Chapter 9-Events At The Chief's Manor

The turtle brothers continued with their walk until they came across a large house not far from another gate.

"Not dis again…!" Raph complained when he noticed that the gate was locked.

"I'll bet the key is inside the house we just passed by earlier…" Donnie guessed.

"You may be right, Don…Let's go check it out…" Leo agreed before he and his brothers walked back to the house.

When they had reached the front door, they were surprised to discover that the door was unlocked. With their weapons in hand in case of another possible ambush waiting for them inside, they entered the house and their eyes widened in awe of the vintage but majestic décor of the place.

"Shell, dis is some digs…!" Raph complimented in surprise.

"Yeah, I wonder who lives here…" Leo wondered curiously.

"Probably the Chief of the village, I'm guessing…" Donnie guessed in thought.

After looking around on the ground floor, which they had found to contain and feature old vintage photos, the turtle brothers moved on upstairs to the next floor of the house.

The only room upstairs was a large master bedroom, meaning that it belonged to the Chief. The turtle brothers took a look around to see if they could find the key to the gate.

"Who's dis guy?" Raph questioned when he spotted a large portrait painting of a man in a hooded cloak.

"I'm not sure…I've never seen him before…" Donnie answered as he approached next to him and looked at the portrait himself.

"…" Leo stayed silent when he too looked at the portrait, and then he became anxious when he remembered the cloaked man he saw in his dream.

'There's no mistaking it…it's the same man from my dream…' He thought, his eyebrows creasing with worry.

"Leo, you ok?" Donnie asked in concern, snapping Leo out of his thoughts.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, it's nothing…" Leo answered reassuringly, despite still having this bad feeling in his heart.

Letting Leo's answered slide for now, Raph and Donnie resumed their search for the gate key with him. They soon came across a desk and opened the drawer to reveal a key with an unusual insignia wrapped around it.

"This must be the key to the gate!" Donnie speculated.

"Great! Now, let's get outta of here and use it!" Raph replied.

Just as the trio was about to leave the room, they were suddenly face-to-face with the tall man who they had confronted back in the cellar in one of the lakeside houses.

"You again!?" Leo cried out in shock before he reached for his gun.

"Wait, he's da Chief!?" Raph questioned, taking out his sais.

"He has to be! This must be his house, if that's the case…!" Donnie speculated whilst taking his bo staff off his back.

Leo shot at the Chief a few times, but the man just stood his ground and growled before he walked forward and swiftly grabbed Leo by the neck, causing him to drop his gun in the process.

"Ngh!" Leo grunted as he struggled to breathe and get free from the man's grip.

"Leo!" "Let him go, ya creep!" Donnie and Raph shouted as they rushed over to the tall man and tried to make him release his grip on Leo's neck.

Unfortunately, the Chief was too strong and used his spare arm to knock the younger brothers away from him before resuming his attack on Leo. He was about to finish him off when he suddenly saw something and hesitated; there were thin black-coloured veins appearing and spreading in Leo's eyes.

"Your blood has accepted the gift…" The Chief said in an eerily flat tone.

Then…

Bang! Crack! Bang! Crack! Bang! Crack!

The sounds of gunshots and glass shattering were heard, and the Chief was struck by a few bullets but stayed standing. He looked over at the window and spotted an unknown female figure hovering and holding a gun in front to the window.

The Chief roughly threw Leo to the floor and rushed to the window, but the figure disappeared up the roof. He looked out the window with a glare before he started walking away, picking up his fallen hat in the process.

Leo gasped and coughed to get more air in his lungs, whilst his younger brothers slowly stood up and hurried over to him to help him up. By this time, the Chief was gone.

"Leo, are you ok!?" Donnie asked worriedly.

"…Gift…in my blood…?" Leo breathed out in confusion, oblivious to Donnie's words.

"What was dat guy talkin' about?" Raph questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't know…Maybe he was delusional like the other hostiles we've faced…" Donnie theorised in uncertainty.

Then…

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Leo's communicator started ringing, so the blue-banded turtle quickly snapped out of his daze and answered it.

"Hey, Leo, it's April. I've managed to find some intel on Luis Serra, and you're not gonna believe what I've just discovered…" April's voice was heard seconds later.

"What is it, April?" Leo asked.

"It seems that Luis was not only a former researcher for a pharmaceutical company called Umbrella, but he was also working for Agent Bishop for a while after the company went bust…!" April explained as she read the information she had found.

"What!? Luis was working for Bishop!?" Leo questioned in shock.

"I knew it! I knew dat guy was fishy from da minute we met him!" Raph shouted angrily.

"Calm down, Raph; we'll get answers from him as soon as we cross paths with him again…" Donnie assured, grabbing his red-banded brother's shoulder and squeezing it gently.

"I don't know how long Luis worked for him, but it says in one report that he had disappeared without a trace and was presumed dead after the Area 51 base was destroyed a few years ago…" April then concluded.

"During the alien viral outbreak…" Leo added sadly.

"Don't remind me…" Donnie said with a grimace, his arms wrapped around himself and his mind filling with flashbacks of his secondary mutation. Raph immediately wrapped an arm around his purple-banded brother to give him some comfort.

"Sorry, guys, I didn't mean to bring that last part up…" April said guiltily with regret in her voice.

"No, it's not your fault, April. What you've found was helpful, so thank you for doing that for us…" Leo immediately assured her.

"You're welcome, Leo…Remember, though; Mikey comes first, so continue on with your search for him…" April replied with a reminder.

"We know that, April, we haven't forgotten…Heading over to the church now, over and out…" Leo told her in understanding before ending the call.

"Hmm…Umbrella…" Donnie thought aloud.

"What is it, Donnie? Does that name ring a bell?" Leo asked when he noticed that Donnie was deep in his thoughts.

"Yeah…Now that I think about it, back in the late 1990's, there were rumours that Umbrella was doing secret and illegal experiments with the viruses they were researching on…" Donnie answered in realisation.

"What kind of illegal experiments are we talkin' here?" Raph questioned curiously but nervously.

"Well, some rumours had stated that humans were used as test subjects to help with their research in terms of the virus' negative and positive effects on the human body, but they had failed each time because they were causing their subjects to behave in a cannibalistic manner…In other words…" Donnie explained before he grimaced and stopped himself from saying the last part of his sentence.

"They had created zombies…" Leo finished the sentence for him.

"Yes…but before this discovery could be exposed to the outside world, the workers were ordered to destroy both their research and test subjects in order to keep the public and the country's leaders from finding out…" Donnie added.

"Was dat da real reason why Umbrella went bust, though?" Raph questioned, finding the whole story hard to believe.

"Who knows…Every bit of information about the company's history was either rewritten or erased to cover up what had really happened there…" Donnie answered in an uncertain tone.

"Well, we don't have all day to ponder about Umbrella's history right now; finding and bring home Mikey is our number one priority…" Leo reminded firmly.

"Right!" "Let's get goin', then!" Raph and Donnie replied before the trio headed for the front door.

As soon as they had left the house, however, the turtle brothers heard something that sounded like an animal crying not far from where they were standing.

"What's that noise?" Leo questioned.

"Dunno…It kinda sounds like a dog whinin'…" Raph answered.

The turtle brothers hastily walked over to the source of the noise before they gasped at what they saw; a whitish grey-coloured dog struggling to get his leg freed from one of the hunting traps on the ground, causing him to whimper and cry out in pain.

"Look! It is a dog…!" Raph alerted.

"Strange, it wasn't there before when we first came here…" Leo wondered.

"Oh, the poor thing…His leg's caught in one of those hunting traps we saw earlier…!" Donnie observed sadly.

"Let's hurry and get him freed, then…We can't just leave him like this…!" Leo pressed.

"Ok, but we need to do this carefully, so that we don't cause any more damage to his leg…" Donnie advised cautiously.

The turtle brothers slowly walked towards the dog, which instantly started growling at them as soon as he saw them coming.

"Easy there, boy; we're here ta help ya…" Raph told him softly.

Despite still feeling cautious, the dog calmed down and allowed the trio to come closer and assess his leg in the trap.

"How does it look, Donnie?" Leo asked.

"The trap's teeth haven't embedded in his leg too deeply, but we still need to release it very carefully…" Donnie told his brothers in his 'Doctor Don' tone after he had assessed the dog's leg, which was bleeding but not severely.

Leo and Raph nodded in understanding before they went straight into action; Leo gently restrained the dog to keep him still, whilst Raph grabbed both ends of the trap and carefully pulled it apart, releasing the dog's leg. The dog yelped after being freed from the trap, but he remained docile since the pain only lasted for a few seconds.

"There ya go…!" Raph soothed as he gently stroked the dog's head, making the dog hum in satisfaction.

"Here, this should help your leg heal and prevent infection…" Donnie said as he applied a honey-like ointment, which he had took out of his belt bag, on the dog's leg.

Now happy and grateful to the turtle brothers for their help, the dog looked at them one more time before he took off into the forest and disappeared from sight.

"Take care of yer self, buddy…" Raph called out softly.

"Well, that's our good deed for the day…Let's move on…" Leo said with a proud smile before he and his brothers continued on with their walk towards their next destination.