Hello dedicated readers! Thank you for finding my story. I finally found a good name for it. The first name had nothing to do with the story, the second was just plain old dumb, but the third, I think I finally got it right. Last chapter was really long, this chapter probably won't be quite so big. I do apologize. Chapter 7! SanraitaFang, if you don't update your freaking story, I won't lend you Hunted! I'll just keep renewing it at the library, and you will never get to read it!

Max's POV

Of course, the first thing I woke up to in the morning was Gazzy saying to me, "Max! Wake up or I'll fart!"

As you can imagine, that got me out of bed quite fast. Especially considering Gazzy still had the ability to release a little mushroom cloud of green gas from his rear end. "This hotel has a pool, and arcade, and a really big breakfast buffet, and we haven't done any of it!"

"What time is it?" I asked him.

"Almost 10:00 in the morning. You slept forever."

Staring at the clock beside my bed, I saw that he was right. I don't usually sleep for so long. Today was a rare exception. I had been tired after last night. Very tired. "You can go down to the pool for an hour or so. Anyone else can come with you."

"I already tried that. You need have someone thirteen with you to just go in the hot tub. To go in the actual pool with the waterslide, you have to have a fourteen year old person, so Fang said to come get you," He explained to me.

I was gonna kill Fang. He was probably already up and awake, but too lazy to take Gazzy swimming. Sigh, the duties of being flock leader always fall to me. Maybe because I'm flock leader. Hmmm, what a strange idea! "Give me a chance to shower and I'll be right there," I told an overjoyed Gazzy, who instantly went off to tell Nudge and Angel and who knows who else.

In the meantime, I went to the bathroom and got the morning hygiene issues under control. Once my hair was nice and clean, I climbed out of the shower and got dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. After that I went down to the pool where Gazzy was presumably waiting for me. I stopped at the table in the entryway and grabbed a chocolate chip cookie. They weren't as good as my mom's, but they were soooo good.

When I got to the pool, I saw Gazzy and pretty much the rest of the flock sliding down the waterslide. Aargh! They had just woken me up so they could trick me into coming swimming. Bums.

Of course then I didn't have a choice but to join them in the pool. I hopped in and immediately headed straight for the very, very, awesome waterslide. It wasn't super steep, but it went across the whole ceiling, which was pretty high, and slowly wound its way to the bottom, like a gihugemous snake. (I made up the word 'gihugemous'. Can anyone tell?) It took me about five minutes to get from top to bottom.

(If my typing goes really wonky on the Fanfic site, please don't kill me. *cowers in terror* It was Microsoft word's fault, not mine! I went to a weird setting all of a sudden. Oh well, you'll have to deal with it. : p That's a face with its tongue stuck out. I'm so creative, not. I never would have figured it out on my own.) Of course, after a half-an-hour, the young lady at the front desk had to come ruin our fun by telling us we couldn't go swimming without proper swimsuits. Note to self, pick those up soon. All we had to wear was shorts and t-shirts. So we grabbed some towels, dried off, went upstairs, packed our bags, signed out of the hotel, went outside, went to a secluded backyard, and flew into the air, instead of swimming. If I ever saw that lady again, well, let's just say I pity her. Just before we took off, I had a quick thought, "What kinds of DNA do you and Wyll have?" I asked Taelyr.

"Not a hundred percent sure," Taelyr responded, "Some kind of beetle, I think," she said, opening brilliant insect wings.

"I've got the same," Wyll added, "But I got the sweet end of the deal. I'm Spiderman."

Just like that, he spun a thick line of what honestly looked like white rope from the palm of his hand. "I guess one of the whitecoats was a fan," he said innocently, tearing the rope from his palm.

"So you guys know how to fly?" Fang asked.

"Yeah, the whitecoats tried to get us to carry bombs and stuff, but there's no way I was gonna do that," Taelyr said.

"Same here," said Wyll.

"In that case, I guess we can leave now," I said.

So we took off into the air, heading to who knows where.

"Where are we gonna go now, Max?" Nudge asked me.

Ummm…

The Himalayas.

That's on the other side of the world!

Not if you're in Europe.

It's still a freakishly long flight!

You can make it. There is a school in the Himalayas that you need to destroy.

Of course. "We're goin' to the Himalayas," I announced. Then I had an afterthought, "Total and Akila will think we're still in Oxford."

"We can pick a cell-phone up when we get to China," Fang told me.

"Good idea," I told him, "We'll stop at a Wal-mart or something and pick up some snacks before we leave."

"The rest of us ate at the hotel," Iggy told me, "You were still asleep, and Taelyr and Wyll were hungry."

I had almost forgotten about them. They had been pretty quiet, talking to each other and Madysen mostly. "Taelyr and Wyll, I already asked Madysen and Natalca how the whitecoats captured them. Is it okay if I ask you guys?" I asked them, "I still need to hear from Shanyn as well."

"Yeah sure, we don't mind," Wyll answered, "I was about seven and a half, and I was going to regular school on the school bus. The bus got hit by a semi or something, and most of it imploded. When the semi hit, it had been right where I was sitting, so I got thrown to the other side of the bus and went right through the window. I was pretty beat up. After that a guy came, I can't remember what he looked like, and he took me into a car. After that I fainted, and woke up in the School in the cage next to Taelyr's."

"Friendly mushrooms!" Taelyr shouted.

"Evil cucumbers!" Madysen responded.

"Killer tomatoes!" replied Taelyr.

"Burgundy bananas!" Madysen finished.

I stared at them. "Fang," I said, "I think we should get that cell phone fast. We need to make a call to the insane asylum."

Taelyr and Madysen were laughing their heads off, but Madysen somehow managed to convey, "We're not crazy, just slightly insane and happy!"

"If we were crazy," Taelyr added, "We'd be doing this!"

As if that were a signal of some sort, they both went perfectly straight and started spiralling towards the earth, shouting, "Mutant carrots, mutant carrots, mutant carrots!" the whole way down. Then they flew back up to meet us at our original altitude.

Taelyr and Madysen definitely needed to go to a mental facility. "If you're finally sane enough," I told Taelyr, "We would appreciate you telling us how the whitecoats kidnapped you."

"Madysen's probably already told you the majority of the story. We were tubing, and then the rope, which was tested for way more than we weighed, snapped. We got flung towards these really sharp rocks, and then two guys came. The first one picked up Madysen, and the second one picked up me. I saw Madysen go into a van, and then the man carrying me put me in a different one. I didn't see Madysen after that, and I thought she was dead," she said. Then, for reasons unknown, she turned around and stuck her tongue out at Madysen.

"What was that for?" asked Madysen.

"For not telling me you were alive!" said Taelyr, "You're such a meanie-bum!"

"I do apologize for not calling my friend, who had been turned into a beetle-person, and who was somewhere across the ocean while I was being held hostage in a top-secret facility where people turned me into a mutant bat-human hybrid, just to let her know that I was alive," said Madysen sincerely.

"Apology accepted," Taelyr answered.

These two were crazy. "Now we just have one more person to tell us what happened. Your turn Shanyn."

"When I was seven, my parents took me to Canada's Wonderland," she began, and I instantly realized it wasn't going to end well, "And I went on the Xtreme Skyflyer (Yes that is an actual ride at Canada's Wonderland. I do my research! All the time! And yes, Shanyn goes on very crazy rides. Speaking of which, you have to come to Canada Day Fair Shanyn! There will be a Skymaster, and a Zipper ride! They are so much FUN! Look Xtreme Skyflyer up if you don't believe me that it's a real ride. It's probably better for you to look it up, since Shanyn's explanation isn't very good. It's not my fault it's no good, it's Shanyn's.), which is basically like freefalling. You're attached to this harness, which is attached to a rope, which is attached to a big swinging thingummy. It swings you down and then back up again. It's hard to explain. Anyways, for some reason, this girl named Syarrah had to come with us. This did not make me happy, because Syarrah can be very annoying, and she tells very unbelievable lies. For instance, when I said I was going to Canada's Wonderland, she said that she wished she could come, too. The next day, she told me that her parents had to go to a very conveniently scheduled funeral, and that she conveniently couldn't go. So she ended up inviting herself along with us.

"When we went on the Skyflyer, we were placed so that there was a big twenty-year-old guy in between us, since the harnesses can fit three people. After we started moving, we went really close to the ground, and we were going fast. When we were on the bottom of the swing, we were about six feet of the ground. At that moment, the rope decided to snap, meaning we fell the remaining six feet still going about as fast as a car. The harness broke when we hit the ground and Syarrah and I went one way, and the man went the other way. I'm not sure what happened to the man, and I didn't think about it much at the time, seeing as I pretty much couldn't feel any part of my body, and was almost unconscious.

"A man came and put us both in the back of a big, black van. The kind that secret agents use in spy movies. After a few minutes, I felt the van start to move. I, unlike some people, managed to stay conscious for the entire trip. The van brought me and Syarrah to a helicopter landing pad, and she got loaded onto a plane. After a few minutes, a plane came for me. I was semi-conscious, so I don't remember exactly what happened during the flight, but I heard little pieces of the whitecoats conversation. They said words even I didn't understand like stem-cells, chiroptera, and some other ones.

"After the plane ride, I went into another van, and it brought me to the School. The whitecoats took me to an operating room, and I guess since I wasn't reacting to anything they did, they thought I was unconscious, so they operated on my back while I was still awake. It didn't hurt much more than it had already been hurting, though. After that, I got put in the same room as Madysen and Natalca, in the cage beside them. And then after a few more weeks, I developed my power to heal injuries. And then after a few more years, you guys came and saved us."

"Well," I told them, "You guys all have very different stories than ours. We've been part bird since we were born. You guys got changed when you were seven. And all of you got changed when you were seven. Which is making me think that the whitecoats chose that age on purpose. Especially considering the fact that all of the 'accidents' could have been done on purpose. Wyll got hit by a semi, which could have been driven by a whitecoat. Taelyr and Madysen were tubing when the 5000 lb tested rope snapped, and the rope could have been pre-cut by a whitecoat. Shanyn also had a rope snap, same possible reason. Natalca's situation was probably the most likely that a whitecoat was behind it. Generally zookeepers don't leave the door to the lion cage open on purpose."

"I definitely agree with that," said Wyll, "The semi didn't even try to stop, and it just kept driving after it hit us."

"I agree too," Iggy told me, "All of the accidents seem to be way too convenient."

That started a round of agreeable sounds. I thought a little more on the different stories. Shanyn had said that Syarrah had been loaded onto a different helicopter…was that because Syarrah had died before they could make it to the landing pad? Or because she had been going somewhere else?

That's almost exactly right, Max.

What is?

What you were thinking right now.

Which thought? The one that Syarrah was dead? Or the one that she had been shipped of to somewhere else?

The second one. Where are you going right now, Max? You've always been a fast thinker; I'm surprised you haven't figured it out already.

Well now it didn't take me too long. "Shanyn," I called to her, "Syarrah's at the School in the Himalayas."

"What?" she asked me in shock, "How do you know?"

"The crazy little Voice in my head."

"I'm guessing we're going to rescue her?" Fang asked me.

"You're guessing right," I answered.

Good choice, Max.

Shanyn POV

Sigh. I wasn't angry that we were going to pick up Syarrah. But she could be the world's most annoying person in history at times. One could only hope that five years of virtual isolation had changed her.

I watched the ground roll by. We were flying over Iran at the moment, and with the hot desert air rising in huge thermals, I only had to flap my wings about once every thirty seconds. "We are going to be arriving in the Himalayas in approximately three hours," Iggy told me in a mock flight attendant voice.

"Thank-you sir," I responded, "While you're still here, may I have a strawberry slushie, two bags of chips, and a hot dog please?"

"Nope!"

"You'll never make a good flight attendant," I told him, "Are we seriously arriving in three hours?"

"Again, nope. When the flock flew over Europe, it took us a fair bit of time to cross even France. And to fly across Texas, it takes about eight hours. So, it will not take three to get to the Himalayas. It will probably take closer to twelve or thirteen, which means that Max will be calling a break soon so that we can fuel up at a town. Actually, I'm surprised she hasn't already called one, considering the fact we've been flying for almost four hours," he said.

As though he was psychic, Max spoke up, "Time to stop for a break," she called out, "After this break, we'll fly 'till it gets dark, then find a spot to stay the night at."

We banked inward, and then descended. When we hit the ground, the sand was hot, even through my sneakers. If I had been barefoot, I probably would have gotten a burn.

"I can see a town or something over there," Max told us, "We can probably refuel there."

Our odd little flock/colony/bug swarm followed started off towards the distant cluster of huts. As we got nearer, my keen ears picked up an odd sound. It was a mix of odd sounding growls, panting, talking, and the grinding sound feet make when they walk across sand. I looked at Madysen and Natalca, only to discover that they were looking at me in the same way. I walked over to where they were standing. "Do you hear those growls?" Madysen asked me.

"Yeah, but I can't quite figure out what they are," I told her, "It's on the tip of my tongue…"

A look of dawning fear came over Natalca's face, "You guys, those growls sound like Shifters."

"Crap." I said. The situation didn't need a better word than that.

"Crap indeed," Madysen assured me, "Max! We can't go to that village! We can hear Shifters!"

Max looked confused for a second, and then remembered that our hearing was better than the flock's. "Got it. That village is bad. Up and away, you guys!"

"Max," Fang told her, "An up and away won't help. The Shifter's are already coming."

I turned and looked. There were indeed about ten sleek shapes running across the desert at an impossible speed. We had maybe thirty seconds until they reached us. "More crap," I muttered.

"More crap indeed," Madysen agreed.

"It's okay you guys," Max told us, "Get ready for a fight. There's only thirteen that I can see. That means one for each of us and then one more for whoever gets done first."

"Max," Madysen warned, "Shifters are freakishly strong, don't underestimate them."

"They're way stronger than Omega was," Angel told her, obviously reading our memories of them.

By now, the Shifters, which were fully shifted into their predator forms, had about five seconds until they reached us, and I was braced for the fight of my life. The first one struck at Max, and the rest came at us. I found myself punching a pure white creature in the face. She didn't even flinch. I gave a quick roundhouse kick to her gut, but she jumped in the air, dragon wings flapping, and landed on the other side of me. She used her huge paws to pin me to the ground and gave me a large scratch across my left arm. I gasped at the sudden flash of pain, then got myself together and healed it. The Shifter was much heavier than me, but I managed to roll her off of me and jump on her stomach. The huge cat-like creature rolled over and started coughing into the sand. While she was distracted, I gave a lighting fast punch at the thick muscles on the side of her throat, right under her jaw-line. The instant I hit, she gave a loud roar of pain, and then fainted, completely knocked out. "You guys!" I called, "Hit the Shifters on the side of the neck, under the jaw-line! It knocks them out!"

The group tried my technique, and after less than thirty seconds, the entire herd of Shifters was lying around us, unconscious. "Well," said Max, "We know their weak spot. Shanyn, any chance you could help us with our battle wounds?"

"Sorry!" I said, "I'll get them."

I quickly healed everyone's scratches. When I came to Natalca, I saw that she was sporting a broken leg, probably stepped on by 200 lb Shifter. "This'll hurt, Natalca," I told her, "I have to set the bone before I heal it, otherwise you could end up crippled."

Natalca just nodded, teeth gritted against the pain in her leg, and with good reason. I quickly took her leg in my hands and lined the bones up, ignoring her sharp intake of breath. As soon as I felt the bones were in their proper spots, I used my magical power to fuse them together, along with the thin layer of muscle they had sliced through.

"Okay," Max called out, "We obviously aren't going to camp at that village, so we'll have to fly for a few more hours before we can take a rest. Does everyone think they can go 'till sunset?"

We all mumbled agreement, and did an up and away.

Ha ha! I finally made the Shifters attack! So happy! The next chapter might not be up for a while, on account of me going camping next week and also on account of me starting a new Fanfic. If anyone's read the house of night series, you can find my first chapter there in a few weeks. In the meantime, does anyone have any ideas that might aid my plan of world domination? I WILL RULE THE WORLD SO DON'T TRY TO TELL ME OTHERWISE!!!!!!!!!! MWAH HAH HAH!!!!!!!!!!