Author's Note: Here's the last part. Part five, I believe. There's an author's note after this, as a separate chapter. Please read it? Thanks.

Part 5

:::With the Others:::

The battle was going poorly.

Without Juliet, there was one less gun, and apparently, the female detective had been a pretty good shot.

That, and taking out robots was apparently harder then felling flesh and bone, even if it was seemingly steroid-laced flesh and bone.

Gus was, surprisingly, doing the best. He had taken down one Flyboy, but that was one more than anybody else. The others had managed to slow a few down, or have them fly off to do whatever their equivalent was to catch their breath, but Gus had smacked one right in the base of the spine with his metal bat, and the thing had crumpled like a house of cards in an earthquake.

But even so, one wasn't even a comparison to the six that still remained.

And the two that had disappeared before the fight had even began. Their original destination was still pretty much a mystery.

"I hate this!" Henry called, digging into his pocket as a Flyboy changed its direction to fling itself at McNab. "I only have a clip and a half left! What do you all have?"

"Two clips and the one in my gun!" Lassiter called back from where he was being chased by two Flyboys who had landed on the ground.

"Two guns, and a clip for each!" Apparently, McNab had been carrying two pistols, for whatever reason, and was now duel-wielding, something that he had proved to be surprisingly adept at.

And as for Gus...

"I got a big-ass freaking bat!"

Gus chased a fleeing Flyboy behind a pile of rocks, and reappeared seconds later, his arms thrown over his head as he fled from the three Flyboys who were chasing him, one sporting a flamethrower that belched flames and smoke.

His shriek could have broken through three feet of plexiglass.

"Dammit all..." Lassiter growled, turning on a dime to sprint after the fleeing, may-be-on-fire man, his own pursuing Flyboys sliding and slamming into one another in a tangle of limbs and mechanical shouts.

"I WILL TERMINATE YOU!"

"I WILL TERMINATE YOU!"

"Terminate each other, why don't you?!" Lassiter shouted over his shoulder as he fired repeatedly into the back of the head of the flamethrower-wielding Flyboy.

Not that arguing robots who had a very small selection of phrases wasn't funny, but now was probably not a good time to laugh at it.

Next time Spencer told him to leave something alone, he'd-

...oh, right.

Spencer had thrown himself head-first off of a cliff.

Not that Lassiter hadn't wanted to go after Juliet, either, but still.

"We need one of Shawn's bombs." Gus huffed as Lassiter fell in line with him, the two sprinting away from the three Flyboys, the other two - still arguing - moving to pursue Henry and McNab.

"Too bad he decided to go cliff-diving." Without any water.

Probably not as fun.

Gus glared at Lassiter. He didn't comment, though, because the Flyboys had suddenly all stopped moving. They had frozen in the middle of whatever action they had been executing. The Flyboy with the flamethrower was still even using it, with a long stream of fire just spitting out into the air.

The silence was deafening.

"What's going on?" Lassiter asked, and growled out in annoyance as Gus slapped a hand over his mouth.

There was a low thrum to the air, a steady beat, like a muffled drum.

Thmmp...Thmmp...Thmmp...

It was steadily getting louder, and Lassiter groaned from behind Gus's hand. Under the steady beat, was the far-off mechanical whir of approaching Flyboys.

Unlike Henry and McNab - who had just moved to join them - and Lassiter, Gus was much more giddy.

Thmmp...Thmmp...Thmmp...

"I told you, I told you!" He began to whispered quietly, doing his own little dance.

Thmmp...Thmmp...THMMP.

"...-ooooolllllLLLLLLLY SHIIIIT!"

Something large and incredibly fast shot past the lip of the drop-off, streaking up into the air fast enough for a quiet, almost sonic-boom-like sound to ruffle the four men's clothing, along with a strong gale of wind.

Two more streaks followed the first, these two much slower and clumsier; they were Flyboys, following the first to the best of their ability.

The three streaks of color twirled around in the air, chasing one another, with loud exclamations of "Holy SHIT!" following them.

Then the first streak, the fastest one, broke off, and rocketed towards the ground.

Towards the four men.

At a very high rate of speed.

The streak suddenly halted, hanging in the air in front of the four men.

"Ho-ly shit..." McNab breathed.

The wings were huge, with long, stiff feathers. They had to be fifteen or sixteen feet from wingtip to wingtip, and had the coloration of a barn owl's.

They were massive, beautiful, and border-lined being otherworldly.

And they were attached to the shoulder-blades of Shawn Spencer.

Shawn Spencer, head psychic for the SBPD, CEO of the psychic detective agency named "Psych," was hanging fifteen feet over their heads, held aloft by two massive wings, his own wings.

He grinned down at the four of them, before looking over his shoulder to stick his tongue out at the two Flyboys that had been following him. That seemed to kick the grounded Flyboys into gear, and they shot off into the air, rejoining the other two.

"F28246eff! F28246eff!" The Flyboys chanted like a mantra, their mechanical voices grating and sounding like they were physically joining to one another.

"Oh shut up, y'jerks." Shawn looked back down to the four below, and tossed something that had been covered by his unbuttoned shirt down towards Lassiter. "Lassie, catch!"

The large thing slammed into him, carrying him towards the ground with a shout and a curse.

It was an unconscious Juliet O'Hara, her wind-swept hair falling in front of her closed eyes.

"S-Shawn, what the..." Henry stuttered, not even managing to get an entire sentence out. Shawn smiled uneasily at his father.

"I know." He gestured towards the large wings that were working hard to keep him in the air and in one place. "I'll explain later." He pointed at the Flyboys that were currently about to dive-bomb his head. "After I deal with these a-holes." He somehow spun around in the air, pulling out a compilation of about thirteen different objects to create on thing the size of his head.

Where he kept it, nobody knew, and nobody ever had nor ever would.

"Hey, Fly-bastards!" Shawn yelled, tossing the thing up and down. The Flyboys halted in the air, staring down at him through beady, robotic eyes. He caught the object one handed, and lifted it for all to see. "This is for the School, love the Destructive Duo!" He drew his arm back and then whipped it forward, the wire-wrapped object shooting through the air faster than a bullet.

The Flyboys began to scatter, flying in different directions, but they were nowhere near fast enough.

The Big Boy detonated with a resounding boom, tearing right through the bodies of the Flyboys that were flimsy in comparison to the force of the bomb.

A flying piece of shrapnel sliced through the air, and Shawn's right wing, before lodging into the ground just a millimeter from one of McNab's only remaining toes.

Shawn hit the ground with a thump, his arms coming up over his head to protect it from any more flying debris as his wings folded close to his back, compressing themselves so much that the joints cracked.

Once relative silence had returned to the mountainside - and once the fireball in the air was beginning to burn itself off - Shawn uncovered his head. He stared at the fireball, and at the apparently lack of Flyboys.

He grinned.

"Freakin' sweet!"

:::Spencer House:::

"You're one of the bird-kids."

"Was. Was one of the bird-kids - ow ow ow ow ow! - I've grown up. Well, I actually - OW, DAMMIT! - shrank, but that's all a matter of appearance-changing, a skill that I share with - OW! STOP IT! - someone else I know." Shawn yanked his arm out of his father's grip, rubbing at the white bandages wrapped around his forearm to keep the gash in his arm from spilling more blood. He glowered briefly at his father, a look the man, surprisingly, didn't return. He was too busy staring at the massive wings on Shawn's back.

Well, wing. The other was spread at Shawn's side, with Gus taping bandages to where the piece of metal had sliced through flesh, muscle, and bone. He trusted nobody else near the injury, which had taken a while to explain. Apparently, Gus had known about Shawn's extra appendages for years, and whenever they got injured, he was the one to help Shawn take care of them.

Which had opened up a whole new slew of questions.

After Shawn had quite violently blown up the Flyboys, the group had retreated to Henry's house, with Shawn hidden in the back of McNab's police cruiser. The tall, young officer had returned to the police department to report to Vick - yes, Shawn was fine, and yes, he was still in Santa Barbara. The secret about his wings, however, was going to remain just that; a secret - shortly after arriving.

Shawn had laid a still-unconscious Juliet in his bed upstairs.

And then the questions started.

Questions that he really didn't want to answer at the moment, so he dodged around a good number of them. He did answer a few, however. Yes, he was one of the bird-kids he had mentioned earlier, which also meant that yes, he was a human experiment. That hadn't made his father happy. And then he dropped a bomb-shell.

Shawn Spencer wasn't a Spencer.

Henry Spencer was not his father.

Henry hadn't spoken much to his "son" after that.

"I honestly can't believe you've kept this a secret for so long." Lassiter said from where he was leaning against a counter. He frowned. "Didn't you have to take your shirt off in the hospital after getting shot?"

"Why do you think I'm broke all the time?" Shawn asked. Aside from buying so much food to keep himself fed, of course. "Do you know how much I spend a year to keep a doctor quiet? Pretty much all my income."

"Which is why over $16,000 over my salary goes towards paying for him." Gus added non-too helpfully. Shawn jerked his wing, thumping Gus in the chest. Gus slapped Shawn's wound.

Needless to say, Gus was the victor of that.

"It's not hard, either, with me and my psychic awesomeness." Shawn lifted his hands to his temples. "Psychic manipulation here, telepathic idea-implant there, and boom! People stop thinking they saw a grown man with wings. That's not all I can do, either." Lassiter snorted.

"Yeah? Like what?"

Shawn raised an eyebrow.

"Hi, I'm Carlton Lassiter. I'm a prissy little baby-detective who wants a gigantic pony and is afraid of snow globes." Lassiter said, his voice overly cheerful.

Except it wasn't Lassiter.

His mouth hadn't moved.

But Shawn's sure had.

"Mimicry and voice-throwing." Gus said, smacking Shawn on the back of the head. "His voice abilities get him in trouble a lot."

"For the record, that time in Canada wasn't my fault! Nor were the ones in Mexico, Oregon, Florida, Las Vegas, or Finland."

"Sure they weren't." Gus said with a roll of his eyes. "He can also change his appearance to a small extent, see in the dark, has heightened senses, can fly at great heights and speeds, can talk to a few types of animals, manipulate thoughts or impressions slightly, implant ideas, mentally communicate, and breathe underwater."

"Among other things." Shawn said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Henry stared at the younger man.

"Gus, Detective, do you two mind giving me a moment alone with my son?" The two left, with Shawn mouthing pleas in Gus's direction. The darker-skinned male ignored him, though, and quickly left.

Shawn turned back to his father, and stared at him. Henry stared back.

Five minutes later, neither had uttered a word, and Shawn had busied himself by drumming his fingers on the kitchen table.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Henry's question same so unexpectedly, that for a moment Shawn thought it had just been his imagination.

"I had made a life for myself." Shawn stared slowly. "You and mom seemed happy with a son, even if you didn't know that he wasn't your own." The brown-haired avian-American paused, contemplating his words. "Mom was...barren. I saw that you two wanted a children, but were unable. You wanted a child. I wanted a family. It was an opportunity too good to pass up."

"Then why didn't you tell us later?"

"Because you two were still happy. What would you two have done if you found out what you had believed for so long had been false?" Shawn sighed. "And there was never really a good time to tell you. I mean, when is a good time to reveal that your son is a freak with wings?"

"You're not a freak, Shawn." Shawn chuckled.

"Dad, that's the nicest thing you've said to me in a while." Henry stared. "Sorry."

"I'm assuming your...mother...doesn't know?"

"No, mom is as in the dark as you were." He scrubbed at his face with his hands, his wings shuffling. "God, she's going to flip out."

"You're going to tell her?"

"Well, you know. It's only fair that she does, too." He was not looking forward to that, even more so than to the conversation he was going to have to have with Juliet. Wait...no...he was dreading both about the same.

...fun times.

"So when you ran off after high school..."

"The Erasers were still following me. They just actually found me at that point. Cue flying - literally - across the country for a while to try and lose them. Eventually, I did, and I ended up back here. And you know the story from there." Henry nodded, and the two fell back into a semi-comfortable silence. Shawn, in that time, pulled on a windbreaker Gus had pulled out of one of the backpacks. The windbreaker almost seemed like it came straight out of a Harry Potter book; even though his wings were so large, the jacket just covered them, and it looked like Shawn never had them in the first place.

Shawn sat back down in his chair with a sigh.

"So, what now?" Henry asked, propping his head up on the table with his hand. Shawn shrugged.

"I dunno. My instincts are telling me to leave."

"But what do you want to do?"

"Stay." Shawn blurted before he could stop himself. He face-palmed. "Before moving in with you two, I was so okay with running across the world to stay a step ahead of the Erasers." He paused, and then chuckled. "Well, not entirely okay. I remember, one time I had a breakdown. Completely flipped my lid on the topic. I was only talked down from a fit with the promise of food." Henry stifled a chuckle.

"You still can only be kept from a fit with the promise of food."

"Gimme a break, I was eight!" Shawn whined. Well, maybe eight. What with his childhood, his exact age was pretty much a toss-up. His age had pretty much just been a guess.

With the thought of his less-than-ideal childhood, Shawn sobered quickly.

"More will be coming." Shawn said, once more breaking the semi-comfortable silence. "More than before. They know I'm here. For whatever reason, the School has made a comeback, and they want their old experiments back." 'Again.' "Staying here isn't smart, but..."

"You want to." Henry finished for the other man, and he nodded.

"I do. But there will be so many coming. More than we can fight. More than our little group can fight." Shawn suddenly shot up. "That's it!" He yelled. He got up and darted out of the room. His father, sighing tiredly, trudged after him.

Shawn was in the living room, tearing apart the couch in search of the phone by the time Henry caught up. Lassiter and Gus watched on, bemused, as Henry found the phone - it was where it belonged, on the charging stand, so of course Shawn hadn't thought to look there - and handed it to his son.

He punched in a number, shook his head, and hit "End." He repeated the process four more times, before finally hitting "Talk."

"Shawn, what're you doing?" Gus asked.

"Calling in a favor." Shawn responded, tapping his foot impatiently as the phone rang. His face brightened up as the person on the other line answered. "El! I haven't heard your voice in forever!" A pause. "It's your little brother, El." An excited voice babbled on the other line, loud enough for the others to hear, but too quiet to hear distinct words. Shawn nodded along with the voice, even though the speaker couldn't see him. "Yep! Hey, El, your older sister wouldn't happen to me around, would she? I need to talk to her. It's urgent." A pause. "Okay. Bye, El! Oh, say hi to mamma M for me!"

Shawn winked at Lassiter, Gus, and Henry, smiling excitedly. Another voice, this one slightly deeper, sounded from the phone, and Shawn's expression evolved into one of pure joy.

"Hey." He said, and pulled the phone away from his ear as loud screaming came through.

"IT'S ALL OVER THE NEWS, YOU IDIOT! YOU THINK I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY YOUR HANDY WORK?! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET KILLED? GOD, CHILD, I HAVE HALF A MIND TO COME FIND YOU AND SMACK YOU UPSIDE THE FACE! So how are you doing, by the way? GOD YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT!"

Shawn laughed as he placed the phone next to his ear again.

"Nice to hear from you too, sis. And it wasn't my fault, okay! I had a perfectly good reason to detonate a Big Boy over Santa Barbara!"

Another lengthy pause, and Shawn's smile fell from his face. He sighed.

"That's exactly what I was calling you about. I've been thinking...it's about time for a Flock reunion, wouldn't you say, Max?"

Author's Note: And that's it! Yep, that is the end of "Avian-American." Though, I'll have an author's note after this chapter if you wanna read it. Well, it's important, so you should read it.

Just for my own edification, can any of you guess who Shawn really is? It should be obvious, but I wanna know if anybody picked up on the obvious clues.

...shit, now I've gotta go through the fanfic, find the Flock-language, and put the translations at the bottom of the chapter(s). I made up most of that, you know!