Max is awake in an instant, and she can hear voices. She cracks her eyes open minutely, enough so that she can faintly see, but not enough to alert them to the fact that she's awake. She can see that she's in a small room, as simplistic as it could be. The voices are coming from the other side of a mirror. A one way mirror, huh.

She tunes into the conversation.

"She's a threat," a stern voice says.

She hears a sigh, and then a different person says, "She doesn't have to be dangerous. Maybe if you stopped being hostile towards everyone, we wouldn't have so many enemies."

Okay. This person is obviously very naϊeve. She decides to end this conversation here. She makes her voice drip with sarcasm as she says, "That's soooo sweet."

She sits up, and glares at the mirror. Her vision adjusts, and now she can see them. There are six of them. She studies each of them, picking out the more dangerous ones.

"I would like you all to try to get some answers from her," the guy with the eye-patch says.

"Good luck," she calls out, confident that she could deal with them.

The first guy to walk in is one of the ones that she deemed mildly dangerous. Nothing she couldn't take care of.

"You're kidding me, right?" she asks, letting a disbelieving tone slip into her voice.

She watches the guy get exasperated, protesting. "Hey! I will have you know that I-"

She doesn't particularly care about what he has accomplished. All that matters is what he might do right now. But he's not doing anything. Might as well get rid of him.

"NEXT," she calls, and then turns her face away.

She watches him sputter from the corner of her eye, and then leave. Just because she thinks he's not too much of a threat doesn't mean that she'll get sloppy.

Next enters the red haired girl. Max tenses imperceptibly. She had deemed this girl the greatest threat, at the same level as the well-muscled blond man. There's a feel to her that screams, 'DANGER.' Max wants to get away from her as soon as possible, but she has weapons on her that Max could use.

She decides to go for it. She can see various knives scattered all over the woman's body, and if she can just grab one of them, she'll have a good chance of escaping. Max starts by trying to distract the woman.

"Well, look at this," she starts off, "Now we have someone who knows what she's doing. You know, if you could get me a real bed, and some real food, I would be happy and-"

She charges at the woman, intent on knocking the wind out of her. She dodges, so Max tries sweeping the woman's legs out from under her. She jumps back, but one of Max's wings flies out and knocks her in the face, throwing her back. Max now has a bit of breathing room, but only a few seconds. She has to act.

Max decides to throw the woman off of her true intent, so she dashes to the door. She's not surprised to find it locked, but she mutters, "Dammit," under her breath. If it had opened, she would have made a dash for it. But since she couldn't get out that way, she goes back to her original plan.

She turns back around and lunges at the woman. She makes contact, and knocks the woman to the ground. She grabs two knives, making one grab more clumsy so she would be caught.

"Nice try," the woman snaps, snatching the more obvious knife back from her hand before marching out the door.

Max pouts, but she can feel the knife up her sleeve. Perfect. Now, she just had to wait for the arrogant looking man to walk in.

She can see a shrimpy looking man, but it seems like there's something deceptive about him. Something hidden under the surface. She's not going to let him enter the room. Max glares at him, and when the door opens an inch, she shrieks and flings herself at the door. He backs off. She flings herself against the glass as hard as she can, but it doesn't break. Oh well. The man has been taken care of.

The next person to walk in is the heavily muscled one. She watches him warily, but he doesn't look like he'll hurt her. His eyes look kind.

"Hello," he says.

He was the one who was talking earlier. She looks at him curiously. Why would he stand up for her?

"I don't want to fight you," he says, "I just want to talk."

"About what?" Max asks. She feels comfortable enough around him that she decides to humor him.

"Anything you feel comfortable answering."

He's just a really nice guy. It seems that he has strong morals too. But she doesn't answer. She doesn't want to reveal anything.

"My name's Steve. Could you tell me yours?"

Hmm. She decides to answer, mostly because he's different from the others. And well . . . (And, well, she wants to talk to someone. She wants someone to acknowledge her. She doesn't want to be lonely anymore. It's been days since she's been banished, and she wants someone, anyone, to find comfort in. Even if they don't trust her. Even if she doesn't know them) … nevermind. "You're a nice guy, Steve. It's a shame you hang around with people like that."

"I want to save people. They can help me do that," is all that he says.

Okay. So it turns out that he's a really nice guy. She's going to feel guilty if she doesn't give him anything. She knows it.

"...Alright. My name is Maximum Ride, Max for short. But that's all you are going to get. Now, can you please leave? I really don't want to hurt you."

She hopes that he leaves. He's a nice guy, despite being a bit naïve, and she really doesn't want to hurt him. She also doesn't know if she'd be able to win against him.

"Okay," Steve says. He turns and walks out.

Max is relieved.

Then the arrogant guy walks in and says, "Would you like a drink? We could talk."

"Really?" Max scoffs, "You offer a drink to a minor, and then you expect that I'll talk. Did you not see what I did to the woman? I could kill you in three seconds flat."

"Want to test that?" the guy challenges, cocky.

Honestly. Just because she's a teenager doesn't mean that she should be underestimated. Max sighs, rolling her eyes. It looks like his memory needs to be refreshed. She would love to help with that.

In an instant, she is up and darting at him. She feigns going for his legs, and he plays along, starting to crouch. Max flips over him, landing perfectly behind him. She lets the blade fall out of her sleeve and into her hand, and presses the tip of the blade into against his throat.

"If you want him to live," she calls out, "I suggest you release me. I'm talking to you, Pirate guy."

She sees his eyes widen slightly. Obviously, she isn't supposed to be able to see through the glass. But then, when did she ever follow the rules?

She watches him walk over to a microphone and starts talking. "Put the knife down. We can talk about this. No one has to die. Let him go, and there will be no serious repercussions."

Max scoffs. Why would she let him go? This was her ticket out. There was no way she was going to release him until she got outside.

Her ears perk up. She can hear a faint crackling sound, almost like….electricity.

Shit.

Max jumps back, trying to avoid the taser. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should have expected something. The microphone had hid what he was doing, distracting her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She hopes that she had gotten out of range, but then she feels currents of electricity course through her body. Agonizing pain follows, and distantly, she can hear something clatter on the ground before she falls unconscious.

Everything goes black.