What's up everyone? I wrote a few ways for this chapter to start off, but I finally decided to do it this way. Well, you know what to do, read and review!

Disclaimer: Seriously, If I owned Maximum Ride, I wouldn't be skipping school to write this!

Chapter One : Welcome to the Freak Fest

Thunderous applause shook the domed building. The audience, which was seated along the back edge of the auditorium, then grew quiet.

The security guards stationed at every entrance and exit locked the doors and stood in front of them, making sure that no one else got in, and more importantly, that no one got out.

"And now, Freak Festival Amusement Park is pleased to bring you the amazing, indestructible, one-of-a-kind, beautiful, and the star of the show, Maximum Ride!" the cheerful announcer said over the loudspeakers. More cheering erupted in the crowd.

The audience went dead silent again as a girl who appeared to be fifteen walked on to the stage. She was pretty, but appeared to be normal otherwise. In her 'Come to the Freak Fest!' T-shirt and comfortable worn jeans, she stood in the center of the stage, her expression blank, lifeless, as if she were under some sort of trance. Her straight brown and blond hair laid on her head, perfectly in place. She wore minimal makeup, but was beautiful all the same. Her brown eyes stared straight ahead, staring off at a distant, faraway, place.

There was muffled coughs and hushed whispering in the audience now.

"Is this some kind of joke?" someone scoffed loudly in the large audience. "Yeah, I want my money back! I came to see…" another began, but stopped short.

A woman with dark brown hair pulled back in a slick ponytail and brown eyes much like Max's walked on to the stage now. Around her neck was a slim silver whistle like the ones that seal and dolphin trainers wear. She wore a long white lab coat.

The woman blew the whistle and the pretty girl at the front of the stage shifted on her feet. The audience gasped in astonishment.

The girl had opened her wings. Her wings were white at the top and brown at the tips and were even more breathtaking that she was. With an eight foot wingspan, she took up over half the stage.

The spotlight shown down on the girl. The woman in the lab coat blew the whistle for two short tweets and Max ran toward the audience. The people in the audience screamed and cried out in alarm even though there was an invisible electric current protecting them from the performers.

Max swooped and preformed various difficult, daredevil tricks in the air.

"Hello everyone, I am Dr. Martinez; Max's trainer. And I think that you know that this," Dr. Martinez paused as Max swooped as close to the audience as close as the electric barrier would allow. The spectators gasped and snapped pictures of Max with their cameras and cell phones.

Max smiled brightly and continued to zoom around the stadium, the spotlight reflecting off of her magnificent wings.

"This is Maximum Ride!" Dr. Martinez finished as Max narrowly soared in corkscrews. Cameras flashed.

Dr. Martinez blew the whistle in four short notes and Max obediently flew down and gracefully landed next to Dr. Martinez. Max let her wings out loosely, so that the audience could still see her amazing wings. After all, that is what they were there for.

"Max may look like she can't lift much, but she is able to lift over one hundred and fifty pounds!" Dr. Martinez exclaimed. A golf cart loaded with weights chugged on to the stage, driven by a Freak Fest employee. He parked the car by Max and hurried backstage.

Dr. Martinez blew one short and two long notes on her whistle and Max reached down to the golf cart. Without a word or even a grunt, she lifted the heavy golf cart above her head.

"Max cannot understand English, since she is not human, as you might have noticed." Dr. Martinez said. The audience chuckled. "Max understands what the whistle means, but communicates with chirps, like a bird."

Dr. Martinez clicked a button on a remote that she had in her pocket and the chirping of a robin echoed through the building on a loudspeaker. Max's ears peked up and she whistled back in a series of chirps and whistles. This happened a few more times with various types of bird calls over the loudspeakers and Max replying with various chirps and whistles.

gave various facts about Max, like her anatomy and her habits and features that made her un-human and Max displayed them for the audience to see. The audience watched quietly; fascinated.

Finally, Dr. Martinez tweeted the whistle six times and Max took off to the air to do her final, gravity defying tricks that she had been taught. The audience fawned over her more as they took her picture. "Max! Max! Max!" they chanted. Max hovered over the stage and waved to the spectators. The spectaters cheered and the children in the audience waved back. Max blew kisses as the audience left.

"Be sure to buy Maximum Ride suvineers in the gift shop and come back to see Maximum Ride soon!" A cheerful recording said over the loudspeakers.

After the last of the audience left through the doors, Max landed and pulled her wings in through the slits in her T-shirt.

"Good Max. You did great! I'll make sure that you get extra food rations tonight." Dr. Martinez said softly. Max looked at Dr. Martinez uncomprehendingly. She didn't understand anything that Dr. Martinez said, but knew that the tone of her voice that she was pleased. Dr. Martiez then waved in two burly guards. One of them, was Ari. Ari was the head of 'creature discipline and security' meaning that he could beat Max and the other mutant creatures featured at Freak Fest amusement park whenever he wanted to.

Max bared her teeth at Ari. She hated him. He liket to beat her especially. It was one of his hobbies.

"Not You. Can't you send some other beefy blockhead to escort Max back to the Aviatory?" Dr. Martinez said flatly. Ari grinned dryly.

"It's not like she cares. She's too stupid to know her own name. Aren't you?" Ari sneered at Max. She snapped her teeth in his direction, growling softly.

"See? She's just another stupid animal. And be careful what you say to me Ms. Martinez, or my father could have you scooping crap instead." Ari finished.

Dr. Martinez clipped the handcuffs on Max's wrists. They would give her a jolt of one thousand volts if she tried to escape.

Max's blank, uncomprehending stare turned into what appeared to be a look of loathing.

Max hated it here. She hated it all. She couldn't understand anything or anyone. Why was she treated this way. After a few brutal beatings, she did everything that they asked of her. She did tricks, let the other 'whitecoats' or people in the white lab coats that worked there take her feathers to make souvenirs for the tourists.

What had she done to dserve this? Max was led down a few hallways and then was shoved into the Aviatory.

The Aviatory was a large, Plexiglas dome that was too thick for Max to break and escape, but it was crystal clear and Max could see the clear blue sky. The dome reached up really high so that Max could fly around. There was real grass, trees, a pool of water, even a waterfall. Along the outside edge of the dome was a hallway where tourists could look through and peer at Max whenever she was in there, except until after closing time. Even now, tourists tapped on the glass, competing for Max's attention so they could snap her picture. Ari took off Max's handcuffs and roughly shoved her out into the Aviatory.

Since Max was the star of the show, she got a huge enclosure, and even mare food. She got the most attention. But she was miserable, because she was always alone. There were no other bird-kid mutants in the park. There were packs of human-wolf hybrids, there were aquatic, mutants, and even stranger things.

But there was always more than one of them. Even though this place was more awful for them, they were never alone. Mx had seen two children with scales huddled together as she was brusquely 'escorted' past their exibit. They had a tiny enclosure, and were dirty, but they had each other. One was a girl, like she was, but another was a male.

She wanted company, more than anything, even if it meant her getting less food, a smaller enclosure, no show, and getting beat by Ari every day.

Her bare feet ran across the cool, green grass as she took off into the air. There were blinding camera flashes coming from the tourists spying on her, but she was used to it. She flew to the top of her favorite tree and laid back staring at strange metal things and birds gliding across the sky, free.

Free to do what they wanted whenever they wanted. Max hoped that one day, the amusement Park would finally be finished with her and wouldn't need her anymore, then set her free. Then she could be a tourist visiting everywhere, whenever she wanted.

The idea was thrilling to her. She fell asleep, waiting for the day that would never come.

She didn't know that at least one of her wishes was about to come true, but for all the wrong reasons. Greedy, lustful reasons. Max's life as the star of the show was about to be rocked to pieces.

So, yeah. Review or I won't update. It will get better, let mme tell you. Who knows, maybe Fang will show up in the next chapter. Only then can we have some REAL fax! REVIEW!