Hello, everyone! I know this isn't TMOF or Can We Keep One, and I'm sorry, but you see...I recently started watching Tokyo Ghoul (WHICH IS AMAZING- if you can handle gore, language, and the occasional sexual reference) and, as any self-respecting newbie to a fandom, I instantly watched the whole first season. To be fair though, there are only 12 episodes in one season.
Then I hunted for fanfics, but despaired when I found a lack of good stories. So sad. Much upset. Then it got even worse- I checked this category of crossovers, and there was NOTHING! Not a single fanfic for TG/MR!
"This cannot stand!" I thought to myself. "I have to fix it!"
And so, this story was born. Now, I don't have time to write a full-fledged crossover at the moment, but this should do for now. Drop me a comment if you like, and while you're at it, I give all of you a challange- I dare you to make your own Maximum Ride/ Tokyo Ghoul fanfics. Do it.
No sit down and enjoy... A Bird to a Ghoul Fight.
I knew we should have headed back to America as soon as we could. But Gazzy just had to see Tokyo.
When he first proposed the idea, I responded with a firm no, like any good bird-guardian, and patiently explained that getting back to America should be our number one priority. We'd stayed in Europe long enough, we didn't need to go to Asia as well; and the grunts from Itex were probably on the hunt already.
"But Maaaax," He'd whined. "They have every video game ever there! It's like a museum! But a whole country!""
And then, like a swarm of starving piranha, the rest of the Flock jumped it. "C'mon, Max! I've always wanted to try on a kimono!" "Me too!" "Hey, just cause I'm blind doesn't mean I can't appreciate an old Pac-Man machine." "Maybe I'll meet a hot Shar-Pei!"
Desperately outgunned, I had turned to Fang, only for him to shrug and say, "The food'll be good."
And that was why I was up, in the pouring rain, looking for a grocery store while the rest of the Flock chilled in a little cheap motel, waiting for food.
Bunch of ungrateful little cuckoo birds.
The town we were in was a real backwater place, backed off in a tiny little Tokyo corner. It was called the 20th ward or something like that. It may have been a little concrete and neon hole, but still, it was nice, the people didn't stare, and the sky was reasonably pollution-free. Good enough.
I found a gas station and bought the groceries, setting off with my arms fill of milk, bread, fruit, and Little Debbie Snack cakes. Sure, they weren't the healthiest, but we had saved the world like, three days ago. The least the world owed us was a few Twinkies.
The rain was really coming down, so I was in a bit of a rush to get back to the hotel. Head held down to keep the rain out of my eyes, I took a shortcut, went down some steps, and ended up on a concrete boardwalk next to a raging river. The boardwalk was fenced in my...well, a metal fence. That's what they're there for.
I stepped under a conveniently-placed awning to get out of the rain and immediately noticed something I hadn't before. I wasn't alone on this boardwalk.
There were two people, one standing, one lying flat on the ground. The standing one, as far as I could tell, was either a detective, some schmuck from the government, or cosplaying as Inspector Gadget. From where I was standing, I could see that He had black hair, was wearing a long, grey trench coat, and carrying what looked like a massive, glowing-red Whack-a-Mole hammer on his back.
Okay, definitely the Inspector Gadget cosplayer.
The person lying on the ground looked a lot small, most likely a teenager. He had black hair, was wearing jeans and a green hoodie, and...was lying in a steadily growing pool of blood.
My heart stopped. A carton of milk and a box of Swiss Rolls each met their early demise as I dropped the bag of groceries on the ground. For an instant, I thought the kid was dead, killed by the man, but then his hand moved. I gave a sigh of relief.
The kid seemed to be doing something with his face. Now that I looked a little closer, I could see he was wearing some kind of mask, but I couldn't tell what it was. His hand moved across his mouth...
And everything went to hell in a hand basket.
The kid jumped up and took off in a pounding sprint for the man. The guy turned around as the kid let out a wild yell. With a sweep of his hand, he grabbed the Whack-a-Mole hammer off his back and nailed the kid in the chest.
If he had been a mole, he would have died for sure, but the kid only skidded back a few feet and set off running again, still roaring. He took a leap for the man, who seemed too shocked to move, and grabbed him by the shoulder, abruptly shutting off his roar.
For a second, they both were still, the man holding his hammer like a paddle, the kid clinging to the man's shoulder. Without even thinking about it, I stepped closer, wondering what was happening. What was the kid doing?
The man flipped the kid off his shoulder with his hammer, and before the kid hit the ground, I saw it- the steadily growing patch of blood on the guy's shoulder spreading from a shredded hole in the coat.
My eyes were probably the size of pool balls. Did he just...take a bite out of that guy?
Now that I was a bit closer, I noticed a few things I hadn't before- the man's right eye was covered with a white patch, and the kid's mask was scary as heck. It was a black face, with an eyepatch that covered the kid's right eye, metal bolts on the sides of the neck, and a massive set of teeth that outlined the kid's mouth, which was currently dripping blood.
The kid stood perfectly still, one visible eye shut tight. As he stood there, there was movement on his back. A massive red tentacle, shiny and looking like a lash of blood, burst from his back and waved through the air. This was followed by a second tentacle, just as red as the first. As the second one appeared, the kid opened his eye- but it was wrong this time. The whites were black, and the center glowed bright red.
I gaped. That didn't just happen. That kid did not just sprout tentacles out of his back. This is a freaky nightmare or something. It has to be.
I almost lost it and ran right there, but a little voice in my head- a stupid little voice that I promised myself I'd kill later- told me to stay and watch. And so I did.
The kid ran, a third tentacle popping from his skin, towards the man, who swung his hammer to meet him. The tentacles on the kid's back whipped forward and blocked the hammer, sending out a rain of bright red sparks. Again and again, the man swung his hammer, grunting angrily- but the kid kept using those tentacles to block, ducking, twisting, and at one point backflipping over the man's head to keep up.
The man finally spoke, voice full of rage. "Stop blocking me!" he yelled (like a total newbie, might I add- I've been in enough fights to know that yelling at your opponent to hold still and let you hit them doesn't help), swinging his hammer with the force of a wrecking ball.
The kid didn't dodge this time. A red tentacle whipped out and, with a snap, broke the hammer clean in half, sending the head spiraling through the air before it landed with a crash on the ground, leaving the guy on the ground, holding nothing but a metal pole.
The kid closed his eyes and cried out, grabbing his arm as the tentacles on his back grew and twisted. The guy, meanwhile, clenched the pole and spoke again.
"I'm completely helpless without my quinque," he grunted, mainly to himself. I was confused. What the heck is a QueenK?
"No," he growled, staggering to his feet. "When a foe is before you, fight. Even if it costs you your life."
Now, I can respect a good fighting spirit, but this guy was being stupid. It's going to cost your life if you don't run, you idiot! I debated whether or not to step in and help (although who I was going to help, I wasn't sure), when suddenly-
"You need to run while you can."
The kid has stayed so quiet- talking wise- for most of the fight that, for a second, I wasn't sure who had spoken. Despite the epic fighting moves and nightmare-inducing tentacle strikes he had shown earlier, he sounded young and scared- he really was just a kid.
The man scowled.
The kid reached out a hand halfway, before quickly grabbing it with the other and holding it down. It looked like he was...holding himself back, I realized.
"The way this is going," The kid gasped, voice raspy, "I won't have the strength to keep from killing you." The tentacles on his back grew larger, twisting together like a bear claw pastry. "So please, you have to run!"
The man stood up fully, clenching his pipe. "No! I'm not going to run away from a ghoul!" He spat out the last word like it tasted bad.
A...ghoul?
The tentacles on the kid's back twisted and unraveled, growing even bigger. "Hurry!" the kid yelled, lashing out and striking the guy with a tentacle so hard he went flying.
The guy dropped his pipe, grunting in pain as he flipped head over heel before coming to a rest by the fence. I heard him gasp loudly, grabbing his stomach; blood was dripping between his fingers."Get out of here!" The kid screeched, barely sounding human.
The guy looked up, rain pouring down his face. Surprise was plastered all over it.
"I'm begging you," the kid said, now sounding like he was going to cry.
Wait...he actually is crying.
And so he was. Tears dripped from his one visible, and suddenly normal, eye and mingled with the rain and blood already on his face. "Please go," he choked, voice full of pain. "I don't want to be the monster you think I am."
The tentacles on his back gave one last jerk; with a twist, they picked the guy up and hurled him to a set of nearby stairs. The guy landed hard and grunted, but lay there, apparently too hurt to move.
And then the kid collapsed to his hands and knees, hood flopping over his head, tentacles still waving wildly in the air.
I stood there, like an idiot, too transfixed to do anything but step a bit closer. The kid was choking down air, crying out in pain. On his back, the tentacles snapped through the air. "It's no good!" He stuttered, convulsing on the ground. "I can't control it!"
Now, this is where normal Max would leave, but the new, curious, stupid Max chose to stay and watch. You'd think that, after everything I'd seen in the School, this would be nothing, but somehow, this didn't bear the mark of the whitecoats. Besides, I didn't see how this was possible, even by their crazy standards.
The kid stayed folded over, clutching the ground and breathing in ragged, wet breaths. Disgustingly, the tentacles on his back retracted, slurping back into his spine. "N-no," he gasped, sounding like he was begging. "Somebody-h-help me!" His voice was thick with tears.
Finally snapping out of my stupor, but not my stupidity, I stepped forward, hesitant to get much closer, but still wanting to help this kid out. However, I froze as he started moving, grabbing the bars of the fence next to him and pulling himself up until he was leaning heavily on it. His next words were so weird I thought for sure I heard wrong.
"I...need to...eat flesh!"
What. My brain shut down for a second, only to reboot in time for me to hear the kid shoot himself down. "No, stop...you know what that means?"
Who are you talking to? I took out last step closer.
The kid spoke again, but it didn't sound right this time. I pride myself on being to tell boys from girls, and this kid was definitely a boy, but his voice came out as two different voices- and the first one was definitely a woman's voice. The second voice, the boy voice, was much quieter. The weirdest part was how each voice had a different tone: the woman's voice was something out of a porn movie, smooth and sultry as honey, but the boy's sounded forced out and...scared?
"Be careful," the kid choked, still facing away from me. "That's dangerous."
It took me a second to realize the kid was talking to me, but when I did, my heart took a kamikaze dive into my shoes.
The kid slowly straightened up, his hood falling back as he reached for his face and pulled his mask down. As he did this, he kept talking, the female voice growing more ravenous by the second, the boy voice changing so that he sounded less scared and just as hungry. "Standing so close when I'm dying to grab a bite of flesh!"
The kid tilted his head back, back and back, until he was looking right at me, a laugh bubbling out of him. His mask was gone, but somehow, his face was much worse. His eyes were mismatched, one normal, one pitch black with a bright red center. Sickly red veins traced away from his demon-eye across the pale skin of his face. His mouth was dripping with blood, and even upside down, I knew he was smiling. His expression was the worst, though. The smile held no humor, and the eyes were hungry and soulless.
Quick as a whip, the kid lunged towards me, covering ground inhumanly fast. Tentacles sprouted from his back and coiled together, forming a spear pointing straight at my chest. The kid's eyes were locked onto me, his mouth a open smile- I could see drool falling like foam from his teeth.
I completely froze.
I mean it. My muscles locked up. I felt like a deer in demonic headlights. I knew that I was going to die, that this monster...this ghoul, the guy had called him, was going to impale me like a cob of corn. And if he was to be believed, after that, he was going to eat me. And yet I couldn't move. It was as if that piercing red eye had stopped every synapse in my brain. All I could do was stand there and prepare for death.
Until somebody grabbed me, hurling me to the side as they stepped in my place.
There was a squelching crunch as the mystery person got impaled. Blood splattered over my face. The guy looked at me- his face was covered in a bird mask.
"Go," he said.
It was as if my synapses restarted on overdrive. I shot to my feet and ran for my life, feet pounding the pavement.
I burst into the tiny hotel room, soaking wet. The Flock turned as I entered, each one looking away from whatever they were doing. "Max, yo-" Gazzy started, before seeing the blood on my face. He froze. "Max? What happened?"
Fang was besides me in an instant. "What happened?" he said, touching my arm.
I looked at him, image of that guy getting impaled still burned behind my eyelids, and spoke in a rush.
"We're leaving. Now."