Disclaimer: Dark Angel isn’t mine. The character of Lily is and the physical characteristics of Jondy (since D.A. has only mentioned her name, never described her) are.

Author’s Notes: You know, this all started because some of the people (actually, quite a few) said they wanted more. I wasn’t planning to make an entire series out of this, but it has become my most-reviewed story (out of the five stories I have on the Net), so I humored the fans. This is the third part of the series, as yet untitled.

Archiving: Sure, just ask first.

Max sighed and stood up. From her point of view, she could see all of Seattle. From up here, it seemed like a prosperous city, the way it must have looked before the Pulse. But Max only had to look at the Space Needle to see the graffiti that covered almost every inch of it. Max knew a lot about the dark side this city. She had seen it far too many times, especially when she had been working for Logan. Speaking of Logan, she had heard of neither him nor Jondy for the past year. Had something happened to them? Before her mind could take her any farther down that memory lane, Max forced herself to leave her perch and head for work.

***

As Max entered Jam Pony, she noticed a new guy talking with Normal. She saw Normal nod reluctantly then shout, “Sketchy, you just volunteered.”

“For what?” Sketchy asked.

“New employee needs a guide to show him the ropes.”

“All right,” Sketchy replied, his voice betraying neither anticipation nor dread.

The new guy brought his bike over to where Sketchy was, waiting for his training to begin. Max followed and offered her hand in greeting when he turned to look at her. “Hi. I’m Max.”

“I’m Josh.” His voice was surprisingly soft, barely more than a whisper. He tugged his cap down tighter on his head and gave her a small smile.

“You don’t look like a ‘Josh’,” Max said, noticing that if Josh were wearing glasses, he’d look a little bit like Logan. Josh chuckled and shrugged, as if to say that his name wasn’t his fault. She smiled, then addressed Sketchy. “You goin’ to Crash tonight?”

“Yeah.” Sketchy turned to Josh. “You wanna come?”

“Sure, why not?” I’ll just have to stop by my place on the way.”

Sketchy had opened his mouth to say something, but Normal interrupted him. “Sketchy, hot run!” The young man barely caught the package that his boss threw at him. Sketchy scanned the address and immediately headed out to make the delivery. Josh followed right behind, quickly waving to Max before disappearing into the street.

Max smiled, then turned to talk to Original Cindy until Normal called her name.

***

Max set down the pitcher of beer in front of her friends. Everyone took their turn pouring their drinks, and Max was about to pour her own, when a ten-year old entered the room.

Josh raised his hand, making sure the girl saw him. As she walked over he asked in a voice only a fraction louder than normal, “Lily, where have you been?”

The girl smiled and set a fistful of money in front of Josh. “Arm wrestling,” she said simply.

“Who were you that you got that much mad money?” Original Cindy asked, looking at the large amount of twenties in the pile.

“No.” Lily laughed. “I bet each person one dollar that I could beat them. Then I changed the ones for bigger bills.”

“So how do you know her Josh?” Herbal asked.

“She’s my daughter.” Josh seemed to realize something then said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Lily these are my new friends: Max, Herbal, Original Cindy and Sketchy. Everybody, this is Lily. The reason that I had to stop by my place before coming here was so I could tell Lily where I’d be.”

Max looked at the two of them, seeing that Lily was slightly darker than Josh and had different color eyes. “She must take after her mother.”

“She does.” Josh’s face took on a melancholy look. “She died eight years ago.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Lily, obviously seeing that the conversation was going nowhere, took matters into her own hands. “Would you like to arm wrestle with me?”

Max hesitated. “I’m very strong. I’d probably hurt you.”

“I doubt that even you could beat me,” Lilly replied, knowing the superior tone she was using would force Max to accept the challenge.

“Really?”
“Really.” Lily put one elbow down on the table and extended her hand. Max held back again, but finally did the same.

The competition began. Max’s friends gathered around and watched in awe as Lily kept Max’s arms from pushing hers down. Even though Max was obviously trying very hard, Lily started inching her arm toward the table.

“You’re strong,” Lily whispered at a level only Max could hear. “You’re a better competitor than every regular human I have faced... X5-452.” Max’s face showed brief surprise but she was almost immediately pulled back to reality when Lily slammed her arm down onto the table. Max got up, rubbing her sore arm.

“I hope I haven’t hurt your arm,” Lily said, what seemed to be genuine concern showing on her face.

“I’ll get over it.”

Josh hugged Lily and said in his characteristically soft voice, “See?”

“Wow!” Sketchy exclaimed. “She is good!”

“Yeah,” Max remarked. “I know.”

***

A couple of weeks later, Max was resting in her bed when she heard a noise from the living room portion of her apartment. Careful not to make any sound herself, Max got out of bed and stalked into the kitchen. There she saw Lily, who was obviously waiting for her.

“Took you long enough,” Lily said jokingly.

“I’m a heavy sleeper.”

“I didn’t think X5s slept.”

Startled and more than a little wary of the girl, Max changed the subject. “So, what are you doing here this late at night?”

“I’m here for Logan.” Lily handed her a photo. “It was taken off the security camera at Crash,” she explained.

Max examined the photo. It showed her and Josh at Crash. In it, she was watching Josh in an amused manner and Josh was smiling at her.

“But why would-” Max looked up to find that Lily had disappeared. Slightly disturbed, Max walked back into her bedroom. She put the new photo beside the picture frame Logan had given her before he had left. Thinking a distraction sounded like a good thing at the moment, she decided to go back to Crash and see what she could do about that camera. She got out her motorcycle and brought it downstairs carefully, not wanting to ding or scratch it.

As she passed a shabby restaurant that wasn’t too far from her apartment building, she failed to notice the redhead sitting at a small table inside. A man across the street, however, did notice. He spoke softly into a small device.

“I have visual confirmation. Repeat: visual confirmation.”

***

Max sat down at her usual table, making sure to sit with her back to the security camera. There she nursed a cold drink and contemplated the day’s events. She had been there for about twenty minutes when Josh came in.

“Max?” he asked, his gentle voice barely audible over the din from some drunks by the bar. “What’s wrong?”

“You lied to me.”

“What?”

“You lied to me about Lily. She never knew her mother... and neither did you.”

Josh hung his head. When he spoke, his voice was much louder than his normal whisper. “I should’ve told you Max. About her and about me.”
Josh’s voice, now that it was louder, triggered recognition in Max. “Logan?” she whispered.

“Yeah.” He sank into the chair next to her. He pulled off his hat, revealing his normal, if not quite as spiky, hair.

“But... you’re walking.”

“Yeah. For some reason, my immune system stopped fighting the blood that you gave me. I’ve been walking for some time now.”

“And Lily? How did you two- where...?”

“It was shortly after I left Seattle. I found her in an alley outside the house that Jondy put me in. I saw that she was wearing a gown like the one Jondy described Manticore’s children in. I gave her some food and I talked to her. I said I knew some escaped X5s and I asked her what she was. After a lot of hesitation, she told me that she was an X7, recently escaped from Manticore. I took her in, started building my new life as a widower with a daughter to take care of. But meeting her made me start thinking more and more of you. Finally, I decided I couldn’t live without seeing you again, even if you didn’t know it was me.” Logan paused. “I told Jondy about my plan. She said that if I felt I needed to risk my life, so be it, but she wasn’t going down with me. I think she’s been hiding from me ever since.”

“That would probably explain why I haven’t seen her recently either,” Max said, staring at the table.

“Wait a minute. Max, how did you find out?”

“Lily did everything except just come out and tell me she was an X7. And with that little story you cooked up, I knew you had to be in on it too.” Max paused, a thought popping into her head. “But why did you send me a photo of us here if you didn’t want me to find out?”

“What photo?”

As usual, Lily interrupted their conversation by bursting into the club. She looked around for Max and Logan with a speed that dizzied most of the onlookers. She waved them over and waited impatiently for the few seconds it took them to comply.

“Lily, what’s wrong?” Logan asked.

“It’s Jondy. She’s in trouble.”

“What?” Max exclaimed, suddenly taking a personal interest in the conversation.

“Kevin’s found her.” Lily grabbed their hands and dragged them to the exit. She motioned for Max and Logan to get on Max’s motorcycle. Lily herself pulled a bicycle out of the shadows. “I’ll show you where she is.”

Max and Logan looked to each other. Neither knew how she could keep up with them, let alone lead the way. Lily seemed to read their minds.

“Don’t worry. I can keep up easily.” She hopped on her bike and snapped her helmet into place. Max started up her motorcycle and made sure Logan was secure in his seat behind her.

Max nodded to Lily, motioning her to lead the way. Lily sped out of the “parking lot” and onto the road faster than Max’s eyes could follow. Even with her genetically-enhanced eyes, Lily was just a blur that passed in the night. She revved her motorcycle and followed.

***

Jondy studied her surroundings. She was in a large warehouse, which was now surrounded at every window and door by Kevin’s men. Kevin slowly approached her, his gun held out in front of him.

“Well, it’s nice to see you again sister,” he said sarcastically.

“Uh huh,” she replied, taking another look at his troops.

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

“Since when did Manticore start training X5s to use sarcasm as a tool?” Jondy asked. “And to answer your question, no I don’t.”

“Too bad,” he muttered. “Remember, it didn’t have to be like this.” He shot at her, missing by a mere centimeter. She looked up at him defiantly.

“You’re getting to be a bad shot.”

“Tell me where they are!” Kevin demanded, his gun pointed at Jondy. “Do it and I might let you live.”

“And what then? Send me back to Manticore? I don’t think so.”

“Well, you really don’t have a choice. You’re going to reindoctrinated when I bring you back in, but I don’t have to bring you back alive.”

“Then don’t.” Jondy lunged at her sibling. His genetically-engineered reflexes pulled the trigger even as he pulled himself out of her way. The bullet drilled a neat hole in her chest but her momentum kept her going. She managed to get a hold on the gun and then turned it back on Kevin. With the last of her strength, she pulled the trigger.

His lifeless body collapsed to the hard concrete floor. Jondy followed, weak from the loss of blood. She knew that he hadn’t hit her heart, had never meant to. He had known what she would do and had made it so that he could take her back to Manticore relatively easy. But his plan hadn’t worked, he hadn’t planned on her determination. However, Jondy wasn’t the type that could stay mad at her siblings for long.

With her final breath, she whispered, “I forgive you, Kevin.”

The troops paused. They hadn’t planned on this happening. Kevin’s second-in-command finally spoke up. “All right men, we’re going to take their bodies back to Manticore.”

There was an unspoken consent as the troops accepted him as their leader. They hadn’t really liked a genetically-engineered prototype leading them anyway, but being Manticore soldiers, they hadn’t said anything. Now they were back to having a regular man lead them again. They would follow his orders.

There was a crash from the back of the warehouse. Two soldiers came flying through the air and the new team leader barely managed to duck in time. There were more crashes, then more unconscious men being hurled through the air at the soldiers that were still standing. Finally, in the middle of the warehouse, appeared a woman and a girl.

“Get them, tazers only.” His soldiers lifted their guns and fired. Both of their targets moved out of the way well before they could be hit. The little girl turned and stuck her tongue out at the remnants of Kevin’s men. However, they were busy scanning the room for the other, who had suddenly disappeared.

Lily ran at them and dove into the crowd of soldiers, her long legs knocking her opponents to the ground. The three that remained shot at her but missed as she pulled back into the shadows.

Max whistled to the men from her perch in the rafters. She pushed a heavy steel cylinder off the pipes that she was standing on. The men saw too late that it was attached by rope and was swinging right at them. They tried to get away but to no avail.

Max laced the rope that was attached to her weapon through the pipes and used it to quickly lower herself to the ground. Lily and Logan came out of their places in in the shadows. They looked at Jondy’s limp body sadly.

“What are we going to do Max?” Logan asked.

“Well, we’re not going to let those goons wake up and take their bodies back to Manticore.”

“Where can we bury them?”

“The forest,” Lily said. “Unmarked graves. Then nobody from Manticore will ever find them.”

Max nodded and picked up Kevin’s body. Logan picked up Jondy’s body and followed Max outside. Max put down her sibling’s body and got onto her motorcycle. Lily managed to get Kevin in back of Max and make it look like he was just asleep. Max held his stiffening arms around her waist and cringed inwardly as she felt the blood from his wound starting to soak into her jacket.

“Stay here,” she said. Lily nodded and retreated to Logan’s side. “I’ll be back for Jondy as soon as I can.” With that, she started her motorcycle and rode it off into the night.

Max sat in her apartment, watching Lily reconstruct her motorcycle (and watching Original Cindy watch the little girl) out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and Logan came in.

“Well, she left everything she had to me, but she gave me this letter for you.” Logan handed her a sealed envelope with her name on it.

“Dear Max,” she read. “If you’re reading this, I’ve either died or disappeared. Either way, I want you to know that half of what I officially left to Logan is actually yours. I didn’t want to take the chance in case someone put two and two together. I hope that you are able to stay away from Manticore. Be careful little sister. Remember, you now have both Logan and Lily to look out for. Jondy.”

One tear managed to escape its cage and slide down Max’s cheek. Logan sat down beside her and Original Cindy reached out her hand for the letter. Max handed it over and Original read it quickly.

“Lily,” she whispered. Lily’s head shot up. “Come on.” Lily walked over to the door, managing to get to it before Cindy even though she was farther away.

After they were gone Logan wrapped Max in a tight hug. She hugged him back, almost crushing him with her superior strength. They stayed that way for the next hour, just thinking about the woman who had reappeared and then disappeared from their lives so quickly.

*Well, that’s it. I doubt I’ll be writing any more, unless I get specific requests for it. But I am begging PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!!