I feel I got a good reception for the first chapter, especially considering it was a first chapter and mainly because, even as far as first chapters go, it was dull. Nothing happened. So I was super excited to write this chapter. I never realized how much I like writing fight scenes until I started writing MR fanfiction.
Yeah, I know this is pretty much my first posted one, but I've been writing 'em for quite a while. I don't like posting them till I have a lot written, but basically; I once read someone say that it was really difficult to find any decent AU non-highschool MR fanfictions. And I guess yeah, that's true. So I've been writing them. And writing them and writing them. Fun stuff. Keep an eye out.
Enjoy the chapter.
Disclaimer: Maximum Ride and all characters contained there within belong to James Patterson. I do, however, take sole responsibility of this plot.
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Words That We Couldn't Say
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Chapter Two
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Speak
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Speak: v. to utter words or articulate sounds with the ordinary voice; to talk
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I guess it goes without saying that I am one of the least lucky people in the world. I've seen those prime-time shows on tv. The ones where the kids gush to each other about how horrible and terrible their lives are because mommy and daddy took away their keys or grounded them or something. Or because Bobby didn't like Suzie back or because they didn't get the color iPod they wanted.
Wah, wah. I think that if I were given the opportunity to make a television show vaguely based on my life, I'd want my show to be realistic. I mean, were Bobby and Suzie realistic? I dunno, that's not my real at least. And my real could kick their real's ass.
And currently, my real could very well kick my own ass.
My inner-bird-kid told me I'd been on watch over three hours -getting into Fang's shift, but hey, I wasn't about to wake him up anytime soon, not after the horrible feeling of his eyes on me had finally faded. Besides. I knew it would royally tick him off to wake up tomorrow and know he hadn't taken his watch. Maybe he used that time to be so 'zen', or maybe he did write in a diary. Who knows, but he really was pushy about getting his turn.
I was still kind of moping in that self-serving way I do so well when I thought I heard some non-invasive rustling in the brush. Animals? Seemed likely. Still, I glanced around warily.
Nothing.
I tried to keep myself open to my surroundings. Look at nothing but see everything. All of those observation techniques that have been ground into me -literally, though bashing- simply by necessity.
But damn, lately I've been having such a hard time focusing. Most everything wound up going back to Fang.
Fang this, Fang that. It was awful.
Yeah, I totally admit he's a huge part of my life. I couldn't possibly imagine living without him, really. But that went for the whole flock.
But then again, the whole flock hadn't tried to kiss me.
Multiple times.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Well, duh, I felt weirded out. We're best friends. I didn't get why he had to keep pushing us into these situations in the first place. Was there something wrong with us just hanging out like always? Planning? Making sarcastic comments and witty retorts?
But then I remembered back at Anne's, when we were like that, and how awful it felt. And then again in Antarctica.
Let's be rational.
On one hand, we have no time for any of this romance crapola, and Fang swooning after every pretty girl he saw was not helping. Sexist pig.
And then, well, I had sorta raised all of us. I never needed much mothering or parenting myself, but the others did. Fang and Iggy included. I was only a few months older than the two of them, but I was always the most outspoken one. You thought Fang was quiet now? Well he never spoke those days in the School. And Iggy hardly said anything either, not after how well his eye-operation went. I was the voice for all of them when they didn't have one. That's how it always was.
So I was definitely the leader, but did that make me the mom? With Angel I felt that way, and even with Gazzy. I used to feel that Nudge was very much my sister, but now that I actually had one, I realized that wasn't quite right. Iggy was, I don't know, a brother of sorts.
Fang was harder to categorized.
Whenever I gave orders I figured Fang would listen, but it was always more at his whim. Iggy and everyone would normally go for it, no questions asked. But I'd have to answer to Fang at the end of the day. Sometimes it felt like he wasn't quite a part of the family like the rest of them were. Like he was just indulging me, like he was just along for the ride.
But brother/mother stuff aside, I figured I had some sort of stake in when and who Fang decided to get all disgusting and mushy with. It was okay to feel a lot of the things I was feeling. Besides, it wasn't like anything could ever get serious. Hello? Mutant bird-kids here. The wings would sort of throw a wrench into everything. And trust me, no one was going to be getting my permission to tell their 'loved one' about our fabulous upbringing any time soon. Jeezum, just imagining that conversation was giving me a headache.
And once through convincing myself of that in order to maintain my sanity, I was beyond glad that Fang couldn't read my mind. I did not need him to know how much confusion he caused in my life. The egotistical jerk didn't deserve it.
I was midway through another mental tirade when I felt a hand, large and hairy and cold, wrap tightly around my mouth.
I always amaze myself with my ability to stay calm in these situations. Like, say one of you had been in my shoes at that second (let alone the rest of my life), you probably would have panicked or screamed or wet yourself.
What did I do?
I just thought 'God, how cliché is this?! Next he'll be whispering some nonsense about how I'd be quiet if I knew what was good for me.'
Sure enough, a voice said quietly in my ear -not a whisper though. I guess flyboys came with volume knobs now, "Say a word and you will die."
I can officially write a book on stereotypical villains! I think I'll get on that after I, you know, save the world and stuff.
And since I am so good at taking orders, I did a few things I was sure he didn't want me to; first, I grabbed the wrist holding me captive and twisted hard, content when I heard a loud crack, and while that was happening, I used my feet to absolutely pound on the wall of the lean-to, knowing that my flock would be up and at 'em within seconds, and lastly, once free, I yelled for good measure, just because I know that if a flyboy could get pissed off, that would piss him off.
I heard a commotion below me and knew my gang were in serious mode. Probably not even a blearly eye in sight, bless them. With a solid punch to the back of the neck of my own nuisance, I managed to get a better jist of the situation.
There were around ten flyboys, none of which seemed to be armed, flooding around us, including the one who just fell into a heap at my feet. No big deal.
Except, of course, if I had been doing my duty there would be no flyboys parading on our nap-time. Or, at least, we would have been better-prepared.
Everyone seemed to be holding their own so I moved on to the nearest available target. I used my fury at myself as fuel for my punches, which was always a good course of action.
It was still raining, maddeningly so. The forest floor I'd jumped to was covered in leaves, which had become hazardously slippery. The water dropping from above steadily fell into my eyes, which was never a good thing.
To make matters even better, the amount of water was enough to hinder us, but not enough to bother the flyboys. Or maybe they were a new batch. It didn't really matter too much the 'whys', just that they were still able to be destroyed.
My mind was a breathless haze. Over the last five days I'd gotten probably that many hours of sleep, and my head had been reeling. Still, I scoped the small clearing, checking up on my flock.
Angel was safe behind Iggy, who was dishing out a very fluent series of punches to his flyboy. I missed erasers for a number of reasons, but most particularly was because Angel couldn't defend herself nearly as well against flyboys. Without a mind she couldn't control them, and mortal-combat had never been her strong suite. Normally one of us older kids would try to shove her behind us while we fought. She always got upset and wanted to kick butt too, but there was no helping it. Without her ace-in-the-hole things had become too dangerous to not keep a close eye on her.
Nudge was holding her own, pummeling a wolf-man-robot with about as much grace as a champion fighter, Total yipping excitedly at her heels. Her hair was sopping wet and she kept having to whip her hair back to keep it from her eyes. The only injury she seemed to have so far was a small scratch on her face, leaking just a bit of blood.
Gazzy was darting to and fro, tripping a flyboy here and then proceeding to soccer-star kick its mechanical face. On a 'could-be-gruesome' factor, it'd have been an easy 10. But these were robots; things were only gruesome in theory.
I dodged a quick upper-cut and returned it en-masse with a sweet punch to my attacker's midsection.
I had felt that we were doing fairly well and was glowing with that obscure pride that always afflicted me when I got to see my troopers fight. It wasn't something I would think many other people could feel realistically. The closest could probably be some sort of physical defense teacher watching his students, mixed with maybe when a mom goes to a kid's piano recital. But it wasn't pride in my own teachings, it was just pride that we simply were, that we could survive.
Normally the highlight of these fights was Fang. He was superb at fighting, really. Sure, I could kick his bird-butt to Albuquerque and back, but he fought so differently than I did. We all had our styles; I'm more of a brute force and speed kind of girl myself, but Fang moves so fluidly. Each movement looks casual and informal, but I knew that every move Fang made, both in battle and otherwise, was fully thought out and intentional; each move Fang made had an express purpose -he hated wasting anything, even things as intangible as time and energy.
And when fighting, his sole purpose was to be as lethal as possible.
Seeing what I thought was a black hoodie behind me, I whipped around, the errant strands of hair that had fallen from my sloppy bun whipping past me.
Suddenly, without any warning, I felt a cold, dead hand clutch at my throat and push me up against the thick trunk of a closeby tree, a good foot off the ground.
I brought both my hands up, even my rigorous training couldn't prevent the split-second of sheer panic being throttled brought on. I tried to wedge my arms between his to loosen his grip but it seemed near impossible; the flyboy was holding me with every bit of his titanium grasp.
I gasped loudly, his fingers clenching even tighter and I found that I couldn't breathe, I couldn't even see. Black was quickly closing in the corners of my vision and the flyboy's hateful face was now dotted with white specs. I clawed at his hand desperately, too hyped on adrenaline to notice whether I was damaging them or not.
He brought his spare hand up languidly, flexing his fingers and even I could see the cruel points each of his nails ended in. But it was so dark now, were my eyes closed? And I had this awful throbbing in my head, and it almost sounded like I could hear the ocean now...I'd like to see the ocean again I think, every time we go to the beach things seem to go wrong though but I really love the way I feel next to the sea how small I feel and how free it makes me feel and the way it smells when the cool breeze ruffles through my hair and feathers...
Dimly, distantly, I heard a shout and it brought me back just enough to jerk my head back, painfully, against the tree trunk. My eyes were still closed and I felt a sort of coldness on my face. Oh right, the rain. I wanted to reach up to wipe it off because there really was too much of it when the pressure suffocating me suddenly disappeared and I fell bonelessly to the floor, wheezing and coughing.
I felt the air, the life, return to my limbs and without warning was stuck with a terrible stinging on the right side of my face. Still heaving, I tasted copper on my lips and had a disturbing realization that the moisture I felt dripping down my chin was blood. Reaching up with shaking fingers I felt around my eye.
There was a huge gash running from above my eyebrow to the curve of my cheekbone, slicking straight over my eyelid.
Oh gross.
Still on autopilot, I tore a sleeve off my sweatshirt and make a makeshift bandage, tying it tightly but sloppily over my right eye but above my left. It didn't hurt much now but that was probably because of how jittery I still was. Even now I could see, with just my left eye, how much blood I've gotten all over myself.
But I had more clarity of thought now. The things I'd seen in the throes of death had lifted like a veil leaving me with just the notion that it had been Fang's voice I'd heard just seconds ago.
He'd saved me.
And the flyboy that was missing...
I jerked my head up and saw, just a few feet in front of me, Fang and the flyboy wrestling on the floor. It looked briefly like Fang was winning but then I noticed that he'd been pinned to the ground, the robot's full weight trapping his lower body, his left hand bleeding profusely and, as though he felt my gaze, he met my eyes for just a genetically-enhanced heartbeat before those lights went out and he screamed in pain.
The flyboy had just crushed his right hand with a sickening crack.
I rushed to get up but found myself unable to move. I was still choking and there were still dots dancing in my peripheral.
While Fang was reeling from the last blow, the wolf-human-robot reached up that same hand he'd used to try to tear my eye out and wrapped it securely around Fang's throat.
I had a very passing notion that Jeeze don't these guys know how to actually fight? before noticing that he wasn't trying to strangle Fang.
No, he'd taken his claws and pressed them into Fang's skin.
I gave one final surge of panic, allowing me to push off the ground and throw myself at the flyboy, hitting it with enough force that, upon hitting the ground, its head snapped back in an unpleasantly familiar way and he lied still.
But to my horror, it looked like it could have been too late.
There was already a nauseating amount of blood pooling around Fang where he lay crumpled and pale, pouring continuously from the gaping gouges in his throat.
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Funny, ain't it?
Games
people play,
Scratch it, paint it,
One in the same,
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I realize that if I keep the chapters reasonably short and manageable, I'm actually more likely to update! Wow! So like, this chapter was fun to write, but I'm excited about all of em, so let's see how we do, shall we? Also a cool note; for this chapter I actually drew a storyboard. I'm an art major so I have a degree of familiarity with these things and done them before, but never for conceptual work (let alone for something of mine!). I was surprised at how much more simple and easy it made the whole writing process!
PS: (I know a PS should be below a signature, but whatever) I love, love love torturing Max and Fang. There's just something so refreshing about it. Haaaaaaah.
Thank you for reading and please, all reviews are most welcome.
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~hanyoupup
