OH MY GODS I'M SOO SORRY! It was the first time I ever tried updating from my iPod. I had it all typed out, not in one giant paragraph. Again, I'm soooo sorry about that! It wasn't supposed to happen! I'm gonna fix it now.

"Oh my gods, oh my gods, is she okay?" A panicked voice asked. I wrenched open my eyes, only to slam them shut again. My head was pounding and the bright lights and various voices were disorienting.

"Max? Max!" I could hear a young girl's voice. Angel! This time when I opened my eyes, I kept them open. I looked straight up at the ceiling, faces swimming at the edges of my vision. Angel, Gazzy, Iggy, Fang, Nudge, Thalia, Annabeth, Percy, Nico.

"Owww..." I muttered. "I'm soooo sorry!" I turned my head and caught a glimpse of a middle aged woman with brown hair and a worried expression on her face.

"You just appeared out of no where, and I've learned that when things like that happen, it's usually some horrible creature coming to hunt my son, and I was holding the frying pan-"

"Mom," Percy cut the woman off. "Calm down. She's fine." I sat up, rubbing the back of my head.

"Yeah, well, you're not the one who just got hit in the head with a frying pan!" I snapped.

"Max!" Nudge screamed joyfully. She and Angel leapt forward to give me relieved hugs. After I shoved the two girls off of me, Fang offered me his hand. I grabbed it, and he pulled me up. I finally got a chance to look at my surroundings. We were in a small kitchen, with various pots and pans set out on the counter. I also saw a large bottle of blue food coloring there. Next to the woman was a man with salt and pepper hair, in a casual outfit. Behind him I caught a glimpse of a large black shape, which I assumed to be our mode of transportation. I looked out the window, and saw the gray sky and stormy ocean.

"You okay, Max?" Iggy asked. "That was a pretty loud crack."

"No where near as bad as a brain attack," I said, rolling my eyes and then wincing involuntary. "I'm fine."

"Do you need ice or anything? I could get you some ice, or-"

"I'm fine," I repeated shortly. That was a lie, my head hurt like heck, but I wasn't gonna tell these people that.

"Oka-ay," The woman said in a disbelieving voice. "Well, I'm Mrs. Jackson, and this is my husband Paul Blofis." She turned away from me and faced Percy. "What are you doing here? I thought you were at Camp." Percy made a face.

"We were," He said. "All four of us were called up to the, uh," He glanced our way, "mountain. Um, the... Oh, you know what I mean. Dad, Uncle H, Uncle Z and... Um..." He broke off again.

"She's your cousin, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth sighed.

"Ya! My cousin," Percy agreed.

"Which cousin?" His mother asked.

"The one with gray eyes," Percy smirked. "The super scary one." Outside, thunder rolled.

"Percy," Mrs. Jackson sighed. "If you keep that up, you're gonna get yourself killed."

"Eh. They don't scare me as much as they used to," Percy replied without missing a beat.

"Anyway, back to your story. They called you to the mountain?" Mr. Blofis prompted. Percy nodded.

"We were in the Gray Sister's taxi," Here Thalia mimed puking. Annabeth giggled. Percy glared playfully at the both of them before continuing. "So when we got out and payed, we started walking up to the Empire State Building, and then all of the sudden something smelled really funny. I remember telling Annabeth, and her agreeing with me, before I passed out."

"It was some type of gas," Annabeth confirmed.

"Then, when we woke up, we were in some science lab. I was the first to wake up."

"And then there were these weird wolf guys!" Nico added.

"Erasers," Iggy corrected duly.

"Yeah, them. And then Pasiphae's* son showed up again, and Percy beat him up again. And then..." Thalia's face suddenly filled with horror. "They took a blood sample!" She whispered. Cue gasps from Mrs. Jackson, Mr. Blofis, Annabeth, Nico, and Percy.

"I'd forgotten about that!" Percy said, eyes wide. I couldn't help but remember how the needle had missed his skin so many times.

"They took a blood sample?" Mrs. Jackson squeaked.

"Oh this is so bad," Nico couldn't help but add.

"If they see our DNA, we're screwed." Annabeth moaned.

"We gotta Mist 'em or something," Thalia decided.

"You could destroy the results before they see them," Mr. Blofis suggested.

"Why are you all freaking out?" I demanded. "What are you? We told you our secret, now you should tell us yours!"

"Sorry Max. Can't do that. And if we did, we'd end up having to Mist your memories away." Nico smirked.

"No clues or anything?" Nudge wanted to know.

"I'll give you one," Annabeth decided. "You were right, Angel. We're only halfway human. But we're not mutants created in a lab. We were born like this." Before any of the Flock could respond to that, Mrs. Jackson broke in.

"Mutants? From a lab?" She asked, her face filled with surprise and curiosity.

"Yeah!" Nudge said with a big smile. "We're bird hybrids created by Whitecoats in a secret lab in California called the School!" I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand in exasperation.

"Nudge!" Half the Flock screamed in unison.

"Sorry?"

"So you guys are bird hybrids?" Mrs. Jackson asked, an unreadable emotion playing across her face.

"Yeah," I sighed.

"We can fly! Cause we're bird kids and we have wings and I heard Max say that we have light bones and stuff. Oh, and we have to eat a lot of food cause we need, like, a lot of calories or something like that."

"Nudge, I'm seriously considering duct taping you're mouth closed," I growled. But she rambled on, completely ignoring me.

"Oh, and we all have special abilities and stuff! I'm a human magnet, and when Fang sits really still, he disappears into shadows!" Nico's head jerked around to face Fang. Neither black-clad boy said anything, but Nico continued to stare at the mutant boy. Nudge still went on, oblivious. "And Angel can talk to fish, and breathe underwater, and-"

"She can do what?" Percy yelled. All of the color drained from Mrs. Jackson's face. All of the non-Flock members gaped at each other. Then Nico grinned.

"Percy's gotta sister! Percy's gotta sister! Percy's gotta-" The pale boy was cut off when Angel spoke up. "I only have one brother, and that's Gazzy!" "

He's your brother?" Annabeth asked. Angel nodded. "Well, what kind of stuff can he do?" Gazzy grinned wickedly.

"No!" I gasped. Angel took a step back, and pinched her nose with her fingers. Nudge let out a strangled scream. Iggy gasped aloud. Fang's eyes widened with horror. And Gazzy let one lose. Needless to say, we continued our conversation outside.

Sorry for the abrupt, random ending. (And the whole it's-all-one-paragraph-omg-I-can't-read-this-the-world's-gonna-end thing.) I'm having trouble trying to get this story actually going somewhere. It's hard to write with soo many characters. I have to include them all, and some talk more than others. *cough-cough-Nudge-sneeze-cough*

*Don't know if that's the Minotaur's mother's name. I know it's something like that,