Disclaimer: I do not own Nikita or Maximum Ride.
Previously...
"Ella wants to see you." He says.
"Mais, j'ai besoin un ordinateur!" Angel said angrily.
"Now." The guard commanded and pushed Angel towards Ella's office. Angel sighed and stomped off. I guess this will have to wait. She thinks to herself.
"Hello Angel. I'm here to help cure you." Ella says.
My name is Maximum Ride. 18 years I was created and forced to become an assassin for a covert unit of the government. 2 years ago, I escaped and have been hunted ever since. I was the first recruit to ever get out and I'm going to make certain I'm not the last. They destroyed my identity and they destroyed the man I loved. I'm going to take them down and the last word they'll breathe before the end will be my name.
"What am I doing here?" Angel asks en francais.
"I think you know why." Ella says, lighting a candle.
"So what, I had a freak out, big deal." Angel says and gets up to leave.
"No, you had a panic attack." Ella says, blowing out a match. "Now we need to figure out why."
"This is pointless." Angel says at the door but Ella was over there in a flash. "How did you-?" Angel questions but Ella shushes her.
"That is not important, come Angel sit down. We'll just talk. I promise." Ella says.
"Okay." Angel says giving in.
"Here, have some tea. I'm sure you'll find it to have a very calming effect." Ella says smirking. Angel took a sip of the cup and starts to feel woozy.
"Ella? What did you put in that-" but before Angel could finish her sentence, she passed out.
Fang buys a pretzel from a vendor. Although he thought the New York ones were better, he couldn't complain. He looks around and sees his strike team up and down the street blending in and acting like pedestrians.
"Kay, so what is this place?" Fang asks with a mouthful of pretzel.
"Eww, Fang, couldn't you at least finish what you were eating before talking? I mean hasn't Ella taught you any manners?" Nudge complains and Fang rolls his eyes.
"I'm rolling my eyes Nudge." Fang says remembering she wasn't beside him.
"In the subway tunnel to your left and in through the tunnel is where the Institute is. They have files on all the mutants, expiry dates and stuff." Nudge says. "Ooh! Did you know Lady Gaga drove by there on the weekend? Aw man, sometimes I wish I were still a field agent but ya know, recuperation I guess. OMG is that a store selling Justin Bieber clothes? Fang you'd look good in those and-" Nudge says and Fang hears a slap, probably someone covering Nudge's mouth.
"Okay where is it exactly?" Fang asks and Nudge gives him the coordinates.
"ZOMG did you see that woman's coat? That is so in this season, where did she get that Gucci purse I LOVE it!" Nudge says.
"Nudge, focus. Who's the boss?" Fang asks.
"Some guy named Chen Lo and he's arguing with the head scientist." Nudge says.
"Why would Max let the white coats get away?" Fang asks.
"Exactly what I was thinking, turns out she put a tracker on him. One of the really strong ones. She could be anywhere in the State." Nudge says imagining Max put on her leather coat and checking the signal.
"Damn." Fang curses under his breath.
"I wonder if Max still has that voice of hers. Where does she get all her ammunition? I mean it's not like she walked off with the whole defense department." Nudge says and Fang rolls his eyes.
"I'm going in." He says.
"Copy that, Nudge out." Nudge says.
Flashback
"Come on Lilly, 30 seconds more! You can do it!" Max cheers Lilly on as she finishes her last math problem. "Good job, you did great!"
"Thanks Max." Lilly says, grinning toothily. She had just lost her two front teeth. Max couldn't help but smile back, in the weeks as Lilly's tutor, she had really grown attached to her whole family.
"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow right?" Max asks.
"Yup, same time, same place." Lilly says and runs out of the house to play in the playground.
"Good job Max." Caroline says as she hands me a cheque, "Lilly has really improved, she even got 100% on her last math test!" Max smiles ignoring the guilt that was eating away at her.
"No problem, just part of the job right?" Max says gathering her stuff. In the past few months she had been sent to Rolland ter Borcht's house to learn all his weaknesses and collect intel. She knew that he absolutely hated Snicker Bars or as he calls them Snickhuh Bahs and would never let any into the house. She also knew that he was working closely with a group of Chinese scientists selling mutant kids as weapons. Unfortunately, she also knew she had collected enough intel and the School was now getting ready to clean him up. Poor Lilly, it wasn't her fault that her father was a no good white coat who experimented on innocent children.
"Rolland, I'm going out to the store okay? Lilly is out by Budd park." Caroline calls to ter Borcht and leaves the house. Perfect. Max thinks to herself as she sets the bomb.
"Thank you Max, for all ove your hard vork." Ter Borcht says watching as Max leaves.
"No problem, no problem." Max says and walks calmly out the door. Then she sprints as fast as she can and hits the floor when the explosion happens.
"Good work Max." Fang says through her earpiece and Max ignores him. She gets in the Division car and can't think about anything but Lilly's smiling face, the girl who was going to have to go without a father.
Sometimes Max, we have to make small sacrifices for the bigger picture. The voice told me.
Oh shut up voice, tell me, is it fair that she has to go through the life I lived? I said and the voice didn't respond. Thanks voice, thanks for answering.
I stare out my window looking at the School's strike team waiting right outside the terminal. Crap. I pull up my hood and walk into the terminal.
Good Max, now to the left. My voice told me. Yes I have a voice; it came with the whole bird kid package.
I knocked down the door and took out the guard by the computer. I opened the computer and typed in the password. What did Nudge say it was again?
Flashback
"I can feel the lady who works here, she has frizzy red hair and round glasses." Nudge says.
"Wow, touch something else." Iggy says.
"Guys, focus." I said and typed in the password.
I typed the password into the big computer and it worked! I figured they would change it from the last time we broke into the Institute, I mean they relocated and everything! I saw the man on the screen and gasped. No I killed him, I saw the explosion with my own eyes! I heard footsteps and quickly hit print. I sprinted out the door just fast enough to get behind a piece of bulletproof glass door. I turned around, gun in hand.
"Fang?" I asked seeing him behind the glass.
"Max?" Fang looks at me eyes wide but quickly hardened. "So you're going to take down the Institute now? Is that it?"
"Fang, listen, Rolland ter Borcht is still alive!" I gasp and his face contorts in confusion.
"How? You killed him." He says.
"Apparently not, but I'm going to put a stop to him once and for all. I don't want another kid suffering through the life I had." I say.
"Max, don't do this please, don't take on the School." Fang pleads and I turn around and run. I feel Fang staring me down and I can hear him calling my name but I ignore him as I start popping latches.
"You're all free! Get out of here!" I shout at the top of my lungs. There is another girl there with wings, she looks at me and nods thanks. She doesn't wish to join me and she takes all of the kids with her. It's good to know that they have a leader that is so strong and so willing to care for them. I wait a couple of minutes and then take off myself, smirking at the gaping expressions of some late night party goers.
"I need a location for ter Borcht." Fang says, walking into Jeb's office. Jeb raises an eyebrow.
"Who have you been talking to? Oh wait that's right, Maximum Ride." Jeb says and Fang shrugs.
"You never question anything I do, I love that about you." Jeb comments and Fang answers in a flat tone.
"I assumed you have your reasons." Fang says.
"You assume correctly. Now as for ter Borcht, he was one of our leading scientists in the Institute. He always provided us with our best fighters, I mean where do you think Nudge came from?" Jeb says.
"I thought we found her in the street fighting world." Fang says.
"We did, she broke out of the Institute twelve years ago and survived on her own for three years before we found her and brought her back to the School. We gave her warm clothes and food, a family and a purpose. That's why her loyalties to us are so strong." Jeb says taking pride in this. Fang chuckles darkly to himself.
"So she was one of ter Borcht's creations, huh." Fang says and Jeb's face darkens.
"I'll have Nudge send you the coordinates in Shanghai." Jeb says furrowing his brow and Fang exits the room.
Angel wakes up strapped to an operation table.
"Relax Angel, we're going to run a few tests to make your memories return." Ella says. "Then we're going to dig to the root of your panic attack."
"Non! Je veux aller!" Angel yells thrashing.
"Come one Angel, the only way to stop the pain is to let it all go." Ella says and Angel keeps thrashing.
"Non!" Angel screams and a white coat injects something into the crook of her arm. The world goes blurry and then dark.
Maximum Ride
"Ma'am, you need to come with us." One of the security guards tells me.
"What do you want?" I growl.
"Hello Max, long time no see." Rolland smirks and stuns me with a Taser. Shit, I did not see this one coming. I wake up in an iron cage.
"So here we have the infamous specimen of our most successful experiments, Maximum Ride." Rolland says in his funny accent and lifts the silk up from my cage. I hear gasps and babbling.
"You are now free to question." Rolland says to the scientists as if I'm not there.
"How high can you go?" One of them asks and I cut ter Borchty off.
"High." I answer, "Higher than an airplane."
"How high?" Another asks.
"So high I can't hear the thwuck of the propellors." I say smirking. "You mean a toy airplane right?"
The scientists from China look confused but move on nonetheless. "What feats have you accomplished?" One asks.
"I once ate nine snicker bars without barfing." I say and bite my lip to keep from laughing. Ter Borcht's face just gets redder and redder.
"Enough!" Ter Borcht yells and I pull back in surprise. "You better keep that smart mouth of yours shut, if you want to survive that is." He says. That was the last straw. I pull his collar choking him and take out my secret weapon. A snicker bar. Not just any snicker bar, one laced with poison.
"You will unlock my cage and let me out. You will call off your guards and send the scientists home. We are going to get into the car and you are not going to argue. I figure you have about 2 hours before the antidote will be too late. Nod once if you understand." I whisper angrily into his ear. He nods once and I let him go. As soon as I let him go, four guards start advancing on me. Rolland laughs manaically and I kick one in the stomach while flipping one over my shoulder. I punch one's daylights out and then proceed to fling his body into the last guard. Rolland pales and I knock him out injecting the antidote into his arm. I hear a gunshot behind me and I whip my head around so fast I'm surprised I didn't give myself whiplash. I see Fang holding a gun and the dead guard behind me. He nods once at me and without hesitation I get in the car and drop Rolland off at the nearest police station.
Angel wakes up, memories intact. Angel, Ella is going to question you. Tell her the truth but not all of the truth, understood? The voice warned Angel.
"I'm glad it worked, good job Ella. I'll leave you to it now." Jeb says and leaves the room.
"Now Angel, let's have a little talk." Ella says and Angel realizes she can't move anything neck down. "You see your panic attack was triggered by something and unless we can find out what that trigger is, you are a liability on the field, a threat. Here at the School, we take care of threats. So choose wisely Angel." Angel stops thrashing. Angel, do as she says, she is perfectly capable of triggering your expiration date early. The voice warned again and Angel's blood boiled.
"Good." Ella says. "Angel, whenever you're ready, feel free to start." Angel takes a deep breath.
"When I was five." Angel begins. "I was in a cage." Angel shudders mentally, reliving the memory. "The fire alarms went off, screeching. There was smoke everywhere." She says. "They ran for their lives and left us all alone." She says remembering the sound of feet clicking on the marble floors outside her door while the alarms blared all around her. "I was in solitary, recovering from a test they had run on me. I was still paralyzed." Angel says remembering feeling helpless. "There was so much smoke, I couldn't breathe. Then came the fire, its flames licked towards my cage." She says eyes glazed over, mouth no longer listening to her brain. Once she opened the gates, everything came flooding out. "I remember the pain, it was almost unbearable. But I was trapped, trapped in my cage, trapped in my body. Everything started to close in on me. I suffered through the pain though and once I gained control of my arms and legs, I broke my cage and flew out into the night." Angel says. "The night I escaped from the lab and you were the ones who put me there." Angel finishes hatred penetrating the room.
Ella stands there smiling at Angel. "Good job Angel, I'm proud of you." She says and Angel watches as she walks away leaving Angel alone once more.
I walk down to the park and pick up a newspaper from a stand. I read the headline.
Ter Borcht, Rolland. Geneticist arrested for Human Experimentation. I looked at it and smiled. Oh yeah, bring it on Jeb, bring it on.
"No, no commission. Yes, I understand. Again I apologize. Okay, goodbye." Jeb says frustrated and he buries his face in his hands. This was not over, not by a long shot.
Sneak peek
"I'm the only one who can save Iggy."
"All positions, green light, exterminate."
"No Tess, come on don't die on me now. I love you."
"You think I'm bluffing?"
"I'm so sorry. I can't believe I put you through so much pain."
So, sorry this chapter was so short, but I'll have another one up soon! Thanks for all the reviews and criticism you guys! :) Also this time my goal is to have 2 reviews by the next time I update.
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