The Boys - Chapter 162: The Mysterious Turtles in the Sewers (Patreon)

Damien leaned back on the couch in his rental apartment, an unlit cigarette between his fingers as he stared at the encrypted phone on the coffee table.

The screen displayed a surveillance brief from Arke Security. There wasn't much text, but every line mattered.

Sage. Super-cognitive abilities. Confirmed to have joined The Boys. Frequent activity at a safe house in the Bronx.

Hughie and MM. Entered the federal prison visiting area three days ago. Met with Stan Edgar.

Damien lit the cigarette and took a deep drag, slowly exhaling smoke through his nose.

The Boys had found themselves a strategist, and now they were making a play for Edgar in prison.

They were moving fast.

Anyone else might have started getting nervous, but Damien just found it interesting.

Sage? A brainiac with no physical powers. An ant he could crush whenever he wanted. She wasn't going to make much of a splash.

Edgar, though, was a different story.

That old bastard was actually a useful piece on the board. Keeping him locked up was boring. Letting him out was when things would get interesting.

Damien tossed the phone back onto the coffee table and walked over to the window. Night had fully settled in, and the lights of Manhattan blurred together in the distance.

Maeve had left the night before, saying she was heading to Los Angeles to meet Elena. Before leaving, she'd even taken the last two beers from his fridge.

That woman was getting way too comfortable.

Bibira was still at the White House serving out its seven days as president, so Damien had the apartment entirely to himself.

It was almost too quiet.

He stood by the window for a while, thinking.

Maybe it was time to prepare a little gift for The Boys.

Not the kind that just killed somebody outright. That was too boring.

If he was going to fuck with them, he might as well get creative.

Damien turned and walked into the bedroom. He crouched beside the bed, dragged out a metal safe, spun the combination lock three times, and opened it with a click.

Inside were several neatly arranged rows of documents, cash, and, tucked all the way in the back inside shock-absorbing foam, three vials.

Pale blue liquid shimmered faintly under the light.

There were no labels on the glass.

Compound V.

High-purity stuff from Damien's private stash.

He took out all three vials, weighed them in his hand, then walked straight into the kitchen.

Damien turned on the faucet. Water rushed into the sink as he unscrewed each vial one by one and poured the blue liquid down the drain.

The Compound V mixed with the tap water and vanished into the darkness below.

Once he was done, Damien tossed the empty vials into the trash and dusted off his hands.

Now for the real work.

He shut off the faucet, stood in the middle of the kitchen, and closed his eyes.

He focused.

His body began turning transparent from the feet upward.

Within two seconds, the man was gone.

In his place was a stream of perfectly clear water, flowing down into the sink drain.

The sewers were an entirely different world from the streets above.

Dark.

Damp.

The stench hit like a wall.

The pipe walls were coated in thick layers of God knew what, while every kind of household wastewater imaginable flowed together toward lower ground.

Damien shot through the pipes in his liquid form, moving at high speed and slipping effortlessly through bends and junctions.

He was looking for something.

A year ago, he'd crushed a vial of Compound V in front of Popclaw.

By now, some of that stuff should have caused mutations in the animals living underground.

Compound V was even more unpredictable in animals than it was in humans.

Some died almost immediately.

Some mutated into monsters.

And a tiny number developed stable powers.

Damien followed the main line through two turns before entering a larger sewer beneath Midtown Manhattan.

The tunnel was much wider here, big enough for two people to walk side by side.

Moss and strange fungi coated the walls. Every now and then, rats darted through the darkness, their claws scratching softly against the concrete.

Damien slowed down and expanded his senses to cover everything within fifty meters.

His water powers allowed him to sense the movement of any liquid nearby, including the water inside living bodies.

Three minutes later, he picked up something unusual.

About eighty meters ahead were four biological signals.

The creatures weren't especially large, but their bodies were incredibly dense, far beyond anything a normal animal should have.

And they were moving.

Fast.

Their movements were coordinated in a way that didn't feel natural.

Damien accelerated, his watery form gliding silently along the pipe wall as he closed the distance.

Then he saw them.

A broad collection basin roughly half the size of a basketball court. Several large pipes emptied into it from different directions, leaving the water about ankle-deep.

On a dry platform in the center stood four figures performing a series of tightly coordinated movements.

At first glance, it looked like martial arts training.

Four turtles.

Turtles standing upright.

Each was around four feet tall, with thick, powerful limbs. Their shells gleamed dark green in the faint light, and their muscles were clearly defined.

Their eyes gave off a faint glow in the darkness.

And they moved with a speed and agility no reptile had any business possessing.

The one in front wore a blue cloth band around its head and held two metal pipes it had apparently scavenged from somewhere.

It swung them through the air in practiced slashing motions.

Its form was actually pretty damn good.

Nearby, another turtle with a red band was much more aggressive.

It bounced between the wall and the floor, flipping through the air so fast it left blurs in the darkness. Every punch it drove into the pipe wall landed with a heavy thud.

The third wore purple.

It crouched in a corner, tinkering with a pile of electronic parts scavenged from the trash, its fingers moving with almost absurd precision.

The last one wore orange.

It lay beside the shallow water with half a slice of pizza hanging from its mouth, chewing as it watched the other three train.

Damien hovered at the mouth of the pipe, his liquid form completely hidden in the darkness.

None of the four turtles noticed him.

He stared at them for several seconds.

Only one thought went through his head.

Holy shit.

Did I seriously make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Compound V could cause all kinds of bizarre mutations, but the odds of turning four ordinary red-eared sliders into intelligent humanoid creatures that could stand upright, walk, and train in martial arts were fucking ridiculous.

And somehow, he'd stumbled right into them.

The turtle in the blue band suddenly stopped.

It turned its head and looked toward the dark mouth of the pipe.

"Guys. Quiet."

The other three froze immediately.

The red-banded turtle dropped down from the wall.

The purple-banded one looked up.

Even the orange-banded turtle stopped chewing its pizza.

Four pairs of eyes locked onto the darkness at the pipe entrance.