YOU GUYS ROCK! 4 reviews on my first day, I feel so loved. This chapter is kind of a filler, but I needed to get this done with before I could move onto some better stuff. I'd also like to thank PurpleTea88, The Illusionist's Wings04 (who needs some help getting readers), MaeWithWings97 and Maximum-Games, who reviewed the first chapter. I would love some more reviews, even though this chapter kind of sucks and gets off subject towards the end... I also explained the 'Venom' thing because somebody pointed out that it was a kind of weird name...

Next chapter include Iggy and Gazzy blowing crap up~!

I do not own Maximum Ride or Grease! Each goes to it's respective owners :3 I do own this story, though~!

Fang? Wait, wait, rewind and pause.

Had I been in 'Max' mode I would have jumped a foot in the air and yelled "Fang, WTF are you doing here?" However, today – well, for now at least – I was porcelain dolly Maximum Ride and had to answer graciously.

"You must be Nicholas Venom. Pleased to meet you. I suppose in the next few months I'll know you as Erik…?"

"Should I call you Zoey then?" he smirked at me. "I'd prefer to call you Max. Now tell me – what's a tough chick who plays in action and sci-fi movies stuffed into a lace dress?"

"Find me on any other day I'll be wearing sweatpants and a tank-top," I said, dropping the Victorian tone. I knew it was dangerous but I didn't care – I needed to get out of this role.

"I think I'd like to meet you on another day," he smiled. I was about to respond when Lissa came over and threw her arms around his neck.

"Fangy! I missed you, where were you all day?" she pouted. I almost gagged, but then remembered that I was supposed to be 'modest and elegant' so I held myself back. Barely.

"I was hanging out with another model. We were thinking of taking pictures together," he soothed her. My ears pricked with interest at that – did he really want to take pictures with me, or was he saying that to Lissa? "By the way, Maximum, this is my girlfriend Lissa."

"We've already met, although I didn't know you were a couple." Fang didn't seem the type to go well with redheads. Well, she would be wearing a blonde wig for this but nonetheless my point stands.

Much more boring niceties followed, including listening to Lissa rant about the high cost of proper stockings. I talked about the CSM with Brigid for a while, who was considering joining. The CSM is a humanitarian group founded by Mrs Martinez – Dr Martinez, sorry. It's about stopping pollution and such, and I was a member – both as Maximum Ride and Maxine Walker.

"Maximum? Maximum!" God, what is with me today? I need to get more sleep, literally. My head is up there with the birdies, flapping away and cawing about fish and such.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I asked you, who's your favorite singer?"

"My Chemical Romance," I answered without thinking. Brigid blinked at me, then smiled. I noticed Fang turn his head slightly towards me while listening to Lissa go on about glasses versus contact lenses.

"Oh. That's…" It was obvious that Dweyer had expected something like Katy Perry or something. "I like Katy Perry and Justin Bieber," she said, smiling. I knew it!

"Ohmigosh, I love them too!" Nudge bounced over and started chattering. There goes delicate and modest. I thought wryly.

It was already 7:30 and nowhere near ending. I politely asked James if he could lend me a pen, which he did, and I scribbled a note to Angel on a napkin telling her I needed to get the hell out of there. I dumped the bonnet and shoes behind a tree (already preparing myself for the rant of the century by Nudge) and sneakily scaled one of those big leafy trees, can't remember the name, which stood near the back of the garden. My moment of stealth would have been complete if, on the other side of the wall, I hadn't jumped down right in front of a reporter.

"Maximum!" he said, jumping up and preparing his camera. I groaned. "Can you explain what happened here?"

"Well, I got tired of this scene and since I knew I wouldn't be able to get out I tried to sneak, which failed. Do you Mind keeping this quiet? Thanks…" I smiled and walked down the street, barefoot in just my stockings, totally calm and collected. Trust me though – on the inside I was swearing like a sailor. Unfortunately, I have younger fans so I can hardly be seen using that kind of language on camera. Wouldn't want to get sued by some overprotective mother, would I?

I trudged my way home, sticking to the backstreets and such so not to bring too much attention to myself. Checking nobody was around; I unlocked the door and let myself in. Once I was inside and safe, I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. Being a role is so exhausting. Playing the Porcelain Doll is hard enough, but then getting seen by a reporter? Today SUCKED. With a capital – hell, in caps lock! The only highlight was meeting Fang… who, it turns out, also has a celebrity persona. Wonder where this will lead… In the meantime, I'm too busy being me again to care. I greeted Anne and sat down at the island counter in the kitchen, helping myself to some hot chocolate. She had me explain what happened, and then smiled and ruffled my hair.

"It's a shame you were caught, and I think you could have stayed, but I would have done the same thing." She winked at me and put her coat on. "I was just about to head to the office to pick up some files, do you mind watching the boys for me?"

"Of course not – wouldn't want Gazzy to blow anything up." THIS IS NOT EXAGGERATION. My little brother – half-brother – Zephyr can make a bomb out of just about anything. Ari, thankfully, isn't as chaotic but they can be quite a handful.

"BOYS! COME DOWN HERE," I called, rummaging through the fridge. Some suspicious 'thunk's and a muffled cry of "No, not there, hide it!" later, the twins were sitting around the table with me. The Gasman looks just like Anne, with big blue eyes and fluffy blonde hair, more often than not spiky and such (probably all the electricity this kid messes with). Ari is more like Jeb, but unique in his own way. He has brown eyes, like I do, and his hair is kind of a russet-brown color. It's like, wolf colored. He always gets really proud and happy whenever someone points it out so sometimes we call him Wolfie to cheer him up. Or, contrariwise, Fido, to piss him off.

"Okay, Anne has gone to the office to get something, so I'll find something for you to eat and then you can go back and play upstairs. But later, I am going to search your room and if I find ANYTHING related to bombs or explosions, you're both dead meat. Got that?"

"Yes!" Gazzy rushed, mental cogs working out new hiding places for his projects.

"Um… Max?" Ari looked up at me thoughtfully.

"Yeah, what is it Wolfie?" He smiled then regained that solemn face.

"You aren't cooking... Are you?"

Gazzy's face turned white. "Oh God, please say we have frozen pizza," he prayed. I rolled my eyes – so what if I'm not a good cook? It hardly matters; I mean, Hot Pockets exist. In fact, Hot Pockets is exactly what the three of us ate, and I felt totally at peace. Being with my family is when I'm happiest, followed closely by being on a set, and being with friends. After making sure they had put their dishes in the dishwasher and that nobody was sneaking any soda after dinner, I climbed up to my room and collapsed on my bed. My iPod was on my nightstand, so I reached over for it and listened to music for I don't know how long, until Anne and Jeb came back. Jeb came and sat next to me for a bit, and then he kissed the top of my head and left. The Jebster is cool and all, and he's a good dad, but he's never home. He basically lives at the CSM Headquarters, where he works. I had barely done anything today – just meet someone new and get dressed up for Angel – but I felt as if I had walked a thousand miles. I didn't even bother changing out of my dress and just passed out fully dressed.

I dreamt that I was just finishing a scene on a movie set; although I can't remember the movie I was in. I laughed and threw a bottle playfully at a redheaded woman, before somebody called my name – not Maximum Ride, but Maxine Walker. I turned around, and saw the dark pools that were Fang's eyes. Then they became real pools of black water and I fell in them. I tried to swim up, but the frilly clothes I was wearing were bringing me down. Just when I was starting to get tunnel vision and though I was going to drown, I was woken by my alarm clock.

"Dude… dream much?" I groaned and rolled over, hitting the snooze button. For future reference: I am not at all a morning person. I was in a horrible mood – if it were a cartoon I would have had a black storm cloud over my head as I showered and got dressed. I had drama today – Saturday, for those who might be wondering with a "What? Shouldn't most people be in school?" face. I dressed in the same clothes I had worn to the park yesterday – today was a lazy day for Maximum. Er, Maxine. I was dressed and out – skating towards the Drama Centre all while practicing my lines. With the Drama Centre we're doing Grease, and I got the main role (again), Sandy. Some of the other kids at the Centre were starting to resent me for always getting the lead roles, jealous losers. In the back of my head, I was hoping that there wouldn't be some cliché, 'New Kid – oh look it's Fang!' thing at Drama, because that would be awkward.

I arrived at Rehearsal just in the nick of time, as per usual. JJ and Ella were already there, practicing their parts – Ella got Rizzo and JJ got some cheerleader. Marita, the woman who runs the whole shindig, did a run-through of the play to make sure we all knew what it was about, gave a little info on the characters and how we should act, and set us into groups for the different parts. The guys were on the stage with Renaldo, Marita's boyfriend, learning the Grease Lightning dance. We, on the other hand, were learning some of the musical numbers, although I would much rather have been dancing with the guys. Everything was going well, and there was no cliché movie crap! Yea! Towards the end of the session, the doors opened to show a thunderstorm (it had started raining?), and two totally soaked people came in. Can you guess who they are…? No…? Oh c'mon, it's not hard! If you have at least two brain cells in your head and you realized it would be Fang and that James Jeffson guy, well then you were correct!

Why does this keep happening to me?

Marita was all like, "Oh, you made it, are you okay, did you get lost," yadda yadda yadda, and then introduced them as two new kids who had come to the audition after we all left, and were busy last week but that she hoped we would be nice to them bla bla bla, and all the while I was mentally head-slamming, going WHY? WHY? WHY?

I was totally regretting being friends with such nice people. Ella and JJ were all like, "Oh, we should hang out with the new kids!" It turns out that James – or as he prefers to be called, Iggy – was on the same soccer team as JJ's older brother, Dylan. Iggy and Fang, otherwise known as The Bane of My Existence or Nick Venaim (pronounced Venom, which probably gave the 'Nick Venom' thing) were best friends and are the popular kids at Lerner Day and Night School. Thus being said, returning to the current scene which is a diner not far from the Centre where we were all hanging out and, as JJ puts it, "Catching up with an acquaintance and possibly making a new friend". I had looked at Ella and mouthed the words 'Shoot Me' at her, which made her laugh.

"Fancy meeting you here, stranger," I said to Fang with a smile. Even though I was kind of nervous – and I don't even freaking know why! – I just stayed myself, no act.

"I seem to be seeing you everywhere," he said with a smirk. I froze. Did he know it was me at Angel's house yesterday? "You aren't going to spill coffee on me today, are you?"

"I've already exceeded this weeks limit, although I can work overtime if you want," I teased, sipping my chocolate milkshake.

"It heartens me you'd do that for someone who you met yesterday."

I laughed and explained my goof from yesterday to Ella and JJ, and listened to them chatter about soccer to Iggy. I was totally zoning out – since when am I this distracted? Generally I'm really nervy, aware about all my surroundings. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and pulled it out. Text from Jeb: "Come home please, Ari and Zephyr need watching". I groaned.

"Sorry guys, pyromaniac brothers to babysit. Nice meeting you Iggy, and seeing you again Fang." I got ready to leave, glad to get away, when Ella chirped, "Don't worry, we'll come with, to keep you company!"

"No really, you don't need –"

"Nah, we'll come! Jeb would want the help, right?"

"It's settled, we'll all go to Max's house!" Iggy cheered. I sighed and forced a smile.

"Cool, the more the merrier! Lets go." I put a 5-dollar-bill on the table and left, holding my skateboard under my arm since I was now encumbered with pedestrians. As we walked, Fang leaned over and whispered in my ear, "You might want to know that Iggy is a total pyro. He got kicked out of his last school for blowing up the teachers lab."

Just my freaking luck.