A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: This is the original story I made up about the squad. Heads up though, It's a sadder ending then Bound by Blood. I guarantee death everywhere! The squad only appeared in stories told to the flock so don't be surprised at the lack of Squad. My original story did include one new character that I made up though. World, meet Psycho!
A quick thing before we begin. This will take place in school's out forever though I don't remember it verbatim and the addition of new characters will change the story line a bit. This will most likely be out of order and may skip some things but it will make sense, with any luck. LOL
And if James Patterson is reading this, I am not stealing your work! I love your books and am only using your work to right my own twist on stuff. Please don't sue my ass off!
Enjoy the story!
Chapter 1: Legends and Nightmares
POV: Max
(AN: I love this opening too much to skip, though I will mod it a bit.)
Swooping, soaring, diving, air current thrill rides! Flying, there is nothing better. You want an adrenaline rush then tuck your wings in and whoosh! Fall for a mile and a half then wings out and grab onto an air current like a pit bull and hold on for the ride of your life.
Alright so we were mutant freaks. We were on the lamb, but flying. There is a reason people always dream about it.
We were the only things in the wide open sky.
"Oh my gosh!" Gazzy called out. "A UFO!"
I silently counted to ten. As usual there was nothing where he pointed.
"That was funny the first fifty times Gazzy." I said.
Then Fang called out. "Hay kids! We're learning geography!"
We had just crossed state lines on our way to Washington D.C. where we hopped to find our parents.
I shifted Total in my arms. Did I want a dog? No. Did I need a dog? Have time to wait for it? Feed it? Also no.
We were mutant freaks, on the lamb. We were never shore where our next meal would come from.
"You want me to take him?" Angle asked as she costed up next to me. She was pointing at the small dog in my arms.
The dog had to weigh at least half her weight.
"No thats ok." I said. "I know, Fang will take him."
I costed up over Fang's head and lowered the dog to the silent boy.
"Here!" I said. "Have a dog."
When Fang took the dog it licked his face and I had to bite my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
"Carful." A gruff voice said to my left. "you might bite your cheek off, if you laugh any harder."
I turned to see Psycho staring at me from behind his ever present sunglasses. The scar on the right side of his face bending with his smile. It ran from above his right eyebrow, down across his eye, through his cheek, and ended on his right jaw line.
He was a weird guy, even for a mutant freak.
He was normally calm and unreadable, even Angle couldn't read him and she can read minds. Then in rare moments he is soft and kind. In these moments he is comforting and even sings. He's a really good singer. Then there is him in combat. He becomes psychotic and seams to be able to out maneuver any opponent. He jumps, flips, dives, and rolls to just where he needs to be.
It's almost poetic. The only bad side is he goes over the edge in combat. He would rip out an Eraser's throat and stand there laughing as the wolf man drowns in it's own blood.
That's why we call him Psycho.
He had joined our group, or the Flock, about a month ago and he refused to tell us his name so we named him.
"Yo, Max!" I herd Psycho call out.
I turned to look at him in the dyeing light.
"Bogy at one o'clock high!" He called out.
I frowned and turned to look in the general direction he had been referring to. Shore enuf there was a dark mass there.
"Fang?" I called out.
Fang studied the thing.
"Not choppers, to quiet. Not clouds, too fast. Not birds, too lumpy." He frowned. "I give up, What is it?"
"Flying monkeys?" Gasman intoned. "Like the Wizard Of Oz?"
Then realization dawned on me.
"No." I said. "Worse, flying Erasers!"
Time break, because I'm lazy.
We were diving and fighting like, well, like Psycho. The flying erasers were every where. I was soaring from bird kid to bird kid to help with the fighting. Every now and then there was a blur of a black jacket and white wings as Psycho zipped through the chaos. With every high speed pass he would nock out three Erasers.
Take a deep breath. The Voice told me.
I obeyed.
Next thing I know I get the wind nocked out of me and I summersault through the air.
When I turned Around I saw Ari.
I floundered away from him.
He should have been dead. I had snapped his neck in the sewers below New York.
"Ari!" I gasped.
A grin stretched across his wolf face as he flew past me and raked Fang's jacket with his claws. Then he flew back to his retreating squad.
"We'll be back!" He called.
"Boy, you just can't kill people like you used to." Fang said.
I quickly glanced around to count my Flock. Fang, check. Angle, check. Iggy, check. Nudge, check. Gasman, check. Psycho...
I swirled around in a circle to find him. Then my panic settled when I saw a black and white blur chasing the squad of Erasers.
"Psycho, Fall back!" I screamed.
He completed his pass on the Erasers, knocking out one of them, before returning to the Flock.
When he got back I spoke up.
"Report!" I shouted.
There was nothing major reported though Fang didn't meet my eyes when he said he was fine.
So we continued on to Washington.
About an hour later I looked around and found Fang was lagging behind. He was also lower thar the rest of us.
I dropped back to see what was up.
"You ok?" I asked pulling up next to him.
"Fine." He said through tight lips.
Then I noticed his arm was pressed to his side and covered in dark wet stuff.
"Your arm." I said in concern.
"S'not my arm." He mumbled as he began to loose altitude and black out.
"Iggy!" I called as I grabbed Fang.
Together Iggy and I helped lower Fang to the ground where I pulled off his jacket and shirt to see the wounds.
The Jacket was shredded and beneath it, so was Fang.
As I pressed the cloth that the younger kids had made bandages out of to his side, Psycho walked over and stood in back of me.
"We need to move." He said casting a glance over his shoulder.
"Fang's hurt." I said. "We can't move him."
"Someone's coming." Angles small voice intoned.
I snapped my wings in to hide them as a man jogged up.
"Hay kids." He said. "What are you all doing out here?"
Then he noticed Fang and realized what the dark wet stuff was. The next thing I know he is on his cell phone and calling 911.
Psycho took a step forward and I knew he was going to attack the man to stop him from alerting the authorities to us. The only way we survive is if no one knows we exist. I reached an arm out to stop him though. Psycho gave me an odd look.
"Fang needs help." I whispered to him. "Play along with this guy for now."
Psycho nodded in understanding and backed up.
Time break because the story maintains the same up until the end of this break!
POV: Psycho
I was sitting across from some stiff. The lady claimed to be an FBI agent or some thing. I didn't buy it. She didn't smell like government.
"So, Phill." She said to me, using the fake name I had given her. "We would like to know if you know this man"
She held up a picture of Jeb Batchelder,(sorry if miss spelled) a scientist at the school that had betrayed the Flock's trust.
"Never seen him." I answered.
The lady looked a little deflated.
"And why don't I believe that?" She asked in a get real type of tone.
"Because your stubborn." I responded.
She appeared to grow angry at that.
What ever. I thought glancing around the room to see that the agent Max had been talking to was replaced by some lady.
"Phill." My agent said "We're trying to stop a secret lab known as the school." She paused. "The school is supposed to be an evil place of experimentation. We believe you can help us with this. Are we wrong?"
I paused, debating my options. I finally decided to fuck with her.
"The school is evil." I said.
Her eyebrows went up in surprise.
"They made us run for hours on end and had use memorize random shit in order to se just how much they can cram into us before we snap." As I said this she frowned in concentration. "They institutionalize you, make you dependent on their system."
"That's horrible." She said.
"Yeah." I agreed. "The public education system is pretty fucked up."
She frowned at the comment.
"We are talking about public school's right?" I asked in a sarcastic tone.
I laughed at the deflated look on her face.
"I think we're done here." She said curtly.
Time break!
POV: Max
I was staring in horror at the merrier in front of me. Instead of Max reflection I saw and Eraser.
Please don't let this be real! I thought to myself.
"Max?" I herd Psycho speak up behind me.
I whirled around to see him sitting on the floor where he was sleeping a minute ago.
"What's up?" He asked me.
"Nothing." I lied, hopping I didn't look like an Eraser.
"Well you don't seam fine." He said. "Come on, what's up?"
"I'm fine." I insisted.
"You know you can talk to me about anything." He said in a concerned tone.
"Go to sleep, Psycho." I ordered.
He shook his head and laid back down saying "Whatever."
Time Break! Again!
POV: Gasman
We were sitting around in the hospital room waiting for Fang's papers to come through when Nudge spoke up.
"I'm board!" She called. "Can we do something?"
"Like what?" Iggy asked.
Then an idea hit me.
"Hay, Max?" I asked. "Can you tell us one of their stories? We haven't heard any in a while."
"Stories?" Psycho asked curiously.
"Ooohhh!" Nudge squealed next to my ear. "Yah, yah, yah!"
Psycho frowned.
"What stories?" He asked.
Max chucked.
"When we were younger," She began. "Jeb used to tell us stories about a squad of mutants that fought back against the School."
"You're talking about an RMM squad?" He asked.
Iggy nodded vigorously.
"Rebel Mutant Militia." He said. "5th squadron."
Psycho nodded solemnly.
"Shame what happened to them." Psycho said staring at the ground sadly.
"What do you mean?" Fang asked from his hospital bed.
Psycho frowned again.
"I mean, they're dead." He said. "They were killed in an ambush."
A gasp arose from the Flock.
"Please tell me Lieutenant Stealth is ok!" Nudge screamed. "See's so awesome! She can't be dead!"
Psycho frowned solemnly.
"They're all listed as KIA." He said in an apologetic tone.
"KIA?" Nudge asked.
"Killed In Action." Iggy clarified.
I frowned at the floor.
The squad was an Icon to the Flock. They were our hope that we could make it. That the School was beatable. That people can fight back and win.
Now Psycho was saying that they were all dead. That all their bravery and all their battles were leading up to their deaths.
"How did they die?" I asked. "What happened in the ambush?"
Psycho paused, as if debating what to say.
"According to the official report." He began. "They were in their temporary camp while out on an assignment." He paused before continuing. "Then hundreds of Erasers, or bark breaths, as they called them, came out of the tree line across the big field. The Erasers would have killed them if they took off and were about to over run them so their captain ordered a retreat."
"You mean Maniac?" Iggy asked.
"Yah, him." Psycho said. "Any way, He, the heavy machine gunner and the knife expert stayed behind to cover the retreat."
"You mean Gunny and Slash?" I asked.
Psycho nodded.
The rest of the squad retreated but ran right into a trap and were pinned down in a clearing about one hundred yards away from the original ambush sight." He paused, again. "Not much is known about what happened except that Stealth was the last ratio transmission from the them. She reported mass casualties amongst the squad and a farewell to the ones who had stayed behind to cover them." He shook his head. "By that time though the only one left at the first ambush sight was Maniac. He was surrounded by fifty erasers." He sighed. "Never stood a chance. Any way Slash was shot in the clearing and while Maniac tried to pull him to cover Gunny jumped up to draw fire off them. He did the job too well and was downed on the spot."
"That's horrible." Max said.
Psycho nodded.
"Slash bled out while he was being dragged to cover and Gunny died by bleeding out, still laying down suppressive fire."
Psycho stared at the ceiling.
"Maniac was the last of the squad." He said. "And that was the end of the 5th squadron."
We were all staring at him in a depressed mood when Ann walked in.
"Ready to go?" She asked.
A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: Thanks for reading the story and if you read Bound by Blood then you know where this story is heading. If not then pleas continue to read. Review the story and I will update accordingly. I update based on how many reviews so post reviews to get more story!
