The Turtles didn't want to believe what April was telling them, but they knew it was true.

"...and they told me that if you don't go to this building site tonight, Shredder's going to send Tokka and Rahzar out again - into Central Park."

"Central Park?! But how would they avoid hurting all those people?" Donatello asked. Then he realized that they wouldn't avoid hurting the people. A lot of people would get hurt. It would be much worse than a few lampposts.

"Then there is no choice but to meet as the Shredder wishes," Splinter said.

"There's no other way," Raphael agreed.

"But you don't have a chance!" April said, near tears.

"Wait." The professor spoke. Everybody turned to him. "There might be a way."

xxxxxxxx

It was a busy afternoon. Professor Perry used Donatello as his chief lab assistant. The other Turtles and Keno watched the pair work, helping when they could. Together they managed to assemble a chemical apparatus of beakers, tubes, and burners.

"Temperature?" the professor asked.

Donatello checked the thermometer. "Three-thirty-eight Kelvin," he said.

"Michelangelo, hand me some more of the dimethyl chlorinate."

Mike looked around at the collection of bottles. "Uhhh," he said.

"There." The professor pointed.

Mike picked up a bright pink liquid and passed it to the professor. "You know, not to criticize science or anything, but wouldn't it be better just to call it the pink one?"

The professor poured some of the pink liquid into the vat that was bubbling merrily on the fire - at 338 Kelvin.

"Donatello, continue aeration."

Donatello took an egg beater, inserted it into the glop, and proceeded with "aeration".

Raphael peered into the vat and made a face. It smelled terrible. "You sure this stuff will work?" he asked the professor.

"When I contaminated the ooze used to transform Tokka and Rahzar, making them intellectually inferior and, thus, less dangerous, I had no idea I'd later be trying to formulate an antimutagen based on that contamination."

"Huh?" said Mike. If being able to say things other people didn't understand meant somebody was smart, he thought the professor must be a real genius!

"It means he's not sure," Raphael translated.

"See, we won't know until we actually spray those guys," Donatello explained.

The professor cleared his throat. "Uh, actually," he began. "I'm afraid ingestion is the only course."

"Wha?" Leo, Raph, Don, and Keno asked in a single voice.

Michelangelo understood. "You mean they have to eat it?" he asked.

"Affirma-I mean, uh, yo, my man," he said. He was learning Turtle talk.

Leo sniffed the vile mixture. He made a face. "Uh, that'll be easy. We can put it on some pizza," he joked. It wasn't a joke, though. The stuff smelled so awful nobody would ever eat it voluntarily.

"Well, I've got an idea," Mike said.