Ugh, again, super apologies for the ridiculously late updates. My only compensation is that I will WITHOUT A DOUBT finish this story! But on the plus side, the chapters from here out will be of the same monstrous size! Three more chapters to go! Warning: Violence!
Chapter 17: The Forgotten Experiment
Max POV
When Fang tore away from me, I honestly felt like he was taking a part of me with him. It felt like the missing hole in my heart had been filled, only to be torn apart again. I threw myself at Nudge and Iggy in a fierce embrace and begged for them to come back safely. Iggy, my best friend, smiled at me a soft solemn, almost heartbreaking smile. It was a smile of resolution. I knew in that moment that he accepted what Fang and I are. I kissed his cheek softly to thank him.
Next I made Nudge promise me she would be careful and held her tightly in my arms. I think I tried to comfort her, but in the end it was Nudge comforting me. She was so strong and beautiful; I couldn't be more proud of her. Nudge was growing to be a fine strong woman, and a wonderful sister. She smiled brilliantly and then the three of them took off into a soundless flight.
"Max," His gruff fatherly voice let a wave of nostalgia wash over me. It was ridiculous of course since I had no recollection of the man named Jeb Batchelder. But there he stood in front me, salt and pepper hair, high cheek bones, and sunken blue eyes. I saw my features in him. We had the same slender nose, angled chin, and peachy tan colored skin. "It's good to see you,"
"Hello Jeb," I whispered and let Jeb squeeze my shoulder. Suddenly Jeb's legs gave out and he stumbled into my arms. I caught him and settled him into the couch. "Angel can you go get Jeb some water?"
"You okay old man?" Gazzy looked concerned. The blonde haired boy still had a slight fondness for the old man. According to Angel, it seemed Gazzy had a special bond with Jeb. While most of the flock was scared for their lives when Gazzy and Iggy took up their interest in bombs, Jeb supported them and aided them in the two years we lived happily in the E-shaped house. Gazzy took Jeb's betrayal in stride. He forgave him. I wondered if I would feel the same if I still had my memories.
Jeb looked exhausted. "I'm fine Gasman. Maximum…how are you?" His ancient eyes turned to me. I shrank in my seat, only a little before Angel trotted back in with a glass of water and smiled at me reassuringly.
"I'm okay….Angel tells me you're my real father." I whisper.
"Yes,"
"Tell me…if I still had my memories, how would I treat you right now?" Jeb crooked an eyebrow and tried to conceal his mirth.
"Well you'd probably be yelling for me to get out," He laughed, I chuckled along with him.
"Then I supposed I really changed."
"Perhaps, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. You're more level headed now from what I perceived. I believe Angel here has mostly been filing you in about your past?" Jeb asked.
"Yes…sometimes with stories and sometimes with visions. Some of the memories came back to me on their own, but were bits and fragments. They were hardly enough to create a memory." I shook my head, giggling at some of the strange things I remembered. I remembered Iggy's sexist jokes, Nudge's motor mouth rambles, Fang's emo behavior and sneak attacks; I remembered being snarky and snappy at every adult that dared to prey on my flock. I remembered how easily I distrusted others.
It seemed my natural fighting instinct was there all along. I was good but not as good as I used to be. While Fang and Angel trained me, sometimes I let go and was completely unaware of how I was fighting until it was over, other times I tried to think too logically and ended up throwing slow punches. It would be a while again before I found that balance of thinking and fighting at the same time. Fang warned me that fighting with pure animal instinct was the worst way for our kind to fight.
"Bridget Dwyer has access to some of the best equipment in the world," Jeb chuckled and shook his head as though he found something ironic. "That you can remember anything at all is amazing." I blinked in surprise.
"Yeah…I guess it is." I coughed awkwardly. Jeb and I met eyes for a moment and then quickly looked away. I pretended to be interested in the carpet. It dawned on me then that Jeb was another prominent figure in my childhood. He could tell me about the times that Angel was too young to remember. Well…there was only one answer I really needed from my childhood. "Jeb…can you tell me about...my childhood?"
I bit my lip, embarrassed for dodging the real question. Jeb looked taken aback, but pushed his glasses back and settled into a soft smile. "Well…I suppose I could tell you about living in the E-shape house." Jeb said slow and thoughtfully, like his mind was far away, living in another time and in another world. A simpler time probably. Before the betrayal if I had to guess.
"The day usually started with Iggy dragging you and Fang out of bed. The boy was always an early riser while you and Fang….were not. Iggy was pretty creative about getting you two out of bed. I think he once dumped a bucket of water." Jeb chuckled to himself. I blushed in embarrassment and hoped he didn't have too many more embarrassing memories.
"Then came breakfast, Iggy was still new to cooking at this point, he was mostly testing the waters and experimenting. Breakfast either ended with bloated bellies or a line in front the bathroom," Jeb paused more thoughtfully now. "I taught the five of you everything I knew about survival. I taught you, Maximum, how to fight, how to survive. All of you brilliant at it of course, but you, Maximum, you were a natural. Fighting was second in nature to breathing, you were cunning and unpredictable. It made you a de-"
Jeb suddenly caught off, turning red in the face. I imagine Jeb stopped talking when my body began to shake. I've had months to get used to the fact that I used to be a fighter; that I've taken lives before. It wasn't until Jeb put it in such an indifferent manner that I realized how real my past life was. I felt sick, and green in the face. I was thankful that Jeb stopped talking. He cleared his throat and awkwardly stared at anything but me.
"Jeb," Angel sweetly called our ex-father. "I don't think Maxie here really wants to know about our past. What she meant to ask was: 'How did Fang and I end up together?'" She said in her best imitation of my face. Jeb and I turned an identical shade of red. It seemed our discomfort of emotional topics was mutual. Gazzy on the other hand scowled.
"No, no, no. You're doing it all wrong! You made Max sound like a dude! She might have sounded like that a year ago but now she's all….soft and girlish!" The Gasman made a face. My jaw dropped.
"Are you saying I used to have a masculine voice?" I ask in horror as my hands flew to my slender throat. Gazzy frowned.
"THAT!" Angel exclaimed, her voice rising above the two of us. "Is completely irr-irelv- ugh, that's completely besides that point!" We quickly shut our mouths and turned to Jeb expectantly.
"Why do you want to know?" The question threw me into a loop.
"W-what?"
"Why do you want to know Maximum?"
"I-I…" I was speechless. Why did I want to know? I never really thought about it. I thought about my feelings for Fang. I lo- liked him a lot, that was for sure. The feeling was wild and exhilarating, but there was also sadness and discomfort in my feelings. And there was a WHOLE lot of pride. But that wasn't me; that was the old Max. I no longer felt all prideful around Fang…I just…want to be with him.
So much about my feelings for Fang were mixing with the old and new me. The old me loved and hated and feared and ached for Fang. The new me just….loved him. It was as simple as that. I loved Fang, unconditionally; it was him and only him anymore. Maybe…knowing about the past was no good. I want my feelings for Fang to remain the way they are, pure, unconditional, and unselfish. Would knowing about the past change all that?
"You are smart Maximum Ride; I can see you are already processing this all through." Jeb's sharp voice broke through my thoughts. "Let go of the past, move on to the future. You are not done yet Maximum and you never will be. As long as you continuing living in a past you chose to let go…you will never become The Maximum Ride." I stared at Jeb with blank unseeing eyes and slowly –but surely enough – his words sunk in. I smiled hesitantly at the man I was supposed to call a father. Despite Jeb's mistakes, there was one thing he never failed in, and that was being a caretaker to the flock. He was always guiding us, even when it didn't seem like it. Jeb had only ever thought of us.
A part of Jeb was still living in the past as well. My father had never truly forgiven himself. While some of his mistakes had been unforgiveable, he had tried redeem himself. Jeb deserved to be released from the mistakes of his past just as much as I did. I reached over to grab Jeb Batchelder's calloused, sinewy hand.
"Tell me about Ari."
# # # # #
Iggy POV
A kiss on the cheek, a frikken kiss on the cheek. If my eyes hadn't already been tearing from the sting of the wind blasting face as Nudge and I were forced to keep with Fang's inhumane pace, they could easily be mistaken for real tears. Maybe they were real and I was just in denial. Either way I was starting to feel real pathetic.
I knew this love was hopelessly one-sided to begin with. As Nudge once put it "Max and Fang need each other like they need the air to breath." She was right. Even without her memories, some part of Max recognized she was still in love with Fang, and fell for him again. I couldn't blame Fang for a damn thing either. He'd been setup with the whole Lissa shite, and the idiot-emo had even tried to distance himself to give Max and me a chance. Damn him for thinking I didn't notice. I feel even guiltier that I'd been happy about it.
God what the hell was I thinking about? We're about to go face a certain doom and my thoughts are all revolving around Max.
"Hey…I'm really sorry Iggy," Nudge whispered, she had flown closer so that our wing tip's nearly touched. I painstakingly turned to face her, to see her flushed face, and sympathetic dark chocolate eyes. She was flying so close. I never noticed how different she looked. She no longer had crazy frizzed hair; it was silky straight and long past her shoulders. Her face had lost its baby roundishness and her lips had grown full and plump. Her body…I blushed at the direction my thoughts had turned.
"What for?" I asked her, almost childishly.
"For it not working out with Max. I mean… I like you Iggy but I want you to be happy. If Max made you happy, I'd want you to be with her." She replied, an easy smile on her face. My face heated up again. Why was she being so nice to me and why can she tell that I'm upset? I was pretty certain that I was as good as masking my emotions as Fang.
"Why would me being with Max make you happy?" I snorted sarcastically, desperately trying to hide my confusion. She scrutinized me for a moment and sighed.
"Because at least you'd be smiling." She replied almost grumpily. "I don't know if I ever told you this, but you look like a dried up prune when you pout,"
"Hey!"
"Hehe, I'm right and you know it!"
"Oh shut up Nudge!"
"Make me dumb blonde!" We laughed. I felt better all of sudden. God that Nudge, she provoked me into our usual banter. Nudge was smiling into the breeze, a chuckle still on her dimpled cheek. For the strangest reason, I felt the urge to reach over and poke her dimple.
"You've changed Nudge," I say without thinking. And she really has, it wasn't just the way she looked, but the way she talked, the way she carried herself. I couldn't even remember the last time Nudge rambled.
"Maybe cause I was trying to impress a certain thick headed blond," She bluntly replied and rolled her eyes. I felt another blush creeping up my neck.
"How do you know it's not just because you grew up with me?" I ask without thinking, and mentally slap myself for the completely irrelevant question that just decided to spontaneously burst from my mouth. Phew, long trains of thoughts, I need some serious help.
"You grew up with Max as well, you loved her didn't you?" She asked rhetorically. "Really Iggy, I thought you of all people would know. After all that time we spent bantering and bickering together, all those times you'd cleaned my wounds, or I'd guide you while you were still blind, you never thought I'd fall in love with you? I'm a fifteen year old girl, Iggy, I was bound to realize I felt more for than as a brother or a friend."
"I…I don't know what to say?"
"I never thought I'd live to see the day you were tongue tied," Nudge laughed boisterously. But then she smiled at me, soft and sweetly, her eyes filled with compassion. "You don't have to say anything. Thanks for listening," She blushed and without warning she shot forward to flying alongside Fang, leaving me to my thoughts.
"Stupid girls…" I muttered to myself, waiting for my heart rate to slow down.
"I heard that!" Nudge screamed. I cringed and tried to play nonchalant. I took one last moment to appreciate the gir- lady flying before me. There was something about Nudge that made me feel…lighter. I smiled and shook my thoughts clear of all women.
"Iggy, three o'clock sharp." Fang called.
"I see it," and just like that, my old maniacal grin returned. Fang, Nudge and I did a straight nose dive for the trees. We landed silently, and remained in our predatorily hunches until Fang gave us a signal. Two fingers spinning around, he wants us to circle the perimeter. I gave him a thumbs up and held up a five (meet back in five minutes). Nudge winked at the two of us and scurried off in one direction, and Fang and I split in the other two.
As usual, Fang and I took the inner perimeter. He went all Jessica Alba Fantastic Four style (invisibility, geez what rock do you live under?) and snuck to the edges of the Edward Clarke's House of Doom aka the last standing laboratory of human experimentation. I settled myself jumping from tree to tree searching for moving colors in the building. It took me longer than the rest of the flock to figure out my powers, but once I did, I found that I was EPIC! The best comparison for my abilities was a bit like an X-Ray/Heat Detector hybrid of some sort. I couldn't see through buildings per say, but I could see the people moving within them. I called the colors auras at first…but it felt a bit too supernatural even for a Sci-Fi geek like me, so I just call them colors.
I took a quick tally of the moving colors, and before I knew it our five minutes were up. I jumped out of my cover and made a silent sprint for our rendezvous (Fang carved a tree, probably a heart that said M +F). I shook my head, no more distractions Iggy!
Nudge was the first one back; she sat in the branches of a low hanging tree with her black converse boots kicked up. She grinned like a Cheshire cat and flicked a heavy metal panel in my direction.
"Hey!" I exclaimed barely managing to save my nose. "A little warning Nudge?" I say, exasperated. Nudge giggled uncontrollably…okay, so I should have caught the darn thing! "What?" Nudge pointed behind me.
Fang was not amused. In his right hand, he tightly gripped the metal panel. He had leaves sticking out from his ears and scattered in his hair, and yet he still managed a chilling death glare. "Report!" Fang barked, as brushed past me. I glared at Nudge, that devious little…she so planned this!
"So, I found this generator around back and followed the electrical lines. They all lead back to Clarke's lab. That piece you're holding Fang, is like my conductor. I could take out the power in the building and if, should the situation arise, we need power again, I use the conductor to power up SMALL appliances. Don't push me too much, I haven't exactly figured out how much pull I have over all this electricity stuff." Nudge answered, brisk and somewhat straight to the point. I think a part of me was relieved she hadn't given up on that cute –ahem- familiar rambling of hers. Fang considered the thought and gave her the okay. His eyes then turned to me.
"I scouted the place out." I informed him. "We've got less and less workers as the number of floors increase, and the majority of the experiments are locked in the basement. But those little Wyvern things were patrolling the first three floors. I'd say we head to the basement first and release as many experiments as we can. They'll serve as the perfect distractions. Those stupid Wyvern thingies can gobble up the truly dangerous ones. With the Wyvern's chasing the experiments, it should be a clear path to the top, and if need a little booster I've got stink bombs and knock out gas." I say, feeling rather accomplished. Fang didn't even blink at my plan. In fact he had an annoyingly scrutinizing face.
"What? Can you come up with something better?" I cry indignantly. Fang shook his head with a sigh. "So what did you accomplish Oh Great Silent One?" Fang shot me a dirty look.
"I took out all the guards around the perimeter, and these…" Fang pulled out a pair of ID cards "Should get us inside. I also snagged floor plans from a looser." That being said, Fang quickly rolled out the blue prints (it seemed there was construction going on in the lower floors) and we quickly devised a strategy.
"Great, Nudge cut the power." Fang smirked when the plan was drawn and tossed the conductor back. Nudge plucked the conductor out of the air with ease.
"With pleasure," Nudge smiled evilly and raced away with cheeks flushed in excitement. Fang snorted and I shot him a questioning look; he shook his head at me.
"What?" I asked.
"She's one of kind Iggy." Fang said, much to my surprise, with a rather gentle smile on his face. But then his face twisted into a much darker expression and the full force of Fangles glare seemed to smother me. "Break her heart and I'll break your face." He whispered in a soft, dark voice that I will promptly deny shaking in fear out of.
"R-right…." I stuttered. This was rather new too. Fang with emotions; it would take a while to get used to that one. Fang seemed to develop the same overprotective complex that Max had while she was the leader of the flock. I shudder to think what sort of pressure those two went through. Nudge reappeared a moment later and if she noticed that Fang and I kept a very wide berth between the two of us, she didn't comment on it.
"Let's go."
Nudge's power outage served the as the perfect distraction for us to slip in unnoticed. But for precautions sake, we held onto Fang and let him cloak us with invisibility. The workers in the lower floor were too busy scrambling around to notice Nudge powering up a single elevator that would lead us the basement. We slipped in like ninja's and slipped out like….squawking ducks.
"Uhhh! My head!" Nudge cried and the three of us tumbled out of the rickety elevator. I think I felt motion sickness and considering I can fly, that sure is saying something. "Never again!"
"Sorry Nudge, but we've still got to go up." I said as sympathetically as I could. Nudge groaned and leaned against Fang for support. Fang supported Nudge and awkwardly tried rubbing her back.
"You okay?" Fang asked her. Nudge paused for a moment and took a deep breath and flashed us a pearly white smile.
"Never better! Let's go!" She said enthusiastically. Nudge and I shared a grin, and Fang rolled his eyes at the pair of us. Our spirits were high as we snuck into the first experimentation chamber. The cheery atmosphere quickly disappeared when the smell of blood and decay overwhelmed our nostrils. I gagged and covered my nose. Nudge looked similarly disgusted; Fang was the only one who seemed unaffected – typical.
"W-what is this?" I gagged and protected my overly sensitive nose. There were rows upon cages, stacked on top of another. Some were occupied and many more were empty. There was one thing all the cages had in common, the unmistakable splatter of dry blood. The stains were impossible to remove on the steel. We walked with caution, our eyes reddening from the vile stench and tearing up from the memories of our own imprisonment.
The first cage we stumbled upon with a living experiment was…gruesome. It looked like a small girl of seven years old with ratty brown-blood soaked hair, flesh as pale as a drained fruit and parts of her body were covered in feathers. The most gruesome feature was the blood of course. Blood flowed from every open pore in her body, out of her eyes, her nose, her ears, and her mouth. It pooled beneath her but the girl didn't even flinch. She lay in her own blood and if it weren't for the tiny movements of her heaving chest, they would have walked right past her.
She wasn't the only one. They were mostly children, between the ages five and eleven. The experiments were in similar stages of bleeding. By all rights they should have been dead from that much blood loss – but they weren't. It wouldn't surprise me if the damn scientists were injecting them with some sort of adhesive to rapidly reproduce blood cells. They we were dying but unable to die. The lucky ones that were dead must have experienced a slow and painful death.
"H-how awful," Nudge tearlessly sobbed. Her finger wove themselves through mine; I squeezed her hand for comfort. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"No." Fang answered, shaking his head. "It would be a mercy to end their lives." He whispered, I noticed Fang's eyes tighten and a very visible tremble in his hands. Nudge noticed as well; she grabbed Fang's hand and gave him a comforting squeeze, just as I had for her. Though it killed us to do so, we left the experiments in their cages and marched towards the end of the rust smelling hall. The elevator that would lead closest to Clarke's room finally appeared, but Fang signaled for us to stop.
"What now?" I said, exasperated. Fang shot me a withering look and pointed to the strange looking door about fifty feet to the left of us. The door itself wasn't strange, save for the fact that it made out of some heavy metal shi-stuff, but the walls around it were covered in claw marks like scars on a wall. Damn, there must have been quite a battle for whatever beast existed in that hellhole…oh crap. "Please tell me you're not thinking about releasing whatever's in there!" I squeak in a very manly manner. Fang smirked.
"We need a distraction." Fang the-emo-kid-with-a-death-wish-who-probably-wanted- us- and-by-us-I-mean-me-to-die-a-very-painful-death said coyly, phew, remind me that my naming sense sucked. Fang gave me a look, meaning "go pick the damn door already Iggy," yeah thanks Fang, nice to know you care about my well-being. Just send the blind kid to—oh, not blind, right.
"Stupid Fang," I grumbled under my breath and quickly made use of picking the lock. For a high tech laboratory, they sure had a pathetic security system, not even any of those retina scanners or electronic keypads. Clarke must have had his budget cut or something. I fiddled around with my hair pins (Nudge's, totally and completely borrowed) and miniature screw driver. The door opened with a soft click. I gulped softly and pushed open the door that read experiment: 00097.
"Oh, quit being a baby Iggy!" Nudge cried and shoved me aside. Fang and I uncomfortably followed after her. The room was plain, white walls, no windows, no air vents. The only thing in the room was a machine, a chamber of some sort that resembled a coffin. It was wired up to a multitude of complex looking devices and tubes that probably only Nudge could figure out. Said bird kid wasted no time and scampered closer to chamber. She placed her conductor on the lid and began fiddling with the buttons.
"Nudge, are you sure you know what you're doing?" I can't help but ask skeptically. Nudge gave me a Fang-like look that looked awfully like she was telling me to shut up. Well sue me for being the cautious one! No less than in five seconds, the chamber hummed to life and the lid slowly retreated.
In the chamber laid a small boy, no more than ten years of age, with dirty blond hair and scarred body. The boy had eerily familiar features that bordered dog-like in nature. His fingernails were as sharp as claws, and his ears were that of a dog. But the rest of the boy was normal, unless you counted the gruesome scars that littered his body. It wasn't until the boy twitched and his eye fluttered open to reveal the small chocolate brown pupils that I realized why he looked so familiar.
"Ari…" I breathed in shock. Nudge gasped and took a step back; Fang remained impassive, no doubt having realized who he was long before me. Ari's small and rather delicate looking hands twitched, the boy painstakingly reached to remove his oxygen mask.
"Iggy…Nudge…Fang…" Ari gurgled, his voice hoarse and crackled as though his vocal chords had been damaged. Ari blinked at the three of us, a small boyish smile stretching across his cheeks. He lifted himself into a sitting position, ripping off tubes and wires as he went. "Never thought I'd see you again."
Fang snorted. "That's our line, munchkin."
"Damn….you just don't die, do you?" I say without thinking. Nudge gave me a very hard shove in the gut and threw her arms around Ari's small body.
"Don't listen to that jerk Ari, goodness am I so glad to see you. Wait till Max finds out, oh she'll be so happy! She was crushed when she thought you died in Germany. And when we buried you in the States….gosh I'd never seen her cry so much in my life. Speaking of which, if you don't mind me asking dear, how are you still alive?"
"Dear?" Ari mumbled, slightly disoriented and no doubt overwhelmed by Nudge's strong embrace. I cleared my throat and gently pried Nudge off the poor boy.
"Ari, what happened to you?" Fang asked bluntly. Ari only smiled weakly and jumped out of his little chambers. He wobbled unsteadily on his feet and toppled straight into my arms. I caught him (with skill!) and steadied him on his feet.
"Whoa, so this is what's like to be kid?" He said in awe, clenching and unclenching his fists. Ari examined his own body, testing out his weakened legs, and deteriorated arm muscles. "I'm so short!" The boy concluded.
"Not to echo Fang or anything, but Ari, what happened to you?" I asked.
"Mutation degeneration," he answered simply as though it explained everything. I think our raised eyes and cluelessness faces hinted that it didn't. "That's what this lab is for. They take mutants and turn them back human again."
"What!?" I exploded. Ari cringed and shot me a dirty look. "That's impossible. They'd have to completely redo our DNA or something. They can't do that!"
"Yeah, I know. You've seen the experiments in the cages right? That's what happens when you try to remove the mutation out of a mutant."
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"Shut up! I'm completely serious here!" Ari puffed up, red and flushed like a blowfish. Had the situation not been so dire, it might have actually been funny to see Ari's bloated indignant face.
"So why has it worked on you?" Fang cut into our bickering. And it was true, the degeneration thingie had worked on Ari…sort of. When Ari had still been an Eraser, he'd been the size of a fully grown man, 'a flying refrigerator' as Fang once put it, but now he was in the body of ten year old boy. His muscles were gone, all six-feet-two of him had shrunken to five feet, his face was no longer chiseled but rounded with baby fat, and most importantly…no wings.
Ari made funny face. "I wasn't born an experiment remember? My wings were sown on…all they had to do was remove the stiches."
"….So what you're saying is that your mutation wasn't programmed into your DNA but just forced into your body?" I say slowly. And they call us genetically enhanced mutants…I guess they left the brain untouched.
"Uhh I guess." Ari said distractedly. "So…I'm guessing you didn't come here to save me?" he asked hopefully.
"We thought you were dead." Fang said bluntly. You know, sometimes Fang's obliviousness to human emotions astounds me. "We're here to save Bridget, a friend of Max's. Do you know anything about Bridget Dywer?"
"Dr. Dywer? Yeah, I heard she's the one that came up with the mumbo jumbo that de-mutated me. She's probably being held in Mr. Clarke's office." Ari smiled at the mention of Bridget. "If you're going up there, which I'm sure you are, I hope you know how to kill those dragon thingies." Fang elbowed me sharply, and flashed a smug grin. I rolled my eyes at him. Nudge informed Ari of the one encounter Fang had with the Wyvern (Ari laughed for a good two minutes when we told him Fang came up with it) and how we were utterly defenseless against them.
"I'm not surprised." Ari said. "The Wyverns – snickers—have hard outer shell. Your punches, brutal as they are, have no effect on Wyverns. The only way to get around one is to kill it." Ari paused and let the idea settle in. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel sick. I'm no bloody saint, I've killed before and I knew that I'd probably continue killing in the future to keep surviving. But that didn't mean I liked doing it, even if we were killing oversized reptiles and not five year old Eraser's this time. It's probably the part of me that's part bird that allows me to sympathize for these creatures.
"How do you kill it?" Fang asks, the only one of the three of us to remain calm. Even Nudge had turned a bit green. Ari put a hand on his chin, the cliché 'I'm thinking' pose.
"Wyvern's have two hearts, you stop one and the other takes over, and I don't really know where a Wyvern's heart is. Stabbing it anywhere, arms, legs, heart, won't do it any harm. They're kind of like frogs; they've got incredible regenerative abilities. You could cut its leg off and it would grow back. I guess the only way to kill it is to cut its head off – separate the brain from the heart and you stop its insane regenerative abilities." Ari speculated thoughtfully. "Oh, but don't think it will be easily. Unlike Erasers or M-Geeks or whatever the H-E-double-hockey-sticks you've fought in the past, these guys are wicked smart. They learn as they fight."
I blinked dumbly; Nudge openly gaped at Ari and Fang…had a creepy face that I would rather not describe. I then smirked wickedly and ruffled Ari's mess of dirty blond hair. "You've got Jeb's brilliant ass mind Ari," I smiled. Ari blushed sheepishly.
Small and light as Ari was, it took both Fang and I to carry Ari out of his prison and hide him somewhere we could retrieve him later. Ari's legs were immobile and now that the only part of his mutation that remained were the claws he was useless in a fight. He protested of course but Nudge (scary determined that girl is sometimes) managed to convince Ari to stay put.
We did however manage to get one crucial piece of information from Ari before we ditched him, Clarke's men – nicknamed the dragon tamers, or Tamers for short – used special weapon to keep the Wyvern's in check. They used a rather brute weapon that resembled a spear or staff with a butcher's blade as a head. Nudge quickly deduced the mechanics of the brute weapon—the staff end was a Taser to paralyze the Wyverns, and butchering knife to err…well you know. I couldn't bring myself to get near the weapon.
Fang rather painstakingly took it up, whispering under his breath something along the lines of "It's for Max," at which I had to frown. Ever since Fang got shot (was it once or twice now?) he'd taken a strong disliking towards weapon. The closest he'd come to wielding one since was a baseball bat to beat the crap out of Erasers when we went after Max, Nudge and Angel in Germany. I knew this was a big deal for Fang…that after today, Fang would never be the same again. Such was the love that Fang had for Max…I never stood a chance.
Ready or not, Fang, Nudge and I entered the elevator that went directly to Clarke's office. We braced ourselves for what might literally be a life changing battle with the danger and methods for survival being higher than ever before…we quite literally stepped into hell.
We were greeted by the sight of Dr. Bridget Dwyer tied to a chair, an open wound dripping blood down her forehead. She was unconscious.
I think I need to change the rating of this story…I'm sorry guys but there will be quite a bit of violence from here on.
I didn't mean for the method to kill Wyvern's to be so crude or brutal. If you guys think it's too much PLEASE review/comment and let me know right away! I will change the content so that it is a bit more PG 13!
So this chapter mostly focused on Nudge/Iggy and Max finally letting go of her past. But in the end…can she make it without her memories?
Three more chapters to go!
Review, review, review!
Kiki1770