Chapter Fourteen: Not Work!!!

After enjoying a day at the beach and a good night's rest, we are all ready to fly north. This isn't going to be an easy trip at all, and everyone knows it. We all run and jump into the air. I look over everyone. Gazzy, Ozy, and Frannie still look very happy. Angel, Peter, Wendy, and Nudge look jealous, but otherwise normal. Iggy, Icarus, Matthew, Fang, and Max looks slightly distracted, like I'm feeling.

I don't know why I feel distracted. It's almost as if someone is distracting my mind without me knowing it. This isn't a good thing, but I don't know what this could mean. We fly for about an hour in silence before the younger kids go beneath those of us that are distracted slightly. They all start to whisper, but I can't understand what they are saying for some reason. It's not that windy and they aren't that far away.

This is starting to worry me. The fact that we are distracted is one thing, but that we can't hear what we used to be able to hear is another. I fly towards Max to ask her if she's having the same problem when a gun shot fires out between the two of us. It hits no one but it makes everyone turn to see about a hundred Erasers behind us, all with guns. They have no leader, but they are all set after us.

I try to move towards Max again, and see Fang doing the same. Another shot is fired between Max and I, and one between Max and Fang. Iggy and Icarus are separated by gun shots also. I look down to see the youngsters being separated by Flock also. That's when it hits me. They want to grab the two Flocks separate and also the older and the younger. Only one thing to do: Fight.

"They want to separate us by Flock and age group! Fight them so that we can merge again!" Everyone snaps into action and starts to fight the Erasers. We all fight for about ten minutes before I realize the group I'm in, the distracted group, is getting nowhere while the younger kids are almost out of Erasers to fight.

I fly above all of the fighting, and, amazingly, the Erasers leave me alone as long as I'm just hovering. I watch the younger kids as they take out the last of their Erasers and merge again. They look around to see what's going on, but it takes them a minute to look up and see that the rest of us are having problems.

Now that I think about it, this is very, very weird. It's almost as if the Erasers are causing our distraction and making it tougher to fight. Almost as if… That's it!

Angel! I scream with my mind. The Erasers having something like your mind control power. They are distracting us so that we can't fight as well as normally. They must not think that you younger kids are as much as a threat. I don't know why they think that, but they do. You have to cancel it out!

I'm on it. Man, they are idiots to think the rest of us aren't threats!

Just take care of it fast!

I zoom back into the fight and kick an Eraser fighting Fang on the head, hard. I then do it to the next one. I keep doing that until I realize something, I can think properly! I hope this is Angel because if it isn't then I have no idea what it is. Well, no time to think about it now, I have to help the Flocks! I go back to hitting the Erasers on the head, but then decide to mix it up a bit and hit a few between the wings.

Test time. I fly above the Erasers and above Max's Flock. I go down towards them and hit a few Erasers on the head before I kick another few between the wings. I fly over to Max and stand next to her. This time there are no bullets being shot to try to keep us away from each other. It's almost as if they have given up on what I decide to do. Like they don't care anymore and just want to take out the rest of the Flocks.

Well, if they want to hurt these Flocks, they will have to fight me, and fight very well. At that thought I jump up at the Erasers separating the two Flocks so that we can all regroup and fight even better. I take out twenty Erasers in moments because they must think of me like they think of a younger Flock member.

Wait… that's it! If they have you distracted then they think of you as a threat because they only distracted the older members! Maybe me getting away from the Flocks had something to do with it because the younger kids had been below the rest of us when we became distracted. Well, only one way to test it.

"Max! Go above the fighting for a minute to see if the distracted feeling goes away. If it does, go help my Flock and send Fang up. I'll send Matthew up if I see you go over there."

She just nods in response before going up above the fighting. The Erasers ignore her like they ignored me, so that tells me my idea might be correct. I look away from her for a few minutes to take down another twenty Erasers. When I get a moment to look up again, she is going down towards my Flock, looking a little surprised. She goes next to Fang, taps him on the shoulder lightly so he knows she's there, and whispers my message to him.

As I watch them, Fang turns to look at me and I nod slightly so that he knows I actually said that. I watch him start to fly up and then go over to Matthew and tap his shoulder. He looks at me and I lean down to his ear so I can whisper, "Go up above the fighting for a few minutes, where Fang is. Come back down once your distracted feeling is gone."

He turns to look at me for a second, and I look at him, trying to make him believe me. He looks over at Max who nods, and then he nods at me before flying up. I look over at Max, nod, and then start to fight just as hard as before, aiming towards my Flock. Out of the corner of my eye I see Max doing the same thing.

A few minutes later, Fang and Matthew are back and take our places so that we can go and inform Iggy and Icarus about the plan. We send them both up and tell them the same thing as we told Fang and Matthew. We both start fighting until they come back so that Max can tell Nudge and I can tell Peter and Wendy. They all go as willingly as everyone else had. Once they get back down, we have very confused Erasers and very pissed off Flock members attacking the group from both sides. Within five minutes after everyone was here and themselves, we got rid of every Eraser that had been here.

We all form a little group, with Max and I in front, looking down at the pile of Erasers on the ground. Time to finish this group off. "Iggy, give me a bomb please." He hands me one without thinking and I throw it down so that they are gone for good. "Let's get off to Canada."

We all fly north.

5 Days Later:

We land just outside of Calgary, ready to try and figure out where Itex is up here, and where it could be. But first… we need food. I look around at the Flocks and say, "Let's find some food before anything else you guys." They all smile and follow me while I go to the nearest Tim Horton's to find some doughnuts and coffee.

We come out with them in our hands and go sit down at the nearest bench to eat them. After about ten minutes of us eating them as fast as we could while still looking normal, we are done. Time to make up a plan and figure out where Total is.

"Let's find a library like we did in New York. Maybe that will tell us what we need to know since we actually know that Itex exists," Angel says, trying to be helpful. Gazzy, Iggy, and Nudge groan; even though Iggy is the quietest of the three I still hear him.

"I think it's a good idea, so stop groaning you three. I know it was boring last time, but this time we should be quicker." I look over to Max and Fang and see them nodding slightly. "Let's go find the nearest library so that we can get it over with quicker."

Those three are still groaning, but they get up and follow me to the corner. We look down the right street and see no library, but when we look down the left, we see a very close library. Great luck in my opinion, but I take what luck I get since it's so rare.

We walk down the street and go inside. I look at a sign that says that the computers are at the back and we go there. That's when I realize that this library doesn't have a sign-in sheet, but you need a library card. It's a good thing we have our last resort; Nudge.

"Nudge, find a library card number and password so that we can be in the computer. Then search for Itex in Canada. After that, show us the pictures to see if Angel recognizes anything." I turn towards Angel. "That reminds me, how did you see anything through these guys?" I gesture to Max and her Flock.

Angel shrugs and says, "They have the memories, but they aren't as clear as they should be. It's as if they knew what they were doing, but their mind took the back end of everything while they were controlled. I just saw a patch on the arm of some guy that had a Canadian flag in it. I guess that if I saw the patch again I'd recognize it, but I don't think I could describe it or draw it."

"That's okay Angel. Just be ready to look at symbols once Nudge gets them up." She nods and looks at the screen when I do.

Wow! Nudge already has a list of Itexicons in Canada up on the screen. The only thing is that it's called Candex up here in Canada. She starts to show the symbols of all the Candexes in the East and slowly makes her way west.

When she gets to the only branch in the Canadian Rockies, Angel says, "Stop! That's the symbol! I'd recognize it anywhere. That's where it is, in the Rockies. Looks like a place named Jasper."

"Great job Angel," I say. "Now, Nudge, find out exactly where that branch is if you can."

She nods and starts to search the Internet, but within three minutes she has closed the screen and turned to face me. "I can't find out where it is exactly, Max. I just printed out a sheet of the place and I can circle the most likely places, but it's hidden too well. I can't find it!" She looks really sad and annoyed.

"Its okay Nudge. I said if you could find it, and since you can't, you did the next best thing. Go get us that map and show us the best places." She nods and rushes off to get it.

When she gets back, she has a red sharpie in one hand, and a piece of paper in the other. She quickly does something on the paper with the sharpie before letting the rest of us see it. She points to all of the circles she made. "These are the only places I can think of that could have the building without anyone ever finding it without knowing it's there unless you have wings."

I look at the circles before I actually think about how many there are and count. No way! That's a lot of places! "Twelve places!? How are we going to cover twelve places, Nudge? That is way too many." I hear murmured agreements from the rest.

"I'm sorry Max, but those are the only places they could be, and since we don't know the exact position, we have to go with the best places."

I sigh because I realize she is right, even if that is a lot of places. "Let's get out of here you guys. We can hit a Tim Horton's on the way out to get some food."

I hear a lot of groans and someone who sounds like Iggy mutter, "Are these people trying to kill us with this? That sounds like a whole lot of flying…"

I'm sorry to say that in my head I agree with that statement completely, but it has to be done. We all run out of Tim Horton's with a big bunch of doughnuts, run to the outside of town, and fly up. Just as we get five miles away from town Angel says, "I think… we have some trouble coming our way."

First, I'd like to thank all of you readers and reviewers!!! You are what keeps this story going. Keep on reading an reviewing. We are at about 950 hits and 71 reviews! Let's keep it up!

Next, I'm sorry it took me so long to update but I've been busy and just couldn't seem to write. I think it was PMing with Julie AV that got me writing again, so thanks Julie AV! I have Chapter 15 underway pretty well, so it should be up in a few days. I'll write as much as I can over this 4-day-weekend so that I don't do that again for a bit. Again, I'm sorry about that.

Third, Happy Thanksgiving people in the U.S.!!! Have a great holiday and weekend.

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Edited: 10/10/09