Ring...Ring... "Hello?" Jeb Batchelder let out the breath he had been holding while the phone rang. Now he spoke to the New York police Department. "Hello...?" The voice on the other line sounded irritated. "Hello." He began. "I would like to file a missing child report?"
I sat back in the tree, holding my breath, as the 6 children and the small black scottie walked by. Please don't see me, please don't see me!"I pleaded in my head. Suddenly, the oldest girl stopped. I started to freak out inside my head, and felt drops of rain. oh, great! The rest of the group stopped, apparently following the girl's lead. "What is it?" I was taken aback. Had he dog just talked? "Shh, Total!" The girl said. "Someone's here..." The youngest girl looked up, right at me. "Aw, man! It's starting to rain!" The dog had DEFINETELY talked that time! I closed my eyes and willed the rain to stop, calming down and taking in a breath as the rain slowed. uh-oh! One of the 2 older boys- I saw now that this one was blind- turned right towards the tree I was hiding in. I swear, he was looking right at me! I was severely weirded out. The youngest girl pointed...right at me! I stayed stock-still, praying they wouldn't see me... too late. The oldest girl grabbed the 2 younger kids and started to back away. "I've never seen such a young eraser..." I heard her whisper under her breath. Eraser? Where?! I looked everywhere, and then realized she had been talking about me.The younger girl wriggled away from her grip. "She's not an eraser...but she's not normal, either. Not a bird-kid." I looked at her quizically. How did she know? And what did she mean by bird-kid?
"Come on down. Don't you know you're not supposed to climb these trees?" The not-blind boy shouted at me. I winced. I hadn't been expecting anyone to shout, and it had caught me off-gaurd. The dog started to bark. The young girl shushed him, and the dog obeyed. The young girl continued spewing out facts about me I didn't want her to know, until she reached my least-favorite fact about myself: Where I came from, what I was. The girl gasped slightly, not nearly as much as I would have expected, and then blabbered it out. "She's from the school!" How did they know about the school?" I heard her say "Shapeshifter" and knew I was dead meat.
They all stared up at me for a while, and then, with no warning, started introducing themselves. "I'm Fang." The eldest boy said. The second-eldest- the blind boy- said "I'm Iggy." The youngest boy spoke next, and, lemme tell ya, he had one heck of a weird name: Gasman! A.K.A. Gazzy. The youngest girl intruduced herself as Angel. The other young girl was Nudge, and the eldest was Max. And then- you guessed it- the dog. Total. I waited as they listed all of their amazing powers, and then smiled and introduced myself. "My name is Charm. I, uh... I'm a shapeshifter and... I can control fire and storms. And I can heal animals." They gaped at me. I couldn't beleive they thought my powers were cool! I would kill for theirs! Except, you know, the flying, 'cause I can just shapeshift into a hawk and...you get the point.
"So, you escaped from the school?" Fang asked non-chalantly. I nodded. We were sitting in a diner eating dinner, something I had been deprived of for 2 days. "So, you wanna join the flock? We could use a good fighter." I looked at Max. I knew that erasers were no doubt after them, and also after me. I would be putting them in danger. But they told me they could handle it, and I could fight 5 erasers by myself. So... I took them up on the offer. And then... BAM! I looked outside, where 17 erasers were waiting for mutant meat.
I tensed subconsciously. Should I morph? Or should I keep my cool until we were away from humans, or, better, until the erasers were gone? Fang noticed my sudden tensness. He looked at me quizically, then looked outside. His mouth opened slightly. He was really good at hiding his emotions. He glanced at Max, and she glanced back. He moved his head slightly towards the window, and Max looked outside through the corner of her eye. Then, she went into leader mode.
"Angel, Nudge, Gazzy, I want you to slowly get up, one by one, and go to the restroom. I went earlier. There's a window in the bathroom. Get through it as quickly as you can. We'll be waiting in front of the diner. Be ready to fight." They all stared at her, including Iggy. That was just weird. They slowly got up and headed towards the restroom. Once they were gone, we got out some money, left it on the table, and GOT OUT OF THERE. Once we were outside, the first thing I did was twirl my hand towards the sky.It started to rain. Then some of the rain turned to fire, because, yeah, I can do that. The erasers started howling as the fire landed on them. I morphed eagle and began clawing at the erasers as they staggered with pain from the fire-rain. Max, Fang, and Iggy were fighting some erasers that were screaming with pain as they got rained on, giving the flock chances to knock their lights out.
I saw the 3 younger kids come around the side of the building, prepared to fight and fly.
They stopped short when they saw the erasers. They stopped breathing when they noticed the fire rain. I looked at them and morphed griffin. "FIGHT!" I shouted. As a griffin,my voice was LOUD. They all looked up at me, then rushed into action.
I flew down, knocking an eraser down. He hit another eraser, and the 2 fell down, hitting their heads on a metal bar dividing the stairs to the front door into 2 sections. Ouch, that's gotta hurt! And we had 2 unconscious erasers. Then, Angel started doing some freaky stuff. She concentrated on the 2 erasers, and their still-unconscious bodies got up and started fighting the other erasers! I tell you, it was CCRREEEEEEPPYY!! Especially when Gazzy used his mimicking abilities to make snarling sounds. I giggled, and the eraser I had been fighting off got a good swing in to my chest. Oww!! It hurt... ALOT!! I flew back in the air, gasping for breath. I tilted my head towards the rain and drank some water. I was immediately refreshed...right as the eraser took another hit at me! I grabbed his hand, stopping the hit to my face, but he kicked my kneecap, and I forgot to fly due to pain. I dropped 5 feet, and was suspended a foot in the air. I morphed to winged human, like the flock, and rammed the erasers chest hard with my head. He flew back, and (oops) hit Angel. She flew to the side, and the eraser fell to the floor, as did the 2 erasers Angel had been controlling. Actually, its a good thing that eraser hit her. She flew to the side right as another eraser tried to break her face. Looking around, I saw that 6 erasers were knocked out, 3 had disappeared, and 8 were still being fought. Fang was taking on 2, Max 3, and Nudge and Gazzy each had 1. Iggy was fighting the last, the one that had attempted to hit Angel. I came to help Max.
"Get out of here! I can handle them!" The eraser she was currently kicking the crap out of snarled at her. "Don't tell me you need a 13 year old to fight your battles for you, Max?!" He sounded snide. "No, Ari." Was Max's reply. "Leave! Help Fang!" She shouted at me. I shook my head 'no', then took a punch to one of the other erasers, right has he tried to hit max on the side of her head. I heard a satisfying "Oomph!" as the air fell out of his stomach, and he collapsed, hitting his head in the brick wall of the building as he fell. Surprisingly, no one had come out of the restaurant. There were still 7 hounds of hell, and Angel was handling 2 of them. I saw her hovering in the air, eyes closed, facing 2 erasers that looks confused and paralyzed. "Fly into the tree." She said calmly. They obeyed, and I heard a "thunk!" as they hit the tree, falling to the ground unconscious. 6 to go. I saw Gazzy do something that looked cool. He grabbed an erasers ears and clapped them in. I heard the eraser scream as his ears popped, then he fell to the ground in pain. ooh, that's gotta hurt! As the eraser fell, he took a punch to Iggy's groin. Iggy fell, and I swooped beneath him and grabbed him. An eraser came right at us. I spun in the air, kicking him back. He flew back in the air, and hit Fang. He has seen it coming, and punched the eraser square in the jaw, never taking his eyes off of the eraser he had been fighting. The eraser's head swung back, and I swear I heard a crack. The eraser actually started sobbing, and descended to the ground. He stayed up for maybe 20 seconds before Angel made him become unconscious. We were down to 4. I looked at Max. She swung at the eraser named Ari. Apparently, They knew each other. She hit him on the forehead, jerking his head back. He fell backwards through the air, right as Iggy, feeling better already, flew off my back and cracked an erasers ribs from behind. It was a good sound. The eraser fell diagonally, landing about 13 feet from where he had been hovering.
Ari stood up. "Come on! We can't win it." The erasers that had been in mid-fight stopped suddenly, and Fang gave one of his a good kick to the neck. He shrieked in pain, then fell drowsily to the ground. The other 2 erasers came to Ari, and Max kicked one of them in the back. I saw him wince with pain, but he came to Ari, and they all 3 flew off. I looked around.
"Well, 14 out of 17 isn't bad." I said. Max and Fang exchanged glances, and Gazzy and Iggy exchanged high-fives. "whoo!Yeah! We kicked some flea-ridden eraser butt!" Gazzy shouted. I couldn't help but laugh. Angel and nudge did a little secret handshake (?). Then I realized that something was wrong. Where was Total?
We had left Total tied to a bike rack outside due to a sign and grumpy manager that both said "No Dogs Allowed." Now he was gone. I was about to say something, but Angel started running around, shouting for him before I could get a word out. She had read my mind, and I was sort of freaked out. I had plenty of thoughts for which I was much more comfortable being the only one that knew about them.
"Total! Oh, Total! Where are you?" The poor kid was close to tears. Fang and Max looked at each other and started calling, too, the others following their lead. I sighed and started shouting. "TOTAL!!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, listening carefully when I was finished.
"Hrr...Riff!" Total! I was the only one hat had heard it, the others were still calling. I opened my large red and black wings (gold and white flecked) and flew up onto the roof of the diner. I listened again: A small whining sound.I flew behind the restaurant, and found Total tangled in a bush. "What happened?" He whined at me. "I broke my leash and ran back here when those wolves came. I got stuck." He said, sounding irritated. I picked him up and walked around the front, where the others were still hollering. "Found 'em." I said. Angel turned and ran to me, grabbing Total and stroking his fur, nuzzling him lovingly. I walked over and scratched behind his neck. He whined happily, and I giggled.
20 minutes later, we were all in a broken down hotel on 42nd street, chatting before we went to sleep. "Oh, cool! The TV still works!" Gazzy shouted, and I laughed as Max and Fang exchanged glances. "Now if I could only find the remote..." The funny thing is, a moment after he said that, Iggy, of all people, found the remote! I mean, he's BLIND! How'd he find it? And so quickly?! Oh, well. I figured I'd learn about them and their weird ways in time.
"So, what's your story? Any idea who your parents are?" Fang asked me. An unpleasant memory flashed through my mind, but I started talking.
"My mom... was a whitecoat." I ignored the looks of astonishment and disgust I got for saying that, and continued. "She abandoned the project after I was born. You know, maternal instincts and all that." I sighed, remembering when the erasers had attacked...
"She broke out of the school with me, but...she couldn't save my dad." Nudge looked at me and then asked, "Was your dad a whitecoat, too?" I shook my head. "No. He was... another experiment. Feline, avian, and human all mixed together. He was like those new grafted erasers, but as a cougar, not a wolf. And he had a totally different personality than erasers." A single tear dripped down my face as I remembered my dad's caring face, scarred and lonely because of tests intended to improve his reaction time in combat.
"How old were your parents?" Iggy asked. "We thought we were the oldest hybrids made, but..." I cut him off. "You're wrong. The oldest successful experiment was my father. He got up to age 28." They all gaped at me, except Fang, the statue. I sighed as another tear fell. "Are you crying? I smell wet salt." Iggy said, and I gave him a weird look that he couldn't see. I nodded slightly, then continued me story.
Tears were absolutely pouring down my face now, but I stayed silent. "Could we, uh..." I muttered through my tears, and Angel finished my sentence. "Sleep?" She looked at Max, who nodded. Everyone slept except me and Max. Max was taking first watch, and I was watching "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" on the TV. But eventually, I slept soundly.