Ello.

So I have been quite unreliable in the past. Well, here's the truth: my dog chewed my laptop charger. So I get away with using my mom's (we both have Dells) when I can, and I never have enough time to write a full chapter, what with my crap battery.

I'll be honest; I can't promise a new chapter every week, but I won't take so long to post to where you even forget you had my story on your updates.

Anyway, here's my new story!

Disclaimer: Don't own Maximum Ride.

(A quick heads up: take a guess who HIS POV is. :P

Here's the rule: when I do the pretty pattern with an italic quote in the middle, that means I changed POVs. From our mystery man to Max. Okay?)

He's Here.

I watched her. The girl who never stopped dancing. Who never stopped moving, really. So graceful…so beautiful…brown and golden curls bouncing in a perfect leap or a pirouette. She never seemed to have a care in the world, always dancing. Always moving.

It saddens me to my core that she is about to be slaughtered mercilessly.

Oh well. I personally don't care.

For the first time today, I pushed off the tree trunk, my cloaking ability disappearing, and moved slowly, and silently, back into the darker side of the forest. She was dancing on the border and she didn't even know it. The border between evil and good. If she took one more step, just outside the western edge of the clearing, whatever lurks in this forest could kill her with no hesitation and suffer no consequence.

I gave an evil smirk. Princess Maximum. A seventeen year old risk taker with not a care in the world. Not realizing the actual conspiracy that was forming silently, getting ready to rear it's evil head.

Soon.

Ignorance Is Bliss.

"Maximum!" Lady Azalea whisper-yelled, finally noticing the young girl running up to the back door of the kitchen. "Where have you been? They were about to launch a search party for you!" She took a step back, scrutinizing her dirty jazz shoes. "Have you been dancing in the meadows again?"

I looked at my feet and quickly took the shoes off. "Maybe. What's it to you, Azalea?"

"To me? More like to you. You know if they catch you doing this they'll take away dance."

My nostrils flared. "They can't."

"They'd do everything to keep you safe and at home, Maximum. You know that." She looked out the window, at the black, iron and stone wall surrounding the palace. "I'll never know just how you do this."

I shrugged. "Oh well. Where are they?"

"Waiting in your room, pretty angry. Here, give me the shoes. Go straight to the dressing room for the function you're attending. A new play just opened in the theater."

My face brightened. "Really? Do you think—"

"Before you ask, no, I don't believe they'll allow you to dance in it. Now go. Hurry, child!"

I hugged her quickly before rushing up the stairs, glad I wasn't wearing anything longer than the knee. Too hard to run in.

As I burst through the door, I was immediately shoved into a spinning chair and placed in front of a mirror. Cayla, my stylist, got to work quickly on my hair. "They're coming. Gotta make it look like I did work." She quickly put my hair into a beautiful, but messy bun, that looked like it took time. Then she leisurely began work on my makeup.

The heavy wooden door swung open to reveal my suspicious mother, Queen Genevieve, staring at both Cayla and I. "Hello, Maximum."

I rolled my eyes. "Mom, you know I hate being called that."

"Max. Where'd you disappear to?"

"My study," I lied easily. My face offered no twitch or gave away any sign I was lying as I stared into the mirror, watching Cayla work on mixing some eye shadow, foundation, whatever.

Her eyes narrowed and she huffed. "Well, fine. Be ready, Max. We're leaving in twenty." She left promptly.

As soon as I was positively, absolutely, 105% sure she was gone, I left out a huge breath I didn't even know I'd been holding. "I feel like every time this happens she's a little closer."

"Well don't talk about it," Cayla scolded playfully. "Now. Your dress is hanging in that garment bag over there. Have at it."

No novice to this kind of treatment (and Cayla's usually pretty revealing, yet subtle and still manages to grasp that she's dressing a princess when it comes to this kind of stuff) and unzipped it. My eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as I scrutinized it with contempt. It was a beautiful royal blue pick up dress with a black bow around the front. In the bottom of the bag, a pair of silver heels nested happily in a black box.

Now, the bad part here, is that it's strapless. And I'm not the bustiest girl in the world, so I had no idea how this was to work. With a sigh, I changed, and Cayla promptly zipped me up. She placed her hand on her chin and looked at it. And looked. And looked. And finally, she burst out, "Très adorable!"

I rolled my eyes. "Fun. Now let's just get this show on the road." I adjusted the pair of my tight fitting dance shorts under my dress (and by adjusted, I meant picked a wedgie) and opened the door. Almost immediately, I was guided down to the awaiting carriage, where my parents were waiting, consumed in their conversation on… sex positions?

…I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Shouldn't this be a fun ride to the theater.

He's Watching.

The black horse I had been riding chuffed, pawing the ground. He was anxious to move, and I do believe the same aura was radiating off myself. I stared down the hill, my horse and I hidden from sight, and down at the large, black and white marble dome that was the theater. If you were looking at something in town, you'd never notice my team of twenty five. But when you actually looked, they were easier to find. Like a needle in a haystack.

In one swift motion, I made the sound of a dragon call, a confused, lost one, so as not to bring any attention. Mothers looking for babies implied reproduction in the forest, therefore, they would need to be found and wiped out. Not aiming to be found. Males seeking females in heat just screamed trouble, since no one wanted a testosterone laden dragon. Confused dragon means he doesn't belong in this area.

Enough explaining. I already know it in my mind anyway. Why did I just go over it again?

I tied up my horse fairly quickly and proceeded on foot with my men, down to the theater that strangely resembled the Roman colosseum. Before the guards at the gate even knew it, all six of them had an arrow through the throat and were lying dead on the ground, blood seeping out onto the hard packed dirt earth. Then I, with another five men, had the arduous, and somewhat sickening, job of weeding the arrow out of the bodies. Once that was done, I, along with the others, stole the armor, and put it on.

As I adjusted the breastplate on my front, I directed the other groups—nine in one, ten in the other—to their positions. Time to take action.

I led my troop inside, and up to the special watching box reserved for royalty. It was actually quite easy to convince the knights guarding the royals to leave. Boy, you can get anywhere with some engraved armor. It probably helped that my face wasn't visible through the helmet, and it wouldn't of helped for me to have been recognized either, being wanted and all.

There, we waited for about twenty minutes. When the fighting scene came on, I could tell they weren't the real actors. Know why? Because instead of hitting the magnetic protective plate on their chests, designed to make the arrow "stick" and give the effect of it piercing the body when it didn't, each of them took an arrow in the throat. Oh, pity. That girl in the corner was pretty cute…did she get away? Yeah. Hmm. Maybe I'll come back for her.

As soon as the three actors clattered to the ground, dead, there was silence. But then hell raised, and the rest of the plan got rolling. Immediately, we broke into twos and escorted the King, Queen, and Princess Maximum out to their carriages. Since we have someone on the inside, the emergency protocol was explained to us. Each member of the royal family is to ride in a separate carriage and take a different route back to the castle, so that if one carriage may fall and be attacked, the others will have gotten away safely and the kingdom will still have a leader.

Well, they made my life easier.

I watched as my other two groups led the King and Queen to their carriages, and then set off on their different routes. Maximum was loaded last and sat in the seat, angry, as I closed the door behind us. The other member was driving the horses.

It was easy to overpower her, although I needed to gag her in order to get her to shut up. Boy, she's a screamer…

And no, I didn't rape her.

Once our dearest princess was sitting across from me, wrists and ankles tied together, a piece of cloth tied in her mouth and another over her mouth, I took off the helmet and gave her a malicious smile. "Hello, Maximum."

Her eyes widened. "Ah ho you!" She looked absolutely terrified, so she must've at least seen the wanted posters around her kingdom.

I smirked. "You know me?"

She nodded quickly, eyes still wide as saucepans. "Don hat me!"

It took a moment for me to translate this. But then I just smiled again. "You're not on your turf anymore, Maxie dear. I can hurt you if I want. In many, many ways…" My hand trailed down her thigh.

She kicked me.

"I like them feisty. Don't worry. I'll break you." He smiled. "And send you back to your precious castle in pieces."

"Aim!"

I chuckled again. "So you want my name?"

She nodded again, obviously fuming and ready to turn me in the second she broke loose.

I shrugged and leaned back. "Just because you know it doesn't mean you'll catch me, honey bunches. But…you can just call me…Fang."