AN: Hey guys sorry it took so long! I was swamped with assessments and getting everything done, and then I had my sleep to catch up on and hanging out with friends on the holidays so yeah I am back with a new chapter! Please review!

Disclaimer: Again I do not own Maximum Ride characters, only the plot…. And any OC's I choose to add!

Me: Fang give me back my cookie!

Fang: Never! *flies off*

Me: It's times like these when I wish that I had wings…

Warning contains fight scene sort of graphic I think don't read if you don't like violence

LAST TIME:

"Will all of your sons be training with me?" The Knight asked my mother, and she just nodded and smirked. Oh no!

Max's POV

This will be good! I'll be able to train those snobby, full of themselves, spoilt brats of princes and teach them how to act properly and give them a taste of their own medicine. I was silently plotting multiple ways of making their days of training horrible when the maid named Nudge piped up.

"Um, excuse me, Mr Knight?" I turned around to face her, as did everyone else. "Well I was just wondering, what took you so long anyway? I mean I know the basic details, a group of bandits attacked you, but how did you manage to escape and all of you look fine!" This comment caused murmurs to flow throughout the room and people stare at me expectantly, damn I had hoped that they had forgotten about that. Oh God I hate attention. I mean don't get me wrong, being the best fighter in the land, even if everyone thinks I'm a guy, is great but I don't like a hundred pairs of eyes all of sudden focus on me and have to talk for them? Yeah no, so I decided to let Angel have the spotlight. I nodded in her direction, hoping that she would understand, and of course she did, I swear she's a mind reader sometimes.

"Well, we were in the carriage sitting down, just after we stopped for a quick break; and I heard the driver call out to the horse to start off"

"FLASHBACK"

Max's POV still (Angel is telling the story but this is Max's memory)

The Queen and the Red-Haired Wonders ate quietly and drank some tea and then went back into the carriage. The servants were left to pack up and we headed off again. I noticed the trees thickening ahead of us, and I was immediately on high alert. I knew we had entered into the land of the Kingdom of Midnight then, no patrols here free roam for bandits and other evil doers. I gripped Blaze's main and swung up onto him, he sensed my urgency and stayed still and did exactly what I told him to. I rode up next to each of the drivers separately and said.

"I think somebody's watching us, be on the lookout, if I see anything I want you to alert the ladies inside and tell them to remain silent, okay, Don't ride away, there will be a chance that they have an ambush waiting for us up head I need to protect everyone. Kingdom of Midnight is said to be bandit country so keep your eyes facing forward" They did and everything was going well, then we heard a battle cry from up ahead. Oh no!

This was going to be difficult, okay what to do what to do, shit shit THINK MAX! I yell internally. Fortunately Lady Luck decided to smile upon me or the others but the bandits decided to all gather behind us with the exception of a couple out the front. I knew what I had to do then a sick feeling entering the pit of my stomach as it took a second for me to grab my bow and an arrow from my quiver and notch two arrows into it and fire straight at their chest forcing them to stumble backwards from the force, they dropped to the ground, it was a quick death, the only form of mercy I could give, no chances taken on giving them a peaceful retreat. I heard the two collapse as I turned Blaze around and slapped the Royal carriage horses with the end of my bow, causing them to rear a bit and charge off.

"Don't stop, get them to the palace, we'll be fine here!" I yelled, making sure that I kept my male voice on. I didn't get a reply except for the flick of the reins and a called for the horses to go faster. I nodded and turned back to the other eight, who seemed to be frozen in shock, good thing too because it allowed me to asses them.

They were all quite large, muscled and tall and all brought their swords out swinging wildly. Even though they were heavily armed, I could tell by the way they walked and handled their weapons that they were all brawn and no brain, just like the other two. They wore baggy ripped pants and ripped shirts and or vests but it looked like they were good quality. That meant that these guys were good, made a lot of money doing whatever they did, hadn't quite figured that out yet. But they still were not as good as me because they had already made multiple mistakes.

Mistake #1: they wore baggy clothes that offered little protection from anything.

Mistake #2: They had given away their weapon of choice, by drawing their swords they showed that they all shared the same weapon of choice and that there was little chance that they could use their other weapons as effectively.

Mistake #3: They all stood together, all in a neat little line that left them wide open and gave me every chance to escape from thrown objects instead of crowding me, limiting me to my short range weapons.

I reached around and loaded my bow with four arrows, picking off the four bandits closest to the servant's carriage, they grabbed the arrow with a look of shock on their faces and collapsed blood blossoming on the ground around them, four quick deaths, more sickness rolling in my stomach, but there would be time to sort that out later. The driver had jumped off from his seat and made the attempt to lead the horses slowly away while I had the bandits distracted. The other still living bandits had seen that their friends had been killed by my hand and had forgotten about the servants and came charging at my, swords waving high in the air. I moved into a fighting stand and readied my bow again, I knew that I would had the time to fire off multiple arrows so I fired two more in quick succession, you know one after the other, and hit the two that were the fastest. I know cowards move going for the best first but I had other people's lives to think about here, this fight was not a practice.

The last two didn't spare a second glance to their newly dead friends, or not friends, and closed in the last few meters. I threw my bow behind me, hopefully far enough away that the two bumbling idiots wouldn't step on it, and ripped my twin long swords form their scabbards on my waist and parried their blows. I was right when I said they were strong, their blows strained my arm muscles so I threw up my arms and spun from their reached, I leaped and summersaulted over them and stabbed them through the heart as they turned, not waiting for them to register what happened. More death and my stomach had progressed to knots.

I stepped back as they fell off my blades, I wiped the blood off on my sleeve before sheathing them and jogging over to pick up my bow. I looked around and saw the carriage had gotten to the edge of the clearing and had stopped. I wondered why but then I saw Angel burst through the doors of the carriage and start running towards me, I ha quickly dropped my bow again and opened my arms as she flung herself at me.

"Never do that again! I don't care how good you are, you scare me whenever you do that" She said quickly as she buried her face into my shoulder. I just crouched down and hugged her too me before lifting her with one arm and grabbing my bow with the other and started walking towards the carriage. I lifted her up into the carriage and the other girls crowded around Angel and started to thank me and praise me all at once. I nodded and slightly shrugged my shoulders and closed the door on them slowly. I walked over to Blaze who had been standing by the edge of the clearing watching me closely. He walked over to me and shoved his muzzle into my and I rubbed up it and scratched between his eyes.

"Whoa there boy, easy I'm fine, look not even a scratch" I said and took a step back so he could check. Blaze seemed to nod his head confirming that what I said was true. I gave him one more scratch before I grabbed his main and hoisted myself up onto the saddle and adjusted my bow before nudging Blaze forward. He trotted off towards the carriage and I nodded to the driver who had checked on the girls and was climbing into his seat. I quickly made Blaze circle the carriage as I peered at the surrounding forest, making sure that there would be no surprises. Once I was satisfied I gave the driver a nod giving him the okay to head off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I sat rigidly on Blaze as we came up the walls that surrounded the town of the Kingdom of Midnight I looked a little dirty from the fight, and as we rode through the gates, I started to wonder if I should have dusted myself off a little. I didn't know if Val would appreciate it if I showed up all dusty to the Kingdom of Midnight, where the Queen just happened to be my mother's best friend. Well this sucked! I'll probably get a good lecture about how appearance is important and how I should take care of myself better and I shouldn't have left her, that wasn't proper ya-da ya da ya-da. I sometimes get sick of her nagging for me to be a proper person. I mean it's not like everyone knows I'm a girl right? Men can act like this all of the time, but since mum knows I'm a girl, she wants me to act as properly as I can. Don't get me started on the times when I'm a maid! *shudder of horror*

After my little internal rant, I realised that we reached the castle gates, you know the ones that separate the palace form the town yeah, and with that, I had to call up the tower guards to let us in.

"Excuse me, we are the servants of the Queen of the Kingdom of Darkness, let us through" I hate yelling in my "male voice" it always made my voice raspy and hurt my throat afterwards. But I guess the gate guards recognised that what I was saying was important because the gates were opened quickly and stable hands guided us through to the front of the palace. I handed Blaze over to the smallest stable hand, he looked about 12 years old, but I knew that Blaze didn't like to be handled by any adults, bad experience with mistreatment. I watched them until the turned they were out of my line of vision, just to make sure that nothing happened, and then I walked calmly up the stairs and situated myself into the middle of the group, make sure that I was as close to every girl as I could be. With that we reached the top of the staircase and the massive doors opened and with a little silent encouragement from me, the girls walked through the doors hesitantly and prepared to greet the Royals of the Kingdom of Midnight.

"END FLASHBACK"

"So that's what happened" Angle said which seemed to snap everyone from a trance. I stood alert once more and observed the faces of everybody; they all seemed to be reacting similarly to me, although a lot more obviously though, to Angel's trance inducing voice. The face though that had me averting my eyes was my mother's. She looked worried and pissed off at the same time. OOPS! Ah well she can lecture me later about personal safety later, right now, I was hungry and wanted to scope out the palace grounds, find escape routes, you know all that stuff that a body guard should be doing.

I decided that now would be the opportune time and I began to walk over to my mother. Well that was what I had planned to do, but it turns out that Gazzy and Iggy had other plans.

"Excuse me, Knight?" Gazzy asked a little hesitantly I nodded to indicate that he could continue, "How did you do that? I mean 10 heavily armed men fighting you! I know I can fight at least five guards with only swords, well that only barely at that." He said with a hint of bitterness? I think it was embarrassment but I wondered why..? Hmm oh well better answer the question.

Iggy butted in with his own question "Who was your master? How long did it take you before you stopped needing a master to teach you?"

"I trained hard all my life and had lots of time too, I didn't have to learn how to be a prince at the same time" "And for your question Iggy, I can't say the name of my masters but I did train with quite a few people while I was completing my training. And for not needing a master, I can't really give you and exact time; I sort of just stopped learning from them, not that they couldn't teach me more I just decided that I wanted to learn on my own." I said trying to be nicer than I was to them before by giving them a very technical answer (I mean I didn't have to learn how to be a prince, but I learned how to be a princess, well the basic rules anyway). I guess it was working because the next thing I know, both Gazzy and Iggy are grinning at me before they race off towards Fang.

I watched them for a second before turning back towards my mother who had started to walk towards me while I was distracted, well momentarily detained from my original course, yeah something like that, but definitely not distracted. Ehem anyway…

"Knight! I need to talk to you for a moment." My mother said as she made eye contact with me. Well that was easy.

"Of course, your Majesty" I said while I inclined my head slightly, gotta keep the image up right?

We walk out of the dining hall and onto the adjoining balcony and close the doors to make sure that our conversation remains a secret.

"Your majesty, before you say anything, I need to go and scout out escape routes and safe places to hide if under attack." I said turning to her with a serious look on my face, she just sighed and then started speaking with a surprisingly soft voice.

"Max, please be careful. You know I hate it when you get in any danger! You should have taken off with us, you should have made the group stay together we could have out run them. The Midnight guards would have helped us, without forcing you into any danger. I am your Queen, but I am also your mother and I want you to stop putting yourself in danger when there are those who can help you and take the dangers sole focus off of you!"

She turned around to face me, but I just couldn't look at her. I was getting far too angry.

"Your Majesty, Mum, it is my duty to protect those in danger that is why I trained so hard in the mountains, that is why I continue to put myself in danger. I wanted to show you that I could do that, me your daughter, a girl. I wanted you to see what I could do, I wanted you to not see me a strong fierce girl, well I did but I also wanted you to see that I could equal or even best any man! I wanted to prove to myself that it is not impossible for a female to make it in the world of men, that I didn't have to spend my life listening to a man, being ordered around because I am a girl. I also became a maid to show that I can be feminine, that if I wanted too I could be the daughter you always wanted. I don't like how you coddle me when it comes to protecting you. This seems to be the only way to repay you for protecting me, and giving me the childhood I wanted instead of the one that you wanted for me. You put aside want you wanted for me, and gave me as much as you could of what I wanted." I finished my rant breathing faster than normal. I had turned to look at my mum, right in the eyes, hoping that she would understand what I wanted to do.

"Oh Max…" She whispered, and started to tear up, "okay I know I am a little over protective, but that's because you are my daughter and I your mother, and mothers always coddle their babies" She said with a slight laugh. I took that as a sign that she understood and was letting me, albeit hesitantly, do what I wanted to do.

I bowed to her lower than the usual tilt of the head, and looked up with a hidden smile, noticing to the side of her a servant had begun to open the doors "Your Majesty, it seems that our privacy is going to be compromised so I shall leave and start my scouting of the area" With that I disappeared into the shadows and made my way secretly around the castle.