completely wrong.

"I don't think this is quite right." Holly replied once they had read the file.

"No, I am not sure whats wrong here either." Donnie shook his head. "We'll have to take another look at some of the other documents to see if there's something we missed."

The file seemed to be talking about some theories the Krang had about mixing human and Krang DNA to create a unique being that could help them finalize their mutagen to work in this dimension. The problem was that the translation couldn't decided if the subjects of the Krang experiments were male or female, and it was almost impossible to determine any names out of the text. The only thing that gave him pause was one particular Krang word that seemed to use an English punctuation. There was one word that had an apostrophe in it, and considering Aprils last name had one too, it was not impossible that it was O'Neil. It would make sense since they had taken Mr. O'Neil. Perhaps he was who they were referring to in their notes? Donnie tried it, since he didn't have any other clues, and it seemed to fit.

"You think this is about my dad?" April asked as she saw what he was doing.

"I'm not sure." Donnie said slowly. He was still thinking.

"Here its talking about gestation though," Holly highlighted the section she was reading which then highlighted the same section on Donnie's screen once it refreshed, "and unless our sex-ed class lied to us, I wouldn't think that's possible"

Everyone was silent for a moment trying to process this new information, "What if," Donnie started hesitantly, "What if its not talking about your dad?"
"Who else would it be talking about?" April asked.

"Well, there are a few females in your family with the last name O'Neil." Holly said, catching on.

"Me, my mom or my aunt." April said,

"and which one of those people has 'gestated'?" Holly continued.

"Mom, this it talking about my mom." April said after a few moments, fury suddenly welling up inside of her.

"If the Krang were conducting human experiments, and your mom was one of those people used. It might explain why they want you now." Donnie spoke softly trying not to freak April out.

"No." April said defiantly. "No, it's not possible."

"There may be a way to check." Donnie said.

"I'm not listening to this." April said and stormed off.

"Maybe we should take a few." Holly suggested, "I could go for something to eat, how about you?" Donnie couldn't see Holly, but he was certain she was talking to Raph.

"Yeah, I'm starved." Raphs voice came through.

"Yeah." Donnie said morosely.

"Give her a little space right now, this is kind of a big deal if were right." Holly said.

"What's a big deal? What happened?" Raph asked.

"I'll fill you in while we're eating," Holly said, "Do you have the equipment there to run a DNA test?"

"Yeah, I have what I need." Donnie said, "You guys should come here as soon as you can."
"It'll be dark in another hour or so, we'll come right away." Holly said and hung up the call.

Donnie gathered the necessary supplies he would need if April agreed to a DNA test. Once he was sure she had had enough time to calm down, he went in search of her.

"Hey bro!" Mikey said, "I cooked us up some leftover pizza." He held aloft his creation with such pride that Donnie had to smile.

"Not right now, did you guys see where April went?" Donnie asked as Leo and Splinter were also sat in their kitchen.

"She went that way," Leo said indicating the training room, "she looked pretty mad."

"Yeah, well..." He didn't know how to explain what had happened, so he just turned away and went to look for April.

He could hear her angry grunts and the dull thwumps as she attacked Raphs punching bag before he went into the dojo, and when he opened the door, she was attacking it as angrily as he had assumed she was.

"Leave me alone Donnie." April said without turning around. "I don't want to hear about any of this anymore."

"April, if something has been going on, wouldn't you prefer to know?" Donnie asked tentatively,

"No! I don't want to know if I'm a test subject for some freaky alien invasion plan." April shouted at him. She punched the bag again.

"Nothing is going to change. You will still be the same April O'Neil to us." Donnie took a step closer to her.

"Are you kidding? Everything will change. Everything I thought I knew about myself is going to be a lie. And what about my dad? Is he even my dad? Did he know what they did to mom?" April started pacing up and down. Donnie just let her vent, "Is my mom, even really my mom? Was I made in a test tube somewhere?" She rounded on him, still furious at the unfairness of it all.

"I don't know, April. But, I know one thing for sure, you will still be the same person you already are." He took another few steps towards her. "The important things wont change, you'll still always be the same April to me."

April took a deep breath, "What about everyone else though?" She finally turned to face him and he saw that she had tear tracks running down her cheeks. "What if my dad doesn't want anything to do with me?"

Donatello crossed the rest of the distance between them and wrapped her into his arms. "Now you're just being ridiculous, there is no way your dad would do that to you." She sobbed into his chest for a few minutes and he just patted her back and let her cry.

Once she had settled down, and pulled back away from him, he continued, "we don't have to do anything you don't want to, and if you want answers, we can keep them between you and me."

She nodded at the floor, not wanting to meet his eye.

Holly and Raphael ate a quick meal before the sun went down and made their way back to the lair as soon as they could. They did make one quick stop at the school to grab the abandoned backpacks. It took them a few minutes to find Aprils as it was still in the Principals office and they had to break in to retrieve it. Raph had wanted to break the door down, but Holly convinced him to try more subtle means, and they had found a spare key in the receptionists desk that worked.

They arrived back at the lair to see Mikey and Leo playing on their pinball machine. Splinter was sitting cross-legged on the floor drinking tea. Donnie and April were nowhere to be seen.

"Hey everyone," Holly said and dropped her heavy bag on the floor.

"Way to be a gentleman, Raph" Mikey scolded his brother, "Making Holly carry the bags."

"I am carrying a bag!" He shouted at his brother and shook Aprils bag at him.

"We just got back, can you two not antagonize each other for one minute?" Holly said and took Aprils bag from Raph before he could throw it at Mikey.

"You've never been around siblings, have you?" Leo asked, not looking up from his game.

"No, but I'm starting to think its a small blessing." Holly replied. "Where's April?"

"She and Donnie went to the Lab a while ago," Mikey said with a smile.

"I doubt they're getting up to anything today" Holly said and crossed to the large sliding door that housed Donnie's lab. She knocked on the door and called out for April.

"Can I come in?" Holly asked.

A muffled 'yes' came back and she entered, closing the door behind her.

"Hey, how's it going?" Holly asked as nonchalantly as possible.

"Peachy," Replied April sourly.

Holly sat next to April on a bench, "Well, Leo and Mikey are playing Pinball, we could go whoop their butts to take your mind off of things."

"No thanks," April replied.

"I'll be right back". Donnie said and hurried out of the room for a break.

Holly chuckled slightly, "Poor Donnie, you've scared him off."
April gave her a scalding look. "I'm really not in the mood today."
"Oh come on April," Holly said gently, "If anyone knows what you're feeling, its them." She waved in the direction of the main room. "Splinter was a human before all of this, and the guys have had to hide down here their whole lives." April didn't answer, she knew Holly was right. "Besides, even if our guesses are right, you don't have to share that information with anyone. Not even us, It can be between you and Donnie, if you like." Holly said

"You wouldn't be mad at me?" April asked.

"I don't think anyone could be mad at you for keeping something like that to yourself. Besides, the only people who would have any clue would be us, and I'll just beat up the others if they give you a hard time." Holly shrugged.

April hugged Holly hard. "You can't beat them up" she chuckled softly into Holly's shoulder.

"No," Agreed Holly, "But I can make them feel really guilty."

April let go and wiped away some fresh tears. "What do I do?"

"I don't know, but its your choice, and we'll support you no matter what you do." Holly "Why don't we just go hang out for a while? You don't need to decide right this second."

April nodded, she didn't want to think about anything at the minute. They both stood and Holly wrapped her arm around Aprils shoulders.

They walked out into the main room and Donnie immediately jumped up from the couch. "April!" He shouted at them. "Are you alright?"

"She'll be alright" Holly answered for her so she didn't have to tell a complete lie. "C'mon, I bet I can beat all of you guys at Italian Plumber Kart" Holly shouted into the room.

"Nuh-uh," Mikey immediately forgot about pinball and raced to put on the racing game. "I've been practicing."
"Yeah right, I've been playing since I was six, this is my game" Holly unwound another another controller and plugged it in. "What do you say boys? This thing has four controllers, who wants to get humiliated?"

Raph couldn't let a taunt like that go, so he joined in. "You're going down."
"Bring it on." Holly said and snapped her fingers with every word. "Leo? You want in?" She waggled the last controller at him.

"Alright, why not?" Leo joined the others on the floor.

Donnie let April sit on the couch to watch and sat close enough to let her know he was there if she needed him.

They watched as Holly used her superior knowledge of the game to thoroughly trash the others. She knew all the short cuts and how to properly use all the in game items. When she won the first race, she did a smug little dance to rub it in.

"No fair!" Mikey shouted. "Show me how to do that!"

"I warned you, this is my jam." Holly laughed.
"No way! Best two out of three?" Raph said.

Holly snorted, "So this will be over next game then?"

They played a few more courses, and she smoked them every time. Holly stood up this time to do her victory dance.

"Oh yeah! I'm the best! You suck!" She did the cabbage patch dance in a circle poking her tongue out at Mikey and Raph as she faced them.

"You really want to poke the bear, huh?" Leo said as Mikey started up another game. Raph was trying his best not to be annoyed at being bested, but since it was Holly, he was able to be more generous than usual.

"Alright, come on, I'll show you how to be almost as good as me." She sat back down and went through a race with them showing them all the tips and tricks she could think of. While she entertained the others, Donnie and April had Holly's laptop out and were working on some more of the Krang files. April had been thankful that Holly was keeping the others busy, she wasn't quite ready to talk about what they had discovered.

She watched as Donnie's three fingers manipulated the keyboard with amazing precision. He was flying through a series of files, opening and closing them to compare icons and fill in words that looked correct.

He was scrolling through one particular section and it caught Aprils eye. "Wait, what was that?"

"Which bit?" he asked and moved the page back to where he had just been.

"This section," April pointed out, "When is this from?"
Donnie checked the time stamp. "Looks like it was about a month ago."

"Look, they're talking about dad and the others." April said reading the section out loud. "'Relocated the captives from Foot tower to secondary location after intruders detected captives.' They must mean you guys."
"But where did they move them to?" Holly asked from the floor,

"It's got to be either TCRI or the Technodrome. Those are the only logical places to keep them." Donnie said.

"'Once Earth mutagen has been completed, Technodrome will be launched to disperse Earth mutagen.'" April looked concerned, "What do they mean 'Launched'? Can that thing fly?"

"I suppose it can. I have no idea what kind of propulsion system they would use, but we can assume that it is like nothing we have here." Donnie admitted.

"So, how soon until they complete the mutagen?" Leo asked, they had abandoned their game and everyone was paying attention now.

"I don't know for sure, but we might want to figure that out as fast as possible." Donnie said. Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Is there any more in that file?" Leo asked.

"There's plenty, but it all still needs translating." Donnie said with a snort of sarcasm.

"Why don't I help then? See what other information we can get." Holly said
"Awe, but I was just about to crush you at your own game!" Mikey whined.

"Sorry buddy." Holly said, "I promise to school you some more once we get this all sorted out." She sat on the other side of Donatello and helped him to work while the others packed away the console and games into a neat pile. Before they could get too comfortable, the group was interrupted when Holly's phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw her mom was trying to Video call her.
"Should I answer?" Holly said feeling a little weird.

"Sure, why not?" Leo asked.

"Well, do you want her to see your home?" Holly asked.

"You're not going to show her where it is, so I don't see the harm." Leo shrugged.

Holly thought about it for just a moment, before deciding Leo was right, and she answered the call. "Hey mom."

Stacey's face filled Holly's screen and she beamed at her daughter. "Hi baby! How are you?"

"Baby?" Leo said with amusement.

"Shut up." Holly retorted, "Yeah, I'm fine. Hows Paris?"

"Its fine. Its late here, almost three in the morning. I just wanted to check in after the wrap party here." Stacey looked flushed so Holly knew her mother had been drinking. "Are you with the turtle boys?" Stacey tried to whisper, but the fact that she was on speaker did nothing to hide the topic of conversation.

"Yes," Holly said warily. "I told you I was going to stay with them as its safer that the apartment."
"Let me say hi!" Stacey demanded. Holly pinched the bridge of her nose as she moved her camera around to show her mom the guys. "Hello, Hi." Stacey was saying as she saw everyone in the room.

"Dude, is she drunk?" Mikey asked blatantly.

"I am a grown woman, and I am entitled to the occasional late night adult beverage." Stacey scolded him.

"Don't be rude!" Leo hissed at his brother.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I probably had one too many glasses of champagne at the launch. Are you all eating well? Has my daughter been taking care of you?"

"Mom, they don't need me to take care of them." Holly said.

"You are a guest in their home, the least you could do is make sure they have enough food." Stacey berated her daughter.

"We could always go for some more pizza!" Mikey launched himself over Holly's shoulder to make sure he could see Mrs. McCallister.

"Then Holly will get it for you. I don't want to hear that you guys are hungry." Stacey glared sternly at Holly,

"If you knew how much he weighs, you would not think he was starving." Holly grunted and shoved Mikey onto the floor.

"Is April there too?" Stacey asked.
"Yeah," Holly said, then remembering the incident at school continued, "Actually, we need to talk to you about something that happened."
"Oh my god, is everyone OK? Do you need me to fly home now?" Stacey sobered up immediately.

"No, we're all fine." Holly flipped the phone around to show her that April was there too. "A woman, a Krang woman, attacked April at the school toady."

Stacey gasped.

"We're fine!" Holly repeated, "But it sort of freaked her out, so she's going to stay here for a couple of days too, at least until Carol gets some police involvement. But she thinks April is with us, at our apartment."
"I already told you I won't lie to her for you." Stacey said seriously.

"No, I know, but I wanted to let you know just in case you get an email from the school." Holly said.

Stacey eyed her daughter through the phone, she was suspicious of her motives for telling her, but there were more important things to worry about at the minute. "April honey, are you OK?"

April started. "I'm..." she was going to say 'fine', but that would be a lie.

"Of course you're not. Do you need to talk to me? Can I do anything to help?" Holly handed April the phone so she could talk to her mom directly.

"Not at the minute," April sighed, "but maybe tomorrow, once I have sorted everything out in my head?" April phrased the comment as a question.

"Whenever you to talk, about anything, I will be here." Stacey said earnestly.

Tears stung Aprils eyes, so she just nodded her understanding and handed the phone back to Holly.

"I'm glad you are all safe, but do you think you could try and stay out of trouble until I get home?" Stacey asked.

Holly chuckled. "Yeah, we can probably manage that."

"Good, and I wasn't joking about getting your hosts something to eat either." Stacey yawned.

"If anyone is hosting us, its Splinter, and I always make sure to get his favorite tea." Holly bragged.

"I still want pizza." Mikey demanded. Holly threw a cushion at him.

Stacey smiled, "I'll call you again tomorrow before I catch my flight."

"OK, I'll talk to you later." Holly said.

"I love you." Stacey said.

"I love you too." Holly replied.

"Not as much as she loves Raph." Mikey shouted as fast as he could.

"MIKEY!" Raph yelled as Holly hung up the call. "You're dead!"

Michelangelo yelled out and sprinted as fast as he could around the lair to get away from Raph. Holly just shook her head, "and here I was thinking that only human boys were dumb."
April snorted and wiped away the few tears that had leaked out. "No, I don't think its limited by species."

The girls chuckled as Leonardo tried to pry Raph off of their baby brother.

"Oh, would you relax already." Holly shouted at Raph over Mikey's squeals of pain, "You don't need to fly off the handle every time you feel embarrassed."

"That's not the issue here." Raph snapped back, but he did let Mikey go.

"Isn't it?" Holly asked with disbelief written all over her face.

"No," Raph doubled down, "Mikey needs to learn when to keep his mouth closed." He glared at his little brother.

"He does it because you react to it." Holly said going back to her laptop.

"I wouldn't have to react, if he didn't open his mouth." Raph was getting mad, and the rest of the group had fallen silent. They were watching the exchange like a tennis match, flicking their gaze between Raph and Holly.

Holly took a breath before she spoke again, "OK Raph, whatever you say." She began typing on her laptop.

"That's it?" He demanded.

"Yup, I don't have an issue with Mikey's teasing. But if you do, that's your bag." Holly shrugged at him and continued working.

Raphael snorted in annoyance and stomped off to sulk in his room.

"Thanks for sticking up for me." Mikey said "Usually Raph just beats me up until he gets bored."

"No problem. Although, if you know hes going to hurt you, why do you wind him up?" Holly asked.

"Because its easy." Mikey shrugged.

The rest of the group hung out and helped to work on the files for as long as they could stay awake. Mikey gave up first, but no one was surprised. He disappeared to his room to play a handheld game long before Leo finally left yawning loudly. Donatello retired to his lab to be able to continue working while April and Holly got comfortable on the couches. Holly laid back in a corner of the couch with her laptop propped up on her legs, while April slept on the section of the couch that was perpendicular to where she was.

Holly was still trying to decode the files with Donatello. She could see his edits in the files as she went and they left notes for each other to double check certain words, or to compare thoughts. The lair was quiet. She hopped up after a couple of hours to stretch and to grab a drink. As she was washing the glass she used, Raph spoke from behind her.

"What are you still doing up?"

"Working, and your self?" He didn't answer her, so she provided him with one "Brooding no doubt."

She leaned back against the sink and crossed her arms. He still didn't answer. "OK, well great talk Raph." She moved to walk back to the couch.

"Don't you worry about what people might think about you?" Raph blurted out.

"What?" She almost laughed as was genuinely caught off guard by the question.
"When Mikey said that thing earlier," He was clearly struggling to express himself, "Don't you worry what your mom might think?"

She blinked stupidly at him for a moment, trying to process what he was asking. "No, not really." She racked her brains trying to understand. "Listen, I'm usually pretty good at knowing what you're talking about, but this time I am totally lost."

"What would your mom think about you seeing someone like... Well, me?" Raph deflated with the last two words.

Holly understood now, and she was surprised that he would care about such a thing. "To be completely frank, its none of her business who I date." Raph's eyes snapped up to hers. " I mean, so long as they're age appropriate, and not getting me into anything illegal, I hope she would let me use my judgment on who I choose to date." It was Raph's turn to blink in astonishment. "Besides, if she told me not to see someone, I'd probably just double-down and stay with them even longer." She smiled at him, hoping that he would relax a little.

It didn't work, he frowned worriedly at her. "Even if she disapproved, you'd intentionally ignore her?"

"Are you telling me you have never explicitly done something because someone told you not to?" She asked him skeptically.

"Of course I have, but this is different." He still looked concerned.

"Listen, my mom already likes you guys. She wouldn't be so worried about whether or not you're eating if she didn't." She said, "but, if you want her to like you, you need to actually say something to her."

"I've talked to her." He blurted out.

"You've said like three words while she's been in the room. I don't think you've even said 'hi' to her." Holly said a little exasperatedly.

Raph lapsed back into sulky silence.

"Look, I don't quite understand why you are so worried about this. But if you really want my mom to like you, you have to put in some effort. Shutting down so you can avoid any awkward exchanges is not going to get you very far." Holly left him to stew, she threw herself back on the couch and picked up her laptop again. She heard him return to his room, he shut the door softly though, probably so he didn't wake up the lair. But it was better that the usual slamming doors.

Holly was quite riled up from the conversation, so she worked late into the morning, only sleeping for a couple of hours before she woke up to go back to the school to find out what the school was doing about the whole intruder situation.