A/N: Hey this is my story. It takes place right after STWAOES and Eclipse. I love both of these series, so I will keep things pretty much correct. There are 3 oc's so yeah. P.S. there is one Percy Jackson and the Olympians joke hidden in the story. I want to see how many of you find it. REVIEW AND TELL ME WHAT IT IS! Thanks! xxox~Kit-Kat~xxox
Chapter One: Good Morning
Aiva POV
Well, I could already tell that this was going to suck. I mean, any morning when you wake up in a dog crate is bound to suck, right? Right. Now, about myself, me and my friends: Karianne and Alyanna are experiments, much like the flock. We are all 98% human and 2% avian. Well, except for me. I have some of the freaky Quileute werewolf in me. I carry the gene because my mom's biological father had 24% Quileute blood, so it got passed through mom to me. Oh, joy. The freaky scientists here at the school just accelerated the process of my changing somehow, so now I'm the freakiest of the freaky. Yay.
I'm basically the leader of my small flock, just because I'm the best fighter, I'm the oldest, I'm the strongest and, truth be told, the smartest. They're smart, too, they just don't have the same survival skills as I do. And there's nothing wrong with it, I'm just more equipped to survive. I protect them, feed them, but unlike Maximum Ride, I do not nurture them like a mother. This is mostly because the both of them are only a few months younger than me.
A "scientist" came in, and I glared through the bars of my cage to the door. My glares scare my flock, so you can imagine how scary it is. "Wake up everything," he said in a sing-song voice. Note: everything, not everyone. Jerk. Then he turned on the light and pressed a button. Electric shocks rippled through the bars of my cage and shocked me with twenty volts of electricity. I knew it was happening to my flock, so that was what I focused on so that the pain wouldn't enter my mind. I'd deal with that later. Anger sung in my veins as I had hoped it would at the thought of someone hurting my flock. The stupid jerk laughed and pressed the button one more time, holding it in longer, and pouring more anger into an already furious me. Not a good idea.
"Okay, we need the avian-human hybrids and the shape-shifting avian-human hybrid to come with us," a female scientist said, coming in behind the other one. More filed into the room behind her, along with a lot of Erasers.
I sighed, allowing myself to look defeated. Karianne and Alyanna followed suit. When they unlocked the doors, we climbed out and stood next to each other. Karianne, on my left looked around and pointed to six other figures that were getting out of cages. I turned to look and one of them growled, "What are you looking at?"
I rolled my eyes and said, "You, duh."
One of the Erasers growled at me and I smiled sweetly at him. "How are you today, ugly? Eat any good kibble for breakfast?" He made to hit me, but I ducked and he missed. "Fetch hasn't helped your aim, Rover." I said.
"Enough!" a whitecoat shouted. "Take them to the room and don't let them get away."
Another Eraser made to grab Karianne and Alyanna, but I stepped quickly between them. "We can all walk just fine, thanks."
The Eraser glared, but said nothing. I felt my ear twitch, telling me that there was motion somewhere in the room that I hadn't noticed. The others had climbed out of their cages and were staring at me in disbelief. I looked at one of the Erasers, expecting to see a person, but all I saw was a wolf. That was weird. Usually for transporting experiments they stayed un-morphed or half-morphed. This guy must be new.
He sent a wicked grin my way, but something told me it wasn't intended to be wicked, the sharp teeth just made it that way. I almost smiled back, but remembered that this was the enemy, and therefore, should not smile at him. So, instead, I glared harshly. His eyes flicked to the floor and then back at me. Odd. He must definitely be a new guy.
The Erasers led us to a room with four full size beds. I looked suspiciously at the whitecoats, but they didn't seem to notice. The Erasers shoved us into the room, not caring if they made us trip and fall over one another, and then one of the stupid whitecoats spoke again.
"This is your new room. It's got laser beams across the door, a twelve-digit security pass code, and you have to have identification to get in and out. The walls are steel and can be reinforced with electricity if the need arises. There are no windows, and the vents are too small for even a dog to fit through. We are testing how long you can survive with no food. When the first of you dies, we will bring the remainder of you back to your cages for more experiments. Goodbye now," he said. Then they all turned around and left.
Remember how I told you this day was going to suck? Okay, just making sure you remembered. I looked at the other flock that was in here. There were six of them. Two were fairly small, one was of medium size, and three were larger. I looked at mine. Two medium, one large. Okay, they got three beds, we got one. I slept on the floor.
"Okay, here's the bed order," I said to the others. "Your flock gets three beds, we get one. We fit two to a bed. Sound good?" I looked at them all, the scraggly bunch, daring any one of them to disagree.
"So where do you sleep?" Karianne said, doing the addition. I shrugged and said I'd sleep on the floor. My flock looked at me with protest spelled out on their faces, but I raised my eyebrows, daring them to do it. Karianne sighed and nodded, knowing there was no hope for argument. Alyanna fallowed her.
"Now, Does it sound good to you?" I asked the other ones again.
The one that seemed the leader of the other flock looked at me. "Yes, that seems fine. Who are you?"
"I'm Aiva. This is Karianne and Alyanna, my flock," I pointed to each member in turn. "Who are you?"
"I'm Max. Maximum Ride. This is Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel. I'm guessing you are all bird-kids, too?" she asked, staring at me. I glanced at my flock. They were freaking out, probably thinking, 'THIS IS MAX! THIS IS MAX! HOORAY! HOORAY! THIS IS MAX!'
"Yeah. I know you. You're the one that thought she had the school and Itex and everything wiped out. I'm sorry to tell you, but you missed this branch. Hell, even getting rid of as much as you did was amazing. Unfortunately, this branch was headed by your father. He didn't fall apart when Itex did," I said.
Karianne and Alyanna were looking at them like saviors. "Are your wings really that dark, Fang?" Alyanna asked. He shrugged.
I sighed. "So, Max, if we're going to be living together for a while, at least until one of us dies, we may as well be friends." I extended my hand. "I won't hurt you or your flock if you don't hurt me or mine."
"Sounds like a friendship to me," she said, taking my hand. "Deal." We broke the handshake when the door opened again.
An Eraser came in, holding ten water bottles. "These are yours," he growled. He dropped them on the floor and growled, "These are all you get today, so use them wisely." He gave a twisted grin and was gone.
I picked one up and handed it to Max. She tossed it to Fang, and knelt down with me to pass them out. When we got done, we realized we had an extra. I handed it to her, and she pushed it right back at me. "You're sleeping on the floor," she explained, then got up. I looked down at the waters in my hands. I smirked, before taking a sip out of one of them. Sucky day, sucky day.
I sat on the bed that Karianne and Alyanna had claimed and they sat with me. I leaned my head back against the wall, my stomach already growling. Karianne came and sat with me, followed by Alyanna. I heard one of their stomachs growl, so I opened my eyes and called Max over. She came, but stopped a few feet in front of me, a mistrustful expression on her face. I pulled out three granola bars. I tossed her two. "Nice last meal, huh?"
She nodded. "Thanks," she muttered. She went over to her flock, handing the younger kids a granola bar, and walking over to Iggy and Fang to split theirs. I handed ours to Alyanna. She opened it and started to break it into three pieces.
"I want the littlest one," I told her. She nodded, but took the smallest for herself. We were like this with each other. Always calling the worst for ourselves, but it was really the one who was giving it out that took the worst. This was why I usually was the one to give stuff out. I take up for my flock. They don't take up for me.
"Well, this is a lovely good morning present," Iggy said. Karianne laughed nervously. I could see she was blushing. I half smiled. She had always admired Iggy from afar.
"Nudge your hair is a mess," I told her. She nodded.
"It always is. I can't ever brush it, and Max says that there isn't a point because we're always on the run so we don't need to look pretty," she said. I pulled a blue plastic hairbrush from my back pocket and went over to her.
"If you want, I can put it up for you," I said. She nodded excitedly. I helped her up from her sitting position and turned her so that I could reach her hair. I brushed on it for a good twenty minutes before I got all the tangles out. Then I parted it to the side and pulled it into pigtails that hung low over her ears. I then braided them and secured them with ponytail holders. It looked really pretty on her. "You look good," I told her.
"Thanks so much! I've always wanted someone to do my hair, but Angel's too little, and Max just isn't good at it, no offence Max. I like the way you did it do you think you can teach me? I really hope you can because I love to do hair. You know what else I love? I love blue dresses. Max says that they're impractical, but I don't really care because I think that they're gorgeous. Do you have a blue dress? I don't think that you'd be my size, even if you did have one. You know what? I think that when we get out of here, we should stay together because then it would be awesome to have a flock of nine. There's safety in numbers, or that's what Max always tells us at least. You know, Max says a lot of stuff that has to do with survival. I say the most though, because I'm a chatter box. I don't mean to be, I just am. Iggy says it's annoying. Do you think I'm annoying?" Nudge rambled.
"No, I don't think so. I think you're funny," I said. She smiled at me and twisted the end of her braid around her finger.
"Max, I'm out of water," the Gasman said.
"You shouldn't have drank it all so quickly. We don't have any more," she replied.
"You can have my other one. I've still got over half of mine," I said, holding it out to him. I didn't really. I was right at half of it, but that was okay. I'd be fine either way.
He thanked me and popped the cap off the bottle and took a small sip. He was a sweet, sweet kid. I walked over to where Nudge sat with Angel on the floor. Angel's hair was knotted and scruffy, too. I pulled out the hair brush and, with her consent, started brushing her hair. Hers was thinner, so it was easier to do than Nudge's. I braided hers into a French braid, and stood. Angel looked up and thanked me before going back to the game of tic-tac-toe that she and Nudge were drawing with their fingers on the floor.
Karianne sat on the bed, whispering to Alyanna. They were fine without me for now. I turned and walked over to Iggy, who was sitting with Gazzy, their faces turned toward something in Iggy's lap. Iggy was doing something that involved a pocket knife.
I sat on the other side of Iggy and asked, "What are you doing?"
"We're making a bomb. Don't tell Max," he said.
"Well of course not! That would ruin all the fun," I said. "You're about to cut the wrong wire by the way. That's the yellow one, and you need the green," I said.
"Oh, I knew that. Thanks," he said.
"Kari would love to help you," I said. "She doesn't know about explosives, but she'd love to help," I added.
"That would be cool," he said. So I called her over and told her to help Iggy and the Gasman.
After that, I walked over to where Fang sat on his laptop. "Hey," I said. He nodded his head once to acknowledge me. "What are you doing?" I asked. He shrugged one shoulder. "Blogging?" I asked him. He nodded. "That's cool," I said. He did nothing. "When you're finished, can I borrow your computer? I just need to check my e-mail and my blog. It won't take me long," I said.
He raised an eyebrow. "You have a blog?" I nodded.
"It isn't as popular as yours, but it's gaining hits every day. I don't really have a lot of people on my e-mail, but you know it doesn't really matter. My best friend in Washington likes to e-mail me. I try to keep in touch, but I haven't had access to a computer in almost a month. It's how long we've been stuck here. Sorry, I'm rambling. Can I borrow the laptop when you're done, or not?" I finished, feeling stupid. He shrugged and nodded. "Thanks," I said, and got up to go talk to Max.
She sat on her bed, looking very tired and strained. She had a far-off look on her face, so I decided to wait until she came back to the present to say something. After a couple minutes of me standing there, she sighed and closed her eyes. Rubbing her temples, she looked up at me. "Can I help you?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Can we talk?" I asked her. She raised her eyebrows. "About escape plans, I mean," I added quickly.
"Oh, sure, yeah," she said. "Here, sit down." I sat. "So, what were you thinking we should do?" she asked.
"I was thinking that the easiest thing to do would be to wait. They have to come in to give us water every morning, right? So, what we do, is when the one Eraser comes in, we grab his exit pass when we hand him the water. Then we simply wait until the cover of night, when there are fewer guards on duty, and we make a break for it. And, if we get caught, Iggy can have smoke and stink bombs ready to throw, with the possibility of an actual bomb being there, too, just in case. What were you thinking?" I asked.
She stared at me a moment. "Nothing nearly as good as that," she admitted. "I like it. We'll go with your plan." I nodded. "You tell your flock tonight, and I'll tell mine. We go through with it the day after tomorrow," she said. I nodded again and turned to leave when she asked, "Avia, what's your story? How did you get here?"
I sighed and turned back to her. She looked genuinely curious. I sighed and opened my mouth to speak.
A/N: Well, there was my first chapter. If it sucked, please let me know. I'm an open reviewer, so if you don't have an account, you can still review my story. Plus, I would like to have a vote. Just a really simple, easy little review to tell me your answer. The question is this: Can an Eraser be good? Vote yes or no (that means that you can't say maybe). If you don't review, that's fine. I won't appear next to your bedside with a chainsaw in hand ready to make your brains go splat all over your walls and then write 'YOU SHOULD HAVE REVIEWED' in your blood on the wall. No, I'm not that creepy. :D