1

We left early in the morning, when the morning mist was still sleeping in the forest.

With hasty goodbyes, we beat out wings and took flight North-West.

With Fang leading us, Nudge guiding Iggy who was holding Total closely in his arms, and Angel and the Gasman only a wingspan apart. I took to rear, watching the flock ahead of me. With all we've gone through, I'd have to say I'd rather be Atlas, the roman titan, and holding the world on my shoulders. Killing the White-coats was one thing. Killing mutants like us, rebellious ones like us, that was a whole other story.

Conversation was sparse, besides the random jokes from Jeff Foxworthy that Gazzy had seen on the television the past weekends.

The foggy blanket covered most of the earth for the morning, which gave us a reason to fly lower than usual, having the warmer air race through our feathers.

Around Noon, or so I presumed, we lost our cover, and had to go higher.

That lasted about an hour, and then we heard Total snap, "Incoming!"

I looked behind us to see about three Flyboys. Boy, they didn't look happy either. They had improvements.

Their usual metal bodies were darker, blacker, and from their mouths were silver fangs. They didn't have wings anymore, they had rockets implanted in their feet.

"Looks like someone took time to add personal touches." I shouted toward them, and I looked at Fang and nodded. "Gazzy, Angel, Iggy, Nudge, keep going North. We'll catch up later!"

The flock nodded, and Fang and I shifted our wings and went into and fighting stance. As I felt the gust of wind push me back, I turned to see Fang coming toward the flyboys like a missile; one of his arms pulled back and ready to release a punch.

I followed, angling myself so I could speed past them with agile movements. I grabbed two Flyboys ankles and tried to pull them with me, but felt heavy weights pull keep me with them. "Dammit." I spat as I beat my wings harder, trying to pull the two Flyboys with me. After a short struggle, I looked and saw to my surprise, a switch on their boot-like feet. I let go of one snarling Flyboy's ankle and reached for the switch, and clicked it to the OFF side. The rocket shoes stopped spitting helium, and I felt a sudden urge to kick the shit out of it. I pulled my knee to my chest-while falling like a rock- and let my boot meet hard contact with one of the rockets. The now-dented metal gave easily with two swift kicks, and I felt my wings spread to catch a breeze. As I let the Flyboy drop, another weight hit me hard on the back, and hard teeth puncture the tissues of my shoulder. I could hear myself yell in shock and pain, and looked to see Fang with a hammer-who knows where he got it- and swinging hard short shots to one of the Flyboys feet. His eyes widened when he saw me, and I felt my shirt grow wet from the puncture.

The flyboy on top of me had an iron grip, like an enraged pit bull. I tried to punch it's face, but only felt the skin break around my knuckles as my fist met it's hard iron face. "Bastard!" I breathed, looking down at the ground rushing up at me.

And then, the pain was gone, and I looked again to see that the Flyboy had been beaten off of me by Fang with his hammer. Many of it's metal knife-like teeth were broken, and I saw many of them still sunk into my shoulder. I groaned and watched the last of the three Flyboys fall towards the ground.

My shirt was turning a sickening red and my eyes wanted to close. It hurt to beat my wings, the teeth were still lodged in my shoulder tissue.

Last thing I felt was strong arms catch me in my fall, wrapping around my waist and bringing me up higher, toward the white sky.