Chapter X
Realization and Acceptance

Later, after that incident in the lake, Aerrow was in the bridge, resting his back on a wall and observing while Stork was adjusting a few things on the Condor. The merb kept turning around a ball made of glass with two iron rings inside, as if he were trying to fix something.

"Is there anything wrong, Stork?" - his leader asked.

"No, no... The Condor just got a bit rusty for being way too long near a humid place like this lake. But nothing some oil and daily maintenance can't fix." - the green pilot grabbed an oil can that was nearby on the floor and proceeded to drop some oil on the joints of the metallic structure that held the ball of glass - "There. Much better." - he smiled slightly.

Aerrow felt happy that Stork actually enjoyed something and truly showed it in front of him. Generally the merb would always complain about pretty much everything, but he did start liking things more sometime ago. The Sky Knight noticed the weather was becoming colder and colder, or so he thought.

"Wow... It's chilly in here." - he said.

"What are you talking about? Terra Amazonia is hot all the time!" - Finn appeared with Junko and Radarr following close behind, he used his own hand as a fan - "I'd love an air conditioner right now."

"Tonight is going to be one of the hottest nights of the year in this Terra." - Piper entered the bridge as well - "I suggest we all take a shower before going to sleep, so we'll feel fresh."

The red-haired guy started sweating and he felt weak. He bent his back forward slightly, trying to stop feeling dizzy.

"Aerrow, are you okay?" - the wallop noticed his leader's behavior.

The Sky Knight didn't answer, his eyes rolled upwards and he just fell forward on the floor.

"Aerrow!" - Piper shouted and kneeled beside him with Radarr running to his side as well.

Both turned him around, so his face wouldn't be brushing against the ground. The girl placed two fingers on his neck to check if his heartbeat was normal, then checked his breathing as well. After confirming both were normal, she placed her hand on his forehead.

"What's wrong with him?" - Finn came closer, watching his leader.

"He has a fever." - the navigator said - "Fortunately, it's not too high, but I think he overdid himself when he fell into that lake today." - she commented - "He needs to rest. Take him to the infirmary, I'll go ahead and prepare some medicine to help with the fever."

Junko carefully picked his leader up while Piper ran to the infirmary. When the wallop arrived carrying the Sky Knight's body, the Crystal Mage had already prepared the medicine. The big guy placed the body in the gurney and they noticed Aerrow had briefly opened his eyes. He was still conscious!

"Aerrow, you have to swallow this." - the girl brought a spoon filled with the medicine close to his mouth.

But he couldn't understand what she had just said, his vision was all blurred and all he could hear was a bunch of noises. His head was messed up really bad from his weak state.

"Please, open your mouth, Aerrow." - the girl kept trying to make the red-haired guy come back to his senses and listen to her, but she wasn't successful.

She sighed in defeat, until an idea occurred to her: she pressed his nostrils together with one hand, forcing him to open his mouth to be able to breath, then she quickly released his nose as she put the spoon inside his mouth and didn't pull it out until she was sure he swallowed all the medicine. Once it was over, she sighed in relief, since she knew he'd get better, while he just closed his eyes and started sleeping peacefully.

Radarr watched worried. He wanted to take care of his buddy. The girl noticed the creature's behavior, then grabbed a greenish blue crystal and handed it to him.

"Here, use this to help his fever go down." - she told him while he stared at the crystal with a weird expression - "This is a frostwind crystal, I made it myself after fusing a windstone crystal with a frost crystal." - she said proudly and the animal chirped happily. She was really good at that crystal stuff!

The girl stood up and left, while Radarr sat beside Aerrow and started blowing a soft cold breeze on his forehead, to cool him down a bit.

"So Aerrow is sick." - Cyclonis said.

"Yes, master. One of my soldiers just reported, saying he was in bed with a fever while being watched by the girl." - the Night Crawler in her throne room told her.

"What a great surprise." - she smirked to herself - "Now it's time for me to make them a surprise of my own as well." - she looked at her loyal soldier - "Take a small squadron there just to scare them a little bit, but don't get any of them killed just yet."

"Will do, master." - the dark soldier bowed and left her room.

"Now the fun begins." - the girl giggled evilly.

A few hours later, Piper entered the infirmary. Radarr had just collapsed on Aerrow, he was really tired. The girl sighed in sympathy, she felt sorry for the poor creature, he had a rough day watching and taking care of Aerrow.

"Radarr?" - she called him, and he lifted his head sleepy - "Do you want to rest? I can take care of Aerrow right now."

The animal smiled weakly, he was so sleepy! He chirped in agreement and left, slowly making his way to Aerrow's room. The navigator watched him go, then sat on the chair beside Aerrow's gurney, staring at her leader. She reached out for his forehead, to see if the fever had gone down: it did. Phew! What a relief! He was getting better after all! Aerrow slightly opened his eyes. His vision was still blurred, but he could see Piper's face staring down at him with a relieved expression.

"How are you feeling? Can you understand me now?" - she asked.

"Ugh... I feel like I've been beaten up by those golems from the Forbidden City." - he said about his sore body. Why was he feeling that bad? He tried to sit, but he winced in pain, so Piper made him lay down again.

"Try not to move. You're weak right now." - she told him - "Stay there, I'll go get some juice to make you feel refreshed."

She stood up and left, his eyes following her every move. Even in that state, with such a messed up head, he still could pay a lot of attention to her... It was almost... Involuntary... Something being done by his subconscious. It was as natural as an everyday skill.

Not too long later she brought him a glass of delicious orange juice. Ah, that was just perfect! Even though he was sick, it wasn't something entirely bad, since Piper got to take care of him and he actually enjoyed that... To the point he felt bad for being selfish... But who could blame him? She was just the best nurse ever!

His perfect world suddenly was shaken by tremors on the Condor. Loud explosions could be heard coming from outside: they were being attacked again.

"The Night Crawlers have found us!" - Finn came running from the bridge, warning the two.

"How?! I thought this place was so good to hide from the Cyclonians!" - Piper said - "It was too good to be truth..." - she commented on the fact that the place was nice and safe, or so she had thought.

"I know, right?" - the blonde replied.

The girl looked at her sick leader sadly. She was worried. She didn't want to leave him alone in those conditions.

"Go. I'll be fine, don't worry about me. You have to guarantee we'll all get out of here unharmed." - the green-eyed guy told her.

She nodded briefly and left with Finn. Both ran to the bridge. The sharpshooter quickly made it to one of the ship's blasters, while his best friend was mounted on the other and was already shooting at their enemies. Piper grabbed a map and started giving directions to Stork, so they could escape.

"Here, turn right around that tree, then go left after that large tree." - she told the pilot.

Stork followed her lead, getting rid of quite a few Night Crawlers, but two still pursued them. Once Finn successfully shot one of them, Piper warned them.

"Stop shooting now, so they can't follow our projectiles." - she told him - "Stork, enter that deep passage between those trees." - she pointed to a large corridor with trees on both sides covering whatever was or got inside it.

The merb turned the ship really fast and smoothly to enter the passage. It was very dark inside, the sunlight could barely pierce the dense treetops. Suddenly, they heard a weird noise. Stork ran a scanner on the Condor to see what was going on.

"There's something attached to one of the boosters." - he pointed to a red dot blinking where the left booster should be located in the scan.

"I'll go check it out." - the girl said and ran to the hangar.

Piper took off with her Heliscooter and flew by the left booster. There she saw a weird device with a crystal attached to the ship. The crystal started flashing in a higher frequency than before. Whatever did that mean, it wasn't a good thing. She tried to figure out a way to remove the device, and she had an idea.

She picked up a floater and placed it on her staff, then she shot a burst of energy at the device. It had worked, the device lost its grip on the ship and was dragged behind by the wind. However, the energy blast had powered the device up, the crystal flashed even faster now: it was about to explode!

The navigator sped up her ride as fast as she could, but both her and the Condor still got caught by the huge blast. The ship shook as its back was pushed upwards by the strong wind. The girl's Heliscooter was brutally pushed forward, spinning in the air several times until it hit the Condor's right booster very hard, damaging both the ship and the ride.

But that wasn't even as bad as what was about to happen. Two Night Crawlers had followed the Condor inside that passage and started shooting at Piper. The girl, which was injured from the collision with the ship, dodged the shots while wincing in pain: she probably broke a rib or another with that impact. She noticed the ship was starting to lose altitude, so she tried to take cover beside it and below the right damaged booster, this way it'd be harder for the Night Crawlers to shoot at her again.

Her plan didn't work for too long, though. One of the dark soldiers sped up and flew above the Condor's booster, then landed on it and from there he jumped on her Heliscooter, pushing her against her seat while pointing his gun at her. She cried in pain when her back hit the seat and struggled to break free from the purple-eyed enemy who tried to strangle her, but her broken rib wasn't helping. She felt her lungs screaming for air, but there was nothing she could do... She was going to suffocate, then she was going to be kidnapped or even killed right there... Or so she thought.

In the blink of an eye, Aerrow broke through one of the Condor's windows, completely dressed in his armor and with his swords in hand. He fell, aiming for the Night Crawler strangling Piper. Once he got near them, he kicked the dark soldier off the Heliscooter, but the guy's grip on the girl was so strong he dragged her along with him. The Sky Knight threw himself towards the two again and grabbed the Night Crawler from behind, trying to pull him off her.

The three kept falling faster and faster. Aerrow had to end that quickly, or it was going to be too late. He activated his blade and placed it on the dark soldier's neck, but it didn't really seem to bother him, so the red-haired guy attacked him anyways. He sliced his neck, but no blood came out! Great, that guy had armor on his neck... That left Aerrow no other choice: he aimed his sword at the soldier's face and blasted him with one of his attacks. Luckily, the blast wasn't too strong and Piper wasn't caught by it.

Now free, the girl could finally breathe. When she stared upwards to see what was going on, she saw Aerrow fighting the Night Crawler with all his might. She blushed: even sick and weak like that, he had jumped in front of the fire to protect her. He was truly her knight in shining armor... She then remembered she had an icer with her. She grabbed the crystal and aimed towards the dark soldier.

"Aerrow!" - she shouted his name, warning him.

He suddenly pushed himself away from the Night Crawler using his feet, then the girl shot the soldier with a charged ice bolt. The enemy guy was completely frozen, then the Sky Knight took the chance to perform his Lightning Claw attack: the blast was so strong it made the frozen soldier shatter in millions of pieces. Even though they had just killed someone, they didn't feel that shocked: after all, that guy had tried to kill Piper in cold blood!

A few milliseconds later, they noticed they were still falling to their death, so Aerrow threw his weight downwards, to get to Piper as fast as he could. He reached both his arms out for her and wrapped them behind her back, then opened his glider. The girl sighed in relief and looked up smiling at her leader, while he stared forward with a determined expression, but she winced in pain again, making Aerrow blink and look at her.

"Are you okay?" - he asked - "How bad is the injury?" - he frowned in worry.

"I think I just broke a rib, but we better get to the Condor to check it out, just in case." - she replied.

However, that wasn't going to happen so easily. The other Night Crawler caught up with them and started shooting. Aerrow dodged all the shots smoothly, but he noticed the sudden movements were causing a lot of pain to Piper. The Sky Knight tried to shoot some bolts with his sword, but it was hard to aim while at the same time he had to control his glider and hold the navigator, and on top of all that, he was really sick and still very weak, but he did his best to prevent that from showing up.

The red-haired guy stared at the girl and she nodded, noticing he had an idea: he let Piper go, so he could face the Night Crawler. He quickly charged at the soldier, crashing on him with both his fists punching the evil soldier's face very hard. That stunned the enemy purple eyed guy, giving an opening for the Sky Knight to attack him. He swung his sword a few times, unleashing several energy waves that cut the air while they traveled to the Night Crawler. When they hit him, his armor was severely damaged, and he could no longer fly or use any weapon, so he just plummeted from the sky.

Aerrow flew after Piper, catching her in bridal style just before she was about to collide with a treetop. That would surely hurt. She stared at him with a scared look at first: for a second she thought he wasn't going to make it before she fell to her death. Then she realized: what a silly thought! Was there ever a doubt about him? He was Aerrow after all. Out of an impulse, she hugged him and gave him a peck on the cheek. She was just so glad to be alive she didn't even bother with the sudden way she thanked him.

But that didn't go so well for the Sky Knight: he was caught completely off guard by that. While he enjoyed it, it also made him lose his focus, and they almost crashed on a tree, hadn't he woken up from his daydream in the nick of time to dodge it.

"Sorry..." - he smiled sheepishly, then looked away from her. She just giggled.

"Let's go back to the Condor." - she said.

He flew them to the hangar, and both landed safely. The rest of the squadron, except for Stork who was piloting the ship, waited for them there.

"Are you two alright?" - Junko asked.

"Piper is injured, we need to go to the infirmary and check on her." - Aerrow told them.

The wallop offered to carry her there, so she'd not make way too much effort and wouldn't risk making the injuries worse (who knows how bad was the injury). While the two went ahead to the infirmary, Finn and Radarr stayed behind with Aerrow.

"What about you? You okay?" - the sharpshooter asked after seeing his leader so pale.

"Yeah... But... I think... I should... Sleep..." - the Sky Knight said, while he saw his vision spin: he was about to faint again when he felt the blonde hold his shoulder, so he'd not fall.

"Let's get you to the infirmary too and fast." - the blue-eyed guy spoke.

The red-haired Storm Hawk regained his consciousness and walked to the infirmary, being supported by Finn and Radarr.

The Condor kept falling slowly, since it still had one booster working.

"Junko, can you help out in the engine room?" - Stork called through the ship's communicator.

"On it!" - the wallop replied to him after leaving Piper on a gurney.

The merb tried to keep the altitude for as long as he could, but they had to repair the ship. They'd have to go for an emergency landing. Junko got to the engine room and started fixing the pipes that had steam leaking from them and the machines that suffered a short circuit and were letting out some sparks and smoke. The Condor glided smoothly through the forest, until the pilot saw a small river and prepared to land the ship near it. After successfully landing, he sighed in relief and proceed to the hangar to fly on his Storkmobile and fix the damaged booster.

"So we lost two elite soldiers, because they were too greedy and tried to kill a Storm Hawk?" - Cyclonis said with a harsh voice after listening to a report from one of the Night Crawlers that had stayed behind instead of following them.

He lowered his head to that rhetorical question. He somehow just felt she was going to yell at him and the squadron for not stopping the reckless soldiers.

"What part of the 'don't get any of them killed just yet' didn't they understand?" - she grumbled, and to the Night Crawler's surprise, she said that with a much calmer tone than he had expected - "Well, at least their ship is damaged, they're going to have to repair it. And they also have two injured members to take care of."

"That would be the perfect opportunity to an attack." - the soldier said, but his idea was cut short by what Cyclonis said after.

"No, not at all. Do you know what that Sky Knight did even though he was in bed just a few minutes earlier?" - she asked him, then showed a hologram footage she had received from the Night Crawlers that had gone after Piper.

After seeing both his comrades being killed by a sick and weak Aerrow, the dark soldier's eyes opened wide.

"How? That's just not possible!" - he couldn't believe that.

"See? He's more powerful than ever! The elixir already brought out the best of his abilities!" - she explained to him - "Now, we'll have to wait for the rest of its action to become fully effective. The outcome will be simply spectacular." - the Empress smirked.

"I see, master. I'll have my squadron watch them and I'll report once we have any news." - he bowed and left the room.

She looked at him go briefly, then stared again at the hologram showing Aerrow killing the two Night Crawlers.

"He'll be just formidable when executing my plan." - she commented.

A while later, Aerrow was resting in the infirmary while Piper was being checked on. He watched unnoticed as the others used Stork's x-ray binoculars to see what was going on inside her body. They saw she had fractured her rib, but it wasn't a simple injury: the rib was actually broken off the rib cage completely, she was really lucky it didn't pierce any vital organ.

The girl grabbed three crystals: a levitation crystal, a paralyzer crystal and an enhancer crystal. Wincing and even sweating a bit in pain, she used the levitation crystal to move the bone back to its place, then she enhanced the power of the paralyzer crystal and stuck her rib and her rib cage together by a paralysis that, thanks to the enhancer crystal, would last long enough for her rib to attach back to its place.

The Sky Knight was impressed. Woah... She was so smart! He'd never have thought of that! Speaking of Piper... His mind now wondered why and how did he do what he had done that day. Earlier he was feeling so sick and so weak... A bit later he had a gut feeling and somehow guessed Piper was in danger. Then, all of a sudden, he regained lots of strength and energy, and before his realization could sink in, he was already running towards the window, dressed in his armor with his swords in hands.

He simply couldn't understand how did he know all that... He then noticed he was staring at Piper all the time, even though his mind wasn't precisely on her only, it was thinking about the situation, his body and his subconscious were completely focused on the Piper right there, beside him. She looked to the side and flashed him a soft smile, then she stared at the ceiling and started to sleep.

Seeing her resting peacefully made him feel warm inside. He remembered that peck on the cheek she had given him. Then he started analyzing everything he had experienced lately that had to do with her. The way he was becoming more and more protective towards her, the fact that he had been hallucinating with her all the time and that his illusions seemed to actually be... Desires. Was he in the Great Expanse under the spell of a Sky Siren all this time and he hadn't noticed? No... All this felt different. It wasn't the same thing he experienced in that place at all.

Then what was it? What was wrong with him? If he could say that. Now that he thought more about it, maybe there wasn't anything wrong with him. Perhaps he was just confused by that, because he couldn't really grasp what was going on, but now he felt like he was getting to a conclusion. Maybe he was... No... No... That... Couldn't be... Could it?

He quickly stared at her for a moment and his heartbeat accelerated exponentially. It was then that he finally realized and came to accept that conclusion. Yeah, that's right. Face it, Aerrow: you are in love. And it wasn't just any crush, he was actually madly in love. So much for the new discovery... Now he had to figure out what he was going to do about it. Still... For the first time, admitting something like that to himself felt truly wonderful. If only... He could just dream about it, but... If only she felt the same way about him... He would certainly be in heaven.