Author's Note: Right. So this is my first fanfic. Ever. I'd really appreciate any reviews and constructive criticisms.
Rated T because I'm paranoid like you wouldn't believe.
Hmmm... I think that's it. Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, I thought eventually, where exactly are we going?
Although I didn't exactly care, it might be good to know where we were headed to.
An Itex headquarters. It was destroyed and evacuated because of a certain rebellion led by kids. Some scientists have regrouped though, so every file, every source of information they have, is going to be there.
So… we can find out what they're up to now? While they're least organized?
Exactly.
Okay, so either you're familiar with our story, or you think I'm crazy and deranged, talking to myself. To clarify things, I'm talking to a Voice in my head. Big difference, see?
At the moment, I was soaring in the sky, with my happy mutant family, and our talking dog. Oh yeah, and Akila our non-mutant dog. For those of you who don't know, we all have wings. Makes flying a heck of a lot easier. Even our talking dog had wings, although we had to carry him most of the time because he's just learning to fly. We were headed toward Ohio, because my handy dandy Voice informed me that's where my next mission was. I didn't argue, considering the alternative was school. Not THE school, where we all became amazing flying kids thanks to some mad scientists, and my dad, Jeb Batchelder, but regular school. Where we would have to learn.
There's six of us, seven including Total, the dog. I'm Max, nearly/maybe/possibly 15. Fang and Iggy are 14ish. Fang's Mr. Emotionless, while Iggy's our blind, pyro, chef. Nudge, 11, is the girl who never shuts up. The Gasman and Angel are the only true sibs among us, and are about 8 and 6.
Look, you want the full intro to our exciting, fast-paced, action-packed lives, read the first book. Or watch the movie. I think it's coming out soon.
"Hey, Max how long until we reach Ohio? And is there anything in Ohio? Like, anything exciting? Did your Voice even say what we're going to do there?"
I turned to see Nudge looking at me with her big brown eyes, tawny wings beating steadily, her face bright and carefree, as always when flying.
I briefly checked on everyone, and then answered Nudge. "We'll probably reach Ohio in an hour or so. I don't think there's anything to sight-see, but it doesn't matter. We're trying to get information from Itex, which apparently is regrouping in Ohio."
"Why Ohio?" Iggy asked, frowning.
I sighed. "I don't know. Maybe the headquarters in Ohio is the one least damaged by a bunch of angry teens led on by a certain blog?"
Fang smirked, and seeing his dark wings powerfully stroke almost made me catch my breath and declare my love for him. Almost. "Someone has to lead the youth in the right direction."
"Are we going to eat soon?" Nudge, of course. It was hard to enjoy the wind in my face and the feeling of freedom with Nudge next to me. "I know you said we'd get to Ohio soon, but I'm kind of hungry right now. Plus, it'd be nice to eat when no one's after us. Well, hopefully no one's after us."
I silently agreed with the last part. "Yeah, let's stop at the next town. We'll find something there."
"Good," panted Total from behind me. "This flying stuff is really tiring."
Angel frowned. "Total, you've only been flying for five minutes."
Iggy gritted his teeth. "What's really tiring is carrying a certain Malamute that weighs a ton. Your girlfriend needs to go on a diet."
Total growled. "You're just jealous of the most beautiful dog on Earth."
I snorted and intervened before Iggy accidently dropped Total's 'girlfriend'. "Why don't you carry her then?"
Total shut up, and I beat my wings extra hard, and finally let myself feel the rush and exhilaration of flying.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using my MaxCard, which amazingly still worked, I found a cheap motel. I was a little wary, considering at one of the last motels we stayed at I got kidnapped and replaced with an evil clone Max. Hey, anything can happen when you're a mutant birdkid.
The plan was to get a good night's sleep and visit the headquarters in the morning. Angel, Gazzy, and Total were on the bed, Nudge was curled catlike on the chair, and Fang, Iggy, and I had to make do with the floor. Which really wasn't as hard as you'd think, considering we've slept in trees before. A lot.
"Max," came Fang's soft voice, which immediately made me tense.
"Uh-huh?" I asked cautiously, matching his quiet tone.
His dark eyes stared into my brown ones, and I had to remind myself to breath steadily and not hyperventilate like a lovesick moron, which I was surprisingly close to doing. "Everyone's asleep. Why don't we go out for a quick flight?"
Oh no. Much as I wanted to, I remembered what happened the last time I went on a night flight with Fang. I really didn't want to go through that sickening swirl of emotions again. I hated getting all mushy and girly feeling-y.
"We've got a big day tomorrow," I said, not meeting Fang's eyes. "We'd better get a full night's sleep, so we can be as alert as possible."
"You can't avoid me forever," Fang said quietly. "Just tell me how you honestly feel. Then I'll leave you alone."
"I honestly feel annoyed right now," I thoughtlessly snapped, expertly keeping my voice low at the same.
Fang was silent, and I refused to look at him, afraid of what I might see.
I hardly slept at all that night.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was the first to get up, feeling seriously not well rested. Gee, I wonder why.
"Hey, guys, up and at 'em!" I said loudly. "If you don't get up, guess I'll be forced to cook breakfast for you…"
"Argh, Ig, get off your butt… before she tries to cook…" Fang mumbled groggily, while the others forced themselves up with a sort of desperate effort.
Ah, how I love waking the flock.
After we were all fed I got the flock ready to go. "Let's do this, guys."
I suddenly noticed Gazzy looked really unenthusiastic. I frowned. "What's up, Gasser?"
The Gasman looked down and said reluctantly, "Why can't we have another mission? I thought we were done with Itex."
Surprised I started toward him, but Fang beat me to it.
"Gaz," he said in a startlingly soft voice, "we defeated Itex, but we didn't completely destroy them. We're going to their headquarters so we can be ahead this time, so we can destroy them for good. Got it?"
Gazzy looked a little happier. "Let's do this then," he said determinedly.
But I felt unsettled, seeing Fang step in and take over.
I shook off the feeling. "Let's fly."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following the Voice's instructions, we flew in and broke through one of the windows, timing it so we wouldn't be caught on camera. The outside was surprisingly barren, and the building could have been abandoned, except for the fact that the old looking windows were surprisingly secure. Convenient, right?
Get to one of the computers, or another source of information. Everything's downstairs. Be careful- underground, there are robots patrolling the place.
I thought they were disorganized, I thought back irritably. What kind of 'disorganized' group has robots patrolling the underground section of their building?
Max, this is a big organization. They have backup plans. I don't think you'll have a problem though. The robots are harmless; they merely detect intruders. They can't fight.
Well, that's easier, I had to admit. "Alright guys, we're headed to the basement. They're going to be robots, but they can't fight."
Iggy laughed. "So in other words they're completely pointless."
"Why would there be robots that can't even fight? I mean Iggy's right, they might as well invite us in and show us the way around…"
Nudge rambled on, but she was right. I met Fang's eyes, and he nodded. We'd stay on guard.
"Max," came Angel's voice from around the corner, where I couldn't see her. Annoyed with myself for losing track of her, I darted down the hallway and turned at the end, the flock at my heels. Angel was standing there next to an elevator. The door was open.
"I think we can get down there by this. And I don't think they'll catch us," Angel added casually.
"Uh, sweetie? The elevator can get us down there, but there'll probably be security measures against people coming through the elevator," I said reasonably.
"Max," Angel said in a surprisingly steel voice. "It'll work."
Huh? What?
"Alright Ange," Fang stepped in, yet again. Hello? Wasn't I the leader here? Did I say I resigned? "We'll go that way."
Excuse me?
Fang turned to me, unreadable as ever. "Let's go, Max."
We had a problem. There was no one hallway. It was a branch of three different paths. I had tried to demand, er, politely ask, the Voice which way I was supposed to go, but I guess the Voice decided now would be a good time to ditch the bird kids. Freaking wonderful.
I made a quick decision. "Fang, you take Total and Angel and go left, Iggy can go with Gazzy straight ahead, and Nudge and I will take Akila with us to the right. We'll meet back in 20 minutes with what we find. Watch out for the robots."
The flock obeyed, and I wondered about the wisdom of letting Iggy and Gazzy go together when they high-fived and got identical, mischievous grins.
I shook my head. "C'mon, Nudge," I said, pulling Akila along on her leash. So why did we bring Akila, you might wonder? Well, first of all, she's extremely well trained, although Total claims it's because she's a 'fine young lady'. Then Gazzy claimed Akila can't be a lady because she's a dog, and then Total argued that there was a movie about two dogs called Lady and the Tramp, and Gazzy pointed out that Lady was the name of the dog… Anyway. Basically Total was ready to throw a hissy fit if we left Akila behind.
Nudge and I walked around, dodging any robots rhythmically marching up and down the hallway. Without much trouble, we found some cabinet files. It was insanely easy to simply yank open the drawers and break the locks. Guess we kinda forgot about inconspicuous.
"Search for anything with something like 'Avian' or 'By-Half Plan' written on it," I told Nudge.
We leafed through the files, taking anything that was promising. I was starting to feel edgy, although we hadn't seen any humans so far. Which, call me crazy, was a huge warning sign.
But nothing happened.
Nudge and I met up with the others, who had a variety of papers in their hands. We quickly left the Ohio Itex headquarters.
And nothing happened.
Except for a bomb destroying the building, presumably set by Gazzy and Iggy.
"Hey!" called Iggy as we soared away from the crumbling building. "It's not like there were any people inside."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the moment our flock was hanging out in the clearing of some convenient woods.
But I kept thinking about what Iggy had said. He was absolutely right. And that absolutely worried me. That was way too easy. Why?
Max, it's okay, my Voice suddenly decided to pop in. You got what you wanted. Don't ask questions when you know you won't get an answer.
Whatever, I thought, deciding to just ignore the Voice. "Alright, we've got what we wanted. Let's read over it. Let me know if you find anything. Gazzy, just read to Iggy. He'll know what's important."
The flock diligently set to work, myself included. I didn't find anything until…
… The director has set up an undisclosed lab to contain the subjects. We currently are able to track the leader. When the subjects are confined, the procedure can begin within two days.
Oh, my God. It felt like I couldn't breathe, like someone punched me in the stomach. And, trust me, that's happened often enough.
We currently are able to track the leader.
They could track me. That's how they were planning to find the flock. My flock.
"Find something?" Fang was looking intently at me.
"No," I replied calmly, keeping my thoughts firmly clamped down in case Angel got curious. "I'll keep looking."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Oh, I lied. I wasn't done with the author's note. I've got to ask you to please, please review!
Also, most likely the next chapters won't be as long. I just need to know if you want me to continue!