Hi all! As always, massive thank-you to my wonderful reviewers and followers. Kk, your comments/thoughts are always a joy to read but damn, you ain't sparing my blushes! A warm 'welcome aboard' to Swtid77 & DinahWas too, hope you both continue to enjoy.

I know you're all hoping that Bo's going to kick some butt in this chapter BUT…you all know me by now and you know I don't like things to be that easy. Besides, if everything got resolved in this chapter then the story would be a very short one and I don't have any new ideas yet :-D

On that note, this chapter might not go exactly how you all would like so I just hope you keep on trusting me…

Also, a few of you have been asking over the last couple of chapters if I am going to bring Athdara back. I have honestly not planned on bringing her in to save the day, this story requires a different hero, one we all know and love, although she will very possibly make a little cameo further down the line. I just honestly don't think including Athdara in this would be the most popular decision so unless more people start requesting an appearance, she will be staying in her wee home in the clouds! I'm just grateful that I apparently managed to create a likeable character so thank you.

Chapter Nine

Lauren sat alone at the far end of the bar staring contemplatively into the bottom of her glass, swirling the amber liquid about with her fingertips as she mulled dismally over the evening's events. The hour was late and the bar in darkness which suited her mood. Abruptly, she sighed and ran a hand roughly over her face, willing herself to snap out of this funk she had been drowning in since they had made it back, albeit far from unscathed.

Dyson, Kenzi and Dagny had tracked Bo to an abandoned mill on the old industrial harbour near Queen's Quay that had once belonged to the de Villiers family firm. Each of them had privately believed that the location was far too cliché, too easy but then on the other hand, the three of them had long ago learned to trust the Succubus' nose when it came to tracking down her Faemily.

Using only the flashlights on their phones to guide them through the endless dingy corridors, Dagny jumped at the squeak of a group of passing scurrying rats to which Kenzi rolled her eyes wearily;

"Seriously kid?"

"What?" Dagny whispered back in annoyance, "oh, you don't find a dark, creepy, rat-infested tunnel just the slightest bit spooky?"

"Believe me, Bo-Bo and I have been through worse than this before you were even a twinkle!"

"Hey!" cut in Dyson, "what is with you two? Cut it out until we find Bo."

"Sorry," offered Kenzi, "just worried, y'know. Remember what happened the last time Bo went supernova." She said, clutching tightly at Geraldine's hilt in an effort to stave off her own jittering nerves.

They paused mid-tunnel, the only noise the pitter-patter of large, hairy rodents.

"Just where in the hell is-" but before Kenzi could finish the thought, a loud, crashing thud and subsequent yell caught their ears. "Uh, that's our Bo." She said, pointing her finger to the right-hand turn of an upcoming junction.

"Bo?" screeched Lauren as her captor, Christophe de Villiers, found himself flung wildly through the air only to come crashing into the far wall in Succubus' true-to-style dramatic entrance, the heavy steel door to the makeshift prison catapulted violently from its hinges and skidding off into an unknown dark corner.

A leather-clad and imposing Bo strode purposefully through the thick smoke that now hung in the air from the blast, straight towards her target. A brilliant white glow shone brightly from her eyes while molten fury rolled off her like magma. She stalked her opponent with graceful steps but Christophe only grinned gleefully; a professor gone insane, proud of his very own Frankenstein. Lauren half-expected the man to start shouting "It's alive!" any second.

"Bo!" Lauren screamed again. "Stop! Don't do this Bo, just get us home, that's all you need to do! This is exactly what he wants, don't give in to him!"

It was unknowingly the worst thing the doctor could have done. When Bo turned to face the source of that achingly familiar voice, the vision of Lauren and the twins indelicately trussed up was all too much for her already compromised mind and exactly as Christophe had foretold, something inside snapped. Lauren could see the shift in her wife's pain-wracked features as something strange and terrible clouded over her expression. The Succubus fell to her knees, clutching at her gut like she'd been socked in the stomach.

"Bo, listen to me! We love you so much, don't do this!" she cried, clutching desperately for anything that would halt the transformation, all the while knowing it was hopeless, knowing that there was nothing either of them could do. Bo had already been half under the monster's thrall when she had exploded in. "Bo…please…" she whimpered, collapsing to her side as the tears streamed freely down her cheeks.

Christophe had regained his feet and began a generous applaud at the scene unfolding before him while Bo caught her breath, the pain that had coursed so rapidly through her body was easing, only she wasn't Bo anymore. No longer any warmth, no love in those kind orbs, only the stone-cold sorrow that was fear itself and the compulsion every living creature has; to just make it stop by any means necessary.

"Very touching, very touching doctor" clapped Christophe, "but you'll excuse me if I grow weary of the hysterics. You've lost and now you'll have to take your lumps. The least you could do is try and show some dignity at the end, no?"

"Fuck you!" she spat.

"Hmm, apparently not. Still, never mind;" he shrugged with the mildest of concern. "Bo, dear?"

Bo rose to her feet, her movements stilted and somewhat mechanical as she turned to her new master, an eyebrow quirking in response.

"Finish them off," he said, "children first. Let your lover watch as all she has created crumble before her very eyes." He offered one final sadistic smirk then made his way towards the door.

Kenzi stepped lightly over some goon laying in a pretty gruesome puddle of what she could only politely describe as "bodily fluids", a mixture of blood, plasma and who-knew what other substances. The guy had obviously been well paid with his snappy, tailored suit until he'd had half his head blown off by an angry Succubus.

"Eww!" she exclaimed, catching up to the other two and dodging bits of brain splatter dotting the already manky floor, "dang girl, that's nasty even for you!"

"Shh," said Dyson, lifting a finger to his mouth, "we're close, I can hear the doc. Something's gone wrong!"

"Uh, duh!" chorused the two women.

The three of them sprinted down the narrow passageway and in through the busted doorway to find Bo standing menacingly over a stricken Lauren, Saoirse roaring viciously beneath her bonds and Charlotte & Ethan screaming close by.

"Come to watch the final spectacle?" smirked Christophe as he swaggered towards them, seemingly completely unperturbed by this minor interruption. Instead he clicked his fingers and two more suited and booted heavies appeared behind them. Dyson instantly wolfed out and lamped Christophe about the jaw with a solid right hook while Kenzi swung her Katana into her minder's well-padded gut and Dagny wrestled with the other one who had already grabbed her into a headlock.

Dyson continued to batter away at de Villiers, knocking him further and further back into the room. Kenzi took advantage of the distraction and raced to release the twins from their restraints, ushering them into a dark corner out of the way before turning to where 'Bo' circled a distraught Lauren with intent. The doctor was still pleading with Bo to fight this thing that had taken her over, to come back to them. Then Kenzi caught sight of the Griffin chained to the floor. Reluctantly, she helped Saoirse pull free of her chains, flesh and fur coming away in great bloody clumps as she forced her limbs free but she would lick her wounds another day.

"Okay, go get her girl but don't hurt her too much, okay? We still want her in one piece." said Kenzi, patting the Griffin's lionesque head. Saoirse gave a loud grunt then dived after Bo, knocking her sideways and out of Lauren's path. She would keep to her word, treating the Succubus as Bo and not the vile creature that was hurting her mother, keeping her busy just long enough for the compact Russian to free Lauren.

It didn't take long however, until Bo was not only back on her feet but somehow getting the better of her warrior opponent. This thing was strong and it was more than time to run already.

Christophe had been subdued for the moment but it would not last. Dyson could smell the power in him. Apparently, they had all underestimated him. The Cogitatio seemed to just absorb every blow that Dyson shot his way, pounding and pounding away until his hands bruised and drops of blood seeped from his knuckles yet de Villiers showed barely a scratch and the Wolf was beginning to tire.

"Lapdog to a Succubus; so weak. Give up yet?" Christophe taunted.

Then from nowhere, a strange arm slammed across the cackling man's body, knocking him back several feet. Dyson stared confusedly at the large Mediterranean-looking man that had suddenly appeared to help him.

"Need some help?" asked the gruff voice. The Shifter nodded and the two men continued to pummel de Villiers fruitlessly until Dyson got the signal from Kenzi that she had done all she could.

The group began to back out of the warehouse, Dyson dragging Lauren out by the wrist while Kenzi and Dagny grabbed the kids.

"It's this way!" pointed the large man down a corridor where, sure enough, a pinprick of light beamed from somewhere in the distance.

"Who are you?" asked Dagny.

"My name is Kostas." Was the only answer she received as he proceeded to lead them out.

"Dyson, we can't leave her!" screamed Lauren at the rear, desperately tugging away from the Wolf's grip.

"Lauren, we can't go back for her now, it's too dangerous. We have to try again, when we have a plan. A real plan," he said, grasping her shoulders to drive the point home, "we have to get Charlotte and Ethan safe."

The blonde subsided and quietly allowed herself to be led into the daylight.

Lauren exhaled sharply as she heard Dyson's familiar footsteps come up the back staircase behind her.

"He got to me Dys." She said flatly.

"I know." he sighed, coming to a stop next to her, not quite touching but close enough just to offer a hopefully calming presence.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I just can't face going home, not just yet."

"It's fine Laur, you're welcome to stay. The twins are settled upstairs with Dagny," he replied, "you feel like telling me what went on in there?"

The blonde gave a small shrug and a barely perceptible shake of the head as she glanced at the now empty whisky glass. Dyson raised an eyebrow and topped her up with another nip.

"How about now?"

Lauren sputtered out a hollow laugh and slowly, grudgingly told him everything that had happened during her time in the de Villiers' warehouse.

"I'm so sorry Lauren." He said sadly when she had finished her story. "But you know none of it's true, right?"

"But that's just it Dyson! It's all true!" she laughed mirthlessly. "This is what a Cogitation does, don't you get it? He finds your deepest, darkest truths and admittedly, turns them against you but that doesn't make them any less real. I think I need another drink." She finished after a pause but the Wolf shook his head.

"No, you need to go get some rest. We'll figure all this out tomorrow, okay?" he said, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder which she casually brushed off, trudging with tired legs to the steps that would hopefully lead her to sleepy oblivion.

"Guess you're right." She shot bitterly over her shoulder, "as always."

The following morning brought the smells of coffee, bagels and the subdued chatter of breakfast-following-disaster. As Lauren reached the bottom step, she could see Dagny eagerly pushing a pastry in Kostas' direction but the heavy-set fae appeared less than enthusiastic.

"Well, I don't care. You saved our butts, the least you deserve is fattening bacony goodness!" She stated cheerfully, brokering no room for argument. Dyson, on the other hand, looked decidedly warier.

Kostas was simply too much in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another smart suit-donning lackey like the others they had found trailing de Villiers…and he was Dark. It was true, despite all their progress, despite how far they'd all come in recent years, old resentments could still run deep no-matter how altruistic one tried to be.

"And how exactly did you come to be down there in the first place?" she heard the Wolf grunt as Lauren slipped unobtrusively onto the same high-backed stool she'd been drowning her sorrows on the previous night, grabbing the coffee pot and watching with detached amusement as Ethan clumsily tried to sneak another Danish without anyone noticing. He blushed as he caught Lauren's eye but the blonde merely smiled indulgently, recognising the same expression she had seen so many times on Bo's face when she had spotted her smuggling junk into her pristine fridge. Bo.

The thought of Bo brought the memories of the previous thirty-six hours crashing painfully into view. So much so that she ended up tuning out most of the conversation floating about around her.

"It's true, I was working for him." Said Kostas. "I thought I could steer him down the straight and narrow…I was wrong." He continued defeatedly. "He, umm, he took my brother. You see, he's a Hydra."

"Yeah, we know," interrupted Dyson, wishing the guy would just get to the point and Kenzi dug a sharp glance at him.

"Yeah, course you do," he smiled ruefully, "Hydras are the gatekeepers of one of the entrances to the Underworld. Posted there by Hades himself. Anyway, he trapped my younger brother down there when he dared to speak out against him. He publicly denounced him at one of his own rallies when he was still trying to gather followers."

"Wait, I remember that!" said Dagny. "He was a good guy, your brother."

"Yeah, he was courageous," said Kostas, his voice turning regretful, "a better man than I. Then de Villiers 'had him removed'."

"Lake Lerna dried up long ago." Said Dyson.

"True, but the Hydras have always held the secret combination needed to open the gates to the Underworld. In my naivety, I thought I could work from the inside, control Christophe from inside his own camp and somehow release my brother at the same time but it didn't work out like that. He's become a madman. Don't get me wrong, a lot of us wanted to see the Succubus swing but…what he has planned is insane."

With an effort, admittedly, the Wolf deliberately ignored the man's comment about Bo and focused on the latter part of his statement.

"What does he have planned?" he asked intently.

"He planned on using the Succubus as a weapon. See, killing her family was only the first step. When he extracted the fear from her mind and she realised what she had done, he planned to harness her rage and use her to destroy the colony."

"How?" asked Dagny.

"He plans to use her energy to raise every fae she has ever defeated in battle and use them to take the land from us. With her at the head of it."

"Okay! I think we're gonna need some more coffee!" exclaimed Kenzi.

Dyson gave a cursory knock on the blonde's bedroom, entering anyway to find Lauren slumped listlessly at the edge of the bed, hands dangling from where her elbows rest on her knees. The whole crew had made a team effort to get the Lewis-Dennis household back to normal.

"Hey, we're almost done if you wanna come take a look." He said gently.

"Maybe later." She replied quietly. He stepped further into the room with light steps and came to a kneel in front of her.

"Look, Lauren, I know this is hard but you need to start dealing with this. If not for yourself then for Bo. For Charlotte and Ethan. For all of us."

"Dyson, it was me that got you all into this in the first place or did you not hear a word I said last night!" she spat, flinging her hands up in the air.

"Look, I don't like this Kostas guy but he was right about one thing, de Villiers is a madman! Okay, he got inside your head. Then fight him!"

"Dyson, I don't know how!" she cried.

"I do." He said softly.

The doctor paused from that rant that teetered about her lips;

"What do you mean?" she asked, eyeing him suspiciously, wondering if this was just another ploy to get her downstairs.

"Well, we've been thinking. If we can't beat him as a Cogitatio then perhaps we can still beat him as a Hydra. We just need the right kind of hero to take him down. Remember, King Hydra was defeated by Hercules severing his heads?"

"Well, I'm sorry but I am just fresh outta Heraclids! We only found that one guy by sheer luck before, they are almost impossible to track down. Mainly because most of them don't even know what they are so short of asking every human in the colony to pee in a cup I'm at a loss!"

"We don't need a Herclid, Lauren," he said patiently, "we need our very own Grecian-style hero. Like you."

"Dyson, I'm not a hero. I'm not even Greek!"

"Your name is, that's a start."

Lauren stared at him in bemusement.

"Lauren is Latin, not Greek."

"Karen," he said slowly, "comes from the Greek Katharos."

"Don't you even go there," she replied harshly, getting up smartly from the bed to pace agitatedly about the room, a hand rubbing at her forehead, "don't ever mention that woman's name to me! She is dead! Why won't people get that!"

"She is you Lauren!" he said, rising to meet her mid-strut. "You are her…Karen Beattie. Your bloodline may be different but you are a hero to Bo, worthy of any Greek story. And everyone deserves redemption. You can do this."

"You're the champion," she smiled sadly, "it should be you. Maybe it should have always been you." But the Wolf shook his head.

"You're Bo's champion."

A moment of silence passed between them while Dyson allowed Lauren to wrap her extensive brain around everything that had been thrown at her the last few days.

"What do I have to do?" she asked finally. He smiled;

"You have to tap into your inner strength. The warrior that runs through your veins. Surely there's someone in your family that you look up to, that's inspired you."

Lauren looked thoughtfully then retreated to her bedside cabinet, opening the top drawer and delicately lifted out something small and doubtless precious from the way she held it. When she got closer, she reached out to him with an old sepia-tinted photograph of a woman in uniform.

"My Aunt Margaret," she explained, "Auntie Meg was a suffragette. She even took part in a rally in Edinburgh back in 1909…it was led by a woman on horseback called Flora Drummond. My Aunt went through hell fighting for equal rights. They even arrested her and force fed her in prison. Then somehow, when World War One broke out she managed to put everything aside and served as a nurse as close as she could get to the front lines. Years ago, when my mother told me her story I researched her Army records and found that she'd even been bombed working on an ambulance train and despite being injured herself, she stayed to make sure her patients were evacuated before the thing blew. Then after the war she never married, she chose to go on nursing wounded veterans for the rest of her life. I was always so proud of her. In fact, she's the reason I went into medicine. I never got to meet her but I wanted to be just like her."

Dyson touched the photograph reverently;

"Do you have anything of hers that would provide a connection, a reminder of her?" Lauren nodded again and returned to the same drawer and lifted out a bow-shaped brooch. It was a simple little brass strip, dotted with tiny white, green and purple stones, the suffragette colours. It was nothing overly fancy for a piece of jewellery, Lauren herself owned a few much more elaborate items but to her it was priceless.

"Good enough." He said.

"So, what do we do?" she asked nervously but hopeful.

"We build our own army," he said, "and you rescue our Bo."

Well guys, I know this wasn't exactly what you wanted but I hope I'm managing to make up for any disappointment with a longer story!

As always, thanks to all!

P&L