Hey peoples!! You know, it was kinda funny how many people commented on Fang's arm and requested/threatened my life for it to be fixed. To quote Alton Brown, my favorite Food Network chef: 'Your patience will be rewarded'. Just hang in there and you'll see how this all plays out. Bear in mind, I'm keeping this story as realistic as possible. Well, as realistic as kids with wings and their flying, talking dog can get. I was actually surprised no one comments on the Total-Akila-puppies scenario.

)(*wings*)(:

Patience, young grasshopper, all shall be revealed in time =F. I'm glad you liked it!!

Kitten_in_the_Skyy:

Umm… no comment. YOU WILL NEVER GET PLOT SPOILERS OUT OF ME!!! MWAHAHAHA!! Sorry 'bout that… I'm happy you liked the chapter!!

Fuzzylogic:

Thank you so much for that great long review!! Hmm… that would be cool. Maybe I can work it in somehow… we'll see. So close, yet so far away at the same time… I really don't think Max and Fang would double with the dogs in my fanfic; Either Total or Fang might kill someone… but that'd be an awesome story for you to write!! You should get an account, and write out the story!! I'd soo read it!!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the socks on my feet… wait… these are only half mine: I share them with my sister seeing as they're so cute...

but they're mainly mine. Volley has to steal them if she wants them… getting off track… sorry. Anyways, you see where I'm going with this, right? Good. On with the story!!

Max POV

I playfully buffeted Fang with my wing, then swooped away quickly before he could retaliate. He righted himself, then turned his head to face me; his expression eerily calm, a scheming glimmer in his eyes. I gulped. A scheming Fang was never a good thing. The storage room, the soft music, of last night seemed miles and years away. Now, we were back to the silly, kick-your-butt best friends turned couple that we usually were.

That was so sweet! Angel squealed in my head. I jumped slightly in midair, before flushing slightly as Fang gave me a look that indicated that he was concerned for my sanity.

Geez, Ange, invasion of privacy much??

Sorry, she replied, not sounding sorry at all.

I'm really not. It was so sweet of Fang!!

Yes, it was. It was also personal. Ou- my mental rant was cut off by an arm grabbing me from behind. I screamed quickly, then stopped as I recognized Fang's all-too-rare laugh.

"You jerk," I yelped, slapping his arm. Laughing, he caught my hand in mid-hit as I went to whack him again. I gave him my evil eye, then turned it to Angel. "You two were both in on it, weren't you?" The only answer I got was Angel giggling demonically and Fang smirking at me. Suddenly, Iggy's voice cut through all of ours.

"Shredders!" he screamed, "seven o'clock!!"

You know how some people, in books and movies and all that, have some really deep, meaningful thoughts on life and death? Well, us bird kids have that too. Wanna hear? Here it goes: Crap.! Yep, that about sums it up.

"Gaz, Igs, any bombs you have on you, now would be a good time to use them. Angel, now is an appropriate time to use your mind control-thingy. Nudge, cover her. Fang? Sakka. Hey-na. Utes. Pasa." I ordered, reverting back to the code we used in the School years ago. He nodded briefly.

"Guys?" That was Angel, and her tone of voice really didn't boost my morale. "I can't control their minds."

I revise my earlier statement: Triple crap! Then the next thing I knew, the Shredders were on us.

I dodged a punch to the nose and grabbed the fist, twisting it behind the Shredder's back so hard that I heard a snap. A howl of pain and one hard blow meant that one Shredder was out for the count. Just a two dozen more to go.

A hairy paw grabbed my hair and I instinctively elbowed its owner in the stomach. I heard – and smelled – its rank breath leaving it in a whoosh as it released my hair. I didn't have time to do a little happy jig though, because as I turned around to face my opponent, a huge fist caught the side of my head, temporarily stunning me.

I recovered quickly and sent a roundhouse kick into its ribs, snapping them and effectively knocking it out.

"You. Are. Oversized. Robocats. We. Are. Freakin'. Winged. Demons." Fang punctuated each word with a kick to a Shredder's head.

"Max!!" Nudge's scream made my heart jolt. Two Erasers had her gripped tightly in their claws. I tried to rush over to her, but a furry hand had a hold of my foot. Iggy rushed over to our little motor mouth, a strange expression on his face. He hauled one of the jerks off her, and she managed the other one by herself.

I kicked my foot furiously, trying to shake off the one on me. Searing, burning pain in my foot and a supersonic boom that almost burst my eardrums indicated Gazzy had most the most of my temporary permission for him to explode things. Luckily, it had gotten rid of my pesky little stowaway and seemed to have scared of the rest of the – to quote Fang – oversized Robocats. To be accurate, they weren't robots, but their flying skills were so crappy, they might as well have been.

"Report!" I yelled, anxiously scanning the smoke-filled area. My flock appeared from the smoke one by one. Iggy was holding Nudge's hands, a gesture that would've had me slapping him if I hadn't realized that he was trying to stop them bleeding Fang was next to show up, Angel shadowing close behind him. Gazzy was last to show up, his face coated in soot, a wild grin on his face.

"That. Was. AWESOME!!"

I rolled my eyes. Whatever floats his boat.

"Report!" I repeated.

"My wrists are pretty slashed up, but thankfully they didn't get me with their claws. That would've stunk," Nudge replied, looking wiped.

"A sprained ankle, but I'll be fine." Gazzy.

"One of those jerks got a hold of my wings, but no real damage," Iggy called.

"My shoulder hurts, but it's nothing. Oh, and Fang got burned a bit on his arm when the bomb went off, but he didn't want me to tell you that… oops." Angel didn't sound sorry at all, and Fang could tell too because he glared at her. I sighed.

"Let's try and cover some ground, then we'll stop and deal with all the wounds, ok? Iggy? Can you deal with Nudge's wrists while we fly? I think everyone else can wait."

Too quietly for the rest of us to hear, Fang muttered something to Iggy. Scowling, Iggy whacked him and retorted under his breath.

"Is that a yes or no?" I demanded.

"He'll be fine if he can carry her," Fang smirked. I remembered what he'd told me at my Mom's house, about Iggy having a huge crush on Nudge and I smirked too.

"Sounds good."

""I hate y'all," Iggy mock-drawled.

"Don't worry, Iggy, we love you too," I beamed sarcastically.

"No, I said I hate y'all," he retorted, keeping up his faux-accent. I smiled.

"Yeah, yeah, lover boy. Just pick her up and get that bleeding stopped!" Both of them blushed five different shades of red and Nudge squeaked in surprise when he hoisted her up into his arms.

"Let's hit the road!" I called.

"Um, Max?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't you mean 'let's hit the air currents'?" Gazzy pointed out.

"Shut up." Oh geez, out of all the smart aleck remarks, I could've made, 'shut up' was the best I could come up with? Oh come on!

*-*-*-*-*

"It's so annoying that I can't control their minds!" Angel exclaimed, scrunching her face up in frustration I glanced up from where I was randomly doodling on the cave floor with my toe. "I mean, I get why I can't and all that, but it's still really irritating."

Immediately freezing, I stared at her, alarmed. Holy crap. What the… "What? You know why you can't?"

She nodded. "Yeah, it's because, although they're alive and have minds, they're all being controlled by an outside force already, so their minds aren't there to control. Make sense?"

I nodded weakly. "Um, yeah. But how do you know this? Could you read it in their minds?"

"Not really. I could tell they were all thinking the exact same thing, but your Voice explained it all to me."

"About that… Angel, honey, you said that the Voice can talk to you?"

"Yeah. Your mind is like a tie between us, so when the Voice has a link to your mind, we can talk. We can't talk all the time, just when I'm close to you and it has a connection to your mind. I can't read its mind though, just what it wants me to hear," Angel explained offhandedly. "Can I go play Uno with Nudge and Gazzy?"

I let her go, blinking in astonishment. Turning to Fang, I demanded, "And this is just coming up now why?" He shrugged.

"Because she's only six years old and forgets that we don't all know what she knows?" His tone was a bit too mild for my liking.

"What's up with you?" I demanded angrily.

"Nothing!" he retorted. I rolled my eyes.

"If you're gonna lie, lie to someone who hasn't known you for the past fifteen years," I advised him. Idiot. Cute idiot, but idiot nonetheless. He sighed.

"Look, Max, I know I'm acting weird lately, but I… I'm just trying to think. I know I'm worrying you, and I'm sorry, but it's none of your business."

Well, that stings. I take back my previous statement. Idiot-jerk. Cute idiot-jerk, and MY idiot-jerk, but still an idiot-jerk.

Seeing the look on my face, his gaze softened and he kissed my forehead gently. "I'm sorry Max, maybe one day I can explain everything to you, but for now, I gotta deal with this by myself." I apparently still looked put out, because he bumped me playfully with his shoulder. "Hey, I love ya," he reminded me, half-smiling.

I smiled back. "I love you too." He kissed me and I wrapped my arms around him before he could back away. We had just reached the 'making out' stage (aka, frenching) when I heard giggles. I pulled away to see Angel and Nudge watching us attentively and laughing. On the other hand, Iggy and Gazzy were both looking our direction with grossed-out looks on their face.

"That's disgusting," Iggy informed us. I rolled my eyes.

"You can't even see us, Igs, how would you know?"

"That's the point," he snapped, shuddering, "I can hear it. You have no idea how gross kissing sounds. It literally sounds like you two are eating each other alive."

"It looks like that too, Igs," Nudge informed him. I glared at her, but she was too busy oogling our blind pyro to notice. Iggy would love that – if he could see it. Poor guy.

"You guys are going to get it one day," Fang promised. Angel and Gazzy both looked mildly revolted by the idea, but Nudge and Iggy appeared to be fantasizing in their on little world. I briefly wondered what they were imagining, then gagged and decided I really didn't want to know. Trust me; a teenage boy's mind is among the scariest places in this world… or any other world, to be perfectly blunt.

"Time to hit the sack, buckos," I ordered.

"I got first watch," Iggy volunteered.

"Then I'll take second and Max can take third," Fang decided. Normally, I hated when he would take over any of my 'leaderly' duties, but tonight, after the Shredder attack and Angel's revelation, I was too pooped to care.

"'K. Night, guys." We stacked fists, and then kinda collapsed wherever there was room. Fang lay down next to me, so I used his arm as a pillow. I knew it'd be asleep and numb by the time it was his watch, but frankly, I couldn't really bring myself to be concerned. I drifted off and had a nice, peaceful, dreamless sleep…

Not! If you fell for that, you really need to go back and reread the first four books.

No, I had nightmares. Not the ones I'd had at the E-shaped house, worse. I dreamt that me and Fang got into a huge fight and them he said he didn't love me anymore and he left and took the flock with them. I tried to fly after them, but as soon as I gotten in the air, gunshots rang out and my Flock dropped to the ground like stones.

I scrambled over to them as fast as possible, only to find the kids and Iggy lying dead and bloody on the dirt. They'd all been shot through the head. I stumbled to Fang last, to find him alive, but horribly wounded. He'd been shot straight through the chest, and there was no way he could make it. He was struggling to breathe when I reached him.

"Fang," I cried, resting my hand on his shoulder. My other hand went up to frame his face, stroking his cheekbone with my thumb. "I'm so sorry," I sobbed.

He looked up at me, eyes glazed over with pain and blood loss.

"Max?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"I… I lied." And then he was dead in my arms. I didn't even try to stifle it, I screamed. Long and loud.

"Max? Max! Snap outta it!"

Gasping for breath, I bolted upright. Unfortunately, a rock was in the way.

"Ow! Dangit!" Okay, so it was a talking rock? Oh, it's Fang. Or, to be accurate, his head. Fang's head, rock, no difference really.

"Oh jeez, I'm sorry," I apologized. He shook his head.

"It's ok. What were you dreaming about anyways?"

Oh snap. "Nothing."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Just the usual… you know, the School."

His eyes softened. "It's okay, Max. We're all okay. Now, get that cute butt of yours up and take watch so I can catch some Z's."

I stood up, stretching to get all the kinks out of my back. I trudged over to a bolder by the cave entrance and perched on it. Fang's quiet, rumbling snores told me that he was passed out and more tired than he'd let on. I was almost in my Zen-state, when something hit me. Did Fang seriously call my butt cute??

*-*-*-*-*

I checked my watch for the fifth time in the last… 3 minutes and 38 seconds. The little blinking green lights finally read 7:30, and I began affectionately kicking the Flock awake.

"C'mon peoples, shake a leg!"

Fang was up almost instantaneously, yanking the Poptarts out of my hand.

"Max was trying to cook!" He yelled. Instantly, Nudge, Angel, and Gazzy were on their feet and watching me with an expression that implied I'd just boiled live puppies.

"Max, step away from the food slowly. Keep your hands where we can see them," Nudge ordered slowly. I couldn't bite back my giggles and soon me and the three younger kids were on the ground laughing.

"Could you guys keep it down?" Iggy asked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Suddenly, he started screaming in pain. We all rushed over to him.

"What hurts?" I asked.

"Eyes," he managed to whimper, squeezing his eyes shut tight, rubbing them harshly. Fang gently caught Iggy's hands in his own and held them down to his sides.

"Don't rub, you'll make it worse," he told him. I knelt down next to the two of them.

"Let me see, Igs," I directed. He screwed up his face, eyes still shut tight. I sighed. "You gotta open your eyes to let me check them out," I told him.

"Ugh. At least the pain's getting… better…" his voice trailed off as his ice-blue eyes opened.

"You okay, Iggy?" Nudge asked sweetly. He blinked a few times, then turned to face her.

"Holy crap, Nudge, you grew up!"

We all gaped at him. Seriously, we'd have an entire zoo in your mouths if we didn't shut them soon.

"Oh. My. Gosh." Suddenly, Nudge was flying across the cave at him. "You can see! Oh my gosh! This is totally amazing!! How did this happen?? You know what, I don't care! This is too awesome!! This sis like, totally random, but it's really, really good random!! Lie, something actually went our way this time!! Oh, I'm so excited! You've got to be thrilled!! You are thrilled aren't you?? I know you've always wanted your sight back and now you do!! This is so COOOOOOOL!!!" Her voice rose and rose until soon it would be at a pitch where only dogs could hear it. Iggy placed a hand over her mouth.

"Now, that I could do with my eyes shut," he told her, grinning broadly. Suddenly, we all tackled him, laughing and hugging and generally just having a good ole' time. Of course, something just had to come and rain on our parade.

"Enjoying your last moments on earth, freaks?" A guttural, scratchy voice snarled from the cave entrance. At least four dozen Shredders stood there, claws out and gleaming in the sun.

"It speaks," I muttered to Fang, and he smirked. I turned to the tiger-snake-humans-thingies. "Freak? Have ya looked in a mirror lately buddy? Or were you afraid it'd crack?"

The leader-looking thing glared at me. "There will be no surrender. We will annihilate you."

"Oooh, big words," I quipped. The next thing I knew, a paw was coming at my face and I ducked. After that, all heck broke loose. We were all trying to kick their butts, while avoiding their poisonous claws. I know you probably don't fight for your life on a daily basis, so here's a little hint: it's not easy. At all.

Remembering what the Voice had told me, I roundhouse kicked in the underside of its ribs. He went down quickly. One tried to grab me from behind, but I threw my hand behind me and poked it in its eyes. I let go with a howl of pain and I examined my hand. Eww, gross: Shredder bodily fluid. Nasty on sooo many levels. I caught a glimpse of Fang karate-chopping a Shredder on the collar bone (probably breaking it) with his good arm, before suffering a blow to his bad one.

Iggy was fighting near me, his eyes closed again. I frowned. I couldn't understand why he was fighting with his eyes shut, but I shrugged it off. Whatever floats his boat…

One evil dude grabbed Nudge, but she screamed in his ear, at a pitch that made my ears hurt, and he dropped her like a hot potato. That's my girl.

A swift kick to my back brought me back to my own battle.

Focus, Max, the Voice reminded me.

I punched the sucker right in his nose, feeling it crack beneath my fist. Gee, no, really Voice? I do this just for kicks all the time!

A new enemy popped up, yanking my hair painfully. I whipped around and kicked him repeatedly in the groin. Hey, don't look at me like that! This is a battle to the death! I'm gonna use any dirty trick in the book to get out alive.

Angel soared above me, her face screwed up in concentration. Apparently, her freaky mind power was still useless on them, because she dropped down on one attacking Nudge and kicked him in the head, snapping his neck sideways.

A scream split the air and we all turned to see a Shredder dig his claws into Gazzy's shoulder. My stomach dropped. No…

Gazzy was falling through the air quickly now and the Shredders seemed to be leaving. They'd completed their mission, partially at least. I didn't really notice. My attention was solely focused on the small, blond-headed figure being caught in my boyfriend's arm.

"Gazzy!" Angel screamed, her little voice breaking as tears started pouring down her cheeks. I couldn't move. I felt numb. No, not Gazzy. Not out little eight year old prankster, our little joy and terror. No, we couldn't loose him!

Fang had landed now, laying Gazzy on the grass gently. Suddenly feeling an adrenaline rush, I raced over to them with the rest of the flock. Gazzy was screaming in pain and seemed to be having trouble breathing. His face was turning a pale blue, and he was trembling uncontrollably. I didn't need Mom to tell me that the poison was working, spreading through his veins like lightning. My already breaking heart totally shattered when Angel rushed to his side and grabbed his hand.

"Hey, Gazzy, it's me, Angel. I'm here. You're gonna be okay, you hear me? You're gonna be making bombs and mimicking Fang and stinking up the house in no time, ok? Just hang in there. I love you, Gazzy, you gotta hang in there."

Her bright blue eyes looked up and met mine and I could tell that she knew – we all knew – that only a miracle could save her big brother now.

So, long chapter. Hope it makes up for my absence, but really, I don't PLAN for my hard drive to crash!! Hope you enjoyed. I think my record for reviews per chapter is 26. Let's try and break that shall we?? PLEASE REVIEW!!!

Ideas? Questions? Suggestions? Constructive Criticism? REVIEW and let me know!! I love it all!!

REVIEW or... *consults boyfriend, who is currently waiting patiently on the phone* Haha! Gazzy will die a painful death and Fang's arm will just fall off!!

Special thanks to Alyson-Blakely and Armygirl0604, two sister who both read and reviewed this whole story in one day!!

Hey!! If you guys really like this fic (or any of my other stories), head on over to 'Maximum Ride Fanfiction Awards 2' on Myrah's profile and nominate it/them!! I'm not big on self-promotion, so that's the last I'll say about it!!

--Dallas