Chapter 1-

"Ahhhh, Gassy!" We evacuated the room.

"He he, sorry." He said in that Gasman way of his.

"That's nasty, I can't believe-" Nudge began.

"Well, his name is The Gasman for a reason." Piped in Iggy. How he managed to be the first one out of the room considering he was blind was beyond me.

My stomach growled. Thankfully Fang was out getting- shoplifting- our dinner. Just then he came in through the door and set the groceries on the table. Mmm food.

"What took you so long? Did they catch ya?" I asked.

"Hardly," He scoffed, "They only catch you." Okay that was just one time when I was like ten and they had a manager with an eagle eye. But that was one time he'd never let me forget. I was pretty stealthy but not as good as the master that was Fang. He had this way of becoming invisible. No really, he became invisible, it was his special power. It totally topped my power, a voice inside my head, not my own may I add. It thought for its self and said the most annoying things. The lab put it there it's not my fault. I'm not crazy.

Yes you are. It chimed in.

Oh shut up! I yelled back mentally.

I put the stove on and got out a pan. I had just begun emptying the bag of groceries and got out a bowl and a wooden spoon when I heard screaming.

"No!!!!" Even my darling Angel was scared out of her wits.

"I'm just setting it up for Iggy, guys. Relax." Let's just say my cooking was less than satisfactory. Even the blind boy could cook better than me, than all of us. Another thing that was beyond me. Will the wonders of Iggy ever end?

Pancakes for dinner, the best. Then we all crashed on the couch and flicked on our broken box of a TV. But there was a problem. Nudge wanted fashion runway, Gassy wanted wrestling, Angel wanted animal planet, and Fang and Iggy wanted football. Who will win?

It was getting ugly now. The fight for the remote had turned into an all out war. Try as I might I could not break it up. There was hair-pulling, elbowing, head-locking, and biting. Thankfully they kept the wings in or there would be serious damage. Last time the wings came out we ended up looking for a new table. Fun.

Swiftly I jumped into the scramble and jumped back out, remote in hand. Five angry bird-kids glared at me.

"Since you can't decide, we're watching what I want." I said and flicked on the TV. The screen was fuzzy, and so it was on the next channel and the next. We all groaned in unison. The antenna needed to be adjusted.

"Oh not again. Iggy, it's your turn." Said the Gasman.

"But I did it last time." Iggy complained.

"No, that was me." Said Nudge, "Besides you can't even watch TV."

"Oh sure, pick on the blind kid." He kicked his voice up a few octaves, "'Oh Iggy won't mind because he can't see the pretty pictures.' Well I do mind!"

"Come on Iggy, just this once" Said Angel in a tone that was impossible to resist. See, Angel could control your mind like a freaky little devil so sometimes it was impossible to refuse. But she gave us control over our own minds, at least I think. There was the time last week…. Nah…

Iggy angrily took his jacket off (no slits) and hopped out the window like an old crow. He fell but after a few seconds we saw him rise, his wings slowly propelling him to the roof where the antenna was.

The fuzz on the TV was gray and bleak. It flashed color.

"Iggy, go back!" yelled the Gasman. "You had it." We waited, the color spurred, but it ended in a darker gray.

"Is that back enough for you?" Iggy inquired. No one answered; everyone was engrossed in pitiful TV. "I could go farther back you know," The sound was coming, but very faint… but Iggy continued. "Like Los Angeles, or Sacramento, or Las Vegas or even –"

"Man, Iggy, can you shut up for once in your life?" Fang hollered. It was quiet, except for the soft voices on the TV.

"Well, if that's what you want I'll go to my room and you won't hear from me!" Was that supposed to be a threat? It sounded like the best thing ever. A week without Iggy's mouth, well that was just amazing. The only memories I have of Iggy being silent were in the lab and I try to block out anytime when I was being held in a cage. Wouldn't you?

Iggy's been out there for a while, and silent, maybe he's going to stick this threat out.

Crash.

Oh man, what's wrong now? Did he trip and fall, How could he? You can't trip over air, after all.

I Might as well check. I launched myself out the window and spread my wings and then something heavy landed on me and I was on the ground. I kicked the giant eraser/ wolf-man off me. How had I not seen them coming? Well Iggy hadn't either (duh, he's blind) because one on the roof had his wings pinned and was choking the life out of him. After a drop-kick, a nice one, the eraser was down.

I was about to admire a job well done when, of coarse, another eraser hit me from behind. It knocked the wind about me, but if being in a lab taught me anything it taught me to be resilient. I was already in action before I even drew a breath. I punched the guy/wolf in the stomach then chopped my arm to his neck, braking the trachea. He hunched over, gasping for a breath that he'd never get, and I pushed him on the roof. I heard a sickening, meaty splat and I knew that he was dead.

Yeah, I knew I just killed a man(kinda) but it was either him or me. I preferred to live, thank you very much. That's just the way things were; you killed or you got killed.

I flew over to Iggy and landed beside him.

" You all right?" I asked.

His hand flew up to his neck, red and blotchy from being strangled, but he answered. " Yeah. You?"

" I few bruises, but nothing big. One of them jumped onto me, apparently he wanted to see if he could fly."

" Nah, they're to fat." He smirked.

" Let's go back, maybe the cable came back."

I had just turned to jump off and spread my wings when I saw them. A lot of them.