AN: It has come to my attention that this story will become fairly insulting to some people. Haha. Awesome.
Chapter 3: Hey Mister Feather
YAY FOR AN UNNECESSARY ONE WEEK TIME SKIP WITH ACCOMPANYING SOUND EFFECTS:
(Shoooooooooooooooooooomm!)
The rest of this story here will take place in California where, contrary to popular belief, everyone knew how to surf and obviously lived next door to a Hollywood movie star. In result of this stereotypical generalization, everyone in the rather large and beastly state needed to live within ten miles of the ocean, causing California to elongate and break off from the United States entirely where it drifted across the Pacific Ocean and ran over Hawaii, adding to its already massive landmass. In addition, the state legislator passed a law in which Hollywood made sixteen million, nine hundred thirty-five thousand, and eight hundred twenty-four movie stars to accommodate California's population of thirty-three million, eight hundred seventy-one thousand, and six hundred forty-eight citizens.
Of course, when the movie stars complained that they also needed to live next door to other movie stars, the governor of California, who was indeed a movie star himself, became baffled to the point of insanity and promptly declared California a new country where it was ranked the third most powerful nation in the world just preceding below Estonia of Europe and Tanzania of the African continent.
The absurdity of this event could easily be blamed upon Maximum Ride and her flock of merry avian freaks. Two years after learning about her true destiny, Maximum had yet to save the world from the notorious Itex Company. The neglect and clear lack of guidance ultimately took its terrible toll. Without California, the United States' economy and federal power fell drastically into scheming Canadian hands.
You see, when one thinks of 'saving the world', one would normally presume that the world was in danger of expiring or getting blown up by extremely large mushroom clouds. This indeed became a serious misleading notion when Maximum Ride tried to rescue the world from physical and geographical harm. Unfortunately, what she did not realize was that the problem was internally caused by the world's unstable economy and countless forms of conflicting governments. So, when there was a lack of meteors threatening to crash into the earth or atomic bombs blowing up, Maximum found the whole 'saving the world' task to be quite fruitless and boring. Anything that involved politics is surely not worth risking one's life.
So, Itex is still reigning high and mighty. Unknown to most of Earth's population, the company was slowly making its way up to promote tyranny and a hierarchy of arcane evilness.
Everyone still with me? No? Well… on with the story.
o0o
Maximum Ride, who was now a charming sixteen-year old teenager, was walking down the busy streets of Los Angeles. She had not changed much over the past two years. Her hair was a little longer and the pink highlights were gone. Perhaps she had grown an inch or two in height as well. However, she was still that stress-loving, butt-kicking, spunky blond teen icon that certain people have come to love or at least tolerate.
With her walked two boys of the same age, a younger girl, an even younger boy and his little sister. These were supporting characters, set for a shallow love interest or for the sheer sake of making Max's life more difficult than what it already was. The latter is a little more apparent than the others. Oh, there was also a talking dog with them who served no other purpose other than to provide a plethora of frivolous and annoying scenes of comic relief with supposedly witty one-liners.
"We need to get out of California," Max suddenly said for all the lack of dialogue this chapter was getting.
"It's floating in the middle of the ocean now," Fang answered bluntly, who probably got rid of several lines of pointless narration.
"We're homeless, we have no real money, no citizen identification, and I'm starving," Iggy added.
"Gosh Max," Nudge blinked, "What were we doing these past two years?"
The flock paused reflectively.
"Um… avoiding the Erasers?" ventured Gazzy.
"Trying to stay hidden?" Angel said helpfully.
"Repeatedly attempting to confess my love for Max," Fang stated flatly as his oblivious crush was suddenly distracted by a chocolate chip cookie stand. She came back and handed everyone a cookie.
"Sorry I suddenly ran off! Did you say something, Fang?" she asked.
Fang shrugged, his emo-ness showing as a chunk of his black hair magically flopped over his left eye. Over the years, the novelty wore off on the flock so they didn't comment on the odd habits of his mood-provoked hair.
Max stared at him in the same way as one would stare at a puppy who had just made a puddle on the floor. He was just too darn cute to scold.
Meanwhile, Fang stared back at her with bedroom eyes.
It was a conflict of interest and yet both were too dense to read each other's intent. The flock watched Max and Fang's little stare-down with eye rolls.
So we interrupt this clichéd Fax-ness moment for some desperately needed action time.
They appeared as twelve strikingly handsome young men, all with black hair and dark mysterious eyes. Under normal circumstances, that might've been a good chance to get a date. However, when twelve uber hot guys suddenly started to sprout a butt load of facial and body hair plus a tail, one might tend to rethink the situation. The Erasers were running towards them, still looking quite handsome in their human forms. Ari was among them.
The flock instantly came together. It was too crowded on the streets to fight. They were better off escaping.
"That way!" Max shouted heroically and pointed a finger. Everyone was about to take a step in said direction when suddenly a blurring figure crashed right into her with the force of something that felt like a train. Don't ask, she just knew. Max caught a strong whiff of some strange cologne and her head spun.
"Hey, watch where you're standin'!" snarled the boy, who was wearing an outrageously large sombrero and poncho. He nearly tripped over the fallen Max, but neatly spun on his heel to regain his balance. Something underneath his poncho flared out on his back, but the boy kept on running. Max noticed that the boy ran strangely with his gangly-looking legs going all over the place and his arms akimbo. Nothing seemed to be synchronized. At one point, one of the boy's legs went impossibly straight up in the air while his arms lifted over his shoulders and flailed wildly. It was one of the most embarrassing things Max had ever seen. The boy also left a trail of pink feathers in his wake.
Well, at least the sombrero and poncho were normal.
…No. Not really.
Max sat on the ground, dumbfounded and unaware that the palms of her hands were bleeding slightly. Fang, in dire need of some love, helped her up. Of course, by then the Erasers were right in front of them, destroying his chance to woo his fair lady.
"Oh my golly gosh, they're on us like steam on freshly baked muffins!" cried the very much forgotten Total. Please insert live audience laugh track here.
Fortunately for Total, no one took heed of his lame zinger.
The flock tensed and got ready to fight as the Erasers neared them. Right away, the Erasers morphed into a pack of horrifying bipedal wolves.
Innocent people who just happened to be there occasionally threw odd glances at them.
"Oh, since the scene that I'm witnessing here is certainly out of the norm, I must exclaim and question out obliviously if a movie is being filmed despite the clear lack of cameras and stage crew," said random passerby #36 with wide eyes.
"I was just about to suggest that," murmured passerby #85, "But I will let you do the honors."
Passerby #36 nodded her thanks and let out an exaggerated yell of, "Hey, are they filming a movie?!"
And apparently that did the trick of getting everyone who wasn't directly involved in the plot to turn the other way and continue about their business.
Max glowered at the sight of Ari. She balled her fist and threw a spectacular punch towards his face.
… and missed, causing her momentum to go haywire and landing her fist right on Iggy's jaw. Iggy, who somehow knew that he couldn't escape the author's attempt to get him hurt, just sighed and accepted the blow without much complaint. It was a very disappointing reaction.
Ari had run straight past Max. His pack of Erasers ignored the flock and made a careful circle around them before they continued running.
"After him!" Came Ari's fading shout. Pretty soon he and his posse disappeared down the long and crowded sidewalk.
There was a long and bewildered pause.
The flock shuffled on their feet awkwardly, trying to assimilate what happened. This was their first time seeing Erasers and not having to run away, fight, or engage them in some sort of violent confrontation. It was almost kind of scary.
"They just ignored us!" Gazzy said, sounding insulted.
Not used to this new feeling of being forgotten, everyone stared dazedly off into space. Eventually they came upon a silent and mutual agreement.
"After them!" Max yelled and pointed once again in the direction of their adversaries.
The flock took off.
Moments later, Angel started slowing down and Fang had to carry her. With Iggy holding on to his belt loop and dragging him behind and Angel bouncing gleefully in his arms, Fang grew tired and had to stop. Max rounded up on Fang.
"I can't take you anymore! You're so useless!" she screamed.
Taken aback by the unexpected display of OOCness, Fang didn't know what to say. However, his hair conveyed his depressed feelings and flipped over both his eyes in the ultimate gesture of emo-tastic-ness.
But before Max could go on, she smelled something peculiar in the air.
"Hey, do you guys smell anything funny?" she asked.
Fang, deciding that it was Max's special time of month, shook his head meekly. The rest of the flock mimicked him. Max frowned and sniffed loudly. She turned around in a full circle and walked off. The flock obediently followed her into a dark alleyway.
"Pst…" Fang whispered to Nudge, "Is it just me or did it suddenly become nighttime?"
Nudge slapped him.
"I can't believe how racist you're being!" she said hotly, "I don't find that comment funny at all. What kind of jerk says that sort of thing anyway? I thought I knew you, Fang. Apparently I don't anymore. Nothing is the same with you! Ever since that time fifteen years ago." She turned away, tears sparkling.
Five seconds later she recovered.
Fang belatedly put a hand to his stinging cheek. Nothing made sense. Nudge wasn't even born fifteen years ago and he was confused by the change from being a bright and sunny afternoon to a dark and forlorn night in an alleyway. His fingernails started to darken until it became black. Since his eyes were already covered, it was the next step he had to take. Slowly, he reached into his pocket and took out a razor blade.
Meanwhile, Max and the rest of the gang went deeper into the alleyway. Coming into a half, she sniffed again and peered into the darkness where a dumpster rested suspiciously in view.
"Hey, I know you're there. I can smell your cologne from here," she called out, "And… uh… I can see you're hat sticking out."
The sombrero twitched and the boy stood up from his hiding spot. His yellow eyes glowed eerily at Max and he quickly got out of the dumpster. He took off his giant hat but his poncho was askew. A pair of pink wings shifted restlessly on his back and the boy idly tucked a tuff of equally bright pink hair behind his ear.
"Maximum Ride! It's you!" he said happily and walked over to her.
The flock stared.
"Oh, my god!" Max exclaimed.
The boy smirked.
"Not exactly. My name's Minimum Walk, but you can call me that too," he said huskily.
With a swift grab, he pulled Max close to his chest, tilted her head, and kissed her on the lips.
End cha-
In an unheard defiance of chapter endings, Fang gave a feral scream and plunged his four inch razor into Minimum's arm.
End chapter. (4reelz)