Aerrow sighed. He'd been traipsing through the jungle foliage for almost three hours, Ace and Junko having joined him and subsequently paired off to cover more ground.
And night was falling.
He scanned again with the residual energy crystal detector, and, after picking up on nothing but his own crystals energy, decided to call it in, heading back to the rendezvous point.
He had just started back when he heard a huge crash echo through the skies, and saw a series of small explosions through the small gaps in the canopy.
Immediately, Radarr clinging to his shoulder, he leapt up to the nearest tree and clambered agilely, to the top.
As he reached the top, he wasn't sure whether to curse of be thankful as he saw a huge cruiser, obviously Cyclonian from the huge emblem, leaking vast amounts of crystal energy in the clouds, emitting huge explosions and trails of smoke.
As the cruiser fell towards the ground, Aerrow saw dozens of people abandoning the ship, many on rides but a few with chutes, who were quickly picked up by their comrades. Now that they were all below the cloud layer, the crystals seemed to be working fine, as were their rides.
That's when Aerrow started to worry. What on Earth could they be doing here?
"Piper?!" he nearly shouted through the comlink, and she hastily replied.
"Aerrow?"
"A Cyclonian cruiser just fell through the clouds. Leaking crystal energy and obviously out of commission. Did you notice it on the Condor?"
"No… Condora picked up traces of crystal energy, but we couldn't see anything…"
"Shielding crystals again?" Aerrow asked, thinking back to the time that they had had to fight invisible Cyclonian fighters, having to resort to feathers and porridge to see them.
"Must be… I'll get Condora to scan the energy we picked up in more detail. What do you think they were here for?"
"I don't know, but there are at least a few dozen fighters… Ace? Junko? You get that?"
"Cyclonian fighters on the Terra," Junko's voice said, through the link, "We got it. Couldn't see what the commotion was about, so Ace decided to try and climb a tree…"
"Try?" Ace's voice said, echoing over Junko's voice, "Love the fact you have so much faith in me…"
"Well I'm just saying…" Juno said, "after those carnivorous Venus flytraps…"
"Junko? Focus. It's getting dark, so I think we should rendezvous and restart in the morning."
"You got it. It'll take us an hour to reach the crystal relay though…"
"About the same here… But watch out for these huge purple flowers. They don't take kindly to having their roots stepped on…"
Junko ended the transmission, as did Ace, and Aerrow sent another message to Piper.
"We're heading back to rendezvous. It's getting too dark to see anything… Hopefully Finn will be fine on his own till morning."
"He'll be fine. You know what Finn's like."
"That's what I'm worried about. Keep an eye out, you guys. Someone will be coming to check out what happened to the cruiser…"
"You got it. You guys be careful."
"Aren't we always?"
Piper gave an exasperated sigh, then said goodbye, disconnecting the link.
Aerrow grinned, clipping his own to his belt, and starting to make his way down the tree. That's when he noticed he couldn't find Radarr.

Finn couldn't believe what Arya had told him. Hence his attempt to clarify and sum up.
"So, you're saying that, since your parents died, you have been looked after by your aunt, who has beaten and abused you, so you spend most of your time away in the jungle, learning about dangerous creatures for the sake of it?"
Arya nodded,
"Yes."
Finn shook his head,
"And I thought my life was hard… Beating up the bad guys, leaving my home, my family… But at least I was with my friends. And have a family… You don't seem to have anyone…"
"I have Glitch."
Finn grinned,
"And now you have me…"
Arya gave him a wry smile,
"How thrilling," she said, in a jokingly sarcastic way. Then she frowned, looking around.
"Hand on... Where is Glitch?"
Finn frowned too, realising that the little purple sky monkey wasn't there, and got to his feet, holding a branch for support. Arya swiftly got to her own feet, not needing to hold on to anything, and called out.
"Glitch!"

Not too far away, a now very worried Aerrow was, having sent a message to the other two and unwilling to jump to the floor, leaping from tree to tree, swinging between the branches.
"Radarr! Where are you buddy?"
He slid to a halt, grabbing a branch, as he heard an answering chirp. Changing course, he leapt to another tree, then froze, as he saw Radarr and another creature that looked just like him, chattering away.
It was at that moment that another person burst through the leaves, stumbling to a halt at the sight and then looking up to Aerrow.
The girl looked at him, then at the two chattering creatures, then at him again, and grinned a little.
"Aerrow, Right? Finn was talking about you… Is that Radarr?"
"Err… yeah." Aerrow quickly got over his surprise at being addressed by the girl and blinked,
"Hang on. Finn? Is he okay?"
"He's fine… Now. Just a little slow at climbing."
Just then, a blonde head poked through the leaves, and Aerrow laughed in relief, helping his friend up.
"Damn it Finn, we were worried. You okay?"
"Yeah, Arya found me… Oh, sorry, Aerrow, this is Arya. She lives on the Terra."
Then his eyes flicked to the two, obviously conversing, sky monkeys, and grinned.
"Hey, looks like Radarr and Glitch have hit it off!"
Aerrow grinned.
"Radarr and Glitch? What are the chances..." he held his hand out to Arya, who took it, grinning.
"Nice to meet you, Arya... Thanks for keeping an eye on Finn..."
"No trouble at all..."
"So you live on the Terra?"
"In a manner of speaking..."
Aerrow raised an eyebrow, and Arya shrugged, grinning ruefully.
"Don't ask... So, are you the only one here?"
"No... Two other members of my team are here... speaking of which..." He pulled his com-link out and activated it. "Hey guys? I'm with Finn... and he found a friend... well, two. I'll activate a tracker so you can find us."
"You got it!" Came Junko's voice, and Finn grinned, snatching the com-link away.
"Hey buddy!"
"Hey Finn! You guys okay?"
"Yep. Just watching Radarr and his new playmate chatting..."
"Playmate?"
"Ah, you'll see when you get here."
"Yeah. We're just on our way. Ace activated the tracker, and we're following the signal now."
Aerrow tugged the link back, rolling his eyes at the indignant 'hey' from Finn, and spoke up.
"Glad to hear it. Keep an eye out for those damned carnivorous flytraps though..."
"You don't need to tell us that!" came Ace's voice, and Aerrow grinned.
"Aww, has someone had trouble with a big bad plant?"
"You try being half eaten and see how you feel!"
"Nah, Don't really fancy it... that slime you described being covered in sounded nasty..."
"Nasty..." Ace scoffed and Junko's laugh echoed through the link.
"That's a bit of an understatement, Aerrow... The smell..."
"Oi! You don't smell so great yourself..." Ace butted in, and Aerrow rolled his eyes. For someone who was meant to be older than them, he sure didn't act it sometimes... Then again, with Stork as comparison...
"Just try and get here in one piece? Then we can rest the night and contact piper in the morning to get out of here..."
"You got it!"
The link went dead and Aerrow clipped it back in, turning to see Finn looking rather sheepish and clasping his hands behind his back.
"Uhm... Aerrow? Can I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure Finn, what's up?"
"It's just... err... Can we talk over here...?"
Aerrow followed Finn over to another section of the mesh of branches and leant against the trunk, arms folded.
"What is it?"
"Well... It's about Arya... I was wondering if we could have a new team member? Well, two..."
Aerrow sighed, nodding.
"Okay, start explaining..."
_

Wow, I am sooooo sorry for the delay in updating. I have had so much going on with other fanfics and college work that it's all just been.. Well, Gah...
Hopefully be updating again soon...
Anyways, sorry it's short, but hope you guys liked it...