TMNT 2003 S1: Four Turtles More

by Fanficteller

Fifteen years have passed since the accident. Now, eight turtles, six brothers and two sisters, born as mutants in the sewers and trained as ninjas by a rat, are forced to leave their destroyed underground home and take the first step into a surface world where they face many adventures and meet new friends and foes, until they meet their toughest opponent ever, The Shredder.

54. The Girl and the Turtle, Part 1, Part 4

CT311998: Not likely, because it is in Louie's nature to boldly jump from the frying pan and into the fire (though there can be some limits). And yes, that's pretty much the refence to the third live-action film of Leo pulling his head into his shell to duck Walker's cannon shot.

Girl Anime Club: Yes. Unlike Raph, Dom and reluctant Mikey, Leo, Donnie, Mary and Arcee never shunned Louie even if he didn't play to the rules of the training exercise. Arcee was even so nice to try to follow him to make sure Louie was fine, though Leo respected Louie's wish to be alone for some time.

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= TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2003 =
= THE GIRL AND THE TURTLE P4=

As the echoes of the gunshots faded away, everybody just stood there staring at now-headless Louie. Some of the thugs were left quite shocked by this, along with Angel and Ellie, while some were rather indifferent, and the rest of them were very pleased, particularly Marcus and especially Jersey Red, as the latter had finally climbed out of the garbage bin along with John and Thomas.

"HA! THAT DUDE IS DEAD MEAT!" Jersey cheered gleefully as she threw her hands in the air.

A few thugs began cheering loudly, clapping their hands, jumping in joy or threw their hands in the air like a little boys along with Jersey. Even those who didn't initially join, such as Lugnut who possessed the right black eye, joined their friends in cheering.

However, their cheering for Louie's apparent "death" only earned them a nasty look from Angel, who narrowed her eyes angrily.

"YOU MONSTERS!" she screamed and sprung up from the ground to avenge the turtle.

"Angel! No!" Ellie cried, pleading her granddaughter not to do something rash that would only get them both killed in the hands of the brutal and remorseless thugs.

But Angel didn't either hear or care and instantly lunged at the nearest thug: High Five! Though Angel caught him briefly off-guard and was capable to land the few hits on the thug, such as giving him such of punch that knocked the tooth out of his mouth, High Five quickly retaliated by grabbing to Angel's hoodie with one hand before giving her a punch in the face with such of force that knocked her over.

Ellie gasped in horror and attempted to crawl towards her granddaughter, but she was quickly apprehended by Grunt, who roughly grabbed her by the neck and held his sword at the old woman's throat, warning her not to move or else...

High Five walked over Angel, angrily squeezing his hand around the chain he was holding. Angel turned around and glared up at the thug, revealing the line of blood running down from the right corner of her mouth, which she quickly wiped off and stood up.

"Angel, don't!" Ellie pleaded, only for Grunt to press his sword harder against her throat.

But Angel ignored her again, and tried to throw a punch at High Five. But the taller and older thug quickly caught Angel's fist with his free left hand before he raised his chain up and whacked Angel in the face with it, leaving a nasty bruise in her left cheek and knocking her down once again.

"Stay down, girl!" he snarled before he leaned down and twisted Angel's left arm behind her back and grabbed from the back of her hair, making Angel grunt through of her gritted teeth in pain, before High Five roughly lifted her up. "Or I'll get more rougher than this!" he added, before forcibly turning Angel back to headless Louie and the cheering thugs.

This was torturous for Angel, as if High Five was simply forcing her to watch the still standing but nonetheless dead corpse of her friend, who came to her and her grandmother's aid, failed, died and whom she had failed to avenge. Couple salty tears escaped from the corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks as she stared at Louie, unable to believe what had just happened.

"Louie... no." Angel mumbled softly, before her head fell down in sorrow and despair.

Marcus bursted into a cruel triumphant laughter. "HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HAA! I showed that wannabe hero-freak who's the boss here! Didn't I, brother?!" he said boastfully, turning to Johannes for acknowledgement and credit for his deed.

However, for the first time tonight lost his temper and usual calm attitude in front of everyone, Johannes instead exploded in frustrated anger, much to Marcus' brief confusion.

"SHOWED HIM?! YOU JUST BLASTED HIS HEAD OFF WHEN I WAS THINKING OF AN OFFER THAT GUY, WHOEVER HE WAS, COULDN'T HAVE REFUSED, YOU TRIGGER-HAPPY LUNATIC!" Johannes roared at his brother's face.

At that moment, Johannes caught the sound of the distant police sirens in the air, which ceased all the shouting, cheering, laughing and clapping like in the wall.

The whole gang was alarmed by the very sound every street thug abd whoever lived in the underworld of the city and outside of the law would recognize immediately.

This made Johannes realize that someone had probably heard the gunfire and had alerted the police, which made him further infuriated with Marcus.

"Now see what you have done, brother!" Johannes barked, turning back to his brother to give him more piece of his mind. "Not only you've wasted my chance to negotiate with that guy, but now you have exposed us! Now the police is on their way here and we don't have time to clean up our mess to prevent arousing the suspicions!"

Marcus only shrugged off his brother's concerns with great indifference, feeling proud of himself Instead.

"Big deal, brother!" Marcus scoffed. "We just need to dump the body and do away with the witnesses to neutralize any threat to our operations. And when the cops arrive, they're not gonna find anything except the shredded hat and scarf."

"Or the bunch of piled up losers left to wait for the cops!"

Nearly every member of the gang, including Johannes and Marcus, jumped in surprise and alarm upon hearing that scottish voice that had just all of the sudden spoken to them in the mocking manner. Johannes and Marcus also recognized the voice and to whom it belonged, much to the duo's disbelief, making them to stare at Louie's body with baffled and wide-eyed looks.

Hearing the voice and knowing it to belong to Louie, Angel's head jumped immediately back up and she fixed her weiling eyes on Louie's headless and motionless figure.

"Louie?" she mumbled softly.

Ellie recognized the voice too, but raised an eyebrow in confusion, unable to figure out how its owner was still capable to speak without the head.

Angel kept staring at Louie, until she caught with her eyes something what the other thugs didn't... because all of their gazes were fixed on the spot between of Louie's shoulders where his head had been.

The slight movement in Louie's right hand!

The turtle in black's two fingers slowly and without the thugs' notice clenched into a fist, leaving only his thumb pointing upwards, as if Louie was giving her a thumbs up to assure her that everything will be fine... even from beyond the grave.

Wiping the tears away from her eyes with her free hand, Angel raised an brow in mild confusion as she stared at Louie's 'thumbs up' sign that was obviously meant for her, blinking them a few times wondering if she had seen right or was just seeing things.

This also raised a few questions in her head, such as...

'What was happening?'

'Was Louie still alive despite getting his head just blown off?'

'How? How can he still be alive?'

'How can he still speak even without the head? Let alone capable to move his hand enough to give me a thumbs up?'

'Was it just because of the reflex or am I just hearing and seeing things?'

'No. It cannot be just me. Grandma and these punks are all hearing and seeing it too.'

However, Angel was brought out of her thoughts when Louie's voice spoke again.

"And whatever you were considering to offer me, Johannes, I wouldn't have accepted it from the such of crook as yourself anyway."

Most of the thugs, still unable to believe their eyes and ears, fearfully stepped away from Louie's corpse, keeping as much distance between them and the turtle in black as possible. Out of all of them, Lugnut was the only one who struggled to maintain his composure. The giant man raised his trembling hand up and pointed his finger at Louie's body.

"Tha-tha-tha-tha-that... v-v-v-v-voice! It ca-ca-ca-ca-came... from that... that... that... that body!" the thug stuttered fearfully.

Marcus narrowed his eyes to take a closer look of the spot where Louie's head had stood. A moment later he nearly jumped in alarm, confusion and even in fear - and he wasn't the only one - when he saw that from the coat's collared neckline emerged the moss green bald top of the head, stopping only when the pair of eyes with the black mask over them peeked out, fixing the sneering gaze right at Marcus.

"Next time you shoot somebody, pal, don't go near before you're sure he's dead." Louie's said inside of his coat.

"It... it cannot be!" Marcus exclaimed from the top of his lungs, frantically shaking his head in disbelief. "This is... this is Impossible! You-you cannot be alive! You have to be a... a..."

"Hoo, hoo, Boy, do I love being a turtle with a retractable head!" Louie laughed, before the rest of his still-intact head came out, revealing his face to all onlookers with the smug grin.

"MISSED ME!"

Marcus, Johannes and the rest of the gang stared at Louie in aghast, not only because of his impossible survival from the couple headshots from the close range, but also because of Louie's face that wasn't human for their liking. They were also creeped out by the fact that Louie was able to tuck his head inside his body.

Angel let out the gasp, mixed with the soft tearful laughs of relief to see Louie, her friend, still alive and well.

Ellie in the other hand stared at Louie in wide-eyed and slack-jawed bewilderment after seeing that their rescuer wasn't a human but a somekind of reptilian creature.

Johannes was now struggling to keep his own composure on as he stared at Louie. "Who and what in the god's name are you?!" he gasped.

Louie fixed his gaze on Johannes, while unbuttoning his coat and taking his Manriki-gusaris from his belt into his hands.

"Name's Lorenzo, Johannes Victor." Louie said with the cocky smirk on his lips, before he pointed at his own face with his finger. "And let my face be a one-time and clear warning to all outlaws who dare to HURT MY FRIENDS!"

Louie then turned around and lifted his Manriki-Gusaris up in the air, before he hurled them in the cracking-of-the-whip style at High Five and Grunt, who were still holding Angel and Ellie as hostages. The weights in the ends of the chains hit the thugs in the chest simultaneously and sent them both flying into the air, until they hit against the wall. High Five fell into the bunch of trash cans, knocking them over upon landing, while Grunt fell into another garbage bin with the open lid.

"YIPPIE-YI-YAY!" Louie cheered like the cowboy as he pulled his chains back before he began to skillfully make the spinning spirals with his left chain while swing his right hand around of him, making his other chain to follow his hand's movements with the wild spinning, waving and serpentine motions like the ribbon dancer, forming almost like the shapeshifting chain-cage around of the turtle in black. Neither of them touched each other to break the movement and Louie's concentration.

Before the thugs could've even blinked, Louie turned his spinning course to the left and swung his chains at two thugs in his left: Shauna and Larry. His left chain swept the legs from under Shauna, making her to fall on her face to the ground, while his right chain's weight whacked Larry in the head, knocking him down and out.

Louie then turned around and cracked his chains upwards, making the weights hit to the wall above of John, Thomas, Carl, Jersey and Lugnut hard enought that they got stuck there. The impact also caused the large portion of the wall above of the five thugs to crack, so that when Louie pulled the weights off, the whole portion of the wall collapsed onto John, Thomas and Carl, partially burrying them under the pile of bricks, though Jersey and Lugnut managed to get out of the way just in time.

Louie then turned to the remaining thugs while spinning his chains wildly over his head with such of speed that they almost looked like the spinning blades of the buzzsaws.

"And the ones who rise the guns against me MUST PAY!" Louie declared, glaring at Jersey, Scrag and Marcus.

However, the other half of the remaining thugs weren't too keen to wait for their turn to get pummeled again.

"Let's get out of here!" Lugnut whined, before he sprinted towards the other end of the alley since Louie was blocking this one, and he was shortly after followed by Dopey and Dumbo. Only Scrag, Jersey and Marcus stood their ground.

The three thugs took out the spare guns: Mini Uzi, SIG-Sauer P226 pistol and pair of sawed-off double barrel shotguns and aimed them at Louie before opening the fire. Even Johannes raised his Colt Anaconda pistol up and fired few shots at the turtle in black.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA!

However, seconds before any gunshots were fired, Louie threw his chains up towards the pair of fire escapes above of the thugs, wrapping them around the railings. Then Louie both jumped in the air right when the thugs pulled their guns' triggers, and each shot hit to the empty spot where he had stood a couple seconds ago.

The thugs lifted their gazes up at Louie as he flew in the air, before they raised their weapons up to resume their fire. But when they fired at Louie again, the turtle in black began to fall back down and out of the way of the gunfire, but then he swung towards the thugs by his chains, dodging their gunshots as he flew past them and then swung back upwards. Upon reaching to the maximum height, Louie let go of his chains with the backward flip and began to fall downwards, past the gunshots the thugs were firing up at him.

Louie landed in middle of the four thugs, but not before grabbing from Marcus' shotguns. Right after that, Louie fell over to his shell and pulled Marcus down with him, just before he somersaulted backwards and kicked the thug in the chest with both feet, sending him flying away while yanking the shotguns from his hands.

The turtle in black then jumped up again and spinning split-kicked Jersey, Scrag amd Johannes in the chest, sending the thugs flying away in three direction. Landing on his feet, Louie took Marcus' shotguns into both hands and began to bend their both ends downwards with his mighty streght, grunting through his gritted teeth.

SNAP!

Marcus' shotguns snapped in half in Louie's hands, rendering the weapons useless.

After destroying Marcus' guns, Louie threw the pieces away and then turned his gaze to the fleeing thugs: Lugnut, Dopey and Dumbo, who immediately halted upon seeing the turtle in black glaring at them.

Louie then grabbed from his chains as they fell back to him. The turtle in black then wrapped them around his arms and began to pull them down with all his strength.

"GGGGGGNNNNNNRRRRRRAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!" Louie roared from the strain of effort as he kept pulling.

Up in the fire escapes, the screws that held the fire escapes in both walls must have suffered from neglect of maintenance and thus had rusted to a bad state, that they couldn't withstand the strain Louie was giving them for long.

Eventually, most of the screws gave in to the strain and they were either plucked off the wall or just snapped in half.

This resulted both fire escapes coming loose off the walls and collapsing to the ground behind the turtle in black, leaving there the enormous pile of the twisted metal, steps and platforms that blocked the way to the other side of the alley, trapping the remaining thugs to this side of the alley.

Dobey, Dumbo and Lugnut, realizing that they were trapped and at Louie's mercy, backed away in fear as the turtle in black began to follow them, dragging his chains along the ground in his wake.

"Now... to the desserts." Louie said with the mischievious smirk.

Louie then pulled his chains horizontally forward, causing them to fly horizontally towards Lugnut, who didn't have time to react - except to let out a girly terrified scream - before the chains wrapped around him, tying up the giant thug for multiple times.

Louie then leaped onto the wall in his left and ran along it past Lugnut, before he hopped off the wall to the ground and then jumped to the opposite wall and ran along it too with rapid speed, wrapping more chains around of Lugnut's body, while capturing Dopey and Dumbo on the first round and tying them up into Lugnut.

After tying the thugs together, Louie grabbed from his chains with both hands and spun around, pulling and lifting the surprised and screaming thugs off the ground as well. Then he began to swing the chains and the thugs with it around in the air in the manner of the hammer thrower in the sports.

And after few rounds, Louie tossed the screaming thugs - who were staring to feel a little dizzy from their heads and unwell from their stomachs - in the air with all his might, sending them flying in the air.

But as they flew out of the alley and over their waiting car, the other ends of Louie's chains wrapped - luckily for them - around of tall sign hanging in the wall at the alley's entrance. The chains then tugged the thugs back, cutting their flight short, but also causing them to swing back and forth under the sign like the cabinet clock's pendulum, until they eventuallycame to stop.

Proud of his work, the turtle in black began to walk towards Angel and Ellie.

On his way, he came upon the downed Scrag, who groaned in pain as he attempted to get back up, only for Louie to put his foot onto his back and then pushed the thug face first into the ground, before simply continuing onward before coming upon Jersey.

Jersey was struggling to get back to her feet by using bin for the support. Noticing Louie passing by, the red-headed woman growled through her teeth before picking up the pipe and making a mad dash towards the turtle in black to strike him. However, Louie spin-kicked the pipe out of Jersey's hands, forcing the woman to rely on the right straight. However, turning slightly to the left, Louie shot his right palm upwards, hitting Jersey under the chin, knocking her head back, before the turtle in black delivered the punch with his left fist into Jersey's chest, knocking some air out of her and knocking her down and out.

Then, Louie came upon downed Marcus and Johannes, who were both groaning in pain and defeat in the ground next to each other. The brothers made no apparent attempt to get up from the ground, which could've dissuased Louie from attacking them when they were already down and beaten.

Louie, however, wasn't in the mood of that. So he knelt down and grabbed both thugs from their suits and dragged them like grain sacks towards one of the trash cans nearby, intenting to put the crooks inside of them like the yesterday's trashes.

"Unhand me at once, freak!" Marcus demanded, struggling against's Louie's grip. "If you even dare to do anything to me, I'm going to make you regret this! Mark my words!"

"Regret this." Louie simply told him, before he pulled the thug with ease over his head and put him head-first into the trash can, leaving only his feet outside.

"OUCH!" Marcus whined when his head hit to the bottom.

As Louie prepared to do the same to Johannes, the thug was quick enough to at least try to convince him otherwise.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Please, let me explain before you'd do anything rash, Mr. Lorenzo? This was all just a misunderstanding, you know? You see, me, my brother and our assistants were just on business and with no intention of harming anyone. I swear it, with my honor." Johannes tried to explain.

However, his reasonings fell to the deaf ears.

"Save your sweet talk to someone too gullible pinhead, Johannes, because your words are nothing more but the trash in the bag that belongs into trash can." Louie said and began to lift Johannes off the ground.

"Wait! Wait! WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! WATCH THE SUIT! WATCH MY FRESHLY LAUNDERED SUIT! HAVE AT LEAST MERCY FOR MY SUIT!" Johannes desperately pleaded like the whining baby but Louie shook off the thug's concerns.

"Sorry, pal. Hopefully the laundry bill wasn't too high." Louie wished sarcastically.

Johannes soon found himself upside down inside the trash can, where Louie left him alongside with his brother.

With all fourteen thugs down and out, Louie clapped his hands clean and stretched his shoulders to shake off the strain after the long fight, before he resumed walking towards Angel and her grandmother.

"Hi, Angel cakes! Lovely way to meet you here, don't you think?" Louie greeted, waving his hand in the air. "Been a long time since our last meet. How ya been?"

Angel, however, didn't answer to Louie's question. Instead, she folded her arms and shot a reprimanting glare at the turtle in black, like a mother about to reprimand her son for bad behavior.

Louie seemed to notice this and grew confused, as if not expecting the reunion between two old friends taking such of turn of the mood.

"What? What did I do now?" Louie said with the innocent shrug. "Why such of murky look, as if you're not happy to see me again after so long?"

"Ugh! Louie... you...!" Angel growled under her breath. She unfolded her arms and raised them slightly up while shaking her head in frustration and disbelief of how little regard Louie apparently had towards the fact that he just almost died.

"Lorenzo! Y-y-you... you... you shell-for-brains! Don't you dare to do that ever again! You understand that you almost caused me the heart-attack with that stunt of yours?!" she said with sharp voice, holding a finger at his face.

Louie shrugged again to such of reprimantion. "Relax, Angel. I'm a ninja... and a turtle, remember? That trigger-happy dude wouldn't even hit the barn wall, let alone a turtle with the retractable head."

Angel, however, wasn't convinced. "Do you have any regard towards your own life, Louie. One of these nights that will definitely cost you yor head for real!"

"Hey! Look who's talking... given that little "becoming the member of the Purple Dragon gang" affair few weeks back?" Louie retorted back.

Angel cringed the moment Louie brought up the said subject... and yet at the most inappropriate time when her grandmother was in present! Angel frantically waved her hands up and down to signal Louie to stop before he ends up revealing even more about the whole affair she'd hoped to keep as a secret.

"Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup, you idiot!" Angel hissed through of her teeth. "My grandmother is here and...!"

However, Angel quickly cut herself short when she realized what she had just said, and her face morphed into a dumbfounded and wide-eyed shock when she realized something.

Her grandmother standing a few feet away just behind of her back, having witnessed everything, and Louie no longer wearing his hat or scarf to cover his face, which he was now unable to do since they both got blown into shreds, meant only one thing!

Louie's true identity had been exposed not just to those thugs, but also to Ellie, who hadn't even seen him in person: at least not in his giant-talking-mutant-turtle-appearance kind of person yet until now.

Even Angel knew that Louie and her siblings weren't supposed to be seen by the people except those who already knew about them, like herself, Casey, and possibly a few others she didn't know yet.

Louie's face morphed into look that matched Angel's when the realization hit him too, and it created a rather awkward atmosphere.

"Oh, grud." both Angel and Louie muttered awkwardly when they turned towards Ellie.

She was standing there almost petrified like a statue, wide-eyed, mouth hanging slack open, trembling with disbelief and even shock and fear as she stared at Louie. The rest of the world sounded like a faint echo in Ellie's ears as her very mind struggled to figure out what was going on here and who or what the "strange creature" before her actually was.

Fear seemed to get a stronger grip on her after every passing second when she failed to find any rational or logical response to what she was seeing. Her trembling got even stronger and her head was shaking from left to right and she seemed to have hard time to get the breath.

Both Louie and Angel immediately put their little bickering aside and tried to calm her down. While Angel walked towards her grandmother, Louie thought it would be better if he stayed put so that Ellie wouldn't freak out further than she already had.

"Grandma! Everything is okay! Everything is okay! He's okay. Take the deep breath!" Angel said as she took Ellie's hand into hers, hoping to calm her down, though Ellie didn't react to her touch.

"Mrs. Bridge! Take it easy! Please, take it easy! I know this is the weirdest thing you've ever seen, I get it. But this is quite awkward situation for me. Believe me. I have been there before." Louie said, waving his hands in front of him calmingly.

Ellie's mouth was moving, as if she was going to say something, but under her shock and trembling fear, no words came out. And her vain attempts to get the words out further prevented her from breathing in and out.

Then, the lack of oxygen soon resulted her passing out, with her eyes rolling into her head before the old woman herself began to fall backwards.

"Grandma!" Angel gasped and rushed in to prevent her grandmother from falling to the ground.

However, due to being a ninja, Louie reacted faster than what Angel could the moment he saw the signs of Ellie starting to fall over due to her passing out. The turtle in black moved swiftly to Ellie's side and caught her into his arms, thus saving her from falling to the ground.

"Way to be persuasive, Louie." Angel said with sarcasm.

"Oh, cut it out, Angel cake." Louie said with an eyeroll as he carefully lifted Ellie up in bridal style.

"We better get out of here before this alley will be swarming with cops." Louie said, noting the approaching police sirens, which judging by the volume of the sounds were only a block or two away from them. "I don't think there are any more street thugs in the area than these fourteen punks, but maybe it's best if I take you two personally home and keep an eye on the situation for a while, if that's okay with you."

"Why not." Angel said as she retrieved the shopping bags she had dropped earlier. "But no doubt we both owe my grandma a big explanation, don't you think?"

"Couldn't agree more, Angel." Louie said before the turtle in black rolled his eyes at the whole thought. Even though he had been been there before - most recently with April when they first met - he couldn't even imagine the difficulties that could arise from simply explaining himself to one person, let alone how long it would take.

"(Sigh) This is going to be a long night indeed." the turtle in black sighed.

With that, Louie, carrying Ellie in his arms, and Angel left the alley and headed towards their house, taking the detour Angel had suggested earlier, managing to get away just before the police cars arrived to the alley.

But before they left, Louie had to put re-button his coat and adjust the collar up to cover his face as best he could until they were at Angel's house. He really couldn't afford of being seen by anymore humans, whether cops, street thugs or some random civilians on the night walk.

###

Later at Angel's and Ellie's house, Louie laid still unconscious Ellie down on the couch while Angel retrieved a pillow(s) and blanket from her bedroom. After Angel returned with them, Louie lifted Ellie's head up a bit so Angel could put the pillows under her grandmother's head before Louie placed the blanket over her.

In case of the further attacks, depending on if that was the whole gang, or just part of it, and that the reinforcements were on their way, Angel locked the door and the windows, covering them with the curtains, while Louie, true to his word, stayed put to watch over the two and protect them from any potential danger.

Louie had even ushered Angel to get some sleep - pointing out that she and Ellie have both had a rough day - while he volunteered to stay up to keep watch. Angel had, of course, initially protested against this, until her own exhaustion had taken a toll on her, forcing her to retreat first to the shower and then to her bed.

However, even though Louie kept an eye on the door handle for any movement like the dutiful watchdog and occassionally peeking out of the windows to see if there was anyone in the streets or in front of the house, the rest of the night seemed to go mostly peacefully without much of the trouble.

Early in the morning, Ellie was starting to stir awake. The old woman groaned tiredly, putting her hand over her fuzzy head as she slowly got up to sit on the couch.

"Ugh...! What a nightmare. Street gangs and monsters fighting each other. I've never had such of weirdest dream..." Ellie said groggingly, shaking her head to get it clear.

However, Ellie cut herself short when she caught in the corner of her left eye the glimpse of someone sitting on the chair in the hall. At first she thought it was Angel, but after getting a clearer picture of the stranger she realized it wasn't her but someone else.

Ellie's eyes went wide in alarm when she realized that the stranger wasn't even a human, as he was shorter than the average human, though slightly taller than her, yet muscular in form. His kin was moss green, he had three-fingered hands and two toes in each foot, and he had the turtle-like shell around his body. His head was a humanoid but lacked the human-like traits like nose, ears and hair, and all he had was the black bandana wrapped around his head and over his eyes.

"...ever." Ellie muttered, falling speechless afterwards when she saw once more the weird reptilian creature before her, and this time even in her own house.

Now she was wondering if she had hit her head hard into something and was seeing things that aren't real, hallucinations, or whether she was just dreaming another dream she hadn't woken up from yet. Or... what if she wasn't either hallucinating or dreaming at all and the strange turtle creature before her was real after all.

Louie then turned to the living room upon hearing Ellie's soft voice, and looked Ellie right in the eyes, letting her to see his face once again.

"Ah, you're awake, Mrs. Bridge. G'morning." Louie said with the polite hand-wave.

However...

"AAGGGGHH!" Ellie screamed in fright and quickly backed away to the other end of the couch, holding her hand over her heart as if she was having a heart-attack while taking support from the back of the couch with her other hand.

"AGH!" Louie yelped suddenly, jumping from the chair he was sitting on and hopped away from Ellie, wearing an equally frightened look on his face as well and covering himself with his hands.

However, of course, Louie could be only pretending to be as scared as Ellie is of him to make her see - or at least believe - that the feelings are mutual to ease the expected tension between them before the proper introductions.

A moment after, Angel, woken up and alarmed by the sudden commotion, flew out of her bedroom's door (dressed up in the turquoise shirt and crimson pants for the night, and having untied her pigtails to let her hair fall freely down) and rushed to the living room to see what was going on.

"Grandma? Louie? What's going on?" she asked almost frantically.

Ellie glanced briefly at her granddaughter, before she looked back at Louie and pointed at the turtle in black with her finger.

"Angel, look out!" Ellie cried frantically. "We have a monster in our house!"

Angel looked into the hall, a little too less cautiously for Ellie's comfort, and saw Louie standing there in the covering pose. Seeing Angel giving him "Really?" look, Louie responded with the innocent shrug.

"Didn't do a thing here." Louie defended.

Angel simply shrugged at this before she turned to her grandmother.

"Grandma, calm down! There's nothing to be worry about. He's a good guy. He saved us, remember?" Angel tried to say, but Ellie didn't seem to be convinced.

"But that thing isn't even a human! It's a freakish monster! A freak! I saw what he did to those people in the alley! He beat them all almost to the death! He could even turn on us at any moment!" Ellie ranted frantically.

Louie shot a narrowed glare at Ellie, mildly offended of being called "freak" and "monster", even though he knew from the experience what Ellie must be feeling about the giant talking turtle in her house.

However, the turtle in black quickly regained his composure, not wanting to lash out at the old lady for calling him with names, no matter how much they bit him.

"Mr. Bridge. Four things, okay?" Louie began with the calm yet lecturing voice.

The turtle in black then walked slowly into the living room and moved in front of the couch and Ellie, who didn't take her eyes off him, while respectfully keeping a long distance from her (or as far as the space allowed) while holding his hands up to sign that he did mean her no harm.

"One: I'm aware of what you might take me as: A freak... or monster. But from my point of view, some people are true monsters from inside, not outside, while the guys like me are just misunderstood outcasts of the society who just happened to be born this way without asking it."

"Two: I may look weird, and maybe even scary, but I swear on my honor that I have no intentions to hurt you. I just saved your and Angel's lives last night in that alley."

"Three: I might be hypocrite when I say this, but I never - or usually - go that far to actually kill someone, not even those nasty street thugs, even if they were all too ready to kill me back there. I just knock them all down and out cold, that's all."

"And four: My name is Lorenzo, but you can call me Louie, and I am an old acquaintances with Angel from a few weeks back."

Luckily for Louie, none of his words didn't seem to convince Ellie otherwise but those last words of him being her granddaughter's "old acquaintances from a few weeks back". Hearing that made Ellie's face to switch from scared to confusion, even unexpected curiousity, as she stared at Louie now with an raised brow.

"Old acquaintances? Few weeks back?" Ellie inquired, as she slowly got up from the couch and eyed the turtle before her from head to toe, as his words made her recall some things she had heard from Angel during the past few weeks. Especially about these mysterious on the streets living friends of hers.

Including the one named...

"Lorenzo? Your name was Lorenzo, right?" Ellie said, mentioning Louie's full name, as she recalled Angel having one time mentioned one of her friends being called with that name. "So you are that Lorenzo of whom I've heard of so much about?"

Louie blinked and cocking his head to the side. He was totally caught off guard by Ellie actually knowing his name already, even though they hadn't even met properly yet... without her screaming in terror and passing out.

"Yes... why?" Louie asked, casting at Ellie a confused and uncertain look.

Ellie turned then towards Angel, though holding her right hand up and out at Louie in gesturing manner. "Angel, honey? Is this one of those mysterious friends of yours you've been telling me about?"

Now it was Louie's turn to turn towards Angel with rised brow, making the teen girl to rub her arm a bit awkwardly for being the center of attention here.

"Angel? How does your grandmother knows so much about me alreay?" the turtle in black asked calmly yet a bit strictly, pointing at Ellie with his thumb. He added his next words with a little more strict voice. "How much you've been telling her about us?"

"Well..." Angel started, hesitating a bit to answer until she held her hand and two fingers up, leaving between of them a small space. "Just this little... not much."

"And I thought that we had an agreement, young lady. You were not supposed to tell anyone about us... not even to your grandmother." Louie said strictly like the reprimanting big brother, before he let out the sigh and facepalmed himself. "Great! Now I'm starting to sound like Dom... or even Master Splinter."

"I know about our agreement, Louie and I never intended to break it." Angel said. "But to my own defense, grandma here wanted some answers, and reasonable answers to why I was away from home so long and caused so much worry for her and trouble for the police. Small explanations didn't work out, so I only introduced you and the others to her as the nameless street kids I befriended with, nothing more. I never told her too sensitive information, such as what or who you guys are, where you live, and not even your names."

Louie gave a "Oh, really?" look before opening his mouth again. "Not even our names, eh? Then how does she knows my name, I wonder?"

"That was just one small slip, I swear." Angel defended.

This was then when Ellie decided to finally step in, eager to learn that what in the Earth was going on in here.

"Now, hold on! Hold on! Hold on, you two! Just the second!" Ellie yelled with the steady voice, making both Louie and Angel to turn to her. "You two are not making any sense here! What are you two talking about?! What is this agreement you're talking about?! What is even going on here?! And Angel? What did that man back in the alley, Johannes, meant about you as "Ex-Purple Dragon member"? And you, Lorenzo, how can you two even be old acquaintances from a few weeks ago, if I didn't know anything about you other than your name, and the fact that you've made friends with Angel? And now I see that you are not even a teenage human kid like Angel has been telling me all these past weeks. You two own me a biggest explanations in your lives! So start to explain to me... AT... ONCE!" the old woman demanded.

"Oohhhhhh! I love your fire, Mrs. Bridge." Louie said with the smirk, before he regained his seriousness. "But yes, that's exactly what me and Angel thought when we arrived here the last night. We both own you the biggest explanation, of course."

"Yes you do, young man!" Ellie said with the parental authory as he turned to Louie. "So let's start with you first. Who or what are you? And what is this agreement you claimed having made with my Angel?"

Louie briefly closed his eyes and gave the shurg, seeing no point of keeping secrets from Ellie now that she knows about his existence.

"Well, miss, if you insist." Louie said, holding up a finger. "A little word of warning though, it happens to be quite a long story. It can take the whole morning if I start from the beginning, so I'd suggest that we all go sit comfortably at the table and enjoy some coffee and breakfast to pass the time. What do you say?"

"Fair enough." Ellie said in agreement, before she turned to Angel. "Angel, honey? Would you go to make some breakfast?"

Angel nodded, before she headed to the kitchen to make coffee and prepare the breakfast for the three of them. And once Angel was in the kitchen, Ellie turned back to Louie.

Louie then went down to business by spreading his arms "First of, I'm a teenage, non-human, though. But I'm still open for the adult-themed conversations."

Louie then gestured himself with his hands, showing his mutant appearance. "Secondly... I'm a mutant. A freak! Monster! Who dwells in the darkest depths of the sewers and preys on the unsuspecting lawbreakers." he said the last part with a bit with a deep and intimidating voice. "They never see me coming. And by the time they know I was there... BAM!" Louie finished with the sudden and loud punch to his left palm with his right fist in front of his face.

This caysed Ellie to jump and take one step backwards, slightly alarmed by Louie's anticts, though in the kitchen, Angel merely rolled her eyes at it.

"Thirdly..." Louie continued, as he kept his fist against his open palm, before he made the deep traditional Japanese bow in respect to Angel's grandmother. "I'm a ninja, a shadow warrior. Trained by the master who was the former student of one of the greatest ninjutsu masters for centuries. I carry that legacy with pride and honor."

"And lastly..." Louie continued as he stood upright and then put his right hand over his heart. "I'm technically a turtle, specifically red-eared slider, Trachemys scripta elegans, if I remember correctly."(1)

Ellie nodded her head wile listening keenly. After Louie had finished, Ellie took a moment to take all of this in and put two - no, four - together before opening her mouth to make her conclusion of all of this.

"So, what you're saying is that you are being called... Teenage... Mutant... Ninja... Turtle..."

"Who knows about the Far-Eastern martial-arts and traditions? That's right" Louie said, cutting Ellie short and finishing before she did. "And so are all my seven siblings, five brothers and two sisters, save for our father and master, who is actually Rattus norvegicus."(1)

Seeing a slightly confused look on Ellie's face after saying that last part, as if she didn't understand what he was talking about, Louie leaned his head a little closer to explain.

"Meaning "rat"." he said simply, making Ellie nod her heads in understanding.

"Oh, Okay..." Ellie muttered as she took a moment to swallow in everything she had heard again, before she turned back to Louie. "If I've understood everything correctly so far, am I correct in saying that the "agreement" you and Angel mentioned earlier has something to do with your... appearance?"

Louie nodded his head gravely. "Yes. You see, Mrs. Bridge... my appearance... is the very reason why I do not usually show up my face to the people, because I'm... different. Something what you surface dwellers cannot understand upon the first glance. And I think you already got a pretty clear impression of what I mean here."

"Pretty clear impression indeed." Ellie said with slight sympathy, remembering how she'd reacted upon seeing him for the first and second time. "So the whole point of your agreement with my granddaughter was to keep your existence a secret, correct?"

"Umm hmm." Louie said, nodding his head. "And the most important, absolutely most important part of it was that anyone who has already seen us and learned about our existence must not tell anyone about us, not even to his or her own inner circle." he said with deep seriousness in his voice.

The turtle in black then eventually gave another shrug. "But of course, we have revealed ourselves to some people, either by accident, by chance, or just by fate. Some of them have just fled screaming for their lives, but very few of them have come to understand us, accept us as we are, and even become our friends and allies, enough to earn our trust and our secrets. Angel is one of those people. So is that bonehead Casey Jones... and now you... hopefully."

"Ah, I see." Ellie said, though one more thing aroused her curiosity about their extraordinary guest. "But I'm sure that there might be more in your secret than just your appearance and existence. Pardon my curiosity, Lorenzo, but since you said you were one of Earth's turtle species, may I ask how it is possible that you even ended up like this in the first place? As a mutant, and a ninja, and so on?"

"Yeah, speaking of which!" Angel said as she stepped out of the kitchen carrying a tray she had loaded with freshly brewed coffee and five cups, the fourth with cream and the fifth with sugar. Angel then retreated back into the kitchen and fetched another tray with a three plates, on which was a toasted bread, a stack of pancakes with a healthy amount of maple syrup, bacon and pan friend eggs on the side, along with a three glasses of orange juice. "Under the rushy circumstances of our first meeting, you guys have never told me much of your life story. Do you mind if I ask you to tell it to us now, Louie?

"Hmm." Louie muttered, thinking about it for a moment. "Normally, I wouldn't be allowed to tell my story to the strangers, because of my family's security reasons set by my father. But since you, Angel, are our friend, and you, Mrs. Bridge, have already found out about our existence, I see no reason at this point why shouldn't I tell you."

"Good!" Angel said with the smile. "And at the same time, we could also explain to you, Grandma, how Louie and I actually met."

With that, all three people - or two people and one turtle - sat at the table in middle of the living room. Angel served coffee and the breakfast for both Ellie and Louie first before joining them with her own.

After taking a comfortable position in his chair, Louie leaned his elbows on the table and turned to Angel and Ellie, beginning to tell his story.

"Well, here we go then." he started, clearing his throat. "My life started about fifteen years ago, when I was just a little baby turtle in a glass jar carried by one of the twin brothers...

###

Meanwhile, in the other part of the town, Johannes and Marcus entered slowly and with great hesitation into the dark room illuminated by a single light that shined down from the ceiling, and the brothers stopped right under of it.

Johannes' fine suit was in ruins: torn from the sleeves and skirts and covered with the smelly dirt and filth and with sticky candy papers stuck in it, and his bowler hat had taken a pretty bad hit too, resulting a nasty visible bump in his head. Marcus wasn't in any better shape than his brother. His clothes too were dirty and filthy, but he had a big nasty bruise in his right cheek. He also had the banana peel hanging on his left shoulder, which he flicked away in disgust.

The brothers were followed by Scrag, Grunt, Dopey, Dumbo, Jersey Red, Lugnut, High Five, Shauna, Larry, Carl, John and Thomas. All twelve street thugs were in far more worse shape than the brothers were. They were covered with various nasty-looking and slightly bleeding bruises, some of them having a black swollen eyes, bleeding noses, split lips, some having lost some teeth and some of them were even limping.

However, all the gang members, even the tough ones, had the same look on their faces as they entered into the room: worry, as if they were greatly worried about what consequences might come to them. And the very eerie atmosphere in this dark room only increased their worries.

In the border of the light in front of the brothers was standing a golden-brown finely crafted and decorated antique desk with the glass top. On either side of the desk was standing two mean-looking guys: One of the thugs in the desk's left side had a small mustache and black well-kept hair, and he was dressed in a fine turquoise suit while wearing a black cravat and the reddish-brown fedora-hat. The other thug on the desk's right side had a hooked nose and he was dressed in the brown suit, wore green cravat and the golden fedora-hat. The thugs held their hands behind their backs and stared at the brothers and the gang with the ice-cold stares.

There was someone else too: A new guy who was short and pot-bellied man, who was standing in the slightly hunched and bow-legged pose. He had the thick brows, shaven face, nasty scar in his right cheek and tooth that was sticking out of his mouth in the left side. He looked pretty tough, hardened and gruffy guy with the mean attitude and dark scowl on his face. He was wearing in thick brown woolen coat and small grayish-brown bowler hat on top of his head.

This guy was roughly manhandling two guys in his rough grasp in front of the desk. But when Johannes and Marcus arrived with their henchmen, the thug turned to face them along with the two people he was holding by their shoulders, revealing the two people being none other than... Bobs and Rocky.

Both of them went wide-eyed from surprise upon noticing the condition Johannes, Marcus and the rest of the gang we're in.

"Wow! You guys look terrible..." Rocky gasped in matter of fact. "... like you've been literally thrown away like yesterday's garbage."

"Let's just say that's exactly what happened." Johannes said with calm yet irritated tone, as he briefly adjusted his ruined and dirty suit and pulled a couple sticky candy papers off from his shoulder.

"How did that even happen?" Bobs asked with an raised eyebrow. "Or should I even ask?"

"We got jumped on by some freak in the karate-frog costume... WHO BROKE MY DAMN SHOTGUNS!" Marcus snapped, clenching his fists angrily.

"The freak in the karate-frog costume?" Rocky questioned, before he and Bobs briefly exchanged a knowing glances with each other. "That's funny, because we too got jumped on by a frog-faced dude in trenchcoat and a hat, who knows karate."

"You too?" Marcus questioned in with wide-eyed surprise.

"Why that doesn't surprise me?" Johannes remarked.

"SILENCE!" shouted the cold and harsh voice from behind the desk, making everybody jump in alarm and turn towards the owner of the voice sitting in the darkness.

The owner of the voice leaned his elbows on the desk with heavy thud, making both the desk and the glass top to creak protestingly under the weight, until the bright light dimly revealed his face to those standing under of the light.

A rather large, muscular, broad-shouldered and slightly hunched guy with thick arms, large hands and a singluar hair growing in the back of his hands and arms. Eyebrows nearly as thick as a gorilla's, a shaven round face, protruding lower jaw and a remarkably large, broad, and round nose. He was dressed in the checkered blue-white shirt and a fine dark purple suit with the polished shoes and red black-spotted bow tie, and a small dark blue bowler hat on top his head.

He was Mr. Nosy, the same guy who once paid the visit at April's Second Time Around shop during of Mikey's and Arcee's chase after the former's superhero career.

Only this time, he was out of his civilized gentlemanly attitude he wore back then at, and instead, he was rubbing his knuckles irritably, while casting an ice-cold and emotionless, almost murderous glare at the thugs before his desk, growling softly under his breath.

Mr. Nosy turned first to both Johannes and Marcus, his eyes narrowed in dissatisfaction upon noticing their condition.

"Johannes and Marcus Victor... I asked you two so called "qualified professionals" one thing. Just one small thing. And from the looks of you, you two failed your assignments miserably, just like Mr. Rocky and Bobs did too... Am I correct?" Nosy asked dangerously.

"We would have succeeded if it hadn't been for that one...!" Marcus said with unwisely loud voice, but Johannes was quick to put the hand over his brother's mouth to shut him up, giving him a warning look not to raise his voice like that again.

Johannes turned then to Nosy, speaking with his calm and soothing gentlemanish voice. "Sir, Me and Marcus did exactly what you asked us to do. We tracked down a newest member of the Purple Dragons, Angel Bridge, and we tried to give him your boss's card on your orders. The problem was that I didn't hand it over to her after we found out she was no longer a member of the Dragons as we thought."

"Ah, did she now." Mr. Nosy inquired, slightly pleased - but just slightly - to hear that Johannes and Marcus had at least done the first part he has asked them to do.. "Guess the girl didn't have a guts to be in the "big boys" zone after all." he muttered under his breath.

"That's exactly what I said, Sir." Marcus added. "However, that wench claimed to be proud of having defected from the Dragons at the last second, because she thought to be better off in much "cooler, bigger, meaner and greener boys' zone". Who would've known that bitch really meant what she said."

Mr. Nosy raised a brow at the mention about "greener boys". He was mildly surprised - though he didn't show it - when Marcus said or implied that there were literally some "green boys" for whom Angel defected the Dragons. He began immediately - but just briefly - to wonder in his mind what or who exactly were these "green guys" Marcus mentioned about.

However, he quickly shook it off his mind for now and went back to the point. "And... did you two dealt with her as I asked you to do?"

At that question, the brothers glanced at each other nervously, knowing that Mr. Nosy wouldn't like it if they told him that they crawled back here to report that their mission had become a complete fiasco due to unexpected disruptions, in the most unusual way ever.

"SPEAK!" Nosy demanded impatiently, banging his fist against his desk, making the brothers to flinche.

Thinking quickly the best way to explain this, even with the risk of facing the consequences of their failure, but also at the same time hoping he could ease his boss' growing temper via smooth talking, Johannes signaled his boss to calm down before he began to explain.

"Well, truth to be told, sir, we tried to take both Angel and her grandmother with us, as you ordered, and deal with her with as secretive, quick and humane way as possible, but then there was a minor interference in the plan." Johannes explained.

Nosy cocked his head little to the right with an raised brow, as he took another look over Johannes, Marcus and the thugs behind them, and then took a rather distrusting frown on his face. "Does this "minor interference" do justice to the conditions in which you crawl back before me, Johannes?"

However, before Johannes could explain the further details of the subject in his way, he was beaten by Marcus who gave their boss a direct answers.

"No, sir, it doesn't. We came under attack by somekind..."

However, he was cut off by Nosy, who immediately stood up from his desk, fixing his narrowed eyes to Marcus.

"ATTACKED?! Attacked by who?! And How many?!" he questioned almost frantically. "And what about the girl?! Did you take care of them and this interference?!"

"Well... we didn't, sir." Johannes started. "The girl and her grandmother got away from our clutches alive, unfortunately. And about the interference..."

However, he was beaten once again by Marcus. "Like I was going to tell, sir. We were attacked by one karate-weirdo in some frog-costume that broke my shotguns, and..."

Unfortunately, that one simple word caused Nosy to fly into the explosive fit of rage.

"ONE! JUST ONE" Nosy raged, as he grabbed on the desk and flung it into the air like it weighted nothing, causing the thugs to duck down to avoid getting hit by it, until the desk smashed into pieces upon impact against the wall in the darkness. "NOT ONLY DID YOU BUNCH OF INCOMPETENT IMBECILES LET THE GIRL GET AWAY AS THE WITNESS, BUT YOU FOOLS LET ONE GUY, JUST ONE GUY, TO DEFEAT ALL FOURTEEN OF YOU SO EASILY, EVEN WHEN YOU HAD YOUR NUMBERS, YOUR GUNS AND EXPERIENCE OF HANDLING THESE KINDS OF THINGS. AND HERE I THOUGHT YOU IDIOTS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SPECIALIFIZIED!"

Before either Johannes and Marcus could've explain, their minions behind their backs foolishly spoke up without thinking of it for the second.

"But sir, we did try our best to stop this guy, I swear it for all of us." Scrag explained, holding his fist over his chest.

"We put in everything we got: from our bare fists to the guns. Heck! I even tried to use my sword on him!" Grunt continued.

"But we're only specialized in dealing with the people, yet this thing got us completely off-guard. And it wasn't even human at all." High Five added.

"He's right. It was somekind of freakish frog-monster, who used the darkness as his advantage against us."Lugnut said with the shaking voice, still trembling as if he was traumatized from their encounter with Louie, mixed with his own anxiousness of facing their boss's wrath and the consequences of their failure.

"He took us all down one by one in the matter of twelve-point-fifteen seconds." High Five added again.

"Starting with me and Dopey, sir. He just ambushed us from behind and dragged us off. I didn't have time to even notice anything until I got from the fist into my eye." Dumbo spoke up, showing his left black eye.

"Kinda humiliating to go down like that without even seeing it coming, isn't it?" Dopey questioned awkwardly from his comrades.

"Very humiliating, indeed." Jersey Red spat angrily, begrudgingly adding one thing more about Louie's fighting style. "Wasn't even much older, taller or muscular than me, and yet he fought even harder than a boxer."

"Speaking of which... This creature was just too fast and too strong! Even for all fourteen of us." Shauna said.

"He fought like a demon! Won't be surprised if he was a demon himself!" Larry said.

"You should've seen him in action, sir: This thing threw our guys around with surprisingly ease, flew in the air like the bird, moved faster than we could've even blink our eyes, and was like he knew twelve martial arts style all at once." Scrag listed.

"It was even impossibly fast enough to stay a step ahead from out gunfire, as if he was the bullet-proof." Jersey Red added.

"He even broke Marcus' shotguns with bare hands." Carl added, recalling of Louie's strength he'd used to snap Marcus' guns in half.

"And not just that, that thing was capable to pull its head inside of its body to avoid Marcus' gunshots... like the turtle." John said, remembering Louie being capable to pull his head into his shell and out after being nearly shot in the head by Marcus.

"And not to mention of bringing the portion of the wall down on us... or two fire escapes off the wall with ease." Thomas said lastly.

Rocky and Bobs listened their fellow thugs' descriptions about Louie's abilities, until Rocky opened his mouth to speak. "Yeah! This is that frog-faced guy who happened to catch me and Bobs off guard without us even seeing him. He was also fast and skilled enough to deflect Bob's knife and even kick it back into its sheath with his foot. And look! He even left his mark on him in Zorro-style!" Rocky said as he grabbed from Bob's shirt and showed the clean L-shaped hole in it, earning a dark, warning scowl from his partner.

"ENOUGH!" Nosy demanded, making all thugs turn back to him. "I am here to co-run my boss' thriving business, not to hear some children's fantasies about the frog-creatures or green moon men. And I definitely asked for competent henchmen, a tough and heartless minions, NOT SOME SOFT-MINDED, INCOMPETENT, SUPERSTITIONS, COWARDLY SHEEP, WHO AREN'T EVEN CAPABLE TO BRING DOWN EVEN ONE ASSAILANT!"

After venting his rage, Nosy finally managed to calm down to some degree. However, he quickly narrowed his eyes dangerously, as his mouth split into a creepy teeth-revealing sadistic smile - as if he'd just found some irony from his own words - and eyed Johannes, Marcus, Rocky, Bobs and the rest of the thugs like some hunting predator, ready to strike its unsuspecting prey at any second.

"And speaking of the sheep... Mr. Harris?" Nosy called, as he extended his hand towards the short, pot-bellied and gruffy thug holding Rocky and Bobs, named Gabriel "Gabe" Harris.

Gabe casted an equal sadistic smirk at Johannes, Marcus and the others - revealing his own rotten teeth to them under his smirk, much to Johannes' personal disgust - before he roughly tossed Rocky and Bobs to the floor beneath the lights and walked towards Nosy. The gruffy thug then pulled out the silver-shiny Smith & Wesson Model 17-8 revolver and handed it to him.

Nosy took the gun into his hand before shooing with his other Gabe away, then opened the gun and checked out the rounds - revealing six full rounds - before he turned back to Johannes, Marcus and the others with the murderous glow in his eyes.

The street thugs realized almost immediately what Nosy was about to do. Wearing the nervous/fearful wide-eyed expressions on their uncontrollably sweaty faces, they began to back away from their boss and towards the door. However, the thugs soon realized that they were unable to step over the border of the light or even leave the room, because very soon when one of them tried, there was the sound of the door getting slammed close before being locked, which was followed by the aggressive growling of many vicious-sounding guard dogs from the darkness, along with numerous menacing clicks of weapons from all sides.

Finding themselves trapped under the light with nowhere to go without the risk of being shot or mauled in the darkness, the thugs huddled together while some of them tried to cover themselves with their arms or hide behind of each others' backs for cover.

Lugnut, who was the most frightened of them all, whimpered panickedly as he hurriedly grabbed to the nearby fellow thug - Carl - by his shoulder and pulled him in front of him to use him as a shield, though failing miserably due to the size difference.

Carl immediately went in the fit of panic because of this. "Hey! Let go of me!" Carl cried panickedly, struggling to get free from Lugnut's hold.

As for the brothers, Johannes and Marcus kept their eyes on Mr. Nosy the whole time as the hulking thug boss held the gun in his hand high enough for the frightened thugs to see.

Marcus was starting to lose his nerve here too quickly, that he prayed for any miracle in the world that he could either survive from this meeting or wished that he was somewhere else. Even Johannes was starting to lose his cool, as his eyes went wide from worry and the fear started to pool in his stomach.

Then, Mr. Nosy lowered his gun down with slow pace until its barrel was pointing at the brothers and the huddled thugs, as if he was deliberately savoring every moment of seeing the nervousness, anxiety, fear and panic in the their eyes.

"You boys want to know what is exactly my most favored season in anytime in the year?" Nosy questioned with the mock compassionate and apologetic look on his face. "Well, it's a simple answer: A sheep season. The big difference here is that the real sheep are just the simple-minded, stupid animals that gladly stand in line waiting to the slaughter, not knowing what kind of grim fate awaits for them. That takes out all the fun of the game. Fortunately, there happens to be a timid sheep in every person, who are well aware of what is coming for them. However, those sheep are simply waiting patiently to get out whenever someone loses their cool and nerve and is driven into madness out of fear. And the real fun doesn't start until the first fall, and only then will the rest of the flock realize they're in danger and start running aimlessly around in a blind panic to get to safety. And a successful hunt depends solely on how good is your aim and how well you handle your gun."

Johannes, Marcus, Bobs, Rocky and the other thugs' fear only grew greater with every word Mr. Nosy let out his mouth.

"Unfortunately, for me, I have only six rounds here, meaning that I can afford for six shots, six kills. But I guess six will be enough to give to the most fortunate ones some motivation to do the job better in the future, until the next sheep season."

Johannes, Marcus, Bobs, Rocky and the rest of the thugs cringed at the thought that anyone of them could be randomly picked off by one of those six shots.

"So..." Nosy said before he clicked his weapon "CLICK!" which sounded like the echoing bell of doom/death. "Let the sheep season begin."

With that, Nosy extended his hand forward and took the aim at everyone before him, ready to shoot randomly his first victim to death.

Marcus' eyes went as wide as saucers and his mouth pops wide open like he is screaming, but no voice comes out.

Bobs and Rocky, both wearing a terrified wide-eyed looks on their faces, tried to forcibly push their way into huddled group of thugs to get away from the line of fire, roughly pushing with their hands and shoulders the other thugs out of their way.

Scrag, Grunt, Jersey and High Five breathed hard from anxiety they struggled to keep under control, though the four thugs soon closed their eyes as if almost accepting their possible fates tonight, waiting for death to come for them.

Johannes was quick to step forward. Despite his growing fear and anxiety, he hoped he could still talk his boss down from this.

"Sir! Please, wait! I beg you to reconsider this! There's not... there's no need to do this. I think that we all got enough of motivation to do our job better next time! I promise you! I swear it to you, on my dear life! We will not fail you or your boss again! Never again!" he said quickly and frantically.

"I know, Johannes." was Mr. Nosy's only response. "If you're lucky enough, you get the chance to prove that you're a man of your word. But if otherwise... well... you'll never let me or my boss down again, literally."

Johannes gasped from shock, but he still tried. "No, sir! Please, don't! PLEASE, DON'T SIR! WAIT!"

However, he was too late before the loud gunshots and brief cries of agony filled the air of the dark room.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

###

Meanwhile, back at Angel's, Louie had spent all morning by telling Ellie and Angel a long but fascinating story about his and his family's life, starting from the day of the accident when he, his siblings and his father were first exposed to the strange mutagen that changed them year after year from ordinary turtles and rat into what they were today. And how they had lived in hiding beneath the streets of New York City for fifteen years, scavenging for supplies and food from the sewer tunnels and everywhere where the human eye won't reach, while being taught and trained the secret arts of Ninjutsu in order to defend themselves from the dark side of the world.

Louie continued with how his childhood home was destroyed few months ago by the killer-robots Mousers, which led them into their very first adventure on the surface world and many important events in their lives and encounters with the hostilities of the surface: including their discovery of their new Lair, meeting April O'Neil, their battle against Baxter Stockman, the creator of the Mousers, their first meeting with Casey Jones and helping him in his anger problems, the conflicts with the Purple Dragons, as well as their strange encounters with the giant Nanobot-monster and terribly smelling Garbageman who terrorized the city's homeless population.

Louie also told Ellie how he first met Angel, starting with the night he, his siblings, and Casey ambushed the group of Purple Dragons in the middle of a robbery and spotted Angel among them, planning to join the Dragons out of desire for the life of the tough guy in order to forget her sorrow and misery over her parents death. This had led to Casey going after her by infiltrating the Dragons' lair and saving Angel from being badly beaten in the box ring, only to get himself caught and planned to be used as the trophy for the vengeful Dragons in the smackdown contest. Casey's plight and her guilt of her own foolishness were the reasons why Angel decided to abandon her plans of joining them and to enlist him and his siblings' help. And together, they had managed to rescue Casey before returning Angel back to home.

After finding out why Johannes had earlier addressed Angel as the member of the most worst and violent street gang in the Eastern-Side, as well as the truth behind of Angel's sudden runaway from home and remaining unreachable for weeks, and comparing all of this with what Angel had told her, with Angel sincerely confessing every single thing with few details of her own, Ellie was left shocked and horrified that she had ever even thought of something so stupid as joining the ranks of the heinous criminals, which could have led her into even greater degree of troubles with the authorities, or worse, get her even killed without her even knowing that. But Ellie couldn't be more angrier with Angel for anything else than her having lied to her all this time. Hanging her head down in shame, Angel sincerely apologized for not being completely honest with her, while admitting that her attempt to join the Purple Dragons was quite foolish thing from her to do, but also justifying her lies being meant to keep Louie and the other turtles' existence as a secret.

Though Ellie understood why Angel did what she did, thanks to her own newfound understanding towards Louie and his family, she was still very displeased with Angel's actions and dishonesty... to the point of deciding to punish her by grounding her for two or, in the worst case, three weeks. Angel had neither the words nor the juice to protest against this, so she humbly accepted it.

Louie then finished his tale with their recent brutal and bloody conflict with the ninja clan known as the Foot-clan and their leader, Oroku Saki a.k.a. the Shredder, explaining with the heavy heart the details of his father's late master, Hamato Yoshi's cold-blooded murder committed by the Shredder fifteen years ago before Splinter found him and his siblings, which had led to the long blood-feud between his family and the Foot, as well as to the various encounters with the Foot Ninja all over New York City.

Louie also told them that Shredder had recently tried to manipulate their older brother Leo into joining forces with him in the centuries-long war between the Foot and some sort of mysterious enemy of theirs, only for Leo to reject the offer after learning the truth, which had led to the violent all-out-war against the Shredder. Louie explained how they found the Shredder being too powerful even against all eight of them together, that he drove them all on the run to the separated ways, leaving them unable to regroup and targets to the massive manhunt set by the Foot. But with the help of Master Splinter, they managed to regroup for the final showdown, which ended up to their pyrrhic victory over Foot and even the Shredder himself, with him falling off the roof after the duel with Master Splinter and got crushed to death by the water tower Splinter threw onto him.

"And since that day, we haven't seen any trace of the Foot in the whole city for two months. Maybe now that the Shredder is out of the picture, the rest just fled from the city, leaving us in peace." Louie said, finishing his tale.

"What a fascinating story, Louie." Angel congratulated, almost dreamingly.

However, her mood quickly switched into the brief anger, after learning that the Shredder had badly broken Louie's right arm during the fight.

"And good riddance, Shredder, for that you did to poor Louie!" she exclaimed, punching the air with the fist.

"Indeed. You and your family definitely haven't had an easy life, my dear. Rather difficult... and even dangerous." Ellie said sympathetically, wondering how Louie or his family could handle of staying hidden from the eyes of the society while fighting against all the evils in the world at the same time everyday.

Louie nodded his head, while being touched by Ellie's concerns for him and his family. "Well, that's the life we've been given, and it's not easy at all. But as the old saying goes "life is not always a bed of roses". Besides, as Master Splinter always says. "A true warrior takes nothing for granted, not even life, or that'll be result in immediate downfall."

Both Ellie and Angel exchanged glances with each other, taken aback by Louie's words, not having expected such an old simple saying to be changed from its usual innocent sounding form "taking life for granted" to something so grim-sounding like that.

Louie nodded his head in understanding of their puzzled looks. "Yeah. I get it. My father has a tendency to change some old sayings into his liking to remind us everyday to watch for the dangers on the surface for the sake of our family's and our own safety."

Ellie and Angel seemed to get the message of Louie's words and nodded their heads.

However, at this point, Louie glanced at the clock in the wall and almost gasped when he noticed that it was almost ten in the morning.

"Oh, shell!" he cursed. "I should be on my way back home now! I guess the others and Master Splinter are wondering where I've been all night."

Louie stood up from the table in mild-hurry, but being the polite turtle he was, he tried to take his empty dishes off the table and to the kitchen to wash them himself, but Ellie was quick enough to stop him.

"There is no need for you to unnecessarily hold yourself here, dear." Ellie said sweetly. "I will take care of the dishes for you."

"Oh, no, Mr. Bridge. Let me handle this." Louie said, shaking his head in polite denial. "I don't wish to be rude here, and..."

"Nonsense, dear. Angel and I are in no hurry anywhere, so we can take care of this. You, in the other hand, are the one in a burning hurry." Ellie said, gently pushing Louie away from the table while taking the dishes from his hands. "Angel, dear, could you kindly escort Lorenzo to the door and send him on his way, while I take care of the dishes here."

"Yes, Grandma." Angel said, as she stood up and walked next to Louie, who just stood there totally baffled.

"Come on, Louie. It's time for you to head back home just like you said." Angel said, gently wrapping her arms around of Louie's left arm and began to lead the turtle in black towards the hall and front door.

However, at the hall, Louie gently pulled his arm off from Angel's hold and turned back to Ellie, who was already half-way towards the kitchen with the dishes.

"Mrs. Bridge?" Louie called, making Ellie to turn back to Louie.

Louie then put his hands together in front of him, before the turtle in black bowed down to the old lady in respect.

"Thank you for your hospitality. You honor me with it." Louie said sweetly.

"And thank you, Lorenzo, for saving our lives in the alley. Hospitality is the least I can do for you in return." Ellie said, giving Louie a simple curtsey in return.

Louie nodded and was about to turn for the door, where Angel was already awaiting for him. However, Louie quickly stopped and turned back to Ellie.

"Maybe not the least compared to one thing that I almost forgot, Mrs. Bridge." Louie said. "I kinda went too far beyond my boundaries than I was allowed to tell you, and I will definitely get spanked for this at home... So can I trust you - as well as Angel - that everything I've shared with you will remain a secret between us, and not a word will be mentioned to anyone else, not even your own inner circle?"

Ellie nodded, raising her hand over her heart. "You have our word on that, dear Lorenzo. No one will ever know about this."

"Thank you, and farewell for now." Louie said with the satisfied smile, before he and Ellie went on their separative ways.

In the hall, Louie picked his Butterfly swords and Manriki-Gusaris, which he had put hanging from a nail in the hall. He attached his chains to his belt and tied his swords' scabbard belt over his chest, before he grabbed on his coat and put it on. Too bad he no longer had his scarf or hat to cover his identity, which was now the most important thing, especially in the daylight.

However, he could not delay any longer. He had to get back home as fast as possible or suffer the consequences... so he had to try, even if that meant putting himself at great risk of being seen outside the house.

Just when he was about to open the door and step out into the daylight, he was quickly halted by Angel.

"Louie, wait!" Angel called, making Louie turn to her. "You weren't really planning to go out there too exposed, weren't you?"

Louie looked down and saw that Angel was holding out for him a turquoise scarf, purple beanie and some shades.

"I recalled that you'd lost your previous ones in the alley, so I fetched some extra for you." Angel explained. "What's the point of keeping our promise to you if you let everybody to see your face?"

"Aww, thank you, Angel cake." Louie said, using affectionally the same flirting nickname he'd given to Angel back in the Dragon's lair, making the purple-haired girl before him to blush a little and turn her gaze away from him.

"I think I owe you this, Angel. Just name your price and I'll fulfill my part of it. You have my word, on my honor." Louie said, as he took the scarf, beanie and the shades from Angel.

"Well, if you say so, lover boy..." Angel said, giving Louie a flirting sideways look, as she put the finger over her chin and thought for a moment how Louie could make this up to her in return. "Ahh, I got an idea. How about... you, Louie... call me out in two weeks? That good for you?"

Louie blinked in surprise, unable to believe his ears.

"Hey, wait a second! You gotta be kidding me?" Louie said, as his lips slowly crept into a wide grin of joy as the meaning behind of Angel's words dawned to him. "You're actually asking me for the date? Wow!"

Angel bursted into a good-humored laughter, while rolling her eyes and shaking her head lightly at Louie's words, before she turned back to him.

"Oh, you silly turtle! It's not a date. More likely just hanging out together for the night...as friends, of course." she corrected him.

Louie stared at her with baffled wide-eyed look after saying that.

"Whaaaa...?!" Louie whined teasingly, throwing his arms up, before letting them to drop down and hang loosely from the sockets. "How can it not be a date if you just talked about it that way a few seconds ago?"

"'Cause I said so, lover boy." Angel said with the sing-song voice. "And I'm also expecting you to arrange something nice for that night."

"Seriously?!" Louie exclaimed with another baffled look. "Not only you won't call it a date, but now you're even leaving me in charge to arrange something nice for us. Why?"

"Because you just said yourself that you owe this one to me, and you promised on your honor to fulfill your part of the deal, remember? " Angel teasingly recalled.

"Oh, come on, Angel cake!" Louie said, or almost pleaded. "Give me a break, will ya?!"

"Ah, ah, ah, ah, ahh!" Angel said, waving a finger at the turtle in black. "These are the terms, so you better take it or drop it. Otherwise I'd have to take that scarf, beanie and the shades back from you."

After Angel said this, Louie's eyes went wide from disbelief that she was going to use his inability to move in the daylight on the street without scarf, beanie and the shades as the leverage to blackmail him into cooperation.

"You wouldn't..." Louie said, giving her a sideways look as a warning. "Remember your own promise, Angel. It's not a good to eat your word again."

"Oh, this is not about me eating my words, dear Louie." Angel said, crossing her arms and giving Louie a smug smile. "It's about you eating your own words here."

Louie narrowed his eyes at the smug look on Angel's face, knowing that she had got him where she wanted him, as she knew that Louie couldn't leave her house without risking of being seen by the people in the broad daylight, which was why he desperately needed that scarf, beanie and the shades.

And all this just because Angel doesn't take their hanging out in two weeks as a date.

However, Louie wouldn't give up from them so easily, so he decided to play along to beat Angel in her own game.

"Well, two can play that game, Angel cake, because I won't give them back." he said smugly, taking the clothes away from Angel's reach before playfully blew a rashberry at the girl.

Angel, however, held up a finger at Louie's face while giving the turtle in black a warning look on her turn. "Don't push your luck, Louie, I will get them back from you. Even with the force if I have to, if you don't accept the terms you promised to fulfill."

"Hmph! Come and try to get them if you dare." Louie challenged with the sly smirk.

"Oh, I'll will, Louie." Angel shot back. "And you'll be very sorry for pushing your luck with me, mark my words!"

"Ha!" Louie scoffed. "You need the tougher threats than that, sweetheart. And I won't give in to you, not till you agree to call our hanging out as the date."

"Oh, so you wanna play this rough just for the sake of that whole date thing, shell-for-brains? Huh? Alright. Let's play rough then." Angel said, before turning away from Louie and started thinking how to blackmail Louie into accepting that their hanging out won't be a date but just the hanging out.

However, when she took the look at the window next to the door, her eyes went wide as if something had just surprised her greatly.

"Uh, Louie?" Angel said, pointing at the window. "Is that rat your father outside the window? Master Splinter, right? Boy, he surely don't look happy." she added, shaking her head.

Anyone could have laughed and bragged of not falling for such an old trick so easily, but the mention of Master Splinter immediately made Louie's head jerk up as it reminded him that he was late from home and that his father was surely both worried and angry with him for not showing up at home all night and morning either. And the thought of his father looking at him angrily through the window was almost scarier than the little boy's fear of something evil lurking outside the window at night.

"FATHER?!" Louie gasped as he immediately turned to look at the window... only to see no one out there, save for the small ordinary rat that soon fled away, much to the turtle in black's confusion.

"Whatta...? That's not my master? Why would you...?" Louie muttered in confusion, until he was cut short when he turned around to looked down at his arms. The turtle in black let out the surprised gasp when he noticed that the scarf, beanie and the shades were missing!

"Hey! Where are the..." Louie said, unttil he heard a smug cackling next to him, and turned to see Angel holding the scarf, beanie and the shades in her hands.

"Ah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haa! I can't believe that you actually fell for that!" she bellowed in the fit of laughter. "And you call yourself a ninja, when someone just caught you off guard and snatched these back under your nose."

"Hey! Give them back! I need them!" Louie whined, demanding the clothes back.

"Come and try to get them if you dare!" Angel dared teasingly. "But you better watch how you treat the lady, Louie? And I'm confident that YOU couldn't possibly dare to hit the lady... but this lady can definitely hit you!"

"Why you little...!" Louie nearly growled, with his hooked fingers trembling. "Come on, Angel! I cannot go out there without them!"

"I know, Louie. I know very well you cannot risk of being seen out there." Angel said. "But it also means you're stuck here for the rest of the day, and daddy back home might get pretty cranky if he doesn't hear a word from you soon. But if you want these back to get back home unnoticed, I suggests you take up on my offer: Accept that this is not a date, just a friendly hanging out, and that you will arrange something nice for us in two weeks. Do we have a deal?"

"HMPH! Whatta sneaky blackmailer...!" Louie groaned with the mild-annoyed eye-roll to Angel's sly draw of the card.

"Learned a thing or two from the Dragons." Angel smugly added.

"You'd be deserving to get spanked by a ninja turtle if you were a Dragon for real." Louie shot back irritably.

However, realizing that Angel had the upper hand, Louie had to begrudgingly admit to himself that he had no other choice but to accept Angel's terms that it wasn't going to be a date and that he was responsible of arranging something nice for them then. So he let out the loud groan in defeat and begrudgingly raised his hands up in surrender.

"But fine! Alright! Alright! Okay, okay, okay. I give up. I give up. I will keep my word of honor and honor her royal majesty's wish by arranging something nice for her and her lowly turtle servant in two weeks." Louie said half-heartedly, half-dramatically and half-sarcastically, before turning back to Angel. "Does your highness want anything more, or am I finally free to go?"

"Nope." was Angel's only reply, before her lips crept into a sweet and warm smile as she locked her eyes with Louie's.

Angel then walked forward and handed the scarf, beanie and the shades into Louie's awaiting hands, much to the turtle in black's satisfaction. However, this left Louie completely vulnerable to what even he couldn't expect coming from Angel.

"Except this, lover boy..." Angel said, before she leaned forward and gave the quick smooch in Louie's left cheek, causing Louie's eyes go as wide as saucers from shock and surprise of Angel's move.

Angel, looking a bit shy for what she just did but satisfied about it nonetheless, backed away for few steps, wearing the smile on her lips and hands together in front of her. Louie could only stand still like a statue, staring at her wide-eyed, stunned and disbelieving that she had actually landed a brief kiss on his cheek.

"Fine. It's a date then." Angel said sweetly. "See you again in two weeks."

With that, Angel turned around and hurried off into the kitchen to help Ellie with the dishes, leaving Louie behind in the hall to stare blankly after her before she went through the doorway leading to the living room and vanished from sight.

Alone in the hall, Louie slowly and even without his noticing raised his hand to his left cheek and rubbed his fingertips over the slightly damp spot where Angel had kissed him.

I can't believe it! Did that just happened?!

A strange warm feeling that he has never felt before began to flow unstoppably from his cheek through his whole body - reaching quickly to the every corner and every tip of the limb, finger and toe - like a burning flame running along a flammable newspaper. It made his cheeks to go darker tone of moss green, made him feel goosebumps in his arms and cheeks and the feeling felt way more stronger inside his chest: his heart felt to be like on fire and pumped in racing speed but still rhythmically. The feeling was also quite pleasant that it caused Louie's lips go into a broad smile, and the turtle in black let out a soft and dreamy sigh.

Louie then let his hand to slip off and fall limply down, as he closed his eyes and shook his head in amusement. "Whatta girl." he muttered quietly, wearing a dreamy look on his face.

Then, Louie wrapped the scarf around his face, put the beanie on his head and the shades over his eyes. And after he had buttoned his coat and adjusted the collar higher around his already covered head, Louie turned towards the door and slowly and carefully opened it.

Louie peered out of the doorway to see if the coast was clear enough for him to step out and infiltrate the crowd without arousing suspicion and drawing unnecessary attention to himself. Fortunately, this street was not too crowded, and he didn't think the few people on this street would pay too much attention to him sneaking out of the house and down to the street. A passing constable or police patrol car would be completely another matter, as they would certainly mistake him for a burglar trying to flee the crime scene quietly and unnoticed and try to apprehend him as such. Luckily there was no police around to make him worry about that.

With that, as quietly as possible, Louie slipped outside through the narrow gap and slowly closed the door behind him. Once outside, the turtle in black looked cautiously over his left shoulder to the left and right to see if someone had noticed him/was looking at him.

With no curious or suspicious bystanders anywhere to be seen, as all the passers-by were minding about their own business, Louie put his hands into his pockets and descended the stairs and began to walk casually but still cautiously down the street.

After leaving Angel's, Louie started to look for nearby manhole cover, so that he could descend down into the sewers undetected and then head back home along the underground tunnels.

###

It took less than one hour from Louie to make it back to the Lair. But at the front door, the turtle in black was surprised to see that the lights were still off and there was no sign of life there, even though he remembered Master Splinter saying yesterday that they will resume the training in the morning.

It looked just as if his siblings and Master Splinter had all overslept this morning, thus skipping the training.

However, the small voice in Louie's head protested against this thought, because this was very unlikely with Master Splinter, who never overslept or skipped any training session, and with Leo, who followed the strict routine about the bedtimes, which was why he was always the first turtle up.

But never with Mikey! The little brother was always the last one to get up from the bed, as he had a tendency to oversleep past the time of awaking and the morning exercise (due to his passion for late night movies), which resulted in one of them having to drag him out of bed.

However, even though Louie knew that was far-fetched possibility, the Lair's apparent emptiness nonetheless provided him the perfect opportunity to sneak into his room without any trouble and to be like he had never been even gone from home... because he wasn't really tempted by the idea of facing his father, who would be instantly upon him demanding to know where he had been all night.

But he also needed to be silent, swift and careful, because the complete silence of his own home was giving him somewhat an uneasy feeling.

If he had learned something about from the times when he and his siblings had mischieviously attempted and failed to sneak out of the home for their wild adventures as kids, he knew that even now there will be the presence of one of his siblings, mostly either Leo or Dom, or even Master Splinter himself, concealed in the darkness, waiting for him.

He would have been able to detect Dom's presence and location quite easily from his heavy breathing even in stealth mode. Leo, on the other hand, was a bit more challenging because he always had a tendency to strike where you least expected it coming from. However, detecting and locating Master Splinter from the darkness was completely impossible, because in his stealth mode he either stood still and absolutely silent as a rock, and even when he was moving, he didn't make any sound. Only a slight breeze in his wake could tell of his presence, though it mostly served as a distraction before he made his move.

However, he just had to try to reach his room undetected.

Louie turned his gaze left and right for a few times to ensure that the Lair was empty and that the coast was clear, before he went into stealth mode and sneaked in by tiptoeing with his toes as quietly as he could.

First he hid himself behind the first pillar nearby and looked from side to side to ensure that the coast was still clear, before he moved on.

Tiptoeing down the ramp to the inner circle of the floor and towards the bridge over the pool, Louie then crouched down on all fours and made the quiet frog-leap towards the end of the bridge's left hand rail, landing crouched next to it. Then he flipped in the air and landed quietly and gracefully on the bridge's right rail.

Louie then began to flipping in zigzagsing along the bridge's railings to the other side, until he landed crouched down in front of the other side.

Louie then kept moving, briefly repeating zigzagsing via crab-like sideways crawling on all fours: first to the left, then to the right and then again to the left, before he barrel rolled over, landing on one knee, and somersaulted the rest of the way towards the pillar, on top of which the doorway of his room is.

Now, all he needed to do was to climb up the pillar to the upstairs and then retreat into his room without anyone seeing him.

"Piece of pie!" Louie said to himself in whisper and was just about to start climbing up... UNTIL ALL OF THE SUDDEN, SOMEONE TURNED THE LIGHTS ON IN THE ENTIRE LAIR.

Louie froze in place, quickly realizing what the sudden lights in the dark space usually meant.

He was caught!

"Oh, shell!" Louie cursed under his breath.

The turtle in black awkwardly turned around towards where he knew the switcher was located, and much to his dismay, he saw Master Splinter standing right next to it, having pulled the switcher up with his staff.

"Master Splinter!" Louie gasped.

The old rat master casted a harsh narrowed glare on Louie, who rubbed his arm nervously, while frantically looking sideways to the left and right for any possible escape way from this. However, the same small voice in his head protested him from making any rash move or he will pay for it.

Seeing Splinter up confirmed Louie's suspicions that his family hadn't overslept as it seemed - though he didn't know about Mikey - before looked briefly around to see his siblings were here as well.

But they weren't, much to his surprise.

"Where are the guys, Sensei?" Louie asked, turning to his Sensei.

"They're out, looking for you, my son." Splinter said, his voice deep from the seethed anger.

Splinter then made the long flip from his spot onto the rail of the bridge, before he leaped upwards to his left and landed feet first against the side of the pillar, before he then hopped off in the air and flew down towards Louie in the spinning movement, before he landed gracefully on his feet right in front of Louie, making the turtle in black to flince in surprise.

Once there, Splinter fixed his narrowed gaze in Louie and went to the point. "And where have you been all night, young man?" he questioned strictly.

"Oh! I... ahh... umm... ehh... I was... ehh... hmm..." Louie stuttered nervously, turning his head front left to right while opening and closing his hands, and at one point, tapped his fingertips together as he tried to find his words to explain.

"Up there!" Louie then quickly said, pointing his thumb up towards the ceiling.

"On the surface?" Splinter questioned, which Louie confirmed with the nod.

"I went for a short walk on the surface to cool down a bit after our last training session." Louie explained. "Surely someone may have already told you this, master."

"Short walk, eh?" Splinter said with the raised eyebow. "And how can a "short" walk on the surface, in your own opinion, last all night, and almost all morning?"

"Well, master, I know you're not going to like this, but... I happened to ran into some trouble while being out there. I was caught in a small fight with some local street thugs in the alley, hence my long delay." Louie explained.

"And how can one "small" fight take all night and morning?" Splinter questioned.

Against his better judgement, even though he knew he would get spanked for this, Louie decided to be honest with his father. It wouldn't help to lie to Master Splinter because he's good enough to detect the lies and figure things out to find the truth sooner or later.(2)

"Master Splinter? You remember the girl me and the guys told you about nearly three months ago? Angel Bridge?" Louie asked.

"Yes, I do remember you telling me about her." Splinter nodded, while rubbing his long chinbeard. "What about her?"

"Well, I happened to caught the sight of both her and Ellie, her grandmother, being surrounded and almost apprehended by the same street thugs I was battling with tonight. They were trying to take them away after the lead thug, some guy known as Johannes Victor, recognized Angel as the ex-member of the Purple Dragons, so I had to interfere."

"That was nobly done, my son, but how does that explain your absence from home all night without a single word from you?" Splinter questioned again.

"Well..." Louie hesitated a bit before he continued. "First of, I think I forgot to take my Shell Cell with me. And secondly, I was shot in the head during the fight."

Splinter's eyes went wide after hearing this. "YOU WHAT...?!" he exclaimed.

"Just almost! Almost! Almost shot in the head, thanks to me having a retractable head." Louie said quickly to calm his master down, before pointing at his head with the sly smirk. Then, the look on Louie's face turned nack into serious one. "But the narrowly missed headshots sadly blew off my cover and the thugs saw my face... including Ellie. And like all those people who are not used to the giant talking turtles, she just fainted and fell to the ground when she saw my face. So I had to carry her back in Angel's place, and I stayed there for the rest of the night just in case the street thugs would try to recapture them from their home."

Master Splinter face hardened into a disappointed and angry frown after learning what Louie had done. "Lorenzo! Do you understand how serious this is? You let yourself to be seen by the people and at the same time you put our family's safety at risk! What were you thinking?!" Splinter exclaimed.

"Well, it was not my fault that I got shot by some trigger-happy lunatic." Louie said in his own defense. "Either my cover or my head had to go. And I chose my cover rather than my head."

However, Splinter was still pissed off with Louie, even though he understood well his son's meaning of giving up from his cover to survive the deadly experience. "Understandable yes, for your own survival and safety, but you were still seen by the humans."

"Just the bunch of street thugs, and Ellie, who belongs to Angel's inner circle." Louie defended. "Besides, I didn't leave from Angel's without making sure that Ellie was completely finel with us as who we are. But to do that, I had to make some detailed explanations about us to make her fully satisfied..."

The black clad turtle took the brief break and gulped slightly upon noticing that Splinter was giving him even harder frown, no doubt displeased to learn that Louie may have told Angel's grandmother more than he was even allowed to tell.

"...to make her fully understand the very importance of our need to remain in secret from the surface world. She even gave me her word that she won't tell anyone about us, not even her own inner circle except Angel. She even told me that keeping our secret is the least she could do to me as a gratitude for saving her and Angel's lives from those thugs. So I guess that the problem is solved. Angel's family's safe. Our family's safe. Bad guys out of the picture. Everybody wins. So what do you say, Sensei? Everything's fine. Cool. Right?"

"NO! Not cool!" Master Splinter snapped. "Too much information about us could put Ellie and Angel, and through them us, in great danger."

"Well, April for example knows a lot about us too, nearly everything, and yet we don't feel threatened because of it after she gave us her word not to say a word about us, Sensei." Louie said with the shrug.

"That's because there was nothing to threaten Mrs. O'Neil after Baxter Stockman's defeat, Lorenzo. But remember that young Angel Bridge used to be one of the Purple Dragons as you told me..." Splinter was about to explain.

"Ex-... and she wasn't even a full member yet back then." Louie corrected.

"WHACK!"

Only to earn the whack on top of his head from Master Splinter for interrupting him.

"OW!" Louie whined.

"Like I was saying, being a former member of the Purple Dragons is why she might be their main target, since she knows a lot about them and is the main witness to their activities." Splinter continued. "And it will mean only the great danger to all of us."

"Well, they have been quite safe from the Purple Dragons for three months already. Why would those idiots pose a danger to us?" Louie questioned.

"The one who led these street boys you fought last night, this... Johannes Victor... Was he the Dragon?" Splinter inquired.

"No... some gangster-looking guy in fine silver-gray clothes, a small moustache, well-kept black hair and a bowler hat. And before you ask, none of those punks were members of the Purple Dragons. Just some random street thugs." Louie said, describing Johannes' appearance.

"Then that means that not only Dragons, but some other criminal organization these people are affiliated with, might pose even greater threat both to Angel, Mrs. Bridge and us." Splinter stated severely. "For the time being, we have to keep an eye of the situation and stay alert for any sign of danger this new threat might pose to us."

"As you wish, father, but if you don't mind, I'll go to have some rest before I can do anything. I won't be much use to the guys if I fall asleep in middle of the mission." Louie said, and was just about to head towards his room.

"I'm sure the kids will be fine without you for a while, Lorenzo." Splinter said, half-strictly and half-regrettably.

Those words got Louie halt dead in his tracks. "Sensei?" Louie said, surprised, as he turned back to face Splinter again.

"I'm sorry, Lorenzo, but for staying up on the surface all night without a word, you letting yourself to be seen by the people and that you might have put both our family and Angel's family in great danger by telling too much, you will spend the next two weeks in the Lair. Grounded!"

Louie was about to protest... until the small voice in his head quickly reminded him about the sheer irony in this: He recalled Ellie having earlier grounded Angel for associating with the Dragons during her runaway from home and for lying to her for the next two weeks, and now he was about to get grounded for the things that Master Splinter just listed. And yet, he and Angel had arranged their first date in two weeks, luckily the day after their punishments would be up.

It would also ironically give him enough time to plan and arrange something nice for both him and Angel that night without any interruptions...except for extra practice sessions.

And so, Louie decided to back down and humbly accept his punishment.

"Aaaaaaaalright, Sensei. Whatever you say. Two weeks it is then. More time for training and becoming better and better than before." Louie said with the nod. " Now, if you don't mind, I'll be on my way to my room."

Louie's unexpectedly calm and carefree reaction left Splinter baffled. He knew that his son, like Raphael, was stubborn enough to protest many things concerning him, such as the punishments for neglecting and disobeying the direct orders, negligence on the surface and other mischiefs, but he never expected Louie to accept his punishment this easily and so fast even. The old rat master stared at his son with a blank expression as the turtle in black retreated into his room by climbing up the pillar.

Louie then entered into his room through the hexagonal doorway, which was exactly the same as the others', with the interior designed according to his nature.

There was pipes in the ceiling, into some of which Louie had attached the hammock where he slept his nights, and next to it was standing a wooden table, where he kept some of his few possessions, including the green twin bell alarm clock (which had suffered a quite beating whenever Louie wasn't in the mood to get up), his own laptop and table lamp. Louie had also put on his room's walls (or at least the ones surrounding his hammock) a countless adventure/action/scifi movie posters and wallpapers, including some images of the hot teen girls in bikinis, because Louie really liked the hot girls. In the same wall was also hanging his avokado-green and black, rocket-powered and surfboard-sized skateboard.

One corner of his room he had saved for the personal enjoyment: there was a part of the subway train car (though it is unknown how he had got it there), which he had turned into his own personal karaoke club, decorated with the various disco stuff, such as the disco ball hanging from the ceiling and lights, multiple speakers, rap guitars, drums, microphones, boomboxes, Vinyl dj Set and shelf filled with the rap music, hip hop and pop music, heavy metal music and all kinds of other tunes he likes to listen and sing along (such as "War" by Edwin Starr, "Holding Out For A Hero" by Bonnie Tyler, "Jazzman" by Carole King, "I'm a Believer" by Smash Mouth, "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett, "All Star" by Smash Mouth, "I'm on My Way" by The Proclaimers, "Like a Virgin" by Madonna, "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot, "YMCA" by The Village People, "Dance to the Music?" by Sly & The Family Stone, "Livin' La Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin, "Rockin' the Suburbs" by Ben Folds, "Old Time Rock and Roll" by Bob Seger, "Burning Love" by Wynonna, "Hey Mama" by The Black Eyed Peas, "Rockin' roll baby" by The Stylistics, "I Feel Good" by James Brown, "Holla" by Baha Men, "Pump It" by The Black Eyed Peas, "Black Slacks" by Robert Gordon and many others). He also had there a fridge filled with soda and energy drinks.

On the other wall he had hung four-five upright lines of target boards, five per each, onto which he had pray-painted the crude images with likeness of five villains they had met so far: Baxter Stockman, Tatsu, Dragon Face, Hun and lastly, the Shredder. Nearby was the weapon stand full of throwing weapons like spears, Kunai-knives, Sai-daggers, Shurikens, even crossbow and bolts, and the targets themselves were already full of thrown objects from Louie's past practices with his aim, thought the ones over which the Shredder's image was painted were most full of them (for the good reason), along with two crossbow bolts in both of his eyes and spear stuck in between of his legs.

In the opposite corner, next to his own karaoke club, were several of his own practice dummies dressed up as Foot Ninja and Purple Dragons, all spread out like chess pieces in the small area between of two to the back wall and subway car's wall attached basketball hoops. Many dummies were full of nasty-looking cuts and stab wounds, some of them having even amputated, beheaded, gutted and disemboweled. There, Louie liked to play his own styled basketball by practicing his skills on the dummies and using their beheaded heads as the basketballs.

And on the last wall at the very back of the room, Louie had attached numerous shelves to the wall where he kept his collectibles. Majority of the shelves were still empty, but some long shelves were filled with the long line of action figures from the various superhero movies and cartoon series, classic monster movies, adventure/action/sci-fi movies and so on. However, some of the shelves contained some items that Louie liked to call 'trophies' from their past encounters with the various villains and enemies they had defeated over the past few months.

Such of items were one of Baxter Stockman's Mouser's decapitated head he'd taken after the battle in Stocktronics.

Nanobot robot's discarded "Frightened" mask from their fight at the junkyard.

One of the damaged and shutdown Foot Tech Ninja drones he'd taken down himself in the sewers (though Donnie had removed majority of its interior mechanism, leaving mostly the empty shell left, and checked it out for any tracking devices), which was actually hanging on the wall by the pegs put under its armpits.

Few torn pieces of cloth with the Purple Dragon symbols on them, which he had taken from several Purple Dragons and put them into glass frames (he had also done the same thing with few pieces of cloth with the Foot Clan symbol on them).

The Carpageman's lost cap and the hydraulic claws of his mechanical wheelchair he'd recovered after their fight at his island. Plus, one of his guard's breathing masks.

And finally the Foot Sword, crafted by master Toshi Kurahawa, which Oroku Saki/the Shredder had given to Leo, and which Louie had taken for himself after Leo rejected it and used it in the battle against the Shredder.

Louie then untied his Butterfly swords' scabbard belt and put them on the wooden table, before being followed by his Manriki-Gusaris, which he tossed on the table as well. With that, he turned towards his hammock and climbed on it to take a nap for a few hours.

Once he was on the hammock, the turtle in black turned on his shell and put his hands behind his head, before he just relaxed and gazed up to his room's pipe-filled ceiling with the satisfied smile still on his lips.

"Two weeks grounded?! Big deal! The wait will be well-rewarded." Louie said to himself, before he closed his eyes and fell to well-earned sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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TRIVIA

1) = Though not scientist like Donnie, Louie knows of his and Master Splinter's species' scientific names.

2) = Reference how the things turned out in the Third Season's episode "The Lesson".

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I fan-casted these actors to voice these new major characters in my story.

- Tim Curry as Mr. William Dandelion (known from the villainous roles as the Mouse King from Barbie and the Nutcracker, Pennywise in the IT television miniseries, Taurus Bulba in Darkwing Duck, the Evil Manta in The Little Mermaid television series, Maestro Forte in Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and so on.)

- Brad Garrett as Mr. Nosy (known from the villainous roles as Luca the Doberman in Garfield: The Movie, Obelix in English Dubbed Asterix and the Vikings, Bloat from Finding Nemo, Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and so on.)

- Jim Cummings as Gabriel "Gabe" Harris (known notably from the villainous role as Peg Leg Pete from various Disney Cartoons and Kingdom Hearts.)

- Tom Hollander as Johannes Victor (known from the roles as Lord Cutler Beckett from Pirates of the Caribbean series, Tabaqui in Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and so on.)

- Jon Polito (RIP 2016) as Marcus Victor (known from the role as Ashcan the Boxer in Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco.)

- Hugh Laurie as Bobs (Known for the role as Jasper in Disney's 1996 live-action film 101 Dalmatians.)

- Mark Williams as Rocky (Known for the role as Horance in Disney's 1996 live-action film 101 Dalmatians.)