So what did you all think of the last chapter? Reviews are welcome, they make me happy and make me write faster and faster and faster and faster and *goes on forever*
This is a majorly important chapter. A Heroes canon character is going to make an appearance and lend a hand to Max and the Flock. Who is it? If you think really hard about "fast method of transport" you'll get it.
Disclaimer: Screw it. I've said this enough times.
Claimer: Don't lay a hand on Jackson or Chloe. This guy knows how to fight, and he means business.
Max POV
We were flying as fast as we possibly could to the place where the Company had taken us on Monday. The whole way there, all I could do was worry. What were they doing to Jackson? What did they have in store for Chloe? I was more worried about Chloe though: Jackson was valuable so they wouldn't kill him. But Chloe was just a normal human; to them, that meant disposable. We had to go faster; who knows what ter Borcht had in mind?
After what felt like an eternity, but what was really twenty minutes, we arrived at the Company. I remembered that the building had said "Primatech Paper Company", but Jackson had explained that this was just a front for the secret dealings the Company had going on in the background.
We landed on the roof, opened the door to the stairwell, and walked down. We got out on the second floor, and I recognized where we were. I went the way to the office where Angela Petrelli was in last time.
When I burst through the door, Angela was sitting there waiting.
"Hello there, dearie. I got a message from an unknown source saying that you needed help. Do you know who sent it?"
"Yeah, it was this weird person who talks straight into my head; I call it the Voice. It mentioned that you could get us to Death Valley fast. Where is this transport?"
Angela didn't answer. Instead, she pressed a couple of buttons on her phone, and her secretary answered.
"Yes, Mrs. Petrelli?"
"Tell Hiro Nakamura to start heading over."
"Right away, ma'am." The secretary hung up.
"Who's Hiro Nakamura, where is he, and how can he help us?"
"My dear, Hiro Nakamura is the one who can help you. He's in Japan right now, but he should be here shortly."
"Japan?! It'll take him at least a day to—"
I was cut off by a strange *pop* noise in the room, followed by a gust of wind. When I looked, I saw a Japanese man standing there. He looked like the real comic book nerd type. "How did you get here?" I asked.
"Hello," he said, with a bow. "My name is Hiro Nakamura, and I control time and space."
"Yeah yeah, I don't have time for introductions, all you need to know is I'm Max, and we," I pointed to the Flock, "need to get to Death Valley, fast. Can you take us there?" Hiro nodded.
"Everybody, touch some part of each other." All of us grabbed each other's hands, except for Fang; we grabbed him on the arm. Hiro came over to me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and squinted. The next moment, everything went black for a few seconds, and then we reappeared somewhere else. When I looked around, the shock of recognition hit me: we were in Death Valley.
"I am sorry, but I have to go. Good luck with your quest." With that, Hiro squinted his eyes again, and vanished. (A/N: This is before Peter and Hiro lose their powers, just in case you're wondering.) We were left in Death Valley with the School about two football fields away.
"Let's go. We don't have any time to lose!"
Jackson POV
Not five minutes after I had told Chloe my story, the Flock's story and where we were did the whitecoats come in with a cart.
"What are you going to do to us," I snarled through the plastic box I was trapped in. The whitecoats ignored me. Instead, they went over to Chloe's cage, and started putting it on the cart.
"Jackson! Help!"
"Hey! Whitecoats! What are you planning to do to her?!" The lead whitecoat chuckled.
"She's going to be the first experiment we test a new technique on."
"No!" I cried out in fury. "No! Don't do anything to her! Take me instead! I'll do anything you want, just don't hurt her!" The whitecoat cackled this time.
"Stupid, stupid boy. Is this really an example of the next step of human evolution?" He put on a rubber glove that reached up half his arm, and withdrew a syringe. I instantly coated my entire body in a sheath of electricity. It didn't stop him though; somehow this needle wasn't metal. It pierced my skin, and he gave me the injection. I started feeling weak.
"Jackson!" Chloe was screaming at the top of her lungs and beating as hard as she could against the bars of the dog crate. I couldn't do anything to help her; the injection the whitecoat gave me was apparently a sedative, because my world started to go dark.
"With our new techniques, by the time you wake up it will already be too late for you to stop us. So sorry." He turned around and cackled like a madman.
"Jackson!" Chloe cried again. "What are you going to do to us?! Answer me!"
"Chloe… be… careful…" That was all I could say before my world went black.
(A/N: Time for a first in this story!)
Chloe's POV
"Jackson! Jackson!" I was beating against the bars of the dog crate as hard as I could, for all the good it would do. I turned to what appeared to be the lead scientist. "What are you going to do to me?!"
"Think for a second, little girl. I'm certain that he told you about those somewhat failed experiments, Maximum Ride and her so-called "Flock". Well, what are the one thing those six have that nobody else does?"
My eyes went wide. "Wings."
"Correct, girlie. And that's exactly what we're going to give you, so that we may test this new method of ours." I panicked; they were going to mess with my DNA! "Get me the injection. Prepare the sensory deprivation tank!"
About three of those creatures that Jackson had called Erasers opened up the crate and pulled me out. I was kicking and scratching them as much as I could, but I had no effect. I was doomed.
The lead doctor came up to me, rubbed my left arm with an alcohol pad, and stuck an enormous needle in me with an even bigger syringe. As he emptied the contents into my body, I felt a strange numbness overtaking my body, like I'd been given a full-body dose of Lidocaine. I couldn't feel where the Erasers were holding me anymore, and I certainly couldn't move any part of my body. One of the men in a white coat came up to me with a scalpel, and made two incisions around my shoulder blades. Then, the Erasers opened up what could only have been the sensory deprivation tank, threw me inside, and closed the top.
The numbness that I had previously felt had given way to a dull ache by now. It wasn't much, but it was there. But it was only going to go downhill from there.
Suddenly, my body felt like there were a million searing hot needled being stabbed into my skin. What I felt could only be described as pure agony. I felt my body contort with the pain, and I let out an ear-piercing scream of torment. The pain continued for a while before receding around most of my body, only to concentrate itself in my back. I heard a strange, wet noise that I've heard in horror movies, and the pain suddenly stopped. I sat there in the tank for a while, trying to comprehend what I had just experienced, when the tank opened. The Erasers grabbed me out of the tank, and forced me back into the dog crate.
"What did you do to me?!" I yelled at the nearest scientist. He didn't respond, only pointing behind me. I turned around, saw myself in the mirror… and screamed louder than I have ever screamed before.
