a/n: can we get a round of applause for the amazing and chaotic duo that is lyla and jean with scott being their babysitter and third wheel?
and don't think this is the last time we get lyla crashing out, there's still a lot to go
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"What happened!?"
"I believe that the technology involved molecular dispersal and reconstitution."
"Whatever it is, it's keeping me from going home and it's just starting to piss me off!" Lyla yelled and stared down at Lilandra. "Say your little challenge and let's get on with it already! I've got two kids at home and a mom who's worried sick!"
"The Phoenix is too powerful!" Lilandra yelled back. "Once, she existed only to serve our empire. Now, she lives only to experience new sensations. The planets were, fortunately, uninhabited."
"We did that?" Jean gasped as a hologram played of the Phoenix destroying an entire solar system. She turned to Lyla who looked equally horrified. "Did we do that?"
"I think we did, Red." She whispered and held my hand tight.
"But what of next time?" Lilandra continued. "Soon single stars will not satiate her. She will consume galaxies! Like the crystal that spawned her, she can destroy all that is! I have no choice."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Jean staggered back a step, her breath catching in her throat as the stars vanished from the hologram, swallowed by light and silence. Lyla's grip on my hand tightened to the point it almost hurt, not that I cared.
"I would never let that happen," Jean said, barely above a whisper.
"But you did," Lilandra snapped. "Or rather, the Phoenix did through you. Through both of you."
"I didn't ask for this!" Lyla snapped, stepping forward, fury crackling in her veins now. "I didn't ask to be turned into some cosmic weapon! I have a son, for crying out loud! I was past all the destruction and the unnecessary killing... I'm not to be made a weapon anymore!"
"But you are one," Lilandra simply said and her jaw clenched.
Lyla took a sharp breath, the glow of the Phoenix flickering in her irises like a warning. Not a threat, a promise.
"No," she said, voice steady despite the tremble in her hands. "I'm a mother. A wife. A daughter. A fighter, sure, but not your damn weapon. Not anymore."
"You speak as though you have a choice," Lilandra replied, her tone eerily calm. "But the Phoenix chooses for you... And we cannot wait for it to choose again."
"To kill an innocent creature to get at another is barbarous!" Hank exclaimed.
"Lilandra, I have invoked the challenge of 'Arin'nn Haelar'." Charles called out. "You cannot refuse it!"
