Hidden Danger Crouching Cat.

By Shannon Hearn

The characters of Dark Angel are owned by Twentieth Century Fox Television and Cameron Eglee productions. All other characters are of my creation.

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Thanks to Brin for giving me the Kick when I needed it. As Muses go, You're a chainsaw welding ass kicker for getting people off their asses and writing.

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Parental advisory: This chapter is rated "R" due to it containing mild sexual content and nudity.

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Chapter 11: Aftereffects, Asha Barlow Skinny-dipping and Max at the beach

The static on the screen filled the air, as the network programming slowly gave way to the familiar yet tame flash of the Freedom Streaming Video Bulletin:

"This Cable hack will last at least sixty seconds, it cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped and it is the only free voice left in this city. For months, the Crime lord Pierpont Limpkin has used his power and influence to corrupt several officers of the Internal Affairs Department of the Seattle Police department. This fear and intimidation of the officers on the force has ended. The officer whose family you have been threatening will start giving the unedited reports your associates forced him to change and edit to the State District attorney. Your time has ended Limpkin. This has been a Streaming Freedom Bulletin, Peace, Out."

With a click of static, the broadcast ended and Johna and his family took a sigh of relief as they turned away from the Television and looked around to the individuals that had helped them. Johna saw not monster, or creatures but people whose hearts were big as his own. Johna knew that there would be repercussions, but his family was safe and that Limpkin would have his ass nailed to the wall for his criminal doings. If Limpkin walked on the White Slavery charges, he would be nailed by the police corruption charges. The police had a long way to go to rebuild their trust with the people of the community. Now from the look of things, Eyes Only would have some of his people keep an eye on them for the foreseeable future until Limpkin was in prison.

From the way that things were going, he had at least thirty volunteers to aid him in his battles. Now for the therapy bills.

***

Asha Barlow was looking at the ocean, the waves were moving back-and-forth as she thought about what she had been through over the past few days. Max had moved from being an enigma to someone she understood more, this was not a mission of Max it was her people, it was her life. Asha just wanted to take a bath, or swim, whichever one came first so that she could clear her head. Asha just started walking towards the nighttime water and shed through the layers of her clothing until she walked naked into the water. The shock of cold hit her mid ankle and she shivered like crazy letting out a yelp in the process. The rest of her journey into the water was more manageable after that as she swam out into the nighttime water.

The feeling of the cold water against her skin made her forget about her worries as she remembered her pre-Pulse childhood with her family.

Asha had always wondered about how she wound up with the African word for "hope" being her name. The night when her "salt of the earth" mother had said that, she was the most cherished life she had brought into the world. Asha had felt that there was something her mom was holding back from her that she needed to know for her own good and probably her life. Something that her late brother never got the chance to say the answer to her question of why her mom saw her as she did and why there was forty grand put in a college trust for her. Years later her brother was beat to death by a group of corrupt Cops as he was investigating information as the original Supreme Commandant of Security First World.

Asha had felt that she needed to escape from the problems that had hit her over the head from the past few days. It was not until she stopped just off the shore and looked back at the city she saw the hugeness of the world around her. The raw emotion and feeling of the big picture made her feel safe as she treaded in the ocean water.

The feeling that there was something near her that was sneaking around attempting to find out what she was. Then she felt something grip her leg. She screamed as she tried to kick whatever it was off her leg. Then suddenly in the full terror she was in she urinated like crazy in the water. Whatever it was had let go, then there was a sudden splash out of the water as something broke the surface. It was one of the Aquatics. Nani. From the look that she had on her face, she was spitting something out like she had gotten a mouthful of something really sour. It took Asha a moment to realize that it was Nani who was tugging on her leg that moment earlier. In all of Asha's fear, she had just urinated in the Nani's face when she was underwater.

"Sorry..." was all Asha could say as the child looked at her.

"Why, how did you do that, make the water taste like jellyfish." Nani said with her best Ordinary.

"I just do it when I am scared, and cold as Hell." Asha said to the water-breathing child as she attempted to process what had just happened.

"Asha," Nani said, "I'm budding like you."

"What do you mean?" Asha said wondering what the child was talking about.

"I need to show you on shore." The young child twitched trying to rearrange the top of her speed suit. With that Nani started to swim off with her head above the surface of the water. Asha started to follow; starting to realize that was something personal that the two of them needed to talk about. Puberty. The hormonal nightmare that turns all little children into young adults within a matter of years. It was time for the "training-bra" talk.

***

Quinn was sitting on his surfboard, looking around at the night sky. It was times like this that he could make sense of the world. After the past few days, the experience with Aspen had still to sink in. The creature from the Black Lagoon had just communicated with her as if it was an everyday event. Were all the other things that she said knowing about real?

Then what was she?

For several moments, Quinn waited for a wave to come in for him to ride it. The currents were behaving like a heartbeat, pulsing at a rhythm of its own. Then at the right beat of the heart, he angled his board and caught the wave. He laid as low as he could to achieve the maximum amount of control over the surface of his surfboard. His ability of move around on the currents brought him comfort as the events started to make sense, then at that moment, he slipped on his board just as the curl of the wave came down upon him. Quinn quickly found himself hit over his head by several thousand gallons of Ocean water. The roar of the waves was deafening as his ears flooded with water and the pressure changed.

In his attempt to swim to the surface, he hit a handful of sand. The darkness was quickly taking him as his brain, starved of oxygen, started to attempt to cannibalize nutrients from his body to keep his system going. Then at that moment, two hands reached down, grabbed him, and pulled him up with incredible strength. The roar of the water moved over him like an unearthly creature as the light from the surface looked as if it wanted to embrace him.

Breaking the surface of the water, Quinn gasped for air as if it was the most precious thing for him to possess. The moments passed like an eternity for him as Quinn started to gain his senses and looked around him as the waves patted at his wetsuit. Then he saw the head of a woman nearby. She was treading water as she looked at him as she was holding on to his surfboard. His Surfboard, Delilah.

"Um, Hi there." Quinn said looking at the woman whose long brown hair clung to the back of her wetsuit like a drowned entity. Then she just waved at him. "Yeah, right! Um, was that you who pulled my ass out of that mess I was in by me drowning." Quinn attempted to say to the woman as most of his mind started to shut down as he started to realize that this was the individual who had saved him.

"You're not a good swimmer." The woman said to him in a voice that almost sounded like a dolphin's but very articulated to him as she attempted to sound like a human.

"Let me guess, you know a girl by the name of Aspen." Was all he said, and the response out of the woman was a simple nod up and down to confirm what he thought.

"Yes. She is my friend." She said as she started to look at him and worry. "Do, you know Max, Logan, and Asha?" She said in somewhat troublesome articulation.

"No, but I am seriously creped now." Quinn said as he moved toward his board to start to shield him from any attempted attacks from this woman if she turned out to be one of the "creatures" that Aspen knew. "Listen, are you one of the beings that Aspen knows. You know a Mermaid, or a Dark Angel?"

"I'm what was called once a Mermaid. But I am insulted by the concept of being called such a thing." The sour look on the Woman's face was plain enough for him to know that he had just royally irked her off. He suddenly remembered that Aspen had mentioned knowing Nymphs; calling this woman a Mermaid was probably the worse thing he could have said to her face.

"I'm so royally sorry about insulting you 'bout the entire Mermaid thing." Quinn said attempting to save face as well not be staked down by this woman or her "friends." "Listen, I just want to get to shore and lets try to keep this embarrassing situation to our selves." Quinn said as he moved onto the board.

"Um', Listen, I'm searching for a friend of mine and I think that she might be in the area." The woman said as she started to move towards him as he started to mount the surfboard. "I was heading towards the shore to see if she was there and was wondering could talk for a while. I don't get a chance to talk to 'Landers' much given the bad experience that I've had in the past." Quinn just looked at her trying to figure out what the Nymph was wanting from him.

"Listen I know that Aspen is your friend, so lets from the get-go put our names out for each one of us to know." Quinn put as he attempted to make some more sense of the situation.

"I'm Hannah, and you're..." Hannah put as she swam at incredible speed by him. Quinn knew that she was at least part dolphin.

"Quinn. Well at least your not that Shark guy that sprung up during my surfing with Aspen." He said as he laid down on the board and road the tail end of the wave in next to Hannah.

"Yeah, Sharky can be a little intimating when you first see him, but he is the nicest person that I know. Plus he is great with my kids."

"You're a mom..."

"Yes, I have 8 children. The oldest of which has just developed her arms and legs and has started to pester her younger siblings."

"Enjoy them when they are young." Quinn said looking by the nymph. "They grow up fast and you will wish for the days when they were young."

"I will, but given the events over the past few days my people and Aspen's have been dealing with a mess of serious proportion." Hannah said as the ground started to come up underneath her and Quinn.

"Wait. Aspen is from a different 'people' than you? Are they different from me?" Quinn stated as he slid off the surfboard and flipped it underneath his arm. He turned to see Hannah's athletic frame come out of the water. It was then he saw the two holes on her lower ribcage of her swimsuit. She had gills, No tail, but Gills.

"Well tell me about Aspen, I heard that she was on the run from some of her family."

"Aspen is running from the people that are hunting down the various kinds of our people."

"You mean that the people that are after her are not her family but are hunting her family down. Each and every last member she knows."

"Yes."

"Oh, my God." Quinn came to the realization that Aspen was trying to protect her from the world she knew.

"Quinn..." Hannah said, "I'm Okay with being on the run, but I know there will be a day that Me and my children will be able to play freely with other Landers in peace."

"So Hannah, Aspen is part of the group of people that is helping you in achieving this dream?"

"Yes, she and many others are working together for this dream." She said as they walked up the beach. Quinn was taken back by her talking about what she was involved with. Then they ran across two people sitting on the beach talking to each other. It took a moment for Hannah to realize it was Nani and Asha talking to each other.

"Hey, there are my friends up ahead, Quinn." Hannah started to run to where the two girls were sitting. "Nani, Asha what are you two girls up to?"

"Nothing much Hannah..." the sopping wet black haired woman said with a large brown blanket wrapped around her to shuck off the cold of the northern Seattle night. "Just sharing some girl talk Hannah. We just talked about life, experiences, body changes, and just growing up."

"Asha has been telling me about her childhood." The little nymph said looking up with her shortcut black hair and Eurasian eyes that give her the appearance of a cat. Quinn looked at Asha and saw that this woman looked also like a cat as well. In the back of his mind, he was thinking maybe this girl was from the same people as Aspen was.

"Yeah, I told her about all the crazy stuff that I did, stealing my brother's car, taking my first vodka on rocks with a fake ID, and the infamous Tequila Dance at my sweet sixteen birthday party." Asha said rolling her bare feet into the sand.

"Wow," Quinn said as he looked at the three girls talking. Planting his surfboard into the sand, he sat down and just watched these three girls just talk. It was surreal yet normal at the same time given that he had just walked into the Twilight Zone. Just over the dunes behind them, several pairs of feline eyes were watching him as they came down to them. Little did he know that in twenty-four hours Eyes Only would be yelling at him at the top of his lungs for bumping into the events to follow. He should have taken the blue pill this morning.

***

Max was sitting on the deck of Steinbeck's cannery looking out at the ocean waves smash against the concrete pillars. The serenity of the ocean was as close as she was going to get to being on top of the Space needle tonight. However, the feeling that for the moment she had won a battle she would win. There were times that her did not suck and this was one of them. Behind her, the cybernetic whirr of Logan's Exo moving as he came towards her.

"You know Max we won a battle today." He said as the two day-old scruffiness of his beard twitched as he spoke.

"Yes we did." Max said looking out to the sea. Time was not on her side. She wanted to desperately kiss Logan right there, move to the beach, shed their clothes, and have the butterflies in her stomach jump as they made love for the first time. She wanted to be seen as a human, not as some creature cooked up in a lab. She wanted to sit down with Logan and talk about having a family, children just like Logan's niece Brittany, and have a happy life together. Fate as would have it had other things in mind. She just wanted to be normal like everyone else. However, NO, she had to be stuck in the body of a Genetically Engineered super soldier made for one purpose only. To destroy her enemies.

To hell with the Virus that kept her from her love, She just wanted to touch Logan with all of her heart to feel alive with love. But thanks to Manticore, she had been cursed to never touch her love again, until she found a way to break the spell cast upon her by her former masters. She felt like Rutger Hauer in the movie LadyHawk. Forever separated but always close to each other until the Eclipse set them free. When would her eclipse occur for her to get her life back?

"Max. I know that things are not easy for you but know that we will like this thing between us. But remember that I still love you with all my heart." Logan said looking deeply into her brown eyes and came within inches of touching her brown olive skinned face. He just stopped short of touching her but the emotion he desperately wanted to express towards her were put a stop to by the virus in her body.

"Logan I wish there was a way that I could show how much I love you." Max said as she moved away and decided to head out for a walk on the beach. "I just want to be a normal girl, Logan." In that instant, she blurred away towards the other end of the cannery and walked out the door.

Logan just stood there for several moments wondering how much Max could take of this Hell Manticore had put her in. Then he turned around to see Shadow talking with Alac and Joshua. The motley crew was up to something but little did he know it would be the means of allowing both him and Max to hold each other as if they never had before. In love's caring embrace.

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"Okay guys tell me a bit about the Virus that Max has and its effects on Logan" Shadow said as he looked at his fellow X-series and the large canine Nomalie before him.

"I put Little Fella's virus papers into my painting by accident." Joshua said looking sheepishly at the Transgenic Field Medic.

"Max left them at Josh's and in one of his bursts of artistic fervor, they sort of wound up in one of His paintings." Alac said trying to avoid the fact that he was the one that had given Joshua the papers in the first place.

"Great, just great." Shadow just said looking around the scene between his old Army pal and the artist Dog Boy.

"Listen, Joshua went through a lot just to get Joshua number two back." Joshua said to Shadow.

"Okay Josh, so we have the notes and we have the painting. So all we need to do is get the paint off the paper." Shadow said looking at Joshua. Then with sadness in his eyes, Joshua looked down at Shadow and wanted to worry some more. "If there was some way to get Little Fella's papers out of my painting without damaging them." He said attempting to wrestle with the question at his disposal.

"If there is a way to look under it, why don't we X-ray the painting?" Jim said coming into the conversation with Logan.

"When my Uncle Jonas got several Rembrandt paintings at an auction, he had them authenticated by an art expert who used an X-ray machine to look underneath to view the pencil sketches underneath."

"Well contact the guy who has one of these things and lets use it." Shadow said looking at Logan wanting more information from him.

"Well sorry, but the only place that my Uncle Jonas trusted with his art was a curator at the Iconographic gallery." Logan said as Joshua and Alac started to look at each other as if Logan just said eureka and they all shed their clothes and streaked across the city.

"Logan, we'll contact a friend we know at the Gallery." Alac said looking at Logan.

"Call Rita." Joshua said as his canine face grinned in hope and glee. He was going to visit his muse once again.

***

Max just ran across the beach, her bear feet pounding across the sand at incredible speed. All her anger and all of her fear were transmuted to the soil. She felt the deaths of all those around her, Tinga, Crow, Eva, Ben, Linda. For the Blue Lady, Linda. She was so afraid, was Linda still alive after all these years. How many times was her sister raped by her foster dad?

Had the authorities moved her to another foster family? Had Lucy fled to the streets? Was she happy? Was she sad? All those questions flowed through her mind as she attempted to remember the feeling of Logan's deep caress against her face, the near sensual way that her body heaved by the way his hand touched her bear flesh. She could feel the pert of her breasts as the image of making love to him. True love, not heat based mating urges, but True romantic, caring, "I will spend the rest of my life with you till the day I die" Love. It went against Max's entire upbringing being girly and such.

Max's most recent dreams were filled with imagery of her and Logan being together in some strange place, It was sparsely furnished but had that flair of it being both her and Logan's ranging from her taste in books and Logan's taste in Eyes Only gear. However, there was something on the walls, it was a child's drawings of her and Logan with a small child next to them sitting on the back of her Motorcycle.

She spun around in the main living area to see a little girl with all of Logan's features but her flowing black hair and dark olive skin sitting on a couch curled up with a book. The looked up from the text she was reading and blurred over towards Max.

"Mommy, your home." The girl said touching and holding her mother around her waist. Max just looked into the child's eyes, so much like her's but there was a difference, she knew who her mother was. There was something that caught her attention as her daughter pulled away from her the child raised her right hand up to show the inside of her wrist. There were markings, in some language she did not know. "Mommy, I made the same tattoo on my wrist like the one that you have on yours." It took a moment but Max looked down at her wrist to see the same symbols on her right wrist. Then she turned around to see a very grown up Brittany and some Blond Girl who was a little bit older standing right behind her. The Blond Girl walked over to Max and tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Max, you have an appointment with the committee tonight about Transgenic integration."

Max said "Okay, Fiona. Just let me have some personal time with my child." The dream had felt like it was real and it had happened. However, given the way that things looked around her, it was the future. Max had kept waking up at that time wondering if the Dream was some message of her unconscious or some memory from the future. She did not know what it meant but all she wanted right now was to be a normal person. That was until she collapsed over one of the dunes she was running over that she wound up at the feet of a person she never wanted to see. Hell the naked body she had nightmares about seeing. Asha.

"Max..." Asha said as she started to pull the towel she had wrapped around her back up as she struggled to get her underwear on. The raw emotion on Max's face was that of anger, sadness, and just plain exhaustion.

"Jondy..." with those words Max fainted.

***

For several moments everyone gathered around Max, Asha was wondering what was up. Why did Max call her Jondy? Hannah reached down to caress the soft black hair as the steady and paced rhythm of Max's breathing showed the inner turmoil of the trouble that was brewing within her mind. Life had sucked for Max, but it would go through several stages of bad until it got better. However, for tonight, rest was what she needed. There was some good news on the horizon for her. It just needed to cook for a little while longer to be ready to serve. As Hannah, Asha, Nani and Quinn took her back to the cannery so that she could get some sleep.

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TBC

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Next time: Chapter 12: The Muse, Meeting Jade, and the Death of Wendy and Annie

Buzz me on any questions, comments, and story ideas? I need comments about what you all think of my story.