Musical inspiration by: Firefly (intro theme), For What It's Worth, and a few other songs.

To my devoted (alright, not so devoted after all) readers:

I am truly sincerely sorry for the humongous delay and false promises of a more recent update. There's been finals, writer's cramp, and conflicts with the plot of the original Maximum Ride. Plus, I've been having a hard time determining the fate of the OC.

I have decided to make the OC…different than before. It has more influence in the end, but for most of the story stays totally out of sight. He won't even be with the flock in most chapters.

My inspiration for picking this back up was my opinion that the new Maximum Ride book… well, it was bad. Sadly, most authors of trilogy series have left too many loose ends open and feel pressured to bring everything to a close. They also fail miserably in this regard, and that's great stuff for fan fictions. Again, some of James Patterson's ideas and my own seemed to be close together. I like to think that they're some of his better ideas. Some of his more…offlandish, somewhat idealistic ideas I'm totally ignoring.

Spoiler alert for Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports: A clone of Max, or the whole flock? Robotic Erasers? Itex overthrown by a bunch of kids with nothing better to do than listen to an anonymous blog? The elimination of perfectly good Erasers in favor of seemingly useless drone copies? Okay, those were all things I did not even consider.

End spoilers for Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

By the way, Thanks a lot XIII Dragon for all your help. You've done a lot, and I really appreciate the nitpicking. It's the minor details that I need a lot of help on, and I'll be doing a bit of dialogue correction. If anything sounds cheesy, wrong, or inaccurate, then PLEASE tell me.

Chapter 4

I Would Have Been Your Daddy

The flock plus Ghost made their way down the hallway. "I can't believe this is working," said Nudge quietly. The whole flock was shaking inside, but they projected no worry at all. I was extremely proud.

"Quiet," hissed Fang as they rounded the corner. A whitecoat looked over the small group with mild interest, then went back to his clipboard full of charts. Everyone collectively sighed in relief.

The group consisted of two security officers, Fang and I each carrying utility belts, complete with guns, Angel and Ghost as two prisoners, and Iggy with Gazzy and Nudge posing as three Erasers backing up the tiny group.

"So, we're all clear on the plan?"

"Get to the rooftops, hide Angel in a corner while everyone else does as much damage as they can to the helicopters. When something hits the fan, we're out of there to make sure we don't get splattered," Gazzy said imitating me.

I resisted the urge to call him a smartass because just then an Eraser rounded the corner. Fortunately, he didn't even seem to notice us, and again we gave off another sigh. "How much further?" whispered Nudge.

"Don't know," I answered.

"It should be just ahead," Ghost said. "Express elevator. Should take us straight to the helipad, no other stops allowed on the way up, in case of emergencies."

"You know if anyone spots us escorting prisoners to the roof, there's going to be a lot of questions." Fang pointed out. "What if Jeb's up there?"

"I don't want to hang around to answer them," I said. "Thanks, Ghost, for helping us," I said. I didn't know what to think of Ghost. There'd been no explanations. Hell, Angel didn't even say how they'd met. What if he was an Eraser? What if at the top of the elevator was a squad of Erasers, headed by none other than Ari himself?

"Don't mention it," he answered. This didn't help me figure out his intentions much, and it raised more questions than it answered.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I don't mean to pry," Iggy said, cutting me off. "But I have a feeling that getting us out of here…it isn't in your best interests. You didn't have to bring back extra uniforms. You could have disappeared into that supply closet and disappeared on us. You also gave us your escape route, even though you know that if there's any cameras in the elevator then we're screwed."

"Perceptive of you," he answered. His voice had dropped a little in warmth, and was a little cooler now. It sent tiny icy pinpricks up my spine. He motioned towards the elevator button, and it opened instantly. "Let's just say I've got my reasons."

"What do you mean? What do you want to get done?" I asked, confused and slightly wary, stepping into the elevator.

"I thought you didn't mean to pry. So don't."

"Actually, that was just me who didn't want to pry. I didn't say anything about her," Iggy joked as the door slid closed. It wasn't even close to a squeeze. I could only imagine pilots taking this elevator to their choppers, all scrambling to catch us. I then grinned as I imagined the looks on their faces when they found out that their precious helicopters would no longer fly. "But it's just that we were…sort of betrayed last time we had help escaping from here,"

I quickly filled him in on Jeb's betrayal while we rode the elevator to the top. By the end of it, he had a sort of far away look to his face I couldn't place. I turned to Angel, who only shrugged.

The elevator finished going up. We all took a breath, even Ghost. To his credit, there was no one waiting for us on the other side. The hangar was mostly empty. Helicopters lay about the hangar, totally unattended. I grinned. "Time to get messy," I said.

Iggy's face lit up at the prospect of getting his hands on machinery. I couldn't think of a better way to screw up a machine than to let a blind pyromaniac kid play around with its insides.

Only a few people were in the hangar at all, and they were otherwise occupied on something in their corner. Angel and Ghost were shuffled off to the darkest corner quickly, and Fang opened the locks to their handcuffs.

We split up and began to work on the helicopters. The Erasers in the hangar were all on the opposite side of the hangar, so I opened the door that wasn't facing them and reached inside. I cracked the stick for the control first. I then began twisting buttons off and cracked the LCD screen the pilot must have used for navigation. The hood was also open, so I jammed the control stick into the engine and used it as a pry bar until something inside snapped quietly. I looked up, but none of the Erasers seemed interested. I grinned as I took the buttons and fed them into the gas tank.

I then used the control stick to sever several tubes and punctured the oil tank. That should keep them off our tails for some time I thought, congratulating myself on my handiwork. I made my way over to the next helicopter.

This one didn't have is hood open, but that didn't stop me from snapping the control stick off again and this time prying loose the screen that protected the instruments. I also found that the seat was hardly what I would call properly attached to the floor of the helicopter. I compounded the problem by popping loose the tiny screws keeping it secured. I then found that almost nothing was between the instrument panel I'd torn up and the engine, and poked around with the control stick, pulling wires and other things loose. I figured I'd done enough and left the stick inside the cockpit. I looked around the hangar. The last helicopter was being sabotaged by Fang, who was almost invisible underneath the undercarriage. I turned back to the Erasers. They weren't there. I checked on Ghost and Angel. Both were still two dark shadows in the far corner. So if they hadn't been found…

I saw it out of the corner of my eye a second before it was too late. Two Erasers snarled at me and began morphing simultaneously. A morphed Eraser- one who is fully transformed- is something extremely dangerous to face in close quarters combat. Two of them made it all the worse, and I was in a place that had a roof over my head, so I couldn't fly. I was screwed. I could take one of them out, I knew. From there, I had to hope the others arrived in time.

I leapt from the helicopter with both feet out, hitting one in the chest before it had finished morphing. I landed and grabbed the fallen one and threw him against the helicopter. He smashed against it with a loud BANG, and then fell to the concrete. I had no time to celebrate this particular victory, however, as his partner had finished morphing and smashed a closed fist against my face as I turned to face him. I hadn't been entirely expecting him to morph that quickly- apparently The School kept upgrading them faster and faster nowadays. He loomed over me, a wolf's equivalent of a smile spread across his features as he stepped closer. Then, a wrench appeared over his head. The two objects collided with a crunch SO satisfying I doubted even a Snickers bar could come close. The Eraser's eyes rolled into the back of his head.

I shook my head clear of cobwebs, but suddenly a feral growl alerted me to a new danger. But the danger wasn't directed towards me, but the one who had saved me. The Eraser I thought I'd dealt with (apparently they were made tougher now too!) tackled Ghost at the waist and brought him down. I struggled to stand, but something about the blow to my head made me stagger and grab the helicopter for support as it swam in circles.

Ghost rolled backwards, standing quickly and delivering a slow but powerful blow to the jaw of the Eraser, whose head snapped back. Ghost didn't let up, though. He continued to lay into the Eraser with everything he had, pounding powerful blows into the Eraser, refusing to give it time to recover. I couldn't believe the power behind each attack, each punch and kick echoing in the concrete chamber. The Eraser rebounded every time, though, and got in a good hit or two that made me flinch. But Ghost seemed to be holding his own, amazingly, against a fully morphed Eraser. Finally, the Eraser feinted a counter, and charged, trying to force Ghost onto the ground. In a battle of brute strength, Erasers always had a huge advantage over every other type of recombinant I'd ever seen. There was a reason The School kept them as enforcers. Whatever type of recombinant Ghost was, it was clear he was built to take punishment and keep dishing it out in spades.

He grabbed the Eraser, putting one hand against its bleeding face, the other against its chest, and backpedaled, boots skidding on the floor as he dug in. To my shock, the Eraser was being held back. Both were grunting and groaning, each trying to gain the advantage, arms bulging and quaking with exertion. The Eraser was trying to get Ghost in a bear hug, and Ghost was trying to keep the Eraser off of him. Ghost suddenly fell backwards, and the Eraser was on top of him. I pushed myself off the helicopter and stumbled towards him. I might not be much help, but I'd be damned if I was going to just let him get killed after he saved my butt.

But the Eraser suddenly went flying over, past Ghost, courtesy of a well-placed boot to the stomach. The Eraser crashed into the concrete wall a few feet away and slowly got up. Ghost tried to stand, but faltered, stumbling backwards on his back leg until finally it gave out entirely on him and he was down on one knee.

He looked up at me, startled expression on his face. He looked many times worse than the Eraser, now that I got a look at him. Small scratches went straight through the tough fabric of the jacket he wore, and even his face had several angry red streaks. He was sweating and panting far worse than the Eraser, and had an ugly gash on the back of his shin on the leg he'd used to throw the Eraser over him.

He stood up and bent over, slightly favoring one leg as he did, grunting. He yanked off his belt and tied it around his leg and its cut flesh, pulling up the pant leg a bit to use the fabric to help stem the bleeding. He gasped in pain, but stood up anyways. The Eraser was faster, and was about to get on top of Ghost but Fang appeared and proceeded to finish what Ghost had started with amazing speed, tackling the Eraser and then stomping it into the ground. The Eraser, tough as it was, could take no more and seemed to decide enough was enough and stopped moving.

No sooner had Ghost managed to stand than the alarms started blaring. Red lights flashed, and the whole building seemed to come alive. "Move!" I shouted. No one complained, and Ghost limped after us. One after the other, the flock took to the air, except Ghost and I. He turned to face me. "Protect your own, Max. I'm not coming with you, and I don't think you'll ever see me alive again. So thanks. Your escape will be a good distraction for me to do what I should have done a long time ago."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to. For once, it has nothing to do with you, Maximum Ride."

"How did you even know-"

Before I'd even finished the sentence, he had stripped off his hospital gown to reveal a security officer's uniform beneath, complete with pistol. I wondered how I hadn't noticed the uniform or the belt's bulge under his hospital uniform earlier. He now looked like almost every other security officer in The School now. He smiled sadly at me. "I'm really sorry, but you have to go now. Good luck," he said.

He then, without warning, pushed me off the building's ledge. I instantly lost altitude, and forced myself into a dive to keep from stalling, then pulled up, flapping hard to gain altitude. When I was more than a hundred feet above The School, I turned my head back and looked. Erasers were pouring out from every exit now, pointing and shouting. Ghost took notice and stepped to the edge. He looked up, and with my bird vision, I noticed him smile and step off the edge.

Oh God I thought. I didn't want to watch the landing. But instead of simply falling, he spread a pair of bright white wings from beneath the uniform, and began a clumsy descent. So he IS an Avian-Human hybrid. It was painfully obvious to me, from all the wobbling and instability that Ghost was a poor flyer…and his unceremonious to the earth below confirmed it. He got to one knee and withdrew his wings back beneath the shirt, zipping it up to help hide them even more. He disappeared inside the building without looking back.

Good luck to you too. I gained altitude back towards the flock. We had a lot of ground to cover, and we had to do it quickly. I wondered how he knew my full name. All I'd introduced myself as was 'Max.'

Ignoring the pain in my busted leg, I jogged my way down the hallway. I knew exactly which room I wanted to go to. No one bothered to spare me a second glance- everyone else was running, too. The whole building was in a mad rush, like a hornet's nest that had been hit with a rock. It was no small bit of amusement to me that I was the cause of so much mayhem, and here I was, still inside the place. Still, it wouldn't be that way for long. I was here for a reason, to accomplish one thing. Probably the last thing I would ever do. I found my thoughts wandering as I made my way towards my destination.

This had nothing to do with the flock. It had nothing to do with Maximum Ride, no matter what she believed. I unbuttoned the holster and withdrew the gun that rested inside. Adrenaline and pain nullifiers would only keep me on my feet for so long, so I had to be fast, no matter how much I wanted it to be slow and painful. I clicked the safety off, and stared at the plaque at the door.

Jeb Batchelder…you are going to pay…

I tried the handle, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the door was unlocked. Without waiting another second, I shoved the door open and followed it, leveling the gun at Jeb's face as I did. "Jeb Batchelder!" I growled loudly.

Jeb looked up from his computer, eyebrows raised. The office had changed little since I had last been inside, although they had replaced the old blue carpet with a pearly white one, and an oriental rug covered the middle. A few potted plants were placed along the walls, which I suspected were plastic. The giant oak desk was totally unchanged. The paperwork looked like it was in the exact same place, too.

"Well, Ghost, I have to say this is quite a surprising turn of events."

"Cut the chatter, Jeb. You're about to die."

"I have to say, I am quite impressed at how well you managed to destroy what plans the powers that be have set for Max. You have just upset some very powerful people. But let me ask you this: how do you plan on getting out of here alive?"

"Max, Max, Max. Is that all you ever think about?" I asked, disgusted. He was so hung up on her. He always used to go on and on about how great she was. Yes, she was amazing, but that's hardly news after two minuets of announcing it for the first time. "This isn't about Max. You and I have unfinished business, Jeb, in case you've forgotten. And as for getting out alive…I don't plan on it."

"You came here to die?" Jeb asked, curious. "Is that what you truly want? To join-"

"Finish that statement, I dare you," I snarled, motioning with the gun. "Now, get out from behind that desk."

"Or you will do what, Ghost? Kill me? If you must know, setting Max and the others free didn't change a whole lot, even if they were supposed to get out on their own."

I was about to answer that, but I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Something big was coming at me. I barely spun before the Eraser standing in the corner of the room had smashed me against the open door. Several bones popped loudly, with the growl of the Eraser and my yelp of pain the only other noise in the room. Another Eraser yanked the pistol out of my pinned hand and pointed it at my head.

Jeb's voice was quiet, but cut through the action like the knife he so often used. "Enough." Both Erasers exchanged a look, and backed away warily. I stayed crouched, coughing wetly. I spat blood onto his new oriental carpet. My eyes locked on Jeb Batchelder's, and both our features contorted, one in anger, the other in mild disgust.

The Eraser closed the door and locked it. "I have to say I'm a little disappointed in you. You used to be so cautious. Yet you didn't even close the door behind you."

I tried and failed to stand on my own. Jeb held out a hand next to the Eraser, who turned the gun over to him without a second thought. Erasers tended to prefer tearing their victims apart piece by piece instead of shooting them. "Now Ghost, I hope you realize exactly how much damage you've just done. Max and the others were going along the path they were supposed to. And then you showed up, thanks entirely to a mistake. Needless to say, the person who has made that mistake has been…retired. But you are a factor we never took into account. Now things may go totally off course."

I gasped for breath through my battered lungs. I was still having trouble breathing. "Jeb Batchelder," I said, wheezing. "I am someone who neither you nor anyone else could control. And now I've screwed something up for you, haven't I? I didn't figure into your plans, and you didn't like that. You love control. And you hate me because you know that there's no way to fix whatever it is I've done."

"You're wrong, Ghost. There is a way to undo the damage. But I'm afraid you can't be a part of the solution. I believe the saying goes, 'if you're not a part of the solution…'"

"I never would be, Jeb. Anything you ever try to do, I will fight it. You are truly evil for what you did to your own family. You turned your son into a mindless killer, and-"

"Your usefulness has come to an end, Prototype," he uttered the last word like a deadly insult. I reeled back, as if I had been slapped. His face was a stone mask as he raised the pistol and took careful aim with the same skill he had with a scalpel.

"To hell with you, Batchelder!" I bit out through the pain, tightening my muscles and struggling to step towards him, to give one last effort of resistance against the man whom I despised. The gun went off with a roar, and I fell to the floor.

A a a a a a a

The gunshot echoed in the tiny room as the bullet hit Ghost right where Jeb wanted to. Ghost's pearly white wings dropped a second after the body, gently falling with a quiet rustling whisper to fold over his back before becoming tainted red with blood. The boy struggled with the last of his strength, managing only to use his right arm to push himself up to stare up at Jeb with a cloudy expression. His whole body relaxed, head falling back to the floor as the blood began pooling quickly around his prone body, the carpet soaking it like a sponge.

"Goodbye, Ghost. I am so sorry," Jeb said softly, regretfully. He stepped around the body and calmly walked outside the room, beckoned the two Erasers to follow him and shut the door after them, leaving Ghost's body inside. The Erasers looked back at Jeb's office nervously. "Sir…should we have someone clean up the body?"

"No, I will deal with it myself," Jeb said confidently. The two Erasers exchanged a look, but said nothing. The doctors, especially ones as important as Dr. Batchelder, always got what they wanted.

A a a a a a a a a

I lay on the carpeted floor with a wicked grin. I knew everything that I needed to now. It was all coming together with Jeb's single lack of action. Everything started making sense to me. No wonder the flock hadn't figured it out yet- they had grown up their entire lives on the inside of the maze of confusion, and been kept preoccupied with daily tasks like survival. But to a newcomer…it was obvious. I almost laughed, but the bullet had hit me. But it had missed all my vital organs. And even the bleeding had almost stopped completely.

Jeb had missed. He'd taken careful aim and shot directly between my shoulder and my heart. I'd fallen on my broken ankle and collapsed, playing dead. But Jeb knew he'd missed, and left him lying there anyways. Anyone trained in medicine knew where the heart was. So obviously he wanted me alive. But why? For what reason? It made me mad for some reason. He should have killed me! Had he missed, waiting for those two goons to tear me apart later? But no, Jeb wasn't sadistic… he was scientific, willing to make sacrifices that at first seemed cruel, but he had never done anything vile for the fun of it. So there had to be a reason for him to keep me around.

Maybe Jeb wanted me to continue to mess up whatever path The School had had laid out for Max and the flock. If so, it seemed that Jeb was quite at ends with The School. And now he was forcing me to make a choice. Which did I hate more? Jeb Batchelder, or The School? It was a hard choice, considering what Jeb had done. What mattered more, what did I want more? Did I want to throw a monkey wrench in The School's plans, or did I want revenge on Jeb?

The School would have to go first, I decided. I could kill Jeb later. Despite only meeting the flock for ten minutes, it looked like Jeb had somehow managed to manipulate everything so that I was irrevocably on their side. And apparently now on Jeb's side, too.

But was Jeb now really an ally? Was this simply a ploy for him to gain more power? If thus was the case, he wouldn't live long to regret leaving me alive here. Once The School was gone, Jeb Batchelder would soon be next.

In addition to letting me live, he'd given me one important clue; removing me from the flock would let The School try and fix whatever damage I'd done to The School's plans for the flock's future. By not killing me, Jeb had essentially said that he didn't approve of whatever it was The School had been planning for Max and the others. And somehow, in the time span of ten minuets, I had met the flock and had caused a lot of trouble for The School.

But how had I caused trouble? What had I done to influence the flock? Well, they hadn't had guns before we'd met, I guess. I'd retrieved them from the locker room, as part of the disguise? I had taught them a few things, mostly pointers on how to blend in when traveling in a group to keep your eyes on each other, pretending to ignore everyone around you, but those skills were nothing vitally important, right? And killing me wouldn't make them forget how to use a gun or blend into a crowd. So what was it? Had I gotten them out ahead of some sort of timetable? I recalled their story of how Jeb had gotten them out earlier, as part of a test, it would seem. Was that the plan

After more than a minute of lying still on the floor, I gave up. Whatever I'd done was done. It was inconsequential if I did it again- the damage had been done. The only real thing was to keep them from going back to the way they were before.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, Jeb had said. So removing the problem was the first step for them to change the flock back to the way they were, which was bad, because the problem so happened to be me. As long as I continued to live, The School would continue to have trouble manipulating the flock. If so, I had to get back to them as fast as I could. And finding them would not be easy.

I picked myself up using my unhurt arm. I had to make myself scarce, and do it fast. The keys Jeb had left on the edge of his desk would certainly help a lot. How considerate of the former bastard, now dear ally. My, how things could change in such a short time. I crawled towards the desk, slowly pulling myself up, using it for support. So that was it then. The die had been cast, and I had ended up supporting the man I'd sworn to kill. I'm sorry. I didn't kill Jeb. I can't kill him. Not yet, but soon my brothers and sisters. Soon he will die.

Alright, sorry for the uber long wait. At the rate I'm going, it's practically an update once a year. That's pathetic, since most of the chapters are written by now. Unfortunately, they're all on different machines. This is a new one (laptop), an old macintosh, my dad's laptop, and my old (still busted with a bad power source) PC. I decided that all my rewrites were going nowhere new, and were flawed in major places, so I dropped a few of them off. The story is a little shorter now, and has less of the OC in it (I mentioned this before).

Now as I promised, Ghost will not be appearing in many chapters. Out of sight, not totally out of Max's mind. She may continue to wonder about when he's going to show up. In case you're wondering about the chapter title, I needed one, and 'the great escape' was pretty lame. So I decided to take a page from Halo. Sue me.

This was supposed to be two chapters, but I figured I'd simply leave him out for one extra chapter and give you guys a break. I've still got to edit the last part of this…if anyone finds anything confusing, redundant, or not clear, please, PLEASE point it out to me. This last part contains hints for the future, and sets up the plot, so it's vital I get it absolutely right, and absolutely shiny.