Piper is a crystal specialist and the navigator of the Storm Hawks.
Biography
Piper (voiced by Chiara Zanni) is the 14-year-old navigation and tactics specialist of the Storm Hawks. She's also a crystal specialist, capable of refining raw crystals into usable ones, an art considered difficult at best; "Crystal Mage" is the official term. Piper often devises elaborate plans for the team to follow, though more often than not they only manage to complete part of the plan before simply improvising, annoying her, but consistently puts up with it because of their friendships with her. She is very opinionated, often to the displeasure of her teammates, and will freely speak her mind.
Despite her more intelligence-oriented station, Piper is a capable fighter. She is a master of a unique style of martial arts called "Sky Fu" (the Storm Hawks' equivalent of Kung Fu) and her knowledge of crystals make her attacks in battle unpredictable, since her crystal-powered staff could potentially have one of any number of effects. She was able to maintain a steady battle against Master Cyclonis by herself, eventually forcing Cyclonis to retreat by breaking the crystal on her staff. She also fought Cyclonis in "The Masked Masher", successfully fending off her attack and remarking that Cyclonis "fights like a girl." Piper later discovers that she has a strange ability to imbue the power of crystal within Aerrow, later to be called "The Binding". The untrained power weakens her considerably at first, but she is restored to health when she and Aerrow come into "perfect attunement", something even Cyclonis herself is not capable of.
Personality
Piper is responsible and thinks before she acts. However, she is outspoken and highly opinionated, and obsesses over the tiniest details in her plans. Unfortunately, her male teammates often follow them halfway and then deviate from it to carry out their own ideas, a source of Piper's frustration. She usually gets along very well with the other members of the squadron with the exception of Finn, with whom she has a squabbling, almost brother-sister relationship. She is very close to Aerrow as seen in multiple instances where his life is threatened. Her bond with Aerrow is so strong that they unlocked perfect attunement. Some speculate they may even have feelings for each other.
Equipment
Ride
Unlike her friends, who all pilot plane-like vehicles, Piper pilots a Heliscooter, a combination helicopter/scooter she built for fuel economy. The main rotor extends from a compartment behind the seat, while the rear wheel provides the tail rotor. Unlike the Skimmers, Piper's Heliscooter only has one booster, making it slower. In addition, it is much smaller and so has almost no armor protecting it. It is, however, much more maneuverable than a Skimmer.
Weapons
Piper uses a crystal powered staff in combat but sometimes reverts to her mastered techniques of 'Sky Fu'. As she demonstrates in Episode 4 - The Code, Piper can move fluently through the notions of Sky Fu with ease and grace. Much to the amusement of Aerrow and disbelief of Finn who states, "Where'd she learn that?"
Another prominent skill she has learned is "The Binding", which allows her to endow the power of crystals she holds into Aerrow, and after developing perfect attunement, herself as well. This is the most powerful and dark skill a crystal mage can learn.
Abilities
Piper's possible future, shown by Cyclonis, should she succumb to the darkness of the Binding
Later in the show, Piper is shown to have an ability known as Binding, a difficult and dangerous art. Its full abilities and uses haven't exactly been explained but it seems to be that the user can temporarily control and even improve the one who is hit by the technique. Unfortunately, it has also shown to have a downside. The power is very dangerous, even if the user stops for a long period of time, it will still take a toll on the body and weaken it. Shortly after Piper uses this technique for the first time, Master Cyclonis mentions to Dark Ace that "it will destroy her before she can ever learn to control it", which hints that it can be controlled without the user succumbing to evil.
Piper is shown to be severely sick after several weeks without using the technique. It is not until the final stand, when Piper became perfectly attuned with Aerrow, granting both of them the power of the crystals, that she recovers. Her complete mastery of the technique is still undetermined.
Gallery
