CT311998: Yes. Notes From the Undergound saga has actually been my favorite saga as well. It's kinda through of these episodes I started to watch the series when I first saw them and fell in love with them. And yes, Angel will sometimes join the turtles in their adventures, but not all of them. And as for the Scalebreath, I've removed the spiked from her tail. In this chapter, she has a couple other additions. If they don't please you, just say a word and I'll fix it, even if I'd like to keep at least one of them, but it's your borrowed character after all.
Guest: While these might be a good inspirational ideas for some Original chapters I'm planning on, I don't think that any of them might include the chemical thefts... so far at least.
animegamefanatic: Angel will occassionally accompany the turtles with their adventures but not always. And Angel will be a good street fighter, so she's not completely going to be a damsel in distress needed to be rescued. And, who knows, maybe she will learn some ninjutsu from Master Splinter just like April. And I guess that why I updated so fast was so that because I finally manage to finish my original three-part saga, and finally managed to get to Notes from the Undergound saga, I got a little carried away. And I didn't even realized how you noticed that Louie's and Dom's argument over Angel coming with them on this journey was the reference to Looney Tunes even after I had planned for their argument for a some time.
1410: I'm so glad that you like my story.
=Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003=
=Notes From the Underground Part 1, Part 2=
Later, after following down the burrowed tunnel for some time, the turtles and Angel, now each of them holding a flashlight, reached to the end of it and entered into the dark and long-abandoned tunnel, where there was some old train tracks and old abandoned subway track cars.
"What is this place?" Raph asked as he and his siblings and Angel looked around them-
"Well, what does it look like, bro?" Dom said. "Looks like a subway tunnel."
"Indeed. There's a whole network of abandoned subway tunnels, from the early nineteen hundreds down here." Donnie confimed as the turtles and Angel walked down the tunnel.
"Abandoned? Right." Mikey scoffed. "Not so abandoned anymore now that we know what's lurking down here."
"I don't think that even those creatures want to live in a place like this, Mikey." Angel said as she looked around at the abandoned train cars, the wooden supports and the ceiling itself. "This place looks so decayed that I wonder why it hasn't even caved-in yet."
Donnie then stopped when he heard noise coming from above, which made his worried.
"Tell me about it, Angel. You guys hear that creaking?" Donnie said.
Listening, the turtles and Angel heard the low rumbling coming from the ceiling, and as they pointed their flashlights up, they saw some dust falling from here and there.
"These almost a century old supports should've given out long ago." the brainy turtle said as he flashed his flashlight at the supports, which were completely rotten and barely supported the ceiling of the tunnel. "It only needs a single one but strong vibration to trigger this tunnel's immediate collapse."
"So you're saying that even one loud sound and the whole ceiling will fall upon us, right? Arcee gulped.
"Precisely. That's why I suggest we all be really, really, really quiet." Donnie cautioned.
"You heard him, guys. From now on, speak only with a low voice." Leo ordered everyone, as the turtles and Angel moved on.
However, unknown to any of them, they were being watched by the small blue monster that was lurking in the shadows on the top of one of the train cars.
And then, from the shadows emerged four other monsters next to the train car: the grey monster, the emerald monster, the big blue monster and grayish-white monster.
After the small blue monster stealthily dropped down from the train car to join them, the monsters followed the turtles and Angel silently, while plotting something.
Unaware of them being stalked, the turtles and Angel continued their journey down the tunnel for some time until they arrived at the very part of the tunnel where it was still under construction prior of being abandoned, which of course increased the risk of the potential cave-in.
"We're now in the old mines that were originally supposed to be part of the subway system before the entire project was cancelled." Donnie told them. "And the word of caution. Here the risk of the collapse is much bigger than what it was back there. So watch your steps."
His siblings and Angel heeded to his word of caution and were careful not to cause too much vibration with their steps.
"Any sign of the creatures' tracks?" Leo asked from the others.
The turtles and Angel swung their flashlights around to try to spot the creatures' tracks, until Mary came to a stop when her flashlight revealed few four-clawed footprints right in front of her feet.
"Uh... Leo? Guys? I think I found them." the turtle in turquoise as she knelt down to inspect them, while Angel and the other turtles gathered around of her.
Mary then took a handful of dust from the footprint and held it up to her face, sniffing it a bit.
"They have been here. Less than a day ago, I think." Mary reported, shaking the dust from her hand, before he gestured down to the tunnel. "And they went that way."
"Well, I guess all is fine. Let's go home, shall we?" Mikey said nervously, wanting to get out of here.
Others ignored him and carried out, following the monsters' trail deeper into the tunnel, with Mikey reluctantly following them.
And as they walked, Mikey walked up to Mikey.
"Say, Mikey. Why are you actually so spooked right now?" Angel asked as she kept walking next to the turtle in orange. "I thought that you love the monster movies and the old horror movies?"
"Well, yeah." Mikey admitted nervously. "But I don't really like it when monster movies suddenly become real and you're in the middle of all the horror and jumpscares that might come with it."
"Oh yeah?" Angel scoffed with the small laughter. "Well, if you really think that we're in some monster movie right now, then what do you make of this then?"
"Well, this is actually the very part of the monster movie where you're in the corridor of some place, the old lab facility or the abandoned spooky house for example. You're exploring the place for whatever reason you're even there, thinking that everything will be fine, and that it's just an facility/house where nothing bad will happen. And then, when you least expect it, comes the jump scare, and the monster will be upon you, with another guy never makes it alive!" Mikey described, growing even more and more paranoid and frightened.
"Oh, boy, Mikey." Angel sighed with the eyeroll. "If you really get spooked so easily like this, then maybe you really should leave the monster movies and old horror shows aside for a while."
Hearing that, Arcee turned to look at them both with the frown on her face.
"I've already been trying to tell the very same thing to him for years, Angel." Arcee said. "And every time I find him watching yet another monster movie despite my advice. So don't bother to even try to convince him otherwise."
Hearing that, Angel gave Mikey a look with the raised eye-brow. "Seriously?" This made Mikey chuckle nervously, but he still kept looking around with fear and paranoia.
After some time of following the monsters' trail, the turtles and Angel stopped dead in their tracks when the tunnel began to shake without warning and the rocks and dust began to fall from the ceiling.
"Whoa!/Huh?/Whatta?!/What's that noise?" the turtles and Angel gasped/muttered as they pointed their flashlights up in the ceiling, alarmed.
"Shh! Everybody be still!" Leo told them.
Everyone froze in place, waiting for the shaking to stop.
"Did anyone let out a sound beyond the permitted limit?!" Donnie snapped as he turned to the others.
"Nope." Leo said, shaking his head.
"Not me." Mary said.
"I haven't even spoken for a while." Louie assured.
"Don't look at me." Raph said.
"I didn't." Arcee assured.
"Me neither." Dom added.
"Nah-ah." Angel said.
"And what about you, Mikey?" Donnie asked, but didn't get the answer from the turtle in orange. "Mikey?"
Turtle in purple looked over everybody at Mikey, and whimpered with the wide-eyed horror of what he saw. Everybody else followed Donnie's gaze at Mikey, and they all let out the gasp in the wide-eyed horror.
Some of the falling dust fell on Mikey's beak, tickling his nostrils and causing the turtle in orange to be about to sneeze. "Ahh, ahh, ahh..."
"Somebody stop him!" Donnie screamed quietly. "Or else tonight's weather forecast promises really heavy rain of stone!"
Raph and Louie moved luckily quicker than anybody else and grabbed his beak with their hands before Mikey could sneeze.
"Don't you even dare, bro... not here!" Louie cautioned sharply.
"Not. The. Sound! Got it!" Raph hissed, before he and Louie let go of Mikey's beak.
"I got it." Mikey said, his hand over his beak. "Don't worry. It's gone now."
As the shaking finally seemed to calm down, for a while at least, though the rocks and dust still kept falling from the ceiling, the turtles and Angel cautiously carried on into the tunnel, though Mikey slagged behind.
However, the moment Mikey removed his hand from his beak, the small pebbles and the dust fell again on his beak, causing him to sneeze again.
"AaaaAAAAHHHH... CHOOOO!" Mikey sneezed very loudly, which echoed in the tunnel.
CHOOOO! CHOOOO! CHOOOO! CHOOOO! CHOOOO! Choooo! Choooo! Choooo! Choooo! Choooo!
Mikey's sneeze caused the rumbling vibration which shook the tunnel, causing his siblings and Angel to froze still again as the sections of the ceiling began crumbling and fall.
"MIKEY!" the turtles and Angel snapped as they turned to their younger brother.
"For crying out loud, little brother! Next time bring an antihistamine!" Raph snapped as he walked up to Mikey.
"Can't you at least sneeze quietly before you bring down the whole tunnel on us?" Dom snapped as well.
"Hey, how am I supposed to stop a..." Mikey argued, before he looked past his siblings and Angel, before he started to panic when he saw something behind them. "A huge, grotesque, and frankly quite horrifying monster?!"
The turtles and Angel looked at him as he freaked out more, unaware that the grey monster was approaching them fromt the tunnel.
"GUYS! BEHIND YOU!" Mikey screamed.
"Oh, please, Mikey!" Dom scoffed with the annoyed eye-roll. "This is not the time for the jokes. And besides, we're not going to fall into that old trick, which you should know."
However, out of all of them, Angel suddenly heard the heavy footsteps approaching them from below and looked over her shoulder to see what it was. And upon seeing the monster herself, her eyes went wide from shock and horror.
"AAAAHHHHHH! GUYS! MIKEY ISN'T KIDDING! A MONSTER! MONSTER! RIGHT BEHIND US!" Angel screamed and backed away behind of Louie.
Alarmed by Angel's sudden startle at something behind them, the turtles turned around and saw the monster themselves.
"WHOA!" Donnie gasped.
"AH!" Raph gasped.
"YIKES!" Louie yelped.
"WHAT THE SHELL!" Dom gasped.
"HOLY...!" Mary gulped.
"AHHHH!" Arcee screamed.
"AHH!" Leo freaked.
The gray monster walked out of the shadows in front of the turtles, revealing itself being like a giant walking rock. The monster then opened its massive maw and let out the tremendous roar at the turtles and Angel, making them back away from it, while the monster banged its massive rocky fists against the ground.
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"
The echo of the monster's roar and the violent banging of the floor caused the massive vibration, which shook the tunnel even more violently, causing even larger sections of rock to crumble down from the ceiling at an alarming rate.
And as if to make the situation even worse, the section of the wall on the turtles and Angel's right and the stone monster's left was forcibly busted in, and from the hole in the wall, next to the stone monster appeared another rather large and hairy monster.
This monster's fur was grayish-white like a polar bear, and its back and large arms were covered with black spikes like a porcupine. Overall, the monster looked like an oversized and grotesque star-nosed mole.
The turtles and Angel gasped at the sight of this new strange monster, as it brandished its huge broad claws wildly at them and opened its own massive maw full of huge fangs and roared along with the stone monster.
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"/"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"
The doubled efforts of the monsters' roars, as well as the stone monster's banging with its fists and the mole-like monster's wild thrashing around with its claws was too much for the century decayed tunnel, that the violet shaking caused the supports and the support beams in the ceiling to SNAP half like the toothpicks, causing the tunnel to cave-in, with the massive mass of rocks and earth falling from the ceiling.
"AHH! THE TUNNEL'S CAVING-IN!" Angel screamed.
"C'MON! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" Leo shouted.
Screaming, the turtles and Angel turned around and ran away as fast as they could as the cave-in followed right on their heels down the tunnel, threatening to catch up with them and bury them alive!
Leo briefly looked over his shoulder and gasped as the cave-in was catching up with them.
"FASTER! FASTER, GUYS! RUN FASTER!" Leo told them.
"ALL OF TIME, FEARLESS LEADER!" Raph shot back.
"WHAT'S IT LOOK LIKE WE'RE DOING?!" Dom said.
"WATCH FOR THE FALLING ROCKS!" Arcee warned.
More rocks, some small and some even bigger began to fall on their path!
"DON'T STOP! KEEP MOVING!" Leo told them.
The falling rocks forced the turtles to either go zigzagging past them, flipping over them or diving onward to avoid getting either crushed or slowed down.
"Whoa!" Donnie gasped as the turtle in purple jumped to the right to avoid the falling rock that almost landed on top of him.
"Incoming!" Louie cried as he dived onward, avoiding getting flattened into the turtle-pancake by four falling rocks than landed onto his spot, before he landed onto his shell and then somersaulted back to his feet.
A large rock landed in front of Mary, who without slowing down took out her Naginata and used it to polevault over the rock.
"Don't get crushed! Don't get crushed! Don't get crushed! Just don't get crushed!" Mikey repeatedly told to himself as he zigzagged past of the falling rocks, avoiding most of them with the step ahead, but just narrowly.
However, as Angel kept running with the turtles while avoiding the falling rocks with her best ability, she failed to notice the rock that had just fallen right on her path, not until she accidentally got tripped by it.
"AAHHH!" Angel screamed as she fell face-first over to the ground, losing her flashlight in the process.
"GUYS!" Angel called after the turtles as she tried to stumble back to her feet in a panic, but the shaking and falling rocks made it difficult. "GUYS, WAIT! DON'T LEAVE ME! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
Hearing out Angel's panicked screams, Louie skidded to stop and turned around to see that Angel had been tripped over, and that the cave-in was catching up with her.
"ANGEL!" Louie gasped with dread and ran back towards her, tossing her flashlight away in the process.
"LOUIE!" Leo gasped, as he, Dom, Arcee, Donnie and Mary skidded all to stop and noticed Louie running towards the cave-in that was threatening Angel's life.
"GO!" Louie called to them over his shoulder, seeing no point or sense for the rest of them to risk their lives, not even for them. "GO! GO! WE'LL CATCH UP WITH YOU!"
Seeing the turtle in black's point, Leo turned to the others. "GO!" Leo ordered.
Dom, Arcee, Donnie and Mary immediately turned around and kept running, but Leo, as a responsible leader, stayed behind to ensure that Louie and Angel would get out of the cave-in's way safely.
Angel had at this point managed to get on at least one knee and was just about to jump back up, until Louie finally arrived by her side.
"COME ON, ANGEL! GET UP! Louie said urgently, as the turtle in black wrapped his arms under Angel's arms and hurriedly hauled her up to her feet. And once Angel was back on her feet, she turned to Louie with the grateful smile on her face.
"Thanks, Louie." Angel said.
"Do not thank me yet, Angel-cake!" Louie told her, shaking his head, before he pointed his finger over her. "We're not in the clear waters JUST YET!"
Angel looked up over her shoulder and saw that the cave-in was getting dangerously closer of them.
"AAHHH!" she screamed in fright backing up into Louie.
"LOUIE! ANGEL! COME ON!" Leo called to them, beckoning them to hurry up.
"RUN, ANGEL! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" Louie shouted, before the turtle in black grabbed from Angel's left wrist and dragged her away, right in time when the cave-in reached to their spot and buried it under the rocks and earth.
"FASTER! FASTER!" Louie urged his girlfriend as he ran at his maximum speed, while Angel struggled with her best ability to keep up with her boyfriend's pace without tripping over some other rock or accidentally tripping over her own feet and falling again.
They quickly caught up with Leo, who joined to run by their side, and they soon caught up with everybody else... but the cave-in was catching up with them as well.
"THE MOUTH OF THE TUNNEL STRAIGHT AHEAD!" Mary called out, seeing the tunnel's end right ahead of them.
"HURRY! WE GOTTA REACH THERE BEFORE WE'RE BURIED ALIVE! IT'S OUR ONLY HOPE!" Donnie urged.
"COME ONE!" Raph urged.
"FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!" Arcee urged them as well.
At the end of the tunnel, the turtles and Angel literally threw themselves out of the tunnel as it collapsed shut, with the rest of them losing their flashlights in the process, leaving all of them in the pitch-black darkness.
The collapse lifted it into the air the cloud of dust, which made the turtles and Angel to cough.
And then everything calmed down.
"Guys? Guys? Guys, where are you?! Louie?!" Angel's voice called, blindly looking around in the darkness, while trying to search for the others with her outstretched hands. "Where is everyone?! I can't see a thing!"
"Angel? I'm over here!" Louie's voice called after the moment of agonizing silence.
"Are you alright, Louie?" Angel's voice called worriedly.
"No mind about me! Are you alright?" Louie's voice said, caring more about Angel's safety and well-being than his own.
"I think so." Angel answered. "Nothing's hurt at least."
"Is everybody else alright?" Leo's voice called.
"And more than that, is anyone hurt?" Arcee's voice called, immediately going into doctor mode.
"I'm good!" Donnie's voice called.
"I'm good!" Mary's voice called.
"I'm... AAHHH! SOMETHING CAUGHT ME! SOMETHING CAUGHT ME! IT'S THE MONSTER!" Mikey's voice panicked when he felt something grabbing him in the darkness and frantically shook it off. "GET OFF OF ME!"(1)
"Relax, goofball! I ain't the monster! It was just me!" Dom's voice said, revealing that it was him who had caught him, not the monster.(1)
Mikey let out the deep sigh in relief. "Ohhh! Dom! Ohhh! Don't scare me like that! Ohhh! Ohhh! I nearly jumped out of my shell!" the turtle in orange's voice said between breaths.
"Yeah, it's good to see you too, little brother." Dom's voice muttered sarcastically, before the turtle in white began looking around. "Wherever you are by the way."
Then they heard someone bumping into something in the dark.
"OW!" Mikey's voice yelped.
"UGH!" Raph's voice groaned.
Then they heard at least two people fall with a thud to the ground.
"WATCH IT, CLUMSY!" Raph's voice hissed.
"Not my fault, Raphie-boy! I can't see a thing in here!" Mikey's voice defended.
"Raph? Mikey?" Are you guys okay?" Arcee's voice called. "I heard you near me, but I can't find You - WHOAAAA!" the turtle in pink yelped when she suddenly tripped on something and fell over to the ground.
"Let me guess. I found you, didn't I?" the turtle in pink's voice groaned.
"More likely you tripped on us, sis." Mikey's voice corrected her.
"Ugh! This just gets better and better!" Raph said sarcastically.
"Keep speaking, guys, so that I can find you!" Mary's voice called, while she ran lightly towards the voices of her siblings. "I know that you're in there somewhere - UGH!"
"WHOA!" Donnie's voice yelped.
Mary, while running blindly in the dark, had accidentally bumped right into Don who appeared out of nowhere and the turtle in turquoise knocked them both to the ground.
"Ugh! Sorry, Donnie." Mary's voice apologized.
"No problem, sis." Donnie's voice said.
"EVERYBODY STOP MOVING!" Leo's voice ordered. And as soon as everyone seemed to be standing still as ordered, Leo turned - or at least thought he was turning - to Don. "Donnie? Can you give us some light in here?"
"Yeah. It would be nice to see around without bumping into each other." Mikey's voice complained.
"It's not good, Leo. We lost all our flashlights and we don't even have any lanterns with us." Don's voice said, until the brainy turtle started to think hard how to make light in the darkness, until one thing dawned to him. "Unless... just the sec."
CLINK
Then, the cavern where the turtles were was enlightened by the bright blue glow of the two echoing crystals in Donnie's hands, which the turtle in purple had dug out of his duffel bag and connected together to create light. Only this time when he separated them, the crystals remained lit up and echoing.
"Angel!" Louie called once he was capable to see again and ran up to her.
"Louie!" Angel called and ran up to him as well.
The two then grabbed from each other's arms and examined each other for a moment for any possible injuries they may have gotten from the cave-in.
"Are you sure that you're alright?" Louie asked worriedly. "You gave me a quite scare back in there!"
"Louie, I'm not hurt. I'm fine, just a little shaken to be alive after that." Angel assured him, before she gave Louie a grateful smile. "Thanks for coming back for me."
"Don't ever even think I would leave you behind just like that, even at the risk of being buried alive." Louie told her.
Louie and Angel then wrapped their arms around each other and pulled each other into a relieved hug.
"After all, I made the promise to look after you." Louie told her. "If something bad ever happened to you under my watch, I'd never forgive myself."
"And I'd never forgive myself if something bad happened to you because of me." Angel told him.
Dom watched the two hugging each other from aside, partially admiring Louie's firm devotion to protect her but partially still disapproval of him allowing Angel to come along with them to this dangerous trip in the first place.
"Hmph! It's a miracle that even after experiencing the cave-in and almost dying from it, she's not even demanding immediately with the whiny voice to get out of here like Mikey." the turtle in white muttered under his breath.
"Well, Angel is a tough girl, Dom. Impressively tough girl, indeed." Mary told her brother, before she gestured to the tunnel. "But even if she wanted, which I think not, there's no going back this way anymore. The way is blocked."
Hearing their sister out, the rest of the turtles and Angel turned to the mouth of the tunnel that was now completely blocked by the rocks and dirt.
"You think those things survived?" Raph wondered curiously.
"Know your monsters, Raph! Those things can melt rock!" Mikey exclaimed.
"Uhhh, no. Nope. Not these ones, Mikey." Mary spoke up, making everybody to turn to the turtle in turquoise.
"How do you know, Mary?" Mikey questioned. "Remember that we're dealing with two monsters and there were two monsters in the tunnel."
"Yeah. There were two of them, alright." Mary agreed with her little brother. "But did anybody else took even the slightest notice of their legs?"
There was the series of "No./Nope./Nah, ah./I didn't." in the air as each turtle and Angel shook their heads, telling Mary that none of them took even the glance at those two monsters' legs.
"Well, the first creatures' tracks in the sewers and tunnels were small and had four toes or claws each. The feet of these two were much larger and differently shaped," Mary explained. "That stone monster had much more elephant-like feet and that mole-like monster had flatter ones like with the real moles."
"And neither that thing or that stone monster looked like they could move as fast as that one we saw on the screen." Arcee pointed out.
"So you're saying that we're dealing with more than just two monsters?" Dom asked, which Mary confirmed with the silent nod.
"Oh, thanks for the reminding information, Mary." Raph thanked her sarcastically. "Maybe I forgot that because thanks to some sneezer," the turtle in red growled as he got in Mikey's face. "I was trying not to get buried alive IN A GODDAMNED COLLAPSING SUBWAY TUNNEL!"
Raph roaring in his face in anger made Mikey back away from him nervously.
"HEY, RAPH! LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Angel shouted as she jumped between the turtles in red and orange, pushing Raph away from Mikey and standing protectively in front of him. "It's not Mikey's fault the tunnel collapsed! It was those things that brought it down on us!"
"That doesn't make me feel any better, Angel!" Raph shot back with the snarl, throwing his arms in the air.
"EVERYBODY, CALM DOWN!" Leo bellowed. "Now is not the time to lose our heads! Let's keep moving. Donnie? You got our light source. Lead the way. And everybody else, be on your guard."
Donnie nodded and turned left and walked down the next tunnel, with the others following after him.
And as they walked, Mikey ran up to Angel's side and nudged her a little to get her attention.
"Thanks, Angel." the turtle in orange thanked sincerely for her standing up for him to Raph.
"Anything for a friend, shell-for-brains." Angel said, teasingly punching Mikey in the shoulder before she kept walking.
"Hey, Louie!" Mikey called as he walked next to the turtle in black, who turned to him. "Since Angel is already taken, get me a girlfriend like her." he said half-jokingly and half-seriously.
"Yeah, right." Louie shrugged sarcastically.
###
With Donnie's lead, the turtles and Angel followed the creatures' tracks - the first two creatures' tracks they'd found from the sewers and the tunnel - down the tunnel that seemed to take then even deeper and deeper underground.
After what felt like hours, the turtles arrived to end of this tunnel that opened into a vast sunken cavern filled with the mist and the stalactites.
"Wow." Angel gasped in silent awe.
"Now what?" Raph asked.
Looking down, Donnie noticed that the creatures' tracks were leading down a cliff they were on.
"We're going down." the turtle in purple said.
"And how are we supposed to do that?" Mikey asked from his brainy brother. "I don't see any way down there."
"Duh! That's why the ropes are invented, knucklehead." Donnie reminded, before he turned to Mary as he stood closest to him.
"Mary? Hold these." Donnie said and handed the crystals to Mary, who took them from her brother's hands and held them up while the turtle in purple dug out a bundle of rope from his duffel bag. Mary then handed the crystals back to Donnie before he walking to their left.
Donnie then tied one end of the rop around the rock and tightened the knot, before he tossed the other end of the rope over the edge and, taking the lead, began climbing down the cliff, holding with one hand from the rope and with the other from the crystals.
Mary then grabbed from the rope and followed Donnie down, followed by Mikey, and then by Dom.
Louie then grabbed to the rop next, but before he began climbing down the cliff, the turtle in black turned to Angel. "Angel? Hop on." he said, gesturing his shell.
Angel, however, declined the offer. "No thanks, Louie. I can make it down myself."
Louie nodded. "Alright. But this time I'll go down first." the turtle in black said and began climbing down after the others.
Angel then grabbed to the rope and peered down over the cliff, seeing that it was a quite long way to climb down and equally quite long way to fall down if she accidentally let go of the rope or made any erroreous step. Angel then took a sharp inhale to muster her courage before she began climbing down the cliff after Louie, followed by Raph.
The turtles and Angel, however, were unaware that the same five monsters from the subway tunnel were trailing them from the shadows, with the little blue monster letting out a low growl.
"Huh?" Arcee muttered when she heard something and looked behind them, but she couldn't see anything but darkness.
Still, she could have sworn she heard something, which once again gave her that same unnerving feeling she'd felt before that those monsters were secretly watching them from the shadows they were hiding in.
"Arcee?" Leo called, snapping the turtle in pink out of it and making her to turn to him abruptly.
"You go next." the turtle in blue said as he held out the rope for her.
Arcee looked over her shoulder at the dark tunnel for one more time, before she then turned back to Leo and nodded. She took the rope from Leo and began climbing down the cliff, with Leo following closely behind.
It was quite a long and exhausting way down the cliff all the way to the bottom of the cavern.
And once Donnie reached first to the bottom, he let go of the rope and landed on his feet, before the turtle in purple rested his shell against the wall.
"Uh. I'm beat." Donnie moaned and sat down, as Mary got down next.
"Me too, Donnie." the turtle in turquoise moaned as he sunk exhausted on her rear end to the ground. "I can't go any further."
Mikey then reached the bottom next, before the turtle in orange dropped his backpack down and fell on his knees. "Ugh! Even my backache's got a backache." he groaned as he stretched his shell-back.
Dom then reached down next and collapsed down next to Donnie. "I'm sore all over. I'm likely gonna be stiff all over in the morning." the turtle in white moaned.
Louie then reached down next, and then he helped Angel down carefully as she reached the bottom.
"Finally. My legs are killing me." Angel moaned as she sat down, leaning against the wall.
"How long have we even been walking?" Louie asked as he leaned against the wall next to her.
Angel checked the time from her watch. "About four or five hours I think. It's probably a morning up there already." she said at the same time as Raph got down, and rested his shell against the wall with the heavy sigh.
Arcee then got down and sat down exhausted, and finally Leo got down and leaned against the wall next to Raph.
"No point going any further than this. Let's make the camp." the turtle in blue decided. "Who's up for the first watch? Raph? Louie?"
Raph responded to this by drawing out his Sais and beginning to spin them. "You know me, bro." he said with the smirk as he stopped spinning them.
"Shell yeah!" Louie said as he drew out his Butterfly swords. "With those things out there, I ain't gonna let Raph have all the bogeymen butts to kick."
###
About an hour or two later, while Raph and Louie were sitting against the wall side by side - with the crystals being held together by some rocks like in the camp fire so that the two could see - keeping the watch, the rest of the turtles and Angel all slept in their sleeping bags around of them.
Raph was getting drowsy and he nearly closed his eyes, if it hadn't been for Louie to nudge him in the side with his elbow to snap him awake.
"Stay awake, Raph." Louie whispered, before he let out a yawn, as he too was getting drowsy.
"Oh, yeah! Yeah! Right!" Raph said, shaking his head to stay awake. "It would be difficult to fall asleep with Mikey snoring so loudly like the chainsaw."(2)
The turtles in black and Red glanced at Mikey and noticed that the turtle in orange was indeed snoring pretty loudly.
The two let out the small chuckle to themselves, seeing the turtle in red's point.
Louie then turned to check out Angel, who was sleeping peacefully in her sleeping bag near him. Admiring his girlfriend's peaceful and beautiful faces, the turtle in black reached out his hand and gently stroke her head, making the girl to turn her head a bit and mumble in her sleep, before he went back to his watch duty.
But unknown to him and Raph, the crystals began to shine brighter light in different directions, one towards Mikey and the other towards Angel.
DREAM
Mikey, who was dreaming of being safely back in the Lair instead of hunting down the monsters in the dark underground tunnels, walked out of his room and jumped down in the middle of the Lair, only to find it strangely empty with no sign of his brothers, sisters or Master Splinter.
"Where is everyone?" Mikey asked, with his voice echoing in the dreamworld's air. "Master Splinter? Leo? Raph? Mary? Louie? Dom? Donnie? Arcee? Dom? Anybody?" Mikey called as he glanced at the Lair's Dōjō, Donnie's lab, the common area, the workshop, the kitchen, the pool, Master Splinter's room, finding all of them empty.
"Mikey?" Angel's voice called out, making the turtle in orange turn around and see Angel walking towards him from the Lair's front door.
"Angel?" Mikey gasped, sounding rather surprised that relieved that at least there was somebody.
"What are you doing in my dream?/What are you doing in my dream?" both Mikey and Angel said in unison.
However, they soon realized of what they had just said at the same time.
"Yours what?" they gasped aloud at the same time again, now very confused this time.
"I am dreaming that I am safely back in the Lair." Mikey explained to her.
"And I am dreaming that I am coming down here to see Louie but..." Angel explained, before she looked around and found the Lair completely empty.
"Where is Louie?" she asked and turned back to Mikey. "Where is everyone?"
"I don't know." Mikey answered honestly with the shrug and shake of his head.
Suddenly, the whole Lair began to spin around of them save for the middle circle, catching both Mikey and Angel off guard, frightening the latter a little.
"What's happening?" Angel asked.
"I don't know." Mikey answered the honestly. "The Lair has never been acting like this before."
The Lair kept spinning and spinning and spinning, until it finally stopped, leaving the turtle in orange and Angel facing the door of the elevator.
The two of then began walking towards it, but the closer they got the elevator's door, its symbols began to glow rapidly as if reacting to their presences.
Both Mikey and Angel looked at this, eyes wide with amazement.
Mikey then reached out to touch the door, but before he could, the doors split open, causing the blinding white light to flood into the Lair, thus forcing both Mikey and Arcee to look away and shield their eyes from the light.
But once the light vanished, they looked through the door and saw - to their astonishment and confusion - that the door didn't open to the elevator chamber but to the elevated walkway which led into the strange-looking city in middle of the massive cavern.
"What the shell?/What the heck?" Mikey and Arcee said, with the former rubbing his eyes and the latter touching her head, shaking it, hoping that they were just dreaming.
The two then walked through the door and began to walk along the walkway straight towards the city, which from a distance looked like a giant orange stone egg in a turquoise stone cup with the top cracked open, and there was some kind of tall black tower rising above the city walls, probably from the center of the city.
Once the two were inside the city's walls, they walked cautiously along the stone street that they believed was leading into the citadel, while glancing up at the city's walls, buildings and the bridges' structures and the symbols on them, which seemed to be somehow familiar.
"Wow. Where are we?" Mikey asked.
"More likely, what is this place?" Angel corrected. "And where is everyone?"
"Good point." Mikey agreed, before the turtle in orange began to call out ot somebody. "HELLOOOOOOOO?! ANYBODY HERE?"
His voice echoed through of the city, but they received no answer.
"Hmm. No answer." Angel muttered. "I guess this place is a long-abandoned."
"Maybe there is someone in that tower in the citadel." Mikey suggested. "Come on. We're nearly there."
Mikey and Angel then arrived in front of the citadel, a large black spire-shaped tower that towered high above them. Mikey and Angel remained still, staring at the tower nervously, as it looked a pretty ominous and even scary.
"I don't like this, Mikey. I don't really like this." Angel said, fearfully backing behind of Mikey's shell.
"Me neither." The turtle in orange gulped and kept walking onward, with Angel behind him.
But they had only gotten halfway down the walkway when they saw something.
"Huh?" Mikey muttered, as he and Angel stopped.
From behind the tower appeared the black smoke like tentacles - prompting Mikey to pull out his Nunchucks just in case - before the smoke began to mass up in front of the tower and then move towards Mikey and Angel, as if consciously, casting the shadow upon them both.
"Uh, oh." Mikey gulped.
"Oh, no." Angel whimpered, her eyes and full of fear.
A glowing red mouth then came out of the cloud of smoke and growled demonically at the two, and closed on them as if intending to eat them.
"RUN!" Mikey screamed as he and Angel turned around and ran away from the smoke monster as fast as they could, while the roaring monster gave the chase.
But before Mikey and Angel could get far, the pair of smoke tentacles came from behind the smoke monster and slithered along the air like snakes towards Mikey and Angel.
They caught up with them, before the tips of the tentacles opened like the black blooming flowers, creating more tendrils, which began to wrap around of Mikey and Angel.
"AAAHHHH!" the two panicked as the smoke tentacles wrapped around of their arms, legs and body.
Angel frantically tried to remove the tentacles from his arms, shoulders, and body with her hands, but they were sticky like tar and seemed to cling to her hands in sticky masses, making it harder to Angel to pull her hands off and move them freely. Then the tentacles pulled her arms around her body while other tentacles tied her legs together before they continued to wrap her into the black cocoon.
"MIKEY! HELP ME!" Angel pleaded as the tentacle lifted her off the ground and pulled her back.
"HOLD ON! I'M A LITTLE BUSY MYSELF!" Mikey shouted, as he himself was frantically trying to keep the tentacles off him with his Nunchucks as they surrounded him from all sides, wrapping around him faster than he could shoo them of.
Then the tentacles grabbed both of his Nunchakus in groups and refused to let go no matter how much Mikey tried to pull them back. The tentacles then began to wrap themselves up Mikey's arms towards him, freaking him out, before they pulled his arms around his body, incapacitating him. The remaining tentacles wrapped themselves in masses around Mikey, coiling him up in cocoon just like Angel, before they lifted him off the ground.
Tied up and helpless, Mikey and Angel could only watch as the smoke monster, to which the smoke tentacles seemed to be linked, roared at them before it moved its prey closer of its gaping maw, and whatever reddish hell that awaiting inside of that monster.
Mikey and Angel tried their very best to struggle themselves free but it was hopeless, before the tentacles tossed them inside the monster's mouth, and to their fate.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!/NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" they screamed as they fell into the blood-red void.
DREAM ENDS
"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" Angel mumbled panickedly, tossing and turning around in her sleeping bag.
"Angel! Angel! Wake up! Wake up!" Louie said as the turtle in black was trying to shake her awake. "Wake up, Angel-cake!"
"NO! Wha-?! Wha-?! Wha-?!" Angel screamed as she snapped awake and stood up.
Breathing heavily and sweating, Angel began to look around frantically, trying to get a sense of her whereabouts, only hoping that she wasn't anymore in that dreadful blood-red void inside of that smoke monster.
"Angel?" Louie called.
But Angel did not hear him. She moved into the sitting position and looked down her body, before she began to frantically touch her body, shoulders and arms to see if those sticky smoke tentacles were still wrapped around her.
"ANGEL!" Louie called firmly, as she grabbed her by her shoulders. "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!"
This time, Angel turned to look directly at Louie, and looking into the eyes of her boyfriend seemed to calm her down a bit, even if she was still breathing heavily.
"It's okay, Angel. It's okay. I'm here. Calm down. Breath slowly. Deep breath. Nice and slow." the turtle in black encouraged. "It's okay, Angel-cake. It's okay."
"Louie?" Angel gasped between the breaths. "What? What? What happened? Where am I?"
"It's okay, Angel. You were just having a nightmare." Louie explained. "And seeing you tossing and turning like that, likely a really bad one. And no wonder, with all the stress of those monsters out there."
Angel looked down and tried to recall everything what had happened in her dream-turned-nightmare. Although nightmares were usually such vague memories after waking up that you couldn't really remember them, this nightmare felt so real that it was firmly imprinted in Angel's memory.
"The Lair... Your Lair... the elevator door... glowing symbols... the underground... the underground city... the underground city... the underground city... the black tower... the black tower... smoke... smoke... tentacles... tentacles everywhere... the monster... the monster made up of smoke... the blood-red void!" Angel repeated.
"Angel! Angel! Calm down!" Louie told him. "What did you say? The underground city? The black tower? Smoke and tentacles? Monster made up of smoke? What are you talking about?"
"Me and Mikey... Mikey... Mikey?" Angel kept ranting, until she remembered that Mikey was in her dream too and vice versa. "Mikey! Mikey! Is Mikey alright?!"
Angel turned around to look at here Mikey was sleeping, and saw that the turtle in orange too was sweating, tossing and turning around in his sleeping back.
"No! No! No! No! No!" he mumbled in his sleep.
"Relax, Angel. Mikey's alright." Raph told her, glancing at Mikey. "And apparently he too is having a nightmare. Likely about the bogeymen hiding under his bed again." the turtle in red chuckled.
"No." Angel argued, shaking her head. "Mikey was there. In my dream. And so I was in his dream. Somehow. We saw everything and experienced everything... in some underground city... far below underground."
"What are you talking about, Angel?" Louie asked because none of what Angel had said made sense to him. "Can you finally calm down and slow down a bit, and explain exactly what you're trying to tell us."
However, before Angel could say anything.
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"
Raph, Louie and Angel jerked their heads up to the upper ledges of the nearby cliff where the roar had came from, before the turtle in red jumped up to his feet in alarm.
"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! GUYS, WAKE UP! MIKEY, RISE AND SHINE!" Raph shouted in alarm, before the turtle in red kicked Mikey awake, snapping him out of his nightmare.
"What? What? What?" Mikey gasped as he snapped awake, looking frantically around of him to make sense of his whereabouts. "Where am I? What's happening?"
All the other turtles woke up quickly too. "Raph. Louie. What's going on?" Leo asked as he rubbed the slumber from his eyes.
"EVERYBODY UP AND READY!" Raph shouted, bracing himself. "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! OUR FRIENDS ARE BACK!"
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"
The whole place started to shake and rocks and stalactites began falling from the ceiling of the cavern.
"Where exactly are they?!" Mary asked, looking up at the cliffs.
"Over there! Up there!" Dom cried out, pointing at the edge of the cliff that led into another tunnel.
Looking up, the turtles saw there a three completely new monsters staring down at them. One was a red scorpion-like monster with yellow eyes, claws for hands and two big stingers coming out of its back. The second one was small and looked like a mini version of that gray stone-like monster they encountered in the subway tunnel. And the third was a turquoise monster that looked like a cross between a dinosaur and a dog, with amber eyes, broad shovel-like claws, rows of lumps in the back, a small upper head but a massive lower jaw, and a large gaping mouth full of huge teeth.
"Those are not the ones we met earlier!" Arcee pointed out, not recognizing two of the bigger monsters from their earlier encounters.
"Except for the little one!" Mikey said as he saw the similarities with the little stone monster and the bigger stone monster from earlier.
The little stone monster growled in response.
The dinosaur/dog monster then opened its mouth enormously wide and let out a deafening roar which shook the whole place even more violently.
"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR!RRRR!RRRR!RRRR!RRRR!"
The monster's roar echoed so loudly in the cavern that it threatened to split the turtles' and Angel's ears.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" the turtles and Angel screamed as they covered their ears with their hands to block the monster's roar out.
It lasted only a seven to ten agonizing seconds, but it wasn't the last of the bad news.
"THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!"
After the roaring ceased, Arcee heard a loud and repeating pounding from the wall behind her and, confused, turned to look at the wall until she saw that the wall began to crack, starting in the middle and then spreading out over an increasingly wider area, as if something was trying to penetrate through.
"Uh, oh." the turtle in pink gulped worriedly and backed away, as the wall finally gave in and collapsed, creating there a hole.
Arcee, along with Mikey, Leo and Dom who were closest to her, gasped in shock when out of the hole emerged yet another monster. A tall pear-shaped emerald praying mantis-like monster with green eyes, long antennae-like horns, and two huge arms and two smaller ones, each of which had a single huge curved claw.
The monster let out a rather angry shriek at the turtles as he began to advance towards them, raising up its claws ready to strike.
"Sheesh! They're getting even uglier time after time!" Mikey gulped as he backed away from the creature with his brothers and sister.
"You think that's the bad one yet, Mikey?!" Donnie challenged with the worried whimper. "How about this one then?!"
Mikey, along with Mary, Raph, Angel and Louie, turned to look where Donnie was pointing with his hand, and saw a yet another monster coming with the heavy step from around the corner.
This monster was a quadruped lizard- or DRAGON-like monster with the blue eyes, armor of amber-colored scales with dark scales forming the stripes in its body, and its long neck full of spikes like crown. And when it let out from its purplish-colored mouth the shrieking roar at the turtles and Angel, a huge and spiky frill spread swiftly around its neck like with frilled lizard.(3)
"Okay. Let's at least hope this one doesn't have that venomous spit-thingy." Mikey gulped.(3)
"More likely the rock-melting spit-thingy, Mikey!" Mary corrected.
As the dragon monster growled, it released a steaming and flaming blue drool-like substance from its mouth, which upon hitting the ground slowly turned thick and solid like molten rock, shocking the turtles.
"It produces the drool that's like a molten rock?" Donnie questioned in surprise. "I hate to say it at the situation like this, but... fascinating."
"Really, Donnie? Really?" Raph called him out.
The turtles realized that they had been surrounded from all sides by the monsters, making Mikey turn to Leo in hopes he had some kind of plan.
"Leo? You got some plan, or would running be a good one, right?" Mikey asked hopefully.
"Uh, oh! Look! The ugly doggie wants to play ball!" Dom warned pointing up at the cliff.
Everybody looked up at the first three monsters again, and saw that the dinosaur/dog-like monster was rolling out of the tunnel a huge round boulder, before the monster nudged the boulder off the cliff, which started to roll down towards them.
"RUUUUUUUUN!" Leo ordered.
The turtles and Angel picked up their backpacks while Donnie picked up the crystals, but they were forced to leave their sleeping bags behind, and ran down the tunnel that luckily hadn't been blocked by any of the monsters as the huge boulder chased after them.
"AAAAHHHHHHHH!" the turtles screamed as they ran for their lives.
"NOW I KNOW WHAT INDIANA JONES FELT LIKE WHEN HE HAD TO DO THIS, AND I DON'T LIKE IT AT ALL!" Mikey screamed.(4)
TO BE CONTINUED.
TRIVIA
1) = Mikey screaming upon Dom touching his shoulder in the dark is both inspirated by and the reference to the similiar scene in the pixar movie, Finding Nemo, where Dory gets spooked by Marlin touching her in the darkness.
2) = Reference to What a Croc episode, where it is Mikey who complains Raph snoring like the chainsaw.
3) = Dilophosaurus reference from the Jurassic Park.
4) = Reference to the Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie scene in the beginning, where Indy runs away from the rolling boulder trap.