A/N

So. It's been a while.

I don't have any excuses. And I ended it on a cliffhanger, because that's what you do to your readers who have been waiting for a month. I'm turning into Rick Riordan.

Anyway, I don't think I've done a disclaimer yet (oops), so here goes:

I do not own Maximum Ride.

Shocker.

So, here's the chapter. Enjoy!

13/9/15

Dear Diary,

I'm guessing you want to know what happened. It went a little like this.

Flashback (cue the cool music)

The flock stared at me in stunned silence, gaping. Then someone decided to break it.

"A teddy bears gonna destroy the world?" David said sceptically. I glanced up, and saw him and Richard by the door.

"Oh, you're here," I said dully. Hey, I didn't like the guy! But you probably already knew that.

"Gazzy. What's all this teddy bear apocalypse stuff?" Max asked pointedly. I nodded.

"Er, right. So, this guy named Ted Ebaire-" Some people snickered. "Aka Stalker Guy, wants to blow up the world. Well, I think," I finished convincingly.

"Ted Ebaire-" David snickered, "is your stalker? That's great. You ask him what he's planning?" I scowled at him.

"I couldn't just ask him. He wouldn't tell me-"

"Hey. Quit the macho act. We've got bigger priorities right now. Like, what's his next move?" Kaci cut in. We sat in silence for another few minutes.

Okay, so I may have failed to mention this before, but the button also triggered the floor to open up (again!), and all of us (except David and Richard) were at the bottom of a pit. Good times. Also, it was too small and crowded for anyone to open their wings. Then Richard snapped his fingers.

"I got it!" He raised his palms in front of him, and for a minute I thought he was gonna start dancing the Macarena. Instead, though, he turned his hands over and flicked them upwards. I felt a weird pulling in my gut, and was suddenly flung skyward.

"Woah!" I yelled. I think some of the older kids shouted stuff a tad stronger than 'woah', so I won't put it in here. Anyway, I was zooming up, yanked to the side, and then I started falling. I didn't have enough time to snap my wings out, so I landed mucho gracefully in a heap. David looked sheepish.

"Heh, sorry guys. I'm a little rusty with the anti-gravity stuff." The flock all stared at him.

"You have anti-gravity powers," Max deadpanned. He nodded.

"I forgot about it before," he said.

"Right," Max muttered. "You forgot." So that lead to one question which is keeping Max awake at night:

Can we actually trust these people?

Me, I dunno. I guess I'd trust them, if it really came down to it. But if they had to choose between freedom and saving us, I really don't know.

Cue end of the dramatic music.

So yeah. That was yesterday. Right now, we're just lounging around the house. I was currently doing homework. I know, shocker. Anyway, writing a formula for how to find the square root of pi (even though it's impossible) was seriously putting a damper on my weekend. The homework is literally impossible.

"Gasman doing homework? I thought the world ended ages ago?" Total asked, trotting in to the kitchen. I bit my pencil.

"Total being obnoxious? You'd never know the world did end," I retorted, glaring at my homework. Total hopped up on the stool beside me, and peered over my shoulder.

"The square root of pi? Isn't that, like, impossible?"

"Yep," I replied shortly.

"Why are your teachers giving you impossible homework?"

"The same reason they gave us rubidium and taught us BEDMAS and poetry." Total's nose wrinkled.

"Rubidium? Do they want their school blown up?" I shrugged.

"Who knows. Probably."

"Yo, you know whose room that annoying musics' coming from?" I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Have you checked Iggy's room?" I asked him. He shook his furry head.

"Not yet. I thought you'd like to know who was jamming out to Poker Face," he answered.

"Lady Gaga? Definitely Iggy," I said.

"Well, I heard someone talking that definitely didn't sound like Iggy." That piqued (proud, Diary? That's a hard word) my interest.

"Okay, let's go. Iggy's room. Lady Gaga. Great." We walked up there, well, Total asked me to carry him, and I did, because he was complaining so much. We stopped outside Iggy's door. There was music coming from there, alright. I took a deep breath.

"What we see may scar us for life. Be prepared for anything," I told Total gravelly. He nodded seriously. Then I opened the door.

"Ho-"

"-ly-"

"-fudgecakes," I finished. Iggy was there, alright. But so were Max, Fang, and...David. They all froze when we entered.

"Hey, Gazzy. Fancy seeing you here," Max waved, eyes shifting.

"Yeah. Seeing as I live here," I replied nonchalantly. The music was still in the background, but the song had switched. Evacuate the dance floor was now blaring.

"If my myth teacher was here right now, she'd be saying how much this reminded her of Hephaestus that time with Ares and Aphrodite," I muttered. Hey, don't blame me, when I'm feeling...uh, any emotion, pretty much, I spouted Greek references.

"I don't know what that means, but can we forget that ever happened?" Max asked anxiously. Why was she-oh my god. My eyes widened. I pointed my finger at her.

"You're on strike two," I said. She winced.

"You remember that. Right," she muttered.

"I can't believe...your music taste astounds me. I'm just...I'm just gonna go," I mumbled, and turned around. But I didn't anticipate the talking dog, so I tripped over him. And when I first gave you the Grand House Tour, I'm pretty sure I mentioned how Iggy's door was right at the top of the stairs. So I went tumbling down into the empty space. I really hate stairs. When my head hit the ground, I blacked out.

Hey, Gazzy's diary. Max here. I found this in Gazzy's pocket, and thought, what the hey, it might clue me in on a few of his future experiments. But what do you know, it's his diary. Do normal thirteen year old guys have diaries? This is probably counted as an invasion of privacy. But he did see me listening to High School Musical and Lady Gaga, so this is my revenge. So here's my commentary on his diary so far.

He makes a lot of Greek references. And horror movie references.

Apparently on a scale of one to ten, I'm only a nine in the anger department. Guess I needa step up my game.

Total left the jam open for two nights. I need to talk to Total about that. How he even opens the jam is beyond me.

Also, remind me never to have Gazzy write my eulogy, if his poetry is as bad as his normal writing. My poem I did in Antarctica ages ago was better than that, and we were pretty much the same age. Plus, that poem was crap.

People in Gazzy's year are weird. And dumb. I mean, even I know not to mess with rubidium. And this is me we're talking about.

I can't believe he's obsessed with a book. And Total accused him of going on a date with Kaci. And he squealed about that book. I knew I didn't raise him right...

I was acting pretty bad when he first told me about Ted Ebaire though. I'll admit that much.

He wrote about what happened when I was comatose, so that was pretty helpful. I mean, I can't believe the cake got taken by Josh Green. And it was a Dora the Explorer cake. That's just too good. There's too much blackmail in this, I think I'm nearly even with the whole music thing.

Gazzy messed up Iggy's chance with Ella. As her sister, and also Iggy's sister (figuratively), it was my job to do something about that. Later.

Adrian laughed when Kaci wiped out. Adrian does not know what rubidium does. Adrian is a douche-y, dumb scumbag.

I never knew Kaci and Gazzy were that good friends. And now they can't go five minutes without arguing. How sad is that? If I was in Gazzy's place, well...yeah, I'd probably do the same as him, but still...

He really hates David. He's not actually that bad. And he always talks about how much he hates David. It's pretty annoying to read, actually. I don't think he will ever get that book deal he talked about once.

Last thing, I swear. I just want Gazzy to see this, and know that I have blackmail. The 'brother from another mother'? And Toxic Gas? Who the heck names their kids Ted Ebaire and Toxic Gas?

Oh well. That's all from me, for now. Max out.

When I woke up, I was in the mysterious third room on the bottom floor that no one had taken up. Why did they put me in here?!

"We thought your room was too creepy, so we put you in here." I looked up, and saw Max standing over me, grinning.

"Um, thanks. But..." I trailed off when I saw what was in her hand. Oh, no.

"You didn't."

"I did." Her smile widened. I reached up and snatched it out of her hands, flipping through the pages. There. The last time I wrote. Oh, god.

"You-my diary-you-" I sputtered.

"Don't worry. We're even now. I got blackmail on you, you've got blackmail on me. As long as my music tastes don't get out, your secrets' safe with me," Max said brightly. I sighed.

"Fine. You've got a deal."

"Awfully sorry to interrupt, but I need to see Gasman." Max and my heads whipped to the door, where a purple haired girl stood. The one I ran into at the concert.

"One from the concert?" Max breathed. How did she-oh right. She read my diary. I nodded.

"So," the girl stuffed her hands into her pockets. "We have your sister. Ted wants you, for some reason. It's our bargaining chip. Are you going to pay the price?"