-1 "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author.

"Revolving doors kept the neighbors up and talking, unsettled scores- face-offs that never came. I thought a lot; this is not a life I can defend, and after this how could I face my friends? Breaking rules and breaking down, never thought twice about it, pushing drugs and skipping town, now we just talk about it. What if we never even make it back? I don't have the answer. I dropped the ball we lost our only chance to have luck on our side. Seconds burn- throat dry I swallow my pride and- lesson learned. I looked hard and I'm to blame. Yeah fuck it all, repressing thoughts of suicide, a part of me three years I've had to hide…"

-"Breaking Rules" by Lucky Boys Confusion.

"The present has no future, and the future has no past. The past is just a graveyard for the lonely ghost Regret."

-"Never Slept So Soundly" by Rx Bandits.

OoOoOo

Rave.

When I saw the Condor crash I wanted to scream. Wanted to scream, but I didn't.

Instead I started swearing my face off and dove down.

Authenti- the Nord woman- used a stolen spear to pierce through the wing of a Switchblade, fishing it close so she could reach out and kick the rider right off his seat. After pulling the spearhead free she looked down, the winds blowing directly into her face, drying the blood on her eyelids. I saw her blinking away the suddenly gummy substance gluing her eyes together. She pawed at it, not knowing what it was that had me in such a state of panic until she cleared her eyes and saw for herself.

"The group of rotten eggs have gone and crashed their ship!" she exclaimed, hanging on for dear life as I sped towards the wreckage, wondering how anyone could survive a crash like that. It was hard to tell where the Condor ended and the Cyclonian flagship began, so enmeshed in each other's ruins they seemed like one hunk of great metal.

And now I land, the Terra-mode of Wiglaf's hummer screeching against the cobblestones of Atmosia as I leap from the controls, stumbling as my feet hit the floor and somehow managing to keep my balance and keep on running with the momentum, letting the Hummer skid onwards on its own. I run until I reached the flank of the great ship, slamming into it and banging the flats of my hands against the hull of what must have been the Condor, because I can see the proud hawk brazen on its side, wings spread to catch the winds.

And then I scream.

"Finn!" I say, and as soon as I say it I'm shocked by the savage way the word spews from my lips, reminded of everything I hate by my ragged not-quite claws gripping the surface of the Condor's side, my arm warmers slid down just enough to see the edge of my wrists and the intricate tattoo lines weaving in and out of each other. The vibration of my feet pounding against the floor floods through me, all I can feel is just such a huge terror and loathing directed at… at… I don't even know what I'm doing, except I need to find a way on that ship. My feet move by themselves and I'm only dimly aware of the ragged, elegant blue-grey shape that follows me like a ghost with a grudge. Authenti is scanning the ship, too, only I get the feeling she's just tagging along for the ride. Nords are like that- distant. Cold.

She whistles once to me, a quick, screaming sound and my ears twitch towards her. Authenti points up at a gash in the side and cups her hands together. I get it at once, leaping up on the step she had provided with her clasped hands and then wriggling through, tumbling forward and down onto the floor of a hallway- the Condor's hallway.

"Good hunting…" I hear faintly, and when I look through the crack in the wall Authenti is gone, and Wiglaf's hummer with her.

OoOoOo

Piper

"I don't know what- I don't understand why they- they never told me about this," I somehow manage to stammer, losing myself in the brilliance of the single facet of the Shard. The only other time I'd seen it was when Carver broke in- and when Aerrow got to hold it… when he held it in his hands like he was cradling it… I could have burned alive with envy.

And now I am holding it. A part of it, anyway. My hands are shaking, shaking like a pilgrim finally reaching the Holy Land. This.. This thing belongs in a museum. The Beacon Tower was no more than a pile of rubble at this point, like half of Atmosia, so obviously I couldn't return it there. Someone needed to keep this precious thing safe.

I hold the Shard away from me, almost afraid to look away yet unable to even process what it might mean if I kept it with me. "What am I supposed to do with it?" I ask Repton of all people- well, I mean, he was the one who had it in the first place, so he must have some clue. Besides, he's the only one with me right now.

His single yellow eye glares at me, his tail making curt, swift jerks from side to side and his jaw set in an angry display of short-fused patience. "You're the cryssssstal expert- you tell me. Is there a way to make a broken stone work correctly?"

I shake my head no and he growls. "Useless scrap of… shoulda sold it when I had the chance." Absently, his paw runs over the patch of white gauze that covers his wounded eye, head spikes twitching.

I know I need to find Aerrow, but I can't help but wonder- is this the end of Repton's help? A fully grown Raptor is nothing to sneeze at, even a wounded one. Maybe together we could clean out the ship of Cyclonian rats. Why was he even helping me in the first place? "What… happened?" was all I could manage to get out from all the questions bouncing around in my brain.

Repton looks sharply at me and I want to shrink away, but I meet his gaze fearlessly. His mouth twists in disdain. "Nova happened," he finally said. "My cousin Tork owes you a life debt; I'm paying it. I'm the only one left who can.

"That's all."

I wonder if he means what I think he means. But I'm looking at his wounds, at the mad, vengeful light in his eyes, at the fact that he's not ripping my throat out, and I know there's nothing left to ask. "Let's go," I say. "Nova should be in the bridge."

Repton's voice is a throaty growl. "Lead me there, girl. I can't… see so well."

"Yeah," I say. "OK."

OoOoOo

Faroe.

A shock of white hair is the first thing I see when I come to. I force the bile back down my throat, wondering if I had lost the vision in one of my eyes when I realize it's just glued tight with blood. I twitch, fingers reaching for my spear, but it's far out of my reach and the girl… the bangledon girl approaches me, reaching with one clawed hand for my face. Her lips part, just enough to see strong white canines.

"Faroe?" she says, eyebrows pushed together in concern, confusion sketched across her face.

I blink.

"It's you, isn't it? Drill Sergeant Faroe?"

That snaps me out of it. "It's Commander Faroe to you, Kross," I say, finally realizing who she is. I always remember my valedictorians. I have a filing cabinet in my office, listing them by year and by name, and the most recent news I had received of them.

Rave Kross, M.I.A., presumed dead. It's emblazoned across her forehead and yet here she stands. "Am I dead too?" I ask her, because that's the most reasonable thing that comes to mind. She doesn't answer me, looking around her like someone who knows they are being tailed. "I'm going to help you out of here," she says in a soft voice. "But if we bump into any Atmosians, you're my prisoner, got it?"

She hitches me up with her brutal tiger strength, one arm around my waist and the other one firmly wrapping my arm around her shoulders. We limp away and she bristles with fear at every step, waiting for something to pop up out of the shadows. The whole cruiser is a mess, dead bodies- well, even more dead than they were before I mean- litter the halls and I can tell that not all of them were from the impact of the crash or from flying shrapnel. I look at my former student, taking in her bloodstained appearance and her sordid blue uniform, an unfamiliar squadron symbol serving as a belt buckle. As a former tight-assed drill sergeant, nothing gets by these eyes.

Disgust creeps into my words. "You defected," I spit at her, letting her drag me along. As I say it I notice a hollow "thssss" in my words and prod at my gums, where a few of my teeth used to sit before Repton knocked my lights out. Rave only rolls her eyes with the same disrespect I thought I had beaten out of her. "I had such high hopes for you…" I can't help but bitterly complain.

"You're beginning to sound like a whiny old man." A pause. "Sir. So. How's the wife? Still in jail?"

I groan, closing my eyes against her prattle. "I don't need help from an insubordinate creature like…"

Somehow, when I close my eyes I forget what I was going to say. When I open them the sky is red with the morning sun. I'm lying on my back, on a lonely, deserted little Terra a few miles out from Atmosia. My wounds are bandaged, my clothes are clean- non uniform, square, civilian.

And there's a pack of medicine and food for three days in the rusty old Switchblade parked nearby.

I get up, leaning heavily against the Swichblade, and look at the smoldering grey lump of ash and rubble that used to be Atmosia. The ships are all stalled, and no more explosions light up the calm morning air. The battle must be over, I figure-

But who won?

OoOoOo

Aerrow (the morning after the battle for Terra Atmosia)

"Aerrow. You know I'm not your brother, right?"

"Of course you're my brother, stupid. Here, hold this wrench for a second. Man, where's Piper when you need her? You don't happen to know where's the schematics for the-?"

"No no, I mean, I'm not your real brother."

I stop, trying to pull my frayed temper into a neat little ball inside myself. That's how I handled my temper. Piper's mom taught it to me, when you're angry you want to throw your angry at people. But she taught me how to hold it inside. Like a spring. I could let it out when I wanted, but it would be different, once it had cooled down. It would be powerful.

That's what she said, anyway. She was always saying things so fancy like that.

"Blood brother," I explain to him. "You're trying to say I'm not your blood brother, but I'm your real brother, and that's more important. All right?"

I wait for him to respond. But he doesn't. His head is turned away from me, and even though I know that this happened around six years ago and that Finn was wiping away a tear and trying hard not to let me notice, this Finn looks straight at me, and his eyes start to bleed.

"The Star of Cyclonia, Aerrow. It's yours, if you would have it."

I drop the wrench, and lean against the Skimmer's skeleton, looking the fake Finn up and down. For some reason, I'm not freaked out at all by the fact that Finn has no eyes. "What's that?" I ask him.

"Nothing of monetary value."

"Ah. Do I gotta go… look for it or something?"

"No. Lark will find it for you."

"OK. Is it like, important?"

"It's precious. It's worthless. It's needy. It's the future. It's nothing. It's a book, that could read from back to front or front to back, you could burn it or you could… write in it. Write over it. The words underneath mean only what it used to be. And if you can read those, you can truly know yourself."

"Write what?"

"The future. His future. Insignificant… or deadly."

"Aerrow!"

My eyes open and my limbs respond at once to my command, jerking in a motion like I was trying to rip the blankets off of me in bed to go run to Finn's room, in case he had a nightmare or maybe he-

My arm pulls, and the chain attached to my wrist goes taught with a jangle of metal dancing against metal.

Shit.

"Where are we?" I say in a low whisper, as fast as I can. My eyes sweep around the nondescript room, nondescript except for some weirdo machine in the corner. It looks like two chairs, with fastens for the arms and legs and chest and all sorts of wires, and a semi-transparent mirror wedged firmly between the two. Beside that, there's a window, with hastily welded bars canceling out the idea of using it as an escape. The walls are made of off-white plaster that's cracking in some places, and various pipes run from the ceilings, probably for heat or water. Finn doesn't respond at once so I tear my eyes away from the set up and look to him, shocked to see his spiky blond hair matted against his face, like we had been dragged through the rain or something, and one of his cheeks so swollen it puffed up over his left eye.

And he's crying.

"I… I saw you breathing but I didn't believe it," he says, gibbering between the faucet works. He bows his head- or more like just lets his whole body go limp, but since he's chained up so well the only part of him that can move is his head. And he keeps on crying, and then I remember:

I was dead.

"Finn," I say again, because I know our lives depend on him giving me straight answer.

"Where. Are. We?"

OoOoOo

Piper (the previous night, during the battle of Atmosia)

It seems someone else had been on the ship recently. More than half of the soldiers who were left after the crash had been taken care of already, and when I saw the claw marks and a body looking as though its hand had been chewed right off, I figured it must be Rave. But she didn't finish the job- either she was dead or… or she had left the ship again for some reason. So there were enough Talons to keep me and Repton busy, though we tried to mow through them and move towards the bridge as fast as we could, when we felt a succession of explosions I knew it could be only one thing.

"Aerrow!" I say, voice sobbing in a desperation almost like longing. He was always getting into danger like this. He was always throwing himself into the middle of things! I ran, knowing that Aerrow was in trouble. Knowing it with a woman's sixth sense, a mother's urge. Repton follows like a ghost behind me, silver claws thick with gore, and says nothing.

We charge towards the area we heard the explosion, Repton ripping through one of the automatic doors when the busted gears caught halfway. The first thing I see is Junko's large body on the floor and my heart breaks in fear but he lumbers to his feet like a living mountain, shaking himself vigorously. Smoke and small particles of light shimmer in the closed space, and then I see Lark sitting nearby, clutching her side with her pale face growing paler by the second. She sways, woozy, but her fierce eyes seek me out and let me know she's far from done.

"Where's Aerrow?" I say, fretting to and fro, torn between Junko and Lark so I pull towards Junko because he is familiar and I hold his head in my hands, standing on tiptoe to reach him. "Where's Finn? Nova? The Dark Ace? What happened?"

"Aerrow is the Dark Ace," Lark feels like pointing out, drawling and obnoxious.

"You know what I mean. Immer."

But she ignores me in favor of someone more interesting. "Hello, Repton," Lark says suddenly, focusing in on the lizard as he enters the room, single yellow eye sweeping about for Nova. He spots Lark and snarls.

"They took 'em…" Junko says, staring off into space, disbelief crippling him of rational thought. "They just… they just, vanished."

Cl-cli-click cl-cli-click-click-click.

"It reeks of Oblivion in this room," the Colonel complains, perhaps not aware that I squeak in fright when I see him. He whips out a scented kerchief to press against his nose.

"Colonel." Lark greets him with a nod, though it seems it was hard to do that and retain her balance. "Looks like you both arrived just in time. Excuse me if I don't stand up to greet you."

"You are bleeding quite profusely, my dear," the Colonel notes. Repton says nothing, merely bristles as he stands uncomfortably close to me. I can only watch this gathering of all my enemies, seeming to have joined my side. "I have a medic on board who would be more than happy to help."

"Send for him at once," she says, sounding a bit like her old, regal self. "And tell me, what's the state of the battle outside?"

"Well, it's going in your favor, assuming you truly don't count yourself a Cyclonian anymore."

That makes her red eyes crackle with energy, like a roaring fire. "On the contrary. I am the only true Cyclonian left," she corrects him stiffly. That's when the medic rushes in. He's wearing the signature lavender of the Colonel's cronies, and the gaudy gold necklace that marks him as being in the Colonel's inner circle. But what really stands out about him as he kneels before Lark and opens up his med bag is that he is a pure-blooded, white-furred Bangledon.

"Be gentle with her, Tora," the Colonel instructs him. "That's none other than Master Cyclonis you are treating."

"Ah, how odd," Tora says, moving Cyclonis's hand so he can see the wound. Her shirt- my shirt, really, since she was still borrowing my clothes- is torn on the side and the gash on her own side bleeds freely. "It would seem dictators bleed the same color as normal mortals." Deftly picking at the shrapnel with his claws, he pulls it out of her side and holds it up to the emergency lights, the only illumination there is in this wrecked flagship. Even the moon is dead tonight. Cyclonis never flinches as he sets aside the inch-long strip of metal and pulls out a pair of tweezers to get at the chunks too small for even his delicate claw tips. He patches her up, slapping gauze and all sorts of anti-inflammatory, stinging medicine to keep infection at bay.

"I only have my field kit," he apologizes to the girl, still on one knee and looking up at her. "That's all I can do for now."

"It will have to be enough. Help me up. Be my legs."

His tail twitches and he shoots an uncertain glance over at the Colonel. The man-thing shrugs and so Tora helps Lark up, supporting her weight on him. "We're to go outside," she tells him. "Find a ship that won't break down. And fly to Cyclonia."

"That's where they are… isn't it?" I ask her, feeling sick to my stomach.

She nods. "He used an Oblivion Crystal to teleport. And Aerrow… just so you know, he might be dead." She says it without emotion, simply slapping me with her truth. And then she curses under her breath, gritting her teeth and glaring at the floor, attempting to continue her stoic act as another wave of pain hits her.

The Colonel skitters over to her, one eyebrow raised. "I didn't know you and the Storm Hawks were… close."

"Things are changing. We have a mutual agreement of nonaggression," I explain because Lark looks on the verge of fainting.

"Lark helps us, we help her," Junko adds. "And what about you? Why'd you show up all of a sudden?"

The Colonel examines his claw tips and clears his throat, nodding at Tora. The bangledon understood it at once and speaks up. "The Colonel was approached by Nova, the previous Cyclonis and Dark Ace, earlier this month, asking for aid in a massive assault against Atmosia. Afterwards, the current Cyclonis Lark came into contact with us, also asking for aid, but in an endeavor to stop Nova and whatever his plans may be. Since Colonel owes Lark a favor, it was a simple matter of finding out when the attack would be and showing up to fight against him."

The Colonel grins ferociously at me. "And there you have it."

So it was only luck that we weren't fighting against Nova and the Colonel at once. I shudder, pressing myself close to Junko's side. "We…" Junko says slowly. "Um… thank you. Both of you," he says, to Lark and the Colonel.

"Painkillers," Lark says, completely ignoring Junko in favor prodding the medic with one hand. "Got any, Sawbones?"

OoOoOo

Stork.

One Month Ago.

The Storkmobile is right where I left it, three days ago. I shift my pack to rest more comfortably on my shoulders and stare at it, my mouth a firm line. Starling stands behind me in the doorway, arms crossed and leaning against the frame of the automatic sliders to keep them open, her green eyes burning into my back. I know all this because I can see her through the eyes of the ghosts all around us.

"Before you leave, Stork," she says, pulling a small orange tube out of one of her pockets and tossing it to me. I don't turn around, catching it behind my back before bringing it forward to see what it contained. It was a prescription bottle, with small green pills inside.

"…What's this?" I finally manage to ask the space in front of me, still unable to turn and face her. I still didn't know how I felt about her. What I would do if I looked at her was beyond me. "I'm not sick. And I certainly don't have…" I read what the pills are for. "Any need for this 'clonazepam' stuff."

"Ah, that's not clonazepam. That's just an old bottle I found lying around; I needed something to keep those pills in." She shrugs. "The pills I made myself, in one of my labs. I scanned your body while you were asleep, with a special machine the Terradons invented to look inside a person's body."

I clench the bottle tightly, hand into a fist. "What'd you find in there that I need medicine for?" I ask her, voice soft. And then it struck me, such a simple solution and one that I probably knew all along. I guess I just never had the technology to confirm it, despite all the tinkering in my room, all the monthly checks for bog fever or pig measles…

I turn to face her, eyes wide. "I am sick… aren't I?"

"Yes," she says.

"Oh," I say. "I see." I pause. "With what, exactly? I've felt it, but never…"

"The merlop clings to your system like cholesterol in a fat man's arteries." I snort at the allusion, but she continues. "That's what the drug tests found, what I thought was heroin or something worse was just merlop. It's stunted your growth considerably, interrupted hormonal signals… it's even coating the neurons in your brain. No doubt you and every other merb on Tenebria used merlop like Atmosians used aspirin, to have it at such dangerous levels."

True. But any cut could become infected at any moment, and even miraculous merlop could do nothing for infection or diseases. My eyelid twitches at the thought and I glance away from her to look at the floor, glaring at the dirt.

"So you're playing doctor," I say, and then shake the bottle she gave me, letting the medicine rattle. "What do these pills do?"

"They're formulated to slowly burn away at the merlop in your system. The only problem is, I don't know if that's a good thing. You might be dependent on the chemicals in merlop to survive at this point."

"So then why don't I just leave it be?"

"Because if you do, you'll be dead in five years." She walks over to me, forces my chin up. For some reason, I don't flinch when she touches me and makes me look at her green eyes. "That I can guarantee."

"Or my money back?" I brush her hand away, tired of her touching me.

"You're joking at a time like this?"

"Gallows humor. It's my specialty." My voice is dead-pan. No pun intended.

She shakes her head. "Since merlop is designed to rebuild flesh and reconstruct bone, it's truly a mystery why the merbs of Tenebria shrank instead of turning into huge amorphous monsters. But either way… they're not long lived, are they?"

"No, they're not," I have to admit. The oldest merb I knew, living back in Tenebria, was around forty. He was ancient, and crippled with pain from every step he took. Adulthood started at thirteen, and generally ended before the late twenties.

Her lips turn upwards in a thin, humorless smile. "Do you know what a cancer is, Stork?"

My breathing stops for a moment in time, heart fluttering. "Oh, shit…" I say, burying my face in my hands.

"It's an unregulated growth. And since growth is what merlop is all about…all this excess of filth in your system-"

"I know what cancer is, Starling!" I shout at her, pulling my face free. "Hell, I probably know more about it than most doctors do! That, and a million other calamities that could befall a merb living in constant-" I gasp for air- "-mortal-" I gasp again, feeling faint and tremble-y. "-peril!"

I wheeze at the end, so excited I'd lost track of my breathing patterns and gone completely astray. Starling slaps my back a few times as I start to cough, concern evident on her face. I slap her unwelcome hands away, eyelid twitching once more. "Oh, I'm not dying yet," I snap, "I'm fine. I'm fine. Leave me alone."

"If that's what you want, Stork," she says, stepping back. "The pills are yours to use as you wish. If you run out I could always make more. Just keep in mind that either way, you could very well die."

"So which way is the longest?" I wonder out loud in a dark mutter, rubbing at my sore chest with one hand. Starling doesn't have the answer, not that I expected one anyway. I fly off into the morning sun, headed back for the Condor and familiarity, if not utter safety.

There was simply nowhere else to go.

OoOoOo

During The Battle

I woke up just in time to see the sun die. So I stare at the fading pinks and golds and violets, on my back and dazed from the force of the impact. Then I feel the cold pressure of the lump that rests in the inner pocket of my trench coat and I remember what I have to do. I get up to my feet, cursing my lack of timing, cursing the fact that Starling and I only came when we heard the all-channels distress call directed from Atmosia.

And now it is night time, the worst time to go doing what I know I have to do. My legs shake until I regain control of them and then I'm walking, one hand resting inside my coat pocket to grip at the death I have in store for Olive.

The crash was… intense. Even the ghosts seem to be shocked, so I make my way through the hallways of the trashed Cyclonian flag ship in utter silence, mind filled with nothing but the task at hand.

OoOoOo

One Month Ago…

I fly well into the night, despite the danger of doing so. The only thing that stops me is a familiar pinging coming from my dashboard. The scanners on the Storkmobile send up a proximity alert, so I veer off to hide just under the cloud line as a huge Cyclonian cruiser floats over head, bristling with enough cannons to make Snipe proud. I gulp nervously, wondering if they were out on patrol or if they were on their way somewhere. I'd gotten so used to the sky being free of Cyclonians that I'd completely forgotten to keep a weather eye out for them. I look around, hoping to find some outcropping of rock to land and cut the engines, anything to remain unnoticed. A lone flier was dead out here. A lone Storm Hawk was even worse.

And yeah, there are things worse than death.

I find exactly what I'm looking for and watch the vague shape of the behemoth through the hazy yellow clouds, waiting for it to pass. But it stalls just above where I'm sitting, though I don't know if they saw me or if they're waiting for someone else. I grip the wheel tightly, prepared to run in case they started shooting. In the lull, I can't help but mull over what Starling told me. Though I technically was fine right now, in a few years I'd be just like that old merb, cancer eating me alive. I can try and treat it, but as long as the merlop stays in my system the sickness will simply continue to grow inside me.

But then, without merlop I might die even sooner, assuming my body has grown addicted to it, or has even developed around it somehow.

But then, with the merlop I…

It was an endless loop like that, and before I know it I've passed a whole hour waiting for the cruiser to leave the area. I tense in my seat, glaring up at the hated red shape, lit up by only a little sliver of moon and a handful of stars. "Cyclonian cancer," I find myself snarling to myself. This cruiser was like my sickness. I could wait for it to leave- which it won't, I realize by now- or I could cut it out.

Like a cancer.

My hand absently strays to one of the side compartments of my ride, clenching a few of my newest inventions: Stickums. They did what their name implied- namely, they stuck to the surface of objects, be it flesh or metal.

And then they explode.

My engines blaze to life and I rocket from the ground, an unnamable rage honing my reflexes so that when the cannons swivel towards me and blast off their rays of red death I barrel roll to the side, pressing the button for the missile launcher in response. I whiz by, the explosions causing the air to vibrate behind me and shake the controls. Once I get close enough to the engines I slap a stickum right onto the blazing hot surface, not even noticing the sizzling sound that was my hands being burned until a few moments after the fact, when I'm already at the next engine. Still dodging attacks and noticing that the hangar bay doors were opening to unleash whatever Talons were on board, I make my rounds around all the engines before I'm satisfied.

I hold the remote control to the stickums, and press the button to activate them as I fly away. The force of the blast almost knocks me from my ride, hot waves of air pushing me forward and tumbling head over feet along the air currents. Struggling to retain my control over the Storkmobile, I'm suddenly aware of a presence flying next to me. I can't do anything to dodge it, and so, expecting a Talon leering at me imagine my surprise when I see Starling's livid face as close to mine as she can manage without crashing our rides together.

"Are you insane?" she demands, voice shrill.

"Yes, thanks for noticing!" I snap back at her, arms shaking as I finally right the Storkmobile and whirl around to hover in place and see what damage I wrecked. I find that there had been a tense knot in my chest and at the sight of the falling, burning wreckage, it loosens. God, what a stress reliever! I shudder in relief, slumping over the controls of the Storkmobile with my hands over the back of my head.

"Stork?"

I ignore her.

"Stork, are you all right?"

"No." I flinch away from her when she tries to put a soothing hand on my shoulder, jerking the Storkmobile to the side with my aching hands. "Why did you follow me?"

"I was afraid you'd do something stupid," she says, voice bitter. "I see now I was right, though a lot of good it did."

"Something stupid…" I repeat slowly, turning the words around until they came out to what they were supposed to be: "Something suicidal?"

"…Yeah."

"That wasn't a suicide mission," I reassure her with a grim tone, arms still shaking. "That was a preemptive strike." And then I reach inside my bag and pull out one of the small green pills she gave me, swallowing it dry without taking my eyes off the blazing skeleton that lit up this dead night.

That was when something barreled right into me, knocking me from my ride to fall down towards the Wasteland waiting below. I scream, but it's cut short when the person who knocked me over punches me in the gut. I kick out at her as best as I could while falling, the wind pressure making havoc on my movements, and she latches on to my leg, swiping at it with her claws, tail buffeting at my face.

"You- little-!" I somehow manage to huff out, pulling a wrench from my belt and slamming her across the cheek with it. She lets go of me and goes limp, and while Starling dives down to pick me up on her ride, my attacker falls like a rock down into the Wastelands.

When we pull up I'm struggling against Starling to fall after her, scrabbling like a mad man to get in one last blow even though Olive is far from where my hands could harm her. When I completely lose sight of her I go slack in Starling's arms, splayed across her lap and my head hanging down over the side of her Slip Wing, laughing helplessly as the winds buffet my hanging arms around.

"I can't believe it," I choke, the blood rushing to my head as she flies me back to the waiting Storkmobile. "Olive was on that cruiser- fell out-" the rest is lost in more laughter at my older sister's predicament, my older sister who simply refuses to die.

OoOoOo

During The Battle.

"Olivia Dogwood!"

One foot slams down on the wrecked floor of the flagship, arms outstretched at my sides and my hands empty. Another foot- three-toed- metal-plated- clenching at a fallen pipe to thrust it aside and take another step, my mouth splitting in a silent animal snarl.

"Olivia Dogwood, it's time to meet your death!"

I stop in front of the doors to what can only be her rooms, the ones that the schematics had said were always kept dark. And the doors open almost as soon as I had stopped, and there is Olive, ragged and violent. Her shoulders are hunched and her mouth open to catch in air, chest rising visibly with the effort to keep breathing, and her head is lowered so that her solid white eyes glare up only at me and nothing else, hands clenched at her side.

"You don't have to shout," she says. "I'm right here."

She kicks aside a scrap of metal plating in her way and stalks up to me, lifts herself up to her full height and even stands on the tips of her gruesome foot claws and only comes up to my chest.

"Olive," I say to her, soft because I knew she was right there, close enough so that a whisper was enough. "I hope you know that I am your death."

"Just like last time? Back home?" she asks with the hint of a sneering smile. Milky white eyes focus in on mine. They must have turned that color after dying so many times. It startles me that I can't remember what color her eyes used to be, until I think of Piper's amber orbs and I remember. They were somewhere around the same shade, only with more yellow and less orange.

"Yeah. Only this time, you're not getting a second chance at life. You've had far too many."

"I've been waiting for this day, brother. I have a feeling this is it, and I won't accept anything less than the very worst of you."

"OK," I agree.

She slaps me backhanded across the face, and that's what starts it.

OoOoOo

One Month Ago.

"I'm not going to stop until I find her," I say, pacing back and forth in front of a spire of rock, down in the Wastelands. Starling keeps looking over her shoulder, on constant alert for any of the beasts that live down here, but at this point I could really care less. The spire of rock had a scrap of Olive's clothing, and was soaked in blood. The most likely thing that had happened was that Olive had fallen and impaled herself on it, but the only problem was that there was no body.

I circle the rock now, staring at it as though it would give me the answers I need. I know death very well, and no one can lose the amount of blood I see on the floor and live to talk about it. Certainly not while in the Wastelands.

"Something probably just took the body and ate it," is Starling's perfectly reasonable answer, only I don't buy it. I just don't think Olive could fall by any hand other than my own. Self-centered, I know, but it's just how I feel.

"That's logic," I say to her. "Since when have humans ever been moved by mere logic?"

"You're not a human," she reminds me.

"Oh, but I am. To Olive, I am. And to you, I am a merb. Isn't that just fucked up?" I stop to pull at my lank, greasy green hair, still shivering every now and then. It might be paranoia, but I think my sickness might be catching up to me already. My hands still hurt, too, and my green skin is turning red and peeling from the burns they had suffered. I need to get those treated soon- and under normal circumstances, I would have been panicking, but now that I have an actual sickness to deal with all those other hypochondriac thoughts that always plagued my mind seem so silly.

"Stork, you should come back to my place," Starling says, probably thinking the same things I am. "You need to rest. You look like you're about to collapse; you've been through a lot of stress."

"More than half of it was caused by you," I remind her, snark in my voice. Perhaps she forgot that she had kept me strapped to a table for almost forty eight hours, 'for my own good'. Then again, I did try to kill her…

"Stork…"

She pulls me away from the rock that should have killed my sister, and I don't resist. Something about her touch is familiar in an old way, like how a smell can sometimes make you feel a memory, even if you can't remember what it was. Starling leads me to my ride and then walks to her own, pulling up into the sky. I follow her.

"Did you see her eyes…?" I murmur to no one. "She's like a bat.. Blind as a bat but she still saw me…"

OoOoOo

"Change into these," Starling says when we arrive at her house. I only notice then that my clothes are trashed from my scuffle in the air.

"Aw, man…" I say, looking down at my Storm Hawks uniform. "Can't you just patch these up?"

"Sure. But unless you want to stay naked that entire time-"

"OK, OK." I lift up my hands for peace, and take the Interceptor uniform.

True to her word, Starling patched up my uniform, had it ready the next day in fact. I wore them with relief evident on my face, because Starling said, "What, was the other one uncomfortable?"

"No," I answer, "But this X?" I gesture to the adorning piece of metal that was emblazoned across my chest. "It's made from a piece of the Condor. So I can keep her with me wherever I go."

"Boy, you are in love with that ship."

"Yeah," I say unabashedly, stroking the X with love in my caresses. "By the way, when you scanned my body- you haven't seen any tumors yet, have you? I mean, I check for tumors every other weekend, but..."

"No," she reassured me. "No tumors yet."

"Oh." I shift, uncomfortable with what I'm about to say next. "And… do you think I could stay here a little longer?"

Starling's eyebrows rise up.

"Even if you're a danger to me… I still feel I'm a greater danger to my friends. Especially now that I know Olive is out there."

"Right. Even though she fell from halfways up the stratosphere…"

"That, is an exaggeration."

"No one can survive a fall that high."

"She can. I know she can. She's going to keep on coming back and coming back until I find a way to keep her dead."

"And you're the only one that can do it?" she guesses dryly.

"You're damn right I am," I say fiercely, daring her to contradict me again.

She doesn't. Instead, she goes to make a room ready for me in her lonely, empty little house.

OoOoOo

During The Battle.

I slam against the wall of the ship and my head cracks against the metal, causing stars to erupt all across the black, bleak landscape of the battlefield that I can see through a gaping hole in the ceiling. Olive lands on top of me, clawed feet screeching against the steel plates on my stomach and her hands reach for my throat. I slap them away frantically, turning to the side and pushing off from the wall with all my force, landing with her beneath me and the spikes on my shoulder pushing through the rags she called clothing and into her stomach. The wounds heal almost as soon as they are made, and it's only through massive effort that I pull them free before the wounds heal around the spikes and trap me there, a sitting duck. I hold her face far from mine, trying to keep her snapping jaws from biting off the tip of my nose, and lift up one flexible foot to grasp at her hand as it moves to swipe her claws at me. In response she grips at my legs with both her feet, claw tips wrenching aside the metal plating that covers my knees and then clenching hard down on the exposed flesh.

I yelp, thrusting her aside and scrambling to my feet. She does the same, shaking herself all over like a dog before lunging at me again. I roll to the side, coming up with a pair of poison needles Starling had given me, all a part of the total espionage packet that came with wearing the Interceptor uniform. I throw them at her and Olive jerks to a halt, swiping them aside with one clawed hand before picking up a pipe from the floor and swinging at my head with it. I duck, and then spring forward to head butt her right in the stomach, my teeth ripping at her. Every wound heals just as fast as I make it, and while I'm covered in bleeding scrapes and bruises she's still just as fresh as I had seen her when this fight started.

Starling and I- because Starling and I had indeed seen her one more time after the Interceptor declared her dead and gone- had come to the conclusion that her unnatural rebirth gave her these powers of morphallaxis, probably feeding off the excess of merlop in her system, the same excess I had but could never utilize to my benefit.

"I get cancer, she gets superpowers. Great," I said as Starling bandaged my wounds and helped me pull my tattered uniform off once more. I had just come back from the Condor, and was so preoccupied by the unwelcome Cyclonis staying in my room I hadn't noticed the Switchblade until it was too late.

Starling was kneeling, one hand on my lap and looking up at me like a trusting child. "Are you all right?" she asks me, solemn as she applies a bandage to the gouges on my leg. I don't think anyone's ever touched me as much as she has, and strangely enough I didn't mind it as the weeks went by, living together.

So I told her the truth, because no one had ever gained my trust so fast. "No. I don't think I'll ever be all right."

Once more, I couldn't help but remember those milky white eyes.

"You know those spikes on the male uniform?" she asked me suddenly, pointing at the shoulder plate.

"Yeah?" I touched them briefly with my fingertips, careful not to make contact with the points. They were razor sharp.

"On this particular suit, at the very least…" She pauses, face unfathomable to me as she looks down at nothing, green eyes seeing nothing but a memory..

"Yeah?" I prompt, to snap her out of her reverie.

"They're made from the Condor, too," she finishes, and then she touches me again. Like a mother soothing her child.

I grab her throat, try to throttle her, but her small hands punch and slash at my chest, ripping the plates of armor right off of me and opening up red ribbons along my upper torso, kicking and spitting and hissing like a wild animal. One of her fists connects with my cheek and I let go of her once more. She rolls so that she's on top of me now, and forcing my shaking limbs to respond I roll again, pinning her down with all four of my limbs gripping each of hers and we reach a panting, sweat-drenched, silent standstill.

She glares up at me, spits in my face. I don't blink. "We can't stay like this forever," she says at last, almost bitter.

"I don't have to," I say. "I just have to wait until morning."

She stiffens, and with that movement she signs her own death warrant, let me know that all my guesswork was correct- as it usually was. I let go of her and reach inside my torn and tattered trench coat, pulling out her death faster than even her animal instincts can react.

I pull out the Solaris crystal and I shine it right in her face. The sound of her screams fill the empty space between us, and around us, and even inside us. Or at least inside me, because I can feel the vibration of the awful sound shaking me to the very core. "You see this?" I manage to shout above her noise, trembling with the entirety of what I was doing. "This is called torture, Olive! This is what they did to my father!" I press closer, thrusting the crystal up to her face.

I almost retch at the memory of my father squirming on the ground like she's doing right now, but I steel myself against her suffering and watch every horrible moment of her skin turning black and sloughing off the bones only to form up again, her regenerative powers working against her now, rebuilding her nerve centers just as fast as they disintegrate against the power of raw sunlight.

When the Solaris crystal runs out of power- hours later- she's a charred, black mess, the surface of her skin cracked like volcanic earth to reveal the crimson red flesh underneath. Even now she's regenerating, but so much slower than she had before. Either her powers were an act of willpower and the torture weakened her ability to pull together her thoughts long enough to heal at once, or that excess of merlop in her system had been all used up. Either way, she was as good as dead.

I sit back, trembling again, horrified at what I had done to her.

And sickeningly pleased.

I'm tempted to toss the crystal aside, but I know what Piper will do with me if I do, so I tuck it back inside my coat pocket and scoot away from the black, crumbling thing that is my sister. I watch her slowly heal back to her normal self over the remaining hours of the night, listen to the sounds of the battle rage outside with a tired sort of fear in my heart. I think I spent all my real fear fighting Olive.

I look up at the hole in the ceiling, see the first and last star, the morning star. Venus shines brightly but not for long, not if the sun has anything to say about it. The sky is red and pink, staining the clouds so that it seems almost fake. She speaks in the silence, the red light staining her brown-green skin until it's just about the ugliest color I've ever seen on a person, merb or human.

"Yeah," she says, pale eyes seeking me out, chest rising and falling in short little gasps.

"Yeah… what?" I ask her, huddled in a corner farthest from her, peering at her from the upward flaps of my trench coat and from under my shield of lank green hair.

"Yeah it's my fault your dad died. That damn human female- she came by again, years later, looking for you in our jungle. Hibiscus defended her. Said, 'oh, don't kill her, let her wander and see for herself that this is no place for humans.' It was perfect. I used it- used her- used your father's own words to destroy him. And I'd do it again, too." She lets her head fall back, done with her confession. Only not. "You were mine, Snow…fire. No one else… could have you… but me…" her eyes close, a helpless, shivering grin spreading across her face. "…and you know it."

I get up.

Her breathing is laborious as she struggles to finish one last sentence without stopping. "And no one else ever will."

I start to walk away.

"With every fiber of my body…" she says, gasping a little at the smarting pain as the sun begins to shine brighter, this dark red morning. She writhes on the floor, upper body rising while her head tilted back, the crown of it on the floor. She fell back to the ground with a thump, crying, "I swear it. I curse you, Stork Snowfire! No one… will ever have you… but me! No one- will- where- where… are you… going?" she says to my retreating back, voice panicky, perhaps because of my lack of proper response to her overly dramatic proclamations.

"I thought I wanted to watch you die, but I've seen enough death to last me a lifetime." I step forward, face towards at the lightening sky as I walk away.

I don't want to see what happens next.