Lark's Leaving Song- "It Ends Tonight" by the All American Rejects.
The Storm Hawks, Rave, and Lark- "Time Turned Fragile" by Motion City Soundtrack.
"Those who have passed with direct eyes,
To death's other kingdom
Remember us- if at all-
Not as lost, violent souls
But as the hollow men
The stuffed men."
-"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot.
OoOoOo
Terra Bogaton.
Fifteen Years Ago.
Starling.
Thick smoke reached her nostrils as with a final shudder the Condor started to sink into the Wastelands. "Shit!" Starling said, picking off a few more Raptors before closing the gun hatch. Hopping off the cannon seat, she ran to Vernal's side at the controls. "Where were we hit?"
Vernal didn't answer at first, back arched as she tried to pull up. Her long green fingers stood out stark white as she gripped the controls, a strained whimper growing in the back of her throat. "Oh… Nowhere… important! Just the main engines!" she squeezed out somehow, her panicked yellow eyes seeking Starling's green ones. The Interceptor put one of her hands over the merb's and grabbed the controls as well, pulling with all her might, not caring if she tore every muscle in her back as long as they could just get airborne again. "Hey Griffin!" Vernal said now to the radio, trying to send a transmission to Griffin's skimmer. "Gather up the Interceptors and let's GO! There's nothing we can do here, the Condor is-" she hunkered down and screamed in fright when another bomb caught them. The shields were long gone.
They were crashing.
"Come on!" Starling shouted, grabbing her by the middle and dragging her away from the controls. The front glass cracked as another bomb hit them and they went tumbling down, rolling across the floor which had now become the wall as the Condor tilted. Starling's skimmer was trashed, there was no way off the Condor unless they wanted to jump into the Wastelands. But Starling had another idea, the only chance they might have of making it when the Condor would inevitably hit the ground.
Vernal struggled with the Sky Knight, still reaching for the steering wheel. "No, wait!" she said. "I can still-"
"We're crashing, Vern! There's nothing you can do- now move!" She didn't know how she did it, but Starling managed to take the protesting merb to safety. They ran to Vernal's room, skidding along the Condor's hallways as the Raptors assault intensified. Kicking open the floor hatch to Vernal's secret chamber, Starling tossed the merb inside and hopped down after her, closing the hatch behind her as she fell. She landed lightly on her feet in the semidarkness, crouching and eyes searching around her while the Condor rumbled painfully all around her. Screams of steel rent at her ears like the shrieks of human women as she sat down on one of the seats and strapped herself in.
It just so happened that she chose the seat right next to Stork, who had been patiently waiting there ever since the fighting started. He looked up at Starling, bundled up in his seat with his arms wrapped around his shaking body. "We're falling, Starly," he said to her, voice sounding very small and very frightened in the chaos.
"We'll be OK," Starling tried to tell him, but she was distracted by Vernal reaching for the hatch, still attempting to get back at the wheel. Growling, Starling launched out of her seat and physically dragged the merb from the escape, setting her down in another seat and pressing her down there with her hands on the mother's shoulders. "Vern! Will you stop it? Strap yourself in, it's the only way!"
"You don't know the Condor the way I do!" Vernal protested, gripping at Starling's forearms. "I can save us! I can stop this!"
"If you get out of this safe, the only thing you'll do is die!" Starling shook her. "Think of your son! Do you want to leave him? Is that what you want, Vern?"
Verna let him arms fall limply to her sides, long green head lowered and her ears drooping to hide her eyes so that she didn't have to look at Starling. "Of… of course not…" Thinking she had convinced the Merb to the side of reason, Starling let her go. But Vernal shot upright again, catching the Interceptor by surprise and grabbing her by the forearm to bring her down as she brought her knee upwards to slam it into Starling's abdomen. Starling gasped, hunching over so that Vernal could chop down with her powerful green hand. Starling fell limp into the merb's arms and she sat the purple-haired woman down into one of the chairs, fastening her so that she was securely strapped in next to her son.
"You'll be safe here, Stork," she told him, caressing his face and kneeling to hold him to her chest one more time. Stork didn't say anything, couldn't say anything as he watched his mother clamber back up through the hatch and lock him inside.
Vernal found herself back at the wheel, talking to no one. At least, no one that could be seen with just the eyes.
"I guess this time I have to go all the way…"
OoOoOo
Just Outside Cyclonia
Eight Years Ago.
Lark- Nine Years Old.
The engines on her heliscooter sputtered, jerking her forward a few more feet even as she began to lose altitude. Cursing through the black wool scarf that protected her face from the rain and from bugs smashing into her mouth at break neck speeds, Lark scanned the skies for some sort of landing place. The heliscooter hiccupped again and her heart froze in fear when she felt the rumble of the engine fall deathly still. The heliscooter sank like a rock, tilting to the side as Lark clambered off it and leaped for her life, pulling on the cord to her parachute. The winds carried her up and around like a paper kite and she held on for dear life to her backpack, hunched into a ball with her eyes tightly shut. All around her, the storm raged on, dragging her so far off course she couldn't have told you if she was in Atmosia or in Cyclonia.
And then her head snapped against an outcrop of rock and she hung limply in her parachute straps, letting the winds take her far from home.
…
She awoke when a stinging pain in her head slapped her free from the darkness of sleep. Someone was holding her head, touching it and setting it afire with agony. She struggled with the hands, not aware that they were the same ones that had saved her from the storm, not aware that they were trying to help her. Outside the cave, lightning struck and she screamed in fright, the sudden illumination letting her see the blood red eyes that were more than eyes, the otherworldly element of that thunder letting her hear the screams of madness for the first time, but not for the last.
Shuddering, she collapsed again…
…
The next time she roused herself, it was slowly, with every muscle in her body complaining against being used so soon. She ignored them and forced her gummy eyes to open and look around her to see that she was back, safely in her room in the palace at Cyclonia. A man stood with his back to her, perusing her collection of crystal handbooks and thick tomes of Atmosian and Cyclonian history. One gloved finger ran over their spines, the other clasped behind his back as though afraid he might touch them and break them. The man's head was covered by the thick black hood of a Cyclonian patrolman, but the frame of his body and the broad, strong set of his shoulders were as familiar to her as her own face.
"Immer?" she asked, half getting out of bed and a true smile lightening her surly face like a sunrise.
The man whirled around, red eyes measuring her calmly. "No," Nova said, and the princess immediately shrank back under the covers, the white curtain of her hair a convenient shield against having to look at her fiancé directly. Nova walked over to the side of her bed, clasping the top of her head with one big hand. "You almost died, Lark."
"Well, I'm fine now, as you can plainly see. You can leave." She shifted so that her back was turned to him, pulling the covers over her head and shaking his hand off of her.
"What possessed you to go flying around in the middle of the night?" he kept on.
"I wanted to see the lunar eclipse. Alone," she added, hoping that he would get the hint now. Lark wriggled deeper into her blankets, unable to even look at the man she'd one day be forced to call husband.
Nova huffed under his breath. "And you couldn't see it from one of the tower balconies?" he asked her, voice incredulous.
Lark thrust her blankets away from her so that she could glare fully into eyes red as her own. Ignoring the way her body shook from the exertion of moving so fast, she hopped out of bed and ran to her window, snapping open the shutters and moving to the side so that Nova could see. The red skies of Cyclonia greeted him, cloudy and filled with storms. "As a matter of fact, I couldn't," she said stiffly, shutting the windows again. "Maybe you've forgotten that clear skies haven't blessed Cyclonia in over five hundred years. After all, you're in Atmosia all the time, hunting for ghosts."
"Griffin of the Storm Hawks is alive," Nova hissed in response, eyes narrowed. For a moment Lark was afraid again. She was alone with him, a grown man while she was still just a child. He could slap her for her pert remarks, or worse. But he stayed where he was, and she was rooted to the spot where she was, and he didn't threaten her with violence.
"So you're going out there to prove he's alive just long enough for you to kill him," she said, forcing her voice to be dry of all emotion. It was the only way she'd learned to deal with her so-called 'brother'. "Even though half of the Atmos saw him fall under your blade, five years ago. You're a real piece of work, Nova."
"I'm not the only one who thinks so," Nova said. "Recently, more and more people are claiming to have seen him, leading battles against our forces, even arriving in the middle of peace treaties between Atmosia's few remaining Terras. Why would the Sky Council lie about something like that?"
"To give them hope," Lark said, shrugging dismissively. "Griffin is a folk hero. If they start spreading rumors that he's still alive-"
"Not still alive," Nova interrupted her, walking away. He opened the door. "He is alive again. He came back, somehow. Or maybe he is still dead, just…" Nova pressed his fingertips against his throbbing forehead, red eyes staring out at nothing. A nothing that made his face go dark with anger, made the veins in his neck stand out. "…How? How did he cheat death, damn it? When I kill a man, he should stay dead!"
"You're chasing ghosts," Lark said again, twisting her mouth downward at his mad ramblings. "Listen- I've been having the sister watched for years now. If Griffin were alive, he would have tried to contact her. She's in such grief; I've heard she hasn't spoken a peep since the day he died!" Her teeth bared in a nightmarish smile, red eyes lighting up with dark humor. "Trust me- These so called heroes are always selfish in the end. Men like Griffin can't let others suffer for them, because that hurts them all the more. And when a man is hurting, if the pain is bad enough he'll do anything to stop it. As one quite familiar with pain and torture I'm sure you could come to the same conclusion, brother." The last word was spat out with hate, laden with irony so heavy it could have taken form and sunk to the bottom of the Wastelands. "Personally, I think you're just scared a big ole ghostie is out to haunt you. Or who knows what twisted fantasies spring into your mind. Thanks for saving my life, Nova, but I want you to get out of my room- now."
Nova allowed her one last dirty look before leaving and slamming the door shut behind him.
It was only then that she allowed herself to collapse back into her bed, quivering, and fearing the future like never before.
OoOoOo
Terra Atmosia.
Current Day.
Piper walked back to the Condor, which was resting in one of the dry docks that was reserved especially for the heroes of Atmos. She found Finn lying on his belly on the bridge, apparently having a staring match with Lark's puppy. The puppy also was on his belly, but his rump was wriggling from side to side. Piper stared, never having seen the puppy act this way with anyone but Lark.
"Awroo," Finn said, rolling over on his back. The puppy followed suit. "Awroogaroog!" Finn said, flipping over again to land on all fours, butt wiggling in the air. The puppy clambered to his ungainly paws and attacked him, leaping from side to side and barking nonstop while Finn rolled around the Condor, protesting all the while. "Ahh! Ah, ya got me! Oh agony, agony! Blaaagh!"
He rolled right up to Piper's feet, frozen in a paroxysm of pain, arms twisted in weird directions. "Uh…" he said, looking up at her while the puppy bounded on his chest, licking his face and neck frantically. "Hi."
"Hi," she said, not bothering to hide her amusement. "Having fun?"
"Didn't expect you back for a while," he said, wiping his face with the back of one sleeve as he got to his feet. "What happened?"
"Aerrow didn't want me at the trial," Piper said, crossing her arms and averting her eyes. "I don't know. I guess he thought I couldn't handle it. He wants me to fix a few problems on the Condor, keep myself busy."
Finn bent down to pick up the puppy, who wriggled in his arms until he was comfortable enough to fall asleep. "Do you think you coulda handled it?" he asked her. "I mean… you and Lark were-"
"Nothing," Piper finished, firmly. The puppy blinked one eye open at her tone of voice, tail wagging uncertainly. In response, she reached out to stroke his head until he relaxed again. "I guess you could say it was a- a crazy fling."
"You don't strike me as the type to do flings, Piper," Finn said. "That's too cold for you."
"It was a fling," she insisted. "It couldn't have been anything else. Not unless I wanted to turn a blind eye to everything she'd done." Taking the puppy from Finn's arms, she hugged him tightly, burying her face in his brown fur. He licked her cheek.
She was surprised when Finn put his arms around her, squeezing her as well. "You sure know how to pick 'em, Piper," he said, one hand on the back of her neck.
"You smell like dog drool," she told him, grimacing.
"Shut up when I'm being nice, will ya?"
"…OK," she said, resting her head against his chest, the puppy held between them.
OoOoOo
"All right," Aerrow said as they stood outside the doors to the Sky Council. "If we play our cards right, Lark, we can keep you on the Condor under house arrest, say you're too dangerous to be kept anywhere else."
"Wait- wait- wait just a second. So you want me on board?" Lark asked them, looking from Junko's passive grey eyes to Aerrow's infuriatingly green ones.
"We need you right now," Aerrow corrected her, waving one finger in the air to silence her. "You're the only one who knows anything about Nova and his Harbingers. In return for your help, when all is said and done we're gonna let you go Scot free. To do whatever you like. But for right now…" he held up a pair of handcuffs. Raising one eyebrow, Lark complied with him, holding her wrists out for him to pretend he had her locked up.
"If I'm too dangerous to be kept anywhere but with the Dark Ace and his squadron, it would be more logical for them to kill me," Lark whispered as they passed through the doors.
Junko grinned and clapped a huge hand over her entire shoulder. "Just stay cool," he reassured her. "Aerrow knows what he's doing."
Lark stayed silent, considering the options before her. Though the last thing she wanted was to be buddy-buddies with the Storm Hawks (with the very possible exception of Piper) she clung too dearly to what little life she had left to want to fight them now.
What kind of soldier wants to save the enemy commander? She wondered. Never mind the fact that I don't have anything left to command. If I was in their shoes, I'd… I'd do something so terrible there isn't a word in the dictionary that could describe it. Even after living with them for a little bit I still don't understand this need to be good. This Aerrow has a messiah complex so bad he doesn't even realize he has it. Where do they get off, being so nice to me? Well, Piper wants me, but the rest of them are nothing.
Nothing.
OoOoOo
Terra Cyclonia
Eight Years Ago.
Nova.
"Master."
Though his voice was respectful, Nova didn't carry an ounce of concern for his uncle, the man who (or so rumor had it) killed his own brother to obtain the title of Cyclonis. Lark's father looked down at him from his lofty throne, black and purple cloak covering his face so that all Nova could see were two burning red eyes, boring into his own.
"Dark Ace," he said with a matching amount of sympathy. "What is it this time, Nova? Another bastard you want made legitimate?"
"Not today, Father, though you know my stance on that subject will never change." Nova's pensive, long face turned to the floor to avoid looking into those red eyes. "Today, I'm here to ask you a favor, on Immer's behalf. I want him to lead the next few skirmishes on the Atmosians, not me."
Master Cyclonis let out a long-suffering sigh, tilting his head to the side and closing his eyes. The lines age had etched on his face deepened, the shadows under his sleepless red eyes growing darker. "That would be a good idea, but I know you're not doing it out of any concern for your brother."
"Am I not allowed to take time off?" Nova demanded, managing to lift his eyes up to glare at his uncle. "I'm being stretched thin. I am the Dark Ace, but that doesn't make me immortal. I've been fighting nonstop for almost a full year!"
"We're at war, Nova," Cyclonis said, standing up with one hand reaching for the hilt of his sword. "And don't pretend you aren't loving every second of it. I know what you are."
Two pairs of red eyes narrowed.
And then at last, Nova smiled viciously. "So do I get the free time, or what?"
"Only if you swear you're not doing it to go and stalk that pathetic little Interceptor again," Master Cyclonis relented, mouth twisted in disgust. "You're not to leave Terra Cyclonia, am I understood?"
"You know the reason I chose the Interceptor. The genetics behind it- it was genius. I would have never have figured it out alone, but with the help of the Voices-" Nova's eyes sparkled, hands clenching involuntarily as his heart sped. "My son was born with white hair! I saw it for myself!"
"I've also seen the bastard." Cyclonis cocked one eyebrow up. "He's nothing but a little clone of his uncle. Hair- eyes- everything. One hundred percent red-headed Atmosian."
"But he was born with white hair."
"So was Immer," Cyclonis pointed out. "It's staying white that proves their compatibility with the Voices. Countless Cyclonian children are born with white hair only to change later on- you're claiming they're all yours, too?"
"I'm claiming there's a way to turn it back the way it was supposed to be. Ask your own Voices. Or-" Nova smirked again. "Are you too scared to risk opening your ears?"
"You have your free time, Nova. Do with it as you please, but I will not name a bastard heir to Cyclonia!"
"Then we'll just have to wait until I'm Cyclonis, won't we?" Nova shot back, not even close to giving up. Cyclonis grit his teeth in anger, the oblivion crystal equipped to his sword reacting and radiating power. Not waiting to be dismissed, the heir to Cyclonia whirled around and strode out of the throne room, black boots stomping loudly.
OoOoOo
Terra Atmosia
Present Day.
"They're gonna keep you here overnight," Aerrow said to her.
Lark glanced upwards at the Sky Council, looking down at her from their lofty pedestal, safe behind years and years of stuffy tradition. It disgusted her. It showed her how fragile their manly egos were. Her father had never needed a dais or a big, high throne to remind everyone else who was in power. (Not all the time, anyway…) Neither had she. If you didn't already know what kind of devastation was standing right in front of you, you'd learn soon enough.
"Great," she said, eyes shifting back to Aerrow now. "Then they're gonna kill me."
"Noooo," Junko said, patient with her after so many years of dealing with Stork's even more obsessive pessimism. "Then they're gonna have the full trial and we can keep you on the Condor for a lil longer. OK?" he slapped her on the shoulder again, almost causing a few bones to snap, and then lumbered out the front door.
Three guards came towards her and she stiffened in her shackles, bristling like a threatened dog. They lowered their spears at her warningly, crystal tips glowing, and she couldn't help but smirk at how useless these Atmosian soldiers were. She could kill them with their own weapons, if she wanted to. There were enough crystals in this room to make the whole fucking beacon tower fall like the pillar of dominos that it was.
Then Aerrow touched her shoulder lightly, snapping her out of it. She looked at him hovering protectively over her shoulder, green eyes wide and expressive yet not revealing anything to her other than the fact that he was sickeningly heroic and loyal and friendly, a paragon of virtue that didn't belong in this world.
"We'll get a good lawyer," he said, "And we'll see you tomorrow. And would it kill you to at least act like you're not a violent psychopath?"
Her lip twitched as she fought not to smile. "Maybe."
"Try not to break anything," he said as his farewell, transferring her over to the guards and waving once over his back as he left to go back to the Condor.
Play nice, Lark thought, Be a good girl. Don't break anything.
Right.
Right.
I promise. For Piper.
OoOoOo
Terra Bogaton.
Fifteen Years Ago.
Her green hand reached towards the sky, thrust upwards from the wreckage like a sick flower dying for sunlight.
"Oh my God- Vern!"
Starling scrambled over the broken glass and twisted metal, Stork hitching a ride on her shoulders piggyback style. She set him down and slid to the floor, tearing up the plates of metal that covered her friend, unearthing her at last to caress her green face and check her pulse. She was alive, but everything below her waist was still submerged under the thick metal ocean.
"Oohhhh…" Vernal said, eyes rolling around dizzily as they opened. "I knew it. I knew I could do it. I saved you, Stork- I saved Starling- and the Condor- I did it…"
Starling's hands shook as she attacked the remaining rubble like a mad woman, tossing aside sheets of metal and armor plating. Vernal was buried alive in the wreckage of the Condor. Stork crouched by her head, holding one of her hands, his eyelid jumping every few seconds.
"Starling…"
"Shut up, Vern!" Starling snapped, trying to lever up a particularly heavy plate with a pipe she had found. "Just- shut up, OK? I'm going to get you out of here, and then I'm going to kick your sorry green ass for pulling the stunt you did!"
And then Vernal reached up with both her hands, grabbing the edge of the metal that Starling was lifting and yanked it back down on top of her. Her eyes went wide at the impact but she was soon calm again, looking up at the shocked Starling. "I'm gonna die," she whispered. "So could you please… give something to Stork for me? When he's old enough?"
The blood began to seep outwards, spreading from the point of impact.
And Starling began to weep, noiselessly, as the centers of Vernal's large yellow eyes reached out to her, enveloping her in a shroud of thick black velvet that eventually gave way to an endless white plain, where the whispers of the rivers and the winds and the soaring song of the crystals filled her whole body, reverberating to the sound of her life the way a tuning fork is struck and lets loose the sound that you want to echo.
And Vernal stood there.
"Where are you?" Starling asked, unable to stop the tears. (She asked that- where are you- because she knew she was still firmly rooted in the real world, one foot on this side, and one foot on the other, but that Vernal was long gone.) "Vern…? I can't see- where are you, Vern?"
"This is the Condor," Vernal told her, long arms sweeping expansively around her. "This is where I'm going to stay, for a little while. Just until you don't need my help anymore. Because I wanna stay with you a little longer cause I- cause I love you, Starling. Cause I love you."
And she grinned, face shining.
And Starling knew that her friend was dead.
OoOoOo
Present Day
Terra Atmosia.
They led her outside, to a private courtyard, where the guillotine was waiting. Lark stopped in her tracks, digging her heels in the dirt in a panic as they dragged her forward. "Funny," she gritted out to the head of the Sky Council, who walked beside her as she wriggled in the arms of the guards. "Don't you try criminals before sentencing them to death?!"
The treachery of it all was laudable. She'd done something similar, six years ago, to her own cousin-slash-brother-slash-fiancé. That didn't make her any happier when the Sky Council said to her: "Aerrow has a good heart, but he's too soft. He doesn't have the spine to do what needs to be done."
Well, wonderful. There goes her promise to Aerrow and his Storm Hawks, shwoop, wheee! right out the window! There was no way she could keep up this whole I'm A Good Girl Now act in face of this, the end of everything. And even though she had nothing left in this world, no love, no star to dream and wish upon, no family or friends, no empire and minions at her beck and call, she still had Life, and that was too much to give up so easily. Kicking off the shackles on her feet, she wrenched herself free of the guards and snatched one of their spears, driving it through his throat. He gurgled as he died and she whirled around to deflect a wild blow from the other guard's spear, knocking it aside and lunging in. He jumped backwards, stumbling over his feet as she attacked again. He parried, gaining his ground again now that the initial shock was over. All in all, he was a good fighter, but he was no match for hundreds of years of Cyclonian warfare culminating in one girl's disturbed young mind. She smacked at his legs, sending him down as she whirled around him and brought the spear tip down through his back, piercing his heart. She wrenched the spear free, turning around again to be faced with yet another spearman roaring, his spear held high above his head as he brought it tip down on the crown of her head.
And he stood there. His arms quivered, the sharp tip of his spear just barely pressing against the flesh of her scalp, but no matter how hard he pushed downward it didn't budge another inch.
Master Cyclonis looked up at him, red eyes flashing. The crystal tip of his spear glowed with energy in response to that otherworldly pull. It shone, pulsing as Cyclonis grinned and forced her will upon it, pushing up and backwards to send the man stumbling, pulled along by the force of his own crystal. As soon as he was a safe distance away, Cyclonis let the crystal free. She broke it of its restraints, let its song burst from that miserable shell so that the whole courtyard could hear it. The crystal exploded in the man's hand, brilliant light shooting upwards. Fireworks. Cyclonis lifted her palms upwards to catch the ashes as they fell, eyes lit upwards towards the sky, and she thought: Beautiful.
However, she couldn't stand there and watch the fireworks, no matter how much she wanted to. There was still business to be done. The leader of the Sky Council was on his back, propped up by shaking arms as she strode over to him, spear in hand. He had a cut on his forehead, from the shrapnel as the crystal had exploded. It bled. It traced a path down the wrinkles on his aged face. It ended when it reached his jaw. It swelled with importance, gathering itself, and then it fell to the ground where the thirsty earth swallowed it whole.
"You'll burn in hell, eventually," he told her, skittering backwards in the dust like a spider. "For your murder, for your lies. You'll burn, with everyone else, when you do this. This life is transient- and in the next one, I'll have the last laugh, Cyclonis. And what will you say to your Creator when you face him?" He reached the platform and could go no further, but kept his eyes trained on her as she advanced, red eyes ruthlessly cold. "And what will you say for your life, you bitch?!"
"Long live Cyclonia," she said, more to herself than to him.
Because, honestly, he wasn't worth the exertion.
OoOoOo
Meanwhile, on the Condor…
"House arrest?" Piper shouted, slamming both palms down on the table. "Aerrow, are you crazy? You never told me about this! You said we'd go to Atmosia, turn her in and leave! And now you want her back? After we came all the way to Atmosia to report about the Interceptors and turn her in, you want her back?"
"Whoa," Junko said, lifting his hands up in a gesture of peace. "Calm down now, Piper. Lark still can help us with finding Nova and the Harbingers, and-"
"No, I will not calm down!" Piper shot back before he could finish, quivering. "I don't want Cyclonis on the ship, Aerrow! You promised me we'd get rid off her!"
"I-"
"You promised!"
Aerrow bit his lip. "I know," he said. "But even this is only temporary. There might be some tension, because I know you don't want her around-"
"Neither do I," Finn chimed in, plopping himself down on the seat and glaring belligerently at their leader. "I'm with Piper on this one. If we take her back we're gonna regret it, Aerrow. It's just not a good idea, no matter how you look at it."
"And I don't trust a word that comes out of her mouth," Piper kept on, crossing her arms. "Anything she told us about Nova is probably a lie. I bet they're not even brother and sister! What kind of family tries to marry direct siblings?"
"The twisted kind…?" Junko guessed, scratching the back of his neck.
"No." Piper shook her head. "Just no. No. No. She's not coming back."
Aerrow steeled himself. "You're not the one who decides things, Piper," he said. "We're a group."
"In case you haven't noticed, it's two against two here. We're equally divided."
"No, it's not." Aerrow couldn't help but smirk, lip twitching upwards. "Look down."
Piper's eyes darted down to see Radarr standing at Aerrow's side, one paw raised upwards.
"Three votes against two," Aerrow said. "I'm no politician, but that sounds like we win the election." At the expression on Piper's face, Aerrow lost his buzz, just like he knew he would, but he tried to be strong anyway. His expression softened and he went to stand next to Piper. "Listen, Mom," he said, elbow resting on her shoulder and hand plopping on top of her head. "Hasn't it ever occurred to you that… people can change?"
"They can't change that much," Piper said, eyes narrowed at him as she shook his hand off.
"There are a few four-letter words I don't like on this ship," Aerrow said. "Can't is one of them. Can't is what they said to us!" He added, looking up at the rest of his crew with one hand clenched into a strong fist. "They said I Can't be a Sky Knight, they said Wallops Can't read, they said Finn Can't grow up-"
"Hey!"
Aerrow ignored that, instead putting his gloved fingers under Piper's chin and making her look up at him. His green eyes melted her anger, like they always did. She felt herself drawn to him, arms wrapping around his waist to hug him tightly because she was scared. "And they said girls can't be fighters. But you're one of the best fighters I know. You're my friend. And we need you. OK?"
"Pleeeease?" Junko added, clasping his hands together, grey eyes going wide. They darted from Finn to Piper. "Please, Finn? I mean, maybe Cyclonis and us can be friends, right? Maybe she can change. Maybe everything will be better. She's so strong, the only reason she's bad is cause she just… she just never knew anything else, I bet. Her family was so twisted, I mean, I had my Aunt Eunice and she taught me about bad and good, and then I had you guys, but nobody never taught Lark about things like that. But we could help her." His ears shot up straight to accentuate his point, a big grin crossing his face at the possibilities he suddenly saw. "We could guide her to the good things, and teach her about how wonderful life is. She didn't have anything to guide her, Piper. Don't tell me that doesn't make you sad." He stopped, and his long ears dropped to hang down beside his cheeks. "Because- because it makes me sad. Like an Alice Matter song, sad."
"…She didn't have a star," Piper murmured against Aerrow's neck, eyes closing. "Not even when she thought she did, she…"
"What?" he asked, looking down at her.
"Nothing." Piper pulled away, crossing her arms again as she sighed. "Nothing."
Finn didn't say anything through all of this, just reclined in his seat with his hands cushioning the back of his head. He pulled out his sunglasses near the end and stared up at the ceiling, mouth a thin, emotionless line.
"Finn?" Aerrow asked him.
"Whatever you guys want," he said, turning aside. "I've dealt with worse."
Aerrow grinned. "All right then. Tomorrow, we'll go to the trial, put her under house arrest, and do whatever we can to stop Nova and the Harbingers!"
Finn lurched up to his feet, hands clenched at his side. "Whatever, Aerrow," he said, "I just-"
And that was when the explosion rocked the Condor to the side, and sent them all tumbling to the ground.
OoOoOo
The explosion knocked her senseless for a few moments. She lay on the ground with the spear still in her hand, shocked out of motion. And then she got to her feet, irrepressible instinct to live forcing her to stand tall and look upwards at the Skimmer, who held the man responsible for the blast.
Nova saluted her with his blade, golden velocity crystal still burning. It was a hybrid, she could tell just by looking at it. Velocity/Striker. An unstable mix if there ever was one, but it performed flawlessly due to its expert craftsmanship. She had designed it herself, specifically for him. It had been a gift.
From somewhere not too far away, she heard the sound of more canons being fired, of buildings crumbling where they stood. The terribly familiar sounds of death reached her ears and she felt her knees tremble as the immortal god of war hovered closer to her, boots finally stepping down onto the dusty earth and walking towards her. The spear dropped from her nerveless hands.
"No," was all she could say.
"Oh, yes." Then he was upon her, grabbing her by the forearm and dragging her along. She fought him- she always fought him, ever since the beginning she had fought him- but that wasn't true, was it? There was a time… there was a time when…
No.
Not now, not ever again!
But before she could break free, Immer was there at her side, holding out one of her arms and emotionlessly gazing into her eyes as he plunged a needle into it, emptying it out into her system.
Too fast.
They were just too damn fast.
Her hazy vision went abruptly blank, and the last thing she felt was her head lolling backwards to gaze up at Atmosia's bright blue sky being filled with Cyclonian war barges.