I had a thought and I'm curious about what you think about it. I cant remember if its canon Chase's warriors are all people he's fought, defeated, and they pledged their loyalty too or if he just collected them, but do you think it's possible they were all his apprentices at some point? Maybe they failed and got turned into cats as punishment, or when they died. They each thought they were The One special apprentice. Does that mean it would be Karnappe's eventual fate?🤔
No, I don't think making apprenticing the warriors was Chase's usual modus operandi for building his army of fallen warriors.
The vast majority of them were probably brought into the fold the same way Guan almost was: strong-armed into swearing their loyalty to him, usually by being fought and defeated. Sometimes through more complex means perhaps, like how Guan was putting himself on the line and gambling his freedom for the sake of Dojo and the little dragons-in-training, so some of the other fallen warriors might have gambled their freedom in hopes of getting something out of Chase or protecting someone or something from Chase too. But always roughly that pattern.
I doubt that ever really involved taking them on as an apprentice before Omi. The way he interacts with Omi is pretty unique to them.
For one thing, although I think Chase has mastered a lot more fighting styles in his 1500 years, Chase's main style is Wushu, specifically Tai Chi.
We have a wide range of masters of different techniques from different cultures. Even though Chase learned enough about those techniques to defeat each of these warriors one-on-one, I doubt he needed to or had the ability to mentor them in their specific specialties. And I doubt he'd want to. He brought on warriors who were already capable fighters. He set out to be a tyrant, not a teacher. He probably "got them accustomed to the ways of evil" when they first joined, but that's the extent of it.
I also think the "chosen one" talk was unique to Omi. "The one who I'll let rule by my side for eternity." There are some fallen warriors he seems closer to than others, but none of them he holds as close by his side as he does Omi when he gets Omi on his side, and none of them he'd kneel for like he did for Omi, so I don't think that's something he offered to anyone else.
Plus, there's also the fact that Chase didn't have an actual plan for how to get Omi to transition from being his apprentice to being on his side. He knows how to get fallen warriors to swear their loyalty or to gamble it away, but he was pretty antsy about how he was going to get Omi to join him. He's not really used to this. At times, he was even a little bit awkward in his interactions with Omi, or he was pretty worriedly talking to Wuya about the fact that if he didn't get Omi on his side, he'd have to destroy him, but never actually seeming willing to destroy Omi. His schemes with Omi are ever-evolving in a way that shows this strategy is pretty uncharted territory for Chase.
As for Katnappe, no, I don't think she was in any danger of being turned into a jungle cat or that Chase ever thought of her as a potential chosen one, or even an actual apprentice. In The Apprentice, Chase never seemed to seriously consider her or actually mentor her. Both Ashley and Jack were only offered the position as part of a complicated plan to make Omi learn how to lie and deceive others "to get a taste of evil." After that, Chase presumably just discarded them both since that was the only role he wanted out of them and he doesn't mention it again.
If there was a pawn on one of Chase's plans who might have been at risk of being turned into a cat, it might have been Jermaine, who was "one assignment away from earning a permanent place" there. Even that was still just part of a plan to get Omi to act though, so Jermaine wasn't a potential chosen one in Chase's mind. If Jermaine had beaten Omi in the showdown and "earned a place" as a jungle cat, Chase was probably counting on the fact that Omi would definitely be willing to wager his own freedom to try to win Jermaine's back. Omi wouldn't have tried done that for Katnappe, even in theory.
