Chapter 6
Cornered
Michelangelo looked to his left and saw Mamba. Turning to his right, he saw Cobra. And right in front of him stood a brand new mutant that he didn't recognise. All he knew, all he needed to know right then, was that he was unarmed, injured, alone and outnumbered, in other words: in big trouble.
"Okay, I'll bite; where did you find this one?" he asked, pointing at Coral.
"Coral? Oh, she's just a little something that the good doctor Arden whipped up." said Mamba.
"Yeah, he thought we could use some more company, a little more bite." said Cobra. "See it as a reward for allowing master Shredder to offing the brother of that lizard slut of yours."
"You freaks have no idea how much you messed everything up." he said through gritted teeth, his eyes narrowed in anger, not only because of the deed, but also because of the events that followed it, with Callum becoming Diablo and threatening them all.
"Anything that puts the pain on you, your brothers and your sister, not to mention that vermin of a master you've got." said Mamba, now standing dangerously close to Michelangelo's side.
"Speaking of pain…" Cobra said, grabbing onto Michelangelo injured arm, making him wince from the strong grip. "You've gotten some of your own I see. I wonder how that happened." A smirk grew on her lips as she bared her fangs, small droplets of venom falling from them.
"Wouldn't you want to know!" Michelangelo snapped.
"Don't think you can keep any secrets from us, boy!" said Mamba. "You're in no shape to fight, and we got ways to loosen your tongue."
"And I soo love those ways, especially when I get to drip my venom all over your face!" said Cobra, almost shaking with excitement.
"Both of you talk too much." Coral cut in. "You're being very ineffective. Just be done with him, and take him back to base."
"Shut up, you newbie!" Cobra snapped back, hissing loudly in protest. "We're allowed to have some fun!"
"Well, if you girls want to have some fun, I won't bother you, so I'll just leave you alone, okay?" Michelangelo said, not really thinking that they would allow him to leave, but it was worth a shot.
"Not so fast, we're not done with you yet." said Mamba, taking hold of Michelangelo's right arm.
"You're still wasting time." said Coral. "Every second you give him is another opportunity for him to escape."
"Escape? Him? He's a goofy fool, all surrounded and alone. He doesn't even have his viper slut of a girlfriend with him. How could he possibly escape?" Mamba asked Coral, the two exchanging glares.
"How about if I got some help from a certain friend of mine?" Michelangelo asked in a confident voice, looking up into the sky with a smirk. "A certain Dragon friend."
Mamba and Cobra quickly followed his line of sight into the sky, as did Coral when her comrades did, though she wasn't sure what the turtle meant. However all they saw were stars and clouds, but that short distraction was all Michelangelo needed.
He quickly broke free from the snakes' grip, despite the pain it caused to his left arm, then jumped and performed a split kick, striking Mamba and Cobra in their faces just as they looked back at him, seeing only the soles of his feet as they collided, and being felled to the floor the very next second.
"See ya!" Michelangelo yelled as he ran as quick as he could, jumping to the next building before the others could follow him. Before Mamba and Cobra could get back on their feet and shake away the stars, Coral was already hot on Michelangelo's trail.
"Damn, this chick was fast!" he said as he kept running and jumping, hoping to find a place where he could safely get back into the sewers, constantly throwing glances over his shoulders to keep track of Coral, and to his dismay, she seemed to slowly be gaining on him.
Needing to think quickly, he got an idea on how to deal with her. A stupid idea by all definitions that he could think of, but it might just work.
Making another jump across buildings, he kept her in his line of sight over the shoulder, and as soon as he landed on the rooftop, and she jumped after him, Michelangelo launched himself backwards towards her. Despite how quick reflexes Coral actually had, she wasn't prepared for the unpredictable nature of Michelangelo, or his strategy, and didn't have the ability to avoid him mid-jump. The results being the two of them colliding in the air above the alleyway, Michelangelo's shell hitting Coral's upper torso and face, and with the momentum of the two mutants cancelling each other out, they both fell to the ground below them.
Luckily for both of them, there were several clotheslines beneath them, which broke their fall somewhat, but couldn't support their sudden weight and quickly snapped. Coral hit the ground first, and still fairly hard, as she remained mostly still, but groaned loudly in pain and disorientation.
Michelangelo, on the other hand, had managed to grab on to one of the clotheslines just as it snapped, and swung into the wall instead, before dropping to the ground. He was slightly winded and a bit sore, but mostly in one piece, though his left arm hurt even more than before, and a small red stain had started to form.
"Shell… next time I need to do that, I want a stunt double…" he groaned as he got back on his feet. Quickly glancing over to Coral, and seeing that she was still moving, he decided that he wasn't going to wait for her to get ready for round two.
Hurrying off in the opposite direction, he found a manhole that he descended down through, making sure that no one was following him as he made his way back to the lair as fast as he could.
But one image would haunt him for some time. While he was pulling the lid back in place, he caught sight of Coral eyeing him from her sprawled out position, and it was a look more intimidating than one that could kill.
A little while later, a still sore Coral had climbed up onto the rooftops again, only for Mamba and Cobra to arrive shortly after.
"Where's the turtle?!" Mamba demanded.
"What does it look like? He got away." Coral responded, rubbing her left shoulder.
"Some help you turned out to be!" Cobra complained, sticking her forked tongue out at Coral.
"I at least did better than the two of you!" Coral snapped back. "I told you to stop fooling around, but you didn't listen, and then he escaped! He might have gotten away from me, but it's your fault that he got loose to begin with!"
The serpents were hissing violently at each other and were about to come to blows, but the timely arrival of the rest of their team interrupted them.
"What's going on?!" Komodo half roared as he, Nile and Gila arrived on the rooftop, the large lizard's eyes sweeping over the snakes and making them stand down, if only a little.
"It's all Coral's fault!" Cobra said, pointing at the colourful serpent.
"No it ain't!" Coral objected.
"What's whose fault?" Nile asked, mostly since he didn't follow what the snakes were going on about.
"We had just managed to capture one of the turtles. Michelangelo, if you're curious." Mamba explained. "But Coral let him get away!"
"I didn't let him get away! He sucker-punched me as I was chasing him after he escaped from you two!"
"And you couldn't catch him! He had one arm in a sling!" Cobra objected. Hearing that, however, Gila burst out in a fit of laughter.
"Are you serious saying that the three of you, let Michelangelo of all turtles escape, even though he was handicapped?!" Gila laughed. "Man, aren't you a set of total losers!"
Nile joined his fellow lizard's laughter, and the snakes all began hissing at them, but Komodo wouldn't let them do anything more.
"Shut up! All of you!" he snarled. "Tonight haven't yielded any results so far, so we might as well head back to base. As for tonight… we will not report anything, as nothing happened. Understood?"
The rest of the Venomous Five all nodded, while Coral frowned at Komodo, yet looked away when he met her gaze.
"Fine." she said.
Giving Coral one final look, Komodo then began leading the others back to the Foot HQ, during which time Coral kept analysing her 'team'.
'They don't take things seriously enough! We had that turtle! If only Mamba and Coral had incapacitated or killed him when they had the chance, he wouldn't have gotten away! And Komodo refuses to report this, that's disloyalty towards our master! If we fail, we must be punished for it! But I will not report this either, not now at least. As master Arden ordered me, I will maintain my cover and collect all the evidence needed to determine the loyalty of these five.'
Thinking back on what had happened, on how Michelangelo had escaped, she felt a hatred grow inside of her, focused on said turtle.
'The next time I see that turtle, I'll make sure that we won't be able to get away! And his girlfriend too if she shows up!'
Close call for Mikey, but luckily he can be pretty quick when it calls for it, even when it involves thinking.
The mood among the V5(6? 5.5?) isnt getting any better, and Coral has just gotten some evidence for later. Not to mention a serious dislike for poor Mikey. Can't wait to see how this plays out.