7

The Scar

Argh! As always with me, I'm sorry for not updating for so long! But, in a rare moment of self-restraint (Ha. Me. Restraint.) I forced myself to do my homework over the last little while. And while I believe FanFiction is much more productive then school, it ain't exactly gonna feed me when I'm out on my lonesome. Anyways, without further ado, here is the latest instalment. I'll let you read on now. Oh, no, wait, I lied, quick question first: does anyone know when they're gonna start airing the new episodes of Storm Hawks?

Oh yeah, I found some more songs I thought were fitting. Having a bit of trouble with picking the right ones.

Stork: Bla Bla Bla by Out of your Mouth

Angel: The Bird and the Worm by the Used

Varan: Let's Get this Party Started by Korn

In a crooked little town

They were lost and never found

-Fallen Leaves, Billy Talent

x.x.x Varan x.x.x

For some reason unknown to me yet, I'm always, without fail, the first one up every morning. It doesn't matter what time it is, I'm always the first one to venture out onto the bridge. I think what it really is is those lazy little toads don't wanna leave the safety of their rooms until they can smell breakfast cooking and are sure they aren't going to get dragged into any sort of labour. To quote Stork: jerks.

But something about getting up early and stepping out onto the deck before the rest of them were awake and just breathing in deep the new day's air and feeling the sun's new rays on my scaly skin was just irresistible to me. It became like a daily routine, my sunrise meditations, a bit of privacy before the rest of the crew were bumbling about the ship, annoying each other and acting like the kids we are. I didn't mind any of that, but it made those sunny moments alone even more precious, if you know what I mean. What I really liked about it was I felt not only in touch with myself during that short period of time, but in touch with my mother. I couldn't remember her too well, but I knew she loved the sunlight for more then just its heat. And the more in touch with my mother I felt, the less I did with the rest of my species, and I liked that too. My father had never sounded like one who had enjoyed the light of the sun.

Therefore I was surprised and even a bit disappointed when I reached the bridge to find several of my friends already up and ready for action on the bridge. Well, sort of. A certain Blizzarian was looking pretty comatose up at the helm, which is even more alarming then it sounds if you happen to be trapped aboard the same ship he's flying.

Falshade was leaning against the wall, a mug of coffee in his hand. We all had our own, er, personalized mugs so no one could 'mistaken' another's for theirs and start an all out war, and Falshade's made me laugh no matter how many times I saw it. It was green with lots of little pink piggies all over it. Stork had given it to him as a birthday present, for some reason. It had been full of Ka-Booms, little candies with fizzy stuff inside that he has some sort of scary fetish with, and I assume that's why she gave it to him. She hadn't expected him to keep the mug.

"'Morning." he said as I approached. "Want some coffee?"

"You made some by yourself? It's a miracle!" I teased and he punched my arm.

"Yes, I did, and I made enough for you to have some too." he said haughtily.

"Of course, you couldn't be bothered to make a cup for me."

"Can't win with you." He griped and I messed up his hair. And then I went to get some coffee, to humour him. I don't really like coffee, to be honest, but I'll drink it if it'll shut someone up. Or spare their feelings. Fuck, I'm just a big, scaly softie.

A half-conscious Fraggle had oozed his way out of bed and to the wheel. He was using the control for support, it seemed, more then actually steering. Stork was standing next to him, examining the charts. She noticed me and gave a small wave, looking cheerful in a way that a wolverine might. It was hard to say if Stork was a morning person or not. Some days we were afraid to wake her up because she'd probably tear our heads off. If we were lucky. Other days she was up right after me, perky and ready to go. With her I think it's more a mood thing then anything else. I'm sure it's that way with most girls.

Today was a day which really made me nervous, because she seemed fine, on the surface, but with girls you never know if they're ready to blow underneath. And anything can set them off. Girls are scary creatures, and they drive you nuts too. But she might have been just peachy, and I wouldn't know. In those situations I learned to just keep my distance and keep my mouth shut. That's why I'm still in Stork's good books.

I waved back and then sat at the table with my java. The sun was shining brightly outside the window, and I felt separated from it. I guess I'd made too much of a habit of it or something. I'm kinda a creature of routine. I get thrown off by some of the strangest things. For example, when I was just a little newt of a kid running around Vatican I had this book, one of those picture books that little kids ask their parents to read for them night after night. Well, that was this book to me. And I used to get my mother to read it to me every night before I went to sleep. Well, my adopted mom, I guess you could say. As I got older I began to read it on my own every night, and then when I was even older I just kept it on the shelf by my bed like a talisman to keep away bad dreams. And one day it vanished. I don't know how. I got up one morning and it wasn't on the shelf. I tore my room apart looking for it. I think I was about eleven at the time. I hunted all over the house, and outside too. I wanted to look in Falshade's house for it too, even thought I knew it hadn't ever set page there. I didn't of course, because he would've helped me look and I would have felt like an idiot. Jeez, that would have been like admitting I still slept with a teddy bear or something. I had nightmares for weeks and felt sick all the time, and I figured it was because I didn't have this book. Every time it rained I cried because I thought that if it had gotten outside the rain would ruin it. I rarely went out to play with Falshade anymore because I would always wonder if maybe the book would turn up while I was gone and I'd want to rush home and see. My mom ended up taking me to a doctor to see if I had a psychological disorder or something. The doctor said this was my past traumas worming a way into my life in some other way. It still didn't make that book come back though.

Then one night I just fell asleep. No nightmares. I slept the whole night through and got up the next morning and felt fine. And it stayed like that. It was just weird. It was like I'd never had a problem. Four months later the book turned up like it had never left, like a dog that got off the leash and ran off and then turned up maybe a year later after the owners had given up hope and maybe even gotten a new dog. I was so happy for all of three seconds before feeling very afraid. Did I still need the book? Were those bad feelings going to come back if I lost the book again? It must be like how someone who's been on anti-depressants for years must feel when they suddenly are told they're fine and don't need them anymore. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I tore the first page out of the book, folded it carefully and stuck it in my dresser under and old jacket that I had another strange anchorage too and even though it was too small I couldn't get rid of it. Then I burned the rest of the book and threw the ashes into my mom's garden. The flowers bloomed that year bigger and prettier then any other year before or since, even though we didn't get nearly enough rain. It was almost like I'd sort of cast a spell that was supposed to stop me from forming anymore of these strange little habits and attachments.

Sometimes the easiest person to fool is yourself. 'Cause here I was, how many years down the road, with a foreboding feeling crawling around in my chest because I hadn't gone and done my sunrise meditation. I hadn't been feeling the greatest ever since I'd agreed to go to the Scar in the first place. I mean, yeah, I thought it was a pretty good plan. What better place to go for answers to a nightmare then the fallen, haunted kingdom of nightmares? So I'd agreed because Shade was my buddy and we needed a plan. But I'd been sorta freaked out about it, and now that my routine had been mucked up it was like a thunderhead of bad feelings had decided to take up roost over my head. I was so jumpy I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to be adding caffeine into the mix too, but at least if I concentrated on drinking my coffee I wasn't concentrating on those little gremlins that were scuffling about inside my head. As much, anyways.

Angel sat next to me, looking like he'd gotten over his brownie overdose from the night before. He didn't drink coffee, but he had his mug in his hand, which had some sort of steaming liquid in it with a funny smell. Some sort of weird tea, I assumed.

"Best thing for a chocolate hangover." he explained to my quizzical look, raising his mug in a 'cheers' sort of way. Angel: cold, distant, sarcastic, cynical… brownie addict. It was funny like how Falshade's mug was funny. And it made me sad too. It just went to show you, despite our tough "we can handle anything" exteriors, we were really just a pack of kids.

"So where the fuck are we?" Angel asked. Gotta love our articulate use of the language.

"Somewhere in the south quadrant. East-ish." Stork said from up at the helm.

"How long 'til we hit the Scar?" Falshade asked.

"A lot less then I thought it would have taken by now. Thanks to Speedy McDeathtrap here we'll probably get there sometime… soon." Stork answered, clapping Fraggle on the shoulder. He grunted incoherently.

"'Soon' isn't real solid. Estimated time? An hour, two hours?" Falshade asked, revolving a hand in the air as an invitation for Stork to fill in the space.

"Three hours, maybe more. Maybe less. Can't be sure. We haven't flown over a Terra in awhile, so I can't guess from the map. I'd say we're somewhere here-ish." Stork said, pointing at a space in between tow blobby looking Terras on her chart. "And if we keep up a constant, reasonable speed…"

"Right." Falshade said with a nod.

"And considering we don't run into any Vultures." Angel added. "I mean, that might eat up time. You know, possibly."

"We got it, smarty." Stork told him. "Like, pretty quickly too. We probably guessed it right away without your continuations. It wasn't that hard."

"Gee, that is annoying." Angel said with a smirk. "Like, extremely irritating. Really aggravates you. Wears on your tolerance level, in fact."

Stork threw the compass at him.

"Well, if we do end up fighting any pirates I suppose we'd better have a good breakfast first." I said, getting up. I needed to keep my hands busy.

Wasp was sitting cross-legged at the table, eating a bowl of Sky Charms. If she'd been using a spoon, she almost might have looked normal. She loved those damn things, even though she wasn't as fond of the cereal pieces as she was the marshmallows. She asked me once if they sold the boxes without the 'crunchy things' in them and had looked almost heart broken when I'd told her no. That had probably been the longest conversation we'd had.

"Good morning" I told her and rolled a spoon across the table, not really expecting a reaction, but it was worth a shot. To my surprise she snatched it up, but instead of digging it into her cereal she examined the shiny metal like a magpie might. She tilted it and frowned at her reflection.

"Why does it do that?" she asked me suddenly as I set the frying pan on the stove.

"Pardon?" I asked, tail twitching in that annoying way it does like it's got a mind of its own. She unnerved me, and worse it was like she knew exactly how I felt too.

"Me. In the spoon. Why does it flip around like that? I'm still right way up."

"Oh." Oddly enough I could recall asking my mom the same thing when I was about six. Well, my adopted mom. "I used to know. Something about the refraction of light and the way the spoon's bent, I think."

"Refraction." she said, more like a statement then a question. Then she cackled and it made me start. "I look like a bat!" she exclaimed as if thrilled by the notion.

"Can't imagine why you'd want to." I said, digging the eggs out of the fridge and giving the cartoon a good sniff to make sure they weren't Angel's… experiment. I was sure he hadn't listened to Falshade the night before.

"What's wrong with bats?" Wasp demanded, sounding honestly insulted.

"Nothing." I stammered. Jeez, she freaked me out. "I just don't think you'd want to look like one. They're pretty… odd looking." Oh the irony. If it had been anyone else that remark wouldn't have mattered as much.

"I think they're cute."

Of course.

I fumbled for something to say, but she gone back to scooping cereal out of the bowl. Despite the fact she was dunking her hands into the milk rather violently, there wasn't a single drop of it on the table, nor was it trickling down her wrists like I would have expected.

I cracked three eggs into the pan, deciding to start with fried eggs before things got more complicated. Everyone on the Merlin liked their eggs different. And since I was the "Egg Master", as dubbed by Stork (I was also the Toast Master, the Waffle Wizard, the Juice Master and basically supreme ruler of anything that had to be more then zapped in a microwave) I'd been elected as the only one who was allowed to make them. I'm just really good at not breaking the yolk, that's all. Falshade, Fraggle and I preferred fried eggs. All sunny-side up, thank god. We're a pretty happy bunch. Angel liked omelettes, usually with something unimaginative in them like cheese. I told him he was squandering my talent by asking for such boring fillings rather then say…green onions and mushrooms and three types of peppers. To spite me he'd asked for a plain omelette. And he told me he refused to eat anything that could be found growing on a stump. Stork just liked scrambled eggs. Fair enough. But she was horribly picky. One day I'd added bacon bits in to add some flavour and she'd spent all morning picking out every single one. And griping. Wasp ate eggs raw. She sucked them right out of the cracked shell. I didn't give them to her anymore. She was off the egg-list.

I set the other frying pan up and slapped half a package of bacon in it. You'd think bacon would have been something we all could agree on, but no. Falshade liked it crispy, Stork and Fraggle liked it… uncripsy, I guess. I don't know how to describe it. Tender, there. Half raw. Whatever. Angel liked it somewhere in between. I think he did that to be annoying. Wasp liked it raw too. There was a reason she'd been reduced to eating just cereal. I just didn't eat bacon, period. I don't eat meat, period. It was totally abnormal for one of my species to be a vegetarian, but I suppose if they'd watched they're entire family get butchered right in front of them they'd be off meat too. Ironically enough I still made meat for my carnivorous friends. It wasn't their affliction.

Stork was tugging on my shirt. She had a cutesy look on her face. I sighed. "What do you want?" I asked, ever the push-over.

"Well, I really had a hankering for waffles… but since I'm highly allergic to burned food, I was wondering if you could make some for me."

"You're also allergic to tact, apparently."

I think I'm pretty much the only one Stork will even pretend to beg to, because she knows I won't take it and run with it. That's the other reason I'm still in her good books. She sank to her knees, grabbed hold of my scaly foot, and warbled in a desperately pleading voice. "Undeserving human girl desires waffles, great king of the land of Kitchen. But she is hopeless. Would the great, gracious, brilliant…tall-dark-and-handsome king make them for her?"

"I suppose it can be arranged." I said and she leapt to her feet.

"Awesome. But no funny little surprises, ok? No berries, no "hints of cinnamon", no whipped topping."

"Don't flatter yourself." I said and she made a stomping motion towards my tail.

Stork trusted me not to be an egotistical jerk. And in turn I trusted her not to take advantage of it. That was just how we rolled. And it worked out pretty nicely. She got her waffles, after all.

"Just plug in the iron and I'll have them done in a bit." I instructed and she shot me a doubtful look. "Just plug it in, Stork. Nobody ever started a fire by plugging in a waffle iron."

"Dude, it's me."

"…True. Go get the fire extinguisher, just to be safe."

Egotistical jerk unfortunately didn't cover her for just plain old meanie. And therefore it didn't cover me for tail squashings.


Some people don't notice this right away, but in our squadron there is a bit of a personality clash. No, I'm serious.

I mean, we all got along, for the most part. We hadn't torn each other apart yet, at least. I think that was a big part of what held us together, the fact we were all so different and yet held a common goal. Anyways, due to these clashes some of us were a bit less sociable then others and preferred to stay in our rooms for a good portion of the day. We don't all hang out on the bridge unless we're having a meeting or something.

Therefore it was a little awkward to have all six of us camped out on the bridge that morning after breakfast. It was almost like everybody was afraid to leave. There was no hiding the tension and anticipation and even the fear that all of us held in our postures and muscles. We were all waiting, hanging on the edge of anxiety and hysteria, as if we were desperate for something to come along and get it over with. I realized then that if we did get into a fight it would be our first battle as a squadron, as an official group rather then a cluster of no-name yahoos. Well, it would also be our first official battle. I hoped that prospect unnerved more then just myself. Ever since I'd started training… no, before that. Ever since Falshade and I had sat together at the edge of the plateau back home on Vatican, looking up at the stars like we so often did, and had watched a burning, falling star flash and fade across the inky sky (the first one of the year) and Falshade, at only seven years old, had sworn to me he was going to be a Sky Knight, I'd harboured a secret fear. A fear of just not being good enough. Of riding out to fight with my friends and finding out I just didn't have the guts or the heart for war. It was the only part of my heritage that I wanted to hold on to, to be attached to.

There were things you couldn't help, things you knew you couldn't help or fix and told yourself you had to try and move past it and be anyways. But those things never truly went away. They stayed just below your heart and gnawed at the strings when it was least appropriate. And my heritage had been one of those things. I found some redemption on Vatican, because it was a terra full of refugees, many who'd faced a similar heartbreak as my own and they felt sorry for me. When I got a little bigger I could see people watching my edgily. I took after my father, unfortunately, and I think who'd seen the darker side of the old war must have seen him in my face. The outside world was even less forgiving of the sins I hadn't even committed. Thanks to Falshade and the others I'd learned not to let those sneers and snarls and whispers make me feel like letting myself splatter in the Wastelands. They still bugged me, but that was just a given.

No, the thing that really worried me about my heritage was the monster that lurked in my reflection, in my shadow. Terradons aren't humans for a reason. They… we're not bloodthirsty, heartless beasts (not all of us), but we certainly had our own little traits that marked us slightly more frightening and deadly in battle then say… a scrawny little blonde girl in high tops. In appearance only, mind you. If Stork wanted to she could have a flock of Vultures cowering in a corner like kids. But we Raptors, we're something else. We're built for battle with our strong upper bodies and natural armour. And I mean, anybody could train enough and get good enough to take down a Raptor, no problem. But we're not fully human. We've got a bloodlust in our veins, particularly us males, that comes out in battle, faster, harder, stronger, more consuming then in humans. And I was scared of it. I was thrown and torn by it… on one hand I didn't want to charge into battle only to find out I was a coward, that I was weak and couldn't handle it. But on the other side I didn't want to throw myself into a fight and suddenly go into some blood induced fever and not be able to stop myself… or even enjoy it. We'd decided before, long before our meeting with the Sky Council, that we'd aim to cripple before anything else… that was the golden rule. But I mean, shit happens, and some of the others had been quick to point out that if some dirt-mouthed Vulture bastard decided he wanted to lop off our heads then they weren't going to just aim for his knees. And I had to agree. But this feeling in my gut stayed, this fear I was afraid to mention to the others. We all had them, I was sure. Hell, we all had other secrets too: dark secrets, bloody secrets, regular secrets, strange secrets, dream secrets and the kind of secrets that make you fall to your knees, clutch your head and howl until the pressure behind your eyes is too much. But that was okay. Some people might say friendship is knowing everything about your friends and knowing they trust you enough to let you in on their blackest treasures. To me friendship is being able to accept that your friends have secrets and being able to trust them and move along anyways.

Angel was sitting beside me at the table, as usual, feet propped up in a fake pose of relaxation. I could call his bluff because his fingers were drumming softly on the inside of his knee, barley noticeable but obviously impatient. Or uneasy. Hard to tell with Angel. I knew he'd been scratching for a good fight for….ever. As much as the thought of battle unnerved me, it excited me too, but Angel was just plain hungry for it. I figured he'd probably been in more then a few not-necessarily-friendly squabbles before, which gave him more experience then I had. But I'd seen real battle…. no, bloodshed, slaughter, murder up close and personal, and even though those memories only haunted me, shattered and splintered, in nightmares, I was certainly no 'blood virgin' to quote Wasp. Maybe that was the difference between me and Angel. It was certainly the difference between me and my father, and in a twisted way it almost made me thankful for what had happened to me, all those years ago.

"So… Cyclonia." Angel said to me then in a low voice so the others wouldn't hear up near the helm. I threw a glance their way anyways: Falshade was pacing back and forth like a psycho, Stork was staring out the window while flying probably a million miles away and glancing once and a while back at Fraggle, who was still clinging to the controls to keep himself upright. He doesn't usually do AM.

"Cyclonia." I repeated. Angel had an eerie knack for picking up on that splinter of discomfort and uncertainty that lodges itself in people's brains. Usually he used it against them, to annoy them or destroy them. However he and I had a strange sort of truce. When I went into one of my moods he tried to pick that splinter out.

"Your Daddy ever hang out there?"

Whenever Angel said Daddy it freaked me out. It was just the way he said it.

"I don't know." I answered honestly. The others knew about Repton. It was one of the very first things I'd told them about myself. I'd never been afraid of sharing the big secrets. I'd told them about Repton, and I hadn't had to talk about the Slaughter of Terra Bogaton because that was just common history. Some people preferred to keep those things to themselves. They ate me up inside. I kept the little things to myself, like that panic that would swell in my chest at night or the claustrophobia that made my tail twitchy.

Angel nodded jerkily. "It doesn't really matter."

"No, I guess not." And yet it did matter, and I knew it and Angel knew it.

"Well, yeah, it does, you're right." He agreed even though I hadn't said anything. I think I'd asked him before if he could read minds and he'd laughed at me.

"No." he'd told me. "Just people."

"Your Dad's gone though… dead for all we know. And frankly, who cares?" he went on in a muttering, dark voice only he can summon. His buried Saharrian accent laced beneath his syllables. "The way I see it is like this: the bastard hardly knows you exist, wasn't there to raise you when you were little, didn't even care about your mom and has never tried to contact you, for all we know. So why get all worked up about it? You're not him and waltzing into Cyclonia isn't going to set off some time bomb in your DNA and make you turn into him."

Give the man a million dollars, people. He hit the nail right on the head.

That's when I started to smell it.

It had been nagging at my nostrils for a little while, a slight smell on the breeze that was sucked in though the air ventilation system. Trust me, you don't wanna open a window at this altitude. My sense of smells isn't fantastic. It's just this side of sharp, really. But it allows me to pick up on things you humans sometimes miss. But suddenly this weird scent was a little more evident in the air, thicker and ashy. The kind of smell that brings an atmosphere with it, an air that clogs in little lumps in your throat and behind your tongue. It was still faint, a faded trace amid all the other, stronger smells that drifted around the Merlin; stale sweat, tense bodies, grease, waffles and Angel's boots, to name the most overpowering. But that new smell was obviously there, something that wouldn't go away. And it sent a foreboding chill right down my spine.

I glanced over at Fraggle to see if maybe he'd noticed it too. His sense of smell was better then mine, I knew that much. He was still slumped over the controls though and hadn't appeared to notice. Heightened senses don't always mean heightened attention spans.

"You smell it, don't you?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Wasp leaned over my shoulder and whispered into my ear. Until recently she'd been lying on the floor with her feet propped up on the sofa, spitting into the air and catching it again in her mouth. I hadn't even heard her come up behind me.

I turned a little so I could see her. Her nostrils were flared and her mouth was open slightly as if to draw in more air, more scents. I saw a slippery rope of saliva congealed and strung between two of her fangs, wicked little shards like glass that belonged in the maw of an animal and not in a human face. It only then occurred to me that Wasp probably had a sense of smell that far surpassed mine or Fraggle's.

"Yeah." I said, feeling trapped and exposed in the gaze of those contrasting orbs. Wasp didn't blink as often as a regular humanoid. Angel twisted a bit, listening and interested despite himself.

"What is it?" I asked her. Her eyes suddenly jumped away from mine, twitchy and flashing all across the bridge before focusing on something just above my left shoulder. I glanced there myself and saw nothing.

"It smells like shadows." she whispered then, no longer focused on me like she had been a moment ago, and I felt relieved. "And like flames."

I drew in a long breath despite myself. The scent was hard to sort apart from the others, and as soon as I did I was only able to hold onto it and analyze it for a second before it slipped away again. I tried to dissect it… charred and heavy, it stung my receptors like something unknown and yet deadly familiar.

"It smells like death." Wasp murmured and I barely caught her words. But they rang in my head like a scream. I nodded, clenching my fists to stop my hands from shaking.

Stork leapt to the window then, peering at a terra off to starboard. Then she suddenly lunged back towards her charts, examining them carefully. "I think that was Terra Micronesia." she said, drawing a long finger over her map like she was tracing our route. "If it was, that means…we're close."

None of us needed to hear the story of Micronesia, which had been one of the first terras to be captured and last to be liberated of Cyclonian control. They were a wary and skittish terra now, haunted by the horrors and nightmares they'd faced while under Cyclonian occupancy. Many of the children I'd grown up with on Vatican with were from there, originally, and had escaped during a high-risk raid conducted by none other then the legendary Storm Hawks and their Interceptor companion Starling. It was one of those stories that mothers told their children before bed to make them feel safe before the lights went off. The Storm Hawks, old or new, owned many of those stories. They were sort of heroes to me, the ones that had been around in the newer war, the second generation, especially after I'd heard the story of how they'd liberated Terradons from Terra Bogaton who'd been held under siege then none other then my old man.

"Whoa. I spy with my little eye something that looks like bad news, eh." Fraggle reported then, mouthing his first words all morning.

We all looked out the front window then, one simultaneous head turn of apprehension. Dead ahead of us, while still miles away, was a dark smudge roiling on the horizon line. It didn't just blot and smother the light of the sun, it seemed to absorb it into ravenous murky purple depths. It looked like the remnants of a dead storm, or an imploding star. It certainly looked like a black hole to me, one that stretched ominously and etched itself in my mind's eyes. That foreboding feeling intensified and my tail began to snap back and forth without my permission, but not without my agreement either.

"A Death Place." Wasp said bluntly and that smell crawled up my nose and sat under my eyes like it belonged there.

x.x.x Stork x.x.x

He'd never been particularly fond of his own name. His full name, anyways, even though it was what he went by now. So he could understand that she didn't really like hers either. Well, that was a bit of an understatement. She didn't just disapprove of the name, she couldn't stand it.

"Why couldn't you have called me something else?" she asked him again and again during her angry little fits only an eight year old was capable of. He had to fight back a smile every time her little pixie face crinkled and frowned and pouted at him, an annoyed, begging look she'd perfected after years of watching him. Sometimes she'd hit him with tiny fists when he sang out her name. Sometimes she'd ignore him until he called her something else, usually Flea, a nickname he'd given her because she was so energetic and tiny.

She seemed at times so grown up, so ready to face the world, so ready to fight. And yet she would always and forever be a child too, and she showed that in her cranky fits and unquenchable curiosity.

He remembered one such fit she'd had, shortly after she'd came home barely and yet determinedly holding back tears. The moment he saw her dirty and bloody little body he felt panic swell and dig at his insides, a new sort of panic that clutched and froze him whenever she appeared hurt or distressed. He grabbed hold of her and she wailed when she dropped what remained of her Scooter board as he carried her upstairs, cradling her in his arms like a broken bird. He forced her into the bathtub despite her complaints and began to gently dab away the dirt and blood from her face and arms and knee caps. Her tiny hands were skinned and raw and her hair was coated with a fine layer of dust and grit. She'd scraped her delicate, proud chin and cut up her cheeks and forehead as if her face had been the first thing to hit the ground. Her jeans were torn and stained with rusty coloured blood. He cursed himself again and again for getting her that stupid board and wrapped her in a towel with his strong arms, sitting her on the counter and began applying bandages to her cuts and scrapes like his own mother had done when he'd come home after a nasty fall or scrap.

"What happened?" he asked her gently, smearing some antiseptic over her torn knees with careful fingertips.

"I tried to… well, Flick was being a moron, he told me he could beat me in a race, no problem. So I raced him and I…" here she stopped to swallow a sob. "My Scooter… the engine, Daddy, it broke. And I went down. I broke my Scooter, Daddy!" she yowled, seeming more upset by the loss of her fantastic toy then by any physical injuries.

"Aw, Flea, don't cry." He pleaded. He wanted to cry whenever he saw pain in those beautiful eyes.

"I'm not crying!" she protested. "But what am I going to do about my Scooter? Do you think you can fix it?"

"I dunno, Flea. I'm only good at patching up little girls." he said, expertly attaching a bandage to her thin skin after years of practice.

Her eyes crinkled. "But Daddy… my Scooter…"

"I know it's your Scooter, babes, but I'm not so good with that kind of stuff. And I have no idea how to fix its engine."

She frowned at him, not accusing or angrily, just considerably. Then she slid off the counter and went to her room without a word. A short while later, once she was dressed again, he heard her patter down the stairs and pick up her broken toy, and then the door opened and shut as she melted into their micro backyard. He sat down on the bathroom floor, pulling himself right up against the sink and put his head on his knees and cried.

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Hours later he still hadn't heard her come inside after he'd thrown some of their clothes into the washing machine and then read a small handbook he'd had stashed on a shelf among so many other unused books which was all about engines parts and the laws of aerodynamics. He headed for the back door in his sock feet, mismatched and looking as stitched together and unravelling as he felt. Maybe they could try to forget about the whole incident and make some cookies or something. Inside his gut churned at the thought.

He promised he'd never let her fall. And she had.

"Hey, Flea?" he asked, pushing open the screen door that allowed the warm summer air to flow into the house and filter through his damaged aura. "What are you up to? You wanna make cookies or something?"

"Daddy, look!" she exclaimed excitedly, leaping up from the grass were several things flashed in the sunlight. Tools, he realized, and parts. She was holding her Scooter board against her chest and had a huge grin cracked across her face, so wide that it wrinkled and tugged the taught skin around her bandages. "It's not broken anymore!"

"Oh, babes, I don't know if you-"

"Look!" she cried again and dropped her board to the ground with a thump. Before he could stop her she stamped a naked foot down on the trigger pad. With a crackle the thrusters at the back spat out blue energy and the board hummed, ready to fly.

"It was broken before and I fixed it!" she explained excitedly, pride evident in her baby girl voice.

He knew by her earlier reaction that the board must have indeed been broken. Not many things could bring his Flea that close to tears. And yet here it was, fully functionally after being worked by her little hands. Since the age of four she'd been an obsessive child and for years the object of her fascination had been machines. He'd bought her little tools and a small metal box in which she could keep them, had bought her books all about air ships and skimmers, full of pictures and diagrams that had caught her eyes greedily and she'd seemed to soak them in, colour by colour. He'd even let her take apart old appliances and she had a large collection of spare parts she found and hoarded like a dragon. And now she'd apparently fixed her Scooter, something that required more then toaster dissection skills.

"Wow." he said honestly, bending next to her and pressing his fingers to the trigger pad so he could appreciate her handiwork up close. "You're a right little Stork, aren't you?"

He chomped down on his own tongue right afterwards.

"What?" she asked, pausing in her euphoric dance.

"Nothing. You did a really good job with the engine. You wanna teach me how to fix it?" he asked her, feeling like he was bribing her.

"You called me something."

"No, I didn't. I meant it as a compliment. Why don't you show Daddy how the engine works? I wanna see what you did. I'm really interested."

She crouched next to him, a frown hanging around the corner of her mouth. "What's a Stork?"

He sighed and took his fingers back. "Not a what. Stork was someone I used to know. Brilliant mechanic, but I think you could give him a run for his money." He was struck by a sudden image of a young Merb examining the pieces of a motor similar to the Scooter's, tilting the tricky, shining pieces in front of him so his large, excited eyes could see every detail of its glory. The thought made bile burn in his throat.

"Stork." she repeated, watching him with wide, enthralled eyes. "You think I'm like him?" she seemed delighted at the idea of being compared to some shadowy, unheard of stranger.

"I don't think so." he said, an edge of something sick creeping into his voice.

"You just said so!" she insisted.

"What does it matter, Flea? Can you please show me how the engine works now?" he begged, sounding like a child himself.

"Not Flea. Stork."

"What?"

"Stork. That's my name now. I like it much better then my other one. Even better then Flea."

He gawked at her, this beautiful and breakable creature. His angel, his salvation, his life. She held his gaze with piercing, determined eyes. Oh, God how well he knew those eyes.

"Stork." he said slowly, more like a question then a statement. She nodded exuberantly.

"Stork." she confirmed.

He stood with a whimper caught somewhere between his heart and his throat. She looked up at him adoringly. Stork. His Stork.

She wasn't anything like him. Not really. She held more of Piper's attributes, really. Smart and snappy, determined, full of life. Maybe he thought that because she was a girl, and Piper had been the only girl in his life for so long. She was like Junko too, joyful, painfully naïve and curious. She was like him certainly, with her attitude and brashness and her humour and obvious charm. But Stork? Not really. She wasn't careful, wasn't timid, certainly not paranoid or twitchy or fretful.

Most of all, she was like Him. Strong, stubborn, brave, bold, daring. She was a fighter. She was a protector. She was His.

Maybe that's why Stork seemed to attach to her so well. If she was Him, it was like replacing Him, accepting His absence. It placed a burden of expectation and greatness over her head that she would struggle to achieve all her life.

Stork was still here. He could share his name. He could be among the living fittingly and without shackles or burden. She could be Stork. She could be alive.

Because if she was Stork then it was like Aerrow wasn't dead.

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The closer we got to that smoky, smothering mass of stained thunderheads the more I could feel my skin prickling in the other direction. I did not want to get any closer to that dirty aura, that pulsing thing that blotted out the sky the closer we got, like a blood clot that expands and grows and waits for the surrounding vein to go off like a time bomb.

Varan was sniffling and snorting like a coke addict behind me and it was grating on my nerves. I knew it wasn't his fault; by now even we ill-equipped humans could smell it, the scent that coated the air like a sickness. Fraggle would cough and hork every once in awhile like he was trying to force the thing out of his lungs. Wasp had buried her face into her own armpit and sounded like she was attempting to stop breathing all together.

I was hunkered down on the floor, rocking back and forth like a schizo and trying to occupy myself with something other then being hypnotized by that swarming storm. I suppose moving away from the windshield might have helped, but I had this really annoying sort of fear that the moment that blot was out of my line of sight it'd swell and spread and engulf us all to be lost in some sort of terrible abyss. Does that ever happen to you?

As I hunted about my brain for some sort of means of distraction I stumbled upon the memory of a game my Dad and me had invented to help me sleep during thunderstorms. The thunder and lightning never frightened me or anything; on the contrary I loved watching the fun and games of nature playing about the purple skies. But the noise and excitement kept me up at night, made me tense and alert, waiting on edge between thunder claps like a junkie going through some weird sort of jolting high. The same thing was happening to me now; my muscles were bunched and coiled, waiting until at random moments it was like someone had jabbed me with a cattle prod, causing my muscles to twitch spasmodically and making my insides lurch and hammer and pound. So I started playing the game, all on my own, to try and pull away from it.

The game's rules were simple enough; at first you started at A and tried to think of as many words that started with that letter as you could until the next blast of thunder. Then you started at the next letter. The catch was you couldn't just use easy, regular words like apple, army, angry and actual. You had to think of big, weird words.

"Albatross" I thought to myself, keeping my eyes glued to blotch on the horizon "Anarchy, Armada, Alien, Avarice, Amnesia, Aversion, Abrasion, Aerodynamic…"

"Ah-choo." I remembered my Dad saying a long time ago.

"That's not a word!" a six year old version of myself squealed through giggles. Of course back then I didn't know so many great words myself, often using ones I'd picked up in previous games and I wasn't much of a saint about the rules either. He let me get away with everything, my Dad, and he dumbed himself down for our games so he wouldn't make me feel like a stupid little child, like so many other adults I'd met did.

Another racking chill twinged at my spine and I moved on to the Bs.

"Bombardier " I thought, glancing over at Fraggle and his forest green jacket. "Ballistics, Bewilderment, Botulism, Barricade, Barracuda, Blasphemy."

Another internal shiver, my guts squirming with irritation again. Wasp was looking at me, I could see her scorching amber eye peering and glowing from beneath her armpit. I smiled at her briefly and then moved onto C.

"Carnivorous, Cannibal, Canine, Concave, Catacomb, Catalyst, Coniferous, Cascade, Clutter… oh, yeah, note to self, de-clutter hanger."

Damn. I shouldn't have distracted myself. Another tremor rippled through me and I felt like a freaking Chihuahua, shivering for no apparent reason on the floor. I waited a second for the last of those spiking chills to leave my skin and then started on D.

"Distraction" I thought with a smirk at myself "Delusional, Demented, Distorted, Deranged, Diphtheria, Disengage, Determent, Discovery, Disembowelment, Disinfectant, Distilled, Deduce, Disorientation, Dementia, Disease, Dissection, Descend, Delete, Derogatory…"

I was rattled from sleep as the Merlin shuddered to an eerie halt. My eyes snapped open and at first I thought my fears had come true: I'd looked away from the ominous black hole and it had taken the opportunity to swell and engulf us. Then I realized we weren't inside the torrent, not yet. Rather Fraggle had stopped the ship barely thirty feet from its swirling, bulging depths.

The smell was almost smothering. It clogged in my throat like I'd swallowed a large amount of glue and now I could finally pick at it and dissect its components. I could detect smoke and thick ashes, a smoggy filth that made me want to clamp my nostrils shut with a clothespin. But it was more then that. It was like a toxic warning was rubbed into the mix too, an acidic sort of flavour that stung and assaulted. And there was a heavy, sickly smell there too…. a fetid, rotten sort of thing, of something that once was.

The others were talking and I forced myself to ignore the wretched stink for a moment and listen to them. It appeared they were arguing.

"Falshade, dude, do you not see that… thing out there?" Fraggle was saying. "Those cloud-things are thick, eh, and dark too. We're looking at like, low to zero visibility in there."

"I can see it just fine." Falshade muttered, an edge of apprehension creeping about the contours of his voice. "But unless you can see a big, flashing "Land Here" sign that I've missed, the only way in is though it."

"Look at the instruments, Chief. There's a massive amount of pressure and air currents all over for tea just ahead of us. I don't know if I'll be able to keep the Merlin on course. Bad things could happen, eh."

"Stork, are we where we should be?" Falshade directed at me and I jumped to my feet. I stared out at the blotch for a moment before checking my charts.

"Yeah. The Scar's probably on the other side of this storm-thing." It made sense, after all. Cyclonia had gone down in smoking ruin and chaos. Maybe this storm-thing was the leftover aura, the dispersed energy. It would explain why it wasn't moving anywhere, except if you counted inside itself, swirling and imploding. It was like a stationary catastrophe. Hey, that would have been a good one…

"I've got an idea." Angel said then. "One of us could take a skimmer and fly through, to make sure there's something on the other side, and to make sure the way's safe."

"No way." Falshade said almost immediately afterwards. "No. We have no idea what's in there, how strong the winds are or if it even ends. If someone goes in there they might not ever come out again. We won't be able to find them if they crash."

"Shade, listen. A skimmer's got a better chance at navigating through high winds then a big ol' airship. Plus we need someone to go through to make sure this ting actually does end. And once they're through they can help Fraggle steer by anything in the way." Angel argued. I could see Falshade's bones sagging slightly. That boy could be stubborn and relentless when he wanted to, but underneath that he was really just a lightweight. Jerks like Angel and me knew how to take advantage of that, and you better believe we did.

"…I suppose you're the one gunning to fly blind into the Vortex of Doom?" Falshade asked him hesitantly, as if desperately trying to cling to the pieces of his quickly dissolving reserve.

"You betcha."

Falshade let out a sigh, a special sigh reserved for his two wingmen. I mean wingpeople.

"Come on, Shade. There's definitely something on the other side of that thing, or else why would the Sky Knight Legion come and check twice a month? Let me check it out, my skimmer's smallest, next to Stork's Hornet, and its got moxie too. I'll be able to handle the winds. I mean, I'm the best pilot, after all." He added the last bit like he were commenting the weather, tilting his chin like a proud young stallion. I snorted.

Falshade wrinkled his nose in a "yeah, you keep telling yourself that" sort of way and then said reluctantly "Fine. Go ahead. But be careful. If things get too rough in there don't try to stick it out; come right back. And keep in touch over the radio. I want to hear your voice like, every three seconds."

"Oooh, getting serious between you two, isn't it?" I said and Falshade glared at me. Angel, however, gamely put his arm around Shade's wider shoulders.

"You jealous, Baby Girl?"

"Puh-lease." I spat, sounding like a goo-goo girl and hating it. Hence the 'spat'.

Falshade shoved Angel away. "Well if you're going then get going! And take the compass with you, in case you get turned around in there."

"The compass might not work." Varan said then, his voice sounded plugged and stuffy. "If that thing in there has a magnetic or energy force field then it could seriously alter any navigational devices. They might get thrown off course, they might not even work. You could get even more lost."

"I'll risk it."

"Hang on." Wasp said, leaping over and alarming me with her uncoordinated, speedy movements. She froze with her hands groping the inside pockets of her coat, and at first I thought the wave of the stench might have slammed her hard or something. But then she looked up at me with confusion. "What was I doing?"

I resisted the urge to do a face-palm. "I have no idea. It looked like you were going to give Angel something in case the compass didn't work."

"Oh, right." Wasp nodded enthusiastically and hunted about inside her coat some more, so ferociously that I heard a ripping sound. "Where are you, you little bugger?" she growled at her pockets. Angel was fidgeting, his eyes rolled heavenward.

"Gotcha!" Wasp said, pulling out a wonky looking red crystal, oval shaped and rough looking, barely any discernable facets marking the surface because it was so knobbly.

"Here." Wasp said, thrusting the crystal into Angel's hand.

"You shouldn't have." Angel said phlegmatically.

"Are you stupid?" Wasp demanded bluntly. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Connect the dots, Wasp, then you'll see a picture. Look, they even have numbers.

Angel's brow furrowed. "What kind of question is that?" he demanded. He didn't like Wasp, and so he spared her no witty comebacks, no sarcastic reply. With her he used unconcealed irritation and dislike.

"A justified one?" I commented and he glared at me.

"A good one. Do you know what that is? Well, it's a Twin crystal. I made it myself. I've got the other one." She explained as if she were talking to moron and pulled an exact replica of the crystal Angel held out of another pocket. "When they're in line with each other they'll glow. Force fields may mess with compasses and time pulse navigators, but not crystals."

I was a little taken aback. Wasp, while not outwardly dumb, never really showed much signs of intelligence, not to mention coherence. She really brought new meaning to the phrase "march to your own drum." It had never occurred to me that she might have been capable of making such a useful and clever thing, let alone know when it might be helpful.

"So, if Angel points that one around." Falshade asked in clarification. "It'll light up when it comes in line with the other one, and therefore with the Merlin?"

"Sure."

"Will it work that far away?" Falshade asked, seeming to draw back from the question like he was afraid of the answer.

"Well I guess that'd be helpful, wouldn't it?"

There was a collection of sighs and a barely suppressed irkish sound from Angel. He jammed the crystal unceremoniously into his pocket and strode towards the doors to the hanger. I heard his engine rev roughly below us and then he was shot off the run way, waiting a moment and allowing himself to plummet several feet before yanking on the controls and sending the wings of his skimmer leaping off from the sides. His ride rose unsteadily and was immediately sucked in towards the churning mass of black and purple clouds. In a moment we couldn't see him anymore, and I felt something like panic squeeze me under my ribs.

Falshade was glued to the periscope, hunting through the smog erratically as if he expected to see his best friend get spat out again at any moment. Varan and I were watching out the front window in the same sort manner. Fraggle was the one who remember to hop over to the wall quickly to flip on the wave radio.

We waited with stretched nerves for him to give us a shout over the radio. The jerk was probably making us wait on purpose. It was a game of "Chicken" and if I knew my Sky Knight, he was going to crack first.

Oh ho, snap, I was so right.

"Angel!" Falshade barked into the mic after several long seconds that seemed like hours.

"Yes?" came his airy drawl over the air waves. If he would have been anywhere within physical range Falshade would have socked him.

"How's it look in there?" he demanded instead, not bothering to keep the petulance out of his voice. I was probably the only one besides him who knew that Angel, too, had passed the Sky Knight Trials and the basically meant that Angel, also being a Sky Knight, didn't have to take orders from anyone. And he knew it too. There was an underlying factor to his jackassy attitude and that was the constant reminder to Falshade that in the end, he could do what he wanted. And that included disobeying direct orders to stay in contact.

"It's kinda soupy… whoa… crisis averted. The wind's kinda harsh and there's almost no vis… but I mean you basically just gotta go in a straight line." his voice echoed back, sounding weird being all disembodied and what not.

"May I see that?" I asked Wasp then, tearing my gaze away from the window. She held out her crystal to me and I started moving it back in forth in front of me like a metal detector. I felt my stomach lurch when I held it directly out and front of me and it didn't light up. Maybe it didn't work over the distance after all.

"Hey, Ange, what's the compass doing?" I asked aloud, feeling foolish like I'd been caught talking to myself. I hated talking into metal boxes.

The radio fizzed and crackled for a second before Angel's voice sputtered into life. "It's going haywire. Guess Scaly was right."

"Where are you?" I demanded, feeling very worried indeed as I veered the crystal every which way. Here I was all wound up about the kid whose life I threatened at least fifty-three times a day. Believe you me, it really annoyed me.

Wasp's crystal suddenly flared to life in my hand and I looked up, trying to draw an invisible line into the smog like an arrow pointing to Angel. He was way off, nearly too far to be glimpsed from the windshield, if, you know, I would have been able to glimpse him at all.

"Hey, Best Pilot After All, you're way off course." I told him. "Much too starboard. Come back a bit."

"What are you talking about, I've stayed in a straight line the whole time!" Angel growled.

"Use the crystal, smart-guy."

Quite suddenly things went silent. Like, not completely; we could still hear the howling wind and the groaning of the Merlin as she strained to keep from getting sucked into the blotch. But it was like somebody had switched the radio off all of a sudden. There wasn't any crackling, no buzzing in between the spaces of our voices, no wind grinding on the mic at the other end.

No Angel.

And I mean usually that's good.

But right then it was very, very bad.

"Angel?" Falshade shouted, even though you barely had to raise your voice for the speaker to pick up on it. "Angel!"

I abandoned my post at the window, scrambling for the radio to make sure the frequency hadn't been switched or something. Nothing had happened, though, not on our end anyways.

"Angel!" I hollered, trying to fight down the fear that was growing in my chest and guts. My mouth was inches from the mic. He was joking, he was joking, he had to be joking around.

Varan pried the Twin crystal from my fingers, his hand shaking as he tried and failed to be gentle about it. I was having a hard time letting go of it. It was like my brain had decided it wasn't sending out any mail for the moment. Out to lunch or something. He started waving the crystal around frantically, too fast so that it probably wouldn't even get a chance to light up in the right spot.

My knees went weak with relief when I heard Angel's voice, sounding almost distressed, suddenly snap from the speakers.

"-guys? Falshade, where are you? What's going on?"

"We're out here." Falshade was beside me then, grabbing hold of the mic and taking it with him so he could still look out the window. "What happened? Why did you do that?"

"I broke through to the other side of the storm. Somehow these clouds must block radio waves or something, 'cause I lost communication with you guys. Didn't you here me yelling?" he demanded, sounding angry now, his way of getting over any sort of momentary panic.

"We lost contact with you too. You had us scared. Where are you now?"

"I'm back inside the smog. We're in the right place. The Scar's right on the other side. The way seems safe enough. The storm thing's about half a kilometre deep, just go straight through and you'll be out again in a minute."

Fraggle looked over at Falshade for conformation. "Are we really gonna do this then, Chief?" he asked.

Falshade seemed to grapple with something for a moment before saying "Yes. We're going. Just take it easy, huh? And for the love of Atmos keep it under eighty."

"No promises, eh." Fraggle grinned, comic relief to the end. And with that he leaned forward on the throttle (gently but not cautiously).

I could feel those winds take hold of us, usher us into the vortex like an eager hand towards a gaping mouth. And the moment we hit those smoky clouds, all Hell broke loose.

Well, not really. I mean, if all Hell broke loose then they're be limbs flying everywhere and some guy with goat legs and a goatee. But the proximity alarms did go off, and I mean the only things that could possible summon such an ear splitting, tear-your-head off-in-anguish sound truly did belong in Hell.

Yeah, that's us Gargoyles for you: stealthy as stalking cats, silent as ninjas, cool headed in a panic…

And disgustingly sarcastic.

My hands jumped towards my ears and I had to holler to hear my own voice "What's going on?"

"Demon clouds." Wasp suggested.

Angel's voice fuzzed about something over the intercom but none of us could hear it. Falshade scrambled across the bridge and practically tore the wall panel apart trying to disable the alarms. I finally stopped pretending to be stupefied (key word in that sentence is pretending) and ran over to where Varan was hunting through the skies with the periscope, trying to figure out what could be setting off our alarms. It must have been like trying to find an actual pea in pea soup.

"Anything?" I shouted very close to one of his ear slits and he jumped.

"No." he shouted back.

Again Angel was attempting to say something but his voice was drowned out by the alarms. Falshade was yelling at Fraggle, trying to figure out how to shut off the alarms but of course Fraggle couldn't hear him well and was trying not to hear everything else so he could hear him at the same time. He had one blue ear, the one that wasn't pricked in Falshade's direction, twisted and jammed against his head, looking pained.

It was Wasp who finally got fed up with the madness (go figure). In three long strides she was over beside Falshade, had pushed him aside and reached into the panel. She grabbed one wire in particular and yanked the whole thing out. About three feet of wire came spilling like spaghetti vomit out of the panel. And just like that, the alarms stopped.

I let go of my ears, feeling like an idiot for being stricken dumb like I had. Fraggle slowly untwisted his ear, shooting Wasp a reproachful look.

"Youse better not be tearing any more guts out of my birdie, eh." he told her sternly. She saluted him mockingly.

We could finally hear Angel over the speakers. "What the hell was that?" he was saying.

"Proximity alarms went off, eh. Probably these clouds. Really dense, eh." Fraggle explained, examining the pressure meter on the Merlin's controls.

For some reason, that really creeped me out. I mean, first this vortex, storm whatever thing had cut our communication from Angel, then had sucked us in as if it were taking a deep, inward breath. And now it was setting off our alarms, almost like it was something real, something… alive.

Varan's tail was flicking back in forth, occasionally making contact with my shin, like he'd come to the same sort of conclusion. The others seemed to be more worried about the ship and getting through the smog though, and I felt like a little kid all of a sudden, scared of the monsters in my closet. I looked up at Varan for condolence. He frowned grimly.

"I don't like it either." he muttered. "It makes my scales feel crawly."

I nodded, agreeing with him totally, except for the part about the scales. All I knew was I wanted to get out of the vortex, like right now.

"Hey, Angel?" I called into the speaker. "Where are you? How much further?"

"It shouldn't be too far. I can see you guys, or at least the ship anyways. It's like a big dark patch." his voice said after some time, easy and aloof like this whole thing was a laughable game. "I'm right over top of you."

"Cool. Keep us posted." I said, trying to fight off the jitters.

"What the hell is that?" he said almost immediately after I'd ended my transmission. Argh, that jerk! He probably knew I was feeling jumpy. He was trying to scare us.

"Ha ha, real funny. What is it, the Boogeyman?" I said sardonically.

"Shit, what is that?" he asked again, and there was a note of something in his voice. That squeezing feeling was back.

"Angel, listen, this really isn't funny!" I snapped, making a mental note to strangle him when I saw him next.

"Oh shit!" he was shouting all of a sudden. "Hard to port, hard to port! Left, Fraggle, left!"

That's when we saw it, looming right in front of us like a "Welcome to the Scar" sign. At first it was like a jagged shadow jutting up in front of us. Then I remembered that shadows aren't solid…

"Mountain!" I screamed like a boy at around the same time Fraggle wrenched the Merlin's controls hard to the left, nearly spinning himself around in a complete 180. There was a grinding noise as the Merlin nearly went into a barrel roll. I was thrown from my feet and was held airborne for about three seconds before I crashed into the wall, shoulders and the back of my head taking the brunt of the hit. I felt rather then saw Falshade come careening into the wall right beside me, a squealing noise erupting from his belt as Sliver's hilt dragged against the metal. I wasn't so lucky with Wasp, however: she came tumbling back from where she'd been standing next to the helm and blasted right into me, her wide shoulders colliding solidly with my ribs. I went down, winded and off balance and dizzy from that blow to my head. Around Wasp's coat I was able to see the windshield, and outside I made out the tip of the mountain, too close for comfort and horribly visible all of a sudden. Then I saw another sharper blotch appear in the window and realized it was Angel and his skimmer.

"We're going to hit him." I thought and tried to look away but couldn't. Like I said, I threatened to turn the kid inside out on a daily basis, but did I actually want to see his brains splatter all over the windshield? No way.

I opened my mouth the scream at Fraggle to watch out, but I never had the chance. Fraggle was still rolling us all around like dice in a cup as he swerved wildly, and Angle managed to get himself out of the way too. I did hear a thunk as we lost sight of him and hoped he hadn't just collided with one of the engines.

And then the world was abruptly upright again, and that didn't mess with my senses or stomach or anything, nope, not at all. Wasp, Falshade and I all tumbled back onto the floor, trying to detangle ourselves from each other and get orientated again.

"Hey." Varan, who'd was clinging to the periscope for support, said suddenly "Look! We're though!"

I dragged myself out from under the other two and rolled over so I could look out the windshield. It appeared we were indeed out, if you could call it that. It was more like we'd found a strange bubble, a floating cavern, in the vortex.

They was a bump as Angel's skimmer touched down on the run way. We could hear his ride rumbling in the hanger for a few moments before he shut it off and then he was with us again on the bridge and get this, I had to restrain from hugging him.

"Jesus, little man, I nearly clobbered you!" Fraggle scolded him.

"Nearly huh?" Angel muttered, clutching his shoulder pointedly.

"Let's see." Varan said, motioning for him to show him. Varan's pretty much our medic. Jeez, we'd probably have kicked it a long time ago without him around.

Angel shrugged his jacket off his injured arm and moved the sleeve of his ill-fitting muscle shirt to the side gently. I peered around Varan's shoulder and caught sight of a really nasty bruise, all brown and blue and with tiny blood blisters flecking the surface.

"Ouch, whatcha do?" I asked, trying to keep it tre casual.

"I dinged the freaking engine when I rolled past." he griped, looking disgusted with himself. I chose not to bring up the "best pilot after all" speech because I'm a freaking princess when it comes to people's feelings. Ha, couldn't say that one with a straight face.

"Is it dislocated?" Falshade asked in concern as Varan poked and prodded him and Angel fought to keep his face from twisting.

"Ow, Varan, watch it." he hissed.

"Well it's obviously not that bad." Varan huffed, prodding him one more time to prove that he wasn't just someone we could walk all over. "I think you'll be okay, it's not out of socket or broken or anything. Take it easy on that arm though."

"Yeah, yeah." Angel muttered, rolling his shoulder carefully as he slipped his jacket back on. "No promises. So… here we are."

"This place is really…weird, eh." Fraggle said. Understatement of the year.

Like I said, it was like we'd found a pocket in the storm, a strange, empty place where the air was heavy and acrid. That old smell lingered here, but was overruled by pungent charred smell, like old fire and lightning. There was a sulphuric scent here too, and the really sick smell of rot. There was a weird, reddish orange glow to the sky here, as if any of the sun's light had been filtered through the darker shades of purple of the surrounding smog. And there was a still silence here too, an eerie empty sort of silence that made you afraid to talk above a whisper. But it was brittle too, like there was something just on the other side of it, waiting to erupt into screams.

"Wow. So where's Cyclonia?" Wasp asked aloud, making the rest of us jump.

"This was Cyclonia." Falshade whispered.

"No, I mean like the fortress."

"Must be up there a bit. Whatever's left of it, anyways." I said, trying to keep my hand from shaking as I jerked it in the direction of a blacker spot up ahead, which was spiny and broken like an old tooth. Even though it was destroyed, the fortress of Cyclonia still stood tall and imposing among the small, jagged, whip-like mountains like a black eagle watching smaller creatures down below.

I couldn't see any visible terra. I assumed it was below us, under the cover of those murky, orange clouds. I had no desire to go down there to check it out.

"Ok, so…" Falshade said, trying to take on a confident air. "Here we are. I think… well, if I saw the fortress burning in my dreams then I think that's probably where we should go and check out, right?"

We nodded.

"Ok, great. But I don't think we should bring the Merlin in that close. We'll dick her here and fly over on our skimmers. Fraggle, you ride with me. I doubt there's gonna be any ice down there, and the last thing we need it to buy something else to fix you ride."

Fraggle's shoulders slumped and glared at Wasp. She waved at him in response.

"And remember, stick together down there. I don't want to have to go looking for any of you, and we don't know how safe that place is. It could be ready to fall apart at any moment for all we know." Falshade told us. I wrinkled my nose. For the last twenty four hours I'd been being pretty good, keeping snarky comments to myself and doing what I was told, mainly because I still felt guilty about throwing my ratchet at him. But did he really expect us to all hold hands and stick together? I mean, come on, this was Cyclonia, only the creepiest most unexplored place in all of Atmos. As much as it gave me the creeps I was pretty eager to nose around down there.

Fraggle reined the Merlin in between to large crooked pillars of stone, sending out the mooring lines and powering down the engine. The thought of leaving the Merlin wasn't at all comforting, but at least I felt secure in knowing it was nearer to the vortex in case we had to make a hasty retreat.

"Everyone remember where we parked." I joked and Fraggle mussed up my hair.

"E-7 next to the creepy rocks of doom." He said and clipped his energy staff to his belt.

"Should we go in in like, full battle mode?" Angel asked, flexing his fingers impatiently.

"Actually that sounds like a good idea. Everybody get your gear and be in the hanger in two minutes." Falshade instructed and headed down the hall to his room.

I scurried down to my room quickly, feeling kinda excited and apprehensive. Sometimes we practiced in bits of our armour, but never had we done anything serious in it. It was sorta foreboding in a way. You know, Murphy's Law and everything.

I cracked open my trunk and sorted my armour on by bed. I didn't have much, seeing as how I didn't really have a real uniform, just a tank top and a pair of jeans. Hell, we didn't even have crests yet. I made another mental note to suggest that to Shade once we were done with this.

I buckled my two bracers onto my wrists and clipped the extendable cables of my throwing axes onto them. Then I bolted my shoulder guard over my right shoulder blade and a curving triangle, almost fanglike, of armour over my heart. I attached two guards to the tops of my thighs and then one thin strip of metal over my belly to protect my organs. Lastly I strapped my battle axe to my back and tightened the laces on my high tops. Voila. One battle ready Stork, batteries not included.

I skipped out into the hanger and couldn't help but strike a pose for Wasp, who was grumbling to herself as she tweaked something on the seat of her Gremlin.

"Tah-da!" I crowed, thrusting out my tiny, girly hip and tossing my chin back.

Wasp eyed me up critically. "You look like a Battle Skylar doll."

I frowned. "Do not." That remark kinda stung because it was sorta true; in my armour I looked like a little girl with something she was trying to desperately prove. Wasp looked every part a warrior, even though she had no armour herself, aside from the throat guard that locked like a dog collar around her neck. Where my hips where slender and looked pre-puberty hers where wide and bony and squarish. My shoulders where slight and feminine, except for the jutting collar bone. Her's were broad and thick despite her skeletal appearance. She was pretty Amazon, tall, long limbed and harsh jawed. Me? I was like a Girl Scout with a battle axe.

Falshade joined us then and it amazed me how he suddenly looked like an actually Sky Knight. I was so used to the casual jeans and t-shirt I hardly recognized him in his tight uniform-ish looking top that had always been hidden beneath and his armour. His boots were still laced sloppily so the tongues stuck out funnily and his pants bulged over the edges. And his hair was still messy and unruly like a little boy's. But he looked older now, professional, tough. Damnit, was I the only one who couldn't pull off the fighter look?

I wolf whistled at him and he flushed. Yup, still our Falshade under all that metal alright.

"Whatever." He muttered at me. Good come-back.

I just cackled and straddled my Hornet, eager to test out my new turbine. It looked so beautiful sitting there next to my engine. I stroked it like a cat.

The others showed up shortly and I was almost afraid of the way Varan looked with his broadsword slung over his back and his chunky gauntlets. I almost forgot he was really just a big cuddly lizard as he sat on his Bone Wing. Even his usually laughably dorky mohawk looked menacing. I'll tell you this much, I was glad he was on our side.

"Right." Falshade said as Fraggle slid stiffly onto his skimmer behind him. "Keep together and don't mess around out there, we've no idea who or what might still be skulking around down there."

"Do you want us to hold you hand too, Daddy?" Angel asked him, kicking his engine into life and shooting off the end of the run way into the hot sultry air. Falshade grumbled something and followed after him. The sound of all those guttural engines rumbling was exhilarating and I couldn't help but speed out of the hanger a little faster then necessary.

I dropped off the edge of the run way and was immediately buffeted by air currents, not roughly but annoyingly obvious.

"Plasma thermals." Angel called to me as he pulled in closer for a second. "From the Wastelands. This place is really unstable, it's crazy. Just watch it, you know?"

"I have flown before." I stated gruffly. "Don't act like you care, Cupcake."

Something flashed across his thin face and he twisted the throttles of his Slip Wing, leaving me behind. I would have felt bad, except it was Angel. He didn't really care at all, he was just trying to irritate me by acting like he, the mighty Sky Knight, was more experienced then a little grease monkey like myself.

We stayed close to the cloud levels, in case there were Sky Knights or worse crawling about the place. It wasn't just a matter of getting a slap on the wrist if you were caught in here, we all knew that. It was actually against the law to be in here unless you were a part of the Sky Knight Legion. Which, as you know, we weren't.

"So, when we get there, what are you thinking we should do?" I called to Falshade, who steered in a little closer so he wouldn't have to shout.

"I dunno, actually. I was thinking to like, look around a bit, see if anything seems important. Like I've seen it before or something." he told me. I nodded in response and began to drop in altitude a weensy bit. We were getting closer to the ruins and I didn't know how much landing space we were gonna have.

Angel, ahead of us still, started to drop towards the old fortress I could see him looking around for a place to land. He apparently found one to his liking and took his skimmer in for a touch down. The rest of us followed suite, and as I got closer and could pick out a small patch of clear rock that offered a good landing pad, I suddenly got a strange, creeping feeling up the back of my spine. Worse then the foreboding feeling I'd gotten when we were approaching the smog and different from the one I'd felt when I took in the eerie silence of the place. Something was wrong in a way that made my spine want me to turn around and get back on the Merlin.

But me being me, I ignored that feeling and followed the others onto Angel's impromptu landing strip.

All six of us switched off our engines and looked up at the left overs of the once great citadel. I could only imagine what sort of power and secrets the place had held during it's time. The Talons' Roost, the old Haunt of Master Cyclonis herself. We were looking upon legend, a great and terrible legend. It occurred to me that nobody except the Sky Knight Legion had even set foot here in over seventeen years. This was pretty epic.

"Well… here we are." Falshade said, his voice holding but sounding hushed. "So shall we, um… go have a look around?"

"We'd probably cover more ground if we split up." Angel said, seeming to be the only one who wasn't freaked out.

"No, that's not a good idea. I don't want anybody getting lost or hurt or anything else. Besides, we have no idea what we're looking for or where to start."

Angel grunted. "You're just scared." he told him.

"Of course I am. This place is a freak show." Falshade said, and I admired his honesty. I, frankly, would have lied. "That's not why I want us all to stick together."

"I'm with Shade on this one." Varan said. "This place is huge. We'd never find each other if we had to."

"Oh, come on, Varan, there is nothing here that's going to come get us. You listen to too many kid's stories."

"Why do you want to be alone so bad anyways?" I demanded of him. I hadn't wanted to make it a group field trip either, but I didn't like the way he was treating Falshade and Varan.

"Don't act like you care, Feonix." he told me quietly.

"Shut your stupid face or I'll shut it for you." I snapped.

"Shut up, both of you." Falshade barked. "Just leave each other alone. Angel, if you don't wanna come with us then don't. I can't tell you what to do."

"That's right, you can't."

"Shut up. You've still got Wasp's crystal, right?" Falshade asked him shortly. I was a little taken aback. Falshade, although less then he used to be, was usually very tolerant of mine or Angel's attitude, and he never said shut up that often.

Angel smirked and nodded, making sure to stay quiet. I made a move towards him but Varan held me back.

"Good. Just… be careful okay?"

Another stupid little nod and he left us, turning away to explore the western walls. Or what was left of them, anyways.

Falshade sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then turned to the rest of us. "Right, so unless anybody else wants to play tough guy then why don't we get started?"

I liked how he asked us things and didn't order us around. For the most part anyways. And I couldn't ditch him now, not after Angel's little display of disloyalty. I stepped up beside him and wormed a smile onto my face. "Righto, boss-man. Lead the way."

He smiled at me gratefully and nodded. "Right. Let's go then."

He led the way up the slight slope, towards the looming shadows of the huge old battlement. I let Fraggle and Varan go ahead of me because I wanted to make sure Wasp dind't wander off anywhere. And I also couldn't shake this feeling… this sinister feeling that the others didn't seem to have like I did. This place was….I had…

Wasp was saying something quietly. For a minute I thought she was talking to herself. I listened closely as we got closer, trying to distract myself.

"I am slowly going crazy, one two three four five six switch..." she was signing. I turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. How could she be singing in a place like this?

"Can you hear it?" she asked me abruptly, her corny little song over. Her eyes were wide and her ears were flat against her head, giving her a creepy look.

"Hear what?" I whispered as Falshade vanished into the darkness of the old halls.

"Them. They're dying." she told me, and her eyes jumped disturbingly from place to place.

I held still and listened for a moment. At first I could only hear the sound of the boys' footsteps. And then I picked up on a buzzing, which wasn't really a buzzing at all. It was a horrible sound just on the edges of my hearing.

It was the sound of people screaming.


Several sections of the tower's roofs had fallen in long ago, letting that sickly light trail inside, So it wasn't like we were plunged into complete darkness or anything. However I think the half light and the shadows made the old place even more frightening. There were dark corners and passages that could have been hiding anything and the fear of the unknown was probably the worst part. At least we left the erratic winds and a bit of the sulphur smell behind on the outside.

Falshade pulled a Flash Stick out of his pocket and led the way through the different chambers, each in varying stages of dilapidation. In some places there were large piles of soot and ash and charred objects. In others it seemed like nothing had ever happened.

The thing that shocked me was the lack of bodies. I know that should have been a relief, but it wasn't. It made the quiet, the baited breath all the worse.

"Whoa!" Fraggle yelped suddenly, jerking back and crashing into me, sending us both tumbling to the ground. Something large and prickly looking scuttled past me and I jerked my head away, scrambling back into Wasp's shins. I hate spiders.

Fraggle was panting and brushing at his chest neurotically. "Sorry, dudette." he told me. "Freaking thing came down right on top of me, eh. Those little critters give me the creeps."

"No worries." I muttered, helping him back to his feet. Falshade had turned around, looking concerned and impatient at the same time. He wanted to find something, you could see it in his eyes.

"We're good, man." I reported, even though I felt like I could feel little spider feet marching all over my bare arms. I rubbed at them subconsciously.

"Ok, carrying on." he said and we continued on our way, Fraggle and I constantly checking ourselves from more eight legged hitch-hikers.

Varan stopped a little while later so suddenly that Fraggle ran right into him.

"What's up, big guy?"

"Don't move."

Falshade stopped again. "Oh, come on you guys, I don't know about you but I don't wanna hang out here all day."

"Falshade, stay there." Varan told him sharply, stopping Shade in his tracks.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"It's the floor. I think it's-"

Well, you can probably figure out what happened then.

In case you didn't basically the floor literally broke open beneath our feet and we were plunged into black oblivion.


"Report." Falshade coughed out thickly. "Anybody dead?"

"Unfortunately not." Fraggle groaned.

"Get off me." Varan growled and there was a scuffling, shoving sound.

"Oh man." I gurgled. I'd hit the back of my head again. "Serious cranial damage here, guys."

Something touched the back of my head and I jerked away in surprise, making myself nauseous.

"No blood." Wasp said next to my ear. "I think you'll be okay."

"Unless, you know, I cracked my skull or something." I said lamely.

"Well, you're still speaking coherently, so that's gotta count for something." Varan said while Falshade cursed about something.

"What?" I asked, holding my forehead in my hands because me head felt so heavy and cotton stuffed I couldn't hold it up properly.

"I dropped the damn Flash Stick." he grunted, hunting through the dark.

"Here." Wasp said and I caught sight of the eerie glowing of her yellow eye in the dark as she leaned past me and pressed something into Falshade's hand.

He appeared to be stunned. "Is this… my Flash Stick?"

"Well it's not mine."

It occurred to me then, sluggishly but obviously and it made me laugh aloud. "Wasp, you can see, can't you?"

"…Ye-ah, I've got eyes too you know."

"Humans can't see in the dark, smarty."

"Wow, you're pretty dull creatures aren't you?"

"Can you two?" I asked Varan and Fraggle, or where I thought they were anyways. There was silence.

"Did you two just shake your heads?" I groaned after a moment.

The three boys started laughing like the easily distracted nut cases that they were. Falshade struck up the light stick again and looked around. I let out a sigh of relief when I got a good look at our surroundings. As it were we hadn't fallen into a dungeon or strange subterranean underworld or anything. It was just another passage way, one probably a floor beneath where we'd been standing. We'd only fallen about twenty-some feet by the looks of it. Not the most fun ride of my life, but better then tumbling into a bottomless pit.

Something scuffled in the dark just outside of the ring of light from Falshade's Flash Stick and we all jolted to alertness, reaching for weapons and tensing muscles. My heart was hammering uncomfortably fast in my chest as I tried to climb unsteadily to my feet. My head swooned and I nearly expelled my waffles all over the floor. Wasp pushed a fist into the small of my back to try and keep me steady without being obvious and I felt a rush of affection for her.

"Was wonderin' when ya'll would show up." came that oh-so-shoot-me drawl from the darkness.

"Angel, you bastard." Falshade growled, lowering Sliver. "You're lucky we didn't loose a couple rounds first and ask questions later."

Angel bowed. "I'm in your dept, good sir. Are you guys all okay? I heard this really loud noise around half an hour ago and I've been hunting through these bloody hallways ever since to try and find you. Guess Psycho's crystal came in handy after all."

"You're welcome." Wasp said brightly, moving her hand so suddenly that I staggered and because of my heavy head on my delicate feeling neck and the damn light from Falshade's Flash Stick and the filmy swimming motion that my eyes forced into my heavy head and the already present wooziness I did end up expelling my waffles. And rather violently too.

"Aw, Stork!" Angel yelped, leaping back out of the splatter range. That jerk.

Wasp caught me before I fell and pushed her long, gangly fingers through my hair and off my sweaty forehead. She held my, valiantly, around the ribs as I keeled and puked again because of the first rough round that made me even more dizzy. I hated how unfaithful my own body could treat me. I loved Wasp for holding me when my boys, who still thought fart jokes were funny for God's sake, backed away in disgust.

"You done?" Wasp asked after I dry heaved a few times.

"I think so." I half lied. My head was pounding, but I didn't feel as queasy anymore and my stomach had stopped bubbling and cramping. Nothing like a good old puke to clear your head. So maybe my body knew what it was doing. Still was a jerk though.

Speaking of jerks…

"Here." Falshade said cautiously, handing me a water bottle from the end of stretched fingers and then quickly retracting his arm as if he wanted to get out of the line of fire.

"Jeez, Angel, I think she's allergic to you, eh." Fraggle said from where he was hiding behind Varan.

"Well, he does make me sick." I growled stickily and gulped down some water to rinse that horrible, sour taste of vomit out of my mouth. I swished some around my gums and spat it on the floor, then wiped a hand roughly over my chin. I hated puking, and I hated puking in front of people even more. I remembered getting sick at a carnival one year when I was about nine. Everybody around me made a big deal, looking at me with pity, concern and disgust. My Dad had tried to make a joke out of it because he knew then was not the time to act sympathetic. The whole laugh it off thing had worked and it was a trick I'd learned to carry through out my life. But I also had a mean streak in me my Dad hadn't possessed and now a days I usually directed back-handed jokes at other people's expense. That worked too.

"Yeah, I get that from a lot of people." Angel said unabashedly. I looked up at him and caught him right in the eyes. That same look he'd given me before was pulsing there, like something struggling in icy water. But then he snorted and jerked his head off down the passageway the way he'd come. "If you're done throwing your cookies all over the place, I found something I think you all should see. Come on."

Wasp gave me a bit of a warning before letting me go this time and we fell in line behind the boys as we followed Angel down the dark corridor.

"How'd you get down here, by the way?" Falshade asked him at length. "We'd only been up top for a little while."

"There was a hole in one of the outer walls. I had to crawl though, got stuck twice, and I ended up in these lower halls. I found all the old dungeons and stuff. I think this place goes on for miles underground eh? I felt a cold draft coming up from some cracks in the floor, which is weird 'cause it was so hot outside right? This place is huge underneath, maybe even bigger then it was when it was still standing." Angel was going on and on as if he thought we were real interested. I wondered what he thought was so damn cool about this place anyways. Sure, I thought it was kinda neat in a really twisted way that we were here, in this place so full of history and terror, but he was acting like he actually liked it down here. Weirdo.

Abruptly the corridor faltered and widened, giving way to the hugest chamber we'd been in so far. Up above there was a large crack in the ceiling, and above that there was a gap missing from the roof, so everything was lit up in a very grey sort of light. One look around told me we'd stumbled into the throne room of the dark empress herself.

It was a wide, round room, one curving wall ushering us in and leaving no room for shadowy corners. That might have been a relief, except it made me feel like we were exposed and surrounded and I didn't like it one bit. This whole room… it was like there was a presence here, an opaque and oppressive one that took up all the air and barley left any for anyone else. On the far side of the room stood a mighty pinnacle, almost like a plateau atop a towering set of black stairs. And perched atop this plateau was a large, straight throne, made of black onyx and throbbing as if it had crystal energy laced into its design.

The thing that alarmed me most was the wall behind the throne. Heavy, dark purple drapes had been pulled back off it and there was something splashed and splattered across that piece of wall that made my throat clench.

Falshade had stepped out from the safety of passage and was heading towards the stairs. The others had spread out across the floor, some more hesitant then others, exploring the strange room. I wondered how many people had been here before us and had stood, with shaking knees, before Master Cyclonis, had pledged their allegiance or begged for mercy. Had Repton stood in this room? I shot a glance over at Varan, who was starring up at the crack in the ceiling with an unreadable expression on his reptilian face.

Had the Dark Ace himself paced this floor?

I shook my head and went after Falshade, climbing the steps carefully because I felt like at any moment they might suck me in like tar. I steered clear of the throne and went over to the wall where Falshade was standing, starring, at display behind the curtain.

They were the squadron shields. All of the old ones, one for almost every single Terra. I recognized some of them: the Red Eagles, the Rex Guardians… the Storm Hawks. Falshade probably knew more of them then I did. But for Wasp I was probably the least educated of the group. Not meaning I'm dumb or anything, but I didn't know a lot of history or sciences or things like that. Just machines and axes really. I didn't specialize in anything and sometimes I'd feel downright stupid when the others were talking and I had to get someone to explain what they were referring too.

Something was glinting on almost all of of the emblems and I leaned in closer to see. Then I pulled back in horror.

Blood.

Some of the crests were just spattered and streaked with it, some were totally obscured by dark red blotches. But here's the creepiest part; despite the fact that this place had been left to rot for seventeen years, this blood still looked… fresh. Almost like the victim could have been lying somewhere near by, bleeding out, fighting for breath. I could even smell it, and it was still so wet and only partially congealed that some of heavier drops would lose their hold on their respective insignia and fall to the floor, landing with a semi-solid blat.

"I've seen this before."

I tore my gaze away from that gruesome exhibit to stare at Falshade. "What?" I whispered.

He wasn't looking at me as he spoke. "I've seen this wall before… in a dream. In a nightmare. These shields, this room. I've been here, seen it. There was a map, like a hologram, not totally solid and sort of three-dimensional… and all the terras were on it. This wall was behind it. The map was made of blue light, and slowly they all… some crumbled, some imploded, some burst into flame. And the wall slowly got soaked with more blood. There was screaming and crying… and someone laughing in the background. Then a thunderstorm. This room… something there, near the throne." Here he paused to wave a hand in the direction he meant "And there were blue wings… and red too. And green, a green flash. Then I remember a symbol, someone scratching a symbol into their arm. And ashes. A pile of ashes. And there's something in them, glinting…" he pulled hand to his face and shook his head. "Really FUBAR stuff. I can't remember… it's like I'm missing a bunch of pieces." he groaned and sat down on the hard floor. I sat next to him, knees tucked into my chest and turned so I was facing him and not that dripping wall.

"But this is good, right?" I said, trying to take his mind off his dreams. "You always thought Cyclonia might have a hand in all this, and if you've seen all those things then that must mean you're right. We've got something now, Falshade, an actual, solid fact. And it means these dreams aren't just, you know, dreams like everyone's been telling you. You've been right all along!" I told him encouragingly, trying to smile despite all the things that weren't worth smiling about. I reached out a hand and squeezed his shoulder briefly, to remind him he was awake and real.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." he said, lifting his head from his hands. "But this doesn't get us any closer to anything. What have we learned?"

"We've learned that there is something coming, something very bad from the sounds of it. Maybe we can take what we know now and try to use it."

"How?"

"We could go to Rex and look in some of their old records." I suggested, feeling useful and clever and proud of myself for being useful and clever. "We could find out exactly how the war went down, everything up until now that's been known about Cyclonia and that kinda stuff. Maybe we'll find more leads. This is like digging for bones, Shade. You gotta start with the small stuff, and you have to use a toothbrush."

This made him laugh. "A toothbrush?"

"Yeah." I nodded, making tiny sweeping motions with my hand on the floor. "Hey, I think I found a toe."

He laughed again and traced a finger along a crack in the floor. "That actually doesn't sound like a bad idea. The others will go for it too, especially if we take some time off to go Vulture hunting now and then."

I tilted my chin proudly. "I know, I'm a genius."

Falshade got up and offered me a hand to help me to my feet, which I refused. "Hey, guys!" he called down from the pinnacle. "Unless this place has a food court or something what say we get the hell outta here."

"Did you find something?" Angel asked, meeting us halfway down the stairs.

"Yeah. That wall up there, I've seen it before. I'll explain as we go, but this place is really giving me the creeps and I want to see it in the rear view mirror of my skimmer." Falshade said. Angel looked about momentarily.

"You really think we're done here? We haven't been here that long, and this place is huge, dude. There could be more here, stuff we've missed."

"What, like the Bat Cave?" I asked. "I think I've inhaled enough dust for one day. And I don't like leaving the Merlin alone for this long either. It'd only take a passing band of pirates or something…"

Fraggle's brown eyes widened in horror. "Why would you even say that, eh?"

Angel was looking slightly mutinous again. "Shade, come one, another hour won't hurt. And nobody's going to try and take off with your ship." he added to Fraggle, who was twitching in worry about his beloved ship.

"What is it you wanted to look for?" Falshade asked him evenly.

"Well, nothing in particular, I just think it seems like a waste of time. We come all this way just to take a quick look and act like we've seen the whole citadel?" he seemed boggled by this notion.

"No, Angel, this time I think I have to put my foot down. We've found what we came for and that's a clue. And we've already gone through one floor today, who knows how long the rest of this place is going to stay standing. We should really go."

Angel held him in a hostile gaze for a few moments. For a long time they'd always been of even height but over the last six months Falshade had sprouted like a weed and was nearly half a foot taller then him now. It was almost weird to see them so unmatched. Finally Angel looked away as if bored.

"Fine. Lead the way." he said, waving a hand in front of him like an invitation for Falshade to take charge. Which is a warning sign if you know Angel like we do.

The way back was not as easy (but thankfully less painful and void of partially digested waffles) as the way we'd come in. Angel was right, there were a lot of tunnels down here and the only way we knew we wanted to go was up. We doubled back on ourselves enough times that we were starting to think we'd been though unfamiliar passages before. I was reminded of when Wasp and I had gotten lost on the way back to the dry docks, or at least I had. I started to get the notion that besides seeing in the dark there were a lot of hidden Faerie talents that Wasp was hiding from us, one of which was what must have been an awesome internal sense of direction. I figured this because several times Wasp would wait next to the tunnel we hadn't chosen and stare down it and then at us like we were idiots before hurrying along to catch up with me like an excitable puppy on a walk through a new park. If she did know the right way to go, however, she never confessed to it and we wandered for what felt like hours.

At one point we were ducking through a half collapsed tunnel and as Fraggle was ducking around a large chunk of stone he caught the armour on his shoulder on what turned out to be a spider's nest and tore it open.

At least fifty horridly large and hairy looking spiders came spilling out, there legs making awful scuttling sounds on the floor as they fled for shelter. However not all of them were as eager to run and some of the larger ones actually leapt off the walls and onto anyone within immediate proximity (Fraggle, Varan and I, as it were).

"Get them off, get them off, get them off!" I howled, going berserk when I felt one crawl along the base of my neck. Falshade grabbed me and rather ungentlemenly wiped them all off. Varan, who wasn't as grossed out by arachnids as me, simply flicked them off, even when they tried to bite through his scaly hide. Fraggle, poor bugger, got the worst of it, having been right under the nest when it split open. He was trying desperately to shake them out of his hair. He almost sounded like he was crying.

"Oh man, oh man, oh man, I hate spiders!" he kept saying over and over again until the last one was thrown off. After that he shivered almost non-stop for the rest of the excursion.

A little while later, after we'd taken oh, hey look at that, another wrong turn we heard something shifting and grinding above us. In our little line we all froze, ears straining and peering around in the darkness, trying to penetrate the shadows that were left unsplintered by Falshade's Flash Stick. We shifted closer to each other, trying to shield our backs and reassure one another.

That grinding noise sounded again, rippling over head like a cracking splitting in ice. We all held our breath, waiting…

With a horrendous crash a chunk of the ceiling came loose and pounded into the stone just ahead of us. Varan jumped so violently he thwacked Wasp around the knees with his tail. She snarled at him in response.

"God this place is a shit hole!" Varan shouted for no reason in particular and Fraggle took a subtle step behind me.

"Varan, cool it, you really think yelling is going to keep the place from collapsing?" Falshade told him sharply. See, when boys get scared and twitchy and frightened they tend to raise their voices a lot. It's their way of staying masculine.

"Come on, children, let's not fight." I drawled, because when girls get all scared and paranoid they do not squeal and run around like fools and cling to their boyfriends. No. We get very aloof, sarcastic and impassive. Zen, if you will.

"But I'm really sssseriousss." Varan broke the silence gratingly a minute after we continued on down the corridor. "Thisss place just creepsss me out." He wasn't even bothering to fight off the slithering sound that his tongue was naturally born into.

"Et tu, Brute?" I asked from where I was walking behind Angel. I didn't trust being so close to Fraggle anymore. He seemed to attract spiders.

"…What?"

I shook my head. "You too? Is anyone else getting this kinda weird, sliding-up-the-inside-of-your-spine feeling of like… déjà vu?" I asked and wondered what had possessed me to choose that word for description. I was pretty sure that wasn't what I meant at all.

"I am. Or, I was." Falshade agreed from up front. But I had this feeling like what he'd been feeling, seeing what he had seen in a dream, was not the same as how I was feeling. Which wasn't déjà vu. Remember that.

"It'sss not that." Varan insisted. Damn he sounded freaky when he talked like that. "It'sss like… haunted. Like there's a presenssse here. Anybody dig?"

"I dig." Wasp said unexpectedly, reminding us all that she was indeed behind us.

"Oh, knock it off. You sound like you believe in ghosts, and it makes me want to laugh." Angel stated.

"Not ghostsss, really. But like… I dunno. Like they're things here, watching. Cyclonisss… they never found her, you know."

Angel did laugh now, scornfully and falsely. "Come on, Varan. They never found her because she burned with down with her empire. She didn't want to be taken, dead or alive, that's all. Probably pitched herself in flames into the Wastelands. Honestly, you talk about her like she's the Boogeyman."

"She is the Boogeyman now a days." I said, sticking up for Varan.

"Nah, eh. The Dark Ace is the Boogeyman. My Mum used to tell me that if I didn't shut up and got to sleep that he'd come and get me through my window. Cyclonis is more like Bloody Mary, eh." Fraggle said, his voice confident but wary, as if he expected the ol' Ace himself to come swooping down on him for not eating his greens.

"Exactly. Because they know that the Dark Ace isss dead. They have no idea what happened to Cyclonisss. They're afraid to joke about her." Varan insisted. When you thought about it I guess it was easy for us luckier kids to just pass off the whole war thing. But Varan had lived through it, even if he couldn't remember, and not only that, he'd had family on the opposite side then the rest of ours'. And his entire colony had been annihilated because of it. There was no closure for him about the subject until someone finally proved Cyclonis was dead. And when you thought of it, could you blame him?

"I mean, you know the old storiesss. She was a master of crystalsss, and she wasss an evil freaking genius. She wouldn't have gone down like that, no way. For all we know she could be out there, sssomewhere, hiding and biding her time." Varan went on, spewing out his conspiracy theory without abandon.

"I dunno about that, eh. I mean, if she has been around all this time, why hasn't she shown herself yet? The Sky Knight Legion's a farce these days, eh. Perfect time to strike." Fraggle said evenly.

"Whoa there, Mr. Megalomaniac." I said, trying to sound light about it. He'd struck the nail on the head, however, and when it came to a thing like that it was hard to make it a joke, even for me, and I can make dead puppies funny.

But I wouldn't, because quite frankly I love puppies and the sight of one even in the slightest amount of discomfort would probably make me cry and then donate my own blood to save it. Hell, I'd give up both kidneys.

But, you know, I don't have issues.

We'd reached another fork. However this one was a little less hit-and-miss then the others had been, mainly because the passage on the left sloped upward. Elementary, my dear Watson.

"So, Shade, when we get out of here what's the new plan?" Angel asked innocently enough. "You said you'd recognized that wall up there. I checked it out before I found you guys. I recognized some of the crests. They're all the old ones. What does that have to do with anything?"

"I've seen that wall before, hundreds of times. It means something, and I want to know what. Stork suggested we should go to Rex, look at the old records and stuff, find out more about the war. It might give us more clues."

Angel groaned. "That has got to be the stupidest-"

"Oh, look, a bug." I said airily, holding one of my throwing axes above his shoulder blade. "Shall I squash it?"

"Don't bash it just yet, Angel. We're sure to run into some rogues on our way there. But I'm almost a hundred percent sure now that Cyclonia has something to do with this still, and we should learn as much as we can before we try to take it head on." Falshade reasoned and Angel didn't reply, which probably meant he had grudgingly agreed. I replaced my axe, satisfied.

The air got lighter and less dusty as we climbed toward the upper halls. I could even see brackets in the walls here and there, the Flare crystals long dead in their little prisons. I hadn't realized until we were able to see tiny shafts of light fighting gallantly through cracks in the stone how much the temperature had dropped the further down we'd been. Wasn't it supposed to get hotter the closer you got to Hell?

The end of the corridor had collapsed during some past tectonic shifting or other, but there was a large enough hole atop the pile of rubble that led to the next level and we were able to squeeze through into the direct openness and freedom of the ravaged citadel.

We must have come up higher then we'd been before. And we were considerably more west of our starting point too. From up here, a place I assumed was once the second or third floor of an old tower, now torn and exposed to the scathing elements of this weird little bubble. Those storm clouds shielded the place like a toxic aura and allowed the thick, sluggish thermals, noxious winds and grungy air to circulate and burble and rupture like a slow spreading virus of sores and sick blood.

The others were looking for ways down towards the place where we'd left our skimmers I was suddenly stricken by that ominous feeling again, one that tugged roughly at the bottom of my gag reflex, the one that wasn't déjà vu. It was fighting fiercely in some back corner of my brain, like a three year old desperate for attention. I was missing something very important, almost like a warning, the kind that you really shouldn't ignore. Something about this place was tearing at me differently then it did Varan or Falshade. Why though?

"Hey, Stork, keep up!" Falshade hollered at me. They'd found a way down, sliding and skidding down the slant of an enormous slab of stone and metal. A slide if doom.

I hurried over, wanting nothing more to leave that feeling and its demons behind and get back to the Merlin. But at the same time, I needed to know what it was. It was almost like if I didn't figure it out before I left, bad things we're going to happen.

Falshade waited for me while the others stumbled and clambered down the perilous slope. The fact that there was twisted shards of wrenched metal and jagged chunks of rocks at the bottom took away some of the fun.

"C'mon, let's go." Falshade urged me but I stopped at the ledge of the precipice, looking back over the platform in a neurotic sort of way. Nothing here but whispers of screams and ashes. And yet…

"Stork, please let's go." Falshade pleaded, tugging at my elbow gently and setting one foot over the edge. I sighed and turned away, skittering down ahead of him and keeping my arms out at my sides for balance. My head still didn't feel so great and I nearly took a spill twice, but I was not going to embarrass myself anymore today and held my own.

We retrieved our skimmers and pushed off eagerly from the terra, battling with air currents and steering back towards where we'd left the Merlin. But the feeling stayed and nagged and nagged and nagged and sank its little nails into my already sore head until I finally got fed up and twisted my face back around for one last look.

And as I took in that receding, black ruin it finally burst into the front of my brain, right in behind my eyes were I could see it, could hear it buzzing in my ears, that feeling that wasn't déjà vu and it finally clicked:

I've been here before.

Dun dun da! I actually intended to add on t this chappie a wee bit more, but then I thought it would take away from the moment, so here we are. Also, I really have to go to bed. But before I sign off and leave you all to wonder, I've finally decided on all my song choices. And since there just might be some action in the next chapter, I thought it would be appropriate to leave off with my fight-scene choices (again, inspired by Dragonwings. I also had trouble picking just one song for my guys, sue me). And forgive the repeat bands, but they've got good, fast, hard stuff, quite effective for some smashy-smashy scenes.

Falshade: Prayer of the Refugee by Rise Against

Angel: Silence by A Dark Halo

Stork: Time of Dying by Three Days Grace

Fraggle: Riot by Three Days Grace

Varan: Fear by Disturbed

Wasp: Violence Fetish by Disturbed