Fang POV
I blinked and groaned as bright light filled the room.
"Nudge! I'm getting up, all right? Just shut the fricking blinds!" I pleaded as I stumbled blindly on the floor.
"Fang, it's 6:00! Max says it's time to leave. She says to hurry," explained Nudge as she giggled and skipped out of the room.
And when I mean hurry, I mean NOW! growled Max's voice in my head.
What's the rush? I responded, annoyed.
Half to me and half to herself, Max thought, It was right…
I frowned and rubbed my eyes. Walking to the bathroom, I remembered that Max said the Voice told her that we would get new powers or something like that…
And now Max thinks It was righ- wait, the Voice is RIGHT? New powers? I gagged on my toothpaste and spat it out, coughing loudly.
Holy shit. But…how did Max know the Voice was right? I dropped my toothbrush and ran out of the bathroom.
Angel POV
Max looked faintly stressed as she looked at Iggy, who was grinning along with Gazzy. Nudge gaped at them with a mixture of envy and awe. Squeezing Lily, I entered Max's mind and probed what she knew.
Hmmm…Max's mind has gotten stronger. I can't read anything she's not thinking at the moment.
Max? What's wrong? Is it Iggy's new power?
Sweetie, it's ok. Don't worry, nothing's wrong.
Max, I know you're hid-
Fang burst into Iggy and Gazzy's room looking worried and confused at the same time.
"What's going on?" he demanded. He looked angry now, as he stared at us, eyes flickering back and forth from Max to the grinning Iggy.
Max rolled her eyes and said, "Calm down, Fang. No one's hurt."
He looked at Iggy, suspicion written all over his face, as he said hesitantly, "What's Iggy's new power?"
"Give a million dollars to the man in black! Well done, Mr. Fang, you guessed it!" roared Iggy with a grin.
Max laughed at Fang's annoyed expression and pointed at Nudge, who was jumping up and down.
"Oh! Oh! I know! Fang, it's absolutely awesome! I can't believe Iggy got another awesome power! And it's fun too! Manipulating fire and all, man, who wouldn't want that power!" gushed Nudge rapidly as she kept bouncing on the floor.
Fang stared at her, uncomprehending, then his eyes widened.
"Manipulating fire!?!?!?!" he choked out.
"Yup," said Max, who looked utterly annoyed and worried now.
"Watch this, man," said Iggy as he took out a match. He lit it, and almost as soon as he did, the fire leapt high in the air and flickered to the left, then the right, sending sparks as it did so flying everywhere. Iggy grinned and with a sudden movement, the fire resembled the shape of a blooming lotus. Then a shape of an explosion, every detail exaggerated with slowness. I might have believed that the match was actually exploding if the explosion wasn't happening so slowly. Max snorted while Gazzy and Nudge gaped at the firework display.
Fang muttered, "Show off. Who would give him so many new powers?"
Max frowned.
Max POV
Max, I think some flyboys are coming. Leave the hotel in five minutes.
Right, thanks.
You're welcome.
I sighed and found my Flock staring at me. Iggy had stopped his fire show and Fang's eyes were bulging out of his head.
"Oh. My. God." they all said at once. I looked at them with a perplexed expression and flexed my fingers. They felt kinda strange…
The Flock moved back, all the while staring at my fingers. I frowned and held up my hands.
The flock ducked and I laughed. Were they afraid of hands? But their faces were stricken with real fear…
I glanced at my hands and gasped.
Chapter 7, Part 2
Max POV
Holy-whoa. This was AWESOME. I flexed my fingers and smiled. The small bursts of energy that I was grasping in my hands grew in power, then waned in power. I stared at them, tried to make them disappear, and found they went away. I tensed and the blue glowing energy surges appeared again around my hand. I looked at the wall behind me, and smiled evilly. With a flick of my hand, a ball of energy flew from my hand and hit the wall. A bright light filled the room as the energy bolt hit the wall and exploded. A soundless explosion filled the room and the Flock covered their eyes. I didn't need to, I could see perfectly fine in the bright light. As the light went away, I gasped at the large gap in the wall. It was wide enough and high enough so that I could stand in there with my wings spread!
"Uh, Max, I don't think we should be blowing holes in hotels," remarked Iggy I glared at him (uselessly).
"But I'm glad you're interested in blowing things up! I have brought you to the dark side! Now NOTHING will stop me from making bombs and blowing things up for eternity!" he cackled evily.
I was about to strangle Iggy, but a couple flying, butt-ugly, fly-boy shapes were coming our way.
"Uh-oh. Flyboys. Time to go, guys!" I announced. I walked over to Iggy.
"Thinks we can U and A outta of this hole?" I asked because he has a wonderful sense of proportions, and now, since he can see, it's even better.
"Oh yeah, we'll fit just fine thanks to you," he said. We gathered our backpacks and stood at the back of the room. Iggy ran and leaped off the hole, spreading his wings as he soared into the air. Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel went after him. Fang looked at me and dashed into the sky. I ran and followed him.
Up in the air, Iggy had taken out a lighter (where did he get that? I don't remember agreeing he could buy that) and blew fire onto the flyboys. They hesitated, but kept going. Oh crap, these new models couldn't burn in fire! Wait, that sounds familiar…
Flashback…
I was sitting on a tree, peering down, when I noticed five kids with wings battling for their lives amidst the flickering red flames. They slowly became surrounded by flyboys…that didn't burn in fire.
I grimaced, hoping the rest…the capture of the flock…wouldn't come true in some way. I tensed as the flyboys neared the Flock. Time to kick some flyboy butt.
I dodged as the foot of a flyboy came my way and retaliated by grabbing his still outstretched foot and twisting it. With a sharp movement, I snapped his metal leg in half and tossed away the broken part. The flyboy snickered and continued fighting as if he wasn't injured at all. I frowned, grabbed his fist which was going sluggishly to my face in a pathetic punch, and punched his face. He fell backwards, and before he could look up, I spun and crashed my heel against his stomach, hard. He choked out and began falling. I did a quick 360 check up on the gang.
Nudge was playing with the flyboys, dodging them nimbly and sticking her tongue out, before striking out precisely and quickly at every one of them so that they all fell at the same time. That kid was an amazing fighter. Gazzy was…holding a small silver ball. He cackled and let several flyboys close in around him before shooting upwards and dropping the new bomb on all of them. Silver clouds of smoke surrounded maybe fifty flyboys as they exploded into a billion pieced and plummeted towards the far ground. Hmmm. I thought they were fire-resistant.
Gazzy, noticing my confusion, crowed out, "These new mini-nuclear bombs are way awesome, Max!" Well, that explains it. Either the flyboys aren't nuclear resistant or are only fire-proof to a certain degree. Speaking of fire, where's Pyro? I looked downwards and found Iggy scorching the flyboys with blue fire. Now he can make his fire blue? Geez… I watched as the flyboys burnt and dropped like dead flies.
"Way to go, Pyro!" I called out. Iggy grinned and went to deal with some more flyboys.
Fang was fighting it out the old-fashion way, dealing with whoever happened to be in his path, and quickly smashing the idiot apart. His face looked so calm, relaxed even. I'll never get that. I sighed and had the strange feeling to…duck. A bullet went flying over my head as a flyboy with a large black gun hovered a few feet from me. He had a black band with a bolt of lightning on his wrist and he was smirking confidently. I groaned. Now the flyboys have ranks? This guy was a leader, no doubt, and he has a big, big gun. I hate guns. That's why I don't let the Flock use guns. But who says I haven't trained them to deal with them? I smiled sweetly at the overconfident flyboy before whipping my wings close. I dropped for a second, then spread my wings and flew behind the startled flyboy. He whirled around, pointed the gun at me, and began to shoot. I flew up close to the flyboy, grabbed his arm…which was glued to the gun…and wrenched it apart. The gun went flying off along with a part of the flyboy's mechanical hand. The flyboy's face contorted in anger. He lashed out a fist, but I caught it. Holding his arm, I slammed my foot into his stomach and watched him recoil. Grabbing his shoulder, I hit his shoulder blade/wing and snapped a kick into his spine. He crumpled and fell. Man, Itex really needs to update their "creations". They fight so badly. Well, all the better for me and the flock. As the flock finished off the rest of flyboys, I looked around to count heads and check for injuries. No one's hurt (not surprising)…but where's Nudge?
"Nudge? Nudge! Nudge!" I yelled. A small pretty brown sparrow flew by me and decided to perch on me. It looked up at me, and for a second, I could have sworn it was smiling happily. I shrugged and scanned the area for Nudge. The sparrow flew in front of my face and began chirping loudly. I turned away, but the sparrow came back. Man, this sparrow is so weird and un-sparrow like. I froze and looked at the sparrow.
"Nudge?!?!?!" I asked the flying sparrow. The sparrow sighed (can sparrows sigh?) and suddenly it transformed into…Nudge.
"Max, it takes you forever to guess anything! But isn't my power cool? I can morph into different animals! This is so awesome, even better than Iggy's fire manipulating ability! I can talk to animals too! They say the most amazing things. I never knew animals thought so much. They actually have minds!" burst Nudge happily. I blinked and blinked and- ok, that's going to go on forever, so I'll just say I was utterly stunned. I gaped at Nudge while she continued chatting about animals and how they think and all the things she can be.
"When did you…how…Wha….huh?" I blurted. Nudge stared at me and laughed.
"You look so funny, Max. Oh, your hands are glowing again. Careful, don't hurt anybody," said Nudge cheerfully.
The rest of the Flock noticed us and gathered around me and Nudge. I looked at Fang then at Nudge, and tried to say something, but only succeeding in failing.
"What happened?" asked Fang, looking like he already knew.
I gave him a look and he nodded expectantly.
"New powers," muttered Fang.