Chapter 26: Gone

Angel POV

“Gazzy!” I heard Nudge shout, at the same time as Will shouted, “Emily!” I
was able to tear away from the fight long enough to see Will turn and swoop
down after Emily, who was falling down into the helicopter blades, as well as
Gazzy and an Eraser.
“What’s happening?!” Iggy shouted worriedly, but I couldn’t answer him.
Will wasn’t going to make it; Emily was too far down already. I saw the eraser
pluck Gazzy out of the air, either rescuing him, or taking him captive.
“Hello? Will someone please tell me what is-“ Iggy was cut off mid
sentence as he got hit by a Flyboy. Max must have seen that Will wasn’t going to
make it, as I saw a blur come from where she was and fly down to Emily,
scooping her up, and away to safety with incredible speed, before Will had even
gotten near.
All of a sudden all of the Flyboys broke off, and turned around, and began
to head back toward where the other Flyboys were in battle with The Erasers. It
looked like they were taking heavy losses. It was lucky too. With us all
disorganised and fixed on what was happening below, they could have easily and
quickly overcome us.
Max and Will glided back up to us, and asked, looking around “Where’s
Iggy?” I looked around myself, unable to spot him.
“Iggy!?” Nudge called out, her and Fang joining us from above.
“Over there!” Fang said, pointing off in the distance. I peered out and
could see Iggy flying out towards sea.
“What’s he doing all the way out there?” Will asked as Max handed a
shaken Emily over to him, Will holding her tight.
“I don’t know but at least we know he’s safe.” Max said hurriedly. “Did
anyone see where The Eraser took Gazzy?” No-one answered. “Okay then. Angel,
do you think you could find him? And quickly, who knows when those Flyboys’ll
be back.”
Everyone stared at me expectedly, and I had no choice but to say, not all
too confidently, “Yeah sure, I can try.”
I closed my eyes, and pictured Gazzy in my minds eye, envisioning his
scruffy blonde hair and his white speckled, brown wings. I could sense
something, but it was faint, and I couldn’t be sure.
I opened my eyes, and said, “I’ve got something. I’m not sure where, but I
think he over there somewhere.” I said, pointing to where a group of helicopter
were clustered.
“Any idea which one specifically, sweetie?” Max asked hopefully.
“Sorry, I’m still a bit shaky on finding specific people.” I said, feeling guilty
I couldn’t have done better.
“It’s ok, we’ll just split up and check...“ but she broke off as she looked
over at the helicopters. We all looked over and saw what she was staring at. One
of the helicopters rudders had stopped spinning and the helicopter was now
dropping gracefully through the air.
“I’m willing to guess which one Gazzy is in.” Will sighed.
We watched as two men jumped out of it, and opened their parachutes
and began to drift toward the sea below. A third quickly joined them. We were
about to bolt to the helicopter as quickly as we could, in hope of getting Gazzy,
when a small group of about twelve Erasers appeared. Where were all these guys
coming from? One of them barked orders at the others. “Hold them off!” Before
quickly swooping down to the helicopter faster than I’ve ever seen an Eraser fly.
 Before we knew it, we were fighting again. Usually it would be a walk in
the park to dispatch of a dozen Erasers, but something was different about these
ones. They were stronger and faster, a lot harder to fight. Plus we didn’t have
Gazzy or Iggy, and Will wasn’t letting go of Emily, and was doing his best to
protect her. I was finding it hard to penetrate the minds of these Erasers too. It
was like they had built up defences around their minds. I managed to crack a
couple but it took a lot of effort and it wore me out.
“It’s done! Leave them!” The one who flew off shouted as he returned.
They weren’t fighting to kill; they were merely holding us back, to allow him time
to do what he had to.
They flew off quickly, and we flew down towards the helicopter. Why was it
taking so long to fall? It looked like it was defying the laws of gravity, and falling
a lot slower than it should. As we got closer, I could sense my brother inside the
helicopter. “Max! He’s defiantly in there!” I shouted to her. She nodded and
began to speed towards it, when it seemingly disappeared into thin air.
We all stopped in mid air, stunned. “Did that thing just disappear?!” Will
said incredulously.
“Angel can you still sense him?” Max asked me, worried.
“No. I can’t sense anything there where he was.” I said, shell-shocked.
All of a sudden, as quickly as it vanished, it appeared twenty feet above
the water. Max rushed towards it, us following, as it fell into the water with a
large splash, a crunching noise coming from it. The helicopter quickly was
submerged beneath the water. I could still sense Gazzy in there.
BOOM. A large plume of water shot up from where the helicopter was, and
then a shockwave send us tumbling through the air. A large fireball extended into
the air, smoke billowing from it. As I saw the helicopter sink beneath the water, I
tried to see if I could still sense him, beneath the water. Wide eyed and terrified, I
searched pushing my mind to the limit to find any trace of him.
But I couldn’t. He was gone.

Fang POV

BOOM.
An explosion from the helicopter forced a tower of water fifty feet into the
air, a large fireball immediately following it. We all got forced backward from the
shockwave, even Max, who ended up tumbling back and almost colliding with us.
We recovered in time to see the charred remains of the helicopter submerging
under the water. And then it disappeared from sight.
We were silent, for a long time, just hovering there in shock. What I just
saw couldn’t have been true. Something was going on, this wasn’t right.
“Angel?” Max stuttered, breaking the silence.
“He’s gone.” Angel breathed to my right. “Max, he’s gone.”
“No, he can’t be. That’s impossible.” She retorted defiantly. “It’s just
impossible.”
“Max, he’s gone.” Angel repeated, tears streaming down her eyes. I looked
over at Nudge, who was already sobbing silently. Will was staring at the water,
his face hardened, a glint in his eyes. “No Angel, he can’t be. Search for him
again, he must have gotten out!” Max shouted, her voice strained.
“He was there, before it hit the water, I could feel him. When it sunk, there
was nothing. Not even a heartbeat. He’s gone. Gazzy’s gone...” Angel cried,
coming over to me, and falling into my arms, her wings failing her. I held her,
letting her sob into my shoulder, stroking her hair.
“What?” A voice behind us said. We swivelled around in midair to see Iggy,
hovering 10 feet behind us. I hadn’t even heard his wing beats. “What do you
mean he’s gone?” Iggy said, his eyes already glistening, as if he knew the
answer to that question already.
No-one answered him. I don’t think anyone could. I looked at Max, who
was struggling to fight back tears, trying to remain strong, a leader. She looked
at me, hopefully, as if she wanted me to answer. Some leader she was.
“WILL SOMEONE FUCKING ANSWER ME!?” Iggy shouted angrily. “What
happened to Gazzy?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come out, I couldn’t
think of what to say.
“Uh... Gazzy he was, erm...” I broke off, struggling to figure this all out. I
took a deep breath and carried on. “He was in a helicopter, an Eraser... it
grabbed him, just before you disappeared. It, um, the helicopter, something...
something went wrong, it started to fall... It hit the water, and then it...”
“It what?” Iggy whispered.
“It blew up. With Gazzy inside, it blew up. And Angel can’t... She can’t...” I
broke off. I could feel tears straining to break through at the back of my eyes. I
was blinking furiously, and squinting, fighting to hold them back.
“Why aren’t you down there?” Iggy said sternly. “Why aren’t you down
there looking for him?”
I looked at Max, who stuttered, “Uh well, we. Angel said-“
“No offence, but Angel could be wrong.” Iggy cut in. “She can go under the
water, to the helicopter, and see if she can find him. If not she can bring
something back up from it, and give it to Nudge. She’ll be able to find out what
happened from it. Right Nudge?”
Nudge stifled back her sobbing and replied, “Maybe, yeah.”
“Iggy’s right.” Will piped in. “If we go now there might still be a chance of
helping him.”
“Sorry, but who said you were going?” I said cruelly to him, venting my
frustration on him.
“What?” Will asked, confused.
“Will look!” Emily piped in, but he ignored her.
“None of this concerns you. I told you, we’re done. The only reason we
were just fighting together is because we had too. You can go now.” I told him.
“Fang!” Max shouted, shocked.
“Look Will, look!” Emily said again.
“Emily, not now.” He snapped, before answering me.
“What do you mean?! I’m going to stay, and help find Gazzy. You don’t
have the right to tell me not to! Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”
“Please!” Max shouted at us, beckoning for us to stop. “Fang this is hardly
the time! How can you be arguing like this? The personal issues need to stop
now. Iggy is right. We need to go find Gazzy.”
“Will!” Emily shouted now.
“Egh, what is it Emily?” he finally answered.
“Look at the wave!” She said happily, pointing off behind us, back towards
England. We all swivelled round, and once again, froze. As ridiculous and
impossible as it was, what can only be described as a 200 meter high tidal wave
was headed towards us from The English coast. As we stared, it tour through
helicopters, Erasers, and Flyboys alike.
“Is that a tidal wave?!” Nudge blurted out frantically, which caused Max to
snap to her senses.
“UP! Get up, above it!” she ordered, and we all instantly shot up, straight
in the air, going about 300 meters just to be safe. We watched in awe as it swept
across the channel, pulling just about everything that was down there, below the
water. As it came towards the French coast, it lessened and slowed, and quickly
collapsed to just become a slightly large wave, the type you would get from a
passing cruise liner.
We came back down, and surveyed the damage. Bodies floating in the
water, robot, Eraser and human, pretty much scattered all over the place, debris
from Helicopters dotted around. The sound of spinning rudders on either side of
us the distance put us on alert, and we could see from the colours of the new
helicopters that they were the long overdue coastguard and police from France
and Britain. We could see boats in the distance too, speeding our way.
“We need to go.” Max said simply.
“But Gazzy...” Angel muttered, tears still streaming.
“We’ll come back for him, but we can’t stay.” Max said as reassuringly as
she could. “Which way?” she asked us all. “North or south?”
“I’ve had enough of England for one lifetime.” Iggy said which was exactly
what I was thinking.
“Tell me about it.” Will sighed.
“Okay then. South.” Max nodded. “France it is.” and she began to fly,
looping around out of the way of the French police. As we flew, I think we all were
all thinking the same thing still. We could search and search for him, but we
properly weren’t going to find him. We had to accept the fact, as horrible as it
was that Gazzy was gone.

Max POV

The next day, the whole English Channel was swarming with people.
Police, Media, Recovery Teams, Tourists. The whole shebang. We wanted to get a
newspaper, to find out what the media were saying, but the nearest town was
quite small, and didn’t have any in English, and we couldn’t risk flying to a larger
city, as the whole area was teeming with people.
We wanted to fly out, and try to find Gazzy, but again, it was too
dangerous. What we decided to do in the end was to have Angel swim from the
coast, and stay under water to avoid being seen. She said she would be fine, but
it would take a long time.
None of us had been talking much. We hadn’t said the “D” word in
referring to Gazzy, we had to have some sort of proof. None of us could just
accept it. At one point we were discussing the tidal wave, and how it was just
completely ridiculous, that there had to be a logical explanation as to how one
had formed so quickly and so tall, and swept across the channel like that. The
only explanation anyone could think of was that a massive part of the cliffs in
England had collapsed into the ocean, but even that wouldn’t explain how the
wave was taller than the cliffs in the first place.
Hours later, Angel returned. She claimed to have found the helicopter, and
had had a couple of close calls with some divers. She said that the helicopter
was a charred and tangled mess and that the explosion had ripped it to shreds.
However, she was able to find something.
She had returned with what looked like Wall braces. She said they were
attached to the inside wall of the helicopter, and there were some shreds of what
looked like Gazzy’s t-shirt around them. But she couldn’t find any trace of him or
anyone else there.
She handed Nudge the braces, and Nudge focused for a minute, before
she burst out crying. As soon as she did that, we all knew it was true. Angel
began crying, Iggy cried, even Fang had tears rolling down his cheeks. Will
looked like he wanted to, but didn’t feel he was allowed. Gazzy was our family;
Will hadn’t known him nearly as long as we had.
 Once we had all calmed down a few hours later, Nudge ran us through
what happened. Gazzy was strapped down, and couldn’t get out. The helicopter
went down, and when it hit the water, one of those bombs went off. The blast
must have powerful to leave no visible trace of him at all. She said she couldn’t
find out how or why the whole helicopter disappeared for a short time.
And this is how we ended up where we were. Over a poorly made
gravestone, in a copse of trees by the beach, in Northern France. We didn’t have
a body to bury, but we didn’t want to leave without doing something. We knew
that is his body wasn’t in the helicopter, and that we wouldn’t ever find it.
We all were stood around the Headstone, in horrible silence, the sound of
the waves lapping against the beach the only noise we could hear.
“Um, does anyone want to...?” I sniffed through tears, gesturing to the
grave. No-one said anything, and I was about to step up, and try and think of
something to say, when Iggy suddenly spoke.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” He said through tears. “I should have been
there, with the flock, rather than off somewhere else. If I was there, maybe I
could have... I couldn’t have at least tried... I’m sorry Gaz... I’m gonna miss you.”
Angel was sobbing silently into my side, holding onto me tight, Fang was
comforting Nudge, who was crying onto his shoulder.
Will stepped forward now. He had been a bit out of our circle around the
headstone, obviously unsure of whether he should be here.
“I can’t help but feel like this is my fault. If you had never met me, you’d
still be here. I’m sorry. It’s not fair this has happened to you.” I glanced up at
Fang, who was staring at Will, almost hatefully. I knew him well enough to know
he wouldn’t do anything here, but I kept my eye on him.
Then Fang stepped forward, with Nudge as well.
“I’m really going too miss you.” Fang said, obviously fighting hard not to
be crying more than he was. “Whenever something bad happened or, there was
a really awkward moment, you’d always be there, to do something really silly
and immature. You’d always make us laugh. You were a great kid. I love you
Gazzy. We all do.”
He then waited with Nudge, who was trying to work up the courage to say
something. However she eventually gave up, and sobbed “I just can’t! I’m sorry,
I can’t.” Fang stroked her hair, and comforted her telling her it was okay, that she
didn’t have to say anything.
That just left me and Angel. Angel wasn’t going to say anything on her
own, so I led us both up.
“You were our family. You were a brother to all of us.” I began. “You were a
terror when you were little, but you were a smart kid. To be honest, I think if you
were going to bow out in any way, you would want it to be in a massive
explosion of some sort. It’s just a shame that it happened to you so soon
though... It’s not right that they can do this. It’s wrong that this should happen.
It’s not fair.”
I looked down at Angel, not entirely happy with what I said, but I felt I
should stop, and was silent as she said her goodbye. “I love you Gazzy.” She
sobbed quietly, and said no more. Nothing more needed to be said.

***

The next day, we packed up our stuff and left. We flew up into the air, not
caring anymore if anyone saw us. I just wanted to get away from there as quickly
as possible, but at the same time, I wanted to stay there for as long as possible.
It felt wrong, Gazzy not being here. One of our family was gone. And he would
never come back.