DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement was intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE 1: So I've gotten a couple of private messages with people giving me a hard time for writing a back to Manticore fic when there are so many others out there. My reply, no one is making you read it, k thnx bye. But I did want to say, to those of you giving the fic a chance, that I've got a lot planned for this fic and it's not just a revision of other stories I've read.

AUTHOR'S NOTE 2: I've been really bad about replying to reviews and I'm sorry for that. I really appreciate them more than I can say, I've got three kids though and it seems like every time I sit down to reply some new disaster crops up. ;) I'm gonna get better about it though, I swear.

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“Got it in one.” 494 said snidely and Brin spun on her heel and took off down the narrow hall, intent on finding Ben, suddenly much more concerned with him than Max. The last time she'd seen her baby sister she'd been with Zack so until then she'd assumed that her former CO had also been recaptured. Learning it was Ben had her head spinning with concern. She could sense 494's confusion as he followed close behind her, intrigued by her abrupt change in mood.

She found Ben's cell easily enough and standing there watching him sleep she grew completely still.

“So that's him...” she heard 494 say and something about the way he said it, the pain in his voice maybe, told her he was talking to himself.

“That's Ben,” Brin found herself saying. “The night of the escape, Zack made us break up into pairs. Max wanted us to stay together but Zack wouldn't listen. He put Ben and I together. I think, in his own way, he was trying to be kind. He knew we'd need to split up once we'd gotten far enough away from base and out of all my brothers and sisters, Ben was one of the one's that I was never that close too. Zack probably thought it would make it easier to separate. It didn't.”A glance at 494 showed his face set in an emotionless mask and she knew he was fighting hard to hide his interest.

“He was our second in command you know.” She continued, wondering if he had in fact known that. “Well he was until Jack died and they dragged Ben off to PsyOps anyway.”

494 was surprised to hear that his twin had been to PsyOps. For some reason he'd thought that he and the other twins and the members of Unit 2 that remained behind had been the first pleasure.

“Who was Jack?” he found himself asking, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't interested.

“Jack was the name we gave 714. About eight months before the escape he started having seizures. One night a janitor came in while he was in the middle of one. He gave Jack a prayer card with a picture of the Virgin Mary on it.” She knew that he'd had to take a class on common religious beliefs in order to be cleared for his solo ops and it gave him the advantage of knowing more than they had as children. “He told Jack that she'd watch over him. We didn't know who or what she was. Ben was always making up stories to explain things for us since the handlers and command never did. He called her the Blue Lady and said she'd protect us if we believed in her. Then one day we fell in for morning inspection and Jack started seizing and collapsed. They took him away and when he didn't come back Max decided to sneak out and look for him. She found him in the lab and they were cutting him up. It was probably an autopsy but all we knew was that they were taking our brother apart.”

734's eyes were distant and 494 could tell she was lost in her memories.

“Maxie was scared, we didn't really know why then, but she kept asking Ben why the Blue Lady hadn't protected Jack. Ben waited until after lights out and then climbed to the roof where we'd set up an altar for the Blue Lady. We all heard him screaming, demanding to know what we'd done wrong. He knew why Maxie was afraid and he was scared too. They caught him up there of course. He was gone for a couple of weeks and when he came back he was different, broken almost. And Zack had to make Seth his second in Ben's place.” She cleared her throat then and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, he wasn't bothering to hide his interest anymore.

“Then one night Maxie collapsed just like Jack had. She'd been having the shakes for awhile but she'd hid them from everyone except Ben. They came in to take her away and we were all crowded around her trying to figure out what we could do to help. An orderly came forward, he reached out to grab her and Zack attacked him then the TAC leader came forward to take his place and this time Eva fought him. She grabbed his gun. I don't know what we would have done... we left the barracks, Eva was in front with the gun, Zack and Jondy were behind her helping Maxie, she was still weak, still shaking. The rest of us had their backs. Lydecker came around the corner. He shot Eva, killed her, and the next thing I knew Zack and Seth had jumped through the window and we followed them, running through the snow because we couldn't lose anyone else.”

494 had been close to some of his unit mates but they weren't family like Unit 2 obviously was. Some of his had been taken, some had been killed, but they hadn't fought to keep them, to save them. He could understand the desire too though. He didn't want to be understanding damn it.

“We ran, Ben and I. We got away but we didn't want to lose each other, not when we were all the other had left. Before we split up we came up with a way to stay in touch. Zack eventually found Ben and he told him that Maxie had died during the escape. Still weak from the seizures, she'd fallen through some ice and Jondy had had to leave her. Ben contacted me after Zack left him. He was freaking out. Ben had always loved Maxie best, they had been so close, and he couldn't understand how the Blue Lady he put some much faith in had let her die.”

494 found himself wincing in sympathy and cursed himself for it.

“Zack came to find me a few months later. Ben had snapped, he was killing people. We knew he was making “sacrifices” to the Blue Lady. They'd fought, Zack and Ben, and Ben had won and had taken off. Zack wanted me to help find him because he'd gotten a lead since then and thought that Max might be alive after all. He thought she was in trouble and he went to watch her back. I tried to contact Ben but I couldn't reach him. Then I got sick and ended up back here. Guess Zack didn't manage to find him to tell him either.”

494 took another look at his twin and had to struggle to remember that so much of the crap he'd been through had been Ben's fault. He turned and started walking away, he didn't want to forgive and forget. He found himself stopping in front of 452's cell and was shocked to see her struggling to sit up, muttering about her damn shark DNA.

He was going to say something to alert her to his presence but a sudden noise stopped him. It was a sound somewhere between a snarl and a growl. He found himself turning, hands coming up slowly in front of him even as he shifted his center of balance and bent his knees slightly, falling into fighting stance. Nothing prepared him for the sight in front of him. He'd spent his fair share of time in the basement over the years thanks to his trips to PsyOps but he'd never been so close to one of the anomalies before, especially not one that was walking around freely. The guy was clearly Manticore made, with way too much canine DNA. He was huge and with his teeth bared aggressively he was pretty menacing. 494 heard 734's gasp of shock behind him and felt her moving to stand at his back. He was surprised she seemed willing to fight beside him given the way he'd treated her up until now.

And then it spoke and the jaws of the two X5's dropped comically.

“You ok, little fella?” it asked, never taking its eyes off of them, but maneuvering to place himself between them and the cell door. Only then did 494 notice that it held some food in its hands. It seemed to view them as a threat to 452.

“You make the strangest friends, Maxie.” He heard 734 say from behind him in a strangled sort of voice.

“Brin?” He heard Max say seconds before he saw her dark brown eyes, liquid with emotion, peering out the slots in the door. “Joshua, its my sister Brin, I told you about her.” He saw her look him over as dog boy moved out of the way. Her head tilted slightly to the side as she seemed to weigh him with her gaze. “You're not Ben.” She said matter of factly, anything else she might have said lost when Joshua turned and in a moved he couldn't see, opened the supposedly tamper proof cell door.