The Trusted Guardian Part 3

Piper's POV
I just seemed to open my eyes all of a sudden.  All I remember before I drifted off was Swift carrying me out in a snowy Terra…wait… Am I still there? Is she ok? Are we ok? I'm just staring at a ceiling... "You ok?" I hear a voice and define its owner immediately. I tried to sit up... but I don't have the strength... why is that? What happened? "Swift..." I answered in a weak voice as I rolled over slightly to look to my left – "Where are we?" Swift was sat on a sofa across from me, cross legged and in her armour. Then she made her slow way towards me and sat down on the separate arm-chair next to the 2-seater sofa I was lying on. "Don't worry" I heard her reply calmly "Terra Amazonia, Manx went a bit haywire with my icers... and caused a slight ice-age". "Wh-what... Why--" I stuttered, I had loads of questions, but where to begin? "What's going on?" I asked again... Thing was... I felt so... weak... like then energy had been sapped from my entire body...

"I'm gonna' be honest" she began, "But I need to know some things before I explain...". "Anything" I replied unhesitant. "Do you trust me?" she asked, squinting with her eyes. When she did that, she meant it. I looked at her. Of course I did... "Of course I do" I answered, unhesitant again. "Ok then" she began again, reaching for my hand and taking in a large breath. "Well... It's the Binding again..." she said as she held up my hand so I could see the lack of colour my skin usually had. "Wh-what?" I only just managed.  "N-no, you're wrong, it can't be! Aerrow—Aerrow stopped it-" I tried to yell but Swift interrupted me. "I'm afraid it is. I'm sorry Piper but whatever happened before with Aerrow didn't stop it all..." she explained, calmly again.

The thoughts in my mind just rolled around with two different emotions – fear... and denial. "Then- Then have you called Aerrow? Maybe if he's here he could do it again... make this go away forever?" I asked quickly, almost using up all of my energy. Swift paused for a second: "I called Stork, talked on the Condor's speaker..." "And?" I asked impatiently "And… I told them we were fine and just doing some recon around Sky's end...". "What?!" I replied, surprised that she would lie. Why did she? "Aerrow's not coming Piper..." she explained the obvious. "What?! Why-why not?" I asked in all of my confusion.  She sighed and spoke: "If they didn't know about it, they wouldn't worry..." "Worry?" I asked "Not being selfish or anything Swift but... worry? What about me? Don't you think I'm worrying?"

"Yes Piper, I know" she said as she got up and walked over to the door leading to the corridor. "You know? Swift if you're just trying to fight it on your own so you can be a hero or something then--" I began as she seemed to growl before turning around and interrupting me. "A hero? Do you really think what this is about? You know me way better than that! You know Piper this isn't exactly easy for me either you know? I'm not going into all the detail about why I did what I did but I just asked you if you trusted me... I just didn't think it would be like you to lie about that…" she ended, breaking out of her anger and becoming calm once more. She was right. Whatever she did, she did for a reason. "I didn't lie..." I began "I trust you". She looked at me, as scared as I was; I saw she was scared too... "I'm sorry" I commented. It was weird... we'd never fought before... But she still forgave me... "It's ok" she chuckled a few seconds later after a short silence. "I know it's weird I'm being a bit too calm about this... I just thought it may've helped you calm down a bit too..." she admitted

"Oh... o-ok then but still, how do you intend on fighting this?" she asked. "I don't" she paused for another second as I rose an eyebrow. "'Cause we're gonna' fight it together" she said. That put a smile on my face. "I told Aerrow we'd be ages and knowing his views on girls' term of 'ages', he probably took it as a 5 hour minimum so don't worry. Even if we overrun I can tell him we've gone to stay with Perry for the night" she explained "Anyway, I thought that if you rested up for the rest of the day that may help slightly..." Rest? Seriously? Right, trust her, I got it. "So if you had enough energy to go change into something more comfortable, I got some stuff here that may help..." she began, pointing out a white tee-shirt and pair of black cotton trousers. A pillow was next to them, followed by a black polyester dressing gown. "I think I'll leave it an hour" I said eventually, my strength was being drained while I was awake... maybe in an hour after a nap I'd have more energy to be able to get changed. "Ok" Swift said, she'd calmed down again. "Now if you want anything – another blanket, more air, 'nother pillow, somthin' to eat or drink, a hug… back rub…anything… I'll be right here 'kay?"she said, sitting back down in her chair. "'Kay" I answered, trying to get into a comfier position and in the end- closing my eyes.

3rd Person's POV
While Piper drifted back off and Swift started to think about how she may counteract the damage done to Piper by the Binding, something different was going on on the Condor... for one in particular...
Radarr didn't feel at all comfortable with the message from Swift that they received about half an hour ago; her voice was too calm and the background noise was silent. Exactly, if she and Piper were both on their rides doing recon, Piper's heli-scooter's blades would be echoing in the background…and she would've joined in on the conversation. For the last 25 minutes, he'd been trying to track the precise co-ordinate from where Swift had called from. He eventually found it 10-minutes in and had been searching through Piper's maps ever since. It was only a matter of time until he found the map he was looking for of one particular area of the quadrant and had used one of Piper's co-ordinate and bearing books to totally define the exact place of where the signal had come. To his part-relief – he found it – Terra Amazonia. But he was confused, why did Swift lie? Whatever it was he was keen to find out.

It would've seemed weird for him to just go sneaking off there and then at half-past 5 so he decided to wait. Aerrow would've noticed his disappearance and worried about him...

So going back to Terra Amazonia, Piper had managed to get back to sleep a few minutes after she had closed her eyes. Swift was silent, making sure that her friend had the perfect conditions in which to drift off and stay asleep for at least an hour.

Deep in her sleep, Piper dreamt – dreamt a nightmare. She was running, running away from a voice. 'You can't hide Piper…' it taunted as she ran. She wasn't her normal self though; she was like she was 9 years ago- a 5 year-old. Outside the dream, she was still the same 14 year old, but inside this dream she was 5 – based upon her actions in that dream. She was running… she was scared...

The scenery was pitch black, but the girl continued to run, checking over her shoulder every other minute to try and see if the owner of the voice was following her. She was small, about half the size she really was on the outside but she still had quite a lot of energy and a fast running speed. The voice continued to taunt, following her and echoing throughout her head. She still continued to run, beginning to pant as she'd been running for the last 10 minutes. The time before that, she just sat in the dark, trying to remain calm before the voice started talking. Once it started, she began her run across the empty scenery.

As the voice chuckled once more – 'You can't hide Piper… just give up, give in… and make this easier on yourself'. While those words were being said, the younger Piper looked back over her shoulder but whilst doing so, she tripped and fell flat on the floor. Rolling over a few seconds later to sit up, she rubbed her head; her orange hair band had seemed to slip off of her head and into the darkness that lay before her. Once she'd finished checking that it definitely wasn't there, she looked up from where she'd ran and she saw something coming out of the darkness. It was a small light, then as it came nearer and nearer she realized its colour – a dark indigo. A figure came with it – it was easy to decipher who it was just by looking at it. A medium sized figure, with spikes spiking out of the neck area. You guessed it- Cyclonis- the owner of the voice.

She just stood there towering over Piper about 2 meters away from her, grinning an evil grin. Piper's face became afraid as her eyes squinted slightly and her mouth shortened to a small upside-down smile. A short moment later, Cyclonis looked behind her to another figure emerging from the darkness. Its light- too, a dark indigo and its figure like Cyclonis' with a row of spikes near to the neck area. As its full figure and features became realised by Piper she became distressed and more frightened than ever –in her 5 year old state. The second figure- was of someone she knew far too well. A thick layer of mascara had been applied around her eyes, making her eyes themselves hint out jolts of madness every time you looked at them. In case you haven't guessed this time, she was gazing at herself, wearing everything that Cyclonis was in the same way. Well, all at least one thing – her orange hair band stood out more than anything else – only a little bit more than her similar coloured eyes.

The older, 'badder' version of Piper gazed down on her self-considered 'weaker' and smaller self. They both stared into each other's eyes; the 5 year old too scared to be considering asking any questions such as 'why' or 'what'... A few moments later, the 5 year old tried to shuffle backwards- she was too scared and petrified to even get up or do anything else. As she shuffled back in fear, the two older girls in front of her walked closer and closer, beginning to chuckle to themselves. Completely petrified by fear, Piper began to tremble, not thinking that she had enough energy to continue her backwards motion. She closed her eyes, not wishing to see anymore of the two in front of her. It was over to her, she'd been caught; now they'd probably kill her or drag her back into the darkness from where they'd both came...

...Or so it would seem... As a few small tears were produced in her closed eyes and only one of them actually made it out and ran down her face, another light came out of the darkness behind her this time. It's colour? Yellow. The figure's whose light it was just walked calmly over to the smaller Piper, in the end standing next to her with her arms folded and a scowl on her face. She stared at the two evil girls in front of her and she scowled even more at them. They took a step closer and then the girl with the yellow light seemed to spread two white feathered wings like an angel. They shone with the rest of her light and soon the two girls opposite her exchanged glances and looked back at her. "Leave..." the winged girl finally said, her eyes closed and arms folded. "NOW" she ended frustrated, opening her eyes – allowing her enemies to see the anger and impatience in them. The two looked at each other again. This time, Cyclonis just put on an angry face and turned around and walked back into the darkness from whence she came. The other just seemed to blow away... like she never existed...

To be continued...