Author's Note: Been two months since my latest upload, and I apologize for taking so long. It kinda requires a lot of brainwork to write the original scenes and some changes to the certain action-filled scenes in order to increase some the real-life tension into my story.
CT311998: Yep. While Mikey was mostly focused on chasing his dreams until Crazy Manny's shop, Arcee was more observant towards their surroundings, including their rescued people's weird behavior. And yes, I gave Dr. Malignus his own personal army of mind-controlled people to command, because I kinda wanted to increase the threat he already possessed with his mind-controlling beetles.
animegamefanatic: I'm looking for to get to work with my first original episode and characters. And yes. Arcee is quite torn here. She wants Mikey to stay as a ninja, she wants what she thinks is best for Mikey, but she cannot bring herself to say out loud that she isn't fully with his hunt for the superhero career.
= TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2003 =
= THE UNCONVINCING TURTLE TITAN. PART 3=
Later, Mikey and Arcee had stopped to another rooftop to catch their breath.
Both of them were in their own thoughts: Mikey was pacing back and forth dishearteningly, unable to understand why the people didn't see him or Arcee as the heroes for their good deeds they did for them, while Arcee was glancing at the city, frowning deeply while recalling hard of the events of tonight, believing that everything that had happened in one night could be somehow linked to each other.
Suddenly, they were both snapped out of their thoughts when they hear the tires screeching, crashing sounds, ringing of the car alarms and panicked screams from down below.
"Now what?" Arcee said with almost annoyed voice.
Both Mikey and Arcee then rushed to the edge of the building and looked down to the streets and saw that there was a city bus careening out of control. It already crashed into several parked cars, denting the blue one's door in, overturned the yellow one and making it nearly hit a few passing pedestrians and pushed the red one out of its place, crumpling its front side like the crumpled paper. Both turtles stared in bewilderment at the bus as it sped down the street and straight towards other pedestrians walking across the street in the crosswalk as the traffic lights flashed green for them and red for the bus. However, the bus didn't seem to slow down, but instead sped towards the pedestrians like other men.
"Foolish driver! He's gonna ran over those innocent people!" Arcee spat.
"What's up with people tonight?" Mikey.
"We can't worry about that now, Mikey! Now we have to save those people on the bus' way before something bad happens!" Arcee said and took out her own grappling hook from her belt.
"Well, now you're starting to sound like the superhero, aren't you, Turtle Sis Titan?" Mikey chuckled.
"Only because I don't want those people to get hurt by that crazy driver, Mikey. Come on!" Arcee retorted.
"On my way!" Mikey said and took out his own grappling hook. "But remember to call me Turtle Titan when we're in the superhero action. Our secret identies, you remember?" the turtle in orange added.
"Whatever! Let's go!" Arcee exclaimed.
Both the Orange and Pink turtles started spinning their hooks for a while before throwing them away. Mikey's grappling hook wrapped around the lamppost while Arcee's own got stuck in the railing of the fire escape of the opposite building. And with the grappling hooks firmly on, both superhero-wannabes swung down and into the action.
As the bus came closer of the crosswalk, its approaching headlights caught the pedestrians' attention and they gasped in shock when they saw the bus coming towards them without slowing down. Some people quickly jumped out of the way, but some of them were petrified still and they could only cover themselves with their arms and wait the crash.
"AHHH!" one of those people, a man, screamed.
"HELP!" another one, the woman, screamerd.
"TURTLE TITAN AND TURTLE SIS TITAN TO THE RESCUE!" Mikey bellowed from the top of his lungs as the turtle in orange swung forward from the right side of the bus and lifted the man up before swinging away while Arcee simultaneously swung forward from the left side of the bus and lifted the woman as she swung away. Rescue came the nick in time as the bus drove over the spot where two people had just been standing.
As Mikey started to rose upwards, he dropped the man he rescued safely to the store's fabric canopy, that softly cut his fall short, before Mikey pulled his grappling hook back to him, spun it around and tossed it away again, wrapping it on the appartment's balcony railing before he swung down again. Arcee simultaneously ropped the lady she rescued to another fire escape, before she pulled loose her own grappling hook and tossed it away, wrapping it around of the billboard's headlight before swinging down again.
Down at the streets, people kept running to safety, while some were pulling other people out of the rogue bus' way. However, one lady with the shoulder-length orange-red hair and in the red suit suddenly rushed out of the sidewalk to the street, completely ignoring the other peoiple's cries for her to come back or warnings about the rogue bus driving towards them. The bus suddenly turned hard to the right and drove straight towards the lady, who stopped running and turned around immediately upon noticing the headlights and the approaching sound of the roaring engine and screeching tires.
"AHHH!" she screamed in horror as the buss was about to hit her.
"I GOT YOU MA'AM!" Arcee let out as she swung by and picked the lady up, both of them narrowly avoiding getting hit by the bus, as it swerved hard to the left after missing the lady and the turtle in pink.
As the bus drove past, Arcee landed to the street corner and put her down gently.
"Are you alright, ma'am?" Arcee asked softly and politely.
However, the lady ignored her and turned to look back to the rampaging bus with the horror-struck look on her face!
"MY CHILD! SOMEBODY HELP MY CHILD!" the lady beggen desperately.
Arcee looked forward, and gasped in horror herself when she realized that the bus was driving towards the five-six years old girl with the similiar hair color as the lady, who was apparently the kid's mother. The girl shielded herself with her arms as the bus kept driving towards her to run her over.
"MOOOOM!" the girl screamed.
Arcee quickly looked up and saw Mikey swinging past her, the lady and several people from above by the rope and towards the bus.
"TURTLE TITAN! THE GIRL!" Arcee yelled, before she rushed forward into action herself, followed closely by the girl's mother and several other people.
After hearing his sister's warning about a child in danger, Mikey landed on the roof of the bus at the back of it and then quickly dashed forward along the roof towards the front of the bus. Several bystanders on the sidewalk looked at him riding on the bus with wide eyes, wondering either who Mikey was and that what he was about to do.
The people then let out the collective surprised, shocked and slightly horrified gasps when Mikey suddenly threw himself forward and towards the edge of the bus's roof before somersaulting over it and then began to fall past the bus' windshield and onto the street below, causing some bystanders to think that Mikey had lost his mind and that he was about to commit the suicide by throwing himself in front of the bus from its roof.
However, before he could hit the streets, at the same time as the bus was about to hit the girl, Mikey planted his feet to the bus' front panel, just beneath of the windshield, before the turtle in orange turned to the crying girld in front of him and pushed himself with his feet off the front panel and flew forward and towards the girl with his arms spread wide.
The turtle in orange grabbed the girl, wrapping his arms protectively around her before he turned himself around in the air so that he could land onto his shell to the street while shielding the girl from the physical harm.
The landing was a bit rought, causing Mikey to let out the groan as he bounced off his landing spot and then ended up rolling forward along the street with the girl for a short time before he eventually came to stop.
In the aftermath, Mikey had suffered some scratches, bruises and road rash, and his cape was slightly torn from the middle and the edges, but he was otherwise okay.
Mikey then got up and looked back at the buss as it left the scene to continue its rampaging, before the turtle in orange turned back to the girl, who was lying on her side on the street. She was luckily spared from any kind of physical harm, but was left near petrified from the shock and a bit shaken from the near-death experience. Mikey gently picked the girl up from the ground and and put her to sit in front of him, making the quick inspection that the little one was alright.
"Are you okay, little one?" Mikey asked kindly.
The girl slowly lifted her head up and looked up at Mikey for a moment, before she nodded wordlessly.
"Yes." the little girl said shakingly. "Thank you."
Mikey smiled back down to the girl, both from the relief that she was okay and glad that she didn't freak out at the sight of him unlike the previous people... and even showed some gratitude for the rescue.
"I'm glad to hear that" Mikey told to the girl, before the turtle in orange started congratulating himself proudly. "Finallyat last someone here shows some gratitude to me for the good deed, instead of freaking out and running away screaming at the first glance at me for once."
As Mikey kept speaking absentmindedly about himself, the girl in front of him looked at the turtle in orange rather inquisitively, before she raised her hands slowly up and towards Mikey's mask as if with the intention to unmask him and see who was behind of the mask.
However, before she could, Arcee suddenly arrived to the scene and grabbed Mikey by his shoulder, urging him to get up. The turtle in pink's sudden appearance to the scene caused the girl to quickly pull her hands back.
"Come on! We have to go before all of those people will be upon us!" the turtle in pink urged. "Besides, we need to check on that bus and find out why it has gone rogue... and to stop it before anyone else gets hurt!"
Arcee pointed her finger over Mikey's head at the approaching humans, with the girl's mother in the lead, coming towards them. Mikey quickly glanced towards their way and then turned back to his sister, nodding his head hurriedly.
"Oh! Right! Right!" Mikey said hastily.
Mikey jumped back up on his feet as Arcee took after the bus and was just about to follow her, until the little girl called after him.
"Wait! Wait! Wait!" the girl called, prompting Mikey to stop and turn back to her.
"Mind if I ask? What or who are you?" she asked innocently.
Mikey grinned at the opportunity to introduce himself. Of course he couldn't tell to the girl his real identity - for the obvious reason - but at least he was capable to introduce himself as his superhero alter ego.
"Well, young lady. For my real identity, I prefer to keep it as my very own secret. I hope you understand that." Mikey started politely, standing tall and posing while holding his right palm over his chest as a way to refer himself. "But as who I am, I can only tell you a little, but you have the right and honor to know who's the good guy in the superhero costume that just saved your life, young lady." Mikey
The smile was about to break on the little girl's lips as she waited patiently for Mikey to tell her his superhero name.
"I am..." Mikey was about to say... until Arcee came from behind him and lightly slapped Mikey in the back of his head.
"I loathe myself for breaking this touching moment between of you and this young miss, but we really need to go! NOW!" Arcee said, before she rushed off.
"Uhh..." Mikey stuttered and hesitantly looked after Arcee and then back at the girl who looked disappointed if Mikey had to leave without answering her question about his identity. Mikey knew that they were in the hurry if they wanted to stop that bus from rampaging arou8nd, but he did not wanted to leave the girl disappointed.
And so, Mikey decided to make it quick, while slowly backing away from the girl."
"Uhh... You can call me... "friendly"... "neighborhood's"... TURTLE TITAN!" Mikey let out proudly, holding his fist up in the air dramatically. "And she is the Turtle Titan's loyal partner and sidekick, TURTLE SIS TITAN!" Mikey continued, pointing with his thumb at Arcee as the turtle in pink was climbing up the nearby fire escape.(1)
"SISTER! NO PARTNER! NO SIDEKICK! SISTER!" Arcee corrected.
"WAY TO RUIN THE MOOD, SIS!" Mikey complained, as two turtles reached to the top of the fire escape and vanished from the sight.
The little girl kept looking after the two turtles as they departed, before they disappeared behind of the rooftop's edge. She kept looking at the rooftop for the moment, until she was snapped out of it when her mother fell on her knees next to her.
"Oh, sweetheart! Are you alright?!" the woman asked hastily as she quickly took a look at her daughter to see if she was hurt.
"I'm okay, mom. I'm okay. I'm not hurt. Thanks to that heroic man who saved my life." the little girl assured while pointing her left hand towards the roof of the building where Mikey and Arcee had climbed.
The girl's mother was deeply relieved that to hear that her daughter was alright, and pulled her into a hug, with the little girl hugging her back. Both the mother and the girl kept hugging each other for some time, completely ignoring several other bystanders standing around them while looking around, totally baffled and astonished of what had just happened and that who were the masked heroes that saved the girl's life.
Finally, the mother and daughter broke their hug, though the mother still kept the girl in her arms, and looked down at her in the eyes.
"And so did that other one too. She saved me from getting run over by that bus, and I never even thanked her for that." the mother admitted before she looked up at the roof where her daughter had indicated their rescuers had gone. "Who they even were?"
"Turtle Titan and Turtle Sis Titan."
"What?" the mother said, looking back at her daughter in confusion." Who?"
The girl looked at the rooftop with the smile and slight admiration of her rescuer. "friendly neighborhood's Turtle Titan and Turtle Sis Titan."(1)
###
Several blocks away, Arcee and Mikey had managed to find the rogue bus again!
And as the vehicle speeded down the street while trashing wildly around, the turtles in pink and orange followed it by running along the edges of the rooftops and hopping over the alleyways between the buildings. It wasn't hard for them to keep up with it, as the bus' kept swerving with the wide curves to the right and back to the left and so on, constantly crashing into everything on its path, which quite slowed down its pace, but only for momentarily, robbing the two pursuing turtles with no chance to hop onboard.
Then the bus made the slight curve to the right, smashing through of the small newsstand on its way, before the vehicle made then a big and wide curve to the left, knocking over couple of parked cars, one of which was send flipping through of the nearby store's show window, smashing it into pieces, then knocked over the water post, releasing the water with the high pressure and knocked the street lamp off the ground, before the bus was about to make the hard turn to the right.
"Come on, Mikey!" Arcee said after noticing and anticipating the bus' movements and its hard right turn, and afterwards both she and Mikey had made another leap over the recent gap between the buildings. "Let's make the turn from her to the right, so that we can get ahead of the bus and catch it!"
"Got it, Turtle Sis Titan!" Mikey said, though using her sister's superhero name instead of her real name, which earned him the slight eyeroll from his sister.
Mikey and Arcee then turned to the direction where the bus was heading and ran towards right corner in the other side of the building, getting the short headstart before the bus turned to the same direction.
As the bus was about to drive past, Mikey and Arcee jumped off the building - but not before putting on Shuko-spikes in their hands just in case - and started to fall towards the driving bus' roof and successfully landed on it.
However, the buss driver probably heard their landing onto the roof, as the bus suddenly started to make the wide curves to the left and right in order to shake the turtles in orange and pink off. Mikey fell over the bus's skylight but grabbed from it with his Shuko-spikes as the bus kept driving recklessly.
"Whoa!" Arcee yelped, as the driver's crazy curving caused her to lose her balance and nearly sent her flying off the bus' roof, and she would've hit pretty hard to the street if she hadn't used her left hand's Shuko-spikes to grab from the edge of the roof and then her right hand's spikes to grab from the gap between of two windowns. This allowed Arcee to land on her feet against one of the windows while hanging on the bus.
Arcee then looked into the bus through of one of its windows, seeing that there was a handful of people occupying over half of the seats, screaming in fear, while the bus' driver kept driving around like a crazy! Some of the people sitting right behind the window in front of which Arcee was hanging on spotted the turtle in pink and their frightened expressions turned into a confused ones. Those people exchanged glances with one another, wondering who Arcee was or what was going on here, while couple people looked indifferent towards that matter and looked more likely pleading for help.
"Help us!"
"Please!"
Alerted by the innocent people's involvement in this, the turtle in turquoise turned to her brother.
"There's an innocent people inside the bus! We have to stop this thing before anymore lives get endangered!" Arcee told Mikey.
"Then let's get inside and stop this ride!" Mikey said, before the turtle in orange opened up the skylight and proceeded to go through of it inside the bus
Arcee then proceeded to climb along the bus' side to find the window that wasn't next to the pair of seats that were already occupied. And after finding one, behind of which was the pair of free seats between of two occupied ones, Arcee grabbed from the edge of the roof above the window with two hands and swung herself in, kicking and breaking the window open with her feet before landing to the bus' floor, at the same time as Mikey jumped in through of the skylight.
"Help! Help!" one of the bus' passengers cried, turning to two turtles while pointing at the bus driver. "The driver's gone crazy!"
"Everybody stay calm!" Arcee shouted, holding her hands up. "We'll handle this!"
"We better do it quick, because we got the iceberg right ahead!" Mikey warned, pointing towards the bus' windshields.(2)
Mikey and Arcee immediately ran to the front and looked out of windshields, realizing that the bus driver had set the bus into the collision course towards the doors of the bank at the full speed, apparently attempting to use the large vehicle as a moving battering ram to break through of it.
"Sorry, pal." Mikey apologized as he grabbed to the steering wheel. "But no one's gonna break the bank tonight!"
Mikey then turned the wheel to the right, turning the bus away from the back with the hard right turn, thus preventing the crash.
Mikey then grabbed the driver and pulled him off the seat, before he handed him over to Arcee, who put him carefully down to the floor of the bus, while Mikey himself sat on the driver's seat.
"Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain, Turtle Titan! I hope you had a nice trip but now we have arrived to our destination! Thanks you for choosing the flight of Air Gone Rogue." Mikey announced with the loud voice, before the turtle in orange hit the brake pedal with his foot to stop the bus.
"Really, Mikey?" Arcee groaned with the low voice under her breath, rolling her eyes at her little brother for acting like some kind of air flight captain.
However, even though Mikey had pressed the brake pedal completely down, nothing happened. The bus was still driving at the high speed.
Confused, Arcee turned away from the bus driver and back to Mikey. "Mik- I mean... Turtle Titan! Why are we still moving?! Stop the bus! Now!" Arcee cried.
"I'm trying! I'm trying!" Mikey cried.
The turtle in orange kept pressing down the brake padel several more times, but the bus still didn't showed any signs of slowing down.
"Something's wrong with the brakes!" Mikey said as he kept hitting the brakes. "Don't tell me that dude cut the brakes!"
After hearing that, Arcee turned back to the bus driver, as he was getting up from the floor.
"Hey, pal! Did you cripple the brakes?! What the shell, man!" Arcee chided. "What kind of maniac would now drive the bus full of innocent people with the busted brakes?!"
Arcee then grabbed from the man and turned him around to face her.
However, the turtle in pink gasped in shock when she saw the driver's eyes glowing yellow, just like all the other people previously tonight. The bus driver looked at her with the blank look on his face, though they were formed into the look of firm determination on something.
"Not again!" Arcee said.
However, her shock lowered the turtle in pink's guard, as the bus driver suddenly lifted up his right fist and punched Arcee in the face, knocking her out of his way!
"Hey, Arcee! What's going on there!" Mikey called and peeked over his shoulder to see what was going on, though this caused him mistakenly turn the bus around the corner and then drive directly towards the pier leading into the river.
As this happened, the bus driver suddenly caught Mikey by surprise by grabbing the turtle in orange into the choke hold, causing Mikey to let out a hoarse gasp in surprise.
"Hey, dude! What are you doing?!" Mikey said wheezily and grabbed from the driver's arm to get him to loose his grip around his throat.
Rubbing with her hand the sore spot in her face where the driver had punched her, Arcee got up and tried to intervene to get the driver to let go of her brother, but the crazed driver suddenly dragged the turtle in orange off the driver's seat and shoved him into Arcee, causing both turtles to fall over the steps and hit against the bus' closed doors.
After dealing with them, the driver sat back onto the seat and set the new course towards the pier, in order to get the bus fly into the river and drown everybody inside the vehicle, including himself.
"(Cough!) Hey, pal! Have you totally lost your mind?!" Mikey exclaimed in disbelief, while rubbing his throat.
"It's not his fault!" Arcee said in protest. "Look at his eyes! He's been mindcontrolled! Just like all those people previously! That's why he doesn't care what he's doing!"
"Mindcontrolled?" Mikey said, before he and Arcee climbed back up to their feet and went to the driver to inspect him.
"Manny and those two crooks earlier got some weird red mechanical beetles attached on them when they were robbing Manny's store without even realizing or knowing what they were doing." Arcee said, looking the driver from up to the down to see if he had any red beetles on him. "See if you can find one."
Mikey nodded and looked to the back of the driver's head, and immediately noticed that similiar red beetle attached to the man's neck, where the darn machine was controlling him.
"There! I found that little parasite-like mind-snatcher." Mikey sayd, before he reached for the beetle and pried it off from the man's neck.
Once the beetle was gone, the driver's eyes returned back to the normal, and he immediately lifted his hand over his head, shaking it.
"Hey? Pal? Are you okay?" Arcee said softly, trying not to freak the man out.
"Uhh... I... I guess so." the driver said a bit drowsily.
"What happened to you?" Arcee asked.
"I don't know." the driver answered. "The last thing I remember is that I was driving the bus according to routine. Then everything suddenly went dark, as if I had dozed off without me noticing... even though I just had the coffee to keep myself awake."
"Well, it's not your fault, dude. It's this fault." Mikey said, showing the driver the beetle. "You were being mind-controlled by this mechanical doohickey. But don't worry. I took it off. You and everybody else are safe now." he added, smashing the bug against one of the poles.
However, as soon as Mikey had said that, Arcee noticed from the corner of her eye that they had passed the buildings and were driving along the pier and towards the river.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" Arcee shrieked. "WE'RE HEADING RIGHT TOWARDS THE RIVER!"
The driver looked away from the two turtles towards the dead end of the pier and the river in front of them.
"She's right! WE'RE NOT SAFE!" the driver freaked out, as everybody else in the bus started to panic again. Instinctively, the driver put his foot onto the brake badel and pressed it down, but the buss didn't slow down.
"The brakes! They're... they're not working!" the driver panicked. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE BRAKES?!"
"You kinda busted them when you were under that parasite's control." Arcee said. "We have to get everybody out of the bus before we go over! Open the doors!"
The driver did as Arcee told him to do and pressed down the button that opens the bus' doors. However, much to his, the passengers' and the turtles' shock, the doors didn't open!
"What the shell?!" Mikey gasped, before he turned towards the driver. "Don't tell me you got the doors jammed!"
"AHH!" the driver panicked and put his hands over his head. "THE BRAKES AREN'T WORKING AND THE DOORS ARE JAMMED! WE'RE TRAPPED IN HERE!"
"WE ARE GOING TO DIE!" somebody screamed in terror.
Mikey and Arcee looked hurriedly around while pondering what the shell they were gonna do. Mikey immediately set his attention to the bus's door, attempting to pry them open with his bare hands, but it was futile. Mikey even tried to ram the doors open with his shell and shoulder, but after two-three attempts, Mikey's efforts left only the doors slightly dented in the middle and all its windows cracked.
Arcee then looked out of the bus' windows and noticed the passing pier poles, before she then looked down to the grappling hook and a bundle of rope she was carrying on her belt. Then the turtle in pink lifted her head up and turned to take the look at the bus' support poles that went in the line all the way from the bus' frontside to the rear, before she then took the glance at the bus' back window. Putting all these four things and their potential usage together, and after thinking it for a moment, the turtle in pink came up with the plan. It was risky plan that could possibly fail with 90% and unlikely work with 10%, but it was the all that she got with such of short amount of time.
"Everybody! We need to get everyone in the back of the bus! NOW!" Arcee said to the passengers.
However, the passengers did not move from their seats. Some of them were too petrified from fear to move, after the driver's maniacal driving and now that they were heading towards the river, while most of then exchanged the puzzled glances with one another, not really getting at what Arcee was talking about.
"GET TO THE BACK! NOW! NOWNOWNOWNOWNOWNOW! MOVE IT, DAMN IT!" Arcee exclaimed out loud.
"DO AS THE MASKED GUYS SAY!" the driver urged as he exited from the driver's seat and headed towards the back of the bus.
The people followed the driver's example and began to quickly gather to the back of the bus, while carrying the petrified ones with them.
"Thanks!" Arcee told to the driver.
"Turtle Sis Titan?! You know what you're doing right?" Mikey asked.
"I sure do... Turtle Titan!" Arcee said, before she took out her Tessens and proceed to cut several poles off the ceiling and the floor with the sharp-angled swings, leaving the severed poles with the sharp-angled tips. "Now can you bend both ends of these poles into hooks?! four with U-shapes and two with O-shapes! Now!"
Though not getting at what Arcee was planning at, Mikey obeyed nonetheless and started to bend the poles' ends into the hooks, leaving a U-shaped hooks at one end of four poles and then making an O-shaped links at the other end of the same four poles, creating out of them a giant grappling hooks, while the other two poles received O-shaped links on both ends. And as Mikey was doing that, Arcee took both hers and Mikey's ropes, cut one of the ropes in two from the middle and tied two separate ropes' ends to the makesift giant grappling hooks' links before tying the ropes' free ends into the third pole's links at its both ends. Then she repeated the same thing with the other rope and other three poles.
And after she was finished creating the 'three-section-grappling hooks', she handed one of them to Mikey.
"Put your own's middle pole behind of three-four other poles in your side of the bus, just in case the first one gets too bended and breaks from the middle or snaps off its place." Arcee directed, while putting her own's middle pole behind of several other poles in the bus' left side, before she started to move the grappling hooks towards the back window.
"Got it!" Mikey said and followed Arcee's example.
The driver and other people around them followed the turtles in orange and pink's doing curiously, but otherwise they decided to wisely stay out of the two's way so that they would not disturb them. The driver, though, looked to the front of the bus and saw that they were soon about to go over the pier and into the river.
"Uhh... I'd hate to rush you two, but can you please hurry up with whatever you're gonna do?! We're almost at the end of the pier!" the driver pleaded afraid.
"The dude has a point, Turtle Sis Titan!" Mikey said as he and Arcee were standing next to the back window while holding the makeshift grappling hooks in their hands. "Now what?!"
"This!" Arcee said, before she lifted up her right leg and kicked with it at the back window, shattering it.
"We'll throw these makeshift grappling hooks out the window! Aim them at the poles at the both side of the pier, so that the hooks can get stuck to them! And when all the ropes tightens to their maximum lengths, the middle poles will hit against those upright poles and the hooks will pull the bus back! And if both the pier poles, the bus' poles and the ropes can hold together, the bus will stop like to the wall!" Arcee explained.
"At least I hope so!" she added a bit hesitatingly.
"And... what if it doesn't?!" Mikey asked nervously. "If it doesn't work, you still got the plan B. right?!"
"Well...! If this doesn't work...! The plan B is...!" Arcee said hesitatingly, before she looked at her brother and simply shrugged her shoulders in "I dunno" style. "To pray a God to grant us a miracle, I guess!"
"Great!" Mikey groaned.
The two turtles then turned back to their current situation and their task to rescue these people.
"Everybody! Brace yourselves! This is gonna get a quite jumpy!" Arcee warned everybody standing behind them.
The people wisely heeded the turtle in pink's warning and everyone started to brace themselves for the sudden stop or something similar like that. They huddled together to wherever they could and grabbed from the backs of the seats so that they wouldn't end up flying around when the bus hopefully comes to the sudden stop. And once everyone had braced themselves, Arcee turned back to her brother.
"ALRIGHT! HERE GOES NOTHING! THROW THEM!" Arcee exclaimed.
Mikey threw his grappling hooks towards the pier poles in his side while Arcee threw her own towards the poles on her side, afterwards the both turtles braced themselves for the outcome.
As the bus kept driving along the pier, one of the hooks from each three-section-grappling hooks managed to get caught by two pier poles - one got wrapped around of one while the other one partially sunk into the other and got stuck. And as they did, they started to pull the other ends of the grappling hooks back towards the bus.
The first grappling hooks stuck with the pier poles could've pulled the hooks in the other end back inside the bus and either got them stuck around the bus' support poles or otherwise slip off around them and then fly out of the bus... if they too hadn't get caught by the next pair of the pier poles.
With all four grappling hooks stuck in the four pier poles, they all started to pull the bus back together, causing the middle section of the grappling hooks to hit against the support poles a pretty hard, that both the impact and the bus' combinet size, mass and speed caused both the first support poles and the middle sections to bent over.
However, this caused the first support poles to snap off the ceiling or the floor, thus causing the bent middle sections to hit the second poles, which ended up to bend over upon the impact too before they snapped off either from the ceiling or the floor.
When the middle sections hit to the third poles, they too ended up bending over upon impacts, but thanks to the first and the second poles which bent forms served as the hooks to hold on from the middle sections, they lowered the force of the impact at least that much that the third poles did not end up snapping off their places.
And as this was happening, the turtles and the passengers held their breaths while nervously waiting for any possible outcome of Arcee's plan, whether it was bad ands a total failure or good and total successful outcome.
However, seeing that the third poles were not gonna snap off their places unlike the first two did, which actually were holding the middle sections back to prevent them from hitting the third poles with full force enough to snap them off too, some of the passengers let out the deep sighs in relief at this, though the turtle in pink knew all too well that it was too soon to be relieved, for the roughest and crucial part of her plan was just about to come.
"It's working?" Mikey suddenly said upon seeing all of this and realizing that Arcee's plan was actually going to work.
"YAHOO! YOU DID IT, TURTLE SIS TITAN! YOUR PLAN IS ACTUALLY WORKING!" Mikey cheered up prematurely as he jumped up and threw his hands into the air to cheer at his sister's plan's apparent success.
However, instead of cheering at this with Mikey, Arcee's eyes went wide from horror after seeing Mikey standing up even though they were just entering into the rough part of the whole plan!
"MIKEY, DON'T...!" Arcee cried and tried to pull Mikey back down.
But it was too late.
When the middle sections of the grappling hooks hit the third poles and stopped there, they bent/wrapped securely around them, thus causing the ropes between the hooks (and pier poles) and the middle sections (and the whole bus) stretched to their maximum length till they strained very tight. The strained ropes pulled the buss to the sudden stop in middle of the pier as Arcee had planned, but the ropes' tension force caused the bus to jolt forward so roughly that the back of the bus sprung into the air. The jerk also knocked the screaming people inside the bus forward, causing some of them to fly over to the bus' floor or over the seats, while some of them hit against the backs of the front seats, groaning upon the impact.
And because Mikey wasn holding on from anything at the moment when the roped pulled the bus to stop, the sudden rough jolt of the transport vehicle caught the turtle in orange off guard and sent him to fly forwards and towards the front of the bus!
"AAAAHHHHHH!" Mikey screamed, until his screaming was cut short when he hit his head into one of the intact poles, causing the turtle in orange to fall to the bus' floor, knocked unconscious.
"MIKEY!" Arcee screamed in shock and horror.
And as if things couldn't get any worse, the bus' sudden jolt forward and the strained ropes pulling the vehicle backwards somehow caused the entire back of the bus to be ripped off from the center, right next to where Mikey was lying unconscious! And as the grappling hooks and the ropes pulled the back of the bus and all the people onboard backwards, the front side of the bus, with Mikey still onboard, kept going with the same driving speed towards the end of the pier.
However, Arcee had managed to move fast right after Mikey got thrown off to the front side of the bus, and the turtle in pink managed to jump onboard the front side of the bus miraculously just in time before the from the middle torn parts of the bus could've move too far away from each other that she wouldn't have even bothered to try to jump.
Once onboard, Arcee hurriedly dropped to Mikey's side, carefully lifted her unconscious brother's head up and started to gently but repeatedly slap him across his left cheek to wake him up.
"COME ON, MIKEY! WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WE HAVE TO GET OFF THE BUS!" Arcee said hurriedly, trying to keep her cool as they kept driving/sliding towards the end of the pier.
However, Mikey didn't even budge.
Arcee also peeked through of the wildshields of the bus and gasped in shock, that soon they were going over the pier and hit the water! And if they do not get out of bus immediately, they were gonna go down to the bottom of the river with the bus!
"MIKEY! MIKEY! MIKEY, OF FOR THE LOVE OF GOD'S SAKE! WAKE UP! WAKE UP, YOU LAZY SHELL-FOR-BRAINS!" Arcee, losing her cool, screamed from the top of her lungs and kept slapping Mikey across his cheek.
Still, Mikey wasn't waking up.
Arcee then raised her hand up and was just about to give her little brother a really, really hard slap across his face to make him finally wake up, but it was too late as the bus reached to the end of the pier and drove/slid over the edge! Arcee's eyes went wide when she saw the end of the pier appearing from the massive hole in the bus, and that how it towered over them as the bus was starting to fall towards the water.
And to make their situatiuon even worse, the bus was slowly starting to turn upright during the fall, with the hole side pointing downwards to the water and the front side of the bus pointing upwards, making the whole vehicle to look like the drinking cup that was turned upside down and which was just about to get sunked into the water.
Too bad to them, because the bus' doors were still jammed and that they were loosing fast both the foothold and time to break the glass of the windows so that they could get out before the bus would hit the water.
They'd be trapped inside the bus and dragged to the bottom of the river with the bus!
"OH, SHELL!" Arcee screamed and closed/covered her eyes with her hand, bracing both herself and Mikey for the impact.
However, after waiting for the impact, the hige splash and the whole interior of the bus to be filled with the water for the five-ten minutes, the turtle in pink started to confusedly wonder that what was taking so long for them to hit the surface of the river.
Arcee then cautiously dared to open one of her eyes to see that what was going on, only to open her other eye and let out the gasp in shock, confusion and amazement when she realized that they were no longer falling towards the water.
They were literally floating over the river!
"What the shell?!" Arcee gasped, looking frantically around and trying her best to figure out what had just happened.
"Hold on, you two, in there!" someone suddenly called from outside of the bus, as the vehicle turned around in middle of the river and flew straight back towards the docks.
Arcee's eyes went wide from disbelief upon recognizing that voice, and the realization of the sudden turn of the situation dawned to her.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Arcee let out when she realized what was happening.
Outside of the broken front part of the bus, Silver Sentry himself was flying beneath the bus while carrying the vehicle with his immense super strength. The super hero then floated down to the docks and gently put the bus safely back to the pier, ironically to the same one from which the bus had driven off.
And once the bus was back to the ground, Arcee hurriedly pulled Mikey out of the bus and carefully laid him down to the pier.
"Come on, Mikey! Wake up!" Arcee urged again as she knelt down next to Mikey. "Wake, up, Mikey! Don't you even dare to give me a concussion case tonight! Besides, you've hit your thick head before and a way badder than this before! Wake up, you goofball!"
However, still, Mikey remained unconscious, causing Arcee to roll her eyes and let out a silent groan of irritation.
"Argh! I guess I have to rely on the good old CPR then." Arcee said, before she shivered with disgust with the clear grimace look on her face.
However, before the turtle in pink could get to work to perform CPR on Mikey, the turtle in orange's hand was suddenly slapped over Arcee's mouth and it kept her head almost forcibly back and away from his own.
"If you mean doing that mouth-to-mouth thingy, Arcee, then forged it!" Mikey said, before he stuck out his own tongue in disgust. "Ewww, gross!"
"Mikey! You're awake! You're okay, bro!" Arcee squealed happily seeing Mikey having finally woke up from his unconsciousness as the turtle in orange took his hand away from her mouth.
Finally awake, Mikey slowly sat up from the ground, but then he let a miserable moan escape his mouth as he started to see stars in his head. The turtle in orange then leaned his elbows on his bent knees and raised his right hand to his temple, rubbing his head a little.
"Steady, Mikey. You better stay where you are and don't do anything sudden if you're still feeling dizzy." Arcee cautioned.
"Ugh, my head. Why is it always me who gets my head hit into everything?" Mikey moaned.
"Well, it was your own fault, bro." Arcee chided. "Who told you to start cheering prematurely on the bus before the sudden stop? That got the two of us nearly killed, you know?!"
Mikey then spotted the front of the broken bus standing right next to them on the pier they were on. And even though the bus' back was gone, the people that were inside the bus were nowhere in sight. The proud smile crept on Mikey's lips when he realized that they were successful in saving all those people from going with the bus to the bottom of the river.
"Well, at least we got the people rescued." Mikey pointed out. "And the jokes on you, sister! I just evaded of getting that ZBA's mouth-to-mouth thingy from you! Sucker!"
"It's CPR, Mikey. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A lifesaving procedure that is used in many emergencies, such as unconsciousness with abnormal breathing, a heart attacks or near drownings." the turtle in pink corrected with an deadpanned frown.
"And what a relief, indeed." the turtle in pink added sarcastically. "Not that I didn't want to perform the CPR on you, Mikey. It was mostly and only because I can smell your stinky breath all the way up here! Yuck! When was the last time you brushed your teeth, bro?! the turtle in pink grimaced in disgust as she waved her hand in front of her face.
Looking at Arcee and taking up to her words, Mikey lifted his right palm in front of his face and breathed in it before smelling his own breath. Immediately, Mikey turned away and stuck out his tongue in disgust!
"Blah! Point taken, sis!" Mikey said.
Both Arcee and Mikey then heard the footsteps as someone was approaching them from behind.
It was Silver Sentry.
"Are you all right?" the superhero asked.
Seeing Silver Sentry standing in person right in front of them, Mikey skipped the heartbreath.
"I... you- I mean, you're him! Central Survey! Surfer Sundry!" the turtle in orange stuttered. The turtle in orange couldn't believe that he (and Arcee) were talking to Silver Sentry himself, though in his shock and disbelief he got the name wrong couple of times, causing Arcee to facepalm herself in disbelief.
"Silver Sentry." Silver Sentry and Arcee correted at the same time.
"And it was thanks to him what saved us from drowning inside the sinking bus." Arcee clarified.
"Oh! Uhh... well... thanks for that." Mikey said to the superhero shyly.
"You're welcome. And you two are?" Silver Sentry asked.
"I am Artemisia, Arcee for short. And this goofball here is my brother, Michelangelo. Mikey for short." Arcee said, introducing herself and Mikey to the superhero.(3)
"Arcee! Remember our secret identities!" Mikey chided hastily as he stood up."
Arcee glared at her brother for still living in his superhero fantasy world, even after the two of them just narrowly escaped from the real-world incident that nearly claimed their lives.
Mikey didn't care about his sister glaring at him but turned back to the superhero, taking his own superhero posture to address the Silver Sentry like the superhero to another superhero from the movies and comics.
"I think she means... I am Turtle Titan! And this is my sidekick Turtle Sis Titan! We're a superheroes, just like you. Well, obviously, not just like you." Mikey said, as he proceeded to grab from Silver Sentry's hand and shaked it as a greeting.
"Uh-huh." Silver Sentry said, not sounding impressed, before he removed his hand. "Quite striking names you two have, considering the fact of you two of being the turtles yourself."(4)
"Huh?! Arcee gasped in surprise. "Wait! You... you already know about us?"
"Well, you don't see everyday - or every night - a giant talking turtles jumping across the rooftops away from the publics eyes, especially when you're capable to fly over the rooftops and see through the darkness with the night vision." Silver Sentry said, before he looked over the two turtles from head to toe.(4)
"You two's first night on the job, eh? the superhero assumed.
"Isn't it obvious?" Mikey asked.
"Well, sort of. How did you know?" Arcee asked on her turn.
"I've heard quite a few reports tonight about two people dressed up in capes, causing mayhem and scaring people across the city. I assume that it was you two." Silver Sentry said, frowning at the two turtles almost as if accusingly.
"Not on purpose, sir. I swear." Arcee assured, waving her hands in front of her.
"Yeah. We've been just doing the superhero stuff. You know? Saving people from the perils, stopping robberies and rogue buses and stuff. The people just doesn't see it that way." Mikey lamented.
"And for the reason, bro." Arcee said with the low voice.
Having heard enough, the Silver Sentry opened his mouth to speak some sense into the turtles in orange and pink, though mostly to Mikey while considering Arcee to be more mature of the two.
"Well, listen, uh... Turtle Titan and Turtle Sis Titan, wasn't it?" Silver Sentry asked.
Mikey answered by nodding eagerly.
"While I do admire you two's good intentions, I have to warn you that this is a dangerous occupation, not the child's game." Silver Sentry explained. "If you're not careful, someone's gonna get hurt. Most likely, you."
"Huh?!" Mikey gapped at the superhero's work, though Arcee nodded in agreement.
"No kidding, sir." Arcee agreed, glaring at Mikey. "Because someone indeed almost got hurt in that recent action scene." she added, referring to Mikey with her words before nodding her head towards the bus, referring to the recent close call incident.
Arcee then leaned closer of the Silver Sentry to whisper something to him, causing the superhero to lower his head to the turtle in pink's level.
"And that's kinda what me, my bros, sis and dad have been trying to tell him all night. Small warning though, he won't listen so easily if he gets something in his head like this superhero stuff." Arcee whispered before quickly pulling back.
Silver Sentry nodded to the turtle in pink, before he turned back to Mikey. "So heed my words, Turtle Titan. You and your sister might want to call it a night." the superhero suggested, before he turned around and took off to the sky.
However, before he could get far, Arcee suddenly remembered something and called out to him.
"Wait! One more thing!" Arcee shouted, to which the Silver Sentry stopped and turned around to listen.
"Mikey? You still got that bug-thing?" Arcee asked as he turned to her brother.
"Oh, yeah! I still got it!" Mikey said as he took the red robotic bug he previously removed from the bus driver's neck from his belt's pocket. Arcee immediately took it from Mikey's hand and held the bug up in the air.
"You need to see this!" the turtle in pink said as Silver Sentry flew back down towards the turtles.
"At first, after two incidents, we thought it was just a misunderstanding on people's part, but after these last two incidents, we have started to realize that it is much more than that. We have found these mechanical parasites attached in people's necks." the turtle in pink explained, as Silver Sentry landed back to the pier in front of them.
"Yeah!" Mikey said. "Turtle Sis Titan believes that someone's been controlling people with these things tonight. Making 'em do crazy stuff."
"Like some guy standing in the middle of heavy traffic and almost got hit by a truck, and he didn't even bothered to step out of the way even at the last second." Arcee said.
"Some family, a couple with the infant baby, making a suicide jump from the top of the high building, without them even knowing what they were doing." Mikey added.
"Making some guy called Manny to rob his own store with the couple of real crooks, and the guy didn't even realize what he was doing." Arcee added.
"And finally making that bus' driver to go rogue and driving the bus across the town like crazy, wrecking stuff and almost getting people hurt or killed." Mikey finished.
"You don't happen to know who is behind these little mind hijackers and all of this crazy mayhem?" Arcee asked, handing the bug to Silver Sentry.
Silver Sentry took the back and looked at it closely.
"Hmm. I've seen this kind of technology before." he said. "It looks like the work of Dr. Malignus himself."
"Dr. Malignus? Who's that guy?" Arcee asked, raising her brow and tilting her head to side in confusion.
"Ooh! Dr. Malignus! I've heard that guy!" Mikey said to his sister. "Very intelligent in technological stuff like Donnie, but a very bad and very crazy dude. And more of that, he's Silver Sentry's arch-nemesis!"
"How do you know that?" Arcee asked.
"From Silver Sentry comics, of course. Read them sometimes." Mikey said.
"That's true. Dr. Malignus and I do have a long history of bitter rivalry." Silver Sentry said, confirming Mikey's words. "And it seems that he has returned after our last showdown."
The superhero then turned back to the turtles. "You may have disabled it, but it's still receiving a control signal." he explained.
"Really? Where it is coming from?" Mikey asked.
"Let me see." Silver Sentry said, before he shot up into the sky and floated above the West River.
Then he turned towards the south and looked to the city, before he started to track the signal's trail by using his supersonic vision power and followed its trail by zooming his eyesight forward and looking through of the buildings with his X-ray vision. The trail led him through the city and over the East River until it reached to its source: the abandoned warehouse in the other side of the East River, next to the Brooklyn Bridge.
"And it's originating from that warehouse near the Brooklyn Bridge." he snaled, knowing that his arch-nemesis was hiding in there.
The superhero then flew down towards Mikey and Arcee.
"Let's go!" he said, before he picked Mikey and Arcee up from the pier, one turtle per arm, and flew to the sky.
"Hey! Whoa!" Arcee gasped.
"Whaaaaoooo!" Mikey gasped.
Both turtles in orange and pink moaned as they flew high above the city, as if they were gonna get sick of being so high from the ground or even comfortable rooftops.
"Whoa... I... uh... uh." Arcee muttered.
"Uh... uh..." Mikey gapped.
"Are you two alright?" Silver Sentry asked.
"Sorry. This is a first time for us." Mikey explained.
"First time of flying?" Silver Sentry inquired.
"Yeah!" Arcee said. "Usually we turtles aren't afraid of the highs due to us moving along the rooftops, high above of the street level. But being this high above of the city, even higher than the city's skyscrapers... that's a completely another thing."
"Nope! Not that!" Mikey suddenly interrupted. "I mean that this is the first super hero team-up!" the turtle in turtle declared.
"Bro! When you cut yourself some slack?!" Arcee chided.
However, when Mikey looked around, he saw that they were flying past the Empire State Building, which confused him. Said building happened to be far to the north from the Brooklyn Bridge, where the bad guy's hideout was located.
So why they were flying to the north instead of going to the south towards the bridge?
"Hey, wait a minute! Why are we flying to the north? I thought you said the bad guy's warehouse was in the other direction, near the Brooklyn Bridge, right?" Mikey asked, as Silver Sentry then landed on top of the rooftop, putting Mikey and Arcee down.
"Let's get one thing straight, Turtle Titan. There will be no super hero team-up tonight." Silver Sentry said sternly, folding his arms.
"But..." Mikey suttered in shock.
Arcee then put her hand over Mikey's shoulder. "I think what he means is that we two already did our own part, and that he will take it from here." the turtle in pink said, trying to dissuade Mikey from doing or saying something stupid and reckless.
"NO WAY!" Mikey said, swatting Arcee's arm off, before he turned back to Silver Sentry. "I've seen you getting into trouble with your enemies before in the comics because of your big ego! Don't let it blind you this time, Silver Sentry. Even you must know that there might be a trap set up for you. You need our help!"
"Mikey... shut up." Arcee growled through of her gritted teeth.
"You've got a lot of heart, kid, and I appreciate the help. But you're in way over your head. The comics and the reality are a two different things, and this is all just a reality." Silver Sentry said.
The Silver Sentry then turned around and walked away.
"You and your sister need to keep yourself safe, and out of sight, while I deal with Malignus." he added, before the superhero flew off into the sky.
"You got that, sir." Arcee said.
However, Mikey didn't agree and ran after the Silver Sentry for few paces, before the turtle in orange stopped and shouted after him.
"No, no, no, no! Wait You don't understand! I took this gig so I wouldn't have to hide in the shadows!" Mikey shouted.
However, Silver Sentry didn't either heard him or ignored him and disappeared to the city.
"Ah! What does he know?" the turtle in orange groaned.
"Trust me, Mikey, I think he is only doing this for our own safety." Arcee said.
"Sure." Mikey snorted with sarcasm.
"Well, lil' bro, I guess that this is it." Arcee said, before the turtle in pink turned around and started to walk away. "We better go back to the Lair. The others might be worried about us now."
However, the turtle in pink had managed to take just a few steps and was just about to take superhero mask off... when she suddenly realized that Mikey wasn't following her. Turning around, the turtle in pink saw that Mikey was still staring to the direction where the Silver Sentry had gone, with the determined look on his face.
"Mikey? Come one, let's go!" Arcee called to him.
"No way!" Mikey said. "I'm going after him!"
"What?!" Arcee gasped, before she rushed back to Mikey. "Didn't you heard what he just said?!"
"I did and I don't care!" Mikey asnwered. "He needs our help! Whether he wants it or not."
Mikey was about to go, until Arcee hurried in front of her brother and put her hands on his shoulders to forcibly stop him from going.
"But he is a superhero with his super strength, super durability, ability to fly and all the other kinds of superpowers! He doesn't need our help! He can take care of himself!" the turtle in pink said sternly.
Mikey stubbornly pushed his sister away from him.
"You haven't seen what I've seen from the comics when it comes to the showdowns between the superheroes and their arch-enemies, Arcee!" Mikey said. "Even the most greatest and powerful superheroes would end up into the trouble they cannot get out on their own, and that includes the Silver Sentry. Besides, we already know what Dr. Malignus is capable of because we have seen it with our very own eyes for four times tonight, he hasn't."
"He'll find that our all by himself once he gets to Malignus' hideout. And then he'll put an end to this!" Arcee countered.
"Not if Malignus is expecting for him and has set up a trap for him!" Mikey countered. "And that's why he needs our help! And I'm gonna make him at the same time to realize how wrong he was about me and my capacity of being the superhero!"
Mikey was about to eave, only for his way to be blocked again by Arcee.
"Is this whole thing of proving yourself to be a superhero like him really the worth of taking the risk of getting yourself hurt, like you did back there in the bus?!" Arcee asked sternly.
"To me and my superhero career, absolutely yes!" Mikey confirmed.
Arcee snorted and shook her head in disbelief. "By wanting to go after Silver Sentry just to prove him wrong, you're way more crazier than all those people Malignus brainwashed with his bugs." the turtle in pink chided.
"Superheroes don't go after the bad guys because they are crazy, Arcee! The superheroes to after the bad guys because it is their duty. And the Silver Sentry isnät the only superhero in the town, 'cause we're the suoperheros too. So it is our duty as well to help him to fight and capture the bad guys."
Arcee looked at her brother for a moment, before she let out an annoyed groan and rolled her eyes.
"Then maybe Silver Sentry and the guys were right about you from the start, Mikey. You've been the whole night and you're still a way over your head with this whole superhero nonsense of yours!" Arcee snapped out loud.
Hearing that, Mikey's eyes widened and he put his both hands over his mouth and gasped loudly and dramatically from the sudden shock of Arcee's words.
"Wha- What did you just say?!" Mikey said, staring at his sister still in shock.
"Do I need to repeat myself?" Arcee asked. "That you have let your silly fantasies to go over your head."
"Wh-... Why would you say such of things after everything we've been through together tonight?!" Mikey asked, sounding hurt. "I thought you were with me in this! I though you and I were the team! That you supported me and my dreams from the start! Gave me inspirations, many ideas and stuff. If not, then why are you here anyway?!"
"Because Master Splinter told me to watch after you, you goofball! That's the only reason I'm here!" Arcee snarled.
Taken aback by this revelation, Mikey looked at his big sister for a moment in silence and with his eyes wide from shock and hurt after finding out why Arcee had came to him back in the warehouse in the first place.
"So you never came to the warehouse of your own accord or for feeling sorry for me. You came only because you were told to!" Mikey asked lowly, sounding even more hurt. "I trusted you, Arcee, but you were never with me in this through the whole night! And all I got as a thanks from you was just a knife you stabbed in my shell, right?! Well, you're welcome, big sis!"
Arcee was just about to say something back to her brother, but she was suddenly taken aback when she realized what Mikey had just said to her.
"You never were with me in this through the whole night!"
"All I got as a thanks from you was just a knife you stabbed in my shell, right?!"
Knowing what those exact words meant and seeing the hurt and betrayed look in her little brother's eyes made the turtle in pink to realize that she may have... no, she had gone too far with her words and that she had unknowingly just stabbed her own brother in the back. And that was exactly what she has been afraid of the whole night.
Knowing that Mikey had got her trapped with his questions, the turtle in pink humbly withdrew herself from saying anything more right now, as her own conscience started to harshly berate her inside of her head. Breathing heavily in and out in shame and regret for her own words she couldn't take back anymore, and which were now eating her up from inside, Arcee closed her eyes shut and turned her face away from her brother's accusing glare.
"Well, I..." Arcee started meekly, rubbing her arm in shame while doing her best to find the right words.
"You what? Yes? Go on!" Mikey urged while glaring at his sister.
"I... I initially wasn't with you in this whole thing. I was just doing what Master Splinter told me to do: to watch after you and to make sure you won't get yourself hurt while you were out here doing the superhero stuff." Arcee explained. "And while hanging out here with you, this whole thing has made me to see you being lost between two paths in your life."
"Is that so?" Mikey asked, folding his arms. "So you wanted to prevent me from choosing my own path."
"Well... yes and no." Arcee started meekly. "You see, Mikey, all those "inspirations" and "ideas" that I was seemingly giving to you earlier tonight to help you to build up your superhero career, remember? Well, they were actually my attempts to indirectly sway you back to the only one and right path that is given to us: The path of the ninja, concealed within the shadows where we belongs... as turtles... ninja turtles. Well, they didn't help the way I'd hoped they would, as they just inspired you to keep going on with this whole superhero thing of yours."
"Well, I never asked you to come along to babysit me! In fact, I never asked you to come along at all! You could've at least told me the truth earlier, or you could've just stayed back at home, no matter whatever Master Splinter told you to do!" Mikey ranted angrily.
"I just couldn't do it Mikey." Arcee said back. "You're my brother! How could I have turned my shell on you just like that?"
"Well, I'm pleased to see that it bothered you one hundred percent more than stabbing me in my shell!" Mikey said sarcastically, turning away from his sister.
"OF COURSE, IT DID!" Arcee snapped angrily. "In fact, hurting your feelings like this bothered me one hundred and ONE precent more than letting you to go on your own out here!"
"Yeah, right!" Mikey snorted sarcastically, not buying Arcee's words. "How so, if may I ask? What kept you from telling me the reason of you being here sooner than now while tagging along all night?" the turtle in orange demanded.
"Well..." Arcee started, until the turtle in pink quickly halted herself, before she let out the sigh to calm herself. Then she tooka moment to think how to explain herself to Mikey to somewhat satisfy him. The turtle in pink then cleared her throat before opened her mouth to continue.
"Back at April's, she asked me whether I was against your superhero dreams or not, and I told her I was here by Master Splinter's behest while trying to indirectly sway you back to the path of ninja. But while watching you being so devoted to this whole thing, I kinda started to ask that very same question from myself as well. It was just like two voices in my head... and heart: one in my head tells me to keep trying to get through with you despite the setbacks, but the other one in my heart tells me to do what is right thing to do. And so, since you had already gone this far in chasing your dreams and you even enthusiastically included me in it without asking my opinion or even me seing either 'yes' or 'no', I kinda couldn't put myself to say "no" or that "I don't support your superhero-dreams" and stuff, for fear of hurting your feelings, which I didn't want to." Arcee explained.
"Which you did eventually... about 10-12 minutes ago." Mikey said in matter of factly.
"Well, yes." Arcee confessed. "And just like I saw you lost between two different paths, I found myself lost in between two different voices. So far I've been following the voice in my head, but only for your own good. But it has left one heavy question in my heart: that am I doing a wrong thing for not supporting you and your dreams."
"And what was April's response to all of that, I wonder?" Mikey asked, demanding to know.
"Well, April suggested that as your big sister, I should be a little more supportive of your dreams and less against it." the turtle in pink said.
Arcee didn't say anything else afterwards, implying that she was already done. So the turtle in pink remained there where she was standing while staring at Mikey's shell he had turned to her with the look of pity, sadness and guilt on her face. Mikey, however, didn't turn back to his sister, as he was still quite pissed off with Arcee for her not coming with him up here tonight for other reason than to babysit him by their Sensei's orders and to sway him back to the path he has so much wanted to shed aside for a completely new one, plus neglecting to tell him all of that until now. But even so, Mikey went over his sister's words over and over in his head for a moment. He was grateful to April for at least trying to get Arcee to be more supportive towards him and his dreams, even though that apparently didn't work, as Arcee was still following this so called "voice in her head" instead that other "voice in her heart". His anger and feeling of betrayal were lessened somewhat as the turtle in orange at least partially acknowledged Arcee's reasoning for not telling him the real reasons for being here with him sooner: her own fear of hurting his feelings like this, which she had confirmed to be the very last thing she wanted at the expense of his own little brother. However, it was still not enough to appease him fully.
Eventually, Mikey threw his arms in the air and let out a frustrated moan out of his mouth.
"Ugh! I got no time for this! The bad guys are still roaming out there and I'm waisting time here sulking!" he said, before Mikey turned around and walked past his sister, heading to the direction where the Silver Sentry had gone.
"Mikey...?" Arcee questioned as Mikey's sudden take off snapped her out of her thoughts.
The turtle in pink turned around to follow Mikey, but the turtle in orange suddenly halted in his tracks, turned back to her and held his left hand up in front of Arcee's face, halting her in her tracks, much to Arcee's surprise.
"No need to come along with me this time." Mikey said.
Arcee couldn't believe what she had just heard.
"What the shell?! You're ditching me?!" the turtle in pink exclaimed in disbelief.
"Yes." Mikey said simply. "I hereby renounce you from your duty to babysit me, Arcee... as well as from your duty to sway me back to the path of ninja."
"C'mon, bro!" Arcee protested, moving her brother's hand away from her face before looking up at him sternly. "I understand you're still pissed off with me for not telling you about my reasons being here and not for supporting you throughout the night, and I don't blame you for that, but you can't just ditch me here and go off after Silver Sentry and Malignus all by yourself?"
"You should have thought of that earlier at the warehouse before tagging with me." Mikey shot back.
"So you're all doing this out of spite and to get back at me for not telling you anything nor supporting you and your dreams?" Arcee questioned.
"Call it what you want, I don't care!" Mikey snapped. "The whole point here is that I've decided to prove myself as a competent superhero in the eyes of the citizens and the Silver Senty! And I'm going to help him catch Dr. Malignus, whether he wants to or not! But I don't need babysitters to take care of me or critics to give me negative opinions about my dreams or jokers to make the fun out of me because of this, let alone a certain shell-stabbing burdock of the sister who is so lost between the "inner voices of her head and heart" that she's totally unable to decide whether she support or opposes my dreams, but instead decided to tagg along me only because she was told to do so!"
Arcee stared at Mikey with her eyes wide open, taken aback by her little brother's frustrated speech... and by what he did call her: a certain shell-stabbing burdock of the sister!
"So I am going... ALONE! And you cannot stop me!" Mikey declared. "And don't even bother trying to, because no matter how much you'll try, sis, I've already made my mind and I'll stick to it. All you can do is to stay here or go back home all by yourself. And go ahead and tell Master Splinter that you failed him as my babysitter and that I've fully chosen this path and this path only! And let him know this there is nothing... absolutely nothing in the entire world that can change my mind about this! Nothing!
With that, Mikey turned around and walked away, leaving Arcee behind.
"Don't know why I ever even brought you here with me in the first place." the turtle in orange grumpled under his breath as he kept walking.
Arcee watched her brother's going, completely dumbfounded by his angry speech. Of course, the turtle in pink couldn't blame Mikey for being mad at her for not telling him earlier, that she didn't come with him out of supportive intentions towards his dreams, but because she was ordered by their father to watch after him. But she couldn't believe that Mikey would be that mad to coldly abandon her, his own sister, behind to go after Silver Sentry and Dr. Malignus all by himself like that.
However, Mikey wasn't the only one pissed off at her at the moment. Even Arcee's own inner voice inside her head seemed to be furious with her for just standing there while letting Mikey to walk freely - and rashly - on his own towards whatever was awaiting him at his destination in Malignus' hideout. That voice then beganto scoldingly peck Arcee from within, while telling the turtle in pink to not just stand there but to go after Mikey and stop him from doing something rash and foolish, even if he didn't want her to follow him.
This nerve-wracking nagging continued until Arcee finally got so frustrated that she began to shook her head furiously to get it clear. She was not in the mood of that right now. She already had enough of trouble dealing with her own guilt and shame for letting her own brother so dastardly down that she didn't need the cursed inner voice in her head to give her a headache on top of that.
However, there was still the inner voice of her heart that was still - and in the way more gentler way - urging her to do what is right thing, and that was to follow April's advice she gave to her back at her place, starting with reconciling with Mikey somehow.
And lucky for her, she got an idea how to do it. So the turtle in pink quickly turned back to Mikey, who had already made it to the halfway of the roof.
"Mikey?" Arcee called out ot him
However, Mikey apparently ignored her and kept walking without bothering to stop and turn around to hear her out.
"Mikey?!" Arcee called out again, louder this time.
Mikey kept walking away.
Arcee was starting to loose her cool with Mikey for ignoring her like that.
"Michelangelo?!" Arcee called out even launder, and this time with the dead serious and authoritative tone.
Still, Mikey kept walking away.
That was the last straw to Arcee.
"STOP RIGHT THERE, TURTLE TITAN?!" Arcee called out from the top of her lungs, but this time she reffered Mikey with her superhero name.
This time, Mikey's head perked up in surprise, as he realized that Arcee had just called him with his superhero name and stopped in his tracks. The turtle in orange then slowly turned around to look at Arcee, who walked to him with quick pace until she stopped where she was, leaving a small distance between of two of them.
"You're right, Turtle Titan. I cannot stop you and I cannot make you to chance your mind about this." Arcee started with the firm voice. "But neither can you to stop me from trying to help you in this."
"But Arcee, I already..." Mikey tried to protest.
"AH, AH, AA!" Arcee suddenly said while holding up her right scolding finger, cutting Mikey short, before the turtle in pink tapped her suits cowl with the letters TST in it with her left finger. "It's Turtle Sis Titan, remember?"
Mikey raised her left eyebrow, a little confused of what Arcee was playing at.
"Well, Turtle Sis Titan..." Mikey said, playing along. "I do remember that I just have renounced you from your duty a little moment ago." Mikey reminded.
Hearing that, Arcee put a wide sly smirk on her lips, before she put her hands behind her back and started to walk with slow step to step pace and with quite elegantl manner towards her brother and then past him towards the edge of the rooftop.
"Titan, Titan, Titan. I'm afraid that you're forgetting one teensy-weensy, but ever so crucial, itty-bitty little tiny detail." Arcee said with the teasing sing-song voice, before she stopped and turned around to face Mikey again.
"You did renounce me from the duty as a babysitter and from the duty to sway you back to the path of ninja. But renouncing me from my duty as your partner, you never said anything about that." Arcee reminded.
Mikey was about to retort to that, until he suddenly halted himself upon realizing that Arcee was right. He DID renounce Arcee from her duty to babysit her, and from her duty to sway him back to the path of ninja. But he NEVER DID renounce her from her duty as a superhero's partner.
"Ooh! I guess I didn't." Mikey said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Yeah!" Arcee said. "So we two are pretty much still partners in this whole case! And more than that, we're siblings. We stick together. We support each other. We have each others shells. We pull on the same rope. We fight the bad guys together. We're gonna see this thing through together. And why? Because we're a team. A team of duo. The Superhero duo. And together we'll be an unstoppable Turtle Titan force. You following me?"
Mikey was left quite shocked but also deeply impressed by Arcee's speech, while the smile slowly crept on his lips out of his bittersweet happiness that Arcee was finally listening that "inner voice in her heart" and was finally expressing her ful devotion to support his dreams. So touched he was that a single tear of joy nearly escaped from Mikey's eye, though the tuetle in orange was quick so swipe it away with his finger.
"And together we can show all those who doubt us that we are a competent and powerful superhero duo in the eyes of the citizens of New York and, most notably, the Silver Senty! So we're gonna help him to catch Dr. Malignus and put an end to his reign of terror, whether he wants to or not!" Arcee declared.
Arcee then held up her right hand for Mikey, who looked at her sister's outstretched hand, looking so surprised that he must have skipped a heartbeat.
"So, Turtle Titan... are you with me?" she asked, patiently waiting for her brother to take her hand.
Trying to find his words again, though trying to get them out proved a little harder due to the lump in his throat, Mikey replayed his sister's inspiring speech over and over in his head, while still trying to get over his shock and disbelief at Arcee's sudden newfound support for his dream and her own determination and commitment to make it come through. It was so touching, so bittersweet that several more tears of joy threatened to escape from his eyes, giving Mikey a little difficulty to quickly wipe them all away.
However, after pulling himself together again, sweeping the tears away his eyes and swallowing down the lump in his throat, Mikey put his hands over his hip and took the pompous superhero posture, before the turtle in orange took Arcee's hand with his right hand, with both of them grabbing from each other's wrists and shook them.
"I'm with you, Turtle Sis Titan!" Mikey declared with the glad and prideful smile on his lips, to which Arcee responded with the smile of her own and the nod of her head.
After reconciling, the turtles in pink and orange then let go and turned back to the direction from where the Silver Sentry had gone.
"Alright, Turtle Sis Titan. I think it's time for us to go KICK SOME DR. MALIGNUS EVIL BUTTS!" Mikey declared with the loud voice and started to ran towards the edge of the rooftop.
"YOUR GAME'S OVER, MALIGNUS!" Arcee declared and started to follow Mikey.
The turtles then took their grappling hooks and ropes from their belts before they began spinning the hooks for a moment in their hands and then they threw them away. Once the hooks were securely wrapped around something on the other side, Mikey and Arcee jumped at the same time off the roof they were on and swung themselvess on the ropes across the air above the streets, making their capes to wave in the passing wind while heading towards their next target: Dr. Malignus' hideout.
"YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAWWWW!/COWABUNGA!" Arcee and Mikey let out from the top of their lungs, making their shouting echo in the night sky. "WATCH OUT, BAD GUYS! BECAUSE TURTLE TITAN DUO IS TONIGHT ON THE JOB!"
TO BE CONTINUED.
TRIVIA
1) - Spiderman reference of "Friendl Neighborhood Spiderman."
2) - Titanic reference of "Iceberg, right ahead!"
3) - Sometimes I found it pretty odd that Silver Sentry knew Mikey's full name in "the Christmas Aliens" episode that takes chronically one and half seasons since their first meet in Silver Sentry's debut episode (unless the two have been keeping contact in off-screen ever since). So I put Arcee here to introduce hers and Mikey's whole names to Silver Sentry upon their first meeting.
4) - I also found it necessary to make Silver Sentry already aware of the turtles' existence due to his ability to fly over the buildings and the night vision ability, which I added here.