Okay guys here is the first part of my version of Fang. Okay I don't own Maximum Ride obviously and the first part of this is the actual excerpt from the book up until the line "This mission was off to a good start" okay? Alright then. You'll have to wait a while between updates because I want to finish Highschool Ride but I really want to have this done before the sixth book comes out okay? Excerpt courtesy of MoreThanHer.

Right, let's begin.

I'm a girl of extremes. When I love something, I'm like a puppy dog (without all the licking). When I'm cranky, I'm a wasp (like a whole hive of 'em). And when I'm angry, I'm a mother bear with a predator after her cubs: dangerous.

I say this because lately my life has been all about the extremes. Like right now, for instance. I was soaring twenty-thousand feet in the air with the five people I love most in the world — and no, we weren't on a plane, hang-gliding, or hot air ballooning. We preferred to use good old-fashioned wings. The technology's been around for eons.

If you've ever dreamed you could fly, I can confirm that it's all that and better. Even if you're desperately flying through a subway tunnel to save your life, it's still off the charts. But today, flying over Africa ... it was as good as it ever gets. Maybe the best part was that for the first time in a dog's age, we weren't on the run from madmen. We were on a mission — to do good.

"Max!" Iggy called over to me. "Why did they name themselves Chad? I mean, Chad. It's like naming a while country Biff or Trey. I don't get it."

"Ig, don't be ignorant," I scoffed. "It's not like all the people there named themselves."

"Why not? We named ourselves," Nudge noted, as if I needed to be reminded that we were raised in a lab under the supervision of science geeks.

"Only 'cause we're special." I gestured to her twelve-foot wingspan. "Hey, check that out!" I pointed to a Martian-like rock formation in the distance.

Fang turned his head and gave me one of his classic half smiles — you know, like the kind of smile Mona Lisa would have had if she were a guy. A teenage guy with longish scruffy hair, dark eyes, and a leather jacket. Mmmm.

The whole trip had been as exhilarating as one of Fang's killer smiles. Even the hundreds of miles of shifting, mysterious desert dunes had been amazing. We're world travelers and all — we've lived in wilds as extreme as Death Valley and Antarctica — but there was something downright otherworldly about what I'd seen below as we crossed over — oh, crap, I'd forgotten the names of all of the different countries.

"Mauritania, Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Chad together are about sixty-eight percent desert," Angel recited, reading my mind. Literally. She's powerful like that.

"Whatever. It's too much freaking desert," Angel's brother, Gazzy, complained. I wouldn't mind seeing a few cows chomping away on some grass right about now."

"A-plus-plus on the geography quiz, Angel. Gazzy, Iggy, extra credit when you check your attitudes at the door." Even without parents, somehow I'd picked up the language. Seems to work when you're the leader. "Listen, I know some of you are a little cranky from the long flight, but this is our chance to finally help people. Real people," I emphasized, as if we'd grown up in a plastic bubble or something. Well, we kind of had. Do dog crates in labs count?

"Real people," Fang clarified. "As in, not a bunch of whack-job scientists."

"Yup. Did it ever occur to you guys," I continued grandly, "That when we were told we has to save the world, it might have actually meant saving people — like, one at a time? Sending a message around the world about people in need is great and all, but actually feeding people, giving people medical help and stuff? We've never done that before. I mean, this could be it, guys. Our destiny."

"Max is right," Angel agreed, in a very un-Angel-like manner. We didn't see eye-to-eye on much these days.

"Word on the street is that you have to save the world, Max," Iggy reminded me. "The rest of us? Not so much."

Twit. Always trying to take the easy way out.

Not Fang, though. "Hey, Max, wherever you go to save the world — I will follow ..." He did the killer half-smiling thing. "Mother Teresa."

My stomach flip-flopped as if I'd folded my wings and plunged into freefall. Hello, Max the Puppy.

I had exactly five second to enjoy sainthood before I caught sight of three black dots in the distance — and they appeared to be moving straight toward us.

Looked like Mama Bear's cubs were in danger. And you know what that meant:

Bye-bye, Saint Max. Time to be a hellion again.

"Incoming!" I shouted to my flock. "Down, down, down!"

Fast moving object directed towards the flock usually belong to one of three categories: bullets, mutant beings with a taste for bird kids, or vehicles hired by an evil megalomaniac wanting to kidnap us and use our powers. Which might explain why I was working on the assumption that the three black dots meant one thing and one thing only: imminent death.

"Max! Relax!" Fang managed to stop me before I could execute my dive. "I think those are the CSM cargo planes."

It was the Coalition to Stop the Madness (CSM), the activist group my non-winged mom was involved with, that had asked us to go on this humanity relief mission to Chad and to help publicize the work they were doing there. And what with our previous adventures helping them combat global warming and ocean pollution, we were slowly being turned from feral, scavenging outlaws on the lam into Robin Hood do-gooders. Meanwhile, I was still supposed to save the world at some point. My calendar was full, full, full.

So full that I had forgotten that this was the part of out journey where we were supposed to meet with the CSM planes so we could be guided into the refugee camp.

I gave Fang a thank-you-for-saving-me-from-myself look. When his eyes met mine, I shivered down to my sneakered toes.

Gazzy called over to me, "I can't see anything!"

"I can't see anything either!" Iggy complained.

"I'm rolling my eyes, Ig." I had to tell him that because he couldn't see me do it, what with his blindness and all.

"No, there's, like dust clouds below," Gazzy clarified.

I glanced down, and sure enough — the blurry endlessness of sand was even more blurry.

"Not dust devils," Fang said. His dark feathers were covered with a layer of dust, and grit was caked around his eyes and mouth.

"No." I peered downward again.

"Just then angel said, "Uh-oh," which is always enough to make my blood run cold. In the next second, I focused sharply on a few dark specks at the front of the dust clouds. One of the dark specks raised a tiny dark toothpick.

This time I knew for sure I wasn't overreacting.

"Guns!" I shouted. "They've got guns!"

"Quick! Up!" Fang shouted, just as the first bullets strafed the air around me with ominous hisses.

I angled myself upward, only to see the shiny silver underbelly of one of the CSM planes, now flying right above us. It was pressing downward — the rough landing strip was maybe a quarter mile away.

"Drop back!" I yelled. We all went vertical as the planes continued to come down practically on our heads. To escape from the bullets, we'd had to fly up right under them. The engines were way too close — the noise was deafening.

"Watch it!" I yelled as one of the plane's landing gear almost hit Iggy. "Drop down! Drop down!" Bullets are bad, but getting mushed by a landing gear, toasted by jet engine exhaust, or sucked into the front of an engine were all much less fixable.

I could now make out the sun-browned faces of the men on ... oh, geez, were those camels? The men continued to aim their rifles at us and I felt a bullet actually whiz by my hair. In about half a second, my brain had processed the following thoughts lightning fast:

1) A bullet hitting the fuel tank on a plane: not a good situation.

2) Slowing down not good: slow + bird kids = drop like rocks.

3) Speeding up not good: fast bird kids + faster planes + getting flattened.

4) The only choice was to go on the offensive.

Fortunately, I'm very comfortable with being offensive — at least on the not-infrequent occasions when someone's trying to gun down my flock.

"Dive!" I shouted. "Knock 'em down!"

I tucked my wings flat against my back and began to race groundward like a rocket. At this speed, these shooters would need radar and a heat tracer to land a bullet on me. I could actually see the whites of their eyes now, which were widening in surprise.

"Hai-yah!" I screamed — just for fun, really — as I swung my feet down and came to a screeching halt by smashing my heels right into the rider's back. He flew off the camel, rifle pinwheeling through the air, and felt the joy of being airborne himself for about three seconds before he landed right in front of his pal's camel.

"Get the rest!" I ordered the flock. "Free the beasts!"

There was about ten of these armed riders — no match for six hot, angry bird kids. We were used to dodging bullets; these guys were not used to aiming at fast-moving flying mutants. And the bonuses of being aloft are infinite: Snatching the rifle from the grip of a maniacal shooter isn't as hard as you might think when you're coming from above and behind.

Iggy flew in sideways and smacked one guy right off his camel, and Gazzy folded his wings around another's face, causing him to panic and fall. I grabbed a gun and use it like a baseball bat, neatly clipping one guy in the gut, knocking him right off his ride. Unfortunately, I didn't rise in time.

Which meant that for the first time in bird kid history, I got plowed into by a panicky galloping camel — with no sense of humor. Its head hit me in the stomach, and I flipped over its neck, landing hard on the saddle.

"Awesome move, Max!" I heard Nudge call from somewhere behind me. Wasn't she busy helping to take these guys out?

My Indiana Jones moment lasted about a second before I was lurched off the beast. Just as my feet hit the sand, I managed to grab a rein and hang on for dear life.

My wings were useless — there was no room to stretch them out — and my ankles were literally sanded raw before I was able to pull myself up hand over hand and eventually clamber back onto the saddle.

"Whoa, Nelly!" I croaked, gagging on dust. I gripped the saddle with my knees and pulled back on the reins.

This camel did not speak English, apparently. It stretched its neck and ran fast.

"Up and away, Max!" Fang yelled. I dropped the reins, popped to me feet on top of the saddle, and jumped hard, snapping out my wings. And just like that, I became lighter than air, stronger than steel ... and faster than a speeding camel.

I watch it race off, terrified, toward the nearest village. Someone was about to inherit a traumatized camel.

This mission was off to a good start.

--

"I'm glad you're all okay!" Mum sighed, looking us all over as we folded in our wings and shook away the adrenaline from our fight. I smiled as Mum gave me another hug.

"We're fine, as Fang told you," I sighed, hugging her back. I would never, never get tired of getting hugs from my Mum. Until recently, I didn't even know I had a Mum so I think its reasonable.

"Just making sure," Mum said. Then she smiled.

"Max, Max, Max!" Total shouted, bounding over to us excitedly. Total is our little Scottish talking dog. We acquired him in New York City quite a while back and somehow he latched onto us. But regardless of his annoying talking, he's a great dog.

"Yeah?" I replied looking down at him.

"We found your dress!" Total practically yipped, bouncing up into Angel's arms. She hugged him close and I felt warmth in my heart, momentarily forgetting that Angel was a little demon with an unhealthy desire to lead the Flock and take over the world.

"Oh… yay," I said without the slightest trace of enthusiasm. I heard Fang stifling his laughter and vowed not to go near him for a while. Oh and about the dress. You see Total and Akila, the malamute he is in love with, are getting married and I'm the maid of honour. Yay for me. Fang couldn't wait to see me in a poufy dress but I was going to get out of this any way I could. I was so not wearing a dress full stop.

"What colour?" Angel asked.

"Pink," Total replied and Gazzy and Iggy cracked up. Fang swallowed his laughter when I sent him a dark look. He gave me his most innocent face and then a smile that sent my world rocketing in a large circle. My cheeks heated up and I turned away and looked at Mum.

"So, down to business," I said.

"Ah, right," Mum replied. She clasped her hands. "Everybody come with me. There's somebody you have to meet."

We followed Mum around the plane that we were standing near where some men were unloading crates. There was one man among them with blonde hair, blue eyes who was wearing a business suit and not doing any work. He seemed to be supervising.

When he caught sight of us his face lit with that guarded curiosity that all the good scientists we'd met looked at us with. My alarms still went off at the scientist look and I glanced at Fang and he nodded: we had to be on guard.

"Guys this is Dr Hans Gunther-Hagen," Mum introduced as he came over to us. Ah, he's German, wonderful. I'd had nothing but good experiences when I'd gone to Germany. That's sarcasm by the way people. "He's our benefactor, the reason we're able to do our research here."

"So these are the amazing bird kids?" Dr Hans asked.

"Yes they are," Mum replied smiling at us proudly. "This is my daughter Max and her flock Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, Angel and Total."

Dr Hans smiled kindly at us, giving us a curious look over as though hoping we had our wings out. Sorry buddy but you're out of luck. We might show them to you later though.

"It's wonderful to meet you," Dr Hans said.

"I would say likewise but I'm not like that," I replied. Dr Hans looked taken aback but he shook his head.

"You have a weird name," Nudge said.

"It's German," Fang whispered.

"Oh," Nudge and Gazzy murmured together. Dr Hans chuckled and looked at my Mum.

"Valencia, would you please show the kids to where we're staying? I have more work to do and I'm sure they'd like to rest."

"Of course," Mum replied. "Come on guys." We said goodbye to Dr Hans- that guy made me so nervous for some reason but maybe that was just my wonderful friend paranoia speaking- and Mum led us off.

Max? The Voice was back to give me some advice. Yay.

Yeah? I thought back.

Be wary of anybody new that you meet here.

Thanks for that, I was going to be. The Voice didn't respond to my smart-aleckness so I rolled my eyes and Fang came over, slipping his arm around my waist and tugging me into his side. I closed my eyes, enjoying his presence.

"Voice?" he asked. How did he know? I don't know. It's like he can read my mind.

"Yeah," I replied. "It was being a nuisance. Much like yourself actually."

Fang chuckled and my heart fluttered. "I can be more of a nuisance if you want." The tone of his voice gave me butterflies and I tried hard not to blush.

"You shut up," I hissed slapping his arm lightly. Fang held me a little tighter and I felt okay. I could live out this stay in Africa, as long as Fang was with me the whole way.