Introduction:

This is the spiffy new edition of the trailer, edited so all the parentheses end and all the characters are in the right houses. And so the origin story makes sense, I no longer claim to own Max & co., and so the Epilogue isn't all lonely and disjointed at the bottom – that is, I edited it.

Last night I was "working" on my Spanish homework, and, as usual, got broadsided by a Plot Idea which has broadsided me before. However, this time it was Serious and Dramatic and… well, you know how fanfiction is. For this I thank Raptor Jesus, for he advises me on short skirts.

Warnings: Curse words, sexytimes, and Good!Science. (Not much sexytimes, though… frownyface.) Oh, and I don't own Max & co.; damn that 16th amendment!

My name is Anna Sinclair; I doubt you've met me. Unless, that is, you live in the area just south of Denver, in which case hello and I'm sorry about disrupting your routine. (By the way, if you've been reading about an 'angel' in any tabloids [especially one in the Denver area, that was me.) I'm sixteen, I have wings, and that's all the information I'm comfortable giving out about myself.

I live with my boyfriend and one-half of my pair of legal guardians – the winged half, Adolph, spelled with a ph, as he insists on repeating. I call Shane my boyfriend because it's convenient and, well, he is. We call ourselves the Four-Man Band: token cripple, token chick, token gay dude, and token normal.

Not so long ago, I was surfing the Internet and I heard the phone ring. Adolph thumped off the couch and answered it. He listened for a moment and then turned to me.

"Nathan," he said.

Being that the poor man is our token cripple, I assumed the worst.

Adolph listened again. "Okay, I'll put you on speakerphone for Anna."

Adolph hit the little button on the phone, and Nathan's voice crackled out of the invisi-speaker.

"Anna? Get in the car; Adolph's driving. Adolph, get the beeohbee and put it in the trunk. Is Shane there?"[Ed. – a beeohbee is a BugOut Bag – bag of survival necessities.

I looked at Adolph, raised an eyebrow. "No," I said. "He went to the store."

"Ah," said Nathan. The line went silent and for a moment I thought he'd hung up. Then he said, "I have a debt to pay. A… friend sent me a letter, and I just got it. He sent it to my… old address. Come get me." He hung up.

Just then, before I could move towards the door, someone honked a car horn outside. Adolph caught my gaze, and I heard his voice say, Shane!

No doubt. I went for the front door while Adolph went to get the beeohbee from the closet.

"Come on!" Definitely Shane.

I ran out to the car, Adolph trailing behind me, and got in the backseat. "Looks like a change of plans," I said to Adolph.

"What?" said Shane.

"Just drive," said Adolph. "Na – Doctor Prescott's apartment."

Thanks to Shane's driving (comparable only to dear departed Jake's in speed and scaring the cops), we got to the apartment in record time. True to his word, Nathan was on the steps, complete with – oh no – suitcase and crutches. The crutches I'd been expecting – token cripple, right? – but not the suitcase.

Adolph got out and put Nathan's suitcase in the trunk, then waited for Nathan to get in the backseat next to me and put his crutches in like a metal seatbelt over the both of us.

"I-25, Shane," said Nathan, "and I suppose I owe the three of you an explanation – especially you, Anna."

There was a perfectly-timed pause, and then Nathan started in.

"I knew this guy back in the eighties, and he's finally called in a favor I owe him."

"You need me why?" I asked.

"We need a Judas."

"Excuse me?"

"Someone to infiltrate this bunch of mutant… weirdos running around."

"Well, why me, not Shane, he's legal."

"You have wings; I'd get Bird, but…"

Bird was the third member of our winged-people Three Man Band, but she ran off a while ago. "Then why do you have to come?" I asked.

I heard him say, Prove I'm not the cripple but he cut himself off and said, "We need a… villain to get them to meet you. I fit the bill of Evil Scientist, but we sadly lack wolf-people, so it's me."

Shane guffawed (and I'm entirely justified in using that verb – when I say guffawed, he guffawed) and said, "What, they think scientists are evil? I pity the poor geologists."

"Dude, not funny," I said. "Pity the physicists." Our little injoke.

"So I'm sending you to Arizona," Nathan continued. "I'll be accompanying you."

I wanted to ask why we were (presumably) taking a plane there, when I could get there in under a day by myself and he could drive, and why I couldn't just fly alone. Instead, I settled for saying, "Hey, so two questions. One, where are the ticks coming from, two, why are we stopping these nuts?"

With typical Nathan straight-facedness, he said, "Because these… cork-nuts are trying to overthrow the system, and The Man – that being me and my friend – won't stand for it."

Assuming that he was just going to conjure plane tickets, I giggled under my breath. Arizona! People with wings! Air travel!

"I say bring it." I said.

"Nice attitude," deadpanned Shane.

Damn him.

Epilogue:

I apologize for the Editor's Note, but really – a footnote makes you scroll down here, then back up, and I hate doing that. If this were a comic, I could just write it in some white space, but no…

Anyway, I've fixed some canon issues and made the Call more sensible, as well as fixing some general problems.

Please note the following things if you're curious: the geologist joke is one I recently came up with and have finally dragged into the light – as such, use it at will in MR parodies, etc. "Cork-nut" as an insult has been borrowed from Oryx and Crake, which I adore. Clunkiness in dialogue, description, voicing, etc. is all my own fault, as is the let's-throw-darts-at-the-map location of Max & co. A first chapter will more than likely follow, as I think this will be a nice idle pursuit to occupy my remaining October. Said chapter will explain the backstory of these OCs – a justified infodump, as Anna feels guilty about jumping into things – and hopefully bring us up to speed on the activities of Max & co.

I'd like to note that if you see an element from one of your fics in here and I have forgetfully forgotten to mention you, mention it, and I'll credit you. I don't intend to mock anybody, just to lovingly make fun of our shared fandom.

This seems, also, to be the first Max Ride fanfiction which has the MCs acting as villains. To which I note that this is not a bash!fic. I have nothing against Max & co., except possibly Max's enduring happiness. Then again, I envy all relentlessly happy people – envy, and fear.

Don't forget to flame.