Guest: That's exactly where I targeted Domenico's personality from the start. A turtle with a strong pessimistic and slightly paranoid view of anything new or things that are not their business, almost entirely relying on diplomacy over violence, even if the former doesn't always work, is strictly devoted to the rules set by Master Splinter just like Leonardo and sometimes has a slightly obsessive tendency to make everything work his way, which sometimes does go overboards and leaves the damage in the relationships between the siblings. However, deep down Domenico cares deeply for all of them and only wants to what is best for them and entire family, even though sometimes his frustration with them might go into his head.
animegamefanatic: Before I even got to this episode to make it a saga in my fanfic, I planned for a long time to have one of my OC-turtles to accompany Mikey in his hunt for his own superhero career. Arcee was an easy pick for this because - not just because she can throw and redirect her Tessens back to her like boomerangs, which was the perfect way for her to humiliate her brothers for them making fun of Mikey for his superhero dreams - she's the youngest in the family together with Mikey, but a bit older and more mature than Mikey. And this saga gives an opportunity to focus deeper on Mikey and Arcee's relationship as the youngest in the family. And whether Arcee supports Mikey's dreams of becoming a superhero is part of this saga's plot.
= TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2003 =
= THE UNCONVINCING TURTLE TITAN. PART 2=
Later, Mikey and Arcee were standing atop of the edge of the building that was standing next to the Crystal Building, looking down at the city.
"Step five: Every superhero goes out to patrol and keep an eye on any sign of the trouble." he said, before he turned to Arcee who was crouching down on the edge, overlooking the streets below. "Now, is there any sign of the trouble down there, my trustworthy sidekick?" the turtle in orange added dramatically.
Arcee slightly rolled her eyes for Mikey calling her his "sidekick", before she turned to her brother. "Don't call me that, Mikey." the turtle in pink said lowly. "But if you want the trouble, then down there is the scene going on."
"Where?" Mikey asked excitedly as he looked down.
Down in the street, a red-haired woman was screaming in fright as some orange-haired guy in the black jacket and wearing the blue stocking cap on his head was attacking her, though the crook only stole her purse and ran off.
"Aah! Stop! Thief! Stop!" the woman screamed for help.
"Perfect start for my career!" Mikey said, as he brought out the grappling hook that was tied in the rope. But before the turtle in orange could act, Arcee quickly stood up and moved in front of her brother to hold him back.
"Wow, wait for minute, Mikey! Don't you see that that crook is out in the open!" she reminded. "You should wait until he has entered into some shadowy alley. Then you can catch him without being seen by the people down there."
"No dice, Arcee." Mikey said and walked past his sister to stand on the edge. "The superheroes always operate in the open, out of the shadows, otherwise the people won't see them doing the hero works."
"That's not what I meant, Mikey! I meant..." Arcee tried to explain, but Mikey wouldn't listen.
The turtle in orange began to spin the grappling hook around before he threw it, making it to wrap around of TV antenna on the roof across from him. Then he jumped off and swung forward on it like Spiderman.
"COWABUNGA!" Mikey shouted as he flew off, leaving Arcee behind to watch the scene with the dumbfound look on her face.
The turtle in pink then put her hands in the sides of her head and shook it in frustration.
"Ugh! It's that Achilles' heel thingy, again." the turtle in pink sighed. "Oh, well. He learns the lesson through the hard way then."(1)
Meanwhile, Mikey flew on the rope towards the fleeing crook and picked him up when he got close.
"Ahh! Whatta...?!" the crook yelped in surprise when he was picked up from the ground and swung up in the air with Mikey.
"Don't you know that bag clashes with that trashy outfit, pal?" Mikey teased. "And speaking of trashy, it's time to take the trashes out!"
Mikey then let go of the crook and let him fall into a garbage can beneath them, with the purse falling next to it, as the turtle in orange kept swinging forward. However, the antenna the grappling hook was wrapped around suddenly snapped off.
"YIKES!" Mikey yelped as he started to fall down, until the turtle in orange crashed shell-first against the wall, leaving into it a cracked dent before he fell onto his butt to the sidewalk. And right afterwards, he was hit in the noggin by the falling antenna, making him groan in pain.
"Uh. Okay, so I lose points for style." Mikey groaned as he picked himself up and tossed the bent antenna away. Then he walked over to the garbage can, where the crook was struggling to get out.
"Still, mission accomplished! The bad guys is stopped and the loot retrieved. Now for the sweet expression of thanks from a grateful stranger." Mikey said, proud of his work, as he picked up the purse from the ground and walked towards the woman the purse was stolen from.
From above, Arcee had witnessed the entire scene, but her eyes went wide from utter disbelief when she realized what Mikey was about to do next.
"Bro! What the shell are you doing?!" the turtle in pink exclaimed.
Mikey walked towards the woman, who looked freaked out at the sight of him.
"Here's your purse, lady. No need to thank..." Mikey said politely, handing the purse back to the woman. However, instead of showing gratitude for Mikey's actions, the woman started to swat him with her purse.
"Get away from me, you freak!" she shouted, before she ran off.
"Freak?!" Mikey exclaimed, sounding slightly hurt from being called like that. "But I was only trying to help!" the turtle in orange called after the woman.
Mikey let out the saddened sigh, as Arcee landed to the street behind of him.
"See, little brother?" Arcee said softly. "That was what I tried to tell you. The people on the surface never accept us the way we are, because we're..."
"Don't say it. I already know." Mikey interrupted her, before the turtle in orange turned to to look at his reflection in a window. "Sometimes it sucks being the ninja turtle." he sighed.
Arcee looked at her brother in bewilderment. "What?! No! Don't say that, Mikey. Being a ninja and a turtle might cast us out from the human society, but it still gives us unlimited freedom to do whatever we want... at least as long as we stick to the shadows or wear disguises to hide our true selves." the turtle in pink said, once again hoping to sway Mikey back to the path of the ninja.
However, Mikey's head perked up when he heard one particular sentence coming out of Arcee's mouth, before he then turned to his sister.
"Excuse me, but what did you just said? Did you say disguises?" the turtle in orange asked.
"Yep. As long as we stick to the shadows or wear disguises to hide our true selves, we can..." Arcee said, repeating herself, until Mikey interrupted her again.
"That's it! Why didn't I get that earlier?!" Mikey exclaimed, before turning back to his reflection.
Arcee looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean, Mikey?"
"Well, let that be the step six: Some superheroes might look frightening to some people they're protecting, while some may be labelled as an outlaws, so they used the disguises to hide their true identities from the society. So here is what I must do: to work on my appearance to make it to look something that doesn't instantly freak out the people I'm trying to protect." Mikey explained, before he turned away from the window. "So I need... a superhero costume!"
Arcee quirked her brow while looking at Mikey with bewilderment. "You ain't serious, aren't you?" she muttered quietly.
"And once again thanks for another brilliant idea, which should've been already obvious to me, belongs to you alone, Arcee." Mikey said with compliment for his sister, before he walked past Arcee and started to walk down the street. "C'mon, my trustworthy sidekick! I happen to know somebody who could help us in that."
Arcee remained behind for the moments, watched as her brother confidently headed towards their next destination from where he believed he could get the superhero costume for himself, before the turtle in pink let out the sigh in pity for her brother's ambitious hunt for glory as the superhero.
"Oh, Mikey. Why do you have to dig your pit even deeper than this." Arcee murmured, before she followed her brother.
###
Mikey's and Arcee's path led the two straight to April's place, where their friend was at this time making some business with her recent customer in her recently re-opened shop, 2nd time Around.
In front of her checkout counter standing customer was a rather large, muscular, broad-shouldered and slightly hunchbacked guys, who had thick arms, large hands and there was a singluar hair growing in the back of his hands and along his arms. His eyebrows were nearly as thick as a gorilla, he had a shaven round face, protruding lower jaw and he had a remarkably large, broad, and round nose. He was dressed in the checkered blue-white shirt and a fine dark purple suit with the polished shoes and red black-spotted bow tie. And to finish his outfit, he had a small dark blue bowler hat on top his head. The man seemed to have a rather antagonistic-like atmosphere around him, but still he behaved quite politically in front of April.(2)
He was about to buy a fine antique teapot and a set of tea cups, which April packed carefully into the box.
"Here's your teapot and a set of tea cups, Mr. Nosy." April said as she handed the box over to the customer named Mr. Nosy.
"Thank you, miss O'Neil." the customer thanked with the gruff but polite voice, before he took the box and handed to April the money as the payment.
"It looks like you're kinda fond to the antique teapots and cups, am I right?" April asked politely.
"Well, not me actually, Ms. O'Neil. It's my... my employer, who is rather fond with the antiques, especially if he has some to serve as a tableware for his birthday party with his family, which is in two weeks. That is actually a perfect timing for his... awaited return from years of vacation." Mr. Nosy explained.
"Well, even though I don't know him, I'd wish him congratulations on that." April said.
"Thank you, Ms. O'Neil. My employer will be rather pleased to hear that." Mr. Nosy said, pleased.
Suddenly, the two heard the shop's door opening and the bell above the door started ringing soon as the the door frame hit it, which was the sign of that somebody had just walked through the door into the shop.
"Welcome to the 2nd time Around. How can I..." April said, turning to the door along with Mr. Nosy who was just about to leave, but much to her surprise - though only as the short-lived one - she saw nobody else in the shop except herself and her customer. "... help you."
Mr. Nosy looked warily around him, but he saw nobody else in the shop, before he turned back to April. "You were expecting someone here tonight?"
"Not actually." April denied, though she leaned on her elbows to the checkout counter and quickly took the mock-irritated look on her face as she looked oyt of her shop's window as if expecting seeing someone behind of it. "Probably some annoying young neighborhood hooligans playing pranks on me again, I guess."
Mr. Nosy scowled from under of his thick brows as he stared outside.
"Those meddlesome good-for-nothing little scoundrels! Those little slimy freaks! Their parents should really spank them to the point they won't be sitting for the week!" Mr. Nosy growled under his breath.
"Well, sometimes I actually think the same about the latter." April said absentmindedly.
Nosy then headed towards the door and opened it to exit the shop.
"Well, I won't bother you any longer than this, Ms. O'neil. I gotta go now. Good evening." he wished and stepped outside.
"Thank you and come again." April wished back, as Mr. Nosy headed to the reddish vintage limousine waiting outside of the shop.
Some mobster-looking guy was standing next to one of the limousine's doors, and as Mr. Nosy got closer, he opened the door for him. And once Mr. Nosy had enetered the car, the guy closed the door before getting in himself. The limousine then started the engine and headed off.
And when Mr. Nosy was completely gone, April turned to her empty store with a knowing smirk on her lips. Her woman instincts told her that she wasn't alone in her own shop at all... and she also had an idea of who her currently unseen guests were.
"That was pretty cool, guys. Sneaking into my shop through the front door and then be like there's nobody else here but me and my recent customer." April said to no one in sight. "But he is gone now. So you can come out. But next time try to find a better hiding place if that's okay with you, Mikey." April added with the amused chuckle as she put her hand over her right cheek and shook her head slightly.
Mikey was hiding behind the wooden coat rack with several coats hanging on it, and he had lifted his arms up with his fingers hooked to make them look like the coat rack's arms. However, the whole thing didn't hid him very well, as most of his lower part and his legs were peeking from under the jackets and from behind of the coat rack's haft. And not the mention of his hands. that were peeking from behind of the hanging coats' shoulders.
"Sorry, April." Mikey apologized when he came out from behind the coat rack. "But I couldn't figure out the better hiding spot with so limited amount of time."
"Like I told you, Mikey." Arcee chided, as she dropped off from behind of from the shop's ceiling hanging stuffed shark. "We should have entered through the windows in upstairs and not come through the front door of the shop at the same time when April had a customer in here."
"And speaking of him. He just called us "meddlesome good-for-nothing little scoundrels" and "little slimy freaks!" Mikey complained, offended by Mr. Nosy calling them little scoundrels and slimy freaks. "If you ask from me, that big-nosed guy, whoever he is, is the only one in here who truly deserves to get spanked in his rear end!"
"Don't mind about him, little bro. He is gone now and not our concern right now." Arcee said, before the turtle in pink turned to April. "Hi, April. Long time no seen." she greeted.
"Hi, Arcee. Hi, Mikey. What brings you two here." April asked, smiling at her friends as they walked to her checkout counter.
"Well..." Arcee started, before she turned to Mikey, pointing at her brother with her left thump. "I think that Mikey could explain the reason to our visit in here better. He does have some issues right now." the turtle in pink explained before she stepped back.
April nodded to Arcee before she turned to Mikey. "Well, Mikey? What kind of issues you have?" she asked with polite and big-sister or even a mother-like attitude.
"Well..." Mikey started until he found himself struggling to find the best way to explain his current dreams and opinions about himself and his life to April, maybe out of fear that even April would find the whole idea as a ridiculous, until he found himself handing his sketchbook over to April. "See it yourself."
April took the sketchbook from Mikey and opened it, finding Mikey's drawing about him and his siblings in their superhero costumes.
"My, this is very nice drawing, Mikey!" April complimented before she turned to Mikey. "But something tells me that this is rather about something else than just about this drawing."
"Well, actually this is about the whole plot in that drawing." Mikey clarified. "You see, April, I've had this idea in my head ever since the yesterday when we saw Silver Sentry rescuing the little girl from the burning building and then blowing the flames away. So I started to think that maybe we too can be the superheroes because we too do a lot of good for this city. The only problems here is that we're doing it all from the shadows where nobody can see us." Mikey explained.
"I see. But isn't that your lives' whole point: to hide in the shadows to avoid being seen by the other humans?" April asked.
"Yes, I know, April. But recently I've started to grow tired of all of that." Mikey said bitterly. "I want to do a lot of more good in the open than in the shadows, and it would be nice to have at least some credit for the good deeds. Just a moment ago I did stop the crook from trying to steal some lady's purse, but all I got as a thanks for that was getting swatted by the same lady. And so then it dawned on me, thanks to Arcee's suggestion. That if you wanna act like a superhero, being seen as a superhero and being treated as a superhero without running away in fear at the sight of you, you gotta look like a superhero."
"So that's what's troubling you, Mikey. You wanna be a superhero yourself, eh?" April said as she turned back to Mikey's drawing.
"Yeah." Mikey said with lament. "The rest of my siblings won't cease of teasing me for the whole idea, and Master Splinter said that I just should stick to the path that is right to me... as a ninja turtle who operates in the shadows his entire life." the turtle in orange lowered his head down in sadness. "Go ahead, April. Tell me that it's all pretty lame, isn't it?"
April looked down at Mikey's drawing again and stood a moment in silence, thinking over Mikey's idea/dream to become a superhero.
"Actually, Mikey, It's not bad idea at all. I think you should follow your dreams." April finally said.
Mikey looked back at her in surprise and smiled, happy that April was actually supporting his idea, while Arcee looked at her in disbelief.
"You do, April?" Mikey asked, earning a nod from April.
"Yes, Mikey." she said with the smile. "We just gotta find the right look for you."
Later, both April and Arcee were leaning against her checkout counter while Michelangelo was trying on several outfits behind a dressing screen. And while Mikey was dressing up, Arcee turned to April, still in disbelief that she was actually supporting Mikey's dream to become the superhero.
"April? Are you actually supporting Mikey's idea?" she asked softly.
"Why now? Everybody has right to follow their dreams whatever they are." April said, before she suddenly turned to look at Arcee with the quirked brow as if she was suspecting something about Arcee. "Why do you ask, Arcee? Are you actually against Mikey's idea?"
April's question caught the turtle in pink off guard, hitting her down to the core like an invisible and immaterial bullet. So far, all she has done was to follow Master Splinter's orders to watch after Mikey, though so far she has also tried her best to indirectly sway Mikey back to the path of the ninja. So technically said, she hasn't openly said or done anything against Mikey's dream to become the superhero and all her attempts have so far led her to unintentionally give Mikey an inspiring ideas to build up his superhero career.
However, April's question caused the turtle in pink to question of herself and her whole purpose being up here on this surface trip along with Mikey, beside of watching after him.
Arcee didn't know that was she really supportive of her little brother's dreams like Mikey thought she was, or was she against them just like everybody else. However, if all of this was all about the latter only, it would be like the stab in the Mikey's back from her. Arcee has never had the heart to hurt her little brother's feelings... at least not this badly, but it would be already at this point very difficult task for her to admit to Mikey that she wasn't actually supporting his dreams.
"I don't know, April." Arcee said eventually. "I don't deny it that I too made a bit fun of him along with our other siblings because of this whole superhero stuff... just a bit. I'm here because of Master Splinter ordered me to keep an eye on Mikey while he is up here to clear his head, but I don't know what truly is my other motivation to be up here with him beside that. At least, I tried twice to guide Mikey back to the path of the ninja, indirectly of course, but I only succeeded inspiring him even more into this. One voice in my head tells me to keep trying despite the setbacks, but the other voice in my heart tells me to do what is right thing to do."
"So you're kinda seeing Mikey lost between two paths: one as a ninja and one becoming a superhero, but you also feel yourself trapped in between of two voices, and that you have difficulty to say which one you should listen, right?" April presumed, which Arcee confirmed with the nod.
"If we put it in that way, then yes." the turtle in turquoise said. "I guess that I'm still following the voice in my head, but only for his own good. But it still leaves only one but heavy question in my heart: that am I doing a wrong thing."
"Well…" April began, taking a moment to think how to answer that. "He's your brother Arcee. I think that as his big sister you should be a little more supportive of his dreams and less against it." she advised.
"I know, but Mikey has tendencies to let some things, such as this one, to go into his head sometimes, which lowers his guard and makes him vulnerable." Arcee said. "Trust me, April. I've seen this happening before. One too many times during of our training years before we even got out of the sewers and onto the streets for the first time, and even few times after that. I just don't want this whole superhero-stuff to become Mikey's undoing."
"Then you should be there by your brother's side to make sure that doesn't come to that. Together you are invincible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles forever, remember?" April said, reminding Arcee about what Master Splinter had once told her back at the day when they'd first met her.
Arcee chuckled at April's choice of words about her and her family being "invincible".
"Well, I wouldn't say "invincible" about us, April." the turtle in pink chuckled, before her voice went serious when she explained her point to April. "When we faced the Shredder four weeks back, it literally took everything we got... and even more... and a lots of luck... and Master Splinter, to defeat him for good."
"Good point." April said with the serious tone, remembering all too well her friends' story about their brutal battle with the Shredder, which nearly cost them their lives.
"Okay, ladies and turtles! Here I come!" Mikey suddenly called from behind a dressing screen.
Arcee and April turned to look as Mikey stepped out in a medieval knight's heavy armor and wielding the shield in his right arm.
"Nah, too cumbersome." April said.
"Yeah. And besides, a medieval knights are too old-fashioned for the 21st century." Arcee agreed.
Later, Mikey came out in the bluish-gray vest with the folded collar and black tie while wearing the black cape with the red inner side and the top hat on top of his head. He also had the long and spiraling fake mustaches.
"Too formal." April said with the slight chuckle.
"Mikey. You look like the magician in that!" Arcee chuckled.
Later, Mikey came out again, this time wearing the longer black cape with the higher colar, along with the furry black suit with the large bat-like wings in the place of arms and wearing the snarling wolf-like mask over his head.
"Too creepy." April said.
"Yeah, that will definitely scare the people away." Arcee agreed.
Later, Mikey came out in the pumpable muscle suit that was pumped full, causing the muscles of the suit to swell into huge sizes. He was also wearing a leopard-spotted bottoms, golden-brown boots, long golden cape with the high collar, a yellow elbow length gloves and the wrestler mask with the leopard's roaring face in it.
"Too revealing." April said, pointing out that Mikey had pumped a bit too much of air into his muscle suit.
"And yellow is hardly your color, Mikey. Besides, I don't think that dressing up like a wrestler was an idea in this." Arcee said.
Later, Mikey came out again, this time wearing a red shirt with white cuffs and colar and the white lightning-like picture in the chest and blue mask over his face.
"Too mugger." April said.
"Was your idea of being the superhero or the robber, Mikey?" Arcee asked with her arms in her hips.
Mikey then went back behind of the dressing screen to try something else.
"Hang on! I think I got it!" he eventually said, seemingly finding something more better. And after the moment, the turtle in orange came out.
"Ladies and turtles! I'm introducing you... to TURTLE TITAN!" Mikey declared, as he stepped out, dressed into high brown boots, brown gloves, a long red cape with the hood and mask, and which had a black circle-shaped cowl with the orange-colored initials 'TT' hanging over his chest, and he had a shell shaped shield in his right hand. Mikey took the heroic pose while putting his hands over his hips and smirked proudly.
"WO-HA-HOW! Look at you, Mikey!" Arcee cheered. "You look quite cool!"
"Hmm." April mumbled thoughtfully, putting her finger on her chin and smiled. "Not bad."
"Thank you." Mikey said, making a dramatical bow to them both.
"So, you ready to do some hero-work now that you got what you came here for, Mikey?" April asked.
"I was born ready!" Mikey said excitedly, until the turtle in orange put the finger on his chin. "But my superhero instincts are telling me that something is still missing."
"Like what?" Arcee asked.
"Hmmm." Mikey mumbled while going through his list of what he needed to become a superhero: He already had the secret backstory, motivation, secret lair, the mode of transport, he was doing patrolling, the superhero costume... so what more he was lacking? After thinking of it for a moment, a smile reached to the turtle in orange's lips and he snapped her fingers as he came up with an idea.
"Now I know! Step seven: Some superheroes have a loyal sidekick always by their sides in the tight situations! That's what I need! The sidekick!" he exclaimed, before the turtle in orange turned to look at his audience, with his eyes locked on Arcee. "And I think I already have one."
Arcee was taken aback upon realizing that Mikey was staring directly at her and reffered her as his 'loyal sidekick'. The turtle in pink hurriedly tried to make an excuse to avoid being chosen by looking to her left and right to see if Mikey was staring at one of their brothers or her sister or anyone else instead of her. Unfortunately, she'd forgotten that there was no other turtles around except her and Mikey. And even though April was standing right next to her, the turtle in pink knew already that Mikey wasn't staring at her.
"Me?!" Arcee exclaimed.
"You, you!" Mikey confirmed. "You, my dear sister Artemisia, just got the great honor to serve as the loyal sidekick of the mighty Turtle Titan in the battle against the crime! With the name of TST!" Mikey announced.
"STS?" Arcee said, tilting her head in confusion.
"TURTLE SIS TITAN!" Mikey clarified.(3)
"Uh... Thanks, but no thanks, Mikey." Arcee said, holding up her open palm and shaking it slightly in a sign of polite refusal. "I just can't, bro. Besides, I don't even have a superhero costume like you have."
"No fear for that, my loyal sidekick!" Mikey said with the loud and dramatic superhero-like voice. "I already picked the perfect one just for you!"
Mikey then took out the other superhero costume to show it to Arcee. And once the turtle in pink's eyes landed on it, they went wide open and she grimaced in shocking disbelief. Mikey then loomed over his sister, ready to make his big sister to put the costume on.
"No. No. No. No. I'm definitely not wearing that, Mikey! No! No! No! No! NO! NO! NO! NO! KEEP THAT THING AWAY FROM ME! NONONONONONONONO! NO!" Arcee screamed in horror, crawling back and away from Mikey, whose ominouys shadow fell over the terrified turtle in pink.
(Screen turns to outside of the 2nd time Around and we can hear Arcee's scream in desperation.)
"NOOOOOOOO!"
###
Later that night, Mikey was back on top of the building looking down at the city. The turtle in orange was posing heroically against the full moon as his red cape floating in the night wind. Arcee was there as well, but instead of standing by her brother's side, the turtle in pink was standing far away from the rooftop's edge while looking down at herself and her new costume, grimacing in disgust and embarrassment.
She was dressed into Batman's Robin-like red suit with the yellow folded colar, short sleeves and bottoms, and in the suit's chest had been sewed a large circle-shaped white sticker, in which was reading black initials "TST". She had a thigh-length yellow cape, elbow-length orange gloves and slipper-like footwear in her legs. And finally, she was wearing the red mask that covered the top of her head.(4)
"This is so embarrassing! Luckily none of the guys aren't here right now to see me like this! They'd never let me to live this down!" Arcee moaned with dread. "Unless I force them all to dress up as circus clowns or make them to wear the women's dresses as a payback."
"What are you talking about, my loyal sidekick? You look great. We're gonna make the criminals shake in fear at the sight of us, as we are TURTLE TITAN AND THE TURTLE SISTER TITAN! THE SCOURGE OF THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD!" Mikey announced out loud while holding his arms up, letting it to echo in the night sky.
"Shut up, there! The people are trying to sleep!" some guy from somewhere cried in annoyance. Mikey, however, ignored the guy and kept smirking while still holding his arms up.
"More likely, "We're gonna make the criminals laugh themselves to death at the first look at us" and that we're "The biggest laughing stokes in the criminal underworld"." Arcee corrected sarcastically. "Face it, Mikey. I look ridiculous! We're looking ridiculous! And there's no way we're gonna...!"
Arcee was suddenly cut off when she and Mikey suddenly heard a bunch of car horns and beeps coming from other side of the building.
"Sounds like there's a scene going on." Mikey assumed, before he turned away from the edge and headed towards direction of the sounds. "Come along, my loyal sidekick! We better chek it out!"
"Don't call me that, Mikey!" Arcee called after him and turned to follow him. "An't it's probably nothing more than a traffic jam!"
Nonetheless, the turtles in orange and pink ran towards the sounds and peered over the edge. Both of them gasped when they saw a teenager boy standing in the center of busy traffic at an intersection. The teen didn't move the slightest when he was about to have several close calls with the passing a white News van, blue sedan and yellow taxi.
"Whatcha doing?!", "Get out of the way!", "Hey, watch it!" the passing drivers of the said vehicles shouted as they drove past the teen to avoid hitting him.
"Whatta shell?! What's wrong with that guy?!" Arcee exclaimed in disbelief.
"Doesn't matter! He is a innocent citizen in peril!" Mikey said as he hopped onto the edge, posing heroically again. "This looks like a job for... TURTLE TITAN, and his loyal sidekick, TURTLE SIS TITAN!"
With that, Mikey took out the grappling hook and started to spin it around, before he tossed it away and swung on the rope downwards and towards the boy. Arcee, not bothering to call Mikey out for calling her again 'a loyal sidekick' this time, remained behind to watch as Mikey swung down to the rescue.
Meanwhile, some guy driving the large truck was eating the sandwich while listening the music from the headphones. However, the guy was snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed the boy standing right on his path at the last minute.
"Whatta...!" the man gasped, nearly chocking to the bite in his mouth, before he dropped his sandwich and quickly hit the brakes. The tires screeched loudly as the truck skidded to stop, but the speed was too high and it was about to run over the boy. But the strange thing about the whole situation was that the boy didn't seem at all terrified that the truck was about to hit him, and he didn't even move a muscle to instinctively cover himself with his arms as usual or at least jump out of the way! All he did was just standing in there and stare blankly at the truck as it came closer.
But before the truck could hit the boy, Mikey swung by and picked him up just in time while the truck drove over the spot where the boy had been standing. As he drove off, the truck driver was relieved that nothing bad happened, but he was also confused about what happened and who was the third person was lifted the boy to safety.
"NO FEAR, CITIZEN! THE TURTLE TITAN IS..." Mikey said, until the grappling hook suddenly came to loose again, letting both of them to fall down.
"OH, COME ON! NOT AGAIN!" Mikey yelped as both he and the boy hit the ground and rolled over to behind the corner of the alleyway and next to the garbage bin, where the grappling hook fell onto the turtle in orange's head.
"OW!" Mikey moaned, rubbing his head as Arcee landed next to him and the boy.
"Well." Arcee started, putting her hands over her hips and giving Mikey a mischievous smirk. "I'd give you 10 points for a successful rescue, but only one and a half points for style. That's something you should improve significantly or else you'll fall out of the sky every time you try to play... uh... I mean, try to do heroic deeds and you'll get yourself and innocent bystanders hurt in the process."
"Well, I'd keep that in mind, sis." Mikey said and stood up, before he turned to the boy he'd just rescued.
"Sorry about that, my bad. Hang on." Mikey said and moved forward to remove the rope from over the boy.
However, as he did so, Arcee paid the look at the boy's eyes. Her eyes went wide when she noticed that the boy's eyes were glowing ominously yellow.
"Hey kid? What is wrong with your eyes?" Arcee asked.
Suddenly, the boy's eyes returned back to normal. He put his hand over his head before shaking it as if he'd just woken up from sleeping. He looked up, seeing Mikey and Arcee and freaked out.
"Who are you? What's going on? Where I am?" the boy said, looking around before looking back at Mikey and Arcee. Both turtles were confused by the boy's tone.
"Take it easy, kid. You're just a little shaken by what just happened back there." Arcee said, trying to calm the kid down. However, the boy had not a clue about what Arcee was talking about as he was too freaked out to think rationally.
"HELP! POLICE!" the boy cried as he stood up and ran away. "I'M BEING ATTACKED BY TWO COSTUMED FREAKS!"
Both Mikey and Arcee looked after the fleeing boy, even more confused by his strange behavior, though Mikey's confusion soon turned into offended after hearing the boy calling them 'freaks'.
"Attacked? By the freaks? Hey Dude! I just saved you from like this close to being road kill!" Mikey shouted after him, holding his thumb and front finger up, leaving between of them a narrow space.
Arcee then put her hand over Mikey's shoulder. "Let him go, Mikey. You saved his life. That's all you needed to do." she said.
Mikey and Arcee then heard shocked and terrified screams coming from nearby, causing both of them to look up. Both of them then looked at each other, before they proceeded to climb up along the fire escape, heading back to the rooftop.
Once on the rooftop, both the turtles hurriedly followed the screams, until they reached to the scene that was taking the place near of the highest buildings of this part of the town. Mikey and Arcee looked down to the streets, seeing the large crowd of terrified citizens along with the police cars. Someone was also pointing a beam of light from a spotlight up into the building, which Mikey and Arcee followed with their eyes all the way to the edge of the building's rooftop. Both turtles gasped when they noticed two people standing right at the edge of the roof, with a spotlight focused on them.
"Somebody, please, stop them!" a terrified scream was heard coming from the crowd down below.
The entire crowd then gasped in shock when the two people suddenly jumped off the edge and started to fall down, with the beam of the spotlight following their going.
"Jumpers!" Arcee gasped in shock and dread.
"COME ON, TURTLE SIS TITAN! WE GOT THE JUMPERS TO RESCUE!" Mikey said half-dramatically and half-seriously before he ran towards the edge of the building where they were standing. Arcee was about to roll her eyes at Mikey's dramatic behavior, but with the situation in hand, she decided against it without the second thought and ran after Mikey.
As they came closer to the edge of the building at the same time as the jumpers fell to their level, both the turtles in orange and pink leaped off and dived over the gap between of their building and the tall building from which the jumpers just jumped off. Mikey grabbed to one of the jumpers and Arcee grabbed the other one, cutting their fall short before the turtles and the jumpers crashed through of the building's glass window wall and hit to the floor of the large room with offices.
Both turtles panted heavily afterwards of the narrowly successful rescue as they got up from the floor.
"You okay, sis?" Mikey asked as she turned to Arcee.
"Yeah." Arcee said, holding her thumb up.
Mikey nodded, before both he and Arcee turned down to the jumpers they just rescued to check out that were they hurt. One was a middle-aged man with the brown hair and the other one was a young woman with the long blonde hair. The two of them were lying flat on their backs on the floor, motionless but otherwise seemed to be still alive and okay. The turtles also noticed, much to their shock that the woman was even holding the one year old small baby, a girl, in her arms.
"They had a baby with them?!" Arcee exclaimed in disbelief.
"Hey, dudes! Why did you do that?" Mikey exclaimed, as he and Arcee got up and moved the two people, who appeared to be a couple and a family with the baby, to carefully sit against the back of the nearby office couch. "What exactly drove you two to commit that crazy stunt, and with the baby who still has so much to live for."
However, neither one of them responded to Mikey's question. All they did was just to stare up at them blankly.
"Helloooooooo!" Mikey called, waving his hand in front of the couple's faces to get their attention, but neither of them didn't even budge the slightest. "Earth to the happy couple with the baby! Anybody home?"
However, Arcee then noticed the couple's eyes, which were glowing ominously yellow, just like the boy's eyes from the earlier.
The turtle in pink also noticed something else that made the whole situation even weirder: if the couple had a baby with whom they were about committing the suicide a few minutes ago before she and Mikey rescued them and flew through the window with them, then why wasn't the baby crying out of fear in the aftermath of the near death experience.
Arcee looked down at the baby in the woman's arms and gasped in shock when she saw the little one's eyes glowing the same ominous yellow like her parents.
"Mikey! Look at their eyes!" Arcee said in alarm.
Mikey turned to her sister in confusion, but otherwise turned to look at family's eyes. However, the moment he turned his shell to the family, the couple's and the baby's eyes returned all back to normal, causing them to moan from the sleepy confusion before putting their hands over their heads and shaking them to get their minds clear.
"I don't see nothing unusual, Arcee. Their eyes look normal to me." Mikey shrugged as he turned back to Arcee.
"But their eyes were moment ago glowing strangely yet ominously! I saw it! Even the baby's eyes were glowing the ominous yellow!" Arcee arqued.
"What's going on?" a male voice asked.
"We are we?" a female voice asked next.
The questions snapped Mikey and Arcee out of their would-be argument and they turned back to the family, who turned back to look at them. However, the reaction from the humans was exactly the same as the boy's from earlier. Both the man and the woman screamed in fright and tried to back away from Mikey and Arcee, though the couch prevented them from getting anywhere far away from the turtles in pink and orange.
"AAHHH! NO! NO, PLEASE! DON'T HURT US!" the man begged.
"SPARE MY CHILD! PLEASE!" the woman begged, clutching her baby closer.
The whole all-too-familiar situation was crowned by the fact that the baby finally started crying in her mother's arms due to commotion around of her.
"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! Easy! Easy there! Take the easy breath! You're just in the state of shock after that stunt." Arcee said, trying to calm down the freaked out family.
"We're not gonna hurt you or your child. We just saved all of your three's lives." Mikey explained.
"What are you talking about?!" the man demanded, though he was still pretty much freaked out.
"Youy two were just about to commit the suicide by jumping off this building's roof... along with that baby. Why?" Arcee asked, wanting to know the two's reason for doing something so stupid like the suicide.
However, the couple were utterly petrified from the shock after hearing from Arcee what they had just done... or what Arcee claimed they were doing. They both looked at each other, but neither of them seemed to have not a clue what the turtle in pink was talking about.
"Why would we do that?!" the woman demanded as they turned back to the turtles. "Why would we be so stupid to just kill ourselves with our baby?!"
"You two are lying! We have no reason to end our lives now that we have a good reason to live!" the man shouted, nodding his head at his crying baby daughter in his wife's arms.
This response left both Mikey and Arcee confused, as it confirmed that neither of them indeed had noth a clue about recent events.
"Uh... Good question, sir." Arcee said, shrugging her shoulders.
All of their attentions were turned to the smashed window when they suddenly heard the approaching sound of the helicopter's propellers, before they all saw the police helicopter emerging in front of the window. Suddenly, Mikey and Arcee were hit by the bright light coming from the helicopter's spotlights, causing both the turtles in pink and orange to turn away from it and cover their eyes with their arms and capes to block the light, and the couple next to them did the same with their arms.
"This is the police! You two out there, stop where you are!" the cop in the helicopter demanded.
Mikey and Arcee then turned around to the other side of the office room upon hearing the banging against the doors from the outside, before the door suddenly flung open and and the bunch of cops stormed inside, holding up the pistols and pointing them at both Mikey and Arcee.
"FREEZE!" one cop shouted.
"DON'T MOVE! DON'T MOVE!" other cop demanded.
"Oh, no, no, no, no NONONONONO!" Arcee gulped with dread at being pointed at with guns.
Mikey looked at the cops both in shock and confusion, before he turned to them, holding his hands out in the calming gesture.
"Wait! We're the good guys! We don't mean anyth..." Mikey started, until he was cut off with the couple behind him and Arcee began screaming for help,
"HELP! THOSE TWO ARE TRYING TO MUGGER US!" the man shouted.
"HELP US! HELP MY BABY! PLEASE!" the woman screamed.
Mikey and Arcee both turned to look at the couple in utter disbelief at their choice of words, fighting the urge to roll their eyes in annoyance at them for regarding them as the mean muggers rather than their life-saviors.
"YOU TWO!" one of the cops called, causing Mikey and Arcee to turn back to the cops. "KEEP YOUR HANDS UP WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM! GET TO THE GROUND, NOW!" he demanded harshly.
Mikey and Arcee nearly obeyed by slowly raising their hands up in surrender, until they quickly realized that they couldn't afford of getting caught or allow the cops to expose their secret identies as the giant talking turtles. With this in mind, they both glanced slightly over their shoulders at the broken window they had just come through in and the police helicopter still floating outside while pointing its light at them, before turning to each other. Both Mikey and Arcee gave each other a knowing look and determined nods, before they turned back to the cops, as four of them moved forward towards them, still pointing at the two turtles with their torches and pistols.
"DO NOT TRY ANYTHING, OR WE WILL SHOOT!" the same cop demanded.
"And hurt at the same time the innocent civilians who were just rescued from the certain death? How pathetic from you guys." Arcee said with the sarcasm.
"Oh well, our job here is done anyway. The ones to be rescued are rescued and in good hands, so it's time for us to…" Mikey said.
"...VANISH!" Arcee finished her brother before she turned swiftly around and threw the Shuriken towards the police helicopter's spotlight, killing the light and returning the darkness in the room, causing both the cops and the family to look around in confusion as they couldn't see the thing, except the city lights from the outside of the building.
"HEY! WHAT HAPPENED?!"
"I CAN'T SEE A THING!"
"WHERE DID THEY GO?!"
"FIND THEM! DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!"
Under the cover of confusion and darkness, Mikey and Arcee hurriedly headed towards the window wall and dove through the broken one instead of simply smashing through another one and thus alerting the confused cops about their escape, flying towards the police helicopter that was flying away from the window after Arcee had destroyed its spotlight. The turtles in orange and pink then reached forward and grabbed from the helicopter's landing gear, causing the chopter to tilt slightly to the left from their combined weights as the two swung underneath of the helicopter's bottom before letting go and flying/falling back to the rooftop from which they had jumped off earlier to rescuethe falling jumpers. Once Arcee and Mikey hit on the rooftop, the two turtles quickly fled the scene before the cops could spot them again and give the chase.
###
About half an hour later, after creating good enough distance between them and the scene in that building, and making sure they weren't being followed by the cops or their helicopters, Mikey and Arcee stopped to catch their breath at the corner of another rooftop. While Arcee was sitting on the edge, Mikey paced back and forth, going over in his mind what exactly happened in that building, as well as the other two previous cases before it.
"Man, what's it take to get some superhero respect in this town?" Mikey asked from himself.
"I'm not worried about that, Mikey. Not a one bit." Arcee said. "I'm more worried about that there's something else going on in this town tonight."
"We did two heroic deeds in one night, and still, one sight of us and they still keep screaming and running away from us in fear, as if we're still..." Mikey kept complaining, until he quickly cut himself off before he could say that last word he hated most.
"And in their eyes, we'll always be that, Mikey. Superhero costumes or not, that'll never change. And you saw back there what happened: As a reward for our heroic deed, we got spotted by the squad of cops that got into their heads an idea to start pointing their guns at us!" Arcee reminded her brother.
"That ain't right! That ain't correct! The people should never see us the superheroes in that way! They should admire us, respect us, not to fear us and hate us!" Mikey kept complaining.
The turtle in pink closed her eyes and shook her head slightly at her brother who was not paying attention in her.
"Forget it." she said, before she turned to look at the city, frowning in her deep thought as she went through the details of the recent events in her head.
"But what bugs me more is that those people we rescued do not even acknowledge of being in peril in the first place. And their glowing eyes, their blank expressions, acting as if we weren't there, then waking up as if they were put asleep before freaking out. What could that mean, I wonder?" the turtle in pink questioned, before she put her finger on her chin and started to think hard. "Hmmm. Could that be some sort of mind control?"
"So, what exactly do we need to do to make the people see us as a respected superheroes instead of some costumed frea- villains?" Mikey asked from himself, ignoring Arcee's worries completely. "What do we need to do to earn the glory that we deserve?"
Snapping out of her thoughts, Arcee rolled her eyes in barely controlled annoyance before she turned to Mikey. "Ugh! Seriously? Is that all what you're worried about, Mikey? I'm trying to figure out what's going on here and all you're just talking about is the glory!"
"Please, Arcee!" Mikey slightly snapped. "I'm trying to do some brain work here, if you mind."
"The brain work that is not about the serious matter in hand compared to my own, Mikey." Arcee corrected, standing up and walking to her brother. "Or haven't you even noticed anything strange at all in those civilians tonight?"
"They were the citizens in peril and we rescued them. And they weren't thinking rationally in their states of shock after being in the life-threatening situations. What's strange in that, aside of them not giving to us at least some credit for the good work?" Mikey argued.
"Because there's obviously something more going on beside that!" Arcee shot back. "And if you wanted to do some heroic work, then you should start by figuring out what's really going on here, like I'm trying to do here."
The two siblings were snapped out of their argument when they heard the glass breaking nearby, which was shortly after followed by the ringing of the burglar alarm.
The two turtles decided to put their argument aside for now and jumped onto the edge to the rooftop, looking down to the street. There they saw a three men climbing through of the broken display window of the store called 'Crazy Manny's Electronics'.
"Well, well, well. A good old-fashioned robbery. Now that's more like it." Mikey said, punching his palm excitedly. "C'mon, Turtle Sis Titan! We got some crooks to catch!"
Mikey then jumped off the roof and went after the robberies in the store.
"Please, Mikey. Stop calling me that." Arcee groaned under her breath, before she hopped over the edge and followed her brother.
Inside of the store, two of the crooks, one of which was tall and thin guy with the shaven face and brown bush-like hair, and who was dressed into a greenish gray trench coat and bluish knit cap, and the other one was shorter with the pot belly, hunchback posture and he had the mustache. He was wearing the gray pants with suspenders, a brown jacket and green cap on his head, were taking all kinds of electronics off from the shalfs and loaded them into the shopping cart, while the guy in the orange shirt, brown hair, clean beard and glasses opened the cash register and started to take money out of it and put it all into the bag. The crooks kept doing this until Mikey busted in through the front door and Arcee jumped into the store through the broken window.
"Hold it right there, crooks!" the turtle in pink warned as she took a battle-ready pose.
"Beware, evildoers! Turtle Titan and Turtle Sis Titan are in the house!" Mikey declared, holding his cape dramatically in front of him in Batman-style as he entered in the store.
However, all three crooks ignored the two turtles, never even acknowledging their presences. They just kept doing what they were doing.
"Well, so much for striking fear in the hearts of criminals." Mikey said with the shrug.
"Nah! Better this way than them laughing at us until they got stomachaches." Arcee said sarcastically.
Nonetheless, Mikey and Arcee got to work to round up the crooks. Arcee went to the two crooks and grabbed them by the colars of their coats and pulled them away from the shelfs while Mikey grabbed the third crook from the cash register and pushed him against the wall, with Arcee pinning her crooks to the wall, one for each side of Mikey's crook. However, none of the three crooks reacted to this in any way, which only Arcee noticed and found it confusing, while all Mikey was too busy to make himself heard by them.
"Once again, the name is Turtle Titan!" Mikey declared threateningly. "Remember it, 'cause as of now, your name is..." Mikey cut himself off when he looked up at the poster on the wall behind the crook, and was left confused when the guy in the poster looked exactly like the crook, realizing that the thief in middle of the two others was actually this shop's owner!
"Crazy Manny?!" the turtle in orange gasped in shock.
"What?!" Arcee Arcee gasped and compared the faces of Mikey's crook and the guy on the poster and noticed the similarity immediately. Arcee's eyes then turned to the crooks eyes and she realized that they were glowing the ominous yellow, just like that teen's and that family's eyes before. "Those eyes! Those glowing eyes again! Just like the previous people's eyes!"
"What the shell is going on in here?!" Mikey exclaimed in confusion.
Suddenly, the eyes of the shop's owner, whose name was apparently Manny, returned back to normal, as did the other two crooks' eyes. All three of them put their hands over their heads and shook it to get the sleepiness off their heads.
"What? What's going on?" Manny gasped, looking frantically around him.
"What happened? How did we ended up here?" one of the crook in Manny's right, the tall and thin one, gasped, looking confusedly around.
"Don't know. The last thing I remember, we were back in our own hut in the alley and then we ended up in store we were planning to rob tonight." the other crook in Manny's left, the short one, said.
All three of them then noticed Mikey and Arcee standing in front of them and all three of them instantly freaked out.
"HOLY...!" the tall guy gasped and backed away.
"What the hell?! What kinds of freaks are you?!" the short guy asked frantically.
"Oh, my gosh! Please don't hurt me! Take anything! I got a family!"Manny panicked and pleaded frantically.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy there, Manny. We're not breaking into your store." Mikey assured. "The fact is, that you were breaking into, with these two."
"And this one even said that you were planning this robbery for tonight." Arcee added, scowling at the short guy, who smirked nervously.
Manny looked at the other two people on either side of him. "What are you talking about?! Why would I do that?! I don't even know these guys!"
"That's what we'd like to know." Mikey said.
Suddenly, something crawled over all three people's shoulders that caught both Mikey's and Arcee's attentions. Something that looked like the red mechanical beetles with the glowing yellow eyes.
"Agh! What are those things on your shoulders?!" Arcee gasped at the sight of them, as the bugs hopped off Manny's and two crooks' shoulders to the floor and crawled towards the open doors.
"Well, one thing's sure, those things don't look like part of your inventory, Manny." Mikey said as the bugs disappeared outside.
Suddenly, a couple police cars pulled up in front of the store with the sirens wailing. Unexpectedly, Many started to wave his hands up and call for help.
"Blasted! Cops!" the short crook groaned.
"OFFICER, IN HERE! SOME NUT-JOBS ARE TRYING TO RIP OFF MY STORE!" Manny shouted.
"Ugh! C'mon! Not again!" Arcee groaned under her breath.
Mikey looked panickedly around, especially when the doors of the police cars were opened and then slammed to shut, indicating that the officers would be here within few minutes. The crooks, or at least thew taller one, seemed to panicking at the sight of the police car standing right in front of the store.
"We have to get out of here, quickly!" the tall crook panicked.
However, the shorter and more hardened crook had the other ideas, as he quickly took out the penknife from his coat's pocket and folded the blade out.
"There's no way I'm going back to the jail!" he said determinedly, before he turned to Manny, grabbed him roughly by his shoulder and held the knife on his throat. "You! Tell the cops to back off and stay outside, or I'll slit your throat!" he threatened, much to Manny's horror.
"Oh? Uh, well... I guess that will do too." the tall guy shrugged, before he decided to follow his friend's example by taking out the penknife out of his trench coat's pocket and folded the knife out, before he grabbed Many from his shoulder and held his own knife at his face. "Tell the cops to back off or... uh... I'll, I'll scalp you!"
"AGH! NO!" Manny gasped in horror and was about to obey the crook's demands, until...
"OFFICERS!" Arcee suddenly called for Manny. "MIND TO STAY OUTSIDE FOR THE TWO MORE MINUTES BEFORE COMING IN?! THERE'S AN INNOCENT LIFE IN DANGER!"
Manny, the crooks and Mikey tilted their heads as they looked at Arcee in confusion. But before the short crook could react, Arcee suddenly turned around and punched the crook in the face with the right straight, knocking his lights out and making him to both drop his knife and let Manny go. Arcee then grabbed from the crook's arm with bith hands, turned around and flung him over her shoulder and over the checkout counter. The crook groaned as he landed roughly flat onto his back to the floor.
Manny and the tall crook gasped in shock after seeing Arcee taking out the short crook. The tool crook released his grip from Manny's shoulder, dropped his knife and tried to turn around and flee the store from the back exit, but before he could, Mikey quickly grabbed from his coat and pulled him back till he was standing in front of him. Then the turtle in orange knicked the crook in the chest with his left foot, knocking him down and next to his downed friend.
Manny watched all of this going while leaning harder against the wall, petrified from the shock and fear, but he still managed to shout for help from the top of his lungs.
"HELP! HELP! POLICE!" Manny shouted.
Knowing that they got no time to explain themselves further to panicstruck Manny, and not wanting to be held at gunpoint again by the cops who'd never understand them, let alone bothering to listen to them, Arcee quickly started to push Mikey towards the back exit.
"Mikey, we need to go!" Arcee said urgently, pointing at the back exit.
At the same time as the cops stormed into the store, Mikey and Arcee quickly darted to the back of the store and ran out through the back exit. Manny blinked his eyes in surprise at the two turtles' swiftness but managed to catch the small glimpse of them before they disappeared outside. Two cops knelt over the knocked out crooks to apprehend them while two others ran after Mikey and Arcee throught the back exit but were too late to stop them as the two ninja turtles had already vanished from the scene.
However, outside of the store and unnoticed by the cops, the same three red mechanical beetles that had detaches from Manny's and the crooks' necks and had crawled out of the store down to the street, were standing next to the parked police car and looked up at the store, as the police officers were questioning Manny for the course of the events at the store's front door.
###
Elsewhere, inside of the building that looked like a long-abandoned warehouse, which was reshaped into a secret hideout, on the circle-shaped platform was standing a rather sinister and skeletal looking figure with the glowing yellow eyes. He was wearing a red technological suit with the wires hooked up from above, along with the reddish-purple helmet, shoulder pads, gauntlets and shin guards in his insect-like legs.
The figure cackled evilly as he followed the events at Crazy Manny's Electronics, recoreded by the camera built in one of the mechanical beetles back there, from one of the various screens that were hanging above the platform he was standing on.
"Ha, ha, ha! My mind control bugs are a success, despite the interference of those two caped fools." the figure cackled.
One of the mechanical bugs then crawled at the figure's feet, which the figure picked up and held it up in front of his face as he eyed it with the sinister pride.
"One more field test to see how far I can push my helpless puppets. Then I will take control of my true target." the figure smirked, before he looked down. "He shall be the perfect addition to my own personal and ever-growing army of my little puppets. MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAA!" The figure raised his arms up and laughed evilly.
(Camera pulls away from him)
As the figure kept laughing, his platform was surrounded by the dozens and dozens of people packed inside of the lair as what he called his own personal army. All of them were just standing motionlessly still, with their eyes glowing yellow - just like that teenager boy's, that couple's and their baby's and Manny's - while wearing the blank looks on their faces as if they were nothing but a mindless zombies!
TO BE CONTINUED...
TRIVIA
1) = Achilles' heel is a specific weakness or vulnerability that might lead to failure. It is demonstrated her - both canonically and in this story - that Mikey's weakness that led to his failure to be seen as a hero in the public eyes is both his slight over-confidence, his humanoid turtle appearance and the sad truth that the surface people are unable to ever understand the turtles' difference to them.
2) = Mr. Nosy here is my OC character, of whom I gave the brief introduction during the intro song in the previous episode - "and third large, muscular, slightly hunchbacked, broad-shouldered and big-nosed guy with the thick eyebrows, shaven face, protruding lower jaw, who was dressed in the checkered blue-white shirt, red black-spotted bow tie, dark purple suit and a small dark blue bowler hat on top his head" - His short appearance here is the slight tease to the upcoming original episode I've been planning for my OC turtles after this saga, where Mr. Nosy will definitely make an appearance.
3) = Arcee's superhero name, according to Mikey is TURTLE SIS TITAN.
4) = Arcee's superhero outfit is based both on Batman's Robin's outfit, as well as to the suit Raphael wore in one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 shorts. See it from YouTube video TMNT 2003 Shorts - Funny Cartoons.
Author's note) = Mikey and Arcee rescuing the family of jumpers, father, mother and one year old baby daughter, from falling down to their deaths from the building is both based on and the reference to the similar scene from Disney Pixar film The Incredibles, where Mr. Incredible saved the jumper from falling to his death. The only difference here is, while the film's jumper's attempt to commit suicide was intentional, the family here were all mind-controlled, including the baby.