A/N- Welcome to my newest story! A new character will enter the flock, so if you don't like OC's, don't read! This is not a FAX story, but it is a romance so read on! Reviews are love. Main characters: Iggy, Max, Fang, new flock member. POV's are from Max and the new flock member, Airi's.

I hope you enjoy the newest story.

I'm Here for You

Chapter 1

Airi POV

After months of waiting, the door to the cold, almost deserted, empty save for a few cages, dead lab finally opened. It groaned and creaked as light came streaming in, shining light on my still paler form, my once beautiful but now-stringy hair hung at my side. I straightened up, crouched in a fetal position before, a glimmer of hope in my blue eyes.

Someone is here to save me.

My blood ran cold as I realized that this was not a rescue. New prisoners would here, prisoners that would die in here as so many others did, and I had lifeless bodies in other cages around me to prove it. Two Erasers forced them in, but a piercing scream echoed through the cave, and the Eraser was kicked backward into the wall.

No, no, no, they can't come here!

They forced the prisoners back, the Eraser picking himself up and slapping whoever just kicked him. I recognized him, he was the only "patchy" Eraser in the lab, and he was famous for it. He took pleasure in making our lives harsh, until every one died. If he was to be their warden, the one who they depended on for a drop of water, a bit of food, they would surely die.

You didn't die.

I am stronger than the rest of those sad experiments. I was created with wings, strong stamina, the ability to be near starvation without dying. Super powers, I would be a regular superhero if not for the damned cages. Others, mutants of humans and dogs, humans and amphibians, they all perished sooner or later. After over thirteen long years, I had managed to live, never finding my expiration date.

I can't let them die!

I bit back a horrible groan as the prisoners were finally dragged in. I gasped as I saw that there were six of them, some much younger than I. They looked positively human. I searched for gills, fangs, claws, fur, anything that would mark them inhuman, but they were all-around normal. So why were they at the school?

Is that a…a dog with them?

A small black Scottie trudged at their feet, speaking in a sharp, high voice about how illegal it all was. Were they here only because of him? He would be dead by morning, I thought grimly. I looked at their faces. Three boys and three girls, there was a tall, blonde girl in combat boots and a fierce glare. A slightly taller dark boy, expressionless as all the dead bodies around me followed her closely. He was actually kind of handsome.

They are all so strange…wait, there's more of them?

The rest came filing through the door, a younger, frizzy haired girl with wide eyes, and a younger still boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. At his side trudged a smaller version of him, but she was a girl, with an outraged frown on her face, no doubt furious that they had been caught for whatever crime.

Oh, my god.

There was one more boy who walked through the door, a strawberry-blonde, not unlike myself, towering over the two oldest. I wondered if he was maybe twenty, he was so tall. He anxiously grabbed the youngest boy's hand, but he didn't even look for it. This would have been normal, if not for his pale eyes that screamed, I am blind.

It's not…

My heart stopped. I hadn't expected this. I feel back against my cage, my heart hammering in my chest. They all spun around and looked at me, as if surprised that I was alive in this God-forsaken place. I gulped. "I…Iggy?" I rasped, this being my third day without water. Their eyes widened.

I must look so horrible to them.

I knew that. I hadn't bathed properly in my life here at the school. Born and created here, never escaped, how could I? I took medicine in the case of disease or parasites like lice or even fleas, considering the animal in me. My hair hanging limp at my side, so long, my skin so pale, half-starved, I knew what they were seeing. And I knew how weak my voice was. I managed a small nod, aching for an answer, a rejection, a "what's an Iggy?".

Please no, please no, please no…

The strawberry-blonde one looked straight ahead for a minute and then broke the silence in a tense voice, "Which one of you said that? Gazzy? This is no time for playing jokes." His voice cracked as he said the words. The older girl put a hand on his shoulder. "W-we didn't say that, Ig." Iggy almost fell back into the Eraser in shock.

Oh, God, no…

"Shut up!" yelled the Eraser, stabbing the strawberry-blonde with a rod as an electric shock shot out of it. The tall boy fell to the ground limply, and was scooped up by the tall dark one, who groaned. The Eraser, the harsh one, the "patchy" one, walked over to my cage and punched the bars harshly, making my cage rattle.

Hurt me all you want, dog meat. It'll get you away from them.

"Made some friends, have you, piggy? We don't allow friends here! Pray they'll last longer than a week, girly! These mutants may even last a month!" Mutants? So they are concealing their powers. He walked away with a single kick to my cage, making me cringe in disgust and terror. Shoving them in cages too small for their appropriate sizes, I winced as the door closed again, leaving the whole place in almost complete darkness, if it had not been for a light bulb hung on the ceiling.

We're safe…yet captured. All of us. And I will watch them die, too.

"Alright, you guys, start talking," said the tall boy with a nervous edge. "Who's playing tricks on the blind guy? You know, I thought you were better than that, considering how we're about to die, but some things never chang-" he was abruptly cut off as I repeated a bit more steadily, "Iggy?"

Don't answer me. Let your name be…Bob. Yes, Bob. Bob is such a nice name.

He slowly turned his head toward the general direction of my voice. "Y-Yeah?"

I didn't want any of these games. If he was Iggy, let's make it clear. "Are you Iggy?"

"I answered you, didn't I?" he asked with some irritation. "Would you guys mine telling me what's going on?"

The youngest boy took a look at me. "Yeah…there's this girl here. She looks just like you, only…in girl form, I guess. I think she knows you."

I fell against my cage again. My fingers gripped the sides for support. Was he really Iggy? My Iggy? It seemed so long ago. It must have been over eight years. I remembered everyone, but they never remembered me, and I had to know if he was the Iggy I knew.

"Oh, he's the Iggy you know," piped the smaller girl. She beamed up at me. "And he definetly still remembers you, Airi."

His eyes widened, but he didn't look up. "Stop it now," he snapped. "You stop it right now! Don't play tricks on me, don't play with my feelings!" He yelled with rage as he reached through the bars of Angel's cage with perfect accuracy and grabbed her shirt collar. "I don't care if you're a six year old girl, you're going to get it now! Airi can't be over there, Angel, and you and I both know it, because Airi died," he said, his voice cracking. "H-How did you find out? I never told you!"

Angel whimpered as he held her two feet off the ground with one hand. He didn't show mercy. His eyebrows pulled together and he glared down at her. My grip on the bars tightened as I threw myself at the front of the cage, and I choked out sobs, "She's not lying, Iggy! It's really me, it's really Airi, and I'm alive right here!"

He turned on me then, or whatever he thought wasn't me. "I was told that Airi died, idiot!" he spat in my direction. "When I was only six! If you're a whitecoat, damnit, I'll kill you!" he roared, lunging towards the edge of his cage. "Don't tell me lies because I'm blind," he seethed. "She went through a door one day and she never came back. I didn't have to be told, but I was. I was told that there'd been a problem with her operation, and she died."

"Look, you idiot," I raged, "'She' is right in front of you! I'm here and I didn't die, ever, obviously! You know, most people would be happy at their best friend being alive, but you seem dead set on being dead. I didn't die from the night vision operation, they enhanced it! You all can barely see me, and I can see you in colors you've never seen before! When Bachelder kidnapped you from the school, I stayed here because you forgot me!"

Iggy was silent for a moment. He breathed out a huge sigh. "Look, I don't trust anything right now, and you know I can't see you, and I last heard your voice when I was six. So what can I do to make sure I know it's you?" he replied bitterly. "I'm sure this is all a joke. My hallucinations. Being back here has brought back to many memories."

"Because, loser, you used to complain to me when you were younger how there was a dark guy in your section of the School that would never talk to you, and kept hitting on this blonde girl, and it wasn't really amusing. You used to say how I was your only friend because that dark guy annoyed you. I used to say you were my best friend because you were. And when no one else was in hospital gowns except you and me, getting IVs, blood drawn, and shared a hospital room, I let you listen to whatever you wanted on TV."

The dark boy looked first at the blonde girl, then immediately at Iggy. "Do you mean me and Max? You thought I was hitting on Max? And you thought I was annoying? Geez, man."

Iggy put his face in his hands. "That was a secret, you idiot! That's why I told just you!" he fumed. "Real nice, Airi."

I smiled brightly and brought my hands together. "You called me Airi! You remember me! You believe me, loser!"

Iggy grunted. "You still call me 'loser'? Some things never change."

The middle girl with the frizzy hair inspected me. "Huh. She knows you. You know her. She's pretty. You remember her." She thought for a moment. "I don't like her much," she stated, and they all burst out laughing, except for Iggy, including me.

It was obvious that the younger girl had a sweet kind of crush on Iggy. She looked at him with admiration, but it was easily a case of unrequited love. Iggy looked much too old for her. When the older girl, Max, stopped laughing, she quickly said, "Guys! Iggy knows her. He likes her. She likes him. They're friends. We're obviously not going to stay here forever. When we break out, I'd like to take her with us." She waited for applause.

I sighed. "Max, your name was Max, right?" I guessed. "We're never getting out of here. It's obvious. We're gonna die in here," I moaned. "At least I got to see Iggy again before I die in half an hour."

Max rolled her eyes. "I always find a way out of sticky situations. Even if we've never been in this area of the school before, we're getting out. We always get out. We can't just leave you here. You're coming with us, whether you like it or not, Airi."

I smiled in spite of myself. She had that kind of determination, I just believed her automatically. I nodded. Iggy looked up suddenly. "Max, this is the worst wing of the school," he stated. Max nodded irritably and made the universal "duh" gesture. "Follow my logic here," he said. "Airi's probably gone about three days without food or water. Knowing the school, they probably feed us scraps and a small cup of water every three or four days, and they'll feed us all at once. Because we just got here, they'll wait three or four days to feed all of us together. By then, even someone as strong as Airi will die."

Everyone was silent, knowing he was right. "So, then, we have about twenty-four to forty-eight hours before I die," I joked. "No biggie."

"I'll find a way," said Max, and immediately went into emergency thinking mode.

The flock and Airi were asleep. There were no noises except for Gazzy's quiet snores, but I didn't need quiet, I needed a plan. A plan to save Airi. A plan to save us. A plan to bust us outta here. I snapped out of it when I heard the iron door open for a second time today.

Ari walked through the door. Alone. My eyes widened and I immediately feigned sleep, slumping against my cage, but I didn't fool him. "I know you're not asleep, Maximum Ride," he murmured lazily, then hastily unlocked my large cage, and stepped inside. He closed the cage door behind him and dropped the keys.

I backed up against the cage. "What are you…" I began, cringing as I smelled alcohol on his breath. "You're drunk!" I squealed as he leaned in and I shrank back even farther. I had to make a choice. It was my one opportunity, and I was lucky it had come the first day. So you would have done it too. …I think.

I popped back up abruptly, leaned in and kissed him without an ounce of hesitation, silently hoping that he bought it. Apparently he did, because he put his hand on my lower back.

Freaking pervert!

I closed my eyes and punched him hard, knocking him unconscious against the bars of the cage and wiping the Ari taste off my mouth. He was out cold, and I smirked as I grabbed the keys off the cage floor, stepped out and locked him inside. I unlocked the cages of the flock. I shook them awake, Airi last. "Guys, we have about two minutes before a bunch of Erasers and whitecoats show up to stop us from escaping. I know how to get out the way we came."

We were careful not to make a sound as we tiptoed to the large iron door. I grinned as we were about to get our freedom. I yanked it open as it revealed nearly 50 Erasers waiting for us.

Oh, shit.

"Run!" I bellowed as we ran away from the door. Extending our wings, we all took off from the ground and rose to the ceiling. A piercing scream reached my ears, and I realized that Airi was still on the ground. "Fly, Airi, fly! Can't you fly?" I hollered at her, desperate for her to save herself as the Erasers ran after her. She was running like a maniac all over the warehouse floor. "Get off me, get off me!" she shouted as she shrieked and fought off the Erasers.

Fang and Iggy glanced at each other and nodded, even though Iggy couldn't see it. They flew down and grabbed Airi by each arm, flying back to the sky. "Kyaaaaa!" screamed Airi at the abrupt motion. "Don't drop me, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!"

"I can't hear myself think with all your screaming!" hollered Fang. "I will drop you if you keep screaming in my ear!" He and Iggy circled back around until we were facing all the Erasers on the floor. "They have guns," Airi whispered faintly. "We'll take care of it," Fang reassured her, and she offered one of her seemingly rare smiles.

She sure shut up and calmed down, even as we dodged bullets and put Nudge's power to use as she sent the metal cages flying at the Erasers. Angel set them fighting on each other in minutes, and Airi really seemed happy. And she should be. She was being carried by Iggy and Fang, I thought bitterly. She really seems to like him, I thought. But…but she could also like Iggy. Fang said he loved me. He said he chose me.

"Oh! Jesus!" I snapped as a bullet snapped right through my hair. How could I have missed it! Shut up with your stupid thinking, Max! It wasn't like you and Fang were going to honeymoon on Paradise Island anyway.

As they ran after us on the floor, I smiled to see that they had left the door open. We zipped through the air and out the door, right over their heads. Landing and running through the school was trickier, but Airi guided us outside. Crashing through windows and cutting ourselves on broken glass, we burst out into the sunlight.

Total smiled and wagged his tail out of Angel's jacket, and I sighed with relief, I couldn't believe I had forgotten him. I was getting to be such a bad mother figure for all these kids.

I smiled to myself once we were high above the clouds again, where we always should be. I grimaced as I saw Airi looking really happy with Fang and Iggy. For now, at least, we were free again.

Soo, how was it?

~Rachel