I LIIIIVVVEEEE.

Okay, so, little bit of a lack of reviews on the last one, but we'll see what happens. Honestly, I almost forgot this story existed because of how busy I've been with College lately.

BUT.

I forced myself to write this today. :D

Shaelyn's POV

This was weird.

This was more than weird. This was freaky. And I liked it. I can't actually remember the last time I felt so secure, so...

Safe.

I pushed away from him, only briefly glancing at his confused expression. I had already broken a few promises I made to myself, and I wasn't about to break anymore. I couldn't let myself be so close to him. Every moment I spent in his presence was a moment that something terrible could happen to him. I just wouldn't let myself forget something like that so easily.

"What?" I snapped out of my thoughts to look back up at him, my hand in his. I pulled my hand from his as if it was on fire, which surprised him.

"I cant...I need to stay away from you." I felt so stupid telling him all of this. The realization of what I had told him hit me, and I couldn't deal with it. At least not right now.

"You really think you're a danger to me?" He asked skeptically. He didn't believe me...

I didn't say anything else as I left, leaving him in his room alone.

Aerrow's POV

I don't even know what just happened here. My mind was still trying to catch up with all that I had just experienced, but it was jumbled, like a puzzle with missing pieces.

I wasn't sure how seriously I should be taking this either. Was she really a danger to me or was it all just in her head? She had told me everything and still, I felt as thought I knew nothing. All I knew was that this girl was either mentally unstable, or she was an actual threat to me. But how could she be? I had easily pinned her in the hallway, and I knew that I could beat her in a fight any day, so why was she a threat? She wasn't even a very good sharpshooter. But the dreams she had been having obviously scared her a lot...

The way she had been screaming that one night made it clear that she was scared. But was she scared of the dreams? No, she was truly scared of getting me hurt, and this was something I just couldn't figure out.

After what seemed like hours of piecing all of this together, I decided it would be something that I would have to wait for to see.

Whether I believed I was in actual danger or not was something I hadn't decided on yet.

Stork's POV

I don't know how anyone could put up with Finn's whining right now. Even Piper was managing to ignore it, her face buried in one of her many books about crystals. Though I did notice the glares she would give him from time to time. Junko was unusually quite, it was either the lack of food or mindworms. I was settling with mindworms.

Hell, we've all probably been infected with mindworms. No doubt that girl brought it on board.

Speaking of her, I hadn't seen her or Aerrow for quite some time. I couldn't help but let my mind wander to all the horrible things she must be doing to him. She's probably brainwashing him right now so that she can kidnap him and take him to Cyclonis so she he can be used against us, thus causing our inevitable demise and the fall of all mankind as we know it...

Yeah, that was totally happening right now. I knew we were all doomed from the start anyways, so there wasn't much of a point to go and stop her.

I shook my head, I was making myself paranoid again. As soon as I went to my room to get the necessary...items..to deal with Finn's whining and Junko's mindworms, I would feel a lot better.

As I shuffled along the hallway, which would need to be sprayed later for a mutated form of deck fleas that I was sure had gotten on board during our little rescue mission of that girl, I could hear the faint sound of footsteps approaching me.

In any other situation, I would assume it was Aerrow. But I couldn't let myself be fooled with her on board. I had to be quick witted, stealthy, and be ready to expect the unexpect-OOF.

Well, so much for that.

It turns out that I had managed to walk straight into someone, and judging on the size and softness of that person, it had to be the one I did not want to run into. Looks like I would be meeting my doom ahead of schedule today.

Both of us groaned as we sat up, and I turned to glare at her. Imagine my surprise when I saw that she had been crying, obvious tear trails rolling on her face. She glanced at me before getting up again to walk past me.

"Sorry.." She mumbled, not even looking at me.

Well. I would have to go sterilize myself now.

Finn's POV

Was I the only one on the ship who needed food to survive? Nobody was complaining about the lack of food, not even Junko! Of course, he was just sitting there like he was dead, which was sort of creepy...

But seriously, everyone else seemed to be okay with the fact that we had no food until we found this place that Shubbz was talking about. Piper had her face practically stuck in a book about some dumb crystals while Stork had gone off to do whatever it is he does in his spare time.

"Aren't you supposed to be looking at the map that Shubbz gave us?" I asked Piper accusingly. She only glanced up at me with a look of annoyance before going back to her book.

"We're on a straight course right now, there's really nothing to be looking at." Excuses. She just wanted to read her stupid book. I looked over to Junko, who was sitting on the opposite side of the table, staring down at his hands. I was a little worried about him...it had been a while since he had eaten something, and usually he's always got food in hand.

"Junko, how you holding up?" He didn't even look at me as he replied.

"Eh, kinda hungry...but okay." Uh, yeah, I didn't buy that.

"Seriously dude, what's wrong?" Besides the food situation obviously. I could tell when something was bothering my buddy, and something was definitely bothering him right now. He hesitated before answering me this time, glancing over his shoulder at the hallway.

"I'm just...not really sure about Shubbz..." I could see Piper look up from her book when he said this. I knew her and Piper were already 'Best friends forever', so I was kinda interested at where this was going. To tell you the truth, I felt indifferent about the girl. She wasn't that nice when we first talked, sure she was little funny and stuff, but she was odd. Which is weird to say since we all have to deal with Stork's...oddities.

"Why's that?" Piper had joined into the conversation now, actually putting down her book. Junko looked back down at his hands again and shrugged.

"I just...get this weird feeling about her. Like..something bad is going to happen." He mumbled.

"Dude, you sound like Stork right now. Don't be so paranoid." Seriously, dude. Don't get me paranoid to.

"You just don't know her, that's all. I bet if you get to know her, you'll feel better about her." Piper said with a smile. I rolled my eyes. She was always so sure of herself it was annoying. Her and Aerrow. Which reminded me...

"Where the hell is Aerrow?" Piper narrowed her eyes and looked over at me with a face that said 'do you have to yell?'. And yeah, I had to yell. It was helping to get my mind off of how damn hungry I was.

"I think he went to talk to Shubbz about something."

"Ooh la la..." Piper rolled her eyes when I said this.

"Seriously Finn? You are so childish. Aerrow was going to ask her more questions."

"Yeah, 'questions.'" I made quotation marks with my fingers. Piper scoffed in disgust and went back to reading her book.

She was right though. Everyone knew Shubbz had the hots for me anyways.

Piper's POV

Finn could be so childish sometimes. Okay, more like all the time. Although the recent conversation made me wonder what Aerrow had wanted to talk to her about in the first place. Would she tell Aerrow what she told me? And if she did, would Aerrow be upset that I hadn't told him yet? I'm sure he wouldn't be too angry, maybe a little disappointed...but still...

She seemed to be more open with me than she was with anyone else. Maybe it was the fact that I was a girl, although she avoided Aerrow like the plague. I don't know what it was, but earlier Aerrow had been sort of spacey to, even a little bit angry. I guess he was thinking about the food shortage, I mean, I am to. I may not look like it, but I am. I'm just trying to do more productive things with my time instead of sitting there whining. And poor Junko, he hasn't eaten as much as he usually would. He was so quiet to...It was almost scary.

I'm sure that once we find food, everyone will feel better, and then we can focus on finding Cyclonis. I still can't believe we were lucky enough to find someone with knowledge about Cyclonis's whereabouts. Maybe things were starting to look up, and hopefully we would be able to go back home soon. The Farside was an amazing place, but the isolation that we've all been feeling has been hard to get through, though I doubt Aerrow has had a problem with it. Knowing him, he probably loves this places, due to how unexplored it is. Still, it would be nice to get in touch with a familiar face again, and the Farside was very lacking in familiar faces.

Ah whatever, no use focusing on those things right now. Might as well finish my book.

Radarr's POV

I don't think I've ever paced the hallways that long before. There was absolutely nothing to do right now. Finn was annoying everyone, Junko was sulking, Piper was reading, and Atmos knows what Stork was thinking of. The only people I couldn't find was Aerrow and that girl, which worried me a little bit. What if something had happened? Would that girl really try to hurt Aerrow? I couldn't deal with all this suspense!

It was then that I could hear the sound of a faint sniffle, something that I would have missed if I didn't have such acute hearing. The pitch was definitely that of a females, so I could tell that it was that girl.

And I was right. As I stood there listening to the sound of sniffling and footsteps get louder, Shubbz walked around the corner, her eyes puffy and red. She had been crying...but from what? I didn't think she was the type to cry about just anything, so there must be a reason. Cursing my inability to speak, I followed her into Piper's room, where she was staying now. She still hadn't noticed me as she fell onto the pile of blankets and pillows on the floor, sniffling once more. She sat there for while, not saying anything, so I decided to make my presence known.

I slowly trotted over to her side, brushing my face up against her hand which rested her on her leg. She smiled a bit and scratched the back of my ears. I purred at that, and she giggled. When she stopped, I crawled to sit in front of her, taking on a face that said "whats wrong?" Hopefully she would know what I was trying to say.

"What's with the face, little guy?" No, apparently she didn't get it. So I tried something else. Getting up on my hind legs, I walked over to her and put a paw on her damp cheek. "Oh..." she said, finally understanding me. "It's nothing...just got some things to deal with right now. I'll be okay." She finished this with a weak smile. I knew there was something more, but interrogations were something I failed at.

A big part of me was irritated that I didn't know the whole story, but I knew that I could try and get some answers out of Aerrow. At least he understood me better than she seemed to.

"Don't worry...I'll be okay." She said this more to herself that time.

Deep in the heart of the Farside, fog passed through a dense jungle that teemed with life. A creature slithered around the forest floor, eyes glowing with excitement. In the distance, the call of an animal could be heard, it's cry echoing through the blue mossy trees, leaves shuddering in the cool wind. In the center of the glowing jungle stood a tree that towered all others, it's branches reaching out and above the forest canopy. A small monkey-like animal with tusks protruding from its mouth, eyes wide and endless, crawled up the branch before leaping off to the next one.

The forest is eerily silent, as a lone man in a hooded cloak sprints across the ground, nearly trampling the slithering creature. He pants heavily as he makes his way towards the large tree, slowing down as he reaches the base of the trunk. Before continuing, he looks around, his eyes darting every which way. Assured that there is no one else, he reaches over to a stone that rests besides the tree, covered with moss. Lifting the moss off the stone, he can see a small lever jutting out from it. The man switches the lever, and a low rumble is heard, creatures darting away from the unfamiliar sound.

The man looks around one more time as a section of the trunk is moved aside to reveal a door way. Wasting no time, he continues through the door, flipping another lever that hangs on the inside of the tree trunk. The same rumble is heard as the wood is shifted back into place. As his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, he looks up into the tree, a section of which had been hollowed out. The once magnificent tree will die soon, as it's roots have been dug out to make room.

As darkness fades away, the hooded man makes his way down stone stairs, starting just a foot away from the hidden door. The stairway seems endless and the tired man uses all his strength to leap down them, not wanting to waste any time. Minutes go by as the man bounds down the stairs, tripping but regaining his balance as he nears the bottom. The sounds of machinery and workers can be heard now, the noises bouncing from wall to wall.

Out of breath, he slows his pace to small steps, not wanting to use all of his energy up. Still hooded, he approaches a large door with intricate detail carved into it. Two guards covered in black on each side of the door nod at him as they step aside, allowing him to step up to the door. Their glowing eyes watch his every move. Hesitantly, he knocks softly, gradually becoming stronger at the end of the knock.

"Enter." The voice flows through the door, the sound cold as it reaches him. Slowly, he opens the doors. Despite being made of stone, they creak at the use, as if they are crying out to him. Stepping inside, he lowers the hood on his cloak and stops at the center of the cold room. The sounds of the doors closing behind him only emphasis the silence that falls around him. A faint ticking can be heard and he looks around the dark room, waiting to be given permission to speak. His gaze falls on the figure at the front of the room, back turned towards him.

The voice returns, cutting through the silence like a knife. "Report." It is short, but it is enough. The man clears his throat, almost flinching at the sound it made.

"I have news on the Storm Hawks. They are heading towards our location." He paused, as the figure continued to sift through the numerous maps and blueprints that lay on the desk in front of them. "We believe they are being led here by one of our own...a girl who left us some time ago." Although he could not see it, the figure smiled, knowing exactly who this man was referring to.

"Good."

The man's eyes widened in surprise. Before he could ask why, the figure answered his question, a small trickle of humor forming in it's voice.

"This girl is going to help us greatly. Whether she wants to or not." At this, the voice cackled, and the man flinched slightly in fright. "Go inform my guards that I will need them in here soon. I have a little present for our traitor."

The man stood there for a moment, trying to think of what the figure was up to, not aware that its patience was starting to run thin.

"Do you have all of that?" The voice snapped, prickling the mans ears and startling him. Quickly, he regained his composure and bowed in respect and fear.

"Yes, Master Cyclonis."

.

We be gettin' somewhere in da story now.

And we'll get a lot farther if I see those reviews. ;D