Guest: I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with that series.
CT311998: Fixed!
Guest: I think that I'll leave all that kind of stuff for the Season 5 once I get there.
Guest: The next chapter after this one will be the final showdown between Louie and Dandelion, and we shall see how Louie will defeat Dandelion.
animegamefanatic: Casey Jones was a last minute addition to this story.
And I guess that Leo did what Dom specifically would do in such of situation: use diplomatic measures to de-escalate the situation, even if Leo beat Dom to it where he believes himself to be good at. After all, he's the leader talking to the leader of the opponent side, but likely he wasn't prepared for what Dandelion would do to Edward, and they most likely will blame themselves for not being able to save Edward as they were able to save Conrad.
And once Dandelion is defeated and the prisoners rescued, the turtles will think of the safest place for Wendy and the kids to live without fear of something like that again.
And sorry but yet again, it's very unlikely that Edward would be brought back as a weaponized close by Bishop, because he has no chance of getting Edward's DNA from his remains because it's very unlikely that the turtles would just dump the boy's remains away just like that without the proper funeral. But there's indeed gonna be more clones than just one once I get to that part.
=Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003=
=The Girl and the Turtle Part 3, Part 5=
In the sewers of New York, a couple of rats were nipping of some food they had managed to find from the tunnel, until their peaceful supper was disturbed by in the tunnel echoing sound of the engine, as well as from around the corner approaching headlights.
The two rats stared at the lights for a moment before, squeaking in fear, ran away in different directions, just before the source of the sound of the engine and the headlights, the Sewer Slider, speeded down the tunnel, splashing water in its wake.
Onboard the Sewer Slider, Leo was in the driver's seat, driving the vehicle, while Donnie and Conrad were sitting on the passenger's seat, with Master Splinter, Dom and Mary sitting in the back seats.
And as they go, Donnie and Conrad were looking down at maps of New York City and the city's sewer system, which they had spread on the turtle in purple's lap, so that Conrad would point them the location of the abandoned hotel he lived in from the city map while Donnie checked the fastest way there through the underground tunnel.
"You sure this is the place, Conrad?" Donnie asked as Conrad kept pointing at one spot from the map, which seemed to be in New York's northern parts and a little close of the eastern river.
"Yes. Yes I am, Donnie." Conrad assured. "Whenever I've read the map books of New York, I always try to find our home first, which I always do find."
Donnie nodded before looking up. "Alright. Leo! Take this left, to the tunnel that will lead to the northern parts of the town." Donnie instructed.
Said and done, as Leo drove them out of this tunnel into the another tunnel, that was the longest tunnel on their route, the turtle in blue made the hard left turn and drove northward.
"Excuse me but mind to tell me again, why did we even bring the boy along?" Dom questioned, gesturing towards Conrad. "After everything he just went through, a near death experience and stuff, wouldn't it had been a lot of wiser to leave him in the Lair where he'd be safe?"
"It would had been, Dom, if he wasn't the only one who actually knew where his place was." Mary pointed out.
"And we could have located this abandoned hotel back at the Lair with his help and then left him safe in the Lair, but there wasn't time for that. It's already been ten to fifteen minutes after the last stroke of the midnight and both Louie, Angel, Ellie and those children are in immediate danger." Leo reasoned.
"And I wouldn't have stayed behind anyway while my friends and uncle Louie are in danger." Conrad said. "Besides, I really wanna see how you guys put that mean creep into his place for what he did to Edward!"
"But under all the conditions, young man, when we're going in to save our friends and your family, you're to stay behind." Master Splinter told to the boy sternly.
Conrad turned to Master Splinter over his shoulder, staring at the old rat master with widened eyes. "What? But... but you need me out there too. I know that place far better than what you or those bad men do. I can lead you in there."
"Out of the question!" Master Splinter dismissed. "It would be far too dangerous for us to bring you along or you to even be there all by yourself, even if you happen to know that place better than us."
Master Splinter is right, Conrad." Mary told him. "Besides, there's only handful of us, and who knows how many of the bad guys. Dandelion most likely has the whole house filled with guards and on the guard. That makes navigating in the house undetected a little more difficult."
"But this could actually be a perfect moment to practice on the field what Master Splinter tried to teach us some weeks ago." Leo suggested.
"What are you talking about, Leo?" Dom questioned as he turned to Leo for an explanation. "You got a plan?"
"Short of." Leo started. "You guys remember what Master Splinter told us about improving our instincts and sense of direction within the territories completely strange to us, most importantly in our enemies' territories?"
"Yes. While our enemies may believe they have home advantage against us, which comes out of their numbers with which they can cover a lot of ground there, it may sometimes be their very undoing." Mary added.
"Which means, that we gotta use our brains instead of the brute force... and most of all, the teamwork." Donnie added, tapping his head with his finger.
"And a little bit something more." Leo said.
"And what's that?" Dom asked again.
"Dandelion is only expecting Louie to go there, which is why he will surely have all his forces to keep an eye exclusively for him. But not for all of us, which leaves his guard wide open for our counterattack. And in that case, Louie's previous solo technique during of the training exercise, "using others as a bait to lure your target out into open", might actually come in handy in this."
"Oh boy." Dom groaned at the memory of that as he collapsed over the Slider's metal bar rail separating the driver and passenger's seats and the backseats, facepalming himself in disbelief. "A lot of good did that technique do for us the last time."
"Maybe not for your team, Dom." Leo pointed out. "But this time it will do a lot of good for us. With Dandelions' minions going after Louie all around of the house, it might open up almost unhindered access for us to Dandelion and the other prisoners." the turtle in blue explained. And as soon as we locate the prisoners and when they least expect it, we'll strike right at them!"
"And which is exactly why I'm coming with you!" Conrad insisted, getting an idea of what Leo was talking about. "You don't want just unhindered passage to the others, but also the fastest unhindered passage. And that's where I can help you the most certain."
"CONRAD!" Leo, Donnie, Dom and Mary groaned together, annoyed that the boy was still insisting of coming with them to the danger zone.
"Conrad! I do not want another discussion about this." Master Splinter told him sternly. "You're not coming with us in there."
"Yes I am!" Conrad insisted stubbornly. "Otherwise, you would just find yourself in the basement, the attic apartment, the other side of the building, or one of the two wings with no sign of my family or your friends. And by the time you'd eventually reach the right spot, it might already be too late for them."
"You're not coming! And that's it!" Dom demanded.
"It's only for your own good, Conrad." Mary said in attempt to reason with Conrad that why they had to leave him behind from the action. "We cannot focus on the rescue mission properly if we have to watch after you running around all of time."
"Well, who said that I'd gladly be running off on my own in my own house swarming with blood-thirsty killers. The most safest place for me in there would be with you guys all of time." Conrad pointed out. "And besides, has it come into anyone of your green dudes' minds where you should first start looking then? It's a rather big house with countless and countless of rooms and halls, you know."
The turtles blinked their eyes as they all turned to Conrad, and the boy could easily tell from their taken aback looks that none of them had actually any idea where the prisoners could be held.
"You know, he's got a point." Donnie admitted. "I've already looked through the old floor plans of that place from the online, and the place is like a labyrinth with all of its rooms, passages and halls. Finding our friends and those kids would be as easy as trying to find a needle from the bunch of hay."
"Which is exactly why I happen to have overheard where they are keeping us a prisoner." Conrad revealed.
Again, the turtles blinked, taken aback by this revelation as they turned to look at the boy.
"You do?" Mary asked, which Conrad confirmed with the nod.
"Okay. So, what did you heard them saying? Where are your friends being held?" Leo asked.
"Take me with you, and I'll show you the way there." Conrad offered, and continued before any of the mutants could protest. "Or wander around the house lost until you stumble upon the bodies of my family as well as the ones of your friends. And if that's the case, I'll hold all of you responsible for it, because you didn't heed to my offer of help and let me come along to show you guys the fastest way to them. These are the terms of my offer, so take it or leave it! It's your choice!"
This left the Turtles and Splinter to consider the choices between taking Conrad with them, leaving him behind, and the consequences of either option, as they kept speeding through the sewer tunnels.
###
At the surface, at the block where the abandoned hotel was located.
Raph, Casey, Mikey, Arcee and Wendy, who had climbed onto the roof of a building that stood a few blocks away from the hotel, were watching the hotel from this distance in order not to give its current occupiers any suspicion that their comrades from the park had been followed there, thus giving them any "excusable" reason to put the children, Angel and Ellie down like sheep in the slaughter.
However, before arriving on this roof, the turtles and their allies had unfortunately lost Louie after following his trail, which had taken them some distance from the Central Park to the East-Side of the northern parts of the town.
But luckily for them, following their brother all the way here hadn't been completely a lost cause even if they did lose him after reaching there, because Wendy had saved the day by revealing them that she recognized the block where they were.
The very block where her home was located.
And as mentioned above, after making a temporary station post on the roof they were on, the turtles and their allies resoluted to inspecting the situation first before they would go straight in.
Raph, taking the lead of their little group, checked around the property of the hotel via the binoculars, and he saw that the whole place was swarming with Dandelions.
"So Raph, do tell us already. What do you see down there?" Casey asked impatiently from next to Raph, seeing no progress here.
"Yeah. Have you come up with the plan yet?" Mikey agreed. "Or shouldn't you have paid more attention in I-wanna-be-a-leader-like-Leonardo lessons instead of trying to act like one with no experience at all." He joked.
"QUIET!" Raph snapped, not taking kindly of Mikey's joke or Casey's lack of patience. "Trying to figure out how to get in there, unless you guys are all up for the living bait kind of plan."
Both Casey and Mikey backed down from this immediately, neither of them looking too keenly forward to that particular part of Raph's plan, whatever it was he got in mind, where they had to be the cannon fodder thrown in front of the small army of trigger-happy gunmen.
Raph then went back to inspect the situation and their changes of getting inside, and so far, they weren't pretty good.
Arcee and Wendy then walked up to next to their brother. "What do you see, Raph?" the turtle in pink asked.
"The gate is under the guard, so are the property and the main door. Ten men guarding the gate, thirty-five more fortifying the property and another ten men standing at the main door. I can see about fifty guys guarding the windows, some of them snipers, twenty more on the roof. I give it one-hundred and twenty-five." Raph said.
"That many?" Arcee questioned perplexed. "Oh, shell. What kind of impact Louie has left in this Dandelion-guy that he needs such of big private army."
"Not to mention that there could be even more of them inside." Mikey pointed out.
"There was many of them the night when they came, but this is way more than that." Wendy told them.
"And not to mention about these guys having all those guns." Casey pointed out, as nearly every guard was bearing the gun, either a pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, rifles (both sniper and assault), machine guns and so on.
Raph then lowered the bioculars and shook his head. "Getting inside undetected ain't gonna be easy, and moving in there in the passages and rooms isn't gonna be easy either with those bozos roaming around."
"Well, somehow we need to get in there to save our friends and those little ones." Mikey insisted.
"Well, you got any idea yourself?" Raph questioned as he turned to the turtle in orange. "Then you better let me know it first."
Arcee then reached her hand out to Raph, asking for his binoculars, which Raph then placed into her hand. The turtle in pink then used them to take a look at the abandoned hotel itself and the Dandelions guarding it while trying hard to think of something herself.
"You know what, guys?" she told them. "This actually reminds me about the lesson Master Splinter tried to teach us some weeks ago. About trying to improve our instincts and sense of direction within the enemy territories that are completely strange to us."
"Ugh, please! Don't remind me of that!" Raph pleaded in irritation, recalling that training exercise, which didn't end well for both him and Mikey. "That exercise was a total disaster!"
"Yeah. A whole ditching-your-teammates-and-using-them-to-bait-out-the-opposite-team's-members-to-take-them-out-one-by-one-kind of disaster, thanks to Louie." Mikey said in agreement with Raph, with the turtle in oranger neither liking how poorly the exercise had gone for them.
"But that's just it! That's our answer of getting in there undetected!" Arcee pointed out.
Both Raph and Mikey glanced each other in confusion and then at Arcee for an explanation. And so did Wendy and Casey.
"Okey. I got pretty lost in here, Arcee." Casey admitted.
"What do you mean, dear?" Wendy asked.
"Well, those guys are mostly on the watch for Louie, just Louie, but not us. And whenever Louie's going in there, it will turn both Dandelion and his guards' attentions to him and away from everything else, potentially even from guarding the ways in. And when that happens, we'll go straight in." the turtle in pink explained. "In other words... Raph? Mikey? This time you'll be the ones using Louie to bait the guards out so that we can find the unhindered passage to wherever they're holding Angel, Ellie and those children."
"So... when then comes the butt-kicking part, anyway?" Casey asked, finding that part of Arcee's plan a pretty boring if there wasn't gonna be anyone to fight with.
"Right there where we can find the prisoners. Otherwise we need to get to them as soon as we could." the turtle in pink replied.
Both Raph and Mikey gave a moment of thought to this, before they both nodded their heads to their sister's plan.
"Well, now that's a plan even I could appreciate, really." Raph admitted, grinning.
"Yeah. Very well-thought infiltration strategy, Arcee." Mikey praised with the smile.
"Oh, please. I was a way busier to think with my brains," Arcee started, tapping her temple with her left hand's finger. "While you guys were way busier with your blabbling mouths instead of your brains." she joked, pointing at her mouth.
"HEY!" both Raph and Mikey exclaimed in offense.
Arcee then gestured Wendy to come closer, which she did. "Wendy? You live here, right? You wouldn't happen to know any entrances in there that the guards might have possibly overlooked? Because we really need one to get inside there when the time's right."
"Well," Wendy began and began searching through her memory for any entrances that Dandelions hadn't noticed yet... hopefully. "If I remember correctly, there is a door intended for the staff in the alley behind the building that leads directly to the hotel's kitchen. In these days, thought, the door happens to be boarded up, and the kitchen is also boarded up from the inside."
"Do you think they've found this door already and that it is guarded right now?" Raph questioned.
"Hard to say. We ourselves have never had any need to go to the kitchen before, due to it being closed, out of job and the entrances boarded up. We always ate our food we either scavenged for ourselves from the street or received them from Louie who brought it as a presents for us, up in the attic apartment where we live." Wendy explained.
"So in theory, they haven't necessarily found it yet, right?" Mikey said hopefully.
"Just in theory, Mikey." Arcee reminded him.
"And how exactly are we gonna find that out, if may I ask?" Casey said.
"Well, only one way to find that out. Follow me." Raph said, before the turtle in red turned around and left from the edge of the roof, though not before turning back to the others and motioned them with his head to follow.
"Right behind ya, Raph." Casey said and walked after his friend.
Knowing what Raph meant about that "only one way to find that out" stuff, Arcee, Mikey and Wendy exchanged a hesitant glances with each other.
Even though Raph had confirmed that he appreciated Arcee's plan, the turtle in red might do something rash and reckless that might put the turtle in pink's plan into jeopardy.
However, they followed after him and Casey nonetheless.
###
Inside of the abandoned hotel, in the dining room, which was quite dilapidated: with the holes in the walls, floor and the ceiling, indicating that those parts had been collapsed at some point, and some windows and doors were either boarded up, or shattered in the former's case and hanging from their hinges or smashed into bits in the latter's case. Whatever furniture there was still left, they were either scattered across the room or flung over or smashed. However, the ceiling still managed to support the large chandelier above the room.
And inside the room, in middle of the floor, Jake, Laura, Minnie, Angie, Jessica, Buck, Oliver, Tito and Dino, Angel and Ellie (who were deprived from their clothes for them to be used in Dandelion's Central Park mission and had been dressed instead of the white hospital gowns) were on their knees with their hands tied behind of their backs - while Flow was tied up by her leash in somewhere where she couldn't get loose again, while the Dandelions had left the muzzle on her.
Flow, in desperate attemp to help her family, trashed around in an attempt to get herself free and get the muzzle off her face, but it was no good.
Around of the hostages stood all of Dandelion's top guys, Mr. Nosy, Gabriel, recently from the failed Central Park operation returned Johannes and Marcus, Mr. Lassie, Dimitri Dandelion, L.J. Alcatraz and his stage dancer girls, "Turquoise," "Red," "Blue," "Green," "Pink" and "Purple", Mr. Nosy's turquoise-suited mustache-goon and the yellow-hatted hook-nosed goon, Japanese-African goon, the shortie mustache-goon and the tall baldie goon. And finally, there was also the lead goon of Dandelion's the death squad from his house, along with more than one hundred Dandelions.
And Dandelion himself was standing next to a large hole in the wall of the room that faced the street.
As he looked through the hole at the property of this building, both the street and the neighboring blocks, Dandelion began to grow impatient as time passed and there was still no sign of Louie.
The mafia boss then checked the time from the watch in his wrist, before he let out the heavy sigh and turned to face both his men and the hostages.
"It's already ten to fifteen minutes after the final stroke of the midnight and there is still no sign of Mr. Lorenzo." he said to the hostages in almost apologetic tone of voice. "I am terribly sorry to have to tell you, all of you, that Mr. Lorenzo clearly doesn't care a bit what happens to you. To any of you."
The children glanced at each other with the mixed reactions: some of them were confused and didn't know what to think of this, while others refused to believe that Louie, their oldest friend, would just abandon them just like that.
"He's not coming? He doesn't care about us?" Jake gasped in shock.
"That can't be true!" Laura exclaimed in disbelief. "He's always cared about us!"
"What's going to happen to us?" Minnie asked fearfully.
"I don't know, Minnie. But remember to be brave." Buck told her.
"But... he will come. Will he?" Jessica asked hopefully.
"He will, Jessica. He will. Have faith." Angie assured her. "He won't abandon us. He won't."
"No! I don't believe you! He will come!" Oliver shouted aloud, refusing to believe that Louie would abandon them.
"Not true!" Tito denied defiantly.
"Not true!" Dino repeated defiantly shortly after Tito.
"YOU'RE LYING!" Angel shouted right in Dandelion's face. "Even if you have a private army at your disposal and you have us at your gunpoint, you still keep underestimate Louie even after he gave you a full demonstration of what he is capable of by blowing up your house."
"Keep quiet, girl!" Alcatraz demanded, nudging in her shoulder with the barrel of her sniper rifle.
"And because of that, you're even scared of him! Otherwise you won't be holding us up here as your human shields with the belief that Louie won't attack you at all as long as you have us under your knife!" Angel spat.
"I ain't afraid of Mr. Lorenzo, sweetheart." Dandelion denied. "And I haven't underestimated him either. Because this whole place is full of my men, every room and every hallway, from the roof to the basement. And if he indeed is coming, which doesn't look much like it, he's gonna have a little hard time in sneaking all the way up this room undetected. And if my instincts are speaking the truth to me, I believe that he'll be discovered, beaten up to near death and then brought before me like a rag doll, and I can finally have my revenge against him by executing him myself."
"Coward!" Angel spat scornfully as he gave Dandelion a venomous glare.
"Angel! Honey!" Ellie hissed at her in aloud whisper, worried that Angel's defiance might bring up a lot of trouble. "Don't give them a reason to hurt us more than this."
But Angel, however, didn't listen to her but kept spitting a contemptuous insults towards Dandelion.
"Spineless coward! Despicable bastard! Rotten filthy... OW!" she was cut off when Alcatraz hit her in the head with the butt of her rifle.
"I said "quiet"!" he demanded.
###
Elsewhere in the building, the patrol of eight Dandelions armed with assault rifles were patrolling the passage, during of which, under Dandelion's instructions, they occassionally checking the rooms if there were anything disordinary, such as smashed up windows as a sign of intrusion.
And so far, aside of few already smashed windows that weren't boarded up, nothing seemed to be out of ordinary.
And as they kept walking, they passed another patrol of five Dandelions who were walking in the opposite direction.
However, the patrol of eight suddenly heard from the end of this passage ahead of them four of whizzing slashes "SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!" as well as four throaty gasps "ARGH! URGH! OWW! UGH!" before four bodies fell from behind of both corners at the same time onto their path.
One of them had his throat slit open, another one was stabbed through the heart, third one had a gash across his chest and the third had another gash in the forehead.
Alarmed, the Dandelions immediately raised their weapons up, pointing them at the end of the passage as they began to advance towards the bodies at the slow pace, keeping their eyes open for the ambush.
"THOCK! BASH! POW! CRASH! PAFF! POF! BING! BONG! BANG! THOCK! BASH! CRASH!"
"You there! OUCH! Huh?! AHH! Hey! OHHH! Nonono! AGH! No! UGH! Help me! ARGH!"
Suddenly, the sudden sounds of fighting behind them caused the patrol to turn around and towards the five-man patrol they had just passed, only to see to their surprise that the patrol had been attacked and defeated in just as brutal manner as those at the other end of the passage.
One was lying on his back against the wall with his face covered in blood after being severely beaten, while another was lying on his stomach in a nearly ninety-degree angle against the wall with blood stain on the wall above him. A third was lying in the middle of the floor with his arms and legs spread out with a broken nose, and a third was lying on his stomach on one side of the other three, making it unclear what had happened to him, but he wasn't moving... and he didn't even seem to be breathing.
The patrol of eight, however, managed to see the flailing feet of the fifth member of that patrol peeking out from the hole between the wall and the floor.
"NOOO!" he screamed before he vanished/was forcibly dragged into the hole and was never seen or heard again.
After seeing one patrol slaughtered and another patrol beaten up half-death in less than eleven minutes, the members of this patrol were starting to get nervous
The members of this patrol began to get nervous and even scared now that they knew that there was someone here in their sector who was cleaning it up from them, one by one.
"Back-to-back formation! Now!" the leader of the patrol barked, and the Dandelions formed up the defensive ring around of him and another Dandelion, pointing their guns everywhere. "You! Inform to the boss! Now!" the leader told to Dandelion who was standing with him inside the defensive ring. with the walkie-talkie hurriedly.
The Dandelion nodded his head and reached out from under his suit his walkie-talkie, which he lifted up to his mouth level and was just about to switch to the channel where their boss was to inform him about their situation.
Suddenly, a dark figure dropped down through the hole in the passage's ceiling right above of them and landed in the middle of the ring, though not before he plunged two big blades into the backs of the leading Dandelion and the Dandelion with the walkie-talkie, killing them.
The six other Dandelions, alarmed by this, turned around to see what was it, until the dark figure turned around to the two Dandelions behind him and slashed his right blade at one Dandelion on his left side, slitting his throat, before he stabbed his left blade into the throat of another Dandelion on his right side.
The dark figure then turned to the four others behind him and snap-kicked the fifth Dandelion under the chin hard enough to make a loud crack that knocked his head back, and causing it to hit against the wall behind him, knocking him out, and making him to slump at the foot of the wall.
The dark figure then slashed with his blades at the sixth Dandelion's gun as he tried to raise it up to shoot him, slicing it to pieces, before the figure kicked him in the chest, knocking him over his back, before the figure jumped with the flip on top of his and sunk his blades into his chest, making the Dandelion gasp in pain, before he went limp in the seconds.
Then the figure dashed towards the seventh Dandelion and slashed both his blades across his chest and head, leaving there a two deep gashed and splashing the blood over the eight remaining Dandelion. The force of the attack was hard enough to knock the seventh Dandelion off his feet and slam his against the wall before he fell to the floor.
And before the remaining Dandelion, who backed away from the figure as he came for him next, turning his blades upside down in his hands, could either raise his gun up to shoot the figure or wisely try to run away, the figure was already upon him and punched him in the face with his left blade's knuckle-guard, knocking the Dandelion around as the figure stopped in front of him, his back turned to him, before the figure thrusted his blades backwards into the figure's chest and stomach, causing him to gasp and the blood to flow out of the stab wounds and his limp mouth, as he slowly bent over. The figure then pulled the blades out and turned them upright again, before he spun around, bringing his blades over his head and then down on the Dandelion's neck, decapitating him.
With all seventeen Dandelions dead or incapacitated, the figure moved on and vanished without the trace, leaving behind only the carnage.
###
In the dining room, Dandelion finally decided that it was time to punish Louie for his absence with the execution of his prisoners.
"Well, children. My friends. It's twenty minutes past the final stroke of the midnight and still no sign of Mr. Lorenzo even within of twenty minutes of grace period given to him." Dandelion addressed them. "It's time for Mr. Lorenzo to pay the price for both being late for a deadline, his absence and especially his total indifference towards all of you."
Dandelion was then about to order the children, Angel and Ellie, to be lifted off the floor, lined up against the opposite wall of the room, and then have his death squad to shoot them all to death with a single volley... but then he noticed a long wooden plank lying on the floor not too far from him and found himself strangely interested in it.
And then, after some thought, he quickly changed his mind as he came up with a much more cruel idea to execute his prisoners.
He then walked up to the children, who instantly backed away from him as best as they could with their hands tied behind them. Only Angel held her ground, glaring up at Dandelion with hatred, but also in begrudging curiosity of what he had in mind.
"You know what, children? You do all enjoy some pirate games, don't you?" he asked from them with the nicer tone as he looked at each of them one of the time.
"Edward at least liked, sir." Jessica said timidly. "The rest of us had our own interests."
"What about it?" Buck asked with the glare.
"Because when I was a young boy, I loved playing the pirate so much. You know, the sword fighting, sailing in the play ships, the treasure hunting, and posing as the pirate captain. That's why out of all of you I really liked Mr. Edward more for him sharing the same passion. That's why it's a shame that I had to..." Dandelion explained, sounding for a brief moment as if he regretted something regarding to Edward.(1)
However, he then quickly pulled himself together. "But there was at least one pirate game that I liked the most, which I would like to introduce to you personally."
"And that is?" Angie asked with the frown.
"Let me guess. Keelhauling? Lashing with a "cat"." Oliver guessed with the defiant scowl.
"I would like to do that last one." Marcus told to his brother, intrigued by the idea of lashing the children, though he was silenced when Johanned nudged him in the arm a pretty hard in disapproval.
"Hung by neck till death?" Tito guessed with the glare.
"Hung by neck till death?" Dino repeated shortly after, while glaring up at Dandelion as well.
"The duels with the flintlock pistol toys." Angel guessed. "And how exactly you're gonna introduce that to us? By giving us the guns, making us to stand back to back and then walk a fifteen step distance away from each other and then shoot one another? You're an animal for forcing the children to do that just for your own amusement!" the purple-haired girl spat in disgust.
"No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no! Nothing like that." Dandelion denied instantly with the chuckle.
"Then what it is then?" Angel demanded.
"It's based on a more of the stereotypical pirate way of getting rid of the people they viewed as a dead weight." Dandelion explained. "And since Louie is drastically late and thus you've proved yourself to be just the dead weight to us, so why don't we put these children and Mrs. Bridges... WALK THE PLANK?!" he declared to his men.
"HEAR, HEAR! WALKING THE PLANK! WALKING THE PLANK! WALKING THE PLANK!" the Dandelions let out simultaneously and unanimously.
"Walking the blank?!" the children and Angel repeated, taken aback.
"Yes! Walking the plank." Dandelion confirmed, pointing at the plank lying on the floor next to him. "Walking THAT plank... out of that hole in the wall... all the way to the sudden drop and end!" Dandelion said, pointing at the hole in the wall.
"Men! Prepare that plank!" he then ordered his men.
The turquoise-suited mustache-goon, yellow-hatted hook-nosed goon, Japanese-African goon, the shortie, mustache-goon and the tall, baldie goon then rushed to the plank and lifted it off the floor, before they brought it to the hole in the wall. Then they moved its one end outside while nailing the other end in the floor to keep it steady.
And all the while the children were shouting in protest and pleading for their lives.
"But we're in the fourth floor! You can't force them to walk the plank outside! That drop would severely hurt them or even kill them!" Ellie, finding some courage in herself, protested out loud.
"You don't even have a gutts to commit such of thing!" Angel challenged.
"Oh, really?" Dandelion challenged. "Well, you see, young Mrs. Bridge, I always played this game with my friends in the pool in my yard as a kid, where we blindfolded the eyes of some smaller kid we picked off from the neighborhood street and tied his hands behind his back before we put him walk on the diving board till he fell in the pool's water."(2)
"What happened to that kid? Did you pull that kid up afterwards?" Laura asked.
"That kid, unfortunately for him, gave us no reason to." Dandelion answered, shaking his head.
The children, Angel and Ellie felt rather disturbed that Dandelion would've done something like that in his early childhood.
###
Elsewhere, in another passage in another part of the building, two Dandelions were patrolling this passage and walked past of the tiny hole in the wall.
But as the two goons turned around the corner at the end of the passage, a tiny head of the rodent peeked out from the hole into the passage and looked both to the left and right to make sure that the coast was clear to come out.
The rodent, Angie's pet rat Mike, who had survived from being thrown out of the window by one of the goons trying to apprehend Angie forcibly, then crawled out of the hole and hopped to the floor of the passage.
The little rodent then stood up on its hind legs and raised its head high, sniffing the air in an attempt to detect the trail of his mistress's scent and then follow it to where these mean people were holding her and the others.
Though he did not find the trail of scent - again - Mike then ran down the passage after those two Dandelions to see where they were going and if they could possibly lead him to Angie and the others.
However, Mike then stopped dead in his tracks when someone suddenly appeared from around the corner in front of him, and looked down at him.
Thinking this figure to be one of "those men", Mike rose up to his hind legs again and hissed aggressively up at the figure in self-defense, baring his teeth in a warning.
The figure, however, made no move on him, except dropping down on one knee in front of him.
Realizing that this strange figure was meaning him no harm, Mike then took a closer look of him before sniffing the air to see if the scent was in any way familiar.
Mike's eyes then grew big in surprise when he suddenly recognized the strange's scent, and his face twisted into what looked like a relieved smile, and squeaked happily.
The figure then held out his hand - his three-fingered hand - towards Mike to pink him up, and Mike didn't resist it.
###
Meanwhile, outside of the building and in the alley behind it, Raph, Casey, Arcee, Wendy and Mikey had managed to get past the guards guarding the perimeter and were now sticking to the alley's shadows as they observed the back wall of the hotel in search of the room in the kitchen Wendy had mention about.
The only problem was that it was not there where she had said it would be.
"I thought you said that there was supposed to be the door." Raph said as he turned to Wendy.
"I at least see no doorway anywhere in here. Just the empty wall full of trash." Casey added.
And indeed. The back wall of the hotel was littered with the steel trash cans and trash bins, as well as the piles of black trash bags and boxes, some wooden planks leaning against the wall and even the scaffolding that had been left there standing by the wall. Not to mention about some wall paintings.
But there was no sight of the door anywhere.
"This was where the door was, or at least it was supposed to be." Wendy said, as confused as all of them were.
"Well, where is it then?" Mikey asked.
"I don't know. I don't understand." Wendy said honestly.
"Maybe the door is bricked up some time ago?" Casey theorized.
"Maybe." Wendy agreed. "And if so, I don't even know when that did happen."
"Which means we got no way and no change to get inside without the battle and alerting the guards of our presence." Raph said in annoyance, before the turtle in red just shrugged his shoulders in "whatever" manner.
"But when that has ever stopped me?" he asked from himself as he was about to turn away from the alley, drawing his Sais out. "I say we go through the main door, whether there are guards there or not."
Mikey, however, stepped in front of his hot-headed brother. "Now, whoa! Hold on, Raphie-boy!" the turtle in orange said and lightly pushed Raph back. "Have you forgotten that there are children whose lives are at risk? The moment they see you trying to break through, they'd manage to harm them a long before you can even reach them."
"And not to mention about Angel and Ellie being amongst the prisoners." Casey reminded. "They'd be harmed too. Otherwise I'd totally agree with you about busting right through, Raph."
While Mikey and Casey tried to talk Raph out of doing something reckless, Arcee was paying both attention and a little closer look to the back wall of the building, especially to the stack of wooden planks leaning against the wall, which made her to frown in thought.
Raph growled with impatience. "Well, you guys got any better idea?! We got no door here to sneak in undetected and the main door is heavily guarded, and because of the prisoners the direct charge isn't a good idea either!" the turtle in red complained.
"What about trying to jump through the window? Or trying to sneak in through the door?" Mikey suggested.
"Pretty much the same thing, Mikey." Casey said, shaking his head. "The shattering glass could alert the guards within the building, and there are guards on the rooftop too, remember?"
"Then what should we do?" Mikey asked with the shurg, absolutely clueless.
"Beats me? I got not idea." Casey said, clueless as well.
"Oh, brother!" Raph groaned as he facepalmed himself with annoyance. "I'm surrounded by boneheads!"(3)
"No, unless you got one who knows this building better than what we do, and another one who at least bothers to think think with insight look." Arcee told them as the turtle in pink walked forward towards the trash-littered wall.
Casey, Raph and Mikey all turned to look at Arcee as she walked by the several planks leaning against the floor, which were surrounded by few trash cans, boxes and trash bags.
"What do you mean?" all three of them said with one voice.
"Simple as that," the turtle in pink said as she started moving the trash cans, bags and boxes out of her way.
The others looked at her with blank expressions and glanced at each other with the raised eyebrows, confused of what she was doing.
"If you guys had paid a little more attention to improvising your instincts and sense of direction in strange territories during Master Splinter's lessons, and looked a little closer at the facts instead of banging your thick skulls together or coming up with time-consuming theories that overlook the facts," she continued after she had cleared the trash off and was now standing by the planks. "Then maybe you guys would have come up with the simplest idea in the world. One I'd like to call "look behind."
With that, Arcee grabbed to the planks and flung the whole stack over to the ground.
And to Casey, Raph and Mikey's surprise, there it was! The boarded-up door to the kitchen that Wendy had mentioned, which had been here the whole time, just hidden behind a stack of planks and only Arcee was smart enough to notice it.
"Ta-daa!" Arcee said with the proud smirk on her lips as he gestured the door with her hands with the light bow.
"Ahh! There it was, just like I memorized." Wendy gasped with delight.
Casey, Raph and Mikey then paid another glances with each other, before the three of them rolled their eyes and let out the groan simultaneously.
"Beaten by the wits of the girl. How embarrassing." Mikey complained.
"Let's just go already before I start knock some heads without caring which one's head it is." Raph said impatiently and walked up to the door with the others.
Raph, Casey and Mikey started pulling the boards off the door. And once they were gone, Raph tried the door handle.
Unfortunately, the door didn't budge, either because it either had been locked, or it was jammed, or even boarded from inside.
"Casey? Gimme a hand." Raph said.
Raph and Casey then began together to ram against the door with their shoulders, while Mikey and Arcee kept watch should the sound alert the guards.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! CRACK!
After the fifth round, the turtle in red and the hockey-masked vigilante finally managed to force the door in, and their way in the building... and luckily without causing alarm.
"Sometimes I wonder why they call some ancient siege weapons as battering ram. Should've they name it instead a battering turtle?" Mikey joked, earning a slap in the back of his head from Raph. "OW!"
"The door is open. Get in before those guards will come to investigate." Raph said, pointing his thumb inside.
Mikey immediately hurried inside, while Arcee turned towards Wendy.
"Wendy? I think that it's best for you to stay outside. Call the police to deal with Dandelion and the others once we've dealed with them." the turtle in pink adviced.
Wendy gave it a moment of thought and nearly considered of backing down and go to get the police hete as Arcee had adviced, which was partially because of knowing that she stood no chance against the ruthless murderous and rough-handed gangsters unlike Louie, Arcee, Casey, Mikey and Raph did, and that in there, she would be just the burden and distraction to them, let alone of being just another potential leverage for the bad guys to use against the turtles.
But again, those thoughts were pushed aside by the very memory of Edward's death and the grief and pain it had caused upon her, as well as the memory of the rest of the children being in grave danger as well. Wanting them safe kept her from turning back now, even if there wouldn't be much of what she can do to help... except to show them way.
"No. I won't turn back. Not now. Not while the children are still in danger in there." Wendy said, trying her best to sound brave enough.
"I don't think it to be wise for you to come with us. You know, these guys won't hesitate to get rough with you or even worse." Arcee cautioned.
"I don't care." Wendy said back. "I'm coming to make sure that my children will be safe. And besides, I can at least help you guys by showing you the way. For I think I know where this Dandelion-guy is holding them."
Arcee, Mikey, Raph and Casey, who had finally got the boards off the door, exchanged looks with each other as they took this into consideration.
###
Elsewhere in the building, in the basement where the hotel's boiler room was located. The room, where there was a row of few early 1900s upgraded boilers and the confusing pipe system in the ceiling, was both pitch dark, cold and empty from years of disuse.
Even Dandelion's men hadn't gone down there to keep watch for potential intruders, because they didn't think that anyone would be capable or even would try to inflitrade into the building from underground.
However, they were proven wrong, when a rhythmic sound started coming from under the floor, until one spot in the floor was starting to crack.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! CRACK!
On the fifth round, a few pickaxes bursted their way through the floor and created a hole underground, before the hole slowly but steadily began to collapse a little larger so that anyone could fit through it into the room.
And once it ceased, Donnie, holding one pickaxe in his hand, jumped out of the hole and into the floor.
The turtle in purple looked around into the room with the torch in his hand to see if there was anyone in the room, until he found no one in there.
"Coast is clear. Come on!" Donnie said, motioning with his hand for the others to come out.
Leo, holding another pickaxe, jumped out of the hole next while carrying Conrad in his shell, followed by Dom, who carried the third pickaxe, before they were followed by Mary and Master Splinter.
The turtles had parked their Sewer Slider in the tunnel to the very spot where they had concluded that the Conrad's hotel building stood directly above them, before they had made their way through of both the tunnel's ceiling and the building's floor with the help of the pickaxes and the rock drill Donnie had brought along with them.
"Are you sure this is the right place, Conrad?" Dom asked. "Because it would be very embarrassing to learn we'd bursted into someone else's building instead of our target."
"Sure, I'm sure. I know this boiler room. I've been there before. We're in the right place." Conrad confirmed as he slid off Leo's shell.
"And you said that the dining room is in the fourth floor?" Leo repeated.
"Exactly." Conrad said with the nod.
"Then we must move. We cannot linger." Mary told them, remindin.
"Show us the way, Conrad." Leo told him.
Conrad nodded to the turtle in blue and was just about to show a way, until Master Splinter reached out and grabbed the boy by the shoulder to stop him, making Conrad to turn to him.
"Conrad? Maybe you really should reconsider of coming with us. You know how great danger you're going to put yourself into?" the old rat master questioned worriedly for the boy's well-being. "It's still not too late to change your mind. There is no shame in it."
"Please, Master Splinter. I'v already made up my mind. I'm coming with you." Conrad said.
"I doesn't feel right for us to bring you into such of dangerous situation." Splinter continued with the stern voice, before giving the boy a sympathetic look. "Even if I know that you only wish to help because you're worried for your family, just as much as I'm worried for my son, Lorenzo."
"All the more reason to come along. Anyone of us could've done the same thing if it was someone else picked to do this Dandelion-guy's dirty works instead of me and Edward." Conrad told him with understantment. "And besides, he's a threat to both of our families. So, with me showing you the way and you beating up the bad guys, we can do this together. Isn't that something Uncle Louie has been saying you would say, right?"
Splinter was taken aback by how Louie has been for all these years passed some of his lessons to Conrad and his friends - especially his the most important lesson of working together to defeat the enemy and stuff.
After letting out a sigh, Master Splinter smiled down at Conrad, both moved by the boy's own courage and willingness to follow his(Splinter's) own teachings Louie has been giving to him, as well as out of pride he felt towards Louie for doing that.
"Very well." Splinter said, nodding his head, before he put his hand on the boy's back and gently pushed him forward. "Lead the way. We'll cover your back."
Conrad smiled at the mutants and nodded his head in affirmation. "Let's kick some shell."
"Let's kick some shell." Mary, Leo, Donnie and even Dom repeated after.
With that, Conrad led them up the stairs to the door and into the building.
###
Meanwhile, back in the dining room.
"Dimitri?" Dandelion called. "As soon as we're done here, I want all evidence that could prove my involvement in this destroyed, from the remains of the children to the entire building. And I want all the camera tapes on this block taken and edited so they don't testify against me and all possible witnesses bribed to keep quiet. And lastly I want you to write me a document that would keep me away just any courtroom. And no mistakes." he ordered.
"Yes, cousin." Dimitri nodded.
With that out of the way, Dandelion turned to the prisoners, who were all hauled up from the floor.
Gabriel was roughly holding squirming Jake by the arm while his other hand was roughly around the overweight boy's chin, which was hurting him.
Mr. Nosy was holding both Tito and Dino, with his huge hands wrapped with the steel-hard grip over each boy's shoulders while his massive strength kept them still.
Johannes was holding Laura by her arms, keeping her still as the girl tried to struggle herself free, even if Johannes' hold on her wasn't as rough as the others.
Marcus had both Minnie and Jessica under his armpits and chuckled sadistically when he got any excuse to shake both girls like a rag dolls, such as if either of them raised their voices or struggled back to get free.
Japanese-African goon had seized Angie by her arms, but unlike Johannes, his hold from the girl's arms was rough enough to make her cringe in pain.
The turquoise-suited mustache-goon and the yellow-hatted hook-nosed goon had seized Buck by his arms and held him still, as the boy kept defiantly fighting back his captors.
Shortie mustache-goon and the tall, baldie goon had seized Oliver by his arms, while the boy fought back even harder than what Buck did, even spitting in the face of his captors.
Alcatraz's stage dance girls were holding Ellie by her arms, with couple of them holding her at gunpoint, while Ellie offered no resistance against them at all.
And Alcatraz himself was holding Angel by her shoulders pretty roughly, brutally shaking the purple-haired girl if she tried to fight back even harder than this.
"Now, who wants to be the first to walk the plank?" Dandelion asked, looking at each of them one at the time.
None of the children said a word, and neither did Ellie or Angel. All of them just silently stared up at him either with fear or scorn.
"Very well..." Dandelion said, unhindered by this and choosing to just pick the first volunteer out of random. "Gabriel? Bring the fat one first."
Jake's eyes grew wide from horror for being picked as first "volunteer" to walk the plank to his death, before Gabriel roughly pushed him forward.
"Get going, you little brat!" he barked harshly.
"NO! NO! NO! I DON'T! I DON'T! I DON'T! I DON'T WANT TO! PLEASE! PLEASE! STOP THIS!" Jake pleaded with tears running down from his eyes as he was forced towards the plank.
"NO!" "HEY!" "JAKE!" "LET HIM GO!" "PLEASE!" "DON'T DO THIS!" "DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!" "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" "YOU MONSTER!" the children and Jake protested as all of them began to fight even harder against their captors.
"Ahh, but don't you worry. You'll be all soon joining him." Dandelion assured them with the sinister chuckle.
"I DON'T WANT TO! I DON'T WANT TO!" Jake cried from the top of his lungs, squirming in Gabriel's hold and flailing wildly both his legs and head in mad panic, and thus he accidentally head-butted Gabriel right in the kisser, causing the thug to groan in pain and temporarily let go of Jake.
Seeing this, Jake tried to make a break for it and run out of the room for his life, only for Gabriel, his mouth covered with blood, to recover quickly and rush after him, and managed to recapture him quickly.
"Why you little... BRAT!" Gabriel growled and lifted Jake off the ground before he tossed him roughly to the floor, causing Jake to let out a pained groan.
Ellie couldn't bear the look at this cruelty and child abuse and had to look elsewhere, while Angel, greatly angered by this, fought Alcatraz's hold on her even harder to break free and do something.
Gabriel then lifted crying Jake off the floor and roughly shoved him hard towards Dandelion, who then seized him by his shirt's colar.
"Please! Please! Please, don't do this!" Jake hoarsely pleaded, but his pleas fell to the deaf ears.
"Get on the plank and walk along it to the other end! Move it!" Dandelion demanded and shoved Jake towards the plank.
Jake, looking down through the hole, let out a frightened gasp at how high they were and immediately backed away from the hole, only to be shoved onward and towards the plank by Dandelion again.
"MOVE IT!" Dandelion demanded.
"NO!" Angel gasped.
Knowing that Alcatraz won't let go of her, no matter how hard she'd try, Angel resorted to an old-fashioned tactic to break free by lifting her foot up and stomping it as hard as she could on Alcatraz's left leg.
"AAARGH!" Alcatraz cried out in pain and let go of Angel before he lifted his left leg up to hold it while gritting his teeth.
However, Angel then lifted her leg up again and kicked Alcatraz in the stomach while he was distracted, forcing the air out of him and knocking him over to the floor.
"Alcatraz!" "Honey!" two of his stage dancers, "Blue" and "Green", gasped upon seeing what had befallen to Alcatraz and raised their guns towards Angel to shoot her.
Howere, with the high roundhouse-kick of her right foot, Angel managed to kick the guns out of the dancers' hands, before she spin-kicked them in the heads with her left foot, knocking them down and out.
"Angel! No!" Ellie cried in fear for her granddaughter.
Angel then charged towards Dandelion from behind while his focus was on pushing still-reluctant Jake onto the plank. And before any of Dandelion's men could warn him - with Mr. Nosy handing Tito and Dino to some other goons to hold them before rushing to his boss' aid - Angel rammed into Dandelion's back with her left shoulder, catching Dandelion by surprise and knocking him off his feet and onto his stomach onto the blank.
"Why don't you go to walk the plank youself?!" Angel roared down at Dandelion, as the gangster boss turned around and looked up at her with his eyes wide from surprise.
Before Angel could've done anything else, she was quickly apprehended by Mr. Nosy, who wrapped his huge right arm around of Angel's throat and grabbed with his left hand roughly from Angel's head, holding her still while Angel kept fighting against her much bigger and stronger captor, but she was no match for his immense strength.
"Just say a word and I'll break her neck easily, boss!" Mr. Nosy offered.
"NO!" Ellie gasped, but couldn't interfere due to being held gunpoint by Alcatraz's dancers.
Dandelion thought it for a moment, but quickly decided otherwise.
"No, wait! I have even better idea for her." he said as he pulled himself up from the floor and back to his feet, before he turned to look at Angel with the sinister smile, while Angel glared back at him with venomous hate. "Why don't we make her to walk the plank first? With that, we'll strike Mr. Lorenzo there where it really, really hurts!"
"Then you give Louie no reason to hold back and not to hurt you so severely that you know you deserve it! PTHYI!" Angel said, before she spat in Dandelion's face.
Dandelion grimaced at this, but casually wiped the spit off his face with his handkerchief.
Then he grabbed from Angel's chin roughly and leaned his head in so that his face was very close of Angel's.
"Then so be it." Dandelion whispered darkly before letting go of her. "Tie up her eyes and then put her on the plank!"
Alcatraz, who was back on his feet but breathing laboriously after Angel's kick in his guts, fummed with seething fury as he walked up to her with the cloth in his hands and tied them around of Angel's eyes, and just out of spite, Alcatraz pulled the cloth so tight that it pressed rather painfully against Angel's eyes, making her groan through of her gritted teeth.
But while this was happening, in the upstairs above the dining room, the dark figure with the rodent perched on his shoulder knelt by the edge of one of the holes and peeked through of it down into the dining room, and let out a growl upon seeing what Dandelion, Mr. Nosy and Alcatraz were doing to Angel, before the figure and the rodent turned to each other, as if formulating a plan with one another.
After Angel was blindfolded, Mr. Nosy released Angel from his grasp, but shoved her backwards towards the plank so hard that Angel very nearly fell onto her back to the plan or blindly misstepped off the edge of the plan that could've plunge her down off it to the four-floors-long fall.
Only with great effort, Angel managed to prevent herself falling over and maintain her balance on the springing plank. Afterwards she remained still. not daring to take even a single step and risk of both slipping off the plank and fall off it.
"I'm not afraid of you, Dandelion!" Angel spat defiantly, even in the face of severe injury or even death.
Dandelion chuckled at this. "I'm not even expecting you to. But I will pass those words to Mr. Lorenzo as your last words."
Dandelion then began to stomp his foot on the plank, making it to spring up and down, tampering Angel's balance enough to make her gasp in surprise.
"No!" Ellie gasped in horror. "No! Stop this!"
But Dandelion ignored her and kept stomping on the blank, further tampering Angel's focus on her balance.
"Why to keep fighting to dely the inevitable, Mrs. Bridge?!" Dandelion taunted and kept stomping. "Just get off the plank and it'll be over soon!"
The children held their breaths, scared for Angel as they bore the witness of this.
STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!
But even after third stomp, by some miracle Angel still managed to stay on the plank, though not without some incredible difficulty.
"Oh, too long!" Mr. Nosy barked impatiently and rather insolently took the honor from Dandelion by stomping his own foot harder on the plank.
This was too much for Angel to take, because the even harder springing of the plank finally caused her to lose her balance and fall backwards off the plank, plunging down towards the ground four floors below of her.
"ANGEEEEEEEEL!" the children cried in horror.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" Ellie screamed from top of her lungs.
Dandelion smiled proudly at the murder he had committed, while Mr. Nosy smirked and Alcatraz burst into a loud evil laugh.
However, after the moment, Dandelion's and Mr. Nosy's smiles suddenly dropped and Alcatraz's evil laughter died down, before they all frowned in confusion.
Shouldn't there have been some kind of sickening thud against the ground by now?
And yet, there was no any sound of that.
"Shouldn't she have hit the ground already? We're not so high up now that it would take this long." Alcatraz told to Mr. Nosy and Dandelion.
The three of them them looked down, but to their surprise, they didn't see any remains of Angel's crushed body in the hotel's yard.
"Where did she go? She couldn't have been swallowed by the earth!" Mr. Nosy said in confusion.
The news of Angel's sudden disappearance in the middle of her fall spread quickly in the ears of Dandelions' men, the children and Ellie, and they all glanced at each other with great surprise and confusion of what had just happened.
However, the longer Dandelion looked down at the empty yard through the hole, wondering what had happened and what had saved Angel from falling, it slowly but surely began to dawn on him.
Then, his attention was caught by the sound of the wood shattering and the window's glass shattering from a couple floors below on his right, which made him to peer down to the second floor's windows.
Dandelion's eyes grew wide when he noticed one of the window's boards smashed into bits, the long chain with the weight in the end of it being shaken loose from above him, which fell down from the edge of the rooftop and was then pulled inside of that window.
Having seen that familiar-looking weighted chain before back in his own house, Dandelion quickly turned around to his men and the prisoners.
"HE'S IN THE HOOOOOUUUUUSSSSSE!" he let out in alarm and haste. "THE TURTLE IS IN THE HOUSE! ALL MEN! GO AFTER HIM! SEARCH THE ENTIRE BUILDING! EVERY FLOOR, EVERY PASSAGE! EVERY ROOM!" EVERY DOOR! EVERY CORNER! FROM THE GROUND FLOOR TO THE ROOFTOP! GO GET HIM! GET HIM! GET HIM! GET HIM! GO! GO! GO!"
"But boss? What about the prisoners?" Mr. Nosy questioned.
"JUST GO AND GET THAT TURTLE!" Dandelion barked, forgetting about the prisoners as his full focus was in Louie. "JUST BRING ME THAT TURTLE! BRING HIM TO ME! GO, BEFORE I START PICK OFF YOU LAZY SHEEP ONE BY ONE IF YOU DON'T MAKE HASTE! GO!"
Obeying their boss, the Dandelions threw the children and Ellie down to the floor and . with guns and melee weapons in their hands - quickly stampeded out of the dining room to search the whole building from the west-wing to east-wing and from the ground floor up to the rooftop, determined to find and capture Louie alive for Dandelion.
The entire building shook as if in the grip of a small earthquake, as hundreds of pairs of dandelion feet ran here and there, looking for Louie and spreading the word that his presence had been detected.
Mr. Nosy, Alcatraz, Gabriel, Johannes, Marcus, the leader of Dandelion's death squad, the turquoise-suited mustache-goon, yellow-hatted hook-nosed goon, Japanese-African goon, the shortie, mustache-goon and the tall, baldie goon, Alcatraz's stage girls, even Mr. Lasse and Dimitri Dandelion stampeded out of the dining room to search the building with the last ones.
And finally and lastly, Dandelion, arming himself with the pair of submachine guns, went to follow his men out of the dining room to join them in the hunt, leaving the children and Ellie by themselves.
But as soon as Dandelion turned his back to the prisoners and was just about to step through the door and out of the room...
"Psst! Psst!"
The children and Ellie, upon hearing someone suddenly calling to them via whisper from above, looked up to the other hole in the ceiling to their left, before they saw a rope that was quietly dropped through the hole.
And then, much to the surprise and delight of both the kids and Ellie, Lorenzo himself slid down the rope through the hole and onto the dining room's floor in Spider-Man style, carrying Angel in bridal style in his arms, much to Ellie's relief.
"Hi, kids. Hi, Mrs. Bridge." Louie said in whisper. "Ready to be rescued?"
The children and Ellie let out a relieved laugnter of seeing their friend here and Angel alive, which, unfortunately, reached to Dandelion's ear, as he suddenly stopped by the door.
Louie's and Angel's eyes grew wide in alarm upon seeing this and the children cringed sheepishly for having given Louie's presence in and possibly botched any chance of their rescue.
Dandelion turned around back to the dining room, but saw no one but the children and Ellie, who had huddled together and were now staring right back at Dandelion like they didn't know anything, though Jake's rather nervous grin gave Dandelion a hint that something was up.
Eyeing them rather suspiciously, Dandelion began walking slowly towards the prisoners with the steady pace, holding his guns ready to shoot.
But just when he was about to reach the children and Ellie and search them through with his gaze, his attention was drawn to the work lights, which suddenly came on and illuminated the upper floor, also flooding through the holes down into the room.
And when he looked up through the holes, Dandelion's eyes went wide as he thought he saw a shadowy figure moving against the work lights in the upstairs' room, which perfectly matched the shape of the giant turtle.
Believing it to be Louie himself peeking down through the hole, Dandelion gritted his teeth in anger and raised his guns up before he opened the fire at the hole and the shadowy figure, who instantly withthrew away from the hole to avoid getting shot.
BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA! BRAKKA!
The children and Ellie flinched in startlement of this.
After Dandelion stopped shooting, Mr. Nosy, Alcatraz, Gabriel, Johannes, Marcus, the leader of his death squad the turquoise-suited mustache-goon, yellow-hatted hook-nosed goon, Japanese-African goon, the shortie, mustache-goon and the tall, baldie goon, Alcatraz's stage girls, Mr. Lasse and Dimitri Dandelion stormed into the room, being alerted by the gunfiring.
"Boss! What is it?!" Mr. Nosy said in alarm.
"He's up there! In the upstairs!" Dandelion barked, turning to his men while pointing his gun up in the hole. "Don't just stand there! Go up there and get him!"
Alcatraz and his stange dancers, Gabriel, Johannes, Marcus, the turquoise-suited mustache-goon, yellow-hatted hook-nosed goon, Japanese-African goon, the shortie, mustache-goon and the tall, baldie goon quickly stormed out of the room and headed to the upstairs.
Japanese-African goon, the leader of his death squad, Mr. Lasse and Dimitri Dandelion stayed behind with Dandelion, who kept their eyes in the holes and guns ready to fire at anything that came out of them.
The villains had luckily forgotten all about the prisoners, and Dandelion had forgotten all about of searching their little group through with his gaze. And if he had done that, he could've seen a couple of person hiding in their midst.
To avoid of being detected earlier before it was a right time to reveal himself, Louie and Angel had hidden themselves amidst the prisoners and hunched low to keep themselves as invisible as possibly, with Angel having covered her head with the beanie hat and wore the torn poncho over her shoulders, while Louie had put on a tattered trench coat and hat he had taken from some trash can, as well as Angel's disguise, to cover himself, while the children and Ellie provided them as much of cover as they could by huddling close to them.
And with the villains attention momentarily elsewhere, Louie turned to the kids and began speaking to them with low whisper.
"Are you kids okay?" the turtle in black asked.
"We are now." Laura told him with the nod. "Thank you, Uncle Louie."
All the other children nodded their heads to Louie to confirm that they were all okay.
Louie smiled with relief of knowing that they were all alright, before she turned to Angel's grandma. "Ellie? Are you okay?"
"A little shaken by everything that has happened, Lorenzo dear, but yes. I'm okay." Ellie told him, before giving him a warm smile. "And... thank you for saving my Angel again."
"Any time." Louie replied with the wink of his eye.
"And I'm so glad to see you here" Ellie added.
"We too. I knew you would come, Uncle Louie." Angie told him with the relieved smile.
"What did I tell you? I never doubted it the lover boy wouldn't come" Angel told them, smiling fondly at the turtle in black. "I guess that I trust in him with my life a little too much to ever do that."
"Aww. I love it when you talk about me like that, Angel-cake." the turtle in black said with the light hearty chuckle.
"But what took you so long, Uncle Louie?" Oliver asked with the frown. "Dandelion almost put us to walk the plank! Starting from Jake until Angel took his place."
"And he even told us that you had abandon us." Minnie said with the chocked voice, as she was crying the tears of happiness for Louie having come for them after all.
"And it almost sounded like it was the truth when you never came." Jake told him, still a little shaken from his near-death experience.
"I'd never abandon any of you. Ever." Louie assured them firmly.
"Believe him, kids. Whenever there's always a trouble and the people in danger, you can always count on Louie on that, no matter what." Angel said to support him.
"And I'm sorry I didn't come earlier. I would've if I could've, but sneaking in undetected took some time. This place is crawling with his men." Louie told them.
"No kidding." Tito agreed.
"No kidding." Dino repeated afterwards.
"These people busted in our house the last night when we were at sleep, intending to use us as a leverage to lure you out and as a human shields against you! They have ever since held us in here." Buck informed.
"And they took Wendy, Edward and Conrad." Jessica informed.
"And tied up Flow there, in the corner." Oliver added, nodding his head towards the corner where muzzled and tied up Flow was still standing.
"What they wanted from Wendy, Edward and Conrad?" Angel asked.
"They intended to sent Edward and Conrad to Uncle Louie's place to warn him about the peril we were in." Laura said. "And they took Wendy away for another purpose. We don't know what for."
"That's exactly what they said to me and grandma as well when they took our clothes for some reason." Angel said bitterly.
"I know." Louie said sadly, frowning deeply of thinking of Edward, and that how he was going to break the news of his death to the children. "Wendy is okay, by the way. She's safe with the friends even at this moment."
The children murmured quietly to each other, relieved to at least know that their care-taker was okay.
"But what about Edward and Conrad?" Jessica asked softly. "Are they okay? Are they safe at your place?"
Louie looked sadly at each child around him as they looked at him expectantly, before he let out a deep sigh and lowered his head down in quiet mourning.
"I don't know." he said honestly, shaking his head. "I don't know... about Conrad. But Edward... Dandelion... Dandelion killed him... with the gear up of plastic explosives."
The children gasped in shock and horror upon these news, unable to believe that Edward and most likely Conrad too were dead. Even Ellie let out a horrified gasp upon hearing Dandelion having killed a child in such of horrified method. The children then began to mumble with each other a bit too loud for Louie's comfort.
"Shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shh! Keep it down!" Louie told them sharply.
"They're gonna kill us too. What are we gonna do?" Minnie asked in near panic.
"Stay calm! Nobody else is gonna die! I swear it! Me and Angel are going to get you all out of here!" Louie said, trying to calm them.
"But Dandelion won't let us leave, not alive at least." Jake told him. "He wants us all dead."
"Then let's not leave it up to him." Buck said, feeling rather angered over Edward's death. "He wants to get us, then let him try."
"Buck is right. I say we make him pay for what he's done!" Oliver agreed with him.
"And make him to walk the plank!" Tito suggested.
"And make him to walk the plank!" Dino repeated shortly after.
Louie smirked at the boys' (or at least most of them) desire for vengeance against Dandelion for what he did to Edward, because that's another thing he came here for.
"And pay he shall. He must and he will." the turtle in black promised them.
"Are you nuts?! Laura gasped at the boys in disbelief. "We're just the kids, and they're adults. And there's a way lot of them. What we can do against them?"
"I'm afraid that there is no much of the choice, kids." Louie told them. "I wish I could hide you somewhere safe place to wait till I've dealt with the bad guys, or but there's too many of them. If we want to get out of this alive, then we need to fight our way out of here."
"But how? We cannot fight." Jessica reasoned. "We are not like you."
"You were not like me either, and yet you little ninjas bravely stood up for me against those three crooks the day we first met, remember?" the turtle in black reminded them. "And if you did so once, you can do that again."
"But that was that time." Angie said. "And there's way too many of the bad guys this time."
"I know, but they're mostly after me." Louie reminded them. "I am their main target. I am their primary concern. I am the ONE whom they want. And once they have me, they don't care about you, just as long as I'm still alive."
"You're not gonna give yourself up to them?" Minnie asked worriedly.
"Not without the fight. Dandelion will soon feel it in his butt that trying to capture me won't be easy." Louie assured them. "But we can do this. We can get out of this. And to do that, as my master and father constantly reminds me and my siblings: We have. To work. Together."
"Well, it'll be a lot of easier if we're not bound. And what about the weapons? We cannot fight these guys bare hands." Oliver reminded.
"Then let's make a difference to it." Louie said, before he pulled out one of his swords.
The children turned around and held out their bound hands at Louie, and the turtle in black began to cut their hands loose, while Angel began to cut her grandma free from her own bonds with her own penknife.
Louie then took out the bag he had brought with him and began to hand the weapons to the kids after freeing them one by one. The some of the children took the offered weapons hesitatingly while others eagerly. He gave Jake a large wooden ladle, Laura a shovel, Minnie a hammer, Angie a rolling pin, Jessica the wrench, Buck a wooden sword, Oliver the frying pan, Tito and Dino the baseball and cricket bats. Louie gave even a greatly hesitant Ellie a walking cane as a weapon just in case.
"Alright, here's the plan." Louie began. "I will soon reveal myself to Dandelion and draw his attention to me. And if I get outnumbered and surrounded by them, I will hold them off as long as I can. And when I give you the signal, you will sprung into action and Angel will lead you away and out of that door. And since you know this place more better than she does, give her a direction to where it is wisest to go in order to avoid the guards. And don't worry about me. Just get yourself out and safety. Do this for me. Do this for Edward."
The children took a moment to take all of this in, before with the increasing confidence, they all nodded to the turtle in black in affirmation.
"For Edward."
Louie smiled proudly to the children, nodding his head to them. "Let's kick some Dandelion butt."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Trivia
1) = Dandelion doesn't really feel remorse of killing Edward in cold-blood, but he rather feels remorse of killing the shared passion to the pirates and pirate games along with Edward.
2) =This gives the hint that as a kid, Dandelion was somewhat a mentally unstable local bully of his neighborhood who picked the smaller kids by forcibly including them to his pirate cames and put them to walk the plank/jumping board into his home yard's swimming pool, tied up and blindfolded and stuff, without even bothering to pull them up afterwards.
3) = The reference to the Lion King's Scar's "I'm surrounded by idiots." line.