Velocity

"Velocity" is the ninth episode of Storm Hawks.
==Description==
Every year dozens of Sky Knights go head to head in a treacherous bike race across Terra Saharr, competing to win a rare and powerful Velocity amulet. The adrenaline-fuelled run should give Aerrow a chance to show his stuff, but all bets are off when a mysterious masked rider shows up and plays by his own rules...
==Plot==
Aerrow goes on a practice race ahead of the annual Great Atmos Race on Terra Saharr, with other Sky Knights trailing behind. Despite his best efforts, his skimmer could not withstand the high speed and began to break apart. Burner eventually catches up with Aerrow and tells the latter to "get a better ride".
Later at the pit stop, Finn assures Aerrow that the Storm Hawks would win the race as always, however Blister steps in and claims that they cannot match up to the Original Storm Hawks. Finn places a bet that the Storm Hawks can claim victory along with the rare Velocity (Crystal) Amulet as the prize, and agrees to clean the Third Degree Burners' airship for a year should he lose. Unfortunately in the Storm Hawks' tent, Stork, who was working on Aerrow's racing skimmer, pointed out that it would not be capable of doing such a feat. Sure enough the skimmer falls apart. Feeling discontent, Finn goes into a pub, with Junko joining in, but not before the Third Degree Burners arrive and ridicule them once again. Suddenly a mysterious Sky Knight of "Xerxes" enters the pub and tries to make a deal with Finn.
Back in the Storm Hawks' tent, Finn explains the rest of the team of the deal he made with the sky knight, bringing in a power amplifier in exchange for their crystal converters. Although Aerrow and Piper were at first skeptical of the deal, Finn convinces Aerrow to go out for a practice and try out the new enhancement to the latter's appraise. As Aerrow returns to the pit stop, the Storm Hawks find all other squadrons equipped with the same power amplifiers as well. Finn then comes up with a backup plan to trade skimmer parts from the squadrons with other incompatible parts, possibly robbing from their own Condor, all of which surprisingly ended with good results. Aerrow sees the final product and was impressed.
On the morning of race day, Piper accidentally drops a part which rolled into the Xerxes tent, however as she picked it up, she was suddenly drawn into the tent. As Blister explains the rules of the race, Aerrow notices Piper's absence, and tries to ask Finn for her whereabouts to no avail (communication lost in the midst of running engines). Blister picks up the airhorn and flags off the race!
As the race progresses, each squadron was eliminated one by one, either from losing control of their skimmers, or crashing right onto a pillar or stalagmite, leaving only Aerrow and the mysterious sky knight running. Soon after, Finn realises Piper was missing, and it turns out that Piper was actually captured by Cyclonians Talons, disguising as the Xerxes squadron. At the same time, the mysterious sky knight reveals himself to be the Dark Ace in front of Aerrow, and dashes ahead towards the prize. Despite attacks from the energy blade and the falling rocks it causes, Aerrow manages to dodge them off, snatching the amulet a split second ahead of Dark Ace.
Though Aerrow wins the race, the Dark Ace points out that Aerrow now has the only working vehicle on the terra, making the grounded Sky Knights and other squadron members back in the pit stop easy pickings for his Talons, all of which was part of their plan. Dark Ace leaves Aerrow with the powerful gust created from the Windstone Crystal, while he heads off to the pit stop, giving the signal for the Talons on site to launch their attack. Aerrow and Radarr tries to fight off the strong gust, with Radarr deploying the boosters to no avail. They could finally escape by powering down and let the gust spiral the skimmer, before deploying the wings to slingshot out of the gust.
Back at the pit stop, the squadrons, now without their sky knights and skimmers, could only retaliate Cyclonian attacks with simple weapons. Seeing squadron members fighting over spare parts, Finn steps in and convinces them to set their differences aside and work together, while Piper (now broke free of Cyclonian capture) plans for a massive and heavily armed gunship from every spare part they have left to repel the Cyclonians. With the squadrons onboard, they started firing at the Cyclonians, taking down Dark Ace's skimmer as well. The Cyclonians concede and fly away in defeat. With the rest of the Cyclonians arrested, the squadrons cheers in victory, with Aerrow holding the Velocity Amulet. In order to celebrate their teamwork, Aerrow shatters the amulet so that every squadron can claim a piece of it. Seeing this, Finn concedes his initial bet to Blister, only for the latter to laugh it off along with the rest of the Third Degree Burners and Storm Hawks.
==Appearances==
===Characters===
*Aerrow
*Dark Ace
*Piper
*Finn
*Junko
*Stork
*Radarr
*Blister
*Burner
*Suzy Lu
*Billy Rex
*Bobby Bones
*Davey Digger
*Ninjer
*Master Cyclonis (mentioned)
===Crystals===
*Velocity Crystal Amulet
*Firebolt Crystal
*Windstone Crystal
===Vehicles===
* Talon Switchblade
===Squadrons===
*Storm Hawks
*Talons
*Third Degree Burners
*Absolute Zeroes
*Rebel Ducks
*Buff Buzzards
*Screaming Queens
*Neck Deeps
*Xerxes
==Trivia==
*While the Third Degree Burners had a spat with Finn in the pub, Junko's armour plates were only seen for one shot. They did not appear subsequently.
==References==
 009
Category:Season 1