Forever Ride
Well, I wasn't going to start this, until I discovered that the seventh book is coming out in a matter of days… and I want to get the ball rolling before the book starts messing with my mindset, and the plans that I had for this story. I might be too late. I read a summary, and it promises to be just like the first six: an emotional stabbing machine that will be too heartwarming not to put on my top-priority bookshelf, but too depressing to ever read a second time. Assuming I read it at all; I don't know if my heart can take a seventh helping.
Anyway, here's the sixth and, most certainly, final issue of my Max fanfiction. It's gonna be hard to let go…
Chapter 1
Through the halls of an office building came a tall man in a black trench coat and shades concealing his eyes. Next to him was a woman, almost as tall as he was, wearing black leather gloves concealing her arms all the way to the shoulder and, most ominously, an eyepatch over her right eye.
"Excuse me," the man said to a middle-aged woman heading for a door. "Name's Alton Rush. The wifey and I are lookin' for a mug named Emil Yozan."
"This office right here," the woman said. "How do you know Emil?"
"We've… heard of him," the man said.
"What exactly have you heard?"
"Well," Rush's wife said, "we've been told that Mr. Yozan is a small-time crook who can provide us with drugs, counterfeit documents, and various other forms of sensitive contraband. Were we misinformed?"
The older woman laughed aloud. "No, I'd say you nailed it. Come on in. I'm Emil's receptionist, I think he can see you right now."
Opening the door for them, the woman noticed the eyepatch on Alton Rush's wife. "What happened to you?" she asked.
She shrugged. "I'm dealing with Emil. It's a rough business."
"Too true, too true," Emil's receptionist muttered, smirking. "Emil, there's a Mr. Rush here to see you."
Emil stepped out of his office. He was in a blue suit and black shoes, and his hair was black and thick. "Mr. Rush? I don't think I know you…"
The man took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of black-on-black eyes.
"We haven't met," he said. "I'm here on a personal errand."
Emil's receptionist narrowed her eyes. "Fang…" she muttered.
The man's coat shredded as he spread a pair of black wings. Emil Yozan flinched away.
"A personal… errand?" he muttered.
Fang nodded. "For my mother."
And with a single mighty punch, Emil was unconscious.
"Whoa," the receptionist commented.
Fang nodded to her. "That'll be all," he said.
Emil's receptionist poked him with her foot. "Didn't expect Fang to turn up here," she said. "What's your problem with Emil?"
"He's, uh… he's my father. I just met my mom, and… well, she asked me a favor."
The receptionist looked between the two. "Oh, I can see it!" she said. "I completely see it! Those eyes that you're so famous for…" She noticed the woman who had accompanied Fang. "So… your 'wifey'? That isn't…"
Max blinked her one visible chocolate-brown eye, then flicked off the eyepatch, revealing a perfectly round eye socket, covered with a glass lens and filled with golden light. She peeled off her arm-length gloves—and her arms were made entirely of gray steel, black iron, and white chrome. She flexed her fingers, which ended in deadly, edged claws.
"Whoa, Max," the receptionist said. "What happened to you?"
"Well, I wasn't lying when I said I was in a tough business," Max said. She reached over to the unconscious form of Emil, lifting his eyelids. "Fang, she's right," Max said. "You've got his eyes… they don't work on him, though. You can pull it off." She trained her cybernetic eye on the receptionist. "Explain things to Emil once he comes to. In fact, tell everyone you meet… we're going public. There's no more environmental awareness, lady. This is a war. And we—my flock—are going onto the front lines."
The woman nodded. "I got you. So, um… where are you kids staying nowadays?"
"Sorry," Max said. "We don't answer fan questions. But good to know you're on board. What's your name?"
"Beth, but everybody calls me Glue."