Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or Twilight

Summary: What if Lydecker realized what was really important? The happiness of his 'kids'. Over the years since the escape of Unit 2 he has changed Manticore's conditions to become more humane while remaining a government facility. X5-481, Bella, is the first to try out a new regiment where soldiers are free to be outside of the facility but they must still perform their duties as a soldier (go on missions). PS None of the bad encounters with Lydecker happened (Prodigy and Cold Comfort did happen).

Chapter 7: Lauren

It was just her luck; Bella had once again been assigned as the seating partner of a Cullen, Edward to be specific. Unlike Alice however, who was nice and cheerful, Edward seemed to hate her guts and she didn't even know why.

She was sitting in the classroom minding her own business when he entered and then looked at her hatefully with his black eyes, which she added to her list of non-human traits as he and the rest of his family had topaz coloured eyes during lunch. He walked up to her and just glared… so Bella thought she was in his seat.

When she got up however, he stopped her. "That's the only free seat in the class," he said. He then proceeded to walk past her and sit next to her. What a weirdo.

Thankfully all they were doing that class was take notes so she didn't have to act like she wasn't sitting next to a psycho. He had glared at her during the entire class for God's sake! She was surprised that the teacher didn't call him out. Bella couldn't have been happier when finally Bio ended. Just as the bell rang, Edward rushed out of the class at a speed that was too fast for a human, he even blurred a little.

'Okay… let's add inhuman speed to the list…' Bella thought as she gathered her items and then headed to gym, the last class of the day. This was really the only class she was looking forward to because Ben was in this class.

Bella quickly changed in the girls' locker room and then headed out to the gymnasium where she sat on the bleachers waiting for Ben to come out of the boys' locker room. She didn't have to wait long as he came out a minute later.

"Hey baby girl, are you up for some ass kicking?" Ben asked as he came to sit beside her on the bleachers.

"You know… it's the weirdest thing. I was about to ask you the same question."

"In your dreams baby girl," Ben said as the coach came in blowing his whistle. They both got up and joined the semi circle that the other juniors and seniors formed around the coach.

"Alright boys and girls, today we're starting a new unit: volleyball. First split yourself up into competitive and non-competitive then I will start making the teams."

Bella smirked as did Ben as they immediately joined the competitive side. Most of the boys, including the Cullen males, joined the competitive side too. Bella, Alice, Rosalie, Jessica and some girl name Lauren were the only girls on the competitive side.

The coach began splitting them up into teams and somehow Bella and Ben had ended up on the same team along with Mike, Eric, Lauren and some senior named Josh.

"Guess I won't be kicking your ass today," Bella whispered to Ben as they got into their positions on the court. Like the transgenics they were, they kicked ass even if they were down-playing their abilities. Too bad the only other person who was actually capable of playing was Josh; the other three just seemed to want to try to show off by joining the competitive side.

Mike was scared of the ball and Eric was horrible at hand-eye co-ordination, but at least they actually tried to help and gave it their best effort. Lauren, on the other hand, just stood on the court, looked at her nails, got in her team's way and cheered on the guys, or her version of it at least. She was throwing herself at them and flirted with them without digress. It was sickening to watch.

The coach had noticed it too, hell the entire gym had noticed it, and he finally had enough of her not participating. "Lauren, you're serving once your team gets the ball back," he said in a voice that held no room for back-talk. Bella liked the coach in that he actually knew what he was doing and was straight to the point, no pretending to be nice when you're ordering people around like her damned English teacher.

Bella caught Ben's eyes just as the server on the other team hit the ball. They had a silent agreement to shut it down fast and that's exactly what they did. Bella calculated the trajectory of the ball taking into account its spin and air resistance and then placed herself in position to set the ball for Ben who then spiked the ball so hard and fast that there was no way for the other team to bring it back.

"Looks like you're serving now Lauren," Coach Betestin said with a sadistic smile. The man really did remind her of some of the DI's back at Manticore, which was strangely a comforting thought.

Lauren looked appalled as if she didn't actually believe he was going to make her do this. "Coach B, please understand that it is extremely expensive to keep my nails in perfect condition, so could you please just let one of my teammates serve."

By now everyone in the gym had stopped to look at the scene unfolding before them.

"Miss Mallory, you will serve the ball or I will see to it that your already low mark in gym becomes a fail. Do you understand?" Lauren seemed to get that there was no changing the Coach B's mind and so turned to someone who she thought would help her.

"Josh, please babe, don't let me fail. The coach likes you so please convince him not to give me an F," Lauren begged as she clung onto Josh's arm with no disgrace.

Disgust was plain on Josh's face as he tore his arm away from her, "If you don't want to fail then serve the ball Lauren."

Lauren would not listen though as she continued to plead for assistance that no one was willing to give her. "Please Josh, I'm begging you. I'm just a girl; I can't play as well as a big strong man like you."

"Open your eyes Lauren. Bella's one of the best players in this entire gymnasium. If you thought you didn't want to play then why the hell didn't you go over to the non-competitive teams?"

Hearing Bella's name seemed to become a fuel in Lauren's eyes as they became filled with rage. She huffed indignantly before grabbing the volleyball from Mike's hands (he had picked it up earlier) and then got in the position to serve.

"Finally, get back to your games people or you'll get zeroes for today!" Coach B barked out making everyone turn their attention away from Bella's team, though at the corner of their eyes they were all still watching.

Lauren seemed to be hyperventilating as she took deep breaths - this was apparently her way of preparing herself to serve. She threw the ball up into the air planning to do an overhand serve and was about to hit it with all her might, but then at the last moment she remembered her nails and put on the breaks hitting the ball pathetically. The resulting serve didn't even reach the net; a 5 year-old could have done better.

"Oh no, I broke a nail," the girl wailed as she cradled her right hand with her left one. Was this girl stupid or what? Honestly Bella couldn't stand her, but then maybe it was just because she didn't understand her. Still, Bella just wanted this whole damn thing to end which was why she wanted Lauren to serve in the first place.

"What the hell's your problem?" Bella asked as she retrieved the volleyball from where it stopped rolling. "Do you want to fail?" Bella threw the ball to Lauren extremely gently but Lauren had to be a drama queen and acted as if it was a speeding bullet, even though Bella threw it underhand.

"Of course I don't want to fail!" Lauren said glaring at Bella.

"Then please just serve. You should probably serve underhand; you have less chance of breaking a nail doing that than if you serve overhand," Bella suggested sincerely trying to get the girl through this whole ordeal.

Unfortunately Lauren saw this as Bella mocking her and so when Bella turned around to face the other team, Lauren decided it would be a good idea to throw the ball right at the back of Bella's head. As she as she had raised the ball over her head to throw it, Bella heard Lauren's intentions and looked at Ben telling him to just let it happen. Lauren really needed to be taught a lesson and maybe getting suspended would do that. Besides it's not like the pathetic girl could hurt Bella anyways.

A certain someone disagreed with letting the ball hit its target so when Lauren threw the ball at Bella's head he came to the rescue rushing the court next to theirs. "Lauren, you're not supposed to be throwing balls at your teammate," Bella's knight in pale armour said.

Not recognizing the voice that belonged to the guy who had 'saved' her, Bella turned around to see that it was Edward. What the hell was he doing? He hated her, right? Why the hell did he stop the volleyball from hitting her?

"Miss Mallory into my office, NOW!" Coach B yelled out. A frightened Lauren followed the enraged coach into his office, not that it did much help. Everyone in the gym heard that Lauren was to go to the Principal's office where her parents would be notified of her behaviour.

"What is everyone looking at? Clean everything up then go change. Class is done for today," Coach B growled out as he exited his office followed by a distraught girl. The two left the gym probably to go to the principle's office. Everyone jumped to action even though their teacher wasn't there anymore; he just had that kind of effect on them.

During clean up Bella tried to talk to Edward about his weird mood swings but he avoided her like the plague. He really was starting to grate on her nerves.

Deciding to corner him later, Bella went into the locker room and finished changing just as the last bell of the day rang. She took her stuff and walked out to see that Ben was already outside leaning on the hallway. How did guys always change so fast anyways?

The two walked quickly to the office where they dropped of their slips and then headed to the parking lot. The entire time Bella and Ben exchanged the information they found out about the Cullens using eye signals and eye movements so they weren't overheard.

At the parking lot they saw the five Cullens gathered around the silver Volvo about to leave. There was no way they were going to leave yet without Bella getting some answers. She told Ben to wait up for her at their rides before walking right up to the Cullens with her Manticore mask firmly in place. She stopped right in front of Edward Cullen; his eyes were once again topaz in colour though much darker than his siblings'.

"Edward, I need to talk to you."

Edward motioned her to start talking not caring that his siblings were going to hear. If he didn't care then he was probably going to tell them later anyways.

"What's your problem? In bio class you glare at me for the entire hour and then in gym class you actually save me from getting hit on the head by Lauren and then you go and avoid me like the plague. Do you have multiple personality disorder or something? Or is it just me that you act all crazy around?"

"That's none of your business little girl," Rosalie growled moving to push Bella away, but she was stopped by Edward.

"Let's go guys," he said turning around and totally ignoring Bella. His siblings seemed to look at him confused but one look from Edward and they were moving into the car.

"Fine whatever! Keep your little secret if you want but keep me out of it!" Bella walked away from the Cullens still keeping her emotions under wraps. She was ready to explode on the inside but her Manticore training would not allow her to do so.

"Did you hear everything?" Bella mumbled to Ben not wanting the Cullens to overhear. A nod from Ben confirmed that he had indeed heard her confrontation with the Cullens.

Knowing it wasn't safe to discuss this further out in the open Bella straddled her ride and turned her baby on. She rode out of the parking lot with Ben in tow towards the home they shared. Right now what she needed was a good hard work out to de-stress herself from everything that happened that day.

AN: God I'm so sorry this is so late. It's been forever since I last updated but I finally got the next chapter up! I was re-reading this and I just realized that Ben sorta acts like Morgan from Criminal Minds. It's totally a coincidence since I had never watched a single episode of CM until after I wrote this. Anyways, I hope this was worth the wait. XD