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April O'Neil stared at Casey Jones in amazement. Everything he had just explained to her made no logical sense in her mind. The turtles weren't monsters. They were completely sentient and were teenagers younger than the two of them. Their father was a rat. And they were fighting gangs in New York as well as a clandestine ninja cult that had just popped up. She cursed her terrible luck. This was possibly the best story anyone could ever write, and no one would believe it. I mean, the world was weird, but teenage mutant ninja turtles fighting an undead ninja master? No one was going to believe that.

"And you ran into them, how?" that much she still wasn't sure about. "How does a random teenager come across a group of mutant ninjas?"

His eyes narrowed at her, "Are you interviewing me? You writing a story in your head right now?"

She cursed herself, realizing that's exactly what she sounded like. April couldn't help it. Her mind was always thinking like an investigator, and the questioning came out like that. Casey was a nice guy, and if she was going to continue tutoring him, they'd need to at least be civil. No need to treat him like a story.

"Sorry, sorry," she shook her head and laughed. "It's a bad habit. Still, would love to hear that story."

"Yea, well," Casey's eyes darted from her to the floor, and his hands rubbed the back of this neck. "I, uhh."

Before he could answer, a rap on the window drew their attention. There, standing on the fire escape, were the four turtles as well as a large, humanoid rat at their forefront. April had to do her best to not gasp in shock. The creatures she had been searching for, here at the home of the guy she had been assigned to tutor. It was like the will of the universe or something. She could hardly believe her luck.

Casey got up and slid open the window. The rat looked down at him, turned his gaze to April, and sighed, "I believe we need to sit down and have a discussion."
[hr]
Alopex watched in awe as Hob tore through the deactivated robots with such ferocity she was afraid to get near him. He was completely animalistic as he tore into the metal with his claws and even his teeth. Piece of metal flew through the air as if they were bloody pieces of carcass when the vultures come to feed. The small din of metal bouncing off the concrete of the sewer walls filled the air.

Behind her, Herman was injured, but not badly. Two of the robots had managed to crack the shell on one of his claws, but he assured her it was merely a flesh wound and he would heal in no time. Pigeon Pete, meanwhile, was still hanging on a pipe far above them, ensuring he would be far away should any of the robots come back to life as quickly as they deactivated. He hadn't stopped shaking since they came underground. She felt sorry for the mutant. He was confused at the best of times, she could imagine what was going through that tiny little brain of his at a time like this.

"Hob!" she called out to her group's leader, attempting to get him to snap out of his mindless fury. "Hob! Would you cut it out! You're gonna make Pete's heart explode if you keep that up!"

The mutated alley cat spun around and glared at her with his remaining eye, the anger burning in it unlike anything she had ever seen before. He snapped back at her, "This is all your fault. You and those damn turtles!"

"What the hell is your problem!?" she growled in response. "They didn't send those robots!"

"No, but the goody two shoes one drew them to us! To our home! And now it's gone forever!" he howled. "Everything we built! And now we're on the run!"

"So we'll set up a new home!" she motioned around her. "There's plenty of space in New York!"

"No," he shook his head. "Not any more. We're not going to sit around. We're not going to wait for another attack. It's time we actually live up to our name. The Mutanimal Liberation Army is going to take the fight to the humans. No more hiding. No more games. And if your turtle friends get in the way, we're gonna kill them too."
[hr]
Jordan Perry rewound the video once again, watching how the mutants worked together, spoke to one another, and even, as crazy as it sounded, were smart enough to design an advanced vehicle in the subway tunnels. Everything about them was so much more incredible than they had ever had hoped. It told him that they were close to unlocking the final goal that TCRI had been built for. After all this time, he knew he was close.

"I can't believe it," Stockman said over his shoulder, just as in awe as he was. "This is everything we had hoped for and more."

Agent Bishop had left in disgust when the MOUSERs were deactivated, leading Perry and Stockman to conceal their looks of amazement. That one of the mutants they had created had the ability to hack into their own technology and override it was incredible. Just incredible. 

"We'll need to run more tests," Perry started to muse. "Once we're sure they perform up to specification, we can start more fabrication."

"How do you suggest we do that?" Stockman's eyebrows raised at his boss.

"Simple," Perry smiled. "Agent Bishop is going to want more counter measures. We make sure those counter measures find their way to the mutants. He doesn't have to know that we really don't want them killed. Not yet, at least."
[hr]
April sat, enraptured as the rat, who she now knew as Splinter, explained the mutants' origin. How he found the baby turtles crawling in a green ooze not long after his master had been murdered by the Foot Clan. How it turned them into the large, impressive creatures they were today. How they were the last ones whose burden it was to stop the resurrected Oroku Saki and ensure the dominion of the Foot never came again.

"So you can see," Splinter finished his tale, "painting my sons as the 'Terror Turtles' is not overly helpful, Miss O'Neil."

"Not cool, lady," Michelangelo shook his head in disappointment.

"Sorry," she winced. "That was my editor. He's...excitable."

"Well, you can make it up to us," Leonardo, whom April gathered was the leader of the group, offered. "We're going to need human allies. Ones we can trust. You guys help us out, and we can help you out."

April's eyes narrowed, "Help me out how?"

"Next time, we'll pose for the pictures," Raphael joked. "Make it look real good."

"The last one was incredibly blurry," Donatello added in.

"Hey!" April chuckled, beside herself. "It was dark. But, what could I even help you with?"

Splinter looked and nodded to Donatello, who placed a piece of one of the robots on the desk. He flipped it over and pointed to a cereal number, with a large logo plastered above it.

"TCRI?" April rubbed her chin. "That's a private think tank in the city. Why would they have sent the robots after you?"

"I do not know," Splinter shook his head, "but the canister of ooze that created us bore the same marking."