"Please?"

"No."

"Even just a little bit?"

"No."

"Aw, come on, Raph! Unless you want me to go kiss April to find out for myself," Mikey teased, turning as if to go do just that. Raphael grabbed the back of his shell and made him sit back down on the edge of the building. He crossed his arms back over his chest.

"I can't really describe it, Mikey," he said vaguely.

"Sure you can! Here, I'll make it easy. Just fill in the blank - 'The kiss was --?"

Raphael looked over at Michelangelo crookedly.

"Sweet? Sour? Squishy?" Mike offered.

"It was ...like a kiss," his brother said helplessly.

"So... The whole world melted around you and it seemed as though there was nothing but the beating of her heart and your own. Your lips touched and it was soft and sweet like the song of a dove perched on the branches of a peach tree...just burst into bloom?"

"...What?" Raphael asked, stupified.

"You know... like they say in those romance books... You know ...where the girls on all the covers look like they're always fainting," Mike said with a knowing nod.

"You've been reading romance novels?

"Dude... I may be a hardcore, badass ninja...but I am a gentleman at heart," he replied, closing his eyes and pressing his hand dramatically to his chest. "Besides... those girls are hot."

"Right," Raphael chuckled, shaking his head. "I ...guess that's how you might describe it...if you were a pansy."

"Raph, dude... Everyone's a pansy to you," Mike pointed out. "Though... I can't picture you so badass after you were making out with April." Raphael promptly pulled Michelangelo in a headlock.

"We were NOT making out! And that don't change anythin' about me, got it??" he said, squeezing a little. Michelangelo flailed his arms a little and tried to unlodge his head from his brother's rock hard grip.

"Uncle! Uncle! I get it!" he declared until Raphael let go so he could take a deep breath. "So...are you guys like...boyfriend and girlfriend now?" Raphael rested his hands on his legs and looked out over the city, seeming a little put off by the question. He was thankful that the question was put on hold due to the resounding noise of sirens in the distance. "Looks like we're gonna be busy tonight," Mikey grinned.

Raphael and Michelangelo hopped to their feet and took off over the rooftops, diving down into the shadows of the alleys halfway to their destination. Raph was hoping that there would be plenty of thugs tonight, he was feeling up for a good bout of exercise to get out all this excess excitement he was feeling. He wasn't used to having his stomach in this sort of knot.

By the time the brothers got to the source of the sirens they were greeted with an overwhelmingly large fire consuming what was discovered to be a downtown museum. They peered out from the dark, the flames illuminating their figures from across the street in short bursts. The street was blockaded with police cars and fire engines, people screaming as another window burst out and showered glass onto the sidewalk.

"Did we miss the party?" Mike asked, his expression bewildered and eyes intent on the size of the flames.

"Don't know," Raph replied vaguely, his eyes scanning the scene for any sign of the people responsible for the incident. It was a little difficult with all the distractions crowding the street and in the end he gave up trying. "It didn't take us that long to get here... This fire just started."

"But how could it consume the building so fast? Most of it is stone, right?" Michelangelo offered, looking to his brother for answers he could not conjure for himself.

"That's the million dollar question, there," came a third voice. The two glanced behind them to see that the hockey masked Casey had joined them on the scene, his sports gear in tow.

"Did you see who did this, Casey?" Mike asked.

"I got here before the cops, as usual," he replied. "But in just enough time to see the first explosion." He leaned on the hockey stick he had out at ready.

"And you didn't go after the culprits?" Raphael jabbed, irritated.

"There wasn't anyone to go after. I watched the whole scene and not a person walked away from the site," Casey replied, noting the tone in Raph's voice and matching it with some annoyance of his own.

"Yeah, well, they coulda been hiding in some building close by. It could have been a pre-set bomb," Raphael pointed out, muttering under his breath.

"So, what, am I Superman alluva sudden?" Casey replied, lifting his arms. "Last I checked I didn't have the x-ray vision to check out all those buildings. I woulda thought you'd end up with that, what with the mutant goo and all." Raphael snorted loudly.

"Yeah, man. Why can't we fly or turn invisible or anything?" Michelangelo piped up, his love for comic book lore quickly overruning his perception of the tense situation.

"We aught to tell Splinter about this," Raphael suddenly said and both Mike and Casey gawked at him a little bit. It was not quite the norm for Raphael to suggest they tell Splinter anything OR get the other brothers involved. He was, after all, a lone wolf by choice. He looked to his younger brother purposefully. "Go on, Mikey. Someone needs to stay here in case someone turns up." Michelangelo looked at his brother a moment, still a little bit weirded out at his sudden act of responsibility, but soon turned with a nod and bounded off into the dark to do as asked. Once he was gone, Raphael turned back to the corner of the alleyway to check things out again. In truth, he didn't expect to see anything, but he didn't exactly feel like looking at Casey.

"I'm startin' to really believe you got knocked on the head or somethin'," Casey hummed, leaning against the other wall across from Raph. "I mean, first you get all up in my face about April...and now you're actin' like Leo."

"Didn't ask for a psycho-analysis, alright? Look, I got this taken care of. Why don't you take off?"

"See, now that sounds like you," Casey replied, not ready to be brushed off so easily by Raph's offish attitude. He never was. They stood a moment in silence with only the roar of the fire clogging the air. It disturbed Raphael a little that it hadn't seemed to die down in the least in the minutes passed. Despite the fact there was some flammable material inside, it seemed like the fire just wouldn't quit. Maybe it was all his imagination, though. Maybe time had started to drag. "So, really...what is up your--?"

"Shh," Raphael hissed.

"What? Just tryin' to make some-."

"Would you shut up?" Raphael whispered loudly and then gestured with his head to one of the rooftops across the street near the museum.

"Now...if that ain't a suspicious character I don't know what is," Casey hummed quietly as he squinted and peered across the street. It was true. New York had had it's share of colorful criminals but this one seemed to stand out just a bit from your regular punk. From what Raph and Casey could tell, it was a tall, lean man clothed in skin-tight light armor. He was bald and a ninja mask covered everything below his eyes. He did not stay at the scene of the crime long, and turned in the depths of the night to bound off to somewhere ahead of them.

Instinctively, both Raphael and Casey moved to follow, intent on not losing their suspect. They took to the tops of ajoining buildings across the street and sprinted along at almost inhuman speed. Even though New York remained illuminated in synthetic light, their prey stuck very closely to the thin shadows in his path. Raphael cursed under his breath as he came close to losing track of the figure altogether. He managed to find it again and pushed forward harder so as to close the gap and keep his sights on the man. He paid no attention to Casey or even bothered to check if the vigilante had kept up. If he turned his head for a second to check he was sure he'd lose the guy altogether.

Raphael was just nearing the edge of another rooftop when he was suddenly assaulted from behind, feeling a harsh blow to his shell that made him fall short of his jump and sent him careening down into the alley below. He smacked face first into the brick wall and bounced back into the one across the way, coming to a rough halt on his stomach in a smelly puddle on the alley floor.

Cursing under his breath, he moved quickly to his feet. How had he not felt that coming? How did this guy get behind him so fast. Raph was almost certain he'd seen him ahead mere seconds before, yet there he was. As soon as Raph lifted his eyes to the alley ahead of him he saw the ninja standing there, otherworldly stark white eyes glaring down at him.

"Think you're pretty slick, doncha?" Raphael huffed. He barely managed to get out the last word before he was back-handed across the face, sending him backward a few steps. No matter how he taunted he already had to admit, at the very least, that this bastard was fast. The ninja said nothing, only narrowed his eyes at the turtle before he turned and darted off into the dark again. Raphael hadn't exactly expected this since his opponent had seemingly issued the challenge to a fight - and then run away? It rather miffed him. "Get back here!" He raced after the unknown, intent on causing some major injuries whether it was the culprit of the museum explosion or not.

He ran through the back allies in the directions he was almost certain he heard the ninja go, and was just about to give it up when he rounded a corner and barrelled into Casey. The two stumbled and instinctively took offensive positions before they realized who each other was.

"Not you!" Raphael exclaimed.

"Real happy to see you too, Raph," Casey replied, sourly. He looked about as happy to find Raph as the latter did to find him. "Did you see where baldy went?"

"I did until he ran off that way!" Raphael replied, gesturing to the alley behind Casey.

"He wasn't goin' that way, he was going THAT way!" Casey insisted, jabbing his finger in the opposite direction. "I just CAME from that way!"

"And I just came from THAT way!"

"And you didn't see him?"

"No, because I was chasing him THAT way!" Raph pointed out again.

"That's impossible!" Casey replied, though he looked as though he wasn't sure it was.

"Damn it," Raph fumed.

Something started to beep. For a moment, both warriors looked puzzled, and then Raphael realized it was coming from him. He reached down and pulled the small communicator phone from his belt that Donny had made for the crew. He never used the thing, but they all insisted he carry it. Opening it up he poked around the buttons until his brother finally illuminated the mini-screen.

"Yeah, what?" he greeted, not so warmly.

"Happy to see you too," Donny replied. "We got word from Mikey about what was going on. Have you found anything out yet?"

"Yeah... A whole lotta nothin'," Raph hummed. "Was trackin' some guy but completely lost him out here." He cleared his throat a little, purposely neglecting to include the bit about getting snuck up on and knocked in the head.

"Any idea what the explosion was about?"

"How'm I sposed to know?" he replied. "Maybe he just likes blowin' things up."

"Maybe... but why a museum?" Donny asked, more himself than his brother. "I think I'm gonna do some research on the museum and see exactly what they were displaying there. Maybe they were looking for something important. ...Raph?...Raphael?" Donatello glanced waywardly back at the communicator screen to the left of his computer screen where he had pulled up some databases. The screen had gone fuzzy and Raphael had failed to respond. Donatello narrowed his eyes and peered at the screen a little longer, only to discover nothing through the static beyond the floor of the alley. "Um, guys?"

Leo and Mikey glanced over from the sofa where they had been formulating their own theories about the explosion.

"I think we have a problem," Donny said.

"What's up?" Leonardo said, walking over, followed by his younger brother.

"Raph's gone."