Updated at last! I know this chapter moves kind of fast, but I didn't want to leave everyone waiting for too long… I wrote most of the chapter at camp. This is the second-to-last chapter; the epilogue is next, and a small input after that. Enjoy!
~Moony
Previously: No one responded to Angel's call. She curled up on her side and released a few tears at the pain it brought her trimmed wings. The soft white flight-feathers were no longer part of Angel, though they were growing in already, the cause of the pain.
She closed her eyes as her mind examined those of the Whitecoats, learning what they wanted to do with the six mutants as their captives. Angel pleaded in her mind for someone to wake up.
It took a week for the flight-feathers to grow in fully. Tests went on in the labs during that time each day, sometimes more than once. Even though the feathers were clipped, the Whitecoats still had the flock members pump with their wings to see how they worked while in flight.
They stood on a block raised above the ground so that the tips wouldn't brush the ground. He or she would flap and flap, creating wind, but going nowhere.
Mazes were still popular among the scientists, even though Angel could read their minds and beat everything, Max didn't react to the hot coils, and Fang cooled everything down as he ran past. Iggy could navigate just as well, and he learned to leap over the obstacles as his clicking estimated how far across each was.
During certain tests, heat sensors were scanning the flock members. The Whitecoats were quite puzzled as to why Max burned so bright, and Fang was cold enough to be dead, as a human, not a bird.
The flock never spoke, never complained, as Max and Fang worked out a plan in the safety of their cages.
***
Max woke with a start and nearly hit her head, ruining any chances of a nightmare. The crates were still small, but at least the flock was kept in the same room.
Fang was staring at her with a small smile on his lips. "Watch this," he mouthed. His hands worked so his fingers were at the lock. With tensed fingers, a talon shot out from his index finger. He inserted it into the lock and twisted. The lock popped open with a small click. Fang pulled his fingers through before he pushed open the door. Fang's body uncoiled and he slid feet-first from the enclosure.
Nudge woke was well. She simply dissolved the lock on her cage and pushed it open in the time it took Fang to cross and open Max's.
Fang and Nudge went around opening the three cages left closed as Max stretched up. Fang caught a glimpse of her flat stomach as her shirt rose above the pant-line. Max sent a quick wink at him before she lowered her arms and refolded her wings flat to her back.
"Let's get out of here," Max said quietly. There weren't any cameras in the room, nor microphones, but she didn't want to take chances that someone would hear from outside.
"We're the only good people in this place," Angel spoke up, having read the minds of everyone in the building over the week.
Nudge opened the keypad door when Angel motioned that no people or mutants were in the hallway. With a window at one end and offices at another, the flock turned left and quietly jogged to freedom.
Max set fire to the room on her way out. She closed the door behind her after checking there was a flow of oxygen to feed her fire. "Come on, let's fly!" she cried. The Flock hurried as Fang kicked open the window only to find it blocked by iron bars.
Nudge worked her power at dissipating them while Iggy and Fang kept watch. Max set fire to more rooms as she waited, watching the sprinklers, though they had been disabled in that hall by some handy work by Iggy.
Angel was the first through the opening, followed by Iggy, Gazzy, Nudge, Fang, and Max, who set the exit on fire on her way through. They quickly leapt from the ground and into the air with little difficulty, rising on warm updrafts from the flaming building.
Max soared up and saw the fire had caught to more of the building. She flew around with fire pouring from her hands.
Nudge went around peeking through windows and using her powers on any computers she saw the Whitecoats using. They crashed and humans cursed.
The Flyboys that rose in the air from an underground exit were brought to the ground as Fang froze the organic material in the wings. They were smashed to pieces on impact with the ground.
Angel, Iggy, and Gazzy, having little in the way of helpful powers to destroying the School, instead worked on keeping Whitecoats in the burning building. Angel used compulsion on them, while Iggy and Gazzy blocked entrances before Max could get to them.
"Out of here," Max yelled, only to turn around at the howl of alarms from deep within the School.
Five Avian Americans squinted through the rising smoke. Iggy said, "There are sprinklers putting the fire out!"
Fang grinned then, to the surprise of all in the air, including Iggy (Angel sent a picture to him). "You all go on ahead; I'll follow in a bit," he said.
Even Max left, after telling Fang they were heading north to Forks again.
Fang watched over his shoulder as his family left. He shook his head a few times to dispel distracting thoughts, and returned his attention to the smoking School below him.
The red tinges of flame were disappearing under the onslaught of water from the sprinklers. He spread out his power over water using his mind. With a twist, Fang froze all the water in the School below him.
He felt the cool breeze rise up, and knew that everyone and everything in the building that had water in its atomic makeup was solid ice. Actually, it was colder than ice, whatever that may be.
Fang felt no sorrow for the deaths of the Whitecoats and evil mutants in the plot of land below him. He knew the walls and pipes were frozen, the latter burst from the sudden rush of ice. The ice would have exploded from the pressure.
Again with his power, he unfroze the water, and heard with his acute hearing the sudden rush as ice melted down from the walls. The dirt around the building was soon soaked as all the floors flooded out. "That is a job well done," he said to himself.
Fang turned on one wingtip, a trick learned from the hawks all those years ago. He flapped hard enough toward the north, hoping to run into his family before long. At the same time, he didn't want to go so fast, for they would learn that he had killed everyone in seconds. Well, it's a win-lose situation, he thought. I could have left them alive, but if I did that, there's a chance those Whitecoats would come back after us. I have done what is necessary to make the lives of my family safer, regardless of what that may mean to some of them.
Fang flew along, and soon his vision of a wide open blue sky included the Flock. He cleared his mind of what he had done to save the truth from Angel as he approached them.
Minutes later, the Flock was reunited, and on their way to a new life with friends met only weeks ago.
Yes, I know it's short, but it's an update. Again, it's the second-to-last chapter.
If you'd like to read anything else of my work before I finish this story (for good, there will be no sequel), check out my stuff on Fanfiction, or go to my Fictionpress page (the link is pretty close to the top of my Profile page).
~Moony