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Echoes of April
A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fanfiction by Tripleguess
August 2005
Rated PG for action violence

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It was a place of many moods, this Lair.

Sometimes, at night, it was an oasis of peace and restfulness. Leo would creep to the door of his room, look out into the dark main chamber, and sense warmth in the darkness; latent, vibrant life in the silence. It was a comforting sensation, and one that he cherished. It meant that he could sleep without anxiety, because his family was safe.

It was then that he felt most strongly that their home had a benign, watchful presence of its own.

A little later on, the place would stir into drowsy wakefulness. Turtles tumbled out of bunks and doorways, yawning and stretching and scuffling good-naturedly. Two would make breakfast; two would wash up. The clatter of dishes might blend with the whistling of Sensei's tea pot until both were drowned by a noisy debate over bathroom rights which, often as not, ended in an impromptu wrestling match.

The atmosphere it adopted next was in deference to Master Splinter; one of orderly and disciplined instruction. The brothers might engage in weapons practice or barehanded defense under their sensei's watchful eye, or perhaps he would teach them balance and footwork. It was a time of stern mental focus and strenuous physical effort, and Leo reveled in it.

And sometimes -- like right now -- the Lair was a place of complete and utter chaos.

If this particular mood bore anyone's stamp, it was Mikey's. Today the world's one and only perpetual motion ninja had somehow coaxed Donnie away from his half-disassembled sewer slider and into a makeshift game of hockey, complete with a 'net' made from a pair of bedsheets safety-pinned at the corners and stretched between two pillars. Raphael and Leo had objected to having their sheets drafted for a second net, so the two players had simply tweaked the rules a bit until the game looked more like a cross between relay racing and monkey-in-the-middle than a self-respecting game of hockey. The biggest similarity was the noise level.

Leonardo had long since given up trying to read and, unwilling to be upstairs by himself, had accepted Raphael's invitation to spar instead. Claiming an area opposite Mikey and Donnie to avoid any mishaps with the fast-moving puck, they danced to and fro across the tiles, sweat dripping as they exchanged mock cries and blows carefully calculated to impact but not injure.

Sensei, faced with the no-win choice of either going bonkers from the noise or dealing with the explosive combination of a bored Mikey and cooped-up Raphael, had sensibly retreated to his room when the racket started.

The challenge of dueling with his fiercest brother aside, Leo was enjoying the chance to have Raph all to himself for a bit. And despite Raph's scowl of concentration, he could tell that the feeling was mutual. Right now there was no competitiveness between them; only the stern testing of friend against friend as they prepared together for the attacks of a hostile world.

And for an instant, as Leo signaled a pause to wipe the sweat from his eyes, he felt that the Lair was looking on fondly, amused by all their noisy antics and content to wait until the night to be itself again.

Just a moment, and the sensation passed. His eyes cleared, Raphael charged, and there was no time to think of anything but defense.

"If only I had two of me!" Mikey backpedaled hastily to catch Donatello's forceful serve, nearly tripping over his hockey stick out of inattention. He was starting to regret interrupting Donnie's maintenance project; the game was actually tipping in the braniac's favor. "I'd vape this game in no time flat."

Raph spared enough attention from Leo to shoot Mikey a look of wry amusement. "No thanks, bro. One of you is too many already."

The distraction cost him a rap on the skull and a grinning "Gotcha!" from Leo. He growled, rubbed his head and charged back into the fray.

"Yeah, Mikey." Donatello fielded the puck with an easy grace. Engineer or not, he was also a tough opponent, and Michaelangelo's incessant pestering just might have provoked some latent competitiveness. "We never get any pizza as it is."

Mikey scrambled after it, and Don took advantage of the respite to tap his chin thoughtfully. "Now another one of April -- that would be swell!"

Mikey slid to a stop close beside his brother, pouncing on the opening with a grin. "Oooo, another one of -- OOF!"

Don elbowed him nonchalantly in the stomach and slammed the puck into the net. "Three to one, goofball!" He patted his hockey stick good-naturedly. "I win."

"Aww, man!" Mikey objected, promptly forgetting why he was rubbing his stomach. "Let's make it five rounds. Come on -- why not?"

Mikey would have protested further had Leo's shell cell not chosen that moment to ring. Amazingly, Leo heard it. He motioned Raph to hang on as he dug the phone from his belt. Raph pretended not to notice, leaning forward instead to flick the cell out of Leo's hands with the tip of one sai. Perhaps it was his way of objecting to the interruption.

"Hey, Mikey!" Raph called over Leo's protests. "Keep-away!"

Mikey caught the shell cell with a deft backhand, running like mad to stay ahead of Leo. "Yo, Donnie! Heads-up!"

He threw the phone and then hopped on his hoverboard, just in case Leo was mad enough to keep chasing him instead of veering after Donnie. Donnie made the catch, then walked over and calmly handed the phone to Leo.

"Third ring," he commented.

"Awww!" Mikey complained, then found himself compelled to pay attention to where he was going. He quickly forgot about keep-away from Leo since it was now necessary to keep away from the wall and pillars.

"Spoilsport." Raph sheathed his sais.

Leo smiled at him apologetically as he opened the phone; he was sorry to have the session interrupted too. "Hello?"

"Hi, Leo," April's voice came back. "I hope I didn't wake you all up or anything."

Leo had to smile again. Raph was quietly going through forms while he waited for Leo to finish talking, and Donnie had parked himself within earshot to fiddle with a brake disc, both occupying themselves with the air of people waiting to learn what the call was about.

Mikey, naturally, had returned his undivided attention to hoverboarding and was pretty much oblivious to everything else.

"No, we're definitely all awake," he assured her. "What's up?"

"Well..."

He sensed the unease in her voice instantly, and felt his protective big-brother instincts kick in. "What is it, April?"

The redhead lifted her curtain fractionally and peered through the sliver of bared glass. He was still there, all right; just loafing out in the open while he stared at her storefront. It was almost as though he wanted to be seen. She backed away instinctively, the unconscious reaction of an animal more wary than frightened.

"I hate to sound like a fraidy-cat," she told Leo apologetically. "But there's this creep who's been watching my shop all morning, and it's starting to freak me out."

"We'll be right there," his voice came back immediately, and she had a sudden mental image of his katanas slamming home into their sheaths. "Stay inside for now."

"I locked the shop for lunch and didn't reopen. Uh, Leo...?"

He caught himself halfway through hanging up. "Yeah?"

Her hesitation was almost palpable, as though she were casting about for words she was reluctant to say. "Tell me, April."

"I just... be careful, okay?" She peeked out the window again, at the loiterer who didn't seem to care who saw him. "I have a bad feeling about this."

The others were already moving.

Donnie grabbed his duffel bag while Raphael ran to get Master Splinter. While none of them tried to eavesdrop according to the dictionary definition of the word, conversations not deliberately 'sound-proofed' were considered fair game; in fact, Splinter had always encouraged them to pay attention to anything they could overhear, both on general ninjitsu principles and because it saved him from multiple explanations should one of his sons be too lazy to listen the first time around.

And often, this benign type of eavesdropping was simply the most efficient way to communicate collectively in a family whose members kept very few secrets from each other anyways. That was especially evident now.

"Was it the comic shop?" Mikey called hopefully, still zooming around his imaginary eight-track. "Do they have my back-ordered issues?"

Of course, there was always someone who was completely out of the loop.

"What is it, my son?"

Leo shook his head at Mikey, then turned to address his sensei. "There's an, ah, unsavory character hanging around April's place. Will you be okay while we drop by and make sure she's safe?"

"I think I can bear the silence with equanimity," the old rat said dryly as a boisterously yodeling Mikey tore past, mask tails and kimono edges flapping wildly in his wake. Sensei inclined his furry head slightly to indicate their maniac of a youngest brother. "Just be sure to take him with you."

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"So let me get this straight." Raph pointed one sai handle at his youngest brother. "April's a smart girl, Leo. You telling me that she's scareder of some goon than of feeding Mikey?"

"Hey," Mikey objected.

"Keep it down, you two," Leo cautioned. The alley looked deserted, but it also carried sound quite well. "We don't want to let him know we're coming."

"I don't get it." Mikey scratched his head. "Why would anyone want April's old junk?"

"Yeah." Raph grinned at Mikey wickedly. "It's not like any of it is edible."

Mikey made a resentful-sounding noise. "Come on, Raph. It's a valid question!"

"Who knows?" Leo joked, pausing to straight his fedora. It was annoying, the way it kept slipping down over his eyes, but traipsing around without their get-ups wasn't a real option in broad daylight. At least the hats cut out some of the summer sun's glare. "Maybe he's after the pizza."

Mikey looked alarmed.

"There's always the cash register, guys," Donatello reminded them placatingly.

"Better that than April." Leo peered around the corner, then motioned them all to follow him to the back of April's shop.

"Or the pizza!" Mikey appended.

Leo sighed and reached for the door.

It opened a crack at his knock, and he could tell from the sliver of visible April that she was smiling.

"I'm sorry, sir; we don't admit door-to-door salesman," she said seriously, pretending not to recognize them.

Leo pushed his hood back, smiling back at the woman who'd become their sister in all but blood. "Not even those offering ninjitsu security services?"

"Oh! In that case, there's cobbler upstairs." She unchained the door and stepped aside to let them through. Some of her unease dissipated at the sight of the four strong brothers filing through her doorway. It was nice to have more than a flimsy lock between her and the weirdo out front. "Peach, and it's hot from the oven."

Mikey was headed for the kitchen before she finished talking, but Raph caught him by his mask tails. "Whoa there, you bottomless pit -- let's shoo Mr. Loiterer off before we dig in. Shouldn't take but a minute."

Donnie nodded. "April, why don't you go ahead and reopen the shop?"

"It'll give us a chance to see how the guy reacts," Leo explained, and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll be right behind you."

He looked around appreciatively as they followed her through the building, various knick-knacks and baubles winking as if in greeting from their corners and shadows. He wondered sometimes if April missed her career in high technology, but if she did, she'd never breathed a word of it to them. Nor about missing her normal life as someone who'd never heard of mutant turtles.

It was the jungle girl in her, he supposed; the feisty little valkyrie hidden beneath her deceptively mild appearance which seemed to delight in popping out when things went crazy. Like her antique shop, she harbored many unexpected surprises. He threw a glance at the stairs, remembering the time she'd refused to leave him and run for her life.

"Leo, lean on me," she'd told him, surprising him with her strength. "We're all family now..."

They hung back from the windows as she flipped the sign to "Open" and unlocked the door, scanning the street over her shoulder.

"There he is," she whispered. "The guy with the anchor tattoo."

Leo spotted him instantly; an anomaly in the flow of sidewalk traffic across the street, eddying to and fro within a couple sidewalk sections while other pedestrians bumped and brushed along past him.

The man straightened when April unlocked the door, threw his cigarette away and made a beeline towards the shop, smirking unpleasantly. Leo felt his anger rise. He'd seen expressions like that before.

Controlling himself, he stepped outside and into the man's line of sight, deliberately eclipsing April. He felt more than saw his brothers following, gathering around him in a semi-circle.

"Can we help you?"

The man broke stride momentarily. Sure, Stockman had said to watch for the turtles, but he'd neglected to mention how intimidating they looked in a group. Besides that, he'd been having so much fun spooking the redhead that he'd almost forgotten what this assignment was all about.

"I wants to buy something from the broad," he drawled.

Raph's eyes narrowed dangerously. "The lady is a friend of ours... and she doesn't do business with losers."

Raphael stepped closer and Leo let him, for there was no one like his third brother for dishing out sheer intimidation. "You've been hanging around all day. It's time to move on."

"Sure it's time," the man grinned, pulling something from his pocket and flicking it on. "Time to go bye-bye!"

Leo had a brief impression of organic, alien curves and otherworldly colors before the thing fluoresced, bathing the four of them in bluish luminosity.

He had the strangest sensation of standing still, so very still, while the world around them fragmented and blew away; of April calling their names... and being unable to answer.

X X X

"Too easy, man," the man complained. "Come on, Baxter. I thought you promised me a challenge."

"Don't," came the icy reply, "call me Baxter."

"Whatever, 'man. Still a letdown. Where's my dough?"

"Awaiting your arrival. And make it quick; I have important things to do."

"Nya, nya, whatever," he muttered, but not before flicking the walkie-talkie off. Some fun with the redhead wouldn't take long. Then he'd pop by to pick up the moola, and --

"What have you done to them?"

He turned to find himself face to face with a coldly furious April O'Neil. He backed a step involuntarily, surprised by the force of her presence. If she'd been scared before, she wasn't now.

"Hey, take it easy, lady." He raised his hands placatingly. "This has nothing to do with you. Well -- hardly anything. Just back off and take it easy, and no one gets hurt."

April retorted with the visceral assertion she'd heard from Raph and the others -- an attitude so engrained in her that it was now instinct. "You mess with my brothers, you mess with me!"

He almost didn't see the pole in time. It was a piece of antique pine bedframe, and she broke it over his upflung arm with enough force to make him yelp and drop both his walkie-talkie and the still-luminous device. The walkie-talkie shattered on the sidewalk, while the device arced into a nearby wastebasket, landing atop a discarded copy of the New York Times.

Another jab with the sharp broken end sent the crook running for the hills. He was a scavenger looking for easy prey, not a warrior expecting resistance.

"Lousy thug," April muttered, worry flooding over the protective rage of a moment before as she watched the guy scramble for distance. She called for the turtles again, but it was no good; she'd seen them disappear with her own eyes. He'd done it with... with that.

She fished the thing out of the wastebasket, cradling it carefully with both hands. Weird curves and markings suggested an alien origin, and she wondered with a jolt if it had been made by the Utroms. Inspect it as she might, she could see only one control, and something warned her not to touch it.

"Who could have done this?" she whispered, clutching it to her chest. Forget the thug; penny-ante criminals didn't happen on alien technology, then bait her friends out to use it on them just for the heck of it. He'd been sent by someone. But who?

Stockman, she thought, remembering his transmission, the fragment of a sentence she'd heard as she'd run outside to help the others. Baxter Stockman.

She tucked the device carefully under one arm and walked inside, resolution solidifying within. First she needed to see Master Splinter and Leatherhead.

Then she had some hacking to do.

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It was snowflakes that woke him -- the feel of snowflakes across his skin, like butterflies of ice. He shook his head carefully, blinking to clear his eyes. He had no memory of falling asleep; only of being on his feet and --

"April?" he called suddenly, the name coming out in a rush. "April! Are you there?"

Silence. He heard nothing, saw only the snowflakes drifting down, muffling his voice. Now he was calling and she wasn't answering...

Something stirred nearby. He rubbed the fog from his eyes and saw with relief his brothers, gathering around him.

"Leo... you okay?" Raph touched his shoulder gently, then helped him to his feet.

Leonardo flexed experimentally. Nothing felt painful. "Yeah, I think so."

Donnie stepped out, his bo staff drawn, looking about warily. "What is this place?"

"Or, to rephrase; where are we?" Mikey chimed in.

As far as Leonardo could tell, they were sitting beside the remains of a long-gutted building. Ash and char grayed the snow; the place had been destroyed by fire. Odds and ends of furniture and support beams poked out in unexpected places, veiled with a light dusting of fresh snow.

The nearby area was deserted, rendered ghostlike by the charred remains of several adjacent buildings.

"Boy." Michelangelo looked around in dismay. "Somebody really cut loose on the fireworks."

"You're not kidding." Leo toed a loose brick over, thinking rapidly. "Let's spread out and have a look around," he decided. "Try to figure out where we are. Maintain visual, okay? Meet back here in two."

The others nodded and dispersed across the building, keeping within sight of each other as they stepped gingerly over the wreckage in search of clues about their new environment.

It was Raphael who found something first. He called them over to the corner of a low, tumbled-down exterior wall.

"Look," he said when they'd gathered around him, pointing to the snow in front of him. "Footprints. The only ones I've seen aside from ours."

"Technically, Raph, those are bootprints," Mikey remarked, earning a smack on the back of his head.

The tracks were small; those of a child or petite adult. Some were fresh, their snowy rims crisp and clear -- no more than a day old. Others were almost too faint to see. They formed a small, trampled circle behind the wall, faded off across the street, and reappeared near the mouth of a nearby alley.

"The corner must offer some protection from the weather," Donnie commented, crouching for a closer look.

"That's probably why she stood here." Raphael knelt and measured his hand against a few of them. Without exception, they reached from his palm to his second knuckle. "They're all from the same person. Pretty deep, too, for the most part." He gazed thoughtfully across the wreckage, letting his hand dangle from his knee. Besides breaking the wind and offering a good view of the surrounding area, the wall and nearby detritus also made a decent hiding place for someone small enough to curl up and tuck into the corner. "She must have just stood here... just looking around."

"She?" Mikey asked dubiously.

Raphael shrugged. "Call it a hunch."

Donnie nodded agreement. "He's right."

"April?" Leo suggested hopefully. Raph shook his head.

"Just a little too small."

Mikey scratched his head. "So this means... what?"

"That we're not alone?" Donnie said softly, drawing his bo staff.

They followed his gaze. Something was meandering back and forth on the far side of the building, near the spot the turtles had occupied moments ago. It was bigger than a good-sized housecat, and though the falling snow obscured its outlines, its yellow light was clearly visible, zigzagging across the snowy ground.

"It's spotted our tracks," Raphael whispered as his brothers crouched around him.

"Why didn't we see it before?" Mikey complained.

"It's too low to the ground," Leo murmured. "The walls were in the way."

"Oh goodie goo." Mikey used his best Miss Piggy voice, waggling his fingers in a sarcastic display of delight. "So what do we do now?"

X X X

The drone had performed this routine many, many times. Being a drone, it was not capable of realizing this in any meaningful way, and was immune to the boredoms of repetition. Hence, it checked its designated route just as carefully now as on its very first day on patrol.

Ordinary footprints were of no interest to it; there were far too many of those for its programmers to bother about. Besides which, they were unimportant. Those few foolish or desperate enough to enter its territory would pay soon enough. They could not get lucky forever.

These prints, though, were hardwired into its recognition software. It signaled the others, and began tracking immediately.

It did not have far to go. A blocky humanoid flipped into sight and called out.

"Hello? Yoo-hoo! Nasty futuristic robot? Any chance we could talk this over like civilized beings?"

"I know he ain't referring to himself," Raphael muttered, tucked behind the wall between Donnie and Leo.

The voice matched nothing in the drone's clearance files.

Restricted area breach; unauthorized entrance; curfew violation.

"Maybe," the humanoid said hopefully, "in spite of that unpromising statement - maybe you're friendly. Just once," and he waved a finger at no one in general, "we deserve to run into a friendly robot."

The drone compared those words to its recognition codes. Nothing.

Terminate.

"Raphie!" Mikey yelped, skipping sideways. "It doesn't like me!"

"Who can blame it?" Raphael bounced a sai off the charging drone's head, deflecting its rush as it registered the new target. "It probably thinks you insulted its intelligence!"

"Coming through!" Leo took advantage of the split-second opening, blurring into a roll beside the surprised drone and spitting it neatly on one katana. He pinned it to the ground with a flick of his wrist, immobilizing it just long enough for Raph to sai its head off.

"Nice," Leo commented as he rolled to his feet. The drone's remains sparked agreement.

Raph tried not to look pleased. "Ah, they still ain't much good without their heads."

"It does look a little familiar, doesn't it?" Donnie poked at the drone with his bo staff, then knelt and began gingerly sorting through its exposed innards. "Anyone want to venture a guess as to what this is?"

No one had really wanted to mention that. But they'd all noticed it, of course. From the big, oval jaw cavity to the yellow headlight and almost comically chicken-like body design, the drone looked exactly like...

"...A majorly upgraded mouser robot on steroids?" Mikey suggested without much enthusiasm.

"Bingo."

"I don't mind being wrong sometimes, you know."

"Not this time," Donnie assured him, scooping the robot into his duffel bag.

"Nuts."

Raphael was looking about warily. "Anyone want to bet there's more of those on the way?"

"What makes you say that, Raph?" Mikey smiled nervously.

"Oh, I don't know... Bad luck and mouser look-alikes just tend to come in packs."

Leo nodded. "You're probably right."

"Not again," Mikey groaned.

"We should go." Leo scanned the area swiftly. "But where?"

Donnie shouldered his duffel bag and dusted his knees. "Why don't we follow those tracks?" he suggested, pointing to the alley. "Maybe she can tell us something."

"It's as good a lead as any," Leo agreed, and waved them all to follow him. "Watch for street signs. Let's get out of here."

They hopped over blackened lumber and exposed foundation as fast as they could, making good time until a thud signaled that someone had tripped and fallen.

"Ow! Ow! Owowowowow!" Mikey howled. "Somebody put a brick in my way on on purpose!"

"If there was any rational reason for thinking that, I might." Raph helped his little brother to his feet, keeping a hand on his shoulder for balance as Mikey grabbed one foot in obvious pain. "You okay?"

"Oh, I'm just peachy," Mikey griped. "There's nothing like a fractured toe to brighten your day."

"I feel for you, bro." Raph plopped his free hand over his heart. "But we better keep moving all the same."

"Hold up, guys." Donnie, crouched at their feet, unearthed something large and blocky from the ashes. "Recognize this?"

Leo helped him brush some of the grime away. "It's just a busted old clock," he said slowly, his brow furrowing. "Looks familiar, though..."

"April," Donnie said softly. "It's the clock from April's storefront."

Silence fell as the ruins around them suddenly appeared in a much grimmer light.

"But it was just here," Mikey protested. "It couldn't have burned down in just -- three seconds!"

Leo touched the antique clock face gently, then straightened. "Come on, guys. We need to find out what happened here."

Donnie set the clock back down. It was really too heavy to drag along. "And when," he said quietly.

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Whether for or against them, the wind had picked up a little and was now hurrying the falling snowflakes about, as well as kicking up the snow already on the ground. The ghostlike eddies brought visibility down, muffling sound and obscuring everything further than a stone's throw away.

"Brr." Mikey wrapped his scarf around his cold nose. "For once, I'm actually glad to be in this get-up."

"We need to be very alert," Leo cautioned. "Under these conditions, we may not spot trouble until we're right on top of it."

"You mean," and Raphael flashed his teeth, "it may not spot us."

As it turned out, they heard the commotion from half a block away. Yelling, catcalls, jeers, and even some unpleasant laughter.

"Party, anyone?" Mikey queried, surveying his brothers from under two layers of scarf. "We could crash in and get something hot to drink."

"I don't know, Mikey." Leo's voice was softer than the whisper of steel on leather. "I don't like the sound of this one."

There were at least a dozen of them, gathered in a loose semicircle by a condo wall. A scruffy kid, several feet above their heads up on the wall, was the center of attention. For a second Mikey thought it might be Spider-Man, down on his luck and clinging to the sheer brick. Then he noticed a rusty drainpipe running from gutter to third-story rooftop.

"Come on down, kitty!"

"No need to be frigid."

"At least you'll be warm with us, little broad!"

Leo felt his hackles rising at the mix of obscenities and innuendo, like a bad replay of earlier events. The part of him not concerned with the present hoped that April was all right, wherever she was.

"Lousy perverts," Raphael growled.

"What are they waiting for?" Mikey whispered.

He got his answer as a hard-packed snowball whizzed down and smacked one man on the mouth, turning his jeers into a choking cough.

"Sweet fastball." Donnie clapped quietly.

The ragged kid scooped more snow off a nearby window ledge and started packing another frozen missile. The man who'd been hit staggered away from the group, sputtering, and the turtles got a good look at his face.

And the tattoo thereon.

"Purple Dragon," Leo hissed.

Raph drew his sais. "I guess some things never change."

The gang closed in and, heads ducked against further iceballs, began wrestling with the bottom of the drainpipe, obviously meaning to peel it off the wall. The kid nailed one more Dragon, then abandoned the window ledge and clambered swiftly up the drainpipe, trying to reach the rooftop before her footing gave way.

"I've seen enough." Leo drew his swords.

"I am so gonna enjoy this," Raphael grinned, twirling his sais as he ran.

The others needed no encouragement. They closed in like shadows, all four of them, their nearly silent footsteps undetectable beneath the gang's noise. So intent on their quarry were the Purple Dragon that the brothers' flurry of kicks and blows caught them completely by surprise.

Leo found himself facing Snowball Eater and took him down with a quick rap from one katana hilt. He spun and struck another behind the ear before the first hit the ground, then flipped and leveraged a third man against the wall, locking his elbow with a practiced twist and yanking him straight into the bricks.

He looked for more targets, but it was already over. Mikey and Don had downed three apiece, and Raph was just taking out his fifth with a royal sucker punch. Leo grinned to himself. For all Raph's talk about not liking kids, he sure got upset with people who bothered them.

"Is that it?" Mikey asked in surprise, nunchucks still spinning.

"Sure is." Donnie still held his bo staff ready, though none of the prostrate, groaning Dragons looked very threatening. "Our Secret Weapon here hogged all the glory."

"Ah, they're only tough when they're picking on kids." Raphael put his sais away and beckoned to the shadow on the wall, still perched where she'd paused when the fight began. "It's okay, kid. We're the good guys." He paused to let that sink in. "You can come down now, if you want."

The kid did slide down a few inches, but Leo couldn't tell if she was listening to Raph or just too exhausted to hang on anymore. Any telltale expressions were obscured by her parka hood. Her foot caught against a metal support band and there she stopped.

"Actually, Raph," Mikey mused, "she might be safer up there for now."

"Huh?" Raphael turned to see what Mikey was pointing at. "Aw, crud."

Twenty of the upgraded mouser robots materialized out of the snowy gloom, their massive jaws chomping in macabre anticipation.

X X X

En masse, their resemblance to the original mousers was even more obvious. The single yellow eye, the servo whines, the aggressive pack behavior --

"I really don't want to be mouser chow," Mikey confessed.

"You won't be." Donatello stepped forward and brandished his staff. "We beat the old ones, and we can beat the new ones too, or my name isn't Donatello!"

Scraping, scrambling, straining metal; a snow-muffled scuffle-thump. The kid descended frantically, pushing off the bricks while still a good six feet above the ground.

"Leave them alone!" She darted between Donnie and Leo, flinging herself between the mousers and turtles in such haste that she tripped and got a mouthful of snow.

"Excuse me?" Michaelangelo blinked, looking on in bewilderment as she scrambled to her knees, sputtering.

"No! Stop!" She stretched her hands out towards the drones, as though to hold them back by sheer force of will. "Access code three four seven seven alpha charlie one! Don't hurt them!"

"I know that voice," Donnie murmured disbelievingly.

So, apparently, did the drones. They froze in place, except for one a shade larger than the others which moved forward as if for a better look at the kid. The brothers tensed, ready to spring to her aid if need be, but it merely paused after taking another step or two.

Voiceprint acknowledged. Administrative access confirmed. Awaiting new mission parameters.

"Delete logs from 17:00 on," she said, her voice trembling. "Resume patrol and recording at--" she consulted a battered wristwatch -- "17:05."

Log deletion confirmed. Patrol temporarily suspended.

"Good." She exhaled in relief and looked at the turtles, her breath a warm cloud in the chilly air. "You came. I can't believe you finally came!"

Mikey spread his hands in bafflement. "What exactly was that all about?"

"Are you Donatello?" she asked uncertainly.

"I'm Donatello." Donnie stepped forward and offered her a hand up. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay." But she accepted his help gratefully, her hood falling back in the process.

He caught his breath. Tousled red hair; one emerald green eye; features like an echo. Even in the semidarkness --

"April?"

"I'm not April," she said earnestly, searching his features as though to fix them in memory. She still held his hand, clinging as though to make sure he was real, her cold fingers pale against his olive-green skin. "I'm Yoshi."

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She was looking him in the eye, Donnie realized. Hence, she was fully six inches shorter than April. Lighter, too. But her voice --

"It's not safe here," she said.

Mikey looked at the temporarily benign mousers, meandering over all the fresh Purple Dragon tracks. The Dragons were slowly coming to their senses, though one look at the mouser robots sent them staggering off as fast as they could manage. They took no notice of the four turtles backed into the shadows.

"She's got a point," Michaelangelo concluded.

"What about the sewers?" Leo suggested, pointing to a nearby manhole cover.

She turned white, plainly frightened by the thought. "We can't. They're crawling with rogue mousers. But I know a place --" She started to move off, then paused, waiting for them anxiously while snow swirled around her ankles. "There's room for all of you."

"Well, Leo?" Raphael asked quietly.

Leo looked at Donnie and Mikey, assessing their reactions. Donnie clearly wanted to go, and "It's not like we have any better ideas," Mikey summarized.

"Come on, then," Leo decided, swallowing his questions for now. It was, as Master Splinter might have said, a matter of trusting his gut.

She led them deeper into the city, moving at a rapid clip that belied her scrawny physique and pausing frequently to look and listen. Leo was reminded of a wild animal, circling warily back to its lair.

"Are we there yet?" Mikey stage whispered once, earning a smack on the head.

Yoshi peered around a corner, suppressing a smile. "Just a little further."

"Hey, why are the streets so empty?" Raphael asked. Aside from themselves, the Dragons and Yoshi, he hadn't seen another living soul. The emptiness was made doubly strange by the lightened windows visible here and there. The place wasn't deserted -- and yet it felt absolutely lifeless.

"It's after curfew," she whispered. "Only Dragon morons think they can break curfew without paying dearly."

Mikey scratched his head. "So... what about you?"

"That's different. I can get past the mousers." She stopped behind a dumpster and scoped the next street carefully, as she'd been doing every time they needed to cross open space. "Heads-up... warm patrol."

Leo took her shoulder and drew her back into the shadows with the rest of them. It felt smaller, frailer than April's. They held their collective breath as a dozen security personnel checked the area... all wearing Stockman's distinctive uniform

"Stockman runs this place now, huh?" Raphael whispered a few minutes after they'd passed.

"Like a prison," she assured him grimly, checking the area again. One of their greatest enemies, she knew, was impatience. She watched and waited for several minutes before deciding it was safe to cross.

Still no one in sight. She walked ahead, faltered -- and stopped.

"Uh... guys?" she asked in confusion. "What are we doing here?"

"Terrific." Mikey muttered under his breath, hooking his thumbs in his belt. "We're in the middle of a frozen wasteland full of rabid robots, neo-Dragons and Stockman flunkies, and suddenly our only ally can't remember diddlysquat."

Raph yanked his mask tails. Hard. "Could you be any more insensitive!"

"Probably not?" Mikey ventured, nearly earning himself another whiplash treatment.

Leo and Don exchanged glances. "You were taking us somewhere safer," Leo prompted the kid.

Her face cleared instantly. "Oh, that's right. We're almost there." She waved at the man-made mountain looming ahead in the twilight. "See? Home sweet home."

"Looks more like the junkyard to me," Raphael observed.

"It is," she said cheerfully. "Though I prefer to think of it as... oh, an unending supply of spare parts. Come on!"

"Uhh... Yoshi?" Mikey hung back. "What about all those 'Danger, Radioactive Waste, KEEP OUT' signs?"

"Oh, I put those up," she said proudly. "They work like a charm! We'll have the place pretty much to ourselves."

"What about the homeless people who used to live here?" Don asked. "The professor? Is he okay?"

Yoshi bowed her head and did not reply. The brothers exchanged looks of unhappy comprehension.

Leo expected that she had a little burrow dug into the rubbish somewhere, but she led them straight towards the biggest pile of junk and stopped beside the end of a large drainage pipe. It was set quite randomly into the rubble and so overhung with garbage as to be invisible from more than three feet away.

"Here we are," she announced. "The junker bunker. Watch your heads, gentlemen."

She wedged her fingers under the pipe cover, swinging the heavy metal disk with such ease that it must have been counterbalanced. Light flooded outward.

The brothers gaped as she led them in and downward, marveling at the hemispherical area that had been artfully carved from the junk pile's innards. Salvaged girders arched from side to side across the low ceiling, bracing up a motley assortment of corrugated sheet metal in fine quonset-hut style. Fluorescent lights dangled at intervals, fed by a lacework of electric cords. Framework bursting with vegetation and high-intensity lights stood in the near left corner; Donnie quickly identified it as a hydroponics setup. Further down was a curtained-off area -- a bathroom, probably. Oh, he hoped it had hot water...

To the right was a homey area complete with carpet, lamps, two couches, loose cushions, and electronic amenities such as a TV and radio. Beyond that was a very cobbled-together but fully functional kitchen; further yet, a partly curtained-off jumble of parts and benches and machinery that could only be a workshop.

"Who did all this, Yoshi?" Don asked incredulously.

"Oh, we did." She shut the cover carefully and came to stand beside him, and he ascertained that she was indeed even shorter than he was. In the fluorescent light, with her hood thrown back, he could see that her other eye was hidden by a single-lens wraparound goggle which did not entirely conceal the scar beneath.

But her good eye was the same emerald green, and her features were like an echo. It was as though someone had rewound April several years, half starved her, and then roughed her up to boot. Yoshi didn't look much older than twelve.

She was still talking. "I mean, I helped a little bit -- but most of the work was his." She pointed to the open body of water in the farthest part of the cavern; the surface was just beginning to heave with unseen movement.

"Dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun --"

Raph reached over and whacked Mikey, interrupting a fine rendition of the JAWS theme music. Right on cue, the surface of the water split, peeling away to reveal ridged green skin, razor-edged teeth, and gleaming yellow eyes. The crocodilian nightmare lifted itself from the dark waters, mouth opening wide as it spotted the four creatures gathered round Yoshi.

"Yoshi, dear child." The great mutant's voice was deep, but gentle and cultured. "Are those our friends with you? Or do my old eyes deceive me?"

"Leatherhead!" Mikey cried happily, running forward to greet his pal. The others were not far behind him.

"Michaelangelo. My dear friends." A beaming Leatherhead shook himself as they gathered round him, scattering liquid across the concrete floor, water streaming in rivers down his thick hide. His smile stretched literally from ear to ear. "I am so very glad to see you all... at last."

Top

They were soon seated in a circle near the TV, holding plates of fresh stir-fry while Leatherhead produced a stack of thin paperbacks from a worn cardboard box.

"My comic books!" Mikey cried happily, clutching them to his chest. "They're all right."

"April saved them for you." Leatherhead chuckled. "I taught Yoshi to read out of those."

"Educational comic books?" Raphael chased his food across his plate. Seeing as they were in fact in NYC on planet Earth, it felt strange to be eating anywhere but the Lair or April's apartment. "Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"

"It was either that or Donatello's technical manuals." Leatherhead chuckled again. "Those came later."

"Hey." Mikey stopped his enthusiastic page-flipping to inspect a burnt corner suspiciously. "Who's been using Silver Sentry #53 for tinder?"

"It's one of the hazards of reading by candlelight, I'm afraid." Leatherhead turned his palms up apologetically. "We weren't always as technologically advanced as you see now see us."

Leo, sensing that Leatherhead did not want to talk about April's whereabouts in front of Yoshi, swallowed his questions and ate quietly, trying his best to be patient. Worry had pretty much stolen his appetite, but a ninja never knew when he might need his strength.

From the corner of his eye he saw Donnie playing with his food... he was worried too. In fact, the only one who ate with any relish was Mikey. The orange-masked terrapin had polished off seconds within five minutes and, no longer starving, was free to scope out his surroundings for entertainment.

"Is that my old Xbox I see?" He pounced on a controller without waiting for an answer. "Yahoo! Space Destructors! And the reigning champion and high score holder is... is..." he broke off as the list faded in, a comical look of shock on his face. "... L.H.? Leatherhead plays video games? L.H. beat my high score??"

"And no mean feat it was, I assure you," Leatherhead assured him humorously. "I suffered several blisters as a result."

"Zis is unacceptable! Zis cannot be tolerated!" Mikey lapsed into his Schwarzenegger voice and started a new game. "I, zee Spacinator, shall triumph again!"

"You can try," Yoshi told him, "but I've never beat Big L's high score."

Donnie smiled. "What? The terror of the sewers playing video games?"

"Why, they build concentration and quick reflexes." Leatherhead winked, then looked pointedly at Yoshi. "And they keep little girls from wandering off and getting lost in the junkyard... most of the time, at least."

Yoshi blushed. "Well, ah, I'm sure you guys have lots of catching up to do. I'm going to go work on Hogey."

She gathered up their dishes and escaped into the kitchen.

Immediately, Leatherhead became more serious. Time and worry crept into his face, making him look old and tired.

Still, there was something else in his eyes -- relief, and, more than that, hope.

"I cannot tell you how timely your reappearance is," he said feelingly. "Things are well here, but outside all grows worse. I do not know how much longer we could have stayed hidden."

"Reappearance." Leo let the word fall into his mind, watching the ripples expand ever outward. Donnie, he saw, did not look surprised. "Leatherhead. How long have we been gone?"

"Fifteen years, Leonardo," Leatherhead answered softly. "Fifteen years, my friend."

X X X

"I do not know how many times April attempted to hack into Stockman's network remotely," Leatherhead laced his fingers together, remembering. "She was partly successful, but concluded that much of the information we needed was simply not on the network. Apparently he had sense enough to store it securely, on an isolated internal system."

Donatello nodded. "That's what I would have done in his place. There's no keeping secrets online from someone of April's caliber."

"Precisely," Leatherhead agreed. "Though in the end, his caution may prove his undoing. With Master Splinter's help, Miss O'Neil broke into Shredder's facility, hacked into his intranet, and obtained a hard copy of Stockman's data on the Cronosporter."

"The what?" Mikey, currently battling his way through level fourteen, shot an incredulous look over his shoulder. "English, please, O erudite one."

"The Cronosporter is a time portal device," Leatherhead explained. "It was designed by the Utroms to study possible futures. Somehow, Stockman acquired it. It is the means by which he sent you here."

He smiled suddenly, a display of ivory sure to frighten those who didn't know him well. "I am not certain how April managed to evade the patrolling Foot, but she did." His great head swung to one side. "Understand, this was shortly before Stockman succeeded in assassinating Shredder."

Raphael nearly choked on a slice of bell pepper. "Stockman what?"

Leatherhead nodded. "Yes. Simple food poisoning, it's rumored. Perhaps with you gone, Shredder felt he could relax his vigilance a bit."

Leo and Raph looked at each other, remembering. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Yeah, but the guy always pops back up. Like a nutty jack-in-the-box," Raphael muttered.

"That's not all." Leatherhead leaned forward, his hands on his knees. "Almost by chance, April also stumbled on Stockman's plans for restructuring the city, hidden deep within Shredder's intranet."

"The mouser codes," Donnie murmured, connecting the dots rapidly.

"Yes." Leatherhead looked grimly satisfied. "With those codes, April was able to give herself administration access to the drone control system -- in essence, voice control of the mousers. She knew that, should the restructuring plans be implemented, she would need some way to bypass them in order to help you."

The crocodile's tail flicked, a telltale motion of unease, then stilled as he continued with an effort.

"Shortly after that, Shredder was killed and the city restructured. Miss O'Neil and Master Splinter entrusted young Yoshi to my care and left to find Mr. Jones and his young friend Angel, who were in Mafia-controlled territory." He bowed his head. "They did not return. The penalties for breaking curfew are... draconian... but it is impossible to know for certain what happened to them."

There was silence as the enormity of their losses sank in.

"Poor Angel." Raphael's voice was soft. Casey and his unofficial young ward had always been his especial buddies.

"And Yoshi?" Leonardo asked finally. "Where does she come in?"

"Have you not guessed, Leonardo?" Leatherhead glanced towards the kitchen, but Yoshi was nowhere in sight. A rattle of tools suggested that she was busy in the workshop.

"I believe that April rescued her from a Foot tech genetics lab," he finished quietly.

"Well," Mikey said matter-of-factly, when no one else spoke for a minute. "Now we know how April would look if she'd been raised in a sewer..."

X X X

"Here's an idea -- clones of me! Reeeally ugly ones!"

Mikey's quip echoed through Donnie's memory as the pieces fell in place. The voice; the features; the movements like deja vu come alive.

"A clone." It was the only logical conclusion. "That's why the mousers accept her voice."

"But why?" Mikey asked in befuddlement. "There are easier ways to get lab assistants than cloning them, for crying out loud."

"Revenge," Raphael said flatly.

Donnie's mind was still whirling. Employee drug tests, blood samples, DNA, Foot Tech labs and the Shredder --

"If it's true," Leo pointed out, "-- and we can't know for sure -- it may have been Shredder's project, not Stockman's, even if he did get the DNA sample from Baxter." He looked at Donnie; saw his thoughts reflected there. "Shredder had a thing for making copies of people. Remember the Splinterbot? The President? He was probably planning to use Yoshi against... against us."

Donnie nodded fractionally. "Nothing would have hurt April more."

"I suspect that you are right," Leatherhead rumbled. "Thanks to April, however, both Shredder and Stockman's plans have been turned on their heads. Yoshi's ability to slip through the mouser network made it possible for both of us to stay here and watch until you returned, as we knew you would eventually."

"And you knew this because of what April learned from Stockman's data?" Leo asked.

"Yes." Leatherhead straightened, and the hope in his eyes grew stronger. "But now you have arrived. Now we can begin to undo what has been done."

Leo had more questions, but Donnie listened with only half an ear. The noises from the workshop area had ceased. Had Yoshi overheard? Poor kid. He hoped not.

He got up and made his way through the kitchen. Dinner dishes piled in the sink; fresh daffodils in a tin can by the stove....

He ducked under a set of thrice-patched curtain partitions to be greeted by a haphazard assortment of tools, projects, and scrap metal. Standing in the middle of it all was Yoshi, looking even smaller without her parka, staring at the pliers in her hand as though they were the most incomprehensible thing in the universe.

"Are you okay?"

She looked up, startled, and for an instant he thought he'd been wrong all along and she really was April O'Neil, not a living copy traced in flesh from stolen DNA. Then light reflected off her goggle, and he saw anew her youth, her stunted physique, the features that were so April and yet their own.

"I can't remember what I came here for," she said blankly.

"You said you were going to work on Hogey?" Donnie recalled.

Her face lit up."That's it! Thank you." She rummaged around under the workbench and, to his surprise, dragged out a half-assembled mouser. "Plants and biology are more up my alley, really. Big L does most of the technical stuff, but Hogey's my learning project. I'm sure I'll get the wiring down... someday..."

She trailed off as she heaved Hogey onto the bench and dug into his innards. Donatello could no more leave the scene of a mechanical operation than he could let a cross-threaded bolt alone. He slung his duffel bag out of the way and sat down on an adjacent workbench to watch.

"Aw, great. Just great." She extracted a component from the wide-open jaws, groaning.

"What's the matter?" Donnie leaned closer for a look.

"The governor's fried." She showed him the complicated square of circuitry. "Guess I shouldn't have taken a taser to his head, huh?"

"Is that how you brought it down."

"Mm-hmm. Administrative access only goes so far before their self-preservation programming kicks in," she said wryly. "Well, so much for that."

Donnie opened his bag. "How about a freshly killed supply of replacement parts?"

"Ooo! Really?" She was torn between eagerness and hesitation. "You'd give me that one's governor?"

"Sure. Just give me a minute." He found a screwdriver and began disassembling his mouser's cranial unit. "Are they that valuable?"

"Oh, yeah." She nodded vigorously. "That's probably what the Dragons were up to, until they saw me. Mouser parts are hot stuff on the black market. It's dangerous, but some people raid into Stockman's territory just to bag a few drones." She shuddered. "Generally, it's a pretty short-lived career."

"Unless you've got secret weapon Yoshi along."

She grinned.

He freed the governor from its web of connective wiring and laid it in her outstretched palm. "Here you go."

"Thank you."

"No problem, Apr--" He caught himself. "I mean, Yoshi."

She smiled. "You can call be April if you like. Leatherhead thought very highly of her. And genetically speaking, at least, she's the closest thing I have to a mother. Say, can I borrow that?"

So she did know.

"No, your name is Yoshi." He handed her the screwdriver, retracing her features once more. "I just... you look like her."

And smile like her. And sound like her. And move like her.

"Better her than Hun," she joked. "Wouldn't that be awful? I'd have to turn sideways to get through the door." She pulled a mass of fine wires from Hogey's cranium and began running them carefully into the new governor's protective casing, her fingers moving with all the delicacy of a hummingbird sipping nectar. "If I could fit at all. She was a good friend, wasn't she?"

"Friend?" The sudden shift in topic caught Donnie off guard. April? She'd been their first friend, their best friend; the fifth turtle, if anyone could claim that title at all. Protector, liaison, and occasional rescue practice.

"Closer to a sister, really," he said finally, watching her attach the last wire. "I think you've got the three last connections switched up."

"Gah. You're right." She pulled the offending wires back out, then rubbed at her eyes. "Ah... do you mind if I take my goggles off?"

Did he mind? Oh, the scar -- she wanted to know if it would bother him. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'm a green-skinned humanoid who shares living space and a fridge with Mikey. I don't think a few scars will weird me out."

"That's a relief. It's starting to itch." She pulled the goggles off, rubbed her eyes again, and went back to work with no apparent self-consciousness.

The injury must have sliced right through her eye, temple to cheekbone. The otherwise delicate eyebrow and lid were marred by scar tissue, and much of the green iris was gone, replaced by white.

It was a little eerie-looking at first, but then she glanced up at him and smiled, showing the scar for what it was -- a superficial mark that had in no way damaged the warm personality beneath.

Though he did wonder if her short-term memory lapses might be directly due to that injury.

"Can you see?" he asked without thinking, then kicked himself mentally. But the question did not seem to bother her.

"With my bad eye?" She finished correcting the wires and slid the governor back into its cranial cubby. "A little. It's pretty fuzzy, but after being on the wrong end of a jack handle whiplash, I'm lucky to still have the eyeball." She rubbed the scar wryly. "Never stand too close to an auto dismantling project, by the way. L.H. fixed me up a night vision lens--" she tapped the goggles -- "so I can see infrared radiation, even at night. It tends to be blurry stuff, anyways, you know? Even so, it's saved my bacon more than once." She flashed him another smile. "So it's not a complete minus. How does this look?"

He checked her work, doing a much more thorough job of it than the briefness of his glance might have suggested. The connections were neat and precise. "Aces, Yoshi. That should work fine."

"Great!" She let the inert mouser sag in her lap, resting her arms. "But before I turn this bad boy on, I need to do something about his, eh, primal instincts."

Something in her voice made Donnie look up warily. She was eyeing him speculatively in much the same way that Mikey did when gauging Donnie's receptivity to outrageous requests. Like, oh, ice cream that didn't melt, or a little old souped-up Battle Shell.

"What?" he said reflexively, before remembering that she most likely was not going to ask him for a supersonic hoverboard or an M1 tank "just to play with."

She grinned knowingly at his tone. "Do you know anything about programming?"

Top

Leatherhead was nowhere in sight when Leo woke early the next morning, sprawled in the same position he'd fallen asleep in. He lay quietly for a moment, assessing his surroundings. Raphael, facedown on a cushion nearby, was just starting to stir... Mikey had fallen asleep in front of his game, still holding the controller. (Someone -- Raph, Leo guessed -- had covered him with an extra blanket.)

Somewhere not too far away, April and Donnie were talking quietly. Leo knew that Donnie had caught some sleep along with the rest of them, or he might have thought Don had worked the whole night through on that mouser project. It wouldn't have been the first time.

No, that wasn't right... Donnie must be talking to Yoshi.

April was gone.

A little more of Leo's brain kicked in as he fought back a wave of sorrow. There would be time to grieve later if Leatherhead was wrong. And if he was right, well... maybe they wouldn't have to grieve at all.

"All right!" Yoshi cheered suddenly, and Leo heard her give Donnie a high-five. "You did it!"

"Well, let's not crow too soon," Donnie cautioned. Leo heard the clank of something metal being set down. "How about a test run? It's time they got up anyways..."

He wouldn't!

Leo sat up and watched in disbelief as a mouser drone came trotting into the living room. It all but wagged its tail at him, then tried to tug the Xbox controller from Mikey's hands.

He would.

"I'm unbeatable," Mikey murmured in his sleep, clutching the controller more tightly. "Invincible, I tell you!"

The mouser tugged harder. Mikey finally popped one eye open and was greeted by a friendly mouser jaw-clack at very close range.

"WAZOWSKI IN CHINA!" He exploded out of the blankets and whipped his nunchucks into twin blurs. "Who let the mouser out?!"

"Take it easy, Mikey!" Donnie laughed, walking in with a giggling Yoshi on his heels. With her scar, cyborgish goggle and cast-off clothing, she looked like a costume-party participant who couldn't quite decide whether to be Frankenstein or Cinderella. "We just wanted to make sure his new behavioral programs worked."

"Oh, ha-ha, thank you very much." Mikey kept his nunchucks spinning full tilt, eyeing the drone warily. "I'm so honored you chose me as test subject!"

"Come on, Mikey," Raphael grinned, enjoying the show from his cushion perch. "If anyone could get out of the way quick enough, it'd be you."

"Yeah! I never saw anyone move so fast!" Yoshi sounded genuinely impressed. Respect shone out of her one good eye. "You'll have to play me hockey sometime."

"Oh, yeah?" Mikey puffed up his chest, not entirely placated. "How about right now? I've got a score to settle with you two!"

"I'll pass, thanks." Donnie sat down next to the mouser and retrieved the Xbox controller. The newly docile robot allowed him to poke, prod and even pick up its feet. "I need to check for residual code, make sure this guy isn't going to bite us on a whim."

"Yeesh," Mikey grouched. "'He's reprogrammed, all right, but watch out -- he might still carve a steak out of somebody's backside.' That makes me feel so much safer, Don."

Yoshi ran off only to reappear wearing roller blades and lugging two hockey sticks. "Play you a few rounds before breakfast!" she challenged, swooping round Mikey fluidly as she rapped her stick on the floor.

"I could beat any two of you!" Mikey asserted, grabbed the other stick.

"Big talk for someone who lost just last morning. Give or take fifteen years." Raphael held out his hand for Yoshi's stick. She handed it to him gleefully and darted away to get another. "I'm in."

Mikey leveled his stick at Raphael's chest, pitching his voice to parody Dr. Stockman's. "You're doomed."

X X X

"Come on, Donnie! Give me a hand here, will ya?" Mikey dashed sweat from his brow and tightened his grip on his hockey stick. As if it wasn't bad enough that he was losing for the second time in as many days, his other two brothers had gathered round the open playing area to enjoy his defeat -- Donnie because he could repair and watch, and Leo because meditating through all the noise had proved impossible.

"What's the matter, Mikey? She too much for you?" Donnie, sitting cross-legged on the workshop's outskirts, smirked to himself. Once again, Yoshi's unimpressive physique was proving itself no barometer of her actual abilities. She used the blades like a part of herself, flying across the concrete like a swallow through air. Michaelangelo was rarely, if ever, outclassed athletically, but the skinny redhead had certainly taken him by surprise, working seamlessly with Raph to gain a two-point lead and then maintain it ferociously.

"Hey, gimme a break, Don. She's faster than she looks!"

"It's the dumpster diet," Yoshi joked, spinning in place to demonstrate.

Raph slammed the puck towards Mikey's chalk line. Mikey caught it without an instant to spare, fielding it back with all his strength.

"Whoa! Nice one!" Yoshi backpedaled frantically and managed to just catch the puck, sending it between Mikey's ankles with a triumphant whoop. "Score! Woohoo!"

But victory came at a price. Their chalk line was in front of the mini-lake in back of the hemisphere and, flying backwards as she was, there was absolutely no way to stop in time. Her ankles caught on the low rim and she disappeared with a spectacular splash.

"Hey, does that count as a point?" Mikey asked hopefully, trotting to the accidental "goal" through the newly formed puddles.

"Nah." Raphael came up beside his little brother and clapped him on the back, half-sympathetic and half plain gloating. "I say we beat you fair and square, motormouth."

"Ah, guys?" Leo called, heading off Mikey's protests. "I don't think she can swim with those blades on."

"Oh. Guess not." Mikey peered unenthusiastically into the cold water. "So who's gonna fish her out?"

All and sundry were treated to a second splash as Raph shoved Mikey in, then dusted his hands.

"That answer your question?"

Top

Leatherhead re-emerged while Yoshi was still in the shower (which did indeed have hot water), dragging a netful of fish after him. Raphael and Leo had decided to recontinue their sparring session across the erstwhile hockey field, and Mikey was back at the Xbox.

"So is that what you eat when the supermarket's closed," Mikey commented, risking a glance away from his game.

"Yes indeed. Fish filleted, fried, fricasseed and flambéd." Leatherhead cleared room for his catch on the kitchen counter and rummaged for utensils to clean and scale them. "Though since Yoshi's indoor garden became productive, we've had plenty of vegetables to go with it. Breakfast will be ready shortly."

He paused, scaling knife in hand, as Yoshi emerged from the bathroom in a fresh outfit, blotting her hair on a threadbare towel. "Yoshi, my little gecko. Have you been swimming?"

"Not voluntarily," she admitted, winking at Donatello.

"Gecko?" Donnie queried, arching an eyebrow.

"Yes; she can climb anything." Leatherhead smiled fondly and indicated the ceiling's fluorescent lights. "That's how we got the lights and wiring up. I'm far too heavy to monkey around on those beams, even if I had the inclination."

After breakfast, Leatherhead sent Yoshi off to change into a wetsuit while he himself dragged a large plastic bin out of the workshop and began digging through it.

"Going back for another dunking?" Mikey teased when she returned. "I'm sure Raph would be happy to push you in."

"Nah. That's a privilege reserved for Mikey." Raph grinned at his brother wickedly.

"Actually, Michaelangelo, we're all going." Leatherhead began setting out masks, headlights, flippers, and aqualungs for all of them. "We need to retrieve the Cronosporter."

The brothers sat down next to the pile and began pulling on the scuba gear. "Where exactly is this Cronosporter?" Donnie asked, pulling a mask over his head. It promptly fogged up, so he pulled it back off to rub spit on the glass.

"April hid it in the Lair," Leo told him, remembering that Donnie had missed some of last night's conversation. "Right before she and Splinter..."

"But Yoshi said the sewers are full of rogue mousers," Donnie reminded him, reaching for a pair of flippers. "Drones whose restraint circuits have malfunctioned. Not even she could get past those."

"Stockman has used the sewers as a dumping ground for defective drones," Leatherhead agreed as he quickly fine-tuned his aqualung. Due to his crocodilian origins, he did not need flippers or a mask . "That's why we're going by another route."

Don checked his own aqualung carefully. Amphibious or not, he didn't much feel like drowning due to sticky air valves. "The river access tunnels?"

"Precisely."

The equipment was sorted out and donned in surprisingly short order, upon which they all followed Leatherhead to the mini-lake. Hogey, though, seemed to understand what was going on and objected to their departure by marching fretfully back and forth by the edge of the pool, clanking his jaw threateningly.

"Yo, Donnie -- you were right; there is some residual code." Mikey elbowed Donatello. "Look at him. He's patrolling!"

Donnie put his hands on his hips. "Not all residual code is dangerous, you know."

Yoshi finally quieted the drone by kneeling and talking to him reassuringly, while Mikey took advantage of her turned back by making the loony sign. This time it was Donatello who yanked his mask tails.

"Listen, Hogey, I won't be gone long. I'll come back, if I can, and then you can be my guardian angel when I raid Mafia stockpiles. Okay?"

"Yeah," Mikey quipped, still rubbing his head. "A really ugly, mean, metallic guardian angel!"

Hogey snapped at his toes.

"Yeow!" Mikey jumped out of range. "I meant that as a compliment! Really."

Raphael smirked and patted Hogey on the head. "Thanks, buddy. Saved me the trouble of doing it myself."

Leatherhead looked around the junker bunker fondly, making sure that everything was in order before they left. If their plan worked, he would probably remember nothing. Yet he couldn't help thinking that some part of him would still miss this little scrapheap, this home he had built with his own two hands.

He strapped on his aqualung and crouched beside Yoshi. She looked at him blankly. "Oh. Are we going somewhere?"

"To the Lair, sweetheart," he prompted patiently. "To retrieve the Cronosporter, remember?"

"Oh, of course." She bonked herself lightly on the head. "That's right. How could I forget?"

She slipped her arms around his neck. Then the great crocodile dove off the pool rim with a gracefulness almost alien in one so large. They sank into the dark water together.

"Man." Mikey shook his head. "I sure hope she remembers to hang on all the way."

"Well, if she doesn't, you grab her, okay?" Leo steeled himself, then jumped.

The water's frigidness permeated his body, and it was a struggle to breathe evenly instead of gasping in shock. He wrestled for focus and spotted two headlights, floating eerily in the near vicinity. Leatherhead and Yoshi. They were waiting for him.

He glanced around, counting heads swiftly as the others plummeted in, dragging silvery bubble-cocoons down with them. Being aware of his brothers' whereabouts at all times was second nature to him. As long as they were together... as long as they were together, everything was all right. Even if the world around them was shot to hell and gone.

He waited a few breaths while they checked their equipment. Thumbs-up all around; everyone's air was working okay. He nodded, the motion feeling strange underwater, and paddled after Leatherhead.

It was a strangely quiet journey. The familiar sound of his brothers' breathing was replaced by the hiss and burble of the aqualung, their soft footsteps by the dissonant music of water swishing against his body. His neck grew sore from constantly checking behind for the others and ahead for Leatherhead. Except for the milky headlight beams zigzagging across the gloom, it was dark. Leatherhead moved confidently, however, and Leo followed trustingly on his heels. Trusting one's gut was not always easy, but it sure did beat the alternative.

He felt his mask suck tight against his face as the pressure increased, and hoped the crocodile wasn't planning to go too deep. If something did happen to go wrong, it'd be that much longer before they could get to air.

The cold water must have warped his time sense. It seemed much longer than it probably was before the death grip on his face eased and they were ascending once more, aiming for an absolutely pitch-black oblong of surface water.

It was the Lair's open pool, all right... but when they surfaced, he almost didn't recognize the place.

It wasn't just the darkness, the complete and utter absence of TV-screen or even nightlight illumination. It was the emptiness. This darkness was... cold. Lonely. Moisture streaked the walls of the great chamber, running from the top of the subterranean domed ceiling down to the crack where its walls met the floor.

And for a moment, Leo felt that their home was weeping... mourning for them. Grieving their absence.

"We're here," he murmured, though not entirely certain who he was speaking to.

"So we are." Leatherhead heaved himself mightily over the edge, virtually unimpeded by Yoshi's weight.

Leo accepted the crocodile's help up, then pulled the others out, Raph last -- as befitted the brother who always watched their backs.

"Donnie..." Michaelangelo pointed. Two molding, shredding bedsheets hung between one pair of pillars, motionless as funeral crepe on a windless day.

The turtles drew a little closer to each other and stood shivering in the stagnant darkness, oppressed by more than the cold.

"Cheer up, my friends. You are almost home." Leatherhead bent low, allowing Yoshi to slide to the floor. She staggered a little, chilled through despite the wetsuit.

Donatello reached out and steadied her. Small masses lost heat more quickly than large ones, and Yoshi definitely fell into the 'small' category. He frowned. Even to his cold skin, she felt like ice.

"I think I'll be all right." Moisture beads spangled her goggle lens, brighter than diamonds in the glare of his headlight. "It's just one of the drawbacks of being skinny." She smiled brightly, then blew her cover by shivering.

Leo ran upstairs and found an old outfit of April's for Yoshi to change into while Raphael dragged an old electric heater out of the kitchen and plugged it in near the TV area.

"We'd cuddle you, Yoshi, but we're almost as cold as you are." Mikey plopped down next to the heater and wrapped his arms around his chest. Raphael crowded next to him, and Don and Leo squeezed onto the couch with Yoshi.

Yoshi smiled lopsidedly. "I'm pretty squished up as is, thanks."

The five of them lapsed into companionable silence, soaking up warmth as the old heater hummed and glowed. The Lair no longer seemed quite so desolate. Leatherhead, seeing his gecko was in good hands, began striding about the lair, peering at everything in a very analytic way.

"What now?" Leo asked Leatherhead at last, when the great mutant finally stopped pacing.

The crocodile rubbed his head in puzzlement. "I know it is here, but April gave me only a riddle as to its location, in case Stockman ever..." he trailed off. "In any case, I can't imagine where she meant. 'It's shown you many secrets, Donatello... but you rarely look at it directly.'" He looked apologetic. "Perhaps we were being too cryptic for our own good."

Donatello had think for exactly three seconds before he bolted off the couch. Leo almost fell into the space he'd so suddenly vacated.

"It's my desk lamp. I'm sure of it."

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"The Cronosporter had a maximum range of about eighteen years," Leatherhead explained while Donnie dismantled the lamp to get at the device hidden inside. Parts and wires lay strewn about the cross-legged turtle, abandoned where they'd fallen. "It would send its users to a predesignated destination in time, then retrieve them when reset. However, it was intended to be carried by its users. For safety's sake, it could only be reset after they had arrived at their destination, to prevent their being lost somewhere between dimensions."

"And that is why it was necessary to wait for us to reappear," Donatello concluded. He finished unscrewing the base and carefully pulled it apart, revealing the clock-shaped device. Organic curves, strange markings, alien colors.

"Correct." Leatherhead pointed as Donnie removed the Cronosporter, uncovering a disk hidden beneath it. "April deducted from Stockman's data that the Cronosporter had been set for fifteen years... now, all this time later, I know she was right."

"So," Mikey asked, "all we need to do now is reset it, and we'll go home?"

"Yes." Leatherhead nodded. "The Cronosporter will send you back to the exact time/space coordinates you were originally transporter from. Once there, I would strongly advise you to destroy the Cronosporter. Then Stockman will not be able to cause any further harm with it. This horrible future will cease to exist."

"But -- what about Yoshi?" Leonardo looked from her to Leatherhead. "What about you?"

"That doesn't matter," Yoshi asserted. "Don't you see? You can go back to the real April now!"

"You're the real you, Yoshi," Donatello objected, looking up from his fragmented lamp. "That's enough."

"Yeah," Raphael said indignantly. "Just because you look like someone else doesn't mean you're not important."

Yoshi flapped her hands impatiently. "No, that's not what I meant. If you guys don't go back, April O'Neil will die." She faltered briefly, then kept on. "Not to mention Master Splinter and... and a lot of other people."

She had them there. There was an uncomfortable silence, giving Don plenty of time to wonder what she'd been through. Who she'd lost. What her life had been like, all the years of it they'd missed.

"Why can't we take you guys with us?" Mikey asked plaintively. "I mean, what's gonna happen to you two if we just pull the plug on this time zone?"

"Friends." Leatherhead took the Cronosporter from Don, cradling it while he looked at them all seriously. "The Utroms believed that when someone came into being, it was because they were meant to come into being. I believe that Yoshi will soon exist in your timeline, though her existence may come about in a different way." He nodded to her ragged clothes, her damaged eye. "And there, in that better place, she will have a real future -- something beyond dodging Dragon gangs and hiding in junk heaps."

The turtles looked at each other, turning this new information over collectively.

"Besides," Leatherhead added matter-of-factly, "the Cronosporter will only re-transport those objects or people who were transported in the first place. You can choose not to go, but we certainly cannot come with you."

"Major bummer." Mikey sighed. "I'll have to wait who knows how long for a rematch."

"Big L is right, guys." Yoshi rose and searched their faces earnestly, impressing each one on her memory. There was no fear in her voice. "Listen to him. There's nothing to be afraid of. You'll see me again, I'm sure of it. And you've got to save April. "

We're all family now.

Slowly, reluctantly, each turtle nodded his consent.

"Then we're agreed." Leo spoke for all of them. He came to his feet, the decision made, his face resolute as a sword. "Let's go help April, guys."

Leatherhead waited while they slipped into their street outfits, then held up the Cronosporter. "Godspeed, my friends," he said softly.

A little while later, the world blew away.

X X X

"Too easy, man," the man complained. "Come on, Baxter. I thought you promised me a challenge."

"Don't," came the icy reply, "call me Baxter."

"Whatever, 'man. Still a letdown. Where's my dough?"

"Awaiting your arrival. And make it quick; I have important things to do."

"Nya, nya, whatever," he muttered, but not before flicking the walkie-talkie off. Some fun with the redhead wouldn't take long. Then he'd pop by to pick up the moola, and --

"Excuse me."

"Huh?" The man turned around in surprise and found himself face-to-face with four very angry turtles. He could not have been more shocked had the streetlamps abandoned their moorings to dance in the park. "Hey, I thought I zapped you guys off to neverland!"

"Zap this." A grim-looking Donatello tapped his bo staff in one palm, then cracked the man soundly across the face, sending the Cronosporter flying. The goon crumpled without so much as a whimper. "Leo!"

Swifter than thought, Leo drew his katana and quartered the device in midair. The pieces fell to the pavement and sparked briefly before Raph crushed them underfoot.

"It's over, guys." Leo sheathed his swords and exhaled roughly, feeling suddenly drained. Summer sun burned against his face, and he welcomed the sensation. The cold was gone... the danger was past. For now, at least. "We did it."

"Guys? Guys!" April ran out of the shop, green eyes large with worry, banging the door behind her. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"April!" Leo gave her a huge grin of relief.

"You're alive!" Donatello grabbed her elbow while Raph and Leo clapped a hand on each shoulder, reassuring themselves that she was really there.

"Well -- of course I am," April replied in bafflement. "I've been inside the whole time. Why on earth wouldn't I be?"

Mikey opened his mouth, choked up, and simply hugged her instead, sniffing unashamedly into her shoulder. April patted him comfortingly, a little surprised but not in the least displeased.

"Hey, Mikey, ease up. I'm okay, guys." She looked around at all of them, sensing an unspoken gladness that went beyond what she had witnessed today. Later, maybe, she would ask them about it. Right now, it was enough that they were unharmed. "I'm okay, Mikey. We're together. It's all right... everything is all right."

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There was a baby in one of those stasis tanks.

There must be no hesitation. She knew what they would want her to do.

The computers were helpless to stop her from accessing graphs, data, readouts.

Relief. It was alive.

What on earth they intended to do with a child was beyond her, but it must be something evil. She couldn't leave it here.

The tube lowered silently, to the shadow's relief, and the sedated baby did not wake. She freed its breath mask gently and pulled off her black scarf to swaddle it with, red hair spilling everywhere. Liquid ran between her fingers, streaked her clothing. There was no time to bother about it.

A noiseless movement and she turned, green eyes wide, clutched the baby tightly, faced the doorway that had just now been empty.

Heavy black bangs, red headband, expressionless face.

Heartsickness. Failure. Loss. Despair...

"There's nothing here." The raven-haired warrior spoke flatly to someone behind her. "Move on down to Data."

The wraith ducked behind a monitor bank, holding her breath until the group of Foot had passed.

Relief.

The shadow was gone almost as soon as they were, trembling with adrenaline aftershock and gratitude that might never be expressed as she escaped the building and vanished into the night. The disc weighed heavy in her pocket, the little one heavy in her arms... but along with each throb of pain, she now felt hope.

For Mom,
who still thinks I should write.

Disclaimer: This story is neither created nor endorsed by Mirage. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles®, including Raphael®, Michaelangelo®, Leonardo®, Donatello®, and April O'Neil® are registered trademarks of Mirage Studios USA. ECHOES OF APRIL itself is fan domain and may be freely recopied and archived.

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