A/N: Writing this is so much fun! Thank you for the reviews, please keep them coming. Also, I know what you're going to think when you read this chapter, and you're wrong ;-)

"And what makes you think we need YOUR help, Lara Croft?" Finn shot back at the British woman standing in the SVU squadroom.

Helen Magnus rolled her eyes. She didn't bother telling them exactly WHO the overly sexualized video game character was based on. "You have no idea what you people have stumbled upon, and believe me when I say you are ALL in over your heads."

Olivia stared the woman down. "Okay, maybe we don't know what's going on. Let's find a conference room where we can talk and you can tell us what it is we don't know."

"An interrogation room, you mean?"

"They serve different purposes depending on who we are dealing with." Olivia replied, cautiously. "We will need to confiscate your weapons while you are on police premises, and if you want them back you had better have a permit."

"What makes you think I'm armed?" Helen challenged. She was, of course. She was always armed, doubly so if she knew John might be involved. She also had every intention of handing over her weapons, for now. NYPD may have ethics that were questionable in her world, but she trusted this group to do the right thing, even if it meant breaking the rules.

Olivia sighed. "Hand it over, Ms. Magnus. I don't know who you are or whose rules you live by, but when you walked into our squadroom, you started playing by OUR rules." Helen grinned and reached into her jacked pocket, pulling out her revolver that she's had since the days of the original Ripper cases, and presented it handle first to Benson. The detective looked it over.

"This is an antique. Excellent condition, too. Nice. Now the rest," A semi-auto came out from the small of her back and was also turned over. Helen looked at her expectantly.

"That's it."

"Bullshit. Keep going." Helen pulled the stunner out of her pants leg and handed it over with a smirk. The detectives' eyes widened.

"What the…" Stabler trailed off.

"I told you that you all had no idea what you are getting yourselves into," Helen reminded them.

"I'm guessing you don't have a permit for that," Munch speculated.

"You would probably be right," Helen replied. "I'm also guessing there's no law against it."

"Cute. Is that it?" Helen grinned again, pulling a knife out of her left boot.

"That's truly it," she promised.

Stabler walked up to her. "Don't take it personally if we don't trust you." Helen nodded, and he quickly frisked her. He furrowed his brow and pulled a set of zip tie restraints from her pocket. "What do you DO for a living?" he asked.

"You don't want to know," she answered. The four detectives led the woman to a "conference room." They were all a little bit perplexed by how their instincts told them to trust this woman that showed up out of nowhere armed to the teeth. They all settled around the table.

"So, really, who are you?" Finn asked.

"My name is Helen Magnus," she reminded them.

"Yeah, we got that. What makes you think you can help us?" Finn retorted.

"Well, you are looking for a modern day Jack the Ripper, right?"

"How do you know about that?" Stabler demanded.

"Let me guess. You have the details on lockdown to keep it out of the media. Your system is shockingly easy for anyone remotely talented to hack."

"You hacked into NYPD?" Munch asked, amazed. "I like it. The vigilantes stalking Big Brother. Ironic."

"Munch. Get with the party line. She hacked into OUR case files." Finn reminded his partner.

"Well, technically it wasn't me. It was my head of security."

"You have a head of security. Really. Who. Are. You." Benson insisted.

Helen considered how much information to give them. "I run a private research facility. I explore the fringes of physical science." Munch leaned in, intrigued.

"So, aliens?" Helen laughed.

"Hardly. People spend far too much time looking into outer space. They are missing out on all the wondrous discoveries right in front of them."

"I've seen a lot of strange things on this job, but 'wondrous' isn't the word I would use to describe them." Finn replied.

"You're right; many of the fringes of our world are dangerous, even more so when we don't understand them. Understanding the world around us is one of our greatest defense mechanisms."

"I can't argue with that, but I find a good sidepiece to be useful, too." Stabler countered.

"I can't argue with that, either. Clearly." Helen laughed. She paused, and continued. "I am going to ask a lot from you four. I am going to ask you to trust me when I've given you little reason to. You are going to have more questions than you will receive answers to. You have to know I am on your side. I want justice for this killer's victims as much as you do."

"Victims?" Munch asked. Helen nodded.

"Yes. Victims. The man that I believe you are looking for has killed before, and he will kill again. 'Man' may not be the right word. 'Monster' might be more accurate." Olivia noticed that while the woman's speech never wavered, there was a flash of…something…in her eyes when she described the man as a monster. Regret? Maybe.

"Is he sociopathic?" Munch asked, softly. He too had noticed the woman's eyes change. Helen shook her head.

"No, he has a very clear, if somewhat stilted, moral code. I think the closest thing that you would understand is dissociative identity, but that's not quite right." Actually, it was very accurate. John had two identities in the truest sense; there was the man she had fallen in love with at Oxford all those years ago, and there was the energy creature that had tormented him for over a century.

"I'm not completely convinced D.I.D. is legit. We've seen more cases of people faking it than anything else." Munch explained, thinking back to some of their old cases.

"Yes. Traditional dissociative identity disorder is very rare, and not at all like what they show on TV." Helen agreed. "I've learned a lot from my staff psychiatrist in the time he has been working for me."

Olivia glanced up from her tablet. "You are completely off the grid. I cannot find records of a Helen Magnus anywhere. How do we know you aren't just spinning a tale?"

Helen admitted it was a fair point. She knew she would eventually have to pull rank, but she had wanted to open up to them a bit herself before they were ordered to listen to her. "May I make a call?" She pulled out her cell. Stabler nodded.

It rang a few moments before he picked up. "Yes, this is Helen Magnus….Doing well, you?...Well, I'm here in New York on business, and I need the cooperation of Manhattan SVU. They are understandably a bit skeptical, do you mind?...Thank you, sir." She handed the phone to Stabler. He took it, quizzically.

"Detective Stabler…yes sir…yes sir…but, sir…yes, I understand." Stabler hung up the phone and handed it back to a smirking Helen Magnus. He looked to the other detectives.

"That was the Commissioner. To quote: 'You are to cooperate with Helen Magnus. You do what she says. You do not ask probing questions. You do not take notes. You forget that you met her when she leaves.'"

Finn looked pissed.

Olivia simply stared.

Munch looked like Hanukkah had come early this year.