New Friends and Old Enemies - Edited

by EuroAmerican

The turtle boys are saving the day once again with help from their old friend April O'Neil, but a blunder on the boy's part introduces them to a new friend. This gives the purple dragon members another target to try a figure out where the turtles' lair is. Rated for violence, mild language, and some romance. (Naturally, I don't own any of the TMNT characters)

13. Chapter 13

April was finally free to leave the house the following day. She rushed to Holly's apartment after breakfast to see how she and her mom were doing. Holly opened the door looking almost normal, until April looked a little closer. "What is on your face?" She asked and pointed openly.

Holly swatted away her finger, "Its about two pounds of make-up."

"You look like a painted doll." April burst out laughing.

"Shut it, its the only way I can go outside. I look like one of those women on reality T.V. who spends all their money on plastic surgery."
April laughed harder, so Holly just pulled a face at her, but cracked her own smile soon after. "I have your assignment list from school." April handed over a sheet of paper and Holly looked it over quickly.

"Meh, I already turned most of this in." Holly threw the paper on the kitchen counter and walked over to the fridge.

"You would think getting the crap kicked out of you would get you some time off school?" April said.

Holly shrugged. "Its not like there's much else to do. Mom is still worried about everything, but at least I can now tell here where I'm going and what I'm doing."

"How is she?" April asked.

"Handling it better than I expected to be honest. She's still threatening to move to another city every other day, but she won't do it." Holly said.

"Are you sure? I can't loose you guys too." April was briefly panicked.

"No, I think she's worried about the guys too. They're only 15 after all." Holly said.

"16." April said suddenly remembering, "This week is their 16th, mutation day I think they call it".

"No way!" Holly was excited. "Lets get them something awesome to eat, and a cake!"

"Who needs cake?" Stacey said as she entered the apartment. She was carrying bags of groceries and both girls ran over to help her out.
"The Turtles!" Holly almost shouted, "Its their birthday, well... sort of."

"Oh, then they absolutely deserve a cake!" Stacey dropped the last bag on the counter and started putting away her shopping. "I'll call over to Queen of Cakes and see if they can whip you up something special for them."
April and Holly high-fived, and started to Google restaurants that they could get take out from that was on the way.

"I bet Mr. Murakami would be happy to make them something!" Holly offered.

"They can go there anytime!" April protested.

"But they love sushi." Holly rebutted.

"Raph loves sushi." April called her out on her favoritism.

"Shush" Holly hushed her friend with a glance at her mom. Stacey was eyeing them slightly, but she was already on the phone so may have missed that particular jab.

After a half hour of arguing, the settled on getting Tapas since it would allow them to order a ton of stuff that they could try. Stacey waved her credit card at them and they placed an order for pickup a couple of hours later, that way they had plenty of time to get everything ready.

"The woman who runs the Bakery said she'll have your cake ready by one o'clock this afternoon." Stacey said.

"Amazing, you're the best mom" Holly said and ran over to give Stacey a hug.

"Just be careful while you're out." Stacey said holding her daughter at arms length. She still didn't like the idea that there was some grand scheme going on in the back alleys of the city. But, after getting the full account of what had happened the night of the attack, Holly and April were doing everything they could to stay out of trouble. Plus they were probably being looked after by the most capable people under the city. "Tell the boys they're welcome to come back over here too. I do still have questions."

"We will." Holly and April rushed off to her bedroom to find some stuff they could bring to make it a real celebration.

After spending a lot of time giggling in Holly's room, they emerged with a few things in a backpack that they were going to take with them. Holly had found her Bluetooth speaker and some party poppers that could be annoying. She also had dug out an old Polaroid camera that printed the images as soon as the pictures were taken. Stacey had even found some party hats and noise makers that were left over from a New Years party she had thrown years ago.

"Oh, I am making Raph wear one of these" Holly laughed.

"He's the quiet one, right?" Stacey asked.

"No, he just pretends to be tough" Holly said before she could sensor herself.

"Huh." Stacey said watching her daughter closely.

April shoved Holly to get her attention, "We had better go, don't want to be late." She indicated with her eyes that Stacey was paying close attention. Holly stuffed the hats in her bag and they hurried out the door.

April and Holly arrived at the Lair in the middle of the afternoon. The guys were up in a training session so they decorated the kitchen as best they could as quietly as possible to surprise them.

"Surprise!" They both yelled as Leo, Raph, Mikey, Donnie, and Splinter came out of the training room. They both threw streamers and blew noise makers as they revealed the spread of food they had arranged in the kitchen.

"You guys!" Mikey ran over and wrapped them both into a bone crushing hug. Holly sucked in air through her teeth and Mikey let go of her.

"I'm still a bit tender" She said, but patted Mikey on the shoulder to acknowledge his affection.

"You remembered our mutation day?" Leo asked a little surprised.

"Of course, it was the day we met." April said, but there was an undertone of misery in the statement. It had also been a year since her dad had been abducted.

Donnie wrapped her in a hug, and whispered something the others didn't catch. She nodded and smiled up at him.

Holly walked over and gave her a little side hug too, "We're getting closer to bringing him home." Aprils chin wobbled, and she nodded as a couple of tears slipped from her eyes. Everyone gathered around and gave her a group hug. Holly stepped back as she didn't really want to be squashed by everyone just yet. She and Splinter gathered plates and cutlery for everyone to start digging into the feast they had brought.
"We swear, we will get your dad back April." Leo said and gave her another tight smush for good measure.
"Yeah, we're getting closer to him every day" Donnie agreed.

"Thanks guys" She said and gave each of them a kiss on the cheek.

"OK enough gross emotions," Raph said and hurriedly detached himself from the others, "what is all this?"

April and Holly proceeded to point out all the options that they had brought, and everyone began devouring it before she had finished talking. Splinter tucked into some crispy duck wraps and even let out a little delighted sigh of satisfaction. "It has been a very long time since I had such delectable food".
"Good, that was sort of the point!" Holly said and loaded up her own plate with some wraps too.
They ate every scrap of food they had brought. Michelangelo had complained that it wasn't pizza, but it didn't stop him from eating as much as everyone else. When April unveiled the cake, all four of the Turtles visibly drooled.

"Is that, real cake?" Mikey asked in awe.

"Yeah, haven't you had it before?" Holly asked.

They all shook their heads, "The last 'cake' we got," Raph said with air quotes, "was the one Mikey made last year out of Algae and worms."

"Oh, well then we need to get some documentation of this." Holly pulled out her camera and waited for Mikey to take his first bite. She snapped a picture of his expression, his eyes had gone unfocused and his fork was hanging out of the side of his mouth. She pulled the film out of the slot at the bottom of the camera and waited for it to develop.
"Let me see that." April asked and Holly chucked her the camera. April turned the camera on all of them and took one big group selfie. Only Holly was ready, so when the picture came out, all the guys had faces full of cake. Splinter still managed to look dignified even in the middle of taking a sip of tea.
They all laughed, except Raph who was especially caught off guard and had frosting on his face.

Once they had cleaned up, April put on some music and Michelangelo immediately broke into dance. He was really good, and had no qualms about getting into it. April joined in. She was perfectly happy to just wiggle along with the beat. Donatello nearly fainted when he saw her, but Leo gave him a shove as he too joined in with their little impromptu party. Donnie followed and tried to look cool for April.

Raphael, not wanting to be left out, launched himself into the middle of the group and busted out some old school disco moves. April roared with laughter and copied along with him. Holly was perfectly happy to sit and watch her friends being complete weirdos; she tapped and sang along with the music and snapped pictures every once in a while. Soon though, April was trying to drag her into the group too. Holly tried protesting, but April would not let her sit it out. April held Holly's hands and did the sawing motion most preschoolers do when they're dancing and Holly burst out laughing.

Once they had all satisfied their need to act like complete idiots and their faces and sides hurt from laughing and smiling. The group of teenagers sat and relaxed for a while before they needed to get back to work. The sun would be going down earlier every day so they could get top side sooner. Donnie was eager to get more audio of the Krang guards for analysis. They had been going back to the military base at night too, but Mikey would get bored and distract him from doing much actual work. A vehicle being driven by one of the Krang had left the facility, but when they had tried to follow it, it had gotten away from them. They loaded up Donnie's van with their supplies this time.
"What happened to blending in?" Leo asked Holly when she suggested it.

"It may be good to remind certain groups that you're around" Holly said thinking back to the beating she had gotten. She wasn't in a hurry to get jumped again.

"I was thinking, we should call this thing 'The Shell-raiser'" Mikey said dramatically.

Donnie blinked at his brother, "I love it".

"Really?" Mikey beamed.

"Yeah, its perfect". Raph agreed.

They all piled in and drove to the base.

"I'm boooored" Mikey whined a few hours later.

"We know" Raph yelled at his brother his eye twitching in frustration.

"Would you both knock it off" Leo said for the fourth time. "We're going to leave you behind next time."

Holly and April rolled their eyes at each other. They were lying on a roof top with the guys watching the gate through binoculars.

"Can I fly the drone?" Mikey asked.

"Not just yet, I only have a couple of batteries and there's nothing going worth recording." Holly said, she stuck the binoculars back on her face before he could complain to her anymore about how bored he was.

"Awe." Mikey said, and flopped himself dramatically back to sulk.

"Mikey," April said to him as sweetly as she could, "I love you very much, but could you please just try to focus for like ten minutes?"

"But it's so boring just watching nothing" He pouted.

"Why don't you..." started Donatello when April interrupted him.

"Whats that?" She said pointing at a garage door that was opening near the back of the building.

"Have at it Mikey." Holly said and threw the drone controller at him.
He whooped at finally having something to do, and after a few moments he had expertly flown the drone over so the camera could see inside the dark garage.

April, Donnie, Leo and Raph were all squished together to see over Mike's shoulder to see the little screen. Holly remained on her stomach.

"Whats going on in there?" April asked.

"I see some movement, but I can't tell what it is." Donatello confirmed.

"Switch to the infrared filter." Holly said not taking her eyes off the scene through the binoculars.

"Infrared? You have been busy" Donatello commented.

"What? I was bored this week." Holly said and looked back to see everyone staring at her. She shrugged and turned back to her binoculars.

Mikey, tried a few of the buttons until he found the correct one that switched the image to the correct spectrum. Most of the building was various shades of blue with a few green and yellow spots. The inside of the garage was warmer and the vehicle that was running inside was bright red around the hood with pink showing through out the rest of the vehicle. There were a few people standing around, their exposed skin was a deep red, but there were some figures moving around that were almost as cold as the building. The only thing that showed up on them was a slightly warmer oblong that they were carrying.

"Well, that's different." Donnie said as he took the controls from Mikey to get a better look.

"What is it?" April asked.

"These people aren't producing any heat." Donnie pointed to the few moving figures.

"That's impossible." Holly said turning back to look at him.

"I don't know what to tell you, unless the filter is not working correctly?" He shrugged and handed the hand held device to her as she stood up and dusted off her shirt.

Holly studied the image for herself. "Its working, look here you can see that something is giving off heat. Whatever those things are they're carrying."
They were all silent for a moment. "What does that mean?" Leo finally asked.

Holly and Donatello looked at each other and shrugged at the same time.

"Take it in for a closer look." Leo said, and handed the controls back to Mikey. Holly went back to her binoculars, and handed a second pair to Raph who joined her at the edge of the building.

The drone swooped lower, but the image didn't change a whole lot. The people got a little clearer as the infrared image was able to detect more detail in the area.

One of the people inside the garage perked up and strode out to look for something. He looked up, searching for the noise he could hear.

"Um, guys," Mikey said, "I think we've been spotted." The man in the image pointed directly at the drone.

"OK, get it out of there." Leo ordered.

Mikey nodded and started to fly the drone to a building top a few blocks away for recovery later.
Before he got it out of the area though, the other men came rushing out. Holly and Raph saw them pointing something silver at the drone and fire a barrage of purple projectiles at the drone.

"What the hell?" Raph said out loud, he gripped the binoculars a little tighter to keep them still.

"Whoa!" Mikey was watching the show in front of him, not paying attention to the controller in his hand, and the little drone was hit and exploded into a cloud of smoke.

Holly physically jumped back. April and Leo were stood with open mouths while Donnie's brain was racing. "Was that a laser? Who has the technology to make laser weapons?"

"That truck is pulling out of the garage and those guys are getting into it." Raph said since he was the only one focused on the courtyard.

Holly jammed her binoculars back on her face, she winced a little, but saw that Raph was correct.

The big white box truck was pulling around to the gate and halted while the slow mechanics pried open the doors.

"Quick, lets see where they're going" Leo said, and they all scrambled to get back to the Shell-raiser

April and Holly climbed as fast as they could down the ladders to the street. The guys were waiting for them as they had the luxury of being able to jump from more than one story and not die, and as they slid the door closed they saw the box truck pass their alley way ahead of them. In both the drivers and passengers seat was two identical looking men. Black hair, black suits, just like the guys who sat at the front gate.

"Something is up with these guys." Donnie said as they drove.

"What are we going to do here?" Raph asked impatiently. "Are we just going to keep sneaking around these guys, or are we actually going to get some answers for once?"

"Why don't we do both." Leo said and swung the van onto the highway after the truck.

"They shot down the drone." Holly reminded them, "I don't think we're going to fair well against guys with laser guns."

"You guys," Leo emphasized, "Will stay in here. We will deal with them."

"Oh, I am 100% on board with not going anywhere near those guys." Holly said and April had to agree with her.

"Donnie, where are we going?" Leo asked as they crossed the bridge into the city.

"Well, if I had to guess, it looks like we heading towards that building." He pointed at a tall glass covered building that towered over the surrounding area. Huge letters indicated that the building belonged to a company called TCRI.

"Alright then, lets find out some answers for once." Leo said. He floored the accelerator and the Shell-raiser lurched forwards sending April pinwheeling back. Donatello caught her mid flight and pulled her onto his seat.

"You have to put more seats in this thing" April suggested.

"Some seat belts would be nice." Holly seconded, she had hooked her elbow through a pipe and was hanging on for dear life.

Leo cranked the wheel and the back end of the Shell-raiser swung out and blocked off the whole road. April and Holly hung on to anything they could find and squealed sightly as they came to an abrupt halt.
"Seriously, you're all terrible drivers!" Holly said and detangled herself from the pipe.

The Turtles leapt out of the roof hatch and stared down the truck as it screeched to a halt.
"Come out with your hands up!" Shouted Leonardo, and Raph audibly groaned at his brother.

"We're not cops, Leo" Raph said.

The passenger door opened and one of the black haired men stepped out. "You are in the place we wish to drive through this place." He said in his weird manner.

"Well were not moving until you give us some answers." Leo said, and April and Holly both face-palmed them selves at his bravado.

This time the drivers side door opened and another of the black haired, black suit men stepped out. "We must request that you leave this place." This time they both pulled out some pretty sophisticated silver cased guns. A few more identical guys climbed out of the back of the truck and came to stand with their

doppelgangers.

"If you will not leave this place, we will remove you from this place." Said the passenger side guy.
Holly and April looked at each other and scrambled out of the far side of the van, better to have two layers of sheet metal than one to protect against shots.

"I would like to see you try" Raph shouted and launched himself at the men.

They opened fire and the same purple lasers suddenly filled the air. The Turtles scrambled, some went high, others went low swiping at anything that might send these guys off balance. These strange men didn't seem to feel anything that hit them. They had no reaction, not pain, not surprise, they weren't smug, nothing. They just swung their strange guns around and kept firing.
April and Holly were crouched behind the tires of the Shell-raiser The laser projectiles did not seem to pass through inanimate objects, the few lasers that did fly past them left little singe marks on the concrete and buildings, but the damage was minimal.
"Lets see what is going on here." Holly said, and pulled a mini drone out of her pocket.
"You have another one?" April asked slightly shocked.

"Yeah, after how unprepared we have seemed to be from the start of all of this, I decided it was time for a back up plan." She launched the mini drone using an app on her phone and April scurried over to her. They sat with their backs to the Shell-raiser and watched the screen as a low quality video stream came to life.

"That's so awesome." April said and watched the drone whiz off over the top of the van.

"Why wont these guys go down?" Raph yelled at his brothers.
"They're uncommonly tough?" Donnie agreed as he smacked one of the freaky clone guys in the head. The guy didn't even blink.

"Guys, I don't think they're human." Mikey shouted with a hint of panic.

"Well then what the hell are they?" Raph shouted back.

"I don't know," Shouted Leo, then directing his question to the guy he was slicing at "What are you?"

"We are the ones known as the Krang" said the Krang guy as he continued shooting his laser gun.

"What is the Krang?" Donatello continued the questioning.

"The Krang is what we are known as." Answered another Krang.

"This is going nowhere" Raph shouted again, and lunged with full force at one of the guys, they crashed to the ground and the Krang simply got back up and continued the assault.

A whizzing sound overhead caught the attention of some of the Krang and they looked up for just a moment. Long enough for Leonardo to slice clean through one of the guys arms.

"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry." He said without thinking.

"Don't apologize!" Shouted Raph, but the Krang didn't shout or cry out. There was no blood, just sparks fizzing from the arm on the floor and the shoulder of the krang.

"Krang is no longer able to hold Krangs weapon." Was all he could say.

"They're robots?" Leo shrieked, his voice cracked a little in surprise.

"Good, then I don't have to hold back" Raph shouted, and really went after these guys now.

"That would explain a few things, but not the lack of heat on the infrared camera." Donnie commented as he sliced down on one of the guys with the hidden blade in his bo staff.

"Does it really matter?" Mikey asked and vaulted over one of the Krang who charged at him.

"It does from a scientific stand point." Donnie replied.

"Lets just finish this." Leo said, and sliced the arm less Krang through the torso this time. The robot split in two, and fell to the floor. But instead of just the fizzing he had been expecting, a pink blob rolled out of it. The Turtles just looked at it for a moment, before the pink blob grew six scrawny legs and opened its eyes and mouth. The Turtles all yelled out in surprise and horror. April and Holly were watching on the camera, and both had grossed out looks on their faces. The little pink blob then scurried away under the Shell-raiser and out the other side right by the girls. They looked down and the pink blob just looked at them for a second before shrieking a horrible shrill noise at them. They screamed and scrambled to their feet. April, who was closer to the brain-blob thing, pulled her leg back and kicked the thing as hard as she could. It flew up and onto the roof of a nearby building and they stood panting in sheer disbelief at what they had just seen.

"What the fuck was that?" April asked with wide eyes.

"I don't know, but if its bad enough to make you swear, I don't think I want to know." Holly likewise was shaken, they remained on their feet and scrambled to peek around the front of the Shell-raiser to make sure no more of those gross things were coming near them.

The turtles were thoroughly done with these guys now, and dismantled the rest of the Krang without too much hesitation. Each and every one of the Krang had the same little monster thing inside of it, and they all abandoned their exoskeleton once they were no longer functional. They squiged off as fast as their little tentacles could carry them, scurrying into dark corners and out of sight.

They all stood around looking at the damage they had done.

"OK, so we all agree that was really weird, right?" Mikey asked.

Everyone nodded and murmured their agreement.

"What are those things?" April asked stepping a little closer to one of the downed mechanical bodies. She poked a dismembered arm gingerly with her toes.

Donnie squatted down and began examining the parts scattered around them. "It looks like those little, brain things, were controlling these mechanical exoskeletons." He picked up a few pieces and began pulling it apart. "This technology is so advanced. I have don't know of anything else like it being produced at this time."

"Except for Baxter Stockman's Mousers." Holly said as she took an exterior panel from Donnie. "This is the same material."

"We need to find out what these things are." Leo summarized. "And why they're providing Stockman with this technology."
"Well, they were heading to TCRI right? Lets go see what is going on over there." April said.

"We can't just leave this here," Holly said, gesturing around them. "These weapons could do some serious damage in the wrong hands."

"Hide it in the sewers, we can come back for it later." Leo suggested, and they quickly gathered up the bigger chunks of debris and dropped it down a man hole cover.

Then all then hopped back into the Shell-raiser, and continued on to the looming building of TCRI.

The teens perched themselves on another roof top across from the entrance from the TCRI building. Donnie and April were hunched over her laptop trying to find any information about the company or the building. Mikey and Leo had decided to make a lap around the building to see what they could find, while Holly and Raph were back to looking through the binoculars.

"There's nothing, No information about TCRI or the company at all." April announced. "There's not even any city documents about them taking possession of the building. Its like they suddenly appeared one day, and no one has noticed."

"The only information out there is that it stands for Techno Cosmic Research Institute, but it doesn't say if its a school, or an aeronautics program. Nothing." Donnie read over Aprils shoulder.

"That is the dumbest name I have ever heard." Raph commented, and Holly silently agreed.

"Look, there's more of those guys inside the lobby." Holly said, pointing to a small group of people who had just exited an elevator inside the building.

Raph shuddered slightly, "If I never see another one of those gross, slimy brain things again, it will be too soon."

"Guys!" Mikey yelled as he and Leo landed on the roof beside them, "there's a loading dock around the back of the building and were loading crates full of mutagen into a truck"

"What on earth could they be using that much mutagen for?" April asked.

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Leo said. "Are you guys willing to find out where they're going with all that stuff?" He looked at April and Holly

They both nodded and shrugged, "I'm driving though." Holly said.

"Alright, we'll go in there and find out whats going on." Leo said and the guys all nodded.

"Just be careful, make sure you try to stay out of sight." Donnie said speaking more to April than anyone.

"Its going to be a little tough in that thing." She said pointing in the direction they had parked the Shell-raiser.

"Yeah, but they won't know its just us." Holly smiled a little smugly. She almost enjoyed the idea of scaring someone a little after all the crap they had been through.

"We need to get some stuff first, then we'll let you know when the truck is leaving and you can follow it." Donnie said, anxiety written all over his face.

"Don't worry, we'll be just fine." April reassured him.

Holly got a crash course in driving the Shell-raiser from Leo while Donnie grabbed a couple of things he had been working on out of some compartments. He threw a modified crossbow with a grappling hook attachment at Raph, a glass cutting tool to Mikey, and grabbed out a little flip open device that he tucked inside his own belt.

"Be careful in there." April said, and gave Donnie a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Let us know if you need us to come get you." Holly agreed from the drivers seat.

The turtles were gone before they could blink, so April shut the door and Holly drove them to the other side of the building. The truck was still there, but it was getting ready to leave. A obese man climbed up into the cab of the truck and started it up. The Truck wobbled slightly as the gears engaged and slowly it pulled out of the docking bay and turned onto the street.
They watched as the truck got stuck immediately at a red light, but one it began moving again, they pulled out of their alley way and began to follow.

"Where do you think he's going?" April asked.

"I have a pretty good idea" Holly replied and she followed the truck onto the turnpike.

Leonardo was impressed with his brother. Donnie had shot his crossbow across the gap to the TCRI building and hooked one of the giant letters to enable them to climb across. Plus, having the glass cutter meant they could enter the building anywhere.

"You really had everything covered this time!" Leo commented.

"Yeah, well I was sick of being caught off guard." Donnie said as he tied off the other end of the rope to a nearby water tower. "Anyone want to go first?" He chuckled. The others were silent. "Fine, I suppose its only fair." He gave the knot one more tug, then threw his bo staff up over the rope like a zip line. He took one breath for courage, then threw himself out over the city street. He slid down the line and landed on a ledge high above the street. Donnie chuckled nervously to himself. He knew it would work,

He waved at his brothers that it was all good, and in turn they each followed him over to TCRI. They followed the ledge a little further along to find a nice isolated looking window to cut open. Donnie placed the head of a plunger against the glass, extended out a diamond tipped blade on a long arm and cut a perfect circle into the building. The plunger head allowed him to carefully lower the glass section into the room without it making too much noise.

"Dude, that's sick." Michelangelo said before he was violently shushed by his brothers. They had entered into a completely empty room that was quite large. It looked like it should have been offices, but there was nothing there to suggest anyone even came into this space. Leo led the way to the only door on the opposing wall. The cracked it open and it was like they had walked into a completely different world. The middle of the tower looked like a space ship from one of Mikey's comics. All chrome walls with pulsing power strips running along the walls.

"Whoa," they all exclaimed.

"It's like the outer layer of the building is a front for whatever the heck is going on in here." Donnie said excitedly.

"And what exactly is going on in here?" Leo asked.

"I have no idea, but we're going to find out." Donnie took off into the guts of the building looking for something that may give them a clue as to what was going on.

The saw a few small sentry groups walking around, these guys were just the uncovered metallic bodies with the brains inside the abdomen though. They had no creepy skin bag on them, which they couldn't decide if it was better or worse this way.

They avoided everything this time, not wanting to draw any attention to the fact that they were there. Donnie was running along another corridor when he suddenly skidded to a stop and returned to look through a hatchway.
"Ah hah! He exclaimed and opened the door.

"What is it?" Leo asked.

"Data bank." Donnie said simply.

"How can you tell?" Raph asked looking at the nondescript console in front of them. It was made of the same material as everything else in the building and he couldn't see any indicator of what it was. But Donnie knew a computer when he saw one. He pressed on a few sections of the console before one of them popped open to reveal access ports. He smiled smugly at Raph who just huffed in annoyance back.

Donatello grabbed his little hand held device that he had taken from the Shell-raiser and pulled out some wires with various connectors on them and started trying to find one that might work with this strange technology. After a bit of jimmy rigging, he finally got his mini computer to connect. "Yes!"

He began accessing various information, and the screen flashed through pages of information.

"What is it saying" Hissed Leonardo as he kept watch through the little window in the door.

"I'm not sure because its not in English." Donnie said a little snarkily. "It looks like there is a main chamber in the tower though that almost all of the power is routed through." He studied a few more pages. "And they seem to reference something just designated with an 'X' an awful lot."

"How exactly does this help us?" Raph asked, getting frustrated. All this technology and sneaking around was not his style.

"Since I am downloading all this information and transferring it back to my computer at home, I would say that I'll have a better chance to translate it there." Donnie had his smug grin back on his face.
Raph just sneered at his brother.
"Would you knock it off." Leo hissed, "How long will it take for you to get everything you need?

"There is years of information here." Donnie said looking at the sheer quantity of data, "It could take years to get it all, but" he continued seeing the looks on his brothers faces, "I designed this to keep on transmitting for as long as its connected. If the Krang try to remove this, it will self destruct."

"Donnie, that's brilliant" Leo said.

"Yeah, I know." Donnie replied

"You're so modest." Raph said sarcastically.

Donnie tucked his little machine into the control panel and closed it up so that it went undetected for as long as possible. They then all exited the room back into the corridor and continued on to try to find the central room.

April and Holly followed the truck back out to the military base. Holly had suspected this was where they were bringing the mutagen, but why they were transporting it here was another matter. Instead of turning into the compound though, it pulled off at the recycling center and proceeded around to the back of the building. Holy pulled the Shell-raiser behind a nearby building and they both hopped out to see what was going on.

"Why wouldn't he go into the base?" Holly wondered out loud.

"I don't know, but maybe we should find out." April ran across the road to the large lot that was filled with piles of recyclable material. There was a huge container of glass bottles next to the building, and April climbed up it and onto the side of the building.

"Where are you going?" Holly hissed at her.

"To see whats really going on inside this place." April replied like it was obvious.

Holly shook her head before following her friend up the side of the container. April helped pull her up and onto the top of the container before she shimmied up a drain pipe and onto the roof.
"Are you kidding me?" Holly complained. She grasped the pipe and began to climb much less confidently.

"You need to work on your upper body strength." April said as she hauled her friend over the lip of the building.

"Or, we could use the technology I have in my pocket to do the work for us?" Holly said and pulled out her mini drone.

"Well, now you just sound like Donnie." April scoffed and waved away the easier option.

"There are some things that tech is good for." Holly said as she powered on the drone. She flew it over the side of the building and looked around for the truck. It had backed up to another loading dock that was under a thin corrugated tin cover. Holly sent the drone under the cover and looked around.
"There, you see. I didn't have to climb a building to see what is going on."

April pulled a face, but had to admit that the mini drone was cool. She crouched along more of the roof to see if she could see what was going on inside the facility. Most of the windows were filthy so she couldn't see what was inside. But there one small ventilation port that just had a plastic cover on it that she might be able to see into. "Come here and give me a boost."
Holly flew her drone back up to them and snatched it out of the air. She pocketed it again and went to see what April was looking at. "You won't be able to see anything through that." Holly said.

"No, but the drone might be able to get inside." April poked her tongue out at her friend.
"Fine," Holly handed over the drone and her phone before interlocking her fingers to create a step for April to climb into. She leaned back against the wall to make herself more stable and let Aprils weight lock her fingers tight together. April reached up and wiggled the cover a few times before it came out of the brick. The hole was not massive, but it was just big enough for the little drone to be pushed through. April fired it up and it bumped into the walls a few times before she got the hang of flying it. Once it was hovering, she climbed down and the girls sat side by side on the roof to see the screen. April flew the little drone high in the building and they were surprised to find the building mostly empty. There was some conveyor belts pushed up against the wall, but the entire center of the facility was empty. They looked at each other, confused.

"I don't understand." Said April.

"No, neither do I." Holly said squinting at the screen. "Fly over there." Holly pointed at another area inside the building, and April moved the little drone in that direction. It seemed to be flying just fine, but suddenly it hit something and dropped to the ground

"What the hell?" Holly took her phone back from April and fired up the drone again, She took of vertically and nothing happened. She pulled it back to where they had pushed it into the building and flew in a high arch around the inside of the building.
A door opened at the bottom of the screen and a few of the Krang entered the room. This drone had no audio, so it looked like they were talking to each other about something, but neither Holly or April could be sure. One of the Krang turned and pointed something into the room, and a dome materialized in the room.
"Whoa!" Holly exclaimed. "What they hell is that?"

"I have no idea" April admitted. They watched as a mechanical iris opened up and the Krang disappeared into the dome.

"Where does that go?" Holly asked out loud and tried to fly the drone into the opening before it closed. They caught a glimpse of the inside and it looked massive, whatever it was. The drone bounced off of the Iris and dropped to the floor again. "That's a sphere, not just a dome." Holly's mouth was hanging open at the realization.

"We have to tell the guys!" April said, "Lets get out of here."

Holly agreed, she expertly guided the drone back up to the small opening and hoisted April up to grab her equipment back out of the hole. She had already lost her good drone today, she was not loosing this one too. They scrambled back down to ground level, and Holly grunted and clutched her side as she landed from the drop off the container.

"You OK?" April asked,

"Yeah, just tender still." Holly winced and they took off running back to the Shell-raiser.

"Hey, at least we didn't get caught this time!" April said as they pulled away from the area. Holly just laughed.

Leo and the others were doing almost as well as April and Holly. They had not been detected yet and had managed to find the central room that Donnie had found in the data bank. There were tons of the brains flying around in little hovering crafts that flew them to various instrument panels. There were three very large objects in the middle of the room that all pointed to a platform of some kind.

"Hovering vehicles? These guys have to be from off-world?" Donatello postulated.

"Off-what?" Raph asked.

"Aliens" Donnie said holding his hands up and in front of his shoulders.

"Real aliens?" Mikey asked disbelievingly.

"You do remember that we're giant mutant turtles, right?" Leo reminded him.

"Yeah, but we're still like, 'Earthlings'" Mikey said as if this made total sense.

His brothers all rolled their eyes, "If they're aliens then what are they doing here?" Leo asked.

"Hopefully, once we have some of the files downloaded, I can tell you." Donnie remarked.

"Why don't we get out of here while we're undetected." Leo said. The others agreed, even Raph did reluctantly. So they backtracked to the outside of the building. Donnie watched his brothers cross back over to the other building before detaching the grappling hook and swinging over himself.
"I think this is the most successful reconnaissance mission ever?" Leo announced.

"The most boring, if you ask me." Raph piped up,

"Boring means no one gets hurt." Leo responded.

Holly tossed her phone to April and asked her to call the guys since she was driving.

"What does this thing run on?" April asked as she pulled up the guys numbers.

"It was an old phone I still had lying around. I haven't had a chance to get a new one yet." Holly shrugged, then she remembered that Aprils phone could still be in the ally way that they were taken from. "Hold on, we're taking a quick detour."

Holly took a couple of turns and headed over to the spot they had been grabbed from last week. They both hopped out of the van and went hunting.
"Chances are, someone picked it up and hocked it" April said not holding out too much hope.

"Some times people are nice though." Holly remarked and checked behind some garbage cans. They hunted around the area, turning over boxes that were stacked ready for the trash collection. Holly even got on her hands and knees to check under the dumpster. As she was standing back up though, she saw a plastic bag tucked into the handle of the dumpster with a note.

"Its not here." Announced April a few minutes later.

"I wouldn't be so sure" Holly said and held up a zip-lock bag with a note in it.

"No way." April said. She read the note which was from a good Samaritan stating that they hoped the Plastic bag would keep the worst of the filth off her phone. "That's so nice"

"Told ya, not everyone in this city is a complete asshole." Holly and April climbed back into the Shell-raiser and headed back to Manhattan.

Donnie's phone rang as the guys pulled him back up to the rooftop across from TCRI. It was a good thing they had left when they did as his ring tone was on and at full volume. He hadn't want to miss a call from April if it had been an emergency.

"Really?" Raph asked, "If that had gone off in there." He pointed across to the building they had just left.
Donnie just shrugged sheepishly and answered the call. "Hey, are you guys alright?"
"Yeah! You won't believe what we've seen though." Aprils voice came through even though it was Holly's number that had flashed on the screen.

"I think we also have some interesting information. But I need to get back to my lab to know for sure." Donnie said.
This time it was Holly's voice that came through, "We're still about a half an hour out, shall we pick you up somewhere or meet you back at the lair."
"The lair I think." Donnie turned to the others to see what they thought, he had popped the girls on speaker now too.

"Yeah, drive that way and if we see you, we'll flag you down." Leo concurred.

"Guess what else though, we found my phone!" April said happily. "It's totally dead, but someone was nice enough to tuck it out of the way."

"Great!" Donnie smiled.

"And we climbed onto the roof of the Recycling processing center and back down without getting caught" April sounded so proud of herself.

"Wait, the recycling plant? Right next to the military base?" Donnie asked, "They didn't take the Mutagen into the base?"

"No," Was all the reply he got.

"That's weird," Donnie scratched his chin.

"Look we'll let you all about it when were together, Splinter is going to want to hear all this too." Holly said.

By the time everyone was back underground and the Shell-raiser was parked up it was well past one am. Donnie had gone and grabbed his computer and stated working on the files he was receiving from TCRI. When he explained what he had done, April, Holly, and Splinter were extremely impressed.

"Even if we can get a few days worth of downloads, it will be so much information. We might finally find out what is going on in this city." Holly sat back on the sofa and chuckled to herself. "Brilliant."

"I know, and since we weren't even caught it might be weeks before they find my mini server" Donnie said proudly.

"We weren't caught either." April said, "We saw... Something." She finished off looking to Holly for help explaining what exactly they had seen.

"It was an invisible... hole in the ground?" Holly tried.

"You saw an invisible hole in the ground?" Repeated Raph skeptically.

"Says the giant talking turtle." Holly scoffed, and splinter let out a little chuckle of laughter. "It was invisible, one of the Krang made it visible, and an opening appeared into a big sphere in the floor." It still didn't sound very good.

"You've lost me." Mikey said shaking his head.

"Hold on," April grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper and tried to draw roughly what they had seen in Holly's phone screen. She drew the rough dimensions of the room, and then sketched the section of the sphere they had seen.

"How big was the room?" Donnie asked frowning slightly. Holly estimated the dimensions for him. "If this really is a sphere, it would be..." he did some mental math, "A thousand feet in diameter"

"Yeah, I was wondering how accurate my math was on that." Holly scratched her head. "I got a little over a thousand"

"That's just not possible." Donnie said.

"What?" Leo asked for the benefit of everyone.

"If there is a structure that big underground it would reach well below the military base and out under the street."

"You failed to mention that when we were looking at it." April said almost angrily to Holly.

"I wasn't sure" Holly said apologetically.

"The good news, is that you all came back in one piece this time." Splinter offered before there was a fight.

"It looks like our luck might finally be turning." Leo announced happily.
"No!"

"Dude, why?"
"Are you mental, why would you jinx it" Were the chorus of replies he got from everyone.

"So, now we know that the Krang are not human, and they're the ones who mutated us." Donnie summarized for them. "What we still need to know, is why they're still here and what they want."

"We also know where they are though, which is huge." Leo added.

"April, your dad has to be at either TCRI, or the military base." Donnie announced happily. "As soon as we know for sure, we're going in to get him back."
April bit her lip and smiled holding in her tears. The relief at knowing they had useful information about his whereabouts was almost too much.

"I'll start working on this, see if we can get anything useful out of the data." Donnie said and he stood and walked into the Lab.
The others miller around for a while, but soon enough people started peeling off to their own rooms to get some rest.
"Hey, grab us some blankets on your way out will ya?" Holly asked Raph once Leo and Splinter had already departed.
"Just take my room." He said and settled himself into the couch.

"Its fine," Holly said, "Besides, Donnie will be working so April wouldn't get much sleep in there." She indicated at the lab with a nod of her head.

"Well, I am staying here, so figure it out." Raph said.

"Its your room." Holly retorted with an exasperated chuckle.

"I'll take it!" April said hurriedly, and hopped up and skipped over to Raph's room, she poked her tongue out at Holly as she passed.
"Fantastic, I will go find some blankets for myself then." Holly sighed and walked off.

"If you two are just going to fight, I'm leaving too." Mikey said and hopped over the couch towards his own door. He opened a cupboard and threw a spare blanket to Holly.

"Thank you." Holly said and grabbed one extra.

She went back to the couch and made the second blanket into a pillow.
"Hey!" Raph protested.

"Oh, did you think this was for you?" Holly settled herself onto a section of couch, and let out a sigh.

Raph stood and went to retrieve his own blanket from the cupboard. He sat in the corner of the couch, slightly propped up and closed his eyes.

Pretty soon the Lair was quiet although Raph was still awake. He could hear Donnie muttering to himself occasionally, but that was pretty common. He was just about to settle in again when he heard Holly shifting next to him. She groaned softly and pushed herself up into a seated position.

"Ah, fuck," she whispered to herself.

"That's not very polite," Raph whispered back. She gasped as she clearly thought he was asleep.

"You keep on doing that to me and we're going to have problems." She hissed back.

"Whats wrong?" He asked through a smile.

"It's nothing" she replied more gently.

"You're full of it." He said, and opened his eyes to see what was going on. She was leaning over her knees holding her side. "What happened?"

"I got the shit kicked out of me, and then April made me jump off a shipping container." Holly admitted. "You guys seem to heal an awful lot quicker than I do."

"We might do," He acknowledged. "Do you want an ice pack?" She nodded in the dim light so he stood to get her one. He wrapped it in a piece of cloth and as she lifted her shirt a little to place it on her side, he saw the bruises. "What the hell are those?" He gently pushed her shirt a little higher up her side to see one rather nasty looking one that covered her ribs.

She sighed, "I wasn't planning on showing you guys that." She turned her back to him and pulled her shirt up to her shoulders. "Or these".

"Is all that from Fong?" Raph asked, a flash of rage tinged his voice at the mention of the Purple Dragon members name.
"Yeah," Holly admitted, "My arms don't look much better."
"You should have seen a doctor." Raph said

"I did, but they asked an awful lot of awkward questions and they knew I was lying about some of the details."

"What did they say about this one?" He gently ran a finger down the nastiest looking bruise.

"I fractured three ribs." She shivered slightly under his touch.

"Are you going to be OK?" He asked and helped her lower her shirt back to her waist.

"Yeah, Its just going to take time." She turned to face him now, "They gave pain meds, but they make me sick so sleeping is difficult"

"I should tell the others about this, you could get hurt worse and it would be our fault." Raph scolded her.

"I know, I'll tell them tomorrow." She hung her head and turned to lie back on the couch.

"You idiot," He said gently and reached for her arm. "Come here." He leaned back on the couch and folded one of the blanket into a pillow and put it on his plastron. She bit her lip, but sat between his legs and laid back into him. She was able to turn slightly to relieve the pressure on her one side. She then covered them both with the blanket she had been using and they relaxed into each other.

"You're such a jerk sometimes." She said to him

"You're a jerk sometimes" He retorted, and she chuckled.

"I've missed you this week." She said and looked back at him.

"Yeah, I'm pretty awesome." He said smugly.

"You know, I have you in a pretty compromising position here, you might want to watch what you say." She smiled as his face went from smirk to shocked anticipation.

"Oh yeah? And what if I don't?" He gulped audibly.

She reached up and turned his face to hers. She kissed him and he wrapped his arms gently around her, making sure to avoid her ribs. She turned further into him, and giving in entirely, she swung her legs over his and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Gently, He slipped his hands up her bare back and she shuddered again. He ran his hands all the way up to her shoulders before it dawned on him she wasn't wearing anything underneath her light shirt. Raph puller her closer, and could feel her heart hammering against the inside of her chest. His heart rate picked up when he felt her soft chest pressing into his. He continued to caress her soft skin, going from her back, down to her hips and along her legs. While she explored his muscular arms and his chest. She found the little chip in his plastron and asked him about it. But he was too busy to give her an answer, so she kissed his shoulder just above the nick and this time it was his turn to shiver. Holly kissed him again, this time in the crook of the neck. His grip on her thigh tightened and he inhaled more sharply than usual. She pulled back and smiled at him.

"That's just mean." He said and grinned stupidly back at her.

She shrugged at him, "I can stop."

"I don't want you to, but I wouldn't really want to get interrupted" he agreed, so she climbed off him and settled herself back between his legs. She leaned back again, and sighed exhaustedly. The realization that she hadn't slept properly in a week was overwhelming, and she passed out almost as soon as her head rested against Raph's plastron.
Raph shook his head, and scooted a little lower into the couch so that he could lean his head back on the cushion. He fell asleep a little while later, with one arm up behind his head and the other wrapped around Holly's shoulder.

The next morning, Raphael woke up in an unusually good mood. He kept his eyes shut, just enjoying the feeling of Holly's breath on his plastron. He yawned and stretched, and opened his eyes, and his good mood was gone. Everyone else in the lair was watching him and he jumped at the sight of everyone's smug, self-satisfied smiles. Holly groaned her protest in her sleep at the movement, but she at least stayed asleep. He blinked a few times to clear the fog from his brain, then gently freed himself from underneath Holly.

"You guys are being really creepy, you know that" He hissed at them once Holly was lying prone on the couch.

"Awe, but you guys were so cute!" Mikey said in a hushed voice.

"The big tough Raph is a cuddle bug!" Leo mocked, but also kept his voice down.

"I'll cuddle your face with my fist" Raph retorted. He had turned bright red.

"Raph you don't have to be embarrassed," April said, although she knew that he would be just as merciless if it were her and Donnie who had been caught snuggling on the couch.

"Yeah, its not like you guys saw what was going on last night." Donnie said with a malicious twinkle in his eyes.
April, Leo, Mikey, and even Splinter looked at Donnie, then at Raph who was staring daggers at his brother. Raph shook his head at Donnie, his eye twitching slightly.

"What were they doing?" Mikey and April both asked in sing-song voices.

"We were making out, God you guys are loud." Holly yelled from the couch. She didn't even sit up, just covered her head and tried to go back to sleep. Raph turned around stiffly and went to his room.

Leo and Mikey burst out laughing.

"That's it? That's not even news." April said and turned back to getting some breakfast.

"Awe, I wanted to make him squirm." Donnie said disappointingly.

"Donatello, you wouldn't want your private business shared without your consent. It would not be wise to do it to others." Splinter said softly from behind a steaming cup of tea.

"Yeah, you jerk!" April said suddenly, "Holly never told them that we make out." She waved an arm at Leo and Mikey, whose eyes went wide and they immediately began laughing at Donnie's expense now.

"OK, fair point." Donnie admitted.

"He's going to kick your ass later." Holly said sitting up finally. She winced but pushed herself up and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders before waddling into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

"Yeah he is." Mikey was delighted. Raph was humiliated and Donnie was going to get beaten up for once.

"Like he wouldn't do exactly the same in my position." Donnie tried to defend himself, but now the guilt had soured the thrill of having something over Raph.

"He didn't, actually." Holly said, her ears were a little pink from embarrassment also, but she knew that there really wasn't anything to be embarrassed by.

"You know?" Donnie shouted in her face. "Sorry"

Holly blinked, "Of course I do, She tells me things." Holly nodded at April.

"Its called girl talk, sorry you guys can't do the same." April shrugged.

"I'm going to die now, aren't I?" Donnie said realizing that he had made a huge mistake.

"Quite possibly." Leo chimed in.

"Hmm," Holly swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee, "While you're all here I promised Raph I would tell you all something." She set down her cup and wrapped the blanked around her waist while she showed them the big purple bruise that covered her right side. "Fong actually got me pretty good the other day. He cracked 3 of my ribs and its been quite sore since then."
"Jesus," April said, "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I didn't know they were fractured for a few days, then once the doctor said there wasn't much they could do anyway, it seemed pointless. But Raph was mad that I could've been hurt worse, and I agreed, so I'm telling you now." Holly lowered her shirt and sat back at the table.

"Raphael was quite right to be concerned," Splinter said, "You are very fortunate you didn't do more damage to yourself climbing up and down that building yesterday." Holly just nodded, she knew she had been stupid. "Luckily you are fine, and I may have a salve that will help. Come with me." He stood, and Holly followed awkwardly behind him. Leo and Mikey grinned, they knew what was coming. Donnie was too busy worrying about what he could do to apologize to their other brother to know what was going on.

"Whats with the faces?" April asked when she saw what was going on.

"She's getting Kampo medicine." Leo said, but this did not clear things up for April.

"Its a smelly goop that helps with pain," Mickey said.

April pulled a face, "Yummy."

"I should go and say something, right?" Donnie was blathering on to himself. He turned to April, "will you come with me? He's less likely to kill me if you're there."

"No way. You made this bed, now lie in it." April said still a bit annoyed on behalf of her friends.

"Oh god." Donnie swallowed down his fear and headed to Raphs door.

"OH MY GOD!" Holly exclaimed and gagged violently in the training room.

Raphael's door flew open, "Whats going on?"

"Kampo" Leo said from the kitchen.

"Oh," Raph said and shuddered at his memories of being slathered in the disgusting goo.

"Hey, while you're out here, and I am safely in the view of everyone else, can we talk?" Donnie rambled before Raph could leave.

"No." Raph said, and was about to go back into his room when Holly emerged from the training room. "Someone take this, before this stuff gets on it" She held the blanket at arms length and was trying not to breath.

Raph walked over and took it from her, "You get used to the smell." He said to her.

"How? I smell like the digested last meal of a dead whale." Holly's eyes were watering slightly.

The scent wafted over to the kitchen, and April caught a whiff. "Whoa, that is... that is strong." She stammered as she suppressed a cough.

"Please tell me this at least washes off?" Holly begged.

When all the turtles made various non-committal noises she knew the answer would be 'no'. "Great, I have to go to school in two days". She huffed and walked over to her bag of stuff.

"Raph, please can I apologize to you?" Donnie tried again.

"No, dude." Raph said.

"You should forgive him," Holly said and stood to face Donatello too, "at least he's your brother, siblings are supposed to be horrible to each other." Raph smiled to himself, she was pissed too.

April sucked some air between her teeth, "I don't think we should be here for this."

"I'm not going anywhere." Mikey said and crouched behind their counters, just in case anything became a projectile.

Donnie fidgeted uncomfortably. "Listen, I didn't mean to make you mad. Well, Raph I did, but..." he trailed off, feeling incredibly guilty.

"I didn't spill your dirty laundry, bro" Raph said genuinely hurt.

"OK, lets all just take a second here." Holly said knowing she would have to mediate a little here. "Look Donnie, I personally don't really care about you poking fun at me, I knew you were going to find out about all this anyway."

"No I wouldn't!" Donnie shouted in panic.

"I would have told April, who would have told you. Its all part of the teenage experience." She sighed, "and I won't go into your gory details, but he knows as much as I do about you guys, because this works both ways."

"I'm really sorry." Donnie said and hung his head in shame. "I genuinely didn't think you knew about us." He lifted his eyes to Raph and saw his brother chewing on his tongue in annoyance.

"Well, we're all on the same page now." Holly said looking over at Mikey, who was disappointing that there hadn't been any fighting.

"That's it!? No Shell-Wedgie or anything?" Mikey shouted at Raph.

"Oh, he's not off the hook yet." Raph said, and Donnie paled.

Holly started to walk past Donnie back to the kitchen to recover her forgotten coffee, when he gently touched her arm. "I am so sorry." He said softly.

"Its fine," She said and smiled genuinely at him. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, "But you're not off the hook until I get a hug!" She tried to grab him to get some of the nasty goo to stick to him.

"Eww, no! Get away from me!" Donnie yelled, but she had latched herself onto his arm and wouldn't let go.
"You know," Holly said after she was sure he stank too now, "That gross stuff really works. I feel great."

"Kampo" Said Splinter as he emerged from the training room, "It has been used for 1500 years and has never failed me yet."

"It's amazing" She agreed and stretched her sides out properly for the first time in a week.

"Now, my sons." Splinter announced, "I require you all to join me in the dojo for an important talk."

"Sure Sensi, what kind of talk?" Asked Leonardo Innocently.

"You are all becoming young men and its time we had an open discussion about what that means."
"Oh dear lord," April suddenly exclaimed, "I am out!"

"Right behind you!" Holly grabbed her bag of stuff and the girls practically sprinted from the lair.

"Where are they going?" Mikey asked.

Splinter sat in front of his tree and took a deep breath. He knew this day was coming, but had forgotten how quickly boys became men. The turtles were all kneeling before him with different expressions. Leonardo was trying to be serious, but the burning color in his cheeks gave away his apprehension. Donatello was staring wide eyed at the floor, breathing too quickly. Raphael was trying not to look at anything, or anyone, while Michelangelo was happily humming to himself completely oblivious to what was happening.

"My sons, you are at that age now where you are going to have very intense feelings about people, and I want you to remember that they're perfectly normal."

"Why do we have to be here?" Leo burst out in his squeaky voice, "They're the ones with girlfriends!" He shot a glare at Raph and Donnie, but they were intently focused on the floor or wall.

"You are all going to have these feelings sooner or later, and I would rather you all at least get the basics from me in case you have any questions." Splinter said calmly. He knew they were not going to enjoy this, but it was all part of growing up. He vaguely remembered his own teenage years, although they were a long time ago now.

"Before you get too invested," Donnie said, and took a breath for courage, "We do have the internet down here." Donnie scrunched his eyes shut, hoping this would all end. "There are plenty of educational pages available."
Raph almost laughed out loud, but this was just too humiliating to even remotely be funny.

"Doesn't the internet just make the tv work?" Mikey asked innocently.

Splinter smiled, "I hope you never change, Michelangelo."

"You know those videos you watch of the guys on their skateboards?" Donnie explained, delighted at the prospect of changing the subject, "That is also the internet."
"Ohhh!" Mikey said, "I wonder what else I can see on the Internet!"

"My sons, I know you are resourceful and can figure things out on your own. But I just want to make sure you know that I am also here for you to talk to." Splinter said gently. "You are unique in ways that there may not be an explanation readily available to you, but we might be able to figure out some answers if we are able to have an open discussion."

Donatello understood. He sighed, "You're right, of course."

"I did have one child by traditional methods, after all." Splinter reminded them.

"Hai, sensei." Donnie said, but Splinter shook his head.

"In these matters I am, and will always be, 'father'," Splinter reassured them.

"Can we just start training now?" Leonardo begged.

"Very well, we can continue this later if you prefer." Splinter said and Donnie, Leo and, Raph all scrambled away to try to collect themselves.

April and Holly headed to Holly's apartment and were laughing the whole way about what on earth Splinter was going to tell the guys about sex. Unfortunately, they soon realized that there may be some facts that they didn't know about since Donnie and Raph were not, in fact, entirely human. By the time they had arrived, they had more questions than they did answers, but they were instantly distracted by Stacey's packing to think about it much more.

"You're leaving?" Holly blurted out.

"I'm only going to be gone for a week." Stacey said. "I've been home for the last couple of months doing as much as I can from here. But the Paris fashion show starts on Monday and I have to be there in person."

"But, what about all your assistants? They can do all the tailoring and stuff." Holly protested. This was the longest her mom had been home in a long time, she didn't want to go back to only seeing her for a week at a time again.

Stacey smiled and hugged her daughter. "They can. But this is just part of the Job. I promise I will be home more than I am not from here on out." She sniffed Holly, "What is that smell?"

"Pain medicine." Holly said

"Hmm, just don't touch the clothes until you wash your hands" Stacey said with a slight frown, "Does it work at least?"

"Yes actually." Holly replied.

"Well, that's good. I know those pills they gave you can be dangerous." Stacey continued to gather her belongings for her flight the next day.

"At least I can stay with the guys now, I'll be safer there anyway." Holly pouted slightly.

"Oh, yes I suppose you can. Just make sure you go to school." Stacey said eyeing her daughter knowingly.

Holly feigned innocence, "How could you even think I wouldn't?"

"Yeah, OK." Stacey shook her head as Holly smirked. "Listen, my flight is early tomorrow, so I'll probably be gone before you wake up. Please, don't get in trouble this time."

"I mean, we can't promise anything." April said, "it's not our fault my dad was captured."
Stacey sighed, "I know, honey" She walked over and gave April a big hug. "Just be careful?"

"We will try." Holly replied and also gave April a squeeze.

The rest of the day, April and Holly spent with Stacey. They relayed all the information they had gotten from the last weeks worth of stake outs. Stacey couldn't quite believe the alien theory at first, but then she remembered the weird speech patterns they had been using, and that she had been saved by four giant mutant turtles, and had to admit that it was not the craziest theory. Holly pulled up the files that she and Donnie had been sharing back and fourth, since she was not allowed to help pack the beautiful dresses that her mom had made for the Paris fashion week. April, who was enlisted to help Stacey, gasped every time she unfolded a dress to see the design.

After their training session, where Raphael completely made Donnie pay for his earlier digressions, the guys had split off to do their own things. Donatello was in his lab working on more of the data that kept coming in from TCRI. There was still a whole lot of data coming in, and it all needed translating. He started with a couple of random files that had some diagrams he might be able to guess the labels for. He labeled their schematics for their weapons with all the obvious parts he could think of. Then he moves onto the schematics for their mech-suits. He decided to create a quick program to check through all of the other documents and apply the translations to all the files. Donnie had a few almost complete sentences in one of the files, so he used his best judgment to fill in the gaps and apply the changes.
The others had poked their heads in every now and then to see if he needed anything, or wanted to join them in watching a show, or playing a game. But he declined, as he was starting to get somewhere with this. Even when April called, he was less engaged than usual as he was working through another set of files that had semi-complete sentences in them. The hours dragged on, and eventually he had to call it quite for the night. His back was aching from crouching over his keyboard and he realized he was starving.

Donnie left his lab to see the rest of his family siting around in the living area. He grabbed a snack and joined them for a while.

"How is it going?" Asked Leo not tearing his eyes away from Space Captain, his favorite show.

"Long, there is so much data to get through." Donnie admitted.

"We could help you!" Mikey offered.

"Can you label all the parts on a Krang droid?" Donnie asked,

"No,"

"There you go."

"We could help." Raph said indignantly.

"You are incredibly intelligent, my son," Splinter said, "but you should not under estimate your brothers."

"Even Mikey?" Donnie said skeptically.

"Hey, Just because I'm not smart like you, doesn't mean I'm not smart!" Mikey protested.

"You have your own special talents" Splinter offered.

"See." Mikey said, and Donnie decided against pointing out that their father had not actually agreed with him.

"It's just the sheer quantity of data, and it has to be translated by hand." Donnie said. "Its not like Google has a 'Krang' option in their settings."

"Well, then you will have to just tackle it as you can." Splinter summarized.

"I know." Donnie agreed.

"Then quit whining." Raph shook his comic and went back to reading.

Donnie hung around with his brothers for a little while longer, but he was soon itching to get back to his lab to try and see if he could get any further through the translations.

The next few days passed in much the same manner. Holly had asked if Splinter minded if she stayed with them while her mom was out of town. April had been over pretty much daily also, but had been going home in the evenings to see her aunt. Donnie had asked Holly if she was willing to help with the translations since she was just about the only person he believed had the attention span to be able to help him. She agreed, and any down time she had was spent with her laptop open working on the files.

Donnie himself spent just about every spare waking minute working on the files, and finally after innumerable hours of work, they had some complete information about what the Krang were doing.

"Guys!" Donnie yelled as he came rushing out of his lab. April and Holly were working on a report and had a pile of text books spread out on the floor. Raph and Mikey were playing one of the fighting games they had, while Leo was cheering them on. They all looked up in unison. "We finally have some answers about the Krang."
"Awesome, so what is going on?" April asked.

"Well, from what we have been able to translate," Donnie gave a little nod of acknowledgment to Holly, "the Krang aren't just aliens. They're from another dimension." He paused, expecting more of a reaction than he got. "They come from a place they refer to as Dimension X, and they came here hoping to find a new home."
"They want to live here?" Leo asked surprised.

"Yeah, they have basically used up all the resources that are available in their realm and came here looking to find more. The problem is though, they can't breath our atmosphere, so they created the mutagen to help them make the environment more tolerable."

"Wait, what exactly does that mean?" Leo asked.

"It means they want to terraform this planet into something that they can survive on. Which also means it would be uninhabitable for every life form already living here." Donnie said.

"And you're not freaking out about this, why?" Leo followed up with,

"Because the mutagen hasn't worked the way they thought it would." Donnie replied. "Its why they're taking all the scientists to try and help them to fix their mistakes."

"But, why would they take my dad? He's not that kind of scientist?" April asked.

"I haven't figured that one out yet." Donnie admitted. "But there is still more than enough stuff to work through, maybe its in there?"
"Did you find anything about that big sphere we saw yet?" April asked and looked between Holly and Donnie.
"Not a ton," Holly said.

"We know that its a spaceship. Its how they originally got here." Finished Donnie.
"A spaceship? Cool!" Mikey chimed in, he hadn't been paying a ton of attention until he heard that word.

"Oh, I did find the specs on it though, and it is as big as we suspected." Donnie directed this comment at Holly, who he knew had been looking for that file in particular.

"Damn," Holly muttered and shook her head. "How did they get it under the recycling center? I'm going to do some digging into that place." She said to herself and pulled up her laptop again.

"So, they're trying to take over the world? So unoriginal" Mikey complained.

"You're mad because one of the bad guys we have to fight are evil space aliens who want to overthrow the planet?" Raph asked.

Mikey just shrugged in response. "All the aliens in your comics always want to take over the planet?"

"You've been reading my comics?" Raph asked.

"Uhh, no?" Mikey smiled innocently at his brother, Raph sprang at him and they wrestled on the floor until Mikey tapped out.

"Boys," said April and Holly at the same time with matching eye rolls.

"Anyway," Interrupted Donnie, "this is at lease a fantastic start. We'll just have to keep plugging away at it until we either run out of files, or until we know everything we want to."

"Is the transmitter still pulling information?" Holly asked.

"It seems to be." Donnie replied with a shrug.

"Well, just keep sending me stuff and I'll do what I can." Holly offered.

"I can help too, you know." April said.

A chorus of "Oooooh"'s came from the other Turtles.

"I didn't think you'd want to spend hours looking over files?" Donnie said.

"My dad is missing, and the people who took him are not actually people." April said a little coldly, "Of course I want to help."

"Alright, I'll add you to the collaborative files we have going so far and you can take a look too." Donnie said sweating slightly,

"Thank you." April said, "I'm sure I can help."

"This is so tedious" April complained at school a couple of days later. She had been working on the files with Donnie and Holly and couldn't understand how they were still working on this without their brains exploding.
"Yeah, its not the most fun. But it needs doing," Holly said, they were sat in their last class for the day and she had her laptop open and was still working on the files.

"I would much rather be out looking for clues." April said.

"OK, Velma." Holly said with a chuckle, "This kind of work is still finding clues, they're just better hidden than your Scooby-Doo version."

The bell rang to signal the end of the day, and April and Holly packed up their books and stuff to get ready to go to the lair.

Suddenly over the intercom for the school came their principals voice. "Could Miss O'Neil please come to the office?"

"At the end of the day?" April asked.

Holly shrugged. "Do you want me to come with?"

"Nah, wait by the lockers, I need to grab some stuff out of there before we leave."

April left the room alone and made her was through the deserted corridors to the office.

When she arrived, there was a strange woman standing in the office with the principal, who seemed to be a little uncomfortable.

"Ahh, here she is. April, this woman is with the police and she says they have some information about your father." The principal said.

"That's great, but why didn't you contact my aunt?" April asked the large, stern looking woman.

"We tried, but she didn't answer her door." The woman responded.

"Can I see some credentials?" April asked, there was something wrong with this woman.

"Of course." The woman pulled out an official looking badge and handed it over to April.

"So, what information do you have for me?" She handed the badge back, but was still not convinced.

"We have located your father and I would be happy to take you to him." The woman said, her inflections sounded too manufactured to be a real person.

"You found him? Where is he now?" April asked feeling apprehension creeping up her back. Something was very wrong here.

"He is with us, I would be happy to take you to him." Repeated the woman.

"I'm afraid I can't let you take Miss O'Neil from the school grounds without her guardians permission." The principal said with a nervous little chuckle.

"I will take April O'Neil to her father." Said the woman, and she rounded on the principal with alarming speed. The woman slammed her hand into his chest and he was propelled back over the office furniture and crumpled in a heap on the ground.

April dropped her books and ran.

Holly placed a call to Donatello since he kept on sending her more and more files to look at, and she didn't have her laptop out in front of her to see everything he was trying to tell her about. He answered and immediately leapt into a rant about one of the files he was looking at.

"It just doesn't quite make sense," He said without so much as a 'Hello'. "Did you take a look at the files I sent? They seem to be talking about some test subjects but I have no idea what pronouns they use or how to figure out which ones need to go where."
"Hello Donatello," Holly sighed, "I haven't had a chance to look at them yet, we just got out of class and we'll be heading over there in a few."

"Is April coming?" Donnie perked up

"Yes, of course she is." Holly shook her head in amusement.

"Not that I'm not happy to see you too, of course, its just...Ah hem" He coughed so he didn't have to finish the sentence.

"I know, I know, I'm chopped liver compared to April." Holly put on a breathy voice to say her friends name.

"No! That's not it at all" Donnie went into panic mode, he didn't want to hurt anyone feelings.

"Relax, I'm teasing you." Holly said, but before she could poke any more fun, a familiar noise caught her attention from further down the hall. Someone was running at full speed towards her and there were purple flashes of light coming from around one of the corners. "Um, Donnie, somethings going on at the school."

"What is it?" Donnie asked, he didn't like the tone in Holly's voice.

"I'm not sure," Holly trailed off. A few laser bursts hit the wall in front of her, and April came skidding around the corner,

"RUN!" April shouted when she saw Holly in the hall.

"Whats going on?" Holly asked.

"Guys? Hello? Whats is it?" Donnie's voice came through the speaker.

A Krang droid woman appeared in the hallway behind April, her arms were bent at strange angles and it looked like the shots she was firing were coming out of her elbows.
April grabbed Holly by the arm as she ran by, spinning her friend around and dragging her further away from the pursuing Krang. Holly squeaked as she nearly dropped her phone, but managed to hold onto it and cram it back to her ear as she pelted after April.

"Krang, in the school." She relayed to Donnie.

"What!?" Donnie yelled at her. "What are they doing there?"

"April, care to take this one?" Holly said as a laser bolt flew over her shoulder. She grabbed a nearby garbage can and over turned it as she ran past.

"She was looking for me." April said, getting short on breath. The girls ducked around a corner and into one of the darkened classrooms. They closed the door and tried to steady their breathing as the footsteps got louder on the other side of the wall. When the Krang droid rounded the corner, the shots ceased, and the footfall slowed to a walk.

"April O'Neil, I will not leave without taking you to your father." The droid said.

'Your Father?' Holly mouthed at April using the light from her cell phone screen.

April just shrugged as the footfalls passed their door and continued off down the hall way.

"Donnie," Holly whispered into her phone, "There is a Krang here looking specifically for April. We need help."

"We can't come above ground during daylight hours." He sounded stressed.

"Get in the Shell-raiser and get to the school. We will get out of here, but we're going to need a fast escape." Holly told him. They could already hear him yelling for his brothers to get to his lab immediately. "You're 100% sure they're after you?" She asked April.
"Yeah, otherwise we both would have been called to the office." April looked worried.

"OK then, swap shirts with me, and tuck your hair up into the hood of my sweater." Holly instructed her already wriggling out of her hoodie.

"No way, I am not letting you use yourself as bait." April hissed back at her friend.

"Not bait, just a distraction." Holly said trying to sound more confident than she felt. "There's one of her, and two of us. Donnie, I need to hang up now, Get here as fast as you can."
"We're already on the way." Donnie shouted over the revving of the Shell-raisers engine.

"This might not work, so just keep running" Holly admitted.

"What if she catches you?" April asked

"I'll just tell her she has the wrong girl." Holly shrugged, and gestured at April with her sweater.

"This is a terrible idea." April moaned, but pulled off her yellow shirt and traded it with Holly. She pulled on the gray hoodie Holly handed to her and pulled the hood up to cover her hair. "This isn't going to fool her, she's a robot, she has super vision, or something." April protested.

"Still, she might not. Are you ready, Give me a few minutes head start." Holly took a deep breath, then snuck out into the hallway.

April was left alone in the dark room, she could hear her breath coming in ragged gasps. She was afraid, but she hadn't realized it until Holly left her to try to help her get away from that crazy droid. She called Donnie on his phone.

"April!" He shouted into the phone, it had barely rang so he was waiting for her call. "We're not far, just getting to street level."
"OK," She whispered into the phone, just glad to hear a familiar voice. April listened to Holly's footsteps fading into the distance, she waited a full five minutes once all the noises had disappeared before she left the safety of the dark room. She tried to be as quiet as possible, but it seemed like her shoes were being extra loud on the linoleum, squeaking with every step.

"Ten minutes out" Donnie's voice came through her phone. She didn't reply, her throat was dry and she was worried that she would be heard. Ten minutes wasn't that long, right? So why did each second seem to be dragging on for an eternity.

A few halls away, Holly was creeping along the Art corridor chasing the sounds of footsteps from that Krang woman. Her high heels were clicking along the floor and echoing off the walls in a disturbing way. If the Krang was still walking, hopefully that meant she had not found April, and they could get out of here in one piece. Holly peeked around the end of one hall and saw the Krang woman looking into the classrooms for signs of them. She pulled her head back, and just listened to what was going on. The Krang droid had stopped moving all together. Across from Holly was a darkened classroom, the glass in the door was perfectly reflecting the woman at the other end of the hall, and it looked like she was just staring at a door, until she rounded and fired a bolt at the wall right where Holly was hiding.

"Shit," Holly muttered and took off down the hall, away from where she hoped April would be going.

April was starting to feel a little calmer. She had been going along towards the main entrance of the school as that would be the easiest place for the Shell-raiser to get into the grounds. She hadn't heard any more sets of footfalls, nor had she heard any laser bolt fire. She picked up her pace a little, desperate to get outside where someone might be able to help if she needed it. Although this was New York, most people ignored gunshots unless the gun was pointed at them. She paused as she thought she heard something off in the distance, but this was a large school and theoretically there could still be teachers here. She took a few more paces before she was certain she could hear laser fire coming from somewhere behind her.

"Crap, where are you guys?" She whispered into the phone.

"We're close, just keep moving" Donnie urged her.

Suddenly, the sound of running could be heard along with a faint pew-pew of laser fire. April started to move faster now, still not quite ready to run as that would for sure give away her location. But soon the sounds were getting closer, and she had no choice. She ran past the school trophy case and through the lunch room. As she was crossing over to the science block, a bolt struck the wall in front of her and she turned instinctively. Holly was running at the far end of the lunchroom ducking behind the large trash cans that they had lined up for all the students. She grabbed a metal lunch tray and was deflecting the shots back at the droid, but aiming with a lunch tray was not ideal. April gasped, loud enough from both Holly and the droid to hear it. They both looked in her direction.

The Krang droid looked back at Holly, then back at April, and immediate switched targets.
"Run April!" Holly shouted, and threw the lunch tray at the droid as hard as she could. It caught the Krang on the back of the shoulder, and the droid did stumble slightly, but barely broke its stride. Holly ran after it. She snatched up another tray and hurled herself after April. They were heading for the doors, April could see the Shell-raiser pulling into the School lot. It was kicking up dirt as it drove over the lawn and right up to the door of the school.
The side door opened and the Turtles were there, they launched themselves out of the van and through the school doors. April almost laughed with relief. Leo and Raph dove straight past her and started swinging at the droid. Mikey followed them, but positioned himself between Holly and the droid while Donnie kept April behind him.

"Here," Holly shouted and threw Mikey a tray, "These bounce the lasers back at her."

"Awesome," Mikey yelled and immediately began bouncing shots back at the droid narrowly avoiding his brothers.

Leo and Raph beat the droid against a wall and pinned her there. "Get them out of here!" Leo shouted and Mikey and Donnie ushered Holly and April out to the van. "Lets go!" Leo and Raph worked together to drove the droid back into the school. They saw an athletics banned dangling from the ceiling and used it to tie her up. It was made of cheap polyester so they knew it wouldn't hold her for long. They sprinted back to the Shell-raiser, where everyone was waving them into the side. A few bolts sailed over their heads.

"That didn't last long" Raph commented.

"Lets just get out of here." Leo yelled, and they burst through the doors.
Holly and Mikey were ready with their trays, and bounced any lasers back that might have caused any damage. Once Leo and Raph dove into the van, Holly slammed the door shut and Donnie floored it.

The Krang droid burst out of the school a few moments later, and fired some shots in their direction, but it was already too late.

"Yeah!" Shouted Holly enthusiastically, "This is our house." She and Michelangelo did a little dance in what little space there was in the Shell-raiser.

"Yeah girl! Get it!" Mikey shouted back.

"That's great and all, but why the hell are they in 'our house' anyway?" April asked still worried.

"Something has happened. Lets get back to the lair and see if we can figure it out." Donnie said scratching his chin.

"I won't have my laptop to help though. Maybe I should head home to work on my desktop." Holly realized.

"I need to check on my aunt. What if they did something to her?" April thought suddenly.

"Call her, but you need to stay with them." Holly pointed at the guys.

"You're not going on your own either." Leo said to Holly. "Not until we know what is going on."

"Then drop me off and I'll stay there until tonight." Holly said.
"I could stay with you and bring you back here later?" Raph offered.

Everyone side eyed him, "oh yeah, so you two can kiss some more?" Mikey said what everyone was thinking.

"NO!" Raph yelled a little too loudly. "Shut up!"

"It won't be much fun, I will be working mostly." Holly said with a wink. Raph blushed, and turned away from the snickers of his brothers.

"Fine, its only a few hours anyway, but be careful." Leo said, and he turned in the direction of Holly's apartment complex. He pulled the Shell-raiser into a nearby alley way so Raph could use the shadows to climb up to the roof. Once they were away, Leo drove the rest of the group back to the lair.

"If that's what High School is like, I love it!" Mikey said once he had calmed down from all the excitement.

"Its not usually like that." April admitted and called her aunt to make sure she was unharmed.

April was only slightly reassured when her Aunt answered her phone. It turns out she had been at work all day and had not heard anything from anyone about Kirby. So either the Krang had lied, or they really had gone there first to try to find her. April did tell her Aunt about what happened at the school, chances were that the Principal was going to notify Carol anyway, provided he even remembered what had happened.

"You were attacked? By the same people who took your father?" Carol was livid. "Where are you now? Are you safe?"

"Yes, I didn't think it was smart to come home, just in case they knew where I lived." April said.
"Jesus, can you stay with Holly? She has that fancy security system now, right?" Carol asked.

"Yeah, I can stay with her for a couple of days." April said.

"I'm calling the police about this." Carol said. "This is unacceptable."
"I don't think there's a whole lot they can do," April told her aunt, "The principal thought this woman was a cop."

"Even worse! Impersonating an officer is a serious crime" Carol said. "I will not tell them where you are until they are certain its not someone in their ranks, and you do not go back to that school until I have words with the Superintendent"
"OK," April said, there was no use arguing with her Aunt when she got like this.

"I'm calling them now, you keep your phone on and If you don't answer I will come over with a crowbar myself." Carol threatened.

"I will answer!" April promised, and hung up the phone. "This is a nightmare."

"We'll keep you safe." Donnie said and gave her a squeeze of reassurance. Leo quickly went to let Splinter know that they had all made it home safe and returned to see April an Mikey peering over Donnie's shoulder at his computer.

Holly and Raph's voiced came through a speaker and they had all got to work.

"The Krang have never been this aggressive towards anyone so far, so something must have happened to make them get desperate." Donnie mused out loud.

"What could have changed?" April asked the group.

"Did they find your little do-dad?" Mikey asked.

Donnie's eyes opened wide, "They may have, Mikey you're a genius"

"I know," Mikey said and spun around on his stool until he was dizzy.

Donnie pulled up the last batches of data he had collected and saw that the last timestamp was for ten o'clock this morning. Stuff had been coming in almost constantly until that point so he relayed the information to everyone else. "They must have disabled my transmitter."

"How much information did you actually get from them?" Holly asked.

"I had it grabbing the files and that had most recently been updated, and we got about the last three years worth of notes." Donnie said,

"That's it?" April asked crestfallen.

"There were a lot of files," Donnie reassured her. "and this is still an huge amount of data to go through."

April remained silent, she was not convinced they were going to find what they needed to in such a small sample.

"We might as well get started, its not going to magically translate its self." Holly said.

For the next few hours Donnie, April and Holly worked together on speaker phone. Leo had decided he was better use keeping Mikey occupied since he would not stop talking. Raph was making himself comfortable at Holly's house and was listening to her music collection while reclining on her bed.

"Here's some more files that are supposed to be completed." Donnie sent an attachment to their little private group file storage system

April read them over Donnie's shoulder while Holly read them on her end, but it didn't seem quite right. They had to make some liberties when they were translating the files. There were some words that seemed completely unique to the Krang species, so they had needed to guess at some of them, and there were some gendered pronouns that didn't seem to fit since they had no idea if there even were Krang genders, but this file seemed completely wrong.

"I don't think this is quite right." Holly replied once they had read the file.

"No, I am not sure whats wrong here either." Donnie shook his head. "We'll have to take another look at some of the other documents to see if there's something we missed."

The file seemed to be talking about some theories the Krang had about mixing human and Krang DNA to create a unique being that could help them finalize their mutagen to work in this dimension. The problem was that the translation couldn't decided if the subjects of the Krang experiments were male or female, and it was almost impossible to determine any names out of the text. The only thing that gave him pause was one particular Krang word that seemed to use an English punctuation. There was one word that had an apostrophe in it, and considering Aprils last name had one too, it was not impossible that it was O'Neil. It would make sense since they had taken Mr. O'Neil. Perhaps he was who they were referring to in their notes? Donnie tried it, since he didn't have any other clues, and it seemed to fit.

"You think this is about my dad?" April asked as she saw what he was doing.

"I'm not sure." Donnie said slowly. He was still thinking.

"Here its talking about gestation though," Holly highlighted the section she was reading which then highlighted the same section on Donnie's screen once it refreshed, "and unless our sex-ed class lied to us, I wouldn't think that's possible"

Everyone was silent for a moment trying to process this new information, "What if," Donnie started hesitantly, "What if its not talking about your dad?"
"Who else would it be talking about?" April asked.

"Well, there are a few females in your family with the last name O'Neil." Holly said, catching on.

"Me, my mom or my aunt." April said,

"and which one of those people has 'gestated'?" Holly continued.

"Mom, this it talking about my mom." April said after a few moments, fury suddenly welling up inside of her.

"If the Krang were conducting human experiments, and your mom was one of those people used. It might explain why they want you now." Donnie spoke softly trying not to freak April out.

"No." April said defiantly. "No, it's not possible."

"There may be a way to check." Donnie said.

"I'm not listening to this." April said and stormed off.

"Maybe we should take a few." Holly suggested, "I could go for something to eat, how about you?" Donnie couldn't see Holly, but he was certain she was talking to Raph.

"Yeah, I'm starved." Raphs voice came through.

"Yeah." Donnie said morosely.

"Give her a little space right now, this is kind of a big deal if were right." Holly said.

"What's a big deal? What happened?" Raph asked.

"I'll fill you in while we're eating," Holly said, "Do you have the equipment there to run a DNA test?"

"Yeah, I have what I need." Donnie said, "You guys should come here as soon as you can."
"It'll be dark in another hour or so, we'll come right away." Holly said and hung up the call.

Donnie gathered the necessary supplies he would need if April agreed to a DNA test. Once he was sure she had had enough time to calm down, he went in search of her.

"Hey bro!" Mikey said, "I cooked us up some leftover pizza." He held aloft his creation with such pride that Donnie had to smile.

"Not right now, did you guys see where April went?" Donnie asked as Leo and Splinter were also sat in their kitchen.

"She went that way," Leo said indicating the training room, "she looked pretty mad."

"Yeah, well..." He didn't know how to explain what had happened, so he just turned away and went to look for April.

He could hear her angry grunts and the dull thwumps as she attacked Raphs punching bag before he went into the dojo, and when he opened the door, she was attacking it as angrily as he had assumed she was.

"Leave me alone Donnie." April said without turning around. "I don't want to hear about any of this anymore."

"April, if something has been going on, wouldn't you prefer to know?" Donnie asked tentatively,

"No! I don't want to know if I'm a test subject for some freaky alien invasion plan." April shouted at him. She punched the bag again.

"Nothing is going to change. You will still be the same April O'Neil to us." Donnie took a step closer to her.

"Are you kidding? Everything will change. Everything I thought I knew about myself is going to be a lie. And what about my dad? Is he even my dad? Did he know what they did to mom?" April started pacing up and down. Donnie just let her vent, "Is my mom, even really my mom? Was I made in a test tube somewhere?" She rounded on him, still furious at the unfairness of it all.

"I don't know, April. But, I know one thing for sure, you will still be the same person you already are." He took another few steps towards her. "The important things wont change, you'll still always be the same April to me."

April took a deep breath, "What about everyone else though?" She finally turned to face him and he saw that she had tear tracks running down her cheeks. "What if my dad doesn't want anything to do with me?"

Donatello crossed the rest of the distance between them and wrapped her into his arms. "Now you're just being ridiculous, there is no way your dad would do that to you." She sobbed into his chest for a few minutes and he just patted her back and let her cry.

Once she had settled down, and pulled back away from him, he continued, "we don't have to do anything you don't want to, and if you want answers, we can keep them between you and me."

She nodded at the floor, not wanting to meet his eye.

Holly quickly threw together a small meal for herself and Raph. The ate and she filled him in on the theory that she and Donnie had been hinting at.

"That's heavy." Was all he could say, and Holly just nodded her agreement.

Raph offered to wash the dishes, which Holly was more than happy to let him do. She stood next to him, leaning against the counter so they could continue talking. She smiled to herself when she thought he wasn't looking, but he caught her watching him. "What?" He said.

"Nothing." she said, but he eyed her suspiciously.

Once the sun was completely set, they left Holly's apartment. Raph went out the balcony, and met Holly in the alley after she locked up. They did make one quick stop at the school to grab the abandoned backpacks. It took them a few minutes to find Aprils as it was still in the Principals office and they had to break in to retrieve it. Raph had wanted to break the door down, but Holly convinced him to try more subtle means, and they had found a spare key in the receptionists desk that worked.

They arrived back at the lair to see Mikey and Leo playing on their pinball machine. Splinter was sitting cross-legged on the floor drinking tea. Donnie and April were nowhere to be seen.

"Hey everyone," Holly said and dropped her heavy bag on the floor.

"Way to be a gentleman, Raph" Mikey scolded his brother, "Making Holly carry the bags."

"I am carrying a bag!" He shouted at his brother and shook Aprils bag at him.

"We just got back, can you two not antagonize each other for one minute?" Holly said and took Aprils bag from Raph before he could throw it at Mikey.

"You've never been around siblings, have you?" Leo asked, not looking up from his game.

"No, but I'm starting to think its a small blessing." Holly replied. "Where's April?"

"She and Donnie went to the Lab a while ago," Mikey said with a smile.

"I doubt they're getting up to anything today" Holly said and crossed to the large sliding door that housed Donnie's lab. She knocked on the door and called out for April.

"Can I come in?" Holly asked.

A muffled 'yes' came back and she entered, closing the door behind her.

"Hey, how's it going?" Holly asked as nonchalantly as possible.

"Peachy," Replied April sourly.

Holly sat next to April on a bench, "Well, Leo and Mikey are playing Pinball, we could go whoop their butts to take your mind off of things."

"No thanks," April replied.

"I'll be right back". Donnie said and hurried out of the room for a break.

Holly chuckled slightly, "Poor Donnie, you've scared him off."
April gave her a scalding look. "I'm really not in the mood today."
"Oh come on April," Holly said gently, "If anyone knows what you're feeling, its them." She waved in the direction of the main room. "Splinter was a human before all of this, and the guys have had to hide down here their whole lives." April didn't answer, she knew Holly was right. "Besides, even if our guesses are right, you don't have to share that information with anyone. Not even us, It can be between you and Donnie, if you like." Holly said

"You wouldn't be mad at me?" April asked.

"I don't think anyone could be mad at you for keeping something like that to yourself. Besides, the only people who would have any clue would be us, and I'll just beat up the others if they give you a hard time." Holly shrugged.

April hugged Holly hard. "You can't beat them up" she chuckled softly into Holly's shoulder.

"No," Agreed Holly, "But I can make them feel really guilty."

April let go and wiped away some fresh tears. "What do I do?"

"I don't know, but its your choice, and we'll support you no matter what you do." Holly "Why don't we just go hang out for a while? You don't need to decide right this second."

April nodded, she didn't want to think about anything at the minute. They both stood and Holly wrapped her arm around Aprils shoulders.

They walked out into the main room and Donnie immediately jumped up from the couch. "April!" He shouted at them. "Are you alright?"

"She'll be alright" Holly answered for her so she didn't have to tell a complete lie. "C'mon, I bet I can beat all of you guys at Italian Plumber Kart" Holly shouted into the room.

"Nuh-uh," Mikey immediately forgot about pinball and raced to put on the racing game. "I've been practicing."
"Yeah right, I've been playing since I was six, this is my game" Holly unwound another another controller and plugged it in. "What do you say boys? This thing has four controllers, who wants to get humiliated?"

Raph couldn't let a taunt like that go, so he joined in. "You're going down."
"Bring it on." Holly said and snapped her fingers with every word. "Leo? You want in?" She waggled the last controller at him.

"Alright, why not?" Leo joined the others on the floor.

Donnie let April sit on the couch to watch and sat close enough to let her know he was there if she needed him.

They watched as Holly used her superior knowledge of the game to thoroughly trash the others. She knew all the short cuts and how to properly use all the in game items. When she won the first race, she did a smug little dance to rub it in.

"No fair!" Mikey shouted. "Show me how to do that!"

"I warned you, this is my jam." Holly laughed.
"No way! Best two out of three?" Raph said.

Holly snorted, "So this will be over next game then?"

They played a few more courses, and she smoked them every time. Holly stood up this time to do her victory dance.

"Oh yeah! I'm the best! You suck!" She did the cabbage patch dance in a circle poking her tongue out at Mikey and Raph as she faced them.

"You really want to poke the bear, huh?" Leo said as Mikey started up another game. Raph was trying his best not to be annoyed at being bested, but since it was Holly, he was able to be more generous than usual.

"Alright, come on, I'll show you how to be almost as good as me." She sat back down and went through a race with them showing them all the tips and tricks she could think of. While she entertained the others, Donnie and April had Holly's laptop out and were working on some more of the Krang files. April had been thankful that Holly was keeping the others busy, she wasn't quite ready to talk about what they had discovered.

She watched as Donnie's three fingers manipulated the keyboard with amazing precision. He was flying through a series of files, opening and closing them to compare icons and fill in words that looked correct.

He was scrolling through one particular section and it caught Aprils eye. "Wait, what was that?"

"Which bit?" he asked and moved the page back to where he had just been.

"This section," April pointed out, "When is this from?"
Donnie checked the time stamp. "Looks like it was about a month ago."

"Look, they're talking about dad and the others." April said reading the section out loud. "'Relocated the captives from Foot tower to secondary location after intruders detected captives.' They must mean you guys."
"But where did they move them to?" Holly asked from the floor,

"It's got to be either TCRI or the Base. Those are the only logical places to keep them." Donnie said.

"'Once Earth mutagen has been completed, ship will be launched to disperse Earth mutagen.'" April looked concerned, "What do they mean 'Launched'? Can that thing fly?"

"I suppose it can. I have no idea what kind of propulsion system they would use, but we can assume that it is like nothing we have here." Donnie admitted.

"So, how soon until they complete the mutagen?" Leo asked, they had abandoned their game and everyone was paying attention now.

"I don't know for sure, but we might want to figure that out as fast as possible." Donnie said. Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Is there any more in that file?" Leo asked.

"There's plenty, but it all still needs translating." Donnie said with a snort of sarcasm.

"Why don't I help then? See what other information we can get." Holly said
"Awe, but I was just about to crush you at your own game!" Mikey whined.

"Sorry buddy." Holly said, "I promise to school you some more once we get this all sorted out." She sat on the other side of Donatello and helped him to work while the others packed away the console and games into a neat pile. Before they could get too comfortable, the group was interrupted when Holly's phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw her mom was trying to Video call her.
"Should I answer?" Holly said feeling a little weird.

"Sure, why not?" Leo asked.

"Well, do you want her to see your home?" Holly asked.

"You're not going to show her where it is, so I don't see the harm." Leo shrugged.

Holly thought about it for just a moment, before deciding Leo was right, and she answered the call. "Hey mom."

Stacey's face filled Holly's screen and she beamed at her daughter. "Hi baby! How are you?"

"Baby?" Leo said with amusement.

"Shut up." Holly retorted, "Yeah, I'm fine. Hows Paris?"

"Its fine. Its late here, almost three in the morning. I just wanted to check in after the wrap party here." Stacey looked flushed so Holly knew her mother had been drinking. "Are you with the turtle boys?" Stacey tried to whisper, but the fact that she was on speaker did nothing to hide the topic of conversation.

"Yes," Holly said warily. "I told you I was going to stay with them as its safer that the apartment."
"Let me say hi!" Stacey demanded. Holly pinched the bridge of her nose as she moved her camera around to show her mom the guys. "Hello, Hi." Stacey was saying as she saw everyone in the room.

"Dude, is she drunk?" Mikey asked blatantly.

"I am a grown woman, and I am entitled to the occasional late night adult beverage." Stacey scolded him.

"Don't be rude!" Leo hissed at his brother.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I probably had one too many glasses of champagne at the launch. Are you all eating well? Has my daughter been taking care of you?"

"Mom, they don't need me to take care of them." Holly said.

"You are a guest in their home, the least you could do is make sure they have enough food." Stacey berated her daughter.

"We could always go for some more pizza!" Mikey launched himself over Holly's shoulder to make sure he could see Mrs. McCallister.

"Then Holly will get it for you. I don't want to hear that you guys are hungry." Stacey glared sternly at Holly,

"If you knew how much he weighs, you would not think he was starving." Holly grunted and shoved Mikey onto the floor.

"Is April there too?" Stacey asked.
"Yeah," Holly said, then remembering the incident at school continued, "Actually, we need to talk to you about something that happened."
"Oh my god, is everyone OK? Do you need me to fly home now?" Stacey sobered up immediately.

"No, we're all fine." Holly flipped the phone around to show her that April was there too. "A woman, a Krang woman, attacked April at the school toady."

Stacey gasped.

"We're fine!" Holly repeated, "But it sort of freaked her out, so she's going to stay here for a couple of days too, at least until Carol gets some police involvement. But she thinks April is with us, at our apartment."
"I already told you I won't lie to her for you." Stacey said seriously.

"No, I know, but I wanted to let you know just in case you get an email from the school." Holly said.

Stacey eyed her daughter through the phone, she was suspicious of her motives for telling her, but there were more important things to worry about at the minute. "April honey, are you OK?"

April started. "I'm..." she was going to say 'fine', but that would be a lie.

"Of course you're not. Do you need to talk to me? Can I do anything to help?" Holly handed April the phone so she could talk to her mom directly.

"Not at the minute," April sighed, "but maybe tomorrow, once I have sorted everything out in my head?" April phrased the comment as a question.

"Whenever you want to talk, about anything, I will be here." Stacey said earnestly.

Tears stung Aprils eyes, so she just nodded her understanding and handed the phone back to Holly.

"I'm glad you are all safe, but do you think you could try and stay out of trouble until I get home?" Stacey asked.

Holly chuckled. "Yeah, we can probably manage that."

"Good, and I wasn't joking about getting your hosts something to eat either." Stacey yawned.

"If anyone is hosting us, its Splinter, and I always make sure to get his favorite tea." Holly bragged.

"I still want pizza." Mikey demanded. Holly threw a cushion at him.

Stacey smiled, "I'll call you again tomorrow before I catch my flight."

"OK, I'll talk to you later." Holly said.

"I love you." Stacey said.

"I love you too." Holly replied.

"Not as much as she loves Raph." Mikey shouted as fast as he could.

"MIKEY!" Raph yelled as Holly hung up the call. "You're dead!"

Michelangelo yelled out and sprinted as fast as he could around the lair to get away from Raph. Holly just shook her head, "and here I was thinking that only human boys were dumb."
April snorted and wiped away the few tears that had leaked out. "No, I don't think its limited by species."

The girls chuckled as Leonardo tried to pry Raph off of their baby brother.

"Oh, would you relax already." Holly shouted at Raph over Mikey's squeals of pain, "You don't need to fly off the handle every time you feel embarrassed."

"That's not the issue here." Raph snapped back, but he did let Mikey go.

"Isn't it?" Holly asked with disbelief written all over her face.

"No," Raph doubled down, "Mikey needs to learn when to keep his mouth closed." He glared at his little brother.

"He does it because you react to it." Holly said going back to her laptop.

"I wouldn't have to react, if he didn't open his mouth." Raph was getting mad, and the rest of the group had fallen silent. They were watching the exchange like a tennis match, flicking their gaze between Raph and Holly.

Holly took a breath before she spoke again, "OK Raph, whatever you say." She began typing on her laptop.

"That's it?" He demanded.

"Yup, I don't have an issue with Mikey's teasing. But if you do, that's your bag." Holly shrugged at him and continued working.

Raphael snorted in annoyance and stomped off to sulk in his room.

"Thanks for sticking up for me." Mikey said "Usually Raph just beats me up until he gets bored."

"No problem. Although, if you know hes going to hurt you, why do you wind him up?" Holly asked.

"Because its easy." Mikey shrugged.

The rest of the group hung out and helped to work on the files for as long as they could stay awake. Mikey gave up first, but no one was surprised. He disappeared to his room to play a handheld game long before Leo finally left yawning loudly. Donatello retired to his lab to be able to continue working while April and Holly got comfortable on the couches. Holly laid back in a corner of the couch with her laptop propped up on her legs, while April slept on the section of the couch that was perpendicular to where she was.

Holly was still trying to decode the files with Donatello. She could see his edits in the files as she went and they left notes for each other to double check certain words, or to compare thoughts. The lair was quiet. She hopped up after a couple of hours to stretch and to grab a drink. As she was washing the glass she used, Raph spoke from behind her.

"What are you still doing up?"

"Working, and your self?" He didn't answer her, so she provided him with one "Brooding no doubt."

She leaned back against the sink and crossed her arms. He still didn't answer. "OK, well great talk Raph." She moved to walk back to the couch.

"Don't you worry about what people might think about you?" Raph blurted out.

"What?" She almost laughed as was genuinely caught off guard by the question.
"When Mikey said that thing earlier," He was clearly struggling to express himself, "Don't you worry what your mom might think?"

She blinked stupidly at him for a moment, trying to process what he was asking. "No, not really." She racked her brains trying to understand. "Listen, I'm usually pretty good at knowing what you're talking about, but this time I am totally lost."

"What would your mom think about you seeing someone like... Well, me?" Raph deflated with the last two words.

Holly understood now, and she was surprised that he would care about such a thing. "To be completely frank, its none of her business who I date." Raph's eyes snapped up to hers. " I mean, so long as they're age appropriate, and not getting me into anything illegal, I hope she would let me use my judgment on who I choose to date." It was Raph's turn to blink in astonishment. "Besides, if she told me not to see someone, I'd probably just double-down and stay with them even longer." She smiled at him, hoping that he would relax a little.

It didn't work, he frowned worriedly at her. "Even if she disapproved, you'd intentionally ignore her?"

"Are you telling me you have never explicitly done something because someone told you not to?" She asked him skeptically.

"Of course I have, but this is different." He still looked concerned.

"Listen, my mom already likes you guys. She wouldn't be so worried about whether or not you're eating if she didn't." She said, "but, if you want her to like you, you need to actually say something to her."

"I've talked to her." He blurted out.

"You've said like three words while she's been in the room. I don't think you've even said 'hi' to her." Holly said a little exasperatedly.

Raph lapsed back into sulky silence.

"Look, I don't quite understand why you are so worried about this. But if you really want my mom to like you, you have to put in some effort. Shutting down so you can avoid any awkward exchanges is not going to get you very far." Holly left him to stew, she threw herself back on the couch and picked up her laptop again. She heard him return to his room, he shut the door softly though, probably so he didn't wake up the lair. But it was better that the usual slamming doors.

Holly was quite riled up from the conversation, so she worked late into the morning, only sleeping for a couple of hours before she woke up to go back to the school to find out what the school was doing about the whole intruder situation.