Chapter Text
This is bad. One singular dog —from who knows where— triggered a landmine, and now Michaelangelo is swarmed with zombies and assimilants alike from every angle.
He twists, sinking the hook of his nun-chucks into some amalgamation’s head. Blood and gore paint Michaelangelo’s body, but he can’t stop. There’s a network of labor camps stretching from coast-to-coast, and the largest cluster happens to be north of his current location.
Dead Man’s Diamond. A barren land of anything holy, sacred, or earthly. Surrounded by Sterling bases in each cardinal direction— no one can get in or out without dying, or becoming another demon. If not for the ongoing horde of kraang jumping him, Mikey could have been freeing people by 8 p.m. and heading to bed by 9.
Michaelangelo raises his arm sharply. His nun-chucks dissipate in less than a second, and reform as an unimaginably long golden whip. It snaps through the air— the closest of zombies explode from the force of Michaelangelo’s swing.
He fails to notice the incoming trucks until too late— or just in time…? A harpoon lands between Michaelangelo and the zombie lunging forward; he spares a glance to the right. In the distance are a fleet of trucks coming in hot. The leading truck was armed with a mounted launcher, and an unnecessary amount of soldiers bearing rifles. But at least he knows where the harpoon came from.
The man dives deeper into the crowd. His whip does quick work of keeping kraang back, but Michaelangelo soon switches to channeling mystic energy into his hands and smashing through. A hand grabs his hair, only to be blown off by a supercharged slap.
Finally, the turtle reaches the end of the barrage.
Michaelangelo flies low to the ground and dodges what bullets he can, only a few bounce off his shell. Ouch.
It seems as if his luck is abruptly getting better— Michaelangelo spots the camp in the distance, and there aren't any random zombies lurking nearby. But to be safe, he slows and hovers above the ground; just enough to be weightless. Golden light fades away, his cloak no longer billows from mystic aura, and the area around him distorts no more.
The facility has no windows, save for a singular skylight that illuminated the centermost parts of the camp. Said skylight is also heavily guarded. Damn it.
Michaelangelo isn’t surprised— he wasn’t subtle. That, and it’s so quiet nowadays regardless of where you are.
He sighs. Starting at his limbs, Michaelangelo begins the arduous task of contorting his body into a less obvious form. A fly. He’s gonna blend right in— as soon as he can actually enter the building.
The turtle (or rather, the fly) flits to the roof, buzzes past the ignorant guards, and descends into the facility.
There may not be a single place in the USA that compares to what Michaelangelo sees now.
The building was tiered, and each level looked like its own layer of hell. Unconverted persons of every race, gender, age, and species hunch or strain over some type of loom, sewing machine, or spindle on the highest levels. Below, clangs and similar sounds bounce off dirty, stained concrete.
He wants to be optimistic, but Michaelangelo knows the brown and red smears aren’t mud.
For each level Michaelangelo sees, he flies throughout the cells and takes stock of the prisoners’ conditions— this won’t be a smooth mission if the mangled bodies, open wounds, broken bones, and soiled floors weren’t indication enough. There just might be hundreds (if not thousands) of people here; Michaelangelo can’t send this many injured individuals to New York, or any survival group he’s come across.
Limited supplies aside, Michaelangelo fears he won’t have the energy to send an unknown amount of people through an equally unknown amount of gateways. But, he knows better than to give up before the end. Hope can take people a long way, after all.
…
The air grows warmer the deeper he goes. Michaelangelo can safely say the bottom tiers of the camp are dedicated to manufacturing. Men in barely any clothing —and covered in burns— pour molten iron into casts, while others bend, beat, and shape glowing red beams and sheets into various shapes. From the looks of it, the prisoners here are blacksmiths and metalsmiths.
There isn’t much room for cells; the entire ring is dedicated to smithing. Same for the two levels below the current one. Speaking of— Michaelangelo was wrong to assume he’s seen the last of this building.
He almost can’t bring himself to go down. The sheer despair emanating from the lowest area is sickening. But, he can’t stop now— there were more important things to take care of. People to take care of.
It’s darker here. He transforms into a moth.
Unlike the smithing tiers, this floor is walled off. The only way Michaelangelo can enter is through one of four iron doors stationed across the ring. Each door has three sentries; two on each side, and one facing the door. All are armed with sniper-rifles among other armaments. On the north end, Michaelangelo watches a sentry kick the door in response to someone’s groans. If the turtle-moth strains his ears, the faint sounds of crying become audible, alongside even fainter shushing.
Otherwise, this stage was quiet.
Picking at random, Michaelangelo flies through the west door. His eyes take a few seconds to readjust in this near-total darkness until he can readily make out the silhouettes of yokai. It’s impossible to tell whether they’re all-male, all-female, or a mix. No one is wearing clothes, not even the young children scattered about. Not that anyone needed clothes— the cell was damp, humid, and warm. There must be mold everywhere. If he’s right to assume, the prisoners here are also injured in some way.
Michaelangelo doesn’t linger after this thought. He takes to the air and flies through a corridor, which takes him to another cell. Are they all connected? Possibly; this cell has no other paths, but when Michaelangelo returns to the first room and goes left he finds a third cell. It leads to a fourth, fifth, and so on. He realizes the iron doors are meant to access different points of this concrete labyrinth.
Not every room was searched. But that was fine— Michaelangelo could get the general idea of the prisoners’ treatment.
He leaves, this time flying through the south door.