Valedictorian- A Maximum Ride Fanfiction

Prologue - Warning Bell

"MAX, CAN WE land now?" The wind ripped past my face, Gazzy's nasally voice barely making it into my ears. It was raining, the icy shards pelting my skin, and we'd just reached the coast of Seattle. After all that happened in D.C.- Fake-Max, Itex, Anne- we just needed some time to clear our head. Seattle was close by, and apparently; Fang liked the droopy weather. 

We ended up touching down in a cave close by to some nearby cliffs off the other side of the city, wings (in case you're late to the party, yes, we have those. You'd think they were freaking awesome, and for the most part they were; but our life has been decidedly not awesome) quivering as we drew them in against our backs and spread out in a V formation. The sea crashed against some nearby rocks, and I sent Nudge a half-jerk of my head; signalling her to touch around and see if the place was safe.

Family line up, in case you don't know- I'm Max, short for Maximum Ride (odd name, don't question); the sarcastic, strawberry blond, blind boy to my lower left is Iggy, whom I quote has "A Highly Developed Sense of Irony";  to my lower right is Fang, tall, dark, handsome, and somewhat broody; in front of me is Nudge, fashionista extraordinaire constantly tuned into the Nudge Channel (All Nudge, All The Time); and in the far back is Gazzy and Angel, the two blond younglin's who were the only ones biologically related in our mix-up mash-up of a family. 

Oh, we also have a talking dog. 

I was torn out of my musings by Nudge, who happily exclaimed 'Yep! It's safe!' after touching some rocks. Psychometric powers, just every day stuff in the life of a mutant bird kid. We all have something like that, mind you, but I won't get into that now. 

"How exactly do you know?" I sighed, breaking formation to walk forward to her. Nudge lit up, and I immediately knew I'd fine tuned the chatterbox channel.

"Well!," She started, skipping around in her brand-name tennis shoes with her luscious dark brown hair in a high pony tail. Model stuff, she'd been practicing with Angel. "This whole place reeks of emotion! Like, someone stayed here for a long time and ingrained their heart into it? I dunno. But they're all really nice ones? Like... this was their safe place, and they're happy, and content, and it just makes me feel safe, you know? Sort of lonely, but there's nothing bad. If there's this much, I doubt it's a bad person! You hear me? This was where they slept, oh they really hate fish too. And they-"

"'They're' right behind us." Fang noted dully. There was a light tapping of shoes against the damp stone and a gust of wind, and Iggy spun around just as I did. Funny, Iggy would usually be the first to hear any incoming- the waves must be too loud for him.

Behind us (or in front of us, now) was a teenager- tall, slim, with a large black hunk behind his back (a duffel bag?). He wore torn grey jeans and a black v-neck; and his face looked like one of those Korean pop stars that Nudge liked to obsess over ( Exso? Shiney? Super Junior? Something with a 'Sorry Sorry Sorry Nakka Naakka Jumjabejo-- you know what; I'm not even going to try.) He was also tall by normal standards, maybe an inch or two shorter than Iggy, and storm grey eyes surveyed us warily before he gave a desicive click of his tongue. 

The sound reverbrated throughout the cave, and just as Iggy clenched the side of his head the black hunk that was actually not a duffel bag at all spread out, two large bat wings blocking out the rest of the dying sunlight from the cave.