=Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003=
=A Better Mousetrap Part 3=
The turtles followed the Mouser's tunnel until they reached to the another end of it, which lead to another spacious underground area.
As the turtles emerged one by one out of the darkness of the Mouser-tunnel, they noticed that they had ended up to the subway tunnels.
"Ladies, gentlemen and turtles! Welcome to the subway tunnels!" Mikey declared. "No need to push. Everyone will get the turn." the turtle in orange jokingly added.
"Har har, Mikey." Arcee mock-laughed with sarcasm.
"Okay, we're here... but where's that tin toy?" Dom asked, looking around for the Mouser.
The turtles started immediately observe the place with their eyes to see that where the Mouser had gone.
"THERE!" Donnie shouted and pointed at the Mouser, that was walking in the other side of the tracks.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Louie asked as he moved forward to go after the robot.
"Yeah! Let's go after it before it causes us more perilous troubles!" Raph declared and started to ran towards the Mouser as well.
As he and Louie was about to jump to the tracks...
"Speaking about the perilous troubles... LOOK OUT!" Mary screamed as she moved lightning fast towards her hotheaded brothers, Leo and Dom right behind of her.
The turtles in turquoise and blue grabbed from Raph's shoulders while Dom grabbed from Louie's right arm and pulled the turtles in red and black back before they could jump over the tracks. And not a moment too soon, as a subway train ran right past the turtles. And the sound made by its high speed was so deafening that the turtles had to cover their ear-holes with their hands until the subway was gone.
And after the subway train had gone...
"YOU TWO AND THAT ATTITUDE OF YOURS! YOU TWO WILL ONE BEAUTIFUL DAY GET YOURSELF KILLED BECAUSE OF THAT!" Dom exclaimed, furious for both Raph and Louie - while still holding from the latter's arm - being so reckless and careless that they nearly got themselves killed by the subway train.
Louie merely scoffed at Dom's lecture before yanking his arm off from the turtle in white's grasp.
"Dom is right, you guys!" Mary agreed, before letting go of Raph's arm. "Next time, bros, look to both sides first before you cross the tracks, okay?" She suggested a bit calmer but sternly.
"Whatever." Raph muttered.
The turtles were then about to turn back to the Mouser to resume their chase. However, much to their surprise, they noticed that the robot had disappeared right after the subway car had gone past them.
"Where did it go now?" Louie asked.
"Aw shell! Just when I had it on my grasp!" Raph snarled.
"Whoa! It's a robo-Houdini!" Mickey declared.
"Wrong! It's a robo-hitchhiker!" Leo corrected as he pointed at the leaving subway train.
The turtles saw that the Mouser had somehow managed to get onboard of the moving subway train's last car and was hanging on its railing by its claws and jaws.
"Great! We'll never catch him now!" Mikey complained, as the train went out of sight.
"Not at least by running." Arcee stated.
"You said it, sister. Two can play that game." Raph declared.
"Yeah! Just follow the suit, guys." Louie added as he followed Raph.
The turtles then heard another subway train incoming towards them on another tracks. Raph and Louie suddenly draw out their weapons and waited patiently and still for the subway train to come closer, preparing themselves for something possibly crazy, much to their brothers and sisters confusion and worry.
"What those two idiots are doing?!" Dom asked with the protesting tone.
However, before anybody could reply, the second subway train arrived, following the route of the previous subway train.
Raph then suddenly jumped onto one of the the subway's cars and sunk his Sais into its rooftop, anchoring himself to it, and hanging on from his weapons the turtle in red allowed the subway train take him with it.
Louie eagerly followed Raph's suit and jumped onto the following subway car's rooftop and anchored himself to it with his Butterfly swords and held from the handles of his weapons with his dear life.
"YAH-HOOOO! AH-HA HA HA HA HAA!" The turtle in black laughed like the maniac, totally enjoying of showing off the daredevil side of himself.
The rest of the turtles were left behind, their mouths gaping wide open from shock and surprise of their brothers' hot-headed and foolhardy stunt.
"WHAT A PAIR OF MANIACS!" Leo exclaimed.
"Mikey might be dumb sometimes BUT RAPH IS EVEN DUMBER TO PUT HIS LIFE AT THE RISK LIKE THAT!" Arcee commented.
"Hey!" Mikey snapped, offended for what Arcee had just said about him.
"Not to mention how bad influence he has on Louie as well." Dom sighed disapprovingly.
"Well, I guess that we don't have much of a choice but follow their crazy example or what." Mary said.
"Yeah." Donnie agreed. "HEY, RAPH! LOUIE! WAIT FOR US!"
One by one, the turtles bounced onboard of the passing train and climbed onto its rooftop.
Once onboard, Leo sunk one his Katanas to the rooftop of one of the car and grabbed from Donnie's hand to prevent the turtle in purple from falling off the train.
On the next subway car's rooftop, Mary anchored herself to the car by sinking her Naginata's blade into its roof and clutched from her weapon to prevent herself from falling off the car. After Mikey had managed to climb onto the same rooftop, he swung both his Nunchucks around of Mary's spear's shaft, so that Arcee and Dom, who couldn't anchor themselves to the car's roof with their own weapons, could have something to grab on. And so, both the turtles in pink and white grabbed on from the other handles of Mikey's Nunchucks and held on for their dear life.
When everyone was on board, they followed the Mouser's subway train a couple miles within half an hour or something, while hoping that the trains would not turn in different directions at the eventual turning points, which would force them to abandon their subway train and continue their on foot after Mouser.
After fifteen minutes more traveling on the subway train, the Mouser jumped off from its own train and headed towards the opposite wall.
Raph was the first one to spot to where the Mouser went.
"GUYS! GET READY TO GET OFF THE TRAIN! THIS IS OUR STOP!" Raph called out.
And once his subway car reached to the spot where the Mouser jumped off the train, Raph pulled his Sais off the roof and jumped off the train as well, followed by Louie.
Because there was some distance between of the subway cars the turtles were riding on, due to Raph and Louie having jumped much earlier than what the rest of their family did, it took a few minutes for the others to arrive to the jump-off spot and jump off their own cars to join their hot-heated and daredevil brothers.
And once the whole turtle family was together again...
"You two psychopaths are gonna be one beautiful day the death of us all!" Dom scolded angrily both Raph and Louie.
"Would you two mind of choosing less-maniacal way to travel next time, okay?" Mary demanded as well.
"Aw! But without the maniacal ways it sounds boring!" Louie complained, and Raph nodded in agreement.
"Guys, chill out!" Donnie demanded. "We gotta hurry! The Mouser is once again a way ahead of us."
"Yeah! There's another hole in the wall. There!" Leo said as he pointed at the new hole in the wall right in front of them.
Without the word, the turtles immediately followed the Mouser's tracks again.
###
Much later, the turtles entered into the large sewer chamber, where was a multiple water canals, to the various directions leading sewer tunnel entrances and the air space of the chamber was full of small, middle-sized and large each other criss crossing pipes. There was even the several stairs that led to the lower and upper levels of the chamber.
It was there where the turtles once again lost the Mouser.
"Okay, Where did it go now?" Louie wondered, looking around.
The turtles observed the whole chamber in order to try and find the Mouser with their eye-sight.
"There! It's going there!" Leo shouted, as he pointed at the Mouser that was heading towards to another tunnel.
However, before the guys could take even a single step towards apparently departing Mouser...
"No! There!" Louie suddenly shouted, pointing up at the upper level of the chamber, where the single Mouser was standing on the top of the stairs.
"Are you guys blind? It's up there!" Dom suddenly said, pointing at one of the pipes above of them along of which they saw the Mouser walking on.
"The shell it is! It's there!" Mikey said, pointing at the Mouser that was walking in the other side of the water canal.
"Nope! There is goes!" Arcee shouted as she pointed above of one of the biggest and thickest pipes, on which one Mouser was simply standing.
"Really?" Because I see it out there." Mary said as she pointed at the opposite side of the chamber, where yet another Mouser was standing.
"Na-ah! Down the-!" Donnie started as he saw yet another Mouser in the lower level of the chamber, right in front of the stairs first steps, until the brainy turtle in purple cut himself off as he realized something.
"What-? Who-whoa! Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa! Wait for a minute, guys! Something's not right here. There can be only one repaired Mouser, but logically it cannot be in the seven places at the same time. And neither there can be seven Mousers at the same time if we're tracking down and following just one individual." Donnie pointed out.
"Seven Mousers instead one?" Mikey questioned, as he turned his attention to the Mouser that was walking in the other side of the water canal.
And then, in front of his vision appeared EIGHTH Mouser, much to his and his siblings' surprise.
"Aaaand... who invented that eighth one?" The turtle in orange questioned, pointing at this one with his finger.
However, unlike the individual Donnie repaired, This Mouser seemed to be from the closer look a somewhat different.
Majority of the original designs of the previous Mousers' remained, But it was slightly larger in size than its predecessors, which reached barely below knee-level. However, the size of this individual reached to slightly above the knee-level due to the fact that it had slightly longer legs and a middle body between its head and stern. It even had the pair of small front arms that resembled the Mousers' heads with the serrated-jaws.(1)
"Wow! Do they evolve?!" Arcee asked as she stepped back.
The "evolved" Mouser then turned at the Turtles and snarled at them.
"Dump question, Arcee. The robotic technology doesn't evolve." Dom scolded.
"No, Dom. It does. It is only referred to as "technological advance" or "design improvement"." Donnie corrected. "Stockman has probably done some fascinating improvements with that one!" The brainy geek turtne added as he eyed the Mouser's new outer look, partly fascinated and partly nervous.
"Who cares!" Raph shouted. "Step back! That little nasty ugliness is mine!" he added as he pulled out the Shuriken and threw it at the Mouser that partially sliced its head in two and knocked it down.
"Hah! Evolved or not! Still easy to take down like the tin cans." Raph commented.
"Nice throw, Raphie-boy!" Mikey praised before he high-threed with Raph
Suddenly, the Mouser unexpectedly came back to life and got up despite its serious-looking damage, much to the turtles surprise.
"This is not good, guys!" Leo said with the grim tone, as the Mouser snarled at them.
Arcee then got something in her sight.
"Well, how about that?" The turtle in pink asked, as she pointed at the identical-looking "evolved" Mousers showing up from behind of the corners and the big pipes. They were all coming straight towards them.
"What about that then?" Louie asked, as he pointed up, where the jungle of the pipes was swarming with dozens and dozens of similar "evolved" Mousers.
"That isn't a good neither, right?!" Mikey said with the nervous gulp, as he pointed at the several tunnels leading in and out of the chamber, and out of the tunnels was suddenly swarming/marching the legions of more of these "evolved" Mousers.
"Neither is that!" Donnie said worriedly, as even more Mousers appeared from the lower and upper levels of the room to the same area they were standing.
"The mere appearance of these chrome-domes tells me that they're a lot tougher than the last batch!" Donnie said as the "evolved" Mousers quickly surrounded the turtles with their vast numbers from every direction, forcing the turtles to form the circle with their shells against each others.
"Yeah! And there's even more of them than the last time." Raph said.
"I did count them the last time, including the ones crushed in the cave in. The final count reached to what one hundred Mousers." Donnie informed. "I bet that this time, judging from the size of their group, there's probably one hundred "evolved" individuals per turtle."
"That's eight hundred Mousers, man!" Louie exclaimed in realization!
"Great! Just great! A good old turtle-luck kicked again!" Raph muttered sarcastically.
However, despite being surrounded and outnumbered by eight hundred "evolved" Mousers, the turtles still got the mission to accomplish, and they were not intend to give the Mouser battalion to slow them down.
Besides, even though they didn't know if they were close of Stocktronics Lab or what these Mousers were sent down here for, destroying these Mousers would serve as a first step towards their personal payback against Stockman for trashing their old home.
"Brothers and sisters... attack... on my mark!" Leo said.
Each turtle draw out their weapons and prepared themselves to the battle by going into their individual fighting stances based on their weapons and fighting styles.
"NOW!"
"LET'S TURTLEIZE THEM!" All eight turtles shouted at the same time as each of them attacked these "evolved" Mousers and started to destroy them with the vengeful ferocity.
Raph savagely stabbed his Sais through of many Mouser's heads or crushed them with his bare fists.
Mikey bashed incoming Mousers' heads into pieces with his Nunchucks or knocking them off mid-flight as some of them attempted to lunge at him from the air, sending those ones flying away till they crashed against the walls or pipes of the chamber, damaging them enough to destroy them.
Leo decapitated them with his Katanas, destroying two or three of them with a single swift and clean slash.
Donnie used his Bo-staff like the golf stick and knocked with it maximum two or three Mousers with one strong sweep.
Louie slashed his Butterfly swords at the Mousers wildly, leaving every encountered individual's head with either vertical or horizontal deep slice, that nearly sliced the killer robots' heads in two.
Dom, spinning both his Tonfas wildly, either ran his weapons' wooden shafts through of the Mousers eyes or bashed the rat-eating robots' heads inside.
Arcee smoothly decapitated or crippled dozens of Mousers by severing off their legs from under or cutting off the top parts of the robots' heads from the jaws upwards with the horizontal slashes of her Tessens.
Mary swept the floor of the chamber clean from Mousers with one wide and horizontal swing of her Naginata's blade, slicing the Mousers heads off from the jaws upwards or fully decapitated them.
One time Donnie bent his Bo-staff forward, stabbing through of one Mouser's head in the process as he pole vaulted himself over the horde of incoming Mousers. Donnie then landed onto some of them, crushing them beneath his feet, before he whacked with his staff three incoming Mousers away.
Several Mousers were piling onto one another as they swarmed on Dom, who swung his Tonfas at the Mousers with the rapid pace, knocking with the hard blows many of them off the pile with the severe-looking dents in their heads. After four swings with his weapons, Dom finally knocked the whole pile of Mousers over to the ground with the roundhouse kick to the middle.
Couple dozen of Mousers or so attempted to bring Mary down by lunging at her all at the same time from everywhere. This strategy failed however when the turtle in turquoise began to spin her Naginata wildly in front of her like the mixture of the shield and buzz saw, which either knocked the Mousers off mid-air or sliced them into pieces. Mary stopped spinning her weapon after every Mouser was lying incapacitated or in pieces around of her feet.
Arcee swung her Tessens rapidly from side to another and at the incoming "evolved" Mousers, leaving many of them incapacitated but not completely destroyed, because she was more than once interrupted by a new batch of Mousers before she could've finished the job with the current ones. This forced her time and time over to deal the interrupting ones first and quickly before she could resume of dealing unfinished business with the previous ones.
Raph ran his Sais through of one Mouser's body and the second Mouser's head. After which the turtle in red lifted them off the ground and tossed them into other incoming Mousers, knocking them down like the bunch of bowling pins.
Louie elsewhere was hopping around amongst of the sea of swarming Mousers and their snapping jaws. The turtle in black took a great pleasure in landing and squashing either one or even two Mousers' heads beneath of his feet, even trampling their heads flat like pancakes.
Leo was ferociously swinging his Katanas down at the Mousers that were swarming towards him from every direction: Decapitating two with one slash of his left Katana to the right and crippling the third with another slash of his right Katana to the right. One Mouser, that was walking along the wall behind of Leo, attempted to sneak attack on him. However, as it jumped towards Leo with jaws wide open, Leo sensed the Mouser's presence and swiftly turned around and out of the way, causing the Mouser to miss him, before the turtle in blue swung his Katanas horizontally at the Mouser, slicing both its head and body in half.
Mikey wrapped his Nunchaku's chains around one of towards him leaping Mousers' necks and dragged it down off the air, slamming the deadly robot hard against the ground, before the turtle in orange turned to two other Mousers that jumped towards him. Mikey pulled his recently destroyed Mouser still tied in his Nunchaku's chain up from the ground and slammed it against the Mousers, wrecking them.
The turtles' attacks left dozens of Mousers destroyed, but soon the turtles got noticed the tougher side of these "evolved" Mousers.
Unlike their predecessors back in the turtles' old lair, these Mousers appeared to have some sort of teamwork program, which was seen when when they attempted to either cornered or surrounded each turtle and then attack them from everywhere in order to bring them down with sheer numbers, like the pack of wolves hunting down the deer.
The rapid biting and chewing movement of their jaws resembled much of the piranhas', which was revealed when they rapidly chewed one of the biggest and thickest pipes away within minutes as they tried to reach for the turtles as they withdrew away to avoid their jaws. The jaws of their forearms were another concern more, as they also tried to lock them around of the turtles ankles and shins while their attentions were locked at them.
And finally, their endurance has been greatly improved unlike their earlier versions back in their old lair. Because even though some of these Mousers suffered the severe damages to their heads like the one Raph temporarily knocked out with his Shuriken, or if they were knocked down as hard as the turtle could hit them or tossed hard against the wall and pipes, they still kept climbing up and attacking.
"These mousers are incredible. The servo-mechanics, the circuitry, the articulation, even a simple durability against the severe damage!" Donnie explained, taking the worried note on the Mousers improved design and durability.
"Jeez Donny. Why don't you just marry one already?" Raph sarcastically asked before he stabbed a single Mouser to the head and back.
"Unless you forgot your wedding ring back home! We had to leave such of hurry." Dom replied with equal sarcasm before one Mouser locked it jaws around of his left hand's Tonfa. Before the robot could bite through of Tonfa's wood, Dom swung his right hand's Tonfa over his head before he brought it down on the Mouser's back, chopping off its head from the rest of its body at the base of the neck.
"Guys! less chatting, more bashing, will ya?!" Louie shouted from the middle of the ring of attacking Mousers. As the killer-robots lunged at him, Louie spun around and wheel-kicked every attacking Mouser away from him. And at the same time, the turtle in black kicked the head off from one robot, which head bounced along the ground for a moment.
The turtle girls had positioned themselves up to the jungle of the pipes, though they weren't safe from the Mousers even there.
Arcee offered her brothers the air support by shooting with her Yumi bow some Mousers with the accurate shots to their eyes. Arcee also had to save her brothers' lives many times over when they were close to fall to the sneak attack coming from behind while their own attentions were elsewhere. Many Mousers that attempted this technique were shot down by the turtle in pink a mere seconds away from them sinking their heads and hands' serrated jaws into the turtles' shells, ankles, shins, thighs, elbows, shoulders, necks and the backs of their heads.
While Arcee shot the Mousers with her bow, Mary watched her little sister's back and protected her by fending off the Mousers that were swarming towards them from everywhere along the jungle of the pipes around and above of them. And every dealt Mouser fell down to the floor of the chamber as nothing more than the rain of the sliced parts.
While Donnie, Dom, Raph and Louie kept fending off the Mousers in the bottom floor of the chamber, some of the Mousers were approaching at Leo and Mikey, who had withdrawn to the upper level and were holding the line on top of the stairs. The turtle in blue sliced the robots on either side with its swords, destroying many via decapitation, and Mikey either knocked their heads off or bashed them in.
"Guys! The only way to stop them is to slice their heads off." Leo informed as he sliced the heads off from two more Mousers.
"Well, ain't that great news, bro? For the turtles with the BLADES!" Mikey retorted sarcastically to Leo's information - knowing that Leo, Raph, Louie, Arcee and Mary would do a better job on that than what he, Dom and Donnie could do with their own wooden weapons - before the turtle in orange bashed with his Nunchaku the head in from one Mouser he was currently facing.
"Then drive them this way!" Raph demanded, until he nearly got bitten from his right arm by one Mouser. Luckily, the turtle in red had moved his Sai in the way and the Mouser ended up closing its jaws around of the Sai's blade. After noticing it, Raph threw the Mouser towards Louie, whom got ready with his blades like the batsman in Baseball game.
"YEAH! WE'LL SLICE THEM INTO CHIPS!" the turtle in black declared as he swung both his Butterfly swords horizontally towards the flying Mouser, slicing its head and the body in half and severing its limbs.
Mikey witnessed this from the upper level.
"See? That was what I was talking about! You blade-wielding guys really got your job done!" The turtle in orange exclaimed, until he suddenly caught the one particular word that escaped from Louie's mouth.
"Mmmm... chips." He mumbled to himself.
Twelve new Mousers were sneaking towards Mikey along the pipes above of him, before they jumped down and towards Mikey, with their jaws wide open and ready to take the wide bite on the turtle in orange. Hearing their high-pitched metallic snarls coming from above of him, Mikey yelped in surprise and covered instinctively his head with his arms, bracing himself for the incoming rain of metallic jaws.
However, before the first ones could land their bites on him, Arcee swiftly fired two arrows at them, which pierced two first Mousers by their heads and knocked them off the air.
Mary then dived down from the pipes towards Mikey and, after flipping around, kicked one Mouser off mid-flight as it was about to land onto Mikey's shell. After landing on her feet behind Mikey's back, she swung her Naginata in arc upwards and sliced two towards her little brother falling Mousers into pieces at once.
Two Mousers then lunged down at Mikey on his right side, but they were instantly hit and knocked off the air by Dom's Tonfas that were spinning sideways like frisbees while flying in the air. Dom then followed them by jumping over the railing to the upper level, before the turtle in white jumped after his weapons and snatched them from the air into his hands while flipping over Mikey's head. Dom landed to Mikey's left side, right behind of two Mousers that had landed there as well and were approaching Mikey while snapping their jaws. However, after Dom's landing, they stopped dead in their tracks and turned around to face Dom, who instantly thrusted his Tonfas' shafts into the Mousers' mouths and lifted them up over his head, before the turtle in white threw them at the three on Mikey's right landed remaining Mousers, knocking them all over the edge of the upper level.
"How about you put your focus on watching your shell-back more and away from food, Mikey?" The turtle in white said with the scolding voice.
After she had wasted all her arrows, with each one of them having found their targets, Arcee put away her Yumi and took out her Tessens once more before jumping dow nfrom the pipes, joining Leo to give him some support in holding the line at the top of the stairs.
In the bottom floor, Louie was spinning around while swinging one of his Manriki-gusari's chain in his right hand, aiming the chain's weight to the ground level while swinging it from one side to the other as the Mousers kept coming at him from each direction. The turtle in black kept the weight at the end of his weapon's chain slightly above of the floor-level while swinging it from one side to the other as the Mousers closed in from each direction. The weight of his weapon either knocked the robots over, bashed their' heads in or knocked them completely off from the rest of the body. Some Mousers managed to evade Louie's weapon's weight and snatched from the chain with their jaws, though these Mousers were snatched off the ground by the chain's swift swinging pace, leaving the robots to hang from the chain by their jaws. Noticing this after feeling the weight of the chain increasing abnormally high, the turtle in black swung his chain with over dozen Mousers hanging on it up and over his head, while turning to Leo and Arcee, before he cracked his chain like the whip towards his big brother and little sister, causing the Mousers to let go and sending them flying towards the turtles in blue and pink.
"LEO! ARCEE! THINK FAST!" Louie called out.
Hearing his little brother and seeing many Mousers sent flying towards them, Leo swung his Katanas horizontally towards the Mousers and sliced with two sweeps three Mousers into pieces, letting their parts to fall to the ground behind him.
"TIME TO SLICE AND DICE!" Arcee let out, both eager and glad to perform some moves of tessenjutsu to take out eleven remaining Mousers, as she gracefully went into position, with her right leg bent beneath her and her left extended forward while holding her left hand's Tessen over her chest and the right Tessen above of her head.
As the first four Mousers flew towards her, Arcee sprung forward and horizontally slashed her left Tessen forward before shooting the snap-kick upward with her right leg. Then she spun around and shot the roundhouse kick forward with her left leg before slashing with her right Tessen forward. Her slashes cut two of the Mousers in half; one from the head and second one from the body, and her snap-kick knocked the head off from the third and the Roundhouse kick sent the fourth away.
At the next round of two Mousers, Arcee spun around to her left while swinging both her Tessens in arch upward. Both slashes cut the Mousers in half vertically.
Upon the third round of another four Mousers, the turtle in pink spun herself around a couple times, swinging her Tessens horizontally around of herself while slashing with them forward before she performed the butterfly kick. Both horizontal slashes decapitated both Mousers and the butterfly-kick sent the Mousers crashing against the pipes above the turtle in pink.
And as the last one flew towards her, Arcee send four slashes forward by swinging first her left hand's and then her right hand's Tessens from side to another and back, before she made the frontal flip and brought her weapons hard in an arc downward. After she was done, the Mouser fell in the sliced cubes around of her feet to the ground.
"TESSENS RULE!" Arcee declared, raising her arms up and spinning her Tessens wildly.
"Everybody, regroup!" Leo ordered.
The turtles hurriedly regrouped to the upper level and fortified it as their "Alamo", preparing to face what was left of the Mouser-army once again as they swarmed from everywhere towards them.
And as the Mousers had come close to the range, the turtles unleashed their skills upon them.
Donnie and Mary held the line above of the stairs, whacking and slicing the Mousers with their Bo-staff and Naginata as they swarmed to the upper level.
Mikey spun both his Nunchucks wildly and widely above of the heads in his brothers and sisters, repelling the attacks of the numerous Mousers that swarmed upon them from above along the pipes and walls. Mikey's handiwork prevented the robotic menaces from landing onto the floor and/or bearing them down with great numbers, while Dom finished off those Mousers who made it through of Mikey's Nunchucks.
Raph and Louie, who had switched his weapons back from Manriki-gusari into his Butterfly swords again, held the line on the fenced edge of the upstairs, kicking, bashing, stabbing and slicing any Mouser that reached to the edge either by climbing or jumping.
While Leo and Arcee kept "slicing and dicing" the Mousers with their Katanas and Tessens.
"HYAH!" Donnie shouted as he whacked two-three Mousers with his Bo-staff as they climbed on the top of the stairs
"HAI YA!" Apparently cornered Mikey shouted as he bashed the heads in from two Mousers with his Nunchucks.
"WHOA!" Arcee yelped as she flipped over the couple of Mousers that were about to lock their jaws around of her shins to bite the chunk of flesh off, only to ending up biting each others in the heads.
"AGH!" Mary grunted as she swung her Naginata down in sideways arc and decapitated the heads off from the whole row of seven attacking Mousers.
"COME ON!" Louie dared, as he used the wrecked bodies of two Mousers like the clubs/flails to knock down the other Mousers or bash their heads in.
"AGH!" Dom grunted as the turtle in white knocked over the whole line of four Mousers with one hard sweep of his Tonfas.
"ARGH! HAA!" Raph growled as he stabbed his Sais through of two Mousers' heads.
"HAI HYAH!" Leo let out, as the turtle in blue sliced one Mouser with his Katanas, leaving it to briefly look like intact 'till it fell into pieces.
The turtles kept sweeping, slashing, slicing, dicing, splitting, stabbing, punching, bashing, whacking, kicking, tossing, knocking, decapitating, crippling, squashing, flattening and crushing their robotic enemies, until an hour later, the entire battalion of eight hundred "evolved" Mousers was nothing more than countless piles of scrap metal.
And all the turtles, wet from the sweat and panting from exhaustion, and bearing some small gashes in their arms and legs got from the close calls with the Mousers' jaws, stood there in the defensive circle and with their weapons held high up in case of another attack.
However, they soon stood down after realized that the fight was already over.
"Great job, guys!" Donnie praised his brothers and sisters. "Just remember to leave the certain individual..."
However, Donnie got no chance to finish before Raph, still under the fierce battle frenzy and drive to destroy any Mouser in sight, thoughtlessly lunged at the last Mouser nearby, which happened to be the same Mouser Donnie had repaired. Raph ran his Sais through of the Mouser's head, and even trampled its head flat as a pancake with his foot, much to Donnie's dismay.
"...intact." Donnie muttered pointlessly after the Mouser was destroyed.
"So much for tracing them back to their source." Leo sighed sarcastically as he put his blades back to their sheaths.
"Ugh! Great! All of this "follow the Mouser"-thing for nothing!" Dom snarled in disappointment, before turning to Raph. "Way to go, bro. This proves further the fact that we can't take you anywhere."
Raph scowled at his brother in response.
"So what now?" Mikey questioned.
"I guess there is no alternative but to head back to the home and prepare ourselves for the mother of all punishments." Mary said gloomily.
Most of the turtles gulped, knowing that Master Splinter was definitely gonna kill them for disobeying his direct orders.
However, at the very moment when the turtles were about to leave the chamber and head back to their lair, Arcee's head suddenly jerked up as the turtle in pink heard something echoing faintly and distantly in the tunnels. Something which sounded like the woman's scream.
"AGHHH!"
"Hey, guys! Did you just heard something?!" Arcee alerted the others.
The other turtles stopped in their tracks and turned around to look at their little sister, a bit confused.
"Nope." Louie responded.
"What are you talking about, Arcee? I didn't heard anything, Arcee?" Donnie said with the shrug.
"Neither did I." Dom said, shaking his head.
"Probably it was nothing, little sis. Let's go already, guys." Raph said rather dismissively.
"No! I did hear something! I swear I did!" Arcee insisted. "it sounded like screaming and it came from those tunnels." The turtle in pink added, pointing at the entrances of the tunnels in the other side of the chambers.
However, her brothers still didn't believe her.
"Sis, you probably heard just the whistling gust of wind in those tunnels." Dom told her.
"Or it probably was just Michelangelo working with his girly scream again." Raph teased, reminding Mikey about his usually girly screams whenever he found himself in a trouble and attempted to futilely get away with it.
"HEY!" Mikey snapped, offended of that remark.
However, soon that same echoing scream was heard again ... this time louder and even closer than what the first one.
"AGHHH!"
"No, wait! Arcee's right! I heard that too!" Leo exclaimed.
"I did too. Sounds like somebody is in serious trouble in the sewer tunnels." Louie said in realization.
"And judging from the high-pitched tone of the scream, it gotta be a woman in the trouble." Mary said.
"Like damsel-in-distress." Mikey joked, only to get slapped to the back of his head by irritated Raph.
Arcee walked closer to the entrance of the tunnel the screams came from, then motioned with her hand for the others to shut up. After assured that the others would keep quiet for a moment, she leaned her right ear-hole into the tunnel and cupped it with her right hand so that she could hear whatever noises came from the darkness clearer.
It was soon rewarded as she heard the faint splashes of water and the familiar repeating Tick-Tick noises, high-pitched metallic snarls and what sounded like with the loud thud closing jaws - only metallic.
"What do you hear, sis?" Leo asked from her.
Having heard enough to confirm her suspicions, Arcee turned to her family.
"Whoever is out there, she isn't alone. There's more Mousers out there. Not many, but still." Arcee reported grimly, as if suspecting what was obviously going on in the tunnels.
"You mean that whoever is out there is in trouble with the Mousers?" Donnie asked.
"Yes!" Arcee confirmed.
"So much for "no need to be afraid of them", "program fully targeted only to tracking down and exterminating the rats in sight" and "safely away from people's eyes" stuff." Dom muttered as the turtle in white recalled Stockman's words in his press conference from TV.
"Well, did you really expected that crap to be true when they came right out of that Stockman-guy's mouth?" Raph snarled.
"Better to check it out and help her. Come on!" Donnie shouted as he left to track down the source of voice.
Arcee, Leo, Mikey and Mary followed the turtle in purple right behind of him, leaving the chamber and destroyed piles of robo-corpses behind.
"Guys! Shouldn't we reconsider this? What about what Splinter said about "we are not supposed to be seen by humans?!" Dom called after his hurrying siblings, only to be dragged along with them by Raph and Louie, who immediately rushed after the others.
"Let's worry about that later, Dom!" Louie replied.
"NOW MOVE IT, YOU SLOWPOKE!" Both Raph and Louie said in unison as they dragged their pessimistic brother into the tunnel.
###
The turtles hurried down the tunnel where the screams had came from, running as fast as they could to get to the lady in the desperate need for help before the Mousers.
The turtles eventually arrived to the six-way tunnel system, where was a six other tunnel entrances leading to the six different directions.
The turtles looked around of them with the haste, unsure of which way they should take.
The last thing they wanted was to choose accidentally the wrong tunnel and end up to be heading completely into wrong direction, because that would only waste too much precious time they had to get to the lady's aid before it was too late. Nor did they know how long she would be able to last before the help would come.
"Where to now?" Mary asked hurriedly.
Suddenly, Mary got the answer to her question right away.
The same desperate cry for help came from the tunnel entrance, which was on the opposite side of the one from which the turtles had just came out into this chamber.
"AGHHH!"
"THIS WAY! C'MON!" Donnie said, leading the turtles into the tunnel.
They ran along the tunnel until they reached a junction in the middle of the tunnel, where two darker tunnels led in opposite directions.
Before anyone had time to ask anyone "where to now"... they heard the water splashing under the madly running feet (that soon ended into the bigger splash, indicating that the runner had just stumbled and fell into the water), as well as the same Tick-Tick-sounds from the Mousers' steps, the loud snaps of their metallic jaws and the high-pitched snarls.
"HELP! HELP ME!" The lady-in-distress desperate scream for help echoed in the tunnel.
However, it helped the turtles find out the location of the woman in need of help and its direction.
All of it came out of the tunnel leading to the left, where the turtles then rushed into
And once there, the turtles saw the red-haired woman in the laboratory coat - and much to their surprise, she was the very same woman they had seen in TV during Stockman's press conference: April O'Neil.
The skirts of her laboratory coat was torn into shreds and the woman herself was covered from her messed hair to her shoes by the filth and mud of the sewer water.
April was surrounded by the eight "evolved" Mousers, who had managed to corner her to the dead end and she was leaning her back against the boards that blocked her escape to the closed sewer tunnel. April tried to desperately pull the boards off the wall to escape but no avail. The boards were nailed tightly... trapping her and leaving her at the mercy of the bloodthirsty Mousers.
The Mousers snarled maniacally at April as they quickly closed the distance between them and her. April gasped in horror as the robots opened their mouths wide open and moved forward at her to mercilessly kill and eat her like they had done to those rats in the maze back in Stockman's lab.
"NOOOOOO!" April screamed as she closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands while waiting for the inevitable death of hers to come.
And then, as the Mousers lunged at April all at once, the turtles quickly took the the situation under control.
"OH, NO YOU DON'T, YOU METAL FREAK!" Louie roared, as the turtle in black took out one of his Manriki-gusari and hurled its weighted chain directly at the leading Mouser as it was close to bite the chunk of flesh off April. The chain wrapped tightly around the robot's neck, after which Louie pulled the Mouser away from April with a fierce pull.
The rest of the Turtles moved swiftly forward to pick off their own Mousers before they could harm April.
"HYAH!" Donnie shouted as he lunged forward and bashed the second Mouser's head in with the end of his Bo-staff.
"HAA!" Mary smoothly split the third Mouser's entire body in two with her Naginata.
"HAI YA!" Mikey let out as he knocked the head off from the fourth Mouser with one swing of his Nunchaku.
"AGH!" Dom grunted as he bashed the fifth Mouser's head in with his Tonfa.
"YAH!" Leo decapitated the sixth Mouser with his Katana.
"TAKE THAT!" Arcee cried and she sliced the seventh Mouser's head in half with her Tessen.
And as the last one turned around to face the attackers...
"DIE!" Raph cried as he threw his Sai directly to its eye.
Hearing Louie's cry and the other turtles' battle-cries and the sound of slicing, crashing and bashing, April realized that there was someone else with her in the sewers and noticed, much to her surprise, that she was still alive. Hesitantly and shivering out of fear, April opened her eyes and slowly uncovered her face to see that what had just happened.
She looked around and saw the seven robots lying in pieces around of her.
Looking up, April saw the eight silhouette figures of the turtles standing in front of her. She didn't recognize her sudden rescuers as a humanoid turtles, thanks to the darkness of this sewer tunnel that covered most of the turtles' identities.
While eyeing them warily, April's eyes fell to one of the shadowy figures holding the dead Mouser in the air by the chain that was still wrapped around of its neck, with the big wide-bladed knife stuck in its limply hanging head. He unwrapped the chain from around of the Mouser's neck and pulled the knife out of its head before he tossed the robot away in disgust.
after glancing at the fallen robots and the turtles' silhouette figures alternatively for a moment, April assumed them to be friendly and let out a deep sigh of breath she hadn't noticed she was holding as she hung her head low, deeply relieved that she was still alive.
April then wearily lifted her head up again to see the turtles putting away their weapons and slowly approaching her.
"Oh... Hh thank you! Thank you so much. You saved my... my..." April said gratefully between the breaths.
The turtles merely stood silently still as they stared down at her with their in the darkness glowing eyes.
However, it was then when Mikey and Arcee stepped out of the darkness, revealing themselves and their turtle appearances to April.
"Hey! How ya doin'?" Mikey greeted with the smirk.
"Are you alright, ma'am?" Arcee asked politely.
April let out the surprised gasp at the sight of two humanoid reptiles, until the shock proved to be too much for her that she eventually fainted against the boards.
"Wow! I never thought I'd ever see a human being from this close." Arcee said in amazement of their very first... and first non-hostile... encounter with the humans.
"Then you better take all out of it now, because this will be our very first and very last moment when we get this close of any human, Arcee." Dom said.
Mikey then went to April and gently picked her up in bridal style, before he turned to his siblings.
" Ladies and gentleturtles! Our very first ninja rescue accomplished! And now to the biggest and hardest question of all time." Mikey declared with the dramatic voice and grin, before he looked at his siblings with his puppy dog eyes.
His siblings groaned, face-palmed or rolled their eyes in annoyance as they already knew from the look of Mikey's face that what he was about to ask... again.
"Can we keep her?"
I hope that you guys liked the three-part chapter of this story.
Next one will be coming soon.
TRIVIA
(1) - I kinda liked the idea of having the turtles to face an advanced version of the Mousers with the pair of arms resembling the Mousers' heads.