Chapter 24: Caged
A Triceraton soldier was heading towards the cargo hall. The security system had showed that the window on the cargo hall was broken and his group had to make an inventory of the losses it had caused. But he didn't expect to find some extra things in there. What he found was four boys sitting on the floor on a lotus position.
"What…? How did they get here…? More importantly… There's no atmosphere in this room… Are they dead?" the Triceraton mumbled and touched the black-haired boy's cheek. "Hands off creep" the boy told without opening his eyes.
"Alive?! But how?" the Triceraton asked. "It's called Chi Gong, internal breathing" Leonardo replied. "Our ninja training teaches us how to slow our breath and heart rate. Enabling us to survive the loss of atmosphere" Donatello said and added: "For a while anyway".
"And since we're not in space anymore, I can take deep breath of the old good oxygen" Mikey told and took deep breath. But something was wrong. He started to cough. "Oxygen?" the Triceraton soldier asked amused and told: "We Triceratons breathe the hardy mixture of nitrogen and sulfur"
The other guys also started to feel pain in their lungs and started coughing. "Get them to the interrogations… And give them four atmosphere converters" the Triceraton commander ordered.
Meanwhile, the Triceraton Prime Leader was having a meeting with professor Honeycutt. "What's the meaning of this?" professor Honeycutt asked. "Well… We've heard that the Federation military is after you… Or more specifically, one of your inventions. The teleportal device. And it would cause a huge devastation in their hands" the Prime Leader told.
"On the other hand, we Triceratons would use it to protect peace and make sure that the Federation stays under control. There's nothing we wish more than ensure everyone's safety across the universe. That's why I'm offering you protection from the Federation group plus the full rights of a citizen of Triceraton Republic. You need no longer to be a fugitive robot" he continued.
"That's very kind of you Prime Leader Zanramon. But, I can't build a device that could hold a threat to everyone's safety" Honeycutt told. "We Triceratons want to use the teleportal as a tool of peace, not war" the Prime Leader told. "I wish I could believe that" professor Honeycutt told.
Suddenly a notification appeared on the computer screen in front of the Prime Leader. He touched it and a small hologram of Triceraton captain appeared. "Excuse me Prime Leader, we found something on the scout ship" a Triceraton captain told. "This better be important" the Prime Leader said and added: "Put it on the screen".
A hologram picture of Triceraton soldiers and four teenage boys appeared behind professor Honeycutt. "We found some stowaways in the cargo hall" the Triceraton told. Professor Honeycutt turned around and saw the familiar faces. "Those boys are here? But… How?" professor Honeycutt asked.
"You know them?" the Prime Leader asked. "Please, don't harm them" professor Honeycutt begged. "As you wish. Keep them alive. For now…" the Prime Leader told and ended the call. "Now then, let's get back to the business. You have one orbital cycle to begin to work on your teleportal. If you refuse, your friends will be executed" the Prime leader told smiling victoriously. Professor Honeycutt gasped horrified.
"What is that place?" Mikey asked when he was forced to step out of the spaceship. "I think you should know very well where they are taking us. In to a prison" Raph told. "Prison?! What?! N-no way… " Mikey said. "I'm sorry Mikey but I think Raph's right" Leonardo told.
"Move it!" the Triceraton soldier told pushing Mikey forwards. "Ouch! Okay, I'll walk, I'll walk!" Mikey yelled. When they were walking towards the prison, they passed an alien that was taken out of there, but he didn't seem too happy about it. "No, not the games, please! Not the games…! Anything but the games, let me go!" he yelled struggling against the Triceraton guards. But the resistance was futile and he was taken inside the spaceship.
"I don't understand… The games sound something fun so why is he so against going there?" Mikey asked. The Triceraton soldier laughed. "Pray that you will never find out alien" he told. They got inside the building and the Triceraton announced to the gatekeeper: "Fresh meat! Ready for processing!"
The guard pushed a button and a weird device descended from the ceiling. "Step back with your hands up!" the Triceraton ordered. The teenagers had no other choice but to obey. They raised their hands and the machine blasted something on their wrists. Light blue rings.
The guard pushed another button and the rings on boys' wrists were drawn to each other, as well as causing them pain. The machine hadn't stopped yet. It put some kind of mark on them. Then they were taken to another room and the handcuffs stopped drawing each other and their hands were freed. In this room, they had to change in to the prison clothes.
"Hey, at least let me have my scarf" Raph asked. "No. You get your belongings back when you're released. Which will probably be… Never" the guard laughed. Raph tried to attack the guard but the guard pushed a button that gave Raph an electrical shock and he fell on the ground. The guard pressed the button again and the electrical flow stopped.
"Now then, better change if you don't want to get electrified again" the guard told. Raph gave a murderous glare but changed the clothes without a word. When they were done, their hands clapped together again and they were taken in to a cell. The guards locked the door and released their hands.
"Um… So, Leo, do you have an escape plan?" Mikey asked. "How could I? We know nothing about this place… Yet" Leonardo said determined. "But we'll come up with something after learning more about this place" he continued.
After a while, the cell doors were opened. "Grub time!" the guard yelled. "Finally! I thought I'd die from hunger!" Mikey rejoiced. But he wasn't watching where he was going and bumped in to a huge alien. "Oops… Sorry dude" Mikey apologized.
"No one touches Rynokk!" the alien told and was about to hit Mikey. "Well no one will hit my brothers either you fasgfd…" Raph started, ready to attack Rynokk but Leo and Don dragged him away covering his mouth so Rynokk wouldn't hear the insults Raph was shouting.
"Raph, you got to keep low profile" Leonardo whispered. Rynokk hit Raph and that caused both Leo and Raph hit the ground, then he looked at Raph and laughed. Rynokk decided that he had wasted enough time to these pipsqueaks and left. A sneaky looking slender alien that looked a little bit like a grasshopper helped Leo up saying: "You don't want to mess with Rynokk. He's the king of this cell block. I'd be nice to him if I were you"
He tried to help Raph up too but Raph shuddered and backed up a little. "Raph, he is an alien, not a bug" Donatello whispered. "Thanks but… I can get up on my own…" Raph said and after backing up a good while, stood up.
They went to the line to get their lunch. "Now remember, desserts are the main commodity here. You can use them to buy oneself about anything" the grasshopper-like alien told. They could see further away Rynokk taking away other aliens' desserts.
"No way anyone's getting my dessert" Mikey told pushing a lever to fill the plate and then ate the thing on plate quickly so no-one could steal it. "Urgh, tastes horrible" Mikey said. "The desserts are over there… That's floor wax" the alien told pointing a lever a little bit further away.
Mikey hurried to a trash-bin-looking-like-thing and threw up. "Not off to a good start, are we?" Donatello said. "It'll get worse when they realize your friend just hurled in the salad bar" the alien told. The guards noticed what was going on and made Mikey clean up the mess he made. The other guys offered to help but the guards ordered them to leave Mikey alone and go to eat their meals.
"No way I'll be eating this" Raphael complained after seeing the food. It had some weird yellow and orange chunks with red pea-like things and little purple pieces that seemed like meat. It looked like someone had already eaten it once. "You'll need your strength" Leonardo told. Even Donatello seemed suspicious about the food and was waiting Leo to be the first one to taste it.
Leonardo noticed his brothers staring and sunk his spoon in the food, then put the spoon in his mouth and swallowed. "It's just fine. Not good but edible" Leo told and continued eating. Donatello also tasted the food but wasn't sure if he could agree on its edibleness. Thinking about it only as nutrients and fuel didn't help either. Raph played with the food for a while and then decided that water was enough for him.
After Mikey's incident, none of them were up for desserts so they used them to buy some information about the building. When the lunch was over they went to the exercise yard. Mikey was still cleaning up, apparently he had to clean the whole dining room, not just the mess he made.
Leo, Don and Raph split up and kept avoiding Rynokk. Even though Raph had loved giving him a little pay-back when no-one was watching, he couldn't risk their escape on something that stupid. In the past, he had wondered few times if being in a prison was anything like in the movies and besides the other prisoners being aliens, it pretty much was: the food was horrible, the guards were tyrants and the old residents were looking at the fresh meet with measuring gazes.
Raph felt slightly disgusted and nervous when he passed a group looking at him and licking their lips. He put on more speed to pass these creeps. "I'm glad that me and my brothers got at least the same cell. I don't even want to think what would've happened if I had guys like those as cell mates…" Raph thought.
The exercise time ended and they had to return to their room. Mikey collapsed on the bed complaining: "Now I'm even hungrier than before" "So… What did you guys swipe?" Leonardo asked and took two spoons out "I got spoons" . Raph took something under his shirt. "A mug" he told. He had crushed the metal mug in flat. "I got some floor wax" Donatello told taking some out from his shoe.
"Not another word of floor wax…" Mikey cried. "Floor wax? How's that going to help us?" Raph asked. "Well, a bit of this… And this…" Donatello said tossing some dirt in a small piece of floor wax. "Then add small drop of moisture" Donatello told and spitted on the wax dirt mixture. "You'll have a crude but effective smoke bomb" he finished as the bomb started to smoke.
"So, the information you got?" Leonardo asked. "I found out where they are keeping our stuff" Raphael told."They are in a storeroom next to the special cells" he said and added: "Also, I've been timing the cell block gate. Once it's open, there's five seconds delay before the lock resets"
"Once we get pass that, we go to steal our weapons back and then we can access the drainage system that'll gets us to the exercise yard. From there we stick in the shadows and scale the outer wall" Leonardo told. "But we still need to lift the guard's key-card" Donatello reminded. "That'll require distraction" he added.
"Finally something that I'm good at!" Mikey said. "Then it's settled. We go tonight" Leonardo told. "Good, because I wasn't sure how much longer I can stand this place" Raph commented. "Really, I think you fit in here perfectly…" Mikey jeered. "Shut up puke-face" Raph hissed.
On the next meal, they all sat in the table and kept eyes on guards. When the guards weren't watching, Donatello took out something, poured water on it and stuck it under the table. "I wrapped the smoke bomb in a damp cloth. It'll act like a fuse, delaying the chemical reaction by about six hours" Donatello whispered.
"Okay, show time bros" Mikey told and stood up but Leo stopped him and said: "Hold up! We got trouble" He was looking something behind Don and Raph's backs. It was Rynokk, taking the food from others again. "Give it up weaklings" he told as he gathered the French fry looking like food. He continued the whole way to the table were the brothers were sitting.
"Hand over yours, freak!" he ordered. Raph pretended like he didn't even notice Rynokk and kept eating the alien fries. Mikey started to eat faster hoping that Rynokk wouldn't pay attention to him. "Didn't you hear what I said brat?" Rynokk asked grabbing Raph's collar. Raph smirked and put another fry on his mouth. "I thought you were talking to someone else" Raph said.
"Don't try to be wise with me… Hand them over" Rynokk demanded. "Raph, just give them to him" Leonardo told. "Let's see… No. Fuck off" Raph replied. Leo face-palmed. Rynokk was going to hit Raph in the face but Raph grabbed his wrist and threw Rynokk on the floor.
The guards noticed this but instead of stopping the fight, they decided to watch it. Leonardo and Donatello tried to use this situation for their advantage but the guards were moving too much and were too close to each other for the guys to grab the card.
Rynokk got up and rushed at Raphael. Raph kept evading Rynokk's attacks. "Haha, you're so fucking slow" Raph jeered and tried to kick Rynokk's head but it was like steel. Rynokk grabbed Raph's leg and tried to throw the boy but Raph stood on his hands and kicked Rynokk on the floor instead. "He's a good candidate for the games" one guard told to another.
"Wow… Either you're super weak or I've got much stronger than I thought… Maybe all that muscle pain and fevers really were worth of this all" Raph thought aloud. Rynokk got even more angry. He stood up and tried to attack Raph once again. Raph backed up, jumping on a table. The table's other end rose up and knocked the attacking Rynokk down for good.
"I've seen enough!" one of the guards yelled and pushed a button to give Raph an electrical shock. Raph fell on his knees . "Take him to the solitary!" the guard ordered. Two other guards dragged Raph away. The other three boys watched after Raph hopelessly. "Umm… I think Raph isn't coming back. Can I eat his fries?" Mikey asked.
After the meal, they returned in their cell. "Okay, this doesn't change our plan much. Though now we also need to free Raph" Leonardo told. "But we still don't have the key-card" Donatello noted and continued: "How we get close enough to a guard to get that?"
For while, Leo stayed quiet, trying to come up with a strategy. "If a prisoner is really sick, they have to take him to the infirmary, right?" Leonardo said finally. "How will you make that convincing?" Mikey asked. Leo and Don looked at Mikey, then each other, then Mikey again and smiled. Don took out some floor wax.
"No. No way dudes" Mikey said and tried to back off. Leonardo quickly grabbed Mikey's both hands and hold him still while Don stuffed the floor wax in Mikey's mouth. Then they proceeded to knock the door and yell: "Help! Help! Guards! We need help! Our brother's really sick!"
The guards pushed the button to lock the guys' hands, opened the door and stepped in. They found Mikey lying on the ground, mumbling in pain. "Fools, that trick won't work in here" the guard told rising Mikey up in the air. Mikey threw up on the guard. "Disgusting" the guard said and dropped Mikey on the ground.
Meanwhile, the smoke bomb went off. The guards were called to cafeteria. "I'll deal with you filth later" the guard told when getting out of the room. "So, did you grab their key-card Donnie?" Leo asked. "Me? I thought you were gonna get it" Donatello said, seeming a little bit nervous. Mikey coughed something on the floor.
"You guys owe me so much…" Mikey mumbled. "Yes, we do… Um… One more favor" Donatello told. "One more?" Mikey cried. "Yes… After pushing the red button can you wipe the puke off from it in your clothes? They are already dirty so…" Don asked. "Aw c'mon!" Mikey complained but still did what Don told him. The handcuff's and markings came off.
Don held the key-card on his sleeve and pushed another button, the sleeve between his finger and key-card. The door opened and they saw the guards leaving the corridor. "Five seconds until the lock resets" Leo told and started quietly running towards the doors.
Mikey couldn't keep the other guys' pace. "Move" Leo told. "You try to move after losing your lunch…" Mikey complained bitterly. Leonardo and Donatello were already other side of the door when the door started closing. Mikey rolled under it and made it just barely in time.
They continued to the section where the special cells were. "Leo and Mikey, go to get our stuff, I'll free Raph" Donatello told. They split up and Donatello looked at the cells. "Okay, there's five special cells, which one of them will most likely contain Raph… I heard the first cell is the least bad and the last one is the worst, that's where they put the most ill-mannered prisoners…" Donatello pondered. He opened the last cell.
The cell had no lights and there was a dripping faucet. The prisoner was chained on the wall, unable to reach the faucet. "Hi Raphie" Don greeted and pushed the button to free Raph. "Where are the others?" Raph asked. "Getting our stuff, let's get to the drainage system's entrance and wait them there" Donatello told.
Soon Mikey and Leo arrived. They had changed into their own clothes. They gave Raph and Don their clothes and weapons, then they proceeded in the drainage. Raphael and Donatello changed their clothes there and then they continued to the training yard.
There were few searching lights on the yard but the boys were able to avoid them. But suddenly, they spotted guards on the yard. The boys tried to hide but all the search lights were pointed at them. "You thought that I wouldn't notice what you were up to, did you?" a guard asked and then ordered: "Subdue the prisoners!"
Another guard pushed the button but nothing happened. When the guards looked at them more carefully, they noticed that the markings and handcuffs were gone. The guys smirked and attacked the guards. Taking the guards down was surprisingly easy.
But the guys didn't know that some of the guards were hiding higher up. And they had stun guns. Few gunshots later, the four teenagers were lying on the ground paralyzed. "We've given new orders... You boys are going to the games" the guard told.
They were put on handcuffs again and taken to a spaceship. And on their way to "the Games" they were all wondering the same question. What were "the Games"?