No Place Like Home is a Fast Forward comic, published in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comic issue 2 in July 2007.
Appearing in No Place Like Home[]
Major characters[]
Minor characters[]
Objects and vehicles[]
Locations[]
Summary[]
Open inside the penthouse, where Raphael and Michelangelo are watching television when Serling blocks the screen. Raph fusses at the robot for encroaching on their veg-out zone, which the pair of Turtles have managed to completely trash. Serling responds by telling them that they may be content to live your their own filth, but he is not. He even lifts Mikey's chair, with the Turtle still seated in it, in order to clean underneath. When Serling starts to lecture them about personal hygiene as well, Raphael blocks him out with a headset.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the penthouse, Donatello is showing off his new creation - a giant pizza. He brags that he's reprogrammed the auto-chef to discontinue the synthetic toppings in favor of less healthy options. Watching them, Cody comments to Splinter that the guys are making themselves comfortable. Splinter scowls and replies that one can be too comfortable.
Later, Serling supervises as Mikey enters the showers for his weekly cleaning, complaining the entire time. Suddenly Mikey shouts and steps out of the bath covered in filth. They all quickly learn from a news report that the entire city's water supply has been contaminated. Cody says there is something seriously wrong in the old sewer system. Raph asks if they've sent down a maintenance crew and Cody says they've sent down two, but neither came back.
Splinter suggests that the Turtles investigate, though Leonardo thinks that's too simple a job for them. Don, however, thinks it will be like going home. Arriving in downtown, the Turtles pry to cover off of a manhole and enter the sewers. They quickly discover a new smell permeating the tunnels and then something slithers past Leo, causing him to exclaim that they are not alone. Suddenly a huge pink tentacle rises from the water and they dodge to avoid being struck.
A moment later, the rest of the creature surfaces and informs them that it is named Sludge and that the tunnels belong to it. The creature has one large yellow eye, a mouthful of teeth, and numerous tentacles attached to its bulbous body. Though they've pulled their weapons, Leo orders a retreat, which Raph refers to as strategic, asking Don where they are going. Don tries to remember the layout of the tunnels, but it's been a very long time since they were last below ground and he leads the Turtles to a dead end.
As Sludge closes in on them, Mikey demands to know if this was some part of a cunning plan, and Don notices a crumbling wall brace nearby. He says that it was and strikes the stacked stones with his bō, quickly leaping aside as the wall crashes down atop Sludge.
Pointing at a nearby tunnel, Don tells his brothers to get moving because he doesn't think the debris will hold Sludge for long. Leo asks where they should go, because they are not on home turf any longer. The tunnel opens on a ledge which hangs out over a pool of water being filled by several other tunnels.
Sludge roars and rises out of the debris to continue its pursuit of the Turtles. Mikey has an idea and grabs a board off boarded up opening, telling the others to do the same. They leap into the swiftly running current and use the boards to surf out of the sewers, with Sludge right behind them. The pipe they are in opens into a pit, and Sludge falls out into a metal net, which traps it.
Constable Biggles arrives to take charge of Sludge and the Turtles return to the penthouse, where they immediately start stuffing their faces. Splinter asks what lesson they have learned from this adventure. Leonardo responds that a ninja's path takes them high and low, Raphael says no one should mess with them, Donatello states "better the debris you know" and Michelangelo merely belches, earning a sigh of defeat from both Splinter and Serling.