Chapter 1: Flying and Fights

A/N: Hi everybody! This is my first fanfic, so I'm a little nervous, but here goes! Hope you enjoy it.

This takes place after the third MR book, except the Erasers and Flyboys are still around. Ari is still dead, however.

Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, NCIS, or any of the characters in them. I'm just an innocent fan. Now, on with the show!

Max:

Wind blowing my hair out behind me, fresh cold air shoving its way into my face, wings beating powerfully, flock at my side… yes. There is nothing, nothing, like flying.

Nudge was chattering along happily to no one in particular, Iggy and the Gasman were discussing some sort of explosive, Angel was smoothing Celeste's fur (a pointless task, as the wind just messed it up as soon as she finished, but whatever), and Fang was…being Fang.

And as for me? I was content. We had been able to snag a nap and a decent meal in Richmond, so we were well fed and rested. Best of all, there was no sign of Erasers, Flyboys…

"Hey, what's that?" Gazzy asked, pointing at a dark shape on the horizon.

Speak of the devil.

"Angel, see if they have minds that you can work with," I dictated. After mentally calculating the distance between them and us, I decided that we might be able to outfly them. "Anything, Angel?"

"They've got minds I can get into, but I only feel about fifteen Erasers. That group looks a lot bigger than that."

"Then let's get out of here," I instructed.

With a few beats of my wings, I was zipping along, slowly enough that the kids could keep up, but fast enough to get far, far away from the Erasers and Flyboys.

I thought we were doing great, when another group of mutants and robots came into my field of vision from the opposite direction. I stopped dead in my tracks (well, as much as you can stop dead in your tracks when you're thousands of feet in the air).

"Okay, new plan," I said.

"Does this plan involve bombs?" Gazzy asked excitedly. Iggy looked enthusiastic at the prospect of explosives.

I closed my eyes briefly. Gazzy apparently took that as a yes, shouted "Yeah!" and exchanged a high- five with Iggy.

"Do I want to know how much gunpowder you have on you right now?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"No," the two of them instantly said.

"Max. Plan." Ah, Fang. Such eloquence.

"All right. When they get closer, Angel, do your mind control thing on the ones with brains. For the rest of them, you should-"

"Blow 'em up?" Gasman suggested.

"Gaz, get your brain off the bombs and focus!" I sighed. "Just fight however you can. A few small, carefully placed explosives are fine," I told them. "Just don't get carried away and blow us all up." They nodded eagerly.

I pointed to the group on my left. "Those guys are closer. If we fight the groups on at a time, we stand a better chance. Let's fly toward them."

The flock obeyed me, and we set off in the direction I had pointed. Inside, my mind was whirling. How had the School tracked us down? Had the Erasers become better aerial fighters? We would always be better in the air than they would, but, by Angel's counts, we were way outnumbered. What if…

Stop, I told myself. You've been outnumbered before. You can do this.

Suddenly, there were flying robots everywhere. The Erasers dotted the field, but there were about three times as many Flyboys as Erasers, which meant less for Angel to be able to control.

Cussing under my breath, I swung into action, roundhouse kicking a Flyboy. I then grabbed its head, twisted it, and kicked the back of his neck. Its head all but popped off, and it stopped flying and started falling.

Okay, that was cool.

By the time I had disabled my third Flyboy, Angel had eliminated all the Erasers, leaving about three Flyboys, which we took care of quickly.

"Okay, let's skedaddle," I said, brushing a bit of fur out of Nudge's hair. "I wouldn't mind if we could avoid the other group altogether." We took off in the direction our now pulverized opponents had come from.

Apparently, I had misjudged something, because the next thing I heard was Nudge crying out and Iggy cussing loudly.

I spun around, and an Eraser was practically on top of me. Thankfully, these guys were pretty bad fliers, let alone fighters, and I dropped him pretty quickly.

A Flyboy managed to land a nasty punch to my face, and I felt my nose break. Fighting back some choice swear words, I decapitated him in the same way I had the others. Quickly, I did a check on the flock. Gazzy and Iggy were fiddling with some sort of explosive (Mental note to self: Have chat with Iggy re: corrupting minors). Nudge and Fang were kicking ass against three Flyboys as once, and Angel was…falling.

An Eraser must have missed her mental memo, and he punched her in the head hard enough to knock her unconscious. Limply, her wings drooped, and she sank like a stone. Fang tucked his wings and went after her.

BOOM!

Iggy and the Gasman had apparently worked out the kinks in their bomb, and about twenty-five Flyboys fell out of sight.

Within a few minutes, we had disposed of all of the Flyboys and Erasers. Blood from my broken nose was flowing into my eyes. The Gasman didn't look injured, but was pretty scared. Nudge's arm was bleeding, and Iggy looked like every wing beat hurt.

"We've got to get down," I said, beginning my descent.

"Max?" Gazzy asked, tugging on my arm. "Do you think Angel's okay?"

Angel and Fang! Amazingly, I had forgotten all about them. "I'm sure she is," I responded, trying not to worry him. He forced a smile, and I ruffled his hair as we flew down.

When we reached the ground, Fang was holding an unconscious Angel. Like Gazzy, he didn't seem to be hurt too badly.

"Look, we gotta get out of here," I announced. "If people from the School come to clean up, I don't want to be here. Can everybody walk?"

Looking around our little circle of mutants, I saw three nods-Fang, Nudge, and Gazzy. Iggy was shaking his head and biting his lip.

"What's wrong, Ig?"

"I got kicked in the back. Hard. My whole right side… it feels like it's out of alignment. I'm not sure how I even managed to stay in the air as long as I did."

"Fang, if I carry Angel, can you help Iggy?" He nodded, shifted Angel into my arms, and moved under Iggy's arm as a human crutch.

Carrying Angel, I led the way along back roads toward a patch of trees. At least, I thought they were trees. It's really hard to see with blood in your eyes.

Once we were hidden beneath the trees, I turned around to face the flock. I noticed Gazzy was helping Nudge apply pressure to her arm, which was bleeding horribly.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. She nodded, grimaced, and then shook her head.

Tearing a gauze pad out of the first aid kit I had in my backpack, I mentally berated myself. What kind of leader was I if I couldn't notice when one of my flock was injured?

Focus, Max.

I carefully wiped some of the blood away, revealing four long claw marks, and gasped. The cuts were very deep, one- I fought to keep from throwing up- even down to the bone.

Nudge, meanwhile, wasn't doing much of anything. She had lost a lot of blood, and the wound was still oozing. "Here, hold this on your arm," I said, putting the gauze on her arm. Gazzy held the gauze in place with one hand as he hugged her with his other. "Thanks, Gazzy."

As there was nothing more I could do for Nudge at this point, I turned my attention to the others. Iggy had his shirt off, and Fang was examining his back. He caught my gaze as I approached. He didn't look optimistic and gestured for me to come take a look.

His left side was perfectly normal, but his right made me gasp in horror. The joint where his wing met his back was slightly off, the bones just the tiniest bit offset. That little bit was obviously enough to cause some serious damage, though. Iggy was obviously in pain. Looking closer, I realized that a few of his vertebrae had shifted to the left. The ones surrounding the displaced bones looked strained, as if they were trying to pull the injured ones back into place.

I described to Iggy what had happened, and there was silence. Then, he asked, "Do you think I'll be able to fly again?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "If we could get you to my mom, she might be able to tell you more, but the problem with that would be-"

"Getting me to your mom," he finished. I nodded.

"How's everybody else?" Fang asked.

"Nudge got clawed pretty deep by an Eraser, she's losing blood fast. I haven't checked on Angel yet." I half- turned around. She was still unconscious, and hadn't moved since I laid her down.

Iggy, who, using his hands to manually bend his wings, had managed to retract the wings, and he pulled on his shirt, wincing as he raised his right arm. "How about you, Max?"

"What?"

"Are you hurt? I smell blood."

"Oh." I reached up and gently felt my nose. The bleeding had slowed considerably, if not completely stopped. "I'm fine. Just a bloody nose."

Fang stepped over to my pack and grabbed another gauze pad. Gently escorting me aside, he carefully daubed at my nose letting the gauze absorb my blood.

"Is your eye all right?" he asked. "It's twitching."

"There's blood in it," I told him. "It's fine."

He didn't look convinced, and reached for my face again with the gauze. His left hand carefully but firmly held my eye open, while his right gently cleaned as much of the blood from around my eye as possible, when we heard a twig snap.

A/N: Did you like it? Review, please oh please oh please!