I do not own Red vs Blue. It belongs to Rooster Teeth.
I do not own Maximum Ride. It belongs to James Patterson.

I awoke a few minutes later. Just long enough for them to cuff my hands and bind my legs 'cause this wasn't a movie. You pass out, but you do regain consciousness pretty soon again.

The first Eraser hefted me over his shoulder like I was some old school boombox and headed off to what I could squint out was a moving truck. I made some pathetic attempt at struggling, but the wolf-man simply constricted his grip. I wasn't going anywhere.

The back of the truck was lifted up garage-style, and I found it was full of large dog crates. One of them was being opened just for me. I was dumped inside like garbage to a trashcan, and, with a few short clicks, was locked within it. They slid me to the back, whining when I didn't crash against it more dramatically.

I took what was my last glimpse of sunlight through the slits of the metal crate before an echoing creak and slam shut out the few rays of wonderful sunshine I would probably see in a good long while. They would make sure of that.

I waited for my night vision to kick in, came with the whole mutant bird freak packaged, as my eyes strained to see into the other cages. There were a few dark figures that I could make out in the twisted mass of metal bars.

Other experiments made me nervous. You would think that we would share some sort of brotherly bond, being tortured together –victims of the same horrors. But, in reality, they were all mostly stark-raving insane or just utterly creepy. As such, I was hesitant in making contact with them. Maybe, if I just stayed quiet they would leave me alone.

My night vision brought into focus their malnourished and tortured forms. Curled up in the cages, you'd think they were dogs. Trying to hide within themselves. Burying their heads in the ground like ostriches. Trying to take themselves away from where they were by any means their mind could imagine.

I was actively fighting the flashbacks of when I was tortured. How I tried to survive.

Sigma.

I shuddered. It was a name I feared. The name of one of my torturers. He would come in often wearing a special type of jumpsuit that he lathered in gasoline before lighting it ablaze. He was always coming up with new ways to test me. Study me. It's hard to resist someone who was literally on fire.

I pushed the thought away. He was gone. I didn't know where he was, but, for whatever reason, he was gone. I often tried to imagine the most horrible demise for him. Most involved burning to death in his own suit. Hey, if it helped me sleep at night, my mental revenge was like twisted therapy.

I shifted myself so I could survey the extent of damage done to me on the beach. I tried to make as little noise as possible. Tried not to draw attention to myself.

My head was verging on a fairly decent headache, but my right leg was shredded and still oozing pretty good. All things considered though, it could have been worse. I slipped off one of my shirts (I always wore extras just for this purpose) and tenderly wrapped it around my calf. I bit my lip hard and a few tears squeezed out as I tied it off. I was a fast healer. Well, fast compared to normal people. But this one was gonna be a while, I could already tell.

I rocked a little and forced myself to breathe as I waited for the pain to ebb down.

"BLOOD!" I heard a shriveled voice in the cage next to mine shriek. The whole place jumped from the sudden noise.

I turned to see who was there. It was a tiny, little girl. Bald except for a few spots of dark, tangled hair. Her eyes were sunken in her head, and her wings were growing off the front of her instead of the back. Or…was her head just on backwards?

I scooted back from her even though we were separated by metal cages. She was already crammed to the very corner of her own cage. Whimpering now with her wings wrapped around her.

I was practically immune to the sight of blood. Especially my own. But I couldn't know what kind of torture they made her go through. Maybe blood to her was like what fire was to me?

"Bloooood." I heard a voice in another cage say. Fingers reached out through the cage bars toward me.

"Caaaaaan IIIIIIII haaaaaave?" The slow voice now reached it's other set of fingers out toward me.

I now scooted away from that one which meant making me closest to the girl. If I had a choice between scared girl and creepy thing, I'd choose scared girl.

Then another set of fingers reached out through the same cage! What the?

"Hey, new girl!" I heard another voice ask me. This one sounded pretty normal. I looked and found him in a cage toward the door. "Do you have a bobbypin?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. What did he think I was?

"Anything metal and kinda malleable? Or, if you just happen to have a lockpicking kit on you that would work too."

I continued giving him a confused stare then figured out he honestly wanted an answer.

"No."

"Eh. A guy can hope."

I could have been wrong, but I thought I saw him smile. I deepened my frown. I didn't know what he thought smiling would accomplish, but it just made me mad that he could smile at a time like this. Did he know what was going to happen to us? What could possibly possess him to smile?

There was no point in being brave here. Bravery didn't do anything for you here. Escape was the only hopeful thing we thought of. That was out of self-preservation. There was no bravery in that. Just pure desperation and animal instinct. I kinda wanted to kick him.

The minutes passed to hours and to days. I put myself in shut down mode. Another self-preservation technique I perfected. I just zoned out the world. Trying to blend together the times between when I slept. Keep myself in a muted haze. Calm and zen-like. If I tuned out the world, it seemed like time moved faster. The less I moved, the less energy I spent, the less I felt the hunger that always clawed at my stomach.

More days passed. I could feel the zen-mode was starting to work easier now. That wasn't a good thing in the long term. It basically meant I was dying, but, in the short term, it meant I wasn't conscious enough for pain and thirst.

I was awoken from my zen-mode by a horrible racket. Someone was beating on their cage viciously.

"Wake up! Please! Anybody! I don't want to be the last one! No!"

It was that boy from before. He was kicking the cage. Pleaing and screaming. At first I was going to yell at him to shut up. There was no way I could sleep with that racket, but, what he said caught my attention.

'The last one?' Did that mean…

I looked over at the other cages. No one was moving. No one was breathing.

They were all dead.

Creepy-blood-girl was even lying sprawled out in the cage. Her eyes open, but unblinking.

I quickly sat up feeling exactly what that boy was feeling.

"I'm here!" I called out to him.

I was never so scared in my life. I was literally surrounded by decaying corpses of fellow experiments. I didn't know how I could handle being in this truck by myself. Just waiting to die.

I was holding out that they would bring us back to torture us some more. I didn't think they would actually let us die here!

I made it my personal goal to keep that boy alive. That way, at least, I wouldn't be the last one alive.

The boy practically jumped through his cage when I called to him. It seemed if he could have leapt into my cage with me, he would have. He was almost in tears.

"Whoever you are, don't die! We're gonna get through this, okay?"

There was that smile again. Much more forced, but it was still there.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I wasn't planning on getting through anything. I just didn't want to die alone.

That's when I noticed something in creepy-girl's cage. In her cage, binding her hands, was a thing of metal wire.

I didn't know if karma just liked that boy better than me, but I'd take his good luck any day. I reached through and pulled her cage closer to mine. Slowly I managed to unravel the wire from around her cold hands. Why did they decide to bind her like that and why hadn't she broken free of it earlier, I had no idea. I didn't really care at this point.

"Hey, can you actually pick locks?" I said, as I slid the metal wire across to his cage. He picked it up and almost instantly had it fashioned into a lock pick. Within seconds, the lock was picked and the door to his cage swung open. He tumbled out and stretched when he drew himself up to full height, opening his wings out wide.

Satisfied with his new mobility, he made his way over to my cage and unlocked it in a jiffy. I about knocked him over as I burst out of the cage so fast I nearly took out his legs with the cage door. Babying my leg, I still felt an unbelievable rush in simply standing again.

I wasted no time and walked/limped straight over to the door. I was about to pull the handle up when the boy stopped me.

"Do you think we should travel together? It might be easier if you had a wingman. No pun intended." Smile.

I was stunned. I never really considered working with anyone…ever. I protected myself. That was hard enough as it was. Although, the offer was tempting. There were certainly advantages in having an ally.

"Can you fly?" I poined to his wings.

I wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't. Several experiments had appendages that they couldn't use, extra legs or a cat's tail, that just hung off them like dead weight. Sorry, but if he couldn't fly, I was leaving him. I had the best chance of escape in the air. I was putting that in priority over being nice.

He nodded as he unfurled his tan wings as if that was some sort of confirmation he could, indeed, fly.

"Okay then…" I wasn't sure about this. And, if worst came to worst, I could just ditch him.

"Awesome." He grabbed hold of the handle too, and, together, we lifted the door up. It was night in the outside world. Good for us stealth-wise, but disappointing in the fact that we had been living in darkness the whole time we were in the truck.

We jumped out of that death machine and into the sky. Hopefully, those scumbags wouldn't find us ever again this time.

So, I don't know if anyone besides me even likes both these fandoms, but I'm gonna keep writing anyway.
Review if you so desire.

Looking forward to it.