I'll start by thanking everyone who has reviewed me to date, your reviews help me in all kinds of ways. Besides that weird warm feeling they give me, wonder if it's heartburn... Any way here we go into the next one. Again, I hope you enjoy reading it as I have imagining it.

Heart of Darkness...Rude Awakening

There was fire everywhere. No matter how many times he pulled at the controls they wouldn't respond. They had just broken through the cloud cover, all that lay before them now were the endless wastelands. He kept pulling at the controls hoping, by some miracle, they would decide to work again, they still refused. He looked around for his friends, they weren't there. He looked behind him, and there it sat. Menacing in it's silence, he didn't know what it was, just that it was responsible for everything around him. It had no form, just a shapeless dark mass, but it was frightening. It seemed to form a mouth, as if to tell him why this had happened, or to devour him, he couldn't be sure. With it's newly formed mouth, it said only one thing.

"Beep."

...

BeepBeepBeep...BeepBeepBeep...BeepBeepBeep...

A green hand reached up from the floor to silence the very loud alarm clock. Stork was awake on the floor of his room, fear slowly spreading over him. He relaxed at the realization that it had all been a dream. No fire, no crashing, no dark floating essence of doom. Just a dream. Then, the horror hit him of how it might a subconscious hint that something was terribly wrong with him. He preceded to search through every corner of his room looking for every medical scanner he had. He began running through a list of common symptoms of a variety of different maladies while looking in the mirror on his wall to see if they were present. This all caused a lot of noise to come out of his room, waking the other Storm Hawks.

Piper was the first at the door, still in her pajamas, she began to knock loudly. "Stork! What's going on in there?" She put her ear to the door, instead of hearing a reply, all she could hear was the young merb mumbling to himself. "Stork?"

"Not right now Piper." Stork finally answered through the door."Can't tell yet if what I have is an airborne virus yet, not safe to come in. Don't worry though, I sealed the door airtight, you guys exposure is most likely minimal at best." He then went back to mumbling to himself, Piper figuring he must be reading from some obscure medical reference for exotic diseases.

Aerrow had arrived now, wearing his uniform minus the amour. Does he sleep in that thing? She wondered to herself, but held back a chuckle. "Stork has sealed his room because he thinks he has some rare virus." She said in a tone that conveyed a sense of familiarity to the situation.

"That time of the week already, huh?" Aerrow asked, letting a smile cross his face.

"Must be." Then turning back to the door."Stork? How long have you had your room sealed?"

"At least ten minutes now. I'm sure the disease has worked it's way through my system by now. No chance of a cure, I'll just stay in here till it's finished the job." Stork said, a sort of calm in his voice, as if he had given in to his doom.

"Don't you think your air will run out first, I mean how much air can your room possibly hold now that you've had it sealed for the last ten minutes?" Piper stated to the door."And don't say you'll use the reserve oxygen supply, because you used it all up last week. And, I know you haven't refilled the tanks yet." A grin of triumph spread across her face."So which is worse Stork? Dying of a disease, that you most likely don't have, out here with us. Or, suffocating in your room in the next 5 minutes or so?"

Silence answered her as she stared at the door. Then finally it opened, revealing a very tense Stork with eye twitch in full gear."Fine, you win." He got close to Piper's face as he said the next part."But, realize it's your own fault when whatever it is I have has you all twitching in horrible death spasms."

"Somehow," Aerrow chimed in, looking at the merb with a grin on his face as well."call me crazy, I think we'll live."

"Your crazy." Stork said in a very serious tone before turning and heading for the bridge.

After he was gone, Aerrow looked at Piper."You always know how to handle him."

"Oh please" She said. "He's a pushover, a bit paranoid sure, but as they say 'there's a method to his madness.' It's the rest of you guys that have me at my wits end most of the time."

"Still, I'd say your the only one who he actually listens to when he's in one of his fits of full blown paranoia." Aerrow replied before, he to, headed for the bridge. Before he went through the door, he turned to look at Piper again, another smirk crossing his face. "By the way, nice pjs." He said, pointing at her blue and orange bed clothes. He then turned on his heel and went through the door onto the bridge.

Piper, blushing dark red in embarrassment, rushed back to her room. Rushing past a drowsy Finn and Junko, who had only just woken up and weren't even out of their pajamas yet.

"My joke sense tells me we missed something funny." Finn said looking up at Junko. They both shrugged and headed off in the direction of the kitchen in search of breakfast.

...

After the storm hawks and finished eating breakfast and securing The Condor for launch, they headed out on to the port to wait for Stryker. Just as Aerrow had step off the ship he caught a gleam of sunlight shining off the general's shiny bald head. "Sky General Stryker, sir, the Storm Hawks are all ready to head out." He said as th general came in earshot.

"Good." Stryker replied, looking over them all with a critical eye, then glancing up at The Condor itself."You sure the old thing will get you there in one piece. I feel I need a shot just looking at it" A smug grin now crossing his face.

Stork stood up straight, preparing to advise the general as to how wrong he was and where he could file his opinions. Aerrow shot him a look knowing how the merb would react, Stork backed down, left to stew over his thoughts.

"She's a good ship, she hasn't let us down yet. We will make it there and back before the cyclonians even knew we were there." Aerrow said looking straight at Stryker, confidence was the only emotion he showed.

"We shall see, won't we?" Stryker said, a slightly off putting smile now creeping on his face."With confidence like that, I have no doubt things will exactly according to plan." Then, once again regaining his usual calm face, he continued. "One more thing before you set out. I want you to stay on course with this mission. I have read many reports of how sidtracked you can get. This is your firs priority, understood?"

"Yes, sir." Aerrow replied. "If there's nothing else, sir, we're ready to get under way. And, don't worry, you can expect everything to run smoothly."

"Indeed I do." Stryker replied, then turned around and headed back towards the dock. Out of earshot from the Storm Hawks he added under his breath. "Indeed with that much ego and pride, I expect evrything to exactly as predicted." A small chuckle escaped his mouth as he passed out of sight, through the dock gates.

"That guy is seriously to tense." Finn said once Stryker was gone. "Some one should slip laxatives into his coffee or something to loosen him up a bit."

"Finn, thats gross!" Piper said making a disgusted face.

"And where does he got off taking a shot at The Condor!" Stork said, anger clear in his voice. "She's ten times better than ships they use in the Atmosian Guard." He was now nervously trying to rub a speck off the side of The Condor that didn't seem to want to come off.

"Let it go for now Stork." Aerrow said, still with confidence in his voice."He'll eat his words soon enough. Just like everyone before him who thought we couldn't do it. Remember, we're Storm Hawks, and no one takes that away from us." He said with a grin wide across his face."Now let's head out, next stop, Cyclonia!"

With a quick cheer from everyone, except the Stork who had gone inside to fetch a power sander to remove a pesky spot, everyone filed onto the ship and start take off procedures.

A half hour later, because Stork had insisted on getting that spot out first, the were in the sky make a hard run for Cyclonian territory. Nothing was going to stop them from finding whatever secrets Cyclonis had hidden, and proving how capable they were to Stryker. Nothing.

...

Beep...Beep...Beep...

Whew... Another chapter done. Took a bit longer than I had hoped to put it out. Next one may take a couple days because of work and because I plan to make the next installment even longer(maybe two or three times) Crazy of me, perhaps but I have a bunch of great ideas just flowing out of me the only hard part is just putting them in a good order. Here's to the future. Oh, and a quick public service announcement from Sky General Stryker himself.

"I'll keep it simple." Clears throat."REVIEW OR I'LL BLOW YOU ALL OUT OF THE SKIES!!" Clears throat again."Thank you for your time."

You heard the man.