Okay, sorry if you guys keep getting alerts for the same chapter- I'm adding corrections to old ones and the like, and I forgot on chapter 6 to use the replace chapter. My bad. Sorry. I figured I'd make it up to you with a real new chapter.

A a a a a a a

You know what? Flying in the rain is not fun. Running in the rain isn't a ton of fun, but flying in it is about 50 times worse. So it's not fun at all. It's terrifying, loud, disorienting, and the weather plays hardball, sometimes literally, using hailstones the size of marbles to make one's day miserable. Lightning and thunder makes you wince and instinctively dive every time it goes off- and it feels like it's right next to you, too. The wind batters you about and disorients you, putting unusual strains on someone who was trying to stay airborne.

So Ghost was not, as you can expect, not having a good time, shivering and shaking as he flapped as hard as he could. For once his heavier construction was in his favor- any pounds lighter and he was sure that he would tossed around like a rag doll. Several things kept him going- the fact that landing wouldn't make him any warmer or dryer. And happy thoughts, such as the memory of the car going over the edge of the cliff. It was one of those things you don't expect to see more than once in a lifetime, much as you wish you did, and it still made him smile a little as he thought of different things. He had a smile for imagining Jeb's facial reaction. He had a smile for imagining Jeb having to buy a new one. He even made a sinister smile thinking over his plans for what to do with the new one Jeb would inevitably buy.

It kept him going. He was going to be tired tonight, but it was worth it, he knew. It was the only thing that kept the pain in his chest from really bothering him- yes, Jeb had missed the vital stuff. But it had been many days and it still hurt. One more reminder of his failure, he reflected. He wanted so badly to stay behind- to hunt Jeb, to find him and kill him then and there, to make him learn that keeping Ghost alive was a mistake. But Ghost also knew that he'd been very lucky to even get to Jeb's office, and then into the Garage without being spotted. He switched his thoughts back to plans for the next day.

A a a a a a a a

"Uh…Doctor Batchelder?" Asked the security agent. He looked a little nervous, and Jeb just felt his headache multiply. His day- both the Security Agent and his own day- had probably just gotten that much worse.

"What?" he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. He didn't have to be in a good mood if he knew he was about to get bad news. From the way the agent was standing, it was very bad news.

"Sir…I think we found your car," he said, holding out a folder. Jeb sighed and reached across his desk. A few printed digital photos slipped out, and he turned it right side up, to make sure he wasn't looking at what he thought he was. He flipped open the folder and saw the rest. He looked up- the security agent had smartly slipped way while Jeb was distracted. Jeb slammed his fist onto the mahogany desk. The twisted hulk of what was probably his car was found at the bottom of a cliff, apparently.

No one's body had been found. Good. That meant that Ghost didn't die. It also meant Jeb had the opportunity to kill Ghost for doing this.

A a a a a a a a

We looked at the approaching thunderstorm. Crap. It was coming fast. We had called an emergency meeting a few minutes ago, and decided that it was safe here, in high ground, safe from a flash flood. What they didn't say was that if we had to stop for a sudden reason, say, cough voice cough then we might not be in such a good position. Namely, we might end up in the middle of a flash flood. Which would not be good. So we had unanimously chosen to wait out the storm.

Right now, Gazzy and Nudge were getting fish, Fang was getting firewood with Angel, Iggy was making the setup for the fireplace, with rocks that I suspect he found by stumbling over them. and Nudge was helping me make something of a roof using sticks and foliage. It wouldn't hold up very well, but we would add in some of our jackets. The voice had added in a bit of opinion and even a little help- it suggested how to weave certain branches together. The roof might leak a little…okay a lot, but it was better than nothing. The others came back after a successful forage, and we had a quick meal, one that was soon interrupted by a familiar visitor who had come straight from hell. With all the background thunder in the distance, they had effectively masked their entrance, and Angel's ability to detect people wasn't always as efficient as we would have liked.

Ari stepped through the clearing. He had a whole entourage of Erasers with him. We all stood to face Ari. Even Iggy knew the sound of his breathing and footsteps and faced him. I dropped the remainder of my fish-on-a-stick, and the others did the same. There were meager bits left. What surprised me, however, was when more Erasers came through. Ari had apparently replenished his squad from their little incursion into our home. And that time, even though they had the solid drop on us, they'd kicked our butts. Hard. And we were in great physical condition then- well fed and everything. We had been near starved these past few days. This could get ugly.

I tried to do this diplomatically. "What do you want, Ari?" I growled, clenching a fist. See? Diplomatically.

"Ah, yes, dear Max. And…" Ari began lazily, but then paused dead still, scanning the flock incredulously. He scanned it backwards, then forwards, as if looking for someone who wasn't there. I resisted the urge to look with him. "Hold on a second, where's Ghost?"

I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be shocked or angry at him. Now if he had simply noted that Ghost was missing, I wouldn't have made such a big deal out of it. But no, he was acting as if Ghost were the only reason he was here. Was I jealous? Hell no. But what were we, chopped liver? Still, never let it be said I am jealous of anything but kids who can call themselves normal. I certainly wasn't about to be jealous of someone the Erasers were looking for. "What do you mean, where's Ghost?" I asked suspiciously. Max the voice drifted in.

Not now I urged it.

"Where the devil is he?"

Max…get the others to…

"You mean you can't see him?" Iggy asked, teasing.

"He is standing right in front of you." Nudge added sarcastically.

To do what? I asked. It seemed to me as if they had an idea going. I gave an important look to Gazzy that the Erasers couldn't see. He gave no sign of receiving the look, but stepped right into the act.

"Yeah, what is this, some sort of game?" Ghost said. At least, I at first thought it really was Ghost, until I realized that it was Gazzy who had said it, using Ghost's voice. Ari spun quickly, crouched low, facing slightly to our right. Even though I had told Gazzy to do the voice, I hadn't expected him to be that good. The hapless Erasers gave each other looks, necks craning and heads swiveling.

Never mind the voice said.

"I'm right here," Gazzy continued, throwing his voice to be right in front of Ari's path. Ari spun again. "A little to the left there, dog-face. Good, I think. God, even Iggy knows where I am better than you do."

Ari looked totally baffled, trying to see where Iggy was looking. Of course, it was no help whatsoever. We all were staring at Ari- but to Ari, we were looking at someone in front of his face. He growled, dove forward, and promptly kissed the dirt. "Keep trying, you'll get it eventually. Or maybe one of your new goons can try and point you in the right direction."

But they all looked as lost as Ari. Not one of them was facing in the right direction. One even was turned completely away.

"Look, if you came here to find me, and you obviously can't, why don't you just go on home?"

Ari paused. His face was totally confused. He looked so lost, so out of it that I was surprised he hadn't already started shouting orders to shred us to tiny little bits. Instead, he simply looked to the others. "But you're-" he shut himself up quickly and seemed to ponder the situation. "Search the area," he said quietly to his pack. They turned their backs on us and stalked away into the forest.

"What was that about?" Gazzy asked in his regular voice. Now I was as confused as the Erasers.

"I don't know. All in favor of getting the hell out of here before anything else weird happens?"

"Aye," everyone all said unanimously. Seconds later we were airborne, having ripped our makeshift shelter apart in a frenzy to get our coats and get airborne.

A a a a a a a

"Good thinking, Gazzy. That was your best performance yet!" Iggy said, slapping him a high-five. "Dog face," he sniggered. "Great job."

"What do you say we make the Erasers paranoid? What if they think he's invisible? Just tell them he's called 'Ghost' for a reason. He can disappear…." He said, making a creepy noise following his little joke.

"It would be a nice turn of the tables," Fang said seriously.

"Gazzy, do you feel up to it?" I asked hopefully.

"I don't know. What if they manage to find the real him?" Iggy asked, again that hint of concern.

"Then they won't buy our little act and we're in trouble."

"All right," he said. "Hey, if they're looking for him, to the point that they aren't even going after us, what does that mean? Hurts my feelings," he said, putting a hand over his heart and a dismayed expression on his face.

"Well, I don't think we'll be that lucky…" Nudge chipped in. "I mean, we caught him totally off-guard. Odds are he'll attack us whether or not Ghost is here. But the fact that he was even looking for an agent of The School is…strange."

"Yeah, you're right. Unless The School is trying to get us to trust one another or something." I knew that wasn't right- Ari had fully expected Ghost to be here. So that meant he'd made clean his getaway from the school- if it was a getaway at all, not them giving him instructions on what to do with us."

"No, that can't be right. The School is either totally blunt, like when they kidnapped me, or amazingly subtle, like they were with Jeb. If that's their plan, then this is pathetic." Angel said. "I honestly expected more. Aren't they scientists? Well, I'm…just disappointed," she said, pouting a little.

I laughed harder than I had in days. Still, something wasn't right. It didn't add up. When he'd heard Ghost, he'd tried to tackle him to the ground. He was really gunning for Ghost, not faking it. Why? We'd been lucky this time. Would this work again? Ari had been off guard, yes. But would he still be flat-footed the next time? Would he bring detection equipment to find that Ghost simply wasn't here? Would Ari believe his eyes or his ears?

Set down the voice said.

What?

Do you think you can out fly that storm for much longer? The hills are the safest place, and the ground below you right now is still fairly high- keep going though, and you run the risk of flash floods. The elevation drops shortly thereafter.

I mentally flipped him off, but realized that he had a point. Yes, we had to fly away from Erasers. But that did not mean that we had to fly into a trap that had been designed by none other than Mother Nature herself. "Flock, we're going back down in a minute, while we still are high enough to avoid a flash flood," I said.

"With Ari so close?"

"Hey, if you didn't expect this, what are the chances they'll expect it?" Gazzy asked.

Fang was, as usual, quiet.

A a a a a a a a

Ari stifled a curse. He'd been told to relocate a few miles away. He and the others glanced between themselves- when Max took off, they usually got a helicopter ride out to try and catch up. What gave? Why the long walk? Then more information came through. Apparently, they'd tried to give them the slip by only traveling a few miles.

He reported that the Flock seemed to have Ghost…but that they had 'failed' to capture him. In a private message to his dad, Ari inquired as to whether or not Ghost could somehow turn invisible. Ari had seen similar experiments done with chameleons, but not one with wings.

To his surprise, his father said that Ghost did not have the ability to turn invisible. So where was he? He stifled a growl as he stared through the binoculars into the tent. These weren't just regular bird-watcher binoculars. These were top of the line military equipment. And it had heat sensors. Right now, he could count six inside the shabby, leaky tent they'd cleverly made. He counted what he thought was six, though it was hard to tell in the tiny cramped tent where one body ended and the next began. Six accounted for Max, the tall one, the blind one, the small boy, the small girl, and the girl they'd captured. Unless Ghost had switched with one of the bigger ones, or had managed to make himself invisible to heat sensors too- (there were experiments in that field, too) then he wasn't here. Or maybe he was just behind someone from Ari's point of view. Unfortunately, there was really no other angle to get a shot from.

He growled, and settled back into his camouflage. He wanted nothing more than to have his squad pile on atop that tent and bring it crashing down on top of the bird freaks' heads. But The School had been adamant that Ghost was his primary target- something about him ruining the flock. In Ari's opinion, they were already ruined.

The next day, there was still no sign of Ghost. In fact, as the flock awakened to find the storm gone, he was certain that Ghost wasn't a part of the flock. He growled. What was going on?

The plan had been simple- get around the tents, wait for Ghost to come out- alone or with the others, and hit him then. But they simply couldn't see him. It was more than frustrating to simply sit and wait while your prey sat unawares. It was sheer torture and agony. Images of violence and blood clouded his mind as he gave a wet, hungry growl. Screw The School. The flock was his.

He gave the signal to attack. No sooner had he given the whistle than did his full squad show up, dirty and as angry as he was over being made to spend the night with the prey in plain sight. It was time to end this. The flock began emerging from their tent. Ari gave a mighty fifteen foot leap, made all the more impressive seeing as how he did it uphill. He crashed into the tent, landing on the main support beam. Ghost may be invisible, but he knew from watching movies when he was bored that just because you were invisible didn't mean you could phase right through stuff. But the tent fell empty, no struggling outline for him to start pounding. No bootprints with no one filling them. Nothing.

All around him, the fight was raging fiercely. Ari noticed something. The smaller boy. He seemed talkative enough during most fights, and yet he thought he saw his mouth move a fraction of an inch…

"Max, lookout!" Ghost said. Ari looked over to where he saw the voice. No one was there. But the small one was staring right at Max, who had just ducked under an Eraser that had tried to get the drop on her from behind. Of course! Ari wasn't sure how, but the small one was emulating the voice. He had to be. It explained everything- the reason only six food bars were eaten at a time, why Ghost was never asked to do anything, why he never took watch, why we never found anything with thermal or infrared detection equipment, and why we only kept hearing only his voice.

"Ghost isn't here!" Ari shouted, diving towards Fang. "It's all a trick! Attack them an-"

He was about a dozen feet from my first soon-to-be-victim, when an ear-splitting CRACK sounded. Standing at the edge of the woods, holding a smoking barrel in one hand and the throat of Ari's Eraser Scout in the other was a very visible Ghost. He dropped the Eraser, who had a bullet hole in her chest. She flopped lifelessly to the Earth. Pity, Ari had rather liked her.

"I'm what?" he asked, paused like he was waiting for an explanation.

Ari roared. The remaining ten Erasers charged dead for him, angered from all the curious and mystifying deception. Now was their chance. They wasn't sure when he'd found the time to eat, sleep, or drink, or how he'd managed to do all these things without everyone noticing. But it was unimportant now- he was going to die a painful death.

A a a a a a a

I stared over at Ghost. Where in the hell did he come from? And why had he just shot the Eraser? I stared at the body. So was everyone else. I knew better than to ask him where he'd come from. "I'm sorry, Ari, but what? Ghost is here, you stupid mutt! He can turn invisible!"

Ari froze, and the others seemed to be following his lead. But the effect on Ghost was one of those Kodak moments, where you wish to God that you had a camera. "Wh-"

"Angel," I whispered.

"On it," she whispered back. I knew she was informing him of our little plan. Of course, I had no idea why or how Ghost was here. I know what I'd told everyone. But right now…well, he may well have just saved us.

Ghost seemed to leap a foot into the air, but he had maintained better facial expression control than I'd thought was possible. "That's right," he said a second later. But he said it hesitantly. I couldn't blame him. He'd come equipped to fight a war from all the equipment he had on, not play charades. Still it seemed to spook some of the others.

"Oh, sure," Ari said. I muttered a curse. He hadn't fallen for it. "Then why aren't you invisible right now, huh?"

"I was invisible enough to kill your scout here," he said, toeing the girl eraser. "And besides, I don't need to be because I've got you," he said, raising the pistol to Ari. Ari looked down the barrel a good twenty feet away. I knew that in all reality at that type of range the pistol was more or less useless. Ari smirked.

"Sure, you've got a target on me, but…"

As if on cue, the erasers surged forward as one and Ari dove to the side. The pistol went off, and the shot buried itself into a tree. I saw one of the Erasers that had been preoccupied with me try to run past, but I stuck out a foot and flung him into the ground. "Forgetting someone, are we?" I asked, giving him a good boot to the ribs before he got up and faced me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ghost turn and run back into the forest, a full six erasers plus Ari chasing him. The occasional gunshot told me the chase was still on. The rest of us dealt with the remaining three we'd forced behind. As far as we could tell, Ghost had shot one, the scout, Ari had gone off with six, and we'd forced four to stay here, and a typical squad consisted of twelve. So that was…everyone. Four erasers were going to be a challenge on a straight up-and-up fight, but we could manage.

The one I was facing stood up straight, shaking off the pain and tensing for another attack when suddenly another eraser tackled it to the ground and proceeded to pound its partner senseless. I looked up, and Angel gave me a wink. I turned back to the two fighting Erasers, and just gave a weak smile. That meant two on six…which in the open clearing was not as difficult. They might deck one of us, but they'd have to turn around to ward off another attack. And they were young, and weren't very quick to catch on to the new tactic. In under a minute, all the Erasers were unconscious.

"What now?" I asked.

Another gunshot sounded, this time closer than the others. And then Ghost had broken through the woods, running like hell, gun pointed backwards, more to try and scare anyone from getting too close than as an actual threat. He didn't bother to slow to reload the clip, but instead kept running, using the speed to liftoff. "Go, go go!" he shouted loudly.

Max, it's time to move.

"Flock, up and away!" I shouted. We were out of there. And I hoped dearly that we were doing the right thing.

A a a a a a a a

Look, I know I promised you all an explanation for why Ghost hates Jeb so much. This chapter went on longer than planned, and so I'm breaking it up into two sections. Maybe next chapter. Sorry about the false information. Thanks to The Blue Smurf Bandit (fiction press). Thanks also to all my favorite readers!

XIII Dragon

Sesshy's Girl 00

Lildragonpet

Again, sorry about both the mixup earlier with chapter 6 and that I didn't include more this chapter, but it's 3,800 words already.