Previously, when the turtles tried to track down the steel-clad man who attacked Tyroth, they were trapped inside the, now repaired, building that they first met Mona at. With them are three of the armored men that they were tracking.

Their fate lies in the hands of Mona, Sephie and Tyroth, but will they get there in time?

I don't own TMNT

Chapter 14

Secret Within The Armor

The calm in the lair was abruptly interrupted by a beeping noise from the shell-cells of Tyroth, Sephie and Monalisa. At first the three mutants weren't sure what it meant, then a startling realization came to them. It was the emergency signal Donnie added. Something had gone wrong, very wrong. They quickly grabbed their gear and rushed to the exit. Splinter looked as they left and prayed that they would return safely, with the turtles.

As soon as they exited on the surface, Mona started climbing the fire escape on one of the surrounding buildings while Sephie ran on the wall. Tyroth took another approach, using his powerful legs he jumped between the two buildings, his wings flapped with every jump lifting him even higher. His clawed feet left marks on the walls as they dug in for grip. Tyroth was the first one to reach the roof and while he waited for the others, he tried to see where the signal were coming from, but as he was still not familiar with the shell-cell, it didn't go well.

Once Mona had arrived on the roof, the group were able to determine where they had to go.

"It's in the eastern parts of town, I know that area." Mona said as she approached the edge "Hurry, they may not have much time."

"I know a faster way than jumping." said Tyroth. Before Mona got the chance to ask, she was scooped up by Tyroth who now carried her bridal style. "My apologies, Mona, but this is necessary."

He nodded to Sephie who climbed up on his back and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Ready." she said.

"Wait, ready for what?" Mona asked.

"This!" was the only answer Tyroth gave her before he ran to the edge and jumped. Mona closed her eyes in fear as her heart skipped a beat, she felt the wind hitting her face as the trio fell through the air. After what felt like an hour, she could feel that they leveled out. Slowly she opened her eyes and saw that they were still airborne and slowly gained altitude as Tyroth flapped his wings.

On closer inspection Mona saw that his wings moved more like the arms of someone doing breaststrokes, pulling the group through the air. All while Sephie lay on his back between the wings. It was clear that they had done this sort of thing before.

"Sorry that I scared you, but time is of the essence. Care to navigate for me?" Tyroth said.

"Oh, sure." Mona replied, picking up her shell-cell.

Meanwhile, the turtles had a hard time fighting the three armored enemies that they were trapped with. The large number of wooden crates had been reduced to only a handful of intact crates and several piles of smoldering debris, cover was growing scarce and the walls were covered with scorch-marks. The turtles managed to avoid the blasts thanks to their ninja-training, and were able to strike several hits on their foes. Unfortunately, the armor was too strong for the turtle's weapons, as the greatest damage were shallow cuts caused by Leo's katanas and Raph's sais.

The three steel-clad men however only had problems with hitting the turtles, but sooner or later the turtles would make a mistake and when they do, they will be either disabled or dead.

"This ain't working!" Raph shouted to his brothers as he did a back-flip to avoid a blast.

"I'm open for suggestions." Leo replied before ducking behind a crate. "Donnie! An escape-plan would be nice."

"That might be a problem. Aside from the door we entered through, the only way out that I can see are the windows, but they are probably reinforced." Donnie did a pole jump over to the crate Leo covered behind. "If we try to get out through one of them, we'll be easy targets, so that's a no-go."

"There has to be a solution." Leo said gritting his teeth.

"I hope that solution gets here quick, cause I'm starting to get tired." said Mikey as he jumped around at random.

"They're in here." Mona said as she led Sephie and Tyroth to the building. She remembered the place, and wondered what might have happened if the turtles hadn't helped her that time. She were a good fighter back then but she might have been overrun by the numerous Purple Dragon thugs, or she might still have lived on the run. Pushing those thoughts aside and focusing on the present, she jumped over to the roof of said building with her friends.

The skylights were tinted so they couldn't see anything, aside from weak, red flashes on what appeared to be the ground floor, muffled sounds of battle could be heard from inside. Sephie tried to break the glass using the pommel of her dagger, but to her disappointment the glass was unharmed. She tried several times, each time increasing the force she used, but to no avail.

"Shit. It must be reinforced or something." she said.

"We must get in. But we don't have time to check every corner of this place." Mona said worried.

"Stand aside." said Tyroth. The girls backed away from the skylight as Tyroth started to run from the edge. After a few meters he jumped to an impressive hight of five meters, on the way down he extended his clenched right fist. The skylight was shattered by the force of his punch and he continued his rapid decent through the building, planting his fist in the back of one of the three armored men, driving him to the floor and leaving a fist-shaped dent in the back. The remaining two were shocked at the development and so were the turtles.

"Now that's an entrance!" Mikey exclaimed when he saw what happened.

"Not the time Mikey!" Raph scolded.

Before the two remaining guys got the chance to shoot, Tyroth picked up the downed one an threw him straight at the guy on his left. Not having time to dodge his comrade, he was knocked into a crate, breaking it to pieces with the other one on top. The third raised his right hand to shoot Tyroth, but the shot missed due to Mona landing on the arm. Jumping of the arm, she quickly slashed at the guy with her fans before jumping backwards, putting some distance between them.

Raising is hand anew, he aimed at Mona only to find that Sephie had just landed in front of her. She had drawn an arrow with a red pointed cylinder at the end. The arrow was released and and hit the red lens in the palm. An explosion lit up the room when the arrow impacted, ripping apart the hand of the steel-clad man forcing him backwards.

Charging the injured man, Tyroth drew his sword and brought it down on his foe. Hitting the man between the left shoulder and the neck, the blade ripped through the mans armor and body leaving him in two pieces.

The last two had just gotten up when they were charged by the turtles, who had newfound strength thanks to the timely arrival of their friends. Mona and Sephie moved to help.

"Aim for the joints!" Donnie shouted "The armor must be weaker there." Having seen that Sephie and Tyroth did far more damage to the armor where it needed to be more flexible, he guessed that it had to be thinner.

Said and done, Leo, Raph and Mona, who all had sharp weapons started focusing their attacks on the joints of the elbows and knees, while Donnie and Mikey used their blunter weapons to distract the two men. Sure enough, Donnie's suspicion was correct and the slashing and cutting caused a good deal of damage. The men tried to shoot the mutants, but the onslaught of attacks from all directions and the agility of the mutants made it very hard to actually hit anyone.

Stabbing the one with the dent on the back, in the collarbone with his sais, Raph hoped to finish him of, but he had no such luck. Forced to back away to avoid the blasts, Raph saw the man raising both hands at him to fire again. A swishing sound from behind passed his head on both sides, as two arrows with flat-tipped, silver colored cylinders struck the palms of his opponent. Vast amounts of electricity was released, causing the man to collapse with smoke emanating from the holes in the joints. Raph didn't have to guess who shot the arrows.

Donnie swung his staff at the back of the knees on the last one, upsetting his balance while Mikey followed up with a jump kick in the back, knocking the guy forward. He was met by Tyroth's left fist, but as Tyroth punched the man in the stomach, he noticed the number two engraved on the mans breastplate.

"You!"

Remembering the description Raph gave them on the attacker, Tyroth knew that it was the same guy. He grabbed the man by the neck and threw him clean across the room, hitting the wall. The other mutants wasn't quite sure what had come over Tyroth.

"That's the guy that shot me!" he said "Let me deal with him, this is personal." Mona was the first to back away, since she knew the feeling of needing to take care of this kind of things yourself. The turtles had given her the same courtesy when they found the men who had raped her, as she now gave Tyroth. The others followed her lead.

Walking over to the man, who was slowly getting back on his feet, Tyroth passed the electrocuted guy. Without even looking, he stabbed his sword in the guys face, nailing him to the floor. Leaving his sword in the head, Tyroth shoved his would be assassin against the wall and held him in place with his left hand.

"Payback time, you fucking junkyard rejected scrapheap." he said just before he feverishly started punching the man in the chest. Each punch left a dent in the armor and cracks formed in the concrete wall and grew with every impact. The man was completely at the dragons mercy. After a few minutes, Tyroth grabbed the mans right shoulder with his left hand and pressed him downward. Putting as much strength as he could muster, he delivered an uppercut with such force that the mans head, helmet and all, was separated from the body. Ricocheting of the wall it landed in front of the others, who stood silent.

"Man, I've heard of head-poppers, but that takes the cake." Mikey broke the silence only to receive a whack on the head.

"Can it, Mikey." said Raph.

Donnie walked over and picked up the head.

"Let's see what these things really are." He noticed that there were several tubes or wires attached to the remains of the spine. "Some form of cyborg. Not so surprising given what we've seen so far. Let me see if I can figure out how they work."

"Make sure that they don't have any kind tracers, Donnie, and you can bring them back to the lair." said Leo "In the meantime, we'll see if we can get out of here."

"Are you okay, love?" Sephie asked Tyroth, placing her hand on his shoulder as he stood over the remains of his attacker "I've never seen you that aggressive."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just... needed to get that out of my system." he said as he turned around to face her "But, I could sure use a hug right now." Sephie smiled as she embraced her large mate, snuggling against his chest.

"I hate having to interrupt you two," Leo said "but we need a way out. Think you can help us?"

It didn't take long before they had managed to make an exit by having Tyroth break another window on the groundfloor.

"Eh.. guys." Donnie said with a pale face.

"What is it, Donnie?" Mona asked "And why do you look so spooked?"

"These cyborgs, they're dead."

"We know, we killed them, remember?"said Raph sarcastically.

"No, I meant before we fought them. Their organic parts have been dead for a few weeks at least, probably even before they were turned into cyborgs. As they were now, they were closer to being undead rather that alive." The mutants faces paled at the news, and a feeling of disgust spread.

"Undead cyborgs." said Leo as his gaze swept over the remains "Who could do such a thing?"

"I don't know, but if the numbers on their chests are anything to go on, there might be more of them. See, they're numbered two through four, so there has to be at least one more."

"So what do we do about these zomborgs?" Mikey asked, getting questioning looks from the others.

"'Zomborgs'?" Sephie asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you see they're like zombies and cyborgs so.."

"We get it Mikey!" Raph interrupted. "But, he does have a point. What shall we do with them?"

"Well, I'm not touching them." said Donnie "The way that they are, it... it's just wrong! Can we please leave?"

Meanwhile in the Foot base in southern Manhattan, Overlord was reading an automated report on a computer.

"So, units two, three and four have been terminated. My trap did not work as planned, I must have underestimated these mutants. Need to check the records of those units to see if they managed to eliminate any of the mutants. Regardless, the plan will continue, and then I can reclaim what I have lost."

He began typing on a keyboard and brought up the schematics for his cyborgs and another seemingly larger cyborg. An evil smile formed on his charred face.

"Just you wait until you meet the Mark II."

Turtles safe, for now. But it looks like they're gonna have their hands full in a near future.

The story will take a bit of a 'time-leap' as a few weeks will pass without much happening. The reason is that it's needed for the next big event and I don't think that I can write that much idle time in between.

If anyone have problems with that leave your reason in the reviews and give me something to add for that period. I will give credit if such a thing would happen. Until then, I'll be writing the planned chapter which should be done in about a week. If a good idea is submitted, the update may take another week or two, just so you know.

Until then, beware the Mark II.