Hi everyone! Hope you enjoy. Right now the story is mostly Maximum Ride but I've hidden other stories inside! The Prologue is a big hint and my plan is to focus on Maximum Ride for many chapters, but when I'm done I will officially change it to a crossover. Hope you enjoy - Comment, Favorite and guess what stories I've hidden inside. :)
The sun hung over high a emerald island. A tall mound of earth surround with encroaching jungle. It was a great sight, the sun rising over the horizon giving the jungle a warm orange tint. The blue waves crashing onto the white sands.
The deathly future changed, the island the first beacon.
Its name was Paradise, created for the enhanced children of the world to inhabit free from judgement and persecution of the outside world. The children painted as monsters and mutants to be destroyed, unnatural abominations defying "God's Will." Many of the enchanted to reside on the contingents, running or hiding away from the humans.
Paradise was not like that, Paradise was to hide-away the world fell into plague by the H8E virus. But it never did. The virus was never released, the nukes never went off, and Maximum Ride was sound asleep in her treehouse. Completely unaware of the life she lived after the asteroid exploded in the atmosphere.
Powerful beings had accomplished their goal. Change the future; but now it was out of their hands, the different strands of time seen but no one knowing how to pick the correct one. They had made a drastic choice, contradictory to the law of time, the calm calculating persons had now gone back and changed it, an ever circling loop broken. Forever.
Max slumbered on her bed, a blanket entangled in her wings as she snored, her dirty blond hair sprawled over her face going down to her pillow. She snored - though loud and obnoxious - indicated she was at peace.
The sun crept through the spaces of the window shutters, crawling on the floorboards up to her bed and into her eyes hidden behind her hair.
The snoring stopped and she groaned, wishing to to return to her sleep. She turned her head feeling the blankets hag from her wings. She shook them off, stepping off her head and pushing her toes against the hardwood floor.
Still here, she though.
Max has been waking up every morning doing this, the subconscious fear that she would awake in a laboratory again or a dog crate. Paradise has been good to her and her flock the past few months. The sunshine, the nice weather, the jagged cliffs, all of it has been the greatest stress relievers for them.
She walked out of her room into the living room, octagonal in design with each side an area.
One side had the front for that the front door was built so the Flock could walk onto a short deck to a drop off, where they could fly and soar the moment they wake up. To the left looking in was the kitchen, where Max was banned from cooking so the entire tree doesn't become engulfed in flame. Next to that Angel's room, the first space of her own where she wasn't tested on my dreaded whitecoats. It went up in age from there, Gasman next to her, then Nudge, then Iggy, then Fang, and finally Max. Total was living with Akita in the base of the tree where Mrs. Martinez and Ella resided.
Max yawned, stretching her arms and curling her wings. She went to Iggy's room, opening the door and peeking her head inside.
"Mornin' Iggy." She said cheerfully. Iggy groaned covering his he's with his pillow case. Max glared at him for the mess in his room, nothing but rusty metal gears and dissected nick-knacks all over the floor. She specifically asked him and Gazzy to clean the night before obviously not doing it.
"Didn't I tell you to clean this crap up last night?"
He sat up, the pillow falling off his tired face. He shrugged at Max's question. Sarcastically answering, "Maybe."
She groaned, "You're making breakfast, maybe if you would've clean this up I would have given ya' some sleep." She joked, lying about giving Iggy sleep before breakfast.
"Yes ma'am."
Max smiled, opening the door so if Iggy tried to sleep again she could throw one of the living room couch pillows at him.
She went to Nudge's room, nothing but stuffed toys she'd made the past couple weeks, the walls just splattered with pink. Nudge slept uglier than Max, her body halfway off the bed and her snoring like a broken vacuum. Max thought it was cute even though Nudge thought it was completely ugly looking.
Max sat next to her and gently lifted her up, pulling her torso up on the bed.
Nudge yawned, her eyes still shut as she greeted Max.
"Morning." She yawned, rubbing her eyes.
Max smiled, "Morning Nudglet. Iggy's making breakfast for us. Probably eggs and sausage."
With Nudge's eyes still shut she raised her hands up ward, happy with prospect of food. "Hooray for cannibalism."
Max laughed. "Yeah two percent Nudge. Get up and eat."
She groggily got up, almost walking into the door of her room.
"You better be up Iggy!" Max called as she exited Nudges room. Iggy popped his head from the corner of the kitchen, a part of his red hair sticking out from major bed head. Max was going to tell but felt it would be funny if would go through the whole day like that. She looked down and saw Fang laying on the couch in his brown pajamas. He looked up at Iggy and then back at Max, saying with his face "Aren't you going to tell him?"
"No." Max mouthed.
"Right here Max! Hold your horses." Iggy said, rolling his eyes.
Max just chuckled softly as she opened the door to Angel's room. Hardly decorated it after it was built. Just a bed tucked in the top left corner with a dresser across from her. Everyone had a rug in their room but Angel. She rolled it up and placed it in the truck in the living room. Over all she has acted strange towards the Flock, kept to herself more often, flying alone around the island and not even talking to the other enhanced kids.
Max has grown worried but Fang says she just needs to talk to someone. She did suffer through those horrible tests and almost died in the fire. Max was so worried. So she actually has been sending her to a psychologist, much to her own dismay. But Max didn't know what else to do.
Dr. Phillips was pretty good, overall a good person allowing Angel to read his thoughts often. She seemed to only open up to him now, not the Flock anymore.
Max looked to her desk, one she kept right next to the door of her room, squeezed between the door frame and wall, spanning about seven feet across. She would write for hours on that desk, Max never knew what.
Max took a quick peek, seeing Angel was out early again. Usually she would dip her feet on the western side of the island, or would meet Dr. Phillips in the underground complex to talk. Just somewhere away from here with them. A drawback for Max living on Paradise.
Max noticed on the desk a piece of paper, Angel always locked it in the small compartment below it. She turned and saw everyone preoccupied with something. Max felt it couldn't hurt to take peak, maybe it could help her and Angel connect again.
Max squeezed into the chair and flicked the small battery operated lamp on, she made a quick glance once more outside the door before she began to read the paper. Angel's script was beautiful, elegant and mature not a single mistake made with the black ink. Max read it with difficulty.
The Unborn will Rise, the Third and First of his Kind.
The Children of Fire will repeat the Sin of their Forefathers,
And the First among the Next will mend her mistake.
Then the World of Man and Beasts will become Destitute,
Their Salvation by the Darkness long before.
Then Old King will submit,
The New Heir will take the Primordial Throne,
And All will lose Fear and Follow him to a New Age.
But the Two that are One, will face the One that is All,
With Death and Life either Conquered or Destroyed.
What in the f*ck, Max couldn't comprehend what she was reading. Was this poetry? If it was Max has never seen anything like it before. Then again she has never been an artistic snob. Weren't words supposed to rhyme? Then Max thought it was a way to channel her frustrations or maybe a dream. It does say 'Children of Fire', maybe Angel was referring to the whitecoats that burned. Max hated coming across this.
"Hey Max!" Gazzy shouted popping from the doorway. Max shot up in alarm and hit the desk knocking over the battery flashlight and smashing the bulb on the floor.
"Dammit Gaz!" She yelled, picking up the lamp to reveal the shattered bulb on the floor.
"Sorry." He shrugged, looking at the desk seeing the paper. He snatched it from the desk, running into the room with it.
"Guys look! Angel left a paper on her desk!"
"Give that back right now!" Max snarled, tripping and trying to grasp Gasman's feet but missing. He jumped onto the coffee table holding the paper high in the air.
"What the hell Gazzy? What is that?" Nudge was at first angry at him but stood up to get a better look at the paper in need of her curiosity. Fang snatched it from his hand, causing Gazzy to jump off the table and try to jump up and get the paper from Fang, but he was too tall for him.
Fang began to read the paper, his eyes beginning to widen as his eyes followed the words down to page.
"What's it say?" Iggy asked, annoyed he couldn't read the most interesting thing in the room at the moment.
Fang began to read it aloud, the cryptic eery message Angel had jotted so elegantly on the paper. Everyone listened intently to his words, each line of Angel's work giving them the chills. Max got up, furious with Fang, snatching the paper from his hands as he got up to the part where 'The Old King will submit.'
"Don't read her stuff! What the hell guys?!"
Everyone couldn't make eye contact with the maternally enraged Max (except for Iggy cause, well, he is blind). Max went back to Angel's room, trying to place the paper exactly where she found it. Then Max met eye to "eye" with the broken lamp. She groaned, knowing Angel will find out in an instant they had rummaged through her things.
She picked up the lamb, smacking it on the coffee table. "We're screwed." Max glared at Gasman, whose actions had made her break the lamp in the first place. "We're gonna need a new one. If she finds out-"
"Where, like, so so dead." Nudge finished in her regular "Nudgly" flair. The entire Flock where such idiots, if they didn't fix this before Angel got back she will know with one hundred percent certainty they invaded her room. He they replaced the lamp they had a chance, she wouldn't read their minds if nothing seemed off.
"We'll just go to Asphodel." Iggy said. "In the store, sure they got at least a replacement bulb or another lamp." He didn't seem too worried, just shuffling the pan to stir the eggs and rolling the sausage links around in the other.
"Where rationing Ig, it'll go down on record for us. Besides, Angel is probably in there." Fang said
"Yeah." Gazzy agreed. "She's probably with Dr. Phil."
"Phillips." Nudge correct. Gasman just shrugged off her correction, preferring "Dr. Phil" since it was like that TV back in the states. "Still she'll know. Like, she knows everything. Maybe she already knows."
Max groaned. "Still, we gotta get a new lamp. This writing is one of the few things Angel does anymore."
They all sat there, feeling horrible for what they just did. They all had betrayed Angel. But they had to try and make it right. Max took a deep breath, they all had to take responsibility for their actions against Angel. "We're going to get a new lamb right now, when Angel gets back - we're telling her."
They all sighed. They all really REALLY didn't want to do it. Angel was growing apart from them as it. This couldn't send her over the edge. This could split the Flock away from her. But it's better they told her willingly instead of her finding out when she got back.
It was decided the Flock should leave, pounding down on Iggy's breakfast leave a portion of it for Angel in the refrigerator. They all got dressed in their shorts and T-shirts, no jackets since there was no need to hide their wings anymore.
They flew above the jungle, watching the other enhanced go about their day like any other. It was two till noon and the small lake near the entrance of the island was filled with mostly enhanced children. Kids with fish scales and webbed hands, some with girls around either their neck or under their arms. Then there where the enhanced mammal kids, practically a whitecoat's random jumble of animals inside a kid. Usually about thirty-five to fifty percent of the kids have animal DNA. Most remain intelligent but some more animalistic not from their DNA but their time at the countless InTex facilities across the world.
Then the other bird kids, flying in circles above the lake stretching their wings like the flock has. Somewhere bred in a lab like Dylan, others aged naturally. It's was truly a strange sight to behold if you had not grown up like one of them.
When the flock touched down people crowded them. Their stories always floating among the enhanced. The Flock, great heroes who opened the world's eyes to the crimes of the scientists of InTex, the ones who spearheaded the movement to save them.
They crowded around, saying a simple "hello" or groveling like the Flock where royalty. Max, Fang, and Iggy to an extent, felt uncomfortable around all this admiration. Nudge and Gasman adored it, shaking people's hands and waving to them. Nudge has been advanced by so many different boys she lost count. Gasman however, not mature enough to appreciate female companionship, wanted the count to remain at zero.
In other words, Gazzy thought they had cooties.
Soon they broke away from them, the crowd stopping at the foot of the stone cut steps that lead up to the large, technologically advanced, safe like door that lead into the massive underground complex dubbed 'Asphodel.' A mass of underground rooms and tunnels functioning as food storage, medical care, conference rooms, manufacturing plants, farmland, schools, residences, you name it.
Most of the adults lived here, taught the kids survival skills along with regular education and defensive skills. These adults were here to build up the enhanced before their gone, hopefully one day the island's culture spreading across all other cultures creating the future the scientists dreamed of without the destruction of the human race.
The flock stood outside the steel door as it turned clockwise, air rushing of the door as it retracted itself inward. The flocked walked in, turning to the left towards another pair of doors, smaller and made glass. Through it was a small semi oval redemption desk with five people operating it. They controlled the massive door outside, the cameras in this "transition room" that the flock waited in, and the glass for to the forum of Asphodel.
A woman looks up and smiled at the flock. Vicky Hughman, a plump old woman with a warm spirit. She ran the front desk forum in Asphodel. Always had a big smile on her face when anyone came in, one by one learning their names. She acted like a sweet grandmother with her many grandchildren.
"Good morning." She said cheerful as the door glided open letting the flock inside.
The forum was massive, four stories high, sixty feet across, decorative designs of title on the walls, polished white granite on the floor, it felt like a mall. A very big underground mall bustling with people of all shapes and sizes. Though Max hated she couldn't fly, she appreciated the imposing look.
"Morning Vicky." Max said. "Sorry we didn't make an appointment."
She shrugged it off. "No issue, truly, it's great to see you." Vicky was such a kind character. Even with the strict schedule Asphodel had she still didn't let that get her way of being kind. Some saw it as unprofessional but she did not care unless they were in a truly dangerous time.
They continued on but with down spirits, dreading Angel's reaction. Max felt so bad. She would have never done this before now. She have always believed in "curiosity kills the cat" but she had a moment of weakness. She just hopes her baby could forgive her.
They walked down the narrow intertwining tunnels of Asphodel, their concrete surroundings becoming narrower as they continued downward. The flock's claustrophobic began setting in, knowing they were at least two-hundred feet below sea level filled them with anxiety. But then they came into the large storage room, about thirty feet high with different registers to return, exchange or request items. Enhanced kids mirroring regular adults as they looked over requests for items.
The flock came to an empty one without a line, a man with pepper hair about in his forties with a girl not even eleven learning from him how to operate the register.
"Hello." He said warmly. "Repair I assume."
Max looked at the broken lamb and shook her head. "Exchange, need a new lamp now."
He nodded, taking the lamp from Max and examining it. He then looked to his assistant. "Numbers 477, remember where that is Sandy?"
She nodded, leaping upward onto the shelves and leaping from side to side down it. The girl had had no shoes, and instead of feet was an extra pair of hands, allowing her to be speedy and agile as she traveled to the back of the storage area for the replacement lamb.
Max wondered how Angel would react. Would she be furious? Would she enter a state of depression? Would she forgive them? All of these a possibilities likely, but the one where Angel forgives them is the least likely.
"Think Angel will be okay?" Fang asked, obviously seeing Max mapping out the scenarios.
"I don't have a damn clue."
The girl came back with the lamp when the phone rang. The clerk picked it up, eyes widened, alarming the flock as he murmured into the phone.
"Uhhhh, alright. They're right here. I'll tell them. Thank you." He hung up the phone.
"Well," he began. "You mom needs you Ms. Ride, in the Command Room."
Max nodded awkwardly. "About?"
He shrugged. "Didn't say, but they need you - urgent. Said Ms. Angel was already down there so you don't run around looking for her."
The Flock couldn't have guessed what was next to transpire. With Max talking the new lamp they made their way to the Command Room, the nexus of the complex that was Asphodel. The underground bunker's power just below it, it consumed the most energy, the computers running to the point of their water cooling systems steaming. Why her mother would want her in that place, Max didn't know.
After following the signs down the winding tunnels they came to a narrow staircase. They walked down the stone steps, going deeper and deeper into the complex. The flock felt the walls closing in on them, feeling their breath shorten and heart race. But they powered through it, coming down to a small room supported by six columns all pointed towards a polished steel door, a camera in the top corner of it following the flock's every movement.
Max was in front, only a foot away from the door, waiting for it to open. She looked up at the camera and waved. "Uh, hey! Anyone there?" She called out.
The door slid upward, the flock walking to a massive dark-lit semicircular room. Dozens of computer operator given three computers each to monitor. All of them watching reports across the world on anything relevant to them.
Then there was the massive TV screen that would be a worthy competitor to the jumbo tron. It took up the entire flat side of the half-circle room, the massive words 'STAND BY' across the screen.
It was steaming in the room, all the machinery running twenty-four seven would make it a magma den if the cooling systems and air condition didn't blast inside. From the rafters Max could see her mother, Ella, Akita, Total, and Angel all around a podium facing the TV. Max felt this was bad.
They all walked down the steps, squeezing past works rushing around with paperwork and files. The flock seemed to have created a sink in the well-oiled machine that was the Command Center. Max walked down the main aisle to her mother, their faces already explaining that there was bad news.
"Good morning Max." Dr. Martinez said, her black hair all knotted up and her nice white suit wrinkled from the lack of sleep hours before. Ella seemed to be well rested and dressed with her yellow sun-shirt and khakis but her face displaced rant of worry. Total huddled close next to Akita, even her demeanor seeming low.
However, Angel stood there, her usually emotionless expression she has had since they came here. She hardly ever smiled anymore.
"What's wrong?" Max asked.
Her mother tried to keep herself composed as she spoke.
"Last night at 10:13, NASA has discovered an asteroid." Dr. Martinez took a deep breath, closing her baggy eyes to try and continue her answer. It was hard, very hard for her to continue but she pulled through. By its current path... it will hit... Earth."
It felt like a ton - no - a mountain of bricks just crashed on Max and her flock.
"An asteroid?" Max said, trying to scream it. "A freakin' asteroid?"
Angel nodded. "Yes, a big one. A very, very big one that will be bigger than the last one sixty-five-million years ago. It's going to land in the pacific if we don't stop it."
"We?" Max said raising her voice. "We?!"
Calm yourself Max. You need to keep a level head.
Dammit, Max thought. You.
The voice had returned. That horrible little voice that questioned everything she did. It was quiet for months but now it was back, already nagging Max on what and what not to do.
"Yes." Max's mother continued. "Soon after the info was leaked to the entire world and sent them into a panic. Wars have started already, nationwide riots. The reason I called you specifically down here is because the United Nations asked for you."
"What?" Max didn't see how she was something valuable to the United Nations. Yeah, she has saved the world a few times and brought the fact of enhanced kids to people's attention but why now?
"They need you for damage control Max. You're an inspiring figure to half of the world right how. Kids everywhere know your name. Have you kept up with Fang's blog? Two billion followers and billions more support. With you on TV you could keep everyone calm while the governments unite to try and save the world."
Dr. Martinez nodded. "The President is waiting on this line for you. He wants to schedule a UN appearance as soon as possible, I wish I wasn't twisting your arm but I have to."
Think about this Max. You could save the world without lifting a finger. Just give a message of hope and it will be much easier to find a solution.
For once the voice was making Max agreeable. It was right, Max did have influence even if she hardly thought about it. And if - no - when the world was saved imagine what that could do for the island. Though the world was taking steps to bring down InTex she could further that along. She could actually make it so enhanced could travel without persecution. Max got somewhat high from the power that was made clear to her.
She nodded. "I want to do it. Bring on the President."
As Max walked up to the podium, ready to speak with probably the most powerful man on earth he could hear Angel in back of her say.
"Hey, is that my lamp?"
God dammit.