Chapter 39: Cufflinking the Pieces

The Turtles, Trainers, April and Pete were surrounded by Big Louie, Shredder, Jessie and their goons. They found the Cufflinks of Cathay, special cufflinks that contained explosive material. "Isn't this my lucky day," Shredder sneered behind the metal mask. "Turtles, Trainers and the cufflinks… all ours for the taking!"

"Not to mention Pikachu in the process!" cheered Jessie. Ash and Brock had to think of a way to protect Pikachu. However, someone came from a side door opening. Entering was an orange-haired man with a matching mustache wearing a blue robe. His narrowing eyes behind his rectangular glasses focused on the cause of the noise.

"Calzoni!" identified Pete. Calzoni looked over to the chaos.

"Alright, what in the world's going on here!?" he questioned. Everyone looked to Calzoni before each other and pointing.

"THEY'RE TRYING TO STEAL THE CUFFLINKS!" they shouted. Calzoni looked annoyed as he revealed a lever on a wall.

"Oh yeah!?" he disbelieved as he pulled on the lever. Walls opened and pizzas were shot out. Ash, Brock, April and Pete ducked the flying pies. The others weren't so lucky. Pizzas smashed into their faces. They yelped in pain as April escaped with the Turtles and Trainers. Bebop pulled a tiny fish from his mouth.

"Anchovies!?" he gagged. "Bleah!" Louie saw all sorts of cheese and tomato sauce coating him.

"My best suit!" he gasped. "It's ruined!"

"Your suit!?" complained Jessie. "What about my hair!? It's covered in tomatoes, garlic and mushrooms!"

"Never mind that!" snapped Shredder. "The Turtles took off with the cufflinks!" Everyone raced outside where Irma waited for Pete and April while Pete reached and explained to Calzoni about the situation.

"Let's get these cufflinks far away from here!" urged Leonardo. The Turtle Van escaped before April started the news van… or tried to. The engine wasn't starting.

"Come on…" she urged. Suddenly, the wall surrounding Calzoni's mansion was destroyed. Louie, Shredder and their gangs came through. They looked to where the Turtle Van was, only to find it gone.

"Those Turtles escaped!" growled Louie as Shredder eyed the news van.

"Perhaps…" he noticed. April and Irma saw Shredder and panicked. "But these two won't." Realizing their predicament, April and Irma screamed for help. On the Turtle Van, Donatello looked through a microscope about the cufflinks that they got from the mansion.

"What did you find?" asked Brock.

"Well, one of the cufflinks is just a plain old jewel," Donatello observed. "However, the other contains an explosive compound."

"That means we'll need to destroy it before Shredder could use it," Ash believed.

"But we'll need someplace to think about it," Leonardo pondered. To Michelangelo, one idea came to mind.

"I know just the spot, dudes!" he offered. The others wondered what Michelangelo had in mind. Meanwhile, Pete exited the mansion after straightening things out with Calzoni.

"At least he understood the ordeal," he sighed. When he saw the van, he noticed damages to the vehicle. "That's not good!" He found April's Turtle Comm. "They're in trouble. I got to get the Turtles!" At Vinnie's, the Turtles and Trainers had pizza. Two pizzas, a small pie with tomato and green pepper for Pikachu while the larger had mashed potato and veal.

"After all we had gone through for those cufflinks," Raphael started. "How can you even look at pizza?"

"I don't wanna look at it," Michelangelo denied somewhat. "I just wanna eat it!" Raphael palmed his face while Ash rolled his eyes. Donatello looked at the data he collected.

"According to my analysis," he started. "The compound in the cufflink is destabilizing. It's not as explosive as it once was."

"Let me get this straight," Ash voiced. "That cufflink can still blow up, but it won't be as strong?"

"Exactly," Donatello confirmed. "I'd say it's now only as powerful as a simple hand grenade or a stick of TNT."

"Guess all those thousands of years waiting to explode after being made must've worn itself out," Brock shrugged.

"But if Shredder does get his hands on the cufflink and takes it back to the Technodrome," Leonardo pointed out. "Krang can analyze and duplicate the compound."

"And if that happens," Ash added as Diego stopped by. "They'll blow the Technodrome free from the magma holding it down."

"You mean the tank-like fortress that disappeared in the sky a long time ago?" asked Diego.

"Right," Leonardo confirmed. "We have to destroy the cufflink-"

"Turtles!" shouted Pete through the Turtle Comm. Leonardo pulled out his Comm before seeing Pete on screen.

"Pete, what's going on?" he asked.

"April and Irma were kidnapped by Big Louie and Shredder," Pete informed. "I don't know where they're taking them, but I know they want the cufflinks." Brock and the Turtles became concerned and angry.

"Boy, it would be helpful if we had a clue to their location," Raphael wished. Suddenly, a car drove by and threw a heavy object through a window that Brock reacted to and caught. Diego and Pikachu ran out to see the car and call in the license plate as Brock opened the object, a parcel. It was a small camera.

"It's April's minicam!" he realized. Donatello saw a ransom note made of magazine clippings.

WE HAVE THE NEWSGIRLS. COME TO THE TAFFY FACTORY AT MIDNIGHT AND BRING THE BUFFLINKS.

The information made Michelangelo gasp. "Dudes, we don't have any bufflinks!" he warned.

"They might've run out of C's," Donatello sighed. "They mean the cufflinks." Overhearing, Pete had an objective.

"The taffy factory in Eastside," he realized. "I'll meet you guys there." Looking at the clock, Raphael knew there wasn't much time.

"And it's almost midnight now!" he pointed out.

"We don't have time to do a switch for fake cufflinks!" gulped Leonardo.

"I have an idea," Ash thought up. "But we need to get going."

"Right, we do need to improvise if we're to stop Shredder," Leonardo agreed as they raced out of Vinnie's.

"Improvise?" repeated Raphael. "Against Big Louie and Shredder?" He turned to the fourth wall. "Is there a script doctor writing this?" They soon arrived at a candy factory with a lightning bolt on the side. "Boy... For a taffy factory, this place is indeed dark."

"Maybe because it's after hours," Brock stated. Michelangelo spotted April and Irma tied and dangling over a vat of hot taffy.

"Dudes, over there!" he pointed. The other Turtles and Trainers spotted the women.

"April and Irma!" gasped Ash.

"They're about to be dunked into that vat of taffy!" realized Leonardo.

"Talk about a sticky situation," Donatello joked. Looking, the women spotted their saviors.

"The Turtles!" awed April.

"Brock, you came for me!" awed Irma. Pete soon arrived in the news van.

"I'll need to bring this in for some new spark plugs," he muttered as he exited the van. He entered the factory as the Turtles made their approach to free his colleagues. Shredder and Louie arrived as well.

"Hand over the cufflinks or watch your women become taffy!" demanded Shredder.

"There's one problem, Shredder," Ash voiced as Donatello showed the cufflinks. "One of the cufflinks is just an ordinary cufflink, but the other one will destroy us all. I can easily blow you all to pieces with it."

"You bluff," Shredder scoffed.

"Were we bluffing about the trilithium crystal?" reminded Leonardo.

"I remember…" gulped Jessie. "But that won't happen if you're willing to put Pikachu in danger again!" Pete grabbed a hook pole and reached the hung girls. Ash grinned, knowing that he had the upper hand.

"Your loss!" he yelled as he took and threw a cufflink into the vat. It landed in the taffy, angering Shredder.

"Drop them, now!" he ordered. One of Big Louie's goons pulled a lever to start lowering April and Irma into the taffy, except Pete hooked the rope and helped slide Irma first onto the platform.

"Wait, isn't that Channel 6's cameraman?" pointed out Louie.

"Blast, how did he slip out of my sight!?" snapped Shredder. With Shredder distracted, the Turtles and Trainers took advantage.

"Let's take these turkeys!" ordered Leonardo. They charged and a battle had started. Meanwhile, April was lowered onto the platform in the same fashion as Irma.

"My dentist told me to avoid sweets between meals," April sighed in relief.

"So much for bringing in watermelon pieces," Pete sighed.

"Those are an exception," Irma advised. Team Rocket reached the platform before Pikachu spotted them. He unleashed Thunderbolt and shocked Team Rocket from holding Pete and the women. Raphael and Brock threw their weapons to start the machines that shot taffy everywhere. Donatello threw his Bo to start the wrappings. Looking at the conveyor belt, Shredder assumed that the dangerous cufflink was being wrapped.

"The cufflink," he guessed. "It must be in one of those candies." He turned to his mutants. "Bebop, Rocksteady, go find it!" Bebop and Rocksteady started to unwrap and eat the taffy.

"Dis is gonna be fun!" cheered Bebop. Big Louie and his gang shot away, trying to slow the Turtles and Trainers.

"You Turtles is washed up!" he shouted. "Ya here me!?" Ash used his tonfa to undo a line before water sprayed the goons.

"Thought you needed water first!" he teased. Leonardo and Michelangelo kicked the goons into the taffy. Bebop and Rocksteady started to regret following the idea.

"Dis isn't as much fun as I tought it would be," Bebop gulped. Louie and another goon fired their guns at anyone moving.

"Alright, ya dirty reptiles!" he growled. "It's coitains fer ya, see!?" Raphael grabbed a hose.

"Taste hot taffy, Big Louie!" he roared as he sprayed taffy at Louie and the goon. They were pushed into the wall and the taffy instantly hardened with Ash reaching the two.

"I'm sure you two won't mind sticking around," he mocked. Bebop and Rocksteady were slowing down after eating a lot of taffy, and the wrappings.

"I don't feel so good," Bebop groaned.

"My tummy's hoitin'," Rocksteady whined before he opened one more wrapped taffy but found the cufflink instead. "Hey, I found it!" Shredder seemed pleased before he reached the mutants.

"Krang, the portal!" he ordered through his hand-held device. "We got the cufflink!" The portal opened. A fly was attracted to the portal passage and flew into it.

"What about Pikachu?" asked Jessie.

"That's not my problem, you lazy lowlife!" snarled Shredder before he, Bebop and Rocksteady entered the portal. Jessie steamed before chasing the rest. The Turtles and Trainers reunited but felt that they were too late.

"They escaped!" snapped Brock.

"So what else is new?" scoffed Raphael. Out of the factory and in the Turtle Van, Pete waited for the police while everyone wondered about the cufflink Shredder got.

"So, which cufflink did Shredder get?" asked April. "The normal one or the explosive one?" Donatello held the cufflink that wasn't taken.

"You know, in all the excitement," he started before shrugging. "I'm not sure."

"But if they got the explosive cufflink, we might need all hands-on deck," Ash warned. Back in the Technodrome, Krang was skeptical at the cufflink Shredder received.

"Those Turtles are too clever to give you the real cufflink," he wagered. "It's got to be the dud!"

"What do you mean?" wondered Shredder. "They threw it into the vat of taffy. The cufflink wouldn't explode if it hit something soft."

"That means nothing!" argued Krang. "They wanted you to get that one. They've fooled you again" Jessie came over and plucked the cufflink from Krang.

"Well, I'm sure my boss wouldn't mind a cufflink like this then," she offered. "After all, you guys don't need it."

"Then take it," Krang allowed. Jessie smiled.

"But why should you have it when you didn't do a thing!?" argued Shredder. "All you want is that rodent, but what did you do? Nothing!"

"Right, like you didn't care if what you got was the right cufflink!" yelled Jessie as she threw the cufflink which struck a machine. The cufflink exploded and destroyed the machine. Everyone was aghast to finding out they had the right cufflink.

"That was the cufflink after all!?" gawked Krang. "Oh no…" In the Turtle Van, Shredder came on the monitor.

"You wretched Turtles!" he snapped. Everyone inside was surprised to see Shredder appearing.

"Shredder!?" gulped Leonardo.

"How dare you trick me by giving us the explosive cufflink!" he blamed.

"Wait a second, are you saying you never checked to see if the cufflink was the right one?" sneered Ash. "Come on, Oroku Saki… You're blaming us for getting what you wanted and then destroying it to prove your point?"

"Krang wouldn't look into it," Shredder pointed out. "If you want to blame someone, it's him."

"Figures," Ash sighed. "He may be a talking brain, but that was really stupid."

"I HEARD THAT!" shouted Krang before the feed turned off.

"So, we got the dud, but their plans blew up in their faces," Raphael joked. In the lair, Donatello held the remaining cufflink.

"At least we can return that to Calzoni," Brock mentioned.

"It's a plain old ruby that we have," Leonardo stated the obvious. "And we can explain to Pietro that one of them was a dangerous weapon."

"Yeah, and I think one is worth at least $5,000,000," Michelangelo guessed.

"Nah, not even close," Ash denied. "More like a simple hundred. Cufflinks costing that much would be ludicrous… and I'm not into fashion."

"Let me clean it up before returning it to Calzoni," Donatello suggested. "It does give me a chance to try my new automatic buffing machine." He entered another room.

"Donatello, are you sure that cufflink isn't explosive too?" worried Raphael.

"It was only one of the two," Ash recalled. "What makes you think that cufflink is dangerous when Shredder destroyed the other?" That's when there was an explosion and Donatello flew back into the room with the rest.

"That's why!" snapped Raphael as everyone gathered around Donatello.

"Donatello, are you okay!?" asked Leonardo.

"What happened, bro?" wondered Michelangelo.

"It wasn't the cufflink," Donatello groaned. "I think my buffing machine has a few bugs to work out." Everyone made sure Donatello was okay as a fly started to fly around the Technodrome. Mutagen canisters were found.

TO BE CONTINUED…