by 3 Ninja Tales (The Rise of Tiger Claw; The Casey Chronicles; Mutants in Space!) (retail) (epub)
But before Shredder could strike, another earthquake shook the city. The glass in the lair’s roof cracked. Shredder dropped Splinter and staggered back, trying to regain his balance.
Lying on the ground, Splinter noticed a crack forming in the glass covering a pool of water below. He summoned all his strength and struck the crack. It raced across the glass, breaking beneath Shredder’s feet! Weighed down by his heavy armor, he plunged into the pool of water!
At the same moment, strings of firecrackers, bottle rockets, and other explosives started to go off inside the hall. Leo took advantage of the diversion and broke free of Tiger Claw’s grip.
Up on the ledge, Mikey put his fists in the air and took a couple of joyful steps from side to side. “Awwww, yeah! Rescue time!”
He and Raph jumped down into the action. Together the three Turtles stood in front of their master, guarding him.
“GET THEM!” Tiger Claw commanded.
BOOM! One last firework burst, filling the lair with blinding sparks and stars!
When the smoke cleared, the Turtles and their master were gone.
“NOOOO!” Tiger Claw bellowed.
Shredder hauled himself out of the pool. Fishface ran over to him. “Master Shredder!”
Shredder shoved the purple mutant aside. “Do not let them escape, fools! GO!”
On a nearby rooftop, the Turtles were moving as fast as they could, but it wasn’t easy. They had to drag and carry Splinter.
Shaking his head, Splinter said, “You were foolish to come for me.”
“We’d never leave you, Sensei,” Raph said as he and Leo carried Splinter between them across the roof.
Donnie and April ran through the maze of old subway tunnels looking for the one where they last encountered the Kraathatrogon. When they reached the intersection of two tunnels, Donnie held up his hand, signaling for April to stop. “This is it!” he said with certainty. “This is the tunnel.”
He pulled his bo staff off his back and walked toward the metal tracks. “Great,” April said. “Now what?”
Donnie started whacking the metal rail with his staff. TWHANG! TWHANG! TWHANG! “I’m creating a vibration that’ll attract the worm!”
April looked skeptical. “You really think a stick is gonna attract the …” She stopped talking and gasped. The huge worm was thumping down the track straight toward them! It opened its mouth and roared!
“The satchel!” Donnie said. April opened the leather satchel she was carrying and looked inside for the first time. She was expecting to see a powerful weapon they could use against the gigantic worm. Instead, she saw containers of … salt.
“Salt?”
“Salt’s ionic strength can burn through a worm’s neurosecretory cells! It’s like … acid!”
“Yeah, but … SALT?”
The worm was moving faster now, rushing down the tracks like a roaring locomotive. Donnie held his bo staff like a baseball bat. April lobbed one of the salt containers, and Donnie batted it straight at the worm.
The container burst against the Kraathatrogon’s head. And the giant worm … kept on coming!
April kept lobbing the salt containers to Donnie, and he kept batting them with his bo staff.
He never missed! He sent every container of salt flying straight at the huge worm, spraying salt all over its head and mouth.
But the worm kept on barreling down the tunnel!
Finally, April said, “Uh, Donnie? We’re out!”
She showed him the empty satchel.
And the worm still kept coming….
“No, wait!” Donnie said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out Jack Kurtzman’s saltshaker—the one that had given him the salt idea in the first place.
He waited until the worm got a little closer, and then he hurled the glass saltshaker. It shattered on the rails, spraying a cloud of salt.
April bravely ran up to the spilled salt and waved her sharp-edged fan, raising a bigger cloud of salt.
The worm heaved its body forward, pulse by pulse, until it passed through the salt cloud. Finally, it came to a stop right in front of Donnie and April, breathing heavily.
“Huh?” Donnie said, wondering exactly what it was doing.
Then … SPEW! The worm opened its mouth and vomited out a tidal wave of green gunk, blasting April and Donnie back through the tunnel.
But when the flood of goo dissipated, they saw that the worm had also spewed out … Casey!
“CASEY!” April cried, hugging him, despite how slimy he was.
“April!” Casey said, feeling instantly better.
“Anybody have any hand sanitizer?” Donnie asked. Then he noticed that the wave of worm goo had washed them back into the mutagen-milking chamber … and there was something going on in there!
“Hate to break up the reunion,” Donnie said to April and Casey, who were still hugging. “But we have big, huge, GIANT problems!”
April and Casey looked into the chamber and gasped! They saw several Kraang-droids pulling on cables, trying to wrangle another Kraathatrogon through the inter-dimensional portal. But this was the biggest one yet—the kind of huge adult Kurtzman had described. It must have been several hundred feet long!
“Now, that’s a big worm,” Casey said.
Rahzar, Fishface, Karai, and Tiger Claw leaped across the rooftops of New York City, hunting the Turtles. Tiger Claw stopped and sniffed the night air. “I smell the reptiles!” He blasted forward with his jetpack.
Karai sprinted across a roof and leaped onto an elevator shaft for a higher vantage point. “If they escape, Shredder will have ALL your hides!” she warned.
“And what about yours, Karai?” Rahzar sneered.
On another roof, the Turtles had stopped to let Splinter rest. They knew they had to keep moving, but they were worried about him.
“I must get the poison out of my system,” Splinter said haltingly.
Mikey handed him a gourd. “Drink some water, Sensei.”
Splinter took the gourd gratefully and lifted it to his lips, taking a good, long sip of cool water. Then he handed the water gourd back to Mikey and said, “Must … meditate.” He sat up, closed his eyes, and pressed his index fingers together in front of his nose, bowing his head.
“Let him rest,” Raph said, standing up. “We’ll keep a lookout for those goons.”
He rounded the corner of the small building they were hiding behind and gasped! The goons were right there! Tiger Claw was in front, aiming his blaster at Raph.
Mikey and Leo came out and saw the members of the Foot Clan. “Heh heh,” Mikey said. “Found ’em!”
“ATTACK!” Tiger Claw shouted. He blasted his jetpack, rising above the Turtles. Rahzar, Fishface, and Karai ran forward. Yelling, the three Turtles sprang to meet their enemies. The rooftop battle was on!
Leo used his katana swords against Karai, knocking her back. Tiger Claw swung his wide blade at Leo, but the Turtle spun and blocked the blow with his sword.
Closing in on Raph, Fishface spun a gleaming, high-tech blade. “Fancy new weapon, Fishface!” Raph observed. “Let’s see if ya know how to use it!”
“I’m going to chop you into tiny chucks and feed you to my piranha!” Fishface threatened, just before he ran at Raph.
Mikey jumped out of Rahzar’s reach, using his parkour skills to bound off walls and pieces of equipment. “Too slow, Rahzar!” Mikey taunted.
Leo knocked Tiger Claw back, wheeled, and kicked Karai away. He turned back to Tiger Claw, and they slammed their swords together. “Your skills are nothing compared to mine,” Tiger Claw jeered. “You are still just a cub!”
Tiger Claw knocked one of Leo’s katana away. Leo parried the tiger-man’s blows with the katana in his left hand. But Tiger Claw used his broad sword to pin Leo’s katana to a wall and then SLAMMED his massive paw onto the sword, snapping it in two!
Tiger Claw roared a triumphant roar. But Leo quickly slipped a secret blade out of the handle of his broken katana and
cut Tiger Claw’s shoulder!
Shocked by Leo’s maneuver, Tiger Claw fell back. Perhaps he had underestimated this Turtle….
In the huge mutagen-milking chamber, the Kraang-droids pulled on metal chains, trying to force the adult Kraathatrogon through the portal.
The droids were much too busy to notice Donnie, April, and Casey slipping into the chamber. They ducked down behind a large stone gear.
“Okay,” Donnie said. “Here’s the plan. I reverse the polarity of the portal and keep that thing from getting in.” He pointed to the mechanisms at the very top of the portal.
“And what’ll we do?” Casey asked.
“You guys create a diversion,” Donnie answered.
“What kind of a diversion?” April asked.
“Leave that to Casey Jones!” Casey said, pointing to himself with tons of confidence.
Casey wasted no time. He jumped out into the open and yelled at the Kraang-droids, “Yo! Alien freak jobs!” He stuck his tongue out and blew a loud raspberry.
It certainly got the robots’ attention. “It is humans, known as … humans,” one droned in his metallic voice. He lifted a blaster and fired.
“I hope you have a plan other than getting shot at, Jones!” April said.
Donnie climbed up to a ledge that led to the top of the portal. With his back to the wall, he hoped the droids wouldn’t notice him.
The battle on the rooftop raged on. As Raph and Fishface’s weapons clanged, and Mikey taunted Rahzar, Splinter slowly came out of his meditative state.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide. He was back, the poison beaten.
Tiger Claw leaped into the air and raised his right paw with all its sharp claws extended, ready to slash Leo. The Turtle covered his face with both arms, steeling himself for the pain. But the blow never came …
… because Splinter blocked it! Tiger Claw involuntarily let out a pathetic little meow of fear. Splinter grabbed the mutant’s arm, spun him around, and twisted with both hands as he yanked Tiger Claw’s arm toward the ground and let go. Tiger Claw went spinning across the roof!
“Now it is time to end this!” Splinter said in his strongest voice. His three sons ran to his side and embraced him.
Casey was thoroughly enjoying himself, using his hockey stick to slap hockey pucks at the Kraang-droids.
He knocked a hockey puck with a firework taped to it right into the hand of a Kraang-droid. The droid examined the hockey puck, saying, “Kraang detects inferior weaponry,” just before the firework blew up and destroyed it.
The droids were so busy fighting April and Casey, they left the gigantic worm unattended. It writhed in the portal.
With the robots distracted, Donnie was able to climb his way up to the top of the portal. He found the main control box and yanked off its cover. Inside was a bewildering tangle of alien wires and strange devices. Reversing the polarity wasn’t going to be easy.
Casey skated around the chamber, whacking droids with his hockey stick.
A Kraang-droid that had been knocked to the floor received an order: “Kraang, unleash another Kraathatrogon!” He raised himself up and slammed his metal fist against a control panel.
The milking harnesses fell away from one of the giant worms already in the chamber. Finding itself free, it rose up, opened its mouth, and showed its fearsome teeth!
April and Casey turned and saw the worm just as it dove toward them, letting out its sickening roar!
Back on the roof, Splinter battled Tiger Claw. Raph fought Fishface. Mikey took on Rahzar. And Leo was defending himself from Karai.
“Karai! I don’t want to fight you anymore! I’m not your enemy!”
Before she could answer, the building began to shake from all the worm action below the streets. Karai and Leo gasped. All the fighters swayed and stumbled, trying to regain their footing.
But as the shaking continued, Karai couldn’t regain her balance. She staggered, tripped, and fell over the edge of the roof, screaming!
“KARAI!” Leo yelled as he tried to grab her foot before she fell. But he was too late.
“NOOO!” Splinter yelled. He ran to help his daughter, but Tiger Claw stamped his massive paw down on the rat’s long tail. Splinter fell facedown on the ground.
The Kraathatrogon that was released from its harnesses raised the front of its heavy body up into the air for a moment, and then came crashing down! April and Casey leaped out of the way.
April stared at the worm lying in front of her. “I’ve got an idea! Something that Kurtzman said.”
On the other side of the worm, Casey got to his knees and looked up. A Kraang-droid was standing right over him, aiming its blaster.
Just as the Kraang-droid was about to fire … The worm knocked the robot away!
Casey looked up and saw … April! She was riding the worm! She patted the worm and offered Casey her hand, saying, “Come on, Jones!”
Casey took her hand and scrambled up the side of the worm. When he lifted his hand off its back, his hand was covered in the worm’s sticky goo. But even if it was gross, Casey felt pretty safe on the back of the giant worm.
April grabbed the worm’s antennae and jerked them. “Hyaah! Move it, girl!” The worm plowed right into a crowd of Kraang-droids blasting their weapons. It knocked them down like bowling pins. “Go, worm, GO!” April whooped.
She steered the worm below the portal to where Donnie was struggling to reverse the polarity. Casey called up, “We’ll distract the Kraang!”
“Do your thing, Donnie!” April added.
“I don’t believe it,” Donnie said to himself, amazed to see April and Casey riding the huge worm.
April steered the worm toward a subway tunnel. As it passed, it sent a cluster of Kraang-droids flying with just a flip of its tail. “To the surface, wormie!” April shouted.
“You are mine now, Yoshi-san!” Tiger Claw growled, pulling back his sword, ready to deal Splinter a deadly blow.
BAP! A small chunk of concrete hit Tiger Claw on the side of the head. In a rage, he turned to see who had thrown it at him. “Who dares?”
“HYAAAAAAAH!” Leo called out as he flew through the air straight at Tiger Claw, his foot extended in front of him. WHAM!
“OOOWAAH!” Tiger Claw grunted as he received the tremendous kick and flew over the edge of the roof, landing in a heap on a fire escape.
Leo dropped to Splinter’s side. He heard a sound nearby and saw that Karai had climbed back up onto the roof, having landed on a ledge, unhurt. She looked away, unable to hold Leo’s gaze.
Leo turned his attention back to his sensei. Splinter put his hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “Not … too shabby.” Leo smiled.
CRASH! Right next to the building, a Kraathatrogon smashed through the street from the subway tunnel below and reached all the way up to the roof!
But what was even more surprising to Leo and Splinter was who was riding the enormous worm! “WHOO-HOOOOO!” April whooped.
“YESSS!” Casey shouted.
Splinter and Leo just stared.
So did Mikey and Rahzar.
And Raph and Fishface.
But Tiger Claw didn’t stare. Still breathing hard from Leo’s tremendous kick, he fired up his jetpack and flew back up onto the roof. He zoomed toward Splinter, swinging his broad sword.
Splinter dodged the stroke of the sword and immediately went on the attack, punching Tiger Claw in the face, then swiftly chopping him in the chest three times. Finally, Splinter spun all the way around and delivered a powerful kick that sent Tiger Claw flying into the air!
Tiger Claw fired up his jetpack, but he couldn’t gain control of his flight. Spiraling and tumbling head over paws, he fell straight into the wide-open mouth of the gigantic worm! “YAAAAHHHHH!” he screamed as he disappeared into the beast.
Donnie was still at the portal’s control box, feverishly working. “Gotta reverse the polarity,” he muttered to himself. But how?
He tried a different config
uration of the controls and looked up to see if the portal changed. It wavered, squeezing the gigantic worm still trapped halfway through the inter-dimensional gate. Suddenly …
SPEW! The worm blew gunk out of its huge mouth!
Not exactly the result Donnie was hoping for. “Work!” he said. “Why won’t you work?”
He tried a new connection. The portal made a different sound, one that seemed as though it were sucking everything back in. WHOOSH! The enormous worm disappeared back through the portal!
“Ha! I did it! I rule!” Donnie whooped.
The Kraang-droids looked up at the portal, alarmed. The pulling force of the reversed portal sucked them in, along with the huge worm still in the chamber!
Donnie secured himself to the outside of the portal with strong cables so he wouldn’t be sucked in. He had no interest in returning to Dimension X….
The force of the reversed portal was so strong that it pulled the biggest worm back down from the surface, all the way through the subway tunnels—along with April and Casey! They fell off the worm, screaming, “YAAAAHHHH!”
The last worm was rapidly sucked through to Dimension X. When he saw April and Casey being pulled toward the opening, Donnie grabbed his bo staff and held it out in front of the portal for them to grab.
They came hurtling toward the spinning vortex….
Casey managed to grab the staff with one hand. But April flew by him!
Just before she was sucked into the portal, April grasped Casey’s gym shoe, holding on for dear life! Clutching his staff with one hand, Donnie reached up behind him and yanked wires out of the portal’s control box. It powered down. Donnie flipped his staff with both hands, and Casey and April went flying back into the chamber, landing on the floor with a thump.