I DO NOT own Ninja Turtles
Tzu was panting hard as he made his way to the street level. Takara was worth so much to him, and unfortunately the Shredder knew that. As long as he did the bidding of that tyrant, Takara would be safe from harm.
But it was taking all his strength to just walk to the lair. How had he come to this, ready to murder his friends in cold blood? Saki was cruel, and he had Tzu under his thumb. Tzu would never be whole without Takara, so she would be safe as long as he answered to Saki. But if he tried to rebel, he would lose a half of himself. If he couldn't do the bidding Saki forced him to do, Takara would pay heavily. But if he did, he would lose Takara's love and loyalty. What was the right thing to do?
He approached the lair with his weapons in his hands. He wished he didn't have to do this.
Leonardo was standing at the entrance. He saluted to Tzu when he saw his figure emerge from the shadows.
"How did you escape, Tzu? Where's Takara?" he asked. Tzu swung one of his weapons at Leonardo, who looked surprised and then shocked as Tzu knocked him to the floor and leapt on top of him, raising the iron weight to strike.
"What are you doing, Tzu?" Leonardo said, as Tzu struck at his head. Gripping the descending weapon, the two wrestled until the others arrived at the spot to drag Tzu from Leo and disarm him. Held by Raphael and Donatello, his weapon held by Michelangelo, Tzu went limp.
"What's gotten into you?" Raphael asked, surprised by Tzu's attack on Leo. "Have you lost your mind? We're your friends, and you attack us as though we're enemies."
"Let him explain himself, Raphael," Leonardo said as he picked himself up.
But Tzu was too filled with remorse to speak. What had he turned into in the brief service of Saki? Why had he not thought of the obvious –hatch a plan to rescue Takara with his remaining friends? What sort of monster had been released in his heart?
"What's up with you, Tzu?" Leonardo asked. "You meant me serious harm, if not worse. Why did you act like one of the Shredder's thugs?"
Tzu bowed his head, desperate to hide his face as tears began to course down his cheeks. At last, he summoned the strength to tell his allies what had happened.
"Takara came to my rescue," he said. "She was caught in the process, and is now a prisoner to Saki, a tool he used to bend me to his will."
"What are you talking about?" Raphael said as he released Tzu now that he seemed to be in control of himself. "What's the Shredder done to Takara?"
"He put a contraption around her. At the touch of a button, she receives a dose of electricity. He's threatened to use it if I try to resist him. He sent me here, to kill you. I am so sorry for my actions, Leonardo. But if Saki finds out I didn't do it, I will have failed to protect Takara, and he will punish her in my place."
"That Saki is a barbarian!" Raphael snarled. "I say we go topside and teach the Shredder a lesson he won't forget in a hurry!"
"As long as I do not return, he will think that I have abandoned Takara. If I return empty-handed, Takara will suffer. But she will think the worst of me if I do hand him what he ordered me."
"What proof does he want of our defeat?" Donatello asked.
"Your weapons," Tzu said quietly.
"Then you shall have our weapons," Michelangelo said, stretching out his weapons of choice towards Tzu; the gesture was copied by all of the others. Tzu looked around at them in amazement: only a moment ago he had attacked them, and here they were surrendering their weapons to him as though it had never happened.
"We'll help you rescue Takara," Raphael promised. "She's our friend as well as yours, Tzu. And if the Shredder attacks one of us, he attacks us all."
"Now, let's get planning," Donatello said.
I sat in silence on the floor, waiting with my worst enemy for the arrival of my best friend. There was no point in trying to test the chains –I would just get a dose of electricity for my trouble. For hours we waited.
"I wonder if your friend had finished his task by now," Saki said tauntingly.
"Friendship is not a word you would understand," I said softly, knowing very well that I would get a painful jolt of electricity for insubordination, but I was past caring. "He would never harm the others, not even to save me."
"Are you sure about that?" the Shredder asked, his eyes moving from my face to the direction of the doors. With a sinking feeling in my heart, I turned slowly. There in the doorway stood Tzu. His hands were grasping the weapons that I knew at once to be the weapons of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo. My heart plummeted. Had he really performed an act of cold blood, and against our friends?
The Shredder was enjoying the shock in my face as Tzu made his way forward, seeming to prove me wrong with every step. Anger bloomed in my heart as the impassive monster that Tzu had become made his way forward and bowed before Saki, holding his trophies out before him.
It was too much. From that moment on, Tzu was no longer my friend, but the servant of the man who we had once sworn to beat together. He had completely betrayed my trust in him by committing this foul act, and I would treat him with nothing but the loathing I held for Saki himself.
As Tzu stood, I lost what little self-restraint I had left, and sprung from my place and attacked my erstwhile friend. I heard Saki's laughter, and knew he wasn't punishing me because he was enjoying the prospect of a fight. Tzu was unbound, and had the advantage of being stronger than I was. He wrestled me to the ground and held me down. I knew he was trying to tell me something through his eyes, and our invisible connection, but I didn't want to see anything from Tzu, and raised my arms, striking him around the head. He fell dazed to one side, and I took advantage to climb on his chest and club him with both arms. I was lent power by my fury. He had been the other side of our team, but his betrayal went deep, and now all I wished was to be rid of the monster below me.
A sharp pain jolted through my body caused me to cry out in pain and fall from my perch on his chest. The pain of the electric shock caused me to gasp for air when it was past. Tzu got to his feet and stepped away from me, apparently uncaring for my pain. He turned to Saki, and bowed before him.
"My Lord, for years I have wondered why I was created. Now I know the purpose of my life; I was designed to serve you. I am your servant. Instruct me as you will."
Pain coursed through my heart at this spoken betrayal, worse than any dose of pain that the contraption could ever have administered. Where was the Tzu I remembered and had always respected? Before he had left, he had sought only to protect me, and now he acted as though I was beneath his notice. Saki leered at me as I struggled to keep from crying.
"Your fellow creation has come to his sense, Takara," he said. "Why resist me any longer when you have no friends on that side of the line? You have so much potential. It is a shame to keep you tied up and restricted. Why not soar free as my loyal servant?"
"I'll join you when hell freezes over," I snapped angrily.
"Very well," Saki said. "Stay tied to that ring and only dream of freedom. It is your choice, and you have made a poor one."
On a rooftop only a block away from the Foot Clan Headquarters, the four turtles were moving ever nearer, readying for the attack against the Shredder to free Takara. With them was a rather anxious Adkins. Once he had heard the discussion, he had asked to take part and protect Takara. He was not much of a fighter, but he still carried the necessary knowledge to enter into the rooftop home of the leader of the Foot Clan without any detection.
Night had fallen when they made the jump to the rooftop garden. Adkins was nowhere near as agile as the four turtles were, having never trained in the arts of the ninja. Even when he had been younger, he had been unfit, preferring to be inside with his computers. So, as they scaled the outside of the building, he clung on around Leonardo's neck.
They knew Tzu would be acting as the apparently loyal servant of the Shredder now, but he was in on the plan. To free Takara, he would have to have access to the keys to free her chains and the cruel contraption Tzu had described. Slowly they crept into the temple-like building, watching for any hostiles.
Takara was there, sleeping on the floor, curled under her wing as normal. And Tzu slipped into the room from the far side of the building, saluting as he saw the five. He tossed the turtles back their weapons.
"I wasn't expecting you," he said in a whisper to Adkins.
"We can discuss this later," Adkins said. "Anyway, I'd do anything to help you two. I've told you two that before. I feel responsible for all that I did to you, and now for your safety."
"There'll be plenty of time to do the catch-up thing once we're all out of here," Donatello said, who had been making his way towards Takara even as Adkins and Tzu had been talking.
I felt someone shaking me awake. All afternoon I had been refusing to even look at Tzu, and only when he had retreated to the better rooms for the night had I allowed myself to cry over Tzu. I had been his friend for years, but this was a side to him I could never have imagined actually existed.
When I uncurled from my position on the floor, it was to see Donatello leaning over me. That was the last thing I had expected, and I stared in amazement.
"You didn't think I'd really abandoned you for that madman, did you?" Tzu asked as he came to crouch next to me. He was holding a key and put it into the lock of one of the two clamps around my wrists. I realised how foolish I had been –he had never left me, but had been playing a part to gain the trust of the Shredder. And I could see that all four of the turtles were now armed with their weapons again.
Between Tzu and Donatello, I was soon freed from the wrist manacles and almost cut out of the cruel contraption. Tzu passed me my blade on a pole, and I slung it over my back, feeling like a complete fool.
"I'm sorry," I apologised. Tzu pulled me into his arms, and held me tight.
"We're a team, and nothing can separate us. You know that."
Just then a shocking pain coursed through the contraption that wasn't quite off, hitting me hard. And I wasn't the only one to sink to the floor in pain; Donatello had been working on removing it, and Tzu had been holding me to him. Then the pain died away.
"I am not surprised by your treachery, Tzu," said a cold voice I had no problem recognising. Saki had been hiding here the whole time. He stepped out of the shadows, dressed in a suit of black armour, the three-clawed instrument attached to his right hand. "And I am glad you are all here. Now I can get rid of all my enemies in one swoop."
He raised the remote high. I braced myself, ready for the pain that would come. But someone had leapt at the Shredder, knocking the remote from his hand and taking him by surprise. It was Adkins, the man who had shown remorse and set us free, who had helped to protect us from being found.
"You are nothing more than a coward!" Adkins shouted.
"So you decided to turn up again, as an enemy," the Shredder said coldly. "Now I can punish you for all your failings."
He punched Adkins so hard I could hear a rib crack, and then threw Adkins from him, so hard he crashed through the glass window and fell over the edge of the building.