Title: The Enemy Of My Enemy
Author: Drea Jackman
Email: webmaster@the-spacemonkey.net
URL:
Warning: If you're one of these people that can't get their head around non- m/l or m/a 'ships, turn back now. This fic is strictly for the open-minded ... and my fellow writers in the Conclave.
Disclaimer: Not my characters or my show...unfortunately. Just having a little fun with them for now, but I promise to return them to the shelf when I'm done ... though I might keep White a little longer ;).
The Enemy Of My Enemy
"Give it up, Ames. This is getting boring."
Ames White launched himself at Max and struck out with another volley of kicks and punches. Max took a kick to the gut before blocking the rest to strike out with her own counter-kick to his chest. A kick which sent him hurtling backward as he staggered to a stop.
"I'm just getting started, 452," he replied with a grin and wiped the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth on the back of his hand.
"Why don't we just cut to the chase?"
"Which is?" he drawled as he attacked her again.
"That you don't like me," she answered, bending low to dodge an incoming fist before punctuating each word with her own. "And I despise you."
"An understatement on your part."
Before Max could reply, loud gunfire split the cold night air around them. Both opponents stopped dead only a few feet from one another and turned to look in the direction of the blasts. They could hear the roar of the engines approaching fast. So fast, that now they could even make out the coarse yells booming through the air. Within seconds two heavily loaded trucks were screeching around the corner yards away, full beam headlights catching their target.
Max recognised them as members of the newly organised 'anti-mutant' group based in Seattle. In the months that had followed the incident at Jampony and confined many transgenics to Terminal City, the world of the Familiars had also been exposed. It was the least Eyes Only could do for those who'd been so kind in exposing his friends. The Familiars were in complete disarray with those who hadn't managed to drop off the radar completely managing to conceal themselves within the powerful ranks of government where their money and position could provide them safety.
Having White find her so far from the sanctuary of Terminal City wasn't part of her original plan, but he had done so nonetheless. It was an old factory complex a few square miles in size and miles outside of town. She had been checking up on the outpost for new transgenics looking to be smuggled into the city, but tonight there had been none. White had pounced on her the second she had stepped back outside. The only thing more surprising than his presence was that of the Hunters.
Both White and Max cast a glance between them knowing that theirs was a battle that could wait for another time. Every person for themselves. Max sprang past him in an effort to get to her Ninja before they could. Suddenly her beloved motorcycle became a target as more gunfire sounded and sparks began to fly from her precious baby.
White on the other hand, held his ground a little longer and drew his gun to return fire. Max noticed that his car was nowhere in sight, no doubt hidden to conceal his approach as he closed in on her earlier. Only when the trucks had stopped and their Hunter-army had begun to spread out, did he make any effort to retreat.
Max cursed under her breath and turned to blur in the other direction. The darkened buildings of the widespread complex would have to offer shelter enough until she could pick them off one by one and make her escape. Before she could cross the foreground to the large empty building nearby, a few of the Hunters blocked her path. They didn't manage to fire a shot before her Manticore-given strength and speed had disarmed them and sent them crashing to the ground.
Now in the doorway of her new sanctuary, she paused to take stock of her situation. If it was anywhere else, she'd simply stay and fight - if it were anyone else. But, the key here was escape and evade. The plan was to find a way out and get back to the city. There were too many to fight off alone - which was exactly what made her stop to watch White as he now fought a gang of them hand to hand.
"Despise you," she uttered to remind herself exactly who it was that was now fighting for his life amid almost all of the Hunter attack group.
With his gun now empty and no time to reload, White tossed it aside and found himself completely surrounded. No matter for fighting off a few simple humans was no difficult task. He sent one after the other to the ground hard with a series of precisely executed attacks that Max knew she'd been on the receiving end of way too often. Max frowned as she saw him falter once. Not a great mistake to make in battle, but something she'd never seen a Familiar do. Genetically superior strength could only go so far in the face of such an onslaught, but it was a battle he had been winning until their leader had grown tired of him and aimed his gun at the now equally-hated Familiar.
Max stood up and turned to leave when a barrage of gunfire and cheers stopped in her tracks. She turned to see White reluctantly stagger to one knee before falling to both. The onslaught didn't stop there and before she knew what she was doing, she had turned to run along the inside wall of the building parallel to the gang outside. When she reached the end and peered around the empty doorway, she could now see White through the men crowded around him. There was blood. She couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it was staining him in several places.
"Damn it, you sonuvah bitch!" she cursed aloud and darted out from her place of safety once more.
Blurring up behind the two trucks, Max leapt up onto the back and quickly incapacitated their leader and tossed him out onto the man nearby. Grabbing the side of the truck, she swung round and kicked him as he stood up, sending him to the cold concrete below. Quickly, she slipped inside the now empty vehicle and revved up the engine.
As the rough growl of the engine roared, many Hunters turned in surprise. Without wasting a second, Max hit the accelerator and ploughed through as many as she could. As they scattered and leapt aside, the beam of the headlights found White just before he too tossed his body from the wake of the speeding truck.
Clearing the crowd, Max turned to make a second pass and suddenly the windshield shattered under a hail of gunfire. With no idea what lay before her, she opened the driver's door and jumped out. Hitting the ground and tumbling hard, she looked up quickly to see her truck collide with the other. The explosion sent a heat wave burning across her face, but undeterred she used the distraction to run for cover, taking out a few more men on her way.
After covering about a mile inside the complex, Max slowed her pace down. The echo of the Hunters was now distant, but she knew if she wasted time, they'd catch up with her again. It was after slowing down to a steady pace that she noticed something marking the ground a few feet away. In the dull moonlight it appeared dark and thick. Looking more closely she recognised it as blood. Frowning she realised that White had taken the same course of action she had and fled during the distraction she'd set up for them.
Following it, she noticed that every few drops were coming closer together. Familiar or not, the beating he'd taken had begun to slow him down. A mistake that would certainly prove fatal if he was indeed following her course of action. telling herself that, that was the only reason for even considering what she was doing, Max followed the trail, quickly covering it up as she went.
Half an hour later and another mile inside the complex, Max had lost the trail. The blood had stopped and given the size of the abandoned lot, both White and the Hunters could be anywhere. The dull echo of voices was still distant on the air as she traversed the silent buildings. The heavy silence loomed until a hollow clatter rattled from the hanger to her left. Being careful to avoid any Hunter seeing her enter or approach, Max stole her way inside and through the maze of passageways until she reached the back of the loading bay.
Max listened intently, her feline senses kicking into overdrive as she tried to pick up another sign of her pursuers. Taking them out was her first priority to ensure a safe passage off the complex. There was something - breathing. Not particularly loud, but more laboured than she'd come to expect of those hunting her kind down. It was coming from a small storage room to the right.
Creeping toward the dark doorway she peered inside, her eyes picking out row after row of shelves in the semi-darkness, but nothing else. She entered quickly and quietly, slipping between the rows until she reached the back wall. There was another brief sound. A soft thud from the corner. Max advanced on it quickly. What she found surprised even her.
"I thought it was only lowly animals that crawled off to die alone," she said casually.
"452," White began slowly before stopping for breath.
Max stepped in closer to the fallen Familiar. White sat slumped in the corner, brow damp with both blood and sweat. His legs lay stretched out before him, deep stains of blood on the right thigh. Arms lay limp by his sides, one in his lap as blood also coated the material of his navy suit jacket, an evident hole in the left shoulder.
"Y'know I just wish I could feel sorry for you," Max sighed and looked down at him as if attempting to manage an expression of pity.
"Get the hell away from me!" he growled and attempted to push himself farther back into his corner to get away from her.
"Hey," Max said holding her hands up honestly. "Only too happy."
She turned to round the next row of stacks when a loud clatter echoed back to them. The Hunters were getting closer.
"Wait!"
"What?!" she hissed looking back.
White only narrowed his eyes to glare at her. Much as he hated to admit it, he didn't want her to go. He wasn't afraid of dying, but he didn't want to die at the hands of some pathetic human anymore than she wanted to at the hands of a Familiar like himself. It sickened him that the words had even left his lips.
"You gotta be kidding me!"
"You need me," he replied coolly.
"Like a hole in the head."
"It can be arranged."
Max turned away from White again, prepared to leave without looking back when he stopped her a second time.
"You leave me here and you'll never have the chance to kill me yourself."
"Who said I wanted to be the one to kill you?" she asked glancing over her shoulder.
"After what I've done to you and yours, I'd think I had it coming, wouldn't you?"
White's words took her a little off guard. Why the hell was he being so damned up front with her, and now of all times? This was the moment she'd been waiting for, where she was allowed to just walk away. She didn't have to become him to do it and he was right, he did deserve it. She caught his blank stare from the corner of her eye and something low in her stomach cringed. She felt a pang of confusion and irritation, for she knew the decision was out of her hands.
Max growled a self-damning curse under her breath and turned back. With no regard for his comfort, she gripped White's right arm and pulled it around her neck as she hauled him up to his feet. Like Familiars weren't already on top of the pain thing anyway. With White leaning on her heavily, Max bore his weight easily as she guided them out of the room and into the darkness outside.
Author: Drea Jackman
Email: webmaster@the-spacemonkey.net
URL:
Warning: If you're one of these people that can't get their head around non- m/l or m/a 'ships, turn back now. This fic is strictly for the open-minded ... and my fellow writers in the Conclave.
Disclaimer: Not my characters or my show...unfortunately. Just having a little fun with them for now, but I promise to return them to the shelf when I'm done ... though I might keep White a little longer ;).
The Enemy Of My Enemy
"Give it up, Ames. This is getting boring."
Ames White launched himself at Max and struck out with another volley of kicks and punches. Max took a kick to the gut before blocking the rest to strike out with her own counter-kick to his chest. A kick which sent him hurtling backward as he staggered to a stop.
"I'm just getting started, 452," he replied with a grin and wiped the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth on the back of his hand.
"Why don't we just cut to the chase?"
"Which is?" he drawled as he attacked her again.
"That you don't like me," she answered, bending low to dodge an incoming fist before punctuating each word with her own. "And I despise you."
"An understatement on your part."
Before Max could reply, loud gunfire split the cold night air around them. Both opponents stopped dead only a few feet from one another and turned to look in the direction of the blasts. They could hear the roar of the engines approaching fast. So fast, that now they could even make out the coarse yells booming through the air. Within seconds two heavily loaded trucks were screeching around the corner yards away, full beam headlights catching their target.
Max recognised them as members of the newly organised 'anti-mutant' group based in Seattle. In the months that had followed the incident at Jampony and confined many transgenics to Terminal City, the world of the Familiars had also been exposed. It was the least Eyes Only could do for those who'd been so kind in exposing his friends. The Familiars were in complete disarray with those who hadn't managed to drop off the radar completely managing to conceal themselves within the powerful ranks of government where their money and position could provide them safety.
Having White find her so far from the sanctuary of Terminal City wasn't part of her original plan, but he had done so nonetheless. It was an old factory complex a few square miles in size and miles outside of town. She had been checking up on the outpost for new transgenics looking to be smuggled into the city, but tonight there had been none. White had pounced on her the second she had stepped back outside. The only thing more surprising than his presence was that of the Hunters.
Both White and Max cast a glance between them knowing that theirs was a battle that could wait for another time. Every person for themselves. Max sprang past him in an effort to get to her Ninja before they could. Suddenly her beloved motorcycle became a target as more gunfire sounded and sparks began to fly from her precious baby.
White on the other hand, held his ground a little longer and drew his gun to return fire. Max noticed that his car was nowhere in sight, no doubt hidden to conceal his approach as he closed in on her earlier. Only when the trucks had stopped and their Hunter-army had begun to spread out, did he make any effort to retreat.
Max cursed under her breath and turned to blur in the other direction. The darkened buildings of the widespread complex would have to offer shelter enough until she could pick them off one by one and make her escape. Before she could cross the foreground to the large empty building nearby, a few of the Hunters blocked her path. They didn't manage to fire a shot before her Manticore-given strength and speed had disarmed them and sent them crashing to the ground.
Now in the doorway of her new sanctuary, she paused to take stock of her situation. If it was anywhere else, she'd simply stay and fight - if it were anyone else. But, the key here was escape and evade. The plan was to find a way out and get back to the city. There were too many to fight off alone - which was exactly what made her stop to watch White as he now fought a gang of them hand to hand.
"Despise you," she uttered to remind herself exactly who it was that was now fighting for his life amid almost all of the Hunter attack group.
With his gun now empty and no time to reload, White tossed it aside and found himself completely surrounded. No matter for fighting off a few simple humans was no difficult task. He sent one after the other to the ground hard with a series of precisely executed attacks that Max knew she'd been on the receiving end of way too often. Max frowned as she saw him falter once. Not a great mistake to make in battle, but something she'd never seen a Familiar do. Genetically superior strength could only go so far in the face of such an onslaught, but it was a battle he had been winning until their leader had grown tired of him and aimed his gun at the now equally-hated Familiar.
Max stood up and turned to leave when a barrage of gunfire and cheers stopped in her tracks. She turned to see White reluctantly stagger to one knee before falling to both. The onslaught didn't stop there and before she knew what she was doing, she had turned to run along the inside wall of the building parallel to the gang outside. When she reached the end and peered around the empty doorway, she could now see White through the men crowded around him. There was blood. She couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it was staining him in several places.
"Damn it, you sonuvah bitch!" she cursed aloud and darted out from her place of safety once more.
Blurring up behind the two trucks, Max leapt up onto the back and quickly incapacitated their leader and tossed him out onto the man nearby. Grabbing the side of the truck, she swung round and kicked him as he stood up, sending him to the cold concrete below. Quickly, she slipped inside the now empty vehicle and revved up the engine.
As the rough growl of the engine roared, many Hunters turned in surprise. Without wasting a second, Max hit the accelerator and ploughed through as many as she could. As they scattered and leapt aside, the beam of the headlights found White just before he too tossed his body from the wake of the speeding truck.
Clearing the crowd, Max turned to make a second pass and suddenly the windshield shattered under a hail of gunfire. With no idea what lay before her, she opened the driver's door and jumped out. Hitting the ground and tumbling hard, she looked up quickly to see her truck collide with the other. The explosion sent a heat wave burning across her face, but undeterred she used the distraction to run for cover, taking out a few more men on her way.
After covering about a mile inside the complex, Max slowed her pace down. The echo of the Hunters was now distant, but she knew if she wasted time, they'd catch up with her again. It was after slowing down to a steady pace that she noticed something marking the ground a few feet away. In the dull moonlight it appeared dark and thick. Looking more closely she recognised it as blood. Frowning she realised that White had taken the same course of action she had and fled during the distraction she'd set up for them.
Following it, she noticed that every few drops were coming closer together. Familiar or not, the beating he'd taken had begun to slow him down. A mistake that would certainly prove fatal if he was indeed following her course of action. telling herself that, that was the only reason for even considering what she was doing, Max followed the trail, quickly covering it up as she went.
Half an hour later and another mile inside the complex, Max had lost the trail. The blood had stopped and given the size of the abandoned lot, both White and the Hunters could be anywhere. The dull echo of voices was still distant on the air as she traversed the silent buildings. The heavy silence loomed until a hollow clatter rattled from the hanger to her left. Being careful to avoid any Hunter seeing her enter or approach, Max stole her way inside and through the maze of passageways until she reached the back of the loading bay.
Max listened intently, her feline senses kicking into overdrive as she tried to pick up another sign of her pursuers. Taking them out was her first priority to ensure a safe passage off the complex. There was something - breathing. Not particularly loud, but more laboured than she'd come to expect of those hunting her kind down. It was coming from a small storage room to the right.
Creeping toward the dark doorway she peered inside, her eyes picking out row after row of shelves in the semi-darkness, but nothing else. She entered quickly and quietly, slipping between the rows until she reached the back wall. There was another brief sound. A soft thud from the corner. Max advanced on it quickly. What she found surprised even her.
"I thought it was only lowly animals that crawled off to die alone," she said casually.
"452," White began slowly before stopping for breath.
Max stepped in closer to the fallen Familiar. White sat slumped in the corner, brow damp with both blood and sweat. His legs lay stretched out before him, deep stains of blood on the right thigh. Arms lay limp by his sides, one in his lap as blood also coated the material of his navy suit jacket, an evident hole in the left shoulder.
"Y'know I just wish I could feel sorry for you," Max sighed and looked down at him as if attempting to manage an expression of pity.
"Get the hell away from me!" he growled and attempted to push himself farther back into his corner to get away from her.
"Hey," Max said holding her hands up honestly. "Only too happy."
She turned to round the next row of stacks when a loud clatter echoed back to them. The Hunters were getting closer.
"Wait!"
"What?!" she hissed looking back.
White only narrowed his eyes to glare at her. Much as he hated to admit it, he didn't want her to go. He wasn't afraid of dying, but he didn't want to die at the hands of some pathetic human anymore than she wanted to at the hands of a Familiar like himself. It sickened him that the words had even left his lips.
"You gotta be kidding me!"
"You need me," he replied coolly.
"Like a hole in the head."
"It can be arranged."
Max turned away from White again, prepared to leave without looking back when he stopped her a second time.
"You leave me here and you'll never have the chance to kill me yourself."
"Who said I wanted to be the one to kill you?" she asked glancing over her shoulder.
"After what I've done to you and yours, I'd think I had it coming, wouldn't you?"
White's words took her a little off guard. Why the hell was he being so damned up front with her, and now of all times? This was the moment she'd been waiting for, where she was allowed to just walk away. She didn't have to become him to do it and he was right, he did deserve it. She caught his blank stare from the corner of her eye and something low in her stomach cringed. She felt a pang of confusion and irritation, for she knew the decision was out of her hands.
Max growled a self-damning curse under her breath and turned back. With no regard for his comfort, she gripped White's right arm and pulled it around her neck as she hauled him up to his feet. Like Familiars weren't already on top of the pain thing anyway. With White leaning on her heavily, Max bore his weight easily as she guided them out of the room and into the darkness outside.