She had to be dreaming.
That thought kept repeating itself over and over in Lyra’s head, the reality of what had happened with Finn still seeming so unbelievable. There was simply no other explanation for what she—what they had just done a few hours earlier. It was magical. Heck, everything about the past week beggared belief.
How she had been so daring, despite how terrifying it was to open herself up like that, she couldn’t say. Well, she could, but it was embarrassing beyond measure to think about in detail, even if it was also reassuring and maybe a bit satisfying?
Ugh, she was all over the place.
At this point, she should probably be focusing on their current mission, but it was so hard to pay attention to anything else when the task was so easy. Was it bad to underestimate seasoned gang members? Yes, definitely. She just didn’t want to spare them any more mind than she needed to, not when she could bask in this feeling she had. Of being understood and accepted and getting closer.
Of course, she wasn’t going to ruin this mission for Finn. It was important to him, so she would see it done to the best of her ability. The professionalism and competence she needed to show on the field were paramount, because she couldn’t embarrass him. Or herself; the credits they’d get from this were also important.
When it came to that aspect of the raid, she wasn’t sure how exactly everything had been arranged, but only a few of the objectives had been privately sent in advance by the DHD in exchange for decent credit rewards. The rest were put up at the last minute by anonymous clients, perhaps as a form of information control.
Jack would know more about the details of the DHD’s policies and legislation regarding interactions through Aegis as a platform, and she was sure he would explain it to her if she asked. Bothering him about it now seemed rude, though. He was busy coordinating things from his end too.
Better to leave him to it and focus on what she was doing, namely walking through a corridor of the Venin storage site with Damsel and her prima donna of a squad leader. Separate from Finn. If she got through this as quickly as possible, they could reunite. And after this mission, they could do… more.
Quieting the butterflies in her stomach, she looked in the direction where she heard the Venin gangsters group up.
“They’re all bunching together to the right, past that door,” she informed the heroines.
Mountpin’s sharp eyes fell on her. "Good observation," the woman replied, her tone clipped but tinged with a trace of approval. “We can use that to our advantage. Damsel, you and Calliope get behind me. I’ll engage their main force; you’ll focus on eliminating any stragglers.”
Damsel nodded her assent, drawing the sword sheathed on her hip. The armored girl readied her stance as Mountpin’s arm morphed into twin tendrils made out of needles and tore the door open.
On the other side of the doorway, the thugs didn’t hesitate to start shooting, prompting Lyra to ready a shockwave while Mountpin started hammering away at them. The loud clatter of gunfire, mixed with the screech of metal shredding wood and the occasional grunt of surprise from their enemies, filled the corridor. Damsel, her sword gleaming, darted forward with quick precision, slamming the flat of her blade into one of the shooters, disarming him and sending his gun skittering across the floor.
Seeing her opening, Lyra ran forward and unleashed a wide area shockwave, pushing a couple of the men targeting the Junior Ace back to disrupt their cohesion. Damsel lifted one disarmed by the leg as if he didn’t weigh more than a pillow. He gave a yell as she whacked him into another gunman, knocking both to the floor.
And on they went, with each takedown being smoother than the last. Getting used to each other’s combat styles helped, even though it wasn’t flowing quite the way it had with her… boyfriend? Yeah. Felt weird to be able to think that, like bringing the word up in her mind would make it less true somehow.
Refocusing, she blasted the last few Venin members and realized she had a wide smile on her face. Good thing she was wearing a mask, or the others might start thinking she was crazy if they saw.
Let them hear it too, so there won’t be any more doubt.
Her pace slowed, running steps losing momentum until she came to a stop. Looking around, she observed the action had died down, much like her mood. Mountpin had subdued her half, with Damsel now tying up the last armed assailant, both clueless as to how easily she could have gone too far.
With no more active hostiles around them, she took a breath. The voice wasn’t just a problem she could keep to herself anymore, not when she made Finn promise. He deserved more than vague hints. The full truth. After this, she told herself. After this was done, they would have a talk about it, despite her dread at the idea.
When they got through this, she might be able to take some grim amusement in the fact that the voice still being there at least confirmed to her that she wasn’t dreaming.
We could wake everybody else up.
“Just shut up already,” she gritted out.
Damsel’s helmet turned in her direction. “Did you say something, Calliope?”
“No,” she lied, faintly shocked at how smooth she sounded. Was she so out of it that she hadn’t even thought to control the soundwaves? She couldn’t let herself get sloppy. “What about the supplies on the top floor? I still hear a few people up there.”
“We have to wait for Mountpin to report back before proceeding. She won’t be long, don't worry.”
They chatted a bit while they waited, until they were interrupted by an announcement she really should have expected.
“Cal, you have incoming. Four o’clock,” Gridlock said over her earpiece. Listening more closely, she did indeed hear someone flying from that direction.
Someone she’d encountered before.
“Havoc is here,” Lyra said out loud, causing Damsel to freeze. Meanwhile, Mountpin’s head snapped in her direction, asking clarifying questions, but there was hardly time.
Havoc’s disc cut through the air towards the building and exploded on contact. She had braced herself, so it didn't drop her to the floor. Unfortunately, the dust and plaster still flew at her face.
Moreover, she couldn’t even shield her face with her arms. Well, she could, but it was pointless, since her knight squad mate was already diving in front of her, weathering the debris with her armor and enhanced body.
Like her charge, Mountpin also covered her body in metal. Needles grew in place of her costume and formed a protective layer across her front side.
Fully expecting a follow-up attack, she listened for another disc in the air, but none came. Instead, the dust cleared and the villain hovered, gazing down at them from behind his creepy mask.
The villain took the lull as a chance to speak. “Causing trouble, are we? Can’t you let a guy catch a break? Blowing up your dismembered bodies is fun and all, but my show is on right now.”
“You’re going down today,” Damsel shot back, voice hard.
“Ha! At least one of you is in high spirits.” The villain looked in Lyra’s direction. “And you. You just love raising a stink.” He paused, cupping his chin. “That sounded better in my head. I was originally going to say you love wreaking havoc, but, you know. Brand identity and all that. Anyway, how’s your tummy feeling, girlie?”
She didn’t grace that with a response, feeling the anger bubbling up inside her. Without fear, she noted. That was unusual. She should have been afraid of this guy. She just inexplicably wasn’t.
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“We’re not dragging this out,” Mountpin cut in sharply, putting an end to the crazy ramblings. “First priority is shutting down his movement.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she fully transformed into a living pile of needles, no longer concerned about the enclosed space with most of the wall now missing. Three shifting limbs composed of tiny metal pins shot out to cut off potential escape routes. A fourth went straight for the chest.
Havoc casually tossed a smattering of energy chips which went off like a batch of firecrackers, cutting open a path for him to pass through with a dip of his head. Another set of needle tentacles followed, and was evaded in a similar manner.
Why wasn’t he trying harder to kill them? He could’ve chained that attack with two more, easily. Even if the others could withstand his attacks, destroying the building around them could slow them down and render them more vulnerable to repeated fire.
“He’s holding back,” Lyra communicated to the women, manipulating sound so the powered Venin lieutenant didn’t overhear. “He’s not allowed to collapse the building, the things stored above us are too important to his boss.”
She suspected that was also the reason they sent Havoc to deal with them. She was just glad that…
On the opposite end of the building, a strange smoke-like substance spread and seemed to be hunting for someone. Finn’s posture was ready; when the mist came up to meet his running form, he dodged the blade that suddenly formed and struck at him.
“Shade!” she called out privately over their comms. If Niebla was here too, they were in trouble. “Do you need me to come help?”
There came no response. After a second, she realized he hadn’t heard her at all. Their comm link was turned off.
Jack started talking again. “He can handle himself, Cal. Focus on your own fight for now. I’ve got some things I wanna test out. If it gets really dire, I’ll tell you.”
At that, Lyra was torn. On the one hand, she wanted Finn to be safe. On the other, she agreed that he was skilled enough to hold his own. She pursed her lips.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” she said to him.
“Guilty as charged. Now try not to get sliced in half, please and thank you.”
Mollified considerably, though still worried, she brought her attention back to her own battle. Ahead, Damsel was sprinting toward the flying villain with a metal rod in hand. The girl adopted a javelin thrower’s stance and launched it with her superhuman strength and momentum.
Another disc flew into its path at just the right moment to blow up, making it veer off course. Havoc, not even sparing them more than a passing glance, was busy dealing with the inverted haystack woman.
Explosive force pushed Mountpin to the ground, and she let it flatten her into a bed of needles, then launched herself at her enemy by pushing off with a flexible pair of arms, much like a spring.
Havoc twisted out of the way, narrowly avoiding surprise acupuncture. Not to be outdone, he peppered Mountpin with a hail of explosive energy fragments, raising one hand over his shoulder before tossing the flickering green shards at full speed.
The adult hero’s scattered form reconsolidated and turned wheat gold, hay starting to form all over her body. Soon, she was swinging massive hammers at the villain, which were destroyed with little effort but also much quicker to reform. She pressed her assault, driving the man back.
Finding an opportunity to provide support with her shockwaves was proving difficult, Lyra found. Havoc mostly covered himself with an array of discs that would explode and intercept most attacks coming his way, leaving only a few that he had to move out of the way for. Luckily, difficult didn’t mean impossible.
“You know,” Havoc shouted. “If I knew this morning I’d be getting sweaty with three ladies tonight, I would’ve brought protection!”
Although Lyra and Mountpin didn’t react to the basic taunt, Damsel seemed incensed by that remark, charging recklessly at Havoc with a cry of rage. Her sword drawn, she jumped and swung it full force at one of the discs. It went straight through and she almost reached Havoc but was blown back by another protective saucer.
She slammed into the ground next to Lyra, rolling over the ground in battered platemail. Her fists came down on the floor, irritated huffs coming from her as she pushed herself up.
“Damsel, control yourself,” Mountpin reprimanded, though it was a distracted comment. Most of the woman’s focus was on the guy they were fighting.
This wasn’t getting them anywhere. Mountpin had been right about mobility being the main issue they needed to contend with here. Perhaps that was to be expected of a seasoned heroine, but it didn’t change the fact that she was unable to neutralize Havoc by herself.
Damsel hadn’t let up, finding any metal she could and whacking it into the night sky presumably with her power imbued. It wasn’t accomplishing much.
Did that mean Lyra had to be the deciding factor? How? It was the types of attacks that were proving ineffective here, and the way to overcome that was to either use a technique Havoc was unprepared to deal with or increase the frequency to the point where he was overwhelmed.
Wait. Frequency.
Up until now, she had seen it as a hard limit of her power, that the one thing she could do was shockwaves because she hadn’t figured out how to modulate the frequency of her captured sounds. But what if that was wrong?
She dismissed the idea. She would take time to dive deeper into that component of her power later. No time to miraculously learn that out of nowhere. But there was an aspect of her abilities she currently knew that she didn’t use in active combat, as she had deemed it useless.
Silence.
It was a feat she accomplished by either limiting how far the sound could travel or neutralizing it at the source. Lyra’s heart raced as the plan began to take shape in her mind. Silence was something she had always used passively, something to dampen sound around her, to block noise or make Finn slip by unnoticed. But now, standing in the middle of this chaotic battle, a thought came to her: Could she weaponize silence?
She could feel the vibrations of the discs as they exploded, the shockwaves reverberating through the air. Sound and energy intertwined in a way that she had always been sensitive to. Maybe, just maybe, she could manipulate that interaction.
“Okay, let's see what I can do," she muttered to herself, feeling a strange mix of nervousness and excitement.
When she raised both hands in concentration, she felt a little like a kid pretending to conduct an orchestra. She supposed that, weirdly, what she was doing would be no different in the sense that Lyra was about to compose a symphony of silence.
She focused on the sound waves around her—each explosion, each metallic clang of Damsel’s sword, each screech of Mountpin’s needles scraping across the walls—and began to visualize the space where those waves moved. The energy contained in the discs themselves was foreign, nothing like anything else she had ever observed in reality. That made sense, since they were unique to their creator.
But given that they interacted with the physical world, they could still be influenced, she hoped. To start with, she muted all the sounds around her.
The effect was instant. Seeing the battlefield now was akin to watching a movie with the audio muted, special effects playing out and mouths moving with no accompanying sound.
“Smart move,” Havoc said into the silent air, knowing she could still discern what he was saying. “But I’ve fought in worse conditions. You think muting the sound will make a difference? I don’t need my ears to blow you all up.”
His words meant nothing. Narrowing her focus to his discs, she quickly found out that Havoc was not, in fact, controlling his discs with sound. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t disrupt the process, limited as her options were. She couldn’t detonate them early, she couldn’t smother all the energy and let them fizzle out into nothing, she couldn’t take over the discs and pilot them.
Though when Havoc set off another one against a humongous clump of hay from Mountpin, Lyra directed the release of energy with a wave of her hand, pushing down on one part of the disc and making it explosively shatter in his face.
Havoc’s power came with immunity to his own explosions, it seemed, since he came out of it unharmed, but his vision had been hampered and the other discs were now out of formation. Mountpin capitalized on the opening and dragged him to the ground with a snaking tendril.
Against all odds, he was freeing himself even after that interruption of his entire rhythm. While it might have felt like an eternity, Lyra didn’t have more than a moment to launch herself up with a shockwave and rear her fist back. Risking a ranged attack through the ambient silence wouldn’t pay off in their favor. That level of control was beyond her. A punch would have to do.
However, her arm alone wasn’t strong enough to put a grown man out of commission, meaning she needed to prepare another shockwave’s worth of concussive soundwaves. So rather than letting them ride the air, she used a trick similar to what she’d done in her duel with Finn.
She applied reverberation to her fist. And when it made contact with the villain’s chest, it literally rattled every bone in his body with unleashed vibrations. It was so effective, there was no delay between her punch landing and him going limp.
Upon undoing the silence field, time regained its usual pace. Havoc fell into Mountpin’s grasp, Damsel stopped ineffectually batting metal into the air like the world’s most aggressive baseball player, and Lyra started feeling the effects of gravity reasserting itself.
Briefly, she worried that she might have killed a man. But his heartbeat was beating, and his breathing was stable. With a normal shockwave, she broke her fall, coming to a stop next to the restrained, unconscious criminal.
This was it. It was over. The guy who had come closer to killing her than anybody else, who could have ended her if not for her teammates, was now at her mercy. The training had paid dividends, she admitted to herself. She expected to feel more satisfaction, but was merely relieved that she didn’t have to stress about the possibility of dealing with him again in the future.
The first thing she checked when her boots hit the ground was how Finn was doing. As it turned out, Jack had been right, and he was actually okay. His fight was over.
Then they had one more thing left to do.
Checking out the storage supply.