one.

Heart pounding. Skin stinging. Sweat dripping. Lungs burning.

Faster. I have to go faster. Can't...stop...

Something long and unyielding wraps around his ankles, stopping him mid-stride and sending him crashing to the gravel rooftop. His jaw slams into the unforgiving ground and stars explode in his vision. There's the taste of blood in his mouth. Unwanted tears fill his eyes and blur his gaze; he angrily tries to blink them away as a pair of leather-clad feet enter his line of sight. He can almost hear their owner smirking.

Then something connects sharply with the side of his head and everything goes dark.

April glances at her watch for the seventh - or is it eighth? - time since he called. Her blue eyes darken in worry. He should be knocking on the window by now, at the very least. It's been twenty minutes since she hung up the phone, and it usually takes him five minutes to make it from the Lair to her apartment, ten minutes tops.

The redhead reaches for her T-Phone again but calls a different turtle this time. Donnie picks up on the first ring. "Hey, April, what's up? I thought you were having a movie night?"

"I was supposed to be having a movie night," she replies, unable to disguise the concern in her voice, "but Leo's not here yet. I was wondering if you'd seen him?"

"Wait, what?"

"Leo's not here yet, Donnie. He should've been here fifteen minutes ago."

"...let me go ask the others. Maybe one of them has seen him."

"Okay."

There's a brief pause and muffled voices, and the genius comes back onto the line. "They haven't talked to him in a while. Raph said he left about twenty minutes back, which checks out with your timeframe."

"I've got a really bad feeling, D."

April can almost picture the gentle look on the lanky turtle's face. "He might have just gotten sidetracked on the way over there. There was probably someone who needed rescuing, and knowing my brother, he would've stopped to help."

That does little to reassure her. The teen sighs, leaning over to rest her elbows on her knees. "Yeah...probably."

"I'm sure he's fine, April. This is Leo we're talking about, after all. Hey, I gotta go. This experiment is pretty delicate, and if I'm away from it too long I'm not sure what will happen."

"Okay," she says quietly. "I'll talk to you later."

"Sure thing." There's the sound of the call disconnecting, just the same as it was twenty minutes before. But somehow, this time it doesn't quite have the same effect. The first time didn't make dread curl in her stomach. It didn't make her head pound. It didn't send stabs of phantom pain through her body.

And it certainly didn't make a blurred image of a rooftop, leather boots, and a hint of blue flash through her mind.

Ice-cold realization hits like a freight train, tearing a gasp from a too-dry throat.

There are a few things in life of which April O'Neil is certain. One: aliens are very, very real. Two: robots make horrible friends.

And three: a certain blue-banded mutant turtle has just been beaten and taken captive.

A/N: Would you want another chapter?