le disclaimer: I don't own Max ride. You don't own max ride. Lets go clubbin.

Strangers- A Maximum Ride Story

by: stripedpolkadots

Chapter 1: It begins

BOOM!

Gazzy and Iggy slapped hands, laughing maniacally. I rolled my eyes, but a small giggle escaped my lips. Fang shot me a small smirk and I grinned back. I turned to the rest of my flock.

"Kay guys, we're headed for St. Petersburg. Do we need to take a pit-stop before we start?"

Total stuck his head out of the carrier on Iggy's chest (yeah, it's a baby carrier, but what the blind guy doesn't know won't hurt him!).

"St. Petersburg? While we're there we simply must visit the Hermitage, no doubt about it. Oh, and we can't miss the Winter Palace! And there's the--"

I cut him off. "Yeah sure Total. Angel? Gazzy? You good?" They nodded and I turned to Nudge. In the past few months Nudge had decided that she was tired of being one of the "little kids". Personally, I thought she was just tired of going to sleep at 9 o'clock, but Fang convinced me to hear her out. We all decided to pick birthdays, and Nudge picked Christmas (in her own words 'so none of you better ever forget'), putting her at 12 and a half, Angel chose Easter, making her 7, Iggy had decided on New Years, making him 14 (15 in a month and a half) , Gazzy had chosen Chinese New Year, making him 9 in 2 months, Fang went with Guy Fawkes day (don't ask), making him 15, same as me-- I chose 4th of July-- corny I know.

But I'm getting off track. Back to Nudge. In an attempt to prove herself, she demanded the right to keep watch. I agreed for only two reasons: 1. She threatened to cut my hair in my sleep. 2. Those bambi eyes! Get me every time!

So I let her "keep watch", I.e, I made sure either me, Fang, or Iggy was sleeping with one eye open. This went on for about two or three months before I finally decided she could take a solo watch. Not that she knew she hadn't been doing that already, but that's not the point.

"Max, hey Max, I'm actually kinda hungry. Hey do you think they have McDonald's here? Actually, I'm kinda in the mood for El Pollo Loco… mmm… the crazy chicken…Hey Max are we gonna stop to eat? Maybe we can--" Iggy slapped a hand over Nudge's mouth, and no one bothered to ask him how he knew where to aim. We were kind of used to it by now.

I shrugged. "I don't really know what kind of food they have in Russia Nudge. I've never actually--"

"Max!"

The shock in Fang's voice instantly put me on alert. Fang is not easily shocked. I mean, none of us are (hello… 2% BIRD?), but especially not Fang. I turned, as did the rest of the flock. Nudge gasped. "Woah. W-o-o-a-a-a-h-h-h…. I'm guessing this means no Pollo Loco?"

I considered the approaching cloud of flyboys. From what I could see, there was about two or three hundred of them. I turned to Fang. He narrowed his eyes. Quickly I looked over the rest of my flock. We had just fought our way out an Itex facility deep in Russia's frozen countryside, and it had not been an easy battle, but we had been dumb enough to think it was our last. For the past year, after we busted out of the stupid Lerner school, we had been infiltrating and destroying Itex headquarters around the world. Other than the Russian front, all other Itex branches were now being investigated by the FBI and Interpol. We had honestly thought it was over.

"Report!"

"Burned my hand! But it was so worth it!" Gazzy.
"I'm fine… my hair smells funny, and I got a cut on my cheek!" Angel.
"Ugh man, my shoulders being floppy! Gross! I can stick my finger in my shoulder socket- oh cripes that hurts! Fuh-reaking OW! Uh… just that and a few scrapes… man just look at my arm flop! That is so-" Nudge… dislocated shoulder…
"I juth buthed my lip… nobothy laff okay? And I think I thiced my eyebrow…" Iggy.

"Fang?"
He gave me a quick look, but didn't say anything.

"Nothing?"

He shrugged.

I was about to ask further, when Nudge interrupted.

"Eh… Max? It doesn't hurt that bad, but when the flyboys get here I'd like to have use of both arms…"

I sighed, and over my shoulder, shot Iggy a quick order. "Iggy, pop Nudge's arm back in."

I heard the sick squelching sound and the muffled squeal that meant the job was done.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw my baby using the sleeve of her pink jacket to wipe blood of her cheek. My heart twinged and I felt myself growing angrier. Here was a seven year old girl, about to ripped apart by freaking--

Max, calm down. We can do this- we've done it before, remember?

I grinned sheepishly and shot Angel a quick wink. I looked behind us and saw that the flyboys were gaining. We were flying as fast as we could (or at least they were-- I could go much, much faster), but I knew the exhaustion would catch up soon enough. We needed to save the energy we had now. I came to an abrupt stop, and saw the rest of the flock stop with me. It was when I glanced at Fang that I saw it. My eyes narrowed and quickly, before he even knew what I was doing, I had yanked his shirt halfway up his side.

I gasped, but before I could do more Fang pushed my away and pulled his shirt down.

"It's nothing." He muttered, looking at the ground.

In my eyes all I saw was the torn flesh, blood oozing down into the shirt Fang has obviously placed there as a makeshift band-aid. The wound began a few inches from his belly button, then traveled up his side to above where I had lifted the shirt. It was fairly deep and side was swollen, I suspected a few broken rib bones to go along with the gash.

"Nothing?", I hissed glaring at him. "You think that's NOTHING?! Fang--"

MAX!

I glanced up to see the flyboys only a few thousand feet away. I cleared my mind of the fury I was feeling towards Fang and directed it at the flyboys.

You know all those kung fu movies that tell you that getting angry never helps, and only clouds your mind?

Bull.

I could tell the rest of the flock felt that way as well. Angel had an uncharacteristically mean look on her face and Gazzy was snarling. Nudge was muttering directions and details to a cold looking Iggy while simultaneously swinging both arms and clenching and unclenching her fists.

My gaze slid over to Fang and I unintentionally flinched. The look on his face was hard, and mean, and… dangerous. He had one corner of his lip pulled up, but other than that, his face was expressionless. As a drifted away from him to get into position, I hissed, for his ears only, "We'll talk about this tonight."

Eyeing the quickly approaching cloud, I made a split second decision on our defensive positions.

"New pattern!"

The flock, save for Fang, looked at me, confused. I ignored the looks. "Gazzy stay close to Fang. Drop bombs ONLY when you can see every member of the flock is out of the way. Nudge, I want you and Iggy to fly high and hit them from the top. Nudge, knock as many as you can out of the sky --go for their wings-- and direct Iggy. Iggy, no bombs this time. Angel, you come with me. These are flyboys; your mind control doesn't work. You're going to be my backup, and you're also going to hold Total. Can you do that? All of you?"

They nodded, confused, when finally Nudge asked what they were all wondering. "Whats with the changes? Why are we switching? How come-"

I interrupted. "We're not fighting out here. Its to open. We're leading them… there." The flock looked to where I was pointing: a small space, maybe have a mile wide between two large mountains. The lack of space would be a definite disadvantage towards the much larger flyboys. The flock turned to me, grins on there faces.

"You ready?"

Nods, and knuckles cracking.

"Then lets go!"

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alrighty then! it was kinda short, but i just wanna little opinon... so the rest of them wont be that short... i think. tell me what you think about it! puh-leaze?! how desperate. but im ok with looking desperate... if it gets me reveiws... :)

-stripedpolkadots

Wah wah wah wah (your a jerk)
Why you trippin I ain't even do nothin(your a jerk)
I'm a jerk you ain't neva lie
But aye do me a favor call me jerk one more time(your a jerk!)
I know