me: Hello readers! This is going to be a rather dark chapter for a certain favourite character. But at least the four turtles and Splinter aren't one of them!

April 25th 2012… 9:43am… New York City… The Lair…

To say that the four turtles had an uncomfortable night was an understatement. Leo tried to meditate in order to help him relax, but the event that occurred that night before and at Dr Stockman's lab kept replaying in his mind; the horrifically mutilated corpses, the bloodlust and terrorism from a mad doctor and the thought that said doctor was still out there somewhere. When Leo eventually fell asleep, he could only close his eyes and not drift off into dreamland and his body only relaxed a little. Raph wasn't much better either, even though the chair down at the ground floor provided some level of comfort for him to sleep, he also could not stop thinking about badly bloodied remains of the human scientists but he also had a nightmare about how those images could've been him and his family had they not escaped their old home. Donnie also had trouble sleeping since all his thoughts were on how something as brilliantly technical as a Mouser could be used for something so horrible, but what terrified him even more was when he was forced to initiate the Mousers overload sequence that resulted in the destruction of the lab. Sure he was glad that his genius intellect saved a lot of lives in the city but he also worried that the same destruction of the lab could very well have hurt, maybe even killed some people who might've been in the building or outside of it at the time. Mikey also had nightmares of that night. Even though he fell asleep a lot easier than his brothers did, but that didn't stop his nightmares of the night. So much blood, and going by what they learned about the humans that lost their lives, a lot of fear as well. Mikey ended up waking up at around 3am shivering in a cold sweat. Master Splinter however, had used his mastery over meditation to push the events of that night into the back of his mind, and even though he still had bad images of back then, they were nowhere near as bad as they could've been, unlike Mikey's.

Morning training wasn't any better, the level of concentration coming from the four turtles was undeniably poor. Leo's katas were messed up and riddled with mistakes that a child would easily make, Raph's punches and kicks were had little to no effort put into them, Donnie had trouble keeping his staff upright, and Mikey who almost didn't show up for morning training had issues keeping his nunchucks fluid and almost kept hitting himself with them. And Splinter knew why; the events that happened the previous night was weighing heavily upon their minds. He was not surprised by this since it would be tough for an adult to get through the night without the discomfort of those kinds of images in their heads, and for teenagers to go through what they had gone through, Master Splinter couldn't bring it upon himself to punish them for their lack of concentration. Especially since it would probably do more harm than good.

Breakfast was also pretty much depressing, since Splinter was the only one who ate. The thought of eating algae and worms again probably wasn't very nice for them and it was enough to make all four turtles skip breakfast.

And so here they all were at nearly quartet to ten in the morning, all depressed and the events of the previous night making them shudder every now and then, and if things were to progress, Splinter realized he was going to employ tactics he'd never thought he'd use. It was the type of tactics that involved a certain turtle with an orange mask and the complete opposite of Splinter saw himself as.

It was there they all were in the large open space of the ground level of the oval shaped Lair; Leo was sat meditating (unsuccessfully), Raph was weakly punching the dummy, Donnie was at his work desk just picking at the broken TV with a screwdriver and not actually fixing it, and Mikey was sat on a chair looking at a comic and not actually reading it. Bingo. With Mikey in his sights, Splinter walked towards him with the air of authority around him, which was weird considering what he had in mind for the turtles. He approached Mikey and stood directly next to him and Mikey was too lost in his thoughts to even notice him, this worried Splinter briefly as he always acknowledged his presence with a bright smile that Splinter usually returned with his own. He would have to actually place a hand on Mikey's shoulder to get his attention, which he did, and when he did, Mikey nearly jumped out of his shell with a startled yelp,

"YIKES! Sensei…"

"My apologies, Michelangelo. But I believe in light of the circumstances, I am going to need your assistance." Splinter said and this made Mikey looked at him as though he saw a ghost. Splinter never usually asked for anyone's assistance and when he did it was usually just for scavenging missions.

"Come with me, my son." Splinter said and Mikey didn't question it and just followed his sensei.

9:44am…

Mikey followed Splinter into the kitchen area where and when his confusion set in. It was a good step forward from the thoughts of blood and horror and Splinter aimed to take it a step further and help all his sons come to terms with the horrors of the night and then it would become just a part of their lives.

"I could probably sense your confusion from another part of the city, my son." Master Splinter said and Mikey most likely agreed with him,

"Well… yeah… you are Ninja Master…" Mikey said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world but then Splinter voiced his plan to Mikey much to his surprise,

"The reason I need your help Michelangelo, is because I believe you are the only one here who can accomplish this." Master Splinter said and with that, his plan was set into motion.

10:24am…

Mikey was peeking out from the kitchen to lock onto his targets with a grin that meant he means business. And he also had his Sensei's permission to do this, which meant nothing will stop him now. Splinter had then chosen to exit the kitchen, happy that with Mikey's next actions, their home would have a normal family atmosphere about it and not the dark depressing kind.

"Have fun, Michelangelo." Master Splinter said and he realized the moment he said those words that he doesn't usually say that to any of his sons but when he did to Mikey this time and the resulting grin made his smile grace his furry face.

"Ooooh, I will!"

"And make sure you involve all three of your brothers."

"Don't worry, Sensei, our plan will work!"

"Of that, I am sure." And with that, Splinter left the kitchen.

Mikey stood peeking out of the kitchen to put the plan into action. And with the balloons he found scavenging once upon a time ago, he will succeed. He would have to thank Donnie at some point for reconfiguring their plumbing so that they could get clean water to use however they liked.

Mikey exited the kitchen, not bothering to hide his wide smile but made sure his weapons of choice were well hidden behind his back. His first target: the hot-headed Raphael. He approached his target and stopped at a throwing distance, Raph was busy still weakly punching at the dummy and so didn't seem to realize that Mikey was eying him that was until,

"HEY RAPH!" as soon as Mikey shouted his name, Raph could only turn his head slowly in Mikey's direction when all of the sudden, a balloon smashed against his face, exploding its watery contents all over himself and abruptly stopped Raph in his tracks. Mikey grinned at this and joyfully bounced around on the spot with a water balloon in each hand,

"Dr Prankenstein strikes again!" Mikey announced which also caught the attention of Leo and Donnie who looked at the scene with absolute surprise on their faces and completely lost for words. Raph meanwhile saw red, and Mikey imagined at that point that fire lit up Raph's eyes,

"Dude, you should see your face right now! Haha! You look soooo mad!" which was exactly the kind of reaction Mikey was aiming for, now for the next step of the plan to play itself out,

"Mikey, do you want to play a new game I just invented? It's called 'Does Mikey bend that way?'" Raph said as he growled and cracked his knuckles and thus began the cat and mouse scenario all around the Lair. Leo and Donnie looked just as lost for words as they had when it started and as they looked at the ensuing chaos running around the Lair, he also spotted Master Splinter leisurely wandering from his room to the kitchen, and ran over to approach him about the chaos, since he know doubt knew about it,

"Sensei, aren't you seeing this?" Leo asked and the answer from Splinter completely dumbfounded him,

"I don't see anything, Leonardo. Must be something in my eye." Splinter said as he calmly entered the kitchen, leaving Leo bewildered as Raph kept chasing Mikey with the attitude of a mad bull while Mikey merrily ran around with a smile as bright as the sun.

10:26am…

That little merry chase around the Lair courtesy of Raph and Mikey had put a little spring in Donnie's step. He was now working on the broken TV albeit slowly, but it was certainly better than only picking at it. It was seeing this that made Leo approach him at his work desk,

"You seem more active this morning, all things considering…" Leo said and Donnie knew he implied of the nightmare they all endured last night,

"Yeah… well… seeing Raph and Mikey going like Tom and Jerry has made me think 'Maybe things can be normal again?'. I don't know…" Donnie said with uncertainty but it was certainly better than keeping things bottled up,

"I know what you mean… and maybe you're right…" Leo said also uncertain,

"YOU KNOW IT, BRO!" Mikey suddenly burst out from completely out of nowhere behind them and just as quickly threw another water balloon at the duo at the desk, Leo just managed to lean back and avoid the projectile but Donnie wasn't fast enough and ended getting a face full of water for his troubles. Even working at a slow pace, Donnie still didn't like being interrupted in his work and so without thinking, a now mad Donnie joined a still very mad Raph in chasing Mikey with the aim of throwing him into sewer water as payback,

"YOUR NEXT LEO! DR PRANKENSTEIN MAKES HOUSECALLS!" Mikey out of the top of his lungs whilst enjoying the scene of both Raph and Donnie wanting to dish out some payback.

10:28am…

Seeing his brothers come out of their dark memories of the previous night had helped Leo push his own dark memories to the back of his mind. And so it was that he sat in his bedroom on the floor in a lotus position, meditating properly now. It was all well and good, he was now beginning to clear his mind despite the nightmare that was slowly creeping up in his mind, and before he knew it the flash of gore entered his mind and startled him out of his meditation. Leo let out a sigh of frustration before telling himself to

"Get your head together Leo, the nightmare is over." But it was then that Leo remembered something Master Splinter told him years ago…

October 1st… 2005… The Old Home… 9:55am…

It wasn't a very good night for eight year old Leo; having nightmares about falling from a frightening height with no end in sight had not been friendly for him. During morning training he couldn't stop thinking about it and as a result, kept him distracted as Mikey knocked him over during sparring. This never happened before and while Mikey relished in his victory and then whining as Raph won their match, Leo was still in the confines of the nightmare. After practice, Master Splinter suspected that Leo had a nightmare the previous night. As a child, none of the children were good liars which was why it was easy to decipher the issue and provide them comfort with something that troubled them. So when Leo retreated to his room to be alone, it was just as easy for Splinter to realize that Leo was having bad dreams. Splinter approached Leo in his bedroom who was sat on his bed looking troubled from the nightmare,

"Bad dreams, Leonardo?" Master Splinter said and even though Leo knew acknowledged him, he didn't want to talk about it,

"Sensei… I don't feel like talking about it…" Leo said not looking at Splinter,

"I understand if you don't, my son. But just know…" at that point, Splinter sat on the bed at Leo's feet, "Bad dreams are only that; dreams. They cannot harm you even as you sleep, only scare you if you let them. Once a bad dream is over I would advise to not think about it unless you wish to talk about it first. Either way will help you through the day until the bad dream becomes nothing."

April 25th… 10:29am… 2012… The Lair…

Master Splinter was right then and it would also serve to help him now. Dark memories were also like nightmares in your sleep if you allow it, and he allowed it to creep up on him during meditation, not this time.

Leo resumed to meditate in lotus position, and began to clear his mind. Things were going well again until these dark memories began to once again up on him-

SPLASH!

Leo awoke with a start to find himself covered head to toe in water with the remains of a balloon at his lap and a grinning Mikey at his doorframe (with no door, mind you). Leo couldn't believe it, everyone knew that only his Sensei can interrupt his meditation without trouble but anyone else who dared to try was guaranteed to get a few bruises. And so with that,

"Dude, you made it easy!" Mikey said and Leo let out a low vengeful sounding growl and leapt up from his lotus position and launched himself at Mikey who jumped away to allow Leo to continue chasing him alongside Donnie and Raph whilst he laughed and smiled throughout.

10:33am…

After a few more moments of cat and mouse between Mikey and his brothers, after which, Mikey was caught and his brothers began wrestling him to the ground and him slipping away only for the whole to repeat and repeat again, Master Splinter eventually called them over, at which point they stopped. When they stood before him, Mikey was beaming, whilst Raph, Donnie and Leo were looking peeved and although Master Splinter didn't show it, he was pleased with the results of his plan.

"My sons, I must ask; what are your thoughts now?" Master Splinter asked and the replies he got were,

"I think, THAT WAS EPIC!" from Mikey,

"Epic?! I think you need a new brain after that!" from Raph to Mikey,

"If he had one to begin with." Said Donnie which resulted in a loud "HEY!" from Mikey with a pout on his face,

"Sensei, I can't believe you let him do that!" Leo said which got Raph's attention,

"You what?!"

"I assure you, my sons, that I instructed Michelangelo to perform this task with good reason." The turtles minus Mikey were baffled by those words and before they could even ask, Splinter spoke first, "What of the dark memories brought to you from last night?"

It was at that moment that something clicked into all four of the turtle's minds. Sure, they had been thinking about the horrors from last night now but this time they were nowhere as bad as they had been before. They had been so focused on Mikey and Mikey hadn't been thinking at all that those gruesome images became nothing more than a bad memory that somewhere along the line of this morning alone had helped them move on. The images were still there inside their minds but they were no longer dwelling on them.

The four turtles at looked one another as if realising this, but Mikey just smiled with ignorance on his face,

"Why are we all looking at each other?" Mikey asked and even though the response was a groan from his brothers, they also couldn't help but smile as well. Raph eventually grinned in Mikey's direction,

"Raph?"

"Come here, you!" Raph bellowed and as soon as he did, he had Mikey in a headlock and gave him a friendly noogie,

"Ah, Raph!" Mikey squirmed but made no indication of distress or of wanting Raph to stop and soon was laughing and Raph joined in on the laughter as did Leo and Donnie. The sight of his four sons coming together to smile and laugh together through a dark time made Splinter smile with pride and happiness.

11:02am…

What started as a depressing morning had taken a turn for the brighter; Leo was now meditating peacefully inside his room, Raph was now hitting the dummy hard with proper punches and kicks, Donnie worked hard on the broken TV and at his current pace it wouldn't be long until he fixed it, much to Mikey's delight, and Mikey himself was reading his comics with renewed excitement while also plotting his next prank on his brothers (mainly Raph). It was this sight that assured everyone including Splinter that everything was going to be alright which certainly helped lighten the atmosphere of the Lair. The atmosphere only got more family friendly when Mikey stopped reading and began to irritate Donnie about how "Awesome it is to how the TV again." And "Just think, with all this space, we could have a whole stack of TVs!" stuff like that. Donnie's response was to hand Mikey a hammer, a nail and a sign that read 'Sewer Sweet Sewer' on it.

"Here TV-head. Do something useful. Put this up somewhere." Donnie said and Mikey groaned at the thought of working but nonetheless did as he was asked. After all it was just a fifteen second or so job. At one side of the Lair on the wall, Mikey decided it was as good a place as any to put a 'Sewer Sweet Sewer' sign, and proceeded to hammer in the nail. He slammed the nail with the hammer but the nail didn't even crack the wall. Confused for a second but not beaten, he tried again; same result. He groaned in frustration at the very idea that a wall was beating him and so began beating the nail with the hammer. Success! He succeeded in bending the nail into uselessness! But Mikey was not going to give up, he was going to let a wall beat him! So he momentarily retreated from the wall, leaving the sign behind and approached Donnie's work desk whilst Donnie was away momentarily for some reason. He then walked back to the wall with a sledgehammer and a steel spike used to keep tents in place,

"Alright, tough guy! Hehehe! Let's dance!" Mikey said in an accent that no-one probably knows exist and then slammed sledgehammer against the head of the spike and the sharp end went right into the wall and was probably never coming out again. Mikey definitely didn't let the wall beat him but unfortunately for the wall it was too much for it and began to crack and fall apart in front of Mikey's eyes.

"Uh-oh…"

The wall fell apart instantly but to Mikey's surprise the wall that fell apart revealed a large door sized pattern behind it. The noise of the wall falling apart had attracted the attention of the whole family and when they stood beside Mikey, Raph and Donnie were more than annoyed that Mikey may have just started the destruction of their new home. But once the dust settled and the pattern became clear to see, the family of five stood and stared,

"Woah, guys. Lookie what I found!" Mikey said and when Donnie got closer he quickly came to the conclusion that the door shaped pattern was exactly that; a door.

"It's a door of some kind." Donnie said,

"Be careful!" Leo whispered as he warned,

"Why are we whispering?" Mikey asked and as soon as he did, Donnie touched the door and the moment he did, the door slid open and released a very foul smell.

"Whew! That's some stank!" Donnie said as waved his hand in front of his nose in a vain attempt to repel the smell and Mikey couldn't help but grin at Donnie's choice of words,

"Don't look at me, bro. After all, he who smelt it dealt it!" Mikey said but paying him no mind, the family of five proceeded to enter the room behind the door. It was a very small room but the room had oddly shaped patterns going around what was apparently an egg-shaped room that lit up with a bright blue colour and on the ceiling was a large bright glowing white crystal. After taking a closer look at the blue glowing stuff on the walls, Mikey realized something,

"Hey, these are crystals. I found a bunch of these same crystals all over while I was cleaning up the Lair! They were all broken though." Mikey said but something still seemed off to Donnie,

"Where's the power source for this room! I don't see any wires or-"but Donnie was interrupted when the doors suddenly closed behind them, and trapped the five ninjas inside. Suddenly it began to feel like the room was moving up,

"Hey, are we moving?" Leo asked and the five looked up at nothing since up was the direction the room seemed to be going in.

"Hey, where is this thing even taking us?" Raph asked

"I have a feeling that when we know the answer to that, we will have more questions to be answered." Splinter replied.

11:04am…?

Soon the moving room that the five had concluded to be an elevator of sorts (though Donnie had a hard time believing it), and when said elevator did eventually stop, the door that initially kept them inside had opened, and the five walked out to find themselves in a dark room that was alight with the sunshine beaming through the slits in the wood covering the windows. The room appeared to be abandoned and when Donnie approached the rooms slide up door and opened it, the sight confirmed their suspicions of their location.

"So… the weird glowing chamber brings us up to street level?" Donnie said out loud to hear how it sounded, which sounded off. Though as he said this, Splinter took a few quick smells of the room,

"Hmm… this place has been abandoned for many, many years now." Splinter said as Donnie closed the door leading outside to avoid the possibility of being spotted by human eyes.

"Great, so… what should we use this place for?" Mikey asked and Raph answered,

"I don't know. But it seems awfully convenient if you ask me. First an abandoned part of the sewers leads to a large abandoned space for us to live in and then a newly discovered elevator leads us to an abandoned warehouse on the surface?" Raph said and after he did, it certainly raised questions among everybody in the room. Without questioning it however, they then made their way inside the newly discovered elevator that activated the moment they all stepped in and brought them all back into the Lair below.

Once they stepped out, Splinter spoke his thoughts on the matter,

"My sons, it would appear that our new home holds secrets of its own. We should keep an eye out for more of them." Splinter said and his four sons nodded in agreement.

5:55pm… New York City Streets…

Even if you weren't a homeless person living in New York City, life wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows even if the weather was nice today. Not being homeless just meant you had a roof over your head but that was it. Not being homeless didn't mean you were actually safe. This was something Casey Jones learned the hard way. He was currently living with his father who also owned a sports store below their apartment. However the store was on the rougher sides of the city, as it was a frequent spot for the Purple Dragons gang activity. As such, Casey and his father usually found themselves fighting off robbers looking to loot their store. Sometimes they would win but sometimes they would lose too. Weekends were usually a bad time for them, but today would prove to be the worst day of them all.

As it was still during the daytime, Mr Jones (Casey's father) continued to run his store like usual on a weekend; he got a few good customers this so far and Mr Jones hoped it would stay that way. But he knew well enough that even a good day like now can turn ugly in the next moment or so. He was also extremely worried for his son, Casey, who was upstairs in their apartment relaxing after hockey practise, and even though he knew Casey could handle himself during a fight like he taught him, it still didn't stop his worrying. Comes with the job of being a father. It was nearly six in the evening, and just about time to close the store and hopefully a peaceful evening followed by a peaceful night. But he should've none better. He had heard of many stores and local businesses being robbed and coerced by thugs calling themselves 'Purple Dragons'. If he was honest, he'd never heard of the gang name before and assumed it was a new gang in town. But whatever the case, it was clear that unlike the seemingly random nature of the crimes they'd committed, it was still clear that the attacks and robberies never occurred twice at the same building again, meaning something was very wrong.

Mr Jones' thought were justified however, when a group of nine consisted of four men and four women dressed in a variety of punk style clothing (and bad hair styles), led by the biggest man he has ever seen, he realized things were bound to get bad really quickly, especially since by the numbers alone, he was going to lose badly. But when the group of nine smashed his store door through and entered the shop, he sincerely wished his son would ignore it and hide. Only the large man entered the shop unarmed, the other eight intruders wielded heavy chains, pipes and bricks as weapons. When the largest man ever approached him, he nervously stood his ground behind the counter. But with the other man's massive body size it wouldn't matter. And it didn't matter, as the large man grabbed him over the counter, his two large hands alone covered Mr Jones' arms and pinned them into his sides, preventing him from taking action of any sort. It was at that moment that Casey opened the backdoor and rushed in the shop with the intention of helping his father,

"Dad!" Casey shouted which got the attention of all nine intruders and the man who had Mr Jones literally in his hands grinned,

"Hey kid, we're in the middle of talking 'business' here, so why don't you 'help' by seeing if our weapons are any good?" the large man said, and at that the other eight intruders turned their attention to Casey who then slowly backed away into the back room he came from and the other eight thugs approached him grinning at the thought of inflicting pain onto a kid.

"Now then, where were we?" the large man said as he then squeezed his hands around Mr Jones' body, "Oh yes, I remember. I was going to ask if you would like to sell ownership of your shop to the Purple Dragons!" as he said this, he continued to squeeze down on Mr Jones and he could feel the air leaving his lungs and he couldn't breathe properly, "I would hurry with an answer! I can't guarantee your boy's safety!" the large man said but Mr Jones just glared at him and gritted his teeth, "I like your defiance, but if you don't make a decision-"but the large man was cut off when he heard fighting coming from the back room and the sound of Casey smacking a thug with something wooden (probably a bat), the loud shout of "GOONGALA!" and other grunted noises of pain that didn't come from Casey, but his own group. But the large man didn't seem to care and just grinned,

"Well, it would appear your son has made the decision for you." And with that, the large man slammed Mr Jones headfirst into the ground with the force of a freight train. The result was Mr Jones lying lifeless on the ground, his neck bent in a way that showed he wouldn't be getting up alive. The large man just stood grinning at the murder he just committed… and enjoyed doing.

With his act of murder done, the large man walked away and toward the back room where his group was fighting Casey who was fighting valiantly.

Unbeknownst to Casey, who was fighting off the eight armed and dangerous Purple Dragons, his father had just been killed, but now that was unknown to him. As one Purple Dragon with a dragon tattoo on his face stepped forward to swing a pipe at Casey's head, Casey blocked the attack with the baseball bat he was using to defend himself and countered by using said bat to hit the man's left hip, the hit made the man stagger back, but at that moment a large shadow towered over him and when he turned to face whoever it was who was casting the shadow over him, a large fist slammed into his head and chest with the force of a charging rhinoceros. The punch sent Casey flying backwards and didn't stop until his back hit the wall behind him, the force of it, cracked the wall and Casey slumped to onto the floor, unconscious. Before he slipped into unconsciousness however, he overheard one of the thugs talking,

"What shall we do with him, Hun? Boss?"

"Leave him. Once we're finished here, we will put the fear into this city."

6:09pm…

The first thing Casey noted in his state was that he was in pain, a lot of pain. It was dark where he was, but whether or not it was because he was in a dark room or not, he wasn't sure. The pain was mostly centred on his head and chest. Another thing he noted was that he was breathing in some smoke. Perhaps his Dad was cooking! Dad? DAD! It was thoughts of his father that clicked in Casey's mind as the incident that happened came rushing back to him; the robbery, the threats, his fight with eight armed thugs and then finally the large hulk that towered over him. As soon as his mind registered this, he tried to force himself to stand, but he felt immobile. He then noted the smoke was getting thicker and that now he could also feel himself getting uncomfortably hot. Once he could feel the heat he asked himself "Is our home on fire?" that question had abruptly forced Casey's eyes open and the first sight he saw was the smoke coming in through the closed door that led to the rest of the shop. Casey stood, though the pain was trying to force him to stay down, but Casey wouldn't let it. The smoke indicated that his home was on fire, his father was undoubtedly on the other side of the door and if not then surely he was out of the shop and no doubt he called for help. But Casey would escape first before help would come to save him from the fire. He approached the door and when he turned the doorknob and opened the door, his fears of his home being on fire were correct.

The moment the door was opened, the sight of flames engulfing the shop filled his entire vision. The flames brought with it a lot of smoke and ash that Casey was having trouble not breathing in as he turned his head to look around the now burning shop trying to see his father. He soon found him lying on the floor, the flames nearly reaching him. Thinking he must be unconscious, Casey braved the fire, and walked through the ash, smoke and fire to reach for his father.

"Dad? Dad, please get up. *cough* *cough*, we have *cough* to get out…" Casey said as he coughed out as much ash and smoke as he could and once he was standing next to his father, he crouched down and wrapped his father's left arm around his shoulders and lifted him up. He then proceeded to drag his father out toward the exit, assuming his Dad was unconscious.

"C'mon Dad, *cough* *wheeze*, let's go… *cough*" as Casey said this, he began to walk quickly over to the exit, the smoke and flames doing little to stop him.

Then to Casey's relief, the sound of sirens approached the shop, help was on the way! All he needed to do was to get himself and his father out of the burning building and then he will help his father recover.

6:10pm…

The moment Casey exited the building with his father, he wasted no time in breathing in as much clean air as he could as he continued walking away from their burning home. Once Casey was on the other side of the road, he gently placed his Dad onto the pavement and at that moment, the sirens turning out to be police and firefighters, Casey called for them.

Whilst the firefighters were preparing to put out the blaze, the police tended to the man on the ground as Casey explained what happened. He had only just started talking to one of the policeman when the other who began tending to his father checked his pulse and once he realized the man was dead, he slowly stood up and slowly walked towards Casey.

When Casey heard the other police officer approach him, he was hopeful to hear good news, but once he saw the officers grim face, his own face immediately fell into concern,

"Officer? What's wrong with my Dad…?" the officer he asked was hesitant but even so, he still spoke,

"Kid… I'm sorry…" those words alone made everything else silent for Casey but then the officers next words made him stop completely,

"…but… your Dad is… gone…"

me: hey there! Hoped you liked Casey's backstory. In a manner of speaking. But this is how Casey will meet up with the turtles eventually. Stick around to see how!