Cyclonis watched pitilessly as her prisoner fell to his knees, he coughed up in the dirt before taking a few gasping breaths. The young man tried his best to get his breath back, having just been put through yet another five minutes of hell. This had been going on for too long and now she was beginning to get tired. She was frankly amazed that he still had any fight left in him. Still, it wouldn't be the first time that she had underestimated a Storm Hawk, although she was certain to make it the last...

Summoning what remained of his strength, which by now couldn't have been much, he managed to turn over to look at a group standing to his right. There were five figures, their faces obscured in the darkness. His vision was somewhat duller and blurrier than usual however he could make out their eyes only too well. They looked at him with a distant coldness that he was not accustomed to and he was certain that he would never be used to receiving it from them.

"Guys..." He managed wheezing slightly. "Please! Fight it!"

"Begging oh mighty sky knight? Now that doesn't sound much like the stories, I've heard so much about." Cyclonis taunted him, a cruel smile tracing itself on her lips. "Aren't you tired yet?"

"The only thing I'm tired of is hearing your voice." He replied with venom unexpected from one so injured.

"You wouldn't find me so bad if you gave in, like your friends over there did."

The man frowned in anger. Letting rage cloud his thoughts once more. Words couldn't describe how much he wanted to kill her. If only he had enough strength to get to his feet and march over to her. With this much anger, he was fairly certain that he could snap her neck like a twig. Sadly, precautions had been taken to ensure that he wasn't in any shape to do so.

Still, he tried. His arms and legs screamed at him, telling him not to move. His entire body felt as if it were on fire. He succeeded in raising his head and propping himself up somewhat although it felt to him as if his body might break at any moment. How long had he been enduring this? He couldn't have said. All he knew was that he was growing weaker by the hour and he wasn't sure that he would be able to hold out for much longer. Which was of course the intention.

His eyes drifted slowly onto the dark crystal in Cyclonis' hand, every now and then, it would pulsate and glow ever so faintly red. It's mere presence caused his hair to stand on end and a shiver to run down his spine.

Cyclonis came a little closer. Lowering her staff so that it virtually touched his nose. The sky knight looked up at her defiantly. She frowned activating the crystal once more causing a dark aura to form around the young man. With it he felt as if something was trying to get inside of him. As soon as it did, he forced himself to battle it with what remained on his strength. He knew what would happen to him if he stopped fighting even for a split second, his friends were an only too real terrifying and real example of that.

It lasted for about ten seconds, for every single one, he struggled to prevent the force from getting inside of him. It wanted his mind. He could hear it whispering to him; telling him that all would be well if he only gave in. He could though... He wouldn't... Cyclonis couldn't maintain the energy field for that long, he supposed he should be grateful for that much. Then again, the pain he was put through before she tried using the crystal on him was pretty much comparable.

"Why do you still resist?!" She asked him annoyance creeping into her voice.

"I'd rather die than end up your slave..." He muttered weakly but still managing to channel his determination through to her.

"A noble thought, that's why it will be all the more fun to break you." She walked over to one of the other figures and out her arm around their shoulders. "Your squadron said exactly the same thing, I managed to convince each and every one of them the opposite."

"Piper..." The young man called out his friend's name in a whisper. "Please- Fight it!"

"Why Aerrow?" She asked him, her voice cold and emotionless. "If you do as she says. Then, we can be together again; the Storm Hawks united."

The red haired sky knight lowered his head to avoid having to look at his friends. He lay with his face against the hard concrete floor trying to tell himself that this was all a nightmare and that he would awaken to find himself in the Condor and Atmos the same as it had always been. Sadly, he had been nursing that faint hope for too long now to believe in it any longer. He let out a sigh, a sharp pain struck his sore ribs as he did so. He struggled to hold back some tears, not because of the pain, he could deal with that. It was his friends the cause, he imagined what they would say if they could see themselves now.

God, he hoped that they weren't aware of what they were doing but if that was the case, then why was he still trying to appeal to their better nature? He always came to the same conclusion; that he tried to break through to them out of fear, he couldn't bring himself to think of his friends as being gone and so kept on trying to find them. He asked himself, the question when he was lying in his cell at night and wondering if he was going to live to see another day. He now increasingly prayed that he would not...

"Guys... Please..." His voice broke slightly as he called out to them once more.

"Storm Hawks, it looks like your fearless leader might need some more persuading." Cyclonis told them smirking slightly.

Aerrow instinctively closed his eyes knowing what would come next.

He could remember when he had first been lead in here. When he had first laid eyes on his squadron. At first, he had assumed that they were the same as he had always known them but then they had turned on him without so much as a word's warning. He had been struck down. A simple test of Cyclonis' to see just how loyal her new puppets were. The answer was very. They showed no remorse as they attacked him, not once as he called out to them had they so much as hesitated.

He knew that if she hadn't called them off when she had, they would easily have killed him and that hurt. It hadn't taken long for the sky knight to realize that Cyclonis' crystal only worked on those who didn't fight back. He wasn't too sure if she hoped that being beaten by his own friends would weaken his body too much for him to be able to resist it's effects or whether the master of Cyclonia believed that eventually his will to fight would give out.

She might not be all that wrong about the last one... The longer he spent here suffering at the hands of his friends, the more he found himself wondering why he was still fighting. All of them; Piper, Finn, Junko, Stork even Radarr had fallen pray to Cyclonis' control. Now, he was the only Storm Hawk with free will remaining; words couldn't describe how much that hurt. More than any wound that was for sure.

He couldn't have said how long it was before the Storm Hawks were told to stop attacking him by their new master. It felt like an eternity. Every blow from them seemed to hurt ten times more than it would have coming from anyone else in the Atmos and he had a lot of them. Every beating added new injuries to the old ones. In his cell at night, he would struggle to find a position in which to fall asleep which didn't hurt him. Last night he had been unable to and had only managed to get to sleep through sheer exhaustion.

"Still not willing to give in Storm Hawk?" Cyclonis repeated her usual question.

Her prisoner wished to snap back something witty as a response but found himself lacking both the physical strength and the mental capacity to do so. Everything seemed rather dull and faint, as if it were all happening a considerable distance away. For a few moments, he drifted in and out of consciousness. Each breath he took felt like it could shatter his chest, a broken rib or two was to blame no doubt. He didn't care to know the exact nature of his injuries; he knew that that they hurt and that was enough for him.

Cyclonis waited a few moments but seeing that she wasn't going to get a response let out a frustrated sigh.

"At this rate, he'll be dead before he turns..." Cyclonis muttered with annoyance as she sat back down on her throne.

"Should we take him back to his cell?" Junko asked looking down at his former leader.

"Perhaps you should feed him to the Sky Sharks..."
"I've always found it unbearable how childish you are if you don't get what you want Cyclonis."

Despite his current state, Aerrow found himself opening his eyes in search of the new voice. He recognized it, although found himself unable to associate a face to the words spoken. A split second later, a small ball with yellow crystals sticking out of it landed at the Storm Hawks' feet. They looked down at it wondering what it was. By the time they realized just what it was, it was too late. Out of the little device came a powerful electric shock. Their old leader couldn't help but wince as his old team mates let out yells of pain before falling to the ground unconscious.

It was one of the few times that Aerrow had ever seen Cyclonis look truly surprised. Usually, she always seemed to have planned for everything and therefore was never taken aback. Maybe, with her victory pretty much complete she hadn't been expecting any resistance. Her dark eyes scowered the room but were unable to locate the source of the voice. She held her staff tightly, occasionally brandishing it in the direction of a shadow. After a few moments more of fruitless searching, she finally paused by the injured sky knight's body.

"Let me guess... A friend of the sky knight's?" Cyclonis asked the darkness before pointing the end of her staff at Aerrow's throat. "He can't have many of them left... Show yourself before I end his miserable life!"

"You'd be doing me a favour..." He managed weakly.

Cyclonis looked down at him darkly. No sooner had she done so that something shot out of the darkness. She had just enough time to raise a shield around herself. Aerrow turned his head, his vision was still blurry but he could make out a figure in the corner of the room. He let out a weak groan feeling very tired all of a sudden. Cyclonis took a couple of steps towards the intruder, her staff raised ready to blast them to oblivion.

"You?!" Cyclonis sounded surprised for the second time. "They told me you were dead?"

"I'd have thought that you would have learnt by now, sky knights don't die that easily!"

Struggling to remain conscious, Aerrow listened as he heard a fight begin. So the other person was a sky knight? Why couldn't he remember who that voice belonged to? Gathering his strength, he managed to open his eyes and take a look at just what was happening. He could make out Cyclonis' furious energy blasts echoing around the chamber but also the figure of the sky knight dodging them. Whoever they were, they moved with unbelievable agility and speed; then again they would need to if they didn't want to end up being vaporized.

Suddenly, they charged towards master Cyclonis. The blast that came from the staff skimmed the intruder's shoulder but didn't make contact. The other sky knight dealt the leader of Cyclonia a harsh blow to the face. She fell backwards in shock. Despite his dull vision, Aerrow made the blood coming down her face out all too well. It was likely just a flesh wound but then she wasn't all that used to those...

Seeing that their foe was currently incapacitated, the sky knight rushed over to the leader of the Storm Hawks' side. He found himself being gently shaken. He groaned in pain before narrowing his eyes slightly in an attempt to make out just who his rescuer was. Now he was a little closer, the features seemed more familiar.

"Aerrow! Aerrow!" Came a familiar British accent. "You need to pull yourself together!"

"S-Starling?" Aerrow only just managed to get out.

"Well it was never going to be a Murk Raider now was it?" She looked around concerned for a moment. "Come on! We have to get out of here now!"