Somewhere in the sewers beneath Utoland City sat a giant rat. This particular rat wore a tattered kimono under a waistcoat and lab coat. A pair of glasses were precariously balanced on the end of his snout as he squinted at a sheaf of papers in his paws.
He looked up as three of his wards trudged through the muck toward him, their winged capes fluttering slightly behind their enormous turtle shells.
“Hakase Splinter,” Ken, the Eagle-turtle said, “our mission was successful.”
“You were able to defeat Berg Shredder’s latest evil plan?”
“Yes,” Joe the Condor-turtle replied a little tersely, “we kept the Green Goon Clan from giving the mayor a wedgie at the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the children’s hospital!”
“Very good.” Splinter replied, “But why do you seem cross, Condor-turtle Joe?”
“Well, Hakase,” Ryu the Owl-turtle replied, “the hospital was destroyed.”
“What? How?!”
“For starters,” Joe snarled, “these Turtle-BirdStyles you designed suck !”
“What he means,” Ken quickly said, trying to smooth things over, “is that our shells aren’t very aerodynamic, Hakase-sensei."
“Instead of soaring like birds,” Ryu added, “we just kept crashing into everything like wrecking balls.”
“Hmm...” Splinter Nambu thoughtfully stroked his whiskers, “that could be a problem...”
Ryu cleared his throat. “Um, has anybody seen where Jinpei snuck off to?”
The Swallow-turtle swung his feet as he sat on a bar stool in the Snack J, drowning his sorrows in a soda. Jun O’Neil flitted from wiping down the bar, reconnecting a few wires in the television camera from the station she worked for, and examining invoices on a clipboard from the delivery service she also worked for.
“You’re so lucky.” Jinpei sighed.
“Oh?” Jun answered, “I don’t feel that way whenever I have to explain to the insurance company how my doorways keep getting damaged.”
“Huh?”
“Your brothers need to either figure out a way to take off their shells or stop trying to come through the regular doorways!”
“Oh.” Jinpei fell into a sullen silence. Jun stopped what she was doing and leaned against the bar immediately across from the Swallow-turtle.
“Hey,” she said in a soothing tone, “I wasn’t busting your chops. You’re just the right size for the doors –”
“I know. It’s just that, well, I don’t think things are as big as Hakase Splinter says.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Well, if the Green Goon Clan were such a big threat, then why do they just do stuff like trying to give politicians wedgies and wet willies?”
“Maybe they figured out a way to make people actually die from embarrassment....”
“All Berg Shredder does is whine about how his purple cape keeps getting caught in the spikey parts of his armor.”
Jun just blinked at Jinpei; she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“And if we’re so important to the ISO, why are we stuck in the sewer?! Shouldn’t we be at some sort of base?”
Just then several members of the Green Goon Clan rushed in. Jinpei slid off the bar stool and charged at the newcomers. They exchanged blows for a few minutes. But then –
“Dammit!” Jinpei shrieked as he fell onto his back. He kicked violently, trying to right himself. He succeeded in making himself spin like a top.
At that moment, the Eagle-turtle, the Condor-turtle, and the Owl-turtle came crashing through the Snack J’s plate glass windows.
As she watched the Green Goon Clan get tossed through any remaining glass, Jun O’Neil sighed. There goes the last of the insurance!
