I stared, in terror, at Fang and Max. I tried to tell her to hold on, even though it was useless. Suddenly, the bison landed on the large ledge outside the cave. I didn't turn to see them; I didn't even indicate I knew they were there.
Katara appeared next to me. I raised my hand slowly and pointed to Max. She ran over to Max and bent the water out of her pouch onto Max's side. Max gasped and flinched but her eyes didn't open. "There's a lot of tension and she's bled a lot. It'll be hard, but I'm pretty sure I can save her." Fang stood up and walked over to me.
"Can she save her?" He asked me. I nodded.
"If she couldn't I wouldn't have brought her here." Suddenly, Katara gasped and Max's eyes fluttered opened. We both ran over to her and knelt next to her.
"Max," Fang said, pushing some hair out of her face. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to sit up.
"Take it slow," Katara advised her.
"Who are you?" Max asked, pulling her arm away from Katara. However, she was still weak and quickly fell back against Katara.
"My name is Katara; this is Sokka, Aang and Toph." Max looked everyone over.
"Fang, what's going on?" She asked, her voice trembling a little.
"She can help you, she can heal you," Fang told her. However, Katara's face said otherwise. Something was wrong. "Right?" She gasped a little as Fang addressed her.
"What?" She said, shaken.
"You can heal her right? Well you already have, right?" That was the first time I saw Fang smile slightly. Katara noticed it too. She paused for a moment and bit her lip, cracking a small smile herself.
"Yes, of course," she said, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. Fang didn't notice however. He kept staring at Max. I turned and saw the sun reaching the middle of the sky.
"I'll go get some lunch," I announced and everyone agreed so I took some money from our small stash and flew out to find a McDonald's or something.
When I got back I found everyone had migrated into their own little groups. Max was sitting up and looked a lot better. Fang sat beside her and Katara on her other side. Angel was sitting cross legged by Katara who was brushing her hair. Nudge must've had a healing session because she looked a lot better. She was lying on her stomach next to Aang who was showing her air bending tricks. The Gasman and Sokka were sitting together, drawing schematics for bombs in the dirt. Finally, Toph and Iggy stood beside each other, talking about the rock wall, or something.
"Food!" Gazzy yelled and ran toward me. After passing the burgers and fries, we all sat in a circle.
"What kind of food is this?" Sokka asked.
"Just try it," Gazzy exclaimed, his mouth full of fries. Sokka tentatively took a bite of his burger and his eyes widened.
"Wow!" He cried, and the rest of the benders nodded in agreement. We all ate quickly as the sun grew higher in the sky. Once we were done Nudge stood up and gave a sideways glance to Aang.
"I'm gonna…go stretch my wings for a bit." She began to walk toward the entrance of the cave but paused. When no one reacted, she slowly spread out her wings and took off. I saw Max smile slightly. Suddenly, Aang stood up.
"Well, I'm gonna go…"
"Follow her?" Sokka said, smiling. Aang blushed but smiled back. He turned and ran out of the cave, jumping into the air.
Once they were gone, Toph and Iggy stood up and began walking deeper into the cave. "Where yah going?" Fang asked in a sing song voice.
"Toph's gonna help me listen for vibrations and stuff," Iggy told him, still walking.
"All right, just be careful," Max called.
Suddenly, an explosion erupted from about a mile north. I shoot up, and saw a funnel of dust shoot into the air. "Yes!" Gazzy shouted, punching the air and high fiving Sokka.
"What the heck was that?" Katara shouted, storming over to them.
"Just a little experiment," Sokka said, smiling. Katara rolled her eyes but Sokka ignored her. "You fly ahead to make sure it didn't kill anything. I'll bring the…stuff." With that, Gazzy took off, speeding toward the explosion.
Sokka quickly grabbed a bulging back pack. "Well…" he said, looking back at us. "…bye." With that, he ran out of the cave and scurried down the side of the cliff.
After they'd left, it left only Katara, Angel, Max, Fang and me. "So," Katara said, "What'cha want to do?" Awkward silence followed her question. She looked at Fang, who just glared at her. "Ok, I'm gonna go get us some water." She stood up and began to leave but Angel ran to follow her.
"Can I come too?" She begged. Katara shrugged and left, Angel following like a faithful puppy.
Around a five minutes after they'd left, Max suddenly gasped. "What is it?" Fang and I asked at the same time. We looked up and glared at each other and then back at Max. Her eyes were widened and she sat up. "Max, what is it?" Fang asked.
"I feel… different," she said, trying to stand up.
"Max, you're in no condition…" I began, but she stood anyway. She spread her wings and let out a deep breath. Before we could stop her she ran off the cliff, her wings supporting her into the air, high above the mountains. Fang and I looked at each other and then we followed her.
Fang was slightly faster than me but I didn't mind following him. I had a lot on my mind. Katara hadn't done any healing on Max since earlier that morning. This proved my idea: her healing wasn't what was healing Max. Max was becoming stronger on her own. Or was she?
The flock had told me about something called the School, a place where evil scientists would make genetic experiments like them. They had sent their wolf creatures, Erasers, to find us, well mostly me, because I hadn't been made in a lab. The flock told me the whitecoats (their nickname for the scientists) had expatriation dates for all of them and had given them all their special abilities.
As I thought about this I screeched to a halt (well, if you could screech to a halt in the air) and hovered slightly, my mind running a mile a minute. If the whitecoats did things to them before, couldn't they do things to them now? That was it! They were making Max feel suddenly better. They were controlling her health.
How they were doing it and why, I had no idea. All I knew, as I shot forward to catch up with Max and Fang, was Max wasn't getting better on her own and Katara's healing wasn't helping. However, as my wings beat the air over and over, a new and much more horrible thought occurred to me. If they could heal her, they could hurt her and if they could cure her…they could kill her!