Happy Easter, guys! :D
四面楚歌 - Enemies on All Sides
"Leo? Raph? Donnie?"
It was incredibly surreal.
One minute Mikey was darting between halls, looking for any clues that would point him to where his brothers are, the next thing he knew, he heard their voices shouting his name in near unison.
But when he turned, there was no one there, a frightening thought by itself. But what made it worse was how their voices sounded: terrified, anguished, and so full of desperation that it unnerved him. What on earth would make his bros sound like that?
"Mikey?" He heard April call hesitantly from his phone, causing the orange masked turtle to jump.
"Sorry, April, I'm good. I just thought I heard something."
Focus, Mikey! The small turtle scolded himself. They'll be fine. They have to be, and you're going to make sure of that. Come on, bonehead, don't just stand there all day before someone spots you!
So far, he was lucky that he hadn't run into anyone on this floor. (For someone who ran a tight mug, you'd think Shredder would have tighter security down here!) But, oh man, what a floor it was! Mikey had lost count of how long he'd been running around, searching for any clues as to where his brothers were being held.
He'd seen some of the strangest things down here, like mutants in glass jars, canisters of mutagen that he felt he should have done something about, rooms with all kinds of deadly weapons and techy stuff that Donnie would have killed over...
But no missing older brothers.
Why is it that it's always so hard to find the one thing you're looking for when you really need it? Mikey whined in his head. If Raph were here, he'd say it had something to do with the universe being a bitch, and he'd hear no argument from Mikey.
Wait, what's that?
Mikey paused in his running to find a room with a door swung wide open. It was dimly lit and bare, save for the racks of weapons hanging on the walls and three vacant tables in circular formation with leather straps hanging loosely from the side, lightly painted with crimson flecks.
And right against the wall, tightly shut and fastened by iron handles was—
"Eww, what is this?" Mikey grimaced when he inched for a closer look. The grossed out expression melted into recognition then horror when it clicked.
"What's what?" April prompted him.
Mikey frowned. "Guys, I think I just found a whole jar of brain worms."
They were as ugly as he remembered them, well mostly anyway: fat black maggots about half the length of his palm, but this time, their bodies were streaked sporadically with dark reds.
Didn't the Kraang mention something about the Foot having improved the brain worms? What could they have possibly improved over the seemingly pretty effective maggots?
"Brain worms? You mean like the ones they used on Raph before?" April clarified, worry thick in her tone.
"Yeah, but they look different with all these red spots on them. I remember the Kraang mentioning that Buzz Kill gave these things an upgrade so it might be something more than just a costume change—"
A pull of alertness shook Mikey from his thoughts, and before he was aware of it, he had already jumped out of the way of a blast aimed at where his feet used to be.
"Whoa, what the—?" Mikey whirled around to meet his attacker.
"What is thiszzz? A turtle, poking hiszzz noszzze at my beeeautiful wormssss?" The fly known as Baxter Stockman or Buzz Kill (to Mikey) hissed from the door, a laser gun in hand.
"Mikey! Mikey, what happened?"
"Chillax, April, just ran into a bug." Mikey reassured his friend then scoffed at the pathetic mutant. "Dude, if these things are what you find pretty, you really need to get your eyes checked. And you've got like loads of 'em!"
"Buzzz, buzzz, insolent turtle! What can ssssomeone assss airheaded assss you can underszzzztand?"
"Yeah, smartest turtle in the world, whatever. Now where the shell are my bros?"
The fly buzzed something akin to a snicker. "Wouldn't you want to know, buzzz, buzz?"
Buzz Kill aimed his gun at Mikey who dodged again.
"OK, that's it! Have some hot nunchuck fury, fly face!" Mikey jumped out of the insect's shots a few times before leaping at Buzz Kill who immediately dodged back and took off the hallway. "HEY! What gives? Get your stinky butt back here!"
"Buzzzz, come and get me!" Buzz Kill turned around while still in the air to fire several more shots at the agile turtle who dodged them no problem.
The chase went on for a while until Mikey was able to close in enough on the fly.
"You're not getting away from me, Buzz Kill! WUU-CHAAA!" Mikey slid one of his chucks into his belt, turned the other into his kusarigama and whirled the weighted end before throwing it for the quarry.
And because Buzz Kill had turned back to the front during the last few minutes of the chase, he did not notice the weighted end wrapping around his small body until too late, sending him crashing to the concrete floor.
"Gotcha!" Mikey said triumphantly, pouncing on top of the prone fly with the sickle end of his weapon aimed near the neck. "Now 'fess up and I might go easy on you! Where are my bros?"
Far from intimidated however, the insect merely buzzed back. "Why tell you, buzzzz, when I jusssst lead you to them?"
Mikey blinked, eye ridges scrunched up. "Uh, what?"
"He means that your brothers are right here, turtle!" The orange masked ninja's head snapped up so fast he may have cracked something at the sound of a newcomer.
He and Buzz Kill were in that room that looked it came straight from the Middle Ages, the room where he and his bros once fought Raph, Slash and Dr. Rockwell while the latter group was under the Shredder's control, with the same intimidating statues, the same iron wrought torches with huge bright orange flames and the same stone blocked floors.
The voice came from the equally imposing figure standing on the iron gate several feet away from him, arms crossed and with a single narrowed golden eye.
"Tiger Claw?" Mikey said warily, hand reaching for his other nunchuck.
The tiger mutant eyed him with a grim expression. "And I am not alone."
As soon as the words were spoken, three blurs darted to the floor in front of the ninja before standing tall and recognizable against the torchlight.
"Mikey, what's going on? We can't see you in any of the cameras—"
But Mikey barely heard them. His breath caught as tears leaked from the edge of his eyes, solely focused on what was in front of him instead.
"Leo! Raph! Donnie! Bros!"
It slipped past Mikey that he was in enemy territory, that one of their most formidable foes is in the vicinity and that said foe was letting this reunion happen with so much a token protest.
All that occupied Mikey's mind at the moment was that they're here! His brothers, his niichan-tachi, are really here after what felt like a forever of worrying, hoping for the best and missing them so damn much!
(His bros will probably laugh at him for crying about this when they hadn't been apart for even a day. Though, to be fair, Mikey wasn't the most sensitive and affectionate turtle for nothing.)
But if Mikey hadn't been so focused on his need to hug the death out of his brothers, he would have noticed that they were staring at him with the furious white that was reserved for their foes.
And if Mikey's reflexes didn't have the habit of moving before really thinking, he would have found himself at the very bad end of Leo's katana when the oldest turtle made a decisive swing.
"Wh—what the—?"
Unfortunately, Mikey didn't escape the attack entirely unscathed, as Leo's sword was able to nick a bit of Mikey's plastron to draw blood, much to the youngest turtle's shock. "L-Leo, did you just…attack me?"
And it was only then did Mikey take a really, really, good look at his older brothers.
There were bruises and nicks throughout their bodies and their knuckles skinned. There were also trickles of crimson coming from behind their masks and trailing to their chins. There were also tracked smudges from the corners in their eyes that didn't look like injuries but felt really out of place.
But what really scared Mikey was the way they looked at him: not only were their eyes the white, but they glared with an intense anger that felt so much like hatred that was never ever directed towards Mikey before, not even when they were really angry at him for a prank or a mistake he made.
If their looks could kill, Mikey would be far past six feet under where even daisy roots can't reach him.
"What did—what did you do to them, Tiger Claw?!" Mikey gasped, whipping out his lone free nunchuck while glaring at the tiger mutant.
"Master Shredder has deemed these three turtles worthy of entering our ranks. They are of the Foot now, though admittedly, it took a bit of…convincing."
Convincing…? It hit Mikey like a landslide of a ton of bricks. "That room earlier, the brainworms—YOU USED THOSE THINGS ON MY BROTHERS?!"
"Oh yessss,buzzzz,buzzzz, your brotherssss fought valiantly but they are no matccch for my new brainwormsss." Buzz Kill answered from the side. The fly chortled as Mikey took a step back when his controlled brothers walked menacingly towards him, weapons drawn and moving in for the kill. "You bessssst watch your next few sssssteps, turtle, for they may be your lasssst!"
Ladies and gentlemen, the one you've all been waiting for! Shit. Is About. To Get. DOWN!
A bit shorter than what I usually churn out, but what's to come next will hopefully make up for it. :D Err, just hope you won't get to mad at where I left it? *ducks under bed*
Thanks so much again for reviewing/following/faving/peeking this baby. It's gone quite a way but we're just getting started. Hope to see you all in chapter 10!
Chuchi's Cultural Corner!
四面楚歌: Literally means Chu song echoes on all sides and is a tactic used by the forces led by Liu Bang during the Battle of Gaixia at the near end of the tyrannic Qin dynasty period, which would then lead to him establishing the Eastern Han dynasty.
The story goes that Han Xin, one of Liu Bang's generals, kidnapped Xiang Yu's wife, Consort Yu, and used her to lead Xiang Yu and his forces into a canyon. The Chu forces successfully rescued Consort Yu, but ended up being completely surrounded by the Han forces.
As if their morale wasn't low enough thanks to being trapped and cut off from their supplies, Han Xin employed the Si Mian Chu Ge (Chinese reading for 四面楚歌), where he made captured Chu soldiers and some of the Han forces to sing Chu songs. This made Xiang Yu's soldiers greatly miss home, even made Xiang Yu think that Chu has been completely conquered.
The crushing loss of morale would eventually lead to the thinning of Xiang Yu's forces—as many of the soldiers begun trying to escape for home on their own— and eventually to Xiang Yu's defeat.
Today, the quote is used by both Chinese and Japanese to describe a situation where one finds himself utterly surrounded by enemies and without support. A me-against-the-world scenario, if you will. Not a pleasant situation, me would know. :(