Maximum Ride Fan Fiction ❯ A New Group ❯ Chapter One- 'Bat'ter Up! ( Chapter 1 )

DISCLAIMER- I DON'T OWN MAXIMUM RIDE, YADA YADA YADA. YOU UNDERSTAND. ENJOY! AND I PROMISE MAX AND THE FLOCK WILL ARRIVE IN CHAPTER 2. JUST BE PATIENT. AS ALWAYS, REVIEW LOTS! I LOVE TO SEE THE REVIEWS.

Chapter One- `Bat'ter Up!

CRACK! The solid, powerful connection from the bat to the ball echoed throughout the baseball field, sending my heart leaping. The ball rose higher, and higher still, flying on into the air as though driven by some powerful invisible force. Morph, who was sitting beside me, said, “Cover me!” Instantly I, Hulk, Splinter, and Tech made a human wall around Morph. His human form turned a strange gray color, and then, right before our eyes, he liquefied, shrunk, and solidified as a large, robust bald eagle!

He power housed his way through the air towards the baseball, flying at his quickest speed he could. As he came up to the ball, he wrapped his talons around it, turning around to fly back towards the diamond. However, as he began flying back, a net, fired at over a hundred miles per hour, hit Morph's eagle form, probably breaking every bone in the eagle's body. Morph's wings folded inward, and he began to fall, a crumpled heap of feathers.

“Guys!” I yelled. Everyone knew what to do. If a member of the group was in danger, we forgot all about laying low and taking cover and instead rained down maliciously on the assailant.

Tech, who was a machine-human hybrid, instantly transformed into his robot form, which had been made specifically for military use. A mounted turret raised out of his left arm. Splinter, who had had wood fibers grafted into his bones and flesh, could now create large stakes and spears of wood from any part of his body and shoot them at his enemy. The coat he was wearing was instantaneously shredded, his entire upper body becoming a wooden shield. As for Hulk, well, basically he just ripped off all his blankets and shirts and all that, which he claimed just slowed down his fighting, but I think he likes to show off his muscles.

As for me, I had cut slits into my shirt and parka, which I immediately launched my wings out of. Oh, the feeling! It was so good to stretch them out. My wings, which were each about four feet long, were extremely powerful as well as agile. Although I didn't have Hulk's strength, I did have speed no one else in my group had. And that, combined with my karate skills I had learned--and then taught to the whole group--made me a deadly fighting machine. Plus, I always have the advantage in the dark. Can you say “echolocation?”

Of course, there were thousands of screams and gasps and such, but we drowned them out. Or at least I did. One other surprise for the White Knights, their grafting bat DNA into me had also given me unimaginable running speed as well. I ran down to the end of the bleachers and, right before I was on the edge, vaulted off with all the force my legs could muster. I spread my great, beautiful wings out, snapping them out and down in one fluid motion. Numerous more nets, along with real bullets, were fired at me; however, they didn't count on one thing: I was faster than their aim.

I banked my right wing sharply downward, diving towards one of the attackers. This time, surprisingly, they'd sent humans to take us. I mean, seriously, do you think you could take us on? I didn't think so. Anyway, I dove straight towards him, reaching over ninety miles per hour before I collided solidly with him, probably snapping his back. Actually, definitely snapping his back. Imagine having a hundred pounds hit you in the torso flying at ninety plus miles per hour. I think you would definitely be dead.

I fired off a burst of echolocation behind me as I did a back flip in mid-air, launching myself straight up as I pointed directly up. As the waves bounced back to me, I saw many, many bullets traveling my direction. The largest, most likely to hit me pattern was directly above me. Therefore, I did a lightning-quick flip, shooting down at awesome speeds of over a hundred ninety miles per hour. As I flew by him, I stuck my arm straight out at my side, stiffening it just as it struck an assailant's neck, knocking him straight into the bleachers, his neck broken. Granted, it wasn't that pleasant of a feeling for me either, but the pain was not real. It was merely a message sent by nerves to the brain, messages I could block out. I would have one painful experience later, when the adrenaline wasn't pumping, but that was another time.

As for right now, I continuously sent off bursts of echolocation in all directions, calling locations of hidden attackers out to the group. How did I know where they were? I knew simply by following the trail of the bullet backwards. I saw a chunk of wood fly through the air at over eighty or ninety miles per hour, impaling an assailant I had discovered straight through the heart. Meanwhile, I banked a hard right to dodge a net, and flew straight towards Morph. Suddenly, a man ran straight in front of me and his skin morphed into extremely hard stone. It was suddenly as if time had gone into slow motion.

The man smirked, knowing I would hit him and die on impact. I knew that what I did right then and there decided my fate. I angled my flexible wings slightly downward, then, with all the force I could muster, slammed them down so hard that dust and grass flew all through the air. I flew upwards, so close to the man that my chest brushed his rock-hard one. He snarled loudly in rage and surprise, and then grabbed my right leg. I knew then that I was helpless, as none of my bat skills were honed for fighting a living rock. I expected that hand to squeeze and squeeze like a vice until my leg snapped.

Suddenly, an amazingly loud battle cry exploded in the air as my leg was suddenly released. I quickly gained altitude, until I was about a hundred feet up. I then looked down to see Hulk beating relentlessly on the rock-man beast. Pieces of him were crumbling slowly. I believe it was at that point that he realized that he was in my position. If he morphed back to human, he would die with one hit. If he stayed rock, he would eventually shatter to pieces. He suddenly swung one of his bowling-ball sized fists at Hulk's head. Hulk collapsed to the ground with the impact.

Tech suddenly saw what was going on. He turned and pointed the turret at Rock-Man, clenching his fist. A massive salvo of bullets struck the beast, the .30 caliber one hundred sixty grain Accu-Bonds tearing the Rock-Man up. While the rest of the group had Rock-Man occupied, I swooped down and grabbed the net that Morph was in, flying straight up into the air. I stopped at a couple hundred feet, looking at Morph's limp eagle form. His head rolled over to look up at me. “Morph, come on man,” I said. “Morph back to human!” You see, now he could no longer be a bald eagle until his bald eagle morph healed, but if he morphed back to human, he would be fine, because his human form was not the one injured.

The bird looked up at me blankly, not registering me. Then, suddenly, he morphed back into human form, groaning in pain. I nearly dropped him when he morphed back, not expecting the weight. I quickly decided to drop him. He screamed in shock at the freefalling that he was suddenly doing. I pointed downward and just quit flapping entirely. I folded my wings against my side and dropped straight down. I knew for sure that I could get Morph before he hit the ground.

I opened my wings, about nine feet from tip to tip (because of my actual body adding another foot) and began pounding my wings upwards, shooting downward at excess of two hundred miles per hour. At the sight of Morph, I swooped underneath him, flapping down as hard as I could, every muscle straining. I quickly slowed down to about twenty miles per hour. I wrapped my arms around Morph and dropped the last twenty or so feet, using my wings like a parachute. It slowed us down enough. I let Morph get down onto the ground.

I saw that Rock-Man had Splinter over his head and quickly dove down towards him. He was about to throw Splinter when I spun my foot around in a mid-air roundhouse kick, knowing that this could break my foot. I smashed my boot directly into the solid stone face, sending the Rock-Man falling from the shock. I roared in pain from my foot, but was relieved to find that it wasn't broken.

Splinter fell to the ground and scrambled away quickly. I knew we had no chance against this guy. Even Hulk had difficulty keeping him down. That was when Tech revealed his new secret weapon. His shoulder split open, a small, cannon-looking thing coming out of it. He pointed the cannon at the Rock-Man, pressing down on his arm. From out of the cannon, a red-tipped rocket soared towards the Rock-Man. Before he knew what hit him, the Rock-Man was in pieces.

The fight over, we all looked around us. The baseball field was deserted. With my super-keen hearing, I could hear sirens extremely far away but coming quick. “Guys,” I said, “we gotta break.”

“Yeah,” Tech said. “But how are we gonna get away? We can't all fly you know.”

“Oh, crap,” I said. I hadn't thought of that. After all, I was fighting a human rock. “Ok,” I said, “everyone can be inspected and considered perfectly normal except Hulk and me. So—”

“No way!” Tech, Morph, and Splinter cried out at the same time. “We can't split up the group! We're like family.”

“No we aren't,” I said. “We are a family. If we weren't, we would have left Morph to be experimented on for as long as he could survive. But we can meet up in the woods outside of the mountains a couple miles from here. And you guys don't have to stay here, you can run. But me and Hulk have to go quickly. So if anyone objects, hurry up and say so.” No one said anything.

“Ok guys. Be safe. And don't get caught. You know I love you all like brothers.” I grabbed Hulk's arm. “Let's go. I'll fly above and you run as fast as you can on the ground. Keep in the bushes. See you guys in a bit.” With that I slammed my wings down, launching into the air. Hulk began running swiftly along the ground beneath me, although, if I wanted to, I could have already been to the mountains. If I haven't already mentioned, Hulk is only eight, so you have to think that an eight year old alone and scared is bad enough, but when you throw in the ability to pick up a Volkswagen, then you have a big problem.

I stayed very high up, deep in the clouds, using my echolocation to locate Hulk every once in a while. Within twenty minutes we were at our meeting point. With no humans around here, I swooped down and landed, Hulk running up beside me, panting loudly. “That's a…” he gasped. “That's a long run!”

I laughed loudly, patting Hulk on the back. “I'm proud of you though. You did great. You didn't panic in the fight or anything. You were ama—” I stopped in mid-sentence as we went to the base of the mountain where the rest of the group was supposed to meet us. No one was there. The area was torn apart, making it obvious there'd been a struggle. But where was the group?