Wayward Son

Chapter 2

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

Aerrow froze. He barely even had time to open his mouth before white powder was thrown at him and he sneezed so hard that Radarr fell off his shoulder, and walked away in a huff.

"Stork," the redhead choked, "what-"

"Don't you dare breathe on me!" Stork commanded. "If you even think about moving before I'm finished-"

"Alright, alright!" Aerrow tried to hold up his hands defensively, but it wasn't any good as he soon felt something hitting them which felt like liquid (he kept his eyes closed just in case).

There was the sound of spraying as something (he honestly did not want to know what) was sprinkled over him before finally the crazy pilot was satisfied.

"Yeah, you're clean," he declared as Aerrow brushed some powder off his shoulder.

"Dude, I better not be allergic to any of this stuff," Finn complained. "Is there some still in my hair?"

"There must be," said Piper, "it's turning green."

"What?! Aerrow, is it? Really?"

When Aerrow opened his eyes, a very desperate and still very blonde Finn was hopping from one foot to the other in anxiety. There was still white powder in his hair which didn't seem to be doing anything to the colour, but he'd had a weird encounter earlier and was feeling a bit mean.

"Actually, yeah," he lied. "That's probably the brightest green I've ever seen in my life!"

"You look like a tree!" Junko added.

"In all honesty, I should probably have considered the side effects," said Stork, "but Finn, you make a very nice blueberry bush."

"WHAT?!"

Finn pushed past Aerrow in his desperate dash to the bathroom. Once he was gone, both Aerrow and Radarr held up three fingers...

...two...

...one...

...and pointed at the door.

"HEY!" Finn screamed, right on cue. "YOU GUYS, THAT WAS CRUEL!"

The entire bridge erupted into laughter as a very grumpy and still dusty sharpshooter made his grand re-entry.

"C'mon, that wasn't funny!" he said.

"Sorry, but it kinda was," said Aerrow. "But Stork, was that really necessary?"

"Are you out of your mind?" asked Stork, getting uncomfortably close. "Of course it was! Do you have any idea of the dangers that lurk in libraries? How many people with diseases could have touched those books? Not to mention all the dust mites and mould spores and worst of all... the bookworms."

"Bookworms?" said Junko. "I thought I was a bookworm! What harm could a bookworm do?"

"Not that kind of bookworm," Stork explained as he absent-mindedly dumped a fistful of powder on Radarr. "The kind of bookworm that can travel faster than a speeding Condor. The kind that can eat through an entire shelf in less than a second! Could you imagine what one of those things could do to your hand?!"

Radarr shook himself free of the powder before sneezing so hard that he catapulted himself in the wall and slid to the floor in a daze.

"That's awesome," Finn said dismissively as he sat down, "but did anyone else see this one real weird kid?"

"Was he about this tall," said Piper, indicating with her hand somewhere around shoulder height, "red coat, glared at everything like it was about to kill him?"