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"Well I need to eat. And if it's anything like it was with Calista, I probably will feel queasy most of the time for the first couple weeks." Amaya murmured, still holding her stomach.

"For me, yes. Hopefully by dinner time I'll be able to keep something down. My body doesn't like new things suddenly growing." She muttered, shivering lightly. "Is it really that late? Ugh, I've barely thought about what I'm going to say to Calista..." She murmured, running a hand through her hair.

"Well I'm sorry, I've never really told a seven year old I'm having another baby." Amaya snapped. She took a few deep breaths, calming down before she looked to Adrian again. "Sorry..." She murmured, knowing he didn't deserve to be snapped at, though she just curled into his arms, making him stay there with her until she needed to go pick Calista up from school.

"Alright. Time to go get Calista. I'll be back in a half an hour." Amaya said as she looked at her phone, seeing the time. She gave Adrian a kiss on the cheek and then walked out the door, reaching the school a few minutes later.


Calista ran out the school doors, hugging her mother the moment she saw her, smiling ear to ear. "I got a prize in class today for helping the teacher." She told Amaya proudly.

"Did you really? So how come you never help out at home?" Amaya asked, mussing up Calista's hair with a grin.

"You don't give me prizes!" Calista argued, brushing her hair back out.

"Your prize is you get to live with me. Welcome to the real world, kiddo." Amaya said with a small smile, gripping Calista's shoulders. Though her playful grip soon became serious as she gripped Calista harder and moved the girl behind her.

Calista looked up at her mother, confused as she rubbed her shoulders, and was about to say something until she saw a man walk up. He stood well over a foot over her mother, and she noticed Amaya was now very serious and concerned.

"Sloan...I haven't seen you in years..." She observed, slowly backing away from him, though she never took her eyes off him, keeping a hand on Calista to make sure she was still there.

"Aye, not since you broke up the ring and forced us all back onto the streets. Some of us happened to like the rush, Amaya. And to be quite honest, I was looking forward to fighting you someday. To repay you for what happened to Damien." Sloan said with a dark grin as he slowly approached the mother and daughter.

Amaya saw where this was headed and she swallowed the lump in her throat. She hadn't been in a fight for four years, even though she'd been training, Sloan was still the last person she wanted to have her first real fight with again. "Calista...run." She muttered, pushing the girl back, glad to hear her footsteps rapidly leaving. At least Calista now wouldn't be in danger of getting hurt, though she worried about her baby. Would she be able to fight and keep her baby safe?

"So you think she's gonna go get her new daddy to come and save you? I've seen you on tv with him. You went from one of the best fighters in the ring to a soccer mom who plays nice for the camera. You should've died in the ring that night. Not Damien." He growled, reaching out and grabbing Amaya by the neck, throwing her into a nearby alley before he followed, shadows rising up at the entrance of the alley so no one would see them, though the top was uncovered and visible to anyone overhead.

Amaya pushed herself up quick, ignoring the scrapes and cuts she had from tumbling across the ground after Sloan had thrown her. "You don't know what Damien would've wanted, Sloan. And you know as well as I do that Sikes was in charge of which one of us fought and when. I tried to get in the ring but he stopped me." Amaya hissed, her right arm flexing as it got ready to defend her.

"Don't give me that load of bullshit." Sloan said, shadows rising to slowly cover him. He was stronger than Amaya, both with and without his powers, and they both knew this and shadows now rose, rushing for Amaya...

Calista burst into the apartment, panting for air and knocking over several things as she ran in, not seeming to care at the moment. "DADDY!" She shrieked, knowing Amaya was in serious trouble. "DADDY! THERE'S A MAN AFTER MOMMY!" She screamed, tears beginning to run down her cheeks as she finally found him. "He said he was mad she broke up the ring and he wanted to repay her for what happened to my daddy! A-And the-n she told me to run." The little girl sobbed. She had been so scared when she was running home, and she was too scared to even look back, but now that she was safe, she was worried about her mother, knowing how nervous she looked before she ran off.

In the few minutes it took Calista to run home, Sloan already had Amaya bloodied and beaten, laying in a dark corner far from the entrance of the alley. He'd left her there, deciding that she looked horrible enough that she'd die in a few hours if no one found her.

Amaya was in agony, several bones were broken, she had a feeling one of her internal organs was torn, and she was covered in bruises and gashes. She would have fared much better, but for the first time, she was fighting with only one arm and half her normal control of shadows. She knew Sloan would do whatever he could to beat the crap out of her, so she reabsorbed her right arm into her body, focusing every shadow in her body to protect the baby. So long as it was fine and the shadows could maintain it even though she was in pain and stressed, she wouldn't lose it. She only hoped someone would find her as she slowly slipped out of consciousness, laying in a pool of her own blood.

Amaya was unconscious by the time Adrian landed, blood trickling from her mouth, nose and ears. Her left arm was broken with the bone sticking out of the skin while her right arm was missing at the shoulder, having reabsorbed it during the attack to protect the baby. Even through her shirt it could clearly be seen that her ribs were broken as she took shallow, shaky breaths. Her body was covered with gashes and there was a large pool of blood underneath her, still growing by the second. Amaya was hurt badly, and the shadows around her lay still, not even bothering to respond as they usually would.

Calista just nodded to Adrian, unable to say a word as she watched him go, huddling in a corner away from the windows and the door, sobbing as Hazama and Ken sat with her, comforting and protecting the terrified child.

When Adrian landed at the hospital, a nurse shrieked in surprise, screaming for someone to get a gurney a second later. Several doctors ran up with the gurney, letting Adrian lay Amaya down on it before they started heading for the back room.

"Sir, do you know what happened?" A doctor asked as he walked up, pulling Adrian to the side. "Do you know her blood type or any of her medical history? Anything you can tell us will help us." He muttered, his pen ready to jot down what information he could get.

The doctor paled, nodding to Adrian before he grabbed a nearby phone, dailing the numbers quickly. "Page the chiefs of mutate medicine and the neonatal deparments." He muttered before nodding to whomever was on the phone and hanging up. "Do you know her name, sir? If we have a name we can look up everything we need in the mutate registry."

Nodding once more, the doctor wrote the name down before he walked over to two more doctors that had just stepped out of the elevator. "We'll keep you updated, but she's been taken back to surgery.". The doctor told Adrian as he stepped back over to him for a moment. "If you follow that nurse she can take you to the waiting room.". He told him, pointing to a nurse that was standing nearby.

Marco had just turned on the news when he saw a story of Amaya's attack on the news. Reporters certainly worked fast. Worried now he picked up the phone, praying Adrian would answer as he dialed his number and waited.