Author's Note: I was bribed by a friend into doing this one next. ;D The Babylon Rogues need more love anyway. Sort of StormxWave, Storm+Jet, JetxWave with overtones of whatever you'd like to read into it.

Babylon Rogues

Wave had taken great pride in her morning's work; delicately crafting the sign and welding it to the door of her engineering bay so it now read in large, bold print on the door: NO PLEBEIANS.

In retrospect, she should have made sure that Storm knew what a plebeian was, because it had absolutely zero effect in deterring him from her private sanctuary. She hit her head once again on the underside of the airship's spare engine when he called her name unexpectedly. Growling and nursing her new bruise, she rolled out from under the heavy piece of machinery and scowled at him. "Can't you read?"

He didn't seem to hear her, or maybe he was pointedly ignoring the question. It was hard to tell. Some days she was sure that Storm was actually a little smarter than he led anyone to believe. "Hey Wave, what'cha doing?"

Surrounded by loose cogs, wires and bolts, wearing her most grease-stained pair of coveralls that could always afford to get dirtier, and with her long tails tied out of the way as she always did when she was working made the explanation extremely self-evident.

"Cooking," she said with flat sarcasm.

Storm scratched his head. "I don't smell any food."

She sighed disgustedly, wondering how he could inflict a headache on her with two lines of conversation. Perhaps this time, despite her genius, there was a chance that she was completely off base about her suspicious on his intelligence.

"What do you want?" she asked long-suffering. If it wasn't another mission she was going to kick him out.

"Jet's racing the ship again."

She frowned. "So?"

It was something their fearless leader liked to do whenever he felt like he was getting out of shape. The Babylon Airship wasn't quite a match for the Extreme Gear in terms of pure speed, but it was fast enough to outrun most pursuers and the great back drafts it made added some extra difficulty to try and fly alongside it. Jet could navigate those currents better than anyone which was how he'd earned his title of Legendary Wind Master, so it was hardly a dangerous past time.

Storm gave her a look. "So he's gonna be busy for a while."

Wave thought about that. "Ah."

"Last time you tole me you were going to show me that new lab you were setting up near the foredeck," he reminded her, his expression faintly sly. "Remember?"

"I remember," she said, making a face at him that didn't quite achieve the look of annoyance she'd been going for. "Just let me clean up a bit."

At least Storm knew when to take advantage of the opportunities that came his way. Maybe he wasn't a total lost cause.

Jet was the leader of the Babylon Rogues, and had always been a pretty good one as far as Storm was concerned, but on the few occasions where things didn't go quite to plan he thought that Jet could learn to pay a bit more respect to the valued advice of their ancestors. Overconfidence could be the downfall of even a talented thief, and though Jet seemed very convinced that they could still make it to their prize even after having tripped the alarms, it was Storm's duty that Jet was kept safe at all costs.

It was also helpful that both Jet and his Gear were relatively light. Storm could carry them both easily despite the former putting up a violent struggle.

"Put me down!" Jet yelped, pounding his fists uselessly against Storm's back. "That's an order, Storm!"

"Sorry Jet," he replied, not meaning it in the slightest. "But Wave told me not to let you get into too much trouble."

Being arrested wouldn't be a very pleasant experience even though Wave and her mechanical toys could probably break them out easy enough. It was a personal mark of honour that not one Babylon Rogue had been caught in the last four generations, and Storm wasn't about to let that record be broken. Besides, Wave would never let him live it down.

"We can take them!" Jet protested, trying to squirm out of Storm's grip, but the Albatross had been Jet's protector since they'd been children and knew all of his tricks. He gave Jet a reproving squeeze that threatened to bruise ribs, and Jet subsided with an undignified squeak.

But only temporarily. Storm could feel Jet trying to shift into a position to better see their pursuers, and the hawk growled in frustration. "Look how slow they are! Our ancestors would be ashamed if they knew we were running from the likes of them."

If he thought that the disproval of their Ancestors would be enough to convince Storm to turn around, he was going to be disappointed. "A talented rogue knows when a battle is better won by retreating," he repeated serenely.

Jet scoffed. "Oh yeah? Did the old lady tell you that one too?"

Jet's venerable grandmother had been inordinately fond of Storm, and had related to him all the old stories and titbits of wisdom passed down through each generation of rogues. Jet had never spared the time for her tales, always impatient to be out doing rather than listening, but Storm smiled in fond remembrance. In this case, however, the advice hadn't been hers. "It was your father."

Jet squirmed, now for entirely different reasons, but at least now he was no longer trying to escape. "You're still gonna get it when we get back. And be careful with my gear!"

Storm was grinning, though Jet couldn't see it. "Yes Boss."

What good was being the leader if he didn't get to decide when and where and how they did things around here? He wondered exactly how long it was going to take before he wielded the same respect his father had. Wave and Storm had never ignored an order from him.

"Come back later!" he yelled defiantly, but Wave continued to pound against the door and the resounding banging was worse than any alarm clock Jet had ever owned.

He buried his head under a layer of pillows, muffling the noise and determined to wait it out. Surely Wave had better things to do than kick him out of bed, and sooner or later she'd give up in a huff and get back to her work. He was smugly sure that he would outlast her, and when the noise tapered off he chuckled victoriously, ready to settle back into sleep when one of his tail feathers was yanked.

He squawked, jerking upright and glaring daggers at Wave. She had a screwdriver clenched in her fist, and he should have realised she would rip open the security panel on his door and bypass his lock.

"Go away," he grumped petulantly. "I'm sleeping."

"It's noon," she told him pointedly, savagely yanking open the blinds on his window and letting in unwanted sunlight. Groaning pitifully, he put the pillow back over his head, but that didn't stop him from feeling her exasperated glare. "We have a mission today, remember? You wanted go steal that statue back in Westopolis. We've done the ground work for it already."

"Later," he said, voice muffled. He waved a hand at her imperiously. "Maybe tomorrow."

"No, now," she argued, and grabbed for his pillow. A brief struggle ensued, which she won by virtue of both being standing and trying harder. "There's no reason not to do it today."

He rolled over, leering at her. "I'm sure there's more interesting things we could do."

She beat him with the pillow, though not as hard as she could have. "Not unless you've got enough money to by me that new calibrator I need."

Keeping her happy was such a bother. He sighed expressively, making sure she understood what a trial it was for him to get out of bed. "Alright already."

"We need to get the work done first," she told him stoutly. A slight smile touched her beak. "Then we can relax."

He liked the sound of that much better, especially the way she said it which could be implying anything at all.