Hey hey hey! So here I am with my second chapter of 'After Angel', a pathetic title, I know, but I'm not very creative when it comes to story titles. Anyway, this chapter is not very interesting in my perspective but necessary so bear with it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Max or any other characters (as much as I wish I owned Fang)! Maximum Ride belongs to James Patterson! (Thank you for pointing that out to me! I made a mistake with his name in the first chapter (I know, I'm a dunce), but I have no idea how to fix it! James Patterson, not Robert Patterson lol :D

Max's POV

The ground shook violently beneath me. It was so sudden. One moment I was at a picnic on a bright sunny day, sleeping away on someone's lap, and the next moment the earth trembled unsympathetically below my feet. I tried to stand up but was knocked to the ground, scraping my knee in the process. Far away in the distance I could hear my name being called.

"Max! Maaax!"

The voice was so familiar. What the heck was going on? Where was I? Wait...wait a second...

I woke up to see a beaming Nudge down at me and desperately shaking me to arouse me.

"I'm up, I'm up!" I shouted, pushing her away and sitting up.

"Max! Max guess what?" she squealed.

I groaned and groggily rubbed my eyes. "What?" I asked.

"Iggy!" she said happily.

"What? What about Iggy?"

"Iggy! He just saw another color! He can see red!" she was positively beaming, nearly out of breath in excitement.

"What?" I questioned stupidly, shocked from the sudden remark.

"Max, he can see red!" she was grabbing my hand now, pulling me inside the house (I had fallen asleep outside on the porch chair), towards Iggy and the others.

"No way!" I smiled for the first time in weeks. She just laughed and dragged me along faster. My mom, my half sister Ella, and the rest of the flock were all crowded in the living room, all of them watching Iggy anxiously. Gazzy was waving a red pillow an inch away from Iggy's face.

"Gaz, don't stuff it in my face, I won't be able to see anything if you do that!" Iggy complained and pushed the pillow away.

"Sorry." Gazzy mumbled and held it at a farther length.

"I can see it! Yeah, I can see it! Gaz, go find something else red!" Iggy told him eagerly.

I let out a quiet chuckle. "Maybe when you look in the mirror you can see your hair now, Ig." I told him.

Iggy looked in my direction. "Glad to see you're awake, sleeping beauty." he made a face at me but then stopped mid-way. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Cool Max!" he said as he ran inside the bathroom to check his reflection.

Everyone laughed and I was starting to feel a whole lot better, until I saw Dylan. The events from the night before flooded back into my head and my smile was quickly wiped off, replaced by a frown.

"You fell asleep outside, Max." my mom, Dr. Martinez, approached me.

"Um. Yeah."

She laughed lightly. "What were you doing out there?" she asked and I was sure, now, that she'd heard the quarrel I had with Dylan yesterday.

"Just, uh, you know. I felt stuffy." I replied lamely. My mom gave me a worried look and was about to reply when Iggy came rushing back into the living room.

"I can just see it! I can see my hair!" Iggy screamed excitedly.

"Sweet man." Gazzy said and gave him a high-five. I smiled to myself, glad that my mom had dropped the topic, at least for now.

"Who wants breakfast? I can fix up some scrambled eggs and French toast in a half hour. Who's up for it?" my mom asked the flock. Obviously, she got no refusals, including from me. I was in a way better mood then I'd ever been in a while and it had been forever since I'd last eaten anything good.

Before we could eat breakfast, Iggy insisted that we all wear red so he could see where each of us were. I told him he could hear us like he'd done more than half his life, but he still persisted and we finally let in.

Although I didn't say a word and just ate to my heart's content, all throughout breakfast, I was still aware of Dylan's gaze boring into me. I knew he was looking for the right chance to talk to me but I was in no mood for another argument so I did my best not to look his way or go near him. I saw Iggy squirt ketchup in his scrambled eggs and I smiled to myself; I was glad Iggy was slowly starting to see different colors. His first color was white, now it was red. I wondered what color he would see next.

"Iggy, we should try experimenting what you'll be able to see while we're flying!" Gazzy said after we'd all had our stomachs filled.

"Ooh yeah! We can see how well you can spot red from a distance." Nudge said.

"Alright, sounds good," Iggy commented. "Who's up for it?" he looked at my dull red T-shirt.

Dylan was still watching me curiously, unblinkingly. "Sure, why not?" I said.

"I'll go too." Dylan said. I glared at him. My mom made us change out of red first, afraid that we might be spotted. I don't know what I would do without her.

600 feet off the ground, Iggy could still spot my mom's red Honda Civic; Gazzy urged Iggy to go up higher to test his sight further.

Now we were 300 yards above ground.

"I can still see it as bright as day." Iggy said.

"I can just make it out," Nudge pouted. "how can you see it so clearly?" So here's the deal: not only can Iggy see certain colors at times, when he sees them, he has way better sight than anyone. I mean our eyesight's are already super enhanced but Iggy's was beyond that. It was even better than Dylan's supersonic vision. We had no idea why, but that's the way it worked.

Iggy zoomed around from place to place, muttering every so often that he could make out something red. After a while, I told the flock that we should probably get back and we did, except for Iggy who decided to stay out a bit longer.

It was dinner time by the time Iggy returned.

"Ig, you gave everyone a heart attack. We were just about to send out a search party for you. What took you so long? Ella was worried." I said sarcastically to him with a wink. I may not be a genius on relationships and I'm definitely no love doctor, but even I could tell there was something brewing up between Iggy and my sister. Iggy turned bright red when I said that.

"Hey, Ig, you should go take a look at yourself in the mirror now, you'll be able to see your face." Gazzy said innocently which only caused Iggy to turn a brighter shade of red. We both cracked up.

My mom said it would be a while till dinner was ready so I decided to just chill in the living room. I was tired and since there was no one there I thought I might as well catch another 30 minutes of sleep. Of course, I wasn't even allowed that luxury.

"Hey." Dylan approached me out of nowhere.

I grimaced and ignored him, walked over to the sofa and lay down to take a nap. He followed me and bent down to look at me, making his head level with mine.

"Hey." he repeated, his breath ticking my face.

I sat up. "Hi." I said flatly.

"Let's have a little talk, shall we?" he said.

"We're talking right now."

"I mean outside. Let's go out for a spin." he said and a chill went down my spine. He obviously meant going for a short flight outside, but the situation seemed so familiar. My insides turned when I remembered that was exactly what Fang had said to me one night a long time ago. We had landed somewhere near a dock and then he had...he had...kissed me—

"No." I said bluntly and lay down again.

He yanked me up. "Max, I'm sorry about last night. Come on, I need to talk to you." he pulled me up and started dragging me to the porch. I roughly snatched my hand away.

"I don't care, Dylan. I'm done talking." I said, fixing him with a cold stare. Dylan's shoulders slumped and I knew I had been too harsh.

"Hey, I'm sorry, OK? I wasn't thinking properly and I was worried about you." he tried.

I wasn't in any mood to talk about this now. "Hmm I'm hungry, are you hungry? We should go get ready for dinner! Bye!" I said urgently, changing the topic, and quickly started to trot away from him.

"Maax." Dylan nearly whined and put out a hand to stop me from going anywhere. I pushed it down and kept walking. I knew it would be a long way till he'd give up again, but this time, I wasn't willing to wait that long.

When he ran up and grabbed my wrist, I twisted out of his hold, grabbed his wrist and wrenched him down hard.

"Oww!" he yelped.

"I am not in the mood, Dylan. Don't mess with me today or else you will regret it." I threatened. He nodded painfully and I let go.

I was almost done eating dinner when I heard the DING-DONG of the doorbell.

"Who's that?" Nudge asked with her mouth full of spaghetti.

I exchanged a worried look with my mom; who could that be at this time of night? After a quick nod from me, she slowly made her way to the front door as I assembled my flock out of visual perception of the front door.

"We better lay low," I said, ushering them into another room, "best to stay out of sight. We don't know who they are."

When my mom opened the door, the visitor from outside stomped right in. I tensed.

"Valencia! Wher—where are the kids?" Jeb asked, out of breath; he had obviously been running here.

"J-Jeb? What's going on?" my mom asked him.

"Where are they, Val? They're here, aren't they?" Jeb asked my mom hurriedly. Something was wrong—i could tell from his tone of voice—and it involved us.

I stepped out and into view of my mom and Jeb. "What's going on?"

"Max! Oh, Max! Thank god you're alright." he ran up to me and wrapped me in a warm embrace which I did not return.

"What's going on?" I asked stiffly.

"You're-you're not going to like this. We don't have much time. Where's everyone else?" he asked me.

The rest of the flock stepped out. "Why, what's wrong?" Iggy asked Jeb.

"I'll explain everything soon. But we have to go now. We have to get out of here quick." he said and started to pull me to the front door.

I wrenched my arm away from him. "I'm not going anywhere until I know what's going on." I told him.

"Max, this is no time to argue. I'll explain everything on the jet but we really need to go now." he said desperately and tried again to drag me out of the house. I didn't budge.

"Jet?" Ella asked. "Why a jet?"

"Because we need to get out of here fast!" Jeb complained.

"What's going on?" Dylan asked Jeb the same question for the tenth time.

Jeb let out an exasperated sigh. "Alright, but promise me you'll all come with me after I tell you." he said.

I shrugged. "Depends."

He gave another frustrated sigh. "No Max, you really have to come. You can't do your own thing this time. You can't stay and figh—"

"Get to the point." I cut him off.

Jeb's shoulders sagged as he let out a third depressing sigh. His figure dropped a couple inches and his face contorted into emotional pain.

"They're back." he said, "The Erasers are back."

Hehehe, yes, I am bringing back the Erasers! But don't worry, they won't be the boring old ones...ha ha ha

Coool so that's my second chapter. I know it is extremely boring...I apologize..but the fact that Iggy can see red will be somewhat of importance later on. So just don't forget about it. And I have a huge surprise in the next chapter for all of you! :D Stay tuned! Please comment, I still need feedback...and subscribe! Cool, thanks! (:

OOHHHH I almost forgot! People, check out my other story, 'Secrets Untold'. It has nothing to do with Maximum Ride but I seriously need feedback on it. PLEEAASE check it out! :(