Chapter 13

On the Run

Standing over the dead body of the female medical ninja, Coral admired her handiwork for a moment, but no more than that, as she turned back to the computer. If she wasn't short on time before, she certainly was now.

The Foot had betrayed her by turning her into the freak she now was, and she would not let that go unpunished. But as she stood by the computer, she realised that she didn't know how to punish them.

Leaking sensitive information to the public wouldn't help, as the Foot had very skilled personnel to handle any sort of bad publicity, and even if they hadn't, any tactical advantages towards the Foot gained by the information would quickly become moot as security would be updated to compensate as soon as they realised that there had been a breach.

Even giving the information to the Hamato clan wouldn't do any good, and they certainly wouldn't trust her enough to trust it. Not to mention that she hated them with a passion, and wanted to punish them as well for their part in her fate.

No, it became painfully obvious that she did not have any potential allies at all. Unless she could somehow convince the Venomous Five to join her and turn on their masters, she would have to face the Foot all alone.

It would seem that her only real options at the moment were to flee, or to retain a facade until she could find another way. Given how she had just murdered one of the medical ninja, the latter option would not be easy to pull off, as she would most certainly be missed, having worked closely under doctor Arden, and he would easily deduce her fate should she be discovered.

Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it quickly. Time was of the essence.

"What is the meaning of this?!" an all to familiar voice exclaimed.

At the worst of times, doctor Arden himself had entered the lab, followed closely by the Venomous Five. Rather than wait for an answer, Arden quickly examined the deceased ninja, and came to a conclusion very quickly.

"You did this? Why, Coral?"

"You know damned well why, 'master'" she snarled back. "After all I've done for you all, THIS is how you repay me?!" she gestured at her mutant form, just as she had done with the medical ninja.

And just as with the fate of said medical ninja, it didn't take long for Arden to connect the dots.

"So that's how it is, huh. Very well then, my dear." he turned to the other five mutants. "Kill her."

"For real?! Gladly!" Mamba exclaimed, and both she and Cobra lunged at their former colleague with glee, followed closely by Gila, though Komodo and Nile hung back for a moment, the former taking stock of the situation, while the latter felt a bit conflicted for having brought all of this to Komodo and the doctor.

But they all soon discovered that Coral was no easy foe. Her most lethal venom was one thing, but now that she had recovered all her experiences from her life as Ren, she had a far greater advantage than they thought.

With expertly honed skills, she ducked under Cobra's spray attack, and quickly jumped over Mamba, landing on Gila's head and launching herself from there towards the exit, swerving between Komodo and Nile before they got the chance to catch her.

Passing Arden by the doorway, Coral quickly lashed out with one hand, letting her claws rake the cheek on the healthy side of his face, causing the doctor to recoil in pain as she drew blood.

"After her, you slithering fools!" Arden yelled as he held his aching cheek, feeling the warm blood against his hand. It was nothing a quick shot of his healing serum couldn't fix, but the audacity of it hurt far more than the wound.

The Venomous Five wasted no time in pursuing their former comrade, but she had already gotten a sizeable head-start, and she knew the HQ well. It didn't take long before she had made her ways outdoor and escaped across the rooftops.

"Damn, the doc's gonna be pissed with us." Gila moaned.

"Well get after her then!" Komodo barked as he took the lead to hunt down the renegade mutant.

Around that time, Leonardo and Monalisa were taking a quick break during their own run. So far, they had not managed to uncover anything of interest about the Foot's recent activities, even investigating the place where Kyle had been found dead had yielded nothing of use for them.

For a while, the duo just stood and looked out across the city in silence, until Leonardo spoke.

"You know," Leonardo began, taking a deep breath. "I think Mikey was right. Some fresh air really does wonders some times."

"I guess." Monalisa said, and took a deep breath as well. Much to her surprise, a bit of the weight that she felt seemed to leave her body as she exhaled, making her smile a bit, even if it was a weak smile. It wasn't much, but it was a step in the right direction.

"I know that you may not want to talk about it, and there's no use to ask if you're okay, but how are you actually feeling, Mona?" Leonardo asked.

Monalisa sighed, deeply.

"…not good, Leo… not good… I know it's been a few weeks, but… I still can't get it out of my head…"

"I understand that. This last month must have been such a burden for you." he said, thinking on all that had transpired during that time.

At first, Monalisa reuniting with her brothers, Jake and Callum, should have been a cause for celebration, but it was a bittersweet reunion at best, and they brought dire news with them. Gina, Monalisa's mother, had passed away due to cancer, but also because she lacked the will to live on, something she lost after Monalisa's disappearance.

It didn't get any better when it was revealed that Callum had gone off the rails himself, constantly getting into trouble and worse, forcing Jake to constantly try and keep his brother out of trouble rather than living his own life.

Fate then decided to be even more cruel to the Freeman family, when Jake, Callum, and master Splinter had been captured by the Venomous Five, accidentally revealing to the Foot the boys relation to Monalisa, something that came to nearly cost Callum his life at the bladed hand of the Shredder.

In the end, Callum did survive this encounter, though only through the aid of their Mutopian friends, and the water of the magical well that they possessed, and in the process, he was mutated into a humanoid raven.

That was not the end of it however, as he now harboured bitter resentment to his siblings for what they did to him, later betraying Mutopia and going rogue, injuring many as he fled, including Monalisa herself. Now, under the name Diablo, he had become a great shadow that hung over the lizard lady.

"I'm… still very upset about what happened… I feel angry… guilty, even…"

"No one can expect anything else, Mona. But you did nothing wrong."

"Did I not?" she asked, looking at her adoptive brother with tears in her eyes. "I may not have intended it for things to turn out this way, but no matter how you turn it, my disappearance started all of this… my mother's death… Callum's decent… Diablo's betrayal… Mutopia being in danger… and all because I decided to take a shortcut nearly fifteen years ago. Those are facts."

"Every action has consequences, that is true, even those with the best of intentions, but we can never see all of them ahead of time. As for your decision to try and save your brother with the well, you did exactly what anyone else among the Mutopians would have done. It just… didn't work out the way we had hoped."

"Tell me about it…" Monalisa sighed, wiping her tears. "Of all the people that have been given a second chance with the well, my own brother had to be the first one that didn't deserve it."

Leonardo placed his hand on Monalisa's shoulder.

"You had to try." he said softly with a comforting smile on his lips, and Monalisa couldn't help but smile a bit herself.

No matter how much she wished that things had turned out differently, nothing she could do would ever change the past. She would have to live with her choices, no matter what they might have been, but at least she could take some comfort in that she had done the right thing with her brother, even if he had made a very different choice.

That was the thing with choices, if one allow people to make their own, you can't stop them from making the wrong ones.

She knew that she had made the right one, and she also knew that she did have her new family to lean on during her hard times. On top of that, she had managed to reconnect with Jake, so at least she had one brother back in her life.

She wasn't alright, and she probably wouldn't be for quite some time, but at least she wasn't alone. Many of her family and friends have often referred to her as a survivor, and they weren't wrong.

She had survived a lot of things in the past, and she would survive this as well.

"Thank you, Leo… I-" she began but stopped mid sentence when she saw something moving across the rooftops in the distance. Something black, red, blue, and white.

While she had never seen this with her own eyes, she knew instantly what it was, or rather who.

"That's her!" she shouted, much to Leonardo's shock, but not as much as when she took off after the figure. "It's Coral!"

"What?! Mona, wait!" but she didn't listen, she just ran, possibly even faster than she had ever before.

They had all agreed that killing this new mutant, Coral, on sight, was the best course of action with how deadly and big of a threat she was. And with all the frustration and anger than had built up within her, Monalisa saw this as the perfect opportunity to vent it on something more substantial than practice targets.

One final update before the year ends for me. Now Coral is on the run, and not only chased by her former allies, but also Monalisa.

How will this turn out?

Tune in next year to find out.