The Talon Hawks' plan

"Alright, now that we're one team," Piper said, standing at the meeting table. "We need a plan to get what is ours back."

"First, though, what we need is a team name," Finn put in. "Might I suggest," he struck a pose. "The Finn and the Finn Wannabes?"

"How about Finn and the people who are going to maul him if he doesn't keep his mouth shut?"

Finn flinched at Dark Ace's suggestion. "Ugh, no. Too… um, long."

"Aaaaaanyways…" Piper pointed down to her map. "I was thinking that we could maybe use a cloaking crystal, not that I have one, to sneak onto the terra. If there are any guards by the windows, then we could easily take them out with little or no noise behind the rocks here."

Cyclonis leaned over the sketch of her former Cyclonia. "Yes, there are many jagged rocks with many places to hide in the southwestern side. We could easily slip in through the windows on that side." She pointed them out. "They're high up, so they're no usually guarded."

"And then what?" Aerrow asked, propping up his head on the table.

"And then," Piper stepped back from the table with a defeated look. "I have no idea!"

"Neither do I," Cyclonis sighed. "We've spent, like, four hours, trying to come up with a plan that has more than a ten percent of actually succeeding."

"What's the ten percent probability?"

Cyclonis shrugged. "We just sneak in and somehow make our way to where ever your wallop friend and pilot are."

"So, in other words," Aerrow mused. "We just make it up as we go?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Oh yeah, and then your pilot, who is now the master of Menaphisiem and quite a few terras, will kill us as soon as we set foot inside," Dark Ace said bitterly. "The place is crammed full of Talons. You don't need to be there to see that."

"Alright then, we somehow get inside, make it down unseen to where Junko and St-Menaphis are, and now we're face to face with them," Aerrow said. "Then what?"

"Um… we… fight?" Piper offered.

"But that would set off an alarm," Dark Ace sighed, feeling that he was the only sane one present.

"But how did we get inside?" Cyclonis asked, confused.

"We snuck inside."

"How?"

"I dunno! How did we get in the first time?"

"Finn and Junko got in through the imported bins of doughnuts," Aerrow recalled.

"I shut down all the imports and started to make my resources after I found out how you got inside," Cyclonis said. "I doubt Menaphis would be dumb enough to reopen them."

Aerrow went on. "Finn and I once snuck in as engineers."

Again Cyclonis denied it. "I created a special training class to create my own engineers. Menaphis wouldn't stop such a production."

"And Menaphis, since he was once Stork, wouldn't fall for our Talon or animal disguises," Piper said. She stared at the map for a moment, and then collapsed into the seat beside Cyclonis. ""I've got nothing!"

Aerrow slammed his fist into this palm, the determined we're-going-on-a-dangerous-mission look on his face. "Then I guess we're going to go with the make it up as we go plan. I don't think we should wait. We're as rested as could be, no help is going to come, and there's no point in trying to fix the Condor stranded like this. Let's get our battle gear together!"

Dark Ace straightened as Aerrow said that. "You're just going to dive headfirst into a ninety percent chance of failure? Are you people crazy?"

Aerrow thought about it. "Um… yeah. And lucky!"

"Even though our luck seems to have failed us lately," Piper sighed, heading for her room.

"I've got it!" Finn shouted, slamming his fist on the table. "It's perfect!"

They all perked up. "You have a plan?"

Finn's face screwed up at the misunderstanding. "Heck no! I've got a team name! The Talon Hawks! Eh? Eh?"

"Finn…" Piper groaned. Radarr shook his head.

"Hmm…" Aerrow stroked his chin. "Kinda catchy."

"Nearly half of our airships have been disguised as pirate cruisers, crystals are poring in by the ton, my men are as happy as can be, and the pirates are getting all the blame," Menaphis said, walking along the dock with Runn. The Master stopped beside a bucket of flame crystals and ran his claws gently across them. "Could anything be going more perfectly?"

"No, sir," Runn said smartly, his eyes shining adoringly. "You're flawless!"

"I know," Menaphis purred. "But where would I be without friends like you?"

Runn's face shined with glee.

"Sir!" A Talon strutted up and saluted. "The newest squadron has arrived."

"Thank you, Jared," Menaphis said, bending his long neck in a nod. "Bring them here."

Jared turned and waved to a group of six to come toward them. The strangers left their skimmers and approached boldly.

"I thank you for becoming the eighth sky knight squadron to join Menaphisiem," Menaphis said smoothly. "How is your terra, Merduri, sky knight of the Gold Falcons?"

"Oh, Terra Snowgra is better than ever now that it's part of Menaphisiem, master," Merduri said coldly. "And I think I'll go under the name of Stajj again."

Menaphis nodded. "As you wish. Repton, Snipe, and Ravess are at the entrance. They will lead you to your new quarters."

Stajj smiled, which was more like a sneer. "Thank you, master.

The Menaphisiem airship Thunder run pulled into the docks between two other carriers and the landing crew caught her ropes and made fast to the posts. The ship's original red and black hull was now black, green, and had white skulls and crossbones splotched crudely on her sides. Her crew, Talons disguised as filthy pirates, lowered the ramp and began pushing their stolen cargo down to the landing group, who loaded the cargo into carts to be taken to Menaphisiem's storage rooms.

A Talon pirate shoved a bin down the ramp and turned to a box on his right. It was unusually large than the rest of the cargo. He wrapped his arms around a corner and tugged as hard as he could, grunting with exertion. The box wouldn't budge.

"Victor," he called to a companion. "Help me out with his one, will ya?"

Together they managed to push the box to the ramp and tipped it until it slid down. The box nearly toppled as it hit the bottom, but something within its wooden boards shifted and it righted itself.

The leader of the landing crew adjusted his cap to peer at the large box. "We'll take this one on the next round with the rest, boys. Just leave it there for now."

Backs turned and the loaded carts wheeled away slowly farther down the docks. The Talon pirates set to work on helping the crew beside them. The box was left by the ramp, ignored.

"Alright, on the count of three…" came a voice from inside. "One… two… three!"

The lone Talon, who had remained behind on the Thunder run, straightened from rummaging through a bin at the sound of the voice. He glanced over at the box. "What the...?"

The box suddenly lifted seemingly all by itself and appeared to float in midair in the shadow of the airship. The Talon gawked at it, and then his eyes rolled up and he fainted with a wump on the dock floor.

"Alright, forward, march!" the voice said quietly.

The five pairs of legs, protruding through holes carved in the bottom of the box, jostled and tangled, each pair attempting to go their own way.

"Stop! Stop!" the voice whispered. "I said forward!"

"Which way is forward?" a girl hissed.

The box shifted. "Um… that way?"

"How do you know? Do you want us to fall off the edge?"

"Just a sec. Radarr, give me the drill."

There was a buzz and the drill's point punctured the box's side. It wiggled around to widen the hole and then withdrew back inside. Someone blew the wooden shavings away and a green eye peered out.

"Well?" came an impatient boy's voice. "What do you see?"

"Oh, yeah. We're definitely here!" The green eye darted from ship to ship to the Talons to the castle looming over them like a mammoth black icicle. "We need to go left so that we'll stay out of sight and can get inside unnoticed."

"Oh yeah, Aerrow," said someone sarcastically who sounded like Finn. "No one would notice a walking box with ten legs."

"Follow my directions and that won't happen," Aerrow growled. "Now go left."

"Your left or my left?"

"My left."

"Why your left?"

"Because if we're facing opposite ways, Finn, then it would be the right to you."

"Ah," Finn said. Pause. "Eh?"

The other four pairs of legs shuffled left, dragging Finn's along. Aerrow pressed his eye to the peephole, watching the dock floor beneath them. "A little right… a little more… left… not too much… a bit more… now right… left… right… right… I said right!"

The carts were rolling back toward the Thunder run. The sky knight didn't see them.

"Stopstopstop! Alright, now go left, that's right, Finn… more… we're almost behind the next ship…" He caught a glimpse of Talons waving to the approaching carts. "Crud! Drop! Play dead!"

The legs popped back into the box and it dropped to the deck with a clunk, five yards away from where it had been set down.

The captain of the landing crew dismounted the first cart and gestured toward the airship. "Get out the remaining bins and put them with the others. Make sure the really big one is at the bottom."

"Um, sir?" A Talon kicked the fainted Talon's arm lightly.

The captain grabbed the fainted Talon by the front of his uniform and shook him awake. "Laying around on the job, Arnold?"

Arnold raised a trembling hand and pointed at the box, his eyes wide in disbelief. "G-G-Ghost box!"

The captain glanced from the Talon to the box. "Why did you move it way over there? Were you trying to push it over the edge?"

"But… but…" Arnold stammered to explain.

"Todd, take this idiot to the storage room to work. Maybe a few hours of reality away from the sun will clear his head of silly hallucinations," the captain said, whacking the unfortunate on the back of the head. "Really, ghost boxes? What's next, vampire kitchen pans?"

As the poor Talon was lead away, the others laid a net on the dock floor and pushed the heavy box onto it. A hook was lowered from a nearby crane and the Talons tossed the net's ends onto it. The crane lifted and soon the box was swaying high over the docks.

"What's happening?!" a girl inside squeaked.

"Finn! Get your butt out of my face!"

"Gah! Who has their foot in my gut?"

"Who's tail is this?"

"Raaawr!"

Aerrow, plastered to the box's floor at the bottom of the pile, watched the world far below swing back and forth through a leg hole. He resisted the urge to bring his breakfast up for a visit.

"That's it! Nice and easy!" The captain directed the crane to swing the box over to dangle it above the first cart. "Now release!"

The hook dropped and the box fell with a crash into the cart's huge metal bin. Talons yanked the net from under the box and went back to the ship for another load.

"You call that nice and easy?" Finn grumbled.

Piper elbowed him aside and looked through a crack between two boards. "I can't tell where we are. All I can see is sky."

Dark Ace tapped the side of the box and there came a slight ringing sound. "We're inside one of those metal bins of the loading carts. I should know, I helped design them."

"Great," Aerrow muttered, searching around in the darkness for the drill. He found it, and drilled another hole in the wooded ceiling. He cleaned it free of shavings and peered through it. "Yep. That's where we are. Stand back."

The sky knight activated a blade and began to saw a hole. Now that inside was lit in blue light, Finn slapped Dark Ace's foot from his side. "So that's who had his foot in my gut."

Piper couldn't help but smile at Cyclonis. "Wow, now that you're on our side, I can actually think of you as a real friend! Maybe we'll get really close!"

Finn tried to squeeze from between Aerrow and Dark Ace, gasping for fresh air. "Oh yeah. We're all closer than ever!"

Sawdust rained down on them and a large chunk of wood fell in. Aerrow poked his head out. "Wow, this bin is really deep. We can't get out of here without getting attention from the entire dock."

"Then what do we do?" Cyclonis whispered fearfully.

Aerrow pulled his head back in and pressed the chunk of wood to the hole. "Sit tight and wait to be unloaded. We might have a chance since we're at the bottom."

As if to prove his point, the bin shook and they were bump roughly. So many boxes were piled on top of them; they feared that the wood would give.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of breathless waiting, the cart started with a jolt and they were slowly carried away.

It was darker than ever inside. The five (six if including Radarr) huddled shoulder to shoulder in the tight space, their breathing the only sounds beside the soft rumble of the cart's engine and the creaking of the wood all around them.

"I sure hope this driver knows what he's doing," Finn whispered, his eyes glancing around blindly in the blackness. "I'd hate to suddenly feel the ground beneath the wheels vanish."

"I don't think the driver would be dumb enough to drive right off the edge of the dock, Finn," Piper said reassuringly. "Now, if it was you who's driving…"

"I'd dump this lousy load and go to Terra Ray," Finn mumbled miserably.

Aerrow put his hand on what he thought was Finn's shoulder, which was actually Dark Ace's. "We'll go to Terra Ray after we work this out."

"If we ever do," Finn sighed. After that came an uncomfortable silence.

The silence was broken by Cyclonis. "I feel so bad."

"Why?" Piper turned to her new friend in the darkness, concerned.

"I was the master of Cyclonia, an evil alliance who went around hurting innocent people and taking over terras and terrorizing all of Atmos," Cyclonis said sadly. "Now that I'm a completely different person, I can look back and realize that what I've done is so much like a… a… a monster!"

"Don't say that," Piper comforted her, hugging her closely. "You're not her anymore."

"Um… Piper?" Finn gasped, stiff as a board in Piper's arms. "You're hugging the wrong person here!"

"Gah!" Piper recoiled in disgust.

"Well, then," Cyclonis said hesitantly. "If I'm not her anymore… can I be called Lark again?"

Piper immediately perked up. "Um, sure. Yeah. It's perfect!"

"Shhh!" Aerrow waved for silence, feeling the engine of the cart slow. "I think we're stopping."

The cart halted. Slowly the Talon Hawks (Finn's squadron name, ain't it perty?) felt the metal bin rise.

"What are they doing?" Finn yelped. "Why are we going up?"

"I sure hope they aren't doing what I think they're doing…" Cyclonis, now Lark, whimpered.

The bin tipped and all the boxes inside pored out like water. The Talon Hawks' box landed on the top of the giant pile of previous unloadings and bounced. They landed hard and slid down the pile, yelling at the top of their lungs.

Not far from the heap from boxes, a Talon looked at another Talon. "Fred, do you hear something?"

His companion shook his head. "No George."

They finally came to the bottom of the heap and hit an extremely heavy box head on. They flipped over and came down with a crash and a splinter of wood.

"Is everyone alright?" Aerrow groaned, at the bottom of the pile of moaning bodies again.

But, before anyone could answer, Piper gasped. They looked over at her and saw that she was crouching at the side of the box, looking out through a crack in the box's side.

Aerrow wiggled out from under Finn and knelt beside her. "What? What is it?"

Piper didn't even twitch. "You all have to see this."

"Alright then," Dark Ace wretched the crack wide enough for them all to peer through. They crowded side by side and looked to where Piper was staring. And all the hope and strength they held in the fiber of their being faded.

Stork stood nearly fifteen feet tall, his neck five times it's normal length and width, his chest and torso long and lean, his legs just as long and curved like a cat's, and a long tail slithered around his feet. Sharp fangs the size of Aerrow's little finger curved from under his lip and his black hair grew long and full from his forehead down to his shoulders. Needle-like spines protruded from his spine from the bent horns on his head to the tuft of black fur at the tip of his tail, gleaming ivory on the unusually sunny day. His fingernails were twice as long and were razor sharp like black hooks. Stork's four toes were long and ended in sharp tips, the merb's thumb toe high on his leg. Thousands of small scales sparkled beneath his short green fur like polished gems, catching the sunlight as mirrors do.He was with a sky squadron group, talking with them.

"Is… is that… Stork?" Finn's words came out as a raspy rush of air.

"The wrath crystal changes one's appearance to match that of their mind," Lark whispered breathlessly. "But I had no idea…"

"That's not all."

They tore their shocked eyes from Stork to where Aerrow knelt, his eyes glued on the sky squadron talking with their former friend. "The man in the front is Merderi, also known as Stajj."

"You're right," Piper agreed after a moment. Her tone became angry. "Those treacherous scum! They really are evil even without the effects of the morphing crystal!"

"Stajj," Lark repeated. "Yes. That is him. I remember what he looked like before I gave him the crystal."

All farther talking was stifled as Dark Ace abruptly turned and tore a plank out of the back of their box. The Talon waved them out. "Hurry up. Get behind the pile of boxes. We can't stay any longer or we'll end up in the storage room."

They ran from the box, keeping low and running fast, praying with everything they had that no one would turn and see them. Luckily all the Talons were occupied and didn't notice.

Dark Ace gestured them to crouch behind the pile, glanced about hurriedly, and then took off in a fast sprint for the castle itself. The others followed.

"Hey!" A Talon only had a chance to look up and see them dashing madly toward him before Dark Ace dealt him a swift blow in the neck that sent him sinking to the deck, unconscious.

The Dark Ace flattened himself against the castle's side, hiding in the shadows. Aerrow threw himself beside him. "Great. We're here. Now what?"

The Talon kicked at a crack at his feet and a small door swung open at the base. Aerrow gaped at it. "Oh."

"Get in!" Dark Ace held it open, casting hasty glances over his shoulder as they filed in, and then ducked inside himself.

Piper coughed and waved at a spider web. "Ugh, what is this place?"

Dark Ace brushed past her. "It's a secret tunnel dug by myself. I thought it would come in handy one day or another."

"It sure did," Lark said in relief, following him down the dark tunnel.

Dark Ace lead the way though the dim, dusty, airless burrow. "This isn't far from Cyclonis' old throne room. The exit or entrance is right below her chair."

He stopped. Where they were appeared to be a dead end, but then they saw that it continued upwards. Dark Ace grasped the first rung and held out his hand to Lark. She took it shyly.

The climb was a short one. Soon Dark Ace pushed the chair covering the opening aside and they were out. Aerrow helped Piper onto her feet and couldn't help but shudder. The last time he was in the room he was now, he destroyed the Aroara Stone and Cyclonis' storm engine. Not a happy memory.

Dark Ace leaped down the staircase and approached the giant double doors at the end of the cavern. He pressed an ear to it and listened. A moment passed, and then Dark Ace turned to them, confused. "I don't understand. The hall behind these doors should be crammed full of activity."

"Why? What's wrong?" Aerrow joined him.

There was no sound at all.

Eyebrows set in a determined expression, the sky knight took the handle and opened a door just the tiniest crack. He peered through it, and then opened it farther. "What the..?"

The entire hall was abandoned. Dark Ace brushed past Aerrow and walked the length of the hall until he stood before the grand hall, the very heart of commotion. He stood like a statue, the blood drained from his face. Slowly he turned.

"No one. They know we're here."

I tried to make this chapter longer. U like it? I do. I think this is the best chapter so far besides my first one, the one I accidentally deleted and can't get it back on without totally redoing it. Sigh. Anyways, tell me if it's any good. I'm a first time author and I don't really know what sounds good and what doesn't. I guess that comes with experience. Luv Storkie : p