Disclaimer: Maximum Ride and all of the characters associated with Maximum Ride belong to James Patterson. Everything else is mine you hear me? MINE!

Chapter description: OMGOMGOMG! I AM SO FREAKING SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! Please forgive me muchly. Anyway, Max and the others finally intro'd here. Basically they fled a large scrap and are pretty badly banged up.

Overall Description: Repressed memories are troubling the broken up flock 1 year on. And the arrival of more Avian teens either makes matters better, or worse.

Pairings: Just a heads up throughout the entire story. OCxMax, OCxFang, OCxIggy.

Other things: Character death, may be slight OOC-ness, first few chapters are 1 year before the main plot, I'm different and I love it.

Reviewers: Thank you SO much for reviewing this, it means so much, I'm so sorry I disappointed you all by making you wait so long ;

POV for this chapter: Max

Chapter 3: Flock

Shakily, I turned my head to the rest of my flock. This was possibly the first time I ever could say that we were too exhausted to be flying.
I swear I'd suddenly swapped powers with Angel because I was continually getting the thoughts of 'I'm hungry', and 'I wanna rest' floating around in my head, whether or not they were my own thoughts or not was yet to be discovered.
"Max?" Nudge's voice came over the wind. I'm hungry… "I'm hungry… Can we land soon?" I should've expected this, especially since we had bloody clothes, bruises slowly starting to show, and I swear I'm barely able to feel my wings anymore, there had to be at least a few more feathers there.
"Yes, Nudge. I know you're hungry, and we will land soon ok?" I sighed, trying not to sound annoyed… Well… Not too annoyed at least.
It had been kind of troubling for us recently, the constant Eraser attacks had left us, mostly me, on an all time low, we haven't been able to stay in one place for a whole day and it was really starting to tick me off.
What was troubling me the most though, is that I wasn't sure how much more we could take of this before one of us snapped, and on the thin wire I was on already from all this Save the world crap, I was pretty sure it would be me.
Me going nuts Not good for anyone.
You can't beat yourself up over this, Max. Introducing the other thing contributing to my thoughts of going nuts, the voice in my head. It isn't your fault you don't know when and where Erasers are going to be.
Even better, when it was wrong. Actually, it is! I mentally shouted. It's my fault because they're just following us, and for all I know it could be this stupid chip that's doing it! Yes, for those of you who need a refresher course, I have some sort of chip in my body. I've got no idea what it does, no idea how to get it out, and the worst part, I knew exactly where it had come from all too well.
It took me about 5 minutes to compose myself and found a nice secluded place to land, although to be perfectly honest, running from place to place had made me unsure of where I was.
Yep, the great Maximum Ride was lost.
Typical
"All right, is everyone ok to do a little walking at least?" I asked, trying to sound up beat, but lets face it, that ship had sailed long ago.
Most of the response I got was un-audible groaning, but I eventually heard everyone say yes. Angel especially, she's the only one who could be happy in this sort of situation.
The reason?
She still had her bear, Celeste. The annoying fur ball AKA Total. And strangely, had come out with the least number of scratches and bruises from fighting.
That was weird, considering only a few months ago had Erasers shown up at our old home and try to snatch her away from us to hell on earth. But that's fine by me if they want to go easy on her, less blood and tears.

"How about there?" We were looking about the street, looking for anywhere that was cheap and wouldn't mind giving 6 normal kids a large amount of food.
"Mmm, I don't think they'd even serve us there…" Fang told Nudge, pointing out the fact that it was also a bar. First off, it would probably still be closed right now, not that I would know. Secondly, tall as we were for people our age, there's no one on earth they would sell food to us.
We were getting desperate now, it was pathetic.
In the end we just settled with a McDonalds, not exactly the best choice after the last time we were in one, but it was just another dark memory I could suppress.
"How much cash do we have?" Iggy asked, reminding me that in the real world, food cost money.
"Uhm, enough… I think…" I said, pulling out a few twenties, and accidentally, the credit card that strangely had my name on it, but I stuffed it back into my pocket.
"Looks like it'll be more then enough!" Nudge said happily. And then we turned back to the cashier who looked with wide eyes at the 6 overly filled trays that lay in front of him and I gave him the cash.
$40 dollars for a feasts worth amount of food, rip off.
After scanning for any sign of smugness, none, we went off and sat in the corner of the restaurant, shovelling down everything. Seriously, I was surprised no one had choked yet.
Absent minded, I was looking out of the window just in case. But what I saw wasn't what I was expecting.
A guy around my age, obviously dyed red hair and black highlights was walking down the side way on the opposite side to us. A few yards behind him, 2 pretty faced looking models.
My heart jumped, they were following him and he didn't have a clue.
More importantly, they were following a human.
I whispered Fang as soon as I'd registered this. He gave me a 'Not our problem' look and I scowled at him.
Then got up and left, everyone except Fang and Iggy watching me.

"Where's Max going?" Angel asked.
"Off to be Super Max, defender of the weak again…" Fang sighed and took a bite of his burger.