animegamefanatic: Here we will see that are the turtles SOOOOOOOOOOOO grounded after the previous saga.
animegamefanatic: And after a long, long planning for my version of the theme song, I've finally finished it. I hope that you like it.
Lorenzo is seen lying unconscious against something before the screen splits into two, showing Raph in the same state.
"My name is Lorenzo but call me just Louie."
Both the turtles in black and red then wake up groggily, before shaking their heads to get them clearer.
"And I have seen a lot of those old detective movies where the private eye wakes up after being knocked out cold. He always says the same thing:"
Louie and Raph then see that they're in middle of some dark laboratory-like room.
Raphael: "Uh, where are we?"
Lorenzo: "What is this place we've been taken?"
The two tried to move, but they soon realized that they were stapped on the tables by their wrists, ankles, legs and chests with the bounds. The turtles in black and red tried to break free from their ties, but they were too tight for them to be able to even move.
"Okay, so it's not exactly original, but it's true, we have no idea where we exactly are."
Giving up - for now - the turtles started to look around to make sense about their whereabouts, unaware that they're observed by a shadowy guy from the upper room with the window to the dark laboratory, that was a full of the blue screens showing the analyzed body parts of both of the turtles..
"Is this some kind of operating room like in the hospitals? Torture chamber in the bad guy's secret hideout? Some TV game show with the sick sense of humor?"
While looking around, the turtles noticed that they were missing one of them.
"The last thing I remember is that I was busting some street thugs heads together with Raph and Casey, until we came under attack by an enemy we haven't met before."
Raphael: "Hey, where is Casey?"
Lorenzo: "And what about those weird bozos who attacked us?"
Suddenly, both turtles were blinded by the bright light. Groaning, both the turtles tries to turn away from the light. And then, from the light appeared two objects: a large buzzsaw that was on and the pair of prongs, that were heading towards them.
"Okay, judging by those nasty looking toys, we're definitely not the game show."
The buzzsaw was lowered towards Raph's face, making the turtle in red to turn his head away from it."
"But whatever this is, we better to get out of here before we both end up to the unpleasant dissection operation!"
(The screen pulls away from New York City with couple spot lights waving above of it. Then a four green letters forming the word TMNT towers over the city.)
"TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES"
(The screen rises to the edge of the roof, on which was standing eight green shadowy humanoid creatures with the turtle-like features. Two of them were crouching down and all of them had by colors individual ninja masks; One had blue, second one had turquoise, third one red, fourth one white, fifth one pink, sixth one black, seventh purple and the last one orange. As the spot lights passes them, all eight turtles then leap off the edge of the roof.)
"TURTLES COUNT IT OFF"
(The screen then splits from right to left into four narrow screens.)
"ONE, TWO"
(In the first one, the turtle in orange (named Michelangelo) is holding his Nunchucks in the air. In the second one, the turtle in red (named Raphael) is holding one Sai above his head while pointing the other downwards.)
"THREE, FOUR"
(In the third one, the turtle in purple (Named Donatello) is holding Bo-staff in front of him. In the fourth one, the turtle in blue (Named Leonardo) has crossed his sword-holding arms over his chest.)
(TURTLES!)
(Leonardo seen fighting two people dressed like ninjas and wielding Naginata-spears. The turtle slices both ninjas weapons' staves in two with his swords before kicking both one by one away.)
"MUTANT CHAIN REACTION"
(TURTLES!)
(Donatello is seen driving a speedy vehicle down the sewer tunnel, before the turtle in purple turns to smirk to the camera and holds a thumb up.)
"LIVIN' UNDERGROUND"
(TURTLES!)
(Raphael is seen making couple of flips; one over the fence and one towards the screen, before he delivers the kick at the screen, blackening it for a second.)
"NINJUTSU ACTION"
(TURTLES!)
(Widely grinning Michalengelo is seen standing on top of the large green armored car that's speeding along the street, while spinning his Nucnhacku wildly in the air.)
"IT'S A SHELL OF THE TOWN!"
(As the turtle in orange leaps off, the armored car flies in arc over the street before landing back to the ground. Then its back doors open up and two of the turtles, Raphael and the turtle in black, rocket out of the car in the backs of red and avocado green bikes before skidding them sideways to a stop.)
(In the alleyway, next to the blue armored car, the eight turtles crouch down before leaping to attack towards the camera, with the turtle in orange taking the lead and kicks the screen with his foot.)
"TURTLES COUNT IT OFF"
(The screen splits into two horizontal screen: the upper screen shows a blue-masked face with into a glare narrowed eyes while lower shows eight turtles standing in line in front of the gray-furred humanoid rat dressed in the brown robe, Master Splinter by name.)
(In the next one, lower screen shows a purple-masked face with lightly frowned glare while upper shows Master Splinter swinging his wooden staff down at the couple of attacking robots.)
("ONE!")
"LIVE BY THE CODE OF THE MARTIAL ARTS"
(In the third one, upper screen shows a red-masked face with the deep frown, while the lower shows a large and muscular blonde-haired man, named Hun, leading a group of silhouetted street gang members from the ablaze background towards the screen)
(In the fourth one, the lower screen shows a orange-masked face with the soft stare, while the upper one shows Hun sneering at the camera, before he throws a punch towards the screen.)
("TWO!")
"NEVER FIGHT UNLESS SOMEONE ELSE STARTS"
(A red-haired young woman, named April O'Neil, is then seen winking at the camera from the cockpit of the helicopter with the rope hanging from its undercarriage, which she flies past of the blue tower with the Japanese palace on top of it. On top of it, two turtles, Donatello and the turtle in white are seeing battling six ninjas on the edge, until they're knocked off the building. Falling down, the turtle in white grabs from the helicopter's rope with one hand and grabs with his free one from Donnie's hand, cutting his falling, and they're both lifted up in the air.)
("THREE!")
"ALWAYS STICK TOGETHER NO MATTER WHAT"
(In the dark alley, the eight turtles are standing shell to shell in middle of the bright spotlight, while they're surrounded by the dozens and dozens of in the darkness standing and armed ninjas that keep coming from the darkness and rooftops above of the alley. The turtles fearlessly demonstrate their weapon skills with their weapons before taking their respective battle stances.)
("FOUR!")
"IF ALL ELSE FAILS, THEN IT'S TIME TO KICK BUTT!"
(Screen rises up to the tall buildings.)
(Michelangelo jumps from the right, making the flip in the air while spinning his Nunchucks wildly. At the same time from the left jumps the female turtle in pink with her legs bent under, while spinning around and swinging her sharp Tessens around.)
(Then Donatello jumps from the left, spinning his Bo-staff with his left hand while swinging it over his head before grabbing it with both hands and bringing it down hard. At the same time, the female turtle in turquoise jumps from the right, spinning her Naginata in her right hand, before spinning around and sending a horizontal slash with her weapon's blade forward.)
(Leonardo then jumps from the left with his Katanas crossed, before he pulls them to the sides as he delivers the kick forward with his foot. At the same time, the turtle in white jumps from the left, spinning his Tonfas in his hands before thrusting his right Tonfa forward like a stabbing movement.)
(Raphael then jumps from the left and crossed his arms in front of him before pulling them back, making his Sais to flash. Right after him, the turtle in black jumps from the right, holding his left Butterfly sword in front of him and his right Butterfly sword over his head, before swinging them forward to slash with them the air in front of him.)
(Then a 14-year-old girl with purple-dyed hair styled in pigtails, and dressed in a sleeveless, teal hoodie and red baggy jeans jumps from the left after the turtle in black and throws the punch towards the screen with her left fist. Then a tall blue-haired and -eyed man with the hockey mask on his face, named Casey Jones, jumps from the right and whacks the screen with his hockey stick.)
(Leo, with swords in hands, is then seen landing onto one ninja's back, knocking him down.)
(Donnie is then seen whacking another ninja off his feet and out with his Bo.)
(Raph is then seen blocking the third ninja's kick with his left arm while holding his Sai in his fist.)
(Mikey is then seen punching fourth in the face with his right fist while holding a Nunchuck.)
(Turtle in turquoise is then seen kicking the fifth in the chest while holding her Naginata up.)
(Turtle in white is then seen back-handing the sixth with his left hand's Tonfa)
(Turtle in black is then seen blocking seventh's sword with his left hand's sword while thrusting his right towards the ninja as if to stab him in the chest)
(Turtle in pink is then seen with her arms crossed in front of her white holding her opened pink Tessens in her hands.)
(Raph is then seen again, this time surrounded by several ninjas, until he spins himself around with his hands clenched into fist around of his Sais' hilts spread out, knocking all ninjas away from him.)
(Cut to the wide shot, where seven silhouetted turtles are seen jumping and flipping along the rooftops, water towers and chimneys, as the camera follows them. One of the turtles swings over them by the chain with one hand like Tarzan. Then two narrower screens appear to above and beneath of the rooftop screen, showing the repeating line of turtles in blue's and purple's masked faces above and the line of turtles in red and orange's masked faces beneath, moving to the opposite direction.)
"I LOVE BEING' A..."
"I LOVE BEING' A..."
"I LOVE BEING' A TURTLE!"
(The turtles then land to the ground in front of the building. Leonardo is in the middle, Donatello and the turtles in turquoise and white are in his right side while Michelangelo and the turtles in black and pink are in his left side. All seven then ran towards the camera that moved between of Leo's legs.)
"TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!"
(Then, Raphael races over the building in the back of the bike and jumps off it towards and past the camera.)
"TURTLES COUNT IT OFF:"
(The screen splits into four narrow screens again, this time from left to right.)
"FIVE, SIX"
(In the first one, the female turtle in turquoise (named Marietta) is pointing her Naginata's blade at the screen. In the second one, the turtle in black (named Lorenzo) is holding his Butterfly-swords upside down in his arms, while holding the left one horizontally in front of his face and right one over his head.)
"SEVEN, EIGHT"
(In the third one, the turtle in white (named Domenico) is holding his Tonga-holding arms crossed over his chest. In the fourth one, the female turtle in pink (named Artemisia) is holding her right hand's Tessen opened in front of her face, partially covering them behind of her weapon, while pointing with her left closed one at the screen.)
(TURTLES!)
(Marietta is seen standing in the dead end, spinning around while spinning her Naginata with her hands in front of her, before she pulls it behind her shell-back and shoots her left hand forward as two two hands, one holding a knife and one a fire-axe, appears from both sides of the screen
"AT NIGHTFALL, WE'RE COMING"
(TURTLES!)
(Lorenzo is seen riding on top of the subway car, with his Butterfly swords sunk to its roof. And as he approaches the camera, the turtle in black jumps forward towards the camera and kicks the screen into black.)
"OUT OF MANHOLE"
(TURTLES!)
(Domenico is then seen stabbing with his left and then right Tonfa at one practice dummy in his right to the head, knocking it back. Then he turns around and spin-kicks the other dummy in his left in the head with his right foot. Then the turns around and whack the camera with his left Tonfa.)
"BEWARE, THE BADDIES!"
(TURTLES!)
(The screen pulls back, showing Artemisia skating with the pair of pink roller skates along the rooftop as she is being by the dozen ninjas with the swords. Four more ninjas appear from the sides of the screen, chasing after the skating turtle in pink. Arcee peeks over her left shoulder at them, smirks and then picks up the pace, skating into the camera.)
"MUTANTS NINJAS ARE ON THE MOVE!"
(Arcee then skates towards a pretty large ninja with the sword held up and ready to strike (with her pursuers' running feet showing in the sides of the screen). However, as the large ninja tries to strike at the turtle in pink horizontally, she grabs from both of his wrists, spins around and throws him over her shoulder at her pursuers. The ninja flies towards the camera face-first.)
(Arcee then turns around and somersaults over the edge of the building. The screen then moves down in front of with the wooden boards boarded doorway, before the same green armored truck - with Domenico in the driver's seat and Marietta in the passenger's seat - smashes through it, allowing the turtle in pink to land onto its roof.)
(Screen then turns to the back-doors of the truck as it is chased by two ninjas on motorbikes, until the back-doors of the truck slam open and Lorenzo jumps out with the barrel-roll, landing on his shell to the street, somersaulting back to his feet and then lunging at the ninjas, knocking them both off the bikes as he flies face-first at the camera.)
"TURTLES COUNT IT OFF"
(The screen splits into two horizontal screens again: the upper screen shows a turquoise-masked face with lightly frowned glare, while lower screen shows Arcee, Leo and Mary in the snowy woods, staring at the five silhouetted canine-like humanoid beings with various colored face-paints (silver, dark blue, light purple, red and dark purple) standing in line. They all hit their fists with their fist before bowing.)
(In the next one, lower screen shows a white-masked face with deep frown while upper shows the silhouetted canine-like humanoid with the light blue face-paint wielding a single Kama in its right had while fighting two hunter-looking men with the hunting rifles: It kicks the one behind of its back in the chest with its left foot, then elbows the second one in the face with its right elbow. It then turns to and snarls at the camera before slicing it half with its Kama.)
("FIVE!")
"WE'LL ALWAYS FIGHT AGAINST THE EVIL!"
(In the third one, upper screen shows a black-masked face with the wide eyes, while the lower shows Lorenzo and the same purple-haired and ponytailed teenager human girl standing back to shell-back in middle of the ring of the silhouetted enemies.)
(In the fourth one, the lower screen shows a pink-masked face with the soft stare, while the upper one shows Louie and purple-haired girl turning to each other and taking each other from hands, before the turtle in black swings the girl around him in the air. As the turtle swings the girl towards the camera, the girl kicks the screen with her foot.)
("SIX!")
"WE COME, STRIKE HARD, AND VANISH INTO NIGHT"
(A next shot shows two buildings standing next to each other, until Donatello and Marietta appear from the left side of the screen and jump over the gap between the buildings (with Marietta pole-vaulting over the gap with her Naginata). Then four turtles, led by Leonardo, followed by Raphael and Artemisia and lastly Domenico, are seen rushing forward along the streets, weapons in hands. Michelangelo and Lorenzo are then seen following them right behind: the former by zipping along the rope with his Nunchaku and the latter by swinging by the chain while spinning the other one wildly around with his free hand.
("SEVEN!")
"AS A TEAM, WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE EACH OTHER'S SHELLS."
(In the next shot, we see all eight turtles standing under the light in the darkness, with their backs turned to the camera as it pulls away from them. As they all turn around to the camera, they draw out their weapons and take their individual battle-stances, ready to face whoever is standing in front of them.)
("EIGHT!")
"AND WE'LL NEVER LEAVE OUR BUDDIES BEHIND!"
(Out of darkness appears Baxter Stockman, glaring menacingly at the camera while being surrounded by the dozens of menacing-looking Mousers. Stockman points at the camera with his finger and the Mousers lunge forward.)
(Camera moves to the right, showing Tatsu backed up by the group of ninjas behind him. The scarred man draws out a sword from his X-shaped scabbard in his back and raises it with both hands up and next to the scarred side of his faces, pointing its tip at the camera while glaring himself darkly at the camera.)
(Camera moves to the right again, this time showing a strange female creature with the pale skin, red eyes, long elf-like pointy ears, slightly hooked nose and the long-black hair, and who was dressed in a complete black tunic, pants and slippers, including a long black elf-hat like hat. With the mischievous grin on his face, the creature waved its hands over, followed by the flow of glowing various-colored stars in her left hand and the various-colored lightning in her right hand, as if it was the magic.)
(Camera moved to the right once more, this time showing a mobster-like barrel-chested man with the thick eyebrows, mustache, double chin and tidy haircut. He was dressed in the blue shirt and a red black-spotted cravat, over which he wore a mafia-like olive green suit with the golden stripes. He had a same-stylish pants and the shiny black-tipped brown shoes. He wore on his head a grayish-brown fedora hat and he had in his mouth a cigar. Backed up by several tough-looking guys in the mafia-like suits and fedora-hats - all armed with various guns or melee weapons - the man took the cigar out of his mouth and, with the nasty sneer, he pointed with his finger forward.)
(The screen turns back to the turtles, showing Donatello whacking several Mousers away with his staff while Raphael lands on one, crushing it, while stabbing his Sais through of two other Mousers.)
(Domenico then moves to stab with his left Tonfa in the ninja's guts, before he turns around and whacks with his right one in the second ninja's chest, knocking him away, after which Artemisia slices the next ninja's staff in half with her Tessens before spinning around and kicking him in the chest with her left foot.)
(The strange pointy-eared creature then flies over to strike them with with the magical lightnings, only for Marietta to lunge at her from the air and land a kick to her side, knocking the creature off the air.)
(Three mafia thugs then, one in the white shirt, black cravat, turquoise suit and reddish-brown fedora-hat, one in the black shirt, green cravat, the brown suit and with the golden fedora-hat and the large broad-shouldered one with the thick eyebrows, shaven face and dressed in the checkered blue-white shirt, red black-spotted bow tie, dark purple suit and dark blue bowler hat, rush towards the turtles, only for the turquoise-suited thug in the left to be snap-kicked away by Michelangelo, brown-suited thug in the right to be kicked in the guts by Lorenzo and the big thug in front to be kicked away by Leonardo, who spins around before crossing his swords in front of his face.)
(Cut to the wide three-leveled shot, where two silhouetted turtles are first seen running along the sewer pipe: One turtle is on foot while another turtle is skating along the pipe's rounded walls.)
"I LOVE BEING' A..."
(Shot moves upwards to the street level, where three silhouetted turtles are running along the streets: One is running on the foot, while other is riding on the bike and third is hopping along both the driving and parked cars' rooftops. Then two narrower screens appear to above and beneath of the rooftop screen, showing the repeating line of turtles in turquoise's and white's masked faces above and the line of turtles in black's and pink's masked faces beneath, moving to the opposite direction.)
"I LOVE BEING' A..."
(Shot moves upwards again, to the roof level, where two silhouetted turtles are either jumping or pole-vaulting along the rooftops.)
"I LOVE BEING' A TURTLE!"
(Three turtles (Raphael in the left, Leonardo in the middle and Domenico in the right) are seen running towards the camera along the streets. Then Artemisia and Michelangelo jumps out of the open manholes into the streets and join the run next to Raph and Dom. Then they're joined by Marietta and Donatello, who land down from the rooftops to Leo's both sides. All seven then ran towards the camera that moved between of Leo's legs.)
"TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!"
(Then, Lorenzo jumps off the building towards the camera, spinning the chain wildly above his head before throwing it away and then swings by it over the camera in Spiderman-style.)
"TURTLES COUNT IT OFF:"
(A small square screen then appears from the left, showing Leonardo's shadowy yet calm-looking face. Another appears next to it from above, showing Donatello's shadowy yet determined-looking face.)
"ONE! TWO!"
(Third appears from beneath, showing Michelangelo's shadowy goofy-like face. Then the fourth appears from the right, showing Raphael's shadowy yet fierce-looking face with the gritted teeth.)
"THREE! FOUR!"
(A fifth square then screen then appears from the left, showing Marietta's shadowy yet calm-looking face. sixth then appears next to it from above, showing Domenico's shadowy yet deeply frowning face.)
"FIVE! SIX!"
(Seventh appears from beneath, showing Lorenzo's shadowy wildly hilarious-looking face. Then final eights appears from the right, showing Artemisia's shadowy yet determined-looking face with the smile.)
"SEVEN! EIGHT!"
(TURTLES!)
(All eight turtles are seen jumping down from the tall blue tower with the red Japanese palace on top of it, which towers over all the other buildings of the town. With the weapons in hands, the turtles spin in a circle (First Leonardo, then Marietta, then Raphael, then Lorenzo, then Donatello, then Domenico, then Michelangelo and finally Artemisia) as they fall towards the camera)
"THERE'S NO ONE BETTER"
(TURTLES!)
(In the ledge of the same tower, that is above of the blood-red three-toed symbol in middle of the bright light blue circle, a menacing-looking man in the full Samurai-looking armor and helmet looks down after them, as his black cape floats in the wind and the lightning flashes in the sky behind him. The camera moves closer of his helmet-covering head, before the man turns to the camera and raises his left arm with the gauntlet armed with two sharp claws.)
"WATCH OUT FOR THE SHREDDER"
(TURTLES!)
(The turtles are then seen standing in middle of the rooftop. With the weapons in hands, they briefly demonstrate their weapons-skills before taking their individual fighting poses: Donatello is seen standing in the middle, pointing his staff's end at the camera, while Raphael and Lorenzo are standing in his right, Marietta and Michelangelo are standing in his left and Domenico, Artemisia and Leonardo are standing behind of them.)
"THEY'RE LIKE NO OTHERS!"
(TURTLES!)
(The turtles are seen riding or skating on the various human equipment along the underground tunnel: Donnie was in the lead, wheeling with his purple-gray foldaway bike as he rode past the camera. Artemisia followed him afterwards on her own turquoise tuned dirt-bike, waving at the camera. She was followed by Leonardo on foldaway kick scooter with the blue board, hopping over the handlebar with his hands. He was then followed by Domenico on the white-tuned road bicycle, who made the high backward flip over the camera. After them, Raphael and Artemisia were roller skating along the wall of the tunnel with their red roller blades and pink roller-skates. Lorenzo then skated after them with his oversized green and black skateboard pair of rocket boosters and he was followed by Michelangelo, who skated along the tunnel's wall with his orange skateboard, going higher and higher along the wall before he jumped off it, landing in front of the camera with the smirk before skating away.)
"THOSE TEENAGE SIBLINGS!"
(First Donatello, then Domenico, then Leonardo, then Marietta, then Raphael, then Lorenzo, then Michelangelo, and finally Artemisia landed onto the rooftop with weapons in hands.)
"ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!"
"FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT!"
(Either spinning or waving their weapons, the turtles then charged forward towards the camera, with Leonardo taking the lead and slashing his swords forward.)
"TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES"
Then the logo of "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES" appears, with the silhouetted figures of the eight turtles with the glowing eyes behind of it.
"TURTLES! TURTLES!"
=Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003=
=The Way of Invisibility Part 1=
Five days after the incident back in the East River.
Inside of the red palace on top of the blue ninja-symbol-branded skyscraper, the man in the white Japanese robe and with the gray vest, which was adorned with two same blood-red three-toed ninja symbols, was calmly and patiently sitting behind of his Japanese Table in peace, with his eyes closed.
Until the sudden noise of the doors of his throne room being opened broke that silence.
As the doors branded with the blood-red ninja symbol were pushes open, Hun stepped into the room. Growling, the blonde hulking man walked towards the ninja master in the other side of the throne room, flanked by Tatsu and Jennika, who stepped through the doors into the throne room in the large man's wake.
As all three of them were standing in front of the man behind the table, all three of them fell on one knee and bowed deeply in respect to him.
"Master." Hun said with the deep voice. "You summoned me?"
The ninja master then opened his eyes and eyed the hulking man in front of him coldly. "I did, Hun."
The man then took a few pictures from his table, as Hun, Tatsu and Jennika got up to their feet.
"I trust you have heard about... these creatures." the man said, before throwing the pictures at Hun.
The large man snatched the pictures from the air in his large hand, before turning them around and looking down on the first one, seeing the thermal images of eight humanoid turtles - along with the female human with them.
"Oh, yes, Master." Hun confirmed. "As I've said before, I have an eyes and ears in every corner of this city. I've heard more than enough about the wild stories of some "Gecko warriors," "Karate frogs," "Kung Fu Lizards," "Turtle costumed freaks" which cause both the trouble and restlessness among my ranks. Hun snarled, crumbling up the pictures in his hand.
"That makes two of us, Hun, especially after these demons humiliated me bloodily back in the docks." Tatsu snarled, still recalling his humiliating defeat at the hands of the turtles nearly about week ago, making Jennika to grin amused at the scarred ninja master's complain about his wounded pride sideways.
Then, a mocking laugh came behind of him, making all three of them to turn around to see who dared to laugh at this situation.
They saw that it was, none else than, Dr. Baxter Stockman. The disgraced mad scientist had a quite hideous-looking scar running across the left side of his faces, and he was also missing his left eye, that was cruelly dug out from its socket as punishment for his failure with the Mouser operation weeks ago.
"Hehehe. Is this supposed to be a field report or some children fantasy novel?" Stockman said, taking the pictures from Hun's hands to take the look at them himself.
The man then angrily slapped the pictures away from Stockman's hands, startling him.
"YOU ARROGANT FOOL! Were they the fantasies that destroyed your Mouser robots, Dr. Stockman!?" the man snarled angrily, causing Stockman to fall back on his butt to the floor.
Both Hun and Tatsu were smirking amused while seeing this, before the man dashed over to Tatsu, making the scarred ninja to gasp in surprise. "AND TATSU! Were they the fantasies that both defeated you and took back the Sword of Tengu from your Foot soldiers!?" the man snarled, making Tatsu to back away from him.
The man then dashed over to Hun, who reacted to this similarly as Tatsu did. "HUN! Were they the fantasies who caused your Purple Dragons, the most feared street gang of the East-Side of the city, to lose that needed funding money and sent half of your gang, including your second-in-command, into the police custody!?"(1)
And finally, the man dashed over to Jennika, whose reaction was not any different from Tatsu's and Hun's. "AND JENNIKA! You think they are the fantasies that have managed to elude your soldiers' grasp for a past few days!?"
"N-no, master! I-I don't think!" Jennika stuttered worriedly. "My men are still searching fro them. They just haven't managed to find them yet."
"And do you know why they haven't? Does any of you fools know why!?" the man snarled, before walking away in though. "So far these green skinned ninjas are too skilled to be mere street thugs." he said, folding his arms. "But I do wonder why they're so keen to target our operations lately."
"Well, I don't know why, but those are definitely some sort of spawn of the evil Yokai from the ancient legends of our homeland, master." Tatsu simply said.
"Whatta nonsense, Tatsu! All of that is nothing more but made up rubbish by some old-fashioned Japanese fools!" Hun scoffed with the snarl, definitely not believing in the old Japanese legends and folklore as a thoroughbred American thug.
Tatsu shot a murderous glare at a large man for his disrespect for the mythological culture of his homeland and looked to be ready to draw out his sword and make Hun to pay for his disrespect with the blood.
Hun then turned back to their master. "But the recent activities of these creatures and the targeting of our operations seem to be close to the guerrilla warfare. Maybe this could mean that they're working for your old enemies, master." Hun suggested.
The man frowned at the idea that the turtles were targeting their operations because they were under of his old "enemies'" service.
"Maybe, or maybe not, Hun." Jennika rebuked dismissively. "If they were working for our enemies, they would have borne even some sort of evidence of it. Our soldiers also would've already reported to us about that."
"Mercenaries do not have to wear their higher employer's symbol to show their allegiance if their leader has sworn it already on behalf of the entire organization." Hun shot back, partially referring himself with his point, as he was the leader of the Purple Dragons, and yet he was bearing the ninja symbol to demonstrate his and his organizations' allegiance to this ninja clan.
"Bah! From the old legends? Bah! Querrilla fighters or mercinaries? Bah!" Stockman scoffed in disbelief as he picked the pictures up from the floor. "Don't be ridiculous! If you ask from me, I'd say that they're more likely a top-secret government experiment." the disgraced scientist suggested.
The man then dashed to Stockman and lifted him off ground by his coat.
"I AM NOT INTERESTED IN THEORIES!" he snarled, before throwing Stockman into Hun's and his lieutenants feet.
"Agh!" Stockman groaned upon landing.
"I want answers." the man said, before he walked around his table and sat down behind of it. "And that's why all you four are here. If we are going to discover these creatures' secrets, we will succeed only in the joint effort of all four of you." he explained.
"The joint effort of all four of us? What do you mean, master?" Tatsu questioned.
"The master means by that, Tatsu..." Jennika started to explain, making Tatsu to turn to her with the spiteful glare. "...that he wants all four of us, me, Hun, Dr. Stockman and you to work together to capture these creatures."
"Exactly." the man confirmed. "The four of you are free to use any of your resources and any means to accomplish this task. Just find these creatures! Examine them. Find out their secrets. KILL THEM if necessary!"
All four of them then bowed respectfully to their master, though Tatsu shot a sideways glare at Jennika's direction, not liking the idea of having to work together with his bitter rival to capture the turtles for their master.
###
Three days later, in the Lair's Dōjō, Master Splinter was running another lesson for his sons and daughters.
The old rat master had beforehand placed a number of narrow bamboo poles into upright position all around of the Dōjō as part of today's lesson, on which all of them were standing.
Splinter stood calmly and almost without a single movement on one of the poles with a single leg, while the turtles around him had a bit of trouble maintaining their own balances on the blunt ends of narrow poles that didn't have enough foothold. The turtles stood in the posts either on one leg or in squat.
Splinter at first lighted a candle before the rat master turned to face the turtles.
"My children, tonight our training shall focus on combining two essential disciplines: The way of balance..." Splinter explained, before he clapped his hands, from which the lights turned off and the darkness fell mystically in the lair, save for the candle lights. "...and the way of invisibility."
Arcee then turned to Donnie. "Wow! You saw what Splinter just did? Cool!" the turtle in pink commented in whisper, amazed of Splinter's ability to turn the lights off with the single clap of his hands.
"Dude, you put in the clapper?" Mikey then said to Donnie, though way too loudly than what Arcee did.
This prompted Master Splinter to jump onto the pole nearest of Mikey, before the rat master whacked him in the back of his hand with his staff, making the turtle in orange to wince in pain.
"OW!" Mikey yelped before rubbing the sore back of his hand with his another while looking at Splinter.
"Michelangelo, the way of invisibility also includes the way of silence." the rat master said firmly to his son, before he turned to rest of them. "I suggest you employ both if you wish to avoid my walking staff."
Splinter then jumped off his pole onto another, pushing himself off it with his walking staff and back flipping in the air before he landed to the post next Leonardo and Marietta'. The rat master then sent two whacks with his staff at both Leo and Mary, one per each, but both turtles flipped over Splinter's staff. After the flips, Leo landed his left feet on the pole he was standing and his right to another pole next to it, while Mary had landed on her hands back onto the same pole she was standing on, ending up standing on it upside down.
Donnie tried to attack Splinter from his left side. However, Splinter ducked his attempted kick on him with ease, and Donnie landed on another post behind of him.
A moment after, Dom lunged at Splinter from his right side, spun around and attempted the roundhouse kick on Splinter, which the rat master, however, ducked with the deep bow and Dom ended up to land on another pole behind him. However, Dom had a bit too much speed in his attack and he ended up to lean too much backwards, nearly losing his balance and falling off the pole and down to the floor. Thinking quickly, Dom jump off the pole and flipped backwards till he landed on his hands to the next pole. The turtle in white then pushed himself off it and landed on his feet to the third pole, managing just barely to gain and maintain his balance on it.
Arcee them made her ways to the pole next to Splinter's, where she spun herself around and attempted to sweep Splinter's leg on the pole off from under him with her left leg. However, Splinter jumped over Arcee's leg, and in counter-attack, he swung his staff towards Arcee, prompting the turtle in pink to lean backwards to avoid Splinter's staff. As Arcee was close to fall off the pole just like Dom nearly did, she quickly grabbed with her hands from another pole behind of her and then pushed herself up with her legs from the pole she was standing on a moment ago. As Arcee was standing on the pole with her hands upside down, Splinter then attempted to send a whack at Arcee, using the same technique what the turtle in pink had just tried to use on him, but she quickly pushed with her hands herself off the pole before Splinter could've hit them and the turtle in pink landed on her feet to two next to each other standing poles.
"Whoa!" she yelped as he too nearly fell off the poles after landing on them but managed to maintain her balance.
Louie then attempted the snap-kick attack on Splinter from his right side, only to narrowly miss him as the rat master turned to the left and out of Louie's kick's way before spinning around. Louie ended up flying past of Splinter and make the backward flip in the air, before the turtle in black landed on another pole.
Raph then ran along the few poles to behind of Splinter's back before the turtle in red jumped at him, attempting to deliver the direct kick to Splinter's back. However, Splinter dodged it by leaning backwards and Raph ended up to miss his father, before he landed on one of the poles in front of Splinter.
Mikey, meanwhile, flipped around along the poles before landing on one. The turtle in orange then looked around like to ensure that no one was in presence, before he clapped his hands together and the lights turned back on... only to reveal Master Splinter standing right in front of him.
"Peek-a-boo, I see you." Mikey said with the singing voice while smirking at Splinter.
This prompted Master Splinter to discipline his silly son by moving his staff at him to give him another whack.
Alert about this this time, Mikey managed to grab from Splinter's staff before it could hit him. However, Splinter yanked his staff off Mikey's grasp with the hard pull enough to send Mikey into off-balance on the pole he was standing.
"Whoa! AHHHH!" Mikey yelled, as he eventually lost his balance completely and fell off the pole.
However, before he could've hit the floor below, Mikey managed to cut his fall short by grabbing from the center of the pole's haft and coiled his legs around of it, remaining to hang in there for a moment.
"Hey, don't I at least get points for creativity?" Mikey complained, as he began to climb back to the top of the post.
"More like points for being a silly bonehead, bro." Louie teasingly replied, as he balanced on his pole next to Mikey's.
"Hey!" Mikey complained.
Not paying mind to this, Splinter focused back to the lesson.
"A creative mind must be balanced by a disciplined body." Splinter said to the rest on the poles balancing turtles as he clapped his hands again and the darkness came in again. "We must learn stillness and alertness, for they are the only defense against the unexpected."
Before Splinter and the turtles reached to the next round of their training...
"Hey, guys?" a new but familiar voice said in the darkness outside of Dōjō.
Louie was the first one to hear that.
"Hey! Was that...?" the turtle in black was about the say, but he couldn't finish his sentence before someone stumbled into the set of the poles and knocked all of them down to the ground like dominoes, and the turtles and Splinter with them.
"WHOOOOAAAAA/AHHHHHHHHH!" Turtles and Splinter cried as they all fell from their poles over to the ground, leaving them lying on their knees, sides or shell-backs on the Dōjō's mattress, groaning in pain.
Splinter recovered quickly from this sudden 'incident', but at the very moment when he realized that there was an intruder in the lair, the rat master angrily turned around, quickly located the intruder in the darkness with his natural senses, jumped up and lunged at him, knocking him off his feet and pinning him a pretty roughly against the ground.
One of the turtles, Leo most likely, clapped his hands together to turn the lights back on to see who was in the lair.
And when the lights were back on, the turtles immediately recognized the "intruder", whom Splinter was keeping pinned against the ground with his staff pressed hard against either his chest or throat.
It was none other than Casey Jones.
"Master Splinter, no! He's okay!" Leo shouted, as the turtles rushed to the scene.
However, Louie suddenly grabbed from Dom' shoulder to hold him back, before turning the surprised and slightly confused turtle in white to face him.
"One thing before we go, my dear brother Domenico. Remember our little bet we two made last week? If he finds in here on his own, you'll pay me $50. And if he doesn't find his way here, I'll pay you one." Louie said, grinning smugly while reminding his brother about something of what they had, according to his words, agreed a few days ago.
At first, Dom was slightly confused and had no idea what Louie was talking about, 'till he began to recall the events between of him and the turtle in black a few days back. And when the whole thing fully dawned on him, his eyes went wide in shock.
"Oh, no! Oh, no! That bet?!" the turtle in white exclaimed, slapping his hand over his left temple in misery.
"Well, so much for your confidence that he's not gonna find here, because he just DID so! So I won our bet!" Louie exclaimed, raising his hands up triumphantly.
Then, the turtle in black extended his hand out towards Dom, expecting him to hand over the money he owned to him.
"Now, my $50, please?" Louie asked with the smug grin.
Dom rolled his eyes and let out the groan in defeat.
"Alright! Alright!" the turtle in white said in irritation as he dug one of his belt's bags for $50 bill.
"Here. Stick it, you smartass!" Dom growled as he handed the bill over to Louie.
"Language, bro!" Louie teased as he snatched the bill from Dom's hand. "But thanks for the fair game and for the bill, anyway." the turtle in black added smugly as he put the bill into his belt's bag, before the duo rushed after the others.
The turtles then gathered around of Splinter, who still kept Casey pinned to the ground and glared down at him with distrust.
"Sensei, this is Casey, Casey Jones. The nutca-uh... the guy we told you about." Donnie said, introducing Casey to Splinter.
"You remember. That 'nice' igilant-vay?" Mikey said.
"I think you meant... "the vigilante-guy", Mikey." Mary said, correcting Mikey's assumed incorrect words.
Mikey shrugged at this with silent but visible 'whatever' look on his face.
Mary then turned to Master Splinter. "Sensei, relax. Everything is alright. You can let him go. He's a friend. Casey already knows of our existence and he has kept in our secret for almost the last three weeks since we first met him." the turtle in turquoise explained.
Splinter was still a quite reluctant to let Casey go, though he did listen his daughter's explanations enough to put it into the consideration.
"Well, how did he then find us? How did he even know to come to our home through the warehouse?... or how did he even know our home's location?" Splinter demanded to know with the strict voice.
"Well, because we... because we..." Arcee said, stuttering for an explanation, before she turned to both Raph and Louie. "Raph? Louie? Would you two explain this part to Splinter? He's your best buddy after all."
Both Raph and Louie shrugged before turning to Splinter to finish their sister's explanation.
"We figured it'd be okay to give him access to the lair." Raph explained.
"You know, for emergencies and stuff." Louie added.
Splinter, apparently having heard enough to be convinced, let go of Casey and stood up.
The rat master then bowed to Casey apologetically, with the expression that hinted that he was sorry for attacking Casey like that.
"Then, please forgive my rash action." Splinter apologized and stepped a few steps back while the turtles helped Casey back on his feet.
"Man, that felt like being knocked over by the flying trash can, but no problemo." Casey said, as he took his mask off his faces.
However, despite apologizing his actions, Splinter was still a little irritated for their training being interrupted by Casey's sudden and unexpected arrival - and yet he had arrived without being invited in the first place.
"Although next time, to avoid the further incidents like this one..." Splinter started, lifting his staff up and pointing with its end at Casey's faces in warning. "... you would be wise to heed the ancient Japanese proverb. Phone first!" the irritated rat master finished strictly, before walking away.
Louie then turned to Casey, rising his thump at him like congratulating him for something.
"Congratulations, Casey-boy! Step number two completed: Winning the fatherly yet territorial rat's trust." the turtle in black said.
However, Louie soon turned back to Sensei with the confused look on his face.
"But I never thought that "Phone first" is even Japanese proverb." the turtle in black wondered.
"In Sensei's book, it is, because everything is Japanese to Master Splinter." Leo pointed out.
Casey then began to observe the turtle's lair now when the lights were turned on. The vigilante was instantly puzzled by the lair's appearance... just like the turtles were when they first arrived to the lair a weeks ago.
"Whoa! Raph, Louie, your bunkhouse's even more awesome than you said." Casey commended, accidentally kicking one of on the ground lying poles aside, much to Splinter's annoyance, as the rat master was busy in collecting them and placing them back to the upright positions.
"Told ya, Casey. I knew that you're gonna be puzzled when you see this." Louie said.
"Yeah, but something tells me that you didn't come all the way down here for the nickel tour. Didn't you?" Raph said, like already sensing that Casey hadn't come to their lair, without asking invitation of course, just to visit by.
"How are things on the topside?" Raph asked curiously.
"Go ahead, Casey. Tell us. We haven't being able to make any visits on the surface while spending a week down here 'under-grounded' by Splinter, because of some reasons that ain't important right now. And we are not free to go up for the next two weeks either. So what's the 411 street-side?" Louie asked right after Raph.(2)
After the questions, Casey immediately went straight to the point, starting from the very reason why he was here in the first place.
"Graffiti. It's everywhere. All over town." Casey replied as he walked through of his turtle pals.
Casey's reply, however, got the turtles to exchange a confused look with one another.
"Graffiti? What he's talking about?" Dom questioned.
"I don't know, Dom. I guess he hit his head pretty hard to the chamber-elevator's door frame before stepping in." Arcee guessed.
"Well, he must have a quite thick skull as I don't see any bruise in his forehead." Louie joked, letting out the small chuckle at his own joke.
"Well, if you ask from me, I think I speak for everyone in the room when I say, duh." Mikey replied, earning the amused chuckling and giggling from his siblings.
Donnie, while slightly chuckling to Mikey's comment to Casey's reply, turned to Casey.
"We're New Yorkers, Casey. We've seen graffiti before" the brainy turtle stated.
However, Casey denied Donnie's claim almost right after.
"Nah-ah. Not this kind." Casey claimed, as he took out the picture to show it to the turtles.
The turtles came closer to have a better look of the picture Casey held in his hand. And as soon as the story of the photo dawned on them, the turtles went speechless. Their eyes widened in surprise and some of them grimaced in uneasiness and disgust after seeing what was in the picture.
The picture showed a quite disturbing-looking blood-red tag on the wall, that described the pair of swords skewering eight turtles, four per each.
"I took a picture of this one yesterday to show to you. I'm not quite sure of the purpose of this one, but I think somebody's trying to send you a message." Casey explained.
"Blech! Talk about getting the point!" Mikey commented, slightly disturbed.
"Ugh! That one makes me feel... utterly disturbed. Hrrr!" Arcee gulped, shivering at the thought of herself being skewered by the sword.
"Does all the tags look like this?" Leo questioned.
"Some are a little more graphic." Casey replied, before taking out more pictures. "I took a few pictures more. Take a look of them, if you can endure their traumatizing stories."
Mary took the pictures from Casey and began to check on them one by one in her hands.
First one's tag described both the sword and the turtles again but differently this time: The sword was painted to the wall sideways and its blade was in contact with all eight turtles. Or more specifically said, the blade of the sword went through the gap between the bodies and the heads of the turtles, implying that the sword had cut off all the turtles' heads, because the small red dots above the headless bodies of the turtles most likely described blood.
Second picture's tag described with green paint painted cloud-like graffiti, in which all eight with dark green paint painted turtles were engulfed inside of the cloud and they were lying on their sides. Above of the turtles had been painted with the white paint unmistakably the skull looking tag, likely to hint the cloud around the turtles being toxic, into which the turtles were suffocating.
Third one's tag described all eight turtles all around of the wall... with the arrows stuck in their bodies and the red dots (blood again) all around of them.
And the fourth tag described the long and serpentine with the purple paint painted Eastern-styled dragon with its mouth full of fangs open and staring down at the tags of the turtles like it was threatening to eat them all.
"Dragon?" Mary questioned after she had finished with the fourth picture. It then dawned to her. "Purple Dragons? They are behind of this?"
"Most likely, I just don't know why." Casey replied, 'till the vigilante looked over the turtles to Donnie's laboratory, and saw Sword of Tengu resting in its stand.
"Hey, cool sword. Looks just like the one in the graffiti."
Casey then walked through of the turtles and headed to the sword to have a better look of it. The turtles gasped in horror when Casey reached out his hand towards the sword's handle to grab it and take it off the stand.
"Casey, NO!" Donnie warned loudly.
"DON'T TOUCH THAT THING!" Dom attempted to warn him as well.
However, it was too late.
Once Casey had wrapped his fingers around of the sword's handle, the sword released the bright and sparking lightning that electrocuted Casey's hand.
"AGH!" Casey cried in pain, before the sword's power sent him flying in the air.
"WHOAAAA!" Casey shouted during his flight, before he collided into a bookcase that cut his flight short and the vigilante landed on his butt to the ground, as the books fell off from the case to the floor around of him. Casey moaned as he lifted his hand over his head.
"CASEY!" the turtles called as they rushed to check that was he alright. After getting to his side, Arcee went instantly into doctor mode to see had Casey hurt himself.
"Aw, c'mon, guys! Why he can touch that cool artifact and I can't?" Louie whined, still lamenting that Splinter - now along with Leo, Mary, Donnie and especially Dom - has firmly banned him from adding the blade as part of his collection in his room's wall.
"And speaking of which, the security of that blasted thing was supposed to be under your responsibility, Don." Dom said firmly as he turned to the brainy turtle.
"Yeah, brainiac! You really had to leave that thing lying around for everyone to see?" Raph asked sarcastically, turning to Donnie as well. "Especially at the mercy of those who may want to tamper with it out of curiosity they can't resist." he added.
"I'll tell you why, ONLY if you mind of reminding me about something, bro: that whose great idea was it to invite him down here?" Donnie countered back.
"I think it was mostly Raph's idea... which Louie wholeheartedly supported." Mikey insisted, pointing at both Louie and Raph.
In return, both Raph and Louie turned to glare at their orange-masked brother: Though Louie merely frowned at Mikey annoyed, Raph cast on him a pretty angry scowl and growled in warning, making Mikey to chuckle and wave his hand at his hot-headed brother nervously, before the rest of the turtles rushed to where Casey had flew to.
The turtles then helped Casey, who was slightly dizzy yet puzzled about what had just recently happened, back on his feet, after Arcee had checked him through and had found no injuries to be treated.
"Whoa! What gives with those lightnings?" Casey asked, puzzled of what he had just experienced.
"Beats me, Casey. Actually, we don't know neither. You see, we found that thing recently nearly one week back. But what just happened is the reason why we'd like to keep that thing both remote and untouched." Arcee explained, as the turtle in pink lifted Casey off the ground with Louie's help.
"And that includes some certain curious family members that aren't immune to the temptations." Dom added, shooting a stern look at Louie, who frowned at him in return.
Master Splinter then took the pictures from Mary' hand, before taking from Casey's hand and began to slowly and gently lead him towards the doorway of their elevator-chamber.
"I thank you for this information, Mr. Jones, but now we must return to our training." Splinter said politely.
However, Casey snatched the pictures from Splinter and turned back to turtles.
"Wait! Don't you guys wanna put the smack-down on those Purple Dragon scum for doing this?" Casey asked.
"Well... uh... yeah, we do. But all of this smells way too much like a set-up." Mikey said, implying that the graffiti could mean only one thing: A trap, set mainly for them.
"Mikey's right." Mary said. "These graffiti might be the doings of the Purple Dragons, yes, but those street punks are too lazy and way too dim-witted to even bother to bother us like this. Something else is going on. Someone else above of those guys must be behind of this."
Donnie nodded at his sister's opinion of this. "I agree with you, sis. Someone's just trying to get under our shells." the brainy turtle suspected.
Louie scoffed "Pfft! They're trying to lure us out of hiding with those tags?! Those idiots! We're way too smart to fall for something like that."
"Mary and Donnie are right. Besides, if someone up there wants to harm us, why should we stoop to their level?" Dom asked.
"But this is a matter of honor!" Casey argued as he pulled the baseball bat out from his golf bag and began to pat it to his hand. "What about all that bushi-dudu-stuff you guys always talk about?"
After hearing that, Leo stepped forward to explain a certain things to Casey
"Two things about that, Case. One; That's called Bushido. And two; It has nothing to do with payback for a bunch of nasty wall doodles." the turtle in blue said strictly.
"Sorry, Case. I gotta go with my bro on this one." Raph apologized.
"Yeah. Even we turtles have limits in some things." Louie added.
"Oh man!" Casey moaned in defeat, before he turned around and headed towards the elevator-chamber's doors.
"Alright guys, see ya later." Casey said as he put his bat back into his golf bag was about to leave.
However, before he could, he suddenly spotted the lair's entertainment area's TV set.
"Say... you guys got a multichannel TV set? Cool." Casey said as he headed towards the entertainment area.
And once Casey reached there, he instantly collapsed onto the couch.
"So what's on the tune?" he said, as he took the remote from the table and turned the TV screen on, before he started to eat the pizza from the pizza box the turtles had left open on the couch.
The turtles were bewildered by this.
"Something tells me that he ain't gonna leave anytime soon." Mikey said.
"You're telling me, bro." Arcee said in whisper. "Whatta luck I don't have any of my favorite shows to watch tonight."
Dom hummed in thought. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to think that maybe it wasn't good idea to give him the access of our lair."
Louie rolled his eyes after Dom had said that. "Funny choice of words, bro. Because those were exactly the same words you said after we DID give him the access to our lair." the turtle in black reminded.
Dom was taken aback by this remark.
"I did?" the turtle in white asked from his siblings, sounding and behaving like he either pretended of not knowing or didn't remember saying anything like that.
However, all seven turtles confirmed Louie's claim by silently nodding their heads in agreement while having their eyes locked on Dom. This caused Dom to groan in defeat.
"Wise guy." he muttered while scowling at Louie annoyed.
###
Meanwhile, back in the palace at the top of the ninja-symbol-branded tower, the man was sitting behind of his desk while listening Dr. Baxter Stockman, as the disgraced one-eyed scientist was standing in front of him, ready to tell his for a few past days hatched plan to the ninja master with the smug and proud grin on his face, while Hun, Tatsu and Jennika were standing in the sidelines listening.
"While your oversized lackey, along with your little pets, are wasting time and effort with the pointless search patrols and ridiculously primitive attempts to bait the creatures out into open with the wall scribblings of the street thugs, I have created something more useful to intercept these amphibious pests." Stockman explained calmly, ignoring both Hun's and Tatsu's disapproval and angry glares.
"Master and my good audience, I'll give you... a Foot Tech Ninjas!" the disgraced scientist declared as he turned towards the door of the throne room, gesturing the group of eighteen ninjas that were standing in front of the door, with their arms folded.
These were unlike the previous ninjas the turtles had faced so far. They were dressed into the dark-blue stealth suits, over which they wore the pair of darker toned shoulder pads, knee pads, knee-length shin guards and and elbow-length wrist guards. They had a very weird-looking masks that resembled somewhat gas masks with orange eyes. Each of these guys carried the pair of Katanas in the X-shaped scabbards that were tied to their backs with the weird-looking belts, that went over of their left shoulders. The belts also had a circular plates with the same blood-red symbol.
Two of the ninjas bowed deeply to the man in respect, before they jumped to the either side of the room and turned to each other to the battle-ready poses.
"My brilliantly designed cyber armor enhances their physical abilities, giving them increased strength..." Stockman started to explain...
...as one of the Foot Tech Ninjas lunged at another, but the ninja struck his incoming opponent with the forceful axe kick in the ninja 2 chest, sending him flying to the other side of the room. Stockman's point about "strength" was demonstrated when the ninja 2 hit to the column, causing it to bent upon the impact. Something that wouldn't happen if the regular person would've hit it instead.
Jennika's, Tatsu's and even Hun's eyes went wide in surprise after seeing this.
"...increased durability and fastened recovery..." Stiockman continued...
...and to prove his point, the ninja 2, after landing to the floor on his butt, surprisingly swiftly flipped itself back up without the need of recovery.
Then, the ninja 2 dived at the ninja 1, attempting to send in a kick at him. However, ninja 2 missed as the ninja 1 jumped back to dodge its kick.
"...speed..." Stockman continued...
... as the ninja 1 then spun itself around and, with the surprisingly and even superhumanly fast move, sent the kick at the ninja 2, only to miss him as the ninja 2 jumped back to elude it.
"...and stealth capabilities." Stockman finished, as the ninja 2 dived at the ninja 1 again to attack.
Ninja 1, however, raised its hand over the plate with the Ninja-Symbol on its chest and pressed it down, revealing it to be a button, and the ninja 1 turned invisible and vanished before the ninja 2 could attack him. After landing to the spot where the ninja 1 just was, the ninja 2 looked around to see that where the ninja 1 had went. Suddenly, he was struck from behind by the invisible force - the ninja 1's fist - which knocks him forward for a couple steps. The ninja 2, after maintaining its balance, ninja 2 turned to look behind of it but didn't saw anyone there. The ninja 2 then looked around of him again, before he was struck again by the same invisible force, this time from behind of his right shoulder, which knocked him to the left.
However, after maintaining its balance again, the ninja 2 spun around with the fast move and punched the air, hitting something solid in the empty air no one else in the room saw... until the dragon torch nearest of Hun was suddenly knocked over - implying that the invisible ninja 1 hit it after being sent flying to it by the force of the ninja 2's punch - spreading fire all over the floor.
Tatsu, having seen enough, stepped forward to demonstrate his opinion. "These moves... Those reflexes... Such of durability and this disappearing-thing. These are inhuman traits!" the scarred ninja master said, almost with the disgusted voice, before he turned to Stockman. "They are not even humans! Aren't they!?"
"No, they're not." Stockman calmly replied. "Just a new piece of android technology, same as our technician units... only a highly advanced elite soldiers in the master's army.
Worriedly, Tatsu turned to the man behind of his desk. "Master. With all respect, you're not serious about this, aren't you? You're going to replace my men with the army of robots?!" the scarred ninja master exclaimed.
"With all respect, master, I'm worried about this change too." Jennika replied.
Before either Tatsu or Jennika could've said anything else, the man held up his hand to silence them, before he turned back to Stockman, with the smile of interest on his lips.
"Impressive work, Dr. Stockman." the man praised.
Both Tatsu and Hun stared at their master with wide eyes and slack jaws for praising Stockman's effort over theirs, while Jennika kept her neutral face.
"Well, not all thanks belongs to me, master, but to the brilliant technology I was able to glean from a tiny sample of this unusual artifact you dragged up from the East River." Stockman added, as he walked to the glass case that contained the metallic suit, that was not clean of all the barnacle.
Stockman then eyed the suit with the keen interest.
"If you had any sense, you'd allow me to study the entire thing." Stockman said, unable to take his eyes from the suit.
Seeing this, the man's smile vanished from his face and he gestured Hun to drag Stockman away from the glass case and the suit. Hun gleefully nodded, before he walked behind of the one-eyed scientist and seized him by the shoulder, lifting him off ground.
"Whoa! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" the scientist moaned as he was carried away from the suit and back to the man.
"First thing's first, Dr. Stockman. You have to bring me the creatures first." the man reminded with the hiss.
Hun then put Stockman down and let go of him. The disgraced scientist shot at him a death glare while rubbing his shoulder.
Stockman then turned to the man. "Just keep this foolish rough-handed behemoth out of my way, and my Foot Tech Ninjas will deliver the goods. I guarantee it" Stockman promised.
The man then stood up from his desk and walked to Stockman. "You better remember that carefully, Dr. Stockman, for you have already paid the price for failing me once. And the price will grow higher... and even more severe... if you fail me a second time!" he warned coldly.
Stockman gasped silently and lifted instinctively his hand to his left cheek where the scars from losing his left eye were. That experience was probably a horrific and traumatic enough to make the one-eyed scientist to worry that what might happen to him if he failed again this time.
Both Tatsu and Hun grinned gleefully/cruelly at this, though Jennika in the background couldn't help but feel a slight sympathy and sorry for the disgraced scientist's sufferings from his first punishment. The woman then lowered her head down and shook her head with eyes closed, as if knowing how this was going to end afterwards... even with the advanced android technology.
###
Meanwhile, back in the lair.
A few hours had already passed since Casey's unexpected and uninvited arrival. During of that time the turtles have tried to go on with their usually peaceful evening routines.
However, Casey's presence kinda made it somewhat barely tolerable.
The man had been sitting on the couch for hours and watched only certain TV programs he wanted to watch, much to Mikey, Dom and Mary's annoyance, because they also had certain TV programs they wanted to watch: Mary had planned to watch Yoga tonight from TV, Dom had wanted to see the News and Mikey had wanted to watch some movie.
Thanks to Casey, all three of them missed those shows, much to their annoyance.
And to make his presence less durable, at least for Mikey and Dom (save for Mary as she had left from the entertainment area some time ago for her other routines), Casey even snatched the last pieces of pizza from the box when the turtles in orange and white were about to reach them, much to the turtles' further displeasure.
"Ohh! There goes the last pieces of five pizza boxes." Mikey lamented, as he watched as Casey scarfed the last pieces of pizza down in front of him.
"Tell me about it!" Dom said irritably. "He has kept his own favorite channels on display for hours, and refuses to switch the channel even on request." the turtle in white added in whisper, to which Mikey nodded in agreement.
Casey then noticed Mikey's box of DVDs standing next to him, which he picked up and put on his lap, before he started to go through of Mikey's DVDs to see if there was anything interesting.
Mikey felt uneasy while watching as Casey tampered with his DVDs, before the turtle in orange turned back to Dom.
"We need to get him out of the lair somehow!" Mikey exclaimed in whisper, so that Casey couldn't hear him.
"HOW?!" Dom exclaimed in loud whisper, nearly not caring if Casey did hear him or not.
At that moment, Leo and Arcee appeared to the entertainment area from the couch left side.
Dom then turned to the turtles in blue and pink.
"About time for you to appear, Leo! Please! Can you do something to make him finally leave?!" the turtle in white begged with his lips and the look of despair on his face.
Mikey even put his hands together in a begging way and looked at Leo with the best puppy-dog eyes he could master.
Leo nodded, even without the need of saying it or being talked over ny Mikey's puppy-dog eyes act, before the turtle in blue picked up the TV remote from the couch and turned the set's screens off. Leo then let out the fake yawn before he turned to Casey.
"Woo, sure is getting, uh, late. Don't you think?" Leo said, attempting to urge Casey to make the leave without being impolite.
However, Casey ignored the turtle in blue, and instead turned to Mikey, picking a two DVDs out of the box.
"These the only DVDs you got?" Casey questioned.
"Yep, they are." Mikey said as he got up from the sun lounger he was laying on. "In fact, why don't you borrow some and bring them back later?" the turtle in orange added, taking his box away from Casey while attempting to urge Casey to head back home just as Leo had attempted and failed a moment ago.
However, Casey jumped up from the couch and moved past Mikey, heading towards the DVD player on the computer table next to TV set.
"That's okay. I'll just watch them here." Casey said and began to press the player's "Stop" button.
"Oh, shell!" All four turtles exclaimed in whisper.
However, there was apparently a fault in the player when it refused to work, no matter how many times Casey kept hitting the button.
And that wasn't all, Casey was even starting to lose his cool with the player, leaving Leo, Mikey, Dom and Arcee a bit nervous of what was gonna happen.
"Come on, eject, eject! Oh, you useless piece of SHIT!" Casey complained as he angrily slammed his foot onto the player, breaking it."
"AARGH!" Mikey screamed (girly) in horror after seeing the player broken. Even Leo, Dom and Arcee stared at this with a bit of shock.
"Uh, think your player's broken." Casey said nervously.
Donny, who was working on with something in his lab, peeked over his right shoulder to see the situation at the entertainment area. The turtle in purple shared his brothers' and sister's displeasure of Casey being here and their common wish to get him somehow out of the lair.
"Uh no problem, I'll fix it. In the morning." the brainy turtle said.
However, much to his well-hidden horror, Casey was walking towards his lab.
"Whatcha working on?" Casey asked as he reached to him.
Thinking quickly, Donnie covered his recent work with his arms and body to prevent Casey from peeking at it, and worst, from touching on it. "Uh! Believe me. It's something... boring stuff. Really really really really boring stuff."
"How boring?" Casey questioned.
"So boring that Mikey fell once asleep on the couch while listening me explaining about it down to the last long and quite complicated detail." Donnie replied.
"WHAT? NO I DIDN'T!" Mikey objected with an offended voice, prompting a panicking Arcee to quickly slap her brother to the cheek pretty hard to both silence him and remind him of the very reason why Donnie had to say so.
"Oh! I mean...! Uh... Yeah, I did! It was SOOOO boring that I fell asleep long before he could even start." Mikey hurriedly and falsely corrected himself, rubbing his slightly sore cheek.
Arcee decided to back Mikey up. "Yeah! Donnie has a habit to make a pretty long, almost speech-like, and deadly boring explanations of some of his boring stuff, what we others do not understand at all."
Mikey, Leo and Dom nodded frantically at Arcee's statement.
To their surprise, Casey seemingly bought in all the ruse the turtles tried to fed to him without finding anything of it suspicious. He merely shrugged his shoulders with "whatever" manner, before he turned around and left Donnie's lab... until his best buddies Raph and Louie caught his attention.
Raph was at the moment punching his punching bag at the Dōjō, while Louie was busy at placing the poles back to the upright positions by Master Splinter's request.
"Hey Raph! Louie! Let's wrestle!" Casey said as he unexpectedly tackled both Raph and Louie over the ground, knocking some of the posts over again.
"Casey!" Louie exclaimed in frustration, at first surprised for being tackled over from behind before he began to wrestle back. "You have any idea how hard is to make those poles standing upright!?"
Casey, however, ignored the question and kept wrestling with the turtles in red and black.
"Let go of me, bonehead!" Raph demanded.
"No way, dipstick!" Casey shot back.
Hearing the sounds of the wrestling and the trash-talking, Master Splinter and Mary, whom were meditating in peace together in front of Splinter's room, opened their eyes and turned to the Dōjō, where they saw Raph, Louie and Casey wrestling with each other along the lair's floor while unknowingly knocked over several already upright standing poles and candle holders. At the sight of this, Mary facepalmed herself in annoyance and Splinter shook his own head in irritation.
The rest of the turtles stared at Casey's and their brothers' childishly wrestling along the ground while trash-talking each other.
For the tough and stone-hardened guy as the bros had described him the first time we met him, Casey sure is like the immature baby." Arcee stated, to which the others agreed. "Even more than what Mikey still is." she added.
"Hey!" Mikey complained, offended.
Dom was slowly losing his cool and patience with their unwanted guest. "Now if he isn't in the next fifteen seconds finally outta here, It's "no more Mr. Nice Guy", AND I'LL THROW HIM OUTTA HERE MYSELF WITHIN FIVE SECONDS!" the turtle in white declared in a slowly rising voice, annoyed nearly to the level of Raph's fierce temper.
"Easy bro. Easy." Leo said, calming his steaming brother down before he could get overboard.
With some difficulty, Dom managed to calm himself down on Leo's suggestion.
"Fine, Leo... but if something doesn't happen soon and he ain't outta here within the next fifty seconds, I'll definitely throw him outta here. Count on it, bro." the turtle in white irritably vowed.
Meanwhile, the turtles in black and red and Casey kept their wrestling while rolling along the lair's floor.
"Whackbag!" Louie shot to Casey.
"Green scarecrow!" Casey shot back to Louie.
"Peabrain!" Raph shot to Casey!
"Geek!" Casey countered.
"Dweep!" Raph countered back.
"Hairless gorilla!" Louie shot to Casey again.
"Freakish salamander!" Casey shot back.
"Dimwit!" Raph shot again.
"Dork!" Casey shot back.
"Wimp!" Louie shot to Casey once more.
Casey managed to pin Raph on his shell-back to the ground and keep him there despite Raph's stubborn attempts to get him off. A moment ago, Louie had inadvertently got himself apart of the wrestling, but he quickly rejoined to it by leaping onto Casey's back with all his body weight, pinning both him and Raph to the ground.
Finally, Splinter had had enough of this!
Not wanting to delay their training any further, the rat master got up and jumped towards the wrestling trio and slammed the bottom of his staff hard to the floor and right in front of his sons and Casey, catching their attentions and making the trio to instantly stop wrestling with each other, while comically remaining where they were left off.
The trio looked sheepishly up at Splinter, who in return stared down at them strictly.
"Raphael! Lorenzo!" Splinter snapped sternly, before calming himself down and letting out a sigh. "Normally I'd discourage excursions to the surface, but I think it wise to take our "guest" for a breath of fresh air."
Casey, Raph and Louie then stood up from the ground.
"To the topside?" Raph questioned, unable to believe what he had just heard.
"No kidding? With your permission?" Louie questioned, unable to believe his ears neither.
"Yes." Master Splinter confirmed. "With my permission for this time. Now off you go!"
Both Raph and Louie cheered and performed high-three with each other.
"I'm all over it, Sensei." Raph said.
"Bye bye, stinky sewers! Bye bye sewer arrest! And hello to the topside!" Louie cheered.
"Boo-yah! About time!" Casey cheered as well, waving his fists up!
And then, the trio headed towards the doorway of the elevator-chamber.
"C'mon, you whackbags!" Louie called for others as he took the lead.
"Whackbag?! Who you are calling whackbag?!" Casey questioned.
"Don't worry, Case, he didn't mean that. He meant dumbass maniac!" Raph sarcastically corrected before laughing at his own joke.
"Hey!" Casey shouted, as the trio disappeared into the chamber and the doors went shut.
The rest of the turtles and Splinter were finally capable to let out the sigh in relief that Casey was out with Raph and Louie.
Even Dom did, otherwise the turtle in white would be immediately questioning Master Splinter's decision to allow Raph and Louie to take Casey on the walk to the topside after being warned by their unwanted guest about those graffiti and the very potential danger behind of them.
"Finally some peace and quiet." the turtle in white said.
"And that's how they defeated The Thing that Wouldn't Leave!" Mikey said dramatically, lifting his hands up and waving his fingers while saying that.
For the first time in Mikey's entire life, none of family members frowned, rolled their eyes, shook their heads or facepalmed in frustration, embarrassment or annoyance at Mikey's dramatic or silly comments for every situation. They were actually agree with Mikey even for once, much to Mikey's surprise and delight.
"Indeed, my son." Splinter said with the relieved smile.
"Now, when Casey is out of the way for now, I believe that our break time is over and we can finally resume our training sessions." Splinter declared, and turned towards the Dōjō.
"I think I speak for everyone in the room when I say, "We're on it, Sensei." Right, guys?" Leo asked from the others.
"YEAH!" Donnie, Dom, Mary, Arcee and Mikey agreed in unison, before all six turtles turned to follow Splinter towards the Dōjō to continue from where they left off.
TO BE CONTINUED...
TRIVIA
1) = These events Oroku Saki mentioned to Hun are the events in the third chapter of the "Things Change" saga and the final chapter of the "Meet Casey Jones" saga.
2) = In the previous "The Darkness of the Edge oif the Town" saga, Splinter had said that the turtles are the next two week under the "Sewer Arrest" for meddling with the Foot Ninjas' business and threatened to lenghten it with two more in order to prevent them from going after them again. Well, there is a week of time gap between the previous and this current saga and the turtles are going to spend two weeks more 'undergrounded'. Master Splinter had presumably lengthened their sewer arrest by one week instead of two, possibly for the good work his children did in saving the innocent people from an accident nearly caused by the sword of Tengu.