Theanimedude: Our winner is The Gasman!
Gazzy: Hey. I've got a question for you.
Nick: Whazzit?
Fang: What he said.
Gazzy: WHAT IN THE NAME OF MY BUTT IS GOING ON?
Theanimedude: Yeah, we got tired of asking nicely for you guys to come here, so we just threw you in a sack and brought you here.
Gazzy: Do you know how bad it smells when you're in an enclosed space with me? Everyone hates their own brand when they're forced to smell it! You could have at least given me air holes!
Fang: And let the smell out? Not likely.
Theanimedude: Yeah, whatever. Okay, question time: If you could only have bombs or farts, not the other one, which one would you choose and why?
Gazzy: Um, farts, I guess, because... you know, everybody farts.
Nick: Not like you do. I swear, if you farted in a dog's face it'd die.
Theanimedude: Oh, and I took a suggestion from Mistdale. The tickle machine is up and running! I even have a volunteer testing it right now.
Nick: Who?
Theanimedude: (points to monitor)
Fang: M-Max?
Nick: Why did she volunteer?
Theanimedude: Yeah, volunteer is kind of an overstatement. It was more like kicking, screaming, horror-stricken, please-don't-put-me-in-that-thing-or-I'll-punt-you-all-the-way-to-Bangcock forced participant.
Fang: Oh, you are so dead.
Nick: Yes, yes you are.
Fang: Wait, I thought you hated us?
Nick: That's in the fanfiction.
Fang: But you don't right here?
Nick: No, see there's fanfiction me, which Theanimedude writes about, and there's slightly-less-fake-me, which is me.
Fang: Either way, you aren't really in this story.
Nick: Of course I'm in this story! I mean, without me they'd just call it "Maximum Ride." I mean, how weird would that be? I'm a pivotal character to this plotline and you know it.
Fang: Wait, didn't we have a problem?
Nick: Oh crapmuffins, Max! (both leave room)
Theanimedude: ...
Gazzy: Um, did they go the wrong-
Theanimedude: Give them a minute.
Nick and Fang: (both reenter) Wrong way! (exit out opposate door)
Theanimedude: ...
(Both reenter with Max's arms around their necks, each glaring venomously at Theanimedude)
Max: I did not say please.
Theanimedude: By the way, where is Bangcock?
Max: ...
Nick: ...
Fang: ...
Theanimedude: Somebody say something, I hate awkward silences.
Nick: Theanimedude owns Sara and I. He also owns Camo and Espio. The original ideas for characters Cato, Kimmy and Kiki were supplied by Pennycat11. The following is a fan-based parody. Maximum Ride and all its respecting characters and titles belong to James Patterson. Please support the official release.
Theanimedude: Yes, I did go there.
Nick the Eraser chapter 29
I barely woke up before a cold hand wrapped around my mouth and a musky scent flowed into my nostrils. I tried to pry the hand loose, but it held like steel. I began to feel nauseated, like one would on their first plane ride.
I saw Max and the flock sleeping peacefully, and I barely got a look at the watch on Gazzy's wrist. 11:00. The night wasn't out yet. I still had time to die. These thoughts flowed through my head as my eyelids slowly slid shut and I fell back into unconsciousness before I even got a vague idea of what was going on.
3-3-3-3-3
I woke up instantly, doing a head count. Angel, Gazzy, Iggy, Fang, Nudge, Nick and Sara were all there. Nick was still staring at the ceiling.
"Nick?" I whispered to get his attention. His head turned to face me, and I gasped.
"What is it?" he asked, blinking.
"N-Nothing," I told him. "I just wanted to tell you, you really do matter to us. You really are our friend. I'm sorry if you don't feel like that."
"Well I don't," he answered bitterly. "The only reason I'm still here is because Sara asked me to stay until morning. I'm leaving as soon as the rest of the flock wakes up so she can say her goodbyes."
"Why, Nick?" I asked him, trying not to grow teary at the thought of losing my strongest soldier and closest- maybe second closest- friend. "You promised you'd never leave the flock."
"I made that promise to people that don't exist," he told me. "I made that promise to somebody I wanted to be with. I made that promise to somebody I believed would never stop loving me. Not to you. Now shut up and go to sleep."
Stunned, I stared at him as he rolled to his stomach and laid his head on top of his arms like a pillow. I laid myself back down, feeling even worse now. In the morning, we'd have to change his mind.
"No," I told him, realizing what I'd woken up or in the first place. "I know where we need to go." I clasped my hands together with a smack that woke up the remaining unconscious flock members.
"Come on," I said, rising to my feet. "Let's get to that institute."
"You know where we're headed?" Fang asked me, rubbing drowsiness out of his eyes and stifling a yawn.
"Yup," I told him, heading off in the direction the map that was burned into my retinas led me.
"I'm leaving," Nick grumbled, heading in the opposite direction.
"No way, buster," I said, grabbing him by his hood. "We've got you until midnight." He growled, but argued no further.
My mind wouldn't rest on just the institute, though. Before Nick had looked at me and blinked, his eyes were red. Not murderous phase red, though. It was like his eyes were supposed to be like that or something. But Nick's natural eye color was blue, wasn't it. Right.
Wasn't it?
3-3-3-3-3
I stirred slowly, instinctively checking for Sara at my side. She wasn't there. I tried to stand up, but I was being held to the floor by something. I struggled, but I couldn't move my arms or legs.
I heard nasty laughter coming from beside me, and my head rotated to see what the source was. The figure that approached had blonde hair, blue eyes, and tan skin, and he looked to be sixteen years old.
"Aw, crap," I muttered. "I got captured by a neo Nazi."
"You wish," the boy said to me. "If I were a Nazi, your death wouldn't be so painful."
"Psh. That would be my line," I said, before mustering all my strength to try and spring up from the floor.
"Ah-ah-ah," the boy said. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"And why's that?" I asked with a growl.
"We have somebody you might be interested in," he told me as a door opened behind him. "Namely, your little sister Sara." Two four year old African-American girls walked in holding my little girl an arm each.
"Let go of me!" Sara struggled to no avail as she was dragged to the boy who sat there.
"Here you go, Mister Cato," the two girls chorused before tossing her up into his outstretched arms.
"Oh, I just love little kids," he purred, making her shiver. "Well- I love to kill them, that is."
"No!" I shouted, going stone-still. "I'll stay. Leave her be."
"A fine choice," Cato said with a horrible jagged-toothed grin. He looked like a cat with those lines of teeth. Like a tiger.
"Striker," I breathed.
"Exactly, Nick," the sadistic teenager said to me. "However do you catch on so quickly?"
"What do you want?" I cut to the chase. "Tell me that."
"I want to kill you," he told me. "School's orders, you understand."
"How could you just take it in stride?" I asked incredulously.
"How could you take in stride killing hundreds upon hundreds of your brethren?" he countered. "My story is that I simply hate everybody but myself."
"Kind of like the old me," I said, trying to buy time. "Except I was indifferent."
"Yes, but I hated everybody," he told me. "I hate as much as your little ragtag band of mutants loves you."
"So, not at all?" I asked him. "They don't care about me."
"On the contrary," he continued. "I'm part of the expiration team. Work for the school. I know that they feel nothing but love for you. And you just spat in their faces." He snorted with laughter. "I love it! I could watch you break each other's hearts all day!"
"What?" I asked, astounded. Was he serious? I read his mind and found no trace of lie coming from him.
"If that were true," I told him defiantly, "They'd be here trying to rescue me right now."
"Wrong again," he told me with an evil grin. "They think you're with the. I've got two men posing as you and your little sibling keeping your clique company." He pressed a button an a little remote he had in his hand and a thin monitor slid out from the wall as two sections of the wall parted. The flock was walking with an exact copy of me and another one of Sara trailing behind them, scowling.
"We've watched you closely," Cato told me smugly. "We know that you were considering leaving before I told you the truth. And once midnight comes, my men will tell the flock that he's ready to leave, fly over here and be done with it.
"The flock'll never know you died here," Cato told me, wiping mock tears from his eyes. "Such a pity. If only you'd trusted them beforehand, you may've laid down close enough to the flock that we would've woken them up. Then again," he whispered maliciously, leaning down so that his face was parallel with mine. "We would've had to kill them, too." I stared at him with horror, and he snickered.
"Hard to accept, isn't it?" he asked me in a chuckle as he stood back upright.. "For the first time in six years, you're completely and utterly beaten by somebody who wants to kill you."
"You obviously haven't been watching very long," I snarled at him. "They nearly killed me at the hawk's cliff."
"Yes," he began condescendingly, "But the difference between them and I is that little 'nearly'."
"You dirtbag," I whispered venomously. "Cowering behind your hostage. You know I'd kill you if you didn't have her."
"And that's exactly why I have her," he told me in a 'duh' tone of voice. "It's called the game of life. The one with the upper hand usually wins unless the one with the lower hand has a trump card. And this is my trump card."
I looked over at Sara, who was struggling to get out of Cato's grip, and for a split second, her eyes were red and had pupils. But when she blinked, they reverted to their regular pale stage and the pupils disappeared.
"Don't tell me how to play my game," I told Cato as I caught on. I instantly mustered up all my strength and burst free of my bindings, leaping towards Cato.
"Crap!" He shouted as he realized his facade had been uncovered. He threw the fake Sara to his side and it morphed into a teenage Japanese boy with black hair and red eyes.
"Really oughta work that kink out, Camo," Cato growled as he blocked my oncoming punch with his arm.
"So right now," I said with realization, "A fake me is with the flock and Sara."
"That's right," Cato told me, latching onto the arm I'd punched him with and hurling me upwards forcefully. I winced as I flew upwards, straight through the ceiling and out into the cold night. It was snowing. Where in the world was I that it could be snowing?
"Antarctica," Cato said as he jumped up through the hole in his roof. "You aren't anywhere near your flock, and I'm not going to let you get any closer than you are right now."
"How did you get me here so fast?" I asked him, landing on his roof a few feet away from him.
"That's for me to know," he told me, morphing into his striker form as his head turned into that of a tigers and his hands were replaced by mitts as orange and black striped fur spread over his body. "And you to wonder."
I don't care what you're thinking
As you turn to me
Cos what I have in my two hands
Is enough to set me free
-Set me free-
He leapt at me, but the distance between us gave me plentiful time to dodge as I leapt upward. He landed directly under me as I tucked my knees in and then quickly and forcefully shot my legs out, giving him a double-foot stomp right to his head. He yowled briefly before snarling and reaching up to grab me, but I'd already used him as a springboard to get up into the air, far beyond his reach, extending my wings and flapping to stay aloft.
"You can't touch me up here!" I shouted down at him.
"No," he agreed. "I have people to do that for me."
What? I barely had time to think before I tucked my wings in as tow arcs of fire curved around me. I turned around to see the two African-American girls waving their hands in the air, manipulating the fire. While I was watching them, they flames came back and struck me.
I could fight the feeling to resist it over time
But when it's just too much to take you sneak from behind
I let out a startled shout of pain as I fell from the sky, the fire somehow growing as it rested on my back, spreading across my body until my entirety was engulfed in flames. I rolled in the snow, trying to put the fire out, because it was hot! But it was to no avail, as they only grew higher and hotter. I couldn't breathe. Skin was burning off of me.
I'm dying. I need to get rid of this fire. I need to redirect it.
I need the power to manipulate fire if I am to live.
The flames instantly died as my skin regenerated rapidly and my singed clothes repaired themselves. Okay, I wasn't expecting it, but I'll take it. The typical burst od adrenaline I got every time I neared death came, and I stood up quickly. I held my fist up and upon opening my palm, created a small fireball.
Electricity needs to be converted energy, but fire is limitless as long as there's oxygen. Wherever I can breathe, I can create fire.
Is it me, you said, you're looking for?
Let me show you who I am
And what I'm here for, here for
I smiled to myself at this thought and shot a controlled line of flame through the air. It shot upwards towards the two girls, who countered it with their own combined fire. I jumped and began flight once more, rolling through the air to gain speed and flapping rapidly.
Within a couple seconds I'd reached them, quelling their flames and grabbing them both, one per hand. They squealed with surprise as I through them downwards, their bodies set aflame by my doing.
Try to reach inside of me
Try to drain my energy
Let me show you just
What I'm made of
Simple curiosity
Try to take a bite of me
Let me show you just
What I'm made of now
They quickly recovered and extinguished the fire that had been set upon them. They seemed to be talking to each other. I didn't know what about. Suddenly, all the snow in the air started to move accumulate in one spot in front of me. It melted and then froze instantly, before breaking apart into hundreds of icicles.
Like a million faces
I've recognised them all
One by one they've all become
A number as they fall
-As they fall-
"Oh, crap!" I shouted, turning around and hightailing it out of there as fast as I could.
Okay, think Nick, think!
What do you think I'm doing?
Okay, we've got ice, which is water.
Yeah, and?
Is there oxygen in water?
... If fish can breathe in it, then I guess so.
Exactly! So, how can you take advantage of this?
I turned around and focused on every single one of the icicles, watching them melt from the inside out as I burned the oxygen inside of them.
Well done, brain.
Look out behind you.
Wha- AGH!
Only one of the twins had been conducting the icicles in my front, and the other had snuck up behind me an created more. They stabbed into me, leaving no place unharmed, and I fell from the sky once more. The icicles dripped with my blood. I was pretty sure some muscles had been torn.
In the face of reason
Oh I can't take no more
One by one they've all become
A black mark on the floor
I'm dying. I need to get rid of this ice. I need to redirect it. Ice is water.
I need the power to manipulate all forms of water if I am to live.
The icicles melted as my body repaired itself from within, and an adrenaline surge brought me to my feet.
Is it me -Is it me?-
You said -You said?-
You're looking for?
Let me show you who I am
And what I have in store, in store
I scooped up some snow from the ground and hurled it towards the twins. It split into four parts midflight and hardened into icicles, each one trapping the twins by their shirts to the side of the house.
Try to reach inside of me
Try to drain my energy
Let me show you just
What I'm made of
Simple curiosity
Try to take a bite of me
Let me show you just
What I'm made of now
They melted their respective prisons before putting their backs too each other, each facing away from me. They lined their arms that were facing me up with each other and made a pushing motion. Suddenly, I was thrown backwards through the air. I had no control over it, the wind was carrying me.
First fire, next ice, and now wind? These girls had power over the elements!
What they didn't realize, though, was that every time they tried killing me with a different element, they just gave me new abilities. I had the advantage, and I was foiling every trump card that was thrown at me. I couldn't lose to these girls.
I turned around to see where I was going to see Cato standing in my path. I let out a startled gasp and braced myself for impact with his waiting claws. Just before I was impaled on his hand, I stuck out my own two and grabbed his mitts. I began to push him backwards, seeing a cliff in the ice not far away. I could push him off it and be done with him.
However, he was morphed and he easily overpowered me, pushing me back towards a similar cliff. I morphed as quickly as I could, fur warming my body slightly as I pushed with more force. I began to slowly but surely force him towards the cliff behind him.
Suddenly, the twins materialized behind him and thrust their hands out. Wind pushed Cato in my direction, and he had the upper hand. He sneered at me with green feline eyes.
"Bye, kid," he said to me. "See you in the afterlife."
I needed strength. I needed it! I needed- the murderous phase.
My eyes went red and I roared, startling him. I instantly and effortlessly lifted him off the ground, throwing him off his cliff.
You can control this Nick, don't let it control you!
It's a game. Everything is a game. And I play the murderous phase, it doesn't play me!
I instantly overcame my anger, though my vision stayed a hazy red. A translucent red sphere of light surrounded me now.
"Well this is cool," I said to myself. My voice surprised me. It was my voice combined with one much lower. I was speaking with my voice and the animal that lived inside of me's voice.
"Two become one when powers collide," I said to myself. "Now, those girls."
"No way, kid," a voice said from behind me. I turned and to my surprise, saw Cato standing there.
"But-" I said with astonishment. "The cliff-"
"Fell off the sheer distance of five feet before I climbed back up," he told me. "I've spent too much time planning, too much time giving orders, too much time without satisfying my urge to kill to let you live today, Tundra."
The two twins appeared beside him, both looking frightened. They didn't want to serve him, I realized.
"Destroy him from the inside out," Cato told them harshly. "Make wind slice apart his organs, his bones, everything."
You can take another lifelong try
You can take another try
They obeyed instantly, and I felt pain everywhere inside my body. Everything was being torn apart within me. I could feel it.
I'm dying. I need to get rid of this wind. I need to redirect it.
I need the power to manipulate wind if I am to live.
My body accomplished the astounding feat of restoring itself completely, and I went from dust to destroyer. I stood up and pushed Cato as forcefully as I could, adding wind for extra power. He went flying across the iceberg onto another one.
"Girls," I said, looking over to them. "Are you hurt?"
"N-No," they said, surprised that I would talk to them.
"He mistreats you, doesn't he?" I asked them. "He treats you like crap. He does that so that he can have power over you. You two can fly. He can't. You two can control the elements. He can't. He's afraid of you two. He knows you're stronger than him. Help me defeat him, please."
They stared at me in awe that I would even suggest such a thing. But they nodded eventually, sticking their hands out. I shook them graciously.
"Alright, here's the plan," I whispered to them. They both nodded, listening intently from start to finish.
It took him a few minutes, bounding from berg to berg, but Cato eventually arrived.
Try to reach inside of me
Try to drain my energy
Let me show you just
What I'm made of
Simple curiosity
Try to take a bite of me
Let me show you just
What I'm made of now
"NOW!" I shouted, preparing myself for my part.
One of the twins controlled wind behind Cato, bringing him towards me. The other brought ice out of the water and encased the startled striker (alliteration) inside of it before hurling it into the air. All the while, I concentrated fire in my hands, creating a fireball large enough to melt any one of the icebergs in this area, and melting some around us at the time, and compressed all of the fire into a sphere about the size of my hand. I jumped high up, up, up into the air, flapping my wings to gain height, and shoved the fire ball in my hand straight into the ice-encased Cato, melting the ice and him along with it, and the fireball exploded to its full size. It then flew up out of the atmosphere of the planet, hurling whatever was left of Cato into space.
Yeah, try to reach inside of me -Show you what I'm made of-
Try to drain my energy -Show you what I'm made of-
Let me show you just -Show you what I'm made of-
What I'm made of
I fell from the sky, using my wings to slow my descent, landing next to the twins before I demorphed out of my murderous phase and eraser form.
"Thanks," I said. "Couldn't have done it without you."
"You're welcome," they said simultaneously.
"I'm Kiki, this is Kimmy."
"I'm Kimmy, this is Kiki."
"Kiki," I pointed to one, "And Kimmy," I pointed to the other.
"Yup!" they told me.
"Nick Tundra," I said, smiling.
"Cato Striker," a voice said behind me. I turned around and saw a very angry looking Cato.
Aw, come on!
"I hate little kids," he said, limping his way in our direction. "I especially hate little traitors."
"New plan!" I said, running up to him and grabbing his shoulders. "Gorgon eye!" I froze him in place by looking him in the eye and then encased him in ice before dropping him off into the water.
"Finally," I breathed. "I thought he'd never go down."
"Where are we going now?" Kiki asked.
"The flock," I whispered. "The flock! We'll never get from here to Manhattan in time!"
"Sure we will," Kimmy said. "Just use the teleporter we used!"
"So that's how you got there and back so fast," I mused, following them back to the house.
3-3-3-3-3
Crush 40: What I'm Made Of
