This is my first crossover; I'm super excited!
Sorry it took me so long to post this :'(
This story takes place after Maximum Ride: FANG, and at the end of Hunted.
Enjoy!
Maximum Ride
…I love you…But I'm leaving tonight, leaving the flock, and this time it's for good. I don't know if I'll ever see any of you again…My first and only love…The thing is, Maximum, I love you…When we're together, the sun is shining. When we're apart, everything is in shades of gray…The thing is, Maximum, I love you…I hope you'll forgive me someday for turning our worlds into shades of gray—at least for a while…I love you…You're my best friend, my first and only love, and the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, with wings or without…Twenty years from today, if I'm alive, I'll be there, waiting for you. You can bet on it. Good-bye, my love…I love you…I don't know if I'll ever see any of you again…The thing is, Maximum, I love you…You're my best friend…The thing is, Maximum, I love you…The most beautiful girl I've ever seen, with wings or without…I lov—
"Max!" Iggy yelled breathlessly, his wings beating the air rhythmically beside me.
I looked over at him, his words breaking me out of my reverie. I hastily wiped my eyes, before stupidly realizing he couldn't see me crying anyway. "What?"
"The rest of the flock is really tired. We can't keep up with your…super-fastness."
I looked back at my flock—and noticed for probably the thousandth time Fang's absence with a twinge of pain—only to find that Iggy was right. Angel was panting, Nudge was completely silent, Gazzy was slowly lagging behind, and Dylan—who was also falling behind, since he hadn't known how to fly very long—and Iggy were trying to look like they weren't tired. But they couldn't fool me. I sighed, loving the feeling of flying in the open air, and not being the least bit worn out. But, I called for everyone to land anyway.
When we touched ground, everyone rested their tired wings. The chill of the air felt good on my wings at first, but it soon was too cold to keep them out. Angel was the first to pull in her wings, followed by Nudge, Gazzy, then me and Iggy. Dylan kept his out longest. Of course his wings were the perfect shade of dark brown that complemented his tanned skin perfectly. And looked enough like Fang's in the dim light to hurt.
Dylan. My "perfect other half". We'd decided to take him with us after Total and Akila's wedding—because us bird kids couldn't stay in the same spot for long. No matter how much Mom begged. And he was one of us now, like it or not. And no matter how unstable the kid was. I mean, he tried to kill himself.
I hadn't realized how late it was until I looked up at the sky, and was surprised to see that it was almost sundown.
"Well, I guess we're staying here for the night," I declared.
The flock sat down gratefully, and I internally winced at their weariness. It hadn't even crossed my mind how hard it would be for them to keep up with me and my ability. I rubbed my arms to keep them warm, and started looking around for firewood. It was nearing spring, and yet tonight felt like the middle of winter.
Iggy and Gazzy had had the same idea as me, and were gathering up dry twigs and sticks. Iggy brought out his matches and carefully lit the pile we'd made. Then he tucked them away into whatever secret compartment he was keeping them in; I could never find those matches on him when I tried. The flock scooted closer to the fire as one when it started to get bigger, and brought out their sleeping bags we'd started carrying around. We kept them rolled up, so they were small, easy to fly with, and you could put any small items that you wanted to carry around in them before you rolled it up.
For instance, I kept my picture frame from Nudge in mine, right next to the ring box that had once held the ring Fang gave me. I used to wear it on my finger—as a ring should be worn—but I had almost lost it in flight once. Angel suggested that I add it to the necklace she made me, and it felt perfect there.
A chilling breeze blew through our makeshift camp, blowing dark hair around my face. As I pulled it out of my mouth in disgust, I looked sadly at it's new coloring.
Right before we left after Total and Akila's wedding, Nudge had begged me to allow her to dye my hair and hers back to our original hair colors. You know, since we'd dyed it a while back to hide from the erasers. So I let her dye our hair, as long as it was just back to our natural colors. Unbeknownst to us, Gazzy had "accidentally" swapped the hair colors Nudge bought. Stupid nine-year-olds. So now Nudge had brown-ish-blonde hair—which she was happy with—and I had dark, dark brown hair. So dark that it looked black in dim light. Which I was not happy with. But I had to deal.
I think it's pretty, Max, Angel tapped into my thoughts. It makes you look…older.
I looked over at her and smiled. That's my considerate little mind-reading, underwater-breathing, animal whispering, freakishly smart and intuitive, mind controlling animorph! She was sitting cross-legged on a patch of grass, her golden curls swaying with the slow air current. Any onlookers that didn't know any better would probably say that she looked like a completely innocent child. And then I'd laugh at them. Really, freakin' hard.
Thanks, sweetie, I thought back with a smile. My Angel was so cute. When she wasn't being all creepy and prophetical, or trying to kick me out of the flock so she could take it over. Although, ever since Fang had left and said how she wasn't ready yet in that note—which lay folded in-between the ring-box and picture frame inside my sleeping bag—she had sort of gone back to the cute lovable kid she was before all this stuff happened. Sort of.
I stretched out my wings and let the breeze cool them before leisurely tucking them in. We'd been just flying around for awhile now. Nothing super bad had happened for a long time. No Erasers or Flyboys after us, no insane scientists yearning to tear us apart, no crazies wanting to use us as weapons of mass destruction; just freedom. And our wings had gotten a lot stronger from all the flying. The flock seemed to be able to fly longer and farther, too—even Dylan was quickly catching up to our level—although I'm still not sure if that's just because everyone was getting older.
Of course, we'd been trying to lay low, and not draw attention to ourselves. We occasionally went back to visit my mom and Ella, and have those delicious, home-made chocolate chip cookies! I love those cookies! With a burning passion, so powerful that an entire army of Flyboys couldn't stop me from getting to one!
Well, on the other hand…I think I'll just stick to being given them. Ella even let me have the recipe. But every time I tried to make them, they were all messed up. It was really quite tragic.
"Max," Angel's soft voice brought me back to reality. She was suddenly by my side, looking worried. Great.
"What?"
"I can feel somebody coming, really fast, but it's not like a normal person. It's like—"
And then a man burst out of the forest and ran up to me with superhuman speed. I noticed that he had extremely pale skin—even paler than Iggy's—and a blue quarter-moon shaped mark on his forehead. I growled and pushed Angel behind me.
"What do you wa—"
"Maximum Ride! Night has chosen thee; thy death will be thy birth. Night calls to thee; hearken to Her sweet voice. Your destiny awaits you at the House of Night!"
He pointed at me, and the next thing I knew, my forehead seemed to split open in sheer pain. I clapped my hand to my head to prevent it from cracking. But luckily, I was experienced with my head going berserk on me, and this pain wasn't nearly as bad as those totally incapacitating headaches I sometimes got. Someone screamed my name—Angel, I think—and I could faintly feel hands shaking me.
When the pain receded a little, I opened my eyes slowly, only to see Angel, Nudge and Dylan standing over me. Dylan and Nudge were looking at me, then away at something else, then at me, and away again, like they were unsure about what to do. Or who to help. I jumped up—even though my head was still throbbing, and I was starting to feel slightly nauseous—to see where the guy had gone, and if anyone was hurt. Or worse: missing.
He was nowhere to be found, but Iggy was lying on the ground, like I had been just moments before. Nudge and Dylan were still staring between him and me. Gazzy crouched over him, repeating his name in a small, scared voice. I wobbled over to Iggy, to see if he was okay. He was clutching his forehead, and I knew that what happened to me must have happened to him. I felt my own forehead for a wound, but felt only smooth skin.
When the fear for Iggy's safety had passed, anger overcame me. I clenched my fists, and wondered who the heck that guy was so I could kick his sorry butt back to whatever hole he'd crawled out of.
The rest of the flock was gathered around us. Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel looked really scared, and Dylan looked mildly upset. As I looked at him, our eyes met, but then Dylan's traveled upward. He stared at my brow, and I touched it again self-consciously.
"What?" I asked him subtlely. He opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Nudge. At least we knew she was okay.
"Oh, what is that? Does your head hurt?"
"Are-are you okay?" Gazzy asked me and Iggy in a small voice.
Iggy sat up slowly, his hand still covering his forehead, and nodded slowly.
"W-where'd that weird guy go?" he asked, cautiously.
"He's gone."
"Oh."
I helped him up, but everyone remained silent. Iggy was still clutching his head, so I couldn't see what had happened to him. But the rest of the flock stared at my, uncovered, forehead.
"What?" I asked defensively.
"Nudge? Do you still have that mirror?" Dylan said coolly, his eyes fixed on my head.
"Uh, yeah," Nudge answered distractedly, because she was also staring at my face. "It's…right here."
She held it out to me, and I took it. But I didn't know what I needed it for.
"Look at your face, Max," Angel said in a tiny voice, her blue eyes as wide as saucers. Or maybe satellite dishes. Yeah, definitely satellite dishes.
I raised the mirror to my face and gasped in shock when I looked into it. I faintly heard Iggy ask what was wrong, but I didn't answer. Because on my forehead, was a quarter-moon-shaped, tattoo-like design with unfurled bird—or bird-kid—wings on either side of it. It was a pretty blue color, but it looked so out of place on the face I'd been seeing in mirrors my whole life. I suppose a little moon and some wings are better than looking like an eraser while looking in a mirror, but I didn't know why it was there. I didn't know what it meant.
"Hey, Iggy?" I asked distractedly. "Can you…um, move your hand?"
"Uh, sure," he replied nervously, knowing that there had to be something weird on his own forehead. After removing his hand, he said "I feel blue there. Is it a bruise?"
Us silly bird kids with our sweeto powers. Iggy can 'feel' colors. For instance, he can put his hand on a banana, and know that it's yellow. Or touch an orange, and feel that it's orange. But then again, duh. He can also see whiteness. I think. I'm still kinda confused on that one.
Anyway, he moved his hand, and he had a blue crescent moon and wings on his head just like I did. But the design itself was a little different than the one I had. The moon on my head was completely blue, but Iggy's was just a blue outline of a quarter moon. The wings around his were slightly different, too. His made his already pale face look even paler. I didn't think that was possible.
Nobody spoke. I felt bad for Iggy, because he'd probably want to know what the heck was going on, but I was at a loss for words. I mentally asked Angel to send Iggy a picture of it or something, and she graciously obliged.
"Oh," Iggy said quietly. He sniffed. I could tell his nose was starting to stuff up as he continued, "And…you hab one too?"
"Yeah," I replied, a short wave of nausea coming over me. Dylan steadied me, but no one said a word.
"Ugh, Max, I feel like crap," Iggy groaned, breaking the deafening silence. I silently agreed with him—my nose was getting stuffy, my throat was starting to itch, and I was getting a headache—but I wasn't going to let anyone else know that. So I held my head up high, and pretended I was fine.
If you don't feel good, you should rest, Angel scolded me with her weird powers, and Dylan looked at me like he knew I was faking it. But Nudge and Gazzy seemed to be comforted by my feigning that I was fine, so I kept up the act.
"Uh, let's go to sleep," I decided, my stuffy nose altering my voice. We found a large tree, and each chose a branch. "Tuck in your wings, guys, in case he cubs back," I yawned.
It was unusually quiet; not just because the flock was for once silent, but there were no crickets chirping or lightning bugs twinkling or nocturnal mammals in search of food. There was just…nothing. I guess since it was late winter…but there were usually a few animals out at this time. The eerie silence would have made it hard to fall asleep under normal circumstances, but as it was—with me being all sickly and tired and stuff—I zonked within minutes.
I was awoken by a hand shaking me. I slowly opened my eyes, and saw Dylan crouching on a branch beside me. I broke out into a coughing fit when I tried to ask what the problem was. I could hardly breathe. What had that man done to me?
"What?" I croaked quietly.
"Listen," Dylan whispered back.
I cocked my head and heard distant talking. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but everybody sounded PO'd. I sat up to investigate, and broke out into another coughing fit. Ugh, even my lungs hurt. Dylan and I slipped out of the tree and crept towards the voices.
As we followed our ears, we could see a faint light through the trees. It looked like we were approaching the back of a building, but the light was coming from the front. I could hear some of what they were saying now.
"What are they doing?" a female voice asked, sounding alarmed.
"A-ya! What foolishness is this?" a man boomed. His voice sounded nice.
Dylan and I looked at each other questioningly. I shrugged at him, having no idea what was happening.
A different female voice said "Earth concretes" or something, and then the man shouted "Do not let the Ghigua join them!" I almost giggled at the strange names—A-ya? Ghigua? What cruel parents came up with those names?—but held it in to keep listening.
"Stark! Kill her!" the first female ordered. In an instant, Dylan and I looked at each other and jumped up to help whoever it was that she was trying to kill.
As we ran, the first man shouted, "Not A-ya! Kill the old Ghigua." Then the woman said darkly, "Kill Zoey. No mistakes this time. Aim for her heart!"
We were still pretty far away—keep in mind we have awesome hearing and sight—and I prayed that we wouldn't be too late. That man and woman sounded evil. He said something about not killing her, and she said she wouldn't share him. I briefly wondered if this was just some stupid chick fight over a guy, but something told me it was more.
I started coughing again, and had to stop running. I leaned against a tree, gasping for breath and choking, and waved at Dylan to keep on going without me. When I could finally breathe again—albeit just barely—Dylan was way ahead of me and the people were screaming to shoot Zoey through her heart again. What had this girl done?
Right then, Dylan and I jumped out from behind the building. Dylan unfurled his wings and we both shifted into an attack stance—I normally would have face-palmed at Dylan's lack of discretion, but under the circumstances...
The scene before us was one of the strangest I've ever seen—and that's saying something. There was a circle of nuns, teenagers, and an old lady with a wheelchair; but that's not the weird part. Although, I guess it is kinda strange for them all to be holding hands in the middle of the night. The weird part was that some of the people in the circle were connected by a silver strand of light, and a lot of them had that mark that was on my and Iggy's forehead; minus the wings. Some of the moons were red, and some blue; some were just outlines like Iggy's and others were shaded in like mine, and sometimes surrounded by other peculiar tattoo-looking things. I inadvertently touched my own forehead-moon again.
To add to that weirdness, there was a bunch of creepy half-bird things sitting in the trees around the people. And I don't mean like the flock's 98 percent human-ness and two percent bird-ness; I mean like a full out fifty-fifty. They were man-sized, but had claws instead of feet, were covered in black feathers, and had beaks, wings and evil red eyes. And they just sat there, their eyes focused on the scene before them.
"Do you think the School did this?" Dylan asked quietly. Oh, yeah, turns out that Dylan was created by a small group of scientists from the School after it was shut down or whatever, but they went by some weird new name.
"Probably," I muttered darkly.
There was a man and woman standing threateningly in front of the glowing circle of people, and another man standing in front of them. His face was conflicted—and covered in red arrow tattoos bordering a red forehead-moon—and he was aiming at a girl standing in the middle of the glowing-people circle. The woman behind him was beautiful—with long brown hair, fair and flawless skin, and beautiful almond-shaped green eyes—but evil and darkness was radiating from her in huge, powerful waves. The man standing next to her was also extremely attractive, even though he looked like he could be forty or something. Which was kinda creepy. He had long, black hair, amazing golden eyes, was well-muscled, and…somewhat reminded me of Fang. Except Fang didn't walk around without a shirt on, and he wasn't old. Or evil.
The man with the bow—well, he sounded more like a very mature boy that had a deep voice at the time because he was super serious—said "That's what my aim won't miss. The part of my lady's heart I hold as my own."
The girl in the middle of the circle, who looked a couple years older that me, cried "Air, fire, water, earth, spirit! Hear me! Do not let that arrow touch him!" just as the man holding the bow released an arrow straight at her.
"Move!" I shouted at her—who I assumed was Zoey, because she was gonna be shot—when she just stood there, as I darted towards her with Dylan by my side. In a split second, heads turned in our direction, the arrow turned it's direction and began to hurtle towards it's marksman, and I noticed that the big old guy behind the shooter had wings. Deep black ones; just like Fang's. I halted, and just stared at the old guy.
How long has the School been around? I thought in disbelief. I snapped my attention back to the arrow; but it was gone. It had exploded, and sent the red-forehead-moon guy flying backwards. But at least he wasn't skewered by his own arrow. What a temperamental little bugger.
Heads snapped in my direction again, and I just stood there like an idiot. Then I broke out into another coughing fit. Dylan stepped closer to me defensively, and I leaned on him after I stopped coughing and sneezing. I was gasping for breath, aching all over, my nose was running, and I felt like I could eat a whole herd of elephants then sleep for a year. Or seven. Some of the nuns almost stepped out of the light-circle, making sympathetic and worried comments about me, but the girl in the middle of it said not to break it. She then took the old lady with the wheelchair's hand, and said solemnly "And Earth completes."
As the group talked about blessing 'him', I stopped listening and just rubbed my aching head. I'd felt worse pain than this, but I just felt so crappy overall that I stopped caring now that no one was gonna die. I looked up for a moment, and caught the eye of the old guy with wings. As our eyes met for the first time, he gasped.
"You!" he exclaimed, looking surprised. Then angry. I wondered what I'd done to get him in a tizzy. I didn't recall ever meeting him before, but for some reason I just couldn't look away from him. It made me frustrated. He looked like he was about to storm over to us, when the old wheelchair-lady said, "Kalona, my u-do, this is my blessing to you."
The winged guy looked in her direction, and his spell was broken. I finally looked away, and watched the wheelchair-lady as she began to speak. She began to recite what must have been the blessing they'd been talking about earlier.
"May the warm winds of Heaven blow softly on your home…" She spoke with happiness. The five teens connected by the light repeated her words. For some reason, I felt an odd urge to repeat it, too.
"And the Great Spirit bless all who enter there…" This time I repeated it with them; there were more people saying it, now. Dylan gave me a questioning look, and all I could do was shrug.
"May your moccasins make happy tracks in many snows…" Now everyone within their circle was repeating the woman's words.
"And may the rainbow always touch your shoulder…" The woman's voice was practically dripping with pure emotion, and even Dylan repeated her words that time.
The winged man cried out in pain, and he was standing closer to the glowing circle than before. The evilly beautiful woman stood beside him, her expression filled with a powerful hatred. He reached for the girl in the center of the circle—who I now realized was sort of their leader—and sadly asked "Why, A-ya?"
Which just confused me, because I had thought her name was Zoey.
"Because I choose love," she declared.
The light connecting their circle suddenly snaked out and bound the winged man and evil woman together. He cried out in pain, and she screeched in agony. I could see the darkness surrounding her writhe and twist as she screamed. The man grabbed her and sprang into the sky with his powerful-looking wings, almost too gracefully to be real. The silver thread of light—which must have been more than just light—coiled as if to strike, then surged towards them. It flung them high up into the sky and the half-bird things quickly followed them, shrieking as they disappeared into the night.
Everyone stood and watched until Dylan and I had to have been the only ones that could still see them. Then the girl from the center of the now dark circle wearily thanked fire, earth, air, water, and spirit. What was with that? She turned to help the old lady into her wheelchair, gave her a hug and called her 'Grandma Redbird'.
One of the nuns started walking around making sure everyone was okay, but everyone seemed to have forgotten about Dylan and me. I tiredly motioned for Dylan to follow me, and we silently slipped back behind the building. I instantly felt worse the further away we walked. Dylan asked if I was alright, but I was to busy sneezing, coughing and holding my head together to reply.
I was just about to unfold my wings to take off and fly back to our camp, when a form peeked around the corner of the building. Dylan, unfortunately, still had his wings out. I—even with my feeling like utter crap—stumbled out in front of him, blocking the person's view—hopefully—of Dylan's wings, while Dylan snapped his wings closed. Total yelped in surprise. At least he didn't talk in people. No, that's not a language; I meant American. Wait; how'd Total get here? He stayed with Akila… Wow, I'm really dizzy...
The person jumped back in surprise at our sudden commotion. I started coughing when I tried to ask what the heck she thought she was doing, and could not stop. I kept coughing, and wheezing, and suddenly I was in someone's arms. It felt like Valium all over again, only a lot less pleasant. My chest was getting smaller and smaller, I couldn't get enough air, I felt like I was choking on my own snot. My head was splitting open again, throbbing as I convulsed and sneezed. And as I lay there hacking and gasping for breath, and trying to hold my chest and head together at the same time, everything just sort of ebbed away…
How do you like it so far?
For those of you who read the other version, there are noticeable differences. Sorry if Dylan didn't always seem like Dylan; I just replaced Fang's name with his. And Total was here before, too, but I had to remove him. Except for that part at the end, because I thought the whole "talking in people" thing was funny.
And sorry if you're sad about Fang; but it'll work out better this way-you'll see.
If you'd like to see a picture of Max and Iggy's marks, there's a link on my profile that takes you to my webpage. Once there, click These Broken Wings and the pictures will show up.
Your Pal,
SuperOreoMan
