A/N: Another chapter. I thank those who have continued to read. It makes me feel good and less failure-y. I am NOT the best at writing a story in 3rd person. Omniscient or limited. But it's good practice.
Still don't own Storm Hawks, but enjoy anyway.
Radarr was growling at her for half a second but decided she meant no harm and proceeded to sniff her.
"Radarr be nice." said Aerrow and Radarr crawled off of Annabell's back and on to Aerrow's back. "He didn't hurt you did he?"
"What do I say now? I'll tell him no then leave hopefully with no more questions asked." Thought Annabell still frightened "Um...no. I'm fine he didn't hurt me." Annabell said maybe a bit to quickly as she stood up and turned to leave. She wasn't usually this bad at talking to people but being in the state of confusion she was, her manners weren't really the first of her concerns. Neither was dusting of her most likely sandy clothes.
"Who's the girl?" asked the unforgettable blonde Finn.
"I don't know." replied Aerrow shrugging. "Hey, may I ask for your name?"
"Dammit this isn't good." Annabell mentally cursed before turning back around and replying "It's um..Annabell."
"Why are you walking around with your pajamas on?" asked Piper with a raised eyebrow.
"Great. Now what do I say? I don't want to tell the them I'm from Earth. They'll think I'm crazy. I guess I'll have to lie." Thought Annabell. Her plan was not going the way she planned it.
"I don't know I can't remember anything except my name." said Annabell. She mentally slapped herself. That was a terrible excuse. She needed to work on thinking under pressure.
"Well you shouldn't be out here alone especially with amnesia." said Junko, sweet as ever.
"I'll be fine, just a small case. Nothing to worry about" explained Annabell. She had the whole group's attention now. Her plan to leave had now imploded due to her bad lying.
"We'd like to help since with the war and all it's not safe to be alone." said Aerrow. Always the gentleman. It almost made Annabell blush.
"Great. There's no getting out of this without yelling or being mean so..." "Ok! Some help would be great, thank you." said Annabell smiling. Digging herself even deeper into a hole. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Hanging out with the Storm Hawks was something she really wanted to do.
"Does that mean our vacation is over?" Finn whined. "We didn't even get to do anything!"
"I don't want to ruin your fun so take your time." said Annabell. Really. It was only a dream so there was no hurry.
"You guys enjoy yourselves and I'll get her some clothes." said Piper and grabbed Annabell by the wrist dragging her to the condor.
~~~Condor~~~
"Here you can wear this." said Piper handing Annabell some clothes.
"Thanks a lot for helping me."
"No problem. I'll be waiting here when your done." said Piper
Annabell went into the bathroom and changed into a dark, gray, zip up jacket or a strange material. Some dark blue pants that she thinks are made out of cotton, or a like material, and some brown leather-like boots. But before she took her pajama shirt off, she notice she was wearing a necklace.
"What's this?" She asked herself. She was definitely not wearing that when she went to bed. Heck, she didn't even own a necklace like this! It was a brown string necklace tied to an olive green crystal shard. Same color as her eyes.
"Since when did I get this?" She asked herself, examining the strange gem. Realizing Piper was waiting for her, she snapped out of her trance and finished getting dressed before exiting the bathroom and back to Piper's room.
"So where did you get that crystal?" asked Piper, her love of crystals starting up a conversation.
"Umm...I don't know." replied Annabell starring at the crystal. She didn't even know it was a crystal.
"May I see it?"
"Sure." Annabell smiled taking off the necklace and handing it to Piper.
Piper examined the crystal all around but gave a disappointing look. "I've never seen this crystal before it must be rare. Mind if I test it?"
"Why not." Annabell shrugged. She trust Piper a lot. I mean, after watching the show anyone would trust her, especially with a crystal.
Annabell stood and looked around while Piper did some tests and wrote down notes. She had no clue how Piper did her work so she stayed out of her way letting the realization of where she was sink in.
"Wow it looks so much different then on T.V. Bigger to." Annabell thought in awe. She was on the Condor! The actual Condor. The fasted ship in Atmos if she recalled the past episode correctly. Though she didn't think it would smell this bad. But then again most of the crew were men.
Just then the ship shook, causing Annabell to lose her balance and fall over. But she caught herself with a chair before hitting the floor. Piper grabbed hold of the table on instinct, losing her grip on the crystal causing it to bounce of the table and hurtle to the floor.
"Ah! the crystal!" shouted Piper missing as she tried to re-grab the crystal.
Annabell turned around and had her hand towards the crystal out of instinct even though she knew she couldn't reach something on the other side of the room. But and it had stopped in mid air.
"What the..." whispered Piper.
The crystal then flew into Annabell's hands.
"Oh...kay..." Annabell said as she gripped the crystal by the string and held it by arms length. Freaked out by the event that just took place.
"How did you do that?" asked Piper amazed
"I don't know but the better question would be what caused the ship to shake in the first place?"
"Right we should check that out." said Piper standing back up.
Annabell quickly put the crystal back on around her neck and the two quickly ran to the bridge of the ship reaching it there just as the boys did.
"We've got a problem." said Aerrow weakly.
"What happened?" asked Piper frantically.
"Cyclonians. What else?" Finn crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, clearly unhappy about his almost non-existent holiday.
Piper gave him a deadly look before turning her attention back to her captain. "What do they want?"
"I don't know but it must be something important there has to be at least hundreds of them out there." said Aerrow.
"Well what are we waiting for let's kick some cyclonian butt." said Junko punching his fist together causing his knuckle busters to glow green. He was clearly ready to fight back.
"Right. Finn come with me, Junko, Piper stay here and help Stork protect the ship. let's move out." ordered Aerrow.
Aerrow, Radarr, and Finn got on their skimmers and flew off to fight talons while Stork got the Condor off the ground. Junko maned one of the canons, while Piper was working out a plan with a bunch of maps and Annabell held on for dear life.
Outside; Aerrow and Finn were shooting talons left and right, but there seemed to be no end to them...even if they all sucked at fighting. Luckily they were having the upper hand, and the two boys remained untouched and were even making a game out of it. Counting who could shoot the most talons our of the sky.
Until Aerrow's skimmer was hit by a red blast of energy.
"The Dark Ace." said Aerrow in a low voice turning to see the man flying just a few feet behind him.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the pesty Storm Hawks." He said Cooley.
"What do you want?" shouted Aerrow.
"We just want the girl you have on board your ship and we'll be on our way." He replied in a smooth tone.
"You'll have to go through us first." said Aerrow, more to himself than the other man, while pulling out his weapons in preparation for battle.
Back on the Condor; Junko was also shooting random talons on his cannon, there seemed to be no end to them, but they were holding up just fine thanks to Storks swift flying.
"Well we're doomed." Stork said simply, dodging the more larger attacks from the talons.
"If we could just figure out what they want then maybe..." Piper paused and looked over at Annabell.
"Maybe what?" asked Annabell. "What do they want?"
"Your crystal." said Piper. "That crystal might be what there after so if we make a decoy then maybe we could lure them away."
"How are we going to do that?" asked Annabell. Though she was more curious as to how Piper came to that conclusion.
"Like this." Piper took out a shiny olive green rock that slightly resembled her crystal.
"That does look like the crystal." said Annabell. "Did she just conveniently have that lying around?"
"Yup. Now, let's see if they'll take our bait. It should work if it's what they're after." said Piper as she ran towards her heliscooter.
"So you were just making assumptions?" Annabell sighed to herself. But then again, that is all the two had to go on.
Aerrow and the Dark Ace were still in battle when Piper came out on her heliscooter and held up the rock.
"Looking for this?" she asked causally.
Everyone looked at Piper and saw the 'Crystal'. She put it in a small canon and fired it in a random direction and the remaining 20 or so talons followed it. That must have been what they were after then.
Aerrow, Finn, and Piper surrounded the Dark Ace.
"You haven't seen the last off me." he said before flying after his talons. Knowing he couldn't fight the three of them off at once.
The trio returned to the Condor and hastily flew it off in the opposite direction hoping to get as far from the cyclonians as possible.
"Jeez, they sure flew off in a hurry." commented Junko when the group returned.
"They want her crystal." said Piper. "I mean, they flew after my decoy so it's a likely conclusion."
"That's not what I heard from the Dark Ace." said Aerrow. Everyone turned their attention to their captain, urging him to explain.
"Not to freak anyone out or anything but. He said he wanted "the girl" so I'm assuming he was referring to you Annabell." Everyone turned to Annabell after Aerrow's information.
There was silence. Annabell gulped. What would the Dark Ace want with her? Was it because she had the crystal? She was sure it was just because of the crystal. Why else would they race after it? I mean. She's just a normal girl right?
"I have no idea what Cyclonia would want with me...but then again I can't remember anything." Annabell looked at her feet. She was starting to feel bad about lying.
"Well it's a good thing we helped you then." said Aerrow. "We won't let them get you."
"Thanks Aerrow. Everyone." Annabell brought her head back up and smiled at everyone.
"Now that we've escaped, what's our next move?" asked Piper.
"Well we could go to Terra Atmosia I'm sure they'll know something about you." suggested Junko.
"And maybe something about this crystal." Annabell added.
"Stork. set course for Terra Atmosia." said Aerrow.
A/N: Another chapter done and complete. Not a very climatic battle, but I'm not that great at them. Working on it but aerial battles aren't my forte.
I fixed the ending too...I just realized that I had the Dark Ace told Aerrow what they were after. Sorry guys. I really need a beta reader or something to help me find these mistakes.
