That weekend, April and Casey went out of town to spend some time together. Randall was downstairs and monitoring the shop. It was his job to do that when April was gone. She trusted him now more than ever.
The turtles came over and with Randall, overlooked what they were about to do to the basement wall. Donny had some digging equipment they were going to use. But a little bit of it might have to be blown up to get it started and all the way through to the sewers.
From a map that Don had, there was a tunnel in the sewers that was close to April's basement. It was abandoned, so it wouldn't cause trouble from anyone else's homes.
They went back into the sewers first, and blasted first and did some more digging through to the basement walls. Randall went in first to make sure it was April's. It was.
"Well, it's finally done." Randall gave a sigh of relief.
"Now we can come over a lot more!" Mike said excitedly.
"Just make sure to call first." Randall said to him firmly.
"I will, bro." Mike replied. He and the lizard high threed each other.
There was a big hole in the wall now, but it was worth it. Even April could come down through the sewers to visit her friends too, plus Casey, without having to use gas mileage on their van or motorcycle. This was going to come in handy.
April and Casey came down and looked at it when they got back from their trip and approved it.
…
Weeks later, Don was finally done with the new submarine. He had worked on it almost non-stop when he was home. And it was also when some ships in the harbor had started being destroyed mysteriously.
The big day finally came to announce its premiere, and what would be its maiden voyage. Don had invited Randall over for it since he had helped with it too. Mike and Randall had been the ones that helped Don the most with it. Don had done most of the work.
The six guys were standing by the water's edge. Mikey pulled a brown sheet off the new submarine. The carton of milk was tied up and ready to go to give the submarine a shine as Don threw it through the air and hit it, dubbing it.
"Gentleman, I christen thee with…" slap! "The Shell Sub!" Don said in a big, proud voice. The milk covered the front of the sub.
"It is amazing, my son." Splinter said thoughtfully. It was amazing what his smart son could dream up and create. "It makes one think of the giant sea turtle of Japanese mythology."
Everyone else just looked at it proudly. It was quite an invention that Donny had come up with to explore the river and some other underwater ways.
"It's time to take it on its maiden voyage." Don was about to lower the sub to the water, but then, Mikey jumped in the way. "Can I launch it?" Mikey asked excitedly.
"Careful, Mikey. If you put one scratch on it…" Don warned. Randall could understand Don's worry over it.
Laughing, Mikey pulled the lever and it lowered all too fast into the water, splashing them all. They all glared at Mikey.
"Thanks a lot, Mikey." Raph said with a glare.
Splinter was a drenched rat. "Just what I needed… another bath." Splinter said, and shook his head. The others gave him a little room. He began squeezing the water out of his kimono.
Mikey wanted to take the take the first ride in the sub. "Dibs on the first ride!" Then he jumped onto the sub, making it bob a bit. "First mate, Michelangelo. Dive! Dive! Torpedoes away!" He said excitedly and jumped down into the sub's entrance.
The others all looked on that that was going to be an issue. "Mikey's my first mate. Wish me luck." Don said worriedly. Then he jumped onto the sub and got inside to make sure Mikey wasn't going to mess something up. He just had so much childish enthusiasm for many things, which often got him in trouble.
After Don closed the hap, Raph said, "Luck is what he's gonna need taking Mikey along."
"He's just excited to see it in action." Randall said.
"We'll all get our chance." Leo said. "Let Mikey get his curiosity satisfied."
Then they saw the clasps on the sub be released and it went under the water.
"So, what do we do now?" Randall asked.
"I am going to go watch my soaps." Splinter said and walked to the TV area.
"Well, we could all work on some training until they come back." Leo said.
They all went to the workout area and began training. After some warm ups, Leo and Raph did some hand to hand tussling, testing each other's strength when one charged the other when they would catch their opponent and toss them over their heads. Randall would never be strong enough for that.
Then they moved on to include Randall in when they did something similar, but they both tried to tag team on Randall to see what he was capable of to improve his skills some more, should he ever be charged by two enemies at the same time.
Randall was in the middle and watching Leo and Raph circle him. He was watching for their move. Leo nodded to Raph, and they both charged for him.
Randall grinned smugly. He vanished and got down on all eights and moved out of the way, thus making Leo and Raph yell out in surprise and crashed into each other. They both fell back onto their shells.
The lizard reappeared, laughing.
"You won't always be able to do that, Randall." Leo scolded, rubbing his head.
"You'll be lucky if you don't ever lose that ability." Raph said grumpily. He fell for that trick all the time.
"I wouldn't count on it." Randall said.
"Let's end this right here, before they get back. Raph, how about some weight lifting?" Leo suggested.
"I'd rather do that." Raph agreed.
The two turtles got up and went over to the weight lifter. Randall came over too.
Raphael laid down on the bed of it and took the bar off of it and began to lift fifty pounds. Leo counted how many he did. Randall got bored of it and went to join Splinter instead.
Randall wasn't the biggest soap opera watcher, but he would watch some on occasion.
After one hour and no sign of Don and Mikey, there was some concern starting to rise.
Two hours later, there were some bubbles finally appearing in the water. Then, it finally surfaced. Leo and Raph looked over. So did Splinter and Randall. The rat and lizard stood up and went over to the edge of the TV area.
The hatch immediately opened up. Don pushed it clear off. Both he and Mikey climbed out, happy to finally be home.
Leo and Raph walked over first. "It's about time you surfaced. We were getting worried." Leo said.
Raph noticed some big clamps on the front of the sub. "Whoa! What happened?"
"Long story, guys. A real, long story." Don said. Then he leaned over the front, wondering how he was going to fix the damage.
Randall and Splinter then made their way over. They were just as surprised by what those clamps were. "Then proceed to tell us, Donatello." Splinter said.
"Yeah, what did this to the sub?" Randall asked curiously.
"You guys remember how we told you about the Garbageman? How he was dumped into the river?" Don asked.
"Yeah." Leo said.
"It was him that attacked us." Mikey said next.
"We were exploring the river and it was amazing. Then we oddly saw a car on the river bottom and it was salvaging parts from a ship. We followed it back to a place that had been made underwater, and we got picked up by a moving fish-like machine." Don explained.
"And it turned out all it was the Garbageman who had us taken aboard his fish machine. Like Bishop, he wanted to dissect us! We were taken to the jail area and got some suits away from the armed guards. We heard what he was going to do: attack a cruise ship for its parts, and we put a stop to him." Mikey added.
"He came after us and tried to kill us, but we stopped him." Don finished.
"All I can say is, I'm happy to be home right now. I didn't know if we were going to get out of there alive." Mikey said.
"We would have come looking for you if you hadn't surfaced soon." Leo said.
"It's not like you guys have another submarine." Randall brought up.
"Us turtles can hold our breath for awhile and swim good." Raph said.
"I've never had to swim for long." Randall said.
"What matters is that you are home safe now." Splinter said.
The turtles and Randall couldn't agree more.
Mikey just wanted to go relax on the couch for right now. Don and Randall got to work on the sub. Don showed Randall what damage had been done to it.
Aside from the Garbageman's clamps on the front of the sub, there were cracks in the walls that would need fixing where it had been hit. And they would have to remove the clamps.
Randall had been told of this big, disgusting excuse of a human who was so fat that he had to rely on robot machinery to just get around. From the way it sounded, this was a toxic human.
Randall wasn't much of a swimmer, but could be when he had the chance.
Leo and Raph went into the kitchen for a snack now that their brothers were back. Splinter decided it was time for him to go to bed.
Don and Randall worked long into the morning hours until Randall began to get tired. "How about we stop for right now and get some sleep, Don?" Randall suggested.
At those words, Don couldn't help but yawn. "It has been a long night. So, yeah. We can resume later." Don said.
They put the tools away to go to bed. Everyone else had gone to bed hours ago.
Don went to his room, and Randall went to the mattress that was there in the living room just for him when he slept over. They were both asleep almost the instant they hit the pillows.
In the days that followed, Don managed to remove the clamps on his submarine with cutting the metal into parts with his wielder and a saw. Then he set about making repairs to the walls of the sub. Randall helped as needed.
Don wasn't going to let the Garbageman interfering on the maiden voyage keep him from going out to explore the river in the sub. It was just a minor setback. It was going to have another maiden voyage that would not have that gross slob in it later after its repairs were completed.
The word up above 'slap!' made me laugh when I when I wrote it! I still can't stop laughing when I see it!
