the last song you sing
This, Aerrow thought, must be the face of Death.
Piper's hands shook as she accepted the cup of tea from him, downing it in one swift gulp, wincing when it burned her throat. She looked up at him, her amber irises set in graying eyes with sallow flesh rimming them. She shivered, as though she was cold, and despite himself, Aerrow looked away.
She handed the cup to him. It slipped through her fingers and Aerrow lashed out to catch it before it shattered. "Piper," he began and she held up a hand.
"I'm fine," she said, smiling thinly. He could see the bones beginning to rise along her skin. She had always been thin, Aerrow thought. She would get well soon when things evened out.
As Aerrow turned to leave the room, he saw her turn back to her desk. A set of pale crystals were spread out, and as he watched, Aerrow saw her close her eyes. The crystals lit up and began to dance in tune with her fingers. The room surged with a cool, pale energy that raised the hairs on his arms.
"We don't have to, Piper. There's got to be another way," he said.
He saw her jump, as if she had forgotten about him. Her head swiveled towards him, lightless gold eyes meeting his vibrant green ones. "I know," she said and for a moment, there was the trace of the old Piper, the Piper that was not dying. "But this is going to be the most effective one. Trust me," she said, "I'm fine."
.
lessons learned
With crystals in her hands, Piper could create and destroy.
She could make them dance and glow, and she could make them rattle and explode. But she knew that, as with all things, things must be given and things must be taken away. It was the natural order of the world, the law of the land. It was simply the way things were. She had accepted that.
She could give Aerrow the strength he needed to stop the Dark Ace, give him the strength to lead the Storm Hawks into battle against Cyclonia for the last time.
The consequences didn't matter.
Piper flexed her fingers and the crystals on her desks gave off warmth. She closed her hands around them, feeling the warmth seep into her skin and muscles and bones. She could feel it rebuilding the parts of her that were slowly fading away, giving her life and time.
Piper wondered if he had realized yet.
She wondered if Aerrow knew that his new, limitless strength had a source. She had watched him grow stronger, had seen the vitality that she was beginning to lack. She had done her research. The bond they had could be parasitic or symbiotic, if they were perfectly attuned. Piper had searched for an answer and found none.
It was the natural order of the world. She would give and he would take and Cyclonia would fall. A new star would rise from her ashes, hopefully a better star, and life in the Atmos would go on.
She knew this.
.
bandages
Piper had hands that were soft and kind. Junko had learned this days after they had formed the Storm Hawks, when he had sliced his hand open on a piece of equipment. When Junko screamed, she had come running with a towel.
She had sat cross-legged in front of him as she cleaned and bandaged his hand. They had their first conversation then, on the floor of the Condor's engine room.
"I never had tough skin," Junko had said and Piper had nodded and wrapped his hand, nodded and wrapped. "I'm pretty soft for a Wallop," he admitted.
She had smiled in a way that said she understood. "I was going to be a Sky Knight," she told him. "I got a perfect score on my aptitude exams and I was going to take an entrance exam." She deftly moved a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. "Studied for two days straight, calculated my odds and everything."
Junko looked down at his hand and then back at her. He could see her as a Sky Knight, as the kind hero of her Terra. "What happened?"
Piper slid to her feet, her movements like water running over silk. "I forgot to take one thing into consideration. I forgot about Cyclonians."
At that, the Wallop winced. He had almost been a Cyclonian. That path was only a few days behind him. He felt his eyes begin to sting at the idea of someone hurting families and terras and crushing dreams. What was so great about that? "I'm sorry."
Piper smiled at him, a smile that a sister might give. "I might be destined for greater things, you know. And you too, you soft Wallop."
It took Junko a moment to realize that she was not making fun of him. He grinned and followed her back up the stairs where the others waited for them and Junko decided that this might be his family, maybe, maybe.
.
designated mother
She fainted in the hangar, after surveying the area. Stork had warned her against it- the mind was very susceptible to mind worms when one was ill. She had shook him off ("I'll be fine, Stork, trust me," she had said and Stork suspected mind worms had already gotten to her) and took off into the morning.
Stork had panicked.
He had initiated the tracking device installed on all of their vehicles and set the course to follow her trail. After a few minutes of humoring him, she had switched it off. She had helped him install them as a preemptive measure after all the boys had a stint of going missing, and knew how to activate and deactivate the thing better than he could.
Her blue heliscooter had appeared through the clouds, seemingly in one piece. Stork had planned on mustering up enough gall to give her a stern reprimand and had opened the hangar doors to let her in.
Aerrow and Radarr had gone down to meet her. Stork rehearsed his speech, throwing in the appropriate hand gestures. He heard the surprised shouts in the middle of his exasperated finger waggle.
A Talon had killed her and dropped her body off. Or worse, a Cyclonian had stolen her identity and the real Piper was dangling above the Wastelands or even worse, mind worms had infected her and persuaded her to kill them all.
Stork grabbed a spatula as a weapon in case things got messy.
The doors leading into the command room slid open. Aerrow stumbled in, carrying a visibly gray Piper gingerly. Radarr followed, holding her crystal staff.
Don't panic, Stork told himself. He approached them and Radarr whimpered. The sky monkey rarely whimpered, but then again, Piper rarely fainted.
"By the time we got to her, she was already out," Aerrow said, his eyes clouded. Stork had noticed how he looked at the navigator and sometimes he wondered, he wondered. "It's killing her."
"It" was the strange existential bond that Aerrow and Piper had acquired. The use of it was something they had loosely discussed as a Last Resort against the Cyclonians, something that they could fall back on if the Atmos began to lose its fight.
Squadrons were falling everyday now.
Aerrow flopped into a chair and ran his fingers through his hair, letting out a ragged sigh. "She keeps saying that this is the best way, but it's not. It's not, Stork." His voice cracked ever so slightly. "And I'm supposed to be the Sky Knight, the hero who can find the best solution. The one who can protect his team."
Stork saw a type of inward disgust in Aerrow, a type of disgust that had existed inside for a long time, never rearing its ugly head until now. A self-hatred that went beyond teenage insecurity. Stork looked at Piper. He waited.
"And I like it." He put his hands on his knees. "I get so much power from it and it's killing her. I'm killing one of my very best friends."
Had Stork been an optimist, he might've proposed another way. There was another way, he knew it. If saving Piper and Aerrow and the Atmos required him crashing the Condor into Master Cyclonis herself then he would do it. If saving them required him facing mind worms, he would do it. In a heartbeat.
But Stork is not an optimist. Stork had lived long enough to know things. Stork had lived long enough to know that the best answers never come easily.
.
two plus two
Finn was many things, but blind was not one of them.
He had noticed Piper's rampant coughing fits after the discovery of her weird new powers. Or rather, it was Piper and Aerrow's weird new powers. Finn wasn't sure of the exact terms, some kind of "binding" or what not, but Finn could see and Finn could understand.
Piper was slowly dying.
And Aerrow, it seemed, was a becoming a man in his prime.
As Finn stepped in from the shower he saw Stork and Piper in the Condor's command center. Stork was sitting in front of the controls, his feet propped up. He had a book in his hands, one eye on the pages and the other flickering around the room.
Piper was slumped in a chair, staring blankly at a chart. If she heard him enter, then she made no sign. Finn made sure to clear his throat (loudly, because Finn never did anything quietly) and made a shooting gesture at the girl. "Pipes!" He said, "Lookin' like a ball of sunshine, yeah?"
There was the sound of crickets.
Stork threw him a sharp glare from underneath his bangs and Finn cursed. At a closer inspection, he saw that Piper was holding a stone in her hands, her fingers running along its length. It was changing color, turning from a dead blue to a bright green.
The same green, Finn realized with horror, as Aerrow's eyes. The blond boy slid his gaze to the window, where he could see the Sky Knight sparring with Junko on the deck. He moved with predatory speed and grace, his feints and lunges too fast for the eye to see.
Before he realized it, Finn was screaming. He barreled towards the exit leading to the deck, barely pausing for the doors to slide open. He could hear Piper shouting after him and Radarr chirped urgently. Finn saw red.
He plowed into Aerrow, bowling the red haired boy over. "You're killing her!" He snarled, "stop killing her!"
Before they were Storm Hawks, it had been the two of them. Just for a short while. Finn remembered finding Piper amongst the rubble of their terra, glassy eyed and covered in soot like him. They had came a mutual conclusion, that they would watch each other's backs. Finn wondered if she remembered.
Junko hauled him off of the squadron leader, his eyes sparkling with tears. Finn scrambled to his feet and looked at his hands, and then realized that Aerrow stood still, not a lock of hair out of place.
They had became a family, just the three of them. Aerrow and Finn were brothers, and Piper was their sister. They'd shared memories about their families under the stars, and though Finn had never cried, he had held both of their hands.
"There has to be another way," Finn said, and he could find no witty punchline to ease the tension. "There has to be another way."
There was to be.
Aerrow dropped his head and the green aura around him began to dissipate. "I know," he said, clenching his fist as though he was holding onto the last vestiges of his power- of Piper's power. "There has to be."
.
the job no one wants
Cyclonis's legions barreled towards Terra Atmosia, and with them they brought fire and smoke. The remaining squadrons hurtled to intercept them. If Atmosia fell, then so would the others.
Piper tightened the straps on her pack. It was laden with crystals and stones- a much as she could carry. The rest remained on the Condor. She had gone over all the plans with Stork, considered all the possibilities, finalized her will. She would leave all her findings to him, and if they won, he would publish them. If they lost...
The boys blazed out of the hangar below, letting out war cries. They drove full-speed towards Cyclonia, hurtling towards the other terras. They were the last chance.
A day to go down in history.
"Piper, are you sure?" Stork asked, appearing at her side and Piper nodded stiffly. She had never been more sure.
Never.
.
realization
Finn shot another quarrel and the Talon on his heels went down in flames. He planted one foot on the handlebars of his ride, giving subtle taps in order to steer.
He could see the black dots in the distance that were Master Cyclonis and the Dark Ace. They stood on one of the glowing crystal beams that powered Terra Cyclonia, triumphant silhouettes against a blood orange sky.
Aerrow stood across from them, energy blades drawn. Finn suddenly realized why the Dark Ace and Master Cyclonis had appeared so clearly.
They were glowing.
Energy coursed through them, pulsing purple and red and blue. It seemed to shift with the Master's movements, threading its way to the Dark Ace.
It was the same "magical sharing" that Piper and Aerrow had acquired. Except, Finn thought, Master Cyclonis wasn't dying.
A Talon bore down on him and Finn didn't have the time to load his crossbow. Instead he brought it up and then down upon the man's helmet, wincing at the sickening crack that sounded as the Talon went down.
"I can use some help here!" Finn shouted, and then he looked through the throng of Talons at the few squadrons still fighting. There was no help coming.
The Storm Hawks were the help.
.
the Olympian
Aerrow went down on one knee and the Dark Ace bore down on him, his sword scraping against the edges of Aerrow's dual blades. He could feel the man's breath hot against his face as he pushed his weight down, teeth drawn back in some sick imitation of a smile.
Cyclonis cackled, her hands outstretched as she fueled the Dark Ace's strength. "Finish them!" She snarled and Aerrow could see the bloodlust and thirst for victory seeping into her eyes. She was drunk on the taste of triumph, he realized, and that energy was flowing through the Dark Ace.
Aerrow heaved, slashing upward and the Dark Ace's blade slide free. The young Sky Knight launched himself to his feet and flew at the man. Their battle, this time, was a wordless one.
"Get him, Aerrow!" Piper cried from behind him and when Aerrow looked back at her, he realized that she looked beautiful like that, with the orange sky behind her. She looked frail and ethereal, yet ancient and unmoving, and he wondered how he had missed it before. "Get him!"
A boot connected with his chest and Aerrow sprawling, grasping for purchase against the steel beam. He braced himself just as the Dark Ace's foot came down on his wrist. He heard a crack.
"You look just like your father," the Dark Ace chuckled. "Desperate and small. So, so, powerless. This moment will end much too soon." He pressed his weight down and Aerrow cried out involuntarily. His rival threw down his sword. "I think I'll use my hands this time."
"No!" Piper screamed and bowled into the Talon. She hit him with the strength of a thousand feathers, the iron of his grip closing around her throat.
He held them both like that, with Piper suspended in the air and Aerrow underneath his boots. Cyclonis grinned savagely. "Oh Piper," she sneered, "you don't look so good." She pointed her staff at the Dark Ace. "I said finish them!"
Aerrow squirmed, feeling tears slither out as he tried to pull his arm free. Piper dug her nails into the Dark Ace's hands, her feet landing ruthless blows to his chest and abdomen.
His fingers found one of his energy blades and Aerrow stabbed desperately, catching the Dark Ace's calf. He cursed and Piper slumped from his grip, landing on Aerrow's lap. He scrambled to his feet, pulling her with him. She fell limp against him.
Her cold, graying hand clasped his with a strength that had long left her. "I'm sorry, Aerrow," she whispered, for that heartbeat, there was no one else but her. Her skin began to glow. She began to sink, never releasing his hand. "I'm so, so, sorry."
.
She cracks, shatters, and fades underneath his fingers and Aerrow has never felt more alive.