"I hate putting those things on damp," muttered Donatello.
"Yeah. It sort of makes your skin crawl," agreed Michelangelo. "Hey April, can I have some of that pizza you brought?"
"They're stone cold. Besides, I thought you were sick."
"He's never too sick for pizza," said Donatello.
"I just need to get my strength up to go looking for Raph." He said, accepting one the pizza box the April handed him.
"We're not going to look for Raphael," said Leonardo.
"Huh?" muttered Donatello.
"Not straight away."
"You'd better have a good reason, why not because if Shredder sends down another one of those floods..."
"That's exactly why. We can't search properly if we're spending half our energy worrying about Shredder flooding us out with the green stuff again. Our first priority is to protect ourselves. We've gotta locate the source of the green stuff and put it out of action."
"I wanna find my buddy," said Michelangelo. "Isn't Raph part of the "ourselves" that we've got to protect."
"I understand. I wanna find him too, Mikey. But first we've got to get rid of the green stuff."
Donatello agreed reluctantly. "And we should really do something about opening up some vents to stop the methane building up again. We were really lucky not to have been killed."
"Hey," said April trying to sound cheerful, "I bet by the time you've done all that, Raphael will be back here waiting for you."
"In that case," said Michelangelo thoughtfully, "I'll just have one more bit of pizza. Before Raph eats it all."
***
It was bright night on the beach. A full moon rode a cloudy sky and in the fitful light a small, ragged figure walked along the shoreline headed towards the sewage outlet pipe. In the trickle of muck that flowed from the pipe is a second figure, lay prone and unmoving. There was a faint glow of green marking the prostrate body.
Galatea crouched beside the recumbent turtle and lay her fingers gently on his head, turning it so that she could feel the faint but steady pulse beneath his skin. "Between sea and sewer I have picked up many strange and wonderful things, but you are, surely, the most strange. I wonder if you can walk?"
He oriented his face toward her, and made a brief but unsuccessful attempt at opening his eyes "Ìdunno" he said. "I don't think I ever tried."
Galatea sat back in the sand in surprise. "Can talk but can't walk. You'd better let me help, then." She helped him to his feet and held one of his arms around her shoulders, putting her other hand around his shell.
The moonlight faded behind a cloud as Galatea and the turtle made unsteady progress back towards her home.
***
It was like a path through the sewer, an eerie green light that glowed on the walls where gobs of the green wave still clung, leading the three turtles back to where it had originated. They followed the canal to a wide pipe and climbed along that, careful to avoid smearing themselves with the green goo. The pipe opened out in a warehouse in the underground city. Above the opening of the pipe was a gantry, and hanging there, a great vat of the green goo.
"Bingo!" grinned Leonardo.
"Jackpot!" said Casey happily.
Michelangelo jumped up and down, "It's mean, it's green, it's...."
"...not very clean," finished Donatello. He wandered into the warehouse, reading the labels of the canisters stacked about the place.
"Two questions," said Leonardo coming up behind him. "What's in it, and can you neutralise it?"
"No problem," said Michelangelo. "Antacid."
"I'll neutralise you," Donatello warned.
The turtles had been so intent on their search for the place where the green goo had come from, that they had forgotten about other threats. One by one Foot warriors emerged, silently, as though the very shadows were gaining substance.
"Now there's something that needs to be neutralised," said Casey, as they suddenly realised they were surrounded.
The Foot warriors wasted no time. They flung buckets of the green goo at Casey and the turtles. The affect on the turtles was almost instant, their reactions were slowed and weakened. Casey didn't even seem to notice the green goo. He slid across it on the floor, using it like an ice skater, and he fought like a machine. Donatello, despite feeling rather ill, found a drum of chemicals to empty onto the Foot warriors. It wasn't the green stuff, which seemed to have no effect on humans, but a white, stinking liquid that had the Foot retching and running the instant it hit them. When the air cleared, the Foot were gone.
Casey flicked the green goo off his hands. "C'mon, guys, I think it's time we got outa here."
Donatello had booted a computer that was sitting on a work bench. "Hold on," he said.
Leonardo and Michelangelo were using Leonardo's swords to poke holes in all the chemical drums, covering the floor with a dirty chemical soup which they stepped around. "If they want to do any more cooking, they're going to have to go shopping first," said Leonardo, happily poking more holes into the drums.
"And they're going to have to rewrite their shopping list, because I've changed one or two things on it," said Donatello.
"Whyn't you just bust their computer," suggested Casey, lining the machine up with a hockey stick.
"Because they'd have a back up, doofus."
Michelangelo hugged Donatello and patted him tenderly on top of the head. "Not just a pretty face, huh?"
"Not even!" said Casey, ducking a wild swing from Donatello.
***
The Foot warriors returned to Shredder, unsure what else they could do. He was less than pleased to see them. "What are you doing here?"
"The turtles are on the site. They found the warehouse."
"And you left them there?"
The warrior tried to reply, but his breath came in a retching gasp, he was smeared with the white chemical Donatello had thrown. He tore the mask from his face then turned from Shredder and vomited. Shredder looked on with an expression of loathing and disgust. As the warrior stood, wiping his mouth, Shredder fetched him an almighty blow to the head. "Hideo!"
Mr Hideo appeared as though he's just materialised from thin air.
"A problem, Mr Oroku?"
"Your plan failed. The turtles have been here on the construction site, and your formula seems to have had no effect on them."
"That is not possible."
"You are a fool."
The Foot warrior struggled to his feet. He held one hand over his eyes, the other on top of his head. Still, he wanted nothing more than to please his master. "No. The formula worked, they had a man with them as well, we couldn't get enough of the formula on them to kill them."
Hideo smiled, "We'll have to find a more efficient way of delivering the formula, that is all.
***
A scrape, a faint splutter and hiss, Raphael knew that sound. He threw himself back in panic as the match flared into life, its small flame steadying. "No! Don't do that!"
Galatea jumped, trying to remain calm. Her hand shook a bit but she was able to light her oil lamp. She looked curiously at the turtle. Over all, he was smeared with green stuff. Beneath that, his shell was blackened, as were his face and hands. There were cuts and bruises and bumps on his head and arms, too. He was covered, head to foot in all manner of nastiness out of the sewer, and he really didn't even know his own name.
"It's ok," she said, settling the lamp onto a high self. "It's just a lamp. To give us light. Sit down. Rest, you need it."
Raphael moved from
behind the chair where he'd been hiding when the match was struck, and
slumped into it. It had taken an awful lot of energy for him just to walk
to the hut. His legs shook with exhaustion and his hands trembled. He couldn't
focus properly, there was a ringing sound in his ears and a terrible sense
of loss that fogged his mind. He looked about, trying to find some familiarity
in his surroundings. The house was a small shack on the beach. It
had a rather organic look to it, like it sort of just "growed" there,
having been added to, bit by bit, over the years, with things that Galatea
found on the beach. It was quite pretty and friendly, bits of broken
glass in the windows shone like precious gems, lit from the moon outside
the window. Old bottles lining high shelves caught the light like stained
glass windows. There was a friendly sound of windchimes and the warm
fragrance of pot pourri. The walls were covered in
deep sea fantasies,
mummified seadragons, exotic fish, trinkets and junk. In this fantastic
shack dwelt Galatea; quite literally in a world of her
own.
Galatea watched him as he gazed about, fixing shakily on the bottles and trinkets that cluttered her home. She moved cautiously, taking a small medicine bottle from a shelf and filling its eye dropper. "Here," she said, pushing the dropped towards his mouth. "Take this."
The turtle moved so shakily and slowly, well, after all, he was a turtle. Galatea hadn't expected a lightning reflex from him, but suddenly her hand was trapped between the prongs of his sai. It all happened so fast, she didn't know what hit her. She froze, her hand unharmed but trapped. She was afraid to move.
Raphael twisted the sai, peering closely at the hand and eyedropper. "What izzit?"
Galatea's voice came out in a squeak. "It's Rescue Remedy, to help you recover from shock. It won't hurt you, I promise. It will make you feel better. It's made out of flowers."
Raphael moved slowly now, as though he was drugged. She could feel the tremor in his arms. He gazed at her face for a moment and then disentangled her hand from his sai. His thick hand was around her wrist and despite his weakened state he could have snapped her bones easily. Instead he guided her hand to his mouth and let her squirt the remedy in. He let her hand drop. Galatea returned the dropper to the bottle and refilled it, then squirted some Rescue Remedy down her own throat.
"What's your name?" she said, sitting on a lumpy cushion beside his chair.
"Oh, the hard questions first, huh?"
"You really are in a bad way, aren't you? Don't even know your own name. Just take it easy, I'll make you a cup of herbal tea."
***
The three turtles returned with Casey to their home. Before they did anything else they washed the green goo off.
"Oh no," said April, seeing the smears of green on them. "Not again."
Casey studied his arm, which had been splattered with the green stuff. "Didn't hurt me. What is this stuff, anyway?"
Donatello wiped a blob off Michelangelo's shell with a paper towel and carefully put in in the bin. "Nerve poison...allergen...I dunno..."
"Bad medicine, Kemosabe," said Michelangelo.
"But harmless to humans," said Casey smearing the blob on his arm and sniffing it.
"So Shredder brewed up his little cocktail just for us," said Leonardo.
"And you were worried that he'd forgotten us," Donatello grinned.
"Yeah. And all the time he was out getting us a present. C'mon, let's go look for Raph."
"What?" said Michelangelo. "Like this? But I just washed my mask..."
"And he can't do a
thing with it!” added Donatello
***
Galatea had lit a cheery driftwood blaze while she waited for the water to boil on her little fuel stove, and the tea to steep. Raphael sat slumped, starting into the fire. "Here you go," said Galatea offering him the steaming cup. "Ginseng tea with a little Origanum marjorana, for shock...oh dear."
Raphael was not just slumped in the chair, he had fallen asleep with his head resting against the wall. A ginger and white cat came sliding through the window. It wound itself around Galatea's legs and stood, gazing curiously at Raphael.
"Doesn't look too good,
does he, Woody?" Galatea said to the cat. "Poor thing's been through
an awful lot. And by the look and smell of him, I'd say most of it
was the sewer. At least I can
do something about
that. I can wash these revolting things, for a
start."
She stripped off his mask and the elbow and knee pads, finally removing off his belt. One of his sais fell to the floor. For a moment, Galatea was afraid to pick it up, in case Raphael suddenly struck out at her again, but he didn't move. She picked up the sai and studied it, holding it like a loaded gun. Down on the hilt the letter "R" was scratched. "R for right hand?" she wondered. She checked the other sai; no "L" for left hand, just another R.
She placed them, crossed,
on the mantlepiece above the fireplace. They looked rather
ornamental
there. Another addition to the jumble of her home. In front of the
fire she filled a
large tin
bath. Raphael
let himself be guided into the warm water and Galatea began to sluice him
clean.
***
The three turtles had begun their search for Raphael. They trudged through the sewer poking under shelves and into shadows, half afraid of what they might find. Ahead of them a cluster of pipes brushed the oily surface of the water. "Look out for those pipes," warned Leonardo.
"Anything could be trapped under them," said Donatello. "I'll go." He unsheathed his bo and swept it under the pipes.
Leonardo leaned in, "Careful, you might..."
"Nah. Nothing."
Michelangelo stared down the tunnel through gloom that turned to blackness. "How many pipes like that do you think there are? That could hold him under and..."
"Not enough, Mikey," Leonardo said firmly. "He's not dead. Splinter would know."
Michelangelo's torch caught a flat, oval expanse in the water, "What's that?" It had a cobbled pattern and it bobbed, undulating in the water.
"I'll go," Donatello said. He dropped his bo and reached for the floating object. It moved easily through the water and when he dragged it into the light they could all see that it was a plastic paddling pool. "Sheesh! The things people put down the sewer!" said Donatello. His disgust did not fully hide the relief he felt though.
"Well let's stop standing around here," said Leonardo. The sewer hasn't been built yet that can keep this team apart. We're gunna find Raphael...whatever state he's in."
***
By this time Raphael
was not in such a shocking state at all. He was bathed and clean,
stretched out on Galatea's bed, almost asleep, and having his shell oiled
and his cuts and bruises ministered to. Galatea decided he didn't look
half so bad now that all the burnt stuff had been washed off. There were
a few cuts and lumps but hey, with a complexion like his it was hard
to
tell.
"I sure hope peach nut oil is good for turtle shells," said Galatea, more to herself than Raphael, whose eyes kept closing. "Puts a nice shine on it, anyway," she said, happily buffing the front plates of the shell. "There! marjoram and comfrey ointment on the bruises and cuts, and thyme oil, that's an antiseptic, and here..." She placed a small bowl of potpourri by his head and rubbed the petals and lavender flowers through her fingers before rubbing her fingers across his forehead.
"Smells like a flower shop," Raphael protested, slapping weakly at her hand.
"Lavender oil. Help you sleep."
"Don't need help. Jus' le' me alone." He rolled onto his stomach, one arm draped off the bed, and a moment later he was totally out to it, a small, satisfied smile on his face.
Galatea smeared one last drop on lavender oil on his head and gazed at him a moment longer before extinguishing the light of the lamp. "Maybe by morning you'll give me a name to put to that face."
Something in Raphael's unconscious mind stirred, and in his sleep he mumbled, "I'm a Ninja Turtle."
"Yes," Galatea agreed
gently, "you're an injured turtle, but don't worry, I've looked after
lots of stranded marine creatures." She tucked a blanket round him and
Driftwood, the cat jumped onto the bed and curls up, ready for sleep. The
fire burned low, the glow of its embers and the full moon gave the room
a magical light. "I wonder if I really need a blanket for a
reptile? Ah,
why not! G'night." She patted Woody and gave Raphael a little kiss
on top of the head. Galatea sat back on her cushion on the floor and dragged
a blanket around her shoulders, ready for sleep. As she began to doze it
suddenly occurred to her what she had just done. "Eeewww!" she murmured,
"I just kissed a turtle."