Aj: Okay, so when I got back, I started on this chapter immediately. And then I clicked on something for a quick reference—only to spend an hour looking at it. Then I clicked on youtube for some videos to play in the background while I was writing—I ended up spending a few hours watching videos and so on. I'm a procrastinator, guilty as charged.
Anika: This is our longest chapter yet though, in any story, so hopefully that makes up for it. This story will get finished on May 24. Why? Last day of school. We're getting close to the end, is anyone else as sad as I am about this?
"You're pathetic, you know that?" Angel weakly looked up to see who had insulted her only to see…her. Angel's blonde curls looked new and fresh, bouncing on her shoulders like Angel's would after her rare showers. There was a smirk on her duplicate's face, as if the other Angel knew something that she didn't. There was a certain coldness—a bloodthirstiness—about the double of Angel's that was unsettling. Even though Angel's focus was fuzzy, she looked past the yelling form of Gazzy beside her that she couldn't even hear and looked at something that her double was grasping tightly in her right palm. Celeste was dirty, worn, and was missing an eye, but Angel would recognize the halo, the wings, and the dress that accompanied Celeste anywhere.
"Are you—Are you my clone?" Angel asked softly, still weak from Regan's attack. Angel mentally screamed about a million cuss words she had learned from Iggy at the psychopath who had been so cruel as to nearly take away a seven year old's life without feeling so much as a sliver of remorse. Looking at the copy of herself, she thought of Max 2 who was too busy trying to save Angel's life to notice her identical form. Gazzy was fighting Regan with Max 2 as best as he could, probably still not quite understanding that Fang was evil and he was helping the previously evil, but now good clone of Max.
"No, don't flatter yourself by thinking I'm just a copy from your DNA. I am you—the better you, that is." The other replied bitter sweetly, as if she had swallowed an entire package of Sour Patch Kids in one sitting. Angel glanced up at her confused; not understanding who the girl in front of her believed she was. Especially since it seemed all too real to be a hallucination.
"How about I jog your memory a little bit? Bunch of powers, kicking Max out of the flock, pointing a gun at her head, threatening Iggy with a knife...do I have to keep going?" She smiled sardonically at Angel, causing Angel's heart to stop as if Medusa herself had turned it to stone.
"You're the brainwashed version of me. You made me do all of those awful things to my family." Anger fueling her, she was able to slowly raise herself up off of the ground so that she was level with her evil twin.
"No, I'm the stronger version of you. Grey made us more powerful than we ever could have imagined. I bet you can't control minds anymore, can you? That goes for pretty much all of your other powers you got after the school kidnapped you. Now tell me, is it worth it?" Angel hadn't tried to use her mind control powers since she had been back in control, but maybe she wasn't lying.
"Even if I had lost all of my powers I wouldn't care. You're a monster and you hurt my flock. You nearly killed them. You caused the flock to betray Max, the closest one to a mother that I have. No amount of power is worth that!" Angel yelled, causing Gazzy to pause from his fighting and nearly get drained by Regan.
"I didn't do anything. You did. All I am is you with a bit of a push in the right direction and a few extra powers, courtesy of Grey. You wanted the power, the leadership, and all of the other perks no matter what happened. Say what you want, but the ending to the story is the same. You'll go on in life always having that spark of evil in you, always craving power and willing to put the ones you love in danger to get it. You're not one of the good guys, Angel. You aren't a hero."
Gazzy must have noticed Angel beginning to get dizzy and rushed towards her. He didn't know the cause though. Angel desperately wanted to believe that she was wrong, but she had a lingering suspicion that she was right. She wanted to believe that this was just another form of torture that Grey had set up. True as that may be, it didn't mean that it was fake. A part of Grey's mental tortures that had affected her so much back when they were in the tower was that everything he did to them wasn't just a lie to drive them crazy. It was the absolute truth, no matter how much it hurt.
"Gazzy, what's happening?" She asked, looking at her brother who was cradling Angel's head in his lap.
"What do you mean?" He asked, wincing involuntarily as Omega got a good kick in at Max 2.
"I mean how did Grey project another me image of back when I was brainwashed by him? It's way too vivid to not be real, but—"
"Angel," Gazzy cut off, "There isn't anyone there. All that's here is Regan, Omega, Fang, Max 2, you, and me."
"What?" She practically choked out. Glancing around her, she saw herself grinning sadistically and waving. Right next to her was an active bomb that nobody seemed to notice, except for Angel, due to all of the chaos.
"Gazzy, is that one of your bombs?" Angel asked slowly, her voice taking on a higher pitch as panic consumed her. He nodded disbelievingly, before both of the kids scrambled to their feet and raced towards the bomb that only Fang had noticed so far. He raced towards it as well, getting there just after the two siblings did. With a look of satisfaction, Fang kicked Gazzy out of the way, knocking him into a hedge. Angel screamed his name in terror when she saw blood ooze from his forehead, but she didn't have the time to rush towards him. Fang was rounding on her next.
"Fang, I know that you're awake in there. I need you to fight Grey's control. I know it's hard and tiring, I know that it seems hopeless at times, but I also know that the only thing worse than not having control of your body is to watch the ones you love suffer because you don't care enough to try harder."
Eyes alight with a new fury, Fang prepared to kick Angel as well, but Max 2, somehow, had tackled him to the ground. With the time that she had, Angel quickly looked down at the bomb. Two minutes until detonation and the only expert on bombs was out cold against shrubbery. They were doomed.
"Everybody run! There's a bomb about to blow and it will kill everyone!" Angel shouted at the top of her lungs to get through to everybody past the fighting. It was as if someone had hit the pause button. As soon as everyone else had stopped fighting, Omega had followed their lead and stood as still as a statue.
Fang was the first to move, not sparing a second glance at Regan as he raced down a path, a hedge sealing the way he had gone off. It was like the domino effect. As soon as the hedge had blocked off any chances of following Fang, hedges began sealing and opening randomly. It reminded Angel of a jump rope game she had played while at the school in Virginia. Only in this version, the hedges could break every bone in your body and kill you instantly if they hit you. But other than that, pretty much the same thing,
Omega stood still, as if he had been turned off while everybody rushed into action. Regan, on the other hand, looked panicked as she raced past a hedge, timing it so that she barely made it through. A millisecond slower and she would have been road kill. The hedge wall sealed behind her, as seamlessly as if it were connected to the other walls and couldn't actually move.
"Come on, Angel!" Max yelled as Angel was putting Gazzy arm over her shoulder.
"Go on ahead, I'll catch up in a second." She seemed to be hesitant towards the idea, but as she heard the timer's beeps get louder, she nodded and raced towards the nearest opening. Angel tried to go as quick as she could, but Gazzy's weight was dragging her down. It was amazing enough that she could minorly support him, considering he was heavier than she was. Max 2 glanced at Angel, who was only a few feet behind and decided it was a safe time to go past the speeding hedge. She dived after a few seconds of hesitation, landing in a sprawled position, but otherwise okay.
Angel was about to repeat this, until the hedge began sealing up. Within three seconds, the hedge was all the way sealed, and there was no way it would open again. Hurriedly, Angel looked around her for an opportunity to escape. Only to see that she was completely caged in with a bomb set to go off at any second.
"Angel! What happened? Is there another way out?" Max 2 panicked from the other side.
"I'm trapped and there isn't any other way out." A sob escaped her throat, but she held it down. She wouldn't die crying. Max would never let herself die like that, so why would she?
"Hold on Angel, I'll find a way over and get—"
"No! You need to run. Find Max and the flock. Tell them—tell them I love them and I'm sorry. For everything that I've done."
"Angel—"
"Please," Angel couldn't stop the raw tears that managed to escape, "Please just do this for me. There isn't a reason why all three of us should die."
A beat passed before Max 2 answered, "Okay, sweetie."
"And Ma—Maya," She corrected herself, "I'm sorry for everything I've done to you, too." She thought she heard her choke down a sob, before answering, "It's not your fault. It was them. And I promise you, I'm going to make them pay for this."
Angel heard her footsteps pound against the grass as she ran away, leaving the spot that Angel would die in. Looking up briefly, she saw her other self with her arms crossed, smirking. As if this was all just a big game that Angel just wasn't cut out to win. And it was.
"Angel," Gazzy moaned, stirring gently in her arms.
"Shhh. It's all going to be okay," She comforted, despite wanting him to be comforting her. Now was her chance. It was her last opportunity to be strong, to be a leader.
"We're going to die, aren't we?"
"Of course not." Angel lied, knowing that that was what Max would do in this situation.
"Hey Gazzy," His blue eyes looked up into hers innocently, sparkling with fresh tears, "I love you."
"I love you too, Angel"
All of a sudden, the timer's beeping halted and so did Angel's heart. For a brief moment that felt like forever, Angel felt immense pain. And then, it was over. Throughout everything, Angel and Gazzy never let go of each other's hands.
Arguing with himself was not a pleasant idea for Fang, but as he looked upon his identical form standing right in front of him, he knew that there was no way out of it, despite the insanity that practically dripped off of the idea. His duplicate was wearing all black—a black t-shirt, black jeans, all topped off with a black leather jacket—and his hair was messy and windswept, opposed to Fang's crisp, clean, and professionally dressed way. Fang didn't know how there was another one of him standing in front of him, but he predicted that it was one of his father's tests.
This must have been what Angel had experienced before—
Fang shook the thoughts of the previous events from his head and focused on the other version of himself. If this was a test, Fang needed to figure out how. After a few more minutes of just staring at the emotionless mask on his doppelganger's face, Fang turned around prepared to leave. He was stopped by a mere three words.
"You betrayed them." It was filled with so much venom and hate that Fang had to do a double take to be sure that it came from the emotionless brick wall before him.
"The flock is naïve and weak. Them dying will just help humanity progress with me as their leader. When I kill her, he will know just how loyal I am—"
"You're demented. He's using you. Even if he wasn't, he's a psychopath." His short replies were affecting Fang, despite him trying not to show it. Fang couldn't tell if it was working or not seeing as the image of himself wasn't showing any reactions.
"He's not using me! I'm his son and together, we'll leave all of the others not worthy to be alive where they deserve to be. The siblings are examples of this. She is the one who wants to use me. She wants to twist my head around and make me betray Grey. Her false memories won't work, though. I'm too strong to be fooled by little mind tricks. She'll get what's coming to her, too. If you thought that her last death was painful, you should see how I'm going to kill her-"
"Don't touch her! If you do, you won't just regret it. Regret is too light of a punishment. The agony of thinking that she was dead, her death caused by our own father, it won't even come close. That numbness that made you feel like you were suffocating and the job just wouldn't finish, that will seem like child's play. And what for? For Grey? Here's some trivia. He's not even your father. You are just a brainwashed version of me. I'm the victim that has to be his son. The second that I find out a way to overpower it, you'll be nothing."
Fang almost couldn't comprehend the change from his duplicate going from saying nearly nothing to saying an entire speech. What Fang really couldn't comprehend was what he had said. Not only had it made Fang question about whether or not what was said was true, it made him scared. If it was true, at any moment, no matter what he did, he could go poof. He would have to kill Max sooner than planned. A thought occurred to him, making him pause from his thoughts of having to kill her.
"You aren't just a test are you? You're me. And if what you've said is true, you've been awake this entire time."
The original Fang's jaw was clenched, but other than that he had him emotionless façade on as if it had never broken in the first place. Fang didn't want to go away and be replaced by the original. He knew he would have to take action and make sure the other was crumpled and destroyed—for good.
"If you are awake to see everything that I do, then you're going to love it when you watch yourself kill Maximum. I'm going to make you watch the light leave her eyes and feel her body go limp. And you're going to enjoy it."
Regan couldn't help but beam as she gazed at the atmosphere around her. She twirled slightly in her silky pearl dress, admiring the view from The Eiffel Tower. Sometimes, wings came in handy. Especially when one snuck out from the facility in Germany to meet her date. Only she wasn't sure if he was coming. He had always been hesitant to disobey orders of any kind, especially those from Gunther Hagen. Regan couldn't even begin to understand how he treated Gunther Hagen as if he were his own father.
It wasn't that Regan outright hated Gunther Hagen—after all, he gave his experiments a home, food, and treated his experiments kindly—but she couldn't bring herself to trust him completely. Especially after she had seen the files on his original plan, that Regan was supposed to be some stranger's mate. The idea repulsed her.
She sighed as she looked down at her gloved hands that were grasping the railing. Somehow, she had managed to make sure the gloves wouldn't clash with her knee length dress, but that didn't mean they were a fashion statement. Even after her six months of being alive—thanks to her being cloned from a dead fourteen-year-old actress—she still hadn't managed to control her powers. She was dangerous; she was deadly. She couldn't blame him for not thinking she was important enough to sneak out for. She was a sideshow freak and he was perfect in every way.
"You do know what The Eiffel Tower symbolizes, don't you?" A smooth voice came from behind her. She continued leaning over the rail, not looking at the figure behind her.
"A big piece of fancy metal made for the 1889 World Exhibition." Regan replied bluntly, not letting any emotions fill her voice. She was good at putting on a mask when she wanted to, but it was hard to pull off when she was around him. He chuckled and leaned onto his side so that he could face her. With his right hand he moved his hand gently under her chin and made her look at him. Not saying a word, both of them looked into each other's eyes. She had to use every ounce of will power she had to not get lost in his turquoise eyes.
"The Eiffel Tower symbolizes beauty, perfection. Love. It is exactly like you." She couldn't stop the deep blush rising to her lightly makeup covered cheeks. She always applied makeup—like she assumed every other normal girl her age did—but it would never make her feel as beautiful as he could.
She pulled away from him and took a step backwards. He didn't show any sign of protest, but his eyes held hurt. Things had been shaky between the two for the past few weeks and that night was supposed to be an attempt at recovery. So far, the attempt was sucking.
"Regan, you've been avoiding me for the past few weeks and you didn't even bother explaining what I did wrong. Please don't keep pushing me away. Tell me what's wrong." He pleaded, hurt blooming in his almond shaped eyes.
"I can't do this, Dylan. I can't stand not knowing when you'll leave me!" She burst out, not even caring that a few other lovebirds glanced at the two teens rudely.
"Leave you? What are you talking about?"
"I looked at Gunther Hagen's files; his plans for us. Pairing us off with some strangers made by another branch of scientists called Itex. I saw the pictures of them. You've never disobeyed an order Dylan! Eventually, when the time comes, you'll follow orders and run off to be with this pansy, Maximum Ride, and you'll leave me. And I just can't take that. I wouldn't be able to lose you like that because I love you!" The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them. She was a free thinker who spoke her mind, but sometimes she considered this as a flaw.
Silence passed between the two. Agonizing, heart wrenching, silence. And then, before she could see it coming, his lips crashed onto hers. She melted on the spot, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer to her, despite the fact that if they got any closer they would merge into one. When they needed to breathe, they pulled apart, without releasing one another.
"You've never said you loved me before." He whispered in awe, stroking a strand of her curly hair. Normally, she would have tried to find a way out of this situation by now, but she found that she couldn't move away from him; wouldn't move away from him.
"I promise you on my life that I will never love another soul, especially not her, other than you for the rest of my miserable existence as a lab rat. You're right; somehow I can't find it in me to disobey. But for you, I would defy everything standing in my way. I love you."
Humiliatingly, she found her eyes brimming with tears before crashing her lips onto his.
The maze felt foreign to her as she ran through its wide path, wishing she hadn't made it out from that explosion. After around two miles of distance between her and the explosion, she let herself sink to the ground. Her hands clutched at the grass and she heaved, attempting to replace the smoke that had invaded her lungs with fresh air. The images flashed repeatedly in her head. She had been able to kill by sucking the energy out of people, but she had been able to hear the two kids screaming in agony as they were flayed alive. What affected the fifteen-year-old clone more than two extra victims was all of the fire. Ever since Dylan had betrayed her what seemed like so long ago, she had been afraid of fire. It was perfectly reasonable, considering that if Grey hadn't resurrected her, she would still be nothing but a dead body. She owed Grey her life, although, now she wasn't so sure considering he had betrayed her as well by nearly letting her be killed.
Even as she was hunched there, she knew that Fang wasn't coming to look for her. As much as it pained her, she knew that he didn't love her. It was only Grey. She had seen him before the flock had been led to capture by herself. He was dying inside from Max supposedly dying. And now, even when he thought of her as an enemy that needed to be slaughtered, even when Fang and Regan were officially a couple, she knew that he was still in love with her, all though, with every increasing moment that he spent with Regan, it was fading.
"I want to know what you did to Dylan!" Regan screamed in Gunther Hagen's face. Her fists were shaking with her rage towards the German scientist. Dylan had been missing for two months, ever since the night in Paris where Regan had told Dylan that she loved him for the first time. She knew that he had something to do with it ever since she discovered Gunther Hagen had been at the lab complex for those two months. While that was a big enough tip off on its own, Regan had believed that Dylan had been on another foreign research mission with the elder scientist. If Gunther Hagen had never gone anywhere, where had Dylan been for all that time?
"I don't know what you're talking about, Regan. Dylan is perfectly fine." He responded coolly, taking a sip of his coffee. Her jaw was clenched in an attempt to hold back the tears she was aching to release. Despite her emotions tearing her up on the inside, the only sign of her anger was her uneven breathing.
"He's been missing for two months. I had thought he was with you, but now I find out that you were here this whole time! I want to know what's going on and where my boyfriend is right now!" Her voice shook near the end of her tyrant, but she couldn't bother herself to care. All that mattered was finding where Dylan was and making sure she never let him out of her sight again.
"I assure you that if you go back to your wing, you will find Dylan perfectly safe in his room."
Without any other choice, she turned around and prepared to run the East Wing, where Grey's most prized experiments lived in luxurious rooms. Before storming from the room, she threatened, "If you're lying and Dylan isn't there, you're never going to go a day without feeling the exact fear that I feel right now. You will never feel safe again in your pathetic life."
"Be careful Regan," He called out before she had the chance to leave, "Don't make promises that you can't keep."
A chill ran down her spine at what he possibly could have meant, but she didn't have time to focus on him. She poured on any extra speed that she could manage to get to the East Wing as soon as possible. The East Wings was generally close to Grey's office, but she couldn't waste any time in case Grey was attempting to escape. She had to see if he was telling the truth. If he wasn't….Regan didn't know what she would do. She would be completely lost without him.
As she reached his navy blue colored door, all thoughts of manners left her head as she threw open his door.
"Dylan!" She screeched, praying that he was just out of eyesight somewhere in the museum of a room.
"Dylan, please! Answer me!" She sobbed, stepping further into his room. She didn't pay attention to the door shutting behind her, all she cared about was that she was unsure if she would ever see him again, ever hear his laugh again, ever kiss him again in the gentle, but passionate way of his. She slumped over onto his king-sized bed, only to feel something hard underneath her. She sat up wearily, only to see nothing on the surface. Without another thought she lifted the thick mattress up and saw a disk. Automatically, she knew it was from Dylan. He had always teased her about how she was exactly like the princess in the fairytale where there was a pea placed under a hundred mattresses.
With her entire body quivering for fear of what was on the disk, she inserted it into the DVD player, connected to Dylan's personal flat screen TV. Dylan's face appeared on the TV, looking nothing like his usual self. His hair was covered in grime; there were thick bags under his eyes, but it was hardly noticeable compared to the deep wounds and dark bruises. She took in a breath at his ghastly appearance, but otherwise stayed silent as he began to talk in a hushed tone.
"Regan, I don't have much time. The past two months…well, let's just say they haven't been easy. All I want to say is that I'm okay, you don't need to worry about me anymore," His voice cracked and tears welled up in his turquoise eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Regan. I wasn't strong enough to take it; the torture was something I had never experienced before. There were men in white coats everywhere. Throughout everything, all I thought about was you. The way your hair looks as if it was so beautiful it shouldn't exist, the way you don't slather makeup on like some girls, the way you refuse to cry in terrible situations, the way you looked in that dress in Paris…
"It doesn't matter whatever reasons there are, because if I listed every single reason that I love you than I would never stop talking. And I do love you with all my heart. But, they broke me after two months of trying to stay strong. The mutant from the other branch that you were destined to be with; he was slated for termination after he was deemed unnecessary when he split up the group of mutants. And that means Gunther Hagen thought you were unnecessary as well. He wanted me to—he wanted me to kill you." Regan drew in a breath as her legs felt like they would give out from underneath her.
"I refused. And I refused. Over and over again I would refuse. Every day for two months he would come in after the torture was over and I would keep refusing. But…I couldn't last forever. I gave in." Regan collapsed onto the lush carpeting from shock. He had betrayed her. The one that she loved was going to kill her. From somewhere in the room, she could hear a faint beeping noise. A bomb, she thought in horror.
"I'm so sorry, Regan." Dylan breathed before the screen went blank. Before Regan could so much as stand up, the beeping stopped for a moment. She breathed a sigh of relief, but before she had the time to finish, searing heat surrounded her and the world went from orange to black, her screams dying along with her.
"So, what do we have here?" Regan lifted her face, with tears still streaking down her face to see an eraser. It was rough and looked like the Frankenstein of erasers. He looked like the result of a pre-schooler's cut and paste project. Regan recognized this particular eraser, although he wasn't supposed to be there.
"In case you don't recognize me, my name is Ari. I helped torture your boyfriend a few months back. And now, I'm going to enjoy killing you."
Aj: Well, this is my review of the Avenger Movie. It may get a little long, so just hang in there: Freaking. AWESOME!
Anika: Anyways, we offered a bit more insight on Regan in this chapter. I wrote all of her parts, so tell me if she seems like a Mary-Sue or anything.
Aj: That was a LONG chapter, so remember to review. Next chapter we go to Iggy, Nudge, and either Regan or Max. Tell us which POV you want next chapter. Feel free to ask us any questions that you want us to answer, or just yell at us in jibberish about Angel and Gazzy. Just remember, there is ALWAYS a twist when it comes to my stories. I'm not called the Dictator of Cliffies for nothing!
1-3 reviews: Updated a week later.
4-5 reviews: Updated 3-4 days later
5+ reviews: Updated the next day or in the same day.—Aj.
