Disclaimer:
I do not own Ride or Potter.
Okay, I wrote this all today, just because of these reasons:
1. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS STORY! I'M NOT SURE IF I SHOULD JUST DO THE SECOND TASK, OR JUST GO AND WRITE A CHAPTER OF NUDGE AND IGGY REBELLING!
2. I'm feeling EXTREMELY guilty since I've learned it's been six MONTHS since my last update on this story!
3. My passion for Maximum Ride has been revived from the release of FANG. Even if Fang talked WAAAAAY to much in this in my opinion. And Angel is just become more and more evil... Maybe I should make her join sides with Voldy in this story? :)
4. Yeah, I'm at a total loss for what to say, but today I'm taking a lot of time to write this chapter, and I hope everyone will like it. I still have a MAJOR case of writers block, but I'm going to try and not take myself away from this laptop until I've finished this chapter! I actually deleted this entire chapter that I'd been working of for six months (Don't worry, it didn't have over 400 words. That's kinda sad, isn't it?) just to try and do this. So, here we go!
I groaned, and lay face first by the side of the lake. It had been two days since we had returned to Hogwarts from visiting my mom and Ella. It was hard because Seamus and his mom were there, and so we could only go out to fly after they'd gone to sleep. Ella was disappointed because she wanted to see me fly, but she understood that we needed to stay secret from all the other kids in the school, and that included Seamus and his mom. I had two days to figure out what the golden egg meant, and I was at a total loss. All it did was screech all high pitched whenever I opened it.
It was sitting at my side at the moment, I was with Angel and Gazzy. Fang had been invited by Angelina to do something or other in Hogsmead. She'd invited me, but I decided not to go. Nudge was doing something with the pretty girl, and Iggy was hanging out with Luna. I felt like I was losing everyone. I looked up, Gazzy was flying through the dark forest, having some fun. Angel had been swimming. I looked around, expecting to see her wet blonde girls curls spring up from somewhere nearby. She didn't appear. "Angel!" I called.
She didn't surface. I knew she could breathe underwater, but still, she usually returned when I called her. Then my heart twisted, I remembered somebody saying something about there being in a giant squid in the lake. Could it have... no. No, Angel could have gotten away. "Angel!" I repeated. No answer. I stood up, and started toward the lake. I kicked the egg on accident, and it quickly rolled into the water. "Oh, come on! Angel! Where are you?!" I started wading into the lake. Luckily it was Friday afternoon, I had no classes, so I had decided to walk around in my normal clothing.
"Max!" a scream came. I looked to where it came from, Angel was treading water close by me. "Your egg... it..."
"I know, it fell in the lake, can you help me find it?"
"No! Max! It opened up!"
"Oh great, now I'm going to be fined with water damage!" I groaned, getting on my knees, and starting to feel around for it. I felt around, the muddy water making it impossible to see down there. I felt around some more.
"But Max! I can understand it! Listen!"
We both went quiet for a moment. Sure enough, I could hear a small voice coming from underneath the water. I took in a deep breath, and plunged my head in face first.
"...voices sound. We cannot speak above the ground. An hour long you'll have to look, to recover what we took. An hour gone the prospect black, to late, it's gone, it won't come back." I threw my head up, taking it gasps of air. Could that song have been any slower? My hair was plastered to my head, I looked to Angel, who was underwater. She resurfaced.
"You heard it, right?" she called.
"Yeah, I think I found out the clue! But, what it's about, I don't know," I admitted.
"Max, can I check for something?" she asked, swimming forward. I looked at her, confused for a moment.
"You ready Max?" Gazzy asked me.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure," I answer as we arrived at the platform. "Don't know if it's going to work or not, but it might."
"It will," Iggy reassured me. "You and Angel were practicing this all yesterday."
"Still, I don't know if it's going to work," I answered. I looked around. "Speaking of, where is Angel?"
"Dumbledore came by the shack this morning, he asked to see her, so she went along," Gazzy explained. "She hasn't been back yet. I'm getting kinda worried."
"She'll be here," Iggy said. I looked to Fang, wondering what he was thinking.
"Iggy's right," Fang said simply.
"Yeah, but I don't know if I can do this without everyone," I whispered. I looked to the group ahead of us, where Nudge was talking with the other contestant. "I can't believe she's really thinking about leaving us."
"Don't worry, I bet the nargles are just in her brain, clouding her thoughts," Luna said. I looked to her, how could Iggy like this girl?
"Yeah... sure," I said, disbelieving her.
"Max! Come here! It's time for the competition to begin!" Dumbledore called over to me.
"See you when I get back, if I don't drown first," I joked. A got a few hopeful grins, and I quickly walked over to the other contestants, leaving my flock behind.
"Alright, when the cannon sounds, you will dive down, hopefully all of you have found out what the clue is. You have one hour to recover the-"
The cannon shot, interrupting Dumbledore. We looked around, the band started, and people started diving in. Harry looked like he was choking on something. I dived in, hoping these new gills of mine were going to work. I started going farther down, so far nothing was going wrong. I looked around, I saw the other girl putting what looked like a giant bubble over her head, along with the boy from Hufflepuff. The other boy with the strange accent now had a shark head. I started diving down, unsure of what to do.
Suddenly, I saw the Potter boy diving down he had turned into a... fish? Maybe I wasn't the only person who was strange, could he have come from a lab as well? Where he turned into fish person whenever he went into the water. I decided to follow. If there was a chance that this kid was an escapee, like us, I might need to watch him a little more. I started swimming after him, at a safe distance away. He swam into a bunch of weeds, I followed close to him. We swam for the longest time, I think he knew where he was going. The weeds gave way, and I couldn't suppress a gasp of where we were. He led me right to a... village? A village of... merpeople?
He heard me, and turned around. "How can you have been holding your breath for so long?" he asked.
"Gills," I responded. "Like yours." I pointed to his neck where the gills were.
"You had gillyweed too?"
"Gillyweed?" I asked. "So... your not another escapee?"
"Escapee? What are you talking about?" he asked.
"From the School, or something like that. I guess you're not, I was wrong," I admitted, and started looking around. "Now, come on, we might as well find out where the things that were taken from us were."
"What School!" he snarled, looking at me. "I'm not helping unless you tell me what's going on."
I shifted my wings, pondering whether to tell him. "I'll tell you later, I can't show you here. If I do... I could... I could drown. It's the reason I have gills, can you just accept that for now?"
"Alright, but you have to promise to show me," he said. I nodded, and we started swimming toward the village. Then, something caught my eye.
"Angel!" I screamed, swimming away from him. Angel was tied to a rope by her ankle, and was floating there. Still. I pulled her close to me. "So this is where you were!" I cried, pulling her close.
"Hermione! Ron!" Harry screamed, swimming toward his own friends. I ignored them, I only cared about Angel, I started toward the rope, but it wasn't coming loose. I started to panic. I couldn't leave my baby down here to drown.
"How do we get them loose?" I asked, unsure. "I don't have anything that could help us. And I barely know any magic! I can't let my baby stay down here."
"Hurt? What are you talking about?" Harry asked. I frowned. "Why did you call her, your baby?"
"I've known her since she was two. I've taken care of her, helped her out for years. She's my baby," I answered. She looked dead. Suddenly, her blue eyes opened.
"Wow Max, you sure can be emotional sometimes," she laughed.
"Angel!" I screamed, holding her close.
"Wait, does she have gills too?" Harry asked. Angel looked to Harry.
"Yes Harry, I do. I've been able to breath underwater for almost a year now. Max, we need to trust him. He's going to help us more than you could think. Especially in the next challenge, okay? He needs to know everything," Angel told me.
"Everything?" I said, unsure. "Look Angel, maybe you've been under here to long. Maybe you're a little water logged." I started getting the rope off her ankle. Harry had already gotten Ron's off, and was moving toward Hermione. Suddenly, a strange merperson swam up to us, and put a torch to his throat. Our eyes widened.
"Only one," it snarled.
Suddenly, Cedric swam up to us. He grabbed an asian girl, and started swimming away. Next, the shark-head came, he grabbed Hermione. "Come on Harry, we can't wait any longer," I said, swimming away, Angel right behind me.
"But, what about Fluer's?"
"She'll come," I shouted behind me. Angel and I swam to the surface, with barely any problems. We climbed onto the platform. I pulled Angel close to me. "Don't ever scare me like that again," I whispered, holding her close. Gazzy ran over, and hugged his sister tightly.
"Angel! What happened to you?" he asked.
"I was the thing Max had to recover," she answered. The hour mark sounded, Harry still hadn't surfaced. About fifteen minutes later, he resurfaced, gills gone. Ron and a little girl alongside him. I helped him up onto the platform.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Fine, thanks," he said. "Why are you being nice to me now?"
"Angel is never wrong. If we need your help, we need your help," I answered, looking to my baby. She nodded, telling me that I was doing the right thing. I hoped that she was right. Of course though, she was never wrong.
