Crognard dashes around in an attempt to avoid blasts of concentrated magic. Wizardess hovers far above him, her eyes blank as she keeps firing away at her ally.

"By the power of Lobnar, what witchery bewitches you, Wizardess?" Crognard asks. Graah attacks him from behind and pins his arms down. "Not you too, friend Graah!" the Barbarian cries. Spooch appears, biting his leg. "Even faithful Spooch."

"Spooch!" the fluffy creature growls, chomping wildly.

"Crognard says enough!" Crognard bellows, breaking from Graah's hold.

He grabs Spooch and attempts to use him as a weapon, but a green-skinned, eyeless wizard appears before he can do a thing.

"Your friends have no choice, Crognard, since I, Melphador, took control of their minds," the wizard cackles. "They must obey me, just as you will." He laughs as ghostly blue hands crawl from his eyes and attempt to enter Crognard's eyes, but the wizard instantly starts to struggle. "Your mind. Too small. Unable to take control."

He yelps as Spooch smacks him to the ground. Graah and Wizardess regain control of themselves, glaring down at their enemy.

"Get him, Graah," Wizardess orders.

Spooch joins in with his teammates as they start beating the wizard up relentlessly, earning screams of pain.

Crognard turns to the screen. "Remember, kids, friendship beats evil mind control every time." Spooch flits over to him. "Isn't that right, Spooch?"

"Spooch loves Crognard. Spooch!"

Crognard laughs heartily as Spooch licks his face.

"Hey guys, ever notice how the cartoons we watch are kind of just like our missions?" Michelangelo comments.

Leonardo looks up from his comic book, eye-ridge arched in disbelief. "Seriously? You're reading way too much into a cartoon show, Mikey," he says, delving back into his reading material.

"What next? Our lives are actually stories that people read?" Destiny asks as she flips a page in Hamlet. A small sigh escapes her lips as she shakes her head. "Oh Polonius, thy end...'twas tragic and woeful."

"Speaking of missions, I know what our next one should be," Raphael grunts as he punches his punching dummy, where a picture of a certain enemy is pinned. "Shredder." He growls and socks the bag again, teeth gritted. "Why don't we take him down...once. And. For. All?!"

He kicks the dummy hard enough to send it flying. It lands with a hard thud behind Leonardo. Diaval walks in from the kitchen with a mug of tea in hand, but upon noticing the fallen punching bag, he sets his mug down and shuffles off to retrieve it. A cool smirk flickers across Leonardo's face as he turns to the next page in his comic as Raphael continues to seethe.

"Because of that impulsive, overemotional state right there," he retorts.

"Who are you calling impulsive and overEMOTIONAL?!" Raphael screams in his brother's ear, his voice fluctuating and changing tones erratically. Leonardo winces.

Destiny flattens her ears against her hair as she frowns. "Excuse me? Trying to read here!"

"Honestly, I'd go more with hotheaded," Michelangelo comments before turning back to the TV.

Raphael seethes and turns to his little brother, biceps nearly bulging with rage as he cracks his neck. He roars and lunges, tackling the unsuspecting turtle to the floor.

From inside Donatello's lab, the sounds of Michelangelo screaming and loud crashing makes the hardworking turtle let out a long sigh. "Great, Raph's going off again. Maybe I'll just stay in the lab for a while," he mutters to himself.

He twists a few bolts in the bottom of the ShellRaiser, which is raised on a strong platform, allowing the turtle to make the necessary adjustments. He works diligently and swiftly, his attention hardly wavering to the noises outside his little bubble of solitude. His tongue pokes out the side of his mouth as he concentrates, russet eyes narrowed.

He lowers his hands to his hips and exhales. "There. I think the Shellraiser is finally fixed."

A loud bang sounds from outside, making the turtle yelp and almost fall over. He races from the lab in a near panic to find Raphael throttling Michelangelo while Leonardo, Diaval, and Destiny try to pull them apart.

"What was that? Did Raph finally blow a gasket? 'Cause I got spares!" Donatello calls, pointing to the lab behind him.

Diaval manages to get a hold on Michelangelo's shell and lifts him away, hoisting him into the air and over his head. Raphael stops fighting against Leonardo's grip, arching an eye-ridge at the pale boy, and Destiny lets out a barking laugh.

"Uh...dude?" Michelangelo squeaks.

Diaval blinks. "Yeah?"

"Could you put me down?"

Diaval sets him down after a brief pause. As soon as Michelangelo's feet touch the ground, there's a loud crash from the front gate as Leatherhead appears. His chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath.

"Turtles," he rasps, remaining on all fours on the ground.

"Are you okay?" Leonardo asks as the six teenagers race over to their friend.

"Can't you see he's terrible?" Michelangelo exclaims, gently hugging the alligator's giant snout. "Look at his adorable yet tortured gator face. Aww." He hugs his long jaw, cuddling him with no small amount of love.

The gator mutant straightens up slowly, his aging face gaining a grim undertone. "Michelangelo is right. I bring dire news," he says. "Slash and Rockwell have been captured by Tiger Claw."

"What? Why?" Leonardo asks.

"He said they could be of use to...him."

"I'll give you one guess who 'him' is," Raphael mutters.

"Yeah, that guy who does the thing with the thing." Michelangelo laughs a little, but then his smile falls. "I have no idea who you're talking about."

"Shredder," Raphael snaps. Diaval tenses up and scoots closer to Destiny.

A shrill laugh sounds as Pigeon Pete zips into the lair, smacking right into a pole. He slides off the concrete and lands on the ground with a squawk. Raphael immediately lets out a loud groan and smacks his head.

"Oh, not Pigeon Pete," he moans.

"Wow. Now, this is a secret lair," Pete coos in awe, clasping his hands together. He bounces off towards the pool below the dojo.

"Anyone but Pigeon Pete," Raphael continues.

"Raphael, try to be a little more...subtle," Destiny scolds through her teeth.

"A tire swing!" Pete laughs as he swings around on the tire. He zooms over to another spot. "Is that a real Space Heroes pinball machine?" he asks as he strokes the game. He flies away again as he lands on the large spiralling platform above the living room. "You ask me, the only thing this place needs is some bread."

"We got better than bread," Michelangelo says, opening a pizza box to reveal a bunch of crusts. "Pizza crusts, brah."

Pigeon Pete squeals in glee and tackles Michelangelo to the ground, grabbing a crust and pecking at it wildly. His pupils expand as he gasps and it's like you can see fireworks going off behind his head.

"Oh, where have you been all my life?" he asks, falling to his knees and clutching the coveted crust tightly.

"Why couldn't Tiger Claw take him instead?" Raphael grumbles.

"Hey, I'm not crazy about Slash, but the Mutanimals are our friends, and we're gonna rescue them," Leonardo says, his eyes narrowing. "Mutants, move out."

----------

The turtles, Destiny, and the remaining two Mutanimals watch carefully from a nearby rooftop outside Shredder's lair. Raphael readies his sais and prepares to leap off the building, but Leonardo places a hand on his brother's plastron and stops him.

"What are you doing, Raph?" he inquires.

"Going in all blades blazing, like we should have done weeks ago," the red-masked turtle retorts.

"We don't even know exactly where they are. We need a plan."

"Well, they're probably in Stockman's jail cells, right?" Destiny asks. "That's in the basement."

"You need a recon fly-by? I'm the birdman for the job!" Pigeon Pete cuts in, pushing past the three conversing teens. "Pigeon Pete's a go!"

He leaps off the building, flapping wildly, and then plummets. After two or three seconds, he reappears, flapping unsteadily towards the building. He smacks into one of the stained glass windows, letting out a squawk of pain. Donatello exhales heavily and pinches the space between his eyes.

The sound of shouts and crashes infect the night as the front door busts open. Slash and Doctor Rockwell scramble from the scene, Foot bots following after them.

"They escaped on their own?" Donatello asks.

"We'd better go," Destiny says, unsheathing her uchigatana.

The mutants take off after their two allies, trailing the Foot bots. The pair of escapees comes to a stop in an alleyway, panting as they look back at the advancing bots. Just as they're closing in, Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatello leap down and cut down three right at the front, followed by Michelangelo and Destiny taking down another pair nearby. They engage the remaining bots. Leonardo slices his apart like nothing, Destiny lands a high kick to another's jaw and takes its head off, Raphael and Michelangelo smack theirs down—Raphael adds in a stab wound for good measure—and Donatello unleashes his retractable naginata blade and impales the last one.

As the last Foot bots power down, Pigeon Pete descends and pecks at the destroyed bodies, squawking every now and then. Leatherhead lumbers into the alleyway as the teens regroup.

"Slash, are you okay?" Raphael asks as he places a hand on his former pet's shoulder.

"Raphael..." Slash groans, his raspy voice soft and weak.

"What did Shredder do to you?" Leatherhead asks.

"They don't look so good," Donatello states. "We've got to get them back to the lair, guys." Nobody argues against the motion.