Chapter Summary:

On the way to deliver the Aurora Stone back to Atmosia, the team encounters some turbulence.

Dark Ace is bored, and will make that everyone else's problem.

Aerrow touches down on Terra Gale and reunites with a friend.

A/N: This chapter is the first of many in which I have combined the plots of two episodes into one 'episode'/arc. The first person to guess both episodes that I have used as a foundation for this arc gets a cookie! One is obvious, the other is less so. I'll preheat the oven :3

Things were going… okay for the Storm Hawks.

They had the Aurora Stone (most of it, at least). They'd escaped the Cyclonian citadel and miraculously evaded Talon pursuit. Now, they had to get to Atmosia.

Not as easy as it should've been. Their little espionage mission had stirred the winds up something fierce, and they were met with far more Talon border patrols than they'd found on the way in. A straight shot to Atmosia was sure to end in their capture.

So Piper spent several hours pouring over maps and borrowed intelligence reports on Talon patrol schedules, trying to find some sort of breach in their watch.

She found it soon enough.

Terra Gale. Sat right on the border between the Free Atmos and Cyclonian Empire, the Terra and its province was one of the longest-standing points of resistance against the Talon army, constantly back and forth in its occupation throughout the war.

Currently, it was the safest place for the Storm Hawks to try crossing the border.

Or it should've been, until a toilet got catapulted through the window, followed by red crystal-fire

Panic seized the team and they all rushed to take action. Finn, Piper and Junko took to the air while Ciel and Stork remained in the Condor. Piper almost crashed into a windmill that she hadn't seen through the thick clouds in the area, Junko spent more time fighting to keep control of his ride in the ferocious winds Terra Gale was best known for than fighting their assailants, and Finn…

Finn was knocked out of the sky by a mattress.

Luckily, his parachute unfurled properly, and the winds pushed him towards a nearby sub-Terra. The one with the windmill and a makeshift catapult being loaded up with scrap by two people in civilian clothes. Unluckily, two more people and a skinny dog immediately rounded up on him to trap him in a rather large net.

"Finn!" Piper shouted, diving down to come to his rescue. But an unnaturally strong gust of wind sent her spiralling towards the Terra. Her ride hit the ground and she barely managed to switch it to ground mode in time for it to throw her off, sending her skidding along the grass and dirt to the feet of more people who also tangled her up in a net without hesitation.

Junko soon followed, being sent careening by another gust from what Piper now saw was a high-grade wind crystal in the hands of a stout old man wearing a… a cauldron? She didn't have time to think on it before she, Finn and Junko were all being trussed up together and pulled to the edge of the Terra. Among the complaints of how heavy the Wallop was, Piper could catch the Galemen talking about throwing them to the wastelands. Cauldron Man was the loudest and most fervent of them all.

"Wait!" Piper shouted, gripping at the netting in a panic. "We're not Cyclonians, we're the Storm Hawks!"

Cauldron Man paused in his mad rambling, "Chickenhawks? Nevermind! You might not be Red Harts, but we know a Talon squadron when we see one. As if you didn't come in to provide reinforcements for zhe Red Harts!"

A few of the civilians looked among each other, expressions of doubt on their faces. They were also wearing makeshift armour made of pots and pans over their patched-up clothes and bandages.

"Wren, leurs couleurs…" one of them said hesitantly.

"Tu ne m'as pas entendu?!" Cauldron Man barked up at them. "Lance-les!"

"We're not Talons!" Piper insisted, twisting around to show the people the Storm Hawks insignia emblazoned on her shoulder. "Look, we're wearing the Storm Hawks insignia. We rebuilt the team and we were trying to escape the Talons. Please, we're telling the truth."

"Yeah, we've gotta get the Aurora Stone back to Atmosia!" Finn piped up. "We're the heroes who got it back from the Cyclonians!"

"You retrieved zhe Aurora Stone?" Cauldron Man asked in disbelief. Did these people not have access to a Radio? Piper wondered. "Zhat is ridiculous."

"It's the truth," Piper pushed. "Terra Gale was the safest place for us to cross the border."

The man was quiet for a moment as his compatriots murmured amongst themselves. Eventually, he grumbled something under his breath,

"Och, fine! We'll cut you loose."

A broken leg, several cracked ribs, crystal energy saturation, a fractured shoulder blade and a head wound. Put them together and you get a bored, grumpy, bedbound Dark Ace. The Free Atmos might have feared the man when he was in a rage, but in boredom he was the terror of Cyclonia's medic force.

"Sir, you're not meant to be sitting up yet!"

Dark Ace grunted and kept pushing himself upright.

"Sir!"

"Are you ever going to stop being a problem?"

"I've been a thorn in your side for ten years Owler, I'm not about to stop now."

Owler sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shouldered the fretting medics away and stood over Dark Ace. He could practically see the doctor's bushy white moustache bristling in annoyance, like a disgruntled bird fluffing itself up.

"You know how this goes, and I'm telling you to stop."

"No."

"You will make your recovery period take longer."

"Oh please, I'm always back on my feet in half the recovery time you give me."

"I'll strap you to this bed."

"Try me."

"I'll call your mother."

"…Fine."

Thoroughly cowed by the threat, Dark Ace sank back into the bed. The smug Dr Owler turned and left, followed by a small gaggle of doctors and nurses. With a frustrated sigh, the Champion reached out to pick up one of the intel files he'd gotten yesterday and proceeded to read through it again.

"I thought you of all people would make the most of this break."

The voice didn't surprise him, he didn't even look away from the file to see Master Cyclonis sitting in the chair next to his bed. She looked bored.

"I would if there was more to keep me occupied," Dark Ace muttered, finally looking over at the Empress. "Did you need something?"

"I'm not allowed to visit my Champion on bedrest?"

"You hardly ever come in here without a good reason. So what brings you here?"

She kicked her legs in the air for a moment, and Dark Ace was reminded again that she was only fourteen. He still remembered the first time she'd ever visited him in the infirmary, only five years old and repeatedly poking at his bandages, asking if they hurt and what had happened to him.

"Aerrow asked me to check in on you."

That earned her a raised eyebrow, "He can't go to see me himself?"

"Not at the moment, no."

"Why not?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, "He's off-Terra."

"…Where?"

Silence.

"Delphi, where's Aerrow?"

The Empress looked away; arms crossed.

"Delphinium."

"He's on Terra Gale assisting the Red Hart platoon with Snipe. There. Happy?"

Dark Ace stared at her. He stared at her some more.

"And I wasn't consulted about this why?"

The girl scowled at him, "Oh, I didn't realise I needed your permission to send my Talons out on assignments."

"He's my ward, Delphi. Not some greenie graduate you can boss around and send wherever you please. He's not even old enough to graduate the Academies yet. "

"He volunteered, so I don't see a problem with it."

"It's Gale, you know the risks that place holds. There's a reason why I was supposed to be the one to go out there."

"Well you can't go now, and he's already there, so there's nothing you can do about it."

Dark Ace visibly bristled, the feathers in his hair ruffling. "Like hell there isn't!"

"Why do you care so much?" Delphinium demanded, her voice rising. "It's not as if you weren't doing the same thing at our age."

"I wasn't off fighting trigger-happy rebels with a penchant for blowing up medical camps. I was evacuating refugees and dicking around at races. Do you seriously expect an espionage specialist to be able to handle the border?"

Purple eyes flashed in outrage, "Aerrow isn't-."

"Master Cyclonis?"

"What?!" the Empress barked, her voice filling the room with a low rumble. At the door, a brown-skinned woman in a wheelchair looked at her impassively. "What is it, Cara?"

"There's a crystal shipment from Terra Xerxxes requiring your appraisal, your highness," the woman, Cara Cara, said blankly. "It's being unloaded on the east dock."

Cyclonis's scowl deepened, and she abruptly stood up. "Fine." She glared over at Dark Ace, "We're finished here."

She stormed off and he rolled his eyes at her. Cara Cara came in to sit next to him.

"Impeccable timing as always, Cara," Dark Ace muttered. The secretary just smiled at him, bronze eyes glinting placidly.

"I'm just doing my job, sir. Is there anything I can get you?"

"Some new reading material. There's only so much fun I can get from these dossiers."

Wren Godwit was the ringleader of the Gale rebels. The last Rebel Duck, its former leading Sky Knight, defending the 'last free piece of Terra Gale' with a handful of civilians. It appeared the province had yet again fallen under Cyclonian territory, and the Rebel Ducks squadron had been imprisoned in one of the many mining camps.

"It was a terrible day for our people," the old man lamented, the light from that night's campfire glinting off the surface of the cauldron he called his armour. "So much destruction, the Red Harts were picking the Rebel Ducks off one by one."

"What's a Red Hart?" Ciel asked in a hushed voice while Wren continued to despair over Gale's plight. The name almost sounded like that of a Sky Knight squadron, but that couldn't be what they were.

"A Cyclonian border team," one of the civilian rebels whispered back, with a heavy Gale accent. "Ruthless enough to make a real name for themselves amongst Talon ranks."

Ciel paled at that, mouth opening to ask why none of the other Sky Knight squadrons had gone to help already. His words faltered when he remembered the devastating defeat most of the teams had suffered just a few days ago. Of course none of them had helped Gale, how could they?

"Zhose bastard Red Harts are the worst of the worst," Wren snarled, making Ciel jump. "I have been at odds with zhem for decades, losing man after man. They didn't even stop when I gutted one of zheir lousy captains."

Finn grimaced at the image that popped into his head, "Ew."

Wren carried on, "In their last attack, they went another step too far, and took my precious Dove." With a sigh, he pulled out a photograph from within the confines of his cauldron to look at it. "My poor granddaughter."

Looking amongst each other, the Storm Hawks all stayed quiet. Eventually, Wren was called to help prime some explosives and the net trap. He waddled away, clacking and clanking loudly, but a stray gust of wind blew the photograph out of wherever he'd stashed it.

Piper called out, "Mister Godwit, you forgot- Ach!" The photo blew into her face and was deftly plucked off by Finn.

"Oh hello there," he practically purred when he saw the image of the 'poor granddaughter'. Or at least he tried to. To the rest of the team it sounded like he was gargling melted chocolate. "Y'know, I was expecting a little kid, not a bombshell. Are we sure that's his granddaughter?"

"Don't be weird, Finn," Piper rolled her eyes and took the photo to also get a look. The missing Dove was a smiling teenage girl around their age. Dark hair, sparkling blue eyes, she was decked out in similar makeshift armour to Wren, grinning at the camera alongside a young man wearing the Rebel Ducks' insignia. Ciel recognised him as the Sky Knight, Lapwing.

"So, I know we need to get the Aurora Stone pieces back to Atmosia," Ciel piped up, "But I think we should stay to help these people."

"And how do you suppose we do that?" Stork asked, his voice shaking slightly. "You heard what they said, Cyclonia's got the 'Red Harts' stationed here. If they're anything like the Fog Howler platoon that lead the Merbia invasion, they're bad news. Their teams have to earn a name like that."

Ciel blinked in surprise, shrinking back a little in fear. Stork hardly ever talked about Merbia, and especially not about the invasion. The subject made him twitchy, and everyone had quickly learned to avoid ever bringing it up. This had to be serious if he was bringing that up.

"Yeah, that seems… scary," Junko agreed.

"Ciel's right though," Piper said, "These people need help, and none will come anytime soon after what happened on Cyclonia. Not to mention Gale is a key player in the war. Liberating the Rebel Ducks will provide a tactical advantage for the rest of the Free Atmos."

"And what if we're caught?" Stork objected, "We get thrown in a Talon stockade, and the Aurora Stone is back in their clutches. You did see what just the Dark Ace was capable of with it, right? The Condor's shields are fucked up beyond all repair."

Piper winced. Stork also had a point. And she could see the reluctance on Junko's and Finn's faces. The strongman still had a few marks on his knuckles from getting shocked by that cage.

"It's what a Sky Knight would do," Ciel whispered, fiddling with the braids in his bright orange hair, "And the old Storm Hawks."

In fact, Gale had been one of the Terras to receive the support of the old team. Cooper Cross, their medic and explosives specialist, had been a Galeman himself. They'd provided fire support, ration supplies, evacuations, Lightning Strike had even lead a charge against a border patrol ship with just his five teammates, capturing said ship for the Rebel Ducks to use for themselves.

The Ducks had crashed it a week later, but that wasn't the point.

Wasn't that what the kind of squadron they wanted to be?

The others were quiet for a moment before Piper sighed and nodded,

"Let's see how we can help them."

Gale lived up to its name. When Aerrow first stepped off the warship that had brought him here, a ferocious gust of wind almost knocked him straight off the pier.

"Whoah there! Maybe I Shouldn't have brought you along. Dark Ace would kill me if I let you blow away."

Large, powerful hands gripped his shoulders, and Aerrow squirmed and grumbled in protest. Looking up, he met eyes with Snipe, the general was smirking down at him, clearly amused by the fact that Aerrow was basically a featherweight compared to him. Radarr chattered in amusement, prompting Aerrow to let out an incensed chirp and bare his teeth at the lemur.

"You gonna fly away if I let go of you?"

"Eat bugs, Snipe."

"Someone isn't getting a homemade dinner today. Wind, take this rude little shit far away from here."

Chattering loudly, Aerrow wriggled out of Snipe's grip and darted down the pier with Radarr in his arms and a grin plastered on his face. The sun was setting, Talons were gathered around to unload the warship's cargo, it was all noise and hustle and bustle. A few of them gave him and Radarr some surprised looks, but he carried on largely uninterrupted. They had somewhere to be.

"Did you hear about that ship that set up on the rebellion's turf earlier?"

"With the Storm Hawks insignia on it? Yeah, I did. Can't believe we've got another set of impersonators running around, didn't they learn after what happened last time?"

Aerrow froze mid-step.

"Nah, the sky knights covered that one up, remember? They love to hide their mistakes from each other."

With wide eyes, Aerrow darted into the nearest shadow by some wooden crates.

The Storm Hawks were on Gale? Really?

The first Talon, older than the others, shook their head, "No, no, I was there when they showed up. They have the Condor, I'd recognise that horn anywhere. Would a team of wannabes have the original ship? I don't think so."

Slacker number three rolled their eyes and scoffed, "Hornbill, you're not seriously bringing up the ghost ship thing again."

"It was not a ghost ship! Someone got that old thing up and running again and I saw it! And now there's a team to go with it. One of them was a Wallop, and there was a weird yellow porcupine-."

"Does it matter if its the real deal?" the second Talon cut in. "They won't last very long once Dark Ace hears about this if last time was any indication. The Sky Knight was sent home in boxes. Plural."

"I thought nobody could find the bodies."

"No, he left them to be found as a warning."

Aerrow's frown deepened as the three Talons devolved into inaudible bickering. Just as he was about to try creeping in closer so he could listen again, a chirp from Radarr alerted him to the fact that they were no longer alone. He spun round on his heel to find himself face to face with a hooded figure in the familiar uniform of the Nightcrawlers, bright blue hair peeking out from the shadows it cast.

The smile was back on his face, "Hey Dagr."

Yellow eyes flicked over towards the Talons Aerrow had been listening in on, then back to him.

"Were you eavesdropping without me?" Dagr asked, and Aerrow's smile turned sheepish.

"Got distracted on our way to see you," he admitted. From his shoulder, Radarr snickered at the accusation. "We just got here."

All three boys looked back at the Talons, only to find them being reprimanded for slacking by a fourth. They dispersed, leaving Aerrow disappointed.

Dagr hummed curiously, and retreated further into the shadows, "What were they talking about?"

"That squadron that took the Aurora Stone," Aerrow explained, "They showed up on a nearby Terra today."

They were not the Storm Hawks, he added internally. It didn't matter what insignia they had on their uniforms, that didn't make them Storm Hawks.

"Really?" Dagr said with a frown. "I thought they'd head straight to Atmosia, since that rock seems so important. Did you catch why they were here?"

"No. Maybe the Red Harts' captain will know. There's supposed to be a briefing later, we can catch that."

"Since when did you ever want to go to a briefing?"

"Since… now?"

Radarr squeaked in dissent, and Dagr raised a sceptical eyebrow, "You can't sit through meetings for more than five minutes. Is this about those Storm Hawks?"

Aerrow's smile slowly dipped into a pout at the accusation, "I want answers."

That answer seemed to satisfy his friend. Dagr nodded.

"You wanna check this place out until you get some?" he asked, and Aerrow's mood immediately brightened at the distraction.

"Yeah. Where're you and the other Nightcrawlers staying?"

"There's a warehouse on the east end of the harbour that got boarded up for us. Come on, I'll show you."

Dagr turned to lead the way, and Aerrow eagerly followed after him with Radarr in tow. The dark cloud that the news of the wannabe squadron had brought on lifted slightly. While the trio walked, conversation turned to the Red Harts, their captain; Corythiax Turaco, and how they'd be expected to help fight the Gale rebels. The sky knight squadron had already been captured, there probably wouldn't be much more resistance after that, right? The Red Harts were among the best of the best, and 'Storm Hawks' aside, Aerrow was excited to finally meet them.

A/N: I'm sure everything will be fine.

Dagr is another character belonging to grimm_the_6th. Cara Cara belongs to myself.