"Hi!" the girl said, stepping out of the module. "Wow, that trip wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped." The girl removed her helmet, revealing a well-groomed afro. She sort of patted her head, smiled, and unzipped her leather jumpsuit a bit. She turned back towards the module to toss her helmet inside, but was distracted by the sight of the sewage now pouring down the hole she had created. "Yikes. Shredder and Krang aren't gonna be too happy when that hits bottom."
All four turtles stared dumbly at her in the half-light. "Where did you come from?" Leonardo managed to blurt out.
"The Technodrome. I kind of borrowed this transport module, thinking I could get here quicker this way. Oh, I'm sorry, where are my manners?" She gave them all a smile in the half-light. "I'm Mary Sue."
It took all his might, but Leonardo managed to tear his eyes away and stare down at his feet. Gritting his teeth, he attempted to get his brain back on track. "Introduce yourselves," he muttered to his brothers.
"Uh, hi," said Raphael. "I'm Raphael."
"Donatello," said Donatello, rubbing the back of his head nervously.
"I'm Michelangelo, the cute one," said Michelangelo in his most ingratiating voice. "And this sourpuss over here is Leonardo."
"Yaaaaah!" Leonardo gave a yell and leapt forward, aiming a kick straight at Mary Sue's midsection. Mary Sue dodged to the side and delivered a blow of her own to Leonardo's shell. Leonardo rolled with the blow and landed on his side, but immediately leapt up and pressed the attack. As his brothers watched, unable to move, he made attack after attack, all while attempting to avoid eye contact. Finally, with a feint towards one side, he managed to slice Mary Sue in the midsection with the blade of his katana. She looked up at him, with a mixture of surprise and hurt. Then, to the shock and disgust of the turtles, she melted into a pool of dark blue goo. The turtles remained frozen to the spot, staring at what remained of their adversary.
Raphael was the first one to speak. "OK, what the shell just happened?"
Leonardo took an unsteady breath. "I don't know. But I guess my hunch is right. Something was severely wrong."
"How'd you know?"
"Same way Donatello did earlier tonight," he said, attempting to shake the sticky substance off of his katana. "She was messing with my brain. It took all my might to look away from her."
"But what was she? And what happened to her?" said Michelangelo, eyeing the bluish puddle.
Donatello knelt down. "Well, I can't tell without doing a ton of tests. But this blue stuff might be cloning material."
"What's that?"
Donatello reached out as if to touch the puddle, but then thought better of it. "Well, in order to make clones, you need some material to make them out of. And from what I've read about cloning processes, if you make them on the cheap, they revert back to their original state once they cease functioning."
"You mean, once they're killed," said Raphael.
"Well, yeah, I guess."
"So that's what we're up against?" asked Michelangelo. "Hardened batches of Liquid Tide named Mary Sue? What's that all about?"
"I don't know," admitted Leonardo. "Let's get back to the lair, regroup and figure out our next move here."
"Good idea," said Donatello, getting to his feet.
"Wait a second. We can't just leave this thing here," said Leonardo, eyeing the transport module.
"Why not?" asked Michelangelo.
"It's less than half a mile from the lair. If the city finds it here, they might start nosing around, and I don't think we can afford that. Donatello, can you take this thing up to the surface?"
Donatello shrugged. "Sure, I don't see why not. If Bebop and Rocksteady can drive one, I should be able to figure it out." He put his bo stick into the sheath on his back and entered the module.
"Raphael, go along with him," added Leonardo. "Just in case there's trouble up there."
"Got it, chief." Raphael gave him a mock salute, then hopped on board behind his brother. He put his sai away in his belt, then sat down next to Donatello at the front of the module.
Donatello gave him a grin. "You all set?" Raphael nodded. "All right then. Hold on. Not sure how steady this ride is gonna be." He hit the clearly labeled "Door Close" button, then hit the "Drill" button. The large bit at the front began spinning, and Donatello pushed the stick forward. Immediately, the module leapt and began burrowing its way towards the surface. The ride was extremely bumpy, but it wasn't more than a few seconds before they had climbed up onto the surface.
Letting out his breath, Donatello said, "Well, that wasn't so bad." He hit the door release, and they stepped out of the module into the alleyway.
Raphael walked behind the module, glanced down the hole they had created and smirked. "Not bad at all. Looks like you cut four water mains, the steam line, and sideswiped a subway tunnel. And this alleyway is completely blocked now. But hey, at least it's not stuck in the sewers anymore."
"Listen, you..." Donatello stopped short and frowned. "You hear that?"
Raphael listened. It was indistinct, but it certainly was getting louder. "Yeah, what is it?"
"No clue. Let's go find out." They cautiously made their way to the street and peered out.
"Holy..."
About a block away, walking towards them at a fair clip down the middle of the street was a large crowd of people. Almost all women, with a few men scattered in here and there. Raphael saw a few individual members as they stepped underneath a street light, and he could feel himself drawn to each and every one of them.
Even the guys, he realized with an additional pang of horror.
Raphael turned to Donatello, and although they didn't say anything, they didn't need to. Their expression said it all. They ran at top speed back to the module, just as the last of a thick liquid bubbled up into the hole behind it.
"Great," groaned Donatello. "Cork lava."
"Come on!" Raphael ran a bit further down the alleyway, stopping at a manhole cover. He fumbled a bit getting it off, but soon he and his brother were half-climbing, half-falling down into the sewers. They ran down the sluice until they came across Leonardo and Michelangelo. Michelangelo was using his flashlight to illuminate a tall column of rock where the module had tunneled up.
"The weirdest thing happened after you left..." started Leonardo.
"Not now! Back to the lair!" Donatello and Raphael ran by them at full speed, and Leonardo and Michelangelo quickly fell in behind them.
It took about a minute to get back to relative safety of the lair. Donatello immediately ran to his workstation and tripped the control that activated the lair's security system. They all listened as heavy metal grates closed into the sluices outside, and only then did they let out their collective breath.
"My sons, what is happening?" asked Splinter.
"Mary Sues," said Raphael simply.
"Hundreds of them," elaborated Donatello. "Coming down the street."
Leonardo waved everyone to the couch. Once everyone had sat down, he began pacing in front of them. "OK, let's try to figure out what we're up against," he said.
"We've got a bunch of clones attacking us," said Michelangelo.
"No," corrected Donatello. "None of them have attacked us. They've all been...over-friendly."
"And we've all felt...over-friendly towards them," said Raphael. "For whatever reason."
"And they're all named Mary Sue," added Michelangelo, like he couldn't believe he was adding that.
"One of them came up from the Technodrome," mused Leonardo. "So it looks like this is the handiwork of Shredder and Krang." Leonardo rubbed his chin for a second, then stopped pacing and snapped his fingers. "Donatello, you cracked into the Technodrome's computer once."
"Right."
"Can you do it again? Maybe find out what they're doing?"
Donatello shrugged. "I think so. They probably have some new protection up, but I should be able to get around it."
"Good - do it." Leonardo watched as Donatello ran back to his computer in the corner and began typing. Turning to Raphael, he said, "Were there really hundreds?"
"I think so," said Raphael. "There may have been a thousand. I didn't exactly stop to take a census."
There was a long silence, finally broken by Michelangelo. "So what do we do?"
"Wait to see what Donatello comes up with," Leonardo said, hoping he sounded more sure of himself than he did.
Apparently, he didn't, because Raphael immediately asked, "And if he doesn't find anything?"
"Or if they attack before he does?" added Michelangelo.
Splinter spoke up. "If that should occur, then you must attempt to fight them as best you can."
"Fight them?" repeated Michelangelo. "It took Leonardo all he had just to defeat one of them. How are we supposed to defeat a whole army?"
"Well, my sons," said Splinter simply. "It may be time to see how well I have trained you in the Art of War."
Leonardo said, "One thing's for sure. We can't look them in the eye. I don't know what they're doing to us, but the only way I could overpower her was by not looking at her."
"So we've got a thousand well-trained warriors headed our way, and the only way we can defeat them is by fighting them blind." Raphael smiled and cracked his knuckles. "Sounds like my kind of fight."
"Uh, guys?" Donatello's voice rose up from the back of the room. Splinter and the other turtles got up and joined him around the computer.
"You get in?" asked Leonardo.
"No trouble at all - they must be slipping on security."
"You find anything?"
"Oh, I found something," said Donatello. "It just doesn't make any sense."
"What is it?"
Donatello tapped the screen. "Pretty much what we thought. Krang and the Shredder got a cloning device up and running. But it's what they've cloned that doesn't make sense."
Raphael asked, impatiently, "Well, what are they cloning?"
Turning towards Raphael, Donatello said, "Mary Sues."
Raphael rolled his eyes. "We know that. But what are they?"
Donatello grabbed the mouse, and switched windows. "Well, that's where it starts getting weird. This is from Wikipedia. 'Mary Sue is a pejorative term for a fictional character who is portrayed in an overly idealized way and lacks noteworthy flaws. They are almost always based on idealized versions of the authors. Typically, characters most commonly labeled as "Mary Sues" are almost always physically attractive, and are set apart from others in the story by their unique and exceptional skills and traits.' That certainly sounds like what we're up against."
Michelangelo said, "Sounds like it."
Leonardo shook his head. "But wait a minute. If these are characters from stories, then wouldn't only the characters in the story find them so irresistible? Why are they having that effect on us?"
"That's the part that doesn't make any sense," insisted Donatello, clicking to yet another window. "I finally found out where he was getting these Mary Sues from. He's pulling them from stories about us."
"What?!" Even Splinter joined in on that word.
"I know - it doesn't make any sense. But it looks like the Technodrome has accessed an Internet that's different from ours. It's...I don't know. Another Internet, in another world, or dimension, or something. In that world, there's...well, there's lots of stuff about us."
"Like what?" said Michelangelo, confused.
"Stories, books, TV shows, movies, toys, games, you name it."
"All about us?" said Leonardo.
Donatello nodded. "I told you it didn't make any sense."
"A movie? About us?" said Michelangelo, trying to hide his excitement.
"Not now, Michelangelo," said Leonardo sternly. "Can you shut them down?"
"No such luck. Looks like he used the computer to give them their programming, but once he created them, the Mary Sues became autonomous. He's not controlling them anymore."
"So we're stuck fighting them?" said Raphael.
"Perhaps not," said Splinter. "Have you encountered a story in which...in which we are able to overcome these Mary Sues?"
"I only glanced at a couple," admitted Donatello. "But I didn't see one. That sort of goes against what these Mary Sues are all about. We're not supposed to overcome them. We're supposed to become enamored with them, and have them join our ranks."
"Y-yeah, let's not do that," suggested Raphael.
"Well, can we...make 'em...not like us?" asked Michelangelo hesitantly.
Leonardo turned to face him. "What do you mean?"
"Well, is there something we can do so they won't want to be with us anymore? So they'll turn around and go home?"
Splinter nodded. "Excellent reasoning, Michelangelo. Consider - Donatello, you stated that these Mary Sues are based upon the authors of these stories, correct?"
"Yeah..." Donatello said.
"Therefore, is there something about us - or, more precisely, is there something about our alternate selves that these authors do not like?"
Donatello rubbed his chin. "Hm. I don't know. I'd have to get into that alternate Internet and do some digging."
"Do so," urged Splinter.
A muffled thud caused them all to look up. "What's that noise?" asked Leonardo.
"It's been bad news the last two times tonight," said Raphael. "And call me a cynic, but I don't see that streak ending."
They heard the thud again. Leonardo drew his katana. "Probably not, but we'd best investigate. Donatello, stay here and keep looking. You two, come with me."
Leonardo led Raphael and Michelangelo towards the exit of the lair. "Remember," he cautioned. "Keep your eyes down. We're going to have to go in blind here." He slowly stepped out into the sluice, and immediately was hit by a wave of voices.
"There you are!"
"Leonardo!"
"...you're the cute one..."
"...two-sword technique..."
"...lead the others..."
"...further your training..."
"...the katana since I was six...
"...make the streets safe..."
"...sense of honor..."
"...Raphael doesn't understand..."
"...always been my favorite..."
"...leadership skills..."
Leonard quickly stole a glance up. A huge crowd of Mary Sues was leaning against the heavy metal grate, sticking their arms through, yelling.