..
I kind of like the misery you put me through
Darlin' you can trust me completely
If you even try to look the other way
I think that I could kill this time
-The Game, by Disturbed
CHAPTER 16: THE GAME
Raphael fled the watchtower as if he were a convict escaping prison.
Shredder had indeed returned the next night with Stockman and Bradford in tow, and demanded an audience with Raphael and Karai in the throne room immediately.
In the elevator on the way up, Karai had curled into him, trembling ever so slightly, and whispered, "Oh, god, do you think he knows?"
All Raphael could do was put a reassuring hand on her back, because there had been no time for anything else. The look that Shredder had leveled at them from across the room had punched the air from his lungs as they'd approached together. He definitely knew something.
Miraculously, their phones had all beeped simultaneously, an emergency alert that Shredder had tried to ignore in favor of staring them down until a very brave Soldier pushed through the doors and scurried up the aisle to stand beside him and Karai.
"There is an active report of a conflict that involves the turtles," the Soldier had said breathlessly. "Not far from here. There are ten of us ready to go right now, we were training in the dojo."
Seizing the opportunity, knowing that this might have been their only hope for a delay to Shredder's wrath, Raphael had spun so quickly that his cloak had flowed out all around him. "We're on it," he'd said with authority, grabbing Karai's arm so they could march right back out of the throne room. "Two teams of five, with us."
By the time they'd reached the main level, the Soldiers had fallen into line, five and five behind Karai and Raphael. They split up once outside, and the humid, smoggy air embraced them as they ran off into the night.
Karai and her team were running parallel to Raphael's position about two blocks away. The plan was for them to rendezvous at the site of the disturbance, surrounding the turtles if they were still present.
From his high vantage point, he could see pink flashes of light sporadically casting an eerie glow from a darker corridor of the city. As he approached, the sounds of battle became clear. Hopping cautiously onto the roof bordering the alley, a pink bolt sailed past his shoulder, close enough to feel the threat of heat that it carried.
Raphael dropped to his plastron, signaling with his hand for the five Soldiers at his back to do the same. He gave another signal to tell them to stay put, and crawled forward on his own to peek over the ledge.
The turtles and Casey Jones were engaged in a tense battle with Kraang robots, none of which had bothered with the pretense of fake human skins. At this close a range, he could clearly see the small alien creatures piloting the robots from within the abdominal cavities, and it was still difficult to trust his eyes.
Karai arrived on the roof across the alley, opposite of him, also telling her Soldiers to lie low as she stood and gawked in disbelief.
All in all, the Hamatos seemed to be taking control of the situation and working cohesively as a team.
Until Leonardo spotted Karai.
Karai shot him a sharp, playful grin from her post.
Leonardo smirked back, and went about 'rescuing' the rest of his group, crushing or dismembering each and every droid they were fighting, much to their confusion.
"Were you trying to impress us or something?" Michelangelo asked. "'Cause it totally worked!"
No, it wasn't you he was trying to impress, Raphael thought sourly.
He clenched his teeth to bite back a growl as Leonardo chanced a cocky glance back up at Karai even as the others grumbled complaints about Leonardo's actions. Karai ducked out of sight before anyone else could follow his gaze, and Raphael followed suit for good measure.
Even after the tense situation of the night before between them, Leonardo wanted to show off for Karai. The image of him crushing her up against the wall came unbidden into his mind, then the smiles they had just exchanged with one another, and for a few seconds it was hard to breathe. The distinct, horrible certainty that Karai was beginning to slip away from him tried to make itself known, in the panic forming in his chest and the jealousy poisoning his mind.
What the fuck is wrong with you? He asked himself viciously, bottling everything up, taking control, focusing on his squad still laying on their bellies and looking up to him.
Sirens started to approach and he heard everyone scatter, mutants and aliens alike.
A new panic filled him, and it was a very real one; they could not go back to Shredder empty handed.
Raphael collected himself and jumped down from the roof, landing in the now dark and empty alley.
Karai came halfway down a fire escape. "What are you doing? We need to go," she said urgently.
"Did you see which direction anyone went in?"
"No, I didn't want to be seen so I stayed down. They all took off so fast, just like we should," she said pointedly.
"We have to bring him something," Raphael replied, not having to specify who 'him' was. "See if you can find any signs as to which way they went, any of them."
"Right." She ran back up the stairs and barked orders at all ten Soldiers, and they fanned out to try and catch the trail of either the turtles or the Kraang.
Raphael cursed as he paced the alley, looking for something more useful than fragments of wood and metal. He caught sight of a metallic, skeletal leg sticking out from a bunch of knocked over garbage bins and yanked on it. The bins parted, tipping and rolling loudly in all directions, but he was rewarded with an almost intact Kraang droid that had been left behind in the hasty retreat.
Better than nothing.
He flung it over his shoulder and made his own exit as red and blue lights began to encroach on the darkness.
ooooooooooooooooooo
Karai sighed and wiped the sweat from her brow as she watched Raphael thump the droid down on the roof in frustration in a semi-seated position, then sat across from it. It was missing an arm and shoulder on one side, along with half a leg, and the head was slightly damaged, but all in all it was in decent shape.
Raphael stared at it sullenly.
The Foot Soldiers panted, catching their breath after regrouping from their fruitless search to pick up a trail. They also focused on the droid, and one of them actually knelt next to it and poked at it experimentally.
Only two of the Soldiers had seen the Kraang creatures, and only fleetingly at that, but it was enough. Even covered up from head to toe, their tense and jittery body language made it obvious that they were extremely unsettled.
"Mistress Karai," one of them spoke up. "Were those creatures mutants as well?"
"More like aliens," she replied tiredly.
A few of them physically startled at her answer, and turned to her like they were about to inundate her with questions. She raised a hand to silence them. "We should head back."
"Master Shredder won't need a debriefing from all of us tonight," Raphael said quietly, still staring at the robot. "You can all go, take the night to rest," he said to the Soldiers.
"Are you sure, Master Raphael?" the Soldier kneeling by the droid asked, knowing that this was an unusual order.
"Yes."
"It's been a strange and difficult night, even by our standards," Karai picked up for him. It seemed only fair that they should have some time to process the verified existence of extraterrestrial beings invading Earth. "We'll take it from here."
Slowly, almost reluctantly, everyone departed until it was just her and Raphael on the roof. She walked over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
"Let's get this over with," she sighed.
Raphael stood and scooped the droid up by its one arm, hoisting it over his shoulder again.
At least her exhaustion had done wonders for her earlier nerves. By the time they drudged back to the watchtower, she felt more annoyed than fearful as she entered the throne room this time around.
Bradford was gone, but they seemed to have interrupted her father having a heated discussion with Baxter Stockman.
"I told you, I can't do that," Stockman whined. "I can't work with something as unstable as mutagen without the proper equipment and facilities."
"There are crews at the mansion working on the expansion around the clock," Shredder replied firmly. "Your laboratory and factory here in the city are nearly fully repaired. You should be able to at least get started. Everything you've requested has been put into action, now I need to start seeing some results!"
Karai approached silently, Raphael at her side, and they knelt at the foot of Shredder's throne as had been expected of them earlier.
"I produced robots at my lab here!" Stockman argued. "Until these two wrecked the whole warehouse," he spat out, glaring daggers at them.
Karai subtly flipped him off just out of her father's eye-line.
Stockman scoffed and continued his bitching. "It's a completely different set-up for genetics and hazardous materials, not to mention containment units…"
Shredder silenced him with a gesture. "We will continue this discussion shortly."
Stockman threw his hands up dramatically and walked away, then began pacing silently behind where Shredder was seated.
Her father's attention laser focused directly on her and she bowed her head lower until she was looking at the floor. Great.
"Let us start from the beginning," he said, his tone low and dangerous. "I have learned that you had the opportunity to dispatch Leonardo while he was alone, but you did not."
Which time? Her mind helpfully supplied, but thankfully her mouth did not. Instead, she was going to gamble that it was only the first encounter that he knew about. "Really? Who told you that? One of the Foot Soldiers in my squad that had already been beaten senseless before I got to fight him?"
"You let him go," he accused quietly.
"He got away."
"I find that hard to believe."
"He got away from you, didn't he?"
She didn't have time to register his movement, just felt the metallic thud of his bracer as he back-handed her across the face.
I probably deserved that one, she admitted to herself. The sting on her cheek lingered, and though she refused to move or acknowledge it, the heat of Raphael's anger as a warm glow along her right side.
"And where were you?" Shredder demanded, and it took a dizzy second for her to realize that he was speaking to Raphael now.
"I was unwell for a couple of days, Master," he said flatly.
"So I hear."
Karai had made sure that the doctor had checked on him the day following his outing, once she had removed any trace of the scent of alcohol, of course. His occasional but brutal migraine episodes were well known by now, and her father seemed to let it go. He had just wanted to hear it from Raphael himself.
"As for today, I am disappointed in you both. Am I to believe that the turtles escaped you again? Both of you?"
"There was a situation, Master," Raphael piped up. "They were already fighting with…"
Karai turned her head ever so slightly to eye him, and he was clearly struggling to come up with an explanation that didn't sound insane. Except this whole thing was crazy, so she saved him the trouble and took over.
"They were fighting alien brain-squids controlling robot bodies," she said bluntly. Raphael wheezed out a breath and flinched, but Shredder was too taken aback to hit either of them.
"Pardon me?"
"It's true," Raphael said. "That night when we watched the turtles fight the men in suits and the robots, do you remember how strange it all was? The ooze that mutated Bradford was brought here by them."
"We are in possession of that mutagen. What these creatures do now is of no concern to us. The mission is to find and destroy Hamato Yoshi. Everything else is a distraction!"
"Distraction?" Karai repeated in disbelief. "Father, don't you think these things may pose a danger to us if they attack the city? Aren't you curious about what is happening?"
"You are losing focus," he growled in frustration.
The disapproval in his voice was strictly fatherly, which cut deep into the childish place within her that craved his love and praise. When it was Foot business and he was addressing her as her Master, it was just that – a reprimand from her superior. This was personal.
"Every day that Yoshi lives is a stain on our honor."
"I'm sorry, father, but I'm sure you can understand the shock we were all in, seeing undeniable proof that aliens are real right before our eyes."
"I am not interested in any more of your excuses or nonsense. The next time you encounter the turtles, any of them, you are to kill or capture. Understood?"
"Yes, Master," they said in unison.
"Dismissed."
They stood, but didn't leave.
"We brought back one of the robots for you," Raphael said.
"I'll go get it," Karai volunteered abruptly. She took long, quick strides towards the large double doors and let out a shaky breath as she pushed through them.
Now, just outside the chamber, she touched her sore face gingerly with a hiss. Her cheek had swelled, and she suspected she would have a black eye within the hour.
They had left the robot beside the door hastily in a heap of limbs. There had been a quick debate between her and Raphael on whether or not they should present it to Shredder right away or wait until after "the talk." Since they had already delayed him once by leaving, they had decided that it wasn't worth the chance of risking further ire if Shredder interpreted the offering as a distraction or a means of dodging the conversation again.
It had probably been the right move, considering his mood. She picked up the surprisingly light-weight droid and carried it back in, noticing the way Raphael avoided looking back at her completely.
Baxter was beside himself, meeting her halfway down the aisle to snatch the droid from her hands.
"This is it! I've seen these once before! My chip!" He practically ran back over to Shredder, vibrating with excitement, and Karai hung back.
The mad scientist groped up into the chest cavity to find whatever chip he was so enamored with, and suddenly the lights returned to the droid's eyes and it straightened out, standing on its one full leg with Stockman's assistance. Everyone took an instinctive step away from it, even her father.
"Don't worry," Stockman assured them. "It's just an empty shell without the creature to power it, but I know I can adapt this A.I. chip to evolve and learn the way it did with my old power suit."
"Get to the point," Shredder ordered, sounding like he was completely out of patience.
"I know this wasn't exactly the way you wanted to expand your army, but until the laboratory at the mansion is completed, I can go back to my warehouse and build you one using this technology."
Shredder tilted his head thoughtfully, considering the possibilities. "This does have the potential to be very useful," he agreed. "Maybe you are right, Karai," he said, sparing her a glance. "Perhaps learning more about these Kraang and their capabilities is a worthwhile endeavor in our war against the turtles. Well done. I want both of you to gather as much information about them as you can."
"The turtles seem to be the only ones who really know anything about them," Karai pointed out. "I'm sure if we find and trail them long enough, they will bring us right to the Kraang eventually, but they can't do that if we kill or capture them."
Her father sighed wearily, understanding where she was going with this, and her defiant little heart sang with this small victory over him. "Very well. Do what you must, but use your better judgment. Once we have what we need, destroy them."
"Yes, Father," she said sweetly, grinning.
She headed down the aisle once again, the weight of her father's oppression slipping away as she pushed through the doors for the final time tonight. Raphael shadowed her as she made her way back to the apartment level, waiting until they were in the harsh light of the kitchen to turn her towards him and gently lift her chin with a finger.
"It's bad," he said wearily, suddenly looking as tired as she felt. "I'll get an ice pack."
"It was worth it," Karai said mischievously as Raphael dug around in the freezer.
Having secured a small pack, he turned back to her and let out a sad laugh. "It wasn't worth it, but it was amazing. No one else can handle him like you do. No one else would even dare to try."
"I even managed to set up a temporary ceasefire so we can continue our little games without him jumping down our throats every day," she added haughtily, heading to her bedroom.
She swept her room for any recording devices using an app on her cell phone; no one had re-bugged her bedroom yet. Maybe they would just give up since she kept destroying them. A girl could dream.
She yawned, long and loud, making the swell of her cheek stretch painfully. Wincing, she tried not to whimper and failed miserably, knowing that she was only going to make Raphael worry over her much more than was warranted.
"I'm fine," she said, waving off his concern. "Just tired. And I need to change," she added with a shooing gesture.
He nodded, wishing her a good night and leaving the ice pack on her nightstand before going to his own room.
She changed into pajamas and wandered into the bathroom to carefully remove her make-up. Feeling the weight of her night heavily upon her, she half-heartedly examined the bruising on her face before going to bed.
Laying on her back, she pressed the ice to her cheek and bit her lip to stay silent, holding it in place for as long as her patience allowed.
Eventually she started to drift off, but a flash of sharp teeth and slimy tentacles made her gasp into full alertness, her mattress protesting loudly at the full body jolt. She groaned in annoyance, trying to push the image from her mind. She started to relax, but then she remembered the eyes, so strange and full of hate for her entire species.
Her own eyes snapped open.
"Goddamnit," she sighed, trying to will the cold tingle out of her spine. It was no use.
Gathering up a pillow and blanket in a bundle, she sheepishly wandered into Raphael's darkened room. She could tell by the abrupt change in his breathing that she had awoken him, and his dark mass shifted as he presumably looked over at her.
"I'm sorry, I don't want to be alone," she whispered.
"'S'ok," he slurred groggily. Raphael sat up and flopped his pillow onto the floor beside his bed, then dragged his blanket down with him as he settled on his plastron.
Karai crawled awkwardly onto the thick memory foam with her own bedding and into the warmth that he had left behind. Also laying on her belly, she let her hand hang down over the side of the bed until it rested atop his bare shell.
"I can't get those creatures out of my head," she confessed. "They're creepy, right? Or am I being ridiculous?"
"They are super creepy," he mumbled.
She ran her fingers lazily over his shell, tracing out the patterns and scars within the scutes that she could reach, following the grooves and letting the texture keep her mind occupied as she relaxed. She smiled when Raphael made a contented humming noise.
She felt safe. Protected.
"Thank you," she murmured, but a light snore was his only response.
ooooooooooooooooooo
"You just can't stay away from me, can you?" Karai teased. "It's going to get you killed one day."
Leonardo snorted. "Are you really going to pretend you're not here waiting to see if I'll show up?"
She shrugged and flashed him a smile from the shadows. "Maybe. Are you going to pretend that you haven't snuck away from your family to see if I'd be here?"
He rolled his eyes and shook his head, but didn't have an answer for her. They were atop the Byerly Building, the only place Karai had ever asked him to meet her and the most likely place for him to go looking for her again if he was so inclined. She hadn't expected to bait him out this quickly, but she wasn't complaining.
Leonardo looked over at the condominium across the street and sighed. "So, did you take it?"
"Of course," Karai said with pride. "It looks beautiful mounted on my bedroom wall."
He shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable.
"What? Does that aggravate your hero complex?"
"Why are you really here, Karai?" he asked, and his tone was something different than she'd heard from him before. Sincere and gentle.
She decided that she might as well go with the truth. "Those creatures you were fighting last night, that call themselves Kraang? What's their deal?"
"I thought Casey told Raphael all about them," Leonardo huffed.
Karai closed the distance between them slowly, coming out of the shadows to stand a few feet away from him. "No offense, but I've met Casey Jones, and I'd rather ask you."
His eyes widened slightly. "You've met Casey? He never said anything."
"Probably because I pinned him beneath my boot when he tried to kiss my hand."
Leonardo's large palm went to his forehead, as if losing sight of her for even a moment couldn't possibly have deadly consequences. "What an idiot," he muttered.
Ironic, Karai thought to herself along with the three instant kill shots she could have taken, but hummed in agreement with him nonetheless.
"The Kraang are extremely dangerous," Leonardo said, putting his hands on either side of her arms to make her look him in the eye so she knew how serious he was. "Stay away from them."
Then he noticed the swelling of her face, the darkened bruise around her eye and on her cheek that her makeup couldn't quite hide. His fingers clamped tighter for a fraction of a second as he inhaled sharply, then let her go. "Who did that?" he asked tightly.
"Leo, please," she said, exasperated. "We are warriors. Don't insult me. I'm sure your friends don't ask after every bruise you get."
He huffed. "Is that what we are? Friends?"
"Of course not," Karai laughed. "I will eventually have to destroy all of you."
"I don't think you will."
Karai arched her brow. "Really, now?"
"I think you want out of the Foot Clan, and all of this is a cry for help."
Laughter bubbled up from her very core and she could barely contain it long enough to sputter, "What?!"
"And I can help you," he finished, unperturbed.
"Oh, wow, Leo," she said, shaking her head at how off base he was. "You're adorable. Stupid, but adorable."
A flush of color ran up his throat and cheeks. "Really? You think I'm…"
He let his tough guy facade fall away completely into actual adorable dork. She scoffed but had to turn away to hide her smile. It was kind of cute how smitten he seemed to be with her.
When she was able to face him again, he had also regained his composure and his expression was neutral.
"I came here to talk about the Kraang, nothing else," Karai said with a shrug, "but I am just as capable of finding out about them on my own. See ya around."
She gave a little wave and exited the roof via the access stairwell, then rushed to the service elevator. By the time she was out of the building and had a cell phone signal again, her phone lit up with a text alert.
Raph: He's heading southwest
Karai: Got it
She ran to the spot where she had stashed her motorcycle, pulled on her helmet, and sped noisily off into the night. A short time later, while stopped at a red light, she checked for any updates.
Raph: He's met up with the others. Now going north
Raph: Industrial district.
Karai changed tact and made her way north, weaving through the traffic and leaving blaring horns and angry curses in her wake. The next text she was able to look at was a link to an online map with directions to a specific address.
"Gotcha," she whispered into her helmet.
ooooooooooooooooooo
Karai parked a block away, and Raphael must have been listening for her engine because he met her almost immediately, pulling her into a dark corridor and scooping her up. She relaxed into his hold, letting him carry her quickly to the roof of their destination before asking any questions.
"Have they been in there long?"
Raphael shook his head. "Don spent a good ten minutes getting this door unlocked with some device."
The door he was referring to had been left ajar, and Karai carefully pushed it fully open, peering into the dark hallway. "Why didn't he just kick it open?"
Raphael threw his hands up. "Right?! It was painful to watch."
"What is this place supposed to be, anyways?" Karai whispered as they entered. The hallway was long, narrow, and curved, and the only lights were the pink symbols that glowed eerily on wall panels every eight feet or so.
"The World Wide Genome Project headquarters," he whispered back.
"What on earth are they doing here?"
"I don't know how earthly this place actually is," he mumbled as they came upon the entryway to a huge cylindrical room.
The noise of blasters and bangs echoed up to them, making them both pause in their tracks. They then peeked over the side of a guard rail to find that they were on a walkway that spiraled down to the main level several storeys below. The centerpiece of the room was a huge, clear vat of mutagen, the base of which was a console with multiple stations. On the floor below, Donatello and Leonardo were flinging two droids into a room and locking them behind glass. Two Kraang beings flung themselves onto the glass, sticking to it with their tentacles and screeching angrily.
Karai shuddered. "Gross."
They crept down the spiraling platform, eavesdropping on Donatello speculating to Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Casey that the Kraang must be amassing DNA samples from as many species on Earth as possible.
Karai paid closer attention to the multi-coloured panels that lined the room's walls. Each one had a little symbol on it of a plant or animal, and with the size of this chamber, there had to be tens of thousands of different samples stored here.
The voices below were now arguing over the best way to destroy the place, until three of them cried out in unison, "Mikey!"
An alarm sounded and a multitude of Kraang droids flooded the chamber, entering the room via the very winding platform that her and Raphael were currently on at multiple levels. The robots marched towards them from either side, leaving them nowhere to go but over the railing. Raphael grabbed her and leapt from the guard rail, landing first on the top of the mutagen vat, and then on the floor next to the others.
There was a shocked chorus of, "Raph?" from all of them, but once he set Karai down and she stood tall and defiant before them, it was only Leonardo who muttered a flabbergasted, "Karai?"
"Wait, you know Karai?" Casey asked in surprise.
The Kraang kept on marching in a loud and steady rhythm down to the floor level, easily fifty of them altogether.
"Who?" demanded Donatello. "How do you know 'Karai'?"
"What is even happening right now?" Michelangelo added, wide-eyed with confusion.
"Maybe let's not do this as we're being surrounded?" suggested Karai, feeling very reasonable as she saw the number of guns being leveled at them increase exponentially.
The Kraang ceased their movements and one spoke up. "The ones who are not authorized to exist in this place will now be destroyed in this place by Kraang."
Karai held back a completely unhinged laugh by a thread, her heart galloping in her chest. There were too many of them, and they were totally going to die, but who the fuck talked like that?
And then the Kraang opened fire.
Karai dropped low and flung kunai into the nearest droid's head, shorting it out and making it drop. She followed that up with every other kunai and shuriken she had on her, anything ranged to clear a path to the mutagen vat's console. Once there, she at least had something solid at her back so nothing could attack her from behind. Raphael was close, rampaging through robots as they tried to close in on her again.
The whole room was utter chaos, with the other turtles bouncing and careening off of everything trying to avoid the laser bolts and destroying Kraang robots. Severed metal limbs flew in all directions around them, with the odd screaming brain creature scuttling off into hiding when it was ejected from its battle suit.
She caught sight of Casey Jones, back against the curved wall, taking a slap shot with his hockey stick and wanted to laugh again. To her surprise, whatever he had hit the droid with had landed with enough force to knock it off balance, and it stumbled backwards into the console a few feet away from her. Something spiked and metallic was embedded in the chest, and a light was flashing.
"Fuuuuck!" Raphael's increasingly panicked yell on the other side of her made her freeze.
He pulled her arm, yanking her away from the droid and wrenching her shoulder painfully. She was about to spin on him in protest, but then the object exploded, sending metallic shrapnel out in a burst of deadly confetti. She only had a moment to process two things; one, how narrowly she had avoided a face full of sharp metal bits, and two, the fact that Kraang bled purple. She filed those both away for later and put her wakizashi through one of the little blobs piloting a robot that was coming up behind Raphael with ill intent.
Just as the tide seemed to be turning in their favor, several more Kraang ran in, stepping heedlessly over their broken brethren and wheeling in what looked like an actual goddamn cannon. The Kraang had managed to corral the others close to her and Raphael, and were now trying to maneuver them with the cannon away from the vat so they could take a shot.
"We're trapped!" Leonardo said despondently.
Karai looked down at the console. Her hand had come down and activated something on the screen there, a crude digital glyph in the shape of the mutagen vat. Above it was a list of options in writing she could never hope to understand.
"What if I did this?" she asked, randomly selecting a list she assumed was several species long to pour into the vat.
The Kraang actually stopped and looked about as nervous as robots could. "Highly undesirable outcome," one piped up.
"Well now I gotta," she snarked. Despite everyone's protests, including Raphael's, she kept pressing buttons until a mechanical noise started up, emptying the samples of DNA into the vat.
Thick, wispy fog flowed from the top of it as it opened, and large tentacles reached out like some Eldritch horror and started curling around robots, flinging them this way and that. The creature emerged, dripping mutagen, a hideous creature beyond description that meowed like a kitten. Its stalked, jellyfish eyes moved independently from one another, scanning the room in confusion as it tried to come to terms with its existence. Two tentacles still clutched half-crushed droids like broken toys.
Karai's eyes widened in disbelief at her misbegotten creation with the weirdest sense of pride. She had just created an actual monster to unleash on the Kraang, giving them a taste of their own medicine. "Wicked."
"Aww, it's so cute," Michelangelo said.
The Kraang spun the cannon around and fired a direct hit on the creature. It stretched up until it tripled in height, then let out a bone-rattling roar from a huge fanged mouth that split apart most of its body vertically.
