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The pizza, while cold, was still pretty good. Rue ate eagerly, wishing she could take more than three pieces. She finished them quickly, beaten only by Kara.

"I think we'll need more," Kara said. "Please," she added after a moment's hesitation.

"Of course." Jeb chuckled, his eyes crinkling in a smile. He suffled over to the phone stand, picked it up, dialed a number, then walked into the other room with it.

Lark leaned over the table and looked at Rue and Kara. "He seems okay." he said, shrugging.

Rue nodded. "Yeah. But keep up your guard, just in case. Old guy or not, you never know."

"I picked up something from his mind earlier." Pascal said quietly to the girls. "I'm not sure why, but I can't get anything else. but what I did get told me that it was safe. I don't know how reliable-"

Jeb re-entered the room, placing the phone back on the stand. "Some more food will be here shortly." he reported, grinning. "But while we're waiting," he continued as he took his seat, "We have much to talk about."

Pascal shrugged. "Like what?"

Lark elbowed him in the ribs. "Let me take care of this." Lark whispered to him, then turned back to Jeb. "Like what?"

"Well," Jeb began, "Like how you all came to be!" he announced excitedly. "Like... Where are your parents now? Who did the Flock members reproduce with? How you all managed to stay secret, and what kinds of abilities do you all have?" he smiled, then leaned in closer. "If it's not too much to ask... I'd, um, I'd really like to see everyone's wings."

Rue couldn't help but feel self-conscious as she slowly unfolded her wings. The feathers, so similiar to her mother's, gleamed gently in the sunlight. "Our parent's are dead," she said softly, keeping the pain locked away as she said the words. She didn't want to dwell on that now.


Kara shook her wings out, glad to stretch the muscles. "My mom is Nudge," she announced. "I do sorta remember my dad, but he died when I was little. I think he was nice though. He seemed nice from what I can remember. I don't think my mom would've married someone that wasn't nice, anyway. She-"

Rue had to cut in, otherwise Kara would've gone on forever. "I can sometimes sense things. Like, when something bad is going to happen...sort of an intuition. I can fly really fast, like Max could, too."

Nudge sensed a chance to talk again, and eagerly took it. "I can draw mental to me, like Nudge. And I can sometimes shock people, with electricity. Not like little static sparks, bigger than that. But I can't like, electrocute people or anything."

Lark unfolded his vast, silver-gray wings, letting the feathers settle in place as he confessed, "Iggy was my dad. I don't really remember him as well as my mom, though, because he passed away before she did." he swallowed back his tears. "I can harden my skin, like armor, and I have extra spaces in my brain to store information that humans would never be able to comprehend."

Pascal opened up one small, white, gray and black peppered wing, then tried to keep the injured one open as long as he could. "I can read minds to some extent, like Angel, and I can do this." His porcupine spikes ripped out from under his skin, but he didn't let them shoot out completely, like when he sneezed. He brought them back in as quickly as they came out. "I think whoever my dad was had some porcupine DNA in him."

Jeb watched in awe as the New Flock willingly spread their wings and confessed their other mutations. From time to time, he would breathe, "Wow..." or "Amazing." or something of the sort. "You are all..." he began, his eyes still dancing from one pair of wings to the next, "Extraordinary. Just like your predecessors." He focused again. "Where have you ll been living all these years? How did you stay secret from the School?"

"We've been living in a pretty remote area of Colorado. To be honest, we never thought the School was real. We thought it was all just stories," Rue confessed. "The only reason we found out it wasn't is because we were attacked by Erasers."

"Erasers?" Jeb questioned, resting his chin on his fist. "But I didn't think they used Eraser's anymore; I thought they had upgraded to more well-programmed lifelike machines called Field Soldier Hunters. 'Fielders' for short. At leats, they was what they were using when I retired."

"Well," Lark stated, "What came to our house didn't look like machines. They looked like actual wolf-people. One of them even clipped Pascal's wing." He nodded towards Pascal. "Show 'em."

Pascal stretched out the wing, the long, pink scar still there, and so was the pain. "I'm pretty sure those weren't robots."

Jeb listened intently to every word. "Hmm..." he hummed. "Strange. I wonder why they would revert to old-school Erasers."

Rue shrugged. She didn't bother to say, "I don't know." That much was obvious enough.

----

I got me some writers' block...D:

Ooc:// How about a disguised Eraser in human form rings the doorbell, Jeb thinks it's the food he ordered, so he opens the door and we take it from there? X3 Random idea to pick up the tempo a little bit.

Sounds good to me. ^^

"Maybe the-" Jeb began to say, but was interrupted by the doorbell. "Oh!" he beamed. "That must be the food!" He started to get up out of his chair, then hobbled to the door. He opened it a crack, seeing men with dark hair and strong profiles. One man smiled, revealing sharp teeth. "They're in here." Jeb whispered to him, smiling as well. These visitors were expected. Then, he suddenly whipped the door open, sending about a dozen Erasers into the home where the birdkids were. They flooded every room, blocking any path that the kids may try to take to escape. All the while, Jeb stood at the door, closing it shut, as if sealing their fate.

Lark sprang into action right away, using his armor-skin to fend off the attackers and try to make an escape route. "What the heck is going on?!" he shouted at Jeb, who seemed to just be watching. He punched another Eraser in the nose, but as he did, another Eraser grabbed Lark's ankles and whipped out his legs from under him.

Pascal was surrounded by the monsters in no time, and they were closing in fast, and were much taller then him. There wasn't enough room to do an up-and-away, so Pascal stuck to what he did best: raise heck. He closed his eyes, breathed in and wrinkled his nose to try and make himself sneeze. The Erasers looked confused, but they still tried to grab him. Suddenly, an "ATCHOOO!" erupted, and it sent needle-like spines flying at the circle of Erasers, some landing in their eyes, nose, and mouths. It gave him enough room to charge out of the circle and run by Jeb to help Lark. "What's going on?!" Pascal yelled, just missing a set of claws.

Jeb smiled evilly, leaning on his cane, and said, "You are special. All of you are valuable. We need you all for the betterment of the world, so we're taking you back."

I didn't even get some more pizza! The thought ran bitterly through Kara's head, as if trying to distract her from the paralyzing fear threatening to overwhelm her. Kara swung into action as an Eraser narrowly missed her, distracted only by Pascal's volley of spines.

Her fist hit his nose with a satisfying weight behind it; she knew it was broken.Anger in his eyes, the Eraser clawed her arm. Stifling a cry of pain, Kara kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over, winded.

------

Anger swelled in Rue's vision. Her mother was right to never have trusted him completely. He was a lying, scheming jerk. She somehow made her way through the fray to where he was standing, ready to make him regret ever thinking about turning them over.

Jeb furrowed his eyebrows angrily and frustratedly when he spotted Rue approaching. "We own every bit of you! You are our property! Do you understand?"

Lark wasn't fast enough getting back up, and the Eraser had him by the throat in a headlock. Unable to open his wings because of the Eraser keeping them confined, Lark bit the Eraser's forearm, to which he let out a howl, but still didn't let go.

Pascal charged at Lark's captor, one of his spikes in hand like a murderous weapon. He painfully flapped his wings to get him at an even height with the Eraser's head, then slashed the Eraser's throat with the spine without mercy. Blood flowed, and Pascal landed sloppily as the Eraser grasped its throat and thus letting go of Lark, who was also holding his throat for a moment due to lack of air.

"No, I don't understand! We are not your property. Have you learned nothing from being with Max and Fang?" Anger burned all the hotter, Rue's eyes practically sparking with fury.

----------

Kara yelped in surprise as an Eraser's punch barely missed her, the fist actually knocking some of her hair aside. She swung out a low kick, and he crumpled as his feet left the ground. She kicked his stomach for good measure, than turned to he next Eraser.



Ooc:// ...Should they be caught?