A/N: -lightning flashes in the background, FantasyFan5 cackles evilly-

IT – IS – ALIVE!! MWA HA HA!!

My story, that is. And I am, too. ((cowers in shame)) Finally, a new chapter! So, this is part two of TFA, which will be pretty short (seven chapters, short compared to part one!) and there'll be a part three as well…geez, I think that this will end up being longer than TFW. (Ha, TFA, TFW. Never mind.)

Have you ever woken up and not been able to breathe through your nose because of, like, allergies or something? It sucks, right? You wake up from dreamland, where you were all happy and everything, and then, bam. Reality hits. Alright, that was dramatic. Anyway, now imagine waking up and not being able to breathe at all. You try to inhale, only to realize there's a hand clamped over your mouth and nose, blocking your air. You panic and start thrashing around, trying to release their hold on you so you can freaking breathe.

Have you figured out that that's actually happened to me yet? Good job.

I tried to bolt upright, but I was stopped by a strong arm. "Stay still," said a voice, surprisingly deep. I twisted around in the dark anyway, trying to see my attacker, but they had wisely stayed behind me and made it impossible for me to turn all the way around. They were holding me so tightly I was almost afraid that they'd cut off my circulation.

The fire was still going, but all of the attackers were wisely staying in the shadows. Dang. Another quick recon showed that the rest of the flock was out cold, but they didn't seem to be hurt. If I looked closer, though, I could barely make out the outlines of shapes that looked human standing guard behind them. Flyboys?

But wait a second…the voice that had told me to stay still wasn't computer-like…and the hand that was holding me oh-so-tightly was warm – like there was blood running under the skin…

So what was it? Or who was it?

"You are to come with us," said the voice from behind me again. "Your flock has already been apprehended. Surrender or die." How many times had I heard those words before? Yet every time, they still made my heart rate speed up a couple notches.

Again, I tried to throw his arm off of me, and I almost did it. I was about to wriggle free triumphantly until I felt the cold metal of a gun against my head. I froze. I think I forgot to keep breathing for a second.

"Surrender or die," the attacker repeated.

"Get off her!" Fang had woken up, and he looked like he was out for blood. His eyes were cold and furious, and he was focused on getting towards me. He had managed to stand, but his captor was holding both of his arms extremely tightly. Whoever was holding him was too strong even for Fang, though, and he wasn't getting anywhere. Our eyes meant, and a silent message flowed between us.

We're dead.

The mystery person took his hand off of my mouth, and just in time, because I was beginning to feel lightheaded from lack of air. I took the chance to spit out, "If you think I'm going to surrender, no one must have told you about me. I don't normally…what's the phrase? Oh yeah – come quietly."

"If you do not surrender," the person said, pressing the gun barrel harder into my head, "I will pull this trigger. If you choose death over life, then the rest of your flock will die as well. Itex knows the flock is useless without its leader."

Well, those options pretty much stunk. Die and have the rest of my flock die because of my decision? Or live and be tortured/killed for the rest of my life? If it was only me that I was deciding for, my choice would be pretty obvious. I'd rather die than go back to the School. But since it wasn't…

There was pretty much only one thing that I could do.

I closed my eyes. These words had never, ever, left my mouth before. I had to steel myself to say them. "Okay," I said finally. "I'll come quietly."

I was hauled to my feet roughly. I could barely see Angel's hands being forced behind her roughly and tied together with a length of cord. She cried out for a second, and then was quiet. Her eyes looked at me as if to say, how'd you let this happen, Max?

I'm sorry, Angel, I thought to her. We'll get out of this. I promise. Don't we always? I didn't hear another thought from her, but I saw her shoulders straighten just the tiniest bit.

I felt a feather light touch on my arm and slid my eyes to the right without turning my head. Iggy was next to me, his hands already bound. "Sorry," he whispered so quietly I could hardly hear it. "It was my watch. This is my fault."

"Couldn't you hear it?" I whispered back, trying to keep the accusation out of my voice. God knew it wouldn't help anything.

"Not a thing," he whispered back, his lips barely moving. "It was like they materialized out of thin air."

"Be quiet," said Iggy's captor, giving him enough of a shove to make him stumble. How the h did he hear Iggy? "You don't need to talk." They moved us forward, and in the sudden circle of light from the fire, I could see what had gotten the best of us. They looked human enough, and all of them were men (surprise) with dark hair and black eyes void of emotion. What was the catch here? How did Iggy not hear them coming if they were just humans?

…very, very, strong humans who somehow managed to keep me in a freaking chokehold. Who also looked like bodybuilders to the extreme. I mean, geez, can we say, lay off the steroids?

We were forced to march through the forest at a fast pace. It wouldn't have been so bad if a) I hadn't been at gun point, b) we couldn't move any of the branches out of our way because our hands were still tied, so we kept getting annoying cuts and scratches everywhere and c) they had remembered to tie our wings together as well, so there was pretty much nada chance of escaping. This sucked with a capital s. How did we get into this? How did they find us again? I had thought that we were safe – well, not exactly safe, but at least safer than we had been before.

I suddenly remembered Fang's power with a flash of hope, and then the hope vanished again in a sad little puff. The last time he had gotten us out of danger all together, he'd almost died. So much for that little ray of sunshine. There was still a chance that he could get away himself, but I knew he'd never leave the rest of us, no matter what I told him. I wouldn't have left either. It's just the way we are. Jeb had drilled it into us never to split up. The one time that we actually had, the situation had been….a little shaky, but I wonder if Fang still would have left if he hadn't been mad at me from the cave incident. I bet Jeb never expected that.

Then again, with him…well, you never knew.

What seemed like hours later, we finally emerged from the forest, bleeding from various cuts all over and bruised from hits the 'super humans', as I'd dubbed them, had given us when we weren't walking fast enough for their liking. Nudge was sniffling slightly, but one glance at her face showed that she was mad, and definitely ready to kick butt. Gazzy had more scratches across his face than I could even count – I guessed that there were more branches at his eye level than mine – but it seemed like he was holding up pretty well, though it looked like he really wanted to cry. Angel looked like she was concentrating on doing a little mind puppet to influence the super humans a little bit to get them to let us go. I hoped to God they weren't immune to her powers, but knowing our luck, they probably were.

I was so busy checking up on my flock that I hardly noticed where we were heading now. We weren't totally out of the forest – just in a clearing. It was like somebody had cut out a circle in the middle of the forest and then forgot about it. I figured out pretty quickly why we were there, though.

The circle was just big enough for a helicopter to fit comfortably, and one was dropping down on us now.

I automatically started planning escape routes, ways to get the cords off of our wings and fly away without being shot. So what if he said we would all die if we tried to escape? If we didn't try to escape, we were going to die anyway, so there was basically no point in not trying.

God, this sucked.

The chopper came down lower, and the wind started whipping chunks of hair across my face, and I had to keep spitting pieces out. I couldn't sweep it out of my face since my hands were tied, and it was starting to obscure my vision. Maximum Ride was about to lose the chance to escape because of her hair. My hair! Are you (insert dirty swear word of your choice here) kidding me?!

As the helicopter touched down, we were herded across the small clearing to the entrance. I was pushed up a short flight of steps, and the gun was now in the small of my back at the base of my spine – if he shot now, it would definitely kill me. The rest of the flock was shoved in behind me, and they made us lay on the ground of the helicopter. It was driven by – surprise – yet more of the things that had captured us, so no chance of anything there. These things were tougher than Erasers, and that was not going to work out well for us.

There was a door between us and the pilots and the rest of the super humans, and they quickly shut it. The next thing I heard was a hissing noise, and then I passed out.

00000

When I woke up again, I was being shaken roughly awake. The first thing I noticed before I opened my eyes was that my hands and wings were no longer tied. The second thing that I noticed was the smell – that mixture of formaldehyde and disinfectant that could only mean one thing – the School.

I opened my eyes and saw that one of the super humans was standing in front of me. This was the first time I had gotten to see one up close in the light, and I noticed that his face looked rough and strange. It wasn't patched together, but there was something missing from his eyes. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was really unnerving, and I turned my face away.

"Ugh," I said, scrunching up my nose in mock disgust. "You have the worst morning breath, you know that?" I took the chance to quickly analyze where I was. It looked and smelled like your standard, white lab, which made all my senses pop onto red alert. My flock was nowhere to be found – it looked like it was just me, myself, and I. Oh, yeah, and Little Boy Blue over here, who was currently trying to get my attention.

"You have been requested to come before the Director," he said in that weird deep voice. "Come with me."

I rolled my eyes. "Same old, same old. How about you run off to Mommy to go pick dandelions and I'll stay here?"

"Come with me," he repeated. "Your flock has already arrived. If you wish to see them, you must follow me." Well, there was a chance that I couldn't pass up. I could always get rid of the super guy over here and find my flock if he was lying – he wasn't carrying a gun. Mistake number one.

I yawned. "Alrighty, I'll come with you. But this better be good, okay?" Sadly, he was immune to my sarcasm. Shame. He just leaned away from me (finally), spun on his heel, and headed for the door, leaving me to follow him.

I vaulted off the table I was on and immediately realized that was a bad idea. My head swam and I staggered, probably from the gas after effects. The room spun for a few moments before I could stand straight again, and I had to blink a few times to clear my vision. The super human was standing at the now open doorway, waiting for me. I stalked toward him, trying to muster what dignity I had left from almost falling. "Well, lead the way, Sparky," I said innocently. He just looked at me and turned left out of the doorway.

I sighed. I could already feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, which was not a good sign.

The super human led me through a maze of hallways and corridors until we came to an important looking room labeled Conference – Authorized Personnel Only. Yeah – this was definitely the right place. He opened the door to show a huge, really long table smack dab in the middle of the room, a projector screen, and five worried bird kid faces staring up at me.

"Max!" Angel and Nudge shouted together.

I had barely caught a glimpse of them before I was enveloped in a pair of black sleeved arms so tightly I could hardly breathe and someone kissed the top of my head quickly. "Hi, Fang," I said quietly, hugging him back to let him know I was alright. Then I coughed and said a little louder, "Um, can I breathe now?"

The pressure on my torso relaxed and I saw Fang step back from me, his usual impassive look fixed back in place. He looked at me calmly, but I could tell from the tension in his jaw that he had been really, really worried. I heard a door slam behind me and whirled, but it had just been the super human that had escorted me here leaving.

I rubbed the back of my neck a little awkwardly, glancing around at all of my flock. Angel and Nudge were sitting next to each other on the side farthest away from me, Gazzy had taken a pen and was doodling on the polished table, and Iggy was sitting at the head of the table with his feet propped up, leaned back in the chair with a slight grin on his face. "How long have you guys all been in here?" I asked, directing the question at Fang, but Nudge answered.

"For practically forever! It's probably only been a couple of hours, but we were so worried about you Max. They had put all of us in the same room, but you weren't there. We were all nervous – well, Fang wasn't cause he never gets nervous, but he was quieter than usual and his fists kept clenching and he looked like he wanted to punch something-" I glanced at Fang quickly, but he just shrugged, and one corner of his mouth came up for a split second in a tiny smile. "…and then they brought us in here, and just said, 'Wait here,' and I was like, 'Why should we?', but they didn't answer me. They just left. So then we sat and waited for practically-"

"Forever, you told me," I said, smiling. "And that's where I come in?" She nodded.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Hey, Max," Gazzy said, grinning, "guess what Nudge found out? This room's been used before, and so when she touched the chair, she found out that there's a lady that sits here that picks her nose when she thinks that there's no one looking!" I refrained from rolling my eyes. That was such an eight year old thing to be amused by.

"That's…great, Gazzy," I said hesitantly. Fang smirked at me.

"But Max, really, do you know what else I found out?" Nudge asked, a more serious tone to her voice now. "They use this room to decide the fate of all the experiments. That's why they call it the conference room. If we're in here, don't you think that's what they're going to do? Do you think that we're here to have our fate decided?"

I scanned the room for cameras or speakers out of habit before I answered her. "There's probably a chance for it," I answered reluctantly, not wanting to worry Gazzy and Angel too much. "It could have just been a convenient room, though." Ten to one said that Nudge was right, and we were about to find out whether we were fit to die or live.

"But, wait, there's more," Nudge continued, and I could tell she was getting to what she had really been wanting to tell me. "I touched Iggy's chair, and there's someone really, really important that sits there." She stopped, looking at me almost as if she was the one that had done something wrong.

"Well?" I asked her. "Who is it?"

She hesitated, but just then the door swung open. I turned. It was Little Boy Blue back again, but this time he wasn't by himself. His eyes landed on me and he paused in the doorway for a second, before a commanding voice behind him said, "Step aside, Experiment number 4. Come on, now, I said move. And after that, you are dismissed."

I froze. I knew that voice…

Marion Janssen, Director of all that is Itex, came through the door. "Nice to see you again, Max," she smirked. "Are you ready for the big day today?"

Oh, snap.