Enjoy my newest chapter! I hope you guys like this story so far…

Fang's POV

After Max had left, we had been plagued with Erasers, Flyboys, and M-Geeks. We had soon found out from Jeb that Max had not been working for the School. We had kicked her out for nothing. And losing Max didn't come without strings attached. After informing us about Max's loyalty, Jeb had drawn away. Same with Dr Martinez and Ella. After a particularly vicious attack, when we wanted a bit of peace with other people around us, we had gone to them, expecting sanctuary.

They had welcomed us with open arms at first, but that was before Dr Martinez asked where Max was. Not being able to lie to her, I told her. She and Ella booted us out of their house instantly. We hadn't seen them since, constantly on the fly. Finally we had found Camp Half-blood. The Erasers, Flyboys, and M-Geeks were unable to pass the camp boundaries, so it was our safe haven.

The girl, Ride was asking us if we had wings. I smirked, positive she would be impressed. We all extended them, but she didn't show any reaction. So I asked her if she did. She told us yes, but didn't extend them. Finally Angel bossily ordered her to open her wings, and she mock saluted before smirking right back at me. Please, there is no way her wings can be larger than my 14-foot wingspan. There is no chance. At least, that is what I think.

Then she opens her wings, and I can't keep my jaw from dropping open at the sight. They look to be over twenty feet of pure white with splotches of silver feathers, and they are the prettiest things I've ever seen.

"Convinced?" she smirks, and all I can do is attempt to close my mouth.

"Um, yeah." I manage. Just as quick as she opened them, she retracts her wings back, folding them up between her shoulder blades.

"Come on, I'll get some food for you guys." she says, a little more warmly than before. The dark haired guy who was next to her earlier comes up and touches her arm. She turns to talk to him, and I feel an unexpected stab of jealousy. I don't think I've ever seen her before in my life, yet she seems familiar. Ride laughs at something the guy, Nico is his name I think, says, and kisses him quickly before coming back towards us and handing us our food.

"Not eating?" I ask her. She hasn't gotten any plate for herself.

"Not hungry." Ride shrugs. She shows us how to put the best part of our food into the fireplace, and we sit together. The flock and I talk quietly together, while she absolutely ignores us and sits with Nico at his table. Mr D lectured us about sitting at our own tables, but she seems to be exempt from the rule. Huh.

Three days later…

We've been at Camp Halfblood for three days, and it's not bad. Unlike that army training facility we all breezed through, this is actually hard. We are amazing fighters all of us, but Ride is much better. She has moves none of us have seen before, like using her long wings, which she told us are 22 feet wide, to whack us on the wing, making us lose our flap and fall a few feet, giving an opponent opportunity for other moves. But we are improving. Ride seems nice, although she works us mercilessly, so when I hear the rumor that Nico has a goddess for a girlfriend confirmed several times, I confront him.

No one has managed to find out who his goddess girlfriend is, or what relation Ride has to this, but I want to talk to Nico and find out what is going on.

"Hey man." I say casually. He glances at me with an indifferent expression, but I could have sworn that for a second his features were livid with hate.

"Hey." he finally responds.

"So basically, I've seen you with Ride around camp, but the rumor is that you have a goddess for a girlfriend. Are you cheating on her?" I say bluntly. He is shocked into a real reaction, surprise crossing his face. Then he does something completely out of character. He laughs and laughs and laughs.

"What's so funny? Ride seems really nice, not the kind of girl one would cheat with." Suddenly his laughter disappears.

"You will stay away from Ride." he hisses. "She may seem nice, but she hates you. And don't take so much stock in rumors. You don't know anything." He stalks away, throwing a death glare over his shoulder at me. Ride circles down from the sky, landing beside Nico, and asks him something. He responds, gesturing towards me expressively. When Ride looks over at me, her lip curls in disgust.

Max/Ride's POV

I curl my lip at Fang as I listen to Nico rant about him and their previous conversation. When he stops talking, I think for a second, then say something.

"He can be a real pain in the neck, but he's not worth your rants. Wanna go for a fly?" I ask. He nods, laughing a little. "Then climb on!" He grabs my shoulders, not fully climbing on yet, and I snap my wings out, careful not to push him. Tensing my muscles, I jump in the air and flap my powerful wings. We wheel above the camp happily until he taps my shoulder and I glide to the ground.

"I've got some things to do." he tells me, and I nod.

"See you at dinner." I respond.

After dinner…

I leave a note under the Hermes cabin door, big letters on the outside clearly stating that it is for Travis and Connor Stoll's eyes only. It said as follows.

Travis and Connor,

I'm not gonna tell you what I have against the newbies in my cabin, but I need you to prank them. Anything involving their wings. Nothing that leaves permanent damage, but something good. Just DON'T do it to me. Good? Perfect.

Ride

When I spotted them on my evening flight, they looked up at me and nodded subtly. Yeah right. The Stoll brothers were anything but subtle. No, they yelled at me at the top of their lungs instead.

"We'll do it, Ride! You can count on us!" they screamed cheerfully. I dive-bombed them with superspeed, seriously pissed.

"Guys! This is supposed to be secret! Don't go yelling it where the camp can hear, you idiots!" I hissed, unable to keep up the angry facade and laughing as I finished.

"Yes, ma'am!" one of them said, saluting me. I rolled my eyes, turning away and flying the rest of the way to the cabin. For the rest of the night, I could not stop giggling. Everyone from my ex-flock looked at me like I was crazy, but whatever. They'd deserve just what they'd get.

The next morning…

I awoke to the sounds of screaming. It made me immediately happy, knowing exactly what was going on. Now I was just curious as to what the Stoll brothers had chosen to prank them with. They had several prank scenarios. When I walked into our common area, I knew just what they had selected. Fang, Iggy, Angel, Gazzy, and Nudge were walking around with their wings out stiffly. Their wings reflected the light like plastic does.

"Oh, they chose the spiderwebs?" I asked in false sympathy.

Angel wiped at her wings unsuccessfully before yelling at me. "Who did this? You know who did this! Tell me now! My wings won't move! And my hair!" I pressed my lips together as hard as I could, attempting to push back my laughter, but eventually I failed and I burst out laughing, doubling over and holding my stomach. See, the Stoll brothers had seen fit to also dye their hair. Fang's hair was hot pink and clashed horribly with the whole emo thing. Iggy had blue hair and it looked horrid, but so funny. Angel and Gazzy, the siblings, had weird orange hair that made the two of them look like tangerines. And Nudge… her hair was a sickly green that looked like puke.

So yeah, it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. "Ride, don't make us go to breakfast! We can't go like this!" Nudge whined. I pretended to think, then shook my head regretfully (not!).

"Sorry. Mr D would kill me. It's against camp rules for head counselors to let any campers stay in the cabin." Actually, that was totally fake. Dionysus and Chiron didn't care.

"Nooo!" Angel moaned.

"I don't like moaners. Or whiners." I added, glaring daggers at her and Nudge. She let out a long-suffering sigh and walked over to the trapdoor in the floor.

"Ride, where is the ladder?" Angel asked suspiciously.

"Oh, there isn't one. If you guys can't fly, I'll have to take you with me! Climb on!" I replied cheerfully. I was going to embarrass them as much as I could. After several groans, they climbed on my back. I then jumped through the hole unexpectedly. They screamed bloody murder as they fell. 10 feet from hitting the ground, I spread my wings, pumping them hard to make up for the weight. Finally I hit a thermal and soared to the pavilion. I had purposely flown so we would arrive just after everyone else did.

"Hi, everyone! Sorry we're late. The new kids got pranked last night. Hair dye and spiderwebs to the wings. So be nice!" Since I was facing away from the flock and they couldn't see my face, I added a hugely exaggerated wink that everyone saw to the last sentence. The pavilion exploded with laughter and wolf whistles.

Swaggering over to Nico's table, I beckoned my friends over. Annabeth, Thalia, and Percy joined us. When Mr D sent a death glare at me, I returned it with one of his own and he rolled his eyes before looking away.

"Okay, so I want to tell them who I am soon." I said, leaning forwards so my friends could hear me over the loud noise.

"Are you sure?" Thalia asked, frowning in their direction.

"Oh, but there is no way I am letting them back in my life anytime at all. They had their chance. I just want to see their reactions when they learn who I am." I say, grinning conspiratorially. We lean in close and plot. But- big surprise from Wise Girl- Annabeth comes up with the best idea. Let's just say they would feel horrible.

Later that day…

Annabeth's POV

So Ride had asked us to help her tell them who she is. She wants to make them feel awful, and I had come up with a brilliant idea. Percy, Thalia and I would pretend to befriend them. Percy was working on Fang and Iggy, Thalia was working on Nudge, and I had Gazzy and Devil (I mean Angel) to be friends with. Then we would ask them all sorts of questions about Max, who we would have heard about via rumors, and finally she would reveal herself. But Ride's rule was that they could not know until we got them all to cry. When I got Gasman and Devil to cry, then I would tell them. Then we would make sure they couldn't tell the other members of their flock. Oh, don't look at me like that! We didn't plan on killing them, just occupying them with other tasks.

It would be pretty easy for me to make Devil and her brother cry, they seemed like softies. Same with Nudge. But Fang apparently showed no emotions. So Percy had his work cut out for him.

"Hey, Angel, right?" I said casually, approaching her and her brother.

"Yeah." she said warily.

"Relax. I just want to know if you and Gazzy want to train with me! As long as he doesn't let loose, if you know what I mean." I whispered conspiratorially, and she giggled.

"Gazzy! I'm gonna go train with Annabeth. C'mon, now!" she ordered. Gazzy rolled his eyes, but followed her anyway. I felt kinda bad for him, getting told what to do by his younger sister. At the same time though, I had no sympathy, because he didn't even stand up for himself. I had no patience for that kind of thing. It was pure cowardice.

After training with them a bit and secretly hiding how much I hated them, I decided to crack down on them about Max.

"So word around camp is that you guys had another member of your group, but you kicked her out because you thought she was a traitor but she wasn't." I said bluntly. Angel gaped at me, but Gazzy just hung his head, tears welling up in his eyes. I fought against the urge to roll my eyes in disgust. That was too easy.

"Max." he sobbed. "We thought she was working for the School, so we kicked her out, but it turned out she was only acting so odd cuz she got an expiration date for the day after we kicked her out. She's dead. Dead!" The sobs turned to wails and I had to turn away so I could roll my eyes. When I turned back, Angel had a few tears in her eyes. I was so close to being finished with them forever, hopefully.

"Well, it's kind of your own fault. If you'd just let her tell you, and if she really loved you she would, then you might have been able to remove the expiration date. Then she wouldn't die. Easy." I pointed out, shrugging.

Angel's tears spilled over and she began crying quietly. Okay, so maybe it was cruel, but I wanted her sobbing and wailing, not a few tears falling.

"I would blame you, Angel. You're the youngest, so Max would have done the most for you. Therefore you should be the one who points out to everyone else that you needed her, and all that 'there must be a reasonable explanation' bullshit." I remarked, examining my nails. With that, Angel started to sob, and I mentally high-fived myself. Turning to the open air, I let out a sharp whistle. Ride swooped in on her giant wings. She was stationed where she could hear all of us. When one of us succeeded, we could whistle to beckon her.

"Hey Ride! The members of your cabin seem a tad upset about a girl named Max, huh?" I called. She landed, grinning and one-arm side-hugging me. I grinned. Even Wise Girl could be evil for her friends.

"So what would happen if you guys did find Max, somehow alive?" Ride asked. We had planned this carefully.

"I would ask her to come back! I need Max!" Angel cried.

"Yeah, but what if she doesn't want to come back? I mean, you guys treated her pretty meanly." I note.

"Well, then I'd use my mind control and make her do it!" Angel said, gritting her teeth through her tears and looking completely like one of those mad scientists. I stare at her, surprised. Not about the mind control, which I knew about, but about her audacity.

"Really? Well, I might know where Max is. But I don't think she is pleased with you. So practice your mind control on me." Ride offered.

"Um, okay. What should I make you do?"

Ride thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. "Make me put you on my shoulders, like a piggy-back ride." Angel looked surprised, but nodded affirmatively. She appeared to be concentrating fiercely. Ride looked around, bored. Angel squinted her eyes in a display of effort yielding no result. Ride examined her nails. Angel flicked her hands like she was using the force on Ride. Ride yawned.

Finally, Angel gave up. "It's not working!" she said frustratedly. "It's like your mind isn't there."

Ride pretended to take offense. "I do have a brain, if that's what you are wondering. Maybe you are losing your powers. But back to the topic at hand, what if I could tell you where to find Max?"

For the first time, Gazzy piped up. "We would go find her and apologize. At least, I would." he added with an embarrassed look.

"What if I told you that Max survived by becoming a Greek goddess, but she took another name because she didn't want to be found?"

"What is the name?" Angel asked curiously. Ride grinned evilly.

"Ride."

CLIFFHANGER! I love writing cliffhangers. They are so much fun. Anyway, please keep reading and reviewing! I love you all!

Fly on,

Annie

P.S. Sorry, I posted the wrong chapter. So I am also going to post that chapter as chapter 3, but this is chapter 2. Read and enjoy!