Consciousness swirled back slowly. Mona felt as if she were desperately trying to swim to the surface of a viscous pool. There was a tiny pinprick of light that grew larger and larger until eventually she broke the surface, and gasped as reality hit with full force.

Mona looked around, her eyes blinking as she adjusted to the brightness. She glanced down and saw that she was shackled to some kind of gurney. She struggled against the old leather straps that were tight around her wrists and ankles. She grunted and fell back against the hard metal. Her head suddenly exploded in pain as she remembered that her skull had connected with a brick wall. Where the hell am I? she thought.

There room was white and sterile, and the trays of instruments laid out neatly on tables told her that whatever was going to happen was not going to be good. The brightness was coming from an array of angle poise lamps shining down on her. They shone down on her very pregnant stomach. Her protruding belly button cast a sharp shadow across it. Mona lifted her head again, and the pain stepped up a notch. She strained her neck to try and see further around the room. For the moment, she appeared to be alone.

"Why did I have to be so stupid?" she said, laying her head back down gently. "I run off and now this happens! Typical!"

The rage abated as quickly as it had come on and tears began to pool in her eyes, spilling over the sides of her face and into her hair. She tried to stifle her sobs. Raphael would be furious, and even more so worried. He was probably tearing the place apart. Then Leonardo would try to calm him, and it would rile him up even more. She closed her eyes as blood rushed through her head and pumped along with the pain.

"Oh, Raphie," Mona whispered.

As the words whispered from between her lips there was a harsh clank and a swish. She looked up to see three men entering the room. One man was tall and statuesque, and definitely in charge. The second was shorter, and kept a step behind the first man. The smallest one was almost cowering behind the other two, clutching a clipboard.

"Ah, you're awake," the tallest man said. His voice was smooth, but cold. "It's been a long time, my dear."

Mona lifted her head again and winced. She glared at the small group.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked.

The man chuckled and approached the bed. He laid a hand on her swollen stomach; Mona tried to scrabble away, but the bindings were too tight. His touch was clammy; it made her skin crawl.

"Of course you don't remember me," he said, and then chuckled. "I suppose, however, you could call me…your father."

Mona paused for a moment as her mind processed the information. Suddenly she tried to leap up. The leather straps cut into her and she gritted her teeth, snarling through curled lips.

"What are you talking about? I don't know you; I don't know any of you!"

The man reached up to pet her cheek. Mona tried to bite his long fingers, and he pulled his hand away abruptly.

"You always were feisty, Alpha. You were almost perfect. If only you had been a boy. You had the exact temperament we wanted."

"What do you mean? What why did you call me that?" Mona shrieked. "Let me out of here! I need to go home!"

"Please, don't strain yourself," the second man said, stepping towards the gurney. "You could harm the baby."

Mona spat at him, though it fell short of target, and she snarled again.

"What the hell do you care about my baby?" she asked.

"Oh, my dear, we care very much about this baby," the first man said. "In fact, we care so much that we're going to take it off your hands."

"WHAT?"

"Perhaps we should explain," the second man said.

The first man thought for a moment, before he folded his arms and nodded.

"Yes, perhaps we should. You may do the honours, Lieutenant."

The second man's face visibly brightened as if he was a child who had been given a new toy. The third man was still cowering in the background, as if he didn't want to get too close.

"Well," the 'lieutenant' said. "My name is Stephen Parker, and I was part of the team who created you. Colonel Cooper here," he said, gesturing to the tall man, "hired myself and a team of scientists for a special military experiment. It was called Project Super Soldier. We wanted to create new, better, faster, stronger soldiers for the front lines."

"Cannon fodder, you might say," Colonel Cooper said with a cold smile.

Mona growled at him. Parker stayed silent until Cooper gestured for him to continue.

"We came up with a hybrid human-reptile, upright and intelligent like a human but with the superior speed and reflexes of some species of lizards."

"Not to mention a natural and dangerous weapon," Cooper said as he pinched the end of Mona's restrained tail. "It was all going very well, and we were starting to get results. We weren't quite there, and there were a lot of strange morphs that came out dead."

Mona closed her eyes and winced.

"Stop it!" she said. "I don't believe any of this!"

Cooper was now in his stride. Parker stepped back.

"And then you came along," the colonel said. "You were perfect when you came out of the incubator: fully formed, perfectly plump and with a wail that could be used as a foghorn. You were perfect, except for one thing: you were a girl."

Mona's face crumpled with confusion and she shook her head, though the pain that shot through it immediately made her regret it.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Cooper said. "We couldn't have gone to the military with female cannon fodder. No, the super soldiers needed to be male. So we kept you to study you, and tried again. We named you Alpha; the next was Beta. But," Cooper said, suddenly snarling and banging his fist on the gurney beside Mona's head, "Beta was female as well!"

Mona turned her head away, her mind reeling from the influx of information. It couldn't be true… Could it? That meant that in a way, she had a sister. She turned back to face Cooper.

"What happened?" she asked. "How did I get away from you? And what about Beta? What happened to her?"

Cooper grabbed her chin squeezed tightly.

"One day, you ran away," he said. "God only knows how you got out. Though considering the incompetents I've been saddled with," he said, casting a sidelong glance at Parker, "I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. You disappeared, without a trace. Perhaps you could tell me where you've been, and how this happened," he said, gesturing to her pregnant stomach.

"I won't tell you anything!" Mona said.

Cooper slapped a hand on her stomach and grabbed. Mona squirmed and winced.

"What you say isn't my primary concern anyway," he said. "What you're carrying is what I want. I didn't succeed with you, but perhaps you've brought some good fortune my way. If that baby of yours if a boy, it'll be mine."

"No, you – you can't!" Mona said, words failing her.

"Oh yes I can," Cooper said. "Parker here will have that thing out of you one way or another. Project Super Solider may not be dead quite yet."

Mona felt as if she was going to explode with rage. The gurney shuddered as she wrenched against the straps.

"You monster! You – you animal!"

"I'm not the monster, my dear," Cooper said. "I think you'll find that's you."

The room shuddered with Mona's fury.

***

"Where the hell is she?"

Raphael's bellows echoed around the lair. It wasn't long before everyone had gathered in the living area to see what was wrong.

"We'll find her, Raph," Leo said.

He laid a hand on his brother's shoulder, but Raph shrugged it off.

"Don't touch me," he snarled. "God only knows how long she's been gone for. I thought that she just stormed off to our room, but no, she had to disappear completely! Without taking her turtle comm!"

"We'll find her," Leo said again, more firmly this time. "There are enough of us. We'll split up and search."

In no mood for placations, Raphael stomped a little distance off and folded his arms tightly. Leo addressed the group.

"Okay, we'll go out in pairs and search. If you see anything, let the others know. Sensei and Mei will stay here and look after the babies."

Mei was cuddling a sleeping Yoshio. Splinter had Xiu-Mei and Zhong in his lap. The two nodded, though Leo knew from Mei's stiff demeanour that she wanted to be out looking for her friend.

"Don, can you ask Casey and Apr—"

"I'm on it, Leo," Don said, his turtle comm already out.

"Good. Mike, go and get Desdemona, Othello and Cassio and ask them for help. I think we need all hands available."

"Sure, Leo," Mike said.

His usual humour was lost to the seriousness of the situation, and he leapt off to get the Sewer Slider.

"Raph and I will team up," Leo said.

Raph glared at him over his shoulder, but Leo didn't flinch. Don had walked a little further away, but clicked off his communicator and came over to stand by Leo's side.

"April and Casey will be on the streets in five," he said.

"Good," Leo said. "Mike's gone to get Des and crew. If you're quick you can catch up to him."

Don nodded and sprinted off in the same direction as Mike.

"Okay," Leo said, "let's go."

***

The entire day's plan changed with that one glance. Cooper had just planted his feet on the pavement when a blessed gust of wind had blown his whole life wide open. There is was, alive and well after all these years, right in the city under his nose. He wasn't even sure what he had bellowed, but within a second of seeing it Parker was bolting down the avenue in hot pursuit. Instead of going to a meeting with the heads of research on the luck virus project, he had speeding through the city back to his warehouse. Parker had captured the thing, and now it was in his grasp.

Granted, it had looked different when the wind had blown the hood down. The old colonel could have sworn there was a dark green stripe running down its face, but no matter. Beta had been the one with the green stripe. Alpha's face was a plain green. Either way, one of his old progeny was back in his grasp, and even better, it was pregnant. Cooper's mind worked overtime at the thought of selling off Project Super Soldier to another country. If the US Army didn't want it, someone else could benefit, and Cooper would make a fat profit from it. Oh yes, that baby will be the vindication I deserve, Cooper thought, and I will have it, whether the mother lives or dies.