A/N: It's like an itch, you know? I'll be writing something, pausing for reading breaks, then bam! Out of nowhere, people start talking my head, insisting that I create them. It's kind of irritating, actually…but I wouldn't trade it for anything. ;D

Chapter 01: So Two Aliens Walk Out Of a Bar…

"Fucking hellhole of a town."

Zane arched an eyebrow, watching carefully as Jondy dropped the drinks she'd ordered in front of them.

"Some asshole pinch you again?" He asked dryly, reaching for the nearest drink and grinning as Jondy hissed at him.

"Always the ass," was her snappish reply. "What the fuck is up with that?"

"Language, my blonde sister," Zane drawled, lazily reaching for the next drink as his gaze scanned the small town bar they were currently in.

"Fuck you," was Jondy's peevish reply, but she kept her mouth shut, settling for glowering at the general population.

His neck was itching and his spine was tingling and he could just feel eyes watching him, practically digging holes in the back of his neck.

"Anything?" He asked, expression still wryly amused.

"Bald guy in the corner," was Jondy's short tempered reply. "Goes by the name Kal."

"Kal?" Zane questioned disbelievingly.

"With a K," Jondy smiled slightly.

"How pretentious," Zane murmured, fingering the rim of his glass. "Options?"

"We could always kill him," was Jondy's slightly-too-chipper reply.

"We don't kill people, Jay. Not anymore."

"Speak for yourself," Jondy replied, leaning back in her seat as she studied the man behind him through half-raised eyelids.

"Dude's been following us since LA," she stated. "Even if he's not working for Manticore, he's definitely got something planned and I, for one, am in no hurry to end up back in a cage."

"Nobody said anything about cages," Zane twisted around slightly, offering her a fake smile as he did so. "Maybe he just wants to talk."

"Talk," Jondy snorted, finishing her drink before shoving the glass toward Zane who rose from his seat, grabbing it to head for the bar, his turn to get the drinks and to run surveillance. "Yeah, right."

"You never know," was his bemused reply as he headed for the bar.


"I don't like this." Kal fought the urge to sigh as he turned his head slightly to look at his companion.

"You never like anything," he stated dryly. "It makes you severely difficult to tolerate."

His companion scowled into his drink, leaning back sullenly as he stared at the pretty blonde girl who kept glancing their way.

"You're sure she's one of them?" Was all he asked, taking the swizzle stick and stirring it around in his drink as he kept his gaze steady on the girl.

"I've seen what she can do," Kal replied, throwing back the last of his scotch, snapping his fingers and pointing to his glass to get one of his men to order him another one. "If she's not one of them, then I'm a flippin' fairytale."

"More like Urban Legend," came the smart ass reply and Kal fought the urge to sigh again.

"You know, I should have left you in Brooklyn," he finally stated.

"If you left me there, I'd be dead," came the logical reply from his companion.

"I know," Kal couldn't quite keep the wistful note from his tone, eliciting another scowl.


"They were talking about killing him," Phoebe was saying in a hushed aside to Piper as she hovered at the edge of the bar.

"So?" Piper asked, busy sorting through her alcohol supply. "People make off-hand comments like that all the time."

"I know, but I felt it – the blonde really wants to kill him." Piper's eyebrows skyrocketed as she followed Phoebe's line of sight.

"Her?" She blinked in surprise as she took in the petite blonde girl. Jeans, leather jacket, Ramones t-shirt, and biker boots.

"You know, now that you mention it, she doesn't quite fit in, does she?"

"See?" Phoebe stated, almost twitching with excitement. "I'm telling you, she's evil."

"Who's evil?" Paige asked, pushing her way through two male dancers, making a vaguely disgusted face at their leering expressions before stumbling the last few feet with a relieved sigh.

"The blonde at the middle table," Piper nodded her head in their direction. "Phoebe says she wants to kill somebody."

"But people say that all the time," Paige reached over to grab the drink she'd left near Piper for safekeeping as she twisted slightly to follow her sisters gesture. "Why should we take this seriously?"

"Because – " Phoebe started only to be cut off as Piper gave a low whistle and Paige all but purred.

"Hello, gorgeous," Paige arched an eyebrow as she took in the blonde's companion. Tall, tanned, and hunky, he looked like he'd just stepped off the cover of a bad-boy romance that women just couldn't wait to get their hands on.

"Wow," Piper breathed, pushing up on her tip toes slightly as she tilted her head to the side, studying the cuties ass. "I'd like to get a hold of those buns."

"Piper! Paige!" Phoebe snapped, drawing the twos startled attention back towards her definitively not-happy face. "Potential killer over there, hello! And if he's with her, chances are pretty good their in league together."

"In league together? What the hell have you been watching, sister?"

"Indiana Jones," was Phoebe's quick reply before she waved her hand. "But's that's not important, the important thing is – "

"What's he feeling?" Piper interrupted.

"Huh?" Phoebe blinked at her.

"Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love," Piper nodded her head to the now sitting hottie. "What's he feeling?"

"How is that relevant?" Piper rolled her eyes.

"You said the blonde is homicidal, so if he's with her, chances are pretty good he should be feeling homicidal as well. So what's he feeling?"

Phoebe frowned as she focused on the blonde's companion.

"I don't know," she finally stated with a curious frown, tilting her head to the side as she studied him. "He feels kind of weird."

"Does this particular brand of weird have a flavor?" Paige asked, straightening slightly as she stared at Phoebe with wary concern.

"What like Warlock or Demon?" Phoebe was shaking her head even as she spoke, her gaze fixated on the hottie. "No. He doesn't feel like anything I've ever felt before."

"I'll say," Paige murmured, slumping back on the counter with a wistful sigh before jerking upright with a startled yelp, turning to glare at Piper.

"No oogling the potential murderers," Piper instructed wagging her finger in warning.

"Okay, okay!" Paige rolled her eyes. "Geesh. It wasn't like I was going to go over there and talk with him. I was just looking."

"Yeah, well, look elsewhere, Missy."

Phoebe ignored her two sisters scrapping as she continued to stare at the grey eyed man, completely mesmerized.

He was just so…different.

He felt hot in her head. Not hot as in attractive, but vibrant and alive.

Primal, like he was more connected to the world than normal people.

"Excuse me, Miss?"

"Huh?" Phoebe jerked back to reality, blinking and shaking her head as she turned to look at the man who'd interrupted her thoughts.

"Can I help you?"

"Mr. Langley would like a refill on his scotch," came the monotone reply.

"Uh, okay." Phoebe hesitated a moment before ducking behind the bar, pulling out a scotch glass and filling it up a couple of fingers before handing it over.

"On his tab, right?" She gave an amused little chuckle, her smile faltering in the face of his dead-eyed stare.

"Okay then, note to self: bodyguards have no sense of humor."


"I don't know, Zane, she's been checking you out for the past fifteen minutes. It could be love."

Jondy's teasing had Zane smiling even as he glanced back at the brunette by the bar, who flushed scarlet and hastily averted her attention away from him.

"Maybe later," he decided after giving her a quick once over. "After we're done here."

"Right," Jondy agreed, settling straighter in her chair as she turned to fix her gaze on the man in the corner.

"Come on, you bastard," she whispered, not bothering to glance away this time when he turned to look at her. "Make my day."


"She's looking at you." Kal rolled his eyes.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

"You told me to tell you, so I'm telling you. There's no need to get snippy about it."

"Snippy," Kal winced as he accepted his drink from the body guard, hastily shooing him away with his hands. "God, you watch too much television. Read a book every once in a while."

"I read," came the defensive reply as his companion leaned back sullenly in the booth they occupied. "Sometimes."

"Yeah, well, here's a tip, buddy: girls like guys who can recite poetry to them. Poetry is found in books. Books that you can read to the girls who will then have sex with you."

"I don't wanna," came the accented reply that had Kal wincing slightly.

He'd spent months trying to get the kid to speak like a normal person cause there was only so much of that godawful Brooklyn accent he could take before he wanted to pull his non-existent hair out by the roots.

"Look, kid," Kal sighed, leaning back slightly, averting his gaze from the blonde to look at the boy next to him. "You miss her, I get that. But hey, there's plenty of other fish in the sea. Window shop a bit."

"They're not family," came the clipped reply.

"Technically, your family tried to kill you."

"Technically," the boy mocked, making a face as he shot Kal a distinctly unpleasant look. "That was Lonnie and Rath. Ava wouldn't doing something like that. She loves me."

"Yeah, and you treated her like what, exactly?" Zan clasped his mouth shut, crossing his arms as he stared sullenly forward.

He wasn't exactly proud of his previous behavior, especially since it played a key factor in nearly getting him killed, but Ava…he may not have loved her like he should have, but he definitely missed her.

"Come on," Kal returned his attention to the blonde, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Just do it already. Make the first move."


"He's not going to make the first move," Jondy stated, not tearing her gaze away from the staring contest for even a second as she spoke, her teeth bared slightly in a primitive snarl.

"So we make it for him," Zane stated amiably enough, raising a finger to attract the attention of a passing waitress.

Slipping her a fifty and a daze-inducing smile, Zane gave her his instructions and a napkin before sending her on her way.

"Fifteen minutes," he murmured, leaning back in his seat, his eyes straying to where the brunette from earlier had stood. It surprised him that he felt a vague pang in his chest when he saw that she was no longer there, but he dismissed it easily enough and refocused on the mission at hand.

Sun Tzu's Art of War was like bread and butter to the X5's – it was the Bible, their Creed, the code by which they lived their lives.

For the first nine years of their lives, it'd been indoctrinated into them. After that, it'd become a necessary survival tool.

And one of Sun Tzu's first rules was never let the enemy pick the terrain, second only to never make the first move unless victory in ensured.

No way was Zane letting that bastard come out on top. He was going to tell Zane where Vada was even if Zane had to kill him to get the information out.

It wouldn't be the first Manticore operative he'd killed and he had no doubt the man in the corner would hardly be the last.

Over in the corner, he and Jondy watched with too-bright eyes as the waitress set the message on the table in front of the man before walking away.

He read it quickly before raising his gaze and giving them one small decisive nod of agreement.

"Game on," Zane murmured, rising smoothly to his feet, Jondy already bouncing to her own.

"Let's play," she purred with a feral grin as they headed for the door.


"How do we know this isn't some sort of trap?" Zan murmured quietly as Kal took one last sip of his scotch.

"They're Emerians," Kal stated with an offhand shrug of sorts. "They don't do traps, remember?"

Zan pursed his lips at the faint dig – ever since his accident, some of his memories of his old life had gotten a bit…fuzzy.

He could remember Emerians, vaguely, but it was like trying to view a picture under water; extremely blurry and never completely clear.

"Besides," Kal gave Zan a quick pat on the knee. "Emerians are fighters. They may be fast and strong, but the powers of the mind will win every time. Remember that."

"Bad ass rhyme," Zan stated sarcastically as the two rose to their feet and headed for the same door the two Emerians had just disappeared through. "Yeah, I'll remember."


"They're leaving! They're leaving!" Phoebe tugged on Piper's arm, her eyes wide and frantic as she watched the Hunk and the Blonde exit the club.

"Okay! Okay! Ouch!" Piper whined, tugging her arm from Phoebe's bruising grip with a dirty look even as she set aside the vodka she'd been about to pour.

"Paige!" Phoebe called out, frantically gesturing the other girl over even as movement caught her attention.

"Oh boy."

"Oh boy what?" Piper asked, looking first at Phoebe then following her line of sight.

"Oh boy," Piper murmured as she watched the object of the blonde's homicidal glare get up, the kid he'd come in with trailing sullenly at his heels as the two headed for the back exit.

"This isn't good," was Paige's contribution as the three sisters watched the two men disappear out the door.

"What do we do?" Piper asked, eyes wide as she turned her attention to Phoebe, who mulled it over for about a millisecond.

"We follow them."

Paige let out a melodramatic sigh, pouting as she trudged after the other two.

"…and these are my new shoes, too."


"You're a hard man to get time alone with," Zane was the first to break the silence. He was leaning against the back wall, hands drifting loosely by his sides as he braced himself against it.

"So I'm told," Kal replied with a humorless and slightly hostile look. "Let's get this over with, then. What's your price? How much is Kivar paying you?"

"Kivar?" Zane's face gave nothing away as he stared at the man known as Kal Langley.

"It depends," Jondy's simpering voice sounded from behind them. The boy jerked around, his hands rising defensively in front of him even as Kal let out an annoyed sigh.

"You never used to be this annoying," he stated, keeping his eyes on Zane as he motioned for the kid to stand down with one hand.

"Yeah, well, things change," Zane could keep the bitter note out of his voice as he shifted his weight slightly, keeping his eyes on Kal all the while.

"Where's the rest of your squad?" Kal asked, cocking his head to the side slightly as he made a show of glancing at their surroundings. "Hiding, maybe?"

"Don't know," came Zane's immediate reply. "Around. Free."

If Kal had eyebrows, they'd be skyrocketing right now.

"Free?"

"As in the opposite of imprisoned?" Jondy's bitter voice rang out behind them and Kal was startled enough that he turned to look at her instead of the male.

"You were imprisoned?" Kal seemed so genuinely surprised that Zane actually felt the first vague stirrings of unease in his gut since Jondy had called him three cities ago and told him she was being followed and that Vada was missing.

"Like you didn't know," but Jondy couldn't quite hide her uncertainty as she pulled back slightly on her animal instincts. "Did you?"

Kal almost glared at her, holding himself in check just in time, sparing the male a nervous look.

"No," Kal replied, turning his body so he could see both of them at the same time. "When I was there, you were free."

"We were never free," Zane stated darkly.

"You were employed," Kal corrected. "Paid. People looked up to you."

"Paid?" Jondy blinked at him in utter disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

"You were warriors," Kal was almost completely and utterly confused by now. "Don't you remember?"

"Remember what?" Zane cut Jondy's scathing reply off with a wave of his hand, his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he watched the other man.

"Your home."

Whatever Kal was going to say next was cut off as Jondy leapt forward with a snarl, moving so fast that neither alien had time to erect a shield in defense.

"They killed my sister!" She snarled into his face, one hand gripped around his neck and raising him three feet off the ground. "That was never home!"

"Jondy!" Zane snapped, pushing away from the wall, only to let out a pained grunt as something flew into him, knocking him to the side.

If he were an ordinary, the blow might have caused some serious damage. But because he wasn't normal, he was on his feet and whirling towards the direction of the object with a predator's grace.

And blinking in surprise as he stared at the brunette from earlier, another woman on either side of her, all three of them staring at him in wide eyed surprise as the one on the brunette's left kept flicking her fingers at him.

"What the hell are you doing?"

It went against every training protocol he'd ever been taught, but the woman was so enthusiastic about the gesture and appeared to be so freaked out by whatever it was, he just couldn't take her seriously.

"Paige!" The hand-flickerer yelled and suddenly the woman on the right was moving.

"Dumpster!" She shouted and Zane had a moment to stare at her in complete disbelief before the dumpster was suddenly hurling towards him so fast he only had time to jump before it banged into the wall behind him.

He landed on cats feet, whirling to stare at the women and ducking just in time as a garbage bag was suddenly hurtling towards his head.

"Hey!"


Jondy let out a pained grunt as she went flying back into the wall, impacting hard enough to send brick shards raining down on top of her before she was on her feet again, fists clenched and teeth bared as she started forward only to come up short against an honest to God forcefield.

"What the fuck?" She managed, punching one fist against it in angry puzzlement staring at it a moment before fixating on the boy on the other side of it. "What the hell are you doing?"


"What the hell are you doing?" Zane yelped as another trash bag went hurting towards him, throwing himself the side into a roll before climbing back to his feet and staring in bewilderment as the hand-flickerer renewed her gesture with even greater enthusiasm.

"I won't let you kill him!" The brunette snapped, stepping forward, her fists clenched as she let out a loud kiyup before snapping a kick straight at his head.

"What the hell are you talking about, lady?" Zane grunted as he blocked, punching forward with enough force to send her flying back into the other two women, the three falling on themselves in an angry pile.

"You're evil," the one with the ability to throw trash at his head stated, blowing her hair out of her face as she pushed the hand-flickerer's leg off of her. "And we're here to stop whatever evil plan you're trying to execute. Duh."

"What evil plan?" Zane had no real gauge upon which to measure befuddlement, but if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say he was pretty high on the scale.

"You were going to kill that…man." Phoebe blinked, her jaw dropping slightly as she took in the scene on the opposite side of the alley.

There was a green see-through shield like thing emanating from the kids hand, keeping the blonde girl at bay while the bald man, Kal, was saying something that the Blonde was clearly having a hard time believing if her eye rolls were anything to go by.

"Jondy?" Zane called, keeping a careful eye on the three crazy women as he looked towards his sister.

"He says their fucking aliens!" Jondy snapped back. "And that we are too. He thinks are memories are fucked up."

"Aliens?" Zane murmured the word quietly to himself, shaking his head before turning to stare down at the three gobsmacked and frozen women in front of him.

"And I suppose you are, too?"

"Witches, actually," the brunette stated around a dropped jaw, her brow furrowing as she turned to look at the other two. "Did she just say aliens?"

"No," the hand-flickerer was hasty to reply. "She did not. She can't have, because aliens don't exist."

"Six years ago witches didn't exist, either," the brunette stated dryly.

"So?" the hand flickerer sat herself upright, pushing her hair out of her face as she glared at the other woman. "What does that have to do with us?"

"I'm just saying, don't dismiss the possibility."

"Witches?" Zane shook his head in complete and utter disbelief as he took in the scene.

Three women claiming to be witches in front of him, two men claiming to be aliens opposite him, and then there was him and Jondy – two freaks of science cooked up in a lab somewhere for the sole purpose of being some sort of supersoldier that would kill on command like well-trained and mindless assassins.

"Fuck." Normally he left the swearing to Jondy – the girl cussed enough to put a sailor to shame – but in this situation, he felt he deserved to say the word.

"Excuse me?" Hand-flickerer stared up at him with such blatant disapproval he actual found himself taking a step back.

"Zane!" Jondy snapped, drawing his attention back to her. "Get your ass over here."


"We're not aliens," Jondy told Kal for the umpteenth time, keeping her arms carefully crossed as she eyed them through the kids nifty green shield thingy.

"Alright then, I'll bite," Kal let out an irritated huff. "What are you? Mutant freaks? Got bitten by a radioactive spider or dunked in a pile of chemical goo?"

"You're getting warmer," Jondy retorted, just plain irritated and more than slightly alarmed by this clusterfuck.

"You're not human," the kid put in his two cents, sweating slightly under the strain of maintaining his shield.

"No shit, Sherlock," Jondy replied, eyeing him carefully. If push came to shove, she was pretty sure she could take him.

The question remained, however, as to whether or not it was justified.

"Can you believe this shit?" Jondy heard Zane approaching, turning her head to grimace at him. "Aliens?"

Her expression faltered slightly as she took in the three women following him.

"Them, too?"

"Oh, no," Zane smiled at her, a sort of desperate grim humor in his eyes. "They're witches."

"Witches?" Jondy's voice rose slightly in incredulity.

"Witches, huh?" Kal chewed on the inside of his cheek as he studied the three women carefully. "I'd heard about you guys, but I've never actually met one."

"And you would be, who, exactly?"

"Kal Langley, Hollywood producer, caterer to the stars, hit film maker, and alien protector to the Royal Four."

"The Royal Four?" Hand-flickerer arched her eyebrows.

"Me," the kid stated, dropping the shield as suddenly as he'd raised it before tilting his head back.

"But there's only one of you, kid," Zane stated.

"Well, now," the kid replied, using the universal tone that more or less stated 'dumbass' immediately following his words.

"Look," Kal stated, nervously eyeing their surroundings. "If it's all the same to whole freakish lot of you, can we not talk about this here?"

"Fine," Zane agreed quickly, arms crossing over his chest. "Where too?"

"How about our place?" The brunette from earlier suggested, drawing all eyes towards her.

"Phoebe!" The Hand-flickerer hissed.

"Piper," Phoebe replied, reaching out to place a soothing hand on the other woman's shoulder. "It's okay. I can feel it."

Personally, Zane didn't think that really warranted a high level of confidence, but Piper seemed to accept it with almost blind faith.

"Fine," she stated, her eyes drifting from Zane to fix on Kal and the kid.

"1329 Prescott Lane. Be there in fifteen," her narrow eyed gaze swung towards Zane. "You two, too."

"Yes, Ma'am," Jondy drawled behind him, causing him to jerk around to stare at her.

"I want answers, Zane," she stated firmly. "And one way or another, I'm going to get them."

Zane struggled with his instincts for a long minute before jerking his head upright to stare at Kal, his gaze narrowing.

"Fine. We'll talk."

"Fifteen minutes," Kal agreed with a solemn nod before turning to his companion. "Come on, kid. We've got places to be, witches to meet."

"Witches," Zane murmured again, shaking his head as he and Jondy headed for their bikes.

"And you thought we were weird."

There were times where Zane appreciated Jondy's dark sort of humor.

This was not one of them.

A/N: So, here I am….here you are. The question remains: where?

Somewhere? Anywhere? Nowhere? Help me out here peoples – review.