Welcome

[Alec McDowell]

Alec walked with her though the woods and stopped with her when they approached the treeline. He crouched down with her, knowing in an instant what he was looking at. There it was, in full glory. Manticore. It was almost as if Max's effort to torch the place hadn't been a success, and he almost expected to see Renfro walk out. But she was dead... had been for a while now. He watched silently, bracing Max, who looked like she was about to fall over.

Memories of growing up in that hell hole came flooding back to him. All the training, how hard Manticore had come down on them when the others escaped. And his time in Psy-Ops when Ben went on his rampage. All of the memories he didn't want to be his came flooding to him. And to say it almost brought him to tears would not be a lie. But he stayed stoic. "We should get out of here..."

[Max Guevara]

She had known, deep down, that Manticore was back. That many rumors had to have some kind of truth behind them. It was kind of like the whole theory behind ghosts for some people. . .so many people had seen them so there must be some kind of substantiation right? Max didn't know about ghosts or any of that but she did know that she could see Manticore in all its horrid hellish glory right in front of both of them, resurrected from the ash and back with a vengeance. It even appeared that they had been creating soldiers for quite some time because they appeared well armed and ready for battle.

It took Max a few moments before she was able to slide away from the rise on the hill with Alec. She suspected he might have tugged on her shoulder a few times but she was in a semi-state of shock. This changed everything. . .all of their lives had just gotten a lot more dangerous and she knew that now she had to find out if Manticore planned to hunt her people down again. Because that's what it had become. Those holed away in Terminal City looked to her and Alec for answers. . .and she didn't have any to give.

The question of what they were going to do was useless at that point. Max knew they would have to find a way to figure out what Manticore wanted, who was in charge. . . .and take it down again. What if they had made a new series of genetically enhanced soldiers? What if this time around the trangenics in Terminal City were outclassed and outgunned completely? Max could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on and she still hadn't released Alec's hand. She was so out of it that she didn't see the shadows flitting past in the treeline around them, silent and deadly, didn't see the smaller figures moving in perfect unison like a hive of bees might.