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It was a beautiful November day in New York City. And an anomalously calm one too, at that. No major crimes were being committed, no supervillains were attacking or trying to escape from the Raft. No alien invasions were underway, and there were absolutely no signs of plasma beams preparing to shoot into the sky. It was a perfectly mundane, and as close to our reality as you could get that day.
Until of course, Hamato Leonardo and Raphael decided that it was a good idea to take Ruby Rose out in the Shellraiser.
Had Donatello not been at the Baxter Building doing research, the consequences might have been easily avoided. But yet that was where he was, and the city’s fate was sealed.
What’s that? Yang and Blake may have been able to talk them out of it, you say? Perhaps, but they were already getting ready to leave the lair that day, having decided to go out on a date to the Museum of Natural History. And as for Weiss Schnee…
“…And we’ll keep on learning frooommm each o-ther/ Best of friends to the eeeeeennnnd!” The former heiress sang with Jennika. On the TV before them, an anime-styled cartoon featuring a team of magically empowered woodland creatures played with all the subtlety of Thor at Oktoberfest.
“‘The Legend of the Royal Oaks Woodland Force Adventures.’” Penny Poledina read from the online wiki page before flickering back into the lair’s living room. “It is… Definitely a television show.”
“Weiss really seems to like it.” Leonardo said uneasily as the woman in question quoted one of the characters’ transparently corny catchphrases as it happened on screen.. “Like, she REALLY seems to like it.”
“Makes sense to me.” Michelangelo said. “Both Weiss and Jennika grew up in harsh environments with no real friends until much later in life, so it’s no surprise that they’d jump at the chance to experience the childhood they never had through the adventures of a team of magical girls that defeat evil with the powers of love and friendship.”
“Oh God,” Raphael groaned. “Mikey’s starting to make sense. Leo, we’ve got to find something to do that gets us out of here, like now!”
“Raph, calm down.” Leonardo said. “It’s not even a bad show. It effectively delivers life lessons with a surprising level of maturity and consistent grace, and somehow manages to give all of the characters compelling and smartly written arcs in the process.”
“I know that!” Raphael said. “It’s just, did they also have to make it so… So…”
“Colorful?” Leonardo asked.
“Trope overdosed?” Michelangelo offered.
“Cutesy?” Ruby said, giving a questioning look at the childishly gleeful expression on her girlfriend’s face. It would have been pretty concerning if it wasn’t so adorable.
“All of that!” Raphael said. “And it was a lot more manageable when it was just Jenny going nuts over it.”
“Well, they’re not really harming anyone.” Blake said as she pocketed her Shell Cell. “And they’re both having a good time. After everything we’ve all gone through, every bit of happiness we manage to get is well-deserved.”
“And if it is bothering you that much Raph, I’m sure we can find something else to do.” Ruby said. Leonardo’s brow creased in thought.
“Hmm. Donnie and Penny finished upgrading the Shellraiser yesterday.” He said. “Maybe we could take it for a spin and make sure it’s working.”
“The Shellraiser?” Ruby asked. “What’s that?”
“An old armored van that Donnie turned into our main transportation and mobile base.” Jennika answered, briefly turning away from the show. “Makes the Batmobile look like a Subaru.”
“Ok, that sounds awesome!” Ruby said. “I’ve always wanted to drive a cool super-mobile-thing!” At this, Yang and Blake stopped dead in their tracks in their exiting of the lair.
“Ruby,” Blake called over. “I know we’re on another planet right now, but I’m pretty sure you need a license to operate vehicles.” Ruby’s face immediately fell.
“Oh yeah.” She grumbled under her breath.
“What’s the problem?” Raphael asked.
“We were kind of in the middle of a war when I became of age to get mine.” Ruby explained. “And even after that, I was busy getting used to my lack of depth perception, so it made starting out a little hard.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, love.” Weiss interjected without turning her head. “You managed to do very well on the written exam.”
“Yeah.” Yang said with a haunted look. “It’s once she gets behind the wheel when all the problems start.”
“Hey!” Ruby said defensively. “I’m sure a lot of people fail it even after the fourteenth time!”
“Fifteenth!”
“I thought we agreed that last one didn’t count!”
“Tell that to the instructor’s wife! She’s STILL pissed at us!”
“Aw.” Raphael said with a dismissive wave. “It can’t be THAT bad. Can it?”
“Go ahead if you want to, I guess.” Yang said as she and Blake left. “It’s your funeral, dude!”
“On the other hand.” Leonardo said. “The look on Yang’s face was oddly serious.” Ruby’s shoulders slumped.
“I guess you’re right, Leo.” She said dejectedly.
“Well, I’m outta ideas.” Raphael said. “You got any, Mikey?”
“Well, I was planning on tracking down Klunk and Zwei today.” Michelangelo said conspiratorially. “I haven’t seen either of them in like, three days and I’m worried that they may be plotting something.” There was a prolonged silence, the only noise in the lair coming from the TV.
“You know what?” Leonardo asked. “I think Yang was overblowing your driving troubles Ruby.”
“Yep!” Raphael agreed. “Let’s get going. Shellraiser’s this way!”
The Shellraiser was one of Donatello’s longest standing ongoing projects. What was once a simple armored van had over the years been turned into a truly remarkable mobile tactical center years ahead of its time. The scanners could easily reach a seventeen block radius, the armor had been improved to the point it could tank the force of a charging Triceraton, it was deceptively fast and maneuverable for its bulk, and the lumbar support on the seats was immaculate. At the moment, the assembled trio for the day had all piled into the quite spacious front seat, with Ruby behind the wheel, Leonardo in the middle, and Raphael at the passenger door. As the three of them finished buckling up, Ruby tentatively reached out for the wheel. She had only seen the Shellraiser in full mere minutes ago, and yet she was still in awe of what she had admitted was the most amazing thing she had ever seen on eight wheels. Leo took out a key fob from his belt and pressed a button, spinning the Lazy Susan they were parked on as it extended upwards, eventually lifting the Shellraiser into an open alleyway on the surface.
“Alright Ruby.” Leonardo said. “I know the Shellraiser is a bit bigger than what you’ve practiced on before, but by and large, the principles are still the same. So, what is step one?”
“We put our seatbelts on.” Ruby nervously said, her hands shaking. “And step two is turning the ignition.” She did so, and the engine of the Shellraiser roared to life.
“Good.” Leonardo said, guiding the now noticeably sweating Ruby to grasp onto the steering wheel at last. “Good. Now, hands on ten and two… And then we-“
“Floor it?” Ruby said suddenly, whipping her head to face the Turtles.
“Uh, no.” Raphael said, confused. “Even after following the actual steps, you should only ever floor it if you’re in a-“
“FLOOR IT?!” Ruby exclaimed, sweat now pouring down her face.
“Wait!” Leonardo exclaimed in a vain attempt to stop the coming chaos. “Ruby, don’t!”
“OK, FLOOOORR IIIIIIIIT!!!” Ruby shouted, practically stomping down on the gas pedal. “FLOORITFLOORITFLOORITFLOORIT!!!” The Shellraiser peeled down the alleyway and turned into the streets at high speed, violently pressing Leonardo and Raphael into the plush of the front seat as it occurred to them how big of a mistake they had made. Just like that, the city’s fate was sealed.
The streets of NYC echoed with the unholy screeching of hastily taken turns and near miss merges as Ruby treated the Shellraiser more like it was a high powered rocket than a land vehicle. Which to be fair on some level it was, not that the citizens of New York would be interested in debating that point at the moment, as they were too busy desperately diving out of the way. In the span of a mere seven minutes Ruby had already run fourteen traffic lights and eight stop signs, bowled over a baker’s dozen of newspaper kiosks, knocked four fire hydrants off their moorings, and utterly destroyed at least twenty five garbage cans. All the while Raphael and Leonardo tried to break her out of her almost catatonic state of swerving this way and that, only able to communicate with two specific words in an equally specific order, but to no avail. Raphael, now seeing that he was well and truly along for this disastrous ride, decided to cut his losses and return his attentions to the road so that he could at least try to warn Ruby of oncoming obstacles before she inevitably smashed through them.
“RUBY!” He shouted. “Watch out for the-“
SMASH!!!!
“Food cart…”
The vendor had just managed to dive out of the way in time, quickly recovering to his feet to see the remnants of his stand and product fly off of the roof of the Shellraiser as it bolted past! Clutching his hair in his hands at the sight of the carnage, he could only look to the sky as he wailed in despair:
“AAAAAH!!! MY PIZZA BAGELS!!!”
New York City was never the place to go for a stellar traffic experience, but within the next six minutes, a good portion of the city would never complain about normal rush hour ever again.
Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long’s day couldn’t have been going any better. The only real hiccup in their date had been a delay resulting from Yang insisting that they visit the exhibit on the Stone Age at least twice more before they were done, on the account that they, in her words “spoke to me”. And honestly Blake could not find it in herself to argue, admitting to herself that her girlfriend would probably look damn good in the pelts and furs that the ancient humans of this planet garbed themselves in. She’d have to put a pin in that. The couple exited the museum, preparing to make their way to where they were planning to take lunch. As luck would have it, they set foot on the main sidewalk just in time to see what looked to be a heavily modified armored van painted in a familiar shade of green rocket up the staircase leading to the subway system and back out into the streets with all the subtlety of an enraged Beringel.
“Oh no.” Blake sighed in defeated disappointment, pinching her brow. “Ruby…”
“Well.” Yang said as she helplessly stared at her sister’s path of destruction. “I guess that makes it sixteen then.”
Leonardo and Raphael had truly proven as helpless to stop Ruby’s panicked road rage as any other civilian currently out on the streets that day. So who or what in all of the boroughs had the power to stop her?
Atop one of the smaller buildings in Midtown, a young couple clad in red and blue and red and white limbered up for their patrol. Yes it was shaping up to be a relatively peaceful day in the city, but even then it was better that they were out and about just in case, and on the plus side it allowed them to get some cardio in.
After all, Spider-Man and the Scarlet Spider had a responsibility to the people of New York. Even if it was something much more mundane than most people would think that being a superhero entailed. You know, the whole saving cats out of trees and giving tourists directions sort of thing. And that was the kind of everyday heroism that Spider-Man had been expecting to engage in today. A relatively breezy day of swinging around and Friendly-ing the neighborhood, as he and Scarlet’s fellow spider-person had once put it. Peter would never tell the rest of the team, but he was actually pretty jealous that Gwen had come up with that joke before he had.
And then all of Spider-Man’s perceived expectations for his day were predictably smashed to dust when he and Scarlet’s Spider-Sense flared out of nowhere, prompting the two heroes to jump to the edge of the building they had been stretching on! A squeal of tires down the street heralded the primary cause of the disturbance, and the two Spiders found themselves in the midst of a once in a blue moon occurrence. Something that was able to leave them speechless.
“What in the heck is THAT?!” Scarlet Spider exclaimed upon the sight of the Shellraiser tearing up asphalt. In both the figurative and literal sense!
“It looks like a repurposed armored truck.” Spider-Man observed. “Thrown together by a dumpster diver. And one who definitely knew what they were doing.”
“And still, this isn’t the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen tearing up the streets.” Scarlet sighed. “Guess everything’s downhill after dealing with Big Wheel.”
“At the very least, they’re clearly trying to avoid hitting people.” Spider-Man said as he began to run across the roof’s edge and sling out a webline. “They must have lost control of acceleration! Let’s see if we can help put on the brakes!” Scarlet Spider gave a considerable leap and shot out a webline of her own.
“Right behind you! Let’s go get ‘em, Tiger!”
In the past minutes, Raphael had seen his entire life flash before his eyes. The experience had turned out to be a lot shorter than he thought it would have. And now, practically plastered to the front seat of the Shellraiser by its forward force alone, he vowed to put quite a good amount of thought into things before he pushed any vehicle he piloted to its limits without any real need to. That is of course, if he made it out of this alive. Leonardo was in a similar state of deep consideration in the back of his own mind, but of course you wouldn’t be able to tell this by looking at the brothers. Outwardly, both of them were preoccupied by clutching onto the edge of the seat and screaming for dear life. Somehow, the method by which Ruby Rose drove was more terrifying than any enemy either of them had ever faced before.
And then just as quickly as it had began, the Shellraiser and all in it gave a lurch as something caught onto its rear end, slowly but steadily endeavoring to bring the vehicle to a stop! The shock of it was enough to wrench Ruby out of her panic, and the Shellraiser came to a skidding halt just in time to not crash into the front facade of an old toy store that made its home near Times Square! The three of them sat there for a moment, taking the time to fully comprehend that they had at last came to a stop. Then as one, they absentmindedly unbuckled their seatbelts and exited the Shellraiser.
As soon as he made contact with the ground, Raphael threw himself upon it and began to repeatedly kiss the concrete, swearing up and down that he would never take solid ground for granted as he did. Ruby and Leonardo on the other hand, shakily walked to the back of the Shellraiser to find four thick ropes of a silvery-grey sticky substance latched onto the rear chassis, with two of each attached on either side.
“Are those…” Ruby said, entirely befuddled by the sight. “Spider webs…?”
“I don’t really see what else they could be, lady!” Piped up a voice from nearby and above. Ruby and Leonardo turned to the voice to be met with the Scarlet Spider leaning back on the side of the building they had nearly crashed into. Spider-Man had taken a perch atop the nearest street lamp.
“Oh!” Scarlet continued, having now seen Leonardo and Raphael. “It’s you guys.”
“And you are?” Ruby asked.
“What?” Spider-Man asked. “Don’t you read the Daily Bugle? We’re the city’s resident threats and/or menances!”
“Thanks for the help you two.” Leonardo said. “We were having a bit of a… An issue with the breaks.”
“Eh, well…” Ruby said to herself, walking to inspect the storefront. “It’s technically the truth, I guess. Huh, Princess Periwinkle? Why does that sound familiar?” Overhead, a distinctive ‘thwip!’ could be heard along with the clank and whir of a grappling hook line above muted engines. Another person in a spider themed suit, this one white and black, landed on the wall next to Scarlet. She was followed by a young platinum blonde woman landing on the Shellraiser’s roof. Lastly, a young man in an armored grey bodysuit with a green visor and mask hovered to a stop on what resembled a high-tech snowboard.
“Looks like our power couple found the source of the mess.” The blonde woman said. “Is it bad that I was hoping it’d be Rhino?”
“I think you really need to learn how to take a day off, Cat.” The man on the board said as he surveyed the scene. “Why is the red turtle guy kissing the sidewalk?”
“He’s taking ‘I Love NY’ to the logical extreme?” The white and black clad Spider suggested.
“I think it’s more he’s just glad to be back on stable ground again, Spider-Woman.” Spider-Man said as he hopped down and checked the driver’s cab of the Shellraiser. “Huh. How about that, the brakes actually ARE busted!”
“You really do make a terrible liar, bro.” Raphael said, slowly recovering to his normal self. “Oh man, how are we gonna explain all this to Donnie?”
“At least on the bright side, City Counsel’s been talking about redoing a lot of the roads anyway.” The Grey Goblin said as a series of bright Orange and yellow trucks rolled onto the scene. “And there’s Damage Control, right on cue.”
“At least Stark’s making an effort outside of his tin can.” Black Cat said. “He’s almost made me feel guilty for that heist I pulled a few years back.”
“That at least takes care of the collateral.” Leonardo explained. “You have no idea how strict our brother is about using this thing responsibly.”
“We’ll only get in trouble if he notices, Leo.” Raphael said. “And he’s been too busy with that project that he, Penny, and Stretcho are doing.”
“Even so, the next time we give Ruby driving practice, we’re doing it somewhere where there’s nothing to crash into.”
“We just went through all that and you STILL want to teach her to drive?!” Raphael exclaimed incredulously.
“Would you rather she keep driving like that when we’re dealing with a villain problem?”
“Ah, crud. You’re right. Well, from now on, I’m gonna make sure to stay far away when you’re doing that!” Scarlet hopped off the building to talk to Leonardo.
“We’re not too far from Mutant Town right now.” She said. “We could help tow you back if you want.”
“The help would be very much appreciated.” Leonardo said, and then looked around. “Hang on, where’s Ruby?”
“Over here, Leo!” Ruby called as she exited the store in front of them, two boxes in her arms. Black Cat took a look at their contents and raised an eyebrow.
“Royal Oaks Woodland Force Adventures?” She asked. “Really?”
“My girlfriend likes it.” Ruby said. “I wanted to get her a plushie!
“You got two.”
“The other one reminds her of me for some reason.”
“Yeah, so Weiss likes the show.” Raphael said. “But there’s no way she wouldn’t want to be caught dead with one of those glorified throw pillows!”
Some Time Later…
“Aaaaaaaah!” Weiss practically squealed in delight as she beheld her girlfriend’s gift. “Princess Periwinkle AND Suzuki Hedgehog?! Ruby, you’re the best ever!!! Tea party, right now!” Raphael could only stare, slack-jawed in disbelief as Weiss dragged Ruby and her new plushies off. Michelangelo walked up behind him, a noticeably guilty and indignant looking Klunk and Zwei in his arms.
“Oh, you guys are back!” Michelangelo said. “Look who I found!” Raphael turned his gaze to the two pets, and let out a confused noise.
“I was right!” Michelangelo clarified with a fake tone of disappointment. “A couple someones were trying to dig a secret passage into the pet food cabinet!” Raphael finally managed to shut his mouth and looked off into space.
“I think I’m actually starting to miss Ruby’s driving.” He said exhaustedly. Then he robotically walked to his room, intent on sleeping the day off in peace. And relative peace did once again fall upon the city, and the Hamato Clan’s lair. Until of course, it’s walls echoed with Donatello’s gradually more annoyed voice as he said:
“Guys, would anyone care to explain all the damage on Shellraiser?!
“Uh-oh.” Ruby Rose said. “We’re in trouble.”