So…. Sorry that I keep appearing and disappearing sporadically, life loves to intervene and such, but I don't mind. Anyway, here's a new installment of a story that will be back in season in a couple months after waiting for almost a year to be finished…Hehe…. Well, to be honest, if I try and do some typing throughout the next couple of months it'll be done in time for Christmas when it really gets busy for a lot of people.

Without further ado, enjoy this random update of mine, and hopefully there will be more to follow every few days, or at least once a week. We'll see. Oh, and I'll update the guessing tallies later, I kind of haven't looked at this story much until the past few days….

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

December 7th

A Man in the Snow

A monster of a blizzard had struck up an hour before dark, hiding everything from view without a second thought. As I stared out the small window next to my bed, I began to worry. I would never admit it to any of my friends, but I did worry about them… occasionally.

The storm wasn't what was bothering me the most. What was disturbing my beauty sleep was knowing that two of my friends were out there in the freezing wind and snow while I was inside snuggled up in my bed. It wasn't like we didn't want to go out and find them, we did, but Stork had kept Junko, Radarr, and I inside because the storm was seriously messing with our gear. As it turns out, the only sound that our radios can produce during a bad snowstorm is static. Eerie, wind filled static.

On that cheery note, Aerrow and Piper had promised they would be back before dark after doing some recon of the terra we had landed on in the morning to wait out the coming storm. There wasn't another terra in miles, and we wouldn't have reached any others before the storm caught up with us. However, it seemed the storm had managed to beat the Sky Knight and Navigator to the Condor.

Sighing, I moved to get out of bed, knowing I had to do something to get out of my thoughtful mood. Out of everything, that was probably what was bugging me the most. As soon as my feet hit the metal floor, I immediately regretted my decision.

"Oooahheewaw!" I didn't even understand the sounds that were coming out of my mouth at that moment. I just figured that the surprise and discomfort of my feet had simply demanded to be vocalized.

I quickly hopped backwards so that I was on my bed once more, my toes curled under my covers almost instantly. Shivering as I tried to warm up again, I decided that being thoughtful was way better than freezing my toes off. They were just as important to me as my trigger finger. A sharpshooter needs to have great balance and composure after all.

'Yep. Definitely can't sacrifice the toes.' I convinced myself as I snuggled back into my covers. Once I was nice and cozy again, I realized I still couldn't sleep. Looking up at the ceiling in disgust, I rolled over to my left and glared at the snow out the window.

"Ugh! This is all the snow's fault!" I muttered under my breath, the heat from my mouth causing the small porthole to fog over. Frowning, I grabbed a piece of my blanket and wiped the piece of glass clean, shivering as I felt the cold through the thick material of my winter comforter.

I leaned closer to the wall in order to see more out of my window. There wasn't even all that much to see – just white, more white, and a bit of darkness for the white flecks of frozen ice to swim in. As I moved to turn away from the window and try to fall asleep again, a shadow amongst the flying snow caught my attention.

Moving as close to the porthole as humanly possible without fogging it up, I took a closer look. The shadow was actually a shape on the ground just under the main body of the Condor. As my eyes adjusted further in the darkness, I was able to pick out two, maybe three more shapes.

They looked almost human, and for a moment I almost thought that they might be Cyclonian soldiers. 'Nah, not even Cyclonians are crazy enough to go out in weather like this.' I reminded myself before something else came to mind. 'Besides, even if they were wearing snowsuits, those would be some very lumpy shaped Cyclonians.'

Smirking, I moved away from the window and sat back in bed, feeling sleep finally overcome me as I muttered, "Cyclonians using three balls of snow for camouflage, yeah right! Those are Storm Hawks originals made by yours truly."

As I fell asleep, my thoughts and dreams were no longer about Aerrow and Piper freezing, but the two of them battling the Cyclonians in lumpy snowsuits with my snowman army there to back my friends up. I knew they'd be okay – my snowmen were standing guard waiting for their return because they knew I needed to sleep. I could definitely sleep on that thought.

I know it's out of season, and most of us don't want to think about snow yet since we aren't quite in October, but oh well!

So, as I noted above, I'll update the scores of who's guessed the most chocolates right so far. Oh, and if any of you are still in suspense from the last chapter, the chocolate that inspired it was one with a picture of a cabin in the snow on it. Also, this chapter kind of spiralled off of some of the events of the last chapter too. Oh, the next chapter should be titled, "Words Can't Express".

Well, so long for now everyone, hope you didn't mind me randomly popping back up to bring a just as random update for you!

~Crimson Fox4