Chapter 12a

Liz sniffed and brushed the tears from her face as best as she could from her position between Joshua and Isaac.

“Damn hormones,” she muttered to herself mostly.

“Hormones make little tough guy cry?” Isaac asked in confusion.

Liz let out a small laugh, “Yeah, tough guy. I’m pregnant and the pregnancy changes my hormones and the changes make my emotions all over the place and crazy.”

“Little guy and medium guy going to have baby guy?” Joshua asked happily

Liz smiled at him, “Yeah, Alec and I are going to have a baby.”

Isaac was still confused, “What make little tough guy cry?”

Liz sniffled again and felt herself well up with more tears, “Alec and I had a fight.”

Isaac tensed next to her causing her to look at him in confusion. “Alec hurt little tough guy?” Isaac practically demanded.

Liz’s eyes widened when she realized how Isaac and probably Joshua had taken her statement. She shook her head vigorously, “NO! Alec would never physically hurt me! –“

A voice from the doorway of Isaac’s ‘room’ interrupted her, “I would never intentionally hurt her. But I did. I hurt her feelings and I am sorry.”

Liz, Joshua and Isaac turned to see his Alec standing there with a pleading look in his eyes.

She could tell that he was sorry from the look in his eyes and on his face, but he had hurt her deeply.

Isaac growled at Alec and appeared to be moving toward him in a menacing manner.

Liz watched as Alec tensed but made no other threatening actions toward Isaac. “Isaac! Stop! It’s okay. Alec and I need to talk. And like I said he would never physically hurt me.”

Isaac didn’t attack Alec but he kept growling and glaring at him.

Liz could tell that Joshua wanted to do much of the same thing but appeared to be keeping a watchful eye moving between Alec and Isaac.

Alec didn’t relax any but focused his gaze on her once again, “Liz can we talk?—Alone.”

Liz noticed the hurt look that appeared in Alec’s eyes when she hesitated before nodding her consent. She looked over at Joshua, “We’re going to go into your ‘room’, okay?”

Joshua nodded but never removed his gaze from Alec and Isaac.



Liz walked into Joshua’s ‘room’ with Alec following behind her. They were both completely silent. She didn’t want to say anything first. He had been the one who wanted to talk.

Alec sighed and ran his hand threw his hair as he looked down at the cement floor beneath them, “I’m sorry, Liz.”

Liz looked away from him and at the equally dark, dank cement wall, “Alec…”

He sighed as she trailed off, “I know. I messed up.—Look, Liz, I know you’re not weak. I know that you are a strong person and I know that you are 100% aware of what transgenics are capable of…but that doesn’t stop me from worrying about you.”

Liz rolled her eyes and then glared at him, “Alec, you don’t have to worry about me all the time. I do have transgenics that like me and they help me deal with the transgenics that don’t.”

Alec sighed and rubbed his face with one of his hands in frustration before turning his gaze to her. He looked exasperated, tired, frustrated and annoyed all at the same time. She wasn’t really sure what to expect from him at this point. She knew he would never hurt her; she hadn’t been lying when she told that to Joshua and Isaac, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be in for another fight.

“Liz, I’m your mate, and when I’m not here to personally make sure that you are safe and that nothing happens to you, whether it’s another transgenic or a friggin cold that has you in bed for a week, I am going to worry about you, even more so now that you’re pregnant. It’s the way I am Liz. And I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but I’m not going to apologize for being concerned about you.”

Liz sighed in annoyance, “Alec, I’m not saying that I don’t want you to be concerned about me, I’d be more worried if you weren’t concerned about me…but Alec…you don’t have to treat me like I am a china doll that is going to break at any second. Yes, I will admit that the whole situation with X5-623 was on the more extreme end of the spectrum…but I am still okay. I am fine and I am alive. No, I didn’t come out of the altercation unscathed, but there were no lasting effects.”

Alec was silent for a moment as he thought about what she said. After a little while Liz was almost ready to still be having a fight when they went to bed.

“Liz, it’s not that you got hurt or that I think that you are incapable of taking care of yourself,” he said as he moved his eyes back to hers, “I know you got yourself right to the doctors and had everything checked out…that’s just how you are. And I get that the reason you didn’t tell me what happened was because you were worried that it would interfere with my mission. –But Liz, I didn’t know you were hurt for at least three weeks. I would have rather been told that something happened, told that you were okay, and that I could have come to check on you while I came back for some recon.”

Liz stayed silent as she watched him.

Alec walked over to her so that he was about a foot away from her, “Liz I need you to trust that I can do my job even when I know something has happened. I’ve been doing this for a while. If I had known of this earlier I could have been here for you when it was worse. I don’t want to feel like I’m being left out of your life, Liz. And not knowing when you’re hurt or when something is wrong…then I feel like I’m being left out of your life.”

Liz looked down at her hands for a moment before looking back up at him with tears in her eyes, “I know what you’re saying Alec. And I’m sorry for not telling you about 632 sooner…but you can’t through the fact that I am human in my face every time I do something that you don’t like.”

Alec nodded his head, “Yeah, I know. It’s not fair to you. You’re not the same person I am and I know you’re not going to use your powers to hurt anyone…I just wish that you would use them to defend yourself, especially against a hostile transgenic.”

Liz sighed, “Alec, I am one of the lab technicians. It’s not appropriate for me to use my powers against any of the transgenics.”

Alec rolled his eyes, “Liz, I’m not saying use your powers to get them to do what you want. But if you have a transgenic that is out to hurt you to get a point across, like 632, then all I want you to do is use a small dosage of your defensive powers so that you’re able to come out of the situation as unscathed as possible. Whether it be a small blast or even just putting up some kind of shield or something…do you have one of those?”

Liz couldn’t help but smile at that, he actually looked like a kid in a candy store at the possibility of her having a shield of some kind. “I don’t know. Max had one, I guess if I tried hard enough I could probably find one, especially since I seem to have a bit of all of their powers.”

She couldn’t help but laugh some more when he scowled deeply and began muttering.

“Great if you get a freakin’ shield then I get to thank the dick head alien king for it.”

Liz couldn’t stop giggling at his complaints. She knew that he was both happy and annoyed at the fact that she had powers. He like her powers because he just thought it was cool to have a girlfriend that was different like that, however, what he didn’t like was the fact that her powers came courtesy of an ex-boyfriend that he wanted to kill half of the time.

She watched as he smiled gently at her and pulled her closer by wrapping his arms around her waist, “Lizzie…you mean everything to me and our baby will mean everything to me. I don’t care that you are part human, and yes dear you are part human. You are not an ordinary in any sense of the word. I just want to make sure that you’re okay and that you don’t feel like you have to leave me out of your life just to keep me safe. –Not sharing Intel could get a member of my unit killed on a mission. I don’t want to lose the two new additions to my unit, okay?”

Liz rigidly nodded her head in understanding as she tried her hardest to keep her tears and emotions at bay. She smiled at him when he pulled her closely and whispered, “I love you, Alec.”

Alec smiled at her and pushed a piece of hair behind her ear, “I know you’re having morning sickness…is it alright to kiss you?”

She playfully narrowed his eyes at his teasing. She knew that she had to work on her own insecurities about being less of an equal to him compared to the female transgenics. “You better kiss me mister, or you are so sleeping on the couch for your entire stay before you have to head out back to your mission again.”

Alec smiled in amusement, “Yes, ma’am,” and then he leaned in and pull his mated into a passionate kiss. He knew that he had to work at riding her of her insecurities and he would be damned if she didn’t get those kind of thoughts out of her head completely in the near future.

....Continued into the next post

...Continued from previous post

Chapter 12b



Ben sighed as he let the hot water run down his body. It had been a long time since he’d had a decent hot shower. The feeling of his muscles relaxing was a wonderful thing. It was amazing to him that this of all places was the one place that he was beginning to relax and feel like himself again.

It hadn’t been that hard to find the showers. Granted it was a different facility than the one that he and his siblings had grown up in, but it was more or less set up the same way.

He stiffened all of the sudden when he felt another transgenic enter the showers. He quickly grabbed the towel next to him when his sense of smell picked up that the new occupant was female. When he turned around his eyes met with eyes that were familiar to him in some way. She had brunette hair and skin that reminded him of Maxie’s…tan all year round.

She smiled at him gently and he noticed that tears seemed to be forming in her eyes, “You’re back,” she whispered.

He stayed silent and just watched her as she moved further into the showers.

She smiled at him in amusement, “I think that towel would be a lot more successful if you turned the water off, big brother.”

He flushed a little before he turned the water off before he paused and took in everything she had just said. She had called him big brother. He knew she wasn’t Claudia…he fully expected that sister to kick his ass…plus Claudia was a blonde. That could only mean that she was a member of his childhood unit.

He brought his eyes back up to her and just looked at her intensely. Trying to determine which sister she was. Maxie was still on the outside. Eva had been killed. She was too young to be Syl, Jondy or Tinga.

“Brin?”

She smiled at him widely, “I wondered how long it was going to take you to go through our list of sisters there Benny Boy.”

He gave her a small smile. She was still Brin…but something seemed…off…about her. It was almost as if she was still discovering who she was…or who she had been…

“When did they put you through psyops and reindoctrinization?”

She smiled sadly at him, “I don’t know the exact date or how long I’ve been like this. From what memories are coming back to me, I was sick and I was going to die. Max had no choice but to bring me here, or to Mantacore really.”

He nodded but stayed silent. He wasn’t really sure what to say to her. On one hand she was one of his closest sisters and they had talked as much as they could when they were younger. She was only a few months older than Maxie, so she had clung to him much like Maxie had done during her seizures. But on the other hand if she knew what he had done…maybe she wouldn’t want to be his sister anymore.

He just looked at her with a feeling of reservation he had a feeling she could see right through even without all of her memories completely intact.

She smiled at him gently, “I know what’s been going on with you, Ben. I don’t hate you and I’m not going to stop loving my big brother just because living in the outside world was more than you, than any of us, were ready for.”

“How’d you know it was me?” he asked after a few more moments of silence…though oddly enough not an awkward silence.

She raised an eyebrow in confusion, “In the showers or the one that all the rumors were about?”

He shrugged and muttered, “Both.”

She rolled her eyes at him, “Well, I knew it was you in the showers, one because of your barcode and two…because you’re Ben, there would never not be a time that I didn’t know who you were. You were the only brother I had that actually took the time to find out why I cried at night instead of just telling me to shut up because we all had drills in the morning.”

Ben’s eyes rolled at that a little bit, “Zach always could be a bit of an ass.”

She gave a slight laugh at that one before shrugging and continuing on, “And I knew you were the one that the rumors were about because they tried to keep me away from 494.”

He must have looked at her in confusion, because she shrugged, “When I first saw him I just stood there and stared at him. He looked so familiar but not. And then later on that same night I cried myself to sleep and asking for this Ben character that I couldn’t remember. They finally realized that it was Alec’s nearly identical face that was causing my memories to come back. After a while they eventually had me everywhere but with the ‘twins’ of all of our brothers and sisters.”

He nodded quietly.

He stayed silent not really knowing what to say to her. On one hand he really wanted to ask for her help when it came to protecting his future niece or nephew from Maxie, but he knew that Brin had been quite close to Max when they were younger. He wasn’t sure if she would feel odd about such a request.

He was so lost him his thoughts that he didn’t even realize that she had moved closer to him. He jumped when she put a hand on his arm. Looking at her he noticed that she was looking up at him in concern, “What’s wrong, Ben?”

He stayed silent just looking into her eyes. He really wanted to trust her; to have someone from his younger years around to understand him. He was happy that Liz seemed to be on his side, but as much as she tried to tell him that she understood…she hadn’t been there and through everything that his unit had been put through…Brin had been. She had been through it all right by his and Maxie’s side. And seeing how she had only been a couple of months older than Maxie she had been and still was someone that brought out his protective instincts.

She was his little sister.

“I need your help,” was all he said to her.

She looked at him with wide eyes. He could see the desire to help him but also the fear of what he would ask her to do.

Taking a deep breath he prepared himself for her rejection of the idea, “Maxie saw Alec and Liz take me back to Manticore…and Liz is pregnant.”

He watched her eyes widen even further…if that was possible…as the weight of what he was saying obviously dawned on her.

“Do you really think she would try and take Liz’s baby?” she whispered.

“Maxie hated this place more than any of us…even Zack. She may not know about the baby yet…” he trailed off quietly.

Brin let go of his arm and began pacing in front of him, “I’ll think you start getting dressed,” she practically ordered him as she waved her hand back at him.

He smirked and shook his head in amusement before walking over to the clean fatigues that he had gotten earlier. He looked over at his sister before he began dressing himself, happy that she was too far lost in thought to be paying attention to him, thus he would cause her to be scarred for life.

Once he was dressed he walked back over to her and sat down on one of the stone benches near her as she continued to pace.

“What are we going to do, Ben? That baby might as well be a part of our family! Biologically he is your brother and you’re my brother, by association that baby could be my niece or nephew!” Brin practically flipped out as she turned toward him and flung her hands into the air.

He couldn’t help the small smile that grew on his face, she was still as animated as she had ever been that was for sure, “Why do you come to Lydecker’s office with me? He and Sandaman are supposed to be filling me in on what the hell I’ve missed and get me up to date on the whole Alec, Liz and baby situation I guess.”

Brin nodded and then practically dragged him out of the showers yelling over her shoulder, “Well don’t just stand there soldier! We’ve got work to do!”

Chapter 13

She watched as the three moved in the streets. This couldn’t be possible. Why was two of Ben walking around? And who was that girl walking with them?

“Oh Ben, please don’t tell me you’ve involved an ordinary?” she sighed as she took one last look at the three before Ben and the Ben look alike blurred off with the bruised, unknown female.

She had planned on following them but with the two of them blurring together, they were moving too fast for her to follow. She sighed in both annoyance and confusion.

What had Manticore done to Ben when they were younger for there to be two of him walking around? She thought to herself as she began looking around the area trying to see if there was anything she could connect to Ben or the mystery woman that would help her figure out what was going on.

They must have cloned him…that was the only explanation…she had never heard of a Manticorian twin…and she knew it wasn’t below them to clone one of their soldiers.

Sighing in frustration when she found nothing she made her way back towards Logan’s. She was really going to need help on this one. First she had to figure out who the mystery woman was and if she was an ordinary how to release her from the clutches of Manticore…and possibly Ben if need be.

This was definitely not the kind hearted brother that she remembered. She had seen them walking together, before the Ben-alike had appeared, and it was obvious to any transgenic that Ben had had a gun to her back to get her to cooperate.

It was killing her inside to know that the Ben she had loved when she was a child was obviously no more. He had given into to something that had turned him into a Manticorian monster that she fought so hard against…

NO!

She had to stop that line of thought…she didn’t have all of the facts at the moment. Maybe that woman was from Manticore and Ben had just been defending himself. Maybe Ben and Ben-alike were working together or something.

She wasn’t ready to think the worst of her brother yet. She would tell Logan the basics and protect her brother as much as possible…she would protect him as he had her so many years ago. But at the moment her first priority was finding out whether or not the mystery woman was in any danger from Ben, the Ben-alike, or Manticore.

3 hours later…

“Max…you’re not going to like this…” Logan trailed off as he held out the file he had found on the mystery woman.

Max steeled herself for the worst as she took the file from him. She felt her breath stop in her lungs…Elizabeth Parker…near genius…three degrees in microbiology…newest Manticore employee…pregnant.

“Shit,” Max sighed as she read the last part. She looked up at Logan, “Were you able to find out who the father is?”

Logan seemed to hesitate before he pressed a key on the keyboard and up popped a picture of Ben…but not.

“X5-494…Ben,” Logan said quietly.

Max stared at the picture in disbelief. She could finally see the differences that were in 494 that weren’t present in her brother. She shook her head negatively.

“Max…I know you don’t want Ben to be involved in all of this, but there are some things that you…” Logan began. But she quickly cut him off.

She shook her head again and looked Logan in the eye, “No, Ben isn’t the father of her baby. Ben’s designation is 493 not 494.”

Logan’s eyebrows rose in surprise and they both turned back to the computer. Max leaned over and scrolled down onto the general information that Logan had somehow found. It looked like real Manticore documentation…but who would he have gotten it from?

Her eyebrows rose as she took in 494’s training, “Wow, this is definitely not Ben,” she said softly.

Logan frowned, “Besides the designation, how can you tell?”

Max pointed to a portion of the screen, “494 is a CO…Ben was SIC. But more importantly Ben was trained in retrieval. Data, technology, weapons, prisoners, wounded…that kind of thing…494 was trained in…damn near everything. He’s the picture perfect Manticore soldier except for this one stint in pschyops recently, but even then it only lasted a week. Most trips to pschyops lasts about three months.”

“What does training one soldier in everything get them?” Logan asked in confusion.

Max sighed. After looking at 494’s ‘transcripts’ she knew that getting Elizabeth Parker away from him and Manticore was going to be harder than anticipated, “It means that he’s a Master in hand to hand combat, weaponry, and everything else under the sun. It makes him the perfect soldier…the perfect assassin.”

“Assassin?” Logan asked in surprise.

Max sighed and nodded, “From what I knew of who got trained to be assassins…they only trained the few that would excel in everything. Apparently they found a way to detect things like that in the transgenics DNA. But more importantly they made him to excel in that fashion. While he definitely is Ben’s…twin…for lack of a better term…494 has more genetic emphasis on being the alpha male. He isn’t just part cat…he’s the King of the Jungle.”

Logan looked completely shocked, “You mean like Lion, King of the Jungle, kind of cat?”

Max nodded and pointed to some more bit of info on the screen, “Ben was definitely made from Lion as well…but I’m thinking more of the runner up King of the Jungle. 494…he got the big mojo. Lion, Shark, but more specifically Great White; while Ben got the same thing Lion, Shark and so forth, 494 got the cream of the crop of it all. Manticore created 494 specifically for some reason. I just don’t know why.”

Logan was silent for a moment as he digested the information he had just been given, “If 494 is the best of everything, which made him the best soldier…wouldn’t it make sense that he would lead the other transgenics into war?”

Max slowly turned her head to look at Logan and softly asked, “But a war for what and with who?”