Title: X5-682

Author: Kyra

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don’t own it! If I did, I probably wouldn’t be writing fanfiction.

Summary: Challenge Response. What if Cordelia had bought a costume from Ethan’s?

Spoilers: Buffy – Season 3, after Faith arrives but before ‘Lover’s Walk.’ Dark Angel – None this chapter.

Warnings: None that I can think of.

A/N: So, apparently one of my Muses has a crush on Cordy….

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Chapter 6: Seizing

Cordelia laughed as she listened to Willow recount a story from when her and Xander had been younger. The slim redhead was sitting across from her at the table that their small group had claimed at the Bronze. Looking to her left she saw Buffy trying to stifle her giggles, on her right the new Slayer, Faith, was sitting with a huge grin on her face. It was just the four of them tonight; they had decided that a Girls’ Night Out was in order and had told Xander and Oz to stay away from the Bronze for the night and told Giles that he was only to contact them if the world was ending.

Cordy reached for her soda, pausing as she realized it was empty. “Ok, next round is on me. Who wants what?” She asked. After getting everyone’s orders, she swiftly stood and made her way to the bar.

As she stood by the bar waiting for their drinks her eyes scanned the crowd before locking on a blonde girl dancing in the middle of the dance floor. She was dancing with a grace that was damn near feline. As she watched, the dancer turned around, her hair flying around her shoulders and off her neck, momentarily baring a barcode tattoo to Cordy’s X5-enhanced eyesight. It was only visible for a split second before the girl had her arms in the air, one above her head and the other casually drifting down to cover the back of her neck. After studying the blonde for a moment, Cordy decided that the girl was only there for fun and wasn’t a threat.

The bartender set down her order of drinks and Cordy quickly handed him her money before running a hand through her hair, ensuring that it fell over the back of her neck and covered her barcode. Once that was done, she quickly grabbed the drinks and headed back to the table where the others were waiting.

After a few more hours of laughing, chatting and dancing, the four girls decided to head home.

“I’ll walk Willow back, if you’ll take Cordy home,” Buffy said, looking at Faith as they exited the club.

The brunette Slayer nodded, “Sure thing, B. See you guys later. C’mon, Queen C.”

Cordy, Willow and Buffy quickly said their goodbyes and the group split up, Buffy and Willow heading towards Willow’s house and Faith and Cordelia heading for Cordy’s.

The two girls chatted and laughed on the way back, enjoying each other’s company and bonding a bit over the fact that they were both a bit on the outside looking in where the Scoobies were concerned. About halfway to her house, Cordelia started shaking slightly. Her eyes widened a bit as she slipped her hand into her jacket pocket only to realize that she had left her bottle of tryptophan at home before going out with the other girls. Trying to keep calm, she subtly increased her pace a bit and put her hands into her pockets to try and hide the shaking. After about five minutes, Faith stopped talking mid-sentence as Crodelia’s shaking became noticeable.

“Hey, you okay?” Faith asked, looking a bit concerned as the other girl’s shaking seemed to get worse as she watched.

Cordy shkily nodded, “Y-yeah. I just need to get home. I have meds I can take for this. I’ll be f-fine.”

Faith looked at her as though she didn’t quite believe her before nodding and increasing her pace, trying to hurry. She stopped short moments later, though when Cordelia’s shaking got so bad that she collapsed and continued shaking on the ground.

“Holy shit! Cordelia!” Faith cried before crouching down and picking the other girl up and turning in a different direction, “Come on, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Cordy frantically shook her head as she reached out and grabbed onto the denim of Faith’s jacket. “N-no. No hospital. Please! Just get m-me home. I’ll be fine, I swear.”

Faith paused a moment, unsure. Finally she sighed and turned back in the direction of Cordelia’s house. She didn’t even bother thinking of how it would look if anyone were to see her, she just took off running, the shaking Cordelia still in her arms.

As they reached the house, Cordy had Faith dig her key out of her jacket pocket. Faith quickly fished the key out and unlocked the front door. The Slayer swiftly made her way to Cordelia’s room, following the other girls directions to get there.

Cordy curled up into a ball as Faith gently laid her on her bed. “Th-there. In my vanity. There’s a false bottom to the bottom right hand drawer. Under that there’s a bottle of tryptophan.”

Faith quickly got the bottle out of the drawer and opened it up, handing it to the violently shaking brunette on the bed.

Cordy tried to shake a few pills out but ended up spilling the whole bottle onto the covers. She just reached out and picked some up, quickly popping them into her mouth and dry swallowing them. Then she curled back into a ball trying to ride out the rest of the seizure. She felt the bed dip moments later as Faith sat down next to her, the other girl gently reaching out and rubbing soothing circles onto Cordy’s back.

Close to ten minutes later, Cordy finally relaxed fully, the shaking gone but for a few small after-tremors.

“You okay?” Faith asked after a few moments of silence.

Cordy nodded, “Yeah. Thanks for not taking me to the hospital.”

“Yeah, well you have some serious explaining to do. What the hell was that?” The other girl replied.

Cordy sighed and rolled onto her back, turning her head to look at Faith sitting next to her. “That was a seizure. I have them every now and then, but the tryptophan helps. I can’t believe I forgot to take some with me when we went out tonight.”

“Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me that you have seizures?”

Cordy snorted softly, “Because they don’t know. They only started last year.”

Faith looked at her incredulously, “Why don’t they know? You need to tell them.”

“I think not. Telling them would mean explaining everything to them.”

“What do you mean? Explaining everything?” Faith asked curiously.

Cordy sighed again, “Did anyone tell you about last Halloween yet?”

Faith looked confused for a few more minutes before her expression cleared slightly, “You mean how you all turned into your costumes?” She asked and Cordy nodded, “What does that have to do with this?”

“That’s when the seizures started. See, no one knows what I dressed up as for Halloween. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was; I thought I was just an assassin. Like from a comic or movie or something that I had never seen. So not the case. When we all turned into our costumes, I got turned into something called an X5, a genetically engineered soldier. And I wasn’t turned into just some random X5 the way someone dressed up as a cheerleader would have turned into just another cheerleader; I was turned into a specific X5. The part of my costume was a barcode temporary tattoo that went on the back of my neck, turns out, that barcode actually went to an X5 that really existed. Her designation was X5-682. She was a star pupil at Manticore, great at hand-to-hand and with all manner of weapons, very strong and agile and fast. And I have all of her memories. Though they stop a few years ago…From what I can tell, the memories stop there because she died. After the spell ended, everyone else went back to being the regular old selves, some of them retained some of the memories, like Xander, but nobody kept all of the memories like I did. And the memories aren’t all that I kept. It’s almost like I’m half X5 or something. I’m faster, stronger, more agile, I have better senses, hardly need to sleep anymore and my immune system is way better. I’m also stuck with the damn seizures and the Heat cycles as well,” Cordelia explained.

Faith looked thoughtful for a moment as she tried to remember something. “Manticore. That’s that government project that that Eyes Only guy was talking about a few months ago, right?”

“Yeah. What he didn’t mention though, is the way that we - they - were genetically enhanced. It wasn’t just finding DNA from smart people or fast people or strong people. We - they - were all created in test tubes and incubated in surrogates. And the DNA used was a mixture of human and animal. 682, for instance has both cat and shark DNA in her. I guess that for some reason the spell on Halloween altered my DNA somehow because that’s the only thing I can think of to explain the seizures and the Heat cycles. The Heat cycles especially. Those were caused by her feline DNA. It’s also what made her faster and more agile and able to jump higher than normal people. The shark DNA is what makes it so that I don’t need to sleep as much. That’s why I didn’t want to go to the hospital. Can you imagine what would happen if they ran a test and found animal DNA in me? It’s almost like when the spell ended 682 stayed a part of me, just muted or something.”

“Wow. What a bunch of sick freaks. So, if that place that burned down was a Manticore facility, then what happened to everyone that was in there? Everyone like 682?” Faith asked, trying to absorb what Cordelia had just told her. “And wait, you said that the barcode was the part of your costume that made you change?”

Cordy nodded, “Yeah, everyone created by Manticore has a barcode. We can’t get rid of them, they’re actually part of our DNA. I mean, it can be removed like a tattoo, but it just comes back a couple of weeks later. I actually still have 682’s barcode on my neck, though its pretty faded, like an old tattoo or something. As for the others at Manticore; I think they escaped as the place went down. I’ve seen a few Transgenics here in town over the last few months; a couple of X Series’ and one that we called Nomallies, they were the ones with a bit too much animal DNA. There was even an X Series Transgenic at the Bronze tonight. You’ll have to be careful about the Nomallies though, we thought the one I saw was a demon until I noticed the barcode and managed to distract the others long enough for it to get away.”

Faith looked surprised for a moment, “I’ve actually seen your barcode, I just thought it was a badly done tat that had faded out or something. I’m glad that the others escaped though, they didn’t deserve to die like that. And don’t worry, If I see anything with a barcode on the back of its neck, I’ll tell it to get out of town before B sees it.”

Cordelia nodded with a sigh, “Thanks. God, it feels good to finally tell someone about all this. Just please don’t tell the others yet.”

“I won’t, I promise. Just make sure you keep those pills with you, okay?”

Cordy just nodded as her eyelids started to droop.

Seeing that the other girl was starting to fall asleep Faith stood up, “Well, I better get back to the motel,” She said as she headed for the bedroom door.

Cordelia slowly pulled herself up off the bed, “Nah, don’t worry about it. You can stay here. I have plenty of room. My bed is huge, or you can stay in one of the guest rooms if you want.” She moved over to her dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas. “I’m gonna go change, just pick something out of that drawer to sleep in.”

“You sure?” Faith asked.

Cordy nodded, “Yeah, its fine,” She replied as she headed into the bathroom connected to her room to change. When she came back out, Faith was changed and already laying in the bed.

“I figured I’d stay in here with you; make sure you’re okay. You gave me a bit of a scare earlier,” The brunette Slayer told her.

Cordelia nodded and climbed into bed, “Works for me.”

Moments later and Cordy had turned out her bedside lamp and both girls drifted off to sleep.

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Yay! Another chapter done! I figured it would take me longer since I was planning on having a Stargate: Atlantis Marathon since I got the first 3 seasons for my birthday. But since I didn’t get around to starting that today, I figured I’d go ahead and update. I hope you all liked it!

Please, please, please review and let me know what you thought!

Kyra