A/N: Hey! So, before you go all psychotic on me, I know that the first part of the story is taken from MR: TAE, because that is the point. I set this story in place of Max's headache. Instead of her headache she gets shot, you get the idea. I wanted to fit it in as smoothly as possible so I just took the 'anecdote' from the book to use it as the introduction for this story. So short in short- I know I used the actual book but this is the only part I used, I promise. Please don't sue me.

Anyway, enjoy! And Please review!

Prologue

Blue, blue sky, above the clouds. The air is colder, but the sun is warmer up this high. The air is thin and light, like champagne.

I felt happy. The six of us were aimless, on the run, and might be for the rest of our lives, however long or short they might be. But…

"God!" Nudge said, speeding up a bit to catch my slipstream. "It's just so, so… you know?" She swooped down gracefully, then rose again and pulled alongside.

"Yeah, I know," I said, grinning at her.

"I mean, the air, and we're up so high, and no one's after us, and we're all together, and we even hit IHOP for breakfast." She looked over at me, her brown eyes bright and untroubled. "I mean, God, we're just up here, and it's like so cool, and down below kids are stuck in school or, like, cleaning their rooms."

I nodded, "It's a shame that we'll never have that to look forward to on a daily basis." Luckily, Nudge picked up on my sarcasm and laughed.

Then, in the next second, a loud explosion reached my ears from the earth and pain throbbed in an area right beneath my rib cage. What the-? I hesitantly lifted my hand to my stomach and when I pulled it back to examine it, it was covered with blood. Oh, oh God. I think I made some kind of sound, but I wasn't sure of anything at the moment.

"Max?" Nudge screamed.

I couldn't think, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't do a thing. My wings folded like paper, and I started to drop like a hailstone.

Something was incredibly wrong.

I felt like I was falling in slow motion. I watched as the five kids above me stared, with horror-stricken expressions, at me falling down, down, down to my death.

Fang. He was the first one to break. He flew-slash-dropped as fast as he could down to me but I already had about a ten second lead on him. I knew he was set on saving me, but I also realized that he wasn't going to make it in time.

I tried to fight to stay alert and conscious, but I was slowly bleeding to death. Breathing was also a necessity of staying alive and I was being deprived of that at the moment. I should've been thinking more positive thoughts, but you know that's never really been my forte. When it hit me that I couldn't do anything other than wait for my pain-filled body to come in contact with the ground, I let my eyelids slowly flutter shut. The last thing I heard before my senses shorted out sounded like Fang screaming, but I must've been imagining it because Mr. Rock doesn't get… emotional, right? It was too late to think about it.

I don't know how it came to be, but I managed to gather all the strength that was left in me to scream six words. "Fang, take care of the flock!" I didn't get the chance to comprehend if he replied or not before my vision was clouded with darkness.

Why am I not dead? I should be dead right now. You don't just get shot and live, but here I was, staring at the ceiling with only two thoughts swirling around in my head.

I tried to sit up, but I couldn't. I was strapped down onto a bed and when that thought came to realization, I had to use my eyes to take a closer look at the room I was being held in. It was white from top to bottom- white ceilings, white walls, white floors. It was like I was in a giant marshmallow. I almost started laughing from the stupidity of the situation when I realized that it was the place. The place where I grew up, where the evil Whitecoats had made me and my family's life a living Hell. The place I didn't think I would be back at until we decided to do some major damage.

This was totally not my plan.

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by a man in a blue blazer who barged through the door, clearly not caring about anyone else but himself. "Hello, Maximum, my name is Dr. Yuresh-" Well, the name fit- he looked Indian. "-How are you feeling?" Just dandy, how are you feeling?

I smirked. "Just peachy," I started, "wait, no- my abdomen kinda hurts which probably indicates that the last memory I have was in fact, real, and you're not some pigment of my messed-up imagination and I did get shot. Which also means that my family probably thinks I'm dead and I'm back at the School, strapped down to a bed, and stuck in a room, with you. No offense. So… no, I'm not feeling too great, thanks for asking."

Dr. Yuresh looked taken aback, like he didn't expect me to talk at all, or even a little, but he quickly got over it and looked down at a clipboard that he brought in with him. "Yes, well, they warned me that you'd be like this," he looked back at me, "so I'm going to pretend that you never said that. Anyway, I'm here to give you… options."

Well, this was new. I'd never been given the chance to consider options before. I narrowed my eyes. "What kind of options?"

"It's simple. You get to choose what your future will be like from now on. If you don't give us a satisfying or successful answer, then we will choose for you. It's your choice."

"That doesn't seem like you're giving me much of a choice for anything. It's like you're telling me what choice to make; therefore, it's not really a choice."

The doctor was staying surprisingly calm for someone who just met me. "Well, would you like to hear those options, or not? Or would you like for us to perform the default plan?" He smiled like he knew something that I didn't and that feeling made me sick.

I sighed. "Ok, fine. Let's hear them."

He flipped a piece of paper back on his clipboard and started listing things. "Ok, first one. You will be able to-"

The door swung open and in rushed four whitecoats with clearly no other plan than to take me away. They started unstrapping me as fast as possible from the bed, but in the process, managed to bind my feet and hands together. How they got past my cat- I mean bird- like reflexes, I had no idea.

I tried to fight my way out of their grasp, but my first kick resulted in severe pain from my stomach and again I asked myself, how am I not dead?

The Whitecoats picked me up, gently I might add, and set me on a different bed, a bed that rolled. They rolled me out of the room and into a different one, but this time it was filled with equipment. "What the heck is going on?" I slightly yelled, just loud enough to be heard over the buzz of the high-tech machines. I didn't think they would tell me considering that they weren't 'authorized' or whatever.

There was huge bed in the middle of the room in which they threw me on top of. I was still bounded, so I couldn't do much except just go with the flow and think about a plan later.

What surprised me, however, was that they were hooking wires and sensors to my head and strapping…weights?... onto my ankles. "Again, will someone tell me what's going on?"

When they were finished they all seemed to join together in one big sigh of relief. Why, you might ask? Beats me.

Three of the scientists left the room, while one stayed behind and took a seat in a spinney chair like the one Gazzy used to play on back home. Gazzy, I thought, and my heart clutched. I hope he and the rest of them were alright. I would find them, once I escaped this place. I had done it once already, I could do it again.

"Hello, Max," he said, turning back and forth slightly on his chair like a little kid.

"Um, hi." I didn't know what else to say. I have never been the friendly type when it came to people who tortured me for a living. Actually, no, I take that back. I had a lot of things I wanted to say to that nutcase, but I had a gut feeling that he was about to give me answers and I couldn't waste his precious knowledge on my big mouth. "Would you be kind enough to spare me the details on why I'm strapped to a bed with sensors on my head and weights on my ankles?" I made sure to add a teensy bit of sarcasm to amuse myself but not enough that he'd pick up on it.

He smiled and gestured to the bed that I was lying on. "This is your future."

"My future is being strapped to a bed?"

His grin sort of faded. "Well, no, not exactly. Right now we are preparing you for your future." He pointed to my head. "We are rewiring your brain so you forget about your family, friends, home, past life, et cetera." He pointed to my ankles. "We put two-hundred-fifty pound weights on your ankles so you won't be able to fly once we release you. The muscles you use to fly will slowly weaken and you won't be able to fly again. It will be the most normal you can be without fully removing your wings."

I don't know what he said after that. He lost me after the whole 'rewiring my brain so I forget everything' thing. I'm sorry, but that is not ok with me. I kind of laughed it off. "Yeah right, you can't just rewire someone's brain, Doc."

"Oh, really?" He stood up and walked over to a panel of buttons that was attached to the wall, and frankly, I did not like where this was going. But before he pressed anything, he turned back to me. "Tell me, Max, what is your favorite food?"

I didn't have to think hard for that one. "Easy," I stated proudly, "homemade chocolate chip cookies." Like the kind Dr. Martinez and Ella made for me.

"Ok, then." He turned back towards the panel and punched what looked like a random sequence and then turned back towards me. "Could you please tell me again what your favorite food is, Max?"

I groaned. "Whatever, it's – it's-" I froze. I couldn't remember what my favorite food was. I just couldn't remember. I absolutely hated this feeling. I felt vulnerable? I don't what I felt exactly, but I didn't like it.

"Ok, let's try this again." The Whitecoat punched another sequence of buttons and then asked the same question.

"Easy, the eggs that Iggy makes, but scrambled, not sunny side up."

He looked satisfied and I wondered why. "And that is how you rewire a person's brain." Oh. Crap.

"Ok, fine." I gave up. "And why are you doing this? Do you honestly think I can just be normal?"

He shrugged. "Honestly? No. That's why we've chosen the best family for you to live with. You will have a mother, father, and pet of your choice." Pet?

"But what if I don't want a new family, or don't want to be normal? What if I just want to live, wherever that may be, with the family I have now? When will I get to see them again?" I could've kept asking questions but breathing still hurt and I wanted to save my breath for later.

"Your new family will be far more superior than, uh, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel." He said their names with disgust and it made me angry. He had no right to talk about them like that. "And isn't that what you've always wanted? To be normal?"

I was flabbergasted. "Yes! But not like this! If I was to be normal, I'd want to be normal the normal way, and with my friends!"

"Well, this is the closest way."

"What?" I exclaimed, struggling against the straps. "How can you even say that? This is crazy! Get me out of here."

While I was busy struggling, the scientist got a shot from a nearby cupboard that contained a bright green liquid. I stopped fighting with myself when he stood creepily by the side of my bed with the needle armed and ready. "What's that?" I nodded at it.

"Oh, nothing. Just a little something to knock you out for a few hours while we recreate your life." He said it so calmly, it almost made me cry. Almost.

"Don't touch me with that thing!" Like my pleading would make a difference. "Don't! I just want to be home, with my fami-, with F- Fang, an- and Igg-" The Whitecoat had injected the serum into my arm and I was suddenly doozy. I forgot how to do everything, speak, think, the whole sha-bang. Now, I just wanted to sleep. "Whaaa-"

"Don't worry, Max, I promise it won't hurt a bit. Soon, you'll be with your new family and you'll have forgotten all about your freaky mutant friends. Just in a few hours, you'll be a brand new person."

The last thought I remember having was 'Fang, save me. Help me remember.' Asking him? I don't know why.

Then I blacked out, not knowing what I would remember when I woke up.

So, there's the prologue. A little short, I know, but I promise the chapters will be longer, that is… if you want me to keep writing. I'll only keep going if you want me to, so REVIEW! :)

I'm also open for any questions, suggestions, criticism, and anything that will make this better.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and pleassseeee tell me what you think! And by the way, every other chapter from here on out will be Fang's view… just a heads up.

THANKS FOR READING!

-ecStarz