Okay, so I have been supper excited for this chapter. Because all of you have watched the show, if not go watch it, I am mainly going to focus on Aerrow's visions. I don't want to waste time, and energy on trying to do everyone's visions. So without further ado, here is chapter 9.
Siren's Song
"No!" Aerrow shouted as he jumped onto his skimmer and set off after Dark Ace. "Let her go!" he roared as he stayed hot on Dark Ace's heels.
"Aerrow!" Adrianna screamed from where she was tied up on Dark Ace's skimmer. She struggled in vain against her bonds as she was forcibly taken deeper into the Great Expanse. "Let go of me!" she shouted at Dark Ace.
"You want her?" Dark Ace taunted as he flew in front of Aerrow. "Come and get her!"
"Adrianna!" Aerrow shouted as he flew as fast as he could after Dark Ace. "Adrianna! I'm coming!"
Aerrow woke with a start. He had been having the same dream since he and the other Storm Hawks had entered the Great Expanse. He had been having the same dream over and over again because he had felt guilty for leading his team into the Great Expanse and for letting Dark Ace get away with Adrianna. He felt like a failure.
Sighing to himself, Aerrow sat up in his bunk. He grabbed his clock, hoping that the hands had finally stopped spinning around in circles aimlessly. But to his dismay, they were still spinning around in circles. Things were being to frustrate him. 'How was he supposed to fight the Dark Ace and rescue his older sister if he couldn't get his team out of the Expanse?' he thought to himself as he stood up.
"Come on Aerrow, you've gotta keep everyone going," Aerrow said to himself as he walked out of his room.
He decided that he would first go and check on Stork. The Merb could be a little paranoid and over dramatic at times, so it was best to see how he was doing first.
"Hey Stork, how's it going?" Aerrow asked as he walked up to the helmsmen.
Stork grunted in reply before turning to glare daggers at the nonfunctioning equipment. "You know, same old same old," Stork finally said.
"Any idea what that thing is yet?" Aerrow asked as he looked out one of the large windows to look at the giant, blue, swirling tornado.
"Something I keep steering away from," Stork said in an angry, annoyed toned.
"But it keeps getting closer?" Aerrow pointed out in a very confused manner.
"Yea, weird," Stork said very creepily as he turned to face Aerrow.
With that, Aerrow took his leave. Stork was starting to creep him out, so he thought that it was best to give the pilot some space.
Next Aerrow visited Finn. To say Finn had lost it would be an understatement. The poor guy seemed to be driven insane over the fact that he couldn't listen to Nimrods play. Offering a weak, "Go Nimrods!" Aerrow made his escape to go speak with Junko.
"How we doing on supplies?" Aerrow asked, hoping for a shred of good news.
"I found Stork's emergency rations," Junko said.
Aerrow's heart became excited for about a second before he realized Junko's tone. If Junko sounded that disheartened, it could only mean one thing was in those crates. "Please tell me that's not-" Aerrow said as Junko pried open a crate.
"Yep, Merb cabbage," Junko said as he looked at the smelly, green plant.
Aerrow tried to plug his nose from the fowl stench to keep himself from getting sick. "This just keeps getting better and better," Aerrow said as he left the kitchen area to go find Piper. He was hopeful that she had some better news.
"You're just in time," Piper said excitedly as Aerrow entered her work space. "I think I finally found a way to counter the effects of this place."
"I knew you would come up with something Piper," Aerrow said as relief washed over him. His relief was short lived as Piper started to counteract the effects. It seemed as if it was working, which was until the thing went haywire and exploded. Not knowing what to say, Aerrow quietly left the room.
Last but not least, Aerrow went to check on Radar, who had been searching the horizon for the sun and maybe even the stars.
"Anything?" Aerrow asked hopefully.
Radar looked away from the horizon and whimpered, signifying that he hadn't. For a moment, as they were talking, the sun set and the stars started to peak through the clouds. Hope filled Aerrow as he told Radar to plot their location. But his hope was short lived as the stars quickly vanished.
At dinner that night, all of them sat around the table talking about their situation. Stork was happily eating his cabbage and explaining that none of their navigation equipment was working, but there might be another way. He explained that if they used markers of their own, they might be able to find a way out of the Expanse.
Happily, they all set out to leave a trail of balloons to help them find their way home. They finally had a plan that would hopefully get them out of the Great Expanse. After two hours of releasing balloons, Junko shouted, "There goes our last balloon."
No sooner had he said that something came into view.
"Wait! Something dead ahead!" Stork said as he pointed to the front of the Condor.
"Land?" Finn asked hopefully.
"Another ship?" Piper asked.
"A way out?" Junko asked.
"It's our first balloon," Aerrow said dejectedly as it bonked against the large window.
"You mean we're back where we started?" Finn asked confused on how they went in a circle.
"I'm starting to think that we're never going to get out of here," Aerrow said.
At his leader's statement, Junko's started to well up with tears. "I'm sorry everyone!" he cried. He then proceeded to blame himself, telling them all a story about how had lead them into the Great Expanse for his favorite burger place.
Trying to comfort the crying Wallop, Aerrow admitted that it was him. "I don't know what you guys remember, but we are in here for one reason," Aerrow said as he recalled the reason why they were all lost to begin with. "I was sitting in my bunk, when we were ambushed by Dark Ace. He fired at the Condor and created a giant hole in the side. He laughed and taunted, before taking off into the Expanse with my sister. I quickly followed him into the Expanse to defeat him and get Adrianna back. I was just about to get the drop on him when he vanished."
Piper then proceeded to tell them all it was her fault, and how her crystal locator had started pinging off the scale. So she had followed it in to the Expanse.
Finn then told them it was all his fault because some cute girl had flown by and he had followed her in an attempt to go to a beach party with her.
Stork asked if Finn had saw an airtruck from Tinhat Co. Saying that he had followed the truck into the Expanse so that way he could get his very own helmet to protect him from the mind controlling worms.
"Let me guess, you followed the truck in here," Aerrow said as he started putting the pieces together. "I'm starting to see a pattern here."
"Wait, this all adds up to one thing!" Piper said as she put the pieces together as well.
"We had too much Merb cabbage?" Junko asked as he was not following his teammate's train of thought.
"We all saw what we wanted to see," Piper explained as she pulled out a giant book.
"I don't want to see Dark Ace," Aerrow said, having a momentarily lost his train of thought.
"No," Piper said as she shot her leader an annoyed look. "You want to defeat the dark Ace."
"Now that you put it that way," Aerrow replied.
"There used to be reports of beings who could make illusions of a person's deepest desires," Piper explained as she looked up from her book.
"Um, how do those stories usually end?" Junko asked hesitantly.
"It was a pulled to your doom kind of thing," Piper answered.
"I've heard of these Sirens before," Aerrow admitted as he remember an old story.
Flashback
"Will you tell us another story?" asked the seven year old Aerrow as he tried to hide his yawn.
"Another story?" Russell asked as his two children looked at him with big, adorable eyes.
"Yea, another story," said a teen from the doorway of the bed room.
"Not helping," the Sky Knight said as he shot his young teammate a look.
"Please daddy?" Adrianna begged.
"How about Damon tell us a story," the older man smirked.
"What? No, I'm not very good at telling stories," Damon said shocked as he tried to get out of telling a story.
"Please!" Adrianna begged as she climbed out of her bed and dragged the teen over. She loved hearing stories of her father's adventures or about any Sky Knight for that matter.
"Alright," Damon said in defeat as he sat on Adrianna's bed. "Have you ever heard of a Sky Siren?" Damon asked the two children. When both shook their heads no, Damon continued. "A Sky Siren is a creature with magical powers that can make illusions seem so real. In fact that is how she defeats most of her opponents."
"She?" Aerrow asked confused as he sat with his dad.
"Yes, you see the Sky Siren looks like a woman and shows you an illusion of your deepest desires," Damon explained.
"Not true," Adrianna spoke up from where she was sitting.
"Very true," the sixteen year old said as he looked his leader's daughter. "In fact many years ago, a Sky Knight traveled into the Great Expanse…"
End Flashback
"She's supposed to take the form of a-" Aerrow said as he shook himself out of a memory.
"A woman!" Finn said scared as he pointed to behind his leader.
"Yea, how'd you know?" Aerrow asked in a surprised manner.
"Cause she's here!" Finn said as he tried to keep himself from cowering in fear.
As Finn pointed behind him, Aerrow felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Quickly, slipping away from the Siren, Aerrow turned around to face her. "Look, I don't know who you are, but we're onto your little game!" Aerrow announced triumphantly. "So you can just get off our ship and leave us alone!"
Having told the Siren off, she vanished from the ship. Everyone was happy, thinking that they had beaten the Siren and they would be able to go free. They were even happier when they thought they were seeing the way out.
Not even thinking that it could be a trap, Aerrow ordered them all to go straight for the opening. To which Finn happily replied that he had been wanting to see nothing more than blue skies.
"Wait! It's a trap!" Piper yelled as she realized that their deepest desire at the moment was to escape the Great Expanse.
"Stork! Hit the retros!" Aerrow ordered in attempt to save their lives when he realized where they were heading.
Stork quickly did what he was told. He shifted a few levers to get them to stop and to go backwards.
"Why aren't we stopping?" Finn asked as dread filled his words.
"I'm guessing it's a pulled to our doom kind of thing," Stork said as he continued to man the helm.
With some quick thinking, and a little bit of luck, Aerrow was able to get them safely out of the swirling tornado. As they escaped the tornado, they all let out a sigh of relief, that is, except for Stork. Stork was upset at Junko for dumping his supply of Merb cabbage.
"You… You dumped my cabbage," Stork said shocked.
"You know, sometimes the tough choices have to be chosen," Junko said sheepishly in defense for his actions.
Stork was not impressed as he listened to the Wallop.
"Guys! She's back," Finn shouted as the Siren appeared back on the Condor.
"Everyone, stay at your posts," Aerrow ordered as he prepared himself.
"Her only power is illusion," Piper reiterated. "Resist, no matter what she throws at you."
With an evil smile on her face, she attacked each of the Storm Hawks at the same time with their desires.
Aerrow's desire
"You want her back?" Dark Ace challenged as he yanked Adrianna to his side.
"Let her go," Aerrow shouted as he faced Dark Ace.
"Aerrow, run! You have to get out of here," Adrianna shouted as she tried to pry herself free.
"Come on, defeat me," Dark Ace challenged as he tossed Adrianna to Snipe, who appeared from behind him with Ravess. "You know it's what you always wanted. You want to defeat me and prove to your older sister that you're not the failure she thinks you are. After all, isn't that why she left you all those years ago?"
"Let go of me!" Adrianna shouted as she wriggled around in Snipe's grasp.
For a moment everyone snapped out of their illusions.
"I got the time pulse beacon back," Finn shouted to everyone.
"Keep resisting, I think we're overloading her powers," Piper said as she looked around for the Siren.
"Finn, plot our position," Aerrow ordered, taking advantage of their momentary good fortune.
"Aye, locking on the time pulse," Finn shouted as he started fiddling with the time pulse.
Next thing each one of them knew, everyone was thrown back into their illusions.
"I'll defeat you here and now," Aerrow shouted as he started charging towards Dark Ace. The only thought on his mind was how he would defeat Dark Ace and save his older sister.
"Mind if I join you?" Cyclonis asked as she appeared in the illusion.
Aerrow looked at Master Cyclonis and back to his weapons. He shook his head trying to stay strong against the illusion.
"You'll make a fine Talon," Cyclonis said as she walked over to where Snipe still had a hold of Adrianna. "A Talon that I will used to defeat all the Sky Knights."
"No!" Aerrow shouted as he prepared himself to race forward.
"You will become my newest general," Master Cyclonis said happily.
"NO!" both Adrianna and Aerrow shouted at the same time.
Aerrow was ready to attack when a single word flashed through his mind. 'Resist,' was the word in the voice of Adrianna. To keep resisting the Siren, Aerrow flung his trusted blades away from himself. He stood there defenseless against his sister. Adrianna held a single blade in her hands that crackled with energy.
"Destroy him!" Master Cyclonis ordered Adrianna.
Nodding her head in understanding, Adrianna fired off a shot at Aerrow. That was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.
Sometime later, everyone slowly started waking up. Each of them were just as confused as the next. None of them knew how they had gotten free.
"We're free?" Aerrow asked shocked as he saw the normal sky.
"Everything reads normal," Stork said as he looked at all of their gages.
"Confirming visual markers," Piper said as she looked through the periscope. "We're free."
"Wow," Aerrow said as he looked around at his teammates and friends. "Someone must have out lasted the Siren."
"That would take someone with major brain power," Piper stated.
It was then that they all noticed Radar happily driving the Condor.
"Wait, that's your biggest desire? You just wanted to drive?" Aerrow asked his co-pilot.
Radar happily nodded his as he continued to drive.
"Works for me," Stork said as he was content at the moment to let Radar fly the Condor.
"If you need me," Aerrow started, "I'll be down in my bunk."
"Don't you want to celebrate?" Finn asked as Aerrow started to leave.
"Nah, I'll celebrate later," Aerrow said as he left the bridge. The truth was, Aerrow didn't feel like celebrating. The things that he had saw in his illusion had disturbed him. "Don't worry Adrianna, I'm coming and I won't fail you," Aerrow vowed.
Okay, so we don't know Dark Ace's original name. Again, I'm giving him a name.
