AN: Hey, it's me...the author. With the first FF story in ages. I've been wanting to do a Maximum Ride story for a while now, and I got the idea of creating a new Flock member. Which, as a concept has never been used before. *sarcasm* Buuut, if you don't like it, you don't like it...just don't vocalize it to me, because you've been warned right now of an OC!
Oh, the horror.
Anyway, with each set of 4 dashes, the POV changes from Daveigh to Max...
And, I'll post another chapter tomorrow. Yay, Spring Break and no social life. :D
So, yes, enjoy!
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It was times like these, were I was coasting on a jet stream, with the cool breeze whistling in my ears that I felt my calmest. It was these times that I could almost forget that I had a psychotic team of scientists trying to get me to save the world, countless would-be assassins, a voice and my head, and oh yeah, don't forget the 2% Avian DNA. Almost. But, with me and the flock, almost was as good as it got. I angled my primary feathers downwards so that I lost just enough altitude to be flying next to Fang.
"Yo." I greeted. Another example of my igreat/i feminine social skills. I watched as the right side of his mouth quirked upwards, and felt my insides flip flop.
"Yo," He replied. Fang was another reason these calm moments were made even better. That's right, this adolescent bird-boy that looked like he could become a sociopathic mass murderer was my...well, boyfriend. The word sounded foreign, even in my thoughts, but it also felt oh so right. We were both still getting used to the whole "togetherness" thing, but it was something that I was most definitely enjoying. We had absolute trust in one another, and he just had a wierd way of calming me, like no one else can, including myself.
"I was thinking that we should stop for food sometime soon. Got any ideas?" I asked, as I lazily rolled over in the air onto my back.
"We're flying over middle of nowhere Canada." He stated, by means of an explanation for "there's not many options for a gourmet meal." I grinned and shrugged.
"You know what I mean. Maybe we could hit up Toronto and see the restraunts there. It should only take us about an hour and a half to get there." He nodded once in affirmation.
We flew in a comfortable silence for a while, listening to Gazzy and Iggy discussing their latest explosive ideas. And I mean iliterally/i explosive. As in, "How much Clorox and elctrical wire would we need to blow up an army of (insert antagonistic creature here)?" kind of ideas. But, I was enjoying this laid-back moment too much to question their pyromaniac issues. I sighed contentedly before rolling back onto my stomach. I felt Fang grab my left hand from beneath me, and my heart skipped a beat. But in a good way. I smiled to myself, and gave his hand a light squeeze. It was moments like these that I could seriously get used to.
"Where'd Angel go?" Nudge asked suddenly.
The bottom of my stomach lurched and just like that, with those 3 little words, my sense of calm was ruined. It was times like ithese/i that I remembered within our flock was a cute and adorable 7 year old, who also happened to be able to read minds, control other peoples thoughts, breathe underwater, and talk to creatures of the deep. In other words, a complete oxymoron to her saintly name. I instantly dropped Fang's hand and angled my left wing downwards to make a tight arc so that I was facing the rest of the flock. I did a quick head count, and as Nudge had stated, we were indeed one Angel short. I resisted the urge to let loose a few innapropriate words, and instead took in a deep breath.
"Okay, when was the last time you saw her?" I asked in forced calm, mentally slapping myself for being so absorbed in my calm moment with Fang that I hadn't noticed Angel's departure.
"I don't know, maybe about 10 minutes ago. She and Total were talking and they fell back. I dunno, I thought they wanted privacy or something." Nudge explained in a rush, her large brown eyes wide. I frowned before yelling, "Okay, everyone! Ground sweep of the area, ASAP!" And with that, we all dive-bombed towards the ground in search of our favorite mind-reading seven year old.
----
I closed my eyes, concentrating hard on what I was about to do, before opening them and taking off in a sprint. I felt my arms pumping with me, granting me more momentum. When I was finally going at my top speed, I snapped out my wings. I hissed in pain at the action and felt myself gain a maybe 10 feet in altitude before dropping to the ground like a brick. I hit the ground face first, with my body and wings following shortly after. I lay there for a long while, sucking in lungfuls of air and clenching my eyelids shut at the excruciating pain that was radiating through my left wing.
"Goddamnit." I thought bitterly. "Stupid wings." I opened my eyes, and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the fact I was now covered in mud. I leaned back on my on my calf muscles and debated inwardly if I should try to retract my wings or just leave them out, knowing that the former would result in even more pain. But, then again, if I left them out, someone could notice me, and I would automatically be on the run for the rest of my life. I felt my face sour at the thought, but I dismissed it quickly, deciding once again to attempt flight. I tightened the muscles in my legs, and used them to jump to my feet and proceeded to back up to the edge of the clearing. I then swallowed deeply and took off yet again in another sprint. However, since I hadn't felt like retracting my wings, they caught the air mid-run, and I as knocked backwards to the ground, my wings taking the the hardest hit against a small log. I slumped back against it, biting my lip to keep back a scream of pain and frustration, not to mention tears, which were threatening to pour out of my eyes uncontrollably. I was to a point where I couldn't even move my wing to evaluate the damage, and it was past the irritating stage, it had entered the time to panic stage.
I pounded my fist against the moist earth in a burst of anger and as means of a distraction from the pain. I glanced down at the indent my hand had made, and then saw how pale my hand was. Which was a fairly good indication that I was bleeding...a lot. I didn't dare remove my teeth from my lip to say the line of curse words coursing through my mind, knowing that if I did, a very loud, unpleasant scream would be the result. I finally just closed my eyes and tried to force myself to remain calm and think of some way I could get out of this forest.
"Are you okay?" I suddenly heard a soft voice ask. I jumped regardless of how soft the voice might have been, and my eyes snapped open. A blonde little girl who looked to be about 7 stood in front of me, blue eyes wide.
"Nope." I said bluntly, surprised I hadn't yelped instead.
"Do you want help?"
"Nope." I repeated, very slowly easing myself to my feet.
"But I heard your thoughts and your wing looks really bad..." If I had been more coherent, I would have stopped and asked how she had heard my thoughts and then realized that I had heard about this girl before and knew exactly who she was, but as it was, I was anything but coherent. So instead, I said nothing and kept on walking.
i"You have nowhere to go. You can't fly away. Please, just stay here for a little bit."/i The kid's voice said. Only, I realized that she had sent her thoughts to my head, rather than vocalized them. That thought seemed to make me slightly more coherent and I found myself turning slowly to face her. She looked a little fuzzy, but I dismissed it and sucked in a big breath.
"Nope." I said yet again, knowing that it wasn't really a proper answer, but hell, that one word seemed to be a good answer to anything at the moment. I kept walking, and the girl was about to say something again, when all of a sudden, I vaguely heard the beating of multiple pairs of wings followed by feet dully impacting with the ground.
"Angel! Oh my god, Angel! Why would you just leave like that-" I turned as I heard an older female voice yell and then cut off, and saw 5 other kids with wings. The wings out made me realize exactly who these people were, and I instantly regretted being in the area. They were all more or less gaping at me, and I took a protective step backwards.
"I heard her thoughts, and I knew she was like us. But she's hurt really bad, Max." Angel explained with a sense of urgency. All 6 of them, plus a dog were all staring at me intently. I dimly noticed how they looked kind of like the Myster Gang, with the dog and everything. But, instead, I squeezed my eyes shut, and felt myself sway ever so slightly before taking in another breath.
"I'm fine." I muttered, taking a couple more steps backwards.
"Who is she?" The light-haired tall one, Iggy, asked.
"I don't know..." Max began, eyeing me suspiciously.
"Max, look at her wing! It's like, seriously busted! You don't have time to glare at her." The dark skinned girl practically shrieked, the shrillness of it hurting my head. Max looked between the flock and me, clearly indecisive.
"Well, I guess you better come with us." She said sounding reluctant.
"No, I'd really rather not. I'm fine, so I'll just be-" I forced myself to block out the pain, if only for a moment, and retract my wings before spinning on my heel and taking off as fast as I could. I don't know how far I got, but suddenly, the trees began swimming in and out of focus before growing darker and darker. And the next thing I knew, my arms had been grabbed from above me before I completely blacked out.
----
Hauling some stranger with wings, scratch that, a busted wing all the way from Ontario to my mother's newest location in Sasketchewan made was not my idea of fun. While normally the trip would have been a nice, short fly for us, it lapsed on forever due to the extra baggage we all had to take turns carrying. She hadn't woken up yet, and I really hadn't expected her to, what with the amount of blood that had been lost. But I was still slightly irritated that I couldn't interrogate her and see if she was a hoax or something.
The Flock was in a state of confusion and excitement over this girl that Angel had found, with said 7 year old hovering over the girl the most. I had done my part in slowing the blood flow as well as carrying her every so often like the good bird-kid I am. But after that, I settled for listening to the rest of them spaz out, all while thinking the same thought to Angel.
iYou are in big trouble, kiddo."/i She got the message loud and clear, I know she did, but she was choosing to ignore me. And to be honest, that stung. Despite how she had repeatedly not listened to me on our latest adventure to Hawaii, it still hurt to know that I was as much of a leader to her as a can of soup.
"I wonder what happened." Gazzy puzzled, not for the first time.
"Whoa, she was really bleeding." Iggy commented nervously as he ran his fingers lightly over her blood-soaked shirt.
"I hope she's okay!" Nudge fretted, glancing over at the girl in Iggy's grasp.
"Hey." I suddenly heard a familiar voice say in my ear. I turned to see Fang flying slightly above me, and as usual, his face gave away nothing.
"Hey," I repeated, aware of how stupid I probably sounded.
"Are you okay?" He asked quietly.
"I'm fine, why?" I replied, not sure what he was getting at. But instead of answering, he just nodded once and pointed downwards where my mother's house was coming into view. Despite my current irritation at the unconcious stranger in our midst, I felt a wave of happiness rush through me as Dr. Martinez's house entered my field of vision. Even though I had seen the same house less than a day ago, after 14 years of not having a mom, every little moment spent with her was a good one.
"Hurry!" Angel shouted to us from her steep descent towards the ground. I followed suit, letting my super speed kick in and I managed to beat her to the ground. I hurried to the door and rang the doorbell twice and knocked for good measure. She answered the door a couple seconds later, and without question, wrapped me in a hug. I melted into the touch as she said, "Max? What are you doing here?"
I stepped back from the embrace and gestured at the rest of the flock who were landing a few feet away from me. "We seem to have an injury." I said stiffly.
She scanned over the Flock, trying to figure out which one of us it was, before she realized the extra cargo between Iggy and the Gasman. "Oh my..." She began before running up to the two and gently taking the stranger into her arms. She gasped at the amount of blood, but wasted no time in bringing her inside. We followed suit, and watched my mom clear off a table in the living room and set the stranger on top of it. Ella, who must have heard the commotion, peered around the corner and her eyes went wide at the site.
"Ella, honey, can you grab me some scissors?" She nodded and quickly retrieved them for her. We then watched as my mother cut the shirt off the girl, revealing her copper colored wings. We all gasped at the site of the left wing, which looked crushed at the tip, and had a large gash across the underside of it. Despite my better judgement, I actually felt a pang of sympathy for this stranger. I knew how much it sucked to have wing injuries, but I'd never had one this bad.
"You guys are going to have to leave. I'm going to have to perform a minor surgery."
"Awww man." Gazzy whined, but after a sharp look from me, he left the room with the others. Geez, all this trouble for some stranger.