Over the next week group training sessions were broken up into roughly three hours after breakfast and three more once the hottest part of the afternoon had passed. Training with the turtles was an absolutely amazing experience for both Casey and April. Their focus and enthusiasm was contagious. Even though they missed Splinter fiercely, they knew in their hearts that he was alive and once they hit their goals they would be unstoppable in getting him back.

Having another human in the mix gave April a good gauge of her abilities and fitness. If even Casey found their pace inhumanly possible and needed a rest, she didn't feel bad about falling over next to him and watching the brothers until they caught their breath.

As Leonardo had said, the morning session was to build each other up. The evening sessions were an intense exercise in breaking each other down. The guys would each take turns being singled out, even Casey. April wasn't singled out since she was still learning and the plan was to keep her out of direct combat. Everyone was armed and would generally stop a hair away from an actual strike or slice, but accidents happened so it was best to be on the alert.

The point of the exercise was to defend against multiple human attackers. A clear strike to the head, throat or chest to each of the five attacking was the only way to stop the onslaught. Of course for them it had become a game to see who could hold the record for defeating the other five the quickest. On the other hand if the defender took ten critical hits he was dead. For Casey it was three since he didn't have a shell but was deemed tough enough to take a few major hits.

The whole thing was really a crazy mess of limbs, weapons, shells, mock strikes, a few real ones and fun. They smack talked each other, created different scenarios to fight out of and the time flew by. Attacking with the group made April bolder and she was getting quicker as the days went by.

Currently her and the four brothers were ganged up on none other than Casey Jones. The butt of his hockey stick came up and stopped just under Raphael's chin, tagging him out first.

"Shit," Raphael spat. He hated being the first one defeated.

Casey laughed and then got caught by Leonardo, who leveled a sword by his head from behind.

"One," said Leo.

Casey spun away from Donatello's bo as it whizzed towards him while blocking Leo's swords with a hockey stick. He tried to tap Donatello with the stick but missed. April managed to flank Casey and tripped him with her bo, pushing him into Michelangelo, one of nun-chucks flying past Casey's ear with a whine.

"Strike two dude, you're dyin' out here tonight," Mikey laughed.

Frustrated, Casey managed to duck and roll away from them and come up behind Donatello, feigning a strike with one end of the stick to the back of his head and following up with a heart-level tap against Leonardo's plastron. "Ha! You were saying, shell brain?" he called breathlessly. Donatello and Leonardo joined Raphael as Casey dodged a strike from April's bo, executed from a perfect cat stance but not quite fast enough.

The three brothers sitting on the sidelines cheered April and Michelangelo on. Casey kept them as wide from him as he could with the hockey stick, trying to prevent one of them from getting behind him again. Michelangelo lunged in on him low, the chain of his nun-chuck wrapping around the stick and almost disarming him. Casey felt April's bo against his neck as he struggled to pull free.

"Kill shot!" she cried, and they all cheered.

April expected them to call it a night when Casey turned and said, "Your turn tuts. How many hit points should April get?"

"At least four, dude, she's way scarier than you," Michelangelo said with a grin.

"I don't know guys," she said nervously. "I don't think that's a good idea. I'll be dead in five seconds."

"Hey, it's good practice, sis." Michelangelo nudged her playfully.

Suddenly they were all up and surrounded her in a semi-circle. "Holy hell, guys," April managed before they descended on her. Facing four armed giant turtles and a hockey stick wielding maniac suddenly dawned on her as something that she would only wish on her worst enemy.

Her only saving grace was the adrenaline rush of being attacked by all of them made her very fast. She had to tag one or two right away or all was lost. Casey and Leo were closest to her. She darted between them. Katanas came towards her and her squeak of fear was genuine. She ducked into a roll, hit the ground behind Casey, tapped the back of his knee with her foot only hard enough for him to go down on it, then touched the back of his head again with her bo.

"Dammit," Casey mumbled, getting up and out of the way. April stood, swinging the bo around her to try and keep them back until she could assess where the turtles were. Donatello used his own bo to stop hers, jolting her a little. Mikey came in on her from her left and she scored a hit on his chest but left her back completely open to Donatello.

Don's staff touched her head. "One."

April spun away and right into Raphael. She tried to push off of him, realizing her mistake as his sais caught the bo. With a flick of his wrists he wrenched it out of her grip.

"Two."

"Three."

Her eyes widened for a moment as she realized she had a sword by her throat on the left and bo by her head on the right. Raphael leaned in for a quick kiss.

"Kill shot," Raphael said, giving her a wicked smile.

April sighed as he handed her staff back to her. "I told you I would only last five seconds."

"Hey, you managed to tag out the B team over there," Raphael laughed.

Michelangelo gave out an indignant "Hey!" while Casey flicked him the middle finger.

oooooo

Within another week the guys could routinely and quickly defeat their five opponents. April usually managed to tag one or two out of the five, three on a good night. After training with them, after all she had learned, her confidence was soaring. She would never be afraid of some two-bit mugger again, or even one or two Foot soldiers.

Their time at the farm was drawing to an end. The mood in the evenings after the excitement of sparring wore off became more serious. The brothers meditated and went over battle strategies. They knew if they didn't plan properly, they would loose their father and mentor forever.

It had been little more than six weeks since the Foot had taken Splinter. While the turtles knew in their hearts that he was alive, they didn't know what the Foot's purpose was with him. They presumed they wanted him for information, that he was a prisoner and likely not being treated well. April and Casey had gone into town for a bunch of first aid supplies just in case he was in bad shape when they rescued him. Raphael and Leonardo argued over where and how to start the search, but their disagreements had a calm undertone that surprised everyone.

Their last day at the farm was one of calm and rest. They had been working really hard and their bodies needed a day to recover before they were battered and bruised in real combat again. They planned to leave in the afternoon, which would get them back to the city by nightfall and give them some cover.

Everyone spent their last day differently.

Leonardo had hiked up to the Western border of the property to a rocky ridge that hit a cord with him. He had often brought the others there for training sessions. There was a smooth, flat rock where he could sit comfortably and look over the patchwork of forest and small farms. He basked in the warm sunshine and didn't feel so out of place. He meditated and mentally prepared for battle.

Donatello and Casey fussed over the van and packed it up. They topped the oil and checked it over. The last thing they needed was to stall out in the middle of nowhere on their way back, or even worse in a town where the mutant brothers wouldn't be able to hide from passerby's looking to help. Donatello had gutted a bunch of old machinery and electronics and was frantically trying to fit as much of it into the van as possible. He had big plans for future projects and inventions. He rambled them off to Casey, who told him he was getting nerdier by the day.

Michelangelo drew. He had been intrigued by April's sketches, especially the ones of them. She had taught him a few techniques here and there and he blossomed into quite the artist. At first he had mimicked April's realism, but soon his creativity and imagination started spilling onto the pages in a style all his own. He wanted to write his own comic series one day and surprise his brothers.

Raphael sought out April, knowing that peaceful moments would be few and far between in the city. She was standing by the pond with her bo deep in thought. It was horizontal across the back of her neck and shoulders, her arms stretched out over it, hands hanging casually. She leaned back into it a little, perking her chest up ever so slightly.

April hadn't heard him settle onto the log until he spoke. "Now that is quite the sight. I wish we could work that into a ready position, it would be my first choice every time we train."

She turned and smiled a greeting. "I don't know, horse stance is pretty hot."

Raphael snorted back a laugh and invited her to sit beside him. She rested the bo against the log, clambered up and settled in his lap instead, which was even better. "You ok?" he asked. "You looked kinda down when I got here."

"Just going to back to reality and dealing with everything we ran from. Things I've put off thinking about because I couldn't do anything from here all of a sudden are going to be pressing issues. I have to sort out my insurance and see if I can get my place fixed up or if I need to look for something else. I have no home, no job and we literally ate through my entire savings."

"Our place isn't safe for more than a night or two either. We'll stick together, whoever finds something first will help the other until we get back on our feet, all of us," he said reassuringly.

April smiled and tilted her head into him. "Are you nervous?"

"Hell no, I'm dyin' to get my hands on those assholes. I'm gonna keep breaking them until one finally tells me where to find my father."

"Be careful," she reminded him sternly.

"I will." Raphael nuzzled into the back of her neck and huffed. "You too. Please. Don't be stubborn. Keep away from us, even if we get swarmed."

She laughed out loud. "Don't be stubborn? Did those words really just leave your mouth?"

"Yeah, yeah, I see the irony," he replied dryly. "Just promise me. I can't loose my star student now."

"I promise. I'll take the compliment too, even though I'm your only student." She could feel him smile against her. "The first thing I'm going to do when this is all over is tell Splinter what an amazing Sensei you are. I can't believe how far you took me in just over a month."

He chuckled deeply, squeezing her tighter. "I could say the same about you."

Author's Note: Thank you for sticking with me to the end and I hope you enjoyed it. I am adding a note since there seems to be a bit of confusion why I ended it here.

I wanted the whole story to take place between the scene in the 1990 movie where they leave April's place as it's burning and end when they go back. The end of the movie shows them much more confident and capable, April *does* have a bo at one point when she's hiding in the rafters, Mikey calls her 'sis' and they discover Shredder and the final action scenes unfold. Everyone who watched it knows how the movie ends, so I didn't rewrite it. I just wanted to put my own twist on Raph and April and the farmhouse, what kind of training they would have needed to do, how long it realistically would have taken them to train and recover (for skilled martial artists). If I were to rewrite the end of the movie to suit my fic, it would all be exactly the same, except where April randomly kisses Casey at the end...obviously I'd change that :D