"WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Finn dived downwards, firing all the way as he descended and spattering the side of the battle cruiser with electric blue explosions.
"What's the matter?" he shouted with a smile. "Can't see me when I come out of the sun, can you?"
His face fell when a cannon turned to face him and he swerved to the side as they started to fire.
"Okay, Piper!" he yelled into his radio. "I got their attention, you're up!"
"On it!" Piper replied.
Her heliscooter drew up alongside the cruiser's engine. After double-checking and making sure Finn was drawing all their fire, she pulled out the crystals she'd brought: a Blizzard and a Windstone. Holding them at arm's length to minimise potential damage to herself, she narrowed her eyes and concentrated, pushing as much energy as she could muster towards the stones.
It wasn't long before a flurry of ice spewed out of the Blizzard crystal, and with the help of the Windstone it infiltrated the cruiser's engines, filling them up and clogging them with ice and freezing the metal until it threatened to crack.
"That's not gonna hold for long!" Piper stated into her radio. "Junko, get on it!"
Right on cue, Finn flew overhead with his Wallop companion seated behind him on his skimmer.
"You'd better catch me, Piper!" he yelled.
Piper rolled her eyes.
"Don't I always?" she asked.
After taking a deep breath, Junko leapt from the ride and, while he was falling, smacked his fists together so that they throbbed with jade-coloured energy as he punched them into the iced-up engines and the metal splintered like balsa wood. He caught hold of the back end of Piper's heliscooter as, deprived of its means of levitation the cruiser began to plummet towards the Wastelands.
"CHICA-CHA!" Finn shouted in joy.
"YEAH!" shouted Junko, punching the air in celebration.
Piper, however, whipped out a pair of binoculars.
"Uh-oh," she said, "we're not out of the woods yet!"
As she spoke, a platoon of Cyclonian pilots poured out of the ship and started flying straight towards them, up and away from the impending fireball that was to be the fate of their cruiser.
"How many?" asked Finn.
"I think about twenty," Piper reported. "Maybe thirty. Hard to tell from this distance!"
The radio on her heliscooter crackled.
"If there's really that many," said the voice of Stork, "then don't you think it might be time we unveiled our… secret weapon?"
The Storm Hawks currently inflight all eyed each other.
And one by one, they smiled.
"Yeah," said Finn, "I think we've waited long enough."
"This does seem like a pretty good time," agreed Junko. "As good as any, at least."
"I think," Piper added, "that it is a wonderful idea. Go right ahead, Stork. Bring out our secret weapon!"
Smiling, Stork looked to the blue creature by his side.
"You heard the girl," he said. "Help our secret weapon get ready."
Radarr saluted and departed the bridge while the helmsman pulled down the intercom tube to speaking range.
"Oh, secret weapon?" he said in a sing-song voice. "Time to start getting ready~"
He pulled the coat from his shoulders and laid it over his bed.
Then took a small length of plain blood-red ribbon from the shelf on his wall and tied his long crimson hair back behind his head.
After that, he donned his gloves, pulled on every piece of armour he had and positioned his weapons and glider upon his back.
The door opened and Radarr looked in just as he was tugging down the leather.
"Could you prep my ride's engine?" he asked. "I'll need it on the way out. I'm taking, shall we say, an alternate route this morning."
Radarr nodded, and 'the secret weapon' left his room shortly afterwards.
This was something he had been looking forward to for twelve whole months. Twelve months of itching to get out and start fighting properly again, as a Sky Knight should – it was practically in the job description. Twelve months of studying, researching, perfecting this new science he had only recently begun to understand. Twelve months of…
…twelve months of struggling to lift both arms at the same time.
But all of that was going to change today, as he strode confidently down the corridor of the ship that had been his home for what felt like forever, even though it had been less than two years.
He reached the door to the bridge, which slid open as if intimidated by his presence and hurrying to get out of his way.
Stork turned and smiled at him in anticipation.
"Ready to go hurling yourself into almost certain peril?" he asked.
Aerrow smiled.
"Ready and waiting," he said.
He ran forward as Stork yanked down on a nearby lever, and reached the circular platform in the centre of the room as it retracted into the floor. There he crouched, and didn't have long to wait before it sprang up, catapulting him into the air, out of the Condor and back to the skies he knew and loved.
He opened his mouth and released a roaring battlecry as he descended upon a terrified-looking Talon and crash-landed on the back of his skimmer, which he sliced through with a deft swing of his blades before jumping aside and pulling out the wings of his glider. From there, he swooped around and fired once, twice, three times and took down one, two, three more of those Cyclonian morons before reaching a fourth, grabbing him by the back of the collar and throwing him off his vehicle.
Having commandeered it for himself, he steered upwards and was quickly ascending into the clouds with six of the remaining Talons hot in his tail. Once he reached the top of his arc and the skimmer could take no more, he pressed his palms together in front of his chest and when he rested them on the skimmer, it crackled and fizzled with lightning before morphing onto a massive ball of steel with a convenient handle for him to hold onto.
He rolled it so that he was on its side, flattened his body against it and fired into the air with his energy blade so that he was in the centre of what could only be described as a bludgeoning spiral of doom and destruction. He took out every single one of the Talons pursuing him and then tossed the ball at the formation of seven other talons that had been heading straight for him, intent on his demise.
"STUR-RIKE!" Finn yelled triumphantly as Aerrow pulled open his glider again and soared towards the remaining two.
He fired his blades behind him, gaining far more speed than he usually would thanks to the propulsion they provided, and rose up above the two men who stared at him in bafflement. A cocky smile was all he gave them before he closed one of his wings and fell into a breakneck-speed spiral with his arms outstretched, gripping his glowing blades on either side.
They sliced through the wings of the Talons' rides as though they were made of butter and once they had opened their parachutes, Aerrow sailed upwards again and retracted his glider before finally landing on his own ride as Radarr flew it up underneath him.
"How was that?" he asked as he took control. "'Coz personally, that's the most fun I've had in months!"
Radarr gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up accompanied by an excitable grin.
"Dude, that was AWESOME!" shouted Finn as he pulled up alongside. "I don't think I've ever seen you do anything that NUTS!"
"That was incredible!" said Junko as Piper alighted on Aerrow's other side. "Using Stork's trap to actually get into the fight? I don't even wanna know how much guts that took!"
"Aerrow," said a much calmer-looking Piper, "I think it's safe to say you're back."
Aerrow turned to Radarr again.
"Do you think I'm back?" he asked.
Radarr gave him a confident nod, and the pair shared a fist-bump.
"Did you have fun playing, kids?" asked Stork as they entered the bridge. "I hoped you all wiped your shoes on the mat before you came in."
"Yes, Mom," Finn said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes.
"No, seriously," said Stork. "You'd better have wiped your feet. I won't have you trailing dirt into my Condor!"
"Stork, you'll be glad to know that we were a bit too busy dishing dirt to bother picking any up," Aerrow said confidently.
"I noticed," said Stork. "You made quite the mess out there."
He smiled sinisterly.
"It was awesome," he sighed happily.
"He's really back!" cried Finn, seconds before he glomped Aerrow.
"Best day EVER!" shouted Junko, and picked both of them up in a massive hug.
"Uh, Junko?" Piper said nervously. "Remember what we said about the hugging."
"Oh," Junko said quietly, and he put down the two boys who instantly started gasping for air. "Sorry!"
"That's okay, buddy," Finn choked. "I know you didn't mean it!"
"Aerrow, do you think it would be a good idea for me to take a look at your arm?" asked Piper, reaching for the appendage in question. "Just to make sure it's functioning properly. I managed to get hold of a Nil crystal if anything needs fixing-"
Before she could touch the Sky Knight's shoulder, Radarr clambered up onto it and hissed at her, and she quickly jumped back.
"It's okay, Radarr," Aerrow said calmly, and to Piper he added, "Don't worry about it. I think I'd be the first to know if something was wrong."
He turned to the rest of his squad.
"Guys, I get the feeling we don't have much to worry about anymore," he said. "With the power of alchemy on our side, nothing's gonna stand in our way. From here on out, we are going to be unstoppable."
He raised his left hand and curled it into a fist.
Finn did the same, resting his fist on top of Aerrow's, which was quickly followed by Junko and Piper, and Stork after a small moment of hesitation, and Radarr climbed down Aerrow's arm so that he could add his paw to the pile.
In this moment, they were united.
As of today, they were the Storm Hawks again.
It was five minutes past three in the afternoon.
Twelve months after the departure of Edward Elric.
Aerrow didn't care where his armour fell as he pulled/kicked the plates off and, once he was down to his normal clothes, collapsed onto his bed.
He loved fighting like that, but damn if it couldn't get exhausting sometimes.
He rolled over onto his back, leaned up and pulled the red coat out from where it had been trapped under his body so that he could hold it up and examine it. Next to him the pipes in the wall started rumbling and the faint sounds of Finn's terrible singing drifted to his ears – he was taking a shower, obviously.
Aerrow didn't know how long he could lie there, staring at that strange symbol. What was it called? It was a flamel, wasn't it? Or maybe it was something else. Either way, it was definitely a very cool-looking symbol.
He still found it strange that he even had it. That its previous owner had requested it remain in his possession.
"You're gonna need something to remember me by, right?"
'Yeah, of course,' Aerrow thought as the words echoed in his mind. 'As if you don't have enough of a legacy already.'
He laid the coat down on his chest and tugged off his left glove.
He'd told himself he'd have to stop this. He knew he couldn't just spend hours on end staring at his hand, but how could he when it was such a truly bizarre spectacle?
This arrangement of steel, wires and limbs was one of the most major parts of his body. Yet he hadn't even possessed it twelve months ago.
Not before…
"Isn't this what you were curious about?"
He suddenly felt like he'd been shot in the head and his hands whipped up to clutch at his cranium.
Why in Atmos did this keep happening?!
"Come on…" he muttered. "Stop that… think about something else…"
"We are lightning~," Finn wailed somewhere else in the ship. "STRAYING from the thunder, MIRACLES OF ANCIENT WONDER!"
Suddenly fuming, Aerrow jumped to his feet and ran over to his door.
"Hey Finn, who sang that song originally?" he shouted.
"Uh, I dunno!" Finn's muffled voice replied. "It definitely wasn't me though!"
"Can we keep it that way?"
There was a pause as the marksman tried to figure out what that meant.
"Hey, screw you, dude!" he yelled after around half a minute.
"Not unless you pay me!" Aerrow said with a cheeky grin, and then withdrew into his room.
By the time he'd reached his bed again, Finn had launched into the chorus, and he rolled his eyes. There was just no stopping him, was there? If he was going to murder the Sky Knight's favourite song, the least he could do was do it quietly.
The door slid open again, and Radarr sighed in annoyance before picking up Aerrow's fallen armour.
"What's with the face?" asked Aerrow.
With his arms full of plates Radarr looked up at the redhead with perhaps the flattest expression possible.
"I was going to pick it up later," Aerrow argued. "It's not like I would've left it there overnight."
Radarr emphatically shoved one of the plates in his face.
"Alright!" said Aerrow, and he started picking up the pieces with him.
Overhead, the intercom crackled.
"Just a head's-up, the heating system got a bit damaged in the fight earlier," said Piper's calm voice, "and we're gonna have to switch it off to fix it. It might get a bit cold in here, but it shouldn't take long to fix."
Sure enough, just as Aerrow and Radarr had finished packing away the Sky Knight's armour, the whirring noises that generally faded into the background once enough time had been spent on the Condor suddenly became slightly quieter.
Somewhere else in the ship, Finn squealed in shock.
"Oh yeah, I should probably have mentioned," Piper continued, "the water's gonna go cold too."
"IT ALREADY DID!" screamed Finn, who sounded like he was about to start crying.
It wasn't long before the rumbling in the walls ended, signifying the abrupt end of his shower. Aerrow and Radarr couldn't help but laugh.
Soon after, Aerrow stood up and pulled on the coat.
"How do I look?" he asked. "Like a proper alchemist?"
Radarr rolled his eyes again, but this time he was smiling.
"I think we should go and check to see if everything's alright," said Aerrow, heading for the door and pulling his glove back on. "Sound like a good idea?"
After a small nod, Radarr jumped up onto his shoulder, and Aerrow scratched behind his ears as they departed for the bridge.
Finn entered soon after his leader, fully dressed but still rather damp.
"You could've given me a bit more warning!" he whined. "That was freezing back there!"
"But why would we want to do that when the noise you make is so hilarious?" asked Piper.
Aerrow, Radarr and even Stork laughed while Finn scowled as hard as possible.
"Finn, consider that payment for not quitting with the singing," said Aerrow once he had caught his breath.
"How come you guys don't appreciate my talents?" Finn asked angrily.
"Finn, it's not that," said Piper. "You're talented at a lot of things! It's just-"
"Singing does not happen to be one of them," Stork finished for her. "We'll call on you the next time we need a sonic soundwave to break through something."
Finn grimaced in his direction.
"I hope Junko finishes fixing the heating soon," said Stork, and a shiver ran up his spine. "It's already beginning to get cold in here."
"What're you talking about?" asked Piper. "I think it's actually unseasonably warm for the time of year."
"Well," said Finn, pulling his fingers through his wet locks, "maybe if you were a little bit wet-"
He flicked water in her face.
"-you'd actually feel it," he finished.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before the background whirring rose in pitch.
"Speak of the devil," said Aerrow as a warm breeze blew through the bridge.
"Oh, thank goodness," Stork sighed happily. "The last thing I'd want is to catch a cold. At this time of year, there's no way I'd be able to get rid of it."
Radarr jumped down off Aerrow's shoulder and started sniffing the floor.
"What is it, Radarr?" asked the confused Sky Knight.
"Guys, I did it!"
Junko entered, holding a crystal in one hand.
"One of the heating crystals got a crack in it," he reported, holding it up for them all to see. "Must've been strained in a turn or something. I replaced it and booted up the heater again, but I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with this."
"Give it here!" Finn snatched it from his fingers and held it up to his head. "Come on! Dry! Dry me already!"
"Finn, that's not gonna work," said Junko, taking the broken crystal back. "It's broken, see?"
Finn stared at the glassy dark orange surface, and his face fell when he saw the crack.
"What else am I supposed to do?" he asked forlornly.
"How about telling us what Radarr's up to?" asked Piper, indicating the small blue creature.
Radarr snuffled all around the edge of the large circle in the centre of the bridge, pausing every now and then to get a good hard sniff, then whimpered and leapt back onto Aerrow's shoulder.
"What's wrong, buddy?" asked Aerrow. "Stork, were there any problems with the mechanisms that we should know about?"
"Not that I know of, and I know of pretty much every fault on this ship," said Stork, and he stepped away from the helm to get a better view. "And I'd definitely know if we had owls trapped down there again."
"That's a relief," said Piper. "It would've been my turn to get rid of the nest."
Aerrow knelt down next to the circle, running his fingers along its edge.
'What could be happening?' he wondered. 'Why would Radarr be acting so skittish?'
As he thought this, Radarr jumped off his shoulder and ran over to the strategy table, and tried to hide behind it.
'Can he sense something?' he pondered. 'Something in the floor? No, Stork said. There's nothing in the floor. But then, what…?'
"Any ideas, Fullmetal wannabe?" asked Finn as the rest of the squad gathered around to watch their leader think.
"Should I have to ask you not to call me that?" asked Aerrow.
"What? It's true!" said Finn. "You got the long hair, the metal arm, the coat, and now you're being all weird about stuff!"
"I think," said Piper before this could go any further, "what Finn's trying to say is, do you have any clues as to what could be bothering Radarr?"
Aerrow looked around at the circle.
"Well," he said, "I don't think-"
Before he had a chance to say another word, the circle flashed with blinding white light, accompanied by a deafening crack as if of lightning hitting the floor. By the time the Storm Hawks had regaining hearing and seeing capabilities, a complex design had illuminated itself within the boundaries of the circle.
And before anybody had a chance to react, an immense eye opened in the centre, one with a steely grey iris and a piercing, empty pupil.
"What?!" Aerrow gasped. "Wha- how?! How could-"
"GYAAH!"
Aerrow turned to look when he heard Finn's scream, and saw him struggling to pull a thin, tendril-like hand off his face, which it had already begun to disintegrate. His entire right eye was gone, leaving a gaping, empty void, and even as he tugged at that one hand, another was latching onto his wrist.
"FINN!" the Sky Knight screamed, but as he moved towards his wingman, he was brought down by a sharp, stabbing pain in his left leg. When he looked down, two more of the hands had seized his ankle and were pulling it apart.
"Aerrow, what's happening?!" cried Piper, who was trying and failing to shake off more of the hands that had gripped her arms and were pulling her downward into the circle.
"No, no, no, I don't like this!" whimpered Junko as he struggled against the tendrils that were wrapping around his chest. "SOMEONE HELP ME!"
"Oh god, no," said Stork as even more of them grabbed his face and neck. "No, no, no, no, NO!"
"AERROW, WHAT'RE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?!" screamed Finn as his legs started breaking apart.
"I don't know!" yelled Aerrow, trying hard not to scream himself as his arms and chest broke down. "I'm sorry, I don't know what to do! Just try not to panic!"
"WE ARE WAY BEYOND PANICKING!" shrieked Stork.
"Radarr, help! Do something!" Aerrow cried out to his co-pilot.
Seeing his plight, Radarr bounded across the bridge towards him and reached for his hand.
But by the time his paw closed around it, it was already gone.
The light faded, the eye closed and the tendrils withdrew and disappeared.
Taking all of the Storm Hawks – except one – with them.