I do not own Storm Hawks!
On with the Story!
Starling sighed, and leaned back. Despite the sorrow, she had to admit that this place, the 'mind' was actually rather fine. She also held comfort in being a shade, a product of the mind on what she was outside of here.
As a shade, she was a mixture of reality and fantasy. She sipped the tea that Stork had made, and made and face. Most likely the Merb had put something in there to ward off diseases of the mind.
Back with the regular group, Finn was still recovering from his head injury, and Cyclonis was demanding someone make her some crutches so she could get off the *&$-couch.
Dark Ace reeled at her language.
"Master Cyclonis!"
"What?"
"Such language is unbecoming! Besides, Stork is nearly done with the crutches, and Piper is making a wheelchair with Junko. Be patient just a bit longer."
Cyclonis grumbled but abated her demands.
Finn covered his lower face with a hand.
"What is so funny?" Cyclonis glowered at him.
"Nothing. I just figured after Aerrow, you would be the last person to say *&$."
Cyclonis rolled her eyes.
Piper wriggled her recently pedicure feet. There was nothing like losing three inches of dead skin to make everything feel soft- and tender.
Piper sucked in a breath and gingerly stepped out of Junko's way. Getting her foot stepped on by the Wallop when she was wearing shoes hurt bad enough. She was not putting her feet anywhere near the Wallop's without shoes and after a pedicure.
They all looked out for the horns on Junko's feet after that.
The wheelchair was taken for a spin by Aerrow once they were finished. A few adjustments, and in a few minutes Cyclonis thanked them for getting her off the couch.
"Where's Dark Ace?" she asked.
Stork hooked a thumb in the direction of the men's room.
"He's scouring his ears for some reason. He said it wasn't contagious and for me to back off. Hmph." Stork returned to carving out the crutches and Cyclonis was very glad for the wheelchair.
No telling what sort of adjustments the Merb was making to the simple frames. They looked like they would support her weight and nothing more.
Cyclonis shuddered and wheeled herself over to the pool.
"I've been thinking while I've been out on the couch. What exactly was Finn trying to say when he was in the ring?"
"Oh! Cyclonia has bad news. You'd think that would be easy for him to remember." Piper rolled her eyes.
Cyclonis sighed. "Apparently not. I asked him last night, and he insulted far more than my hygiene and shoe collection."
"Huh. I wonder why he just can't remember." Aerrow bit his lip, and looked downcast.
"DUDE! It's 'cause we're always defeating her top three commander. Of course she's gonna have bad news!" Finn giggles, then moaned.
"I need to stop trying to get up."
His hand touched his head, and he hissed. The bump just wasn't going away. A bag of ice landed on his head.
Dark Ace walked on pass him, tissue in his ears. There was blood on them.
Cyclonis sent a sharp look at Stork.
Stork put his hands up in his own defense. "I wasn't about to stop him."
"Hmmm? Oh, the blood isn't from the ear. I was staring at the mirror after washing my ears out and noticed that I needed to shave. I thought I put a clean tissue in my ears to soak up any lasting water so I could encourage- ah, not an ear infection."
"Those things are the worst pain that could ever be inflicted on a person." Stork proclaimed from where he was setting the crutches.
Dark Ace snorted. "No it isn't. Getting a toe nail pulled because there's fungus growing underneath it is far more painful. Especially when it's then chemically treated so the nail won't grow back. Try not getting your foot stepped on, only to drop a crate of crystals on it. That is sheer agony."
Cyclonis discreetly got Aerrow's, Piper's, and Junko's attention and wheeled herself away from the two men. Radarr was waiting for them at the lunch table.
"What's the matter?" Piper asked.
"They'll be arguing the most painful malady for awhile. We might want to find a way to entertain ourselves. I'm off of this foot for the next two weeks."
Aerrow turned to Radarr.
"We got any of those cards left?"
Radarr chirped and ran off.
"Steam from the Condor hurts more than that!" Stork's voice drifted over to them.
Dark Ace's low voice presented a new malady, one which Stork admitted to being bad, before coming up with an even worse disease.
Finn moaned on the couch.
"Is everyone ignoring me?"
Stork and Dark Ace had called a truce as to the worst disease and pain in all of Atmos by the next morning. Cyclonis was 'Queen of Poker' and when Dark Ace sent Aerrow a glare, Piper explained that when they played strip poker, he could referee.
Aerrow fainted.
"Or maybe we could just skip strip poker altogether." Piper amended.
She dragged Aerrow over to the couch, where Finn was snoring away. She propped him up, and headed back to the group.
"Okay, who wants to give Finn a sponge bath when he wakes up?"
Dark Ace raised his hand. Piper ignored him.
"Junko? Are you doing anything later?"
"Huh? I have to maintain the pool. I think Stork messed with the filters to increase their efficiency, but forgot to put it back in correctly, so it isn't doing its job at all."
Stork gasped, screamed, clamped a hand over his mouth, and ran for his disinfectant spray. Cyclonis began to wheel her way out of the incoming stampede of Stork cleaners.
"I am hiding until dinner from the incoming fiasco. Dark Ace can bathe Finn. Piper, go ahead and help get him upstairs. I'm going to see about something you and I can do once everyone else is busy."
"Ooooh, we could do a movie." Piper piped up from the couch.
"And plan how to do Finn's hair." Cyclonis called back.
Piper grinned and helped Dark Ace get Finn onto the stretcher.
The bath went with a lot loss splashing and emotion keying. Finn was docile and helped washing, but he couldn't move too much without the whole room spinning.
Dark Ace had to set him on the rim with a towel (thank Atmos for corners big enough to set people on) and began to towel him dry.
"Hey, Dark Ace? I've been thinking…Stork doesn't like being touched, right? He totally freaks out if you hug him. What about you? You just never give off the friendly vibe, and you aren't obsessively paranoid."
Without looking up from toweling the injured teen, Dark Ace loudly announced, "That's because I don't do glomps."
"What are glomps?"
"Flying hugs."
Finn tilted his head to the side. "No. I will not demonstrate them. Now, once you're dressed, I'm going to carry you back to the couch."
Finn nodded, and set about wriggling into his clothes while Dark Ace stepped behind a screen to give him some privacy.
He also used the moment to shiver in the memory of the person who ran up, jumped, and grabbed him without warning when. They called glomps affectionate means of endearment.
Dark Ace thought they were horrible measures of torture.
"Okay, I'm ready." Finn called out.
Composing himself, Dark Ace walked out from behind the screen and picked up the slim sharp shooter.
Master Cyclonis had more curves than he did, and she was a petite woman.
As he carried Finn back down the stairs, he grumbled, "Do you do anything in the way of exercising? You barely have any muscles."
"I surf. Either in the water, air, or the ground, although, I'm still trying to figure why Raptor wanted my Surfboard when he went to the almost newly created Terra Blizarrus. I thought deserts didn't have water?"
"They don't. He probably brought it along to amuse himself in other regards." Dark Ace settled Finn on the couch, then left to fetch him an ice pack. The swelling still had yet to go down, yet Dark Ace was positive that there were no occlusion fractures on the marksman.
As he returned to with the ice pack, he overheard the most peculiar conversation. He got Finn's attention and pointed him in the direction of the argument. Finn accepted the ice pack and gave Dark Ace the hot chocolate that had been left beside the couch with DA written into the side.
"Technically, I'm older than you." Cyclonis smirked at Aerrow.
Aerrow held his hand up to his head, and then dropped it to be level with Cyclonis' head. Dark Ace chocked on his hot chocolate. He began to snort off to the side. He knew laughing at Cyclonis was bad and wrong, and that he would be severely punished later, but the moment was just too funny.
Cyclonis glared at Aerrow.
"I'm still older." She hissed, and then stalked off, swaying her hips as she went.
Aerrow nodded. "Yeah, you are older. But Finn's got a sassier walk than you do."
There was a pause.
"Dude!"
Everyone bent over in laughter at Finn's outburst. Dark Ace lost it, and his beverage came out his nose. Piper made an 'ewww!' face and fetched him some napkins. Finn continued to glare at Aerrow, who shrugged.
Cyclonis looked horrified, and Junko wasn't helping.
"Yeah, he really does stick out one side of his hip more than the other."
"Sorta like this." Stork mimicked, walking by. He did a fairly good impersonation before a pillow sailed out and landed on his chest.
"Just because I'm injured and can't aim doesn't mean I still can't hit you. Chica cha." Finn glowered at them.
"It's okay, buddy. We didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Junko attempted to soothe Finn's hurt expression from his face.
"If it helps any, Stork still screams like a girl."
"Hey! I do not!" Dark Ace tapped Stork on the shoulder opposite he was standing at. Stork turned to look at the shoulder.
"EEEEEK! Invisible vampires with jet packs! AAUUUGH!" Stork ran around to find his repellant.
"Dude, how did you do that? You were just standing here next to me, and Stork was nearly at the side of the pool!"
"Well, I've done it before, remember? I punched out Harrier's light-weight face and made it back to my Skimmer at the end of the landing strip."
Dark Ace stretched, and then reflected, "It's similar to Aerrow suddenly being flip side of where he was, except that I don't travel back to my previous spot."
"Huh." Finn was sufficiently distracted from being called sassy.
"Oh, yeah. What was the fight over, you two?" Finn turned his attention back to Aerrow and Cyclonis.
Aerrow, Cyclonis, and Piper all had their backs to the other and had their arms crossed.
"It was nothing." They all retorted.
"Really? Because when I left you two were going to do a movie and Aerrow was out cold." Dark Ace cajoled them.
Sometimes being the only adult in the group meant that he had to be the only counselor to a bunch of children who were either his superior or tried to kill him or were sassy.
"We couldn't agree on a movie, so we decided to do an action/romance, though I still don't understand why you want romance in a movie, Cyclonis. It's disgusting and overdone."
"So I suggested that they do two separate movies, and the both blew up at me."
"And how many times do I have to say, what's wrong with romance? You keep denouncing it, but you won't give me any valid reasons. Is it because you only know about the sickly sweet stuff they sell pre-packaged in stores and expect you to keep in with the social norms?"
Piper turned around. "Okay, Cyclonis, what do you know of love?" She was border-line confrontational.
"Dark Ace bringing me a new chocker he saw in the store and thought I would like. It wasn't my birthday, or a holiday, or even for a raise. He just thought 'She'll like this' and got it for me without the added frou-fra."
"Oh." Piper bit her lip. "Sorry. I just get so sick of people who expect love to just show up and take off. It makes me…"
"Wanna puke?" Aerrow offered. "Yeah, I get that feeling. A hell of a lot of people think one-night stands are going to turn into a relationship of fifty years and going strong. Hello, you don't even know what you really want. You can't just walk into life and expect it to take care of you. You have to build the relationship."
"Exactly!" Cyclonis exclaimed. "I hate it when people rush things. I always build a bridge and test it before I cross over. A lot of times, that bridge gets burnt while it gets built."
"Yeah," nodded Piper. "You think you know something, or someone, but the instant they get put to the test, it crumbles, and you find out it wasn't the match you were looking for." Piper was downcast from the fire-spitting woman a few moments ago.
"I know what that's like. You head into a relationship looking for love, but all they want is someone with money and a reputation whose too goody two shoes to realize that they're being used."
"That love sucks." Cyclonis declared.
"Totally." Agreed Piper.
"I couldn't put it better myself." Aerrow agreed.
"So, who wants to make a movie?" The girls and Aerrow darted off to get started.
Finn looked at Dark Ace. "I am totally going to skip out on account of injury. Tell me how it was, would you?"
Dark Ace rolled his eyes.
Teenagers and their hormones.
A/N: I am alive! And working on this 45-page story that is eating up my free time. Gah! And it's still not done!
But I have a few more hiccups in my head.