Yup, I'm back again! This time with something that is a little bit longer – more than two chapters! (It will be anyway). At the minute my characters of choice are Max, Fang, Iggy and Dylan; but the others might turn up later as I'm still tweaking the finer points of the plot.
Maximum Ride belongs to James Patterson (any strange pairings, however, belong to the fans :P) and Animal Crossing belongs to Nintendo! All rights reserved!
Maximum Crossing
I've seen a lot of weird things in my life, and been in weirder situations, but this one really took the cake.
I woke one day staring at the clear blue sky, the white clouds passing over without a care; that's not unusual, it's how I began most of my mornings.
"Erm...Max."
This is where it starts to get weird.
"Yeah Fang?" I yawn, never taking my eyes off the beautiful sky.
"We're not in Kansas anymore."
"We never were."
"You know what I mean." He sighs. "And I can't see Nudge, Gazzy, Angel or Total. Oh and there's a...racoon staring at us."
What? I bolt upright and look around. This is not where we set down for the night! We were on our way to Alaska to help some baby seals who were caught up in an evil oil spill, we had set down in a less snowy part of Canada to sleep and now...now three of us were in a small village with a stream running down the middle to the ocean. Orange trees were growing in various places, and yes, there was indeed a racoon staring at us.
"Welcome! I'm Tom Nook, I run the local store and I built your home. I've been expecting you!" He smiles. We stare. It's a talking racoon, standing on two legs and wearing an apron!
Iggy chuckles. "You have?"
"Yes, yes. So has your new housemate; he's been waiting for you." He's still smiling.
"He?" I look to Fang. "Gazzy?"
"Who's Gazzy?" Nook tilts his head to the side and smiles again. "Dylan. Dylan is your housemate."
"Which way is the house?" I ask, getting to my feet. Fang and Iggy follow my lead.
"Just up there." He points to a building with a blue roof. "Don't forget to look around and meet the neighbours!"
"Will do." I smile tightly and push Fang and Iggy up the small slope. I'm completely freaked out about this, I mean...well...IT'S A TALKING RACOON!
"Looks kind of small for the four of us..." Fang points out as the door opens and out steps Dylan.
"Oh...you guys are here too?" He studies us. "Where are the others?"
"We're not sure." I sigh. "Do you know what's going on here?"
He shakes his head. "Not a clue...but from what I've heard, the town is called Itex." We groan. "Sound familiar?"
"Yeah...big company; they had plans to wipe out half of the world population." I look around. "This must be another whacky plan of theirs. What else do you know?"
"There's a clothes shop, a museum and a Town Hall. The Town Hall has a recycle bin and you can send letters, save money and make payments."
"Payments?" Fang's brow rises. "To whom and for what?"
"To Nook...for the house. The first payment is nineteen-thousand eight-hundred bells."
"Bells?" Iggy snorts.
"Must be the currency here." Fang muses.
"How are we supposed to pay that off?" I ask, irritated. "And by when?"
"Nook said there's no rush, and when I spoke to the townsfolk they said you can make bells doing all kinds of stuff."
Iggy snorts again and chuckles.
"Don't be gross, Ig." I sigh. "And I'm rolling my eyes. Dylan, can you be more specific for Mr. Pig there?"
"Well..." His brow creases. "Sally said you can pick shells off the beach and sell them to Nook, Angus said fishing was another way and Moe mentioned the oranges. I think Nook buys anything and everything."
Fang and I look to each other. "Angus? Sally? Moe?" He asks.
"Our neighbours." Dylan shrugs.
"How long have you been here?" I fold my arms and raise a suspicious brow.
"A few hours I think."
I look up at the sky and frown. "Well, I'm not sticking around." I snap my wings open.
"Max, that's not-" Dylan begins.
"Up and away!" I look to Fang and Iggy before taking off, my powerful wings working hard to get me into the clear blue sky, away from another Itex experiment.
"Max, stop!" Dylan calls after me, but I just pick up speed and – THUNK! My head collides with an invisible force and I roll backwards in mid-air; I catch myself again and carefully fly to where I'd hit my head.
"An invisible barrier?" Fang lightly knocks on it.
"The air is strange up here..." Iggy does a quick turn and looks at us. "Don't you feel it?"
"Now that you mention it..." I nod and rub my head a little. I'd be lying if I said that didn't hurt.
"It's..." Fang's brow creases. "I dunno...could it be artificial?"
I groan. "I hate scientists. Let's go back down." I lead the way back and we land next to Dylan, who looks a little sheepish. My eyes narrow. "You knew about that, didn't you?"
"I went up a little slower, but I did try to warn you."
I rub my temples. "So now what do we do?"
"We could scrape up some money and re-decorate the house?" Dylan suggests. "Make it more homey since we'll be here a while."
I look to Fang and he shrugs. "Sure, why not?" I sigh. "What's in there already?"
"A box, a candle and a radio."
"Wow. Go see if Nook will take them and search the beach for shells. Fang, you and Iggy raid the trees and I'll go look in the recycle bin; maybe a resident or two dropped something in there..."
"You shake it and I'll catch them." Fang suggested. "Not that there's many up there..."
"Alright." Iggy nodded, firmly grabbed the trunk and shook the tree. Three ripe oranges fell instantly and Fang dove to catch two in his shirt; the other hit Iggy on the head.
"Ouch..." He rubbed his head and picked up the stray orange.
"You alright?"
Iggy held out the fruit for Fang to take with a nod. "Yeah." He grabbed Fang's wrist when he took the fruit. "This...isn't going to help our situation, is it?"
Fang tossed the orange into the air and caught it a few times. "No, probably not; but hopefully Max will be just as distracted, or more so now, to notice."
"Hope so." Iggy grinned. "Next tree?"
"Welcome to the town hall. I'm Pelly, how can I help?" A white pelican behind the desk greeted me.
"I just came to look through the recycle bin." I slowly edge towards it.
"Oh, that's fine." She tilts her head to the side for a moment but continues to stare at me as I lift the lid; there is nothing inside.
I close the lid with a sigh and lean against it, glancing at the pelican. "Pelly, was it?"
"Yes, how can I help?"
"Where exactly is Itex?" I ask carefully.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand the request." She tilts her head again.
"This town, Itex, where is it in the world?"
"I still don't understand."
I rub my temples and breathe deeply a few times. "Scientists! Have you seen any people wearing long, white coats and taking the residents away?"
"No, nothing like that."
"Ok, thanks for the info." I say through clenched teeth and make my way out.
Dylan didn't get much for the stuff and he knew Max wouldn't be pleased with that, so he frantically looked around for something to do; not too far away he spotted a blue cat with large eyes wandering around. "Hey Moe!" He called, catching the feline by surprise.
"Oh hey, Dylan, what do you need?"
"I was wondering if you needed me to deliver something for you."
The blue cat smiled. "As a matter of fact, I do! Nice timing!" He pulled a white package out of his pocket and handed it to Dylan. "Could you take this to Sally for me and be back in...Oh, twenty minutes?"
Dylan grinned. "Sure. Thanks, Moe."
"I still find it hard to believe that she was a talking pig." I hear Iggy say as I approach.
"We were talking to a racoon earlier, Nook, remember?" Fang replies.
"I didn't see him." Iggy grins.
"I'm rolling my eyes. Oh, hey Max, any luck?"
"No, nothing in the bin and the...er...pelican wasn't helpful either; she couldn't tell me where this place was." I sigh. "What about you two?"
"There aren't a lot of orange trees." Fang shrugs. "But we're heading to Nook now, we were sidetracked by Lucy."
"Lucy?" My brow rises.
"A talking pig." Iggy sniggers.
"Racoons, pelicans and now pigs; what else lives here?" I shake my head. "C'mon, let's go see Nook."
Ok, that's chapter one over and done with, stay tuned for number two! I'll try to add some more jokes into too :)