Sola watched the overly attentive store clerk finally disappear behind a corner with the look of someone who just heard their name called at the dentist.
"Time to get this over with," she sighed.
Now that the cashier was gone, and the store finally empty of anyone she'd have to force out of her way, Sola rolled her neck, stretching her tight joints against the cold air, and pushed herself off the beaten sedan she'd used the hood of for a seat. She straightened out her black jacket and casually made her way across the silent street, stopping just short of the storefront.
This wasn't what Sola imagined she'd be doing when she gained her abilities. Her dreams were bigger than breaking into a run-down jewelry store on the far edge of the city, but beggars couldn't be choosers. She couldn't have gotten her powers without help, and now it was time to pay that help back, even if that meant petty crime.
All she had to do was break into an unmanned jewelry store. Not anything cooler, like cracking a bank vault, or pulling off a multi-layered art heist on an island off the coast of Italy. Just a small store with little to no security and barely any payoff to make the risk worth it.
But she was instructed to start small, and heists didn't get much smaller than this.
"God," she said, disgusted with herself. She put her hands on her hips, shaking her head as the white neon sign lit up from the bottom to the top, illuminating a diamond twice the size of her head. "This is so cliche."
She raised a hand, purple energy gathering in her palm, and loosed it, sending a stream of plasma that slammed into the store's door handle and shot it back into the store, clattering against the shelves. The door swung open and Sola, wordlessly, took a step towards it, only to be stopped by a wall of black metal bars that slammed into the ground, blocking her path.
She sighed. "Cute."
Raising both hands, bright purple energy gathered and swirled around her fists, crackling with unnatural heat in the fall air and drawing her like a magnet. She grunted with exertion, then let out a stream of plasma that cut through the bars, dropping them to the ground with a clang loud enough to alert the entire street to what she was up to, if anyone cared to check. But if Sola was feeling the pressure of potentially drawing attention, she didn't show it: she strolled into the store, casually eyeing the jewelry safely tucked away behind the glass case as if she was an aristocrat on vacation in Vienna.
She spent a few minutes perusing, her eyes glancing from piece to piece, sapphires and emeralds placed in rings, opal earrings dotting the green felt-lined cases. Then, without warning, like a hawk suddenly diving down towards its prey, she stopped, then slammed a plasma-covered hand through the glass, turning it into a sizzling liquid. She let the pieces fall into the case, then pulled out the largest diamond the store had to offer, a sparkling sphere of clear crystal roughly the size of a dime.
Leaving the other cases of silver jewelry untouched, Sola stepped out of the store and back onto the street, keeping her eyes on the diamond. She grimaced, then slipped it into her coat pocket, annoyed that this trip wouldn't be the last one she'd have to make that week. She finally lifted her eyes, only to then notice a couple standing next to her on the sidewalk, wide and terrified eyes staring back at her.
"Want something?" She asked, gesturing to the broken entrance. She was met with silence until another metal bar, previously hanging by a thread, gave way and crashed onto the rest. The man put his arm around his wife, stepped in front of her, and pulled her urgently back down the street, the pair sprinting away from Sola once they thought they were out of range.
"I was just trying to be nice!" She yelled, shaking her head. She huffed, her breath visible in the frigid air. "Everyone acts like I'm a monster."
"If you want to improve your image," a woman's voice rang out from behind her, younger than Sola's own, "maybe you should try doing something better than breaking into a small store."
Sola turned to find herself staring at the woman, a head shorter and at least a decade younger than her. Barely visible under the streetlight, Sola could just make out that she was dressed in a yellow leather jacket with black gloves and black pants to match, with padding in the shoulders and thighs.
"I'm sorry," Sola said, faux-apologetically, "there's just so many no-name Protectors running around. Which one are you?"
She held out her right hand, and the street light next to Sola began to flicker violently before shattering entirely, raining glass over her head. Sola cursed and ducked, moving out of the way, then watched as a stream of light flowed lazily from the lamp to the woman's hand. Wordlessly, she put her closed hands together, then spread them apart, creating a staff of pure light.
"I'm Syphon," she answered, flexing her hand over the staff. "And you must be the reason I got dragged out into the cold."
"Guilty," Sola answered, bowing her head deferentially. "But in my defense I didn't expect Apex to send a child out past her bedtime."
Syphon laughed, spinning her staff. "Got a name?"
"Sola." Her eyes narrowed at Syphon's weapon, created from seemingly nothing. "I must admit, that's an awfully neat trick."
"Thanks," Syphon said. She tapped the ground with her staff, sparks flying off paired with a solid sound emanating from the bottom that made Sola wince. "Hard light. Hurts like hell when you get hit with it. I've been told it feels like getting smacked with a lightning bolt."
"I don't doubt it," Sola laughed. "I didn't come out here for a fight, which is exactly why I'm proposing we avoid this whole situation."
Syphon raised an eyebrow, but her muscles stayed tensed, ready for anything Sola might throw at her. To Syphon's surprise, instead of attacking, Sola sighed heavily and spoke.
"Syphon, I'm a pragmatic person and, truth be told, I don't really want to be here tonight. It's too cold and I didn't get what I came for. Unlike a lot of my…colleagues, I didn't get into this line of work for the violence. In fact, I'd say you and I are closer aligned than I am to someone like Duclaw."
"That so?" she called back. Sola nodded.
"So, what do you say that I walk down this way to the nearest bar with a heater, and you get back to…whatever it is Protector's do when they're not harassing someone. Probably looking for someone else to harass."
Syphon considered her proposal for a second, tilting her head back and forth as she weighed her response. "Sure," she said, "so long as you return what you took."
Sola offered her an apologetic glance, grimacing. "I can't do that," she said.
"Why not?" Syphon asked. "You just said it wasn't what you wanted."
"True," Sola admitted, "but that's because I was hoping for more. And if I put these diamonds back, I'll just have to get more the next time." Sola's left hand started to glow a deep purple. "And maybe next time, I run into someone who tries to stop me, someone I can't reason with. Someone who doesn't realize who they're standing in front of, or what I'm capable of." Syphon held Sola's intense stare, her heartbeat quickening. The purple energy around Sola's hand grew brighter, illuminating her hardset jaw.
"Maybe you don't know what you've gotten yourself into. But maybe you're starting to realize, and you're thinking about how easy it'd be to just walk away. You should do that."
Syphon's eyes were glued to Sola's hands, tightening her grip on her staff.
"Or," Sola drew the word out, the plasma radiating from her palm. She threw her fingers open, blasting a window and shattering the glass. "You can try to stop me from leaving, and I'll put a hole in your chest."
"Sorry," Syphon said, drawing the light from the neon sign in front of the jewelry store, forming into a white sphere the size of a tennis ball of orange light rotating swiftly in her palm. Sola narrowed her eyes, watching intently. "They don't pay me to walk away."
Syphon launched the sphere of white light right in front of Sola, the ball exploding in a blinding flash that sent Sola reeling backwards, nearly tripping over the curb. She coughed in the face of acrid smoke, waving her hand in front of her mouth and shuffling backwards to find a patch of clear air. Just as she was able to open her eyes, she caught the glint of light Syphon's brilliant yellow staff breaking through the cloud of grey smoke and coming down straight for her head, forcing her to dart out of the way.
Syphon followed up her attack with a wide swing, aiming to catch Sola in the ribs, but came up empty when Sola jumped back and launched a blast of plasma right in front of Syphon's foot, throwing her off balance as the rubble exploded around her, giving Sola a bit of breathing room and a chance to catch her breath.
The moment was short lived.
Syphon feinted left, and Sola fired off a blast of plasma that crackled right past Syphon's ear as she then brought her staff back right and caught Sola right on the thigh, sending her to one knee with a roar of pain. Syphon took her staff and put it in front of Sola's eyes.
"Now's a real good time to let me take you in," Syphon said, wearing a cocky smile that set off a fresh wave of rage in Sola. "I'll be honest, it really is getting close to my bedtime, and I'd love to wrap this up and get home to feed my birds."
"Your birds are going to have to wait," Sola growled, both hands swirling with purple energy. "Unless you back off right now. Come on. Don't make me hurt you."
She laughed derisively, catching her breath. "Honestly," Syphon said, "if this is the best you can do, I don't think I have anything to worry about."
Syphon launched into another overhead attack, her staff glittering in the yellow streetlight, but this time Sola took a much more subtle move to the left. When Syphon came up empty, her staff cutting through the air and bouncing off the street, Sola was only a foot away. She threw her fist right into Syphon's stomach, doubling her over and forcing her to drop her staff.
Sola placed her hand around it, then yelped when she was shocked by the staff, the pain like touching a live wire. Sola reared back to strike as Syphon snatched her staff and rolled away from Sola, putting ten feet in between them, both standing dead center in the road.
"Always love when Altered find that out," Syphon laughed, tapping the end of her staff. "Hurts even more when you get hit in the face."
"Well?" Sola asked, putting her arms out to her side. "What are you waiting for?"
Syphon took a few running steps, raising her staff high.
"Can't say I didn't try," Sola muttered.
She brought both of her hands up, aimed them at Syphon's chest, thought better of it, and let out a long burst of plasma that burrowed into Syphon's left thigh, hoping the padding would eat most of the blast.
Judging by the scream of pain Syphon let out, Sola didn't think that was the case.
Syphon's staff flew out of her hand and clattered on the street while Syphon went down awkwardly, landing hard on her shoulder. She rolled, settling on her side and immediately began clutching her leg.
Sola cursed and ran over to the groaning Syphon, her skin exposed from the burn in her pant leg, already blistered. She kneeled next to Syphon, then let out a long whistle.
"I think…think it's broken," Syphon managed to get out between clenched teeth. "I landed on it…in my fall."
"I'm used to looking at animals, but I believe you have a nasty ulnar fracture. Can you call someone for help? They'll need to stabilize you before transport."
Syphon nodded weakly. Having won the fight, Sola should've just walked away, but glancing down at Syphon's pained face, her body shivering violently, Sola couldn't help herself. Rolling her eyes and annoyed with herself, Sola angrily took off her jacket, draping it over Syphon.
"You're going into shock," she said, "this will keep you warm until someone gets here. Also, I am going to want this back, so please don't throw up on it."
"Why are you…doing this?"
Sola paused. "Same reason you are. We all have employers."
"Not…that. This," she gestured to the jacket."
"I wanted to go get a drink, you're the one who wanted to fight," Sola joked. Syphon smiled briefly before her face turned more serious.
"Thank you. But…you should know…Apex will send someone else," Syphon managed out, clutching the jacket. "To find you. To stop you."
Sola shrugged. "Probably. But maybe they'll take me up on my offer to hit a bar."
"And if they don't?"
With the sound of sirens fastly approaching, Sola glanced down the street, red and blue lights reflecting off the glass windows. She picked an alley and started towards it, darting into the shadows. She spoke loud enough for Syphon to hear her, her voice echoing off the stone walls.
"We'll see if I'm feeling as charitable next time someone tries to stop me."
As she walked down the alley alone, her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out, grimacing at the message.
Stillrock museum. You'll know it when you see it.
"Awesome," she muttered, picking up the pace back to the motel she was staying at. "Somehow, I'm going from petty crimes to even smaller crimes. Some hero I'll be."