A/N: To eliminate some confusion, this is Max II. However, for the first few secrets, she will simply be named as 'she' because at first she had no name. That was short and sweet – so enjoy Max II!

One: She never knew that she was supposed to hate the scientists. To her, they were just parental figures, people who helped her through all of the challenges and tests that she was put through. They were firm with her many times, if she didn't do the right thing or didn't do as well as they thought that she should, but she never realized that that was bad. It was just normal. Just like she never knew that not all kids grew up in a lab, she never knew that she was an experiment. It never even crossed her mind.

They told her that the little kids that were kept in cages were bad. They weren't worthy of what she had, they told her. She was special. She had never heard anything different than that, and grew up believing something that other experiments were never told –

She was special.

Two: She often wondered why she heard the other scientists call each other by name – like John or Matthew or Russell – but they never said anything like that to her. One day, after her daily sparring session, she asked Anne why she didn't have a name. "Do I even have a name?" she had asked. She winced as she sat down next to Anne – she still had some bruises from where the Eraser had hit her, but she'd finished him off in the end. She might have been only seven, but she had nearly killed the Eraser before the time was up. The scientists were ecstatic.

Anne's face abruptly shut down after she had asked the question. "No," Anne had replied. "You don't have a name."

"Why not? Everyone else has a name."

"Humans have names," Anne answered. "You aren't human. You don't need a name."

She had frowned, confused. "But I look just like you. What do you mean, 'I'm not human'?"

It was then that another scientist had come over and whisked her away. She didn't find out what Anne had meant for three more years.

Three: Anne was her favorite scientist. She was almost like a mother to her – even though she might not have a bed, Anne always made sure that her blanket in her room was not too ragged or thin, like tucking her in. She got mad if the other scientists were mean to her. With Anne, she felt safe. Nothing could hurt her if she was with Anne.

Anne was also the only scientist that she could show affection to. If she felt any emotion at all towards anyone but Anne, she was punished. When she had smiled at an Eraser, a scientist had hit her across the face. She couldn't even smile at the other scientists in case they hurt her. She quickly learned to either show no emotion around others – or if emotion was a must, it would always be either anger or complete indifference.

So as a result, it was with Anne that she learned how to love and with Anne that all of her emotions poured out of her. Towards anyone but Anne, she was insolent, mean, and sarcastic. No one minded, in fact, they even liked it. She heard them saying that she was developing exactly like the first – what the heck that meant, she had no idea, but she always assumed that she would find out soon enough.

She was right – and she had never regretted it more.

Four: On her tenth birthday, her life was turned upside down.

Anne had taken her to a room with a long table in it. She didn't know why the table was so long – the only people sitting at it were Marian, the blonde scientist that she normally saw in the avian wing, and two male scientists that she didn't recognize.

"Sit, please," Anne directed her, pointing at a chair. She sat obediently, smiling up at Anne, and then turned to face the other scientists, scowling. The change in her expression was so abrupt and startling that Marian blinked in surprise and jerked back a little.

"Well?" she asked venomously, raising an eyebrow and leaning back in her chair. "What is it?"

A raven haired scientist recovered himself first. "You see," he began, clearing his throat. "Well – you know that you have wings, correct?"

She raised both eyebrows disbelievingly, and her eyes were mocking. "Are you serious? Yes, I know I have wings. What else would be on my back? Please tell me that you weren't serious when you asked that question."

"Those wings aren't the product of your DNA," the scientist continued.

She rolled her eyes. "Ooh, shocker! Newsflash: you told me that already. Ninety eight percent human, two percent avian. I heard that last year. Anything else you feel like sharing?"

"I'll just get straight to the point, then," the scientist started again. "You are a clone."

She just looked at him. "And a clone would be…?"

The other scientist chipped in now. "A clone is a perfect copy of someone else's DNA. You are a copy of the original human-avian hybrid. There's another one of you."

A rushing sound was filling her ears, but she kept up her insolent expression. "So you're saying…that I'm just a copy?" She felt like she was falling. What happened to special?

"Not just a copy," the scientist said, a note of pride filling his voice. "You are the copy of one of the best experiments Itex has ever produced."

Marian not-so-subtly elbowed him in the ribs. "What he's trying to say is," she told her in a sickeningly sweet tone of voice, "you are a copy, yes, but a superior copy. You are even better than the original. And when the time comes, you will replace her. You are the best there is. The ultimate. Maximum."

She still felt betrayed, but she kept the shock and pain off of her face well. "Is that my name? Maximum?"

Marian glanced at the first scientist, who nodded. "Yes," she replied. "That is your name. Max, for short."

"Max," she said, trying it out. She liked it. It seemed to fit her perfectly.

"Yes," Marian continued, "Max II."

Five: Ever since she found out that she was a clone, she's hated the number two and anything that came in pairs. She often didn't wear shoes. Twins annoyed her to no end. Seeing pairs made her remember that she had another half to her pair. Her other half wasn't even a twin. It was an original, and she was an afterthought. She was the result of, 'Oh, look at how well this turned out! Let's clone her!"

She never saw the other Max to her pair, and she never wanted to – unless the other Max was dead.

Six: She met Ari at age twelve, and immediately didn't like him.

He was meant to be her partner, her sidekick, Anne told her. When the time came to take the original Max down, he would help. "You two will work well together," Anne told Max II that day. "You both hate the original so much it scares me sometimes." Max II offered her half a smile as they walked down the corridor to meet him. Anne opened a door on her right for her, and she walked in, brushing her overlong hair out of her eyes.

Ari was fighting another Eraser in that training room and didn't even seem to notice her as she walked in. She watched his fighting skills with grudging respect – he was pretty good. He dealt the other Eraser a hard uppercut to the ribs and a swing to the head that knocked him out cold. He watched him fall with a grin on his muzzle.

"Next!" he snarled out.

Anne stepped forward. "Ari, wait a moment." He turned. His eyes glinted red for a second, and then the irises changed to their normal color as he morphed back into a human.

"What?" he asked impatiently.

"This is your new partner," Anne said, laying a hand on Max II's shoulder. The act was maternal, but had slightly lost its effect when Max II had grown to be nearly as tall as Anne. "She's going to help you take down the original Max when it's the right time."

Ari's eyes narrowed. "You sure she's up to it? Max is pretty dang good at whatever it is she does, from the reports that Jeb's brought back."

Max II's temper flared. "Am I up to it? I assure you, I'm way better than that failure. I will run circles around that chick and hit her so hard she won't know her own name."

"Easy, Max II," Anne said. "Calm down." She took deep breaths, glaring at Ari.

"I'll show you," she whispered so low that Anne couldn't hear her with her human ears. Ari raised an eyebrow as she continued, "I'm so much better than her. I'll show all of you. Just wait."

Seven: When she learned that the flock and the original had escaped the School, and that was the only reason she'd been told that she was a clone, she was beyond furious.

"How the hell did they escape?" she yelled at Jeb. "I heard you helped them! Why the hell were they allowed to go off and do whatever they want, la-di-da, while everyone else is stuck here? I thought they were worthless!"

"They are," Jeb said, but his tone was unconvincing.

"Then why does everyone make such a big freaking deal about them if they're worthless, like they should be?" Max II challenged him. Ever since her tenth birthday, it seemed like her life was crumbling down around her. First she found out that she was a copy. Then everyone started comparing her to the original, and sometimes the original won out. She hated it. Couldn't they see that she was an individual? She wasn't just a carbon copy of some girl that she'd never met. She felt insignificant, as if she was no more than a speck on someone's shoe. She hated that feeling. She was special, she told herself. Special.

She glared at Jeb, then spun on her heel and stalked away. She could see only one way to get her life back, and she would accomplish it.

The original had to go. The first Max had to die.

Eight: She had thought that nothing, nothing that anyone threw at her could possibly shake her. She had been through every single training situation imaginable. She had fought people twice her size and weight. Her IQ was higher than average. Her logic skills were excellent.

Nothing, not any of that, could have prepared her for watching the original Max with Anne.

Anne watched the original – the inferior original, she reminded herself – like she looked at her. It was hard to believe that she was acting. Sometimes she had to wonder if it was real. Anne had so much love and protectiveness in her eyes that Max II could see it from far away.

And the original didn't even realize it. She didn't appreciate who Anne really was, and it only made Max II hate her more. She just thought she was so great, didn't she? Now she had everything – the perfect family, the perfect school, and by the way she related to the emo kid, a guy. He probably wasn't perfect, but at least she had a guy. Max II was only ever loved, in any way, by Anne – and now the original had apparently taken that away too.

Her hate was fueled by the emotion she was taught never, ever to feel – jealousy. For the first time in her life, Max II was jealous.

Nine: She thought that the rest of the flock was crazy while she was observing them, but that was nothing compared to when she actually had to pretend to be Max. Come on – there was one that never talked and one that never shut up. They brought a dog on a raid. One was blind. The youngest boy had something really funky going on with his digestive system – and that defect was smelly. And then the little girl was just plain creepy. She was always giving her these weird looks, and they made her feel like she was being x-rayed.

But even so, for those few short hours that she was Max, she felt on top of the world. Everything was going to plan. She was the ultimate. Maximum.

And then the original had dropped in, and she was pissed. There was no other word to describe her. By the time that Max II realized that the original wasn't just a mistake, it was too late. The first Max had her in a chokehold, and the whole effect of her with blood running down her face and a murderous look in her eyes really freaked her out. She had never imagined that this would be the way that she would die. She didn't even have an expiration date.

After she had basically gotten a reprieve – when the original had handed her back her life – she figured out that maybe, just maybe the scientists were wrong. Maybe Max could be better than her. The thought both scared her and calmed her. On the one hand, there was someone who was better than her, and she was way unaccustomed to that. On the other hand, it felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders. There was no more pressure to be the best. She could just be.

Ten: It was only after she was almost killed that she finally figured out that she didn't have to jump through the scientist's hoops anymore. She didn't have to be a variable in a science experiment or a copy of someone supposedly better. She could just be a normal person, and her first act as a normal person was to get the heck out of there. She had to escape, and she would. If the first Max could, she could. What she didn't know was that the first Max had help.

She was caught as she tried to wriggle out through one of the air vents, and packed off to Germany, labeled as a 'failed experiment'. Labels. She hated labels.

She would escape, she vowed. Somehow.

A/N: Fin! As with Fang, Max II was just so much dang fun to write that I came up with more than ten – so if you want to read them, just tell me in a review!