Welcome back! This chapter is a bit all over the place, I apologize for that. Hopefully the breaks don't mess up too badly with the flow of the story all that much. We're back to present time, so to speak, hope ya'll enjoyed that flash back and we'll get back to that again at some point here while also finally getting to see what happened in Orlando.

Without further ado, enjoy!

Eighteen Hours Ago:

"Everyone doing okay?" Ray asked, the breeze hitting him again as it swept past the two of them.

"For the most part. Brooklyn is sleeping, which is normal for him after something like this and the bleeding has stopped."

Ray nodded, "Where's Anette?"

"She left; nobody has seen her since the first round of trials." Max answered, his heart stopping as Ray spun around on the edge of the rooftop and only breathed easy when he hadn't fallen off.

"And who the hell told her she could leave?! We're on a lock down!"

"Fuckin hell…" Ray growled, jumping off the edge of the rooftop and went to his work phone to call her.

"Brooklyn didn't check her." He muttered angrily, shaking his head.

"Do you want to send someone out?" Max asked, hoping Ray would calm down some. It wasn't good for him to be stressed like this while pregnant again, he had been put on bed rest with Kain because he kept insisting in coming into work and they didn't need a repeat of that.

Ray waited as the phone rang in his ear, only for him to let a feral sounding noise come from within his throat as his call had gone unanswered. His pupils slitting to fine points, as he gripped his phone in his hand tighter.

"I'll go after her."

"Ray…" Max stepped up to stop him, though before he could Ray wasn't where he had been standing last as a green blur of light shot past him and the wind swept past him in the opposite direction it had naturally been blowing before.

"I hate it when you do that…" Max grumbled under his breath, quickly pulling out his own phone.

He barely had to say a word when Brooklyn's cut through the other end, "We got him, right before he made it out the front doors."

"Alright, I'm on my way back down." Max sighed as he hung up, pocketing his phone into his jeans and taking himself to the stairs that Ray had just gone down in the blink of an eye earlier.

It didn't take him long to guess where they had put his boss, his friend, and he chose right when going to Ray's office where he was sat in his chair brooding. Glaring at everyone who was there, with his arms crossed over his chest and his pupils slit. Max would have laughed, if he didn't fear for his life and kept it down as he closed the doors behind him and wedged himself between the two guards to get inside where Brooklyn and Kenny were already sitting at the large round table in the center of the room.

"You didn't check her." Ray growled at the red-head who looked rather smug at the moment.

"But I did." Brooklyn answered with a calm tone, "It wasn't her; it wasn't anyone here in this branch. I suggest we contact America and Japan again, see if maybe someone over there has figured out where the leak came from."

Ray sighed with an eyeroll, "I already did that, Judy and Emily say that it happened here!" He bit out as his pupils got thinner, "Are you sure you checked everyone?"

"I am sure, unless you want me to try again." Brooklyn asked in a tired voice.

Ray shifted in his chair as the room got quiet for a minute, "No… No I don't want to put that much strain on you again." He said in his own tired voice, "Lift the ban, everyone can go home."

Everyone in the room nodded to him, the two guards leaving to go spread the word around and just leaving the other four in there alone.

"I'm going to stay here for the night, you three can go home." Ray huffed as he pulled his arms from around himself and went to some files on his desk that had been brought in by Kenny, detailing all who in his branch of the BBA had been compromised.

"If you need anything, call me." Max said in his own tired voice, getting himself up from his chair as Ray just nodded to him.

"Just be careful out there."

"You too." Max said over his shoulder, already on his way out of the room to go home.

Kenny followed after him quietly, he wasn't going home but to make sure the serum they had been working on was coming along the way it should be one last time before he had to go home. Brooklyn stayed in his chair, watching Ray quietly for a while more until he stood up and took the file he had been looking at away from him.

"You need rest."

"I'll rest when this is done, now hand it over." Ray held his hand out for the file, giving Brooklyn a dull look without a bite in his tone or a hardness in his eyes. He was just tired, of a lot of things.

"You'll need to be up early to pick up Lee from the airport in the morning, go rest." Brooklyn tried again, closing the file and putting it behind his back.

"You're starting to sound like Tala. I'm fine, I'm not even tired." Ray said in time with a yawn.

Brooklyn gave him an amused look for a second, before his face softened and something in his eyes changed a little as he looked down at him.

"I wonder why that is." He said softly, the look in his eyes staying even with Ray's head quickly jerking back up to look at him with a brow raised.

Slowly Ray's face fell slightly, unsure what to say or do at the moment and cleared his throat a little as his heart flipped inside his chest in a way he hadn't expected it to.

"Sleep, now." Brooklyn spoke over him as Ray's mouth opened, sweeping out of the room before Ray had a chance to realize he had said anything at all to him and watched the door to his office close.

Putting both his elbows on the top of his desk, Ray lent forward into the palms of his hands with another, deeper, groan as unwanted tears pricked in his eyes that he didn't even have an answer for. The last thing he had suspected from Brooklyn was that and now that he had it, he wasn't sure what to do with it suddenly.

After sitting like that for a short while he sat back, drying his face from the few tears that had escaped and pulled out his cellphone. His fingers hovering over the familiar number but unable to press it at the moment before just tossing his phone across the room with all the strength he had, watching it clank against the wall before falling to the carpeted floor with a soft thud in one piece.

What was once a large, pristine, and dark place was now left to rot away over the years. Pieces and parts of the walls that had survive the fires were left to crumble away through the harsh winters of years gone by, the foundation was solid and kept the better parts standing. The government didn't care for such a place anymore after it had been raided and torn apart, freeing the hundreds of boys from within it's stone walls and caged cells.

It had been burned down in places to get rid of it, only to still stand in some places. Those who knew the history of the place would come by at times and throw bottles and rocks at it's still standing, but deteriorating, walls over the barbed wire fencing that kept it closed off from the rest of the population.

There were of course the childish dares for someone brave, and stupid, enough to find a way through the fencing and enter such a haunted place. Some returned, others didn't but the police never looked into those disappearances because they feared for their own lives if they were to cross past through that fence.

On the charred remains of one of it's walls, a plague stayed up proud and true through the testament of time and all it had gone through. Balkov Abbey.

Outside it was a dark reminder of what had happened ten years ago, while deep down in the tunnels that had never been found it was the start of something new. Something grand and even more sinister than what it had been originally used for.

Heels clacked in a hasty fashion down the metal staircase, strings of lights were held up on the ceiling above to bring some light into such a dark and dampened place. The air smelled strong of mold and was thick with moisture with a chill to it, yet the heat that surrounded her body like a blanket kept the chill at bay.

Reaching the bottom floor, coming through the back door from one of the still standing wings of the Abbey, Anette promptly turned on her heel for the first set of metal doors and stepped through. Commanding the room with her presence alone, the heat staying around her like her own bubble but was not unnoticeable by the ten others in the room she had come into.

"We are moving to Phase Delta." She spoke with an air of authority as her crimson eyes swept around the room at the stunned faces.

One brave soul came away from his computer he had been on, standing up from where he had been sitting and wiped his brow nervously.

"They are still unstable." His shaky voice informed.

Anette's crimson eyes shifted to him and him alone, a fire behind them as the heat that had clung around her started to grow outward as she stepped up to him past the other rows of computers. Those she passed wheeled away on their chairs, feeling the air around them get hotter and their own skin starting to sweat a little.

"Did I ask if they were ready?" Anette asked as she came to stand toe-to-toe with the now shaking man.

"No… No ma'am." He choked on the drying air, the heat acting like it was reaching out and touching his skin like a gentle hand that seared his skin even under the sleeve of his lab coat.

"Then, release them." Anette spoke with an icy undertone to her voice, the fire in her crimson eyes blazing brighter.

"Yes. Yes ma'am." The man swallowed in an attempt to quench his drying throat, nodding feverishly as he stepped back to his computer quickly to get away from the heat.

Anette smiled as she stepped back, the heat recoiling back into her own space as she walked the length of the room to the back where another set of two metal doors stood. Pushing them open as she went, those in the room she left behind her getting to work in putting in through the next phase.

In the new room she had come into there was a desk in the corner with a computer, the room almost cut in half where the wall across from the doors was nothing but one large pane of glass that overlooked a pit like room. Through the glass that she could look through without being seen from the other side, flocks of tarred bodies and skeletal wings were in a frenzy of sorts inside the pit.

Some of the Savages were crawling along the stoned walls, others resting at the very bottom where she could not see them, while their shrieks and cries shook the room itself.

"Now, now children that's quite enough." Anette cooed from her desk, her voice coming through a speaker inside the pit that calmed the Savages and their cries.

With the room quiet she turned on her computer, the first thing to appear on the screen were the files from BBA that had been leaked out to Bryan and she quickly shut them down away from her before going to a video messenger app off the toolbar of her computer. Within a few minutes Roman's face appeared on the screen, his eyes hard for a minute until they softened slightly at seeing her face.

"What is it?" He barked.

Anette leaned back into her chair with a smirk on her lips, "We're moving to Phase Delta, expect an attack within a few hours."

"Delta?! You told me those beasts weren't ready yet!" Roman shouted back, his eyes quickly darting up over his camera as if he was looking to see if anyone was around him.

"I'm up to my neck in these damn attacks Saisei, when will we be near the end here?" He asked in a lower tone with a bite to it.

"As soon as I have my baby." Anette responded coolly, twirling a dark-blue strand of hair around her finger. "I'm in no need of Kon anymore, he's done his part. The new one is Valkov's mutt, you can do what you want with him."

"How many this time?" Roman asked with a huff.

"Two, one in the lower district and one to the west of HQ. Kon will be picking up Wong in a few hours here, expect the attack around then and that's where Delta will be." Anette explained in that same, calm and unnerving tone of hers.

"And this will be the last?" Roman asked.

"Until I have my baby Roman." Anette reminded, "I'll be there in a few hours, when I arrive it'll be thirty minutes before the attacks happen. Have your normal dribble of men ready, whatever you must do to save face." She waved off as if she was talking about the weather.

"Anything else?" Roman asked, though he looked like he really didn't care.

Anette tapped her chin with her index finger for a second, mocking him in a way and he knew that but couldn't do a thing about it. He had a debt to pay, what she commanded went and his hands were tied because of it.

"Not at the moment no, if something crosses my mind I'll let you know though." She smiled at him and ended the call before he could say anything back.

Present Time:

"Where's the attack happening!" Tala fired off, ignoring his question and Roman's eyes hardening.

"So far there has been activity in the lower districts, then there has been spikes to the west of here." Anette said, her voice cutting through the tension in the room as she gestured to the large screen on the wall that showed them where the attacks were happening on a map.

"Is everything okay, Tala?" She asked, turning back to look at him and caught the fear in his eyes. A very, barely there, twitch of her lips went up before her face softened.

"We have to go, now!" Tala fired at Kai, hardly seeing or hearing of any of them. "Ray is out there!"

Kai's heart came to a screeching halt as his breath hitched in his throat, his eyes going wide before his head snapped back to Roman and Anette.

"Two squads." Roman spat out.

"We don't have time to babysit!" Tala yelled, clenching his teeth and fists at his sides.

"And you don't have time to argue." Anette said coolly, meeting his eyes.

There was something there, in her eyes that he couldn't place at the moment, but he swallowed his next words and nodded.

"Take silver and red, they're already being prepped. Shoot to kill, we don't want any alive and that includes Feathers and Dickenson if they're there."

"What happened?" Kai asked, having to stop and wait for the elevator.

"Sounded like he got into an accident, driving, but then I heard one of them through the phone and he hung up." Tala answered, his voice shaking.

"Fuck." Kai breathed out heavily.

This was his fault, that Ray had stayed out all night and hadn't come home. If something happened to him…

"Hey, hey. Stop it, don't do that to yourself." Tala put a hand to Kai's shoulder, already seeing the thoughts raging through his head.

"We'll get to him; we'll keep him safe."

"And then he'll know about us, know about them…" Kai said in another breath.

"I think it's about time he did…" Tala breathed back, keeping his hand on Kai's shoulder just because they both needed it. "We weren't going to be able to hide it forever."

Kai nodded slowly, despite Tala's calming words it did nothing to stop the fear coming back through every one of his nerves. The elevator door finally opening up for them that they promptly ran inside of, hitting the button for the lower floor where the locker rooms sat.

They were quick to dress with the two squads they had been assigned with, the others already dressed out in their all black gear with heavy breast plates and masks. Kai and Tala barely spared them a look, they all knew the drill by now, as they stripped from their clothes and got into the same type of attire the others were wearing as quickly as they could.

"We're going to the lower district, that's where most of the activity is happening." One of the others in all black and heavy plated armor said as he stepped up to the two, his voice slightly muffled behind his mask that had a red stripe running up the top of it to the back.

Kai and Tala exchanged looks quietly, pulling their heavy breast plates on and latching them around their sides before tightening the straps down.

"Red is going with Tala to the lower district, Silver is coming with me. There's two attacks, we're not going to focus on just one." Kai said in a commanding tone, one that didn't give him much back talk but the guy that had stepped up didn't look like he was fixing to back down.

"We already have our orders."

"Fuck your orders!" Tala growled at him, shoving his helmet over his head after retying his hair back to get the helmet on without issue.

Kai put a hand down on Tala's shoulder to stop him before it got too ugly. Tala reeled back, stepping down from the other man but held his glare on him as Kai let a silence fall over the locker rooms for a second as he fitted his own helmet down on his head.

"Red is going with Tala to the lower district, Silver is with me. End of." He repeated, even with the helmet muffling his voice it still held the commanding tone to it.

The other man that had approached held his hands up, stepping back. The last thing he wanted was for that one to burn the place down and took his spot back with the other's with red stripes running down the tops of their helmets.

"I don't know where he was…" Tala whispered quietly to Kai.

"I'll have Bryan pull up the tracker." Kai didn't even bat an eye as he grabbed his phone from within his locker, going to Bryan's contact and giving him the order.

Tala held his breath, he never liked having done that to Ray in the first place but now it seemed to be their only way of finding him and making sure he was okay.

Within seconds Kai had Ray's location on his phone, he was to the west of where they were. He'd be able to get to him, out his secret that he had been hiding his entire life from him but as Tala had said it was about time he did.

"Be careful." Tala said, placing a hand on Kai's shoulder for a second before turning to his team and commanding them to move.

Kai watched them go for a minute, this would be a first in them being apart like this on a mission but he trusted that Tala could hold his own without him. He wasn't like him, where he had Wolborg's full powers, but that had never stopped him from doing all he had done already the past three years.

Stuffing his phone into his locker and slamming it shut, he turned to the Silver team and commanded them to move next. Their first stop was the armory before they were to be shipped out, what awaited him outside he wasn't sure but only one thing was on his mind at the moment and that was making sure his family was safe.

Sweat trailed down his face, the cut on his forehead still dripping with blood that had ran down the side of his neck and soaked into the collar of his shirt. His finger pulling the trigger of his gun rapidly till it clicked, having used up all that was in there and he still had twenty Savages rushing at him and edging closer. Those that had hit the ground slowly pulled themselves back up onto their feet, the bullet wounds healing by the tar like substance that pulled into itself; like it was alive, until the wounds were closed completely and the blood that had ran down their faces seeped into the tar.

If this had been his first time, he would have been shaking uncontrollably. Though, his movements were fast and fluid, no hint of broken nerves as he exchanged magazines again into the gun in his hand. Instead of the one bullet for one Savage, he used two in each one as they came hurling down the road. Knocking them back to the ground, only a few feet away now they still came after him as the sirens became more deafening from behind him.

There were thirty to forty Savages, having used two bullets and wasting the fifteen two at a time, he barely made a dent in the hoards size before he was left without any ammunition again and they were closer. The heat seeping from them reaching him again, making him sweat harder as he choked on the drying air.

He was stuck, he didn't know what to do as his skin felt as if it were burning now with the how close the hoard was approaching. Why they seemed intent on him and him alone now, he was still unsure, but he still couldn't find it in himself to run away; not until he knew the place had been cleared of civilians and they were safe.

With what little spit he had left in his mouth he swallowed it hard, tossing his gun away since it was useless to him now and stood his ground. There wasn't anything more he could do, knowing these things would tear into him the second they got a hold of him.

The wound in his head throbbed, he was tired on top of everything else and the longer he stood there watching the hoard inch closer to him he felt frozen where he stood until a sickening crack of thunder roared across the sky overhead. Shaking him out of his dazed standing quickly, the ground beneath him shaking as black bolts of lightning hailed from the sky and splitting the asphalt where the hoard of Savages stood. Their pained cries filling the air as their bodies twisted, the black bolts of lightning passing through them with how close they were beside one another and dropping to the ground all together in one heap once the lightning disappeared.

"C'mon, we need to go!" Mariah tugged on Ray's arm; her large yellow eyes filled with worry as she had appeared beside him in a pink blur of light.

Ray's head snapped to her, feeling relief wash through him but also the pained guilt whenever he had to look at her. The right side of her face was covered in a large burn mark, her upper lip had scars that ran across her cheek and into her jawline. It was just one more ugly reminder of what a failure he had become, and one more reminder that if it wasn't for him selling his soul the others wouldn't have done the same.

"Is everyone out of here?" Ray asked.

"Yes, but you now let's go!" Mariah tugged on his arm harder, needing to get him moving as the sirens in the distance were edging closer with every passing second.

"Where's Brooklyn?"

"He got held up." Lee said as he approached the two at a normal pace, looking down at the bodies of Savages he had roasted with Galeon's power with a smug grin on his face that revealed his fangs.

"They wouldn't go down…" Ray said as he shook his head some, Mariah's grip on his arm getting tighter. "I shot them; they wouldn't go down!"

Mariah and Lee looked to the heap of Savages; they hadn't moved yet but they also hadn't started reverting back to what they were before either. What Ray had said sent a chill to run down their spines, they had never encountered ones like that. All it took was a bullet between the eyes and they were down, why these ones got up again was just as much a mystery to them as it was to Ray.

"Then we should go, the Lap Dogs are already dealing with the other attack." Lee said calmly, knowing the type of stress Ray was under at the moment as it was why he had been called in to begin with and didn't need to keep him out in the open longer.

"There's two attacks?!" Ray all but yelled, getting his arm pulled by Mariah again.

"Leave them to their mess, we need to get you out of here. Think of the baby." She pleaded.

Ray's head snapped back down to her before he slowly nodded, letting her pull him away this time and the three disappeared across the street in their own streaks of light.

Anette stood as close as she could to the thousands of tiny screens along the wall of the control room, a smile had been plastered on her face for the longest of time as she watched her children wreak havoc on the world only for it to slowly fall into a hardened frown the longer she watched.

A sudden wave of heat rose from around her body, those close enough jumping back as it shot out and almost reached them, as her crimson eyes burned with a raging intensity in them as her children fell left and right like flies out of the sky as a hail of black lightning shot down into them. Ray was whisked off, she hadn't counted on Mariah being there with Lee, hadn't know she would be there at all.

Within minutes, watching it all in real time on the surveillance cameras littered throughout the city, the Silver team led by Kai showed up and she watched as they swept through the street and picked off the last bit of her children that were still struggling to get back up after Lee's attack.

The fire on her skin reached a point flames were forming on the tips of her fingers, her last attempt at getting what she was after being torn from her hands quickly. In the back of her head she knew she had one card left to play and that was it, knowing what she did she wasn't sure if she could use it anymore; she might have very well just lost all chances she had at getting what she wanted at this point because she hadn't acted sooner.

Her eyes landed on the screen that showed off red-orange hair and black wings stretched to their length, black tendrils of a smoky substance radiating from out his back and engulfing her children without breaking a sweat in the process; her last card that she could use.

"Roman!" She barked over her shoulder, startling the man slightly where he was standing at the table in the middle of the room behind her.

"I want you to release Granger."

Roman's eyes widened, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"He's useless to us as it is, let him go." Anette ordered in a cold tone, turning back around to the screens she had been watching previously as a twisted smirk came to her lips as the plan in her head began to unfold.

"Let him say his goodbyes to his friends."

Four Hours Later:

Tired, burned slightly, and minds scrambling for answers that they couldn't find Ray and the others sat around his table inside his office. The threat had been taken care of, the Lap Dogs coming in and doing their jobs and cleaning up their own mess again. Even with the threat gone the weight was still there on Ray's shoulders, if it wasn't for them none of this would be going on and if he wasn't useless it wouldn't have gone on for as long as it had.

Thankfully they hadn't lost anyone, nobody was badly injured to the point they needed medical attention but he still couldn't shake the feeling he had that something wasn't right.

The way those Savages acted, got up from being shot still shaking him to his core some. They had never seen them like that and Kenny didn't have any answers as to why, Emily had been contacted to help look into it and they were still running over all the possibilities of what it could be now but so far they weren't getting anywhere and that only made Ray's frustrations grow while he looked like he wasn't even in the room with them.

"You should get home, get some rest." Lee spoke to him softly, seeing the dark cloud hanging over Ray's head from where he was sitting beside him.

Ray nodded, he still had to pick Kain up from daycare and go home. As if it he got hit by a truck he felt more aware and awake suddenly.

"I have to go."

"I'll drive you." Mariah piped up from beside her brother, already getting up out of her chair.

Ray nodded almost numbly as he followed her, "Everyone needs to get some rest, it's been a long two days."

"You worry about yourself right now, we'll handle things here." Lee called to him as Ray was leaving the room behind Mariah.

Ray bit his lip; he didn't like doing this to them, leaving Lee there in his stead because he had gone off and gotten himself pregnant again but there wasn't anything he could do about it now but nod again at him as he left them there in his office.

Once he was gone and out of earshot of them Lee turned his attention to Brooklyn and Max, his yellow eyes narrowing at the two of them heatedly.

"Why wasn't I called in sooner?" He growled out.

"He didn't want us to." Max answered calmly, "We've mentioned it to him thousands of times, you know how stubborn he can get."

"We thought we had things under control here." Brooklyn added quickly.

"I should have been called the moment Tyson and Kane went missing!" Lee spat as he slammed his hand on the table, "Now we have a leak, we have Savages that won't go down by normal means and he looks like he's fixing to collapse at any second!"

"We've done what we could, Lee. You can't pin the blame on us when it's his fault for some of this." Max argued back, holding Lee's glare with his own.

"Choose your next words carefully Max, there's more blame to go through this table that he should not have to bear the weight of entirely. You and I both know that." Lee growled out low and threateningly, baring his fangs slightly.

"I think we should retire, as Ray said it's been a long two days." Brooklyn cut in between them, the last thing they needed to do was fight amongst each other.

Max and Lee held their glares at one another a minute longer before they broke it off, the two huffing irritably as Max was the first to push himself away from the table and stand.

"I'll see you two tomorrow." He spat at them before taking his leave, Lee's eyes on his back the entire time until the door slammed closed behind him.

"Forgive him, he's not been the same since Tyson disappeared." Brooklyn sighed as he turned to meet Lee's heated gaze and an outstretched hand.

"What's this?" Brooklyn rose a brow as he lifted a hand to touch the palm of Lee's hand but refrained from touching him at the moment.

"Show me what you can, I need to know what I'm being put up against here and if I should bring Gary in or not."

Brooklyn thought it over for a minute, "My visions aren't coming in like they should recently, what you might see can change; keep that in mind." He said and touched the palm of Lee's hand with the tip of his finger.

The colors in their eyes were overtaken by the white of their eyes, their mouths parting slightly as the vision Brooklyn had been holding back from Ray all this time played out between them. Lasting a mere two minutes before Brooklyn pulled his hand back from Lee's, the two catching their breath as though they felt they had been punched in the guts.

"I haven't shown this to Ray, because I'm not sure if its been changed yet or not. Seeing it again, I don't think it has been though."

"Don't…" Lee shook his head, trying to come back to the room. "Don't show him that."

"I wasn't intending to." Brooklyn shook his own head as it throbbed painfully, "As you said, he looks as though he's about to collapse."

"How long ago did that come to you?" Lee asked, finally feeling as though he could breathe better.

"Shortly after we lost Tyson, you're the only one who knows."

Lee went quiet for a minute, "Who is she? She looked… Familiar."

Brooklyn shook his head, "I can never see her face, it's just the back of the two of them and then the fire."

"How do we stop this?" Lee breathed out painfully.

"I wish I knew…"

Washed and more put together than he thought was possible, Tala burst through his front door with his heart threatening to leap out of his chest. Only to slightly calm down at the familiar smell of Ray in the home, his worry dissolving as he rushed into the kitchen to find him getting a glass of water from the sink.

Ray would have jumped out of his skin from the sudden rush of Tala coming up to him and pulling him into the tightest hug he had ever given him, if he hadn't heard and smelled him coming into the house, trying not to drop the glass he was holding onto as Tala wrapped himself around him.

"Are you okay?! God you scared the shit out of me!" Tala went off, pulling himself from him and inspecting Ray for anything out of place.

"Tala…" Ray pulled his roaming hands from his face, trying to breathe as he felt tears in his eyes again suddenly. This was hard, harder than anything he ever had to do before.

"Talk to me Kit, please." Tala begged, holding onto Ray's hands in his as he stepped back to give him some room. He knew he was crowding him, but he had never been so scared in his life.

Ray's mouth opened to speak, lay it all out to him when Kai's smell filled the home and he paused. His heart slamming into his chest and his attention turning to the archway that led to the foyer where the third member of their family stepped inside, Mariah's soft footsteps coming down the stairs at the same time and it felt like his breath got snatched out of him quickly.

"Mariah?" Kai eyed her for a minute, not expecting to see her there at all and what was more surprising was the burn mark that covered the entire right side of her face.

"Kai." She said almost dryly, setting down the bags she had been carrying at the door.

Ray pulled himself away from the counter he was being corned against, keeping his hand in Tala's and dragging him out into the foyer where Kai and Mariah were standing and staring at each other.

If one thing hadn't changed over the past ten years, it was Mariah's contempt for Kai and all he had done their first years as a team when he had taken their bit-beasts. Aside from everyone else, she was the only one who disliked the idea of Ray being in the type of relationship he was with the other two but had never once openly voiced her opinion to anyone. The tension was noticeable between the two as Ray and Tala stepped into the foyer with them, Ray not letting go of Tala's hand for a second as Kai's attention was brought to him and he could see the guilt on his face quickly and another scar on his neck.

"Kit… What's going on?" Tala asked, having seen the bags by the door and Mariah standing there.

"He's coming home." Mariah answered for him, putting her hands on her hips as she pointedly stared at Tala. "It's better for him and the babies."

Two sets of eyes moved to him, waiting for him to say something but there wasn't much left to say. She was right, it was better for him and the babies. He couldn't stay there, not with those new types of Savages and being useless. He had failed, in so many ways, he couldn't fail at being a father again.

"You suggested it, I thought it over. It would be better to go home, until things have settled." His voice cracked as he gestured at Kai standing across from him, not missing Tala's hand tightening it's hold on his own.

"Ray…" Tala breathed out, his head swiveling from him to Kai just standing there.

Ray slowly shook his head, biting back the tears. "It's better for right now, you know that. If something… If something happened to this one…"

"Can we have a minute Mariah?" Tala turned to her; begging wasn't something he did often but right now he felt he had to. He fought too hard to get what he had; he wasn't about to just let it all go without a fight.

Mariah nodded slowly, taking herself back up the stairs. She still needed to make sure Kain had what he'd need while they were gone.

Ray slipped his hand from Tala's hold, wiping his eyes quickly. He hated being a hormonal mess at the moment, but it felt like it was his only release that he had.

Kai moved first, feeling it was appropriate given the circumstances, "I told you… I don't want you to leave…" He whispered out, knowing what he did about Mariah now he could only assume she could hear just as well as Tala could now being fused with Galux.

"But it's for the better, Kai. You were right about that…" Ray shook his head, "It's not safe here, there's these… These things out there!"

Kai and Tala's eyes widened, Tala turning back to Ray and grabbing him and inspecting him again quickly.

"Is that what happened when you called me?!"

Ray nodded, "Hit a fence with the car, hit my head on the steering wheel." He paused for a second as a thought hit him just as hard as he had hit the fence.

He hadn't said what type of thing he had seen, yet by the sound of Tala's voice it was as if he knew what he was talking about. Unconsciously he took a step back from them, pulling out of Tala's hold again as his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach at an alarming rate.

"…Where were you two?"

Tala stepped closer to Kai; he didn't like that look on Ray's face any but they had already agreed to finally tell him the truth. Now it would be easier to do since Ray had come in contact with those creatures, the same ones Kai had found and destroyed before finding Ray's car crashed into the fence.

"You should sit down Kit." Tala urged in as calm a tone he could get out of himself at the moment.

"Where were you two?!" Ray shot back, causing the other two to have their own raging questions passing through their heads.

"Ray, sit down." Kai stepped forward again, hoping to calm him down as he looked ready to collapse at any second. Gently taking him up by the arms and tugging him closer to get him into the living room.

Ray couldn't fight back, letting him take him in and sitting down with Tala coming to stand beside him with Kai kneeling in front of him. The air in the room stilled as another tension formed over their heads with a silence none of them wanted at the time, though neither sure where to start and where to end.

"That thing you saw… It's called a Savage, it's a person who was merged with a bit-beast who couldn't handle the merger… They're not human anymore." Kai began in a low, quiet voice as he held Ray's eyes with his own.

Ray's entire body clenched. He knew, Tala knew, how long had they known about these things and why did they know about them?!

He started to shake his head, why he wasn't even sure as the worst possible things came to mind. Were they like him? He hadn't ever wanted that for them, not after all the two of them had already endured before they ever even met.

"Those 'terrorist attacks' you hear about, that's them… Dickenson created them." Kai finished, unsure why Ray had gone to shaking his head but then again he had been acting strange since they got into the house.

Ray's head shot up, his pupils slit quickly at what Kai had said and he shoved him away and stood up with a slight flash of green.

"That's bullshit! He didn't create those things! He was trying to prevent those things from doing the damage they've been causing!"

Kai and Tala blinked a few times as their minds wrapped around what he was saying, how did he know this?!

Ray shifted where he stood, his own brain finally catching up to what he had just said and looked nervously between the two of them and their silent and stunned faces.

"It's you two… Isn't it?" He bit out angrily.

"What're you talking about?" Tala questioned, hoping and praying that Ray's answer wasn't the one he was thinking it was.

Ray turned on him, bile rising in his throat as he stepped back from them again. The answers on all their faces, though neither had the words to explain it all at the moment as the tension returned with a vengeance and the air stilled again only to be cut with the ring of the doorbell going off.