Chapter 16: Exposed

The sun was high and warm within Ninjago City with the soft breeze brushing in the streets. The quiet traffic of cars bustled largely on the roads with the city buses communting across the city. Citizens walked down the streets in hopes to reach to work on time or enjoy a day in the city. Nya perked her head to the sound of a car blaring its horn at her to turn her head to the car to step back onto the street to let the car pass her. She had to shake her head to clear her thoughts as she now had the chance to cross the street and walked down the streets. Sure it was a nice day in Ninjago, but something was on her mind. A couple things actually.

After of not visiting Ivy last night, she had to wonder what she and Oak were up to with stealing more or looking for perfume ingredients. Of course she fell asleep last night when hanging out with Jay and didn't wake up to scout out. To her, Ivy has been quiet. The other concern to her was Jay. All day, he has been avoiding her and not even talk to her. And when trying to ask him what was wrong, she was still ignored or have the door shut in front of her. She had to wonder if she done something wrong to him to have him like this. She sighed as she hoped he'll talk to her soon.

The samurai turned the corner to stop as she saw a group of women and girls crowding around a small shop in the shopping plaza of the city. She had to wonder what was happening to only shrug as it was probably a shopping sale. But she noticed a pink mist in the air to have her cat eyes enhance on the crowd to see the mist wafted over to a male bystander to stop in his tracks and turned to the crowd. Nya had to watch him walk to the crowd to walk herself over to the crowd to realize it was Ivy's perfume that was being sold. Due to her allergies though, even though Ivy said it wouldn't cause her allergies to act up, stayed away from the perfume spray to keep her eye on the male as he weaved his way past the crowd and purchased a bottle of the perfume to walk away. This caused her to be suspcious and tailed after him.

From a fair amount of distance, the raven haired girl eyed the blonde male as he turned into an alley to peer around the corner carefully. She watched him walk down calmly and reached into the bag to pull out the small pink bottle to spray it in the air. The pink mist clung into the air for a moment and moved closer to him to waft into his nose as he took a deep breath to drop the bottle to have it broke on the ground. "Ivy. . ." he sighed lovely to walk away.

Nya's eyes went wide to the reaction of the man with the perfume and watched him walk away to carefully walk over to the broken bottle. Her nose could catch a strong scent of perfume to put her shirt over her nose to help her allergies from reacting. Sure Ivy said it wouldn't cause those with allergies to react, but she was only taking precautions. The samurai carefully grabbed a small glass shard to bring it to her nose to sniff it, but blinked as it smelled familiar to her. One she recognized when she first went out as Catwoman and found Ivy in the sewer. It was what she used to have Oak in her lair. "Pheromones." she gasped to walk out of the alley to see the shopping plaza and enhanced her vision to see Ivy, in make up, selling the perfume to nod to herself as she'll visit her tonight.

She was right, Ivy was up to something.

The shop's bell rang as the last customer walked out of the shop, waving Ivy goodnight for the night and thanking her for the perfume bottle. Ivy too waved goodnight for the night of the last customer and locked her door for the night to turn the lights off and walked into the backroom. A sigh of accomplishment came from the makeup covered girl to slump onto the chair in the large storage room to rest her head back to recount of her day. A lot of customers, both male and female, coming for her perfume bottles, but more to her was a way to control the males. A sense of accomplishment for sure, in a week, Ninjago would be hers if she kept it up. Even when she has control of the Ninja, she would be unstoppable.

"Pheromones," a familiar voice spoke to have Ivy jump from her seat. "An chemical substance to attract the opposite gender to affect the behavior or physiology of others of the same species. An substance to warm a man's blood and have him fall for any girl." Nya, donned in her Catwoman uniform, fell from the ceiling to land behind Ivy. The meta-human turned in her seat to cross her arms across her chest and smirk at the girl. "Only they won't fall for the ones they love, they'll only fall for you. Controlling men to fall on their knees for you."

Her smirk was remained on her face to her hard stare and nonchantly pulled herself from her seat. "So you figured it out," she said as she paced back and forth in front of the girl. "I guess I should congratulate you."

"You're nothing but a liar." Nya hissed to grab a hold of her suit jacket. Ivy wasn't even fazed to it. "I always knew you were up to something. And now you're in some. . . plot to control people to do your bidding. For what purpose?"

A scowl look grew across the meta-human's face to waver her hand around her and a thick vine grew from the potted plant behind Nya. The samurai sensed it to quickly release the red head and jumped back in a flip to land on a high steel shelf as the vine lunged itself to the two, but avoided Ivy. "You obviously don't know what I feel." she scowled to the cat girl. "All I ever felt was betrayed, by the men I trusted; mostly with Oak. But he's no longer around."

"You killed him?" Nya inquired and hopped off the shelf to stand in front the girl.

"He killed me to become the thing I am today." Ivy hissed. "I felt like I return him a favor. But now with my abilities, I can do anything, have anything within my grasp. And with the men in my grasp, we could be unstoppable. Ninjago will be ours." Nya couldn't believe what she was hearing to feel her heart racing to her intentions. The power she has, consumed her into something corrupted. Her breath hitched a bit as Ivy had her hand out for her to take. "Join me. And I can make a better world to where it use to be."

Nya stared at the hand to think her options. Control of the men, but ruling Ninjago into her image. She couldn't let her take control of the land. "Never." she denied. "You've changed and you're not going to get away with it."

A smirk grew on the red head's face to walk over to her desk. She opened the drawer to pull something out and hid it from the samurai. "I knew you would say something like that." she spoke quietly. "And frankly, I wouldn't care if you joined me or not." She turned on her heels and tossed something over to Nya. The samurai caught it to move the cloth off to reveal it as a pistol. "And now you're holding a gun to me and the cops will be here momentarly." She pressed a button underneath her desk to have an alarm blaring with a red light flashing. Ivy screamed loudly to this.

Realization came to Nya to quickly drop the gun and ran off before the police arrived. And she knew the nearest police station was down the street. The samurai ran through the connected backrooms of the shopping plaza and stopped as she heard the sound of police sirens nearing to her and stopped to see racks of clothes around her to look down at her suit and back at the clothes. If they saw her, they would arrest her. But not if she was a civilian on the streets if she avoided them. Nya nodded to herself to grab a set of clothes to change into them quickly and threw her Catwoman suit into a duffle bag and used the fire exit to escape. The samurai cautiously walked down the streets calmly without making distingue of her presence with Ivy to merge with the people of Ninjago City and headed back home.

Sirens blared in the far distance of Ninjago City. Nya felt her heart racing to the sounds of them, but felt relieved once she saw the Destiny's Bounty within her field of vision. Once she reached Dareth's dojo, she carefully looked over both shoulders to see she was alone and gracefully leaped as a cat would to the roof and calmly walked into the ship. All seemed quiet for the samurai, but she could hear everyone was in the ship's living room to feel somewhat relieved and entered into her room and slammed the door shut behind her to press herself against it. She took deep breaths as it was over Ivy for now, but it felt all too fast for her.

"So enjoying a nightly stroll?" a voice broke the silence in the room. Nya let out a yelp to the surprise to have her eyes enhance in the darkness, but a lamp had clicked on to have her wince and allowed her vision to return. But she felt frozen to the sight of Jay in her room; looking hurt and angered. "With a particular. . .cat involved?"

Nya felt her breath hitch a bit. Her heart returned to its panicking state on the mention of the word cat. No way he had found out of her cat persona. "I. . .don't know what you mean?" she lied.

The lightning ninja kept his hard stare toward her to make her feel anixious as he walked over to her to grab a hold of the duffle bag. She tried to fight back, but felt petrified to retaliate and felt the bag retched from her grasp. Jay unzipped the bag to reach in and pulled out the cat mask to look at her. And Nya done was bow her head in shame. "Nya?" he asked.

"I'm sorry. . ." she replied sadly with the trace of tears in her throat. "I'm sorry, Jay. . . I really didn't want to tell you this or anything. After the fire back at the conservatory, I became a new person. Something deep within me makes me a whole new person on the outside. I'm a whole new Nya with that costume on."

"But with this, I feel betayed to this." Jay exclaimed and threw the mask to the floor. Nya jumped a bit to his rant. "You're not the Nya I know and love, you're a Nya taking the life of a criminal and I can't feel. . .anything special to this."

"The thing about the jewelry store wasn't my fault. I wasn't in control of myself." She picked the mask up to stare into the eye holes to sigh to herself. "I returned everything that I stolen-"

"Except for a necklace I found underneath your bed after last night. It was how I found out."

Nya had to keep her head bowed. "Okay yes, I missed that one. But still I'm not that kind of person. I fight along side with you as the samurai and as this cat person, I'm doing my own mission to find and avenge the one who killed me to become Catwoman." She placed the mask in the bag and gently grabbed his hand. "Jay, please, you have to understand."

The auburn haired teen gazed into her sorrow filled chocolate brown eyes to feel his own hazel eyes stinging with tears to wretch his hand away. He could tell she felt hurt as he was. "Then leave." he said, angered. Nya felt taken aback to the demand. "Leave and never come back. If you wish to be someone who is a criminal, then the team would never have a criminal on the team. I can't be in the same room if someone betrays me."

Nya felt tears escape from her eyes to the harsh demand, but bowed her head as she understood. Before she could leave, she gently took his hand to rest her head on his chest to cry silently. "I'm sorry." she said and looked up at him to gently press her lips against his to have them locked for a half a minute and released her grasp to turn and grabbed her bag to leave. Jay watched her leave and finally released the tears he was holding and left the room to retire to his to feel regret clung to him.

Her footfalls echoed in the quiet streets of the city. Her heart felt shattered to exposure of her secret, costing her relationship with the person she cared for. And now she was on her own. She stopped to glance over her shoulder to see the Bounty on the rooftop to sigh to herself as it was her fault to begin with. If she had never followed the cat, then none of anything woud've happened. And she wouldn't have betrayed Jay. This brought more tears to her and continued walking on.

Her ears perked to the sound of the ship's alarms, blaring loudly in her enhanced hearing. She knew that meant trouble was brewing, needing the Ninja's help. She wished she could be part of it, but if she turned back, Jay would expose her secret and would be out for good by everyone. The raven haired girl heard the loud rumbles of the two Spinjitzu vehicles racing down the street she was on and quickly hid into the alley to hide herself from everyone and watched the two vehicles drive past. She sighed as she watched everyone disappear.

Rawn. . .

A gasp escaped from the girl to turn her head to the sight of the Oroborus Mau sitting on a trash can lid, licking its paw. She couldn't help but glare at the cat. "This is all your fault!" she hissed at the cat. "If I haven't ever found or followed you, then my life wouldn't be such a trainwreck! Thanks to you, I lost everyone's trust and it's all your fault." She grabbed a glass bottle to throw it at the cat, but it missed and the Mau remained in its place to gaze at her with her large blue eyes. Nya felt fresh tears form in her eyes to release the stray ones. "What do you want from me?"

The Mau finally purred as it waited for her to say that and hopped off the bin to walk over to a newspaper that laid on the dirt ground and placed one of its paws on the page. Nya had to raise a brow to grab the discarded article to ponder at the headline. Her eyes darted back and forth to the article to feel her eyes widen with realization. "Oh no. . ." she gasped in her breath. Fossilized Seed Found, Said to be an Extinct Plant, Monstrous. "Ivy. . ." She gripped her bag tightly and started sprinting to where everyone else was heading had to reach the museum first before the worse happens.

Sirens blared loudly the entering of an unwelcomed guest along with the destruction of property. Thick green vines grabbed the elder overnight security guard and threw him across the lobby of the museum to render him into unconsciousness. Soft footfalls walked down the lobby with her green arms stretched out as her control of plants grew large and wide to create a forest to herself. Some even tore off the pan suit she wore to reveal the red flannel shirt she had on her top half and exposed her green legs. And the makeup she had on her face flaked off to reveal the real person underneath it all. Poison Ivy.

The meta-human gazed around the large lobby to find the fossilized seed she heard of, but saw it across from her. She allowed the plants around to destroy anything in her path as she casually walked to the display case that housed the large seed. Once on the top steps, she gazed through the glass to see the large seed that was larger than her head to smirk. The Venomous Poison Barb grew on her right arm to stare at the case to turn to Ivy to hiss happily and nuzzled on her cheek. Ivy had to rubbed the bulbed root to smile at it. "Soon my darling," she said. "Your ancestors will rise again." and shattered the glass casing.