Sorry again for a lack of update. Been busy with getting ready for school. But to make up for it, this is kind of a long chapter.
"Okay," said Serena as she slid her back pack onto her shoulders, "while I'm at school, you can just crash here. Make yourself at home. There's food in the fridge and the cabinets, just help yourself."
Asch was sitting in a recliner in the living room looking up at Serena. She continued, "I should be home around two o'clock and Alice will be here at about five. And Caroline, my other Mom is supposed to come home today, but it won't be until this afternoon."
"What am I supposed to do for six hours while you're at school?" asked Asch, smiling slightly.
"I'm sure you could find something around here to entertain yourself. I gotta get going. I'll see you later." Serena headed for the door.
"See ya," said Asch as she went through the door.
Asch let out a sigh. He hated doing nothing. He figured maybe he could try finding Dr. Martinez's number again. There must have been some way he could get it.
He could also get some practice in trying to gain his abilities back. Dr. Trapp said that they would probably start to come back in a day or two. But he would have to take it slow. He didn't want to collapse again.
Asch decided to try and find the number for Dr. Martinez. He went through numerous operating systems, even some in the veterinary associations, and some kind and moody operators, and being on hold for some periods of time, but couldn't get Dr. Martinez's line.
He hung up the phone and screamed through gritted teeth in frustration. How is it that no one could get this one's person's phone number?
He looked over at a clock on a mantle. It read 10:14 a.m. He had been on the phone for over two hours. He hoped Serena's parents never noticed that on the phone bill. Whoops.
He wanted to try and fly again, but then he figured he would just be wasting his time. He could try again later.
He stayed at the house for another hour. He watched television, went looking through the cabinets and closets and other places that didn't look private. He was tempted to look in Serena's room, maybe find out her little secret, but quickly put the thought away. He wasn't a rat. He knew how to be one, but he wasn't about to put it to use on Serena.
Asch couldn't take being cooped up anymore. He needed to get out. He would just be sure to get back before anyone came home.
Of course, he couldn't fly, he couldn't drive. So what else could he do? He walked. It was actually refreshing change of pace for him. At first, it seemed slow and boring, but then he found it really peaceful. It wasn't a big rush from trying to move at blinding speeds.
As he went through the town of Timber, he was able to take in all the sounds and sights and know what they were rather than them just going by him in a vat of jumbled color and discernible sound.
But on the other hand, he missed the rush of adrenaline, the energy pumping through him, the thrill of doing what nobody else could do, that flying gave him.
And he didn't want to start with his pyrokinesis.
But still, this was nice. Maybe normal wasn't as bad as Asch thought.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I guess there was more paranoia here about Sephiroth than in some other places. School only lasted half a day. I was actually glad about that. It would give Fang and me more time to look for Asch in Colorado.
The one thing that would probably have been hard was telling Dr. Martinez. I wasn't exactly sure if she would let us go. But then again, how would she be able to stop us?
So after school, the two of us approached her and presented our case to her.
"Well… I don't know," she said. That was not a good way to begin agreeing. "I understand that you want to find your friend to see if he's still alive. But this could be dangerous as well. Those… followers might come after you."
"We can take care of ourselves," I said, "You know we can."
"I know, I'm just worried. I'm a mother. It's what I do."
"We should be back tonight, but probably not until after dinner. We'll be super careful, we promise."
Dr. Martinez let out a sigh of defeat. "I spoil you kids."
I let out a small squeal of excitement. I hugged Dr. Martinez and said "thank you" a hundred times in less than a minute. Fang was his typical self and merely said "thanks". He probably didn't want to let on that this was his idea.
We went into Fang's room and packed a couple of essentials in a back pack. Iggy and Nudge came into the room. "So you're really going to try and find Asch?" asked Nudge with some excitement.
"Well, we gotta check to see if what Sephiroth said was true," I said, "If Asch is alive, we'll need his help. Plus, I'm sure he'd like to see Lily, despite her, uhh, condition."
"But what if Sephiroth was lying?" said Iggy, "And not to mention that he said he promised to kill Asch if he saw him again."
"Guys," said Fang, "we've gotten hundreds of death threats in our life before. When has that ever stopped us? I doubt it would stop him."
"Yeah, but then, we were sure we could beat our opponents. This time, I'm not so sure."
"When did we ever let doubt stop us?" I asked. I caught Fang wincing a bit out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't trying to aim that at him, but I could tell it struck a nerve.
"I guess you're right," said Iggy.
"I really hope you find him," said Nudge, "I know how you two were really good friends. And I want to see Asch and Iggy here go at it in more cooking contests. Those were so fun to watch. I liked how competitive you got over something as simple as cooking."
"Yeah, I miss my inferior 'competition' too." Iggy let out a small chuckle after that.
A few minutes later, Fang and I were packed and ready. Gasman and Angel came up to us and wished us good luck. Angel wanted to come with us, but it would be better if just Fang and I went, in case the followers were looking for us.
We headed outside and took off flying, saying goodbye to everyone else.
The flight to Colorado took a couple of hours. We were going to start at the Facility. Or at least the place where the Facility once stood, before it was burned to the ground… by Asch.
We soon made it to the site of the remains of the Facility. But there was a problem that made us had to land a little earlier. The place was swarming with cops and rangers.
We landed in a big pine tree and watched as people in uniforms were walking around. Some were writing on pads, others looked like they were searching for something.
"What's going on here?" I asked, "What are all these people doing here?"
"I guess it was only a matter of time before somebody noticed a giant fire pit the size of a giant, complex laboratory," said Fang. I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
After a minute of watching, I said, "I wonder if they found Asch."
"If he isn't part of the soil by now?"
"Fang," I said sternly, giving him a look that matched my voice.
"Sorry," he said.
"You know he's impervious to fire. He can't burn. If he's, or was, down there, he'll be in one piece."
"You got any ideas on how we're gonna get down there and find him or find out about him?"
"Let's just stay perched up here for now. Maybe somebody down there will say something that will give us a clue."
So we waited for the right guy to spill the beans within our earshot. We heard some interesting conversations, some more honorable than others. We heard some speculation as to what could have possibly happened, but nothing solid.
We sat in the tree for about an hour before we heard the right blabbermouth.
A ranger was talking with somebody as they were walking by, "Yeah, some rfoup of hikers found this kid in the wreckage."
"Was he alive?" asked the other guy.
"Yeah, he was taken to the Timber hospital, as far as I know. Strange thing though, he was unconscious but he didn't have a scratch on him."
Fang and I looked at each other with excitement. We had a lead. We knew where Timber was. We spent some time there after we defeated Anne Walker and spent the night in the woods.
We flew out towards the town, which wasn't too far away. We landed close to Timber without anyone seeing us.
We walked towards the town. "So we need to find the hospital," said Fang, "Once we do, how are we going to find Asch? We can't just walk in and ask 'had any bird-human hybrid mutants come in as patients recently?'."
"True, but we'll have to try something."
Not much later we found the hospital. We walked in the front door and went to the desk.
A woman sitting at the desk looked up at us and asked, "Can I help you?"
"Yeah," I said, "we're looking for a patient we think is in this hospital. His name is A… uhh… Tyler Ashton."
The receptionist hit a few buttons on her computer. When she was done, she said, "Sorry, but we don't have a patient listed under that name."
"Uh-oh," I said to Fang.
"Well, he didn't come in under the name 'Asch'," said Fang.
"What other name could he come in under?"
Just then a voice called out, "Max, Maximum Ride."
Fang and I looked over to see someone who looked like a doctor. He was tall with short, brown hair and glasses. He motioned for us to come towards him. So we did so.
"Max," he said quietly as we approached him, "It's me, Dr. Gordon."
I jogged my memory for a little bit and then it came to me. He was one of the doctors who took care of me and the Counter-Breed at ShawCorp.
"Dr. Gordon, I remember you now. What are you doing here?"
"We'll talk about in my office."
So we followed him through the crowded halls of the hospital. In the course of just over a month, almost all of the people from the life that was erased from me were suddenly popping up like daisies.
We came to his office and he closed the door and locked it.
"Uhh, can I be brought into the loop?" asked Fang.
"Fang," I said, "this is Dr. Gordon. He was one of the doctors that took care of me during my time in ShawCorp."
"Oh."
"Well, actually," said Dr. Gordon, "my name is Dr. Trapp now. After the raid, I dropped out of ShawCorp and went back to medicine. But I have to say, it's really good to see you again. Boy, you've grown. It's just as refreshing as seeing Asch."
"So Asch was here?!" I cried, "You saw him."
"Yeah. I took him as my patient, but I didn't make a record of it. He was in rough shape but he's all right. He maxed out his power and almost drained himself of life energy."
"So, he is alive? We can see him again?"
"If you can find him. I don't know where he went after he checked out. But he went with a girl who found him who offered to care of him while he tries to find… well… you."
"So we just missed him," said Fang.
"I'm afraid so."
"That's okay," I said, "We'll just have to search the town for him. Not impossible to do."
"The girl that he was with, her name was Salisbury. I forget the first name, Serena or something like that."
"Well, at least we have something to go on. We can just look up Salisbury in the phonebook."
"I take it you two know about the whole Sephiroth situation."
"Yeah we know."
"Well, I don't know how much help Asch will be. He's lost all of his abilities."
"He what?!" Fang and I yelled.
"Don't worry, he should get them back soon. It was just a side affect from going overboard with his abilities."
"Let's hope so," said Fang.
"Well, I need to go back work. Good luck finding Asch and stopping Sephiroth, and be careful. If you need any help, come find me. I'll do what I can."
"Okay, thanks a lot Dr. Gor… I mean, Dr. Trapp."
"No problem."
So Fang and I quickly got out of the hospital. Finally, we had a real lead. We went to a nearby phone booth and looked in a phonebook that was in it. There was only two Salisburys in the area, so that really narrowed down the search.
The first was a bust. So we made it to the second one. It was a really big house. Whoever lived there must have been rich, or maybe they had one of those Itex limitless cards.
We knocked on the door and rang the bell, but there was no answer. Maybe Asch was already out looking for us.
"Well, nobody's home," said Fang, "now what do we do?"
"You don't think he might have already flown out of here and went to look for us, do you?"
"Your doctor friend said that he lost his abilities. I would think that would include flying. Maybe he went for a walk, or maybe to school."
"No, no, Asch isn't really the type to take walks."
"Then where could he be?"
"He must be somewhere around here. It's not a big town, maybe we'll find him walking around."
"Guess we have no choice."
So we set off back into the town to search for a needle in a haystack.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Asch started to head back for the house. He had had his fill of the town for now. Plus, he needed to get back before Serena came home. It was almost two.
He started retracing his steps and making his way back to Serena's house. Overall, he rather enjoyed taking a walk. For some reason that he couldn't figure out, the slowness of it actually relaxed him. He couldn't think of a time when he felt this relaxed. It felt really good.
As he rounded a corner near a grocery store, he saw something that caught his attention. Through a crowd of a few people, he saw something that looked familiar. He saw a head of long, blond-streaked hair.
Could it have been Max? She was walking next to a taller guy with black hair and a black shirt. Could that have been Fang? What were they doing here?
He tried to catch up to them, but they were keeping up a fast pace. He ran up to them and said, "Wait, excuse me, hold up."
The pair turned around and looked at Asch. "Can we help you?" asked the boy. Asch looked up to them. It wasn't them. They looked similar, but not the same.
"Oh, sorry," said Asch, "I had the wrong people. Sorry about that."
The pair turned around and continued walking on their way. Asch started heading back toward the house when he bumped into a person who was behind him.
"Oh, sorry," he said. He looked at the person who he bumped into. He found that it was a very familiar face. The girl was about to his shoulder and had streaks of blonde in her hair.
"Max?" he asked.
"Asch!" Max cried. Max embraced her long lost best friend in a hug that would shatter the average human's bones.
As always, please R&R
