Previously...

The group of four picked up the pace, hoping to find Mondo and Leatherhead, or Donnie and Raph at the very least. Luckily, they found what they were looking for around the very next corner. It was only the briefest of glimpses, but Leonardo saw someone green, shelled, and wearing a red bandana slipping into a side door. The only person it could have been was Raphael, but why did there seem to be more green than he remembered? "Raph? Raphael! Wait up!"

Leonardo hurried to the door with the others waddling hot at his heels, but what he saw inside brought him to a wobbling halt. There was Raph in a room full of crates, the turtle prying open the closest one, but what Leo hadn't expected was to see so much of Raphael! His brother's backside was now his most prominent feature, especially with the way he bent over the crate to get at its contents. Raph's rear end had to be twice as wide as his shell, and twice as round! Mikey came up behind Leo a moment later, catching his breath, but dissolving into a chuckle at the sight of Raph and his desperation to open the first snackcake package. "Whoa, dude, it looks like Raph's butt decided to go sumo, and the rest of him's trying to catch up!"

Leonardo's brow furrowed a bit. Had Raphael encountered IRON Chef as well? Or was there something else going on, here? He turned back to Rocksteady and Bebop as they waddled up. "You guys guard the door. If anyone sees you, they... might not suspect too much. But if you see Donnie, let him know what's going on, okay?"

The rhino and boar shrugged and placed themselves on either side of the door, an effective barricade considering their sizes. Leo turned back to his brothers, who were engaged in conversation now. Well, Mikey was doing most of the talking, anyway.

"Dude, Raph! You guys went looking for Leo, but then Leo came back and then we went looking for Mondo and Leatherhead, and now we run back into you! Funny, huh?"

"Mmpph! Gmmf!" Raphael's mouth was full of cream-filled snackcakes, making it difficult for him to reply, though he seemed more focused on eating than listening or replying anyway. There were already a few discarded wrappers at his fat green feet, and as Leo approached, he could swear Raph's rear was getting wider.

"Raph, maybe you should take a break or something. We need to know what's going on here. Where's Donnie? Have you seen Mondo or Leatherhead anywhere?"

With perfect timing, Leonardo's questions were answered as the door slid open to reveal a confused Donatello and an amused Mondo. "What do you mean you quit? How did you get so -- Whoa! Leo? Mikey??"

The two stared with their mouths agape at the trio of obese turtles. Donatello remembered that Mikey had looked awfully thick before he'd left that morning but now... now Mikey was a massive mountain of turtle! And taller than any of them too, from the look of it! And Leo was anything but the fit leader he'd last been! What was going on?

Fortunately, between the five of them, everything was made clear. Michelangelo recounted everything about his training, IRON Chef's creation, Rocksteady and Bebop's defection, and the kidnapping while Donatello explained how they'd found Mondo, what might be happening to Leatherhead, and Shredder's apparent plans for the snackcakes. He also mentioned how Raphael's apparent increasing addiction to the snackcakes had caused the turtle to sneak off, drawing them away from the Technodrome's reactor and leading them here. Leo and Mondo were having a more difficult conversation with Raphael, who was less inclined to talk and more inclined to stuff his face, which forced the blue-masked turtle and long-haired gecko to do more wrestling with the wide-bottomed reptile than getting any actual information.

With their stories straight, Donnie found himself inspecting Mikey's new size, trying to heft that gargantuan gut with his hands, feeling the weight of it. "And all this... is from that toaster I put together? I had no idea that the technology was this.. potent." He had to step close to keep holding Mikey's belly, letting it smush against his whole torso. Not altogether unpleasant. Just the opposite, really. Mikey's much rounder face turned up in a smile. His voice was a little deeper, swaddled by all that fat, but it sounded like the same old adorable Mikey.

"Ha, yeah, you're gonna have to try one of his pizzas, dude. They're amazing. I could eat 'em all day!"

Donatello nodded absently, kneading Mikey's soft plastron, squeezing it. "Yeah, I bet you could, at this size..." Mikey's big cheeks got a bit darker, the larger turtle obviously enjoying the massage. They might have stayed like that for another minute or so had a large wall screen not suddenly come to life, revealing the face of their nemesis, the Shredder!

"So that's where you half-shell menaces are hiding! No use trying to escape now! You -- Wait, is the horizontal on this thing working right? When the heck did you turtles get so fat? Maybe all that disgusting pizza's finally catching up with you! Haha! No matter! I have a surprise for you..."

1) IRON Chef barges into the room, reprogrammed by Shredder to fight the turtles! MWA-HAHAHA!

2) The snackcake reactor isn't ready yet, so Shredder uses the Technodrome's security system and a handful of Foot soldiers to take everyone prisoner! BWA-HAHAHA!

3) The reactor's ready now, and the room they're in is really an incinerator for snackcakes! GYA-HAHAHA!


Ah, I had a lot of fun with this page, even if it took longer than expected to get out to you guys! Trying to make each of the turtles fill out in a different way, hence the mammoth man-seat of Raphael Also, a fun little bit of trivia: this is the first page of the series that has all the turtles in it, excluding the first page, of course. Turtle team power!

Also, this is the perfect song for Raphael right now: Shake Your Euphemism