"Just let me take her with me, all right . . .? She's not going to be causing anyone any . . . any trouble . . . I don't even know what it was she was doing to earn this in the first place!" Valerie starts to try and lift up The Domina, and I can't help but wince. "Tell me, Patina . . . Sarah . . . Whoever or whatever you are - tell me or I'm not going anywhere!"

With a groan I just roll my eyes and cross my arms over my chest. "Look, Valerie, as much as I would absolutely love to give you the entire story from the top there are two dangerous super villains unaccounted for. I want to leave before they show up. I understand your feelings, but we need to go."

She doesn't seem in the least swayed. I didn't think she would be, but I am sick of explanations for this adventure. After I can get myself some of that ice cream then I can explain it.

Right now, that's just a little bit too much to ask.

"No! You're going to tell me what was so absolutely horrible that she was doing, right now! What's so bad about solving the world's various energy crises? What's so wrong with making the world's first space research station?" Valerie's eyes start to glow purple and I'm tempted to grab out my dart gun just in case but I resist the urge. "Or was there something with the money she donated to the hospital?"

"None of that! Yeesh!" Maybe dressing in a darker suit does give people the wrong idea. Frankly if you're going to be silver skinned a white suit can't make it any worse, but if you can help it . . . "Take her, I don't care, but we're leaving now. I won't even force you to come with us."

She starts to sniffle, and I almost move over to give her a comforting hug. I felt well enough what that mist of hers can do and at the moment I don't trust her to keep a clear head about the situation. "Fine! Then leave, just leave, but I'm staying here with her until someone makes me leave or tells me what the hell is going on! I can try and find out what the hell you did to her so I can fix it . . ."

Fine.

Doctor Raine has spent enough time here, it's not as though having her spend a little bit more before we send up the authorities is going to ruin her life. With all of the lives that The Domina has already tried to ruin though, I think she's the one hit the worst. I actually made out decently by comparison.

"Then I'll see you another time, Doctor Raine . . . Amethyst . . ." Wiggling my fingers, I turn to leave the room and just be done with it. Aureus and Pan will be glad that we're finally leaving . . .

As soon as I step into the door way there's a bright flash of silver light behind me with a sound much like a sharp wind. "What's happened?! What in Athena's name is going on here . . .? I sensed something awful happening to my little Lucia and I just had to intervene. I'd felt all sorts of awful things happening before of course, but this felt a lot worse, and I know that you're a heroine and don't need your mother barging in but I'm no ordinary mother."

Of course, just when you think things couldn't get any more complicated, your witch blooded mother teleports in behind you right after you're about to walk away from your own comatose self who still possesses the silver power you inherited from her.

Something tells me that this is not going to be a good reunion. Mine rarely are. "Lida . . .?!"

Looking just as glowing as the last time I saw her, Lida sure enough is actually here on the Argentum Array. Her ruby red lips shine so beautifully in comparison to that pale olive skin of hers, and her sun glasses are absent to reveal her shimmering silver eyes. The strands of hair that fall in front of her face only make her eyes seem brighter. Her black outfit does much the same.

It's nothing fancy, just a black skirt with a matching blouse, but the way Lida wears it makes it seem like it must be important. Her heels aren't boots, but they do lace up her leg. The fishnets are definitely a nice touch . . . Really, the cut of the skirt along with the tight yet fluffy nature of the blouse could make a cliché witch hat seem not all together out of place. Yanuka made it sound like that wasn't really anything their culture indulged in, but life imitates art.

"Yes, my little Lucia . . . Now . . . I think . . . You're . . . Right there? Still silver . . . and yet you're there, like you were the last time I saw you!" Lida really doesn't like to beat around the bush. Her facial expression reminds me a lot of Valerie's not too long ago. "I think you owe me an explanation?"

"Why?" Something tells me that she is not going to like hearing about what transpired. Maybe I can get her to let me bring it back up later. "Lida . . . Look, there's more going on here than it looks-"

Lida holds out her right hand, pointer finger aimed right at me, with the rest of them falling limp. "Lucia, I came here because I felt the very essence of both despair and vacant nothingness at once from you. That little trick might not be the best that I've got, but it still takes a lot out of me. Tell me, little Lucia, or I will make you tell me."

This is the first time I'm realizing that I never really told Lida or Susan about The Domina. I might have glossed over the situation with Susan, but not getting especially specific, especially not in relation to my alternative future self. Why am I so afraid to tell her?

My chest seizes up for a moment, and I have to clutch the silver teardrop tightly to make it stop. I shouldn't be afraid. Sure, Lida is a witch as much as the Nesatealia (or the Domina) but she's never shown me anything to make me suspect she isn't as reformed as she's said. I felt her memories! She really wanted to put all of her days as a mind warping witch behind her. Susan and I were her everything. Still, there was something about our family, the LaSilvas side, that I can't remember but it was important, too.

"Mother . . . I promise, if you just let all of us get back to earth, take an hour or two to get over the ordeal that we all just went through, I will tell you absolutely anything that you want to know. You won't need to spark me or magic me into telling you. But right now . . ." I take a pause, and gesture through the doorway to my friends outside. "We've got a shuttle to catch."

Valerie doesn't interject, seeming content, or rather wrapped up in, just standing over the Domina and stroking her cheek worriedly. Neither Pan nor Aureus are doing anything that I could hear. It's too quiet.

"Lucia, I appreciate that . . . but I'm your mother . . . and I wasn't asking you . . . I was telling you . . ." Lida slowly walks towards me and I want to just run away, but I know I couldn't really get away from her and why do I want to? She's my mother! She loves me, she would never hurt me! "You've already felt this before on the receiving end, but don't worry. It doesn't hurt a bit on the other side, either."

Before I can interrupt her Lida's hands gently cup my cheeks, and her lips press to my forehead.

In a moment, all of the thoughts about The Argentum Project and The Domina that I've ever had feel like they're all rushing through me at once. Every experience that coincided with those thoughts, the first time I saw her picture, when I met her first, the dreams, what happened to her at the auction house, what happened with Yanuka, the rooftop, now . . . . All of the philosophical thoughts are all active in my mind at once like having a million too many windows open on a computer screen.

Just like a very old computer I feel about ready to crash. She's not sucking the memories out of me, she's just activating them and feeling them, living them in the exact same way that I lived hers and I can feel it. If she'd been around when I was younger, I know that I never could have gotten away with a thing.

Though maybe with her having the memories of why I did the things I did, she might be a little bit softer on me than Susan could be.

An eternity of images, thoughts, feelings, colors, memories later . . . Lida pulls back. I feel exhausted. My mind feels like it just ran a marathon! When Lida shared her memories with me it was only a single memory. She took way too much from me, I'm reeling . . . I feel dizzy and my forehead won't stop throbbing.

"You . . . Her . . . The Prophecy . . ." Lida slowly starts to stumble back, looking between the two of us. For a moment it looks like her eyes are filling with tears but she merely squeezes them tight and the only thing that remains of those tears when her eyes reopen is a little bit of a brighter shine to her eyes. "It makes sense now. Before it had seemed like it just had to be metaphorical, but it was literal!"

"What . . . what are you talking about?! What did you just do?!" Valerie speaks up again, and I'm thankful she does. I want to know more, but I don't know if I could use my mind well enough to choose just the right words. "Your lips shined bright silver, you kissed her forehead, and now you're going on about prophecies?!"

Lida very slowly nods her head and starts to very slowly pace. Her heels click very faintly, but each click seems to bring a deeper understanding of something to her. Her facial expression keeps evolving to more and more pleased . . .

Until all of that emotion just drains out of her and she glares right at me.

"Yes . . . I was just finding out from my little Lucia exactly what was going on . . . and now I see. You went through hell in some version of the future, lost everything that mattered of you, and using a Nesatealia's knowledge came back to fix things for yourself, that one you loved, or if that failed, the whole world . . . and then you . . ." She points at me, and her finger shakes. "You turned on your own blood . . . on your self!"

She's actually upset at me for stopping The Domina?! I would think that with her whole outlook on mind frying being a bad thing for her to keep doing all those years ago might have stayed in some shape or form, not annihilated entirely!

Well, maybe my time in her head gave me more insight to her than I thought. Even if I wasn't consciously aware of it, somehow I might have been aware of how she would react.

This is quite obviously not good.

"What kind of a choice did I have?! She was going to spark the world! She thought that dominating the entire world just so that she could find The Lady again was justifiable! She even had a woman that she loved, and she was risking everything for something from her past. She couldn't think outside of herself for one moment!" My voice keeps rising louder and louder, and I wish that would stop, but I really can't help myself. "I tried to reason with her, but when she wouldn't listen-"

Lida's clicking gets a hell of a lot louder when she storms right up to my face, and leans her forehead close to mine. "When she wouldn't listen, what? You drugged her so that the light from her own powers would melt away her control and mind? Oh, you might not have been aware of the side effects, the mist's effect, that many sparks . . . but you fried a LaSilvas . . . That's inexcusable, Luci- . . . Sarah."

"Mothe . . . mom . . . Lida . . .?" My chest seizes up again, and I have to squeeze the pendant even tighter than before. She never called me Sarah. I've never heard a person say a name with such anger, such venom, such . . . loathing . . .

Compared to how long a part of me so desperately wanted to know her, I only just met her, and now because of doing the right thing for me and the world she . . . it's not right!

She turns her back to me, and slowly clicks her way over to Valerie. "You love her, you really love her . . . and if I could, I would have you join us, but the process of healing her from this is going to take me a long time, and will be very dangerous. As soon as I am able to restore her mind, you will be the first to know. I promise."

"Wha . . . what? You can fix her . . .?" Valerie's voice stutters, but only for a moment. "If you're her mother . . . then you're hers too . . . My Sarah's .. . Lucia's . . . If you can heal her, please! Please let me come with you, I'm a doctor, it's my job to heal the sick, the wounded, I want to help you restore her mind!"

Lida just shakes her head and very gently kisses Valerie's forehead. "I can't. There are some places you can't go. My daughter did choose well though . . . a pure blood, even more than my little Lucia herself. You have a very rich heritage that I will make you very much aware of as soon as there is time. For now, please trust that she will be fine, and ask Athena to ensure her recovery is quick and painless. Fare well, Valerie Raine . . . We will meet again."

For a moment their eyes lock, and Valerie nods resignedly. She steps back, and Lida very gently rests her hand over The Domina's face. It's such a tender gesture, and it hurts more than I can describe. She will never even vaguely treat me like that again.

Our eyes lock, and I know that the next time the two of us meet will not be as family and will not be friendly.

Small silver sparkles begin to cover the two of them before another bright flash of light takes them so very far away. Where they're going I couldn't begin to guess but I'm sure it's probably wherever the Nesatealia are from. Let them go. It'll give me time to recover and prepare for my own mother to conspire against me.

It seems that red headed witches aren't the only ones I need to look out for.

"I'll . . . I'll go with you. There's nothing for me here now . . ." Valerie stares at the floor, and then slowly looks up to meet my eyes. Her own eyes are actually apologetic. Maybe she understands that what I said was true. I guess that I did end up explaining everything to her sooner than I'd intended after all.

"Let's go . . ." I start to walk out and Valerie follows me.

Aureus looks for a moment like she's going to ask me just what happened, but something about my face must let her know how absolutely awful of an idea that would be. I need time to mull over this before I can even begin to discuss this with anyone, I need . . . I need a lot of time.

The shuttle bay is at least somewhat close by. We've walked around this damned place far too much, and Valerie can actually give us directions as we try to find the right way out by chance and our collective poor memories.

Once we're outside the launch bay, Valerie orders a nearby slave, worker, whatever, to pilot it down. I'm not sure how much she knows, but at least she knows that woman can fly.

I hadn't even thought of that.

The interior is still etched in my mind from the gas. It did feel awfully nice, but we won't be having any of that gas this time around and I don't even want it. Even I'm a little surprised to feel myself thinking that. It was a rather nice sensation. We all buckle in and just wait for the trip back to earth. I never thought that if I got to go up into outer space that I would passionately desire to get back to earth in less than a day.

Valerie's eyes keep filling with tears, but then they keep blinking them away. She doesn't deserve to be alone after all of this, and we might not be the best company, especially with all of us so quiet at the moment, but I feel the need to do something. "Valerie? Doctor Raine?"

It takes her a moment, but right as the shuttle starts to shake, she looks up at me with a confused and afraid expression. "Yes?"

"Do you want to have some ice cream with the rest of us after we get back?"

She nods, and I feel instantly better. For the rest of the ride I stay close to Aureus. Emerald and Ember are strapped up behind us, and Pandora is behind them. Valerie decided to take the opposite row and it makes sense.

Olivia sighs as her skin finally starts to return to its normal color, and I smile as she tilts her head to mine and I can feel her hair against my face. "Want to tell me about what happened back there, Sarah?"

"Yeah . . . but it can wait until tonight. For now . . . I'm just thankful your mind is okay, that all of our minds are okay . . . but I'm especially thankful about yours. I felt awful when I was sure that I'd lost you." I rest my hand over hers and softly kiss her hair. "Don't you ever go and get yourself robotized again."

"Deal." Olivia starts to laugh and so do I. Things really will be okay. The world is saved. We're all safe. Everyone is safe. Even if there's more to come, we have time to prepare for it.

Pandora's voice breaks my reverie and it's a welcome thing. "Hey, puta! I'm glad you're all right too!" The three of us laugh, and we actually talk on the flight back. I have never been so thankful for being able to experience small talk in my life.

The Police took Emerald and Ember off of our hands quickly enough. It felt like they were interviewing us for hours upon hours, but somewhere along the line it finally stopped. They said that they had all the information they could get from us, and that while we did a good job, such actions were appreciated one hell of a lot more from actual badged supers and not just lucky vigilantes.

I told them in no uncertain terms that I wasn't about to sign up. Pandora just told them that she wasn't even planning on sticking around much longer. Aureus? She seemed tempted, but in the end told them that she had all the backup she needed from me.

It was cute, if not a little embarrassing.

Valerie didn't exactly cheer up, but she seemed to be feeling a lot better after her interrogation. From what she told me, they were still suspicious that she was involved, but until they could find any proof they weren't going to hold her.

She just wasn't allowed to leave the city. That didn't seem to bother her much. The only place she probably wanted to go, she didn't even know where it was.

The story hasn't hit the press yet, so, still suited, but with my mask replaced and my hair back up, I lead the way to a little diner with the absolute best milk shakes in the world. Olivia stays golden the entire time, and Pandora well . . . Pandora just stayed Pandora.

"Why don't you stay here in Midas City, Pandora? The three of us could make one hell of a team! Flame, Metal, and . . . well, sorry Patina, but I'm not really sure what to use to describe you." Aureus's golden face turns just a little bit darker over her cheeks and we all laugh. I can't begin to describe just how adorable that blush looks.

Pandora shakes her head and just smirks. "Mi familia needs me back in Dolores! You can call me up whenever you need me, but I can't leave them for too long."

Aureus is going to stay. We're actually going to try and be both a team, and a couple. It's a very . . . strange feeling, but it's one that I'll admit to loving. She told me in a brief moment alone that the only reason she was staying back in the bay area was that it was where she was born. There were plenty of people there to clean up the trash.

I countered that argument by reminding her how many people there are in Midas alone, but she reminded me that Midas has me. That seemed to be a good enough reason for her to stay. I wasn't about to tell her to leave.

"You can feel free to visit or bug us if you need us too, Pandora. You have my cell in case you ever need us!" I grin and slurp down a little bit more of my shake.

Alyssa isn't with us, and I wish that she could be. I recommended Mystic when they said she needed to have her head looked at but they insisted they could take care of it all in house. As soon as she can think on her own again I'll take her out for ice cream or stake, whatever she wants, and then with Aureus at my side tell her the entire truth about The Argentum Project, and my life. She deserves that much.

"Patina . . . can I tell you something, in private for a moment?" Valerie came with us, of course, and she's actually seemed to be enjoying herself even if she's no doubt feeling at least a little uneasy with more than just my presence.

Whatever she has to say I want to hear, so I nod and stand up to follow her to a corner after giving the "just a moment" hand signal to Pan and Aureus. "Of course, Valerie. And look, I really am sorry about what happened. If there was another way, I wouldn't need to go back and change it, I would have done it that way in the first place . . . if there's anything that I can do, now . . ."

Valerie just nods and stares at the floor once we're alone. Her head raises several times as she tries to talk, but she just can't manage it. Whatever it is, it must be pretty bad. I hug her, softly as I can to try and make it better, and she starts to cry.

"Last night . . . Sarah and I . . . We made love . . . And she told me that using the powers she had, she'd made it so that we, so that I, could carry our child . . . She told me that now I was pregnant and that well . . . It wouldn't be taking the full nine months, because she was different, because I was different too . . ." She clings tighter, and I very gently stroke her hair. It's all that I can think of doing. "She was so afraid something would go wrong that she insisted we decide on a name right there on the spot, and we agreed on Sylvia . . . Sylvia LaSilvas . . ."

No wonder she wanted, and probably still wants to maul me. I took away the other mother of her child before they could be born. Setting out to stop what happened to me, I actually made it happen all on my own. I don't like that I had to do it, but I did have to do it . . . ! Didn't I?

She sniffles, hard, and the sound is gut wrenchingly sad. She's a single mother, and I don't have any clue how long my mom's pregnancy actually took. I'll have to call her to get all of the advice I can get for Amethyst. I'll have to introduce them too. I'm sure they'd get along . . . I hope that Susan will get along with Olivia as well if we end up actually working out.

Softly I rock her, and keep petting her softly as I can. "I . . . I'll help you in any way that I can . . . I'll be there for you whenever you need me. I can't take her place, and to be honest, I have other obligations that prevent it, but . . . I want to help you with Sylvia."

"Thank you . . . Thank you . . ." Valerie cries harder, and I'm thankful that my suit doesn't seem to be very absorbent. "And even if I'm angry with you for doing it . . . so fucking angry with you for doing it . . . I want to thank you for . . . for stopping her . . . If she really was going to take control of the entire world, all of that, and I . . . I feel like I can believe you, then . . . I don't want Sylvia living in a world like that and . . . You gave her a chance to have the life she deserves . . . thank you."

If Valerie is already starting to forgive me then maybe everything will turn out okay in the end after all. I look over to Aureus with an apologetic expression, but she just smiles. She understands, at least up to this point. She might not be especially keen on me helping out my alterative self's child's mother but . . .

I think she'll understand.

Valerie and I share a smile, and I can't help but laugh as it finally dawns on me . . . that if I'd been the first to have a daughter, I probably would have named her Sylvia too. I'm sure that when I tell my Sylvia, my gorgeous silver Ducati, she'll find that as amusing as I do.