Chapter Thirty: Recon and Reassurance

Sunday night

"Why are you takin' me with you again?" Casey huffed as he did his best to keep up with Leo over the rooftops. Man, Leo's harder to run with than Raph—especially when he's all serious.

"Because you're the only one who isn't hurt or healing."

"Mikey looks fine." And he's an actual ninja, unlike me.

"Mikey had a pretty serious ankle sprain a few days ago. I don't want him to re-injure it on just a recon run."

"Then why'd you take me at all?" Casey ran around a chimney that Leo simply vaulted over.

"Just in case I ran into trouble." Leo spared a sideways glance at him. "I'm not planning on engaging the Gamer's men, but if they engaged us, I'd rather have you at my back than no one."

Casey grunted as he pulled himself up to slightly higher roof. I'm not sure if that's really flattering, or slightly insulting—I'm better than nobody, but only just? Or—the memory of twenty minutes earlier flashed through Casey's mind- maybe he just took me 'cause Don woke up just as he was about to leave, and he made him promise not to go to alone, and not to attack the Gamer. Leo said 'Don't worry, Don. I just want to keep tabs on him. And I was going to take Casey.' and then looked at me. He didn't even notice the big huge pile of blankets I was carrying to go sleep on Raph's floor…

Casey bent his knees to absorb the shock of jumping down to a fire escape, then leapt across the gap after Leo, ignoring the diminutive size of the dumpsters far below. Well, I guess I wasn't really tired yet, anyway. But what was I gonna do if I couldn't watch tv or play a game or go to my own apartment? Go scope out the Gamer's headquarters, I guess. I guess I don't wanna be shot with a dart again, if I went home alone, like Don and Leo say might happen.

Still, Casey grumbled under his breath as he followed Leo. So engrossed was he in his mental complaints that he nearly ran into Leo's shell when the turtle halted at the edge of a roof.

"Man, Leo, you gotta warn a guy-"

"This is it." Leo stared down at an unassuming neighboring roof. "The Gamer was here last night. I just need to know if he's still there."

Casey looked over the roof. He squinted into all the shadows and looked for a keypad by the door, cameras, and boxes that might be sensors. I must be worse at this than I thought, 'cause I don't see anything. But Leo says this was the place…

"Leo," he finally whispered in defeat, "I don't see anything." And I'll never learn ninja stuff...

"You're right," Leo said.

Casey blinked. "I-I am?"

"It's clear—at least the roof is. Yesterday it had so much tech security I couldn't even go down. But now it looks like the Gamer packed up shop." Leo's voice was flat.

"But… if he's not here, where'd he go?"

Leo lifted one shoulder in a shrug, then let it drop. He didn't look at Casey. "Some other hiding hole. Maybe to the Shredder. Maybe he skipped town, content in having harassed and humiliated us. Maybe he went to the Shredder with ideas on how to take us down. Wherever he's gone, it would take us months to find him again—unless, of course, he captures all of us again, and this time, Don can't make it through his insane death traps. And who knows what his scientists are up to—he turned me into a zombie that attacked my own family, and sent you and Raph to crazy places, and-"

Whoa, Leo can freak out almost as bad as Don. I gotta stop him before he—well, I dunno what a truly freaked-out Leo would do except go attack somebody, and the whole point is the guy he wants to attack is gone.

Casey grabbed Leo by the shoulders and turned the turtle to face him. "Leo! Listen ta me! Chill! Donnie showed dat guy who's boss, right? I think he just gave up."

Well, he stopped talking, but his eyes still look really… uh… dangerous. Casey cast about for another reason for Leo to calm down. "Besides, maybe da Gamer isn't actually gone yet. Maybe he just took da cameras off the roof 'cause he thinks we're too beat to go after him." Casey released one shoulder to scratch at the back of his own neck. "I mean, that's kinda true—Don and Raph are both still messed up, and Mikey-"

Leo sighed, and shrugged out of Casey's loosened grip. "I don't say this often, but you're right, Casey. I guess there's no harm in checking."

Score one for Casey Jones—successfully calming down Leo the serious turtle. And being right—two points!

Casey was busy congratulating himself and thus followed Leo down to the roof in question a second late. There, he barely had time to take a baseball bat out of his bag before Leo had confirmed that the roof was indeed clear of security technology. Then, while Casey moved toward the door, Leo disappeared into a vent opening. Huh. Well, I can't follow him there.

The door was locked, naturally. Casey tapped it with his bat, hesitating. I usually get in trouble for knocking doors down, unless they specifically tell me to.

Leo reappeared, face grim. "Let's go."

Uh oh.

Casey led the way. Nothing I say will knock him out of that mood now. Maybe Master Splinter or Don can cheer him up in the morning.

Day Eight

Monday, late morning

Don stretched for a screwdriver off on the left edge of his desk and stifled a groan. He grabbed it and sneaked a glance at Raph, who was slumped on his old office chair to his right, to see if he had noticed. Besides drinking the water and nibbling on the Ritz crackers Don had brought him at his request, Raph had barely moved since stumbling downstairs and dropping two translating devices on Don's desk: one half of Don's own translating prototype—the other was still attached to the sleeping Saja—and the forgnathu that the Othila had put on Raph at the beginning of his adventure and its single remaining earbud.

Leo, Casey, and Taevon had moved kitchen chairs to the corner far to the right of the couch, where they sat quietly talking. Mikey was nowhere in sight—Don couldn't remember if he was in his room, or in the kitchen. He hadn't been paying attention.

Meanwhile, Raph had raised an eyebrow. "Y'okay there, genius?"

Ignoring his sore neck, Don bent over the alien translating device. Now, to figure out how to get the cover off… "I fought a skyscraper full of Foot two days ago. Leo says it was well over two hundred. Yeah, yeah, I know, if it had been you or Leo, you wouldn't've had a scratch on you, and you wouldn't've been sore at all, but my best skills lie elsewhere."

"Don."

When Raph didn't say anything else, the purple-masked turtle tore his gaze up from the panel.

"I didn't say any o' that." Raph regarded him with exhausted yet sincere eyes. "Even if yer fightin' skills are second to yer hackin' and makin' stuff skills, yer about th'best hacker and techie on the planet, so that still makes you an amazing fighter. Besides, if it was me, I'd prob'ly get so mad I'd make a mistake or somethin', an' if it was Leo, he'd be so perfect he'd run outta energy two-thirds through. An' Mikey… he'd taunt and show off over the easy ones, an' then start complainin' an' get bored halfway through."

Huh. I hadn't thought of that. Their personalities would get in the way of their better skills. I guess me doing the minimum fighting required isn't always a bad thing. "Still, if it had been you and Leo, you would've made it through in half the time."

"If we managed to make it through that much fightin' without gettin' annoyed at each other…" Raph sighed. "Well, the Foot medbay would be a lot fuller, fer one thing. But that's not th' point, Don. Stop looking at all the what-ifs. You, all by yerself, made it through that shell-fer-brain's deathtrap. Bein' sore is nothin' ta be ashamed of—in fact, it's somethin' ta be proud of, 'cause ya didn't give up, even when ya had no idea how many Foot were left, an' you defeated a guy like Hun all by yerself, and you figured out Leo's collar in like, two seconds."

Raph had managed to lift his head off the headrest in this animated-by-comparison speech; now he let it drop with a slight groan. "Th' point is, stop sellin' yerself short, Donnie."

Don forced his gaze back to the tech in his hands. He cleared his throat. Not sure how to take all that. …But Raph's vote of confidence is… His chest swelled just a little. Good to know.

Raph pointed limply toward the forgnathu with a sigh. "That thing works pretty well. They didn't have any guns, except a launcher for alemnea balls, but that's prob'ly good, since th' rest of th' tech I saw looked pretty advanced. Oh, you woulda' liked that one game I saw…"

After adjusting the screwdriver, Don levered a bit more, and the cover loosened on that edge. "I'm hoping I'll be able to incorporate ideas from it into my prototype, but we'll see what the tech looks like once I get the cover off. Do you know what their power source-"

Don jumped when the device emitted a gasp and translated Saja's voice whisper, "Oh, no!"; the screwdriver slipped and screeched along the panel. In the same moment, his ears also picked up Saja's actual voice whispering in her own tongue from the couch.

The screwdriver clattered onto the floor as he jumped up and practically teleported over to her, leaving Raph in the figurative dust. Hoo boy, we've got a repeat of yesterday—except I don't think she'll attack Taevon. Even if she does, I know I can disarm her quickly enough. Although last time, I wasn't moving like a fifty-year-old.

When he saw her, however, Saja didn't look like she was about to bring out her knife on anyone. She was half sitting up but frozen in place, and her face had gone as chalky white as her complexion allowed.

She turned panicked brown eyes to Don. Garbled syllables spilled out of her mouth; the forgnathu still in Don's hand helped him understand. "It's another Jior—I know him—th-that's Taevon!"