Kingdom Come
Chapter Five: Joint Families Have Always Caused Problems, Especially When Said Families are Mutants and Tend To Be Quite Hormonal (Yes, Roger, I'm looking at you)
Naturally, my plan failed, Maurice chickened out on us and Simon didn't even try. Roger and I managed well enough, but...it all went bad, right from the get-go. I was caught again and Roger killed somebody. They dragged him away, kicking and screaming, to a door and a bright room.
I didn't see him for a week.
"We're all slated for extermination anyway." Maurice sulked, "He's just lucky he didn't have to wait."
"Mo..." Simon whimpered.
"Sorry, Si, but it's true." Maurice shot back.
"Stop it!" I warned, getting fed up with all of the self-pity that practically replaced our air, "We're going to get out of here! We'll escape!"
"Yeah, right."
I sighed and backed down. No use in disagreeing.
Three days later, and much to our surprise, Roger was thrown harshly back into his cage. We all scrambled to get a closer look, to catch a glimpse of him in the dark.
"Thank God, he's still alive..." Maurice breathed. Roger coughed raspily in reply.
"...Let those damn wolves have their fun with me..." He answered, half to himself, his voice shaking and weak, "No more escape plans for a while, okay?"
"Roger, your stutter's gone!" Maurice exclaimed.
"..." He didn't say anything for a moment, as if lamenting over something lost. I wondered, did like the taste of the stutters on his tongue? "I guess it is."
The mood from his direction was solemn from then on. It seemed that Maurice's tricks had no effect on Roger anymore. Nothing did.
I began to re-evaluate myself, my life, what I would do.
What would I do?
…...
I wasn't exactly sure when they showed up, but they did anyway; Max's flock, I mean. One minute, we were in the clouds and the next Max and some dark girl I'd never seen before were tumbling out of the air in some crazy, drunken sky-hug. We all back-pedaled and landed on my signal. Then, the stand-off commenced. Max's friends on one side, mine on the other. And, was it just me or did Roger just duplicate himself? Because, I could swear that there were two of him. He began to glare at his double (Although, the double had neater hair and different features) in a menacing way, fluffing up his feathers. I rolled my eyes and looked at Max, who was currently smiling at the youngest members, two little girls and a boy.
"This is your flock?" I asked.
"Yeah, duh." Max smiled, "I think that's pretty dang obvious."
"Just making sure." I said back.
"Who's that? Who's talking?" A tall, pale boy asked. His hair was a pallid yellow, with darker dyed tips, and his eyes were squinted shut. Max touched his shoulder gently and it hit me suddenly. That must be Iggy, the blind one. The Roger duplicate was probably Fang, which made the other boy Gazzy and the girls nudge and Angel. I wasn't sure which one was which though (Girls were all the same to me), and there was also a...dog? Why was there a dog? Nobody had informed me of this.
"That's Jack." Max told him, "He's the leader of his flock. They're going to be joining us from now on. They're looking for their parents too."
Well, I wouldn't say that, but whatever. At this point, I wasn't even sure what the hell we had tagged along for. A change of scenery?
"More like us?" Iggy gasped.
"Ooh! Friends!" The darker girl clapped, "We'll be best friends forever! No, make that best feather-flock friends forever! Best bird friends of a feather! Heehee! We'll eat together and fly together and nest at night together and find our parents together and—"
"-Nudge!" Max stopped her, "Geez, calm your feathers!"
"Haha! Sorry!" Nudge apologized meekly, and finally shut the heck up.
"Anyway, that's Jack." Max motioned to me. I smiled proudly under their gazes, standing up a little taller. Really, though, I had no reason to be proud of my flock. "And that's Maurice."
Maurice did and theatrical little bow and grinned cheesily. I almost did a face-palm. Behind us, Ralph caught up in the car and pulled over. I saw Max's flock tense up, ready to take off at a moment's notice. Gazzy though, he smiled back at Maurice. I could tell already that this was the start of a marvelous BBFFF-ship or whatever Nudge had called it.
"It's a pleasure to meet'cha!" Maurice exclaimed.
"And that," Max went on, gesturing to yet another, "Is Simon. He's kind of quiet. In a good way."
"Thank you for the introduction, Maximum." Simon said very formally. Max glanced for the first time at Fang and Roger, still staring each other down, death in their eyes and frowns on their faces.
"...And that's Roger." Max grimaced. I laughed aloud at her expression. Nobody liked Roger, that was a given. "He's...uh...He's..."
"-Roger." My whole flock teased in response. Roger was Roger, that's all there is to it.
"You guys suck." Roger darkly muttered, breaking away from his staring contest with an unamused face. He pressed a finger to his temple; he often did that.
"Max." The one called Fang spoke up for the first time, "Is this a good idea?"
"Yeah, it's fine!" Max waved off in good-spirits, "I've been with them for a while now, they're cool."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, 100% positive, Fang." Max crossed her arms and smirked at him sideways. Unlike our brooding flack-mate, this Fang made no efforts to kill his leader. He didn't even seem mildly surprised or bothered by her tongue.
"Fine." He consented. Then, noticing Ralph jogging up and joining us on the 'Jack side', Fang added: "Who's that?"
"Ralph." I pointedly said, pushing the blonde forward. He shrunk back from the stares. "He's ours."
"What's with the car?" Gazzy spoke up in a flurry of excitement, "Can't he fly? Are his wings broken?"
"Did he get in a horrible accident? Did it hurt? Did he die?" Nudge picked up with a steady stream of pointless questions; which probably would go unanswered until the end of time. I bit my lip and rolled my eyes at Max, who shrugged. Ralph fell back and stood by my shoulder quietly. "Is that his special power? Can he come back to life?! How long have you guys been away from The School? Is he friendly? Do you have a girlfriend? Does he have a girlfriend?"
"No." I shut her up this time, waving my hand apathetically, "To all of that."
"...sorry." Nudge smiled. I couldn't not forgive her. She was too cute.
"That's fine." I dismissed, "And no, he doesn't have wings. He's human. 100%. Au Natural. Whatever the hell you want to call it."
Fang grimaced. "Then, why is he here?"
"Because he's with us." I repeated adamantly, trying to assert myself, "I'm not leaving any of my flock behind, and Ralph's no exception."
"But he's not...us." Fang went on, "He's human. I vote against it. It could be dangerous."
"Nobody asked you!" I shouted, "There's no vote going on here!"
"Hey, guys!" Max intervened, stepping between the lines with her palms facing each one of us. She looked stressed out beyond all belief. I stepped down, trying to calm myself. "Stop this. Ralph's fine. As long as he can keep up in a car."
"I can handle myself." Ralph angrily piped in, "I'm not useless...I'll...cook...or something like that."
"Whatever." Fang huffed.
"Yeah, whatever." I shot back.
"I have a feeling this is going to go well." Max said, mostly to herself.
Roger, meanwhile, recovering from his headache and his upset from the landing, crossed his arms and gave us all a look equal only to death. It was becoming all too clear that he hated us all.
"Yeah..." He sighed, "Fuck all of this. I want to go home."
