And so it continues.
Chapter 5
All four instantly turned around and any and all fun washed away from David's face. In front of them stood about five Purple Dragons, holding onto chains and pipes. Emily hid behind Malcolm as they backed away from the gang members.
"What do you say guys?" One with a short, purple mohawk said with a sinister smile. "Take the humans as one of our own and kill the freaks."
The other four men cheered.
"Yeah."
"String 'em up for their parents to see."
The man with the mohawk grabbed Malcolm by the hair. "Who wants to get the first shot?" he offered up the crying half mutant to his friends. The two human children stood there frozen in place, terrified about what was happening. Austin, who was just as scared, ran toward him and began kicking the man in the leg in a failed attempt to make him release his cousin. It barely fazed him, but it did get his attention. He looked down at the blond haired mutant and laughed. "That all you got, freak." he laughed maniacally then kicked him away.
Austin's body hit a dumpster and he yelled out in pain. "Austin!" Malcolm cried as he tried to get to him, but was still being held back by the leader of the group.
"Shut up!" the man hissed and pulled harder on his hair causing Malcolm to yelp in pain. "No one is coming to save you now. We're going to kill you." Suddenly something smacked his hand making the dragon release his hold on the young mutant. The gang member withdrew his hand and rubbed it. "What the hell?" Xavier stepped out of the shadows and stood in front of the frightened children. Malcolm took the opportunity to move away from the dragons and hid behind his older brother.
"Are you guys seriously picking on children, right now. And I know I didn't hear you threaten to kill my little brother." Xavier spoke twirling his hanbo expertly.
"There's another one." he turned to his buddies and ordered "Get him."
All five of them charged at him with full intention of killing him. Xavier quickly sidestepped the first one and whacked him on the side of the head. He then proceeded to baseball slide underneath another one's legs and roundhouse kicked him into a wall. Xavier then blocked a random attack from a pipe with his hanbo. He brought his knee up into the gut of the purple dragon and as he doubled over, he brought his knee up again this time crushing his nose. Two to go. One grabbed him from behind and tried to put him in a choke hold. Xavier managed to block him by holding onto his arm and keeping the pressure away from his throat. "Quit struggling." the dragon commanded. Of course Xavier didn't listen and continued to make things difficult for him. Xavier brought his feet up to kick away the remaining dragon, then flipped the last one over his shoulder, throwing him into a dumpster.
He took a quick look around to make sure things were clear, before turning toward the cowering children. He pushed strands of hair out of his face. "Come on guys." he gestured for the kids to come out of hiding. He became worried when they didn't "Guys, what's wrong?"
Malcolm pointed over Xavier's shoulder. He turned and his head was met with a pipe. It didn't knock him out, but it did leave him pretty disoriented. He held his head where he had been struck and tried to shake the dizziness he was feeling as he looked up at his attacker. It was a Purple Dragon that he had already knocked down earlier and he was going to strike again. He held the pipe up and swung it downward towards his head. Lucky for Xavier the cavalry showed up just in time, in the form of Danielle and her kama. The brunette turtle easily sliced through the metal pipe and followed it up with a roundhouse kick. She sheathed her weapons once she was sure he was out cold.
"Hey, are you okay?" Danielle held out her hand.
"Ugh... yeah." he groaned as he accepted her hand and let her help him up. "Thanks cuz."
"No problem." she got a closer look at him and she could just make out a thin stream of blood coming from his head. She also noticed that he was a little unsteady on his feet. "Are you going to be okay? That looks pretty bad."
"I'm fine." he wiped the blood off his head before it got in his eye. "What are you doing out here anyway." he asked trying to get the attention off of him.
Danielle pointed up toward the rooftop where Kylie was waiting "We were heading to Amber's when we saw you." Danielle explained. "Are you going to be okay getting these guys home?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine."
"Alright, later." she hesitantly made her way back up to the roof with Kylie and they disappeared.
"Okay guys, let's get out of here." Xavier led the terrified children back underground.
After a few minutes of walking, Malcolm finally decided to speak. "Are you okay, X?" he asked as he latched onto his older brother's hand.
"I'm okay, little brother." Xavier lied because he was feeling a little woozy from that blow to the head, but he really didn't want them to panic anymore than they they already are.
"Are you sure?" he asked nervously. "You're bleeding."
Xavier gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'll make it. Dad will take care of me so don't worry."
The rest of the walk home was fairly quiet. When Xavier opened up the entrance way to the lair, Malcolm made a beeline for Donnie's lab. Don was working on his computer with Mikey standing over him, watching him. "Dad!" Don and Mikey turned at the sudden voice. "Come on!" Malcolm grabbed his father's hand and pulled on it.
"What's going on?" Don chuckled thinking his child was just excited about something he found.
"Xavier is hurt, come on you have to fix him."
Don quickly stood up and ran out the lab when he heard that. Mikey was close behind him. He found Xavier leaning heavily against a wall and holding the side of his head. "What happened, X?"
"I'm fine, Dad." Xavier said as Don began fussing over him.
"Fine? You're bleeding from your head." Don exclaimed.
Vanessa and Paige walked out of the kitchen with warm mugs of tea in their hands. "What's all the commotion out here?" Vanessa asked before her eyes landed on her wounded kid. "Oh God, what happened?" she quickly passed the mug off to Paige and ran up to him.
Xavier sighed and looked to the kids. David was staring at the floor guiltily, Emily was still sniffling and tearing up after the experience she had while Austin and Malcolm looked totally worried. Either because of what happened to Xavier or because of the trouble they were going to get into "They decided to take a little trip up top and got caught by Purple Dragons. I took care of them, but one got the jump on me. I got lucky because Danielle and Kylie happened to be nearby."
Don sighed and rubbed his head. "Take him to the lab and clean him up." he told Vanessa.
"Right." Vanessa led him into the lab while Don, Mikey and Paige focused on the young children.
"Malcolm, what were you thinking?" Don scolded. He was so glad that he went with his gut feeling and sent Xavier to watch them. He was afraid to think of what would happen if he hadn't. "You know better."
"You too, Austin." Mikey added. "You could've gotten hurt."
Both Malcolm and Austin gave a side glance toward David. "Sorry, Dad." they both responded. They were going to get in trouble for him.
"Just what were you thinking?" Paige continued.
David finally got the courage to speak up. "Wait, don't get mad at them." David spoke quickly, all the guilt he was feeling spilled out. He couldn't let his best friends take the heat for something that was his idea. "It's not their fault. I wanted to go and they were only trying to stop me. So yell at me."
Don crossed his arms and looked to his brother and sister. They shrugged and Don sighed. "Well, it's not really my place to yell at you, but I will be talking to your parents about this."
"I know and I'm really sorry." he apologized.
"Go on upstairs." Mikey shooed them away and all four headed upstairs. Don walked back into the lab as Vanessa was just finishing wrapping bandages around his head.
"How is he, nurse?" Don asked.
"He definitely has a concussion. He won't be doing much for a while."
Xavier groaned and laid back on the bed.
Don and Vanessa chuckled "Get some rest and I'll check on you in a couple hours."
"Yay." Xavier mumbled.
"There you guys are." Amber said when she opened the window. "What took you?"
"Sorry, we had to make a quick stop." Kylie said. "We're here now."
"Great, cause I have everything planned. You guys ready for a movie binge watch."
"Hell yeah, let's do it."
The girls all sat down at the couch and waited for Amber to turn on the TV. "What do you guys wanna watch?"
"Let's just be critics for the night." Danielle suggested. "Let's watch bad movies and make fun of them."
Amber smiled "I had a feeling that's what you'd be going for so I took the liberty of looking up all the worst rated movies for us to see."
"Oh, you know me so well."
The doorbell rang and both turtles went into ninja mode and vanished.
"Oh, the pizza." Amber got up to go to the door. "You guys need to..." she turned to her friends only to find they were already gone. "Right, they're ninjas. Why do I even bother?" she opened the door, paid for the pizza and shut the door. Danielle and Kylie were sitting back on the couch when she turned around. "Here you go, let's get started."
An hour into their first movie, they had finished the pizza and were thoroughly enjoying their crap movie when Amber's phone rang. She picked it up and looked at the caller ID. She picked up the remote and paused the movie. "Sorry guys, I gotta answer this."
"Go for it."
Amber answered it and put it on speaker phone. "Hey Toni, what's up?"
"Oh my God, Amber." Toni squealed over the phone.
"Oh my God, what?" Amber asked.
"I met the hottest guy at that party last night." she continued to squeal happily.
Amber sighed and rubbed her temples. "Seriously? What about Logan?" she asked slightly annoyed. She knew how her friend was. She wasn't into the whole exclusivity thing.
Toni groaned. "Come on, Amber. Don't go there."
"Go where? All I'm doing is reminding you that you have a boyfriend." Amber said. "A boyfriend that really cares about you. I'm just being a good friend."
"I know, but..."
"Does this guy know that you have a boyfriend?"
"Of course he does, that was the first thing I told him when he approached me." she explained only halfheartedly. "But he was persistent."
"I don't care how persistent he was." Amber said annoyed. "You should've kept him away."
"Well it's a little late for that because he's coming over." Toni sighed. "It's not that big of a deal."
"You know nothing about this guy and you're inviting him over."
Toni sighed heavily again. "I don't have to know much if we're never going to see each other after tonight and my parents won't be back until tomorrow."
Amber shook her head and looked to Danielle and Kylie. She didn't want to keep them waiting anymore and clearly trying to talk to her friend was getting her nowhere. "Look Toni, you and I both know that what you're doing is pretty messed up, but I'm not going to keep arguing with you so do you, T."
"Alright," she paused. "I gotta go. He's gonna be here soon."
"Okay, bye." Amber said and angrily hung up the phone. "Sorry you had to hear that guys."
"It's fine. She's not a faithful person, is she?" Danielle asked.
"Nope, she's not."
"Does her boyfriend know...?"
"That she cheats." Amber finished. "Yeah, and he's so in love with her that he just won't leave her. Honestly, he deserves so much better." she shrugged. "Whatever, it's not my life so it's not my problem." she picked up the remote. "Let's just enjoy ourselves tonight. I'll worry about her tomorrow." she started their movie back up.
Hours later Malcolm took a peek outside his room to make sure there was no one around. It was dark in the lair and everyone was in bed. Malcolm carefully made his way over to the stairs and made his way down. He headed over to the lab where his brother was while trying to make the least amount of noise possible. Just then, Don opened the door to the lab and walked out causing Malcolm to gasp and hide further in the shadows. Don turned toward the sound and immediately knew who it was "Malcolm, come on out." Malcolm stepped into light of the lab where he could be seen better. "It's late. What are you doing out of bed?"
"I can't sleep." Malcolm said. "And I want to know if Xavier is okay. It's kinda my fault that he got hurt."
"Xavier is fine, and it's not your fault. You didn't know what was going to happen." Don knelt down in front of him and gave him a loving pat on the head.
Malcolm cast his brown eyes toward the floor. He didn't actually believe that he wasn't at least a little bit responsible for what happened "Can I see him?" he asked hopefully.
Don sighed. He hated seeing him like this. "Alright, go ahead." he stepped out of the way and let Malcolm through into the dimly lit lab. Xavier was laid up in bed, sleeping in a reclining position. Malcolm walked up to the bed and climbed onto it. Without saying another word he laid down next to him careful not to wake his older brother. Don smiled at the sight and gently shut the door behind him.
Hope you enjoy.
