A/N: Hola, and, before you begin reading this little story of mine, I shall inform you of some details of major importance things. First of all, we all know that I'm not James Patterson. Therefore, I do not own Maximum Ride. Assuming you've read all the books, you will know whose characters are mine, and not. Secondly, I kinda stole a claw thingy from X-Men…hehe. I also used some of FireFly63's ideas with the whole Chameleon thingy. Hehe. Well, anyways, onward!
Eglantine's POV
Okay, so here's the thing. I'm really not that good at introductions, but here it goes. Hmmm, where to start.
I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I plan this out before I started? Well, planning isn't exactly my thing. Well anyways…I just I'll just say it. I'm a freak. Not you're average dorkwad at your hometown high school. I mean your hard core freakazoid. Like ET freaky. Okay, no, I'm not ET. God this is harder than I thought. Okay, I really didn't think at all. Maybe I should just tell you.
I'm part cheetah. There, I said it. I am 50 Cheetah. How can anyone possible know that, you ask? Well, I have retractable claws. Really, really long claws. I've earned the nickname Strikes. I don't know ethier, Quill loves to come up with wired names. So other than that I'm completely normal. Except for the, you know…enhanced hearing, vision, the ability to always land on my feet…the claws. Yeah, I'm completely normally. Yeah, right. That was a lie. Which doesn't tell you much, except to not believe what anyone says about me, least of all what I tell you myself.
I have some friends who are also, of questionable humanity. Well, not humanity as in…kindness and whatnot, humanity as in…not human. Okay, so I'm not known for subtlety. So, seeing as I've given you my description, I suppose I should give you theirs.
Well, em, all right. So there's Drea. Drea is…one of a kind. Actually, she's many a kind. Billions a kind, if you will. She's half chameleon. Yup. But instead of changing colors, she can change into people. She can copy anyone, to make herself look exactly like him or her. She can change her voice, her sex, her eye color, anything. So a description could be beyond useless. But, when she's with us, she has her normal self. Her normal self has curl brown hair down to her middle back, and silver eyes, that shine even in the darkest night. Who said freaks couldn't be poetic?
Nick is…well, he's Nick, but I just told you that. He's very sneaky. And fashionable. He's never caught without his "hip" aviator specks and his "cool hat". Nick is half Jaguar, and my only other feline buddy. So he also comes complete with the Feline package. Retractable claws, night vision, and, for him, the helpful ability to be extremely stealthy. So he makes an excellent spy. Nick has skater-like black hair, and it's always messy. And his eyes, although you rarely see them, are a bright blue. So blue that if you look at them, you often forget what you were going to say.
Zack can be annoying sometimes, but he can always lighten the mood. He has got to be the biggest goofball in the world, and I love him for that. Zack is an African American and part Jackal. No, he does not have a maniacal laugh. I said Jackal, not Hyena. He looks completely normal. But, when he want's to, he can make his skin as rough as anything. If he focuses hard enough, he can make his skin bulletproof. But we aren't X-Men, and these things take energy. It's hard enough to change your physical appearance. Zack always and I mean always has his NY hat on. He says it "Makes a statement". I'm not sure what statement he's trying to make though, but whatever. Zack's eyes are the palest shade of orange, an unusual color, true, but a beautiful one.
Riley is the cutest thirteen-year-old I've ever seen. Well, not that I've seen many thirteen year olds, but still. I'm not kidding. She has a round baby face, and dimples that can make even Nick smile. She has blonde hair that has a light red tint to it, and light green eyes. She always seems to smell like…popcorn and licorice. No matter how dirty we get. Riley is half Parrot. Don't ask me why, the School has a weird taste in hybrid. She is the only one of us who can fly, and her wings are so brilliantly colored that they capture the sunlight like stained glass, shining in blues and greens and yellows and reds.
Quill is the nickname freak. He's already bestowed nicknames to every person he sees, whether they know it or not. Heck, he might have given you one. Quill is mixed with a porcupine. He has the strange ability to raise quills from his back. But, like I said before. That hurts. He's not made like a porcupine, and when his spike raise, which happens when he gets nervous or scared, they have to tear out of his skin. I mean rip, like a thousand knives poking through his back. As a result, he's had to learn to keep him emotions under control, but he's ten, and pretty much the most emotional guy I know, and he has a million scares running up and down his back. Well, like I said, he's ten.
Nacho is a clingy six-year-old, but I really can't blame him. He was the last one to join our group. He had been alone for four years of his life, with no friends, no one to care for him, no one to love him. A kid needs to be loved. I would know, as I was deprived of it. He has messy blonde hair, and it's always hanging in his eyes. His eyes are a shining, cherry brown. An amber, if you must. He was mixed with a kangaroo, and, as a result, is an excellent boxer. He can also jump. Not high, but like…well, in stead of running for his life, he'd rather jump for his life.
So there you have it. Our mismatched group. We like to call ourselves a Flack. A combination of a flock and a Pack. Pack for Nick, Zack, Drea, Nacho, and me. Flock for Riley.
It's extremely important that you listen to me. Don't turn me down. I'm only asking for a moment of your time to tell you our story. Yeah I know, It's my problem, and not yours. But you know what, I am officially bestowing my problem onto you…read on?
Well, that fact that your reading this tells me that you've agreed to listen to our story. Thank you. I guess I should start at the beginning?
Okay, so I know what you're thinking, those species we gave. For the most part, are pretty violent. Animals of Predatory Parts. Well, yes, indeed. We were raised in the PYP. The Predatory Youth Plan. We were made to kill, to sneak, to infiltrated places, i guess. Although it's never been quite my thing to kill, it's what I'm good at.
They used to take us and put us up against each other. We never really hurt eachother, but it certainly helped to be a good actor in this situation. In fact, the only one of us who did end up getting hurt in those matches was Quill, who was only a year old and just learning to walk. His quills would rip out of his skin almost everyday then, because being in a war zone, it's basically as scary as Hell. Soon they found out our little charade game, and decided that it really wasn't a very effective way of training. They moved on to bigger and better ways to make us hurt. Sadistic bastards, the lot of them.
The trained us, by staking us up against erasers. Eraser, half wolf and half…human. But they're hardly humane. They are so evil, that hell itself spat them back out. They're commanded by the damned. But that's just my opinion. They used to make us fight them, Day in and Day out. No matter how old any of us were, this is how it went.
Erasers aren't a problem for us anymore. Nothing the PYP throws at as can cause us any damage. The only real problem is the MI. MI, the Mutant Incorporation. They're a group of escaped mutants from the school. They don't like our kind of people. The kind of people that were mutated to kill. So, they're out to get us, because they think we're out to get them, and they've been making our lives a living hell. A big living Hell. We're on guard everyday. Because of Omega.
Omega was from our neck of the woods as well. I can't say I knew him well, but they were really hard on the poor guy. Whatever they did to him turned him into a robot. He takes orders, and he follows them down to the last line. Ever since that little "Feud" between Maximum Ride and him, the School folk, and the PYP folk have some unwritten blood draw going on. Somehow we've gotten sucked into, along with everyone else.
The day we escaped was the beginning of our lives. I was 10. That made Drea 10 as well, Zack 9, Nick 8, Riley 5, and Quill 2. Let me tell you, it was hard sneaking out with a crying two-year-old and a little girl who kept asking questions. But we did it, because as I've mentioned, we can do anything. And, uh, no, we didn't forget Nacho, he just came later.
You see…we were going back to PYP to get so information. Info on where we came from. I mean really came from, like what womb. We had found our old room, and we were excepting to find information, but not another experiment. Nacho was all alone, no one with him. The room was dark, and he was scared. I remember he wouldn't come out of his cage to any of us. I was getting so aggravated with him that I was about to hang it and just leave, but Drea refused to. She sat at the entrance of his cage and coaxed him out. He was four years old. Five and a half, as he put it. We've had him for two years. The rest of us have been together our whole life. But, he's got to be the sweetest kid ever, and we love him to death. Any of us would do anything to help him. Any of us would do anything to help any of us. Yes, I do realize that what i just said was an incorrect use of grammar. Deal with me people.