Finally! Chapter 25 is up! Sorry for the long wait, I'm having to say that for every chapter aren't I? Heres the chapter we've all been waiting for! Fang/Kiba's POV! I worked hard on it. Enjoy!!!! R&R

Something didn't feel right. That was what my gut was telling me but I didn't understand why.

Satoshi was peacefully snoozing in his bed. He had overslept today, not that I blame him. Even I almost gave in to the temptation to stay in bed, uncomfortable as it was it was much better than waking up. Unfortunately I did not have that virtue. Something just did not feel right.

The feeling was still with me as I went downstairs to check on Krad. He was struggling against his binds when I opened the door and began screaming murder when he spotted me. Satoshi's gag wasn't good enough I thought bitterly. I closed the door on him but the slab of rotten wood barely hindered Krad's booming loud voice from escaping the room. I ignored it and went to Kei's office.

Even after I gave in my verbal report and returned to Satoshi's and my room an hour and a half later, the feeling still hadn't dissipated. In fact it felt stronger.

I felt twitchy, restless and found myself thinking of things which didn't make any sense. I was questioning myself about my existence. Why was I here? Where did I come from? Who was I?

I had to find something to do. Whilst my mind sat around idly, strange thoughts ridiculed my train of thought. This was a new found weakness that I was going to have to overcome. Krad-sama and Kei-sama did not need me with a strayed mind. I needed to make myself stronger.

Seeing that Satoshi wasn't going to rise soon, I left through the window and climbed down the ivy that had rooted itself to the walls. Outside it was quiet and cool so I found myself a little spot under a tree to train. Exercise would clear my mind and hopefully rid myself of these plague thoughts.

After a while I had worked myself into a sweat and I sat myself down to rest. I settled against one of the large trees and breathed in and out slowly. My mind was once again clear and undeterred. I remained there for a while, feeling content from the cool breeze that gradually cooled my hot blood. I decided to meditate, just to make sure that I really was free. I made myself comfortable and closed my eyes, searching within myself and soon the sounds of the world around me were no louder than a whisper. My mind was soon like a black void, devoid of sound, sight or touch.

I frowned slightly even though my eyes were closed. There was something there in the darkness. Of all the times I had meditated this had not happened before. Was I not concentrating enough?

I tried again to focus on nothing but the tiny speck that interrupted the dark peace I had created remained persistently undeterred. I approached it warily. Since this is my mind, perhaps it was showing me the source of my anxiety.

Once the object was within my reach, I looked at it disappointingly. It was a shell or what was left of one. I picked it up and inspected it. It was smooth and curved like a porcelain dish with one edge jagged and sharp where it was broken. Strangely, although there was no source of light, the shell shone in vibrant rainbows as I turned it.

'I want it out…'

I spun around defensively, searching for the owner of the softly spoken voice. In my sudden flurry I had dropped the shell and once I had confirmed that there was no one there, I turned to pick it up again. However I froze when I saw something else with it.

Blood. All along the jagged edge and the unseen ground beneath it, was soaked in blood.

I wasn't afraid of blood, but my thoughts were reeling at what it was doing there in the first place. How did it get there? Whose was it? I quickly checked myself for injuries. It wasn't mine.

'I want it out.'

My head snapped up to see Max, standing no more than five feet away and bleeding. Rivulets of blood were flowing down from her wrist and I could see the large gash from which the blood flowed. I stared at her shocked. Was she trying to commit suicide?

'I…I just wanted it out,' she said apologetically.

'What?' I asked. I didn't understand.

'The chip.'

I looked at her confused. What was she talking about? Why was she looking at me like a scolded child? Heck, why was she even in my head?!

'Fang?'

I looked behind me and saw the smallest one of the flock Angel. I looked at Max again, but she had disappeared.

'Fang? Are you ok?' Angel asked timidly.

There was again, Fang this Fang that. Even Satoshi called me Fang for a while before I repeatedly corrected him. What was really getting on my nerves was that these people kept treating him like he was someone else.

'Yes, why wouldn't I be?' I ground out.

'Well, Ari got you pretty good. We were all worried about you.'

'Who's Ari?'

The small girl's golden curls bounced as she laughed, apparently she found the question quite funny.

'Oh you're terrible Fang.'

'Hey Fnick!'

I was suddenly spun around by an arm hooking itself around my neck and I came face to face with the blind one, Iggy.

'Finally out of hospital, how was the food? Was the décor to your tastes?' he laughed.

I unwound the arm from my neck and sprung back, ready to fight.

'Geez, you're so uptight. Did they give you a colonoscopy while you were under?'

'You're not going to fight?'

'Hah hah, very funny Fnick. I don't fight cripples,' he grinned.

'Hey!'

I was suddenly pushed from behind and I fell forwards. Once I regained my balance I turned to see a mess of blonde hair and a cheeky smile.

'Your it!' He yelled before running off.

I chased him. I had had enough. Once I caught him I was going to demand answers. But he suddenly disappeared…

…And I had somehow got trapped in some sort of cage.

Peering through the mesh of wiring that made the door, I found myself in an unfamiliar place. I could only assume it was some kind of storeroom as all I could see was the corridor which my cage was facing and many spaced out shelves which held many cages similar to mine. They were all pet crates.

There was a mighty clang of a metal door opening and someone walked inside. I couldn't see the face but it was a man wearing a white coat and for some reason, the sight sent a chill down my spine.

The man stopped in front of my cage and grinned with a canine smile.

'Hey, piggy piggy.'

To my horror the man's face suddenly contorted and began to morph into what I could only describe as a wolf. Hair erupted from his skin, on his face, his hands and other places I'm sure hair shouldn't be.

He grabbed my cage and flung it off the shelf, knocking down other cages along with me. My door miraculously opened and I scrambled out of the choking confined space and ran as fast as I could.

But as soon as I passed the gap that made the doorway, I tripped. I don't know what the heck I stepped on but I suddenly found myself crying.

'There there, Fang,' a gentle voice said.

I looked around and saw I was no longer in…wherever it was, with no sign of the monster that I was running from. I had fallen into a house, or more accurately a house's kitchen. It was when I was in the arms of kind faced man that I realised that I was in the body of a 9 year old.

'There we go, stop those tears. Gassy don't you have something to say?'

'Sorweee,' said the four year old Gasman.

He was sitting on the floor close to where I had fallen and was trying to fix the wheel back on the toy car that I stepped on.

'Jeb! Jeb! Angel's dunna big one!' squealed a small version of Max.

She came running up to the man who held me, holding what I assumed to be a happily gurgling baby Angel at arms length. Max's face was pouting in disgust. It was funny, so I laughed.

'What's so funny crybaby!'

'That's enough you two,' Jeb put me down and took Angel out of Max's offering arms, 'you guys go outside and I'll teach you more fighting moves after I've changed Angel.'

'Yay fighting moves! Last one out is dog food!'

Excited by her challenge, I quickly rushed to get outside before her.

Once we were outside we began to fight. As the fight went on she became faster and stronger. There was hardly any diversity between the time we were on the ground and suddenly flying in the air, beating our winds ferociously and maneuvering in and out to gain a hit. It was when I finally got a hold of her and accidentally dislocated her arm that I realised we were no longer children but at the beginnings of adolescence.

Now the growth of strength made sense.

Max cried and ran inside. I didn't apologise, but neither did I gloat. She knew I never meant to hurt her.

I went inside after her and I got a very strange feeling. For no sooner had I stepped through the door, I felt incredibly sad.

The flock were huddled together in the living room and they were all crying. Max raised her tear streaked face and beckoned me over, I too joined the huddle, giving and taking comfort.

Jeb was gone.

My surroundings suddenly blurred and the arms that were embracing me disappeared. I was drowning in a whirlpool of colour and my sadness was instantly forgotten. Solid looking objects flew past my face and soon the world stopped spinning. The objects were hawks.

And what beautiful birds they were. They flew with grace and pride. Their backs and wings held a golden sheen in the sunlight and they didn't seem to mind the big clumsy ugly avian hybrids flying among them.

As we watched them, we gained a better understanding of the unnatural appendages on our backs. We found feathers that we didn't know we could move, we learnt how to angle our bodies and wings so we could turn in the air with almost no effort. It was exhilarating.

Glancing at the flock, they all had huge smiles on their faces and I felt an uncontrollable swell of happiness when Max directed her smile at me. I couldn't help but smile back.

The sky became dark. I have no idea how we suddenly transferred from the air to the inside of a van but, then again nothing was making sense to me anymore. Max was behind the wheel and judging by her expression, she had no idea what she was doing. Despite that, she seemed to be aiming for every bump and dip in the road as we were almost thrown off our seats for the umpteenth time.

'Okay, okay, we're doing okay. I mean, it's not as good as flying, but it beats the heck out of walking,' she forced a smile at me, 'What?'

'Could you take it easy on the hairpin turns?'

I have no idea what possessed me to say that.

'I'm getting better,' she argued, 'I just had to practice.'

'I didn't know a van could go up on two wheels like that, and for so long!' said Nudge somewhere behind me.

'I don't want to barf in a borrowed car,' said Gassy.

I instinctively closed my eyes when we rammed into something at 60mph. When everything had stopped moving and sickening crunch of metal ceased did I dare reopen my eyes. Blood was gushing out of Max's nose like a tap from the impact of the airbag, but other than that she seemed fine. I felt like half my face had been sawn off with sandpaper but a quick check confirmed that it was still there. Max checked on everyone else and they seemed fine.

The windows on all sides shattered and imploded and fear gripped me when I saw the distinctive human wolf muzzle poke its way into the van.

Suddenly everything except the van seemed to disappear and I began to panic when the walls began to shrink and collapse. I couldn't escape and I thought it was the end until the walls finally stopped and I found myself alone in a dog crate.

The fear hadn't left me and my mind was remembering what had happened the last time I was in here. It was the same place too, only this time there were some slight differences. All the crates, which were empty the last time, were full of children, animals and things I would rather not describe. And in some of them were the flock.

On the opposite shelf I could see Max and Angel with their crates side by side. They had slipped their fingers through the wire meshed doors, reaching for each other.

It was like déjà vu all over again. There was a metallic clang of a door opening and not one but three white coats walked through, along with a couple of young men who looked like models. We weren't fooled. We knew they were Erasers.

Our crates were stacked on top of each other on a large trolley and we were pushed out of the building. I saw one of the erasers reaching his transformed fingers into one of the cages, taunting and grinning. Suddenly he howled in pain and began banging and punching the crate to free his trapped digits from Max's teeth.

The crates toppled. We acted fast to unlock our cages and we were flying again.

There must have been a time leap or something because the ground below was about 2000ft and covered in lights.

We were in New York.

Ok, we were in the Big Apple…why?

I had no time to ponder over my own question as we were sucked into a worm hole. Hang on, my mistake, it's a subway…and we were walking beside the tracks instead of taking a train. Life doesn't seem to get boring around this lot.

The reason why we were walking down the tunnel became clear as a rectangular hole came into our sights. Inside was full of homeless, orphans, runaways and tramps. I wonder which category we come under, I thought sarcastically.

We found a place to rest and I took first watch. I was supposed to be watching for dangers, but I found myself watching Max instead. Her steady breathing, her stern, not completely relaxed expression, the fluttering of her eyelids as she dreamed…it was like I was entranced. However soon she began to squirm and clutched her head in obvious pain. I called to her, grasped her shoulders and shook her and she finally opened her eyes. However the pain she was in hadn't stopped.

'Who's screwing with my Mac?! What's the deal? Who's Max? How are you doing this?'

Both Max and I stared at the geek shouting at us.

'We're not doing anything' I gritted out.

Suddenly the screen of his Mac flashed and the words 'Institute for higher living' popped up.

The kid began to back away.

'Who sent you?' he asked, voice rising, 'Who are you? Leave me alone! Just stay away!'

I made a calming gesture but the kid had high tailed it out of there.

'It's always refreshing to meet someone crazier than us,' Max said, 'We seem so normal, afterward.'

'We?' I shot back.

Next thing I knew, we were on the beach. It was evening, the sun was low in the sky and the sands that stretched either side of us were empty. The flock weren't there either, it was just me…and a bleeding Max in my arms. Looking down, I had my hands firmly wrapped around Max's wrists, one was putting pressure on the wound and the other was restraining her from doing anymore damage. In her hand was a jagged and bloody piece of shell. The very same one I saw earlier.

I yelled at her, demanding why she was doing this to herself. I was livid.

'I wanted it out,' Max whimpered, 'I wanted to be free of it. I want this chip out!'

I held her close and let her cry into my chest. What if I wasn't there? What would have happened?

The sky suddenly became dark and everywhere became pitch black. I held Max closer, afraid that this new scene would make her disappear but thankfully she didn't. I felt a hand on my chest and it pushed against me. I pulled back to see what Max wanted. The sight made me freeze in horror.

Blood.

She was covered in it. Her hair, wings, clothes and skin were mattered with red. Her hand curled into a fist on my chest, taking a handful of material.

'Fang,' she barely breathed, 'why…why did you leave us…to die?'

My eyes widened. What was she talking about? I'm here, I'm with her…I'll always be with her.

Max collapsed in my arms and then her body became unnaturally light. She changed into feathers and scattered away on an unseen wind like dry sand.

'MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX!'

I was cold. Scratch that, I was freezing. I had a cold sweat breaking all over my skin and I was shivering uncontrollably. The only warmth I felt was from the salty tears that had leaked from my eyes.

My voice was still echoing Max's name in the misty landscape and ringing in my head. It had felt real, so damn real that I doubt most of that was a dream at all. Memories? That would explain a lot but…why did I forget.

I groaned and clutched my head when the pain of a splitting headache finally fought through my shock and began using my skull as a venue for a rock concert.

That feeling had come back again and it was like I no longer had control of myself. My wings were itching to fly and something was telling me to go south.

Next thing I knew, I was on my feet and my wings were spread. They began to beat, not strong enough to take off but to start warming my blood. No doubt it will get colder the higher I fly. Once the feeling had returned to my fingers and toes, my legs bent automatically and sprung into the air.

An exhilarating feeling came over me. No one could stop me, I could fly as high and far as I wanted and no one would be able to stop me. With Krad still tied up it was possible. Is this what freedom feels like?

My wings angled themselves and I watched as the world just passed by below me. It was beautiful. The patchwork of greens and browns that covered the land and then the vast periwinkle blue that lapped up against it. I tried to turn so I could go further inland, but found myself unable to.

Then I realised…I was not yet free. At the moment I had no control on the direction I was flying and I knew exactly who was pulling the strings.

Maximum Ride.

Kyyya! I loved writing this chapter. I just thought, what could Fang reminisce about?…when he was a chibi! Just imagine all of the chibi flock playing together. I should draw a picture of it. Review plz or I'll set Kiba on you!!!