Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride. Does anyone else feel like a FRIED EGG!? Sorry, that's my boredom with these disclaimers talking, or writing, however you see it.

The next morning, it was time for me and the flock to get going. We were all outside, giving our goodbyes to Ella and Dr. Martinez.

"Well, good luck Max," said Dr. Martinez, "And if you need a home, you and all your friends will always be welcome to stay here."

"Thanks, Dr. Martinez," I said, "we really appreciate that."

"Bye, Max," said Ella, giving me yet another hug, "I'll miss you even more now that you came and have to leave right away."

"I'll miss you a lot too," I said as we let go.

"And don't worry about your friend Fang. You'll find him. I believe it."

"Thanks." I was getting ready to cry. I had to get out of there.

"Well, we better get going," I said.

"And when you come back," said Ella, "we want to hear about all your adventures, everything."

"Count on it. Bye."

"Bye," said everyone else, and we took off for San Francisco. It was really great to see Ella again and I wanted to stay there forever, but of course, I had to have priorities.

The trip to San Francisco wasn't very long. It only took a couple of hours. We found a park in the city and landed there.

I pulled out the map of San Francisco and opened it up. The park we were in wasn't far from the line.

"So, where do we go from here?" asked Angel.

I looked at the map. The spot Asch circled was northwest from the park, about twelve block from where we were.

"It's not too far away," I said, "We just have to walk from here."

"Walk?" asked Nudge, "Why not fly?"

"No, no flying. All cities are no fly zones from now on, unless it's an extreme emergency, and I mean Eraser extreme, got it?"

"Got it," they all said.

So we started walking. If I had known there were so many steep hills, I would have taken Nudge's suggestion and flown. No taxi would fit us and all the trolleys were going out of the way of our destination.

We finally made it to the spot where the circle was on the map. We were in an area full of abandoned buildings and warehouses. The one where the circle was made was a building that was about three stories tall and had only a couple of windows. It looked like it might have been some kind of auditorium. It looked abandoned due to some rust on the gutters and paint that was peeling off.

There was a metal door on one side and we walked up to it. I grabbed the door handle and pulled but it didn't budge. I tried knocking but there was no answer.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I looked down to my left to see Gazzy pointing somewhere. I looked to where he was pointing and saw a camera on the building that just moved to look at us. Maybe the building wasn't as abandoned as I thought.

"How do we get in?" asked Angel.

I shushed her. We were being watched.

"I'm starting to think that this is all one big setup," said Iggy.

"Me too," said Gazzy.

"Well, if it is," I said, "I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle."

I suddenly got an idea. "You guys stay here," I said. I spread my wings and flew up an on to the roof of the building.

The roof was flat and there was a doorway that went down into the building via staircase. The door was open.

"Guys, come up here," I called. They all flew up to the roof with me.

"What's up, Max?" asked Iggy.

"There's a stairway over there. It looks pretty inviting. I don't know whether to feel happy about that or worried."

"Maybe we should go through anyway, and see what happens," said Nudge, "and if anyone tries anything, we'll kick their asses."

"Sounds good to me," said Gazzy.

"All right," I said, "let's do it."

We went through the door and down the stairs. When we came to the bottom, there was another locked door with a red light above it. I knocked on the door and then, to our surprise, a peephole opened in the door. We saw a blue eye looking back at us.

"Who's there?" demanded the voice. It was a girl.

"It's me Max," I said, "I'm looking for Asch; he wanted me to come here." Then after a moment, it hit me who I was talking to. "Wait a minute, Calypso? Is that you?"

"Max?" the girl asked.

The peephole suddenly shut, and after hearing the lock getting undone, the door swung open and I got mauled by a brown-haired girl. I was getting hugs everywhere I went.

"I can't believe it's really you," she said.

"I can't believe it's you," I said. She let go and I could see the others staring at me wondering what was going on.

"Guys, this is Calypso," I told them, "She's with Asch. She's a friend of mine from a long time ago."

"What?" asked Iggy.

"Don't worry; you'll get it in a minute. We're with the good guys."

We walked into the room. The room was well lit. There were several computers along the walls. There was even a huge setup with many screens in the corner of the screen. Someone was sitting at it, facing us.

"She's baaaaaack," he said. It was Sebastian. His long hair was black as night. His big green eyes were warm and welcoming.

He got up and gave me a hug. "Good to see you again, Sebastian," I said.

Then everyone else came into the room: Conrad, Lily, and Asch. Conrad and Lily gave me hugs. Asch stood by smiling.

"We missed you," said Conrad. He had brown hair and blue eyes just like his older sister Calypso, only he cut his hair short.

"It's good to see you again," said Lily.

"Nice to see you too," I said. I looked back to the others and said, "Guys, this is Lily, Conrad, his older sister Calypso, Sebastian, and Asch. They used to be my flock."

"Your flock?" everybody asked in unison.

"You got it," said Asch, "Come on into the other room. Make yourselves at home."

We left the computer room and came into the next room which looked like a living room. There was a couch, a couple of recliners and bean bag chairs, and a rocking chair. There was large, flat-screen TV set up in the room with a DVD player and recorder. There was shelf by it with a huge collection of movies. The room was painted white and it didn't look old. It wasn't peeling or anything. Not like outside.

Everybody grabbed a seat and Asch leaned up against a wall. "You know," he said, "for somebody with wings, you certainly don't know how to use them. I mean, c'mon, going to the front door?"

"We make it a rule not to fly in cities," I said.

"You mean you make it a rule," said Iggy, leaning back in a bean bag chair. If he could see the look I gave him.

"Yeah, well, so what's going on Asch? I've been left out in the dark long enough."

"Before I tell you," he said, "I've got a surprise for you." He walked out of the room. After a moment, I heard the pitter-patter of little feet. And then into the room ran a small dog. But it wasn't just any dog. It was Total.

"Total!" we all cried. We jumped on to my lap and licked my face like it was a melting Popsicle.

"Oh my God, look at you," I said. "It's really you."

"Yeah, it's me," said Total, "Where have you been?"

"We were sleeping," said Angel as she came to scoop up Total from my lap.

"Where?" In cold storage?" Angel sat back down in her spot on the couch and kept hugging Total while he drowned her in licks.

"I found him in L.A.," said Asch, "He was begging a guy for his hot dog."

"Total, you were begging?" asked Angel.

"I was starving," Total said.

"Yeah," said Asch, "he was literally begging. He was saying 'please, sir, can I have it? I'm starving' and the guy ran away freaked out, dropping the hot dog."

"Aww," said Angel.

"It wasn't how I planned, but I got it."

"So I came up to him and told him who I was and got him to come with us," said Asch.

"Well, thank you for finding him and taking care of him," I said.

"You're welcome, now on to business."

"Finally, what's going on, Asch?"

"I guess I'll start from the beginning. You know Itex is a company that makes pretty much everything there is to be made right?"

We all nodded our heads.

"Well, there was another company that did pretty much the same thing. It was called ShawCorp. They were Itex's archrival in business. And then Itex came up with their Re-evolution scheme. ShawCorp found out about it and decided to try and stop them. They somehow managed to steal some of Itex's research and picked a Dr. Ken Albert to lead the project. They succeeded in creating avian-humans as well, and they called them the Counter-Breed. Max, that's us."

"Yeah, it's starting to come back to me now that you mention it," I said, "I remember Dr. Albert. He was a nice guy."

"Yeah, he was," said Asch, "Six hybrids were made, the five of us here and you Max. We were not only given the ability to fly, we have other abilities as well. Just like you guys."

"Yeah, you with your pyrokinesis and hyper-speed, Sebastian with his super intellect, Calypso with her telekinesis, Conrad with his mind-reading ability, and Lily with her ability to cross dimensions."

"Right, and you with your hyper-speed, Nudge with her ability to absorb information, Gazzy with his imitation ability, and Angel with her countless abilities. Iggy was supposed to have night vision, but that didn't work out."

"No kidding," said Iggy.

"And Fang was supposed to have super-strength but that didn't work out either."

"What?!" I yelled. I didn't mean to but it was so shocking to hear. "Fang is supposed to be super-strong?"

"Yeah," said Asch, "but it didn't work out, kinda like how Iggy's night vision didn't work out. But I'm not sure."

"So that's what his ability is supposed to be," said Nudge.

"So anyway," continued Asch, "somehow Itex found out about Counter-Breed. One day, a swarm of Erasers came in and destroyed everything. They killed anyone in their path, including Dr. Albert, but not before we insured that we got away. But they kidnapped you Max."

"Why?" I asked.

"You were better than anything Itex had. Rather than destroy you, they decided to use you to lead Re-evolution. They had a means of erasing your memories, so they did. That was five years ago, when you were only twelve."

"But I remember being at the School all my life, and then at the house in Colorado that Jeb brought us to."

Asch shook his head, "Memory implantations. They inserted false memories into your mind so you could never remember your time at ShawCorp."

"So the first twelve years of my life were a lie?"

"Wait a minute," said Iggy, "we have memories of our time with Max. Did they implant false memories in us too?"

"Yeah, they did. But don't let that affect your bond with each other."

"I wasn't thinking that, this is just amazing."

"So from then on, you have your adventures and you managed to stop Itex about two-and-a-half years ago. But Jeb Batchelder and Anne Walker got away."

Everyone let out a sigh or an 'oh man' of some sort.

"A couple of days after you stopped them, they activated a safety device in you that made you lose all your memories. I can't be 100 sure what it was for, but it was probably for in case they failed. Afterwards, you ran away from your flock in your fright and confusion. The others tried to look for you for a while. Then Fang went off on his own to find you."

"Why would he do that?" I asked.

"You tell me, Max."

I couldn't.

Asch continued, "Well, here's where it gets interesting. Somebody did find you. It was Ari."

"ARI!!!???" we all cried.

"Yeah, he managed to track you down and brought you someplace for his own… untoward purposes. I'll let your imagination figure out what those were."

"Oh my God," I said. I thought I was going to be sick. Being alone with Ari and we weren't kicking each other's asses was just… creepy.

"That's just the icing on the cake. Later, Dr. Roland Ter Borcht shows up and somehow manages to convince Ari to hand you to him."

"Dr. Roland Ter Borcht?" Iggy asked.

"He's the one who started all of this, the one who theorized that he could make people fly. He got thrown into an insane asylum in the Netherlands for his experiments, but he escaped and here to the U.S."

"That's right," I said, "I read up on him at the school when we were staying with Anne. So that guy we saw in Roland City, that was him?"

"That was him?"

"What's Roland City?" asked Nudge.

"It was a virtual town I was kept in… well, now I know why it was called Roland City."

"Yeah," continued Asch, "apparently he's not too creative. He put you in there for safe-keeping while he put in a program that would dismantle the safety device and anything else Itex did or put in, including your voice."

I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed that the Voice hadn't spoken to me yet. This was great. The Voice was gone.

"Because it was Ter Borcht, I had to believe he was working with Itex. That's why I came after you like I did. I couldn't afford to have you used to further Itex's plans. But let me tell you, I'm glad I failed. Because it looks like Ter Borcht was working independently, but I can't be completely sure."

"Oh, yeah," I said, suddenly remembering our fight in the manor, "Sorry about that. How are you feeling?"

Asch lifted his black t-shirt to show where I cut him. It was bandaged heavily. "You managed to graze my kidney. Fortunately, we know first-aid pretty well and we can heal a lot faster than most people. I should be fine in a day or so. So, that's the story."

"Wait a minute, what about Fang?"

Asch looked down and shook his head. "Sorry Max. I don't know. That's the one thing I can't answer."

I let out a sigh. "Well, at least now we know what's going on."

"Don't feel sad Max," Lily said. I looked over to her. "We haven't given up looking for Fang. We've got to be able to find him, now that we're all together."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

Asch began to walk out of the room, but then he turned around, "Guys, show them their rooms and get them settled in. Then I need you all to come to the roof of the next building. We got to show them the thing."

"What thing?" I asked.

"You'll see when you get there."

Sorry that might have been a little long. Keep on sending those reviews.