"That hurts!"

Mom shook her head as she patiently used Hargreeves' medical machines to heal her battered 'children' up. The hospital ward was her least favorite place to be in, and obviously it was Séance's least favorite place too.

"It hurts because you're moving around so much," she admonished gently.

Séance glared at her. Apparently the red cloud had had some sort of poisonous gas in it that caused their veins to swell, and occasionally burst. Space had managed to get away with very little damage, and so had Rumor. Séance had gotten hit hard though, very hard. Not quite as hard as he made out, but he'd never been one to suffer in silence.

"They should've warned us there was stuff in there," he groused, "I mean, I thought it was just a stupid smokescreen!"

"Yeah," said Rumor sarcastically, "Next time they should shout; Warning! Poison coming your way!"

"Live and learn," said Space dryly, "Ben got shot several times. You're not so bad off Klaus."

"Pah!" snapped Séance, "He heals fast, don't you Ben?"

Horror gave a wry smile. Mom shook her head. Yes, because of the fact that it was an interdimensional creature that gave Horror his powers he really did heal faster. He rarely needed the help of the machines.

"Well," Space said tersely, "Just count yourself better off then Diego."

Everyone's gaze drifted over to Kraken, who was lying unconscious on a medical bed. The blood had been mopped from his face long ago, but there were also several other lacerations that he'd been gently bleeding from. Mom had patiently healed those up, but she wasn't worried about those wounds.

No, it had been his left eye that had worried her. She looked at him critically. Earlier she'd run the machine over his eye. The healing hadn't been half of what she'd hoped it to be. She'd repeated the process several times. Due to her persistence the tissue had slowly repaired itself, but the lense didn't come back. It was very odd the way it had healed. It had turned into this black gaping piece of soft flesh that had once been blue and white.

It appeared that no matter what she did there was no putting his eye back to the way it used to be. How completely dreadful.

"All right," Séance conceded, "Maybe he got it just a teensy bit worse then I did."

"Stop being such a drama king," snapped Rumor.

"I'm not a drama king," he said indignantly, "I'm a drama queen thank you very much."

Mom just shook her head.

"Anyway," said Horror tentatively, "Anyone know who they were?"

"Not yet," shrugged Space, "But then again, only the ones who are into big gestures get brought to our attention. If they're just out for a profit then it's no surprise we don't know about them."

"Yeah, but if they're not into big gestures then how come they kidnapped Vanya?" argued Rumor.

Ah yes, something else to worry about. When the members of the Academy had been able to get up and move again, they'd already left with Vanya. Mom worried about her little girl, and she wondered how they were going to get her back.

"Vanya was conveniently close by?" Space said, "I don't know why they picked her."

A groan from Kraken alerted him that he'd woken up. Rubbing his eye experimentally he got to his feet.

"You're awake!" Mom said happily.

He nodded at her once before turning to the rest of his siblings.

"So," he said shortly, "They got Vanya."

"We couldn't move," Rumor said sympathetically.

"Unimportant. All it means is that now we have to get after those bastards," he stated, looking at the rest of the group, "Do you think we can use the tracker machines? I'm not one-hundred percent sure how they work, but Pogo probably knows. We can ask him when he comes to. Or has he already?"

Space looked at him and shook his head.

"Are you serious?" he asked, "Have you seen the condition we're in? Half of us are still bleeding!"

"He's right," Mom said, "You just lost your eye. Maybe if you could wait a little while-"

"Forget about my fucking eye! My eye's not important right now," growled Kraken, "This is serious!"

"Well I'm sorry we can't get up automatically and do everything at once," snapped Space, "So sorry."

"And to think, you actually used to have some energy in you, you stupid monkey."

"If you haven't noticed," said Space, making a wide gesture, "We're in no condition to fight an ant let alone a group of gambling addicts! Why do you even care about this?"

"They've got Vanya!" Kraken snapped, "That's reason enough."

Space folded his arms.

"For you maybe. But not enough for the rest of us. She's just going to have to wait. The team comes first."

Fists clenched Kraken glared at Space with an intense rage.

"Luther," Rumor said, her voice low, "I don't think you're thinking this through…"

"You're fucking right he's not," said Kraken, livid.

Nervously Mom stepped in between them.

"Now boys," she said softly, "I don't think that there's any need for that. We'll get you healed up and then you can go and rescue Vanya in a few hours and then everything-"

"YOU'RE TELLING ME TO WAIT? THEY COULD'VE FUCKING KILLED HER ALREADY AND I WOULDN'T EVEN KNOW!" shouted Kraken.

"That's…not going to happen."

Everyone in the room turned to see Pogo walk in, looking tired.

"What do you mean?" asked Kraken sharply.

Pogo pulled up a chair and sat down.

"The woman…Roulette was it? She won't hurt Vanya."

"How do you know that?" snapped Kraken.

"It's…a…it's a long story," sighed Pogo, "Very long."