They found him face-down in the dirt and shivering with cold. It was a rainy, muddy, miserable day, and for the Storm Hawks, it had just gotten one bit worse.

They thought he was dead, at first. But then the man had moved, and Aerrow had said, "We have to go check on him."

"But Aerrow, he's a Cyclonian!" Finn's voice had gotten kind of high pitched, like it did when he was nervous.

"Exactly. Cyclonians don't go back for their troops. We wouldn't be Sky Knights if we let him die."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Finn fidgeted some. "I still don't like it."

Aerrow shrugged. "I don't like it either, but I'd never be able to sleep if we didn't help."

Piper sighed. "Stop stalling, you two, let's go and check on the bastard." She kneeled by the man and touched his neck to feel for a pulse: the man gasped and jerked away and then moaned in pain when his leg moved.

Piper's eyes got wide.

"Piper? What's wrong?" Aerrow asked before jogging over. "His injuries can't possibly be- oh."

Finn was watching from the distance with wide eyes, fingering the trigger on his crossbow. "Hey guys, mind clueing me in?"

But Aerrow was too stunned to respond.

"Come and see for yourself, Finn." Piper's voice was tight with tension.

When Finn saw, he whispered, "Holy shit, dude, is that really him?"

Aerrow swallowed, then croaked, "Yeah. I'd recognize his ugly mug anywhere."

Piper's mouth flattened into a hard straight line. "We're going to have to take him back to the Condor. There's something wrong with his leg, and if we leave him out here in the mud while we retrieve the Chroma crystals he's probably going to die."

Aerrow bit his lip. "It's Dark Ace, Piper, if we bring him onto the Condor-"

"We'll keep him under lock and key," Piper cut across Aerrow. "Aerrow, think of the possibilities- we could use him against Cyclonia! He's one of their biggest assets, I'm sure we can get information out of him! And having him out of the Cyclonian's hands can only be a good thing. With Dark Ace gone, the Sky Knights will finally have a chance! This could be a turning point in the war!"

Aerrow bit his lip. "Piper, he's dangerous. Who knows what he'll do when he wakes up? I'd rather wait for reinforcements-"

"Aerrow, I hear what you're saying. But we can't wait for other Sky Knights to show up. We just don't have the time."

Aerrow frowned. "Piper…"

"Aerrow, please listen to me. We can't afford to lose this chance."

Aerrow sighed heavily. "You're right, Piper. Still, I don't like the idea of him being on the Condor…"

"Me neither," Finn added.

"Yeah, I don't like it. But until we can contact another team about this, we're gonna have to keep him." Piper was looking at Ace's leg curiously. "Ugh, it's really deformed."

"Hm," Aerrow said, "Do you think we could keep him in the hold?"

Piper nodded. "There's a compartment down there that used to be an electricity routing room but Stork had all the electrical wires removed- that would be a safe place to keep him locked up. There's nothing in there that he could mess with."

Aerrow nodded. "Okay. That sounds good to me."

"I don't like this, dude," Finn groused.

Getting the Dark Ace onto the Condor was an exercise in difficulty.

"We can't touch his leg," said Piper.

Finn frowned. "Why not?"

"'Cause it's been crushed. If it shifts too much a bone shard might slice open a blood vessel."

"Oh, yeah, that wouldn't be good, would it?"

"But Piper," Aerrow huffed, "if we move him at all his leg's gonna get messed up. Aren't we going to have to splint it or something, first?"

Piper groaned and scratched at her head. "Man, I don't remember, it's been years since I had to do first aid stuff…and even if I did remember I wouldn't be able to, y'know, do anything. I don't have any practical experience."

Aerrow sighed. "Finn, could you go get Stork? He's the only one who's good with injuries and stuff."

"Yeah, I'll get him, but he isn't gonna be happy about this." Finn trotted off to the Condor.

He returned a good ten minutes later, dragging a very unhappy looking Stork and a slightly-more-cheerful yet nervous Junko over to Aerrow and Piper.

"So it's true," Stork groaned, glaring at Ace's prone body.

"I wouldn't lie to you, bro!" Finn sounded offended.

Stork ignored him and set the emergency kit next to Ace's head. Aerrow, Finn, Piper, and Junko watched while Stork inspected the Dark Ace.

"Ugh, yeah, he's gonna need his leg put in a splint. I'd reduce it properly, but I don't know how 'cause I'm not a doctor." Stork opened up the emergency kit and pulled out the splint. "We're so doomed, by the way-can y'all help me hold his leg?"

An hour later, and Dark Ace was deposited onto a small air mattress on the floor of the old electrical room (Stork had vanished immediately to go scrub his hands). He was sweating and every once in a while he'd make a pained noise, but- Dark Ace was still unconscious for now.

Fortunately.

"We'll have to set watches." Aerrow announced. "We're gonna need at least one person to be watching this room at all times, and also we're gonna have to figure out when we're gonna feed him."

"Hm," Junko grunted, "I think it'd be easiest to feed him whatever we're having to eat, y'know?"

"That's a great idea, Junko!" Piper agreed, smiling. "We'll just cook an extra portion of whatever we're having."

"Watching him is gonna be boring, though…"

Aerrow raised an eyebrow. "We still have to do it, Finn. We can't risk him escaping."

"Can't we just tie him up?"

"Sure, but we're still gonna have watches."

Finn pouted and crossed his arms. "Fine."

When Dark Ace woke, he was alone. The first thing he was aware of was the throbbing scraping needling pain in his leg. He couldn't focus on much else. It hurts so bad.

His face was hot. He thought he was sweating, but he couldn't be sure.

And he was on his back.

Hadn't he fallen on his face?

Dark Ace closed his eyes miserably and wished that his leg would stop hurting. It was dark and dank and musty and everything was spinning. His mouth was pasty dry, too.

The next thing he knew was the lights above being snapped on and something being forced down his throat: when he choked on it he spat up blood and water. He felt nauseous, but when he tried to turn to the side to puke his leg went white-hot with pain and he had to stop. He was shaking, hard, and definitely sweaty.

"Hey," said a voice he didn't recognize, "you need to take this medicine, okay?"

Ace opened his mouth to respond and instead of words coming out it was vomit, and he felt red-hot shame as he puked all over his belly.

"Ew," said another voice, high pitched and squealing, "I am not cleaning that up!"

"Fine, but I'm not cleaning it either. We'll make Radarr do it, I guess."

Ace groaned out an apology- gods, he was embarrassed!- and accepted the hand offering to pull him up so he was sitting. The puke, still warm, slid down to rest on his lap in a disgusting mess. Ace winced.

Ace blinked as the world swayed, and then he finally got a glimpse of the face of the person who was helping him. He squinted. "Do I know you?" he rasped.

The person-kid, because it was definitely a kid- looked alarmed for a second before saying, "No! Nope, you don't know me. Just, erm, just take this medicine!"

They shoved a glass of water and a pill into his hands and Ace stared at it for a second before remembering that he was supposed to swallow it. His leg was throbbing.

Ace took the medicine and lowered himself back onto his back. I'm so fucking tired.

"Erm, I'm just gonna, get someone to clean this up, okay?"

Ace made a noncommittal noise and closed his eyes. He fell into an uneasy sleep before the kid had even left the room.