I dreamed that night. They were confusing and muddled, but they would've made sense if I knew what was going on… I mean, there weren't any flying bananas, thank goodness, if there were, that would've not been right.

Anyway, there was a lot of shouting, and it was dark, dark red and black. I, for the most part, was confused. Dylan popped up a couple times, and so did Max. Then, really spontaneously, it went black. I was wondering what was happening when a single, black feather that gleamed from an unknown source of light floated down.

Then I woke up. Ah, dream endings are always so abrupt…

Something did wake me up, however. It sounded like surprised shouting…

I raised my head sleepily to find that it wasn't just my imagination that the shouts were coming from… they were real. I yawned, and noticed Dylan sitting up groggily from the couch.

"Whas' that?" he asked, tiredness slurring his words.

I shrugged. "Dunno."

I got up and stumbled towards the door, Dylan behind me. Upon opening it I found- A scene I never expected.

Here, I shall describe it: Gazzy and Nudge are facing the balcony, looking tense. Iggy, who's behind them, looks tense as well, but also a wee bit confused. Jeb is next to Iggy, and he looks shocked and nervous. Angel is in the front, standing straight and calmly.

And across from them was… Max and Fang. I hope I'm not the only one confused. "What the…?" Dylan asked from behind me. He must've been looking over my head to see what was so interesting.

At Dylan's voice, everyone's head whipped around to stare at us. "Great," started Angel sarcastically, "Now look what you did! You woke up Spark and Dylan."

Max glared at her. It was surprisingly refreshing to see her trademarked glare again.

Nudge, deciding to change the subject and therefore relieving some tension, looked over at me and Dylan and said, "Oh! You're finally awake! You guys were really out last night. How much sleep did you loose on the way here?"

I rubbed my hand through my hair, trying to A) make sense of why the heck Max and Fang were there and B) spike my black hair up again.

"Too much," I muttered, yawning again. "Why are Max and Fang here?"

Max shot a look at Fang, who returned the look. "Well," Max began, "We were flying around here and saw a sign that said, 'Meet the Bird-Kids! Buy Your Tickets at Some-Random-Website-I-Don't-Remember!'. So we came here, thinking we could rejoin you guys." Frowning, Max turned to look at me and Dylan. "Wait, you just got here?"

Dylan nodded. "Yup. Last night, then we got lost and mobbed by the press."

Max winced. "Ouch. How long did it take you to get here?"

"Four and a half days."

"You guys are rather slow," commented Fang.

I threw up my hands defensively. "Hey, we're slow flyers, by the last couple days we ran out of food so we had to hunt, and we got very tired by the end of the journey! It's not our fault!"

Iggy raised an eyebrow from across the room. I have no idea how he just raises one like that, I always end up raising both when I try that.

Jeb decided to play referee by walking to the center of the room and declaring, "Okay, guys, before this gets ugly, I'm sure that Max and Fang are tired and hungry. We can continue discussing this after they've fed and rested."

Every seriously grumbled at the same time. Except for Jeb, Dylan, and me, but we watched in amusement as the rest all yelled, "JINX! Double jinx! Triple jinx!" and so on.

Eventually we got Max and Fang settled down with food a plenty. And then the Nudgetomic bomb dropped. It affected all of us.

Here's what we sounded like the instant Max and Fang finished their food: "?!?!!?"

I think you can see that we were very excited.

Let me emphasis on that in case you didn't catch that; We were really, really, Really, REALLY, REALLY EXCITED AND STRESSED OUT ABOUT SEEING MAX AND FANG AGAIN!!!

Ahem.

Fang held up a hand and we all stopped asking questions. "One at a time," he said in that calm way of his.

Angel beat the rest of us to the punch. "Why did you come here?" she asked.

"Voice," said Max simply.

Wait, what? "What Voice?"

Gazzy turned to me. "Max has a Voice in her head. It has no name. It tells her stuff."

Ah.

Angel completely ignored this part of the conversation and instead inquired, "What'd it say?"

Max concentrated for a moment. "It said that I needed to get back to you guys, and you weren't in Colorado anymore…"

"…So we came here," finished Fang.

We stared blankly at each other for a few moments before Nudge said slowly, "I don't see any emergency, do you?"

We all shook our heads. "Hmm," I said, thinking, "Maybe Angel had another one of her premonitions and Max's Voice did too. Maybe they warned you guys so that the fate of the universe that is supposed to happen can proceed! That's it!"

I got a lot of funny stares. I met them with a "What?" look.

Jeb, having been silent before, shook his head and said, "Well, does anyone have any ideas about what's going to happen if we're all so worried?"

Silence…

"Um," started Nudge thoughtfully, "Maybe Fang's gonna die? Or one of us." Nudge bit her lip. "I don't want that to happen. Max could save the world, or…"

Max turned to Nudge. "Calm down. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. We'll go with the flow."

Turning towards to Jeb, Max asked, "How's Mom and Ella? Is the CSM doing okay?"

Jeb nodded, but before he could say anything I raised my hand and interrupted. "Max? What is the CSM anyway? No one ever told me."

"I was wondering the same thing," added Dylan.

"It's the Coalition to Stop the Madness," replied Angel.

I snorted. "Okay, but what does it do?"

"They save the environment," said Fang quietly, "because the planet is in danger."

That was the most absurd idea I'd ever heard. I raised my hand again tentatively. "Uh, guys? I hate to break it to you, but the environment doesn't need saving."

Eight pairs of eyes swiveled to look at me in shock. "Whaaat?!"

"What are you talking about?" asked Nudge shrilly.

I held up a hand to quiet the babble. "Guys," I began, "The planet can take of itself. It's survived two billion years and counting. It's survived the dinosaurs. It's survived the Ice Age, and earthquakes, and meteor impacts, and hurricanes. It'll survive us. It'll be fine."

Gazzy piped up with, "But what about global warming, and the ozone layer going away, and UV radiation coming to the Earth?"

I leaned over and patted his hand. "Gazzy, UV radiation promotes mutation and change. It's good for life. Even if there was, say, a huge radiation accident, life would go on somewhere, no matter what. It's only human life that's in danger, and it's that that we need to help."

I got stared at again. I cleared my throat, my ears twisting back uncomfortably underneath all of the gazes, and said, "So. Whose going to tell Dr. Martinez that her entire organization is pointless?"

The room cleared out surprisingly fast.

And so, in about two paragraphs, I have successfully and logically shot down the entire point that the pitiful excuse for a Maximum Ride novel, The Final Warning, was built upon.

Simple. Easy. Done. Now I shall go do whatever else I feel like. Court dismissed, bring in the dancing lobsters.