I was on a roll the past couple of days- I literally couldn't stop writing! I decided to just stop thinking and write. After all, no one can do two things at once and do them both well. ;) So my hand and my pen came up with a bunch of words and spat them out on the paper. Then my brain was all, "Uh, hand, you need to get with your partner on the left there, and type what you and the pen came up with." So that's what I'm doing. (Ha-ha, I'm so weird. I'm sorry.)
Mack's POV
"Gasman!" Max yelled and rushed towards the door that had just slammed shut.
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back using all my strength. "No, Max! They have two Roids stationed outside the door. They'll shoot anyone going out of it."
"How do you- oh, right. How do we get out, then?" Max started, then she breathed, "Of course."
She sprinted to the windows and tossed one open. "I want everyone out of this window in thirty seconds."
I blinked and rushed to throw on a pair of shorts under my slinky dress, and a pair of socks and my Converses.
Then I dashed back to the living room. Max and Fang were already in the air, waiting for the rest of us. I threw myself out the window, wings unfurling with a quick snap.
Ouch, that hurt.
Within seconds, the other flock members had also hurled themselves out of the window.
Just as Angel hopped out last, her small white wings faltering a bit before she found a steady rhythm, the hotel door burst open ten stories below us.
"Max!" I shrieked, pointing. She followed my gaze, and I could feel her vibes of pure fury and a little fear hit me like a freight train.
Gasman was being dragged out kicking and screaming by the seven Roids. The receptionist lady that had assumed Max and Fang were married ran after them with a broom, screeching in alarm.
"They're heading for that black van!" Nudge gasped, gesturing wildly to the one parked across the busy road from our hotel.
Iggy groaned next to me, his wing tips brushing mine on every down stroke. "It's always a van."
"Come on- I have a plan." Fang said suddenly. We swooped down into the alley beside the hotel to avoid a bunch of Japanese people screaming in surprise at the bird kids dropping out of the sky. We tucked in our wings and watched with hard faces as Fang motioned for us to stay back and the Roids dragged Gazzy right by us. The receptionist was still shrieking and waving her broom.
"Alright, follow me," Fang said, and we bolted in the opposite direction of the Roids and Gasman, tearing down the crowded streets like wild things.
"Fang, this better be a good plan or I'll kick your butt into next year." Max yelled.
Fang said nothing, just ran faster, barely dodging a street vendor's cart.
A few moments later and Fang turned a little, slamming his fist into the driver's side window of a white Escalade. It shattered. Not even hesitating to swear as his fingers were cut, he reached in and unlocked the doors. We all piled in; me and Max in the passenger seat, everyone else in the second row.
Fang smirked as he slid behind the wheel. "Idiots. Locked their own keys in here. They wouldn't have been able to go anywhere anytime soon anyway."
I was amazed at how fast we'd pulled that one off. The Roids were just now shoving a still-squirming Gasman into the back end of the van and piling in themselves.
The leader, apparently, had had enough of the receptionist lady's (known from here on out as RL) shrieking and broom swinging, because he turned and swiftly punched her hard across the jaw. She staggered back, crying out, banging into the wall behind her.
Several people had stopped to watch all this, but I paid them no mind. The white swan was back again, hovering over the van Gazzy had been stuffed into.
Fang turned the keys as the black van roared to life and sped off. My brother floored it. Max and I were both launched forward. I didn't let this break my concentration, focusing very hard on the animal.
The swan seemed to know no boundaries when it came to speed. It flew gracefully ahead of the Roid vehicle, and glided down a street to our right.
"They're about to turn right, Fang!" I shouted over the honking of several horns as Fang cut a whole lane of traffic off.
"Hold on, Gazzy," Max moaned, barely audible.
"Shouldn't they have turned left if they were taking him back to Itex headquarters?" Angel asked in a tight, confused voice.
"Yeah! Shouldn't they have?" Nudge agreed, eyes going wide.
The buildings blurred by and more horns honked. Always, the swan stayed slightly ahead of the van, so even though they tried their best to shake us, we stayed right on their tails.
It only took about another ten minutes to exit Tokyo completely.
Trees were widespread here, and while they looked similar to those in North America, they also somehow seemed very different. The road cutting through them was straight, and I let the helpful swan fade from my vision and I focused on the van instead.
I glanced at the speedometer. 115 MPH.
"Now that we're out of view of normal people, they'll probably start shooting or something." Max said calmly, if a little exasperatedly. I thought briefly for a moment about how bizarre my life had become recently. I felt like I was in some action movie.
But unlike a movie, this was very real. It was right there in front of me, actually happening, and poor Gazzy was trapped with those awful, brutal men-things…
"Iggy, you got a bomb on you?" Max asked, startling me out of my thoughts.
"I always do." Iggy scoffed.
"Good." Max nodded.
"Want me to use it?" Iggy asked impatiently.
I noticed the landscape outside was getting hillier, the road a lot thinner. There weren't as many trees.
"Not just yet. Let's see how far we can run them. I don't know why they haven't started shooting yet." Max frowned.
"Don't jinx us," I frowned back at her.
She gave me a hard look before focusing on the black van again.
"Angel, just out of curiosity, why didn't you hear their thoughts?" I asked.
"Their minds are dead. Just like Jeb's." She said in a dull tone that still managed to be full of venom and hatred and disgust.
"Everybody hang on," Fang growled suddenly, speeding up even more and pulling into the opposite lane.
Thank God there was no oncoming traffic.
He pulled up beside the van and rammed the side of our Escalade into it. Max sucked in a startled breath next to me, and Nudge shrieked at the rough impact.
That's when the windows of the van were rolled down and the guns stuck out. I felt my whole body tense, expecting to feel a hot bullet puncture my skin any moment. But Max jumped into action.
She snarled and punched out our window, apparently thinking it would take to much time to just roll down. Crazy fellow bird girl.
She reached out and knocked against the gun roughly, making it go off. It barely missed Fang's nose.
"Watch it." He snapped. "I'm driving here."
The next time she hung half way out the window and I instinctively grabbed her belt loops to keep her from falling out. She grabbed the gun close to the hilt and forced it backwards. Faintly I heard a grunt of pain from one of the Roids inside the van, and then the gun was yanked into our car.
Max aimed uncertainly, a look of distaste on her face, and fired.
One of the van's tires were blown out.
"Whoo! Go Max!" Angel cheered.
The van swerved a bit next to us, but the idiotic Roid leader kept driving.
It was only then that I noticed we were half way up a huge mountain. Other mountains surrounded this one, so they formed a small cluster. There wasn't much vegetation besides large, old trees scattered here and there, just rocky ledges and cliffs.
Houses, old traditional ones, and terraced fields was all that was up here. The road was turning to dirt.
"Why are they driving up here? Surely they know that A) we didn't bring the information, and B) they'll eventually run out of road." I yelled, exasperated.
"Iggy, go take Nudge and Angel, and set off that bomb at the closest distance that's safe." Max barked, obviously confused too.
"Kay." Iggy opened the door and jumped out, flapping hard to get into the air, followed by Nudge and Angel.
Not three minutes later, a huge, fiery explosion took place about two hundred feet in front of us. The Roids in the van, obviously startled, swerved uncontrollably and eventually slammed into a halt against an old, dried out looking tree.
Gasman crawled out of one of the broken windows, and Angel, Iggy, and Nudge grabbed him, hoisting him into the air with all their strength.
Fang braked momentarily as the four of them climbed back in.
"Best. Rescue. Ever." Gasman grinned, but he was panting hard and his lip was bleeding. He had a nasty bruise on his ribcage, where his shirt was torn open in a claw-like fashion.
"Let's get out of here," Fang grumbled, throwing the car into reverse, turning around, then heading back down the mountain.
I didn't realize how high up we'd traveled, or how sheer the cliffs really were.
Max threw the gun to the floorboard after turning the safety on. She climbed back to the second row to fawn over Gazzy with the other girls.
I turned around in the seat, deciding it was too crowded to go back there myself, and reached my hand out. Gasman took it and squeezed hard, smiling sheepishly.
"Dude, what were those retarded Roids thinking, coming up here?" Iggy snickered, but there was extreme protectiveness and worry in his cloudy eyes as his fingers ghosted over Gasman's entire body, checking for injuries.
Gasman threw back his head and cackled. "They're such morons. They panicked when they couldn't shake you and just kept driving, hoping you'd just give up. They were all We were never told they'd try this, what do we do, oh no, oh no," Gazzy laughed, imitating the deep voices of the Roids. But I could feel from his vibes, how deeply he was still shaken up. I met Fang's fathomless eyes as he glanced at me for a moment as he drove.
Nudge frowned. "Were they not trained? They used to train Erasers."
Gazzy shrugged. "I don't know. I think it was really random, you know? Quickly put together, not well formed or very detailed."
"Crap!" Angel gasped suddenly, pointing.
The black van, battered and awful looking, but still running, was following us.
Fang sped up again as Gasman scowled and crawled to the very back. He took something small and smooth from his pocket and launched it at the van after flicking a switch on it.
I braced myself for the inevitable boom. It came, deafeningly, and I saw the van go up in flames in the rearview mirror.
Gasman cringed, but didn't say anything. He just came calmly back and draped himself across Max's lap. She cooed to him softly under her breath, and he closed his eyes, laying his head against her shoulder. Angel frowned, tears welling up in her blue eyes, and she laid over and put her head against his stomach.
Nudge looked awkward suddenly, and played with her hair.
Iggy crawled up front to sit next to me. Fang scowled at him for interrupting his driving.
I snuggled in next to him, feeling his stressed out, need-to-be-comforted vibes. I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes against the harsh wind coming in from the broken windows.
God, I hated watching him jump out of this car. He could've been shot down like a common duck or something! I thought.
He kissed the top of my head and I rubbed his side soothingly.
A random image flashed against the backs of my eyelids- a Roid standing in the middle of the road- and I gasped, my eyes flying open.
We were rounding a curve, going about 70 MPH. Slower than what we'd been going, but still way too fast for a small mountain road with no guard rails. We needed to be as far from the explosion sight as possible before some bewildered old Japanese farmer found it.
Not ten feet away stood a Roid in the middle of the road, snarling like the animal it partly was, it's eyes full of hate.
"Holy-" Fang yelled in alarm-yes, yelled- but it was too late to brake.
The Escalade slammed into the mutant and the impact was worse than hitting a frikken moose or something. Fang yelped and lost control. The car spun around and around sickeningly, and I heard the crunch, snap, pop of the Roid's body as it got caught under one of our wheels.
Various members of the flock cried out and Max yelled "Hold on!"
Then the car plunged over the edge of the mountain.
DUN DUN DUN. Cliffy much? Talk about action. And irony. They rescue Gasman only to wreck. What will happen?
Review please! (You guys have been really awesome about reviewing, by the way, keep up the good work and thanks soooooo much.)