Episode 12: Winks From the Past – Part 2
Jess groaned inside herself. She had promised Ethan she would be careful and now she was in a room with Hun and Tigerclaw. She cursed her bad luck. Is Tigerclaw stalking us or what? Jess peeked over the boxes again to see that Tigerclaw now stood in front of Hun who looked up at the huge lion with a raised eyebrow. "Tigerclaw?" He said it with a level of condescension that Jess found to be rather brave. "I was informed that Master Shredder himself would be coming to speak with me about our plans."
Tigerclaw shook his head and fingered the gun at his side. "The plans have been changed. Master Shredder needed to visit Japan this week on personal business. I was assigned to oversee the preparations for next weeks plans to take the city."
Jess gaped at them and then slowly hid lowered her head to make sure she wasn't seen. Take the city? What is that supposed to mean? It didn't sound good. Jess pulled out one of her kama's. She would need to be ready in case things went really south, and they almost always did. "Hm." Hun muttered under his breath and folded his arms across his tattooed chest.
Pulling the gun from his waist, Tigerclaw slowly began to load it, running his hand up it's barrel like he was imagining shooting Hun with it. Each bullet clicked into his gun loudly and intentionally. "Master Shredder must have your decision tonight, Hun. The mutagen has been prepared. All we need now are a handful of your Purple Dragons. They will be added to our mutant army." He finished clicking in the final bullet and then slowly closed the gun's holster shut and cocked it.
Hun watched the whole thing and Jess watched from the side of the large, old, and splintered wooden boxes as his expression changed. He almost looked crestfallen, even behind his big black glasses. He sighed and finally said, "Very well. We have a few of our Purple Dragon's in mind."
Holstering his gun again, Tigerclaw turned, his scarf waving behind him as he moved his massive torso. "Very well." He said, his Asian accent showing thickly as always, "I will inform Master Shredder when he returns tonight. We will collect you and your Purple Dragon's when we are ready." He began to walk towards the door again, but Hun, arms still folded across his chest piped up: "Tigerclaw. Tell me, why is that Master Shredder went to Japan? What could he possibly find there that my own could not provide him?"
Tigerclaw paused and turned to him, his face solemn and serious enough to scare Jess even more. "The ally he brings puts even me to shame." he said and then he slammed the doors open and Jess inched her way around the boxes so as not to be seen, trying to keep her breathing down and ensuring that her long bushy tail was behind the boxes as well. Tails were stupid. Now she knew why Ethan hated ripping holes in his pants to accommodate the stupid thing.
Hun turned his back and Jess quickly jumped out from behind the boxes and slipped back out into the the rainy streets, not looking back to see if Hun had seen her or not.
Ethan walked carefully through the sewers, trying to keep his padded feet as quiet as possible. He had drawn his naginata. Okay, Ethan. What's the plan? He asked himself. When he had school he wasn't incredibly good at science, but it seemed that when he had spoken about emotional things – things that the real Jess would remember, the brain worm had lost control. Maybe he could do something like that again.
Except I know next to nothing about Karai's real self.
Ethan frowned at himself and half considered turning back – but he didn't.
Tiny water droplets from the sewer ceiling plopped down onto his head. This tunnel must have recently been rained. He splashed through the shallow water until he reached the huge circular tunnel that led all the way up tot he street. It was the same place that they met Sam for the first time and where they had fought against Tigerclaw and Bloodmaw.
Sitting on the other side casually was Karai.
She had her legs crossed, her elbow on her knee, chin resting on the palm of her hand. In her other hand she was spinning her short blade absentmindedly. Her feet dangled over the long drop to the water below that divided the two from each other. Karai's serpent-green eyes were fixed on Ethan from the second he appeared from the shadows. At Ethan's shocked expression she said, "I heard you coming. Sewer's aren't necessarily the most quiet of places like people think." she smiled slyly, her pale skin seemed to glow in the light of the moon that filtered through the drain far above them. "Then again, I don't know if there is a place that you can be quiet enough that I can't hear you."
Ethan didn't say anything, but he did blush – if Red Panda's could. He gripped his weapon tighter. "You've gotten serious haven't you." It wasn't much of a question. She uncrossed her legs and straightened at the lip that the edges of her feet were touching and put her hand on her hip. "I gotta say, Ethan, I don't much like it. You'll start to bore me."
"Would it bore you even more if I told you I wasn't here to fight you?" Ethan asked.
"A lot actually." Karai's eyes narrowed and she stopped spinning her weapon and gripped it tightly at her side.
Holding his breath, Ethan realized how dangerous of a situation he was in. Karai wasn't just flirty. If anything, her flirtiness was starting to fade away to something more violent and frightening. Something much more similar to Shredder and how he carried himself. "Do you know what happened to Jess?" Ethan asked. "Do you know what they did to her?"
Karai rolled her eyes, "Um. Yes. They mutated her. I was in the same room."
"No." Ethan said it before she had entirely finished her sentence. "I mean after. Do you know what they did to Jess after they mutated her."
Karai seemed confused by the question, and that confusion mingled immediately with annoyance that spread across her face as she began to circle around the pit in the floor towards Ethan, the blade still clenched tightly in her hand. "I don't know what you're trying to get at Ethan." She said. "And you were right – this conversation is getting boring really fast."
Ethan held his naginata tighter, but did not take his eyes off of Karai. "They put some kind of brain worm inside her. It was a creature that was controlling her every action so that she would attack us. Did Shredder tell you that? Did you know that was what they did to her?"
Karai seemed to have slowed in her step, but the annoyed look on her face only flickered for a moment. But it was long enough for Ethan to know that if she had witnessed the brain worm, she didn't know what its purpose was. She had no idea that Jess had fought them in Shredder's weapons room against her will. "You are a liar." Karai snapped, "Stockman isn't smart enough to come up with something like that."
Chuckling aloud a little, Ethan couldn't argue with that. Stockman seemed more like a dweeb to Ethan than anything. How he managed to create them, Ethan didn't know, but he knew that somehow, he had. Now the quest was to convince Karai as well. She had circled now so closely that they were almost parallel with one another. He could see the slits of her glimmering snake eyes and the whites of her fangs as her lips moved. He could see the moonlight glancing off of her earrings. "It's true." Ethan said pathetically. He knew where this was going and did not like it at all. "Karai, you need to remember who you are. Who you really are. You need to remember the turtles!"
She paused again, now only a few feet away from him, her eyes searching his face. Ethan flattened his ears on his head nervously. There was some clarity in her eyes – he had seen it when he mentioned the turtles. She said once that he reminded her of one of them, maybe he could tap into that a little bit more. Leo wasn't it? He opened his mouth to speak, but Karai beat him to it. "I do remember the turtles." She said, her voice as deep and dark as the sewers that surrounded them. "I remember that they must all die. Right after I finish you!" She lunged, swinging her blade and Ethan immediately slammed her attack out of the way with the side of his naginata and jumped backward.
She hissed furiously and slashed again. Ethan moved his staff to the left – then the right, down to block a swipe at his legs and then flipped it back up to dodge a strike at his head. She was quick. With each attack, splinters of wood kicked off the side of his weapon. He could hardly bring himself to fight back. If there was one thing he didn't want to do – it was hurt Karai.
Blade and steel danced around Ethan, grazing at the edges of his fur, cutting air and nearly cutting skin. He had to get out of her whirlwind of vicious, focused attacks. He could see her glowing green eyes in between strikes and the ever present danger of her fangs and the snakes he knew she could produce tried to distract him.
Gotta get out of her zone of attack.
He jumped backward onto his hands and with a spin in the air, he jumped the pit in the floor and skidded across the cement on the other side, nearly missing the edge of the landing. Karai jumped right behind him.
"Mistake!" Ethan shouted aloud and he brought his staff up, moving it with deeper speed and power with his leg to slam Karai out of the air like a baseball with a bat. But suddenly his weapon was snatched, her arms elongating into snake mouths that snapped closed around the wood and she jumped, landing on the wall above him and with a precise attack, her feet slammed into his chest. He fell with a thud and dropped his weapon to the floor. His nails scrapped against the cement to slow his fall, his legs dangling over the drop into the water below.
Karai stopped by Ethan's hands and knelt down to look at him with her coy smile. "No, Ethan." She said. "Your mistake was ever believing that you could take me on by yourself." Ethan glared up at her, wanting more than anything to get to her – to force that worm out of her so she could be her normal self again – what ever her normal self was actually like.
She straightened up again and brought her heel down on one of Ethan's hands.
The pain burst through his knuckles as he felt them jam and suddenly holding on with that hand was agony. It slipped over the edge, leaving only his one hand holding him up. "Karai, don't do this!" Ethan yelled up at her, "Think! Remember! Leo – remember Leo!" he knew he was grasping at straws, but he still remembered her mentioning him once before and it seemed to have had an effect on her.
It did again.
Karai lifted her foot and backed away, her eyes widening slightly. Her eyes squinted as if she was experiencing a migraine and she clutched at her head. "STOP!" She yelled. Ethan knew for certain now, she was struggling within herself. The real Karai wasn't completely gone – not yet. He pulled himself up while he had the chance and rolled on the ground to his weapon and he leaped to his feet, using his foot to kick the staff into the air and he snatched it, spinning it into another attack position. He tried to ignore a dull ache in his heart at how effective this was.
Now is not the time to be jealous. Ethan thought. "Karai, you have to fight it! Don't let Shredder control you anymore."
"NO!" She turned on him, her eyes glaring, "I won't let you control me anymore!" her back split, her body trembling, shaking and then splitting. Ethan stepped back in horror as suddenly he was looking at a huge, Karai-sized serpent, eyes as green as emeralds, body as sleek and purple as an amethyst. Two serpents made up where her arms had once been.
"Don't make me fight you." Ethan said, – mostly out of his honest desire not to get eaten.
"You have no choice!" She slithered forward and the snake hands snapped at him. He retreated backward, keeping his naginata out to defend himself, but if Karai had been fast before, she was impossible to pin down now. Her tail came out like a whip and nearly threw Ethan off the ledge again. His hand that she had stomped on screamed in pain.
He had to find an opening and end it.
He couldn't hold back a second longer or it was going to be over for him.
She snapped at his naginata, nearly ripping through his hands that held onto the pole for dear life. Karai came in for another attempt and Ethan winced, "Sorry, Karai!" he slammed the butt of his weapon into the side of her elongated snake face and she screamed, writhing and retreating several feet, her snake-like hands up to defend her in case Ethan pressed the attack – and that was what Ethan did.
Running toward her, he spun his naginata for momentum and slammed the side of the wood into her hands, throwing them out of his way. This had to end now. Karai had to –
No.
Ethan couldn't think of ending her life. He would rather lose himself than do that.
An idea burst into his mind to break her free.
It was insanity.
But he had to try it.
It was now or never – an opening had appeared, it was either stab her or –
The alert went off again.
Kaela sat bolt up from the couch where she had been slumped and immediately felt a wave of dizziness and sickness coming over her stomach. "Ugh," She looked down at her phone, "How long was I out?" It appeared to only have been about an hour. She groaned and pulled her legs off from the couch and stumbled to the lab, her legs still annoyed with having to work so soon after sleeping.
The red light was flashing and that meant the screen was on and something else had gotten in. She suddenly remembered in horror that Ethan and Jess were gone. Last thing she remembered, Ethan had said he was going to see if he could figure out why the alarm had gone off before. "ETHAN! JESS!" Kaela yelled to the lair, desperately hoping that one of them was going to respond back.
Nobody did.
"Oh no!" She ran to the computer and practically threw herself on top of it as she turned it to look at the security camera screens. What she saw made her mouth drop open and for a second she honestly believed that she was dreaming. Ethan was in one of the sewers – his red panda markings, the white bandanna around his face and the naginata at his feet were evidence of that.
But he was kissing a giant snake on the lips.
"K-KARAI?" Kaela burst out – not sure whether or not to laugh, scream, or pass out. "Wha . . ?" She stared at the screen closer to see if her eyes were betraying her from the nap – but undoubtedly Ethan was kissing her as she slowly morphed back into a human. Then he collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Without another thought, Kaela burst from the lab, snatched up her ribbon dart from the floor and ran into the red glow of the railroad to find Ethan.
Okay, maybe that was a stupid idea. Ethan could already feel something terrifyingly familiar.
Poison.
The effects of Karai's snake poison were already starting to rush through his veins, making his skin burn, his head feel hot and his vision go dizzy. He gazed at the blurry image of Karai who was on all fours. She gave a coughing heave and the next sound Ethan heard was a scream – a scream that matched identically with the one the worm had given when Jess had thrown it up.
"K-Karai." Ethan muttered and he reached towards her blurry image, but she had stood up and stumbled away until she vanished down one of the corridors and Ethan felt himself loosing consciousness, the effects of the venom taking over.