A/N: Thanks Ashpee22798, EliseInWonderland227, Afashonxdisaster, and Metal Flowers for reviewing. As usual, you guys are amazing. 8D I can't believe I'm at ten chapters! When this is all typed out and I put it in here as a word doc. It's over 70 pages. That with copy paper, I'm about to do the math to see how many pages this would be in real book size. I'm at 38 reviews and over 100 people have looked at my story this month already. It's almost at 200. I'm so happy! I feel like a good author XD

Lately I realized that my name is so…well…normal…without all the letters and stuff. I kind of want to change it to just Double A or something…so I don't have to change the little signature thing*. What do you guys think?

~2XA *- Signature thing

Chapter Ten: I Had To Be The Hero

EM

Why do bad things always seem to find us bird kids? The creepy things were crawling out ten at a time. "Oh really?" I hissed under my breath. I turned to face Widow. "You can fight right?"

"Of course," Widow blinked at me, and although the monsters were getting closer he didn't seem to be alarmed. "I was trained well."

"Then fight with us, kay?" Iggy said, standing up and shaking out his wings. "What about those webs? We can't fight without knowing where those are."

"Wait for them to get through, and then attack, I'll make sure you're not cut, and only the enemy is." Widow smiled at my boyfriend, finally getting up with a stretch. Iggy looked at him for a moment, but just shook his head and glanced in my direction.

"We'll go with Widow's plan," I sighed, but when I turned back around I was surprised to be greeted by the monster falling to the ground. "What the-"

"Webs. They're right there. They'll figure out a way around them soon. Those things adapt quick. Little buggers…" Widow cursed, spitting towards the bug. He balanced lightly on his web, bouncing from foot to foot. I rolled my eyes at him and looked back towards the enemies.

"Where's Max? For a girl with super speed I'm sure she isn't using it," Iggy flew over to me, landing on the web beside me. "So, I guess we attack?"

"Wait," I held a hand against his chest and watched the oncoming creatures. The closer they got the more I wanted to barf. The things were like spiders, more so than Widow. While he made webs and had the perfect balance, they had extra arms extending from their sides and their faces had eight eyes instead of two. I grimaced at their mouths, laced with sharp teeth and no tongue. Some of them had the beginning of more limbs dangling limply from their bodies. "Oh they look…sick…" I gagged.

"That's not the worse," Widow said absent mindedly. He came to stand on the other side of me, a grim look in his eyes. "You haven't seen what I have."

"I don't want to." I responded. The creatures moved closer, eyes narrowed as they hissed at us. I actually did find a few with tongues. The pink things were laced with sharp bristles and were long and pointed. They flicked out of their mouths and snapped towards us. More of them fell by the hidden web defenses, but as soon as a few would fall, they all would regroup tighter and they, as one, would come closer towards us.

"They're like a hive! There has to be like fifty of them. It sounds like a lot of them. There's no way they can all move together like that without something telling them what to do," Iggy yelled over their noise. The monsters weren't necessarily stealthy. Their hisses were loud and their traveling on the long web towards us wasn't quiet either. Widow was playing with the web that came from the raised cut on his wrist.

"I suggest we go for the center," He said. "Iggy's right. They'll attack as one and it'll crush us. We need to fight on our own and all of us go towards the center one. That one, right there." Widow pointed to the middle monster. It's eyes glowed a sinister red and it was slightly smaller than the others. When it met my eyes I froze. They were so familiar.

"Who is that?" I asked Widow, who looked away.

"His name was Ian. He was five when he got here, seven when he turned into that. He'll never be normal again."

"You mean I have to kill a seven year old?" I snapped at him. He shrugged and kept his gaze away. By now, the monsters were nearly on top of us. I took a breath, trying not to think about what I'd have to do and focus on what will happen after I do it. You'll live. I thought to myself, and got ready to punch anything. I didn't realize I had no freaking idea how to fight until I was pounding my fist painfully into one of the monsters that got close to me. Widow was off covering the monsters in webs and swinging them against each other. The spider-monster I'd attacked was slowly losing the battle, and one nicely aimed kick sent him flying into another that was about to bite Iggy.

"Don't get bit!" Widow screeched over the sound of spider things screaming and howling at us. "If you do, you will become one of them!"

"Oh great!" I cheered. "Thanks for telling me this now!" I kicked harder at one of the monsters near me, panicking about whether or not I got bit. I didn't think so. Forget it, focus. I was wondering where I got my fighting skills from when I felt something land behind me. Without thinking I smacked the spider in front of me with my wing and spun around, ready to punch whatever it was. I was met with eyes that looked quite familiar.

"You gonna punch your sister?" Max sneered at me. "We almost missed the party." She gestured to the rest of the flock who were happily kicking spider but. I shook my head and smiled at her. She laughed, and then jumped into the fray of battle. I jumped in after her, kicking and punching as much as we can.

"Get the center one!" Iggy yelled, pummeling one of the monsters happily. I heard an explosion and figured that Gazzy had gone to work. I finished beating my last spider before my eyes lifted up and met something I didn't want to see. Nudge was surrounded. She had broken apart one spider from the horde, and immediately more had come to its aid. She was baking against the edge of the web, but I was too far away. One was about to bite her when suddenly it flew backwards, pulled by an invisible line. The others followed soon after, all of them falling down and crushing against the ground below us. I looked around, trying to understand the situation, and saw Widow, smirking happily at him-self. He'd saved Nudge. He quickly ran to her, said something that she nodded at, and then went back to fighting. Nudge stood shocked for a while before going as well. I returned to the battle at hand, and when I looked up after defeating another spider, I was met with the red eyes of a seven year old boy I apparently used to know. I moved towards him, defeating the spiders in my path, but right when I was about to attack the leader of them all and end the thing, something else tackled me. When I opened my eyes and looked up at my attacker, I saw the mouth of one of the spider precariously close to my face. I screamed as the teeth grew closer. Then something else snapped. I lashed out, biting into one of the spiders arms. It screeched, which was an odd, high pitch sound that seemed almost two voices. It recoiled, jumping away from me and looking at its injured leg. I spit the taste of flesh out of my mouth and tried to pretend I wasn't drooling. How can I call those things monsters when I still had the occasional urge to eat raw meat? So, I'll just call them Spiders. I met eyes with the spider again, and it spit at me, almost laughing at my efforts to attack it. You're crazy. You're not really seeing that. Then the Spider smirked at me, and let out a small weird high pitched noise that sounded like a challenge, again I had the same feeling I'd had when I'd bit the other Spider. I didn't even realize I'd attacked it until I was punching the lead Spider in the face. The spider recoiled, flinching away. It hissed at me, actually almost scaring me away. Yet something else told me to snarl back. So I did. The Spider stopped hissing, looking at me in confusion. It snarled again, and I repeated the action, baring my sharp teeth at it. The Spider took a step back, its head tilting in surprise. It probably wasn't used to human like creatures growling at it like an animal. I wonder what animal I was mixed with. The Spider regained its confidence, stepping closer to me, and I growled again. It didn't step, continuing its move to come closer. It watched me cautiously. I didn't move as it started to close the gap that lasted between us. Truthfully, I could feel my heart beat and it was all I could hear. Don't panic. Focus on the Spidey coming closer to you.

"You're going down six legs," I muttered as it was only a step away from me. I think I jumped forward first, but I'm not sure since we were both rolling around on the web. Spidey was trying to bite me and I was trying to bite him. I'm assuming it was probably a little bit like survival of the fittest. Or the smartest. I felt one of its tongue bristles scrape my face. Of course this one had a tongue! One with sharp bristles on it to! Why not? I felt my own blood run into my mouth. Great, more face scars. I spit it out instinctively and watched the blood land in its eye. The Spider screeched, jumping away from me and scraping at its eye with its bristled hands and fingers. It screeched more at that pain. Blood was falling from the new scars it'd created on its face. While it was distracted, it was no problem for me to take my foot and smash it directly into the Spider's face. The thing went down like a rock. I heard the rest of the screeching and hissing and fighting stop. I looked around at the Flock and Widow. They were bruised, a little bloodied, and tired, but they were alive.

"Well it could've been worse," I heard Gazzy say before Nudge slapped her hand over his mouth. How ironic that it was Nudge quieting someone else? I just shook my head. That never worked, the 'it could've been worse' thing was just a myth. Right?

Wrong. More Spiders came out of the school, and not only that, but so did a whole bunch of other creatures I didn't care to look at or think about long enough to categorize. However I did notice that there were some Shades looking at all of us with anger in their eyes.

If you surrender now Em, the others will be allowed to go. It took me a moment to realize the voice was in my head, and was coming from the Spider I had supposedly knocked out that was now back up and looking at me with contempt. I guess my mind came up with only one solution. I turned to Iggy.

"You guys ready to fight?" I asked, raising a brow. The flock looked at me in horror (minus Iggy and Max for respective reasons). They were much too tired to fight all of them. I knew that. That's why I was going with my last resort. I knew Iggy and Max were going to be so peeved at me.

"If we have to," I heard Gazzy mutter, and Angel elbowed him.

"Can we run?" Nudge asked tentatively.

"We'll never make it far enough." Max said smoothly. I could tell she was angry. She had super speed, but the others didn't, which meant that they might not get away fast enough with Shades and Spiders and the other things on our tails. I mean, I didn't even know what the other things did yet. Generation 79…amazing right? I cursed myself inwardly, blocking my thoughts from Angel because I didn't want her to know my plans. I knew she would stop me.

"Fly?" Dylan asked breathlessly. Yep, they were too exhausted to fight.

"Nope. Not fast enough." Max responded.

"We have no choice but to fight," Widow muttered.

"I don't know who you are! I won't listen!" Gazzy snarled back. Nudge shook her head.

"Shut up Gazzy, I know who he is and he's right," I cut in. Gazzy blinked at me, then pouted and looked away. "You'll never get away without them on your tail, and you can't fight or you'll die. I sort of see only one option." I say quietly. I think Iggy was starting to put it together, his eyes narrowed and his hands balled into fists. I started moving towards the monsters.

"Em, what other choice do we have?" Angel asked desperately, the slightest whine in her voice. I smiled grimly at her.

"We do what we have to do, right?" I answered. Iggy snorted.

"Or we don't. We become selfish jerks that do what we want and then pout when we don't get what we want." His ice blue eyes were glaring at me as if he could see my deepest thoughts and knew exactly what I was planning. Probably could knowing Iggy. I just chuckled at him as I kept moving backwards.

"We'll see which plan works out, kay Ig?" I smiled at him a little. I wished I could grab one last kiss before I decided to be stupid and did what I was going to do. I swear I was going to regret this later. I turned around, moving faster towards the enemies, which waited like predators about to attack their prey. When I was about five feet away from them I stopped. I was trying not to barf at the smell and look of them. I can't even describe how monstrous the things were. Six legs, emaciated bodies, sharp teeth with leftovers from their last meals.

"What are you doing Em?" I heard Max getting closer. I had to hurry. I raised my arms up, palms facing them.

"I give up. White flag." I grimaced at my own words. The monsters in front of me looked at each other, smirking creepily. At least I think they were smirking…I'm sure they were doing whatever they were doing creepily however.

"Dang it Em don't!" I heard Iggy yell from where he was. I looked back at him one more time, hating that I did because all I could see was the pain and fear in his eyes. I think I started crying then. I managed to mouth three words before something hit me hard over the head and darkness overwhelmed all my other senses.

1…2…3…4…5…

'I love you'

"Iggy!" I screamed when I came to. Bright green eyes stared back at me, huge eyes actually. They were strange because a hint of dark brown hung in them as if they used to be another color. The green eyes were full of concern and worry.

"It's okay, you're friends are safe, they got away," The green eyes had a voice. Weird…green eyes didn't talk. Oh wait. Duh, green eyes were on faces, faces had mouths, when mouths moved, sometimes voices came out. I backed away from the big eyes and only backed into a wall. I yelped in the pain that erupted from my head.

"Ooh, smooth Ella," I heard another voice behind the green eyes. I looked around them and my eyes met a girl with red hair and piercing red eyes. Her hands were on her hips and she smirked at me as I watched her.

"Who're you?" I asked quietly, hating to hear my voice crack. How did that girl know my name? Well…one of my names?

"You…don't remember us?" The green eyes backed away and I could see the face of the one that held them. Freckles splattered across pale skin, and light blonde wavy hair surrounded the face. Familiar, yet I couldn't tell who she was.

"Not…really…should I?"

"Well probably since you're supposed to save us," The red-headed girl retorted, a hiss in her voice. "I told you that girl lost more than her legs in that surgery of hers."

"Be quiet Jade, she's just disoriented," The blonde girl glared at 'Jade' and then looked back at me, her eyes holding hope. "It's Pippa. You know, you're friend." I heard Jade laugh from behind Pippa.

"Ha!" Pippa didn't spare a glance at the rude red-head.

"Pippa…? Jade…? Wait…I'm back at the school aren't I?"

"Yeah smart one you gave yourself up." Jade snorted at me.

"I…did it to save my friends," I answered her. She was now getting just a tad bit on my nerves.

"It was sweet of you," Pippa smiled sadly. "But I'm just not sure how we'll get out of here now." I felt a pang in my head. I closed my eyes against the brightness that surrounded me, relishing in the dark behind my eyelids.

"We won't, we'll die here as pets for other people," Jade snarled. I heard something hit her and smirked at the image.

"You deserve it Jade, if you weren't so weird you wouldn't get hit with random flying objects," I tell her, opening my eyes to face her blazing red ones. She rolled them.

"Whatevs Hero," She said. I suddenly remembered the nickname. Hero. I was always being called a Hero because I couldn't stop myself from saving someone from a beating at the School. I took them all. When I left…oh my gosh why did I leave?

"Oh no," I jumped up, ignoring the waves of pain. "Oh dang it when I left-"

"You should probably sit down," Pippa said worriedly.

"Everyone kept getting the beatings for punishments…I was the one who…took them…but now…" I looked at both girls. Jade looked away, and Pippa grimaced.

"I take them now. Ella, it's really nice to see you again," A boy voice sounded to, and he stepped from around Jade. Gildan. I smiled brightly at him.

"Gildan!" It was like I hadn't seen a brother in a really long time because he'd gone away to some horrible place, and now he was back. I walked…more like hobbled…over to him and hugged him. He gripped me tightly. I remembered slightly about what Widow had said about Gildan. That he was bad now, that he didn't believe I would save them. I pushed away from a little, annoyed that I was aware of how close I was to him. "Um…wait," I looked at him quizzically, my red-brown eyes meeting his hazel ones. His dark blonde hair barely reached to the middle of his eyes. He was definitely handsome, if you were into the bulky, built, tough-looking, summer-glazed boys. I apparently wasn't into them, considering who my boyfriend is. "You…don't think that I can save you…" I said it as more of a fact than a question. He looked away.

"Well...seeing as you managed to get yourself in here, I don't think you'll be able to get us out," His voice was soft. When he met my eyes, my heart jumped involuntarily. I stepped away from him. He probably assumed it was because of what he just said, but I didn't really care about that, in fact, that was the least of my worries. Gildan didn't need to believe in me. I was going to get them out because I didn't want to be stuck in this stupid School. If I was leaving, so were they. By 'They', I meant all of them. Hmm…I wonder how that was going to work.

"That's not the important thing," I said to Gildan, turning towards Pippa and Jade because I didn't like the look of hurt in Gildan's eyes. Him and Ella must've been very close, because I felt the same pull to him as I did Pippa and Jade. I didn't want them to stay in the School and die here as pets for white-coats. "I'm leaving, so are you."

"You actually think you can get out of here?"

"You actually think I won't succeed?" I asked him sharply, meeting his eyes with mine narrowed. I was getting sick of people underestimating me. I mean a spider thing did it, now one of Ella's old friends? What was wrong with everyone? Even Jeb did it. Almost the whole flock did it, Star, Fang, basically everyone but my mom and Angel. Pippa didn't seem to think I was going to fail either.

"I don't know Ella, I really don't know." Gildan's turned around, about to leave the room. "You've got a lot of kids hopes up Ella. Either set them straight now or you can watch them die believing that at least some of them will get free when in reality they're all going to die or become the Spiders." His voice was laced with anger. "Give it up, there's no way Ella the Hero will be strong enough to do this." He was about to leave when I realized something.

"My name isn't Ella," I smirked when he turned around to face me in surprise and confusion. "It's Em. When I got out, my name was Em. Em came back, not Ella. Sure she's in here somewhere, but I'm not really her am I?" I questioned. His eyes widened. Then, suddenly, a smile slipped on his face.

"When you prove it, Ella, then I'll believe you. Until then, I'll keep up my new perfect prisoner record," The blonde boy left without a word. I crossed my arms and seethed. Dumb boy.

"It's okay…Em, Gildan's always like that, he's really mean sometimes too," Pippa explained. She looked up at me with big eyes.

"The self-centered retard can't ever keep his mouth shut," Jade backed the little blonde girl up, a look of annoyance in her eyes. "Maybe one die I'll just ducktape him to the wall so he can speak about his problems to the random passerby's." She snorted. I looked at her with a brow raised for a moment before cracking up. Pippa grinned while Jade rolled her eyes. Yet something bothered me, something that replayed over and over in my head even as if Pippa and Jade took me to get some food to soothe my growling stomach.

Why, despite being a prisoner, did I feel so at home in this white room in the School that tortured me and created a monster out of me?

A/N: Well it's late, so I'm just going to end this with a 'hope you liked it, good night, love you all, thanks for reading, review, laters!'
~2XA