Not Too Late by Maiyri-Omega

Too Late.

Author:Maiyri, AKA RStarcat

Rating:T

Warnings:Irony? Violence, 'adult themes', fun poke-age.

Disclaimer:Don't own this lovely piece of work. Wait, yes I do! I just don't own the Flock!

Summary:Max is facing the worst challenge yet. Worse that Erasers. Worse than the School. Worse than Jeb's unclean underwear.

Author's Notes:I'm crazy, if you hadn't noticed. I mean, who writes something like this!

Set After Book Two.

Repost Notes! Yay: Hello and welcome to the reposted and now edited version of Not Too Late. One of the 'original parodies' of the Maximum Ride Fandom that achieved rather a large response when first posted. Then it got deleted. Now it's being reposted.

--

Part the First

It was a dark and stormy night. No actually, it wasn't. It was daytime, not that you could tell because of all the cloud and rain and howling wind. So, the sky resembled that of a dark and stormy night, but it was actually a dark and stormy day.

The Flock were flying away from Itex as fast as possible. Well, actually they weren't flying…more…being buffeted around by aforementioned howling wind, which was a headwind by the way. Which meant, if you knew about these things, that they were actually headed back towards Itex, being blown backwards, that is.

With such a setting, so dark and hopeless, of course somebody mysterious and/or evil has to show up. It's like an unwritten law or something.

"I've finally found you!" chimed a beautiful voice, right on cue.

Fang, being the lead male role in the story noticed at once that it was the most beautiful voice he'd ever heard. Of course, it made Max, being the canon lead female, sound like the illegitimate child of a harpy and a thirty-year-old horse with severe bronchitis.

Fang spun around gracefully in midair, seemingly unaffected by the wind. The sight that met his eyes was surely the most beautiful thing that had ever graced the universe. And of course, the mysterious (and possibly evil) stranger made Max look like that illegitimate HarpyHorse cross she supposedly sounded like.

Somehow, because book physics shows a strong relationship to movie physics, over the howling wind, the mysterious (and yadda yadda) stranger made herself heard. "Please land!" she called.

Angel, having the totally kickass mind-powers that she did, realised with a start that the girl was like her, a Telepath, although much more advanced, obviously.

One by one, the flock came in to land on the Telepathic girl's orders (although why they'd land in the middle of nowhere and lose their flight advantage to talk to a telepathic stranger after just escaping hell on earth is beyond the Author. She asks that you ignore this gaping plothole). The girl landed gracefully, somehow ignoring the wind, then Fang and the younger flock followed. Max scouted the trees quickly, instinct telling her something was wrong. Nothing immediate caught her eye, so she swooped in to land. A blast of wind seemingly came out of nowhere, and Max landed hard.

In the mud.

Face first.

Nudge hurriedly pulled Max to her feet, as it never looked god when the leader was gasping on the ground like a fish. The Girl, meanwhile, smoothed her silvery figure-hugging dress and checked her fine leather boots for any of the mud spray from Max's…landing.

"Oh! I'm so glad I found you finally!" gushed the girl once everyone had turned to her again. "I've been looking for you everywhere since I escaped from The University in Colorado!" The Flock met this statement with disbelieving looks. There was another place like the School? In Colorado of all places?

Then something clicked in the leader of the Flock's mind. Max's instincts had been telling her to run as far away as possible, but she had to be sure. She glanced at Fang and Iggy, knowing both boys would be her best indicator…

Fang strode forwards across the grass, and took both of the girl's slender, fine-boned hands in his own. Somehow he didn't look like a bedraggled mess, like she and Nudge did, Max realized. Oh, no. It's already too late! She thought, It's already started! The way he's looking at her!

"Well it looks like you found us," Fang said, his deep, manly voice husky with emotion. "I missed you so much, I've thought about you every day since they took you from me Eleanora-Kristiana."

The girl's face lit up like the full moon, and she blushed. Overall, the effect should have been like a big red round thing, but it wasn't, much to Max's disgust. The girl, Eleanora-Kristiana, looked gorgeous while blushing, and she threw herself gracefully into Fang's waiting arms. "Oh Fangie, I've missed you too!" She cried.

"Oh! Please no, not in front of the children!" muttered Max to herself as the dark haired boy swept whatsername up into a passionate kiss. She just couldn't look. Max closed her eyes in horror, but found that she couldn't keep them closed. It was like watching a train crash, horrifying, but fascinating too.

There it was, unfortunately, the proof. But it couldn't be true, where did this come from! Fang, not him…he seemed so…stonewall-ish. Why didn't he just talk to her?

Max heard Nudge gag beside her. She turned to look at the younger girl, repressing her own urge to vomit, despair and anger trying knots in her stomach. The girls exchanged looks. This was bad, very bad. Max was glad to see that Nudge was holding up well.

Finally, after a couple of minutes of snogging the pair broke apart. "Silly Fangie," Max and Nudge both winced, "My name's not been Eleanora-Kristiana for a long time."

In a random mood swing, the girl burst into elegant sobs. "Those horrible Whitecoats changed my name again." She wept hysterically. Fang wrapped his arms around the gracefully distraught girl, simultaneously wiping tears from her beautiful azure blue and crimson ringed eyes and murmuring nonsense reassurances.

Random mood swing, and the girl smiled brilliantly, showing bright pearly-white teeth between her full, blood red lips. "My name's now Antoinette-Elizabeth. That's An-Toe-Net E-Lie-Zah-Beth", she said slowly to the flock, making sure they'd get it right. Then she sniffed, her eyes glazing as the painful memories overtook her. "Then, after they tortured me horribly by calling me that, they told me that you and my younger siblings had escaped the School with Jeb Batchelder just three days before and I just had to escape and lead you in your quest to save the world."

(The Author also asks that you ignore the minor (four year) time discrepancy between the escape of the flock and the present. Thank you, have a nice day.)

"So I used my Telekinesis to break out of my cell (how could they imprison a lovely girl like this in a CAGE, the whitecoats had thought), packed my bag (in that order) and used my Sight to find out where you were. I had to leave everything behind, my computer with twenty-four-hour internet, my four-poster bed and my genuine marble bath. Oh, Fangie, it's been so hard! But I had to find you and my siblings!"

Fang gathered the girl up again, desperate to soothe her fears.Max just winced. Siblings. This was getting worse by the second. She eyed the Girl's silver hair and ivory skin and decided that it was probably Angel and Gazzy that the girl was talking of, not the brown-haired, eyed and skinned Nudge. Definitely a relief. She'd need all the help she could get.

"After I used the telekinesis, I asked the shadows to kill the Whitecoats and Erasers for me. My precognition said that there were two hundred and thirty Erasers headed right for me! But I used my weather control and shadow control and telekinesis to kill them all before I teleported out. Luckily I managed to press the button that killed all of the Erasers before I escaped, and although I didn't want to kill Ari, who has been my best friend in the past ten years since they took me away from you, I knew that I had to. Once I escaped I flew at top speed towards you, which is very fast since I can fly at the speed of sound! But I had to find you, Fangie, and Angel and Gassy who are my siblings, and help you!" The girl proclaimed.

Part The Second.

--

Max sighed.

It had come down to this.

Ten years of experimentation, followed by two years of paranoia, followed by two years of Jeb-less paranoia followed by a few months of life on the run was nothing. This was scary.

Angel and Gazzy had both shrieked (in exactly the same tone) and were now firmly in their older sister's embrace. She was explaining in sobs how 'they had all been in a car accident eight (yes, Eight) years ago, and their parents had been killed tragically, and it was all her fault, and please, would they forgive her, she never meant it to happen, and she'd do anything to gain back their trust and love, anything at all'.

Fang was watching the writhing ball of sibling lovey-doveyness in a strangely paternal fashion that Max hadn't thought he was capable of.

Iggy was standing behind them all, listening intently to the conversation between the girl and the youngest flock members. He was wearing a look that promised trouble for Fang. Iggy probably remembered this girl too, way back when they were at the School or something. Max imagined that they had some kind of history, and that Iggy's thoughts were on the subject were similar to 'Fang stole her from me. She's MYYYY PRREEECCIIOOUUSSSS.'

Max looked around at this, and then at the girl who stood beside her. They, together, were the last bastion of rationality in a place where there was now no rationality or common sense. They were the only chance that the flock had to survive the worst encounter of all. The most horrible thing that they had ever, ever faced.

"So, how are we gonna kill it?" Nudge asked chirpily.

"Sssshh, be careful. We don't know who's listening!" Max hissed back warningly. They only had one shot at this, and they couldn't screw it up.

Nudge's eyes widened in fear, realising the implications. Of course, the girl was a powerful telepath. She could hear thoughts, know what they planned. Nudge's eyes screwed up in concentration as she attempted to clamp down on all thoughts. Which was like trying to collect water in a sieve.

Max grinned. "Don't worry about It, Nudge, worry about Angel. It'll hear what it wants to hear, Angel's the one we have to be careful of, she's a telepath too. She can read us, but I think she's too busy at the moment."

Whatsername looked over at the two girls who stood off to the side, waiting. Oh, great, now it was their turn. "Stand strong, my friend." Max whispered out of the corner of her mouth as both girls plastered fake-friendly smiles over their faces.

Whatsername came bounding over to them, the ground beneath her feet miraculously dry now, and the sky had cleared to a luminous blue shade. Must be that aforementioned weather-control showing it's beautifully gorgeous head.

"Max, Nudge!" The girl cooed, smiling like a vampire, the remaining flock following in her footsteps like she was the Pied Piper. They ranged out to flank the Girl as she stopped right in front of Max and Nudge, who felt strangely outnumbered.

"Eleanora-Elizabeth, was it?" Max asked, trying her hardest not to wrap her hands around the girl's throat and squeeze really tightly

The girl's smile faded an inch. "No, it's Antoniette-Elizabeth." She half-snapped.

"Oh, right, that's really nice! You know, it's got a hyphen and all. I used to be known as Tiffany-Krystal, and that's got a hyphen too." Nudge began building up steam. Max's smile became genuine. Maybe Nudge could make its head explode. "But I'm not Tiffany-Krystal anymore, because I'm Nudge to the flock back as far as I can remember. Since before we got free, even. My real name might actually be Monique, don't you think that's a nice name?"

"Err…" Max was really annoyed that even that confused noise sounded gorgeous coming from Antoniette-Elizabeth.

"Well, I think it's a nice name. Did you say that you and Angel and Gazzy are siblings? I wish I had a sibling. I mean, Angel and Gazzy have got each other. Couldn't you have been my sister instead?" Max winced, hoping that the younger girl hadn't been taken in, that it was all just an act. She didn't think she could do this on her own. Even Maximum Ride has limits.

"Oh well, it's not like you can change that." Nudge continued, "I wonder if Max or Fang have siblings? Iggy doesn't, we met his parents and his real name's James. Can I call you Liz?" She changed tack abruptly.

"No, Antoniette-Elizabeth is my name," said the girl, taken somewhat aback by Nudge's motor mouth.

"But Liz is such a cool nickname!" Nudge replied in a whine, right off the bat, "Besides, it's just such a mouthful saying Antoniette-Elizabeth all the time, Liz."

Liz looked angry at the new nickname for a moment, before smiling benevolently. "Liz is perfectly fine, Nudge. I'm so sorry that I couldn't be your sibling, but I know that you have two brothers and a sister. One of the Whitecoats left your file lying around and I saw it."

"Really, three siblings! That's so cool!" Nudge yelled at an irritatingly high pitch. Max winced. "Did you know that I've got a power too! Not as many as you do, but I can sense stuff about things. What are your powers again, Liz?"

"Let's see!" Liz cooed excitedly, always willing to talk about herself. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger as she thought. "I'm telepathic and telekinetic, I can control shadows, teleport, see things that are happening or about to happen in other places, find people, go invisible, control fire and weather, and shapeshift into a cat. See!" and Liz shifted into a cat, pure white, with the same blue eyes.

She turned back into a person with a pop. "Oh," she said giggling, "Silly me, I must have forgotten. I can also do this," and she spun to face Iggy. Lovingly, she pressed her manicured fingers to his eyes. There was a flash of light, and Iggy could see once more. The blue film cleared from his eyes, and he looked around in wonder. "Healing!" The girl cooed.

Max sighed. She just forgot that she could heal people. And when she was gone…This was going to be such a let down for the blind boy. But she couldn't say anything, she just had to watch with a heavy heart as Iggy looked around for first time in years. It was the first time he'd actually seen things on the outside, like trees, and the sky. Angel and Gazzy let out identical squeals and hugged first their sister and then Iggy, who had never actually seen either of them before.

Fang smiled at Antoinette-Elizabeth, and then pulled her into his arms, "Baby, you're amazing, you know that?"

"Of course I do, Fangie! I am amazing! And don't you ever forget it!" She cooed up at him as they cuddled.

"How could I, my Antoinette-Elizabeth!" He cooed in return, sweeping her up into another drawn-out kiss.

Max forced herself to watch the excruciating spectacle. One could only handle a train wreck a day, after that it only became depressing. Yep, there it was. Tongue. She cleared her throat. "How about we get somewhere dry?"

Liz and Fang broke apart at her words. Max (with great difficulty) got the disgust off her face as they both turned to look at her. Someone had to act like the leader though, and it was Max's job.

"Of course!" Antoinette-Elizabeth cooed. She pointed off into the trees. "There's a cave over there, behind the trees. I can see it with my Sight. Come on Fangie, Little Brother and Sister!"

Max and Nudge walked slowly towards the cave that they couldn't see but Liz had pointed to, while Liz led the others away like a mother hen and her little ducklings (The author asks her readers not to smack her in the mouth for mixing both metaphors and species of bird) all the while cooing like a flock of pigeons.

They quickly disappeared from sight, bouncing along happily, and Max and Nudge stopped once they knew it would not be suspicious. "Oh God!" said the younger girl. "Please save us!"

Max didn't answer in words, she simply bent over and vomited up the last meal she'd had. Wiping her mouth with her muddy sleeve, she looked at the younger girl, "We've got to kill it soon," She declared, "Before Fang actually, I dunno…Well, you know…"

Nudge's eyes widened in realisation, and she gasped, before she finally gave into the nausea and vomited. "Can you imagine what their kids would be like!"

"I don't want to!" Max exclaimed, trying to rid herself of the images

"Good point!" Nudge coughed, trying to get the taste of half-digested food and stomach acids out of her mouth.

Max realized something then. "Nudge, do you like Iggy?" She asked hesitantly. Nudge spun around from the trees she was leaning on to look at the older girl, with a stunned look on her face, Max's ownexpression cautious.

"Iggy!" The younger girl was genuinely shocked, and this surprised Max. "No!"

Max looked thoughtful. "Do you like Fang then?" She asked softly.

The other girl looked away, a blush staining her dark skin. "I…Yeah, ever since we were at the home with the hawks by ourselves, I sorta realised that I liked him…" Nudge looked back at Max. "You're not mad?"

"No," Max smiled at her friend. "It's useful for one thing. You can't get taken in by Liz."

"I can't?" Nudge exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"You like Fang, and Liz has taken that away. Because you hate her for it, you can't get taken in. You love him, really, even if you're only gonna admit to 'like'. Liz is a Mary Sue. She doesn't understand it, love. She can do almost anything, she knows so much, but not this. She's not even real. She's some figment of an author's twisted imagination. I know I'm not answering your question, Nudge." The older girl looked away this time. "Nobody knows how, but Mary-Sues also emit this toxic chemical. Not even the Sues know about it actually. It poisons some characters with OhOhSee's Disease, except those who have the cure. Love. Love for the Flock as they are. Those who do only get affected with extreme nausea – that's part of why we're throwing up. and the urge to headdesk. Some even spontaneously combust and leave Flames everywhere."

Nudge considered this piece of information. It sounded true, but she didn't really want to ask Max how she knew this. It sounded a bit like a plothole in the making. Instead, she just said, "Yeah, that makes sense."

"I like Iggy." Max explained. "I know I kissed Fang, but I don't like him, not really. Not after I thought about it. We'd just make each other miserable. He's too stonewall-ish. We'd never be able to talk through our problems. I know I have a fair few of them." The girls shared a rueful grin. They both knew all the Flock had major problems.

"Iggy's…not like that. He's emotional, and it's…fascinating. You can have Fang." Max said. "But first we gotta get the Flock back."

Date: 16/08/10 – Yes, I am posting a few things! Don't die of shock, it's all old stuff, because I have a few incomplete stories I'd like to round off. No, I'm not planning on writing anything new.

I apologise for spamming some people's email accounts!

Part the Third

"Thanks Max," began the younger girl, "I'm immune, that's good. But how are we gonna kill it?"

They pushed through some trees, leaves still dripping with the remains of the storm that had been there only a few minutes before. There was Liz's cave right where she said it would be. A fire was going, and the smell of meat roasting met their noses. Nudge winced, being vegetarian, but her stomach growled just the same.

"I mean, It's not as if we can just walk up to her and whack her head off with a blunt and rusty axe, not that a blunt and rusty axe would whack her head off, just sort of break her neck, I think, " And Nudge broke off, seeing Max roll her eyes.

"Fang and Liz have spent the past however long trying to stick their tongues down each other's throats," she continued, "And Iggy can see again. Will he still be able to see? And Angel and Gazzy are her 'siblings'. Angel can make people do stuff. She'd do it to us if she thought we'd gone crazy and were trying to attack a member of the flock…"

"That monstrosity will never be a part of my flock!" Max hissed, slamming her hand into one of the trees. "Note to self, stop punching inanimate objects," she muttered under her breath.

Nudge bit her lip before continuing, "But, anyway, my point is that the rest of them aren't gonna let us do something like that, not really. They like her, as if that wasn't obvious. They're gonna try and stop us, and if Liz accidentally kills us, then they're not really gonna care, are they?" Nudge stopped, frightened by the possibility of actually dying from a death so horrible. (The author apologizes for her atrocious choice of words)

"I'm not sure." Max said, thinking, "There's no reason why she shouldn't be able to. We're gonna have to get her on her own, because, you're right, they're not gonna let us break her neck with a blunt and rusty axe, although the idea does appeal to me.

"And she can heal, like she healed Iggy's eyes, which could be a problem." Max paused.

"Why?" asked Nudge.

"Well, if she can heal, then it's gonna be hard to kill her. So if we were gonna kill her we'd have to kill her dead, all the way dead, and quickly. Which means we can't torture her. Bummer… "

"Can we mutilate her corpse?" Nudge interrupted Max's musing.

Max looked up at the brown skinned girl, and a grin spread across her mud-splattered face. "I love the way you think, little sister!" They shared an evil grin. "And I think that Iggy's gonna be blind again, once she dies."

"He's gonna be angry with us."

"Maybe." The older girl sighed. "C'mon," And they began the walk across the clearing to the cave. "But I think he's gonna be glad that the MarySue is dead."

They were halfway across the clearing when Nudge suddenly stopped. "Max?" the flock's leader turned around. "What about Fang?"

"What about him?"

Nudge hesitated, "Is he gonna be angry?"

Max screwed up her face in confusion, and Nudge was struck by the older girl's resemblance to an illegitimate child of a thirty-year-old horse with severe bronchitis and a Harpy. (Author ducks, Just kidding!)

"With me." The girl elaborated. "Is Fang gonna be angry with me for killing a girl who…y'know."

"Are you kidding!" Max burst out laughing. She wrapped an arm around Nudge's shoulders, "Fang's gonna hate himself so bad after she dies that we're gonna have to watch him to make sure he doesn't throw himself of a cliff. Wings closed."

Max's grin became a leer. "And he's gonna be oh, so grateful to you for freeing him from this…" She broke off with a cackle, and Nudge grinned as the pair of them walked the remaining distance to the cave.

The cave was quiet when they arrived, except for the sound of contented munching. They sat down with the rest of the flock, and much to Nudge's pleasure there were also fruit and vegetables. Sometimes, like when you were hungry, you just didn't ask. And Nudge was hungry.

They tucked in. The meat that had been cooking was juicy and tender, obviously cooked by the Sue, whose skill surpassed even Iggy. Max couldn't cook, and she'd never cared that she couldn't. Until now.

But, Max didn't care about manners, she stuffed the meat in her mouth, and juice dripped down her chin. Liz was eating daintily, and for once Max didn't care that she looked positively second rate compared to the other girl.

The fruit – apples, oranges and bananas, were sweet and juicy, the vegetables – carrots, capsicum, onions and potatoes had been cooked somehow by Liz and were delicious. She'd made kebabs out of them for Nudge, somehow aware of the girl's vegetarian diet. They were smoky, and the best kebabs that she'd eaten since those at the home with the Hawks, and admittedly, those were only better because she'd been hungrier.

Stuffed full for the first time since leaving Anne's, the flock quickly fell asleep. Max thought that she'd have trouble sleeping, being so close to Itex, and having Fang and Liz giggling and cooing to themselves over the other side of the cave, but she slept like a log.

She woke the next morning to find that breakfast was well on the way to being ready. A pan sat over the fire, where it had come from she didn't know, but the smell of pancakes stopped her from caring. The smell roused the others, and Max tried to smooth down her frizzy, wispy hair before anyone saw how bad she looked compared to Liz (because, of course, she is the canon lead female, and they always looked bad comparatively).

Nudge shuffled over to Max, still half asleep, the girl was never a good waker. Max wasn't either, unless there were a couple of Erasers involved. "When?" the younger girl mouthed to Max.

The next bit was going to be difficult, or it could be easy depending on how thins played out. Max grinned evilly, knowing that by nightfall the flock could be Mary Sue free once more. "After breakfast," She replied in a whisper, after all, one doesn't turn down such delicious cooking when one is hungry (and a horrible cook themselves).

"Okay," Nudge said, her own grin matching Max's. Both girl pulled themselves nearer to the fire, where Iggy, Gazzy and Angel already had a stack of cookbook picture pancakes each.

Breakfast went faster that dinner had the night before. Fang and Liz spent the time that they weren't eating talking about where the flock should go next. Liz said that she and Angel and Gazzy should go to Arizona, because that's where their parents lived, and, after all, they wanted to be a proper family more than anything. And she said that they could drop Nudge off with her parents and siblings as well, (for she'd met them once before and they were nice, and already knew about the wings).

Nudge made her eyes shine with happy-tears, although Max, who was the only one watching closely, could see that Nudge was really torn between bursting out in hysterical laughter, and trying to murder Liz where she sat, all smarmy in her beautiful figure hugging dress with golden wings and silver hair shining.

Max was tempted to help, annoyed as she was from being left out of the discussion of her flock's future, and from the fact that Liz hadn't mentioned anything about her own family – and whether Ari really was her brother.

She stabbed a pancake with her spork, although the pancake didn't really deserve it. How she ended up with the only spork, while the rest of the flock had plain old forks she didn't know.

They finished breakfast, and Gazzy volunteered to do the dishes (Yep, and eight year old boy actually said that he'd clean up, Curse the power of a Marysue). Max handed her plate to the blonde-haired boy, but pocketed the spork. Who knew when it would come in handy. Gazzy piled them up, and set off for the nearby picturesque stream.

That left everyone else free to do as they pleased, because with Liz present there'd be no problem with Erasers. Max and Nudge shared a glance. Now things began. Nudge approached Liz, and whispered something in her ear. Max knew what it was. "We're gonna have a girl-chat, me and Max. Do you wanna come?"

Liz looked between them, a look of pleasure on her face. She said something to Nudge, who then turned and walked to the low entrance of the cave where Max stood. They stepped outside, backs turned, and Fang and Liz said their romantic pieces, 'I won't be gone long!', 'Are you gonna miss me?'. Nudge grimaced, but flicked back into a smile as Liz joined them.

They spread out their wings, Max's tan and white, Nudge's brown and Liz's gold, and soared up into the blue sky, Max banked left, she saw another clearing that would be of use, and even better, it bordered onto a sheer drop.

This was going to be fun!

Part the Fourth

Max concentrated on keeping her face in bland friendliness as she landed. As long as the Sue had no reason to suspect that there was any problem with what was happening, then she'd not start reading minds.

They touched down, and Liz began to chatter, "I'm so glad that there's you girls here. Back at the University I had so many friends, some of them were experiments, but some were Whitecoats and Erasers, like Ari." She sighed.

"There was this one Whitecoat lady who'd take us all into the nearest town, and we went shopping and there was this one guy who was really cute. My friend Bernadette-Aloise was dating him. She was so pretty, because she was 90 percent human and 6 percent Peregrine Falcon, and three percent Snow Leopard and four percent…"

"A Whitecoat let you out?" Max was incredulous and furious. Liz began to back away. "A Whitecoat let you out of your cages or whatever and took you out shopping! Why didn't you escape?"

"I…I didn't think of…" Liz froze, helplessly trapped against a tree.

"Sure you didn't." Max took the spork from her pocket. "You just got let out into a town to go shopping while your younger siblings got kidnapped and beaten up by Erasers."

"You don't understand!" Liz wailed.

"Understand this!" Max hissed, and with all of her strength she slammed the spork through Liz's throat. Max put all the force of anger behind it, and the spork embedded in the tree behind. Blood spurted in all its redness over Max and Nudge, and Liz's wail cut off to a gargling whistle.

"Why?" She whistled. "What're you doing?"

"We know what you are!" Nudge mocked her, "We know, Liz! And we don't like it."

"How! How!" Liz gargled.

Max and Nudge glanced at each other, before turning back to Liz and laughing unpleasantly. "Oh, easy." Max said.

"Your parents died in a car crash eight years ago, remember?" Nudge said. Liz looked at her terrified.

"But they live in Arizona, and Angel is only six years old." Max finished. Liz shuddered and whimpered.

"You said before that you've been friends with seven-year-old Ari for ten years." Nudge continued.

"Your friend, Bernadette, was it? Yes, she's 90 percent human and 6 percent bird, and three percent something and four percent something else. That's 103 percent."

Liz shuddered again under the assault, eyes filled with fear. "And 103 percent isn't possible."

"No," she gargled, beautiful voice now a choking, blood-filled rasp. "You can't do this to me! I'm Antoniette-Elizabeth! I should be the leader! I should save the world! I'm better than you, Max! I'm better! I've got more powers! I'm more beautiful! I'm smarter! I've got Fang! I'm better! I'm…"

"Not real!" two voices hissed. "A Mary Sue! An abomination!"

Liz looked between the girls with an expression of horror. She was shaking constantly now.

Max grinned sadistically. "We don't want you here, Liz. Die. Just die, you unholy spawn of n00b!"

"No!" Liz shrieked. "No!" She shuddered violently, the hole in her throat caused by the spork widening. Blood poured from the hole, and Liz's voice cut off, sounding like a thirty-year-old horse with severe bronchitis.

Her azure blue eyes began to turn red, and they protruded from her head. Max and Nudge both smiled, before taking a few steps back, and Liz's eyes exploded out of her head. The Sue twitched twice, and them went limp.

Both girls turned as they heard the rushing of wings behind them. The rest of the flock landed.

Part the Fifth

Max turned away. This was going to be interesting, although it might turn out badly. How were they all going to react? Two of their own had just killed another. Absently, she tugged on the spork. It didn't move. Max sighed.

She turned around to face the music (and her flock). They stood only a few metres away.

Iggy looked at the pathetic, blood covered mess behind the two oldest girls, and gasped in pain and shock. The rest of the flock turned to him questioningly. Max could see his eyes turning from the beautiful green that she remembered to a milky blue-white. "Oh my God!" He exclaimed in surprise.

'Well, yes, I suppose I am' Max muttered sarcastically under her breath, hoping that no one heard. Nudge twitched, and out of the corner of her eye, Max saw the girl smother a grin.

Iggy, meanwhile, brought his hands up to his eyes. "I'm blind!" The boy said, shocked and confused, "But..."

"Yeah, Ig, you've been blind only since you were, what, five?" Max said sarcastically.

"Four!" replied Iggy irritably. "I was four, Max! Jeez!" The boy turned away, cursing under his breath, and Max decided that it would be easier to let the tall boy sulk.

Angel watched Iggy for a while, before looking back at her Mary-Sue Pseudo-Sister. The telepath snorted. The flock turned to her next. Max noticed that she looked visibly relieved. "Angel?" Max asked, confused.

Angel folded her arms defensively, and stood in a distinctly belligerent six-year-old fashion. "What?" the youngest girl asked, as the rest (well, except Iggy) looked at her "I'm the one who has the most powers, not her! She was taking my place!"

Max and Nudge exchanged a look. This was a surprise. "And mine!" Max agreed.

Gazzy looked between the three girls in his flock and the blood-smeared, eyeless body stuck to the tree. "I…" he said, sitting down with a thud. "Was she…was that…a…a…" His blue eyes widened fearfully, "A… Mary-Sue," He finished with a whisper.

"Yes," said Max and Nudge, in synch. Angel screwed up her face in a grimace. Gazzy looked horrified at the answer, "I didn't really want to know!" The blonde haired boy whispered. Iggy rubbed a hand over his unseeing eyes.

Fang stopped imitating a statue, and began moving again. He brushed past Max and Nudge without looking at either of them. Max watched Nudge's face closely, and saw the girl clearly thinking, 'Oh, boy, what have I done?'

Fang walked to the body sporked to the tree, and watched it for a second. Red stains ran down the silver figure hugging dress, brilliant golden wings hung limply in the mud.

The dark boy hesitated a second, as if fighting an internal battle. He stepped forwards, and lifted its face to look into its empty eye-sockets. Eye-juices dribbled wetly down its cheeks. Fang swallowed back bile at the wreck of a face.

"Oh, God!" He whispered thickly.

"I know I am," The body whispered back.

"Aaaaah!" The flock screamed as one.

"Iggy," Fang yelled. "Give us a bomb! Now!" Iggy fumbled in his pocket for a small explosive, brought it out, and then on second thought, brought out the rest of them in his pocket.

"No," whispered the Sue. "No! I love you Fang! It wasn't supposed to be like this! I was supposed to save the world, and then become president of the United States. And then we were gonna have eighteen children, and 69 grandchildren and…"

Fang snatched the bombs from Iggy's hands, pulling out the pins. He shoved two into the Sue's wrecked eye sockets, a few into the Sue's mouth to shut her up, and placed the rest down the front of her dress.

"You're a Mary-Sue, you unholy thing. I hope you rot in hell!" he hissed viciously. Max stepped back, she'd never seen Fang show so much anger, or emotion for that matter before.

Fang pushed away from the Sue, and following his lead the rest of the flock backed away, putting fingers in sensitive ears.

Boom.

The explosion sent waves of sound through the air, as well as indeterminate globs of flesh. Iggy flinched as one particularly wet piece struck him on the side of the face. He wiped it off with a disgusted snarl.

"Oh man," Max said with feeling. She looked up and felt vaguely satisfied with the ending that the Sue had met. Fang sat on the grass and looked like he was going to throw up. Max wisely decided to leave the boy alone – he'd get over it. Eventually. With Nudge's help.

Gazzy was excitedly whispering in Iggy's ear. Max knew that the younger boy was whispering a description of the scene to the older boy. "Man, Iggy, those bombs of ours rock! Liz is completely missing a mouth, her lower jaw has been completely exploded away and her chest is partially blown open! It's soooo cooool! You can see her ribs and everything!"

Angel and Nudge sat next to each other on the grass, pulling gobbets of what used to be Liz off of their clothes and out of their hair. Both had that bloodthirsty look that they usually wore when facing Erasers. This, however, was probably worse.

Max decided that someone needed to take charge, and being the leader she decided that that someone should be her. "Guys!" She called. The rest of the flock looked up at her, surprised. "You got any suggestions for what we should do with…" she waved one hand at Liz. "Y'know, just to make sure it's…" She trailed off.

"Dead?" asked Fang sarcastically.

"Well, yeah," Said Max, wrinkling her nose.

Gazzy piped up, "Lets burn it!" Max gave him a look and decided she didn't like the manic gleam in the youngest boy's eyes. It reminded her of Erasers. But she didn't say that, only, "Hey, that's a good idea Gazzy. How about you and Nudge and Angel go and get some wood so that Iggy can start a fire."

The three younger children jumped up and began to search for wood. Iggy pulled out a lighter, and taking a few stocks from where he was, he quickly got a small fire going, just as the younger three brought back an armful of wood each. (which was, somehow, remarkably dry despite the fact that the day before had been a dark and stormy one).

Once they'd got the fire going, Fang pulled himself off the ground and he walked to Liz once more. Max watched her second in command, wondering what was going through his head. "Hey Ig? You gotta knife?" He finally asked.

Part the Sixth

Iggy, hesitated, and then decided that it wasn't worth asking questions, and took a switchblade knife from his pocket, and held it out. Nudge slid the knife gingerly from the tall blind boy's long fingers and took it to Fang, who took it with a murmur of thanks.

Fang flipped the blade open with a flick of his wrist, and examined the sharp steel. Max watched both the knife and Fang. 'Oh I hope he doesn't do anything stupid!' She thought.

Fang stepped forward, and seized a hank of bodily fluid stained silver hair, and shaved it off Liz's scalp with a sawing motion that would've been painful if the Sue was still alive. And Max wasn't sure if she wanted it to be or not. Alive equaled scary, dead equaled the inability for Max to cause pain. It was a tough choice.

Not.

Fang seized another hank of lifeless hair, and began to part it from Liz's scalp. His expression was so murderously intent that Max was slightly scared of the boy who had been her friend and brother for most of her life.

She considered asking Angel what he was thinking, just to make sure he couldn't do anything stupid like run off, but she got the feeling that the mind reader wouldn't tell her. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know anything beyond that about what went on in Fang's mind anyway.

Gazzy was whispering in Iggy's ear again, and Max, straining her ears, could just pick it up. "I think Fang's crazy," She heard, and Iggy whispered back, "Nah, he's just upset that the girl he was tonguing was the unholy Mary Sue."

Max saw Gazzy make a face, and she grinned. Gazzy still thought that girl had cooties, and the mention of Tonsil Tennis was too much for him. She headed over to the two boys, as Angel and Nudge came out of the woods with their second load of firewood.

Nudge shot her a look, which Max didn't have time to look-reply to as Fang spun a round, revealing Liz's bald egg head and a motley tuft of hair in one hand. Fang's grin became wider and scarier, and he tossed the hank to Gazzy, with two words. "Burn it."

Gazzy complied, tossing the hair into the middle of the blaze before him. The stench of burning hair met the flock's nostrils and the meeting was not a pleasant one. "God," Nudge choked, "That assaults your nose!"

Even Fang looked repulsed. He turned away from the smell, as Iggy piled more wood on the fire. Max had an inkling of what Fang would do next.

The dark boy reached out for the spork, still valiantly bolding its position just under Liz's hybrid Syrinx-Larynx, despite being under heavy duress from the enemy of gravity acting on the dead weight. (A/N: That really IS a hideous pun, *ducks*)

Fang's long fingers closed on the spork, and using his strength, the mutant birdboy yanked the utensil from the wood it was embedded in. Neatly, he stepped away, as Liz toppled forward, face first, into the fire.

Now it was cooking-chicken smell of burning flesh that met the Flock's noses. Max's stomach rumbled. The rest of the flock looked at her. "What?" She asked ruefully, "All that killing makes you hungry!"

Fang gave one of his looks. "I'd've thought that this," and he indicated Liz's smoking head with a toe, "would ruin anyone's appetite," he said snidely.

"Oh, you looked plenty hungry last night, although I'm not sure it was for food!" Max retorted blisteringly, glaring at her second in command. Fang froze. Max knew that her comment had been pushing it, but it had been very good to get the anger that she'd been feeling in one shot. And it had hit it's target – right in the hormones.

Gazzy and Angel just looked confused, while Max heard an intake of breath from Nudge and Iggy. "Max, that wasn't…" The younger girl started, but stopped when Max held up a hand, eyes firmly fixed on Fang's face.

"Fine." Fang yelled, showing uncharacteristic anger. "A Mary Sue got me! Are you happy!" He picked up one of the Sue's arms and began to lug the unresisting corpse onto the fire.

Wordlessly, Max grabbed a let to help, and the younger members of the flock helped to pile wood around the body, which began to blacken and smoke almost immediately.

Fang, not saying a word, watched the burning body for a while, before storming off into the woods. Nudge gave a glare at Max, which she returned with a wink, before the girl turned into the wood, following the sound of curses and breaking branches.

Max grinned, hoping that something would grow between the two of them as Nudge grew up. Too young now, but, in a few years…who knew? She remained in thought by the fire, listening to Gazzy's gruesome descriptions to Iggy, with Angel playing with Total and Celeste in the background.

This was her Flock.

The fire burned down, and Fang and Nudge returned from their walk. "Come on guys, U and A. Lets find something to eat." Six pairs of wings spread, seven bodies plus one teddybear soared up into a sky clear of rain and howling wind.

And so the Flock dispensed of the Mary Sue known as Eleanora-Kristiana-Antoniette-Elizabeth, and were soon on their way to a bright, world-saving future.

But, bad fortunes would again strike, when the flock met Dragon, the aptly named Human-Dragon hybrid who could breathe fire out of her nostrils. Or when the Flock met Chase Ride, Max's twin brother, who was able to call up spirits. Or when they met Lucia, who was part angel, part axolotl, and part octopus.

But those stories are for another time…