The door extruded into reality, appearing to merge with the brick wall it had arrived next to. Moments later, it opened and a reptilian face peered out curiously.

{Where did this one end up?} a deep voice asked in a very odd language full of hissing sounds.

{I'm not sure,} the face said, as the body attached to it stepped out onto the cracked cement. {Looks familiar though.}

The owner of the second voice followed the first arrival out of the door, also looking around with interest. {You know, just randomizing the coordinates and turning it on is a weird way of exploring.}

{It's as good as any other method.} The first visitor shrugged, grinning. {Sure, we could do some sequential search or something but this is more spontaneous. And sooner or later we'll hit all the same places, right? It's not like we're actually looking for anything in particular, we're just having fun.}

{Point,} her companion admitted with a smile. She looked around again, then sniffed. {Not the docks, we're further inland than that. Definitely Brockton Bay, though, it doesn't look all that different from the last half dozen variants. Smells pretty similar too.}

Saurial, for this was her name, nodded. {Yep, it's got that distinctive reek of desperation, old fish, and crime,} she joked. The other reptile, a larger and pitch black one that went by the name Metis as far as most people were concerned, snickered.

{Pretty much.} Pulling out a device from a compartment that opened up in the armor she was wearing she fiddled with it. {Aha! Got a cell signal, now let's see if Dragon's latest code does… OK, that was quick. It's cracked the local encryption and we've got internet, cell signal, and everything. Let's see when it is...}

{We're somewhere near Winslow,} 'Saurial' said as her friend was working. {I'm sure of that now, I can hear a lot of kids swearing at each other. It smells like that too, I'd recognize that anywhere."}She was facing into the light breeze, sniffing the air. {Huh. That smells exactly like...}

Lisa, the human mind behind the persona of Metis, looked up as her friend suddenly stopped talking. {Like?}

{Sophia,} the tall humanoid lizard hissed, her voice taking on a slightly worrying tone. She looked at the other reptile. {What's the local date?}

{Ah...} Lisa inspected her special phone. {January fourth, two thousand eleven, at ten thirty AM. Hey, that sounds awfully fam...} She looked up to see the other girl was gone.

{Oh, hell,} she groaned when she worked it out, and started running, dismissing her armor and engaging the stealth mode of her scales. The few people on the street she dashed across seconds later blinked as a weird visual distortion crossed their path and shot up the side of the building on the other side, before disappearing over the roof.

Sophia spun the dial of the combination lock with an evil grin and stepped back looking triumphant. "Have fun, Hebert," she said with a snicker. Beside her, Emma was smirking, an unholy light of pleasure in her eyes to the point that even Sophia wondered sometimes. Slightly behind them, on the other side, Madison was watching, her own smile just a hint uncertain.

The stench from the waste in the locker was omnipresent, and the banging sound and cries from inside were trailing off rapidly. "Stupid little bitch," Emma muttered. "Why can't you just..."

They were interrupted by a yelp from down the corridor, followed by a number of shouts and a scream. All three of them turned around, then stopped dead and stared at the person stomping towards them. "Holy shit, what's that?" Emma yipped as the six foot five reptilian female headed their way radiating at aura of 'fuck with me and die', mayhem in her glowing yellow slit-pupiled eyes.

"Cape, but I don't recognize her," Sophia replied in a very quiet and worried voice. Moments later she nearly fainted as a strange sensation went through her, odd visual effects accompanying it, but Emma grabbed her before she could hit the ground. Shaking herself back to consciousness and wondering what had happened, she was distracted by the furious reptile heading their way.

The lizard woman, which is certainly what she looked like, walked right past them with a look of complete contempt before Sophia could think what to do, literally pushed her hand through the door next to the lock like it was made of damp tissue paper and ripped the entire thing off its hinges as easily as someone tearing a bag of chips open. Flinging the door to the side she caught the body that slumped backwards in a flood of disgusting mess and picked her up. "I've got you, Taylor, you're safe," the creature said softly into the hair of the girl as she lifted her clear of the floor. Turning around, she fixed them all with a vicious look that made Madison whimper, Emma go sheet-white, and Sophia freeze in the process of fumbling for her PRT phone, while trying to work out how to tell them what was going on without outing herself. With no other idea coming to her she hit the emergency call button and held it down in her pocket.

"I'll deal with you little shits later. Stay here, don't move, don't even think of running. If I have to come find you, you'll wish I hadn't, trust me." She leaned closer to Sophia and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Shadow Stalker. Run and I'll fuck you up like you wouldn't believe, trust me on that, you vicious little psychopath."

While Sophia was still gaping in horror, the creature turned away. One step later, it turned back and fixed them with a thoughtful look.

"Cellphones. On the floor."

"What?" Emma squeaked, sounding terrified and befuddled.

"Put your cellphones on the floor in front of you, right now." Her voice was a low hiss. "Do not make me tell you again."

Each of the girls hastened to obey. There was something deadly in that voice, and even Sophia didn't want to find out what happened if they didn't obey. She had no idea what powers this cape had other than being a high level Brute at a minimum and knew that left her in a bad position. Hopefully once the thing was gone, she could escape and find help, but making a stand right here and now could end badly anyway and would inevitably out her in the process. So, very reluctantly, she put her phone on the floor in front of her. Her civilian one, of course, the PRT issued one hidden in another pocket, which hopefully this creature didn't know about.

"Your other phone too, Sophia."

Shit.

With ill grace, but feeling the weight of that inhuman glare, she did as requested. Each of the phones was suddenly enclosed in a block of some gray metal that appeared out of nowhere, making all three of them stare.

With a nod of satisfaction, the lizard-woman turned away from them and headed for the locker room like she was completely familiar with the school even though Sophia had never even heard of her before, never mind seen her. "You, call 911 right the fuck now and get the cops here," the lizard said as she passed the crowd of onlookers that had turned up and were staring in shock, looking meaningfully at one of the football players. "DO IT!" she commanded when he simply gaped back, making him jump violently, damn near salute, then grab for his phone. "You, the tall one, you call Danny Hebert at the Dock Workers Association, tell him to get here immediately. Move it, don't make me say it again."

The second boy nodded frantically, already dialing.

"Get out of my way," the creature hissed in deadly tones to two teachers, Gladly and another one, that had come around the corner at a dead run, then skidded to a halt. She stalked past them without looking back as they moved to the side, their eyes wide, a trail of old blood and even less pleasant things in her wake.

When she was out of sight, the three girls looked at each other, then as one turned to leg it. None of them got more than four feet, all ending up on the floor as they tripped. Each looked down to see that a dull gray metal manacle was around each left leg, chains linking all of them together and to a large block of the same material which was so heavy it didn't shift at all when their weight hit it.

Madison made a little whimpering noise deep in her throat. Emma started swearing under her breath and yanking at the chain, to no avail whatsoever.

"Fuck this!" Sophia said in terrified fury. No one did this sort of shit to her, cape or no cape. Quickly checking and finding everyone else seemed to be staring after the lizard, she made her leg go to shadow and yanked to remove the manacle.

She was horrified when she discovered that the damn thing stayed in place…

After a few frozen moments, she looked up to see Emma looking at her through a completely white and shit-scared expression and Madison, who had clearly seen what she'd done, gaping in shock. And when she looked back to the crowd her heart jumped as she noticed Greg Veder looking at her with his eyebrows raised so far they disappeared into his idiotic haircut, his phone in his hand pointing at her.

With a sinking heart, she busied her mind with trying to think how the hell she was going to talk herself out of what happened next. There didn't seem to be any other options, as galling as that was to admit even in the privacy of her own head.

Putting the phone down, Danny Hebert dashed out of his office, grabbing his coat en route. "I'm going to the school," he half-shouted at his secretary as he passed her nearly running. "Taylor's been hurt."

"Oh, dear!" the woman said in shock, rising from her seat. "I'll make sure everyone knows."

"Thanks, Janet," the cry came back as the door swung shut. Two minutes later his truck was leaving the DWU grounds at the highest speed it could manage while still being safe on the awful roads, the occupant fretting about what he'd find.

"We've got a call saying an unknown Parahuman is involved in a disturbance at Winslow," Miss Militia reported as she walked into the room.

"Winslow?" Armsmaster queried, pausing in his preparation for leaving the Rig. "We just got an 'Urgent help needed immediately' automated ping from Shadow Stalker at Winslow."

"Shit."

They looked at each other for a moment, then she headed for her locker and started grabbing equipment. Battery and Assault were already standing by, and four PRT troopers were loading the truck that was parked just outside the door of the room on the lower level of the structure. Within three minutes it was rolling across the force field bridge to shore, Armsmaster's bike leading, and joined up with two more PRT vehicles when it reached the city itself. All of them tore towards the school at far above the speed limit, sirens blaring.

"Where's that BBPD cruiser going in such a hurry?" Assault said a couple of minutes later, pointing out the windscreen. He was in the cab of the vehicle, one of the troopers next to him doing the driving, with the others in seats down either side in the back. Hannah leaned forward to see.

"The same way we are by the looks of it," she replied. "So is that one." They had just been overtaken by another cruiser doing about 90.

"Who called them?" Battery looked around. Everyone shook their heads. Hannah was already on the radio trying to find out.

All she'd managed to determine was that someone at the school had called 911 and specifically asked for police half a minute or so before Shadow Stalker's alarm had been registered, but there wasn't much detail yet. The dispatcher was being unusually difficult, and the BBPD always tended to be difficult at best when the PRT was involved unless there was an order from high up. She sighed heavily and hung on as the truck screeched around a corner. Sooner or later someone was going to have to do something about the animosity that had developed between civilian and federal law enforcement around here.

Hearing another siren approaching rapidly from behind, she looked out the darkened rear windows to see an ambulance zooming towards them, apparently going to the same destination. Behind it was a BBFD hazmat vehicle, which made her wonder what the hell was going on.

Battery looked in the same direction, appearing puzzled. "Now what?" she muttered. Hannah could only shrug.

Before she could try to find out more, they turned the last corner and found themselves two hundred yards from the gates to the school, which had three police cars already parked outside it blocking the road. The ambulance drove past and pulled up next to one of them, the hazmat truck doing the same some distance away. Both disgorged a number of people who headed in through the gates.

Armsmaster stopped his bike right at the entrance and then sat there, apparently staring at the school, which from their viewpoint was still invisible behind the wall surrounding the front of the building. Moments later they parked, and Assault who could now see directly through the entrance swore under his breath.

"Jesus Christ," the driver exclaimed.

"What is it?" Hannah demanded.

"The biggest nastiest looking lizard thing I've ever seen in my life," the man replied, sounding very worried. "And it's looking right at us."

"Are its eyes actually glowing?" Assault put in with a distinct waver to his voice. Again, Hannah leaned forward, getting out of her seat, to see what they were looking at. Opposite her Battery did the same.

She swallowed as she found herself looking at possibly the most dangerous looking creature she'd ever seen. It was at least eight feet tall, standing on four legs, with an upright torso bearing a pair of arms and hands that appeared strong enough to snap telephone poles in half like matchsticks. This was topped by a reptilian head with the aforementioned eyes, which were indeed glowing sufficiently brightly to be visible in daylight, and a mouthful of teeth several inches long that she could easily make out because they were bared in what looked like an amused smile.

The entire creature was covered in some sort of armor, even the long tail she could see slowly waving back and forth behind it.

"Who or what is that?" Battery said in a stunned voice.

"I have no idea at all," she replied slowly. Everyone in the vehicle exchanged glances, then grabbed for weapons and climbed out the back. Walking over to Colin, who was still astride his bike, carefully evaluating the reptile that was watching them with no sign of worry, she said, "Ideas?" She saw that there were faces looking out every window in the building that faced them, most appearing curious or worried or both.

"The creature is estimated to weigh some two thousand pounds and is wearing armor I cannot get any readings on for unknown reasons," he replied immediately. "Strength unknown but based on the sheer size is likely to be considerable. Probable minimum low Brute rating. No weapons visible, but the talons and teeth are clearly dangerous. The front legs appear to be constructed to allow use as arms as well, so it may be capable of bipedal locomotion, which would give a height of probably ten feet or more."

"Ever heard of this one before? Is it even a Parahuman at all?"

"No, and I have no idea," he said, looking at her for a moment. "It is possibly a construct, or a projection, but the latter is less likely as it appears to be biological in nature. That said my instruments are unable to tell me anything about its possible makeup other than it's breathing."

"Worrying," she commented, looking at the creature again, which was watching the people run around in front of it without any apparent urge to either flee or attack. She was absolutely certain, looking at it, that it was highly intelligent. There was no particular reason she had that feeling, but her gut was telling her not to underestimate the thing. "So what do we do? Shadow Stalker is inside that school, along with hundreds of staff and students. Are they hostages?"

"Of course they aren't," the creature immediately said in a very deep female voice, easily audible even a hundred feet away. "I was just waiting for you guys to stop talking to each other. It's rude to interrupt."

Everyone froze and stared. The reptile smiled more widely, which had the effect that almost every single person took a step back in a manner that was almost choreographed. This seemed to amuse her a lot if the glint in those disturbing eyes was anything to go by. "OK, Hazmat guys, you need to go to locker 812 on the first floor, go left up the stairs inside the door. Just follow the smell and the blood, you can't miss it." She pointed at the small team from the fire department, who were fully suited in bio-protective equipment. "It's a biological hazard, body fluids and medical waste. You'll want to collect evidence and take a lot of photos."

They looked at each other as everyone else, including Hannah and Colin, looked at them. "Go on, get on with it, we're burning daylight here!" the creature snapped in a commanding voice that had everyone with a military background twitching. All three hazmat people jumped, then hurried to follow her instructions. She moved to the side to let them past. Hannah raised a hand to stop them and point out this was a PRT jurisdiction scene but the reptile glared at her and for some reason she froze again. 'Master effect?' her mind pondered, but in her heart she knew it was because the scaly female was just that scary.

"You, Sergeant." The reptile pointed at one of the cops, who stared back, his hand on his gun and his eyes wide. "You need to go to the Principal's office and arrest Helen Blackwell, the principal. Charges will include misappropriation of federal funds, bribery, destruction of school records for illegal purposes, defamation, and quite a few other things. There are a number of other teachers in this place who will also need to be talked to."

"What… I mean… who are..." He didn't seem to have any way to get something useful out.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Armsmaster demanded, getting off his bike. He had one hand on his halberd, ready to whip it out, which prompted Hannah to switch the manifested pistol she'd had in her hand without really thinking about it since she'd seen the reptilian figure for a riot gun. Behind and around her she heard the troopers ready their foam projectors.

The creature sighed. "Really? You want to do this now? OK, sure, whatever." She shook her head. "My name is Raptaur. I'm a visitor. And what I want is justice."

"Which means?" he asked in a hard voice.

"Which means, Armsmaster," Raptaur said in a voice that was at least as hard, and a lot more impressive due to the bass note underlying it, "that there is a girl in there who was just assaulted in a truly disgusting manner with an attack that could easily be considered bio-terrorism and possibly attempted murder by three of her fellow students. With the tacit backing of the school administration who have been well aware of the bullying campaign carried out here for nearly two years." She started walking closer to them, causing all the foam guns to rise and aim at her, which had no visible effect on her demeanor. Hannah was listening with shock, and growing concern.

"My sister is currently treating her and cleaning her up in the girl's locker room. Her father is on his way here. When he gets here, and she's recovered enough to talk, we are going to talk. Then, when he's taken her home, we're going to go and see your Director and talk to her as well." The reptile was now only thirty feet away. At this point she stopped. "I could tell you more, but this is too public, I think."

Colin glanced at Hannah, his mouth set in a thin line, then looked back at Raptaur. Hannah could sense his worry and confusion. She shared it. On the one hand, they had a totally unknown and very worrying cape at a public school, who said that a relative was actually inside that school, a place from which an alarm had been raised by a Ward. A Ward, in fact, with whom they'd had no further contact. On the other hand, this odd Parahuman or whatever she was didn't seem hostile, merely determined. Did they attack in an attempt to take her down then work out what was going on later, or try to de-escalate things before it went too far?

"I'm afraid I'm going to need more," Colin said grimly, unshipping his halberd and doing something which made it snap out to full length. Hannah sighed minutely, hearing every weapon in the combined group come on target with a fusillade of cocking sounds and motion.

Looked like the first option was now a possibility.

"You sure about that?" Raptaur asked, not looking away from him or paying any attention at all to the guns pointed at her.

"I am."

"If you want, then," the reptile growled. "The three girls who have perpetrated this current attack, and who have been waging psychological torture on their victim for over eighteen months, are Madison Clements, Emma Barnes… And Sophia Hess."

Hannah felt her heart skip a beat.

Colin was silent for several seconds.

"You have proof of this?"

"I have all three girls restrained next to the locker they filled with biological waste, before pushing their victim in. Sophia Hess's fingerprints will be on the lock. There were witnesses too, who were threatened by Hess to keep quiet."

"You have them… restrained?" Colin's voice was skeptical, which Hannah knew the reason for.

Raptaur smiled again, very slowly. "Oh, yes, that I do. Believe me, no one gets out of our restraints, no matter how good they are at… escapology."

He looked at Hannah for a moment, then around at the troopers and cops. The paramedics from the ambulance were standing at the back of the crowd half-hidden by their vehicle, but straining to hear and see.

Hannah could also see quite a few cell-phones being held up to the windows of the school and had a sinking feeling this entire bizarre encounter was already on the internet.

"The school administration is aware of the problem and has been deliberately sweeping it under the carpet for some time," Raptaur went on, cocking her head a little to the side as she watched his reaction. "For reasons of… let's go with it would potentially interfere with some of their funding."

Which meant that Sophia's handler was involved, Hannah realized with worry, assuming all of this was true. That was going to raise absolute chaos when it came out.

"And what is your interest in this, presuming any of it is correct?" Colin finally asked.

Raptaur shrugged, still smiling. "Let's just say we've seen it before, and were in the area. That'll do for now. I can tell you more later but it really isn't a matter for public consumption." She looked around at all the weapons. "Don't worry, I'm not hostile. You can put the guns down." Turning around, she headed back to the door. "They won't work anyway," she added casually over her shoulder, which was all sorts of scary if it was true.

Hannah felt, for some reason, it wasn't impossible that it was…

"Come on, Sergeant, you have a job to do," the reptile called, waving to the cops and pointing at the door. She took up a station beside it again. The man in question looked at Colin and Hannah, then his own men, before shaking his head and going inside. Hannah motioned with her hand to Assault who was staring at the entire weird encounter with an expression of bemusement, then indicated the police who were cautiously filing through the front door of the school.

"Go with them, please," she said quietly.

He followed without a word, tapping two of the PRT people on the shoulder as he passed them. They lowered their foam projectors and followed, not without suspicious glances at the huge reptilian form guarding the doorway.

The sound of tires screeching made everyone turn and look, to see a somewhat beaten-up pickup truck round the corner and slam to a halt next to the ambulance. The occupant, a tall skinny guy with glasses and balding head, jumped out and raced towards the gate, one of the cops moving to intercept him.

"Let him through, he's her father," Raptaur said in tones of command. The cop stopped, the man sidestepping him then skidding to a halt when he spotted the reptile.

"Holy shit," he yelped.

"Come with me, Danny, I've been waiting for you," Raptaur said in a calming voice, quite different from the one she'd been using up to now. She motioned towards herself. "My name is Raptaur, I'm a friend. I'll take you to Taylor."

He gaped for a moment, then asked, "Is she OK? What happened? Where is she?"

"She'll be fine but she needs her father," Raptaur replied. "My sister is with her. She had a very upsetting experience but we got her out before it could be too bad."

She waited, then waved again. "Don't worry, it'll be fine."

After a moment, Hannah could see him visibly pull himself together and walk determinedly over. She rather admired his courage, considering he was presumably just a normal man with no powers or training. Not many people would have done that, family or not, considering who was looking at him.

"This will feel a little weird but it's perfectly safe," she added when he'd reached her. "Metis, take over, will you? Stop anyone doing anything stupid if you can."

"No problem," another deep voice said out of nowhere. The entire contingent stared as twenty feet to the side another huge reptile resolved out of apparent thin air, fading into view like a special effect. This one was so black she was hard to look at, and had glowing green eyes, which were showing a distinct sense of amusement in them.

"Fuck me," someone in the remaining group of cops and troopers said quietly. The new one, apparently called Metis, snickered.

When Hannah looked back to Raptaur and the Hebert man, both were gone.

Colin also looked, then growled under his breath and collapsed his halberd. "I'm going to see what the hell this is all about. You make sure no one leaves," he told her, then stomped towards the door. Metis merely watched him, waving a little as he passed and smirking.

Hannah would swear to her dying day she heard his teeth grinding from the gate.

"Director, you need to see this," Emily's second in command said as he opened her door without even knocking. She looked up from her screen to glare at him.

"What is it, I'm half way through next month's budget and..." she began, before he cut her off by putting a large tablet on the table, turned so she could see the display. It was playing a video from a popular web forum, she could see from the logo at the top.

After a few seconds, she raised her eyes to meet his. "Is this real?"

"Yes, I've checked. Armsmaster took a team to the school after Shadow Stalker's alarm was triggered. Miss Militia is with him, and we dispatched two other units from here at the same time because dispatch got an alert that an unknown Parahuman was on site. Apparently someone in the school called for the police, an ambulance, and a hazmat team, from what we can tell on the orders of another Parahuman inside for at least two of those."

"And this is live?" She checked the timestamp on the video stream, which was only about five seconds delayed from the current time.

"Yes."

Scrolling back through the stream she watched the results for a moment, then went back to the live view. It was apparently being taken from a second floor window based on the angle and was of the front of the school, in which a number of BBPD and PRT personnel could be seen standing around a little awkwardly, all of them holding weapons like they didn't quite know what to do with them. Miss Militia and Battery were in the upper center of the shot, and about twenty feet from them, closer to the building, a very large and extraordinarily black bipedal reptile was looking back. It was so black the camera was having trouble with it, the result looking like a cutout in the world, relieved by only a pair of glowing green eyes with slitted pupils which were visible momentarily when it glanced up at whoever was recording it.

"Who or what is that?" she snarled, pointing.

Renick shrugged. "I have no idea. We don't have any records of a reptilian cape that match either of the two so far reported. And apparently there's another one inside, but so far no video of her has surfaced."

He reclaimed the tablet and closed the video, quickly opening a chat window. Scrolling through it for a few seconds, he stopped, then handed it back. She took it and read the screen, before she paused on one name. Feeling her blood pressure skyrocket, Emily very carefully put the tablet down on her desk and clenched her fists, breathing heavily.

When she was sure she could speak without emitting only obscenities, she requested in polite tones that were still heavy with menace, "Would you be so good as to get Shadow Stalker's handler in here as soon as possible, please?"

Renick nodded without saying a thing, picked up his tablet, and left as quickly as possible. Turning her head to look out the window at the skyline of Brockton Bay, Director Piggot glared in the direction of Winslow and a young woman who was, with any luck, having a very bad day.

If she wasn't, she was going to when Emily got her hands on the little bitch.

And where the fuck had the lizards come from?

Taylor twitched, her mind alight with weird sensations. Millions of little sparks of information seemed to be pouring in from all around her and keeping track of it was overwhelming her. She also, for some reason, felt like she was soaked in warm water.

Moaning to herself, almost lost in the massive barrage of sights and sounds and scents and all manner of other things she couldn't even put a name to, she wasn't sure if she'd heard a voice or not.

"Damn, I didn't make it in time. Sorry, Taylor," the voice, one she'd never heard before, seemed to say. "I tried. Here, this should help."

There was yet another weird sensation somewhere on her neck, she thought dizzily, then everything else… faded, for want of a better description. The vast number of sources of confusing information died away to the point they were almost unnoticeable. They were still there, she could feel them, but they were somewhere in the background now.

Sagging in relief, she exhaled slowly. Then frowned. She really did feel like she was immersed in warm water. Why?

When she finally opened her eyes, she found she was curled in a ball on the floor of one of the shower cubicles in the locker room, and the sensation of warm water was coming, logically enough, from the warm water that was running over her. Blinking in confusion she tried to work out what was going on. She'd gone to her locker to get something for the next class, smelled a horrible stench as she approached, then noticed with dismay that it seemed to be coming from her locker. The bitches had fucked things up yet again, which she should have expected from the devious expressions all three of them had worn since she'd first spotted them that morning. The first day back after Christmas and she could already tell it was going to be bad.

She'd opened the locker, and…

Taylor remembered.

She turned her head to the side and vomited, nothing coming out but sour liquid. The insects, the blood, someone pushing her in and kicking the door shut on her as she screamed and hammered on the inside…

Once again she retched. A hand steadied her.

"It'll pass. Here, drink this, it will help with the nausea." Another hand held out a glass with something liquid in it. Blindly she slightly uncurled enough to take and drank, spitting a couple of times to get rid of the taste, although at least half of it was memory. Then she swigged the rest of the fluid which wasn't entirely water, but tasted of lemons.

"Thanks," she gasped weakly, feeling the glass be removed from her hand. Or maybe disappear, she wasn't sure and her head was spinning.

"You're welcome," the voice said. It sounded like a woman, pretty much. She didn't recognize it, or the slight accent it had, but it sounded friendly and was attached to someone who was helping her so that was nice.

Probably not a teacher then, she thought bitterly.

"What happened?" the girl managed to say weakly, still disorientated. She closed her eyes again since the light was making her dizzy.

"Sophia and her little friends shoved you into your locker after filling it with biotoxins. Do you remember that part?"

"Unfortunately yes," she moaned.

"I got there about thirty seconds too late to stop them and got you out," the voice went on, sounding annoyed but more with itself than anyone else. "I'm really sorry about that. When I realized, I tried to find you, but the layout of this version of Winslow is a little different and it took longer than I thought it would..." The voice trailed off as she frowned a little, trying to work out what about that comment was odd. "Anyway, I found you and got you out."

"What about Emma and Sophia and Madison?" Taylor asked after a little while of thinking about what she'd heard. She was now leaning back against the tiles, comfortingly warm water running down over her head and through her hair. She didn't want to open her eyes until her stomach fully settled, especially as she didn't want to see the crap that she imagined she was surrounded by. It had been in her hair, and her clothes, and in her shoes.

Shoes.

She wiggled her toes.

Then she felt her stomach.

"Um… Am I naked?"

"Sorry, yes, your clothes were past the point of being useful except as evidence," the voice chuckled. "Don't worry, it's nothing I haven't seen before."

"Oh."

After a moment, the voice of her savior continued, "Don't worry about the trio, either. They're not going anywhere. I made sure of that. The police are here, and the PRT, and just about everyone else. My sister and my cousin are talking to them. Blackwell is going to have a very bad day, and as for those girls..."

The mystery woman snickered darkly. Despite herself and her bemusement and horror over what had happened, Taylor couldn't help but smile a little. For once, someone seemed to be on her side.

"Your dad's here too," the voice added. Taylor stiffened.

"Dad," she said faintly. "Oh, god."

"You need to tell him, Taylor," the woman said, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. "Don't bottle it up any more. Trust in family to help. Trust your father, despite everything. He does love you more than anything, but he's also suffering from losing your mother, and he's made mistakes, just as you have. But it can get better, I promise you."

"How do you know?" Taylor asked, having absorbed that with a lot of confusion about how much this person seemed to know and a slight amount of anger too. "You don't know what my life's been like for nearly two years."

The other person sighed a little ruefully. "I do know, all too well, Taylor, because the same thing happened to me."

There was silence for a handful of seconds then Taylor opened her eyes and turned her head, wiping strings of wet hair from her face. The eyes that met hers were not human at all, but the expression in them showed sympathy, compassion, and understanding. She stared at the reptilian countenance smiling back.

"Who… are you?" she finally managed to say, wishing she had her glasses. But even without them she was sure she was looking at a humanoid lizard who was in the shower with her.

"My name is Saurial," the thing said, holding out a hand which she took automatically and shaking it. "As far as most people know." Saurial looked both ways very obviously, then up, then behind her. "But I have a secret." She held a finger to her lips, or whatever a lizard had in place of them. "Keep it under your hat, though."

"Secret?" Taylor asked, feeling totally bewildered.

"Yep." The face grinned.

She stared as it changed into a somewhat older but recognizable version of her own.

"When I said the same thing happened to me, I meant it," the other Taylor Hebert giggled, as she gaped. "The outcome was slightly different, though. Hey, want to come and see what happens next?"

She passed out, her mind finally having enough. As her eyes rolled up, she could have sworn the other Taylor said, "Oops. Too much?"