As was his habit, Todd snuck out and went up the hill to the old factory that night, as he did every night, in case his peculiar new friends had decided to come back. They had warned him they might suddenly disappear at some point, but Leo had promised they would come back and visit.

He discovered a Honda motorcycle on its side, unattended. That was weird, and just a little bit exciting. "Honda..." he breathed. "CB750K8... Nice..." He picked up the discarded helmet lying next to it. Weirder still.

Then he noticed the other vehicles. A couple of vans, and next to the main entrance a couple of black-clad guys... With guns! Todd dropped into cover, inhibited a little by his injured knee. What was going on here?

Todd noticed that although these guys had the main entrance covered they didn't seem to have bothered with the one round the back. Cautiously, moving slowly and keeping to the shadows, he made his way round there and into the building.

As he suspected, there were more of these guys in the rooms the Turtles had lived in during the weeks they had spent here. Ransacking the place. He heard a series of loud thuds, and the wall he was huddling against as he listened shuddered with the impact each time.

They seemed to have found what they were looking for, and Todd watched from hiding as they went by carrying a medium-sized safe with an odd-looking locking mechanism attached to the front of it. Booted feet marched over the smooth floors, squeaking a little as they turned corners. Yeah, Todd thought, these guys were military. Or ex-military.

He took a look at the Turtles' place. It was a mess, there was stuff scattered all over the place. Pretty much as they had left it. One thing was different. That newly plastered wall he had noticed when he was here but thought little about. It was broken, the plaster and the boards underneath removed and thrown to the side. What was the betting that safe had come from back there?

Todd went back out the way he had come in, unnoticed as the vehicles left the empty parking lot and onto the winding road that led back down the hill. What had he just witnessed?

He looked at the helmet he was still holding against his chest. He tried it on for size. Not a bad fit. He looked over at the Honda. Hmmm...

The Turtles needed to know about this.

***

"Great! Just great!" Leonardo paced rapidly back and forth in the limited space afforded by the narrow tunnel, running his hand along the top of his domed head. "What are we going to do now...?"

Michelangelo shrugged. "What the man says. Doesn't look like we have a choice."

The others looked at him questioningly. Since when...?

"That's what I was gonna say." Raphael reached out and opened Michelangelo's mouth and looked inside. "You OK, Mikey? Say Aaaaaa..."

Donatello leaned forward on his staff. "Can't escape it, Leo. They've got us."

Leonardo looked round the three of them in turn. "OK, guys... This is it... April and Irma are counting on us..." He held his hand out, facing down, digits spread. The others placed theirs on his, one by one.

"One for all..." they said together. "...And all for kickin' some Foot butt!"

"Umm... Foot butt...?"

"Don't spoil the moment, Donny."

***

Freddy struggled to his feet, feeling sick. The leader of the Foot Clan in New York could not afford to show any vulnerability. "Report!" he snapped at Matt.

Matt said simply "He's gone."

"The girl..." Freddy looked round, a little confused. "Please don't tell me you let her go."

April was sitting nearby, looking bored. "Hi," she said lethargically, raising her hand in a decidedly unenthusiastic wave. "The girl, who has a name, is right here... Unfortunately."

"Why would we let her go?" asked Matt.

"I've no idea..." replied Freddy, glancing briefly at Jake.

"What did that guy with the bandages mean...?" asked Jake. "He said you were gonna betray him."

Freddy looked at him without blinking. Jake wasn't going to back down. "Politics, gentlemen..." he said at last, conceding the need for some explanation. "We're not quite the big players in this town that we were under Master Shredder. Those few weeks when we were scrabbling around just trying to stay alive and free, I made some deals that helped us..." He saw that a running Foot ninja had arrived at the gate and was now breathlessly delivering a message to Matt.

"What kind of deals?" Jake wasn't so easily fobbed off. Freddy was uneasily aware that he had been thoroughly humiliated in front of them all by the Rat King. It was time to reassert his authority. Jake in particular needed to be taught his place...

"Master Tatsu's coming back," announced Matt. "He says he's got the Turtles close behind." A gleam in his eye betrayed his excitement. This was it... "Better get ready," he added.

Dammit... This was not the plan... Still, plenty of chances to deal with Tatsu later. With a tinge of regret, Freddy's gaze darted to their prisoner. There was no way he could let Tatsu see April wandering around free. This development was bad news for him, but it was even worse for her.

***

This wasn't happening... This wasn't happening. All right, she had happily signed up to a life of excitement and intrigue, but this wasn't remotely what Irma had had in mind. The Foot ninja surrounding her and bustling her further and further away from any possible escape struck her as nasty, brutal and cruel, and that was just their good points.

Tatsu made them all move faster and faster as they apparently neared their destination. Of all of them, he worried her the most. "Hey! Some of us have shorter legs, you know...!" she called. They ignored her.

She tried again. "Hey! As your hostage, and that makes me pretty important, the way I see things, I vote we rest for a minute. Who's with me...? Huh...?"

To her astonishment, they stopped. Tatsu had apparently called a halt, and the command was relayed back along the line. With the generally tall ninja blocking her view, Irma couldn't see what had happened but they seemed to getting all agitated about something.

Then the rats struck! Dozens of them. No, hundreds. No, thousands. No, it had to be basically all of them. The Foot ninja scattered in all directions, and the ones holding Irma let go. She found herself suddenly free, but with nowhere to go. Nowhere that the rats weren't swarming over. Climbing over all the obstacles the street had to offer, and even on each other, the rodents had reduced Tatsu's orderly column to chaos in seconds.

He was furious about that too. Swiping at them with his long stick, he caught more than one of them a blow that made them spin in mid-air and disappear into the massed ranks. Tatsu fought fiercely, fearlessly... and pointlessly. There were too many for him to have any impact.

Now there were rats climbing along his stick, and he dropped it. They enveloped him till he became an amorphous struggling mass of rodents and finally collapsed. The ranks surged over his motionless body.

Irma looked round desperately for somewhere to hide. Nothing very promising presented itself. Without thinking about it, she leaped for a drainpipe on the side of the nearest building and climbed as far up as she could, resisting the impetus to slide down it. She hung on, eyes closed, expecting to share Tatsu's fate any moment.

The cacophonous shrieking of rats, and the terrified yells of Foot ninja, lessened and faded away. Irma opened one eye, cautiously. The street was deserted. She took a long breath and exhaled slowly.

She was all right. Wow.

She was a few feet off the ground, and from here it looked pretty clear to her that the massive garbage dump must have been Tatsu's destination. Squinting, she could make out some lights. There was a junkyard on the edge of the dump.

Now, Irma had recently listened to a detailed account of the Turtle's most recent encounter with the Foot Clan and Donny had related their narrow escape from the junkyard with a contagious enthusiasm. This junkyard – it must have been.

April was being held somewhere in that yard. This may not be quite the sort of help she would be hoping for, but... Irma approached the yard, determined but cautious, keeping to the shadows.

***

"Bring her!" Freddy commanded harshly, and two masked Foot hurried to obey.

April, distracted by her own thoughts, remained unaware she was now the focus of attention. She felt bad about having just let the Rat King have the access code to the Turtles' safe, even though it wasn't her fault. Then the full ramifications occurred to her, and she paled. No, that didn't bear thinking about...

Two Foot ninja suddenly grabbed her and dragged her over to Freddy. "Hey, easy...!" she cried indignantly, wriggling free for a moment. "Hands off!" They seized her again. "Freddy...? What the heck-?!"

Freddy smiled coldly, pretty much his default expression. "Well, April, looks like you're getting your way after all." To the Foot ninja gripping her, he said, "Put her back in the workshop. Tie her up again."

"What-? No...! That's not happening, OK...!" April struggled as the two ninja started leading her away. "Hey, wait!" she shouted desperately. "Wait, OK?! Wait!"

Freddy signaled them to stop. They turned her to face him, but kept their grip on her arms. He walked over. "You said wait. OK. What?" he said, gesturing for her to speak.

"I... Uh..." April was lost for words, but anxious to waste time. "I... I don't think it's a good idea...!"

"You don't, huh?" Freddy smiled and April smiled back, warily, not knowing where he was going with this.

"Uh, no. All that stuff about a treaty, what about that...? You know, peace on the streets...? The Clans united...?" Freddy was like a cat playing with a mouse right now, but she was no mouse!

"Well, for now it looks like we're going with Master Tatsu's plan after all. I don't think your friends will let you suffer for long, if they think they can stop it." A jerk of his head in the direction of the workshop, and April was finally dragged away. "Tie her tight! And make sure you tape her mouth!"

Jake stepped forward, apparently about to say something, and Freddy wordlessly dared him to. He impatiently beckoned Matt over, and stood close enough to talk without being overheard. "If he asks, we freed her so we could question her about the Turtles, OK? She told us little of any value, and we put her right back where she was..."

"That's the story..." said Matt. He had no plans to contest Freddy's version.

"That's what happened," Freddy asserted.

***

"Hey, I want it on record here... You know, I never actually believed him..."

The Foot ninja pushed April through the doorway into the workshop, and one of them dragged the chair over, the legs scraping harshly against the floor. The other brought down coils of rope from the hook on the wall. She watched, a look of dismay on her face.

"OK, guys... Let's take a minute here..." One of them pushed her down onto the chair. "Hey...!"

The next few seconds were confusing. A thud, a low groan, and one of the ninja slumped over and toppled to the floor! The other one turned and moved toward their attacker-

-Irma!

Channel 3's newest intern stood like a rabbit in the headlights, holding a sturdy plank of timber with both hands. As the other Foot ninja leaped at her she gave a loud yelp and closed her eyes tight. April had her foot in the ninja's path, however, and he tripped and fell heavily.

As he rolled and stood up again, April was already halfway across the workshop. She pulled at a torn old curtain hanging from a rail and threw it over the man's head. As he struggled to get out from under the curtain, Irma thwacked him with the wooden plank and he collapsed in a pile of musty fabric and a cloud of dust.

Irma stared at the carnage, mouth slightly open, till April grabbed her by the shoulders, startling her. "Irma! What are you doing here? No, it doesn't matter. Let's get out of here..." Both Foot ninja were stirring, moaning groggily, and April grabbed Irma's hand and went to the back door of the workshop.

"Hey!" Another Foot ninja was on his way through the main door.

"Move!" April shoved Irma through the door and dived after her, slamming it behind them and looking round desperately for something to block it. Irma had snapped out of her reverie, however, and was already hauling a battered chaise longue sofa from the piles of junk around them. The two of them dragged it across the doorway as the Foot ninja started battering at the other side.

"Something tells me you're gonna get a good grade for your first evaluation!" April gasped with a smile. "Come on!" She grabbed Irma's hand again and they clambered up onto the massive pile of junk at the back of the workshop. Several Foot ninja were already squeezing their way round the side of the building to pursue them.

"Sorry I haven't been around to help you settle in...!" gasped April as they fled.

"Uh... That's OK!"

"Yeah... I've, uh, been a little tied up...!" April almost couldn't believe she had just said that. The ability to make jokes under pressure was good and all, but she really wished she had a few more of the Turtles' skills right about now...

***

Bryan had found himself in one of the old storehouses down at the docks, and to his surprise was led to a very well-equipped lab. The white-coated technicians all nodded familiarly as he came in, escorted by the mercenary.

A woman maybe a couple of years Bryan's senior, with frizzy hair and large tinted glasses and a decidedly harassed air, came over, waving an unlit cigarette in his direction. "You know, I didn't really expect you yet. I hope you're not going to get my people all stressed, they're working flat out and you know this project means as much to them as it does to you and about half as much as it does to me and before you start on about the cigarette it's not lit so just give me a break, OK, Mr so-called Hynten if that's really your name? It helps me relax."

Bryan took a step back, not really sure what to make of that. He peered at the woman's name badge. Dr Mabel Pearson...

"Uh, my name's not..." Bryan found himself turning along with the rest of them as the door opened and someone else came into the room.

"Ah, Mister Hynten senior, I was wondering if you would make it..." said Doctor Pearson.

The man wore a new dark suit. Bryan could tell it was new because it still had the price tags on. The face was long and solemn and deeply-lined, with traces of old scars. And strangely familiar. Bryan peered again, wishing not for the first time he had managed to keep a hold on his glasses, before he was distracted by the half-dozen rats that came into the room after the new arrival and started investigating the furthest corners. No one else seemed remotely troubled by this.

"Bryan..." said the Rat King warmly. "Glad you could make it..."

"Make it...?"

"All this is your doing, Bryan. All yours... The beginnings of an empire. Our empire... I'm sorry, I will explain, I promise. Doctor Pearson, are we nearly ready...?"

"We've been ready for some time, actually, Mister Hynten," she said pointedly.

"Yes, point taken, doctor. I found that isolating the catalyst was more challenging than I had anticipated..." Bryan realized suddenly where he had seen this man's face before. Hynten...

"Uncle Larry..." he gasped. The Rat King turned to him. Could this actually be his missing uncle, unseen for nearly sixteen years...?

"That," he said. "And so much more..."

***

The Turtles kept close to the side of buildings as they made their way toward the junkyard. Fortunately, there were few people around. Their habit of secrecy was ingrained, even after their recent very public appearances and even now Master Splinter was gone - not that any of them had had the time to process that fact properly. Though frankly, if anybody did happen to catch sight of them in their rush to help April and Irma, too bad.

They almost collided with the several Foot ninja coming in the other direction. In their panic, the masked men just stood there. It was almost too easy. With all of them unconscious on the ground a few moments later, Donatello was the first to speak.

"Ummm, guys... I think that was some of the ones Tatsu had with him."

"How can you tell...? Raphael asked. Then he thought about it more. "Actually, how could you possibly tell? They're all wearing masks!"

Donatello shrugged. "Hey, some of us see beyond the surface, Raph. But anyway... There's something-"

Their explanation erupted around the corner a moment later. Rats! The Turtles reflexes, honed since hatchlinghood, saved them from enduring the same thing all over again. They all jumped in different directions, grabbing for any holds available and pulling themselves up the walls of the nearby building, unaware they were paralleling Irma's recent experiences.

"No way are we going through all that again," said Leonardo determinedly. "Next time we tangle with that guy, it's on our terms." He jumped down first, and the others followed as the rats disappeared into the distance.

"Which way?" demanded Michelangelo.

"I vote whatever way they're going we go the other way," Raphael suggested. There was no need for a vote. The Turtles moved into the next street.

The bright lights that were suddenly switched on blinded them, and they were unable to do anything about the darts that were fired out of the darkness behind the dazzling illumination. Several darts were fired. At least four found their mark.

Donatello grabbed at his dart woozily, where it was sticking out of his arm. "Hey..." After a couple of attempts he pulled it out and held it up so their unseen assailants could see it. "Hey... Is this some kind of..." He sniffed the end of the dart. "I bet this is midazolam... Am I right...?" He slumped to the ground, where the others had already fallen before him.

Several men came running forward, and the dart guns, as well as some of the bullet-firing kind, were pointed toward the Turtles as they lay on the ground. Cops.

Chief Sterns peered down at his successfully captured giant mutant Turtles. Turtles, that's right. Armed Turtles. With masks, like Zorro. Could this day get any weirder?

***

The Rat King took a long time to open the safe, as the technicians and the still shell-shocked Bryan looked on. Urgency was not worth the risk of making a mistake. He inputted each of the Turtles' codes one by one. His fingers moved rapidly over the keys, but even so it was quite time-consuming. Then finally he completed it with April's sequence, smiling slightly as he retrieved it from his memory. H... A... R... R... 1... E... T.

Finally, it was done. He opened the safe and reverently took out the object inside, and ran his finger along the cracked surface of the canister, along the remnant of the company logo. T... G... R... I...

"What