Leftover Alphabet Soup

A/N: Hola, Akira here. Is it sad that Ninja C had to explain to me what a groupie was so that I understood the concept well enough to write about it? I thought so.

Disclaimer: Yesterday I bought a really awesome pair of boots (that I am wearing) on sale for dirt cheap. Unfortunately, the rights to Maximum Ride weren't on sale too.

G is for: Groupies
By Akira43

I get twitchy when I'm tense. I get tense when I'm in a situation that I don't like, such as when we're ina busy restaurant, or when we've stayed in one place for more than a few days. I also get tense whenever Nudge uses her Bambi eyes to get me to take everyone to a mall for a few hours to go window shopping.

I really wish I could develop immunity from that look.

So here I was in the middle of a mall somewhere in the continental United States, trying to keep track of everyone while they ran around and looked through all the stores. Nudge and Angel were squeeing with delight as they tried on all kinds of jewelry, while Fang kept an eye on Angel to make sure she didn't misuse her mind control abilities, while Gazzy and Iggy were in the store across from them, looking at salon products. (I didn't even want to know what they planned to use those for). At least, I thought Iggy had been with him.

"Uh, Fang? Have you seen Ig?" I called out.

Fang wandered over to me, scanning the immeadiate area along the way. I could tell from his expression that he didn't see Iggy either, and was becoming as worried as I was.

"He was right behind me when we left the restroom a few minutes ago," he told me.

"Yeah, well, that was a few minutes ago, wasn't it?" I snapped, having no patience in the middle of a crisis.

Fang lock eyes with me, and his gaze immediately helped me to relax. How he did that I had no idea, but it had always worked. "We'll find him," he reassured me, and I nodded numbly.

"Yo, Max, Fang!"

I spun away from Fang's gaze towards where the familiar voice had come from.

"Iggy!" I cried out in relief, then immeadiately began scolding him. "Where the he-eck did you go?!" I demanded, barely remembering to watch my language near the younger kids. "We couldn't find you anywhere! Do you have any idea—"

"About how worried you were?" he asked sardonically. "No, not really. I'm not you. But really, you don't have to panic. Just chill—I've got friends who can help me out."

I noticed for the first time the hoarde of girls surrounding him. "Uh, Ig?" I asked, momentarily forgetting about how angry I was at him. "Who exactly are these 'friends' of yours?"

"These," Iggy said, gesturing around him, "are my groupies."

"Your groupies?"

"Yeah. You know, like fangirls."

Fang raised an eyebrow and I rolled my eyes. Fangirls were the absolute last thing I needed to deal with right now.

"Fangirls? Cool!" the Gasman said, coming up behind us. "Can I have some groupies too?"

"Gazzy, I don't think—"

"Of course you can," Iggy interrupted me. He whispered something to the girls standing on his left, and half of them broke away and surrounded Gazzy instead.

"Aw man, this is so cool!"

Glad to see you're enjoying yourself I scoffed silently. I turned to Fang to see what his reaction was to everything, only to find…not Fang.

Of course, I immeadiately proceeded to freak out, but relaxed as soon as I spotted him talking quietly to Iggy. After a minute or so, they shook hands, and Fang started to head back over to me.

I couldn't help but notice the two (red-haired) girls flanking him on either side.

"Jealous?" he asked me, grinning smugly.

I answered him with a punch in the gut.

A/N: Is there anyone who thinks Fang didn't deserve that? Anyone at all? No? All right then.

Ninja C, please please please don't kill me for this out of spite, but I'm going to give H is for: Hogwarts to Tassel. (Many many thanks to Flower K. Owl for this suggestion, especially because right now I'm too brain dead to come up with any ideas of my own)