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Now that the threat of the Hounds had been put to rest, things were starting to get back to normal in Lost Haven. Since Lost Haven was not in impending danger, or at least the next crazy psycho had not revealed him or herself yet, Kelly thought that the coast was clear enough for her to take Jean, Taylor, and Darren to go see Mr. Giuseppe so the three newbies could get genuine superhero apparel instead whatever makeshift costumes they might have managed to cobble together. As this job did not require all three of the “veterans” to go, Zac decided to stay behind to hold down the fort while Sammy and Kelly chaperoned their new allies to Lost Haven. Sammy, too, did not need to accompany the four other metahumans, but she insisted.

Sammy’s intentions, however, were not so difficult to guess. As soon as the five metahumans had arrived in Lost Haven via a warp gate that Kelly had generated with her magical abilities, Sammy just so conveniently got herself separated from the rest of the group and immediately made her way to Crown Ridge. Since there were three of them getting fitted for costumes, Sammy had plenty of time to make a quick little pitstop at Lost Haven’s twin city.

In no time, Sammy was standing in front of a standalone, brownstone townhouse, which belonged to a certain cat-themed hero. Although Sammy could not find the key that “her” Kyle had given her for some strange reason, she nevertheless knew where to find the emergency key hidden outside of Kyle’s home. After she had confirmed that nobody was watching, Sammy reached into the mailbox associated with the house and pulled out the spare key.

After Sammy had let herself inside, she discovered that Kyle was not home, which was how Sammy hoped her little surprise visit would turn out. She then hurried upstairs and pillaged Kyle’s dresser for one of his t-shirts. Since Kyle was several inches taller than Sammy, what would just be a regular shirt on the cat-themed hero would look like a short dress on her. Once she picked one out that she particularly liked, she then deactivated her power nullifier and reverted back to her snake-girl appearance. Because her clothes were no longer suitable her serpentine figure, Sammy just shed them off and pulled on Kyle’s t-shirt, oversized for her.

As Sammy turned towards the bed, she noticed something off. It appeared as if someone, other than Kyle, had been sleeping in his bed! But that was impossible! She and Kyle were engaged. He would never cheat behind her back. Sure, they lived several states away, but they had something special between them, something you could not just replace with a one night stand. He promised that they were getting married.

Pushing these fears out of her mind, Sammy threw herself onto the bed. Now all she had to do was wait until her future husband would come home.

As Kyle turned down his street, he did so with a heavy heart. Almost from the beginning, Harry had been his mentor and his friend. When Ronnie had first introduced Kyle to his grandfather, Kyle had only recently begun his endeavor as the masked vigilante, Lyger. Those first few months had been trying. Kyle had no direction, no real idea of what exactly it was that he was trying to do. He had a desire to help, and the physical gifts and nearly unlimited potential to do just that, he just needed a guiding hand to show him the way. 

Harry had provided that guidance.

When Ronnie died, Kyle was filled with anger and hatred. He had pushed everyone away as he set out to avenge his friend’s murder. However, again Harry was there. He had put his own grief aside and was there for his young protege, refusing to allow Kyle to slip too down the path of darkness. While continuing to help Kyle in his mission, he refused to allow him to be consumed by hatred.

Harry had saved Kyle, and now he was leaving. Although Harry had gone out of his way to set Kyle up with everything that he might need, including a new two person support team, Kyle was filled with doubt. He just did not know that he could do this without his mentor. These thoughts weighed on his mind as he made his way up the front steps of the brownstone. Kyle approached the entrance to his home, taking out the key and unlocking the door. He took a moment to check the mail slot before he went inside, seeing that there was nothing there he closed and locked it before locking the front door behind him. 

Kyle was parched. It was a hot day, and the walk from the new base of operations, while not far, had left him wanting a nice cool drink. He made his way to the kitchen and and took the pitcher of water from the refrigerator and began to pour himself a glass of water when he heard a sound coming from the bedroom. It sounded like the bed had creaked, which was odd because there wasn’t supposed to be anyone home. Sam was supposed to be at the university radio station putting content together for a memorial show for the victims of the Hounds of Humanity attack on the school. So he left the kitchen and went upstairs to the bedroom to investigate. When Kyle got to the bedroom door, he saw that someone was curled up under the blankets.

“Babe? I thought you were at the station today.” Kyle said as he sat down on the bed next to who he thought was his girlfriend and gently caressed her back.

“Can’t a girl surprise her man every once in a while?”

A long, scaly snake tail slithered out from underneath the sheets and began to wrap its coils around Kyle’s body. He was then pulled off his feet into the bed, where he finally saw who was reclining under the sheets. A woman with pale green skin and brunette hair, wearing one of Kyle’s shirts, drew Kyle into her embrace and planted a passionate kiss on his lips. Kyle was correct that her name was Samantha. Just not [i]his[/i] Sam.

“I was so worried about the Hounds’ activity from the past few days! I didn’t want to become a widow before I had a chance to be a bride!” She admitted to him after she parted from his lips.

At first, Kyle didn’t recognize the woman who had been in his bed. But after a moment, he knew exactly who she was. But something was wrong. The Sammy Kadowski that he knew had feline features as a result of magic. How she had come to take on a reptilian appearance was a mystery to him. Also a mystery, was exactly how she got into his house, and why was she in his bed. He had been unprepared for the large, snake-like tail that wrapped itself around him before forcing him to her where she met him with a deep kiss. 

He pulled away from her embrace, still shocked by what had just transpired. He took a step back and was ready to yell at her for what she’d just done. Breaking into his house, climbing into the bed that he shared with Sam wearing only one of his tee shirts. But he couldn’t yell at her. Something had clearly happened to her that had left her in this state. So he simply sat back down on the edge of the bed.

“Sammy, what happened to you?”

“You, too?” Sammy asked as she sat up on the bed while using her arms to prop herself up. Both Zac and Kelly were also bewildered by what Sammy considered to be her normal appearance. Even the Silver Sorceress was surprised, although only for a moment. And now Lyger looked like he had never seen her without wearing a power nullifier.

“What could have scrambled all of your memories,” she mumbled to herself.

With an uncanny swiftness, Sammy tossed aside the sheets, slithered out of the bed and coiled around Kyle again. She rested her arms around the back of Kyle’s shoulders so her head was level with his and looking over his shoulder.

“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?” She whimpered with an clear concern in her voice. Her arms were beginning to tremble, not because she could not hold herself up even with her snake half wrapped around her ‘fiance,’ but rather because of a different fear: that he was backing out.

Kyle knew that something was very wrong with Sammy. He had been well aware of her feelings for him, however he had been under the impression that they had resolved that issue the last time Sammy had come to visit him. She was well aware of his relationship with Sam, so this latest development was certainly a shock. Kyle listened to Sammy speak, and as she spoke, she began to make less and less sense.

“Sammy, what are you talking about?  And why are you here?” Kyle asked, at a loss for words.

“How do you not know? You’re the one who freaking proposed to me!” Sammy retorted back to Kyle’s question. She then extended out her left hand in front of Kyle and revealed a ring on her finger. But this was not the special ring that Kyle had given her so she could look like something other than an anime character for once. Instead, it was a much older ring, the very one that Kyle's own father had given to his mother when they first got married.

“Doesn't this prove it? How else would I have your mother's ring?”

Seeing his mother’s ring on Sammy’s finger was like a punch to the gut. Though she had been gone for nearly ten years, some days the pain was as fresh as the day that his father had told him that she didn’t survive the accident. He missed her deeply, and seeing her ring on someone’s finger...someone who he had not given the ring to, caused a deep anger to boil within him. 

“What the hell are you playing at?” He wanted to say. “How dare you steal that ring?!” He wanted to shout. 

But he didn’t.

He cared for Sammy, and though he was angry about this personal invasion, he took a deep breath and chose his words very carefully.

“Sammy, where did you get that ring?” He asked, still unable to believe his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Sammy said with a confused look on her face. “You gave it to me when you took me down to the stone ledges to see the sunset. You know just the perfect spot to have an amazing view of the ocean, where we could see the setting sun glitter over the water. And right before the sun was gone, you pulled out your mother’s ring. I know how you feel about your mother. I would never dishonor her memory.”

Kyle stared in disbelief at his mother’s ring on Sammy’s finger. She swore up and down that he had given it to her, and although he knew that he in fact hadn’t, she seemed convinced that he had. 

“Sammy, this doesn’t make any sense.” Kyle finally said after a brief pause. “I couldn’t have given that to you. We’re not together.” He said more bluntly than he had intended. However, before she could respond, he tried to clarify what he had meant.

“I mean, I thought that we’d already talked about this. I’m with Sam, and I love her. You and I are friends, but that’s all we are.” He tried to explain, but from the look on Sammy’s face, he could see that this was not going well.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Sammy said as she uncoiled her tail from Kyle’s body. Tears poured down the snake girl’s cheeks.

“I remained faithful to you this entire time, yet you don’t even have the decency to tell me you’ve moved on until now? I’ve even gave up my virginity for you. And what do I get in return? Being tossed aside for your next squeeze.”

She then turned her attention to the ring that had belonged to Kyle’s mother and started to pull it off. At first, Sammy struggled with it for a moment, but it eventually just slid off her finger. Where the ring had been resting on her finger, there remained a band lighter than the rest of her skin, revealing that Sammy had been wearing this ring for a few months now.

“I guess I don’t need this anymore,” Sammy admitted before she tossed it onto Kyle’s bed. She then glanced back at Kyle. Tears still flowed from her eyes because of her broken heart. Her face did not bear any sign of anger, as there was not a single bone in her body that could be angry at Kyle. Instead, her face expressed disappointment and sadness.

From the look of sheer heartbreak that was etched on Sammy’s face, Kyle knew that this wasn’t just some game that Sammy was playing. She earnestly believed that she and Kyle were engaged, and that he has been unfaithful to her. 

But how?

He wondered to himself if someone had done something to her, if they had somehow manipulated her mind to cause her to believe these lies. Could someone have implanted false memories of a fictional life together? He wondered if this Sammy was somehow a clone of the Sammy he knew, which could possibly explain the physical differences. Or could this be some strange side effect of the magic that had caused her condition in the first place? Kyle didn’t know, but he was going to get to the bottom of this, for Sammy.

“Sammy, I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll figure this out.” He told her. “I’m your friend, and I’ll always be your friend. We’ll find out what did this and we’ll fix it. I promise.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with me!” Sammy bawled. “I’ve looked like this ever since Zac and Kelly got their powers from Diplodoc’s serum.”

Sammy then scooped up the clothes she had discarded earlier and hurried out of the bedroom so she could change back into her regular clothes. Around the corner, Sammy found the upstairs bathroom. She slithered in and slammed the door behind herself. Once inside, she reactivated her power nullifier, reverting her back to her regular human appearance. She then started to dress herself with her own clothes.

“Sammy, wait,” Kyle said as Sammy slithered out of the bedroom and down the hall. As expected, she ignored him and slammed the bathroom door shut. As he stood there alone in the bedroom, he kept turning his mother’s ring over in his hand, and not wanting to misplace the heirloom, decided that maybe he should put it back in the drawer that he kept it. Much to his surprise, when he opened the small jewelry box in the top drawer of his dresser, he found that his mother’s ring was still exactly where he remembered it. 

“What the hell…?” He said to himself as he took his mother’s ring, his mother’s [b][i]real[/i][/b] ring out of the box and examined the two rings against one another. 

Aside from one small difference, the words “My Life, My Love” engraved on the inside of the band of the ring that Sammy had been wearing, the two rings were identical.

“Sammy, come here. You need to see this.” Kyle called out.

However, Kyle did not hear any response, nor any footsteps walking back towards his bedroom. When Kyle checked the upstairs bathroom, he found that the door was unlocked and unoccupied. Only the shirt that Sammy had taken out of his closet remained. There was no way Sammy could have slipped past Kyle without him noticing. But when he noticed that the bathroom window was slightly cracked open, he realized that there was only one way Sammy could have possibly slipped out of the house. Yet when Kyle opened up the window and peered outside, he did not see Sammy within eyeshot. The area immediately below the window was not disturbed, so Sammy must have reached the ground without hurting herself.

“Wonderful.” Kyle said to himself as he continued to look out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of Sammy. When he realized that she was probably long gone by now, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, where he went through his contacts. From there, he sent a pair of text messages detailing what had just happened. The first text was to Zac, who was one of Sammy’s best friends. The other was to Sam...His Sam, to tell her exactly what had happened here tonight.