Chapter 5

After they managed to escape Bradford and Xever, the turtles decided it would be faster to take Shireen home by jumping from roof to roof. This was easy with their ninja training, and Shireen was having a blast. After looking around, they finally found Shireen’s street. From there, they started looking for her building.

 

“There!” Shireen announced, pointing out a nice-looking apartment building with a sign that said “Ecbatana Apartments” on it. “That’s it. The one over there.”

 

When the turtles looked where Shireen was pointing, their jaws dropped, and they all said in unison, “Wow.”

 

“That’s fancy,” Mikey commented.

 

“Your family must be pretty rich if you can afford to live there,” said Raph.

 

“Yeah, my parents are pretty wealthy,” Shireen replied.

 

“What do they do?” Leo asked.

 

“Um…that’s private,” said Shireen.

 

Leo shrugged and said, “Well, to be fair, we did just meet. So, okay, you don’t have to tell us now.”

 

“Oh, good,” a relieved Shireen said. She looked at her friends and asked, “Now, do you think you’d be able to get to the higher floors?”

 

“Piece of cake,” Raph said and cracked his knuckles.

 

With that, the turtles used their ninja skills and made their way up to one of the higher floors, until Shireen told them to stop. Once they reached Shireen’s floor, they landed on her balcony and looked inside, astonished at the interior of her apartment. It was full of rare and expensive looking things; by the looks of it from nearly every corner of the world.

 

“Whoa! This is some pretty rare stuff!” said Donnie. Then he spotted something of interest and asked, “Are those ninja weapons from the Tokugawa era?”

 

“I think so,” said Shireen. “Not sure. My dad got those for my mom during his latest trip to Japan.”

 

“Wow!” the turtles exclaimed.

 

“I’ve gotta touch ‘em!” Mikey said.

 

“Mikey, no!” Leo scolded. “They’re not ours!”

 

“And knowing you, you’d break them,” Raph added.

 

“I would not!” a pouting Mikey said.

 

“Hey, there’s some guy on the phone over there,” Donnie said and pointed towards a corner of the living room.

 

“Huh?” Shireen asked and pushed past Donnie, then became surprised to see Daryun on the phone. “Oh, God, that’s my babysitter.”

 

“Oh, so that’s Gieve,” Raph said and glared at Daryun, who was frantically gesturing while on the phone.

 

“No, that’s Daryun, my regular babysitter,” said Shireen. “And if he’s home, that means my brother’s home, too. Oh, I hope he’s not too worried!”

 

“Daryun looks pretty worried to me,” said Mikey. “So your brother probably is, too.”

 

“Oh, s**t,” Shireen muttered.

 

“Hey, what’d I tell you about using that kind of language?” Mikey mock-scolded her.

 

“Oh…right, sorry,” Shireen replied. “I’d better go inside and tell everyone I’m okay.” She opened the sliding door and walked into her apartment, where she now found Arslan and Gieve on the couch. Arslan still hugged the pillow to his face, and Gieve was still praying.

 

“I told you two times!” Daryun was yelling hysterically into the phone. “She’s six years old! White hair in pigtails! Blue eyes! Wearing a navy blue jumper, white T-shirt, white socks, and Sketchers sneakers! How the hell hard is that to grasp?! Don’t tell me to calm down! There’s a six-year-old-Huh? …..Uh, never mind. She’s right here. I’m very sorry I wasted your time, and that I yelled at you…and I shouldn’t have said those things about your mother.” Embarrassed, he hung up his phone and put it back in his pocket. He turned to the pair on the couch and said, “Guys, she just showed up. And it looks like she’s okay.”

 

Both looked up in surprise, and Gieve jumped for joy when he heard Shireen was back and unharmed, thinking that he wasn’t in trouble. Arslan jumped off the couch, threw the pillow aside, and ran to his sister, hugging her.

 

“I’m so glad you’re safe!” Arslan exclaimed. Then he released Shireen and asked, “Where the heck were you? We were all worried sick!”

 

Shireen was now ashamed at how upset she made her brother and replied, “I’m sorry, Bro. I saw that Marvel and Cato were at Madison Square Garden, and I went to go see them. I tried to get Gieve to go with me, but he wasn’t paying attention, so I went myself."

 

“What were you thinking?” Daryun asked. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened to you?”

 

“I-I guess I wasn’t thinking,” Shireen said quietly.

 

“Don’t ever do that again,” Daryun said. “Next time you want to go see something, make sure you can get someone to take you, even if you have to keep bugging them to get their attention.”

 

“Well…you’re back,” Gieve said nervously and backed away to the front door. “So, I guess I’m off the hook?”

 

“Are you freaking kidding me?!” Raph exploded at Gieve. “You were supposed to be watching her, yet you ignored her in favor of a stupid phone call!”

 

Gieve, Daryun, and Arslan all looked at the balcony, and were shocked to see four humanoid turtles armed with ninja gear. The turtles appeared to be as surprised as they were, except for the one in the red mask, who looked angry.

 

“Way to go, Raph,” Leo said and glared at his brother. “Now our cover’s blown.”

 

“This is almost as bad as when we first met Spiderbitez,” Mikey said.

 

“I suppose introductions are in order,” Donnie said.

 

“Uh, yeah,” Arslan replied, still weirded out by the turtles. “Yeah, that would be nice, I guess.”

 

“They’re my new friends,” Shireen said happily, pointing to the turtles.

 

“Uh, you got names?” Arslan asked.

 

“I’m Leo,” Leo introduced himself, then introduced his brothers. “And these are my brothers, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey.”

 

“And you must be Shireen’s brother Arslan,” Mikey said to Arslan. Then he looked to Daryun and said, “And we already know you’re Daryun, her regular babysitter.” Then he looked at Gieve and said, “And you’re stupid Gieve, the sucky sitter.”

 

“Hey!” Gieve protested. “I’m not sucky! I'll have you know I'm very responsible when it comes to caring for my BFF's kid sister!”

"Uh, you're not my BFF, Gieve," Arslan said and rolled his eyes. "That's Elam, duh."

 

“What kind of responsible babysitter ignores a kid who needs watching?” Raph exploded at the playboy. He looked to his brothers and asked, “Am I right?” The other three turtles agreed with him.

 

Gieve nervously looked at Raph and asked, “He’s not gonna beat me up, is he?”

 

“Don’t worry, we won’t let him hurt you,” Donnie replied and rolled his eyes.

 

“Though I wouldn’t mind taking a punch at him,” Leo whispered to Mikey.

 

“Got that right,” Mikey whispered back.

 

Arslan pushed past Gieve and thanked the turtles for bringing his sister back safely, then whispered, “You can beat Gieve up any time you want.”

 

“We’d really love to, but we’re not supposed to hurt innocent people,” Leo said. He then noticed that it was a quarter to nine and said, “Sorry, we’ve gotta go. Ninja duty calls.”

 

“Come back and visit any time you want, guys,” Arslan said and grinned.

 

“We just might do that,” said Raph. “Can we beat Gieve up next time?”

 

“No!” Leo replied to Raph’s question.

 

“I wasn’t talking to you, Leo,” Raph complained.

 

“Well, I’m answering anyway,” Leo said firmly. “Now, let’s go.”

 

With that, the turtles took off into the night with their new human friends watching.

 

“I’ve gotta admit, these guys seem pretty cool,” Arslan commented.

 

“They are,” Shireen agreed.

 

Daryun and Arslan turned to Gieve, angry once again. Gieve gulped, dreading what was coming.

 

“Now, where were we?” Daryun asked.

 

“Oh, yeah,” Arslan replied, as if just remembering something important. “GIEVE!”

 

Gieve felt like he was shrinking and said, “Oh no! Guys, guys, I didn’t mean-AAAHHHHHHH!”

 

The next thing the neighbors heard was the sound of Gieve screaming, followed by the sounds of punches and kicks. They didn’t bother calling the police because they were used to stuff like this happening all over their part of the city.

Author's Note

This is the final chapter of this story. I'll be doing others.