Me: Hey guys! ^-^ heres ch. 2. now first off. i want to apologize because for some reason has a virus or something and it wont let me go on and post a new chapter for 'The story of Namikaze Senna'. I sent an email asking about what was wrong, so hopefully i can post a new chapter soon. so please be patent with me! now back to business, i'd like to thank Nicolette May Summers for the really INTERESTING Review that she wrote. I never had one where they threatened to burn my house down! That really cracked me up! ^-^ so Thx, Nicolette! and sorry if there is OOC's in here. I'm still getting the hang of Virals characters.

Tory: Well, we can't blame you. It is a book that JUST came out, like, half a year ago. and Maximum Ride's already out in 7 books.

Me: true.

Iggy: You have to look back at the book over and over again, right?

Me: *gasp* how'd you know! *rolls eyes*

Iggy: I'm sensing a hint of sarcasm in your voice, and i don't like it...

Me: Oh well. Now. *yells up stairs* FANG! GET YOUR FLIPPIN-FLYING BUTT DOWN HERE! NOW!

Fang: *groans* Geez, what did i do now? haven't i suffered enough?

Me: NO. I'm still mad at you. Now, DISCLAMER. NOW. *through gritted teeth*

Fang: *sighs* Mykal doesn't own Maximum Ride or Virals. If she did... She would *murmurs something*

Me: What was that?

Fang: Grrr... If she did, then, she wouldn't have me be a really big, clueless, and selfish...

Me: *song voice* I'm waiting...

Fang: Idiot

Me: Now was that so hard?

Fang:...

Iggy: don't worry Fang, she would have done it sooner or later...

Me: ^-^ now onto the story!

Chapter 2: Investigation? Not, again!

Torry's Pov:

We all went back to my house. Hi and Shelton were both pretty much freaked out.

"What the HECK was THAT!" Hi yelled for the ninth time. And for the Ninth time I sighed. "I don't KNOW Hi." But Hi wouldn't let it go.

"They were… WOLF-like! Did you see all the HAIR that that HEAD had!"

"Uhg… I didn't WANT to…" Shelton sounded sick and scared. He was always one of the ones' that couldn't handle blood, bones, and severed heads.

"And… and, on that one body! It had WINGS! WHAT WAS WITH THE WINGS! If it was a robot, then why would it have WINGS!"

"Hi! SHUT UP!" we all yelled at him.

"SHUT UP? You'r telling me to SHUT UP? We were just in a shower of body robot parts, and you're telling me to SHUT UP?"

I sighed. "Hi, we know that you're freaked out, I am too. But right now we should try to be calm and figure out the mystery of the wolf-man-robot calmly."

Hi stopped talking and started to take deep breaths, then nodded. Good he was calm.

"The big thing is; what was that making those… things, explode in the sky?" Ben spoke up. He was right. What WAS making those 'things' explode? I pondered that for a bit.

"Oh no." Shelton's face paled as he looked at me. "Tory has her 'Face' on again."

"And that means… wait for it…" Hi knew what I was about to say next. I smiled at them.

"Who's up for an investigation?"

They all grounded.

"Tory, do you remember the LAST time we tried to investigate?" Hi asked. "We got infected with a freak'in VIRUS that gave us super-human dog powers!"

It's true. When we were exploring Loggerhead Island, a monkey had thrown an un-readable dog-tag at us. So, me being the curious niece of the famous Forensic Anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan, I made us brake in to the lab on the island, LIRI, and use a REALLY expensive looking machine to clean the tag. While we were doing that we found a room where our dog (well wolf-pup.), Cooper, was being experimented on. We broke him out of there, but only then to be infected with a dangerous variant called Porvovirus. Long story short, it made us have super senses and in-human strength when we "flare".

"Ok, that was pretty risky. BUT, we did find out who killed Katherine Heaton, right?" I pointed out. They groaned but agreed with me. "So, what if we investigate this and save someone from getting killed?"

They guys knew that I was right, they each shared a look.

"Fine, I'm up." Ben said; which, just like last time, surprised me. He never is the one to talk up first.

Shelton sighed. "Alright, I suppose, it we could help someone, it'll be alright."

I looked at Hi now. He was staring at the ground, face scrunched up from thinking really hard. He gave out a "Gaaaa!" and shook his head in frustration before looking back up at me. "Grrr… I'm in. But if there is ANY and I mean ANY danger at all! I'm gonna run with or WITHOUT you guys. Got it?"

I smiled, my pack was with me on this. "Got it."

"So…" Shelton asked me. "Where to first, oh, great leader."

I scowled at him, and smiled leadership-y. "Loggerhead. That's where we start."

They guys groaned again.

Max's Pov:

"Everyone alright?" I asked. We had destroyed all the flyboys, making them fall out of the sky. Fang destroyed the talkative one with the gun, leaving us with more questions than answers.

"I'm fine." Iggy said. "But that was awesome!"

"Yeah that was!" Gazzy agreed. He must be fine then, if he could be excited about the exploding flyboys.

"The rest of us are fine, Max." Angel told me. I smiled at her.

"But are YOU ok?" Fang swooped over to me. I nodded at him. "Yeah, I'm fine. What I'm more worried about is what that one flyboy said."

He gave me a confused look and I informed him of what the flyboy said. His eye's opened in shock after I finished. "What did it mean that we wrong?"

I shrugged half-heartedly, but I was really concerned. Did it mean that an Itex branch was still here? In North Carolina? I gritted my teeth. If there was one here… then I'll destroy it.

We decided to rest for the day and landed in an Island that was shaped like a penguin. Seriously, it had a beak and everything. But the most annoying thing was, that when we got there, Iggy and Gazzy started to act all jungle boy; swinging on vines, climbing trees, even doing a Tarzan roar.

"Will you monkeys quit it?" I screamed to them. But they couldn't hear me over Gazzy's monkey impression. Which, like always, sounded just like the real thing.

"Let them have their fun, their growing boys." Fang said. I glared at him. "Yeah, their growing boys alright, with one of them being 14."

Fang just shrugged and went back to starting the fire. With the jungle boys playing and doing absolutely nothing help; Nudge and Angel went to find food, and Fang and I were making camp. For a while there was silence, but then Fang decided to break it. "So, What do you think?"

"About what?"

"About this whole 'We were wrong about Itex' thing."

"Oh…"

I sighed. "I don't know. I mean, with your blog and everything, we got rid of Itex…" He nodded. "…But, I'm not sure…"
"What if there was a secret base?" That news brought my head up to look at him. "What?"

"You know, like if anything happened to the others they would have a secret base to escape to, right?"

I absorbed this information. That WAS possible. A secret base. But where would it be?

My thoughts were interrupted by the screams of Nudge and Angel. Fang and I jumped up and flew over to wear they were.

"What's wrong?" I ran up to them. Nudge was holding Angel, and they were shaking. She looked up at me. "Max… Oh, Max…" For the first time ever, the motor mouth was out of words. Iggy and Gazzy must've heard them too, because they were standing right next to the girls, but gazzy was looking at something on the ground, horrified.

"Gazzy?" He looked up at me. He, also couldn't talk so Iggy talked for him. "Max, you need to see this." He pointed to the ground.

I knew that Gazzy must've told Iggy about whatever they wanted me to see because he was blind. But I looked over there anyway. At first, I couldn't make out what they were pointing at. It was round at dirty. Looks like it must've been there for years. I crouched down so that I was right next to it. Then a suddenly realized what it was. Fang, who was looking over me, grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. I was grateful of that, for I was too shocked to move.

"How did you find this?" Fang asked Nudge and Angel. Angel was the one that spoke up. "We were looking for food. When Nudge suddenly tripped over a vine. She landed in front of it and screamed…"

I wouldn't blame them, I would have done that too. If you guys in the audience are impatient and wondering what we were looking at. All I can say was; we found the skull of a mutant.

Torry's Pov:

We took Ben's boat Sewee, and rode it to Loggerhead. Coop came too, I held him on my lap the entire way there. He barked loudly whenever the boat would hit a wave.

"Here we are guys. Home sweet Island." Ben said sarcastically when we got there.

"I'm back, Island! Did you miss me!" Hi sang.

"Where's mother Nature! I want to give her a hug!" Shelton went along with Hi. I rolled my eyes. Boys.

Then Hi, who remembered that him and Boats didn't mix, ran over to some bushes. He really had it bad. The rest of us respectively waited for him at the shore. Hi came back 5 minutes later. "I'm ok. Nature just had to come up a different way that usual again."

"Alright, let's get going." I said, ignoring that fact that Hi's comment was really and totally gross. They all nodded at me and we started to hike through the marsh, with Coop leading the way.

"Man, I hope that we don't get pelted with monkey's again." Shelton looked around warily. I agreed; it's funny when they do it to each other, but when they throw rocks and what-not at you, the funny turns into horror. We kept walking for almost an hour now. Hi and Shelton started to goof off, and kept annoying Ben and me.

"Guys! That's not funny! Put the poor frog down, right now!" I yelled at Hi, he was chasing Shelton with a tree frog. Shelton wasn't very good with insects and reptiles.

"Aww! But Mom! I just wanted to show Shelton this cool frog!" Hi mock- wined. I rolled my eyes and was about to say something else when Coop started to bark. We ran over to him and saw that he found a camp site, fire still burning and everything.

"Who would want to camp out here?" Shelton asked. I shrugged, then something happened to me.

SNAP

Scents started to form around me, and my vision was now at maximum. Great, I flared. I looked at the others, they didn't flare. But when they saw my golden eyes, they didn't seem surprised either. I guess that we were starting to get used to it.

I then started hearing voices, coming from a mile away.

"How did you find this?" a low but emotionless voice asked. A small, high voice answered. "We were looking for food. When Nudge suddenly tripped over a vine. She landed in front of it and screamed…"

I looked at my friends, and nodded at them to follow me, but stay as quiet as possible; they did. I gave Coop a small message to not bark, and the look that he gave me said 'ok'. I then led my pack to the source of the voices. We got there and found 6 different kids. There was a blond haired, brown eyed girl that looked like she was in shock; a dark haired by that wore black cloths and had his hand on the blond haired girl's shoulder; a strawberry- haired by with light features; a mocha skinned girl that was hugging a small angelic looking girl; and then a small boy with blond hair and blue eyes that looked a lot like the angelic girl.

SNAP

My flare had ended. But my curiosity did not. Who were these kids? The three oldest look about my age. It seems that they were staring at something in shock, but what? I couldn't see it from here. Bad thing that my flare switched off, huh?

Then the Mocha skinned girl was about to say something, but was cut off by the strawberry-blond. "Shh." And held up his hand. His head nodded to were the Virals and I were hiding. The kids immediately stood up.

"Who's there!" The blond, older girl demanded. I looked at the other Virals, who, were giving me a 'Do we or not?' look. I sighed and nodded to them. Instantly, we stood up.

"Who are you…?" She asked us. "And why are you here?" I got the feeling that she was the leader of the group. So I looked her in the eye. "My name is Tory Brennan. And this…" I started to point to the Virals. "Are Hiram, whom we call Hi, Stolowitski; Shelton Devers; and Ben Blue."

When I was finished with the introductions, I realized that I almost forgot someone. "Oh, and this is Cooper." I picked the wolf-pup up in my arms. He gave the most adorable bark you could ever here. "We are here because this is an Island and we came to explore it." I ended. Sure I only gave them half the truth, but hey, it's not like these guys want to be involved in a secret investigation that involved wolf-like-robots.

"But what if we do?" the little Angelic-girl asked me. My eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"What if we do want to be involved with that investigation that you and your pack are in?" She asked again. "And what if we ALREADY are a part of it?"

My started at the little girl, Could she re-

"Yes, I can read minds." She stated happily. Now Shelton and Hi started at her. Ben on the other hand kept a cool and aloof face. Geez, that show-off. I now knew that it was my turn for questions. I looked at the blond-heared leader. "Now, may I ask, who are you?"

Me: did you like it? did you love it? then marry it and review please!

Iggy: did you have to add the 'marry' part?

Me: yes, because i'm starting to run out of things to say for people to review

Tory: Well, anyway. please review

Me: and, warning, i might torture Fang more in the future. just keep that a secret from him, ok? ;^)

Iggy:... Scary...