Hey All! Long time since I've been writing and I felt this one was quite a nice lil one. Its just a oneshot, but it'll be submitted in two chapters, because I haven't finished but I want to get the general opinion on it =) Hope you like the beginning!
Perfection
"Piper!"
Her Heliscooter was spinning out of control, less than a league away from crashing into the wastelands. Of all the days to forget to recharge the crystals! She thought furiously at herself.
Suddenly a hand grabbed her wrist and Piper found herself dragged off the falling ride and onto the back seat of a skimmer. A mop of soft red hair brushed her face as she wrapped her arms around her saviour's lean waist. Aerrow...
"Hold on tight!" He yelled over the screech of his own engine and the blasts of crackling red energy coming from behind them.
Piper's reply changed into a scream when vertigo gripped her stomach as the skimmer dropped suddenly and started to corkscrew. She pressed her face into Aerrow's back and held on for dear life. Somewhere near her head she heard him swear.
And then there was no seat underneath her and they were in free-fall. A second scream came to her lips, but was silenced when Aerrow's glider snapped open and they were rising just as suddenly as they had been falling.
"Hold these." A set of crystals were suddenly thrust into Piper's hands, wedged between her vice like grip on his waist.
They flew wildly, dodging the energy blasts still chasing them. Piper heard Aerrow hiss with pain and smelt burnt material. If only I'd charged the crystals!
"Drop the crystals, now!" Piper obeyed Aerrow's voice, releasing her hold only enough to let the crystals fall from her grasp, before clutching back at his waist to stop herself falling. She heard the clatter of crystals falling into a converter and looked down.
Junko grinned up at her as his engine stopped its spluttering and roared back to life. It took all the weak crystals from his own ride and from Aerrow's fallen skimmer to power just the one.
Piper felt Aerrow drop and they landed on the back of the seat. A glimpse of blond hair and blue fur from the front meant Finn and Radarr were already on the front of the skimmer.
"Excellent, just one target left." The mocking voice of The Dark Ace a little to the right made Piper reach for Aerrow again, but suddenly he wasn't there.
"And that one target is you!" In one nimble leap, Aerrow was on the Dark Ace's skimmer and his twin blades severed both wings. A duck under the blazing red sword, a swift kick to the older man's face, a leap from the front of the skimmer that sent it spinning and Aerrow was back, seated in front of Piper, throwing a handful of stolen crystals into the converter again.
The Dark Ace howled in fury as his skimmer span away, with no crystals to power it back on course. They watched his glider snap open and fly away as his skimmer crashed to the wastelands, joining Finn's, Aerrow's, and Piper's Heliscooter.
Powered by many weak crystals instead of just a few strong ones, Junko steered back to the Condor and landed the whole Storm Hawks Squadron, minus Stork who was flying.
"Guys I..." Piper didn't know what to say, she was so embarrassed. "I'm so sorry I didn't charge the crystals, I just...Aerrow your arm!"
"It's just a scratch." Aerrow put a hand over the place where one of Dark Ace's blasts had found their target. "Don't worry about it." He smiled at her. It only made Piper feel even worse. She moved to help him but he stepped away from her to a first aid cupboard to get a bandage.
"Let me do it." Piper insisted, but he was already tying up his arm, facing away from the team so as not to, she knew, show how bad it was.
"It's fine, I can do it myself Piper. See? All done." Aerrow turned round and smiled at her again, she looked down and started to apologise again.
"Hey now! No worries. We all made it back safe and sound. And kicked some Cyclonian butt too!" He laughed as Finn high-fived him and winked to Piper.
"Dude! That was brilliant!" Finn gave Piper a patronising look as Aerrow walked away. "Thank Atmos we've got you to clean up all of Piper's messes."
Piper glared at Finn as he followed Aerrow and Junko through the door, then looked down at the floor, ashamed and angry, wishing what Finn said wasn't true, and hating that Aerrow hadn't denied what Finn said.
The next day, Aerrow stumbled as his shoulder collided with something hard. He turned with his mouth open to apologise to his team member, but the words froze on his lips when he saw the look on Piper's face as she shrugged him off and stalked away. Puzzled, he walked after her into the bridge to find Stork standing by his side almost instantly.
"I think we may have a problem with the Condor," Stork said, leaning in far too close to Aerrow for comfort, "She keeps losing power. It could be leechers again, or a slight glitch in the engines, or-"
"I'll get Junko straight on it, Stork, no worries." Aerrow replied with an easy smile. Stork, slightly reassured, jumped back to his beloved position at the helm.
"You can't just get Junko on it." Said a harsh voice from the seating area. "You have to ask him." Piper was sat, looking out the window casually, but there was a dangerous edge to her voice that made Aerrow frown.
"Of course I'll ask him, he's the engineer..." Aerrow trailed off as Finn and Junko walked in and the day began.
The day was quiet, but full of activity. Several times Aerrow tried to talk to Piper, but found himself stuck with the cold shoulder and a harsh tone to her voice that he was unaccustomed to. As dusk drew around the Condor, Aerrow climbed onto the outsides on the Condor for a breath of fresh air, then stopped when he saw Piper sat watching the sunset.
She hadn't heard him, so Aerrow moved silently next to her.
"Hey." He said softly. Piper yelled in surprise and struck with her staff, which Aerrow ducked under and held up his hands. "Woah, it's me!"
"Aerrow!" Piper's face darkened and she returned her staff to her side. "Don't sneak up on me! Just because you can doesn't mean you should. You're not the only one who can be stealthy!" She sat back down with crossed arms.
Aerrow was baffled.
"I didn't know you were up here, I'm sorry for scaring you." He apologised, "I didn't mean to."
Piper sat in stony silence and didn't even turn to face Aerrow as he sat down next to her.
"What's up?" No reply. "Have I don't something wrong?"
"That's exactly the problem!" Piper glared at him and his confused face, soft hair blowing in the breeze, strong jaw, perfect eyes...Perfect everything.
"You don't do anything wrong! You waltz around here thinking you can do everything, you can't do anything wrong, so proud and boasting, you're worse than Finn!"
"Ouch, Piper!" Aerrow felt like he was being stabbed in the chest. Surely this wasn't Piper, his best friend, talking like this? "I don't boast! Where's this come from?"
"From you!" Piper jumped to her feet and looked down on him, her hands balled up into fists. "You're no better than the rest of us! You make mistakes too!"
"I know I do! I never said that I don't." Aerrow thought about the day before. "Is this about yesterday?"
"So what if it is?" Piper turned away from him with crossed arms again.
"Piper," Aerrow soothed, "No-one blames you for that! It was an accident, it could have happened to anyone. You're a busy person, so you forgot one thing one time? Big deal."
"But it just happened to be the one time that it was a big deal. But you can't judge me!" She whirled back to face him. Her shame at herself made her angry, but she was too busy being ashamed of herself to be angry at herself too, so she aimed the anger at the one person she was jealous of, and wished she could be like. "You're not better than any of us, you make mistakes too! Mr. Perfect!" She scoffed. "Well you're not! You're no good, you can't do everything! You'd be nothing without us, you are nothing!"
Piper whirled around and threw open the door to the inside. Aerrow sat motionless as the hatch slammed shut behind her. A wave of cold rushed over him that had nothing to do with the setting sun. Her words struck deep, insecurities that always were and always had been with him, buried under the responsibilities of being a Sky Knight. But if his best and closest friend could think that of him, call him, What was it? He thought, Oh yes, proud and boasting. He shivered and wrapped his arms around his legs.
"You are nothing!" Nothing. That's what she said. That's what she thought. Do the others think that too? A cloud of doubts descended on him, and Aerrow sat with his arms wrapped round his knees as night fell around him.
There you go, just a little bit for now, what do we think? !~A4E~!