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Chris and Martin had been creature adventuring, just like any normal day. They had been following some jaguars and trying to get some new information if it was possible. They had had a fun time stalking through the jungles of the Amazon Rainforest in their jaguar creature power suits and playing with the cubs. Of course they had been checking in with Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy every now and again. They couldn’t risk getting lost.
“Hey, Martin! Check this out!” Chris exclaimed excitedly, showing off his leaping abilities by jumping from one branch in a tree to the other at high speeds. Martin chuckled at his brother’s antics.
“Nice one, bro!” Martin replied as he watched his brother jumping around. He was about to go join him when something caught his eye on the ground. It was a bit of reflected light. Like sunlight shining off of something silver. It was several feet away, but he was able to just barely spot it. A morbid curiosity overcame him and he went to investigate. Whatever it was, it was well hidden under some leaves. Martin very carefully moved the leaves around, and what he saw made him gasp and made his blood run cold.
A bear trap. A brand-new bear trap. The edges in the jagged teeth of the thing looked razor sharp. The chain to it was hooked to the tree next to it to prevent any sort of escape. Martin was furious. What the Hell was a bear trap doing out here? Were there poachers in the area that they hadn’t spotted? Were they nearby? These questions burned in his brain as he walked over to a large branch, picked it up, and brought it back to the trap. He didn’t hesitate to shove the branch into the trap, activating it with a resounding snap that spooked any hidden animals nearby. Martin grimaced at the now broken branch. If that had been an animal, their leg would have been broken clean off at the bone.
“Martin? What was that?” Chris asked, coming up behind his brother. “Please tell me that wasn’t what I think it was.”
“It was.” Martin said coldly. “It was a bear trap. Couldn’t have been set up that long ago. It’s brand-new.”
“Damn it.” Chris swore under his breath. He walked over to look at the trap himself. He looked as angry as Martin felt. “That means there’s poachers nearby. We need to do something about that right away.”
“I agree. Whatever is going on here needs to be stopped before any animals get hurt. The first thing we need to do is find any more traps. There’s probably a bunch around here.”
“Right. I’ll go look over there. Hopefully we don’t- OUCH!” Chris shouted. Martin turned just in time to see Chris pull something out of his leg. Martin froze in shock. It was a tranquilizer dart. He watched as Chris fell to the ground with a sickening thud.
“Chris!” He shouted, running for his brother. He stopped as he felt a sharp sudden pain hit his shoulder. He immediately knew that he had just been hit too. He slumped to the ground next to Chris. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was a few pairs of boots walking towards them and some voices laughing.
……………………..
Martin woke up with a pounding headache. He slowly sat up and rubbed his head. His shoulder hurt too, and he winced from the pain as he tried to move it.
“Where am I?” Martin asked himself. He looked around, trying to blink away the blurriness from his eyes. After he was able to see again, his eyes went wide. He was in a cage at some sort of camp. Worry crept into his veins. This was about the worst-case scenario he could think of being in. How could they have been so careless? They had been warned several times about getting into situations like these. “Wait, Chris!” Martin looked around him in a panic, but Chris wasn’t in the cage with him. He couldn’t see him anywhere. He ran to grab the bars of the cage. “Where’s Chris!?” He shouted. “Where’s my brother!? Let us out of here!”
“Oh, good to see you awake.” A haggard voice spoke from outside the other side of the cage. Martin whipped around to find a tall, older man in a hunters outfit. He was smiling cruelly and had a cigar hanging from his lips. The man took a long puff from the cigar, blowing out a cloud of smoke before speaking again. “You know, I was expecting to find jaguars out here. I wasn’t expecting to find the famous Kratt brothers playing pretend with the damn things. It must be my lucky day.” Martin silently growled as the man laughed.
“What do you mean by “lucky day”? What did you do to my brother?” Martin snarled. The man laughed again, the sound making Martin even more furious than he already was.
“Don’t get yourself in a twist, boy. Your brother is just fine. For now anyway. We’ve got him tied up in our battle circle. We wanted to test some things out, and he seemed like the perfect dummy to do just that.” The man said as he took one last puff of his cigar before dropping it to the ground and stomping it out.
“Test things out? What are you talking about?” Martin asked as he walked over to the side of the cage where the man was. “Just who do you think you are?”
“The name’s Silas. And what I mean is this.” Silas held up what looked like a remote in his hand and pressed a button on it. Martin doubled over in pain as a wave of electricity coursed through his body. He tried to scream, but the sound wouldn’t leave him. After a few seconds of this, Silas pushed the button again, stopping the electricity. Martin gasped as he tried to catch his breath. Silas roared with laughter.
“It does work! That’s incredible!” He said once he was done laughing. Martin slowly stood up again, angrier than he had ever felt before. Silas only smiled at him. “Glad to see you’re so lively. Mr. Varmitech said you’d try to fight back. But this is too good. At least now I know the shock collar works without any problems.”
Martin reached up to his neck. Sure enough, he could feel the metal collar wrapped around it. He noticed then that he was still in the jaguar suit, too. He tried to use his claws to pry the collar off of his neck. He was hit with another wave of electricity that made him fall over again. It wasn’t as bad as the first time. He was able to let out a scream this time.
“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” Silas asked after shutting off the collar again. “I like that in the creatures I capture. But it’s especially nice to see such fight in a person. This is going to be good.”
“What the Hell are you talking about? Did Zach put you up to this?” Martin asked through gritted teeth.
“Sure did. He offered a pretty penny to us to come hunt these jaguars. He paid extra to have us test out his new battle tech on some of them. But I thought that it would be better if we tested it out on you first.”
“Battle tech?”
“Yup. That collar there isn’t the only thing you’ve got.” Silas sneered as he pointed to Martin’s head. “Theres a special device on your head there that will control your mind. It’s supposed to make the animals fight each other. But I wondered what it would do to the human mind. Figured now would be the perfect time to test that out. And don’t even think about tearing it off, or I’ll just zap you again.” Silas held up the remote again as Martin raised his hands to try and take off the device. He had no idea that it was even there. How did he miss that?
“So you have my brother trapped in these too?”
“Nope. His fancy suit shut off when we tranked him. Like I said, he’s tied up in our battle circle. Figured it would be a waste to put the devices on him if he couldn’t even fight.” Silas gave Martin a bone chilling smile. “No, I have something much better planned for him. Something I think Mr. Varmitech will absolutely love. Here, why don’t I just show you.” Silas said as he pushed another button on the remote. Martin was suddenly not in control of his body anymore. It felt like being in water and unable to move. Silas took out some keys from his pocket and unlocked the cage. “Follow me. I’ll show you where your brother is.”
Martin had no choice but to follow. He tried to fight it. It was a struggle with his own body that he never thought he’d have to face. The feeling was awful. Worse than anything he had ever felt in his life. He was escorted to a giant circle of large sandbags, piled up to make a large ring. There were two other men outside of the ring, grinning as he and Silas made their way over. He was practically thrown into the ring with a push. His body was suddenly his again as he stood up. In the middle of the ring was Chris, tied to a chair and bloodied from being beaten.
“Martin. Help.” Chris said breathlessly. The fear flooded through Martin as he stood up.
“What’s the meaning of this!?” he cried out. He heard Silas laughing along with a few other voices now.
“We’re conducting a test. We want to see how badly you can attack your brother while being mind controlled in that suit. You have all the abilities of a jaguar in that thing, right? Let’s put them to the test.” Silas pushed a button. And once again, Martin’s body wasn’t his own. “Go ahead, son. Attack your brother.”
Martin fought it. He fought it as hard as he could. But he found himself hitting all fours as he stalked slowly up to Chris. Chris’s eyes went wide as he tried to scoot backwards in his chair away from Martin.
“Martin, please don’t do this. Keep fighting. Please.” Chris begged. But Martin pounced on Chris, knocking him backwards and breaking the chair as they hit the ground. Chris closed his eyes as Martin raised his clawed hand to maul Chris. But in a fit of clarity, he stopped. It took all his willpower, but he got off of Chris and made his way to the other side of the ring. Holding his head while muttering to himself that he was in control.
Why was he doing this? Why was he giving in so easily? He had always been Chris’s protector. Had always been his hero. He was always there for him, no matter what. He would never hurt him. Never in a million years. So why was he fighting so hard to keep himself from hurting Chris? It shouldn’t be this hard. Saving Chris should be a breeze. But here Martin was, fighting with every fiber of his being to gain back control just so he wouldn’t hurt his brother. Martin felt pure rage. A kind of rage that could make a man kill. He could still feel the device trying to get him to do what he was told. But he fought it. He could fight this. He had to.
“What the Hell? Do as I say, and get your bother!” Silas yelled, pushing a button again and sending electric shocks through Martin. He shouted in pain. But he still fought for control.
“Don’t listen to him, Martin!” Chris cried from the other side of the ring. He was standing up now that the chair was broken, but the rope was still around his body. He was trying to break free as he shouted at Martin. “Don’t give in! This isn’t you. It’s just a machine!”
“SHUT UP YOU STUPID KID!” Silas yelled.
“Come on, Silas! Wasn’t this supposed to work?” One of the other men yelled.
“Yeah, Varmitech said this tech was full proof!”
“Shut up, both of you!” Silas shouted at his cohorts as he pushed the shock collar button again.
The pain Martin was feeling was unimaginable. The shock collar and the mind control device were working together to make Martin into more of an angry animal than a person. He howled in pain and anger. He could feel his resolve breaking more and more with each passing second.
“Stupid kid! Attack him already you useless thing!” Martin could barely hear Silas’s yells through the haze. But his body lurched forward against his will. Running at Chris.
“Martin, stop!” Chris begged, tears in his eyes as he watched his brother giving in to Silas’s commands. “Don’t do it! Please, stop! STOP!”
Martin came to a crashing halt in the middle of the ring. He hit the ground, writhing, still fighting. He had to do something. He had to think of something. Anything. As he was on the ground, a memory came to mind.
Martin remembered when he first saved Chris. They had just been kids at the time. They were walking home when a group of older kids came out of nowhere and surrounded them. He couldn’t remember anything that was said. All he could remember was the group leader jumping at Chris and punching him in the face. Martin remembered jumping at the kid himself, pulling him off of Chris and beating him right there in front of his goons. He didn’t pull his punches then. He kept going and going until the kid stopped moving from being knocked unconscious. After the others ran off in fear, he looked at Chris.
“I promise I’ll always protect you.” Martin remembered saying to his brother. That memory felt so distant now.
“You damn, stupid boy!” Silas jumped into the ring in anger. He ran and stood a few feet behind Martin. “Why won’t you do as you’re told? You’re supposed to be nothing but a feral animal right now!”
“He’s not an animal!” Chris shouted at the man. “He’s a person. A human being. He’s my brother!”
“I don’t care what, or who, he is! He’s supposed to be mine!” Silas began hitting the mind control button over and over and over again.
“NO! STOP!”
Martin stopped writhing on the ground. He was trembling as he slowly stood up. He snarled, all he could see was red, and nothing else. The urge to attack stronger than ever. His claws were out and he was ready to pounce. He spun around as Silas and Chris yelled at him. The voices were blending together. He didn’t know right from left, up or down. All he could feel was pain and animalistic rage.
“MARTIN!” Chris’s voice rang out clearly one last time.
Martin lunged at someone, but he didn’t know who. He didn’t care. All he could think about was attacking. Killing. Ripping apart his prey. He could hear their screams, but they were being drowned out by his own killer instincts.
Rip. Tear. Shred. That was all Martin could think about. He yowled and screamed as he attacked. He could feel blood splattering on him. He could feel and hear muscles and organs being ripped apart. The sound of breaking bones as he mauled his victim further filled his ears, but he still didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He felt he would never stop. A small voice in the back of his head broke through the haze. It was praying that his victim wasn’t Chris.
Dear God, don’t let it be Chris.
A crunching sound brought Martin back to reality. The haze was suddenly gone. His body was his own again. He felt the shock collar and mind control device falling from his neck and head. He gasped for breath. He could hear the other two men screaming and running away in terror. He looked over at where he heard the crunching sound.
There was Chris. The rope was still around him, but the remote was broken under his foot. He looked at Martin with a mixture of sorrow and worry. It shattered Martin’s heart. He looked down in front of him to find Silas. His body mangled almost to unrecognition. The only thing in place was the man’s face. Permanently marked with a look of pure terror. Martin backed away from the man as tears stung his eyes.
“What have I done?” He asked himself quietly. Chris ran to his side, dropping to his knees.
“It wasn’t your fault. I swear it wasn’t your fault.” Chris tried to comfort his brother. Martin extended his claws and cut the rope binding Chris. As soon as he was free, he hugged Martin tighter than he ever had before, deactivating his suit in the process. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
But Martin knew better. He knew that he could wash away all the blood and other matter from his body. It would take a while because he was covered in it. But he could never wash away the guilt of knowing he had just brutally murdered a man. That he had almost done it to Chris. He had gone absolutely feral and almost killed Chris. Tears filled his eyes more as he returned Chris’s hug.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Martin sobbed. Now that he was crying, he couldn’t stop.
He had promised he would always be Chris’s hero. His protector. And he kept that promise in the end. But at what cost?