Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or anything related to it. Dark Angel is owned by other people and they're stupid because they didn't give us more than two seasons. Of course they at least gave us those, which is good.

Disclaimer Part Two: I do however own Blaze, Heresy, Leo, Two, Blaze's pack/unit and other things that might seem unfamiliar. Luxie is owned by Monica

Pairings: Logan/Max, Alec/Heresy, Alec/Blaze, Alec/Luxie, Blaze/Two (faintly),…

Pack Instinct

9 – Waiting

Two raised his head and breathed in and out deeply. He smelt something familiar… prey… It was Blaze, the enemy, the mission, his sister.

She was coming this way and he was going to kill her. He had been thinking about what White had told him earlier and he suspected it wasn't Hawk. Although his sister was almost blind she still had her wolf senses and would easily take down one or seven sector police on her own. She could probably also take down one of two of White's familiars. It couldn't be Tia because Skate would protect her with his life.

Two gave a small laugh at himself. Back at Manticore he had pretended to hate the names so much, because they reminded him of Zack – or rather Blaze's love for Zack.

"Blaze," said all of a sudden which caused White to look up. He said nothing, hoping maybe the transgenic would continue talking to himself. However, Two continued his conversation in his head.

"This is stupid," 982 growled. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because we're not soldiers," 628 said. Her buzz cut shimmered red under the pale light as she sat on her bed thinking. "We're humans."

"But the sergeant…" the smallest of them said. She was short, nimble but ferocious. Her hair unlike 982 and 628 her hair was the plain black most of the Manticore soldiers had.

"The sergeant is not important," said the seven-year-old female. "I am. I'm the alpha."

"So?" said the last female. She was tall but still the same age as the other two. "What do we do then?"

"Okay, my name is Blaze and 982 is called Two now. You're Hunter, because well… you know. What do you guys wanna be called?"

"I have a designation," the small girl said again.

"I'll call you Tia," Blaze said. She'd heard one of the guards talking about his daughter and found the name would fit well to the small girl. "And you can be Hawk… short for Hawkshot," she told the last girl. She grinned. It was her favourite gun and although she too didn't enjoy the prospect of these names, she thought hers was a good one.

"What about me?" the last boy asked. He was silent, but could already kill a grown man within ten minutes. Everyone was certain he'd be a brilliant killer when he grew up, perfect Manticore specimen.

"Eh…"

"Skate," Tia said quietly. "It's a nice word." The boy nodded solemnly and secretly prized the name his little sister had given him.

"How did you come up with this anyway?" Hawk said. "I thought we only got names for missions. When we're older."

"Zack's unit's also got names and they're 16 in one group," Blaze explained.

"Who's Zack?" Two asked sounding slightly malicious.

"X5-599," Blaze said. "He's such a great leader, if only he were a wolf…"

Two growled to himself and White looked up again.

"What's the matter, boy? Want a doggie biscuit?"

"Why didn't you tell me which one it was," Two yelled at White and got up. He was at the bars again and Two could smell the fear that rose in White's jugular.

"I thought I'd let you stimulate your mind, since you don't have anything to read," White said with a shrug.

"Give me something," Two said sarcastically although he knew he'd get nothing more than sloppy food and water. Anything that was heavy or slightly bladed became a weapon in his hands. He could use paper to cut bars, if he worked the momentum right enough.

"So, who is she?"

"I'm not tell you. She's my problem," Two growled.

"Problem?" Two growled again, huffed and then lay down on the bed with his back to White. "Problem," White repeated with a slight grin and left the room to five guards, two of which were familiars.

"Okay, I can sense seventeen or eighteen guards, can you see any from here?" I asked and looked around. I could see in the dark but Luxie's nocturnal cat-eyes would probably do a much better job than I would. Especially since they all wore black.

"There's three over there," she said and pointed. "Two there, two there and two, no three walking around over there. That makes twenty. The other eight must be around the other side or inside."

"They're not inside. What should we do?"

"It's to early, I think we should wait till midnight at least," she explained and from the way she spoke I realized she must have done a few midnight thefts in her time. I nodded and the two of us shuffled back to our hiding place on one of the roofs. We found none of the guards on it and expected it a good place to hide.

"Tell me more about your pack," Luxie said after a while. She had quite an active mouth for a girl who was supposed to be a cat.

"Tia was the youngest. She was scared a lot and the Manticore guards weren't the best people to make a kid feel very good. Skate protected her a lot because us others were stronger and had to learn to be good soldiers," I explained. "Hawk was a strong girl. She was calm and fought well with weapons. Hunter… he was the worst when it came to violence. He didn't talk much, but that was okay. And Two…" I paused. I didn't really want to talk about Two right now. "And your unit?"

"We never really had a great relationship like you and your pack or Max and her brothers and sisters. We were just chosen for something and forced to work together. We didn't have buddy-buddy moments or once disobey the guards. Perfect soldiers, huh?"

"Perfect soldier, my ass," we heard a voice and spun around shook in both our eyes. Luxie swung a punch at Alec's face and a grimaced as he stumbled back. "Hey," he spluttered as he walked over to us. "What was that for?"

"You were in my light," Luxie said and sat back down. Alec pulled a face and jumped in between the two of us.

"Why'd you run away?"

"None of your business," I growled and saw the pained look in his face. "Sorry. You should just go back to Max and wait till we come back."

"If ever," Alec said. "This place is swarming with familiars, have you no common sense?"

"No, I'm just really, really angry because they took my brother and although he'll probably try and kill me when he sees me, I can't let them have him."

"Hey, when I found out my brother was a serial killer, Manticore didn't let me off easy, I'm still up and running," Alec said. Luxie and I gave each other a glance because neither of us knew what he was talking about but we decided not to make a big deal.

"I don't care how you are, Alec, but my pack…"

"Yeah, yeah, can't live without… I understand, but you two girls aren't going to do much damage on your own," he said raising his eyebrow. God, he was so arrogant – of course, cute, but… huh? What was that?

"And you're the manpower for us, what?" Luxie asked and punched him in the shoulder.

"Hell yeah. I ain't letting you two beautiful girls getting your faces punched in my some jerks," he said and placed an arm on each of our shoulders. It felt nice as he pulled me closer to him. "So, midnight then?"

"How long have you been listening?" I asked quickly but he didn't answer. He pulled the two of us closer and instinctively I laid my head on his shoulder. I fell asleep almost instantaneously.

Awww….

Next chapter, Two and Luxie get to have some quality time together