Leo shifted the rubble as he walked, charcoal coating his feet. A fire had apparently started after the electric blast, spreading pretty quickly. Witch town was likely the worst place for the fire, given every building was made of wood. "And how many witnesses were there?" Leo asked as the guards lifted up burnt wood, stamping out any hot coals.
"Around 19. Others couldn't get a good look." A guard answered as he marked off an area.
"But where did she go? Surely someone saw." Mikey asked. Mikey was the only other brother that would accompany Leo to the crime scene, the others were too busy running the rest of the city.
"Someone reported she was dragged into that alleyway, but when they went to chase her, no one was there." The guard pointed to an alleyway connecting to the one they were in.
Leo turned the corner to see indeed, there were marks in the dirt, showing someone had been dragged. However at the end of the path someone clearly tried to hide their tracks, the dirt moved back and forth as if someone had used their hand to try to even it out. But there was clearly one thing this person didn't anticipate, the attempt at hiding the drag marks just left more. Scratchy types of marks.
The scratchy like marks stopped abruptly. "Hey Mikey! Remember how those armed guards found the hidden city in the first place?" Leo asked.
"Yeah? They found the trapdoor in the dumpster." Mikey called back.
"Get me a broom."
* * * *
Leo pushed on his sword, trying to pry open the block of metal. Leo's theory had been correct, there was a trapdoor hidden by dust. If Ava wasn't dragged here, then they would have had to fly her away. Leo groaned as he strained to push the door up before stopping, pulling his sword out. "Get me some explosives. Or Yokai with a forge or some kind of fire." Leo stretched, watching as the guards found a Yokai who could breathe fire, a 1 eyed cyclops-looking Yokai named Dave. Dave crouched down, taking a deep breath before blasting fire at the door. Leo grabbed a sharpened metal pipe and began stabbing where Dave breathed, bending the metal the hotter it got.
"Get me some sharp metal! We're gonna chip away at this thing." Leo ordered, giving Dave a wave signaling he could stop. Once the guards came back with various types of metal, sharpened pipes, fence steaks, pitchforks, and got into place. Dave breathed fire back onto the hatch, the guards poking and chipping at the metal until finally one broke through. Dave took a break as the men continued chipping away, making the hole larger and larger until it was big enough for Leo to get through. Leo jumped down. "Keep chipping. Send more guards when it's big enough." He instructed.
As the guards continued working on the hole and more and more guards were able to jump down, Leo started walking. He drew his swords, peeking around the corner. There were two people in the long hallway, too far away to hear. There was one blond woman and a dark haired man. Leo twirled his sword, causing a portal to open beneath them. He opened the exit portal just on the wall, but just big enough so that both of their heads squished through. Leo put his hands on their mouths before they could scream. "Now listen up." Leo ordered. "I am going to uncover your mouths. Scream, and I will close this portal with your heads still in, decapitating you both, leaving your families to wonder when you will come back from this job without knowing you're dead, because there will be no bodies. I will send you to the witch town for them to use your eyeballs as potions. Or you will cooperate."
The two humans quickly nodded, terrified. "Good." Leo released their faces, and took out a folded picture, his gaze softening slightly as he looked down at it. Leo's phone had broken during the kraang invasion, but as a gift to help him grieve, Donnie had traced back this picture of Ava and him at Alberto land, just when they went there to hang out. Simpler times. He showed the picture to them, pointing to Ava. "Where is this woman?" He demanded.
"...The Yokai we took in today?" The woman asked, looking at the other. "Wasn't Kris taking care of her?" The other human nodded.
Leo activated his swords, sending light flashing off them to intimidate them. "We don't know where she is! I'm not in charge of Human affairs and neither is Sharon!" The man insisted.
"She's probably with Kris." Sharon offered.
"Who the hell is Kris?! Where are they?!" Leo punched the wall beside their heads.
"The firing range! Kris takes Yokai to the firing range!" Leo's blood ran cold at their answer.
"...Tell the boys at the palace they got a new set of humans coming to the dungeons." Leo pushed the human's heads into the portal, closing it. "And get me a torch. We're burning this place down."