This, the Merb decided grumpily, tracing a crude line of stitches straggling along the knee of his pants with one finger, was only to be expected.
He didn't know how long he had been in this cell. His only glimpse of the outside world was a barred window offering views of the sky as day blurred into night, the creeping fingers of twilight coming like the deadliest of monsters to snatch the delicate light away. It rankled him to receive so little information. For, even beyond Terra Merbia, where the fragile crust of the earth was free from the constant chain of natural disasters, he was still wary, as all of his species generally were.
I doubt, he thought wryly, plucking at a loose thread with long, clammy fingers, they would be as paranoid as I am though, considering what I've been through.
It felt like years. Just as he had no way of tracking time, he had no way of knowing what had happened to his homeland, nor if any of his kind had survived. He could still remember the day – burned into his mind like a tattoo: the blood-red sky renting with an ear-splitting howl that felt as sure as the apocalypse, smoke and jet fuel sprouting black against the sky like cankers as the skimmers darted above on the winds, flashes of light and the clangs of weapons and, of course, a flash of vibrant red hair. He had been up there, twin blades burning blue blurs in hands that dealt death as swiftly and easily as the most expert of cardsharps, green eyes burning above a blaze of white teeth bared in a frenzied, exhilarated grin.
But even the most exhilarated hawks could fall. The Merb hoped that hadn't happened.
After all, he thought balefully, they're a lot smarter than me. Although, he reflected, balefulness giving way to anger, anyone would be smarter than me. Who else would get captured by the Cyclonians, be given a chance to work as a mechanic on their warships, and end up getting locked up because they don't want to? At least as a mechanic he would have had a chance to escape.
He settled back against the wall. The smooth grey stone was icy against his back and festering with mould. I could catch some chronic disease from this, the Merb thought nervously, one bulbous eye turning slowly backwards towards the object of his concern. The other eye remained trained forward, eyelid flickering rapidly as the dark iris beneath it reflected cold grey bars.
Drip… drip… drip… drip…
The pupil shrank to the size of a pinprick in alarm as it quickly swivelled upwards, seeking the source of the unexpected noise. The leaking pipe squatted like some grotesque, hunched spider on the cracked ceiling. The pupils were as black as pits and held absolutely no emotion as the face that owned them continued to stare up at the slow drip of water that echoed throughout the cold stone cell.
The sudden screech of a rusted bolt scraping against the reinforced metal of the doorway as the thick, brass-enforced wood door was unlocked tore into his ears. His hands flew up to cover them, eyes becoming hooded by thick black lashes as he squinted through the light that suddenly flooded the damp, dingy cell. The muffled crunch of the door falling back on rusted hinges resounded like the echoes hissing inside his sore, numb head. For he had been locked up in here for what felt like months and he was tired, tired of the memories and worries and thoughts and fears that chased each other around the inside of his head like moths attracted to a crystal light. He had languished, day after day marked only by the change in the gruel he was fed, patience and mind stretched by the stillness and hostility of the solitary cell. He wasn't insane, as everyone in Atmos seemed to believe. Although there was…
He forced a tired smile up at the silhouette of the man standing framed by the doorway. "Well, look who it is."
"Enjoying the facilities?" The Dark Ace asked with a twisted, dangerous grin.
The Merb shifted, bloodless lip flickering in a tense grin of his own as he shifted into a sitting position. A green hand swept behind him to gingerly rub the small of his back where it had grazed the stone. "Not bad," the quip was Merbian accented, but the tone carried the gist across to the tall Cyclonian. Stork squinted upwards past him towards the dripping pipe. "It needs a new plumber though. Do you realize I could catch pneumonia from that?"
"I seem to remember you wanting to see 'the heart of the filthy Cyclonian territory'." Those last words were drawled in a parody of the Merb's slithering, sibilant accent as the Dark Ace reached for the door behind him. Stork knew Ace – the Dark Ace now – would not have locked himself in with a prisoner unless he had confirmed he was utterly incapacitated. And, feeling his tired, sluggish limbs, the Merb had to admit he was right.
Cyclonian energy leech crystals were strong.
Stork's eyes fell to the floor, ears flattening in protest against the screech from the hinges. "My eardrums could burst you know," he said once the Dark Ace had finished.
"You know, that's what I hate about Merbs." The Dark Ace said conversationally, but there was a dangerous glint in the back of his eyes. Those red irises bore uncomfortably deep into Stork's face, but, for once, he wasn't afraid of mind-reading.
He had nothing left to tell.
The Dark Ace continued speaking. "Their favourite word seems to be 'could'."
"That along with 'I', 'hate' and 'Cyclonians," Stork agreed without thinking.
His reward was a fist against his chin, knuckles positioned for a spectacular right hook that hurled him backwards with all the grace of a flung rag doll falling to earth. His head cracked against the rock, he saw stars, he hit the floor, and he was still laughing.
The colour fled from the Dark Ace's face. He looked, despite himself, unnerved. "So they were right. You are insane."
"No," Stork spoke to the ceiling, even though he knew it wouldn't do him any good. The sudden, unexpected burst of laughter had drained out of him, leaving him cold. He climbed to his feet, swaying slightly as dizziness caught at him with unsteady claws.
He turned to the wall. "You know what I love about Cyclonians?" he reached out, hands closing around the smooth blocks of stone, knuckles burning briefly white as he hauled himself up. The Dark Ace's red eyes tracked him as he clambered up the wall with all the repulsiveness of a frog, occupying the previously vacant window ledge. The Merb rested back against the bars, knees drawing up to his chin as he stared moodily out the window, his toes pressed against the edge of the sill. The sunset that coloured the sky through the bars of the window illuminated the man's face in varying shades of green and caused his oily black hair to swirl slightly in the breeze.
It was such an odd, unnatural sight – what could the Merb hope to achieve by climbing up to a barred window? – that the Dark Ace couldn't help but ask, the cold flash burn of fury creeping slowly through his body – such an uncommon remark could only be prelude to an insult. "What do you love about Cyclonians?"
The Merb's teeth bared in a disconcerting grin, head ripping around to meet his gaze. Thin lips and white teeth parted to reveal a rolling black tongue as he hissed. "They always lose. The Storm Hawks will be the ones to stop you, they're undefea…"
"Lightning Strike," the Dark Ace said coldly, mind fleeing unconsciously back to the man with hair the colour of flames and a loyalty just as strong. "Is dead. I killed him."
The Merb's mouth drooped at the corners, and all the light, all the belief in Atmos's hero, drained from his cheeks, leaving behind a face that was still and cold. Watching him, the Dark Ace was reminded of a candle that had been blown out, the flame fading to a wisp of smoke that was soon to be dissipated by the breeze.
Stork stared at him for a long moment before he turned to look out the window again. "Well," he said emotionlessly, after a pause. His hand rose to toy with his ear piercings, as he had habitually done ever since they had put them there. "That was only to be expected."
"Yes," the Dark Ace sniffed, his dislike for the pale prisoner's species rising like a snake rearing from long grass. "You Merbs have an infernal habit of assuming the worst."
"It's kept me alive so far." Stork shrugged. "Unless you would rather me fall prey to the various harbingers of death and destruction that wait out there." He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the window. "Although of course," he flung a scathing glance over his shoulder at the Dark Ace. "You aren't much better."
"You could have had it all!" The Dark Ace's shadow was tall and all-encompassing, darkening nearly the entire interior of the cell as he flung open the door. Red eyes burned in a pale face as he turned back to the prisoner. "Do you think any other Talon has your skill with mechanics? Why else do you think we captured you? We need your talents."
Stork's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I would die rather than become a Talon."
The Dark Ace's eyes glared back into the Merb's dark ones, his voice quietening to a low, menacing growl. "Your home terra has been taken over for failing to accept the righteous will of Cyclonia. All of your heathen species that have not come to see her way as right have been killed. I don't care what it takes; I will personally bend your talent to serve the will of Cyclonia. Everything must yield, even you, you poor, pitiable, insane… "
The Merb was at the bars before the Dark Ace had seen him move, mouth open in an insane grin, eyes bright with something that was neither fury nor desperation. The Dark Ace felt his throat tighten with a fear he hadn't completely felt in a long time as the prisoner pressed against the bars.
"Not insane, Ace." His fingers reached between the metal bars and clenched around the Dark Ace's wrist, cold and clammy where they pressed against his flesh. Stork's bulbous eyes were wide and staring, pupils vast caverns that echoed a desperate craziness the Dark Ace could understand, having been himself into those dark places.
The Dark Ace instinctively took a step backwards, but it was no use. The prisoner's grip was like iron and his mouth stretched further in sadistic amusement, knowing he had hit him and hit him hard.
"You think I don't know?" his accent lent a horrible, grating hiss to his words and the Dark Ace tried to pull away but he couldn't. "You think I wouldn't know when you brought in the last surviving member of the Storm Hawks and put her in the cell next to mine? Did you think I wouldn't hear when she spoke her final words? I know you once belonged to the Storm Hawks. I know you killed…" the Merb's breath was released in a long, shuddering gasp and his fingers flexed tighter down on the rogue's arm, slimy and cold, so cold. Stork was grinning at him, eyes glazed, seeing…
What? What was it that the rebellious mechanic was seeing?
A crazy grin flashed further across his face and stuck. Stork leant forward towards the Cyclonian, faces inches apart, his voice lowering to one altogether more ominous, more dangerous. "You talk of honour, Ace? How could you talk about honour when you killed your very own squadron leader?" the shaking suffusing his body, from his contorted face to the tips of his twitching green ears, betrayed exactly how painful it was. Stork took a breath and continued, voice as hard as nails. "A fellow Sky Knight, yet you took your blade and stabbed him in between the shoulder blades…"
The Dark Ace wrenched his hand away, out of the Merb's grip. His flesh throbbed when it came into contact with the air. "And this is why," he fought for calm, but the tremor that caught at the back of his words betrayed him. "You are going to be executed."
"I don't think so," Stork shook his head; that grin was still painted across his face. "I can always escape."
"You can try." The Dark Ace's voice was as flat as a shard of glass and twice as deadly as its edge. "But if you do, I will find you. You can join a squadron if you want. You could even spend your whole life cowering in the back of a carrier. But I will never stop hunting you."
"Of course," the Merb grinned and leant closer again. He was so close his breath fanned the Dark Ace's face, eyelid fluttering spastically. "Because that's exactly your style isn't it, Ace?"
He left with the Merb's laughter ringing off the stone walls behind him.
Like any other person with an over-active imagination, an unintentional disregard for original characterisation, and a perchance for analysis, I was instantly intrigued by what Stork meant when he said Cyclonia looked 'homey'. And this strange fic was born.