Disclaimer: I do NOT own Dark Angel. I DO own the Reapers and all other new characters featured in this story.
Chapter Ten
"TUEOR QUATTOUR QUINQUE DUO!" (Protect Four Five Two!)
The roar had taken shape into an order. "REPELLO FAMILIARIS!" (Repel Familiars!)
Max looked around as the battle scene changed before her very eyes. The Reapers, who had been happily slicing their way through her family, were now turning on their Familiar masters. The Familiars were running and screaming and fleeing for their lives.
***
"I'm here Baby!" shouted Spike, standing beside Max. "Come get some!"
Max looked at him strangely. "Pardon?" she felt compelled to ask.
Spike twisted slightly and grinned at her. "What?"
"Baby? Come get some?" replied Max.
"What?" asked Spike again. "Omega's my mate!"
Alec, hearing that, was on his feet and quickly standing beside Max and Spike.
"You're mate?"
"Yeah!" grinned Spike. "Alpha's her brother! I'm her mate! Problem?"
Alec smiled and shook his head. Max just leaned closer in to Alec's arms.
Alpha grabbed a Familiar as they tried to escape.
"Hades!" he shouted. Hades was instantly in front of him. Itching for a chance to rip the Familiar apart. "No!" stated Alpha. "This one's Omega's! Go get your own!"
With that, and a eerily happy growl, Hades took off down the stairwell. Alpha turned around to face them. "Don't worry, she'll be here in a minute."
"A minute?!" laughed Spike. "Look behind you!"
"She's done it again, hasn't she?"
"Yup! That's my girl!" grinned Spike.
Max and Alec could do nothing but stare as a figure suddenly leapt from one roof top to theirs. She landed hard on top of the stairwell access and growled loudly.
"Hey Baby!" called Spike.
The growl turned to a purr and the deadly looking figure leapt off the stairwell and landed at Max's feet.
As she stood up, Max and Alec both gasped loudly.
Before them, now with flowing black hair and ice blue eyes, not to mention slightly taller than before, was Meg!
"Meg?" Max was stunned. "You're Omega?!"
Omega laughed loudly. "Damn straight!"
"But? How?" stammered Alec.
Spike was tired of conversation, and waiting, he wrapped his arms around Omega and the two kissed passionately. Alpha, still holding the dangling Familiar, walked over to Max and Alec.
"You'll have to forgive them! They've been apart for three years you know!"
Max was still staring at Omega.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you. They won't like it!"
"So," Alec cut in, snapping Max out of her staring. "You're Omega's brother?"
"Yip! Second in command of the unit and real happy to have my family back!"
"The Familiars had your pack!" stated Max, finally joining the conversation.
"That's why we took him. We were trying to get them back. They go kind of nuts if their left on their own for too long." smiled Alpha.
The Familiar in Alpha grip started wriggling again, trying to escape. Alpha glared at him.
"Oh, yeah! Forgot you were there. Sorry." He grinned at Max and Alec. "Wont be long!"
Alpha, with struggling Familiar in hand, walked over to Omega and Spike.
"Sorry to interrupt guys! But… Got you a present, Sis!"
Spike glared at Alpha but Omega was grinning. Her eyes instantly fixed on the familiar.
"That's not White!" she growled lowly.
"Oh! It's not? Oh well, my mistake, he must be still down there somewhere!"
Alpha dangled the Familiar over the edge of the roof as he spoke and let him go when he finished. "Shall we go get him then?"
Omega turned to her Transgenic friends still on the roof tops. "You all stay up here! Me and mine are on this! White's mine!" she growled.
She whispered something to Spike just before she and Alpha disappeared down the stairwell. Spike was grinning from ear to ear. He turned to Max and Alec and his grin widened.
"You want front row seats to why Reapers are so scary?"
Max couldn't believe what she was hearing, either could Alec, but still, they were racing down the stairwell after Spike to witness the end of Ames White. They heard him shouting as soon as their feet touched the ground.
"Get back! Get back you, freak!"
Spike grinned to Max and Alec.
"Oh, yeah! Annoy the ultimate killing machine why don't you!"
He was so proud of his mate.
Alpha appeared beside them. "You want first blood, Max?"
Max remembered all her family lost at the hands of White, the bomb he had put in Alec's neck but also Ray, White's son. That reminded her of how brutally White had murdered his own wife, who's only crime had been trying to get her son back.
She walked toward White, all his evil deeds playing over in her head. She was so lost in her thoughts and hatred for the man that she didn't see the gun in his hand. White grinned at her and the gun exploded toward her.
"NOOO!" screamed Alec as he saw the bullet flying toward Max.
"Yes!" shouted White. "She's coming with me!"
"NOOO!" came another scream.
This time it was Meg. She threw herself in between Max and the bullet. It hit her in the centre of the chest.
"Dammit!" shouted White as he aimed the gun again. "One down though!" he grinned.
"Wanna bet!"
White was stunned and the colour was draining away from his face as he watched on in horror as Meg picked herself up and brushed away what should have been a kill shot. Meg grinned at him, an evil glint in her eye.
"Name's Omega! Pleased to kill you!"
"What?" shouted White. "No! You can't be!"
"Oh! But she is!" came nine voices speaking as one.
White looked around and found himself surrounded by all ten Reapers. All of them looking at him hungrily, with anger and blood lust in their eyes. They had just witnessed his attempted murder of their leader and they had no intention of letting that go unpunished.
Spike looked over at Max. "You okay?"
"Yes. Thanks!"
"Don't thank me, I didn't do it!"
"You showed up didn't you?!"
"Hey! That's what family's for!" Spike smiled and glanced around at the TC population that was gathering around them.
"You're all fuckin' animals!" screamed White.
"Maybe!" shouted Max. "And everyone knows, you never attack a pack!"
Omega looked over at Max and smiled. "May we?"
Max nodded. "He's never going to leave us alone! He wants us all dead!"
"Or experimented on!" added Alec.
"Oh REALLY!" Spike was furious. He marched straight up to White.
"Tell me something. If you'd got your hands on Omega, Would you have set your lab rats on her? Picked her apart? Found out what her insides look like and what makes her tick?"
"In a heart beat!" White said and spat on Spike.
Spike punched him hard, in the face. White's lip and nose burst open, splattering Spike's jeans in his blood. Spike grabbed him by the hair, forced his head back and, teeth bared, growled threateningly in White's face.
"Nobody touches Omega!"
Max started to feel sick. This show was getting a little too detailed for her liking.
"Finish him off. Then get him and his Familiars out of TC. We don't like garbage!"
"You heard her, boys!" Omega's voice was cold.
***
Never in his entire life had Ames White felt fear.
It was the moments just before his death that this particular emotion decided to rear its ugly head and possess his very soul.
He went down into the black void, screaming and wetting his pants.
***
It took several hours for TC to be finally rid of all traces of the attack. It was lucky, in a way, that it had all happened under the cover of darkness.
As the residents emerged from their homes, or places of hiding, TC was exactly as it had been the previous day. The Reaper unit had left no traces of violence. Even the exploded van had vanished.
Max, who had stayed in the control room with the rest of chiefs of staff, came out to survey the damage and plan on repairs, only to find it all done.
A large white box had been found, pinned to the front gate. Mole had discovered it on his morning patrol and brought it straight to Max.
Max called a mass meeting in the Grand Hall and opened it in front of everyone.
Inside the box was a cell phone and a letter.
My dearest friends,
I would like to thank you all for the respect and acceptance you showed me in the years I was with you. I only wish I could have told you the truth of who I was. However, my mission was to protect Max, not expose my identity. I truly am sorry for lying to you all. With your help, I have not only been reunited with my family but see you all as my family too.
We have to leave now. I wish it was otherwise but my mission is not yet complete. Max will never be truly safe until the threat of the Breeding Cult is no more. So I have taken my pack in hunt of them.
However, should you ever need us. Use the phone with this letter. Spike has modified it so that you can reach us no matter where we go.
I sincerely hope, that once we are truly free to be a people, a nation, a species, that there will be a place in your community for my family.
Omega.
A sigh echoed around the room as everyone took in the letter and it's hope filled words.
Max put the letter back in the box and handed it to Alec who closed it and set it on a small table at the rear of the stage.
"What do you say?" called Max to her TC fellow residents. "When they return, do we welcome them back? Do we let them join our family?"
Silence.
Max turned and looked to Alec for support. He stepped up beside her and took her hand in his.
"I always liked Meg!" he said to the crowd. "She looked after us all, taught us skills Manticore never wanted us to learn and fought beside us in our darkest hours. I say YES!"
"I say YES!" shouted Mole from the base of the steps. "So what if she's a Reaper! She's on our side and one of us!"
Heads started nodding around the room.
Suddenly, a cheer broke out. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" they chanted.
Max smiled. Reapers weren't the big bad Manticore bogeymen after all, they were just soldiers forced to do horrible things, just like the rest of them. And, one of them, the supposed biggest, baddest one of them all, had been one of her best friends.
"Alec." Max said quietly as a party type atmosphere broke out in the Grand Hall.
"Yes Max." He smiled.
"Take me home!"
"What about Logan? Aren't you with him?" he asked cautiously.
"I'm with you!" she smiled. "If you'll have me?"
"I say YES!" grinned Alec.
Max smiled and almost giggled as Alec leant closer and kissed her. Their kiss, witnessed by the entire population of TC, grew into a heated embrace.
"Get a room!" someone shouted.
"Thanks!" Max shouted back. "I think we will!"
THE END