"This way, please," a pompous-looking guy with glasses gestured to some waiting room to his left. Max gave him a deadpanning look as she and the flock trudge into yet another waiting room.

"WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET INSIDE?!" Nudge shrieked when they were alone. "WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR, LIKE, THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND HOURS! AGH!"

As if on cue, the door opened and Mr. Pompous Glasses stepped inside. "Just a check," he said, well, pompously. "You are Maxine Ride? And this is your family?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Max sighed. "Not Maxine. Just Max. Max for Maximum, not Maxine."

Mr. Glasses Man ignored her. "Have you gotten everything in check? Nothing missing? You have your script?"

Max clenched her teeth, trying not to lose her temper. "YES."

Mr. Pompous Old Fool With Glasses nodded formally as another man opened the door. "How are things, Mister Parker?" he asked the new man. Parker shook his head, sighing.

"Not good. Mister Kirkland and Mister Bonnefoy are in a fistfight again, and instead of trying to break them up, Mister Jones is encouraging them. Mister Vargas is currently eating pasta and Mister Kohler has, unfortunately, brought his axe to the meeting."

Wait-what? Why was a government official allowed to bring an axe? And why are two physically fighting? Max had prepared herself for the worst-crazy old fools who didn't believe a words children said-but this was in a different league. These government officials were physical.

"And in the other meeting room?" Mr. I'm So Full Of Myself asked.

Max saw that Parker was now as white as sheet. "I... dare not go in," Parker mumbled, sweating. Max wondered what the other government officials were like to make this tough-looking guy not even dare to go into the meeting room.

"Hey!" Max interrupted. "We're still here you know! We've been waiting for about an hour already so GET US IN ALREADY!"

Parker sighed. "Okay. Miss-?"

"Max. Max Ride."

"Okay, Miss Ride. We'll take our chances and go into the first meeting room. We can try to get Mister Beilschmdit to quiet them down," he nodded at Max as if she was an actual business woman, and not just a teenager. Max decided she liked him.

Parker gestured for her and the flock to follow him and he slowly pushed open the door to the room labelled, "WORLD MEETING ROOM 1". Once the door was an inch open, Max could heard people screaming on the inside.

Max briefly wondered if those guys were crazy.

Once the door was fully open, Max found herself face-to-face with a cute blonde girl about her age, smiling at her. She wore a magenta velvet dress which had a collar and a bow and everything, and she had a purple ribbon in her hair.

"Good afternoon, Mister Parker," she smiled at the man. "Are these the people who vill talk about Global Warming today?"

Parker smiled warmly at the girl. "Yes, Miss Zwingli. You may want to introduce yourself to them. This is Max Ride and her family."

The blonde girl smiled angelically at Max and the flock, and Max suddenly thought that she was like an older Angel- adorable, innocent, hard to resist. "My name is Lilli Zwingli. And that is my big bruder, Vash," she pointed to a stoic, green-eyed man who was watching her every movement.

"Mister Alfred is over there," Lilli pointed to a man who looked about nineteen. Max's first thought- He looks too young to be a government official! But then she realized that maybe the man only looked young.

Parker nodded at Lilli and smiled at her again before leading the group over to Alfred, who was eating a hamburger. "Yo, dude, whatsup?" he greeted, flashing Parker a bright smile.

"Oh! These are the speakers who are gonna talk about global warming? Cool! You know, I was thinking of making a robot that can suck up all the sea water and bring it to other places like a hero so the places that are flooded won't be flooded and the places that have drought won't have drought! Or maybe, if everyone is willing, we could boycott the stupid Global Warming until it goes away! Or maybe if some places are flooded we can build a superhuman robot there to save them and be the hero! Or-"

Geez, that guy had a motor-mouth worse than Nudge's. And that was saying a LOT.

Fang interrupted Alfred, "Can you introduce us to the rest of the government officials?"

Alfred stared at him, then laughed. "But I don't know your names yet!"

"I'm Max," said person sighed. "He's Fang, and that's Iggy, and the one next to him is the Gasman-also known as 'Gazzy'-and that girl beside him is Nudge, and the small six-year-old girl is Angel. "

"HAHAHA~ I knew that! The Hero knows everyone's names!" Alfred laughed annoyingly.

Max facepalmed and if she was an anime character, she was sure she would be sweatdropping.

Alfred grinned and flashed us a thumbs-up. He leapt onto the raised platform and tapped the microphone to make sure it was working. When it was, he yelled into it. "ATTENTION EVERYONE! THE HERO WANTS TO SPEAK!"

Everyone ignored him. One of the blonde guys with spiky hair was being strangled by another one, and a brunette woman was currently hitting an albino on the head with a... frying pan?

"FINE!" Alfred yelled crossly as Parker sighed and walked away, shaking his head. "I'M GETTING LUDDY!"

He stomped off.

Max turned to the Flock. Gazzy and Iggy were whispering among each other and were smirking, Angel looked confused, Fang looked Fanglike and Nudge was... weird. "Max!" she whispered to her. "These guys are HOT!"

Max shook her head and facepalmed again.

Alfred came back with a very buff blonde man who had a serious look on his face and a childish-looking brunette man with a weird curl. The brunette was hanging off the buff guy.

"Guten Tag," the blonde said, sounding as serious as he looked. "I am Ludwig Beilschmdit."

Max nodded at him in greeting. Finally, someone sane!

"Does it always take a lot to get the meetings started?" she asked. Ludwig nodded and stepped onto the raised platform and yelled into the microphone. "EVERYBODY! SHUT UP!"

Max and the rest of the flock winced at his volume. He was just so loud!

"I mean, BE QUIET!"

There was total silence.

Grinning, Alfred stepped up and introduced the flock to everyone.

Max took a deep breath, telling herself to keep it together, and she took Alfred's place in the raised platform. Nervously tapping the microphone to test it, she opened her mouth and began to speak.

"So, um, I'm Maximum Ride. And these people are my family. And, um, we're here to talk about Global Warming."

So it wasn't the best start ever. But Max didn't exactly care.

"Global Warming isn't the best thing in the world. It's making the sea levels rise. Ice in Antarctica and in the Artic are melting. Places are getting flooded. And, at the same time, some places are suffering from droughts. Plants and animals are dying every few minutes, and do you know who is causing all this distruction? Humans. That's right, we are. We've messed up the world. And now we have to fix it."

Max took another breath and continued on, talking about saving electricity, pollution, toxic waste, fossil fuels blah blah blah when, suddenly, the brunette man from earlier raised his hand.

"Er- yes?" Max called on him, because that was what the man wanted her to do. She noticed the man's eyes were shut.

"PASTA~" the man cheered, his arm outstretching.

Max didn't know how to respond to that.

She didn't have to. At that moment, the door was knocked off its hinges.