Natural Highs

Oh, hell. This has got to be the stupidest title (by stupid, I just mean cheesy) I've had to do so far. See, I just found this list online, and I randomized all of the components, and I've basically sold my soul to… myself… in an attempt to write stuff I usually wouldn't touch. So I have to do this one. Even though it's almost too much for me. *collapses into heap of cheesiness*

In other facets of my life, I have news. If you do the math, I've written enough on this fic in the past month that if you average the number of chapters to the number of days I've been writing this, I (technically) have written one chapter every twenty-nine days. Other than February, I'VE BEATEN THE MONTHS!

Now let's take that last bitch down.

Disclaimer: JP is good with deadlines, or so it would seem from the amount of books he gets out, like, every day. I can't even seem to follow my self-constituted bedtime of anytime before midnight. (I was up till 4:30 this morning, and my mom woke up at noon. I kinda wanted to kill her.)

Chapter 13: Knowing You've Done the Right Thing, No Matter What

Ari was a snorer, as we all found out in the basement/dungeon of Itex.

"Someone find the off button," Nudge groaned and rolled over. I sighed in turn.

"Looks like someone's having second thoughts about bringing Wolfman on this journey," Total suggested. I glared at the pup.

"Hey, look who's talkin', furball." Ari snuffled in his sleep and twitched.

I looked away, averting my gaze out to the hall beyond our bars. Maybe it hadn't been such a great course of action. If we'd left Ari, we'd still be with Fang and the other boys.

Fang. My heart did a weird (no, seriously, really weird) flop, torn between a desire to have him as my right-hand man again, and a boiling fury at the image of his face. He was a right pig for ditching us; who does that?! Did Robin ever fly out on Batman? Wasn't Watson always at Sherlock's side? Haven't Harry Potter and Ron Weasley always been… okay, bad analogy. If Fang had been here, we wouldn't even be in this freakin' chicken coop right now!

I got up and kicked one of the bars, creating a loud clanging noise and a minor throbbing in my foot that I barely noticed. Angel, who had also been asleep, and Ari both stirred awake. Ari rubbed his eyes, his not-exactly-awesome mutated eyes taking a while to adjust to the light. Of course, if it weren't for Ari, we wouldn't be here either.

"Max?" Ari called tremulously, and as my leaderly head swiveled to see what was wrong, unable to resist a questioning call, I saw a little boy sitting in the shadow. The same boy he had always been, for seven years. He was only seven.

As much as I hated to admit it, I had to grudgingly acknowledge that he was here with us, and that wasn't about to change.

Guhhhh. I had a gameplan for this chapter, but as soon as I sat down, I forgot it. I FORGOT IT! How does that even happen? Anyway, this improv-ed one is probably not as good as I'd predicted this chapter would be. It was a really good idea, too.

Also, feel free to send me ideas for more natural highs in reviews or PMs. I only have, like… *counts* …a hundred and fifty-eight. (I know, so paltry.) But I would really like to hear some input; the stories are, after all, for the reader's enjoyment. (I'm running out of space in the designated section of my notebook for me to put them all down! I see this as a good thing.)

Happy Christmas Eve Eve, and happy holidays to the rest of you folks.