Uh, yeah, I think you can all guess who's Point of View this is in.... :P

I do not own the Storm Hawks, they are the property of Nerd Corps.

Chapter 14

It had been in around ten o'clock in the morning when Junko and I had seen Aerrow jump off of the Dark Ace's skimmer where he had been battling to go after Piper whose heliscooter had been shot down by Ravess.

Within a few minutes of this occurring, most of the Talons retreated for some reason unknown to me, but what disturbed me the most was that the Dark Ace was now chasing Finn and Radarr towards the terra below. Worst yet, we hadn't heard from Piper or Aerrow whether they were okay or not.

By ten thirty, Junko had asked me worriedly, "Hey, Stork? Do, do you think they're okay?"

I had looked up from the controls of the Condorand replied, "Well, I don't really know Junko, but hey! If they've met their doom, at least we get all of their stuff!" As I grinned to myself as I turned around to continue figuring out what needed to be fixed, I heard Junko begin to sniffle.

Knowing that I had probably just said the wrong thing to the kind-hearted Wallop, I turned around with a sigh and was about to try and be optimistic about things for once when I heard Finn's voice crackle over the radio.

Junko's large teary eyes suddenly looked less threateningly watery as he heard his friend's voice over the radio. Dashing over to where I was standing, Junko cried into the radio, "Finn, buddy! You're okay!"

"Of course Junko, no one is able to touch the Finnster!" I had simply rolled my eyes at Finn's remark until Junko began speaking to the sharpshooter again.

"So did you find Aerrow and Piper? Are they okay?"

There was a slight moment of silence before Finn replied, "Yeah, I guess so..."

Taking over Junko's spot near the radio, I asked, "Uh, what do you mean by 'I guess so', Finn? Aren't they okay?"

"Well, yeah, of course, but they're just acting kind of… weird…."

As the radio cut out while Finn trailed off, I looked out the window to see two familiar skimmers approaching. I quickly pulled the lever that would open the hangar bay door before I turned to Junko and said, "Come on, let's go see what's up."

That had been over twelve hours ago.

It was now early Wednesday morning – February the 11th – and I was still up searching through my books trying to figure out what could be wrong with Piper and Aerrow. There had been more than a couple things wrong with them when they came back in from fighting with the Cyclonians, and now I was just trying to match up their symptoms with some sort of sickness that I knew must exist.

Personally I think they must have been infected with mindworms, but of course I'll need to find some proof in these books before the others will believe me, although I don't think it's all that far fetched.

When Junko and I had reached the hangar bay after Finn had radioed us, Finn landed first and came to stand with us. But before we could ask him what was wrong with Aerrow and Piper, we began to clue in ourselves.

Aerrow, Piper, and Radarr all flew in on Aerrow's skimmer with him piloting, but that in itself wasn't strange since this sort of thing happened all the time if one our skimmers was destroyed we simply ended up catching a ride on someone else's.

No, what was strange about it was that even though the pilot's seat of Aerrow's skimmer was actually pretty large, Piper was scooted up right close to him and had wrapped her arms around his waist. It looked like she was hugging him the way she was almost snuggled into his back, and Aerrow didn't even seem bothered by it. I might even go so far as to say he was enjoying it.

As the blue and red skimmer came to a stop in front of us, Radarr jumped out of his seat and raced over to where Finn, Junko, and I were standing. I could see the confused look on Radarr's face that I'm sure came close to mirroring my own, but my confusion turned into disbelief as Aerrow got off of his skimmer, and turning around, he held his hand out to Piper to help her off even though no one really needs help to get off of a skimmer like Aerrow's.

'Plus no one has ever needed to help Piper off of a skimmer before anyways.' I had thought to myself as the strange scene before me continued to play out.

Piper almost bashfully took our Sky Knight's hand before she slid off of the vehicle. When the pair turned around and saw that we were standing there, staring at them, their hands that they had been holding in each other's immediately parted as Aerrow rubbed the back of his neck, and Piper's hand held onto her arm as she diverted her gaze to the floor.

Those had been some of the first weird things I noticed when those two had come back.

Once we had gathered together on the bridge a few minutes later, myself and the rest of the guys were ready to ask Aerrow and Piper how it had come about that they both fell unconscious during their training session this morning, but they simply wouldn't pay attention to us long enough. They kept whispering to each other, and Piper would keep giggling like some little school girl.

When I had finally lost my patience, I had yelled at the two to listen, and in response they had simply turned and stared at me. That's when I had noticed another weird oddity about the pair – their eyes had somehow turned pink. And I knew this had to be recent, as when the team had headed off to bed last night, those two definitely hadn't had a trace of pink in their eyes.

I blinked blankly at the two before I dashed into my room, disinfecting myself immediately before I caught whatever those two suddenly had contracted.

Ever since, I've been in my room going through all of my books on mindworms and diseases. None of which so far had mentioned pink eyes as one of the indicators someone was infected. None the less though, I was going to figure out what was going on – someone had to after all.

'Besides,' I thought as I flipped another page of book number five hundred and eighty-eight, 'Aerrow's hair so clashes with his new eye colour.' I was about to close the book and check the Condor's status before I tried to sleep a little when something near the bottom of the page caught my eye.

Scanning the paragraph quickly, I murmured to myself, "Love sickness, eh?"

Hehe.. silly Stork.. xD I think you guys will like the next chapter. And as a heads up, I'm thinking there are about two chapters and the epilogue left to this story (This estimate is subject to change! x3)

Crimson Fox4