The Alpha Fights

Looking up, Max couldn't help the face splitting grin that formed on her face. Joshua was absolutely adorable. When the invitation to the gala had been sent to them, brought through the gates, and then dropped on her desk, she hadn't wanted to go. She had sat down with Zora an hour later and discussed her worries about it with her, the obvious one being that it was a trap or an ambush, and then the next one being who to bring. They had cleared her desk and come up with several contingency plans until Max was completely confident in one, and then they had looked at the invitation again.

We cordially invite Ms. Maxine Guevara and Mr. Alec McDowell, along with their Plus One, to the gala...

Max had looked at Zora and Zora had looked at Max, and right away they both said "Not Mole". The two had laughed, and then looked at the invite again. Zora started throwing names at her; Zane, Gem, Dix, Dalton, the subzero transhuman that Mole had unofficially dubbed his "arch-nemesis", but Max wasn't listening to her. One name kept on repeating itself in her mind.

Joshua.

Ever since she had met the canine transhuman in Manticore's basement, he had wanted to see the outside world. He wanted to see what people did outside the fence, where they got their food, how they lived, where they worked. And every single time he had the chance, she forbid it. She wouldn't let him outside, not even near open windows, constantly fearing that someone would see him, understand what he was, and then he would be taken away from her and become some sort of government science experiment. Or worse, he would get returned to another Manticore base.

But she didn't have to fear that anymore. Everyone knew who and what they were. They were exposed, and finally, they didn't have to hide.

"Joshua." Max said, interrupting Zora's never ending list of names. The blonde paused, and then smiled the biggest smile she had ever seen the woman wear.

"Joshua." she repeated, and then they had left Max's office to find Alec, and then to locate Joshua and tell him the news.

Now they were here, at the gala, and the big guy had never been so ecstatic in his life. He had been excited when they gave him clothes to match both her and Alec; a white shirt, black pants and shoes, and a deep purple tie, but now that they were in line to enter through the large double doors, he no longer cared what he was wearing and was all about what was around him. The chandeliers, the candles, expensive rugs and every woman's flashy jewelry. Max looked around him to Alec on his other side, smiling. Alec smiled back. Joshua was adorable, and his excitement was infectious.

Looking back ahead, she saw that they were next to be announced and enter the ballroom. Raising her head, she took a deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

She was gorgeous. Absolutely and irrevocably gorgeous. He was in the middle of a conversation with the Mayor and several high society Seattleites, but he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Thank god for parallel functioning.

The dress that had been made for her was amazing. It was the deep purple that matched his and Joshua's ties, the color making her skin look like dark satin. The dress left half of her back bare, a set of runes just peaking up along her spine. She had done her hair up, her barcode dark and prominent against the back of her neck. Slowly, she turned from her own conversation with the Mayor's wife and some other chatty women, made eye contact with him, and winked.

Time stopped while their eyes stayed connected, but then he blinked, the moment was gone, and she turned back to her conversation.

"What do you think, Mr. McDowell?" the Mayor prompted him, and for a moment Alec didn't know what to say. He had lost the conversation when Max looked at him, so he said something witty to allow his mind to catch up. The men laughed, clinking their scotch glasses to his, the crystal making a delicate chime in the air. He contributed to their conversation for another few minutes before he excused himself and gave a waiter his empty glass.

Moving slowly, he picked his way through the crowds of people, moving towards her. He watched as the fabric of the dress flowed over her hips when she shifted her feet, nudging the Mayor's wife beside her. The women all started to laugh at whatever joke was made, but Alec listened to her voice only, enjoying how it was deeper than the high pitched squeals of the other women.

"Excuse me ladies," he said once he reached them, all eyes diverting to his. He wasn't blind to how half of the women stared at him like they wanted to steal him away into some dark, private corner, and usually he would jump at them. But not tonight, or any other night for now on. "I'm going to have to steal Max away from you for a bit."

"Bring her back soon," an older woman said. She wore a blue dress and matching jacket, her wrinkled hand shaking a finger at him even though she was smiling. "She's been an absolute delight. I wish to trade more jokes with her before the night is done."

"I'll do my best." he replied, his knee melting smile out full force. One of the women, clearly married if the giant rock on her finger meant anything, swooned when he linked his arm with Max's and lead her away.

"Thank you." she said around the rim of her champagne flute. "Elizabeth and Bethany are great, but the rest of them are harpies."

Alec snorted before he led her onto the dance floor. Bethany was the Mayor's wife, so he assumed Elizabeth was the older woman in the group. He pulled Max close and waited for the music to start. From where they were, he could see Joshua at the end of the floor, dancing with several children to their own tune. The dog man had been nothing but smiles all night.

"What are we doing?" Max asked, her voice startled. He looked down at her, the live band just starting a new song.

"Dancing." he said, taking a step back to start the waltz. Max didn't move.

"I cant!" she said trying to remove her hand from his. He held on. "Alec!"

"Dance with me, Max." he said, moving close to her once again. She paused, looking at the dancing couples around them. They spun and dipped and twirled. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were wide, and her voice was so quiet he almost missed what she said.

"I don't know how."

Max wasn't someone who admitted to not knowing things. She denied, she deflected, and then she kicked ass. He felt his heart warm when she moved closer to him, their bodies completely against each other, clearly trying to hide her own inadequacy. He kissed the top of her hair, counted to three in his head, and then grabbed her hand. He spun her away from himself, then yanked her back, letting her fall into a deep dip. He brought her back up, twirled her again, then brought her close, one hand on the small of her back and the other holding her hand as tenderly as he could.

"I'll show you," he whispered in her ear, waiting for a specific string to sound before he pulled her into the dancing group of people on the floor. "Follow me."

She did just that.

The party had been going on for an hour, and finally all of the guests were present. Logan was aggravated; he was late. At least, later then he had wanted to be. He had invited Asha, half not wanting to arrive alone, and half planning on pawning her off on Alec. But she had been late, had to change dresses when their blues didn't match exactly, even though he insisted that it didn't matter. They still didn't match exactly, but it seemed to have made her happy, so he tried not to be too annoyed about it. Then there was a huge queue to the valet, which meant a huge queue to enter and be announced.

Now that they were inside the ballroom, he realized that everyone was gathering around the head table at the back of the room. Linking his arm with Asha's, he led them through the crowd, trying to get a sight of Max.

"I would like to take this opportunity," the Mayor began, Logan being able to see his head and spread arms. He was a little bit on the dramatic side. "To thank all of you for coming to this gala. As I'm sure you all know, we are here to promote and support the Transgenic Bill, which is currently being viewed in Congress. Together as a collective community of Seattle and the tri-state cities, we hope that the bill passes to allow our transgenic population rights throughout our great country." Here everyone began clapping, and the Mayor gestured to his right. Logan saw his wife join him on the raised stage. "My wife and I would like to introduce our special guests for the evening..."

When Max stepped on stage, Logan felt the wind get knocked out of his chest. She was stunning. Her make up accentuated her big brown eyes, and when she smiled they sparkled. But then Alec was beside her, wrapping his arm around her bare shoulders, ruining the moment. Air came back to his lungs cold and harsh.

Then the doors behind him blew open.

Joshua had grabbed them and pushed the four of them behind the head table seconds before the shockwave of sound hit him. He wanted to make a snarky remark about dogs having better ears, but Bethany was screaming, the Mayor was shouting at guests that people, meaning them, weren't supposed to know they were security, and Max was pissed.

Probably because they had agreed to come if there wasn't going to be any guns in the room, yet, there were several armed security guards whipping out their glocks and shooting back at the people who just shot through the gala entrance.

And this was supposed to be a nice, easy night.

Looking to his left, he saw Joshua trying to comfort the Mayor's wife, and Max unstrapping her heels and tugging at the seams on her dress.

"What are you doing?" he asked. She looked up at him quickly, then continued popping the seams out. "Max, what are you doing?"

"Shh!" she shushed, swatting his hand away when he tried to tug her dress back down. She tugged it up over her knees, and then reached under her thigh.

"Is this really appropriate right now?" the answer he received was a glare that he knew meant "Shut your face", but then he heard velcro pulling apart. Looking down at her legs, he watched as she wrestled off a loop of velcro and produced his gun and two ammunition clips from under her skirts.

The smile on her face was huge when she handed it over to him, so he knew his face looked as shocked as he felt. Then she undid the side zipper of her dress, reached into the bodice, and produced a set of four small, but severely sharp knives that had been resting against her stomach.

This was the one moment in history where she was barely dressed and he wasn't staring at her chest.

"You are the sexiest woman I know."

"I know." she said, zipping her zipper and shifting into a crouch. Alec took the hint and followed suit.

"Give us the monsters and no one gets hurt!" a voice shouted once the shooting stopped. "We're only here to exterminate the scum from our country! No one needs to get hurt!"

"Except for the scum, right?" Alec shot over the table, completely amused with himself. Max rolled her eyes.

"You'd show yourself if you were a real man!"

Alec chuckled and turned to Max. He made his face look as sad as he could manage. "But I thought I was a real boy!" he shouted back, quivering his bottom lip. "I really, really did!"

"Enough talking!" the voice said, several shots being fired into the air. Alec watched Max close her eyes. "Give yourselves up and we wont hurt anyone else!"

There's four people, Max signed to him.

Talker should be out of ammo by now, he signed back, clicking the safety off of his gun. "You promise you wont hurt anyone else?" he said out loud, gesturing to Joshua to stay low. Max pointed at the chandelier that hung over the middle of the room, then the floor.

Alec nodded.

"We promise." the man said. Alec aimed his gun and Max positioned herself at the edge of the table.

"That's a shame," Alec said, cocky grin in place. "'Cause I sure don't."

The second Alec pulled his trigger, Max flipped the head table onto its side to give them more protection. There was a large crash as glass and china broke all over the floor before them, but it was quickly over shadowed by the snap that proceeded the fall of the giant chandelier. Wires ripped from the ceiling and sparks fell, the bullets and frayed wires causing a power shortage that killed all of the lights in the room.

When the emergency lights turned on, Max had knocked out two of the four, he had shot the third in the leg and shoulder because he had almost shot her in the dark, and then he had the first guy, the one that did all the talking, staring at the business end of his favorite gun.

"Well," Alec said, pointedly looking down at the front of the man's pants; they were soaked. "That's not attractive."

"Must've gotten a good look at that face o' yours, Princess." Mole's voice rang out from the front of the room. He stood at the threshold, cigar lit and shot gun cocked, several transgenics and transhumans behind him.

"Really? Because your smell definitely proceeds you."

"What is going on?" the Mayor shouted, storming over to the middle of the room. Alec chuckled to himself when the man stumbled over pieces of the chandelier. Joshua was still holding the man's wife, trying to calm her crying and guide her out of the room. "Who are these people?" he shouted, waving towards the doors. Zora was guiding the guests through the double doors, away from the intruders and broken glass. "And where-"

"They're mine," Max interrupted, tossing Zane two of the knives as he moved towards the two men she had knocked out. She pivoted to face the Mayor, and Alec felt bad for the man when he recognized the glare she was pinning him with.

That glare meant, "Say one more word and I'll gut you with a spoon".

"And I brought in the gun and the knives. I knew you wouldn't keep up your end of the bargain. Three of your goons are police officers that have given me hell on multiple occasions at sector points, four of them were bragging to woman about how they were carrying under your explicit orders to protect the public from the freaky transgenics all night, and two of them were wearing pants so tight I could see the guns from a mile away." Alec was one hundred precent positive the Mayor lost control of his bowels when Max turned, raised her hand and pointed the knife at the Police Commissioner who was stalking towards them. "And if you say one word I'll let the Mayor know that you left your post monitoring the valet to sneak in his daughter and have some fun with her in the upstairs bathroom."

The Commissioner's face went red, and Max turned to the Mayor, who was as white as the table linen. "I guess we know how these four got in with semi automatics, huh? Go pull your daughter out of the master bathroom on the second floor and thank the Blue Lady that we freaky transgenics were smart enough to know we'd need a contingency plan."

"Master bathroom?" Alec asked, watching the Mayor run out of the doors and up the staircase in the next room. The Commissioner made a beeline for the back door. "You are not a nice girl when you're angry."

"I don't like getting shot at; ruins my buzz." she replied, moving to stand next to him. Talker, as Alec had mentally named him, was still shaking at the end of his gun. "Who are you?" she asked, but all Talker did was shake even more. She rolled her eyes and put her hand on top of Alec's, forcing him to put his gun down. Alec complied and put it away all together. "What's your name?" she asked, but all Talker did was mumble incoherently.

"Look," Alec said, really starting to get fed up. "My name's Alec, and this here is Max. If you answer Max's questions, you get to stare at our pretty faces. But you see, she doesn't like guns, and I don't like the smell of urine, so if you don't answer our questions, we're going to pass you off to that guy." Alec pointed to Mole on his right, and watched Talker's eyes widen when they settled on the transhuman. Mole puffed some smoke and gave the guy the creepiest smile Alec had ever seen someone pull off. "So," Talker's head snapped back to Alec so quickly he was surprised he didn't give himself whiplash. "What's your name?"

"Robert." Talker said, blinking several times. "My name's Robert Kilherm."

"Why are you here?" Max asked, Robert quickly telling them about the radical anti-transgenic group he was a part of. Then he started telling them about how he would leave the group if they let him live, which quickly turned into a teary story about his cat at home named Tom. Alec could feel the muscle over his left eye starting to twitch.

"Sorry to interrupt," Zane said, glaring at Robert until he stopped talking. It wasn't very long. "You might want to know that Robert's three friends have three new, matching tattoos."

Robert yelped when Max kicked the back of his knees and ripped the collar of his jacket down. The tattoo was fresh, the skin around it still irritated, but the lines were clear and precise.

"You know, I was just thinking this morning that I'm pretty sure I have a cavity coming in," Alec said, allowing the sarcasm to drip from his voice. "Do you think I qualify for Bane's Friends and Family discount?"

Oh oh oh, hope you guy's didn't forget about big ol' Bane from chapter 5... Looks like he's going to be causing Max and Alec some grief soon. Let me know what you liked, I love hearing from you guys.

-K