"I've been shot! Lord, have mercy! I've bee shot!" Echo called out in agony. She collapsed dramatically to the floor in a heap, her hands pressed against the 'new gaping wound' on her chest and her tongue lazily sticking out the side of her mouth.

"Stop being such a wuss, there's no pain when it comes to these weapons." April laughed from her side of the couch, slid another orange dart into her Nerf gun and shot her best friend in the foot. Echo let out an exaggerated oof on contact and rolled over onto her stomach, then saw the bag of Cheetos on the floor a few inches away and proceeded to eat them while playing dead. In response, April let loose another dart.

"Hey! I thought we said no butt-shots!"

"And I thought you said you didn't think Daniel from Algebra was hot. We both lie!" The red-head retorted and laughed evilly, then pulled the trigger again and sent another dart Echo's way. Despite the effort, Echo had learned from her mistake and dodged out of the line of fire before the blonde scoffed and snagged a pillow from the cluster they'd made on the floor, then hurled it across the room. Before April could defend herself, the ball of fluff whacked her in the face with an obnoxious 'pop'.

"You asked if I thought he was cute, not if I thought he was hot," Echo couldn't help but chuckle.

Not that it mattered if the girl thought Daniel from Algebra was cute; she'd be long gone before anything could be done about it. Truthfully, admitting her affection to her best friend was pointless, useless. If anything, it was a desperate cry for fate to change itself, to shift a plan shackled to completion.

A few hours had passed since their conversation about the-future-event-that-shall-not-be-named. And although they were teasing each other and playing childish games, the duo both knew that the other person was suffering inside. They both knew that in less than three days, Echo would be gone and the odds of them seeing each other again would be as nonexistent as unicorns frolicking in Central Park.

"Girls," April's father called from down the hall. "Movie starts in forty-five minutes and its a twenty-minute walk! If we want popcorn and candy, we gotta leave soon!"

Both of them sighed in a mixture of different emotions: resignation at putting their current fun on hold, feeling lethargic already from eating all their snacks, but also delight at the thought of the buttery popcorn their local theater was famous for. The owner of the theater always made the butter himself based off a "secret recipe" his grandmother from Louisiana had given him years ago. It was what drew April and Echo to his theater in the first place, despite being fifteen minutes closer to another cinema in the opposite direction.

Damn, Echo was really going to miss it.

They started to head for the door, but not before April took another shot at Echo. With a quick pull of the trigger, April sent the Nerf dart flying across the room like a missile and the little orange dart bounced off the girl's back. "Hey!" Echo proclaimed and April laughed.

"Sorry, couldn't resist."

***

The four brothers sprinted across the rooftops with glee, leaping from one building to the next in a single bound as the mutant turtles finally got to see what the world outside the sewers was like first-hand. With the stars and moon shining brightly above and the outskirts of New York city glowing below, it was as if the boys had dove into a completely different state of being with freedom practically flowing through their veins. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, an experience they'd waited fifteen years to take part in.

"This is the best day ever!" Mikey called out triumphantly, jumping and rolling in stride with his older brothers. The other three all howled and shouted with just as much excitement in reply. It really was the best day ever, and as the four slid to a halt an hour or two later, the leader of the group knew it would be the start of a new chapter in their lives, one full of adventure and new discoveries just waiting to be uncovered.

As the four teenage boys stared off into the distance at the massive city that was New York, it wasn't long before Leo sighed with content. "Well, its getting late," He declared, his eyes catching sight of a marque a few blocks down the road. 11:34 PM. If they wanted to get home before morning, they'd have to make their way back in the direction of the lair. "We should probably head back home."

The three others groaned in protest. After all the fun they'd been having, going back to the sewers was the last thing any of them wanted to do. But Leo was right, although none of them wanted to admit it, especially Raph.

Ever since they were little, there had always been something inside Raph that he couldn't explain, a feeling he had toward the sewers that none of his brothers seemed to share. Or if they did, they never made it obvious enough for him to catch. It had taken fifteen years, but now as he and the rest of his siblings explored a brand new wide, open world, he realized that he hated it down there. Raphael loved the lair; it was their home, after all. But the rest of the tunnels under ground, the darkness and tight spaces and disgusting smells- he hated it all.

But what he hated most was the idea of going back.

"I know, it sucks," Leo said as the four began to turn back towards home. "But if we tell Splinter how great its been, maybe he'll let us come out again to-"

In the split second before Raph could look away from the city below, he saw something from the corner of his eye that made him do a double-take. The red-masked turtle whipped his head back to the spot on the sidewalk and his eyes widened at the scene on the sidewalk beneath them.

At first glance, it wasn't anything too out of the ordinary for city life. A middle-aged man with a red beard walking down the pavement, along with two girls who looked to be about in their teen years just like Raphael and his brothers. One girl had red hair pulled back in a ponytail, big blue eyes and wore a yellow jersey-type of t-shirt with her jean-shorts and black leggings. A typical young high-school kind of girl, the kind who probably played a sport of some sort, got good grades and was well-rounded with the cliques around campus. The other girl though... Raph couldn't help but let out a long, low whistle.

"Holy shit..."

Raph didn't know where to begin with her. The way the moonlight shined on her wavy blonde hair, how the street lights reflected off her black leather jacket and trendy wire-rimmed glasses, with each step she took in her ankle-length boots seeming as light as if she were weightless but still having enough muscle to fill her jeans in all the right places...

Damn, Mikey didn't know how right he was when he said this definitely was the best day ever.

"Oooooo, I think Raph and Donnie found something they like more than the pizza."

"What?" It was Mikey's comment that brought the hot-headed turtle back to the real world and out of the fantasy-land he'd dragged himself into. He shook his head and quickly looked away, although Raphael found it to be a little harder to remove his gaze than he thought it would. "I don't know what you're talking about." He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks and turned his face from his brother. "Shut up." Leo chuckled in amusement as the leader folded his arms over his chest.

"She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen..." Donnie trailed off dreamily beside Raphael, practically drooling, and a red light suddenly began to go off inside Raph's mind.

"Wait, which one are you talking about?" He asked, eyes wide.

"I can't decide," Donnie said honestly, too infatuated to even comprehend Raph's similar reaction to the scene as well. "The redhead is gorgeous, but if I consider the glasses-stereotype then that could mean the blonde is more of a science-nerd like me. Although the leather jacket-stereotype could cancel that out-" Raph smacked him on the back of his head, cutting Donnie off mid-sentence.

"I call the blonde."

"Hey!" Donnie exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head where Raph's hand made contact. "That's not fair! Shouldn't we at least get to know them first?"

"I hate to rain on your parades, but I think you guys are forgetting a very important detail here," Leo interrupted, clearing his throat. Donnie folded his arms over his plastron and Raph rolled his eyes, knowing exactly where this conversation was headed. "We're not exactly from the same-"

Their conversation came to a screeching halt as a rickety old white van did the same in front of the group of three, the doors sliding open with a loud slam! and a group of men wearing black suits and dull facial expressions stepped out. Although from a distance, the men appeared to have to exact same facial features, but it was too dark for the turtles to be sure. The two girls gasped in shock and the man stood protectively between the teens as the men slowly approached.

"What is the meaning of this?" The red-bearded man asked, slowly trying to back himself and the girls away from the situation. But with each step the family of three took backwards, their assailants took two steps forward. "Back off! Or we'll call the police!"

"We've gotta save them!" Donnie gasped in concern; Raph was already ahead of him, grabbing his sais from his belt and stepping up to the edge of the roof to jump into action when the familiar, annoying grip of Leo's cautious hand grabbed onto his shoulder. The newly-crowned leader of the group stopped both him and Donnie in their places.

"But Splinter told us to steer clear of people," Leonardo reminded. "And bathrooms." He added, looking a little more disturbed by the thought of using a public restroom than the idea of interacting with humans.

"Splinter wouldn't want us to stand by and watch innocent people get attacked," Raphael responded and jerked his arm from Leo's gasp. "Wanna be a leader, Leo? Then this is probably a pretty good place to start."

"Kinda a pretty good opportunity to save same damsels in distress, too, if you know what I mean," Mikey elbowed Donnie playfully with a cheesy smirk on his lips, an action that made Donnie roll his eyes so hard that Raph thought he'd lose them in the back of his skull. Before anyone else could work in another word edgewise, Raphael bent his knees and leaped down to the confrontation below.