I've written stories before, but never for Maximum Ride so tell me what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum ride. (I don't know why people have to put this, I think that's pretty obvious)

All life is an experiment,

the more experiments you make,

the better...

1813

Fang:

My mother always told me that when I was a kid, she said that making mistakes is part of life, and that you can always make better choices, because you won't do the same stupid thing twice. Too bad she'll never get the chance to make a better choice herself.

She died when I was eight, a fire caused by the oil lamp in my fathers study.

The entire house caught fire, all of our possessions lost, my fathers books, our clothes, the beautiful picture of our family my mother had almost completed, and my best friend.

But that was years ago, I hadn't cried about it, until my father died weeks later, and I realized that I truly had no one left in the world.

And after being put in orphanage after orphanage, by the age of 15 I thought I'd met a true life saver, a saint, Captain Wilhelm of Austria.

He took me in, gave a comfortable home, well, as comfortable as a ship can get, and never turned his back on me. We had an understanding for each other. Before we met I stole food to stay in an average weight class, he stole gold to...well, his reasons weren't as innocent as mine,

but he wasn't as terrible as everyone thought.

I mean, sure he stole gold, silver, food, and nice ships every now and then, but can you honestly blame a pirate? It was what he was brought up to do, his father was a pirate and so were the rest of his ancestors, his mother being like the rest of his grandmothers, a women who got pregnant by a pirate in a bar and tagged along with the pirate until she gave birth, then was made to walk the plank.

He often told that story with remorse, seeing as he was very much ashamed of how they treated women.

But I admire him as much as I did my own father, because even though it takes a while to get use to the captain, after 4 years, you learn to trust all of them.

"Fang, what 'ave I told ye' about sleepin' on the job!"

Captain Wilhelm chuckled softly at my groan of annoyance.

"Well, you did mention something about, 'if it happens again i'll 'ave ye' walk the plank!'"

He narrowed his black eyes at me and walked back into his cabin.

I swiftly got up and pulled the rope up from the water...nothing.

Not much of a shock, haven't found any sort of food for at least 3 weeks, we'll have to stop

during the night sometime if we don't want to run out of food.

After I threw the rope back into the water I walked to my own cabin, well, not mine, but were my bed is, I share it with two of my mates Iggy, and Gazzy.

By now I know your wondering whats with the nicknames?

Captain thinks it's important to start a new beginning, once you've been recruited. I guess most of us felt like it had to be an uncommon name, because it's me, Iggy, Gazzy, Scale, Fin, Crab, Chip, Skill, Moe, Duck, Bone, Goob, and a lot more weird names, but we cant forget... Lester. (apparently he didn't get the hint) But all of us are at least 18 and the oldest is Crab who was here before I was born. Altogether we have about 30 crew members all working.

"FANG! It's time ta' eat mate!" Iggy yelled at an annoyingly high voice, suspiciously reminding me of a girl I met in port with flaming red hair...oh, who knows!

"Be up in a moment Ig!"

as I walked up the stairs I was suddenly hit with a wave of well..delicious!

"What are we eating?" I asked as I appeared through the door to look at the lusciously covered table.

Captain Wilhelm was smiling proudly as he caught my expression and gestured to a seat next to him.

"Come 'ere Fang, sit next ter' me." I walked over to stand behind the wooden chair.

"Where did all of this food come from? I asked as I graciously took in the roast pig, fruit, bread, fish and many other delicacies. Captain looked a bit ashamed as he looked at his faithful crew and said, "Dont ye' worry 'Bout it, i'll tell ye' in good time." I normally would have urged on the conversation, but immediately stopped as I gazed at the food in front of me.

Grabbing my chair I yanked it out and started piling food on my plate as the rest of the crew already had, and dug into one of the best meals I had had since we'd been out to sea.

"As ye' all are enjoyin' yer' meal i'd like ter' tell yer' somthin' of great importance." we all looked at the Captain with greasy mouths and full cheeks, not even attempting to wipes them off.

"As ye' all know, we 'er runnin' outta' food so we'll be landin' into the nearest port, with 'appins to be Penzance." He peered at me for a second, knowing I grew up not far from there.

Not that I cared, these men had been my family for a while.

"And i'd just like te' tell yer' that we'll probable be stayin n' port fer' bout' a month er' two..."

as soon as he said it, the entire crew stopped eating and gave him a confused and anxious look.

"And what do ya' suppose we're ta' do while were there?" asked a crew member.

Crab stood up and his chair fell backwards, "we're sure to get arrested if we stay longer then 3 nights!"

Most of the rest of the crew stood up and started shouting profanities and complaints at the Captain.

Things were getting very out of hand.

"Hey, everyone calm down, there's gotta be an explanation behind this!" I shouted, then turned and looked at the Captain expectantly. He gave me a grave look.

"Ah Fang, always the voice a' reason. Well gents, I got family business ta' tend ta' and I'm gonna need yer' all ta' leave me be most'a the time."

We a quick glance at all of his crew he quickly got up and walked into his quarters, his long coat flowing behind him.

Max:

I stood and watched my baby brother get buried next to my great grandpa. He died yesterday of tuberculosis, sure I was sad, but I had only known him 2 weeks, hardly enough time to fall in love with the infant.

Yes, the whole thing was very unfortunate and everyone cried, excluding me,

but I just couldn't find it in me to feel 'like I had just lost a part of me' as my mother had put it.

It just isn't in my nature to want to cuddle, feel love, embrace somebody, and all those gushy emotions swirling in the mind of my naïve sister, Ella, and our slave (who I hate referring to as such, seeing as she is one of my best friends) Nudge.

(A/N: sorry about the whole "slave" thing, but nudge is colored and I'm not racist at all, it's just the way things were back then)

As soon as we walked back to our cottage in the woods, I changed into a cotton white dress, that was highly inappropriate according to my mother, who by the way, is about as conservative as they come.

As I started to walk out of our house, I heard my mother call my name, probably trying to give me another sonnet written by Dylan, the clergyman's son.

And you would think that, being the clergy's son and all, he'd be respectable, and everything a women could ever desire. But he's a very arrogant person, and spends a lot of time flirting with whores and fighting for money.

And to make matters worse, my parents do not know about his ways, so of course they expect me to accept his hand which many have said he will offer.

Most women would trip over their feet to marry the handsome, fair-haired boy, but me?

No, I would want to marry for love, as cliché as that sounds, I want to have an adventurous relationship, wish a tall, dark, handsome man who, like me, is different from all else of his sex.

But of course, that's committing social suicide, and my mother would rather kill all of her children then have any incident ruin our family name, as contradicting as that sounds.

As I walk into the woods I see the creek, my creek. It's been there since before I can even remember and I love to go and watch the water as it flows down the stream.

It's one of the most relaxing and safe places I know, I come here as often as I can, which, unfortunately,

is not as often as I would like.

But none the less it's an excellent way to refresh yourself, and I can be me while I'm here, I don't have to pretend in front of people I don't know, for my mothers sake of course.

When I got to the edge of the water I sat and put my feet in one by one, letting the water cool sooth my aching feet.

And as soon as I heard that familiar sound I knew I had made a deadly mistake coming here. Yes, this place was quiet. Yes, you could relax all day, but today was one of those days that you wish you would have stayed at home and listen to your mother ramble about you and the clergy's son.

I crouched low and walked along the edge of the water, hoping not to be found.

Soldiers.

They usually come here on weekends to practice. Why didn't I think of that before I had come!

Their all new, so one would probably miss and shoot me down, it's happened to quite a few people in our town!

Wait, what?

Me acting like a baby? The girl who everyone is scared to approach and my mother is ashamed of because of my fearless attitude and witty remarks to men of higher rank? I think not, I'm Maximum Ride for lord's sake!

So, with my new attitude I stood up ans shouted,

"HEY! There's someone over here so you stop that shooting this instant."

At first I heard nothing, then I heard the chuckle of some men. I soon realized they were much closer then I had anticipated, when an old burly man stepped out from behind a tree and said,

"Hello there ma'am, sorry ta' scare ya', we we're jus' passin' through."

But you don't live in this town all your life and not know who all the people are, and let me tell you,

I recognized none of these men.

So you can imagine my panicky state when one of the men came up from behind me, wrapped a cloth around my mouth, and held my hands behind my back.

I was thrashing and crying out for help, knowing that no one would hear me. And I heard some one yell to the man who captured me,

"Captain wha' ter' ye' doin'?"

"Wha' does it look like I'm doin'? We need money, and it appears as if we've got a little pretty ta' ransom."

And it didn't take that last sentence for me to realize that I have just been captured as a ransom...

by pirates.

O.K. Soooo love it/ hate it? Should I keep going? I have no idea, and if I do continue this wont be a daily update so don't expect that, maybe every week or so.

So just review and give me advice! DO NOT BE RUDE! thanks :)

Olivia