The best decision I ever made as leader of the flock was also probably one of the weirdest.

After the fall of Itex, a domino effect from our destruction of their Germany headquarters, we, the Flock, didn't really know what to do with ourselves. Occasionally, we helped the government agency now devoted to the busting of rogue Itex agencies or other mutant-maker labs. But those busts happened once a month at most. We needed to fill up the time in between with something productive, something to do. We all tried our hand at normal life, but that didn't pan out as well as we had hoped. It was too different, we were too different. Maybe both. Either way.

We needed something new.

It took a while for me to think of it. For long months I did my best to think of idea after idea. Maybe we could move some where else? Get adopted? Maybe-? None of those ever did work. And it hurt. I wasn't doing my best for the Flock. I knew, somewhere, there had to be a place where we could all be happy. There had to be, and if there wasn't, I would make one. When the idea hit, right in the middle of some inane chick flick with the rest of the Flock at Mom's house, I nearly laughed out loud. As it was, Angel gave me a pretty strange look. I had to sneak out in the middle of the movie to laugh my heart out in the woods, far away from where anyone could hear me.

I knew what I had been doing wrong. Always, I had been looking for ways to fit in within the human world. Never once had I thought of going the other route. We could do it, too, just so long as we didn't mind finding our own food. (Which we really didn't, after all.) We didn't need civilization. Not as much as we needed to be free and together. And if I had to choose one, which it seemed I did, for me and for my flock…?

I chose freedom. I chose my flock.