Anyway, back to the impossibly perfect day. By now, my flock and I were high above the fluffy white clouds, the sun warming our feathers. I caught an air current and enjoyed a moment of coasting. God, flying…It's pure bliss.

There was a dark cloud off to the south, I noted. Must be a storm. I had to find a park or something, somewhere to sleep.

I stared at the cloud, judging how soon it would be over our heads. Only…WTH? This cloud was moving about 70 miles an hour.

Immediately, I tensed and stopped moving forward. I hovered in the air. Yup. That was most definitely not a cloud.

"Flock!" I called out. "Heads up! We've got company to the south!"

The flock responded instantaneously. They rearranged themselves into fighting position. Fang and Gazzy were on top, Angel and I in the middle, and Iggy and Nudge on bottom. Each younger kid had an older kid to help them out. We swung to face south, facing whatever was coming.

The things, whatever they were, moved toward us extremely quickly. Max, what are they? The small, frightened thought floated into my head. I don't know, Angel, I thought back to her. Just do your best as far as fighting, and we'll worry about exactly what they are later.

They had gotten close enough for me to see that they were not living, breathing things with beating hearts. They were robots. And apparently, they had jet packs on their backs. Great. We couldn't even enjoy a nice day, perfect for flying, without freaking robots crashing the party.

Focus, Maximum. Do your best, like you told Angel. Things will come together soon. I rolled my eyes. Oh, thanks, Voice, I thought. Very helpful. Next you'll be telling me that I'm 2 percent bird. Way to state the obvious.

Max, focus! Right, I thought grimly. Focus. Protect the kids. Make it out of this alive.

The cloud of robots reached us, and immediately our fighting instincts kicked in. I picked a robot and started throwing punches, trying to find a weak spot. The robots were good fighters, small and agile, but we were better.

I delivered a roundhouse kick to the robot's back, and followed with a strong snap kick to its neck. The robot started to spiral downwards, its red eyes blinking out.

Huh. I would keep that in mind.

"Guys!" I yelled to my flock. "Kick their necks! There's some kind of control panel in there that conks out!" The flock started aiming at the robots' necks, and the fight turned in our favor.

So don't get me wrong, we are kick-butt warriors. We've been trained for years, and we've battled mutants and robots galore. But these guys were good. We were still beating them, but it was a bit more of a challenge than usual.

Angel, my Voice warned. I turned to see a robot flying straight for Angel, who was locked in combat with another robot. With a furious expression on my face, I zoomed towards Angel to help. I kicked its neck, hard, and it fell like the others.

Thanks, I heard Angel say inside my head. These guys are harder for me to battle, 'cause they don't have minds to control. I frowned. Huh. Of course not. They were robots, not Erasers. I hadn't thought of that.

We fought extra hard, and almost never paused. Our wings were beating fast as we bobbed and weaved through the robots. As the last robot fell, we slapped high fives and got the heck out of there.