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Lotus followed her mother without question.
She was born and raised by her, and anyone born and raised by Tang Shen knew that disobeying would have consequences. She knew she would join the Foot, but her mother said she would train her because she didn’t have that chance with her big sister.
Ah, yes, the elusive big sister. The one who had no pictures, and was the Foot clan leaders’ treasured prodigy before she went missing. She wasn’t just a recruit, her mother had told her, she worked her way into being in their favor.
By obedience, her mother said.
If you disobey your Foot leaders, the punishment would be worse.
When Lotus’s sister left the Foot, Shen was furious. She refused to talk about it after, and it made sense; the only reason her sister was brought up in the past was with how good she was. How great the reports coming from the Foot were. There were no pictures of the girl in the home or in the media. The media didn’t know of Tang Shen’s eldest daughter, and Lotus didn’t know much either. She didn’t even know her name, just that now she’d definitely never know it.
The media didn’t know about the eldest, but they knew about the youngest. The blink and you miss it romance with a random man Lotus had never met, and the result of it. Her mother flaunted her around, calling her lovely and saying not to listen to people who spoke badly about her because of her dark skin. Her older sister’s father was Korean, and Shen had told of him with great love. Another woman had tried to take him from her, but he was loyal, and the horrid woman killed him. Lotus’s father was black, and her mother spoke highly of him, though not with the same amount of love she spoke of her elder sister’s father with.
Shen loved Lotus, Lotus knew that. That’s why she was so strict. That’s why, even after training Lotus until she was nearly throwing up from exhaustion and could barely move, she brushed her hair. She gave her an amazing room. She gave her freedom as long as it didn’t go against her mother’s rules.
So, yes, Lotus followed her mother without question.
She followed when she helped the Foot get the Krang key.
She followed them when her mother became the second Shredder.
Lotus was her second in command, even if she was only twelve, born a few months after sister had been given to the Foot (though she likely thought she was abandoned). She was proud. She watched her mother tell others what to do and was excited. She copied her to a point where she didn’t know where her mother ended and she started.
So when Lotus attacked those guards, she didn’t hold back. She played dirty. When she disarmed them, she went in for the kill, just like her mother. She had a smile, just like her mother. They scrambled back, faces filled with horror. Lotus took pleasure in knowing that she was an intimidating figure with her mask and sword.
She was on a mission, people in her way would be dealt with.
No witnesses.
A second before the kill, though, she hesitated, her heart sore as she stared down at the people she was about to kill. Disarmed. Afraid. Helpless.
Weak.
People that are weak die. Her mind said. The strongest survive. So she pushed through.
She had planned this perfectly, the same strategic way her mother did. She had planned no witnesses, so that was what she’d have, just like her mother.
She was nothing if not her mother’s daughter.