Note: Chapter Seven will feature Stork. More so than usual. You'll see.

I don't own Storm Hawks. No I don't. Nope. That's Nerd Corps. Yep. They do. I don't work for them. I wish I did. But I don't.

Chapter Seven: Ruel and Stork

Stork gasped for air as Dark Ace left his cell. Stork was chained to the wall in painful shackles, which pierced his skin with a lining of sharp spines. He had blood running through his fur, matting it and staining it a deep maroon.

A child came into the cell, carrying a tray of food. He was just that, a child, no older than seven or eight years old.

"my Master told me to give this to you, and to tell you that you'll never escape." The child was a Merb, but he seemed different. His eyes were shaped and sized differently, and his spine was more straightened than a Merb's. His skull and ears seemed to be shortened to the point where he almost just looked like a human with green skin. Almost. He was still barely recognizable as a Merb.

"Your... Master...?" Stork rasped out.

"The man who just left. The man with the black hair that goes like this," with that the child put his fingers to his head and wiggled them, signing the vague shape of Dark Ace's spiky hair, "And the helmet like this," And he placed his fingers to each other in the shape of Dark Ace's headpiece.

"Dark... Dark Ace?" Stork asked.

"Uh huh. But I gotta go, 'cause I'm not supposed to be talking to you. I could get beat up again."

"Beat... up?"

"Uh huh! If I do something wrong, my Master beats me up and tells me I'm stupid. I don't want to get hit again."

"Do you... get hit often?"

"I used to, all the time. But I stopped doing bad things and it's not really all the time anymore. But now I gotta go. I'm supposed to get back to my Master." The child ran out, most likely running back to Dark Ace to report to him. Stork hung his head in exhaustion. But he knew that falling asleep meant certain death, with all the blood he'd lost. He coughed; trying to regulate his breathing was difficult in his situation. The boy came stumbling back in, along with Dark Ace's voice shouting, "You'll stay until your death in there, you little brat!"

"Ahh!" The boy landed on the ground.

"We have to stop meeting like this." Stork joked weakly, his head still hung down.

"My Master... doesn't like me."

"Dark Ace doesn't like anybody. Why are you here?"

"I accidentally bumped into the bandage on his shoulder... Apparently it still hurts. He got mad and hit me in the head and told me to go stay with the prisoner. You." He said. "I didn't mean it!"

"Dark Ace is a horrible man..."

"When I was really little, my mom would tell me that too. She would say 'That man is the cause of all the bad things here on Terra Merb.' She would then cry when she looked at us sometimes. My brother and I. Dark Ace killed my brother, you know. He was only a few minutes older than me, but he was lots smarter. He could say whole sentences when he was just a baby. Mommy used to play with me more, though. I wonder how mommy is doing."

"I'm sure she's... Alright."

"Are you okay, mister? You sound sick."

"I'm strapped to a wall with spiked metal chains... and I just had Dark Ace taser me in the stomach with his sword. I'm feeling just peachy, though."

"I'm smart enough to understand sarcasm, mister."

"Good." Stork lifted his head to get a good look at the child."You seem odd to me somehow."

"I'm not all Merb. I'm part human too, but maybe I shouldn't have said that. Mommy never liked me saying that. She was ashamed of us, my brother and me. She loved us but she got real sad when she looked at us. My brother looked even more like a human. In fact, he was just like a human except for his ears. Mommy got extra-sad when she looked at him. I didn't ever know why, though. She never told us. Then my brother got killed and left me all alone. Mommy got taken away from me."

Stork remembered Candice's speech about her children from earlier.

"Do you know who your mother is?"

"Uh huh. She's green, but I seen pictures of when she used to be red. She's pretty, and she's nice. She's real sad, though."

"Do you know her name?"

"I forgot. Dark Ace hit me really hard one time and I forgot."

"The Cyclonians ruined my life, as well. When I was no older than four, the Cyclonians dragged me and every other firstborn male Merb to a work camp on Terra Amazonia. We were forced to work to please the superiors. It was like a prison. There were bars on the windows, and barbed wire over electric fences everywhere. It was scheduled so strictly, and people were dropping like flies. I only had myself to look up to." Stork started, giving a sigh.

"Wow. What did you do? Did you escape?"

"No.I spent twelve years there. I was sixteen when the camp was liberated. I wandered the Terra for another two years until I came across a freighter willing to let me work. I was eighteen. I spent another five years aboard that freighter until I met Aerrow and he agreed to take me as their pilot. I've been with the Storm Hawks ever since. I get a roof over my head, a room to myself, good food, and I never have to worry about being killed anymore, because I know by now that Aerrow can get us out of anything. He's a Sky Knight, you know. A damn good one too. Oops, excuse my language." Stork added.

"Don't worry about swearing, mister. Dark Ace swears at everybody and everything, all the time. I'm used to being cursed at."

"Well, you shouldn't be. Not at your age."

"I'm eight now, and this is the way it's been since I was three. It's no big deal."

Stork coughed out a bubble of blood. The excess dripped down his chin freely, as he was unable to wipe it away with his chained up arms and he was just too tired to find another way.

"Kid. You've got to get me out of here..."

"Oh, no, I can't! If I did that Dark Ace would hurt me again!"

"He's already left you in here to rot. Make your last days worthwhile. Please, release me from these chains. I'll contact Aerrow and he'll get us out of this."

"I... I don't know, mister..."

"Please, kid. For both of our sakes. You have to set me free." Stork coughed out blood again, knowing that if this kid didn't let the shackles go soon, he was going to pass out and probably never wake up.

"Okay. But you gotta get your Sky Knight friend to get us outta here! Dark Ace is mean." The child quickly scrambled up to the pressure sensors and set them off, opening the spiked shackles. The blood that was steadily squirting down Stork's hands and arms slowly stopped bleeding.

Stork fell to the floor and sighed deeply, savoring the semi-freedom. He then stumbled to his feet and pulled out his communicator which Dark Ace had conveniently forgotten to remove from him. Dark Ace was intelligent, but he wasn't very clever.

"Stork to Aerrow. Stork to Aerrow. Copy. This is Stork. Stork calling Aerrow. Pick up, Aerrow. Do you copy?" Static from the other end. "Damn! We can't get a signal down here! We're underground!" Stork took a bearing on his surroundings. They were in a small dungeon-like cell at the end of a cave. "Well, kid. Feel like going on an adventure?"

End Chapter Seven