Chapter 16 The End

A/N Well, all good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. My story must end as well. I'd like to thank all my reviewers, readers, and people who put my story in their favs and alerts.

Finn's eyes widened as he desperately tried to avoid the Dark Ace. Ducking, he narrowly avoided a laser bolt aimed for his head. Dodging left and right he dashed around the cloud of fighters, the Dark Ace staying glued to his tail.

"You can't run forever!" Dark Ace yelled.

"I can try!" Finn shouted back. His eyes darted around for something or someone who could help him. He flew by Harrier. "Dude, you gotta help me!"

"Still busy," he shouted back, sending another Cyclonian to the wastelands.

"Come on, dude! You're a sky knight! Use your fancy move on him or something!" He managed to duck another one of the Dark Ace's blasts.

"Pfft. You're asking Harrier for help?" Dark Ace laughed. "I can beat the fool in ten seconds flat."

Harrier's blue eyes narrowed. "You're the fool, Dark Ace!" He began to glow with a yellow aura.

"You're in for it now, dude!" Finn exclaimed. "Special move, here we come!"

The sky knight lifted his sword in the air and sliced it down diagonally, sending a yellow disk spiraling towards the Dark Ace.

Dark Ace rolled his eyes and dove his skimmer down, dodging the energy easily. He shot a blast at Harrier's skimmer before the sky knight landed, blowing it to pieces. Harrier let out a startled scream as he fell towards the Wastelands, his parachute activating.

"Hmm... Eight seconds. It's a new record," Dark Ace commented. He turned to look at Finn, only to see the Storm Hawk was gone. "Blast it!" His gaze found Aerrow, and he smiled. "Perhaps that wasn't so bad after all..."

Finn was flying full speed towards the Condor. "I'll just let Aerrow handle things like he always does... I'm not letting myself get killed!" He paused to look back on the battle and felt a pang of guilt. With the loss of Harrier, the Rex Guardians were completely out of the picture, leaving just Aerrow, Junko, and Piper to face seven Cyclonians, counting Snipe and Dark Ace. His eyes suddenly narrowed in determination. "No... I'm not going to be afraid anymore! This is it... This is when I prove to myself that I'm not a coward! Maybe... Maybe I do screw up a lot, but... But that doesn't mean that I let my friends down!"

Zooming back towards the battle, he lifted his crossbow and took a shot, knocking one Talon off his skimmer. Loading a frost bolt, he froze another. His eyes scanned the sky and he smiled as he saw the battle turning their way. Junko had just thrown Snipe off his skimmer, and Piper had taken out another Cyclonian. There were two normal Talons and the Dark Ace left now. Dark Ace... where had he gone? And where was Aerrow.

Finn's attention was drawn to a distance away, where Aerrow and Dark Ace were pitched in combat. "Good, Aerrow will take care of the Dark Ace like he normally does and things will go back to normal." Seeing the Junko and Piper were going after the remaining Talons, Finn decided to draw closer to two fighters.

"Your friend is lucky that you're a more worthy opponent, Aerrow," Dark Ace said, slashing at him.

"You leave Finn alone!" Aerrow hissed, blocking the blow. He brought his other sword around to slash at the man's arm, but he ripped his sword back to dodge.

Dark Ace's eyes narrowed as he slammed is blade into Aerrow's, knocking it out of the sky knight's grasp. It tumbled down toward the wastelands. He grinned. "Looks like you're losing, Aerrow. You know, I've been training since I last saw you." He brought his blade back and feinted to the right before slamming the hilt of his sword into Aerrow's wrist, sending the other blade spiraling towards the Wastelands. "Looks like I've improved." He lifted his blood red blade high into the air. "Goodbye, Aerrow!"

"No!" Finn screamed. Without thinking, he slipped the second enhanced bolts into his crossbow. Taking a fraction of a second to aim, he pulled the trigger, sending the bolt flying as the blade plunged down towards a wide-eyed Aerrow. The bolt slammed into the sword, sending it off course. Dark Ace cursed as his weapon buried itself into Aerrow's skimmer.

Ripping the blade free from the skimmer, Dark Ace dove towards Aerrow, blade extended. Smirking, Aerrow jumped up just in time for the man to go sailing past him. "Goodbye, Dark Ace," he taunted, shoving the man off his skimmer sending Dark Ace and his sword flying into two different directions.

Dark Ace roared in anger as his wings deployed and he flew off back toward Cyclonia. "This isn't over, Aerrow!" He glared at Finn. "And I won't forget you, Junior. You'd better watch out!"

Finn flew over to Aerrow. "You okay, dude?"

Aerrow smiled at his friend. "For now... Piper's gonna kill me. Those blades cost a fortune..."

"Betcha she'll kill me first," he replied. "I lost my whole skimmer. Junko's too."

"I guess we'll find out soon enough. Come on, let's go." Aerrow began heading towards the Condor before turning to face him. "And Finn?"

"Yeah?"

"Welcome back."

"Thanks, dude." The two friends flew in silence to the Condor. They landed to find the rest of the Storm Hawks waiting for him.

Piper had her arms crossed. "What you did was the stupidest, most dangerous, irresponsible thing in the world! You're lucky you didn't get killed!" She threw her arms around him. "Oh, I missed you so much! Don't you ever run away like that again, okay?"

"I won't," Finn promised, giving Piper a hug.

"Um..." Stork managed a smile. "I'm glad your alright... But you know that now I'm going to have to quarantine you and Junko to check for any diseases you picked up, right?"

Finn winced. "Yeah... I know..."

"But first, I think a little vacation is in order!" Aerrow exclaimed. "Tropica, here we come!"

"Alright!" Finn exclaimed. He suddenly remembered something. "Shouldn't we be getting Harrier and the Rex Guardians out of the Wastelands?"

"Right... We should do that..."

"Well it took you long enough," Harrier complained once he was safely aboard the Condor. "I've gotten soot all over my shiny dueling armor..."

"You could say thank you," Finn suggested.

"Well yes," the sky knight replied. "I thank you, Storm Hawks." He extended a hand to Aerrow, who shook it. "So Finn, you're going to be staying with the Storm Hawks once again?"

"Yeah... Unless you'd rather me stay with you some more," he replied, his blue eyes sparkling.

"Uh, no, that's quite alright," Harrier replied quickly. He bowed to them all. "Now, if you don't mind, we really should be going..." The Condor had landed on Terra Rex in the landing strip with the screaming fans.

"Wait," Aerrow said. "Why don't you come to Tropica with us? It would be fun!"

"Uh, no thanks. You see there's a section in the code that clearly states-"

"But Harrier, I thought the reason we never went to Tropica was because you can't swim?" one of the Guardians commented.

Harrier blushed. "Uh... No... Of course I can swim! I... Uh... Rex Guardians! Away!" And with that, he sprinted off the Condor, his laughing squadron following him.

"That reminds me... Piper, I got this for you..." Finn pulled out the last enhanced bolt.

"Is that an enchancer stone?" Piper squealed. "Thank you, Finn!" She gave him a hug. "I've got to start analyzing this right away!"

"Oh no you don't!" Finn exclaimed, grabbing her arm before she could run to her lab. "We've got more important things to do right now... Tropica, here we come! And after that, I think we should head to Terra Neon! You know, and then just for fun we should head for the Terra of Giant Bananas!"

Aerrow smiled as Finn prattled off more vacation spots and Stork left to go plot their course. Things were finally back to normal... Or as normal as things could be with Finn around.

Finn.

A/N... Bad pun for the win! I'd like to thank Everyone once again. Hurray!