Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride. Does anyone think Fang should mention this site on the blog?

The five of us flew to the front of the building. When we landed in front of the door, it automatically opened for us.

We walked inside. The place was empty, and it wasn't anymore pleasant looking than the last I was here. I kept doing 360s for any Erasers or guards, but there weren't any.

We reached the door in front of the loading dock when a voice crackled over the intercom. "Hello, Max," it said. It was Jeb.

"Where are you?" I shouted.

"I see you have once again disobeyed me. I only asked for you and Asch, and yet you brought some of your friends with you."

"Well pardon me for not trusting you. I believe that was something you taught me."

"I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm in the loading dock. The door's open."

We all looked to the door. Asch reached out and opened it. We all walked in to see Jeb standing in the middle of the room. The devil incarnate.

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

"If only I could say the same about you," I said.

"How the hell did you figure out where we were?" asked Asch, "I know there's no way you could have tracked her here."

"You're right. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time when two loudmouths from a gang were talking about you. I struck up a conversation with them, and we made a deal. They tell me where you are, and I give them something that gets them their turf."

"Which gang?"

"I believe they call themselves the Fire Rats, and as we speak, they are annihilating your friends."

"Please, the entire Fire Rat gang wouldn't stand a chance against Sebastian and the others."

"True, they wouldn't stand a chance in the state they… were in."

"What do you mean were?" I asked.

Jeb gave a cold smile, and then it dawned on me. "You turned them into Erasers."

"That's right. And I lured you her so you couldn't protect them and we could talk."

Immediately we turned to head out the door, but Jeb pulled out some sort of remote and pressed a button. The door automatically closed. Any possible exit had become sealed off.

"Let us out!" yelled Nudge.

"I can't do that Nudge," said Jeb coldly, "There is no way out. That's why they're called traps."

I looked over at Asch for a second. I wanted to chew him out for making us come, but then I realized this wasn't the time. We needed to find a way out.

"How do we get out of here?" I demanded.

"Max, Max," Jeb said, "Look at what you've become. You were supposed to lead the world into its Re-evolution. You were supposed to save the world. But you're just encouraging its further destruction. You're defending those who just slowly kill the world off. And you're beyond salvation."

"I'm encouraging the world's destruction? You're the one who's looking to take out at least half the population of Earth."

"That is merely a speeding up of the process that is already taking place. Afterwards, the world will be reborn, and there will be no more destruction. Earth will be saved. I don't understand how you can't see that."

"I don't understand how you can save Earth by destroying it."

"I'm sorry you can't Max. And I'm sorry it has to be this way." After saying that, he crushed the remote that was in his hand and then just seemed to freeze.

I looked at him strangely. He was just frozen in place. I walked up to him and touched him. There was no reaction. I knocked on his head and it felt unusually hard. It wasn't from his hard head.

"It's just a robot," I told the others.

I tore off the clothes to get a better look at the metal man Jeb left for me. Then I saw something that stopped my heart. After removing his shirt, I found a timer in the metal gears hidden beneath. There were six seconds left on it.

"Correction, he's A BOMB!!"

"MOVE!!" cried Asch, almost shoving me out of the way.

He held his arms out forward to the robot Jeb. The others and I got as far back as possible. I saw the timer turn to zero, and we all ducked.

I heard the explosion, I felt a wave of heat, and after a few seconds, I realized I wasn't dead.

I looked up and I couldn't believe what I saw. There was a ball of fire floating in the middle of the room about the size of a medicine ball. Asch had his arms out towards it. He was controlling the fire from the bomb in the Jeb robot. But he looked like he was really struggling.

"What's going on?" asked Iggy, "How come we're not dead?"

"Whoa," said Gazzy, "Asch has a hold of the fire from the bomb."

"And I don't know how long I can hold it!" he yelled, "Find a way out."

"All the exits are sealed," I said, walking over to him. Suddenly a loop of fire rose out of the ball in front of me. I jumped back for a bit. Asch seemed to focus his energy on it and it shrunk back into the ball.

"I have the fire contained but not a lot of control over the energy from the bomb inside it," he said.

I looked around desperately, trying to find a way out of the building. I looked at the giant door that trucks came through. Then I got an idea.

"Asch, do you think you could bring the ball over to the door and melt it."

After a moment, he said, "I… think I could… but I'd have to… walk it over. My entire focus and energy can… only go into this. If it breaks… we're all toast." Every word that was coming out of him seemed like a struggle for him. Perspiration was quickly forming on his forehead.

"You guys… will have to guide me."

We all got around him and the ball of fire. He slowly, very slowly, walked through the room and made his way to the door. When he did, he pressed the ball close to the door. After a few minutes, I could see the door begin to lose some of its texture.

"This could take a while," said Asch.

"We may not have a while," I said.

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Shortly after Max and the others left, Sebastian looked at the monitors and saw something alarming. There were a bunch of people in red coats heading right for the building.

"Guys," he said, "we've got company."

"What's going on?" asked Calypso.

"It's the Fire Rats. They're making their way over here again."

"In the rain? That's not like them."

Conrad went into the closet and pulled out the box of weapons. Everyone went to grab something, including Angel and Lily. Angel went to grab one of the two guns but Calypso grabbed her hand.

"When you're older," she said. She let go and Angel took a knife. Calypso then grabbed the gun and put it in her pocket.

Sebastian grabbed his sword out of the closet and then the other gun. He looked back to the monitor and saw the Fire Rats were lining up along the front of the building.

"What are they doing?" asked Conrad.

"I don't know," answered Sebastian.

He continued to stare at the monitor, when he saw something he just couldn't believe. All forty of the members of the Fire Rat gang began to morph into Erasers. All five of them stared in disbelief as the gang grew hairier and their faces became wolflike.

"What the hell?!" said Sebastian, "Is that how Jeb knew where we were, through them?"

After they finished morphing, the Fire Rats then charged the door, breaking it down.

"Let's go!" said Sebastian.

The five ran down the stairs to the first floor to take on the forty newly made Erasers. When they came down, Sebastian and Calypso took out their guns and immediately started firing into the Fire Rats. They took down twelve before the guns ran out.

Sebastian went charging in with his sword while another attacked Calypso from the side. Calypso fought him off but two others came and grabbed her, their claws digging into her arms.

Conrad went slashing away with his knife, keeping any of the Fire Rats that came near him at bay.

Angel got into the head of one of them and had him start attacking the other Fire Rats. But then she was attacked by another, breaking her concentration. But then Lily jumped onto his back and plunged her knife into his head.

Sebastian kept hacking away at Erasers, cutting off limbs and heads.

Calypso managed to fight off her Erasers but was forced up the stairs into the second floor. She backed up while several Fire Rats slowly stalked her, beginning to smile like they believed they had her. Calypso backed up past the first bedroom. Then she got an idea.

She continued backing up until the Fire Rats were in front of the bedroom door. Calypso let her concentration fall on the bed in the room. Suddenly, it flew out the doorway and crashed violently into the first Fire Rat, knocking him into the other room. The rest began to charge her. She made several more beds fly out of the rooms and ram the other Fire Rats.

There was still one left standing that started leaping towards her. Quickly, Calypso found Asch's keyboard and hurled it out of his room and into the sternum of the Eraser, knocking the wind out of him. Calypso started to run up the stairs to the first floor.

Conrad had managed to stab several Fire Rats, but more just kept coming.

Angel and Lily stayed close together but they weren't able to mount much of an offense. Sebastian came to them and defended them. Conrad joined them and they all grouped together and started backing up the stairs. There were still about twenty left.

"Lily, Angel," Sebastian whispered, "run to the third floor, now."

The two girls did what they were told and started running. The Fire Rats charged them. Sebastian managed to stab one in the chest but then another grabbed his wrists and wrenched the sword from his hands. They all attacked Sebastian and Conrad, with the two boys fighting them off with their fists.

Calypso came to the first floor, only to be hit in the head with a crowbar by Max II, who had snuck in through a window.

Soon after, Angel and Lily came up the stairs. They came face to face with Max II but before they could react, she hit them both in the head with the crowbar, knocking them unconscious.

"Too easy," she said. She picked Lily up over her shoulder and scooped Angel up in her other arm. She escaped out the window with them.

Calypso came to and looked ahead of her. There was some sort of device in front of her with a timer on it. The timer had two seconds left on it. She suddenly realized what it was. It changed from one to zero.

She felt an intense rush of heat, and then nothing.

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Asch was finally able to make a hole in the door wide enough for us to go through safely. He went out with the ball of fire still out in front of him. The rest of us quickly got out as well. The rain was still coming down, the drops near the ball evaporating before they could touch it.

"Now what?" asked Gazzy.

"I… got to… get rid of this thing," said Asch.

"How?" I asked, looking around for a safe place to get rid of it, as if there was such a thing.

"The air," he said, "Two of you… carry me up in the air… and I'll let it explode safely. I can't… concentrate on flying… with this thing."

"Nudge, help me," I said.

Nudge came over and got on one side of him and I got on the other. I grabbed one of his arms and she grabbed the other. We spread our wings and flew up into the air.

A couple of more loops in the ball came out as we took Asch into the air, but Asch managed to keep them down. We made it to about a thousand feet in the air when we stopped.

"All right," said Asch, "this is far enough."

He raised his arms into the air. The ball began to slowly rise.

"I'm gonna push this thing… as far away as I can," said Asch, "then I need you girls… to bring us back to Earth… as fast as you can."

"Got it," I said.

The ball slowly rose to about five feet away from us. "That's as far… as I'm gonna get. All right, I'm letting go… NOW!"

In a flash, me and Nudge pulled down and headed for Earth as fast as we could. I could feel heat coming down on us for the first few seconds. But then it cooled.

We made it to the ground and then Asch collapsed, breathing heavily. I looked up into the air to see an amazing cloud of fire disappearing. That explosion would have taken out the entire building.

After a few minutes, Asch breathing returned to normal, but he was still worn out. "Wouldn't want to do that again," he said.

"Can you still fly?" I asked.

"Yeah, just give me a minute to get my strength back."

"We got to get back to the others," said Iggy, "they're in trouble."

"Right," I said.

"Let's go," said Asch.

But just as we were about to take off, there was an explosion in the distance. A large, fiery cloud came out in the distance, where the Counter-Breed home was.

"NO!" cried Asch.

Please keep R&Ring.