Any references to TMNT or anything from popular media and culture is NOT MINE. I only own my OC's. Any references to "TMNT Out of the Shadows" DO NOT BELONG TO ME. Only my additions that I came up with myself belong to me. Anything from the films or other series ARE NOT MINE, only my OC's and my ideas that I have added onto the story FOR FUN.
Thank you.

Chapter #32

*June 6th, 2015-Saturday*

Sam checked her phone and saw that she was entering the church right at 12:29p.m.
"Phew! Literally made it just in time" Sam thought to herself as she quickly pushed the door open and ran to the front of a line of bridesmaids and groomsmen that she saw lining up just as they were about to enter the church. She attempted to act casual, but she realized that she failed as she was nudged from behind.
"Wrong spot smarts" the young Asian woman now behind her said with a smirk. "I see arriving late boggles your mind."
Sam shot her a playful and questioning look. "What are you talking about? I'm the first…oh, right, hehe" Sam said with a nervous smile as she realized that the first bridesmaid in line would have to enter the church last in the group so that she arrived right before the bride herself. She then quickly walked to the back of the line.
"Well someone just made the cut off" came a familiar voice. Sam turned to the groomsman next to her and smiled at her childhood friend Kris. She playfully waved him away.
"I was just being fashionably late, I would never forget about this."
Kris chuckled softly as the practice began and the groomsmen all walked in together, talked to the priest and the groom about what they would do before the ceremony began, and then it was time for the bridesmaids to walk in one at a time.
As Sam entered the nave and walked down the aisle and past all the pews, she walked by all her and Jay's friends who were there to help make sure all errands were run, decorations were set up, etc. She felt a bit awkward for some reason. She had performed in front of huge crowds before, but for some reason walking down the aisle for the wedding left butterflies in her stomach. It was probably because everyone was going to see her all dolled up in make-up and in a dress. This made her extremely uncomfortable, she was a tomboy after all. She was used to form fitting and flexible jeans, leggings, jeggings, track pants, and running shorts that almost reached down to her knees. She was used to loose but form fitting sweaters, graphic tees, sporty t-shirts, and colorful sweatshirts and hoodies. She was used to Converse, Adidas Samba's, and running shoes. She never wore 'girly' clothes, but Jay and Brenda were more important to her than her discomfort in wearing feminine clothes and attire, so she would bear with it.

The practice was held, and then it was held a couple more times, and then it was time to move on to the next event on the list of things that needed to be covered that day in preparation for the wedding. Jay and Brenda circulated throughout the room and talked to whoever they needed to about whatever was next on the list, and everyone else who was not needed was free to move around and talk to the rest of their friends.
Sam hopped down the steps leading up to the alter like the child that she was (it was difficult at times to believe that she was actually 17 now) and looked up when she heard a familiar voice walk up and talk to her.
"You're the one who is actually in the wedding, and yet I'm the one that arrived first" April said with her hands on her hips.
Sam pursed her lips and looked up at the woman in front of her. "Well, I may have gotten caught up in a few…interesting events this morning, hehe."
April rolled her eyes. "Prank war awakening again?"
Sam nodded her head with a huge smile. "Mikey and I were victorious against the oldest two thanks to my toilet paper launchers."
April shook her head and laughed, but then switched back to a more serious look.
"So I talked to Irma earlier before I headed here and she gave me the contact info for a hacker who's ex rebel Foot. He hacked in and got me the access codes to Baxter's lab at the main TCRI building downtown."
Sam's brows rose. "Well look at you getting things done. How come you didn't ask Donnie though?"
April then expressed a face of sorrow. "I felt horrible reminding them they couldn't go above ground because they might not make it back in time before the sun came up. I had a feeling he would just want to be alone and do his own thing for a while, so I thought I'd leave him be this one time. Please don't tell him or else he'll get super offended. Just like that time I had an electrician come over because the one switch in my apartment stopped working."
The two women groaned as they remembered how Donnie reacted to April asking someone else for help when it came to malfunctioning tech.
"Trust me, no one wants to visit that side of Donnie again, your secret is safe with me. And honestly it was a smart decision, all four of them wandered and did their own thing for a couple hours or so after you left. When are you heading to Stockman's lab?"
"Don't worry, I'll contact Leo first. I took off for a few hours this morning to help Brenda out, but then I have to get back to work later. I'm heading downtown to TCRI later tonight. I'll make sure the guys know of my whereabouts, or else they'll all freak out."
"And I would to!" Sam announced. "You've come a long way in your training, but you still scare me O'Neil" Sam stated, looking the woman up and down, like a cop looking over a suspicious subject.
"Yes, I know Sam. Thank you for worrying about me, even though you get into ten times crazier messes" she said as she rolled her eyes. April then caught Brenda excitedly waving her over, so she waved bye to Sam and headed over towards Brenda.

Sam then wandered around some herself since she knew everyone that was here. After a few minutes she then somehow ended up in a circle on the floor with all of her friends from the rebel Foot, well, except for three extra faces that had only been around for about a year now. The 5K group of Kris, Key, Kyle, Kevin, and Ken were in the group. Then there was the triplets Thomas, Clay, and Grace. Brianna and her older brother Brad were next, then Amanda and her older sister Sarah, then the twin blondes Kate and Becca, then the look alike cousins of Nathan and Aaron, then Jillian Amante and her older cousin Ashley Kurtzman, then Angel and her older brother Ryan, and then Sofia or Shadow Jones, Lindsay Baker, Joshua Stockman, Tara, Lotus, and Tyler.

There were three new faces in this group though. Ryan and Angel, the brother and sister that were mixed with black and white parents, had two cousins. The older one was named Nova and had been a part of the Foot clan after being convinced to join in order to protect her younger sister from ever having to. Because of this, their cousin who was the same age as Angel, named Vanessa, had never been forced to join and was allowed to remain safe at home.
This was the same situation for Tyler Winters and his family. The tan skinned boy with black hair had both an older sister and a year younger sister. His older sister was Andrea and his younger was Skylar. Andrea had been forced into the Foot since their father, Max Winters, owned a huge company that could easily be taken advantage of and the business man's children could easily be used as bargaining tools to gain money and other tools. However, once information got back to Shredder that Tyler was a skilled athlete, he decided to make a bargain that he would take Andrea and Tyler as soldiers and would leave the family business alone. To save their father and everything he had built, they agreed, but only if Shredder promised that he would never force their sister Skylar into the clan. To this Shredder agreed, and Skylar Winters was never touched by the clan.
The third person outside of the rebel Foot group was a girl with long black hair named Emma. She had an older brother named Elijah, and though he also had never joined the Foot, he had been a weasel and supplied information and materials to the rebel Foot when members were allowed to leave the main headquarters building. No one knew where he ever got this information from, but he had helped them succeed in escaping, so he was never questioned. No one really knew a whole lot about Elijah's background, but he had helped them on multiple occasions and in the end he had become friends with everyone, so he was now a group regular. The only thing they all knew was that his and Emma's parents were very strict and overprotective. Because of this, Emma had been sheltered and watched over constantly by her parents, hence why she had absolutely nothing to do with the Foot or even helping fight back against them.
Everyone had to be careful when these three teen girls were around. They knew about the Foot and that everyone in the room was ex Foot members, but they didn't know about all the secrets that came along with it: the mutagen, the mutants, or the mutagenic powers that Sam now had. Because of this, people had to watch what they said when these three girls were in the room.

Knowing this, Sam waited until she could finally talk to Jillian and Lindsay alone to gain some intel on the Mutanimals. Eventually she gained her moment to wave the two women over and then asked her questions.
"Hey, how have things been?" Sam asked, crossing her arms across her chest. Jillian Amante and Lindsay Baker had been working with the mutants since their first mutation day back at headquarters, and they were some of the very few people who went underground and helped care for and work with the Mutanimals as they lived in hiding, along with Professor Jordon Perry that was.
Jillian was the first to talk. "From what we've been told everything is going well. Professor Perry has been traveling with them in the truck and according to my brother's update earlier, everyone arrived and settled in at the Amante and Kurtzman cabins in the outskirts of the city a couple hours ago. If and when Shredder returns, it's going to be awhile before he finds them, especially since the professor has already started setting up security measures. How are the turtles doing?"
Sam sighed and swung her hands some, a look of hurt displayed on her face.
"They're getting by. Leo took it the hardest that they didn't catch Shredder last night, but overall they were all mostly upset since they can't go above ground to hunt him down now" she replied with a sad nod of her head.
Jillian formed a similar expression. "I hadn't thought of that."
Sam flashed her a small grin. "Don't worry about them though, they're all tough. Once they're focused on something then they'll work their asses off until they follow through. They just needed some down time to get their mojo back, and when I left the lair they were all a lot better…well, except Leo."
Now Lindsay added in. "Tell your boy in blue not to worry just yet. According to Jade, Shredder hasn't made a noticeable reappearance yet, so there's still time to act before Shredder does."
Lindsay's older sister, Jade Baker, was a police officer and the right hand woman to the chief of the police department, Rebecca Vincent. Jade was one of the few who was not actually a member of the clan, but because her younger sister had been captured and kidnapped, she worked day and night towards finding ways to communicate and help her, and now she was an advocate for the NYFS organization.
"Hey Lotus," Lindsay called out, waving the young Japanese woman over, "you're still in communication with friends who escaped from the Tokyo branch, right?"
"That's correct. Why?"
"Have they heard anything about Shredder reappearing in Japan?"
Lotus shook her head. "None of them have said anything, and there's a lot of people who are on the lookout for him in fear that he'll find them and force them back in. People in branches throughout the world and even other criminals who had connections with him are on the lookout in fear that he'll come for them, but so far no one has heard anything anywhere. It's still freaky, not knowing when he'll appear or where."
From where Sam was standing, she could see the goosebumps on the back of Lotus's neck as she spoke. Sam put a hand on her friends shoulder.
"Don't worry. You're safe here. No one is going to force you to go back to Japan, and everyone in this room is going to make sure you're safe."
Lotus had lost her mother and father years back when her family was trying to run away from the Foot clan. Her parents were killed by Shredder himself when she was about 5 years old, and as a young child she was forced into the Foot clan. Now that she was free to live and do as she pleased, she feared that this freedom would be stolen away from her once again now that Shredder was free. She one day hoped to safely head back to Japan in hopes of finding a woman named Miwa. According to her mother, Lotus had a half-sister named Miwa from her mother's first marriage before her husband, Hamato Yoshi, was slain by Shredder's brother, Oroku Nagi, because he was also in love with her mother. Lotus's mother had no idea what ever happened to her first daughter, but Lotus always hoped that one day she could go back and find her. Right now those hopes were beginning to fade, but with the support of her friends, Lotus was fighting her best to continue keeping her hopes held high.
Lotus looked back at Sam and patted her hand. "Thanks Sam, I'm glad I was moved to New York and found all of you guys."

The sentimental moment was interrupted as Brenda clapped her hands and announced that it was time to move to the next room. The church had a large open room towards the back of the building and this was going to be used for the reception later on after the wedding itself was over. Because Jay and Brenda were the upbeat and outgoing couple that they were, they wanted to perform some type of rehearsed dance routine with all their closest friends, aka everyone that was here today. The dance was more so for fun and humor than anything else, but the couple still wanted the humor and fun to be coordinated and planned.
The dance started with a number performed by everyone in the wedding party, then it switched to all the adults, then to all the teens, then to all the men, then to all the women, then there were small routines that were performed by each individual family group, and the last performance involved all the groups as whole coming together for a grand finale.

The dance rehearsals alone took a few hours, so April had to leave once they finished, but Sam ended up staying at the church with the rest of the large group as more errands were run, decorations were set up, and the entire day of the wedding was put into a full run through. There was also a planned brunch that took place, but everyone had stayed so late that they all went out to dinner together at the mall as well and hung out there for a couple of hours. Sam made sure to keep checking her phone every so often in case the turtles needed her for anything important, and around 9p.m. she received a message from Mikey stating: Hey Sam! We met up with April and now we're all heading back to the lair. She found some cool looking stuff that Donnie gets to look at in his nerd lab. Meet up with us soon if you can!"
And with that, Sam said farewell to her friends and headed for the nearest alley with a manhole cover lurking in the shadows.

*9:20p.m., a tunnel not far from the lair*

She didn't know how to explain it, but Sam had this feeling that something wasn't right. She had this feeling that someone in the lair was in serious trouble, and for an even stranger reason she felt that it was Sensei who was being attacked. Worry suddenly began to build and without realizing it Sam was now sprinting towards the lair. That's when she saw him. She was running towards and was now passing through the entry way right by the kitchen as she saw the back of a man with very short thin hair standing alone and in front of the turtle's truck. He was holding a hockey stick and a hockey mask as he continued to face the truck. Sam had no idea who this man was, but even without the evidence she just assumed that this was the man who was going to attack Splinter, and because of this she continued to sprint over towards the man. Seeing the hint of blue appear in the reflection of the yellow truck, the man turned around just in time to see the teenage girl run up and slam her arm against his chest and have him slide back and collide against the truck.
Luckily, Splinter had been sitting at the eatery and had whipped his tail forward and wrapped it around Sam. She still landed her arm against Casey's chest, but it didn't push him back anywhere near as forcefully as it would have if she had followed through with the attack and had not been pulled backwards. Splinter held Sam in the air as she wriggled and squirmed like crazy in the grasp. She hadn't even seen Splinter as she dashed into the room, and now she didn't realize that it was he who was trapping her. She continued to squirm violently until Splinter sensed Leo sprinting over. Sam was dropped once Leo was standing under where she was being held in the air, and as soon as Sam's feet hit the ground once again, Leo swung his arms around her and held her tightly while she continued to squirm.
Splinter ran over towards Casey to make sure that he wasn't seriously injured as Leo tried to talk down Sam.
"Sam! Where's your head at?" Leo exclaimed to the girl in front of him.
"Splinter's in trouble! Someone's hurting him!" Sam shouted.
Now the others were running into the room as well.
"Sam, Splinter is fine! You're the only one hurting anyone!" Leo called out.
"Sam the new guy is our friend!" Mikey shouted as he ran up to where Sam and Leo were standing. He then put his hands on Sam's shoulders. "Everyone is safe, just calm down."
Mikey then looked back at Casey who was being tended to by April and Splinter. "Man, things are just not going your way today, are they Casey Jones?" he teased.
Sam's head shot up and finally she had remained still. "Jones? As in Shadow and Jaxon Jones's cousins Casey Jones?" she asked.
"Who?" Leo asked.
"Ugh, yeah. They're my cousins. Who's asking?" Casey groaned as he was able to regain his balance and stood back up as Splinter and April helping him walk up the stairs.
"I was just with them earlier today. They're my friends." The colors were now fading from Sam's eyes as she continued to stand still. Mikey nodded to Leo and the two turtles removed their hands and took a step back, testing to see if Sam had officially calmed down.
"Sam's your name huh? You Jay's sister?" Casey asked.
"Who's asking?" Raph snarled.
"Hey, it's fine" Sam cut in. "He's an ally, specifically he's a police officer who is also an advocate for the NYFS. My brother has mentioned his name before, and he's relayed information to Jaxon and Shadow in order to help fallen Foot members." Sam then turned to face Casey. "It's nice to meet you" she said as she nervously put her hand forward.
Casey was hesitant, not sure what to do after what he had just seen from the girl.
Sam pursed her lips together. "Sorry, I can…sort of explain what just happened, but honestly I don't even know myself."
Casey could detect the guilt in the way the girl talked and sensed that she hadn't meant to attack him the way she just had, and because of this he smiled as he extended his hand and shook the opposite hand in front of him.
"It's fine, I can't imagine what you've been through that leads you to do that."
Sam smiled. "Long story, but I can explain that another day."
"I want to know how you knew Sensei was in trouble" Donnie cut in, "you weren't even here when that happened."
"When what happened?"
Casey cut in. "When these two tricked me into attacking their dad who then slammed me into the ground" Casey announced in frustration as he rapidly pointed his finger bath and forth between Raph and Mikey, who then looked off in the distance like they had no idea what was going on.
Sam turned towards the two and tilted her head in annoyance. "Seriously? We find an ally and you guys are already bullying him?"
"Hey, it's not my fault he's gullible. He should have been prepared for anything" Raph said with a smirk.
"Now listen-" Casey started, only to have Sam hold her hand up to silence him.
"Raph, say fort" Sam stated.
Raph gave her an odd look, but did as he was told. "Fort."
"Now say it three times."
The large turtle rolled his eyes, already knowing this trick. "Fort, fort, fort."
"Now what do you eat soup with?"
Raph crossed his arms across his chest. "Haha, you want me to say fork but I know you eat-"
Within a second, Sam's eyes went blue as she swung her arm forward towards Raph's chest and then down, shoving him into the floor where he was standing. She used enough force to knock Raph off his feet, but not too much that it would hurt him. This would only leave him winded for a minute or so and then he would be fine.
"Huh, I thought you would have been more prepared for that" Sam said with a devilish smile as Raph glared back up at her.
Splinter shook his head with a smile as he exited the room. April and Donnie chuckled as Leo rolled his eyes. "Sam's back to normal" the oldest mumbled.
"Whoa that was awesome!" Mikey exclaimed with his arms in the air.
Casey had been standing there with his jaw dropped in awe, but Mikey's exclamation confused him.
"Wait, aren't you next?"
"HA! No! This ass kicking woman is my best friend!" he said as he threw his arm around Sam.
She nodded in response. "That's right, I couldn't hurt him even if I wanted to."
"Heck yeah!" Mikey then put his hand up for a high five, only for Sam to miss and 'accidentally' high five his face.
"Dude!"
"Hehe, my bad. Guess I can hurt you, but not on purpose."
Mikey shot her a playful glare before turning to walk towards the fridge and get a can of Orange Crush from the fridge, and in doing so, missing Sam turn towards Casey and wink at him to signal that that was the best Mikey was going to get as punishment for his actions. As Sam turned to follow Mikey, she saw that Donnie was holding a dart with a purple liquid in it.
"Oh Donatello, what is that?" Sam said, quickly walking up and invading Donnie's personal space as she tried to put her face up to the purple ooze.
Donnie smiled as he gently pushed the girl away from him and created a small gap between them.
"April, do you mind telling Sam everything you told us earlier?"
April nodded. "So I gained access to Baxter's lab. When I got there, I saw that Shredder was there to." April paused when she saw Sam close her eyes for a few seconds, processing the news she was just given.
"Okay, then what?" Sam asked, opening her eyes.
"So he had those two criminals with him from the night he escaped, Bebop and Rocksteady, and injected them with the purple ooze that Donnie is holding now."
"Wait, ooze? As in mutagen?" Sam asked, her eyes widening.
April nodded her head. "Yeah…"
"Where did he get it?" Sam asked frantically.
"Um, I'm not sure exactly. He said that someone named commander Krang gave it to him, but he never said who Krang was. He just jumped into talking about the three pieces he needed to open a portal for Krang so that-"
"Wait what?! A portal to what?!" Sam exclaimed, eyes wide and an expression of fear on her face. "What the hell happened when Shredder disappeared for like, not even a full freaking day!?"
"Ohhh it gets better" Raph grunted, walking back over and joining the conversation.
"Shredder tested the mutagen out on those two criminals with him, and it turned one into a rhinoceros and one into a warthog" April stated.

Sam stood there in stunned silence. Multiple questions were racing through her head right now and she didn't even know where to begin, so words just started spilling out of her mouth.
"Great, so we stopped him from creating a mutant army and we rescue all the mutants, and now he gains a brand new mutagen that allows him to do the exact same thing! I mean what the hell, where did he even get this new mutagen? We obtained and hid everything he had, so how did he-"
"Wait, what?" Leo cut in sternly. "What do you mean it's hidden?"
Sam turned towards him. "Our rebels had been smuggling all the mutagen they could get their hands on away from headquarters before the final night, and by the time the clan fell, every canister was relocated to a safe spot underground. A lot of people know this, but a very small select few know where the location is, mainly just Professor Perry and some of his assistants that worked with him in his lab during his time in the clan. But I just talked to a few of those few people today and they never reported anything going missing, and we would know by now if something was missing."
Donnie's eyes widened as he realized what this meant. "Then that means, this Krang that Shredder met after being sucked into the portal on the highway, he had to have given this new mutagen to Shredder. There's a good chance that Krang has been his supplier in secret all along."
"Ughhhh" Sam groaned as she put her hands behind her head. "This sucks. It's like we're starting back over at square on all over again."
"There has to be something we can do" April cut in, not wanting everyone to feel defeated when the battle was just starting.
"There is" Donnie stated, a smile of confidence on his lips. "I'm going to try and pin point a singular isotopic signature from this needle so that I can track our newly made mutant's location. You and Sam know how to use enough of my tech to listen in and to search for any information of Shredder's whereabouts."
"I might be able to get some information" Casey added. All eyes were on him, waiting for him to explain,
"I know a guy who works for the NYFS. He studies stuff like this."
"And what exactly is 'stuff like this'?" Raph asked roughly.
"Well we're talking about portals and mutagen and things that everyday people know nothing about, right? He looks into the real details. Like, when Shredder escaped, the news stated that the camera glitched and that's why the viewers saw the blue light, but he digs deeper and learns what really happens. He might have some information on what's going on."
"So what about the rest of us?" Leo asked.
Donnie shrugged. "Right now there's not much we can do until we track the location of one of our multiple bad guys. There's four of us working on that right now, so everyone else…be alert and ready to leave at any moment to apprehend our enemies."
Leo and Raph looked at each other and shrugged, they weren't going to complain.
"Holler if you need anything" Raph commented as he started heading towards his room on the opposite side of the lair.
"Same here" Leo stated, turning around heading towards his bedroom.
Casey pulled his phone out and walked over back towards the eatery so that he could make his phone call, and April walked over towards Donnie's many computers where she began using the monitors that Donnie had taught her about and started listening in to police scanners on some and searching for recent articles on others.
Donnie followed April and then went back inside his lab to start working with the mutagen that he had.
This just left the two best friends who then turned towards each other.
"So I guess this means no comic books, huh?" Mikey asked.
Sam couldn't help but laugh. "Unfortunately not, well not for me at least. What you do next depends on whether you're in a detective and curious mood, or if you're in an antsy and energetic one."
Mikey crossed his arms across his chest and let his chin rest on one of his knuckles as he contemplated what he had just been told.
"I CAN be in a detective mood, but it can't be super boring."
"Hmmm, how about you go undercover on social media. You know, casually ask around if people saw what happened on the night Shredder escaped, act like a clueless teen and see if leads to anything interesting."
"Now that is something that I am great at!" Mikey said, snapping his fingers and pointing at his friend in excitement since he could actually do something to help.
"Using social media? Or being clueless?" Sam teased.
"Social media! Wanna know what else I'm great at?"
"What?"
"This" Mikey said as he ruffled and messed up the girls hair.
Sam just stood there and stared blankly at him. "I work hard to look good" she pouted.
"Psh, lies! You literally wake up, brush your hair, and leave the house."
"Okay you do realize I do other things to, right?"
"Yeah you brush your teeth and stuff, but you don't accessorize" he said, wiggling his fingers in front of his face for dramatic effect.
"Yes, and now my hair looks even worse than my original 'woke up like this' look. My soul hurts."
"Ohhh your soul is fine!" Mikey said as he threw his arm around the girl's shoulder. "Now, to the couch for detectiving!"
Sam chuckled as she walked over to the living room with her friend and they both plopped down on the couch.
Just then, Casey walked out from the eatery. "I was able to get in touch with my source. Can someone lead me out of here so that I can go above ground and meet with him in person?"
"I'll take you" April announced. "Sam?" she asked as she turned around towards the girl in the living room.
Sam looked up from her phone at the two adults. "Don't worry, I'll check all the scanners in a little bit. I'm just going to make a couple calls to my own personal sources about something that just dawned on me first."
"Alright good stuff. Make sure someone calls me if something important comes up" April replied, pointing her finger back and forth between Sam and Mikey.
"Don't worry, I got your back" Mikey said, showing the o.k. sign with his fingers, which Sam then copied and signaled the same thing. With that, the two adults left the room.

"So who are you calling?" Mikey asked as leaned back against the couch and kicked his feet up on the pizza box coffee table in front of him.
"I don't know why it didn't dawn on me earlier, but I know two of Stockman's relatives. Cousins to be exact" Sam replied as she sat down in a way so that her back laid on Mikey's left arm as she kicked her feet up on the other side of the couch.
"Wait, what?" Mikey asked nervously.
"Don't worry, they're good guys. They're both ex Foot."
"Wait, if he knows what his cousins experienced in the Foot clan, then why would he team up with Shredder?" he asked in angered confusion.
"From what I know, Baxter has always been jealous of his older brother Dexter. Because of this, he will do whatever it takes to work with the tech he needs to follow through with whatever ideas he comes up with. His cousins told me they warned him over and over again not to work with the Foot clan and that they will turn on him, but he's so caught up in his pride of one day being better than his brother that he tuned out what everyone told him about the clan. He even cut ties with people like Professor Perry, someone he went to university with, because he knew the professor would try to talk him out of his decision to work for the Foot clan."
The frustration in Mikey's voice was evident as he spoke. "That's…disturbing, and selfish, and idiotic, and-"
Mikey paused when he felt Sam grab his arm. She paused, still looking down at her device, but not moving. She was testing to see if he was okay, and her touch had made him realize how dark his voice sounded. He calmed himself, and Sam removed her hand once she could sense this.
"A lot of us feel the same way" Sam said, breaking the silence. "But we're going to stop him before he can go berserk and continue to make decisions he will regret down the road."

With that, the two got to work. Sam called her friend Joshua Stockman and then called his older brother, Cameron Stockman, only to learn that neither currently knew of their brother's whereabouts. They gave her the number to contact their older cousin Dexter Stockman…only to discover that he also knew nothing about his brother. The only information she had gained through these three phone calls was that they were all worried about their relative, and that none of them could do anything to get Baxter to return home and keep away from the Foot clan. Sam sighed and stood up from the couch.
"Hey, you good?" Mikey asked.
Sam swung her arms and stretched. "Yeah, I just spent time calling people only to gain absolutely nothing from doing so. I'm going to grab some equipment from Donnie's lab and then I'll be right back."
As Sam started walking towards the lab, she could hear Donnie talking to himself as he continued to study the ooze.
"Alright Donnie, you got this, okay."
Sam smiled and did her best to move as quietly as possible so that she didn't disturb her friend.
"Alright, dissolve the quadra helix bonds, reverse the cohesion, wait…" he then looked up from his magnifying glasses and tools in curious shock, "that would mean…is it really possible?"
"I'll take Dorkatello has made a discovery for 500" Sam said as she continued to look through shelves and drawers for various devices.
Donnie spun around and looked at her. "Oh, when did you get here?"
"Less than a minute ago. I'm just grabbing some devices for tracking and what not. Is everything okay?" she asked as she turned her head to face him.
"I think I discovered something life changing. No offense, but-"
"Don't worry, I know that when you're in the zone you need everything silent with no distractions. Ahh, found the last gadget, so I'm out of here" she said with a smile.
Donnie mimicked the same expression. "Thanks Sam. I promise I'll explain more about it once I'm done."
"Oh I know you will. You're not allowed to react like that and then exclude me, that's where war begins."
Donnie rolled his eyes and then turned back around to get to work, and Sam made sure to shut the door behind her as she left the room.

She then returned to her spot on the couch and started setting up tablets, radios, cameras, all different types up devices so that she could listen in on others conversations and hack online documents (all mostly coming from police headquarters).
"Hey, you sent in your application for Blair, right?" Mikey asked as he listened in to different stations after Sam had instructed him on how to do so.
"Yeah, I did that a while ago, why?"
"Wellllll?" he asked.
She wanted to tease him, but she was so excited that she couldn't contain her joy filled smile as she gave him a thumbs up.
His eyes went wide as he pat his best friend on the back. "Yes! I knew it! Sweet, even during college for the next four years you'll still be close to home!...oh, I mean *cough* I would have supported you no matter where you wanted to go" he said as he then looked off into the distance.
"You don't have to lie, I'd be a liar if I said I'd be happy if you guys decided to live in the sewers in another city. But lucky for you your best friend is someone who likes to permanently stay close to home, and Blair has everything I could ask for in a university."
"Heh, including giant mutant ninja turtles living close by."
"Oh that's my favorite part" Sam teased. She then stood up and started walking towards the left.
"Hey, where you going?" Mikey called after her.
"Bathroom. You want to join, since you need to know my every move?" she mocked.
"If you're not hurt then nah, Splinter would kill me" Mikey said, looking and fidgeting with the hand held radio the entire time he spoke.
Sam nodded her head. "Not exactly the answer I was expecting, but I'll take it."

*A couple minutes later, leaving Mikey's room (she used the bathroom that was in his room)*

As Sam entered the hallway, she could hear Donnie calling out to Leo. By the time she reached the entry way into the rest of the lair, Donnie was already standing in the doorway to his oldest brother's room. The genius must have been consumed in whatever he was thinking about since he obviously hadn't noticed Mikey on the living room couch and now he obviously couldn't sense that Mikey was hiding by a ledge nearby where the bedroom was.
Sam silently creeped out from where she was standing and scaled along the wall to the right. She didn't know why she needed to be so sneaky, but Mikey was acting suspicious, so she assumed he was listening to something he shouldn't be and then assumed that she wasn't supposed to hear this either, but of course she was still going to. She then quickly snuck out through the exit by the living room and then hid near the entry way leading into the kitchen. She stood in the entry way at an angle where it would be extremely difficult to see her from where Donnie was standing. She listened carefully as the oldest and third oldest brothers talked.
"Leo. Okay, so I made a solution from the sample of the purple ooze to expedite an analysis of the isotope. But while I was waiting for it to catalyze, I started thinking that if the purple ooze can turn humans into animals, then perhaps if properly reengineered, then it could turn us…into humans."
There was a pause before Donnie began speaking again. Sam couldn't believe what she was hearing, and her curiosity grew larger after she saw Mikey and his awestruck expression as he looked down at his hand. What was going on in there?!
"If we could get our hands on more of this stuff, it could be life changing" Donnie continued, but then there was another pause.
Now it was Leo who spoke. "We don't need that kind of change."

Sam didn't know exactly what it was, but she felt a slight pain in her chest when she heard this. It wasn't a physical pain, but rather an emotional one. There were so many opportunities that all four of the turtles could experience if they could switch over to look like humans every once in a blue moon, and she had never told ANYONE this, but there were times where she would have given almost anything to experience certain things with her turtle friends. This was the selfish side to her emotional hurt. She loved all her human friends, but she also loved the turtles very much with all her heart and they were her family. She wished she could take them to ride the roller coasters at different amusement parks, and she wanted to take them to nice water parks as well. During Halloween she would have loved to go to a haunted house with the guys (and she purposefully would have teamed up with Mikey to scare the heck out of the older three brothers). She wanted to travel with the guys, and if she ever got the chance to travel to Japan and South Korea, then she wanted to have the turtles by her side as she did so. She also would have loved to travel to more local destinations, like the beach and the boardwalks down in New Jersey. Even simple things like ice skating she had never been able to do because all the skating rinks were in highly populated locations in the heart of the city. There was so much that she would have loved to show to the guys and experience with them, and hearing Leo shut down the idea hurt her heart in a way that she was not expecting.
The other emotional pain came from seeing her best friend's reaction. Sam could see that Mikey's heart also broke when he heard his older brother dismiss the idea of ever getting to be human. There was so much that he wanted to experience in life, and he had the perfect personality to just blend in with large crowds of people and have fun and experience new things. Sam would have given anything to provide such an opportunity to her best friend, even if it meant him leaving her so that he could meet hundreds and thousands of new people as he journeyed into the city and into the world, but seeing him so happy would have been worth it. But any and all thoughts of this were shut down immediately after Leo made his call.

Sam was awakened from her thoughts as she heard Donnie talk once again.
"Okay. You're right. To blend in with humans could compromise our strategic advantage. We have a system that works, we shouldn't mess with the formula.
"…and Donnie," Leo called back, "you can't say a word of this to the others."

Sam's eyes went wide. Donnie was loyal as anything and would basically follow any order that made sense, and he would follow it regardless if the order came from one his family members, especially their oldest brother and leader. Sam couldn't imagine what was going on through Donnie's head right now. Not only had he been given a red light on continuing to study something that was probably racing all throughout his mind, but now he was being told to lie and keep secrets from his other two brothers who happened to be the most emotional in the family as well.
Sam felt anger towards Leo. She knew he was trying to protect them and that no matter what he didn't trust the idea of blending in with humans for a variety of reasons, but to handle the situation this way was ridiculous and wrong.
Her anger soon switched over to sorrow as she looked back to her best friend who was still in hiding as Leo grabbed something from the fridge and then returned to his room and as Donnie walked back to his lab. Mikey still looked so broken after hearing everything that Leo had said. He longed for a chance to live his life to the fullest, and within seconds the only opportunity he had ever had was ripped away from him, and he didn't even get a say in it! And the worst part, Raph knew none of this. Sam knew that all hell would break loose if and when Raph found out.

"*sigh* Things are going to get pretty hectic around here soon, I just know it."

Sorry if you guys thought that the beginning was a lot of unnecessary backstory and added info about all the human characters. I have plans for ALL of them in the future, some of them you might have ideas as to how since I included their last names, but they will all have various roles that they will play as the series continues on. I'm still making up some parts as I go and as I re-watch the different series and continue to learn about the various series and what happens in each, but even before I started doing that I already had so many ideas of what I wanted to do with this series. So these characters will come into play, but I apologize if the beginning felt like it just dragged on with talk of new characters. These should be a lot of the main characters outside of canon characters, though each of the teens does have an older sibling or two, but I decided that they won't need to be mentioned until later on if it becomes more important.

Also, mini rant session here: So, as always, before I start drafting out the chapter I always go back and re-watch the scenes from the film so that I can make sure my scenes are blending in at the right time and match up to continue the flow of the story. As I was watching the scene where the turtles meet Casey in the alley for the first time, I love the moment where Raph and Mikey block off Casey so that he can't get close to April as she tells Donnie and Leo what she saw in Baxter's lab. These two clash so often because they always display the younger brother annoying the older brother, so I love this scene where they're joking around and messing with Casey as a duo, it's like a rare bonding moment the viewers never see…though sadly it meant torment for Casey xD

I've also told friends before that I wish somehow there was a way where ALL recorded footage was released in the bonus features. Not just deleted and alternate scenes, but like all the recorded footage (not necessarily edited and animated, but at least the original recorded film itself). I believe it was Alan Ritchson who plays Raph who stated in an interview for one of the two films that based on all the scenes that were filmed that the movie could have followed two or three different directions, but because so much was left out, we only saw a small section of everything that was actually filmed. I WANT TO SEE WHAT OTHER DIRECTIONS THE FILM COULD HAVE GONE IN! I feel like that would get a lot more people to become interested in the film series as well. I'm still upset that as of now there is no green light for a third film even though there were 4 films in the contact the lead actors signed. Anyway, there was also an interview where Megan Fox and others mentioned the various action scenes they shot. Apparently there were scenes where the turtles threw April over their shoulders and ran to keep her safe from the Foot, yet we NEVER SEE THIS. Like I would have loved scenes like that! It would have been so cool, and honestly adorable, to see the guys be so protective towards her. And then in behind the scenes footage of the scene where the turtles meet Casey, literally as they're leaving the alley, Donnie holds onto April's arm and leads her out of the alley. That would have been awesome to see in the movie! Like I would love to see a straight roll of ALL footage that was shot but not used in the films, and not just these films either.

Rant over, thank you for listening to TheNerdyTomboyNewb96 and her thoughts xD