Okay, I know that I should've updated yesterday, and I am extremely sorry for forgetting, but I solemnly swear I have a good excuse: I was studying for a biology test all evening. Yup, that's right, instead of working on NaNoWriMo or pleasing my wonderful readers with an update, I had to study photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Not fun. (Needless to say, I don't think I'll be pursuing a career in biology.)

But really, truly, I am grateful for the reviews—seven since the last update, that's a record! And without further ado, here is the conclusion to my three part not-a-oneshot, Fang!


Fang, Part III

In which Max tells the real story behind Fang's name.

"...so then I said to the guy, 'It is a shame that the ocean's being destroyed... too bad your company dumps raw sewage into it on a regular basis.'" Max rolled her eyes, "I mean really, why do business people even show up to these meetings when everyone knows that they're the ones wrecking the planet?"

Ella grinned. "Wish I could've been there to see his face when you said that." Max and their mom had gotten back from the CSM meeting that afternoon, and they'd all spent the rest of the day getting caught up on all the latest 'save the planet' news and such. Ella and Max were currently in Ella's room, talking and hanging out and being all sisterly-like.

As fun as it was, Ella still hadn't given up on finding out about Fang's name. She hadn't bothered to ask any of the other flock members again, since they were determined not to give her a straight answer—and obviously Fang wasn't going to tell her, since he was the one who had scared the others into silence in the first place. That left Max as her last possible source of information. "Hey Max?" Ella asked tentatively.

"Yeah?"

"I know it's none of my business, and it's obviously a touchy subject since everyone in the flock has been too frightened and secretive to talk about it, but it's been driving me crazy all weekend and now I'm dying to know," Ella realized she was rambling, and cleared her throat awkwardly. "Um, how did Fang get his name?"

Max raised her eyebrows. "The flock was what?" Ella quickly explained to Max everything that had happened. Once she was done, and Max rolled her eyes. "Of course. Hang on a second, El." Then she dashed downstairs, leaving Ella alone in the bedroom.

From down in the living room Ella could hear Max scolding Fang, his heated complaints cut off by Max's interjections of, "I can't believe you got the entire flock to lie for you!" and, "You're acting like a child!" After a couple of minutes things fell silent again, and Max marched back into the room.

"Fang makes way too big a deal out of his name," Max grumbled, rolling her eyes, "I keep telling him just to laugh it off if someone makes jokes about it, but no, he still has to make a big, embarrassing secret out of it."

Ella blinked. "So, his name?"

"Oh, right." Max smirked slightly, considering for a moment. "As long as you promise not to tell anyone—"

"I promise!" Ella exclaimed.

"Fine. Now where do I begin?" Max wondered aloud. "Well, I guess I should probably start by telling you that his name wasn't originally Fang..."

"Hey, Bucktooth!" young Iggy exclaimed, shuffling around in his dog crate, "I bet you could eat your way through the metal bars with if you tried!" He made a series of silly gnawing noises."Gnagnagnagnagna!" Bucktooth, as usual, scowled at him sourly.

"Shut up, Iggy," Max told him, rolling her eyes.

"I'm just saying!"Iggy said, "If he ate his way through the cage, and the Gasman let a really big one rip—"

"Gazzy's just a stinky baby, Iggy. Nobody's afraid of a stinky baby." As if on cue, the smelly little infant gurgled from across the room. "Besides, Bucktooth's teeth aren't that big." Okay, Max admitted silently, maybe they were that big. But her lie was a lie of kindness.

Iggy sighed, "You're no fun, Max! Why don't you like playing pretend anymore?" Most little kids liked to make believe they were doctors or teachers when they were having fun. Bird kids liked to come up with imaginary escape plans instead.

"Because it's stupid," Max declared, "Right, Bucky?" Bucktooth nodded silently in agreement.

"Uh-oh," Nudge whispered, her tiny muscles tensing up, "Here dey come!"

All four of the crated kids sat at attention as the two whitecoats walked in their direction; even baby Gazzy seemed to still as they approached. They strolled across the room at a leisurely pace, like they were simply passing through. All of the children held their breaths nervously, waiting for them to leave, but just as it seemed like they were in the clear...

"Hey Wilson," one of the whitecoats pointed out, "There's that experiment you were telling me about, right? The one with the insanely big teeth?" He pointed squarely at Bucktooth.

"Yeah, Johnson, that's him." Wilson grinned, stopping to tap the side of the dog crate. "How you doin', little fella?" Bucktooth gave a low growl in response.

Johnson laughed, "Not very friendly, is he? I just can't believe the dental records on this one!"

"His teeth were so big that at first we thought it was some sort of genetic defect," Wilson chuckled, "But all the tests came back fine, and his adult teeth seem to have developed normally, so now we're just waiting for this little guy to lose his baby teeth."

"Any chance I could take a look for myself right now?"

"Nah, this one's a whirlwind without the Erasers to keep a handle on him," Wilson answered as they resumed walking, "but stop by during his next dental check-up and I'll let you have a peek..." they left the room, chatting idly as they continued down the hall.

Max scoffed in disgust. "Ignore them, Bucky, they're both—" she used a really, really bad word to describe them. Bucktooth just sighed in response.

Max felt really bad for her dark-haired friend. After all, it wasn't his fault that he had the teeth of an oversized beaver. "You heard what the whitecoat said," she encouraged him, gesturing to the gaps in her own smile, "When your teeth start falling out like mine you'll grow normal ones!"

"Doesn't fix the dumb name," he mumbled, lips barely parted as he spoke.

"Well names can be changed!" Max declared, "If you think your name is stupid then you should get a new one."

"No way!" Iggy interjected, "You can't just change your name. It's weird!"

"Let 'im change it!" Nudge advocated, "I wanna help him pick a new one!"

"C'mon, Iggy," Max coerced, "We can all help."

"Fine," he grumbled, "but I still say it should be a tooth-related name."

"Chompy!" Nudge squealed.

Max wrinkled her nose. "Ew, no way." It was easy to tell that Bucktooth agreed with her. "How about... Molar?" Bucktooth shook his head. "Tooth?" Another head shake.

"How about we keep calling him Bucktooth," Iggy suggested, "but we give him a really awesome last name, like Lord of Darkness or Eraser-Killer?"

"Silly Iggy," Nudge giggled, "Nobody uses last names!"

"Except the whitecoats," Max muttered. "Next idea?" And even though they spent at least an hour discussing amongst themselves, they still couldn't come up with an agreeable name for Bucktooth.

"I give up!" Iggy sighed, "He's going to be Bucktooth forever." Bucktooth, of course, frowned deeply at this proposition.

"Sorry, Bucky," Nudge tried to console him.

Max, however, wasn't quite ready to give up on the subject. It was now or never, she figured, and she wasn't about to leave poor Bucky with a dud name. She thought Iggy had been kind of right before, when he said that the name should be toothy—'Bucktooth' was rather cruel, but it only seemed right that whatever they called him was somewhat connected. His teeth had always been one of his defining qualities, after all.

This gave Max an idea. "Hey Bucky," she ventured, "could you smile please?" Bucktooth stared at her like she'd just asked him to perform open heart surgery while juggling chainsaws. He shook his head fervently. "Please?" Max begged, putting on a pouty face, "Just once, and I promise I won't laugh."

A conflicted expression crossed Bucktooth's face, and finally he relented with a sigh. The sides of his mouth curled up awkwardly as he tried to grin, revealing an oversized, overcrowded set of teeth, so big and ill-fitted that it almost looked like someone had shoved a big pair of joke dentures into the poor kid's mouth. Nudge giggled, and the clumsy smile quickly disappeared again.

There has to be something good about those teeth, Max was adamant, I will think of one reason why Bucktooth's teeth are awesome. She called up the picture of his smile in her mind, going over it over and over: his big incisors were goofy and distracting, so that was no good, and you couldn't really see the teeth at the back of his mouth. His canines were really big too, kind of like the fangs on a big, scary monster—which actually sort of made sense. Stupid teeth aside, Bucktooth could be pretty scary-looking when he wanted to be. Hey, wait a minute! Max pondered that trail of thought for another moment, and then announced, "Let's call him Fang."

"I like it," Nudge declared, nodding firmly, "He looks like a Fang!"

"Yeah, I guess it's cool," Iggy remarked. "But why 'Fang'?"

"Because it suits him," she affirmed, "It's cool, toothy, and we can make stupid vampire jokes about him." She shot maybe-Fang a jovial grin, which he returned with an amused smirk and a slight nod. "It's official, then!" Max announced, "Bucktooth's new name is Fang!"

"Now he just needs to lose those dumb teeth already," Iggy muttered, "Do you think the whitecoats will have to pull them out?"

Ella pursed her lips together in order to hold back a giggle. Tall, dark, stoically handsome Fang—complete with the intense gaze and killer smile—got his name because he had weird teeth when he was little? It was impossible to imagine. "That's... wow," she stifled more laughter, "I never would've guessed that in a million years."

"I know right?" Max grinned, then shot Ella a sober stare. "But seriously, no telling anybody else. It's a flock secret."

"Got it," Ella nodded, "My lips are sealed."

"Good." Max stood up to leave. "Well, that's enough talking for now. I'm going to go see what's going on downstairs."


Just as she had predicted, Max found Fang sulking by himself in the kitchen, eating something that he'd dug out of the fridge. "Relax," she told him, leaning against the doorway, "Ella promised not to tell anyone."

"Yeah," Fang scoffed, glaring down at his food, "because middle school girls are great at keeping secrets." He impaled a meatball harshly with his fork.

Max sighed, and then moved to take the seat beside him. "Look, it's only as humiliating as you make it out to be. And quite frankly, I'd be more embarrassed of those ridiculous stories the rest of the flock made up to cover for you.

"Besides," she grinned, "I think the real story gives you character." Fang shot her an incredulous look. "Either way, nobody's going to find out about your deep, dark secret anytime soon."

A slight smirk crossed Max's face, as she pondered old memories. "You know, I still have no idea how you ended up with 'Bucktooth'." she shook her head, "It never suited you, even with the oversized teeth."

"Fate is cruel sometimes," Fang muttered flatly in reply.

"That it is, Bucky," Max smiled wryly, "That it is."


Okay, so basically I was inspired to write this story because of all the different theories out there about how Fang might've gotten his name. And by different, I mean mostly the same. They all involve Fang being traumatized by a scientist or Eraser, meeting Max for the first time, or some other dramatic/Fang-ish occurrence happening to him in the School. So I thought to myself, "What if Fang got his name for a really stupid and embarrassing reason?" Thus, this story was born.

Again, reviews equal love and faster updates, so please click that little button at the bottom of the page to express your amusement/approval/adoration/apathy/allergy problems while this troop of fanfiction monkeys performs a little dance in your honor. *monkeys begin dancing* They get paid a banana for every review, btw. So don't make the monkeys starve. :'(