Now that Piper had found the information she needed, the rest of the squadron had gotten rid of everything else. With the hangar bay finally clear, Junko was working on the skyrides. Finn was keeping him company, reading The Wasteland's tour dates, which he had ripped out of the newspaper.
Then Aerrow came in and got onto his skimmer.
"Where are you going, Aerrow?" Junko asked. Finn looked up from the page.
"To look for Cyclonis." The skyknight replied putting a crystal into his bike.
Piper, hearing this, came into the hangar bay. "And what are you going to do when you find her?"
Aerrow scratched the back of his neck. "I haven't exactly thought about that part. I was just gonna improvise, I guess"
Piper rolled her eyes. "This is Master Cyclonis, not a lost puppy, Aerrow." The redhead grinned sheepishly.
"Maybe you should get Junko to look too." Finn suggested.
"Exactly. We can all look. I'll go split the area into six pieces."
Finn took a moment to do the math, and then yelled "So… that includes me?"
Finn double checked the map Piper had given him before landing. Something just didn't seem right about the Terra. It was small, isolated, unnamed, and uninhabited; though Finn had a gut feeling that told him otherwise.
Despite a strange aura, Finn landed on the Terra anyways. His feet crunched on the gravel of a crude path. He guessed it led to the other side of the Terra. He could fell someone watching him, though Finn was sure there was no one else but him around.
The sharpshooter looked around, not sure what he was supposed to do. Should he call, or search the forest? Take his bike, or go by foot?
Suddenly, he heard rustling from deep inside the forest, followed by what he thought to be a twig snapping somewhere nearby. It couldn't have been the wind; the air was still and tense.
The blonde remained motionless, half hoping to hear the sound again so he could investigate. The other half wanted it to stop, so he could pass off the noises as the wind, or a harmless forest creature.
Just as he decided that he had been imagining things, something appeared on the path in front of him, a crystal. But before Finn could react, the crystal started smoking, filling his lungs with a heavy gas and blurring his vision.
He was unconscious before he hit the ground.