Cowabunga!
Well, we went to see the Mighty Mutanimals just in the nick of time! The reason Ray hadn’t contacted us was because he couldn’t! The pirates that he and the dudes had gotten messed up with had some sort of hi-technical gizmotron thingymadoo that was jamming all radio frequencies in the area! When we showed up Ray was so happy to see us that he gave Raph a big hug! That was wicked funny! Although Raph wasn’t too crazy about it! =O)
The MM dudes were all there; Ray, Mondo Gecko, Dreadmon, Jagwar, Leatherhead, Wingnut and Screwloose… and they were all lookin’ pretty haggard by the time we sailed in on our sub. We were actually shelled by some depth charges as we came in, so we knew things were pretty bad before we got there. Don-san was baffled how our sub had been detected as he had his stealthy radar-jammin’ gadgetry running. Ray told us that the pirates had been preying on people in this area for over 4 months off and on, and they had an elaborate and super futuristic array of sensors all over the ocean at this point. While the subs might be undetectable by radar, they would still set off the motion detector gizmos that the pirates had set up. These weren’t your ordinary band of freebooters, that’s for sure!
The sea devils were led by Murk Mariner, who I’d battled before with Mondo and Ray and Mondo’s girlfriend, Candy. We managed to beat him back then and Ray arranged for him to be arrested, but due to some weird international waters laws, I guess he got off and went back to the same ol’ thing. He’s been robbing boats for years now, and Ray finally got fed up with it and took the fight to him a few months back. The MM dudes have had their hands full ever since! Ray is a great scientist and inventor in his own right, but Murk Mariner has WAY more cash to spend on stuff, so we were severely outgunned and outspent!
It was a pretty intense time for us, and it wasn’t any fun! We spent almost all of the time running around trying to not get bombed… we’d make fake attack runs on one side while Ray and his buds would do the same on the other. Sometimes we managed to sink a few pirate ships, but most of the time we barely escaped with our hulls! It was a very slow process and the pirates were just as determined to shipwreck us as we were them! Lemme tell ya, I think I woulda MUCH rather spent my time eating grubs on that “Survivor” island than doing this! Subs are cramped and scary when there’s all kinds of explosions going on!
Since we were in a weird no-man’s land area of open international water, no military ships or Coast Guard got involved… although Ray told me that the pirates had scuttled a few European military ships that chose to investigate. This was one reason why they had so much fire power, I guess!
The hide and seek stuff went on for weeks! Neither side was gaining much ground when Don and Ray decided that they had to come up with a solution fast… all of the depth charge explosions were doing unbelievable damage to the ocean and Ray couldn’t take that anymore. Murk Mariner’s main vessel was basically a fortress and we couldn’t imagine how we were gonna sink it… cuz we had been trying forever with no luck! We’d tried torpedoes and plastic explosives and every other type of weapon we could find or create, but the ship was totally too tough for us. Raph and Leatherhead had tried unsuccessfully to board the craft several times, but it was protected with an electric field that made touching it quite a shocking experience. Despite rubber suits and shoes, the electricity was too potent to deal with directly. Don had tried to rig some sort of gadget that would short circuit the electrical current, but nothing worked! It seemed like Murk Mariner was destined to win the war, no matter how many battles we took.
Finally Venus decided that we had to take the battle directly to Murk Mariner… I had told her the tale of how we orginally defeated the Mariner, how he had kidnapped Candy to hold her for ransom and it had actually been Candy who had knocked out Murk inside his ship. Venus liked the sound of this, so we made a plot to get her “captured,” which would allow her the chance to work her mind juju on Murk Mariner. Leo and Don and Ray didn’t like the plan because they felt Venus was taking too much of a chance, that the pirates might kill her instead of holding her prisoner, but in the end Venus’ arguments won out. Nothing we’d been trying had worked for weeks, so we had to try this. Leo and everyone else finally agreed, and it was a tense night when Venus set off alone to Murk Mariner’s ship.
She put up a good fight and made her capture seem convincing. She was taken prisoner and within a few hours, she was back! She had taken Murk Mariner down in a matter of minutes with her Shinobi mind powers and used him to get the rest of the pirate fleet to stand down their defense systems. We quickly took advantage of this and in short order had all of the pirates captured! It went so smoothly it was almost comical! Venus felt foolish for not speaking up earlier with her plan, but everything seemed to work out for the best. Without weeks of fruitless battles, I don’t think we’d have let Venus take the chance she did! The rest of the week was spent returning stolen property and calling authorities willing to arrest the pirates… they had made enough enemies by that time that the French government was more than willing to lock them up and lose the keys!
It was a pretty cool time, looking back on it, but if I don’t sit in another sub for 100 years it will be fine with me! It sounds weird, but even the air in the sewers seems fresh when ya compare it to weeks living in a submarine with recirculated O2! So we’re back home and back in order now. Venus has once again proven why she’s a valuable member of our team and she’s earned another notch of respect from everyone… which is truly awesome! I hope your summer is going well! Talk to ya soon!
Mikey
