Author's Note: Thanks to TalonXViolin and She who must not be named. I own nothing. I see no need to waste space with a larger author's note.
Stork.
Everyone was on the bridge. Obviously, everyone was on the bridge, because in team meetings, the entire team has to be there, and I never left the wheel. Too many bad things have happened when I've given up control of the Condor.
Aerrow addressed the problem right away. He's a pretty good leader. Too bad, like all warm-blooded mammals, he's 60% more likely to be a carrier for the mindworms.
"What do we do with Cyclonis?"
"They've set up a new governing council on Terra Gale," I sighed. "Drop her off there. She's not our problem."
"But Terra Gale is traditionally one of the most prejudiced and anti-Cyclonian Terras!" Piper protested.
"Your point is?" I droned.
"That would be a death sentence!" she squeaked.
"Since when have we cared what happens to her? She would have killed us without another thought. If she gets what's coming for her, it's her own problem."
They all stared at me in silence.
"You're not serious, guys?"
Come on. There was no way that I was tolerating all the doom she would bring on my Condor!
"Before you make any final decisions," I quickly intoned, "I move to have us all checked for mindworms, to make sure that our choice is completely unbiased and does not result in our long, drawn-out, painful demise!"
"Stork, you are such a drama queen," complained Finn. I shot him a glare, and he shut up.
"Let's vote, now!" Aerrow commanded.
I felt the panic welling up. I saw the looks in their eyes, the expressions of sympathy that they always gave her whenever they exited her cell. She was working her manipulative ways on them, I was sure. She was twisting their minds to fulfill her own wants and needs. They were falling under her trap. Couldn't they see that?
She didn't affect me at all because I knew what I was dealing with. I wore first-class earplugs before ever entering her cell. No way was I going to give her the chance to win me over with slippery words.
"All in favor of keeping Cyclonis as our prisoner indefinitely?"
They all raised their hands. I glared at them, each in turn.
"She's just a lonely girl. She never was taught better!" Piper protested.
"I'm just goin' with the flow, man, I really don't care," Finn explained.
"She seems so nice. Maybe we can just be friends. Anyway, she doesn't deserve to be hurt," Junko grinned.
"The Storm Hawks are all about justice," Aerrow stated calmly, "and there won't be any justice on Terra Gale. We'll keep her safe, and who knows, she might re-think her morals."
I shook my head. "You don't know her…" I said. "You don't know her like I do. She's insane. Completely insane. Remember that mission when we allowed ourselves to be captured…?"
o.o.o.o.o
Cyclonis.
Control.
It's all perfectly fine in theory, but in reality, perhaps less practical. One of the reasons that I might be perceived as obsessed with my crystals is because the crystals I can control. Each crystal has a specific function, and a specific amount of power. Each crystal acts and reacts exactly how it is supposed to, and exactly according to the laws of science.
Some times, a lot of times, I think the eukaryotic life forms didn't get the memo. I mean, we were all fine when we were single-celled organisms, but when we evolved to more complex forms of existence…something went wrong. We ended up with stupidity, imperfection, and flaws.
Take Snipe, for example. Such an idiot that I am fairly positive that there is something wrong with his brain. Somehow, he can take the simplest orders and mess them up.
Or Ravess, who is the biggest suck-up I've ever seen. I'm not sure which I detest more: Snipe's groveling or Ravess's honey-tongued excuses. Perhaps the fact that both of them fail deserves my loathing more than either of their pathetic life-forms.
Then, of course, there's the Dark Ace. Egomaniac, narcissist, braggart, shameless liar and manipulator—all qualities that I could respect, of course, as long as he had the skills to back them up. At one time, I prided him as the Cyclonian champion, feared throughout the Atmos. His defeat at the hands of that brat kid destroyed all of that. Now, he's just another failure, and a rebellious, overly prideful one to boot.
No, my subordinates were far from ideal, but what made me even more upset at the evolution of biological life was my inability to control my own body.
I'm a teenage girl. Scientifically, I can name to you the exact level of hormones in my blood causing my violent mood swings. Scientifically, I know it all makes sense. That doesn't help me control anything.
I'm fine when I'm working with my crystals. There, I'm in control. However, as it was proved today, things can easily go downhill.
It started with the Talon interrupting my studies to report that the Dark Ace was back from a mission securing one of the borderland Terras. To no one's surprise, he had failed.
Why had he failed? I wondered. I had locked the Storm Hawks up for him. They were right below our feet as we spoke. What excuse was he giving me this time?
He didn't even have one. How pathetic. I felt my lips curl into a customary sneer.
"Get out of my sight."
I was losing it again. The control, I mean. Yet on some chemical level, the anger felt good. It freed me. It made me want to run around and scream. I needed to do that. I had been cooped up for too long.
Snipe was the next to face my anger. Actually, if I were not already so irate, I may have found it funny. He decided to launch an invasion on Terra Atmosia—the capitol of the free Atmos, the home of the Sky Knight Council, and the most heavily defended Terra of our enemies—because he had run out of mustard.
I briefly considered dissecting him to see if his brain was in his stomach. Then, I decided it was illogical, because such a large-scale mutation would have resulted in death before birth.
I pondered dissecting him anyways, just for the fun of it. Nah, too messy.
Then, just when I was turning back to my crystals, I realized that I didn't want to work with crystals anymore. It wouldn't be productive. I was in a destructive mood, and I knew from experience that it was best to stay away from my many delicate projects when I was in bad moods.
I wanted to…not necessarily kill someone. I had yet to cross that line, and I wasn't sure if I was eager to. I wanted to make someone scream for mercy.
The Talons around me backed up, obviously intimidated by the aura of anger and violence that I suspect I was radiating. Poor fools. Cowering only brought my wrath down on them.
Yet there was someone else I wanted to bring my wrath down on.
That stupid Merb pilot. He was stuck in my mind. I couldn't stop thinking about him.
I wanted to crush him, but at the same time, I wanted to befriend him. I wanted to impress him. There weren't enough people around here to truly appreciate all that I did for Cyclonia. This was a one-girl show, run by me, salvaged by me, and everyone looked at me like I was the bad guy. (Yes, I realize I'm a psychopathic tyrant who will stop at nothing until I conquer the world. What I mean is that after the Talons fail, they look at me begging me for mercy like it's my fault. Like I'm the one to blame.)
The bottom line was, no one valued me enough around here, and I was angry, and I was bored. I needed a new toy to play with.
Despite how illogical it was, I made my way down to the dungeons. I worked way too hard around here, and all work and no play means a nervous breakdown and the eminent collapse of the entire empire.
After all, I couldn't be in control all the time, could I?
o.o.o.o.o
Stork.
The moment she entered the cell, I knew something was wrong.
Well, actually, taking a look at my situation: I was stuck in the dungeons of Cyclonia, and for the second time in three days the Master herself was visiting me. Was there anything not wrong with that? Didn't she have someone better to bother, like Aerrow or Piper? Why me?
However, today, something was more wrong than usual. I could tell. There was something about her—it was like, well, she had seemed so in control before, like everything she did was planned out perfectly. Now she seemed…
Not in control.
Like she wanted to do something rash.
I had a strange feeling that this 'something rash' was going to be unpleasant. For me.
Damm her. It was supposed to be the mindworms. I had spent seventeen years worrying about the mindworms, reading all the scientific articles on mindworms, taking preventative measures against the mindworms, and mentally preparing myself (yes, I do see the irony) to suffer a long, painful demise by mindworms. And she was going to mess all of that up by being in a stinkin' bad mood while I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"What do you want this time?" I snapped. Might as well get it over with.
She smirked. "Tisk, tisk, Stork, you don't want to antagonize me, do you?" I glowered at her silently. "If you remember properly, you still owe me an answer to one of my questions."
She took a deep breath, then looked me in the eyes. Then, to my great surprise, she got down on one knee.
"Stork of the Storm Hawks, will you marry me?"
WHATTHEHELL!?!?!
"Hahahaha, you should have seen the look on your face!" She was floating in the air now, curled up in a ball, rolling backwards and forwards, tears of hysteria streaming down her face. "My God, Stork, you make me wish I brought a camera."
She was having too much fun with this. I decided to creep her out a bit. "What if I said yes?"
That sobered her up, for about three seconds, then she burst into laughter again. "Stork, darling, if you said yes than I would have accomplished exactly what I wanted. You would have joined the Cyclonians, and taken the Condor with you, and the Storm Hawks would be ship-less and pilot-less."
Hm. Interesting. So if I married (Ew) her, then I would be Master Cyclonis? Was I that selfless? I could save the entire Atmos—
"But don't be getting any ideas. The title of Master descends through bloodline only, not through marriage. A quaint little traditions one of my foremothers made up to protect their power."
Damm. Not that I ever considered marrying her in the first place.
"Although if you're thinking of courting me, you might want to ask me out on a date first."
How desperate was this girl? Was she really this bored? I decided she must be PMSing, because there was no way she acted this weird normally. "Look, Cyclonis," I began.
"That's Master Cyclonis to you."
"Fine, Master Cyclonis," I sighed. "I am not interested. At all. One bit. So if you want a date, go ask Dark Ace or someone else who can't turn down your orders."
She made a face at Dark Ace. "Ew," she complained. "Way to not get a joke. I swear, no one on the Atmos knows what sarcasm means."
"And I'm sure that you didn't learn about sarcasm, degrading comments, and other nasty put downs from the wonderful environment you grew up in," I mumbled under my breath. Of course, she heard me.
To my surprise—wait, who am I kidding, I wasn't surprised by anything after she sarcastically proposed to me—she smirked. "See, this is why I like spending time with you, Stork. You're the only one here in Cyclonia with the wit to match my verbal and mental games and the brashness and defiance to do so."
"So you're complimenting me for insulting you?"
She grinned. "You could say that, yes."
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
"So, um, what do you Storm Hawks do for fun? Because I'm bored, and I've come down here to be amused, and not that you haven't been fun, but I can always sit down and do nothing in a far more comfortable chair—my throne."
"Oh, yeah, way to rub it in," I shot back. "You should install a throne in all of your dungeons so your over-inflated ego is satiated every time you want to rub your superiority into your prisoner's faces."
"You still haven't answered my question."
"Make me."
"You know, I'm in the mood to torture someone right now, so don't give me an excuse."
I stared straight into her eyes. They pierced back into my own. They were completely serious. I gulped. "Mostly I just drive. Finn plays his music, Piper works in her lab, and Aerrow trains."
Those death-filled eyes of hers narrowed. "That's not helping, Stork. Ten seconds for a better answer, or else…"
I started sweating. "They sky surf!" I squeaked.
"Perfect," she purred.
I started backpedaling immediately. "I don't sky surf, they do, I just drive the Condor."
"You're going to show me how. You can come along or I can drag you along. I really don't care."
I winced. The last thing I wanted to do was make a fool of myself falling off a surfboard into my eminent doom in front of Master Cyclonis, but I had no other choice.
Did I mention I was doomed?
Hehehe…
