Hi Everybody!
So my friend, Marlene, and I are re-writing Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, but with us in it! We are alternating writing chapters. Marlene wrote this chapter, and I wrote the next one. Whoever POV it is is the person who wrote it ;) She is Marlene/Violet and I am October/Coral. Savvy?
Please tell me if you see any spelling mistakes and such. :)
Keegan: God knows the two of them have the worst grammar ever.
Me: Ah, Keegan is my muse and will later appear in this story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. All belongs to JP and Marlene.
...well, except the editing. I did that. Marlene, you can worship me now.
Chapter One
Marlene's P.O.V
October looked at me, then at the shadow of the house in front of us. I smiled slightly and went to the front door, October right behind me. I knocked once and October knocked once, then we stood back. I wondered if anyone would answer, it was midnight. After a few minutes the door opened. A tall, lanky boy with strawberry blond hair was looking sightlessly at October.
"Iggy!" She said. "Oh my god! We're in Max Ride!"
"Uh, what?" Iggy said, but we weren't listening.
"Oh my god, you're right!" I said. "Wait, what're we doing here?" October shrugged.
"Girls, kind of blind over here!" We looked at him, then at each other, and back to him.
"Can we come in?" October asked. "We need to sit down." Iggy hesitated.
"We're running away," I said quickly. "There are Scientists after us, we won't be here long." October shot me a questioning look, but didn't say anything.
"Uh, sure, okay." Iggy went into the house yelling "Guys WAKE UP! We have visitors!" as he did. There were many slamming of doors as people burst out of their rooms.
OK, let me explain what's going on. About a day or two ago we had been in the library reading Max Ride manga. Naturally with our super mad writer's skills we were called into the book. Now, note the calmness with which I say this. Our writer's powers get us into all kinds of situations. Last Sunday our purses turned into unlimited money bags. So we were used to weird things happening. Now we were in the Max Ride books, and who knew who long we were going to stay?
"Hey, October," I whispered. "We're ninety-six percent human, two-percent bird, and two-percent . . ."
"Shark!" October said. I nodded.
"Exactly." Then I shuddered, hoping we didn't sprout fins.
"Who are you guys?" Fang appeared silently in his slightly-creepy shadow-like way, despite all that he still looked half-asleep. "How did you find us?"
"We weren't looking for you," October said quickly, another lie. "We got lost and just sort of . . ." she gestured around.
"Found ourselves here," I finished. Max walked up all calm and Max-like, completely awake. Oh God this would take some getting used to.
"What are your names?" She asked. "You said that you were running from the School, we're hours away how'd you get here?"
"I'm Violet, she's Coral. We did a lot of swimming and walking but we flew mostly." October gave me a split second look. Of course I stuck her with Coral. But it fit and it was Max Ride-y.
"Flew? Swam?" my heart dropped when Angel walked in. Her sleepy eyes widened. Please, please, please don't say anything! We aren't spies! I thought as hard as I could. Slowly her face relaxed.
"How'd you get away? Were you rescued also?" Thank you. October sighed.
"We wish. We escaped the normal way. Crashed through a couple windows, took out a few Whitecoats, almost got eaten by Erasers." She shrugged. "We escaped at different times and met when we both tried to swim in the same pond." She smiled as if remembering the nonexistent day. "We sort of adopted each other as sisters, after she tried to rip my head off."
"I did not!" I complained.
"See?" Angel nodded slowly.
"Yeah, I think so." We're writers, I thought quickly. This is gonna sound crazy but what actually happened was we were sucked into a Maximum Ride book and now we're here. You can trust us, you really can, just don't say anything.
"They're fine," Angel decided after a minute of listening to our thoughts. Max and Fang shared looks. Did they trust us? Of course not. How many people, claiming to be escaping the school, stumbled on their house in the middle of the night? Probably not many.
"You sure?" Max asked, giving me a suspicious look.
"Yeah, I'm positive," Angel said without hesitating. "Where's Gazzy?"
"Kid'll sleep through anything," Fang said, shaking his head. "Same with Nudge . . . Wherever she is. Oh, never mind."
"What's going on?" a little African-American girl was crazily tangled hair was walking down the hallway into the living room. "Huh? Who are they?" She must've been really tired, which would explain the lack of word flow.
"Violet and Coral," Angel said happily. "They escaped the school a little while ago and they've been on the run since." Nudge's eyes widened.
"How old are you guys?"
"Fourteen," October said, and then she thought for a minute. "Ish, we aren't positive."
"I'm eleven-ish! My name's Nudge! Are you Coral? So you're Violet, right? Why'd you name yourselves that? How long ago did you escape the Scientists? What are you? Do you have wings like us? I like my wings, I think they're pretty. Do you think you're wings are pretty what color are they?"
"Nudge," Max cut in. "I think you're scaring them." Nudge smiled apologetically. "Like she said, she's Nudge," Max said, looking at us. "I'm Max, that's Fang and Iggy." She gestured to them. "And Angel. There's another kid, The Gasman he's asleep." October nodded.
"Sorry we woke everyone up. We just need a place to sleep. We'll leave tomorrow." We will? I glanced at Angel but she wasn't paying attention to me.
"Stay," she said. "You guys should stay."
"Angel!" Fang said. Angel turned her big, wide eyes on Max.
"Can't they stay?" Max hesitated. "Please?"
"Angel, they aren't lost puppies. They're people like us, I don't think we can handle two more," Max said gently.
"But they're meant to stay here." Thank you, Angel. Max studied us for a long minute, like she was expecting us to morph into Erasers on the spot. "Stay for tonight," she said grudgingly. Any normal person would be insulted by her rudeness, not us. We knew what was going on, we knew why she wouldn't trust us.
"Thanks Max," I said. "We will leave tomorrow." Angel was watching October, who was no doubt wondering what the heck I was talking about.
"Alright everyone, let's get back to sleep." She shot us one more suspicious look before turning down the hallway and disappearing through a door. Iggy and Fang went a few minutes later, then Nudge. Angel, on the other hand, stayed.
"So," she said, settling herself on the couch. "What's your story?" October and I looked at each other then at Angel. "You're cover story," she clarified. "It's too coincidental."
"Oh." October sat down next to her and I folded myself onto the floor. "Did you have something in mind?" she asked. Angel nodded.
"Why do you call yourselves Coral and Violet?"
"It was the first thing that came to mind," I said. "I don't know. I guess that my favorite color is Violet, it was the brightest non-white color in the School." Angel thought for a minute. "And it like reminds me of home or mom or something. One of those creepy memory things."
"Perfect! What about you, October? And yeah, I know I can be scary sometimes." I smothered my laughter.
"How about the tips of my wings are coral colored?" October guessed, turning slightly to look at her back.
"But you guys don't have wings," Angel pointed out. "Or gills, or anything shark-y."
"That could be a problem. Considering you guys fly so much."
"Well, I gotta go to bed. I'll see you in the morning." She jumped lightly off the couch and went down the hallway to her bedroom. I sighed and stretched out on the floor.
"Marlene?"
"I'm awake."
"We can save Angel." I propped up on my elbow and raised my eyebrow. "We know what's going to happen, we can change it."
"October, I'm pretty sure that we're here to observe. We can't change anything! But we can go along with it, I think we're supposed to go with Max when she saves Angel. I don't know what we're gonna do . . . but we're gonna go." October gave me a look before stretching out on the couch and closing her eyes.
"Then rest up, we've got a big day tomorrow." The last thing I remembered before passing out was wondering why I was stuck on the floor.
* * *
I woke suddenly, with a screaming pain in my back. Before I could scream, memories came flooding back to me and I remembered that I was in Max's house. Whimpering to myself I turned on my side and tried to convince myself that it was all just a vivid, intense, painful dream.
"M-Violet?"
I pried open my eyes.
"Please tell me I'm dreaming." I moaned.
"What's up?" She asked. I flipped onto my stomach, and used my arms as a pillow.
"My back is being spazzy."
"Growing wings?" October teased. I sat up slowly and we looked at each other. The irony of the moment was almost too much for me, but my back still hurt too much to really care.
October slid off the couch silently and went over to the kitchen. She dug around in three drawers before coming across what she was looking for, scissors. I got to my feet and painfully went over to the door. I yanked it open and we went outside.
"If you move I will probably stab you," October cautioned. "Can't see a thing." Carefully she started cutting huge slits into my shirt. The second she was done I pushed slightly and with a fwoooosh my brand new wings whipped open.
"Oh my god," I whispered, folding my wings around me so I could basically look at them. "I've got wings!" Ha! I thought. This is so freaking awesome! "Lemme see those," I said, holding out my hand. October handed me the scissors and turned around. Not needing to caution her, I starting cutting slits into her thick sweatshirt. Not as easy a task as one might think. Once I was done I stepped back and let her open her wings.
"Are we worried that we aren't spooked by this?" She asked, examining her wings. "Oh my gosh! Look at that!" The 'joints' of her wings, where they folded, were a light coral-looking color and they only reason that I knew that was because they were glowing. "Oh yeah! I glow!"
"Think they work?" I asked, stretching out my wings, I guessed that we had about thirteen-foot wing-spans.
"Only one way to find out," October said thoughtfully. "Up and away?"
I laughed and took a couple of steps back. Roughly calculating how much time I would need I ran and jumped off the ground, pushing my wings down and up. Not used to the extra work, my shoulder muscles were starting to hurt about five minutes after I took off. But I knew I would work that out eventually. I headed towards the forest and, with a glance back, saw October fifty feet below me. For those of you who have read the Max Ride series how James Patterson describes flying is nothing (say it with me, nothing) compared to the real thing.
Wow, so I guess we are meant to stay here. I stopped and hovered vertical for a minute.
"What?" October asked, craning her neck to look up at me.
"I just heard your voice in my head. You just thought that we really are meant to stay here." October shot me a surprised look. Going Angel on me? "No, I don't . . ." OK, this is a little weird… can you hear me?
Of course I can, wait a second . . .
"Awesome!" I said, doing a flip. "We've got telepathy."
Think this is to help us? October asked as we started circling back towards the house.
Maybe, I mean it sure will help when we're deciding what to do next. October hung back to catch the drift thing that my wings were making.
What do you mean?
"I mean, like, when we have to figure out who does what. We're obviously meant to follow Max and the others. What are we going to do when she goes to find Ella?" I said, tucking in my wings a little to start the drop back to the house. Wow, we were like instant naturals.
"Think we're going to go and find Angel?" October asked, hitting the ground and pulling her wings in. I landed next to her.
"They'll probably blame us for it, but yes. We'll probably end up going." I went to the front door and opened it as quietly as I could.
"We've probably got another hour of sleep," October guessed, squinting at the brightening horizon. She went inside and, after doing a quick 360, I went in after her and closed the door. Yes, you might have figured out by now that our wings came with the usual bird powers.
"Never thought I would be able to do a three-sixty," I sighed, flopping down on the floor. "Ow, can't sleep on the wings." I rolled over onto my stomach, bunching my hair under me like a pillow.
"Here." before I could look up October dropped a pillow on my head.
"Anyone else think this is upside down?" I muttered, grabbing the pillow and shoving it under my chin. "Max'll wake up first, then Gazzy. Prepare yourself." October groaned, but it looked like she was already asleep.
I, on the other wing, (sorry, it was right there) was having a hard time getting back to sleep. We had grown wings and we were in Max Ride. We'd probably be sprouting gills next. If we were here, and we were like staying, what was going on back home? October had a bunch of sisters and a brother. On the other hand, I was an only child. But still... Did our parents even remember, or did we just evaporate from that world? With all of those questions going through my head, I doubted I would be sleeping anytime soon. I wished I had a Voice that flicked a switch in my brain making me go to sleep. That was another thing! What were we going to do? I mean, obviously one of us was meant to help Max when she went to save Ella. I personally didn't want to get shot, and I doubted that October did, but how would we decide who would go? The telepathy would help . . . We knew everything that was going to happen . . . Maybe we could say that we were physic. Yeah, we'd be able to warn them a couple of seconds early. I groaned and shifted to my side.
"Violet?" I opened my eyes and sat up fast, almost hitting my head on the coffee table. "Oh! Sorry, it sounded like you were awake." Max was watching me from across the room, looking slightly worried. I yawned.
"No, I was awake." I stood up and looked at October. "She takes a while to get up." Max laughed and rummaged around the fridge, I knew she was wishing that the food fairies had come. I bent down next to October and shook her shoulder. "Coral, wake up!" she opened her eyes.
"M-Violet?"
"Huh, that was relatively easy." She sat up, rubbing her head.
"I had the strangest dream . . . We grew . . ." Obviously feeling the soft feathers in her back she twisted around. "Oh yeah, wasn't a dream."
"Hey Max, what's for. . . hey who are you!?" I turned and saw an adorable little kid, who reminded me too much of my brown-haired little cousin. The Gasman looked exactly as I imagined him to. Fluffy blond hair, big blue eyes, the works.
"I'm Violet, this is my sister Coral. We dropped in last night." The Gasman looked at Max who shook her head.
"Angel said they were OK. So, as for breakfast . . ." she glanced around helplessly.
"I'll poor juice," The Gasman offered, walking over to the fridge. Wham! Bang! I turned around.
"Oh, ow. Who moved the table next to the stairs?" Iggy was slowly picking himself up from his twisted position on the floor. October quickly jumped off the couch, because we knew that he was going to sit right where she was lying.
"Sorry, Iggy," Max said, hiding a smile. Like we'd predicted he walked over and flopped on the couch. Looking at each other and shrugging October and I each sat in a big comfy chair. "Floor comfortable?" he was looking somewhere slightly above my hairline.
"I've had worse," I said. "Why?"
"Because Nudge kicked me out of my room once and I had to sleep there," Iggy explained. "I know our floor is hard."
"Its wood, Ig," Max said. "Oh! Jeez! Fang!" I turned. Max was leaning back against the counter breathing hard. Fang was standing in the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest. "Would you stop that?"
"What, breathing?" October and I shared smiles.
"Make some noise when you move! Why can't you fall over a table like Iggy?"
"Hey!" I tried to smother my laughter behind my hand and noticed Gazzy doing the Marlenee. I had barely met him and I already liked the kid.
"So, you girls planning on staying for breakfast?" Fang asked, pushing Iggy aside and dropping down on the couch.
"Probably," October said. Iggy stood up.
"I'd better make the eggs, then." Max turned with a huff to go and wake Nudge and Angel, a typical morning for the Flock. Iggy falls over something, Gazzy pours juice, and Max and Fang argue again.
This is so cool, October said.
Yeah, really.
Angel came out of her room, up and dressed smiling in her angelic way.
"Hey guys! I knew you wouldn't leave!" she said, walking over to us.
"Why, we get a free meal," I said. Angel stretched out on the couch, her little socked feet on Fang's lap. Fang, who had been flipping through channels on the TV, only looked mildly surprised.
"Wait, that's a good show!" I said, putting my hand out to stop him. Fang flipped back a channel, but for some reason the station wasn't showing. It was flipping between sixty two and sixty four, sixty three was not to be seen.
"Weird," I said, as Fang kept flipping through channels. "Try going back now." He did, seeing as we had nothing else to do, this was oddly entertaining, and the channel was there.
"Station probably malfunctioned or whatever," October offered. Fang shrugged, determined on channel surfing. But the channel wouldn't change now. It was stuck on that one program.
"Why isn't it changing?" I asked. Fang angled the remote a different and jammed his finger down onto the channel flipper button. The program finally changed.
"OK, I vote turning off the TV," Fang said after a minute. October, Angel, and I quickly agreed.
That was epic, I said in my mind. And weird. The TV doesn't usually freak out, and that's like one of the most popular stations. It's like the epic of all epicness. Now watch you say something random and completely off the topic. See I know October and how random she can be.
Mac's are epic uber awesomeness on a stick!
That quote, invented by one of our crazy-Mac-owning friends, always managed to crack me up.
"What?" Angel asked. "That was really weird; your minds went like blank for a minute."
"You can't hear us?" I asked. Angel shook her head. "That makes . . . sense." October nodded.
"See, we're telepathic, we can talk with each other through our minds." Just because we're awesome like that.
Hey, Marlene, pickles are cucumbers soaked in evil, you can't eat them.
"What?" Max asked, coming back into the room with Nudge behind her. "You're telepathic?" October and I nodded in unison. Max sighed and shook her head.
"Violet, you can borrow one of my T-Shirts if you want," Nudge offered, looking at my long-sleeved sweater.
"Yeah, Coral, I have some cloths that should fit you," Max offered.
Marlene, go, you'll look great in Nudge's clothes. I looked at Nudge's v-neck top and short shorts.
"Come on!" Nudge said excitedly. I stood up, biting my lip.
"Sure." Now I knew I would adjust to Flock life quickly but I usually didn't wear short or low anything. Not like I was self conscious or anything . . .
Nudge threw open the door to her room, babbling about how I would look so great in this t-shirt she had with those shorts that were over there. God, we weren't even in New York and I was getting a makeover. Oops, I probably shouldn't have said that.
"Here! Take these! You're about my size, right? No you're a little taller. These should still fit. You don't wear clothes like these do you?"
"Not typically." God, my mom would kill me if she saw me wearing this. I thought, examining the bright purple T-Shirt with four buttons on the front.
"Here, put this under it and leave the buttons undone." She tossed me a slightly darker purple tank-top. "And these, they aren't as short as my other ones." Still relatively short black shorts with white stripes down the side.
"Thanks, Nudge, are you sure?" Nudge nodded.
"Try 'em on." Obediently I pulled off my sweatshirt and jeans replacing them with the tank top, t-shirt, and shorts. Well, I'll say one thing: it was a warm spring day and it felt good to be wearing a t-shirt.
"I don't know," I said, looking at myself in her full length mirror. "I'm not sure it's me." I unbuttoned the shirt and put my hands on my hips. "On second thought I might be able to get used to this." Nudge laughed.
"They look great on you! Really, that is so your style." I pulled at the bottom of the shorts.
"Got any jeans?" Nudge went and rummaged around in a large black wardrobe that was pushed against one wall. I waited, still looking at myself in the mirror.
"Ah ha! I knew these were here somewhere." She returned with a pair of faded jeans torn at both knees and low on the right thigh. Well, at least they weren't these shorts. "Used to be Max's, and then I made that there," she pointed at the one on the right thigh. "A few weeks ago when we were out flying."
"These are great," I said, taking the jeans. I slid out of the shorts - did I mention they were tight? - and pulled on the jeans. Zipping the fly, I examined myself in the mirror.
"Wow, you look awesome!" Nudge said. "Those jeans were, like, made for you." I shrugged, turning a little so I could see my profile. "How long do you think you guys are going to stay? Are you going to leave soon? I hope not, I've never met anyone like you guys. You're like interested in fashion but you're Max-like at the Marlenee time. Tom-boy I think. Yeah, and Coral looks like really Max-ish."
"She's got many sides," I said, sticking my hands into the pickets of the jeans. "Smells like Iggy's done with breakfast," I said walking out into the hallway. The door to Max's room opened and October stepped out. She was wearing a torn yellow shirt with a cream colored tank top underneath it and bootleg jeans.
"We've been Maxed out," she said solemnly, looking at me. I shrugged, walking in a circle around her.
"Where's you get fabric markers?" I asked, raising my eyebrow at the quote on her shirt. 'My word of the day is awesometastical'. "I don't think Max would have that shirt." October smiled proudly.
"Check out the back!" She turned and I squinted, trying to decipher her handwriting. 'I'm not random, you just can't think as fast as me.' I sighed.
"You're defacing Maximum property," I said, shaking my head. October laughed and went into the living room.
"Whoa! I thought you were Max for a minute," Gazzy said, looking at October. "Well except for the quotes and the hair . . ." He trailed off shaking his head and shoveling egg into his mouth.
"Where are you guys?" Iggy asked, leaning back against the counter and looking somewhere between October's head and my ear. Max set two plates down with a 'clunk', up wind of Gazzy I noticed.
"They're sitting here," she said. "So stop being a butler and eat!" October and I slid into our chairs and fell on the food. I hadn't noticed that (along with the wings) we'd also developed a birdkids apatite.
"Hey," Angel said, "I want to go out and pick strawberries." October and I looked at each other. "What?"
"Nothing," we said, going back to our food. Angel gave us a look but went back to what she was saying.
"Anyway, the strawberries are ripe."
"I'll go with you," Gazzy offered, innocently eating a piece of bacon
Max shrugged. "I guess we'll all go." October and I were silent.
Should we stop them? October's voice appeared in my head. I shook my head.
Didn't we cover this last night?
So, how did you like it? We have written around 17 chapters, but it's gonna take a while to post them all. I'm new to posting on FF ;D
R&R please!