FIRST OFF, and DO NOT IGNORE THIS! I want to apologize for the lame chapter you saw last. I know it wasn't up to par, but this is the way I work. After writer's block, I either write something epically brilliant, or something lame that leads to something more.
In this case, it was something lame. But it led to this, which…sadly, will PROBABLY be one of the last five/eight chapters.
PROBABLY. I don't know for sure. I want to thank several of you for your motivating messages, and YourMoosyFate, in particular. I know this is my story, and I should do it when I'm ready, but, to be honest with you, if I did that, CL would still be at Chapter 6. So, a lot of CL is because of YOU, the readers and reviewers.
I really apologize for the spasmodic chapters and seemingly jumpy plot…(I never resolved the whole Sun in the Maze thing, did I? Oh, well, next chapter…)
And also, I was deterred by a VERY annoying thing…How many of you would say Juju was a Mary Sue? I put her through the Mary-Sue Litmus test and it informed me that her, Molly, Gira AND Maximum Ride were solid Mary Sues. Hence the reason for my depressingness and the slowness of this chapter.
Okay. Moving on. I had some awesome threats (I loved yours, a friend ()…), but I would like to point out I can't use any of them. I'm sorry. But wouldn't it be weird if this super villain threatened to murder…well, you'll see…with a magical Chinese speaking unicorn? It would just be awkward.
So, I'm sorry, but…well, you'll see by the end of the chapter.
Next chapter is Chapter 30! That means a list of all reviewers, so if you want in the hall of fame (20 or more), I'd get reviewing!
Love (in the like friends way, I've already been creeped out by three different guys today…I think that was a group dare, since they're all my good friends…unfortunately), Luna
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Angel gaped at Max. Her forearms had long, thin scars winding around them, her legs had smaller, more even lines slashing across them.
Angel knew they weren't there when they saved the world, knew that Max had never had them before she tried to kill herself.
The worst part was she didn't even try to hide them, just hooked on her right arm-brace and started the evaluation.
"All right. You did pretty good for your capabilities, Miss Rise, but your snap kicks need to be higher," she informed her, demonstrating. "And you're definitely not blocking well enough." She pulled off the right brace and hooked it through her belt loop. "You might not have had to fight for the past three years, but that's going to change pretty fast, honey. You did a good job on Pretoria, but we're going to need you to step it up. Now, try this." Max unfurled her wings and leapt up in the air, using her wings to propel her higher, while she turned a somersault and snapped her wings in before landing, feet first, in a crouch that cracked the ground.
"It's really great for smashing in NTs heads, so don't bash it before you try it. I want to see you be able to do three of those by next evaluation. That's anywhere from three days to a week and a half, so I'd get started. Practice courts are over there." She pointed over to a block of rooms, and Angel nodded, still a bit in shock of the scars.
Max sighed and yelled, "NEXT!"
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"I'm next." A familiar voice informed me later that evening. I ignored them and kept cleaning up. He tapped my shoulder. I was honestly surprised that the scars didn't make him back away. Really, they were nothing to be scared about—when I jumped, I got beaten up pretty badly. It's not just my arms or anything, it's also my torso and the rest of my body. It's to be expected, really. I mean, you can't free-fall four hundred feet and come out in one piece with no cuts. It's logic.
But that's only some of them. Like I said, none of them are battle wounds. I always wear my guards. The rest of them…I put there myself.
Yeah, I cut myself. But it's the only way I can deal. I don't cry a lot, or at least, I didn't, before the Flock came back. It was a way to release feelings. I haven't done it in a month and a half, but…I dunno. Maybe I'll start again. Maybe it'll help. I know someone will try psycho-analyzing me, but…it's just…I think I do it because I want to see who actually cares enough about me to make me stop.
Molly is in denial, and she refuses to believe I really do it. Mal did it, too, but she stopped, for Ben's sake. Ben doesn't know; nor do the Flock. Juju thinks it's normal, to have two of her sisters cutting herself. Gira pretends she just doesn't notice, although I see her sneaking worried glances. Katrina has no clue—I hid it too well. Dag shows sympathy and tries to help, but he hasn't made me stop, not yet.
Back to, whoever.
"I'm next, aren't you going to test me?" I turned and faced them.
"I would if there was someone on the schedule, which there isn't." I informed them and picked up the checklist. "Last person of the day was Samuel Larson, who just went. You are not on the list, Mr. Nicholson. I'd advise leaving."
"So you don't have time to test someone else?"
"Fang, give it up. You're not going to get a reaction from me. Vanish." I hung up the clipboard and pulled off my right armguard, and hooked it through my belt loop again. My left one stayed on, like always. He stayed there, so I sighed and continued cleaning up. I had to wipe blood off the mat, since someone wasn't wearing their mouth guard during martial arts, and thusly, failed this course.
I finished up and he was still there. I turned to him, after rolling my eyes.
"Do you need something, Mr. Nicholson?" I asked, calmly, and he nodded. "Are you intending to inform me of what you need, Mr. Nicholson?"
"Yeah. Test me."
"Mr. Nicholson, testing is closed for the day. Please return to your dorm, before I defenestrate you. You have fifteen seconds before you are punished with kitchen duty." I informed him calmly. His eyes went wide and he left quickly.
I rolled my eyes at his impertinence, before heading off to my office. I could knock off a couple hours of paperwork before midnight. And I could get a full five hours of sleep before I was expected up, a whole hour more than I usually got.
I got through two weeks in this manner, running Lightning the way it needed to be run, treating the Flock like any other trainees. Everyone relaxed a bit, forgetting that I was planning a final attack.
That was their first mistake.
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I wound my gloved fingers around the fire escape and hooked on a carabiner, before climbing up higher and working my way up the building.
I was working my way up a hundred and five story building, using a rope, carabiners, my grippy shoes and gloves, with a bottle of water dangling from a belt loop and an energy bar tucked in my back pocket.
Somehow, climbing relieved the need to fly. Maybe it was the supreme adrenaline rush, or the height. But whatever reason, this was one of my favorite things to do. High speed winds whipped around the building, and my fingers slid a bit. Reflexively, I slammed my right hand into a crack and my left one tighter around the fire escape. I pushed my body closer to the wall and kept climbing, determined.
I wasn't going to fall, not now, not ever. I had a perfect record—just not when I'd gotten this high. Never fallen, but never gotten to the top.
It started to rain, water plastering my hair to my forehead and the back of my neck, but also making the wall slick and hard to grip. I put my foot on a rusty service rung, but it cracked and I very nearly lost my footing.
Finally, finally, I reached the top, and swung over the edge. About fifty NEs stood there, and I rolled my eyes.
"END SIMULATOR!" I yelled, but the simulator stayed on. I rolled my eyes and launched into the attack.
Guess what?
Di the eternally prepared died. Within five freaking seconds. NORMALLY, in a sim, when you die, it drops you back into reality. Not this time. I came back to life and I was stuck fighting the NEs and dying.
This was annoying, because, a) I might be Di the wonderful (no comments on my ego, please), even I can't get fifty NEs down alone. I can barely take two, much less fifty, and b) THE SIM WOULDN'T FREAKING SHUT OFF!
This was why I was sitting on top of a roof, repeatedly getting shot by half-wolves with machine guns. I don't think real guns can slice off a pony tail like that. And also, MY HEAD IS ATTACHED TO MY BODY RIGHT NOW, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
So after about a million times of it, I got fed up and yelled, "END SIMULATOR," at the top of my lungs, over and over (still dying spasmodically) until the whole thing FINALLY shut down.
I yanked the virtu-helmet off and dropped the gloves on the table.
"WHO DESIGNED THIS SIM?" I shouted, and Molly, who was sitting across from me taking notes, rolled her eyes at me and flipped through her notes.
"Um, Mart did."
"He put a freaking army of NEs at the top of the building. There were like fifty, and that's beyond abnormal."
"What, the NEs?"
"No, the army. Everyone knows those NEs can't work together in groups of more than five. They have authority problems…I'm SO glad Dag doesn't have those issues." Molly giggled.
"Yeah…"
"You've got him whipped, don't you?" I snickered when she blushed. "Oh, come off it, Molls, everyone knows it, even the newbies." I unhooked my water bottle and took a long drink. Gira came in, waving paperwork in the air, but she jumped right in when she heard our topic.
"One of 'em actually asked me, 'Where's Mrs. Lewis?' last week. I still think you two should go for it." Molly had told me and Gira the week before that Dag had asked her out, and she'd hesitantly agreed. Gira was banking in on this to tease Molly.
"Mrs. Lewis?! Seriously?!" She yelped, and I laughed. "Why would they…Oh." She turned a beet red color, and with her hair, it was just too much. I burst out laughing, and Gir' and Molls laughed with me.
People think we're really serious and only vent with singing. But what they don't get is we're fifteen, eighteen and twenty-two respectively. We're not exactly…normal, but we act our age a lot. Of course, we all have our respective problems—I cut myself, Gira is on mediation for depression, 'cause if she didn't, she'd be pretty suicidal, and Molly has a pretty messed up past—but that doesn't stop us from being kids.
"You have to admit it's pretty cute, Molls. Molly Lewis…It's sweet!" Gira sang, opening a folder and pulling out paperwork to fill it out.
Molly and Gira chatted while I tackled another sim. It's a lot of fun, but training too. Since someone told Katrina I had recently had suicidal tendencies, I was banned from field missions. Right now, Dag and Ricky were both off with teams three, six and eight on a high-profile mission and Gira was heading out tomorrow. I think she was finishing up the paperwork for that right now.
Molly was still on probation because of her injuries—while she may technically be healed and can walk and doesn't need casts and stuff, her bones and ex-injured areas are still sensitive, so she shouldn't do anything particularly physical until it can be approved. But once it does, she claims she's heading out on a mission.
I'm not going to let her, because then I would drown in paperwork, and quite frankly, me plus a lot of paperwork equals damaged paperwork. Usually accidentally shredded, had volatile chemicals spilled on it, someone set it on fire, it's eaten by a platypus (don't ask about his one. Please. It wasn't pretty, at all, and I'm still trying to figure out what Dag was even DOING with a platypus), or someone does something completely out of the blue to it that ends up with MORE paperwork needing to be filled out.
Let's just go with it's not pretty. At All.
I worked through a tactical sim, but once I finished it, my vid link beeped.
I pulled the flat blue panel from the holster on my hip and answered. Analisse was on the other end, grim as could be.
"Di. We've got a ransom message. Line three. They won't deal with anyone but you." I nodded and turned to Gira and Molly.
"We've got a ransom problem. I might need some tactical help, though. Up for it?" They nodded, the cheer suddenly vanished from their faces.
I ran through the Base, before reaching the conference room. I picked up the phone, while Gira and Molly put on the listening headphones. They could hear them, but they couldn't hear Molly and Gira.
"This is Diane Mumixam speaking."
"Ah. Good afternoon, Miss Mumixam. I'm sure you know who I am." Damn. Damn. There are a lot more words that flashed through my mind, but if I said them…let's just say they weren't words that could go on network television. Gira and Molly were a similar mindset, since they swore simultaneously in Spanish and Gaelic, respectively.
"Demonios," Gira swore.
"Cuir mallact!" Molly muttered. And then she proceeded to say several words I don't think I would approve of if I knew what they meant. Gira muttered a few things I didn't understand in Spanish, so I'm guessing they were both as upset about this as me.
Vaulder. Bloody Freaking Vaulder.
And he was calling me over a ransom demand.
How much worse could this get?
"And I have your…Ricky Baker hostage…And one of my Super-Erasers by the name of…Dagger Lewis, is that correct? And there's a girl here…small, black haired, big green eyes…I think you know her, and I have to say, she's quite a sweetheart. Say hello to the people, miss, or we shoot you."
"Hi, Di…" Ben whimpered.
I'm going to quote Molly here with a "damn".
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Remember, Hall of Famers are 20+!
Luna
Oops. Almost forgot. Bex & Marie & Izzy (btw, could you enable your messaging feature? It would be nice to reply to your reviews via PM, if that's possible), I would like to point out that Scott would not bother me at all. Not after Nick F's (name has been changed) impressive performance in my pre-AP WH class. He's this silent, tall, pale skinned guy with black hair who always wore dark greys and blues and blacks, and he rarely ever talks to anyone, EVER. He's on the wrestling team, I think. But anyway, one day he came into class, and halfway through Mr. T's lecture on the Meso-American culture, he stood on his chair, yanked off his shirt and jeans (yes, it WAS as awkward as you imagine), and began dancing around in a mini, miniskirt, heels, and a sequined Jonas Brother's tee-shirt, with heels that were, I kid you not, six inches tall.
Not to mention the wig. The sparkly, blue, shiny wig. And the giant sunglasses. And he was singing freaking Barney songs, after he exhausted his supply of Hannah Montana and, I kid you not, Barbie Girl.
Mr. T fainted. And yes, we're talking about the guy who went to the bathroom, was hit pretty hard on the head, got knocked unconscious, has dents in his head from hitting the floor, and was found by an unsuspecting freshman guy, was rushed to the hospital and was in the ICU with a concussion, severe blood loss, and dehydration, yet managed to come to school the next day with his head in bandages, and taught the class.
I am NOT kidding you.
So, now, I've held you up enough. Bye!
