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Some TMNT stuff was always meant for grownups. |
Solicit[]
This story takes place immediately after the events of TMNT Volume Two #9. After defeating the Baxter Stockman Robot, and unknown to his brothers, Donatello takes the robot's remains and sequesters them in a secret room hidden in the sewers. Why would he choose to reactivate their old enemy and more importantly, what is this new robot prowling the sewers?
Appearing in Donatello: The Brain Thief, part 1[]
Major characters[]
Minor characters[]
- Baxter Stockman
- Casey Jones
- Homeless man
- Leonardo
- Michelangelo
Species[]
- Mutant turtles
- Cockroach
Locations[]
Summary[]
Three dogs sit in an alley watching a dumpster. Finally, a homeless man pops up from inside the dumpster and asks if the dogs are hungry. He tosses them some scraps he’s found. While they are eating, he climbs out of the dumpster and then an overhead light begins to make noises. A moment later the bulb explodes. This startles the man, who tells his dogs to leave the scraps because they’ve got to go – he’s got a bad feeling.
Below, in the sewers, the story picks up where Victory? left off. Leonardo has just thrown his katana, pinning the live electrical cable to the wall and blasting cyborg Baxter Stockman into pieces. Leo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Casey Jones duck as the pieces fall all around them.
They then began gathering all of the pieces and dropping them onto a pile. Leo says they have to destroy all of the parts and Don agrees, saying he’ll dispose of them. Leo asks if he needs help, but Don says he’ll take care of it. He stands staring at the assorted parts while the other three leave. Behind Don, a liquified segment of material from Stockman’s body slips down between the floor bricks and into a lower set of tunnels. It swirls in a puddle near a group of roaches. One of the roaches draws near to investigate the puddle and it quickly rises up over the insect.
Cut to Donatello’s lab. He has hung the upper part of Stockman’s body on the wall and brings the “brain” online. Don tells Stockman that he’s repaired and restored some of his lower primary functions. Stockman asks where he is, but Don tells him he doesn’t need to know that. Pulling up a chair, Don sits down in front of the cyborg and says that now they are going to discuss the whereabouts of his brother. (At the time of this story, the Baxter Stockman robot had recently dropped Raphael off a roof and the ninja has gone missing.)
Don later heads into the tunnels and back to the remainder of Stockman’s debris, which he’s placed in a little room. He searches through them but does not find a right arm and then leaves the room. Elsewhere, the roach has grown as it becomes partially roboticized. It approaches an electrical panel and crawls onto it. Part of its body melds into the panel. With that energy the roach becomes even bigger.
Donatello as reached the location where they had just battled Stockman. He remembers that when they battled Stockman on the rooftop, his body was damaged. The whole right side of his torso was blown off, including his arm. Yet when they faced him here, he had both arms. Don realizes that the right arm had a sort of atrophied, organic look to it and wonders if Stockman somehow engineered a robot with the ability to regrow appendages.
Taking a scanner from his bag, Don begins scouring the tunnels for parts. A sound draws him to a wall where he finds a piece of metal, which he picks up. It is in some sort of liquidized state with the appearance of mercury but giving off the wrong EMF signature. It suddenly moves, shifting shapes to stand on his finger and he realizes it’s autonomous.
Don goes running through the tunnels and at an intersection, he comes face-to-face with the cyborg roach. He finds it to be fascinating that the liquid metal technology the Stockman robot possessed apparently is acting on its own volition. It has either assimilated a readily available life form, or he wonders, if this is some sort of mimicking behavior. Suddenly, a hatch opens in the roach’s back and a tendril flashes out towards Don. He punches the tendril, and it goes back into the roach.
The roach then leaps at Don, who draws his bō and delivers it a hard crack on the head. This makes the roach begin to run in circles around Don, who notes that it’s very fast. The roach races between Don’s legs and knocks him down. While he’s on the ground, the roach rises up and liquid shoots from both its forelegs on his arms. This pins Don to the ground, and he finds that he can’t move. A tendril flicks out of the hatch on its back and comes directly at his head.
To be continued…
Notes[]
- Raphael was thrown from the top of a building by Baxter and kidnapped by D.A.R.P.A. in Face Off.