I'm glad you guys are liking it so far, and I hope you continue to like it. And don't worry, I still have plenty of secrets for this story, so you might want to stick around. If you find any plot holes, since I'm trying to stick with the original storyline of the show as much as possible, please let me know. I have watched every episode, but it isn't as if I keep extensive notes on every one. I actually refer to the Storm Hawks site for the weapons and skimmers quite often, and there isn't much information on other topics like the Interceptors or Terra Merbia. Well, I hope you get a laugh out of this one.
"I love how in scary movies, the person yells out 'Hello?' As if the bad guy is gonna be like, 'Yeah, I'm in the kitchen. Want a sandwich?'" — Anonymous
. . .
While Finn showed Starling where the Merb was last seen hiding, Stork steered the Condor toward the other side of the terra to pick up Piper and Junko where Aerrow would explain to his teammates what just happened. Piper was more than stunned by the sudden turn of events, and Junko was still trying to process that Kite could be Gully—or vice versa somehow. No one had an explanation for the Gully and Kite switch, so where did some random Merb come in? When everyone met up with Finn and Starling, they were in the hall looking up at a fairly small ventilation shaft with the door hanging open.
"She went in there?" Piper asked, almost skeptical. The space was small, but she supposed it wouldn't be impossible to try and escape or hide there.
"No, I just opened it to dust," Stork quipped, earning a harsh glare from her.
"Hello?" Aerrow cautiously stepped under the vent and looked around the opening to try and get a better look at whoever was in the vent. "Can you come out?" He couldn't see her, but she answered.
"I'm not coming out until I see Kite," she uttered quickly.
"We're looking for her," Starling said. "Do you know where she is?"
"No! And it doesn't look like you're looking for her either, so stop screwing with me." The Merb was completely distrusting toward the group, and wasn't afraid to show it.
Aerrow looked to Finn to see if he wanted to try. Even though Finn was a skirt chaser, he could be just friendly if he wanted to, and Aerrow knew Finn had a soft spot for people that were in fear.
"Don't look at me, I already got kicked in the face when I tried to look in there," he said, waving his hands in refusal. That was three down.
Piper stepped up to give it a shot, "Hi, my name's Piper. We're really looking for Kite, we're just stuck right now. You don't have to come down if you don't want to, but maybe just tell us your name, and how you know her?"
"Hell. No," was her only reply.
"We're wasting time," Starling said, shaking her head in frustration. "Junko drag her out."
"What? Me? I don't know about—"
"Do it." Starling gave Junko a stare so deadly that the Dark Ace might have taken a couple steps back. Everyone else gave her a look that held concern, except Stork who wondered if she should be locked up for a little while to cool down.
Junko looked at Aerrow, who gave him a reluctant nod, before trying to get the Merbian out. He grabbed a few boxes to stand on before reaching around in the vent and found an ankle. There was some banging and screaming along with the violent struggle in the vent, before Junko yelled and yanked his arm out. "She bit me!" He yelled, sucking at his wrist where the bite impression was.
"And I hope you catch an infectious flesh-eating disease you overgrown dinosaur!" The vent yelled back.
Piper grunted. "Stork, maybe you should talk to her and get her to come down?" Piper whispered, just low enough that the one hiding couldn't hear.
Stork sighed loudly, but replied quietly, "Just because I'm a Merb doesn't mean she's going to trust me."
"It's worth a shot Stork," Aerrow said, backing Piper up.
Stork's shoulders sank as he sighed. "All right. But you guys are gonna have to leave."
"Why?" Starling inquired a tad too forcefully. She was still irked that the Merb in hiding had somehow switched places with her best friend, and she wouldn't divulge a location or hint.
"Because I'm a Merb. I know the habits of most Merbs." It wasn't a complete lie, he just needed to be alone because he didn't want anyone to hear what it was like for him on Terra Merbia after the Cyclonians took over.
As soon as everyone left the vicinity, and after he locked all the doors to make sure that no one could overhear what he was going to say, he looked up at the opening of the vent. Stork didn't mind talking so much, it was the whole getting started and sharing his guts that he had kept under lock and key all of these years. He wasn't even sure if she would care since she seemed so focused on wanting to see Kite. Stork sighed loudly and decided to just suck it up.
"Er, hi. I'm. . . . The name's Stork, I'm the carrier pilot for the Storm Hawks and I'm a Merb." After introducing himself, he realized he sounded like he should go to an Anonymous support group. He sat down against the wall directly under the opening. "I know what it was like on our terra, especially after the Cyclonians. At one point they had caught me, and locked me up just to increase their prisoners quota, and I was terrified. They jabbed me with their spears as if I was some savage animal in a cage, they hardly gave out food or water if they bothered to remember, and I saw one of my friends get beaten so bad he couldn't even crawl back to his cell." Stork dug his nails into his legs as he recalled the painful memories. "I was the resourceful one and escaped with some hidden lock-picking tools and knew of some of the underground escape tunnels, but it wasn't enough because I couldn't save any of my friends. The Cyclonians killed them, and I only found out a half year ago. Because I escaped, because they had one less body than the day before, they killed some random prisoners until the boss figured that there was no point. I wanted to get help as soon as I escaped, but I didn't have the key—if only I had the Condor's key I could have went to get help but. . . . Some other Sky Knights helped free them all from the prison, but the terra is still under siege by the Cyclonians and. . . . Well, the point is, I understand why you're hiding, and I understand why you only trust one person, but we're not the bad guys. We're not the Cyclonians. We just want to find Kite as much as you do."
Stork sat and listened but couldn't hear anything coming from the vents.
"Hello?" When he still couldn't hear anything, he cautiously climbed the stack of boxes and slowly peered into the vent. Nothing. She escaped down somewhere in the vents. Stork wiped a finger along the inside of the vent and merely mumbled, "Wow. I really do need to dust these vents."
. . .
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." — George Orwell
