So this one was a little longer coming. I apologize, but it will probably be like that for a while. I just started my internship so I'm working my first full-time job. I'm pretty burnt out after working for eight hours so cut me a little slack if my updates are a little later. I still plan on continuing my stories, don't get me wrong. I just might take a little longer.
Thank you FearIsButFearItself for faving and commenting. I appreciate your words greatly.
Also, thank you to the guest for wishing me luck. That really means a lot to me. And, also, thank you for making my decision on the pairing easy.
-Let it be known that there will be eventual 479er/Wyoming. Just like all my other stories, it won't be anything heavy. Just light, cute romance.
I do not own Red vs Blue. RvB belongs to Rooster Teeth.
I do not own Maximum Ride. MR belongs to James Patterson.
"Okay. We need food. Now. …And I'm pretty sure the big guy agrees."
Connie rolled her eyes as she tried to ignore David's nagging like she had for the past few hours.
"David, just because the Eraser can't complain doesn't mean you have to do it for him."
"Well, it's true. He's hungry too. Right?"
David looked to the winged Eraser, but the bigger creature just put his hands up in surrender. He wasn't about to pick sides in this.
David sighed. "Come on, Connie. You can't say that you aren't starving too. I was just wondering if you had a plan."
"No, but my foresight is predicting that food will fall from the sky at any moment now."
"Ha ha. She's always been the glass-is-half-empty type of person."
Connie gritted her teeth. That was the other most annoying thing David had started doing recently. He would talk to the Eraser about her like she wasn't standing right there with him.
She marched on, every once in a while feeling with her foresight. Perhaps food would fall from the sky? Either that or something more practical would show up on her radar.
They trudged on. Why weren't they flying? Apparently, the Eraser couldn't fly for very long given his awkward wolf-human-bird combo. It was a miracle he could fly at all. After all, he looked absolutely anti-aerodynamic. Not to mention that he was in what seemed like a permanent half-transformed Eraser look.
Normal Erasers looked like really attractive humans one second and then they transformed all werewolf-like into really big wolves that walked on two legs instead of four.
This Eraser seemed to be frozen in a mid-transformation. He had claws on the ends of his hands, lengthened canine teeth, a bushy tail, furry arms, and ears that stuck out the top of his head. This, coupled with the wings on his back, made him look like an absolute freak show. Not in a million years would she have thought this train wreck could fly at all, but they'd seen it happen. Still, for the sake of having a bodyguard, they kept on the ground. It had also eased Connie's nerves that, if they were betrayed by him, they could easily ditch him in the air.
He did have some distinctly human features. He had bright blue eyes and poster-child ginger hair. Honestly, despite his seven-foot-tall height and shoulder bulk, she would have guessed he was actually really young. But Connie couldn't exactly find any sympathy for him. She'd been tortured and experimented on just like him. He wasn't worth any more pity than she was.
"What should we call you? We can't just keep calling you "Eraser." What's your name?"
Great. Now he was naming it.
The Eraser shrugged.
"Does that mean you don't have a name? Or do you just not care what we call you?"
Again, he shrugged.
"You're not making this easy, you know. I named the birds outside the window of my cell once. I named them all "Fluffy" -every single one of them."
The Eraser gave him a look.
"I was really little, okay? But, I'm still no better at naming things. So you should think twice before you ask me to give you a nickname."
"You had a window?"
Connie's volume was deceiving for how much emotion was contained within it. David, with his strong ears, heard it though. It was the sound of her heart breaking into green shards of jealousy.
"Yeah. It wasn't a fantastic view or anything." He wished he could just suck the words back into his lungs, but he couldn't. He quickly tried to write it off as not a big deal. "It actually-"
"What I would have given for a window in my cell."
David looked at her with concerned eyes as she avoided his gaze. He closed his mouth and zipped it shut. He knew he owed her his silence at the moment.
The odd trio continued until Connie tensed up. She began to walk faster, and David knew better than to fall behind. He urged the winged Eraser with him as they traveled behind the now briskly running girl.
"Connie, what is it?"
David searched the skies, keeping on high alert for the growl of an Eraser or the buzz of a chopper.
"Something good!" She ran forward into one direction then stopped sharply to head another way. "Something good is nearby! I have to find it!"
Her chest was heaving, but she was smiling. David smiled with her. The last time she had a good premonition was the day they escaped from the lab.
They continued following her sporadic dodging and jumping as she narrowed in on the good thing.
That's when they spotted it. It was a metal compound. Several tin buildings that were well hidden behind evergreen trees glinted their metal siding at them through the tiny spots the branches allowed, being at just the right angle with the sun.
"That's it! Something good is there!"
It was strange to see her so excited about something. David always knew she was a passionate person, but he never really thought of her as an exclamation point person. He liked this side to her -the glass-is-half-full side.
The three took off, not caring at all that the branches of the trees slapped them around like abusive broom heads. They stopped in front of one of the buildings which had a metal door, but that didn't deter them.
The Eraser made a noise that sounded something between a growl and a whine as Connie and David kicked at the door with huge, echoing thuds.
"Come on, man! Stop worrying. This is something good! We're not gonna get caught if she felt something good is going to happen! Now help us break down this door."
Still, the Eraser remained unconvinced as he kept turning around, paranoid and ears flat. When he finally got tired of it, he pushed the two bird kids aside and, with one mighty punch, sent the door falling inwards.
Inside the building, they turned on a light to find what looked like a doomsday bunker full of canned and dried food. Cue the "Hallelujah" chorus.
"Oh. My. Gosh! Connie, you're amazing! Hooray for bird freak powers!"
David's wings fluttered a little in his excitement. Soon they would be feasting! Caught up in the moment, he gave Connie a hug, but quickly broke it when he saw the look on her face.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"
"I was wrong." She said in a ghostly whisper, distant like she was possessed. "I'm always wrong."
David's face paled as his eyes widened.
"Move!" he shouted to the Eraser, pulling on Connie's arm to try to move her quickly, but she didn't budge.
"It's too late."
No sooner had she said that then David was knocked on the head and sent crashing into a shelf.
The commotion seemed to have snapped Connie out of her shock and defeatism. She might have known in her gut that this was already going to be a defeat for them, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to go down without a fight.
Reeling on the nearest opponent, she drove a sidekick into the gut of a strangely mustached man who, even stranger, had wings like her. In fact, all except one of the seven opponents had wings. Still, she did not let this dissuade her. She had her mind on her survival and her survival on her mind, nothing else.
David swung blind punches as he staggered to his feet, his head still reeling from the hit. The two purple-winged kids who looked strikingly related, immediately teamed-up on him. He couldn't land a hit, but he could block decently.
The Eraser stood his ground easily against the blue-winged guy and the girl without wings. He didn't make many aggressive moves but simply worked his way forward like a steamroller, trying to get to either Connie or David to assist them.
The mustached man was joined by two others, the teal-winged girl and the brown-winged boy with a scar, and Connie started to feel the heat. She didn't have enough time to move to trigger her ability so she was left with toppling over items on the shelves to block their advances and to buy herself time. Still, the teal-winged girl, in an impossible flurry of kicks, sent her flying into the back wall, no wings needed.
Soon she felt David being flung into the shelf next to her and cause an avalanche of dried milk containers to baptize them in white powder. The Eraser retreated back with them and stood in front of the two protectively. He growled, still unable to reach a high volume with the strange noise, but it was still menacing enough with his teeth bared and claws extended.
Still the other seven opponents walked toward them slowly, cornering them and waiting for them to make a move. They were out numbered, even if they counted the Eraser as two people because of his strength.
"Get out of here!" David whispered to Connie.
She saw he was looking at the light bulb dangling on a chord of wire above them. She nodded in understanding.
David put his hand on the Eraser's shoulder as he slowly staggered to his feet.
"Do you remember what I did to those Erasers when we first saw you?"
The Eraser ever so slightly nodded his head, confirming her understood what David was meaning through his whispers.
"Now!"
Connie bolted forward, straight at the girl with the teal wings. Not bothering to hide a smirk, she used her slight teleportation powers to leap around her expertly, greatly confusing their foes. She dodged out the door and burst into the air.
"York!" The teal-winged girl shouted, and the brown-winged boy, York, leapt after her with a little hesitation in the shouting girl's direction.
Meanwhile, as Connie got away, the rest converged on David and the Eraser. Taking a deep breath, David leapt into the air, using the Eraser's shoulder as a platform. He jumped up with a final flap of his wings and grabbed the chord with one hand. With the other hand, he shattered the light bulb itself. Glass and electricity shot through his hand and he gritted his teeth, instead focusing on holding on to the chord.
The Eraser became a wall. He swiped at the attackers that came too close and even resorted to snatching down ones that took flight in an attempt at stopping David from whatever he was doing. He took damage, especially when they discovered his shoulder was already wounded, but he, like a huge tree, simply took the blows. He didn't move an inch.
The Eraser licked his bleeding lips as he stood his ground, unsure of how long David needed to "charge." But, that question was answered for him when David plummeted from the ceiling into a crumpled heap on the ground in front of him.
The fight paused as the others didn't know what to think of the boy who apparently just tried to kill himself in front of them.
David stirred and coughed a little, but that was simply to clear his throat enough for him to mutter, "Jump!"
The Eraser was the only one that caught on fast enough to his words to actually do that. He jumped on top of a cardboard box that sort of buckled under his weight but kept him off the metal flooring.
Then David, grunting, slammed his hand on to the floor.
Electricity leapt from his hand in all directions, greedily jumping in sparks along the floor and ripping through the attackers close by. Unlike the forest, the sheet metal was an excellent conductor.
The others' bodies were drawn up violently into ramrod straightness as electricity volted through them. After David had none left and the electricity finally stopped, everyone joined David in a pile of fallen figures on the floor.
That's when the Eraser smelled something burning. He turned behind him and saw that one of the various boxes must have held matches as an emergency supply as they must have combusted when it was electrocuted. It wasn't a second later that the cardboard of other boxes started to rise up in flames, spreading from box to box like a contagion.
The Eraser was the only one unharmed by David's blast so he carefully stepped down from the crushed, cardboard box, relieved when he was not electrocuted by some stray volt or something.
He started with moving the person closest to the flaming boxes. It was the teal-winged girl with the pretty red hair. She was unconscious because of how close she was to David when he electrocuted the floor. He carefully scooped her into his arms bridal style, grimacing at the wounds on her un-shoed feet. In fact, since it was as early in the morning as it was, all of them forgot to put on footgear. He, as gracefully as a mutant wolf/bird/human hybrid could be, stepped over the other writhing forms on the floor.
Finally outside, he sat her down on the ground a safe distance away and went back for the others. Sure, they may have attacked him, but he didn't think they deserved to be burned to death.
That's when the brown-winged boy, York, returned.
"Carolina!" he cried, as he dropped from the sky and landed a high speed kick to the Eraser's face.
The wolf-hybrid grunted as his head was snapped to the side. Blood dripped out his mouth as he blocked another blow meant for his face again. He tried to put his hands up in the universal signal for surrender, but that didn't seem to stop the his fury.
Having enough of this madness, he took York by the collar of his shirt and threw him inside the compound. Thankfully, he didn't land on anyone, but was horror-struck to see the building ablaze. Stepping over the speechless, scarred boy, the Eraser tried to grab another wounded bird kid, this time the boy with purple wings, but he shoved him away demanding that he save his sister first though he himself was in extreme pain. The Eraser didn't have time for this nonsense so he picked the guy up anyway, grunting in his own language that he was going to save everyone, he just couldn't do it all at once.
"No! South!" He squirmed in the Eraser's hold as much as he could without causing further injury to himself.
The bigger creature sat that one down quickly and rushed in to save the kid's sister. This was about the time that Connie showed back up. She wondered why the boy had stopped following her. Now she was helping that same boy lift and move David out of the slowly burning room, he having apparently knocked himself out.
After everyone was out safely, York flung himself into the task of healing everyone with supernatural powers he claimed he had. Connie and the Eraser followed the boy's instructions and brought out some cold water to put on the wounds York couldn't get to yet.
"Who are you?! Why are you here?!" York demanded, his eyes brimming with angry tears as he tended to the teal-winged girl with devotion.
Connie looked down, mulling over her response.
"We were hungry. That's why we broke in." She didn't want to tell him about her powers. She didn't trust them, and she was still doubting if she had powers at all. They were seeing the result of it now.
York swore under his breath.
"And why do you have an Eraser with you? What's with him?"
Connie stuttered and she timidly looked at the Eraser.
"We…found him. He won't hurt us. I think." She added the last bit softly. "He can't talk."
"I see," he said, as he painfully moved on to the next patient.
There was more awkward silence as Connie and the Eraser didn't know what else to do.
"I'm New York. This compound belongs to Wyoming, the guy with the 'stache. Flowers and 479er work for him here. Flowers is the guy with the blue wings and 479er is the human. They let us come live here. 'Us' being everyone else. I ran into Carolina when Project Freelancer tried to take us back to the lab on a truck."
It wasn't a question of who he was talking about when he was referring to Carolina. The amount of emotion in his face and the look he gave said it all.
"We met the twins, North and South Dakota, later on, and they left the circus to come with us. Then we found Wyoming, and he took us in."
Connie watched attentively as she listened to him, essentially, reminisce.
"Why do most of you call yourselves states?"
York chuckled a little.
"Well, some of us didn't have names. Some of us wanted to protect our real names. Wyoming is Wyoming because that's the state we're in now. North and South Dakota are twins. Carolina and I were from somewhere in the Carolinas and New York respectively. Flowers and 479er just like using their own codenames they've been using."
Connie stored that information away for later.
"Why are you here?" New York continued.
"I told you."
"No. Why are you in this area?"
"Running from Project Freelancer. Same as you."
New York looked thoughtful.
"Well, until all these guys are rested up, I can't say if you can stay with us or not." It was like he was purposefully leaving out the, "Even though you still helped get everyone out before they burned alive" part.
"Well, we're not leaving until Da-…our friend is back on his feet." Connie quickly tried to cover over her slip up. It wasn't that New York knowing David's real name could somehow bring their ruin, but she didn't trust them yet.
"Don't worry. With me working my magic, he'll be back to 100% in no time!" York shined a 500 kilowatt smile at her.
New York was a strange boy.
"But, I have to ask. Why does he have cat ears?"
Connie couldn't help but let a light smile crease her lips.
"I have no idea."
Sorry if that seemed a little rushed. I'm not as practiced with action as I need to be. And there are so many characters! And the characters don't know each other yet so that's frustrating from a writing perspective too.
So our two groups have collided! Yay! I'll try to get passed them introducing each other to each other as fast as possible or as entertainingly as possible. I'll try not to bore you basically.
I tried to reference RvB season 8(?) where Wash is with the Meta and Doc in the desert and only Wash is able to understand the Meta with how David is able to somehow understand mute Maine even though he doesn't say a word. Heehee.
Writing-wise, I'm finding I'm writing Connie and Carolina similarly as well as York and Wash. I know this so I'm trying to fix it, but I'm trying to make Connie not as the crazy, paranoid one that I've written her as in the past. Still, it's hard to write for a character that is hardly on screen. I'll be able to fix York and Wash's personalities once they are side by side in the story. That will be easier. Still, I'm going to have to decide how Connie and Carolina will act toward each other. It could go several ways.
The next chapter might be a while, might not. I've already started writing the next chapter because I liked a particular scene I thought out, but that scene won't be able to fill up a whole chapter. So the rest of it might take me a while.
Anyway, thank you to all who faved, alerted, and commented. You all get a special place in my heart!
Looking forward to it!