Chapter 21

"How could you tell us about everything that's going on," Terra asked, "you're just as clueless as we are."

Nods of agreement went around the room. I sighed; this was going to be difficult to tell them, the others noticed my hesitation but remained silent.

"Having a two hour conversation with Dr Reilly tends to fill in a few gaps," I explained, "let me tell you what he told me. I'll let you know why we are here."

And so I told them what Reilly had told me. It told them about Maximum Ride and her flock, and I told them about the assassination. I told them about Reilly's plans for a new government system, about making us legal citizens. I even told them about Reilly and the experiment he was part of. I also told them about the 'First' and 'Second Generation' experiment and how we were the 'Second Generation'. I left out the bit about Max and Fang being my genetic parents. I told them that Reilly hadn't told me who our parents were. I finished off by telling them we were being trained to be assassins. A stunned silence filled the room. You could have dropped a pin and heard it loud and clear, even without our enhanced hearing. The first person to speak was Drake.

"How do you know that was the full truth?" He asked, "Reilly could be lying to you or left out another part of the truth."

"I have thought of that," I replied, "but the training would come in handy."

"For what?" Falcon asked.

I was distracted by the sound of a faint voice entering my thoughts.

Blaze can you hear me? It called out through the darkness. A voice I recognized.

I can hear you, but only just. I thought back, how long has it been, since we last talked?

Almost three years, she replied, remember the gift I gave you?

How could I forget? I asked, I wear it all the time.

I cannot keep the connection long, She replied, my mind is fractured; it's half in half out of cyberspace.

Help me find you, I pleaded.

I can't, She replied, I have no sense of my body. I can feel it, am part of it but it's like I'm detached from it. I can't keep the connection open for long; you will have five minutes without security in the room. Make the most of it.

Thank you, I replied, Flame

Use it well brother, She said as the connection faded.

Chapter 22

"Blaze?" A voice entered into my thoughts, "Blaze are you ok. You spaced out a bit there."

"I'm fine," I answered; my hand was clenched around the necklace hanging from my neck, the necklace that Flame had given me before she disappeared.

She had given it to me on our birthday, I had given her mine. The necklace was of a phoenix with amber eyes and had ruby wing feathers. After three years of silence, I had finally got to talk to Flame. But that just bought up more questions. Like why did they lie about here death? And where is she now?

Shouting broke me out of my thoughts. Drake and Skye were having a huge argument, Skye was the one doing all the shouting, Drake was keeping his voice normal level, something else he was good at hiding, his feelings about things.

"Reilly has told us the story," Skye shouted, "why can't you accept that Reilly might want to help us?"

"Reilly might be lying to us," Drake replied calmly, "how do we know if he has told us the full story?"

"He told us all about his plan," Skye argued, "The deaths of Max and the flock and about who hired the assassin. He even told us why we were here."

"To win us over," Drake replied calmly.

"To what ends?" Skye said, not giving up easily

"He told us plenty," I interrupted, "but I get the feeling he was holding something back. There was something he didn't tell me. Either because he couldn't tell me, or because he felt it was better we didn't know."

Drake looked at me with… was that relief? Skye on the other hand, looked like a dormant volcano. She was going to keep her mouth shut, but didn't like where the conversation was going.

I checked my watch, we had only three minutes left of the five minutes that Flame had given me. I had wasted enough time.

"I don't agree with everything Reilly wants from us, but I will take the six month training course. We need the training to survive in the real world."

The others began to object to the idea, but I held up my hand to stop them.

"But they will not get us to kill anyone unless they gave us evidential proof that it was the person who hired the assassin. The training will help us with or escape from this place later on."

Silence greeted that statement.

Chapter 23

"Are you mad!" Drake exclaimed, "They could be listening in on us right now."

"They aren't", I answered, "Flame is taking care of the security."

"Flame?" Everyone was interested. I forgot I hadn't told them about my sister. So I told them about here talents and how we ended up separate. I noticed that Skye put a protective hand of Terra. They were true sisters.

"Anyway," I continued, "we need to escape sooner or later. We can't live out our lives down here. We should get to see the world as it is before the world changes."

Everyone went silent, thinking about the outside world. The only time they had seen it was on their brief escape attempts. They all wished they could have been normal, even I have wished for that. To live a normal life, with a family and friends. But another side of me was hoping that that wish would never come true. I would have never found out about the thrill of flying. I think the others have had the same thoughts. The only problem was if the world was ready to accept us or not.

I checked my watch and the five minutes were up. The decision was going to be made; it was in which direction the decision would go that I was afraid of. But it had to be made.

"What do you think?' I acted, pretending that I had just finished telling them everything, "Should we go ahead with the training, or should we refuse it?"

The others caught onto the act and thought about it for a moment, and then they all agreed. We would do the training, while planning our escape. The only problem we had now, were the bracelets around our wrists. We needed to disable them before Reilly managed to catch us. If he did, it might very well be the end of our lives. Just then, the door opened and two erasers walked in.

"It's time to go," One of them commanded, "briefings over."

I walked to the door and passed by the Eraser. I felt him tense as my wings passed close to his nose. He could smell us and we all learnt, there was nothing they liked more than hunting our kind for sports. They found it amusing.

Talk about sick and twisted.

Chapter 24

Journal Entry 4: The training began the next day. We ended up with timetables like a normal high school student would get, except ours were with classes like Demolitions training, Hand-to-hand combat, melee weapons combat (swords and daggers, stuff like that) and with gun training. We also had other training like hacking, stealth, security systems and training to do with blending in to our surroundings. They taught us the trick Reilly had done with me, how to fold our wings against ourselves to look human. It was pretty useful. They only way you would find out we had wings, is if someone tore our shirt and saw the wings themselves. And we were taught to kill them if they found out. The secret must be kept. Yeah right, like the secret would be kept for long, especially if Reilly's plan came to pass. Life sucks at mutant high for winged assassins. That's what we called it for a joke. It made things a lot more bearable. The trainers never figured out why we came to class laughing our heads off. We usually pulled a prank on the new Eraser transfers. God they were really stupid.

After a few months we began to realise we were there to depend on each other. Skye was the team medic, she had a natural and unnatural gift for healing. Drake was excellent at stealth, with his camouflage ability he was able to blend into his surroundings then always got us a way into the training buildings during field training. Terra was out nature expert and was really good at creating poisons. Better watch your dinner around her. She pulled a prank on Skye after learning a poison that tended to make people run to the toilet every five minutes. Skye was sick for a week. We all had a laugh about it though, even Skye. We all agreed that it would be useful in the future. Falcon was our expert at hacking and he had a natural talent at throwing knives. I had a natural talent at all hand-to-hand combat and with swords. Strange considering that I had never even used a sword before. Good a silent kills. Surprisingly everyone was excellent at using guns, from little 9mm pistols to the larger weapons with big bangs. We didn't car about the names, only the large explosions they made.

After six months we had learnt all that we needed to. We even had a few practical assessments to test our skills. No deaths were done in the training of our team. Unless you count the two Eraser that got to close to one of our explosives, that was amusing. The largest piece they found was a claw. Now it came to the final assessment, proving that we were ready. They had given us our first assassination. It was the person who killed the flock, the original assassin. That was one person that I wouldn't mind making pay for what he did. Ah who cares, revenge is sweet and there is now way of hiding that. But getting serious, I wonder how he would feel after meeting the son of his 'target'.

Chapter 25

"Do you have him?" Drake's voice came out of the earpiece.

"Negative," Falcon said.

"No sign of him," Skye replied.

"I can't see him," Terra informed calmly, coldly, too coldly for a ten year old assassin girl.

I looked down at the street from the tree I was sitting in. We were watching the street where the assassin lived. His name was Steven Peterson, ex-military sniper turned assassin, does freelance and makes sure of client confidentiality. And at that moment he was walking down the road, returning from a meeting with a client. This would prove to be a perfect cover story for the killing. He came back from a meeting where he had a disagreement with his client and the client had him killed. It's strange how a person thinks when looking for revenge. All I could think about were the pictures of the flock's bodies, how on each a single bullet had penetrated the heart, the only wound on their bodies.

"Blaze?" Drake asked, "Do you have eyes on the target." I didn't respond, "Can you see Steven?"

"I have confirmed the target," I updated the rest of the flock, "he's walking down the western pavement. He seems unaware of any followers. I'll move in on him."

"We'll cover you," came a chorus of replies.

I jumped down out of the tree, spreading my wings to soften the landing. I made my way across the road and followed him, walking when he walked, stopping when he stopped. The perfect imitation of his movements. I continued to follow him down the road. A scraping sound broke the air. My boot had caught on a stone and had scrapped it across the ground. Steven spun around and I slammed into him, sending him reeling into the ground. I heard a couple of ribs crack as he landed. He tried to raise himself off the ground but I placed my foot on his chest and drew a gun out of the hip holster. I pointed it at his head and pulled back the hammer. The gun was a modified Socom pistol. It had been modified to withstand our strength and our unique hand grips. It was capable of multiple attachments. At the moment it had a silencer on the end of the barrel.

"Please, don't kill me," Steven pleaded. Strange for a cold hearted assassin, "It was only a job, I needed the money."

"You killed a group of teenagers sixteen years ago," I accused him, "one of them was my mother. How could you?"

"The winged freaks?" He asked, I pressed my boot harder down on his chest, "Yeah I killed them. I had no choice in the matter. I had been caught doing something illegal and they said they would clear me of all charges, if I killed those kids. I didn't realise that one of them had a child. I would have rather gone to jail otherwise."

"I don't quite believe you." I said coldly, "Who were the people that hired you?"

"I don't know," Steven exclaimed, "The people talked through their guards. I never met them face to face."

"There was more than one?" I asked.

"Yes. Please don't kill me," Steven pleaded.

I couldn't kill him, no matter how much I wanted to. It just felt wrong. I took my boot off of his chest and started to walk away.

"Blaze, what are you doing?" Drake asked, "We need to kill him. That was Reilly's orders."

I pulled out the earpiece. Thankfully they didn't hear the conversation between Steven and I.

"You forgot rule number one," Steven lectured me from behind, "never leave a target alive, especially one that's seen you face."

I heard the hammer of his gun being pulled back. He was going to shoot me.