Karai could tell the little Kraang was annoying her father. And she thought it was funny. “You didn’t have any other plans for today, did you?” She smirked.
“Let’s try this again,” Shredder growled. Then, in a frightening show of force, he shot out his arm blade—and held it up to the Kraang’s eyeball.
“Why were you hunting the Turtles?” Shredder snarled.
The little brain blob cowered in terror as it spoke through the droid: “The ones known as the Turtles are protecting the life-form needed by Kraang, the one known as April O’Neil.”
Shredder paused. Who?
“Who is this April O’Neil?” he barked.
“She is the one known as the one. She is the link which is missing in the plan, which is the plan of Kraang.”
“So this April O’Neil is at the center of everything,” Karai said.
“Then perhaps we can use her to draw the Turtles out of hiding,” Shredder replied. And with that, a new evil plan was set in motion. “Karai, find this girl and bring her to me.”
While Shredder was talking to the Kraang, deep underground in the sewers, the Turtles were trash-talking each other!
It was a ninja sparring exercise with everyone partnering up: Master Splinter with April, his kunoichi -in-training; Leo with Donnie; and finally, Raph with Mikey.
Though it certainly wasn’t traditional ninjutsu, talking smack was allowed—a fact that was not lost on Raph, who was trying to taunt Mikey into making the first move. “Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do?” he scoffed, readying his sais for a surprise attack.
Mikey stepped back, hesitating—and Raph leaped through the air for his trademark nose-dive tackle. It looked to be a direct hit …
… until Mikey seized an opportunity at the last second. Falling backward, he caught Raph with his feet and flipped him over.
It was a ninjutsu stroke of genius. And Mikey knew it!
“Booyakasha! You got faced!” he told Raph. And then he held up his hands, pretending to play an instrument. “Thought you had me, but I played you like a trombone. Waah-waaaaaah!”
Raph didn’t take Mikey’s celebrating lightly. His face twisted into an angry knot before he lunged at Mikey and wrapped him in a bear hug.
“Playtime’s over, tough guy!” Raph said, squeezing harder.
“Put me down!” Mikey pleaded. “Uncle!”
“I don’t see you tapping out,” Raph said.
“Can’t … move … my … arms,” Mikey wheezed.
“Then tap your horrible middle toe.”
Against his will, Mikey wiggled his toe, and Raph put him down.
Mikey looked down at his middle toe apologetically. “Don’t worry, Stubby,” he whispered. “You’re not as horrible as he says.”
“Michelangelo!” Master Splinter called from the back of the dojo. “Why did you give up so easily?”
“There was nothing I could do,” he replied.
“There is always something you can do. Observe.”
Splinter approached Raphael, saying “Kannuki jime,” Japanese for “Attack me from behind.”
A nervous look crossed Raph’s face. Whenever their wise sensei began a demonstration with that phrase, it usually meant pain was soon to follow. April and the other Turtles gathered around to watch.
With a gulp, Raph wrapped his arms around Master Splinter and lifted him off the floor.
“The key is to unbalance your opponent,” Master Splinter instructed.
“But how?” Mikey asked.
“However you can. For example—”
At that exact moment, their sensei did the unthinkable: he licked Raph on the head! Instantly grossed out, Raph dropped him—which Master Splinter used as an opportunity to smack Raph to the floor with a swift flick of his rat tail.
“You see?” he asked the group. “There is always a way.” He took a brief pause, then spat, clearly disgusted by the aftertaste on his tongue.
“And you need to take a bath,” he added, pointing at Raphael.
Raph had been hoping to kick his night off with an intense video-game marathon. But Leo got to the television first, which meant they were all forced to sit back and endure another episode of his favorite TV show, Space Heroes.
So Raph and Mikey munched mindlessly on a pizza as Leo sat up front, entranced by the action-packed scene on screen: A landing party of intergalactic explorers was under attack by a Martian beast, but Captain Ryan, the show’s main character, refused to step in and save them. He believed his crew would never learn to take care of themselves if they always relied on him to rescue them after every mission.
Leo could definitely relate to that.
Just as the episode was about to launch into its final scene, the Turtles heard a voice from the back of the lair.
“Hey, guys!” It was Donnie, peeking out from the shadows of his secret lab. “Guess what April and I have been up to?” he said with a shy smile.
Leo, Raph, and Mikey stared back in silence.
“Analyzing sewage!” Donnie announced.
“Who says you don’t know how to show a girl a good time?” Raph smugly replied.
Donnie ignored Raphael and led them all back to his subterranean laboratory, where April waited under the overhead lights with a beaker of bluish liquid.
“April and I were going through some files on the Kraang storage device,” Donnie explained, nodding toward the alien object they’d recovered a few weeks ago from T.C.R.I. “We found out they’re using a special process to change Earth’s water into … Kraang water.”
“They’ve already started the process,” April added. “We found a low concentration of Kraang chemicals in the sewage.”
Raph was trying to follow, but it was all techno-babble to him. “I take it that’s a bad thing?” he asked.
Donnie decided it was time to demonstrate. He pulled out a piece of pizza he’d pilfered from the living room and held it over the cloudy liquid. “Watch what happens when I dip this slice of Mikey’s shrimp and sardine pizza into pure Kraang water.”
Mikey watched in horror as the alien fluid destroyed his slice of pizza, dissolving it into greenish goo. He screamed at Donnie, “How do you sleep at night?!”
Donnie ignored Mikey. “Presently, there’s only a tiny bit in the water supply, but the concentration is increasing. Which means—”
“Every slice of pizza in New York will be destroyed?!” Mikey exclaimed.
“Along with anyone who uses water.” April told him.
“I don’t want to live in a world without pizza!” Mikey cried, slamming his hands down on the table, which accidentally knocked the test beaker over! The acidic blue liquid inside splashed up into the air like a geyser.
“April, look out!” Donnie cried.
April tried to move out of the way. But the Kraang water sloshed onto her arm.
The Turtles sprang to her aid, expecting the worst. A million thoughts were running through their heads at once: Would she mutate? Would her arm melt off?
April winced, bracing for a horrible burning sensation unlike any in the known universe—
But the pain never came. She opened her eyes. The mysterious Kraang water simply rolled off her forearm, leaving only a harmless, bright blue stain on her sleeve. Nothing hurt. She was fine. April and the Turtles all breathed a sigh of relief.
Except Donnie.
He was grateful, of course, but seriously perplexed. Judging by the tests, that liquid should have eaten right through her skin. But April didn’t have a scratch on her—as if she was somehow immune.
“Nothing happened to you?” Donnie asked in amazement.
Mikey tried to offer a reasonable explanation. “Maybe it’s because she’s not made of pizza.”
A beep-beep-beep startled the group back into the moment. On one of Donnie’s Kraang trackers, a homing beacon was flashing on a digital map screen.
“Look! It’s the scanners located at the Kraang facility transforming the water supply! Whi
ch is right here!” Donnie exclaimed, pointing out a highlighted area on-screen. “We gotta stop it!”
“Looks like we’ve got a mission,” Leo announced. “You coming, April?”
“Sounds like a blast, but unfortunately …,” April began, noticing the beacon’s unusual location on the map, “… it’s on the bottom of the East River. And equally unfortunate, I have an essay due.”
She grabbed her book bag. “Plus, I wouldn’t mind a little human food,” she added.
“Pizza’s human food!” Mikey argued.
“Not the way you eat it,” she responded, starting to make her way out of the lab.
“Whoa, you’re going topside?” Donnie asked with a hint of concern. “You’re bringing your T-Phone, right?”
“Donnie, don’t worry. I’ll be fine,” April said, trying her best to appear confident to the guys. But deep down inside, she felt shaken up, almost … unnatural. She looked down at the alien stain on her sleeve, realizing she had a lot to think about. Alone.
“So, Donnie,” Leo said as Donnie watched her leave the lab. “How are we gonna get out there?”
A mischievous smile crossed Donnie’s face. “Don’t worry, guys. I’ve been working on something that is pretty awesome.”
Soon after, the Turtles found themselves on wheels—just not the kind they were expecting.
“This … is not … awesome!” Raph moaned.
He and his brothers were all working up a sweat, pedaling exercise bikes to help propel Donnie’s latest and greatest creation: the Turtle Sub! The submarine, designed to look like a giant sea turtle on the outside, creaked under the pressure of the East River as they piloted it thirty feet below the surface.
“Seriously, Donnie?” Leo said, huffing as he pedaled. “A submarine powered by bicycles?”
“You know what would have been more efficient?” Raph asked, straining. “Swimming!”
“Hey, pipe down, guys!” Donnie was clearly insulted. “Kinetic energy is the only way to charge the engines,” he explained. And then, reaching up to a console of switches, he added, “Which should be done right about now!”
With the push of a button, the Turtle Sub’s engines suddenly hummed to life. The Turtles, spent and exhausted from their marathon of pedaling, sat back to recover and catch their breath.
Except Donnie. He was at the helm, steering the armored Sub through the murky depths toward a Kraang signal he’d been tracking.
After a few moments, Leo gathered whatever leftover strength he had and dismounted from the bike. “We’re almost there,” he said gratefully. He collected himself and took the role of captain. “Up, periscope!” he commanded.
A ramshackle periscope, constructed from camera parts and an old toilet seat, swung down from the rafters. Leo winced at the stains caked on it. He did not want to put his face on that.
Unfortunately, it was the only periscope on board.
With a scowl, he leaned in, careful not to touch the toilet parts. He looked through the viewer at the underwater scenery ahead.
The East River was a mysterious mix of moving light and shadows.
Well, one very big shadow—a misshapen form that disappeared and reappeared, circling the Sub. It moved quickly, scissoring the water with what looked like a pronged tail.
“Uh, Donnie?” Leo called from the periscope. “Any chance this Kraang facility looks like a giant sea mutant?”
Donnie looked through a porthole and saw the creature for himself. “Oh, that’s not a mutant,” he said flatly. “Based on his physiology, I’d say the Kraang brought him here from Dimension X.”
Leo shuddered. Another alien?
“How is that less horrifying?” he asked.
“It’s not,” Donnie replied nonchalantly. “I just like to be accurate.”
Raph stepped up to the periscope to see this beast for himself. It looked like an underwater dinosaur, with its long serpentlike tail, massive stomach, elongated neck, and tiny head that flashed rows and rows of sharp fangs.
“Well, whatever it is, it looks like it’s guarding that,” Raph said, nodding to a strange domed structure anchored to the seafloor.
Raph had spotted the Kraang’s underwater facility!
Inside the Turtle Sub, Leo turned back to his brothers. If they wanted to infiltrate the facility, they’d have to sneak by that giant beast.
“Let’s go stealth,” Leo commanded.
At nearly a hundred feet below the water, the Turtles deactivated every light on the Turtle Sub. The hull around them was cast into complete darkness.
They were swimming blind.
While the Turtles were searching for a way into the Kraang’s underwater base, April was up on the street, looking for something just as important: a nice hot meal. She also needed to take her mind off what had happened earlier. After all, it wasn’t every day that a girl got exposed to a lethal alien concoction and walked away without a mark on her.
What’s wrong with me? she wondered.
April hoped that a familiar face and some good food would be enough to make her feel normal again. She headed to Mr. Murakami’s Noodle Shop, but she was surprised by what she found there. Outside the front door stood a strange new vending machine that was covered with buttons marked by words in a foreign language.
“What is this thing?” April wondered, inching forward for a closer look.
“Oh, that’s how you order. They have these in Tokyo,” a voice said from behind her.
April turned, looking up to see a punk-rock Japanese girl about her age stepping out of the shadows. She inserted a coin into the bizarre machine and pushed a button. Clunk. A token popped out.
“You give this to the chef,” the mysterious girl told her.
“Oh, thanks,” April replied. She followed the girl’s instruction and made her selection.
“Mind if I join you?” the mysterious girl asked.
April paused for a moment. She was already having a strange day, so why not do something out of the ordinary and have dinner with a total stranger?
“Sure! Why not?” April said, opening the old wooden door of her favorite restaurant.
Inside, Mr. Murakami stirred a fresh, steaming hot pot of noodles. He was an excellent chef. He also happened to be blind, but that didn’t slow him down for a minute.
“Hi, Murakami- san,” April said.
Mr. Murakami recognized April’s voice instantly and turned to greet her with a smile.
“April- chan! How are you?”
April handed Murakami her food token. He felt the round piece of wood, reading its symbols with his fingers.
“Ah, pizza gyoza …,” Murakami said.
“Hai! Chou ishi!” April answered. This was Japanese for “Yes! Delicious!”
“Oh, you speak Japanese?” the mysterious girl asked with surprise.
“I picked up a few words from—”
April paused abruptly midsentence. She was about to say “the Turtles.” But knowing how weird that would sound to her new friend, she twisted the truth and finished her thought: “… my brothers.”
“Brothers?” the girl said. “Tell me about them.”
“Oh, you know—” April stumbled, trying to think of a way to describe them that wouldn’t sound like total insanity to a normal, everyday person. “They’re just crazy—”
“Real animals,” the mysterious girl said with a smile.
“Pretty much,” April replied, giggling to herself.
“Although,” the mysterious girl said, switching gears, “I never heard of pizza gyoza back in Tokyo.”
“That’s because Murakami invented it. You should try one.”
“Sounds great. You should try some of mine.”
“Done.”
The mysterious girl handed her food token to Murakami. He flinched when he felt the order. It was a dish he didn’t want to prepare.
“So, what’s your name?” the mysterious girl asked.
“I’m April.”
“My
name’s … Harmony.”
April smiled. And “Harmony” smiled back, knowing that April had no idea who she really was.
Under the waves of the East River, the Turtles were no closer to the Kraang’s facility. But the sea monster was getting very close to them!
The creature swam up within striking distance of the Sub, licking its lips like it was looking at its dinner.
It was time for Plan B: deepwater distraction!
Donnie flipped a switch and FLOOOOM! He fired a high-powered flare into the depths.
As if on cue, the sea monster forgot about the Sub and swam after the twinkling light like an overactive puppy playing fetch. The coast was clear! The Turtle Sub charted a direct course for the Kraang’s facility.
The Turtles saw a suction pipe begin to siphon water at an alarming rate.
“We gotta get in there before that sea monster comes back,” Leo said, looking through the periscope.
Leo kept his eyes on that suction pipe and formulated a plan to sneak in.
The Turtle Sub descended to the seafloor and hovered just above a pile of rocks. Donnie manned the Sub’s main controls, waiting for Leo to give him the signal. When he did, Donnie lowered the Sub’s neck, opening its “mouth,” which was actually an iron hatch door, and skillfully picked up one of the rocks with it.
He transported the boulder up to the Kraang’s suction pipe and flung it in with a mighty swing! Moments later, it was sucked up into the water spout, jamming the pipe.
Inside, the base shook underfoot like an earthquake. Malfunction alerts lit up every screen. It was clear that something was very wrong.
“Kraang,” said one droid to another, “there is a blockage which is preventing the flow of that which has been blocked.”
“Kraang must come with Kraang to dislodge the blockage that needs dislodging,” the other droid replied.
The droids approached a reentry pool—a small oasis in the middle of the room that was a direct doorway to the river—and jumped in.
The pair of Kraang-droids propelled themselves over to the vacuum ports and began the daunting task of unblocking the main suction pipe. They tugged and tugged, trying to loosen the rock—completely unaware that the Turtles were on the other side of the base, sneaking in.
The Crime Fighter Collection Page 14