As I detto before, me and those two knuckleheads surprisingly enough became a well-oiled, working machine and even as much as a unit. To them I was their leader and friend. To me, they were closer than family. Manfriedi was the cute one. He had this sort of tantalizing charisma..or a sleazy humor. I don't know what you'd call it. Then there was Johnson. He was heavily built with a towering structure and a deep-voiced laugh. The two weren't the brightest lights on the end of the string, but they were valuable all the same. Then came that dreadful night. We were travelling through New York after a mission. The moon was full tonight but dark clouds shrouded it like a hand over a flashlight. Suddenly two figures leaped out of the shadows and tackled little Manfriedi. He was smaller than I was but he was da far stronger. While he was able to hold off his attacker, one slammed into me, pining me to the wall. I struggled to kick him off, writhing and twisting trying to break free. The successivo thing I knew someone bowled into my attacker like an express train and I dropped to the ground. Johnson towered over me, holding out a bulky, thick flipper to me. I shook my head and got to my feet, wiping the blood from my beak where I'd bit my tongue. "Where'd they go?" I asked. I heard Manfriedy call from the entrance of a small store across the street, "Skipper!" he called, "They went in here!" I threw myself down onto my front and slid across the street. Behind me I heard Johnson follow. Manfriedi dissapeared in through a broken window and we followed him inside, being cautious of the broken glass underfoot. It was pitch dark in the store, but I could almost feel hostile eyes on me. Old injuries tingled with a deeper paranoia than I'd ever felt before. My eyes cut from left to right. It was dead silent. Our footsteps, which normally slapped loudly on any surface, now were quiet. No one dared to breathe, and I think all three of us were all sub-conciously holding our breath. Then suddenly Manfriedi's pained scream ripped through the cold silence. Me and Johnson tensed and watched as Manfriedi pried a large shard of glass from his foot. Blood gushed from his foot. Manfriedi was going to bleed to death if we didn't do something, but as of then we had even bigger problems. Four o five shadowy figures dropped from above. One pried down Johnson behing me. Another grabbed Manfriedi da the throat and slammed him down. I realized in a diviso, spalato secondo that I was successivo just before I was knocked down. Strong flippers pinned my shoulders down and I felt the cold, sharp edge of a coltello blade drive down through my soft, exposed belly. I grimaced in pain and shoved the hostile pinguino off of me. I stood up shakily, gripping the handle of the coltello and drawing it out of me. To my right Manfriedi's attacker drove his coltello into the young penguin's heart. Rage surged through me and I ignored the pain and the blood running in thick rivers from my fresh wound. I darted like there was no tomorrow at Manfriedi's attacker, screaming 'rebel yell' and peirced the hostile through and through. Behind me Johnson gave a yowl of agony as two other attackers thrust their knives into his bulky flippers. Johnson knocked them aside and staggered foreward weakly. One of our attackers took the oppourtunity to take a strike at me. Johnson careened into me before I knew what was happened and sent me tumbling out of harm's way. I heard him roar in pain and collapse with a heavy thud to the floor in a pool of blood. That same rage filled my body again, but this time it triggered something else. I don't know what it was but in that momment something clicked inside me and for the first time in my life I felt good about myself. I colomba at the hostiles putting each one out of their misery as they came at me. The last one backed into a corner, holding something. I started to walk towards him, then stopped, my eyes catching sight of what he was holding. A bomb. The timer counted down 'one'. Then a blast of, heat, flames, shards of metal, and blood hit me in the face. The force knocked me back far against the other wall. I coughed up some droplets of blood and opened my eyes. I made out Johnson's limp figure lying beside Manfriedi's. I thought the huge pinguino was dead when I choaked his name. Then he opened his blood-shot eyes that seemed to glow against his black, ash-stained face. "G-go..Skipper..save yourself..my purpose..has..been served..go..please.." he lifted a flipper towards the doorway, "..go.." he whispered., then his flipper dropped to the floor. I didn't need to wonder if he was gone o not. I'd seen death enough to know......my family..was..dead. Then I caught sight of thesomething else. There was another bomb just a ways off. It was ready to blow. I scrambled to my feet just as the screen read 2. I leaped out the window and the wholw building went up in flames behind me with a radical explosion that shattered the window I'd gone through, the rest of the way. I landed on my feet, staggered, then collapsed. The heat of the flames around me faded and everything went dark. I could feel blood pouring out of me..and everything grew cold.