Into the Jaws

(this story completed with contributions from Ketana and Kitty)

All that day she had been distracted, eyes distant even when with the children. Pacing the library, she waited for nightfall, and ran at the clamor from the clinic. Her white eyes saw the lioness run into the wild, and landed at the edge of the woods. Her keen vision saw the path the lioness and her pride took, and felt a small nudging at her leg.

"Meow, long time no see my feline friend. I need you to follow your leonine friends, and watch over them. I have things I must do. I will find you when I am done."

The white shadow flitted into the trees, staying near the top, hopping from branch to branch as she did her human's bidding. She rose into the air, going to her car, making sure she had what she needed. Looking up at the house, she sighed. This was her fault, she would fix it herself. She took off like a bullet into the night.

Mus opened the bedroom door, looking inside. He couldn't find Arania anywhere. Frowning, he finally saw a white piece of paper on the dresser and went to pick it up. Reading it over 4 times in his disbelief, he ran to the clinic yelling.

"She's gone. Damnit, she's gone!"

Ketana turned around in Genesis's arms, "what do you mean she's gone? Where did she go MusiKai?" Seeing the distraught clone holding onto a note.

"I do not know, she has taken her dufflebag and the car is gone also," nearly out of his dead-alive mind with worry.

Getting off Genesis's lap, "I'll help, let me see the note."

"NO SHE-CAT," lowering his tone, "you've been through enough lately, you my dear wild-cat will stay at Haven and if you don't," raising the palm of his hand at her. "I'll go with Musi and look for the Lady Arania," turning around to comfort MusiKai, "count on me brother."

Apollo stood up from the cot, "and I also brother, seems our Mistress's like to wander," giving Ketana a hard look.

She walked the dark streets in the warehouse district slowly, her glowing eyes warding off any that dared question her. She looked over the familiar rubbles before her. She had not been there in a while, but guessed it was as good a place to start her hunt as any. She hovered above the floor, avoiding putting any of her weight on the boards, not wanting to test their strength. The explosions had left their mark on the supporting beams.

She started to dig carefully through the rubble, looking for a clue of any sort. She wished sometimes she could smell as well as her feline friends, she was not naive enough to believe that he had been killed, he was too clever for that. He'd lived through more than one explosion at their hands, and had always come back. A small slip of paper revealed itself to her as she pulled aside a filing cabinet. She looked it over carefully and smiled. This was exactly what she needed.

Mus read the note out loud to everyone there.

" 'Mus, Sparrow, my loves. I have gone out to hunt some prey of my own. I will be back, if I succeed. Ari' She left that on her dresser. I have no idea where she went, or who her prey is. I am afraid she's gotten herself into trouble again. Any ideas?"

He paced the floor of the media room, while his brothers watched.

Genesis looked at MusiKai, "what would she be hunting? We have to start there Musi. What is she after, she wouldn't be looking for just anybody, it has to be somebody she knows...somebody in her past..Musi you don't think she's gone after the Master herself do you?"

She looked out at the skyline from her vantage point in mid-air. Somewhere out there was her prey. She was not naive enough to believe he died in the crash into the water. Rereading the piece of paper in her hand, she zoomed off.

She landed outside building, near the edge of the city, it's windows dark in the night. She saw movement inside though, the life showing in the patterns of electricity showing through the darkened window. She sat, watching for a while, before launching herself into the air, landing on the roof. She blended in with the dark shadows on the roof. Here she would wait till the moment was right for her to strike.

Cursing softly, he acknowledged what Genesis said. "I don't know, she would want him, knowing what he did to your Lady, but I didn't think she'd be that foolish, or reckless. He's captured her before when she's been out wandering by herself, and she wasn't even looking for him that time. Come on, I want to swing by Fera and Lady Kitty's house before We do anything else, maybe they've seen her."

Barely giving time for the others to follow, he sped out of the house to his truck. Slamming the doors, his eyes landing briefly on her usual parking spot, giving his brothers enough time to catch up and get in before squealing tires on the pavement on the way out.

Nosferatu is sitting on the porch with kitty when the truck pulls into the yard. His greyhound, Fawn, leaps excitedly on the visitors, but it is clear that they are here for something important, so he calls her off. Standing, he opens the front door, shooing the dog inside, and then turns to his brothers. "What's wrong?" He asks.

"It's Arania," MusiKai says. "She's gone, have you seen her?"

Both Nosferatu and kitty shake their heads. "I am sorry, but we have not seen her at all today. If you like, I will assist you in your search for her," he offers.

Creeping silently through the shadows, she peered into the window before her. She watched the people moving in and out of the lab, each carrying vials, or something else important, judging by their mannerisms. She glanced around the room, seeing two cloning vats, both empty. She frowned, seeing there was power running to each vat. Testing the window, she found it opened easily to her touch, and she slipped inside, moving quickly into a storage closet. Listening carefully through the door, she waited once more.

Mus quickly accepted Fera's offer for help, and motioning them back into his truck quickly, he pulled out again, tires squealing on the blacktop as he took off. He took them to her favorite spots to hang out when not working, a bookshop, a nice restaurant, and a couple others. Everyone there knew her and him, but nobody had seen her. Growling, he took off again, and stopped once they got to the warehouse district, before a ruined building. Fera and kitty easily recognized the place as where she was held when Mitchell kidnapped her the last time, where the cell was in the basement.

Running into the rubble, he looked into the cell, finding nothing but cobwebs. MusiKai looked to the others.

"Start digging for clues, this is the last place she knew of that the Master had worked, since this was where he kept her before." He started digging himself, throwing aside huge pieces of concrete and steel as though they weighed nothing.

This was getting them nowhere, kitty quickly realized. No one had been here since Arania's rescue, as far she could see. Still, if sifting through the rubble was what MusiKai wanted, then sift she would. Leaving the group, the tigress moved toward the back of the building. Reaching the far end, she frowned. There was a semi-fresh scent here... someone had definitely been here recently, though they had, quite obviously, not stayed long. It wasn't even long enough to leave a decent scent to follow, but what she could pick up was definitely familiar, even if she was having trouble placing it.

Quickly, she went to tell the others, not sure if it would be relevant or not...

She walked through the shadows in the halls silently, her feet barely touching the floor. She knew what she was looking for. He had started the cloning operations here again. She hadn’t heard whether they were creating any new Kai clones, but had seen evidence they had been used recently for something. As she crept deeper into the building, she passed a door that was cracked open. From inside she heard noises, and could see cages. The chittering of mice, squeaking of lab rats, and mewling of young kittens reached her ears, and she frowned. She climbed into an air vent, and crept into a position she could see into the lab where the animals were. She couldn’t continue with her plan until she found a way to get the innocent animals out of there.

Mus threw a huge boulder out of the way, and it crashed, shattering against the pavement of a nearby alley. His frustrations being taken out on tearing apart the wreckage in search of a clue, of anything that might tell him where she went. Kitty walked up behind him and tapped his shoulder.

"What?" He growled out, tossing another boulder.

"I think I found something, it’s a scent, different from the others and newer. It’s not hers though."

"Show me where." He followed her to the spot she found the scent, the others gathering around them. He bent down, his keen assassin vision finding something even the feline had not seen. Carefully he pulled up a long blue hair. "She’s been here."

The others nodded, nobody else in town had quite that color hair. He wasn’t sure what to think, there was nothing there now, but he could faintly make out the outline of where there was a paper sitting not too long before. Suddenly everyone jumped as they heard an explosion rip through town. Once the noise quieted, they looked at each other and beat feet for the automobiles and took off in the direction of the huge fire that had appeared above the buildings in the horizon.

(five minutes earlier)

Arania carefully placed the last of the animals outside the building, ushering it off into the woods before sneaking back in. She had to hurry, her luck was bound to run out soon. As she charged a small piece of metal and stuck it up against the back of a cloning vat it happened.

"Stand up, and put your hands in the air." A gruff male voice came from behind her, next to the door. She hoped he wouldn’t be aware of who she was, and had not seen what she had done. With the piece of metal there, she had less than 2 minutes to get the hell out of there. As she stood she saw that the skyline was still wide open, she just had to disable the guy with the gun in front of her and get moving. She looked around, and saw what she could do.

She stretched her energies out around the man in front of her, causing sparks to start flying from the equipment that was powered by electricity. He jumped, dropping his gun, and she took advantage of it, zooming out of the skylight. As she got outside the building started exploding, starting with the vat she had booby trapped. She got hit by the force of the blast, and knocked into a nearby tree.

By the time the group had arrived at the scene, it was cordoned off and blocked by firemen and police. Kai firemen were going into the building to subdue the fire and search for survivors, their toughness an advantage in this line of work.

Kitty sniffed the air, her nose wrinkling at the stench of smoke in the air, and startled as she heard a low moan coming from the tree above her. She looked up and saw a familiar blue form in the strongest branches, her black clothes tattered and torn, her face bruised and cut by the tiny twigs that had scratched her as she landed. Kitty tugged on Fera’s sleeve, and he tapped his brother’s shoulder.

Mus quickly grabbed the branch on which she was laying, testing it’s strength before pulling himself up to grab her, jumping back down, letting his body take the bone jarring force of the landing. Arania stirred in his arms, eyes opening.

"I stopped him, he was cloning again, is it gone?"

"His base is destroyed love, you did a good job, on it and yourself. Let’s get her home to rest, Gen, will you drive?"