Chapter #3: A prank gone wrong

AN: Hey guys sorry it took so long! School thinks I can do like 4 assignments at once! I'll try to update at least once a weak, most likely on a Saturday, but maybe Sunday or Friday, it really all depends on my plans, I'll try and warn you if I can't make an upload date J. Keep those reviews coming!

Oh and just to tell you I've changed Queen Valerie to Queen Valencia, I forgot what her name is…. I know shameful but I was writing it late at night so please forgive me!

Disclaimer: Again I do not own Maximum Ride characters, only the plot…. *sad face*

Me: But one day Fang will be mine!

Fang: *backs away slowly* this is getting weird I'm just gonna…. Yeah bye!

Me: wait come back! I was joking! I have chocolate!

Fang: *turns around, flies back, snatches chocolate and reads a book*

Me: Okay well here it is Chapter three enjoy!

LAST TIME:

Oh god please help me was my last thought before the girls nearest to the trip wire…

Chapter #3: A prank gone wrong

Fang's POV:

"STOP" a loud voice said; that made everyone, including me, frozen in their spots. The girls in the front of the group hadn't even touched the trip wire their feet just hovered above it. Then I saw the tallest one move, and now that I had a better look I saw that they were completely covered in black, their hands had gloves and arms were covered in long sleeves, their long legs were covered in more black material and some sort of padding and the chest and stomach area looked the same. The other thing was their head was completely covered, except for eye holes, by a… you guessed it black mask.

'That must be the Knight, that's the only person who could make everyone freeze like that' was what I thought as I watched the figure moved to the front of the group, the girls trying to hold their legs up. Still nobody else in the room had moved they were only using their eyes to look around, you could have heard a pin drop, only the softest of footfalls were heard, from the knight, as he walked over to the front row girls and crouched down.

'No way, that's just not possible he couldn't know that there was a trip wire! The twins always make sure that it's as inconspicuous as possible! So the stories are true, the Knight really is good' I thought as everyone watched as he brushed his fingers along the ground. Then he stood, pushed the girls back a bit and motioned for them to stay still, then he seemed to follow the trigger string along to the side of the door way, and he eventually came across one of the bombs. Iggy and Gazzy stood ridged as he picked it up delicately and took it from its hiding place from on top of the door way, most of it hidden by the tapestry, only the firing hole was visible and aimed right where the trigger string was. The Knight then placed it gently on the ground in front of the girls and then followed the string in the opposite direction and found the second bomb in the same place as the first (just on the opposite side of the hall way entrance) and gently took it down and walked over to the other one and placed the second bomb down. The Knight scanned the area a few more times before nodding to the girls, they immediately step away and walk over to bow us (the royals) and go stand beside the Queens of Darkness.

The Knight gently picked up both of the bombs and walked over to us. Everyone took a step back; I couldn't though, as he got closer, he looked at Iggy and Gazzy as they stared at the ground sheepishly.

"These belong to you" His voice seemed to grate out as he said that, not even as a question. With a small shake of the head, he turned his attention to me.

'That's impossible! He can't see me when I'm in the shadows! Not even our top guards could' I thought frantically, not showing it through my emotional mask of course, as he moved his hand to his side. 'Oh he thinks that I'm an intruder…' I thought and smirked, wouldn't he be in for a surprise when he pointed a weapon at the heir the throne of Midnight. But instead of going for his sword, faster than I could follow or react to, he had pulled out a dagger and threw it right at me. I thought I was going to die then, I saw my life and the choices I had made up to this one and I thought 'those poor girls, they'll be lost without me…' but I didn't get stabbed straight through the heart, and it wasn't one dagger that he threw. The Knight had thrown four daggers at me, two pinning me to the wall through my shirt and the others through my legs.

"What are you doing Knight? You can't throw daggers around our palace without reason, this is an outrage" My father's voice boomed. The Knight's response was to turn around face my father, stare straight into his eyes and hold up his hand, motioning for him to wait. The Knight walked towards me and I struggled to get out, no use, my clothes were firmly wedged against the wall by the daggers. When he was close to me, the Knight used one arm to squash my legs against the wall and the other to rip the daggers out that pinned my legs, and carefully slot them back into their place. He stood up and looked at me with such cold eyes that I, yes I Prince Fang heir to the throne of Midnight emotionless rock, froze at that look and let him rip the other two daggers out, and haul me out of the shadows to stand in front of my parents.

"Nicholas?" My mother and father said incredulously, internally I cringed at their tone, but still kept my face blank as I felt the Knights fist tighten around my shirt collar. "What were you doing there, why were you hiding? Did you know about the bombs?" They both said firing questions at me, but ironically it was the Knight that saved me from big trouble.

"King and Queen of Midnight, forget about this incident, no one was hurt, you don't need the stress of taking care of the consequences of their actions…" he paused and let me go, pulling me back behind him slightly, and whispered to my parents, I tried and failed to hear what he had to say.

"Yes, I do agree with you" My mother and father agreed, and get this, they both SMILED, they barely smile at people they just met! What did the Knight do to my parents? I didn't get time to ponder this before mum said goodbye and guided the group, excluding Iggy, Gazzy and I, away possible to show The Royals their rooms and the servants their living quarters. That left me, the Knight with Gazzy and Iggy alone in the room except for a few guards and the bombs.

"Uuuuum, ha ha ha, you know that was a joke right, just a laugh, a little welcome to the kingdom?" Gazzy said gulping as the Knight scanned our faces with the same stony face s before, except this one was calculating and not as cold somehow.

"You two made the bombs," he said motioning slightly to the twins, then the Knight turned his head slightly to me, "and you told them to do it, am I right" He said in his scratchy voice, staring into my eyes, looking for any hint of a lie. I knew there was no point in lying to this man who stood in front of me, my shoulders sagged slightly, I knew that I had been caught and the Knight thought I was immature. Damn it, so not the plan!

"Yes" we said in unison, all of us were unable to look at the Knight in the eyes all slightly embarrassed about being caught.

"I want you to know, that even though it was wrong to do that to guests in your house, in battle that would be a very effective trap, albeit modified to be a a weapon, but still effective" The Knight said and we all flicked our heads to look up at him, then turned to each other and wondered 'He was supposed to punish us and yell at us, not suggest it as a battle strategy'. The Knight headed off in the direction that the others had just went in. We looked at each other and then the bombs and then back, but something must have caught their eyes because all of a sudden I heard...

"oh no no no, no he can't do this, not at this range, we can't drop it either, he's good NO!" and there was a split second of silence before I realised way too late what had happened, saw the trip wire, still intact, leading toward the Knight and saw the Knight turning around and I swear I saw the glint of mischief in his eyes as he stepped out of the danger zone and pulled the string.

BOOM!

"Oh GOD! That stinks! What did you put in there Gazzy, rotten eggs and a couple of your farts?!" Iggy yelled.

"What are you talking about? What type of paint did you use, toxic waste ah the chemical fumes are burning my nose hair!" Gazzy yelled back and pretended to claw his face melodramatically.

"AH I'm a rainbow, I'm a freaking rainbow! WHY?" I yelled over the top of their voices, I was beyond pissed, I like black, not pink or green or purple or silver, black! And now I was a stinky rainbow…. Oh and the rest of the group had shown up and were not even trying to hold their laughter. Well this plan back fired, the Knight just walked to stand beside them continuously on the lookout for any signs of trouble. I didn't miss the hint of laughter in his eyes though when his gaze drifted over us as we just stood there in shock.

"I can't believe he pranked us with our own prank… Is that even possible? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?" Iggy yelled incredulously, looking from the Knight, to his clothes and back, as if all the secrets would be revealed if he looked between the two fast enough. As for Gazzy, he thought it was brilliant, he laughed and seemed to look at the Knight like he was a God or something. And me? I just stood there staring at the laughing group of Royals in wonder. I mean you would too if you saw your mother and father, who had by now completely mastered the art of faking a polite smile, laughing out loud, the full on kind of laugh. The Twins and I never got that reaction, but I guess that's because we always annoyed people with it, and nobody could trick us, but now the Knight had, completely trashed that reputation. I was mad, but also kind of impressed. The Knight had lived up to an impossible standard, pranking all three of us master prankers at once and everyone was watching, not only that but he had pranked us with our own prank. I'm not quite sure how he had been able to do that without knowing us for a while, not even Nudge and Ella knew the signs of a prank. "Well that was funny man, you did get us good! You my friend need to teach me how to do that" Iggy said going to slap the Knight on his shoulder. The Knight though didn't seem to want that as he stepped out of the way and glared at Iggy's out stretched hand and said in a quiet voice.

"No. We are not friends and I will not teach you anything willingly until you have earned my trust or respect" Iggy just nodded his head and scampered back behind Ella, who turned a light shade of pink. "Iggy is never going to let himself be alone in a room with the meany ever" He whispered to no one in particular. The Knight seemed to want to say something then held himself back… 'I wonder what he wanted to say' I thought, but Queen Valencia interrupted me. "Well I for one am glad you are safe, but I see you are a little worse for wear so if you could be so kind King and Queen of Midnight, would you let my servants get cleaned up before they explain what happened to them after we escaped?" she asked turning towards my parents, who immediately agreed and with that they rest of us walked to the dining room while the servants were lead off to get cleaned up.

"Um, I think you three need to get cleaned up as well. Maybe just to take the edge off the smell and get that paint off of you, we don't want anyone to think that this is how our kingdom is run. Oh and Fang, you should wear colour more often, pink really brings out your eyes" My mum said and giggled with Queen Valencia then walked to the dining room, motioning for the other clean people to follow them.

"Ugh, this stink will never come out of my clothes… Gazzy why did you make it this bad" Iggy said, and then turned an alarming shade of red, which stood out even more on his pale skin. "What is ELLA going to say about this!? SHE HAS TO WASH MY CLOTHES! She'll never like me now… Urg why did I agree to this again? I hate this" He said staring at the ground angrily.

"Yeah…" I said with a slight sigh, we were never going to hear the end of this from the servants of the palace, but hey, at least I didn't have any personal servants that I was crushing on, but I'm pretty sure that I would most likely be the one crushed on… Just sayin' *insert cocky smirk here*.

"Iggy, Fang…you know that we probably won't be able to call ourselves the master prankers anymore… Nobody will be able to take our threats to prank them seriously anymore! People are never going to let us forget about this. I don't think the Knight will respect us any more… This was the worst prank idea ever" He looked so disappointed , and I couldn't stop myself from patting him on the shoulder and letting the corner of my mouth in an encouraging smile, well encouraging for me anyway. We all walked into our an suites and rid ourselves as best we could of the paint and smell, although the paint stained our clothes and skin and the smell was only slightly less gross and obvious. I let my emotional shield slide and let the frown of self-disappointment fall on my features, my shock, and my grudging respectful look for what the Knight did. How he still managed to have a little fun while still managing to be completely alert and keeping those he was charged with, safe, that was how I wanted to be when I became King, respected and trusted, able to keep the kingdom safe, but still make things enjoyable for the subjects… and myself of course! I waited for Iggy and Gazzy to join me before we walked into the dining room. Everyone was talking thought so I looked at Gazzy and Iggy, signalling for them to get everyone's attention. Gazzy did that pretty effectively by using his…. Special talent….

"AAAAAAh what hell is that? ZOMG I'm going to die, but I'm too young to die, and I haven't tried on all of the clothes and shoes I wanted to and I haven't even talked to the new people yet. Who did this, whoever did I'm going to make them wish they were never born. I haven't seen every shade of pink yet! But I did see this pair of pink diamond studded shmuphmurgph!" I'll give you one guess to who that was…. If you said the Knight! You'd be wrong; he was the one who had crept up on NUDGE! (Duh of course it was her) to cover her mouth and saved us all from the rest of her rant.

"Thanks for that Knight, you have no idea how long that would have gone on for!" My mother exclaimed forgetting about social etiquette and didn't speak 'properly'. Huh that was new. "I think I have a rough estimate… I was just interrogated by her while you were discussing the fact that you need a new teacher for one of your sons…" The Knight said quietly… so he does talk, but not voluntarily apparently.

"Oh I hope your ears are okay…. But speaking of training, yes you heard right, we are looking for a new instructor for Nicholas," "Fang" "sorry for Fang, and unfortunately as well as our army, they are both lacking an instructor after they, the instructor, have given up on training them. Both Fang and the army can be difficult to train," 'I am so not difficult' I thought as mum said this 'what's so difficult about being late to classes and beating my teacher with my own techniques, not the ones I was taught, and then walking out early and eating unhealthily. I figured with my high metabolism it would be okay… "So will you?" Oops I guess I missed their whole conversation with my internal monologue; jeez I have been around Nudge far too long.

"If my Queen allows it then yes, but I can only stay as long as she does, my duty to her comes first." The Knight said before he turned to Queen Valencia with a questioning gaze. The queen seemed to think about the proposition for a second, weighed the pros and cons of the situation and then responded.

"I will allow the Knight to stay here, only if I can stay as well, he is my most trusted body guard and I don't feel safe without him present. If you have any objections to this then I will not allow him to train your troops, is this acceptable?" She said, suddenly all business which slightly shocked everyone I the room, except of course her maids, they must have gotten used to it by then.

"Yes of course, we'd be delighted if you could all stay with us, if you don't mind if your maids help with odd jobs around the place, then I am sure everything will be great!" My mother said clearly excited. It was then that the situation hit me. I was going to be trained by the Knight, best fighter in all of the land and the person whom we had tried to prank; we were going to pay dearly for that. "I would like to have a demonstration first; I need to know exactly what I am going to work with here." The Knight said looking to my father, knowing he was the one who would have the say so in that matter.

"Yes, of course, but keep in mind that they haven't had a training instructor in a while, they have had to keep their own training up" Dad said, and then he signaled one of our servants over to him. "Can you inform our troops that they are going to be giving a demonstration tomorrow at noon? Tell them that I want them to show their horse riding skills and their fighting hand to hand and with weapons, as well as their athletic skills. Have you got that?" the servant nodded and went off to find the captain of our troops and deliver the message. "Will all of your sons be training with me?" The Knight asked my mother, and she just nodded and smirked. Oh no!