Chapter 9: Flight

Will POV

"So what was it you were going to tell me?"

Max looked down at the ground, as if she was struggling with something. "Umm, well you see-" she broke off. What was wrong? She looked like she wanted to say something important, but couldn't. Was she OK?

Suddenly her eyes went wide and she took a step back, as if shocked. She looked extremely confused.

"Max, are you OK?" I asked, bewildered. With that she unfurled her wings and flew into the air. "Max?! Where are you going?!" I shouted. Then suddenly she flew away at such a speed that it looked like she just disappeared.

"Max!?" I called, but there was no answer "MAX!" What on earth just went on? Was she OK? What should I do? I turned around and started running back towards camp. I passed Angel on the way and skidded to a halt beside her.

"Angel! Where's Fang or Iggy?" I asked urgently.

She looked at me suspiciously then said, "Iggy is at camp and I think Fang is getting firewood. Why?" but I had already started to run before camp. I reached it within seconds and saw Iggy.

"Iggy!" I called. He turned around as I ran up to him. "Iggy, its Max...she just... flew...something spooked her...flew off!" I wheezed, trying to catch my breath.

"Whoa! Slow down! What happened?" he said calmly.

I took a deep breath and replied "Max was about to tell me something, in the forest and then she went all wide eyed and shocked." I caught my breath. "Then she just flew up into the air and flew off really, really fast!"

"She used supersonic speed?" asked Fang, coming out of the tree line. I nodded. "Well we are never going to catch up with her then. She can fly at 200mph. It will be easier for us to wait for her to come back on her own." I wasn't going to argue. With Max gone, as second eldest Fang was leader, and this was a matter regarding the flock, not me, so I had no real say in the decision. Besides, I would have no idea what I would do to find her. I would have to wait like the rest of the flock.

We were still waiting. I had explained what happened to the others numerous times. They had no clue what could have happened. We would just have to wait.

After about 3 hours we she came zooming into view and within seconds of us seeing her, she had reached us. Damn, she was quick! She hadn't even broken a sweat!

"Come on." She said urgently. "We've got to leave now." We all started at her completely dumbfounded. "Come on!" She shouted this time.

"Why?" asked Fang. "What the hell happened?!"

"There's no time! We have to go now!"

Iggy POV

"Max we've been flying for hours! What's going on? Can we not stop for a few minutes?" moaned Nudge.

"No." She replied sternly "We've got to keep going." We had been flying for around 4 hours non-stop. I had no idea where were going, which direction we were going or even where we were. I hated not knowing.

"We need a break Max!" I heard Gazzy say. "Will has never flown this far before!" I could hear Will, breathing heavily a bit behind us. He was struggling to keep up.

"Fine." She said. "15 minutes." We started to go down. I had to hold on to Gazzy's shirt to make sure I didn't crash into the ground.

We landed and I heard Will breathing heavily. "You OK Will?" I asked him.

"I'll be...fine." he wheezed. "Just not...used to flying...so much."

"So Max." asked Fang. "What's going on? Are you going to tell us?"

"I guess so. We've got some time." she sighed. I sat down, as did the others, on the hard rocky ground. From this, and where we had come from, I presumed we were in a mountainous region, maybe The Rockys. It would make sense seeing as the school was located in California.

There was silence, we were all waiting in suspense until finally she said, "I heard The Voice." I heard Nudge and Angel both gasp. Gazzy exclaimed "What?!" and I frowned. Although I couldn't see them, I guessed Fang's expression didn't change and that Will was just bewildered. He would have no idea what the voice was. As if he read my mind, Will asked, sounding completely bewildered, "What the hell is The Voice?"

"Yeah, well, back when I was saving the world, I had-" but Will interrupted her.

"Whoa, whoa, back up, back up! When you were saving the world? You never said anything about that!" he asked sounding even more confused than he already was, if that was possible.

"That's a looong story." I chuckled. "And there's not enough time in the world to tell it."

"Yeah, anyway." Max began. "When I was saving the world, the school somehow put this voice in my head. It would give me hints and help every now and again. I had no idea what it was, and they usually worked out, so I listened. All of it was leading up to me saving the world. Well, I did it, just not how they wanted me to and after that it went away. Haven't heard from it in about a year now, and if it is back then something is wrong."

"And it spoke to you when you were in the forest with Will?" Angel asked.

"Yep. That's why I flew off." Max replied. We were silent for a long time after that.

Then I said "So Max. What did the voice actually say to you?"

Ari POV

I was flying in the air, leading the upgrades. Only about 15 of them. They flew through the air smoothly and swiftly, although slowly, as they were designed to, whereas I, with my patchwork, 'Frankenstein' wings, was very stunted and shaky, although at least slightly faster than them.

"We're here! Move!" I barked. I dove down to the campsite, the upgrades following like children. We landed in the clearing, where there was a pile of ash with some embers still burning. It was obvious they had left, but they would have put the fire out if they were just moving on. The fact that they hadn't meant they knew we were coming.

Even though they would've left hours ago, I shouted orders at all but 1 of the upgrades to "Scout the area!" The upgrades all ran off in different directions, out of the clearing, leaving me with the one upgrade. I sat down on a log next to the remains of the fire and watched it.

It stood perfectly still and straight. Almost unrecognisably from an Eraser in full morph except for its glowing, red mechanical eyes and it's slightly thinner layer of scraggly brown fur. Below the fur, there was the metal shell of a wolf. A machine made of metal and wires and nothing more. And this was supposed to replace me?! That had replaced all the other Erasers. Ok so it couldn't feel pain and could predict all possible outcomes in a fight, but it didn't have instinct. Often, instinct was the thing which won you a fight.

I heard the upgrades coming back from the forest before I saw then, another design fault, they were very loud, on the ground and in the air. I would have to report that. Then I saw them come out. "Report!" I shouted at them.

"No-Avian-Human-hybrids-detected-in-the-vicinity." They all said, in their steely hard voice, in unison.

"Very well." I sighed. "Back to base!"