Chapter two
The next morning Aerrow did something that was very out of character. He slept in. by the time he woke up light was streaming in through the window and judging by how high the sun was in the sky it had been up for a while. He sat up and rubbed sleep out of his eyes before noticing that Radarr was missing from his normal place beside him. A sure sign he had been sleeping for a while. When he was ready Aerrow made his way to the bridge where he assumed the others probably were.
He frowned at the headache that was growing worse and worse. Fighting it down he managed to wipe the pain and discomfort from his features before entering the room. "Hey Aerrow." Junko said distractedly from where he sat on the couch reading a book. The glasses he was wearing making his gray eyes look huge. Finn looked up from polishing his crossbow. "Huh. Nice of you to show up." Now Aerrow was confused. "What?" Radarr scurried to his place on his boy's shoulder and gave him a worried look. Piper placed a dark skinned hand on his shoulder. Her orange eyes alight with concern. "Aerrow it's like two in the afternoon. Are you okay?"
Aerrow rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Yeah I'm fine. Sorry about sleeping in." Piper smiled. "Hey it's okay. I can't remember the last time you slept in. Everyone's allowed to do it sometimes." As if sensing a comment coming from Finn, Piper put her hand up in a silencing gesture. "And no Finn. You don't count." Finn shut his mouth and deflated looking like a wounded puppy.
Just then Stork said "distress call! Coming from the Terra right below us!" they all let out a collective groan. They knew what Terra was beneath them. And more importantly they knew who was sending the distress call. "Looks like we'll be visiting out number one fan again." Finn chimed. A few weeks ago the Storm Hawks had met their number one fan Noob. It was still funny how much that name actually fit. He had converted to being the Absolute Zeros number one fan when he had lost his Storm Hawks things in a fight with Ravess and her fiddle playing goons. Recently he had gone back to being the Storm Hawks number one fan when the Piper action figure had finally come out.
"Do we really have to?" Junko complained. Aerrow gave him a sympathetic look. "Come on Junko." He said. "You know none of us want to but he might actually be in trouble this time." Aerrow turned back to Stork. "Stork. Take us down." The carrier pilot sighed before doing what his leader asked. "We're doomed."
Turns out there wasn't actually any trouble. Noob just wanted the Storm Hawks to visit him. As they exited the Condor Finn whispered to Aerrow "from now on we seriously need to stop passing over this Terra." For once in his life the young Sky Knight had to agree with the blond haired sharpshooter.
As usual Noob was excited to see them and was eager to show Piper the new action figure. Aerrow stayed a little ways behind the others. The headache was starting to get harder and harder to ignore. He put his hand to his head in an attempt to keep the pain at bay. Unfourtanetly for him the worst person possible to notice Aerrow's pain was the only person who noticed his pain. "Uh Aerrow?" Noob asked a weird combination look of excitement, awe and concern scribbled all over his face. "Are you okay?"
Aerrow tried hard for a smile. "I'm okay." He said even though he was lying through his teeth. While the others were arguing about Piper's action figure Noob the most annoying Storm Hawks fan in all of the Atmos was the first one to see his hero in real pain. "What happened?" Noob asked with enthusiasm at the idea of getting to hear about a real Storm Hawks adventure. "Look Noob." Aerrow said really not wanting to talk about this now. "Everything's fine. We just ran into Ravess last night." If anything now Noob looked even more worried. "So what happened?" he pressed. "Did you fall or something?" Aerrow shook his head which was probably a bad idea because it proved to just make his headache worse. "It's just a headache Noob. I'm just tired."
Noob looked a little hurt at first but then put a steadying hand on Aerrow's arm. "Maybe it'd be a good idea if you and the others left then if you're not feeling good." Aerrow smiled weakly. "Thanks Noob. We'll see you later."
That night they sat in various places aboard the Condor. Aerrow made an excuse to leave and hid in his room. The headache had only gotten worse. Radarr curled at his side Aerrow tried to go to sleep and after a while he did. Only to be plagued by nightmares filled with Ravess, Snipe, Master Cyclonis, the Dark Ace and for some reason Domiwick the irritating and pompous explorer.
Radarr could tell his friend was having nightmares and let out a small distressed whine. All he could do was stay with Aerrow and try to keep calm and carry on.