TMNT - No Other Choice

No Other Choice

It had been an awful night for the turtle brothers. Not only did they get knocked off a roof by Bebop and Rocksteady, they had also been kidnapped by aliens right afterwards by getting teleported onto a spaceship before they could even hit the sidewalk.
On the spaceship they were then disarmed and locked up in individual cells. Soon enough they found out that these aliens were running a battle arena for their own entertainment and had captured many different creatures from all sorts of planets to put them against each other in a battle to the death which would be broadcasted throughout the whole ship via videoscreens, some of which were even placed in the hallways of the holding cells.
The turtles were just working on an escape plan when a pair of alien guards came by and took the purple-banded brother away to fight in the arena.
As Donatello and his opponent entered the round battlefield it became clear they weren’t the only earthlings aboard as his opponent was none other than Dr. Rockwell. The Mighty Mutanimals had all been kidnapped as well and now they would all be forced to fight for their lives.

Just as the two genius mutants entered the arena and got over their surprise to see each other in this place, Rockwell’s helmet and Donatello’s bo staff were teleported into the enclosure for them to use for the battle.
“I do not wish to fight you, Donatello.”, Rockwell stated as he put on this helmet.
“Neither do I, Doctor Rockwell.”, the turtle agreed while picking up his staff, already scanning the walls with his eyes for any sorts of panels that could hide a control panel or a bunch of wires for them to use to open the doors.
After a moment of concentration the ape cursed under his breath, drawing Donnie’s attention back to him, “What is it?”
“It seems they have equipped this arena with a psychic force field somehow. I cannot reach anything beyond these walls, neither interact with them directly.”
“So? Interact with your hands then, unless you don’t want to get them dirty.”, Donnie mocked slightly with a grin before turning to the wall, standing directly where he knew the door he had gotten in through was hidden, though there were no visible cracks or slits. Knowing the wall could be equipped with a hologram or other means of optical illusions to hide any flaws in the design Donnie touched and felt along the wall, searching for any tiny nooks or cracks hinting to a door or panel.
After a moment though he yelped and flew back as he was hit by an electric current. Seeing this Dr. Rockwell turned to another portion of the wall and studied it closer before lightly touching it, also getting shocked. “As I guessed, they have set the walls under electricity now thanks to your obvious snooping.”
“At least I’m still looking for a way out!”, Donnie shot towards the ape while getting up.
“It’s no use! I have scanned the whole area, at least what my powers could access within this psychic field. There is no way out.”
“There’s always a way out!”
“Face it, Donatello, we are forced to play by their rules: Either one of us dies or we both will be killed. You have seen the previous battles, haven’t you?”
Donnie stared at the blood-stained ground of the arena, remembering seeing the two aliens of the last battle he watched on the screens get slaughtered for refusing to fight.
“No… There has to be a way! We just have to find it…”
“They are not going to wait much longer before executing us for not fighting.”, Rockwell explained, putting his hands on his helmet as he started to concentrate, “I’m sorry, Donatello, but I’m not going to let us both die, it will have to be either you or me.”
Before the turtle could even fully realize what the ape was doing his staff was ripped out of his grip and levitated in front of him just out of his reach as Rockwell continued, “I will make sure to make it quick and painless if you hold still.”
With a gasp Donnie watched as the naginata blade came out of the staffs tip before his own weapon shot right towards him. With ninja-typical reflexes he dodged the attack and ran around the arena as it kept coming after him.
“Rockwell, stop!! We have to work together here!!”, Donnie yelled, his voice going up a notch as the blade came closer behind him.
“If we work together as you suggest we both are going to die. We cannot break out of here on our own not unless they open the doors and I highly doubt they will open them as long as we are both alive and still armed.”
With a cry the genius turtle jumped at Rockwell, fighting back in an attempt to throw his concentration off. The mutant ape simply jumped out of the way though Donnie’s attack still worked as he managed to get a hold of his bo staff, ripping it out of Rockwells psychic grip.
Sheathing the naginata blade before finally getting into the fight, Donnie kept trying to convince his opponent that it would be better for them to work together, that they do have a chance of both getting out of the arena alive. Rockwell though was sure they had no such options and thus solely focused on winning, dodging each and every one of Donnie’s attacks while getting a few good hits in every now and then and even managing to kick the turtle against the wall, causing him to get electrocuted and thus severely weakened.
With a groan Donnie tried to push himself up again. He had been electrocuted a lot of times throughout his life but that didn’t seem to make recovering from this hit any easier and the bruises he already received during the battle didn’t help.
As he grabbed for his staff the purple-clad turtle noticed that it was missing. Glancing up over his shoulder he found it levitating above the back of his neck, naginata blade facing down. Reacting as quick as his body would allow Donnie rolled to the side, getting cut along the right shoulder but avoiding his spine or brain stem to get damaged.
“If you would just hold still for a moment I could spare you the pain and end this.”, Rockwell simply stated with a frown, stabbing the naginata blade at Donatello again. The turtle tried to scramble to his feet to dodge but the blade managed to stab through his left calf, causing him to cry out in pain and fall back on his front. Quickly he tried again to get up and run, ignoring the pain as well as he could until the psychic ape made his weapon fly past the limping turtle before rushing towards him from the front, knowing he would be too slow to dodge in his current condition.
Rockwell’s idea was a success as Donnie had only enough time to gasp and slow to a stop before the blade imbedded itself in his midsection, penetrating his plastron as if it were butter. As soon as the blade pulled out the weakened and injured turtle fell to his knees before collapsing fully onto his front, a small pool of blood slowly forming around his unmoving form.
Several minutes went by before Rockwell slowly approached the lifeless form of the genius turtle to check for a pulse, though before he could get close enough he was stopped by shackles forming around his wrists and ankles, noting that at almost the exact same time his helmet and Donatellos bo staff were teleported out of the arena. The same alien guards that had brought the two into the arena now entered to retrieve the mutants. Before they got to him Rockwell shot another look at Donnie’s body, whispering an excuse with a softened expression. He was taken back to his cell by the alien guards, not knowing or really caring about what would become of the turtles body.

What none of the mutants knew yet was that the losers’ bodies were used as food for the fighters and so Donnie’s bleeding, unmoving form was brought to the ships kitchen to be cut up like a pig at a butchers.
The guards immediately left to go chose the next fighters, since there was no reason to watch some dead meat until the cooks would show up.
Shortly after the guards had left a groan emitted from the turtle as he started to regain consciousness. Slowly moving to push himself up with a small whimper, Donnie looked around, noting that he was now in a room that looked almost like a butchers workplace instead of the arena. He sat up and worked on collecting his thoughts and memories to conclude his situation. What he immediately figured out was that he needed something to treat and close the wound in his plastron with fast, he had already lost a lot of blood and the more he lost the weaker he would get until the bloodloss would take everything out of him.
Finding nothing but something similar to an apron he grabbed a knife and cut the fabric up in long strips to bind them together and wrap them around his midsection to cover up and press onto the wound, keeping it shut and so preventing the blood from flowing out too fast.
With his worst injury being taken care off for now his next step was to find a way out of this room and back to his brothers so they could all escape together. Donnie looked around the room for a moment and found the perfect solution, an opening to an airvent right above a stack of boxes. It was quite a strain to climb up the boxes and into the vent but Donnie knew it would be worth it.
He crawled through the ventilation system as fast as he could without making too much noise and stopped only to look out through other openings, hoping to find either a surveillance or control room or the cells holding his brothers and the Mutanimals. Then there it was, a little hard to hear, but obviously the voice of his brother Raphael. Donnie crawled to the next opening quick, almost dripping over his own hands, but to his disappointment the voice hadn’t come from his brother directly, it was simply one of the many screens showing the battles in the arena. Realization came to him that this meant that Raph was now the one having to fight for his life.
“Please, no…”, he whispered to himself as he took a closer look. Raphael’s opponent was Slash, the worst choice possible. Luckily they didn’t seem willing to fight, Slash hadn’t even picked up his mace yet although Raph was already holding his sai at the ready. It was hard to understand what they were saying to each other but it was obvious that Raph sounded angry while Slash seemed to keep a calm voice, seemingly trying to sooth the red-clad turtle and calm him down. For a moment it even seemed as though Raphael was sobbing a little, but why would he?
Donnie’s eyes grew wide and he facepalmed as he realized why Raph would act this way. His brothers thought Rockwell had killed him, they believed their genius brother, Donatello, was dead.
“I’ve got to find the others and stop this fight, before it’s too late!”, with that and twice the effort Donnie continued down the air vent to find the cells.