Leo crouched in the alley and picked up a few pieces of cardboard that had the pizzeria's logo on it. The pizza boxes hadn't been ripped apart. They'd been chewed apart and he believed he finally understood what Mikey had been trying to tell him. He moved to examine the back door of the pizzeria. There were a few scratches on the door, but it was otherwise tightly locked.
He picked the lock anyway and crept into the pizzeria. The kitchen was dark and quiet and he didn't see any sign of Woody. He moved silently out towards the main dining room and was looking around when he was suddenly tackled to the ground from behind.
He grunted as he landed on his plastron and felt an unbelievably heavy weight on his shell.
"Wait, Leo?" a familiar voice said from above him.
Leo twisted onto his shell as the heavy weight suddenly lifted from him and stared up at his attacker. "Slash?"
"I-I thought you were Raphael," Slash said, standing fully and offering a hand to pull the other leader turtle to his feet. "Why do you smell like Raphael?"
"Is that how you normally greet him?" Leo asked, ignoring Slash's question while he rolled his shoulder. "What are you doing here?"
"Leo?" Donnie said, entering the pizzeria from the back door with Casey and April close behind him. "Anything in here?"
"Just Slash," Leo said. "What are you doing here?" he repeated to the larger turtle.
"I've been tracking some organized dog activity," Slash said.
"Organized dog activity?" April repeated slowly, thinking about the chewed up pizza boxes they'd just passed at the back door. It certainly did look like a pack of dogs had been here.
"Organized like what? They're all sitting at the same time?" Casey asked with a grin.
"Why didn't you call us if there's been organized activity around the city?" Leo asked.
"You just took down the Shredder," Slash said with a small shrug. "We figured we could keep an eye on the activity and pull you in later. What are you doing here?"
"Looking for a friend," Leo said with a frown as he turned to Donnie. "Does this make any sense?"
"Well, dogs are pack animals," Donnie said. "And I suppose they could be involved in an organized crime spree if they had a pack leader who knew what he was doing."
"Being a mutant dog would probably qualify someone to be a pack leader, right?" Leo said, crossing his arms as he thought.
"Rahzar?" Slashed asked, following Leo's train of thought.
"And if it is Rahzar," Leo said, "do we think the dogs just happened to go after Woody because he was carrying food, or do you think Rahzar knows Woody is connected to us?"
Donnie's face was grim as he considered the options. "Dogs have a very good sense of smell. Did Mikey see Woody today?"
Leo nodded and continued to think as he faintly heard Slash ask who Woody was. Leo began to head back through the kitchen as April filled Slash in on Mikey's relationship with the pizzeria worker. There were no signs of a struggle anywhere inside the restaurant, which there surely would be if the bad guy in this situation was an entire pack of dogs.
He stepped silently back into the alley and froze when he saw a dog sniffing around the pizza box remnants. Maybe, he thought, it could be as easy as following a dog back to the pack. The dog's head perked up and he suddenly took off down the alley. Leo glanced behind him at the pizzeria's back door before moving quickly to follow.
He kept to the shadows as the dog was able to run freely down the New York City sidewalks. But he kept up and was soon rewarded with a rundown warehouse. They rounded a corner of the building and Leo watched as the dog traveled through an actual doggie door installed in a side entrance door.
He frowned. He certainly wasn't fitting through there. He climbed up the side of the building and slid through a window.
"I have some food," Rahzar was saying.
Leo leaned further and finally spotted Woody, sitting stiffly in a chair. He wasn't bound, but he was surrounded by a lot of dogs sitting guard around him.
"No thank you," Woody said, slowly. He eyed the large mutant dog who had grabbed him earlier. He was scarier looking than anything Woody had ever seen before, but so far he had only paced back and forth in front of Woody. Woody pulled his feet up into the chair, and away from the other normal-looking dogs who sat staring and occasionally growling at him.
"I'd rather you be comfortable," the large mutant dog said.
"I'd be more comfortable at home," Woody said in a low voice.
"Well, you cannot go home until the turtles get here."
"You have pet dogs and pet turtles?"
Leo grinned as he listened to Woody's calm voice despite the fear he could see on the human's voice. He shifted across the rafters and positioned himself over the two of them.
"These dogs are not my pets. They are my brothers. And based on the amount of turtle pheromone I can smell on you, you know that the turtles are not pets either. I'm sure they'll be here soon."
"Turtles are pretty slow creatures. I'm guessing we'll be waiting a long time."
Rahzar leaned towards Woody and Leo reacted, pulling his swords as he dropped down from the rafters to land in between the mutant dog and where Woody sat. He watched as Rahzar immediately took a few steps away from him and glanced around, clearly expecting a few more turtles to drop from the rafters. The dogs around them jumped to their feet and stood growling, but didn't move towards them.
"You okay?" Leo asked, although he didn't turn to look at Woody behind.
"Yes."
"Good. Now stop antagonizing your captor."
"Now you may leave," Rahzar said, leaning around Leo to speak to Woody.
"Don't move," Leo said, glancing down at the dogs around them.
"I haven't harmed him," Rahzar said to Leo. "I just wanted to get your attention."
"Why?" Leo asked.
Rahzar watched as Leo's hands tightened around his katana and took another small step away from Leo as the image of the blue-clad turtle beheading Shredder flashed in his mind. The dogs around him sensed his unease and began to growl and crowd towards the turtle. He issued his own low growl and the dogs settled and reluctantly sat back down in their spots.
"Look," Rahzar said. "With Shredder gone and the Foot disbanded, my career opportunities have dwindled."
"Career opportunities?"
"Before Shredder found me, I had a dojo. I taught students. I had a small film career. I'd like to go back to that."
"And you think we can help you with that?"
"I know you can."
"Why would we want to?"
"Because you're the good guys and it's the right thing to do, isn't it?" Rahzar said. "And if I'm human, you won't ever see me again."
"There are better ways to go about this than kidnapping someone to be used as bait."
"Your phone numbers are not exactly listed."
Leo frowned at him and he raised his hands up in his own defense.
"Look, I was getting desperate. I've been looking for you all for weeks. I happened upon Mikey's scent at that pizzeria by accident."
Leo stared at him for another moment and turned to eye Woody. Woody didn't look hurt. And so far, Rahzar hadn't made any moves to attack him, even though he was outnumbered given the number of guard dogs surrounding them. He sheathed one sword and used his free hand to pull his T-phone to call Donnie.
"Where did you go?" Donnie voice asked immediately when he answered.
"Donnie, I found Woody with Rahzar. I'll send you the address. Can you bring retromutagen?"
"You what? Where?"
"Retromutagen, Donnie?"
"Yes, I always have some on me."
"Wait, really? Why? Never mind. Just bring it here, okay? We'll talk about that later."
He hung up with Donnie and quickly texted him their location while shaking his head.
"He's on his way," Leo said. "Do you think maybe you could call off the dogs?"
Rahzar nodded and made a strange growling noise in his throat that had every dog in the room stand and scamper off. Woody stood slowly from his chair to stand next to Leo as the dogs left. Leo sent Rahzar a questioning look.
"I sent them all home. To their own homes."
Leo took Woody by the arm and moved them across the room. He wanted to get Woody out of there but there was no way he was leaving when Donnie was on his way to them. Making a deal with Rahzar didn't mean he trusted him enough to leave him alone with his brother.
"You stay," he said as Rahzar tried to follow them. Rahzar stopped in his tracks and frowned at him. "Not a dog joke," Leo said. "But still, just stay over there."
Then he dialed Raphael so he could relay to him and Mikey that he had Woody with him. Although, he noted an uncomfortable feeling as he dialed since he knew how Raph would feel about him being here alone. But before Raph could pick up, there was a loud "Booyaaakaashaa!" as Mikey appeared in the warehouse with Raph, Karai, and an unknown human trailing behind him.
"Mike!" Woody called out. Even though Leo had already freed him from the dog mutant, he felt his chest loosen at the sight of his freckled turtle there to save him.
"Woody?" Mikey said, swinging around towards Woody's voice. His eyes scanned over his curly-haired human and he sprinted over to them and scooped Woody up in a hug.
Raphael ignored the reunion and continued his charge towards Rahzar, at least at until he heard Leo yelling at him to stand down.
"What? Why?" Raphael asked, his face twisted in confusion as he stood with both sais drawn just a few feet from Rahzar.
"I've made a deal with him," Leo said. "What are you doing here? How did you find us?"
"Thanks for telling me you had Woody, Leo," Mikey said, cutting his eyes towards Leo as he continued to hug Woody into his plastron.
"I was just about to call you, Mike," Leo said, lifting the phone he still had in his hand and waving it at him as proof. "What are you doing here?" he asked again. He turned his glare towards Raphael. "I told you to take him home."
"Yeah, cause he was gonna go home with Woody still missin," Raph said, crossing his arms over his plastron and frowning back at Leo. "And why were we goin home? To regroup together? Cause it looks like yer here by yerself."
"And who is that?" Leo asked loudly, pointing at the redheaded human who stood staring at the rest of them from a spot next to Karai.
"This is Sam," Karai said. "Woody's roommate who apparently put a tracker on Woody's phone. That's how we found you."
"You did what?" Woody asked, pulling away from Mikey to glance over at his roommate.
Sam shrugged and finally found his voice. "It was a little invention I came up with for a class project and I wanted to see if it worked, so I stuck it in your phone and our other roommates' phones. It was a long time ago and I almost forgot about it."
"Well, I guess it came in handy," Woody said, wrapping his hands back around Mikey's arms to pull him in close again.
"I got an A on the project."
"Here is your phone, by the way," Rahzar said, offering up the phone he'd pulled off the human earlier.
Mikey left Woody behind in order to cross the room and swipe Woody's phone from Rahzar's hand. Then he swung his free hand around and punched Rahzar in his snout, sending the large dog back a few steps with a yelp. Leo's, Raph's, and Karai's eyes were wide as they watched Mikey turn and practically skip back to Woody's side.
A/N: No dogs were harmed in the making of this chapter.