AN: Thank you all for the reviews. They make me very, very happy. Oh yes. I will reply to them soon. Meanwhile.. entertain yourself with this... thing.
Chapter 5: The Radical cannot be Squared
During the 1950s, the flamingo was one of America's most famous animal icons. The bright pink color was visually appealing to what was a dreary, grey, and flat lifestyle of the Americans prior to the 1900s. With the sudden boom of plastic manufacturing, industries were able to create other bold colors such as lime green, neon orange and, of course, hot pink. Among the colorful products were automobiles, refrigerators, washing machines, and pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Flamingoes became preposterously popular to the American culture and one cannot help but think if it was all some sort of secret conspiracy. The cities' suburbs were littered with flamingo lawn ornaments, making it quite reasonable to create an army. Yet to the ignorant Americans, the animal represented the United States' flamboyance, style, gaudiness, and... most importantly, wealth.
"You're telling me that you ordered fourteen shrimp cocktails?" Max exclaimed, dropping her fork.
"No," Mini explained patiently, over a sea of empty cocktail glasses, "I'm telling you that I ate fourteen shrimp cocktails and that I'm ordering at least five more."
The newly formed flock was sitting in at a modest diner that offered a variety of different types of food. The restaurant workers were kind enough for them to fill up three tables and the sheer number of plates they used up was enough to make the dishwasher stab himself in the heart. Fortunately for California, the unemployment rate went down so everything was okay.
"Combining all of us together plus you... the bill's going to be staggering," Iggy said, eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he made some quick calculations. After a while he gave up and shook his head. "Mini, that's seven dollars a cocktail."
"Yes, but each cocktail has only three pieces of shrimp," Mini said slowly, as if he was speaking to an incredibly stupid child, "Which is obviously not enough for a meal."
Even Angel, who was an avid cash spender herself, looked a little pained.
"Does it… um… have to be shrimp cocktails?"
Mini looked appalled. "Yes," he sputtered, "In case you haven't noticed, but I'm a flamingo hybrid. My diet consists of food with high amounts alpha and beta-carotene… which is shrimp, duh."
"Carrots are also high in alpha and beta carotene," Fang pointed out bluntly, "You should've ordered that instead. It's cheaper."
"Shut up and go eat rats, hawk-boy," Mini replied with a smile.
Fang colored slightly, but his cool expression did not change.
"Raven," he corrected, "I'm a raven hybrid. Max is a hawk."
"Oooh, I'm dreadfully sorry," Mini drawled, "I meant to say… 'Shut up and go eat worms, Raven-boy'.'"
Fang decided that Mini's constant sarcasm with him did not merit a comeback. Nudge, having finished her third cheap burger, placed a finger on her bottom lip. She glanced at Mini.
"Alpha and beta carotene isn't even specifically essential to you're diet. You're also mainly human, so… you should be able to eat other things," she said with a cough, earning herself a smug smile from Fang. Mini gave her a glare that would have buried the earth under six miles of ice.
"God, do I have to draw you guys a picture?" Mini asked, throwing his arms up in the air and smacking a passing waiter. The waiter gave a scream and tossed the tray he was carrying up into the air. Chaos ensued around the flock's tables as food was being flung everywhere. Mini seethed, pointing angrily to his hair.
"How else am I suppose to keep my luxurious pink color from fading? I eat shrimp, that's how. I need the pigments, dammit!"
Max was already taking out her anorexic wallet and leafing through her old receipts for a missed dollar. Just her luck. Upon realizing that she did not have enough money, she sat back abruptly and quietly put her wallet back into her pocket. She propped her elbows on the table and brooded. This was a problem.
"Hey… Mini…" she said.
However, a pretty waitress appeared behind Mini, causing Max to clamp her jaw shut.
"Here you go, sir!" the waitress chirped, "Five shrimp cocktails!" She set the dishes in front of Mini.
"Thank you," Mini replied with a flirtatious grin. The young waitress gave a giggle and flounced off.
That was thirty-five more dollars added on to their increasing bill. Max was quickly going over what options she had left. The flock was nearly finished with their food and there was already a waiter coming up to her with a terribly long receipt roll that dragged on the floor behind him. She glanced at Fang, who gave her a feeble shrug. The flock seemed to get the silent message and started shoving the rest of the food down with a new sense of desperateness…except Mini, who was still trying to get the attention of the waitress.
"Ma'am, are you ready to pay?" the waiter asked once he reached her.
Max tried to imitate Mini's flirtatious smile. She miserably failed, only causing the sixty year-old waiter to raise a questioning eyebrow. She whipped out her credit card but the waiter coughed politely.
"I'm sorry, but we only accept cash."
"Figures," Iggy muttered, "Out of the millions of restaurants here…'
The waiter blinked owlishly as he watched Maximum shift uncomfortably in her seat. Being quite experienced in his line of work, he was quick to pick up on situations that might damage his payment. There was many a poor ruffian who came disappointed when they found out that ditching the bill was nearly impossible with him on duty. The waiter leaned slightly towards Max and gave another polite cough.
"Ma'am? Is there an… ah… issue with the payment?" he asked in a genial manner that reeked of a dangerous undertone.
"Issue? Nope, no. Not at all," Max replied, fidgeting with her napkin, "Haha, I don't see why there would be a-"
Just then, the restaurant's glass doors burst open and windows shattered. Patrons screamed and ducked in confusion while waiters and waitresses dropped they're trays in shock. Ten fully morphed Erasers swiftly came in, tearing down everything in their path.
"We're saved!" cheered Gazzy as the flock all got up to run away from the very befuddled waiter.
However, the Erasers had blocked the exits and Max began to process the whole situation. She divided her options into two categories.
One; stay, kick butt, pay the bill, and be heroes.
Two; fight through the Erasers and then run the hell away.
It didn't take Max very long to decide. She launched herself at Ari and gave him a full kick to his chest. Meanwhile, Fang was easily grappling with two big Erasers and Nudge was sitting on a table, legs crossed, and chatting an Eraser to death.
"And, like, isn't Mini such a hottie? He's so stupid though! You know how boys are, since you're one too. You guys are so silly. Fang has got some bad vibes with Mini though. I don't know why. Do you know why? Oh, I like chocolate cake too, you know. Can you eat chocolate cake? I heard dogs can't. But you're part wolf, so does that count? Ew, you're sort of foaming at the mouth now. Fang does that sometimes. It's usually when he's with Max, but don't tell him I told you. He'll get mad. Hey, how does it feel like to be an Eraser? I bet you're a real looker without all that fur. Most Erasers are, huh? How do you guys look so hot and morph so ugly? I think it's just awesome-"
The Eraser keeled over and died.
Nudge casually glanced down, twirling a finger through her curly hair. She hopped off the table, tapped an unoccupied Eraser on the shoulder, and continued her death-by-talking process.
Angel was doing her own little freak talent, which gets awfully repetitive to read since all she does is mind-control her enemies. So in summary, she got an Eraser to eat some chocolate. Being somewhat of the canine persuasion, the Eraser gagged and died too.
Iggy, who had picked up knife-throwing over the two years, was flinging eating utensils at unsuspecting enemies. A couple of Erasers had turned into a pincushion of forks, butter knives, and even spoons. Gazzy, just itching to combust something, had to settle with finding more artillery for Iggy.
"Fork," Gazzy intoned duly, putting one into Iggy's hand.
The blind boy hurled it and there was a roar of pain.
"Steak knife," listed Gazzy.
Iggy paused, heard an Eraser snarl from fifteen feet away, and threw the knife. It impaled on the Eraser's forearm, just as it was about to hit an annoyed Fang.
"Hey, Iggy, I don't really need your help," Fang called out and as he irritably delivered an uppercut.
"Sorry…" Iggy sighed, feeling like a useless piece of dead weight.
"Salt shaker," said Gazzy.
Iggy took it and tossed it was careless ease towards another roaring Eraser. The shaker flew and wedged itself between its jaws. The Eraser choked as salt sprinkled into his throat. Eventually the Eraser died a slow and painful death of dehydration.
"I hate being blind," Iggy said sadly. Gazzy patted his friend on the back.
Max, now covered in bleeding scratches, was still working on Ari. While everyone had cool powers, she only had this inconvenient super speed thing that was hindering when fighting in close quarters. She was doing a good job of blocking Ari's furious blows. He wasn't really a challenge either, being that his eyes were closed and he was just flailing his arms in hopes that he would hit her. The trouble was, Max was starting to get a little bored and being bored never boded well with her, especially now that the Voice had developed this animated personality.
"Ooh, kick him-" said Ryan, flashing a particularly unpleasant image in her mind, "-there!"
Max's mind reeled and she nearly threw up on her adversary. Instead, Ari grazed her cheek with his fist.
"Ryan, that's disgusting!" she said, ducking.
"But you think about that stuff all the time!" Ryan protested.
"No, you think about that stuff," Max snarled, lifting her fist and grinding it into Ari's stomach, "You're just getting our consciences confused again."
Ryan didn't have anything constructive to say after that.
Max, now a little bit angrier than what she would've liked to be, backed away from Ari. She reached into the pocket of her windbreaker.
"Max, I love you!" said Ari, who was contradicting himself by trying to rake his claws through her. Silly boy.
Max frowned. The flock had unlimited money that was provided by her mysterious credit card that was given to her two years ago. It never ran out of money, though they eventually found out that they had a monthly limitation of one thousand dollars. It wasn't too bad, so the flock usually cashed out all the money and saved bits and parts of it for something important. Over the months, they began buying a few expensive items of interest. However, purchasing a laptop, iPOD, cell phone, and CD player proved to be utter failures for their lack of practicality. After traveling so much and fighting most of the time, the electronics were soon lost, broken, or dropped. Disappointed but compromising, the flock took a vote and decided to buy something that was a little more useful and adjustable to their nomadic way of life. However, they had purchased it over two months ago and never found the need to use it.
So might as well.
"I love ya too, lil' bro," Max said grimly.
She withdrew her hand from her pocket and steadily aimed the 10mm Glock 29 at Ari. Clicking all three safeties off, she then proceeded to fire all ten rounds into the wolf-boy. Five on his chest, five in his head. Point blank.
Ari fell and died.
"You killed Ari!' gasped an Eraser.
"Bastard!" exclaimed another.
Max didn't stick long enough to explain that Ari was not really dead. He never 'really' died and killing him over and over again was becoming a tedious task. He just showed up later with a new upgrade or something like that. Really now. The first two times were really shocking, but like Fang's hair, that stuff got old fast.
The flock abandoned their fighting posts and ran through the broken windows, leaving the flabbergasted Erasers and unpaid waiter behind.
The day was unbelievably bright and sunny, just what one would expect on the beaches of California. The clear blue ocean puked out white foamed waves and was lazily ingested into the creamy soft sand. The temperature leaned towards the warm side of things, much to the chagrin of the flock since they were running in stifling sweaters.
"Where's Mini?" Max asked, remembering that she had not seen him since the Erasers came. She still held the warm gun in her hand. Fang motioned for her to put it away with a frown. "What?" she asked, putting the glock back into her pocket.
"Fang's just mad that you got to use the gun," Angel said.
"… was not," Fang muttered stiffly, tucking back the emo chunk of hair that had plastered itself over his right eye.
"Hey, Mini's over there," Gazzy said, pointing to a blur of pink that was a full block ahead of them and was sitting on a bench.
"Hey guys!" Mini said, waving. The flock crowded around him, scowling.
"You ran away while we were fighting!" Iggy accused.
"Me? Run away like a coward? Never! I was employing an evasion maneuver."
"…That still sounds like running away to me," grumbled Max.
"Max, it was merely a tactical withdrawal for us to regroup and buy us some time.. Warriors do it all the time," said Mini, nodding.
"Okay, now you're just using fancy words to rephrase what we've stated."
"Well, fine. Have it your way," Mini scoffed, standing up, "So how about we 'run away' from that second pack of Erasers now?"
The flock glanced behind them and sure enough, another group of Erasers were headed towards them.
"You know… tactical withdrawal did sound kind of cool," Nudge said.
Mini was already several feet ahead of them. Max and the rest of the flock followed his lead. In a few minutes, it became increasingly apparent that Mini had no sense of direction after making four consecutive left turns around a corner. On the fifth turn he threw everyone off by hanging a right and jumping a fence into someone's backyard.
"I don't get it," Fang said, climbing the fence, "we were running in the middle of a busy metropolis when suddenly we go into a quiet neighborhood of houses. It doesn't make sense."
"Your mom doesn't make sense," Mini snapped off as a reflex.
Fang resisted the urge to attempt something violent and bloody. It was difficult, but he managed to suppress his pent up anger and converted into something less harmless, like poetry. Because everyone knew how good he was at it. The boy could put Sheil Siverstein to shame. Runny Babbit and all that.
The flock made their way through the backyard, careful not to crush the majority of the flowerbeds. Needless to say, their efforts were rendered useless as the Erasers didn't give the poor flowers the same consideration. They plowed through, kicking dirt and clouds of dust. Fang glanced around his shoulder and skidded to a halt. There were only eight Erasers. They would be easy to beat now that their psycho leader, Ari, was down and out.
"Max, it'll be easier to fight them," Fang shouted.
Max had also stopped running, her expression set in a grim smile. The rest of the flock turned around, getting ready. Unfortunately, Mini wasn't quite able to see the benefits of not running away.
"Are you guys crazy?" he asked. Mini lingered at the top of the fence, placing his hands on his hips. "They outnumber us and are like, freakin' huge! We'll be killed or severely disfigured at the very least!"
"Size isn't everything," Fang snapped, his gaze scornful.
"Yeah. Only flat-chested girls and dickless guys say that," Mini said, looking skeptically from Fang's torso to his groin region, "So the question is, Toothy… which one of those are you?"
Actions often spoke louder than words. Fang casually picked up a broken potted plant and hurled it. The pot flew and connected solidly with Mini's forehead. The boy gave an undignified scream and fell into the adjacent backyard.
"Fang!" Max exclaimed, clearly disapproving.
Fang scowled but didn't say anything due to scene time constrictions. One has to remember that the boy wasn't very witty with his diction.
The Erasers came and descended upon the flock. However, before anyone could actually open a can of butt-whoop, Mini poked his head over the fence and lobbed something towards the astonished Erasers.
"Pink flamingo!" he shouted.
A plastic lawn ornament plopped right between the flock and wolf pack. Instant pandemonium gripped the Erasers and they started to run around the pink flamingos in a hypnotic frenzy because everyone knows that Erasers had a big weakness against pink plastic flamingos.
It was a conspiracy only known to a select few. Apparently the flock wasn't one of those selected few. However, they wisely chose to ponder this at a later date. They quickly climbed over the fence and landed in the backyard Mini was in.
"What was that about?" Gazzy asked, making a face as one of the Erasers screamed ecstatically.
"No time to explain," Mini huffed, running over to the modest looking white house with green trimming. He jiggled the handle to the back door and found it unlocked. "Quick, in here!"
The flock hesitated.
"What for?" Max asked. Even she had to be dubious of Mini's objectives and reasoning. It started to become very hard to follow. Unless it had to do something with boosting his over-inflated ego, then Max was pretty sure she had him figured out. However, despite knowing what a vain person he was, she couldn't deny that there was some part of her that was attracted towards Mini.
He took her hand and that ended all arguments there. She inhaled sharply but Mini didn't seem to notice and started dragging her into the house.
"This house had the pink flamingo! It's a good sign. It means that they're part of the conspiracy," Mini explained. He took off his jacket, revealing his bright wings. "One look at these beauties and this whole household will worship me!"
"Uh… I don't think that's how it works…" Iggy said, feeling his way through the door.
The flock entered the house, which was a bit cluttered with furniture. Fang, having more useful brain cells than the rest, locked the door and closed the curtains of the windows. They went into the kitchen, unsure of what to do.
From a nearby bathroom, a toilet flushed, causing everyone to jump.
" :0 " Mini emoted out of surprise.
The flock stared at him as if he was a telemarketer that had physically manifested out of a phone. They were horrified enough to pee in their pants right then and there. They all looked at him.
"What… was… that?" Fang whispered, aghast.
"What was what?" asked Mini and proceeded with, " o.o ?"
"That right there!" Gazzy squeaked, "You just did it."
Mini blinked and then grinned in realization. "Didn't I tell you? I speak fluent Emoticon."
"It's the vilest thing I've ever heard," Iggy paled.
Angel choked back a sob, her innocence forever destroyed.
"Huh? Do you guys want to learn? I can teach you. :D"
"N-no…" Fang gasped, clamping both hands over his ears, "Stop… please… it… hurts."
Mini frowned, about to tell them that they were being silly. However, a teenaged girl wearing a Hello Kitty muumuu trudged into the kitchen. She went straight to the refrigerator and lazily gave the flock a glance. She opened it and paused.
Her sleepy-eyed expression blinked and changed into something more puzzling. Closing the refrigerator door, she slowly turned her head to face the flock. Not use to having strangers in the house while she was wearing glasses and pajamas, the girl squawked and pointed uselessly.
"Hi!" Mini said brightly, only making the girl back away.
She looked at each flock member, but her eyes rested on Iggy.
Iggy started to shake uncontrollably.
"Sel… suh.. sel… fuh…" he stammered in fear. He paled until his face was ghastly white.
"What?" Fang asked, getting ready to fight the girl. Iggy never became this scared of anything.
The girl tilted her head and scratched it. She shifted uncomfortably, aware that she was in a muumuu in front of a couple of good-looking studs. It wasn't the kind of first impression she would've liked.
"Ser… Suh… uumn…" Iggy squeaked.
"Iggy, what's wrong?" Gazzy asked, tugging on the boy's sleeve.
"In… ah… ugh…"
The girl started to edge closer to the flock. Even Mini was starting to look less secure.
"Out with it, blindy!" he said.
"Ooh… ser.. suh…"
"…Hi," the girl said and waved meekly.
Iggy snapped, all but jumping on the poor Fang and clinging on to the flock's macho man. Fang staggered.
"Self-Insertion!" Iggy shrieked in terror.
The flock became deathly quiet.
" D: " emoted Tanya.
End chapter.