Ahh... I've discovered that over the holidays, there seems to be a lull in Fanfiction. Everyone disappears, and even for the more popular stuff, the amounts of reviews, favorites/follows, and even views in general drop to an extreme low. Thus why I waited to post this story (which has had me very eager). Happy 1012!

The time period: Whenever. It's not that important, as this is a oneshot. Just go with it.

Summary: When his curiosity piques him, Ed decides to 'visit' a certain laboratory where the main focus is genetic engineering, and he... kind of snaps on the Scientists and starts a mass rescue, while destroying all the things in his way. BOOM. Story gets darker as it goes. – Oneshot. -

Hmm... this didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted to, but I think I like this way better. :) It's also my longest oneshot. :D It gets darker as the story goes, so it's kinda light at the beginning.

Thanks to all authors who wrote FMAxMR crossovers, you guys were my inspiration. Thanks to vanitas1776 for betaing.

I do not own either Fullmetal Alchemist or Maximum Ride.

Rage

Edward Elric sighed. He was currently being led through the hallways of a laboratory who-the-hell-knows-where to see/do who-the-hell-knows-what. It wasn't common that he left Amestris on his search for the Philosopher's Stone, but wherever the best lead was, he tended to be there. So that was why he was in the current laboratory, in whatever area of whatever country. It had something to do with a lab and engineering, or some other crap like that. Really, from all this optimism, you wonder why Ed's there in the first place, right? To answer the most common question, no it wasn't really for the Philosopher's Stone. When Edward and his brother had happened to hear something about the place on the streets, they had just become naturally curious. That afternoon, Ed eventually persuaded Al to go back to their hotel ("It's fine, Al, I just want to look around the city some more." / "Well... alright. But you better be back soon, brother! Don't you dare get into a fight!"), and headed off towards the place rumored to be a genetic engineering laboratory. Upon arrival to the security, he used the excuse of coming to 'inspect' for a foreign military (pocket watch, baby!), and had been granted wary access. Thus leading to current events.

Ed sighed inwardly, once again, as a young man in a white lab coat wove through the complex hallways, obviously expecting Ed to follow. And for the sake of not wanting to be hopelessly lost, Ed did just that, dodging plenty of other scientists in similar lab coats along the way. Some were pushing various carts, or carrying boxes filled with who-knows-what. Most of them gave him some rather strange looks. He gave all of them glares back.

Finally, Ed was brought to a rather large office, presumably of someone important. With a nod (Ed saw the annoyance in it) the young scientist indicated the door, then spun on his heel in the opposite direction, setting off at a brisk pace. Ed blinked in surprise as the man turned the corner and disappeared from view. Okaaay?

The alchemist turned back to the door, inspecting it. The polished mahogany wood had a small golden plaque nailed to the front that read, "Jeb Batcheldor". Ed paused for a second, then shrugged to himself and opened the door rather unceremoniously, completely ignoring the polite knock that was probably expected. Polite policies, his ass. Why not just give off the bad-ass, I'm totally awesome and not afraid of you persona? It would brighten his day.

Upon entering, the first thing he saw was the man behind the desk who had paused in what he was doing to look at the intruder. The man looked rather ordinary - mousy brown hair, a small moustache, glasses. Ed didn't miss the white lab coat, either (was that a trend, or something?). During this period of a few seconds, Jeb was currently sizing the alchemist up, too. Outwardly, he only looked like a regular teenager (dare he admit it, a kid) with a red hoodie and tight-fitting black pants with combat boots (after seeing the way the rest of the people around the area dressed, Ed had relented to buying something other than his usual [bad-ass] long coat). Sure, his eyes were a bit strange, and his hair a bit long, but there were contacts to make eyes look like that, and honestly, who knows about teenagers' senses of style these days? So really the only question on Jeb's mind was:

"What's a kid like you doing here?" He didn't realize he had said it aloud until the intruder scowled and opened his mouth to answer him.

"I'm not a kid. I have military granted access, and I've come to.. do an inspection." Jeb didn't miss the slight pause in his reasoning. Swiveling his chair to face the youngster, he folded his hands on the desk.

"May I ask which country has become curious with us, Mr...?"

"Amestris; Amestrian military. I'm the Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric."

Jeb raised an eyebrow. "And why, pray tell, are they sending a minor to fulfill this task?"

Ed shrugged, looking completely unperturbed, his emotions in check now. "What's it matter? I'm a State Alchemist, end of story."

Jeb couldn't keep the surprise off his face. Yes, he'd heard of the Amestrian military's Alchemy, but he would have never thought a mere child would be in it.

Ed inwardly snickered at the man's face. It was pretty funny. Then, with a jolt, he snapped back to professional mode. Not the time for that. "So, I'm here to do an inspection. Our military is interested in what you do, and that young man who just led me here told me that you could give me a tour, Mr. Batcheldor." Ed lied with ease.

Jeb hadn't had any idea of this in advance. He hadn't known that that a foreign military wanted to see the lab. This stuff was secret, for God's sake! With a sigh, he stood up. Well, even so, a foreign military would be on sudden alert when one of their soldiers went missing, or at least someone as important as a State Alchemist. So unless the kid was an unbelievable actor and forager, Jeb was stuck with showing him around. It wouldn't be HIS fault if the kid was mentally scarred by the end of the day. That was the Amestrian military's problem. Without another thought, Jeb smoothly slid from behind his desk and started towards the door.

"Very well then, follow me."

-{}{

One of Jeb's first regrets was that even though he was showing the kid around, he didn't have much faith that the kid really understood all that Jeb said or showed him. One could only dumb-down scientific terms so far. And with all the different equipment and machines... But what Jeb had first thought to end up being a nightmare had actually turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

The child—no, he deserved to be called by his title: The Fullmetal Alchemist seemed to almost perfectly understand everything that was going on in the School. He seemed comfortable with all of the biomedical terms, and Jeb was quickly able to drop the tone he would use to explain things for a child.

But not just any questions, Jeb realized. Only ones that have some kind of intellectual thought behind them. And it was true. Ed did have to admit he learned some things that day. Though from the first few words out of the scientist's mouth, Ed already knew that they were all doing something that he was probably going to have to resist the urge to punch one of them in the face for later. But until he figured out what that was, he stayed curious and almost happy, soaking up the new technologies and theories from the foreign place. After all, his inner scientist was not going to let him live it down if he blew someplace like this off. Everything was extremely high-tech and advanced, anyone's curiosity would get the better of them.

When the two passed through the chemistry labs (usually where the different combinations of DNA were tested or theorized), the alchemist seemed the most at home. When Jeb started illustrating the machines and basic jobs through words to the alchemist, the teenager was nodding enthusiastically to most of it. His questions started to become so complex that Jeb was having to stop and think for a moment to answer some of them. Jeb had the creeping feeling that the alchemist was some kind of genius in the chemistry area. Well, then again, the young man was an alchemist.

Jeb wasn't exactly avoiding it, but he didn't really want to have to show the visitor any of the actual experiments. If ANY military were to find out about some of them... Well, that might not end well on the School's part. And he did a fine job of it, until: "Hey. You have all this equipment, and talk as if from experience. So do you think you could show me some of your results from experiments?"

Jeb almost started sputtering. Had the child really been able to see through his façade that easily? Well, then that didn't really leave him much choice...

Without missing a beat, Jeb answered, "Of course. Follow me, Major Elric."

Upon arriving at the heavy metal door to the main room for holding the experiments, Jeb paused. Edward looked towards him expectantly.

"Now, I want to warn you," Jeb started. "That not all of the tests we ran were a success. As a scientist yourself, you must understand that. It's the result of progress. But, we can also tell you that we have completely successful recombinant creatures. I think it's best just to show you."

And so Jeb opened the door.

Edward's hands had already tightened into hard fists the second he heard 'recombinant creatures'. Chimeras, he realized. There was a nauseating feeling starting to burn in his stomach, and cruel flashes of past images started to play back in his mind.

As the man opened the door, Ed sucked in a quick breath, in which Jeb took as excitement (Ed found a thought like that revolting and sadistically cruel), and the two slowly slid in to the room.

Ed was hit instantly by the misery, pain, and hopelessness that radiated in waves all around the room. The stench didn't help, either. He held back a gag as Batcheldor shot him a quick glance. Ed started to sweep his gaze around the room. The more he saw (only vague, twisted outlines so far) the harder his fists clenched. Calm down, Elric, calm down...

Ed forced himself into motion to follow the now evilly labeled scientist across the room to the first row of cages. Dog crates? The urge to throw up got stronger. Every filled cage that they passed had some twisted, miserable form in it, that didn't look human at all—yes, the man had told Ed that their main experiments were human. Ed thought of Nina and his resolve almost crumbled. They did pass a few who were obviously not human at all (those didn't worry him quite as much, but still), but when it came down to every single damn one of them, Ed just could not tear his gaze away. He wanted the man in front of him to walk faster, to start running, sprinting, to just GET OUT of that room—but no! He had to go slower, to see ALL of them. He had to see the poot creatures to know how to fix them and end their pain and suffering and misery. His emotions struggled back and forth until one won over the other, though it wasn't of his choosing.

Batcheldor had stopped. He was currently looking into a cage, a figure stooped over inside, slightly bent forwards from the small fit. Edward could see the anger and resentment that was causing the whole body to shake. The figure was lanky, but humanoid. Long hair. Maybe female.

"Max," Jeb said. "Your words and actions only make your situation worse. Please," he begged. "Stop. I promise this is all for your benefit."

"My 'benefit'?" a voice snapped back. Definatley a girl's. It sounded clear, too. Not like the gurgling, grunting, and groaning coming from most of the other experiments.

"Listen up, Jeb," the girl said angrily. "We will NEVER cooperate with you. You've only run tests on us that might as wel be TORTURE. We only want you sadistic Lab Coats OUT OF OUR LIFE, and for you all to go to Hell."

"Max," Jeb reached out towards the girl's cage, but even with her restricted amount of space, she managed to whip out her leg and kick the crate hard enough to rattle the whole thing and leave a loud echo to fill the pitifully lit room. Jeb shrunk back, defeated.

Without thinking, Edward strode forward and crouched outside of Max's cage. She blinked in surprise as hse saw him, then her face tilted downward into a scowl of hatred.

"Who's this, Jeb? An apprentice, or something? Joy! More evil sadists to torture us!" Her sarcasm dripped with venom.

Unperturbed by Max's words, Ed reached out towards the girl with his right arm. He placed his hand on the front of the cage. The girl growled and kicked at his hand, but Ed stayed steady. Then, Max came forward and bit (hard, he might add) one of his fingers. Of course, it was automail, and it only did more damage to her than him.

"Why?" Ed muttered to no-one in particular. The soft word could have been perceived differently, depending on who was listening. Max just so happened to hear the slight tremor in Edward's voice, and froze. Was one of Them actually showing pity? She doubted it. This was probably all an act to catch her off guard, which was NOT going to happen. So Max replied with a bitter tone:

"Why? Because they're all psychotic sadists who try to cover up their torture with 'science'. If you would be so kind as to open this FRIGGIN' CAGE, I would gladly kick all of their asses."

Ed hadn't at first seen what was different about the girl, but after a bit of examination, he could see the slight curve of the back that was not natural. Wings, he realized.

But then, Wings, he thought with shock. These people have attached wings to a teenage girl.

Something inside Ed snapped then, and he lost the last bit of tolerance for the Scientists, if it could really be called that.

Standing up in almost a dazed state, Ed's face was shrouded by the shadows.

"Alright, Mr. Batcheldor, I have seen enough."

Jeb nodded, oblivious to the oncoming storm. "Very well, shall we wrap this tour up?"

"Of course," Ed replied, starting towards the bespeckled scientist. Jeb hardly felt the hard metal fist that slammed directly into his face. He dropped like a rock.

Turning back to the winged girl - Max - Ed was now serious: Major Elric mode.

"Alright, how do I open this thing?" he asked her, not a hint of amusement in his voice.

Surprised by the mood swing, Max raised an eyebrow, which apparently didn't answer the alchemist's question. Scowling, he just clapped his hands and placed them on the cage none too gently. The metal bars fell apart around Max, having been cut off from their places. She quickly stood up, stretching and shaking out her wings, not really caring to question Edward's methods of freeing her. She'd seen weirder.

Ed clapped again, and the metal bars fused together to form long, stave-like poles with sharpened ends: primitive spears. Striding over to the unconscious scientist (his face was a very nice bloody mess now) Ed groped in the man's lab coat pockets until he found a large set of keys. Tossing them to Max, he said, "Free everyone here, and have everyone who can fight protect those who can't. Follow my path, it'll be the safest way out. They have a large truck in the back that can conceal everyone. Go!"

His orders were not in question, Max realized. Shoving down the suspicion behind his character (the chance that the White Coats would actually spend time to do this? Nonexistent. Well, maybe unless this was a stimulation), she nodded and turned to open Fang's cage, who's occupant had been hiding in the shadows the whole time. Handing him the keys, Max grabbed one of the pointed metal poles and opted to shove them in the locks instead.

Ed dashed across the room. He didn't know how fast security would react to the scene in the experiment holding room, and he didn't intend to find out. Completely sealing off one of the two doors in the room with alchemy, he turned back to the cages and simply deconstructed (it was quicker) the few that hadn't been smashed open yet. Moving past the mass of buzz and confusion (but also excitement) he stood square, in front of the remaining door, waiting fearlessly for the security team.

They came fairly quickly. The lupine-human recombinants were bulky and muscular, and looked much more animalistic than human. It hurt Ed to think that the victims in this sick process were being forced to be on the same side as their condemners. His pity shriveled up once one of them snuck behind him and tried to attack a helpless looking experiment, bone-thin and pale. Quickly taken out by a dark haired avian boy, Ed was able to snap back to his problem in front of him.

The loose line of possibly thirty enemies about forty meters away all stared back at him and the mostly cowering group of experiments behind him.

Ed frowned. "All of you. Protect those who can't fight," he told the group at his back without turning away from the erasers. Then, with no coherent indication, Ed sprinted forwards and into the center of the mass of enemies. Someone screamed as there was a glint of silver, blue light, and then red.

Blood. Everywhere. There were screams of pain, horror, and rage. Who their owners were was lost among the chaos of the fight. Edward easily held his own, and only had a few more scratches on his automail, a shallow slash on his thigh, and a small cut on his cheek to show. The fear for their supposed hero soon started fading from the experiments' minds as they saw eraser after eraser drop unconscious/dead on the ground. Well, Ed hoped they weren't dead. He didn't do killing. Only immobilizing and KOs. No killing.

The flurry of limbs and blood was soon over, and Ed was the only one left standing, albeit breathing hard now. He had blood on him, though obviously not his own, and a glistening metal blade dripping blood protruding from his right arm. With a growl, he clapped and deconstructed the remains of his hoodie, which was now ruined, leaving a sleeveless black undershirt underneath, revealing completely the automail arm. Turning back to the shocked experiments, Ed beckoned with his left hand. "Coming?"

Now walking quickly through the slim hallways, trying to ignore the blaring alarms ("Escaped subjects. Unknown location. Contain when sighted." and BLEEP BLEEEP BLEEEEEP, among other assorted annoying alarm sounds), Ed and a few others were knocking out everyone they saw, not on their side. Only one or two of the escapees had been unfortunate enough to be hit by tranquilizers (their owners were dealt with swiftly after), but were easily carried by the rest of the experiments. Ed had made sure that NO ONE was left behind.

They reached the emergency exit easily enough. Once there, they were able to stop for a moment to catch their breath. Most of the weaker experiments were on the verge of collapsing, but they were planning on pushing forwards until they did just that.

Looking over his rag-tag army, Ed watched in fascination as some of them moved and muttered among themselves. There were some that didn't really look human at all, while others you could hardly tell that they were different. There were six avian mixes, all of who seemed to know one another. There was a girl with a pointed nose and sharp features, with whiskers and a small tail. Another boy with an odd colored blue skin and scales with slitted eyes and gills. The differences between them all differed, and Ed had to wonder just how creative (but not in a good way) the Scientists were.

It had been around five or ten minutes now. Having fried the security camera system a few rooms back, there was no way to know where the escapees were, unless someone had seem them go into the small side hallway that led to the emergency exit. But even then, Ed had flawlessly sealed up the wall as to look like there wasn't a door there at all.

When they left the building for the outside world, Ed knew that that was the time when things would get hard. The remaining scientists and security had probably assembled a force to stop the experiments from escaping in the 'yard'. Chances were that they had tranquilizer guns, hell, probably real guns and more disgusting experiments forced to serve Them.

Ed clapped his hands together for attention (which was hard to do without accidentally setting off a transmutation). The group quieted almost instantly and turned to him expectantly. He wasn't going to disappoint.

"Alright," Ed started. "When we go out there, They are probably going to have a force assembled to stop us. I want you all to wait here until it's safe. I'm going to go out first to distract them. Since there's a lot of cars in the lot, I'm going to rig one or two to explode for a better distraction, and to slow down their pursuing force. You all go THEN. There's a truck about one hundred meters away from this exit, to the left. It's not very shielded, so be careful. I want all of you in the back. Max, I'm putting you in charge of driving. From there, I'll make an exit. Don't worry about me, I'll either catch up or manage to hitch on.

"From there, drive until you hit the forest a few miles out. Ditch the truck, and if you can, get it on its side for a better effect. By then, I'll be able to make an underground hideout—disguised, of course—for us to wait out their search parties. Hopefully that won't take too long. Or, if it comes down to it, I can just create a tunnel underground for us to travel through until we hit civilization. Got it?"

There were many questioning looks, but Max's 'Flock' seemed to understand. That was good enough. They could lead.

"Alright, I'm going… now." Ed had opened the door and closed it before some of the experiments could even comprehend what he'd said. He'd even added a small window for Max to know when to go, not that it was really needed. Explosions tended to be loud and noticeable anyways.

The first car exploded after five minutes. A second explosion happened almost simultaneously. Max threw open the door, now able to feel the heat from the explosions, and squinting as she tried to see what was happening, while motioning the other experiments to move. The scientists and remaining erasers were in chaos. They were scrambling around, obviously confused. They didn't even seem to notice the meager experiments heading towards the truck. There was only one guard there, and he was easily dealt with. Max hoped desperately that their escapade would go unnoticed, and so far, it seemed like it would. Fullmetal, as he had told them to call him, was a small blur darting in and out; Scientists and erasers alike were going down left and right.

Ed was having a pretty easy time. He ducked under a sweeping arm, and kicked backwards, snapping the back of the eraser who had attacked him. He punched a Scientist in the face, roundhouse kicked another, then darted away as another car went up in a ball of flame. Damn, those things were flammable! He only rigged one, and all the rest happened in a chain reaction! Ed giggled as he flipped over another eraser.

Once all of the experiments had made their way to the truck, the Flock mingling in, ready to protect if needed, Max herself swiftly made her way over, after a signal from Fang. With him, she made her way to the front of the truck, jumping into the driver's seat, happy to know that some idiot left the keys in the ignition.

Not really knowing how, but grateful none-the-less, Fullmetal had somehow seen that they were ready to go, and had suddenly appeared by the truck, a grin on his face. Max caught his eye just as he turned to the wall and clapped his hands.

The giant hole in the wall was a pretty big indicator, but with such a little force left, the Scientists didn't have enough people to actually pursue, not to mention that all of the vehicles were currently piles of blackened rubble. Fullmetal had outdone himself.

Ed easily hopped on the truck, latching onto a alchemically made handhold next to the driver's door. Ed motioned for the avian girl to open the window as the truck picked up speed. She complied, and the wind started to whip her hair around.

"Alright! When we come to a fork in the road, take the right path!" Ed shouted to be heard over the whistling wind. He swore then, quickly flattening himself closer to the truck as a stray gust of wind almost caused him to lose his grip.

Max nodded, amused, but then thought to ask, "Hey! Are you alright out there?"

Ed scoffed. "Yeah, just keep driving. We can abandon the previous plan of mine—those psychos don't have anything left to pursue us with. The cars were more flammable than I expected."

"Right."

Max barked out a laugh. It was good to be free.

And so there was a daring escape… or not. Apparently it didn't get to be that exciting.

The truck had been forced to stop outside of the closest town. The gas had practically ran out, and now Ed had realized that there were some decisions that needed to be made. Most of the experiments had probably never been in the outside world at all. How were they going to survive…? The rest of the population would probably label them as freaks, and it wasn't like they could be adopted by a loving family, or something like that.

Ed frowned, biting his lip. He was never one to think ahead, and now he was paying for it.

"So…" he said, without any other words to fuel his expected 'speech'.

"What happens now?" a small girl (big eyes and gray fur. A kuala, maybe? ) asked timidly.

"I don't know," Ed answered truthfully. Murmurs of worry started in the experiments.

"I didn't think this far," Ed admitted with a sigh. "The problem is, you guys wouldn't fit in with normal society—No, I'm not trying to be racist, or something. It's just the truth. I don't know where you could go to survive and live a good life."

The heavy silence was uncomfortable, and with the depressing news dropped on them, none of them really knew how to lighten it.

Shyly, the boy with blue skin and gills stepped forward. Yet, he spoke with a determined look, "Then... if there are no other options, I want to die."

Ed froze. His mind went back to Tucker, and the man's chimeras. His wife, his dog, his daughter. No, they weren't allowed to die, nor want to! They couldn't…

Seeing Ed's reaction, the blue boy went on, "If you say that we can't fit in, why try? We don't want to be denounced more than we already have! Think about it," the boy's voice had gotten soft now. "I've gotten everything I could have ever wished for now. I'm away from Hell, and now I'm being treated as an equal, not as a test subject." The boy met Ed's eyes. "Please. I don't want this dream to end. Kill me now so it never has to. Whatever could possibly come after is better than discrimination and torture. I want to die. Please. Kill me."

Ed turned his gaze away with a hurt expression that spoke of past memories. "I—I can't… I can't do that."

"Please."

"I can't…"

"Please!"

"NO! No one else is allowed to die!"

"…Please… I want to die."

"I can't kill! Never… never… especially not someone innocent." Ed sunk to his knees, unable to meet the boy's gaze anymore.

"Then… I will do it myself." The boy slowly pulled out a gun from his person, which he had secretly swiped during the escapade, and pointed it at his head. "I cannot live like this," he said solemnly, seeing Edward's shocked expression. "I have heard small things about someone named 'God' who saves all from evil, and that all good people go to His home after they die. I have faith that I am going there."

"NO!" Ed shouted, jumping to his feet and trying to make it over to the fish-boy. "DON'T—"

The boy pulled the trigger.

The loud bang was horrifying. The boy instantly went limp, the gun - the horrible killing THING - slipped out of the webbed hand, and the boy fell backwards. Ed slid down beside him, trying to cover the bullet wound with one hand, placing his other on the boy's chest to feel his heartbeat. "No… no, no, no…"

The boy managed to turn his glazing eyes to the blonde, and a small smile graced his lips. "Thank… you… for… saving us…" His eyes closed.

The slow beating stopped. The boy was dead.

Ed let out a choked scream and held back the tears.

Shock. The fact that a kid had just killed himself. It couldn't be true… No…

Ed quickly turned his melting golden eyes back to the rest of the experiments, who were all openly staring in shock. A little girl was crying. But apparently, the blue skinned boy had brought up a realization in all of them. A girl walked forward with a determined expression, and leaned down to pick up the gun before Ed could even think to stop her.

"George was right," she said. "You've granted our only wish in life, and now we are too afraid to let this dream end. I apologize, but I'm not strong enough to live like this, either.

"I thank you, I owe you my life, but I'm too much of a coward to dedicate it to you."

Ed gave the girl a horrified, incredulous look. "But—NO!"

The girl pulled the trigger.

And so started the trend. After the first few, Ed found himself too weak to even protest. He acknowledged every single thanks with a shaking nod.

"Thank you."

"Hey, thanks for saving us."

"I'm really, really glad that you saved us. Thank you so much!"

"Thanks."

"I'm eternally grateful. Thank you."

"Thank... you."

They all fell, one by one, eyes glazing over and hearts stopping. They all had the same content smile upon their lips. It was tearing him apart. It hurt—oh so badly—to watch, but he couldn't look away.

Now, it was just the six avians left.

In a sort of daze, Ed asked in almost a joking tone, "So what, you guys actually going to live with all this? And not decide to kill yourselves?"

Max just raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. "We're not exactly the suicidal type. We've been living this life our whole lives, and we're still all okay (well, mostly). Why would we stop now?"

Ed just sighed, transmuting the last grave and gravestone. He was glad. Someone strong… unlike him. He couldn't stop them from committing suicide. But maybe there was someone out there who was strong enough to stop that kind of thing. With a bit of a lightened heart, Ed asked them, "So… what are you going to do?"

Max shrugged. "Eh, what we always do. Keep moving, find somewhere to hang out for a while. I know someone we can go to if it really comes down to that." Turning her back to him without a second thought, she said to her 'Flock', "Alright, let's go!"

They all snapped out their wings, and jumped off the ground, one by one, their wings flapping strongly, showing off their strength and power as they soared higher and higher. They all gave him one last look and a nod, one or two muttering thanks.

When they were all only small dots in the distance, Ed heard a long carrying voice shout something down to him—Max.

"THANKS!"

"—Anks! Nks. Ss…" The word echoed happily, reluctant to die.

A small smile tugged at Ed's lips, and he felt a tiny prick in his mind.

'Thank you.'

He didn't know where it came from, but he had a feeling it was one of the avians. With a sigh, he turned his gaze away from the sky. The same phrase was stuck in his head, countless voices repeating it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

THANK YOU.

Well, at least he felt almost like he deserved it.

"You saved us, thank you."