Chapter Eighteen: Cad is Scared by the Demon Child

Day three, and Dusty still hadn't woken up. But Maru became more relaxed as he worked, so everyone could be confident things were looking up. Maru even felt confident enough to take a break and take a look at Blade and Sky. The raven-haired girl was healing nicely, and Maru rewrapped her wounds with a relieved grin on his face. Unfortunately for Blade, the tug forced the fire chief to sit through a sanding of his left flank so Maru could repaint him.

Sky moved over to Dusty, inspecting the orange and white plane. Dusty was nearly all put back together again, save for a few more dents and one of his pontoons yet to be reattached. His access panel on his nose was open, and Sky took a look inside. Her eyes widened when she saw his entire gearbox missing.

"I had to take it out." Maru said as he finished his painting. Blade moved aside, waiting outside the garage. Maru began working again. "There were such giant cracks in it. There's no way it could be fixed. I had to take the whole thing out."

Sky stared at the empty space where Dusty's gearbox used to be. She moved out of the way as Maru continued his work. "So…he'll never fly again…..much less race….."

Maru paused, spinning around and glaring at Sky. "Don't. Say. That. Ever."

Sky looked up and stared at Maru in surprise. "Maru, look at him. He was built to fly and he just destroyed the one thing that allows him to do that. You said so yourself it couldn't be fixed. You won't be able to fix him."

"Why do you doubt me?" Maru growled.

"You're good, Maru, but can you work miracles?" Sky demanded.

"Three words: better than new." Maru rolled up closer to Sky. "Dusty will fly again and I'm going to make sure of it. I need you to trust me, all right? You can't give up hope now just because things are at an all-time low. That's not how you worked in the past, so now shouldn't be any different. I promise things will work out. When have I ever let you down?"

Never. Not once has Maru ever let them down. He trusted Sky with helping him when Blade was hurt. Now, Sky had to trust that Maru knew what he was doing and could help Dusty, no matter how scared she felt that Dusty would wake up unable to fly. She sighed. "I don't care if he can't race. Just make sure he can still fly. He deserves that much."

Maru nodded. "You have my word."

Sky went back to sleeping on the floor of Blade's hanger, using the blankets as a makeshift bed of sorts. She and Blade slept peacefully, at least as much as they could with Dusty's condition still on their minds.

"Hello? Is anybody there?"

Sky moaned sleepily, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. What's that?

"Hello? Propwash Junction to Piston Peak?"

Sky reluctantly stood from her blanket nest, limping to the radio nearby. Blade yawned a bit as he wearily blinked his eyes open. "Who is it?"

"Propwash." Sky replied in an equally sleepy tone. She pressed the pedal on the radio. "Hello?"

A pause. "Sky?"

Sky smiled tiredly. "Hey there, Chug. What's up?" Chug didn't respond for a moment, and Sky instantly became wide-awake when she heard sobbing. "Chug? What's the matter?" Blade could hear the crying, and he tentatively came up behind Sky.

"You're okay." Chug blubbered a bit. "M-Mayday told us y-you and D-D-Dusty…."

Sky sighed. "Yeah. Dusty and I crashed. But I'm okay. And Dusty's getting patched up right now. No need to worry." She checked the clock nearby. "Say, isn't it like one a.m. over there?"

"I haven't been able to sleep." Chug seemed to be calming down now. "We're all so worried. Hey! I'm gonna get everyone else!"

"No, Chug! Let 'em sleep!" Sky called hurriedly. But Chug apparently already drove off, and the young woman laughed.

Blade chuckled softly. "That's some family you got there."

Sky nodded. "Yeah. I guess so. They are pretty awesome."

"Skylar?"

Sky brightened up. "Dad!"

"Skylar! Oh thank heavens!" Skipper sighed heavily. Dottie's, Sparky's, and Mayday's voices could be heard talking at once, all of them sounding relieved and as though they were crying. Which, they probably were.

"We were so worried about you." Mayday said. "We thought we'd never see you again."

"Well, you may not be able to see us for a while." Sky admitted. "Dusty still needs some fixing up and I need some time to heal."

"Take as long as you want." Skipper assured, sounding like he was trying really hard to keep his emotions at bay. "As long as you're okay."

"I'm fine, Dad." Sky assured, ignoring the slight pain she still felt from her burns. "It's so good to hear from you."

"You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice." Skipper sighed. He yawned a bit.

Sky giggled. "You guys ought to get back to bed. I promise, once Dusty wakes up, we'll call you."

There was a pause, clearly showing how hesitant the Propwash residents felt. But Sparky's voice came on. "Okay, Sky. You get some rest, all right?"

"Can do, Sparkplug." Sky said. "Goodnight." Everyone bid her goodnight and hung up. Sky sighed. "It was good to speak to them, even if for only a few minutes."

"I called a few days ago to let them know what happened." Blade told her. "They sounded concerned. Especially your father."

Sky stared at the ground. She was silent for a long moment, making Blade a little concerned himself. Finally, Sky spoke up. "You know, while I was unconscious, I kept going through flashbacks of different memories. A lot of them were of me, Sparky, and Skipper. When I was still an orphan, Sparky was my only friend. He's the one who introduced me to Skipper. It's so funny; it felt like we were already a family even before I was adopted. Going through those memories….seeing Sparky and Skipper…..it made me…..homesick….." Sky sniffled, wiping her tears away before they could fall. "…..for a moment, I was afraid I wouldn't make it back to them. But I knew that, if I kept imagining them waiting for me to come home, I could find the strength to make it back and not be in a casket."

Blade smiled, rolling up to Sky's side and nuzzling her. "And that's just one of the things that makes you a great firefighter."

Sky smiled at Blade, leaning against his side and sighing happily. A stray tear made it out of her eye, but it was the only one that fell. "Thanks, Blade."

Day four.

Nothing. Maru went back to working nonstop, all his focus on Dusty. Sky tried to coax Dipper away from the garage to eat some lunch, but the SuperScooper refused to move. So Sky brought her friend some food, almost forcefully feeding her. Dipper thanked the girl, clearly grateful even though she was worried sick. She and Sky stayed at the garage door, Windlifter coming to join them.

The quiet of the base became shattered by a voice practically screaming, "BLADE!"

Sky tensed, and she whipped around to glare fiercely. "Cad." She spat the name like a cuss word.

Blade's glare reached new levels of fury as he came out to meet Cad on the runway. The white Cadillac also glared furiously. "What do you want?" Blade growled, trying to keep a lid on his anger for now.

"You got a lot of nerve, Ranger." Cad growled. "What lies did you tell that stupid TMST agent and the Secretary of the Interior, huh?"

"Lies?" Blade scoffed, his anger breaking through in an instant. "What about you? Why in Ford's name did you mess with the water supply? You're lucky that storm came through or else the entire park could've burnt down!"

"If you had been doing your jobs right, the fire wouldn't have gotten so bad!" Cad shouted. "What am I even paying you for?"

"You barely pay us at all!" Blade shouted. "Do you have any idea what you did?"

"I did your jobs, apparently." Cad huffed. "I saved the lodge."

"I don't give a damn about that pile of kindling!" Blade snarled. "You stole water from the base. My team had to go into that fire without being fully prepared. Your recklessness nearly got two of them killed! Do you understand that, Spinner? Your one step away from being a murderer!"

"Oh don't be so overdramatic." Cad rolled his eyes. "If some of your employees were in trouble, they did it to themselves."

Blade's anger levels broke past records. "Excuse me?!"

"Oh boy." Dipper gulped a little.

"If you hadn't stolen that water, my team would've gone into that fire prepared and able to take care of it!" Blade shouted, his voice carrying across the entire base. "Dusty wouldn't have needed to refill on that waterfall, and he and Skylar wouldn't have crashed! Skylar was dying when we brought her in! It was a miracle we were able to save her life! And you call all of that our fault?!"

"You're the firefighters!" Cad snapped. "You're supposed to know how to handle these things! Or are you beginning to fail at your job?"

The shouting continued. Sky looked back at Maru. The tug furiously tried to focus on his work, but he looked ready to use the blowtorch he held as a weapon against Cad. Sky looked around to the rest of the base. Dipper stared in shock, having never seen such anger from her fire chief. Cabbie and the Smokejumpers gathered outside their respective hangers, glaring at the scene. Even Windlifter cast an angry stare at Cad. Patch stared worriedly, but she frowned nonetheless. Sky looked to Blade and Cad, the former looking ready to murder Cad where he stood.

"Okay." Sky sighed, a growl in her tone. "That does it." She began hobbling forward, much to the surprise of everyone else on the base. Cad and Blade didn't notice the girl coming forward until she was right in front of the Cadillac.

WHACK!

"OW!"

Cad groaned, a good-size dent in his fender from where Sky smacked him with both of her crutches. She held the crutches like a baseball bat, glaring fiercely at Cad. She dropped the crutches and limped forward, grabbing the edge of Cad's hood where it met his windshield. Cad opened his mouth to shout at the girl, but silenced immediately at the fire in Sky's eyes. Her irises seemed to glow…..or were they actually glowing?

"You listen very closely." Sky's voice was low, so low the Air Attack team had to strain to hear what she said. "I don't care about my injuries. I don't care about your stupid lodge. I don't care what your reasoning was for tampering with the water supply. I do care that your actions almost got my family killed. That is absolutely unforgiveable. I have every right to cause you significant bodily harm." Cad gulped a bit, unable to break his gaze away from Sky's. He felt frozen in the spot. No matter how hard he tried to pull away, something cemented him to the ground. Sky continued to speak. "I'm not going to hurt you, Cad Spinner. You're not worth my time. But I want you to get your bumper off this base right now and never come back. Because if you don't, I'm going to put you through so much agony that you will beg me, beg me, to kill you just so the pain will stop. But I am not that merciful. I won't kill you just because it hurts. I will laugh and relish in the sound of your screams."

Not once in Cad's life did he ever feel as much fear as he did right now. He desperately tried to reverse, but his back wheels didn't listen to him. Why? Why didn't his body listen to his mind's commands?

"Get the hell off this base. NOW!" Sky hollered. She released Cad, and suddenly the Cadillac sped backwards. He screeched to a halt, not expecting his body to start responding to him again. He stared fearfully at Sky. Her blue-green irises were definitely glowing now, and she glared at him with enough fury to scare away the devil.

"Demon child! Demon child!" He yelped, making a hairpin turn and speeding off down the path.

Sky watched him go and then straightened up, clearing her throat and smoothing out her hair. Her irises stopped glowing. She bent her uninjured leg and scooped up her crutches, leaning on them once more. Then she became aware of everyone save for Maru gathering around her. She looked sheepish. "Uh…sorry you had to see that."

"You kidding?" Blade laughed. "You are my new favorite person."

"Man, you really freaked him out!" Drip said excitedly.

"SCARY!" Avalanche agreed.

"How did you learn to do that?" Cabbie asked.

Sky scoffed. "You kidding? My dad is a Jolly Wrench. He taught me all about scare tactics."

"I think it's safe to say we won't be seeing anymore of Cad from now on." Dynamite said.

"Good riddance." Blackout huffed.

"Well done, Raven." Windlifter said. Everyone else voiced their agreements, impressed with Sky's performance.

Sky smiled warmly. These guys are my family too. I would do anything for them.