I do not own the Storm Hawks. No soundtrack this time, so I don't have any other disclaimers to bore you with. And if you end up wondering; every kick-butt girl soldier-for-hire needs a good tattoo, even if it does end up getting hacked off. You are now free to read.
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She lies on her side, her breathing ragged. Her body struggling to heal its many deep and scarring wounds, including three long cuts across her face forming a jagged 'Z' on her young features. Her unfocused eyes stare at a figure in a black on the far side of the room. The glow of their energy blade cuts out. She closes her eyes and lets her green tears spill out from under their lids.
It has been so long since she's been in this much pain. Always there is that dull throb where her heart pushes her acidic blood through her constantly re-healing veins, but never this. The slashes across her body scream as her cells multiply to fill the voids. If she sleeps she would heal faster, but not now, not yet.
"See my child? Even the most resilient animal can be tamed if you use force." The voice comes from the figure. From the one who caused her torment.
"Yes father, I see." She cracks her eyes and sees a girl, who can't be any older than her, looking down on her in disgust. "Even the strongest of freaks."
She doesn't know what she is. She doesn't know where she came from. She doesn't know if there are others like her or if she is one of a kind. Or the last of one. But "I am not a freak."
The girl takes a step back, surprised. "Father. It speaks."
The figure smiles scornfully down at her, stepping out of the shadows, his long black cloak trailing to the ground. "You are a freak. Half human, half monster. You cannot claim the respect or honor either of them commands. You are worthless. Nothing. A freak."
She rolls to her feet, the pain dulling at his words. Worthless am I? She pushes off, stumbling backwards but keeping her feet. He re-lights his energy blade. The snake tattooed on her right arm writhes madly with her pent up fury.
"Then a freak I'll be." The Edrenalyn expands in her veins and she feels herself growing to accommodate it. Her face gets longer and her teeth get sharp. "But this freak is going to kick your butt." The girl's eyes go wide and she backs up against a wall, speechless.
"You wouldn't dare!" the father screeches.
Her nails grow into claws and she falls onto all fours. Five sharp spikes rip through her shirt and a long tail unfurls from the end of her spine, twining around her hard-tipped feet. "Try me."
The man lunges and she springs forward, growling.
And darkness replaces the fiery red in her vision. Spinning off into a painless black nothing.
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My head snaps up, sweat dripping from my face. My hands fly to it and I almost expect to feel warm blood and jagged scars. But I know there's nothing there. My body has long since healed them, leaving nothing where I should be marked for life. And I am, just no one can see it. I lay my head back on my arms. No one knows about that, not even Stork. I haven't dreamt of that day in so long, why now? I'm working for the daughter of my first and worst tormentor. I must be one seriously messed up kid. A psychiatrist would have a field day with me.
I need some air. I get up and walk to the hanger. The doors are already open, so I crawl out to the rocks where Stork and I used to sit. He's already there.
"Couldn't sleep?" He jumps and swings around as I curl up on the rock above him.
"No, I always get up in the middle of the night."
I roll my eyes. "Sarcasm will get you nowhere."
"Fine." He pulls a face "I needed to think. This is the best place for that."
We're quiet for a while, me with my tail tucked under my chin and him leaning back on my rock, toes gripping the one that he's sitting on. I go ahead and bring up what I know he's thinking about. There is no way he would do it on his own.
"If you like her that much you need to tell her so." Not a question he can squirm out of, a statement of fact. And it is a fact, I can tell.
By how he holds himself when he's around her. The way she can get his attention with even the slightest gesture. How he watches her from across the room. The way he breathes her presence like everyone else breathes air.
"She doesn't like me that way. I'm just a friend."
I shake my head and close my eyes. She does too. I haven't even known her but for a day and I can already tell that she acts differently when she's near him. And how she sort of looked sideways at him when we were going to the Stacks gave it away. At least to me. Apparently only to me from the way Stork's been talking.
"How two people can be so completely in love with each other yet completely oblivious that the other person feels the same way is so far beyond me I can barely see it."
I feel Stork's surprised gaze turn toward me, but I don't open my eyes quite yet. I'll need them to drive the point home.
"She does?"
"Do you?" I want to hear him say it before I give him any more advice.
"I love her so much it hurts." He just barely whispers it, but I hear and it's enough for me.
"What are you telling me for then?" I open one blue green-sparked eye and lock it onto his yellow one. "Go tell her."
He gets up and walks back into the hanger, a Merb on a mission.
I close my eye again and allow myself a smile, my earlier nightmare all but forgotten. He'll tell her. Maybe not now, maybe not tonight, but the first chance he gets, he'll tell her. It's a grand slam for Greison and score about a gazillion points for team Stork.
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Master Cyclonis was breathing hard, the Memory Stone back on its shelf in her crystal lab. It was back in her possession, and soon now, she would know the truth. The truth about that monster that had attacked her father, that had driven him close enough to the brink of death that those pathetic Storm Hawks had been able to push him over the edge.
And now it was happening again. Different squadron, different generation, but it was happening again. And she needed that monster back. Not to train and unleash as her father had planned, but to make her invincible.
The blood sample in front of her was all the proof she needed. It could heal and regenerate any living tissue, and once she had that freak and a limitless supply she could engineer it not to kill its host in the painful healing process.
She allowed herself a smirk. Soon, so soon, she would know the name of the one who had caused her father's downfall. It had not felt true pain. Not yet.
The ultimate weapon and the ultimate revenge all wrapped up in one tidy package. How convenient.
She reached once more toward the crystal, to see that one slice of memory again. That insane grin, those fiery red-tinted blue and green eyes, all so familiar but she couldn't quite place them.
Ah well, she would know soon enough. When her mercenary brought back those blueprints and she could share its image with her Talons it would only be a matter of time until that freak was found. She could wait that much longer. She touched the Memory Stone to the blood sample and let herself be lost in the monster's memory of those few minutes.
Soon enough, she would know.
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Oooh, creepy. I know some of you thought she was going to torture the Storm Hawks with it (and who knows, she still might) but I wanted to add a dimension that no one else knew about, not even Grei. I hope this turns out alright but I don't really know if it will or not yet, so review and give me any ideas you may or may not have. And for those of you who were wondering yes Greison did in fact call the Dark Ace 'princess' at the end of chapter 8. Its part of the reason he hates her so much; he can't kill her for saying stuff like that or Cyclonis will absolutely murder him. It just seemed to work. And I thought it was funny, so there.