Lyra Newton sat at a far too small table on the other side of her parents. Chatter surrounded them on all sides along with the menagerie of drab storefronts that clashed with vibrant displays and glowing signs. The food court was nearly packed to the brim as was the rest of the gargantuan Springridge Mall in New Faram City.
Her parents were arguing while pretending they weren't. Mom had her phone lying next to her tray that was stuffed full with little cardboard containers packed with nachos, quesadillas, and at the center of it all was a taco bowl that Mom hadn't even touched since they had sat down. Instead, she kept picking up her phone where she’d type into it like she was drafting an essay before setting it down. Only for Dad to stare off into space while he ate his burrito mechanically.
While he waited for her to respond, he'd rub his forehead while he studied everything and everyone with a distrustful squint or a stern glare. She wondered what he saw, but she was also glad she didn't know. Sure, anti-technomantic encryption was out, but very few companies were using it publicly yet with his build. They preferred to try to use the skeletal source code Dad’s team provided. Dad said they thought it was too risky for most companies to blindly trust in their product, but either way.
He was essentially a telepath but instead of thoughts, he had access to every message, photo, note, email, and browser history of everyone that unlocked their device around him. How maddening that must be. He’d need to exercise so much self-control or risk falling under a sea of digital noise.
Lyra shook her head as she picked up her own quesadilla and took a small bite out of it, wincing internally at the uneven taste. Mom swore by the little Mexican food place here in the mall, but Lyra still hated it. Thankfully, a little tweak with her newly evolved Synesthesiac Phantasia was enough for her to turn the bland, almost revolting flavors into a divine extravaganza. Every bite now was more delicious than humanly possible, she bet every mortal chef in the world would throw their hats and aprons down in despair if they tasted it.
A quick glance at her status filled her with unparalleled joy as she re-read her power list again.
[Stats:
Body: None
Mind: None
Will: None
]
[Equipped Power List:
Slot One -- Synesthesiac Phantasia Ev. 1/Lv. 1
Slot Two -- Daydream Ev. 0/ Lv. 2
Slot Three -- None
]
Phantasia's evolution was extraordinary, and she thought it'd only continue to improve. Her illusions worked off every sense now and would even have a bit of solidity to them after merging it with Forecefield. As if she were tricking reality itself. Warping it to match her own imagination. But no, that wasn't the true prize.
Daydream had opened up so many incredible possibilities for her. Illusions were only as good as her imagination, but Daydream dialed her visualization and imagination capabilities up to untold heights. Which fed into her illusions, or it allowed her to play back her dreams, or to play out scenario after scenario in her head... with weak results so far unless the simulation was basic. But she'd heard a very fantastic choice would be offered by the System soon. One that was a perfect fit for what she'd turn Daydream into.
"I hope today has been a good day for you, Lyra," Dad said out of nowhere as he turned to peer right into her eyes. She looked up at him with a blink then a small grin.
"It's been good! I enjoyed getting out of Farbrook for a little bit. We haven't been to the mall in forever."
"It has been a while hasn't it." Mom said wistfully as she flipped her phone over before focusing fully on her and dad. She smiled wanly at Lyra. "I'm glad we got to go here. How about we go to Ars Imagina to get you some art supplies?"
"Can we?" Lyra beamed as she glanced back and forth between both of her parents.
Loud shouts roared above the general chatter of the mall towards the designated shopping centers farther back away from the food court and the doors. She dampened the noise with a flick of Synesthesiac Phantasia. Noise successfully tuned out, she took another bite of her quesadilla while trying to optimize the flavor even more with her powers. She could use a better camera so her illusive pictures and videos wouldn't seem as fake or cheap. Or a new sketchbook.
Lyra always needed new sketchbooks.
Dad shook the table sharply, startling her. His eyes seemed to spark with barely contained electricity as tendrils of water vapor leaked from the pores of his face as he got up, his hand pulling Mom out of her chair. His other hand was held out with a dark thundercloud growing in the palm of his hand. Both of her parents' mouths moved.
She shut off Synesthesiac Phantasia and flinched at the clamor of people screaming. Thunder echoed somewhere else in the mall, far back in the warren of department stores. Gunshots rattled out in a never ending chain.
Way back at the bend in the hallway was a massive mountain of crystal that erupted from the ground to pierce through the ceiling in a tumultuous crash. Cups and trays rattled and fell off the tables from the massive vibrations.
"Get behind me!" Dad shouted as he jerked Mom around behind him before swishing his storm cloud hand to the left. Their plastic silverware leaped from being stationary to orbiting them. Chairs broke into disparate pieces as their screws drilled free of their bearings and joined the belt of junk around them. Lyra hurriedly pushed out of her chair and rushed around behind her parents' backs. Mom snapped her fingers making lettuce, beans, and guacamole burst free from the ruins of their plates as their table collapsed into screws, nuts, and bolts. When did Dad’s Technomancy… no, he had evolved it, Technopathy work on non-electronics?
"Get Lyra out of here." Dad commanded as he started to step forward to where the stampede of people ran away from people in masks with guns or their powers on display were slowly coming over to the food court.
"No. I'm staying with you!" Mom yelled as lettuce leaves sharpened themselves into blades at the end of growing vines that quickly sprouted wrapping around her like bramble armor. Laminated wood split free from plastic veneer to bristle at attention as they broke apart and grew into a blockade of spears.
Lyra looked all around the food court and saw that for every person hopelessly sprinting for the double doors of the food court that led to the outside parking lot were trailed by a dozen people huddled together with their powers activated.
Doomed.
"I'm not leaving either of you!" Lyra shouted as she activated her own powers creating a suit of illusive armor around each of them. Their center was as strong as her old Forcefield power had been.
"Rick! Come on."
"Goddammit!" Dad snapped as he shook his head and started to turn around to guide them toward the exit.
"Going somewhere?" asked a tall woman in a stunning black dress. Her eyes were a glowing misty gray with a narrow cat's pupil. A red masquerade mask covered half of her face like she was going to an old-fashioned party or something. Each of her nails grew and sharpened into claws as she stepped forward. She plucked a walkie-talkie out of a bag slung over her shoulder and said into it, "Rick and Adelaide are here with the youngest daughter."
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"Roger. And Camille, you have to say 'over' when you'—" The voice on the walkie-talkie fizzled out as Dad grunted. His power slammed into it so hard it crumpled in her hand.
"So. Your name is Camille." Mom said as she stepped forward shoulder to shoulder with Dad. A vine sprouted from her back and pushed Lyra back away from the brewing fight. "Nice to meet you."
Tension broke.
Stakes and spears of wood shot out in a wave in time with a thundercloud that burst forth from Dad in a gale aimed straight for Camille. Lyra's jaw dropped as Camille became a whirlwind of activity. Her hands darted with superhuman levels of precision and speed as she plucked two spears from the air and used them as she ducked and weaved in a dance through her parents' attacks.
She stalked forward like they were nothing but gazelle for her to hunt down.
Water pooled all over the floor beneath them as Dad's storm cloud darkened farther as bullets of hail shot from them. While everywhere that Mom's volley of spears landed, including the ones Camille held, began to sprout and grow into thrashing roots. Blood sprayed from Camille's hands as she growled. Bullets of ice cracked into Camille's skin with a spray of blood.
Lyra stepped back as Camille drove forward through the hail. She slashed out with her claws and ripped them across Dad's chest. Agony blazed across Lyra's own chest as a wet warmth spilled from matching wounds. Her eyes widened as she realized that Camille's claws had shredded her illusive armor to cut her too.
"Take Lyra! *Now!*" Dad roared as he blasted Camille back with an explosive blast of storm clouds that sent chunks of rock torn from the floor spinning through the air. Dark thunderous clouds brimming with lightning howled around him as it wrapped around him like armor. Dad shot himself forward with a thunderclap of air that sent Lyra and Mom stumbling back.
Vines started to grow around Mom as she prepared to follow after Dad, but then she met Lyra's fearful gaze. "Come on, let's go."
They started to turn when Lyra felt something with Synesthesiac Phantasia. She threw out an illusion of air that she hardened and turned as solid as steel. Baneful orange sparks reflected off it before they bloomed into explosions that tore through her solid illusions and sent her and Mom flying through the air.
Lyra recreated her illusive armor and padded it out as thick as—
Crack!
She tried to breathe as she stared up at the ceiling. Stars burst across her eyes in sweeping shades of red and green. Orange and brown. Her arm flopped to the side as she slowly rolled and pushed herself up as she blinked at the man with acrid orange fire that sparked from his hands like swords as he hacked at mom's tide of growing plants.
Something about him was off.
It wasn't quite an illusion or dream, but she felt something in between warping off from him into the distance far away.
Vines whipped and snared, leaves flurried as their edges sharpened into honed blades, and wood shot up from the snarl of ivy that grew across the floor. Tree trunks popped up whenever Orange got to close, but his strange fireblades cut through them with an eerie scream as they burned. Whenever Mom got hurt, vines would pull her away and a berry would pop off her armor straight into her mouth.
Lyra blinked slowly as the world seemed to wobble on its axis. She didn't feel right or good. Her shirt stuck heavily against her skin from something damp that grew colder by the minute. Pain lanced into her skull.
Where was Dad?
She panned over slowly and saw Dad fighting that strange beast woman and a tall man surrounded by a cowl of lightning. Hail and debris exploded from Dad as shaped storm clouds into whirling tornadoes that he sent whipping through the air like swords. It shredded everything it passed over before it exploded into (hopefully) empty storefronts or into the corridor. Beast woman's dress was ripped to bloody tatters, but she still danced her way around attacks like they moved in slow motion to her.
Lyra rubbed her forehead.
She wanted to understand.
What was even happening?
Mom screamed.
Lyra startled as she turned and watched as orange fireblades charred through Mom's bramble armor straight across her chest. Mom plopped to the ground as if her nerves had been cut. She had to do something.
Illusions of nothingness and invisibility wrapped around her as Lyra walked carefully forward expecting him to notice while he growled something to her. He didn't.
Soon Lyra stood trembling as she watched a dart of crackling orange flame spout from his fingertips while he aimed down at Mom's chest. Right over her heart.
"Dave and Sandra say hello." He smirked as the dart brightened to a harsh glare.
Mom's eyes widened. She seemed to change. A flood of red flushed its way down and across her skin. Mom flicked her wrist towards a sliver of laminated wood that rapidly grew into a small thick tree trunk that speared through the ground to shove her aside. Lyra stepped closer then winced as she almost tripped on debris.
Her invisibility shattered.
"Lyra!" Mom shouted as the man rushed towards her with those same burning blades.
Images of fire filled her mind as Daydream showed her every flame she'd ever seen. Candles, fireplaces, campfires, when Eli had tried cooking a frozen pizza for her once when she was in elementary school. Every flame flickered in her mind's eye as it showed her how fire moved, how it worked. How fuel combusted into energy.
Orange light sizzled its way through her shirt and she screamed as it ignited her every nerve. It wasn't real. Until it was. An inferno of agony burst as the blade pierced through her skin for real as the heat that sparked threw her nerves grew to a wildfire.
"Fire," Lyra whispered. Commanded.
Her Daydream became reality as a blast of illusive fire slammed into the man with as much power she could give it as she *roared* with pain. Heat exploded across her skin as her clothes started to spark like kindling. A stench wafted of burning hair and cooked skin as he wailed.
She burned him with Synesthesiac Phantasia. Making his every sense scream with certainty that he was getting burned alive. Roasted. At the same time, she shoved at the old Forcefield part of her power that made the illusions real for a time.
He stumbled back as he waved his arms in terror. Mom snarled as she slapped her hand forward. The tree trunk Mom had created earlier snapped up into the air then barreled straight into the burning man. It gored straight through his chest in a crunching spray of—
He disappeared. Vanished. The trunk streaked through the air without a hint of resistance. She frowned at it as the strange not a dream or illusion vanished from her perception.
"Lyra." Mom shook her shoulder, startling her from her trance. "Are you okay?"
Lyra shook her head. Everything fuzzed. Light swam from the movement as her Mom slowly came back into focus. She glanced over and saw Dad's thunderclouds wisping away where he stood in the wreckage of the shattered floor, broken tables, swathes of destruction across the ceiling where he had fought. Scorch marks and bloody gashes covered nearly every inch of him.
He limped over to them then shouted, "Did yours disappear too?"
"Yes." Mom said tersely as she tried to rub Lyra's shoulders to get a response out of her. She turned to study the mall where numerous bodies laid—
She turned away with a sobbing huff as she collapsed into her parents' arms.
"Can we go?"
"Of course, sweetie. It'll be okay."
They guided her out toward the front doors where a barricade manned by police waited with their guns held up and pointed at them like *they* were criminals.
"Put your hands up!"
Mom complied immediately while Lyra lagged slowly behind her. Dad did so slowly, but he glared at them like they'd all personally skinned his cat.
"Why the fuck didn't any of you do anything?"
"Put your fucking hands up or we will fire!"
Dad did. Humidity rose in the air around them as static seemed to build up and down Lyra's arms.
"Charles, Will, Patrick. Bring them over. If they're cleared, take them to the medical tents." One of the officers barked. Two younger officers jumped and walked towards them with their hands itching towards their guns.
"What took you all so long? Why are you just sitting out here?" Dad demanded once they came over. They grabbed each of them gruffly as they forced them closer to the barricade. Their fingers pinched and bit against Lyra's arms.
"This is a Federal Superpower Task Force situation, sir. A team is en route. We aren't allowed to engage, only to keep the situation from spilling outside."
"We had to fight for our fucking lives."
"I'm sorry to hear that, did any of you kill anyone else in the chaos? Get any messages?" Another cop asked in a far too calm tone.
They all said no.
"Are you sure? Check your notifications, please."
Lyra glanced at her status and grimaced at the spike of levels she'd gotten. They all said no.
"No defeat or kill messages at all?"
"None." Dad grunted to which they echoed.
"I see. Right this way to the medical tent and an officer will be over to interview you."
Daydream Ev. 0 You may now select from one of the following options: Evolve Power Obtain New Power N/A N/A> [Stats: Body: None Mind: None Will: None ] [Equipped Power List: Slot One -- Synesthesiac Phantasia Ev. 1/Lv. 1 Slot Two -- Dreamer's Simulation Ev. 1/ Lv. 0 Slot Three -- None ]