Enigma

AN: Thanks to—I was so surprised to see her again; another faithful reviewer came out of the woodwork! Glad to see you back, hope you're doing well—FeatherGirl13 for reviewing chapter nine. YAY! TEN CHAPTERS! THROW THE CONFETTI AND STRING THE STREAMERS INTO A FANCIFUL SWIRL THAT HYPNOTIZES AND BEMUSES! Anyways, personal proud achievement aside we've reached chapter ten. Honestly I never suspected it to reach this far even though I believed it would and wrote so in a previous chapter but…we are here. Let's see how far Maeleyn and Raphael get with the others. Work super sucked today so I'm getting all my boo-hoo feelings out by writing this. Writing is my drug, my panacea, and my endorphin boost. Enjoy. WARNING: hints of incest coming into play, if you feel strongly against that the next few, maybe last few, chapters may not want to be read. They're just small hints but if you don't like the ideology of that or find it sensitive you may want to read and skim. Note: incest is not directed at the turtle, but at ROSE (spoiling a bit so people who don't like incest or dislike the addition can be cautious when reading parts about her. I've been hinting about it rather brutally by now but I'm not sure what my reviewer's opinions/views are). Also hint of romance between Gustav/Rose. Adult themes implied but mostly averted. Sort of a one-sentence statement that can be easily concluded.

Note separated in only this chapter because the chapter also starts out in bold. Didn't want it to run together.

Password: serene

File override initiation prompted key. Code: 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 – 1 0 1 0 0 0 1

Blood work files – intimates.

Please help.

Zip the files.

Please help.

Activate termination only after reading everything.

Deletion code: | / \ | || & 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 - . (/cancel) - ENTER

I HOPE YOU HAVE FOUND MY CODE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP, BUT IT STILL MIGHT BE TOO LATE. IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THIS MAN…THIS THING…IS CREATING VARIOUS ANIMAL HYBRIDS. LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AS DOMINANT HUMANS COULD BE CLOSE TO ENDING. HOPEFULLY YOU WILL SEE THIS AND BE ABLE TO GET AWAY. THE WAR IS BIGGER THAN I FIRST THOUGHT.

THERE IS A MOLE. THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE. ONE MIDDLE MAN AND ONE PRIZE.

MY NAME IS RILIEN SPECTOR, AND THIS MIGHT BE MY LAST MESSAGE. MAELEYN, KIER, I LOVE YOU. THE HAWK HAS LANDED. THE BOAT GOES TO TWO DIFFERENT HOMES. PROTECT MY OTIS REDDING.

For the longest time Donatello just stared at the lines taking place all on their own before his eyes. Rilien Spector had sent him a message. Was sending him a message, to be in the right frame of mind, and he was a captured man. A man assumed dead. He felt a cold sweat bead on him like it had for the past hour when he'd been under heavy pressure to give Maeleyn the utmost care and tend to what were definitely two broken bones, a blackened right side due to trauma (a little blood oozing from scrape impact but nothing too big), and a looser shell than before still dripping gray fragments and skin.

It wiggled like a loose tooth and it made the genius feel nauseated. To be de-shelled would be awful. The shell was so intimate and protective of their bodies, partly of hers, and to lose it would mean severe trauma and force incurred to the body. Trauma that could kill her if anyone else tried to finish the job. Donatello still wasn't sure how well her DNA, her new skin, could survive with the growth not fully developed. In his mind it was like pulling the sac off the belly of a baby turtle, which would kill it.

Some of her back muscles would be exposed, he knew, because he could see them in better detail than before as he literally bandaged the loose shell to her back. The raw air stung her like peroxide and she demanded to have it pressed to her body through the tears; pressing the shell hurt too, since her skin was so lose and still somewhat bloody despite the antiseptic medicine Donnie had applied. His eyes went back to the computer, Raphael taking his turn to sit with his own emotional face on—an eerily blank face, Donnie realized—and watch Maeleyn as she finally began to feel the effects of the sedative Don gave her to help her sleep. The lines on the computer kept forming and Donnie read them, Raph hardly interested in the near epiphany and hope coursing through his little brother.

Raphael probably wouldn't have understood the ruckus about it anyways; aside from the fact an assumed dead person was most definitely alive. From a scientific standpoint he was gone. The red wearing brother let his right arm hang lazily behind the top of the chair to the point where it lost feeling as his left hand kept rotating a sai clockwise ninety degrees as it thumped on his knee pad. Donnie and the others that could hear the noise in the open lab knew that as a sign of heavy thoughts and emotional distress. They didn't see Maeleyn as he did, Raphael finally began to realize; he was the only one beating down these feelings with real emotion attached to them – his feelings towards her weren't based on the animal side anymore.

Damn…Raphael let his head hang back as he gave a small sigh. His brothers would just think he was tired but he wasn't; he was wide awake. Pissed, and awake. Seeing with eyes so clear it almost hurt to look at anything. A head void of a blinding rage; simply so sharp and so focused he felt as if he were Donnie for a moment, but consumed with the obvious. He loved her. He hadn't even kissed her yet, and sure they'd basically fought like cats and dogs for a month when they weren't being their definition of civil (smacking, goading the other one into a pissy mood, seeing who could be the loudest, shoving, finger pointing) but he knew he loved her.

Raph wasn't good with words but he knew his emotions when he came into them. While this one was foreign the turtle had intuition to know what it was. He'd seen his human friends infected with it. The nature in which he attacked Gustav proved it. She wasn't just something they'd helped out and picked up, saved, like Klunk (who still hadn't been introduced to the new houseguest but would be tomorrow). Maeleyn was…Maeleyn was special. Human, mutant, whatever she was—he didn't care—she was amazing.

The turtle felt cliché just thinking that but he truly felt that way. He'd been harboring it so long because they were perfect being civil, snarky friends ("frienemies", Mikey said) that it had been nearly impossible to change that view point. Gustav had changed that. When he saw her go up in the air and saw the way the hooves of that thing crushed her sides in he freaked. He'd known various levels of panic from growing up with his brothers; everything he'd been able to shoulder and stomach without a problem – he knew his family would pull through because they had each other, and they knew each other…they could play off of each other and make this crazy good mix that blocked all the worry out of him because he knew them. She was different, new.

Maeleyn was dealing with her own facts of life, and being in theirs was making new facts for all of them to see. One of them had been the uniqueness that she'd been forced into, and exposed the people that wanted that uniqueness. It had exposed Raphael to her uniqueness and her personality. That personality he hated, that drove him crazy, and that he loved all at once. Raphael drifted back to the fight scene on the roof hours ago when he was so flighty, like an eagle ready to kill someone over their kids. All he could hear was Maeleyn screeching in pain begging to be put down and the way Donnie and Leo hit the roof. He'd gone into kill mode.

That was his girl. Someone was hurting her. This thing was squeezing on her like she was a rag doll or a toy! Raphael had lunged at him like a dog protecting its owner from intrusion. He didn't remember actually stabbing the beast but felt himself being jerked around like a bag in the breeze and held on. Asshole let her go then; and he could remember seeing the large pool of blood oozing out over his sais, arms, and near his feet before being catapulted back by the beast's backhand.

Raphael felt like he was going to have a panic attack and shut down when Gustav finally fainted and Don's nervous, cracking voice demanded they get her back as soon as possible. Her blood was on the ground. Everywhere. He was too shaken to help carry her so he offered the harder job to himself: body guard. The turtle gripped his sai hard as he thought about the event and hissed lightly, narrowing his eyes behind the mask.

He couldn't help her, and he couldn't tell her it was going to be okay. He ALWAYS told his brothers it was going to be okay, and that he was there, when they were hurt and worried. Raphael felt like he'd let her down. Even more so since he'd yet to share his feelings with her which wouldn't be easy. Hours ago he'd been set to kill. Anything, anyone on the outside…if it crossed his path. Nothing would touch her. She would get to 'point B' safe so she could heal.

Turtles were vicious in protecting their territory and he was no exception. In fact, he was probably the paragon of their animal nature. He released his grip and sighed. She was safe now. Bandaged up and cleaned, and sleeping with little sensors taped to her skin on Don's large, empty work desk. Her vitals were good.

She just had emotional pain, as well as a helluva dose of physical pain. Her ribs would take at least three to six weeks to heal and her shell…well, they may never be able to fix that since it was lose to begin with (Maeleyn wasn't a fan of Don's homemade sewing stitches).

He could already see it coming; she'd probably have another break down because her lessons would be slowed to accommodate her injuries. Especially if she heard about Don's message from Rilien which he was being made to listen to now. His brother gushed in a soft whisper, pointing from the screen to the keyboard, to himself and spouting off all sorts of curious, jumbled ideas. Raph got up from the chair. He saw goose bumps on her skin and decided to get her jacket.

They could give her the nicest blanket, most intact blanket in the lair, and she'd still want her jacket no matter what. Donnie's eyes seemed to glow nocturnally, peculiarly when Raph walked in with her jacket clenched loosely in one hand. His little brother sprang at him like an animal, grinning ear-to-ear and making this long sentence he could only hear the tone of voice in, not the words. Before Raphael got the bright idea to knock the IQ out of his little brother he watched Maeleyn jolt up, stiffen, and bite her lip to fight crying out. He was there; as Donnie was occupied.

His heart thundered behind his plastron, holding her. She was in obvious pain but in his arms nonetheless, leaning into him like she couldn't support herself anymore. It felt nice. For a second she'd looked up at him in disbelief, as he wasn't Donnie, and relaxed, letting him press gently beneath her shell to keep her upright as they both watched Donnie methodically lay out the jacket and smooth it down, searching along the teeth of the zipper for something.

He ripped off the bottom part of the zipper and Maeleyn's tail—had Raphael not been in the way—twitched in urge to smack him, and would've gotten him good. Donnie had desecrated her jacket! Her jacket the Rilien had so painstakingly fixed for her all those years ago! The genius spliced the faux coat on the thumb drive and plugged it into his computer, watching in awe as pages upon pages of work exploded and filled his computer from corner to corner with diagrams, studies, notes, paused videos and more. It was all so beautiful!

"Uncle Rilien?" Maeleyn leaned forward a bit and Raphael kept her supported, going unheard as he warned her of the monitors taped to her body and their limited stretch range. Donatello nodded numbly, wondering where to start. The family was called into his room as Don found the best—simplest way—to summarize all of Rilien's efforts and project parts, and their significance. Maeleyn helped a great deal with that, she was like the 'simple' version of Don's longwinded reiteration, mainly because she was drugged and her thoughts were simple and short anyway at the moment.

It had come down to Rilien sending the site hacker (Donnie) his files so the Shredder couldn't have them and so Don could be able to form a diffusion cure to anyone else they come across if they want to become human again. His notes could also help Donatello—and Leatherhead, undoubtedly, possibly April—make a one-hit shot to kill the evil ones Shredder was no doubt making at this point, and in mass numbers if the genius had to bet. Don saved all the files and killed the main branch of them so anyone trying to track Rilien couldn't make their way to his computer, or the complexity of walls, zipped folders, and code he'd stored the copies behind.

They were all back to the main message that had triggered the files. "This is where you come in," he said pointing to Maeleyn as he took his pressed-together palms from his lips and looked at her. "This is obviously code for you." he told her, gesturing to the message. "But it might take a while since you still look pretty distant on the sedative…" he grimaced a little, hating the fact that what was supposed to help Maeleyn was hindering her and them at the moment.

"Read it to me. My vision's all fucked." she whined and failed to see Splinter's ears point back lightly in dislike at the language. Raph's lips twitched in a tiny grin. An unafraid, vulgar lady. He liked that.

"…there is a mole. There is another side. One middle man and one prize. My name is Rilien Spector and this may be my last message. Maeleyn, Kier, I love you. The hawk has landed. The boat goes to two different homes. Protect my Otis Redding."

The first thing that shot off in her mind was triggered by the Otis Redding comment. Uncle Rilien hated soul music. He didn't like how sustained and wavy a word could be. "He hates soul music. Otis Redding is a soul singer." Maeleyn felt like she was on a bunch of Novocain. She wasn't even sure if her head was straight and held up; she felt like it was going side to side like a bobble head…or maybe she was just tired and still plagued by the sedative. Her thoughts were sluggish and she felt dizzy like when she first woke up in the underground facility, but no panic this time. She was safe.

"My dad's the hawk. Nickname from…shooting range. Eyes like a hawk. Hawk man. The hawk." she giggled at herself. For some reason saying all the things related to the prowess of her father was amusing. Maybe it was because of the sedative. Or maybe it was because she missed her father, and he seemed like a far-off dream because she was so different. Either way she had the sweet memories of him and they warmed her greatly; made her giggly just like he could in a second when she was a little girl.

"So he's here…in New York?" Mikey was beginning to put together in his usual slow, comical fashion. Maybe the pieces of whatever the hell this ordeal made was coming together in a new, good way in a different mind.

"Probably looking for his child," Splinter offered with no doubt in his mind. "It's parent's instinct to find their young ones if they believe something isn't right."

"He's supposed to be on the boat. The Eagleton."

"What's he do for a job?" Mikey asked curiously. Because-as he assumed—an angry, worried fisherman was so scary to the Shredder. He loved his own sarcasm but hated he came up with all the good lines in his head, and before he could say them someone would turn the conversation to a serious point where it was 'inappropriate' and he'd get flips! Life's a bitch.

"Navy man. Admiral."

"Dude…nice."

"He's got the element of surprise on almost everyone in this…issue." Leo was at a loss to find a better word for this whole puzzling mystery that had Maeleyn, and the Hamato family, at the center.

"Mmhm." Donatello agreed, nodding. "For one thing if he's good then he can attack aquatically, perhaps even in surprise. We saw what types of martial art Maeleyn could do and obviously she had to learn them from someone."

Leo nodded. "So the question is: where is he? It'd be good for us and him to have him on our side."

"Believe me, Leonardo," Splinter assured them all as his right hand clutched his left atop his cane, "I can safely say Maeleyn's father is on our side. We have kept his child safe, even though he may not know it. The enemy of our enemy is a friend. All we must do is find him. Or wait on him…"

"But how can we find navy dude? He's gotta have, like, some secret government training, right?"

"Look at this though," Don pulled up a file that Rilien had sent. It was a copy of his e-mail to Kier, who they were now assuming was Maeleyn's father. He read it aloud for them. "By now I think he knows what she is, and what to look for."

"On the roof…" Raph damned himself for saying anything while Maeleyn was still partially coherent but it clicked instantly. Who else, why else would a mysteriously dressed person attack the creature trying to squish Maeleyn and not them, when there were more turtles on the roof? Someone that wanted to protect her had saved them, probably because they made an effort in saving her. The brothers quickly arrived to the same assumption and suddenly it clicked; not all of it, but a chunk of it.

The figure they were assuming to be Kier, Maeleyn's dad, was probably Bishop's goon because he was with Gustav. Gustav had been made by Bishop using Rilien's synthetic blood stolen by the Shredder. Whether or not the Shredder and Bishop were working together (which was highly unlikely after Don poked a huge hole in that logic reiterating the Triceraton war and Bishop's view on aliens) was undeterminable. Still; they had partial logic now. To put it simpler, for Mikey, Don came to the conclusion that: Kier is definitely in New York, trying to get to Maeleyn.

He's working for Bishop and has a means to fight against the DNA creations, and KNOWS something about Rilien, or else Rilien wouldn't have known Kier to BE in New York and wouldn't have included him, or known that the "hawk had landed". It was all rather dizzying, the logic circle, but helpful. Don felt the tension the more he thought about it. The issue was really building here and it wouldn't be long before it exploded.

"The only thing I can't get…" Don's thought process was broken by Leo pondering aloud, "what's with the boat? Is he going back on the boat he came from?"

"Dunno, but we'll have to try and think of something soon. I think we're having a rapid buildup and when it gets like this you know what that means." he looked to Leo. The eldest went very serious and somber as the thought hit him.

"War…" he noted as his eyes narrowed at the memory highlighted by Bishop's hate against the Triceratons and their general constant battle with the Shredder. "War in the city."

The day for Kier had been nothing since yesterday's activity of loading Gustav up and shipping him to the local zoo with Rose in tow to be interviewed. It was seconds from six a.m. in the morning and the interview displaying the 'foreign, new specie' would be seen worldwide. This was the turning point. This was Bishop putting his foot in the door of Shredder's lair. With his last cargo drop off Chaplin had sent a note telling Bishop and his crew he'd sent duplicates of every last species they had at last. Production was stalled as they began to analyze and utilize 'new parts to their research' and when Kier heard that his stomach hardened. Rilien! he was so scared for his brother but at the moment his own bones were shaking. He knew they were going to test the key, which would ultimately fail because it had never been designed to work in the first place.

They were so close to the fight…he could almost taste it. It could be days, weeks, months away but it felt close. Currently donning Foot attire he stood by the little stuttering TV when the broadcast went to Rose at the Manhattan Zoo. Gustav was somewhat sedated and partially wild; acting like a real animal and making a show for—who else?—the Foot to encourage capture. He was being admitted in his special cage to the zoo, zapped and tangled in handling nets, Rose close behind. Chaplin wasn't too far off from him, staring wide-eyed at the TV.

Seconds later Chaplin's pager went off. "Yes sir…" he replied to the crackling voice he'd deciphered so easily while Kier was obviously confused. "The Master wants that animal. You and a squad will go at nightfall to get it. Bring the girl, too." Chaplin was so excited he shook like a leaf. His sister! She was alive! Bishop had kept his promise!

Oh if Karai could meet her! Briefly he wondered if the Shredder would notice, smell suspicion, or even care but quickly disregarded that. His sister was going to be with him again. He hadn't known his flesh and blood in a long time. Now if he died soon he could die happy knowing he had another Chaplin alive on the earth, and one he wouldn't butt heads with.

Chaplin paused, steps from his personal room. That animal he'd seen on the TV next to Rose was one of the very same odd origins Kier had described. The bape. Bishop was feeding them the animal, and Rose! It reeked of a trap but Chaplin had resolved earlier a day or two ago to let the war come – the Shredder needed to learn that an alien, however advanced it was, wasn't immortal.

It boggled him though. Why would Bishop give them the animal so easily? He saw it as a way to deliver his promise, his reward that he'd waited on for so long after checking behind him and being paranoid for almost a month, but why? What else did he have planned? For two hours Chaplin stretched his mind to think like the odd Bishop but simply couldn't come to the same conclusion the government man had, and left the subject alone for another day.

They had the creature, a new test subject, and apparently something with sustainable DNA. It was good. Life was good, in his opinion, and from here it could only get better.

At ten in the morning Rose eagerly returned to Bishop, excited and beside herself as she told him not to fret after leaving Gustav at the zoo. She was 'scheduled' to be back from noon to three and then again at nine to midnight. It was all going according to plan, and soon she would see Chaplin. She giggled at the thought! Big brother…she hadn't seen him in so long! Why she'd get to hug him, smile at him, ruffle his hair, steal his glasses and mark them up with her fingerprints, plant a big kiss on his cheek! It would be wonderful!

Bishop was happy enough that they'd gotten rid of the dying Gustav (less cleaning) and proceeded to think about the rest of his plan. Only a few more pieces left until the mayhem exploded. It would take time, but it was close. Drawing nearer. He was already constructing a secret, reinforced back-up base in Manhattan—right under the turtles' noses so he could laugh at their stupidity—to stow what hybrids and DNA projects they had surviving in case the battle came to Area Fifty-One.

It shouldn't, he assured himself, but it wasn't nice to take chances or risks. The healthy, living experiments were given that privilege to go to the New York base located beneath the abandoned warehouse near the docks, somewhat like the entrance to his old lab before the turtles wrecked it when he'd gotten the first sample of their DNA. It was a confusing maze of concrete tunnels full of air (should any experiments escape down there so they didn't die) with only one way out: the ocean. Both Area Fifty-One's base and the New York base demanded boat carrying as a possibility for transportation, which is why he insisted on it from Chaplin.

Now what was left on his list? Oh yes. Rilien Spector. He needed him…and very badly, so, after Rose and Gustav were taken into the Foot headquarters Gustav would break Rilien out. How Rose would get him to do it Bishop didn't really care to know, just as long as that lanky, spindly-looking nerd broke free on the streets long enough for his men to grab him. And Kier would follow.

He let Rose prattle on about her glee and even disappear to do whatever the hell it was she wanted to (at this point he didn't care; she'd done good and was going to see Chaplin which meant anything he asked from now on would be done because he'd fulfilled his promise to her). Bishop stood still in the silent room; what with Gustav gone to a new 'home' and Rose off doing her tasks it was quiet. No machines active, no belligerent Gustav, no grim-faced Rose. He gave a small sigh.

Pressing the button down on his pager he looked at the device. "General?" he called into it, hearing a response from his leading army manager. "Set up Slash and the habitat."

When he told Kier Spector he'd get his daughter back he never said in what condition. It was only a matter of time before the Spector family fell like dominos—following one another—and he had a beautiful vision in mind. One that would sustain the human race when they had an army of mutants to unleash upon their foes. He was thinking Maeleyn would look nice pregnant, birthing the first turtle spawn of his army.

But, according to Gustav, Kier, and Rose's analysis Gustav had done some damage. Broken ribs and a badly beaten side, Gustav recalled. That gave him at least three weeks of agonizing anticipation but he could bear. It would take the Shredder just as long, if not longer, to make some sort of battle strategy when seeing Rilien missing, Gustav dead, and an opposing army of top secret government equipment staring him down. Especially now that he had a secret liaison with Stockman who was also joining the anti-Shredder group due to his latest deformity that had inspired him to build a completely cyborg body from an alien-like artifact he'd taken out of the east river.

Sound asleep Raphael gently pressed the side of his face to his arm, listening to Maeleyn snore so…gracefully…like she did. It was his third shift watching Maeleyn and her supporting machines. He was so tired…but to hear her breathing was a comfort. Burning eyes blinked and he grumbled a sigh, folding his arm in to rest his chin on it. In the room, at the hour, and with everything she'd been through Raph could really see the wear of stress on her face. But she looked beautiful.

Her skin, though still asparagus green, seemed to be on the paler side of that shade, probably indicating her bodily condition. The odd coloring of her stomach and hips hypnotized him. Because of that they all knew she wasn't totally turtle, and it was somehow erotic to the hothead of the bunch. The diamond patch covering her stomach and the stripes on her hips called to him like areas he had to touch. That urge often got him a tail in the face. Or right beneath his own tail which she figured out—but hadn't gone into a full curious discussion with Donnie yet—was connected to their junk and witnessed the stunning effect of tear-inducing paralysis and trembling it had.

But, the bickering, the slapping, the harmless snarky chatter that happened when they were alone was something. She hadn't denied anything so far and he sure as hell wasn't quitting. Something in him triggered by his link with intuition and meditative training told him something big was going to happen soon. So he better spill his guts and make it count before that thing happened. He would, he promised himself, and she'd be speechless.

No one saw it since the others had gone to sleep for the night, just short of four in the morning, but Raphael slipped his hand into hers and finally let his eyes fall shut. Never in his life had he come to a moment like this: all emotion ceased to exist except calm, and he was full of it. No, not calm…he was content. This was how it was supposed to be. 001…he thought, opening his eyes a mite to look at the tattoo she hated because it disfigured her, reminded her of the new thing she was, only one of your kind and the only one up for grabs. Well, 001, you are mine.

And no one, not the Shredder, not Bishop, not even 'Kier' could change that. Raphael was a very stubborn turtle. What he set his sights on he usually conquered. A female turtle? No problem. Perhaps a challenge, but no real problem. He'd defeated every challenge he'd come across in life thus far. Except for Leo, of course…but he had his moments, his rare wins. It was going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

Midnight was close at hand and Rose sat next to Gustav's cage, trying not to vomit as she thought of what Bishop had asked her to do. It was so sick! She'd never even dreamed this would've been in her line of work, but it was for Chaplin! Big bubba Chaplin. Gustav looked at her with hungry eyes after what she'd just told him, whispered so quietly, intimately near the bars of his cage.

His sedative had well worn off by now and he rolled over to lounge, an instinct and position he thought to be alluring to the human after having to watch so much of their smutty TV in his tank. Physically he cared not what her motive was—intellectually maybe he did but his feelings were finally being returned!—and watched her with glossy dark eyes as she unlocked his cage and sank carefully to the floor as if he were a rabid animal instead of a calm, waiting, intelligent one. With great caution she undressed until she was like a peaches and cream angel before him with her messy, fanning blonde waves spilling over her shoulders.

She hugged him like some sort of furry teddy bear, letting him take the slow, gentile guide. Gustav didn't know that while he let those visions in his head escape—the long overdue ones—it wasn't him she dreamed of to fight off the rancid sickness that threatened to consume her. While he knew outright passion and glee of fulfillment and his two new promises to her he knew not of her idea to leave him completely behind once they were taken away.

By the time Kier and the others arrived to steal the beast and Rose away an odd smell permeated the air. It smelled of sweat, musk, and a woman's perfume. Though the cage attendant, Rose, was fully dressed she looked tousled and unconscious. The beast was sleeping, too, they slowly gathered—assumed—that Rose was either lonely and found comfort in the large creature or that she and the creature had a relationship. Kier was sick at the thought.

She was a human! Gustav was an animal! He felt like puking but managed to control himself. Gustav awoke with bright eyes at the rousing noise Kier made to the cage. The other members recoiled from the cage, too afraid after hearing what had happened the first time Gustav met the Foot. Defying his pattern Gustav nudged Rose awake and looked towards the mouth of his cage. She looked at them with wide, practiced eyes. One Foot member, one that wasn't Kier, hissed in a threatening, cool, demanding voice, "Come with us, and tell the thing to come with you."

Gustav narrowed his eyes in the darkness but followed Rose out with the suspicious men. Already he didn't like them. They treated him inhumanely. But at least he had Rose. Like an animal they put him in the most guarded, toughest part of their large vehicle they had rented.

Chaplin was there in the front of the vehicle—much to Rose's glee—making sure loopholes in the revolving security cameras covered their kidnapping and escape off the lot. They now had a test subject to glean and conduct tests on, unaware that said test subject was in poor, deteriorating shape and sought to rid them of their most valuable piece: Rilien Spector.