A/N: Hey there, this just a little different from the usual. Felt like some gore, so I wrote this. Again, for the squeamish, please turn around and leave now. You have been warned. If you continue to read anyway, I will not be held responsible if you vomit on your keyboard and screw up your computer. Thank you.
.:':. .:':. .:':.
Aerrow woke with a groan. It was always hard to wake up feeling motivated on a Sunday morning. He looked at his clock. 4:15. Groaning again, he rolled back over, stuffing his face into his pillow, but sleep had left him. I hate mornings, he thought blearily, rubbing his tired face. He stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the tap, splashing himself with icy water. The shock of the cold woke him up a bit, and he quickly towelled off his face before padding into the kitchen.
Grabbing a sandwich out of the fridge, he noticed that the ship was still docked in the spot they had chosen the night before. That's weird. I've woken up earlier than this before, and Stork was already piloting the ship. Why isn't he today? Sandwich forgotten, Aerrow hurried to the helm, only to find it devoid of life. Rushing to the rooms of all of his teammates returned the same results. Where was everyone? Confused, he headed back to the kitchen, where he found something that he had somehow overlooked before. A note, taped to the door of the fridge, his name written on the front in a messy scrawl that he knew immediately as Finn's. He took the note and opened it, hoping it would explain his teammates' mysterious absence.
Squinting slightly as he tried to decipher Finn's writing, Aerrow finally figured out where they had gone.
Hey Aerrow,
Piper asked me to write this so if you woke up early you wouldn't freak out when we weren't there. So, anyway, it won't be much of a surprise anymore if you're reading this, but we went out to get a surprise present for your birthday today. Can't tell you anything else, sorry. Piper would probably hit me. Wait - she just said she'd definitely hit me. Besides, she didn't tell us anything about it, except that it's big.
Ow. She just hit me.
We should be back before sunrise (you have no idea how hard it was to get Junko to wake up this early, so you better like what we get you. No pressure.)
Later,
The Finnster
Aerrow rolled his eyes. How could he have forgotten his own birthday? He decided that while he was waiting for them to return, he might as well do some training. After grabbing his energy blades from his room, he jogged to the deck, where the training dummy sat. Its painted grin glowed eerily in the light from his blades, but he ignored it and started training. Sweat was pouring off him in waves by the time sunrise rolled by. He went back inside, had a quick shower, changed, went back out to the foredeck and waited for his friends. And waited.
And waited.
The sun slowly crept higher in the sky, and still they didn't come. Wondering what was keeping them, Aerrow returned to the helm. He picked up the receiver and punched in Piper's Heliscooter com number. "Piper! Come in! Where are you guys? It's way past sunrise already. Give me your position, if you're in trouble I can come pick you up. Piper, come in-" He stopped as the other end clicked on. "Piper, what's your status? Where-"
Dark laughter echoed through the speaker, chilling Aerrow's blood. "Sorry, Piper is currently... indisposed," a menacing voice rasped, muffled and distorted as if something were covering the receiver. "Same goes for the rest of your squadron. If you ever want to see them alive, come alone to these coordinates." Aerrow quickly grabbed for a pencil and a piece of paper, writing down the coordinates that he was told. "Now," the voice purred, "you and I are going to do ourselves a little deal. You come here, surrender, and I'll let your friends go free! Five for one! A bargain, wouldn't you say? Don't try any funny stuff, or your friends will pay. Understood?"
"I understand," Aerrow replied through gritted teeth.
"Oh, and one more thing. Don't bring that Condor ship with you. Come on a skimmer, or the deal is off." The voice chuckled again. "Pleasure doing business with you."
Aerrow slammed down the receiver, hanging his head. He knew that trading himself in for his friends would be signing a death sentence, and he wasn't sure that whoever had kidnapped them wouldn't just kill them anyway.
He lifted his head again, determined. He might be flying off to his death, but he still had to try to save the others.
.:':. .:':. .:':.
Heart pounding, Aerrow flew as fast as he could to the coordinates he had been given.
The radio crackled to life - Piper had obviously managed to get the receiver away from their captor. "Aer... urry u... nko, st... k... adar are alre... ed... th... ied to fight ba... m so... orry, I tr... to sa...em... he... rned on me, t... or much lon... ease, hurry..." The connection went dead.
"Piper!" He fiddled desperately with the dials, but received only static. "Come on," he urged his skimmer, willing it to go faster. The red button for the afterburner gleamed invitingly under its glass casing. Why were those sorts of things always so tempting?
Aerrow bit his lip. If he pressed the button, there was about a one in seventeen chance that his skimmer would explode, and then his teammates would be left helpless. But if it worked, he'd get there much faster, and those extra minutes would be crucial, the difference between life and death... Then his heart sank to his shoes as he realised that for some of them, it was already too late. Whilst flying, he had finally pieced together the static-riddled message Piper had given him. Aerrow, hurry up! Junko, Stork and Radarr are already dead, they tried to fight back... I'm so sorry, I tried to save them. He's turned on me too. I can't hold out for much longer... Please, hurry...
His gut twisted. Junko, Stork and Radarr were... dead? Stomach flipping, he was unsure if Finn's name had been lost in the static, or if the transmission had been cut because Piper had died too.
Steeling himself, he punched the button.
The sheer force of it nearly threw him from his seat. It actually worked, he mused. Grappling with the extreme influence of the wind, Aerrow pulled out his goggles and strapped them over his eyes to keep the gale-force winds from creating the tears that were blurring his vision.
At any other time, he would have enjoyed the speed, but now he only wished he could go even faster. Half his squad was dead... If he didn't hurry, they all would be.
The front wheel bounced when it touched down, and the whole vehicle skidded in a plume of dust as Aerrow fought to slow down enough so that he wouldn't crash into the huge mountain jutting from the middle of the terra.
Brakes screeching, the skimmer came to rest a few scant meters from one of the many giant slabs of rock that littered the base of the mountain. Almost as soon as the vehicle had stopped moving, Aerrow leapt off it and started running. Suddenly, he was glad Stork had forced them all to have his new trackers hooked onto their belts. Like almost every time he put in to action a 'just in case' plan, it seemed to have real merit - the trackers were the only way to find them in time.
He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. Stork wouldn't be there to take those extreme precautions for them anymore.
Glancing down at the tracker's screen, he saw a nearby cluster of coloured dots that represented his friends. From the proximity of the dots to his own blue blip, he guessed that they would be in the gulley before him, just past the huge boulder he had almost cashed into. He sprinted in that direction, hoping he wasn't too late.
Small stones tumbled loose as he scrambled down the steep sides of the gulley. Skidding to a stop when he reached the bottom, he took a moment to regain his balance before rushing again towards the source of the tracker signal. About two hundred metres to his left, Piper suddenly lurched into view, barely blocking the downward strike of a red broadsword that would have taken her head. Even from this distance, Aerrow could see she was struggling. Cuts and burns covered every bit of bared skin, and her uniform had been sliced apart in places. The shadowy fighter glanced up at him, smirking. Dark Ace... Aerrow raced at him, blades already drawn. She just had to hold out a little longer... That moment, time seemed to slow, every movement clear and distinct. The Dark Ace's leering smile grew wider, and he pointedly dropped his sword. Piper tried to swing at him again with the last of her strength. Almost lazily, he caught her staff with one hand and tossed it away. Aerrow put in an extra burst of speed, but it still wasn't enough. Grinning maniacally, the Dark Ace shoved his broadsword into Piper's chest and it exploded out of her back, splattering a shocked Aerrow with her blood. His blades suddenly hung limp in his hands. The Dark Ace withdrew his sword and wiped the blood off on his pant leg and, now unsupported, Piper fell to the ground. "What's wrong, Aerrow?" he asked innocently. "You look a little stunned."
"Oh look," he mused, cutting a long, curved line from the corner of each of her eyes. Pain contorted her features. "Poor girl, she's crying." A baleful glare at her tormentor and a few more gasped breaths, and then she was still.
The Sky Knight shook his head dazedly. Piper couldn't be dead. She just couldn't.
The hazy shock misting his brain gradually cleared. Piper was dead - and it was the Dark Ace's fault. Roaring animalistically, he launched himself at the older man, slashing wildly. The little adrenaline he had left pumping through his veins propelled him onwards. It was all the Dark Ace could do to block the worst of the blows and allow through the ones that would cause the least damage. There was no chance of him getting on the offensive, not with the flurry of blows that Aerrow was raining down upon him.
His adrenaline could only aid him for so long, and it slowly drained from his system. He made more mistakes, left more openings. This gave the Dark Ace the shot he needed - he quickly parried the high swipe of Aerrow's blades and drove his sword through the red-head's stomach, impaling him. He looked at his midsection in an expression that was almost surprised. The Dark Ace gave a triumphant shout of laughter. Leaning close, he whispered, "Game over, Aerrow. Hope it was fun while it lasted." He savagely twisted the sword that was still embedded in the Sky Knight's gut.
Suddenly, Aerrow's expression hardened and, fighting through the pain, he raised his dagger and stabbed the Dark Ace in the heart. Red eyes changed to brown and the look of victory over his adversary turned into one of horror. "What? I killed them... No..." His eyes went wide and he toppled over, releasing his grip on the sword still stuck in Aerrow's abdomen. He had to get it out. Sucking in a deep breath, he pulled on it the slightest fraction.
Screaming in agony, Aerrow stopped. Like a bandaid, like a bandaid, like a bandaid, his mind chanted. Screwing his eyes tight and gritting his teeth, he complied with the thought and ripped the sword from his stomach. Shuddering, panting and sweating from the extreme pain, he dropped to all fours.
Shaking, breathing heavily and trying in vain to hold the wound to his stomach closed, Aerrow stood. Once regaining his balance, he dragged the dead Talon commander away from the others. He didn't want the Dark Ace anywhere near them. When the body been moved maybe ten metres, Aerrow's legs gave out again. He crawled back to his friends so he could, if not bury them, at least put them in more respectable positions.
Stork was lying closest. Despite the fact that now he was closer, he could see the damage that had been done, Aerrow still felt a grim sense of satisfaction that the pilot hadn't seemed to go down without a fight - nicks and burns covered most of his body, and he was pretty sure that he had seen the Merb's teeth marks on the Dark Ace's leg. Thick green blood congealed on his slit throat, limbs twisted at odd angles. Wincing, Aerrow snapped them back into their sockets, arranging them so it looked like he was sleeping.
Lying about half a meter away was Radarr, fur so matted with blood that almost no blue showed. He stroked the mission specialist's back once, curled him into a more comfortable-looking position, and struggled over to Finn, tears blurring his vision.
Judging by the numerous burns from exploded arrows that he had seen on the Dark Ace's arms and legs, his wingman hadn't gone down easily either, but he had gone down all the same. Brutally so. The sharpshooter's crossbow was a shattered ruin, embedded deep in his torso. Sluggish blood still pumped feebly around the twisted shards of metal poking from his ribcage. Aerrow picked out the largest pieces and crossed the blonde's arms over the biggest gash, trying to hide it. Holding back the urges to throw up and pass out, he dragged himself to the next corpse.
It was Junko. At first, he was at loss as to how the Dark Ace had felled the gentle giant, but nearly did throw up when he figured it out. His prized Knucklebusters had been sliced clean in two by the Dark Ace's broadsword - and so had his hands. Almost up until his elbows, both of Junko's arms had been cleaved into two pieces, bone marrow exposed and main arteries gaping open. He would have died from extreme blood loss. Aerrow picked up the pieces of the strongman's arms and carefully laid them across his burly chest and numbly, he moved on.
Last of all, Piper, beautiful in death despite the burns and bloody tears cut into her face. He didn't line her up with the others, but pulled her close and curled her up in his lap. Wordlessly, he rocked back and forth, cradling the navigator in his arms, tears on his cheeks to match hers. He had never told her how much he cared about her... And now, it was too late. Gently kissing the marred skin of her forehead, he asked her forgiveness for what he was about to do.
One arm curled around Piper's shoulders and the other sought out his dagger. The tears were now streaming freely down his face, washing two thin white tracks through the red blood. "I'm so sorry... To all of you. I failed." Aerrow activated the blue striker crystal for the last time, hesitating for only a moment before plunging the blade into his chest, straight through his broken heart.
He had already lost so much blood through his stomach wound that he only drew two more breaths before he died – his teammates lying to one side of him, his adversary on the other – cradling the girl he loved in his arms.
.:':. .:':. .:':.
A/N: *blinks* Um, wow. That ended up way different than I expected. I wasn't actually going to kill all of them, it just... happened.
So, what did YOU think? Should I do something else like this, maybe the way Dark Ace went about killing the others? Or, for everyone's sanity (including what's left of mine), should I put the keyboard down and back away slowly? Let me know. Just press the button down there and write something. Go on. You know you want to.
-pixie.