So in this chapter we begin showing that the biggest thing that can pull Ichabod out of his self-pitying funk is someone else in distress, showing that Ichabod's tender heart is his superpower and that's what he needs to realize about himself even if it's not something unique to humans he'll soon enough find out what IS unique to humans

Seeing his Herd Siblings all shivering in a corner of the stage...Ichabod, his self-pitying about being a weak human completely forgotten for the moment ran over to them!

"What was that all about?!" Ichabod asked "Is it really true you killed a fellow Humanimal? I mean if you did it I'm sure it must have been for a good reason!"

Ichabod noticed Bill looked particularly distraught, his big blue bovine eyes seemed to show he felt incredible guilt!

"C'mon Bill…" Ichabod pleaded "...You know me, we can talk about anything!"

The irony of Ichabod's hypocrisy of his constant sulking for weeks and refusing to talk about it was not lost on the Humanimals, nor on the Turtles.

But before anymore could be said on this subject, everyone's dimensional jumpers went off!

"Strange things are happening in Gotham City!" Matoaka said "Pink ooze that seems to be welling up from the ground is transforming humans left and right into creatures like Humanimals or Mutants!"

"Oh shell…" Don face palmed as he had a very good feeling what that pink ooze was "We'll be right there!"

Now for the audience while they were mostly ignoring the drama that was currently happening on stage because nobody was currently talking in a microphone, they still were very freaked out by the strange 'Gryphon Ghost' that had just seemed to smack them to the ground with a feeling a pure dread so intense most felt they could barely breathe!

Scruffles, Lovelace, Rover, Stripes, Isis and Bacon Bit had all been in the concert audience at the Turtles recommendation in throwing together this gala to help get Ichabod out of his funk, and one of the WVBA Boxers had been there as well...Micheal King AKA Disco Kid as a lover of music he naturally wanted to attend this concert even if it wasn't exactly disco...Acid Rock was pretty close as it's from mostly around the same era…

Disco Kid gathered the Mutant Students around him as the various other humans and mutants stampeded off after the Gryphon Ghost vanished.

"It's OK...It's OK Cubs…" Disco Kid tried to soothe them even though he himself was also trembling after the rest of the audience seemed to have stampeded off and Disco Kid noticed to First Earth Fellowship Crew and the Turtles were no longer on the stage, seemed they had gone back to First Earth "Let's go to the gym and tell Von Kaiser everything that just happened."

Obviously Von Kaiser and Glass Joe were horrified to hear about what happened! And this seemed to confirm the belief that First Earth did indeed have some skeletons in their closet their were concealing from Third Earth.

"All right…" Von Kaiser said as he took down notes "You're sure this...Shadow Ghost...As you call it was indeed a Gryphon?"

"Had the front half of a bird of prey and the rear half of a big cat…" Rover said "...If that isn't a Gryphon I don't know what is…"

"Come to think of it…" Stripes said as she rubbed her furry chin as she thought "Of all the Humanimal species we've seen...We've seen unicorns...And plenty of dragons...But I can't recall ever seeing a Gryphon…"

This made everyone think

"You may be onto something Stripes…" Glass Joe "...After all the Griffon does seem very strange compared to those other...Betes mythiques...What other kind of creature is one kind of animal in the front and another kind in the back?"

And here I'm really grateful for introducing the Punch Out subplot for being A, another group of trusted adults the Mutant Cubs can turn to when the Turtles are with the Humanimals and B, since the whole reason for the Boxers getting involved with the Mutants is they suspected some kind of B.S. was coming from First Earth they are dedicated to finding out and putting pressure on First Earth to come clean and not treat the people of Third Earth like primitive people who must be kept ignorant of the skeletons in First Earth's closets