Author's Note: My brother got "Sonic Riders" for Christmas, so I had the Babylon Rogues on the mind, and came up with this silly little thing. Was really just messing with the characters, but I also got to wondering if Jet ever regretted the fact that he's apparently incapable of flight unless some other device aides him, and that kind of became a theme. Anyway, enjoy! :)
"Flight"
Jet hated paperwork.
Especially paperwork that involved money.
Specifically when that money must leave his pocket and enter someone else's.
But races had their entry fees that needed paying. And no matter how Jet tried to look at it, there was no avoiding this one fact of life. He just wished he didn't have to pay for it with money he had earned…legally.
His preferred course of action would actually to be steal the needed money from somewhere else to use to pay for such…trivial…fees, or better still, just show up unannounced at these races and race in them despite whatever anyone might say or think about it. He especially felt this way about this race he, Wave, and Storm were planning on entering, as it was no EX World Grand Prix. It was a very small, insignificant, one-track, one-lap race taking place in some obscure place in Apotos that was hardly worth the effort of entering; Jet knew they'd beat it without breaking a sweat. But…they were, to be honest, bored and needed something to do.
Still, Jet did not like having to pay the entry fee with money he had earned, not stolen from anywhere. But Wave had pointed out to him some time ago that using stolen money could get them disqualified from the race if it was discovered, and just showing up to race without actually entering meant that they weren't eligible to get the prizes offered. And prizes were important, even though Jet only considered them as the second-best thing about a good race.
So as much as he hated to admit it, Jet knew that Wave had a point, and thereby begrudgingly paid these stupid fees out of his own pocket. Besides, he knew that, unlike him, Wave wasn't always in this for the money anyway, also reasoning that using stolen money to pay for something wasn't very honorable, and was usually a bit outspoken about it every time the idea came up. Storm would occasionally tease Wave for that opinion, stating that she was the first Babylon Rogue to have a conscience, leading Wave to deny it. Which in turn led Storm to list the evidence to prove Wave wrong. Which in turn led Wave to do likewise, only using bigger, more technical words. Which in turn led to Storm getting confused by those big words, giving Wave the chance to tease him, something she never passes up on. Which in turn led to Jet telling them both to get the heck out of there so that he could hear himself think.
Besides, Jet knew Wave was more valuable to him when cooperative, meaning that he couldn't ignore her advice all the time, and he supposed she might have a point about the honor thing, because Jet knew about honor. He respected honor.
He just didn't like it when honor meant giving up money.
"Stupid conscience," he muttered aloud to himself as he filled out his name on the entry form before him for what felt like the fifth time.
Half way through his signature, however, the lead in the pencil suddenly snapped, leaving an unsightly blotch of granulized graphite right on the "h" in "Hawk." That was the breaking point for Jet, and he threw the pencil across his airship office angrily, then sighed, and leaned back in his desk chair for a moment, rubbing at his eyes. He really didn't want to work on this.
After a moment, he glanced across the office where his Extreme Gear board stood propped up on its display stand, polished and finely tuned, ready for use at a moment's notice. Jet couldn't help but grin at the sight of it. It was reassuring to know sometimes that his Type-J board was always ready for him to use at anytime of the day, excluding the rare unusual circumstances, of course. When stressed like this, Jet would often be tempted to pull out his board and go racing around on it, so to unwind. The exhilaration of flying around at high speeds usually proved to be quite distracting. But Jet felt like not even this would be enough to cheer him up today.
He was in one of those moods.
Jet was never quite sure what brought them on, but he was always puzzled by them, because he could always figure out what he didn't want when in such moods, but never what he did want. What did he want? Another encounter with a certain blue hedgehog? He had been hoping that he'd get to cross paths with Sonic The Hedgehog at this little race in Apotos so he could challenge him to a race (and maybe determine once and for all who was really the fastest without anybody interfering for a change), but inwardly knew the odds of this were quite slim. Sonic only ever seemed to turn up for the Grand Prixs (save for that one time with the Arks of the Cosmos) and otherwise didn't seem to be that interested in competitive Extreme Gear racing as he never entered other races. Jet liked to think it was because Sonic was trying to avoid him, as Jet was the fastest thing alive in the air, but he also knew from the odd news report that Sonic actually was pretty busy the rest of the year, usually having bigger fish to fry than Extreme Gear.
Said metaphorical fish were usually inconsiderately donated by a certain Eggman, too, and since Jet didn't like the annoying doctor anymore than Sonic seemed to, he supposed he was okay with the hedgehog dedicating his time to beating that rotund man. Just so long as Jet didn't have to deal with him.
To answer the original question if this was what Jet wanted, though, he realized the answer was likely to be a solid 'no,' as he had felt like this plenty of times in the past, well before he had even met Sonic. So what was it? Maybe he was just hungry, as he knew people could get irritable when they were hungry, but then figured that probably wasn't it either, as lunch wasn't too long ago.
He growled to himself. He wasn't getting anywhere with this.
It was then that Storm suddenly burst into the office, startling Jet. "Hey boss!"
Jet jumped in his chair with a yelp, and accidently leaned too far backwards in the process, causing the chair to overbalance and fall over, taking him with. "Storm!" he yelled angrily as he picked himself back up, "What have I told you about knocking?"
Storm looked instantly apologetic, quickly clamping a hand to his beak in shame. "Oh, right," he muttered, "Sorry boss!"
And then, before Jet could stop him the albatross promptly turned back around and exited the office again, neatly closing the doors behind him. A moment later, Jet heard him surprisingly politely knocking on the door.
Jet fumed inwardly for a moment. "Get in here Storm!" he ordered loudly.
Storm obediently burst into the office again and started pounding on Jet's desk. "Wave sent me up here, boss!" he exclaimed urgently, "Says to report that we're about to fly into a pretty nasty looking thunderstorm! It came out of nowhere!"
"Huh?" Jet turned and looked out the office windows at the sky beyond, indeed seeing the edges of a very dark, very large, thunderhead cloud moving towards the airship, lightning flashing from within it. It was already quite close to the airship already. He looked back at Storm. "How the heck do you miss that?"
Storm just shrugged. "I dunno," he muttered in his deep bass voice, "Wave's doing the flying."
Jet rubbed at his eyes in frustration again. "Well, go tell her to navigate around it, then, not through it!" he snapped, "Honestly, do I have to tell you guys everything?"
"Okey-dokey, boss," Storm remarked, and promptly turned and exited the officer for the second time to relay the news, this time not bothering to close the ornate office doors behind him.
He didn't get much farther than a few paces outside the door when there was a sudden and resounding bang accompanied with a blinding flash from outside. The airship suddenly lurched to one side, and Jet could feel it start to sink alarmingly rapidly beneath his feet.
"Uh, boss?" Storm said as he staggered back into the office yet again, "I don't think that was supposed to happen!"
"Of course it wasn't, you numbskull!" Jet barked at him angrily, knowing he didn't have time for this, and marched past Storm and out of the office.
He headed straight for the airship's bridge, treading carefully as the craft continued to lurch and shake. Storm followed him like a pet dog with about the same grace as a falling brick. When Jet arrived at the bridge, noting that Wave was at the steering controls as Storm had said, he noticed that the airship was still heading straight for the thunderstorm before them.
"Wave!" Jet exclaimed, grabbing the swallow's attention, "Turn us around!"
"Don't think I'm not trying, Jet!" Wave snapped back as Jet hurried up to check the gauges, "But we got struck by lightning on the roof of the ship, and it must have punctured one of the fuel cells, because we're losing helium."
"Helium?" Jet repeated in dismay, and slapped his face, understanding the problem. Their airship carried two kinds of fuel. One was regular aircraft fuel that powered the engines that propelled the craft. The other was helium, which filled the airship's envelope and was what kept the craft afloat. Leaks for either of the two fuels were both serious affairs, but for the helium, it was even more serious, because without it, the airship would drop like a rock into the sea below.
Not only that, but replacement helium didn't come cheap.
"I've been venting some of the emergency reserves to try keep us afloat, but since we're still leaking, it'll only prolong the inevitable unless someone goes out there and patches the hole," Wave continued explaining, "In the meantime, we're steadily losing altitude."
"All right," Jet said with a sigh, "Try and keep us from taking a swim in the Atlantic Ocean, Wave, and get us turned out of this storm before we take on more damage. Me and Storm will head up top and see to that hole."
"Be careful," Wave warned the two as they turned to exit the bridge again, "It's going to be pretty windy up there at the moment."
"Like I don't know that," Jet snapped back, not needing to be told this.
No further conversation was held as Jet and Storm trekked through the airship into the bowels of the craft, heading through maintenance tunnels and up ladders to the roof of the craft. Quickly they arrived in a small compartment where they grabbed a repair kit apiece as well as safety harnesses, which they quickly strapped on. That done, Jet led the way to access hatch that led out and threw it open, both of them climbing out onto the curving roof of the airship. As Wave had predicted, strong gusts of wind buffeted them around, so they quickly grabbed the ends of the reels of safety lines bolted to either side of the hatch and latched them onto the harnesses. Jet also noted that the airship's course hadn't appeared to have changed, and they were still flying straight into the storm, which was practically on top of them now
Jet pressed an earpiece radio into his ear. "We're on the roof, where's the hole, Wave?" he demanded into it, yelling to be heard over the wind.
"Near the aft, not far from the rudder," came Wave's prompt reply, "At least, that's what the gauges suggest."
"Fine, keep me informed of our altitude and distance from the storm," Jet said, motioning to Storm to follow him as he started towards the spot Wave indicated, "And turn us out of this storm!"
"I'm trying, Jet." A pause, "We're currently at fifteen thousand feet and falling, and three kilometers from entering the storm."
"Doesn't look like it," Jet muttered to himself as he and Storm reached the rudder and started down a pair of ladders that led down along the side of the airship, but Wave did not give a response. Hopefully she was too busy trying and turn them out of the storm.
Jet and Storm hadn't climbed down the ladders far before they found the hole conveniently positioned between the two ladders. It was about two feet in length and was quite jagged and scorched; fitting for the fact that lightning had struck it. A soft hissing was barely audible as helium slithered out the hole.
"Get to work!" Jet ordered Storm , and pulled out his repair kit. On the opposite side of the hole, Storm wordlessly pulled out his.
Inside was a special kind of thread used for just such an occasion along with a needle to thread it through. Then one literally stitched the fabric back together. Jet started work without comment, knowing that the hole needed to be patched before too much helium was lost, but Storm did so begrudgingly and half-heartedly.
"This is women's work," he grumbled as he reluctantly stitched.
"Stitch faster, Storm," was Jet's only response.
"Wave should be doing this sewing stuff, not me."
"The day I see Wave sewing is the day I hope I have a camera on hand to record it with," Jet grinned at the thought, not even knowing if Wave knew how to do this kind of stitching as it wasn't really her kind of thing, "That way I can never let her forget it."
They continued stitching in silence for a few moments.
"Fourteen thousand feet and falling now, one kilometer from the storm," Wave reported over Jet's radio earpiece suddenly.
"What, we're still heading into the storm?" Jet exclaimed, outraged, "Get us out of here, Wave!"
"I am, Jet. It's just going slowly. I have to turn the ship into the wind, but I've already got us in a banking turn. Shouldn't be much longer now."
Jet sighed, but did not comment, and instead continued stitching. Soon, his stitching and Storm's slightly sloppier stitching finally met near the middle of the hole, having successfully patched it.
"There, that should do it," Jet radioed to Wave.
"Yes it did," Wave was heard reporting back happily, checking gauges, "Helium levels holding steady, and we are now heading out of the storm."
Jet glanced around, and saw that the airship was indeed starting to head back out of the storm.
"All right," Jet remarked, feeling a slightly better now at their job well done, and nodded to Storm, "Let's get out of this wind!"
Storm nodded, and started to climb back up the ladder. Jet reached the top first, then turned back to look at Storm, who was still a few rungs away from reaching the top. Jet was just about to tell him to hurry it up when the rung Storm just grabbed with his hand suddenly snapped off its foundations. Surprised, Storm fumbled backwards a moment only to lose his grip on a lower rung with his other hand and with a yell tumbled off the ladder. He bounced once off the side of the airship's envelope then continued to plummet until his safety line suddenly snapped taunt, stopping his fall abruptly. Storm then dangled there helplessly, but unhurt, not far from the windows to the very office Jet had been sitting in not that long ago, unable to pull himself back up.
Jet sighed in frustration at the albatross's clumsiness, then wandered over to the reel holding Storm's safety line and started turning the crack to reel him in. He didn't get far before the reel wouldn't turn any further, for some reason unable to reel in anymore line. Jet looked around for an explanation, and saw that the safety line had snagged on the jagged remains of the broken rung, and wouldn't pull free.
Sighing again, Jet started to climb down the side of the airship again so to pull the line free. Once there, he balanced himself on the edge of the ladder and tugged a few times on the line, but it still wouldn't give. At one point his hand slipped and he, too, almost fell, sliding down the side of the airship a few rungs before he managed to grab the ladder again and stop his fall.
It was right about then, looking down the side of the airship and seeing its side curve away and out of sight leaving nothing visible beyond it but the open air and the edges of the storm, where only one wrong step was what was keeping him on the airship altogether that Jet finally realized what it was that he wanted, but couldn't figure out.
He wanted to fly.
Unaided by anything, except himself.
He wondered to himself where the heck this idea had come from, but now that he had finally figured it out, he realized he didn't really know. The idea had just…kind of…always been there, in the back of his mind. Deep down, he had always wanted something more than flying in something like an airship or aircraft. Even flying an Extreme Gear seemed only seemed second-best to it. What he really wanted was to fly like the bird he was.
And why couldn't he? He was a hawk, wasn't he? What could possibly stop him? Heck, if that two-tailed fox friend of Sonic's was capable of self-sustained flight, why not Jet?
So, without stopping to really think about what he was doing, Jet pushed himself off the side of the airship and launched himself out into the open air, arms and legs stretched out into a spread-eagle position that seemed like the right thing to do for this. He glided out into the air for several feet, feeling the wind flutter around him. Jet was amazed at how liberating this felt, to be hanging out this high in the air with nothing but himself and the air holding him up. It was exhilarating. Not even riding an Extreme Gear could compare to this sensation.
I should've tried this years ago! he thought to himself.
It was right around then that Jet reached the peak of his jump and gravity took hold once again, dragging Jet back down again. With a yelp, Jet fell down the side of the airship, and would've kept on falling had his own safety line not suddenly go taunt and end his fall with a sharp jolt. The wind then grabbed him again and swung him towards the aft of the ship, Jet having just enough time to see that he was swinging towards Storm when he smacked into the albatross with a thud.
"Oof!" Jet exclaimed, his voice muffled as his face embedded itself with the albatross's large body.
"Now what did you do that for, boss?" Storm asked in surprise and outrage, "Now neither of us can get back up there!"
"I didn't do that on purpose!" Jet lied quickly, annoyed at his failure and that Storm had been witness to it, "I just…slipped!"
Storm considered this for a moment, remembering how Jet had looked when he launched himself off the side of the craft. "I dunno, boss, looked to me like you jumped," he remarked.
"No!" Jet lied again, but could feel his cheeks burning in embarrassment. At least Storm was the sole witness. He was too loyal to Jet to press the issue and would probably forget about it after awhile anyway. If Wave had seen it, however, she wouldn't ever have let Jet live it down.
Why did he do that, anyway? Looking back, he knew he should have known better to try a stupid stunt like that, it could've only ended in failure. And Jet did not like to fail at anything. Furthermore, he felt like he had been robbed of an excellent chance there, anyway. Didn't help that nature had lead him to believe he had succeeded until the last possible second, like it was purposely fooling with him.
He looked longingly back up the direction he had fallen, thinking regrettably that at least it was fun while it lasted, and got back to the matter at hand, reaching for the radio earpiece radio.
Only to discover that he had lost the earpiece radio in his fall. No doubt it was rapidly sinking in the ocean below them by now. But this also meant that he had no way of letting Wave know what had happened until she noticed he and Storm where missing and went to investigate.
This didn't happen until long after the airship was navigated out and away from the storm, and a new course was set to navigate safely around the storm. Around then, Jet spied Wave walking past his office though it's window, the swallow glancing inside briefly to see if they were inside, before strolling on past. Jet was just about ready to believe that she had somehow not seen the pair of them hanging upside-down outside the window when Wave suddenly did a double take and reappeared in the doorway. She stared at the pair outside the window for a moment, then immediately started laughing, not calming down enough to actually do anything about it for several minutes.
When she finally did, she strolled over the window and opened it, poking her head out. "So are you two done out here, or should I come back later?" she asked teasingly.
"Just get up top and reel us in," Jet snapped angrily.
"Well, I dunno, shouldn't I ask what happened first, just in case there's something I need to rub in your faces?"
"Hey, I fell because the ladder broke!" Storm remarked in his defense. He jabbed his thumb at Jet, "He jumped!"
"I did not!" Jet barked back at him, but the comment had already sent Wave into a new fit of laughter, a fit that continued even after Wave had closed the window and walked back out of the office to go reel the pair in where Jet could neither hear nor see her.
She was still giggling off and on by the time Jet and Storm were pulled safely back into the airship where they belonged. Both annoyed and embarrassed by his lack of judgment, Jet sent them both away and retreated back into his office where he could be left alone. There, he went back to working on what he had been doing before this all started.
Then he was reminded just how much he hated paperwork.
Jet's thoughts then wandered back to his reckless jump off the airship earlier, and to his surprise, he decided that despite everything, he didn't regret it. Maybe he did fail, but for a fleeting moment there, he experienced a sensation he was fairly certain he wasn't going to get to feel again anytime soon.
And, at the very least, the next time he gets to longing for that experience, at least he can tell himself that he already got to try it once.