Raphael and Michelangelo we're racing across the rooftops as fast as they could manage, but it was still nearly 20 miles back to the other end of Manhattan. Raph had to stop and chuckle to himself when Holly was scolding Leo, and he almost lost it all together when Stacey agreed, and Mikey was even making fun of him. Sometimes Leonardo needed knocking down a peg or two when he got all high-and-mighty about his grand schemes.
"Holly, where are you?" He asked into the group call. There was a pause as Holly checked the street signs she was passing. When she told them where she was, he had to look up the area on his T-phone. Thank god for GPS maps. "Mikey and I are by the rail yard. Can you get here from where you are?"
"Yeah, I'm only about 5 minutes away" Holly said.
"Finally, I'm sick of being left behind" Mikey complained.
Holly pulled over near the rail yard and hopped out of the van to look for Raph and Mikey. They were perched on top of one of the nearby buildings and they waved her around a corner to a more secluded area. They dropped down to street level and Holly slid out of the van to meet them.
"Took you long enough," Mikey said half jokingly.
"Don't start, or I'll make you walk." Holly said kneading the bridge of her nose.
"Are you doing alright?" Raph said completely circumventing Mikey's idiocy.
"I'll be fine," Holly answered with an automatic lie, "Right now we need to worry about April."
"April will be fine." Mikey said, "Donnie won't let anything happen to her."
"So whats the plan?" Raph asked the group collectively. "It'll take us a while to get to where Donnie and Leo are."
"Was there any activity at the Technodrome?" Donnie asked over the vans speakers.
"Not when we left." Mikey shrugged.
"Then swing back by it quickly, just to make sure that nothing is going down there." Leo said. "Then head this way."
"Alright, it wont take us long to get back there." Holly said, "We'll let you know if anything looks weird."
"Shotgun!" Mikey yelled, and launched himself into the front of the van.
"Yeah, right" Raph replied, and they proceeded to shove each other until finally Raph won the passenger seat.
"Jerk," Mikey muttered as Holly fired up the van. But he soon busied himself digging through the stuff in the back that he lost interest in the front seat.
Donnie and Leo watched as the van pulled into the alley way, they dropped down behind the van to block off its retreat.
"Let April go, now" Donatello yelled at the van.
No one responded, not that he expected them too. But the doors opened and two Krang droids stepped down, guns immediately shooting off laser blasts as the exited the vehicle.
Leo leapt to the left, while Donne moved right. Both of them ducked and dove their way towards the Krang. Leo sliced through the droid with one swift slice, while Donnie sunk the hidden blade of his Bo staff deep into the chest of his droid.
"Huh, that was easier that I thought it would be." Leo said as he kicked the droid to roll over.
"Don't jinx it." Donnie said as he climbed into the van. April was peering through the little window, and beamed when she saw him.
"Donnie!" She exclaimed with real relief in her voice. "Get me out of here."
"I will," He assured her. But as he looked around, he noticed that this van was much more than just a mass produced transit van. "Just, let me figure this out." What would usually be the dashboard was a Krang control panel. Donnie tried a couple of the buttons, one of them closed the little window that April could see out of, while the other turned on the wiper blades.
Stacey's car pulled up at the end of the block, she got out of her car, but stayed far enough away just in case anything else was going to happen. "Are you guys doing alright? Do you need any help?"
"No thanks Mrs. M." Leo yelled back, "You don't have to stay if you don't want to."
"No way, I am not leaving until I know you're all safe." She replied, but she did stay behind her car. This was more excitement that she really felt comfortable with.
Leonardo was at the back door, trying to jam his katana into any seam to bust open the door, but he couldn't find a single scratch in the back much less a seam. "How do we get into this thing?"
"I'm not sure yet. It seems to be a specially build transportation unit." Donnie tried a few more buttons to no avail. "Maybe it needs Krang tech to operate it fully." He hopped out of the cab to retrieve one of the droids heads. He hopped back in and sat behind the steering wheel carefully positioning the head roughly where a Krang Droid would be if it were in one piece. A scanner beeped to life from the visor and took a reading of the droid. An affirming tone played and a heads up display showed on the inside of the wind shield. "Ah Hah!" Exclaimed Donnie happily.
April tapped on the glass, "Could you please hurry up?"
"Working on it," He replied as nicely as he could. He scowled at the HUD, "If this is the security settings, then this should unlock the door." He selected an setting on the screen with the little D-pad on the steering wheel. Instead a matching pair of turret guns appeared on the back corner of the van. It took a couple of pot shots at Leo, who had to duck for cover, before Donnie retracted them.
"Whoops," Donnie said, and leaned out of the van to apologize to his brother. "My bad."
"Just, try to pick the right thing this time." Leo said irritably. He turned back to Stacey, who waved sheepishly at him. He waved awkwardly back.
Donnie turned back to the screen. He muttered to himself the whole time as he thought through the control screens.
His t-phone rang, and he answered it while still navigating through all the option screens that were in the system. "Are you guys on your way?"
Raph, Mikey, and Holly parked next to a building that they could climb to get a better look at the recycling plant and military base. They had climbed up to the rooftops and had a set of binoculars out that they were sharing.
"There is movement" Holly said, and pointed towards the base so that Raph and Mikey could see. "But what is going on is impossible to tell."
"People going into a building, but are they Krang or Foot?" Raph asked.
"Either? Both?" Holly shrugged.
"Well they're not coming this way at least." Mikey chimed in happily as he got a turn to see what was going on.
"True. It doesn't seem like, whoever they are, are planning a mass mobilization." Holly said, "Lets get out of here. With any luck April will be back home before first light."
The teens turned and began climbing back down to the van, when there was a sudden shaking that rattled the fire escape they were on. Holly clung to the ladder that threatened to throw her off the side of the building. Everything settled back down after a few seconds.
"What the hell was that?" She asked and pushed her glasses back up her nose.
"You felt it too? I though I imagined it" Mikey said from above her on the ladder.
They fell silent as the tremble started to rattle some of the small stones on the ground around them. Holly looked between the Turtles, worry spreading over her features.
"We gotta get out of here." Raph said, and dropped the last 15 feet to the ground Mikey launched himself down to the street bouncing between the buildings to slow his descent, but Holly was still 3 stories up and would break her legs if she tried it. "Jump, I'll catch you." Raph said and held his arms out to her.
Holly took one steadying breath before pushing off the ladder. She fell fast, and squeezed her eyes shut against the rush of wind. Raph caught her and swung himself around to help offset some of the impact, and to propel her towards the van.
Mikey was waving them in from the back "Lets go already!"
Holly floored the van as Mikey and Raph were both shouting at her to "Go!".
As they raced as fast as they could away, the recycling plant crumbled in a cloud of dust behind them, and a huge silver dome was rising out of the ground.
"Um, guys," Mikey said, "Its gaining on us!"
The Technodrome was slicing a huge gouge in the earth as it rose slowly into the air. The road parted as easily as water as the Technodrome moved towards them.
"Can this thing go any faster?" Raph asked as the wave of concrete started pelting the back of the van.
"Not really!" Shouted Holly as the back end of the vehicle started lifting. She swerved the van violently to the left down a wider street, just as the Technodrome lifted fully out of the earth, the van lifted onto two wheels as the road finally stopped chasing them, and she cranked the wheel hard to the right to get them back on all four tires. The van fishtailed to a screeching halt as Holly slammed on the breaks. They all sat breathing heavily for a second.
"Nice driving" Raph said and patted Holly's shoulder encouragingly. He turned around to check on his brother "Mikey, are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm alright" Mikey said, he was upside down smashed into the corner behind the drivers seat, but he was in one piece.
"We need to catch up to that thing," Holly said a little shakily.
"Where do you think its going?" Asked Mikey.
"My money is on where ever April is." Holly replied, She pulled up Donatello's number and slammed the van into gear before the line had even begun ringing.
"Are you guys on your way?" Donnie asked without so much as a 'Hello'.
"Yes, but so is the Technodrome," Holly said without hesitation.
"What?" Donnie asked, and had to stop what he was doing to properly comprehend what she had just said.
"The Technodrome, dude!" Mikey burst out. "Its flying towards you guys right now!"
"It took off?" Donnie said, "Leo! Head to the roof top!" He shouted out the window. "If that thing is in the air, that means the Krang are making their move." Guilt flooded through his system. If they had gone into the Technodrome earlier, they could have stopped them already. But no, he had to be the Hero for April.
"Whats going on?" Leo asked as he jogged up to the window of the van.
"The Technodrome is on its way here, now. I need you to keep an eye out for it, tell me how long we have." Donnie was expecting his brother to freak out, and drop an 'I told you so'. But Leo simply looked at April, then over to Stacey.
"Get her out of here, as fast as you can." He nodded at April. "I'm get Mrs, McCallister to leave, then go top side." He didn't even wait for conformation of his directions. Leo sprinted to Stacey not worrying if someone else was on the street.
"Whats going on?" Stacey asked worry written on her face.
"You need to go home now, Its about to get very dangerous on the streets." Leo told her.
"I can't leave you all here." Stacey looked up the alley to the van where April was still trapped. "You're just kids."
"We can handle ourselves. Just, please go, you'll be safer inside." Leo didn't have time to argue with her, he hurled himself up the side of the closest building and over the lip out of sight.
Stacey stood rooted to the spot with indecision. She couldn't leave, but she knew she would just get in the way if she stayed. The night was nearly spent, and people were starting to emerge from their homes to start their days. She couldn't run and hide while everyone else was in danger. Stacey made up her mind, she ran out into the road yelling at the top of her lungs that people needed to leave the area.
Leonardo had covered a few blocks before he stopped to scourer the northern horizon. A good 5 minutes passed before he saw what he was looking for. Peeking thought the Sky scrapers of Midtown, a huge ball was floating towards them. It didn't look like much yet, but it had 10 miles to cover before it was on top of them.
Holly was busy trying to keep up with the Technodrome to worry too much about anyone else on the streets. She let Raph and Mikey talk to Donnie and Leo, although they also helped to keep an eye on the Technodrome as she lost sight of it while swerving around the other motorists. More than one person honked their horns at her, but she ignored them and continued to weave between the other vehicles. Once they had crossed the bridge back into Manhattan, it was easier to follow the flying behemoth, even as the traffic got heavier as more and more people were waking up.
"What are they doing?" Donnie's voice came through the speakers.
"Still just heading in your direction." Raph said, as he grabbed onto the handle to stop himself from sliding across the bench seat as Holly swerved around a truck that was pulling onto the road.
"Ouch!" Mikey said from the back, there were less things for him to hang onto back there.
"Pretty soon all of New York is going to be up and about watching a giant Soccer ball fly around Midtown." Donnie Commented. "We should have stopped it while it was still underground."
"Don't let Leo hear you say that." Raph muttered.
"Whats their game plan, anyway?" Donnie muttered, "What possible purpose could they have for launching an attack in broad daylight?"
As soon as the words had left his mouth, a series of doors opened around the exterior of the ball, and a swarm of smaller drones spread out into the sky.
"Oh shit." Holly said, she looked at Raph, and back at Mikey to make sure they were seeing the same thing.
"What? Whats happening?" Donnie asked.
"The Technodrome just had babies." Mikey answered for them.
"Donnie you have to get April out of that van, now." Leo's voice came over the speakers. They could hear footfalls coming through the line, but they had no way of knowing if they were running to, or from Donatello and April.
Raph, Mikey, Holly, and Leo all watched as the smaller spheres spread out over the city. They then started swooping down to street level, scooping up anyone who was unfortunate enough to be on the street.
"Oh my god, they're going full 'abduction scenario' on us." Holly watched in horror as the people started to realize what was happening. Too many people were still stopping to look at what was going on, not realizing that they were about to be picked up by an invading alien force. The screams broke through the shock, and soon there was pandemonium. The people who had made it to their cars were now trying to drive as fast as possible away from the danger. But the commotion just brought more people out onto the streets.
"How much longer until you guys are here?" Donnie asked, panic rising in his voice.
"Seven minutes, but the Technodrome is ahead of us." Raph answered.
"We need to try to help these people." Holly cried as a woman and a man were sucked up into one of the pods.
"How exactly are we going to do that?" Raph asked.
"Take the wheel." Holly said, she let go of the steering wheel and reached back behind her seat for her bow.
"Are you crazy!" Raph yelled at her.
"Here, put your foot on the pedal." Holly climbed back out of the way, so Raph could slide into the drivers seat.
"What are you doing?" Raph took over completely.
"I'm going to do what I can." Holly said. "Mikey, grab my legs, and do not let me fall."
"Rodger!" Mikey said happily. She then climbed into the passenger seat and rolled down the window. She then maneuvered herself so she was sitting on the door with her torso out of the window. Mikey wrapped one arm around her waist, and used his hidden chain to anchor himself to the chair.
"Would you get back in here?" Raph shouted at her.
But Holly didn't listen. She nocked an arrow and took aim at one of the pods that was attempting to scoop up some people. She let fly, and the arrow sunk deep into the shell of the sphere. There was a crackle of electricity and the ball lost control and fell to the ground cutting up the concrete as it skidded to a stop.
"Awesome!" Mikey yelled.
"What was that?" Leos voice came through the speaker. He could see the plume of smoke that rose from the sphere after the EMP had fried it.
"Donnie made them." Holly shouted over the wind roar "All that alien tech and its no match for an electromagnetic pulse."
"Can it take down the full sized one?" Raph asked.
"No, I wasn't even sure it would work on the transport pods, but I had to try."
"I swear, if you let her fall, I'll kill you." Raph shouted at Mikey as Holly let fly with another arrow.
Leonardo could see where the others were from the trail of smoke they left behind. The Technodrome has finally stopped moving, and was hovering menacingly above the city as the pods collected the people off the street. There was a pod heading towards where April and Donnie were, he kept pace with it until it dropped low enough that he could fling himself at it and sink his swords hilt deep into the craft. He used his momentum to carry himself across the top of the pod, carving a huge gouge out of the ship. He didn't look back to see the sphere short out and crash to the street in a smoking heap, as he was busy watching more pods change course towards April.
"Donnie, did you get April out of that van yet?" Leo asked into his headset.
"Almost." Came Donnie's reply, but it didn't sound certain.
"You're running out of time." Leo said before launching himself at another pod that was descending to his height. The pod opened up, and a half a dozen tentacles snaked out to grab some people who were leaning out of their window to see what was happening. He sliced through the silvery appendages, which had been wrapped around some poor guys waist and was trying to drag him out of his apartment and sunk his other sword into the top of the craft.
"Get away from the windows!" Leo called back to the guy as he rode the pod across the street to another rooftop. The stunned man just nodded as he sat shocked in his kitchen. He leapt off the pod and raced along the rooftops to follow the other pods that were heading to Donnie.
Donnie was struggling with this Krang tech. It was not as straight forward as the stuff they usually came across. He had to wire in his t-phone to the dash as there was no port that he could plug into. He had to try to navigate all the controls through the tiny screen on his phone, and there were a lot of them. He had managed to open the little window so that April didn't have to yell at him through it anymore, but it was not big enough for her to squeeze through. He had managed to find some interesting information, but had consciously ignored it to keep hunting for the 'open' button.
When Leo's warning came through his phone, he decided to take a less sophisticated attempt to open the back compartment of the van.
"Don't worry April. I will get you out of there." Donnie reassured her.
"Oh take your time." April said sarcastically.
"I'm going to try to cut through the back panel with the Krang's own weapon. You may want to stay as far away from the back as you can." Donnie said. Not really sure how powerful the turret gun was going to be.
April nodded and disappeared from the hatch. Donatello called up the other turret gun that Leo had not destroyed and pulled it off of its mount. He popped of a control panel and slowly cranked up the power as he fired laser bursts at the van. After a few minutes of trying, there was a noticeable hole in the door.
"Are you doing OK?" Donnie called to April.
"I'm fine, just keep going" April responded shortly.
Donnie carefully cut peroration holes in one side of the van, making sure he didn't send a shot through the door at April. A bead of sweat rolled down his face, he knew he didn't have much time left, but finally there was enough material missing that he felt he could knock in the section he had cut out.
"Watch out April." He called out, and side kicked the van. The section he had cut, fell heavily into the interior of the van, and he stuck his head inside to make sure April was alright.
"Thank goodness." She said, and took his hand as he helped her climb out into the street. "Took you long enough" she smiled at him playfully.
He smiled back at her and scratched his head.
Aprils smile suddenly fell, "Behind you." She shouted.
Donnie didn't have time to turn around before something smashed into his shell sending him flying twenty yards into the dead end behind April. He slammed hard into the wall, and crumpled into a groaning heap at the foot of the wall. "Donnie!" April shouted, but she was grabbed around the middle and lifted off the floor into one of the smaller pods that Leo hadn't managed to destroy.
Raph was doing his best to drive smoothly, but these damn flying pods were everywhere and they were scooping people up by the dozen. Holly was still hanging out of the window. She had managed to take a few more of the pods out, but there were so many that it felt like they weren't even making a dent in the number that was out there. They heard Leo's voice over the Bluetooth, and then the conversation between Donnie and April. But things took a bad turn when April shouted and then the line went dead.
"Donnie?" Raph asked.
"His line is dead." Leo responded, "Where are you guys?" He was running at full speed towards his brother and the sound of his pounding feet was beating through the speakers.
"We'll be there" Raph said, and reached over to pull Holly back into the van. She was listening though, and nodded at him to floor as she carefully climbed back into the van.
"Is Donnie OK?" Mikey asked, worry written all over his face.
"He will be" Holly said reassuringly, and gave Mikey's hand a squeeze as she smushed herself into the passenger seat next to him.
The engine roared and Raph drifted the van around the next corner so as not to loose any time.
"Look, there's Leo." Mikey said and pointed up at the roof top. He was hacking his way through another of the pods that was trying to swoop down to a couple on the street. "We must be close."
The tires screeched as they rounded the last corner, Stacey's car was still blocking the entrance to the alley, but she was nowhere to be seen. As they looked around for her, a transport pod flew out of the alley way and started back towards the Technodrome. They could see April inside banging against a transparent pane.
"April!" Holly shouted.
"Quick, shoot it down!" Mikey yelled.
Holly hopped out of her Van, bow in hand, but it was pointless. The pod was climbing into the sky much too fast for her to be able to safely try to bring it down. "I can't, April might get seriously hurt."
"Don't worry about it, we know where she's going this time." Leo said as he dropped down next to Holly. "Right now we need to find Donnie and regroup".
The all ran into the alley, and saw Stacey crouched down next to Donnie. He was conscious, which was good, but he was not on his feet just yet.
"Mom?" Holly shouted surprised, "What are you still doing here?"
"I was trying to get people off the street when those... things started swiping people up." She gestured at the sky where the pods we're still soaring by. "I saw one coming down here so I ran after it just in time to watch Donnie get thrown into the wall."
"Is he OK?" Mikey asked and knelt besides his brother to help him up.
"I'm alright," Donnie answered for himself. He took the hand Mikey offered and let himself be pulled to his feet, "I'll just be feeling that for a few days."
"What are we waiting for?" Raph asked the group, "Lets go after April."
"We will," Leo announced, "but first, we're going into enemy territory blind. We have to work together on this." He looked specifically at Donatello, who dropped his gaze to the grubby alley. "We also have two tasks here, we need to shut that thing down."
"Raph and I can do that," Donnie said. "You and Mikey should find April."
"Alright. Holly, you'll have to sit this one out." Leo said, expecting some push back.
But Holly just nodded, she was exhausted and knew she would be a liability. "We'll do what we can from the ground, and we'll keep close in case you need a swift exit."
"Perfect, just try not to get yourself captured by one of those things." Leo added.
"Don't worry about us," Stacey said and threw an arm around Holly, "we can take care of our selves."
"That's what I'm worried about." Leo said, Holly gave a snort of amusement.
"How exactly are we supposed to get in there?" Mikey asked, waving his hand at the floating space ship.
"We'll hitch a ride." Leo said, as another pod whirred overhead, "Lets go, we need to take care of this before anyone gets hurt."
"Be careful." Stacey yelled as the four turtles climbed up the side of the building. Holly and Stacey watched as they disappeared over the lip of the roof. "After this is over, we're all going on vacation."
"Sounds good, mom." Holly took a deep breath, "C'mon, you can drive."
"Of course I'm driving, you don't have a license."
