Chapter 5: Cool Reunion

"Hi, guys!" April smiled as the Turtles approached. Handing the motorcycle helmet to Michelangelo, she watched indulgently as he pondered it for a moment then tried unsuccessfully to fit it on his head. "Definitely not dude, Mikey. Well spotted."

He shrugged bashfully, leaving the helmet on one of the bike's handlebars, as the other three gathered round. "Hi, April," said Donatello. "Suziquatrotastic."

"Hi, Donny," she replied while easing off her gloves, a little nonplussed. "Uh, thanks?"

"Suziquatrotastic?" Raphael murmured skeptically. Donatello shrugged, holding his ground.

"Yeah, April, nice outfit," remarked Leonardo brightly. "Very shiny."

"Very leather," Michelangelo remarked. "Leather city."

"No, actually," April said emphatically, teasing, and patted a leather-clad thigh. "Kitty's, the store for the discerning lady biker... Same block. It's just around the corner from Leather City!" They seemed bemused, and she sighed - She loved these four, but sometimes she was just wasted on them. It wasn't OK for her to be funny? "Well, you know, when you're a celebrity, going incognito isn't so easy... but then, you guys would know all about that." She angled her head skeptically. "Turtle Rap?"

"We, uh... don't talk about that," said Raphael sheepishly.

Realizing something, April turned back to Donatello. "Hey! You got your voice back! You sound like your old self!"

"Yeah," he replied. "Turned out it was laryngitis."

"We never even knew he had a larynge," said Michelangelo, adding innocently, "Where did Casey go, anyway?" Beside him, Raphael groaned and placed a hand over his eyes.

"Mikey! You know that's something else we don't talk about," said Leo. "Not when..." He indicated April with subtle sideways movements of his head, stopping when she turned to look at him. "Uh, not when... It's a... Tuesday."

"This is Friday," Donatello pointed out.

"It's OK, Leo, really," April assured him. "We"-

-"It'll be fine," said Raphael gruffly, uncomfortable.

"We both needed some space for a while," April recited, toying nervously with her gloves, her words sounding very well-rehearsed. "I told him he needed to grow up a little." Slapping the gloves down onto the seat of the bike, she pursed her lips. "OK, a lot."

"That's a big ask," said Mikey, in awe at the audacity of the idea.

"And you know, according to him, I've changed," she added, folding her arms a little peevishly. "Hey, get this... I'm a different person."

"Metatextual," said Donatello, and the others gave him a curious look.

April came out of her brief funk. "Hi, Raph!" she said playfully, adjusting the trailing ends of his red bandana. "You doing OK? Had, um, any solo adventures lately?" She raised an eyebrow. "Anything you wanna share?"

"Well, I suppose-" Raphael began cautiously and a little suspiciously, but Leonardo interrupted.

"-Hey, not that it isn't nice to see you, April-"

"-It's aaalways nice to see Aaaaapril..." Michelangelo drawled, sidling up and snuggling against her, head on her shoulder. Laughing, she pushed him away, but held onto his arm affectionately.

-"But you've got a reason for coming out here, haven't you?" Leo continued, concerned. "Is something wrong?"

They were still being watched, now closer than before thanks to the stealthy observers having brought out binoculars. "I hope you don't expect us to fight those things..." one of them said in a low voice. "We tried that a few times already, and that was when there was a lot more of us."

"Don't worry. We're only here to locate them," came the reply from the one holding the binoculars. "And if we get a chance, strike at their weak spot."

"Those things have a weak spot?"

The binoculars shifted over from where they had been trained on the group around the motorcycle, refocused, and followed as they walked together a few yards. "She brought us here, didn't she?"

The view settled on April.

"It sounds like he's had one of his premonitions," Leonardo said uneasily. He had known something was up as soon as he saw the bike approaching, and being told of Splinter's cryptic warnings of a mysterious threat had only confirmed it. Something is returning... I cannot even name it, Splinter had told April, for naming it would lend it more power. What could it mean? Leo wasn't totally sure he wanted to find out.

"The Foot are rebuilding, guys..." Perched on the low wall that surrounded the disused lot, April shifted apprehensively, hands slapping down on her leather-encased lap. "It's all starting over again." She turned to Leonardo, almost startled, as he shook his head. "Could it be-? Is the Shredder back? Is that what Splinter meant?"

"Nuh-uh," Leo said flatly. "The Shredder's dead... We checked." The Turtles shivered, but as one nodded their agreement.

It's strange, Matt thought, panning his binoculars away from the parked motorcycle, how quickly you get used to seeing these things... Walking, talking turtles. With differently-arranged cross-belts, and weapons whose quality and condition wouldn't shame even the most dedicated martial artist - and the color-coded bandanas. He was used to it by now and yet, in a way, he would never get fully used to it.

His binoculars again found the four creatures loitering in the empty parking lot, accompanied by the very pretty dark haired young woman in the black leather jacket and leather pants. TV reporter April O'Neil, just arrived on the motorcycle - a surprise to the Turtles, thanks to the helmet which had concealed her identity, but not to Matt. He and his hand-picked party had followed her here, for exactly this end. To find them.

April was not on Channel 3 business right now, he suspected. This was the same "disguise" she had lately been using to spy on the Foot, no doubt believing herself and her bike undetected. They could have taken her days ago if it had suited their purpose, but that would have been pointless when no one knew where the Turtles were. Their personal connection was known, if not exactly understood, and more than that, it was thought... They would do anything to protect her. Even put themselves in danger.

Useful to know.

"We gotta leave her out of this," said Jake, interrupting his thoughts. "None of this is her fault." The two young cops who weren't actually cops crouched next to each other in cover, just far enough away to avoid being seen, while the others stayed further back still.

"You would rather we tackled those things directly...?" Matt wondered. "Really?"

"Anyway... Now she's with them, she's protected, isn't she?" Jake tried not to sound pleased about that, and failed. "We can't get her."

Matt idly wondered why his comrade was so pleased about not getting to meet April O'Neil, but thinking about it... If he was, like Jake, enough of a dweeb to have a crush on some chick on TV, he probably wouldn't want to offer her up to Tatsu's mercy either. "We'll see," he replied. "Go tell the others - Be ready. I got a feeling."

Jake grudgingly moved back, barely making a sound, while Matt the Foot ninja kept watching and waiting.

"Wait!" said Raphael, reconsidering. "With all that mutagen in his system, can we be sure the Shredder was even human? Could he have come back to life? Maybe some crazy Professor stole his body and..." He tailed off, embarrassed, waving a hand dismissively. "Aaaahhh!"

"Yeah, Raph, or maybe he's a werewolf," Donatello mocked, earning an irritable glare.

"Will you just settle down?" said Leonardo. "The Shredder is dead. Let's not get carried away here... But you know, whatever is wrong, we'd better head back."

"What do you think, Mikey?" Donatello had noticed his brother's preoccupied air, and the others looked at Michelangelo curiously. Had he some thought that might help them make sense of this?

"Uh... Definitely extra pepperoni. Back to basic," said Michelangelo. They all looked at him blankly. "You know. Our first pizza, when we get back." More puzzled silence greeted him. "We need to cleanse our palate, guys, and work our way back up to the advanced stuff."

Tension broken, the others laughed. "That gets my vote," said Raphael.

"There was a bunch of magazines lying around, and Mikey's been reading the Robert Carrier columns," Donatello explained to April. She nodded conspiratorially, then, a thought striking her, turned to Raphael.

"Oh, yeah, Stanley..." April grinned, loving the opportunity to rib the red-masked Turtle... Raphael had been the first one she met, and though she would never say as much to the others, she felt they had a special bond that allowed her a few teasing privileges. "Miss McWilliams says Hi," she relayed mischievously. "And to tell you, you were the perfect gentleman."

"Although, you know guys, don't shoot me down, OK..." Michelangelo continued on his own train of thought, and offered hesitantly, "I was thinking... Hawaiian?"

"Huh?" A puzzled Raph frowned. "Miss McWhat?" The others nodded sagely as he looked around for support.

"Who's that? Yeah, right, Stanley," Donatello teased. He had no idea what this was about, but was keen to get in on the act.

"OK, OK, maybe not so basic," Mikey continued. "It's just being stuck out here, you know, with only one pizza place and no delivery... I think it's made me go kinda crazy."

"What? I don't get this. What are you-?" Flustered, Raph would have gone a deep red to match his bandana if it was physically possible. He stood abruptly. "Come on, you guys. Let's go."

"Yeah, Stanley, you change that subject."

"I was thinking... Maybe we could try quiche."

"Good one, Mikey."

"You liked that, huh Leo?"

"You almost had us."

"Looks like they're... Yeah. They're going down there. Underground. We're gonna lose them." Jake didn't even bother to try to hide how pleased he was.

"Don't worry," said Matt. "We do this right, they'll come to us. On our terms."

"Come on, guys," April said incredulously. "You're really going back to New York in this?"

"Beats walking," was Donatello's reply. He indicated the dark tunnel stretching ahead. "It's a pretty long way back to New York."

A few rungs up the ladder to the surface, April watched the Turtles pack what they had brought with them onto a go-kart like contraption. Looking up, she noticed the water dripping from the rounded ceiling of the tunnel. "And you guys are OK with that?"

"Ask me when we get there," said Raphael warily, clambering on board.

"I mean, it looks like a lot of water has passed through here recently."

"It's a water tunnel," said Leonardo cheerfully. "It sends water from the lake to the city when they need an extra supply. Pressure gets low, they open sluice gates over at the lake and let water rush right along here."

"Yeah," said April. "Along here. Doesn't that bother anyone?"

"It's OK," replied Donatello. "It's not used much. We only need an hour."

"If you're sure... It goes all the way back to the city?"

"Can we stop talking about the water now?" asked Raphael.

Donatello turned to him. "Right along here it goes... In a roaring, rushing, torrent," he said with relish. "Watery... water." He moved right up next to Raphael's ear and barked "Water!"

"Most of the way," replied Leonardo. "It's why we picked this place."

"See?" said Michelangelo. "We're not just pretty, we're smart too."

"Well, I am," said Donatello.

"OK, some of us are smarter, some of us are just plain pretty." Michelangelo licked a finger and slicked back an imaginary eyebrow.

"Well, I'll see you there," said April. "Go easy on them, Donny."

Donatello was strapping himself into the driver's seat. "You sure you won't...?"

"Uh, it's tempting, it really is," she said unconvincingly. "But unless you got room for the bike on there..."

"OK, April," said Leonardo. "See you in New York."

"If we get there in one piece," said Raphael quietly.

Smiling at that, April climbed back up the ladder. "'Bye, guys!" she called, receiving a collective "'Bye, April!" in response.

Donatello turned to the others. "Any of you guys get travel sick?"

"It's too early to tell," replied Raphael. He gestured toward the tunnel ahead. "Would you just get on with it already? 'Sooner we start, the sooner it's over."

"Raph's feeling queasy already," said Michelangelo.

"OK, guys. Here we go." Donatello started up the engine and the kart started down the tunnel with an abrupt motion that threw them forward then back. After a moment, the motion settled down.

"This isn't too bad..." said Raphael cautiously.

Donatello eased a lever forward, and the kart shot ahead at great speed. As they hurtled forward, Don lost control a little and they ran up onto the walls, the Turtles finding themselves at a steep sideways angle, held in their seats by inertia. "Heh. Should we go back for Raph's stomach?"

"Shut up, Mikey!"

"They've been down there a while. How do you know she hasn't gone with them?"

"Because, my slow-witted friend, of the motorcycle. Wait..." The binoculars were refocused again as they were trained on the figure now emerging out of the tunnel. "Yeah. Here she comes."

Oblivious to the watchers, April began the short walk back to where she had left the bike... and into a trap.

Next: April just can't get arrested, Splinter meets the boss and the Turtles are in their element...