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Leonardo attempted to be encouraging as he looked to his fellow turtles. "I think they're starting to tire."
Raphael answered in his usual, cynical manner. "Oh, great, in a few more hours they'll barely be able to throw a car at us."
In his own usual way, Michelangelo made an obvious, yet out-of-the-box suggestion. "Then let's throw a truck at them!" His suggestion was taken.
First, Leonardo rolled a dumpster at their mutant foes, who stopped it with their hands and pushed back. Then the dumpster began to spin between them in a circle, so the teams first switched positions on the street before returning to their original spots. Leonardo smirked. Shredder's mutants gave mocking grins back. Splinter thought his student wore a confident expression better.
Then the warthog and rhino, began to climb over the dumpster toward Leonardo. The rhino said, "One fricasseed turtle coming up!" Then the dumpster shuddered. Both evil mutants' eyes to bugged out. They clutched the sides of the container holding them. Then their own forms began to shudder. Maybe it was just the vibrations shaking the dumpster maybe not.
Michelangelo was now driving an actual garbage truck that had picked up the dumpster. It poured the mutants and other contents of the dumpster the vehicle was made to pick up into its bigger load. With little work, which Splinter knew suited his orange-clad student, Michelangelo was able to dump the truck's load, including their enemies, out onto the street.
Both mutants made startled, unhappy sounds. They shook their heads while sitting neck-deep in garbage. The rhino unwisely said, "Oh, those shell-heads are dead!" Then engine noises of another approaching vehicle caused whatever other words Rocksteady might have said to be cut off. Out of this machine's nozzle poured cement right over the two mutants' faces.
Raphael stuck his head out of the window of the vehicle he'd used like a ninja's weapon. "Sorry boys, we got to build a parking lot where you're playing." His red-clad student then opened the door and climbed out to stand with his other turtles gathered around to look down upon their foes. They stood there only a moment before running away.
The two mounds of quickly drying cement broke open at their tops. Two heads of enraged mutants appeared. Bebop muttered "You little creeps!" Both bigger mutants strained in their drying strait jackets before the warthog also yelled out "Come back and fight!" But he and his students hurried on, after all, they had other enemies to fight.
. . .
Soon, they had reached the outside of the Technodrome. Leonardo stared seriously up at a large hole gashed into it. He then twirled an end of a rope and the grappling hook tied to it. These he threw upward. The hook caught onto the broken, jagged metal. Michelangelo spoke much more cheerfully than Leonardo looked when he saw this. "Up we go!"
Sadly, as they climbed up, Foot-soldier robots exited the Technodrome along with what looked like a small tank. Their enemies marched toward where the bottom of the rope dangled. They stopped some yards from it, raised machine-like guns, and fired.
Lazars flew around his students like sleet in a harsh wind. Then the tank-like device shot a much larger projectile. The missile hit the side of the Techodrome near them and exploded causing his students to let go of the rope. They clung instead to a ledge on the outside of the Technodrome. They all began to climb up immediately, but one fell and grabbed ahold of another's legs.
Splinter gazed down sadly at his students. They were particularly vulnerable right now. And what could he do? His skills consistently failed against machines and weapons like these, but his former student and the retro-mutagen ray ...
Perhaps if he got that away and defeated his former student, he could find a way to shut down all the commands his old foe had given these machines and make them stop attacking his students. "I'll try to get that retromutagen ray away from the Shredder." He continued climbing up the rope toward his goal. Thus, he allowed his students to stay behind and do what they did best, fight against the machines he so continually failed to fight well.
Behind him, he heard Michelangelo, who'd been clinging to Leonardo's legs, shout, "Let's break some foot!"
Then he heard all four of them say from the ground. "Let's go Green Machine!"
He smiled. That had become one of their favorite catch phrases some time during their sports-game watching phase as children. How old had they been then?
While he had had so many other students, even greatly promising students like Saki himself, he'd only seen these four in such relaxed settings. He'd raised them from little turtles into great ninja. He was so very proud of them, unlike Saki.
That fool would turn back into pets his best students, when it came to learning that life was worth living even without power, and power should be used to protect and continue life. He would not let that happen. He owed that much to his four students who'd made his own life worth living even as a rat in the sewers isolated and ostracized from everyone else.
. . .
He snuck through many empty hallways, hearing nothing, which he did not like, and seeing no one, even a machine, which he liked even less. He spent far too much time doing this, before he came upon a strange sight. A small gun lay on a turnstile, upon a pedestal, in the middle of a large room, with a spotlight shining down on it.
His mind spun wondering what quip, or how many, Raphael would come up with to describe how obvious this trap was. While another might so display only a decoy, Shredder might well set the real thing out in such fashion to draw him into a fight. When he'd been his student, Saki had spent a good portion of his leisure time away from the dojo goading others into fights. He seemed to have done all this just to get his old sensei into one now.
If that weapon wasn't real, he most likely had the real one with him at this moment. That meant his only way to get his cure, to become Hamato Yoshi again, was to take the bait. He had to bring Saki out. Still, he snuck up on the bait as carefully as he could. He was, after all, a ninja.
He used the darkness around the circle of spotlight to his advantage. Then he reached his brown-fur-covered hand with its sharp nails toward the device. While seeing his rat-paw so illuminated, he remembered what it reached for might undue all he thus saw of it now. Then, what he reached for and its pedestal disappeared.
The weapon had been less than a fake. It had been pure, visual illusion. He was somewhat surprised by that. Perhaps his turtles would have foreseen it. Such things had been in their TV shows.
He turned at the sound of Saki's voice. "So, you've come at last Hamato Yoshi." The form he saw, once he'd turned toward the voice, seemed translucent. He narrowed his eyes at it. Then it spoke again. "Here I am."
But he wasn't so sure. He was less surprised, when another voice, no, the same one, spoke behind him. Another translucent form like his former student's stood there and said, "But am I here?" The same voice came from still another direction. "Or here?"
Now a semicircle of these false forms with their false voices, looking ghostly, and sounding mocking, were behind or before him depending on where he turned. He tried to face them, but so many had popped up around him. He swung his cane through one, as the mocking voice went on, "I can be anywhere! Even right behind you." An all too real arm swung at his back with metal spikes. He dodged it and kicked the solid form attached.
Saki went flying into a control panel along one wall. Then, all the false Sakis disappeared. That boded well for him simply and easily being able to save his students from devices sent after them even in the midst of Saki's defeat.
Saki clenched his fist from the floor and said, "A lucky shot old man! But if you want the retro-mutagen-ray, you will have to first face my blades." He raised his gauntlet with all it's sharp points aimed the same direction his fist would be.
He stepped out into the open space the non-existent pedestal had stood to get closer and face his old student as he wished. "And I will beat you Saki, as I did when I was human." He met the first blow from Shredder's gauntlet with his walking stick. He shoved back causing Saki to stumble.
As their fight went on, Saki grabbed a sword, more middle eastern than Japanese in design. He probably wanted to cut right through his walking stick. His own weapon and shield proved too hard for that. However, Saki's youth proved valuable to him. Splinter quickly tired particularly after the earlier fight he'd had with his old student's new henchmen and climb up the rope into the Technodrome amidst lazar and missile fire.
Saki had been like that during his time as his student too, preferring to face and pick on other students after they'd exhausted themselves in longer training sessions. He himself ducked a blow, rolled backward, and leapt over a console to give himself time to breathe and plan. Shredder ran around the console. Splinter was gone from that side by the time his old student looked there. Still, he heard Saki say, "You pathetic old rat, why don't you stand your ground and fight?"
Splinter spoke as he approached his student. "You have forgotten the lessons I taught you, Saki." Then his walking stick delivered a blow to his old student's back. The Shredder fell on his face.
As he waited for his student to rise and approach him again, he kept talking, hoping, with the sad heart of an old teacher, he might be listened to this time. "You can never win. Gentle always turns away strong."
Splinter pulled back raising his head just enough to avoid the next stroke of Saki's sword even as it cut into the console instead. This caused sparks and damage. If he could keep Saki wasting his energy cutting into other things and drawing his blade back out of them, he could tire even this younger man in their fight.
Perhaps Saki realized both this was his plan, and he'd fallen for it. When he got back to his feet, he pointed to him and said, "You wretched rodent!" They circled each other a little bit, Saki was growing wary again. They mostly glared at each other for some time.
Splinter realized if he was to get anything from this battle but his death, he must go in closer and take control of their fight. Anger welled up inside him as he rushed forward. "You have corrupted my teaching."
Splinter got closer and blocked the next blow Saki delivered. He merely dodged the next as he continued. "You have brought dishonor on the noble Foot Clan." He blocked then hooked his walking stick around Shredder's sword. He attempted to pull the blade out of Saki's hand. His old student's grip, though, was good. His pull's momentum only sent his stick flying away. But he did not let that stop him. Indeed, as he only walked closer. Saki backed away.
Splinter glared. "Now, you will pay for your crimes." He jumped at Saki not as a man, but as the rat Saki had turned him into. When he landed though, he wrapped his hands around his enemy's throat as a man would.
His foe brought his metal-encased knee up into his midsection dislodging him far faster than he had Bebop, when that foe had grabbed "his" throat. Splinter landed on his feet and growled. He noticed Saki had lost his sword.
They circled each other. Then, a voice echoed through the whole room. The tenor of it made it obvious a radio signal was bringing there it from elsewhere. "Saki, come quickly, I need you!"
This caused his old student to take his eyes off him and look up in surprise. He took the opportunity to pounce on him, but Saki threw him off. Then his old student stood, put one hand to his hip beneath his cape, and began to back away. "So, sorry to bring our game to an early conclusion." Then he held his hidden hand back up. It was now holding what looked like a remote. Saki aimed it at him. Then his old student pressed a button.
A cage of electricity formed around Splinter seemingly coming from the remote now lit up with it. Saki put the device down, turned, and ran away saying, "You wouldn't have won anyway."
Splinter watched his foe leave. He had failed. He had come to take the retro-mutagen ray away from his old student, but instead was caged as Shredder ran free. If his ally was calling to Saki for his help that could only mean his turtles had done better than he.
"The retro-mutagen ray! He's going to use it on the turtles!" Splinter slammed himself against the bars of his cage. They held.
Splinter drooped. In looking down, he spotted something. The floor of his cage was made up of panels held in place by screws. He got down on his hands and knees. Using one, long claw of his index finger he unscrewed one. When its head was far enough up, he used his fingertips to unscrew the tool faster. Finally, he pulled it free. Splinter held his arm up and back before throwing his new, tiny, but hard and potent projectile at the circle aiming the lightning bolts at him. He hoped whatever was making his cage was breakable. Indeed, it shattered. The lightning bolts disappeared.
Splinter knelt down and grabbed his cane, which he had been making his way back to in his circling with Shredder. He saw it was already breaking down the middle. He finished that break and threw one half of it away. Then he gripped the other and followed Saki.
What do you think?
God bless
ScribeofHeroes