Fiction From AtZR2- Alpha

Title: From A To Z

Chapter Title: Alpha

Author: Restive Nature

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dark Angel. They belong to Fox and Cameron/ Eglee. No infringement is intended and this fiction is for private enjoyment only.

Rating: PG-15

Genre: Dark Angel

Type: humorous

Pairing: Max/ Alec

Summary: There was always more than one way to show his status.

Spoilers/ Time line: Mid to late Season 2.

Feedback: Always welcome!

Distribution: Ask first please.

A/N: This is my interpretations of the second round of A to Z fictions, using the prompts that Seamagik has come up with. Thanks for the inspiration, as well as Nickeldime17 for getting this all started.

A/N2: This idea comes from an episode of the show “South Park” entitled “Heavy Metal”. I was thinking about it while I fell asleep and when I woke up, this fiction was born. It was only reinforced when my husband and his friends displayed this behavior too.

A is for Alpha

Enjoying a beer, with his friends, after a long, hard day, or at least, the approximation of it, a beautiful woman beside him, several more in the vicinity that showed every sign of interest in him... What more could Alec McDowell, transgenic super soldier, and young man about town, ask for?

Well, of course there was the FBI, military, police, all sorts of government agencies really, that were trying to hunt down the escapees from Manticore. A black ops program of the army that was completely disavowed in every political circle possible until someone had leaked that incontrovertible proof. So that was one thing he could complain of and wish gone. For those politicians and bible thumpers and so on and so forth to let them just fade into anonymity.

There was also the lack of ready cash. It was a problem in this post modern world that nearly everyone suffered from. But he had ways of remedying that. So Alec could deal.

And of course, the woman right next to him, the woman that had he admitted the truth to himself fully, instead of dancing around the idea, that one. The one where he was totally and helplessly in love with her, rather than just hot for her ass, and other assets and would so totally bang her if given half the chance. Now she herself wasn't so much the problem, per se. No, the problem was the growth on her other side. Self proclaimed freedom fighter and representative of the people, Eyes Only, aka Logan Cale.

If only Logan Cale and all the rest of his ilk would just drop off the face of the planet. It would make for a happy hopeful, would be boyfriend, as Alec had finally decided he was. But Alec wasn't thinking too largely about the problem being the do-gooders act of cosmic karma balancing. Or the laconic good ol' boys that thought flashing a little cash entitled them to do, say, act however they wanted. No, his issue was and always would be, the other males that were skirting a little too close to his territory.

When Manticore scientists had created the X5 series, of which Alec was a member, along with Max and more beings than he cared to count, really, those scientists had screwed the pooch royally on several levels.

First off, combining human and animal DNA might have been a brill idea back in the day. But with no precedent other than a five year old accident that happened to survive and his clone-like little brother, the scientists had forged full steam ahead. And that had been the problem. They hadn't taken the time to stop and think out the possible consequences of what they were creating.

So while a person, or more specifically a soldier, having super strength, super sight, and a whole host of capabilities was great, amazing, awesome... well the flip side wasn't so hot. The unplanned for pack and herd instincts, or the seizures from the lack of ability to produce serotonin, the inability for some of the soldiers to sleep, and the dreaded heat cycles of the females. Those were just some of the joys for the head honchos, not to mention the soldiers they plagued, to race after, trying to contain what could not be contained.

Even from early on, there had seemed to be discovery after discovery of genetic mishaps that produced less than desired behavior or physicality in those very soldiers. And in the case of the things that they couldn't fix, or deal with, Manticore's usual modus operandi was to destroy the evidence. And the soldiers? The people? They were just collateral damage.

So the soldiers, those that stuck around, unlike the small band of kids, Max's unit from Wyoming, the rest of them learned really quickly how to quell and disguise those despised behaviors from the higher up echelon.

But they were still present. And being the brilliant soldiers that they were, the transgenics had overcome these behaviors into, well ,not quite acceptable instances, but at least explainable when they occurred.

Alec smirked to himself as he recalled some of the most bewildering behavior that they had been able to re divert so that the scientists, guards and think tanks were unaware of what was truly occurring.

Naturally, with the drive towards producing the biggest and the strongest and the leadership skills prized in the best of the best that the military had to offer, they'd ended up with what could only be called alpha craziness. There were very few subservient transgenic males and females. Some of the transhumans had been bred that way, and that was fine. They learned quickly how to stay out of the way of the brouhaha's that occurred. And since Manticore obligingly trained their operatives in certain manners and skill sets, it sometimes helped in ranking. And then there was the natural hierarchy of the animal world that the transgenics were able to mimic.

Transgenic genome paired with more than one animal DNA were higher classed than the singles. Naturally predators outweighed the prey and it wasn't like Manticore found any desirable traits in those types of animals anyway. Other than the aquatic type. So there was that ranking there.

And so it was that Alec, created with the requisite large cat DNA and another DNA that they, mostly he, had been unable to pinpoint directly as a specific animal genome, but regardless of that, it was Alec that had risen to the top of the dog pile, as it were, in pack supremacy.

But this too was not without consequences. Because Manticore in their infinite wisdom had tried several different combinations of animal pairings and when they found success, they reached for familial strains as it were. It was hard for the transgenics to judge sometimes. Alec fought more than once for dominance in many varied ways, some subtle and unnoticed, others not so much. So while he dominated his category of feline and the other that he still hadn't discerned with name, his cousin felines were also the top of their lot. Knowing that they couldn't turn to the officers or scientists, for fear of being taken apart, they had subconsciously allowed the codified rankings of the humans to guide them.

Therefore, when instinct didn't tell them who was on top, rank did. And Alec had worked damn hard, combining wit, wisdom, brawn and the all important charisma, funneling it to all the right places. It was why he had survived when by all rights, through his own screw ups and others, he should have been dismantled as per Manticore's creed so very long ago.

Alec, coming back to himself for the moment, felt a slight ire as Logan leaned forward at the table to address him.

“Did you ever run across X5-917-!” he broke off abruptly to turn and stare all googly eyed at Max. Obviously they considered themselves to be in an on again phase of their “relationship”. Of course Alec knew that Logan was no threat physically. They couldn't even touch. “I'm sorry, I never caught his name.”

“He didn't give one,” Max frowned and then offered her would be lover boy a tiny smile, like he was to be congratulated for his humane feeling of assigning the all importance of names to objects.

“Yeah,” Alec broke in, slightly hoarse. “I've come across him before. Arrogant little prick he is, too.” Both of his table mates raised eyebrows at that. Damaging words, especially from the man that Logan considered a sociopath.

And it was back to the center of the problem that Alec had been ruminating on. He knew that 917 was going to show. Hell, he almost had to. The little jerk, a double animal genome recipient as well, always on Alec's heels through the years, 917 held the opinion that Alec's few failures against his own record should have elevated him to top dog. Or cat. Or mixes thereof. Whatever it was. What made it so damnable was that 917's cocktail too greatly mirrored Alec's own, even though the specifics weren't the same, the families were. And out in the real world, their rank would mean nothing.

And Alec had arrived, just in the nick of time from Max's terse demand to help her rescue some transgenics, to see fucking 917 playing up to his girl. His for more reasons than the fact that she had named him, kept him around, watched his back, when she could force herself to grudgingly do so. Max didn't realize her own status, simply by rights of the double genome. She didn't bother with the alpha crazy. She just demanded, got what she wanted and figured it was all because of her, even when it was the scientist's who had created her that way.

So now, Alec figured, he was going to have to find some way of warning 917... could he get away with calling him Prick? Anyway, he needed some way of backing 917 off of his girl and away from the inner circle he obviously wanted to be in, until he was a miserable quivering heap of chastised transgenic. And doing all this without fighting because Max would surely freak out, plus it could draw unwanted attention. Words certainly wouldn't work. So that left-!

“Oh look!” Logan enthused in an overly bright tone. Alec's eyes slid quickly to Logan, who had a grin pasted on his face, as fake as the ninety-nine cent Roloxes Sketch had once tried to hawk as the real thing. Seeing that and catching a familiar scent in the air, he stifled a groan. “917 is here.” The older man turned once again to Max. “He really should pick a name. It would help him...” and here he lowered his voice drastically, like he was about to release an epithet, “...blend in.”

“Yeah, it would,” Max agreed mildly.

The only thing that kept Alec in his seat was the fact that Max's interest hadn't even spiked a notch. She barely glanced at the other transgenic as the creep entered, though Alec knew that all of 917's attention was focused on the powerful, apparently available alpha female in the midst of this stinking cesspool they fondly called Crash.

“Well, he's seen me,” Logan went on. “It would be rude not to at least invite him to have a drink with us.”

“That's sweet of you Logan,” Max simpered, though Alec could tell it was affected. Trouble so soon once more in falalalala-land? Of course. Logan, neatly trapped by propriety and good breeding, rose from the table to approach the newest transgenic in their world. Alec's eyes followed him briefly before finding and then narrowing in on 917. Yeah, there was definitely a challenge in those predatory eyes. 917 squinted suddenly, seemingly ignoring him suddenly as Logan approached him, but Alec knew it was because Max had shifted, squirming just slightly closer to him. Well hell! Maybe her instincts weren't as dormant as he was starting to think they were.

Before he could enjoy her nearness, he wanted to swear as a new scent entered his nasal cavity. He grimaced distastefully. Weak! 917's warning scents had aways been pathetic. And then as Max wrinkled her nose too, glancing around to see where the offending smell was coming from, Alec sighed.

He had been thinking of maybe giving her a crash course in these hierarchies that the transgenics and probably the transhumans had developed. Now that more and more of them were showing up, her knowing these things could be vital to her health and all that. Wouldn't do to piss off the wrong person and end up with her neck snapped because she was ignoring her instincts. But now, time had abruptly run out. Ruefully, he wondered if she would mistake the occurrence as the trainers always had. He'd pretty much bet good money that she would.

Well, Alec decided, it couldn't be helped. As Logan and 917, Dirk, he heard the other transgenic telling Logan, approached, he had to smirk. Hah, too close to Dick, which would make Max think of Alec. It was about a given, with the way her mind worked. Idiot had probably picked it because it sounded dangerous. As if!

Once they were close enough, Alec eased back a little, toying with the pitcher while Logan made excuses about getting another glass from the bartender. The ordinary out of the way, he let out his own warning scent, taking careful calculation of it's composition. A little heavy on the orange scent that beer consumption always caused, but otherwise completely robust, thick. And judging by the furious look on 91- sorry, Dirk-dick's face, the bugger knew it too. The little flick of the shoulders wasn't quite an admission, but Alec knew he'd have plenty of time to school the boy. Now, if only Max could fall in line that easily. Because if he was right, in about three, two, one-

“Oh my God Alec!” she hissed, glaring vehemently at the male beside her. “Did you just fart!?”

Yeah, this was gonna take all the saints of patiently virtues to get through that thick skull.

FAtZR2- Date