Chapter 12: Kratts vs. Sokolov and Varmitech

If you didn't want to read all eighteen pages of Chapter 11, here's the summary: Vermilion was sick and tired of being beaten by animals often whenever she hunted because they could run faster than her or fly away from her. She learned about a voodoo witch doctor named Mademoiselle Lafayette and made a deal with her to get creature powers. In return for getting her powers, Vermilion had to assassinate a rich oil mongrel named Gerald Warrenson and bring her his heart (ew, I know.). The Mademoiselle then casts a spell on Vermilion that gives her creature powers. Vermilion was more than happy to do so, and while tracking down her victim down, she also got to kill one of Mr. Warrenson's guards who was terrorizing one of the maids in Mr. Warrenson's big mansion. She also got to try out her very first creature power: a house cat, from which she got the DNA from Mr. Warrenson's cat by drawing out his blood through her syringe and injecting it into her magical DNA mark. Upon killing Mr. Warrenson, she almost got caught by his guards but escaped by scaring the living crap out of them with her creature powers. When she arrived at Mademoiselle Lafayette's house, she discovered two robbers holding the witch doctor hostage and stealing her potions for the drug market. Vermilion saves the witch doctor, and together, they drove out the robbers.

AND NOW WE SHALL GO BACK TO THE STORY!

Aviva couldn't stop staring. She couldn't stop shaking. With every breath she took, she felt closer to passing out. Chris had been right this whole time. This woman…had creature powers. More importantly, she had magic creature powers. "But," she panted, "it's impossible. There's no such thing."

Her mind struggled helplessly against a blinding blizzard of thoughts. Voodoo? Spells? This can't be right! I…I must be dreaming!

Suddenly, Vermilion swiped her boot across Martin's other cheek, knocking him over, and lunged at Chris. Martin fell flat on his back on the ground but stood up again. I'm not letting you beat me again! he thought angrily.

Vermilion quickly pummeled Chris twice on the nose before kicking him across the floor and into a wall. "Zach!" she ordered. "Take my sack and hide the serval someplace safe! I'll distract these two!"

Zach stood there for a second before quickly grabbing the bag and yelling, "Zachbots!" Five Zachbots hovered to his side.

"You three help me hide the kitty! You two help Vermilion kill the Wild Rats!"

Saluting, two of the Zachbots flew to the fight. Vermilion, bracing herself for Martin, who was now charging at her, noticed them at the corner of her eye. Hearing steps behind her, she whirled around to claw at an attacking Chris. Chris, realizing he had claws, too, dodged her attack and swiped at her legs. Vermilion responded with a kick to the chest and pounced on Chris, quickly turning around behind him and trapping him in a chokehold with her right arm around his neck.

Meanwhile, the Zachbots interrupted Martin's offense by extending their arms and tripping him. One Zachbot grabbed his tail and swung him around in a circle before tossing him over the edge of the boat. Martin's head was spinning as he fell, but he managed to grab hold of the railing to lift himself up and swing his feet up into both Zachbots' faces, smashing them to bits.

Drat! Vermilion thought. There go my reinforcements. Then, she got an idea. "Hey, Chris!" she sneered loudly into his ear. "Ain't servals supposed to be able to jump really high?"

Chris didn't like the way she said that. In a split second, he found out why.

She hunched down and leaped clear into the sky, taking Chris with her. Sailing high above the yacht and trying to get free from Vermilion's grasp, he thrashed his legs violently. He started trying to scratch Vermilion when he felt something whack his chest.

"Deactivate!" Vermilion yelled.

Chris' heart stopped.

"No!" he panicked wildly. "NO NO NO, DON'T DEACTIVATE!"

It was too late. Chris' suit turned green again, making his sharp claws, powerful legs, and sensitive ears retract back into the suit. The green lenses that went over his eyes to simulate the serval's keen eyesight retracted, and his spots vanished. In less than a second, his suit was back to normal.

"No!" he gasped. "My serval powers!"

Vermilion laughed loudly. "You can't do that with my serval powers!" she exclaimed. "And now that you can't land on your feet like a serval can, let's watch you fall to your death!"

With that, she threw him into the air before falling down towards the yacht. Just as she landed safely on her feet, she quickly looked for Martin―who was not on the yacht anymore. Or is he? she thought. Using her serval ears, she picked up the sound of Martin's racing feet heading to where Zach went to hide her hunter's prize. She immediately dashed after him. Chris won't survive that fall, so I'm good up here, she considered. Besides, Zach might need my help.

"Zachbots!" Zach ordered, riding on the shoulders of one of his most obedient robots. "Distract Blue Boy while I hide this!" But Zach was beginning to doubt himself as three more of his Zachbots got pounced and pummeled by Martin. Plus, the kitty-cat in Vermilion's bag was starting to squirm even more. I'm not getting scratched again! he thought worriedly. What am I supposed to do now!?

He suddenly heard a loud crash behind him. He turned around. Right on top of Martin was Vermilion with her claws on his head and her legs pinning him to the ground. "ZACH!" she yelled. "GO AND KILL IT ALREADY!"

Blue Boy screamed, "NO!"

"SHUT UP, WON'T YOU!?" she snarled at him slamming his face to the ground. Looking at Zach again, she called, "ZACH! PLEASE TELL ME YOU HAVE ARSENIC OR SALINE SOMEWHERE ON THIS YACHT!"

Zach quickly answered, "Yeah, I have both!"

Martin tumbled her over and was on top of her for a second before she wrestled on top of him again. "GOOD! I want you to go ahead and euthanize the stupid furball!" Using her knees to pin Martin's shoulders to the ground, she reached into her pocket and pulled out an empty syringe.

"HEADS UP, ZACH!" she yelled.

The syringe sailed clear over Zach's head, but the Zachbot he was riding on stretch its arm to grab it and hand it to him. Zach studied it for a bit. It was quite clean except for an old label on it that said "black-footed ferret."

"But Vermilion!" he called back. "If I give this back to you, there might still be traces of arsenic in it!"

"THEN KEEP IT!" she yelled. "I have plenty more where that came from!"

"NOOOOOO!" Martin shrieked in fear as he socked Vermilion in the nose and kicked her back. Vermilion landed on her back and lost Martin when she got up. He hunched his serval legs and leaped clear across the floor at one of the Zachbots. In a brutal mix of rage and terror, Martin shredded the Zachbot with his claws screaming at the top of his lungs, "DON'T YOU LAY A FINGER ON EAVESDROP!"

One Zachbot after the other was smashed under Martin's serval powers while Vermilion chased after him. Zach disappeared behind a door, and the lock gave a heart-stopping click.

Martin pounced the door and tried desperately to yank it open. "NO NO NO NO NO!" Martin screeched. "EAVESDROP, NO NO NO!"

Vermilion sneered, "If I ain't mistaken, hippie, that's a deadbolt lock. You might as well be trying to shoot through a concrete wall."

Horror consumed Martin through the blood that raced in his veins and the pores where beads of sweat were pouring down his face. No, he thought frantically, this can't be it! What am I to do!?

Suddenly, he heard a different kind of click behind him. He spun around and found himself staring straight down the barrel of a jet-black semiautomatic pistol. Vermilion had already cocked it and released the safety. She grinned delightfully and laughed, "What? I'm doing you a favor, Martin. You need something to fill that space between your ears. Might as well be lead."

Just as Vermilion began to squeeze the trigger, a brilliant idea popped into Martin's head. Without thinking, he dodged the barrel and seized Vermilion's arm before using his serval legs to kick her aside. Her arm was pulled away from her and twisted by Martin's hand. Vermilion knew this move. She had used it countless times before in hand-to-hand combat. Cursing herself for making herself so vulnerable, she stubbornly held onto the gun until she thought Martin would pop her hand off. The weapon clattered onto the floor, and Martin swiped it up and started shooting towards the lock. The first two shots ricocheted off the lock and shot around the room, but the third made a pretty decent dent on the lock. Before she could pounce on Martin, the seventh gunshot quickly snapped the lock open.

As he used the gun, a million thoughts zoomed through his head. H e remembered the day he went to the forest and discovered a deer that looked like Swiss cheese when he was seventeen. He remembered the day when he found the body of his neighbor's cat on the side of the road when he was eleven. He remembered when he brought a bird with a head injury into his house and, after trying to cure the poor thing, watching it pass away right in front of him.

Not again, he thought. Not this time.

The door flew open.

Two Zachbots pinned Eavesdrop to a metal table.

Zach positioned Vermilion's syringe filled with a sickly yellow liquid two inches away from her skin.

Martin didn't remember exactly what happened after that. At one moment, Zach was on the floor groaning in pain. The next moment, the two Zachbots had crashed into each other. The moment after that, Eavesdrop was in his arms, and he was running down the hall again.

Zach came to his senses and ran next to Vermilion.

"Jesus Christ!" she yelled. "The bastard's gone rabid!"

"ZACHBOTS, GET HIM!" Zach thundered.

Not wasting another minute, Vermilion dashed after Martin and pulled the trigger.

Martin heard a bang, and a computerized voice on his suit said, "Warning: suit condition at 98% capacity. Damage evident at tail."

"What?" Martin said before looking behind him. Sure enough, his tail had a good-sized dent at the tip where Vermilion's bullet hit him. Before he knew it, more shots were fired at him. Fearing for both his and Eavesdrop's life, he sped even faster towards the deck. His suit protected him from the bullets, but each shot still felt like an impact from a paintball gun. Martin wouldn't be surprised if he found a small bruise or two on his back when―or if―he got out of this mess. Unfortunately, the bullets were also destroying the inner workings of his suit:

Bang!

"90% capacity."

Bang! Bang!

"82% capacity."

Bang! Bang! Bang!

"73% capacity."

"That's right, Kratt!" she sneered. "Eat my lead!" In almost no time at all, she reloaded her pistol, cocked it, and began shooting again. Martin had to turn a sharp corner to get away, which stole valuable seconds of his time, but when Vermilion rounded the same corner, she not only ran around the corner faster but also made use of the extra time b pulling out another loaded pistol, thus firing at Martin with both guns.

Zach arrived close behind her on the shoulders of one of his Zachbots. Another Zachbot was next to him. "Need a lift?" he called.

"Thanks, man!" she yelled, leaping onto the second Zachbot and continuing to fire. "WHOOOOOO HOOOOO!" she laughed. "NOW THIS IS WHAT I CALL A REVERSE COWGIRL!"

"How'd you round that corner so fast!?" Zach asked.

"Instead of making a sharp turn, I just made my turn rounder!" That way, I can use the centripetal force of my turn to turn left faster!" She fired her guns twice.

Zach, covering his ears with each gunshot, asked, "Where'd you learn that!?"

"This isn't the first time I've had to run around the inside of a building. I'll tell you right now, the floor plan on Riker's Island is a lot harder to run through than the one on your boat. I almost got caught twice when I was breaking out. Besides, haven't you learned anything from your high school physics class?"

(Note from the author: That one's for you, Coach Chaya! I never thought I'd get through Physics B AP, but thank you so much for always helping us! I hope I didn't get a 1 on the test! Thank you!)

Two more bullets clanged against the suit. Martin enclosed Eavesdrop in his arms to protect her, but he noticed every sting on his back from the bullets escalate in pain each time. He didn't know how long it would be until the bullets actually went through his body. The computerized voice reported:

"49% capacity."

As Martin dashed up a set of stairs, Aviva called on his creature pod.

"Martin!" she yelled. "I just got a message that your suit's in critical condition!"

"She's shooting me, Aviva! She has two guns with her, and she knows how to use them!"

Another shot. "41% capacity."

Aviva screamed, "If your suit reaches 20%, it'll start to shut down! And the damage might become irreversible!"

Rattattatatat! "35% capacity."

He had no time to lose. Hunching his legs again, he leaped past the last eight steps and landed squarely on the main floor. Only two more doors to the deck!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

Plummeting to his death, Chris pressed the button on his suit countless times, but it was no use! Without another serval, he couldn't reactivate. Without serval powers, he couldn't land on his feet or make a rebound.

Suddenly, three Zachbots zoomed up towards him and swiped his limbs. With two gripping his arms and one gripping his leg, Chris became the rope in a tug-of-war match between the large robots. Chris struggled in vain. The Zachbots had always been too strong for him or Martin to handle without creature powers. Before he knew it, the Zachbots started tossing him around in the air as if he was some giant, green football. When he landed in the arms of one Zachbot, it would nearly squeeze all the air out of him with its burly grip, and when just when he thought he was going to suffocate, it hurled him towards another Zachbot, his arms and legs flailing madly in thin air.

After what seemed like years of the Kratt Bowl, he spotted his brother speeding across the deck with Eavesdrop in his arms. An array of bullet dents were splattered all over Martin's back and arms, and right behind him, Vermilion―still with serval powers―was proudly riding the shoulders of another Zachbot with a giant grin on her face and two jet-black semi-automatics, aiming effortlessly at Martin.

"RUN, MARTIN, RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!"

Martin peered up to see his brother tossed between three Zachbots nearly thirty feet above him. Just as he was about to rescue him, Chris yelled, "MARTIN, FORGET ME! GO SAVE EAVESDROP!"

Vermilion looked up, too. Noticing the other brother in the sky, she called, "Hey, Martin! How about a deal? If you hand over the serval, I'll stop shooting your brother!"

Martin stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. "What!?"

"Deal? Okay!" Vermilion chirped before shooting towards the sky.

Chris screamed even louder, knowing that a shower of bullets was headed straight towards him. He heard each one whiz by him, one barely scraping his hair. "MARTIN, FORGET ME!" he screeched. "GO SAVE EAVESDROP! I'LL STALL THEM FOR NOW!"

Vermilion fired four more shots and barked behind her, "Zach! I'm doing some target practice here! Go get Martin!"

Without hesitation, Zach ordered, "Zachbots, get Blue Boy!"

Five Zachbots immediately followed suit, including the ones throwing Chris around. Not only did he start plunging to his death again, but now he had to worry about the only gunman in the world with creature powers trying to shove bullets up his guts.

Six more bullets sped past him. At one point he felt a sharp stinging sensation on his legs. He peered down. It didn't go through his leg, but the bullet had grazed his skin, leaving a swipe of bright blood across the side of his thigh.

"Ha!" she jeered. "I've gotcha now, you bast―"

She pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

Switching to her left hand, she pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

"Nyet!" she snarled.

Slipping another load from her back pocket, she was halfway through reloading it when she realized Chris was right above her.

Just as her gun was ready again, Chris had landed right on top of her, toppling the both of them to the ground. Through the ruckus, Vermilion spotted Martin getting to the railing. Kicking Chris and bashing his face with her gun, she snapped back up and dashed in his direction.

Martin braced himself in the starboard railing.

He lunged off the edge.

In the corner of his eye, he saw the Zachbots following him, with Zach leading the way on the shoulders of the first.

A split second later, Vermilion caught up to them, using her serval powers to jump off the side of the yacht.

In just three heartbeats, he slammed onto the savannah grass.

Martin smiled. Never in his life had he wanted to feel the pain from falling on the ground.

He opened his arms. Finally released, Eavesdrop ran clear away from the yacht.

Martin yelled, "NOW, JIMMY!"

Jimmy whipped out his phone, aimed the camera at Eavesdrop, and pressed the button on his touchscreen, yelling, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaand ZAP IT!"

A blue flash suddenly appeared, and Eavesdrop had disappeared.

"YES!" Martin cheered loudly. "WE SAVED HER!"

Chris, panting from the railing, whooped exhaustedly and gave a big thumbs-up in the air. "WE DID IT!" he called triumphantly. "Eavesdrop is safe!" He down the ramp from the deck to the ground, helped his brother up, and squeezed him in an enormous hug, laughing.

"NYET!" Vermilion screamed. "This isn't happening!"

Filled with downright rage, she pounced on Martin, pinning him to the ground. Gripping her right hand over his throat, almost choking him, she readied her left hand up, claws unsheathed.

Martin gasped, "Please, don't kill me!"

She sneered, "'Please don't kill me! Please don't kill me!' No, Martin Kratt, death would be too kind for you!" Unsheathing her claws, she snarled nastily, "How about I shred your face into pieces instead!? It'll be like bloody, fleshy coleslaw!"

Martin closed his eyes, bracing for impact, but just as Vermilion began the first swipe, a strange noise was heard.

He looked up. She looked up. By that time, Zach was standing next to them, ready to watch his long-time enemy become mutilated by the girl of his dreams, and he looked up. Every Wild Kratt stared into the sky to watch a large, black Blackhawk striker hover above them. Its blades made a deafening din that made Jimmy and Aviva covered their ears as a policeman in the chopper called down, "Vermilion Sokolov! This is Interpol! You are under arrest! Put your hands in the air and remain where you are!"

Vermilion stared up at the helicopter and then stared down at the whimpering and wincing Martin. She realized that she had to choose between Martin's death and her escape. If I finish him off now, she thought, Interpol will go insane chasing after me. If I let him go, they might not be as aggressive. Crap….

"Demetamorphose," she reluctantly sighed. Her DNA mark began to glow again, and after two seconds of gold light glowing throughout her body, all of her fur, claws, whiskers, and creature powers had disappeared. Vermilion was her normal, human self again.

"You're lucky Interpol is here," she stated coolly, giving the Wild Kratts a steely look. "But consider yourselves on my list. From this day forth, you are my sworn enemies, and all five of you will never forget the name Vermilion Sokolov!"

She mounted her motorcycle which was still parked near the shore of the lake.

As she put on her helmet, Zach started running to her. "Wait!" he called. "Will I ever see you again? Look, I'm sorry I couldn't stop the Kratts from taking your serval-kitty thing! I―"

"Zach," she started, "please don't blame yourself."

"…what?"

"That's my way of saying 'thank you.' You helped me the best you could, and I appreciate you for that. It's my fault for underestimating those buttholes," she explained. Smiling, she added, "What was it you called them again? Wild Rats?"

"Uh, yeah. Wait, I'll give you my number!"

"Phones are traceable," she replied. "If I had one, I wouldn't be sitting in front of you right now. But don't worry! I'll find you wherever you are."

"You sure?"

"Zach, everybody says I'm the world's greatest hitman. Finding people is my job. Dos zvidániya!"

Before he knew it, like a red comet speeding towards the reaches of space, Vermilion revved her bike and swerved around all the Kratts before zooming down the Serengeti. The chopper chased after her, yelling at her to stop.

Zach remained there, silently staring into her direction, thinking about the mischievous gleam she had in those emerald eyes before she left.

"There goes my heart," he whispered to himself.

Конец. (The end.)