Sorry for the delay guys, I've been sick with the flu so I havn't really been writing much, but better late than never, enjoy!


Chapter 9 – Something Scaly This Way Comes

The afternoon sun shone down on the glistening sandy shores of Terra Ray. It was a beautiful day, but all this was lost on the Raptors, who were hidden in the undergrowth. Spitz was annoyed, but this is a normal frame of mind for a Raptor, but he was far more annoyed than he usually was.

He and his brothers Hoek and Lugey were on their way back to Bogaton, from their recent failed mission when Lugey had suddenly insisted that he needed to go to the bathroom and that it couldn't wait until they got back to Bogaton.

Spitz reluctantly headed to the nearest Terra for his brother, knowing that he'd probably be the one who'd have to clean Lugey's skimmer if he had an accident, and that is almost as bad as any of the punishments that Repton has in his arsenal when he is in a bad mood.

As you might guess, Raptors were not exactly welcome on most Terras, so it was lucky for them that Lugey was not fussy about where he used the *ahem* facilities, as Repton never let him use the indoor bathroom anyway, not after what happened last time; it took 3 days before it was safe to venture in there last time…

Spitz stood tapping his foot impatiently waiting for his brother to finish, not that wanted to get back to Bogaton to receive the roasting he'd get from Repton for their recent failure, but he'd long ago found out that the longer Repton was kept waiting, the worse the punishment would be.

"Are you done yet Lugey?" He called over his shoulder, careful to keep his gaze trained elsewhere so as not to get a glimpse of something he'd rather not see.

"Dah, don't rush me!" he called back, from somewhere in the vicinity of a large bush.

Spitz sighed a sigh that sounded more like a hissed growl and resumed him impatient foot-tapping.

Through all this, Hoek was had been keeping a watchful eye on the people around them through the bushes, making sure that no-one stumbled upon them by accident, when he suddenly noticed something.

"Hey, is that the Storm Hawks?" he said to Spitz, who came over to see where his brother was indicating. Sure enough, a little way away from them was that red-head kid who called himself a sky knight and that female crystal specialist of theirs.

"Yeth, thothe are Thtorm Hawkth!" He snarled, his tongue sticking out serpent-style on each lisp.

"Let's get 'em!" Said Hoek, who made to lunge at the defenceless teens but was stopped by Spitz.

"Idiot! Do you want the whole Terra to know we're here?"

Hoek thought for a minute, deciding that 3 Raptors would stand no chance against several-hundred pissed off people of various species armed with whatever sharp objects they could find to use as makeshift weaponry and he reluctantly backed down.

Turning their attention back to their prey, they heard the read-head was speaking and strained their ears to hear.

"…says here that the Geno Stone is a very powerful crystal and if you combine it with some other rare crystals, it can be turned into a powerful weapon! It's probably not a good idea to let this fall into the hands of the Cyclonians, where is the crystal now?"

"It's been locked up in my crystal vault on the ship, Aerrow!" They heard the female say before getting up and leaving.

"Powerful weapon eh?" Said Spitz, more to himself than Hoek "Maybe if we thteal thith crythtal and bring it to Repton, maybe we won't get roathted after all!"

Spitz tuned his attention back to the lone Sky Knight, a malicious smile splitting across his face.

It had been over an hour since Piper had left Aerrow to go for a walk. She'd hoped that it would help her to think about how to approach Stork about her recent discovery with the Geno Stone, but she was still at a loss as to what she was going to say to him.

She wished she had more time, but she felt it was better to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later, and also she was very curious as to why he had wanted to change in the first place.

Now she stood outside Stork's bedroom door, she had looked everywhere else on the ship for him and knew that this would be the only other place he'd be. She tried to swallow away her nervousness before slowly raising her hand to lightly knock on his door.

"Come in" came a quiet reply from within.

Piper took and deep, calming breath before she entered Stork's room.

She found Stork lounging on his bed, reading what looked like a book of Doom Poetry, he looked up from his book to look at his visitor, only to jump when he saw it was Piper and attempt to clean up some of many piles of blueprints that were strewn across his desk and floor in an attempt to make his room appear at least half-decent.

"Piper!" He said in astonishment, his voice cracking slightly until he got a grip on himself "W-w-what brings y-you here?" he stuttered nervously, trying to ignore the fact that Piper was in his room and still only wearing a bikini.

Piper looked at him, and seeing the expression on her face Stork could immediately tell that something was wrong. He patted the bed beside him motioning her to sit, which she did, though never breaking eye contact, which gave the paranoid pilot a an awful sense of foreboding.

They sat for several minutes in complete silence, Stork becoming more and more nervous by the second under the weight of Piper's stare before she finally spoke.

"I...I found out some more information about the Geno Stone" she said at last.

Stork swallowed hard, this couldn't be good.

"I read that the crystal only changes people who wanted to be changed in the first place..." she continued.

Stork could tell by the tone of her voice that she was avoiding saying what was on her mind, and knowing it involved the Geno Stone he knew Piper knew what it was, and the full weight of what he had done came crashing down on him like a ton of bricks. He Didn't let her continue her speech, he didn't want to hear the accusing tone in her voice. Just as Piper opened her mouth to start talking again, Stork broke down and the words died in her throat as he suddenly grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug as he unloaded his guilty soul onto her.

"I'm sorry!" He wailed "I knew it was wrong to lie to you all but I...I..." He trailed off before continuing "A-and then I...oh Gods...at Gunstaff's Terra...I could have got you all KILLED! I'm sorry, please forgive me! I just didn't want to lose the only chance I'd ever get with you, I LOVE you! He cried before he realised he'd just confessed way more than he'd meant.

He backed away from her, shrinking into himself as he waited for her to yell at him and tell him never to speak to her again. But to Stork's surprise, it never came, instead she came closer, a strange glint in her eyes.

"It's ok Stork, it wasn't you that did those things, it was the Geno Stone, I know the real Stork would never intentionally hurt us."

Stork brightened up, "So I'm not turning evil after all?" he thought to himself, before remembering what else he'd told her. He took in a breath to try to explain but Piper beat him to it.

"Do you really love me?" She asked.

Stork bowed his head in shame and nodded, but what came next shocked Stork more than anything he'd ever encountered. He felt Piper press her lips against his cheek and whisper:

"I love you too."

"You do?"

Piper giggled at this, and she was more than a little flattered that all this had been for her, but now more than ever she wanted him back the way he was, and she knew just how to convince him.

"I never minded that you were a Merb, in fact, that's what I liked best about you, you were...unusual, but in a good way." Stork leaned in as if to kiss her, but Piper pressed a finger to his lips and stopped him.

"But if we're going to be together, I want the old Stork, green skin and all."

Stork thought for a moment, before coming to a decision. In truth, Stork had never really minded being a Merb, but for some reason he had it in his head that being a human would solve all his problems, he felt silly for believing that now, because although it was different, it was also somehow the same.

"I'll do it."

It was dark, but the Raptors knew they couldn't turn on a light in case it alerted someone to their presence, not that they could find a light switch anyway, but the plan was to get in, get what they wanted and get out without triggering any of those goddamn booby traps that that toad had scattered all over the ship, besides, Raptors were built for stealth.

A sudden crash followed by several groans of pain came just as that thought came to mind and he sighed. Out of all the Raptors in the Atmos that Spitz had to be with, it had to be the only two that had all the stealth of a Blizzarian wearing a neon sign with "Here I am" written on it.

"Ssssshhhhhhhhh!" he said, showering them with spit as his did so due to his lisp.

The other two looked sheepishly at their brother before they continued on, eventually making it through the bowels of the ship into a dimly-illuminated corridor, filled with doors. None of the Raptors wanted to admit that they had no idea where the crystal vault was located, but that wasn't going to stop them, they would just have to check each room one by one.

The first few rooms were the kitchen and bathroom, obviously not there, but just as Hoek was about to open another random door he stopped and listened. He could distinctly hear voices coming from the other side and signalled to his brothers that they were not alone on the ship. They nodded, they needed to find it quick so they don't get discovered.

Spitz carefully opened another room, this one had crystals lying around and crystal books as well, they must be close. He motioned to his brothers to follow and they entered a room that looked like a cross between a lab and a bedroom. Hoek took out a crystal detector, the crystal that powered it was almost fully depleted, so it could only detect powerful crystals at short range, but that was all it needed, and it only took a minute to discover the secret panel in one of the walls which concealed a small safe.

Spitz grinned, this was going far better than he had anticipated.

"Get to work Hoek!" he commanded before Hoek dug his razor-sharp claws into the iron safe, ripping deep gashes into the metal as he tried to pry the door open.

While his brothers were engaged, Lugey had lost interest and had started looking around for something more interesting to do, that's when he suddenly noticed a small button on the wall next to him. Lugey was one of those people who liked pressing buttons just to see what they did, and he was far from being anything close to smart so he didn't even stop to think about the consequences of what he was about to do before he pressed it.

For a moment nothing happened, and Lugey was about to try pressing it again when two mechanical arms dropped down from the ceiling and stopped inches from his face, they were holding spray cans. Lugey didn't even have time to look confused before the mechanical fingers pressed down and sprayed him in the face with noxious green gas that made his eyes feel like they were on fire.

"OOOOWWWWWEEEOWWWWWEEE!" he screamed in pain before ending in a fit of violent coughs as the noxious gas filled his lungs.

The other two had just pried open the safe and retrieved the crystal when they heard Lugey scream. Spitz was just about the give him another fierce shushing when all the lights suddenly went out and they were plunged into blackness, a moment later a red light filled the room and an alarm began to sound throughout the ship and they heard the automatic door of the room they were in lock.

"Leth get out of here!" shouted Spitz.

Hoek and Spitz flew to the door and tried desperately to force it open with their bare claws. Lugey was still finding it hard to see through his now red swollen eyes, but he was just about able to make out the blurred silhouette of two figures that he recognised as his brothers and thinking he would be left behind, charged towards them at full speed.

The trio landed in a heap on the floor as the door was ripped from its holdings by the sheer force of being hit by a 400 pound Raptor at high speed, but they wasted no time in getting to their feet to make their escape.

"Quick!" hissed Spitz, heading towards the exit.

"I lost my weapon!" whined Lugey

"Leave it, jutht MOVE!" he hissed, grabbing his arm and leading the blinded Raptor out of the ship.

"What was THAT?" Asked Piper as the lights suddenly went out, replaced a few moments later with and eerie red glow and an alarm.

"It's the Brainslug infestation alarm!" Said Stork, getting up off the bed.

Now Piper remembered, Stork has installed one of these alarm buttons in every room a while ago as a precaution against Brainslugs and several other brain-eating parasites that he was scared to death of catching. He received a lot of funny looks from the rest of the team when he explained this to them, and she knew that no-one would dare press one of these buttons even for a practical joke, besides she knew everyone else still outside. Looking over at Stork she could see that he'd come to the same conclusion.

"Intruders! We've got to get out of here!"

"I'm on it!" Said Stork as he set to work overriding the door lock, thinking that maybe adding an automatic lockdown to this alarm was probably not a very practical.

Bangs and crashes could be heard outside the room before it all became silent with the exception of the alarm that was still blaring away and Stork redoubled his efforts.

"Got it!" he yelled in triumph as the door slid open, but they were too late. When they arrived in the hallway, they saw the bent and buckled door to Piper's room in the middle of the hallway, the intruders long gone. Piper entered her room to find the crystal vault torn open and the Geno Stone gone.

"Who could have done this?" Said Piper to no-one in particular.

Stork was pondering over the same thing until he spotted something, picking it up he saw it was a crystal whip, only one group he knew used those.

"Raptors" he said.


The end is almost here! I'll try to get the final chapter up on time, but it may be delayed, just to give you a heads up.

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