Lair Explorations
Donatello's heart beat faster as the Kraang ship began his descent towards the planet that was the Kraang headquarters. He had managed to explain the key features of his plan to Casey, who had whistled his appreciation. Or his incredulity, Donatello didn't know for sure.
Nevertheless, Donatello was happy to have an audience.
Several minutes later - an excruciating long time - the Kraang ship landed. Donatello and Casey waited to see if someone would meet them, but nobody came.
His pupils white and his hands firmly grabbing his bō staff, Donatello silently asked Casey to open the door. His ally did so with a grim expression, ready for everything.
It wasn't necessary. Nobody waited for them at the door, although they knew the access to the headquarters was monitored. Was it an elaborate trap?
Donatello risked a glance out of the ship. The crazy landscapes of Dimension X were deserted. Donatello dared to take a few steps in the open, and still nothing happened.
"Where did they all go?" Casey whispered.
Donatello shrugged. "I don't know. Let's find out."
All around them, several towers suggested entry points to an underground complex. After a last look at their surroundings, Donatello and Casey came back inside the ship to dislodge the chamber containing the frozen Kraang Subprime. Carrying it, Donatello and Casey made their way to the closest tower.
The Utroms' lair was nothing like Michelangelo had imagined. It wasn't brimming with mad scientists and their gadgets, or flashing with pink lights. In fact, lighting was a light and relaxing blue, and except for them, the corridors were empty.
It felt… boring.
There was one bright side, though. This lair was situated inside Dimension X, Michelangelo felt it. And Dimension X meant…
"Mikey!"
Raphael sounded half-resigned and half-exasperated, which meant that Michelangelo had pulled off exactly what he wanted to.
"Savage Mikey salutes you, turtle of the Earth," he said, extending his arms so everyone could admire his favorite Dimension X-outfit.
Bishop, who was guiding them through the complex, spared him a glance and immediately raised an inquiring eyebrow. Savage Mikey beamed at him.
"Don't ask," Leonardo advised him.
Bishop didn't comment. He kept walking until they arrived at a door guarded by Utrom-droids - Savage Mikey thought that they looked too much like Kraangdroids to his taste, he would have to put a word in for them with Bishop, there was room for improvement - and knocked thrice.
The door opened. Inside, a council of three people was waiting for them behind a circular table.
One of the council members was a Utrom Droid, another looked just like the old lady that had almost killed April once, and the third…
It was Irma.
"Back off!" Raphael shouted.
Before Raphael could do anything more, though, Bishop had grabbed his shoulders and paralyzed him. Mikey might have been surprised by the move, but Savage Mikey knew better. It was obvious that this Irma wasn't their Irma. He could have told Raphael, of course, but Raphael likely wouldn't have listened.
"Do not worry. This is not Kraang Subprime," Bishop said. He adjusted his sunglasses and took a solemn expression.
Or at least, a more solemn expression than usual. It wasn't always easy to say, with these droids.
"Meet Queen. Rook. And Pawn," Bishop told them.
The council member who was Rook and not Irma spoke. "I understand your surprise, turtles. You must know that the Traitor stole my idea and used it for his own evil plans, like he did with much of Utrom technology." She sighed.
"So we've been told," Raphael muttered. "You really should make a better job of watching it."
Leonardo nudged him.
"It is an honor to meet you." Splinter bowed his head.
Savage Mikey didn't like the fact that his father put a lot of weight on his cane for support.
"We're looking for my son. Have you seen him?"
Rook shook her head. "Bishop forewarned us. No, we didn't see him, but we'll keep an eye out for him. However, I'm afraid you're coming at the wrong time. The Kraang are about to launch a full attack against us."
"Can they find you in there?" Leonardo asked anxiously.
This time, the old lady - Queen - answered. "I'm afraid they can. It's a matter of hours before they breach our last defenses."
"Sooo…" Leonardo watched them expectantly. "What's your plan?"
"All-out war," Bishop said with great solemnity. He pushed a button and fifteen Utrom droids entered the room martially.
Savage Mikey wondered whether it was the entirety of the war force of the Utroms. If so, he could foresee a few problems.
"Are you going to use your mixture on the Kraang? Do you have enough?" he asked, hoping that they had at least this working for them.
Rook cleared her robotic throat. "We can spread it across hundredth of squared meters."
"What size is that?" Raphael whispered to Leonardo.
"The size of a big warehouse, maybe?" Leonardo answered in kind.
"That won't get them very far. Ouch! Leo, what was that for?"
Raphael glared at the brother who had just nudged him for the second time, harder. Savage Mikey smiled.
Bishop intertwined his fingers. "We are aware of this… inconvenient, turtles. But we must not despair."
Savage Mikey watched him pensively. "Could you lend us a ship? We need to go looking for our brother and our friend."
It didn't escape Savage Mikey's notice that Splinter, his father, was barely managing to hide his surprise. It was a very satisfying feeling.
Bishop shook his head. "I'm sorry, turtles. We've too little ships to spare one now. But," he added, pushing his glasses up his nose, "once we'll have won, we'll gladly help you in your search!"
"Yeah," Leonardo and Savage Mikey both said.
Bishop dusted his suit, obviously embarrassed.
"In the meantime, make yourselves at ease. You're our guests."
"We're sorry we can't do more for your friends," Queen added. "But at least we can offer our help in another department. We know that some of you have been hurt." She looked at Splinter and Raphael. "Please allow us to accelerate your healing."
"We are grateful for your kind offer," Splinter said.
Savage Mikey nodded. At least their stay here wouldn't be a complete waste of time.
If he could have chosen his partner for a very stealthy mission, Donatello wouldn't have picked Casey Jones. The teenage boy was breathing too noisily and his footsteps resonated against the ground, at least to Donatello's delicate ear.
Luckily, they still hadn't met anybody.
All in all, it was going pretty well. Arriving to the tower had been a bigger challenge than expected, mostly because the physics of that Dimension made zero sense to anybody gifted with reason.
But they had managed it, thanks to Casey stumbling in what looked like a dried pool, which had propelled them inside the most distant tower.
Of course, Casey had pretended that he had planned it all along.
Now they were rolling the chamber containing the frozen Kraang Subprime in front of them as delicately as they could - for considerations of silence and stealth and not because they cared about him, it went without saying. The corridors were deserted, but Donatello kept vigilant for any possible Kraang.
It was beginning to worry him. Where had the aliens disappeared?
Finding their way through the maze was another problem. Donatello indicated directions at random, hoping that if he looked knowledgeable enough Casey wouldn't question it. Of course, he had no idea where he was going.
When one of the corridors ended in front of a metallic door, Donatello barely hesitated before pushing it - he had a pretense to keep.
It wasn't latched and they entered another deserted room. It looked like a laboratory of some sort, with metallic beds and tanks filled with suspicious liquids. Donatello tensed.
"I have a bad feeling about this place, Donnie," Casey whispered nervously. "Let's get out!"
But Donatello's attention had been attracted by a row of computers, or at least he assumed they were computers.
"Just a quick glance," he answered, unable to resist.
He was beginning to develop a certain expertise in deciphering Kraang computer codes, and it wasn't long before he accessed the data he was so eager to see.
He clicked on one of the files and immediately regretted it. There, on the screen of one of his computers, his brother was being implanted with a bomb in high definition.
"Oh, gross!" Casey shouted.
The images of Raphael lying on a table of the very laboratory Casey and Donatello were in, with Kraang bent all over him, were sickening. Donatello quickly closed the file as the syringe made its way through his brother's shoulder, remembering how Irma had described the process to convince him that she was telling the truth, a lifetime ago. Or was it only weeks?
Donatello clicked on another file and watched the screen with a grim expression. The setting was familiar to him.
"Are these your sewers?" Casey asked.
"Obviously we've found Irma's footage."
Donatello tried to sound exasperated at Casey's slow thinking process while what he really wanted to do was throw up in a corner of the room. Especially when the film showed Raphael running through the sewers and suddenly falling unconscious on the ground.
"Irma… I thought she might have used gas," Donatello said, trying to keep his voice steady.
"That wretched alien!" Casey spat in disgust.
Donatello suddenly didn't want to learn more. Imagining his brother in this place, at the mercy of their enemies… With the medical equipment he could see, and the metallic beds, and they, his family, didn't came to rescue him… They hadn't even known…
"Let's go," he whispered.
Casey nodded and pushed a door. He must have been as upset as Donatello, though, because he apparently hadn't noticed that it wasn't the entrance door, but a closet.
Donatello hesitated for maybe half a second before stating the obvious. "It's a closet, Casey. It won't get us anyw-"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"
"Casey!" Donatello ran to the closet, too late.
Casey had disappeared.
Donatello carefully bent forwards to look inside the closet… and found himself attracted to what was apparently the ground.
One second later, he wasn't in the laboratory anymore.
April wandered in the Utrom headquarters, hands in her pockets. She needed to think. She had a strange feeling, as if the Utroms were hiding something from her. But what would there be to hide?
She let her instinct guide her. The place wasn't that big - like the Utrom council had finally admitted, there weren't many of them left.
After a while, she arrived at a door that looked like it was waiting for her, if Utrom doors could wait for almost human teenage girls.
It was closed. April frowned, focused, and the door opened with a soft click. She entered the space behind it with determination.
From what she could guess, it was a hallway circling around the main room. Pictures of Utroms were hanging on the walls on both sides. April raised an eyebrow, wondering whether she had found an art gallery or something.
But the notes below the pictures, written in several languages including English, quickly disabused her.
This gallery was dedicated to the memory of every Utrom having fallen in the war against the Kraang.
April felt a lump in her throat. There were thousands of them.
So many deaths.
As if in a trance, she slowly walked forwards. All the Utroms looked the same to her, with a few exceptions - some of them had scars or tattoos, and even a few piercings.
She was beginning to realize why Leonardo and Michelangelo had looked so lukewarm about Bishop's proposition to help them after the war.
The Utroms weren't losing the war, they had already lost. They must have survived only because they had hidden from the Kraang, and now… now the Kraang had found them.
An immense sadness fell upon April.
The Utrom's last hope as a species was to free as many Kraang as they could from Kraang Prime's domination, but from what Rook had said, they absolutely didn't have enough mixture to save their brethren across the entire Dimension X.
April took a deep sigh. As depressing as this was, it wasn't directly concerning her. She didn't understand why her instinct had guided her there…
Then she came across a picture that wasn't showing a Utrom. The person on it was human; a woman, to be precise.
And April knew that woman, with all her heart.
It was her mother.
"She was very courageous," a soft voice said behind her.
April recognized Rook, but she couldn't answer her. Her whole body was frozen.
"She helped us a lot," the Utrom went on. "We rescued her from the Kraang and she chose to stay with us. She said she wanted a safer world for her daughter and husband…"
"How…" April fought her tears. Rook was talking about her mother in the past tense, which could only mean one thing.
Rook immediately understood. "An ambush. It was quick, she didn't have the time to suffer."
April nodded.
Her mother had known the Utroms. She had fought with them. She hadn't come back to her family but chosen to help them in their fight…
April's emotions were so mixed up right now that she didn't know whether what she felt was sorrow, pain, or anger.
"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell my father?" she almost shouted. "We had the right to know!"
Rook hung her head in sadness. "Your mother… she was concerned that you would be dragged in our war too. She didn't want that."
April wiped her tears angrily. Leonardo and Michelangelo - still in his weird disguise - were running towards her, attracted by the noise.
"April! What's wrong?"
"Everything," she whispered to them. "Everything."
Donatello pushed Casey's butt to take a better look at the place he had landed. Apparently, they were both hiding in the ceiling of a very large room. How the closet could have led them there was a mystery to him. Maybe Mikey would have understood it, but his rational mind had a hard time with the mad physics of this place.
What he saw made him wince, and he immediately understood why Casey hadn't protested at being jostled.
It looked like every Kraang in the headquarters had gathered in this giant room. Row after row of Kraang Droids, dozens of Kraang ships, and icing in the cake, the big, pink, sickening shape of Kraang Prime stood below them. Kraang Prime must have been in the middle of a speech of some sort, because the Kraang were clapping their hands and tapping their feet, efficiently covering any noise Donatello and Casey could make.
"So, Donnie," Casey whispered casually. "How are you feeling these days?"
Donatello narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What do you mean?"
Casey cleared his throat. "Well, you know, I don't want to be offensive or anything, but…"
"But?"
"Uh… are you sure you can fight?"
Now Donatello was straight out glaring. "Didn't you see it?"
Casey extended his hands in a gesture of peace. "I mean, you're still recovering, right?"
Donatello grimaced. If he was being entirely honest with himself, he wasn't exactly in top shape. He might, in fact, not be in top shape at all. Really, really not at all.
"Well. Let's just hope we won't have to fight too much," he eluded.
Casey watched him with a dubious expression. "If you say so, Donnie."
"So." Donatello took a deep breath. He was annoyed that they had left Kraang Subprime in the laboratory, but he was still determined to carry out his plan. "Are you ready?"
"Casey Jones is born ready." Casey winked at him.
Donatello both snorted and smiled. Then, pipe by pipe and followed by Casey, he crawled to the gigantic Kraang Prime.
Splinter watched his reduced family, not showing how worried he was for them all. He had to remember that they could take care of themselves. He himself was feeling much better thanks to the Utrom medicine, but he wasn't back to his old self yet.
April especially impressed him. She seemed shocked, as was only natural after the last revelation - Splinter definitely intended to talk with her later, to let her know he was there for her - but she remained calm and determined.
For now, the Utrom council had called them in emergency to their room. Splinter grabbed his cane tightly and waited for what would probably be bad news.
Again.
"We've managed to get access to the video surveillance system of the Kraang," Bishop was saying. "We thought…" He hesitated, which was very unusual for him. "We thought you would want to see this."
Bishop stepped on the side to let them have a better look at the monitor behind him.
On this monitor, Donatello - his clever son, his precious baby - and Casey Jones were facing Kraang Prime in the middle of a room filled to the brim with Kraang droids and Kraang weapons.
They were apparently in a deep conversation with their sworn enemy.
Splinter's heart skipped several heartbeats. His boys were going to be the end of him, it was only a matter of time.
"Is that… Donnie?" Raphael asked, incredulous. " With Casey?"
"At least they're together," Michelangelo said.
Splinter had never seen him so calm and focused. It was almost as if he was an entirely different person in this alien dimension.
"What the heck do they think they're doing?" Leonardo almost shouted.
Splinter didn't correct his son's language, too busy wondering the exact same thing.
"It looks like your brother is …negotiating, perhaps?" Bishop said, his tone clearly indicating how bad an idea he considered it.
"With Kraang Prime. I knew it. I knew he was going to lose this crazy mind of his some day," Raphael said in a strangled voice, summing up what everybody else thought.
