"Ladieees and gentlemennn, boooys and girrrrls! Yooou know them, yooou're wild for them…"

Around the stadium, spotlights danced over the growing crowd below them. On the stage, thick roiling fog gushed over the stage like a weightless white wave, washing over the crowd. Behind the dense smoke, five white spotlights burned, carving out five black silhouettes on the stage.

"It's… THE PACK!"

In unison, these five silhouettes strode forward, and the crowd went wild.

Above the crowd, in the frame of the jumbotron, Michelangelo crouched with a pretzel in one hand and a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes with the other. "Thanks for letting me borrow these, dude." He dialed the binoculars closer, trying to focus in on the stage.

Rows and rows of boxes bristling with wires hummed with heat, fans whirring as they funneled hot air away from the back of the jumbotron screens and up toward the ceiling of the stadium. They made Michelangelo's orange mask tails flutter above his head, like a banner blowing the wrong direction. Lexington was dying to know how they all worked.

He peered down at the people below on stage, not looking over. "No problem. It's not like I need them that much. Are these shows always so loud?"

"What?" Mikey cupped a hand to his earhole. He tore a bite out of his pretzel.

"Are these shows," Lex raised his voice. "Always so loud?!"

"Sometimes!" He answered with his mouth full. "But that's what makes them so fun!"

In Lexington's memory, there was a time, a place, where such a din would have heralded the arrival of some invading army. Some roar of men, out for blood, out for stone. It chilled him, in the same way that the people below and beside him must have felt thrilled.

How the world had turned upside down, so quickly too. It had changed so fast he'd had no choice but to take it in stride, no matter his confusion. There was some word Donatello had used the night they'd first met. Its syllables had wrapped around his brain, like sticker adhesive. 'Culture shock'.

The figure in the middle, the silhouette of a woman with long, flowing ginger hair, picked up the microphone from the stand on the stage. "Hello, New York!"

The crowd whooped and roared. Mikey's hand flung out to clutch the jumbotron for balance, the binoculars swinging from his neck. Lexington wove his tail through the frame and his talons clenched beneath him, yelping as the sheer volume of the audience's cheering shook the very ceiling, making the jumbotron sway.

The smoke began to clear, and the figures became visible, each standing tall. They lifted their right hands, clawing their five fingers. Fox lifted her own hand, fingers curled. "C'mon, Pack, show me your claws!"

The crowd rippled, the cheer rising again as they returned the salute. Fox threw her head back and laughed with glee. "Yeah! You read the comics, you saw the movie, and now we're finally coming to TV! Doesn't that feel good? We're here because of YOU!"

Lexington wiped the sweat off of his brow. It was getting hot in here. Somewhere, in spite of himself, he wanted to return the gesture. Wanted to be part of the crowd and their collective joy.

He remembered what it felt like, once, to experience joy with a huge number of people, all at the same time. Back when he and his brothers were nameless and innocent, before that long, lonely millennium. He was so close with all his siblings and parents. He liked to watch the eggs in the rookery occasionally rock as the generation that would come after him turned over, moving in their infant dreams.

He desperately wanted a community again. He loved Brooklyn and Broadway, and he loved Goliath and Hudson. But he felt an enormous hole in his heart whenever he saw them–felt a dreadful emptiness that, deep down, he knew would never be filled again. He longed for people. People like him.

He knew who he was before; a gargoyle, one of many. Now? He had no idea. So much of him was wrapped up in them. And when they died, he felt like that part of him had died too.

"You okay?"

Michelangelo's voice took him out of his thoughts for a moment. "Yeah, sorry. Just thinking."

"About what?"

Lexington didn't know what force pulled the answer from him. But it left his lips before he could take it back. "I miss having people."

Michelangelo blinked, his smile faltering. "I'm sorry."

Lex shook his head. "It's fine. Just… one more thing to learn to live without."

Mikey put a hand on Lexington's back, patting it gently. "Hey, dude. As long as you got us, you got people. I mean, we're not gonna be the people you lost. But I promise–" He thumped a fist into his plastron, face cracking into a broad smile. "–I'll be your best friend in the whole world, if it'll make you feel better. We weirdos stick together!"

It was a heartfelt gesture. Lex knew it was. He didn't think that Michelangelo had a disingenuous bone in his entire body. But he wasn't a gargoyle. Still…

Lex gave him a small smile. "That's really kind of you, Michelangelo. You're a good person." A good person. But he still didn't fill that void.

The show was amazing.

They were naturals on stage, charismatic and breathtakingly confident. Lexington could hardly believe his eyes as he watched the Pack perform feat after feat on stage for the audience. He watched Wolf bend a horseshoe with his bare hands, signing it with a silver marker and throwing it out to the audience. Hyena and Jackal performed a choreographed fight scene from the film, whirling with punches and kicks, while the audience cheered.

The audience seemed to know each scene by heart already, and he couldn't help but feel a little left out. Catch phrases chanted back, unified responses. Cheers and applause when one name was mentioned, boos and hisses at another.

When Dingo asked for a volunteer from the audience, he picked a skinny young man, with a bald head and thick glasses. He found himself desperately wishing he could be up there instead. The boy stood perfectly still while Dingo hurled his sharpened boomerang. It arced around him, landing in the chest of the straw dummy behind him. The crowd rippled and rumbled like a human ocean, rocked by awe.

"Now, on the show," Dingo mentioned casually into the microphone on his lapel. "You'll be seeing me doing some even crazier trick shots. Legally, I can't tell you how many of those are physically possible. But you know us, friends." He smirked. "We…?"

"DO! OUR! OWN! STUNTS!" The crowd chanted back.

Around him, the jumbotron lit up with an electric hum. Lexington gasped, edging away from the boxes as they quickly began to heat up more than before, fans kicking into overdrive! Mikey put a hand on his shoulder.

"Chillax, bro." He said. "It's just the bulbs, they're gonna do that. We're still safe."

Michelangelo wanted to smile as Lexington slowly seemed to let himself feel at ease. He pressed his face up to the frame of the jumbotron, trying to peer around it and get a look at the screen onstage.

How often had Mikey done the exact same thing, in this exact machine? More times than either he or his brothers could count. Watching him react to his world was, in a way, eye-opening. For Michelangelo, to hide and watch was routine, ordinary. Another day, hiding from a world that would reject them if they knew they existed.

But these gargoyles were different. They had been in a world where the humans knew their faces, saw them every day. Maybe a thousand years ago, they didn't have video rock channels or comic books. But at the same time, it was like watching a mirror. A weird mirror, but still, a mirror. It had given him a glimpse into what their lives might have been like if everyone in New York knew about them. If there were more than four mutant turtles in the world.

Lexington said he missed people. In a way, Michelangelo could kind of understand how that felt. Their lives weren't totally identical–in plenty of ways, they were vastly different–but they still had so much in common. Life was hard and lonely, sure, but he still had hope. Hope that humans would change one day. That maybe they would be accepted.

The announcer's voice returned. "Aaand now, ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your lunches. The Premiere of The Pack on XTV begins! Now!"

"They're gonna see us!" Lex panicked.

"No, they're not." Mikey reassured him. "They're looking at the screen, not what's behind it. Believe me dude, this is the best hiding place in the entire stadium. We've looked."

They sat and watched the first few minutes of the premiere. He knew the plot already–he was a fan of the Pack long before Chris Bradford was cast as Wolf. He still had issues of The Pack on his shelf in his room, right next to his Justice League, X-Men, Naruto, One Piece, and Batman collections. It was a story about people who felt like exiles, banding together to fight for the innocent. It was one of his favorite stories, in fact.

The day he found out that Chris Bradford was going to be Wolf was one of the greatest days of his life. The Bradford he knew was one of the good guys. He was a martial arts world champion. He was the face of a national anti-bullying campaign. He visited children's hospitals in-character. He talked all the time about how important it was to stand up for people who couldn't fight for themselves, people who had no voice. He was a hero.

He couldn't be a bad guy. He couldn't be. There had to be some other explanation.

"We should move now." Lexington urged him, rousing him from his thoughts. "While the humans are distracted."

Mikey looked wistfully at the huge theater screen through the panel gaps, watching Chris Bradford snarl with rage as he flexed, popping the ropes that had bound him. He wheeled on an enemy–a ninja–and completed the first few strikes of one of the most beautiful choreographed fights he'd ever seen on-screen.

"Yeah." Mikey said wistfully. "We should go."

Mikey crawled up through the jumbotron. He used his nunchaku to carefully pry out the panel he'd used to enter. It was narrow, definitely not built for a turtle with a big shell. He exhaled, squeezing through onto the steel superstructure of the massive set of screens, wriggling his shoulders through the loose panel. To his surprise, Lexington was already waiting for him.

"How did you do that?" Mikey looked back to the jumbotron to make sure nothing about it had changed, or that there wasn't some secret door he and his brothers had missed.

"I'm good at fitting into small spaces." Lex shrugged.

"Good?" Mikey sounded incredulous. "Dude, you're amazing!"

Lexington down down through the hole of the ceiling of Madison Square Garden. The beautiful pie-slice panels of orange and gold radiated out from the jumbotron at regular intervals. "I guess sometimes being small is useful. How are we getting backstage without being spotted?"

Mikey smiled.

"There is no way that this works." Lexington grumbled.

"Sure it does! I've done this, like, a dozen times!"

"And how many times have you been caught?"

"Uhhh…" Michelangelo shifted uncomfortably in their hiding place, quietly counting on his six fingers before answering sheepishly, "Less than a dozen times?"

"That doesn't make me feel better!" Lex hissed.

They clammed up as they heard footsteps approach, pause in front of their hiding place, and then walk away. Lexington let out the breath he didn't know he was holding.

"I don't believe it." Lexington whispered.

"I told you so!" Mikey said smugly, his proud smile far louder than his voice. "Flimsy disguise for the win!"

They were hiding underneath a huge cardboard box just large enough to hold them both. A moving blanket was folded on top, with a simple Sharpie-scribbled sign taped onto it. 'Broken Video Equipment, Do Not Move'. The bottom had been cut out with a small box knife so they could very quietly lift the box and tip-toe across the backstage area. The cut-out handles were their only viewports into the surrounding dimness.

Michelangelo pressed his eyes to the slit. "Coast's clear on this side. How's it looking on yours?"

"Wait!" Lexington grabbed his shoulder. "Someone's coming this way!"

They froze again as another pair of legs briskly walked past them. Once they were sure no one was watching, they carefully tipped up the box, staying crouched beneath it. Neither dared to unfold and stretch their legs or move too suddenly. Lexington had to be very careful to keep his tail inside the box.

It was a few more close calls before they finally reached the parking lot, where the vans were parked.

"No one's back here." Lexington whispered.

"They're probably doing stage crew stuff." Mikey reasoned. "I dunno, Casey's the theater guy, not me. C'mon!"

They quietly lifted the box and dove underneath a parked van. Mikey patted Lexington's shoulder.

"How's your first stealth mission, Junior Ninja?" Mikey beamed proudly.

"Uhh… I'm surprised we haven't been spotted yet."

"You get over it." He winked. He handed Lexington a small device that looked a bit like a hockey puck. "I'll check the vans up that side, and you check the vans up the other side. Got it?"

"Got it."

They split up, two slim green shadows darting between rows and rows of vehicles. In Mikey's hand, he clutched the chunky black disk. It had 2 LED lights, one red and one green. The green light blinked steadily. As soon as the light turned red, it meant that it wasn't receiving a radio signal anymore.

Which would mean that, if Don's guess was correct, they could identify the kidnappers' van as belonging to the Pack. His job was to find the van, write down the license plate, and retrieve Don's old tracker if it was still there.

Michelangelo prayed to anything that listened to the prayers of turtles that the light stayed green, and that his big brother was wrong.

He leapt and slipped, crawled and rolled. Anywhere a puddle of shadow could offer shelter, he hid within it. Two crew members in black t-shirts walked past. He stayed still, so still that not even a breath of wind lifted his mask tails.

His heart plunged when he saw one of the crew member's shoes. It was a very specific pair of shoes, the kind you couldn't get in a Foot Locker. He had seen those same tabi, up close and very personal far too many times before. Usually, when they were about to land a kick right to his face. It was part of a Foot uniform.

"You get all the stuff set up?" Their owner asked.

"Yeah, Bradford said we're moving out and going back to the studio as soon as the premiere's over. We're moving the first shipment of Tengu there starting on the 13th."

"Saturday?! Are you shitting me? We gotta clean up after this stinking pony show, get our asses kicked on camera, AND be his personal moving company? I had a date!"

"Master's orders, not mine. Unless you wanna complain to Bradford."

"Nooo way. I like my face the shape it is, thanks. I'm not dumb enough to argue with the master's Elite."

There was a judgmental pause. "Dude, why are you wearing your tabi?"

"I got a hole in my sneakers. And they're comfy."

Michelangelo's throat went dry. He dared to cast his eyes down to the tiny tracker in his hand. The LED blinked red.