Disclaimer: I have sometimes taken quotes directly from the Maximum Ride books, which I do not take credit for. That goes to James Patterson.

Crag POV

First things first: I'm Crag and I'm a fourteen-year-old mutant freak. Now, you might say my life is stressful, trying to keep five younger kids alive, and myself, and away from werewolves, cyborgs, robots, robots made to look like werewolves, and a bunch of other weird things like that. You might say that. And you might be right. Okay, you are right. VERY right. If my life became any more stressful, I would jump off a cliff. Actually, I HAVE jumped off a cliff. Ubernumerous times. More times than you've said the word 'cliff' in your life. But that's only because of the WINGS genetically grafted onto my back. What? Never heard of a kid with wings? (A/N: Then what the heck are you doing in the Maximum Ride section??? Durrr.)

Anyway, I would just LOVE to go into the whole shpeil of my life I've told a million people a million different times, but I am currently fighting to the death with about a bagillion of those robots I told you about, so if you'll excuse me…

"WHERE…IS…MY…FLOCK…YOU…FREAKING…B******!?"

Yeah I'm pretty flared up.

Max POV

"Surfacing!"

I dashed over to and up the ladder as fast as I could, which is pretty freaking fast, considering I am genetically enhanced. AIRAIRAIR!!! was all I was thinking the whole way. We, the Flock, have been stuck in this airtight, mouse hole of a hell for twelve hours. TWELVE HOURS. That my not seem like that long to you "hey-look-at-me-I'm-all-100%-human!" people, but to us birdkids, well, lets just say I practically broke the hinges off the thick, STEEL breech door of the submarine on my way into the blessed fresh air.

I stopped dead at the top of the ladder, opened the door, and breathed in deeply. Then the five voices behind me started to shout and push me further up and out, and the rest of my flock zipped out. First was fang, who then turned around to help Iggy up, then Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel followed in suit. Total wriggled out of Angel's arms and galloped near to the edge of the sub.

"I tell you, there is NOTHING like a chilling sea breeze after half a day of fresh air deprivation." I rolled my eyes but kept taking huge gulps of life-giving oxygen.

Then, after a few more seconds of glorious breathing, I asked the captain, who had come up after us along with John Abate and Brigid Dwyer "So how come we're here?"

"We're picking up a marine biologist," Captain Perry explained.

"A colleague of ours," said John. "She specializes in bony fish, which are mostly what the dead groups have consisted of."

Great, another biologist to gape and poke at us. So we waited. And waited some more. And then, ooh, guess what, we waited a bit longer! After a bit, Captain Perry and the others started to get anxious. Captain Perry looked at his watched and grumbled something incoherent. "Where is she?" John wondered to himself.

I happened to glance at Iggy, who was nearest to the side of the boat the dock was on. He looked puzzled, with his head turned in the slightest way, like he was listening to something far off.

"What's up Ig?"

But my question was answered in just a few moments because then I too could hear the far-off guns and the occasional BOOM! that came from the shore somewhere. Great, just what I need. Why does this ALWAYS happen to me? Couldn't Mr. Chu-Chu go bother some other mutants and give us a break?!

Then heard the sound of crashing footsteps, coming nearer. The rest of the flock and I joined him on the side of the sub, craning our necks to see and shading our eyes (except Iggy of course). Then, in just a few moments, a short, tan woman with a long, grey haired braid, burst out of the woods. Holey crap, I thought, she looks like she just crawled through six miles of rose bushes! Her clothes were torn and she had red marks on her cheeks, like she let branches whip back at her while running through the woods, and her hair had bits of leaves in them. Her eyes were like dinner plates and she was missing a shoe.

"Noelani? What the--"

"Monsters!! Robots!! Guns!!" The lady shrieked as she ran along the dock and dramatically leaped onto the submarine, only to loose her footing and fall down on her butt. It would have been funny to see an older woman do such an Olympic act and crash onto the sub, if it weren't for the comment about robots and guns.

John, closely followed by Brigid and the Captain, rushed over to help her up.

"Calm down Doctor Akana. Just take a few seconds and take a few deep breaths. Good. Now tell us again, this time slowly and clearly and fully, what happened."

Noelani Akana stood there and took a few deep breaths (Though they were more like gasps). In a few moments she started to explain to us what happened, and as she got further into it, all our eyes widened so that they almost matched Doctor Akana's in size.

"Back there," she began shakily, still not fully recuperated pointing the way she had come, "Robots, swarming around four kids. With wings….Fighting. Gunshots….Explosions!"

Well, geez, don't freak or anything. But I guess were just used to that kind of thing... Fang and I exchanged a bewildered glance (or at least that what I looked like, Fang's eyes were as emotionless as ever) then looked at the rest of the flock, who were doing the same. Other kids? Like us? Fighting M-Geeks?

"Uh, Max? Are we going to…" Nudge didn't finish. She didn't need to. We were all thinking the same thing.

"But we don't even know who they are…or her, for that matter," the Gasman said, gesturing to Noelani. "It could be a trap."

"Yeah she could be working for them and we would just be like running through the woods and then they could have mines for something and it would just be like KA-POW!!!, no more flock, and then they would destroy the world and there would be like no one to stop them 'cause we would be--"

"Doctor Akana is NOT working for them." Captain Perry finally succeeded in interrupting Nudge. "I have known her for years, probably for longer than most of you have lived. Trust me. She's fine."

"Plus," Iggy said, "you can hear the guns going off. And they sound heavy-duty too." He added just after a very loud and deep one sounded.

"Okay," I said, making one of my famous, split-second decisions. "We'll check it out." What am I supposed to do? Go back to the sub when there could be more kids like us fighting M-Geeks? Ha!

Still amazed at the possibility of there being more "Avian-Americans", I raced to the other end of the sub and jumped over the railing, letting my wings whoosh out to catch the easy ocean wind. What the freaking heck am I getting us into?

I gaped at the scene below us. In the middle of the road (and many yards surrounding it) were a dozen of fighting M-Geeks. There was so much carnage around the area, that I thought there must have been hundreds of them at the before all of this started. Robotic arms, heads, hands, legs, feet. There was blood, too, but a lot of it was covered by wires and circuits. There were fresh, gaping holes in the buildings around the intersection. I'm guessing some of the bots had some sort of small missiles.

Then, I realized, in the middle of all the wreckage and destruction, was a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, fighting tooth and nail with the remaining M-Geeks. And he was loosing. Bad. He seemed to be almost out of strength.

As we swooped closer, we heard him scream at the M-Geek he was fighting with a sudden burst of energy, "WHERE…IS…MY…FLOCK…YOU…FREAKING…B******!?"

Then we could see what probably shouldn't've shocked us, but still did. Because, you know, we always meet up with other kids that have FREAKING WINGS ATTATCHED TO THEIR BACK!

Crag POV

I kicked the bot I was fighting down with my last burst of tempered strength. He fell to the ground, dead. Or what ever you call a robot that is, well, no longer working. How many moreBut I hardly had time to take in a breath before the next two were on me. I fought as hard as I could, but they still landed blow after blow on my legs and stomach. I tried to motovate myself into a more defensive position, both physically and mentally, but the stupid tricked-out Andrew Martins just kept wouldn't let up. I thought about my family, my flock, who desparatly needed me. I thought about how much I hated Itex or whoever was threatening the world these days. I thought about Gale...

Unable to take any more, I collapsed into a mess of broken bones and bloody wings. But they kept on attacking me, kicking and picking me up and throwing me down again. They're built for this. I knew they wouldn't stop until I was dead, or almost dead so they could take me back to those aweful labs without a fight. Then, just before I blacked out, I saw a flurry of black and brown feathers, and my attackers stopped…

Max POV

Fang and I lunged downward an forward at the boy's attackers, the rest of the flock in hot pursuit. A round of speedy punches took care of my bot while Fang kicked out his M-Geek's ankle, then threw him aside. Nudge and Angel were back-to-back, fighting together in one of the many maneuvers we had practiced. Gazzy and Iggy had landed a few yards away and were taking small, round things out of their packs, then they rushed in to join in the "fun".

Fang had faught his way to the unconscious boy and was fighting to keep the remaining robots away. I was about to make my way over to help him, but then I saw that Gazzy had already beat me to him, and I turned my immediate attention back to the M-Geeks.

After a few minutes of hand to hand…err…claw, fighting (They must have used up all of their ammo on the other kids, assuming there were more than the unconscious one, again assuming that the doc was right), there were only three or four left, which we easily took care of, with the help of Ig and Gaz's mini-bombs. Once I finished off the last one, we all took a minute to do a systems check, and then were about to go and look at the boy, when Brigid Dwyer and four other people rushed out of the woods, two of them carrying a stretcher, being careful not to trip over any of the M-Geeks bodiless limbs. We hurried with them over to the other winged kid.

"I thought she said there were four?" Brigid pondered, watching as the other four Navy troopers carefully picked the mystery kid from the pile of rubble he had landed on. I noticed his wings resembled mine a little, or at least seemed like they did, it was a little hard to tell because of the blood that made the feathers stick together. It was also hard to make out his facial features through the scratches and wounds. He had cuts everywhere, and one foot and an elbow were bent in weird ways, broken.

"I think the rest were taken away by some of the M-Geeks," I replied, remembering his last words before they had overtaken him. Another wave of curiosity ran through me. Another flock?

"So what are we going to do? Take him with us? We can't really just leave him, can we?" Nudge asked, looking up at me.

I hesitated. We didn't know this guy. What if he decided to try and kill us for some reason? Or what if--. Why would he be fighting the M-Geeks if he wasn't on your side. Oy. Ladies and gentlemen, the Voice has entered the building! Well, he could be on a third side or something, okay? I'm just trying to protect my flock, so butt out. I waited for another Confucius reply, but I didn't get one, so I turned back to the expecting eyes of my flock.

Nudge was right. We couldn't just leave another birdkid here, where more M-Geeks could find him. It was too big of an opportunity to waste. I sighed. I was probably gonna regret this at some point.

"Alright, he can come. But I'm not making any promises for anything that might happen after we save my mom."

Nudge was instantly talking a mile a minute after I made my confirmation. But I just let her talk and droned out and walked with the Navy people back to the sub. Fang came up next to me. "You're goin' soft, ya know."

I whipped my head around to face him, and saw him grinning at me. I sighed again and rolled my eyes at him as we got on the path that lead through the trees and back to the sub.

A/N: This is my first actual story so I will readily accept suggestions! And what do you think of the story? Do you like it so far? Tell me!

And PLEASE review!!! I'm really unsure about this story, and I need some comments on what I did good and what I didn't do good. Did I jump into the plot too fast? I really need pointers here people! Thanks!!!