Chapter 5: Who are you?

(For those of you wondering about the update without a new chapter, I just added a few minor changes to this chapter.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about just ignore this and continue reading.)

Yay! I'm finally updating… so here's the thing, after this chapter, my story plan is a lot less planned out, so it might take me longer to write and release the chapters.

And unless I get a huge inspiration surge, it's going to stay less planned out. Because I'm lazy. :-P

and Chaos ride: yes I did like The Final Warning (especially the faxness) lol

- enjoy everybody!

((-Max-))

Alice and Jasper were left understandably confused after our dog with wings commenting on their marriage.

"Who, or what, are you?" The one named Alice questioned.

"That might take a while to explain." I said.

Just then, the door opened and Edward, followed by the guy he'd been fighting, walking in.

"Hi Emmett!" Angel said to the huge man walking just behind Edward. Wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley. Or any alley for that matter. I noticed Edward's slight smirk and his curious glance at Angel. Interesting.

"Ok, would you explain what is going on here now?" Alice asked, looking at us. "Rosalie, Carlisle, you should be here for this." Edward said quietly. How are they going to hear that in this huge house?

But to my surprise Rosalie stalked down the stairs; still managing to look flawless. Some girls have all the luck, I would have tripped and killed myself in those heels, but she stalked prettily over the thick carpet and slid into the chair beside Emmett. Seconds later, Carlisle walked out from the room where Fang was being treated. I frowned; who are these guys? Edward shot a look at me, it was amused and yet confused at the same time.

"You first." Rosalie said.

My eyes narrowed at her. I didn't trust them enough to spill our story, especially since it could still be a trap. I had been tricked into letting my guard down too many times to fall for that- again. I crossed my arms and said nothing. Neither did the rest of my flock.

Edward sighed. "Look. I realize you don't trust us, and I can easily see why. However, as you are in our house as guests, it would be polite if you explained yourselves first."

"Yeah, 'cause we lived this long because we were polite." Iggy said sarcastically.

"if you want to play it that way, we'll go first." I said slowly. Itex knows our story anyway; so if they are working for them it won't matter. And if they aren't… well, this should scare them off.

Nudge wanted to tell them and I smiled slightly at her enthusiasm, but didn't object as he launched into the explanation.

"This is going to be a looong story." Iggy muttered. Nudge told him to shut up, which he did, rolling his blind eyes.

"Ok, so obviously we can fly. Well, except for Akila 'cause she's a regular dog, and Total 'cause his wings are still small. We're all have 98 human and 2 bird DNA 'cause of Itex."

Carlisle cleared his throat, "Sorry to interrupt so soon, but would you mind if I looked at your wings more closely? I'm a doctor you see, and I was just curious about their structure."

I remembered the scientists when we when going to Antarctica and how they were all fascinated by our wings. "Sure, I guess." She stood up and looked around the large room; no problems there. "Excuse me, Emmett." Nudge said as she stretched her wings out to their full length. Carlisle quickly examined them, along with the rest of his family. I could tell she felt a little uncomfortable being looked over, but they seemed really interested. And not in a creepy, evil-experiment way, either.

"Remarkable, almost like they occurred naturally." Carlisle said. Nudge folded her wings in loosely and sat down.

"They didn't." I said bitterly. Without waiting for the inevitable question, I briefly described about the School, and our 'childhood' spent being experimented on and living in dog crates.

I watched the pale strangers' faces carefully as I talked. Jasper winced and as I quietly told them about the other "experiments" and how we had all been treated. I noticed that the rest of their family was wearing blank expressions.

Iggy took up where I left off and told them about how he had lost his sight himself.

I bit my lip and watched the pale strangers' faces carefully as he explained. "They wanted me to have stronger eyesight. I think they were trying to use hawk DNA. But it went wrong. And I lost my sight because of those bastards." Iggy stopped. He looked up at me, "You can tell the rest, Max." I could tell he was angry, and I knew he hated talking about it. I nodded without saying anything.

"I'm nodding, Ig." I informed him. He rolled his eyes slightly at me, but the dangerous look on his face lessened as I had hoped it would. "Well, long story short; we escaped with some help from my… father. Jeb." I took a deep breath as the memories of Jeb came back. Edward looked over at me and whispered, "You could stop, if-"

"No." I cut him off, "No, I want you to know this stuff. All of it." I told them about our escape, and Angel's capture. I told all of it, leaving out nothing. If they wanted our story, they would get it- and all the gritty details.

My voice got shaky as I told them about Fang fighting Ari at the beach, and I had to stop for a minute. Ari is really dead now and Fang is seriously hurt, I realized. What if… No, I wouldn't think of that possibility. I couldn't handle a world without Fang.

I told them about my Voice and its advice to 'save the world.' Big help that had been. I described the crack! as Ari hit his head hit the floor in the sewer and about how he had temporarily died. Because of me.

"And then Jeb said, 'You killed your own brother!'" I whispered.And that's when I realised there were tears on my cheeks and that Nudge was hugging me.

I looked at the stunned and curious looks on the pale faces surrounding me.

"You forgot the most important part!" Total said irritatedly. "Me!"

"Oh, yeah. Angel took Total from the Institute when we left. Stupidest idea ever." I made a failed attempted at a joke as I wiped my eyes on my jacket sleeve.

"Yeah, well. That's our childhood in a nutshell. There's more, but I can tell Nudge wants to get back to telling you our… abilities." I said.

Nudge let out a dramatic breath. "Right, so where was I?"

"Well, apparently you have wings…" Emmett prompted.

"Right, well we can all fly up to about 150 miles an hour. Except for Max- she can fly at like, 300 miles an hour because she has super-speed." I smiled at her term 'super-speed' but said nothing. " Max has a Voice in her head sometimes that tells her to do stuff. Not like in a crazy mental person way though."

Iggy interrupted by saying, "she has other crazy mental voices for that."

I leaned over and smacked him on the shoulder "Do not." Gazzy and Iggy snickered.

"I also have a great sense of humor." I added.

Nudge continued on with the list, ignoring us.

"Well, as you can tell from his name, the Gasman has certain… unique abilities."

Iggy, Nudge, and Angel laughed and the Gasman scowled.

"He can also mimic anyone almost perfectly." I said.

Gazzy demonstrated by singing the beginning lines of "Baby Got Back" in Iggy's voice. Iggy smiled sarcastically, "Our little prodigy," he said after the laughter died down.

"Now, Iggy here is a master bomb maker, chef, and lock pick." I took up the list because Nudge was still giggling.

"An interesting combination." Edward commented wryly.

"Yeah, I try." Iggy said modestly.

"He can also feel colors, and has great hearing." Nudge chimed in.

"He's just a big teddy bear at heart though." I couldn't resist saying. Iggy muttered something about getting no respect and "living among imbeciles", but I ignored him.

"Nudge can attract metal, read emotions and sometimes control them, and she loves fashion." I noticed that Alice visibly perked up at the mention of fashion. Great, another fashion nut to deal with.

"I can touch stuff and sort of feel who used it, too. And hack into computers." Nudge said smiling.

"You can read emotions?" The one named Jasper asked. "And you can control them?" He sounded very interested all of a sudden. "That explains why... never mind."

I paused, looking around to judge these stranger's reactions to all this. They seemed very calm. Too calm in my opinion.

"And Angel has so many powers that it's not even funny." I continued.

"Angel?" Alice asked incredulously.

"Let's see: she can read minds, has mind control, breathes underwater, talks to fish, and morphs into different things. and she's still only seven."

Angel smiled, well, angelically at the amazed looks from them. I though I saw Edward and Angel exchange a glance, but it might've been my imagination and the nerves making me see things.

"What do you mean by morphing?" Carlisle asked.

Angel demonstrated by morping into her favorite blue feathery bird.

There was a sort of small gasp from them as she did it. "Awesome!" Emmett cried.

"And Fang can blend in and be almost invisible if he doesn't move and it's dark out, he's quiet most of the time anyway so that makes sense. He also has an online blog about us that's come in handy more than once."

And I think I'm in love with him, I added silently in my mind, really softly so Edward and Angel wouldn't hear it.

Total cleared his throat noisily "Ahem, I believe you forgot me and Akila."

I sighed, "And Total can talk and he's growing wings. But he can't fly yet. Akila's just your normal Malamute dog. At least, so far." But hanging out with us, who knows what could happen to her.

And that's when several things happened at once. Both Alice and Edward stiffened slightly at looked at the door to Fang's room. Alice said "He's waking up."

"And he's angry." Edward added.

Carlisle got up, and so did I. His mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear him saying anything. He looked slightly confused- not a good look for a doctor.

Less than a ten seconds after I got up a door off the living room opened and Fang stumbled out. His eyes met mine for a split second before he collapsed on the carpet. The sight of him laying on the carpet motionless almost made me start crying all over again.

--)Fang(--

I regained consciousness slowly. I felt stiff and completely disoriented. I was confused for a second before the memory of getting shot came back to me. Maybe I'm dead.But then I heard faint voices. Familiar voices. And they were telling a very familiar story; our story. Ok, probably not dead then. What the heck is going on? I carefully opened my eyes, and immediately closed them again.

I went over a mental check list. White and sterile? Check. Disinfectant smell? Check. Alone on a cold table? Check. Claustrophobic feeling? Definitely a check.

Obviously, we had lost the fight and been captured and were now at some Itex branch. That didn't explain why I wasn't strapped down, but maybe it was a new tactic. Hospitality instead of evil.

Panic spread through me. Last time we'd been at an Itex building we had all almost died in a hurricane. And that was because we'd been lucky. I opened my eyes again and tried to sit up. This was a bad idea. I fell back as a wave of pain shot through me. Shot. Why wasn't I dead? I felt my wound gingerly; it was wrapped in gauze and very neatly done. And my shirt was gone. Weird, I thought. Itex almost never treated any wounds we had.

And that's when I heard the sound that made me forget my pain. Max sniffling. Crying. I can count the number if times she's cried in front of others on one hand. And she never cried at Itex. Never. Whoever did this to Max is going to regret it. I gritted my teeth and sat up. I was on a table in what looked like a small, makeshift hospital room.

I had to get out of here; who knows what these monsters are planning. I stood up, almost passing out as a new wave of pain hit me. I lurched to the door and was surprised to find that it opened. Without thinking or even looking around, I stumbled out. I didn't care about anything except finding my flock and Max. I looked up and my eyes met Max's, who was sitting on a white couch surrounded by the flock and some good looking pale strangers. Scientists or flyboys by the looks of them.

Then the carpet rushed up to meet my face and everything went black.

--Edward--

"Fang!" The entire flock screamed in unison. They all ran to him when he lost consciousness and fell; luckily for him the carpet was soft. Clearly, Fang was stronger than either Carlisle or I had originally thought. However, the sedative should have kept him sleeping for a least three more hours. Love can make you do incredible things, though. Thoughts of love reminded me of Bella. She was staying with some friends and would be back in just ten hours. I realized I hadn't thought about Bella in almost half an hour, which was easily a record for me.

I was brought back to reality by Carlisle's very quiet request for me to join him. He was concerned about Fang waking up so soon. He should have been asleep for several more hours, I heard Carlisle thinking.

The flock followed me and we somehow managed to fit them, Carlisle, and I into the rather small room.

I sighed; this was going to be a long night.

hehe… Sorry about the bad ending spot (again) but I had to break it into 2 because it would be way too long with this and the Cullen's explanation.

FYI, the song 'Baby Got Back' aka 'I like big butts' is by Sir-Mix-a-Lot.

R and R please!!