Donatello felt completely and totally relaxed. For some reason, he had the idea that he had just gone through something really traumatizing, something really scary. Now, however, he felt warm and snuggly and cozy. He opened up his eyes to see a bright shiny light above him—a little tiny sun! The light felt so good on his scales and warmed his shell. For a while, he just lay in the sunlight basking until his body told him that he was getting too hot. Instinctively, he sought shade.

After only a few steps, he wasn't under the tiny sun anymore. There were lots of little tiny suns hanging up in a metal sky far, far above him, but they flickered and didn't seem to give off any warmth. They were nice, though, because they let him see even though he was in the shade.

The place that he lived was very strange. There was lots of metal and it didn't seem to have any big ponds or grass. He was hungry and nothing smelled appetizing to him.

"Donatello!"

Donatello looked up at the strange sound. Somehow, he knew that the sound was connected to him. Yes. 'Donatello' meant him.

A very large furry creature was making lots of strange sounds at him. Donatello didn't know what any of them meant, so he stared at the big creature, wondering if maybe it had any food. Instead, the furry creature reached down and picked Donatello up. Donatello felt nervous being high above the ground, but he somehow knew that he was supposed to trust this big furry animal.

The big animal took its other hand and stroked the top of Donatello's head. It felt good, so Donatello stretched his neck and rubbed his head against the hand.

Why was the big furry creature so upset? Its strange babbling made it sound like it was in some kind of pain, but as far Donatello could tell, the animal wasn't hurt in anyway. Then, a drop of water landed on Donatello's head, startling him. He retracted into his shell for a minute; but when he poked his head back out, he saw that there were little beads of water falling out of the big animal's eyes.

Donatello thought that it was a very strange creature, and hoped that at the very least it would prove useful by helping him find some food. He was starting to feel really, really hungry.

More sounds came from behind. There were some gigantic turtles making the weird noises at him. It startled him a little. He certainly couldn't make sounds like that. All of these creatures also seemed to be very upset. Two people also stood there, one with dark hair and the other with bright red hair. The red-haired person was making horrible sobbing sounds.

Donatello was nearly ready to be distraught as well, if they didn't leave him alone so that he could find something to eat.

As Leonardo lay in bed, tossing and turning, he couldn't stop replaying the day's events in his mind.

Mei's shrill screams for help. April's uncontrollable weeping. Raphael's fury and Michelangelo's unmitigated shock. Master Splinter's undignified breakdown followed by impenetrable silence.

But he was most haunted by the image he could not purge from his mind:

Donnie's mask and all of his gear lying in a crumpled heap on the floor; a small turtle, retracted into his shell, lying in the midst of it.

Leo sank his teeth into his pillow and screamed with rage. He wasn't even sure at whom he was angry; he wasn't sure how he had kept himself from acting like Raph, who had promptly gone on a rampage and destroyed nearly every dish in the kitchen.

And then the blame came again. Somehow, this was all his fault. He had no idea how, but it was. He was the leader! He should have ignored his weariness and helped Mei and Donnie; if he had been there, as the leader, would Donnie have used the dart gun instead of trying to administer the serum by hand?

Leo cursed himself. It should have been him. He silently pleaded with the fates, offering up his own life in exchange for Donatello's sentience.

Above the sound of his own grief and outrage, he could hear shouting and crashing coming from Raph's room...except that it was coming from the wrong direction. Alarmed, Leo sat up and listened.

Mikey.

Leo jumped up and ran out into the hallway. Raph had emerged from his room as well; both of them exchanged a worried glance and hurried down the hall toward Mikey's room. The door was partway open. Inside, Mikey was screaming and crying, slinging around his nunchuks and kicking things. His prized cardboard cutout of Chris Bradford was crumbled on the floor. Pieces of action figures were everywhere. His bed and sheets were torn and sliced through; shuriken were lodged in the walls and ceiling.

"Michelangelo!" cried Raph, pushing the door open.

Mikey stopped and looked at them. His face was contorted into an expression like Leo had never seen.

"None of it matters anymore!" Mikey screamed, knocking a shelf over. "None of it matters without Donnie!"

Silently, Raph went into the room and threw his arms around Mikey.

Leo felt utterly lost. His brothers were lost. His whole family was lost. They needed someone to lead them, or they would languish in grief for the rest of their lives.

Lead. Someone had to lead them. "We're going to get Donnie back," Leo said firmly.

"How?" Raph snapped. "April said there was no way we could just throw more mutagen on him. It's too unpredictable, remember?"

Leo shook his head. "We've got to trust April's intuition on that. But if anyone could reproduce the same effects with mutagen to get Donnie back, it would be the Kraang."

Releasing Mikey, Raph turned to face Leo with a snarl. "And I'm sure they'd be just delighted to help us, seeing as how we're such good friends and all!"

"So what?" Leo shouted, his rage rising like bile. "We just put Donnie in Spike's old terrarium and feed him lettuce leaves for the rest of his life? Is that what you want, Raphael?"

Raph's face transformed into an expression of pure hurt; for the first time all day, tears shimmered in his green eyes. "How can you say that, Leo?"

Leo sighed. "I'm sorry, Raph, I didn't mean it."

Mikey rubbed tears out of his puffy eyes. "How are we going to get the Kraang to help us? It's not like even if we captured one we could actually trust it."

"But they would help the Foot Clan," Leo said.

"No way!" Raph said. "Not after Karai pulled that stunt with April and the Kraang double-crossed her."

"Maybe...we could get Karai to make nice with them again."

"Come on, dude," Mikey said. "What makes you think Karai is gonna help us?"

"Yeah, she hates us as much as the Kraang do, if not more!" said Raph.

Leo drew a deep breath. The time for secrets was over, regardless of what Master Splinter thought. "Because Karai is Master Splinter's daughter."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" Raph snarled.

"Ask him," Leo snapped. "It's the truth. And there's got to be a way we can use that."

"You're insane."

"Maybe. But it's the only option I can see."

Raph put his face in his hands for a minute. "So how exactly are we going to get to Karai about this? Ambush her and be like, 'Hey, Splinter's your dad, so no hard feelings and let's work together?'"

"No. We're going to get to her the same way she got to us."

"What are you talking about?"

"Casey Jones."