animegamefanatic: Indeed, kinda needed to add the fact that the crystals have the semi-sentient mind of their own - as Donnie pointed out that their structures were like the brain cells - and that they were giving the linked vision to Mikey and Angel as a warning of the dark side of the Underground City and its resident, which the two will point out much later in the story.
=Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003=
=Notes From the Underground Part 1, Part 3=
A while later, the turtles and Angel were still running away from the rolling boulder that kept coming towards them all, with nothing able to stop it.
"Man! Don't you hate when this happens?" Mikey complained as they ran.
"What?! That we keep finding ourselves in trouble after trouble every moment, wherever we go?!" Mary questioned, looking at her brother over her shoulder.
"PRECISELY!" Mikey exclaimed.
"Well, to be truthful, taking a note of how crazy our lives sometimes are, it's kind of becoming a routine!" Mary commented in matter of fact.
The turtles and Angel picked up their speed to gain a head start on the boulder and soon reached the end of a tunnel that opened into a vast underground chasm with an underground river flowing at the bottom.
However, once at the edge of the cliff, the turtles and Angel skidded to stop when Raph, who was in the lead, spotted something ahead of them.
"Oh, great!" Raph greaned sarcastically when they spotted that the bridge, that used to connect the both sides of the chasm, was broken. "The bridge is out!"
"Wait! That's the man-made bridge!" Angel gasped as she noticed that the bridge wasn't naturally formed up from the earth's stone but rather build by the man's hand. "What is the man-made bridge doing this deep in undergrounbd?"
"Can't worry about it now, Angel!" Dom said. "We got a bigger problems right behind us!" the turtle in white added as the rumbling sound in the tunnel, which was the rolling boulder still chasing them, was getting closer.
"What are we going to do now?" Mikey asked worriedly.
Raph took quickly a grappling hook and rope out of his backpack and began to spin it over his head, while the others looked behind them in the tunnel as the rumbling sound was getting even closer.
And then, their eyes went wide with dread when the boulder appeared from around the corner and came straight towards them.
"Here it comes!" Louie shouted.
"And it's getting closer!" Arcee screamed.
"Hurry, Raph!" Donnie urged.
Raph then threw the grappling hook over the chasm, where it swung around of the rock in the other side thrice and dug into it as Raph pulled from the rope to test it if it would hold.
"Grab on!" Raph told them as he held the other end of the rope for his siblings and Angel.
One by one, the turtles grabbed the rope, starting from Arcee following Raph, then Mikey, then Louie, then Leo, then Dom, then Mary and finally Donnie, and they prepared to swing over the edge.
"Angel! Grab on me and hold on tight!" Louie said to Angel while gesturing to his shell.
Listening to her boyfriend this time instead of claiming to be able to take care of herself, Angel hurried behind the turtle in black and wrapped her arms tightly around him before she braced herself for a swing over the edge of the ledge.
"Are you ready, Angel-cake?!" Louie asked, glancing at her over his shoulder.
Angel, looking at him in the eye, nodded her head firmly. "Ready as you are, Louie." she added.
Louie gave her a one last smile before he turned to Raph. "We're ready, bro!"
"On the count of three!" Raph said and began to cound. "One... Two... THREE!"
"COWABUNGAAAAAAAA!" Mikey yelled as they swung over by the rope, just when the boulder was about to hit them and knock them off the bridge and into the chasm.
"AHH!" Donnie yelped, because due to him being in the very rear of the row, the boulder was very close to hit him when it rolled over the end of the part of the bridge they were on, but he swung safely out of its reach.
"WHOAAAAA!" the turtles and Angel screamed as they swung against the cliff face below this side's part of the bridge, leaving them dangling there from the rope as the boulder fell into the bottom of the chasm.
"MIKEY, DIDN'T I ALREADY TOLD YOU!" Raph hissed. "NO MORE THAT COWABUNGA-STUFF!"
"JUST START CLIMBING UP THERE ALREADY!" Dom demanded irritably from below.
As Raph, Arcee and Mikey started climbing up the rope, Angel took a moment to peer down over her shoulder while holding tight from Louie's shell.
"Wow!" Angel gulped upon realizing how far down the river was.
"HANG ON, ANGEL!" Louie told her as the turtle in red began climbing after his siblings.
However, the combined weight of the eight turtles and Angel proved to be too much for the grappling hook to hold and caused it to slowly slip off from around the rock.
Suddenly, the grappling hook got loose and swung off around of the rock once before it barely caught the hold of it again.
"AAAHHHH!" the turtles and Angel screamed in surprise and horror as they momentarily began to fall down into the chasm before the grappling hook caught a hold again and yanked the rope hard upwards, cutting off their fall but also nearly causing half of the turtles to loose their hold of the rope.
"WOW!" Angel yelped when she too very nearly lost her own hold from Louie's shell and only barely managed to hold on from it.
"It's slipping!" Raph realized.
"Now what?!" Mikey asked.
"We can't just stay here! We have to get to that ledge before the grappling hook comes loose for good and casts us down into the chasm!" Arcee told them.
"But how?!" Mikey asked again.
Raph began to think quickly for some kind of way to get all of them out of this, looking alternatively up at the slipping grappling hook and down at his family dangling from the rope, which swung left and right alternatively.
Thinking this over, Raph finally got an idea and placed his legs against the wall.
"LEO! DOM! MARY! DONNIE!" the turtle in red called. "WE'LL ROCK YOU GUYS BACK AND FORTH! THEN ON MY SIGNAL, CRACK THE WHIP! READY?!"
Following Raph's instructions, Arcee, Mikey and Louie, plus Angel, placed their legs against the wall, ready to move.
"READY!" his siblings and Angel called up to him.
"ON THE COUNT OF THREE: ONE...!" Raph began to count as he, Arcee, Mikey, Louie, and Angel kicked themselves off the wall before landing back against it, rocking the rope and the others on it backwards while the others rocked the weighted end of the rope forward and away from the cliff face.
"TWO!" Raph counted as he, Arcee, Mikey, Louie, and Angel kicked off the wall again and rocketed the rope and others, who helped from below, back and forth again, but this time they began to rise higher on either end of the swinging.
"AND THREE!" Raph finished counting as he, Arcee, Mikey, Louie, and Angel rocked the rope and the others back one more time, before all nine rocked the rope forward with all of their combined effort and much harder, which flung the weighted end of the rope higher upwards, taking the turtles and Angel with it at the same time as the grappling hook came loose from the rock.
Letting go of the rope one by one, the turtles and Angel flew then upwards, flipping over the bridge, and then landed safely on the ledge one by one, starting from Donnie, then Mary, then Dom, then Leo, then Louie and Angel, then Mikey, then Arcee, and lastly Raph.
"Wow! Gee! That was close!" Angel panted, relieved, as she let go of Louie.
"You alright, Angel-cake?" Louie asked from her.
"If you mean now that we no longer have large rolling boulders chasing us and that there is safe, solid ground under my feet again... well, I'm a little shaken again by disbelief that we're not yet dead even by this point." Angel told him. "But otherwise, I think so."
"Still not wanting to quit the journey further and return back to the surface where it might be much safer than being down here?" Dom guestioned from both of them, with his arms crossed and wearing the smug "I told you so" look on his face. "I told you Angel should've stayed behind, bro."
Both Louie and Angel scowled at him for his words.
"Will you, please, stop that?!" Louie hissed through of his gritted teeth.
"Only when you admit that it was the mistake from you to bring Angel along with us on this hourney in the first place." the turtle in white shot back, pointing an accusing finger at his brother.
"Never!" Louie stubbornly argued. "And I didn't drag her down here in the first place! Angel herself volunteered to come along and I gave her the chance unlike you! So put that into that tight skull of yours already!"
"LOUIE! DOM! Not the good time or place to start arguing about that!" Mary snapped as the turtle in turquoise jumped between her bickering brothers to stop the argument.
During of that, Mikey walked up to the edge of the ledge and peered down into the chasm. "I love a little excitement first thing in the morning."
"Does anybody want to explain to me something?" Raph asked as he looked to the other side of the chasm. "Like how the shell are we gonna get back with those things playing bowling for turtles?"
"Good question, Raph." Arcee agreed, as Donnie walked ahead behind of them. "Going back the same way through those things is going to be problematic, mark my words."
"Hey, guys! Look at this!" Donnie called, as he took the crystals out of hig duffle bag, which lit up and echoed again.
The other turtles turned around and walked up to their brother, and were suprised to find their brother standing in front of a room that was built into the side of the mountain, with two big metal doors standing wide open.
"What did you find, Donnie?" Mary asked.
"Not to make things worse but you'll notice these doors were forced open, from the inside." Donnie said as he showed the others the huge dents in the doors and how they were bent at a weird angle. "Something was trying to get out."
"Oh, that doesn't make things worse," Mikey said sarcastically, before the pure panic entered in his voice. "It makes things horrifying!"
"Shh!" Leo shushed with his finger behind him before he pushed Mikey forward as the turtles and Angel walked through the door.
Once inside, the turtles and Angel looked around to notice that the room is some kind of underground laboratory, where there was in one corner the row of tank tubes - with several of them smashed, in another corner was some tables similar to operating tables, in third corner the generator that had taken the beating with the clawmarks in it, there were several monitor screens on one wall, several damaged cages in the fourth corner, and in the middle of the whole place was a ring-shaped control center.
"Anybody got a clue what this place is?" Raph asked.
The turtles and Angel then took off their backpacks and dropped them to the ground as they moved onward to investigate.
"You want a wild guess?" Mikey asked from Raph.
"No." Raph answered after the moment of silence.
"Well, what do you think, Mikey?" Angel asked as she turned to him. "Which part of the horror movie you think we are?"
"In a scene where the main character finds himself in a mad scientist's creepy lab, where the mad doctor has gone so nuts that he has decided to play God and create something horrible that the mad doctor has locked away. Then the main character makes some horrible mistake that sets the mad doctor's creation on the loose and upon him." Mikey described.
Angel then looked around the lab, finding it a quite unsettling for her taste.
"This is no longer a lab, Mikey." Louie said gravely. "It's a tomb."(1)
"Why do you say so... AHH!" Mikey gasped when he looked upon the floor of the lab.
The other turtles looked on in shock at the lab floor being littered by the skeletal or even mummified remains of the human beings!
"Shell! Talk about it, Louie." Dom said as he and Mary knelt down to inspect the corpses. "This indeed is like the graveyard."
Mary took the look at the three corpses and the difference of their condition, seeing that one corpse was torn apart, and left in strange angle, while the second corpse had its other half gone while the remaining bones looked like melted together.
"Most of them have been torn limb by limb, or partially melted into nothingness." The turtle in turquoise said before moving to feel the third mummified corpse with her hand, before blinking her eyes in surprise. "And this poor fellow's remains have become hard and solid... like stone."
"Indeed." Donnie said as he looked down at the corpse. "This poor fellow has become like one of those plaster casts of the victims of the destruction of the city of Pompeii."
Angel watched all this, pale with shock, until she felt herself stepping onto something that let out the breaking crack and looked down.
To her horror, she realized that she had accidentally stepped onto the partially melted skeletal remains of the human being!
"AAHHH! Eww! Eww! Eww! Eww!" Angel gasped, horrified and disgusted, and jumped away from the skeleton. "Talk about the horror of the show!"
The turtles and Angel kept looking around at the scientific equipments, with Donnie looking at the dissection table with the straps and the device towering over it.
"I'm seeing devices related to physiology, biology, genome analysis." Donnie said as the others turned to him. "My guess where we are? This is some sort of genetics lab. Whoever ran this place, they were doing research, even experimenting with mutations on live specimens."
The turtles and Angel were taken aback by this information.
"Could all of this have anything to do with those monsters that keep attacking us?" Dom asked.
"That's possible. This facility must have been built to do genetic experiments aimed at creating lifeforms adapted on surviving underground." Donnie theorized. "But the real question is who created them, and for what purpose?"
"Ooh-wee-ooh!" Mikey wailed, sounding like a ghost.
The others groaned in annoyance with their brother fooling around again and turned to give him a dirty looks, which made Mikey to back away slightly.
However, Mikey accidentally stepped into the yellow beam in the entrance of the control center, which triggered the alarm.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
"Uh, oh." Mikey gulped at his mistake.
"MIKEY!" they all exclaimed.
At the entrance, a pair of metal doors slided shut, blocking their way out of here.
"What did you do now!" Dom groaned in disbelief and annoyance.
"Hey! Like I knew there was some sort of living alarm set up in here!" Mikey defended.
"Guys! Look!" Arcee called, cutting Dom and Mikey short. "Over there! At the control center!"
At the center of tall panel in middle of the control center was sitting a crystal, a very similar to the two of their own though twice and half bigger, which flashed to life brightly and sent the bright beam of energy up to the ceiling of the lab.
The turtles stared up at it in shock. "What the shell is that?!" Mikey asked worriedly.
"Or more likely, what is it doing?!" Arcee corrected.
The turtles and Angel gasped when the energy beam emerging from the crystal began to spread outwards, through the laboratory equipment and right towards them all.
"What is that thing?" Dom asked worriedly as a bright blue transparent wall was closing on them.
"Looks like some kind of force field." Donnie deduced frantically.
"LOUIE! WITH ME!" Raph said as he drew out his Sais and spun them in his hands.
"Right behind you, bro!" Louie said as he drew his Butterfly swords, before he and Raph leaped towards the force field.
"Louie, be careful!" Angel called after him.
Louie extended his left leg forward to give the kick to the force field, but it had no affect to it and the still-incoming force field knocked him back, though the turtle in black landed on his feet to the floor.
Louie then tried to slice it with his left sword while Raph stabbed it with his left Sai.
However, both brothers were shocked when their weapons went right through of the field, but it pushed their hands off from their handles, making them to fall to the floor in the other side of the field as it kept pushing them back.
"What?!" Louie gasped, shocked, and backed away.
"What now?!" Raph asked, as he put his Sai away and tried to push the field back with his shell, but it kept pushing HIM back towards his siblings and Angel.
"Something's telling me, "Do not touch"." Mikey assumed.
"Gee, you think!" Raph responded sarcastically, before he jumped back to his family and Angel.
As the force field kept getting closer, the turtles and Angel backed away from it, until Donnie got tripped over. But when his legs hit the force field, it pushed him back, making the turtle in purple to roll backwards and onto his feet.
"Don! You okay!" Leo called.
Donnie put the crystals away as he got up and began pushing the force field back, but it kept pushing him back instead.
"Looks like this energy field only effects living tissue!" Donnie deduced with the strained voice.
"Too bad that's exactly what we're made out of!" Raph said as he joined his brother in trying to push the force field back.
Mary and Louie joined them in pushing the force field back as it forced them even closer of the lab's walls.
"Then why it isn't affecting to the corpses?!" Louie asked as he noticed that the force field went right through the skeletal remains without effect on them. "Ain't the bones organic material too?"
"Only 35%, bro!" Arcee called as she, Mikey and Arcee backed away from the force field towards the tank tubes. "And in this state, it doesn't really matter!"
As Mikey and Arcee circled the tank tubes from both sides, Angel found herself almost trapped between the tanks and the force field, which was getting closer fast, leaving her with too little space and too little time to try to get around the tanks. Thinking quickly and noticing the gap between the tanks behind her, Angel resoluted to try and squeeze herself through the tubes to save herself from being crushed between the tanks and the force field.
The gap between the tanks was quite narrow, though, and thus it gave Angel some difficulty getting through!
"NNNNGGGGHHHH!" Angel groaned as she managed to partially squeeze through the gap.
"HURRY, ANGEL! IT'S GAINING ON YOU!" Arcee urged.
"I'M TRYING!" Angel groaned again.
After the few and even forcibly made pulls, thanks to her more slender build compared to that of the turtles, Angel was capable to get through the gap just in time before he field reache the tanks and went straight through of them.
Elsewhere, Leo and Dom backed away until they bumped against a control station before the turtles in blue and white jumped over it, just as the force field passes over the station.
The force field then pinned the turtles and Angel against the wall.
"DONNIE! WHAT DO WE DO!" Leo asked frantically as he and Dom started pushing the force field back.
"I'M THINKING! I'M THINKING!" Donnie grunted, and so did Mary, Louie and Raph.
"Well, mind to think faster or we're all gonna be A WHOLE LOT THINNER!" Mikey advised.
All the turtles and Angel groaned as they vainly tried to push the force field back, which threatened to crush them to death against the wall.
"AHH! IT'S GOING TO CRUSH US!" Angel panicked.
"HANG ON, ANGEL-CAKE! HANG ON!" Louie called to her.
Donnie was frantically looking around to find something that would give him an idea to stop the force field before it would kill them, until his eyes landed on the...
"THE CRYSTAL! IT'S SOMEHOW POWERING ALL OF THIS!" the brainy turtle realized, before he turned to Louie and Raph. "LOUIE! RAPH! YOUR WEAPONS CAN GO THROUGH THE FIELD! AIM TO THE CRYSTAL! QUICK!"
"WE'RE TRYING!" Louie grunted as he drew his other Butterfly sword out, while Raph drew out his other Sai.
With the little space they still got left, and hoping against hope that they won't miss, which they rarely did, Louie and Raph threw their weapons right through the force field, which flew across the room towards the crystal's panel.
Louie's vertically spinning Butterfly sword hit to one of the crystal's stands, damaging it and causing the crystal to tilt slightly, while Raph's Sai penetrated the panel's machinery.
The crystal's panel began to lit up with sparkles before the bright lights flickered from the crystal across the room. And after the moment, just when the turtles and Angel were about to get crushed, the force field vanished, causing all of them to fall over to the floor, while all the light died from the crystal, and the metal doors to the room slid open again.
With the immediate threat avoided, the turtles and Angel gasped with relief as they picked themselves up.
"Whoa! That was close one." Donnie gasped as he stood up and began to walk towards the control center.
"To think that we almost ended up turtle-pancakes!" Dom panted as Leo helped him up.
"Nice throw, guys." Mary commented as she helped Louie and Raph up.
"Thanks, sis." Raph said.
Once up to his feet, Louie hurried to behind the tank tubes where Arcee and Mikey were tending Angel, before the turtle in black knelt in front of his girlfriend.
"Angel! Are you okay?!" the turtle in black said worriedly, as he gently put his left hand on Angel's back before he put his right hand under of Angel's chin and gently lifted her head up, until their eyes met.
"Yes, Lover-boy." Angel said with the relieved smile. "I'm okay."
Louie smiled back at her, relieved that she was okay, until the turtle in black sensed Dom staring at them with that "look" wrapped over his face.
"Don't even go there, bro." Louie warned through his gritted teeth.
Dom didn't say a word, though not out of indimitation of Louie's warning. The turtle in white merely shrugged in "Whatever" manner before he followed Leo as he followed Donnie, Raph and Mary towards the control center.
Louie took Angel by the hands and pulled her off the ground, before Louie helped Mikey up while Angel helped Arcee up, before they followed the others.
"Well, I guess that's the end of that." Raph said.
Louie then picked up his other Butterfly sword and Raph's Sai that had fallen through the force field earlier, before he tossed the latter back to Raph who caught it from the air.
"It's only the beginning. Look at this." Donnie corrected as he stood in front of the large monitor screen.
They all gathered around him, with Louie and Raph lastly after they had fetched their other Butterfly sword and Sai from the crystal's panel and from the other side of the room, and stared at the screen as it flashed to life.
They then gasped in shock when the image of the awfully familiar symbol flickered on it, before it became still.
"It's the sign of the Foot Clan!" Donnie gasped.
It took a silent moment from the turtles and Angel for the realization dawn to them.
"So this place was once upon a time ran by the ninja clan you guys have been battling of late?" Angel said. "Who would've thought?"
"Our typical turtle luck kicked again. Every time we hit trouble, that Foot symbol is stamped right on it." Raph complained. "What is it this time?"
"Well, isn't that obvious, Raph?" Dom asked and gestured the Foot symbol on the screen. "That's the answer to everything! The Foot's been behind of those monsters all along."
"But what were they doing down here anyway?" Mary wondered, reminding her brother about the still unanswered question. "Why did they created those abominations in the first place? And why did they abandoned this place afterwards."
"Let's find that out." Leo said.
Donnie then walked up behind of the control center and began to pressing some buttons, as the others turned to them.
"Hmm. These look like some kind of archived video logs. I'll see if I can access them." Donnie said.
"Good. Maybe the logs you mentioned can give us the answers we've been looking for, and tell us what the Foot had been doing here and what happened that forced them to abandon this facility." Mary deduced.
"Exactly." Donnie said and pressed some more buttons. "There! Prepare to witness what happened here about, according to these logs... four years ago."(2)
The turtles and Angel then turned back to the screen, which showed the recording of the lab itself, where there was working the bunch of Foot Technicians, the same humanoid androids they had faced that night at the South Street Seaport when they retrieved the Sword of Tengu from the Foot's hands, as well as some human scientist, all of whom were wearing the dark blue lab coats and the high-tech collars and helmets over their heads.
And then in front of the screen appeared the lead Foot Geneticist, who was much fatter than the rest and who had the greenish-pale skin.
"Day one, project commences. Master Shredder believes his enemies have taken refuge underground. Our Foot soldiers have been unable to locate them..."
The screen then showed the three human test subjects, one man, one woman and one little girl, who were all strapped on the dissection tables, with both android Foot Technicians and human scientist standing around them.
"... so the genetic division has been directed to mutate kindly volunteering human subjects, so that they can explore deeper into the center of the Earth." the Foot Geneticist explained off-screen.
The people on the tables looked around frightened, before one of the Foot Technicians at each table took the shackle-like metal things with the tubes linked to them and strapped them around the subjects' arms. And then some green substance was pumped into the test subjects' arms.
"NO! NO! PLEASE! PLEASE, DON'T DO THIS!" the man begged, struggling.
"LET US OUT! WE WON'T TELL ANYONE! PLEASE!" the woman begged.
"NO! I DON'T WANT TO! I DON'T WANT TO!" the girl screamed panickedly, eyes streaming with tears.
"The subjects appear to be in some discomfort, but this is a... minor annoyance." the Foot Geneticist assured with cruel indifference.
The Foot Technicians and human scientists looked down at the three people as they began to struggle even harder when the substance that had been pumped into their systems began to take effect.
"NO! NO! NO! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAARRRRHHHH! AAAARRRRHHH! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH-GGGGRRRRRRRR!" the man screamed in pain, as his hand turned into a clawed hand and his face turned into a saber-toothed monster, while his agonizing scream was turned into the feral growl.
"NO! PLEASE! PLEASE! DON'T DO THIS! DON'T DO THIS! WE WON'T TELL ANYONE! I SWEAR, WE WON'T TELL ANYONE!" AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH-SCREEEECCCCCHHHHH!" the woman begged, before her own face turned into a monstrous and her screams became the hellish shriek.
Seeing this, the horrified little girl began panic even more.
"NO! NO! NO! NO! I DON'T WANT TO! I DON'T WANT TO! MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! NOOOOOOOOOO-GGGGRRRRRRRRR!" the girl shrieked in horror before she painfully transformed into something despicably hideous, with her screams turning into a feral growl as well.
The turtles and Angel appalled, horrified, disgusted by these three poor souls' horrific transformation and the Foot's callous disregard towards their agony and horror.
"Aahhh!" Angel gasped in horror, putting her hands over her mouth, unable to believe what she was seeing.
"Ah! Poor people." Leo said, feeling sorry for them.
"How can they?!" Arcee said, tears in her eyes. "This is so horrible!"
"I can't believe it! "kindly volunteering"? "Minor annoyance"? This is making me sick!" Dom said, disgusted.
"Those monsters used to be... originally... the people?" Mary said in disbelief.
Raph gritted his teeth and clenched his fists in anger. "Curse on that Shredder! HE'S AN INHUMAN MONSTER!"
"This is starting to get really weird." Mikey gulped.
"Starting?" Louie questioned.
The screen then showed another video.
"Day 345: The experiment appears to be a success. Though the subjects are exhibiting reduced intelligence." the Foot Geneticist explained.
The screen showed all nine monsters, the same nine that had been tormenting the turtles ever since the subway tunnel encounter, inside of the same tank tubes that stood in the corner of the lab, full of the greenish fluid.
There was then static on screen, and then time jumps forward to another video, which showed the Foot Geneticist looking at the screen with his face drenched with the sweat, while other Foot Technicians and the human scientist were observing the monsters in the tank tubes.
"Day 575: The creatures are showing signs of instability." the Foot Geneticist explained as he showed the blue monster clawing viciously the glass of its tank while growling angrily at the technicians and scientist who backed away. "Becoming easily angry and vicious."
Donnie then joined the others as they watched the screen showing all nine monsters rampaged inside their tanks, trying to break out.
"Certain aspects of the experiment must have gone horribly wrong! Have we attempted too much in developing this unnatural life form? Perhaps there are some things..."
"Man was never meant to tamper with./Man was never meant to tamper with." the Foot Geneticist and Mikey said at the same time.
The others turned to him afterwards. "That's the one line in a monster movie you don't want to hear!" Mikey told them.
"Shhh! Guys!" Mary said as the screen showed another video.
They turned back to the screen, which showed the blues monsters, both identical copies of each other, spitting the green acid against the wall, and they were joined by a yellow dragon-like monster that spat liquid blue fire at the wall. Both substances melted two holes in the wall, and the blue molten rock-like substance that the dragon-like monster spat out quickly solidified at the bottom edges of the opening it had created.
"After the creatures were deemed ready to be released, through the generous use of shock restraints, the creatures have been trained to retrieve evidence from their explorations." the Foot Geneticist explained.
The dragon-like monster then crawled through the hole it had created, followed by the emerald praying mantis-like monster, turquoise Dinosaur/Dog-like monster and the grayish-white mole-like monster. And from the hole the blue monsters had created, the red scorpion-like monster walked through at first, followed by the gray rock-like monster, including its smaller version, and both the big and small blue monsters followed in the rear, jumping through like the bugs.
All monsters were shown to be wearing the white high-tech collars around their necks. Likely the shock restraints the Foot Geneticist mentioned.
Some of the monsters, such as the dinosaur/dog-like monster, the mole-like monster and the small blue monster stopped and refused to go onward, the collars showed the red light and immediately shocked their wearers with electrocity, making them howl and shriek in pain. It only stopped when the monsters reluctantly moved along.
Time advances, and this new video showed the Foot Geneticist smiling at the screen while the Foot Technicians and human scientist were cheering and throwing their arms in the air behind him.
"Day 699: The project is a success! Our creatures have found evidence of habitation underground, which has been turned over to Master Shredder. I've been told he is quite pleased." the Foot Geneticist said.
The screen then showed another video, which showed the Foot Geneticist sitting by the computer, looking quite disappointed as he banged his fists against the panel.
"Day 733: The settlement we found is not what Master Shredder was searching for. We did yet some searches from that area and even deeper, but we haven't found anything." the Foot Geneticist explained as he walked up to the screen.
"And so, Master Shredder has pronounced the project a failure. We have been ordered to shut down the operation, and the creatures to be put down to dispose of the evidence of our existence in here." the Foot Geneticist explained.
"To be put down", like an animals? Weren't they even trying to make any attempt to change them back?" Angel asked, disgusted.
"It's the Foot operation done in the name of the Shredder, Angel. What'd you expect?" Dom said, pointing out that everything what they have witnessed has been done through of illegal and highly inhuman manner.
However, the turtles and Angel were unaware that the metal door of the closet in the corner of the lab opened slightly, careful not to make any sound, and then from the darkness of the closet, an eye appeared in the crack of the door and secretly watched them from there.
The eye then went wide upon the sight of the turtles' appearances, before it pulled back in the darkness and closed the door.
Klank.
The small noise of the metal door closing, however, reached into Louie's ear, catching his attention and making the turtle in black turn around to where he had heard the noise coming from.
His eyes landed on the closet's door, making Louie to narrow his eyes suspiciously.
The rest of the turtles and Angel kept staring at the screen, which showed another video. This time, much to their shock, it showed the lab being in total chaos. The whole facility was wrecked and trashed, with fires everywhere, and the air was full of the panicked and horrified screams, as the Foot staff was shown to be running for their lives.
"The creatures have somehow managed to free themselves! Maybe they were more intelligent that we ever dreamed!" the Foot Geneticist screamed.
In one flashing screen image.
As two Foot Technicians ran out of the lab, two other human scientist tried to flee from the advcancing mole monster that growled after them. But before they could get far, the mole monster's star-shaped nose's tentacles stretched out towards them and wrapped around of the two, lifting them up from the floor and dragging them back.
"AGHH! NO! NO!" the male scientist screamed as he squirmed in panic in the monster's tentacles.
"NO! NO! PLEASE! URGH!" the female scientist pleaded, but was silenced when one of the tentacles wrapped around her neck.
The mole monster then grabbed the screaming female scientist in its claws, but it flung the male scientist in the wide arch hard into one of the cages.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH-!" the scientist screamed, before it was cut by the sickening sound of the twisted metal bars and the breaking bones as the mole monster smashed the scientist through the cage's bars, killing him.
The mole monster then turned to the female scientist in its claws, before it forced her head and upper body into its mouth before biting her in half, its mouth becoming stained by her blood, before it swallowed the dead scientist' upper part and throwing the legs away.
In another flashing screen image.
The dinosaur/dog-like monster opened its huge mouth wide and let out the tremendous roar at the handful of scared fleeing technicians and scientist, while blocking their way out of the lab.
The monster then charged at them and manages to bites down on one of the technicians' upper-body, lifting him off the floor and violently shakes him around, killing the technician before it flung his broken and destroyed body aside.
The other technicians and scientist flee from the lab in terror while the monster's attention was in the technician it was killing, before the monster turned around and chased them down in the tunnel, roaring after them.
In the third flashing screen image.
The technicians and scientist attempted to flee as the dragon-like monster was violently trashing around in the lab, roaring furiously while knocking over the control panels, dissection tables, cages and smashing one of the tank tubes with its tail, and roaring viciously while spreading out its spiky frill.
the dragon-like monster then turned to some handful of technicians and scientist fleeing from it towards the entrance of the lab, before it reared up its head and made a sound as if it was inhaling, just before it shot its head forward and unleashed the liquid fire out of its mouth upon them.
"PWHOOOOOOOOSSSSHHHH!"
The victims screamed in pain as the flesh was burned/disintegrated off the bones of the human scientist and the technicians' humanoid-like plastic skin and the metal shell underneath was melted from around the burned and short-circuited machinery, while the steaming substance solidified into stone around their remains.
In the fourth flashing screen image.
The small blue monster leaped at one of the technicians, whose arms had caught fire, causing him to panic so much that he didn't see the monster coming for him, knocking him off its feet and pinning him to the ground, with the monster landing on the horrified technicians.
The monster shrieked ferociously at the technicians face, making the technician screan, before the monster brandished its claws at him, savagely tearing through the technician's clothes and plastic skin, then penetrating his metal shell and all the way to its hidden machinery.
The small grey-stone monster joined the blue monster while it was savagely mauling the technician's face and the chest. The grey monster grabbed from the technician's leg and clamped its jaws around of it, resulting to the sickening sound of the twisting metal, before the grey monster proceeded to violently rip the leg off from the rest of the body, revealing the sparkling cables inside of the stump.
In the fifth flashing screen image.
The red scorpion-like monster had caught one Foot technician and one human scientist in its huge blood-stained claws, as the fires roared behind them.
The monster roared angrily in both of its terrified captives' faces, as they tried to struggle free of the monster's grasp. But it was hopeless, for the monster was too powerful for them. The monster then used the stingers in its back to fatally stab the technician through the chest.
"AGH!" he screamed in pain.
And after the monster pulled its stingers back, it then hurled the technician away like the rag doll.
"AAHHH!" the technician screamed as he flew across the lab to his death.
In the sixth flashing screen image.
The shrieking emerald praying mantis-like monster was terrorizing the other fleeing technicians and scientist.
The rampaging monster used its bigger one-clawed arms like the sledgehammer, banging them down on the fleeing people and crushing at least two of them to death with each strike. It also used them like deadly scythes, swinging them horizontally at the technicians and scientists and mowing them down like hay, splattering both blood and mutilated body parts as well as android machine parts all around.
And it used its smaller hands claws like the sickles, slashing them down at the people, cutting off heads, slashing them across the faces, chests or backs, and even stabbing them in the heads or through of their bodies.
At one point, it even stabbed two scientists in the back with the claws of its smaller hands, killing one instantly and mortally wounding the other, before lifting both of them off the floor with its claws. The monster moved its head close to the dying scientist's own head, as he couched blood out of his mouth and struggled to breath.
"PL-PL-PL-PL-PLEASE!" the man begged.
However, the beast growled viciously at him, before it bite down his right arm and ripped it off, causing the scientist to let out one last agonized scream, before the monster, still holding the man's arm in its mouth, threw their bodies away and continuing to chase the others offscreen.
In the seventh flashing screen image.
The Foot Geneticist then appeared on the screen, showing his clothes being torn, his high-tech equipment smashed up and the three clawmarks slashed across the left side of his face, and his eyes behind of his displaced goggles full of fear and worry.
"They – they have been manipulating us all along, waiting for their moment to escape!" he explained frantically, the sweat pouring down his face along with the blood from the gashes running over his face.
The Foot Geneticist gasped when he saw the growling monsters coming towards him in off-screen.
"NO! NO! NO! KEEP AWAY!" he screamed and ran off.
The blue monster, however, pounced onto him, and the gray stone-monster reached out its hand to grab him.
"AAAAHHHHH!" he let out the blood-curdling scream, indicating that the monsters slaughtered him in brutal way, just as the screen went fuzzy.
The turtles and Angel cringed in shock and horror, unable to believe what they had just seen.
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!" something roared from somewhere nearby, freaking out the turtles and Angel as they turned away from the screen.
Mikey, already spooked by the horrors they had seen on the screen, became so scared that he wrapped his arms around Leo as his body shook from fear.
"So, there's always one guy in a monster movie who freaks out 'cause he can't take the pressure. And I'm gonna do an impression of him right now and it goes something like this... GET ME SHELL OUT OF HERE!" the turtle in orange screamed as he sprinted towards the entrance.
"Guys, I'm really getting freaked out in here." Angel told them sincerely, feeling herself trembling uncontrollably. "So who's up to following Mikey's suit?"
"Not that I'd ever agree with him... but he's got a point." Raph admitted as he turned to the others.
Dom nodded his head in firm agreement. "Definitely! I say that we should haul our shells back to the surface immediately before those things find us from here. What do you say, Leo?" the turtle in white asked.
"Agreed. Fun's over. Let's get the shell out of here." Leo agreed.
"HEY, GUYS! OVER HERE!" Louie called.
The other turtles and Angel turned to Louie, seeing that their brother was standing in front of the closet, which door he was holding open while looking inside, with the surprised and shocked look on his face.
"WE GOT THE SURVIVOR!" the turtle in black informed.
The other turtles were shocked by these news.
"A survivor? HERE?! IN THIS PLACE?!" Arcee gasped in surprise.
"A survivor? Yeah right!" Dom scoffed with disbelief. "As if there was actually someone here who had miraculously survived with those monsters for at least a couple of years."
Arcee, however, not wanting to take any chances whether Louie was truthful or not about having found the survivor from the closet, immediately went to the doctor mode and sprinted towards her brother and the closet along with her duffel bag.
"Hey! Arcee! Where are you going!" Dom called after her, unable to believe that the little sister is actually buying that.
However, he was baffled when Angel and all the others ran after the turtle in pink.
Shaking his head with the annoyed groan, Dom sprinted after the others.
"HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING, GUYS?!" Mikey shouted frantically from the entrance. "WEREN'T WE SUPPOSED TO GO HOME THIS WAY?!" he asked, gesturing towards the door.
"KEEP WATCH IN THERE, MIKEY!" Dom told him. "LOUIE CLAIMS OF HAVING FOUND THE SURVIVOR IN THE CLOSET!"
"Survivor?!" Mikey gasped in shock and confusion.
But instead of going back to the lab to investigate the situation, the turtle in orange stayed by the door to keep watch, hoping that those monsters wouldn't find them here and that his family would make hurry in with this "survivor".
Louie moved out of the way, while holding the door open, as Arcee, Angel, Donnie, Louie, Raph, Mary and Dom gathered in front of the closet and looked inside, and were once again shocked to see that Louie had indeed been right about having "found" the survivor.
"Okay, maybe I spoke too soon." Dom admitted.
There was a red-haired woman hunched against the back wall of the closet. Her lab coat and other clothes were tattered, her long hair was messy and unkempt, her face was smeared with dirt, sweat and covered in bruises, and her left arm was hanging in the sling. She had likely injured her arm at some point.(3)
The woman looked at the turtles both in wonder, shock and almost with animal-like wariness, while her while her whole body was trembling. Likely Louie having discovered her hiding in the closet had unintentionally spooked her badly.
She held her good arm out at them, demanding them to stay back. "Please! Please! Please! Please! Please, don't hurt me! Please!"
"Where did she come from?" Leo asked from Louie as he turned to his brother.
"I don't know. I just found her from here." the turtle in black explained. "All I know that her name is Stella."(3)
"How do you know that?" Mary asked, staring at her brother with the raised eyebrow. "Did you ask her name already before you called us."
"Why to bother? It was already visible on her ID badge." Louie shrugged and pointed at the said ID badge hanging from the woman's coat, which had both a picture of her looking much cleaner and her well-kept hair tied in a ponytail at the back of her head, as well as her name "Stella".(3)
Raph, however, narrowed his eyes at Stella suspiciously.
"Well, at least we know with whom she is. Look at the shoulder of her coat." Raph snarled, motioning his head at still intact left shoulder of her lab coat, in which was branded the Foot symbol. "She was one of the Shredder's employees."(3)
After hearing what Raph had just said, and believing it to be a justifying reason why the Turtles and Angel could leave her down here, Stella instantly became even more panicky and desperate. Even though she didn't know them or whether she could trust them or not, Stella wasn't too keen to be left down here at the mercy of whatever was lurking in these underground tunnels.
"NO! NO! NO! No! No! No! Please! Please! Please, don't leave me down here! Please! Have pity on me! I've already gone through the hell down here!" Stella pleaded them. "I don't even work for him or the Foot! Not anymore! I've been abandoned here! They left me to fend for myself! Please, you gotta believe me!"
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!" another roar came from the distance, which seemed to have a negative effect on Stella.
"AAAHHHH!" she screamed like a madman in fear and pressed herself even harder against the wall.
The turtles and Angel looked over their shoulder towards the entrance.
The monsters were probably already aware of their whereabouts and were approaching quickly.
"Guys. We're running out of time. We have to get out of here." Dom told them urgently.
"But what about her?" Angel asked, gesturing to Stella.
"What about her?" Dom asked, almost with disregard towards Stella.
"We cannot just leave her here." she added, for she had began to feel sorry for this poor woman despite her being the Foot employee.
"She's from the Foot, Angel! She's the enemy!" Raph reminded her with the disgusted snarl. "She's the Shredder's employee! She's one of those people who inhumanely created those things in the first place!"
"Raph is right, Angel?" Dom said, backing his brother up. "And given our long and bloody history with the Foot Clan, including what they have done in here, why should we give the shell on any of them, including her?" the turtle in white questioned.
Angel scowled at the turtles in red and white for their callous disregard for this woman just because she's the Foot Clan's employee.
"You heard my bro. Angel." Raph said, pointing his thumb at Dom. "We don't give the shell on the Foot Clan, which she is part of."
Angered over this, Angel was just about to give him some piece of her mind, until...
"NOT TODAY SHE IS!" Arcee snapped angrily in Raph's face as she got in between of him and Angel. "Today she is both a survivor and my patient! And as a doctor, I say that she will also be treated as such! We'll help her!"
Arcee's eyes met then with Leo's, and the turtle in pink made it clear to him with the silent eye-communication that she will not leave Tessa to fend for herself down here just like, according to her, both the Foot and the Shredder did.
Getting his little sister's message, Leo turned to the others. "She's right. We're not leaving her down her." the turtle in blue decided.
His decision was met with the mixed reactions. Angel's and even Arcee's reaction was a pure relief that they won't leave Stella down here on her own, and for the certain death, while Louie, Mary and Donnie's own reactions were a complete neutrality in this, while Raph's and Dom's own reactions were a pure shock and disbelief.
"Leo? What are you...?" Dom questioned, but was cut off by Raph.
"You can't be serious, bro!" Raph spat with disgust. "YOU'RE ACTUALLY AGREEING WITH ANGEL AND ARCEE TO HELP THIS FOOT GOON! HAVE YOU ALREADY FORGOTTEN HOW THE...?!"
"DON'T YOU EVEN GO THERE, RAPHAEL! I DARE YOU!" Leo silenced him with the sharp and harsh voice, knowing where Raph was getting at and dared him to say it out loud in his presence.
Taken aback by Leo's outburst, Raph reluctantly backed off along with Dom, before Leo took a deep breath to calm himself down.
"Even though what they did here was inhumane, that doesn't mean we should stoop to their level as well." Leo said firmly though calmer. "So, we'll help her to get the shell out of here."
"And then what?" Raph questioned. "You really think that she's going to thank us for saving her once we get to the surface? She'll likely turn on us and runs crawling back to Shredder!"
"Let's worry about that later." Leo said before turning back to Arcee. "Sis. Do your thing, but make it quick. We're leaving once you're finished."
Arcee nodded to him before she turned back to Stella, while Leo, Donnie, Dom and Mary headed back to the entrance of the lab to prepare for the journey back. Only Louie and Angel remained behind to help Arcee if needed, though Louie stayed behind solely because of Angel.
Raph too stayed behind, but only a momentarily, which he spent by casting at Stella a rather dirty look mixed with resentment and mistrust.
"Fine." he spat, before he stood back up. "But I don't have to like this." he snarled as he walked off.
Being left alone with her patient, plus Louie and Angel, Arcee walked up to Stella and knelt next to her, even though the woman quickly backed away from her and pressed against the closet's another corner.
"Easy, easy! No one's gonna hurt you. I'm a doctor... kind of." the turtle in pink assured her. "Can I see your arm? You have definitely injured it at some point. So I need to check it."
Stella stared warily at the turtle in pink. Even if she had pleaded them to take her out of here, she was still hesitant to trust her.
"I'll be careful. I promise." Arcee said in order to convince her to let her to check her arm.
Stella stared at her in silence for a some time, pondering whether she should or not let her to take the look on her injured arm, let alone trust her.
"How long do you think she has been down here all by herself?" Angel asked, tuning to Louie for the answer while Arcee focused on trying to gain Stella's trust.
"Well, according to the listed number of days in those logs, she's been down here about two years." Louie answered. "Though it is a guite miracle that she's managed to survive that long down here with those things." the turtle in black admitted.
Then, after some time, Stella let out the sigh upon her silent decision, which she demonstrated by nodding her head to Arcee and turned so that her left arm was aimed at the turtle in pink's direction.
"Thank you." Arcee thanked her and moved closer of her before she began to inspect her arm.
She slowly and carefully started at Stella's wrist and worked her way along her arm to her elbow and from there up to her shoulder. Although Stella's arm was slightly bruised, the turtle in pink didn't came across any real or severe fractures, even though Stella occassionally let out small moans of pain and breathed heavily, which only increased as she reached her shoulder.
"You don't have any fractures in your arm, but your shoulder appears to be dislocated." Arcee stated. "How did that happen, and how long it's been?"
"I was attacked in the caves and I fell in the small ravine." Stella revealed. "It was a painful hell to get out of that ravine myself with this arm. And that was about four days ago."
Arcee nodded, before another growl was heard in the distance, catching all four's attention to the doorway.
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"
"Arcee? You might wanna hurry." Louie told her as he and Angel turned back to her and Stella.
Arcee nodded again and turned back to Stella. "Look. I need to pop your shoulder back in its place so that you could use your arm again. Normally I'd give you something sedative to ease the immense pain the whole treatment may cause, but we're kinda running out of the time. Can you stand it?"
"Just do it." Stella said. "That'll be worth it if it means finally getting out of this hell-hole!"
"Alright." Arcee said and got into the position where it would be easy for her to pop the shoulder back in its place, gripping to her arm tight.
But still, Stella casted at her a skeptical look. "Are you sure you know what you're doing? You are quite young to be an experienced doctor."
"Hey. I spent ten years of my life acquiring knowledge and self-studying various medical treatment skills while performing some of them on my brother and sister many, many times over. I know what I am doing." Arcee told her.
"Listen to her. She does." Louie confirmed with no sign of sarcasm in his voice, which meant that he was serious with her claims.
Arcee then dug out the pink tovel from her duffel bag and held it in front of stella's mouth. "You might wanna bite this." she advised and put the tovel in between of Stella's teeth.
"Are you ready?" Arcee asked, to which Stella nodded as she braced herself. "Alright. Here we go. One... two... THREE!"
Arcee then pushed Stella's arm forcibly upwards with one strong pull to the spot she knew its socket was, until she and the others heard the loud "POP!" from Stella's shoulder, signifying that it went back in its place.
"MMMMMMGGGGGPH! MMUURGGH! MRRGH! MMPPPHHH! MHUNGG! MNNAGGGHH!" Stella screamed into the tovel in her mouth, before she pulled it out of her mouth. "AAAGGGHHH! AAHHH! AAHHH! AAHHH! AAHHH! AAHHH! Aahhh! Aahhh! Aahhh! Aahhh! Aahhh!"
Louie and Angel both cringed their teeth at the sound of the shoulder being pushed back into its place.
"Ouch! That gotta hurt." Angel said, instinctively touching her own right shoulder.
"Tell me about it." Louie said, indicating that he had once gone through the same process at some point in the past.
With her forehead renched in sweat and her shoulder still aching like it was on fire, Stella was breathing heavily at a rapid pace while Arcee stood beside her, tending to her.
After a short but rather agonizing moment, Stella's breathing slowly began to steady to normal pace.
"Now you need to keep my arm completely immobile and let your shoulder rest and recover. It's back in place now but it's going to be sore for a several weeks." Arcee adviced her.
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"
Arcee, Angel and Louiie then turned to the entrance of the lab again after hearing another growl, now even closer than before.
"Normally I would just let you have all the time you need to rest, but now that we're in a hurry to get the shell out of here, I'll just have to give you five minutes. Then we have to go." Arcee told her, before turning her attention to Stella's legs. "Can you walk on your own? No broken legs?"
"No... no..." Stella said weakly, shaking her head as "No".
"Well, that's good." Arcee said as if that alone had been a joy in their plight. "Remember, five minutes. Then Louie and I will help you out of here."
After letting Stella rest for five minutes, plus a couple of minutes of grace, the turtles in pink and black together gently hauled Stella up from the closet's floor and led her at a slow but steady pace towards the exit where the others - who had already picked up their backpacks from the floor - were waiting impatiently for them, with each turtle standing on Stella's either side to keep her steady, and Angel beside of Louie.
"Finally you guys decided to come!" Mikey complained, being the most frantic and impatient one out of all of them to get out of here. "I'm shaking her like I'm soon gonna pop out of my own shell!"
"Then please don't, bro." Louie called to him. "That won't be the pretty sight, unless it's to scare those monsters away."
Although Mikey wasn't exactly in the mood right now, for once, which was quite rare for him, the turtle in orange let out a small dry laugh at Louie's remark before he stifled it with a forced cough.
Raph then laid his eyes on Stella standing between of Louie and Arcee, with her head hanging down from her shoulders so that she wasn't meeting anyone's gazes, which narrowed again into the resentful scowl.
"So you finally stopped torturing her, Arcee." Raph asked from his sister rather bluntly, while still glaring at Stella. "Hopefully you weren't too gently with the Mrs. monster-creating immoral Foot-lady here, sis."
"SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH, RAPH!" Arcee snapped at her brother sharply. "Or the next time you suffer a arm injury similar to hers, I promise you I won't be a gentle-handed doctor with you at all."
"Please, do me a favor." Raph muttered sarcastically under his breath and turned away from them to the exit with Mikey.
"How is she, sis?" Mary asked.
"She'd suffered the shoulder dislocation after falling into the ravine six days prior." the turtle in pink reported. "I pushed her shoulder back in its place, but it's gonna be a while before she can use it properly again."
"Is she fit to travel all the way up to the surface?" Leo asked next.
"With the little help, and as long as she keeps her arm as immobilized as possible, I guess so." Arcee told his big brother. "It's only going to be a slower trip, though."
"Great. That's what we needed." Dom sighed curtly. "The worker of the Foot Clan as our burden to slow us down while we got the monsters in our tails."
"Still suggesting that we should just leave her here behind just because she the Foot, and then just save ourselves?" Angel shoit back to the turtle in white angrily. "And here I thought that you are far more better than them."
"And we are better than that, Angel-cake." Louie told her firmly.
"True, bro." Donnie said, backing his brother up. "While each of us has good reason to resent her for being part of Shredder's inhuman project, we don't have to be as inhuman as he is."
"Then what are we going to do with her once we reach up to the surface?" Dom asked, bringing up Raph's earlier question.
"Why, we take her to the HOSPITAL, OF COURSE, YOU SHELL-FOR-BRAINS!" Arcee exclaimed.
"Guys! Calm down!" Leo ordered. "Let's move. Donnie? Lead the way."
Louie, Arcee and Angel then picked up their own backpacks while Donnie took out the crystals from his duffel bag and lit them up to enlight their way back. Then the turtles, Angel and Stella walked out of the doors of the ruined lab and turned to the right.
However, before they could get far, something made them stop.
"Huh? Now what?" Mary said, wondering what is it why they stopped.
The wall in front of them began to shake just before two holes began to melt right through the stone. Green steam rose from one and blue flames from the other. And then, the claw came through of the first one.
The turtles gasped at that and backed away from the wall worriedly.
"Uh, oh." Donnie gulped. "I guess we all aready know what's coming out of that."
"Please, don't tell." Mikey pleaded. "I already have a bad feeling about this."
The melting then stopped, revealing the two blue near-identical monsters, both big and small, who jumped right out of the one hole, while the yellow dragon-like monster crawled through the other hole. Then the red scorpion-like monster jumped out of the blue monsters' hole next while the dinosaur/dog-like turquoise monster walked out of the other hole. Then out of the blue monsters' hole came out the small version of that gray stone monster, just before the wall was smashed down by the larger gray stone monster, the grayish-white mole-like monster and the emerald praying mantis-like monster, who were all too big to fit through the holes themselves.
The blue ones crawled along the wall before jumping down from it, and then all the nine monsters lined up, starting from the blues, followed by the dinosaur/dog- like monster, then the dragon-like monster, then the praying mantis-like monster, then the stone monsters, then the mole-like monster and finally the scorpion-like monster. The beasts stared at the eight turtles and two humans, blocking their way out of here.
Mikey grew even more worried. This was exactly like in that latest monster movie, where the heroes get cornered in the lab by the monster. And thanks to that commercial program that prevented him, Louie and Angel from seeing how the final showdown went, he wasn't very confident to the possibilities that he and his family, Angel and even Stella would survive from this showdown.
"Guys... this isn't the end of the movie, isn't it?" Mikey asked hopefully.
Before anyone could answer to that, the monsters roared/hissed/shrieked at the turtles and humans before they all charged right at them.
THE END
TRIVIA
1) = Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring reference of Boromir's quote: "This is no mine. It's a tomb."
2) = Since Foot Geneticist confirmed in the video logs that the project lasted at least two years, I decided to add another two years after the project was shut down and the monsters escaped from Foot's control. So by the time when the turtles and Angel arrived to investigate, the the former humans have been trapped underground for at least four years after being turned to monsters.
3) = Stella, the scientist, the former Foot employee and the sole survivor, was a last minute addition to this story before I had even reached the halfway of the third part of the first episode of this three-part saga, to the courtesy of the suggestion made by Girl Anime Club.