Title: Failure
Author: Jaleo
Parings/Characters: focuses mostly on Fang and Max (FangMax if you squint, or at least this chapter)
Rating: T
Summary: Max was supposed to save the world, but she didn't.
Word Count: 1,362
Disclaimer: I do not own the Max Ride books or any of the characters in this fan fiction.
Notes: The way Max is supposed to save the world doesn't quite agree with everything the book says, and I'm aware of that.
This isn't beta'd, but there shouldn't be TOO many mistakes.
Anyway, I love reviews (insight, criticism, whatever you want). They're my heroin. hint hint
I've failed. He's gone. I've failed. He's gone. I've failed. He's gone. It was all Angel had been picking up from Max for a good twenty minutes.
Minus the gory details: Three years after the Flock first heard about ITEX from the two famished children, it simultaneously set off hundreds of bombs, with a power nobody had ever seen, or even comprehended, all across the world. Most of the world was completely in ruins; the planet's population was only a fraction of what it had been. The few people that survived were violently murdered in a different way, by the Erasers.
Thirty short minutes before the explosions Max had gotten into the ITEX headquarters to try to stop the bombs from going off. She had Iggy and Angel with her. Fang, Nudge, and the Gasman were back at the Institute, trying to get any more information that they could, stolen cell phone in hand, ready to call Max with any useful information.
Ten minutes before the end of the world, Nudge found something that would help Max greatly.
"Max, are you in the basement?" was the first thing Fang said as soon as Max answered.
"Yeah, we're in the basement."
"You see the controls?"
"Yeah. There's got to be hundreds on buttons on this thing," 'this thing' was a huge computer-type device taking up an entire wall of the basement.
"There's a code you have to type in to deactivate the bombs. It's long, so get ready."
"Ready."
"Okay, first you need to hit a blue button, then-"
"Wait, there's two blue buttons. Which one is it?"
"I, uh, don't know. It doesn't say."
"It's the one on the left!" Angel said to Max from somewhere behind her. Max is about to question how she know, but Angel says, "Trust me! You have to hurry."
Max hit the blue button on the left. "What next Fang?"
"Okay, listen carefully, and type fast. Just use the keyboard. There's a regular-looking keyboard, right?"
"Yeah, it's here. Shoot."
"K-70-z-13-m-172-ITEX-y-2009-m-8-d-9-M-16-F-16-I-16-N-14-G-11-A-9-J-J-M-28-b-57-e-n-d" a pause and Max hears Iggy move, and tell Angel to get ready, then from the phone, hears Gazzy's voice in the background say that Erasers are headed their way, "Max, now you need to hit a large black button, there should only be one and it should be next to a lever-thing." Fang's voice is slightly faster than it had been.
"Got it." Max hears the door behind her slam open the same time she hears a door where Fang's at slam open. Without turning, Max knows Iggy and Angel are doing their best to fight off the Erasers.
"Pull the lever next to the black button!" Fang shouts before Max hears the unpleasant sound of a fist connecting with a face. The line goes dead.
Max is reaching for the lever, ready to pull it, when she is attacked from behind by none other than Ari.
"Guys! Get out of here!" Fang yelled to Nudge and Gazzy. Immediately, they were up in the air out of the (surprisingly) un-winged Erasers' reach (thanks to the high ceilings) and through the sunroof.
Fang was ready to follow, when an especially large Eraser, the only one left conscious in the room, grabbed onto his wing, not letting him fly away.
"No. You aren't getting away so easily." The Eraser growled at Fang.
Fang then punched the Eraser in the side of the head, if the Eraser had been a normal human, as nature had intended him to be, the force his head spun to the side could have broken his neck and killed him. Instead, the Eraser just spit out some blood and turned his attention back to the dark warrior with murderous intentions in his eyes. Fang got his wing free and attacked the Eraser before him with more vigor (and muscle) than he had attacked Ari the day the Flock was forced to leave Anne's house.
When Fang was satisfied, the Eraser was broken and bleeding on the linoleum floor. He had already turned to fly away, far away from the Institute, where he knew one of the bombs was, just in case Max didn't finish the job, when the Eraser grabbed him by the ankle and said, "Your hero failed."
Max swore under her breath. Just get the lever. Don't fight Ari. Just get the lever before time runs out. She repeated to herself in her mind.
Ari wasn't about to let that happen. Before Max could get a hit in, Ari grabbed her by the throat with both hands. She swung at him a few times, connecting every time, but it didn't seem to faze Ari. His grip never wavered.
She tried reaching for the lever. It was mere inches from her fingers. Before she knew it, she started to get tunnel vision. Reach. Come on, reach! She tried with all her might to follow her own orders. Finally, after what seemed like years, she felt the cool lever beneath her fingers. She pulled.
Max let out a sigh.
"Don't get too relieved. You were too late." Ari said. Max's eyes widened in horror, she knew Ari enough to tell when he was lying. That wasn't a lie.
Gazzy and Nudge watched in shock. They were miles and miles away, they had flown as fast as they possibly could and got as far from the Institute as feasible, but they still felt the heat from the explosion. As the dust started to clear, they noticed debris falling all around them. It was then that Nudge realized they barely gotten out of range of the explosion, and that Fang had stayed behind.
"FANG!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs. She started to fly back towards the Institute, but Gazzy held her back.
"Nudge, we should wait a little while, until some of the debris falls back down. We can't get hit by any of these huge chunks of metal." Gazzy said to her in a quiet, relaxed voice, hoping it would help her calm down some. It didn't seem to work; tears were steadily falling down her face, which was blackened with dust and ash, leaving skin colored trails.
Nudge and Gazzy had already searched most of the surrounding area, finding nothing telling them of Fang's fate and were still at the rubble that was once the Institute when Max, Iggy, and Angel showed up.
As soon as Angel landed she was in tears. Nudge's mind told her why she and Gazzy were both in tears.
"Max-" Nudge was unable to say what needed to be said.
"He didn't get out," was all Gazzy said. It was all that was necessary.
"You're sure?" Iggy asked, no, demanded.
Nudge nodded and said one her most to-the-point responses ever, "We kept our eye on the sky, and we also checked the wreckage for signs of him. We didn't see any signs of him either place."
Max said nothing, but walked off; not crying, not believing what she was hearing. She sat down at a random spot, far, but not incredibly far, away from the rest of the flock.
Something caught her eye. It was something small and black with the rubble, not necessarily something that should have drawn her attention. She moved closer to it. She picked it up and realized why it had caught her eye. It was the necklace she had bought Fang when they were fifteen and in Oregon.
It was then that Max, the invincible Maximum Ride, started to cry like she never had before. She stayed sitting on the ground, crying her eyes out even when the rest of the Flock had come over to see what she had found. Angel sat down on one side of Max, Nudge on the other, and the two remaining boys sat in front of them. The five of them just sat there and cried.
I've failed. He's gone. I've failed. He's gone. I've failed. He's gone. It was all Angel had been picking up from Max for a good twenty minutes.