Photo courtesy of Supernaturalfan.net

*****

Sam thought about making a run for the car -- and the gun -- but before he could move he was thrown hard against the wall and pinned. Heart pounding with terror he could only watch as a mass of living black swept into the darkened room, its substance thicker and oiler than any shadow and its sulfurous stench making his stomach roil. “Dean!” he shouted as his brother’s body hit the opposite wall hard enough to knock breath from Dean’s lungs.

“Alec!” he heard Max scream as the young male transgenic was also tossed across the room. It was Max then who turned and faced The Demon, brown eyes wide with defiance and teeth bared with battle fury.

“Max, don’t!” Sam yelled. “You can’t--!”

She gave a small yelp as she was picked up bodily by invisible forces and tossed hard onto the bed, her wrists and ankles pinned spread-eagle by invisible shackles (or hands).

“No!” Alec screamed, fighting with every ounce of his strength to free himself from the telekinetic grip. “Leave her alone!”

Max’s face twisted with pain and she writhed as the black mass coalesced above her like a horrible lover.

It’s going to rape her, was all Sam could think. Or possess her ... Or both!

“Take me!” Alec yelled. “Damn it, if you want a body take mine!”

“Alec, no!” Sam shouted as Dean struggled futilely to free himself on the far wall, and it occurred to Sam to wonder if the demon realized there was a third Winchester brother in the room ... if it had noticed.

“I’m willing!” Alec cried. “Take me. I won’t fight you. Just leave her alone!”

For a long moment the black mass continued to hover over Max, the terror on her face horrible to behold as she twisted and turned to try and not let it touch her. But then it shifted ... coiled ... and like a snake slithered in on itself and oozed toward Alec, yellow eyes manifesting in mid-air, twin beacons of Devil’s light as it slid up his body.

Gritting his teeth, Alec looked directly into those liquid gold orbs, his own eyes literally glowing green in a way Sam had never seen in a human. “Come on, you motherfucker,” the X5 snarled. “You want a body, well here I am.”

The black cloud pressed against Alec’s torso, and the young transgenic’s head snapped back. Gasping with pain, he bit down hard on his lower lip, teeth drawing blood, a sob escaping. However, Alec didn’t close his eyes, and the green light in their depths continued to brighten.

For what seemed like forever, The demon tried to thrust itself inside the X5. But then Sam realized it was taking too long ... that something was wrong. Possession happened in almost an instant. The thing was having trouble. Alec was resisting, and more importantly, he was resisting successfully.

You said you wouldn’t fight me, hissing words echoed in the room, a disembodied sound that came from nowhere and everywhere.

“I lied!” Alec spat, the tone and sentiment so much like Dean it made Sam blink. The green glow of the X5’s eyes intensified ... caught fire as he stared into demon-yellow ones. “Leave!” Alec commanded, his voice low and hard. “Get out! Get out or we’ll destroy you! You can’t win here.”

Sam could literally feel the energy crackling in the room as the demon pressed harder, determined to take over the X5’s body, not knowing that its victim wasn’t human -- or at least Sam assumed that was why Alec wasn’t already possessed. But then the demon turned to look over at Dean, perhaps thinking that if it couldn’t have one of the twins it could have the other -- which is when Sam realized he could move his arms and legs, the psychic grip weakening, much as it had up at the cabin in the woods all those months ago. Apparently the creature did have limits, and controlling four people was taking its toll, especially when one of them was fighting back like a demon himself.

Sam’s feet hit the floor, and he was running toward the door, the parking lot, the car, and the gun.

“Sam!” Dean screamed as the demon in its shadow form turned golden glowing eyes toward the younger man.

“Fuck you!” Alec yelled, falling from the wall and taking a swipe at the black mass only to have his fist pass right through it.

Max struggled futilely on the bed, still held pinned, the same as Dean. However, Alec was on his feet -- but what could he do? Fighting the demon on the physical plain was like shadow boxing -- nothing solid to connect with.

And then Sam was back in the doorway aiming the charmed gun.

Later, a word ... a promise ... hissed in Sam’s head as the enemy dissolved just as his finger was tightening on the trigger.

“Crap!” Dean cursed as he fell from the wall to land on his knees on the floor.

“Alec!” Max cried out, leaping from the bed to run to her mate’s side even as the X5 also fell to his hands and knees, shaking and breathing hard, the battle of wills finally taking its toll.

“I’m all right,” Alec managed, just before he wretched and vomited all over the floor. “God,” he whispered hoarsely as he coughed up more bile and spat it out to one side. “That thing ... it tried to--” He raised bloodshot eyes to Sam, panting hard.

“I know,” Sam said grimly, still holding the gun although with nothing now to aim for. “But it didn’t,” he added. He glanced at Dean who was staring angrily out the window where the storm had unleashed a fury equaling his own. “And we need to know why.”

*****

“Your eyes were glowing green.” It was an accusation from Dean, no qualms about it.

Alec blinked, then a sly smirk appeared. “Part of the supersoldier package,” he said blithely. “Night vision requires a colored reflective retina, like a cat’s. All you saw was light reflectin’ outta my eyes in the dark, nothin’ more. Nothin’ sinister.” He thought about that moment. “Well, nothin’ sinister unless you’re afraid of transgenics. It’s one of the few ways you can tell an X5 from a human without doin’ a DNA analysis ... take a good look at the structure of our eyes.”

“Do you believe him?” Dean said, speaking to Sam. “I mean, why should we? To me, it looks like my twin brother might already have his own demonic tenant.”

“Max’s eyes do it too,” Alec said, nodding at her where she was sitting listening on the bed. “Kinda glow in the dark.” He pushed off from where he’d been leaning against the wall, straightening slowly, still shaken by what had happened. Never in his life had Alec felt something like that ... thing. It had been as if it was trying to evict his very “self” ... trying to squeeze into his head and body, supplanting his soul as it were. But he’d fought it and fought hard, and then suddenly it had let up and backed off.

“Maybe it can’t possess a transgenic because we’re not human,” Max suggested, her features tense as she looked long and hard at Alec.

“Demons can possess animals,” Sam repeated what he’d said earlier. “I don’t know that your feline DNA would stop it.”

Max thought a moment, her pretty brow furrowing. “Then maybe it wasn’t our animal DNA,” she finally said. She looked at Sam. “Maybe it was something else in our genetic makeup that made it turn tail and run.”

“Something like what?” Alec asked, crossing his arms and leaning harder against the wall. “What would we have inside of us that would keep a demon out?”

Max swallowed hard, her brown eyes unsure. But at last she said softly, “Maybe Dean isn’t so far from the truth. Maybe this demon couldn’t possess you because you’ve already got some demon in you. And so do I.”

Now it was Alec’s turn to scowl. Swiping the back of his hand across his mouth ... still tasting the bile ... he then bit down on his lower lip before saying, “You talkin’ about Sandeman?”

“Sandeman?” Sam jumped on the name. “Who’s Sandeman?”

“He was one of them,” Alec replied. “One of the Breeding Cult. He more-or-less founded Manticore. His original plan was to create a race of soldiers that could fight his own people and protect the humans ... fight fire with fire, so to speak.”

“He didn’t agree with the Breeding Cult’s takeover-over-the-world plans?” Sam asked.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Dean groused, still watching out the window, as always ever on alert for another attack.

“That cult we infiltrated ... the one that almost killed you a few months back,” Sam said. “They worshipped a snake demon. In Alec and Max’s time they’ve grown strong enough to try and take over the world ... eradicate normal humans in favor of their own supposedly superior race.”

“The Breeding Cult achieved its goal of super strong people who don’t feel pain through very selective and cruel breeding,” Max went on to explain. “They often killed their own children when they didn’t measure up to their standards. They also bred for psychic abilities ... telepathy ... telekinesis and such. I experienced it first hand. It’s been going on for thousands of years, dating back to prehistoric times.”

“A secret race no one’s ever heard of?” Dean snarked. “Yeah, right.”

“As much a religion as a race,” Max said. “But however they achieved it, they’re powerful, and they’ve infiltrated everywhere which is how they managed to accomplish The Pulse in 2009, at least in my time. Then they destroyed the world with nuclear bombs, which is why Alec and I came back here, to 2006.”

“The wrong 2006,” Alec had to interject bitterly. “Nothin’ we do here will help our friends now. And I also doubt we’ll ever be able to go back. I mean, we’d be dead if we did. Everyone on our ship had suffocated.”

“Your ship?” Sam said, eyebrows rising as he swiped long strands hair out of his face.

“Later,” Max said. “It’s a long story. But what I’m trying to say is that Sandeman attempted to create animal/human hybrid soldiers to battle his own people. He thought using animal DNA would be a shortcut to achieving what took hundreds of generations to do in nature.” She looked toward Alec, smiling slightly. “It worked, in a way. We have flaws ... weaknesses ... but we’re super strong and fast, our senses are far keener than humans, we heal a lot faster than you Ordinaries, and our I.Q.’s are genius level.”

“Whoop te doo,” Dean drawled. “You’re a bunch of freaks you mean?”

“Yes,” Max admitted, raising her chin a fraction. “I’m a Freak, and I’m proud of it.” She looked toward Alec, a small smile playing on her lips. “He can speak fourteen languages,” she added smugly. “And fly five kinds of aircraft. What can you do besides fix a car?”

Dean clenched his jaw. “At least I have a soul,” he said quietly.

“Hey!” Sam said. “Lighten up, Dean. They may be better than us so-called Ordinaries, at least in some ways, but believe me, Max and Alec have their share of problems too ... stuff that can kill them.”

“What does this Sandeman have to do with a demon not being able to possess my twin bro?” Dean pressed.

“Sandeman gifted us with some of his own DNA,” Max said. “It passed on many of the Breeding Cult’s abilities, especially the psychic stuff. I have visions, a lot like Sam’s.” Again she nodded at Alec. “He’s an empath ... darn near a telepath in some cases.”

“So?” Dean said. “Freak again.”

“I think,” Max said carefully, “that the Breeding Cult, over the generations of worshipping a demon, may have actually taken some of that into themselves. Which means Alec and me ... all of my kind ...” Her voice trailed off.

“In other words,” Sam said softly. “You couldn’t be possessed because you’re already part demon.”

There was a long moment of silence. It was Alec who cleared his throat. “Interesting theory,” he said evenly. “And yeah, it felt like that thing couldn’t get inside of me because there wasn’t room.” He smirked. “And I suppose bein’ part demon would explain a lot of stuff about me.”

“Shut up,” Max said. “It’s not funny.”

“Yes, it is,” Alec said, shaking his head at the hilarity of his life. He clutched at his butt. “Although, I don’t feel any forked tail, and last I checked I didn’t have horns. Is there a urine test?”

“You guys were created to be a weapon against a demon-race in your own time,” Sam said, his own voice deadly serious, a counterpoint to Alec's joking. He looked over at Dean who was pretty much glaring at all of them. “Maybe it’s more than Fate that sent you to help us -- Dean and me -- in ours.”

“Could be,” Max agreed as the four then fell silent as the storm outside began to play itself out. After all ... what else was there to say?