The former master did not sleep on her warm, soft cot the night after Piper's most recent visit. She barely moved from the position that she maintained during the one-sided conversation.
The food left for her evening meal sat cold in her holding cell. She lacked any trace of appetite since the Storm Hawk disappeared behind the large metal door.
On one level she was glad. Piper's departure allowed Cyclonis to suffer her own brand of peace within her bitter silence and defeat. She enjoyed the silence; the cold and noiseless solitude was a welcome change from the first few weeks of her captivity. The details were sparse, nebulous at best. What she did remember were the unrelenting voices plaguing her mind. They rattled the deepest recesses of her soul, mocking her public humiliation delivered by those cursed Storm Hawks, their sky knight allies and the ungrateful citizens of Atmos.
So many faces haunted her every second of every minute, providing her nary a moment of peace. Her mind was battered, her ego bruised, and all sense of self was lost in a sea of self-loathing and agony. In those days, she lived within a different cell. It was a dark place, a personal dungeon compared to the new, almost pristine room that she now inhabited. The voices would sometimes be accompanied by shapes in that dark and lonely place, or so she thought.
At times she would see the Storm Hawks, and other times her lackeys; Ravess, Snipe and the cunning Repton. Most often however, Dark Ace, her most trusted lieutenant and the only person she had ever truly considered a friend, would appear. He was dead now, of course, as she had overused her Binding powers, causing his powers to overload. She had obliterated him to bits and pieces. The visions were just that: visions.
Dark Ace, however, was not the only ghost who would appear. More often than not she would see her grandmother appear in her cell, looking at her with great sadness in her eyes. On other occasions, people she had never met would appear to remind her of her failure. Master Cyclonion, the first Master of Cyclonia and the man after whom she was named, sent daggers through her heart with his words of disappointment and shame.
Those lost days were trying; her already broken spirit was trampled upon time and time again. There was a sense of falling. Everything she once was fell away, leaving her naked to a world where she no longer held significance, meaning or purpose.
It was only two months ago that she found herself in the new cell. The large white room was a welcome change from what she could remember of her original holding area. She could feel sunlight as it filled the room through a tiny barred window, and occasionally hear singing paradise birds flying by. The new place gave her mind the time to heal and allowed sanity to slowly return. However, Cyclonis found herself in a deep depression after realizing everything that had occured. The Cyclonian Empire was lost, she had been stripped of her power and titles, she had killed her only friend, and Terra Cyclonia itself - her ancestral throne - was now stone and rubble at the bottom of the Wastelands.
Piper's visits began more than a month ago, and the silence that Cyclonis craved, the Storm Hawk did not provide. Upon every visit, she would speak to her, droning on and on about philosophy and those ridiculously childish stories. Cyclonis could not find the silence that she sought out. Piper's departure allowed her to be alone with her despair and self-loathing. Her absence granted her the mental peace of mind that she was robbed of before her new accommodations were provided. Strangely enough though, her visits did excite her. She never expected to see Piper return after the first week, but she returned, again and again. As glad as Cyclonis found herself upon her exiting through the large metal door, something inside of her desired for Piper to return.
After a month's work, Piper accomplished her first goal in her sessions with the broken master; she was able to get her to speak to her. It was not much, and the words themselves were rude and offensive, but a victory was a victory. Her words were a welcome trade off from the uncertain silence that she had treated her with for the past month. She hurried over the sky on her heliscooter wearing a satisfied smirk. There not only existed suffering within the other girl, but a consciousness. She realized that she might be required to assist in piercing parts of the shattered ego back together, and that along the way she was in danger of being cut, but she accepted the challenge. Within her heart she knew she could bring the fallen master from darkness into the light.
AN: I will make up lore and characters from time to time, such as Master Cyclonion, the first Master of Cyclonia, if I feel it improves the story. This will be done very sparingly and only if it doesn't contradict the show's already established lore.