The Turtles and the worm guys.
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Some TMNT stuff really isn't for little kids. |
In the Tales of the TMNT volume 2 story "Not Forgotten", worm guys are what a 12-year-old Donatello informally calls the sentient anthropomorphic worms he and his brothers encounter living by a subterranean spring in uncharted caves beneath Manhattan. The worms are inhabiting an elaborately-constructed underground city carved directly out of the bedrock, and are getting their water from the spring and trapping and eating albino turtles from the spring for food. Upon seeing the worms for the first time, the Turtles observe that they appear sickly; when the worms start battling the Turtles, it is evident the worms are strong, but have poor stamina. Don, who stays out of battle, does an analysis of the spring water using his own portable chemistry set, and gets everyone to stop fighting when he realizes the water has poisonously high levels of lead and cadmium. Believing the worms are merely unhealthy, Don gives them the Turtles' portable water filters. The worms do not speak English, but Don hopes the kind tone of his voice and his demonstration of the device will convince the worms of his good faith. The Turtles leave the cavern in peace, musing that they can return in a few months to check on the worms' welfare, but time passes and they never do, and never see the worm people again. Later in life, Don considers the naïveté of his youth, and considers the possibility that the worms may have actually needed lead and cadmium as nutrients, and giving them the water filters may have actually been bad for them.