James Cameron and Charles Eglee own Dark Angel. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned (or any other) copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons (either real or fictional) is unintended.

Running Towards Megiddo

Well, Logan was right when he said I couldn't miss the place, Max thought as she looked through her binoculars at the long abandoned Boeing factory in Everett, roughly thirty miles north of Seattle. The building had once been the largest in the world, used by the now-defunct Boeing aeronautical corporation to build its wide-body planes – the 747, 767, and 777. The building was so large that it was possible to fit 75 football fields, or 911 basketball courts, inside. Shortly after the turn of the century, Boeing had decided to move its operations, though the company retained the building for several more years, utilizing it for certain research and development projects until the plant was converted into a museum. After the Pulse, though, the entire area was all but completely abandoned. The complex was very spread out, allowing its current residents an opportunity to keep an eye on their surroundings and prevent any easy access. Had anyone but an X-5 been undertaking the assault, Max doubted that an unobserved approach would have even been possible.

It seemed strange to her that Rico had left Seattle while in the middle of making a power-grab, but Max had seen stranger things in her days. She and Rory had discussed the unexpected move of their prey, and decided that he had likely used the expansive space within the factory to set a wide array of traps. He's gotta be expecting me, Max knew. First the briefcase in the alley, then the ambush at Exarchos' place, and now this...

"The sky's gonna start to brighten a bit within the hour," Rory commented. "If we're going in, we should probably do it now."

"I know," Max replied, concentrating on slowing her heartbeat and calming her nerves. She could already feel her adrenaline starting to pump, and that was a bad sign. The human body only had a finite quantity of stored energy, and while an X-5's system could store more than a normal human, it would also go through that energy far more quickly. Max didn't want to burn herself out before she even reached her destination, especially not with such a vast area to search. It was not inconceivable that the assault could take a long time.

Having left their motorcycles near the junction of I-5 and Hwy 526, the two were forced to cover the rest of the distance on foot. Finally, after a quick but deliberate advance, they reached throwing distance, hiding behind a wreck of an SUV that Max suspected had been sitting in the huge parking lot since the day of the Pulse. "If you were a big-time criminal kingpin, where would you hide?" Rory asked his sister. Max noticed that he seemed every bit as uncertain as she did.

"If he suspects that I'm coming for him, he probably has himself locked up as tightly as possible," Max muttered. "And he probably has his best men around him."

"We're probably gonna have to kill a few of them," Rory commented. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Max admitted. Though she had sworn to do everything in her power to prevent any deaths, she also had to acknowledge the fact that as long as she and Rory were so dangerously outnumbered, they couldn't afford to take any chances. They would each have to put their man down as quickly as possible. If they could do so without killing, they would, but Max was also well aware that she might not have an alternative at some point. It's all about your intent, she reminded herself. As long as you honestly intend to do this without killing, and do everything in your power to avoid any deaths, then you'll have no reason to be disappointed in your efforts.

"I don't hear anything," Rory commented.

"Neither do I," Max admitted, "unless, of course, I count your heartbeat. You nervous?"

"Not at all," Rory answered, though Max knew from his increased heart rate that he was lying. "You?"

"I'm just fine," Max also lied, knowing that Rory already knew the truth. She scanned along the rooftops, hoping to find some sign of a sentry or... a camera. With a thin grin on her face, Max pointed to a small camera no larger than her hand, positioned at the corner of the large construction plant. "That's not supposed to be there," she muttered.

"Huh?" Rory asked.

"That's a SecureTech IRC-410," Max answered. "The company only introduced the model about three months ago, so someone's been out here to install it. I think we just found the bad guys."

"Great," Rory muttered.

"That's the good news," Max said, shifting her weight slightly, preparing to move in an instant if she needed to. She saw that Rory had noticed her movement, and had followed suit.

"Then what's the bad news?" Rory asked.

"The bad news is that the 'IRC' in the product number stands for 'Infra-red camera,' " Max answered. "They probably know we're here."

"Then what are they waiting -" Rory's final words were cut off by gunfire directed in their direction. Bullets danced off of the asphalt and tore through the SUV, but Max and Rory were already moving as quickly as they could, preparing to dive into the building. Max let loose with her MP-5, emptying the clip as she dashed toward a door on the side of the building. By the time she reached the door, the gunfire had weakened it enough so that it easily caved in under the force of the jumping side kick she directed at its center. Rory came in right after her, and the two were greeted with a salvo of bullets from another guard. With a lightning quick movement, Max produced a ball of flash powder she had encased in a thin pottery shell and hidden beneath her tunic. She tossed the ball at her attacker, and the blast of light that resulted blinded him long enough for her to incapacitate him, though leave him alive.

"You know, it probably would have been easier, and safer, to have just shot him," Rory commented.

"I'm not doing this job because it's easy," Max returned with a grim smile. "It was possible to put him down without killing him, so I did."

"Okay," Rory replied. "Just don't get careless trying to prove something to yourself."

"Don't worry about me," Max assured her brother. "I guess this is where we split up?"

"I guess so. Be careful, alright?"

"You to." Without another word, Max dashed off down the corridor in the opposite direction. "You hear me okay?" she muttered, hoping the sub-vocal microphones that she and Rory were using would actually work in the large, metal building. She had concerns about the signal being broken up.

"I hear you just fine," Rory replied. "Now stop talking to me and pay attention." Max smiled, but kept quiet, as she continued to run through the building, covering as much territory as she could. There had been no apparent escape vehicles outside, so she knew that at least one vehicle was inside the building on the ground floor. She just needed to get into the main hangar. She turned a corner, running through another dark, concrete hallway toward the center of the building. She finally reached a heavy metal door, and could hear a lot of activity on the other side. Jackpot.

A few seconds was all she needed to place a small plastic explosive charge on the lock. Just before she pressed the detonator, though, she heard gunfire erupt from the other side. I'm running late, she thought, knowing Rory had already arrived to cut off Rico's escape. She blew the lock and dashed into the hangar, opening fire herself as she did her best to find cover from guards that had very quickly turned their attention in her direction.

-------------------------------------------------

Shinji Minamoto had watched the approach of the two vigilantes with some interest, surprised that they now seemed to be working together. He considered calling off his sister's plan, due to too many unpredictable elements, but decided against it. She had, after all, warned him not to return home until Justice was dead. He wasn't about to lose the privilege of sleeping in his own bed. When the gunfire had started, Shinji had motioned for his men to move into action.

Four of the best trained assassins in the world ran into the darkness, their combat fatigues helping them disappear into the night as they moved into position to eliminate both Rico's men and the vigilantes that had shown up to deal with the criminal kingpin. Shinji stayed where he was, with one last man standing next to him with a pair of military binoculars. His spotter would help in detecting possible targets, and Shinji would then use his sniper rifle to eliminate anyone he could. They're all pretty much cut off, Shinji knew. All we have to do is keep them from escaping.

-------------------------------------------------

Max fired blindly, doing her best to guess where her attackers were standing. She could hear continued gunfire directed in the opposite direction, so she knew that Rory was still alive and attracting some of the attention of the guards. At least I'm not in this all by myself, she decided. Giving up on using care with her enemies, at least for the meantime, Max lobbed a grenade over the crates she was using as cover. An echoing explosion followed, and there was suddenly enough quiet for her to hear a car engine starting. She came out from behind cover and caught sight of a black Mercedes with four passengers. The large hangar doors were opening, and Max could hear footsteps on the catwalks above. She turned upwards just in time to see four gunmen in military fatigues setting their sights on her and Rory. "Get down!" she yelled, though she knew in her heart she was too late. Rory fired in the direction of Rico's Mercedes, presumably hoping to disable the vehicle. The brief moment of action deprived the other X-5 of an opportunity to escape injury. Out of the corner of her eye, Max saw Rory's body crumple to the ground, as he was unable to avoid the new gunmen.

-------------------------------------------------

From his concealed vantage point outside the warehouse, Shinji Minamoto grinned. Two quick movements of his right index finger was all that was required to blow out both of the front tires on Ricardo Rico's Mercedes. Simultaneously, he could hear a new salvo of automatic weapons fire, presumably from his own men. One of the vigilantes collapsed to the floor, and Shinji used the free moment to pump two extra rounds into his genetically engineered enemy. Well, that should take of that, he decided. With any luck, that was Justice. Anything else at this point is gravy.

-------------------------------------------------

Desperation took over Max's mind as she assessed the situation. Rory was down and not moving, and she was being prevented from even getting close enough to see if he was alive, to say nothing of being able to tend to his injuries. Even worse, she could hear Rico yelling to two of his men – Max assumed the third guard in car had likely been killed when Rory had opened fire.

"Cover me!" Rico yelled as he started to run away on foot. Max could barely make out the two guards fanning out, taking up positions to hold her at bay. She looked up again, frantically trying to make certain that no one had been able to move into position to get a shot at her from the catwalks above. Even with luck on my side, I only have a few seconds before someone gets a clean shot, she realized. Deciding to take action, and acknowledging the fact that she would have shoot to kill if she was to make it out alive, Max gathered her strength for a counter-attack of her own.

She was a blur of motion as she dashed from behind the crates, moving toward a large 747 that remained in the hangar as one of the displays from the failed museum. The large aircraft's wing provided her cover from the gunmen above as she targeted the two guards remaining by the front doors. Not bothering to save ammunition, she emptied the entire clip at the men, wounding each of them enough to kill them several times over.

-------------------------------------------------

"Rico's fleeing the building," Shinji's spotter commented.

"I see him," Shinji replied. He knew he could easily kill his sister's final competitor if he wanted to, but with Rico dead, Justice, if she still lived, would be able to simply leave by any route. He wanted to have her run out the front, too. Rico would provide all the bait he needed. A muffled shot rang out as Shinji put one bullet into Rico's abdomen, right at the bottom of his rib cage. The wound would not be immediately fatal, but would certainly serve to slow Rico down long enough for Justice to come out after him. Once Shinji had a clean shot, he would finish them both.

-------------------------------------------------

With Rico's guards on the ground level dead, Max only had to her turn attention to the men above. She ran along the length of the plane as she reloaded both of her MP-5's, holding one in each hand as she used the fuselage as cover from any shots her enemies might take. Finally, she reached the tail of the plane and jumped outward, turning over in mid-air so that she was looking up. She pressed down on both triggers, spraying dozens of rounds up at her enemies before she landed in a backward somersault that carried her underneath an old DC-10. Two down, she told herself, certain that she had gotten head shots on two of the gunmen. No body armor would defend them against that.

She immediately heard quick footsteps above, and a thin smile came to her face. The final two men were running away. Yeah, you better run, she thought with relief. No point in sticking around trying to protect a boss who already ran away.

Pushing her amusement from her head, Max ran over to Rory's side, pulling him behind a large sign that described the 747 she had been using as cover. "Rory?" she asked frantically. "Are you okay?"

"I'm... alive," he replied weakly. She looked at the floor and noticed the bright red stains where she had dragged his body, and she could see that he was dreadfully pale. Even without her first aid training, Max was certain she would have known that Rory was on the verge of going into shock. In fact, she found it amazing that he was still coherent. "Go," he muttered.

"I have to get you to a hospital," she replied.

"We're... X-5," he answered simply, a small cough punctuating his words and bringing blood to his lips. Internal bleeding, Max noted. This is not good.

"You're hit bad," Max said, counting no fewer than six wounds as she pored over Rory's tunic. "I can get Rico some other time. This is more important. Even as she said the words, Max found it strange to hear herself express concern for another when she could instead be visiting vengeance upon a criminal. Something in her breathed a sigh of relief despite the circumstances as she realized that the young woman she had once been was not quite as dead as she had feared.

"Get him now," Rory said, his face grimacing in pain as he forced his lungs to work enough to give breath to his words. "I'll be here when you're done, and with him dead, you'll have a chance to give me some blood. It's not quite... safe enough for that kind of thing right now." Max pondered his words as she saw a new pool of blood begin to grow around her brother's body.

"Okay," Max said evenly. "But don't die until I get back. This'll only take a minute."

"I know," Rory replied. As Max dashed away after her quarry, Rory gazed again at the small blocks of C-4 that were arranged around the catwalks above. He found it curious that Max had noticed a small security camera on the outside roof, but had overlooked explosives that were obviously placed in order to bring down the whole building.

-------------------------------------------------

Shinji watched in glee as a black-cloaked figure dashed after Rico, slide-tackling the wounded man only twenty-five feet from the front doors. There was still plenty of light to give the Yakuza gunman a clean shot, and no immediate cover that the second vigilante would be able to use for cover. Such a terrifying presence in the city for a year now, Shinji reflected, and it was actually surprisingly easy to lure her into the open and set her up for death.

-------------------------------------------------

"Your days are over," Max hissed as she grasped Rico by the lapel of his expensive suit.

"Go ahead, kill me," he said with a surprisingly satisfied look on his face. "At least I got one of you."

"What?" Max asked, looking into the man's eyes. His only response was to raise a small plastic object in his right hand.

"No!" Max yelled, trying to snatch the detonator from Rico's hand before he could press the button. She failed. Max was thrown down firmly against the pavement by the force of the explosion, and her ears began to ring loudly. She could feel her hair melt under the heat of the flames that shot out of the building, and her one rational thought allowed her to get to her feet and carry Rico away from the building before they were both trapped under any debris. The ground shuddered as the entire hangar collapsed, tons of steel and concrete sending up a cloud of dust and smoke that prevented Max from seeing or breathing with any degree of ease.

-------------------------------------------------

"Damnit!" Shinji cursed as the hangar erupted in flame. Even at his distance, the initial shock of the explosion knocked his aim off just long enough for the resulting dust and debris to conceal his targets from view. "Do you see them?" he asked desperately.

"No," his associate responded. "I can only see smoke and dust. I don't even see our men anywhere."

"You're not going to," Shinji muttered, instantly acknowledging that his sister had lost some of her best soldiers in her move against Rico and Justice. Shinji hoped against hope that both targets were dead. Otherwise he doubted his sister would ever forgive his failure.

-------------------------------------------------

Max drove quickly, hoping to get Rico to a hospital before he died. "You damned well better live," she cursed under her breath. When the hangar had collapsed, Max had been faced with a decision – she could either stay around and try to dig out Rory, or she could get Rico to a hospital. If she dug for Rory, she had little doubt that Rico would die before she got him some medical attention. If she brought Rico back, she was under no illusions that Rory would doubtlessly die before she could return. In the end, she had to admit to herself that not only was Rory already likely dead, he stood little chance of surviving until she dug him out from under tons of debris. And that was if he had been lucky enough to survive both his gunshot wounds and the collapse of the building.

"I'm bringing you back to face the people you hurt," she spat. Max temporarily ignored the pain of having lost her brother, and instead focused on the success she was certain he would have enjoyed her having. She had not only captured the bad guy, but she had managed to bring him back alive to face the authorities. Even as she began to congratulate herself, however, his forced, wheezing breaths stopped abruptly.

"No!" she screamed, slamming on the brakes and pulling her vehicle over to the side of the highway. "We're almost there. You can't die now! I won't let you!" She got out and ran around the car she had stolen, pulling Rico from the passenger seat and immediately beginning CPR on him, trying to breathe life back into lungs that were full of blood. Every time she compressed his chest, she noticed a slight bit of blood gush from the bullet wound in his abdomen. No, it can't end like this! she swore. I can't lose Rory and the bad guy.

She continued to work for several minutes until a police cruiser pulled up behind her stopped vehicle. Two cops jumped out and shined flashlights in her face. "What the hell is going on here?" they asked, though Max was certain that neither of them had any idea what to make of a cloaked form giving CPR to a gunshot victim.

"Holy crap, it's Justice," the other patrolman muttered as he drew his sidearm. "She's giving CPR to Rico."

"I'm Honor," Max heard herself spit back in reply. "Don't just stand there. Do something!"

"Dispatch, this is unit 54," the policeman said into his walkie-talkie. "We need an ambulance right now, out on I-5..." Max didn't hear any of the rest, as she vaulted over the rail at the edge of the shoulder. Within moments she was safely out of reach and heading back towards Logan's penthouse. It was the only place she could think to go where she would feel safe.

To be continued..................................