Chương 74: Chapter 71: Catching Up With Old Friends

The early morning sun reflected off the windows framing the street, directly into Lyn's face as she rounded the corner. She cursed out loud in front of the commuters around her as the blindingly light seemed to find the perfect path into her corneas. To make matters worse, her hand reflexively clenched into a fist, which easily crushed the decaf drink she'd been cradling, splattering it across her coat.

It wasn't the first incident of note recently since she'd discovered that her strength in this form had increased after subjugating another fey ruler. Not enough that it was stronger than her mutated spider form, but enough that paper cups meant for civilians apparently could be a problem when she got surprised. The sea of other pedestrians around her parted after enough people realized the mess she'd made, a few lingering a little too long to stare at the idiot who had crushed her own drink.

It took all her self control not to fling the remains of the cup in their stupid faces. She marched to a trash can and tossed it inside, holding her arm out to her side on the way over to avoid the remaining drippings from soiling her shoes in the process. Prickles of irritation scratched along her brain as she looked around for anywhere nearby that might offer her a way to clean off, desperate to not cause a larger scene in public. It was hard.

The events of last night were still running through her head, which hadn't been helped when Celeste had woken her up at way too fucking early in the morning to let her know she'd gotten a text from Val after everyone else had gone to sleep. It said: "Staying with a friend. I'll be back." Naturally, that had ruined her whole day, and even Alex's face still wasn't enough to make the lab feel… somehow claustrophobic and yet big enough to feel lost in?

Fuck, she didn't even know how to describe it, only that she knew she needed to get out of that place as soon as possible. So she'd invented an excuse to dip out, claiming that she'd been meaning to try a limited edition drink from a place on the other end of town for awhile now. Alex had been set to join her only for Sand Devil of all people to intercept the pair on the way out in order to borrow him.

She wanted to go over future contracts she'd be mediating, apparently wanting any other infernal binding agreements to include punishments for leaving without warning. Subtle. Her tone told Lyn that today was probably not the day to continue their attempts to track down the rest of her enemies in the fey courts.

While Sand Devil had been almost gleeful with their plans so far – almost happier than Lyn had seen the demoness be when it came to planning how to ruin a hero's day – a lot of their talks had a habit of devolving into how frivolous and deceitful the fey could be. Lyn normally found that part of their talks ironically funny coming from a villain and a demon, but figured it might hit a little too close to home today of all days.

She wasn't sure it was the best of ideas to have her very important plans to keep a fomorian or a spriggan from slitting her throat into a vent session or worse. Still, now that Lyn was hobbling through the crowded streets with a dripping arm held out at her side, she was questioning if it would've been better to stay home.

"I swear, I can't have a single drink in peace…" she muttered, finally locating a cafe with outdoor seating and, more importantly, napkins dispensers left out in the open. She leaned over a short railing to pluck a few, ignoring looks from a few of the patrons as she did so, and began to dry her arm, trying not to think about how she'd probably need to nab a new coat. Maybe? This one was dark enough that the stains from her more-sugar-than-decaf-coffee probably wouldn't show, so she might be good?

She was so distracted trying to wipe herself off that she almost missed the civilians around her suddenly stirring. She managed to catch a group of them following something descending down from the skies above, their necks all lowering in sync towards something behind her.

"Need some help, citizen?" an overly heroic voice asked. Lyn sighed. Of fucking course that's how this day was going to go. She composed herself before turning around, "I'm fine. Thanks-" Thana Alsdottir smirked her way with her arms crossed, another less familiar caped hero peering over her shoulder. Lyn barely registered the hanger-on as her eyes were fixed on the goddess who was looking at her with clear amusement.

Thana chuckled and turned to her companion, "Wouldst thou mind continuing without me for a moment, Eastwind? They are a friend I would like to have words with." The other hero was wearing a cowl mask that left their mouth exposed, letting Lyn see the odd quirk in their lips before they nodded and flew off. Thana watched them go, leaving Lyn wondering if she should bolt or not. The goddess turned around too quickly in the end, and so she was left to her mercy.

"Let us find somewhere to chat, Evelyn."

In the end, they'd only moved over a few streets over to an empty back alley doubling as a loading bay for a nearby business. The buildings blocking them in managed to smother a good amount of the morning light but they were spread far enough apart from one another that Lyn wouldn't be caught dead calling it "shady". It was actually fairly clean too, hinting at enough foot traffic through it that no detritus managed to build up.

A real "hero's choice" when it came to hidden spaces to be dragged off to for a talk in broad daylight. Lyn's blue skin itched with the feeling of being exposed here. So many pedestrians crossing by at the mouths of either end of this through-way and more than one window visible above her. No one in her line of work would dare to be out in costume in a place like this for too long, but here was Thana Alsdottir in full Vikor regalia standing out in the open.

A part of Lyn reflected on the oddness of the trip over here. She'd expected a lot more turned heads or people whipping out their phones to record once they saw a goddess passing them by on the street, but somehow they'd made it here without anyone trying to stop her for an autograph or thank her for her service or whatever civvies did when they mobbed around heroes on the street.

Even if they didn't recognize her, Thana looked like someone on her way to a local LARP meeting which should've drawn just as many heads as most masks, so Lyn really didn't get how they managed to make it here without a single person raising a fuss. If she wasn't consumed wholly by the intense urge to try and transform and scurry away the moment she thought the hero was distracted enough for her to get enough distance, she might entertain asking about that.

As it stood, even though the goddess was doing a cursory check around, Lyn got the distinct impression that she was being kept in the corner of the Stormdaughter's eye the entire time.

"Alright," Thana exhaled, clearly satisfied that they were alone. She turned and put her hands on her hips.

"I must admit I don't know how to start this conversation. It seems an ill idea to congratulate you, all things considered." Oh.

"Ah, godsdammit," Lyn cursed before quickly apologizing.

"Sorry!" Thana waved it away, "Contrary to some popular belief, that doesn't offend us, nor draw our eye. We would be quite more vocal about such expletives if they did so. Although try not to make oaths on our names. I must admit that the trend awhile back where brothers of fraternities swore to my family as they went, quote, 'Vikor mode' and performed drunken shenanigans made for some amusing visions, but I'd still discourage it all the same."

Lyn guffawed, feeling like she was back to talking with Emma again, only for the look on the goddess's face to cause her mouth to clamp shut.

"So you know who I am?" she asked, just to be sure.

"Contrary to popular belief, I do know how to use this," Thana withdrew a familiar phone, one that seemed odd in the hands of a woman dressed twelve centuries out of date to be honest.

"Nor, as some assume, am I lacking in wits. Which means when a villainess makes the headlines whose true name is the same as someone I know who shares a… similar complexion AND who has confessed to belonging to such a profession, I am more than capable of putting such things together. Not to mention you mentioned an antagonistic relationship to the hero known as ArachNed in our last encounter. And also your jaw-""I get it," Lyn pinched the bridge of her nose, partly to cover up her jaw.

Seriously, was it that noticeable?

"I didn't design this body, cut me some slack."

"... I believe that an odd statement, begging several questions on its own," Thana raised a brow but shook her head to dismiss the subject entirely. A tense moment of silence passed between the two of them as Lyn weighed her options. She didn't really think she could escape from a flying hero like Thana without pulling out some serious tricks, but this was also someone who had been around the block for quite some time. Still… she'd sent away the other hero with her so there was always the chance…

"Are you here to take me in?" Lyn decided to cut to the heart of the matter, tired of the uncertainty.

"Permit me a question of my own first," the Stormdaughter spoke calmly.

"Your speech mentioned a plan. Does that entail the harm of innocents in your pursuit of your goals?" The heroine made no obvious movements, but Lyn felt like the air around her crackled with energy. Two golden eyes pierced through her, judging her every move. It was as though someone was putting her soul on a scale to weigh it. Lyn took a deep breath and shook her head, "We… I don't have any plans on hurting anyone but capes who get in our way."

Thana's mouth twitched at that but the rest of her face was like stone. For too many heartbeats, she gave no other reactions. Then her shoulders slackened.

"Then we shall meet as foes later… but for now, I shall consider you as a misguided friend," a slight hint of a grin seemed to peek through her expression. Lyn almost gasped, not realizing she'd been holding her breath.

"I would hope to at least entreat you to apologize to the poor girl, Sun Light, whom you bit upon the neck in your villainous plots a few weeks back," the Stormdaughter fixed her with a stare.

"She literally was there to beat us up."

"Evelyn, she is a child."

"She's practically an adult," Lyn insisted.

"Didn't Vikors consider folks her age to be grown up?"

"Again," Thana held up her phone, waving it through the air for emphasis, "I am more than able to adapt to the changing eras." Lyn fought a smile as she put her hands on her hips, mimicking Thana's own posture from earlier, "'Though shalt find my affectations modern indeed.' Why do you talk like that then? You don't when you're dressed up as Emma." The goddess frowned before saying, "It is expected of me."

That answer was startlingly evasive but Lyn didn't get the chance to point that out before Thana closed the distance between the two of them in what looked like two strides, "I am trusting you to be who I believe you are. A show of faith which tests my own judgment. Do. Not. Attack. A. Child." The spider villainess took an involuntary step back while nodding her head, "Fine, fine! I'll… apologize to her if it comes up. Didn't really plan on fighting her again anyways…"

That earned a grin that looked a little too much like a smirk, and the hero strolled away from her towards the other side of the empty back street, "It's a start. We shall have to work on the rest later." Those words froze Lyn's blood and she felt the spider legs that were still folded around her chest clench against as her nails dug into her palms. Suddenly, all the eggshells she felt like she'd been tiptoeing over stopped mattering as something coiled in the pit of her stomach.

A familiar rage that had been a friend these past couple weeks.

"You, of all people, want to change me?" she hissed.

"Let me guess: to save me?" Her lips crept back, baring her fangs at the goddess who almost certainly could smite her with little effort. Lyn had looked up some videos of the Stormdaughter's fights after the last time they'd met and they'd been brutal affairs. The type where super strength smashed up against diamond-hard alloys, energy barriers that stopped city destroying attacks, and other god-like super strength empowered fists in blows that caused the air to explode around them.

She would move like a lightning bolt, cutting forward with the wrath of a god in twisting, lightning fast attacks. And those were just the fights where she bothered to use fisticuffs. More than half of the footage showed the legendary hero wielding an array of archaic weaponry glowing with crackling energy that cleaved through deathbots, flying doomsday fortresses, mutants, monsters, and all manner of magic-enhanced foes with comical ease.

Whatever power-up Lyn had gotten from a single fey duke agreeing to support her was not going to stack up to something like that. And yet, the same thing that compelled her to fight the Starlight Squad, to take on Ned alone, and to trust Alex's crazy plan wrapped itself around her chest right now. Pride? Indignation? She couldn't figure out what it was, nor did she care. All she knew at this very moment was that she would not stand to be told that she was making a mistake. She would show them all.

She would show the gods themselves!

"Of course," Thana answered plainly.

"Just as you made your intentions plain to corrupt me all those weeks ago." Lightning flared down her left arm and Lyn felt her confidence begin to bleed away as a spear manifested in the woman's hand, the point raising towards her. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"When we meet in battle, I shall meet you with the strength of my own convictions, just as I expect you to do the same. You wish to change the world to suit your fell designs? Then do as you always have and face your opposition with all your strength, Terrorantula, and be answered in kind!" Lyn swallowed and took yet another step back before finding her nerve and planting both feet on the ground. Then something odd struck her. To her surprise, she realized that despite her fear, she was grinning at this.

This wasn't like facing off with Ned who could only ever see her as poor, misguided Evelyn Everett, making yet another mistake. No… Thana Alsdottir was holding a god-blessed javelin at her and calling her by her villain name. It felt… right. If she wanted to "fix" her then she'd need to beat Terrorantula first, not just pretend she could just forget about that life entirely.

The goddess continued, "Though I am quite confident in my own chances of winning, should our previous contests in the realm of video-graphic challenges prove an indicator of your strategy. Should you fail to best me this time, I would be forced to reckon with the reality that you are, as the common turn of phrase is, a loser." Somehow with complete sincerity, Thana then lifted her right hand to her forehead, extending a thumb and forefinger to make an L to punctuate her trash talk.

It took Lyn a solid ten seconds to process that gesture before manic laughter overtook her.

"W-what are you-?" the air of confidence was gone from Thana's face as she watched Lyn devolve into giggles. Tears began streaming down Lyn's face as she doubled over, almost threatening to begin coughing with how hard she was laughing. It took her a few minutes to even be able to say, "N-no one does that anymore!"

"I-I knew that!" the woman dressed twelve-hundred years out of date said, unconvincingly, as her face glowed bright red.

"It was delivered with that purpose! For levity! Obviously!" That only got Lyn laughing harder, dimly aware that the other woman had dismissed her weapon. The life affirming moment she'd felt was now firmly lost to a laughing fit which only got worse when she noticed Thana looking like she might shoot off towards the clouds in embarrassment.

She managed to calm down enough, only to hum a few bars to an old famous song that mentioned that particular hand sign and breaking out once more when the goddess's face blushed once more, having clearly caught the reference.

"Please, Evelyn, might we move on?" the flustered divinity begged.

"I… I need to talk to you about something serious, please." That was enough to finally get Lyn to shake off the last of it. There was a sincerity there that bordered on the vulnerable. Lyn exhaled, the last traces of comedy seeming to dissolve as she met Thana's eyes. Those golden orbs flickered away, fixating on the opening of the alleyway.

"Perhaps… I am wrong to assume I am suitable to try and bring you to justice…" she muttered.

"For I stand far less heroic than I would aspire towards. You know what blackens my own heart and… and I would ask once more to be heard on the matter." Lyn watched as the imposing figure of the Stormdaughter slackened and shrank, her posture uncertain. She began to ramble, "I spoke of hoping to bring you to the light for I have seen your kindness. You offered me fellowship in more than one of my hours of need, no matter your vocation or my own." Lyn sighed, "I told you before, I'll help you find the guy if I can."

Then an idea spun itself into her head, "In fact… you getting him before the League does would probably be for the best. It would mean they'd have no real reason to stick around." Thana's body jolted, as she glanced over to the villain and then away once more, "I… have been told that's would be the case. In fact, it would seem the optimal solution for all of this to end, all the chaos and violence, would be by my hand laying to rest a chapter left open too long."

She was staring at her palm, a complicated look on her face. Lyn shrugged, "Pretty sure you know what my feelings will be on the subject. Guy ruined your life, right? So you gotta do what you have to. Sounds like it's a win-win." Thana shook her head, "The heroes of late have been helping me in the wake of troubling information on the subject… My heart warns I would be letting them down, and I know not if my previous oaths even hold water given what I have learned."

Lyn strolled across the overly clean alley to put a hand on her shoulder, "Look, I'm over here trying to be a villain who doesn't try to hurt too many civies – or apparently younger heroes now… I think there's room enough for heroes that get a little rough with guys who killed their loved ones. Even Mr. Wonder himself has put some people in the ground when he had to, right?"

A sting of electricity caused her to move her hand away as the goddess fixed her with a warning glare, "Those were deeply extenuating circumstances and not done for revenge. Do not speak so lightly of them." Lyn raised her hands up, shaking the one that had gotten shocked a bit as she did so, "Alright, again, probably not the person to help with your moral dilemmas, but I'll at least be more than happy to tap some more contacts to see what shakes loose.

I'd be more than happy to help you get even, regardless of how bloody you want that to be. Or just… be there to listen?" A tired smile crossed Thana's face, only to be interrupted by an alarm.

"Rot and damnation," she cursed, pulling out her phone and dismissing the noise, "I must return to the patrol. I gave my word I would see it through." For the first time, Lyn was able to see the screen itself as she peered over the woman's shoulder and noticed a familiar face on the lock screen. It was Emma with a few details different, such as how she wore her hair or clothes. She was laughing alongside an unfamiliar man with short dark hair.

Both of them seemed a little rough in this picture, Emma wearing something that looked like it had been fished out the back of a thrift store where it had rotted for twenty years by the time the photo had been taken, while the man wore a ratty polo and had a face sporting a few nicks on it despite how young he looked. Both had their eyes shut as they doubled over with joy over something, an ephemeral moment in time captured forever. Thana caught her staring. Her soft voice spoke up, "… This is Marcus."

Lyn barely heard her, focusing entirely on the man she'd never seen before, as something tickled at her brain. It took her a moment to put it together: he looked like Alex. Obviously, this wasn't her boyfriend, there were too many details wrong. His nose didn't have that shape, and his cheeks were more pronounced. And the chin would've needed to be sanded down a bit to match. However, the small smattering of damage and the something about how the light was hitting his hair gave the same impression as her own lover.

It was like looking at a family member or someone who had been through a similar… Oh shit, Lyn thought to herself, forcing her face to remain neutral as she recognized what had to be a recently inflicted anti-plasma burn on his elbow. She knew what that particular injury looked like from having to help Celeste out when she'd gotten a little too confident with fixing up a client's freeze ray and almost lose her other arm.

Easy to mistake as a bruise, the sort of thing you might get from taking a particularly bad fall, assuming you missed the crystalline pattern at the edge. That was the kind of injury civilians wouldn't even be slightly at risk of unless they worked in some seriously high tech labs and those tended to be the type with a lot of safety measures to prevent that king of thing.

Celeste had spent the entire time Lyn had been busy patching her up complaining that anyone with half a brain in this business would know that she'd fucked up a relatively simple job that any gearhead should handle with ease. At the time, Lyn had been convinced that her mad scientist roommate was being overly dramatic, especially when she'd gone onto wrap her entire arm in giant bandages to hide it, but looking at this image, it was plain as day what Marcus was rocking.

"He looks…" Lyn carefully picked over her words, feeling like this was the wrong time to try and dig up more details, especially if they led where she thought they did. So she settled on, "... happy. Both of you do." Thana smiled sadly, putting the phone away in some hidden pouch in her armor, before turning to face Lyn. Without warning, the spider villain found herself pulled into a rather strong hug.

"I hope to see you again before we have to fight," Thana told her with a slight amount of amusement in her voice.

"I'd would enjoy your company again." Lyn sighed and returned the hug, letting the topic of her fiance's secret life slip by unremarked on, "Fine, we'll hang when you're not busy beating up all my friends and business partners. Where were you planning on running off to? I think I have a few people who could owe me some favors for a heads-up." Thana laughed off what she thought was a joke and simple flew away, leaving Lyn alone in the empty alley.

She slunk away, unsure if meeting with the hero had actually improved her mood or not, only for own phone to begin ringing. When she brought it up, she saw Alex's name and immediately answered, "Hey, Rusty."

"You haven't called me that in years," he groaned, still not a fan of that nickname, but she felt the need to tease him after all of that.

"Yeah, well you got better at painting your armor. Speaking of, is it ready yet?"

"Almost, but since it needs to be finished by tomorrow, my mad scientist is actually letting me help slap the last bits together rather than assuming I've never touched a soldering iron in my life for some reason." Lyn heard Celeste yell something in the background and her boyfriend chuckled at his barb landing. It certainly sounded like the air was clearing over there, so she fought back her own comment that Celeste was probably shorthanded with their resident speedster MIA, not wanting to ruin the mood.

Then she realized what he'd said, "Wait, tomorrow?"

"Yeah, Vandal got in touch. We're meeting the rest of the team then, and I need have a functioning supersuit by then," Alex informed her.

"Would you mind swinging by the Wakelands to drop off some toys I slapped together? I'd like to show up with a couple of heavies to impress the other villains."

The sky was a big place, which is why Thana knew when she almost ran headfirst into Ice Hawk that the man had been following her before he even opened his mouth to confirm it.

"Nice chat with an old friend?" he asked, a too knowing grin on his face. She just narrowed her eyes at the other hero, noticing a slight bruise around one eye on his exposed face. He caught her gaze, "This? It's nothing. Just a little spat with Dashback last night. He had my team take over his patrol for the afternoon so his team could hunt down some League sightings in a nearby district. There was an incident just around when we were clocking out for the night where we stepped on each others toes a bit.

My powers and speedsters don't really mix well when we don't have a history of working together and he took it a little personally." Thana could taste the lie hidden in that story and had the distinct impression the mark on the man's face may have been justified, but she held her tongue. Unfortunately, that just let the conversation lapse backwards.

"So… looking at unconventional help?" Ice Hawk looked past her, back in the direction of the alley she'd left.

"Thought you were starting to get along with the heroes, but it looks like you're still chatting with your less law-abiding friends." The unfortunate gap in her rudimentary awareness wards was that if someone was familiar enough with her, such as heroes she'd revealed herself to, then they would not turn the curious gaze from her. She'd known this but hadn't wanted to corner Evelyn in an enclosed environment. Twas also a gamble to choose such a stratagem of hiding among others in plain sight.

Should anyone be able to pierce her wards through familiarity, then they would still be as free to eavesdrop but with the added wrinkle of anonymity. A city of masks meant more than one face in the crowd might fit her ward's exception and she would be none the wiser.

Not to mention, news of her presence here was already spreading thanks to the news networks, making her ward's effect to turn the heads less effective when she did not concentrate on reinforcing it, something she could not be assured of when engaged in conversation. Still, she realized she should have kept a better eye on the heavens now. Still, she didn't like that he'd known Evelyn to be a villain. Though perhaps he didn't know her exact identity.

"You were all too pleased last time we spoke to see I was friendly with your city's underbelly. Should it now be a surprise that I still walk among them? Especially when the help you promised me when last we met has not been forthcoming?"

"Hmmm," Hawk floated away from her, blue wings flaring in the morning sun.

"So you're buddying up with one half of Victory's latest villain craze because I'm not giving you enough info?" Thana's hands balled into fists only for Hawk to hold up his hands, "Relax, I hear a lot but I don't share it with the rest of the Tower. Blue girl's secret is safe. Gotta ask though, what help's she offering?" Thana refused to answer, and Ice Hawk shrugged, "Whatever… just curious what she might've heard. Was a little worried she might be out to protect her own."

"Do not assume what you know nothing about," Thana snapped. Ice Hawk defied her expectations, turning around and moving closer to her as the two hovered above the city, "Just making sure that people aren't trying to convince you to do things the 'Victory way'. We talked about the stakes here. I need to know you're ready to plant a spear through this guy's heart the moment I tell you who he is." Something clicked, "You know who he is." Ice Hawk frowned, drifting back from her, "Not really."

"You-""But I have my suspicions." Lightning flared in her gut, lashing out from behind her teeth as she bared them at him, grabbing his shoulders and holding him in place, "Tell me! Now!" A blow stronger than she'd anticipated separated her from the man. She glanced down at her stomach, seeing crystals melting off of her and her head whipped up to see Ice Hawk's arm covered in frost.

"No, I gotta be sure and then we gotta be smart," he said calmly, but his face was twisted with malice.

"You shoot across the sky to get there and you either spook him or alert the League. Not to mention, I need you to do this in front of a camera. Need to show the whole world what the Orion way looks like so Azure can't sweep it under the rug. So: Calm. Down." This insolent mortal f-! Thana gripped her head desperately trying to push the divine wrath from her skull as it howled at her to smite him where he stood for daring to stand between her and-! I am not my father! she screamed in her own head.

Her arms slackened and she began to pant as control once more returned to her grasp. She shivered as the feeling slowly dripped out of her veins, that moment where all humanity had been purged from her and only the hatred remained. Ice Hawk eyed her cautiously, "I will be in touch. So long as you keep that edge that I just saw. But keep that shit under control or you'll ruin everything!" He shot away, his wings carrying him along the wind faster than she could've imagined.

The goddess of war floated in the empty sky, watching him disappear into the city's skyline, her head numb as emotions roiled just under the surface of her thoughts.