CHAPTER 4: FPOV

"Max." I choked out.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She hissed.

"Springing experiments." I tried to answer coolly.

"What are you-!" She started.

"Um…guys, they'll be here soon." Nudge said hesitantly.

"Raven! Come on! They won't listen to me! They know you're the leader! Come on!" Gwen yelled desperately.

"Come on!" I muttered to the flock.

"Why should we listen to you?" Max glared at me. I tried hard not to flinch.

"Because if you don't you'll get caught." I breathed.

She glared at me. "Fine."

I nodded curtly and ran towards Gwen.

"Shut up!" I yelled over the newly-freed experiments confusion. They got quiet. "Listen. This is Gwen." I gestured to her standing beside me. "She can lead you out of here. Follow her if you don't wanna get put back in a cage." I gave her the laptop and ran back to the door.

"Raven! What the hell are you doing?"

"They're to close! I can hold them off long enough for y'all to get out." I said.

"Raven!" She yelled.

"You know how it goes! This is always the plan! Now get out of here."

"Where do we meet?" She asked.

"Roof."

"But you said that the upper floors…"

"Not this roof! The motel! Go. NOW!" I yelled, just as the whitecoats arrived. Gwen hesitated, but then ran, herding the kids down the tunnel. I punched one of the whitecoats, knocking him out. Another swung at me and I dodged. I threw another few punches until the kids were out of sight. Then, I ran.

I ran down the tunnel sewer. I could tell where they were and used that to follow them. I had finally developed an ability. I could sense people around me. I could pick them out and tell who they were. Or I could have someone in mind and be able to find them. I also got faster. Both on land and in the air. I saw light filtering in up ahead and I sped up. When I was under the shaft of light, I rocketed up wards, shooting a few hundred feet up in the air. Everyone had made it to the roof safely. I zoomed over head and then dropped out of the sky, scaring the shit out of Gwen.

"GWRAHHHH! Raven! Imma kill you one day!" She yelled.

"Whatever." I shrugged. "Where's Riko?"

"Talking to Sky."

"And where would that be?" I asked.

"I dunno. Use your GPS tracking thingy or whatever!"

I huffed. "You're useless." I started walking to Riko.

"Hey!" She yelled at my back.

I kept walking. When I got to Riko, he was grinning at me. "Raven! You're okay!"

"You think I'd let a couple whitecoats kill me? I'd never live that down."

"No shit. Because you'd be DEAD!" Gwen yelled in my ear.

"I'm right here, Stalker." I muttered.

"Stalker? WTF?"

"You followed me."

"I wasn't done YELLING AT YOU!"

"What about now?"

"I HATE you!"

"Love you, too. Stalker."

"ARGHHHHH!"

Riko was cracking up. I was trying really hard not to.

"Raven! I swear to God! I'm going to-"

"What?" I asked, laughing now. "Kill me?"

"Did those whitecoats slip you some happy pills or something?" Sky asked.

"Nah. At least I hope not. But we just hacked into Itex and freed a bunch of kids, so I'm in a pretty good mood. Good job, Riko." I said, ruffling his hair.

He grinned up at me. "Can we go practice, now?"

"Soon. But first, recruiting. And I have some business to take care of. You still got the laptop?" I asked Gwen.

"Yeah. You gonna be okay?" She asked, knowing what I meant by 'business'. Or who.

"Of course. I'm me." I said.

"Lose the cockiness. You look better without it."

"Well, thanks, I guess."

"Anytime. C'mon Riko. We must RECRUIT!" she said, pulling him along.

"Raven! Help me!" Riko yelled.

"Sorry, Rik. I don't wanna die."

"WAHHHH!"

"Can it, little man. It's not that bad." Gwen said. Rik looked terrified.

I took a deep breath and walked over to where the flock stood, watching our antics curiously.

"Hey." I said.

"Fang!" Nudge yelled and ran up to give me a hug.

I laughed. "Hey Nudge."

Angel and Gazzy ran up and hugged me, too. Iggy came over and grinned.

"Running a business are we, Fang?"

I laughed again, grinning. I was about to answer when Gwen walked up.

"Not really. Just returning the favor." She said. "And man, Raven, I think they did slip you some happy pills. I've never seen you grin like this."

"Like I would be acting happy if a whitecoat shoved pills down my throat." I snorted. "What do you want, anyways?"

"Recruiting's done. We got two newbies. You gotta give them the intro course."

"Alright. Where are the rest of them going?"

"They're splitting up. Going in separate directions. Why?"

"I need to talk to them."

"They aren't gonna come with us."

"They don't need to come with us, but if they go alone, they'll die. The whitecoats'll come after them."

"They're all yours."

"Yo!" I yelled across the rooftop. "Look, you don't have to join us, but don't stay alone. The whitecoats will go after you. Stay together and you have a better chance of surviving."

I walked back to Gwen. "There. I'm done."

"Good. Now, Newbies!"

I sighed. "Fine."

I followed Gwen to a couple winged kids standing by Rik and sky.

"Hey. I'm Raven, this is Gwen, Riko-we call him Rik-, and Sky, our talking, flying dog. What are your names?" I asked.

"I'm Alya." A tall, pale skinned girl said. She had dark brown, almost black, hair that was cropped short, about mid neck. "It means 'sky'".

"Cool. And you?" I asked the boy, who was probably about 12 or 13. He had short, messy, sandy brown hair. He was fairly tall, about Nudge's height.

"I'm Jay."

"Awesome. So this is our group, or flock. If you haven't figured it out already, we go to different branches of Itexicon, look for information about their plans and free kids like us who are locked in cages. We also formed a band, Winged Fury, to help with money. We actually have a show tomorrow that we need to practice for, so we should go inside. But first, we'll get you some clothes. There's a store down on the corner, they'll have clothes. Fly down in back. Then we can walk the rest of the way." That was probably the longest I've ever spoken. Everyone who knew me looked shocked. I sighed. "Yes, I talked. Can we go now?"

Gwen grinned. "Sure, Captain!"

"Captain?"

"What, you don't like it? I thought it sounded better than 'evil-winged-child-who-hacks-into-buildings-and-corrupts-small-children'."

"I'm evil? And since when am I the one who corrupts them?"

"Okay, so it was flawed. Earlier today you said you were human."

"I'm 98%! And I corrected myself! Now let's go, or did you not want to practice?"

"No!" Rik howled. "I wanna practice! I wanna play Dear Mr. President!"

I laughed. "Yeah. That's a good song."

"All the songs you write are good."

"Thanks, Rik. Now can we go, or is it ignore Raven's orders day?"

"Let's go!" Riko yelled happily. I laughed at him. He could act like a regular little kid. Sometimes.

"Hey Fang!" Nudge yelled excitedly. "Can we stay with you tonight?"

I hesitated, then smiled at her. "It's fine with me, It's up to Max, though."

"Can we Max? Pleeeease?" Nudge begged.

"Nudge," Max looked at her firmly.

"Max. Let us stay." Angel said.

"Fine." Max sighed. "We can stay."

"Cool. Rik, Sky. Will y'all show them our room? We'll get another one in a minute, but first we're going to get some clothes."

"Okay!" Rik said. "C'mon! I'll show you our room! We have a bunch of instruments and CD's! Come look!"

"That kid is way too excited." I muttered. "Come on. Let's go find you some clothes." I yelled, as I flew down into the parking lot. Well, I thought to myself. This is going to be an interesting night.

AN: Hope you liked it! It was LONG! Over FOUR pages long! That's the longest chapter I've written in ANY of my fanfics! Let me know what you think…and how Max should kill Fang. J

-Haru