I always enjoyed the walk to Scarlett's house. It was far from the chaos of the city. It was a stone path that led through a green pasture and was sheltered by massive oak trees.

It reminded me of hikes that I would take with my mom in Missouri's deep forests.

I think that's why Woodrow and all the plant controlling kids wanted this place to be a forest.

It was the closest thing any of us had to a home.

"Are you sure this plan will work?" I asked Scarlett as we walked the final steps of the path.

"No, I have no idea if my plan will work. All I do know is that I have two kids who need to know their father and I need to know how I have two kids," she answered with anger hidden behind her words.

"So you're in it for answers?"

She let out a heavy sigh before turning around to face me.

"I've remembered so many different and contradicting pasts that I don't know which reality is truth and which is fiction. It's so bad in my mind that not even the mother of all freakin time couldn't separate the tangle of lies."

"And you think Scavenger could do what Mother couldn't?" I asked her.

She nodded as she turned around and walked into town. I knew she didn't feel comfortable here. She was the freak of nature in a city of freaks and nature. The crowded streets would split and fill with whispers as we walked.

"It's her, The Den Mother!" a little girl shouted deep inside the crowd.

Scarlett ignored the comment and continued to walk until we reached the stairs of the biggest building in the valley, my greatest accomplishment. The forty story tower of glass served as Alpha Command.

We entered the elevator and went up to the top of the tower. We were greeted by a squawking black bird that flew around me, pecking at any bare skin that my t-shirt couldn't hide. I smacked at it until it flew up the stairs and landed on a black machine.

"You said there might be a spy for Atom here in the city," Scarlett said as she walked out of the elevator and onto the base of the stairs.

"Yes. Atom's men found us too fast. They seemed to know exactly where we landed and moved a large force of soldiers too quickly to be a coincidence," Woodrow answered from the top of the stairs.

He was hidden in dark shadows on the back wall.

"Any idea on who it might be?" I inquired.

He shook his head with a somber look on his face.

"Atom wants my daughter. She can take away our powers. He will do anything he can to get her back. The machine she was hooked up to... I won't ever let her be taken again," Scarlett said while she walked up to the black bird on the console.

"And we won't ever let him get close enough to try," I roared as I finished my way up the stairs.

Scarlett smiled and patted me on the back.

"Thank you. Both of you, I know this plan is kinda crazy, but I need you to trust me."

"And I need you to step away from the machine," the bird squawked as it's bones began to crack and her feathers shedded for a tiger's hide.

The beast landed on the ground and hissed at us. It swiped at my legs and slashed the middle of my shin as I pressed the button on my watch, summoning my armor. My leg burned and I could feel blood dripping down to my boots.

"Ah, Raven! Right on time," Scarlett smiled at the pouncing bengal tiger.

She rolled out of the way of the razor sharp claws and pressed a button on her watch. A bright, white light filled the room. The light faded and Scarlett stood in her white armor. It was as pure as snow.

The tiger pounced again, this time aiming for Woodrow. She landed on his chest and began to tear at him with her claws.

Fragments of shirt and splinters flew from the massacre. The sound of claws against pine would never escape my ears.

"When do you think she will realize?" I asked.

"I'm surprised she hasn't already," Woodrow laughed as he pulled himself out of the back of the wooden puppet.

Raven's claws made a loud clunk in the wooden skin. She looked confused as her alleged victim stood next her unharmed. Her molten yellow eyes looked at the wooden skin Woodrow had shed.

It was an exact copy of Woodrow, a full 3D exoskeleton that he can grow over his flesh to protect himself from the sharpest of knives, or in this case, the claws of a two hundred pound tiger.

Raven attempted to retract her claws from the bark, but she couldn't. The wood refused to let go. The body of the tiger wouldn't set her free, so she shifted to a mouse and when that didn't work, trumpets from the trunk of an elephant rang throughout the room.

With every change she found the same issue, the paws would be stuck in the thick wood.

"He's got thicker skin than I thought!" she hissed in the form of a snake.

Woodrow smiled slightly before flipping his palm. The wood began to split into beams and formed an almost living cage around her. It sprouted legs and stood up as tall as me.

"I'm sorry, Raven, but I'm going to need your abilities if this plan is going to work," Scarlett said sincerely and with a voice filled with sadness.

I walked up to the shadow machine with pain shooting up my leg from every step and put in the location of Harrison, New Mexico.

The machine breathed to life with cold fog blasting from under it. A black portal began to spin in front of us.

Here we go again, I thought as I stepped into the darkness.