Author's note- I hate starting a chapter with a note from me, but you'll notice that the tense has changed to first person, past tense. It fits better this way, with the rest of what I have in mind. I hope if doesnt throw off anyone's enjoyment. Thanks for reading this far!

OOO

I was so dead. I mean, she was standing RIGHT there, giving me the evil eye, just like she knows how to do so well. It's the same look she gives us whenever we go against her plans or goof up at some fancy dinner. I hate that look. Mostly it's because it's usually directed at me. And not because I care or anything!

It's just a creepy stare.

But she stood there for at least a minute. And when you are being glared at that hard for over ten seconds, a minute is almost like your whole lifetime.

Before I could do or say anything, though, she gave me a sort of queer smile, and then shrugged her shoulders. I watched as she put her nose up in the air slightly, sniffed, and said, "Whatever, Finn. I bed that whatever you saw was as lame as most of the things you think are so cool."

I sputtered angrily. She turned and walked away! "Oh-oh yeah!" I yelled after her, "It just so happens that I saw y-"

I clapped my hand over my mouth. She turned around with a look of genuine surprise on her face. "My what, Finn? Have you been in my room again?"

She didn't know how close to the truth she really was. I searched around desperately for something to say. It would be all sorts of cool if she wasn't in the room right now. I would totally be telling the others about my little adventure. But they were all staring at me and my attempt at making a fool of myself. Aerrow with his odd half smile he always has when he's amused, Junko with his huge fists clenched like a kid have MY size, and Stork with his eye just twitching like it always does. I blinked. Radarr wasn't there.

Bingo.

"I'm not going to tell you. I don't want to get Radarr in trouble." I said reasonably. I folded my arms, giving every impression that I thought that I was being terribly clever and covering for Radarr.

They didn't have to know I was throwing him under the figurative bus on purpose, after all. Sometimes being known for your immature and childish ways can be a huge plus.

In a flash, Piper was two inches away from my face, manhandling my shirt in both of her fists. "Radarr did what, Finn? What did you talk him into doing this time?"

She was almost howling at me. I craned my next away but couldn't take my eyes off of her for two reasons. One, it's kinda hard to look away from someone who virtually has you by the neck, and two, pissing Piper off is like an art form. I just happened to perfect it.

So I eyed her from my superior height, eyebrows raised. "You look kinda funny when you're pissed."

She shoved me away with a disgusted sound. I almost went stumbling into Junko, but I managed to keep my balance. She had stormed off to go catch Radarr or something when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Aerrow. "You really shouldn't push her like that, Finn."

"Why not? What makes her so special?"

Again that weird little half smile. "She's just like the rest of us, Finn. Maybe you could answer that question yourself."

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Dude. I have no idea what you're trying to say."

Aerrow almost rolled his eyes at me, but Junko chose that moment to jump in. "Hey Finn! What were you going to tell us about? You sounded excited."

"Oooooh, yeah. That. Well, if I remember the terms of our deal right, I get to choose the next terra. And I choose…" I paused, for dramatic effect, imagining a camera going close-up to my face, "Terra Vapos."

I heard the distinct sound of Stork slapping himself on the forehead and mumbling something that sounded like, "Not again…"

"Ok, Finn. We'll have Piper plot out the course in the morning. I think she's gone to bed now, so you'll have to wait."

"Aww, man, come on. She can do it now! Its not even late yet! And then we can point the Condor in the right direction, and be there in the morning! Not hard!" I game my best version of the puppy dog eyes. "Please? My adoring public waits!"

Aerrow shook his head and walked over to the fridge. "Sorry Finn. You made Piper pretty angry. I'm not getting in her crosshairs."

"I didn't even do anything this time!"

"Doesn't matter. If you think you can get her to do it tonight, by all means, try. But I'm telling you, you should leave it alone."

I barely heard the last part of that, since I had already turned myself around and started stomping back to Piper's room.

I stopped right outside and listened with my ear to the door. It was pretty quiet.

I knocked. "Helloooo? Piper? You in there?"

Nothing.

I knocked again. Still no answer. "You better not be ignoring me!"

She still didn't answer.

I tried the knob. Surprisingly, it opened easily into her room. It was kinda dark and shady in there. I couldn't tell where she was, or even if she was really there. "Piper! Come on, I know you are awake. You cant be asleep already. Even I cant do that."

I stepped further into the room and reached out to turn up the lights. Just as I did, I heard something that made my heart skip a beat in fear.

Thump!

Splatter!

Crash!

"FINN! I'm gonna MURDER YOU!"

And for the second time that night, I found myself fleeing Piper's room in desperate fear of my life, but this time, she wasn't chasing me out of her room.

On the contrary, she barreled into me from the direction of the bathroom, tackling me against the hallway walls with a very painful body slam. I sat on the ground in a daze. I didn't even notice when the others came running. My vision was kinda fuzzy when I looked up and saw Piper, her fists waving in an attempt to flatten my poor head into the walls of the Condor. She looked weird…

I couldn't place my finger on it… what…

What was that stuff all over her?

Better yet, why was there stuff all over me?

I raised my hands and looked at them. It was a purply-green goop that slid lazily down my fingers and glopped into nasty clumps on the ground. It could feel the slick grime in my hair and dribbling down my face. Upon closer inspection, it had gotten ground into my clothes and I think a little even got into my mouth, so hard had she flown at me.

If I didn't realize how fast I could run when I was scared, I had no idea how speedy Piper could be when she was mad.

And mad she was. She was shouting all sorts of things that most girls don't really say. I wont repeat them here because, really, it was that bad. And if I thought that gluey mess was all over me, she was downright covered. It was like someone just dumped a bucket of the stuff over her. It streaked down her legs, arms, and was piled high in sticky clumps in her hair. It was smeared all over her bathrobe and I could even see the brightly colored stains on the floor where her feet had landed as she had run at me.

"What the-" I started, "What's this junk all over me? Piper, man, why'd you have to-"

"Finn! Its all your fault! ARGH! I am so tired of you and your jokes! You do this all the time! Cant you just let it be for one single day?"

"Now wait just a minute-" I started again, but she charged on.

"Your practical jokes are lame Finn! You do nothing but get in the way! Cant you see that? You're such a child sometimes. If it weren't for you, we might even be a REAL squadron by now, but you keep drawing attention to your immaturity and people think the rest of us would act just like you! How you EVER got to be a good shot is beyond me if all you ever do is pull stupid pranks and goof off all the damn time!" At this, she had finally wrenched herself away from Junko, who was holding her back from hitting me. And she must have gotten a few good licks in. I could feel my left eye starting to swell shut. And my jaw hurt pretty bad. She had a hell of an arm…

"And if you could just grow up, maybe, just maybe, someone would take you seriously for once. You're such a kid Finn. You might think this is all fun and games, but its not." She spat out a glob of that weird goo and turned around. She huffed her way into the bathroom and left the four of us out there, me still a bit stunned from the impact of my head on the wall, Aerrow with his mouth hanging open at her rant, Junko wiping his hands on his shirt with discomfort, and Stork, staring with wide-eyed horror at the whole scene.

"Finn," Aerrow started, but I held up my hand.

"Save it." I stood up, wobbled, then brushed at my clothes. The gunk just sort of smeared but didn't come off or anything. The noise of the shower sputtering to life in the bathroom made me want to get clean as well. With my hand on the wall to steady me, I made my way down to the kitchen and turned on the sink. The water didn't do too much to the stuff until it heated up, but once it did, the goo started to slough off in huge globs. I wet a towel and used it to get the majority of the stuff off of me. I could hear the others out in the hallway. Aerrow and Stork were talking. Stork's voice was panicky and Aerrow's voice urgent but controlled. Junko came into the kitchen, eyeing me with a worried look.

"You ok, Finn?"

"I'm fine. Its not like it's the first time I pissed her off. I like to think I am pretty good at it."

"Finn… I was thinking. Maybe.. maybe you shouldn't be so hard on Piper. She's not like the rest of us you know. She takes stuff a lot more personally. Maybe that prank was putting it too far."

I stopped and stared at Junko. I put the towel down and stared some more.

"I didn't do this, Junko."

"-what?"

I frowned. "I have no idea what this crap is. I know it tastes bad." I spat into the sink to emphasis my point. "But I have never seen anything this gross in my life. And as for pushing someone, Piper didn't have to automatically think that I did this. Sure, I do a lot of the pranks around here, but I didn't do this."

"Well, of course not!" came Stork's quavering voice. I looked over. He was standing at the door, hands gripping one side of the frame. He was holding himself as tight as a bowstring. "Something like this cant be cultivated by the likes of you. I, for one, would like to know how Piper managed to make it fall down. I had it perfectly suspended.. every chance of disaster calculated. It was almost done!"

"Huh?" Junko and I exclaimed in unison.

Aerrow pushed into the kitchen from behind Stork, causing the Merb to jump almost out of his skin. "What Stork is saying," Aerrow began, "is that of course if couldn't be you. He's the one who put it there."

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me that Stork pulled a prank?"

"Of course not, idiot." Stork said in his weird deadpan way. "It was an experiment. And you ruined it."

"How could I ruin it? Piper's the one who decided to wear your weird goo!"

"It doesn't matter!" Aerrow interjected. "What does matter…"

"What?" I asked when Aerrow trailed off.

He sighed. "Finn, that's Merbian mind-moss."

"Okay…so?"

Aerrow looked at Stork. "Care to explain? Just tell him what you told me."

"Fine, fine. He's doomed anyway." Stork fixed me with one of his intense gazes. "Merbian mind-moss is a highly volatile substance. It can cause hallucinations, mood swings, complete changes in character. It causes people to act in ways they otherwise wouldn't. And sometimes you can be susceptible to suggestion. It is known to be an irritating agent to most amphibious creatures and it has weakness to hot water-BUT-heat can cause the symptoms to increase tenfold. It causes at least twelve types of cancer and can permanently change skin and hair color-if you don't catch is soon enough," he said dryly as I frantically started looking for a mirror, pan, or any reflective surface to make sure I didn't have any unsightly green or purple splotches on me or my hair.

"What the hell, Stork! Why do you have this stuff?"

"Isnt it obvious? I'm trying to find a defense against it!"

"But its MERBIAN mind-moss! Doesn't it only grow on Terra Merb?"

"You cant be too cautious. Besides. It can only effect you if you eat it. Even you're not that dumb…..are you?"

OOO

Ok, I kinda like where its going now. I think it might sound a little rushed, but I think I got the idea across. I think I will start on the next part now, since I am still full of ideas. I rather liked how this one ended though.

Thanks for reading!