Since the amazing AllieBeth131329 asked in a review if Usagi was canon, I thought I'd answer that question here in case anyone else was wondering the same thing. Yup! Miyamoto Usagi is a samurai rabbit who was in the TMNT comic books as a crossover character from another comic. He showed up in a few episodes of the 1980's TMNT, but in this story I based his character off of the 2003 TMNT universe. In that version, he and Leo became best friends almost as soon as they met (in The Big Brawl Part 2, an episode in Season 2 in case you were wondering). Because he is a lot like Leo, I wanted to have him in this story to contrast the two of them and how they were raised.

Sorry about the delay with this next chapter. Here you go!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"So, are you going to tell me exactly what we're doing tonight?" Leo asked, watching Donnie pull down book after book from the library shelves.

"Sure thing, Leo." Donnie said, grabbing one last book and heading towards one of the room's many desks, "Just as soon as you eat."

"Eat?" Leo asked, "Don, have you eaten dinner yet?"

"Oh no, I've eaten." Donnie said, setting down the pile of books and opening the book on the top, "But you haven't."

Leo didn't even bother to argue about that. He grabbed one of the chairs in the room and pulled it over for Donnie to sit on, and then grabbed one for himself.

"Donatello," he said, sitting down in the second chair, "It's too risky. I'm already risking my life just by being in here. Now if you're hungry that's a different story, but we can't call up food here in the middle of the night without Saki getting suspicious."

"He's not going to get suspicious." Donnie said, "The food's already here."

He bent down and pulled a basket out from under the desk.

"I realized that you would skip dinner." He said, passing the basket to Leo, "So I asked the servants to make this for me earlier. Go ahead and eat while I take a few notes. When I'm done, I'll go over the plan with you."

Leo looked in the basket, and his face fell. "I can't eat all this. It's too much." He said.

"Too bad," Donnie said, not even looking up at him, "Just eat as much as you can, and leave the rest for me later."

While Leo picked at the rich food in the basket and managed to eat some of it, Donnie looked through all the books on the desk, made a few notes on a piece of paper, put all the books back and then grabbed several more.

"This is the easiest part of the plan." Donnie told Leo, "I just have to make sure that all the calculations I did earlier in my room are accurate. So far I haven't come across any mistakes yet."

He picked up the next book.

"Oh." He said, "I grabbed the wrong one."

"Want me to get it for you?" Leo asked, pushing the basket aside.

"Sure," Donnie said, grabbing another book and opening it, "It's the small yellow book over there. Fourth shelf up, third book from the left."

"Got it." Leo said, walking over to the bookshelf. He located the right book, grabbed it from the shelf-and then promptly dropped it.

"Sorry," he said to Donatello, even though Donnie didn't seem to be paying attention.

Leo bent down to pick up the book from the floor, but fumbled and dropped it again. With a sigh he sat down and grabbed the book. He couldn't see if Donnie had even noticed that he dropped it, since he was now sitting behind one of the sofas in the room.

But why was he worried? Donnie wasn't going to punish him for dropping a book. If anything, he would punish him by telling him he was too tired to help out.

Leo fingered the edge of the yellow book, thinking. That was the moment that the library door opened.

Donnie yelped, and from the sound of it he got off the chair quickly.

"U-Uncle!" He said.

Leo's heart sank into his stomach. He couldn't see what was happening, since he was still behind the sofa, but this wasn't good.

"Donatello." Uncle Saki said, "What brings you to the library this late at night?"

"I-I-uh, well, just a little research." Donnie said quickly, "Don't tell Raph I'm still here."

"Hm." Uncle Saki said, "Was Raphael here with you earlier?"

"Well, there are two chairs here..."

Saki laughed.

"And the servants packed you a basket, I see." He said, and Leo thought he heard the sound of Saki sitting down, "Tell me. In your exploration of this library, have you seen a book about wrestling lately?"

"Wrestling?" Donnie asked, "Why would I be interested in wrestling? No offense, Uncle Saki. I'm just not inclined toward the same interests as you."

Saki laughed again. "Perhaps it is good that we are not interested in the same things," he told Donatello, "You are very intelligent, my nephew. I have been searching for a book here within the library, a book that seems to have gone missing. If you find it, do not hesitate to bring it to me."

"Of course, Uncle." Donnie said, "What's it about?"

"Wrestling." Saki said, "I understand that you are busy, so do not bother reading it. Just have it sent over to me if you find it."

"Sure thing."

"Good." Saki said, "I'm going to look for it again before I leave, but I do not expect you to stay here all night. There is still a war to fight, and I believe that I can use some of those brilliant ideas of yours."

"Really, uncle?" Donnie asked, "You mean it?"

"Certainly!" Saki said, "You may not be as useful as your brothers in battle, but you are very intelligent and provide good ideas for defense. Now, I am going to look once more for that missing book."

Leo heard Saki stand up. For a few horrible moments, he listened as Saki walked through the room in search of the missing book. Any second now, he would come across Leonardo hiding behind the sofa...

"Uncle Saki?" Donnie asked, just when Saki's footsteps were the loudest, "Here's an idea I came up with today for keeping out the enemy. Would you like to see it?"

And suddenly Saki was gone, looking over Donnie's shoulder and critiquing the merit of Donnie's new idea.

"I also came up with another one," Donnie said, "See? It involves using sulfur to-"

"That is very good, Donatello." Saki interrupted, "But I am afraid that I must leave you now. I have stayed here long enough. You may show me your idea in the morning."

And then, just as suddenly as he had come, Saki was gone. Leo waited until he couldn't hear Saki's footsteps outside the room anymore, and then he stood up from behind the couch.

"That was close," Donnie said, taking the little yellow book that Leo handed to him, "I didn't think he was going to leave."

Leo didn't trust himself to say anything.

"Alright," Donnie said, "I'm going to hurry this up a little."

Quicker than Leo thought possible, Donnie opened each book, looked through it, wrote something down and moved on to the next one.

"Are you even reading?" Leo asked.

"I can speed read," Donnie said, "It's very handy."

Just a little later Donnie announced, "Done."

So Leo joined him in taking all the books off the desk and putting them all back on the shelves.

"Okay," Donnie said, shelving books as he talked, "I double-checked all my calculations. We're good to go."

"That's great, Donnie." Leo said, "Where exactly are we going?"

"First, we need to stop by the woods for some fresh ingredients." Donnie said, "We're going to create a chemical mixture and set it up in various parts of the Palace. Whenever Saki gets too close to the hallway where the others are, we're going to set one of them off."

"And how is that going to help?" Leo asked.

"It'll cause a major distraction, trust me." Donnie said, "The tricky part will be making sure that we're not caught."


It didn't take too long for Leo to sneak Donnie out of the Palace.

Alright, so maybe it took a little longer than it should have. They needed to go out through the well in the basement, but when Leo looked into the well with a torch in his hand, he realized that unless they wanted to use the handholds in the cave ceiling and risking a fall into the river they needed a ladder to connect the well entrance with the underground platform.

Finding the material sturdy enough for the ladder took a little longer than they wanted, but at last with Donnie's ingenuity they made something from the junk in the basement and lowered it down the well. Leo went first and Donnie followed, closing the open trapdoor behind them.

The trip through the underground cave system took longer than planned, because every few seconds Donatello would stop and observe something new about the walls or the river. Finally, they reached the waterfall.

That was when their luck ran out.

"Leo, do you see those lights on the other side of the waterfall?" Donnie whispered.

"Oh no, I forgot." Leo said, "Just after Mikey and I found this cave, we saw the Purple Dragons set up their camp in front of it."

"Great," Donnie said sarcastically, "So now we need to find some way to get past an enemy camp."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Leo asked, "I might be able to leave you here and find it by myself."

"There's no way we're splitting up," Donnie said, "We're just going to have to find a way past the enemy."

"But we also need to find a way to get back in here once we have what we need." Leo pointed out, "And I don't want to get us both caught."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Donnie said, bending down, "I wonder if we can use mud from this river to camouflage ourselves? Here, rub this mud on your face."

"Um, Don?" Leo asked, obediently taking the river mud from Donnie, "Are you sure this will help?"

"Of course it will." Donnie said, straightening up with more mud in his hands, "Our faces will be much less reflective with it on, especially if we have to go right past one of their campfires."

"Alright," Leo said, rubbing it all over his face and arms and grabbing more mud as needed, "So, is the plan for us to just sneak by and hope to not get caught?"

"Guess so," Donnie said, rubbing mud on his own face and arms, "Unless we can think of something better."

Neither one of them could, so as soon as they deemed themselves covered in enough mud they snuck out from behind the waterfall and slowly made their way to the woods. Leo was in the lead, so that if there was an emergency Donnie might have enough time to run back to the waterfall.

They had left the torch behind the waterfall, far enough in the cave that no one passing by would notice its light. That meant they had no light with them, and since the night was fairly dark, the only sources of light were the enemy campfires.

Of course, they were trying to avoid those campfires, so they were trying to stay as much in the dark as possible.

After several minutes and a few close calls with Purple Dragon sentry guards, Leo and Don finally made it to a part of the forest where they felt comfortable enough to talk in a low whisper.

Donnie started searching the ground for whatever plants he had been looking for, giving Leo a very confusing explanation of the plants and their functions and what other plants they were similar to and the name of some distant king who used them. After half an hour they finally found them, all grouped together in one section of the woods.

"This is it?" Leo asked, looking down at the plants as Donnie handed them to him, "You know these grow inside the castle, right?"

Donnie stopped. "What?" He asked, his hand halfway in the dirt.

"By the kitchens." Leo explained, "They grow like crazy out there. I'm always weeding them out of the Chef's garden."

"Seriously?" Donnie asked, "We didn't even have to leave the castle for these?"

"Guess not," Leo chuckled.

Donnie started chuckling too, and Leo could see that he was shaking his head.

"Well, come on then." Donnie said, throwing the plants into a sack he brought with him, "We'd better get back to the castle with these."

The two of them crept back to the waterfall and snuck behind it, then made their way through the cave until they were back in the basement.

"Let's leave the ladder here," Leo said as they climbed out of the trapdoor, "We're going to need it later, when we all leave the castle."

Donnie just nodded, and Leo closed the trapdoor.


For the next half an hour, Leo helped Don mix up his chemical distraction in his royal bedroom. After Donnie mixed everything together exactly the way he wanted it, the two of them carefully poured the mixture into several little containers.

"This should be perfect." Donnie said, tying one end of a string to a container.

"So, how are we going to make these go off?" Leo asked.

"Well," Donnie said, "I'm going to set this up in a corner, and hold the container in place with this string. The other end of this string will be tied to a candle. After we light the candle it will burn down, and once it burns down to where I tied the string, the string will fall off. That will make the container fall, and when it breaks it will start the reaction."

"Smart." Leo said.

"Thanks!" Donnie said, "So depending on where I tie the string around the candle, we can have fifteen minutes or several hours to get away from this once we light it."

He took a candle from a box on his desk and showed it to Leo.

"The servant who makes these candles usually makes notches on one side of the candle," Don said, "Five notches means it will burn for five hours, six notches for six hours, and so on."

"I wondered if anyone would notice that," Leo said, taking the candle and staring at the notches.

Donnie stopped to look at him.

"You made the candles?" He asked.

"Among other things." Leo said, handing the candle back to Don, "So, are you going to tie the string around the first notch so that the string will fall in one hour?"

"Not really." Donnie said, "I'm going to make a smaller notch near the top to set them for a shorter time. As long as the flame doesn't go out-and it shouldn't, since we're going to set it up far enough away from the hallway-we can plan on these things breaking once we're safely out of the way."

"How are we going to be sure it'll break in time?" Leo asked, "I mean, we're doing this to distract Saki, so we might not be able to predict when we'll need it to break."

"I'm going to set most of them for fifteen minutes," Donnie said, pointing to a hand-drawn chart he had made in front of him, "Except for a few of them, which I will set for three hours, and one that I'm going to set for five. That should be enough time. Here," he handed Leo a map containing several floors of the castle, with little X's marked all over it, "This map shows where we're going to set them up."

Leo took the map and studied it carefully. "What if Saki realizes how they're going off and searches for all the lit candles?" He asked.

"I'm not too worried about that," Donnie said, "I've picked spots that should be out of the way, but I've made sure that there's an alcove or something where we can hide the candle. As long as he doesn't go searching around to see what the piece of string used to attach to, he's probably not going to find it. Especially not when he's investigating one of these things after it goes off. In fact, I guarantee you that he's not going to want to go near this thing after it goes off."

"Why not?" Leo asked.

"You'll see," Donnie smiled.

The two of them set up all the candles and containers, and finally they placed them all carefully in a box and carried them throughout the castle. Leo then took charge of the map and led Donnie to all the places he had chosen to place the containers, and they carefully set up everything.

"We've got to be very careful not to drop one of these." Donnie said, setting one of the containers in place.

"I'm not sure if I want to know, but what exactly will happen when these fall?" Leo asked.

"I'll let you find that out for yourself." Donnie said, "Just make sure that you're nowhere near this thing when it goes off, so Saki won't suspect you of anything."

When the two of them finally separated that night to actually get some sleep, it was only after several more hours of plotting and planning. Leo now knew exactly what it was that he was going to do the next day, and where he was supposed to be.

"There's always room for error," Donnie had told him before they parted for bed, "And since there's a war going on, we can't exactly be sure what will happen or where Saki will be. But I think that we're going to be well-prepared for tomorrow. Or today, I guess, since it's already tomorrow."

"Right," Leo agreed, "Hey Don, I was wondering. Exactly how will Raph keep the servants away from the bedrooms so everyone can move the treasure without getting caught?"

"Mikey." Donnie explained, "Because, you know, Mikey can get away with anything. He's going to declare that he's afraid of the enemy coming to get him, so Raph is going to ban the servants from coming on the floor and barricade the entire hallway. He's also going to set up guards just outside each entrance to the floor."

"So no one but Saki will be allowed in." Leo reasoned.

"Exactly." Donnie said, "And Usagi is going to keep an eye out for the Foot ninjas, in case they try sneaking in. I don't think they will, with all the guards outside the hallway, but you never know. Hopefully everything will go as planned."

So now everything was set. And as Leo crept into the kitchen and took his customary sleeping spot underneath the small wooden steps, he couldn't help but wonder if everything would go as planned, or if something really bad was about to happen.