Author's Note: This is my first Storm Hawks fic (I don't think I need to tell you that.) and I think I'll do okay on it.

Disclaimer: Storm Hawks and all characters belong to Nerd Corps Studios and Cartoon Network. I own the main character, and my friends own the main character's friends.

Part One: Mammalia

Chapter Fourteen

A wave of hopelessness rose and crashed in Xandra's chest as she searched the Wastelands below Finn's hovering Skimmer. It had been so long since she'd seen her friend, and they had all searched long and hard for Ibis. Not one terra had gone unchecked, not one witness to their fight with the Raptors had gone unquestioned, and not one corner of the vast, boiling Wastelands nearby had gone unsearched. But still they had found no trace of the girl with the pink hair. A fresh wash of pain scored over her heavy heart as she gave up on her last hope of ever seeing Ibis again. Aerrow had called her over and over through the intercom on the bike, but she had ignored his request every time and continued her frantic pursuit. Now it was completely black outside, and her weary eyes could barely focus on details anymore. She radioed in to Aerrow and asked him to have Stork bring the Condor around. It was too late to press on tonight.

When she had secured the bike on the magnetic lift inside the hanger, Finn walked through the hanger bay doors and immediately wrapped his arms around her without a word. She buried her head in his chest and hugged her arms around his middle, squeezing tight. It was a small gesture, but very significant. In the last week and a half, he had begun to see just how affected his girlfriend—yes, his girlfriend—had become. It pained him to see her once bright, lineless face resume its mask of sorrow every morning. The night they had come back to the Condor after the fight, she had begun sleeping in his bed with him just for the comfort of another human being. He assumed that trying to sleep in the cold, lonely room that she had once shared with Ibis now felt alien and uninhabitable without her. The loss of the person she had grown up with had ravaged her hard, and now she was just an empty shell.

He led her up to the bridge and settled her on the couch next to Piper, who took over comforting her. Finn found it a bit amazing how quickly Piper had gone from detesting Xandra to trying to keep her happy. For now, though, she just placed a blanket over Xandra's shoulders and handed her a cup of hot chocolate. Finn sat between Xandra and Junko and sighed heavily. Junko was taking it hard, too. He had tried just as hard as Xandra to find Ibis, and once, Finn had heard soft sobs coming from his room. Now it was very disconcerting to see dark circles under Junko's eyes and the ever-present expression that adorned his face made Finn pity him a little; he always looked like he was about to cry. Junko had been the stone wall that everyone could lean back on, the one constant that never wavered. Now it was gone, and it felt like a rug had been tugged out from under Finn's feet.

It wasn't just Xandra and Junko that were acting funny. Aerrow now almost always looked angry with himself, as if it was his fault that Ibis was gone, and his lips were always set in a grim, pursed line. He moved jerkily and even Radarr stayed clear of him. Stork's new attitude might not have been the most drastic, like the others, but it was by far the scariest. He had developed a "thousand-yard stare", a blank, soulless look that persisted and seemed as if it didn't register anything. He would steer around dangerous obstacles at the last minute, barely touch his food, and not even pretend he could hear what people would say to him. The strangest thing about his behavior, though, wasn't his lack of activity. It was the fact that he didn't seem lost to the world; on the contrary, Finn had a hunch that Stork was lost in thought.

That night, Stork finally spoke up.

"I know where she might be."

His words rang emptily in the bridge. Everyone was silent, staring at him as though they believed him to be crazy. It wasn't hard to think that Stork was nuts, but this time there was probably no denying that he wasn't just a little loose upstairs. Aerrow turned on him and hissed softly, "Where could she possibly be that we haven't looked already?"

"Think about it. We've already checked everywhere around here, and we've looked in places that she most likely wouldn't be in; what if the Raptors took her?"

Aerrow opened his mouth to contradict the pilot, but found that he had no answer to Stork's theory. Instead, he stalked to the crescent-shaped couch and sat without a sound. Stork took a few minutes to dock the Condor at the entrance to a bed-and-breakfast located on a tiny terra, and then, when he finished turning off all the engines, he turned and leaned on the wheel handles with a slightly arrogant air. He seemed proud that he had stumped Aerrow for the moment, but the Sky Knight wasn't through yet.

"What if they did take her? It's been nearly two weeks since then; why would they even bother keeping her alive?" The air in the bridge became brittle as Finn, Piper, and Junko mentally urged Aerrow to stop implying Ibis was dead. Xandra continued staring into her cup, but they could all feel her holding back another wave of tears.

"Why should they have killed her? For all we know, she's fought her way through all their defenses and is now trying to locate us." Hope was restored for a brief second…

Aerrow's mood soured instantly, and he seemed unable to end his pessimism. "I doubt even Ibis can fight off all those Raptors and find a way to us. If she was half the Sky Knight she claimed to be, she'd be here now instead of lying in a ditch on Terra Bogaton—"

"Stop it!" Xandra's shriek snapped the tight silence in half, and the shatter and splash of her cup hitting the floor resounded, followed by the sound of her boots clomping quickly out of the bridge and down the hallway beyond the doors. Finn felt the irritation that he'd harbored against Aerrow's attitude take a turn for the worse then, and he launched himself off the couch and took a fistful of Aerrow's uniform, pulling his leader close.

"What did you go and do that for, dickhead? It's hard enough around here without you biting everyone's heads off and making us feel like shit." Aerrow scowled hard at Finn and pushed his hand off his shirt.

"I'm just thinking logically; unlike you guys who seem to think that Ibis is gonna magically reappear because we all worked so hard to find her."

"Then keep it to yourself. Xandra's trying to keep it in check for the sake of keeping this job, and she can't do that when everything you say makes her fly off the handle 'cuz she misses her friend!"

"We haven't heard from Ibis in weeks; she's dead. And Xandra can just get over it." Aerrow about-faced and began to step toward the doors, but Finn grasped a chunk of Aerrow's copper hair and jerked him back. As they were about to exchange blows, Junko's massive hands caught their smaller ones and pushed the two guys apart with ease.

"Finn, don't start a fight right now." Junko released Finn's fist gently. "And Aerrow, you should be more careful about what you say and who you say it around. Especially now." Junko tightened his fingers around Aerrow's hand, pulling a grunt of pain out of the leader before he let go and turned to leave.

"And since when does a member of a crew tell the captain what to do?" Aerrow was still fairly riled up, and his anger made him forget who was bigger and stronger. He forced Junko to twist around and stared him in the eye. Junko met the challenge with all the ferocity he had.

"Since you stopped acting less like a captain and more like a bully." Junko spat out the last word, then brushed Aerrow's hand off his shoulder and continued to his room. Piper and Stork remained silent, waiting for Aerrow's response.

Aerrow took a quiet breath while he rubbed his fist. "Stork, first thing in the morning for you is to set a course for Terra Bogaton." Then he, too, left.

Spitz had spent a fortnight wondering what this angel's lips felt like; now he understood that his imaginings sharply paled in comparison to reality. The moment his lips descended on hers, the world seemed to be quieting and leaning in to peek upon their kiss. Everything outside of Ibis meant nothing. Her lips were softer than the most delicate flower petals from the rarest flora on Bogaton, her breath warmer and sweeter than a pure spring breeze, and her mammalian heat more satisfying than the sun pounding down from a clear sky in a desert. A shiver coasted along his spine, picking up the warmth from her lips and washing it all the way down to his toes.

It felt like an eternity later when they separated. He hardly dared to open his eyes and see her reaction to his very forward action. He dropped his hand from her chin and swallowed nervously. I shouldn't have done that… He finally turned away from her and gazed out the infirmary window at the jungle beneath them. All of a sudden, he became very alert to every sound that heavenly creature behind him was making. The chair she had been sitting on creaked a little when she stood and he felt rather than heard the feather-light steps she took to stand right behind him. He found it extremely hard then to keep his attention on the trees below, and not whip around and continue his earlier deed. Her impossibly hot hand lay between his shoulder blades, deliciously burning an imprint into his scales. His breathing quickened under her touch as she pulled him around to face her. Now he looked into her stormy blue eyes and saw the faint hurt in them. He resolved in an instant never to deny her anything her heart desired; seeing her in a state other than happy made a vice-like force squeeze his heart painfully. Another hot little hand cupped his cheek and he immediately complied with her soundless wish.

He wrapped his arms around her slowly, savoring the shapes and angles of her body and hoping that this wouldn't be the last opportunity he had to feel her. Her arms slid around his neck and pulled him back down to her mouth. He saw the tender, spiked shadows from her eyelashes that tickled her cheeks as she closed her eyes, then he felt the petals of her lips against his shamefully rough ones. He stifled a moan of pleasure as her fingers gently ran up his skull and absently played with his spikes. They separated, reconnected, then separated again, testing the waters before they allowed themselves to open their eyes and mutely agree to move forward. They slanted their mouths against the other's and Spitz nearly jumped out of his skin when her wet, molten tongue traced along the outside of his upper lip. Instinct told him to receive her, and he did, parting his lips and flicking his forked tongue past his pointed teeth. Their mouth locked and, in the moist confines, their tongues slid along one another.

Spitz suddenly felt feverish as his and Ibis's joined arousal radiated out in waves of heat; all rational thought was gone the moment she pressed her lovely body against his. He ran his hands over her back, her hips, her sides, and he even slid one hand to the top of her backside while the other dug into her hair and urged her on. Now their breath came hard and their teeth banged together as they struggled to wring every pleasurable feeling out of the moment. With a surge of impatience, Spitz felt that her mouth wasn't enough and he gently tilted her head to the side to trail kisses over her bared neck. With her mouth unoccupied, the sounds Ibis was now free to make were riling him up even more: her breathy sighs and gasps made his heart quiver with delight, and at the same time, the needy moans that were staggered in between made certain parts of his anatomy pay very close attention. Taking a bit of her lily-white skin softly between his teeth and dragging himself back, he reveled in the sight of her eyes rolling back in her head. A dark, passion-filled chuckle reverberated in his chest as he brought her back to his lips. Oh, but it was the most intoxicating thing to be able to kiss this woman and feel her cling to him like she would collapse without his touch.

A soft sound out in the hallway made both of them suddenly very aware that they could be being watched. They both pushed away from the other and stared intently at the open doorway. A full two minutes passed before they looked at each other. Spitz felt the sensation of pride and lust as he took in an eyeful of Ibis's kiss-reddened lips and the faint nip marks on her throat. She was still panting, and she eyed him with an equal amount of ardor, most likely cataloguing the various signs of their play on his body. His fingers itched to touch her again, and his tongue ran over his wetted lips as he allowed a slight moan to escape his mouth.

"Wow," she whispered.

"Yeah, wow," he replied. He smiled at her, and his heart swelled as she returned it without hesitation.

"Where'd that all come from?" She stepped closer to him and clasped her hands together as if unsure of what to do with them.

"I don't have a clue, but I liked it." He trailed a finger over her jawbone, eliciting a whimper of desire. Her eyelids drooped a fraction and she leaned closer to him as if to kiss him again. She snapped her eyes open at the last second.

"Oh, we probably shouldn't." Spitz felt a lump of disappointment lay in his stomach like a rock before she continued. "I mean, not where anyone and their brother can see us…" She smiled at him again and gave him a slow, simple kiss.

"You gonna tell me what maketh you different now?" He played with her hair for a moment, his voice barely above a whisper. Ibis paused at that question, averting her eyes.

"Maybe…maybe later. I'm not sure you'll still like me as much afterwards…" She looked up innocently, waiting for an answer.

"I hope you don't have anywhere to go anytime thoon, Ibith, becauthe I plan on convinthing you that one dirty little thecret can't keep me away from you." He planted another kiss on her lips, a slower, sexier version of the last one. She smiled into the kiss and replied in kind with another one. "We should probably go to our roomth now, though. It would theem thuthpiciouth if we took tho long to tend to a little burn." Ibis giggled cutely and took his hand to lead him out of the infirmary.

In his new room, Repton seethed quietly. His brothers had quickly taken sides, preferring to be under the command of that little girl than stand beside their true leader. Of course, his humiliation the day before had contributed to their favoritism, but he had a feeling that they really were afraid of her. It had always worked for Repton to be terrifying and forceful to command all of the respect he needed; at least then they hadn't questioned his word. Surely there was no other way to get someone to do what you said.

It stung, in a way, that he had been knocked down to grunt, a position he had never been, and now he had to go back to following orders from someone he thought was purely unqualified to order about an army such as the one he had amassed in the recent years.

Yet, not only was Repton furious about being unfairly stripped of his rank, not only was he severely upset about being replaced with a greenhorn girl who, at one point, had previously been a Sky Knight, there was one excruciating, stomach-turning thing that kept his chilled blood churning: just last night, he had witnessed Spitz and the wench kissing! And not just kissing, he reminded himself, but touching each other. Still hurting from the burns and his swollen gums, he had assumed that Ibis had been fully treated for her insignificant wounds and had gone to luxuriate in Repton's old quarters. Perhaps then, he reasoned, he could bully Spitz into creating more burn salve and alleviating Repton's pain. As he had limped to the door, he had heard soft, intimate noises coming from the infirmary. Recognizing the sounds from back when he had first witnessed the beginnings of mating season back on their home terra, his interest sparked and he tiptoed to peek over the threshold of the door. Upon seeing Spitz and the girl wrapped around each other, Repton's scales had nearly dropped off his hide from shock. It wasn't so surprising to know that Ibis had been able to illicit a sensual response from someone, but it was more surprising that it had been Spitz who had fallen to her feminine wiles and taken the first step.

A line of jealousy coursed through Repton, and he stamped it down immediately. Originally he had found Ibis mildly attractive, considering keeping her around until she went into heat, or whatever it was that human females went into for the breeding season, so he could take her properly, just for the rare experience of bedding someone outside his species. But he had not foreseen both the girl becoming his superior and one of his own kin getting to her first. He didn't harbor any feelings for the wench, but Repton was still a bit of a child at heart: used to getting whatever he wanted and never having to share what he had.

Wringing his hands roughly and agitating the burns, he resolved then to wait, as planned, but instead of just having her without effort he would raise the challenge of fighting Spitz for her. He smirked, which made the throbbing cut on his cheek sting even more. It would be very easy to overtake his scrawny little brother and claim his prize.