My first fanfic, please be gentle. I'll keep the OCs to a minimum. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Storm Hawks and all characters attached to said title are property of the fine folks at Nerd Corps Entertainment. Please don't sue me.

Update June, 2011: This and the following chapters that will be updated later are revised editions of the original story. Grammar and spelling have had corrections, hopefully nothing was missed. The content remains the same with slight tweaks to some sentence structure. I will most likely only delete my author notes that I had attached to the story back when I was originally posting it. I hope that this is still a good read for some of my fans that were with me at the beginning, as well as anyone who may be curious about my story but really hated the bad spelling and occasional missing words.

I hope you all enjoy…again!

Heart of Darkness...Prologue

They were huddled quickly and quietly into the small dark conference room. They had landed only 10 minutes ago, having just rushed to Terra Atmosia receiving a high alert message from the Sky Council. No words were said by the attending guard captain except to follow and stay quiet. They sat around an elongated conference table, in a room with no windows or anything on the walls.

"They could at least give us some lunch while we wait." Said Junko, a loud grumbling erupted from his stomach as if agreeing with him. They had to skip lunch to make it in as quick a time as possible.

The Storm Hawks sat and waited for five minutes in silence when a man entered the room. He was tall, at least 7 feet, slim, and very bald. His uniform was gold and white with pauldrons designed to look like folded wings draped over his shoulders. He carried an air of authority around him that demanded everyone's attention in the room.

"My name is Sky General Stryker." He said. "No doubt you are all wondering why you were summoned here."

"We figured it must be important, given the fact it was a high alert message" sounded the young leader of the team, Aerrow.

"Very." responded the general. "It wasn't my choice to summon you though, the Sky Council, in its sometimes questionable reasoning, decided you were the best people to be made aware of some new information we have only recently come into possession of. Given your numerous experiences and victories with certain individuals."

The young team leaned forward in there seats, eager to hear more. Save, of course, one member who leaned back with a depressed sigh. "Only certain doom can come from this." He said, a slight twinge forming in his left eye.

"I'll get right to the point." Stryker began, "Some time ago, I'm sure you remember, a Sky Knight under orders from The Sky Council, Starling, was infiltrating the ranks of the Cyclonian military and gained access to the main citadel."

"Yeah," Finn interrupted, "She totally helped save me and Junko's bacon when got trapped in her weather what-cheri-do."

"Indeed." Stryker said, only giving Finn a sideways glance that showed his annoyance at being interrupted. "As I was saying, before you had compromised Starling's cover, she had managed to record some highly secret and encrypted information onto a data crystal. Information we have only recently finished decrypting."

"Was it info on her crystal studies?" Asked Piper, hoping for some juicy information on new crystal types and their uses. "Cyclonis is known for her inventive experiments with crystals and being able manipulate them in new unthought-of ways."

"If you all would be so kind as to let me finish, I'll tell you." Stryker was becoming annoyed now. What the Sky Council sees in these impatient children I'll never understand. He thought. "Continuing on before there are any more unnecessary questions or comments. The one you all know as Master Cyclonis..."

Everyone's attention was on the tall general now.

"...died 3 years ago."

And there you have it, my first foray into fanfics.