"Oh man, are we history."
Breathing hard, Leonardo looked back at Michelangelo. "Don't be so pessimistic, Mikey," he told his brother. "We'll get out of here, just as soon as old Fearless Leader comes through."
Pulling at his brothers, Donatello kept running. "Don't just stand there, guys. Raphael gave us explicit instructions to keep moving. If these monsters catch up with us, then his plan's just collapsed."
"Donatello's right," Leonardo proclaimed as he kept running towards their predetermined rendezvous spot. "We can't let Raphael down." Though his legs were killing him, Michelangelo nodded and pressed on.
It wasn't long before they got to the manhole cover under the corner of 23rd Street. Breathing hard, the three turtles huddled together and made an effort to catch their breath. "Okay," Donatello gasped. "We're here. Where's Raph?"
Looking around in the dim sewer as their opponents edged closer, Leonardo remarked, "I don't know. We shouldn't worry about that now." Watching as the grotesque silhouettes drew ever closer, Michelangelo hid behind his brothers. "Then when should we worry about it? When we're sliding down their gullets?"
More concerned than he let on, Leonardo told his brothers to wait there as he climbed up to the manhole to look about for their leader. Hearing Michelangelo and Donatello cry out as a battle ensued, he hurriedly lifted the manhole cover and peered about.
He was relieved to see Raphael slide on the sidewalk, getting ready to drop in. "Raph! Thank goodness! We were worried!" Ripping off his motorcycle helmet, Raphael muttered, "Some jerk cut me off on my way back from the lab. I nearly went ballistic on him." As Raphael dropped down to the ground, Leonardo blinked and asked, "We almost got ripped to shreds because of road rage?"
He received no answer as Raphael withdrew the vial filled with the rare chemical Donatello had sent him to get. Struggling to get his bo wrenched away from a giant tentacle, Donatello called, "Raph! You've got it! Great going!"
"Of course I've got it," Raphael told him, uncorking the vial. "Now what do I gotta do with it?" Donatello lost his footing on the slippery ground, placing himself in a rather dangerous position beneath both monsters. As Michelangelo and Leonardo attempted to get to his rescue, Donatello frantically yelled, "The creature needs to be exposed to the chemical-"
"You don't gotta tell me twice." The words were hardly out of Raphael's mouth as he ran for the creature, ready to throw the entire vial at it. Donatello's eyes widened in fear. "Raph! No! It needs to be done carefully." Raphael didn't hear him. As the chemical reacted with the slime on the monsters' body, a powerful explosion was emitted.
Suffice it to say, there were no survivors.
"And that's why Raphael's not the leader."
The young Raphael sat with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Leonardo as he finished his story. "Nice one, Leo. I didn't know you were takin' a course on sarcasm." Leonardo grinned at him as he lowered the sheet of paper he was reading from. "Sarcasm?" Leonardo asked innocently. "What sarcasm? It's just facts." Gradually, Leonardo and Raphael's spat grew more and more heated until it finally came to blows. Observing this entire scenario from his chair, Splinter sighed and sunk his head in his hand.
Thank goodness, he thought, that Raphael is the most volatile thing in this sewer.