Hey everyone!

This chapter went by pretty smoothly, and it didn't take as long as some of the others (I think...).

And... um... I really don't have anything much to say here. Enjoy.

*This chapter has some language. Well, they all do, but this one is minusculy (I know I slaughtered that word. I just know it.) worse. Just thought I'd warn ya.

Snow POV

Contrary to popular belief, there are times when it's okay to slap someone vital upside the head and tell them exactly where they can stick their attitudes.

I really, really wished this was one of them.

Let's recap - since escaping the sadistic lab where we'd spent our entire lives, Livvie and I had been forced to blow up the empty vacation home we'd commandeered before being approached by Zelda, an Eraser who had turned traitor on Itex, the evil company that monopolized pretty much everything and was funding research into genetic experiments on humans for ours and other sadistic labs around the world - which was illegal, I might add, and nobody important seemed to give a damn. We didn't know why they were doing it. Other than research, no scientists had ever mentioned why us mutants were created, and somehow I didn't think it was for chuckles.

But anyway, Zelda had turned on them because they'd killed her friend when he got too close to something bigger than the freaky mutant soap-opera playing out here - or so she claimed, and really I had no reason to trust her. Especially since she refused to share the information about where the other avians she claimed to exist were. And when it turned out they weren't just a ruse for us to follow her into a trap, one of them also claimed to have had someone killed by Itex. And now, we were planning to break into one of those sadistic labs to break out some more mutants who might help us on our ridiculously ambitious quest to take down a ridiculously powerful supercompany with nearly-endless funds, and only because Zelda had said they were in there.

Basically, we were being lead into a bunch of dangerous situations by an untrustworthy wolf girl, and I was getting pretty damn sick of it. So when Zelda suddenly decided breaking into the School wasn't such a hot idea and tried to get us to back out of the plan, I made the leaderly decision to ignore her completely.

"Seriously, guys," Zelda said. "We shouldn't do this." I flipped my hair out of my eyes and continued packing supplies into a backpack, so we could just grab it and go, if a speedy getaway was needed. I had a sneaking suspicion it would be. Energy and Rhaksha exchanged glances. "Really. This is a bad idea."

"It was your idea," Livvie pointed out. I zipped the backpack shut and turned around.

"Yeah, well, I changed my mind," Zelda replied. "We are not going in there."

"It's not your decision," I snapped.

She bristled. "It's not yours either!"

I grit my teeth. She was right. I may have been the leader, but I didn't own these people. And however you looked at it, breaking into the School wasn't gonna be a walk in the park. "Fine," I said. "We'll take a vote. And I vote we do this."

"So do I," Rhaksha piped up immediately. "If there are people in there, they need a way out."

"I'm with Rhaksha," Livvie said firmly.

Energy shrugged. "We've come this far. Might as well see it through." Her hand twitched toward the nine millimeter on her hip.

"You're outnumbered," Rhaksha looked at Zelda. "Four to one."

Zelda met her eyes. "This is a bad idea." she insisted.

"Why?" Livvie asked. She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them, looking at Zelda. "Do tell. You have my complete attention."

"There's - there's Erasers in there." She stammered.

"So what?" I said. "There's Erasers out here. There's Erasers everywhere."

Almost simultaneously, Rhaksha chimed in. "Like you really didn't take that into stock when you decided to take us here in the first place," she said challengingly. "You're hiding something. Why did we come all the way out here just to let a few dogs stop us?" Zelda bit her lip.

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out something isn't kosher with this whole situation." Energy said matter-of-factly. Amen, I thought.

With that, the group fell silent. I shook my head, trying to clear it. "Look," I said eventually. "We're going over there as soon as the sun sets. You can either come with us, or not."

We had gone maybe half a mile before I realized she really wasn't leaving that cliff.

I slowed down, looking back indecisively. The others, now a few feet ahead, hovered and looked back. I bit my lip, thinking maybe this wasn't such a great idea. I'd figured we could have peer-pressured her into coming with us, but the fact that she still wasn't budging had me worried. Maybe she had a good reason to stay away. Maybe we should stay away.

Up ahead, Livvie motioned for me to keep going. They didn't seem concerned - at least, not about Zelda (like I said, this wasn't gonna be fun, easy, any of that jazz) - and maybe they were right. I still didn't trust her, maybe she was just playing mind-games with us. And if all went as planned in the School, all we would be losing was the alliance with Zelda, but by then it wouldn't matter. By then, we would hopefully have two, maybe three more additions to the "flock". One of us would be bound to know a starting point of the master plan.

Key word: maybe.

With a final glance over my shoulder, I turned and kept flying toward Hell in the growing dusk.

We landed in back of the building, in a cracked and dry parking lot filled with Hummers. Off to the right was a landing pad for a helicopter, to the right was an empty lot with a cage nailed to the ground in the middle of it. More cages were stacked against the building - empty, though I wasn't sure whether to be thankful or scared because of that. Beyond the cage nailed to the ground, I could just barely make out a few more block-like buildings. Probably where Erasers slept. Uniform gray double-doors opened into the parking lot, but they were locked tight by a high-tech system with a security code. Next to the doors, about four feet up from the ground, an air vent quietly hummed. The entire scene was surrounded by a twenty foot chain link fence with barbed wire spiraling around the top.

I walked toward the vent, listening to the quiet. Everything was silent except for the vent and desert night noises. It was full dark by now, the parking lot was lit by lights much like once seen in a Walmart parking lot. It was surreal. Livvie followed behind me, but Rhaksha and Energy hung back. "This is like... deja vu," Rhaksha said softly. "This is where I escaped." She pointed to a window on the third floor. "I jumped from there. I didn't really know how to fly, and the ground came up faster than I expected it to. It was pure dumb luck I wasn't too hurt to run like hell."

Suddenly, a strange reptilian sound emanated from the vent. I shivered. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't human. And it meant the vent lead straight to it.

"We snuck out - me and my brother, that is," Energy told us. "Somehow, he figured out the code for the doors out front. When were scaling the fence, though, a bunch of alarms started going off. That's when..." She trailed off, looking lost in thought. But we knew what had happened next.

I turned to her after a moment. "Do you know if the doors had the same codes?"

She shook her head. "Not a chance. It was eight numbers, computer-generated, and changed every two weeks."

"This vent," Livvie said. I looked and saw her inspecting said vent. "It's screwed on. We don't have a screwdriver, do we?"

"No," I said, mentally facepalming. Kind of dropped the ball on that one. I looked at Energy and Rhaksha hopefully. "Do you know any way in, anything?"

"I don't think I ever left the third floor," Rhaksha said regretfully. "So unless you wanna give up the stealth approach and break a window, no."

"Sorry," Energy said, a touch bitingly. "I was too busy looking for a way out."

I sighed, frustrated. I couldn't believe we had come this far just to be stopped by a wall.

Wait.

A wall.

I looked up, grinning wildly. "Just a wall!" I said in wonder. I'm sure I looked completely insane.

Rhaksha blinked at me. "Snow, have you lost your - "

Livvie sucked in her breath, understanding. "Oh my God! I can phase through it! Why didn't we think of that sooner?"

Rhaksha and Energy's faces lit up as they got it. "Yeah!"

"Why didn't we think of that sooner?"

So it was decided - Livvie would use her power I'd mentioned before, phasing. Somehow, it made her form less dense, giving her the ability to pass through solid objects. The catch? It took a lot out of her. She would find a way to get us inside (hopefully through the vent), but then she would have to sit out and keep watch until we - hopefully - returned with more experiments.

She started to protest when she heard that part of the plan, but it didn't take much convincing. She knew she would only slow us down if she tried to help after phasing.

"Most of the whitecoats go home at night, but there might be some burning the midnight oil here and there," Energy informed her. "So watch out for them. And Erasers. They might be patrolling."

Livvie nodded, already fading from view. Almost immediately after her form disappeared, we heard footsteps echoing towards the doors, then silence.

Ten minutes had ticked by, agonizingly slow. Everything was quiet except for the sound of Rhaksha pacing back and forth. Energy and I leaned against the wall. She tapped her foot nervously. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach - butterflies, I guess, but it didn't feel like butterflies. It felt like dead weight. I was worried - worried sick, but come on, that's justifiable here. My mind kept running through every worst-case-scenario I could think of and I'd been getting pretty creative with them past the six-minute mark.

We hadn't spoken since the dust had settled in the wake of Livvie's footsteps. We hadn't left the twenty-foot span Rhaksha was pacing. And we hadn't heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, aside from the occasional inhuman screech piercing through the air system from somewhere deep inside the building I was leaning on. Somewhere I didn't want to think about now, or ever, actually.

But the thing was, I had to think about it, didn't I? It was where Livvie might be right now. And when she returned - if she returned - it was where I was headed. And from what I'd heard, it wasn't exactly freakin' Disneyworld in there.

Suddenly, I heard something other than the usual desert-and-hell noises - footsteps. My stomach leapt into my throat and I jumped up. Beside me, Energy did the same and put a hand to the nine millimeter. Rhaksha froze in place, her eyes darting first to the door, then out to the space behind the lot and to the right where we'd seen buildings earlier - the Erasers' barricades. They were hidden by darkness now.

Erasers? The thought flashed acrossed my mind like lightning. I swear, my heart stopped beating for a second. And then - Livvie was there, looking worn out but smiling triumphantly. She held something in her hand.

Relief washed through me like a dam breaking. "Scared you, didn't I?" She grinned.

"Dude," I said. "Not cool." My heart was still thudding like a hummingbird on crack, but I realized I was grinning ear-to-ear too.

"Sorry," Livvie said, not looking very sorry. But whatever, I was too hyped up to care. "Here - " she held up the object in her hand. It glinted metallically in the glow from the streetlamps. "I found this for the vent." A screwdriver.

"Excellent," Energy tucked her hair behind her ear, looking positively diabolical.

Rhaksha took the screwdriver, and a minute later the cover to the vent crashed to the concrete. The opening glared at us, pitch black. It seemed to be screaming something, but what it was, I didn't know.

"Well guys," I said finally. "Ready to fuck shit up?"

They didn't answer - the evil grins said enough.

Thanks as always to KaylaAnonymous. Writing this chapter got pretty... hilarious. (TUNYFISH SANDICH.)

RnR?