A.N. Hey everyone! This is my very first fanfic, so excuse me as I learn to use this thing! My first story takes place after FANG, but Fang is still in the flock. After Dylan gave himself a weird shot, he disappeared, and the flock hasn't seen him since.

Nudge: Hi!

Me: Hey Nudge! What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with Max and the others?

Nudge: Nope! See, in FanFiction world, I can stay here and talk to you! –She looks at my writing- Oh cool! What does she like? Is she like me? Oooo… Max is going to like that part—

Me (covering her mouth): Nudge, don't ruin it! Man, you're just like the books say you are. I'll let you keep me company, maybe even give me a few ideas, but you can't tell the readers! Okay?

Nudge: Okay. Start writing already!

Me (sighing): Okay. Welcome everyone to the adventure! Nudge! Don't click submit yet! I haven't started writing… This is going to be interesting…

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of James Patterson's Maximum Ride. Though Nudge really wishes I did!

CHAPTER 1: Here we go again

Max POV

We hate the CSM. The Flock and I have decided that enough is ENOUGH! I mean, the whole business with Jeb and Dylan, and my mom's kidnapping, and Fang almost dying… I figure that we can get along fine on our own. Though we will miss the free doughnuts…

Right now, the Flock decided to take a grand tour of America. You know. Without the Erasers and M-Geeks and Flyboys and robots on our tails, trying to take us down with machine guns and grenades, trying to capture us, or kill us, or sell us to crazy organizations as weapons. Yeah, we were trying to enjoy the land of the free as free beings.

We were crossing over the row of states down the middle, you know, with Nebraska and Kansas and Oklahoma. I don't know what name to call this place, I never took Geography. But let me just say that the land was... BORING! Cornfields and plains and cows. Nothing exciting. Not like New York. Man, I love that place!

"Max…" Oh. No. Not again. I groaned and looked over at Nudge, dreading what she was about to say. "Max, this place is boring. When are we going to reach civilization? I want to go to the movies or something. I'm kind of hungry, too, and I don't want to eat corn. Speaking of corn, did you notice how that last field we crossed was greener than this one? The river seems kind of dried up here, ya know? And what's with cows? Why can't they be the same color? Did you notice that our wings are completely different colors? I mean, Iggy's and Angel's are pretty close, but if you look closely you can see lots of differences. Uh… I have to go to the bathroom. Where's the nearest-" she stopped when Gazzy clamped his hand over her mouth.

Thank goodness. I was actually starting to get a migraine from her chatter.

Nudge POV

I tried to hold it in, but the first word slipped out, "Max…" she looked at me, and I knew I had to say it. I can't say "Never mind" for some reason. So everything came out, and I just felt helpless as I described every thought in my head for the last hour. I hate moments like this. There really is something wrong with me. I gabbed and gabbed until the Gasman covered my mouth. "Sorry." I mumbled, and Max looked relieved that I finally stopped talking.

I don't really want to talk. It's just that I can't keep anything in my head for long. It started back at the School, when I was around three or four. A whitecoat took me to a small white room, standard for the facility, and strapped me down to a table. He explained, "This experiment will determine if your vocal capabilities are directly connected to your avian DNA." He picked up an enormous, dangerous-looking tool. "This is a fluid that will mix your DNA with a touch of canary's." It was strapped around my wrist, and a needle was inserted through the skin. I winced, and then the world caught on fire. Every color changed in meaning to me, the yellows seemed too bright, the blacks too threatening, and the whites too... clean. I struggled against the restraints, shutting my eyes from this horrible change in sight, and suddenly, my vocal chords shivered. My mouth opened, and every thought in my head came out for the entire world to hear. I was horrified, unable to control my speech. Finally, my voice trailed away, and the whitecoat made some notes on a computer. I was breathing hard, flushed with fear and exhaustion. Back in my cage with Max and the others, I fell against the bars, slumping to my side. I could hear Max asking what was wrong, and Angel tried to pry into my mind (she hadn't developed all of her abilities as a mind-reader yet). I just lay there, my brain blank, trying to keep any thoughts from getting in. I had to be careful, or I could start blabbing in a dangerous situation...

Snapping out of my memory, I sighed and dropped to the back of the Flock, so I could stop chattering in their ears. I saw Angel join me. Angel was the only one who knew the problem I had. "It's not your fault, you know," she comforted me.

"It's totally my fault," I whispered back. How could it not? I wasn't like Iggy; I could stop talking, and he couldn't stop being blind. And yet, I blow everything by my outbursts.

"No, Nudge. Everyone actually enjoys hearing you talk. It's what makes you unique." I sigh and smile at my friend. She was creepy, and over-ambitious, and often disloyal to Max, but she was still my good friend.

After what seemed like hours, we FINALLY crossed into Texas, and an hour or two later, we touched down in Austin, Live Music Capital of the World. I looked around as we folded our wings into our backs in some forest by one of the many lakes. Some girls my age were rowing canoes on the water, laughing and splashing and having fun. And, they had no wings. I SO envied them.

Iggy POV

I followed the sound of the Flock's wings as they fluttered for landing, and copied them. Being blind meant that every other sense was intensified, almost super-human. Or should I say, super-mutant. But it still meant that you couldn't see, and I would never get over that.

Fang told me that we were going to Austin, and let me say, these people were weird. Not as weird as New-Yorkers, but weirder than most. Gazzy read on a bumper sticker, "Keep Austin Weird." Well, they were doing a really good job at it, no offense to you Austinites out there.

We walked down some streets, looking around and listening at the sounds and music of the local bands. I followed the sound of Fang's steps as I got my bearings in this strange city.

I thought back to yet another one of Nudge's outbursts. I know she doesn't mean to, but she is a pain really often. For a blind kid, hearing is the most important sense, and once Nudge starts going, I feel deaf almost. So I hope she'll EVENTUALLY grow out of it.

I listened hard to pick up every murmur and scratch to create an environment that I could recognize as we sat on some benches in the park. I picked up a couple of birds in the trees above us, having some conversation, and a squirrel was searching desperately for some nuts nearby. Then I heard it.

The faint, yet audible (at least to me) squeal of tires turning on a street. It was the right sound for a large van, because I could feel the rumble of the ground as it came zooming in. "Van's coming this way," I told them and stood, looking in the direction of the speeding vehicle. It came closer, but... it turned down a side street in the other direction of the Flock. "What did it look like?" I asked Max.

"It was just a white van. It... had no license plate, blacked-out windows... We have to go after it!"

I could tell from the silence that the Flock was just staring at Max in shock. "Max, we're not running from ITEX anymore, so we don't have to go after every suspicious clue." Nudge said.

"The Voice says so. Come on!" she contradicted and launched herself into the sky. The rest of us followed. As we swooped in closer to the road, I could hear the squeals and rumbles of the racing van. We came within ten feet of it as we flapped above, and I heard a crack of broken glass. Fang must have flown in and broken the sunroof.

The van screeched as the driver lost control, and crashed into a telephone pole on the side of the road. The collision rammed into my head, and I flew straight up to gain my understanding of where gravity was. Below, I heard the groaning of metal as it was torn away from the frame of the van.

Nudge POV

Fang smashed the van's sunroof and the driver inside looked up shocked as glass rained into the seats. He swerved off the road and smashed into a telephone pole, wheels turning to a stop. I gasped as we landed nearby. I wondered if he died... then a hand reached out through a window and peeled the shriveled metal door away from the wrecked van. The hand didn't look human though, it looked stony-hard and strong, like a Greek statue. The door flew off and the driver stepped out.

Angel screamed as he silently glared down at us. He had to be several inches taller than Iggy, which meant over six and a half feet. His muscles were bigger than Angel's head, and he wore a suit of solid black. It was a stone giant, and it was mad at us. He ran at us with such speed that we barely had time to dive out of his way.

Max threw Angel and Gazzy into the air, telling them to get away. Fang picked up a part of the telephone pole that lay in several pieces near the crash site, and he whacked the giant hard in the side. But the pole broke into millions of splinters. Oh, my gosh. This guy was invincible! He really must have been made of rock, because when Iggy tried to punch him, he got bloody knuckles and the giant stayed standing, unharmed.

I thought back to my brief time at the school where we went to back in Virginia and tried to remember something from science class. Yes! The giant was made of a certain kind of rock, but the rock had some metal in it. And I am good with metal. I flew straight up and yelled for everyone to follow me. I flapped in close to his head and wrapped my hands around his solid face, grimacing as I felt his stone features. I used my magnetism powers and flew up. And the giant flew with me. Man, this thing must have really weighed a ton, because I could only get a few inches in the air before I was wiped. But then Max grabbed me and yanked us up. She got my plan, and the rest of the Flock soon helped me get him a hundred or so feet in the air. Finally, I released him, and he plummeted, accelerating because of how heavy he was.

I couldn't watch. He cracked into thousands of pieces. We all hovered there in the air above the wreckage and Max whispered, "Good job, Nudge."

Max POV

We landed in the gravel from the stone-guy and looked around. I was disgusted. That dude was creepy. I wonder what evil group of megalomaniacs thought him up. The Gasman yelled, "Hey look at this!" We crowded around what he was pointing to.

"What is it?" Iggy asked. I picked up this black metal shoebox-sized cube and shook it.

"It's some kind of box." I couldn't find any handles or locks.

"Let me see," Nudge said, and took the strange object. She yelped and dropped it.

"What's wrong?" I asked anxiously.

"It's... it's ITEX." She shut her eyes and rubbed her reddening hands sorely. Lifting that stone man must have really strained her hands.

"ITEX? But we took them down!" Fang mumbled.

"ITEX made this thing. I can open it, I guess..." Nudge gingerly held the box again and ran her hands over its surface. Then she pulled up a hidden handle using her magnetic ability and opened it. Inside, a tangle of wires and green boards were arranged. "This must be what made the stone guy work!" She dug her hand into the wires carefully and felt around. Then she yanked out a smaller container. This one was easily opened by me, and small letter was inside.

I opened it up to the first page and read aloud:

If you are reading this, then you have successfully destroyed the GH 39- Granite Humanoid Number 39-. My congratulations to you. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Maximum Ride, everyone on earth knows about your quest to save the world, and I must admit, you have done a sterling job so far. But you are nowhere near done with your job, nor will you ever be unless you follow my rules.

At the address enclosed, a new series of experiments is taking place, and some will be of some interest to you and the Flock. If you are the resourceful being I know you are, you will take this offer of information and give us something we need.

I look forward to meeting you, Maximum.

Dr. C. L. Polymer
Head of Discovery and Research, ITEX

"Well, here we go again," I said.

You've got that right, Max, the Voice agreed.

A.N. Hey everyone! So this is just the beginning of the greatest story ever on FanFiction! (Well, maybe not, but it's the first one I've ever written!) I think the saying is-

Nudge: R&R! Please! If you don't, I'll have to go back to the Flock, and I don't want to leave ICBN! She feeds me chocolate chip cookies! PLEASE R&R!

Me: I couldn't have said it better myself, Nudge.