The Crime Fighter Collection

by Matthew J Gilbert (retail)

  He wasn’t alone.

  Drawing his katanas in one swift swoop, Leo spun around just in time to see the metal of his own blade clash with another warrior’s sword.

  “This is getting old, Karai.”

  Staring back into his eyes, Karai began to ease up on her blade.

  “I want to help you fight the Kraang,” she said, trying to explain. As a sign of good faith, she sheathed her sword.

  “Really?” Leo asked, still suspicious of her. After some hesitation, he put his katanas away and gazed at her.

  Could my sworn enemy really have a change of heart? Leo asked himself.

  “No, of course not,” Leo stated out loud, and then began listing the reasons he shouldn’t trust her. “We’re enemies. You want to destroy us. You’re loyal to the Shredder. Should I keep going?”

  “Look, if the Kraang win, we won’t have a planet anymore,” she said. “That makes our little fight seem pretty pointless, doesn’t it?”

  “I doubt Shredder would agree,” he replied.

  Karai couldn’t keep her cool anymore. “Shredder is stubborn and shortsighted. He drives me crazy!” she confessed. “What do you say? Work together … for now?”

  There was a part of Leo that wanted to believe her. But deep down, he knew this could all be a trick.

  “Sorry, sister, I can’t do it,” Leo finally replied. And without saying goodbye, he somersaulted off the rooftop, disappearing into the night.

  Karai got the message loud and clear: they were to remain enemies. At least for now.

  Leo had never been more confused in his life.

  After returning to the lair, he interrupted April’s kunoichi -training session with Master Splinter to seek his wise counsel. He took a meditative pose, along with his brothers, to ask for his sensei’s sage advice.

  “I know we shouldn’t trust Karai,” Leo told them. “But still … I got the sense that she really is fed up with Shredder.”

  “That’s probably just what she wants you to think,” Raph pointed out.

  “I know….” Leo sighed. He stared up at Master Splinter. “Sensei, is there any chance she’s for real?”

  Splinter stroked his whiskers, deep in thought. As a father, he knew the answer Leo wanted to hear, but as a sensei, he knew it was better to present him with the truth.

  “It is possible. Loyalties have been known to shift,” Splinter told him. “But the kunoichi is trained to use deception to her advantage.”

  He could see that his students were confused by his wise words, and took pity on them.

  “You must trust your instincts,” he explained. “But beware the trap of believing something to be true simply because you wish it to be so.”

  The Turtles stared back at him, speechless.

  “So I should trust my instincts … unless my instincts are wrong?” Leo asked, trying to make sense of it.

  “Exactly,” Splinter said.

  Pleased with his response, Splinter quietly exited the dojo, leaving the Turtles to reflect on his words of wisdom.

  “Whoa,” Mikey piped up, his mind exhausted from the mental acrobatics of listening to Master Splinter. “You know it’s good advice when you’re still confused afterward.”

  Raph scowled. He didn’t have time for Splinter’s brain games. His mind was already made up. “Guys—seriously? An alliance with Karai?! No way. Why are we even talking about this?”

  “It’s too bad we can’t trust her,” Donnie added. “It would be nice to have a kunoichi on our side.”

  “Um, hello …?” April called out from the back of the dojo. “What about me?”

  Donnie smiled. “No, I mean a REAL kunoichi—”

  Realizing he’d just accidentally insulted April in front of everyone, Donnie quickly tried to save face. “I mean, not that you’re not a real one,” he said, correcting himself. “Just that Karai’s better—”

  April gasped.

  “I mean, um, not better,” Donnie sputtered, trying to recover. “Just, ah, more experienced.”

  April shot him a look.

  Donnie broke out into a nervous sweat. “Is it hot in here?”

  April folded her arms defiantly. “It’s okay, I get it. She’s your mortal enemy, but hey, she’s purty!” she teased in a silly voice.

  “No, she’s not! You’re way prettier,” Donnie said, embarrassing himself even more in front of his not-so- secret crush. “Not that I think you’re pretty! I mean, you’re not ugly, it’s just that I, uh—”

  But before Donnie could dig himself any deeper, Raph put his hand over his mouth and dragged him away.

  “Don’t fight it,” Raph said casually. “You’ll thank me later.”

  The Shellraiser peeled out of the sewers and onto the streets.

  Inside, the Turtles manned their usual battle stations while Donnie kept his eyes glued to the T-Phone’s tracking device for signs of a Kraang ship. It didn’t take long before his radar screen flashed with unusual activity.

  “Guys!” Donnie cried. “I think I’ve got something!” He confirmed his findings on a different mapping screen. A knot formed in his stomach as he watched—a mysterious blinking light was closing in fast on their exact location. “It doesn’t match any authorized flight patterns! It’s gotta be the Kraang ship!”

  “Or … Santa!” Mikey declared hopefully.

  Suddenly a flying, squid-shaped alien spacecraft materialized in front of them. Its pulse cannon glowed, aiming right at them.

  “Aww, it’s the Kraang ship,” Mikey groaned. “That’s a bummer.”

  The Kraang ship nose-dived and unleashed a barrage of energy blasts.

  “Move it, Leo!” Raph barked.

  Leo punched the gas. “Hang on to your shells!” he shouted, swerving the Shellraiser around an explosive burst. With another pulse-pounding boom, the interior of the van rattled violently around them.

  Driving at top speed, Leo ignored the Kraang’s lasers and stayed as focused as he could on the road ahead. Donnie checked out the Shellraiser’s surveillance cam—the video feed showed the Kraang ship gaining ground. The pulse cannon fired another shot.

  “Mikey, we need an escape route!” Leo said.

  Mikey swung the magnifying glass down at his navigation station. He quickly scanned the map for a way out. “Take the alley on the right!” he suggested.

  Leo spun the wheel and skidded into the alley—which was blocked by a ten-foot- tall concrete wall.

  Leo slumped in the driver’s seat. “It’s a dead end.”

  Mikey checked his map again. Then he blushed when he realized his mistake. “I mean, don’t take the alley on the right!”

  But it was too late. Leo looked at his rearview mirror and saw only one thing—the scout ship! It was hovering right behind them, blocking their only exit.

  They were cornered by the Kraang!

  The Kraang ship opened fire. A pink electric bolt of energy pierced through the Shellraiser as easily as a knife cutting into butter.

  Everything inside the van shook. Sparks bounced off the walls, stinging and shocking the Turtles as they tried to figure out a way to escape.

  “Any ideas, guys?” Leo yelled over the deafening sound of the Kraang laser.

  “Just one,” Raph replied, angrily gnashing his teeth. He stalked over to Mikey’s station and punched him repeatedly for getting them into this mess.

  More pieces of the van began to smolder under the terrible beam from the laser.

  As the Shellraiser sizzled, another strange vehicle sliced through the sky, hopping rooftop to rooftop. It was a sleek custom motorbike: the Dragon Chopper!

  And Karai was in the driver’s seat.

  She drove her bike off the edge of the building, then leaped from it, somersaulting through the air.

  The bike crashed to the sidewalk as Karai unsheathed her ninja blade. She landed on the ship and stabbed it in one graceful, fluid move.

  The Kraang ship started to malfunction. Inside the cockpit, the alien pilot
s exclaimed in garbled Kraang speak, “This is that which is known as not good.”

  The ship stopped firing on the Turtles and suddenly shot upward, weaving this way and that through the sky.

  Inside the van, the Turtles were shocked by what they’d just seen.

  “That was Karai!” Leo said, reversing the Shellraiser. “We’ve got to go back and help her!”

  He floored the van, now in hot pursuit of the Kraang ship.

  And Karai.

  Raph ran over to Leo, trying to talk some sense into him. “She can take care of herself. Let’s put some distance between that thing and us!”

  “No!” Leo shouted. He was determined, keeping his eyes on the ship and ignoring the flashing warning lights on the Shellraiser’s control console.

  “But the Shellraiser can’t take another attack right now!” Donnie cried from the main control panel.

  “Then I’ll do it myself!” Leo announced furiously. He unbuckled his seat belt and switched places with Raph. “Drive!” he ordered.

  Leo climbed to the back of the van. “I’ll meet you back underground,” he instructed, opening a secret hatch. Inside was a sleek, one-person motorcycle known as the Stealth Bike.

  “Hey, the Stealth Bike’s my thing,” Raph moaned.

  Leo was not in the mood. He mounted the Stealth Bike and glowered at Raph. “Well, now your thing is sucking it up,” he said.

  “Hey … that’s my thing!” Donnie protested.

  Leo shut the hatch and left them behind.

  The Shellraiser’s front fender opened up, and Leo rolled out on the Stealth Bike.

  He was a Turtle on a mission.

  Karai was three hundred feet in the air, holding on to the Kraang ship for dear life. Her ninja sword, still buried deep in the ship, was the only thing keeping her from falling to her doom.

  She knew she had to bring the ship down if she wanted to survive. But how? She didn’t know the first thing about fighting aliens, and with only one hand free for action, she was battling at half strength. She punched the exposed wiring of the ship, hoping for something—anything—to stop it.

  “THIS … is … so … NOT … fun!” she yelled between punches.

  One of her power punches shorted something out. With a boom, the ship spun erratically, careening off buildings. Karai struggled to keep hold of the blade. She knew if she fell from this height, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  She wasn’t aware that something was following her. Something fast enough to keep pace with the Kraang ship. Something with a roaring engine.

  Karai could feel her hands slipping. Then her wrist gave out. She slid off.

  Falling.

  Screaming.

  Gasping at the sudden sight of the Stealth Bike racing down the city street!

  Leo sped up the front of a parked car, launching the Stealth Bike into the air just in time to catch Karai safely in his arms.

  Before she knew what was happening, the bike landed securely on the road. Leo stared into her eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked, the wind whipping past them.

  “Yeah,” she answered, catching her breath. “Are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  As he sped away from the ship, Leo could feel Karai trembling. In that moment, she didn’t seem like his enemy. She seemed like a friend, a scared friend who needed help.

  “I’m not really good about saying thank you,” she said softly.

  The moment was cut short by a pulse blast from the Kraang ship!

  Another energy blast rained down, exploding pieces of the road into burning chunks. Leo activated the Stealth Bike’s hidden shell-shield, which made them nearly invisible to the Kraang’s scanners.

  “And …?” Leo said expectantly.

  “That was it,” she told him.

  Well, Leo thought, maybe she didn’t change that much after all.

  Up ahead, through a cloud of flying debris, Leo saw the perfect hiding spot. He drifted into a pocket of shadows on a side street, enhancing the bike’s invisibility even more.

  The Kraang ship did a flyby, scanning for them. It closed in on their area of the street. Leo and Karai held their breath, doing their best to remain hidden behind the shell-shield and to remain calm.

  After the scanner failed to find any life-forms, one Kraang pilot decided to call it quits. “Kraang will find them at a time which is sooner than a time that is later and that time … is later.”

  Leo and Karai sat in tense silence, watching as the ship flew away.

  They each took a breath, relieved.

  They exchanged smiles.

  A short while later, Leo whisked Karai away to the safest place in the city: underground. They drove through the pitch-black subway tunnels until the Stealth Bike’s headlights illuminated what looked like an abandoned subway car in the distance.

  It was the Shellraiser.

  Leo hit the brakes and docked the bike inside.

  The van’s hydraulic hatch opened with a loud clanging sound. To the other Turtles’ surprise, Leo wasn’t the only one boarding the Shellraiser. Karai was right behind him.

  “We’re back!” Leo announced.

  A look of complete shock washed over Raph’s face. “You brought her inside?! Dude, she’ll see all our gear!”

  Looking around the inside of the Shellraiser, Karai didn’t even want to dignify that with a response. All she could see was recycled garbage and a glow-in-the-dark dessert cone. “Yeah, ’cause if Shredder finds out you have an ice cream lamp, it is over,” she mocked.

  The other Turtles were unsure how to react. They all looked to Leo.

  “Karai just risked her life to save us,” Leo argued. “She’s earned a little trust. Let’s hear her out.”

  “You’re the boss,” Raph grumbled, but he clearly wasn’t happy about it.

  Karai knew they had every reason not to trust her. An apology wouldn’t be enough. She needed to prove she was trustworthy.

  “You guys need my help. You really think you can shoot down an alien warship with garbage?” she said, pointing out the van’s trash-shooting cannon.

  Donnie piped up to defend his creation. “Compressed garbage!” he corrected her.

  “And manhole covers!” Mikey added.

  “My point is, to take out a ship like that, you need a real weapon,” Karai told them.

  Raph sneered. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  “What if I got you a shoulder-fired missile launcher?” Karai asked.

  Real military firepower? That got Raph’s attention. “I’m starting to like her,” he joked.

  Donnie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Unlike Raph, the promise of stuff blowing up wasn’t enough to sway him to Karai’s side. “Where are you going to get a shoulder-fired missile launcher?” he asked.

  “Shredder, of course,” she replied.

  Karai’s answer met an uncomfortable silence as the guys silently shivered at the mention of their archenemy’s name. The Shredder didn’t exactly seem like the giving type.

  Mikey spoke up first. “Uh, we are talking about the same Shredder, right? Big dude … lots of blades … really hates us?”

  “Yeah,” Raph agreed. “Something tells me he’s not going to share his toys with us.”

  “He won’t know about it,” Karai said. “He’s buying a big shipment of weapons down at the docks tomorrow night. All we need to do is sneak in and help ourselves.”

  Raph smirked. “Anyone else smell a trap?”

  Mikey raised his hand sheepishly. “Sorry, that was me,” he said, quickly waving away the air around his station.

  “Why would I trap you?” Karai asked. “You’re the only ones who know what the Kraang are really up to.”

  “True,” Donnie responded. “But … you don’t really have the best track record.”

  Karai glanced around the Shellraiser. The Turtles still weren’t convinced.

  “Fine,” Karai said, knowing there was only one thing left to do to prove she was more than her villainous
past. “I’ll get you the missile launcher myself,” she declared resolutely.

  Leo’s jaw nearly hit the floor. “You’re really willing to steal from Shredder?”

  “Look, these things have to be stopped. If Shredder’s not going to do anything about it, then I will,” she said defiantly.

  Leo locked eyes with her. She was serious. He looked to the other Turtles, each nodding approval of this new plan.

  “All right, here’s the deal,” Leo said. “You get us the missile launcher and we’ll team up.”

  Leo and Karai shook on it.

  An unlikely truce had begun.

  After returning home to the lair, the Turtles each found different ways to unwind. Donnie read magazines on the couch. Leo practiced his kata on the tackling dummy. Mikey and Raph played Space Heroes pinball.

  “I can’t believe we’re getting a missile launcher!” Mikey exclaimed. “What should we blow up first?”

  “Uh, the Kraang ship?” Raph flatly replied.

  “Oh, right! What should we blow up second?”

  Wham! Leo kicked the tackling dummy with all his might. Despite the relaxing vibe in the dojo, he seemed to be getting more and more anxious with every practice hit.

  “That’s if Karai can pull it off,” Leo said, hitting the dummy again with a one-two strike.

  Donnie watched Leo with dawning recognition. “Are you worried about your girlfriend?” he teased. He chuckled to himself, thankful to be the one dishing it out for a change, and then added, “I see why you guys do that now. It’s kinda fun.”

  Leo ignored that. His mind was focused on retrieving the missile launcher from the docks and the risks surrounding it.

  “It isn’t gonna be easy,” he said. “Shredder will be there, too.”

  “Hey … you’re right,” Raph said, putting the pieces together. “For once, we know where Shredder’s going to be ahead of time! Which means … we could set a trap for him!”