Griever

"I love you too,"

Logan barely heard her, but he was sure she'd said it.

Nobody could deny the kiss that followed, though. And Logan barely had time to register what she had done, before she had taken off to help her siblings.

He smiled grimly to himself. He had been feeling really bad, lightheaded and somehow losing sense of where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, and wanted Max to know he loved her, before it was too late.

But then she said she loved him back. And she'd kissed him. It was as if it was some kind of a miracle cure. He snapped back into reality immediately, and all of a sudden, Logan became acutely aware of his surroundings. He heard the crashes, and saw the bodies being flung as the fight took place nearby.

Logan blinked rapidly, trying to clear his mind of the fog which had settled earlier. Maybe the bleeding had stopped. He felt slightly better, stronger than he was minutes before and he was certainly more focused. Or maybe it was just knowing that Max loved him.

He would do anything for her, he knew. And if that meant staying alive, he would do whatever it took to make sure he was there for her when the fight ended. He lifted his hand from his leg, and realised the bleeding had indeed stopped. He put his hand back on the wound, just in case.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH ME!" He heard Max scream from a distance, followed by a few loud expletives, and then a loud howl of pain and a crash. He squinted, and saw Max standing over a body, expertly kicking it to the side before she raced to help her other siblings.

Logan smiled again as he eased himself into a sitting position and increased the pressure on his leg.

She loves me.

Sim

"I told you to stay in the car," said Zack, exasperated, as he crept up to where Bling was crouching behind some cargo crates.

"Figured you might need someone who wouldn't get knocked out by that sonic device thingy," he replied. "There's a gun pointed at Logan's head and Max is giving herself up."

"Stupid; she should run..."

The gunshot echoed incredibly loudly through the cavernous space as Logan made his near superhuman effort to disarm Renfro. The former SEAL, despite his training, couldn't stop himself moving towards his stricken friend, breaking their cover.
Zack grabbed Bling's massive bicep and yanked him back with all the power of an X5.

"Hey!" The blonde man whispered harshly. "Are you trying to give away our position?"

"Get your hand off me; I have to get to Logan."

"You're no good to him with a bullet in your head; or was your training so long ago you've forgotten, old man?"

"I'm also no good to him if he's already bled out! Can't you see how bad he's hurt? Logan's body can't take that kind of punishment any more."

"Looks like Max has him covered," said Zack, with a hint of jealousy.

"This is not the time for you to get territorial over Max, Zack. You go help the others; Logan needs medical attention and he needs it now. I'll see you back at Sebastian's."

"You're not serious... It's a warzone out there; you'll never make it."

"I used to do this for a living, remember? And I'm not that old." Bling was gone, moving low and fast towards where Logan lay.

Zack muttered under his breath. "Is everyone involved with Eyes Only crazy or do they just have a deathwish?" Then he shrugged. If Bling wanted to get himself killed, that was his problem. Right now, he needed to help his siblings.

Sim

The warehouse was in chaos.

Renfro's six X5s were taking on the five rogues and Lydecker in a display of frightening speed and skill. Bling had made it to Logan and was examining his wounds with all his medical expertise.

Renfro, Anderson, Sonrisa, Alina and all of the Reds and their handlers were already down thanks to the EMP and the previous fight. Any who were beginning to come around were wisely staying out of the way while the transgenics duelled around them, failing to trip over the bodies only by using every ounce of feline grace they possesed. The air rang with the sound of flesh meeting flesh, cries of pain and effort, and the occasional quip from the rogues.

So it was no surprise really that none of them noticed Anderson stir groggily from his prone position on the floor where Syl had left him and slip a hand into his pocket.
His questing fingers found the button on the sonic disruptor and pressed it. Eleven X5s, he thought muzzily, plus Lydecker, Eyes Only and Renfro.

I'm going to get promoted for this.

Shywriter

Bling had looked over the battered form of his employer, amazed at the stubborn man's stamina, having somehow had managed to hold onto consciousness. "Logan, you've really done it now," Bling muttered, stalling to assess, hoping his presence and voice would mean some comfort, barely caring what the words were. Not good, but if we get out of here soon, he decided...

"I can't, Bling; not with Max still in there..."

Max. Of course. The man certainly was consistent, Bling griped to himself. "Look, you can say what you want – but when all this is over with, and I have the choice of having either you or Max looking to kick my ass for whichever I decide to do right now – no offense, man, but I'd rather take my chances with you than with Max." Bling tried to keep his voice calm and unruffled as he spoke. "And I think the lady would rather I get you patched up right away than wait to see the extra innings of this ballgame."

Bling used his words to cover his methodical once-over of Logan, looking for any wounds that needed immediate patching or would be threatened by moving him to safety. Satisfied that he knew what he was facing, Bling looked up and around the place with increasing worry. Behind the spill of the powerful flashlight, dropped by the woman Max had dispatched in an amazing blur of speed, the large, open hangar was still cloaked in darkness. From what Zack said and what he made out now, not all the X-5s in the place were on their side. In the dim light Bling couldn't make out which faction was winning in the melee in front of him, but it still sounded intense – and deadly. Looking back toward the way he'd come in, he decided it was still the safest option, and turned back to Logan.

"Your shoulder won't hurt quite so much if you find a good angle for your arm and pull it in close to your body – hold it in place as well as you can. Put this arm around my neck..." Despite the circumstances, his injuries and his wavering consciousness, Logan fixed Bling with that look, that 'I'd rather eat glass' look, which Bling ignored to say "hard or easy, Logan; you've got two seconds to choose." He shifted to slip his arms under Logan's battered body, and rocked forward to begin lifting him, when suddenly, without warning, they heard the sound of two or three of Max's siblings cry out, simultaneously – and Max's own, sharp intake of breath.

"Bling!" Logan hadn't missed the sound.

He looked over and, as his eyes continued to adjust to the low light, made out the X-5s – all of them, as near as he could tell – as they crumpled to their knees, moaning, a couple slapping hands over their ears.

The device! So that meant that the Reds were down, thanks to Sebastian; the woman moaning a few feet away was in no shape to do much of anything, thanks to Max; and now Max, her family and the Manticore group, zapped again by the hypersonic device, were neutralized. There just couldn't be too many people in the place left standing...

So I can tell Zack I told him so after all, Bling's grin was a grimace as he saw a squat, nondescript man stand to walk over to the nearest X-5 and offer a kick to his ribs, for no apparent reason other than he could. Bling pulled his arms out from under Logan.

"I have to go prove something to Zack," Bling whispered in Logan's ear as he eased him back onto the cement floor. "Looks as if only a couple of us non-enhanced types are around to save the day." Bling rose silently to move around toward the man, who stood among all the now- disabled super soldiers, gun in hand, as he looked them over, arrogantly unhurried and confident of his power. He spotted Max and started walking over to her, an oily smile beginning to form.

One fast look told Bling that, remaining hidden, he'd never get to the gunman before the man reached Max. Knowing that whatever he had in mind for her couldn't be good, Bling did the only thing he could decide to do at the moment – he grabbed up the first loose item he saw – an abandoned coffee cup, as it happened – and threw it to land sharply up and behind the gunman, to his right.

At the sound, the man spun, firing wildly, his back to Bling, and Bling took aim with his own gun to shoot him in the fleshy part of his thigh. Without waiting to see the man react, Bling bolted out of his cover toward the gunman to tackle him, unwilling to take a life unless he had to...

...but someone else was: the shot that rang out as Bling began his run, neatly catching Anderson in the chest and shredding his aorta before he hit the ground, came from the gun of someone who had little regard for the life of the weak, vile creature who had threatened his kids...

Sim

"What the hell did you do that for?" Demanded Bling, as Lydecker moved over to kneel next to his victim, searching him roughly.

"Anderson was a threat," said Lydecker matter of factly. "He knows too much."

"You can't just go around killing everyone in the building!"

"You let me worry about tactical decisions, soldier. Move Cale out to one of the SUVs; I'll start carrying our people out."

"I don't take orders from you, Lydecker; and I'm not a soldier. I'm not gonna let you murder all these people..."

"Bling." Logan's voice was surprisingly forceful, considering his condition. "We don't know how long we have before the Reds and the X5s start coming around. Get Max and the others out and we'll argue about this later?"

Throwing a filthy look at Lydecker, Bling complied. He lifted Syl in his muscular arms without much effort and carried her out.

"You know we can't leave any of them alive to talk about the sonic disruptor," said Lydecker. "But I thought you freedom fighter types were against excecutions."
"I am. I have a plan. Seperate out the Reds from Renfro's people and the handlers. I'm assuming you weren't gonna kill off any of your precious kids anyway?"

"They aren't a threat to the rogues; the Reds are. What are you going to do with them?"

"I'm going to save their lives."

Lisa

"Well, looks like you're the last ones standing," said a smooth, female voice. Renfro picked herself up from the wreckage where she had been playing opossum until the violence cooled down. "Hello, Deck. How are you?" she said, her voice dripping confidence and ease, even though her nose was dripping blood.

Lydecker greeted her by pointing his gun at her heart. "I was wondering when you would be up again," he said.

"Relax, Deck," said Renfro, giving the gun aimed at her a contemptuous gaze, as though it were incapable of really hurting her. "I'm not here to fight; I'm here to do business. I want to make a deal with you."

"You're not exactly in a position to bargain," Lydecker reminded his former boss.

"Just hear me out." Her voice held a silky, persuasive edge even as she tried to sound causally indifferent to the chaos around them. "I didn't come here for you, Deck, I didn't even know you were here. I came for that one," she said, nudging Anderson's fallen corpse with the toe of her expensive Italian pump. "He had a piece of technology that I was planning on taking home with me. You know…the noisy one he set off right before you executed him. I take that technology, and the x-5s I brought with me, and we go."

"How exactly is that a good deal for me?" Lydecker asked.

"We go…and we leave you alone. Manticore's not as dead as you think, Deck. The roots go deeper than you can possibly imagine, and the powers that be aren't done with you by a log shot. But if you work with me on this one, you don't need to worry about retribution for what you and your kids did to us. No revenge. We won't try to track you down. We'll even leave Eyes Only alone," she said, giving a nod in Logan's direction, "so he can continue to thwart his small time criminals in peace. Everyone can stop running and go on with their lives and live happily ever after. All you have to do is give me the sonic disabler and let me walk out of here. What do you say, Deck? Do we have a deal?"

All conscious eyes were on Lydecker as he weighed the benefits of the bargain. He tipped his head and shrugged his shoulder, as though he could find no fault with the plan and decided that there was no harm in agreeing to her terms. Then he pulled the trigger twice, shooting Renfro in the chest and turning away from her before her dead body had time to crumble to the floor.

He gave another indifferent shrug of his shoulders as he walked towards Anderson. He kicked the body over and recovered the sonic disabler, storing it safely in his own pocket. When he saw the shocked, horrified, appalled stares that Logan and Bling were giving him, he said, "Don't worry. She was probably lying," before carelessly stepping over Renfro's body to lift one of his x-5s into a fireman's carry and take him outside to safety.

Shywriter

It took Bling only another bare moment, blinking at Lydecker's disappearing back, to turn and crouch back down to Logan, preparing again to carry him outside. Predictably, the man shook his head.

"Bling, get Max outside first..."

"Logan, she's stunned and probably uncomfortable, but she'll bounce back in an hour or two. You aren't in any condition to bounce anywhere, and if we don't get you patched up soon, you'll be taking up residence in Metro Medical for a week..."

"Don't you get it?" Logan hissed, his voice strained. "If Lydecker carts her out with the others, who knows when we'll see her again!"

That actually gave Bling pause, and he wavered, finally nodding. "Okay, look – I'll put her in my car and lock her in, then'll come get you." As Logan started to protest yet again, Bling went on smoothly, "we'll get out of here as fast we can and over to Metro – I'll call Sam and see if he can meet us. If Lydecker's still loading the others he might let us get away with Max rather than give up the four or five others he hasn't loaded yet..."

"Go–" Logan agreed, unable to offer any more protest, his adrenalin-fired energy rapidly draining from him.

Bling pivoted and ran quickly to Max, lifting her easily and running with her to the doorway. Peering outside, he noticed that Lydecker was loading one of them – Zack? – into an SUV some distance over, and around the corner from his car. We might be able to sneak out of here, after all...

Bling ran to his car and smoothly opened the back door to slide Max along the seat, not visible to anyone outside the car not looking straight down onto the seat. "Max, thirty seconds and I'll have Logan here with you," he promised in a whisper, hoping she might be able to register his words. "Stay put and we'll get both you and Logan out of here."

Bling shut the door and locked his car, running back into the building. By the time he got to Logan, the man had slipped under again, breathing shallowly. Bling lost no time but scooped him up and ran back to the car, seeing a groggy Max begin to stir. Good, he felt some relief. She'll help make this a little easier.

He opened the car door. "Max – slide back. I need you to be sure he doesn't get banged up more along the way..."

And with that, Bling slid Logan's limp form along the back passenger seat, alongside the startled and blinking Max. Even in her daze, she looked at Logan in worry and her arms went carefully around him, protecting his injured shoulder and glancing at his leg wound to be sure it was no longer a threat. Grimly, Bling ran around to the front and started up his car. Max will be sure he's okay, Bling reasoned.

And when we're out of this, they'll both want to know why I didn't just load Logan in the front seat. His face relaxed only slightly as he allowed himself to imagine a recovering Max and Logan both embarrassed that he'd laid Logan in Max's arms for the ride to the hospital. I'll just tell them they're just lucky I didn't tear off his shirt first to patch him up for the ride...

Sim

Zack stirred groggily in the back seat of the SUV. His ears were still ringing and he had a hell of a headache, but long practice led him to ignore the pain and try to work out what the hell was going on. He managed to sit up and was reaching for the door handle when Lydecker opened it from the outside, the still unconscious form of Syl draped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"W...What happenned?" He asked blearily. "Are the others all right?"

"Anderson used the sonic disruptor on you again," the Colonel replied, shifting Syl expertly and depositing her into the seat beside him. "The only ones left conscious were the regular humans. Anderson and Renfro woke up briefly, but they won't be doing it again. I made sure of it."

The sound of tyres squealing made both of them look towards the road as another SUV peeled out of the airport towards the city centre.

"Then who's that?" Asked Zack.

"Probably Max, Cale and his bodyguard, taking them to get some medical attention."

Zack attempted to climb over Syl to get out of the car. "Is she badly hurt?"

"No; but he is. And I sincerely doubt he'd leave without her. Can you stand?"

Zack gripped the doorframe tightly as he got out, rather unsteadily.

"I'm ambulatory," he said gruffly. "We need to get the others out before the Reds start waking up."

"And then we need to deal with them," said Lydecker firmly. "No matter what Cale says."

"Agreed," replied Zack, emotionlessly. The pair of them made their way back into the building.

Shortly afterwards, the hangar echoed with the sound of gunfire.