The System

by Dr. Creepergirl

THIS IS A NON-CANNON BOOK SO DON'T COMPARE THIS TO ANY OF THE ACTUAL BOOKS (James Patterson is a MUCH better writer than me). NOT ALL OF THE EVENTS OR FACTS ARE CORRECT OR IN THE CORRECT ORDER SO DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY SEEMED BOOK. THIS IS MY ITERATION OF THE BOOK AS I UNDERSTAND IT.

Prologue

Stop! This book can put you into danger so proceed at your own risk!

Ok now with that warning is over I'm John. Some people better know me as Test Subject 425f. I'm 6'2'' and tanned from all the sun I have been in. I have black hair and dark blue eyes. There is one more thing about me that is not natural. I have wings. Yes I have bird wings. My DNA was mixed with a birds so I have 98% human DNA and 2% bird by these horrible people called The School. I also have a sister. She is 16, 5' 8'' and slightly tanned skin. She has brown hair and green eyes. Her name is Rose. We don't have last names because when I was 2 and she was a baby we were kidnapped by The School. Our parents put up a fight and were killed right in front of me. They took us to The School, put us into small cages, and injected bird DNA into us. When my wings were fully grown they put something in me that let's me evolve to my situation. After that they shoved me into a maze called Demon's Run and made me run until I couldn't stand then injected me with adrenaline and made me run more. I finally got out with my sister at 17 and now we live out in the city blending in.

Chapter 1

The Party

"RUN." It's all I'm thinking "Run faster...get away...go go go go."

I trip over a large branch and there a sharp pain in my right leg. I grab it and a warm liquid ran onto my hand.

"What is that?" I say to myself lifting my hand. It was crimson red.

"Crap" I think as I try to get up. I successfully stand up and I start hearing dogs. I hated the dogs. I start to hobble away

"Faster" I wince talking to myself "I need to go faster."

I see a cliff. Just what I need. I make my way to the cliff as the dogs coming up on my position and as they clear the bush behind me I jump off and let myself fall.

"Three, two, one" I think

At one I quickly open my wings. I wince as the updraft pulls me up forcefully. I steady out and start to fly shots whizzing by me from the soldiers on the cliff.

"Note to self: Don't suddenly open wings" I think as there is a red dot appeared on my chest and I hear the crack of a bullet.

I wake up with a start and for a moment everything was silent. Then I grab my leg as it was cramping. I check to see if it was actually shot but luckily it wasn't.

"That why I thought I was shot." I think as I hold my leg through the cramp and it quickly goes away.

I stand up my leg now sore from the cramp. It was quiet...too quiet. I quickly concentrate on one of my evolution powers, life force detection, and I didn't pick up anyone.

"Hmm maybe she went to go get something." I say to myself as I walk to my door

I open my door and multiple colored balloons fall onto me with a note on the plastic sheet reading "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in multiple colors. I could hear laughing from the living room in our tiny apartment as my sister, Rose, runs up laughing.

"Happy Birthday big brother" She says still giggling

"Oh yeah i'm 18 now" I think as I say "Thank you but please don't do that again."

I walk back into my room and grab my knife on my nightstand. I walk up to the plastic sheet and make a large slit down the middle of it stepping out.

"Big Brother" Rose complains as she starts to take down the plastic "You're so wasteful"

I walk into the living room and flop down on the understuffed couch with a grunt and think "I'm going to need to restuff this"

My sister walks in and says "Stay there I'm going to make breakfast"

I jumped up because she was never a good cook. I start to walk into the kitchen but she hits me with a spoon and pushes me out

"Don't worry I have been practicing." she says as she walks back in "You just lay down and rest for a little bit."

"I do not wish to die on my birthday." I say from on the couch and she walks in and smacks me with the spoon

"I won't kill you!" she says as she hastily walks back into the kitchen

I lay on the couch just day dreaming and thinking of what I have to do today and she comes out with a platter of pancakes and eggs. They looked good. They weren't burnt or underdone. I take a sniff of the food and it smelled good so I take a small bite and to my surprised they were not half bad.

"Not bad" I say taking another bite

"I told you so" She says with a smile "I've been practicing. So what do you want to do today?"

I think for a moment and say "First I want to restuff this couch and...:"

"NO your not doing work on your birthday" she says cutting me off

I roll over to look at her "Then what do you have in store for me"

She opens her mouth but stops and thinks for a moment "We could go to the boardwalk or like an amusement park. Seriously, you should stop working so much."

"Well work has to get done some time." I say rolling over

She jumps onto me "But you work all of the time John. Every day it: 'Oh I need to go to work' or 'Oh let me finish this one project.' You need to get out and have some fun"

"Well I do have some fun" I pause for a second "Sometimes."

She pulls me up and shoves me into my room saying "Get dressed we are going to the boardwalk"

I sigh and close my door. I sit for a moment but I get up to the thought of having some fun. I open my drawer and pull out some normal clothes, jeans and a tee shirt, I slip them on. I grab my phone from my nightstand drawer unplugging it from the charger and my knife from the top of the nightstand putting them in my pockets and Rose knocks on the door.

"Big Brother are you ready!?" she says still knocking

I open the door as she is still knocking and say "Yeah yeah stop banging on my door"

She smiles as she has gotten dressed in also normal clothes. I smile a bit, grab a cap and walk out of the door to the truck parked out in the parking lot. She follows and gets into the passenger side. She buckles in and gives me a nod. I back out and drive to the boardwalk

Chapter 2

The Taken

I park in the parking lot of the boardwalk. I really didn't want to do this but since Rose, who was already out, forced me to do this I played along.

"Hurry up Big Brother!" she yells at me through the window

I unbuckle myself and get out locking the truck afterwards. I walk to her and stand next to her.

"Well you pulled me here let's go" I say looking at her

"Yay let's go!" She says running to the boardwalk

"Hey wait up." I say running after her

We get onto the boardwalk and of course the first thing Rose sees is the candy store. She loved candy very much. She runs into the candy giggling and I sit on a bench next to the candy store with a sigh. I look around as people walk by and one girl's bags rip and all of the items fall to the floor. I get up and start to pick them up

"Let me help you with that." I say and as I look up to give her the items our eyes meet

"Th-th-thank you" she says blushing as she takes the items and brushing her blond hair out of her brown eye

Rose walks out and walks up to me and says "Big brother I need to ask you a favor"

The woman walks away quickly as I turn around and say "What do you need me to do?"

Rose looks down and puts her hands behind her back "I need you to pay for the candy"

I sigh and smile "Even on my birthday I still have to pay for something of yours."

I walk in and walk up to the cashier and say "How much is it?"

"20 dollars" the cashier says
I pull out my wallet and pull out a 20 handing it to the cashier "Here you go"

I survey the candy as the cashier puts away the money. She loved a lot of different candies and I see some of the best pure chocolate. I put the candies in the bag and walk out. She takes the bag and I slip my hand in grabbing the chocolate.

"Oh chocolate you shouldn't have" I say sarcastically and she looks at me with angry eyes

"Well I didn't." She takes the chocolate and puts it back in the bag "It was for me."

I take it out again and say "Well I did pay for you."

She frowns knowing she was beat and gave the chocolate to me. I smile unwrapping it and start to eat it. I give her a little square

"Here that's for the kindness." I say and put it in her hand her face lights up quickly

She quickly eats the piece and we start to walk down the boardwalk once again. We soon came to a pier and we look out on the pier for a while and we turn around.

"Let's get home" I say as I turn around and yawn "I'm getting tired"

Rose yawns "Me too" She climbs onto my back and I carry her

Suddenly a bright flash blinds me and I get shot in the leg for real this time. I hear my sister scream as my eyes go back to normal brightness. I see her getting taken away from me by people in military uniforms, The School, I try to get up but immediately fall over due to the shot in my leg. I keep trying to get up and go to her as they get away. They get into a helicopter and fly off and I pound the board walk hard enough to make some cracks. I lift my fist up to show multiple bloody splinters in my hand. I start to pull them out and people start to crowd around me. I never liked the attention of people so I get up wincing on the way up and I walk towards my truck. As I walk through the crowd one of the guys decided to kick my leg making me fall again. I roll over and kick his shin hard and he falls over screaming.

I finally get to my truck as my leg was about to give out and I slide in.

"I need to treat this" I say as I grab my bag out from the back seat

I pull out a belt, some rubbing alcohol, tweezers and a tampon. Since I was military trained by The School I knew how to deal with this kind of wound. I first put the belt in my mouth because it was my bite guard. I take the rubbing alcohol and pour it on my wound biting on the mouth guard to the sting. I carefully push the tweezers in and grab out the bullet in my leg. I throw it out of the window and shove the tampon into the wound.

"There now just need to bandage it." I say as I take out bandages

I wrap my leg in the bandage and set the bandaging aside. The next thought that popped into my head is my sister being taken and I start pounding on the steering wheel to get out my frustration.

"Why would they do a move like that?" I say

My phone rings so I look at the number and it says burner phone.

I pick up saying "Hello who is this."

"You want her back right?"

I get serious "Who are you and what have you done with my sister?"

"Oh I think you know exactly who we are."

"Why have you taken my sister?"

"You got it wrong; we are asking question and you're going to answer them and maybe your sister will live."

I aggressively shift in my truck as I say "You or any of your crew members go as far as to touch her I will personally kill you myself."

"Touchy touchy. Now where are you?"

"I'm right where you left me."

"How is your leg?"

"Since you shot it it's ok"

"Oh how nice. You know where we are?"

"No. I didn't see where you went" That was a half lie as I would track the call soon

"Do you know who we are?"

"Yeah your The School and I am coming for you."

He laughs and hangs up. I quickly tap on my phone until it's says tracking call. I wait for a moment as it processes and I set it down because my phone heats up when I do this. It shows a map and a ping sends out from the middle of the ocean.

"I got you now" I smile as I get out and take my phone

I run for a while and stop as I reach the end of the pier. I never liked swimming so I look around but still too many people.

I wait for a moment to look at my phone and I angle myself for a straight swim to the pinging location. I jump in and start to swim slowly. As I got closer to the location I started to swim faster. I get right on top of it and I don't see anything around me. I look down at the water and there is a darker spot.

"Gotcha." I say

I swim underwater down to a submarine. I look at the name and it says The Somber Rower. I swim around the submarine and I find a hatch in the painting. I swim down to it and pop it open the flow of water pulls me into the airlock. I close the airlock and I find myself running out of breath so I start mashing the buttons on the wall and then lights come on and the water level recedes. I quickly swim up to the top of the airlock taking a deep and needed breath. The water fullys recedes and I open the other airlock door. I look around for any guards and amazingly there was none that I saw. It was really dark though. I walk forwards a little bit trying to look for a light switch and something quickly fastens around my leg.

"It's a trap" I say as it start to shock me

I quickly go unconscious because electricity was one of my weaknesses. I hear some laughing and I get moved.

I wake up with a start. I'm on a cold metal table. I try to lift my arms up but they stop because they were chained to the table. I try tugging on the chains some but they don't really budge too much. I look around and I see a tray full of items. I can't really make out what the items are but I think I see a scalpel and a syringe and a hammer. My mind starts to run. Where am I, Why am I on this table, Where is my sister, What are they going to do to me, How did I get here. Someone walks in wearing the normal lab coat. He was obviously part of The School. He looks at me and laughs.

"What? Fallen into a NIGHTMARE!" He says in front of my face

He walks to the tray and picks up some tweezers. He cleans them off and starts walking towards me. He stops 3 feet in front of me and smiles.

"Oh we are going to have some fun today, yeah." He says as he rubs the tweezers on my face

I struggle a little bit "What are you going to do to me. Kill me?"

He just smiles and says "Oh I'm not going to kill you...oh no no. I'm going to seriously maim you and then let you heal and then seriously maim you again and let you heal and then seriously maim you again and let you heal."

I pull on my chains hard in fear as I realize he is going to torture me. He walks above my head and crouches down.

"Now let's work with those eyebrows." He says as he plucks one "You know I have a girlfriend and I don't know if she loves me so." He plucks another "She loves me." He plucks another "She loves me not" He plucks another "She loves me." He plucks another "She loves me not" He pluck one last one "SHE LOVES ME."

The pain to me was bearable since it was just eye brow hairs. He tosses the tweezers and moves my table so I'm laying vertical. I pull on the chains more. He leaves the room. Now is my chance. During his eyebrow plucking time I was able to unlock the lock for the chains. I take off the lock and unchain myself. I quickly go up to the tray and look at the contents. A hammer, a syringe, a scalpel, some tongs, a test tube, a needle, and a gutting knife. I grab the gutting knife and quickly hide as I hear the door open again.

"Hello my little test subject." He says carrying a circular saw "It's time for your autopsy."

He walks up to the table and sees that I'm gone and he drops the saw. Great now is my chance. I quietly walk up to him and in one quick motion I slit his throat. He falls over and tries to grab the saw but he dies before he can.

I laugh a little "You underestimated me"

I walk out of the door and quickly to the room across the hall as a guard walks up. I enter the room and lucky me there was 5 guards waiting there. They make a commotion and quickly aim and open fire. For a moment everything was smoke, bullets and flashes. They let it clear up and I'm there with my wings in front of me. I only had a scratch on my face and multiple "dents" in my wings. I move my wings and lunge towards them while smashed bullets fly off of them. I quickly take them down. I look around and I find my things.

I smile and say "Great now I'm back"

I grab my things and take a look at the map. It plainly read where the cells are and where the boss is. I take a picture with my phone and I look around the place for another way out because I wasn't just going to go walking down the hallways and I see an air vent.

"Even better." I say

I open my wings and fly up to the air vent. I open it up and climb in. I start crawling around and I look at my phone, which was the only light in the air vent and I look at the map.

"I want to go there." I say as I point at the cell blocks "Then I'll mess with him"

Surprisingly to me the vents completely followed the hallways and I make it to the cell blocks easily. I drop down and look into the cells and see no one then someone comes up from behind me clapping.

"Bravo...bravo." He says smirking "You really fell into this trap."

I quickly spin around to face him "Who the hell are you and what have you done with my sister?!"

He smiles and shakes his head and slowly says "Oh John, John, John. You don't remember me?" He snaps his fingers and the lights turn on showing many guards with tasers ready "I'm Robert, but you might know me as Dr. Log" He smiles devilishly

My mind snaps into overdrive searching for a Dr. Log that I remember and I shake my head "I never knew you."

He sighs and shakes his head "Whatever but I do know where your sister is."

I give him an angry look and try to advance but I remember the guards around me so I stay still "Where is she?"

He laughs "Oh don't worry...You'll be joining her soon" He snaps his fingers and the guards fire

I scream in agony as I go down.

Chapter 3

The Ally

I wake up again with sweat running down my face. The walls and floor was black and made out of stone cold concrete. I was cold, trembling and in fear. I already knew where I was. I was in Demon's Run.

I get up and lean against the wall. I was weak, cold, and fearful because if you make a wrong turn in the endless maze that is Demon's Run you fall deeper into the maze. I take a few breaths. I look around to see if I have anything and I empty my pockets showing everything I have. A needle, a protein bar, a paper, a used toothpick and about $5.82 in cash. This wasn't going to help much. I get up and take a few deep breaths for two reasons. One, to calm myself down as I was almost hyperventilating and two, to see if there was any life forms in my area. I calm down a bit and focus and tracking any life forms but the walls were too thick to see through. I had to go.

"Ok...you're fine you just need to get to the end of this maze...but how am I going to get through this...well I've done it once before...that was pure luck...just get through this maze for Rose." I say to myself as it echos through the maze

I take a step forwards and it doesn't do anything. I take a sigh of relief and start to walk forwards and I take a right. The floor falls out from under me and I fall a level. I land on some mattresses and the hatch quickly closes on me. I couldn't fly back through the hatch as the hatch was magnetically locked and will shock anyone who tampers with it. I get up and sigh. I look around for the staircase back up and I see it on the opposite end of the lower maze. I start to walk again and I hear the echoing of someone crying. The voice seemed autonomous and without a specific gender. I decide to check it out and something flashes in my mind. West, west, north, east, east, west, east, west, north. I come up to a cross-roads. I think and decide to turn left or as my mind reads it west. The floor doesn't fall though so I start to follow the road map my head has placed before me and in the middle I see this man curled up in a ball crying. The autonomous crying. I get closer and the person lunges at me with a makeshift knife. I back up and step to the side. He steps to the path behind me and falls through the floor. I keep going and finally I make it to the stair case. I walk up to the main floor maze and I think for a moment. It once again popped in my mind North, North, North, East, South, West, North, West, West, South, East. I start to walk again. My mind is racing on what's at the end of the maze.

"Last time the exit almost killed me." I say to myself

That wasn't reassuring at all. I make it to the end expecting the worse and of course the worse happens. I was met with about 5 gaurds all equipped with taser guns. I close my eyes as they fire and surprisingly I don't get hit. I open my eyes to see that all the taser lines has came up short about 3 inches. I laugh a little bit in astonishment. They immediately pull their guns and open fire, so I do what I do best. I make cover with my wings but a bullet nicks my right arm before I could cover it. I wince a little bit but I wait until they run out of ammo. I come out of cover and shake off the smashed bullet heads. I charge the guards tackling them and taking all out in one shot. A C4 block falls off one of their vest and I immediately pick it up.

"Yes just what I need." I exclaim as get up knocking on the walls until I find a solid wall out of all the hollow walls. I plant the C4 to the solid wall. It explodes sending a large hole into the wall. I go through the hole and immediately fall down to the ocean. I open my wings and swoop upwards topping off at about the height that I dropped from. I start to fly and they open fire. Soon the whole facility was on full alert and I hear them pulling out the heavy guns. They start to fire the 50 caliber bullets, the one thing my wings won't deflect. I start to swerve to dodge the bullets. I do a great job on dodging most of the bullets except for one. It makes contact in my right wing punching a large hole into my wing, measuring about 5 inches in diameter, I was going down. For a second I stay up then my right wings tips downwards. I try to pull it back up but I was spiraling downwards with no way to get back up. For a second everything was quiet. All gunfire has stopped and I was in freefall.

"Is this where I die?" I ask myself inside of my head "Is this were my journey ends to me plummeting to my death?"

"No, I refuse this death. I refuse to die like this, not here not now." I answer myself as I stop trying to fly and dive into the water below

I stay under for a while waiting for everyone to leave. I stay just under the surface. I stay under for quite a while. My vision starts to get blurry and darkens and I come up taking a deep breath of air. I quickly look around for any sort of land and I see a small island about 30 feet out to sea. It's the best thing that I have. I start to do a slow swim to the island and I climb up the rocky shore of it. I lay down for a little bit and take a breath. I look back out at the ocean and there is a wavy red line of blood. I look at my wing and slowly open it wincing every now and then.

"Yeap I'm not flying any time soon." I say to myself as I poke around the hole

I stand up as I look back at the complex.

"She wasn't there." I say to myself with a small smile but it melts away quickly as I start to think "If she isn't there then where is she?" and "Maybe she was there and she died and I'm doing this for nothing."

"STOP" I tell myself "Don't overthink this"

For a moment I pace on the rocky island thinking then I hear a siren. I quickly look at the complex but it wasn't coming from there.

"PLEASE GET OFF OF THE ROCKS HIGH TIDE IS COMING IN. REPEAT, PLEASE GET OFF THE ROCKS HIGH TIDE IS COMING IN." some coast guard on a boat tells me from a megaphone

I wave my arms and gesture for him to come over to me. He comes over because of his obligation.

"Could you give me a ride to the shore, please?" I ask him politely trying my best to hide my wings

"Yeah get on" He moves the boat for me to board

I get on and he quickly takes it back to shore.

"Why were you on the rock when you need me to get you back?" He asks me on the way to the shore

"It's a long and very boring story." I say almost bluntly

He nods and we arrive at the shore. I've gotten my wings tucked back into my shirt and I get off and quickly blend in with the crowd that is commuting further from the rising water line. I walk past all of them and then check what I have in my pockets. I take everything out. A phone, 50 cents in quarters, a shell that apparently fell in. I try to turn on the phone but it leaked water so it wasn't turning on any time soon. I toss the shell out onto the sand and look for a pay phone. There was one a couple feet away so I walk up to it.

"Who should I call. I couldn't call any police forces because they are with them." I say to myself as I put in the quarters "Oh yeah, Nono should be able to help me."

I punch in a number and pick up the handset putting it up to my wet face. Ring, ring, ring.

"Pick up the phone, pick up the phone" I whisper to myself

He picks up the phone "Hello? This is Novanje." he answers

"Hey Nono it's me." I say shakily as I start to shiver getting cold

"J-John is that you?" He says a little surprised

"Yeah it's me" I cough lightly "I need you to pick me up."

"Sure where are you?"

"Umm I'm at…" I look around and see a sign reading: Pismo Beach "Pismo Beach"

"What really why and how the hell did you get there?"

"It's a long story...just can you pick me up?"

"Sure I could get there in at least 20 minutes."

"Also it would be nice if I could get some dry cloths."

"Really how...you know what I'm not going to ask. I'll be there in 20"

"Thanks" I hang up

I sit on a bench and wrap my arms in front of my chest now shaking in coldness. I look down the road seeing multiple cars pass by but none of them was Nono's. As I watch down the street a towel is draped over me. I quickly turn around to look to see who was behind me. I turn around and see a woman in a bikini. She looked about my age with brown straight hair and blue eyes like mine. She shifts her weight weight to one leg and puts her hands on her hips.

"You're going to get a cold if you stay out here wet like that." She says with a little bit of attitude

"Didn't think I was going into the water." I respond

I shouldn't have said this because instead of being apathetic to it she sat next to me and looked at me confused and interested "How could you not expect to get into the water when you're on the beach?" she says sitting close to me

"Well it's a long story." I say in all desperation to get out of this conversation but in vain as she scoots a little closer

"Tell me I have time." She says with a smile "I really want to know."

I sigh and think "Crap I can't tell her the truth but I probably won't make a good enough lie...I don't know what to say"

"Well I came with my friends and as I was sleeping in the sand they decided it was going to be fun to pick me up and throw me into the water." I say a little quick and think "Come on Novanje hurry up."

She sits up "B-S...You wouldn't be this soaked just by a simple toss into the ocean." She grabs my sleeve and wrings it and it tears off. Her face goes from planning to terror, "OH MY GOD I'M SOO SORRY!"

"No problem" I sigh lightly and utter

"I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THIS AT ALL" She drops the strip and starts to freak out

"Shut up!" I say as I start to get ticked "I really don't care about the shirt"

She stops and looks at me in disgust and says "Did you just tell me to 'shut up'? Do you even know me?"

"No I don't but I don't need more freaking out."

"Any more?" She says slowly and curiously

I sigh and think "Great I've blew it now" and I utter "Yeah it's my birthday and it's not the being the best day ever."

As I say this a car pulls up in front of me and the window is rolled down. A black guy with green eyes and short curly hair yells at me "Hey you coming"

I look at him "Oh Nono you're here"

"Wait! What?!" The woman looks around confused

I turn to her and hand her the towel "Thanks for the hospitality" and I quickly jump into the car and head off

She quickly gets up and jumps into her car following us. I looked behind us every now and then to see her doing this.

"We need to lose her" I tell Novanje

"Who?" He says looking in the rear view mirror

"The car behind us. It's been following us since the beach."

"Oh I see." He nods and turns onto a narrow sidestreet

She also turns onto the side street. We swerve around going on streets and alleyways and we lose her.

"Great job Nono!" I smile and yell at him

"No problem." He says triumphantly and goes back onto the main street

I reach into my pocket to give him some money but there was none there and i think "Oh yeah the water" I turn to him and say "I would give you some money right now but it seems like it was destroyed."

"No problem I don't mind filling this thing up."

I get out of the car and say to him "Thanks for the ride again."

"No problem. I'll see you later?"

"Yeah later." I say as I walk inside and close the door

I slide down the door in a sigh. I look around the room; it looked empty. Flashes of Rose trying to cook and her sitting on the couch watching tv comes to me. She looks at me.

"There you are." She says but it's not her voice

I snap out of it and I see the woman from the beach and I jump up moving towards my room.

"W-W-What are you doing here?"

"Well I followed you dummy" she gets up and walks towards me

"H-H-How did you get into my house it was locked."

She holds up the spare key I keep in a fake cactus "You really need to hide this better"

I fall back onto the floor feet from my room "Are you here to hurt me"

She looks at me in disgust "No I came here to get answers."

I think "Great she wants answers" and I get up "Well there is no answers here"

I grab my door knob and she follows me. I head into the room and go to the bed falling back and she comes right after me.

"I know you have answers for me." she says walking slowly towards me

I keep climbing over the bed "No there is no answers here!"

She stops in the doorway "Yes you do and I want them so you're not leaving until I get them"

I reach into my nightstand drawer and feel around "There it is" I pull out a small glock 18 out of the drawer I keep there for emergencies. I get up and point it at her

"Get out of the way." I say assertively

"No…" she looks at me and sees the gun "...n-not until I get some answers. You won't shoot me."

I cock the gun "You feel lucky?"

She stays there completely quiet and I shoot just above her ear and she jumps ducking down

"YOU ALMOST SHOT ME!" She says staying in a ball

"That was your warning shot now get out of the way and leave." I say gun still pointed at her

She quickly gets up and runs out of the apartment.

I put the safety on and put it away "There she is gone" I walk into the living room and sit on the couch "She wasn't in Demon's Run." I put my head in my hands "Where is she?" I try to review the evidence in my head and I sit up "She has to be on the complex but I didn't see her."

I pull out an Ipad that I have in the coffee table and open up a schematic of a warehouse "I need to get one of the uniforms for the guards there."

"Really?" Someone in a familiar voice says behind me

I quickly turn around and it was the woman from the beach again

I stand up turning off the Ipad "I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU SCRAM"

She backs up "Yeah I know I know but I put some connections together."

"Like what?"

"Well if you didn't shoot me when you had the chance I don't think you had the intent of shooting me."

"And…"

"Well there is another room that has girl stuff but there is no girl in this house so something happened to her."

"She is at school"

She shakes her head "Nope her backpack it still here"

I sit down "Anything else"

She walks around "Well from the schematic you were looking at you seem to be planning some sort of heist and it sounds like an adventure and damn it I want in!" She sits next to me "So spill. What you are doing?"

I stand up again "How do I know you're not a spy for them!?"

She stands up "Because I don't know who is them!"

I finally give up "You know what fine you win you're in but you need to do what I say when I say it regardless of what it is."

She sits next to me "YEAY!"

I think for a moment "To show that you will remain loyal I need you to do one thing."

She leans into me "Yes what is it."

I smile "Make me a sandwich."

She looks at me in disgust "Really I'm not…"

I look at her and repeat "Regardless of what it is."

She pouts and gets up to make a sandwich for me "I'm going to make one for myself as well so bleah" She sticks my tongue at me

I chuckle lightly as I turn back on the Ipad and she walks back in "Here is your sandwich"

I smile at her "Thank you. So this is the schematic for a warehouse that holds the suits the security guards of a place I need to get into."

She studies it closely "Yes and what do we need in there?"

"A security guard suit."

"You mean 2 of them." She looks at me

"Yeah 2 of them."

"How are we going to get in there...we can't just walk into the front door."

I smile "It's not how we are getting in it's how are you getting in."

She looks at me surprised "You're going to immediately send me into enemy territory."

"I'm not throwing you into enemy territory naked"

She thinks for a second "Oh I have an idea." She smiles brightly "It'll get us through the front door."

"You're not going naked." I say rather bluntly

She laughs "No my friend but that was my second choice."

"Ok what is it then?"

"We can sneak into one of the trucks that go in and out of the facility."

"How the hell will we pull that off?"

"I know how they look and all we need to do is just to jump into one as it passes by."

"Sounds like a deathwish"

"It sounds like fun"

I sigh as I look at my options "Fine but you're getting in and getting the suits. I'm going to be get away."

She jumps up "Then we have no time to lose."

Chapter 4

The Plan

We stand on a roof and the wind is blowing hard. We can barely hear each other.

"Remember all you need to do is get two suits and get out!" I yell to her

She nods "Yeah. Who do I call you by?"

"John" I yell back at her "And you"

"Mia" She smile as she spots a truck "Get ready!"

The truck starts to pass and we jump in not getting spotted "It worked"

She smiles triumphantly "I TOLD you it would work"

I sit back as we keep moving "It should be for too long"

She blushes slightly looking at me then scoots back to the other wall "y-y-yeah"

I look at her "What's wrong?"

She quickly looks up "N-n-nothing. You should get ready to get off because this leads straight into the warehouse"

I nod as I hop out rolling on the ground sprinting off and getting to my point and I watch the truck disappear into the warehouse "You better be who I think you are."

I sit there for a while then I hear alarms go off "She set off the alarms did she." I sigh as I start to unrestrain my wings "Come get me Mia"

I stand there for a while and then I hear her voice "JOHN!" She yells as she is running up the hill

I beckon her over "Come on hurry" I have my arm open ready to grab her "You got the suits right"

She nods and gets to me looking around "Where is the car?"

"Who said there was going to be a car?" I grab her waist

She blushes brightly "W-W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

I rip my shirt by unfolding my wings and I take off pulling her with me and holding her under me after I level off "Who said there was going to be a car?"

She looks up at me brushing her hair out of the way and blushing "Umm I-I-I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything." I smile at her "Just enjoy the ride. You got the suits?"

She nod and set the suits on her chest "They are very odd suits though"

I shrug "It's unique." I land down on the floor of the apartments, letting her go and folding up my wings

She looks at me very dazed and confused "S-s-s…"

I cover her mouth "Not here" I walk into my apartment

She follows with me and sits down "WHEN DID YOU GET WINGS!"

I quickly cover her mouth again "Not so loud these walls are thin"

She moves my hand "Sorry. When did you get wings."

"I had them forever." I sigh a little bit "I've been cursed with them"

"Cursed?" She grabs my wings "These are blessings."

"Yes it's a blessing that it took weeks of pain for this and now I'm hunted."

She covers her mouth "H-h-hunted?"

I facepalm myself "Now I've said too much"

She pushes me on the couch "Ok you need to tell me the whole truth right now." She crosses her arms and stands in front of me

I get up "You don't need to know the whole truth."

"Who was the ones that got the suits?" She gets in my face

"You." I don't budge a bit

"Who came with the idea to jump into the trucks?" She says getting more angry

"Who got you out of the grips of those guards?" I say to stop her

She stops for a second "You but who followed you home and stood in danger to get an adventure."

"Who was dumb enough to do so?" I say almost yelling

She looks at me in disgust "Dumb? I AM NOT DUMB! I followed you because I had a feeling that you would need help and I wanted to go on an adventure!"

"Well your want for an adventure can end up getting you killed."

She stops and backs up a little bit "K-k-killed?"

"Yes murdered and that's IF you're lucky." I say advancing

She falls back onto the couch behind her "You never told me this"

"I thought that me almost shooting you would have told you."

She starts to tear up and she brings her knees to her chest "I-I-I-I don't want to die." She starts to cry

I sigh and lower my voice "Hey don't cry" I sit next to her "I said that because it's true. I don't even know how long I myself have to live."

She looks at me with teary eyes and then hugs me crying into my chest "I-I-I don't want you to die either." She shakes slightly as she cries into me

I look down at her "Why don't you want me to die. I'm a monster, a monstrosity."

She looks up at me with a slight blush and she slaps me "You don't say that about yourself"

"It's true" I stand up and pull off my shirt showing her my wings "How many other people have these?"

She turns me around "No one and it makes you special."

I look at her and blush lightly "What do you mean?"

She stands there a little bit "Your something different. I like different." She gets on her tippy toes and kisses me and quickly breaking off and backing up "S-sorry."

I stand there stunned and my mouth moves to talk but nothing comes out

She giggles lightly "Was that your first kiss."

I nod as I pull on my shirt and walk to my room

She giggles again and sits down

I walk back out in new clothes "Tomorrow we will continue our adventure." I sit down

She looks at me "John. Can you tell me everything now."

"Mia you really don't need to know everything."

She sits up even more angry than before "WHY DON'T I"

I sigh "We have already been through this you don't need to know because it'll put you…" I think for a moment "You know what. Do you really want to know?"

"Uhh yeah that's why I was asking." She sits back

"Well I was kidnapped at the age of 2 years old. They took me and my sister killing my parents. They took me and her and put us in small cages and injected us with bird DNA so we grew wings. After we fully grew our wings they tapped into our evolution part of our brain and we gained abilities. I got the power of tracking people and she gain the power to block other powers. They threw us into a labyrinth called demon's run. They forced us to run but somehow I got out and I took Rose and I escaped from the place." I say in one breath

She tears up a bit more "I'm so sorry."

I look away "Don't start crying on me"

She shakes her head "Nope I'm not crying" She quickly wipes up her tears

"Good" I stand up "Let's get to work" I smile and grab one of the suits "I'm going to try this on"

She nod and watches me walk back

I get into the room and start to change "Hmm these seem a bit big." I put it on and zip it up and i notice a button on my hip "What's this do" I push it and the suit shrinks down to my size and I jump then laugh lightly "One size fits all."

I walk out and show Mia "It's an interesting suit." I toss her one of the suits "Put one on." She takes it and walks into the room

"HEY IT'S A BIT BIG!" She yells at me

"THERE IS A BUTTON ON THE HIP!" I yell back

I hear her scream lightly and then she laughs then she comes back out

"You like it?" I ask her with a small chuckle

She nod "Yes it's a one size fits all suit" She laughs lightly

"Let's keep going then" I smile and take out the iPad again and I notice I have a missed call on Facetime. I quickly open it up and look at the message and it was from a unknown person. I start the video feed and there was Rose's face on the screen

She smiles lightly even though there was a bleeding cut on her head "Come get me" She says in a hoarse whisper then she hangs up

I smile back at the iPad "I know where she is" I tap on the iPad more and set it down as it starts to retrieve the signal from somewhere

Sharna walks up "Where is she"

The iPad pings and I look at it "San Francisco ,California" I say in a sigh "Great a road trip."

Mia seemed happy about this as she hugs me "Yay we are going to San Francisco."

I sigh and pry her off of me "Let's keep going. First we need to pack our stuff."

She quickly runs out of the room "Yeah we need to pack and maybe we can have some fun there and stay for a couple of days."

I look at her "Have fun there?! We are going there on a very important mission we shouldn't be side tracked to go and have some fun!"

She walks back out looking at me sternly "We are having fun there whether you like it or not."

I stare into her eyes and she gives an angry glare back at me and we stare at each other for about 5 minutes

I break the glare "Fine we will be there for three days two days of fun and one day of mission"

She hugs me happily "Yay thank you John."

I sigh "Now go pack your bags with anything you want. I'll look into a hotel." I walk back to the iPad

She runs back into the room and as she was packing she finds that she doesn't have anything for pajamas. She thinks for a moment and goes into my closet pulling out an old tee shirt that's big on her and packing it. She runs back out with her bag "John I'm ready you go pack up."

I stay looking at the iPad "This hotel will get us close to the place we need to be but it's quite expensive"

She looks over my shoulder "hmm well what about that one" She points at another hotel

"It's quite the drive to anywhere actually"

She looks at me "I think we should just get the expensive one"

I nod "Yeah I think so as well"

She takes the iPad "Now go pack." She point at the room

I go back into my room and start to pack my things and I look around my room grabbing things I need and packing it up. I grab a couple shirts, pants, socks, underwear. I grab my small pocket gun and a few mags just in case of a fire fight. I also grab my toiletries bag. I look in the bags and whisper "Yup all the basics"

I walk back out and toss my bag in the corner and I look around not seeing Mia. This set off red flags in my head so I cautiously say "Mia you still here?"

She calls from the kitchen "Yeah I'm still here!"

I take a breath "Oh good I thought you left"

"Of course not silly. I'm cooking some food for us." She smiles as I walk in and she is putting on an apron "What do you want?"

I smile "Whatever you want to do."

She smiles back "Sounds great"

She shoos me off and i walk back into the living room and I see the couch stuffing "Well I can re-stuff the couch now." I bend down taking off the cushions and opening them up and start to stuff them with the couch stuffing until they were full and I set them back on the couch

"Diner is ready~!" Mia yells from the kitchen as she takes out grilled cheeses

I hop up as I put the last cushion on "That looks great. Thanks"

"Your welcome. I hope they are good." She sets them down on the table and takes off the apron sitting down "Sit down so we can eat."

I sit next to her and look at her "Ok."

She looks back at me "Go on eat."

I look at it "Oh sorry I'm used to having Rose start to eat first. She insisted to cook for me but she was a bad cook."

She laughs lightly picking up her sandwich "Oh that's cute." She takes a bite as I start to eat

After a while of eating silently we finish and Mia grabs my plate "I'll wash these."

I follow after her "No you cooked I can clean."

She pulls a wooden spoon on me and I put my hands up and back away slowly "Ok I'll let you do it. Just put down the spoon."

She smiles and backs me to the couch and says "Stay there unless you want to get hit"

I nod and sit down on the couch and after about 5 minutes she comes behind me and hugs my head

"Oh hello there Mia." I look up at her

She smiles down at me "Hello."

"Since you're going to be staying here for a while you can use Rose's room for your room."

She pouts cutely "But what if I get scared at night? What if I have a nightmare? You did say that I'll probably die on this adventure."

I sigh "Then you can be like the little child you are and crawl into my bed with me."

She laughs lightly and smacks my head "You are a real twit you know."

"You're not much better you know."

She walks around and sits next to me noticing the couch was restuffed "Oh someone has been working."

I nod "I took the advantage of time when you were cooking."

She looks around as the appartment was a bit dirty "Now only if you did that with the apartment. This place is a disaster."

I get a call. It was my job. I pick it after saying "Crap I forgot all about work today. Hello. Yeah I'm really sorry. You see it's my...yeah I can come in now. Ok...Bye." I hang up and look at Mia "I have to go to work you don't take anything out of this apartment or call anyone from this apartment phone. Ok."

She smiles "And if I do."

"Then you're going to get kicked out of the operation and get shot."

She nods at the word 'shot' "yeah I understand. Can I make calls on my cell though."

I nod "As long as it isn't the police. You can't trust them."

She nods again in understanding "It just going to be some of my friends that I ditched at the beach."

I get up and walk out of the door.

I come in after a long day at work and it was really dark. I check my phone. It reads 12:33 AM.

"Great I worked another double shift without knowing. I should really pay attention to the time more."

I go into the apartment and of course it's dark and quiet. I seance Mia was in Rose's room sleeping. I sigh in relief and go to check on her. To little surprise I see her sleeping in the bed curled up in a small ball. She stirs and wakes.

"John...is that you." She says slowly and sleepily

I think quickly and say "Shhh...This is a dream."

She nods and falls back asleep saying "Ok tell me when John comes home."

I laugh lightly and quietly shut the door going to my own room to lay down. I pull off my shirt and lay down looking at the ceiling.

"Why couldn't I stop them from getting her. Why didn't I save her. Damn it she is in danger because of me. Why can't I never do anything right. Whatever tomorrow we will work more on that."

I turn over and go to sleep.

The next morning I wake from another dream. I must've been screaming since Mia was next to me shaking me yelling "JOHN WAKE UP IT'S JUST A NIGHTMARE! WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!"

I groan and sit up "Stop shaking me Mia."

She sighs and puts her hands on her hips "Someone was dreaming of me though. You were just screaming my name and Rose. Over and over again."

I hold my head "Sorry for scaring you. This happens often."

She shakes her head "I would be surprised if it didn't. You have been though a lot and you are bound to go though more." She blushes and then leans over and kisses my head

I sit on the edge of my bed "Let get on the road so we can get Rose."

She nods "I already have all of your things packed into your truck."

I look at her confused "I left my truck at the beach. How did one, you know which truck was mine, and two, unlock it and get it back here."

She smiles and laughs "I had my friends bring me back down to the beach and I took your keys and checked every vehicle until I found it."

I get up and shrug "All's well ends well" I pause for a second "I guess."

She walks out of my room and to the door "Hurry up John let's go."

I walk out to her and out the door quickly waking up "OK OK let's go."

We walk out to the truck and get in it quickly heading out to the freeway and to San Francisco

We get to the hotel and Mia quickly jumps out and goes to grab our things and I walk back grabbing my bag. I then walk to the front office as she clings to my arm. I ring the bell and a man walks out from the back, looks at us and smiles and gives us a key thats has the code '4C' stamped on it without saying a word.

I walk out and shrug "Well that was easy." I walk towards the elevator and stairs. "Our room is on the third floor. You want to take the stairs or the elevator?"

Mia smiles and says "Elevator. My bags are a bit heavy to go upstairs."

I got to the elevator and it was tapped off and had a handmade sign reading "Elevator is out of service use stairs -"

We both sigh and I look at the stairs then back at Mia "You want me to carry your bags."

She giggles and shakes her head "No I want you to carry me. You'll be my elevator."

I smile and shrug getting down so she can climb on my back and i start to walk up the stairs

"Your really light. You should probably eat some more food." I say to her

She smacks my head "It's not my fault that you're really muscular."

I laugh as we get to our floor and I walk to the room opening it. Mia gets off my back and the first thing she does is jump and lands on one of the beds on her back.
"Ahhh this feels good" she says as she smiles and bounces on the bed "It's so soft and fluffy."

I sit on the other bed and she rolls over looking at me and whines "Hey...who said you get your own bed."

"Oh what do you want me to do sleep on the floor." I look at her

She smiles as a slight blush forms "No I want you to sleep in my bed with me."
I start to blush and nod "I could do that"
She looks at me and starts to panic "It's not that I want to be mean I just feel safer when you hold me, and plus I can comfort you if you start to have a nightmare so you don't wake up the neighbors and they call security on us."

I nod and slide my bag to the other bed "Which side do you want?"

She smiles and lays down on the left "This side."

"Ok I'll take the right side." I peak out of the window "Hey they have a pool."

She bolts up and to the window "REALLY! AW AND I DIDN'T PACK MY SWIMSUIT!"

I smile at her "But I got money and we are in the middle of market central; I think we can pull something off."

She turns and hugs me squealing "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I go to walk out of the door "Come on before it gets dark."

She follows behind me closely "See your not the monster you said you were. Your human but you just need a little bit of different attention than others."

I look back at her "Yeah yeah I guess so."

She runs and jumps onto my back "You know it's true but you want to deny it."

I laugh and grab her legs "I am never in the moment though. My mind is in war mode all the time."

She giggles as she touches my gun that I put on "I guess I can call you war boy." I walk past the truck and to a bus stop and she whines lightly "Why aren't we taking your truck?"

"The public transportation in this place it amazing" I say as the light car comes up "We will take it until first street then make our way back to the hotel looking at the shops on the way."

She smiles and gets off my back and onto the light car and I follow after her and pay for the trip and I see her sitting down and patting the seat next to her "Come on war boy. You should sit before the bus goes."

I go and sit next to her and she leans on me holding onto my arm kinda tightly so I look at her "You're going to cut the circulation out of my arm if you squeeze much tighter."

She looks up and instead of smiling she looks somewhat scared "S-s-sorry I'm a bit claustrophobic."

I quickly hold her gently "Oh I'm sorry I didn't know you were claustrophobic."

She loosens her grip and sighs lightly "Don't worry just hold me like you are right now."

I nod and stay in the same position "We are almost to first street" I pull the cord for getting off on the next stop then get up still holding her

She breaths into my chest as she stays calm better and we get off and she takes a deep breath of fresh air "Ok I'm better."

I smile and let go of her "You want to walk back now?"

She nods and grabs onto my arm more lovingly now "Let's go"

I start to walk down the street and Mia looks at all the shops looking for a swim shop "There should be one somewhere around here"

She spots one and starts to pull on my arm pointing at it "There it is. There it is." She starts trying to run while dragging me but fails "Come on hurry up."

I smile and keep walking "Ok we are going there."

She smiles and as we get there she lets go of my arm and goes to look around and so do I as I try to find something to swim in

"I found something" Mia says as she quickly walks by and to the counter then I give her some money so she can pay for it and I grab some trunks to swim in

After she pays for the swim stuff she hands me the bag, "Will you be a good guy for me and carry this bag?"

I laugh lightly and take it, "I'm not all just cold and war...but I've seen things." I say my voice changing making Mia laugh

"Ok war boy, let's go back to the hotel."

I nod and we start to walk back. It starts to get dark and most people go inside. We turn a corner and a guy with a knife confronts us.

"Drop the bag and your wallets and anything valuable before I stab you and your girlfriend here."

Mia gets scared and starts to reach for her wallet but I stop her. I drop the bag and slowly walk up to the mugger saying "You really must enjoy making people's lives miserable huh?"

"Yeah that's how I get paid so I can pay rent." He replied a little confused

"And what would happen if someone fought back from your 'attacks'; if I can even call it that." I say getting in arms reach

"I stab 'em." He replies as he swishes his knife around "Now drop your money or your gettin' stabbed."

I quickly punch him right in the throat and it makes him cough and start to choke lightly as he drops his knife. I grab him as I kick up the knife pinning him to the wall.

"DON'T YOU EVER TRY TO MUG SOMEONE AGAIN,OR GOD HELP ME…"

I get cut off by Mia "JOHN...STOP!"

The mugger looks terrified and I sigh lightly letting him go. He quickly runs off and I pick up the bag and go back to her side saying "Sorry about that...I had to do what I had to do."

She looks away from me as if she is angry but slowly she starts to snicker and laugh "You made that guy pee himself."

I look back at her chuckling a bit "Well I am a pretty scary guy."

We get back to the hotel and she dashes upstairs and into the room closing it behind her. I eventually get there to see her asleep on the bed in a little ball. I smile and drape the blanket over her as I sit on the other bed. She stirs slightly and mumbles something rolling over and opening her arms as if she knew I wasn't there. I sigh and lay down with her and she snuggles in with me.

I wake up with a jolt making Mia, who was already up, jump and she looks at me

"I see someone is up." She giggles lightly and walks over to me hugging me "I'm going to go take a shower then we can do something fun today."

I sit up and rub my eyes "Or we can go save Rose today. She is still waiting for us."

Mia starts walking for the bathroom "Well when we do save her we would have to skip town ASAP. That would take a day of fun away."

I sigh knowing I was beat "Oh ok then. What do you want to do"

She gets in the bathroom and closes the door yelling through the wall "We can always go down to the pier and look around there."

"How do you know everything around here. Yesterday you didn't even know how good the public transportation was until I told you."

"I researched things to do in San Francisco and that was the main thing that showed up."

"Ok but we have to be careful. We don't know who is around here."

The shower goes off as Mia finishes and she walks out in a tank top and jeans she brought in "Yeah we do. Now go take a shower."

I grab some clothes and go into the bathroom closing the door and turning on the water. I wash up quickly and get out slipping on my clothes and walking back out to Mia who is patiently waiting on the bed.

"You ready?" she pops up as I walk out

I get my cap and put it on along with my sunglasses "Yeah I'm ready." I start to head for the door and I walk out with her. As we walk out I turn to her and say "You wanna take public transportation or my truck?"

She clings to my arm "Let's take public transportation. That was fun last time."

I smile and start to walk down the stairs and out to the tram stop as we wait for the tram to come by which soon it does and we get on and sit down. Mia leans on me and plays with the brim of my hat saying "Why do you need this hat. It covers up your amazing hair."

"My amazing hair is one of my most outstanding features of me. I want to hide it so I don't get caught."

She giggles and plays with my hat more "I guess so then. Oh I should've probably try hiding myself since I did the whole suit thing."

I nod "Don't worry we could get you a hat and sunglasses when we get to the pier."

She smiles and leans into me more. The tram stops and I look out at the pier nudging her and we get off. We walk down the pier and the first shop I see with hats and sunglasses I buy a hat and sunglasses handing it to Mia who puts them on and smiles at me. She takes my hand which sends chills down my spine. I keep walking and we walk around for a while going into shops but not really buying anything. Mia sees a glass maze and her eyes light up.

"Ohhh~ a maze. Can we go, Can we go, Can we go!" She says pulling on my arm much like a small child

I look at it and my mind goes blank again and my face goes pale just looking at the poster saying "The Glass Maze." I try to say something but nothing comes out. I start to shake violently. Then Mia pops up in front of the poster breaking my line of sight as she says "Um John are you ok? You don't look to good."

I slowly start to come back but it was too late. I was going to be sick. I cover my mouth and run to the edge of the pier leaning over and vomiting into the ocean. Mia looks at me in shock and slowly walks over rubbing my back lightly as she repeats herself "John are you ok?"

I slowly stand back up and compose myself then I nod "We can go into the maze if you want."

She puts her hands on her hips "No I don't think we should. You just vomited just looking at the poster of the maze. How do you think your going to do inside the maze. You could have a mental breakdown and I'll have to drag you out. I think we should just go home. There is a pool there and we could swim."

I nod lightly and sigh in relief "Good I didn't really want to go through the maze anyways."

She giggles "Then why did you say that we could go through if I wanted to? Are you saying that you would go face your fears for me?"

I smile but don't do anything as I walk away from the poster "Let's just not think about going through a maze again ok?"

She nods and takes my hand again "Ok. No more mazes, and I'm not going to ask why because it seems like a long story."

I nod as we go down the pier and a shop intrigues me. It was a knives and swords shop. I start to walk to it saying "Ooh~ knives. I could use me another knife." and I walk in Mia following closely behind me.

I see a pair of push knives and I smile looking at the attendant saying "How much for the push knives here."

"$75.50" The attendant says in a slightly gruff voice

I pull out my wallet and pay for the knives in cash and he takes the knives and puts them in a sheath handing it to me

"Thanks for your time" He says as I walk out straping the sheath to the inside of my jeans.

"John did you really need those knives?" Mia says in a slight whine

I nod and say, "Yeah my other one is getting dull. Plus these are more discreet and easier to use for me."

She sighs and grabs onto my arm "Well I guess you can have them."

We get back on the tram and we head back up to the hotel where Mia, once again, dashes upstairs and into the room. I get in there and I don't see her or the bag of swim suits but my swim suit is on the bed. I change into it and walk back out to the pool where I dive in and start to swim. After a little bit Mia walks out in her bikini and jumps in next to me. I stop swimming and look at her smiling.

"So that's why you disappeared. You should really stop doing that. It puts me on the edge." I say in a teasing way

She splashes me and responds, "Hey it's not my fault that you walk slowly."

I splash her back and we go back and forth for awhile until she tackles me under the water. I come back up and move back to the wall. She kisses me softly and giggles lightly. I then splash her and duck under water moving away from her popping up a bit further away from her.

"Come get me Mia~" I say teasing her

She pouts and starts to swim to me but I duck under and swim away from her again. She continues to follow me and I swim past her so she quickly reaches under and grabs my ankle and pulls me up.

"Ha gotcha." She says and sticks her tongue out at me.

"Aww~ dang I got caught." I frown and laugh lightly

She pulls on my arm and pulls me towards the edge "Come on let's go inside before it gets dark. We don't want to happen what happened last time."

I smile and get out with her and she walks back upstairs and I follow her up. We get to the room and Mia just lays on the bed after she dries off without changing to some normal clothes. I walk into the bathroom and change and when I come out Mia is on the phone and I hear her say "Yeah I want a pepperoni pizza. $5, great that will do. Thank you~ Bye~"

I look at her and sit next to her saying "What did you do?~"

"I ordered a pizza for us."

"So someone is hungry?"

She nods and giggles lightly then lays back stretching out. I smile and grab the Ipad and go over the plan and schematics one more time. She sits back up and turns off the Ipad.

"Stop overthinking it. We are going to do fine.~" She says softly

I look at her and smile "Sorry but it's going to keep me up a night."

"I could help with that." She keeps talking softly

"How can you do that?" I smile and respond

She smiles "You're going to have to wait until the pizza gets here before you get it."

I pout lightly and it makes Mia laugh. She kisses my cheek and gets up as the door is knocked on and she gives a $5 bill to the person grabbing the pizza and closing the door.

"Here we go" She says as she walks back over

I get up and take a slice quickly starting to eat "MMM~ that's good."

She giggles and takes a slice "You seem more hungry than me."

I nod "My wings gives me a higher metabolism than most people; even your metabolism is lower than mine and you are really skinny."

She nods and takes a slice sitting on the bed "Well that's good to know." She runs her hands on my wings and it moves with her hand and she giggles

After the pizza is finished I lean back and lay down on the bed yawning "Oh I'm so tired."

She smiles and lightly pets my head "Just go to sleep"

I slowly fall asleep and she smiles pulling me up so I lay fully on the bed and she moves up against me falling asleep as well.

Chapter 5

The Execution

I wake up with Mia having her arms wrapped around me tightly. I try to move out of her arms but she just pulls me in tighter and groans.

"Mia you have to wake up. We need to get ready to save Rose." I whisper at her as she groans again
"5 more minutes." She says as she rubs one of her hands on my face

"Then at least let me get up." I say to her and she lets go of me and curls up into a ball. I smile and get up and start to pack everything up. I grab my gun holster and put it on my belt then put on the security suit. Mia stirs and looks at me then gets up pulling up one of her straps on her bathing suit she never took off.

"You seem ready to go." She says

I toss her a suit saying "Well we got to get a move on. We don't have much more time to do this." She puts the suit on over her swimsuit and I look out the window "Hey look at this." I point out of the window at many other people in the same suit "That's our entry ticket there."

She grabs my hand "Then there is no time to lose." She says pulling me out of the door. We get there and we get in the crowd waiting for the bus to come which it does soon. Mia's grip tightens lightly as we enter and as we enter we are handed a AR15 rifle. We are told to stand in line and she stands behind me as we move along.

We get there and everyone gets off entering the facility at the same time then dispersing to their assigned posts. I nudge Mia and we go down a downhill hallway that leads to the holding rooms. About halfway down I hear crying. It's a girl crying. I already knew who it was. It was Rose. I quickly start to walk faster but Mia grabs my arm and motions for me to calm down. I nod and slow down again as we reach the door and it opens for us and I look around seeing Rose in a cage.

I walk over and hit the cage with the butt of my AR "Hey be quiet in there." She immediately looks up and brightens up smiling and I take off my helmet "Hello Rose." Mia tosses me the keys and I grab them unlocking her cage and Rose immediately hugs me.

After a little bit Mia takes her helmet off and clears her throat "Guys this family reunion is great and everything but we need to go before the alarms go…" The alarms go off "...off." The doors lock magnetically and I grab the AR and Mia looks at me saying "What are you doing?"

"Hacking the door." I smile and shoot out the glass and the door open up again "Come on."

We dash through the hall and guards come up against and I drop to a knee quickly taking out the guards. This takes all of my ammo and I look to Mia "I need a mag!" Mia fumbles with her guns and managed to get the mag out and she tosses it to me. I catch it and quickly reload the gun.

We run through to the lobby and there was already many guards there. I dive to some cover and pop up shooting multiple guards. I duck down again and move along popping somewhere else to take out more. After a little longer the lobby is littered with dead guards and I toss the AR and take off my suit.

"Come on through the front door." I shoot the glass and open the door "Rose you can still fly right?" I say looking back at her

She nods and unfold her wings "Yeah let's go."

Mia runs to me and I put her on my back and run to a low flight quickly gaining altitude. Rose flies nearby me and once again a large gun is readied. I start to swerve and swoop around erratically as I try to dodge the bullets but it wasn't enough. I feel a sharp pain in my lower back and my legs go parazised. Mia screams and holds tightly to me as I start to drop.

"ROSE TAKE MIA SOMEWHERE SAFE." I yell to Rose and she grabs Mia's arms and I fall fast hitting the ground

"Rose take me back to him...he isn't going to survive without help...ROSE PLEASE TAKE ME BACK TO HIM!" pleads Mia and she starts to thrash around and kick her feet

"NO we can't do it. It's either him or all of us." She says as she slowly makes her way to safety and grabs Mia by the hand "Now take us to the hotel you were staying at and we will take John's truck home."

Her and Mia start to run until they get into the city. They walk back to the hotel and they get in my truck. Mia drives Rose back to the house silently. When they get there Mia immediately walks to my room and lays down on my bed crying. She takes off the suit and pulls the blankets over her. Rose goes to her room and does the same.

I lay there and guards quickly surround me. They look at me and kick me lightly. They think I'm dead and they pick me up. Inside I scream in pain but outside I don't move an inch. They put me in a room on a cold metal table face down. They sedate me then work on me. When I wake up I'm in a jail cell on a wooden bed. I sit up and look around. I see a guard that has a ring of keys. He isn't in reach so I start to make noise. The guard walks up and hits the cage.

"Hey quiet down in there" He says as he hits a nightstick on the door

I quickly rush up and grab his head smashing it on the bars. He falls over and I move his body so I can grab the keys. I start to try out the keys then one of them works and I unlock the door. I strip the guard and put on his suit and lock him into my cell. I check the time. 6:00 Pm; it's time to leave for the day. I start to go to the front like the rest of them. We all get on the tram and they drive us back to San Francisco. I walk back to the hotel and walk into the room. I change my cloths from the suit I was wearing. I had to get back home. I walk back out with mine and Mia's bags. I start to walk down the road. I couldn't fly because there was still too many people. I start to walk for the highway and it soon becomes midnight. I start to fly and I make it to the edge of town soon. I walk down my town as I make my way home. About noon I get home and I open the door. I am immediately greeted with a gun pointed at me.

"That's not how you welcome a hero returning alive." I say tiredly as I drop the bags

"JOHN!" Mia says excitedly as she jumps up and goes and hugs me "HOW DID YOU SURVIVE I SAW YOU DIE!"

"Well I didn't die and they also thought I died but I know how they have such a large guard count. They bring people back to life." I reply back "They worked on me and revived me. Then they threw me in a jail cell and I got out."

She hugs me again and then lets go kissing me then she blushes brightly and breaks off. At that moment Rose walks up smiling then slaps me hard yelling "WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! WE THOUGHT THAT WE WOULD HAVE TO FORGET YOU! MIA THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF ME BY HERSELF! THEN YOU COME IN HERE AND SAY 'THAT'S NO WAY TO TREAT A HERO RETURNING ALIVE!' DO YOU THINK YOU'RE A HERO! DO YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO THINK YOU LOST SOMEONE FOREVER THEN FOR THEM TO SHOW UP OUT OF THE BLUE!"

I look at her and say calmly "Yes I have. It's the worst feeling. I am no hero but I did save you."

She slaps me again "I COULD'VE GOTTEN OUT MYSELF! I'M NOT A HELPLESS LITTLE GIRL WHO NEEDS SAVING! IF YOU DIDN'T COME I WOULD'VE GOTTEN MYSELF OUT! I DIDN'T NEED YOU AT ALL!" She storms off to her room and slams her door

Mia looks at me then down the hall at Rose's door then back at me as she tries to comprehend what happened "What just happened?" She asks still comprehending

I look down the hall "I guess she is mad at me." I sigh lightly "She'll come around. I'm going to go take a shower." I walk down the hall to my door and Mia runs after me

"John you might not want to go in there." She says grabbing my hand that's on the doorknob "Let's just say I had a temper tantrum when you were gone."

I laugh lightly "How bad could it be?" I say opening up the door to see my room an absolute disaster "Oh that's...not that bad." I start to go into my room and find some clean cloths "Just need a little bit of cleaning up to do." I walk to the bathroom and go to take a shower

As I take a shower Rose walks to the kitchen and starts to cook a lunch for her and Mia. Mia walks to the table and sits down as I get out of the shower. I sit down and Rose comes out setting a plate in front of Mia then going back in to get her own plate. She gets her plate and sits down. I frown and get up walking into the kitchen to make myself something. I hear Mia scoot to Rose and she whispers to her about something. I come back in and sit down and start to eat. Rose quickly finishes eating and goes back to her room without cleaning any plates or anything and she locks her door.

"Rose doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that you're here." Mia says almost starting to cry "I wouldn't know why. It's great that you're here."

I shrug replying "I dunno why. I guess she wanted me dead."

"Maybe she started to mourn for you but when you walked in that fell apart."

I stand up and start to take the plates "Well she'll come around."

Mia comes up behind me and take the plates "I'll take these you just sit down and relax. You just barely got home today." She giggles lightly and I walk over to the couch sitting down

Rose opens her door and she walks out crying and walks over to me opening her arms for a hug. I smile and get up and hug her and she starts to cry saying "I'm sorry brother but I thought you were dead and when you came back alive I was just shocked so I did the only thing I know to do and I got mad at you. Please forgive me. I don't want you do die at all."

I smile and kneel down to her level and smile "I forgive you. I knew you didn't want me dead because you absolutely adore me." I pull her back in and hold her

We stand there for a while and Mia comes up behind me and hugs me from behind. We stand there for a while as we enjoy that we are all together. Little did we know that outside at the school they were making a new set of bird people and a whole new type of enemy.

Chapter 6

Peacetime

I wake up and Mia is once again snuggled close up against me. I lay there for a little bit and smile. It's been about a month and nothing has happened. This place for now has been at peace time. Mia slowly wakes up and looks at me.

"Good morning John." She smiles and whispers lightly

I turn to look at her and I smile "Good morning Mia."

She lets go of me and she sits up stretching "Is Rose still asleep."

I shrug and sit up "Don't you remember I can't see Rose with my power."

She pats my head "That's right well I guess we gotta go see then." She stands up and walks to the door opening it and all was quiet. She walks over to Rose's door and slowly opens it up. She closes it and walks down the hallway "Rose? Where are you?" then she screams lightly

I quickly run to the hallway thinking she was in danger but no it was just Rose jumping on Mia so she fell and Rose started to tickle her. I walk over and pat Rose's head saying "Now Now Rose let's not make Mia pee herself."

She laughs and stops tickling Mia "Ok big brother I'll stop."

I help Mia up and she smiles and sits on the couch and I walk into the kitchen to start cooking breakfast taking my iPad to look at the news. I look around a bit on my favorite news site, Reddit, and I see the top story is from a person using the username Fang. I decided to open it and the first words I saw where Fang's blog. I start to read it as I cooked and I see that it's really similar to what I went through in the beginning. As I come out I bring the iPad to Mia saying "Mia look at this."

She reads it and quickly covers her mouth almost squealing and she turns to me. She gets up and walks to me taking me into the kitchen and saying "Do you think what I'm thinking?"

I nod lightly "That's if you're thinking that there is now more people like me and they are starting a revolt on The School."

She nods and starts to bounce "You and Rose aren't the only ones now. They are others."

"I'm going to go help them take down The School and I'm going to do it by myself."

She giggles and shakes her head "You say that like you have a say on that."

I take her hands "I can't stand to lose you or Rose so it's best if you stay safe."

"I am going." she starts to get really annoyed

"I am going too." Rose says walking into the kitchen

I look at Mia then at Rose and they both put their hands on their hips standing next to each other. I sigh and straightened up "Fine you can come with me. We leave in 20 minutes." They quickly walk to their rooms and I yell down the hall "NO BAGS JUST PACK THINGS YOU ARE CARRYING ON YOURSELF!" I walk to the coffee table and pull out a small Glock 19 and 3 mags of bullets putting them in my pockets and putting the gun in my holster. I then grab my push knifes and put them in their sheth and on my belt. Mia walks out first and she is in a tee shirt with a light jacket over it and jeans. Rose comes out after her and she is in almost the same thing. They look at me and I smile motioning to the door "Let's get going we are wasting time."

We walk out and go around the back of the apartment complex into a thicket of trees. Mia gets on my back and I get ready to fly with Rose and we take off turning west towards the destination where "Fang's Blog" is.

As we approach the area where the blog is coming from and Rose and I gradually descend. We find this house on the edge of the cliff. It was night so it was dark and hard to see anything else so we flew for the lights coming from the house. As we land I grab Mia in my arms without waking her up as she fell asleep during the ride. I walk up to the door without folding my wings away. Rose steps up and knocks on the door. The comtion inside goes quiet; apparently they didn't expect visitors in the area. After a while the door slowly opens and a brown eye, some blond hair and white skin pokes out from the crack. The person immediately sees our wings and closes the door. More commotion goes on and it slowly dissipates and this time the door is opened again slowly but fully showing a different person. A man just a bit shorter than me with white skin, black eyes and black wings and hair. He motions for us to come in and I look to Rose and slowly walk in first moving gently to not wake up Mia but the door is slammed behind me and she jumps waking up. She looks up and me then towards the other people then covers her mouth and stands up. She starts to walk to the woman but the guy who opened the door puts and arm over her and I quickly pull one of my knifes putting it up to him.

"Let go of her." I mutter quietly to him

"Get her back from the her." He mutters to me

I nod using my other hand to take Mia's shoulder and pulling her back and slowly back off putting away my knife. For a moment everyone is silent and looking at each other tentatively then there is shuffled footsteps coming from the hallway the two were standing in front as a small girl no more than 9 years old comes out between them.

She stops when she sees me, Rose and Mia and then breaks the silence saying "Who are you?" I look to Mia and Rose but they don't react and the small girl says "Don't look to them they can't hear our conversation. Don't say anything just think of your responses."

I nod lightly and think "Um...Hello I'm John. I'm very similar to all of you."

"How?" She says cutting me off "Show me how you are similar."

I slowly open my wings and her eyes light up and I say "I've come to help you."

She tugs on the woman's arm and she looks at her. In silence they communicate and I inch towards Mia whispering "That small girl has telepathy."

She whispers back to me "What does that mean."

I respond "She can communicate with her mind." After I finish my sentence the woman rushes over and hugs me tightly

Mia jumps and the man pipes up saying "Max what are you doing?"

The woman let's go of me and looks to the small girl "Angel tell Fang who he is." She then turns to me and talks to me "So your John right."

I nod and back up a little bit "Yeah I'm John and…"

She looks at Rose and Mia "Who are these people that came with you?"

"This is Mia." I say pointing to Mia "and this is Rose." I then point at Rose

She smiles brightly and looks back at me "How do you find them. They both like us?"

I respond "Well Rose is my sister so she is like you but Mia is my girlfriend and she isn't like you, but she isn't with The School. She actually helped me save my sister."

She nods and I look at the small girl and she is intensely staring at Rose then she pulls on the guy's arm whispering something. He looks up at me and says "What's special with her" he points at Rose "Angel can't see into her mind."

"Oh Rose's has a special ability that blocks other powers." I respond as the woman goes to Mia and talk with her, "So what's is everyone name here."

The woman gets up "Oh we'll worry about it later you seems absolutely exhausted you should probably sleep for tonight. We were just about to do lights out anyways."

I look and Mia and we both shrug and I turn to the woman "Sure we'll just lay down in here and if your boyfriend here doesn't feel safe with us he can watch over us tonight."

The woman goes red all the way to her ears and she walks over to me punching my gut hard but I don't react and she shakes her hand "You're lucky you have a hard gut."

I laugh lightly and the guy shoots me a death look "Ok I'm just going to go to sleep now"

The small girl comes out with three blankets and hands them to me saying "Here it gets really cold in here throughout the night."

I nod and pass out the blankets to everyone and the woman and the small girl walks back the hallway and the guy takes a pillow putting on the back of a chair and sits down watching us. I pull off my shirt and lay down and Mia walks over and lays down next to me. Rose goes over to the other couch. We all fall asleep fast and stay out.

I wake up to Mia screaming and I look around and I see 4 people consisting of the woman, the small girl from last night, a small boy with brown hair and blue eyes no older than the small girl and a black girl with black hair and hazel eyes that looked about 13 years old standing over us chattering loudly and I sit up a bit "Hey give us some space we just barely woke up."

They quickly back off and I grab my shirt slipping it on and Mia gets up look at every one. I quickly look to see Rose wasn't where she was last night and I start to panic looking around and I say "Rose where are you?"

The black girl speaks up "Oh she woke up a little bit ago and went to the bathroom she is in there now."

I stand up and the small girl leads me to the bathroom and I knock lightly "Rose? You in there?"

There is a small voice that comes from inside "Yeah big brother I'm in here. Can you come in?"

I slowly open the door and I see Rose is in the shower with the curtain almost all the way drawn and she looks at me scared. I close the door and slowly walk to them "Are you scared?" she nods and I walk over holding out my arms "Come here I'll help you." she walk over slowly and I hug her "I know you're in a different place but it's ok. It's a safe place."

She giggles lightly "No that's not why I'm afraid. Those people were standing over me when I woke up."

"Oh yeah they were standing over me too. I know that's a bit scary."

"And that other guy is also kinda scary."

"Yeah but we'll get along with him soon enough. I think he just doesn't like me because I can take him down."

She looks up at me "You're not going to do that right?"

I nod "Not if I don't have to."

She lets go of me and smiles "Ok I think I'm ready to go out now."

I nod and walk her out and she walk over to the living room and I see that there is a new face there. Another guy that looks about 15 years old and has orange hair and his eyes are closed. I walk over and say "Hello who are you?"

He faces towards me and says "Who are you your don't sound familiar. Tell me who you are right now."

I back up a bit "Umm I'm John. Who are you?"

He faces towards the woman and he says "Who is John? Should I trust him?"

She laughs "Yes Iggy he can be trusted. He came in last night with his sister and girlfriend and he wants to help us with The School."

He faces me again and puts out his hand but it's quite off "Hello John I'm Iggy."

I move his hand towards me and shake it "I'm over here."

He laughs lightly "You see I'm blind so I don't know exactly where you stand."

I smile "Good to know."

I walk over to the woman from last night and tap her shoulder "Hello who are you?"

The woman spins around and smiles "I'm Max. I'm the leader of the flock."

I turn and walk over to the small girl and I look at her thinking "So what's your name."

She looks around and then looks at me smiling "Well I'm Angel. Nice to meet you." she says to me

I then feel my knives coming out of their respective sheaths so I spin around expecting someone to be pickpocketing me but the knives fly over and stick the the black girl's hands and she jumps and says "Whoa this guy is prepared." and the knives drop to the floor

I walk over picking them up and putting them back "and who might you be" I ask her as I put away my knives

She smiles "I'm Nudge and I'm 11 years old. Some people call me Monique but I prefer Nudge and if you had to ask between Max and…"

I grab her lips closing them "No no Nudge I'm not going to ask about that I just wanted to know your name."

She pushes my hand away and laughs lightly "Sorry I'm a bit of a blabber mouth"

I nod "I noticed." I walk over to the small boy crouching down "Hello who are you?"

He looks to me and smiles and perfectly mimics my voice saying "Hello who are you?"

I look at him for a little bit then I say "Well I asked you first."

He repeats me again saying "Well I asked you first" then Angel walks up and says "Gazzy stop messing with him." He laughs in his own voice and says "Hello I'm Gazzy. What's your name."

I smile and laugh lightly "Well I'm John. What's that you did earlier?"

He smiles and says in my voice "What are you talking about?"

I laugh "That. How do you do that."

He laughs "I can make very convincing impressions."

I laugh and get up walking over to the guy standing silently in the corner and standing in front of him "Hello who are you?"

He gives me a death look and grumbles "I'm Fang, don't mess me or the flock and we won't have any problems."

I nod "Ok just don't mess with Rose or Mia." I turn around and look around as everyone starts to quiet down and sit in the couches so I sit down as well. Max and Fang walk over and stand in front of us. Fang takes a step back as Max step forwards and says "Well as you all know we have new members to the flock. John, Mia and Rose. They are here to help us take down The School. So do remember that The School is still hot on our trail so we have to be on guard all the time so stay alert."

Max looks to Fang and he steps forwards "Don't trust anyone you meet. Erasers can be anyone and they can be anywhere. Stay on guard and you'll be fine."

Max grabs Fang's shoulder and whispers "Fang Mia is fine we don't have to worry about her."

He whispers back "How do we know though."

Max steps forwards "That's it for now so if we want to start breakfast you can do it. Me and Fang will be back in just a minute."

I stand up "I can cook pretty well if you want me to cook."

They all look at me as if they are contemplating their response then Angel speaks up "Yeah you can cook if you want to."

I smile and walk into the kitchen area and I turn on the stove getting a large pan and going into the fridge to get eggs, cheese and other ingredients for omelets. Everyone disperses around the house. Iggy going with Gazzy, Rose going with Angel and Nudge and Mia staying in the living room. After a while Max comes back in Fang following close behind her and she smiles at me saying "Did the flock make you cook?"

I laugh lightly and shake my head "No I offered to cook for today."

Nudge pulls on Max's arm and whispers something to her and she looks back at me a little surprised then turns to me "You've seen a lot have you?"

I turn to her confused "What do you mean I've seen a lot?"

She sighs "In your past, you seen a lot of stuff you shouldn't have seen when you were young."

My face melts into a frown and I turn around again "Yeah how did you guess?"

She stays still and remarks "Nudge can sense leftover emotions like stress, scarring, or paranoia. She sensed all three of those in you. You wanna tell me about it or are you trying to push it away."

I shake my head "If you really want to know talk to someone else. I'm not going to talk about it myself."

Some grease from the bacon I was cooking pops and lands on my arm and I wince lightly wiping it off. Max and Fang walk off with Nudge and Mia walks over and hugs me from behind saying "Sorry I had to tell Nudge. It's going to make them trust and feel to us more. It's ok if you don't want me to talk about it anymore."

I shake my head "You can talk about it but I'm not going to talk about it."

The bacon pops again this time landing on Mia and she winces and whines "Oww that burns." I smile and turn around kissing where the grease landed and she smiles "Thank you John it's all better now."

I smile and turn off the bacon as it was cooked and put them on a plate then finishing the omelets putting them on plates as well. I look around and see a bell. I ring it and soon everyone is in the dining room and sitting at the table. I take the plates over and they immediately start to eat fast. Max looks up and smiles and lips thanks to me. I smile and sit down next to Mia and start to eat myself. After we finish Fang pulls me aside and hands me a paper.

"If you're going to live here then you can pull around some chores. This is a simple list on what needs to be done. Tiles are in the basement and vacuum is in the closet behind you."

I nod and look at the list. It wasn't a big one. It read "Vacuum the living room. Wash the dishes. Pull the weeds in the garden. Fix the roof tiles that are broken." I start to walk out to the basement to get the tiles for the roof. As I walk down the door for the basement is closed and locked behind me. I quickly start to panic as I start to beat and pound on the basement door. I try to yell for help but no one seems to hear me and I keep slamming on the door. I sigh and back up a bit pulling out my gun and I knock on the door trying to find the lock. I find where it is and aim at it shooting the lock off and opening the door. Soon Max, Mia and Gazzy are there and I look around. I'm very pissed and say "Where the hell if Fang. He has to be in on this." I start to stomp off but Mia grabs my arm

"No John it may not be him. Don't go and hurt him. He is very looked up to in this flock." she whispers to me

"But he has despised me ever since we have got here. He must been trying to lock me away so there is one less threat to him." I whisper back to her

Max then pipes up and says "If he didn't want you here he would've never opened the door for you in the first place."

I turn to her and I spot something on the roof. It wasn't any of the flock and it jumps down and stands up. A rather large person with a head of a wolf and fur running down its arms and legs.

"ERASERS!" Gazzy and Max yells as they start to run away

I only back up a bit and get ready to fight and Mia pulls on my arm "You're really not thinking about fighting this thing right?!"

I nod "I'm fighting it. Now get back I don't want you to get hurt."

As she runs off the Eraser charges me and I tackle it giving Mia enough time to run away. I back up and the Eraser gets up and gets ready to charge again. Now was my chance. It's starts to run at me and I quickly pull my gun shooting 3 rounds. 2 in the chest and 1 in the head. If falls dead at my feet. Just then Fang flies in doing a dive kick and kicks me down. The hit was hard enough to knock me out. When I wake up I groan looking around. The first thing I see is Mia standing next to me. I look around some more and I see Max and Iggy holding cold packs. I see Fang in the corner sitting quietly with the same look on his face. I sit up and hold my head saying "I did get that Eraser thing right?"

Mia and Max laugh lightly "Yeah you did but you got him so fast that Fang accidentally dive kicked you instead of the Eraser."

I look over to him then look away "It's fine" then I say under my breath "It probably wasn't an accident." I take a cold pack and put it on my head "Did anyone else get hurt at all? Where is Rose?"

Mia puts her finger on my lip to shush me "Shh. Everything is fine. Rose is with Angel and everyone is fine."

I smile lightly and put the cold pack down "Ok then I'll just get back to work then."

I start to get up but they push me back down and Mia says "You took a pretty hard hit. Relax for a little bit. Trust me you don't want to start working right now."

I sigh and stay down "But there is work to be done. Someone has to do it."

Fang gets up and says "I'll take your chores for today. You did protect the flock after all."

I nod and lay back down "Ok then I'll rest for a little bit but when I'm ready I'll be helping you where I can." I put a cold pack over my eyes and slowly fall back asleep

I wake up to a wallet being thrown onto my chest. I look and I see Fang standing there "Fly down to the convenience store and get any sort of liquor."

I sit up "You aren't sending me so you get drunk?"

He shakes his head "No I want to make molotov cocktails. Now go, now."

I stand up and walk to the door "The door better be unlocked when I get back." I walk out and start a quick flight down the the nearby convenience store

I get there and it seems to be under a robbery so I quickly pull out my knives and walk in ready. As I walk in someone grabs my shirt and pull me in putting me against him and pointing a gun at the cashier yelling "PUT THE MONEY IN THE BAG OR THIS GUY GETS IT!"

He looks at me and I smile saying "Yippy Kaye mother effer." and I grab his gun putting it to my shoulder and shooting it making the bullet travel through me and shoot his heart. He drops and I hold my shoulder lightly. I walk up to the cashier and smile saying "3 bottles of liquor." He looks like he is almost going to faint then he hands me the bottles and I walk out and start to fly again. I get home and I hand the bottles to Fang and sit down still holding my shoulder. Just then Mia and Max walks in and Mia gasps.

She runs over to me and holds my shoulder "What happened to you? How did this happen to you?" She looks up at Fang "WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING HIM?!"

I put my hand on her shoulder "Well you see I went out to run an arrend and the place I went to was getting robbed. The person who was doing to robbery grabbed me and used me as a hostage. I took his gun and shot it through my shoulder taking him down. Then I finished the arrend. Fang hasn't seen my shoulder and that's why he hasn't helped yet."

Max comes up with a medkit and opens it up "Here we need to treat that." She slowly moves my hand out of the way and grabs out some cotton and bandages "Luckily it went clean through without breaking any bones."

I clench my fist and wince lightly "Careful now you don't want to rip the wound any further open."

Mia sits on the couch with me and puts her head on my shoulder "You know John you shouldn't do that too often. You're going really hurt yourself some time."

I look to her "Well I didn't really have a choice at that time."

Max finishes filling my wound and pulls out scissors cutting my sleeve open so she can bandage it "I'm almost done." After she finishes bandaging me she puts everything away and closes the kit standing up and walking off

Mia kisses my cheek and walks with Max back down the hall and I look at Fang "What are they doing?"

Fang shrugs and start to make the molotov cocktails staying silent

I slowly get up and start to walk down the hall and I hear them giggling in what I think is Max's room. I lean against the door and I hear Nudge, Mia and Max in there.

"You see how similar Fang and John are." Max says

"Really they are similar how?" Mia replies

"Oh yeah Fang is almost exactly like John. All dark and mysterious. Always seeming like they are hiding something. They are strong and will look death straight in the eyes with a smile. They always seem to want to do hand to hand combat and they are really good with stealth. They both don't need weapons to fight either but they rather have one to give them the advantage, and most importantly they both are leaders but think there can only be one." Nudge says

"And how he can't leave you alone whatsoever." Max says to Mia

"Well I honestly kinda like that." Mia says giggling

Max laughs "Yeah I just wish that I can say something more to Fang about this but I don't want to tear apart the flock if he doesn't like me."

Nudge gasps "I knew it! You love Fang! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it."

I suddenly sense Angel coming down the hallway so I start to walk towards her and back to the living room. As I pass her I see Rose and I smile knowing she is safe.

Angel turns around and says "Eavesdropping isn't nice. You shouldn't do it."

I walk back and go into the kitchen standing next to Fang "I'm going to start making dinner. So can you move your stuff just a bit over as I cook."

He silently complies and continues making the weapons quickly finishing the task and grabbing them putting them away.

I start to cook some patty melts and soon everyone is in the same room smelling the air. I finish soon and put them on the plates and I sit down as they start to eat. Mia sits next to me and starts to eat as well. After we all finish eating everyone disperses to their rooms.

Rose pulls on my arm to get my attention saying "Big brother I'm going to sleep in Angel's room tonight ok?"

I smile and nod "Yeah ok just holler if you need someone to comfort you."

Mia then pulls on my other arm and whispers to me "I'm going to sleep with Max tonight."

I look to her and nod again "I'll just be out here. On the couch. All by myself." She hits my shoulder and we laugh lightly

They all move to the rooms and I lay on the couch again and once again Fang sits down in the chair and watches me. We soon fall asleep and as we slept Splinter Cell Erasers infiltrated the house and kidnapped me and Fang.

Chapter 7

Unexpected Start

I wake up in a large cage and I get up. I look around seeing if I can't see anyone. I see across from me is Fang. He is sitting at his cage working on his cage lock. He suddenly stops as an Eraser walks by. I look at him and smile lightly seeing that the Eraser that walked by had the keys for the cages. He looks at me and he shakes his head whispering "Don't you think of doing it."

I ignore him and whistle. The guard walks over and growls at me saying "Hey be quiet." Then he walks off so I whistle again and he walks back over saying more angrily "You need to shut your trap." He once again walks off so I whistle one more time. The Eraser changes into his human form and grabs an electric fly swatter and walking over to the cage. He stands in front of my cage and I quickly reach out and grab his head slamming it on the bars and he falls over knocked out. I move his body and grab the keys. I start to try every key until my cage unlocks. I open it and walk over to Fang's cage and unlock his "I can trust that you're going to help me right."

He gets out and sigh "Yeah whatever. Let's just get to somewhere we can get comunication. We are going to start our assault."

"Hey 4423 what's your status. You know that you must stay on coms at all times." the sleeping Eraser's radio speaks out

Fang quickly grabs it and tosses it to me and I try my best to impersonate the Eraser and say "Yeah sorry one of the people were being noisey."

Apparently I didn't make a good enough impression and he says "Who the hell is this and where is 4423."

Fang motions me on and I say "Oh this 4254. 4423 went to go use the bathroom."

The guy on the radio sighs and says "Ok but when 4423 get's back tell him to send 425f and 734d to the testing room ASAP."

Fang takes the radio and sets it on the counter and grabs my arm "Nice going hot shot."

I reply with "Hey at least I didn't set off the alarms."

"Let's just get out of here."

"Hold on." I grab my stuff in a box and take out my phone taking a picture of a map "Coms center is on floor 4."

"And where are we?"

I look at the map for a second "In basement 2, and the elevator doesn't go all the way up."

He sighs "I'm not going to fit in air vents so we are going to have to make our way around."

I nod "Grab a weapon so we can fight if needs be."

He looks around and grabs the sleeping Eraser's pistol then he nods at me putting it away. We make our way out of the caged area and it seemed pretty empty. We make our way out to the hallway and it was also very empty. I look to him and he shrugs. I pull out my gun and slowly make my way down the hallway. Suddenly the alarms go off and we hear people coming down the hallway. We quickly go into cover but they corner the bend before Fang gets in cover but a whole platoon of Erasers run right past us. We look at each other strangely and he shrugs. Then the loud speaker comes on and says "All Erasers please report to the front entrance to fight off the infantry."

Fang looks at me and I smile and say "Well it seems like Max is 1 step ahead of us. Let's go."

We start to run down the hall until we find an open courtyard. We both quickly fly up and look around in the air. I point out Max and Nudge and we go to fly over.

Max immediately flies past me to Fang hugging him and I look around more. I see Nudge dropping a molotov while flying by and I see Gazzy on the ground fighting off a few normal guards. I keep whipping around and I see Angel flying around a large crowd seemingly rallying them telepathically. I look around a bit more and back at Gazzy and I see Rose now there helping out Gazzy.

"Great she is fine. Now where is Mia?" I whisper to myself

I swoop down to the crowd and I immediately hear Angels rally cry "Down with The School! Down with The School!"

I move through the crowd and I find you. I take you by the shoulders with my wings open and ask you when you face me "Have you seen an 18 year old woman with straight brown hair and light blue eyes. She could've been flying over head."

"Yeah I did see her. She was being carried on the back of a guy with orange hair in the air." you respond "They went inside for some reason."

I pat your shoulder and smile "Thank you. DOWN WITH THE SCHOOL!"

"DOWN WITH THE SCHOOL!" you reply as you go back to rallying

I hop back up and fly back into now The burning School. I run down the hallway looking for Mia and a few Erasers show up. I dive into cover and quickly shoot them down moving on. I quickly get back to the jail room and I see Iggy and Mia in the room looking for me and Fang.

"Looking for me." I say and they both spin around

"John!" Mia says as she runs over and hugs me

As that happens a gas pipe explodes sending fire over the exit and I say "We need to run through the fire."

She looks at me "ARE YOU CRAZY WE'LL GET BURNED!"

I look back at her "Not if we go fast enough." I turn to Iggy "Iggy back up enough to get a good speeding start towards the door."

He does so and I pick Mia up walking back behind Iggy "Iggy go." Iggy runs straight for the fire and get's off the ground opening his wings and flying right through it. I take Mia and start to run doing the same thing and we make it through unscaved. Mia hugs me and I let her go saying "Told you we wouldn't get burned."

She giggles "Except for your on fire."

I smile "I know I am."

She sighs and starts to pat my shoulder that had a fire on it "No you're literally on fire."

I laugh lightly as I put it out "Oh well I guess I am. Now come on this place is falling down." I pick her up again and lead Iggy to the court yard flying over to Max

She looks at me and says "Oh you found Mia and Iggy."

I point down at The School "We gotta go this place is going to fall down at any minute now."

She nods and makes a loud whistle and Gazzy, Rose, Angel and Nudge all stop and look up. Max beacons them over and they all fly over. Soon the whole mob starts to throw their own molotovs and rocks.

When everyone regroups Max says "Come on it's time to go."

Chapter 8

Aftermath

Tack, Tack, Tack, Tack, Tack. We all land and quickly go inside some of us falling to the couches and others going to their rooms. I set Mia down and she goes and sits on the couch. I decide to take a shower. I go into the shower taking off my shirt. I see a mirror so I take a long look. I've noticed that I've definitely changed. I inspect each of my wounds starting from the head down. I first notice a small cut on the right side of my face near my eye. I try to remember what happened and it flashes, I was in the prison room with Mia and Iggy when a gas pipe exploded and a bit of shrapnel cut me. I move on and see another cut on my left cheek and I remember in the school when I took out those guards after escaping the torturer. I notice a superficial burn on my right shoulder and I laugh lightly because that's when I went through the exploded gas line and my shirt caught fire. I see a new shot scar from being a hostage during a store robbery. I look to my ribs and see it was bruised. I remember my first fight with an Eraser. There was a knock on the door.

"John are you in there?" I hear Max on the other side of the door

"Yeah what do you need?" I call back to her

"Can I come in?" She responds

I grabbed my shirt and quickly put it back on "Umm...sure yeah come in."

She opens the door and walks in closing it behind her "I want to thank you for saving Fang and Iggy. I don't know what would've happened if you weren't there."

I smile lightly "Well I gotta do something to help this group. I couldn't just sit there and watch them all do this for nothing."

She blushes and gets a bit closer "Do you really love Mia?" Her voice changes it's a bit quieter and seemingly trying to seduce me

I back up a bit and lean on the sink "Yeah. Why would you ask that?"

"Even though there is a lot different between you two." She keeps advancing and lightly touches my arm

"What are you trying to get at?" I say a bit desperately

"I'm trying to say that you should ditch the normal girl and pay attention to me." She says pulling herself closer to me

I slip around her and exit the bathroom "No I will not."

Mia hears this and walks over seemingly confused "You will not do what John."

Max comes out "He want's to trade in for a better model."

Mia looks at me in shock "John please tell me this isn't true." Her eyes start to well with tears

"No this…" I say looking between them

"Oh no it's true. He tried to kiss me in the bathroom." Max says with a mischievous smirk

Mia starts to pound on my arm screaming "You are such a snake. I thought you loved me."

"Mia I do. I don't…." I say before getting cut off again

"You know you loved me since the first time you saw me." Max says almost laughing

Everyone starts to walk out of their rooms to watch and Fang seems a bit close seeming ready to jump in.

"So who is it going to be." Max says putting her hands on her hips

My head starts to spin. This was making no sense. I start to think "No this is a trick. Max loves Fang. Maybe it isn't. Maybe she is actually wanting to break me and Mia up. No I won't allow this."

"I choose Mia. She has stood by me this entire time and you're not going to do this to her." I say taking Mia's arm

Mia looks up at me tears still running down her face and Max growls lightly saying "You seriously don't think I'm better than her." She opens her wings "Mia can't do this and you know she never would be able to."

I hold Mia's arm firmly "And that's what makes her special to me. She accepts that I'm a freak show. She knows me better than you would ever would."

Mia goes to rush Mia down and I put Mia behind me but Fang bolts forwards grabbing Max's arm saying "Max stop."

She turns to her and looks at him "What Fang. Don't you want to see me happy."

He frown and growls lightly but then sighs lightly and looks away saying "Not unless it's with me."

She looks to Mia who is peeking out from my back and Max smiles. I look at Mia and she smiles as well. Max then turns to Fang and pulls him closer kissing him then saying "I knew you loved me."

I look shocked as I look between both Mia and Max then I say "This was all staged?"

Mia laughs "Yeah it was. Max never fell in love with you she just wanted Fang to confess his love for her."

I turn to Mia "And you used ME for bait?"

Her laugh slowly fades away "Well um yeah because you were the best candidate. We couldn't use Iggy because he doesn't have a girlfriend so it would be easy for him to say yes. You were the only one with a love and likewise you would've said no. Which you did so it also shows that you truly do love me."

I let go of her arm and start to storm off "Great thanks. You know I really thought we were going to need to leave."

Mia and Max see me storming off and go to grab me but I pull out of their grips and Mia shouts "We didn't mean to hurt you." then she whispers "I'm sorry."

I go outside and look around I grab a log of wood and toss it far off then I go on the roof sitting down and burning off steam. I sit there for quite a while then Max comes out going up to the roof and setting a plate of food next to me. I grumble lightly and don't take the plate.

"You know, I'm really sorry but we couldn't tell you or you probably wouldn't have acted good enough to make Fang confess. I'm very sorry that we didn't warn you before." Max says softly

"I already knew that you loved Fang. I overheard it." I grumble turning a bit

Max drops down and she speaks with Fang quietly then he comes up "Hey get up."

I look at him "Don't you mess with me Fang. I will end you."

"No get up. Let's fly." He says opening his wings

I sigh and get up opening my wings "Fine we will fly."

We start to fly and he sighs lightly "Hey I'm not too happy that she staged that either."

"But at least you weren't used as bait." I respond hotly

"I know you got the short end of the stick. I never thought that she would ever do that." He says still calm

"Me either." I sigh lightly calming down a bit "You know. If I didn't have Mia then I would've said Max but I couldn't hurt Mia like that."

He sighs as well "Yeah she is a total badass."

I laugh lightly "Yeah and very beautiful."

"She is very strong mentally and physically as well."

"But that's why she is yours. I have Mia and you love Max."

We fly back over and I go inside sitting on the couch and Mia walks over to me and sits down "John are you still mad at me?"

I shake my head "No I couldn't still be mad at you. You were just trying to help Max."

She smiles and takes my arm "You know that you're not a freak show. At least not in my eyes."

I nod lightly "Yeah but with others they are not all that much the same."

There was a knock on the door and we all quickly go quiet but Max pipes up "Oh yeah the pizza. I ordered some for us."

Fang sighs lightly then smiles "Pizza does sound good."

Max opens the door and takes the pizza paying the pizza guy. She sets it on the table and opens it up. Immediately the smell of pizza fills the air and we all smile lightly.

I take a closer look at it and I see something peculiar in the pizza. It was a clock connected to a bomb "BOMB!" I yell unfolding my wings turning around and getting everyone I can behind my wings. The bomb explodes big and throws us all away. For a while all I hear is a ringing and I see darkness. People start to cough and debris move around.

"Is everyone alright?" Max says but I can barely hear her so I don't respond

"I'm good." Iggy says

"Me too." Nudge says and she is close to Iggy

"I'm fine." Fang says sounding close to Max

"I'm Ok." Angel's small voice says

"I'm good." Gazzy says next to Angel

"I'm alright." Rose says "Just very dusty."

"I'm good." Mia says sounding the closest to me "Where is John?"

I start to push debris off my body and I grunt out "I feel fine."

Mia quickly goes to me and she communicates with someone but I can't seem to hear it. Fang and Max walk over and grab a large support beam and they lift if up with Mia moving it away. I feel a large weight relieved from my chest and I take a deep breath of dust soon coughing like the others. Mia kneels next to me and holds my head.

"John please tell me you're ok." she says and I barely hear it

I nod lightly and say "Yeah I'm good."

She plugs one of her ears because apparently I was talking loudly then she runs her fingers through my hair and she lips thank you

I sit up and wince lightly holding my rib "Yeah I'm fine just seems to be a bruised rib."

Fang comes out of his pile of rubble "We need to go. Erasers are going to be coming for us soon."

Everyone gets out and eventually start to fly off. We fly for quite a while. Long enough that Mia fell asleep on my back.

I look to Max and she says "How do you feel? You need me to take Mia?"

I shake my head "No I'm good. Mia seems to know who she is sleeping on."

She smiles and nods "Yeah I guess she can. Just tell me if you need some help."

I keep flying until Max points down at a city park "We will sleep there for tonight. Remember stay low and stay quiet. We don't want anyone recognizing us."

We all nod and one by one go down to a secluded part of the park and we all regroup and look around and I smile piping up "We can sleep in the trees. I'll take first watch."

Mia looks at me "Why do we need to take watches?"

"Well that bombing couldn't have been just random The Erasers must've known that we were there. They could still be hot on our trail."

"Oh I see. So you are going to take watch then go to sleep later?" Mia responds

A helicopter slowly comes down and I quickly pull my gun pointing at the landing helicopter. As it lands many soldiers drop off and immediately point M4A1 at us and yell at me saying "PUT THE GUN DOWN! PUT IT DOWN!"

I look at all them then slowly drop my gun putting my hands up. A scientist comes out of the helicopter. Max quickly runs over to the scientist and hugs him saying "Jeb oh thank god it's you."

The rest of the flock walks over to them and the soldiers advance on Mia, Rose and me. They put us on our knees and cuff us. The soldiers nod to the scientist and Max looks up at him "Jeb uncuff them. They are with us."

He waves them on quickly and I get up grabbing my gun and putting it away. We all walk over to the scientist and he says "Hello I'm Dr. Jeb Batchelder. I would love to talk right now but your attack on The School has caused riots all over the world we need to go somewhere more safe. Come on everyone in the helicopter."

We all get the helicopter and we take off flying towards the eastern coast. As we fly I put the headset on and talk with Jeb saying "So who are you now?"

Jeb responds saying "I was a scientist at The School. I made these people right here but I felt sympathetic to them and broke them out of The School. I lived with them for a while so they learned how to survive and defend themselves. I also fed them info about The School but I never thought they would do this. Now who are you?"

"I'm John and I come with my sister Rose and my girlfriend Mia. Me and Rose were kidnaped by The School early in our lives and done the horrible things that happened there. We broke out and we live out here now."

One of the soldiers come on and show me a laptop of news channels and all of them have the top story of many people rioting against the government as the soldier says "Your revolt at The School prompted the revolt of government around the world. So we need to take you somewhere safe. We have more plans for you."

I respond giving the laptop back with "What do you have planned for us?"

Jeb looks at me "We'll talk about it later. Right now just give the headset to Max and sit back and relax."

I do so and Mia slips her hand into mine yelling to me "What did he say?"

"Oh nothing much. Just that our revolt sparked a revolt around the world." I yell back to her

"Oh really that's really big. I didn't know we made that much of a difference."

"Yeah but now the world has gone into chaos. We need to do something to fix it."

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know but we are going somewhere safe for us. Wherever that is."

She puts her head on my shoulder and sighs lightly "And we get to be safe once again."

I lay back and slowly fall asleep.

Chapter 9

New start

There was a shake on my shoulder. I slowly wake up and see Mia is shaking me.

"John come on Jeb says we need to hurry." She says to me

I get up and get out of the helicopter and I see the soldiers have set up a perimeter and the flock are getting on a boat. I go to get on the boat and I hear a mob coming and a bullet whizzes past me.

One of the soldiers yell "LIGHT 'EM UP" and they fire on the crowd

I quickly pull Mia in front of me and rush to the boat and the soldiers fall back to the boat and we take off.

"What the hell is that!" Mia scream

I sigh lightly "I guess that's the world falling apart." I walk toward the middle of the boat slowly

"The world doing what?!" Mia says quickly walking to catch up with me

"The world is falling into mass…" I say before getting cut off by a big beefy guy in a black uniform and he stares at me

"Sir please come with me." He says not budging so I start to walk and Mia walks behind me closely "Alone."

I look back at Mia and sigh lightly turning to her "I'll be right back and I'll answer any questions you have afterward ok?"

"Without any question unlike before?"

"Without any question." I confirm so she nod and I turn to the man in the uniform "Lead the way cap."

He leads me inside of the boat and to a small room with a large table in the middle and a white board on the wall. Sitting at the table is Max and a few guards and CIA agents. I sit down and look around giving some strange looks.

"What's going on." I say and Max shrugs towards me

The man in the suit comes up to a white board and sets down a pocket projector and sets it on the table turning it on saying "As you know your uprise on The School has caused people that they call themselves 'The Flock' to uprise against all of the government. No less than 1,000,000 people in each country are fighting a bloody war right now."

The projector shows many different news feeds of riots breaking out and Max pipes up and says in a sarcastic tone "So you going to kill us all?"

He stares dead at her into her eyes "Yes yes we are." We sit there in silence for a bit then the man in the uniform laughs "No just kidding your not going to get killed."

I sigh lightly pulling my hand away from my gun and i sit up "So what do you plan for us to do?"

He looks to me then frowns "For now nothing but later after everything has died down we are going to need some new government."

Max sits up and says "You're not planning making one of us the president are you?"

The man shakes his head "No the world is in too much chaos to have just a president. We need a king and queen."

I stand up sending my chair falling back "Count me out. You go talk with Fang. I'm not going to become a king of the world."

I start to walk out and the man says "Well if you change your mind then just call for Lieutenant Hut."

I walk out and Mia is standing right next to the door and she jumps onto my arm "So what is going on?"

I smile "Let's go sit down first."

She frowns "You said no question."

I poke her nose "Yeah that wasn't a question but it's a long story so we need to sit down."

She sighs and nod and we go into a room that was empty and we sit down and I sigh saying "So when we took down The School it sparked an uprising of all governments around the world. Any country that has internet when ballistic."

"So why did that big dude in a suit take you to a back room?"

"Well for now we are going to let this go down but then after we need to establish leadership again. It won't work to have just a president they wanted a king and queen. They want Max to be the queen and me to be the king."

Her mouth drops open "And you didn't take it?" I nod to her question "WHY DIDN'T YOU DO IT YOU IDIOT?!"

I smile and kiss her softly "Because you're my queen."

She covers her face as she blushes brightly "O-o-oh yeah that's right."

I laugh and say "Is there anything else you want to know," I then yawn "because I'm getting a bit tired. It's been a long trip."

She shakes her head and I lay down on the bed rolling over. She climbs in bed with me and we fall asleep.

Chapter 10

Colder Times

The air started to get colder the further we went. I was sitting at the edge of the boat with a fishing line off the edge. I look around a bit and say to myself "I wonder where Mia has gone off to."

I hadn't seen Mia since this morning so I get up and walk around a bit and I find Nudge sitting in the hallway next to a metal door. I sit next to her and ask "Hey do you know where Mia went off to?"

She nods and perks up saying "Oh I saw her go off with Jeb. They did say something but I couldn't catch what they said. They went down the the bottom floor."

I nod and stand up walk over to the stairs and lightly jogging down to the bottom floor about 2 stories down. I reach a long hallway and I see a few guards resting and I approach one of them saying "Do you know where Jeb and Mia went?"

The guard simply points down the hallway and I see Mia in a wheelchair being carted to another room. I quickly think that there is something is wrong and I quickly make my way down the hall pulling out my gun along the way. When I get to the room Mia is sitting on a bed pulling down her shirt and her eyes go wide "John this is not what you think," she gets up and slowly walks to me taking the muzzle of the gun "So just put the gun down and we will talk about what's going on in a calm and professional manner."

I slowly let go of the gun and Mia takes it backing up and sitting down then gesturing to a nearby chair and as I sit down I ask "Ok what is going on and why are you pulling down your shirt with Jeb in the room."

Jeb stands up but she gestures for him to stop and she stands up. Jeb takes scissors and puts two large slits down the back of her shirt as she says "This was all my choice. I wanted to be more like you so I could understand you better so I did this." She says and she slowly opens up some grey wings and I practically fall over at first but then I spring up and get furious as I try to rush Jeb but Mia steps and stops me. I wince a bit and hold my chest where she put her hands "I asked him to do this."

"Trust me I didn't want to do it but she just didn't stop until I agreed to do so." Jeb pipes in

I walk over to Mia and put my arms around her back touching her wings lightly "I liked you just the way you were. Why would you change yourself?"

"I wanted to know how it feels to have wings just like you." She whispers to me tears welling up in her eyes "I'm sorry if you don't like it. I could get them clipped if you want me to."

I shake my head "No keep them. You made your choice and honestly I want to see how much of a badass you can be with…" I get cut off as alarms go off "What's that"

Jeb grabs a radio and tosses it to me "You find out"

I take the radio and say "What the hell is going on up there."

"Sir there are Erasers on the top deck, requesting immediate backup. How copy?" The radio says

"I copy clearly. Your backup is coming ETA 5 minutes." I drop the radio and take my gun "Come on Mia it's time for you to get into your first fight."

We both leave the room and get to the staircase and I start to run up but Mia tries to fly up stalls and falls back down and I yell "You can't fly upwards for too long."

She nods and runs up to me very fast and we keep going until we get the the deck and I see a very strange sight. Erasers with wings. It looked like fridges trying to fly. The rest of the flock was already in action easily beating all the flying Erasers. I smile and grab Mia saying "Ready to fly?"

She nods and says "Ready to launch. Send it."

I run a bit then throw her straight to the Erasers and I watch her as she opens her wings and kicks one so hard in the stomach that it curled up and fell into the ocean. I wince a bit and one falls at my feet. I stare at it a bit and it lunges up and tries to scratch me. I jump back and smile pointing my gun at it saying "Wrong move." I take a few shots and it drops to the floor. I hear Max scream as an Eraser grabs her from behind and I jump up, flying and yelling at Max "Max move your head!"

She moves her head and as the Eraser tries to bite her neck I shoot it in the eye making it drop and let go of Max she smiles and says "Thanks John."

I spin around and all I see is fur as I get tackled to the floor. I land hard and hold this Erasers mouth shut and struggle with it. I hear some beating wings and the Erasers get's kicked off of me. Fang reaches down his hand and I grab it picking myself up.

"You good?" He asks me

"Yeah but you aren't." I say pushing him back and punching a diving Eraser in the snout

It whimpers off and howls. At the moment all the Erasers regroup and fly off in one batting cloud of blackness. Mia tries to fly down almost falling down but I grab her.

She laughs a bit and shakes a bit saying "I guess I need to work on landing."

"You did great!" Nudge says running up to Mia "You are really strong. Probably stronger than anyone here."

She looks at me and smiles "How about we try that. Come on I know what we got to do."

We take out a table and put it in the middle of the deck and she sits on one side saying "Come on John don't you know how an arm wrestle works."

I smile and sit down putting my hand out. She takes it and we start to arm wrestle. I start doing half strength but her arm doesn't budge so I start to do full strength but her arm still didn't budge. She then slowly pushes my arm down and I look at her saying "Something is definitely different with you."

She giggles and one of the strongest guards takes my seat and he says "This should be easy," in a really deep voice. He takes her hand and tries to push it down and her hand moves back then she contorts her face and pushes back slowly and shakily pushing his hand down. He looks surprised at her and says "What is going on?"

Everyone laughs and she hops up and goes to the railing and easily kicking it open and she jumps happily "I'm the strongest, I'm the strongest!"

I smile and walk over putting my hand on her shoulder saying lightly "How about we work on your flying."

She nods and opens her wings and so do I. We walk to the edge of the ship and get a running start up and off the ship. We fly around the ship for quite a while as I teach her how to do many different flying techniques like hovering, barrel rolls, dives and spins. We start to go back down and Mia does a running landing much like a parachuter. I land and notice something is falling from the sky. Mia looks up and marvels at the sky saying "WOW IT'S SNOWING!"

I pull my coat a bit closer on my body and smile "You really like this. It's a bit too cold for me." I sniff and wipe my nose lightly

She nods and makes a lightly packed snowball and throws it at me "Yeah John. You know you should relax and have some fun." The snowball explodes into a fog of snow when it hits my arm

I sigh and smile leaning down and gathering some snow and throwing it back at her "Ok then I guess we can have a snowball fight then."

She quickly scoops up another ball and throws it but I duck and it hits Max who was behind me. We both stand there still looking at her as her face goes from surprise a smile as she scoops up some snow throwing it back at Mia. I smile and laugh throwing mine at her too. Nudge comes out and starts to throw snowballs as well and soon enough everyone was throwing snowballs in a snowball battle royal.

After a while we all stop and go inside the ship. I go down the the small cramped kitchen to make myself some hot chocolate. As I'm doing so I feel the ship shift forwards and then we stop. I take my mug and look around. I walk back out and see we are at a floor of ice and I yell up to the Lieutenant "Why are we stopped?"

The lieutenant brings out a megaphone and says back "We have arrived to our destination, Thule Air Base. We will be getting off the ship as soon as we dock and our scientist comes out to meet us. It shouldn't be too long. Go spread the word to the others."

Just after the remark I hear Angel in my head saying "I'll help you out on that. Everyone we are just about to get off get ready."

Soon everyone is on the dock as a scientist in a parka comes up to us carrying binoculars and a clip board. I pull Mia a bit closer to me and put my other hand on my gun as she walks up to me and says in a medium tone of curiosity "Are you the leader here?"

I shake my head and point at Max saying "I answer to her."

The scientist goes up to Max, Max doing the same thing as I did with Angel, and she says "Hello I'm Doctor Ayame. I'll be working with you for a while we wait for the fires to go out. Now can all of you quickly come with me. A storm is brewing up and we need to get inside as soon as possible."

We all nod and say our goodbyes to the Lieutenant as he climbs aboard the ship again and we head out to a rather large metal building in the middle of the ice. We go in and the door shut behind us. I look at the doors then at Mia with a 'I don't have a good feeling about this' look. She puts her hand lightly on my shoulder and smiles at me.

Chapter 11

Final Stand

It's been about a week since we have arrived at Thule Air Base and the whole flock has been having fun. Most of them have been going out and flying around in the cold air and checking out the penguins and having snowball fights. I, on the other hand, do not feel comfortable here or around Doctor Ayame. Something about her just sets me on edge. I've still have been enjoying myself though. Every day Ayame would take one of us to the back and show her our little special powers semi accurately.

I was in the sky patrolling and keeping an eye from above. All the others were having a snowball fight down on the ground even Mia and Rose. I look around a bit and see that Fang on the other hand is gone. I flip around and looks around for a bit then I see a small black dot flying for me. I move to the side a bit as Fang slows down next to me.

"Hey you going to go down and join in the snowball fight?" He asks me breath fogging in the air

"No I don't feel too well about this facility. It's too different and strange." I respond pulling my hood up more

He shrugs and goes down then Mia looks up at me and frowns beckoning me down to her. I sigh and go down to the snow and she throws a snowball at me saying "Tag you're it."

I smile a bit scooping up some snow and throwing it at Rose who jumps and yelps a bit and I say "You're it."

We go around a few times throwing snowballs at each other. Doctor Ayame comes out and walks over to us. I look at her and immediately tell something is wrong. She walks straight for me and pushes me over sending me flying a few feet before I can say anything. She then walks away a bit and punches hard into the ground cracking open the ice and exposing a large body of water underneath. She then turns to Max. She starts to run towards her but Rose in a last ditch effort to save Max tries to tackle Doctor Ayame. The doctor takes Rose and flings her away and she lands into the water and gets stuck under the ice right next to me. In my eyes everything is fuzzy but then I focus back in just to see Rose pass out under the water and sink. The blood rushes to my head. My arms and legs start to tense up growing in strength. My vision become blurry full of rage as I yell and run directly for Doctor Ayame. I tackle her down and flip off. She immediately gets back up and turns to fight me. I jump back pulling out my gun and unloading the clip into her. Then it hit me. A bullet ricochet nicks me in the arm and I find out that Doctor Ayame is a robot. I toss my gun away and run to drop kick her. She grabs my legs and with a grip stronger than iron moves me to face her. She quickly tightens her grip and I feel multiple sharp pains in my chest. I hear the snapping of all of my ribs going into my chest all at once. She tosses me aside and I lay there defeated and blurry eyed. I cough up a bit of blood. I hear the muffled scream of Mia then a mechanical arm falls next to me. Then I feel a warm hand. It touches my head and lifts me up onto something warm. I see a blurry face. I see the brown hair flowing from over her shoulder. It was Mia.

She was talking to me and I can make out a few words saying "Are...You...OK."

I slowly lift up my hand and make a thumbs up saying I was ok. This was obviously a lie as I cough up more blood. I was not ok. I could just feel the blood filling my lungs up. Mia takes my hand and puts it to her face her wet hair falling on my hand. My eyes slowly close and I feel myself slip away.

Epilogue

It was cold that day. The day my angel died. He didn't die in vain though. I remember it just like yesterday. The air was cold and we are were in a full fledged snowball fight. Then "Doctor Ayame" came out. She immediately launched John away and punches a hole in the ice. She then goes towards Max. Rose tries to fight the doctor but she is smacked straight into the water and away from the hole. I run and jump in the water to try to help Rose. I try to go under but it was too cold and dark. I couldn't see. I had to get out. When I do I see John being held by the chest in front of the doctor and she pushes in and I can hear the crushing of his ribs. I scream and run at her. I grab her arm pulling it off and I find something out. Doctor Ayame is a robot. That was how she pulled off those great feats of strength. I then punch her face hard popping off her head. She falls down and I rush over to John.

I carefully his head on my lap and I tell him "You are going to be ok. You are going to be ok."

He puts his thumb up. I take his hand and put it to my face. He sighs and closes his eyes and he goes limp. I sit there and cry aloud. Nudge walks over and puts her hand on my back. I sit there until I can't cry no more.

Max walks over and kneels down saying "Hey get up we have to go."

"Go without me" I croak "I have some things to do."

She nods and walks inside and I get up picking up John's dead body. I go to the hole in the ice and dump his body into it. It floats so I push him under the ice. I sit at the edge of the ice and look at the hole in it. I slowly get up and walk inside. Everyone was quiet and I head to my room. I sit on my bed and fall asleep. Something changed in me then. I became as cold as the ice around me. My emotions of love, empathy, and even happiness left me.

The next day the ship returned and Max said "Hey guys come on. We have a job to do."

I sat in my room. I just sat there. Nudge walks in my room and asks "Hey are you coming with us."

I shake my head and say in a quiet and hoarse voice "No I think I'll stay here. I like it here. It's snows all the time."

Nudge watches me for a bit then decides to leave. I sat there for a while. Everything soon went quiet. I walk out of the room to see the empty facility. What was I to do? I wander for a bit. I make it into a room and it's dark. An emotion of rage sparks inside of me. I start to smash glass pods. One of them I hit releases a large amount of cold air and I see a woman in there.

She wakes up and looks at me saying "Hello, I'm Doctor Ayame. The only reason I would've been awakened is that my robot counterpart was destroyed. Do you happen to know what happened to it."

I stand there in awe. There was nothing I could say. I curl up into a ball and start to cry again and finally after a while I get out "Your robot killed my boyfriend.

The End