I finally got it i-in! Yay! Anyway, this is only a small bit of actually story, (I mostly explain the School, erasers, etc.) so you could call it an intro... I've been on vacation for four and a half days, so that's that.
Also, I own nothing except Nic. Even the other characters are from different people! Thanks to LarkThatSingsAtDawn, BigTimeBooks, FangandIggyRule, BatFiight, and [No Name] for lending me their ideas and characters!
I wake up to the sound of a: "Yeah! We got in!" followed quickly by a: "Shut up, dude, Nic's still asleep!" I recognize the two voices immediately and bolt upright. It might just be some game… I think, But knowing them… I leap out of bed and tiptoe down the stairs, humming James Bond music.
I stay as qudiet for as long as I possibly can, but soon I can't take it anymore, I'm halfway across the kitchen before I whisper "Busted!" Fog turns around slowly attempting to cover up the screen, I can see a blue light shining behind him.
"Ugh man!" Phoe groans, still staring at the screen. I smile.
"So what'd you hack this time?"
Fog smiles sheepishly, "H-Hack? I dunno what you're talking abo-"
Phoe's shoulder's sag, "Ugh!" she gets up and gently pushes her accomplice out of the way. "I finally, finally, cracked the cyber wall into the School's maps."
I nod my head approvingly of her. "Good one, now show me what you've got." She starts on a long –hate to say it- geek ramble, switching back and forth from numbers to letters too quickly for my taste. My attention is immediately grabbed by the lines of dork-ness getting bigger, and she's not even touching the keys. "Phoe. Phoe…" She keeps rambling, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting through to her. "Phoe. Flame..? PHOENIX!"
"What?" She asks, annoyed I've interrupted her. I point soundlessly towards the computer.
She swears, loudly. "Fog, grab the blue and gold wires." He stutters for a sec, "Yes, the ones for a firewall." She slides back into the chair and her fingers whip around the keyboard.
I clear my throat. "And a firewall is a…"
Phoe launches into a description, simultaneously talk and typing. (AN: I'm not a "text-talker", so I'm totally winging this…) "A firewall is what people set up that's on a timer. If there are any security breaches, the firewall attacks it. If the program has a spyware thing-y, it'll immediately regard you as a malware and start destroying and reporting and burning your disc…" Confession: I lost interest once I realized she meant 'burning' not as in fire, but 'copying'.
Or… whatever.
I zoned back in when she motioned to the keyboard and said my name. "Get it, Nic?" I nod and smile –probably unconvincingly- and she shrugs and gestures to the screen half-heartedly. "Fog? Where're the cables?" Without waiting for an answer she gets up from the desk-chair and joins Fog, where I just realized was slaving away under the desk. "Oh God." She mutters. "Umm, Nic, just copy whatever the firewall types."
I am totally unprepared for what happens when I touch the keys. Static fills the room, seemingly emanating from my skull. Phoe and Fog are seemingly used to this and are paying no attention. My eyes still glued on the screen, fingers typing away, I raise my voice enough so she can hear me. "Is this normal?" She says something softly, "The- the loud buzzing!" I wonder if she can hear me, the static's pretty loud. The buzzing gets louder and louder and suddenly the screen -which I must've gotten closer to, because I can't see anything else- starts flashing wild colors, like a glitch-screen.
Okay, this officially hurting me! What I wouldn't give to pass out now; even the colors on the screen are faded. Phoe's saying something softly again, why won't she speak up? I see something out of the corner of my eye, which is about the only place I can see, flicker dimly. Wait, no, people are coming down. There's Grim, Kat, and Feel. Finally Phoe yells something I can hear: "Grim! Catch her!"
Before I can ask her what the heck she's talking about, I pitch backward into sturdy, warm arms. Right before I pass out, though, I hear a voice -it's familiar somehow but I can't tell who- say, even through all the static and colors I can hear him/her perfectly: "You've seen enough, I've got big plans for you."
Okay, I suppose I should take this little break to explain our "situation". We aren't normal, the School most definitely isn't normal, and this is my, Nicole Chase's, story.
The School is this top-secret place where they experiment on people, mostly babies and kids like us. It's mostly scientists there, and the experiments, but there are guards, too. We call them Erasers, they're like tricked-out werewolves. One part the Wolverine, one part trigger-happy terrorist, one part vicious, screwed-up teeth & claws, the rest is mostly scars from us.
Oh yeah. Us. You might've noticed we aren't stuck in those cages anymore. The nicest scientist there broke us out, his name's Len McKillip. He was basically my dad until he disappeared a few years back. We kinda figured that the Erasers stole him back, when I was ten. That's also why Phoe and Fog were hacking into the School's map, the flock wants to steal him back.
Flock. Experiment. Is it making sense now? Here's another hint: they don't just experiment on kids, oh no, they have to change our DNA to, like, 2% animal to be satisfied. So I'll sum it up, we can see for miles, are about ten times stronger than your average kid, are able to hear whispers for, say, a couple miles -we never really tested that one.
We also have bird wings.
I came to an hour or so later. Kat's smiling face is suddenly covering 90% of my vision, so I figure someone set me on the couch by feel.
"She's up! Whew, she's awake, guys!" She squeals. The loud, unexpected noise startles me and my brain screams in protest. I blink, surprised, and recoil instinctively from, well, the loud and unexpected noise. Except the only place to recoil to is the floor. Oops.
I swear, I'm not usually like this.
Katy giggles quietly, but Feel -who's sitting in one of the armchairs a few feet away- laughs loudly. Grim -he's leaning on the back of the couch, flicking a lighter on and off- chuckles a couple times then offers me a hand up. I take it quickly and stand.
"So, what was that? That, um, attacked me or whatever." I ask, referring to that, uh, whatever it was.
"That, O Fearless Leader, was gravity." Phoe -she's sitting in front of the computer with Fog- says seriously, everyone laughs at that; I roll my eyes.
"You guys all know what I'm talking about." I tell the room, killing the mood.
Fog's the first one to speak, "None of us know, me and Phoe checked out the system protection an' stuff, but nothing was different, so we went back to hacking and got the email database." I nod along like I know what he's talking about at the end.
"Gotcha..."
"So do you want anything to eat, Nic?" Grim asks, I look at him thankfully 'cause now I don't to answer, he nods back- almost imperceptibly.
In answer, my stomach rumbles in protest. Just the thought of food gets my mouth watering. "What'd you guys have?"
Kat shrugs, "We were waiting for you." I smile and she continues, "C'mon, let's go get some cherries, 'bet their ripe."
"Sounds good." Me.
"Right on." Grim.
"Coolio." Phoe.
"Huh? Oh, sure." Fog. We start staring at Feel, who's watching a Fiber One commercial.
"What's fiber do?" He asks randomly.
"Fiber makes you poop, now do ya want to go cherry-picking or not?" I say, turning off the tv.
He makes a face, "Yuck. Let's go get some cherries." Everyone laughs and then walks out the door.
Oh right, another thing is that since we're 2% bird, we can fly. Since we were experimented on as babies, they were able to hollow out our bones, stick on two wings, and give us our powers: I can breathe under water, Phoe's able to control fire- she's also an awesome hacker-, Feel can talk to animals and destroy things just with thinking about it and can create forefields, Grim can control all the elements (darkness, light, air, earth, water, fire, electricity, hate, and -um- love).Fog can move metal, Kat's able to detect lies and night vision and sonic waves.
We fly off the cliff our house is perched on (did I mention that? It's great security) into the nearby cherry fields. I watch in silence as they one-by-one take off. Kat's white and creamy wings; Feel's white-with-brown-flecks wings; Fog's black wings; Phoe's red wings; Grim's gray and black demon wings; and then my brownish wings.
After we all start out, I'm able to survey the fields and sky. In the far distance it looks like a big bird, or maybe a flock. Given my eyesight, I make a estimate that they're 10 or 15 miles away, -they're all blurry- and going slow. I point towards them and say, "Check it out, we got company!"
"Let's get the cherries before they can." Grim adds. We nod and dive for the short grove of trees.
As soon as my pockets are filled with cherries, as are all the flock's, we find a meadow to take off. I stop them, "You know how I thought those things we saw earlier were birds?" They all nod, "Well I'm not getting the normal emotionals, it's more like revenge stuff and anger." I say, "I think they might've been erasers, in a jet or something." Our sense go into overdrive, and we only need to wait a few seconds for the first attack.
Hiope you liked it! R&R