And another one. I know, I just have too much time at my hands *gg*

This one's a unit two chapter, I didn't forget about the others but I want to have this one finished.

Read and enjoy!

Max was moving cautiously behind Kyla. Until now they had searched about half of the basement and so far they had found nothing. Since about two minutes she could tell the smell of blood had become more intense and she knew they would encounter some sort of problem soon. She had been looking forward to see Jace again. The girl had been the only one who had refused to escape in '09 and although Max had never fully understood that she was looking forward to talk to her sister again. Although at the moment she was more hoping that they would find the four missing X5 before it was too late. X5 sense of smell was good but they were no bloodhounds: That they smelled the blood already meant that there had to be a lot of it. That thought alone let her grip around the P90 in her hands harden a little bit. She still didn't like firearms but she knew it was sometimes necessary to use them.

She glanced over her shoulder to Havoc who was the last in their group and Alec who was right behind her and flashed her a reassuring smile when he saw she was looking at him. Max would probably never fully understand the male X5; usually he was cocky and arrogant but in situations like these he was just as serious as the rest of the team and she knew he was a very capable soldier. She smiled back before returning her attention to Kyla. The woman who had taken point of their small group approached the next door and Max could already hear there was somebody in the room. She heard voices and movements but she couldn't understand what the persons in there were talking about. Kyla signaled them to stop and opened the door slowly trying not to make a sound. She quickly peeked inside the room before she closed it again.

"Kyla to all units" she whispered into her throat microphone, "We are in the basement, sixth room. Targets located but there are hostiles, too. Orders?"

"Hold your position! We'll be with you in ninety seconds."

"Wilco."

The whole group rested motionless until Wolf arrived with Blade and Nova in tow.

'Four targets' Kyla signaled silently and pointed to the door, 'Seven hostiles. Armed.'

Wolf nodded and quickly signaled his orders to the six X5 looking at him. When everybody was ready they got into position, Wolf taking point. He was the team leader and expected from his subordinates to do something extremely dangerous so he would be the first to barge into that room. The seven X5 stood so close behind each other their bodies touched; it was a simple trick they had learned during their first lessons in close quarter combat: if you can feel the man behind you you won't feel alone and so you won't hesitate when you have to storm a room.

When Wolf felt that his team was ready he opened the door and rushed into the room. Once inside he aimed at the first of the seven men standing around. Just when he pulled the trigger he saw a movement out of the corner of his eyes and something hit him in the side with terrible force and threw him against the wall. His gun went off but the bullet missed its target and suddenly the whole room was in terrible turmoil.

The six X5 poured into the room as well and opened fire but their enemies moved faster than anything they had ever encountered before, avoiding their shots with almost perfect efficiency not even trying to reach for their own weapons as they apparently knew it was a futile attempt and would only cost them time. Instead the eight men charged the seven transgenic soldiers with looks of cold hatred in their eyes. Only Kyla and Havoc managed to kill two of them before they clashed with the young X5 and they suddenly found themselves in the most uncompromising hand-to-hand fights they'd ever encountered.

Max had aimed at one their enemies but he kicked the gun out of her hands and the bullets ricocheted off the wall. During the next thirty seconds Max was more than glad for Blade's training. The man attacked her so fast and without hesitation that she was barely able to block his attacks until finally all the things Blade had taught her came back to her mind. They kept fighting but Max managed to score some hits, too, but nevertheless she felt how her body quickly became exhausted and she was asking herself how long she'd be able to keep up that speed when she suddenly noticed another X5 appearing behind her opponent. She almost smiled. Blade. The Asian X5 jumped at the man Max had been fighting with a grim determination in her eyes and Max knew she could pick another target already.

Wolf on the other hand barely had time to get back on his feet before the one that had standing next to the door and though had not been seen by Kyla attacked him again. Despite looking like an ordinary human that man fought with and agility and speed Wolf had never seen before except when sparing with one of his fellow X5. And he was incredibly strong. Several times his attacker broke through his defenses and his blows and kicks were powerful enough to let the transgenic wince in pain. Finally he managed to dodge a blow and his counterattack hit his adversary above the right eye. The man stumbled and Wolf took his chance: he hit his enemy against the throat with all the force he had and out of instinct the man bent forward making a choking sound when his body realized it had been critically injured. Wolf took him into a headlock and with a jerk broke his neck.

Breathing heavily he let the dead body of his enemy fall to the ground and looked around for another target but there was none anymore; every one of the eight men lay dead on the ground.

"Now that's why I'm all into knives, bastard!" Blade growled but sounding just as exhausted as Wolf felt and yanked her battle knife from her last enemy's corpse before standing up.

Wolf looked around. The battle had only lasted for perhaps forty or fifty seconds but it had been one of the hardest he'd ever fought. Havoc was lying in a corner of the room unconscious with Nova at his side carefully trying to wake him up, Alec was trying to stand up with Max's help still looking quite dizzy and having a very nasty looking laceration on his forehead and the rest of his team didn't look much better. Hell, he knew he wasn't himself; his whole body hurt and he knew that if there had only been one or two more of those men in this room this battle would probably have turned out worse.

"Nova, how's Havoc?" he wanted to know.

"He'll live" the unit's medic answered. Havoc had opened his eyes and moaned in pain.

He nodded and turned towards the five X5 sitting tied to metal chairs in the middle of the room. "Untie them, Alec, secure the door!"

Upon hearing his orders once again the seven X5 changed from a bunch of exhausted and hurt people to an organized group of soldiers. Within seconds the four prisoners were untied and carefully laid on the floor. Three of them didn't move at all, only one moaned barely audible with her eyes half-closed.

"Bear, Nitro, Jondy" he spoke into his throat micro. "We found the targets but had hostile contact. If you encounter anybody, do not let them come near you, you understand?"

"What do you mean, not let them come near us?" That was Bear.

"They almost kicked our collective asses" Wolf tried to explain. "Don't ask me questions now, I don't know why but those guys are tough, you get it?"

"Positive." Bear still sounded worried. "Anything else?"

"No, Wolf over and out." He cut the connection and turned towards his team again. "Nova?"

The blond medic had left Havoc's side who looked more awake by the minute and took care of the four X5 of unit five. They looked horrible. Their faces were swollen, they had blood on their clothes and where they had been tied to the chairs their ankles and wrists showed deep wounds from the restraints. Wolf couldn't help but think about Max when he had found her in PsyOps.

"Oh my god, Jace" his sister suddenly whispered bending over one of the female transgenics, the one that was partly conscious – X5-798.

"Max?"

She briefly looked at him and gulped hard. "She was in my unit before '09."

He only nodded. This was not the time to discuss her behavior. "Nova?"

"798 will live. If we bring him to a hospital we might be able to safe him, too" she nodded towards one of the unmoving male X5. "But the others…they're dead, have been for hours perhaps. I'm sorry."

Hearing this let a wave of hot anger rush through his body but he managed to control himself. They had to get out of there and fast. They hadn't had enough time to take care of all the other look-outs and if only one of them called in reinforcements they were in trouble. He still didn't know who those men were or why they were able to take on an X5 in a hand-to-hand combat and he wasn't eager to find out at all. All that mattered was that they had found the missing transgenics.

"Okay, we move out. Max, you take 798, Alec, Havoc and Nova, you carry the others, clear?" Everybody nodded. "Okay, let's go."

Much faster than before they made their way back to where Jondy, Nitro and Bear were waiting for them. Jace was still only semi-conscious and Max more dragged her than she walked out of her own strength. She could only imagine what her sister had to endure during the last days when looking at her and the sight of her beaten up face pained her and remembered her of her time in PsyOps. Why did people do such things? How could they?

Suddenly they heard gunfire from where they had left back the others.

"You guys hurry!" they heard Jondy shouting over wireless. "We have visitors!"

"Coming!" Wolf replied sprinting towards where the shots were coming from with Kyla and Blade right behind him. They others tried to keep up but where slower due to the wounded and dead they had to carry. "How many?"

"Don't know!" came the pressed answer. "Aah!!"

The three X5 reached the big construction hall where they had left Jondy and the two others. Without hesitation they stormed into the room. Her three teammates were defending their position near the door against at least half a dozen men in the same suits like the ones they had encountered earlier and it was clear that they were not only good when it came to a hand-to-hand fight but they also knew how to handle automatic weapons; Jondy, Bear and Nitro were pretty much pinned down and had nowhere to go. The sudden appearance of Wolf, Kyla and Blade changed that.

With their first volley the forced their enemies to take cover.

"RETREAT!" Wolf shouted when the others with the wounded and dead member of unit five arrived. They covered them until they'd left the building. It pained Max to leave her teammates behind like that but she knew she could not help them now, not with the almost unconscious Jace in her arms. As soon as she was out of the building she heard her brother shout: "GO! GO! GO!"

With movements trained for years the six transgenics still in the building began to run towards the door, some of them providing cover while the others moved. Just when Blade made her move she suddenly cried out and fell to the floor with a bullet in her left shoulder. Bear jumped up from his cover and dragged her out the door. Wolf gritted his teeth and sent another volley towards the man who had gotten his lucky shot forcing him to take cover again.

"Wolf!" Kyla shouted behind him. "Move goddammit!"

He sent a last volley towards his enemies before jumping up and running out of the door. Once outside he saw that his team had already started to retreat further and he quickly joined them. They ran until they reached the spot behind the corner of the building where Jondy and Bear had waited before. Their enemies did not pursue them for whatever reasons and Wolf was glad about that.

He quickly looked around. Max and Alec were with the two members of unit five who made it this far alive, Nova was already taking care of Blade who made a pained face but didn't seem to be injured badly, Jondy had a nasty gash on her left cheek, probably from some shrapnel or grazing shot and the rest of his team looked a little bit beaten up but otherwise okay. Nitro was the last to join them.

"Dammit" he shouted with a grin on his face. "I can't believe we actually made it out of there!"

Just when he was about to round the corner his body suddenly jerked and he stopped dead in his tracks. About half a second later Wolf heard the shot.

"Sniper!" he called out and everyone ducked for cover. A second later there was another shot.

"Got him!" Artemis announced. "Sniper down."

Wolf stood up again and looked at Nitro. The X5 was still standing there like rooted to the spot and there was blood on the front of his vest. His facial expression was a mixture of surprise and pain. Slowly like he was drunk he stumbled towards Wolf and the CO caught his soldier preventing him from falling and instead laid him down almost gently.

"Man down!" Max's brother shouted and in the blink of an eye Nova was at his side.

"Let go of him! Wolf! Let go!" She pushed him back almost violently and then ripped Nitro's vest and t-shirt open. Blood was flowing all over his chest. "Crap, it went right trough him. Max, get over here!"

In an instant Max was at her side while the others cared about the wounded and secured the surrounding area.

"Here, take this" Nova said and gave her some sort of bandage. "Press it on his wound!"

Max did as told and in an instant she felt her teammate's blood on her hands. He looked pale and almost like he was going to pass out any second. Nova grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around to take a look at the entry wound in his back. She cursed and pulled out another bandage and tried to stop the blood loss before laying him down again.

"Nova" Max whispered, "we're losing him."

She wasn't able to stop the blood loss, the hole in his chest was just too big and he got weaker and weaker by the second.

"No, we're not!" the team's medic growled defiantly. "You hear me, you overactive idiot? You're not gonna die tonight, got it? Wolf, we need a med-evac, now!"

"Not possible, Manticore has nothing around here!" he sounded as desperate as Max felt and wasn't able to look away from his dying teammate.

"If he doesn't get into surgery very soon he's dead!" the blond medic shouted angrily.

"Stop arguing" Kyla interrupted them. "We've got visitors."

They all looked up for a second expecting another welcoming party from their new friends but instead they heard the sound of several sirens coming closer and saw the distant flash of lights.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Alec whispered almost in awe. "The goddamned police!"

"Pray that they've got an ambulance, too" Wolf growled. When the first cars arrived he stepped out from his cover and marched towards the police officers who excited their cars and swarmed out.

"Freeze!" one of them shouted upon seeing the young man with a gun approaching. "Chicago sector police!"

"Captain Jason Everson!" Wolf shouted back holding his false pass in his hand. "United States Army!"

Suspiciously the officer looked at his papers but finally nodded and lowered his gun glancing at the group of young soldiers behind the one he was talking to at the moment. His colleagues relaxed as well. "Sergeant Eric Myers. What happened here?"

"I will be happy to tell you later, sergeant, but right now I need you to secure that building" he knew if their enemies were still there the officers would probably not stand a chance against the mysterious men but he needed to secure as much evidence as he could and there were more officers around than X5, "and call in an ambulance, I've got wounded."

"On it, sir" Myers nodded and began talking into his radio. "This is Myers, I need an ambulance. I've got a military unit here with injured persons."

"NO!" Wolf spun around when he heard Nova's desperate cry and was back at her side in a second. She had already started performing CPR on Nitro. The young man lay motionless on the ground with his eyes closed. He wasn't breathing anymore. Slowly the whole unit left their positions and gathered around their comrade. Nobody said a word. After about ten minutes it was clear that their friend – their brother – was dead. Max had taken her hands away from the wound in Nitro's chest and there was almost no blood flowing from it anymore and his whole body looked unnaturally pale. But still Nova was frantically trying to reanimate him. Wolf carefully laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Let me!" she hissed not stopping.

"Nova" he said softly.

"No! I can do this!" she insisted with tears in her eyes.

"Nova" he repeated. "Stop. He's gone."

At his words she suddenly stopped and her whole body trembled. Looking around he saw incredulous and shocked expressions on the faces of every X5. They all looked at Nitro not believing what they were seeing. Except for Wolf and Kyla none of them had ever seen an X5 die in combat and having the proof even they could be killed right before their eyes was enough to even shock the highly trained killing-machines.

"Captain Everson?" a low voice asked from behind him. Wolf slowly turned around to see Sergeant Myers with two other officers. The man looked from Nitro to Wolf. "The ambulance will arrive in a few minutes. Was he…was he your man?"

"More. A friend." Wolf sighed heavily trying to push back the emotions he began to feel. "Listen, I still have wounded and I need you to arrange a transport to the hospital for all of us."

"Of course, our reinforcements are already on their way."

"Good. You found anything in there already?"

"No, but we've only started to secure the building. Anything else?"

"Not for the moment."

Myers nodded and was about to return to his car, when he suddenly stopped and looked at the soldiers before him. They were young, he noticed, very young and almost all of them looked at their fallen friend in shock.

"Captain?" he said to the one who apparently was the leader. "I'm sorry…for your loss."

The younger man nodded and Myers finally turned away walking to his car and the other officers. Meanwhile Wolf took out his cell phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. He didn't have to wait long until somebody answered the phone. "Colonel, this is 451. We…we have sustained losses."

Yeah, I know, sometimes I can be quite a *******.

However, this is what happens to soldiers sometimes as hard as it sounds and I didn't do it just because I wanted. There's almost always a plan behind my actions.

Anyway, please tell me what you think.