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Dark Kara grabbed Mizo and held her up. "I'm done playing around." Dark Kara threw Mizo across the room.

Mizo hit the wall but she still laughed. "People say I'm crazy." She stood up, holding the back of her head. "You turn into a monster."

Dark Kara lunged again and grabbed Mizo's face. "Shut it." Dark Kara shook Mizo like she was a rag doll. Mizo scratched Dark Kara across the face with electrified claws and Dark Kara jumped back covering her face with her hands.

Mizo giggled. "If it wasn't for me you'd be nothing." She smiled. "Dark Eco is hard to come by but I just had to know if little girly was like Daddy."

Jak panted. "You put Dark Eco in my daughter?!" His own temper started to build.

Mizo glanced at Dark Kara, still stunned, then looked at Jak. "Only a little that I could get my hands on." She gestured to Kara. "At first her body rejected it but I see as time has gone by her body has accepted it...or at least cohabitates."

Dark Kara shook her head and lowered her hands. She glared at Mizo and lunged again, she pinned down Mizo and repeatedly punched her in the temple. Daxter pulled Tess aside and told her his plan, she didn't agree at first but Tess looked at her daughter. The determination on Dex's little face differed from her brothers' who watched the scene in fear and awe. Tess relented and gently pulled Dex away from the side of the cage. Her parents explained what they wanted Dex to do and she understood when they handed her a bobby pin.

"Find Aunt Ashelin, Uncle Torn, and Cousin Asher," Tess whispered. "Try to get them out any way you can."

Daxter added. "Don't get caught, stay safe and remember to be careful."

Little Dexter nodded and pinned the bobby pin to the back of her overalls. "Okay, Mommy. Okay, Daddy." They helped the littlest one get through the bars and onto the metal bar the held their cage off the ground. They watched as their only daughter shimmied down to the ground and exited out the closest door.

Dark Kara stopped to catch her breath when Mizo got a word in. "Oh, Kara." Her face bloody and bruised, but still she smiled. "It is such an inconvenience but before you kill me there is someone I'd love for you to meet." Mizo perked up slightly. "June, bring him in please."

Through the center door, the brunette Mizo clan member brought in a little boy. He was small and had big curious brown eyes. The little boy didn't seem phased that his clan leader was battered and bloody on the ground, he kept his eyes on Kara.

Dark Kara wilted and her fists loosen. Mizo laughed. "Do you like him? He's my little boy." She looked at the little boy with his dark hair and olive skin. "He looks like his grandmother and father, sadly, but he's mine." Dark Kara just watched the little boy as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. But still, Mizo smiled. "Do him the honor I was never given. Let him have the dignity to watch the monster kill his mother, unlike I never got to see the monster kill my father."

Dark Kara closed her eyes and faded away. Kara opened her eyes again. "No."

Mizo growled. "No?"

Kara stood up but kept her foot on Mizo. "I'm not the monster, you are." She pressed down on Mizo's rib cage. "I'm not my father." Kara looked at Jak and smiled sadly. "Sorry, Daddy."

Jak smiled and nodded back. "Not a problem."

Kara nodded to her mother before picking up Mizo by the neck again, her head hanging. She used her other hand and broke open her father's bonds, Jak unsteadily getting his feet on the ground.

Jak staggered to the work desk. "Now...which of these fixes the poison?"

Mizo laughed. "I don't heal. Why would I have the antidote to the poison here?"

June, the young brunette, let go of the little boy's hand and spoke up. "She doesn't...but I do." She produced the vial from behind her.

Mizo growled. "You rat."

Jak sat down in the chair and held his chest. "How can we know we can trust you?"

June looked down at the little boy. "You don't, I know that." She looked at Jak again and held out the vial to him. "Let's just say I've never seen eye to eye with my family and some of us are tired of it all. We have different ways of accomplishing this but this is my way."

Daxter looked at Jak. "It's not like she can do any worse." Jak nodded and had Kara bring him the vial.

Kara turned away from her father as he took the vial, putting Mizo on her father's slab and closing up the bonds again manually before moving into freeing her mother.

June spoke up again. "The result won't be instant but I recommend taking it easy until you feel the effects." She shrugged. "I'm not a medical person. That was Nicholas, Sophia's twin brother."

Mizo growled and pushed against the bonds. "I'll kill you!" She screamed. "You and that mealworm conspired against me!"

June looked directly at Mizo. "We had a lot of time to talk, both of us being your lab rats." Her eyes were cold as steel. "Next time I would ask if anyone wants to be your son's surrogate mother."

Mizo's blood boiled and she kicked and screamed endlessly.

Daxter commented. "Nice lungs though."

June nodded to the little boy who ran down the far hallway that Dex had gone down. "It comes from tantrums she always threw." She commented before pulling a key from her pocket. "Let's save your friends and hopefully it's not too late for mine as well."

Little Dex had gotten lost a few times but never caught, until she ran into a boy with dark hair and olive skin. He saw her and immediately stopped. "Hey!" He said. "Mama had you in a cage."

Dex turned and ran as fast as she could down the hallway until she came to a big room with familiar faces inside. She climbed up onto the closest metal slab that had a sleeping gentleman on it. "Uncle Torn!" She whispered and shook his arm. Dex went up to his nose and grabbed onto it. "Uncle! Torn!" She pushed and pulled on his nose.

Torn was still unresponsive until the small ottsel stuck a palm full of saliva in his ear.

"Argh!" Torn screamed, scaring Dex half to death. His eyes focused and noticed the bright orange thing on his chest. "Daxter?"

"Dexter, Uncle Torn." Dex corrected. "My name is Dexter."

Torn shook himself awake and tried to talk to the furball without hurting his neck. "Right. What are you doing here?"

Dex pulled out the bobby pin. "I'm here to get you out!" She smiled big and proud. The little fuzzball set to work in freeing Torn's wrists, quickly getting them and moving onto his ankles.

Torn looked over at Ashelin and Asher, and once his ankles were free he got the bobby pin from Dex and went over to them. Dex went up to the cages in the room and looked inside to see more people.

Torn gently shook Ashelin. "Ashelin, wake up." He did this over and over until Ashelin's eyes opened and focused onto him. "Hey." He said softly.

Ashelin smiled. "Hey." She looked around. "Where are we?"

Torn shrugged. "Hell if I know, but Dexter is here and I bet she knows the way out."

Ashelin looked suspicious. "Dexter? Just over a foot tall, Dexter?"

Torn started working on Ashelin's wrists as he spoke. "Yep, she's the rescue party." He got her done and then moved Asher. Torn woke him up and got him up to speed, the conversation going about the same.

Ashelin joined Dex over by the cages. "What are you looking at?" She questioned.

Dex looked at Ashelin for a moment before going up to the cage. "Him." She quietly climbed inside the cage and onto the emaciated body of Nicholas.

Ashelin knelt down next to the cage. "Is he okay?"

Dex frowned and put her hands on his face. "He's cold." She told Ashelin. "And his chest isn't moving."

Ashelin reached out her hand for Dex to get on, "Come on, Dexter. I don't think we can save him."

"No, you can't." Another voice caused everyone to jump. "He's beyond saving now." They all turned to see Rian Krew. He sat at the back of his cage, away from the rest.

Asher walked up to Rian's cage. "Do you want to follow in your mother's footsteps and run a crime family? Continue the rivalry with the Mizo clan?" Ashelin and Torn looked at each other.

Rian laughed. "My family is gone. Mizo killed every Krew but me."

Asher was serious. "Same questions."

Rian sighed. "I didn't want to do it in the first place." He shook his head and looked Asher in the eye. "All I ever got was an absent mother, a dead father, and days looking over my shoulder." He gestured to the cage around him. "It also made me a target for Mizo so I have been trapped here for how damn long."

Asher nodded. "And that's ending. Right now." Asher grabbed the bobby pin from his father and started working on the lock.

Torn and Ashelin looked at Asher and Rian, unsure about this strange alliance.

Rian stood and walked out of the cage for the first time in 4 years. Asher shook his hand. "Asher Praxis."

"Rian Krew," Rian replied. It was peaceful until a young boy ran up to Rian and held up his hands to be picked up.

Dex left Nic's cage and went up to the kid. "Where are my parents?"

The boy looked at Dex. "On their way."

Kara came to the doorway and stopped to catch her breath. Then she saw Asher and ran to him. "Asher!" Luckily Asher caught her and spun her around.

Jina came to the doorway. "Good, we found him." She leaned on the doorframe. "Boy was I worried." She smiled.

Ashelin cleared her throat. "Where is everyone else?"

Jina nodded. "Keira and Jak stayed back to make sure Jak recovered and to watch Mizo. Daxter and Tess have short legs."

Rian blinked. "And June?" He pushed past Jina and hurried down the hallway, the boy following close behind.

Jina nodded. "Can we go now?"

So everyone left. June apologized to Jak for jumping him and gave him his cane back. Rian and June stayed behind in Kras City to watch Mizo, and Dex was reunited with her parents and brothers. As they got back to Haven City Jina stopped Kara and Jak.

"Listen," Jina sighed. "There's something you should know…"

Jak glanced at Kara then looked at Jina. "What is it?"

Jina took a deep breath. "Well...I haven't been truthful with everyone." She closed her eyes and said it as fast as she could. "My dad was Errol."

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