On Your Mark...

Don was sleeping in his lab, head on his desk, while his latest chemical concoction bubbled dangerously on the little burner. The acrid smell of burning chemicals permeated the area, drawing Splinter quickly to the room, whereupon he quickly removed the experiment from the burner, turning it off in the process. He bit back a severe rebuke, seeing that Donatello was too far gone in sleep to appreciate the sting of it.

Instead, he gently shook his son, rousing him finally with a few "Donatello, my son" thrown in for good measure.

"Uuuhh... OH!" Don, slowly waking, suddenly recalled what he'd been doing, and made a quick attempt to reach his experiment-- and saw that his father had already dealt with it.

"My son, go to bed," Splinter simply said.

"But Sensei! I'm not tired! I was just resting my eyes! I won't do it again! I'm close to an important discovery! There was nothing dangerous in the beaker! I swear April's just a friend, nothing more! I promise we won't elope! I need to see the results---"

He abruptly stopped, registering the look of shock on his father's face. He went back over in his mind what he'd been saying-- and dreaming-- and without another word, put away his notes and such and went to bed.

His confused father decided to simply return to his own room and forget what he'd heard from his sleep-deprived son.

Ever since they had returned with an injured Michelangelo, Donatello had been practically living in his lab, coming out reluctantly to eat, use the restroom, train, and go visit with Leatherhead, Professor Honeycutt, and April. Splinter knew that it had everything to do with the blood of Bishop; blood obtained by his son Raphael's quick throw of his sai.

Much time had passed. Michelangelo was not only recovered from his most recent injuries, but he had finally regained full strength. Splinter did notice, however, that he still on occasion had some vague pain and trouble with the leg, especially during weather changes. He hoped his son was not going to be plagued with the early onset of arthritis.

Leonardo had felt the sting of failure and guilt for several days after their almost capture. He had known there was the risk, but he still blamed himself for allowing his brother to be injured.

"You did what you had to do, my son," Splinter had told him. "We needed to know, and you did what you had to do. Michelangelo is not a child. He is as fully-trained as the rest of you. And he escaped."

"Yes, but---"

"Learn from your mistakes, but do not dwell on them," he had said, and that was the end of that.

He and Raph, however, still planned late into the night, and trained almost continuously.

In his room, setting up his area for a late-night meditation, he heard the return of two of his sons from a late-night visit to April's.

"Woo-hoo!" he heard Raphael crow in triumph as he and Michelangelo entered the Lair. "Leo! Guess what? My aim is gettin' better!"

Leonardo, who had been reading on the couch, grinned at his brothers as they joined him, heedless of their father's eavesdropping.

"Leo you should have seen it!" Mikey enthused, grabbing the bowl of popcorn Leo had been snacking on while reading. "We're coming back home, right, and who is out causing trouble but Hun and a bunch of his gang!"

"It was sweet!" Raph laughed. "They were hasslin' some homeless-- I still don't get it, that is so small-time for Hun-- anyways, Mikey and me decide we could use the exercise."

"We dropped in on them, and would you believe it, a bunch of the Purple Dragons actually hauled ass out of there!" Mikey laughed between mouthfuls of popcorn. It was disgusting to watch the half-chewed pieces spray out as he tried to eat, talk, and laugh at the same time.

"Eww, Mikey!" Leo groaned, protecting himself and his book from the food assault. "Be careful! I already took my shower tonight." Then he turned to Raph. "What happened? What's it got to do with your aim?"

"Oh, God!" Mikey started choking with laughter and too much popcorn. "You're gonna love this part!"

"Mikey!" Raph and Leo chorused, as more partially chewed popcorn flew at them.

"Anyways, Hun is pissed 'cause a bunch of his Dragons have taken off," Raph says. "He pulls a gun to deal with us-- an actual gun! I figure he's through with his swords skills, or else still bummed that all that hard work for the Shredder turned out to be for a squishy little alien. Anyway-- before I could even think about what I was gonna do, I threw a sai at him-- and I nailed him good!"

Leo looked excited.

"Did you kill him?" he eagerly asked, making sure his voice was low enough so Sensei didn't hear. But Raph shook his head.

"Nope-- he's still alive. But let's just say that, if he wasn't circumcised before, he is now." And he and Mike both were off in an explosion of laughter-- and Leo, picturing the scene in his mind, joined them.

In his room, Splinter thought about what he had overheard. He was sure that there was more to this than the apparent groin injury to an old enemy. He was sure that Leonardo and Raphael were planning something, something to do with Bishop.

The question was: should he interfere? Or should he allow them to move forward on their own?

After all, they were no longer children. They were highly skilled, they were highly experienced. They had come such a long way since the first battle with the outside world, when the mechanical rat killers of Baxter Stockman had forced them from their home of many years, forced his sons for the first time to the surface for their first real battles.

He recalled with pride the looks on their faces and the tones of their voices as, once they had settled into their new home that Splinter had found by accident (or fate), they related to him their encounter with the gang known as the Purple Dragons, not to mention the (to them, at the time) mysterious ninja who had attacked them after they had easily beaten the gang.

Splinter sighed. They had come so far-- from battling little robots designed by some crazed scientist to battling an invading alien army; from the Shredder, his most mortal of enemies, to Bishop-- who now was doing all he could to replace the Shredder in their lives as the major threat.

He decided that he would trust his sons. He would not bring it up.

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Stockman was a disappointment to Bishop.

Oh, he was brilliantly gifted. But he was also quite mad. Bishop needed stability in his assistants, and while he could tolerate the megalomania that plagued this person, he was quickly growing tired of his insane jealousy of anyone who could do something he couldn't.

Stockman had be of immense help to him, providing him with a lot of the information Oroku Saki had gathered and developed over the centuries-- the ability to mutate people into monsters, for example (A/N: see "Notes from the Underground"); the perfection of his own "fail safe" for his super soldiers-- he still remembered with a pang of regret for his own stupidity how he'd accidently terminated three of his latest creations by a careless command. The devices implanted in their brains had worked well on two of them-- instant death. But the third had lingered in an irreversible coma. No matter. Bishop had learned much from all three as their body parts were carefully removed and preserved for future use.

Pity about the one who had lived long enough to die during the salvage procedure. Stockman seemed to think that he suffered no pain, but Bishop was sure those screams had not been pure reflex.

Still, no matter. His work was gaining in it's successes through such mistaken failures.

Look at his prototype! He was constantly amazed at the growth in his Slayer, both physically and mentally. His creation had acquired full speech, and appeared to be very intelligent. This bode well for his plans to eventually mainstream the ones to follow into Society.

Oh, the Slayer would never manage to be mainstreamed, he knew this. Eventually he'd have to be disposed of, to make way for the future. But Bishop still couldn't help but feel pride in what his prototype had accomplished so far. This was justification for his plans. With his studies of the Slayer, he would one day be able to restart his cloning program, and finally achieve his goal-- the goal that would have been much closer to fruition if not for those damn Turtle freaks!

He looked at his prototype, standing passively in the lab while Bishop was supervising the latest treatments for the three replacement "volunteers" of super soldiers, and dreamed of the future.

Once he knew of the Slayer's ability to read and assimilate knowledge, he had begun a new, even more rigorous round of indoctrination, imparting to his Slayer every bit of knowledge regarding the Turtles, their Rat Master, the Utroms, and anything else involving their mutation. He'd already "educated" him to the story of the Turtles, before he could speak-- it had helped him to focus on the task at hand; too bad the one he'd been tracking had escaped, but no matter. His Slayer had been saved yet again, and Bishop could wait.

Thanks to what Stockman knew, it was now being provided with much more useful knowledge, and it would all serve one purpose: to enable the Slayer to capture all five of the mutants alive and return them to him, Bishop!

"And then," he muttered to himself, "I will be able to finally complete what I'd started so long ago, before that rat showed up and prevented me from doing what I'd planned. And I'm going to enjoy it very much."

The Slayer stood, quietly and still, observing everything without seeming to.

In his mind, he was Victor. He was not some nameless killing machine. He was a living being named Victor; just as much a living being as those three unfortunate "super soldiers" that Bishop had accidently terminated-- well, two terminated. One was subjected to the cruelest of deaths imaginable-- and Victor had discovered through his growth that he had a very good imagination.

He imagined himself moving freely through the world, meeting others, studying cultures, gaining more knowledge. The more he used the Internet (still in secret; Bishop knew of his mental capacities, but Victor also knew what Bishop would do if he suspected just how vast his mental capacities were) the more he knew that he wanted this thing called Life. He had to find a way to escape; to escape and live.

He knew that it would not be easy. But he also knew that it would not be like in the book Frankenstein. He knew that the world, though not perfect, would not be as intolerant of his existence or looks as it had been for the monster.

And there were alien worlds to explore as well, places where his looks, his existence, would not be of any shock or wonderment.

He must find a way to defeat the fail safe. He was intelligent. He knew that Bishop, no matter how much he touted his "creation" to others, was already planning the newer, improved models.

All Bishop needed was that mutated Rat.

And Bishop was counting on him to capture him