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Exchange Student - Ch11

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Exchange Student - Ch11

Junko had been out for less than 5 minutes before Finn made his customary landing on the windscreen of his skimmer. He groaned, clinging to the headlights. "…I thought that might have stopped happening by now," he whimpered, scrambling over the windscreen and seating himself on the crystal converters. "What's that?"

Something had exploded from the Condor, moving in a nimbus of golden, hazy light, and it was making straight for them. "What…?"
"I don't know, but it's coming straight at us, man!" Finn shoved Junko to the side and threw the skimmer into a dive, just as a blurred black and white shape roared past them, screaming gleefully. "LOOK OUT, PEOPLE, IT'S ABOUT TO KICK OFF-AAAAI!" The skimmer ploughed onwards, swerving between mutant Cyclonians and sky knight squadrons alike, bolts of white hot energy erupting from all sides. Finn squinted. "Is that Magpie?"
"Um…so to speak…" Stork replied over the intercom, sounding somewhat dazed. "I…she…I don't know." Finn and Junko stared after her as she ricocheted around the battlefield, Cyclonians falling all around her like a light, mutated rain. "She's got some crystal pulse thingy, something to do with a solar crystal…?" His voice changed to Piper's.
"A crystal pulse? What's that?"
"She said it would send out a pulse of crystal energy that would cancel out the lunar crystals' effects. Like the beacon tower. Except, er…"
"A hundred times more powerful," Piper breathed through the intercom. Finn didn't pretend to know anything about crystals, or even be interested in them, but sometimes they seemed very dangerous to his health. This seemed like one of those times. "And what's she going to do with it?"
"My guess would be something incredibly destructive and deadly," drawled the intercom, "But let's not get too optimistic."

Magpie goaded the engine to go faster, smoke unfurling from the crystal burners. It had taken a beating on her way out of the mountain, and more of a beating getting it back to the Condor, and it was in pretty bad shape. In the back of her mind, there was a niggling sensation of utter terror, but it was completely overshadowed by the rest of the mad emotions that were making up her thoughts at the moment. "COME ON, THEN!" she howled at the Cyclonians, as dozens of slabbering faces darted around her, biting at the tyres. Wrenching a grenade from her hip, she bit the blocking crystal off it, spat it out, and hurled it at the monsters.

The skimmer leapt in the air as the blast caught it from behind, and she saw a satisfying number of parachutes blossom beneath her. "Not bad." She turned the skimmer on its side, turning tightly to face the next onslaught. Lots more of them, this time. Too many just to lob another grenade. She went for her crossbow next, the Pulse tied to her belt tightly. She could only use it once, and then she'd be too unconscious - or dead - to do it again. The crossbow blazed with solar energy as she fired it into the face of an oncoming mutant. "OH YEAH, EAT IT, HAG!" She pulled the skimmer upwards and shot downwards, watching with savage glee as the Cyclonian monster coughed and spluttered in its parachute harness, the solar waves working on the lunar energy until the hair receded, the fangs and talons shrunk, leaving nothing but a footsoldier in ragged, ripped clothes.

He looked upwards into the crazed yellow eyes. "Gotcha." There was a scream and a burst of light, and the parachute spun away out of control, colliding with another skimmer as it rocketed past. Magpie grinned, loading another bolt. "Magpie! MAGPIE!"
"Aura!" Magpie waved at her. "Isn't this exciting?!"
"Magpie, what are you doing?"
"I've finished it, I finally finished it!" She held up the Pulse in one hand, the crossbow in the other and the skimmer controls left to their own devices. "I finally got it finished, my life's work, I finished it! Cyclonis never reckoned on this!"
"THAT'S BECAUSE IT WOULD BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT IF YOU USED IT!" exploded Aura, "You put that down, right now, Magpie!"
"No!" The skimmer sped away from the sky knight, and Aura tried and failed to keep up. Magpie had tacked on three more crystal burners onto her skimmer, which was already a death trap as it was. She was going to get herself killed if she didn't come to her senses soon. "Torren? How are you doing?"
"Not good, not good, these things are everywhere, all over the deck, I think there's one at the window and there's another chewing on the cannons, I really need some back up right about now!"
"…Fall back." Aura glanced around her and swerved out of the way of the wreckage of Magpie's latest victory. She could hear her manic laughter from somewhere above her, and looked up at what looked like a Catherine wheel spinning through the Cyclonians. A parachute drifted past her, and she bobbed out of the way, before finding herself face to face with a snarling monster. "Oh…I don't have time for this!" she snarled, drawing out her staff. "Hah!"

Magpie was insane, that much was certain. She had told Aura enough about the memory crystal for Aura to know that the madness on removing it was only temporary. This was a good thing, but also a really bad thing. There was every chance that Magpie in her current state could actually save the day…there was also every chance that she'd come to her senses and end up curled in the foetal position in a corner somewhere. Before the memory crystal, Magpie had been just an embarrassment, cheerful and friendly but terrified of everything from loud noises to silence. If she reverted to her normal self now, in the middle of this… of course, there was also just as much of a chance that she would blow herself up before that happened. Every single one of Magpie's inventions had resulted in catastrophe at some point, and though the Pulse had been something she'd started before using the memory crystal, she hadn't exactly been in her right mind when she finished it, and Aura didn't trust this new Magpie.

She lashed out with her staff, catching a skimmer's wing with a bolt of lightning, and dodged out the way as it burst into flames and spiralled downwards. So those were the possible endings to the day - Magpie destroying the entire terra with some insane invention, or Magpie hiding up a tree scared out of her wits and the Cyclonians destroying the terra.

Aerrow had just managed to close the hangar doors when the form of the Dark Ace slammed into them. "I thought we'd lost him for a second there," he gasped, one of the wings from his back ripped and torn from where his opponent had grabbed it in their aerial chase. A rain of blows pounded at the door and Radarr squawked in alarm. "I can't go back out and get my skimmer," Aerrow muttered with a frown. The skimmer was lying somewhere down below - he'd caught a glimpse of it in the top branches of a tree as he shot past on his glider. But that didn't matter now, not with the Dark Ace currently trying to eat his way into the Condor. "Come on, Radarr." He turned and ran from the bay back up to the bridge, where he found Stork at the controls muttering as usual. "Stork, what's happening?"
"Oh, the usual," his pilot replied bitterly. "I see you've brought the Dark Ace onto my ship?"
"He won't leave me alone, and my skimmer's down there." Aerrow joined him at the window, and yelled as a blast from the Cyclonian carrier's cannons rocked the ship violently. Stork paused in the conversation to scream, swear, return fire and grumble about the scratches in his newest paint job, then looked at him. "Magpie's got something that she said will fix it, but Piper seems to think it's a bad idea." Aerrow didn't bother asking him what he thought of it, but instead pointed, his eyes wide. "Is…that it, by any chance?!"

Magpie was returning, bits of her skimmer falling off as she flew. A longbow was levelled at the foredeck, and Stork howled with dismay. "NO! NO! DON'T! I'M BEGGING YOU-" He was cut off as a blast of light blinded the two of them, and there was a screech from below the window. The monster Ace stumbled out onto the deck, where Magpie was circling him on a skimmer that filled their view with black smoke. She was shouting something at him, and lobbing things at the Dark Ace, who was curled up and roaring at her in pain. Aerrow watched, mouth open, as Stork wept for the Condor. "Why does everyone want to destroy my Condor!?"
"At least she's taking the Dark Ace down with it!" Aerrow laughed, sticking himself to the window. The monster was slowly changing shape, the bestial roars changing to more human tones, but no less angry. Aerrow's face set in a determined grin. "I'm going back out to get my skimmer. Stork, look after the Condor."
"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?!"
"You…er…know what I mean."

Radarr bounded after him as he went back down to the hangar, and a second later Stork saw him emerge on deck and hit the Dark Ace with the lightning claw. "Oh yeah, that's fine, that's totally fine, just bring your little dog fight onto the Condor!" He'd given up on it all, and turned his gaze upwards. After "helping", Magpie had flown off, and he couldn't see her anymore. No wait, there she was. Flying straight for…"Master Cyclonis?!"

Magpie checked her grenades, and found none. Flinging the chain overboard, she checked her quiver. Nothing. No bolts, no arrows. Flinging them both over the side, she lobbed the crossbow too, and the two pistols, which hadn't been much use, and snapped her longbow in two. What had once been a single longbow was now twin scimitars, glowing with solar light. She put one between her teeth and the other in her belt, and shoved the throttle down to full power.

There was a split second of blurred movement before the two skimmers collided. It was no contest. Magpie's horrific excuse for a ride burst into flames, the remnants of its converters breaking free finally and plunging into the trees below. One of the wings was ripped off entirely, and the glass in the windscreen shattered. But she was ready. Launching herself upwards, she tucked herself into a somersault and landed on the wing beside Cyclonis, where she turned and swung the scimitar down without missing a beat. "So! You're alive!"
"Oh yeah, girlfriend," Magpie said in a rather muffled voice, due to the fact that her mouth was full of sword. She took it out and slashed in both directions. Cyclonis let out a bark of anger, and quickly concealed it, blocking the attack with her staff. Pincers clicked in Magpie's face, catching her hair as it was blown around in the wind. "I'd have thought this was all a bit much for you!" the girl taunted, "Don't you usually like to be in a nice safe place with a nightlight on?"
"Don't know what you mean!" Magpie sang, leaping over the skimmer like a frog and kicking a hole in the converter. Smoke obscured her form until she launched herself at Cyclonis and pinned her to the dashboard, snarling and spitting. Magpie grinned, a trickle of blood making its way down her eyebrow as she raised both scimitars, her knee locked under Cyclonis's chin. A sharp pain hit her in the neck and she fell sideways, rolling out of the seat and grasping at the wings. One of the blades spun off into the sky, and she only just managed to catch the other one in her foot before something stamped down on her fingers, making her squeal. Cyclonis smiled down at her horribly.
"Oh just stand still!" roared Magpie, flipping herself upright and flinging the remaining blade at her face with all the strength she had left. She was feeling a bit strange. She wanted to fight this girl…oh, boy did she want to fight her…but something was holding her back.

Cyclonis hauled her back up and threw her down against the dashboard. "Now you will see what happens to people who defy me, fool!" spat the girl, levelling her staff at Magpie with a horrible smile. Magpie groped for something to use as a weapon, and her hand fell on the crystal hatch. It sprang open, revealing a pale blue crystal, but as she reached for it, the staff locked around her wrist, tightening painfully. "Ah ah ah…you already had your chance to study them, and what did you do? You ran away!" The staff tightened on her wrist even more, and Magpie grimaced as she heard her bones grind together. "You…don't make any sense!" she growled. Another horrible smile.
"Aw, look at this. A poor little Magpie who can't remember anything." The smile widened into a snarl like a bog howler. "Maybe I should jog your memory?!"

The staff smashed into her skull, and then a burst of light seared into her eyeballs, and it was as though her mind was jolted back into order. And it was horrible.

She was on a skimmer. Not her skimmer. A skimmer covered in spikes, and it was tearing through a battlefield full of mutants and cannons. Everything was made of noise, and light, and danger, and there was blood - OH MY - there was blood on her face and hands! What was she doing?! What had she been thinking?! She was going to get killed! Cyclonis looked down at her with a mocking smile, and Magpie scrambled backwards, grasping desperately for something, anything! Her dragonfly wings were gone…she had no parachute…if she stayed, she'd die, if she jumped, she'd die…Cyclonis advanced, the staff waving under her nose. Her voice was only a whisper. "Remember me?"

She laughed, and Magpie screamed, and something blue white and huge blossomed around her, knocking her off her feet and throwing Magpie from the skimmer. She emptied her lungs in a scream to end all screams, and was still screaming when she realised that she was no longer falling, and also not dead. She patted the ground around her. Metal. An airship. She glanced around wildly, and found herself on the deck of the Condor . There were massive gouges in the metal hull, and small fires here and there. She looked up. A face scowled back at her from the bridge. "Stork?! What are you doing?" The speakers spluttered into life.

"Rescuing you. Against my better judgment."
Nearly there guys. Just let me get this out of my system. Sorry.

Storm Hawks (c) Nerd Corps

Chapter One >>> [link]
Chapter Two>>> [link]
Chaper Three >>> [link]
Chapter Four >>> [link]
Chapter Five >>> [link]
Chapter Six >>> [link]
Chapter Seven >>> [link]
Chapter Eight >>> [link]
Chapter Nine >>> [link]
Chapter Ten >>> [link]
Chapter Twelve + epilogue >>> [link]
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