"Peter?"

"Hm?" I don't look up from my microscope even as I hear MJ at the doorway. She says nothing for a long time, and I already know what she's going to say when she does decide to speak. As such, I decide to take my time, jotting down notes in the steno notebook besides me.

"You're beginning to remind me of those well-meaning but tragically flawed scientists in the old horror movies," she tells me at last. "You know, the ones who think they're on the brink of some important discovery that ends up being nothing but a crazy scheme that drives them mad. Usually, it's the scientist's love interest that ends up getting killed or seriously maimed, so I hope you understand why I'm more than a little concerned."

I turn to her and give her a wry smile. "Nice," I say. "You would actually thwart my next great scientific achievement just because you fear for your well-being? How very selfish of you, Mrs. Parker." Raising an eyebrow at my joke, she steps into the room.

"I just came in to make sure you ate something," she says, her eyes going over the equipment on my desk. "Not that I would blame you if you didn't have much of an appetite, considering that you've been examining turtle blood all evening."

Looking at my wristwatch, I see that it's almost eight o'clock. I hadn't realized that it was so late. "The Halloween Store closes at nine," I murmur to myself. "I really should pack it in so I can suit up and see if there are any ninjas prowling around." I look up to see my wife's green eyes staring exasperatedly down at me. Swiveling my chair around to face her, I say, "MJ-"

"I know, I know," she interrupts. "I'm not going to stand in the way of you performing your sacred duty and being a do-gooder. But think about it for just a minute, Peter. These guys are teenaged ninjas, and have been taking care of themselves all of these years with no one but Splinter and the occasional friend to help them. Do you really think that they're so over their heads that they need you expending all of your resources just to get to the bottom of things?"

"Don't get me wrong, MJ," I tell her as I slip an arm around her. She puts a hand on my shoulder as I explain, "These guys are strong. Way stronger than I would've ever imagined a group of pet turtles could be. And that's why I'm worried. If I know how strong they are, then maybe there are some bad guys out there who know, too. And maybe they want to use that strength for their own benefit." I shuffle through my notebook, showing her my rough sketches. "Take a look at this. This up here, it's a drawing of a normal turtle's blood cells."

"Funny," MJ says sarcastically. "I thought it was-"

"Don't even say it, MJ," I break in. "I'm a science teacher, not an art teacher. Anyway, down here, this is what Leonardo's blood sample looked like. Artistic interpretation aside, you can see the differences between the two. Leo's genetic code is a lot more complex, being a mixture of both turtle and human."

I turn the page. What follows next looks more like an abstract doodle of a war scene than anything that could've come out of someone's body. Noticing my silence, MJ asks what it is. I tell her, "This is what I saw when I studied the blood sample from Wolverine's glove. The one we found on the rooftops. This blood most likely belongs to one of Leo's brothers… or to whatever might've taken over their bodies during the moment in which Donatello freaked out and called me."

She remains silent for a moment before saying, "Okay, excuse me for being nothing but a silly little actress, but… that makes no sense. If you and Nightcrawler have a theory about evil spirits, how is it possible that it's affecting their blood? I was always under the impression that science and mysticism generally don't mix."

"That's what I can't figure out," I lament as I snap the notebook closed. "Kurt hasn't called me since he left for the X-Mansion, so I've been trying to tackle this with science. I was starting to think that maybe this doesn't belong to any of the turtles at all and that there's a flesh-and-blood villain at work… except that there are definitely enough common links between this sample and Leonardo's to prove that the two of them are definitely related. So unless there's a fifth mutant turtle that I don't know about who's been subjected to absolutely hellish genetic experiments, I've got not a single clue as to what this is all leading up to."

"Peter," MJ whispers levelly. "Patience is a virtue." I bitterly reply that she didn't manage to marry a very virtuous man. She laughs softly at my response. "Tiger, relax. I know you're worried about the turtles. I am, too. But until you and Kurt can compare notes, there's just not a whole lot you can do but observe. So go on; put on that sexy spandex suit of yours and check out the store."

I smile up at her. Every time I start moping about how awful my life is, I just need to remember who managed to fall in love with me. After all, how many other women can deal with being married to a superhero that most bad guys want to destroy and most decent folk believe to be nothing but a masked menace? "Baby," I tell her, "you're the greatest."

I put my other arm around her and am about to reach up to give her a kiss, when my cell phone goes off. Groaning, I lean my head against her stomach. "And my co-workers wonder why we don't have kids yet. Oh, if only they knew." MJ laughed again as she grabbed my phone and handed it to me. "It'd better be important," I mumble as I take it, despite not recognizing the number.

When I answer it, I hear Nightcrawler's hurried voice on the other line. "Parker, come quickly. I need your help. Leonardo is only semi-conscious, and I am not sure what more I can do for him, being as ill-equipped as I currently am. Bring smelling salts and bottles of water, and meet us on the roof of the movie theatre at Atlas Park."

Hey God? I say in my head. I was being sarcastic.

By the time I get to the rooftop, Leonardo looks like he's fully conscious.

"Aw," I crack as I land in front of him and Nightcrawler, "did I miss all the fun? Shucks, and I even broke out my good suit." From his seat on the ground, Leonardo looks up at me and offers a weak smile, his hand on his head.

"You're cracking jokes," he says. "That's great. That must mean that I'm not as bad as I feel." I notice that his voice is raspy, as though he was getting over a case of laryngitis. I really hope that doesn't mean that he had been screaming or anything. Judging by the look on Nightcrawler's face, I'm guessing that screams would be the least of my worries.

I crouch besides Leonardo and hand him one of the bottles of water I was carrying in a canvas bag. He gives me an appreciative glance, but says nothing as he takes it and begins gulping it down. Turning my gaze to Nightcrawler, I asked what had happened.

I see now that he's got a backpack of his own, which he brings to his lap as he shuffles through the books within. "I had made the trip into the city to visit an old friend of mine. Once in her house, I remembered that she had quite an impressive library herself, and asked if she would mind horribly if I devoted some of my visit towards research. Being the irresistible rapscallion that I am, she of course agreed. I soon stumbled upon an old Spanish text which, with her help, I managed to translate."

He takes out a large, dusty tome, which I imagine to be the book in question. "Since neither of us are native Spanish speakers, some of the finer points are still a little off. However, I have matched many of the details of recent events to the dealings of a certain group of demons. The 'incubation period' that we spoke of, the fabricated memories, and even the shadow puppets all seem to lead towards it being the work of these four mysterious beings. I am afraid that this is even more dire that I had imagined."

He opens up the book and shows me the text. It looks like something straight out of a musty old library specializing in demonology. There's a drawing of four inky black creatures standing around some sort of glowing orb that looks way too ominous for my liking. "Well," I murmur, "I don't know about you, but I suddenly feel the need to stack up on holy water and silver."

"I am afraid that would be a wasted effort,"Nightcrawler says, turning the book back towards him. "It would appear that these are much more powerful than mere monster movie fiends. These are demons with a specific purpose, a task that they have been working towards for hundreds of years. If they are indeed the ones that have been causing the current trouble, then these creatures have been trying for centuries to raise an ancient evil and unleash it upon the earth."

"Boy," I mutter as I hand Leonardo another bottle of water, "you'd think these guys would come up with a new racket."

"The text is written in a heavy dialect," Nightcrawler continues, "which made the translation even more difficult. This diablo antiguo is referred to on more than one occasion as El Cucuy. When I asked Amanda what this meant, she seemed confused. Some quick research told us that it is basically the Latin American equivalent of the Boogeyman."

"The Boogeyman?" I ask, skeptical. "You're telling me that a monster made up by adults to scare little kids is living in a Halloween shop and stealing turtles? Come on, Kurt, have a little more respect for my intelligence, okay?"

"Parker," Nightcrawler tells me, "you are a human spider talking to a blue-furred demi-demon and trying to protect four mutant turtle ninjas. I was not aware that doing some solid research would be considered an insult to your intelligence."

"And now I shut up," I respond. "Just as soon as I find out how it so happened that you encountered one rather parched reptile." I raise my eyebrow under the mask as I hand Leonardo yet another bottle of water, which he accepts thirstily.

"After pouring over the books as much as I could," Nightcrawler goes on, "I decided to switch on my image inducer and go back to the Halloween store. Now that I had several books with illustrations of particular artifacts, I had planned to keep a weather eye out for any strangeness. Upon entering the store, I once again began to show signs of an allergic reaction to the dust in the room. I had thought that perhaps this was a way by which a corrupt store owner hoped to minimize actual patrons, but I saw that there were several customers in the shop; I was the only one exhibiting any adverse reactions to being there. This actually seemed to mirror what I read about the polvo tesnudar used by the Boogeyman's demons."

"Polvo tesnudar?" I ask.

"Sneezing powder," Nightcrawler clarifies.

"Whoa… so now there's a Boogeyman out there who uses cheap practical jokes? You're jiving me, yes?"

"No," Nightcrawler tells me. "It is not used for laughs. It apparently is a way by which the demons can weed out those who are worthy to become their new vessels. According to this book, those who exhibit some sort of reaction to the powder are 'of a different make' than most humans. Once these demons find individuals who react to the powder, they will then put them under a sort of hypnosis by way of… would you care to guess?"

"Shadow puppets," I reply grimly.

"Correct," Nightcrawler nods. "It would seem that this powder—which was cleverly disguised as dust as a part of the Halloween décor—is tuned to effect only mutants. I quickly scanned the store for signs of any of the turtles, being careful to avoid looking at the walls. I spotted Leonardo in the back, mesmerized by something that only he could see. I tried to snap him out of it, but it did no good. When I attempted to pull him away, he surprised me by putting up quite a struggle." At this, Nightcrawler rubs his chin. If it weren't for his shadowy pigmentation and the darkness, I probably would see a bruise on it. "We were drawing some rather unfortunate attention to ourselves, and so I teleported us up here. When we emerged, he was barely conscious and appeared very ill. That is when I called you to come."

We remain silent as Leonardo finishes off the last of the water and heaves a heavy sigh, apparently trying to pull himself back together. Once he centers himself, he looks up at Nightcrawler and I, both grateful and embarrassed. "Thank, guys. I'm sorry to cause all this trouble. Nightcrawler, I… I hope I didn't hurt-"

"It is already forgotten," Nightcrawler says as he waves it away. "Please, now that you are better, perhaps you would not mind telling us what happened, and what you remember." As he brings up the remembering bit, Nightcrawler glances at me, his golden eyes shining with concern.

Rubbing his head once more, Leonardo stares blankly out into the night as he recollects the recent chain of events. "After I left the two of you this afternoon, I went back to the lair. Donatello was checking Michelangelo's shell cell, and they were talking as though nothing was wrong. When I asked if anyone's seen Raphael, they both looked at me and told me that he was sick in bed, just like he had been for the past couple of days. I hadn't noticed him being ill before this, so I began to wonder if what you guys said about scrambled memories wasn't true for all of us. When I went in to check on him, it also looked like he was injured, but he refused to fess up to it. After talking to him for a bit in veiled codes, I learned that he was thinking about what you and Wolverine had told him last night, about thinking that Donnie had gone missing. He said he couldn't understand it, and I could tell that he was more freaked out than he let on.

"Anyway, after a while, Don and Mike tell me that they're determined to get to the bottom of things and want to go check out the Halloween store. Raphael staggered out of bed and said that he wanted in, since he just knew that there was something weird going on. I normally wouldn't have let him while he was in that condition, but you can't say no to Raph when he's determined. The four of us went to the Halloween shop, and Mike and Don led Raph and I to the back, stating that they had a feeling that the answer was back there somewhere. Raphael was sneezing up a storm, and I wasn't feeling too good myself all of a sudden, but we went ahead.

"I can't vouch for Raphael, but I saw these weird shifting shadows on the wall, and it looked like… it looked like they were performing something, like a play. I got closer to it, hoping to figure out what they were trying to say. I'm afraid that after that, my mind blanks a bit. It was like I was slowly falling asleep and snapped at Nightcrawler when he tried to wake me up. The more he pulled me away, the more ill I felt… and it definitely didn't help when he teleported me out of there." At this, Leonardo gives Nightcrawler a wry glance. "I could've sworn I told you never to do that again without my permission."

"My apologies," Nightcrawler says rather sarcastically. "The next time I see that you are under hypnosis and are about to be possessed by a demon to aid in the resurrection of what could be the ultimate evil, I will leave you be."

After they share a quick laugh, I bring up, "Okay, so I'm guessing you don't know where the rest of your brothers disappeared to, do you?"

"No," Leonardo answers. "To tell you the truth, I'm almost afraid to go home. If I was actually led into a trap—whether willingly or no—then maybe you were right about me finding someplace else to sleep. I'll have to call Master Splinter and tell him to get out of there, too, just in case they…." Realizing what he's saying, he lets out a frustrated sound. "I can't believe this! I'm running away from my own brothers. One of you, come on; tell me how I can fight this thing to make sure that I get them back."

"Right now," Nightcrawler tells him, putting a hand on the turtle's shoulder, "the only thing you can do is stay away from that store until we know more about this. I can hide you and your master back at the X-Mansion while Spider-Man runs his tests on the blood samples he's acquired-"

"Actually," I interrupt, "I'm not sure how much more I can learn." I tell them what I had discovered about the blood samples. This seems to make Nightcrawler extremely ill at ease.

"Pardon me if I am not making the situation any cheerier," Nightcrawler tells us, "but I am only mildly disturbed by the fact that there appears to be a trap set aside specifically for mutants that seems to mutate them even further. In fact…." As he trails off, he looks back down at the large book in his lap. "In fact, this seems to be ringing a bell. Perhaps… perhaps I should look over my translations just a little more carefully. Leonardo, I do not suppose that you understand Spanish, do you?"

Shaking his head, Leonardo replies, "I'm proud of myself when I can order something from Taco Bell without making a fool of myself. I think Don might know a little, but that's because Don knows a little about everything."

"And if Don were here," I murmur quietly, "he'd be able to make better sense of those blood samples I found, and maybe even posit a helpful theory."

"Then it is clear," Nightcrawler says after a moment. "If we can only get one turtle back for now, it must be Donatello. Not only can we use his intellect to help us, but if he had really been himself when he called for Spider-Man's help, we have much to learn about what he had seen that night. Purging him of his false memories and bringing back the real ones must be one of our top priorities."

"That's great, Blue Boy," I tell him. "Just one little problem. The only way we're going to find a way to bring Donatello back so we could use his intellect… is if we actually had his intellect. I don't know about you, but my knowledge of hypnosis and how to reverse it is just a wee bit rusty."

"We could convince him to come back to the X-Mansion with Leonardo and Splinter," Nightcrawler offers. "Then I can perhaps bring Emma Frost to him and she can use her telepathy to unlock the truth."

"Fantastic," I bring up, "but do you really want to go on a long trip upstate with a turtle who might just go all psycho demon on you at any minute? The second he—or whatever's in him—suspects that something's up, who knows what kind of a mess could pop up?"

"If I can make a suggestion," Leonardo intercedes. "Personally, I don't feel comfortable with the thought of hiding away in a mansion while some other people try to figure out how to save my family—even if saving the world is what you guys are here for. So if I really must hide out, I'd rather do it somewhere nearby, with someone that I've known for a long time and whom I can trust. In that case, I know just the person, and his intelligence rivals that of Donatello's. I can call Master Splinter to meet us as we head over there, and the two of you can talk this over with him. If we're in trouble, he's more than willing to help bail us out."

"Perfect," I say, rising to my feet. As I help Leonardo up, I ask him, "Does he live nearby, or should we use the trusty Webslinger Express?" Leonardo tells me that we won't be able to get to the place by webslinging, since it's in the sewers. With a groan, I slap my hand against my forehead. "The sewers? You're kidding! Who else can you possibly know that lives down in the sewers?"

With a smile, Leonardo responds, "His name's Leatherhead."