Chapter 1: New Arrivals

Max POV

I woke up abruptly. I was having a dream, a nightmare really, about the flock being free, free from this place, never having to worry about it. That was never going to happen now.

We were at School, but not the normal school where you learn geography and maths. The kind of school where they lock you in dog cages, experimenting on you, genetically engineer wings onto you. Oh yeah, did I mention we have wings? Great big 18 foot wings. Feathers and all!

They, the whitecoats, made us like this. Kidnapping us when we were young, genetically engineering us to be Part-Human, Part-Bird.

By "us" I mean the flock, our makeshift family. There's Angel, the youngest. She's 6 years old, long blonde curly hair, cute as a button, and never ceases to amaze me. I swear she's discovering a new power every other day. She looks a lot like her brother, The Gasman, named so for his annoying habit of passing wind, but we just call him Gazzy and they're the only ones out of us who are actually related. He's 8 but quite mature for his age, has short hair, and is the groups' prankster. We think the bird part of him was Parrot, as he has the uncanny ability to mimic almost any sound he hears. Then there is Nudge, aged 11, dark skinned, a little princess, and a whizz when it comes to computers of any kind. Iggy, who's 14, is blind, but makes up for it in touch and hearing, seems to have a fetish for bomb making, something him and Gazzy do avidly and is the tallest of the group. There's Fang, 14 too, who is calm and collected He has an Icy demeanour, long brown hair, and olive skin. And then there's me, Max. I'm 14 as well, the leader of the group, tallish, reddish-blonde hair and am supposed to save the world. Well, I did, but that's a long story.

I looked at the flock, all asleep, locked in their separate cages. I have to get them out of here. Its bad enough we spent most of our childhood here and escaped, but the fact that they re-captured us, stuck us back in here, doing experiment after experiment on us. It's not fair on the flock. Let alone me.

Iggy suddenly bolted up. In the Dim light, I could see his eyes were wide open, not that it made a difference. "Someone's coming!" He exclaimed. This woke up the rest of the flock, and we all listened out for footsteps, but it was a few seconds before we heard them. They got closer, and stopped outside the door. We all stared at the door, anticipating one of us being taken for testing.

The door opened, the light turned up, but our eyes adjusted quickly. In came a whitecoat, one of our captors, dragging an body behind him. We all looked in amazement as the whitecoat opened an empty cage across the room and threw the person in. He locked the cage and walked out without looking at any of us.

The someone was a boy, around my age. He was breathing, which was a good sign had unkempt longish brown hair, a few scars on his face, possibly from run of the mill injuries, more likely from Erasers, was quite dirty, and was thin and lanky. But the most intriguing thing about him was the large, brownish gold wings, sticking out his back...

Fang POV

"Someone's coming!" Iggy shouted. My eyes snapped open. I listened out, but nothing for a few seconds till I heard footsteps. I looked around at the flock, which had all been woken up as well, and were staring at the door. Then a whitecoat walked in.

He was dragging an unconscious boy behind him. The boy was thrown in the cage opposite and locked in. I noticed large wings protruding from the boys back. The boy had to be at least 14, probably more. With his messy hair, scars, and dirty face, he looked like he'd been through a lot.

There was a long period of silence from the flock. We were just staring at him, waiting for something to happen. Then Iggy said "So is anyone going to tell me what the hell just happened, or am I supposed to guess?"

"One of the whitecoats just bought in a boy and locked him in a cage..." Max broke off.

"And...?" Iggy queried. Silence, until-

"He has wings." plucked up Angel. Iggy was silent. We had never met anyone else remotely like us, unless you count Erasers, which we don't.

"Who do you think he is?" I asked.

"I'm not sure" Max replied. "Angel, can you pick anything up?"

Angel, concentrating, closed her eyes. She can read minds, just one of her amazing abilities. "Nope" she said. "Only some dream bout the sea. He's out."

"So what do we do?" Nudge piped in. "Should we try to wake him up?"

"Yeah, I could throw some water over him?" Gazzy said. "I'm sure I could reach him!"

"No, we wait for him to wake up on his own" Max said confidently. "Then we'll ask him some questions. Until then I say we take it in shifts to keep watch on him. It might be a trick."

"I dunno, those wings look pretty real to me." Nudge said, peering over at the boy.

"Yeah, well either way, he could still be dangerous." I replied. "I'll take first shift. If that's ok with you?" I asked Max.

"Sure that's fine, I didn't sleep anyway, I should get some." She said sleepily.

"I got second." Iggy said.

"Ok then. See you in a few hours."

After about 2 hours, I was getting restless. I was pacing the small cage, going round in circles. My mind was racing with possibilities of who this is. Could it be a trap, a pan to infiltrate us, some kind of way to get in our heads? Maybe he was an Eraser in disguise. Maybe, there was nothing wrong; he was like us, another attempt at some kind of superhuman.

Then he started to rouse.

"Hey! Guys! He's waking up." I said to the sleeping flock.

They all sat up immediately, I don't think any of them were actually asleep.

The boy started to open his eyes and looked around. Then he saw us, and blinked, looked around some more, and realised where he was. He looked scared. He stood up, and started looking around, rattling the bars frantically, trying to look for a way out. He started shouting, and screaming as he shook the bars harder, and louder.

"Hey calm down! You'll have the whitecoats back!" I called to him. He looked at me and then sat down in the corner of the cage and held his knees up to his chest, protectively.

"Who are you people? What's going on!?" He shouted

"I'm Max, this is the flock. Who are you, what's your name?" Max asked.

"My name?" he replied. "My name's Will. Where the hell am I?!"

Max POV

"I'm Max, this is the flock." I replied calmly, gesturing to them. "Who are you, what's your name?".

"My name?" he asked angrily. "My name's Will. Where the hell am I?!"

"Calm down, you're at a place called the school, it's an engineering facility." I told him.

"Engineering? What's that mean? Like a steelworks or what?"He asked confused.

"No, not that kind of engineering. The other kind." Fang said quietly, looking down. "The kind where they mess with your DNA and turn you into something that isn't human."

"Ok, that make's no sense." He mused. Then his eyes widened, as if he realised or remembered something. "Where the hell is Emily!? Where is she?! TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!"

"Whoa, calm down or you'll have the whole place down on us!" I shouted at him. " Now lets start from the beginning. I'm Max, and this is my flock. Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman and Angel. Who's Emily?"

"Like you don't know!" He cried. "She's my Sister! Where is she? I know it was you who took her! I saw your wings!" He shouted at us. Then he took a step back. "Holy hell, you have wings!" he said shocked.

"Join the club." Gazzy sniggered.

"Gazzy!" I said angrily. "This is hardly a laughing matter!"

"What, what do mean?" He asked worriedly.

"Look behind you dude." Iggy said quietly. Will turned his head and saw the wings on either side of him.

"Oh crap. What the hell are those?!" he whispered wide eyed to himself. "Ok this is obviously a dream then." He said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. "I mean I have wings of course it's a dream."

"It's not a dream" Fang said roughly to him. "Believe me, we've been through what you're going through and let me tell you it, isn't a dream."

"Well then what the hell is going on then? Where is Emily?!" He shouted again.

"Do you really think we took her? We're locked up here too you know!" I shouted back. He looked at me angrily then stood up and started to shake the bars.

"LET ME OUT!!!" he screamed. "I SAID LET ME OUT!!!"

"Quiet!" hissed Iggy. "They'll hear you!" The little ones were looking scared now.

"I want them to hear." He snarled back. "LET ME OUT NOW!!!"

"Someone's coming!" said Angel. Everyone as quiet then we heard someone outside the door. It opened and in walked Ari, in full blown Eraser form, Tall, covered in scraggly fur, almost like a Wolf.

"Hello Will." he smiled evilly. "We've got someone here for you."

A small girl walked in, who looked as if she had been crying for a long time and looked absolutely petrified.

"Emily!"