A Thing About Rats

A Thing About Rats is the third episode of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Heroes In A Half Shell (TV Series idea).

Synopsis
Scientist Baxter Stockman uses his latest invention for crime, leading the Turtles to meet his assistant April O'Neil.

Major Characters:

 * Leonardo
 * Donatello
 * Raphael
 * Michelangelo
 * Splinter
 * April O'Neil
 * Baxter Stockman

Minor Characters:

 * The Mousers
 * Hamato Yoshi (Flashback)
 * The Shredder (Flashback)
 * Tang Shen (Flashback)
 * Oroku Nagi (Flashback)

Plot
The second episode begins with the Turtles and Splinter watching the news.The reporter, Ms. Hynes, is doing a story about Dr. Baxter Stockman and his new invention: the rodent-killing robotic Mouser. Stockman, with the help of his lovely assistant April O'Neil, demonstrate the Mouser's ability to track and slay rats. Splinter cautions the Turtles that they must be very careful with this new threat in town.

Several weeks pass, and in that time many bank robberies have occurred. April is reading the paperto Dr. Stockman, which describes strange small tunnels dug into the bank's vaults. April hypothesizes that the Mousers would be capable of doing this, which the good Doctor promptly dismisses, pointing out the April had helped to program them, so she should know better. Stockman then proceeds to take Ms. O'Neil to an underground security level of the laboratory, where he shows her an army of Mousers that are being built. April demands to know how he got the funding to build hundreds of Mousers... when she concludes that her suspicions were correct: the Mousers were robbing the banks! Stockman then reveals his plan to blackmail the City. April is confused, as she notes that Stockman could have made millions legally with his invention. Dr. Stockman replies that he's not doing it for money but because it's "fun." April realizes that the Doc is quite mad and she bolts for the elevator. Stockman then programs the elevator to drop her into the sewers, and sends several mousers to kill her.

Just as she's about to be mauled, the Turtles show up and save her by destroying the robots. April faints at the sight of them! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles take Ms. O'Neil to their home, and when she awakes, tell her their origin. The Turtles then turn on the news to find Stockman making his demands of the City. It seems that he's had the Mousers dig tunnels underneath every corporate headquarters in New York, and if a ransom is not paid for each building, he will have the Mousers destroy the skyscrapers' foundations, thus causing them to crash to the ground.

The Turtles and April decide that it's up to them to stop the mad Doctor, and they sneak into his building. They confront Baxter, who sets off an explosion and traps them in the basement lab. The Turtles manage to blast a whole in a wall, but unfortunately it leads to the storage room full of Mousers! The horde of bloodthirsty robots attack! Leo, Raph and Mike struggle to hold them off, but there are too many! Just as it looks like it's curtains for our heroes, Don and April manage to program the computer to shut down all power in the cellar... including the Mousers! Then suddenly, Donatello sees a strange logo - TCRI. Meanwhile, Baxter escapes through another secret door. The turtles and April use that same door as their way out to escape from the building and all the mousers that are about to explode.

Back in the lair, the brothers find their sensei injured with three mousers destroyed nearby. They also see a huge hole made by the mousers, leading to some kind of old subway tunnel which was there all the time, right next door. Donatello decides that he could use it for his lab for experiments. There, the turtles find a subway car and a map of the subway tunnel system. In the saved part of the tunnel they also find an old fashioned elevator which leads to some kind of abandoned garage, but the other part of the tunnel appears to be destroyed by an earthquake. However, the turtles take care of Splinter and send April back home.

Trivia

 * Adapted from the TMNT Classic comics issue #3
 * Adapted from TMNT Original Series episode - A Thing About Rats
 * Adapted from the TMNT 2k3 Series episodes - A Better Mousetrap and Attack Of The Mousers
 * Adapted from the TMNT 2k12 Series episode - Mouser Attack