Fang is in Shock-Along with the Rest of us.

"Iggy!" Fang exclaimed when we touched down in the clearing.

"Wassup? Haven't seen you in a while," Iggy replied.

"I took another one for the team." Fang pressed Iggy's hand to the nearly healed scars. Iggy's hand fluttered delicately over Fang taking stock of his injuries. When he was done he grimaced.

"Yeah, I keep telling him he should be more careful with himself, I cracked.

Iggy's eyebrows furrowed and his forehead wrinkled as he explored Fang's injuries. "I may be blind, but something about this doesn't seem right."

Sudden fear clutched my esophagus. I think I may have actually made a choking noise. "Excuse me? What exactly do you mean by 'wrong'?"

"Dunno…..it just is somehow." Thank you Mr. descriptive.

I looked at Fang, his expression was hard to read and it seemed to flicker back and forth between weak shock and slightly strong guilt. Which worried me…a lot, I bit my lower lip trying to figure this out.

"Shirt off Fang," I decided.

Fang hesitated and I spun my hand in a hurry up motion. Fang reluctantly pulled off his shirt. Blackish green raised slashes covered his chest and arms. I stared in shock, what was this. FYI in case you were wondering-this isn't why were in shock. Just sayin.

"What is that?" I gasped. "Good job finding it Igg, without the colors too-impressive."

Iggy shoulders straightened a little, but his expression stayed grim.

"What do you think it is?" Fang asked taking a calming breath. After all when stuff goes wrong it with us it either means our recombinant DNA is unraveling or we've just been whitecoated, which could mean death.

"I have no clue," Iggy said.

I brushed my hair behind my ears waiting for someone to tell me the world wasn't ending. Of course no one did. The leader never gets any comfort.

"I'm sure it can't be worse than my brain attacks," I tried feebly. Fang looked at me and groaned. Take it from a leader, comforting poor winged mutants that have been through..we'll call it a war and are part of an experiment that may or may not be successful, it's a hard job, but someone's got to do it. Of course, that means there's usually no one left to comfort me. But this was a whole new level of bad.

Fang bit his lip. "What are we going to do?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

"I don't know, Fang. We're not doctors after all. There's not much we can do except hope an answer comes." Cue the voice! The voice will never talk unless it's inconvenient….duh. Newt crashed through the trees and stopped abruptly. Chuck plowed head on into him knocking Newt forward.

"What kind of bloody party is this?" Newt asked taking in Fang with his shirt off, Iggy running his hands over Fang's chest, and me, watching the whole spectacle. My face got hot, Iggy jumped, and Fang managed to look normal. "What the? Did you get scratched by a griever? This is worse than I imagined." Newt exclaimed his eyes nearly popping out of his head as he looked at Fang, the goth tiger.

"It's just an Eraser scratch," Fang said casually although from his subtle body language I could tell he was ready to flip out.

"Just a scratch?! You've got to be kidding!" Newt yelped.

"I think there may have been a little poison involved."

Newt looked a little closer. "Well it looks enough like a griever sting that maybe if we found you some of that stuff that brings on the remembering you'd be alright."

"It's worth a shot," I said a little too quickly.

Fang shrugged, "I guess no point in not going."

Newt had said he'd got all their supplies from the peak of the mountain, so that's where we went. We had to leave Newt at the bottom because he was too heavy to carry, but I was giving Chuck a lift. I checked on Fang's progress often, and didn't like what I was seeing. He was breathing hard and sweat was running down his face. He looked sick and his usually precise flying was reckless giving Iggy a hard time flying in a straight line. We were only half way up when Fang's wings went limp and he dropped like a rock.

"Fang!" I screamed. "Iggy take Chuck!"

I practically hurled Chuck through the air towards Iggy and he barely made the catch. "What's going on?" he asked annoyed, but I was already diving wings pressed tight to my spine.

Wind buffeted my face whipping my hair back. Fang had a head start and he was dropping quickly as well. I pulled my wings in as close as I could and pulled my arms and legs tightly together trying to be as streamlined as possible. It worked. I dove right past Fang and a few feet under him I snapped my wings open. I had been hurdling through the air with so much force it nearly snapped my wing in two. I looked up just in time to make a flying lunge at Fang. I grabbed him around the waist and beat my wings hard trying to at least keep us from turning into two mutant pancakes. I beat my wings nearly ripping them out of their sockets, but we still plummeted like a couple of rocks.

Let go of him, you can do without him.

I'm kinda starting to think the voice has a death wish for Fang. Jealous much? I countered.

Well if you insist, use your warp speed.

What? Of course! My warp speed, the voice has finally decided to be a help. I focused on my wings beating faster and soon I was warping away. I had hovering to the ground in an instant.

As soon as I placed Fang gently on the ground I knelt down by his side. His breathing was faint and rapid, his face was pale, and he was a wet and limp as a spaghetti noodle. Iggy touched down next to me dropping Chuck.

"He filled me in, what is it?" He listened for a minute. "That doesn't sound good."

Chuck took one look at Fang and started freaking out. "Help!" he screamed. Iggy tried to slap a hand over his mouth, but ended up poking him in the eye instead. "Ouch! But look at him what are we going to do?"

"We've been in a rough spot before."

"More than one," Iggy commented drily.

I felt like the world was spinning out of control. I tried to wake Fang up using every trick I knew, but it didn't help. I felt a little self conscious in front of the kids kissing Fang and yelling that I needed him, but as nothing worked, let's just say I resorted to extreme measures. Fang continued to be dead-ish. I felt tears running down my face and I could hear Iggy and Chucks sobs over my own ragged breathing.

The sun started to set, a small part of me knew that we'd been here for hours, but the part that would have cared was dull and numb. We were all shaky and weepy. It got cold after the sun went down and we all curled up around Fang.

Maybe it's for the best, Max. My voice said.

"If you're in league with the whitecoats you'd help me! You'd send someone to help Fang," I said bitterly.

The next thing I knew a big ball of light was crashing through the trees over our heads. I didn't know if I'd been asleep or not, but my eyes were swollen and my face felt stiff. As my eyes focused the ball of light landed on the ground and I realized it was a bird kid like us.

"Who are you?" I asked tense.

"I'm Optimum Ride. You wanted help and here I am."

Well this is odd, and definitely a dream.

"You-you can help Fang?" I asked.

"Yep, it's one of my powers. Like yours is super speed, Angel's is mind reading, Gazzy's is voices, Fang's is camoflauge."

Yours is being annoying, I mentally added. Out loud I said, "Show me."

"I want a promise first," he said.

Inwardly I groaned. "What?"

"I want to be part of the Flock, a full part, like anyone else."

I was desperate, what can I say. "Sure, fine, whatever."

"Now go to sleep, Max," he said gently and I was out like a light.