Hello beautiful people! I present to you, Chapter 2! Fight scene! Enjoy. Reviews make the world go round.

"Look at this, kids, we're learning geography!" I called sarcastically, feigning excitement and giddiness, which are two things I assure you I don't feel very often. On that note, I'm not sure I have ever felt giddy in my life, so maybe that was just bad word choice on my part.

We were getting really close to DC, and I wasn't sure what that would mean for us. Was this really it? Was this where we found our real families, said our goodbyes? Or were we naïve to ever think it would be that easy? Probably the latter, knowing our lives, but I wouldn't be the one to rain on the younger kids' parade. They were excited; you could see it in their faces. I couldn't blame them either. Angel had said that my mom was a teenager, which was a dagger to my blackened heart in and of itself, but still. To know who you truly belong to, to know where you come from besides just a dog crate or a test tube? Well, that would just be something.

"Fang! What's that? Behind us a ten o'clock." Max's voice pulled me out of my own thoughts, and I swiveled in the direction that she indicated.

I hesitated, puzzled by the big dark cloud heading in our direction. "Too fast for a storm cloud. Too small, too quiet for choppers. Not birds- too lumpy. I give up. What is it?"

"Trouble," Max answered, bitterness dripping off her words. For a moment, she looked just a little bit tired, just a little bit like her heart wasn't in this, and I knew I was the only one who noticed this. Almost instantly, determination flared in her brown eyes. "Angel! Get out of the way! Guys, heads up! We've got company!"

We turned as a group, adrenaline dumping into my veins. My heart begun to pound, my fingers instinctively curling into fists.

"Flying monkeys? Like The Wizard of Oz?" Gazzy asked, squinting at the approaching threat.

"No," Max said, and I looked over at her grim face. Worse. Flying erasers."

I quickly glanced back out at the mysterious shapes hurtling toward us, had a moment to realize she was right, and then a moment to curse like a sailor in need of a little Jesus. "Erasers, version 6.5," I muttered.

Max began shouting orders, which we all immediately followed. What can I say? She may be a girl, but in Max's case that didn't really mean a damn thing. She was tough as nails, fierce and smart, able to think quickly on her feet. She told us what to do, and we listened because never, not once, had she let us down. Never. "Split up! Nudge! Gazzy! Nine o'clock! Angel, up top. Move it! Iggy and Fang, flank me from below! Fang, ditch the dog!"

I took one look at the opposing threat, knew Max was right. How could I fight with a dog in my arms? Yet I still hesitated.

"Nooo, Fang!" Angel's scream pierced the air. I had only a split second to think, and then it dawned on me. Hello. Backpack. Moving with mutant bird kid speed, I unzipped the backpack strapped onto my back, stuffed Total inside, and looked up just in time to see Max launch herself at the biggest eraser. It was go time.

The flock threw themselves into action, easing into the steady art of street fighting as if we had been doing it since the day we were born, which I guess we sort of had. An eraser came at me clumsily but still at full speed, and I feinted right before shooting my arms out and clapping my hands over his ears. I winced as the eraser screamed loudly and dropped down twenty feet, forgetting to flap. Seeing a big hairy fist come at my face, I surged out of range, and Max quickly took my place, doling out a kick that I knew from personal experience packed an insane amount of strength.

I glanced around quickly. We were holding steady for the most part, and it looked like being in the air might even be an advantage for us. The erasers were too big, too clumsy. Their movements were jerky and forced. We definitely had the upper hand here.

I turned, snapping out a hard side kick at the erasers close to me. He tried to evade it by flapping upward. Rookie mistake. Everyone knew that you drop faster than you rise, even if it felt unnatural. It caught him right in the stomach, and he doubled over in pain.

I heard Max's laugh ring out behind me, and I had enough energy to shake my head in exasperation while at the same time throwing a neat uppercut into an erasers hairy chin. Only Max would be laughing at a time like this.

I took down two more erasers before doing a 360 to check on the flock. Max had an eraser in a lethal headlock. "You better get your guys out of here," She snapped, her face looking fiercely protective as she motioned for Nudge to leave the fight. "We're kicking your hairy butts."

"You're gonna fall now," Angel said calmly, her voice sounding angelic as ever. I watched, intrigued, as Angel stared at the eraser who was doing anything and everything he could to avoid her blue eyes but failing. It was like she had him under a spell. He had enough willpower to understand that something was wrong but not enough to escape her. And just like that, Angel shifted her gaze downward, and the eraser dropped out of the sky, no longer a threat.

"You're getting scary, you know that?" Max joked, but I could tell there was some truth behind her words. I couldn't blame her. It was a little freaky, very useful, but still freaky.

I returned to the fight, bloodlust in my eyes. Every eraser was a threat. Every eraser needed to be eliminated.

In the back of my mind, I was aware of a small explosion, but I felt no fire, no unbearable heat, so I continued in my hand to hand combat, losing myself in complex maneuvers. This was what I was good at. Emoting, getting kissed by best friends, being normal: those things weren't really my forte. Fighting to the death? Now that was something I could handle.

"You… are … a … fridge … with wings," I snarled, swinging punches with my every word. "We're … freaking … ballet… dancers."

I was lost in battle, so lost that it took me a few seconds to register Max's panicked scream. "Fang!"

I had time to think 'uh oh' before pain, white and hot, bit into my entire side. I ignored that though, wheeling around to face yet another threat.

What the hell? Ari? I was shocked to see him, but my face didn't move at all. I stayed completely blank despite the voice in the back of my head screaming that this wasn't right. Ari was dead. Max had killed him. She had. And yet… here he was, healthy as ever, showing up again and putting my family in harm's way. Fresh anger dumped into my veins, but I wasn't stupid enough to jump into attack mode, not with my side like it was. It would be a struggle to take down Ari, period. The beach scene was proof of that. Now add a gaping side wound to the equation. It would be a lost battle from the start. I would get my revenge though. Mark my words.

I glanced at Max, gauging her reaction. She had a bored expression on her face, like so what? Ari's back from the dead. Show me something new. I hid my smirk, knowing how infuriating that look could be when you were the one trying to get a reaction out of her.

The flock slowly began to drift toward each other, regrouping as we watched Ari look around, realize the odds weren't in his favor, and begin to fly clumsily away.

"We'll be back!" He snarled, and I had no doubt that he wasn't lying.

We watched the remaining erasers retreat, my eyes lasering in on Ari himself, looking for signs, looking for anything to tell me that we were wrong. That it was impossible. That it wasn't really him because surely, surely, Ari was not back from the dead. If the whitecoats could achieve that, well, they could achieve just about anything.

"Boy, you just can't kill people like you used to," I said, my voice an emotionless monotone in the silent air.