So here is the first chapter for FIGHTING DIRTY IN THE FIGHTING GROUNDS. I hope you like this one better than the other one…I know I will… :]

THIS WILL BE THE ONLY TIME I DO A DISLAIMER FOR THIS STORY SO LOOK VERY CLOSLY…but not to close otherwise you'll hurt your eyes…

Disclaimer: I do not own any of James Patterson's ideas or characters WHAT SO ever. I only own the plot idea.

Max's POV

My fist flew into my opponents face and broke his nose. While the blood ran down into his mouth, I took advantage of his dizziness and knocked the beefy guy's legs right out from under him. The referee counted to three and lifted my left arm into the air to tell the viewers that Maximum Ride has won another match in the bland and blood-splattered ring of the fighting grounds. My heart filled with pride as the people in the stands screamed my name. I had bruises that where already forming on my body and bleeding cuts that I would soon wrap in bandages. It was all worth it though at the end of the night when I got my cash that I earned.

Sure, the fighting I did was illegal but as long as it brought in some kind of income to feed me and my little sister, Angel, I would keep doing it. My gloved hands fell to my sides as the referee pushed me out of the ring.

My mind was always on a different planet before, during, or after a fight so I didn't feel any remorse for what I did or sympathy for the guy I did it to. It was like putting up a brick wall so my emotions wouldn't affect how hard I punched or kicked.

I went into my boss's office to collect my pay sitting in my little "mail box" (so to speak) I had. I flipped through the bills as I walked towards the exit of the building and counted at least 200 dollars. Good. That'll give me about two weeks worth of food if I use it wisely. I tucked the money in the front pocket of my jacket that I pulled on and started to head down the badly lit streets with my chin raised. Now most people would be scared of being kidnapped, raped, or even murdered, but because I practically beat up every homeless dude on these empty roads they know to leave my sister and me alone or they will be the one getting injured. Usually you don't see a lot of women fighters where I live so I earned my title with bloody fists and a stubborn persona.

I reached the end of the ally and started to walk into the dark forest that lay behind the small town. Most people where to afraid to go into it and that's exactly why I chose to live in the mass of trees with Angel so we won't have any complications with other people like us.

As you already have noticed, my name is Maximum Ride. I, weirdly enough, used my real name as my stage name unlike the other street fighters. Most people call me Max for short. Like I said earlier, my little sister's name is Angel and her name fits her perfectly with her blond curls, sparkling blue eyes, and the face of a cherub. She comes up to about my hips and she's only six years old. Considering I'm 5'11" she is pretty tall for a girl her age.

As I got up to the old oak tree, I started to climb up using the bumps in the bark to get to the little ladder that leads up into our "house". The reason the ladder didn't start on the ground was because if by any chance people did come into the forest, they wouldn't see anything related to the house in the trees.

I slipped my keys out of my pocket and opened the creaky door. A as soon as the door was closed and locked, a blond blur ran straight into me and snagged her arms around my waist. I lowered my head and kissed angel's hair.

"Hi Max." she muttered quietly into my shirt.

"Hey Ange. Everything OK over here?" I talked to her gently so I didn't disrupt the peaceful atmosphere. This was the only place we could let are guard down and actually feel safe.

"Yeah, I washed our clothes like you wanted." She lifted her face to look up at me and I smiled.

"That's great, sweetie." I crouched down to look into your eyes. "Guess what?"

"What?!" She said with wide eyes.

"I won't have to go to the fighting grounds for at least another two weeks."

Yes, Angel new about what I did to get the cash we have but I never would let her watch the brawls to persevere whatever innocence she had left.

"YAY!" Angel shouted. Before I could tell her to calm down and keep quiet, she covered her mouth with her hands and her eyes went big. "Sorry, Max."

"It's okay Ange. As long as you're quiet there'll be no problem, okay?"

"Okay." She scurried off into the area blocked off by a ratty old beach towel after giving me a peck on the cheek and saying goodnight. I sighed as my eyes searched the room to see if anything was amiss. The wind battered against the old door and I just knew that something immense was going to happen. Not a very good thing though…

Anonymous POV

I grunted in pain when I lifted myself onto a large, sturdy branch and sighed in quietness of the woods. The cuts on my body bled freely and I couldn't even see a patch of skin that wasn't bruised. I spread out my wings gently so I wouldn't hurt more than I already was. My feathers fluffed in appreciation as the wind whistled through each one individually. My thoughts were jumbled as I wrapped my wounds carefully.

My eyelids started to drift shut and I gave into sleep but I knew that as I slept my nightmares would only be reflecting what was in my memories.

I was running. Running down a long white hallway that seemed like it would never end. My breathing was labored, yet I forced my legs to push me even further from the current threat at hand. When I looked behind me I saw beasts that you can only describe as monsters that haunt little kids nightmares and make their parents look in their closet or under their beds.

My head whipped back around to focus on the task at hand. That task being 'Get the hell out of there'. Before I could blink, a gigantic, brick wall appeared about ten feet in front of me. I forgot about the monsters chasing me as I stopped moving my legs to not slam into the wall at full force. Though as the beasts' teeth ripped into my shoulder, legs, arms, head and torso, I couldn't stop screaming bloody murder. This, ironically, was the whole reason why I was screaming in the first place. My line of vision became hazy as my whole body became numb.

The last words I heard were: "Think of all the hurt you'll have to go through when Doc brings you back to life…again" someone whispered into my ears maniacally. I shivered at the thought of dying all over again.

I woke up in a cold sweat, ram rod straight, and my breaths coming in agonizing gasps. That was the worst part. Being torn to shreds and sowed back together like a ruined pillow that had to be fixed. But I knew that they didn't do it just for science, they did it because they were cold blooded murders. They did it just to here the screams of children in pain. Some they even left for dead. Those sick bastards and their ugly hell hounds.

I was one of the lucky ones. I survived their knives and experiments when others didn't. It left me feeling guilty because I couldn't save them. I was strong enough to escape that prison when no one else was. When I did happen to escape the evil place, I decided to fly to a small town in Arizona where I would lay low and earn my money by fighting other people in a place called the fighting grounds. That's how I ended up in this old tree.

As for the cuts bruises, there were a few complications along the way from New York to Arizona. The scientists' cronies, I like to call them erasers, followed me all the way to Illinois. They, also, were experiments of the school but they got the better treatment because they did the dirty work no one else wants to do: dispose of the weak.

I sighed and flipped my bangs to the side of my face. Guess I won't be getting any sleep tonight.

There you guys go the first chappie of the revised version of Fighting Dirty in the Fighting Grounds. BEWARE: I might end up changing the name of this story sooner or later. Anyways, I hoped you liked this one better than the other one. Personally, I didn't like how I portrayed Fang in the other story…oh well…

Here is a summary for a new story I might post on Fanfiction and I want you guys to tell me what you think:

"There's the living, the dying, the dead, and then there's me…"

Syra Amari has always been different. Blood red eyes holding secrets that nobody can even fathom hiding behind the dull, brown colored contacts she has to where to hide their deadly beauty. She doesn't remember much of her childhood beside the fact that her parents abandoned her and her twin brother. On her sixteenth birthday she wakes up in her bed with an iron dagger covered in the crimson blood of her brother sitting oh-so innocently on her bed side table. Later on to find out that her brother really DID die the night before. Now Syra is 17 going on 18. The memories have been haunting her in her nightmares since the accident. Things seem to be more important than they ever where now a days with someone trailing her every move. She and her second soul, Lupin (Lu for short) have a lot of unraveling they have to do to find out what happened two years ago. While meeting complications along the way… Like falling in love with the guy that was assigned to be your knight in shining armor…Yeah, Syra never expected that.

And I'm also thinking of writing a sequel to Bad Ass Max, but I'm still not sure about that yet . . . yep, soooo…by. WAIT … this chapter had a total of 1,823. :]

-Awesomealpha11 out…