And chapter two is up and running. The story continues.
Narrator POV
Approximately 7132 miles away from the Doctor, a flock of six birds rapidly descended towards the ground. Well, perhaps not birds. They were far too large to be birds. A better hypothesis would be pterodactyls or aliens or military technology gone wrong.
But none of these were quite close to the truth.
They were just five kids with wings accompanied by their talking dog, Total, whose mouth was uncharacteristically shut. Actually, all of them were silent, faces set into expressions more suited for soldiers in the midst of war. Soldiers who were preparing to face an oncoming storm.
Faces that young should never look so grim, so resigned to the cruelty of the world.
If they had been on the street instead of the sky, any proper adult would have stopped them, made sure everything was okay. Although that was, in itself, a very stupid question because obviously nothing would be okay ever again.
Not when their sister, Nudge, was being taken from them.
Although Max, the leader of their ragtag band of misfits, hadn't said as much, they all knew their sister was dying. An impossibility that not a single one of them would ever be quite ready to face.
Max landed first, immediately barking orders for someone to lay a jacket down on the muddy ground. Her voice was just a little too high-pitched, her eyes just a little too watery for her to be considered calm.
"You're okay, Nudge," the words slipped from Max's tongue like a prayer. She shifted the flailing child (who was almost the same size as her), trying as best she could to keep Nudge contained in her arms.
Physically, Nudge was okay. Max had searched for any serious wounds on the way down (because how could there not be when the kid had crumpled so fast?), but there simply weren't any. A few cuts and bruises maybe, but that was to be expected when a dozen heaping piles of metal came flying at you out of the middle of nowhere.
So what was wrong with her? Why was she convulsing?
Max had reached a conclusion somewhere on the way down, but she didn't want to give voice to it. She didn't know many things that could cause convulsions, except if… if the damage were internal. Whether it was a brain injury, a ruptured spleen, or her appendix, something important had busted and it wouldn't be long before…
There was no time to get her to a hospital, not that Max had even considered it. After Fang's disaster, she would never endanger her family like that again. They could try to operate themselves, but they didn't know what was wrong. They might end up killing her themselves from inexperience.
All they could do was hope it wasn't as bad as it looked.
Some leader she was. So freaking useless!
Max swallowed hard, fighting the urge to murmur more reassurances to Nudge. Even the thought of those whispered lies was enough to stir the sleeping ghosts that haunted her.
Angel, the youngest of the Flock, interrupted Max's thoughts as she tottered over with her weight in jackets. The sight of a fluffy pink coat shoved between Iggy's dusty green hoodie and Fang's black jacket lifted a little of the weight off Max's shoulders.
As Angel began spreading the jackets out for Nudge to lay on, Max scowled, "Gazzy!" Angel paused, looking up in askance about her brother. "Put your shirt back on. The last thing we need is for you to get pneumonia right now."
A carbon copy of Angel in boy form bounded over and took the shirt from his sister, slipping it over his head in one clean motion. He almost looked like a kicked puppy the way he pouted, but Max had bigger things to worry about.
She knelt and gently placed Nudge on the ground, disregarding the damp soaking her own jeans.
"Seizures, seizures…" Max muttered as she tried to recall the correct protocol for them.
"Keep Nudge's head from banging anything," was the first comment courtesy of Angel. Although she spoke with hushed sweetness, there was unadulterated terror in Angel's quivering frame.
Max didn't notice. She was too focused on Angel's useless advice. There was nothing for Nudge to bang her head against! They were in the middle of a vacant muddy field for goodness sake.
"What about a rag?" Gazzy bounced on the balls of his feet, trying to be helpful and strong at the same time. He couldn't cry or freak out. He had to be strong. "Do we need to put it in her mouth or something?"
Iggy shook his head, "No. I heard something on TV that said you aren't supposed to-"
Iggy's voice was lost to a cluster of gasps as Nudge's shuddering abruptly stopped. While that usually would have been a good thing, the floating, golden mist that trickled from Nudge's lips only brought more horror.
"Nudge is breathing steadily. What happened?" Iggy's annoyance was palpable because, just as he figured, no one responded.
The rest of the Flock just stared at the golden mist, afraid to move. Gazzy's voice broke the silence, hushed and practically whimpering, "Is that her soul?"
The alarm of the young boy's words was nothing compared to the stark fear blazing in Max's usually stubborn eyes. "No. Like Iggy said, she's still breathing. Must've been some sort of new weapon; causes seizures and then paralysis. She'll be fine," Max's scoff was fairly weak, but it eased her other charges' fears, at least minutely.
Indeed, Nudge was still breathing, even as the small strand gradually turned into a violent eruption of a thousand golden fireworks radiating from her mouth and nose. When it finally, finally stopped (because everything does in the end), the mist lingered around Nudge like an enchantment from Hell.
Everyone stayed frozen for ages, terrified to twitch even a muscle and disturb the strange substance.
Of course, Max thought with disgust, it was Total that would give in to his primal urges. He broke rank, trotted up to Nudge quick as you like, and sniffed the mist. His adventure ended with a whisper of gold flying up his nose, causing him to cough and sneeze. "It tastes like burnt candy," he whined.
Max swatted at him in response, feeling her blood pressure rise. She was far too young to die from a heart attack, but it seemed like an imminent possibility. "Get away from that; what if you start seizing next?"
"My superior senses tell me that this is not the source of Nudge's ailment. It may be internal."
Iggy sighed deeply, brow furrowed and fingers twitching. "I repeat, what happened? I might be able to feel if she has anything internal, but I need to know what happened."
"Sorry Ig," Gazzy muttered abashedly. "There's this golden stuff coming out of her mouth. It's sparkly like glitter. I think at least four tons of it came out of her all at once. It's still hanging around, almost like it's attached to her by invisible strings. She seems to be sleeping now, though."
"Total sniffed it and didn't die, right? I need a closer look to make sure she's stabilized."
Gazzy grimly grabbed hold of Iggy's hand and led him over to Nudge before Max could get a word in edgewise. Both her arteries burst when Gazzy passed Iggy's hand through the mist and planted it firmly on her arm.
"It's cool, almost slimy!" the exclamation was followed by a quick, "It isn't her soul, right? Max?"
Everyone's lack of awareness of the seriousness of the situation was about to give Max a coronary.
"NO! What did I just say? Am I speaking French? Swahili? Get away from that!"
But, typically, Iggy ignored her. He was obviously going to do what he came there for, no matter how badly Max kicked the snot out of him afterwards. He lightly passed his hands over Nudge, double checking for injuries. As he returned to her head, probing for any hairline fractures, Iggy found the cool, slimy substance wrapping gently around him.
It seemed light and playful, fluttering around his body in complex motions that made him laugh with delight. At some level, he understood that he should not be feeling delighted or happy. Nudge was injured. But he couldn't help the airy feeling welling up inside of him.
Max's hair stood on end as she watched the mist coil tighter and tighter around Iggy. The mist almost seemed to have a sort of… intelligence. Nope, that was it. Iggy had checked Nudge over thoroughly enough and it was time to put this insanity to a quick end. She marched up to Iggy, but found herself at a loss. How did she pull him from the mist without antagonizing it? It was almost completely around him now.
"What is this?" Iggy's voice was full of wonder. Max tensed further, knowing that wonder was just as dangerous as any Flyboy or Whitecoat. "Golden and glittery; like she has been set free, but…" and here, his voice stuttered, confirming Max's assumption, "scared… so scared… nothing is as it should be… where's Mama…"
He flailed his arms away from the mist, giving Max a point to latch on to and pull with all her might. Man, this kid needed to gain some weight. He was almost as light as Nudge!
Iggy sank to the ground, trying to cower from the color and emotion clinging to his mind like a second skin. His fingers brushed the wet but hard grass, and then sank into muddy earth. A place that received little by way of rain, although recently enough water had come through to fill a few lakes. Somewhere South, but how far South? Far enough to be free of the School and the Institute? Far enough to be free of whatever plagued Nudge?
Gazzy groaned, protesting the triple check that Max was now doing on him. Iggy cracked a weak smile. "What are you grinning about? You're next!"
As she examined Iggy, he explained how Nudge didn't have any injuries at all. Max remembered the scrapes and bruises Nudge had acquired, but, somehow, they'd magically faded. No internal or external damage.
What had the scientists done this time?
As she stood up, glancing at the accursed mist, Max noticed that Fang, her right hand man and the most impassive person on their squad, had finally cracked. He had murder in his onyx eyes as he strode up to Nudge and the mist.
Max tried to draw everyone's attention away, but it was hard to ignore when Fang extended his wings and began to beat them as hard as he could. A cloud of dust and dead grass mixed with the golden mist, going up, up, up until it finally winked out of existence. A sliver of pride wriggled its way into Max's heart.
"Yeah, that's right!" Gazzy hollered. "You better run!"
Even with the mist gone, they still had the problem of the prone girl before them. Nudge looked so wrong laying so still.
Max just wanted her Nudge Channel back. If the kid ever woke up, Max swore she'd never get aggravated when Nudge went on a dozen tangents about hair and makeup and whatever it was that she was obsessed with at the time. She'd listen with rapt adoration, if only she came back to them.
Maybe they should get her to a hospital, especially because her condition seemed to be improving, but what would they tell the staff? Physically, there wasn't anything wrong with her. And, what about the rest of the Flock? Look what happened when Fang was injured. They had gone to a hospital and Anne came out of the woodworks quicker than a… well she didn't really know what. But she did know that Anne had nearly killed them all.
Max grabbed her head, suppressing the urge to scream.
"There appears to be nothing wrong with her physically." Fang's even voice covered Max's mental breakdown easily. "Did anyone see what happened?" he looked at the wide eyes of their family one at a time.
When his eyes fell on Angel, she held out a bronze chain snapped clean in half. At its base hung a shattered charm, shards of the remaining emerald glass sparkling against the bent casing. Max felt her gut churn, although with anger or nausea she couldn't tell. It was the necklace Jeb had given Nudge for her last birthday. A token from parents that might never have existed.
Nudge had insisted on keeping it even after they discovered the tracker in Max's arm. It might have been the only thing Nudge ever had of her parents, but Max was ready to toss it to the ocean. It had taken everything Fang had to convince her that it wasn't worth the fall out. Honestly, nothing short of a nuclear explosion would have made Nudge part with the jewelry. Or, Max guessed, nothing short a pack of Flyboys.
"I saw the Flyboys grab ahold of it. She went down quickly after, but I didn't really see what happened. All I saw was the necklace falling, and it was always super important to her, so I grabbed it when you grabbed her."
Fang listened intently, waiting until Angel finished explaining before bending to check on Nudge. "Thank you, Angel. The good news is she seems to be stabilizing. Nudge just needs to rest."
He spoke with such confidence that Max wouldn't have guessed he was freaking out even more than she was. That was, if she hadn't caught the slight tremor in his hands as he brushed Nudge's bushy hair from her forehead. "The effects should wear off in the next few hours. For the time being, we should find a more secure place, make camp, and monitor her condition."
The rest of the Flock stared at Fang as if he had grown two heads. That was at least two months' worth of words spoken within thirty seconds. The world really was ending.
Even though no one disagreed with his assessment, Gazzy, Iggy, Total, and Angel turned to Max for confirmation.
"Okay everyone," Max stood and spoke almost robotically, corroborating Fang's statement. Her lip was stiff, but she was the leader. She had to act like it. "Up and Away."
Doctor POV
The TARDIS was a finicky machine, fickle in almost every single way. She never took him where he wanted to go, and now, it seemed, not even where he needed to go. He stared at the doors dubiously, almost unwilling to leave the console. He was halfway convinced that she was going to take off without him if he walked out that door.
This was attempt 1,226. It had taken several hundred attempts before he had zoomed in on the location that the signal had come from, but it had taken almost a thousand more to convince the TARDIS to actually land there. Needless to say, she was currently in a right awful mood that could rival his own.
"Are you sure?" he asked for the hundredth time. She mentally reared in response, like an enraged horse. Something about this whole thing was rubbing her the wrong way. "You promise you're not going to leave me then?"
Something akin to a snort of derision and a little electrical spark from the console had him running for his coat.
"Thanks Old Girl!" he called as he burst through the doors. Carefully locking the TARDIS (just in case he was right and there was a rogue on the loose masquerading as a child), he patted her and promised, which was not a thing he did often, "I'll be back soon!"
The next chapter will get into the story proper. This is just what got me thinking about it overall. Hugs!
