Author's Note: I'd like to sincerely apologize for the unexpected delay of this latest chapter. I'd moved recently and hadn't had the time to write as much. Hopefully I'll be back to my once a week-ish update schedule since there's not too many chapters left. Thank you to everyone who's stuck with this story so far, especially my readers in the UK whom I'm sure are all cringing at my horribly Americanized portrayal of British characters. ^^; Please leave a review if you like the story. It helps immensely.
Anton Zeck was crouched in the corner of a Kraang prison cell, working quickly at the delicate wires behind the wall panel he'd managed to remove a while ago. His purple mane hung down in his face, having fallen out of it's usual mohawk several days ago. The circuits embedded in his skin hardly gave off any light at all, the charge in his body having gotten down to dangerously low levels. He'd shut down the computer in his visor to conserve power, the screen little more than a sheet of dark glass covering his eyes. In all his years as a thief he'd never been in a more dire situation than he was now.
"C'mon, baby... Give Papa a current he can work with..." Anton grumbled to himself, touching one of the leads embedded in his fingertips to the naked end of one wire. There was a loud pop and a flash of electric discharge at the point of contact.
"Fuck!" he yelped, pulling his hand away and shaking it as smoke rose from the lead. He cursed to himself until the pain died down, trying his best to keep his voice low. After a minute of reciting every curse word he'd learned from Steranko, the warthog looked down at his hands. His palms were singed by electrical burns, all of the leads in his hands burnt out, overloaded by the strange energy the Kraang used to power their technology. He let out a sigh, wilting against the wall as all hope drained from his lanky body.
"That's it... I'm gunna die in here..." he mumbled hopelessly to himself. He'd given up trying to hack his way out of the cell by the end of his first day locked up in there, his primary concern shifting to finding some way to recharge his batteries. He'd never gotten this low on power, not since his mutation. With his tech suit now fused into his very flesh, he was afraid to think what would happen if he completely ran out of juice. He couldn't help but think it may try to leech whatever little electricity his body naturally produced. If that happened... Well, he was headed for one hell of a burnout.
There was a sudden clank at the cell door, causing Anton to jump in surprise. The door opened and two Kraang-droids walked in, approaching the mutant warthog with raised blasters. He let out a yelp, scrambling away from them until he hit the back wall of his cell. The Kraang snatched him up by the arms, dragging him out despite his protests.
"Wh-woah, hold up, G! I-I wuzzn't doin' nothin, I swear!" he squealed out fearfully, thrashing as much as his weary body would let him. The Kraang ignored him for the most part, forcing the mutant down to his knees once they were out in the wide, endless corridor of the cell block. His head was forced by one of the Kraang to stare down at the polished metal floor, and he could hear nothing but the cacophony of bestial noises from the occupants of the other cells.
"Silence!"
The noises from the other cells ceased instantly as the sudden order rang out down the massive cell block. There was silence. A deafening silence. It was so quiet that Anton could practically hear the sound of his own blood pulsing through his veins. Then, something else mercifully broke through. Footsteps echoed through the hall, growing ever closer to the captive thief. He could feel his heart pounding harder and harder in his chest the closer the footsteps got. He almost preferred the silence. Suddenly, they stopped. Anton could just see the toes of a pair of leather military-style boots.
"This is the subject you retrieved?" the commanding voice from just a moment ago asked of the Kraang. Anton's ears twitched lightly, listening to get an idea of who this man was. He sounded like he was in his twenties, he had a British accent, and spoke with an air of superiority and sophistication. He couldn't tell much else, not without more data. He was both curious and dreading finding out more about this mystery Englishman, having no idea who other than Shredder himself could strike such fear into beast and Kraang alike.
A hand reached down and took a firm hold of Anton's jaw, turning the warthog's face up to get a better look at him. He couldn't help but draw in a sharp gasp, his eyes widening behind his visor as he stared up into a pair of piercing, icy-blue eyes. The man who stared back at him was no man at all. He was a turtle. But... he couldn't be one of the Turtles. He was far too old, quite clearly an adult, the only remnants of his childhood being the faded freckles on his cheeks. He wore what looked like a white dress shirt tucked into brown trousers and a tan silk vest, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He didn't look that strong, but something told Anton that this mutant could eviscerate him in an instant if he so wished.
"You utter fools!" the turtle hissed, practically shoving the warthog's head away as though he were the most disgusting piece of trash he'd ever laid eyes on. "How could anyone think this scrawny wretch is one of my creations?! It hardly has any more Vitae in its blood than a normal human! This creature is useless to me!"
"What should Kraang do with-"
"I don't give a damn what you do with it!" the turtle interrupted, clearly not in any mood for the alien's redundant chatter. "Throw it in the incinerators, boil it, have it for supper, I don't care! Just get it out of my sight and leave me be!"
"Wait, what?! H-hold up a minute, dawg!" Anton objected, but his words fell upon deaf ears. The turtle had already given the two Kraang a dismissive wave of his hand before heading back the way he came. The warthog looked to the little pink alien tucked away in the belly of one of the droids holding him by the arm. The Kraang opened its beady little yellow eyes to look at him with what he could only guess was delight as it licked its ragged lips.
"H-help! Heeeelp!" he called out desperately, despite knowing there was no one in that entire dimension that could save him. "They're gonna eat me!"
Meanwhile, three very different turtles were making their way through the cell block as quickly and stealthily as they could. Donatello led the way, still pouring over Michelangelo's notes as he attempted to navigate a route to the core of this monstrosity of a machine. They tried not to think of what occupied the cells they rushed past. Human, Manpig, some stage in between... They sadly had no time to free them. Not when the Apocalypse potentially loomed over their heads.
"Guys, stop!" Leonardo called out suddenly, bringing the whole group to a halt.
"What is it? Kraang?" Raph asked, his sais in hand, already looking for a fight. Leo shook his head.
"No, listen... Can you hear that?"
The other two strained their ears to hear what Leo was talking about, finding it difficult to hear anything beyond the roar of hundreds of mutants barking out from their cages. Once they heard it, however, they were surprised they'd missed it at all.
"Hey, c'mon, man! I can't go out like dis, yo! Mama Zeck didn't raise no entree!"
The voice echoed from one of the lower levels, prompting the three young ninjas to lean over the railing and look down at the catwalks below. They immediately caught sight of two Kraang as they escorted a very loud, very skinny pig mutant to God knows where.
"Woah, wait a minute... Is that Bebop?!" Donnie asked, his mouth hanging open slightly. It was Bebop, alright. There was no mistaking that obnoxious, flashy warthog. Clearly he wasn't there by his own choice. His hands were bound behind his back, and the Kraang walking behind him was ushering him forward with its blaster aimed at the small of his back.
"What the hell would the Kraang want with him? Ain't they got an alliance with the Foot Clan?"
"Alliances change, Raph. Yesterday's allies are today's enemies." Leo replied, though he was just as baffled as his brothers. What could Michelangelo have possibly offered the aliens to tempt them into directly opposing Shredder of all people?
"Well, whatever... Don't make no difference to me if those guys wanna fuck each other up for us. We got bigger fish to fry right now." Raphael said as he left the railing of the catwalk to continue on their previous path. Donatello followed after him, but as for Leonardo...
"No, not yet..."
The other two looked back at their eldest brother, who was still staring at Bebop down below.
"We're going to rescue him."
"What?! Leo, have you lost yer damn mind?! Bebop's one of Shredder's goons! What do we care if he's stuck in here with the Kraang?"
"I hate to say it, but Raph's right. This has nothing to do with us." Donnie added. Leo merely shook his head.
"We can't leave him here. Don, he's a pig. You've read Michelangelo's notes, you know what they'll do to him. They'll butcher him alive. If we leave him here, his death is on our heads. I'm not prepared to live with that. Are you?"
The other two glanced at each other. Finally, Raph let out a sigh.
"Alright, let's do it..."
"H-hey, can't we talk 'bout dis, G?! I-I mean, y'all don't wanna eat me! I'm all skin an' bones!" Anton continued on, trying desperately to convince the two Kraang to let him go in any way he could. His reply was a jab in the back by the alien's blaster, making the warthog stumble forward.
"Yo, watch it!" he barked out, turning to glare at the damnable alien. Curiously, the Kraang seemed to be frozen in place, staring at him with its usual blank expression. Then, the Kraang-droid's torso split in half, its upper body collapsing to the ground as gravity finally got a good hold of it. Anton let out a yelp of surprise, stumbling backwards until he felt his back touch against something metallic. He glanced over his shoulder only to lock eyes with the other Kraang-droid that had been escorting him. Just an instant after he looked, two shuriken whistled past his ears close enough to graze his short brown fur, embedding themselves deep into the robot's skull.
"Wuzza matter, Porky? Left yer big dumb bodyguard at another gig?"
Anton looked back towards where the bifurcated Kraang-droid stood a moment ago, now finding three very familiar green faces staring back at him. There stood Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael, weapons still at the ready as they stood over their vanquished foe. His whole body went cold in an instant, the memory of a pair of piercing, ice-blue eyes coming back to him.
"Wh-wh-woah, hold up! I-I wuzzn't tryin' ta start no shit wit' dat freaky cousin of yers or whatever the hell he is, I-I swear!" the warthog stammered out, stumbling backwards until he tripped over the other fallen Kraang-droid behind him. Even with his hands bound behind his back, the thief still tried to scramble away from the three ninjas. The Turtles looked at each other in confusion.
"'Cousin?'" Leonardo asked, arching a brow.
"Tha British dude! Look, I dunno what da hell kinda fucked up shit y'all are runnin' here, but I don't want none of it! Seriously, man, just show me tha door an' I promise I ain't gonna tell a soul!"
"British guy, huh? Sounds like Michelangelo ta me." Raphael said as he folded his arms across his chest, shooting his brothers another 'I told you so' look. The other two merely rolled their eyes at him, but Bebop's jaw practically dropped to the floor.
"Michelangelo?! You gotta be shittin' me! Ain't no way dat guy's yer kid brother! He's damn near as scary as fucking Shredder! Besides, dude's way too old!"
"I know, right! That's what I've been sayin' this whole time!" Raph commented, earning him a light jab in the side from Leo.
"Wait... Too old? What do you mean?"
"I mean dat guy's gotta be in his twenties at least. He's one of you, ain't he? Don't ya even know what he looks like?"
Leo could only stare in disbelief at what Bebop was telling them. This couldn't be right... They'd seen Michelangelo only a week ago and he looked just as young as their real baby brother. How could he even remotely pass for an adult? He glanced to Donatello, looking once more for an answer from him. By the looks of it, he may just get that answer this time.
"This isn't good..." Donnie began less than encouragingly. "We're in Dimension X, remember? Time runs way faster here than in our world. A day back on Earth could be months here, perhaps even a year or more. If he's been here since after the last time we saw him, he would've had as much as six or seven years to build whatever he wanted... and with Kraang tech."
"And that's how he managed to build all this in just a week..." Leo added, starting to understand why Michelangelo had gone out of his way to ally himself with the Kraang.
"Woah, hold up a sec..." Bebop chimed in suddenly, "Y'all are talkin' like ya wanna take dis fucker out. You guys ain't wit' dis boss turtle guy?"
"Hell no! We ain't got nothin' ta do with him! We came in here ta beat that bastard to a bloody pulp!" Raphael replied, hands tightening around the hilts of his sais.
"Yeah, and if we don't hurry you'll never get the chance before he fires this thing up." Don interjected, "We've wasted too much time here. We've got to go."
Leo nodded, sheathing his katana before turning away from the warthog, intending to continue on their way.
"Wait!" Bebop called out, scrambling ungracefully to his feet. "Y'all can't just leave me here! You know what dey gonna do ta me like dis?! I ain't got no power left, yo! I can't even fight back no more!"
The three stopped, looking back at the lanky mutant. He was right. They could tell just by looking at him that he was in no condition to fight his own way out of there. Raphael let out a light growl, marching up to Bebop and grabbing him by the collar of his vest.
"Alright, Geordi La Pork, let's get a few things straight! If ya can't keep up, yer on yer own! Ya act up at all, I got a sai with yer name on it! Ya got all that?"
"Y-yeah, we straight, Dawg! We straight!" he replied, nodding furiously. Raph then slipped an arm around the warthog's slender frame, breaking Bebop's wrist bindings with his sai.
"Good! Now hurry up!" Raphael added as he turned back towards his brothers. Leo arched a brow as his hot-headed brother marched past, jogging a bit to catch up with him.
"That's not like you to show mercy to one of Shredder's guys like that. I'm impressed." Leo complimented, keeping his voice low enough so Bebop couldn't hear them.
"Yeah, well... Maybe I just don't want someone's death on my hands, even if it is that stupid pig."
The next few hours drove the four mutants deeper and deeper into the endless labyrinth of the machine. They'd finally made it out of the cell blocks and into the interior mechanisms, moving at a surprisingly decent pace despite their new tag-along. Bebop wasn't as nimble as he normally would have been, but he was holding his own quite well, even alerting the Turtles to oncoming Kraang patrols before they'd noticed them. Leo supposed that was just the natural intuition that had served to make the warthog a world-class master thief.
The patrols were getting thicker the deeper in they went, the machinery around them more vast and complicated. They had to backtrack several times to avoid getting caught by passing Kraang-droids, making their journey that much more impossible to navigate. Soon, they were starting to revisit familiar sections of the maze-like machine.
"Uhh... Don? We already been here." Raphael commented, having noticed a particular array of electrical transformers on the wall that was unmistakable for the area. Donatello was flipping furiously through Michelangelo's journal, seeming rather desperate to find another possible route to take.
"It's not that easy, okay? This machine is very similar to the drawings he has here, but there's been so many changes to accommodate Kraang tech that the layout's been totally switched around."
Leonardo made his way over to where Donnie stood, standing on his toes to peek at the pages of the journal.
"Where are we trying to get to exactly?"
"Here." Don replied, pointing to what looked like a small sketch of a stepped pyramid. "It's the core of the machine, where the main controls are. If there's any chance of shutting this thing down, the way to do it will be there."
Raphael had come over by now, pulling Don's arms down so he could see.
"What about this thing?" he asked, pointing to what looked like a conveyor system. "It looks like it leads right to it."
Donatello frantically shushed Raphael, glancing tentatively over his shoulder. Bebop had taken the momentary pause in their searching to rest against the wall. Good. He wasn't paying attention.
"Dammit, I've been trying to avoid that route all day since he came along!" Donnie hissed in a low tone, trying not to be heard.
"Why the hell would ya do that? It's like a straight shot!"
"Yeah, but... C'mon! Can't you read?"
Raph glanced down at where Don pointed. 'Pigline'. He cringed lightly. Yeah, that wouldn't go over well.
"We don't have any other choice right now." Leo replied, glancing back at Bebop. "We're taking it. You two just make sure he doesn't freak out and give away our position..."
The new route to the Pigline was mercifully free of security patrols, leaving the way more or less clear for them to move forward. Donatello had put away Michelangelo's journal for now, not needing any more direction now that they were so close to their goal. It was just a straight shot from here on. Bebop followed behind the group, though with a bit more hesitation than earlier. They'd told him where they were headed. There was no way to avoid it anymore.
It wasn't long before a chorus of animal noises began filling the corridors once more, growing louder and louder the closer they got. It wasn't until they passed through a rather large sealed hatch that the sound became a deafening roar. The four then found themselves standing on a platform overlooking a massive line of machines. There were several hundred Manpigs down there, all being funneled into one end of the line by several armed Kraang-droids. They couldn't see what happened to the creatures after they were pushed into the machine, but the river of blood running through the troughs underneath made them somewhat glad that the gruesome act was hidden behind the glossy steel.
"O-oh man... D-dat's sick, yo..." Bebop breathed out, staring down at the spectacle with a look of utter horror on his face. Don gave the warthog an uneasy look before letting out a sigh.
"The only way through is that corridor down there running alongside the line, but..."
"We'd never make it through all that. Not without the Kraang alerting Michelangelo." Leo added.
"Sounds like we need a distraction." Raph chimed in, at which point all three of them turned to look at Bebop. The warthog's ears twitched lightly at that, his attention momentarily pulled away from the spectacle below. He glanced between the three turtles before letting out an indignant snort.
"Aw, heeeell to the no! Ya'll ain't 'bout ta use dis pig as no live bait!"
"It can't be helped, Bebop." Leonardo began, earning another grumble from their reluctant ally at the use of that nickname. "None of us can do it without Michelangelo figuring out what we're up to. As far as the Kraang know, you're just another pig mutant. Even if they report you to him, he'll just think it was one of his Manpigs on the loose. He won't be expecting an attack."
"Yeah, great plan an' all, but ya forgot one li'l thing; I still ain't got no power! Tha fuck am I supposed ta do? Dress in drag an' do the hula?" Bebop retorted, earning a reflexive shudder of disgust from Raph as he accidentally pictured such a thing. Donnie rolled his eyes a bit before digging in his bag.
"Here, take this." the lanky turtle said, pulling out a small electronic device. "I use it to charge up the T-phones. It probably won't give you much power, but it should be enough to get the job done."
Despite being so desperate for power that he'd have fought a nun for a pair of double-A batteries, Bebop hesitated to accept this gift. He took one last glance down at the scene below, watched as the Kraang led his fellow pig mutants from countless steel cages, prodding them towards the machine to be slaughtered alive. He heaved out a sigh before snatching the power pack from Donatello.
"Ah, fuck it… We gonna die in here anyway." he grumbled out, hooking the device into a port on his belt. In an instant, Bebop's systems charged back up to normal, the circuits in his skin gaving off their faint purple glow once more. "But don't think I'm doin' dis fer you freaks. Ain't nobody treats a pig like dis an' gets away wit' it on my watch!"
"Yeah, great. Just do yerself a favor fer once in yer life; keep yer damn mouth shut down there!" Raph commented as Bebop activated his cloaking field, rendering the warthog completely invisible to the naked eye. The turtles could hear a scoff where the thief had stood just a moment ago.
"Hey man, I might be a show-off, but I ain't suicidal. I know when ta shut my trap." Bebop replied. And that was the last they'd heard from him. After a moment of hearing and seeing nothing, Donatello pulled his goggles down over his eyes and switched them to infrared mode. He leaned over the edge of the railing, searching down below for where the mutant thief may have gone. Much to his surprise, he was indeed down below, sneaking silently up towards the cages that housed Michelangelo's Manpigs.
"Huh, he's actually doing it. I was half expecting him to run away on us." Donnie commented in a pleasantly surprised tone. Raph and Leo both looked down over the railing despite being unable to see what their brother could see.
"He might be one of Shredder's minions, but that doesn't mean he can't feel sympathy, Don." Leo replied, a pleased smile on his face. The three watched the scene below, trying to catch sight of anything the invisible thief could be doing. After a moment, Donnie directed their attention to the locks on the cage doors. One by one the locks fell away, picked in seconds by invisible expert hands. It didn't take long for them to figure out Bebop's plan.
Suddenly, the mutant warthog uncloaked, now standing atop one of the cages. He let out a loud, screeching, inhuman squeal, a bellow that echoed throughout the chamber to every last one of the cages he'd unlocked. Mere moments later, the chamber erupted into a blitz of chaos, Manpigs charging out of their cages in one gargantuan stampede, rushing forward and tearing through any Kraang-droid they could get their hooves on. The Kraang were overtaken almost immediately, unable to handle the sudden onslaught from the beasts.
"Well, that's one hell of a distraction if I ever saw one." Raph commented with a nod of approval at the utter entropy down below.
"Let's not let it go to waste. Move out!" Leo ordered, leaping down off the platform they'd been hiding on to run along top the machinery of the Pigline. Don and Raph followed close behind, eager to get this gruesome ordeal over with once and for all.
The three turtles soon found themselves in silence once more as they navigated the dark corridor leading to the heart of the machine, the only sound there to accompany them being the rush of liquid emanating from below the grates under their feet. It was completely deserted of Kraang, no patrols, no security. Likely Michelangelo hadn't expected any interlopers to get this far.
Soon enough, the tunnel gave way to open air, a truly massive structure rising out of the center of the complex city of machinery. It looked like a pyramid, an Aztec-style temple made of alien metals looming over their heads. This was it. They'd reached the core.
"Alright guys, this is it." Leonardo began, his voice low. "We've made it this far without alerting Michelangelo, but we can't afford to let him know we're here just yet. Stealth is our top priority. We take him by surprise, take him down, and figure out how to stop this thi-"
"Hear me, brothers!"
The three froze in place when the eerie echoes of a British man's voice rang out more in their heads than anything. Raphael shot Leo a rather sarcastic look.
"So much for taking him by surprise..."
"Fuck..." Leo hissed out, not really one to curse. He then began darting up the steps of the pyramid, drawing his katana as he rushed ever upwards to salvage what little of his plan as he could. The other two followed suit, but the eerie voice continued to ring out in their ears as they made their way towards it.
"My gears are adjust, my steam is built! Soon I will split the egg, the atom, my soul, and there will be a very great burning that we might make the world clean! Do you hear me, Donatello? Be proud, for this is your doing! Until you told me of this wondrous dimension, I thought my great works would come to naught! But you are naive, my dear brother! You claim to be a man of science, you claim to know machines, but you know nothing if even this much eludes you; This world is a machine! A Machine for Pigs! Fit only for the slaughtering of pigs! Whores, beggars, orphans, filthy degenerates! Pigs all! But I will purify the streets, cleanse this planet, set the great industry free! I will clean this world, make it pure!"
The three turtles reached the top of the pyramid long after the taunting speech had ended, all slightly winded after the long, uphill sprint. They all held their weapons at the ready as they reached the summit, though all couldn't help but falter and stare in utter amazement at what they saw. They seemed to be standing in a temple to machinery, the controls to the machine fixed atop a grand altar of steel and wires. Pipes rose up above the altar, fanning out like the rays of the sun.
The altar itself wasn't what had dumbfounded the turtles, however. It was the man standing before it. He stood taller even than Donatello, tall enough to look Master Splinter dead in the eye. Piercing blue eyes stared them down from behind a pair of round spectacles, staring right through them into their souls and making their blood run cold. They barely recognized a single feature on the adult turtle's body, he'd changed so much, yet… It was unmistakable.
They'd found Michelangelo.