She'd been causing trouble again. It had been a whole month, and no one had come to claim her. A little research had found that there was a lot of reason for that. She'd gone and scared away everyone who'd tried to be that someone. Seventeen foster parents in one year...


Seventeen.

Jesus, that blew his record out of the water!

There was the option of taking her home... But records also showed that had also been tried. To be honest, everyone he talked to had suggested juvenile detention. He hated that idea; that kinda place only made things worse...

So... Well... He kinda made a call.

You know. One of those calls to immediately regretted, even if you were pretty sure it was the right one? Yeah, that kind.

He stopped at the very, very secure door; this room had once belonged to a kid who used to sleep walk... While on fire. It was safe, if a bit excessive. Come to think about it, it's current inhabitant was more dangerous that the prior; to make things worse, HE was the guy that had to talk to her.

Sam had pretty much told him he'd dug his own grave on this one. Great.

He knocked softly on the door.

"... You awake in there? I'm coming in, so if you ain't dressed, you got 60 seconds!"

He counted to sixty five in his head, and then reached for the external lock, unlatching it, and opening the door... slowly.

"Noooobody knows the trouble i've seeeen. Noooobody knows my sorrowwww..."

On the solitary bed within the stronghold room lay a small, solitary figure. Face down, draped across the bedspread sullenly, she was singing to herself in a muffled manner. Through a single window shone a faint glimpse of light, barely making it through the curtains that had been pulled shut behind the bars that encased it.

The walls, which were bare, were littered with chalk marks from corner to corner, documenting her stay in the gilded prison, as well as crude childish drawings of people she knew and various dead animals.

Even though she'd only been in the room about six hours, she'd already managed to take apart her bed frame and mattress-- a keen eye would surely notice one corner was missing springs, and that all of the screws and certain parts of the frame were gone.

Elke didn't answer to the know, nor to the 60 second warning. She just kept mumbling to herself, and un-moving lump on the bed.

"Noooobody knows the trouble i've seeeen. Noooobody knows my sorrowwww..."

Ah-w...what. Really? Like... For real... Straight out of the lion king?

Pinch. Nope, real. She was that melodramatic.

He sighed, and then opened the door wide.

"Alright, kid. We gotta talk."

He closed the door behind him, pulling a key from his belt, and locking it solidly. After he finished that, he replaced the key, hooking it back onto it's tug-proof chain. She was a risk for flight if there ever was one... And after what she'd been through on that horrid island, there was no telling what she would do.

He was prepared for anything. Well.. Mostly anything.

There was a single chair off to the side. He reached out to grab it so he could take a seat. "I know things'v been rou-"

He was interrupted, apparently.

He was talking-- that was good. It meant he wasn't onto her yet. She waited silently, patiently, until he'd moved into the room fully. When he turned and locked the door, though... she tried to will her heart to stop. No breathing. No blinking. Don't. Budge. An. Inch.

It had taken her hours to dismantle the bed and get the parts wedged above the doorway just right.

"Noooooobody knooooows the trouble i've seeeeen..."

Perfect; the decoy just kept on singing. Hopefully it would give her a little more time for her target to get into a prime position.

He moved into the middle of the room-- she tensed against her supports and prepared herself. Her make-shift weapon, a bed-spring bent and formed into a crude stabbing device, was ready in her hand.

"I know things'v been rou-"

His back was turned to her in just the right manner. Elke, who had been perched precariously above the doorway in the darkness, launched herself at her prey like a blood-thirsty lemur with her spring-blade aimed for his neck.

Yup. He knew things didn't feel right.

Stepping in, the atmosphere; it felt very familiar. He'd walked into traps before. Her mutation was perfect for them, too.

He felt the familiar motion of someone trying to strike from behind, and was barely able to resist the very familiar reaction of taking the head off of his attacker. Instead, he pivoted quickly, and his hand left the chair to reach around and grab the wrist of his would-be assassin. A sharp tug worked to pull the makeshift weapon from her grip, and a quick shove would send her into the softer bedding, and likely into her clone.

Like it was as normal as taking out the trash, he walked on over and tossed the makeshift shiv out of the window.

"Made yer bed a lot less comfortable doin that."

He wandered over, turning his back to her once again, to flick on the light switch.

"Gonna make any more bad decisions today?"

She really shouldn't have been surprised that her plan failed horribly, but... she was twelve. She also shouldn't have been surprised when he yanked her weapon away so easily. Still, defeat stung all the more as she landed on the bed-- which creaked and toppled over sideways-- and her and the duplicate rolled off.

Elke landed in a crouch, eyed locked on the man like she was a caged, wild animal, while the clone rolled away like a bag of potatoes and wearily sat up.

Just because he disarmed her first attack didn't mean he won the battle, though. Or whatever.

She'd pilfered a good number of springs from the mattress, as well as a good number of screws. Though she wasn't able to sharpen any of her DYI knives, she had been able to use the screws to weight them. Also, she'd tried her hand at ninja stars.

... didn't look much like them, though. Kind more like special little octopi balls.

Still, she hurled two at the guy, while another duplicate crawled out from under the collapsed bed. "Get im'!" Slow as they could be sometimes, her clones were pretty good about taking orders. Once the two were up and on their feet they bolted for the man. Elke palmed another spring-shiv and joined them a second later.

If she couldn't go for his neck because of his stupid ninja-movie moves, she'd try stabbing out his knee caps first, then.

And then they started attacking him.

Huh. She actually hadn't planned this out half-bad. She threw some... what the hell were they? Oh well... She threw something at him; he swatted them away easily.

Wave one consisted of one brat; He grabbed an outstreched hand, nudged and overextended foot with a soft kick, and sent her sprawling to the side for a lovely meeting with the wall. What a chore, he could use a seat.

"Not getting a little tired of this?"

He grabbed the chair, sweeping it about as the next kid came him, and laying it low so that she tripped over the legs for a lovely faceplant. He moved the chair about to lay it's feet on the ground, and sat, the back of the chair faced forward as the real little devil made her way forward.

He'd timed it out pretty well. Her badly concealed weapon would likely make contact with the back board. He would then do exactly the same as he'd done before. Grab, pry, toss, and shove.

Rinse and repeat.

"I ain't your enemy, kid..."

With a curse she tumbled backward, and ended up on her butt. An assortment of other self made weapons scattered, but she didn't bother to retrieve them right yet.

"Kid?... I ain't a kid. I'm a soldier."

The tone of her voice; empty and curt; wasn't unusual to her ears anymore. Her twins were groaning, and getting to their feet, but her dark eyes were pinned on the man.

Was he like the others? She didn't know. For now, she would assume that he was, and play it safe.

"Gimme a knife and i'll prove it."

"Kid?... I ain't a kid. I'm a soldier."

Well... That melted your heart in a really messed up kinda a way... To think that there were still people out there that did this to kids. They tried to make them into killing machines.

"You are a kid. And that's okay. That's what you should be."

He sighed, and placed a palm on his forehead.

"Gimme a knife and i'll prove it."

"It ain't a weapon that makes a soldier... It's a war... you know there ain't a war on, right? You're in a safe place, surrounded by people who want to help... I'm one of those people..."

The clones had managed to recover from their discombobulation, and he sat in relative comfort, as if nothing they could do could hope to harm him... Or perhaps, as if he didn't mean to be a threat as well.

"What do I gotta do to prove that to you?"

The Native stared at him, not budging an inch. What he was saying just didn't make sense in her brain. People who wanted to help her were never not on her sh*t list. People who told her she was safe were lying. Safe was relative. Safe for her was not the same as safe for him.

She didn't like this... talking thing. For the last... however many months she'd been at that base training, learning, talking hadn't been a major part of her daily regiment. Sure, she had to talk every now and then to answer a question, but Yes Sir and No Sir weren't exactly conversation material. Surely... this guy had something up his sleeve.

"I won't talk if that's what your after. I know nothing. I am nothing." Deciding that the best way to deal with such a confusing situation was to play dumb, she settled on her knees and crossed her arms.

"... and I can bite off my tongue faster than you can stop me, if you try to force me." That was a lie. Not that he'd know.

"I won't talk if that's what your after. I know nothing. I am nothing.... and I can bite off my tongue faster than you can stop me, if you try to force me."

Did she just threaten to commit seppukku? The hell? She stared at her for a second, and then placed his palm over his eyes for a moment.

"Alright, I'll he honest. Everything you just said is bullshit, kid. Here's the deal. I do want you to talk; I just wanna know who you are, cause it ain't nothing. You're a girl who's been through a lot. Here, we just want to help you. I want to help you."

He placed his chin on the edge of the chair, and tried to gauge if he was making any progress. "Can you tell me your name?"

The Native speared the man with a dark look, and kept her lips firmly shut. After a moment of him rattling on, she crossed her arms to further get across the message that she wouldn't be cooperating with him.

But... then he asked for her name and she glanced at him. "That's a lie if i've ever heard one." Elke deadpanned. "This place isn't for people like me."

From behind him, one of her twins sat up and propped herself up against a wall, hugging her knees to her chest. "Yea. People that live here got money. They got smarts and stuff."

The last clone groaned from across the room, and chimed in without bothering to move. "S'why we don't stay nowhere. We gotta home that's ours. People like us there."

Elke, who's walls had been so high and sturdy before, sagged a little and cast her eyes at the floor. The expression on her face could easily be mistaken for anger, but in reality is was disappointment.

"My names Moose. You ain't got nothin' here to help me in any way. I just wanna go home."

"That's a lie if i've ever heard one. This place isn't for people like me. Yea. People that live here got money. They got smarts and stuff."

Saph chuckled at her remark, and scratched his stubbled cheek. "Heh heh... Yeah, some of em. Pretty sure Sam could buy every car in the garage... But not everyone. Heck, I was homeless for eight years before I came here... Stole to make a living. Dunno if it gets less smart and stuff than that. That's kinda the idea, though. People like me can some here to make something of themselves. I come a long way since then..."

"My names Moose. You ain't got nothin' here to help me in any way. I just wanna go home."

Saph stared at her for a moment, and sighed. "Kid, I dunno how to tell you this, but your parents asked that you not be returned... Hell, they were deemed unfit, so I couldn't take you there by law if I wanted. Your last foster parent has asked you not be returned as well. So... well, I just finished out the paperwork an hour ago... As of now, this is your place of living."

He wondered how she would react to that; she was a different animal than he had been back in the day, but even so, he remembered fear and apprehension when ever he was sent to a new family. What would they be like? Would they put him to work? Most did, Would they feed him well enough? Most did. Still, just under all of the apprehension, and questions, was a sliver of hope. Would she still have that, after being passed around so much?

"For now, though, I've had to keep you in here... You've been destructive. You've shown no signs that if we let you out of here, you wouldn't just run away, or hurt the students here... I need that from you, because honestly, Moose... We're your last shot before juvenile detention. Do you understand that?"

Elke shrugged one shoulder lazily. That wasn't exactly news to her. She'd been told to leave before, even locked out of the house. So long as she had a room to keep coming back to it was near impossible for them to keep her out.

"...I just finished out the paperwork an hour ago... As of now, this is your place of living."

That... was definitly news to her. ".....what?" Her dark eyes focused on him and a spark of anger ignited within them.

"For now, though, I've had to keep you in here... You've been destructive. You've shown no signs that if we let you out of here, you wouldn't just run away, or hurt the students here... I need that from you, because honestly, Moose... We're your last shot before juvenile detention. Do you understand that?"

She chuckled (giggled), and pushed herself to her feet. "You think you can scare me with that crap, gramps? You think some sissy b*tch story about how you failed at life a while back will make me choose to be here?" Her face was turning red childishly, but she couldn't stop it. "I choose to be out there on the streets! I choose to go home even when i'm not wanted. I get to choose if I wanna live here, and there's nothing you can do about it!"

Her clones crawled further away from her behind the man in the chair, in order to use him as a shield against temper tantrum Elke was about to throw. "You think I'm 'fraid of juvie? Ha! There's worse kids living on my block, and i'd bet life on it! You can go ahead and keep me locked up in here, but you can't watch me forever. Sometime you're gonna take your stupid fat eyeballs off of me and poof! I'll be gone just like that!"

She spat on the ground in his direction before promptly turning her back on him and plopping back on her butt with her arms crossed tersely around her chest.

Saph stared at her as she chuckled, and got up, ranting at him as her clones slinked away.

He remained silent. Still, by the time she finished, he was smiling just a little.

He stood. "Alright, then! you two, come with me. We're gonna go get ice cream, and think about how hardcore she is while we have fun! Moose... I'm gonna give you a week or so to think about this... Food'll still come... Maybe I'll even get someone to fix your bed frame... Not too bright, taking that apart. Well, let's go, guys!"

He walked over to the door, using his sense to be sure she didn't switch herself with one of the clones, and then unlocked it, inviting them out.


They were gonna go get ice cream, and ride on carnival rides for the rest of their lives.

He would see her in a week.


* * *

A week had passed. Saph had learned quite a bit more in that time. For one, the clones were very talkative; he'd been able to find out how many she could make, and how long they lasted, just from asking how long they'd been around, and seeing how long they'd lasted after that.

She'd had food dropped off regularly, and from what Saph'd heard, she hadn't eaten a bite. Wow... that was some serious dedication for a kid... What had those freaky black ops guys done to her? Still, he couldn't wait forever, or she'd starve...

Saph walked into the room, locked the door behind him, and then walked toward the center of the room, looking around as he did.