Chapter Three
An Angel descends, a Demon Rises.
Zell walked confidently down the hall that night. No longer did she have to hide where she was going. All the other X5s that shared the three story barracks knew where she often spent her nights, and with whom. They all had heard the stories of the evil spirited Zell and the young beautiful Zell spending many nights planning to get back their third member, Zack.
Many of the X5's wondered about the relationship between Zell and Zephyr, Zephyr being the oldest X5, with Zell being only a few months behind, with only two X5s older than her, X5 599, Zack, and X5 499, Jaim. Being older X5s made the others look up to them.
There was not a single X5 who did not respect Zell, for she was a leader. She was always the first into a battle, and she followed only logical orders. If she could, she would go back for any fallen comrade. When Zack escaped Lydecker and Stonewall combined their forces into one unit, led by X5 593, the young upstart. She had a perfect record, no blemishes, and no spots. She was a soldier for the ages. Renfro liked her, but never used her for her personal missions. Her personal missions, she left to Meric and his band of X5 drones.
Zephyr was different than Zell in so many ways. He was the only one in his group to have a name. He demanded perfect obedience from his X5s. No one was allowed out of line while he was in charge. His kids, the ones who survived the harsh childhood Manticore put them through, were stronger then Zell's, but not as intelligent, nor nearly as resilient. They were good, but different. Renfro preferred them because her missions usually meant a lot of shooting and a lot of killing.
Zell stopped in front of Zephyrs room and knocked once before opening the door and letting herself in. She knew that Zephyr was expecting her, as he was nearly every night. Ever since they had been transferred to the new barracks-apartments, she and Zephyr had spent many nights sitting and talking until he fell asleep, and she returned to her real night-time partner Jaim.
Zephyr was just stepping out of the shower, a towel rapped around his waist. Zell looked away, but still marveled at her brother. He was tall and strong with wide shoulders and well defined arms. His face was handsome, if a little scruffy due to his hatred of shaving. Short dirty blond hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, a rather appealing picture to the average woman. He could have any girl he wanted, but he knew whom he wanted most.
"Heya," she said, "We've got a mission."
"Can I get some clothes on first?"
"You don't want to know what's happening?"
"I do, but I like to wear pants when my commanding officers speak to me."
"I do not rank you!"
"Well right now you're making me feel really uncomfortable."
"Am I? Well then…"
"Your medicine. Take them now. I don't need you going into heat without Jaim around."
"Right," said Zell, taking out a pill and popping it down before turning away so Zephyr could pull on his pants.
"So what's the mission?"
"We have three. One from Lydecker, one from Stonewall and one from Renfro."
"What does Renfro want?"
"This guy needs to die."
"Oh."
"Just your style. Go in, shoot everything that moves, get out and sleep with that little thing."
"She's not a thing!" said Zephyr, glaring at Zell and dropping his pants, revealing his tightie-whities.
"She is if she'd go for something so small," said Zell, keeping a straight face as Zephyr turned red.
"She has a name."
"And I could care less."
"I know you Zell," said Zephyr in the tone of someone who knows all.
"Of course you do my dear brother. I am the only person in this whole damned place you trust completely."
"No. I trust my girlfriend."
"So that's what they call prostitutes these days."
"Zell!" roared Zephyr, "That is uncalled for."
"I don't think so. I don't like her."
"I thought you said you didn't know anything about her."
"I did not say that."
"You had someone look into her!" said Zephyr, his face cracking into a grin.
"And if I did?" said Zell, trying hard to sound uninterested.
"What they find out will be wrong. She's on special ops. She won't be on your files."
"You could have told me that before Jaim stayed up for a week trying to find out her name."
"Jaim doesn't sleep!"
"He sleeps a little bit."
"Only after you tire him out."
"No, unlike your little human bitch, a real Manticore specimen doesn't need to sleep much after."
"Okay, enough with the torture tactics! Her name is Zelda Thomson. She's working on the X8's. She's trying to make them a little less like the X7 drones."
"Was that so bad?"
"You were the one who asked about her."
"You should have told me right off the bat."
"You know this argument is going nowhere."
"I'm aware."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I guess I should have."
"Don't do it again."
"I'll tell you next time."
"No. I mean dump the girl."
"Zelly."
"Do you ever call her Zell?"
"Never. She is Zelda, or Elda. Her friends call her Zell or Zelly."
"Why don't you?"
"The reason that I let only you call me Zeph. We're special Zell, you and me. If Manticore crumbled, we would still be here. We're musketeers."
"No. There were three Musketeers. There's only two of us."
"Zack…"
"We may run into him on this mission. We are to retrieve any X5s we encounter."
"Understood."
"And we need to save Lydecker."
"Why?"
"Because his girl, X5 468 got captured during a mission. We need to save her."
"One of Zack's kids."
"One of mine now. Zack is gone Zephyr."
"He is out brother."
"He was our brother."
"He IS our brother. We were raised together. We're the only ones who understand each other. We were first, and we'll always be first."
"The X4 49's are pretty close."
"My X5 496 is dead. X5 493 escaped, and X5 499 is sleeping with my sister," said Zephyr, and Zell answered him with a slap in the face. He responded by taking a fighting stance. Zell got to her feet and assumed the same stance. One fist forward, one fist back. Zephyr struck first with a flurry of blows to her midsection, but Zell managed to block them. She struck with her legs, delivering kick after kick, but was blocked by her brother. They continued back and forth, trading blows, until finally they both took a step back and put their hands on their heads.
"That was so uncalled for," said Zell, stepping to the side and then settling herself in the corner of his bed against the wall.
"You slapped me."
"You know how I feel about you saying stuff like that. What if someone heard."
"What about me and Zelda?"
"She's normal. They don't care at all. Jaim and I are both X5."
"We'll discuss this later. You said three parts. Kill some guy. Rescue that X5, and what?"
"Her name is Molly. She looks like my Sara."
"Her. What's the third part."
"We get revenge."
"What?" said Zephyr, his eyes burning.
"We get revenge for was done to us all those years ago. Do you remember when we were twelve."
"How could I forget. I still bear the scars of that torture."
"He killed four others. You an me, we were the lucky ones Zeph."
"Sometimes I used to think it would have been better if you had been killed. You were so out of it for a while."
"You know what they did to me."
"I wish I could have stopped them."
"You couldn't have. They would have just killed you."
"So we get revenge?"
"Yes. The radical Terrorist group Khalid has made its final mistake. When it found out that its new member was an X series, they tortured and killed her. Miranda got the tape."
"Do we know her?"
"X3 something. Her name was Camay. She looked just like your girl Mika."
"Ah. So we get to go in and blow them all to kingdom come?"
"Yes. We get bombs."
"I want knives after the scars they left on you, Cine and Misa."
"The bombs will malfunction."
"You know that for a fact?"
"I do indeed Zeph. I want a piece of these scumbags."
"Good."
"One more thing we're going to have to deal with."
"Yes?"
"The man Renfro wants dead. Its Adam."
"Adam? Our Adam?"
"Adam Matheson. He left Manticore after he dealt with me and my problems."
"And now we have to…"
"We don't. I'll see to it that one of the others has to."
"Zell, we have to. It's our mission. We have to follow orders."
"Would you kill Zack?"
"No. He's our brother."
"Well I was told to use deadly force on him," said Zell, her eyes welling up with tears, "And now this."
"Listen Angel," said Zephyr, sitting down next to her and tentatively putting his around her, "We have to."
"I know…"
"You came her just to cry, didn't you."
"I'm sorry."
"Hey, it's okay. I know you would lose respect if they saw you cry."
"Thanks."
"So you'll see to it that one of the others pulls the trigger?"
"And we're far away."
"Good," said Zephyr, "Now, I have some training to do. Want to go for a run?"
"You just showered?"
"Like I care."
"Nah. I have some reports to run over with Jaim."
"So that's what they call it…"
"Don't finish that statement."
"Fine. I've got stuff to do."
"Cool," said Zell, "I'll get out of your way little brother."
"Yeah yeah baby sister."
"Talk to you later. The mission begins in about a week."
"Why wait a week?"
"Cine, Misa and I need to get this heat thing out of our systems."
"Ah."
"See you later!" said Zell, walking out of Zephyrs room and back to her own. Zephyr moved to the door and listened for her footsteps before leaving. Her words kept running through his head. He still felt Zack was his brother. He always felt Zack was his brother, even when he and Zell were mad at him. Zack was his Twin, and nothing could get between Twins, or so thought Zephyr. A few days earlier, Zelda had told Zephyr about a technique being used on the X8's, one that made them stronger, made them faster, and made them more focused. A technique that trained them to kill without thinking, to be able to turn on each other and not feel the overwhelming guilt that always comes afterwards.
Zephyr needed to be strong.
"I am strong," thought Zephyr, "I just need to be stronger than that little bitch Jaim."
*+*+*
"Zell?" said Jaim, as he heard the door open. Instead, Renfro walked in looking rather smug.
"Expecting her?" she asked. Jaim jumped to attention and Saluted.
"At ease," she said, "I came to talk about a project."
"Yes Ma'am."
"You and X5 593 have been involved in after hours enjoyment."
"Yes Ma'am."
"How would you like to make something of it?"
"I don't understand Ma'am. Forgive my stupidity."
"Make sure Zell takes these," she said, tossing him a set of pills, "And see to it no one, not even Major Stonewall knows about these."
"Why Ma'am?"
"Because I think I have an expiriment in mind for your little girlfriend."
Authors Note: Hee hee hee! The plot Doth thicken! More to come as soon as I get around to writing it.
Legal Mumbo Jumbo: I DO NOT OWN DARK ANGEL! ONLY ZELL, ZEPHYR, JAIM, MISA, CINE, KIKAI AND MAJOR STONEWALL.