Displaced

Chapter 7

Karai paced across the catwalk overlooking the makeshift lab. She had successfully secured the service of Baxter Stockman and soon the Turtles. She cast a baleful glare at the Red masked turtle lounging behind two of her best ninja. She had been furious when she realized the shell prosthetic was missing; however her hostage had just shrugged when accused and stated that if he had taken the prosthetic, he wouldn't still be here.

Karai couldn't disagree and was just stuck waiting for the turtles to show up. She didn't need to wait long. Large shadows started to cross the floor below. Karai looked up, unsurprised to see the turtles filling the skylights. The three looked around carefully. Karai narrowed her eyes wondering where the small one was. If she could get ahold of him; he'd be a much easier hostage to threaten than her current one.

Karai waited and in short order the turtles made their way down and into the warehouse. They always reminded Karai of dinosaurs. It never failed to unsettle her; these created things walking around like they were equal to the noble Foot Clan. No, like they were better somehow. It was appalling.

The one in blue cloth looked up at her; a suspicious look on his face, "Karai; we've kept our end of the deal. Release our brother."

Karai gripped the railing in front of her, "I believe the deal was for your help with the portals. Surely the little turtle wants to go home?" Then she grinned, "Unless you want him to stay?"

The blue one nodded to the Purple one. That one was outfitted with technical gear all over. It quickly joined Baxter Stockman near the portal machine. The two of them rapidly descended into technobabble. So long as she accomplished Shredder's mission. She glanced again at the Blue and Orange turtles. It was such a joke to call them that. And why hadn't they called out to the….

"Stop the Red one!" Karai suddenly cried.

"Calm down; can't a turtle put on his gear in peace?!" Came the grumpy response.

Karai looked on in surprise. Someone in black biker gear; complete with a helmet, was standing beside her hostage. Karai looked closer, noticing the deformation underneath the biker gear. That must be the other turtle; the dimension hopping one. He was holding some of the red one's gear; gauntlets, a hoodie and sai.

"I did not give you permission to equip my hostage." Karai pointed out.

The small turtle shrugged, before passing the Red turtle his hoodie.

Karai rolled her eyes before walking around to the scientist, "Stockman how long until you are able to reopen the portal?"

The portly scientist turned with grinning excitement, "Oh, it could be some time; perfecting the harmonizing with the other dimension…"

Karai stabbed a knife into the scientist's table, right between the scientist's fingers, "You have two days to open a portal to Krang's warship." She tilted her head toward the purple turtle, "Your new assistant should be able to help. Especially since both the red turtles are now my hostages."

Baxter Stockman shuddered, and turned back to his work a bit subdued. The purple one narrowed its eyes at Karai; however he remained quiet. Karai turned to deal with the excess turtles.

Leo nodded toward the Red one, "You good to stay put for a bit Raph?"

"Eh, order me some pizza and I'll be fine. And hey; it gets me out of Tiny Sensei's training!" The red one dropped his massive hand onto the one in bike gear. The smaller one staggered, but held up.

The blue one nodded to the orange one, "Mikey, you two head out and get some pizza. I'll stay here."

"On it! Uh," The roundest one looked around, "I'm just buying for us right? Not the whole Foot?"

"Just us Mikey." The red one rumbled.

"Right!" Then he darted forward. Before Karai's guards could stop him, he scooped up the bike gear clad turtle and jumped up to the second level. Then with a dramatic hop he was out through a skylight.

Karai glared at her guards, who just shrugged sheepishly. Turning she saw the Blue clad one settle into a meditation stance. Fighting the urge to pout, Karai returned to her perch on the catwalk above. That watched feeling had returned.

Mikey landed safely on a rooftop a few away from the warehouse; carefully setting his companion down.

"Hey, warn a fella before you cave in his ribcage going through the roof!" Casey griped as he pulled off his helmet.

Mikey winced; normally they worked pretty hard to not hurt their human friends, "Sorry; had to make it look good."

Casey just wrapped his arms around his torso, "Ugh, I'm going to need to ice these bruises. Never realized you guys were holding back so much when we were sparing."

"Well, Raph honestly felt bad about tormenting you so much when we first met; and we'd all hate to hurt one of our first friends outside of our family…."

"Except when putting on a show for Karai apparently!" Casey griped.

Mikey grinned, "And what a show it was! She totally thought you were Raphael."

At the mention of the smallest turtle Casey turned back toward the warehouse, "You think he made it in?"

"Oh yeah. He is impossible to find during hide and seek. I've no doubt the Foot had no clue he's in there."

Raphael moved carefully through the building. He had to sabotage the machine long enough for Donnie to download whatever they needed to make the portal. Donnie had claimed he needed twelve hours; and that's what Raphael intended to give him.

Leo was wearing a small microphone so Raphael could listen in on what was going on. Donnie was babbling about something or other; so Raphael tuned him out. He had some time to scope out what sort of trouble he could cause. And so he was back to crawling around in vents. It really amazed him how the Foot still refused to cover the vents; even through Karai knew about him. He wasn't sure if he should be insulted or just glad this version of the Foot is a bit incompetent despite their technological advancements.

Still, he moved cautiously. While Casey and Mikey were standing by with the cops to sweep the warehouse on Leo's orders; it didn't excuse sloppiness in the mission. So Raphael was moving fairly slowly. He would rather die than admit his back still hurt a bit.

All that went out the window when he heard Leo gasp, "What is that?"

Raphael froze as sounds of chaos filtered through the small earpiece he wore. "Shut it down!"

"It's not even on!"

"Then explain the portal!"

"It's opening from the other side."

Then silence. Raphael was crawling forward even as he listened, stealth abandoned. In seconds he was at a vent, peering down on a scene of chaos. Everyone was backing away from a crackling purplish sliver hovering in the air. Bits of metal were flying through the portal and seemed to be assembling themselves. Leo and Donnie were standing beside each other, weapons drawn. He couldn't see Raph or Karai from this angle.

Leo called out, "Shut down the power!"

"We can't, the portal is now self-sustaining!" Baxter Stockman yelled back.

Leo and Donnie leaned their heads together talking quickly. Raphael scrambled back and quickly made his way around to the other side of the warehouse; the noise from below masking his movement. From the other side he could see where Raph was flexing his hands. His guards had turned and had guns aimed at him to keep him as a hostage. Karai was motioning her ninja to surround the robot that was nearly complete. As Raphael watched, a fat and slimy kraang came out of the portal and landed in the control of the robot. It wasn't like any kraang he was familiar with.

Silence filled the space as the portal abruptly closed. There was a soft hum as the robot came online.

"Graaa, well, well, well. You rang?" The Kraang asked with a lopsided smug grin; little tentacles waving.

Karai dropped down, "You are Commander Kraang?"

"Kraang; yes, I am Commander Kraang. What do you want?"

Karai carefully positioned herself in front of the massive armor, "You will build a prosthetic for Master Shredder. Then we will return you to your dimension."

A dark laugh was the only answer. Raphael took that as the moment to try and strike at the guards on Raph. He took them down quickly but was abruptly pulled behind Raph. The larger turtle gripped him tightly, through Raph never took his eyes off the robot. Raphael briefly struggled before giving up. There was no breaking Raph's grip short of stabbing him, and that seemed a poor response to the situation.

Kraang had stopped laughing, "Oh, you, you really mean that." Abruptly the robot seemed to grow three feet, "Listen sweetheart. You stole one of my trophies from me; and from the sound of it, you damaged him while unfreezing him. And then you have the gall to try and make demands of me?"

"You have no choice, you are outnumbered and trapped." Karai reasoned.

Kraang snorted, "You really are as dumb as the other earthling. I open portals daily. I've had one open on the roof the whole time."

Shadows began passing over the interior of the warehouse as drones started to look in from the outside through the skylights. A palpable nervousness spread through the Foot Ninja. Raphael felt like he was holding his breath.

Kraang grinned, "I'm a reasonable guy." Then he snapped his eyes over toward where Raph was hiding Raphael, "I'll trade for the other dimension hopper though. Give him to me and I'll leave my trophy here instead of taking him."

"The turtle?" Karai asked skeptically.

"Not the big one; behemoths are a dime a dozen across the universe. The little one."

Raph huffed but stood to his full height. Raphael found himself being held like a football; through his arms were free. Raph's expression gave more rebuttal than his words ever could. Raphael rolled his eyes.

Karai narrowed her eyes as she turned back toward Kraang, "Why do you want him?"

Kraang stroked his beard, "He doesn't seem to be from a dimension I've conquered before. Having a native is the easiest way to get the correct resonance to reach a dimension." Then he grinned, "Why do you think I collect my trophies? Now what do you say?"

Karai's lip curled in distaste, "You misunderstand me." She drew her blade, "You will build the prosthetic for Master Shredder."

Kraang laughed again, "Your funeral."

Then his robotic arm swatted Karai across the room. She landed well and was quickly back on her feet. At that point the skylights caved in as robots poured in. They were all similar to the construction style of the robot body Kraang was piloting; though these were autonomous.

"Fall back!" Leo called out; his swords striking at some of the robots that got to close to him.

Raph was in motion before Leo could finish. Raphael only had a moment to brace himself before Raph was flying through a brick wall like he was the Kool-Aid man. He skidded to a stop in the street as the bricks landed around him. Raphael uncurled and looked up at the splintering purple portal in the sky. It was nothing like the portals he was used to.

"Woah." Raphael offered.

Raph snorted, "Yeah."

Raphael squirmed out of Raph's loosened grip before quickly drawing his sai out, "How do we close it?"

Raph turned back to the hole he had made. In short order Leo and Donnie followed, escaping the battle between the Foot and the Kraang. Leo frowned, "Get to the roofs."

The four of them quickly climbed and were swiftly joined by Mikey. The orange banded turtle had wide eyes, "Dudes! What happened? The portal opened and just started pouring out robots!"

Raph grumbled, "We noticed. Where are the cops?"

"Casey's with them. They're setting up a perimeter to minimize the impact of this." Mike explained.

Raphael moved to the edge of the roof. A car was pulling up to the warehouse. Several Foot surrounded the car and opened the door. Shredder stepped out, in powered armor. Raphael felt the sound fade away; he could still feel being jerked around when Shredder tried to free his claw from his shell.

At least I know you die with me.

A hand dropped onto his shoulder and pulled him back from the edge. Raphael spun around with a strike. Mikey was behind him, his hands held up with a concerned smile on his face, "You okay Raphael?"

Raphael blinked before reaching up to where his shell prosthetic was, "Yeah…yeah.. Shredder's arrived."

Leo came to the edge to look down, "That may work in our favor. Let them keep each other busy. Donnie; where is the portal drawing its power from on this side?"

Donnie had all his holograms up. "The first one is the New York Power Grid. The second is," Donnie looked over uncomfortable, "It's the device Stockman was working on. If we destroy it; we may not have another chance to figure out how to send Raphael home."

A brief silence fell over the group. Raphael stepped forward, "Destroy it. We can't let Kraang overrun the city on a maybe. Then we be sure Shredder goes with Kraang when we close the portal behind him."

Leo gave Raphael a curious look. Then he turned toward the other, "Tiny Sensei has spoken."

Casey nervously tapped on the ground with his foot as he waited. The cops have surrounded the ten block radius; and were safely evacuating the workers from the neighboring warehouses. The Portal had finally stopped pouring out robots; however it was now floating out metal that was assembling into some sort of machine.

Finally his phone chimed. Casey was quick to bring it up to his ear, "Casey, go."

"Casey! Kill the switch!" Mikey shouted over the line.

"What?"

"Gimme that," Raph's gruff voice cut in, "Casey, we need to turn off the power to this thing. If you can get the power grid turned off or isolated or something, we'll take care of the other source."

"Look out!" Donnie called from somewhere in the background.

The phone abruptly cut off. Casey sighed. As he turned to the police chief he had a sinking feeling that the turtles would have the easy job.

Leo cut down another robot as it reached for him.

Donnie smacked another away as he asked, "Why are they coming after us?"

Leo glanced over as where Raph and Raphael were tearing the robots apart, "It might be Raphael. Kraang said something about finding his dimension using him."

Raphael smashed the head of a robot in front of him, "Then let's use that. Where should I lead them?"

Leo kicked back a robot, "Mikey, Raphael, follow me. Donnie, Raph, turn off the portal device."

All his brothers nodded. Mikey bounded over and tossed Raphael onto his back. Raphael was quick to latch on as Mikey abruptly scaled a nearby building. Leo followed to the roof, clearing it just as Shredder fought his way back out to the street. They briefly made eye contact. Leo was quick to turn away; he had far bigger problems in the immediate.

He turned to the two turtles with him. Raphael was covered neck to toe in black; his biker gear making him look like the classic idea of a ninja. Mikey bounced nervously on his toes, "Leo, are we making our stand here?"

"No." Leo turned toward a nearby ship, "We'll make our stand there. Come on."

Donnie trailed after his biggest brother. Raph was barreling through the robots like they were just flowers in a field. Donnie got the easy job of just following the wake of destruction. In short order Raph had cleared the path back inside the warehouse.

It was chaos. Karai was assisting Shredder with confronting Kraang; who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the fight if his gleeful laugher was any indicator. Foot ninja and robots were engaged all over the place. The scientists were all hiding or had long fled the scene. One remained.

"Baxter Stockman." Donnie frowned as he approached the scientist. Raph was close at his back, dealing with the occasional robot or ninja who got to close.

Stockman was looking up to the portal cracking the sky with an awed expression, "Look at it. It's beautiful."

Donnie grabbed the small scientist and shook him, "It's letting an alien warlord invade Earth. How do we shut it down?"

Stockman tore himself away, "Shut it down? No! This is an opportunity to study working portal technology. Imagine what we could learn!"

Donnie frowned, "No knowledge is worth the world. How do I shut it down?"

"You don't." Stockman finally looked him in the eye, "The kinetic power is self-sustaining once set in motion. The Portal is feeding it, and it feeds the portal."

Donnie frowned, he had hoped to avoid this. No time to regret through, "Raph, smash it."

A snort was his only warning. Donnie didn't even flinch as Raph stomped past him. Donnie could hear the machine's metal strain under the assault. Stockman's eyes went wide and he tried to get past Donnie, shouting, "No, Stop!"

Donnie turned slightly as he held Stockman back. Raph was tilting the machine; and once he finally got his fingers beneath it, he gave a mighty heave. The whole thing tilted with a groan; drawing the attention of everyone in the warehouse. Raph gave a mighty yell and tipped it; sending the whole thing crashing down. Delicate gears bounced from the wreckage and sparks were all around as wires snapped.

There was a curious silence as the whole warehouse watched the machine die.

Kraang snorted, "You turtles meddled plenty last time. I think I'll just take my trophies and go; you're too much trouble."

With that he kicked Karai across the warehouse and used jet rockets to lift himself to the roof, half the robots following. The rest chase the Shredder in his armor out onto the street.

Donnie hefted his bo; ready to fight the Foot beside Raph. Raph grinned as he spun his sai and braced for the attack. Donnie could feel his brother's disappointment when the Foot opted to flee in rapidly activated smoke bombs.

"Let's go catch up to our brothers; I'm sure they saved some Foot for you." Donnie offered.

Raph snorted with a grin as he headed for the door, "They better!"

Mikey bounced as he smashed another robot with his nunchakus. They had fallen back to a large cargo ship, and knocked down the small gangplank between the ship and the pier. It didn't do much, as the robots readily followed them. The three of them found themselves in a circle with their backs to each other as the robots followed them to the ship. The only good news was that the robots did follow them, and they were starting to dwindle in numbers.

Then the lights died.

"Hey! Casey did it!" Mikey exclaimed.

"About time." Raphael groused; stabbing a sai into a nearby robots.

Leo frowned, "Why isn't it closing then?"

The portal had shrunk, but had not closed.

"Third power source?" Raphael guessed.

All Mikey's instincts said drop, and he obeyed them without hesitation. Shuriken flew past where he had been. Leo and Raphael had also ducked and were back on their feet, weapons ready. Mikey stood as well, annoyed to see Shredder had joined them.

"Turtles." Shredder hissed, stepping forward.

Mikey noticed Raphael tense; and not in a battle ready way. Leo however was watching something else, "His suit. That's got to be the third source."

Mikey looked again. There was a weird purple glow to the Shredders armor now. But it didn't seem to spiral toward the portal like the other power sources had.

Mikey shifted his stance, slipping closet to Raphael, "So what's the plan?"

Shredder stumbled, and snapped his head up to look at a point behind them. Mikey risked looking over his shoulder. Kraang landed roughly in his massive robot suit, "Kraang; I'm taking my trophies; hand them over and I'll let you live."

"You want the Shredder? Take him." Leo called out.

"I will; him and the little dimension hopper." Kraang laughed, small tentacles waving.

"No Deal Dude!" Mikey shouted.

"Attack! Kraang." Kraang was quick to follow up with charging himself.

The three turtles scattered, each darting in a different directions. Mikey flipped off of Kraang's back to land on the top of the pilot house. It gave him a good vantage of the chaos. Leo was a whirl of blades. Raph and Donnie were wading into the fight from the pier; tackling some of the Foot ninja that were trying to back up the Shredder.

Speaking of, Mikey swung his head around. The giant glowing mechanical armor was easy to spot. The small black clad form Shedder was bearing down on was much harder to keep an eye on. Mikey found himself in motion before he really through about it. He tried to keep an eye on Raphael, but he kept disappearing behind other combatants. What Mikey could see, was the way Raphael seized up as Shredder approached him.

It was the same full body flinch that he had done when Mikey asked that stupid, stupid, question. And it left him defenseless as Shredder stopped in front of him.

"I'll not let Kraang have anything he wants." Shredder promised as he raised one bladed arm.

Mikey flew between them as the arm fell. It hurt; oh did it hurt. The blades sank deep into his shell. Mikey curled around Raphael regardless; determined that no Shredder, in this dimension or another, was going to hurt this turtle twice.

Mikey was vaguely aware of his name being called by his brothers; however Raphael's horrified, "Mikey?" was the only one he answered.

"Can't let Shredder stab my little brother Dude." Mikey grinned through the pain.

Then Shredder tried to free his claw from Mikey's shell. That caused Mikey to yelp in pain as he was dragged backwards. It also freed Raphael to dart out of his grip and jump over him; directly onto Shredder with a wild yell.

Mikey wasn't entirely sure what Raphael did, but the pull on his back abruptly stopped. Mikey dropped back down to the deck of the ship unceremoniously with a pained groan. He turned as his brothers joined him to see what had happened. Raphael was tightly engaged with Shedder; and Shredder was missing and entire arm of his suit. Leo snarled, "Donnie, help me depower Shredder's suit. Raph, keep Kraang busy. Mikey, we'll be right back for you."

"Okay, okay…I'll just," All his brothers darted off with pats on his shoulder or shell, "I'll just stay here then."

Mikey stumbled to his feet; the pain in his back still pronounced. Leo and Donnie were trying to assist Raphael's ruthless attack on Shredder. The giant mech suit couldn't even touch the small and fast turtle. Looking the other way, Mikey could see Raph had hoisted Kraang up into the air with a bear hug. This had confused the droids who hesitated in their attack. It also had the added bonus of letting Raph slap his hands over Kraan's mouth.

Mikey took another deep breath and looked around. As he did; he realized he wasn't the only bystander in the fight. There was a kraang droid with a suspicious purple glow feeding from it to the portal. The third power source.

"Bingo." Mikey breathed. Now how to destroy it?

He snagged his grappling hook; it was a risky plan. But with his brother occupied, what else could he do? One quick toss later, and he was able to violently haul the robot closer to him.

"Stop him!" Kraang howled from Raph's grip.

Mikey lunged forward awkwardly to seize the robot, "Donnie, how do I turn it off?" The metal arm stabbed into his shell swung about disconcertingly.

Donnie bounded over; and with a flick he released the blade on the edge of his bo. One quick stab latter and the robot before them stopped its glow. Donnie hauled Mikey back as the robot started to lift into the sky.

"Hang on Raph." Leo called out as he hauled Raphael off Shredder.

Mikey turned just in time to see Leo kick Shredder into Kraang. Raph got his arms clear just in time; quickly stepping back from the flailing leaders.

Kraang was quick to seize onto Shredder, "One trophy is better than none. Kraang."

"What? Release me!" Shredder demanded.

His flailing was off though; and not what one would expect of a master ninja. Mikey frowned. Shredder was acting like…well Raphael. Before he could ponder it more; both disappeared through the portal. With a final snap; the portal closed and the bright blue sky returned.

With all threats dealt with Mikey dramatically slid to his knees, "Oh the pain!"

"Yeah right. Ye're probably already numb to it." Raph groused.

Donnie poked at the blades stabbed into Mikey's shell, "Let's wait until we're back in the lair to pull this out; I'm honestly not sure how deep it went."

Raphael hesitantly came to stand in front of Mikey. He shifted nervously for a moment. Then he looked at Mikey with a small smile, "Thanks for….thanks."

"Anytime little dude. I meant what I said." Mikey responded with a wide grin.

Raphael just returned the smile as the cops arrived. Donnie and Raph helped him up and they started to head back, trailed by a concerned Raphael. Mikey grinned as Leo tried to explain what happened to the irate police chief; glad he didn't need to explain this whole mess.

April hefted the stack of pizzas in her arms. She had finally excused herself from hunting for the story on the portal that appeared and disappeared. She knew the turtles had been headed over to rescue Raph, however the timeline was all off from what Leo had originally planned. It left her plenty curious as to what exactly happened. She juggled the boxes as she pulled the hidden lever to open the door to the lair.

To her disappointment; the turtles were sprawled all over the place already chowing down on a pile of pizzas.

"April! Is that more pizza! You are a goddess; beautiful and terrible!" Mikey was already bounding over with his usual flirtations. He eagerly took the new stack of pizzas.

April eyed the bandages around the friendly turtle's torso, "Mikey, did you get hurt?"

Mikey actually struck a pose, clearly proud of himself, "I saved Raphael from the Shredder."

"Don't let him get started." Came Leo's frustrated comment.

Raph tapped him on the arm good naturedly, "Y'er just mad it wasn't you taking a bullet for someone else. Gotta' share the heroics."

Everyone's relaxed attitude assured April there were no serious injuries. Still, she didn't see the smallest turtle in the area. "Is Raphael okay?"

Donnie rolled over in his chair, a half eaten pizza slice in hand, "Yes; however he was hoping all the portal stuff might help his brothers find him," Donnie motioned to where he had the roof feed pulled up, "So he's over on the roof."

April considered the small figure on the screen, "Will it?"

Donnie sighed, "Unlikely; however unreasonably stubbornness is a universal for Raphaels apparently."

"Hey!" came the indignant cry from Raph.

Leo bit unhappily into his pizza, "Casey went to bring him back; hopefully he'll have more luck than us."

April shook her head as she had a seat. Snagging her own pizza slice se asked, "I'm glad no one was seriously injured. So, what happened anyway?"

She settled in as the brothers all launched into the explanation.

Casey came up to the building in question. He pulled out his phone and quickly called Raphael.

As soon as the line connected Casey started, "Hey Raphael, I brought pizza. Mind letting me up?"

"Fire escape is on the left." Came the grumbled reply.

Casey walked to the left side of the building and was pleased when a dark shadow dropped the fire escape down to him. He climbed quickly, carefully balancing the lone pizza he kept from the others. Once he reached the roof he was unsurprised to see Raphael had sat down to resume his watch. Casey sat beside him and placed the pizza between them. They ate in silence for a while.

Then Casey asked, "You know your brothers aren't coming, right?"

"Yeah, I know." Came the numb admission, "It's been nearly three months now."

"So why are you out here then? A Vigil?" Casey asked.

Raphael looked down, "I don't think my brothers are dead. However, after seeing your version of the Kraang; I think I'm so far from home that they're never going to find me."

Casey took that in for a moment. Then he asked, "So what are you going to do about that?"

Raphael snorted, "Haven't decided yet. I was hoping for…inspiration or something. Donnie would have opened a portal. Leo probably would have sent a message through meditation or something. Mikey just has his luck." Raphael jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "Best I can do is some graffiti in case someone shows up."

Casey considered the message. Whoever owned the building left it up; or hadn't noticed it yet. Then he grinned, "It's better than relying on luck."

Raphael gave an amused huff as he ate some more pizza.

Casey looked forward and let his smile drop, "Sometimes what you want more than anything is beyond your power. You gotta know when to push and when to give up. You're a fool if you waste energy on the impossible."

"You want me to give up?"

"You've done everything you can. You left a message; you've been watching the feed. At this point; have Donnie set up a motion sensor and set it to alert your phone. Then check on the message every couple of months. Beyond that, what can you do?"

Raphael looked away with a frown on his face. Then he turned back to Casey, "What was you impossible thing?"

Casey sighed, "For my Dad to say he's proud of me. Problem is Dad's a jailbird; and beyond selfish. Over the years of trying I finally realized it just wouldn't happen. And I realized the best part of all those jail visits had been the cops." Then Casey stood up, "I'll admit; it took me years to accept what I had long suspected. And I've no doubt it will take you time too. I'll let the turtles know you just need some time to think in peace."

Raphael actually started laughing at that, "If I had any doubt I'm in as far distant a dimension as possible; that cinched it."

"Why?"

Raphael stood as well, "Casey Jones is many things; but he ain't smart or wise. Yet here you are." Then he shook his head as he picked up the now cold pizza, "And you're right. Let's head back. There's nothing else I can do here."

Raphael was unsurprised to see April being told an exaggerated version of events when he and Casey returned to the Lair. They were greeted briefly before the four brothers resumed trying to tell their version of events.

Raphael elbowed Casey toward them, "I'll be right back."

Casey nodded and moved to join the others. Raphael headed for his room; even as he stared working on all the clasps of his improvised leather armor. By the time he reached the room, he had shucked off the comfortable jacket. He hung it carefully; he'd need to make a proper stand for it eventually. Then he reached for the black poncho Raph gifted him when he first woke up. Pulling it over his head; he eyed where he had the tablet charging. It was on and showing the rooftop feed. Nothing; same as always.

Raphael stepped closer to it. Normally; he'd pick it up and cart the tablet with him around the lair; just in case. Now however Casey's words had him pause. It oddly reminded him of a simple lesson his Father taught him right after the fiasco of Spike turning into Slash. When missing loved ones, focus on the friends you have right now.

Raphael sighed; torn. It wasn't in him to give up. Nor was it in him to play the fool. Laughter erupted from something said down in the central area. Raphael shook his head. He just had to do what he knew was wise.

He picked up the tablet; and turned it off.

The End

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