Fic Summary:
Piper has spent her whole life preparing for one mission: to find the rightful leader of the Storm Hawks and rebuild the team in order to defeat Cyclonia once and for all. She's got the team, she's got the know-how, and all that's left is to find Aerrow.
When she does find him though, he's nothing like the Sky Knight the world needs him to be, and now everything is falling apart.
A/N: I've been posting this to AO3, and recently decided to start posting chapters here to . This fic has been a blast to write and I hope it's just as much of a blast to read. Updates may be sporadic though.
Featuring OCs belonging to my friends Grimm_the_6th, happypanda101 and feralcoffeecryptid, as the world doesn't feel complete without them at this point. OCs will be listed at the end of each chapter.
Chapter Summary:
We begin with a fire, a search, and a stolen treasure.
"Any sign of her?"
Dark Ace scowled as he surveyed the wreckage of the temporary settlement he'd just landed in. Some sort of carnival and sideshow attraction that one of the residents had set alight at the sight of the Talon squadron coming in to investigate them. A definite sign that something here wasn't what it should be.
"Not yet," he muttered into his comm unit. "Search the area, Pheona's intel has to lead somewhere. And someone call Pharo, we might have some new residents for him if any of these animals survived this."
"Got it."
When his comms clicked off, Dark Ace set about searching through the flaming wreckage. The place was comparable to a small town with how many tents, lean-to shacks and buildings there were all crammed together in one space. No wonder it had gone up in flames as quickly as it had.
His search had barely begun when it was interrupted by a loud screeching sound and a blur of blue fur barrelling into his shins.
"What the-?"
It screeched at him again, grabbing at his leg and pulling. Some sort of sky monkey. No feathers though, just singed, raggedy blue fur and a cheap tribal costume that he was fairly sure the poor thing hadn't just decided to wear of its own choosing.
"Hey, cut that out," he growled. It didn't listen, and when he tried pulling his leg out of its grip it just whined and started tugging with more insistence. "What do you want?"
Why was he talking to this thing like it could actually talk back? A third shriek and it finally let go of him to run towards some flaming caravans, stopping to check if he was following. Fine, he'd go after it. Maybe it knew where his target was.
The animal lead him past the caravans and to a line of cages. It must've been kept in those things with others of its kind, and the rest were still trapped.
…There was a human foot poking out from under burning wood planks, as if someone had been in the cages and it'd collapsed on top of them. Dark Ace caught a glimpse of red hair as well.
"Fuck."
His search would have to wait.
Piper sighed as she exited the Sky Knight Council building. Yet again, hours of searching through intelligence reports and asking if anyone had seen any sign of the person she was looking for, and she had nothing to show for it. She'd been at it so long that the Council members who'd been in the building with her had decided she'd outstayed her welcome and shooed her out.
"They're gonna ban you from the building at this rate."
The voice had her rolling her eyes, "It's important! They know that."
"Piper, dude," Finn drawled, pushing off the wall he was leaning against to walk alongside Piper. "You're in there almost every week. Sometimes twice a week. We won't find your 'legendary Sky Knight' if we don't cover more ground. Let's ditch the stuffy reports and find him ourselves."
"Finn, those 'stuffy reports' are from the Free Atmos's spy network. If they find him then we'll know exactly where he is. What if he's captured behind Cyclonian lines and needs rescuing or something?"
"Then the Council can radio us or something, I don't know," Finn said with a shrug. "If this guy's really meant to be our famous Sky Knight, he'll come to us. Just relax a little. If it's meant to be then it's meant to be. If not, then…" he shrugged again in a 'what can you do?' manner.
"It is meant to be, Finn. He's-."
"Well, if it isn't the Storm Hawks. Still looking for your Sky Knight?"
Looking up, Finn and Piper met with the sight of a red and blue uniform, and an idle sky-ride of the same colours.
"Hey Carver," Finn greeted. His posture had instantly devolved into a careless slouch, which he insisted looked 'cool', but Piper thought it made him look like he had a bad back. "Wassup?"
"Eh, not much," Carver said dismissively, firing finger guns in Finn's direction. "Protecting Atmosia, saving the Free Atmos, leading the Red Eagles. Generally being awesome. Are you chasing after the intel guys again, Piper? You know that makes them cranky."
"I'm just being thorough," Piper defended. "You never know what they'll find. Besides, we can't do much anyway without a Sky Knight."
"Sure you can, you just won't get paid by the Sky Knight Council to go around doing your thing. You can do whatever you want and not have to worry about what they want you to do." Carver paused, a thought occurring in his head. "Actually that sounds like a pretty sweet deal."
"But we're the Storm Hawks," Piper insisted, "It feels wrong to not have a Sky Knight."
"Then go get one. Academy graduations are coming up."
"And they can't just be any random graduate either."
"Me?"
"No."
Carver pouted, but broke into a laugh after a moment.
"You'll get there eventually. I'll see you squirts around."
Finn and Piper waved him off as the Sky Knight got back on his ride and drove off in the direction of the Beacon Tower. When he was gone, they both kept walking across the square towards the tree the rest of the team was stood under. Stork was scratching at himself, Junko had a sandwich of no doubt dubious origin in his hand, and Ciel was fiddling around with his bow.
"He's got a point you know," Finn said, "With the Academy thing. And not needing a Knight to help people."
Piper rolled her eyes, but the marksman continued.
"Think about it, maybe this 'Aerrow' you're so crazy about is out there doing his own thing to help people. He probably doesn't even know we're looking for him, or that we even exist. If we get out there and make a name for ourselves, maybe he'll come to us. Better than sitting here and letting our skills get rusty."
A sigh escaped her as she realised Finn was right. If all they did was wait on Atmosia while she poured over mission reports in hopes of finding a lead on where to find the Sky Knight she was looking for.
"No luck?" Ciel asked, looking up at the mage and sharpshooter as they approached.
Piper shook her head. "Not this time. We can try again next week."
"You said that last week, Piper," Stork interjected. "And the week before, and the week before. We've been stuck in one place for nearly a month, mind worms are attracted to stagnation and we are very… stagnant."
Piper's shoulders sagged, "Ugh, fine, we'll… I don't know, go somewhere. Fauna, Aquinos, doesn't matter, we'll get off this-."
A cold rush of air cut her off, and something in the air took a turn that made the hairs of her neck stand on end.
"The Beacon Tower! It's stopped… beaconing!"
Piper turned around, eyes wide as dark clouds descended upon Atmosia's skies, and a bitter wind started nipping at her skin. Looking up, she was horrified to see that Junko was right. The Beacon Tower was indeed, in his words, not beacon-ing anymore.
That could only mean one thing. The Aurora Stone was no longer on its pedestal in the tower. Its energy was no longer protecting the Terra from the elements.
"Where are the Red Eagles?" she asked, voice high in panic. Carver was meant to be checking the crystal's defences, right? Had something gone wrong? Was the Beacon on the fritz?
"Does it matter?" Finn asked abruptly. He'd grabbed his crossbow from his sky-ride and was already marching towards the tower with Junko on his heels. "We're here, let's do something now. Come on!"
"But-!"
To late. Finn was already running and now Ciel was chasing after him and Junko. Looking at Stork, the merb just shrugged at her. She sighed, readied her staff, and ran after them.
The stairway leading up the tower was pitch black, and Piper's blood ran cold when she saw the crumpled forms of the Red Eagles lining the stairs, unmoving.
"They're not dead," Stork said, checking the pulses and breathing of all the squadron members. Though he almost sounded disappointed. "Very, very stunned though. My guess isssssss… shocker crystals."
"Where's Carver?" Piper asked, scanning the stairway, "He's not-."
"I hear fighting upstairs," Junko said, and Piper bolted ahead of him. She took the stairs two at a time, jumping over the prone form of the Eagles' medic. If there was fighting upstairs, that meant Carver was still up in action. He was the last line of defence against the Aurora Stone's attackers, but how long would that last?
When she reached the top, the Sky Knight was in the throes of combat with a hooded figure. It was dark, there were no lights up here so as not to interfere with the Beacon Tower, so she could barely make out the Cyclonian insignia on the attacker's armour, lit up by the red of Carver's blade. Their face was doused in shadow, unidentifiable. In one hand was a spear, also sparking red – Firebolt red, this person had to be an elite – in one hand, and the Aurora Stone in the other.
"Carver!" Piper called out, but he held a hand up to stop her.
"Stay back!" he ordered. "One wrong move and we're toast!"
The hooded figure noticed her and the other Storm Hawks arriving, and they paused to hold up the Aurora Stone in an obvious taunt. It didn't take a genius to figure out the message. As long as they held it, the whole Tower was at risk of being destroyed.
"That means you too!" Carver snapped at them.
Piper was frozen. She didn't know what to do. Nothing had prepared her for this, had it? Behind her, the rest of her team was watching and waiting. No doubt for an opening.
"Go Carver!" Finn cheered, making the Sky Knight look back and grin at them.
That was all the distraction the attacker needed. They tossed the Aurora Stone into the shadows where an unseen figure caught and disappeared with it. Then bright, virulent red light engulfed their hooded form, blinding Piper in the darkness of the room. An arc of energy hit Carver squarely in the chest, sending him flying backwards into the wall. He hit the ground and went limp.
"No!"
Finally breaking out of her frozen state, Piper ran forward with full intent to fight.
Only for something… furry?! … to trip her up, sending her sprawling on her face. Her staff fell out of her hands and skittered across the floor to the attacker's feet. A well-placed stomp bent the thing in two, making her wince. The others ran forward, but it was too late. The last thing Piper saw of the hooded figure was them leaping out of the broken windows with a mocking wave. Finn fired a crossbow bolt just a moment too late, and when the team all ran to the window, the thief was already disappearing into the clouds on a skimmer, with another hooded figure in the pilot seat.
The Aurora Stone was gone.
Ciel is an OC belonging to happypanda101 on Tumblr.