A/N: Yay! We got the keys to our new apartment this past Friday, and are moving in our stuff slowly but surely! Big furniture goes in this Tuesday, and then we'll get settled! Fair warning, though, guys, we may not have internet for a little bit. While having all of my things in one place means I won't have to worry about excessive amounts of travel and sleeping in two different places, and thereby may have more time to write, I may not be able to upload as reliably. I can take my laptop to the library to upload things, but it's getting later in the year, and in Buffalo, that means a lot of snow and sleet and freezing rain, so transporting my laptop places frequently may be too risky. Hopefully, we should have Fios set up by November, but it's not as high a priority as food, rent, power, car insurance, and wedding planning, especially when a lot of fast food places have free WiFi. (Sugar Dragon will probably disagree on this, as he is a hardcore pc gamer, but I am sure we can reach a satisfactory compromise.) So, I'm going to try and get as much stuff up as soon as I can, in anticipation of a busy next couple of weeks. So, without further ado, here is the next chapter.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Sherman cheerfully informed them, throwing his arms up in defeat.

Vert glanced at the screen. Spinner had managed to recover some of the data that flashed on the monitors while the battle key self-destructed and compared it to the glyphs Tezz had scanned. Sherman had been working nonstop trying to translate the two sets of glyphs that covered the monuments of the zone. According to him, the Ancient Sentient was too damaged to compare to the other writing, and he had been slogging through Sage's files trying to find a close match. All of it just looked like gibberish to the blonde, but that was why he had smart people like Sherman and Tezz on his team. From his ruffled hair and the sleep-deprived look of mania in Sherman's eyes, however, Vert guessed his friend hadn't had much luck.

"Vert, none of it makes sense!" Sherman started tugging at his hair. "The writing style is nothing like any of the alien races Sage is familiar with. If anything, it looks like cuneiform—"

"Cue knee what now?"

"Cuneiform," Sherman sounded out. "The ancient writing system used in Babylon. But even if the Sentients had a reason to inscribe the monument with an Earth-based script, there are several different languages that based their own writing systems on the original and most of them haven't been deciphered by modern humans." His hands flew around as he gestured wildly, growing ever more frantic. "I've translated stuff older than this, but that's ancient Sentient—they keep way better records than us and, to some extent, had a unified monoculture. Humans are still very divided and five thousand years ago, half the languages that existed weren't even written down, and these glyphs are like nothing I've ever seen before. I feel so useless! I've been staring at it for hours and—"

Vert gently put a hand on Sherman's shoulder and looked him in the eyes until he went still. The younger Cortez stared at him with confusion in his tired, glassy eyes.

"Sherman?" the captain asked mildly. "How much coffee did you have?"

He shrugged noncommittally and looked away. Simultaneously, he moved so he was standing in front of his desk, which had six empty cups on it. Vert leaned around to see what his friend was hiding and saw anyway.

Vert nodded. "Okay, big guy. You've been working really hard, and I appreciate it. But I think maybe what you oughta do right now is take a little break." The blonde gave his friend a pitying smile. "Maybe grab a sandwich or try and get some sleep. Then you can come back at this with a fresh perspective. Sound good?"

Sherman mumbled something that sounded like "Yeah, I guess," and headed for the kitchen. With a relieved grin, Vert watched him go.

"Oh, and Sherm?" he called after him. "Lay off the caffeine!"

"You can't tell me what to do! You're not my real dad!"

"I'm not your fake dad, either, pal!" Vert chuckled. "No more coffee!"

The sudden destruction of the battle key had been unexpected and unexplained. Tezz was still trying to puzzle out what could have caused the key's total meltdown. And he likely would have stayed up all night working on it, too, if AJ hadn't dragged him to bed. Tezz was no closer to an answer than Sherman was, but at least he was taking care of himself.

Vert worried about his team's well-being. Everybody was on edge. They had no idea what the glyphs meant, and no clue why a battle key would spontaneously dissolve into icky black goo. And it didn't help that Spinner kept saying things like "If this was a scifi show, then we'd have a new villain showing up any minute now." Vert knew the elder Cortez had been right about vampires, but he really hoped Spinner was wrong this time. The BF5 had enough on their plates with the Reds, the Sark, and the Vandals. Something new and creeptastic was the last thing they needed, especially if it had face-tentacles like that uber-gross statue.

The blonde shivered. The statue looked way too much like that scary painting his mother had made, the only one he'd gotten rid of while she was gone. 'And Mom did say stuff about an ancient evil squid god…'

Vert frowned. He had to get stuff like this out of his mind. It was hard enough protecting the planet before. Now he was trying to strike a balance between his manifold responsibilities, leading his team, fighting monsters, keeping the Reds away from Sage and Earth, and now, keeping an eye on his ailing mother.

This was not an extra load he needed, but it was too late to turn back. He knew what he was getting into when he started visiting again. He knew the first time he saw her that, after those two long years, she was well on her way to recovery. He had found his father again, and for the first time he had hope of his family being whole. But actually bringing her home was not something he had ever realistically expected, let alone so soon. Maybe after a few months of seeing her again he would have been more mentally prepared for it.

There had been a few close calls in those ensuing weeks, things that might have clued a person in to the Battle Force 5's activities. He knew he couldn't keep her away from the garage forever, but he was doing everything he could to put off a visit. Between that, having to disappear when their comm watches sounded, and battle zones making him late for family dinners—

"Crap in a hat," he muttered, looking at his communicator's screen to check the time. Vert made a mad dash for his room and changed back into his civilian clothes. He was supposed to bring a pizza over to his Mom so they could stay in and watch bad nineties comedies. The films chosen for tonight's double feature were both guilty pleasures, a couple of horribly dated movies that were rerunning constantly on Comedy Central when he was a kid. He still remembered singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody with his parents during the opening sequence of Wayne's World, a sweet memory that grew bitter after his father's disappearance. The second movie was supposed to be Last Action Hero, but Vert had politely asked Mom to pick another, worrying that the weird meta antics of parallel universes going on in that film would make him sweat. He almost wished he hadn't made such a request, as she had then suggested Encino Man. It was arguably the best movie Pauly Shore ever made. Of course, all of Pauly Shore's moves were pretty terrible, but at least she hadn't asked for that stupid environmental themed one where they were trapped in a dome.

"What's wrong with Adam Sandler?" he muttered, mumbling to himself. "Or Chris Farley.? Hell, even Danny DeVito would be better than Pauly Shore…" He grabbed his keys and spoke into his wrist comm as he jogged towards the elevator.

"Guys, I got that thing with my mom, Agura's in charge, don't set anything on fire, okay, love you, bye!"

Vert hopped into the Saber and put the pedal to the metal. He hoped his mother wouldn't be upset about his being late…

Janet sat up on the couch, gasping for breath, and realized she must have fallen asleep there watching television. The afternoon sunlight filtering in through the big picture window was pleasantly disarming, though it now rendered the lights and electronics she had left on redundant. The television was tuned to a staticky, scrambled, half-there channel that was mostly fuzz and snow and skipping, split footage with a bad green filter, but she thought she could make out some rap song; something about 'wifing in the club,' whatever the hell that meant, and a demand for twenty dollars.

Janet shivered and sighed. It had only been a nightmare. With a pained groan she stretched out the crick in her neck, a product of her ill-advised night on the couch, rubbing her forehead. Annoyingly enough, she smudged something on her face when she did so. In disgust, Janet pulled up the hem of her t-shirt to her forehead clean of the sticky mess, grumbling and wondering what she might have gotten on her hands.

The shirt came away red.

SO. MUCH. RED.

"Don't panic," she told herself. "It could be paint. Was I painting last night? I mean, I paint all the time. Oh, gods, let it be paint."

But she knew the coppery smell, knew the rich color and the smooth texture of fresh blood, knew paint to be too gritty to ever replicate such a thing. Janet began panting in anxiety and a sudden bout of nausea as the TV and lamps flickered before her eyes.

"Not now," she whined. "No, no, no, god DAMN IT!"

Janet hopped up off the couch, ready to bolt for the door, but she slipped in a puddle of something RED and her feet went out from under her. She landed flat on her back, winded, wincing, and gasping in pain, the blonde carefully stretched and turned her head—

And came face to face with a pair of unseeing blue eyes, already glazed over and attracting insects.

"Vert?" she whispered in shock. She scrambled onto her knees, slipping and sliding in the RED, getting it all over herself, but finally managed to get to her son's side.

He was cold. A blade had sliced his mouth into a never ending smile, the cuts going up to the hinges of his jaws. Her sweet baby boy had barely lived his twenty-first year, and now it was over. He'd been ripped from stem to stern, gutted like a fish. His insides were packed neatly into ziplock bags and replaced to the open body cavity. His arms lay perpendicular to his gaping torso, his palms and fingers frozen into claws. The telltale bruises and scratches on his arms showed how he had fought, been held down, and, ultimately, succumbed.

For once, the voices in her head were stunned into silence.

"My boy," she whispered. "MY BOY!" she screamed.

That stupid, rushing, staticky noise, like the faucet was turned up to high; that horrendously annoying white noise that slowly mesmerized and drowned out the entire world. Janet hated that noise, that awful din that echoed and grew and fed back on itself, signaling that he would soon be there.

Her vision began to blur as he approached; whether it was from the Slender Man's aura of decay or the welling up of tears, she knew not. But the signs that once terrified her now filled Janet with an indescribable rage. Even as the faceless man in the black suit oozed towards her, appearing to be spontaneously born from the shadows themselves, Janet hurled curses and insults and the squishy bags of meat, her only coherent words a stream of expletives so profound that the Elder Gods themselves took notice. When she was finally out of breath, and he was nearly upon her, she let out a primal scream and tore at her hair.

"Why are you doing this?!" she demanded. "What do you want from me?!"

The Slender Man peered down at her from a face with no eyes, and Janet did not hear the words so much as feel them being laser-etched onto the interior of her skull, the white hot letters burning three stories tall against her brain:

wHaT iS tHe CoLoR oF tHe NiGhT?

Janet started awake, the pounding in her head unbearable. No, not just in her head—on the front door. With a groan she pushed herself off of the bathroom floor, carefully checking her surroundings. Yes, she'd been sick after she ran out of Zeke's. She must have passed out again. That was twice in one day, after only two drinks! And to think, back in high school she could drink even Frankie Castelucci under the table. What happened to her Irish blood? When did she suddenly become so fragile? Perhaps this was only because the alcohol mixed poorly with her medication. She really needed to listen to her doctors about that stuff, because ow.

The knocking came again, and the front door was eased open. "Mom?" Vert called, a note of worry in his voice. "Are you there?"

"Be down in a few minutes!" she crowed back, hurriedly whipping off her shirt, now drenched with sweat. "Make yourself at home!" The older blonde threw some water on her face, finger-combed her hair into a loose bun, and reached for the doorknob. As an afterthought, she turned back and quickly brushed her teeth. She grabbed a fresh shirt from her dresser, an old Queensrÿche tee she'd appropriated from her husband more than a decade before. A quick look in the mirror to make sure she didn't appear too out of sorts and Janet was headed down the stairs. When she got to the first floor, her son was placing a pizza box on the dining room table.

"Sweetie!" she cried, giving him a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. "I wasn't sure you were coming."

Vert smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry I'm so late, Mom."

"Oh, sweetie, it's fine," she said. "I know you're so busy over at the garage. I was napping anyway."

Her boy raised an eyebrow and glanced at his watch. "Mom, it's, like, seven-thirty. If you nap this late you'll never get to sleep tonight."

She shrugged. "I wasn't feeling so good, that's all."

He frowned in concern. "Maybe all this pizza isn't such a good idea, then."

"Oh, no ya don't!" she scolded. "You don't fool me, Mister Man, you just want all that glorious cheesy goodness to yourself. Well, you're sharing, and that's that." She flipped open the box and carefully picked up a slice and moved it to her mouth, all the while glaring at the boy. "Victory is mine."

"Curses, foiled again," Vert said with an exaggerated pout.

Mother and son made themselves comfortable on the couch, moving the pizza to the coffee table. After a few minutes of spirited debate, they started with Encino Man so they could get all of that Pauly Shore nonsense out of the way.

"Pfft, who even notices that little weasel?" Janet asked partway through, completely incredulous. "I mean, look at Brendan Fraser. Total hunk, woof."

Vert cringed at her pronouncement of Brendan Fraser's hunkiness. "Oh, ew."

"What, he's not your type?" she asked slyly. "Maybe you're more of a Channing Tatum sort of guy?"

She laughed as her son's face turned red and covered her head to protect herself from the pillow he'd thrown.

"Or maybe—" She giggled again and deflected his next volley. "Maybe you're more into that cute Canadian kid you hang out with?"

Vert paused in mid throw. His blush faded. In fact, any color he had drained from his face completely. Janet quirked an eyebrow and looked at him carefully. Her son quietly took his seat and they watched the rest of the movie in an awkward silence.

Janet frowned with worry as the credits rolled. "Sweetie?"

Vert swallowed hard, staring out the window.

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," she said softly. "I didn't realize…"

"Mom, can we just not…? I don't…"

The two boys were, by their own admission, very close. Janet had thought she noticed AJ looking at her boy a certain way, and they smiled at each other sometimes like there was no one else in the room. Oh, that Tezz kid was going to be very unhappy.

"It's okay," she told him. "Sweetie…Vert. You never had to lie to me. I would have accepted you."

"I'm not gay!" he said angrily. "That just—really caught me off guard, is all."

Janet smiled sympathetically. "Joseph, sweetheart, it's okay. Really." She reached out to smooth his hair back. "There is nothing wrong with you. You didn't have to make up a girlfriend just to make me happy."

"Whoa, hey, I did not make that up!" he insisted. "Agura and I are very heavily involved."

"Of course you are."

Vert really didn't care for her smug smile and condescending tone, and it showed in the withering glare he gave her. "What makes you think you know anything about me?" he spat. "You haven't even been around me in years."

Janet flinched back as if she'd been slapped. The lights and the TV flickered, the menu screen of the DVD being momentarily overcome by static. A million very unpleasant thoughts went through her head, more than half of which made her feel quite ashamed. Her shoulders sank.

Too late, Vert realized the sting of his words. "Mom? I—I didn't mean—I am so sorry."

She took a step backwards and away when he tried to hug her, but a smile stayed on her face. "No, it's fine," she told him, her voice as soft and weak as wind through a keyhole. "You're right. I… I had not right to say that. It was…presumptuous. I'm sorry."

Vert's heart ached to see her downcast eyes. He could only remember his mother using the word 'presumptuous' sarcastically. When did Janet Wheeler become so subservient? For the trillionth time he regretted abandoning her to her fate. That awful padded cell had well and truly broken her spirit.

She let out an uneasy chuckle. "Maybe we better try movie night another time?" she suggested feebly. "I'm very tired."

He didn't know what else to say after hurting her like that. "Of course," he said. "Maybe you could swing by the garage sometime this week, and we could go grab lunch?"

"That sounds nice," she sweetly, still looking at the floor. "Good night, dear."

She didn't see him to the door, instead going straight upstairs. Vert let himself out and locked the door behind him.