= TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2003 =
= THE FALLEN ANGEL PART 2 =
Two days later.
When there was a bright daylight outside, the turtles were spending their leisure time in their Lair.
Most of them were just relaxing at the entertainment area, Splinter with them, except for few of them: Raphael, Mary and Donnie. Raph was killing time by repeatedly punching and kicking his punching bag, giving it a good beating. Mary was practicing her Naginata-skills on the several practicing dummies at the lair's Dōjō, wielding her weapon in an elegant manner while dodging and/or kicking the dummies and slashing their heads off from their shoulders or splitting their torsos in two with her weapon's blade. And Donnie was working on with the Battle Shell in his lab, after having brought it from the warehouse to the lair.
The brainy turtle was installing a new improvements to the Battle Shell with the blowtorch and screwdriver in private peace, though it didn't unfortunately last long when his curious brother Mikey appeared to the scene to investigate Donnie's work.
"Whatcha doin' Donnie?" the turtle in orange questioned.
Donnie sighed in annoyance, because this was one of those many important engineer operations to which he didn't want his overly-curious brother to intervene at all.
It always predicted troubles for him whenever Mikey showed up to the scene while he was working, such as irritating interruptions in his work that forced him to watch after his younger brother and prevent him from messing up with his work. The worst part was when Mikey decided to tamper with the things he shouldn't even be touching.
"Working up a remote control system for the Battle Shell." Donnie answered, while trying to keep his full attention in his work.
"Sweet." Mikey replied as he reached out his hand towards the systems with which Donnie was working on. However, the brainy turtle reacted to this by slapping his hand away, Making Mikey wince in pain before pulling his hand back.
"Don't touch!" Donnie said firmly. "These are highly sophisticated sensors. When they receive a remote signal, they'll safely guide the Shell to the signal's point of origin."
While Donnie explained the details of his work, Mikey had sneaked to Donnie's workbench and had picked up one of the blue prints of the Battle Shell to check what else Donnie had planned for the Battle Shell, until he noticed some green object on the workbench and picked it up.
It looked like the green remote control with six blue buttons and one red round button below them.
"And this is the remote do-hickey?" Mikey assumed.
Donnie nodded at the same time he'd finished his work with the system and prepared to pull the hood down.
"That's it, but it's not finished yet, so please don't-" Donnie tried to say, but he was cut short by the ominous sound of beep behind him right after he closed the hood. And afterwards of the beep, the Battle Shell's engine started on and the truck prepared to take off by itself.
This was all too familiar to Donnie.
"MIKEY! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Donnie shouted in annoyance as he turned to Mikey, who was sheepishly rubbing the back of his head with his free hand while holding the said remote in the another one.
"Uh, you were gonna tell me not to press the red button, right?" the turtle in orange asked nervously.
Donnie glared at his idiotic little brother for touching things he shouldn't touch in the first place
"MIKEY! YOU... WHOAAA!" Donnie yelped as the Battle Shell suddenly revved and took off, cutting the turtle in purple off from his lecture to Mikey before tossing him off the ride to the ground when its pace accelerated almost instantly when the truck started moving.
The sharp screeching of the armored truck's tires caught Mary' attention and the turtle in turquoise instantly stopped her practicing and turned her attention to by itself driving Battle Shell as it drove along the lair's floor's upper level.
"Whatta...?" Mary muttered, confused.
To her horror, Mary noticed that the rogue truck was driving directly towards Raph while the turtle in red was kicking and punching his punching bag. Luckily for the turtle in red, the Battle Shell's head lights and the sound of the truck's engine caught his attention and he turned to the direction of the lights and the sound.
"WHOA!" Raph yelped after seeing the Battle Shell coming straight towards him.
Raph immediately took run for it and managed to avoid getting run over by the Battle Shell just in time, though the armored truck knocked his punching bag off the wall while it kept driving.
The Battle Shell then turned sharply to the left and headed towards the front door.
As the Battle Shell kept driving, Mary noticed that Dom was about to step in through the front door while he was focusing on reading the newspaper, which he had visited to buy from the newspaper shop on the surface, totally unaware of the rogue truck coming straight towards him.
Mary then rushed towards her brother, before turtle in turquoise then hurriedly pole vaulted herself off the ground with her Naginata, sending herself flying towards Dom just as the Battle Shell was about to run over him from behind.
And as this happened, the Battle Shell's engine's sound and high lights caught Dom's attention and the turtle in white turned his head from the newspaper's pages to the direction of the sounds and light... only to gasp in horror when he saw the Battle Shell coming straight towards him and was about to run him over.
"DOM! WATCH OUT!" Mary cried with high pitch voice as she flew into him and tackled Dom out of the Battle Shell's way just in time.
This sudden rescue surprised the turtle in white completely, that he lost his grip on his newspaper and dropped it just when Mary pushed him down.
Dom and Mary landed over to the ground outside of the lair, safe and sound, as the Battle Shell drove past of the front door and headed towards the kitchen... though its tires left the black tire tracks across the open page of Dom's newspaper.
And when the truck turned sharply to the left, causing its rear tires rub against the floor that let out another screeching sound, the rear tires crumpled and eventually shredded the newspaper into the shreds before the truck continued on its way.
Meanwhile, Louie exited from the kitchen and was about to head towards the entertainment zone, carrying in his arms four boxes of fresh pizza and the bowl of recently made popcorn, until the turtle in black heard the approaching sound of the engine and peeked over his left shoulder... only to see the rogue Battle Shell that was approaching him fast from behind.
"WHATTA...?! WHOA!" Louie exclaimed in shock, as he quickly dropped the pizza boxes and the popcorn bowl off his hands to the floor, draw out his Butterfly swords and jumped high up into the air.
By jumping up, Louie reached so close to the ceiling above him that the turtle in black thrusted his Butterfly swords hard upwards and sunk them into the ceiling, hanging in there while the Battle Shell drove past him from bellow, though flattening the popcorn bowl and all four pizza boxes along with all four recently made fresh pizzas within them beneath its tires before driving past the kitchen.
Battle Shell then headed next towards the entertainment zone, where Leo was reading the book in the armchair, Splinter was watching TV on the couch and Arcee was meditating while listening the relaxing music from her recorder.
However, approaching sound of the Battle Shell's engine snapped Arcee out of her meditation and she turned around to see the Battle-Shell incoming straight her way.
"HOLLY SHELL!" the turtle in pink cried before she hurriedly jumped to her feet, picked up her record player from the floor and leapt out of the rogue truck's way before it drove over her meditation spot, smashing on its way the entertainment area's computer desk and computer equipment.
The Battle-Shell's engine's sound, Arcee's startled scream and the computer desk getting smashed by incoming rogue truck caught also Leo's attention and the turtle in blue looked up from the book he was currently reading.
"YIKES!" Leo yelped at the sight of the rogue Battle Shell, that was about to run over the entertainment zone. The turtle in blue hurriedly jumped up from the armchair, tossing the book away, and rushed towards Master Splinter.
"EXCUSE ME, SENSEI!" Leo apologized as he tackled Splinter off the couch just before the Battle Shell ran over the entertainment zone, flattening everything on its way: sun lounger, entertainment area's table, the couch, armchair, standard lamp, wooden ladders, jukebox, snack vending machines and arcade games. Only TV set survived from its rampage.
Battle Shell then headed straight towards Donnie's workbench, Donnie and Mikey.
Don hurriedly gathered his important stuff from his workbench, such as his blue prints and his table lamb, while Mikey stared at the incoming Battle Shell, shaking at his knees from worriedness.
"SHAKE A LEG, YOU SHELL-FOR-BRAINS!" Donnie shouted.
Both the turtles hurriedly jumped out of the Battle Shell's way before the rogue truck finally reached to its "the signal's point of origin". There the truck finally hit the brakes and skidded to stop by itself, though not before ramming (and smashing) into Donnie's workbench, knocking everything on it over to the floor.
After the truck had stopped its rampaging around the lair, the rest of the family gathered to Donnie's lab. glaring down at Donnie and Mikey.
"Hey guys! What the shell was that?!" Raph roared, furious for being nearly ran over by the Battle Shell.
"Whose ingenious idea was to release the Battle Shell to rampage around of the Lair?!" Dom demanded to know.
"What the shell even happened here?!" Leo asked, pissed off himself.
"Blame Mikey for this mess!" Donnie said in his defense, before frowning and pointing with his thump accusingly at Mikey. "He's the one who caused the Battle Shell go in rampage through the lair by tampering my stuff he shouldn't have!"
Everybody then turned to glare at Mikey, including and especially Donnie.
Mikey chuckled awkwardly under of his brothers and sisters enraged glares. "Well... I... uh... uh... I... uh... Well, why then you have to leave your stuff lying around within the reach of the others?" the turtle in orange said to Donnie, defending himself.
"Ooooh! Are you saying that this was all my fault, eh?! Then why you have to touch everything you shouldn't even touch IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Donnie roared, enraged to the point that his face nearly switched from olive green to the crimson red.
Mikey, knowing that he really had pissed his brother off, tried to come up with another excuse while rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
"Well, it's... uh... uh... curiosity, you know? That's a common problem with younger people of the family." the turtle in orange eventually said.
"Lamest excuse ever, baby brother!" Louie spat.
"Yeah! Louie and I are almost the same age as you, but at least we can keep our fingers away from things that shouldn't be tampered with." Arcee exclaimed.
"Yeah, sure!" Mikey protested. "Except that we're all at the same age, remember?"
Donnie scoffed. "Yeah! But Arcee's got a point here, Mikey! Louie might love cool stuff as much as you do, but at least he has some level of control over his own curiosity. If he can be without touching anything he shouldn't, THEN WHY THE SHELL CAN'T YOU?!"
"ENOUGH!" Splinter declared firmly, breaking the argument between of his children, before turning to Donnie.
"Donatello, your Battle Shell is a marvel of engineering. A true testament to your incredible mechanical skills." Splinter admitted calmly, before the old rat master folded his arms and spoke the next words with the stern voice. "And I never want to see it in our home again. From now on, you need to continue working with your Battle Shell only in the warehouse."
Splinter didn't let Donnie to protest his final judgment but instantly turned to Mikey.
"And Michelangelo... to avoid the further incidents like this from ever happening again, I'm going to make you learn to control your excessive curiosity. And if this ever happens again because of it, I'll ban TV, music, pizza, video games and the comic books from you and replace them with a hard training with extra hours for a month." Splinter said warningly, before walking away.
Mikey looked shocked after hearing that.
"What?! No fair! You can't do that, Sensei!" the turtle in orange complained loudly.
"Serves you right, bro!" Donnie said, still scowling at Mikey, before still irritated brainy turtle smacked him to the right cheek.
"OW! Hey!" Mikey whined.
"That'll teach you from touching my stuff..." Donnie said before he smacked Mikey upside the head. "...and that'll teach you to stay out of my lab in the future."
"Okay, okay, okay! Message went through!" Mikey assured, rubbing his right cheek and the top of his head with his arms.
Aside, Raph smirked while witnessing Donnie smacking Mikey, though the turtle in red couldn't help but feel a little jealousy of this.
"Hmph! And I thought I was the one who's allowed to pummel Mikey." Raph deadpanned.
###
Later that night, Donnie had brought the Battle Shell back to the warehouse from the lair in their elevator chamber. Louie had offered to accompany the brainy turtle, even offering his help if Donnie needed to check or finish some things with the Battle Shell, while the rest of the family remained in the lair to clean up the Battle Shell's mess.
Once there, together, with Louie guiding him from outside and Donnie in the wheel, the turtles in purple and black managed to drive the Battle Shell out from the elevator chamber without damaging the truck's paint to the chamber's door frames and they parked it in front of the door of the warehouse.
And after that, Donnie shut the truck's engine and emerged out from the Battle Shell.
"Thanks for the help, bro. I really appreciate it." Donnie thanked Louie.
"Nothing at all, bro. Honestly said, my ulterior motive to this was just to get away from cleaning up the mess that ain't my mess." Louie confessed.
Donnie chuckled at his somewhat more matured little brother's claim. "You know what, Louie? Same here! I really needed to release some steam after what Mikey did."
Donnie then turned to the Battle Shell.
"I gotta say, bro. You're usually the most calmest one of all of us. I was really taken aback to see you snapping at Mikey in Raph's style." Louie admitted as he followed Donnie.
"Well, Mikey really knows how to get under the turtle's shell sometimes." Donnie mused, still pissed off for losing the chance to continue working with the Battle Shell in his lab.
"C'mon, Donnie. Mikey might be sometimes the thorn in the shell, but accidents do happen and anybody can learn from the accidents, even Mikey... I think." Louie said to his brother. "You can't be angry at him forever. And at some point you can finally forgive him."
Donnie shrugged at his brother's claim.
"Hmph! Even though I eventually could forgive that shell-for-brains, that doesn't undo anything what has been already done, including Master Splinter's final judgment of the Battle Shell. And because of Mikey, now I have to make time-consuming trips to here and back to the lair to bring here from my lab and workshop all my stuff and the spare parts what I need to be able to revamp the Battle Shell."
Louie nodded in understatement, because ever since they found the warehouse, Donnie had gone through the entire warehouse and took all the still usable or repairable spare parts to the Lair's workshop to wait for later use... leaving behind the useless junk.
The turtle in black them came up with an idea.
"Then why don't you then set up another workshop here, bro? Wouldn't it be much easier than dragging the necessary spare parts from place to place?" Louie suggested.
"Hmmmm." Donnie mused, considering Louie's suggestion. "You know what? That wouldn't be bad idea at all."
Suddenly, the turtles heard towards the door approaching steps from outside of the warehouse.
Somebody was outside.
The stranger, who sounded like a woman, eventually stopped in front of one boarded off windows to catch her breath, as if she had run for quite some time without taking a break to catch the breath, before she peeked inside from the gap between of the broads.
"HIDE!" Donnie snapped, and the turtles in purple and black immediately blended into the warehouse's darkness and hurried behind of the back of the Battle Shell to avoid being seen by the stranger.
"RAPHAEL?! LORENZO?!" the stranger called out, surprising both Louie and Donnie.
"RAPHAEL?! LORENZO?! ARE YOU THERE?! I NEED YOUR HELP!" the stranger called out again.
Louie suddenly found the stranger's voice a quite familiar, and began to think about where he had last heard that voice.
"Wait a sec, I know that voice." the turtle in black whispered, before the turtle in black dared to peek from behind of the Battle Shell at the boarded window, seeing the girl's hazel-brown eyes and part of her familiar looking faces from the gap in the gap of boards, as she was still peeking inside.
"And I know those faces too. It's that purple-haired girl whom Casey knows and whom me and Arcee were chasing that night when we stopped those Dragon goons from robbing that store, remember?" Louie whispered to Donny.
"Are you sure that that's her?" Donnie questioned, rising his eye brown (if the turtles even had such)
"I do, Donnie. Once having seen her faces and heard that voice, I can't mistake the person." Louie confirmed.
"Then what she's doing here?" Donnie questioned.
"I don't know, but she certainly wants to chat with me and Raph." Louie responded.
"Casey of course mentioned that she isn't part of the Purple Dragons, but everything may not be what it looks like. This might be a trap." the brainy turtle warned.
"Rubbish, brainiac!" Louie snapped, rejecting Donnie's claim of the situation's nature. "Two or three reasons why. One: If this really were a trap, we would have already sensed the arrival of the Dragons. Those idiots are incredibly poor to move in stealth mode. Two: The Dragons and that girl shouldn't even know about this place, let alone know my and Raph's names. And three: The Dragons do not seem to be interested in chasing us at all. They will of course attack us, but ONLY if we intervene in their affairs." the turtle in black explained, before he started to wonder the possible reason for the girl's knowledge of their secret garage's location and his and Raph's names.
Louie then came up with one possible fact.
"Maybe Casey has given her... and only her... our street address and our names, because he's one of the few humans who actually know this warehouse's location and our very existence. And I think he hasn't given it to her without any good reason."
Louie then put his left hand into his belt's pocket and began searching for his Shell Cell. He quickly found it and pulled it out from the pocket.
"I better call to the others." Louie said and dialed to Raph before lifting his Shell Cell to the next of his ear.
After a few beeping, Raph finally answered to his call. And when he did, Louie covered his mouth with his free hand to keep his voice low.
"Hey, Raph? You remember that purple-haired girl among of those Dragons we pummeled the two nights ago and whom Casey claimed to be his old acquaintance from his neighborhood? Well, she's here. Right behind of our garage's door. She's asking for both me and you, claiming that she needs our help. I don't yet know why, but because she knows the warehouse's location and our names, I guess that it somehow relates to Casey."
There was a momentary pause, during of which Louie could hear from the background Leo demanding the Shell Cell from Raph, as if the turtle in blue had listened to the conversation between him and Raph and wanted to say something himself. Louie then heard Leo snatching the phone from Raph's hand, causing the turtle in red to growl in irritation, before the turtle in blue answered to Louie's call with the some questions, which weren't too different from Donnie's guesses about the girl showing up in front of their doors.
Louie responded quickly to the first one. "No, Leo. we haven't yet responded to her calls, in case this is a trap set by the Dragons for us, though I strongly doubt it. That's why you guys better come up here right now. Okay, we'll be here waiting for you." Louie said to his Shell Cell before he cut off the call.
It didn't take long for the rest of the turtles to arrive to the warehouse, hiding in the shadows while observing Angel, as she was still peeking inside through the boarded window while calling for Raph and Louie. And every time after her calls for the turtles in red and black were not answered, he started to sound even more desperate that she even begged for Raph and Louie to talk to her.
"Raphael?! Lorenzo?! Please! Please, help me! Answer me, please! I need your help! I beg you!"
The rest of the turtles then joined to Donnie and Louie behind of the Battle Shell, keeping their eyes on the boarded window and Angel behind of it.
"Such a desperate tone in her voice... a distraught look in her faces... and now she's even begging for Raph and Louie to show up..." Mary said in whisper while observing Angel. "Seems to be serious, but I'm still unsure that is this for real or just an act." the turtle in turquoise stated.
Then, they saw that Angel turned away from the boarded window.
Leo then turned to Arcee and gently patted her for a few times to her shoulder with his palm to get her attention. Then, without saying a word, the turtle in blue requested Arcee to go and check the situation outside the boarded window by nodding his head towards it.
Arcee nodded to her big brother, before the turtle in pink went into a stealth mode and started to sneak silently towards the boarded window, using the warehouse's darkness and covers (piles of junk and wrecked vehicles) to conceal herself from sight if either the girl or somebody was gonna try to peek again through the gap.
And when she eventually reached to the window, she pressed herself against the wall next to it and carefully peeked outside through the gap.
Arcee spotted Angel. The girl was still standing in front of the garage's door and looked around of her... and she looked like she was more confused rather than nervous.
The turtle in pink then took a quick look of surroundings of the garage, expecting the members of the Purple Dragons waiting behind of the corners, fences, dumpsters and wrecked vehicles for ambush.
However, no one seemed to be out there beside the girl, so the coast was clear so far.
Arcee turned back to her brothers and sister and started to use the American Sign Language to report the situation to her family without spelling it out loud.(1)
"Just one girl outside. No one else in sight. The coast is clear so far." Arcee signed. "The girl seems to be more confused and desperate rather than nervous. Proves partially that she is alone."(1)
Leo nodded in acknowledge. The turtle in blue then lifted his hand on his chin and started to think this through for a moment before he made his decision, even though he knew that it might be a very risky move if there really was an ambush outside set for them.
"Okay. Let's take our chance, then." Leo told his siblings in whisper.
Everybody nodded at their older brother's suggestion before all of them gathered in front of the Battle Shell.
Well... all but Dom did. The white turtle remained hidden behind the Battle Shell because he was reluctant to follow his brother's plan because it involves revealing their existence to one human more. However, he eventually gave in and moved from behind the truck in front of it with the others, but not before turning to Leo with a questionable look on his face.
"Are you sure about this, Leo?" Dom asked. "You do know well yourself that this could be a trap?"
"I know, Dom." Leo whispered. "But whether or not this relates to Casey, there's only one way to find out. But otherwise be ready for anything, in case there's more of them than just one girl waiting in ambush."
By Leo's request, Donnie switched the Battle Shell's headlights on, so that Angel cannot see their appearances nor their identities clearly. Not till the safety of their territory and the lair's location are guaranteed.
"This is Eastman and Laird, right?" Angel questioned from herself outside.
"YES IT IS! Jackpot with the first guess!" Louie spoke loudly enough so that Angel could hear him.
And with that, the turtles opened the garage's door, allowing the Battle Shell's bright headlights hit to Angel's eyes as the girl turned around.
As the light beams hit her eyes, Angel instinctively raised her left arm up to cover her eyes from the light. And when she lowered her arm down to see in front of her, the teen girl gasped in amazement at the sight of eight turtles' silhouette figures standing against the Battle Shell's bright headlights.
"Whoa! A giant turtles?" Angel muttered, totally stunned by the turtles silhouette appearances.
"What a compliment, lady. You recognize the turtle when you see one." Louie said with the smirk.
Raph then walked up to Angel, till the turtle in red halted right in front of the purple-haired girl and crossed his arms. Louie followed the suit and walked right behind of his hot-headed brother. He stopped right next to Raph and put his hands on his hips in Peter Pan-style.
"Alright, kid. This is better be good." Raph said with the smirk.
Angel briefly eyed Raph's and Louie's silhouette figures from head to the toes
"Are you two... Raphael and Lorenzo?" Angel questioned.
"In the green flesh, so to speak." Raph replied, before the turtle in red went down to business. "You wanted to see us, kid? Well, here we are."
"But first you have to answer the three questions we have for you before we agree to listen to you. For security reasons, you know? Can you answer them honestly?" Louie asked.
Angel nodded her head without hesitation, after which Louie lifted up his three-fingered hand.
"Question one: Are you alone?" Louie asked. "Just to make sure that you didn't bring any of your new "posse" here with you."
"I am alone. I didn't bring anyone with me here. I swear." Angel answered, causing Louie to lower down his pinky.
"Question two: How do you know our names? And how did you know where to find us?" Louie asked again.
"Casey told me to go to the abandoned warehouse at the corner of Eastman and Laird, and that I should ask for the ones by the names Raphael and Lorenzo. He also told me that he had promised to keep your existence in secret, but decided to make an exception with me so you could recognize me as a friend."
With that answer, Louie lowered his middle finger. The turtle in black was then about to ask the final question 'till Raph spoke over his words.
"And to the final question, kid." the turtle in red said with the smirk, before it soon vanished and his voice turned into more serious one that caused Angel to take a step back from the turtle in red.
"What about Casey? What that bonehead has got himself into, that made him to send you to us?" Raph asked, leaving all the turtles to wait to hear the answer from their unexpected guest.
DAY EARLIER.
Next night after stopping the Purple Dragons' attempt of robbery and running into Angel among them, Casey, wearing a trench coat and a red cap as a disguise,(2) headed to that part of the town where has been sighted more of Purple Dragon activity than anywhere else in the whole city. He believed he could find both the Purple Dragons' headquarters and Angel from there.
Once there, Casey did not needed to wander along the streets for long before he eventually ran into two Purple Dragons, Spiky-head and Redhead, walking in the open rather than staying in the shadows waiting for their next prey.
Casey knew their routines well enough from his past experiences with the Dragons. When they were on a small-time job on the street, they would rather stick to the shadows and wait for unsuspecting victims to walk right into their trap before they make their move on them. But if these goons were just walking in the open like that, then they were not on the job but instead going somewhere.
Casey decided to follow them from the short distance, allowing them to lead him to their headquarters and to Angel.
It did not take long before the Spiky-head and Redhead had unknowingly led Casey to the large warehouse building that was protected by high fence, over which there was no climbing due to the barbed wires on top of it. There was only one gap in the fence that led inside to the fenced area.
As Spiky-head and Redhead walked through of the gap in the fence, Casey stopped outside of the fence and spied on the Dragons as they walked towards the entrance, where Blue-face was standing on guard. When Spiky-head and Redhead met Blue-face outside of the entrance, they held up three fingers in their left hands. Blue-face nodded and held up three of his own from his right, signaling the two to get inside.
As Red-head and Spiky-head entered inside the building, Casey moved through the gap of the fence and walked towards Blue-face, who noticed him approaching. Following the suit, the disguised vigilante help up his three fingers from his left hand.
Blue-face, not recognizing Casey as the hockey-masked vigilante who has beaten him up for countless times in the past, something what Casey had predicted from the Dragons who have never seen his face from under his mask before, gave him access inside the warehouse by pointing his thumb towards the entrance. Casey then entered into the building, smiling smugly to himself about how easy it was to trick these dim-witted Dragons.
When Casey entered, he noticed that the the interior of the warehouse had been turned into a fighting club: The walls of the large hall inside were decorated with eastern-styled Dragon graffiti with different colors. In the middle of the hall was a big boxing ring, surrounded by numerous wooden bleachers that were filled with the Dragons watching and cheering at the match that was ongoing in the ring. There was also a various catwalks in the hall's ceiling and the only light source in the whole dark place was the big lamp hanging from the ceiling above of the ring.
As earlier said, there was a match going on in the ring: Two Dragons were at this moment fighting each other in the ring. One was Fatso Dragon and other one was Beanie-Blondie Dragon. The two Dragons circled each other in the ring for a moment, before Fatso charged at Beanie-Blondie and swung his large baseball bat at him. Beanie-Blondie was quickly overpowered by his larger and stronger opponent, who brutally whacked him in the head for four times, causing both saliva and blood burst out of his mouth at each strike, including one or two teeth at the third strike. Beanie-Blondie, mouth and nose bleeding, collapsed to the ground, but Fatso wasn't done with him yet. The larger and stronger Dragon then picked his defeated opponent up from the ground and lifted his battered and limp body over his head, presenting him to the audience.
"AND THE WINNER IS... TWO TON!" the club's announcer declared in microphone, causing the audience to cheer to Fatso, who grinned back triumphantly.
"AND WHAT ABOUT THE KID HERE? WAS HE WORTHY OF THE DRAGON?!" the announcer asked, causing the audience to boo at the defeated Dragon, before he was thrown outside of the ring by Fatso, where he was caught by the other Dragons, who then carried him away from the ring.
While watching this, Casey shook his head in disgrace.
The announcer then continued. "THEN LET'S BRING IN THE NEXT INITIATIVE! GIVE IT UP FOR OUR NEWEST SOON-TO-BE MEMBER... MRS. ANGEL! BRIDGE!"
Casey's eyes widened in shock when he saw Angel jumping into the ring, punching her fists into the air.
"DOES SHE HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO CALL HERSELF THE PURPLE DRAGON?!" the announcer asked from the audience.
Angel earned cheers from few of the Dragons, and nearly all of them came from the female Purple Dragons in the crowd, though majority of them booed at her instead, not believing one bit that the girl in her age had a guts to call herself the Purple Dragon. Angel, however, didn't let that affect to her confidence and determination to prove herself to be worthy.
"THEN LET'S PUT HER INTO A REAL TEST!" the announcer said.
With that, Angel turned around and saw Pony-tailed Dragon flipped into the ring, volunteering to be her opponent. Angel prepared herself for the fight, until two more Dragons jumped in the ring to face her. One was Red-Sunglass-Dragon and second was the Dragon-lady with green Mohawk, black belly shirt, brown jacket, black shorts with Dragon branded in them and green shoes.
Casey gasped at this both in shock and horror, that Angel was put to fight three grown-up Dragons in the ring at the same time.
"Oh, jeez...!" the vigilante muttered.
Pony-tailed Dragon and Mohawk-Dragon-lady grinned menacingly while Red-Sunglass-Dragon snickered as they stared at the teen girl, while Angel eyed each Dragon one by one, waiting for one of them to make the first move. The Pony-tailed Dragon was first to advance towards Angel. He swung his fist at the girl, but Angel jumped over it and kicked the Pony-tailed Dragon in the chest, knocking him back. Mohawk-Dragon-Lady then charged next, throwing a punch towards Angel, but the street-smart teen girl caught it with both hands and then threw the Dragon lady over her shoulder to the ground, before she elbowed her in the stomach, causing the Dragon gasp in pain. Angel then turned to the Red-Sunglass Dragon, who walked up to her and tried to throw a several punches at her. Angel blocked two of them with her wrists, before she bowed under the third thrown punch and then kicked the Dragon in the face, before flipping away from him.
So far, Angel fared well against three Dragons. However, as her attention was in Red-Sunglass-Dragon, she failed to notice the Pony-tailed Dragon sneaking up from behind her back, holding the metal pipe in his hands.
Casey made his way through of the cheering Dragons towards the ring, and gasped again in shock when he saw that the Pony-tailed Dragon raised the pipe over his head and prepared to bring it down on Angel's head... without her even seeing him coming!
Casey then decided that enough was enough.
"Okay. That's it!" Casey said as he took off his cap and put on his mask and took his baseball bat from under of his coat, before the masked vigilante charged towards the ring.
"ANGEL! BEHIND YOU!" Casey shouted as he jumped into the ring just as the Pony-tailed Dragon brought his pipe down on Angel's head... only for Casey to block it just in time with his bat.
Both the Dragon and Angel gasped in surprise at seeing the vigilante here in the ring. Pony-tail's surprise gave Casey time to give him a whack with his bat, knocking the Dragon down and out cold.
Red-Sunglass-Dragon then approached Angel, forcing the teen girl to turn around to deal with him first. She dodged him as he tried to throw a punch at her before kicking him in the face, knocking him back. With that out of the way, Angel turned around to Casey.
"YOU! What are you doing here?!" Angel angrily demanded.
"Your new posse was just about to SMASH YOUR HEAD IN WITH THE PIPE!" Casey answered, pointing his own head.
The Dragons all around of the place roared in fury seeing Casey here in their nest! Though they didn't know how he had managed to get it, they didn't care. They only saw this as an opportunity to have their for a long awaited payback on Casey for messing up with their business for past years.
"Dragons!" Dragon-face shouted from amongst of the hordes of the Dragons. "Seize that man!"
The Dragons started to climb into the ring to seize Casey.
Pony-tailed Dragon, Red-Sunglass-Dragon and recovered Mohawk-Dragon-Lady were backed up by from his beat-down recovered Beanie-Blondie, Dreadlock-Woman, Mane-haired Dragon, Flame-haired woman, Scar-face Dragon, widely grinning Tie-Dragon and Military-Cap Dragon, while Hulking African-American Dragon approached Casey, backed up by four more Dragons.
One of them had orange hair that parted at his forehead and was dressed into a blue sleeveless shirt with the Dragon symbol branded on it, black-brown pants and heavy boots. This one also has a rings pierced through of his nose and ear, which were then connected with the chain.
Second one had the Mohawk-styled blonde haircut and chin beard. He had on blue sunglasses, and he was dressed in a grayish-blue sleeveless shirt with Dragon symbol branded on it and the orange sweat pants.
Third one was a blonde with a long hair that covered his eyes. He also had a blue bandana tied around of his head, torn sleeveless shirt with the Dragon symbol on its front side and grayish-white pants.
And fourth was a woman, who had a blue dyed hair with strands, and her hair was tied into a large ponytail behind of her head. This Dragon-lady had dark-pink torn top tank and amethyst-colored pants.
The Dragons surrounded Casey and Angel, who were standing back to back in middle of the ring, blocking their any chances to escape from here without the fight, and were closing on them menacingly. Casey, however, showed no fear in front of the overwhelming odds but swung his bat at approaching thugs to keep them at bay.
"Don't worry, Angel! I'll get you out of here!" Casey told to the girl.
However, Casey was caught off guard when suddenly a huge fist punched him right in the chest, knocking the masked vigilante off his feet and sending him flying onto his back to the floor of the ring.
Before Casey could recover and get up, the same large hand then picked him up by the face and lifted him in the air. Through of his mask's eye hole, Casey could see who had seized him by his face.
It was Hun!
"Ha, ha, ha, ha! Hello, Jones. Long time no see." Hun snickered.
The Dragons around of Hun and Casey looked on as their leader roughly held the struggling vigilante in the air. Casey tried to break himself free from Hun's grasp, but no avail. The giant man's hold of his face was just too strong.
"Think I don't know that's you under that mask, Jones? I got hundreds of eyes and ears all over this town. WORD IS YOU HAVE BEEN DISRESPECTED THE DRAGONS!" Hun roared, as he roughly threw Casey to the floor of the ring.
"AGH!" Casey groaned as he hit on his stomach to the ground, before Hun then kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him rolling away from him.
Casey stopped rolling in front of his dropped baseball bat. Panting and slightly moaning from the pain in his stomach, Casey lifted his head up and saw his weapon.
"Ha! Pathetic, Jones!" Hun snarled as he advanced towards the downed vigilante. "And yet after everything I've heard of you, I thought you could last longer than this. At least a couple minutes longer than your dear old 'daddy' did."
The mention of his father gave Casey the second wind. Growling angrily, Casey picked up his baseball bat and stood up from the floor. He then turned around and attempted to hit Hun with his bat, but the giant man caught it with his large hand before it could hit him. Casey struggled to free his weapon from Hun's clutch, before the giant man ripped it off from Casey's hands before he punched him right in the chest for the second time, making him fly onto his back to the floor again.
Hun then lifted Casey's bat over his head and broke it in two before throwing the pieces of now-useless bat away.
Hun then walked menacingly towards Casey, who weakly tried to stand up and fight the giant, but the vigilante was severely worn down by Hun's devastating attacks that he fell on his knees. Grinning evilly, Hun then grabbed from Casey's shirt and lifted him partially off the floor. Gritting his teeth in pain, Casey lifted his head up and looked at Hun, giving him a cold yet defiant glare. Hun merely grinned at this just before he raised his fist in the air and brought it hard down at Casey, mercilessly and repeatedly punching the defenseless vigilante in the face. The Dragons behind them all cheered at Hun and sadistically encouraged him to hurt Casey even more and more without stopping. Encouraged by his minions, Hun put more juice into his brutal punches, thus starting to punch Casey even harder and faster that blood started to spill from under of his mask. Hun even one time grabbed from both critically weakened Casey's shoulders, before he brutally kneed Casey in the chest, nearly forcing all air out of his lungs and making him gasp and groan in pain.
However, only one in the crowd did not took part in this cruelty: Angel. The teen girl stared at this with her eyes wide from horror and regret for what she had done. Unable to bear witness of her friend being beaten and tortured like this, the horrified girl backed away and ran off, without anyone seeing, as they were all too focused on seeing Casey getting his butt kicked.
Hun then picked Casey up from the floor and lifted him over his head, holding the defeated vigilante up in the air for a moment so that every Dragon in the whole lair could see their enemy's 'long-deserved' downfall, before the giant roughly threw him against the ground, knocking him out cold.
"Lock up this piece of garbage!" Hun ordered his minions behind him, before walking away. "We'll play some more with him later."
FEW HOURS EARLIER
Later, in the basement of the Dragons' fight-club...
The Dragons had dragged Casey, who was covered by various nasty-looking bruises from face and arms after his brutal fight with Hun and the Purple Dragons, down to the basement, where they had thrown him into the room-sized cage. They had even shackled his legs together and bound and chained his arms to the wall with the wrist cuffs to further ensure that he won't escape from here, before leaving him down there to rot and wait for whatever the Dragons were planning for him.
Casey, however, wasn't keen to just wait down here to find out. For the whole next day, he had stubbornly tried to free himself by pulling the chain off the wall with his legs. He huffed, groaned and growled as he pulled from the chain with all his strength. However, Casey eventually gave up when he realized after many tries that it won't budge.
However, despite not being able to free himself from the chains, it didn't stop Casey from calling out to the Dragons.
"LISTEN UP, YOU COWARDLY SLIMY BASTARDS! It's gonna take a lot more than chains to bring down Casey Jones, you hear me!?" Casey shouted angrily. "I won't rest until every one of you Dragon Clowns is behind bars, or beneath the dirt pushing up daisies!"
The shadow then fell over Casey, making him to turn around to see who it was. Much to his displeasure and hate-filled ire, it was Hun.
"Big words, vigilante-boy." Hun laughed in amusement. "Did I ever tell you how much fun I had burning down your father's store when you were a kid?"
"And did I ever told you how much fun I have had in making your wretched boys' miserable life even more miserable" Casey shot back with scorn.
Hun laughed and shook his head a little, amused by Casey's defiance of him and his inevitable doom. "You're much like your Old Man, Jones. He neither wasn't afraid of what was coming for him even after I made my point clear by torching his store. And when I caught him from telling to police about it, he told me that by doing it, he'd hoped he'd made our lives even more miserable than it already was, just before I blew his brains out."
Casey narrowed his eyes angrily, but then he gave Hun a smug, nearly mocking smirk of his own.
"Then I'm proud that I had such of father, you fat-headed bastard!" Casey sneered.
In retaliation, Hun angrily reached his arm through the cage's bars and grabbed from Casey's shirt, before the giant slammed Casey against the cage's bars.
"Laugh now, sucker, because tonight's gonna be the night when the history ironically repeats itself. Tonight I'm going to keep to the Dragons a little smakdown contest. And you're the prize." Hun growled and threw Casey to his cage's floor. "Whoever wins will have the honor to hack, beat, and crush your sorry carcass at will. And so shall end the legacy of the Jones family once and for all."
After saying that, Hun coldly turned his back to Casey and walked up the flight of stairs that led to the ring room, closing the door behind him as Casey glared after him.
After he stood up, Casey tried to break his chains again, but it was no use.
Casey's face then fell as Hun's words broke through into him. All of his life, after his father's death, he had tried to both stop the Purple Dragons from preying on innocent people and make Hun pay dearly for what he did in his father's memory, both before and after the turtles had showed up into his life to help him to take them down. And now he had both tried and possibly failed to discourage his neighborhood friend from joining up with the very people he hated most. Now Casey couldn't believe that all his efforts to vanquish the Dragons for good had instead led him to the same situation as it did to his father. He was then filled with an overwhelmingly discouraging feeling that he had let his father down.
As Casey was starting to lose all hope, he suddenly heard a noise from the upstairs and looked up to see what it was. He saw then that someone kicked a tile off the basement's ceiling, before someone dropped down from the hole and landed in front of the cage. Much to Casey's surprise, it was Angel.
"Angel? What are you...?" Casey questioned.
"SHH!" Angel hushed with the finger in front of her lips, telling Casey to be quiet, before she pulled out a lockpick from her pocked and walked up to the cage's door.
"I-I heard everything, Casey. I'm so sorry I got you into this mess. I'm gonna get you out of here. I swear." Angel said worriedly and apologetically, before she put the pick into the lock and started to work to get it open.
She tried for several times to get the door open, but either its lock was designed so that it could not be opened so easily with the lockpick or the girl herself felt so much guilty and anxious for all of this that she couldn't focus properly on the task. Whichever the reason ever was, she failed to get the door open at every try.
"Ugh! I can't do it!" she groaned in frustration before throwing the lockpick away, giving up. Tears started to appear in her eyes as the fact that she was the reason why Casey got into this situation and that she was unable to do anything to help him flashed in her mind. Angel tried to hold back her tears, but the sense of guilt proved to be too much to bear and the miserable girl covered her face with her hands, starting to cry. "This is all my fault. I should have listened you in the first place. I just wanted was to belong to the 'cool' people. I did not meant to get you into this, Casey. I did not meant to..." she sobbed.
"It's alright, Angel. Don't worry." Casey assured comfortingly, walking as close of Angel as he could.
Angel then wiped the tears from her eyes, before looking up at Casey. "Casey, it's almost midnight. What are we going to do?" she asked desperately.
"Hmm." Casey hummed as he thought of something.
After pondering for a moment, his thoughts almost immediately went to the turtles, knowing that his friends alone could help him out of this dire situation. The only problem was that he didn't have one of their Shell Cells with which he could have called them for help a little earlier, and he bitterly cursed himself for not even asking for one of those thingies in case if something like this would happen before he went to look for Angel.
Casey then turned to look at Angel, who was anxiously awaiting for Casey's response.
He was at least glad he had managed to get Angel to give up her dreams to join up with Dragons, though not so much in the way he wanted it to be. With that, Casey started to consider of sending Angel to get the turtles here to help him. However, this idea also reminded Casey about the promise he gave to the turtles and their rat father: that he's not supposed to tell anyone about his friends' existence or the location of their lair.
However, Casey did not have time come up with any other plan to escape this alive, knowing that his time was quickly running short before he will soon be removed from this prison and taken up for the preparations of tonight's smackdown contest Hun mentioned earlier.
And so, at least for this once, Casey decided to tell to Angel about his friends and from where to find them.
"Listen to me, Angel. I have some friends who can help. Real good friends. Remember the creatures you saw back at that alley behind of that store the Dragons were looting? They are my friends." Casey said. "I need you to go to get them. You can find them from the abandoned warehouse at the corner of Eastman and Laird. Ask for the guys by these names: Raphael and Lorenzo."
Angel's eyes widened as she remembered those Casey's weird companions from that alley. However, the uncertainty struck her after hearing out Casey's plan.
"But those weird friends of yours... they saw me amongst of the Dragons back that night. They won't ever trust me as they trust in you. How I can assure them that I'm a friend and that we need their help?" Angel asked worriedly.
"They might be initially cautious towards new people and maybe a little territorial for the reason which you'll find out once you get there. But they do know about you already and I'm sure they will listen, Angel." Casey assured. "All you need to do is to tell them that it was me who gave you the location of their whereabouts as an exception about the promise I gave to them that I won't to tell about their existence or their whereabouts to anyone. If you tell them that, I'm sure they'll recognize you as a friend. NOW GO! HURRY!"
Angel nodded to her friend before running out through the door nearby that led up to the streets, determined to get to the corner of Eastman and Laird and to convince these Casey's weird friends to help them.
TO BE CONTINUED...
TRIVIA
1) = Arcee both knows and can do American Sign Language.
2) = I added here the red cap into Casey's disguise when he infiltrated into the Dragons lair, for the reason that in the original episode, Casey had a quite cheap disguise and that surely some Dragons would've most likely recognized his face from the encounter back in Central Park. So I felt that Casey needed to cover his identity a little bit more than just with the trench coat.