"Whoa…" The Gasman breathed. "Holy sh-" He caught my glare halfway through the word and quickly changed it. " -Iznits. Holy shiznits."

Iggy snorted. "Smooth, Gaz."

"Max, what do we do?" Nudge whispered, her dark chocolaty eyes wide, and a little frightened.

"I… I don't know." I admitted. "I'm not sure."

"We go after her." A resonant male voice cut in. I looked over a Fang, and found his onyx eyes locked on mine.

"Obviously." He continued. "We have to find her first. My blog is public domain; anyone can access it. If the white-coats were to watch the video and decide to find her…" He stopped, allowing us to fill in the blank.

I stood up, balancing easily on the branch. "Well then." I said briskly. "We go and find her then."

As I spread my wings, preparing to take off into the open sky, Angel's little voice stopped me.

"Max?"

I turned back. "Yeah, sweetie?"

She frowned at me, her light blue eyes troubled. "What did she mean, 'when the world ended the first time' ?"

I paused, then crouched down in front of her. "I don't know, Angel." I said softly. "I mean, I think we would've noticed if the world had ended, y'know?"

Angel frowned. "But."

"Tell you what." I stood up, holding my hand out to her "Let's go find out."

She smiled sweetly, standing up and taking my hand. "But, Max, you're the leader. Shouldn't you know?" The confusion was gone from her eyes, replaced with something I couldn't name.

I slitted my eyes, wondering if this was yet another attempt to undermine my leadership. "C'mon, Ang. The boys are leaving us behind."

But as we spread our wings and leapt into the air, soaring into the sky, I couldn't help feeling a cold lump of dread, coiling in my stomach. Something wasn't right.

/\\\/

"Are you sure this is it?"

I stood, hand raised against the sun, looking down into the valley below us.

"Yup." Fang said, dark head bent over his open laptop.

I ran a critical eye over the small city - village? - at the mouth of Zion Nation Park in southern Utah. "It doesn't seem… big enough to even have computers. Does it even have Wi-Fi?"

Fang's dark eyes flicked to me briefly in irritation. "Of course."

"Max, it's so pretty!" Nudge exclaimed, hands clasped together in happiness.

Looking around, I felt my traitorous little heart nod in silent agreement. The sun-beaten red rock almost glowed in the amber light of the setting sun.

See? Bird-kids can be poets, too.

"You're sure it came from here?" I asked skeptically.

"Yes." Fang still didn't sound perturbed.

"There's so many people; it's a freaking nation park. How could anyone - much less a bird-kid - live here, and not get discovered? Peoples are crawling all over everything." I exclaimed, waving my hands at the shuttle buses full of hikers trudging along the dark maroon roads and the little itty-bitty ants jellyfishing their way up the red rock walls of the canyon.

"There's actually quite a bit of land that no-one goes onto." Fang softly corrected me.

"But still!" I said. "How can no-one have found her yet?"

"After all." A metallic voice groaned from behind us. "We managed to find you."

I groaned, clenching my hands. "Why haven't you people given up yet?!" I asked the sky, exasperated.

Then I spun and slammed my fist into the thing's face.

Crunch.

I staggered away, cradling my hand to my chest and biting back curses. It hurt. The first two knuckles on my right hand has split open, and the thing's face wasn't even dented.

"Okay." I growled. "If that's how you wanna play, I'll oblige."

I swung my leg up into a high roundhouse kick, hitting it hard. It barely staggered backward. What is with these things?

Its angular green, laser-like eyes narrowed. "Hostile action has been taken." It announced.

"Yeah. That's what I do." I sassed.

"Initiating response." It whirred, dropping down into a fighting stance.

I smirked. "Finally. I might actually get a fight out of th-"

I rather suddenly found myself down on the ground, gasping for breath. I hadn't even seen the 'droid move.

It stood calmly, waiting for me to get back up. I leapt to my feet, rising onto the balls of my feet. Before either one of us could move, however, a dark blur slammed into it, throwing it back several feet.

Fang crouched lithely over the bot, whaling on it with closed fists.

From behind me, I heard Gazzy cry out.

He was limping badly, ankle twisted unnaturally.

I looked around at my flock. Angel was leading one of the bots on a wild goose chase, ducking into crevices and folds in the rock, dodging behind the stone pillars. Iggy was down on the ground, face twisted in pain as yet another 'droid applied careful pressure to his wings, forcing them nearly to the point where they would snap while a second one pinned him down.. Nudge was whimpering, her back pressed flat against a red cliff as three closed in, shallow cuts and scrapes scoring the smooth, tan skin of her forehead and cheek.

The thing, for lack of a better word, Fang had had held down suddenly surged forward, flipping Fang onto his back. I heard all of his breath rush out of him.

We are in serious, serious trouble.

I tensed, bringing my hand up in front of my face as one of the three pursuing Nudge found a new target: me.

I ducked under the roundhouse punch it threw, immediately returning with a rear-hand punch that should've connected with the large glowy thing in the middle of its chest. Before the blow could connect, it moved, parrying my hand and slamming its metal head into my not-metal head.

Stars burst into my vision, including one I was pretty sure was Saturn. It had rings and everything. By the time all the pretty colors had faded away, one of my hands was being pulled painfully up my spine, pulling the muscles in my shoulder unnaturally, and my other hand was away from me, twisted into a joint lock. My wrist felt like it was about to break, but that didn't stop me from struggling. The thing pushed me out away from itself, then pulled me back, wrenching me hard into its body, crushing my hand and jerking my shoulder back even further.

Looking around, I could see that all of my flock were in similar positions.

"Target achieved." The head bot stated, sounding more than a little smug.

"What are you going to do with us?" I snarled at it.

If it could've chuckled, it would've. "That is for us to know and you to-"

SNAP!

My arm was nearly pulled out of its socket as the 'droid was suddenly thrown sideways by a tremendous force. It hit the ground a good twenty feet away.

"Hello, Max." A female voice said into my ear from behind.

Then she shoved me off the edge of the cliff.