---

Arsenal's truck bounced over the rough Montana terrain as the two headed towards the Church of Humanity compound. In the back seat of the truck, Scout attempted to stay comfortable on the seat. He seemed to like Roy Harper's driving less than Steve did. But then again, nothing was easy around here. Every road was as bumpy as the worst potholes in Brooklyn.

"So how many of them are there?" he asked as the former SHIELD agent turned sharply into the woods. Rogers knew what that meant. They were getting close and would have to ditch the truck. Harper was being cagey as to why he was so invested in this mission. Sure, it was a worthy cause, but the last time Steve had seen Arsenal, he seemed set on revenge more than anything. This was outside his MO. Steve had tried to pry out the reason for going full bore into this mission, but wasn't given a reason outside of Harper wanting Steve to get back into the game.

"Forty or so," he responded absent-mindedly as the truck pulled into a heavily wooded alcove. He threw it into park and headed out to get his gear. Steve marveled how business-like the younger man was. Oliver Queen had trained him well, but it was more than that. After everything that Harper had gone through he seemed to have become robotic. He was losing himself to the job. Steve knew how easy it was for it to happen.

The red archer was dressed before Steve fitted the new mask Arsenal had provided for him. Rogers looked at himself in the side mirror of the car. Harper told him that he had gotten the new uniform for Steve the same way he got the shield recolored. He refused to explain further. It looked an awful lot like the old uniform he wore during his time with SHIELD. The blues were darker, and the red was replaced with grey. No wings on the helmet either, but that was probably for the best.

"Any defenses I should know about? Anything out of the ordinary?"

Steve affixed the shield to his left arm, and he felt a jolt of energy fly through his body. It was like a part of himself had returned. He didn't know he had missed it this much, had no idea that it would feel this good to have it back in his possession.

"One truck with a fifty cal machine gun attached to the back," Harper plucked a arrow from his quiver and twirled it in his hand. "If they get to it, you draw their fire to give me time to get a shot off. This baby right here will make sure it's down for the count."

"Great, I love being the sitting duck," he smiled at the younger man. "Scout will take care of the perimeter."

Arsenal looked over and narrowed his eyes at Steve, "You sure?"

"Yea, we've been working on some stuff," the former Captain America nodded. Scout barked in agreement.

"Whatever," Harper shrugged. "Let's go to work."

The trek through the woods was a quiet one. The three of them barely made a sound save for the odd crunch of leaves here and there. They knew their mission. There wasn't any reason to talk.

Steve had always used these times to center himself. During the days of the war he had a compass with Peggy's picture in it. With SHIELD all he had to do was sit down with Sharon and talk. It didn't matter what it was about. Could have been about baseball. It didn't matter. It helped.

Now both of them were gone, and all he had to focus on was the hole he felt in his heart to be ready. There was no love left for motivation. Only the desire to bring justice to those that deserved it.

After a few hundred yards, Arsenal motioned to him, "Time to split up. I'll hit the front of the compound with a few explosive arrows to draw them that way. You hit from the south east once you hear the explosions. The truck will probably swing around to try and hit you once you've been spotter. We take that out and then the rest should be easy picking."

Steve merely nodded and motioned to Scout. The two of them trotted off towards their designated attack point. As Steve came through the trees, a slight chuckle escaped his lips as he saw the Church of Humanity's camp. It looked like countless Nazi encampments from the war. Simple concrete perimeter, two gates, and some prefab buildings inside. He could see the garage, and the men patrolling the camp.

Well, not so much patrolling as sitting around bullshitting with one another. It's clear none of them expected to be attacked any time soon. Good, that meant this was going to be even easier than he expected.

A rumble followed by a plume of smoke on the side of the compound opposite of him signaled his time to move. He and Scout took off in a dead spring towards the the closest gate. He already saw the two men guarding it weren't ready for them. Their attention had been drawn by Harper's diversion. Cap slipped the shield off his arm and tossed it at the man on the right. The shield cracked across his back, slamming him into the concrete gate. By the time his partner turned, the shield had already found itself back in Steve's hand.

The man attempted to turn and fire on Rogers, but instead Scout got to him instead. The dog ripped at the man's hand, causing him to drop his weapon. Rogers followed that up with a stiff punch to his jaw, knocking him out instantly.

Steve turned to the dog, "Make sure no one gets in behind me. Got it?"

The dog barked in agreement and ran into the woods to begin recon. Rogers wasn't sure if he was going to do what his master said, but at least it meant the dog would be safe.

Once the former super soldier was in the encampment, things began to flow like second nature. He moved through the makeshift streets like a wraith. When he came across fighters, all of them in disarray, he wasted no motion in taking them out of the fight. One tossed a grenade his way, and he batted it back from where it came with his shield, destroying the building. He turned a corner to find himself face-to-face with three of the Church's soldiers. A quick flick of the wrist sent the shield careening between the three of them, and in a blink they were all incapacitated on the ground.

That's when he heard the call go up through the camp.

"CAPTAIN AMERICA! IT'S CAPTAIN AMERICA!"

He kept moving, taking out anyone he came across. But as he came to an intersection, he heard the tell tale sound of an approaching truck. Fifty caliber machine gun fire ripped through the nearest prefab building, shredding the flimsy metal like Swiss cheese.

Steve brought the shield up quickly, ensuring the gunman didn't have a clear shot at his legs. He had done this more times than he could count. The bullets all struck the vibranium shield harmlessly, but the gunner didn't quit. Steve kept his distance, knowing Arsenal's explosive arrow would be incoming any moment.

Almost on cue, the truck exploded with a wave of heat and sound. Cap dropped the shield and looked up to see Arsenal salute him. Steve turned to see the remaining members of the Church running into the woods behind him.

He couldn't deny that watching his enemies running in fear of him was uplifting. He had missed that. Making the scum of the earth run in fear had always been the thing he enjoyed most about this job.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Arsenal patted him on the shoulder. "Told you you should still be in the game."

"So now what?" Steve ignored his questions.

"Now I find their computers and find out where they were getting their money," he shrugs. "You find out what else they were doing here. They were guarding a building in the center pretty tough. Might be a good place to look."

The camp was in ruins as Cap ran through it to where Arsenal had directed. He found the door locked tightly, but that meant little when you were augmented to the peak of possible human performance. Steve used his shield to smash through the lock, granting him access.

What he found inside was a nightmare. Medical equipment he didn't understand buzzed and whirred. Tubes led from small tanks all the way to the center of the room, all attached to something he never expected to see. A young girl, couldn't have been older than thirteen. Pretty, but clearly poorly taken care of, merely kept alive for whatever tests these creeps had been running on her. Her raven black hair was as dark as it could be, outside of a streak of white at the forefront.

Next to the bed, he saw that her vitals were weak, but strong enough for her to be moved. He unhooked her from the machines and gingerly picked her up, and carried her back to where he left Harper.

He found the other hero exiting, smiling broadly until he saw the girl, "Holy shit, what the hell were they doing?"

"Don't know," Steve shook his head. "But I'm gonna find out."

"Well, it'll all be in here," Arsenal handed him one of two flash drives. "And I found what I was looking for. Let me show you."

Harper queued up a video on his phone. It was the assumed leader of the Church meeting with someone Steve didn't expect.

"Is that?"

"Yup, and this is exactly why we need you back, Cap," Roy pounded the point home. "Because the enemies are everywhere. And we need someone like you, someone righteous, to smoke them out. To give them an example to follow. We need Steve Rogers."

---

"Tonight's top story," the national news broadcaster started, "a militant white supremacist group was route by unknown vigilantes in the mountains of Montana yesterday afternoon. According to reports, two masked men systematically incapacitated over forty armed militants before destroying the camp entirely. But there's more, as one of the men sent video evidence that Senator Joshua Stern was funding the group through back channel financing. What you're seeing on your screen now is that video."

The video plays, Stern and the Church leader agree to another round of funding, but then the video cuts out and the face of Steve Rogers fills millions of television sets.

"Most of you know me. For those that don't, I'm Steve Rogers. The man once known as Captain America. I'm the one who destroyed that camp in Montana. I did it as an opening salvo against all those that would deny freedom and justice from the world. If you hide in the shadows and step on the necks of the downtrodden, I will find you. Senator Sterns had been on of SHIELD's biggest backers in the US Senate. All as a cover for his vile ways. And I took him down in an afternoon. This is just an example, something I decided to do on a whim. Now imagine what I can do once I'm truly back on my game. Prepare yourselves. The Nomad is coming."

---

Steve's truck rumbled out of his driveway, some of his meager possessions from the cabin were in the bed. In the back seat, the girl was strapped in with Scout's head in her lap. The dog had barely left her side since he saw her. Steve knew a doctor in town who could check her out discretely, and then he would work on finding where she came from.

Then he needed someone who could find out what they were doing to her. And destroy them for it.

"In other news, another round of gang violence rocked the city last night, as the notorious Purple Dragon street gang ambushed a caravan of trucks carrying unknown contraband through the city. Though the Dragons seemed to have bit off more than they could chew, as when the authorities reached the scene, many of the Dragons were found knocked out. According to reports from the scene, when the criminals came to, they swore they had been attacked by giant turtles. Here something new every day, eh?"

The bowl fell from April's hand and clattered on to the ground, spilling Lucky Charms and milk all over the tiled kitchen floor. The sound caused Irma to jump out of her seat, nearly knocking the kitchen table over.

"What the hell!?" April's roommate yelled in surprised.

"Sorry," the budding journalist shook her head. "Slipped out of my hand. I'll clean it up."

So there really was a group of giant turtles running around the city. Even more so, they had inserted themselves into whatever gang turf war had erupted in the city in the past months. And from the sounds of things they weren't content in letting it play out around them. They were going to shape it. That meant they were dangerous.

And she was going to be the person to get the first real picture of them.

---

Leonardo sat besides his brothers silently as their father paced in front of them, stroking his long beard. Leonardo had told his father everything, as his brothers did. The sequence of events from last night sounded like fiction to him, even now. Both groups of Turtles had found new potential allies in their fight on the surface world, and those would be invaluable in the battles to come. Still, he could feel how uncomfortable both his father and his brothers became when he had told them about Karai.

They were suspicious as he was when she told him what she wanted. But he had felt the sincerity in her. She wasn't a spy for the Hand. She wanted to destroy the Shredder just as he and his family wanted to.

"The Chaste...," Splinter mused after many moments of silence. "This name is familiar to me. I believe they approached my master Yoshi at some point while we were in New York. But he refused to join them. He did not trust their methods or their leadership. We must be wary of this Karai's offer of friendship. Even those who would help us may have anterior motives of their own. Many blades hang above our head as we seek to cleanse the world of Oroku Saki's taint."

"But, Master," Leo began, "we need all the help we can get. I saw the Hand's fortress. They have formidable numbers at their disposal. Karai could be of great benefit. You've always said that the more shadows one has to fight, the greater the chance that the shadows prevail."

"How do you remember *everything* he says?" Raph muttered under his breath.

"It's not hard when you pay attention, frankly," Donatello mused absent mindedly.

"What's happening?" Mikey looked up from the Gameboy he was failing horribly to hide.

"You speak true, my son," Splinter smiled faintly at the eldest Turtle. "But we should not allow our guard to be slack. We need to be the ones to come away with the helmet. If she truly does want Saki's demise, she will have no problem with us destroying it."

"Understood, master."

---

The alarm droned on as the young man in the bed groped aimlessly for the phone. He eventually slammed into it, accidentally catapulting it off the edge of the TV tray and across his room. It slapped against the wall before clattering to the ground, silently. Normally, someone his age would be worried about the cracks that would run down the face of the phone, but he had used it to break the nose of a Purple Dragon the other day, so he was well past that point.

"Goddamn my head hurts," he groaned as he sat up in bed. One of the Dragons had gotten a punch behind his mask last night. He cursed himself for being sloppy, but he hadn't expected Hun to bring that kind of firepower last night. On top of that, he was a bit distracted by the giant turtles. The world continued to get weirder by the day, but the freaks seemed cool enough. And they were clearly no fans of the Dragons, and that's all that mattered.

He clambered down the stairs to the kitchen of the small house where he found his old friend, Angel Bridge, cooking breakfast.

"Wow, you look like hell," she tossed her short black hair behind her ears. "Want some bacon?"

"Is that even a question?" he scarfed a few pieces down in a flash.

"Hun do that?" she asked as she turned back to the stove.

"No, didn't get to him. A lot of firepower last night," he shook his head.

"Seems to be more and more of that," she mused and took the seat across from him. "You ever think it's time to hang this crusade up? Leave it to people like Spider-Man with real powers?"

"Look what Hun's done to our neighborhood, Ang," he shook his head. "I can't sit by and let it get worse."

"And what happens when he decides to stop treating you with kid gloves, Casey?" she shot back. "Just because your his son doesn't mean he's going to let you get in his way forever. Give this fight up. Come work with me at the shelter. You can do some real good there."

"No can do," he refused. "I'm a fighter. Not a lover."

---

"What the hell are you doing here?" Old Hob's eyes, well...eye, narrowed at Leonardo as Pigeon Pete continually announced his own name behind the Turtle. "I thought I said you weren't allowed here."

"And how many times do I have to remind you that I'm gonna come visit Alopex whether you want me to or not?" Leo growled back.

"You got five minutes," he grumbled and gave Leo passage.

"He's not gonna stop, you know?" Al chuckled as Leo stepped into the shack. "What's up?"

Leo gave Alopex the rundown, and finished with a question that was half a plead, "Will you help us?"

The arctic fox shifted nervously on her haunches, "I...I can't Leo. This isn't my fight. This isn't our fight."

"It is," he shook his head and turned to leave. "It's your family's fight."

“…anyway, that’s how I’m seeing it all play out. So it’s the story of this man’s growth as he turns into the man he’s supposed to be, and this superhero aspect represents that potentiality of what he hopes to become. The ideal that one day he’ll self-actualize and the man he sees in the mirror. Whether he’s using the scarab or not. The man he eventually sees in the mirror will be the same.”

The television executives sat in stony faced silence, before turning to look at each other after his pitch. Murmuring quietly between themselves.

“Or at least, that’s what I see…”

“I’ll tell you what I see…” Joe Rothstein said, Camelot Productions’ Studio Head struggling to get to his feet to reach his hand across the table, “…I’m seeing 26 episodes!”

Dan Garrett reached across the table to take it.

“With a few key notes and changes of course…”

Dan hesitated.

“How do you mean?”

“Well now, let’s not get our noses all bent out of shape, Danny boy. Broad strokes it’s a perfectly fine idea. But let’s start with this supporting role…”

“Terry?”

“Yes, I’m not feeling the name for starters, but even beyond that.”

“What?”

“Well, you said before that he’s good at everything. Brilliant mind. Incredible fighter, athlete, scientist…”

“Sounds a lot like Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt…” chimed in the other executive, Joe’s brother Harold.

“He does, but you’re missing the point. If this guy… like Peter Cannon, is so damn good at everything, he sounds like HE should be the hero. Why the Hell are we watching Karl LaFrey?”

“That’s true. He doesn’t sound like much of a sidekick.” The other executive added.

“Because it’s all about the GROWTH of Karl INTO the hero. Each week they see him becoming a better man! If he’s already perfect then how does he get himself into scrapes that he needs to get out of?”

“Hawkman and Swallow seem to find themselves in death-traps every week and that show does just fine. In fact, I was thinking we might even be able to have a cameo crossover episode. We own the rights, might give the show a good solid bump to get it started early on…”

“Whoa, Hawkman and Swallow? I thought… well, that’s a little camp, isn’t it? I thought we could play this straight and have it be a bit more…” Dan didn’t like the direction this was going.

“Look, we know what we’re doing. Sometimes clichés exist for a reason, kid. Because the ideas work. You should have seen what crazy ideas he had when he came in here pitching Hawkman and Swallow. Hall wanted Swallow to be a woman, could you believe that? Had this crazy idea where the sidekick was a love interest and was tied in to these grandiose notions of undying immortal love. You believe that? You ever met Carter Hall? Never looked him up myself before he came in here, but I heard he was some kind of archaeologist as well. Anyway, could you imagine if we went with that kind of crackpot thing? The sidekick, you want ‘em to be a kid so that a big chunk of the audience can see themselves in the role. Plus… let’s be serious, kid actors you don’t have to pay so much. Hell, better still make Terry a chimp. You feed ‘em bananas and get some young grip to clean their shit for peanuts and they’re cost effective. They’re the future of TV I’m tellin’ ya. Just as funny as most wooden damn actors and you don’t have to pay ‘em squat… and who doesn’t love watchin’ a chimp, huh?” Joe Rothstein went off on a tangent on the benefits of monkey actors, which Dan Garrett would learn was far from a rare occurrence.

“It’s true.” Harold added. “In fact, if it were up to Joe the studios would be filled with nothing but ape actors.”

“Like I said though. It’s an interesting idea, and you’ve got balls for suggesting it. This elevated side-character… but that's way outside of the norm. I mean, it’s as crazy as if this Terry were a love interest. Isn’t it?” Joe turned his head sidewise and flashed a crocodile grin, and suddenly Dan Garrett felt naked and exposed to the world.

“Yeah—yeah, I guess so.”

Once more Joe reached across the table. “26 episodes?”

Dan took it and shook it before this conversation could take any more bad turns. He left the copies of the pitch on the executives’ side, hurriedly and haphazardly piled the stack of paper on his side of the desk into his satchel and got the Hell out of this conference room. The walls were shrinking, and the air was turning thick. He offered a courteous goodbye to the girl working the desk and ducked into the bathroom.

Bursting through the interior bathroom door he hunched over the bathroom sick and breathed deeply. He spun the taps on and slowly looked up at himself in the mirror and prayed to all that is good and holy that he hadn’t been sweating like this a few minutes ago. Shaky hands scooped water and doused his face. He shook his hands dry and then looked at the limp angle of his wrists in horror. Balling his hands up into fists and looking around the bathroom for witnesses.

With one final deep breath he slammed the side of the paper towel dispenser aggressively and yanked the lever three times for the beckoning paper.





Ted Kord angrily pulled his clothes out of his gym bag and stuffed it into the laundry hamper, face reddened and fighting back tears. He marched into the kitchen and pulled out a big bag of Chocos.

“Daaaaaad! You here? I think I’m done with gymnastics. I’m-- I’m not gonna go no more.”

Dan Garrett poked his head around the corner and broke the silence. “Your Dad had to work late, Sparky. You’re stuck with me tonight.”

“Uncle Dan?!” Ted ran over to hug his favourite uncle.

“Yup. What’s all this about, kiddo? I thought you loved gymnastics. You showed me how you can do a double hand-spring last time and you were so proud. So what’s happened?”

Ted kept his head bowed once his uncle questioned him, until the silence became uncomfortable.

“The kids—the kids at school say it’s gay. Say I’m gay.”

Dan’s eyes flashed with outrage for a second. So fast the boy could barely be sure he even saw it.

“Let me ask you something— the boys who are saying this kind of thing to you, they play…?”

“Football, mainly.” Ted mumbled.

“Football, mainly.” Dan confirmed. “And when they’re playing football, are they out there slapping each other on the ass. Getting slapped on the ass by middle aged male coaches… and showering and hanging around in boys’ locker rooms with over forty other boys in various stages of undress? Often grappling and wrestling with them in different levels of undress on no-pads training days?” Garrett asked with a smirk.

“Yeah, probably…” Ted answered, still somewhat down.

“And are your coaches slapping you on the ass.”

“No. That’d be a bit weird…”

“And when you’re at training, would I be right in saying over half of the people there are girls? Possibly very attractive, athletic girls?”

Ted blushed, but a smile broke through. “Maybe… Way more than half.”

“And – level with me on this – would you happen to be sweet on one of the girls you’re going to school with?”

Ted reddened even further and was unable to answer.

“That’s what I thought… So what do you even care what these lunkheads think?”

Ted smiled. His cheeks slowly returning to their regular shade, as his uncle ruffled his hair.

“Never let a bunch of jerks stop you from doing what you want to do - From being who you are - When you're not hurting anybody.”

Dan turned away from his nephew quickly after saying this, barely able to retain eye contact. A shadow moved from the corner of the room.

“’Kay, Uncle Dan. Thanks. Wanna Choco?” Ted held out the bag.

“No thanks, Sparky. Maybe offer David one. He’s upstairs doing his homework. Have you met David’s tutor? This is Terr-- This is Mr Sloane.” Dan said, introducing the new figure who had presented himself in the kitchen.

“Hi, Mister Sloane. Wanna Choco?” Thrusting the bag out at the newcomer in an overbearingly friendly manner.

“No, thank you, Ted. But Dan’s right, you should go ask David if he wants one. He should probably stop for a break, anyway.”

“Okay.” Ted turned and ran up the stairs calling out to David.

Dan stood over the sink, and ran his hand through his own hair, before turning back to Mr Sloane with a strained smile.





A few years had passed and Ted was sitting on the floor playing a board game with a young girl.

“Four, five, Six! Ha! ‘Hell’s Corner’, Hub City! I own that!” Ted cheered.

“Big deal, it’s like $4.”

“Nuh-uhhh, I got 4 houses on it!”

“First of all, you’ve got two houses on it… and second of all, you shouldn’t have any houses on it! Hey! You never landed on ‘The Wedge’! You can’t just--”

“I got that ‘Chance’ card to ‘Go to The Wedge’ and then I bought it…”

“You can’t do that unless the card says you can do that!”

“Sure you can, you can buy any property you finish up landing on.”

“Daaaaa-aaaaaaaad!” She yelled upstairs, Ted winced from the loud shout.

“What is it, ‘Ronnie?” Mr Sloane poked his head down the stairwell.

“Ted’s cheating!”

“I’m not cheating…” Ted calmly replied.

“What happened?” Mr Sloane asked.

“I had a--”

“Ted THIIIINKS that just because he got a ‘Go to The Wedge’ card, he could buy it after the card takes him there, when it doesn’t say it on the card.”

Mr Sloane looked at the pair and paused as if waiting for more information.

“Yeeeees..? Because he can. It’s in the official rules, ‘Ronnie. It doesn’t have to specifically say it on the card.”

“Yes!” Ted exclaimed.

“Buuuuuut… I’m wondering why it’s only coming up now when you’ve got houses on it.”

Ted picked up the dice and looked back up the stairs.

“So, you’re playing as the banker, Ted. You do have to announce when you’re buying a property. You can’t just quietly trade money between yourself and the bank.”

“I did! I did say ‘I’m gonna buy that’. Didn’t you hear me say it?”

Veronica shook her head gently.

Ted side-eyed her as if looking for the truth. He turned his head and kept looking at her for uncomfortably long.

“I did say it…” He said to himself. “Maybe I just mumbled it too quiet for you to have heard…” He kept his head down.

He looked up the stairs. “Fair is fair, Ted.”

“Well… can I at least get the money back that I spent on the houses and buying ‘The Wedge’ in the first place..?”

But Mr Sloane had already turned and walked back to his lesson with David.

Ted sighed deeply. “Fiiiine.” He sullenly added. “I DID say it though.”

Veronica Sinclair jumped across at him and gave him a big hug as he scooped the houses up and dumped them back in the bank. She hugged him uncomfortably long and then gave him a big wet kiss on his cheek.

“Yeeeeeuuch…” Ted shrugged her away.

“So I think I’ll buy ‘The Wedge’...” Veronica cheerfully added, sitting back down on the floor, flattening her dress.

K . O . R . D - E A S T D I V I S I O N - C O N F E R E N C E R O O M 1

---

^{Last Week | Boston, Massachusetts}

“--aaaand with those extensive financial executive credentials, you can see why I’ve chosen to bring in Ms Sinclair and I think you’ll find her more than qualified. In fact, you’ll wonder how I managed to sucker her in to agreeing to work here.”

Ted shot a light-hearted wink to the person he saw as his sister, only for her to roll her eyes at his comments and add “I’m looking forward to working with all of you and getting to know you all better in the coming weeks.”

Ted scanned the faces around the table and on the screen. Curt Calhoun from K.O.R.D West seemed anxious, Ted noted. “Good.” He broke in, turning to the Chief Operations Officer Jeremiah Duncan. “Any further business on the agenda? No? Well, I guess we’re--”

“Uh, yes. One more point of order.” Randall Truman added, getting to his feet, and adjusting his already perfect suit for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

Ted sat down and tried to swallow his audible sigh, choosing to scream with only his “inside voice”.

“To follow up the great news earlier with the excellent early sales figures for the CJO Anti-Car Theft Device, I’ve begun the groundwork on a revolutionary new marketing plan which will bring about an interesting new paradigm shift for a series of commercials for this company. Thinking outside of the box, I believe I’ve stumbled upon a unique angle to exploit a new direction of opportunities that this product affords us.” He said to everyone in attendance, holding eye contact slightly long on Veronica and Melody Case.

Buzzwords. Ted pinched his brow and wrestled with his internal desire to choke his Chief Marketing Officer with a thesaurus.

Too busy struggling with that image he was unable to keep the sigh from his voice.

“And what, exactly, do you mean by all of that?”

“If he uses the word ‘synergy’ next I’m going to throw this man out the window.” Ted promised himself.

“I believe we can get the Blue Beetle to appear in our next series of commercials for the CJO.”

“HA!” Ted unvoluntarily ejaculated a solitary laugh, before he put a lid on that.

“And how exactly are you going to do that? You have a bunch of superheroes on speed dial?”

“Well, no…” Replied Truman.

“Alright, then. So, I guess--”

“...but I don’t need to, because I’ve been in communication with the Super Buddies liaison officer Maxwell Lord and he seems to believe that he’d be able to be made available, and would be willing to do it.”

Max. Fucking Max Lord.

“Well, with all due respect. Maxwell Lord isn’t one of those heroes, is he. He just works with them. I mean, what makes you think that any self respecting superhero would be willing to just shill themselves out and--”

Before the sentence could even leave his lips there was the open slap of a magazine hitting the conference room table, followed by a newspaper, then another magazine… all with similar images on them. The face and relatable thumbs up of one Booster Gold, with her golden hair and well made up (and likely airbrushed...) All-American smile, in numerous Roxxon Energy advertisements.

Fucking Booster Gold…

Ted imagined himself pulling back a wrecking ball connected to a Newton’s cradle with Maxwell Lord, Randall Truman and Booster Gold’s helpless forms hanging precariously on wires and smiled briefly at the pleasant thought.

“Well, I guess there’s no harm in trying is there..?”

The five of them were perched above the Hand compound, and Leonardo could feel the tension running through his brothers. They didn't trust her, whether he vouched for the girl or not. She was an outsider to them, and after everything they had gone through in their youth, it would still be a while before they could ever truly trust an outsider.

It was one of the ways Leonardo was different from the rest of his family. He knew the war they were about to be in meant they were going to need help from the outside, from people who were able to walk in broad daylight without others freaking out and calling the cops. There was only so much the ninja would be able to do, and that would almost always be restricted to the dark of night.

"We all know what we're here to do," he said to the assembled group, breaking the silence that had fallen over them during the trek here. "Karai and I will get the helmet. The three of you will give the Hand hell while we do that. Remember, they don't know we're coming. Hell, they don't even know we exist. And once they get a look at us, it's going to throw them off their game, I don't care how good their training is."

"Mean green gonna drop some ninjutsu on their ass," Mikey fist pumped in approval.

"Never, ever say that again," Raph shook his head in disbelief.

"I actually agree with you on something," Karai added in.

"But we need a battle cry," Mikey pleaded.

"Well, it's certainly not gonna be that," Donatello patted him on the shoulder.

"Give us a few minutes to get into position. Once we are, you can drop in and start tearing the place apart. We all good?"

"As good as we'll ever be," Donnie was nervous.

"I've been waiting my whole life for this," Raph twirled his sai.

"Bonzai?" Mikey looked around for approval.

"Definitely not," Leo looked over his shoulder at the youngest turtle, before disappearing into the darkness with Karai.

---

Raphael shifted his weight from one foot to the other in anticipation of the coming battle. He wasn't exaggerating when he told Leo he had been waiting for this moment his entire life. Sitting in the sewers for a decade and a half, being trained for just this moment. The fight against the Dragons the other night was nothing but an appetizer, and served outside his parameters. Tonight they could be ninja. Tonight they were the ones with the upper hand, and would be the ones to come away with the victory.

"Think it's been long enough?" Mikey asked as he hung off the side of the fire escape by his knees, twirling his nunchuk idly.

"Few more minutes, I think," Donnie shook his head.

After a few more seconds, Raph grumbled, "Forget a few more minutes. I'm going now."

Vaulting off the building and rolling towards the warehouse. From his belt he pulled the smoke bombs that Donnie had designed for this plan. He said they'd cover ten times the space they usually did and would linger for longer. Raph hoped the egg head was right, because they needed as much time as they could possibly get.

He tossed one over the fence of the truck yard of the warehouse, and sent himself into a spiraling flip after it. The bomb went off, releasing a rush of smoke as far as the eye could see.

He heard a Hand member coughing down the fog close by. Raphael swung around the side of one of the nearby shipping containers, and struck the man in the side of the head, knocking him out.

He was startled by another body slamming against the container. From the fog came Mikey, twirling his weapons, "Bro, this is like that movie! With the ghost pirates! In the fog. You know."

"The Fog?" Raph responded as he ducked an incoming blow from a new combatant.

"Yea, the movie with the fog. What was it called?" Mike slid into the newcomer, knocking him off balance.

A bo staff came in and knocked the human ninja to the ground, "Mikey, the movie is called 'The Fog'."

"Ohhh...right," he chuckled. "Let's go get our ghost pirate on, bros. Avast ye mateys!"

"Mike, you need to stop."

---

Behind Karai and Leonardo, the smoke from Donatello's smoke bombs began to filter through the truck graveyard that made up the Hand compound. Orders were being shouted below them, and the ninja of the Hand charged into the foggy darkness. But left inside was someone familiar to Leonardo.

"It's not possible," the turtle shook his head as he looked down on the Hand leader who he had stabbed through the gut in their first altercation during the Hand's meeting with the mob bosses.

"What isn't possible?" Karai was confused.

Leo nodded to the ninja master who now paced in the main dojo where the helmet was being kept, "I fought that one, the first night we found the hand. My sword went right through him, but there he is. Like nothing happened to him. That was only a few days ago."

"Welcome to the magics of the Hand," she warned him. "Many ninja cults, the ones that have survived, that is, are trained in unnatural abilities. There is a reason that helmet is so coveted. Maybe you and your brothers think it's just a symbol. That the 'return' of the Shredder is nothing more than the return of him symbolically. But it is not true. If the armor, the heart, and the helmet are reunited, Oroku Saki will rise. This is magic, Leonardo. This is all so much bigger than anything you can imagine."

He could see her passion boiling over. She believed in all this. Leonardo had trusted his father's guidance on this matter, but he still had no idea to what level it could possibly be true. Karai's vigor told him it was, or at the very least she truly believed it was. That was enough for him.

"Ready?" he asked, readying his swords.

"Ready," she smiled meekly.

They crashed down into the Hand lair together. Leonardo landed closest to the lead ninja, who rolled out of the way. Leo's sword dug into the padded mat that lined the dojo. Their enemy quickly got to his feet and drove his heel into Karai's chest, driving her backk.

"So, you come to try and kill me yet again, freak," the ninja growled at Leo. "But as you can see, you cannot kill me. The power of the Beast flows through me."

"Clearly not the power of shutting the hell up," Leo grumbled and came at the ninja. His swords were like the wind, but the ninja seemed to be even faster. Every time one of Leo's blades seemed like it was about to hit home, his opponent barely got out of the way in time. He would also parry with his own blade. He seemed to be playing with Leonardo more than fighting the mutant turtle. It was a great sign of disrespect. Leonardo centered himself and watched the Hand ninja's movement. He continued to attack, but in a more meticulous way, drawing the man into a trap. With a feint with his left sword, he spun around like a flash, once again driving his sword through his enemy.

The Hand ninja fell to the ground in a heap, and Leo called out, "Karai, it's time! Let's..."

He saw her at the exit of the warehouse, but she wasn't alone. Standing beside her were a group of ninja, not unlike the Hand. But instead of them dressed in red, their ninja-yoroi were black as night. Karai shrugged at the turtle, "Thank you for your assistance. You have made the Foot's rebirth easier than it could have been. I will remember you for that."

The ninjas parted, and one of them from the back stepped up with a rocket launcher. The next moments happened in slow motion. The rocket flew in a flash of light and smoke towards Leonardo. He managed to get out of the way, watching the projectile as it flew by and struck one of the support beams for the warehouse. It exploded in a flash of heat and force, flinging the turtle through the air and crashing into a weapon stand.

Before he lost consciousness, Leonardo saw the place starting to go up in flames and a white blur race towards him.

When he came to, he found himself in an alley with his brothers.

"So that was a royal screw up, huh?" he said groggily.

"You got that right," Alopex's voice came from his side. He turned to find his surrogate sister standing over him. "You're lucky I came and got you out in time."

"I thought this wasn't your fight?" Leo looked at her suspiciously.

"It's not," she shook her head. Turning to leave, she looked over her shoulder, "Doesn't mean I can't come save your ass when you need it."

"You could do a whole lot more than that," Raphael shot back.

Alopex bared her teeth at the red-masked turtle and climbed the nearby wall to head back home.

"Splinter isn't gonna be happy," Leo sighed as they made their way towards a nearby manhole.

"Major bummer," Mikey lamented.

"We really screwed up," Donatello agreed.

"No, I did," Leo admitted. "If I didn't insist on bringing Karai in we could have done this on our own. I just wanted to believe someone up here would be willing to be on our side."

"Yea, well, you gotta get over that delusion," Raphael snapped back. "We're freaks, Leo. Okay. We're giant, talking, walking, fighting turtles. Ain't no one up here gonna be on our side. Hell, they don't even like the super powered people that look like them. How do you think they're gonna react to us. This fight we got on our hands? It's ours and ours alone. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can get to really fighting it. Ain't no one coming to help us."

Raphael's words stung, but Leo knew there was a kernel of truth to them. The only reason Karai agreed to help was to ensure she could get the helmet for the Foot. She also figured she could kill multiple enemies in the process. She almost succeeded, all because he was too naive to see through her ploy.

The four brothers, wounded from their failure, prepared to slink down into the sewers. But before they could, a bright flash illuminated the alley, and they heard footsteps running from them.

"Terrific. Things go from bad to worse."

Splinter paced in front of his sons at a loss for words. He had always
been one to know what to say, when to say it, and to say it succinctly
as possible. But tonight his normal ability to find the correct thing
to say was a loss.

His sons had had their first real failure. It was something he had
worried about the minute Leonardo began talking about their potential
ally in Karai. It smelled like a trap, but Splinter allowed his thirst
to finish his master's mission blind him to the convenience. The girl
was Foot, and had taken the helmet with ease. Now the return of Oroku
Saki was all but guaranteed.

Leonardo was beside himself. He believed he had completely failed as a
leader, and that was not something Splinter could allow to continue.
The eldest of his sons was too integral in getting his brothers to
work as a team.

"My sons, tonight we have failed," he finally started. "No. I have
failed. After the loss of your sister, I kept us hidden for too long.
I allowed our enemies to grab hold above. And now we are paying the
price for that. But I promise you that we will win this fight against
the Foot. but there is only one way that will happen. We need to stay
together and strong. As a family, none will be able to stand against
us."

"Can we possibly do this alone, master?" Leo looked up, breaking
Splinter's heart by how forlorn the young turtle looked.

"We can," Splinter was resolute. "Those who stopped the Splinter and
his army all those years ago numbered in the dozens. Now he has far
less power, and we shall ensue it stays that way. Do not hold your
heads low, my sons. This war is just beginning, and when the dust
clears, we will be the ones to stand tall. I promise you that."

---

"These pictures, Ms. O'Niel," Professor Fenwick looked over the
printouts at April. "They are legitimate? No photoshop? No cheating?"

"No, professor," she shook her head. "Those are the turtle creatures
that the Purple Dragons were talking about the other day. They're
real. I saw them with my own two eyes."

Fenwick became suspicious, "And what were you doing down in that area
during what, by all accounts, was a battle in gang warfare."

"My...uh...Dad has a place down that way," she looked down at her own
feet. "I was visiting him and heard the explosion. I grabbed my camera
and ran towards it. Happened to come across them in the alley."

"Very well," he nodded. "This picture and the story will go up on the
front page of the school paper. Hell, you might even get coverage from
one of the bigger papers in the city. Well done, Ms. O'Niel."

---

The car pulled up in front of the sleek, futuristic looking Manhattan
tower, and the man in the backseat nodded in approval. It wasn't as
big as Stark's or Osborn's, and certainly not as flashy as either of
them. Still, it was impressive, and the inside was said to house
technology just as impressive as the other two.

The man stepped out, and buttoned his suit jacket and adjusted his
tie. His dark hair was cropped tight to his head, and sunglasses
across his face. His pale skin fit in well with the cold that was
hanging over New York. Behind him, two other agents also emerged from
the car, dressed similarly.

He reached the reception desk and smiled coldly, "Hello. Agent John
Bishop. I believe Doctor Jordan Perry is waiting for me."

"Ah, yes, Agent Bishop," the receptionist, a pretty blond thing,
returned his smile with about as much sincerity as he had given her.
"Welcome to TCRI. Please proceed to the top floor."

The three agents were silent as the elevator shot up dozens of floors
in an instant.

When the door opened, a foppish man with an English accent in a lab
coat greeted them with a wide smile, "Agent Bishop! Welcome to TCRI.
It's good to have you here. Please, take a seat."

"Doctor Perry, I assume?" Bishop asked roboticly.

"Yes, yes," the man motioned towards the seats in front of his desk,
one of which was filled by a black man in glasses and the same coat
Perry wore. "This is my colleague, Baxter Stockman."

"How do you do?" Stockman asked nervously.

Bishop nodded curtly before turning back to Perry,"I'll be blunt,
Doctor. We're here because of this."

He slapped a newspaper clipping from the Daily Bugle down on Perry's
desk featuring a picture of four, gigantic, anthropomorphic turtles.
It had been such a big story that it knocked Spider-Man off the front
page of the paper, a rare sight in these days.

"I'm sorry, what agency are you with again?" Perry asked, puzzled by the paper.

"Sentient World Observation and Response Department," Bishop
responded. "You can call us SWORD."

"Ah, well, I'm not sure-"

"Doctor Perry, we believe that these turtles may be alien in nature,"
Bishop cut him off, not wanting to waste any time. "We at SWORD
believe the Techno Cosmic Research Institute can help us track them
down. So, the question is, can you?"

Perry and Stockman exchanged glances. The leader of the research
institute shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "Yes, Agent Bishop. I
believe we can."

---

"Are you crazy!?" Stockman raged after the agents had left the
building. "They could bring down everything we've worked for here!"

Jordan Perry held up his hand to quiet the other scientist, "Do not
lecture me about the protection of our enterprise, Baxter. I have
sacrificed more than you could ever imagine to get to this moment. A
group of government lackies will not stop the progress we have made.
Besides, the turtles themselves are not extraterrestrial."

"But what made them is," Baxter shot back.

"True, but once the rumors started circulating, we knew we would have
to take care of them at some point," Perry explained. "Now we can give
these foolish agents some toys to do it for us, while our work will
continue uninterrupted."

"And if they find out that we were the ones that made the turtles?
Even if it was an accident?"

"We will cross that bridge when we get to it," Perry waved off the worry.

"What if we lure them in with the asset?" Baxter mused.

"Absolutely not," Perry snapped, slamming his hands down on his desk.
"I will not sacrifice the one viable test subject we have. It is out
of the question."

---

Dozens of Foot Soldiers lined the chamber at the top of the skyscraper
that looked out over New York. They were splint into two even groups,
lining a sort of aisle that led up to a throne, on which sat the body
of Oroku Saki, still clad in his ancient armor, his head wrapped in a
bandage, not unlike an Egyptian mummy.

From the other side of the room, Karai and her older sister Pimiko
stepped into the dim light. In Karai's hands was the Shredder helmet,
and in Pimiko's were the Shredder's blades.

Pimiko, almost fifteen years Karai's elder, motioned for her sister to
go first. The elder and younger sister were robed in ceremonial Foot
garb, each with smaller versions of Oroku Saki's bladed shin and
forearm plates. Pimiko's hair was sort and spiky, as it always was.
Karai's was out of her eyes thanks to the food headband across her
forehead.

She approached Saki's body and placed the helmet on his head, reciting
the incantation as she did, "I reunite you with your helmet. May it
protect you, and give you the vision to speard the Foot Clan across
the known world."

Karai stepped back as Pimiko stepped forward and began attaching the
blades to each hand. When she was done, she continued, "I give you
back your blades. May they strike down all that stand in your way. And
now that the three parts of the Shuredda have been joined once more,
may you rise and lead us once more."

As the final syllable left her lips, the body of Oroku Saki spasmed as
if a jolt of electricity shot through it. Suddenly, his hands gasped
the throne he sat on, and a great cough emerged from the helmet as
life returned to the master of the Foot Clan. The man stood, towering
over all others in the room, and the metal of his armor caught the dim
light and reflected it through the room.

The Foot Clan members fell to one knee in reverence, and Karai and
Pimiko each did as well with a reverent gasp, "Grandfather."

Saki looked down at both of them, confused, before looking out over
New York, "How long has it been?"

"Over four hundred years, master," Pimiko responded quickly.

"Four hundred?" the venom was palpable in Saki's words. "There is much to do?"

"Yes," Karai nodded.

"Then we shall waste no time. Our enemies will die a swift death, and
the dominion of the Foot will reign once more."