Max POV

There were flyboys everywhere. Literally I couldn't see a single piece of sky that didn't have flyboy in it. I snapped in to a fighting stance immediately and prepared to fight for my life. I had been doing this for years, it was second nature. But the flock just hung there in the air, gazing at the flyboys like they'd never seen them before! WTF?!

I say a flyboy raise a gun and zoomed towards Gazzy to knock him out of the way. The bullet went wide anyway, but JEEZE!

"What are you waiting for?" I screamed at them in desperation and fear. "A written and engraved invitation?!"

That seemed to bring them back to the present. They flew in to action. And I mentally groaned. They obviously hadn't fought for a while. They were moving awkwardly and in little bursts. Gazzy was trying to hit a flyboy but he forgot to flap and ended up dropping several feet before he remembered.

I checked to see if anyone else was in serious trouble and went to help Gazzy out. 5 seconds later there were no flyboys near him and I was being treated to Gazzy's open mouth.

"How..?...You...them....how..?"He stuttered.

I chuckled darkly. "When was the last time any of you fought? It looked like you hadn't hit anyone in months!"

Gazzy actually blushed. He looked ...ashamed?

"Well...actually...we haven't"

"WHAT!!" I practically screamed at him. This was too much. The flock hadn't fought in months?!

"We stopped getting attacked after you.....you know. And we haven't fought any flyboys since about 4 months after you ....well you get the idea."

I just hovered there in shock. They hadn't been attacked for almost a whole year? And they hadn't had to fight flyboys for 7-8 months! Oh no! Then going to see them when I was still a giant flying target hadn't been the best idea.

As I thought this I caught a glance out of the corner of my eyes. Fang was holding his own against 5 flyboys and Iggy was taking out 10 at a time with his bombs, but other than that the flock was faring badly. Angel was bleeding from the head and Nudge was holding her arm to her side in an awkward way.

Think Max think. What can you do to draw away the flyboys? Anything would work, just get them away from the flock.

Then it came to me.

Using my super speed I flew straight towards the group that were surrounding Angel. It looked like she needed the most help, as she was falling several feet with every new attack. I poured on the speed and made them scatter everywhere.

"Iggy, ill round them up and you use any bombs you have to take them out" I screamed in his direction. He seemed to get the idea and relayed it to Fang.

I took an outside path and swooped around the whole group to force them in to the middle. Gazzy, Angel and Nudge managed to get out of the group and flew off to a safe distance. Iggy and Fang were trying to distract the flyboys so that they wouldn't guess my plan. Iggy was subtly placing bombs on to random flyboys and Fang was then distracting them, by delivering blows to the head and neck. I tightened my circle and force the flyboys in further. Iggy placed his last few bombs and started to make his way out.

I saw his sneak out from the corner of my eye and increased my speed even more so that the flyboys were practically on top of one another.

"Now Iggy!" I yelled before I started to fly away.

"NO!!!" I heard Nudge scream. My head snapped round towards her, my heart already beating faster in the fear that she was hurt. Old habits and all that.

But Nudge wasn't concerned with herself. She was staring towards the flyboys in horror and seemed on the verge of tears. I followed her gaze and was what she saw screaming at.

And almost fell out of the sir in shock.

You know what I said before, about my heart speeding up in the fear that Nudge was hurt. This fear totally eclipsed that. My heart couldn't beat fast enough so I swear it just gave up.

Fang. Fang was still in there. He hadn't been able to get out. I could see him now, furiously fighting for his life while desperately trying to make it out of the tight swarm of writhing bodies the flyboy squadron had become. But it was an impossible task; I could see that, there were too many flyboys. Even though they were distracted by the fact that they were much closer than they had originally intended, their attention was being caught on Fang's attempts to break out.

I switched my gaze to Iggy to see that his face was a similar mask of horror. My eyes moved down to his hand. And the heart that I had thought stopped now turned to ice.

The detonation switch had been flipped. The bombs were all going to go off.

Time seemed to slow down for me. I turned back to the group of flyboys with a cry of pain on my lips, searching desperately for Fang. I found him and your gazes locked. I could see that he knew that he wasn't going to get out. His eyes were full of pain and sadness. My eyes moved down to his perfect lips and I saw him give up. Just one word did it all for me.

"Bye" I saw him mouth.

"NO!!!" the scream was torn from me. I couldn't live without him, in the stress of the moment I realized that. I didn't care if we were never together like we had been before. I just needed him to be there, with me.

Before I knew what I was doing, my body reacted automatically. I poured on the speed and flew towards the group of flyboys.

"Max, the bombs are still activaaaatttteeeeed........" I heard Iggy scream towards my retreating back. But right then I couldn't care less. I had to get to Fang, I couldn't let him die, and no matter how much I hated him right now I couldn't stand back and watch him die.

I hit the bundle of flyboys at around 250mph, the impact jarring through my whole body. Pain flared through my joints but I ignored it. Pain is just a message. Right then I had a lot of people on hold.

I fought tooth and nail to get to where Fang was swinging punches. I joined him and looked for an opening in the compact group of bodies surrounding us.

There! I saw a patch of sky that was clear of flyboys. Grabbing Fangs hand I nodded towards the gap and saw him nod to signal he understood. We started to move towards the gap, but as we did I heard an automated speaker start:

10.....9.....8.....

The countdown to detonation had begun.