Nuther chapter of this thing, Im getting sick of AU stories, so this is a nice break, but don't expect to much from it, it's mostly practice. So here. Have some.

Holiday cleaned up her mess in the lab and looked around for Six. As if on cue, he appeared, right where she had left him on her wheelie-chair.

"You look tired, exhausted even." She voiced her thoughts on his slightly slouching demeanor. He only grunted in response, then asked a question she hated, but only because she couldn't answered it.

"What are we going to do with Rex?" She cringed as he spoke. That was a question she'd been dodging for nearly five years now, and in this situation, it was hard to change the subject or run away from it without the normal rush and hubbub of the daytime.

"Six…..I…." She faltered. "Look," she started again, "everyone is trying real hard. I mean 120% and then some." she trailed off again. "But….but sometimes, we just need to…to forfeit! I realize this sounds ludicrous to you, but its true."

"Holiday." She paused at the interruption and looked at the man beside her, he had taken off his sunglasses to revile coal black eyes that glinted green in the dim emergency lights of the lab. He really did look exhausted, the term "running on empty" came to mind, but then seemed like an understatement considering all the stress they were under. "Forfeit is a very unprofessional word." He smirked humorlessly and turned in the direction of his cubicle, "try 'abeyance."

Six rolled over in bed to try to get to sleep. His alarm clock blared 3:17 A.M, the green lettering cutting into the darkness like a knife. Everything that had happened that day, the game of capture the flag, the fear he felt wrench his gut when Holiday blared over the loudspeakers in the petting-zoo, the x-rays…it was all coming back to him now, catching up to him.

He moaned and kicked off the covers only to wander over to his closet and pull on sweatpants and a t-shirt. As he was turning around to go back to bed something caught his eye, a glint or reflection. He paused and shifted to investigate the darker reaches of his small closet. Suddenly, fed by boredom and the late hours of the night he thought to himself "What if I find a portal?" His mind asked it at random. "No, that's stupid, why would there be a portal in my closet?" He paused in the dark, hand outstretched and halfway to the source of the glint. "But its not totally impossible…Breach makes portals, this could be one of them!" His hand shot back to his side and he took up a low fighting stance, not blinking once, not moving a muscle, hardly even breathing, for a full five minutes. When nothing happened he relaxed his stance and kicked himself for being so stupid. Nothing from the outside could penetrate a room so close to the heart of providence. Nothing that wasn't inside providence to begin with.

He reached his hand towards the glint and pulled out a small bathroom mirror and groaned at it as he tossed it experimentally from hand to hand.

"Not a portal." He muttered aloud to himself, a bit disappointed in the outcome of his standoff.

Six carried the small glass square back to his bed and looked into it, only to see himself looking back. Muddled black eyes looking into themselves over and over again…he really did look tired….

"Damn…." the agent groaned. He opened his mouth to revile two rows of perfectly white teeth. "No 'ill-inns." He tongued down the top row from canine to molar and back. Six suddenly grew angry at his teeth for leaving such traceable scars on his life. He bit down as hard as he could, nearly cracking the bones infused with concrete.

Six's hand shot up to his face, he pulled it back coated in watered-down blood. "God dammit!" He had bitten a hole clean through his left cheek. Blood and saliva coated the wound and stung the exposed flesh. He spat repeatedly to clear his mouth of the coppery taste of blood.

The agent sat in disbelief as he held his profusely bleeding face, not because what he just did would directly effect him (to a degree), but because suddenly a huge rock settled in his stomach. That rock was called dread, and what he dreaded was all the questions he would get, especially the ones from Holiday. "Dear God…" he shivered and found his way to the small half bath in his room and cleaned the wound as best as he could, then tried to go back to sleep while ignoring the dull throbbing in his cheek before giving up and taking a shower and dressing for the day early. Four hours early….

He stole one last glance in the small glass mirror he'd found in his closet to find that the wound had yet to fully coagulate, but was dried enough to hold if he didn't move his mouth much, which he hardly did anyway.

Six then tossed the square back on his nightstand and left his room in search of breakfast, and perhaps something along the lines of caffeine. He was halfway to the cafeteria when he realized they probably didn't serve this early, then face palmed when he also remembered the hole in his face. He couldn't eat while it was trying to heal, that could invite infection, and God knew he didn't need another problem. He decided to just head to the debriefing room where hardly anyone he came into daily contact with ventured this time of day. As he entered, the night-shift soldiers looked his way, then quickly turned back to what they were doing, not wanting to provoke the malicious vibe emanating from the disheveled superior that made his way through their ranks to the main COM center in the middle of the lab. It was almost the end of their dog-watch anyway, why get fired ten minutes before their shifts ended?

Six sank into one of the chairs and glared at the image of the White Knight from behind his shades, Knight raised a single apathetic eyebrow at the mess of an agent before him.

"A bit early today, are we Six?" The albino man contradicted. Six raised his eyebrow in response.

"Well, we're just always so busy." He said sarcastically.

"You look like a train wreck Six."

Thing was, White wasn't so far off his bland description of the green clad man before him. Six's undershirt remained un-tucked, his suit uneven, tie loose, and hair uncombed and messy. To top it off, his wound had started bleeding again.

"It's a Monday." he admitted begrudgingly, poking at the clot on his face once, inwardly scowling at the pain it brought, and returned his immediate attention to the man behind the screen.

"….Right….well, I don't know what to tell you."

"Is the mess room open this early?" Six asked suddenly, he felt a sudden urge to be rid of this dim room and all the forms of life in it, specifically the man on the screen in front of him.

"You came all the way here just for that? Six, I don't have time to answer to all the little comings and goings of one base like that, go check for yourself." And just like that, the ever serious White Knight's screen went blank so fast, it gave Six a quick snap of déjà vu The Agent muttered something under his breath and made his way to the door, presumably to go pester another lab within the confines of the base.

In Abases

Kliess sat in boredom on his fancy earth throne, pondering about the usual. As a self-proclaimed independent country from the rest of the world, there was much to do in Abases, seeing as he was dictator for life and nothing in the world would convince the monarchy otherwise. There were citizens to admit and record in the census, armies to build and train for combat, rules to lie down, and food to grow, lives to direct.

And then there was also the Rex problem.

Kliess was a smart man, as genius as they come. He could command an army, run a nation, hell, if he wasn't tied down to the patch of land he ruled, the entire world would be his. But when it came to Rex, this one boy that dominated his attention, he was helpless. Just one damn child! And no matter haw he pondered the matter, he always drew a blank. Simply nothing could be done to directly kill or manipulate the impudent boy. So here sat perhaps the worlds current smartest man, unable to eliminate the treat, for almost an hour now he'd been brooding with nothing to show for it. Then Biowulf came in and sat patiently for his master to address him.

"Biowulf." He said.

"Sir, the construction of the new houses in sector G are going better than planned, and the new underground aqueducts are nearly online." The blue EVO assured. A long silence trailed the statement, Kliess said nothing, Biowulf took this as permission to leave and turned to do so, but was stopped when his master's voice rang out.

"Biowulf? Answer me a question."

"Sir?" He turned to face the man on his chair.

"If you were attacked, where and when would you least expect it?" Biowulf hesitated, not sure if it was a trick question or not, but finally replied.

"Well…here, Sir."

"Here?"

"Yessir."

"And why here?" Kliess hid the annoyance in his voice, why Abases? There was nothing that could take them down this late in the game, and at their home field to boot.

"Because Sir. This place is our home, it's the one place we feel invincible. That, and the fact that no one really ever wants to acknowledge that they can be killed on home turf, sir." Kliess sat in silence, absorbing this information. Biowulf once again turned to leave, but was stopped once more.

"Biowulf, gather every citizen, do not leave a single midge out. I have some grave news to deliver."

TBC?