Ash Fault

Disclaimer: Anything you could sue me for isn't mine

This is an AU story


"Don't do this James" coughed Renfro, blood weeping from the side of her mouth. She was body to body with him his blade sticking out of her back glimmering in the flickering barrack lights.

"Tis not thy name! Thy namest be Rumandello! And I told thou did I not, if thou flicked that switch thy would kill thee" He spat in her face, the fiery neon glow of his eyes swirling in a violent flame.

"Rumand... You know I had no choice, I only..." She pleaded until he twisted his blade in her stomach and her scream could be heard through out the Manticore building.

"Vengeance hath come for thee" he whispered in her ear in a silky smooth tone, before ripping his blade up her body and free, cutting her in two from her waist.

"Oh how the mighty hast fallen" he looked down at the gore puddle around his feet, before moving on, to finish his business here, to finish them all.


"Coffee?"

"Err yeah, I guess. Seems we both know each other dirty little secrets eh? What are you going to do? Put me in the circus?" She mocked, ready yet not so willing to break his neck if she saw him give a signal to somebody hidden. Maybe he was with Manticore...

"Milk?"

"Lots. I mean, I could expose you ya know, and every criminal in Seattle would come knocking, so this isn't as straight forwards as you think" she continued. She held her position on the opposite side of his kitchen island than him.

"Sugar?"

"No thanks. What do you know about me then? Are you really going to play games with a girl who could break you in half at the flick of an eyelid? Hey are you even listening? Forget the coffee already!"

He placed the cup in front of her and looked back at his own. "If you didn't notice I am already snapped in half"

Max stuttered before she regained her composure. "Don't give me that pity bullshit, what do you intend to do with what you know about me?"

"Not much, just try and make sure I stay the only one who knows"

"Oh and why is that, you feel special coz you fucked a freak?" she spat, sometimes the cat in her was more obvious.

"No, just trying to keep you safe"

"Why would you want to do that? What do you get out of it?" she quizzed him, still not believing he was being straight up.

"Hey you said it yourself, "crusader for the innocent and downtrodden", and unless I am so severely misguided I do believe you are innocent" he finished, wanting to add a one liner about her sexual antics and her lack of innocence in that aspect, but now wasn't the time for all that shit.

"I don't believe you. Why wouldn't you try and profit from this?" she now believed he was for real, but couldn't see why.

"I don't need the money, I just want you to be safe" he said sitting on a stool opposite her holding his mug. She sat likewise. "Now the question is what do you intend to do? Sell me to the highest bidder?"

"Give me a good reason why I would want to do that?"

"Money? Power? Pretty much whatever floats your boat" He sipped.

"I'm not that shallow you know, even freaks have hearts". At hearing this his went out to her, and he looked into her eyes.

"Never refer to yourself as a freak Max" There it was again, he had used her first name and he felt like a prat.

"Thanks Logan" she said with a smirk. Now he felt better.


Rumandello rounded the corner and came to the basement theatre. It hadn't changed since he was a kid. He looked at the torture equipment, the machines, and Lydecker.

"Welcome back" he smiled as 57 stepped down the 5 steps and into the dimly lit room. His feet still dripped with her blood, leaving small prints on the concrete floor.

"Welcome indeed" He spat, his hand clenching around his blade handle as tight as he could. This is where he had lived his life for years after he was taken from his parents, a child, tortured and experimented on all for something he didn't even know he had in him. Something that would prove to be those scientists undoing.

"You want to know how many got away don't you?" Lydecker asked, knowing full well he was the only person left alive from Manticore, the only member of staff or creation. The rest were dead, and he smiled knowing he had disposed of the bitch.

After the scientists had unleashed his "gift" he broke them with his bare hands, the hands of a boy. He remembered drinking some of their blood to nourish himself, he had been fed and watered as little as possible as part of his torture. They wanted to know where the other half was, but he didn't even know he had the half they possessed within him lying dormant. He stared at Lydecker.

"Two got away, but we caught and destroyed one. So that leaves X5-452, you only have one target left" Lydecker said before walking towards his puppet. Rumandello was conditioned not to hurt Lydecker, and so he just stared down at him as he drew a gun. He pointed it at 57's chest and pulled the trigger.


"So, I umm, we err, well ya know" she mumbled "Last night". She wasn't good at this. She had never seen a man again after she had slept with them, she fled.

"Yeah, I know I erm..." Logan could see she was struggling for the words to say, but he just didn't know what words he needed to struggle with.


The satisfying sound of a bullet tearing through flesh was heard, and then the clang of metal on metal.

"So they were right," Deck said looking at the hole he had just created in 57's worn trench coat, "You have become invulnerable to ballistics. Impressive my boy" he said as he walked past him. He turned around to see 57 looking at him, the look in his enflamed eyes worrying Lydecker as he realised what he was going to do. The blade only entered a few inches, but it was enough. Withdrawing his sword from Lydecker's eye he watched the only person who had ever showed sympathy towards him drop to the floor dead and slide down the steps to his feet.

"Everybody must die, that includes thee"


Logan heard the sirens outside his building as the fire engines rushed past, if that's what you could call the vans with make shiftwater cannons used in post pulse Seattle.

Max and Logan both looked at each other quizzically, knowing it was unusual they bothered to use their sirens in the city, unless they were going through the out of city check point.

Logan walked over to his computer and within seconds had a picture of a raging inferno in a forest.

"Manticore" Max stated bluntly.

"That's where you were...born?" he asked, not wanting to use any kind of product related words concerning her conception.

"That's the one"

"Why is it burning?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, I haven't seen the place since I was a kid, I avoided their free nostalgia tour offers"

"Wait, who is that?" Logan zoomed in the video feed to an en-shadowed figure on the outskirts of the shot, disappearing into the forest.

"I have no idea, but it looks to me like he started it" he said puzzled as to how this could have happened, had security really slackened so much since her days locked in that building that was now a large funeral pyre?

Logan switched off his monitor when the feed got disconnected. "I think this warrants my attention" he said spinning around is his chair to face her.

"Your not going anywhere near that place without me" she said bluntly. "If this has anything to do with them moving shop I need to know about it"

"Fine, we set off tomorrow morning about 5am, the curfew is on so I suggest you get back hereby 10pm tonight and stay in the spare room" he said. He shot himself in the head mentally, was that the right thing to say? Was that respectful or insulting?

"Fine, I'll be back at erm... do you mind if I get something to eat here too?" She was pushing her luck, she just had no food and had this strange feeling that she would like to come around earlier than 10, as if that long away wasn't good..

"Make it around 7 then, so I'll see you later" he said standing up.

"Yeah, that you will"

Both of them felt the awkwardness of the situation. The attraction alone could not explain how this was going, she was coming for dinner and staying the night with someone who knew what she was and didn't fear her or want her dead. He wanted her to be safe. She walked to the door and let herself out, their last eye contact betraying the mutual longing for her swift return. Logan didn't know what had just happened but he knew this, if she didn't come back he would still be feeling this aching loss in his stomach at her departure for the rest of his life.