Chapter 3
He shoots, he scores!
"What is taking so long?" groused Raphael, folding his arms and leaning back against the wall. It felt like hours since Leonardo had crept forward to scout out what lay ahead. Though rationally Raph knew that only a few minutes had passed.
Nearby, April and Casey were having a whispered discussion that sounded suspiciously like the former berating the latter for failing to complete a school project, while Mikey was engrossed with and tapping away at some game on his T-phone.
"He's got two more minutes." Raph decided aloud, "Then I'm going in."
No-one seemed to be listening. Raph grunted in frustration, then plucked the de-mutated Donatello from his shoulder and peered at him. The turtle stared back, dark eyes unblinking.
"Bet you're getting pretty fed up being stuck like that." Raph commented, his expression softening marginally. "Don't worry. We'll turn you back."
"Though at least now you're not harping on about dorky stuff." he observed, twitching his hand out of the way as the turtle took a snap at it.
The turtle glared at him for a moment, then chirped insistently.
"I have no idea what you-" Raph started, before frowning, "Wait. Say that again?"
The turtle repeated the last squeak.
"Something… About the mutagen?" Raph guessed. From the excited response, it seemed he was on the right track.
"Important… Mutagen… Don't touch…" he slowly interpreted. "Well, duh! We know not to touch it. We just need it to touch you."
There came a series of animated squeaks and chirrups from the de-mutated turtle.
Raph listened intently, his gaze searching his brother's expression and body language. "There's, something else?"
"Something… Important. We need to… We need to…"
But before Raphael could decipher Donnie's incoherent words, there came the soft thump of Leo dropping into the midst of the group.
"Ok, the coast is clear." he said. "Stockman's just stepped out. Let's go!"
"Sorry, Donnie. It's gonna have to wait." Raph said, pushing the turtle back onto his shoulder. Around him, Mikey, Casey and April also readied themselves for action.
Following Leo, they crept in one by one via a dislodged panel and descended into Stockman's subterranean laboratory. Dropping onto the top level, they gazed down into the dimly lit lab. As expected, at the centre was the large, bulbous, mutation machine. At present it wasn't filled with mutagen, but connecting pipes leading into the boxed central pillar suggested that it could be.
Around the sides of the room, most of the cages where the fly mutant scientist kept his experiments were, mercifully, devoid of any living creatures. Instead, they were open and contained piles of broken electronic parts, mostly from Foot-bots and Kraang-bots. Others had boxes of mass purchased mechanical components, some had ranks of inactive Foot-bots and a few had large sealed crates that were easily big enough to hold an intact humanoid robot.
"Looks like Shred-head's planning on rebuilding his robot army." deduced Mikey.
Raphael cracked his knuckles. "Then let's shut them down!"
"We're here to fix Donnie." Leonardo reminded, before shrugging. "But once we've done that, then yeah. Go wild."
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" exclaimed Casey.
Raph grinned at Leo. "Never thought I'd hear that from you."
Leo smirked back, then cast his measured gaze over the room. "Right. Let's get down to the console and see if we can get some mutagen."
They all jumped down the different levels, leaping from platform to platform, before converging at the desk. The surface flickered with lights and was covered with inviting buttons and levers.
Mikey immediately snaked a hand out, but Raphael was quick enough to bat it away before he could touch any of the buttons and, inevitably, sound the alarm.
"Uh, right." Leo said, staring at the panel. "So, how do we activate this thing?"
"Donnie would know." Mikey offered.
"Not helping!"
"Let me have a go." April offered, stepping forwards. "I understand a little… Ok, no. Honestly I have no idea. But we have to try something, right?"
Tentative reaching out, she pressed an unmarked button. There was a clunk and everyone tensed, looking around expectantly for the alarms to sound and enemies to leap out from every entrance. With a metallic ring, Raph drew his sais in preparation.
But nothing else happened. As everyone slowly let out their breath, April tried another combination of buttons, followed by a lever. There was another sliding thud, a softer noise than before, followed by a gelatinous gurgle as mutagen slowly started to fill the spherical vessel.
"Awesome, April!" grinned Mikey.
She smiled. "Thanks."
"We need to decant some." Leo said, casting his gaze around before it settled on a nearby bucket. "Ah, that'll do."
Picking it up, he stepped over to hold it underneath an electronically controlled spigot. "Ok, open up this pipe!"
"Right! Um…"
April hesitated, her eyes searching the control panel as she tried to figure out how to do as she'd been instructed. She reached first for one button, then changed her mind and pressed another.
Raphael looked up as, with a hiss, several of the cages on the floors above them slid open.
"Ok, not that one." April deduced. "Let's try…"
But before she could do anything else all of them suddenly whipped their gazes towards the archway leading into the rest of the enemy base, from which approaching voices could now be heard.
"-ready for firzzzzt trial." concluded a familiar but unwelcome buzz.
"It is going to be fun, destroying your creations." came a drawl that could only be Fishface.
Rahzar's gravelly voice followed. "I could defeat them alone."
"We'll zzzzee-!"
The three of them emerged from the ground floor entrance and stopped suddenly at the sight at their unexpected visitors.
"We'll hold them off!" Leo directed, setting down the bucket. "April, get the valve open!"
"This is more like it." grinned Raphael, spoiling for a fight. Rotating one sai to run alongside his wrist, he charged recklessly into battle.
"GOONGALA!" Casey emphatically agreed, only moments behind the mutant turtle and with a hockey stick already in hand.
Stockman leapt into the air, taking flight and nimbly dodging as Leo's ninjaken swung by. He dove towards where Mikey stood with nunchucks twirling, ready to defend April as she worked on the control panel.
"Get away from zzzzere!" Stockman buzzed, swooping down. He yelped as he took a nunchuck to the head, but still managed to slap an arm down onto the panel.
Alarms began to sound and there was electronic beep of Foot-bots activating, as well as the sound of cracking wood from above as the crates were torn open by their occupants.
"Heads up!" called Leo, as metallic footsteps stomped forwards.
Raph, preparing to make a second charge at the snapping Rahzar, glanced upwards. He expected the usual Foot-bots jumping down to join in the party. What he wasn't expecting was the shorter, samurai weapon wielding, green painted robots which had a sturdy carapace protecting their internal workings that joined them.
"What the-?" he started, his hesitation giving Rahzar enough time to regroup and launch a flurry of attacks against him.
With a grunt Raphael raised his forearms in defence, twisting to kick at Rahzar's legs in an effort to trip him up. As he did, the skeletal mutant managed a decisive blow to his shoulder.
"Donnie!" Raph yelled, as the de-mutated turtle was sent flying.
"I've got him!" Mikey yelled, abandoning his post in order to race over and rescue Donatello before he plunged over the edge of the ledge and into the seemingly bottomless waste pipe below.
With Michelangelo out of the way, Stockman took the opportunity to fly at April again, grabbing her ponytail and lifting her laboriously into the air.
"Let me go!" April shrieked, twisting like an eel as she drew her tessen fan to swipe at her captor.
The two had a brief skirmish inflight, before Stockman was forced to drop April into the walkway extending around the top of the mutagen filled tank. With her kunoichi training showing, April barely took a moment to recover before launching a fresh attack and flinging her tessen.
"What are these things?" Leonardo protested, engaged in battle with several Foot-bots and one of the new robots that had joined the fray. This one wielded twin blades and had a blue stripe painted across its face.
"They're evil robot us'es!" Mikey declared, before floundering as he tried to come up with a name, "They're… They're…"
"We-are-Turtle-bots." the orange striped Turtle-bot declared as it stomped by.
"Hey, not fair!" Mikey whined. "My evil robot twin beat me to it!"
Holding tightly on to Donnie he used the borrowed the bo staff to vault to the next level, away from where the purple and red striped turtle-bots were trying to team up on him.
"Boo-ya-ka-sha." came a robotic exclamation, as the orange striped Turtle-bot sent Casey sprawling backwards against a wall with a well-timed hit.
Stockman cackled gleefully from above the fight, as April's tessen flew towards him. "My turtlezzz are working perfect-ugh!"
"And that's my phrase." Mikey shouted at his counterpart, moments before Stockman landed on him. Donnie was knocked out of his hands and sent skittering towards the edge of the ledge once more.
Leo reacted quickly, felling a Foot-bot and diving past his robot equivalent while stretching out to grab the falling turtle. "We need to get him in the mutagen!"
Raphael, engaged in battle with Rahzar, finally sent his adversary flying into one of the nearby cells. Slapping his hand on the door control to trap him in there, he spun around to re-join the fray.
"To me, Leo!" he shouted, racing to the far side of the room and away from immediate conflict.
"Go long!" came the reply.
With three robots rapidly descending upon him, Leonardo flung Donnie over the central gap and towards where Raph was heading. Not a moment too soon, as seconds later he was sent sprawling on the floor by his own metallic copy.
"I've got your shell, Leo!" Mikey called, leaping down from the upper layer and using the blade of his kadama to tear the carapace away from the blue striped robot. Landing gracefully, he straightened with the torn panel in his hand.
"Get it?" he grinned.
"Yeah, you got it Mikey." Leo agreed, twisting away from attacks and jumping back to his feet.
On the other side of the room, Raph caught the flying Donnie. He leapt to higher ground, narrowly dodging Fishface as he leapt towards him with robotic legs outstretched.
From above a canister suddenly came flying down from the walkway and struck the Foot-bot that had been harassing Casey, sending its head spinning into the corner.
"Thanks, Red!" Casey called to April, before shouting, "Raph, I'm open!"
Raphael sent Donatello flying back over, then turning to swipe viciously at Fishface with his sais.
"I don't know what you're throwing around, but if you want it then I want it!" the mutant hissed. Abandoning the fight with Raph, he pounded in pursuit of the thrown turtle.
"Casey, look out!" Raphael shouted. He initially made to follow, but a pained cry from Mikey made him instead check his direction to race towards to his brother.
The fight momentarily forgotten as he backed away, Mikey was clutching his hands over his beak. "Oww!"
"Mikey!" Raph called, sliding to a stop alongside him. "Are you ok? What happened?!"
"Buzzkill tore the band aid right off my face!"
Raph's scowled and prepared to launch into a tirade at his brother, but was distracted as Stockman swooped back towards them.
"Up here!" April was yelling, waving her arms to Casey to attract his attention.
Casey had been stretching to catch Donnie, but reconsidered and at the last moment switched to swing with his hockey stick instead. Donnie connected with a dull thud and was sent spinning up into the air.
"D's going to have one shell of a headache." Mikey managed to comment, swiping at the robotic Raphael while the real Raphael had a brief and very one-sided struggle with Stockman.
After just a few seconds, the mutant fly was flung unceremoniously into the nearest wall by Raph. For his troubles, he was left clutching a red bandana in one hand after tearing it from the turtle's head.
Angered by the loss, Raphael would have pursued to reclaim his property if he hadn't then become the recipient of a glancing blow dealt by his variant of the Turtle-bots, after it had finished throwing Mikey down to the lower level. Whirling with a furious growl, Raph launched a series of attacks on his robotic counterpart.
On the platform, April stretched out to try to catch Donnie while carefully balancing to make sure she didn't fall. Casey's hit had gone wide and she was at arm's length trying to get hold of the fast moving turtle. Her fingers brushed over the shell, but he bounced out of her hold and dropped like a stone into the vat of mutagen below.
"Donnie!" April yelled, before pausing in recollection of him failing to catch her in similar circumstances. "Uh… Now we're even!"
"I hope this works." Raph muttered, yanking his sais out of his twitching mechanical likeness and rushing over to the panel. There he searched for the control that would eject the mutagen, and everything within it, onto the drainage grate suspended below.
Within the mutagen, the small shadow started to expand and elongate. Bipedal limbs began to sprout and the figure took on a more humanoid shape while still maintaining the familiar reptilian features. The body writhed, clearly in discomfort as the mutation took effect.
"Raph!" shouted Leo, still engaged in battle. He roared in pain as the purple striped Turtle-bot he was battling managed to slash across his forearm with its naginata blade, spilling several dark drops of blood. "Get him out of there!"
"Working on it!" Raph shouted back, staring in confusion at the flickering panel. "Uh… Well…"
In frustration, he gave up and just shoved his sai into the middle of it. To his relief, the gambit worked and the mutagen tank opened, depositing the unmistakeable form of Donatello onto the grate. However it also opened the cage holding Rahzar and more of the cages above, releasing more Foot-bots into the fray.
With a groan, Donnie staggered dizzily to his feet with eyes closed and a hand clutched to his head.
"Look out!" yelled Raphael as Fishface rushed forward with glee and jumped down onto the swinging platform, trying to seize the opportunity to deal with Donatello while he was disadvantaged.
However the aquatic mutant's merriment was short lived, as he was hit by a splatter of vomit and recoiled in horror.
"Nice shot, Donnie." Raph commented approvingly, arriving in time to batter Fishface to the floor and whisk his brother out of immediate vicinity.
"We're leaving. Now!" commanded Leonardo, breaking out of his fight and running over help Raph carry their disoriented and barely conscious brother.
Between the two of them they carried Donnie upwards towards their earlier entrance point. Raph was still without his mask, but he had a replacement back at their lair and now didn't seem to be the time to fight over a scrap of fabric. He'd let Stockman keep his trophy. For now.
Alongside the three turtles came Casey and April, also clambering back towards the ceiling. With a glance back, Raph was relieved to see Mikey following as well. With Donnie's bindle staff stuffed into his belt, in his arms he was clutching a black box that he'd pilfered from the prone Turtle-bot that lay in two motionless pieces on the floor.
As he brought up the rear of the retreating group Mikey turned and, with a flourish, prepared several of the smoke-bomb eggs between his fingers and thumb.
"We'll be back." he said dramatically, before reconsidering. "Maybe. If we need to. I dunno, dudes. Bye!"
Concealed by a cloud of smoke, they escaped.