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disclaimer: don't own maximum ride.
11. better on our own. . .?
Blaze put her hand to her head as a wave of pain swam over her skull. Geez, she thought. Nobody's hit me that hard since. . .
"Crap," said a voice somewhere from the other side of the room. "What the heck happened?"
She went on full-alert, having recognized it--the blind kid from Ride's flock. Blaze's head whipped around for the source of the voice, her blue eyes almost immediately focusing on the group of kids huddled together at the other end of the cell.
Ride was watching her, as was the youngest girl, Angel. The rest were still waking up, trying to orient themselves.
"What are you doing here?" Ride asked coldly, glaring at Blaze.
Glaring right back, she snapped, "Admiring the real estate." Not taking her eyes off the enemy, Blaze reached out with her hand to touch Avi. After a moment or two the girl woke and became immediately aware of the situation. As Blaze began to speak again, Avi set to waking the boys.
"What's it look like I'm doing here?" Blaze demanded. "We've been captured, retard, just the same as you! You might as well have asked if the sky was blue!"
"No need to get nasty," said one of Ride's flock, the tall dark one.
"Oh, okay, so even though we've all been kidnapped I need to look on the bright side," Blaze sneered, inspecting her restraints. A simple metal manacle clamped around her ankle, binding her to the wall. Should be simple enough to melt. "Well, when life gives me lemons, I just eat my damn lemons, okay? I deal with it! And to deal with this particular lemon, we need to get the hell out of here!!"
As Blaze focused on melting her chains, she heard a small click behind her, followed by Swift's voice: "I'm out."
"Good," Blaze said, flames sputtering to life over her hand. "Get Shadow out--I'll get Avi once I'm through with mine."
"Hey, how're they. . ." she heard one of the younger ones of Ride's flock ask.
The soft metal of Blaze's manacle began to melt, and after a few more seconds she was able to wriggle her foot free of the wretched thing. Then she turned around and started attending to the handcuff on Avi's wrist, while Swift finally sprung Shadow's lock using one of his hawk talons.
Avi hissed in pain as hot metal burned her wrist, but otherwise didn't complain. She stood up with Blaze and the rest, pausing when they realized Ride and her flock were staring.
Blaze frowned at them. "What? Aren't you guys ready to bust outta here?"
"Um. . .we're kinda stuck," Ride said, lifting her arm and jangling the chain attached to it. "Mind lending a hand?"
Blaze groaned and rolled her eyes. "You guys are so lame. Swift, help me free the freaks."
Swift merely nodded as he followed Blaze across the cell. He stopped before Ride and lifted his foot--she got the gist and held out her wrist.
"Don't break a nail," Ride joked halfheartedly. Swift's mouth quirked momentarily.
After about seven or eight minutes, all the bird-kids were free. Ride had just directed the blind kid--she called him Iggy--toward the door to work on picking the lock when the dark one--Fang--spoke up.
"Shouldn't we stay here?"
Everybody looked at him like he was crazy, but then Ride picked up on it.
". . .Right," she said. She looked at Blaze determinedly. "Fang's right. It'd be better to wait a little, see if anybody comes by to tell us what's going on."
"No, we should get out as fast as we can," Blaze argued. "Who cares what's going on? Let's just find Con and get the hell outta here!"
Avi tried to say, "Blaze, maybe they're right," but Blaze ignored her. She turned toward the door of the room and raised her hand, ready to just blast the damn thing open.
"Are you sure he's even here?" Ride asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at Blaze.
"Well, if Swift and Shadow are here, then yeah!" Blaze spat, gesturing to the two blond boys. "They were with him, so obviously he's been captured too! Unless he got away?" She turned to look at Shadow and Swift, who both shook their heads.
"Uh-uh," Shadow said. "After he killed Spark, that guy got mad and attacked him--" He pointed over at Fang. "--so we were all fighting, and then the bomb came in and. . ."
"Wait a. . .what was that about Spark?" Max asked sharply.
Shadow smirked maliciously. "Con killed her. Stabbed her right here," he said, pointing at a spot just below his ribcage. "And because she was on top, th' knife probably went up into her lungs, so she's probably dead."
Each of Ride's flock went still, a few of them getting teary-eyed. Blaze looked at Shadow and he frowned. "What?"
"Spark's dead?" she asked.
"Uh-huh."
"And you're sure Con killed her?"
"Yeah." Blaze looked up at Swift, who shrugged a shoulder and nodded.
So. . .she's really dead, Blaze thought, her eyes drifting to stare absently at the floor. She's finally. . .gone?
"Spark's not dead!!"
Everybody gave a little start and looked around to the youngest girl, Angel. She furiously rubbed her hands in her eyes before glaring at Shadow. "Spark's not dead!" she repeated forcefully.
"Whaddaya mean not dead?! You saw it, there was blood everywhere!" Shadow exclaimed. "After a while she even stopped breathing! How the hell could she still be alive?!"
"I'd know if she was dead, and she's not!" Angel snapped. "She's somewhere close, I can almost hear her!"
"You're lying," Shadow said, and he made a start at Angel but Blaze put out her hand to keep him back. "Con killed her, he stabbed her!"
"But she's not dead," Angel said again. She looked up at Max, who was right next to her, and said, "I'd know, Max. Spark's not dead."
"Uh. . ." Ride didn't seem to have a response. Slightly annoyed by now, Blaze threw up her hands.
"Whatever!" she said loudly. "Who cares right now? What matters is getting out of here!"
"No, Blaze, they're right," Avi said, forcefully enough that Blaze couldn't ignore her. "We really should wait. It's what Con would tell us to do."
Blaze narrowed her eyes, but Avi had that stupid stubborn look on her face, and she knew that nothing would change the younger girl's mind. Not even force. So, annoyed yet again, Blaze spun around and kicked at the wall in frustration. "Fine!" she yelled. "We'll just stay here!"
"Did she kick the wall?" she heard Iggy ask.
"Yep," answered the youngest boy, Gasman.
"Ah. Hope she didn't accidentally break her foot," Iggy replied sarcastically.
Blaze saw Shadow, Swift, and Avi all sort-of shrink away out of the corner of her eye. They knew well enough not to bait her like that. They knew about her temper.
Flames dancing over her fists, Blaze whirled around and hurled a fireball the size of a softball at Iggy. Unfortunately, Gasman yelled and shoved the blind boy away. The fire hit the cement wall, only scorching off some of the dull black paint.
"Can it, blind boy!" she snarled. "Or next time I won't miss!!"
Iggy held up his hands innocently, but he was obviously trying not to smile. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to get you all fired up."
Blaze clenched her fists, and for a second the room seemed to flash with a white light. Her usual sky-blue irises were now mostly silver.
"One more dumbass comment like that," she said threateningly, "and I'll burn you so bad not even your stupid friends would recognize you."
"Oooh. I'm so afraid," he taunted. Blaze would've attacked him then and there, but Swift and Avi leaped forward, each grabbing one of her arms. The two younger hybrids struggled to restrain their elder--Swift's talons screeched across the cement rather cacophonously, making just about everybody flinch and cover their ears--for almost twenty seconds before Blaze was able to calm down enough to not want to beat Iggy's head into the floor.
"C-calm down, Blaze," Avi said nervously.
"I should kill him!"
"Not yet," Swift said shortly, inspecting his talons for damage.
"Nice going, Iggy!" Ride hissed, smacking said blind hybrid on the arm.
"Ow! What, what'd I do?" Iggy said stupidly.
Shadow snickered. "You're lucky she didn't lose it," the seven-year-old sneered. "Otherwise she'd've beat ya up so bad you wouldn't've woken up 'till next week!"
"Sorry," Ride said to Blaze, throwing a useless glare at Iggy. "Sometimes he's just an idiot."
"Hey!"
"Good luck getting my help now," Blaze said darkly, cracking her knuckles experimentally. "Soon as we're outta here, we're ditching you guys whether you like it or not."
"That's not the best idea," Max said quickly. "If we want to get out of here, we'll--and I can't believe I'm saying this--have to work together. So ignore Iggy for now, and you can smack him later."
Blaze considered arguing, but soon decided against it. If Con were here, she knew, and she'd actually tried to beat Iggy up, he'd only yell at her and say the same thing Max had said. So she took a deep breath and tried to relax.
"Fine," she said coolly. "Work together. Whatever."
"Okay," Max said. "Now, I think we should get a few things straight."
"Such as. . .?"
"Personally, I didn't get a good look at whoever kidnapped us. Do you know who did it?" Max asked. Blaze hesitated for a second, trying to remember. Oh, right. Those damn fish kids.
"It was the school," Avi said quietly. Blaze tried to glare at her but the younger girl just shrugged. "They might as well know."
"Of course it was the School," Iggy said irritably. "They've been after us for a year now."
"Wha--no, no, not the School," Blaze corrected after a confused pause. "The school--the fish hybrids, from Utah. Y'know, like a school of fish?"
"You mean there were more than just Sy?" asked the talkative black girl--Nudge, her name was.
"Duh!" Shadow said, smirking. "There's a whole bunch of 'em."
"Wait, if they're from Utah, what're they doing out here? Why'd they capture us?" Ride demanded.
Blaze shrugged. "Director's orders, probably. Case you hadn't noticed, us winged wonders ain't the cat's meow anymore."
"Nice analogy, considering the cat people were there too," Avi said thoughtfully. Blaze frowned at her again, more questioningly this time. Avi just blinked. "I saw Molly right before they gassed us. And Lenny, too."
"Oh, well that's just perfect," Blaze mumbled, just as the Gasman asked, "Who's Molly and Lenny?"
"Cat hybrids," Swift said softly.
"Huh?" Nudge said. "Like, Catwoman?"
"Kinda. Not as psycho," Blaze said indifferently. "They're from Italy, and they're big on strength and agility. Quicker than the wolf hybrids, maybe a little stronger. Definitely smarter."
"Okay, so we have mermaids and kitty-cats after us now?" Iggy asked dryly. "Wonderful. At first it was just the Erasers, but now it looks like the whole animal kingdom's decided to kill us."
"Looks like it," Fang said quietly.
"Yep," Avi said brightly. " 'Cuz if you include the Director, you're adding miserable old cows to the mix!"
Laughter crackled through the cell, but it ended rather abruptly--as if the thought that laughing symbolized friendliness between the previous mortal enemies.
Max cleared her throat. "So, uh. . .what now?"
When one is trapped in a cell with next to nothing to do to pass the time, one gets bored very easily. And one also finds ways to rid themselves of boredom quite quickly and effectively.
I flicked my wrist, releasing a slightly-bloodstained business card into the air. It spiraled through the air like a Frisbee, flying across the room to land in my right shoe.
"Nice!" I said, smiling. "Third shoe, twenty points!"
Beside me, Con scoffed and replied, "So what, I'm still beating you."
"Only by ten points, though." I hung back and watched as Con, too, flicked a business card across our cell. It curved and landed inside my other shoe.
"Dammit," Con cursed, and I crossed the cell to retrieve both cards, calling back, "You're only up by fifteen now! Next turn I'm catching up!" (To which his reply was something unfit for print. Use your imagination.)
It'd taken about, oh, two minutes before I was bored out of my mind. So, in hopes of finding something that I could amuse myself with, I checked all my pockets, only finding two business cards: Shawn Hayes's, and Frank the Security Guard's from Windsong Enterprises. Thus inspired, I kicked off my shoes and started flicking the cards at them. Con had insulted my flicking skills and now here we were, competing against each other. Our four shoes were lined up on the other side of the room--my left one was closest, so it was five points; then came his, worth ten; my other shoe, for twenty; and his other shoe, at the highest for forty points.
It may not sound like oodles of fun, but when your other options are nothing, Truth or Dare, and Would You Rather, it's pretty dang appealing. Even after nearly an hour of play.
I returned to the designated flicking point, handing Con his card before turning back to aim for the shoes. If I could hit the third one again, I'd be winning, but only by five, which Con could easily beat. . .I only had three more throws left before the game ended, so to win I'd have to--
"The fact that you look so intent on winning is kinda sad," Con told me. I rolled my eyes.
"Well, you've already beaten me twice," I said, throwing my card. I smiled and congratulated myself silently as it landed inside the forty-pointer. "I don't think I could live with myself if I let you win a third time."
"Let me win?" Con echoed skeptically. "Ha!" He tossed Shawn Hayes's business card across the cell, where it bounced off the wall before also landing in the forty-point shoe. "I rock at this!"
"And that in itself is sad," I said mockingly as he went to go retrieve the cards. He gave me a wry look and I snickered, adding, "That you actually took time to train yourself in this skill only furthers my assumption that you have absolutely no life."
"Please," Con said, tossing my card at me. "I have more of a life than you do, I bet."
"Yeah right!" I laughed, throwing once again--I only hit the twenty this time. I turned to Con and smirked. "Your friends consist of a freakish pyro, a bratty kid, and two mute preteens. Totally the life of every party."
"Whereas your friends consist of a blind pyro, two bratty kids, a chatterbox, a bossy dictator, and a mute goth," Con reeled off. "This is better. . .how?"
"Because I have two more friends than you. Three, if you count Total. So there!" I stuck out my tongue childishly.
"Oh, grow up," Con snickered, stepping past me to go retrieve the cards again.
"Just one of the many options as I progress through life," I said airily. He flipped me off and I snickered.
Con was just bending down to retrieve the business cards when he suddenly went still.
I stared at him for a second, but before I could ask what was up he said, "Did you hear that?"
"What?" I asked, seizing an opportunity to be my usual annoying self. "The sound of your soul shattering as you realize you will never be as pretty as me?"
"No, really, shut up a second."
Almost as if by magic, I actually shut up, straining my ears to listen. I heard a momentary thud before the door of the cell burst open, at least four dark-clad, human-sized figures darted into the room.
"Shit!" Con cursed and jumped back as two of the ninja-type things went for him. "Spark, watch it!"
"Huh? Hell!" I whirled around and just barely ducked in time to avoid a punch to the nose. I dropped and threw my shoulder into the person's knees. . .and promptly heard a very metallic crunch.
What the. . .? I didn't have time to be confused for long, because no sooner had I wriggled out from beneath the limp body of whoever'd tried to punch me than I felt a fist grab the back of my shirt. I was yanked upright, socked in the stomach, and the almost-fight ended.
Trying to catch my breath back, I struggled against my captors, lashing out at everything within kicking range. I came in contact with something hard and metallic, and pain splintered through my foot. Damn!
"Spark, it's no use, just calm down a sec!" I heard Con's dark voice yell at me. "It's probably a scientist!"
I yearned to tell him to shut the hell up and leave me alone, but forced myself to relax. Frustrated, I blew hair out of my face and looked up.
In the doorway stood a man with a clipboard. I glanced over at Con, who, like me, was being held back by two of the weird hooded ninja people. He gave a hard look that I interpreted as cause trouble and I'll kill you.
"All right then." We both looked toward the whitecoat, who consulted his clipboard. "Subjects Alpha and Five, no current threat."
In creepy unison Con and I invited the guy to perform something anatomically impossible to himself. We were thus punished by our guards--me by getting an arm twisted up my back, Con getting a smack to the face.
"Hey!" I shouted, a sudden rage igniting in me. "Only I'm allowed to do that!"
"Hmph. Unfortunately for you, I'm the one who decides who gets to do what," said a familiar British-accented voice, and I momentarily stopped fighting with Underlings #1 and 2 to look toward the door of the cell.
It was a woman, pretty average-height by my standards, with dark, shiny black hair and a strict, just-begging-to-be-questioned authoritative air about her. She strode in in a businesslike manner, her shiny black heels clacking across the cement floor.
"Well, whaddaya know," I snarled. "I'm being manhandled on the orders of Kelly from The Office!"
My once-torturer, the Indian lab grunt I'd so whimsically christened Alice, narrowed her eyes at me. "I see you haven't changed in terms of attitude," she said in her frosty British accent.
"And I see you haven't changed in terms of owning a soul," I replied. "Even."
A slight smirk crept over Alice's lips. To my surprise, she said, "Put her down."
Underling #1 and Underling #2 set me down warily, shadowing me rather annoyingly if I even tried to take a baby step in any direction.
"So?" I asked Alice dully. "What the hell d'you want with us?"
"Just a minor check-up," Alice said vaguely, her eyes sweepign across the room. Her gaze lingered on the way mine and Con's shoes were lined up by the far wall, adding, "I see you've been keeping yourselves. . .occupied."
I merely shrugged. "Shoes are silly things. Though stylish--in some cases--" (I looked pointedly down at her shoes, a look of skepticism on my face) "--they unnecessarily bind the wonders that are feet." I raised my leg and waggled my foot. "And I can never find my size. I'm beginning to think men's eight-and-two-fifths narrow doesn't even exist."
For some reason, Con was glaring at me, silently urging me to shut up. I ignored him, because, well, face it, when have I ever listened to him? (Or anybody else, for that matter?)
Well. . .I guess I had listened just a little bit ago. Twice, actually. But let's not get picky.
"How. . .quaint," Alice said, her voice holding an odd tone. She looked like she'd found something particularly interesting about me; I could see it in the way her hungry eyes raked over me. I shifted uncomfortably.
"Um, just so you know, I'm not into the whole cougar thing," I told her with a staright face. "Or the lesbian thing. At least not with you. Were you, say, Lisa Morgan, though. . ." I shrugged. "Maybe. She's very pretty. And she kicks ass as Dr. Cuddy."
If Con had had a free hand he would've smacked himself in the forehead. Instead, he had to make do with rolling his eyes and shaking his head. I glanced over at him for a second and he mouthed, "Shut up!" I half-smiled fleetingly. Yeah, right. Because I always shut up. In fact, people actually yell at me for not talking sometimes.
Alice pulled out a small PDA and entered something into a personal note. "Everything going according to schedule," she said to herself. "We should arrive in London within the week, giving us enough time to run more than all the tests I had set aside. . ."
"London?" Con echoed, speaking up for the first time. "You're taking us to that stupid conference thing?"
"Correct," Alice said smugly, tucking away her PDA. She smiled warmly and then said to the things restraining us, "Bring them both to Lab Six for stress testing. After that, we can progress to endurance."
"Tests? But I don't have my number two pencil!" I tried to protest, squirming as my bodyguards forced me along. "And I haven't studied!"
"Watch it!" Behind me, Con suddenly came to life as his guards dragged him along after me, spouting obscenites that even I wasn't creative enough to come up with. Somehow, I knew he was even more pissed off than he was trying to lead our captors to believe.
Randomly, I thought about our shoes, still lined up at the back wall in the cell, with the business cards lying inside. I wondered how long it would before Con and I could continue our game. Or even if we would be in fit enough condition to play.
so, yeah. chapter eleven up, chapter twelve to follow. . .sometime in the hopefully near future. once again, i'm sorry the updating for this is a lot slower than the previous story. hopefully you can forgive me.
