Medusa was out the window in a heartbeat, Karai at her heels. The girl changed into her snake form, the two of them darted across the rooftops. Medusa flicked her tongue, tasting the air. "I think he went that way," she pointed in another direction.

"If he doesn't want us to find him, he'll lose us," Karai groused.

"I know that," Medusa replied, "but if we can get close enough behind him, I can taste him."

Karai flicked her own tongue out, shaking her head. "I don't taste anything."

Medusa turned and gave her sister a sly smile. "That's because you're not a 'real' snake."

TSOTCTSOTC

Phoenix and Splinter flanked Raph and Zoe at first, the four of them looking for any sign of the two missing little ones. "They went this way," the rat ninja said, his head lowered toward the ground, watching for any sign of passage. While his two little pupils may have been stealthy for their age, they were not stealthy enough to avoid their master.

"Why in the world would they do this?" Phoenix asked, her voice on the edge of hysteria.

"They probably thought they could track down Ali and Denim on their own," Raph said.

"I know that," his mother snapped.

When the four of them began to run, their previous formation fell apart, with Splinter the head, being the quickest of them, and Phoenix falling behind, being the slowest. Splinter considered slowing down to allow his wife to catch up, but quickly dismissed the thought. His son and grandson were in danger, alone wandering in a city that would eat them whole if it wanted. He had to fight to keep panic from rising in his chest and catch in this throat. The others were grown now, on their own, no longer under his jurisdiction. Yuuta, however, and Anton to some extent, were still his charges, still his little ones to be protected. They could not survive in this city by themselves. But as they continued onward, Anton and Alli's school coming into view, dread began to make its way to his heart.

TSOTCTSOTC

What was Antonello thinking? Zoe didn't ask this question out loud, as Phoenix said a very similar 'why would they do this?' And Raph answered with the obvious.

The real question was whatever gave them the idea to go off by themselves when they'd not only been attacked just hours ago, but two of them had been abducted! Kidnapped! Like they may not find them. Like they might already be-

Zoe stopped herself from going there. The likelihood was that Denim and Alli would be used as bait. In which case they'd baited the wrong family. But in the off chance they should fail, she had a back-up plan. One that did not include her son pulling this!

She dug in deeper, pushing herself harder, and ignoring the pain in her semi-healed ribs. Phoenix was with them, she could ask her to heal her, but it would take away precious minutes. She had to push through.

Splinter directed them but it soon became obvious what path they'd followed. Straight to the school. It had been taped off with caution ribbon and the smaller chunks of debris had been removed. Had the principal seen the mess when he was leaving? Had he seen any of the fight? Zoe's breathing became erratic. Was he in on it? Was he there when the kids came? Had he taken them?

Get control of yourself Zoe! Focus. You can't panic, not until you're sure the EDF has him. You'll do him no good. Besides, you have a plan. They will be okay, one way or another.

Splinter made a flicker of eye contact with each of them, then the four spread out in different directions to search the parameter.

As she set off inside the school, Zoe went straight back to the crime scene. The bathroom door was still hanging on its hinges, but the stall door had been removed. She gripped the edge of the nearest sink, closed her eyes and breathed.

There's nothing in this space, save for the life force of two souls bound to me by an invisible thread...

Her mind cleared as the energy within her rose to the crown of her head, the palms of her hands, and the center of her chest. With every breath the bubble grew, stretching into the world around her.

Raph's firey essence was close, the other side of the parking lot. He was struggling not to panic, his usually vibrant red aura was marred with smudges of light brown. She'd deal with him later. She reached beyond him, pushing her energy out farther than she had before. Tendrils of a stretching, pulling sensation burned in the back of her mind but she ignored them, stretching, searching, desperate to feel her sons ki.

I have to find him. I have to. I can. I will.

The invisible band strained like a ligament threatening to tear. Then she felt him, for the briefest second she caught just a glimpse of his bright white aura before he pulled away, as if to hide from her. She struggled to see him, to reach further but it was as if she'd hit a wall, something was blocking her... she was already beyond the limit of her tether and there was nothing...

All at once it was as if her rubber band had been stretched to far then released, sending her flying back into herself. She gasped for air as her spirit met with her body with the force of one of Phoenix's bullet casings, leaving her legs weak and her head spinning.

Leaning against the sink she panted, waiting for her breathing to slow and the searing pain in the back of her head to stop. That was when she caught glimpse of herself in the mirror. Tiny red lines spider-webbed through the whites of her eyes, and there were several pinprick red spots on her face, one at the corner of the outside of her eye and two on the apple of her cheeks.

Great. That will be easy to hide and explain.

She splashed her face with water, as if that could somehow erase burst capillaries. She avoided looking at herself again, eager to get back to Raph, Splinter and Phoenix, and ran from the bathroom, down the halls and out the front doors. "That way!" she yelled, pointing east.

TSOTCTSOTC

K2 immediately tensed, preparing to shock her again as she approached, but her behavior wasn't aggressive, though that could change in an instant.

"Where did you get that scar?"

He involuntarily followed her gaze to his side, staring at a mark he neither recalled or recognized. The jagged line of puckered skin through the blemish had been one of many dings that had simply come with his organic components. Irrelevant.

"Sit back down or I will incapacitate you and put you back where you belong."

The woman stiffened, broken out of her reverie, and her hand flew to her abdomen. Her eyes narrowed at him and she backed up, but not before glancing at the desk. Looking for a weapon maybe. So that's what she'd been trying to do. He'd need to be proactive in restraining her should she approach him again.

He finished taping the bandage over his sutured wound and seated himself in the desk chair. Nothing left to do but wait for either K2 or the replacement parts.

Inexplicably agitated from the encounter, his hand unconsciously began tapping out a rhythm on the surface of the desk.

Denim sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his skin, her mind seeking to reconcile every freckle as one of Kyle's. But it wasn't possible. It just wasn't. His hair was different, his eyes, nose and mouth, none of that was Kyle. Kyle was dead. He died. She dragged his body to the extraction point. She oversaw his funeral, though it was closed casket, because he'd been shot in the face.

This man wasn't Kyle. So what if he smelled like him, if he had the exact same scar, or if he was tapping out the rhythm to a song that had her wanting to scream. He. Wasn't. Kyle.

The man was evil. This was some sicko's twisted torture. This was a new level of cruel.

She shivered as much from this mindfuck as the cold. Was it cold? She glanced at Alli who sat gaping as she watched the man repair himself. "Are you cold, baby?"

Alli didn't look away from their captor. "No. I'm hot. It's stuffed in here. And I want to go home. I miss, Daddy."

"You mean stuffy?" Denim whispered, looking the man over. He began to accompany the familiar rhythm he tapped out by humming the melody.

"That's what I said. It's stuffed in here. Mommy, I'm hungry." While Alli began to whine, Denim's body warned her of it's coming apocalypse with fresh chills and tremors.

But the song he hummed, one she avoided since Kyle's passing, it burrowed into her ears, and swept down her throat casting a stone that choked her on its path straight to her heart.

"Oh, Kyle, turn it up! I love this song!" Denim stretched across the bench seat of his dad's

67 Buick, turning up the volume on the radio.

Little wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes as he gave her a half-hearted smile. "Why're you telling me to turn it up if you were just going to do it yourself?"

"Oh, hush. I love the lyrics. Oh, don't miss the turn!" She pointed to the single lane dirt road and he pulled off.

She leaned back in her seat, watching rays of sunlight flicker through the car window. The little beams highlighted the strands of golden curls that she long dreamt of running her fingers through. He always had such a warmth about him, one that seeped into the bronze of his surfer skin. His eyes were flat though, dull and red-rimmed.

His poke at her had been the first thing he'd said in days. Mostly he'd shed quiet tears and tried to suffer his loss in silence.

He pulled up in front of an old log cabin and left the car idling, the song playing in the background. He stared through the windshield for a long while, then sighed. "Most people go to the ocean and watch the tide roll in and out after something like this." A sad smile crossed his face. "We go out to shoot." He shrugged. "Everything seems so surreal, like the colors are really bright yet blurry or something."

He frowned and she waited quietly beside him, listening and watching as he sorted through his thoughts. "It's like I'm looking for her everywhere I go."

His lip quivered and his eyes filled. After a few deep inhales and exhales he twisted in the seat, reached out and snaked an arm around her. He pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. "I lost her, Denni. But I won't lose you too. I can't. I couldn't go through this twice in a lifetime."

His breath heated her neck and she turned her head, meeting his lips as he reached for her. He was hurting, his pain, his desperation flowing from his passionate searching of her mouth, and he held onto her like never before. She had waited for him for so very, very long...

Alli tugging on her shirt and crying forced Denim into the present. And while their captor hummed the melody louder, her skin grew tight and uncomfortable. She closed her eyes trying to push down her building emotions to no avail.

Standing up from the bed she shouted, "Stop! Alli, stop pulling on me!" She tugged free of her daughter and wheeled around facing the evil man tormenting her. "And you, you sick, cruel bastard, stop with the song, and the cologne, and the scar! I don't know whose idea it was to plant everything about him on you but it's cruel and-" her voice cracked and tears filled her eyes. "Kyle's dead. He's dead. He's-"

Her eyes locked on the scar, memories she had locked away reeling through her mind on repeat. "Who are you and why are you doing this?"

TSOTCTSOTC

"Ugh. It smells like bleach."

April glanced over at Aries who was shaking his head as though that would dissipate the smell. Normally her mutant family could smell with much greater sensitivity than she could, but he was right. The acrid scent was burning her nose. Donnie was taking samples, but she would be surprised if there were any traces of organic material remaining. And if they'd already been this thorough she didn't have high hopes for fingerprints either, not that their adversaries were likely to be in any database that collected such information.

She began dusting the place anyway while Aries systematically searched the area for anything that might have belonged to the departed inhabitants, though it looked thoroughly cleaned out to her. As her hands completed the familiar task by rote, she relaxed her mind and waited to see if anything lingered here that she could pick up on.

It was faint but there all the same. None were completely human, though not devoid of humanity either. Their captive cyborg had been here, emanating fear and stress. Another was laced with ambition and cruelty. The third merely felt empty, with only the faintest echoes of personhood clinging to the imprint of consciousness. There was the vaguest sense of other people. Inhabitants prior to their enemies? Or maybe part of the cleaning crew, not here long enough to leave a good impression. She couldn't tell.

Letting her intuition guide here, she selected the cruel psychic impression and concentrated on following it. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn't. Luck, or whatever it was that dictated the efficacy of her powers, was on her side today. Reaching out, she hit pay dirt.

April froze so abruptly that it caused Donnie and Aries to stop what they were doing and look at her.

She yanked out her phone and began dialing as she sprinted for the door. "We need to go. Now."

TSOTCTSOTC

K76 mostly tuned out the exchange between mother and daughter, focusing more on the woman's body language, waiting for her to try catching him off guard. He wasn't able to accurately interpret her behavior and expression and it was setting him on edge.

Breaking off speaking with her child, she abruptly turned towards him. "And you, you sick, cruel bastard, stop with the song, and the cologne, and the scar! I don't know whose idea it was to plant everything about him on you but it's cruel and-"

Her voice faltered and broke and he looked down at his traitor hand, curling it into a fist and immediately stopped humming. Why was he doing that? He'd never done it before.

Her eyes glistened with tears. If this was some kind of performance, it was effectively done. "Kyle's dead. He's dead. He's-"

She looked down at the scar she'd asked about earlier. "Who are you and why are you doing this?"

Kyle? There was no one in his catalog of known individuals who matched that name, and yet it sounded familiar. He concentrated, trying to nail down exactly where he'd come across it before, but all attempts ended in failure. It was a dead end. With no corrupted data file error message, the fault had to lie somewhere in the organic portion of his mind.

He did not like the confusion this raised. It detracted from the clarity of his mission and purpose.

"You are mistaken. Now sit quietly."

"But how...the scar, the song, the cologne..." Her voice trailed off.

Cologne? Headquarters had a box of commonly used personal care products for them to apply before and during a mission to better blend in. There'd been no partiality to his choices, right? He was fairly certain that he'd chosen whatever was at the top.

Maybe.

Bordering on angry now, he repeated himself. "I said that you are mistaken. Remain seated and quiet or you will be incapacitated."

A knock sounded at the door. Picking up the gun, he swept all the tools into his bag and cautiously approached the door, ready to fire through the thin barrier if necessary.

"Who is it?"

"Courier." The voice on the other side came back muffled.

"Code word?"

"Embankment." The courier answered without hesitation.

Confirmed scrolled across his vision. He tucked the gun into the back of his khakis and opened the door.

The nondescript man on the other side passed a large, heavy cardboard package to him. "Request fulfilled." Then the courier turned and left without waiting for acknowledgement.

From the size and weight if the box, he knew what it had to be. The replacement parts he'd been waiting for. Finally. He could start a full repair on his damaged limbs.

Denim's blood rushed hot then cold, beads of sweat gathering on her brow. Her stomach growled audibly, the noise followed by a gurgling, bubbling sensation in her belly.

"Mommy, I'm hungry and my baby sister's hungry too! Don't you hear her?" Alli crawled to the end of the bed where Denim stood, proceeding to tug on her mother's shirt again.

Their captor sat back down at the desk, opening the large box and beginning to unpack its contents.

"Mommy!" Alli whined. "My sister and me are starving to death! Don't you hear her?"

"The baby might not be a girl, Alli. We talked about this." Denim replied, numbly trying to tune out Alli's cries.

So far she hadn't gotten this man to tell her anything, somehow she doubted food was going to rank high on his list. Not to mention something was happening in her abdomen, but she wasn't sure what, nor whether or not it was a good thing.

She sat down, closing her eyes as a trickle of sweat ran down her cheek. Her breathing wasn't right, her breaths coming shorter while the muscles in her arms and legs began to cramp. She lowered a hand to her abdomen, clearing her mind of Alli's demands, their not-Kyle captor, and her overall predicament, instead focusing inward.

After a few agonizing breaths she understood one very important thing. The little one within wasn't gone. She managed a weak smile. He or she was moving.

With her resolve strengthened by this revelation she set her focus on turning things around and getting them the hell out of there. She tried to straighten and square her shoulders as she opened her eyes, but while her will power was strong her body was already shutting down.

The muscles in between her shoulder blades seized, and pain shot through her vertebrae seeming to come out through her chest making every breath excruciating. She folded over sideways, coiling into a ball. "I'm going to die-" she panted, "without food and- meds."

Behind her Alli became hysterical, her demands for food turning into shrieks and screams as she pulled frantically at her mother. "Get up, Mommy! Get up! Please, get up!"

K76 glanced up from the box as the woman curled into a ball on the bed, while her daughter screamed for her to get up. She'd said she needed food and medicine, what would likely have been a ploy by anyone else, but he was well aware of the instability that accompanied human-mutant pregnancies.

He picked up one of the syringes of the EDF's experimental treatment for the condition, debating how long to wait. With her enhanced strength, he hesitated to get too close while she was remotely lucid.

The child screamed again and he looked up, seeing the woman starting to convulse.

And then the scene before him melted away into something that couldn't be happening now.

A much younger version if the woman, twelve or thirteen perhaps, was there in front if him, wrapped up in an old quilt on a bed. She shivered as he laid a hand on her forehead, burning hot. Suffused with inexplicable concern, he placed a cool, wet cloth over her brow.

"Mmm fine." She murmured sleepily.

"No you're not. You're burning up. I've got some medicine for you to take." He answered in a voice that did not belong to him.

"Medicine?" She asked before her eyes drifted shut.

"Denni? Denni!"

"Denni!"

The vision cleared and he found himself, hovering over the prone woman with a now empty syringe. She was no longer shaking but still didn't look anything close to well.

What had just happened? He gripped his head with his free hand as he staggered back willing away the foreign sense of concern and affection that still lingered.

Her eyes flickered open and she taped at him, not seeming to understand what had occurred any more than he had.

He was going to have to submit himself for maintenance once this was over. Scowling, he tossed a couple of MREs from the box onto the bed and began pulling out the materials to repair his leg.

Slowly her muscles fell slack, making it easier for her to breathe. She was exhausted from the episode, as was par for every experience she'd had with them so far.

He'd given her something that stopped it, but how? And even more pressing- "You called me Denni."

He ignored her, though she noticed him look at her in his periphery. If she could just get him to talk...

She pushed herself upright with her one trembling good arm, noting that her broken one was a nasty shade of purple and swollen out to the ends of her fingers. The sight of it made her stomach turn.

Spying the MRE's she reached for one, but couldn't get it to stop sliding away while she tried to open it with one hand.

Meanwhile Alli had wrapped her arms around her and was sobbing. "I want to go home. I want my daddy."

I have to be patient with her. She's scared, and tired, and hell, I want to go home too. I miss Mikey.

She sighed as the unopened MRE fell off the end of the bed. "Dammit," she cursed, leaving it and reaching for another one. "Alli, you gotta let me go, baby. I need you to help mommy open this."

Alli sniffled. "What is it?"

Denim frowned. "It's military food. I gotta tell you it's not the yummiest, but it'll do the job."

Her daughter's face was tear-streaked from crying, her lips bright red as she sneered at the package. "I'm not eaten it."

"Eating," Denim corrected, fumbling with the new package, "And if that's the case you're not that hungry. But I am, like you said your baby brother or sister is hungry."

"I am too," Alli pouted.

Denim ignored her daughter's complaints, knowing that if she continued to acknowledge them it would result in more crying and tantrum throwing. She looked to the familiar stranger, trying to piece together the impossible similarities between him and Kyle. "Who told you my nickname? Only Kyle called me that. Did you know him? Does this whole thing have something to do with The Untainted again?" She picked up the MRE, "But that doesn't fit, this is military issue. Who are you?"

His teeth ground as she mentioned the name Kyle again. Every time he heard that word it felt like he'd forgotten something. Something important. And he did not like the sensation at all. Losing important pieces of data was the hallmark of a flawed system and he was cutting edge. He could not wait until this mission was complete and he could have the unnerving anomaly repaired.

He stood, stomped over to the fallen MRE, struggled to scoop it up with the hand on his damaged arm and sliced it open with a blade that extended from the fingertip on his working side.

He tossed the open package back at her, striking her lightly in the chest with it as she sluggishly moved to react.

"I said that you are mistaken. There is no Kyle. Now, be silent."

Fidgety with agitation, he returned to the desk and dumped the box of parts and his bag of tools, beginning to work on his leg with more aggression than the task required. Just a little longer and he'd be done with this. The malfunction could be repaired and the experience disregarded. Just a little longer.

Denim bit off the end of a squeeze packet of peanut butter, squirting it onto a cracker before handing it to Alli. "You like peanut butter, it's yummy."

Alli blinked red-rimmed eyes, her bottom lip jutting out. "We were going to make daddy a pizza." She crossed her arms and scowled. "Before mean old Mr. Downs put us in time out."

"Alli, I don't know when we're going home. I need you to eat something, baby." Denim sat the cracker beside her daughter then opened a second tube and prepared one for herself. She bit into the dry, tasteless carb, noting the peanut butter topping wasn't horrible. It would buy her some time. Her arm throbbed and she tried to remember not to use it at all. She wanted to sleep, needed for Alli to sleep, and she needed to think.

This guy wasn't giving her any answers. So far, nothing she did had gotten him to talk, though her seizure had gotten him to act. She could try talking to him, but she didn't want to sit there and feed him information about her. Though it seemed like he had a lot already, and it was personal. If he infiltrated the school, taking on a role as teacher's assistant in Alli's class then he had to be associated with either a threat from her past or a threat to the Hamatos.

What did he say when he attacked them at the school? "I came for the game changer. But it looks like I'm leaving with a consolation prize."

If they were the consolation prize who was the game changer? He infiltrated the school… he didn't come for them. Anton! He was after Anton!

Okay. Okay. Denim took a deep breath, trying to keep herself calm.

Who had military authority and would want Anton?

She watched him work on his leg, his shirt still off, the scar seeming to scream at her.

Who had military authority and made human beings into robots?

Human beings.

Into robots.

She grimaced. Who volunteered for that sort of thing? Ugh. Surely, no one. Yet it seemed someone-

Her eyes darted to the scar.

Denim dropped her cracker as her stomach lurched. She covered her mouth and darted for the bathroom, gagging and dry-heaving into the toilet. I'm never going to get to take another breath. I'm going to suffocate in this hell. Then finally, she could. Exhausted she slumped over, pressing her cheek against the cold tile. Her eyes were wet from throwing up, but they stayed wet for the possibilities coming together.

Alli appeared over her, crying again. Denim knew she should answer her, but the sounds Alli was making were blurry and distant. Or was that her own voice, trying to reply? There was a terrible reality forming, one that took precedent over her throbbing arm, raw throat, her pounding head, blurry eyes, and even Allison's crying.

Somehow the EDF had gotten their hands on Kyle's body and they Frankensteined him into the creature standing behind her daughter. His daughter. His. "His daughter," she murmured, fresh tears filling her eyes. "His."