April unlocked the door of her apartment and peered in. It was a disaster area. Sharing a home with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - even on a temporary basis - meant that you always had company, you always had pizza, and you always had a mess.
She picked up a monkey-wrench, two hex nuts, and an awl. She put them in a toolbox, shut it, and put it away in a cupboard. "Donatello," she said.
She moved a chair that had been jostled out of place by an athletic leap. "Leonardo," she noted.
She collected the comic books that were all over the floor and stacked them in a pile. "Raphael," she remarked.
She folded up an empty pizza box and put it in the rubbish. "Michelangelo," she said, identifying the fourth houseguest. She sighed. The place was still a mess. "The rat's the clean one!"
The door flew open and the culprits bounded in.
"Primo workout, dudes!" Michelangelo declared. He flopped into the chair April had just straightened.
"Muy primo, bros," Leo confirmed.
"Maxamundo!" Raphael added. He tossed all the sofa cushions on the floor and stretched out on them.
April watched the mess reappear before her eyes.
"Hey, guys," she began, hesitantly. She loved the Turtles and didn't like to criticize them, but her home was becoming an invasion site.
"Yo, April, what-it-is?" Raphael asked amiably.
"We brought dinner," Donatello said, before April could begin to explain.
It was pizza. Again.
Michelangelo opened the box and inhaled the sweet smell of his favourite food.
"Time's up. Let's eat," Michelangelo announced.
Raph took a bite, swallowed, and then began reliving the exciting battle they'd just had in the alley with the thugs and Keno.
"Hey, did you see the way I took down that one dude back there?"
Leonardo was not impressed, or at least he didn't want Raphael to think he was impressed. "Yeah, big deal. That move's easy to counter."
"You want to try?" Raphael challenged.
Before April knew what was happening, Raph and Leo were standing on the sofa, reenacting a ninja battle - with pizza for weapons.
"Guys. Guys!" she said, interrupting the fray. "I've got a lot of reading to do for an interview tomorrow, so I'd appreciate it if you could maybe stop?"
It didn't work. The battle continued.
"So," she said, trying another tack. "Any luck finding a new place to live yet?"
That worked.
"Not really," Don said. "It's hard to find good subterranean housing."
April could understand that. The Turtles were staying with her because their own home, in the sewers of the city of New York, had been discovered and overrun in a battle. The Turtles had been attacked by The Foot Clan. That was an evil ninja band run by Shredder, an old enemy of their own ninja master, a mutant rat named Splinter.
"We could always go back to the sewer den," Raph said, trying to be helpful and realizing that they were imposing on April, just a little.
"Yeah, right, Raph," Leo said. "It's a little tough when about five hundred members of The Foot Clan know where you live."
"We beat them but good that last time," Raph reminded his brother. "They're all in jail. And besides, we definitely took out the Shredder. What's everybody so worried about?"
"Correction there," Leo said. "Splinter took out the Shredder."
"Yeah, yeah. Get technical on me, Leo," Raph said.
"Well, he's the one who put Shredder over the rooftop," Leo reminded him.
Raph walked over to April's window and looked out, remembering Shredder's final battle. It seemed he could still see Shredder, wearing his shining razor-sharp armour, tumble four storeys down, into the back of a rubbish truck.
Raph stood up on the ledge as if he were about to reenact Shredder's tumble. "He did a swan dive with a half gainer..."
"Raphael! Come away from the window!"
Raph hopped down from the windowsill obediently and turned to face the voice of his master. Splinter, an aged four-foot-tall rat, stood at the railing of the loft of April's apartment. It overlooked her living room.
"Never forget who you are." Splinter spoke sternly to Raphael and his brothers. "You are ninja. You must always practise the art of invisibility. All of you."
"I don't get it," Raph said. "I mean, why? We saved the city. Why can't we just, you know, have some fun? Get some glory."
Splinter sighed. He'd been through this before. He suspected he would go through it again.
"Stand before me, my sons." The Turtles gathered and waited. "For fifteen years you have been confined below. Now the outside world beckons your teenage minds."
What he said was true and all of the Turtles knew it.
"But the people out there could never understand you. Their world is ours to protect, but it can never be ours to live in."
Michelangelo paled. "Not even pizza?" he asked.
"Pizza's OK," Splinter said, smiling at the Turtles he'd come to think of as his family, his sons.
"Man, give a guy a heart attack!" Michelangelo said with relief.
"Hey, Mikey, toss me another slice," Raph said now that the serious mood was broken.
Mike did just that. A gooey tomato, cheese, mushroom, pepper, and sauce-laden slice flew through the air towards Raph and towards April's brand-new white sofa.
"Uh, Mike, be care-"
Raph whipped out his sai and speared the flying pizza slice one millimetre before it landed on the sofa.
"-ful," April finished.
"Take heart, child," Splinter said. "We will not be here much longer."
April was embarrassed. She didn't want her guests to think she didn't want them there. On the other hand...
"Oh, no, you guys can stay." She gulped. "As long as you want."
"Hey, cool, I kind of like it here."
"No," Splinter said sombrely. "We do not belong above."
"Yes, Master Splinter," Leonardo said obediently.
Raphael mimicked him. Splinter saw it happen.
"Hut! Ten flips. Now!" he commanded.
Obediently, Leo and Raph began doing flips.
"One...two...three..." they counted together.
Splinter walked towards the window, listening to his students count. "Such energy is wasted," he said, speaking to himself as well as to the Turtles. "Remember, the true ninja is a master of all things. A master of his environment. A master of himself. Focus your thoughts on where we must go and leave the Shredder buried."