Disclaimer: As much as I wish is wasn't true, Maximum Ride and all other series related to it do not belong to me.

I should note that, in chronological order, this would take place after Nevermore assuming the world doesn't end.

Sorry if this chapter bores you a bit. I had to explain stuff, and stuff, and well, yeah. This might seem a bit short. I just wanted to get the setting and such out there.

CHAPTER 1: Explanations

Fang's POV

If I had to pick one person to live the rest of my life with, I would choose Max. If I had to pick one person to isolate on the planet Mars, I would choose Dylan.

See how simple life can be? It's just a matter of decisions.

But decisions always lead to conclusions, as the School had learned the hard way. So what? Their little "take-over-the-world" plan hadn't been executed as gracefully as they had hoped. Unfortunately for them, that had resulted in a total bust up of their ultimate headquarters by the government. As of now, the whole thing was hush, hush. The gov't didn't even want us bird kids on the scene anymore.

That's right. They were trying to erase us from the public media. Just when I was about to reach Lady Gaga celebrity status, too.

So, since I'm sure you're confused, I'll start from the very beginning.

In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve and…wait too far back.

So, it turns out the world wasn't going to end, after all. Or at least not in my lifetime. The whole thing was—get this—just some maniacal, farfetched, ruse, run by the head of the School in a poor attempt at taking over the world and making the human population (and for that matter, the mutant population) their sorry excuses for slaves.

WELL WE WOULDN'T STAND FOR IT.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of how we found out what was really going on behind the scenes. Long story short, the world's not going to end, Jeb's a good guy, Dr. Martinez has unofficially adopted us, Iggy can see, I ditched my homemade patched up flock to return to my real family, Dylan (the arse) is still living with us, and still hitting on Max, and Max seems to barely trust me anymore.

Wonderful. Brilliant. I could just frolic in the fields with unicorns and rainbows and wait for Lady Liberty to sit on top of me.

You're going to forget I ever said that.

Oh, but there is one thing you should know. Something I kind of regret.

Someone did die.

If you know anything about Angel, you know she saw Max falling out of the sky, plummeting to her imminent death.

You know, with her fortuneteller powers.

Well, I can sure as hell say one thing.

It wasn't Max. With me around, it was never going to be Max. I would have rather died in her place.

But Angel was wrong, and so I watched out for the wrong person. I grabbed Max, who was perfectly safe, and saw, right in front of my mutant eyes, Maya, get shot right out of the sky. I mean, in the end, Max was still the hero, but she didn't take the blow for the rest of the world. Maya did.

And maybe, I kind of, sorta, maybe, liked Maya. She wasn't like Max. She was different, alien, compared to the person she'd been cloned from. Girly, concerned with her appearance, materialistic. But there was one Max trait that she did have. She cared about the people she loved.

And now I'm going to stop talking about her. Because it's giving me a headache, and my present situation isn't really a walk in the park either.

See, as I mentioned earlier, if you were paying attention, Dr. Martinez has unofficially adopted all of us.

Including our talking dog, that's a total of eight mutants. Eight mutants, two humans, and one normal dog. All living under one roof. You can only imagine how that's been.

Well if you can't, let me give you a hint.

Complete and total chaos.

We always need bacon. We regularly run out of both raw cookie dough, and regular oreos. Our fridge is stuffed with useless, hyper inducing, junk. The backyard is burnt to a crisp from some mysteriously set off bombs. We have to share rooms. We have to share one bathroom. We have to share one bathroom with The Gasman. Yep. Living the life.

Oh, and the worse part? Out of us Avian Americans, four out of the seven of us have hit that adolescent point in our life where hormones dictate half of what we do, and we get horny at even the slightest indication of sexual interest.

Not to mention that four out of—GASP—all four of us, live under the same roof.

Now, if you can't imagine what this has been like, let me give you an example.

Our rooms are divided up in a very delicate balance, as to keep the sanity of the household intact.

Oh, just so you know, Dr. Martinez (with some gov help) bought a bigger house for us to live in. It's no mansion, but it works well. And we're still in Arizona, so don't go getting your panties in a bunch. There's no way we'd skip out on this place, as hot as it gets. It's freedom.

Anyway, back to the rooms. So we've been divided up, cause the house is still not big enough to have a rooms for each one of us. For now, Gazzy shares a room with Angel, while Nudge is sharing with Ella. Max's got her own room. And I've been dumped in a room with Iggy, and Dylan. I would have been fine with Iggy any day. But Dylan? Really?

And what's even more frustrating, is I know, I just know, that perverted meathead sneaks into Max's room at night when Dr. Martinez has gone to bed. The problem is, why doesn't Max send him away?

I mean…are they…you know….getting it on—

No Fang. You will not go there. Max would NEVER dirty her sparkling dignity with that sorry excuse for a bird kid.

Though, it's not like you haven't thought of Max that way already.

….

….

….

FORGET anything I just said.

Or I will come for you.

While you're sleeping.

So anyway. Totally off topic here. Well actually, you could take that little rant up there as one of the hormonal situations I was talking about. But, I've got a more specific, and totally surprising, example in mind.

It was a hot day, somewhere around last month, which was June. Max, Meathead, and the kids had gone out for ice cream, and only me, Ella (who was working on a summer project with her friends), and Iggy had stayed back.

Since the living room was occupied by a bunch of whiney pre-teen girls, me and the Igster had decided to lock ourselves in our room and do what manly men do.

Which, for us, was basically lying around eating, and rolling, in bacon.

Now, Iggy had his sight back. Which meant he'd gotten a clear look of every female that was in our house. And lately, I'd seen his interest in Ella drop dramatically. Maybe it had to with the fact that she was still twelve years old, whereas Iggy was fifteen, and was probably, with his height and adult looks, considering himself far out of the league of a puny, just matured, twelve year old.

So I'd been all like, give it a few years, and they'd probably be head over heels for one another. It was good for Iggy any way. I thought that his seriously whacked out hormones had finally cooled down a bit. Boy, was I wrong.

He'd been checking someone out all right. I just had never, in my wildest dreams, expected her to be who she was.

Both of us were just munching on some bacon, when he comes out of nowhere and says,

"Dude, I can totally see why you and Dylan have the hots for Max. I mean, before I could see her, she just always seemed so motherly. And sometimes controlling. But damn that girl is fine. I mean, her boobs are totally perfect. And she's got a nice butt too. She's totally sexy man, and you're a total man for digging her."

My brain imploded. I just stared at him from across the room, looking dumbstruck and feeling completely confused. Was Iggy developing feelings for Max? Or did he just think she was hot?

Well, that was me overreacting. I had a feeling Iggy would bang the first hot STD free girl who asked him to do so. He was kind of…pimp like, in a way. So, I wasn't really worried about the feelings. I was worried about all the horny-ness that had been involved in that one little speech of his.

But I trusted Iggy. He would never turn into a Dylan. I mean, sure, now and then he made highly inappropriate comments to Max. But she always punched him, and he never acted on those comments. Well, mostly never acted on those comments.

Except that one day when we were in the living room, and he winked at me, then nudged Max, who'd stood up to go into the kitchen, with his foot. Right in her butt. That hadn't gone over well. But I'd say he's willing to hurt over getting to just touch a girl inappropriately.

But still. He's my best buddy. I can tell him almost anything.

So, here's the problem. There are no more bad guys to deal with it, and the Flock's been living a relatively peaceful life. All of our problems now come from trying to live a normal life.

And for me, that includes controlling my love for Max, and somehow getting her to love me again. Because I can't deal with Dylan making eyes at her anymore, and I really, do, honestly, love her. She'll always be the only person for me, and I'll always be the only person for her. Whether or not Meathead thinks so.

Well, I'm going to stop here. It's early in the morning, and I can hear stupid Dylan sneaking back into the room before Dr. Martinez wakes up.

Till breakfast, Fang out.