Guest - Sorry but I'm gonna keep the Shredder as an alien under human disguise in my version of 2003-seriers.
animegamefanatic - That "card game between Louie, Splinter, Casey and Raph" is under the planning, but won't be released until I get to the season 4. And there's to be a lot of other scenes, where the turtles express their disbelief, disgust and outrage towards the authorities' and other people's indifference and disregard towards the value of the human life and human rights. And I'm actually planning to give Mikey and Arcee either their own episode/saga of chapters or shared episode, because Arcee, as the family's youngest member along with Mikey, though more mature than him due to her being a doctor, is much nicer towards Mikey and doesn't make fun of him as much to not at all unlike Raph for example does. Arcee's joke about Mikey's "Goofball Syndrome" in the previous chapter is first time among of those rare times when Arcee makes willingly fun of Mikey because of his goofiness.
= TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2003 =
= THE GARBAGEMAN PART 3 =
In the next morning, the turtles had gathered around of Donnie's computer in his lab, as the brainy turtle hacked into the company's web sites and searched for information about the island, to where the Garbageman had escaped after their failed attempt to capture him last night.
"Anything yet, Donnie? I'm starting to get sick of this waiting." Louie moaned, as the turtle in black paced impatiently back and ford.
However, Donnie ignored his impatient brother and kept his full focus on searching for data about the island and the company that owned it.
And when Donnie found the information, he turned away from the computer screen and to his brothers.
"So, turns out this island is owned by the company that is known for having best running landfill operation. And not just in this city, but in the entire country." Donnie explained to the others.
""Best," you say, eh?" Leo said, having immediately a skeptical thoughts about the place. "Best run doesn't mean 'best'. It just means most profitable."
"What are you talking about, Leo? You think it's just a cover story for some sort of criminal activity?" Mary questioned.
"Precisely, Mary." Leo replied.
"Come on, Leo. How do you know what could they really be up to out there? If there had been illegal activity there, that could have been noticed and the whole place would have been shut down some time ago." Raph objected.
"Yeah. After all, they're right in the middle of the city harbor." Louie added.
"That's the point, Raph and Louie. If the company's business is as good as Donnie says... they can do anything they want to. Especially with a little extra help." Leo explained.
""Extra help?" What is that "extra help" you're talking about?" Arcee questioned.
"Money." Dom replied grimly, correctly guessing what Leo was saying. "And in other words: Bribing." he added with the disdain tone in his voice.
"Exactly, Dom. The money." Leo confirmed. "With a few but enormous payoffs, it's relatively easy to keep witnesses silent and the authorities from interfering. But whatever illegal activity they're running out there, it will soon come to an end permanently."
"I like the sound of that, bro." Louie said, rubbing his hands together.
"That makes two of us." Raph added with the smirk. He so loved to shut down the ill-activities permanently... though there was only one "ill" activity what even he couldn't ever shut down was Mikey's overly talkative mouth.
Leo then turned to his family.
"Rest well, guys. Because we'll go there for a inspection visit tonight." the turtle in blue declared, before the turtles headed for their rooms to have a good rest until night.
"Something stinks on that island, and I ain't talking about the garbage!" Mikey said dramatically with an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.
Raph laughed at that and playfully smacked Mikey to the back of his head.
"Yeah! Keep trying Mikey, someday you'll get a winner." the turtle in red said as he walked off.
"Hey c'mon, that was pretty good!" Mikey objected, as he followed right behind of his brother's heels.
###
And when night descended, the turtles moved into the sewer tunnels and picked up the one tunnel that led directly to the docks. And once they arrived to the end of the line, they immediately eyed the landfill island that was seen far in the horizon.
"Looks harmless." Donnie stated.
"I don't know, Donnie. I don't like that glowing red glow above of the island." Mary objected.
"It's quiet... maybe too quiet." Leo said with a deep, calm and dead serious tone of voice.
Mikey took a notice of the tone Leo used when speaking his line. "Now see? How does Leo make that line work?" the turtle in orange questioned.
"Mikey, quiet!" Leo said sharply, silencing his brother.
Arcee eyed the distance between the harbor and the island.
"This may sound like a silly question, but how do we get there?" the turtle in pink asked from her siblings.(1)
"That is a pretty silly question, sister." Raph said sarcastically. "And about your question "how do we get there?" That's simple. We'll swim there."
"Swim? I guess you failed to notice the long distance between of the island and us, Raph." the turtle in pink objected, irritated. "Why don't we go there by boat? That would be a lot of easier."(1)
"Old fashioned style, sis." Raph mocked.
"Raph!" Leo snapped at the turtle in red, silencing him, before the turtle in blue turned to Arcee. "Yes, Arcee, we could go there by boat, but remember that we're heading straight into the potentially hostile enemy territory. And yet we need to get to the island by staying out of the sight. By boat, we would only draw the unnecessary attention if the beaches are guarded. But by swimming underwater, they wouldn't see us coming."
After hearing what Leo just said, Arcee turned back into staring at the distance between of the island and their current position with the slight uncertainty, before letting out the sigh of defeat.
"It's going to be a long swimming trip... especially if we have to do this underwater." Arcee stated, sounding a bit nervous and uncertain about the idea of swimming all the way to the island underwater.(1)
"It's going to be fine, sister. In case if you didn't know, the turtles can hold their breath underwater about 30-45 minutes. As mutant turtles, with our anatomy and body functions being a mixture of both turtle and human, we're capable to hold our breath underwater a little longer than what both the regular turtles and humans do... in theory, of course." Donnie calmly and simply explained to Arcee to ease her slight nervousness.(2)
"Yeah! This is going to be a piece of cake, Arcee. Besides, in the water, we're in our own element." Louie added.
"Guys, enough!" Leo slightly snapped, silencing everybody around of him.
Leo then peeked out of the tunnel entrance and checked through the area for a couple times to make sure there were no humans nearby who could see them coming out.
The coast seemed to be clear for them to come out.
"Okay. Let's go!" the turtle in blue said.
And with that, the turtles jumped out from the tunnel and dove into the water. Leo and Donnie dived into the water first, followed by Dom and Louie, Raph and Mikey and finally Mary and Arcee.
With Leo's lead, the turtles began to swim with breaststroke towards the island underwater in order to avoid being detected, just in case if the island's beaches truly were guarded. While swimming, Mary decided to swim close of Arcee just in case if her sister still felt nervous about swimming a long trip underwater despite Donnie's assurance of the turtles' superior ability to hold their breath longer than humans underwater.
During of the swimming trip, Mikey turned around and rested his hands behind of his head while kicking with his feet as if he was lying down backwards.
"Shell-for-brain!" Raph thought irritably while he kept swimming.
After a long swimming trip, the sea bed started to rise towards the surface of the water, hinting that they have finally reached to the island. Leo, who was swimming ahead of his family, stopped briefly and gestured the others to follow him as he pointed at the spot where there was little to no light. The turtles then started to swim towards the surface.
Upon reaching to the surface, the turtles peeked carefully from under the water and eyed the island's trash-filled beach to make sure one more time that the coast was clear.
And when it became apparent that the beach was unguarded, Leo emerged fully out of the water, followed by Raph and Louie, who emerged one by one out of the water by Leo's right side, and then Donnie and Dom, who emerged one by one out of the water by Leo's left side.
Behind them, Mary, Mikey and Arcee emerged last out of the water. The turtle in turquoise tried to check her sister to make sure that she was okay, but Arcee gently shook her sister's hand away before giving her sister an assuring nod that she was fine.
The turtles then waded to the beach, where Leo out of the leader's instinct turned to his brothers, put his finger over his mouth and hushed.
"Okay, guys, listen up! Follow me! Stay together and move with stealth mode." Leo said to his brothers and sisters. "Let's move on!"
The turtles then left the beach and moved deeper into the inland. Although it seemed that no one was in sight or even nearby, the turtles kept sticking to the shadows nonetheless and hid themselves amongst of the mounds of trash and scrapped cars for the brief moments to ensure that the way was clear.
Everything went well so far, until they reached to the road.
SPLASH!
The sound got all the turtles to halt like into the wall and turn to look at Mikey, who had both fallen behind of the group (along with Arcee) and stepped into the pool filled with orange liquid.
"UGH! I don't want to even know what I just stepped in!" Mikey muttered in disgust as he looked down at his dirty leg.
Arcee observed Mikey's leg as well.
"Well, let us say that you just stepped into the pool of old and rotten cooking oil." the turtle in pink informed with the smirk.
"ARGH!" Mikey screamed in disgust. "I told you I don't want to know what I stepped in!"
Arcee snickered hilariously at this.
"Sorry, Mikey. But the temptation was irresistible." the turtle in pink giggled amused.
"Mikey! Arcee! Focus back there!" Raph snapped.
"C'mon, you two! We need to keep moving!" Dom urged both his brother and sister.
Mikey shook the old cooking oil off his leg and and he and Arcee were about to rejoin their family.
However, before the turtles could keep moving, the spotlight suddenly hit to the ground in middle of them, causing the ninja turtles to get out of the road and hide into the shadows to avoid being discovered!
Then, a yellow jeep appeared to the scene, crewed by two guys that looked like the garbage men, whom were dressed into a brown shirts, yellow pants with suspenders, yellow-brown caps and the gas masks with the red eyes. One of them was driving the jeep along the road while the other was handling a spotlight mounted on the car's platform.
These two were probably guards and patrolling this road near the beach in case of the unwelcome intruders.
To avoid being detected by the guards and the spotlight, the turtles quickly hid themselves behind the mound of trash or the wrecked vehicles and waited in their temporary hiding spots until the jeep and the guards had driven pass them.
Unaware of the turtles' presence, the jeep kept drove past the hiding turtles before it disappeared behind of the corner of the biggest mountain of trash. And once the jeep was gone, the turtles came out from their hiding spots and moved onto the road.
"Whoa! that was a close call." Raph sighed in relief, taking a note to how close they were being discovered.
"Well, at least we know that this road is guarded." Louie stated.
"Yeah. Meaning that we cannot stay here for a long time, let alone follow the road. There may be more patrols like that one." Dom added.
"Dom is right. Then we must go through another way to avoid getting detected." Leo stated.
Arcee then turned her attention to the biggest mountain of garbage that was standing beside the road and the spot where they were standing right now. The turtle in pink lifted her gaze slowly upwards all the way to the top of to the sky towering mountain. As her gaze reached to the mountain's tip, Arcee noticed the vast red glow and the pillars of smoke rising from behind of the mountain, indicating that they were very close of the heart of the island.
The turtle in pink then came up with an idea and turned to her siblings.
"How about we take the shortcut by climbing this mountain of waste, all the way to the top?" the turtle in pink suggested. "After all, if you haven't yet noticed, that ominous red glow and those pillars of smoke are all coming from behind of this mountain. There must be a center for everything that is happening here."
Donnie was the first turtle to acknowledged Arcee's suggestion.
"Arcee's right, guys. Besides, the height of this mountain of garbage gives us a good view at whatever is happening out there." the brainy turtle said.
Then the turtles heard the faint sound of the approaching engine, which slowly but certainly grew louder and louder, drawing the turtles' attention in the direction where that previous patrol had gone. When the turtles saw a beam of the spotlight emerging from behind of the corner, the turtles realized that another patrol was coming towards them.
"Then let's climb." Leo decided.
The turtles then hurried off the road and started to climb along the mountain of garbage at the same time as the patrol jeep appeared from behind of the corner, this time pointing its spotlight at the side of the mountain of waste.
However, the turtles had already managed to climb high enough to elude the spotlight of the jeep as it drove pass beneath them.
Moving quickly but with stealth, the turtles kept climbing along the mountain side of garbage, getting slowly but certainly closer to the peak.
And when they finally reached to the end of the line, they were awaited by the incredible sight behind the edge of the top.
There was a huge fortress built in the bottom of the vast pit, that was surrounded by the high fences, catwalks and a high trash-covered cliffs. The buildings down in the pit looked like the barracks, factories and prisons or the mixture of all three of them. The whole place was illuminated with the ominous red lights and there was many beams of spotlights coming from the watchtowers, moving all over the place.
"Whoa." all eight turtles gasped in amazement of the sight.
"Unbelievable." Leo muttered.
"Donnie, binoculars?" Mary requested and reached out her hand towards the brainy turtle.
Donnie took out his binoculars and tossed them to turtle in turquoise, who snatched them from the air relatively easily. Mary then raised the binoculars on her eyes and started to observe whatever was going on in the pit.
"What do you see, sister?" Leo asked.
Everything Mary saw in the pit through binoculars sickened her.
"I see a lot of people down there, and not just those garbage men-like guys from the road, though there's a lot of them as well." the turtle in turquoise informed.
"Who else is down there?" Raph questioned.
"I see a large number of homeless people down there." Mary added.
"Wait a second?! A large number of homeless people?!" Dom exclaimed in surprise.
"Exactly, Dom. The missing homeless. They're here. They're all here! Including our friends from the Shantytown. Ernie, Phil, Crystal, Michael, Wayne, professor Garey, Ben, Billy, Jack, Ann and poor Olivia and all the other missing homeless! They have all ended up here!" Mary exclaimed.
"But why are they brought here?" Dom questioned again.
Mary then tossed the binoculars to Dom, who snatched them from the air with ease. "Take a look down there, bro, and you'll have your answer for your question. Be warned, though, because the sight can be very sickening." the turtle in turquoise warned.
Dom took the binoculars and watched down into the pit through of them.
Dom gasped in shock and disgust after seeing through of binoculars that the missing homeless people, children at 6-18 age included, were chained by their feet that that they were all forced into the slaver labor. Some of them were moving stacks of rubbish with shovels, some were standing in long rows and were moving full buckets of rubbish to each other, others were searching through of the huge piles of rubbish in order to sort all still usable items from the useless junk, which the rest of the enslaved people loaded into the buckets, sacks or boxes and carried them into the pit's factory buildings to be turned into a new raw material for unknown purpose. These poor people looked clearly exhausted and miserable while they moved and sorted through the mountains of trash, indicating that they have been kept at work for hours or maybe even for days without food or rest.
Dom saw Michael, Wayne and Ben near one of the piles of trash. Wayne was miserably shoveling some trash from the pile into another smaller one, which Michael and Ben was going through, sorting usable and useless items into two different boxes. Elsewhere, Billy was one of the homeless that were put into one of the lines that were moving the full buckets to each other. The elderly man was panting heavily and he looked like he was just barely capable to stand, let alone to carry one fully filled buckets in his arms and move it to another equally exhausted enslaved homeless before repeating the same thing again and again. Elsewhere, Jack, Ann and Olivia were seen walking in the middle of the pit, all three of them seemed to be as exhausted and miserable as everyone else here. Jack was carrying a box in his hands full of useless junk, which he took towards a compactor, into which all useless stuff was thrown. Ann and Olivia, however, were carrying a bucket and a rather large sack full of sorted useful goods towards one of the factories. However, Ann was the one carrying the bucket in her hands, while poor little Olivia was struggling while carrying a huge and heavy sack with her. Due to her small size and the sack's heavy mass, she couldn't carry it over her shoulder, so she had to drag it with her along the ground, leaving the trail in her wake. The little girl grunted loudly at each pull she did in order to get the sack where its contents were needed, but she couldn't help be without to stop for a moment to take a break from dragging the heavy sack to the factory. Despite working as hard as she could, Ann never from her daughter's side for a moment. This was proved when Olivia was forced to stop to take the break, Ann stopped too. She put her bucket down and crouched down in front of Olivia to check if she was okay.
While working, the enslaved homeless were kept under the watchful eyes by the garbage men-like guards, who were all armed with electric prods, which they used to relentlessly and constantly shock the homeless to make them work harder and faster.
This cruelty was proved when Phil, who was carrying a sack full of sorted items over his shoulder, tripped over to the ground from exhaustion. Seeing their friend down, Ernie and Crystal, who were both standing nearby in the line of homeless people moving with the trash filled buckets, left from the line and immediately rushed ti their friend's aid. However, Both Ernie and Crystal were were immediately surrounded by several guards, four of which seized Ernie and Crystal by their arms and roughly dragged them away from Phil and back towards the line, ignoring the two's protests and pleads to help their friend.
The guard with electric prod then turned to Phill, coldly staring down on the downed man. "Get up, slave!" he ordered harshly and gave Phil a painful shock in his left shoulder as punishment and to force him up from the ground and get back to work.
"AGGHHH!" Phil screamed in pain as he was tortured by the guard. His pitiful scream reached up from the bottom of the pit to the ear holes of the turtles hiding on the edge of the pit.
Elsewhere, while Ann was checking on her exhausted daughter, they were surrounded by four guards with their electric prods. "Move it!" one of them growled as he turned his electric prod on, causing the electricity to spark from the top of the prod, and threateningly pointed it towards Ann and Olivia.
Not wishing to get shocked by the prods, Ann sadly told Olivia to get back to work before she stood up, picked her bucket up from the ground and kept walking towards the factory's door. Olivia did her best to keep up with her mother, even though Ann walked with the slow pace, but her exhausted condition and the weight of the sack she was dragging with her kept holding her back.
And so, to force Olivia to move faster and out of act of cruelty, one of the guards poked Olivia to the shoulder, shocking her with the electricity and causing the little girl to let out a brief yet loud pained scream.
"AGH!" Olivia yelped, causing Ann to turn around to check on her daughter. Ann was utterly horrified by the guards' mistreatment and cruelty they inflicted upon her daughter, but was unable to do anything about it due to two other guards pointing their own sparking electric prods at her as a warning not to interfere and to force her to keep moving.
Olivia's scream of pain had reached all the way to Mary's ear holes, making the turtle in turquoise horrified, disgusted and angered of such of mistreatment and cruelty the guards were willingly inflicting upon her little friend.
After the shock she received, Olivia looked up at the guard who had just struck her with the electric prod. With her eyes welling in tears of pain, the little girl swallowed her urge to sob with great effort and shot a angry glare at the guard, before the girl reluctantly resumed in dragging the sack with her. The rest three guards looked at the girl's struggle to move the heavy sack for a moment, before they all gathered around of their comrade, the one who had struck Olivia with his prod, and shamelessly congratulated him for his ill deed by patting him in the shoulders and his back while laughing.
"You were right, Mary. This is sickening! They're using the homeless people, children included, as a slave labor and treat them like an animals." Dom said in disgusted. "And to think that those guards are paid plenty for this inhumane cruelty."
"Tell me about it, Dom. This is making me sick!" Raph snarled in anger and disgust, before the turtle in red draw out his Sai and was about to leap into the action, only to be hold back by Leo, Mary and Louie.
The guards then rounded up the enslaved homeless around the pond in middle of the place, which water seemed to be polluted to the crisis level. The guards shocked several of them if they walked too slow.
It didn't take long before the same garbage truck the turtles had been chasing last night suddenly emerged from the pool and drove to the wide boardwalk.
The garbage truck then drove with its backside ahead to a steep slide that was next to the boardwalk.
The truck then opened its container above of the slide and dropped from there a most recently kidnapped homeless people, who ended up sliding along the slide down to the bottom, where they were awaited by the bunch of guards, who were ready to put the "fresh meat" into a chains and put them to the work with other slaves.
"And here comes what they would call "the fresh meat"." Louie said, though there was no humor in his voice at all.
"And that shall be their very last batch, because I've had enough of this shit!" Raph snarled angrily and attempted once again jump into the action, filled with the desire to kill the guards and free the homeless, only to be held back by Leo and Mary.
"Hold on, Raph! Look!" Leo said, pointing at the garbage truck, which stopped at the top of the boardwalk and turned its red headlights off.
And then, the garbage truck's driver's cab opened up piece by piece: starting first from the cab's sides, then lifting up the cab's rooftop and the windscreen and then lowering its bow down into a catwalk.
And then, a large mechanical tank-like wheelchair with a hydraulic claws drove out of the cab to the boardwalk.
And when the guy sitting in this mechanical wheelchair revealed his faces to everyone, to enslaved homeless and to the situation observing turtles alike, the sight was overly disturbing to everyone who valued their good health.
"EWWWW! GROSS!" Arcee exclaimed in disgust.
"UGH! Look at that! I think I just lost my appetite for a month!" Louie complained as well.
"That makes two of us, brother." Dom agreed.
In the wheelchair was sitting a large and morbidly obese and horrible looking man with a double chin, beady red eyes and two liver spots in his left cheek. His lips were stained with drool, the flies were buzzing around of his face, he was very filthy and he smelled so bad that everybody standing near him had to cover their noses. He was wearing a filthy white shirt and a ruined baseball cap on his hairless head. He was even connected to his wheelchair with wires that were attached to his arms, his shoulders and even to his neck and the back of his head. Presumably, due to his poor physical condition, he had a life-support system in his wheelchair for his unhealthy body.
This filthy gigantic meatball then spread his hands up and let out the evil laugh that echoed over the whole place.
"That... is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen!" Mikey remarked in disgust.
"Just this once, bro, I totally agree with ya." Raph admitted, not liking the look of this guy himself.
"Jeez! I think I'm going to get sick!" Arcee said, fighting against the urge to puke.
"That's the Garbageman?! Well, he really is worthy of his name! Not only by the notorious reputation he has amongst the homeless but also by his very appearance, physical condition and hygiene!" Donnie exclaimed, disgusted as well.
In the pit, the enslaved homeless people were terrified by the sight of the Garbageman himself. They tried to back away, to get far away from the horrible man as possible. However, the guards standing behind them shocked them in the backs with their electric prods, making them either wince, gasp, yelp or scream in pain before falling on their knees.
The Garbageman then turned the speaker on in his mechanical wheelchair and let out his massive voice to be heard, though it was partially muffed by the drool in his mouth.
"GREETINGS, YOU FILTH!"
TO BE CONTINUED...
TRIVIA
1) Arcee's nervousness about swimming to the Garbage Island underwater is not because of Aquaphobia. She is the team's self-taught doctor, not veterinarian, and because of which she is mostly familiar with human anatomy and body functions than what she does with her own species' anatomy and body functions, including the turtles' superior ability to hold their breath underwater for about 30-45 minutes. This hints that Arcee has a little difficulty to see the differences between the natural and limited abilities of both the turtles and humans.
2) Donnie's explanation here hints that the mutagen in 2003 series may have the same reactive effect between the DNAs of two living creatures that have been recently in the contact with each other as it is in 2012 series. I guess that the turtles' natural capabilities from their animal side - such as their ability to hold their breath underwater longer than humans - got slightly/remarkably improved through the mutation of their mixed turtle DNA and the human DNA, the latter of which they most likely obtained from being in physical contact with either the pet store owner or the twins, who bought them from the store, as babies before being exposed to the mutagen.