A/n: In the style of fiftysentences, I made up my own set of prompts: Ten body parts! Stupid, huh? Anyway... little reference to The Space Between or whatever it is I named that crappy-ass oneshot...
1. Neck
Some people have death on their minds, or hovering over their shoulders. Piper wore hers around her neck on a leather chord.
No one ever figured out what it was except for the last person she would ever see before she died.
2. Skin.
The only person who ever figured out the secret behind her crystal necklace was Lark. The girls had been talking when Lark stopped mid-sentence, her eyes locked on the crystal resting against the base of Piper's throat. One pale finger traced the chord, stopping on the gem.
"You're very dedicated to your cause, aren't you?"
Something in her tone of voice made Piper's flesh crawl. She flinched and turned away.
"This isn't a game for little girls. You might get hurt. You know that, right?"
Now that was just plain insulting. "Of course I do," Piper snapped, honey-gold eyes flashing in barely contained anger. This was a sore point for the orphan, one that haunted almost every waking moment. "That's why I wear the necklace."
Neither of them could truly remember what it was like to be little girls, though. Ever since they could walk they were thrust into this conflict. Not that either of them truly minded- they loved it, in fact. They loved the opportunity to shine that this war had given them- Lark as a commander and a conqueror, Piper as a fighter and a heroine. As soon as they formed coherent thoughts they latched onto it, with matching fervor, for opposite sides of their parents' war.
Never to let go.
3. Hand.
"I've got you!"
The grey-green clouds raged around her, her shoulder screamed with pain. Piper had fallen off her sky ride in the middle of a storm, and against all thoughts of rhyme or reason someone had caught her. She looked upwards to see her savior only to be certain that she had died or she was dreaming.
A girl.
A flying girl.
It was only because she was certain this was a dream that she was able to ask, "Who's got me?"
The ensuing silence was not warranted, due to the simplicity of the question. But nevertheless the flying girl had no answer readily available. She had gone so long under the title of "Master" she had forgotten her birthname- until Piper grabbed onto her for dear life, both of her hands clutching the disguised Master Cyclonis by her forearm. It triggers a memory of when she was five years old, her grandmother dragging her along away from her father's still-smoking funeral pyre.
"Lark," she blurted out, tightening her grip on Piper's wrist and flying her to safety. A shelter from the storms, where she would wonder why she hadn't killed the girl. "M-my name is Lark. " And even though she already knew the answer, in order to keep up with this charade she needed to ask, "What's your name?"
"Piper. Of the Storm Hawks squadron."
In hindsight, in years to come, Cyclonis would think I know why. I know why I didn't kill her.
I was lonely.
I didn't want to.
And,
It would have been more merciful to just let her fall.
4. Nails.
"That's a pretty shade of pink," Piper said with interest, holding up Lark's hands to admire them. These were the hands that had saved her from death; they also happened to be flawlessly manicured.
They were safely back on the Condor. They had become fast friends.
"I never do mine; they always get messed up with all the work I have to do around here."
Morbidly, and yes, somewhat amused, Lark wondered what Piper would do with her free time when all her squadron was dead.
5. Stomach.
The two girls went on their first and last recon mission together to spy on new Cyclonian activities on Terra Tundras.
Once more that hand gripped her, but this time the pale pink nails dug into her flesh and the blue eyes were flat, calculating, sardonic.
"Don't you want to find out what's really going on?" Lark asked her.
Piper yanked her hand free, feeling sick in the deep pit of her stomach. In less than twenty four hours she had been driven to the brink of death for the sake of this war, been saved by and met a friend who made her forget she was fighting this war, only to find out…
"I think I already know what's going on," she said. "You're working for the Cyclonians, aren't you?"
6. Lungs.
Cyclonis wanted to laugh. Ear-splittingly. Madly. Without concern. Something inside her had been waiting for this moment so eagerly that when it finally came, a tremor ran through her whole body, and excitement had her heart pumping hard enough to make her chest hurt.
Instead of laughing, her smile twisted like a dying thing. "Piper," she said, her tone admonishing, "I can honestly say that… I don't work for the Cyclonians."
7. Eyes.
Off came the disguise. It truly was flawless for all that the Chroma crystal didn't even change her facial structure. The only difference was the fact that she wasn't healthy, tanned, blond-haired, blue-eyed, small-town girl Lark anymore.
She was unhealthily pale from a sickness that ate at her from the inside out. Greasy black hair that clung to her face, and deep, sunken purple eyes that stared from a place humans weren't meant to go.
Piper would learn intimately what it was like to look out those eyes, when she would start to dabble in black magic herself. She would become a dead thing, too, and she would join Cyclonis in the abyss. They both knew it from the start; they were one and the same.
They fought. It was not right to say that Piper won- not in any sense. She merely survived long enough to wonder why she hadn't killed the girl and allowed her to escape.
In a flash of light, the Master had vanished and Piper was left with these words: "This isn't over, you know."
And the answer is so irrational, so true.
"I'll be waiting."
8. Mind.
Aerrow is concerned about her, later that night. He knocks on her door and she lets him in, wishing he wasn't so nice all the time. She didn't need nice right now. She needed to be alone. She certainly didn't need Aerrow, not with all the confusing undertones in his kind gestures, or the way he refused to touch her even if it was just a friendly hug. Frightened of their feelings for each other, they walked a fine line between friends and more-than-friends, aware that anything they did could send the whole squadron into mayhem.
"This- this war- is bigger than us."
"I know."
"We need to stay focused. You're the captain, I'm the first officer. We can't afford to-"
"Piper, stop making so much sense. It hurts sometimes."
Steps forward. Steps backward. A contradiction in terms, but she is chasing him even as she pushes him away, until he's pressed against the wall and they make up for all the times they couldn't be as close as they wanted. In a whispered tone, "…You're making this difficult."
"Piper, I lov-"
A warm gust against his lips. "Don't say it."
His eyes were closing. "Why not?"
"If it's not real in my mind, then it can't get destroyed."
He didn't understand. To think negatively was against his mindset- nothing could ever go wrong. There are no such things as problems. It's only a problem if you don't fix it. Yes, she was like his sister. Yes, they were more a family than a group of soldiers. So what's the problem? I'm sorry, but I don't follow your train of thought. This can only make us closer. I only want to be closer. Why are we afraid? I don't know. I don't care. That's a lie- I do care. I just… I don't like to be afraid. I'm not scared of anything, much less love. Love is beautiful.
And perhaps for the first time in her life, Piper said: "Oh, screw it."
A pause.
"Kiss me."
But she didn't wait for him to respond.
8. Blood.
"Piper, I'm sorry."
"No! If we go down, we go down together!"
It's almost comical, the noises and the sounds and the way the blood squirts out. Like a cheap gory horror picture. Life imitating art- cheap art. Grinning skulls and laughing madmen who cut into the hero and leave the girl alone and afraid. The walls start to shake and the ceiling starts to crumble, the rubble falling down on top of them. Piper had planted bombs in the stronghold and sure enough, it was working.
Things fall apart- the center cannot hold.
Finn, cocky as ever. "Eat this, motherfucker."
Junko, panting, wordless, riddled with arrows, eyes wide from adrenaline, blood on his hands.
Stork, in a fit of screaming, wild, vengeful madness. He went down laughing as he strangled Ravess to death with her own bowstring.
Aerrow, lying to her, "It's OK," because they knew this was a suicide mission but they took it anyway. "It's OK. I'm OK."
9. Tears.
This isn't the way I wanted to die.
Through a gap in the rubble she could still see Aerrow, trapped on the other side. "Don't worry, I'll hold him off." The Sky Knight got to his feet and pulled out his daggers. "So listen carefully, Piper, 'cause this is an order. You're to see this mission throu-"
There was a flash of red light and his words trailed off into a scream of pain, his body slamming against the wall. Somehow the scream ripped through her, morphed into a single, piercing, desperate word.
"Go!"
She turned and ran, half-blind with tears, because she had a duty to uphold to her captain.
The hallways and the corridors were familiar to her; she had studied their blueprints until the stronghold was as familiar to her as her own home. So she found Cyclonis easily enough, burst through the doors with another well-placed explosion…
Cyclonis was waiting for her on a balcony that overlooked the destruction. There was a war going on out there, all of Atmos fighting in the sky, but the Master had her back turned to it all. It was irrelevant; she was leaving this world one way or another, why bother watching it as it was ripped apart? She stood with her hands clasped together at chest level, her head lowered in contemplation or prayer, Piper could not tell which. With her hood up, she looked almost like a monk.
She was standing next to two chairs.
Instinctively, Piper knew one of them was for her.
10. Heart/Soul
So this was it.
The Storm Hawks had gone down fighting for what they believed in.
"You still have a lot to learn," Cyclonis told Piper, who lay crumpled in a corner, bleeding from every orifice. "You think you can walk the line- use these powers and get away with it. You're scared to dig deep-" a hand exploded, made of pure energy, and grabbed Piper around the waist. It pulled on her and threw her across the room. She smacked against the wall with a cry of pain and fell down, too weak to get up, or cast another spell.
Dark circles around her eyes, an unhealthy green tinge to her skin. Physically she was failing, and while Cyclonis somehow had managed to keep herself active and alive through some force of sheer willpower, Piper had no idea how to control her powers and it was killing her.
"My offer still stands."
Of course. Years ago. When she was still Lark.
Imagine the two of us working together.
And Cyclonis explained everything: The war. The deaths. The power.
She knew she was losing this war from the beginning, and she didn't care. She was dying. There was no other heir to the throne. So what did she do? She decided to leave, and let everyone else take care of the mess. She had found a way to live with these powers of hers, and was willing to share them with Piper, the one other person who had managed to wield them
"You can come with me- I have a portal to the Far Side of the Atmos. We're going to escape, the Dark Ace and I, and start this empire afresh. We're going to-"
That was her mistake, of course. Mentioning the Dark Ace. Because the Dark Ace was the one who killed Aerrow. The Dark Ace was the one with the blood red eyes and the blood red blade. Piper's head snapped up, and her hand went to the cord around her neck. She ripped the crystal necklace free and she-
"Don't!"
It was a sign of how much Piper truly didn't want to die that she actually listened. Cyclonis took a step forward, her eyes widening, about to say something else-
But then Piper found a reserve of steel deep inside her, and swallowed the crystal whole. Her eyes burned in defiance even as she convulsed once, sank to the floor, gasped for breath, and then died. Cyclonis, shell-shocked, could not help but admire Piper one last time, for so effortlessly striking such a final blow.
She had taken the only thing the Empress had truly wanted.
Peeled her apart and left her raw.
You can't hide it. You're just a lonely little girl.
The Dark Ace found the two of them like this: Cyclonis sitting on the floor with Piper's head resting on her lap, pale hands running through the girl's hair.
"We're losing outside," he said, voice muffled because Aerrow had gotten a few good swings in before being impaled by the man's blade. He spat out a wad of blood onto the rich carpet of the girl's room, sword at the ready. "Master, what shall I do?"
The response was easy enough to come by. Her tone of voice was almost bored. "Prepare the door to the Far Side. I think we've caused enough damage here, don't you, darling?"
He bowed, and turned to leave. But he paused when he heard her say something, thinking that she was talking to him. But she wasn't; she was talking to Piper.
"We were the same, you know," she murmured, setting the body aside. "In every way."