Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride. James Patterson owns Maximum Ride and all its characters. The only things owned by me are the plot, and the creatures involved in this chapter.

Max's POV

Fang and I immediately shifted into battle mode, tensing our muscles and preparing ourselves for pain. From the corner of my eye I saw Iggy, Nudge, Angel and Gazzy doing the same.

I kept my eyes glued to the cloud of dust at the South wall. The figures were different. Not robotic.

As they appeared through the dust, we saw them in all their glory.

They looked like human-animal hybrids. Ya know, like the Erasers, or – obiously - us. Only they looked more. . . natural. Like, as if they were born that way instead of being created that way.

Instead of being part wolf, they seemed to be part fox. They had no fur, except their tail. Unless you count human hair as fur, of course. Their faces were stretched into a short snout and their ears looked seriously painful. The bones in them were nearly bursting out of their skin. Their eyes were slightly slanted, like oriental eyes. (A/N: does that make sense?) Their walk was surprisingly graceful, considering their feet were like a fox's or a cat's.

What were they?

Therianthropes. said a voice. Oh. It was the Voice.

Uh, come again?

Therianthropes. Basically were-animals. There were only rumours floating about as to their existence, but these really are the real deal. You'll need to be careful with them.

Why? You scared we'll hurt your precious therian-thingies? I sneered.

Max. They can seriously hurt you. Right now they are only half-way between their two forms. As they are true therianthropes they are able to choose between a few stages of morph. They may appear human, fox, or anything in between. Don't underestimate them.

Crap. This really was. . .damn! We were knee deep in a pile of crap, and we so didn't have the right shoes for it.

But, being me, I tried to show them I wasn't afraid. I was happy to lose a lot of things, but I wasn't willing to lose my pride.

This only seemed to make them want to fight. Their ugly lips pulled back, baring hundreds of razor-sharp teeth. I suddenly felt my tummy hit the floor and my heart jump into my mouth.

The creatures smiled as they prepared themselves for battle, and they took a step forward.

Iggy's POV

I tried to focus on the sounds around me, trying to hear whether these things were planning on attacking any time soon. But. . . but I couldn't focus on them. The screams around me were too loud, blocking out the quieter noises like footsteps or the sound of wings.

"Guys! I'm sorry. I can't help! I can't focus. I'm sorry."

"What do you mean, you can't help? Come on, Ig. We need you, man." That was Fang.

"It's too loud in here! I can't hear them, so I don't know where they are! I'm not exactly gonna start punching and kicking randomly in case I hit someone!" I yelled back. I felt so useless.

What if we could get them outside a bit, away from the noise. Do you think you could help then? Angel was projecting thoughts in my head again.

Yeah, maybe. I thought back.

Okay. I'll tell Max, and we'll do our best to get them away from the screams.

Thanks, Angel.

No probs, Ig.

Thank God. Now I won't have to stand around looking like an idiot.

Suddenly I heard Ella shriek.

"Help! HELP! Oh, please!"

I swung round and started running in the direction of her voice.

This close up I found I could sense where the imposter was.

I grabbed hold of something warm and furry. A. . . tail? Okay. . . I grabbed the tail and pulled as hard as I could.

I heard a piercing scream that was so loud it came pretty close to busting one of my eardrums. I felt three lines of what felt like liquid fire streaking across my right cheek. Blood began seeping out from the wound.

"Iggy!IGGY!" shouted Ella. "Your cheek!"

"I'm okay. Just get out of here, Ella. Be safe and get out, okay?"

"No! I want to help."

"No, Ella. You're making it harder to fight. Just go, please."

"Fine. Be careful." she said and pecked me on the cheek.

I grinned as I turned around, looking for that thing I'd hurt.

"Hey, Ig! We've got them outside! Come on!" Max's voice came from outside, pretty close to the school car park by the sounds of it.

"Cool!"

I ran out through the giant hole in the wall, my feet slapping against the ground. I smiled as the screams faded a little and the sounds of battle filled my ears.

I launched myself into the fight and began pulling tails, kicking chests and dislocating shoulders.

This was the life I was used to. Finally everything was back to normal. . . kinda.

Fang's POV

These things. . .looked like foxes? What, we weren't good enough for the big bad things? We were now fighting foxes? Okay. . .

Anyway, Ig managed to join in with the fight, and he was actually holding out better than all of us. Well, except Max. She was doing really well.

I saw one of the Foxes (I decided to just call them that. I know, original, right?) lunging towards me and I flew straight up. Once I was above its head I began dive bombing it, whacking it on the head with my wings. It eventually collapsed and I landed on it, stomping on it once, just to make sure.

I turned to see how the others were. Angel was doing fine, copying me and dive bombing them. Gazzy was using his. . . uh. . . 'skill' of producing gas clouds from his, um, body and making them choke and pass out. Nudge was giggling and flying in circles round a Fox until it got dizzy. Iggy was involved in tense hand to hand combat with two or three Foxes. Max. . .

I turned around and saw Max struggling against 5 Foxes. They had surrounded her and she was constantly spinning around, trying not to have her back to any one of them for too long.

I sneaked up behind one. Fortunately they were all too focused on Max to see me scissor-kick a Fox's head. It immediately went down, and all the other Foxes gathered around Max had their eyes on me. Max spun around and grinned at me. I smiled back and her eyes lit up. Just goes to show that I don't smile properly very much.

Together we hacked away at the remaining Foxes and made our way back to the rest of our flock.

"Report!" said Max.

"I'm okay. Nose is broken, I think. Small knock to my head, but I'm okay." said Iggy, pressing his nose to help stop the bleeding.

"Yeah, I'm cool too. Just a couple of bruises." replied Gazzy.

"Same. Fine. Just bruised too." answered Angel.

"I'm good. Few scrapes. Nothing much." I said.

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?" she asked.

Okay, I guess I'm kinda known for keeping injuries secret so as not to worry her.

"Yes." I replied, looking her straight in the eye.

"Okay." she said and her lips twitched into a small smile.

We done a U and A but came back to hover above the school. Iggy had wanted to make sure Ella was okay.

Everything was fine.

Wait. . .

"Where's Nudge?" asked Max. She sounded panicked.

I looked around but couldn't see Nudge's dark head of curly hair.

Max's POV

Oh. Crap.

Nudge was missing? For the love of God why can't people – or. . .things – leave us alone?

We all automatically turned and headed back down to the ground. We landed behind the apple tree next to the car park.

As we scanned the sky, and the ground too, Angel spotted three dark shapes heading off through the sky, and two more running along the ground heading in the same direction.

Using my raptor vision I managed to see that the two running figures were surviving Foxes.

The three flying figures were two Flyboys carrying Nudge between them. She was dangling limply in their arms.

"Nudge! Nudge! NUDGE!" I yelled, almost in tears.

I ran as fast as I could, opened my wings, and tried to take off. Fang grabbed my wrist.

"Max. There's nothing we can do right now. I'm sorry." he said. He gently tugged my wrist until I faced him.

"Come on. We'll track them down tomorrow, once we've recovered a bit and we have a bit more energy."

I nodded, letting the tears roll down my cheeks.

As one the flock turned and headed off, leaving Nudge behind to cope with everything by herself.