A/N: I don't like how this turned out. It fought me every step of the way, but rather stay stuck on it, I'm going to post it as is. I'll be reworking it anyway in the rewrite. For now though, I'm determined to bring this story to a conclusion, one way or another. ^^"

***

The city lay quiet, as if holding its breath. Nothing stirred. Even the pigeons and crows that often frequented the skies had all gone to ground, hiding themselves away without a sound. It was like they sensed the oncoming storm.

Jett wanted to hide somewhere, too. He felt far too exposed, since he essentially was a shining beacon in his white flyer suit. Anyone would be able to spot him on the rooftop. Which was the whole point of him being here.

He shivered, though the air was dry and hot and the concrete beneath him still radiated warmth. Dusk inched ever closer, the western horizon just starting to darken as the sun fled. It too, had no desire to hang around.

Each passing minute dragged into unbearable lengths. How much longer did they have to wait? How long before-

His throat tightened. He pressed his folded arms against his chest, trying to not look like he was hugging himself. That was not how a flyer stood. Nor was that how a Talon faced their enemy. Jett straighted his back and did his best to look like he wasn't terrified.

The only good thing about this situation was that he wasn't alone. Raven stood beside him; a shadow of tattered coat and shrouding hood. He appeared outwardly calm, but Jett did not miss how that ragged hood constantly swiveled back and forth.

A flash of movement caught both of their attention. As one, their heads swivelled to watch as two flyers swooped in, wings flaring and their boosters briefly whining before being cut. They dropped to the rooftop across the street, their landing light and effortless.

Something about them seemed familiar, though with their helmets covering their heads, Jett could only distinguish them as a Medic and a Smoke flyer. He watched them warily. All of the strange flyers that had come to help Raven had already left the city, or so he thought.

"Friends of yours?" he asked.

Raven observed them for a long second before responding.

"No."

Jett frowned. Across the street, the two flyers simply stood, watching them right back. It made his skin prickle.

"Do you think they're here with Gray, then?"

"Probably. Unless they came here to sightsee."

Jett scoffed. Who in their right mind would go sightseeing in a ruined city? It made more sense if they were here to fight. Though he wasn't sure who exactly they'd be fighting.

Suddenly concerned, he carefully touched the hilt of the short blade at his hip. It was the only weapon Raven had given him on their way out of the tunnels, but it was enough. Or it should be.

With Jett's speed, there wasn't much that could touch him. He knew that, yet he couldn't shake the growing sense of dread. Strange flyers or not, something was coming. Something bad. And he wasn't so sure his skill was enough to escape it.

"Hey."

Jett looked up at his brother, his thoughts a tangled mess of worry and fear and nerves.

Raven's voice was firm. "It'll be okay. I'm here, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I promise."

But something happened to you the last time, Jett wanted to say. He didn't care where he ended up. His brother, however, was a completely different matter. Jett couldn't bear to see Raven die a second time.

He looked away, to the flyers on the roof. They had removed their helmets, and the sight of their faces made him gasp.

"That's Syk and Lante!"

"Oh? When did you become so familiar with the Twelve?"

"Lante took over my training after you left," Jett answered. "And Syk, well, he was around. Kinda hard to forget someone like him."

"Hm. It's interesting to see someone like him here. He's not much of a fighter."

"He doesn't need to fight. All he has to do is squint at someone and they'll stay far away."

A short laugh burst out of Raven. "That's—"

Thunder cracked in the distance. It wasn't loud, but it was sharp and sudden. And there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

Conversation forgotten, both Jett and Raven looked in the direction the sound had come from. It was to the west of the city. There, a thin puff of smoke smudged the darkening skies.

It had begun. Raven's flyers had found the war machines.

Worry filled Jett. He knew how tough the machines were. They were designed to trample cities and withstand flyers and soldiers alike. It wasn't easy to take them down. Unless you had a Talon or a Twelve, the best thing you could do was throw numbers at it until the machine finally was overwhelmed. And there wasn't just one machine approaching the city, but multiple.

"Will there be enough people?" Jett asked, referring to the flyers sent to fight them. He wasn't even sure how many had showed up, anyway. Hopefully there were a lot more than the group he'd seen.

"It'll be enough." Raven tilted his head back, revealing the lower half of his face as he peered at the sky. "Get ready. Our part will start very soon."

The whine of flight boosters made Jett startle, but the two more flyers coming in bore the familiar colors of Troit flyers: the blues of a River and the greens of a Mountain. They landed on the rooftop adjacent from Lante and Syk, their position making it clear whose side they were on.

The sight of them made Jett relax a little. It was weird, since he knew they were technically the enemy, but they still weren't him. The monster that both sides wanted gone.

Noise roared through Jett's head. He gritted his teeth and forced it back, though it clawed and fought him the entire way. He's coming!

The familiar shrill sound of boosters reached him. Every flyer on the rooftops jerked their gazes skyward. As the flyer came into view, his suilt far too plain and monochrome to belong to a Kairg, a collective sigh of relief seemed to hang in the air.

It was only Gray.

Instead of landing with the rest of the Troit flyers, Gray wheeled around and made a beeline right for Jett's roof. The sight raised a brief flutter of panic in Jett's chest, before it morphed into alarmed disbelief.

"Uh," Jett shot a glance at Raven, who didn't appear concerned at all. "What's he doing?"

"Flying," Raven said.

Jett just about choked. How could his brother joke at a time like this?

Gray landed heavily, his boots mangaging to kick up a few puffs of dust. He disengaged his helmet immediately and glowered at Raven.

"What have you done?"

Raven dipped his head. "Hello, Gray. It's nice to see you, too."

"You've got half of Troit's flyers defecting! How the hell did you manage that, huh? You think the Council is going to sit back and let this happen?"

"It's hardly half. More like a third. And I'm pretty sure the Council isn't going to have time to worry about it for a while, anway."

"What did you do?"

"Well, let's just say I'll be very surprised if the Council survives the night."

Stunned silence fell upon the roof. Jett felt like he was caught somewhere between a hallucination and a really bad dream. Sure, he was shocked, but then again, he wasn't. Not really. Not when he'd gone on one wild rollercoaster after another since Raven had found him.

Meanwhile, Gray's eyes had widened a fraction.

"You didn't," he whispered. Then, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Sorry," Raven actually sounded regretful, which surprised them. "But you know you're terrible at keeping secrets, don't you?".

"Tch!" Gray's expression twisted in annoyance. He touched two fingers to his suit collar, and looked across the street towards Lante. Even from this distance, it wasn't hard to see the disapproval radiating from the Smoke flyer. Lante's lips moved, saying something that was lost in the distance between them.

Gray had no problem hearing it, because he growled. "You shut up. Or you can come stand over here at ground zero."

To that, Lante made a sharp gesture, like he was cutting something with his hand.

Gray sneered. "You know what? Forget it. I'm done."

He curled his fingers just inside his collar. His fingertips scraped against something, before he yanked away his hand. A small silver square dangled from his fingers by a single wire.

"Oops," he said, and let it fall to the ground.

Jett watched, more than a little confused. He had no idea what the thing was.

"That was excessive," Raven said.

Gray placed the toe of his boot on the little gadget and ground down. The resulting crunch was audible even to Jett. "I got tired of listening to them."

"You could have just installed a scrambler. You know, like the Kairg do? Instead, you had to go ahead and ruin an expensive communication unit."

"...I didn't think of that."

"Well, don't expect me to fix that for you."

Cautiously, Jett peered up at Gray. "Does this mean you're defecting, too?"

Gray barked out a laugh. "What do you think, kid? I'm standing here, aren't I?"

One side of his mouth lifted into a lopsided smile. He moved closer, and one of his hands found its way to Jett's head. He gave it a rough tousle.

Coming from Gray, the gesture was strange. Jett didn't know what to think of it. Except that somehow, it felt right.

This was how things should be. Gray on one side, Raven on the other. All three Talons standing together. It made Jett want to smile.

So he did.

That was when a dark figure dropped from the sky like a meteor. He hit the roof near Gray with an audible thunk. Loose rubble jumped from the impact and dust billowed around the newcomer like a poisonous fog.

Immediately, Gray threw out an arm in front of Jett, shielding him. Jett didn't even notice. His gaze was glued to the new flyer, his heart already beginning to drum out a frenetic staccato. The mottled pattern of the flyer's suit marked him as a Kairg.

There was no need to see the face. Jett knew who it was. They all did. Hatred and rage whipped around the man in a storm that was felt rather than seen.

The flyer straightened, faced them, and then disengaged his helmet. Eyes of the deepest black regarded them.

"I am here," Ra'Skevvor snarled, "for what is mine."