Rewrite one, for Kara. Kara, please sign in next time so I can contact you!
Angels From Another Time
A Maximum Ride Firefly Crossover FanFiction
By Kumajiro Williams
~*o0o*~*o0o*~
Persephone
Pre-Miranda, Post-Inara Leaving
Kaylee was watching the bustle around her, leaning back against the coarse metal hold of Serinity, enjoying the feel of her beloved always seemed to picked up intresting passengers, or at least recentlly, like Simon and River. She glanced over at a group of six kids wandering around. The oldest was about fifteen, the youngest seven. They headed over to where she was sitting."Are you all looking to go somewhere? you've been starin' at all the ships." She said.
"We need a ship off Persephone fast and unnoticed." The oldest girl said. She looked to be in charge of the ragtag group of kids ."How much to get to the farthest terraformed moon from here?"
"We have these," a fair haired boy said, smiling. He handed her a box. "And some moeny." Kaylee looked inside the box and smiled.
"Strawberries!" She murmered, wondering if it was commonplace here to bribe people with the delicious fruit."Looks like you got the all running away from home? Or are you in trouble with the law?" None of them said anything, but they seemed nervous. Kaylee could swear that they were hiding something."Not my buisness. So, what are your names?"
"I'm Max," the girl said. "This is Fang and Iggy," She motioned to a near invisible dark haired boy and the boy who'd handed her the strawberries, both roughly Max's age."He's blind. Nudge," She pointed at the dark skinned girl who was trying not to look depressed."The Gasman or Gazzy," She motioned to the young boy who was examining the ship."And finally Angel." She rested her hand on a young girl who looked, well, like an angel. But her eyes reminded her of River.
"I'm Kaylee. Nice ta meet ya." She said, smiling.
"Kaylee! Get those gorram kids off my ship!" Mal yelled, heading towards Serinity on the mule, along with Wash and Zoe.
"Captan! Those 'kids' are paying passengers! We need a job, and they're headin' anywhere far from here!"
"I'm not taking six kids into deep space where they're going to be killed! And if they are, where's our pay!"
"Excuse me, Captain..." Max started.
"Malcom Reynolds."
"Captain Reynolds, We ain't asking for your protection, we're asking for transport out of this gorram place. We know the risk of being there, and I would rather not make a show of this." Max said. She was tired, and she couldn't tell if these people were friends or to stay to yourself in unknown situations, like the years had taught her.
"Welcome aboard then. Wash, fire up the engines. Kaylee, show our passengers around Serenity." Kaylee led them towards the mess where Jayne, Simon, And Shepard Book were playing poker. River was in a corner watching them.
"Guys, these are our passengers, Max,Fang,Iggy,Nudge,Gazzy, and Angel. Y'all, this is Jayne,Simon who's are doctor, and Shepard Book."
"Swoosh! Wings of Angels gliding through the air, fallen from another time." River sang. The kids paled but quicklly covered it with shock.
"That's my sister, River. She's a little, Insane." Simon explained. They left and headed towards the guest rooms.
"we only have two guest rooms, so can you split?" Max nodded. As soon as m. Kaylee left she called a council with Angel in the room they were sharing.
"That girl, River, she knows our secret."
"It's Ok. The school's future self, the acadamy, found her and cut out a part of her brain while trying to make her a better assasain. She feels everything."
"But how did she know our secret?"
"She's a mind reader, but she can't talk telepathically or control other's minds like I can."
"Ok. Angel, you can let Total out of your bag now."
"Thanks." The scottie dog said, deeply breathing "I was almost suffocating."
"Nudge,We still have those suits, right?"
"Yeah," Nudge said, pulling the metallic bag towards them. She took out the specially designed space suits made by the acadamy. "Just in case Iggy and Gazzy blow a hole in the ship."
Max unfurled her tawny wings, cleaning the feathers."This ship seems decent enough to crash here for a while."
"Hmm. She wants me to talk with her."
"River? Sure, talk to her if you want to. I think she's the most trustworthy on the ship."
"Ok." She said, nodding. "oh, and by the way, she can hear what we say, even if it's in your mind I'm talking."
"That's... Interesting." Max said, returning to grooming her wings. Suddenly, she noticed something was wrong. Nudge was completely quiet. "Nudge sweetie, whats wrong?"
"I hacked into the ship and I'm reading through their files searching on info on the crew. You said that I should stay quiet and do something productive in a hostile area." Max sighed. Nudge had been, well, different since their capture by erasers and frozen, awakened thousands of years in the future in the acadamy along with some erasers. It was like the school, but they were training perfect assassains. The flock had escaped to Persephone and ended up here. "Max, I sawome of the acadamy's records, and I know why they froze us. I'm dying."
"I know." Max said, her voice echoing in despair."Let's go grab some grub." Angel nodded and they headed towards the dining room.
~*o0o*~*o0o*~
"How much can you eat!"
"Alot. It is because we.. Mmmmph!" Nudge began before Max clamped her hand over her mouth.
"Because you what?"
"Nothing."
"So are y'all running from the alliance or not."
"We ain't running from that gorram alliance."
"Mermaids of Earth-now-gone, frozen through a firestorm. Wings that fly through the sky, thy belong to none." River sang, hanging form the ceiling. It was immediately dismissed as nonsense by the crew though. "two by two. hands of blue. Two by two, Hands of blue" she muttered.
"If you kids ain't running from the alliance, what're you headin' out to the black for?"
"None of your gorram buisness."Max slapped Gazzy for his statement, and because he was making a bomb out of the battery in his pocket and the tasteless protien meal in front of them.
"One warning to you, Captain Reynolds." Max said, truely talking to everyone. "Ig and Gaz here are pyromaniacs. They love explosions, and I cannot stop them." It was uncomfortably silent, until Nudge started talking to Kaylee.
"So, you're the ship's mechanic? That sounds like an interesting job. Yuck, this food tastes awful. And I'm used to eating what I can find, stuff that looks way worse than this. Ugh. Kaylee's a pretty name,"
"My full name is Kaywinet Lee Frye, But I shortened it to Kaylee." The mechanic said, startled, but smiling at the rambling girl.
"Really? That's awesome. I wish I had a name like that. It would be like, I had two names. Did you know you're really pretty." She leaned in to whisper into the older girl's ear."That doctor, Simon, Likes you. Alot. He seems nice, are you going out?"Leaning away, and returning to her normal voice, the dark skinned girl continued"Hey! Did you know that actually Iggy is a really good cook? It's weird, cuz he's blind, but he's way better than Max, and he might even make this stuff better. He made a cake for my birthday once. It was shaped like a pony, and it tasted really you like ponies? I like ponies. they are so pretty...Oww, Max..." Nudge said, rubbing her head. "Why'd you hit me."
"To get ya to shut up. I'm calling a meeting, socialize with people later please." She grabbed Iggy and headed off, waiting for her make shift family to follow. As soon as they were far enough away, she yelled at them. "We ain't here to socialize! The longer this takes, the more danger they're in. We can't stay here. You all should know that by now, so please understand that this is for the best. Don't stay attached to Serenity like we were to Anne, or any other place we've stayed. Betrayal and death seem to follow us. So please, stop trying to be friendly." There was a unaminous but hesitant nod amongst the gathered children, a silent agreement with their leader. "Dismissed." She said in a mock army voice, remeniscent of what their lives had been once, long ago. Smiling, she saluted them with all the reality of an officer, pride and joy in her glistening eyes that looked like a certain type of unbarfed french chocolate.
~*o0o*~*o0o*~
They remained on Serenity for several more days with no true high points. Nudge became friends with Kaylee, to the annoyance of Max. Twenty-eight attempts to blow up various things by Iggy and Gazzy were thwarted. Fang did not say a word to any of Serenity's crew. The Gasman also tried to steal Wash's dinosaurs, but he was caught within moments. None of the crew, except for River, managed to figure out anything more than that they were hiding something. Jayne started collecting bets on what they were hiding even. But mostly crew and passengers stayed away from eachother. They hoped this job would go as planned. One day planet-side however...
Serenity had landed on the moon Rista to look for work. The flock had decided that the open air was something they'd rather not miss, so they strolled through the forest. Max paused, looking around for enemys, but when she looked up.
"Erasers!" She shouted to her flock "Above us at Twelve o'clock!".Unfurling her wings she launched herself into the air and was immediately followed by the rest of the flock. Punching an Eraser in the gut and quickly dodged a blow, slamming her foe downward towards the ground. She turned to her next target and kicked him in the leg before punching him in the face. Double kicking a third Eraser into a tree, She paused to breathe. Looking into the eyes of her fallen enemy she gasped. "Oh god." she mumbled "I thought he was dead." Landing next to him she asked. "Ari?"
"Max! The crew of Serenity, we can't let them see him. Too many questions." Angel said telepathically to the flock, bloody fist pummeling another of the werewolfish mutants into the tree.
"We could freeze him cyrogenically. He wouldn't need any food." Max said anxiouslly. He was still just a kid, defenseless and innocent kid who needed her help, another person she could save. And he was her half brother.
"I can steal a cyrogenics freezer from the alliance base near here. Can Angel come with?" Nudge said. The eraser she was fighting hit in the head by an arsenol of small knives1.
"Sure, take Fang too. Iggy, Gazzy, and I will grab a crate to hold it. We'll meet back here, 'kay."
"'kay."
~*o0o*~*o0o*~
The six bird kids dragged the large crate towards Serenity. "We got some cargo, No questions or touching please." Max said to Mal's unasked question. Dropping it off in the hold, they headed towards the mess hall to eat.
"Apparantly there was a fight out near the town." Shepard Book said. "They found some sort of werewolves beaten up outside of town." The flock stayed emotionless, simultaniously hoping that this would send a message to the gorram acadamy.
The flock left, and as soon as they were out of earshot, the crew of Serenity returned to talking normally. Max slipped out into the hold. "I want Angel and Gazzy to check on Ari, In case we have a fight here I want Iggy to get his bearings, Fang gaurd, and Nudge... I want you to touch the hull and summarize what you see."
Nudge pulled of the gloves annd tenderly touched the skin of her hand to the metallic surface of the hold. She braced, but then stood up and turned to Max. "Ok Max, this ship was originally bought by Mal and Zoe, Simon and River are both known as fugitives throughout the crew, Mal and Zoe were soldiers in the battle of Serenity, and they'd do anything for eachother, and they are proffesional thieves and smugglers."
"That explains alot." She turned to Angel and Gazzy. "Angel, Gazzy, how's Ari doing?"She asked.
"He's fine, but I suggest we leave soon." Max nodded, and they returned to their rooms.
~*o0o*~*o0o*~
Several days later, an alliance ship appeared. "We are boarding the Firefly class ship to search for Fugitives" they stated to Wash, despite his protest. River and Simon hid, but against Max's better reasoning the flock didn't. A man walked through the door, caught a glance, and quickly left. Suddenly as the crew was walking away the furry werewolfish mutants attacked.
"Erasers!" Nudge gasped. Before anyone, including Jayne could react Max flew into the air at hyper speed, kicking and punching down foes by the second. The flock was immediately after her, and within a minute the attackers were an unconcious heap on the man looked out to see what was happening, and he was hit in the face by reality.
Max yelled "Tell your gorram Acadamy not to mess with my flock!" The man nodded, looking at the blood on the floor with fearful eyes. "Oh, and tell them that their gorram erasers are SO much weaker than the originals and that they should stop trying to replicate the school's work!" Smiling triumphantly Max stuck her tounge out at him. "Now get off this ship before I move your gorram butt off of it!" He left quickly, and the alliance ship departed. As soon as Simon and River returned, the captain spoke.
"Now you all had better tell me what's going on here!"
"Uh-huh. Can I sit own first? " Max said rubbing her head. "Fang, remind me never to fight hyperspeed in ships."
Max headed towards the infirmary, because bird kid concussions are still very bad. Simon was shocked not only at his patients condition, but the wings as well. Covered with a random assortment of bandages, Max started to tell the story of her, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, And Angel's life story.
"So,"She began, scratching the bandage on her cut. "Back on Earth-that-was, a group of mad scientists known as the school were illegaly performing genetic experiments on human children they had kidnapped. Early on, most of their projects died, and the first succesful one were Erasers, human wolf hybrids. They're who attacked your of the other was us, 98% human, 2% avian. That's why we have wings. Also, we randomly recieved 'gifts' or super-human abilities. I can go near-light speed, Fang can turn invisible and insubstantiale, Iggy can feel colors, Nudge can hack anything, is magnetic, and can sense memories via touch, Gazzy can mimic voices, and Angel," Max paused to breath, and finally tore off all of Simon's bandages neatly, so as not to waste them. "Can read and control your mind, breath underwater, talk to animals, and Total is her flying talking dog. So, the school randomly decided to stop the project, and tried to kill us. Another faction didn't want that to happen, so they kidnapped us a while after we had escaped the school, realized Nudge had a dangerous disease and froze her. Then they realized we'd try to stop them, so they froze us and some erasers too. We've been frozen through the depletion of earth-that-was, and were recently awakened by the acadamy."
"So you escaped and are running again." Mal said.
"Basically, yeah, we're runnin' from that gorram acadamy just like Ms. Tam over there enough talk,I'm starving. Let's eat!"
~*o0o*~*o0o*~
Epilouge
Serenity let them off on a mountain range far from any local towns. Angel kept in telepathic communication with River, but she unfortunately erased all the other crew members memory of them. "The less people know about us, the safer we'll be." Max and Fang married a while later, and shortly after Nudge died in the arms of the only family she'd ever known, but the best one she could've wished for. Max and Fang's first daughter was named Nudge Ride, after her. She acted like her namesake, to Max's dismay however. Their house was shaped like an E, to remember their lives before, and occasionally got into fights with various people. Ari grew up safer, and finally felt accepted, Gazzy and Iggy terrorized towns, and every once in a while, a breaking down firefly would land in town, and when they looked up, they remembered that they had forgotten something as they stare up at the flying birds. One of them remembers them, Angels fallen from another time.
.fin.
So, Good or bad? No flames over Nudge dying. btw
1-I always think that if Nudge can move metal with her mind, then she should get some small, metal knives right?
Oh, and I see Ari as a kid who's jealous of Max, has a crush on her even though he's younger, and erasorfied. Max sees him as her younger brother who she has to save. Type Font is papyrus.
Please review!