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 died away, Angel just stood petrified and stared at Louie without his head, holding her breath in shock and unable to believe what had just happened. It torturous for her to just watch a still standing but nonetheless dead corpse of her friend, who came to her and her grandmother's aid, failed, and died.

Three remaining thugs had their own reactions to this tragic turn: Johannes was gaping in the silent shock of this, Helga had rather a cold and indifferent frown on her face, but Marcus particularly bursted into a cruel triumphant laughter.

"HAAA, AH HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HAA!." he cheered, throwing his arms and his smoking shotguns in the air. "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, instead of praising him, Johannes finally lost both his patience, composure, and generally calm demeanor in front of everyone, exploding in frustrated anger, to Marcus' brief confusion.

"SHOWED HIM?! YOU JUST BLASTED THIS GUY'S HEAD OFF, YOU TRIGGER-HAPPY LUNATIC!" Johannes roared at his brother's face. "WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ORDER "NO BODIES"?!

"Big deal, brother! It's already done!" Marcus scoffed indifferently, feeling proud of himself instead, before adding an insult to injury. "It's dead. This guy is dead! Dead like the rock and dead it should be. Who even cares if its' dead?

However, Marcus' callous disregard for Louie's death only earned him a nasty look from Angel, who narrowed her eyes angrily.

"I DO, YOU MONSTER!" she screamed and sprung forward towards Marcus to avenge the turtle in black, running past Louie from his left side.

"Angel! No! Don't!" 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 her or cared about it.

However, Angel didn't get the chance for revenge when Marcus noticed her and fired the shot with one of his shotguns at Angel's feet, which hit a little too close of Angel's right leg for her comfort, as a warning shot, making the teen girl halt to the spot and stare at the thug with wide-eyed yet hate-filled glare.

"Stay where you are, girl!" Marcus snarled as he aimed his still-one-shot-left shotgun at Angel, warning her to stay back or else he'll shoot her in the head. "Or you'll end up just like this... headless chicken here." he finished with the cruel cackle at his own joke.

"Better listen, girl." Helga said coldly, backing Marcus up by aiming one of her Mini Uzis at Angel. "Headshot is the least favorable way to die than being shot multiple rounds in the body and die slowly in the loss of blood."

Angel gritted her teeth in anger as she glared at the three thugs

As this was happened, however, Johannes stiffened when he suddenly caught a distant sound from the night sky. And not just any sound, but the very alarming sound that anyone who lives and works outside the law would immediately recognize... like the bell of the death.

The sound of the ringing police sirens... which made him realize that someone had probably heard the gunfire and had alerted the police, which further infuriated him.

Because of this, Johannes was quick to forcibly push Helga's and Marcus' guns down, casting a narrowed glares at the two.

"You morons have already wasted enough our time by playing with your guns! Let's get this done quickly and then let's scram!" Johannes demanded impatiently.

"What's the hurry, Johannes?" Helga questioned.

Frowning, Johannes pointed his thumb at the sky, causing Helga and Marcus to look up and hear distant sirens approaching, making the two alarmed.

"See what you have done!" Johannes barked, giving both his brother and Helga the piece of his mind. "Your wild gunfiring show has exposed us, which wasn't even supposed to happen! Now the police is on their way here and we don't have time to clean up our mess to prevent arousing the suspicions!"

While Helga said not a word, Marcus shrugged off his brother's concerns indifferently while loading his guns again.

"I don't care, brother. We'll just dump the body somewhere before the cops arrive. They're not gonna find anything except the shredded hat and scarf." Marcus insisted.

"And the witnesses? They have seen everything already?" Helga pointed out, waving her gun at Angel and Ellie.

Hearing that, the murderous glow shined in Marcus' eyes as he turned his gaze from Helga to Angel and lifted his shotguns up again.

"We'll neutralize that threat by killing the witnesses right away!" Marcus snarled, taking the aim at Angel's head.

"No! Remmember, brother! We were supposed to bring them both back to the boss for him to decide...!" Johannes reminded, grabbing on Marcus' shoulder to stop him, but Marcus shook his hand off and pushed him away.

"SCREW THE ORDERS!" Marcus spat. "THE GIRL AND THE OLD WOMAN ARE BOTH DEAD!"

"AH!" Ellie gasped in wide-eyed shock, realizing that Marcus intended to murder both her and Angel right away. However, Angel refused to give in in the face of the certain death. She kept glaring angrily and defiantly at Marcus and his raised shotguns. Marcus narrowed his eyes in return and prepared to fire.

But before he could pull the trigger...

"BAH! You couldn't hit the target even if it standing still!"

Helga, Johannes and Marcus jumped in surprise and alarm upon hearing that Scottish voice that had just spoken to them, in the mocking manner, all of the sudden.

The three thugs also recognized the voice and to whom it belonged, much to their disbelief, making them to stare at Louie's headless body with baffled and wide-eyed looks.

Surprised to hear the voice she knew belonged to Louie, Angel turned around and immediately fixed her eyes on Louie's headless and motionless body.

"Louie?" she mumbled in confusion.

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

Angel stared at Louie for a moment in bewilderment, until her eyes caught the slight movement in Louie's hand, something what Helga, Marcus and Johannes didn't... because their gazes were fixed on the spot between of Louie's shoulders where his head had been.

The turtle in black's two fingers slowly clenched into a fist, leaving only his thumb pointing upwards.

Angel raised an brow in confusion as she stared at Louie's 'thumbs up' sign, which was done with his left hand as if it was meant for her to give her reassurance that either he was or everything will be fine... even from beyond the grave.

Angel blinked her eyesa few times wondering if she had seen right or was just seeing things. Along with that, this also raised few questions in her head.

'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.

"But all three of you will be dead long before them, mark my words! BWA-HA-HA-HAA!"

Helga and Johannes, still unable to believe their eyes and ears, restlessly stepped away from Louie's corpse, keeping as much distance between them and the turtle in black as possible.

"That voice! It came from that body!" Helga said in confusion and slight fear.

Only Marcus held his ground, while the thug narrowed his eyes to take a closer look of the spot where Louie's head had stood.

A moment later his eyes went wide open and his jaw dropped in astonishment when he saw the avocado green bald top of the head emerging from the coat's collared neckline, stopping only when the pair of eyes with the black mask over them peeked out, fixing the sneering gaze right at Marcus.

"It... it cannot be!" Marcus gasped wide-eyed.

"Hoo, hoo, Boy, do I love being a turtle with a retractable head!" Louie laughed inside his coat.

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

As he tried to find his words, Louie pushed the rest of his still-intact head out, revealing his face to all onlookers with the wide and smug grin on his face.

"MISSED ME!" he said with sing-song voice.

Marcus, Johannes and Helga stared at Louie in aghast, not only because of his impossible survival from the couple headshots from the close range, but also because of his face that wasn't even a human for their liking. They were also a little 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 relieved laughs to see Louie, her friend, still alive and well.

Ellie in the other hand was in wide-eyed and slack-jawed astonishment and shock after seeing that their rescuer wasn't a human but a somekind of reptilian creature.

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

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

"Name's Lorenzo." Louie said cockily, before he pointed at his own face with his finger. "And let my face be a one-time and clear warning to those who dare to HURT MY FRIENDS!"

Louie then lifted his Manriki-Gusaris up in the air, before he hurled them in the cracking-of-the-whip style at Helga, Marcus and Johannes, slamming the weights in the ends of the chains to the ground right at their feet in intimidation, making the startled thugs to jump back.

The turtle in black then 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.

"YIPPIE-YI-YAY!" Louie cheered like the cowboy.

Helga then stepped forward and prepared to open fire at Louie with her Mini Uzis. Marcus and Johannes too raised their own firearms up to shoot the turtle in black.

"DIE, YOU FREAK!" Helga roared.

However, before the thugs could've even fired a single shot, Louie turned sharply around to the left and swung his chains' weights around him and then at the several trash cans on his left, with the impact sending them to fly towards the thugs as the rain of trash cans, metal lids, garbage bags and garbage, forcing them to duck and cover and halt their gunfire.

That was all the cover Louie needed before he charged towards them, wrapping his chains around his arms

Marcus shook off the trash all over him and aimed both of his shotguns at Louie before opening the fire.

BLAM! BLAM!

However, Louie dodged the shots in time by jumping up in the air and the shells hit harmlessly to the empty spot on the ground where he'd been standing a seconds ago. marcus immediately looked up at Louie and lifted his shotguns up to fire his last rounds at him.

BLAM! BLAM!

However, he missed him again because the turtle in black flipped twice in the air, avoidig shots that flew past over his head and in his wake, leaving Marcus with nothing to defend himself with when Louie landed right in front of him.

"Next time you shoot somebody, pal, don't go near before you're sure he's dead." Louie told him mockingly.

Louie then suddenly grabbed from Marcus' shotguns before he 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 back up to his feet before he 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 loudly in half in Louie's hands, rendering them useless.

After destroying Marcus' guns, Louie threw the pieces away and then turned to his next targed: Helga Esterson.

Growling through her gritted teeth, Helga raised her Mini Uzi up to shoot Louie at close range, but the turtle in black was already a step ahead of her as he spun to the right and around twice on his left leg and kicked the weapons out of Helga's hands with his right leg.

However, though having lost her guns, Helga took out the pair of nightsticks as weapons. She first tried to horizontally whack Louie in the head with her left stick, before trying it again and this time trying to whack him with her right stick as well, but Louie dodged the first swing by bowing his head down and then dodged the second and third swing by leaning his head backwards. Helga then tried to whack Louie again, but Louie countered by grabbing from her right wrist, preventing her from hitting him. Louie then turned slightly to the right before he moved his left hand under of Helga's right arm.

"You fight good... for a grandma." Louie taunted as he shot his palm upwards, uppercutting/palm-striking Helga under the chin, knocking her head back and leaving her stunned.

The turtle in black then turned back to Helga to finish her off, first by elbowing her in the chest with his left elbow and then giving him right straight right in the face, knocking her back, and then spin-kicked her in the head with his right foot, sending the thuggish woman flying away before she hit to the ground, knocking her down and out.

Johannes, having witnessed Louie taking out his men one by one with ease and realizing that he was the only thug still standing, threw away his gun and attempted to cowardly make for the car to escape from the scene.

"Not so fast!" Louie called after him as he unwrapped his Manriki-Gusaris from his arms and started to spun them wildly over his head with such of speed that they almost looked like the spinning blades of the buzzsaws.

While running, Johannes looked over his shoulder and gasped in fear, realizing what Louie was about to do to him with his chains.

"No! No, please! Please! Please, let me go! I'm just the messenger here!" Johannes pleaded, begging Louie to spare him.

"Sorry, pal!" Louie said with barely half-hearted apologetic voice. "But unfortunately for you, every foul has consequences."

With that, Louie then threw his chains towards fleeing Johannes, who tried to pick up the pace to get away, but it was no use.

The chains wrapped themselves around his legs, allowing Louie to pull them from under the thug and cause Johannes to fall over... but before he could hit the ground, Louie cracked his chains with one powerful pull, which tossed the man upwards with surprisingly ease and, unwrapping the chains from his feet, sent him flying into the air.

"NOOOOOOOO!" Johannes screamed during his flight, before he hit on his stomach to the ground.

With Johannes, Marcus and Helga down and out, Louie raised his fist up and let out the triumphant cry in the air.

"YEEEE-HAAWWWW! VICTORY FOR A MEAN IN GREEN, HALLELLUJAH!" the turtle in black cheered.

"Not yet, you freak!"

"Huh?" Louie muttered at the rude voice and looked forward, seeing that the bruised and battered Leroy, Bud, Bob and Henry had already recovered from the beating he'd given to them and had already gotten back up to their feet. And all too eager for the payback, they were all aiming their guns at the turtle in black's shell to shoot him.

"Kill that abomination!" Leroy snarled, before the big thug opened fire, followed by the others.

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

However, seconds before any shot was fired, Louie whipped his chains up towards the pair of fire escapes above of the thugs, wrapping them around the railings. Then Louie 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 swung downwards and towards the thugs by his chains, dodging their gunfire as he go.

"Guess you guys didn't learned from the earlier. Then I guess I gotta make myself CLEAR!" Louie declared as he flew past them and then swung 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.

As Louie landed to the ground right in middle of the four thugs, first thing he did was to turn to Bud before he jump up in the air, spun around and then spin-kick Bud right in the face with his right foot, knocking him down and out.

"One!" Louie yelled, before Bob threw away his already empty gun and attempted to throw a fist at him with his left hand. However, Louie ducked his punch and grabbed to his hand, before he swung the big thug around him and slammed him face-first into the wall, knocking him out and leaving there the face-shaped cracked dent.

"Two!" Louie yelled, as Henry, having thrown away his gun and wielding now the broken steel pipe he'd picked up as a weapon, charged at him and swung it at Louie's back. However, Louie's shell deflected Henry's blow, thus earning him Louie's retribution as he turned around and swung his left hand horizontally at the thug's head.

Henry managed to duck his head under Louie's strike with sheer luck, though it ran quickly off when Louie palm-struck Henry in the face right afterwards, making him flying back with the series of backward somersaults before he hit against the wall next to Bob.

"Three!" Louie yelled again, before noticing one of his chains falling down towards him and he grabbed to it before turning to the last one standing: Leroy. Louie then grabbed to the chain with both hands before jumping to the wall and running along it for a moment before jumping off.

"Aaaaaaand FOUR!" Louie yelled as he swung back at Leroy by his chain, kicking him in the face with both of his legs, knocking his head back and causing him to fall over to the ground, stunned, while Louie landed on his feet in middle of the alley.

With the thugs down, Louie then reached his left hand out towards his other chain as it fell back to him and grabbed to it.

Then Louie wrapped both of his chains around his arms again before he 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 loudly in half, catching the recovering thugs' attentions

This resulted both fire escapes coming loose off the walls and collapsing to the ground and onto the screaming and covering thugs, who ended up burried/trapped underneath of an enormous pile of the twisted metal, steps and platforms, that blocked the way to the other side of the alley.

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

On his way, he came upon Lou, who groaned as he attempted to get back up, only for Louie to put his foot onto his back and then push the thug face first into the ground before simply continuing onward.

Louie then came upon downed Marcus and Johannes, who were both lying next to eah other, both groaning in pain and defeat. The brothers had apparently had enough and didn't even try to get up, which might have convinced Louie to leave them be.

But, Louie being Louie, he wasn't in mood of that.

So the turtle in black knelt down and grabbed both thugs from their suits and dragged them towards one of the trash cans nearby 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 over his head and threw him head-first into the can, leaving only his feet outside.

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

As Louie prepared to do the same with 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 that belongs into trash can." Louie said and lifted 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.

"Hopefully the laundry bill wasn't too high." Louie wished sarcastically, before Johannes found himself upside down inside the trash can, where Louie left him with his brother.

Afterwards Louie clapped his hands clean and stretched his shoulders to shake off the strain after the long fight, before he resumed walking towards Angel.

"Hi, Angel cakes!" Louie greeted, waving his hand at her. "Been a long time since the last time. How ya been?"

Angel, however, didn't answer to him. Instead, she folded her arms and shot a glare at the turtle in black, like to reprimand him for a bad behavior.

Louie noticed this and grew confused, not expecting the reunion between two old friends taking such of turn of the mood.

"What? Why such of murky look?" Louie said with the innocent shrug. "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 held them up while shaking her head in frustration and disbelief of how little regard Louie seemingly 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 you almost gave me a heart-attack with that stunt of yours?!" she said sharply, holding a finger at his face.

Louie simply shrugged. "Relax, Angel. I'm a ninja... and a turtle, remember? It takes more than a two gunshots to take down the turtle with the retractable head."

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

"Hey! Look who's talking... given that becoming little Miss Purple Dragon-affair a few weeks back?" Louie retorted back.

Angel cringed when that was brought up at the most inappropriate time when her grandmother was in present! The teen girl frantically waved her hands to make Louie stop before he ends up revealing more about the whole thing 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 off upon realizing what she'd just said, and her face morphed into a dumbfounded and wide-eyed shock when another realization hit her.

Her grandmother standing a few feet away just behind her back, and Louie standing right in front of her without his hat or scarf to cover his face, which he was unable to do since they both got blown into shreds, meant only one thing!

Louie's true identity had not only been revealed to those thugs, but also to Ellie, with the latter having not yet seen him and wasn't even supposed to ever see him in person.

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 as they turned towards Ellie.

At the sight of Louie, Ellie was standing almost petrified like a statue, wide-eyed, mouth hanging slack open,

Ellie stood there almost petrified like a statue, trembling from bewilderment and fear. The rest of the world sounded like a faint echo in her ears as she struggled to figure out what was going on here and who or what was the "strange being" in front of her.

Fear seemed to get a stronger grip on her every passing second when she failed to find any rational or logical response to what she was seeing. Her trembling increased, 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 to help her. Angel walked to her grandmother's side while 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! 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!" Louie said, waving his hands in front of him calmingly. "I know this is weird and pretty awkward at the same time. Believe me. I get it. I've been through this routine before."

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.

Eventually, the lack of oxygen caused Ellie to pass out. Her eyes rolled in her head before the old woman began to fall backwards.

"Grandma!" Angel gasped and rushed in to prevent her 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 faint. The turtle in black moved swiftly to Ellie's side and caught her into his arms before she hit 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 place is swarming with cops." Louie said, Louie said, noting the approaching sirens that, judging by the volume, were only a block or two away.

Louie then turned to pay one more look at Johannes and Marcus stuck in the trash can, as well as the remains of two fire escapes that trapped the rest of the thugs.

"I don't think there are any more of them around, 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 when she awakes, don't you think?"

"Couldn't agree more, Angel." Louie said.

The turtle in black then sighed and rolled his eyes at the whole thought, knowing that explaining yourself to one person will not be so simple based on his past experience of interracting with humans.

"(Sigh) This is going to be a long night indeed." Louie muttered.

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.

But before they left, Louie had to re-button his coat and adjust the collar up to cover his face the best he could. He really couldn't afford of being seen by anymore humans, whether cops 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 head before Louie placed the blanket over her.

In case of further attacks, Angel locked the door and the windows, covering them with the curtains, while Louie, true to his word, stayed put to keep an eye on the situation and to protect them if necessary.

Louie even ushered Angel to patch herself up and 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, protested this at first, until her own exhaustion finally got to her and forced her to retreat first to the shower and then to bed.

However, even though Louie kept an eye on the door handle for any attempts to break in and occassionally peeked out of the windows to see if there was anyone outside 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. Criminals 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 off 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 sitting there, but after turning to look at the stranger she realized it wasn't her... and that it wasn't even a human.

Ellie's eyes went wide in alarm when she realized that the stranger was that same reptilian-headed creature from the alley.

And without him having a trenchcoat on, she could see him having the turtle-like shell around his body.

"...ever." Ellie muttered, falling speechless as she stared at the strange reptilian creature in front of her, and this time even in her own house.

"...ever." Ellie muttered, falling afterwards speechless from the thought that they had 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 to something and was seeing 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 even 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 voice, and looked at her right in the eyes, letting her to see his face once again.

"Ah. G'morning, Mrs. Bridge." 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 the other.

"AGH!" Louie yelped suddenly, jumping off the chair he was sitting on and hopped away, wearing an equally frightened wide-eyed look on his face while covering himself with his hands.

However, having anticipated such of reaction, Louie was just pretending to be scared of Ellie to make her believe that the feeling was mutual to ease the tensions 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.

"Really, Louie?"

Seeing Angel giving him deadpan 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 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 for being called "freak" and "monster".

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 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 life 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. 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 muttered 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 Angel has been telling her about these mysterious friends of hers for the past few weeks.

She also recalled Angel having one time mentioned one of her friends being called as...

"Lorenzo? Your name was Lorenzo, right?" Ellie inquired as she mentioned Louie's full name. "So you are that Lorenzo of whom I've heard about?"

Louie was totally caught off guard with 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 stuttered, 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 raised brow, making the teen girl to rub her arm awkwardly for being the center of attention here.

"Angel? How does your grandmother knows about me alreay?" the turtle in black asked calmly, pointing at Ellie with his thumb.

Then he said his next words in a slightly stricter 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: You were not supposed to tell anyone about us... not even to your grandmother." Louie said strictly like the reprimanting big brother.

Louie then let out the sigh and facepalmed himself. "Great! Now I'm starting to sound like Dom... or even Master Splinter."

"I know, Louie, and I never intended to break our agreement." 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 her "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 this conversation.

"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 talking about?! What agreement is this about?! What is going on here?! And Angel? What did that man in the alley, Johannes, mean by addressing you as "Ex-Purple Dragon"? And you, Lorenzo, how can you and Angel even be "old acquaintances from a few weeks back" if all I knew about you was your name and that you were friends with Angel? And now I see you're not even a teenage human child like Angel has been claimed these past few weeks. You two are owing me the biggest explanation of your life! So start explaining 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. You're right. 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 exactly? And what is this agreement you mentioned having 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 long story. It can take the whole morning if I start from the beginning, so I suggest we all go sit comfortably at the table and have 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 heading to the kitchen to 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 appearance. "Secondly... I'm a mutant. A freak. A 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 voice and intimidating face. "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 palm in front of his face.

This caused Ellie to jump and take one step backwards, slightly alarmed by Louie's antics, 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 to Ellie. "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, finishing for Ellie. "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. And thus, Louie leaned a little closer to clarify.

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

"Oh, Okay..." Ellie muttered as she took a moment to swallow all of this in, before she turned back to Louie. "If I've understood everything correctly so far, am I correct in saying that your and Angel's "agreement" 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 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."

"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."

"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.

"You guys have never told me anything about your background story. Do you mind if I ask you to tell us now, Louie?" Angel asked.

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

"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 seat, 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 it.

Johannes' fine suit was in ruins: torn from the sleeves and skirts and covered with the filth and the sticky trashes from the trash can, and his bowler hat had taken a pretty bad hit too, resulting a nasty visible bump in his head. Marcus didn't look any better than his brother. His clothes were torn and filthy and he had a big nasty bruise in his forehead. He also had the banana peel hanging on his left shoulder, which he flicked away in disgust.

The brothers were followed by Helga, Henry, Leroy, the Twins Bud and Bob and Lou. All six thugs were physically in way more worse shape than the brothers after their fight with Louie, which had left them bruised, battered, bleeding and even limping.

However, they too had the same worried looks on their faces as brothers when they entered the room, and the very eerie atmosphere in this room only increased their worries.

In front of the spot of light 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 stood straight like British Guards and stared at the brothers and their men with 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 stuck 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.

The gruffy thug didn't look surprised by Johannes, Marcus and their companions' dirty and battered looks when he turned to look at them.

"Wow! You guys look terrible..." the gruffy guy said as if it was a compliment. "... like you've been literally thrown away like yesterday's garbage."

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

"How did that even happen?" gruffy thug asked. "Or should I even ask?"

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

"By some giant karate-frog freak?!" the gruffy thug repeated in disbelief, in the verge of bursting out of laughter. "Pfft! Gimme a break! Don't tell me you got your butts kicked by some weirdo in the Halloween-costume" he scoffed.

Marcus didn't take kindly of the gruffy thug's words and he had to be forcibly held back by Johannes so that he wouldn't impulsively get to the gruffy thug's face and to start something very unwise in such an unfavorable place.

"You wanna a demonstration how I got this bruise in my forehead in that alley?!" Marcus threatened.

"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.

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, 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... Am I correct?" Nosy asked dangerously.

"We would have succeeded if it hadn't been for that one...!" Marcus said aloud, 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 again.

Johannes turned then to Mr. 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 recruit of the Purple Dragons, Angel Bridge, and we tried to give him your boss's card on your orders, only to find out she was no longer affiliated with them 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 it, because she thought she was 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 an brow, mildly surprised - though he didn't show it - at Marcus saying or implying that there were some "greener boys" for whom Angel defected the Dragons. He began immediately - but just briefly - to wonder in his mind what could that mean or who exactly were these "green boys".

However, he quickly shook it off his mind for now and went back to the point. "And... did you two brought her here 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... though 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' temper via talking, Johannes signaled his boss to calm down before he began explaining.

"Well, truth to be told, sir, we tried to take both Angel and her grandmother here as you ordered, but then there was a minor interference in the plan." Johannes explained.

Mr. Nosy cocked his head little, as he took another look at 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 further details of the subject, 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 Mr. 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?!"

"Well..." Johannes hesitated. "The girl and her grandmother got away, 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-freak in some frog-costume that broke my shotguns, and..."

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

"ONE! JUST ONE" Mr. 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 INCOMPETENT IMBECILES LET THE GIRL GET AWAY, BUT YOU FOOLS LET ONE GUY, JUST ONE GUY, TO DEFEAT ALL EIGHT 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, Helga, Henry, Leroy, Twins and Lou spoke up to back up the brothers.

"Sir, if I may? We did try our best to stop this thing, I swear it for all of us." Helga explained, holding his fist over his chest.

"Helga's right. We put in everything we got: Our guns, even our bare fists!" Leroy continued.

"But while we're specialized in dealing with the people, this thing wasn't even human at all." Henry explained. "It was somekind of giant frog, who caught us off-guard by using the darkness against us."

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

"Starting by ambushing me from behind before dragging me off, sir. I didn't even notice anything until it was already on me." Lou spoke up, showing Mr. Nosy his black eye. "He also left his mark on me." he added as he showed the clean L-shaped hole in his shirt.

"It was humiliating to go down like that." Bob spat through his gritted teeth. "Defeated by something that wasn't even older or taller than any of us. And yet he fought even harder than a boxer."

"Speaking of which... This creature was just too fast and too strong! Even for all eight of us." Bud said. "He fought like a demon! Won't be surprised if he was a demon himself!"

"You should've seen him in action, sir: This thing threw us 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." Henry listed.

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

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

"And that's not all. This thing was capable to pull its head inside of its body to avoid Marcus' gunshots... like the turtle." Helga said, remembering Louie being capable to pull his head into his shell and out.

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

"ENOUGH!" Mr. 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 INCOMPETENT, SUPERSTITIONS AND COWARDLY SHEEP, WHO CAN'T BRING DOWN EVEN ONE ASSAILANT!"

After venting his rage, Mr. 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 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?" Mr. Nosy called, as he extended his hand towards the gruffy thug, named Gabriel "Gabe" Harris.

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

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

The thugs realized almost immediately what Mr. 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 reach the door, because very soon when one of them tried to step over the border of the spot light, the door to this room was suddenly slammed shut and locked, which was followed by the aggressive growling of many vicious-sounding dogs from the darkness, along with numerous menacing clicks of the weapons' hammers from all sides.

Finding themselves trapped under the light with nowhere to go without the risk of being shot or mauled, the thugs huddled together back to back.

Growing increasingly restless to the near panicking in the face of the potential and certain death penalty, Bud hurriedly grabbed to his twin brother by the shoulders and pulled him in front of him to use him as a shield to protect himself.

"Hey! Let go of me!" Bob demanded, struggling to get free from his twin'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 or wished that he was somewhere else. Even Johannes was starting to lose his cool, and the fear started to pool in his stomach.

Then, Mr. Nosy lowered the gun down with slow pace until its barrel was pointing at the brothers and the huddled thugs, as if he was deliberately savoring every second of this.

"You boys want to know what is exactly my most favored season in anytime in the year?" Mr. 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 beasts 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 and the other thugs' fear only grew greater with every word Mr. Nosy let out his mouth.

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

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

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

With that, Mr. 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.

The thugs, with a terrified wide-eyed looks on their faces, tried to forcibly and selfishly push each other in front of their huddled group to get away from the line of fire themselves.

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... ever again."

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!

###

Meanwhile, back at Angel's, Louie spent all morning by telling Ellie and Angel a long but fascinating story about his and his family's life, starting from that day of accident when they were first exposed to the strange mutagen that changed them over years from ordinary turtles and rat into what they were today, and how they've been living living hiding beneath the streets of New York City for fifteen years, while being taught and trained the secret arts of Ninjutsu in order to defend themselves.

Louie told them how his childhood home was destroyed by the Mousers a few months ago, which led them to their very first adventure on the surface, including their discovery of their new Lair, meeting April O'Neil, their conflict with Baxter Stockman, 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 Nanobot-monster and the city's homeless population terrorizing Garbageman.

Louie also told Ellie that he first met Angel the night when he, his siblings, and Casey ambushed the group of Purple Dragons in the middle of a robbery, with Angel being among them, planning to join them out of desire for the tough guy's life in order to forget her sorrow and misery over her parents deaths, which had led Casey to infiltrate the Dragons' lair to save her from her own folly, only to get himself caught and planned to be used as the trophy in the Dragons' smackdown contest. Casey's plight and her guilt over it were what inspired Angel to abandon the Dragons before enlisting him and his siblings to help her to save Casey.

After finding out why Johannes had previously spoken to Angel as a member of the Dragons, and the truth about why she ran away from home and disappeared for weeks, and comparing this to everything Angel had told her, Ellie was left shocked and horrified that she had ever even thought of something so stupid that could have gotten her into even bigger trouble with the authorities, or worse, getting herself nearly killed without her ever even knowing of that. But Ellie couldn't be angrier at Angel for anything other reason than for her lying to her all this time.

Hanging his head down in shame, Angel sincerely apologized her grandmother for not being completely honest with her.

But while she admitted that her intentions to join the Purple Dragons was rather stupid thing from her to do, she justified her lies being meant to keep Louie and the other turtles' existence a secret.

Although Ellie understood why Angel did what he did thanks to Louie, she was still very disappointed in Angel's actions and dishonesty... to the point where she decided to punish her by grounding her to home for at least two weeks. The angel had neither the words nor the juice to protest this, so she humbly accepted it.

Louie then told them about their conflict with the Foot-clan, explaining with the heavy heart the detaols of his father's late master, Hamato Yoshi's cold-blooded murder in the hands of Oroku Saki a.k.a. The Shredder fifteen years ago before Splinter found him and his siblings, which had led to the long blood-feud between them and the Shredder, as well as to the countless encounters with the Foot all over New York City.

Louie revealed that Shredder had recently tried to manipulate Leo into joining forces with him in a centuries-long war between the Foot and some sort of mysterious enemy of theirs, but Leo had rejected the offer after learning the truth, leading to a bloody and violent all-out war against the Shredder, though the enemy's superiority even against all eight together sent them all on the run to separate way, leaving them unable to regroup and as the targets of a massive manhunt. But with Master Splinter's help, they were able to regroup for the final showdown, which ended in their pyrrhic victory as Splinter literally flushed the entire Foot army and the Shredder himself off the roof, eventually throwing a water tower at Shredder, crushing him to death.

"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 gone, the remnants of the Foot have just fled the city, leaving us alone." 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 arm during the fight.

"And good riddance, Shredder!" she exclaimed, punching the air with the fist.

"You and your family definitely haven't had an easy life, my dear." 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 compassion. "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 end of yours."

Ellie exchanged glances with Angel, taken aback by Louie's words, which changed an old simple saying from its usual innocent sounding form to something so grim like that.

Louie nodded his head in understanding of her puzzled look. "Yeah, I get it. My father has a tendency to change some old sayings to his liking to remind us of the dangers that surface every day, just for the sake of our family's and our own safety."

Ellie and Angel seemed to get the message and nodded their heads.

At this point, Louie then glanced at the clock in the wall and 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'll 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, 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 and began to lead him towards the 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 him.

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 loved ones?"

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 that were in his scabbard belt and tied it over his chest, before he fetched his Manriki-Gusaris and attached them to his belt. Then he grabbed on his coat and put it on. Too bad he no longer had a 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 the moment he stepped out of the house.

Just when he was about to open the door and step outside, 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 a turquoise scarf, purple beanie and shades for him.

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

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

"I think I owe you this, Angel. Just name your price and I'll do 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 but a hanging out as friends." she corrected. "And it's not me who's asking you out. It's you who's asking me out."

Louie stared at her with baffled wide-eyed look.

"Whaaaa...?!" Louie whined teasingly. "How can it not be a date if you're speaking about it that way?"

"'Cause I said so, lover boy." Angel said with the sing-song voice.

"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. "Remember? You promised on your honor to do something in return for my help to cover your identity out there, and I suggested you calling me out in two weeks. These are the terms, so you better take it or drop it. Otherwise I'd have to take those things back from you."

Louie's eyes widened in disbelief that she was going to use his inability to move in the daylight without a scarf, beanie, and the shades as a way to blackmail her 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, it's not me who's eating my words, dear Louie." Angel said, crossing her arms and giving Louie a smug smile. "It's you who's eating your own words here."

Louie narrowed his eyes at the smug look on Angel's face, knowing that she had got him trapped with his desperate need for scarf, beanie and the shades to move in the streets undetected.

And all this just because Angel doesn't take their thing 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 scarf, beanie and the shades away from Angel's reach, before he 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. "Don't push your luck, Louie! I'll take them back from you by force if I have to, if you don't accept the conditions 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 this, 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 thing as the date."

"Oh, so you wanna play rough, do ya, shell-for-brains? Alright. Let's play rough then." Angel said, before turning away from Louie and started to think how to blackmail Louie into accepting that their hanging out won't be a date.

But 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? Is that rat outside the window your father? Master Splinter, right?" Angel said, pointing at the window. "Boys! He doesn't look happy at all seeing you here."

Anyone could've laughed and bragged about not falling for such an old trick so easily, but the mention of Master Splinter made Louie's head jump up in alarm as it reminded him that he was late for home and that his father must be both worried and angry with him for it. And the thought of him looking angrily at him through the window was as scarier than a little boy's fear of something evil lurking outside the window at night.

"FATHER?!" Louie gasped as he immediately turned to the window... only to see no one 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 felt the scarf, beanie and the shades being suddenly snatched from his hands, prompting him to look down at them and notice them being missing!

"Hey! Where are the..." Louie said, until turned to see Angel holding all three of them in her hands, while cackling smugly.

"Ah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haa! I can't believe 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 from 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 can you possibly lay a hand on the lady to get them back by force? Little hint: you can't. I'm confident about that."

"Why you little...!" Louie growled, with his hooked fingers trembled from temptation, but deep down he knew he couldn't make himsel to go that far with her.

"Come on, Angel! I cannot go out there without them!" Louie begged.

"I know, Louie. I know very well you cannot." 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, I suggests you take up on my offer: Accept that our thing is not a date but a friendly hanging out. Do we have a deal?"

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

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

"You'd deserve 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. So he let out a 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 and honor her royal majesty's wish by accepting that it won't be a date but a friendly hangout." 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 warm smile as she locked her eyes with Louie's.

Angel then walked to him and handed the scarf, beanie and the shades into Louie's 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 a quick smooch in Louie's left cheek, causing Louie's eyes go as wide as saucers from shock and surprise of such of move.

Angel, looking a bit shy for what she just did but satisfied about it nonetheless, backed away for few steps, wearing a soft smile on her lips and holding from her hands.

Louie could only stand still like a statue, staring at her wide-eyed, stunned and disbelieving that she had actually given 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 in the hall to stare blankly after her before she 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 feeling he has never felt before began to flow unstoppably from his cheek through his whole body - reaching quickly to every corner and every tip - like a burning flame in a lit newspaper. It made his cheeks to go darker tone of green, made him feel goosebumps in his 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 made Louie smile warmly and half close his eyelids that the turtle in black wore a rather dreamy face.

"Ah. Whatta girl." he sighed quietly yet happily, as his hand slipped off his cheek.

Louie then turned towards the door, while wrapping the scarf around his face, putting the beanie on his head and the shades over his eyes, buttoning his coat and adjusting the collar higher around his head.

Once the cover was on, Louie reached out for the door handle and slowly and carefully opened the door.

Louie peered out of the small gap to see if the coast was clear for him to step out and infiltrate the crowd without arousing suspicion and drawing unnecessary attention to himself.

Fortunately, the street was not too crowded, and he didn't think the few people out there 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, in the other hand, a 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.

So as quietly as possible, Louie slipped outside and slowly closed the door behind him.

Once outside, the turtle in black carefully looked over his shoulder to the left and right in case anyone had noticed or was watching him.

With no curious or suspicious bystanders anywhere, 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.

###

It took less than an 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, 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, 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, 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 awaking time 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, while knowing that to be far-fetched possibility, the Lair's apparent emptiness nonetheless provided him the perfect opportunity to sneak into his room without any trouble and be as if he had never been away from home... because he really wasn't keen of facing his father, who would be instantly upon him demanding to know where he had been.

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

If he had learned something about from the times when he had mischieviously attempted and failed to sneak out of the home for the wild adventures when he was a kid, he knew that there was always someone, mostly either Leo or Dom, or even Master Splinter himself, concealed in the darkness, waiting for him.

He'd be 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 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 pillar and looked from side to side to ensure that the coast was still clear, before he moved on.

Tiptoeing down the ramp to the lower 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 to the other side.

Louie then kept moving via zigzagsing with the 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 to the right, landing on one knee, and somersaulted the rest of the way towards the pillar, on top of which the doorway to his room was.

Now, all he needed to do was to climb up the pillar to the upstairs and then retreat into his room.

"Piece of pie!" Louie whispered to himself 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 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, as the old rat master casted a harsh narrowed glare on Louie.

Slightly sweating under his father's angry glare, Louie frantically looked sideways left and right, seeking for any possible way to escape from this.

However, the same small voice in his head protested him from making any rash move or he will pay for it.

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

But they weren't, much to his surprise.

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

"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 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 without looking up in case Louie had been trying to distract him so that he could escape from under his nose.

Louie, whether noticing that the trick wasn't working or knowing already that there was no point to even try to trick Splinter, confirmed this with the nod.

"I went for a short walk on the surface to cool down a bit after our last training." 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 the 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 punks 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 we 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 punks 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 the 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 those thugs would try to recapture them at 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 punks, 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 fine with us. 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 of 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 that after she gave us her word that she won't say a word about us, Sensei." Louie said with the shrug.

"That's because there was nothing to threaten Mrs. O'Neil after 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 their activities." Splinter continued. "Her being the witness 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 people you fought last night, this... Johannes Victor... was he the Dragon?" Splinter inquired.

"No... some mobster guy in fine silver-gray clothes, a small moustache, well-kept black hair and a bowler hat." Louie said, describing Johannes' appearance. "And before you ask, none of those punks with him weren't some random street thugs. All mobsters just like him."

"Then that means that not only Dragons, but some other criminal organization these people are affiliated with, might pose even greater threat to both 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 of the use 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, for 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: Angel had just been placed under house arrest for two weeks, and so was he in a way, and yet, he and Angel had arranged their first date within two weeks, luckily the day after their punishments ended.

With that, Louie decided to back down and humbly accept his punishment.

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

Louie's unexpectedly calm and carefree reaction left Splinter baffled. He knew that his son would usually stubbornly 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's room was exactly the same as the others', with the interior designed according to his nature.

There was pipes in the ceiling, into 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, such as 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 the walls surrounding his hammock a countless posters and wallpapers of his favorite movies and actors/actresses, 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.

Louie had saved one corner next to the hexagonal doorway for the enjoyment zone: there was a part of the subway car (though it is unknown how he had got it in 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 a fridge filled with soda and energy drinks.

There was also a 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.

On the other wall was hanging 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.

However, the Shredder's face on top target had two crossbow bolts in each eye, while the lower target between his legs and waist had a long thrown spear hanging directly from the bullseye, which was right in the Shredder's crotch.

Next to the karaoke club were several practice dummies dressed as Foot Ninjas and Purple Dragons, all spread out like chess pieces in the small area between of two basketball hoops. Many dummies were riddled with long clean cuts and holes, while some had their heads severed, their limbs amputated, and others were 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 where he kept his collectibles. Most of them were still empty, but some were filled with the long line of collected action figures of the superheroes, supervillains, classic monsters, fictional, cartoonish, adventure, action, sci-fi and real-life characters.

However, some shelves contained some items that Louie liked to call 'trophies' from their past encounters with the various villains 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 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.

Yawning tiredly, Louie unbuttoned his coat and tossed it lazily onto the empty spot on his table, followed shortly by his Butterfly Swords' scabbards and Manriki-Gusaris before he walked over to his hammock and climbed inside.

In his hammock, the turtle in black turned onto his shell and put his hands behind his head before he just relaxed and stared at the piped ceiling with a satisfied smile on his face.

"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 and heroic 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.)