My name is Raphael. Here's what happened so far, try and keep up. After we wiped the floor with Shredder and his Foot fungus, we realized someone had taken Master Splinter. I tell you, we turned this city upside down looking for him, but he was nowhere. Then Donny had a thought.
What about the Guardians? If you think about it, right after Splinter disappeared, they disappeared.
So we lured one of the Guardians into a conversation.
Our Master's missing, we intend to find him.
We knew the guy had answers, but he wouldn't talk, so we planted a turtle tracker on him. We shadowed him to this plain-looking building and knew we'd need help getting inside. We got Casey to create a diversion by going nutso in the lobby.
Now I wanna see the head geek or I'm gonna take this place apart!
He was a natural choice. And this allowed April to sneak into the security control room to deactivate the alarm sensors. She found us the only way in way up on the ninth floor.
Some kind of hologram.
But as usual, nothing ever goes as planned.
"DONNY! MIKEY!" Dante shouted as the two turtles fell off the side of the building.
Mikey shouted, "Donny! Kick off of me! Quick!"
Donny pulled out his bō, flips over, and kicks off of Mikey. The suction cups affixed to his knees stuck to the wall and Donny bent backwards, extending his bō outwards. Michelangelo flung one of his nunchucks at the staff and the chain wrapped around it, stopping Michelangelo's fall. He swung in and slams into the wall and his suction cups held him there.
Mikey sighed in relief. "Whoa. Got any clean underwear in that goodie bag of yours, Donny?"
"You don't wear underwear," Dante called out.
"Oh. Right. Well, I could still use a clean pair."
"You goofball," said Donny.
Inside the TCRI building lobby, Casey was thrown against one of the barricaded doors by one of the guards. He looked up to see a guard running towards him with a stun stick. The guard swung it at Casey, but he ducked and rolled, landing on his stomach at the other guard's feet. That guard picked him up by his coat collar and lifted him off his feet. The guard's eyes glowed green.
"You know, you really gotta work on your customer relations," Casey growled. He slipped out of the coat and dropped to the floor. The guards both swung their stun sticks at him, but he jumped out of the way and they stunned each other. Casey laughed, but the effect wore off quickly. "Uh..." He grabbed the two stun sticks off the floor, twirled them and held one out towards the guards, but its battery died out. Bad timing. "Oh, crud." He backed away as they move towards him, but then he held out the other stun stick and charged as he did his war cry, "Goongala!"
Meanwhile, a TCRI employee was doing his rounds, until he spotted the security door slightly ajar.
"Say that again," April said to her earpiece.
"There's a booby-trapped hologram covering the ninth floor exhaust port," said Leo. "It's active and the only way inside. Can you shut it down?"
"Plasma exhaust system deactivated," said the robot voice.
On the side of the building, the hologram vanished and the turtles and Dante saw the opening to the exhaust port. They climbed up and entered the building. "Let's move," said Leo. They ran in and came to a grate.
"We're in, April," said Donny.
"That's great, guys," said April as she turned off the hologram. Suddenly, she heard the door open behind her and tried to hide, but the TCRI employee spotted her. His eyes glowed green and then he walked toward her. Before he could grab April, Casey snuck up behind him, hit him with the stun stick and then shoved the man against the wall.
"I take it things got a little out of hand," April asked.
"These people mean business. Let's book," said Casey. They left the room and April closed the door her. Casey held up the stun stick with a smile. "This baby's better than my baseball bat." The instant he said that, it lost its power, much to his disappointment. They really need to charge the batteries on these things.
"Let's get out of here," said April as she headed for the door...that led to the lobby.
"Uh, hang on. You don't wanna go in there," said Casey as he jammed the stun stick through both the door handles. "Believe me." The door rocked, the result of the two guards trying to break it down. "Back this way."
They ran, but are only halfway down the corridor when two guards come around the corner. When they turn to go the other way, they find their path blocked again by another guard accompanied by a man with short silver hair with a matching goatee and wearing a black suit and sunglasses. "There they are, Mr. Mortu," the guard shouted.
"Think we can take them," April asked Casey.
"Nope. We don't stand a chance. But at least we can go down fighting. Goongala!" He laughed as they drew closer. "Bring it on, you corporate goons."
"What? No! No one's bringing anything on," said April, much to Casey's frustration. "We're getting out of here." She spotted a floating skiff. Quickly, the two of them hopped on, then flew past the guards and into the lobby. Casey laughed as the two of them knocked the two lobby guards down. Then they saw the barricaded door and braced for impact. They smashed through the outer door and into the street. April flew the hover skiff around a corner and into the alley where the Battle Shell wasparked. She brought the hover skiff to a stop and both she and Casey hopped off. They ran to the end of the alley and peered back at the TCRI building.
The guards and Mortu walked to the broken entryway and looked around. "This is unacceptable," he said. His eyes glowed green and he turned around to walk back into the building with the guards.
"Well, that went better than expected," said Casey with a smile.
"Then your expectations are whacked," said April. "I'm pumping so much adrenaline, I won't sleep for two weeks."
"Anyway, mission accomplished. You did pretty good in there."
"Well, so did you."
"I did? Well, I guess I did." Casey leaned back against the hover skiff, but it moves and he fell down, much to his embarrassment.
Suddenly, Leo's voice was heard over April's earpiece. "Hey, are you guys safe?"
"Barely. Listen, guys... there's more to this place than meets the eye..." She stopped when all she heard in response was static.
"April. April?" Leo only heard static. "We lost her."
"My guess is there's some kind of signal dampener in here," said Donny as he took off the earpiece.
"Which means security is going to get tighter the further we go," said Dante.
"Typical bad guy lair," said Mikey.
"Guys, shh," hushed Raph.
He pointed at the floor grate. He knelt next to it and the other turtles and Dante joined him. They looked down to see a TCRI employee pushing a cart filled with large yellow canisters. When he went past, the turtles dropped into the corridor and moved quickly to the walls. When the man reached an open door at the end of the corridor, he looked behind him but saw nothing. He entered the room and pushed the door shut. The turtles and came out of hiding and follow, but when they opened the door, they found themselves in a small square bare room with doors in the center of the other three walls.
Mikey opened one of the other doors and looked inside, but to his confusion, he found himself in a room identical to the one they were in. "Déjà vu. It's just like this one."
"Scout this floor. Then meet back here in five. Dante, you stick with Raph."
"Got it."
The four brothers entered the doors, and they found themselves going through rooms identical to the last one they entered. At one point, Mikey, Raph and Dante bumped into each other, only to run in different directions. Eventually, the brothers stopped playing safe and just ran through them, eventually exiting into the corridor from four different doors.
"Okay, that was weird," said Mikey.
"I feel like a lab rat looking for cheese," said Raph.
"I know," said Dante. "That was like Alice In Wonderland!"
"It's like this is all designed just to keep people going in circles," said Donny.
"But why," asked Dante. "This place wasn't designed to keep normal people out. That's the guards' job."
They heard the sound of the elevator arriving on their floor. Leonardo ducked into the nearest room and signaled the others to follow. When the elevator opened, the turtles and Dante were out of sight. Two men approached with one of them pushing a cart full of yellow canisters.
"Just be glad we weren't on security detail tonight," said the blonde.
"Why," asked the brunette.
"They had some nutcase smashing up the lobby over a toaster."
"Oh, that's why they're all reporting to decontamination. Heh, heh. Poor slobs."
After they were gone, the turtles and Dante came out of hiding. "'Decontamination'? What was that about," Dante asked.
"Decontamination means to clean."
"I know what decontamination means, Donny."
"We'll split up from here," said Leo.
"Mikey, Dante and I can check to see where this elevator goes," said Donny.
"Good. And Raph and I will ghost those two."
The group split up. Mikey caught the elevator doors before they could fully close and pried them open. Donny and Dante followed him inside. When the door shut, Mikey studied the control panel. "Hmm, ten floors, fifty buttons."
"You get the feeling this building is bigger than it appears," asked Dante.
"Yep. Let's see where you take us." Mikey made a random selection and the elevator moves. It stopped and the doors slid open. The corridor ahead of them looked exactly like the last one they were in.
"Try another floor?" suggested Donny.
"Good idea." Mikey pressed another button and the elevator moved again. When the doors opened, they found themselves in another duplicate corridor. "Didn't we just do this?"
"They're all the same. Just like the rooms."
Meanwhile, Raph and Leo continued to follow the two TCRI employees. Keeping a careful watch, they peeked around the corner into the corridor the two employees went down, only to find a dead end with no doors. "Where'd they go," asked Raph. Leonardo walked into the corridor and pulled out one of his katanas. When he reached the end wall, he touched it with his sword and the weapon went right through with no resistance. "Holographic, but without the booby-trap," he said.
"Then let's do it," said Raph as the two of them walked in.
Meanwhile, the elevator carrying Dante, Donny and Mikey reached another duplicate floor. Dante made a crazy laugh before he said, "I think I'm losing my mind! They all look the same! This building was designed to make people crazy!"
"Keep it together, Dante," said Donny.
Suddenly, the trio gasped and ducked when they saw two TCRI security guards, a male and a female, coming toward them. Luckily, they didn't see them.
"Mortu so overreacts. I didn't even touch that guy in the lobby," said the male.
"But you touched Newman and he touched that guy in the lobby," pointed out the female.
The male shook his head. "Newman."
As they entered the elevator, neither one of them noticed Donny, Mikey, and Dante clinging to the ceiling. One of the guards punched in a code and an alien figure appeared on the control screen. The elevator moved. "This suit is killing me. I can't wait to get out of it," said the female guard.
The elevator stopped and the two TCRI guards exited. Donny, Dante and Mikey dropped down from the ceiling. The space they were in was very different from the duplicate corridors, looking very alien in nature. "Wow," was all Donny could think to say. The two guards walked onto two circular metallic pads on the floor. They opened and the guards dropped through.
"Did you see...?" Mikey asked.
"Uh-huh," said Donny.
"Yep," said Dante.
They walked over to the pads and then looked over the side to the floor below. The area was vast and filled with unfamiliar machines. "Myself, I would have fired the decorator," said Dante. "And the heat bill for this place must be enormous! And I thought crime didn't pay."
"Just look at this place. It's like some kind of techno-organic fusion," Donny said, fascinated. "We're going down there."
"Looks more like a giant stomach to me," said Mikey. "Which means I don't even wanna think about what down there entrails... or entails."
"Enough with the puns," said Dante as he grabbed a rope.
"Hey, you can never have too much puns, bro."
Meanwhile, Leo and Raph stepped through the holographic wall and found themselves in another section of the same vast alien-looking area of the building. In front of them, the TCRI employees they were following were emptying yellow cylinders into openings on the side of the wall. One of them walked over to a communication device and said, "Okay, decontamination lines have been refilled."
They left and the two turtles came out of hiding to inspect one of the openings.
"I hate to think what these clowns have done to Master Splinter," said Raph.
"We don't even know if he's here," said Leo.
"Oh, he's here all right. I can feel it."
Meanwhile, Donny, Mikey and Dante trussed themselves into harnesses so they could lower themselves on pulleys. They stopped partway down; close enough to eavesdrop on the TCRI employees. Three men stood in a line and another dropped from a tube to join the lineup. And then, the first man in line did something that would haunt their dreams for a while. He pulled off his face, revealing a robot underneath.
Dante was about to scream, only to have his mouth blocked by Donny's hand.
"Can this freak show get any weirder?" Mikey asked.
Ask and you shall receive. More of the flesh and clothes were peeled off, revealing more of the robot's body. And in the robot's stomach cavity was a pink brain-like blob with blue eyes and sharp teeth. The sight of it made Donny and Mikey almost scream, but Dante covered their mouths with his hands. The other people in the line removed their clothes and flesh, revealing their true forms underneath. The blobs floated out of the robot shells via small hovercrafts and floated toward a fountain-like device in the middle of the room while a robot arm removed the robot suits and their flesh disguises and put them in cleansing machines.
"Decontamination commencing," said a robot voice before hoses hanging from the ceiling sprayed the blobs with a steaming blue liquid, much to their discomfort.
Dante shuddered at the sight of them. "Aliens," he whispered. "They're aliens!"
Meanwhile, the Guardian entered the Council Tribunal's throne room. "My lords, you summoned me," he asked them.
"Guardian, your reports states that security had to remove a tracking device from you this evening," they said. "How did it get planted on you without your knowledge?"
"The ninja turtles are resourceful," admitted the Guardian with a grunt.
Two podiums lit up to either side of the Guardian. On one sat the broken turtle spy camera. On the other was the instant picture developing camera and the picture Leo took.
"We also found one of their damaged surveillance devices inside our lobby. And they have somehow overcome our own devices on the roof," said the Tribunal. "We are very troubled. We Utroms have remained undetected for centuries. And none of our domains had ever been infiltrated, until now. Everything we have been working towards, our chance to finally go home, is at risk."
"The turtles don't know anything for certain," the Guardian assured them. Or at least, tried to. "Their human friends didn't even get past the lower corridor."
At that moment, Mortu entered the chamber and said, "However, their friends appear to have manipulated our security systems, interrupted our holo shield, and seriously compromised our anonymity among humans."
"Your assessment?" the Council asked.
"There is no doubt in my mind the turtles are in the house," said Mortu. "It gets worse. Dante is with them."
"Dante? But the pills-"
"Will not last, Guardian. You know they are only temporary. Once the Foot Sleeper program is reinitiated, the ones who created it will know where we are."
"Find them," said the Council with finality.
Alarms suddenly blared throughout the building as the robotic voice said, "Attention. This is an intruder alert. All search protocols are in effect. We have a breach. Repeat, we have a breach."
"Uh-oh, I think we've been found out," said Donny.
"I knew this was gonna happen eventually," said Dante.
"More intruders? My skin can't take another scouring," complained one of the aliens.
"THERE THEY ARE!" shouted another alien, clearly female.
Donny, Dante, and Mikey's eyes widened. "Up we go," said the latter. The turtles and Dante pressed buttons on their harness belts and were pulled back up.
"AFTER THEM!" another alien shouted.
The aliens flew up through one of the tubes and arrived on the upper landing at the same time as the two turtles and Dante. They began firing lasers on their hover pads, barely missing the turtles and Dante's heads.
"Follow me!" Donny shouted. They leaped into one of the tubes and slid down through orange gunk to a lower floor.
"Ugh. Okay, I am officially grossed out," said Mikey.
"YOU'RE grossed out? Some of that stuff landed in my mouth," complained Dante.
They heard footsteps coming, then saw more of those aliens, some wearing the robot suits and carrying shock sticks, coming toward them. "Get them!" one of them shouted.
The boys were forced to run.
Meanwhile, Leonardo and Raphael are still searching the area. A group of flying aliens came up behind them. Hearing their presence, the two turtles spun around as two robot suit-wearing aliens also approached.
"What the..." said Raph.
"Uh-oh," was all Leo could think to say.
The aliens fired at them. The turtles ran and then reached the end of the corridor where there were two openings. They paused, looking from right to left, and then Leo decided to go to left, grabbing Raph by the hand. "This way!"
They continued running and a door opened for them, taking them into a chamber filled with technical looking machines and organic pods. When the aliens entered, they looked around the room but didn't see the turtles. Suddenly, Leo dropped down right in front of them and charged, taking down two of the robot suit-wearing aliens. Raph then dropped to the floor and swatted one of the flying aliens out of the air. When a robot-suited alien ran at him, Raph kicked it across the room and caught the stun stick it dropped. Raph then engaged in stick to stick combat with another robot-suited alien. Leo glanced back and saw Raph's fight. Two robot-suited aliens charge at Leo in his moment of distraction. He ran up the side of the wall and dropped behind them, spinning and kicking both out of the way before catching a stun stick. He threw it and it hit the back of a leg of the robot-suited robot fighting Raph, stunning the suit and the alien in it. The suit fell down and Leo leaped over to stand with his brother. The alien inside the suit quickly recovered and it piloted its suit to stand back up.
"We take them out, but they keep coming," said Raph, trying to catch his breath.
He and Leo backed away as the aliens advanced toward them. When they reached a door, it opened behind them to reveal Mikey, Dante and Donny. "Hey! Fancy meeting you here," said Mikey.
"Guys," shouted Dante. "They're aliens! These people are ALIENS!"
"Yeah, we kinda figured that out already," snarked Raph.
"This way," called out Donny.
They all followed him while the aliens gave chase, blasting away at the turtles and the human as they fled. They entered another chamber filled with alien machinery and Mikey, Dante and Donny immediately pushed against a machine next to the door. Grunting with the effort, the two turtles and one human managed to tip it over and it crashed with a loud explosion, effectively blocking the entrance. They gave each other a thumbs up and then reunited with Leo and Donny where they all noticed something eerie: pods filled with more of those aliens.
"Whoa, Matrix city," said Mikey.
"This place gives me the creeps," said Dante. "And that's saying a lot considering what we've seen so far."
"What is this place? The morgue?" asked Raph.
"I hope not. Because look." Leo pointed to one of the pods; inside it was...
"Master Splinter!" exclaimed Dante.
They ran to the machine and Donny climbed up on the podium to look at the control panel.
"Is he...is he..." But Mikey couldn't finish his sentence.
"I don't think so," said Donny as he looked at the screen. "From what I can tell, this looks like some kind of bio-suspension unit. He's probably in stasis."
"So, it's like that tank Luke Skywalker was floating in in The Empire Strikes Back?" asked Dante.
"That's a...crude way of saying it, but yes."
"Then let's cut him out," said Raph, pulling out his sai.
"Wait. We might do more harm than good," said Leo, stopping him.
"Leo's right. We don't understand this technology," said Donny.
"We can't just leave him in there," said Mikey. "Don, figure something out."
"Okay, just, uh, just give me a minute to study this."
A loud boom grabbed their attention. "Uh, Donny? I don't think you have a minute," said Dante.
The rubble blocking the door exploded and the aliens swarmed in. "Careful with your weapons discharge. We cannot afford to damage the techno-organic equipment in this chamber," said a female alien. One of her teammates open fired, hiting the podium and sending the turtles and Dante flying. "WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!"
"Sorry."
Suddenly, Dante's head began throbbing. "My head...what..."
"Dante, what's wrong," asked Leo.
In an undisclosed location, Dr. Nathalie smirked. "Got 'em."
The headaches grew worse as Dante yelled in pain and fell to his knees. "It hurts! It hurts!"
"Dante," Raph shouted. "What's happening to him, Donny?"
"Uh...insufficient data."
Then, Dante heard a familiar woman's voice. "They kidnapped your Master Splinter."
"Huh? Wh-Who said that?"
"Dante, no one said anything," said Leo.
"They hurt your brothers. They are the enemy."
"The pills," muttered Dante, as he reached into his pocket, only to remember he used the last one.
"Shredder, Hun, and even Baxter Stockman had their doubts, but thanks to you, I've proved them wrong! The Foot Sleeper experiment is a success. Destroy them. Do it. In the name of your creator, Nathalie. In the name of your master, the Shredder!"
Dante's eyes snapped open, revealing the Foot Clan's symbol in his pupils. Then with a roar, he lunged for the aliens and began attacking the aliens with a ferocity that scared the turtles. "What the shell is wrong with him?"
"I've seen this before," said Leo. "He always acted like this whenever he attacked the Guardians. But those pills he gave me always calmed him down."
"If that's the case," said Donny. "Something in him must be triggering him to attack. But what?"
"Well, then, we gotta snap him out of it," Raph shouted, lunging for the boy.
"Raph, no!"
Raph grabbed Dante, but the boy slammed him to the ground. Raph rolled out of the way before Dante could stomp on him, then grabbed him by the arms. "Dante! Stop now! Ugh," he grunted when Dante headbutted him, hard.
"Dante!" Donny tried to pin the boy to the floor with his bo staff, but Dante yanked it out of his hands and whacked him on the head with it.
"Stop, Dante!" Mikey wrapped his nunchucks around Dante's wrists, only to get kicked in between the legs. "My little Mikey," he squeaked. Dante then kicked him in the gut, sending him across the room.
Leo locked swords with Dante's tonfas. "Dante, don't make me hurt you." Leo knocked the tonfas aside and they landed in a fire caused by the destruction. Dante let out a growl, grabbed Leo by the hands and threw him into his brothers and they tumbled like bowling pins. Then he kicked all four of them into another room and onto a blue platform. He growled as he stalked toward them.
At that moment, Mr. Mortu came into the destroyed room. "What have you done?" He saw the turtles and Dante and gasped as he ran toward them. "Stop! Listen to me. You must get off of there immediately."
Suddenly, the moment Dante's feet touched the platform, an electric current surged through the turtles and the boy. "I can't move my feet," exclaimed Mikey.
Seeing the machine beginning to power up, Mortu ran for the control panel and typed frantically. "I can't stop it. It's too late."
And then, all the turtles and the boy saw was white.
Dr. Nathalie blinked in surprise. "Dante's signal is gone. Did he die? No. I would have known that. No, it's more like...he moved. Whatever the case, he's not on this planet anymore." She grinned. "However, I can track his last known location. At long last, the Shredder's enemies have been found!"
To be continued...