A/N: Wolfy encouraged me to continue this. This round: Ice Cream! Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own Maximum Ride.

________________________________________________________________________

I woke the next morning feeling sticky and generally icky. My crusty eyes slowly opened, and I braced myself for the sight that was sure to come. Multiple smears of pie fillings colored the walls, and various streaks of fruit splashed in random areas. Great. That meant, if we didn't want to be paying extra for a cleaning crew, we would need to be out of here as soon as possible. Which meant no shower. Ugh.

I stumbled over to Fang in my early morning haze, and gently kicked him ( I swear) in the side.

"Fang, c'mon, we gotta go. Now." He mumbled something unintelligible, and proceeded to ignore me. Frustrated with this, I decided to give him a not-so-gentle-but-not-enough-to-break-his-back kick. That's stage three of the Fang Wake Up Call. He finally opened his eyes to glare at me. Jeesh, if looks could kill. I returned the look and yanked him from off the floor. (I still don't know why he was even down there. C'mon, man, passing off a bed? For the floor? Ridiculous.)

For the next ten minutes, we had to work together to wake the rest of the Flock up. Gosh, we'd gotten lazy lately. Too much pampering. Mental note: wake Flock up at 5:00 for morning practice from now on.

Finally, after much grumbling and staggering, we managed to get out of the motel by 8:00. The cleaning people were supposed to come in at about 8:30, so thank goodness for my internal alarm clock.

We took off from down the street. It was still pretty early for the city folk, so I highly doubt anyone even saw us. Besides, what with the government's recent involvement, it was only a matter of time before everyone in existence knew about us. Goody. Just what I needed; more attention.

________________________________________________________________________

We had been flying for roughly four hours at a leisure pace, when we couldn't ignore our stomachs anymore. None of us had had anything to eat since the pie incident, and our bellies were telling us that that was way too long of a wait.

Add to the fact that the rest of the Flock had been nagging about it for the past three and a half hours, and I was ready to make a dive bomb towards the nearest Micky D's.

We must have reached the northern most part of Maine by now, judging by the hordes of fisheries I could see below us. I spotted a sorta-small patch of forest a few miles away, and led the Flock down there. We touched down in a small clearing, barely big enough for our wing spans, and I put the plan together for us to stay here for the next night. Like I said, we'd been too pampered lately. A night in the woods would do this lot some good.

"Ugh, Max, can we please get something to eat now? Please?" Nudge begged. I heard affirmative noises coming from everyone else, so I figured I'd better agree with them. My stomach was growling at me anyways, so I might as well have.

The nearest town looked to be about half a mile away, so we'd have to walk unless we wanted to be up next on the bird watcher's list. "Oh, look it's the rare bird/human thing. Known to the locals as 'that bird kid.'" Hey, you never know.

It took us a good ten minutes to get to town, now we had to find an actual restaurant. Most of the place looked to be one big market, but we managed to find a tiny diner in the center of town. Well, if one could even call it that. But, hey, it had a counter, and I could smell food, so it counts.

Because of our last incident with the pies, I wasn't going to chance staying long enough for the Flock to cause a scene. Get in, get food, get out; that was the plan.

Lately my plans hadn't gone accordingly.

We got in. We got food. But we didn't exactly get out the way I had hoped we would. Ohhh, no; that'd just be too easy! I even went out of my way to get regular-sized food portions so no one would take a second look at me, even if I was still covered in pie goop.

The rest of the Flock, however, was another thing.

Apparently Angel, Iggy, Nudge, and the Gasman didn't think last night's pies were enough. We had walked into the shop, and I had gone first, then Fang. When the line got to Iggy, all heck broke loose. Again. Well, not entirely. At least this time they stayed in a line and ordered like civilized people. Not shouting like last time. See? I'm slowly (slowly, slowly) training them to act courteously.

Those four didn't even bother ordering food food; they skipped right to the dessert. All this place had was an assortment of ice cream flavors, but I guess that was enough for them. Iggy ordered a giant bowl of a strawberry-vanilla mixture, Nudge got a big carton of Half Baked, and Angel and Gazzy each ordered a chocolate fudge sundae. Big ones. Like, mountainously big.

Like I said, I wasn't taking any chances with the Flock's seemingly good behavior, so I quickly paid the cashier with our dwindling money supply, grabbed everyone, and left as inconspicuously as our pie-covered selves allowed.

We walked all the way back to the little clearing and plopped down on the grass. Fang and I set to work on inhaling our fish while everyone else tore at their ice cream. Fang finished before me and went over to sit between Nudge and Iggy. Fine, be that way, emo boy. There was no way I was sitting near any of them when they had ammo and devious minds. Uh uh, no way.

And even as I heard the first war cry, I still didn't look up.

Well, okay, maybe I kinda had to look up. Just to make sure no one was getting hurt. I was promptly plopped onto by a huge handful of chocolate ice cream. Which meant my victims were Gazzy and Angel. I slowly turned to see Nudge and Fang fighting over her Half Baked, and they ended up looking at me, then each other, then me again. Crap.

Right as they launched their frozen dairy bombs of doom, I rolled away into the bushes. Behind the cover of the tree line, I darted between branches and bushes, evading every shot thrown at me. They'd give up after a while, and then I'd come in for the kill. Sure enough, after about five minutes of my dodging, Fang and Nudge turned back to open fire at Angel, Iggy, and the Gasman. Good. Time for my plan of action.

I quietly crept over to Fang, making sure no one could hear me over their own noises. Fang's back was to me, which made it much easier to shove him and steal his ammunition. The carton of Half Baked was about half full, so I scooped up a ginormous amount and slapped it right on his head. Before Fang could get a chance to get me back, I hopped out of the way and ran towards Gazzy and Angel. The ones who started this thing.

Iggy got to me before I could finish my mini-mission though. I got splattered in the head with whatever he was carrying. As I felt the ice cream slowly drip down my hair line, I turned with a death glare in my eyes (lost on Iggy, I know, but still mildly satisfying) and aimed the rest of my carton at him. Which he ducked with speed that left me very miffed. And a little vulnerable. Now I was empty-handed against a vengeful Iggy, who still had ammunition. Then I remembered that Angel and Gazzy still had ammo, and I rushed over to their side. They were currently taking aim at Nudge and Fang, who was semi-hiding behind Nudge. I skidded to a stop right before Gazzy could launch his ice cream at Nudge.

"Stop!"

Everyone turned to stare at me with mild shock in their eyes. "Alright, alright, the pie thing was entertaining, and this was fun too, okay? But this can't become a regular thing, guys! We've still got a mission and, like it or not, we still need to focus on that. I'm sorry for being a kill-joy and all, but come on, enough is enough!" I was out of breath by the time I was done. I hadn't meant to be harsh or anything but at least it seemed that I gotten through to them. The looks of guilt and disappointment on the Flock's faces (excluding Fang, duh) numbed me, though. I knew we hadn't had any sort of fun lately. These guys deserved a little goof-off time.

And on that note, I sighed and said, "Starting tomorrow."

Which wasn't the smartest thing to say in my position. I was still open for attack, and I'd just messed with everyone's feelings, so, needless to say, I was pelted plenty of times.

The fight went on late into the night, and I had to dodge and evade for most of the time, unless I was able to steal someone else's ice cream carton. That never lasted long before the owner reclaimed it, though. The only advantage I had now that I didn't yesterday was that ice cream melted, and the fight couldn't last terribly long.

Finally it seemed we were all out of ammo, and we flopped down to the ground, some of us panting, some of us snoring.

All of us happy.