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This wasn’t supposed to happen. It had started out as a normal creature adventure, Martin, Chris, and the Wild Kratts crew were in the Rain Forest when Zach had come to steal all the Sloths for his relaxation invention. Of course, Martin and Chris couldn’t let that happen, so they activated their Creature Power Suits with Squeal and Blue Jay power to stop Zach.
While Chris got the Sloths out and living free and in the wild, Martin went to find Zach to send him home. Zach and Martin ended up fighting and Zach hit Martin’s C.P.S with a wrench causing it to deactivate. But Martin had already sent Zach packing before he could do anymore damage…
Or so he thought. Martin ended up landing away from Chris and the others, which wouldn’t be a big deal, if it wasn’t for his suit sparking and making weird sounds. ‘Maybe I should take it off, so nothing happens.’ Martin thought. As he was about to take it off there was a flash of light and then everything went black.
Chris had gotten all the Sloths free and was now waiting for his brother with Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy. Chris started to get worried when 30 minutes went by and there was no sign of him not even a call on the Creature Pod! After another 5 minutes Chris grabbed his buzz bike and a head light, since it was getting dark, and went to look for his brother.
Chris spent about 15 minutes searching for his brother when he spotted a familiar blue sweater on the ground. Chris parked the buzz bike and took off his helmet. “Martin, I’ve been looking all over for you.” Chris said as he walked closer to his brother. When he didn’t get a response the young Kratt brother grew concerned. “Bro, you, okay?”
Once again, he didn’t get a response and now that he was closer, he noticed that it was just Martin’s clothes and Creature Power Suit! His brother wasn’t in sight! Chris began looking around for his brother. Maybe this was a prank? After a few minutes and not seeing his brother Chris looked back at the clothes. ‘I need to tell the others. Can’t leave these here.’ He went to pick up the pile when it moved startling the green brother.
Chris let out a yelp of surprise and fell backwards. He stared as the clothes shifted to reveal… a kid? Chris was really confused, but there was something familiar about the kid. Chris took a closer look. The kid had blonde hair, his cheeks were slightly flushed like he had been crying, and he had some freckles just below his eyes, and speaking eyes that were the clearest blue Chris had ever seen. The only person other person that he knows that has eyes like that is…
Chris’ eyes widened in realization. “Martin?” The kid stared at Chris before hesitantly nodding his head. Chris’ mouth dropped open. His big brother was a child! Martin pulled the much to big sweater around himself and shrunk into the clothes in fear. “Woah, hey it’s okay.” Chris got in front of the frightened child and held out a hand for him to take. “I’m not going to hurt you, I’m here to help.” Martin looked from Chris’ face to his hand and back again. Chris had a smile on his face, Martin didn’t know why but he felt that he could trust this man so, hesitantly, Martin took his hand in his small one.
Chris picked him up and wrapped him in the clothes, then he walked back to the buzz bike and got on with Martin clinging to his vest.
Chris made it back to the Tortuga and quickly ran to the main part where everyone else was. “Guys! We have a problem!” Jimmy, Koki, and Aviva walked up to him with puzzled looks. “What’s wrong CK?” Aviva asked.
Chris looked down at the pile of clothes in his arms. At first, they were confused. Why was he holding clothes? And not just any clothes, Martin’s clothes and Creature Power Suit as well. Jimmy yelped and hid behind the girls as the clothes shifted.
Soon a mop of blonde hair poked out and turned to the others to show clear blue eyes staring at them. The girls awed will Jimmy smiled nervously at the kid. “Hi, little guy.” Then Aviva turned to look at Chris. “Is he the problem? And where is Martin?” Chris sighed. “This is Martin.”
Everyone gasped while Jimmy fainted. Little Martin looked around at the shocked face that were staring at him and started to tear up. All the loud noises and weird strangers were scarring him. He started crying and everyone froze. Chris’ eyes widened and he pulled Martin close rubbing soft circles into his back and making calming noises while he rocked him back and forth. “Shh, it’s okay they're not going to hurt you.” Martin pressed his face into Chris’ shoulder and soon his sobs turned into soft sniffles.
Aviva and Koki looked at each other before smiling softly. “Sorry, Martin, we didn’t mean to scare you.” Aviva said, Koki nodded. “Yeah, we’re sorry.” Martin peaked his head out and looked at the two. “O-okay.” After a while the crew got Martin into clothes that actually fit him and were now trying to figure out how to get him back to normal. Martin as sitting on one of the hover-chairs eating a cookie that Jimmy made.
“First we need to figure out how this happened in the first place.” Aviva said, leaning on the table. Koki was standing with her arms crossed, Jimmy was in another hover-chair, and Chris was standing next to his big brother, well little brother now. “Maybe something happened while him and Zach were fighting?” Chris suggested. The rest of the crew hummed in agreement. “It’s possible.” Koki added.
Aviva pushed off the table and walked to her invention table. On top of the table was Martin’s C.P.S, which Aviva has been trying to fix since it was damaged. “Maybe he messed with the C.P.S?” She took a closer look at the scan that she took of the suit. At first glance it doesn’t look like there is anything wrong with it, but she knew that something was off, she zoomed in closer to the disc insert and gasped when she found the problem. “I found the problem!” She yelled over shoulder not taking her eyes off the screen in front of her.
Jimmy and Koki came over Chris joined them after telling Martin to stay put. Once Chris was standing next to Aviva did the inventor explain. “Okay, so, this is a scan of the C.P.S everything seems to be alright, but,” she zoomed in and pointed to the disc insert, “this is the problem. The scanner that scans the DNA of the animal that you touch is broken.” Chris raised an eyebrow. “How is that the problem?” Aviva turned to Chris. “Whenever you touch a baby animal what usually happens?”
Chris tilted his head. “Uh, I turn into a baby animal.”
“Exactly! You turn into a baby animal because of the genetic code. Sometimes when you touch a baby animal you turn into the adult version, but that’s because I blocked that part of the code.” Chris’ eyes widened slightly with realization. “So, what you're saying is.” Aviva nodded her head. “Because the DNA scanner was damaged it messed with Martin’s genetic code and turned him into a kid.” Chris shot a worried glance to his brother who was looking up and kicking his legs that didn’t touch the floor.
The green Kratt sighed. “So, how do we change him back?” Aviva looked worriedly to the ground biting her lip. “Well, I have to fix the damaged tech, but that could take days, weeks even.” Chris ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to look after a 6-year-old Martin till then.” Jimmy almost spit out his drink and looked at Chris like he was crazy. “You want us to watch a 6-year-old! On a giant, high tech, flying turtle!” Chris rubbed his neck with a sheepish smile. “Uh, yeah.”
His brown eyes looked round, and he sighed. “Look I know that it isn’t one of my better plains, but I don’t want to leave him and besides this way, when Aviva fixes the C.P.S, we can get him back to normal faster.” The three looked at each other before Koki sighed and smiled. " Okay. I mean how hard can watching a 6-year-old Martin be?” Chris smiled and thanked them before walking to Martin. The sight that greeted him was Martin curled into a ball and sleeping. Chris smiled and gently picked him up and walked to the room they shared on the Tortuga.
He laid the 6-year-old down in a blue hammock, pulled a blanket over him, and ran his fingers through the short blonde hair a sad smile on his face. “Don’t worry Martin, we’ll fix this.” He whispered. Then he went to his green hammock and fell asleep soon after hoping that when he woke up that this would all just be a bad dream.
Koki didn’t know how hard it would be to watch a 6-year-old Martin. No one on the team did. It had only been a week and already Martin had been a little rascal! The first day was him getting to know them. Their names, what they do, and who not to trust. Martin had warmed up to all of them quickly, Chris especially but that was expected as they were brothers.
After he learned their names and what they do, he became very interested in helping and saving animals like Chris, and anytime Chris had to leave the Tortuga to go and look at new animals Martin begged to go too. Chris would almost say ‘no’ but those puppy dog eyes always got to him, and he would cave. Aviva would scold him after, but it kept happening, so she just gave up.
On the 5th day of small Martin on the Tortuga they were in Africa when he scared everyone when he disappeared and after a few hours Chris found his young brother, a few minutes away from the giant turtle, with Blur the Cheetah and her cub Spot-swat. Martin was sitting on the ground playing with Spot-swat while Blur was laying close to both with her tail wrapped around Martin’s middle.
When Chris tried to approach the first time to get his brother Blur growled at him till, she recognized the green Kratt brother and backed down. Martin smiled at Chris when he saw him. “Chris! Look I made new friends!” Chris smiled a small sad smile. He was sad that his brother didn’t even recognize the animals that have helped him so many times and that he’s helped. Chris just wanted his big brother back.
On the 7th day that’s when this started to downhill. It was a normal day for the crew of the Tortuga. They were in the Central America because they got a call from a Wild Kratts kid saying that they spotted Gourmand looking for something. The team didn’t waste any time and went to Central America to stop Gourmand from hurting any animals. When they got there Chris was about to head out when Martin stopped him. “Where are you going?”
Chris sighed and knelt down in front of his older-younger brother. “I’m going to stop Gourmand from hurting animals.” Martin looked down at the floor before looking back up at the green brother. “Well, then, I’m coming too!” Chris shook his head. “No, Martin, you need to stay here. It’s too dangerous.”
“Then you should stay too! If it’s dangerous then you could get hurt!” Chris placed a hand on his shoulder. “Martin this is my job.” The blonde shook his head as tears filled his eyes. “No! I want to come with you! Chris you… I… your…” Martin pressed his hands to his head as tears rolled down his face. He didn’t know what was happening. There were these fuzzy memories that he couldn’t make out and he felt like he had to protect Chris, but didn’t know why.
In all his confusion Martin suddenly yelled. “Your My Brother!” Chris froze as he stared at the blue Kratt. Martin was panting when his eyes widened in realization. Why had he just called Chris his brother? Martin ran out of the garage and back to the room he had been staying in. Chris stared at the door that the young boy had run through when Aviva walked in with a small smile. “Don’t worry Chris, we’ll watch him.” Chris nodded and walked out the garage door without a word.
Martin sat on the floor of the room with his head in his arms, tears silently rolling down his face. He didn’t know what came over him, but it felt like a part of him wanted Chris to know that he was there. After a few minutes Martin whipped his tears with a determined look on his face. He stood up and grabbed one of the bags in the room, looked around and started to pack the bag with items to help him in the Rain Forest.
Once he was all packed, he pushed the button on the wall that opened the window, climbed out and jumped onto the tree that was closest to the Tortuga. He wasn’t the best climber, he was more of swimmer, but he could still move pretty well. He was going to help Chris no matter what. And not just Chris but the animals too! He ran, jumped, and swung through the trees, he didn’t really know where he was going, but he was almost sure that he was going in the right direction.
After about 20 minutes he spotted a river and climbed down to get a drink if water and look around. As he stood in the shade of the tree, he couldn’t help but stare in awe at all the animals, like the Basilisk, the River Otter, the Scarlet Macaw, and many more. ‘Why would anyone want to hurt these amazing creatures?’ He thought as he put his water bottle back in his bag.
After resting he walked along the riverbank for a little in thought. ‘If I was a bad person trying to hurt animals, where would I set up shop?’ He hopped onto a log that was stretched over the river a little and looked around. Not seeing anything he sighed and started to walk of the log when he heard humming behind him. Turning around he spotted a big man with little legs, in chef clothing crawling around on the ground sniffing it, like he was hunting. Martin squinted his clear blue eyes before they widened.
He’s seen this person before! It was Gourmand! He was the one Chris was looking for. Martin jumped off the log and hid behind a tree as he quietly dug through his bag looking for something to contact Chris or the others. He smiled when he pulled out a blue Creature Pod he found in the room. Quickly he found out how to turn it on and contacted Chris. “Martin! Where are you! I told you to stay in the Tortuga!” Chris yelled. Martin felt slightly guilty for sneaking out but pushed it aside, he needed to focus. “Chris, listen! I found Gourmand.” Chris gasped before his face shifted to one of concern and annoyance.
“You—what!?” Martin made an uneasy face and motioned with his free hand to quiet down, he poked his head out to see if the crazy chef heard him, but he couldn’t see do to all the plants and with how dark the forest was. “Shh, I’m not sure what animal he’s after but he is here. He-” His sentence was cut off by a yelp as something grabbed his shoulder, pulled him back, and took the Creature Pod from his hand. Soon he came face to face with the crazy, grinning, chef himself. “Hello, brat.” Martin let out a nervous chuckle and waved his hand awkwardly. “Uh, hi.”
Gourmand looked at the piece of tech and smirked. “Well, hello green grape.” Chris growled. “Gourmand, let him go and leave the animals alone!” He demanded. The big man laughed, sending a chill through the 6-year-old’s spine. “Not a chance! He stuck his nose in where it doesn’t long! And as for the animals, never! See you around!” With that he turned off the Pod and put it in his pocket.
Then he turned to face the child. “Now how would you like to help me get my ingredients?” Martin shook and the thought that ran through his head was. ‘Hurry Chris.’
Chris growled as the call was ended. He contacted the Tortuga. “Koki! Can you track Martin’s Creature Pod?” He asked frantically. She nodded. “I sent you the coordinates!” Chris thanked her and ended the call to look at the coordinates. ‘Hold on Martin I’m coming.’ He ran through the forest as fast as his legs could take him. He needed to get to Martin before something bad happened.
Gourmand had tied Martin’s hands together and now the two were walking through the forest looking for a snake. Martin’s eyes darted around trying to find a way out, but Gourmand had a rope that was connected to the one around Martin’s wrists that he was holding. After 15 minutes they came to a stop when Gourmand spotted a colorful flower.
Martin’s heart sank as he realized what snake he was after. And his fear was conformed when a yellow head poked out of the flower when a Hummingbird flew close and almost got bit by this snake. Gourmand was after the Eyelash Viper snake! This snake rarely bit humans, but it would if it felt threatened and need to defend itself.
The crazy chef giggled evilly and tiptoed forward pulling an unwanting Martin along. “Gourmand! Stop! Don’t provoke it!” The 6-year-old tried to warn him, but he wasn’t listening and soon the two were in front of the flower and snake. The Eyelash Viper hissed when it saw Gourmand, clearly sensing his evil intent. The chef grabbed his tangs and tried to grab the snake, but it moved out of the way and tried to bite him.
Gourmand growled as he pulled his hand back in time before he was bit. Martin sighed in relief. He hoped that almost getting bit by a venomous snake that he would back off, let him go, and go home, but this chef was stubborn and continued to try and grab the reptile and always almost got bit in the process. After about 10 minutes of this Martin grabbed Gourmand’s arm and held him back as much as he could.
“You need to stop! Just leave the Eyelash Viper alone, your going to get bit and-” Gourmand grabbed Martin’s arms and got right in his face, the blonde’s back facing the flower with the snake on it. The chef glared at the boy. “You listen here boy. Gaston Gourmand does not use regular ingredients in his food, and he certainly doesn’t listen to noisy, nosy, goody-goody brats like you.” He snarled, as he shook Martin to each last word. All the movement was aggravating the snake and it shot forward. The Viper’s fangs sunk into Martin’s right arm that was closest to the flower. Blue eyes shot open at the sudden impact before the pain flooded his senses.
Martin cried out, the sudden shout startled Gourmand and he released the boy who fell to his knees. The snake let go and turned to Gourmand hissing before retreating back into the flower. “Forget this I’m leaving.” With that the chef ran back to his plain and left, while Martin had curled into a ball as the effects of the the venom was working it’s way through his veins.
He felt weak, nauseous, pain, and the spot where the snake had bit him was starting to itch. But he couldn’t do anything except lay there and try not to throw up from the nausea or pass out from the pain. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he wait fro either death, a hungry animal, or Chris to find him. He was really hoping for that last one. As minutes ticked by, or it could have just been seconds, Martin was starting to lose hope that Chris would find him.
He closed his eyes to try and relive some of the pain and nausea when he heard the sound of a bush wrestling. He opened his eyes just in time to see a worried Chris coming, he let out a relived sigh and the green Kratt knelt down next to him and gently pulled him into his lap checking him for injuries. The movement made the nausea worse and Martin let out a whimper of pain when his hand brushed the sensitive wound. “Martin what happened? Where’s Gourmand.”
Martin blinked once, twice, as the words registered in his pain filled mind. “He left after I got bit.” Chris’ eyes widened in horror. “Bit! By what! Where.” His brown eyes once again searched for wound. “My right… arm… an… an Eyelash Viper…” Chris, as gently as he could, shifted Marin so he could see the bite. And sure enough it was there swollen, red, and painful. Chris pulled out his Creature Pod and called the Tortuga.
“Jimmy! Bring the Tortuga to my location, and hurry! Aviva get your antivenom ready!” Not asking question’s the team went into action and were there within minutes. As soon as the Tortuga was in position Aviva came down on a rope with a medical kit in hand. Everything was fuzzy after this point for Martin. He heard Chris, Aviva, and Koki’s voices but not what they were saying. He felt something prick his arm but after that? Nothing. Everything just faded to black.
When he woke up, he was in his room in the Tortuga. Blinking a couple of times, he realized that he had a killer headache. Groaning he used his left hand to rub his temples. He heard something shift next to him, peaking through his hand he saw Chris sitting in a chair next to his bad sleeping, his head resting on his arms. Martin smiled at his little brother as he ran a hand through his short brown hair.
Chris stirred awake at the contact. When his brown eyes met blue he sat up fully awake. “Martin! Your awake!” He leaned forward and hugged his big brother as hard as he could without aggravating his injuries. Martin, shocked at first, returned the hug when it was clear that Chris wasn’t going to let go anytime soon. After a little while the younger brother pulled back and whipped some tears that threatened to fall.
“I’m so glad your back to normal.” Martin raised an eyebrow at this. “Uh, Chris what are you talking about?” Chris then proceeded to tell Martin how he was turned into a 6-year-old for a week and was bit by a Eyelash Viper because of Gourmand. Martin ran a hand through his hair by the end of it. “Wow, I guess I missed a lot.”
Chris chuckled. “Don’t worry I’m pretty sure that Aviva and Koki got pictures.” The two laughed and once done Martin grinned at Chris. “So, how was it being the big brother for a change?” Chris smiled at his brother before he looked up at the ceiling. “It was… challenging, Wasn’t easy I’ll say that, but,” Martin gave him a curious look. “But?”
Chris leaned forward, a fond smile on his face. “But it made me see all that you do for me, the things I see and the things I don’t. So, I wanted to say thank you for all that you do for me, bro.” Martin smiled. “Your welcome, but you don’t need to thank me, it’s what I do. It’s my job as your big brother to be there for you no matter what.” Chris hugged him once more and sighed when he felt his brother’s big strong arms wrap around him.
He loved his brother and wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world.