All breath was torn from her throat as Xiang hurtled toward the ground, plummeting like a stone from the rooftop.
Wind rushed past her ears in that dazzling second, and she faintly heard the screams of Ariana high above her, nearly drowned out by the thunderous sound of her own pulse in her ears.
The vial sped toward her like a bullet of death, aiming for her throat, aiming to capture her for the School, aiming to end her life.
No. No.
Even as the desperate words filled her mind, she felt the energy of her falling, her movement and the vial's movement, with a keen sensitivity, and she knew surely that the inevitable moment would come, when she would come crashing down into the street to her devastating end.
Suddenly the white-hot pain in her center, which had lain dormant for so long, flared once more to life. This time it blazed fire, drowning out everything else in her vision with white starbursts of agony, and she felt a massive energy clouding around her, sucking and absorbing into her as she fell. She cried out, feeling the hot pain drilling into her very core, reinforced by waves and waves of energy.
And suddenly...she was not falling.
Xiang opened her tight-shut eyes, feeling her body seeming to be surrounded by an aura of strength and power, flooding into her, filling her with unlimited energy.
She was floating.
She looked down, seeing the street gradually rising up to meet her feet, her wings still motionless and folded beneath the sweatshirt. Gently, her shoes touched the asphalt, and she landed soundlessly.
Beside her, the vial of tranquilizer drifted down and landed delicately on the street as if it were a feather. The speed with which it should have landed, according to its weight and trajectory, had gone.
Xiang stood there for a moment, gazing down at the ground in silent disbelief and shock. Her mind worked furiously, recalling the way she had floated down toward the ground, attempting to work out an explanation for all of this.
What had just happened had defied all rules of gravity and physics.
What had happened?
She lifted her head, looking upwards, to see Ariana and the two people from the School gazing down at her from over the side of the wall surrounding the rooftop, their jaws slack in disbelief.
Ariana grinned down at her and pumped her fist up and down in victory. "Yeah, bird girl!"
The woman backed away, swallowing in fear. Her blue eyes flicked wildly around the rooftop as if she was searching for an answer. "That wasn't supposed to happen," she muttered. "What was going on...? It doesn't make sense...."
"Well, it makes perfect sense to me," Ariana snapped. "The School just failed--again. Point two for us!"
Xiang spread her teal-gray wings, surprised at the energy that had filled her body. She felt wide-awake and full of movement. Running a few steps, she stroked powerfully and lifted up into the air, landing with a slight skidding motion on the roof.
Both the woman and the man from the School were nervously retreating towards the door that led downstairs into the restaurant, their eyes wide as they realized that they had underestimated the people they had set out to capture.
"Oh no you don't!" snapped Xiang, and she leaped forward, seizing the woman by the wrist. The woman stared at her in wild terror.
"Not you!" she moaned. "You can steal motion! You can take that from us! No one has ever taken your records--no one knows anything about you two! What more can you do against the School?"
Xiang's eyes widened, and she and Ariana shared a brief glance of suspicion.
"'Steal motion'?" Ariana inquired carefully. "Come again?"
The man, whom Ariana was holding captive, flapped his hands frantically. "We don't know," he gibbered, cowering pathetically. "Don't hurt us! Don't tell the School! They'd kill us!"
Xiang stared at them, completely devoid of mercy. They had wanted to kill her, and now the begged for her mercy? How could they act so cruelly to children?
Apparently Ariana shared the same thoughts, because her lip was curling in distaste. "Frankly, I couldn't care less about what the School would do to you now, you pair of spineless traitors," she spat. "But you can tell us what we need to know--and maybe we won't shoot you down with those tranquilizer guns of yours like you were going to do to Xiang."
"How did you find us?" Xiang demanded, tightening her grip on the woman's wrist.
Trembling, the woman reached up to one eye and drew the pale lid back as far as it would go. Something clear and circular popped out of her eye onto her shaking palm, and she handed it to Xiang.
"Contacts...?" Ariana leaned over Xiang's shoulder, frowning.
Upon closer inspection, the contact were crisscrossed with a tiny gridwork of green lines, darker on the inner side. Xiang carefully held the contact up to her eye and looked through it. She gasped aloud--the world had gone darker, and the trembling woman standing in front of her had suddenly transformed into a shapeless form of glowing red.
"It's a radar." The woman's voice shook. "The School developed these radar contacts so we could detect any recombinant DNA life-forms. Normal humans show up red on the radar, but those who aren't show up a different color."
"Take yours out, too!" Ariana commanded the man, and he hastened to remove his own contacts.
Xiang lowered the small circle from her eye. "Who's 'we'?"
The woman hesitated, shaking her head back and forth. Finally she answered, "Those who the School employs. They employ everyone to keep a lookout for any possible escaped mutants; anyone and everyone. People whom they suspect will be least likely to be discovered. Even a few of the janitors in elementary schools wear these radar contacts."
Xiang stared at her, disturbed beyond words.
"Why do they do what the School tells them to do?" Ariana demanded.
"It's all power status," the woman whimpered. "Corporations who have smaller companies, which fund and found things like parks, schools, facilities, libraries and manufacture items. The School is a controlling force. If anything displeases them, they have the power to eliminate it, because the force behind it is..."
She suddenly halted in the middle of her sentence, as if her voice had been cut off. Her eyes widened and she shut her mouth tightly.
"Go on," said Ariana with forced patience. She picked up the tranquilizer gun and waved it, a silent warning.
The woman swallowed in fear, and her face paled. In a shaking voice, she whispered:
"Itex."
"What is Itex?" Ariana snapped.
"A vast, enormous force," the woman sobbed, "controlling every single School in the world. They are the ones with the power. They decided everything."
She covered her face with her hands, unable to go on.
Xiang and Ariana immediately whipped their heads around to glance at each other at this piece of crucial information.
"What happens if you disobey Itex and the School?" Xiang ventured slowly.
"Punishment," gasped the man, looking around him in fear. "Of the worst kind. They have the most advanced technology in the world, and they can do anything. They can strip you of your identity and destroy your life. Everyone is a slave to Itex."
Xiang stared at her in cold silence, her pulse thrumming in her ears as the chill storm-winds teased and parted the strands of her hair.
Did the School truly have this much power? Was there no one in the world she could trust?
"So what?" Ariana spat at them. "Itex may have a lot of power, but you're all cowards and fools for following them. I thought that since you were all grown-ups, you would be able to take responsibility for what goes on in your country. Instead, you're condemning it to a state of even more destruction than it already bears."
The adults continued to sob, harder.
Xiang had little to no pity for them at all. She could tell that they weren't sorry that they were helping Itex, they were simply upset that they had been found out and were most likely going to be punished. Feeling an unfamiliar surge of satisfaction, she turned away from the two adults.
They deserve whatever Itex chooses for them as punishment. In the end, every one of them is selfish.
Ariana took the radar contacts and stored them carefully in her pack, then turned back to the two, her dark eyes narrowed.
"Is there any reason why we shouldn't just push both of you off this rooftop and watch you splatter?" she hissed, her voice completely devoid of mercy.
The two backed up, their hands held in weak defense before them, a note of hysterical fear entering their eyes.
"P-please," breathed the woman. "It wasn't our fault. Itex--"
Xiang's teeth gritted audibly against each other. "I'm sick of your excuses!" she burst out. "Whatever you did was entirely of your own free will, you cowards!" She rounded on them, feeling the new anger rising up in her. "You didn't stop to think that your actions might put innocent people in danger. All you ever thought of were yourselves, so don't come here and tell us that it was all Itex's fault! You're to blame just as much as they are, because you were spineless enough to listen to them!"
"Which is why," Ariana said coldly, "we're going to deal with you first, before Itex can."
In the end, Ariana and Xiang locked them in a storeroom in the restaurant and went downstairs where the diners had begun to stir and move about, all in a state of nervous agitation. One of them had called the police.
"Good," Ariana told them. "When the police come, you can tell them that two people who are now locked in the back room attempted to attack us during the blackout, and tried to rob us and began a violent fight. I'm sure the police will have something to say to that."
Many of the diners were in wholehearted agreement, upset and angered over their experience. Many of them had been extremely frightened in the darkness when the fight had commenced. Several were preparing to sue the restaurant.
And before they could be asked too many questions, or interrogated about their information, Xiang and Ariana left quietly, closing the door soundlessly behind them.
------
"Well, that was wonderful," Ariana muttered as they trudged back across the street, hoods pulled up over their heads.
"Everywhere we go, the School finds us," Xiang murmured, gazing down at the small radar contact she held in her palm.
"We can't keep running and hiding!" Ariana slumped against a brick wall, ramming her fist in anger against it. Xiang grabbed her arm, and she lowered her voice. "This is pointless! At this rate, it'll take us ages to get to Maximum, because we have to keep stopping and fight off whatever the School has sent to us!"
A thought struck Xiang. "What if--what if the School is tracking us? What if the School knows we're looking for Maximum Ride, and they're trying to find her too?"
Ariana hissed through her teeth. "You're right! Then we would be leading them right to what they want! And the last thing we want is to betray Maximum."
The two girls stared at one another as the rain ticked on past their faces, shocked by this new revelation.
"If everyone has a radar, and they can see us, and they relay this information to the School..." Xiang whispered.
"No." Ariana's voice was hard. "I refuse to believe that we're completely trapped. Just because the School has an advantage doesn't mean that we're going to lose! We can't lose, remember? No matter what happens!"
Xiang's heart gave a thump of despair. The School was so much stronger than they were. If they could bend the entire world population of adults to their will, weren't they certainly capable of destroying two mutants?
Ariana grasped Xiang's hands. "You won't give up, will you?" she asked anxiously.
Xiang shook her head, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. She dared not voice her innermost fear--that she would never be strong enough.
"Don't worry," Ariana said quietly, and Xiang saw the glimpse of the third personality that she had. "Even if they find us again, I won't let them hurt either of us."
Xiang let out a shuddering breath, and nodded. "Okay."
How could she ever put words to the pain inside her, the pain of running and hiding, the pain of never knowing the life of a normal thirteen-year-old, the pain of feeling weak and helpless and frightened all the time?
The rain faded as they continued down the sidewalk, cars zooming down the street to their right, buildings and houses bobbing past on their left. Xiang gripped the bars of a low gate as she walked past another building.
Suddenly the brass plate beside the gate caught her eye: Pearson Elementary School.
Xiang stiffened, her eye widening as fear pounded through her. "Ariana, a School!" she hissed, jabbing a finger at the plate. Would they be found yet again?
Ariana swiveled about in alarm to glance at the plate--and unexpectedly burst into laughter.
Xiang watched in bemused puzzlement as Ariana bent over in hysterical giggles, clutching her sides. "I'm sorry," the wolf-girl gasped, straightening again. "It's just--" She collapsed into laughter once more.
Xiang felt a grin crack her face, though for what reason, she didn't know. Her friend's laughter was contagious, and soon she too was clutching her sides and leaning weakly against the wall.
Ariana stood up again, her lips twitching as she tried not to burst into laughter once more. "Xiang, not that type of School," she explained. "These are normal schools--y'know, where children go to learn things."
Xiang looked again through the bars of the gate. Yes--she could see a small playground, with children running up and down and all over it. It looked like great fun.
A pang pulsed through her as she watched the humans playing. If only Jiaxing and Fong had had the opportunity to see a playground, and play on it.
But the School had transformed them, twisted them, mutated them, making them something they weren't. They weren't pure human anymore, and their genetic material would always mark them as separate from the rest of the world. Watching the normal children, she wondered if her life could have been like this, carefree and playful and free of danger.
Ariana nudged her. "Look what's happening over there."
Xiang gazed in the direction Ariana indicated, and saw a boy, perhaps nine years old, standing a little way off from the playground and the other children, holding a ball and facing two larger kids, perhaps twelve years old. Their conversation swept upon her keen ears like a wave.
"Give me that ball," one of the kids demanded, thrusting out a pudgy hand toward the small child.
The boy hesitated, shaking his head. "Mrs. Hart said that we're not allowed to give our class playground equipment to other classes!" he protested. "Besides, it's just because you lost the ball you were playing with."
"The teacher's gonna kill us when recess is over and we don't have the ball," the big kid insisted, stepping closer. "She won't know if you just give us yours. Besides, you're just in third grade, your teacher's not gonna care if you just lose your ball."
"Yeah," agreed his friend. "Hand it over."
The boy tightened his arms around the ball, looking scared and defiant, and shook his head, backing away.
"I said give it!" The big kids shoved him, and the little boy let out a cry as he was unbalanced and fell heavily to his knees in the grass.
As if by some unspoken signal, both Xiang and Ariana rushed forward at once, hauled themselves up the brick wall, leaped down onto the other side, and raced across the field toward the children, angered.
The bullies didn't seem to notice as the two mutants approached. One of them was picking up the ball, which the little boy had dropped, and snorting contemptuously. "Yeah right, trying to stand up to us? You're just a little runt. You're too weak."
Xiang slowed as she approached the two older children and the small boy hunched over in the grass. Her heart went out to the child at once, and she felt a surge of anger shake her. She, too, had often felt herself weak and helpless, like the little boy.
Seeing some of herself in the child suddenly made her feel very protective of him. How dare these older children gang up on him, simply because he was younger and weaker?
"Thanks for the ball," mocked the other boy, and, tossing it up in the air, he and his friend began to walk away from the whimpering child in the grass.
With the speed of a hunting wolf, Ariana whipped in front of them, blocking their path. Slowly, she leaned in until her dark, black-rimmed eyes were mere inches from their terror-filled ones.
"Give-- me--the ball," she hissed, pure malice edging her tone.
It was all over in a second. The boys dropped the ball at her feet and ran screaming towards the playground as fast as they could.
The dark cloud cleared from Ariana's eyes and she threw her head back, laughing like a child.
Xiang looked up at her in quiet admiration for her skill to inspire fear. Then she remembered the little boy, and dropped down to her knees in the grass beside him.
He stared up at her in terror. His dusty pale blond hair stuck up all over, and his eyes were very blue, like a little animal's.
He's almost the same age as Fong.
Xiang reached out her arms to him. "I won't hurt you," she said softly. "Are you okay? Stand up so I can see your knees."
Slowly, the little boy rose to his feet. His hands were streaked with dirt and grass stains, and so were his shorts. His knees were slightly skinned and reddish.
"Does it hurt?" she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Those boys were very scary, weren't they?"
The boy sniffled a little and nodded, and she brushed the dirt from his shirt and knees. Caring for the child, she suddenly felt as if she were among her flock once more. To be close to a little child once more brought forth memories of playing with Fong, or rocking baby Jiaxing to sleep.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them back. "You're all right now," she heard herself say comfortingly to the boy, as she had said so often in the past to her younger flock members.
"Nice ball," Ariana called from behind her, and she turned to see the older hybrid kicking the ball up and down, bouncing it off her knees. She came toward them and handed the ball to the boy. "I think this belongs to you."
The boy grasped the ball in shaky hands. "Thanks," he whispered, hugging it absently to his chest.
"What's your name?" Ariana asked.
The boy looked cautiously at her before replying softly, "Michael."
"Why don't you play with the other children, Michael?" Xiang asked softly, gesturing to the playground where the other kids were playing.
Michael looked uncertain, and rocked back and forth. Finally he said in a voice almost too quiet to hear: "They don't like me."
He's an outsider, too.
"Why not?" Xiang asked, putting her arm around his shoulders.
"Because I'm small," the boy whispered. "Everyone's taller than me, so they beat me up and take my stuff. But if I tell on them, everyone calls me a tattletale. So no one plays with me at recess."
Xiang's heart broke for him. He, too, was lonely. Those in the peerage shunned him for being weak, and he found it hard to make friends. He didn't have any friends the way his classmates did.
"I know what that feels like," she told him.
The small boy looked up at her in surprise. His child's eyes were clear and blue between his long, pale lashes.
"But you're big," he said wonderingly. "You're tall, so nobody beats you up." He looked to Ariana. "And you scared off those bullies. Nobody must scare you, either, or call you mean names."
"Just because you're big doesn't mean no one makes fun of you," Xiang said softly. "People try to beat us up, too, and they're really mean to us. Wherever we go, people are mean to us. But we try to be as strong as we can."
She touched his dusty hair. "Don't let those bullies scare you, okay, Michael?"
The little boy nodded. "Okay."
"Yeah, those two were just big sissies," Ariana agreed, skipping up behind Xiang. "Did you see the looks on their faces when I chased them off? Priceless!"
Michael giggled a little. "Yeah." His face fell slightly, and he tightened his arms around the ball. "I just wish they would all leave me alone, but then I'm scared that no one will play with me."
"Oh, that's not true," Xiang said quickly, standing up. "We'll play with you! We'll play ball together! All right?"
Michael's face brightened with happiness, and he smiled eagerly. "Yeah!"
Xiang felt herself smiling in return. "Okay! Throw the ball to me!"
Ariana skipped to the side. "Me too!"
The ball was thrown back and forth between the three of them, Xiang and Michael laughing uproariously as Ariana twisted around in mock confusion, pretending to miss the ball and search for it, sometimes looking for it in the oddest places ("Did it fall down my shoes? Hm, got to check!").
Xiang, watching Michael's shining blue eyes and rosy face as he ran back and forth on his short little legs to catch the ball, felt peaceful and happy. It warmed her heart to know that she had helped this child, who was an outsider, like she and Ariana were.
"Watch out!" Michael cried as he threw the ball forward at Ariana, giggling.
"Whoops!" Ariana laughed as she caught the ball and pretended to fall from the impact, rolling backwards over the ground and finally coming right-side up, her hood lopsided over her head.
Michael shrieked with laughter as she pretended to twirl about dizzily, wobbling comically back and forth. "Where's Michael? Where did he go?" She grabbed Xiang. "Is that you, Michael? Hm, you seem to have gotten a lot taller..."
Michael laughed and jumped up and down. "No, no! I'm Michael!" he chanted.
Suddenly, a loud bell rang from the red brick building behind the playground. Startled, Xiang turned to watch as the children in the playground immediately stopped what they were doing and ran, all at once, like a flock of birds toward the doors and lined up. Several adults stood up from the benches and walked towards the lines of children, blowing whistles.
Michael gave a start of surprise. "Oh! It's time to go inside now." He began to back away, waving to them, laughter still lingering in his eyes. "See you!"
"Michael!" A cross-looking young woman marched across the field toward Xiang, Ariana, and Michael, a scowl planted on her face and a whistle dangling around her neck. "Hurry up! It's time to go inside!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Aberford," Michael murmured, lowering his head. Xiang saw fear flash across his face; it was clear that he was not liked by the teacher, either.
"Well, come on," she snapped, then seemed to notice Ariana and Xiang. "And who are you?" she inquired sharply, putting her hands on her hips.
At the sight of the adult, every single memory of the geneticists at the School rushed to consciousness in Xiang's mind, and her instinct surged up. She eyed the woman warily. "We were playing with him," she replied guardedly.
"Oh?" Mrs. Aberford replied, drawing out the word condescendingly. Xiang truly was beginning to dislike her. Michael stood next to the teacher, a small little pale waif with his head lowered sadly next to her imposing figure.
Ariana jumped in. "Yeah, the other kids wouldn't play with him, so we did," she snapped back, already on full retort mood. "You really should regulate this playground better. What sort of school is this, with one that won't even allow all its students to play together without being bullied, huh?"
Mrs. Aberford's face flushed red for a moment, but she pursed her lips and inquired angrily, "And who are you?" Her sharp eyes scanned Ariana from head to toe. "You're obviously not a student here. How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen? You're supposed to be in high school. Skipping class? Shall I call your parents? Your school?"
She swiveled around to face Xiang. "And you! Twelve? Thirteen? You don't belong here, either. I've never seen your face in this school. You must be skipping class, too!"
Xiang gritted her teeth and met her beady stare as evenly as she could, memories of the boss at the School surging through her mind. He'd had that same mean, tiny-eyed stare.
This is why I don't really like adults.
Mrs. Aberford clucked in triumph as neither Xiang nor Ariana offered up an argument to her accusations. "Just as I thought. But how did you get here...?"
Her voice trailed off as her gaze moved to the high, impassable wall, then back to Xiang and Ariana. Her gaze flickered between them, becoming more and more suspicious and shocked.
"How...?" she began in that piercing voice of hers, but Ariana didn't give her time to finish her sentence.
Tossing the ball back to Michael, who caught it in surprise, she turned and raced as fast as she could toward the wall, grabbing Xiang's hand and yanking her along, shouting back to the dumbstruck teacher, "See ya!"
In one bound, both of them leaped high over the wall and pelted full force down the sidewalk, attracting the stares of many passersby.
Xiang glanced back to see Michael and Mrs. Aberford running toward them; Michael with a look of awed surprise on his face, waving frantically and shouting, "Bye!"; Mrs. Aberford with an enraged expression on her bony face, running toward the gate with spindly legs.
But before she had even unlocked the gate, Xiang and Ariana were gone.
------
The two of them didn't stop running until they had left the town and hidden themselves in the safety of the nearby woods.
Then they collapsed against the tree trunks and laughed until their ribs couldn't take it anymore.
"Did you see the expression on that teacher's face?" Ariana cackled, slapping her knee. "Hilarious!"
"I know!" Xiang slid down to the forest floor, trying to stop the spasms of mirth racking her body. "I just hope Michael doesn't get into too much trouble. He is a really cute kid."
"Yeah." Ariana sat down cross-legged beside her and slipped her pack off her shoulders. "Ah, let's see where we are now."
She took out the map. "Well, we've gone some ways, I have to say. We're in some sort of state forest, I would guess...Hm. The river comes out right in front of us somewhere here. Let's go check it out."
A quarter of an hour later, they emerged from the forest and stepped down a layer of rocks to see the river on the map flowing past them, an enormous body of water slipping down calmly like some giant eel. It was gray-blue, darker green in some parts, rippling and wavering like a reflection, the sky mirrored on its surface.
Ariana had stopped at the edge with a look of dismay on her face. "How will I cross it?" she asked.
"Oh, no," Xiang murmured, realizing the problem. It would indeed be difficult to continue together if they went on different routes.
She crouched down slightly, unfurling her own wings, sighing as she stretched her muscles in the lukewarm sunlight. For her, it would be a simple task to fly across the river.
"Oh, Ariana," Xiang said, moving across to put her hand on her shoulder as she noticed her expression, "I'm so sorry. I wish you had wings, too...."
She trailed off as she realized that the uncomfortable expression on her friend's face had less to do with the fact that she was wingless, and rather that she seemed to be in pain.
"Give me a sec," Ariana muttered, flexing her shoulders and wincing.
"No! Not again?" Xiang asked in concern, putting her arms around her shoulders as Ariana crouched down slightly as if the pain were too great to bear.
"Ugh...I don't know what's going on...it hurts so much..."
Her voice was tight in pain, and her hands twitched erratically, as if she couldn't help herself. Her shoulders flexed agitatedly, as if she wanted to shrug off the pain.
Suddenly, in a dazzling moment, an shattering rip rent the air and Ariana let out a scream as two enormous objects burst from her back, tearing her clothes to shreds.
Xiang stumbled backwards, her arm thrown across her eyes to protect her from the onslaught of whatever had torn through Ariana's back. Slowly, she lowered her arm and crept closer.
"Ariana?" she whispered. Her friend was completely veiled from view, obscured by two enormous dark objects draped across her body.
"Ugh...."
Slowly, Ariana stood up. Then, in a sudden movement, the two objects on her back whipped out to the sides, snapping out in full shape and causing a wind to roar across Xiang's face.
Xiang stared in utter disbelief.
The two objects protruding from Ariana's back were enormous, dark-feathered, beautiful wings.
Yay! Ariana developed a new skill!
And so did Xiang, if you remember....
So, there you have it. The pain they experienced culminated in the development of new skills. Can anyone guess the official name of Xiang's "steal motion" skill?
And the little boy Michael was actually inspired by a little boy I met at the playground at the soccer field who asked me if he could play with me. Cute little guy. He looked just the Gasman, for some strange reason.
Please, please, keep those reviews coming! I'll update if I get lots of reviews!