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 #59

*Still Tuesday May 24th, 2016. Now 5:00p.m. in the evening*

"What happened?!" Raph bellowed as he and Leo rushed into the lair.
They had gotten word from everyone else that they had returned to the original hideout and the two oldest turtles wanted answers of any kind at this point as to what the hell had just happened to their friend.
Both turtles turned directly towards the third oldest, their brainiest brother, and waited for him to say something.
Donnie had been leaning back in a rolling chair and not exactly in a comfortable position. That was also due to the fact that this chair was not like the one he had built out of skateboards to fit his shell, but also because of the angle in which he was leaning back. He was upset and he was frustrated and the emotional frustration was nulling the actual physical discomfort.
"Well?" Raph huffed.
Donnie slightly turned the chair and faced him, moving only his ankle as he made the slight turn.
Raph was so disgruntled and panicked that he couldn't process what Donnie's posture meant.
"Raph," Leo said as he placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, "you're not the only one who's been through this multiple times now. Let him process this as well."

Raph was now taking a good and long look at his brother and was now registering that Donnie was emotionally drained. How many times had they all now seen Sam almost lose her life or end up in serious danger? It was basically a dangerous pattern that wasn't ending. Something definitely needed to change, but that could be discussed at a later time. Right now the group needed to discuss what happened and how they were going to handle it…but seeing Sam almost die or get injured this many times now was definitely draining and was beginning to take a toll on everyone involved.
Raph was still very alarmed, but he backed off in regards to verbally pestering his brother as he walked away and leaned against the wall next to Mikey, both leaning in a spot close by to the monitors.

Donnie closed his eyes and ran his hands down his face, pushing his glasses up on the top of his head, before adjusting himself and sitting up.
He fixed his glasses and then spun the chair around so that he was now facing all of his brothers.
"Alright, first and foremost, we need to create a timeline and figure out what the hell happened. We can't plan anything without knowing all the details. Is there a white board down here?" he asked as he turned towards J2.
"Yeah! Give me a second" he said as he rushed into another room and returned back with a big white board on wheels.
Donnie sluggishly stood up and walked over. As he uncapped the marker he noticed how J2 seemed very wired and shaky. He could sense that the man wasn't sure how to react in this situation. Their Jay had witnessed as much as they had, but this man was new to this type of situation, especially since this alternate New York was supposedly safer than the city they came from.
Donnie gave him a small smile. "Thanks" he said, loud enough and in a way that he hoped would put the man at some ease.
"Alright, so we all split up. April and I-"
"Wait, where is April?" Leo asked.
"Innnn another room" Donnie said awkwardly, barely turning his head to face his brother.
"Alright then" Leo said, his eyes squinted in a curious manner. "We'll come back to that. Anyway, Raph and I followed Karai as she followed Sam. You went with April, and then Jay was tailed by Mikey."
Donnie was drawing lines next to names in bubbles on the white board.
"Okay, so when did we all sense that something was wrong?"
"Tatsu stopped tailing Jay" Mikey stated. "I checked in with J2 about Tatsu's location and when he found him, apparently he had left the building rather quickly with the crowds of people leaving due to the fire alarm being pulled."

"I sent out a message to everyone, but I don't think Sam got it" J2 added.
"What makes you say that?"
"Here." J2 then went over and brought up security camera footage that he had recorded using an online screencast program. "Right here, she looks down at her phone, but that was seconds before Karai entered the room with her hostage. I think Sam didn't read the full message because she was focused protecting herself."
"Pause it" Leo stated. He looked at the time frame of the paused clip as he pulled out his shell cell. He sighed heavily as he put his phone back in his pocket. "She never received our message. We told her to hold tight and wait for us before pursuing Karai any further. I sent that after getting the message about Tatsu, but obviously she never got it."
"Why wouldn't she answer her phone? It was silent so nobody would have heard it" Raph grumbled.
"Probably to avoid making any unnecessary noises or movements" said Donnie. "It was a good tactic, but she should have checked it before leaving the room, especially if Karai had left and the danger was no longer present."
"She knows better than that…" Mikey muttered.
"What happened next?" Donnie asked.
"We took the damn elevator. I thought it would be quick, but then we got her message that she was pursuing Karai alone. We had no idea she didn't know about Tatsu either, but I made us take the damn-"
"Enough" Leo barked. "we didn't have grappling hooks, so the elevator was our quickest way of reaching her."
"But using the stairs would at least have allowed her to see us. Look" Raph said as he pointed towards the videos now being displayed on the screen.
The video showed Sam entering the stairwell and looking down. Even though Sam said nothing in the video, they both knew that she was expecting to see them.
"If she had seen us then she would have stopped and you know it! We should have called and-"
"And what? Exposed her to Karai while she was hiding under the desk?" Jay nastily cut in. "Give yourself a break. There's nothing you could have done. There was no way you could get to her faster than the way that you took, and that idiot should have checked her phone! If she would have used her damn head then she would be here right now!" he began to shout.

His breaths started to become very rapid and very fast. Leo walked over and stood next to him, placing his hand on the man's shoulder.
Jay closed his eyes but couldn't stop a lone tear from escaping. As rapid as his breathing was, having Leo, who was like his duplicate, standing next to him definitely helped him feel a bit calmer.
"So Sam headed up to the top floor by herself, and that's when things went sour. J2, do you have any security footage?" Donnie asked as he turned around to face him.
"I hacked in, but I haven't watched it yet. I was…a bit shaken up" he said as he clenched his hands together.
"We'll watch it together" Mikey cut in. "We're all here for each other."

J2 pulled up the video and the aura in the room became very tense very fast. As the video played the group watched as Sam was surrounded by smoke bombs which was then followed by two shadowed figures jumping out from behind the entry way to the roof and begin to fight Sam.
"Wait, who's throwing the smoke bombs if there's two figures already fighting?" Leo asked.
The group continued to watch before a loud gasp escaped from each of them.
"Is that-"
"Not possible" Jay choked out through a mumbled voice.
Donnie's hand trembled over top of his keyboard as he saw a recognizable face from pictures that Sam had shown them of her siblings.
"What the fuck?!" J2 accidentally called out. "Chuck?! But, he doesn't look like that anymore! He's a teenager!" he said, now sounding more panicked than his alternate.
"It has to be an illusion" Mikey cut in.
"Well the illusion is fighting Sam!" Raph called out.
"Karai must have something" Donnie said as he replayed the video over and over. Whatever she did, she somehow brought Chuck back or made something look like Chuck. Whatever it was, Sam fell for it."
"Brian too?!" J2 shouted at the screen.
"That's messed up man" Mikey mumbled, opening and closing his fists both in the anger he felt that Tatsu and Karai could come up with such a cruel plan, and also in the pain he knew that Sam must have felt as two of her siblings came violently charging towards her.
Donnie started snapping his fingers. "Look up news casts. Find every recent news article in the past couple of hours."
J2 and Jay began fiddling with the controls of the screens until as many news stations were displayed at one time.
"Here" Donnie said as he walked over towards a table where they had dumped multiple tablets they had been using when searching online for hints of their enemies whereabouts. "Use these to search for any articles while I analyze the broadcasts. Look for anything related to Karai and Tatsu and their whereabouts. Were suspicious figures seen, is there any news about the gemstones? Things like that."

Everyone nodded and got to work.
"You too" he said as he turned towards one of the door ways.
The two Jay's started towards the doorway, but nothing happened.
"We know you're there so just come out already" Raph called out as he plugged a tablet into a nearby outlet, extending the cord so that he could sit in a chair closer towards the rest of the group.
S2 crept out from the doorway and inched her way over towards the rest of the group.
"I told you to go home" J2 remarked. "It's not appropriate for you to be here right now."
"She's me, to a certain extent. I can't just leave. Besides, I'm the worst at keeping secrets and I could accidentally spill hers."
That got everyone else's attention.
"Don't worry I won't….as long as I'm down here" she said softly as she hugged herself tight.
"I said to go home so that these guys wouldn't see their friend, to a certain extent" J2 said in a rather nasty tone.
"Newsflash, teenagers don't listen" Jay said in a frustration.
"Unfortunately" J2 replied. "Well, they've seen you now, so make yourself useful."

About 20 minutes later, at 5:40p.m. Raph had finally lost his patience.
"No one is finding anything, not even you. Any conclusions yet?" he groaned.
"This was a set up" Donnie mumbled.
"How so?" Leo asked, now invested in the conversation, along with everyone else as faces rose from screens.
"Karai and Tatsu knew they would both be followed since there was more of us than them, but they made sure to say and do whatever they needed so that Sam would follow them up to the roof. They probably knew they didn't have the greatest chance at making their plan work, but they ran with it anyway based on their options. They said something in just the right way so that Sam would follow them onto the roof, and they succeeded in getting Sam up there alone. Instead of using her siblings to kill her while she was vulnerable and alone, they distracted her and lead her into the trap of being taken away by the portal that just suddenly appeared."
He then turned towards his older brothers. "April and I secured the gemstones from our building, and Mikey and Jay secured theirs. The fact that there aren't any articles about Karai and Tatsu tells us that they went into hiding rather than trying to secure more gemstones through break-ins or using violence. That could mean one of two things. Either Karai and Tatsu need to find more gemstones and went into hiding in order to create a new plan, or getting the gemstones was never their plan at all."
"This whole thing could have been to lure Sam into a trap" Raph growled. "Kraang was thrilled that she was a match for one of his selective mutagen when we fought on his ship. This could be the same thing."
"We need to put this into account from now on" Leo chimed in. "No one ever thought that Sam's powers themselves would make her a target. She's always a target just like the rest of us, but now that threat to her is even greater."
"What could they want her for?" Jay asked. "What's so special about her powers?"
"The mutagen specifically functions within parts of her brain. Remember when we discovered that the mutagen affects her temporal lobe, and it affects all the different parts of the brain associated with temporal lobe, hence why if she only witnessed part of an event than she went crazy, or if a past memory had been triggered and she felt the need to protect someone then she went crazy? And remember what we told you happened when we fought Krang, how Sam was used and somehow Krang could control her mind because the mutagen affects these parts of her brain?"
"She can be used as a pawn now, for his own twisted pleasure" Jay mumbled. He placed his trembling hands behind his head as he sat down in the desk chair, his knees also noticeably shaking. "That bastard is using my sister as if she's a piece of his own tech" he said through gritted teeth.
"So let's get ahead."
Jay looked up and turned towards Michelangelo who had spoken such confident words.
Mikey turned towards Donnie. "What can we do to get ahead, figure out Krang's moves? What will he want to do with Sam?"
Donnie sighed. "Unfortunately that list is endless, and too painful to even think about. However…you're right" he said, his look now turning into one of focus and concentration.
He walked over and began fiddling with the controls of the screens in front of him, now changing the screens so they once again displayed Sam during her final battle on the roof top instead of displaying the different news casts.
"Nothing shows how Chuck and Brian got there." He turned around and pointed at the groups new dimensional alternates. "S2, contact your brother. J2 you do the same. Figure out where they were when this all happened. That will tell us whether Karai actually needed their bodies or whether this is some type of mechanical trick being set up by Krang and Karai."

The two humans nodded and removed themselves from the room as they called their siblings.
"Um, Don? I don't think it was them" Raph mentioned.
Donnie turned back towards the screen. None of them had seen what they were now witnessing because they were so focused on Sam earlier on when the events occurred, but right now they watched as Chuck and Brian somehow turned into Raph and Leo.
"Well, that was unexpected" Leo stated in shock. "How is that possible? We weren't even on the rooftop yet."
"Because it has nothing to do with actual bodies" Donnie declared. "In a couple of minutes those two will come in stating that their siblings were elsewhere."
Right on cue, S2 and J2 returned with the exact news that Donnie was expecting. Chuck was hanging out with some friends at a comic book shop in upper Manhattan and Brian was at a culinary class. Within a couple of minutes, security footage credited both claims of the men's whereabouts.
"What's this mean Donnie?" Jay asked.
Donnie waved Jay, J2, and his brothers over so that they could help analyze the footage.
"Do you see Karai holding anything?" he asked as he rewound the footage to the beginning when Sam first stood on the roof.
"You think she used an alien device to trick Sam's mind?" Leo asked.
"Not just trick her, but to actually make two beings appear. Is anything connected to her head, to her hands? Anything out of the ordinary? Or…."
Donnie rewound the footage once more and paid close attention. He noticed that there was an ear piece in her ear throughout the video when he watched it the previous time, and now he focused on who she might have been talking to as the fight went on.
"Tatsu…"
All eyes were aimed at a figure who was very well hidden in the background.
Jay zoomed in once he was able to work the controls and finally have them find Tatsu amongst the smoke that was clearing in the background.
"He has a tranquilizer gun, I didn't even realize she had been weakened by that earlier" Jay snarled.
"There's something else in his hands…" Leo trailed off. "Look familiar?"
"Not in the slightest" Donnie cut in, "which tells me that these two received a new toy to play with thanks to their new agreement with Krang. He seems to love letting the bad guys test things out for him. Whatever this new device is, it allowed actual beings to appear and attack. The tough question now is how does it work? And that, I will need a lot more evidence to determine."

"For now it's better than nothing" Leo stated as he backed away from the screen, not ready to watch Sam fall once again.
All the turtles seemed to be that way, including both Asian males in the room.
S2 was the only one who hadn't seen Sam fall earlier and instead heard her brother shouting about it at the screen.
For the first time, she was watching as she watched her alternate fall to what would have been assumed her doom, only to have her fall into a portal that randomly appeared in thin air. There were news reports about a girl falling from the building into this portal, but like most news, it was already being replaced with other insane stories, some important and some silly and stupid.

She felt her mouth go dry and her head felt dizzy. She was honestly terrified to leave the lair in fear that these enemies would come for her, thinking she was the Sam that was on screen. It also freaked her out that in another world, this could have been her daily life.
S2 shook her head and rewound the footage some and watched the enemies up above.
Her alternate was brave, courageous, and a total badass that never took no for an answer and fought until the end, so she needed to make herself useful and watch this footage that no one else could stand to watch. She decided to do the same thing Donatello had done moments ago. He had changed perspectives and watched Tatsu instead of Karai and that had been a breaking point for him, so she decided to do the same thing as she now watched Karai instead of the falling Sam.
A gasp left her lips as she watched the video once more, this time focusing solely on the woman known as Karai.
The gasp caught Donnie's attention as he turned around. He was about to comfort the girl in front of him and remove her from the screen, assuming her gasp was a pained reaction from seeing her alternates fated fall. Instead, he realized her gasp was from seeing the blue weapon being held in Karai's hands.
"Guys! Look!" he shouted back towards the rest of the group who was about to walk away from the screen.
They carefully walked back over as Donnie pointed towards the blue weapon in the woman's hand.
"What the hell is that?" Raph asked as he squinted, trying to get a better look at what she was holding.
"I'm serious when I say this, but it looks like a lightsaber. Why is Karai holding a lightsaber?" Mikey asked.
"Because it's not a Jedi lightsaber, it must be another new device Karai was given."
"That explains the sudden portal then, right?" Leo asked.
"I'd assume so. It's the only explanation based on the info we've got. And once again, the tough question is, where did she go?" Donnie asked with a gulp.
"Great, so we got some basic answers, and more questions. Now what?" Raph growled as he threw his hands up at his sides.
Leo and Jay turned towards Donnie.
"Is…is there anything we can do?" Leo asked softly.
Donnie leaned his head back and pursed his lips. "Just…give me a second. Tatsu and Karai I'm assuming are still here since they were more focused on Sam than the gemstones. We have no idea what else they have with them, and I'm assuming it's only them here which means…"

He then plopped down in the closest chair, leaning forward and putting his hands in his head.
"Which means what?" Jay asked, a little too impatiently.
"Which means we could have just left our New York without us, and possibly with a lot of other villains to deal with."
The room grew so silent that you could hear a pin drop.
So many things now needed to be thought over. What was going on at home? Where was Hun if he wasn't here? He was free with Karai, so what was he doing now? Did anyone else escape prison with Tatsu? What was happening here in this new dimension? What were Tatsu and Karai's next moves? What new devices did they have that would cause more chaos? Where was Sam?! What danger was she in? What would happen when she returned? What if she never returned?

Everyone had these thoughts in their mind. Everyone except for one of the turtle brothers.
Donnie slowly picked his head up when he heard the click-clacking of keys on the keyboard, and his eyes grew wide when he realized which brother was utilizing his tech.
"Mikey?" he questioned carefully.
The other's turned their heads immediately.
"Mikey?" Raph asked, but in a much rougher tone.
Leo put his hand up when he sensed Raph about to march over towards his youngest brother.
"Watcha doing baby bro?" Leo asked cautiously, Donnie now rushing over to inspect the damage on the monitors…only to be amazed at what his brother had actually done.
Mikey turned around to face his brothers.
"Sam is the number one priority. She has a tracker in her phone just like the rest of us-"
"Sam isn't here" Raph cut in.
"But she will be! Krang will put her back once he's done using her."
"I'm sorry, using her?" Jay asked with an infuriated smile, displaying his difficulty in hearing this conversation.
"Krang used Sam to mess with us on the Technodrome, so he's doing the same thing now! He even said then that she was a perfect mutagen match!" Mikey replied, talking loudly and using his arms as he spoke. "He has to be doing the same thing now, he's using her to get to us!"
"He's right" Donnie cut in. "It makes sense. If he wanted Sam dead then she would have just fell off the building. And the way we all are now, in a panicked state, is because we know so little."
"So now Sam is just a pawn?" Jay bit back.
"That's what Krang wants to use her for. Us losing our minds and acting without thinking allows Krang to win. We can't allow that."
Donnie paused to take a breath before continuing on.
"Krang may still assume we don't know about these new devices, so he thinks we're still clueless. We need to work with the facts we know and remain calm. We cannot freak out and act rashly or else Krang will take advantage of us and will win easily."
He turned and smiled at his younger brother.
"Mikey did a good job in pulling up the program for tracking Sam's phone. I'm such a mess right now that I hadn't even thought about it, but once Sam returns, this will instantly let us know of her location."
"So…Mikey had a good idea?" Raph questioned in amusement.
"Mikey had a good idea" Leo said with a slow nod, and a small grin on his face.
"I just did what Sam would do if she was here."
"What's that?" S2 asked.
All eyes turned towards her, mainly because people kept forgetting she was in the room since she was so silent.
Mikey clenched his fists together.
"She would figure out what needed to be done one step at a time. She's like me which means she never shuts up, so she would be barking 10 orders every minute. She would have a whole process set up once she knew all the facts and would keep making plans as new information came up. She doesn't take breaks until she's about to collapse. Sam doesn't stop fighting until the end."

S2 gave him a small smile. "So what steps need to be followed? How do we win?"
"I'll call Casey back home" Leo stated. "I'll let him know we suspect only Karai and Tatsu are here with no other back up, so they need to keep a close eye on anyone in custody back home, especially the people Karai and Hun were meeting throughout their travels to different countries. That and they need to locate Hun before it's too late."
Leo walked out of the room as he went to make his call.
"Raph" Donnie called out, "You look over security footage with me. Let's see if we can figure out where Karai and Tatsu went to after their fight with Sam."
Raph nodded and walked closer towards the screens.
"S2 and J2, contact your families and friends and tell them that they should stay inside and away from people for a while. Tell them to secretly have that information circulate so that people stay off the streets and away from our enemies grasp."
The two nodded and grabbed their phones.
"Wait!" Jay called out. "Let me help you set them up so that your voices and calls can't be tracked. That way our enemies can't figure out where we are when those messages first get sent out.
"Mikey…" Donnie trailed off as he faced his younger brother.
"I'm waiting for Sam" Mikey stated bluntly. "I need to know she's okay as soon as possible."
Donnie shot him a small sympathetic smile.
"I know bro, she'd be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed" he said as he placed his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Mikey, how did you know how to access this program in order to track Sam's phone?" he asked lightly.
"Sam taught it to me" He replied bluntly.
Donnie nodded his head, "Oh, okay. Got it" he said with a smile.
He then turned to help Raph as he changed the images on the rest of the screens, leaving the one that Mikey was staring at alone.
'So what else has Sam taught you that I know nothing about?' Donnie wondered to himself.
He got the videos set up so that Raph could begin watching for Karai and Tatsu's next move.
"Oh! I need to go check on April…and April" Donnie stated a bit awkwardly.
"Um, okay. I'll be here checking the camera footage" Raph replied.
"Thanks man" Donnie stated and then dashed off.

Each person now had their own task and they suddenly felt a bit better. They all were still very uneasy and frightened, but they knew that this is how they would win. Working together, being ready for the next move, being one family instead of multiple frantic beings. If they had each other then they knew they could do anything. Now, they just needed to find Sam, and they hoped that time would come soon.

Hello and thank you to those that are still supporting this series! I've FINALLY completed another chapter. Sorry it's shorter than usual, but this seemed like a good stopping point with enough material to upload to display what happened since the last cliffhanger.
If you have any feedback then it is always greatly appreciated! Thanks for your support! :)