2001-10 – Letters from Michaelangelo

Yo!

How ya doin’? Long time no see! Hope everything’s cool with you! We were gone for quite awhile, off in Dimension X fighting the Triceratons, Krang and Shredder!

It all started way back with the Rat King! It turns out that Krang had managed to hook up communications with the rodent liege while he was on a Triceraton mother ship, and he convinced ol’ Ratty to help capture us! I guess Rat King wanted the sewers to himself! The dirty rat! ;O)

So while Rat King was working on the Transmat, Don-san was… oops! Leon just told me I’m not supposed to be telling the beginning! Sorry! I forgot! =O)

So… Leo sez he got up to the part where we were hooded and chained, just before the monster attacked us! Man, that was HAIRY (well, the monster was more like a dragon or something, so it wasn’t hairy, but the situation definitely was!) As Leo wrote, Raph got himself zapped unconscious, so he wasn’t about to be able to fight. The crowd was goin’ all out! Then they announced our opponent and the noise was deafening! Apparently the monster we were facing was only brought out once in a great while, for “special” occassions. This was one situation where I wasn’t fellin’ good about bein’ special, lemme tell ya!

We heard the gate across from us begin to open, which was the signal that whatever was coming out to get us was on its way. We quickly moved into a defensive position around Raph, waiting for the worst. Fortunately we’ve trained in blind-fighting our entire lives, so it wasn’t too bad to battle that way. Hearing and smell become quite important, and the creature they sent into the ring after us was loud and stinky! From the sounds it emitted we guessed that it was probably 30-40 feet long, weighed tons of tons and had four legs. So that was all bad… but in a good kinda way! Had they sent in some silent Ninja-types, it woulda been alot more dangerous, seeing as how we were chained.

The dragon (for lack of a better word) came right after us, so we quickly figured out that it wasn’t very smart… or at least it had been so enraged that it wasn’t thinking straight. It didn’t take any time to evaluate the situation and just charged us as soon as it was released. Leo quickly surmised that our best weapon was our chains, since we had nothing else on us. Good thinking, huh? ;O)

Leon wanted to try to trip-up the beast to get it at ground level, where we could hopefully get in enough shots to knock it out. Leo figured if we did it right, the fight would last about 12 seconds. Don said he could find a way to remove the hoods if we bought him a few more seconds, so while Leo and me tried to lure the beastie into the trip wire, Donny began working on his hood. Shredder had fastened them around our necks with some sort of metal collar that was electronically locked. Don, as usual, managed to hide a few tools in his shell and quickly went to work on his collar. Leo spread out to the left and I went right. The fearless one called out to me to find one of the pillors placed around the arena… but to be honest, I hadn’t been paying as much attention as Leo (who does?), so I didn’t really know where to look. What we really needed was a way to ground the chains so when the megaton monster hit the trip, it would actually work, and those pillors would be just the kinda anchor we needed (too bad I didnt notice them in time). There was no way 2 Mutant Turles were gonna be able to overcome the kinda force generated by the charging behemoth alone, so anchors were critical. Fortunately for us, Leon-san did locate the pilon near him in the ring, which had flames coming outta the top of it. I dunno why these mini-columns were there, but I’m glad they were! If it wasn’t for the fire, Leo wouldn’t have found it! He heard and smelled the crackling embers and rushed to knot his chain around it. He called to me to look for the pillor by locating the fire, but I couldn’t find one close enough (or soon enough). Because of this, Leo knew that the plan had to change right away, cuz one grounded side was not enough.

So Leonardo did the typical Leonardo thing… he risked his neck to save all of us! As the beast charged I could hear it going for Raph. Apparently the monster wasn’t so stupid that it couldn’t figure out the best opponent to attack is the prone one. As the beast lumbered forward, Leo wrapped his chain around the pilon and moved in to attack! How he did it I’ll never know, because it all took place faster than I could think! As I was stumbling around looking for a pyre, Leo was saving the day! He managed to run around the dragon’s front leg and then he grabbed on for all he was worth. The tactic worked, as the monster was tripped up as the slack in the chain was pulled tight. Leo saved injury because the chain tightened around the dragon’s leg… but unfortunately this trapped our fearless leader! He had basically tied himself to the monster’s limb in effort to save Raph!

Right about then, Don worked his magic and got his hood off and the crowd was roaring with delight. Shredder and Krang were not and they started ordering for reinforcements. Donny called to me to hit the monster and help Leo while he worked on Raph’s hood and revived him. I was still blind, but I could hear that the beastie was not happy, and neither was Leon-san. He was doing what he could to dodge the creature’s bites at him, but he had very little slack in the chain of his own to maneuver (and did I mention we had hoods on, so we couldn’t see?). I rushed to his aid, but the creature had a tail, and I got thumped a good one as I approached… never saw it coming (literally! =O) I got sent flying and landed practically in Don’s lap. I could hear Raph waking up, just as I felt like I was ready to pass out. The tail had caught me right in the mouth, and my whole body felt like I’d been shocked by 10,000 volts. The white light I saw when I got that stinger was as intense as I’ve ever seen! Splinter sez I prolly have a concussion, I think have four or five!!!

So anyways, as I lay there groaning, Don removed Raph’s hood and started on mine. Raph immediately darted into battle! He made it to the dragon just as it was rearing back to bite Leo in half, and with a mighty leap, Raph got his chain wrapped around the creature’s mouth and head. The beast gnashed its teeth and thrashed its head, trying to throw Raph off. Finally, to our relief and surprise, the creature bit through Raph’s chains! Although they were made of a strong material, the enraged beastie was stronger! When Raph saw this he quickly alerted Leo, who was still blindly clinging to the monster’s leg, trying to dodge attacks. Unfortunately, the chain was helping Raph to stay on the dragon’s head, so once it was cut, Raph had nothing to mantain his hold, and he was thrown much further than I was (the chain had kept me from going any further, I guess).

But now Leo was armed with some valuable info, and he was able to take up enough slack that when the monster snapped at him again, he was able to get the chains between the giant, gnashy teeth! SNAP! They broke with ease and Leo was free! Too bad he was still blind though, because the dragon grabbed Leon with its other paw. Bogus!!!

But Donny hadn’t been idle while all this was happening. He’d gone to the pillor of fire the dragon was anchored to and in a quick move, he scooped out a pile of flaming goo and whipped it into the dragon’s face! Don’s hand was burned pretty badly by this tactic, but it worked! The beast dropped Leo, who booked to the column where Don was. Then the brainy one went to work on fearless leader’s collar, and it was off in a flash! Now we could all see and 2 of us were unchained! This was rockin’ the house! The Triceratons love a good, uneven battle, and the fact that we were winning was sending them into a frenzy! They started throwing garbage at us, cups of some vile liquid that they drink and other various “food” groups sold at the events.

The dragon was frantically wiping the flames from its face while Raph, Leo and Don came to check on me. I was on my feet but groggy, and my head hurt ’til next Thursday. We were ready to launch an escape offensive, but Don and I were still chained… so we needed to get loose and escape… but we had to be sneaky about it! There were hundreds of well armed guards watching us, and while they were caught up in the excitement, we had to act! But how to get Don and me free???

One word: beastie!

This was NOT good, but we had no choice! We had to lure the creature into attacking us again, as its teeth were our only means of escape. In its blinded and mega-enraged state, this was gonna prove difficult, to say the least! Raph tried to pull the chains loose from the ground, but they were welded tight. It was the dragon or nothing… yikes!

So what basically happened was for the next 20 minutes we played cat and mouse with the now-blind dragon, Raph and Don managed to get Donny free pretty quick, but in my condition, quick maneuvers were difficult. I was nearly bit in half once, but my shell saved my neck. I was only slightly nibbled but I’ve got some wicked deep gashes in my carapace now… I’m gonna have to bondo that up! Fortunately it was that attack that freed me, because I was running out of steam fast!

All that’s left is to tell you about our escape, but I’ve typed too much already. I’ll let Raph handle that… all he was gonna do is write a wrap up, and that will only take two words: We’re home!

Three words, actually: We’re home! COWABUNGA!!!

Adios!
Mikey

Master Splinter

Leave a Reply