esp_dragon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
esp_dragon) wrote2008-06-20 09:23 am
esp_dragon) wrote2008-06-20 09:23 am
Surprise Visitors [Chapter 2]
Fandom: Storm Hawks/ Kingdom Hearts II
Summary: Three people appear on the Condor out of nowhere. Right after, the Storm Hawks are attacked by things made out of shadows. Coincidence?
Rating: K+
Notes: Okay, guess I do have a timeline for this - probably up to the most recent episode out for Storm Hawks (episode 26) and right before Sora, Donald and Goofy go into the World That Never Was.
=P Wordy chapter.
:) Thanks again to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cyber09 for beta-ing this.
Genre: Adventure/Friendship
Word count: 2,543
Total word count: 5,240
Status: Work in Progress
Prompt: 079 - Desert
"Heartless are... they're beings without hearts," Sora started. Without hearts? Aerrow's mind repeated. Did he mean that in the metaphorical sense or the literal sense? "They're born when a person's heart becomes overwhelmed by darkness. When that happens, the person dies and a heartless is born from their heart. That heartless is attracted to the darkness in other people's hearts and if it gets someone's heart..." Sora shook his head. "Then that person'll turn into a heartless too."
Aerrow paled.
"Wait, so what we've just been fighting... they were people?" Piper said, stunned.
"Kinda," Goofy admitted, looking down. He looked up again after a second. "They don't remember bein' who they were before they changed into heartless."
Donald nodded. "All their instincts are to eat a person's heart."
That was a bit comforting, but not by a lot. It didn't change that they used to be people in the first place. Aerrow shook his head. So they knew more about the heartless now but not about the trio. "Why are you here?" he asked them again.
Sora's shoulders slumped a little bit. "We're trying to find friends of ours. We got separated a while ago and we've been looking for them since then." He was silent for a while, frowning and staring into the distance. "We met someone who knows where Riku is, but he wouldn't tell us." He sighed and shook his head.
"He made a promise to Riku not to tell, Sora," Goofy admonished him.
Sora rubbed the back on his neck. "Yeah, I know," he said quietly.
"I'm sure you'll find him," Junko reassured them.
Sora seemed to cheer up at that and gave him a bright grin. "I know we will," he said confidently. "It's only a matter of time before we do."
The bridge was relatively quiet for the next few minutes as they righted what things they could and tidied away or binned what they couldn't. It was when Aerrow passed Donald's staff and Goofy's shield leaning on the wall while carrying a box of broken metal parts that he stopped. They must have put them there so they wouldn't be in the way, but where was Sora's weapon? Now that he thought about it, he remembered that he hadn't seen Sora carrying the weapon when they first appeared (Aerrow reminded himself to ask them how they got on the Condor when they were finished) and a hilt hadn't been poking out from behind him either. He glanced in Sora's direction – he was currently helping to sweep up the feathers with his back to Aerrow. No sign of the sword. He started walking again as his arms began to protest about carrying the weight. After he set the box down at the far wall, he searched for it again but he couldn't see it. Huh, weird.
"Hey, Sora?" Aerrow called as he walked up behind the other boy. Sora looked away from the bundle of feathers in his arms. "Where's your sword?"
"My sword?" Sora repeated. He looked down at the bag Donald was holding open for him and dumped the feathers inside. A couple of the feathers made a break for freedom by clearing the lip while others somehow found a bit of wind and flew upwards. Sora made a wild grab for them but missed all of them. "It comes out when it's needed."
Aerrow raised an eyebrow. A Crystal that could teleport multiple people, a Crystal that could make a weapon disappear. What else could their Crystals do? Where were they from that could make them so powerful? "What other Crystals have you got?"
A blink. "Um, Crystals?"
The sound of work stopped behind him. "Wait, you don't know what a Crystal is?" Piper asked, shocked, her eyes wide. He could understand how she felt. Crystals powered everything, least of all, ships. If they didn't know what Crystals were, then their terra must have been completely isolated from the very beginning. Even Vapos still used a few Crystals. So, if they didn't know what they were, how had they gotten into the Condor?
"I know what a Crystal is," Sora said semi-defensively," but I didn't know what you meant."
Which meant that they knew what a Crystal physically was, but not what they could do. What did they use as a power source for their machinery and ships if they didn't use Crystals? How did they power up their weapons? Wait... Aerrow looked at Donald. "You have to know what a Crystal is – you used one in the fight."
Donald shook his head. "I didn't use a Crystal," he denied. "I used..." He trailed off in surprise. "Oh."
"You mean magic?" Goofy asked them.
Aerrow looked at them in bafflement. No, not magic. Maybe they just had a different name for some things. "We might be talking about the same thing here," he said carefully. "How do you use magic?"
Now it was their turn to look baffled. "Uh..." Donald tapped his foot as he thought. "I have to learn the spell first. Then when I need to cast the spell, I concentrate to collect enough magic for it." He shrugged helplessly. "I say the name of the spell and then it happens. I don't know how to explain it!" he protested, seeing the incomprehensive looks on their faces. "I can just do it."
So... they didn't use Crystals and they used some sort of energy from their own bodies instead. Were they part Crystal or something? That didn’t make any sense!
"How big's your terra?" Piper asked suddenly.
"Hmm?" Sora looked at her. "It's... kinda small, I guess." His eyes were wandering out the window as a flock of birds decided to fly next to them.
Piper nodded to herself. "It makes sense." She turned to the rest of the Storm Hawks to explain. "They probably have a mine of Blocking Crystals right underneath them. That's why they don't know about Crystals – if there were enough of them, it'd stop all the Crystals on that terra from working, even if they're raw."
And if it was small enough, Aerrow's mind added, it would make it harder to find the terra. They had proof that not all terras were mapped, or had been 'lost'. So with no contact with other people and Crystals unable to work there, they must have made their own technology to compensate for it. It could also explain the two different races.
Did that mean they'd flown right over their home terra? Aerrow wondered if Sora and the others had ever been off their home terra. If they hadn't, how were they going to get them back home? Not to mention, if they did find their terra and dropped them off, would the Condor or their skimmers be able to leave the ground again?
xOx
The three newcomers had been staring out the window for the entire trip, faces pressed up near the glass. It didn't seem to bother Stork which was a little strange, but Aerrow let it be. The rest of the Storm hawks were dotted around the Condor, cleaning up what else they could before arriving on Saharr. Aerrow was watching the three of the bridge for any kind of deception but so far, they really did seem like they hadn't flown before. A few other ships had passed them going in the opposite direction and the way the three had tracked their movement, it seemed like they'd never seen ships like them before. But... Aerrow hated to admit it but they'd been fooled by Master Cyclonis before so this time, he was going to be a bit more careful.
"We're nearing Saharr," Stork informed him, his eyes not leaving the horizon. He had seem to calm down the longer the trip went and the fact that nothing else had popped up either.
"Gawrsh," Goofy said, pointing to the distance. "Is that it there?"
Aerrow took a few steps forwards and squinted at the clouds. Just poking above the clouds was terra Saharr. It'd taken them only a few more minutes to get there now if they could see it.
"Yeah."
"Your... terras are up this high?" Sora asked, surprised. His hands were braced on the glass as he tried to get a closer look.
Stork shuddered, but the Condor didn't stray from her course. "Underneath the cloud line is the Wastelands," he told them. "Molten lava and elephant ants among other treacherous monsters lurk there. Not many people who fly down there come back up," he warned, voice low.
Except they'd gone down there a few times and lived to tell about it, Aerrow thought with a smile.
xOx
Even though Aerrow knew about the Saharr heat, it still caught him off guard when the humid air blasted in as soon as they lowered the ramp. Sand swirled in after it, some of it catching his cheek before he could duck. Even from this distance away from the bazaar, he could hear some of the people trying to sell their wares.
"All right," Aerrow said, turning to face his friends. "You know what parts you need to find. We'll meet back here in two hours with the parts we've bought and then we'll all try to find whatever parts we don't have." He nodded to them. "See you in two hours." Sora, Donald and Goofy had been split up again – this time, Goofy was partnered with him. Radarr had flat out refused to come out, because the last time they'd been here, he'd still been picking sand out his fur two weeks later. There was also the fact that his fur in general made the heat worse for him anyway.
A few minutes later, the Storm Hawks went their separate ways into the bustling streets. Aerrow wondered how Sora would be in the heat considering he was wearing nearly all black and that he was already pulling on his collar before they'd split up. Which wasn't to say Goofy wasn't going to have problems either, Aerrow thought, looking at him from the corner of his eyes, but the black fur was only showing on his arms and part of his face – which his hat kind of covered, depending on what way it flopped. His clothing would help keep him cool though, since they were baggy, and was part of the reason why he wasn't completely worried about Sora either.
They'd arrived just after two, which was good because they'd passed the hottest part of the day and now it would get cooler, even little by little.
"There's a lot of shops here," Goofy noted as he twisted his head to get a better look at everything.
Aerrow neatly stepped out of the way of someone's path. "Terra Saharr has the largest amount of shops in the one place," he explained. He ducked under another person's wild gesture. "If you can't find it here, you probably won't find it anywhere else in Atmos." He checked where his foot was going just before two cats ran underneath it. Moving about in here was an exercise in itself. "Not easily anyway," he amended.
Goofy looked doubtfully at the list in his hand as they moved. "I don't think I know what these look like," he admitted.
Aerrow smiled at him. "It's fine, he reassured him. "I don't think people who aren't involved with Sky Knights would know either." He took a deep breath as he thought about the things they had to find and then decided against it. He led Goofy to a quiet, shady area and then looked at the list. "Okay, reflector plates are about this big..."
xOx
For the first hour, they couldn't find a single item on their list when Aerrow spotted one of them. It looked like it was about ten seconds away from teetering over the edge of the stall.
"Hey, how much is this?" he asked the merchant, holding the dual fans up.
The man looked at it speculatively and named his price. It was a little on the high side compared to the price on the list but that was expected – finding what you wanted was half the battle here while the other half was haggling the price down. Five minutes later, Aerrow was carrying his purchase in a box feeling distinctively pleased with himself; he'd gotten the fans a lot cheaper than what Junko had on the list.
"Do you need help with that?" Goofy asked him as they walked away from the stall.
"Hn?" He adjusted his grip on the corners to something more comfortable. "It's okay – I got it," he said, shaking his head. That only left two relatively small items on the list to find.
Another hour later, Aerrow and Goofy carried their items back to the Condor, having just found everything they were supposed to in time. Junko, Finn, Sora and Donald were already there, some of them wrestling with whatever they'd bought onto the Condor while Radarr helped with the light stuff. Still, they were laughing.
A quick question revealed that the rest had found all that they'd needed to as well, so now all they had to do was wait for Piper and Stork to come back. It was only a few minutes later that they appeared, purchases in tow. From the look on Piper's face, something hasn't gone according to plan. Much of Stork's face couldn't be seen under the large hat he was wearing.
"What's up?" he asked them once they got closer.
"It's the convertor coils," Piper said unhappily. "They've been upgraded over the years now so the ones that the Condor uses are different from the ones you can buy now – she can't use those ones because she's wired differently." She sighed as she and Stork tugged the hovertrolley onto the Condor. "The type the Condor uses is out of production and we have to pay three times as much to buy it." After bringing it onboard, Stork swiftly left, muttering about getting a sterile shower and medicine for the rash on his hands.
Three-! The convertor coils were one of the most expensive items on the list and they thought that the money they had would only just cover it all.
"Looks like we're going to have to get some jobs then," Aerrow said out loud, with a grimace. He didn't mind Saharr, really, but it was a little bit too hot for him sometimes.
"Can we help?" Sora asked. "With getting the money," he elaborated. "I mean, we did do some of the damage too, so it'd only be fair."
Aerrow considered it. If they did help with making the money, then he and the others wouldn't be able to keep an eye on them. On the other hand, if he refused their help, they would then stay on the Condor and he would have to have someone watch them, slowing down their progress making money. Even then, that one person wouldn't be able to watch all of them at the same time.
He made his decision and nodded. "You can help."
The three visitors grinned at him. Aerrow turned to face the bazaar again. Now all they had to do was find some willing people to pay them.
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Summary: Three people appear on the Condor out of nowhere. Right after, the Storm Hawks are attacked by things made out of shadows. Coincidence?
Rating: K+
Notes: Okay, guess I do have a timeline for this - probably up to the most recent episode out for Storm Hawks (episode 26) and right before Sora, Donald and Goofy go into the World That Never Was.
=P Wordy chapter.
:) Thanks again to
cyber09 for beta-ing this. Genre: Adventure/Friendship
Word count: 2,543
Total word count: 5,240
Status: Work in Progress
Prompt: 079 - Desert
"Heartless are... they're beings without hearts," Sora started. Without hearts? Aerrow's mind repeated. Did he mean that in the metaphorical sense or the literal sense? "They're born when a person's heart becomes overwhelmed by darkness. When that happens, the person dies and a heartless is born from their heart. That heartless is attracted to the darkness in other people's hearts and if it gets someone's heart..." Sora shook his head. "Then that person'll turn into a heartless too."
Aerrow paled.
"Wait, so what we've just been fighting... they were people?" Piper said, stunned.
"Kinda," Goofy admitted, looking down. He looked up again after a second. "They don't remember bein' who they were before they changed into heartless."
Donald nodded. "All their instincts are to eat a person's heart."
That was a bit comforting, but not by a lot. It didn't change that they used to be people in the first place. Aerrow shook his head. So they knew more about the heartless now but not about the trio. "Why are you here?" he asked them again.
Sora's shoulders slumped a little bit. "We're trying to find friends of ours. We got separated a while ago and we've been looking for them since then." He was silent for a while, frowning and staring into the distance. "We met someone who knows where Riku is, but he wouldn't tell us." He sighed and shook his head.
"He made a promise to Riku not to tell, Sora," Goofy admonished him.
Sora rubbed the back on his neck. "Yeah, I know," he said quietly.
"I'm sure you'll find him," Junko reassured them.
Sora seemed to cheer up at that and gave him a bright grin. "I know we will," he said confidently. "It's only a matter of time before we do."
The bridge was relatively quiet for the next few minutes as they righted what things they could and tidied away or binned what they couldn't. It was when Aerrow passed Donald's staff and Goofy's shield leaning on the wall while carrying a box of broken metal parts that he stopped. They must have put them there so they wouldn't be in the way, but where was Sora's weapon? Now that he thought about it, he remembered that he hadn't seen Sora carrying the weapon when they first appeared (Aerrow reminded himself to ask them how they got on the Condor when they were finished) and a hilt hadn't been poking out from behind him either. He glanced in Sora's direction – he was currently helping to sweep up the feathers with his back to Aerrow. No sign of the sword. He started walking again as his arms began to protest about carrying the weight. After he set the box down at the far wall, he searched for it again but he couldn't see it. Huh, weird.
"Hey, Sora?" Aerrow called as he walked up behind the other boy. Sora looked away from the bundle of feathers in his arms. "Where's your sword?"
"My sword?" Sora repeated. He looked down at the bag Donald was holding open for him and dumped the feathers inside. A couple of the feathers made a break for freedom by clearing the lip while others somehow found a bit of wind and flew upwards. Sora made a wild grab for them but missed all of them. "It comes out when it's needed."
Aerrow raised an eyebrow. A Crystal that could teleport multiple people, a Crystal that could make a weapon disappear. What else could their Crystals do? Where were they from that could make them so powerful? "What other Crystals have you got?"
A blink. "Um, Crystals?"
The sound of work stopped behind him. "Wait, you don't know what a Crystal is?" Piper asked, shocked, her eyes wide. He could understand how she felt. Crystals powered everything, least of all, ships. If they didn't know what Crystals were, then their terra must have been completely isolated from the very beginning. Even Vapos still used a few Crystals. So, if they didn't know what they were, how had they gotten into the Condor?
"I know what a Crystal is," Sora said semi-defensively," but I didn't know what you meant."
Which meant that they knew what a Crystal physically was, but not what they could do. What did they use as a power source for their machinery and ships if they didn't use Crystals? How did they power up their weapons? Wait... Aerrow looked at Donald. "You have to know what a Crystal is – you used one in the fight."
Donald shook his head. "I didn't use a Crystal," he denied. "I used..." He trailed off in surprise. "Oh."
"You mean magic?" Goofy asked them.
Aerrow looked at them in bafflement. No, not magic. Maybe they just had a different name for some things. "We might be talking about the same thing here," he said carefully. "How do you use magic?"
Now it was their turn to look baffled. "Uh..." Donald tapped his foot as he thought. "I have to learn the spell first. Then when I need to cast the spell, I concentrate to collect enough magic for it." He shrugged helplessly. "I say the name of the spell and then it happens. I don't know how to explain it!" he protested, seeing the incomprehensive looks on their faces. "I can just do it."
So... they didn't use Crystals and they used some sort of energy from their own bodies instead. Were they part Crystal or something? That didn’t make any sense!
"How big's your terra?" Piper asked suddenly.
"Hmm?" Sora looked at her. "It's... kinda small, I guess." His eyes were wandering out the window as a flock of birds decided to fly next to them.
Piper nodded to herself. "It makes sense." She turned to the rest of the Storm Hawks to explain. "They probably have a mine of Blocking Crystals right underneath them. That's why they don't know about Crystals – if there were enough of them, it'd stop all the Crystals on that terra from working, even if they're raw."
And if it was small enough, Aerrow's mind added, it would make it harder to find the terra. They had proof that not all terras were mapped, or had been 'lost'. So with no contact with other people and Crystals unable to work there, they must have made their own technology to compensate for it. It could also explain the two different races.
Did that mean they'd flown right over their home terra? Aerrow wondered if Sora and the others had ever been off their home terra. If they hadn't, how were they going to get them back home? Not to mention, if they did find their terra and dropped them off, would the Condor or their skimmers be able to leave the ground again?
The three newcomers had been staring out the window for the entire trip, faces pressed up near the glass. It didn't seem to bother Stork which was a little strange, but Aerrow let it be. The rest of the Storm hawks were dotted around the Condor, cleaning up what else they could before arriving on Saharr. Aerrow was watching the three of the bridge for any kind of deception but so far, they really did seem like they hadn't flown before. A few other ships had passed them going in the opposite direction and the way the three had tracked their movement, it seemed like they'd never seen ships like them before. But... Aerrow hated to admit it but they'd been fooled by Master Cyclonis before so this time, he was going to be a bit more careful.
"We're nearing Saharr," Stork informed him, his eyes not leaving the horizon. He had seem to calm down the longer the trip went and the fact that nothing else had popped up either.
"Gawrsh," Goofy said, pointing to the distance. "Is that it there?"
Aerrow took a few steps forwards and squinted at the clouds. Just poking above the clouds was terra Saharr. It'd taken them only a few more minutes to get there now if they could see it.
"Yeah."
"Your... terras are up this high?" Sora asked, surprised. His hands were braced on the glass as he tried to get a closer look.
Stork shuddered, but the Condor didn't stray from her course. "Underneath the cloud line is the Wastelands," he told them. "Molten lava and elephant ants among other treacherous monsters lurk there. Not many people who fly down there come back up," he warned, voice low.
Except they'd gone down there a few times and lived to tell about it, Aerrow thought with a smile.
Even though Aerrow knew about the Saharr heat, it still caught him off guard when the humid air blasted in as soon as they lowered the ramp. Sand swirled in after it, some of it catching his cheek before he could duck. Even from this distance away from the bazaar, he could hear some of the people trying to sell their wares.
"All right," Aerrow said, turning to face his friends. "You know what parts you need to find. We'll meet back here in two hours with the parts we've bought and then we'll all try to find whatever parts we don't have." He nodded to them. "See you in two hours." Sora, Donald and Goofy had been split up again – this time, Goofy was partnered with him. Radarr had flat out refused to come out, because the last time they'd been here, he'd still been picking sand out his fur two weeks later. There was also the fact that his fur in general made the heat worse for him anyway.
A few minutes later, the Storm Hawks went their separate ways into the bustling streets. Aerrow wondered how Sora would be in the heat considering he was wearing nearly all black and that he was already pulling on his collar before they'd split up. Which wasn't to say Goofy wasn't going to have problems either, Aerrow thought, looking at him from the corner of his eyes, but the black fur was only showing on his arms and part of his face – which his hat kind of covered, depending on what way it flopped. His clothing would help keep him cool though, since they were baggy, and was part of the reason why he wasn't completely worried about Sora either.
They'd arrived just after two, which was good because they'd passed the hottest part of the day and now it would get cooler, even little by little.
"There's a lot of shops here," Goofy noted as he twisted his head to get a better look at everything.
Aerrow neatly stepped out of the way of someone's path. "Terra Saharr has the largest amount of shops in the one place," he explained. He ducked under another person's wild gesture. "If you can't find it here, you probably won't find it anywhere else in Atmos." He checked where his foot was going just before two cats ran underneath it. Moving about in here was an exercise in itself. "Not easily anyway," he amended.
Goofy looked doubtfully at the list in his hand as they moved. "I don't think I know what these look like," he admitted.
Aerrow smiled at him. "It's fine, he reassured him. "I don't think people who aren't involved with Sky Knights would know either." He took a deep breath as he thought about the things they had to find and then decided against it. He led Goofy to a quiet, shady area and then looked at the list. "Okay, reflector plates are about this big..."
For the first hour, they couldn't find a single item on their list when Aerrow spotted one of them. It looked like it was about ten seconds away from teetering over the edge of the stall.
"Hey, how much is this?" he asked the merchant, holding the dual fans up.
The man looked at it speculatively and named his price. It was a little on the high side compared to the price on the list but that was expected – finding what you wanted was half the battle here while the other half was haggling the price down. Five minutes later, Aerrow was carrying his purchase in a box feeling distinctively pleased with himself; he'd gotten the fans a lot cheaper than what Junko had on the list.
"Do you need help with that?" Goofy asked him as they walked away from the stall.
"Hn?" He adjusted his grip on the corners to something more comfortable. "It's okay – I got it," he said, shaking his head. That only left two relatively small items on the list to find.
Another hour later, Aerrow and Goofy carried their items back to the Condor, having just found everything they were supposed to in time. Junko, Finn, Sora and Donald were already there, some of them wrestling with whatever they'd bought onto the Condor while Radarr helped with the light stuff. Still, they were laughing.
A quick question revealed that the rest had found all that they'd needed to as well, so now all they had to do was wait for Piper and Stork to come back. It was only a few minutes later that they appeared, purchases in tow. From the look on Piper's face, something hasn't gone according to plan. Much of Stork's face couldn't be seen under the large hat he was wearing.
"What's up?" he asked them once they got closer.
"It's the convertor coils," Piper said unhappily. "They've been upgraded over the years now so the ones that the Condor uses are different from the ones you can buy now – she can't use those ones because she's wired differently." She sighed as she and Stork tugged the hovertrolley onto the Condor. "The type the Condor uses is out of production and we have to pay three times as much to buy it." After bringing it onboard, Stork swiftly left, muttering about getting a sterile shower and medicine for the rash on his hands.
Three-! The convertor coils were one of the most expensive items on the list and they thought that the money they had would only just cover it all.
"Looks like we're going to have to get some jobs then," Aerrow said out loud, with a grimace. He didn't mind Saharr, really, but it was a little bit too hot for him sometimes.
"Can we help?" Sora asked. "With getting the money," he elaborated. "I mean, we did do some of the damage too, so it'd only be fair."
Aerrow considered it. If they did help with making the money, then he and the others wouldn't be able to keep an eye on them. On the other hand, if he refused their help, they would then stay on the Condor and he would have to have someone watch them, slowing down their progress making money. Even then, that one person wouldn't be able to watch all of them at the same time.
He made his decision and nodded. "You can help."
The three visitors grinned at him. Aerrow turned to face the bazaar again. Now all they had to do was find some willing people to pay them.