Needle and Thread

Spiderman

[Fandom+ (1)]

For once, Lyra didn't have any dreams. She slept, peacefully, and woke up only when a patch of light struck her face two days later.

"Ugh, damn curtains," she muttered, and sat up.

She wasn't in her room. She was in a room with a woven-twig floor and vines crawling up the walls. Plant Elemental territory, then.

Nobody was in the room except another girl in the bed next to her, whose face was badly burned. Lyra looked closer and found that the other girl was a plant elemental.

"Lyra?"

Lyra whipped around with a grin on her face. "Rox! Howya doin'? Did we do it?"

Roxy nodded. She seemed cautious. "Are you... okay?"

"I think." Lyra looked down at herself. She was wearing her Immorta clothes still. No major limbs seemed missing, other that a few toes, but that was old news. "Yup. Don't seem to be hurtin' too much." She looked up. "What's wrong? You look scared."

"Uh. We just didn't really expect you to survive," Roxy said. "I mean, after I got everybody through... you'd stopped breathing. Benny got you back, but still. Jeez."

"Glad I kept breathing, then," Lyra said. "Musta been some weird hoodoo, right?"

"No," Roxy replied. "Uh. It was literally dependent on luck. I tried my best, but Benny said that wasn't even a guarantee. He said it just depended on whether we were the timeline that succeeded or not."

"Wow," Lyra said. "I didn't understand any of that! But at least I'm alive. So, where are we?" When Roxy didn't reply, she strode over to her friend. "Hey," she said, hugging her, "I'm real. I'm alive. Now c'mon, spill the juicy details!"

A pause.

"Hey. Stop crying. I can feel you crying."

"Sorry," Roxy managed. "I was so scared."

"Hey now." Lyra hugged her friend tightly. "Don't ever doubt me, y'hear? I'll always pull through." Roxy held her tighter, and tighter still. "Don't squish me."

"Okay." Roxy let go and dashed the tears from her eyes. "I'll go tell the others. They're resting."

"Resting? Still?"

"Not from the Boss battle," Roxy said, as Lyra followed her out of the room. "Since we got into this otherspace-- Benny says it's outside the multiverse-- we've been getting attacked. The weapons burn anybody who touches them except us, so it's kind of hard to fight them even with the Elementals helping. You. You, uh, saw the consequences of that."

"That girl," Lyra realized.

"She's the lucky one. The rest of her squad didn't make it.

We had to go out there."

Roxy turned into a room with a laptop in it. "Here we are," she said. She booted up the laptop and opened Skype. "Everybody's on their planet, except me," she said. "So we Skype."

Lyra laughed. "Jeez, this is like the sixth grade all over again." When Benny appeared on the screen, she leaned in. "Heya, memelord!" She said.

Benny grinned. "Wassup, weeb? It's great that you're up. We need your help."

"With those attacks?"

"Yeah. They're tremendously hard to deal with. I'm talking fighting like ten Heracleses at once."

"Hot dang. You all right?"

"Yeah." Benjamin frowned. "It's harder on everybody else. Those guys cut through NPCs like a knife through butter."

"Hang on," Roxy said. She pressed a few buttons and soon, Winter had joined the call.

"Lyra!" Winter broke into a grin.

"Hey!"

"We've got a real situation."

"Yeah, the Bennster told me. Where are these guys coming from, anyways?"

"We think that glowing city," Benny said.

"There's a glowing city in the sky," Roxy explained. "The bad guys have come from there pretty much every time."

"Well, let's go there, then," Lyra said. "Let's kick ass."

"We're trying," Benny said, scratching the back of his neck. "It's just hard to get our hands on any sort of rocket or ship without it getting attacked."

"Good thing you've got me, then," Lyra said, summoning her keys. "I'll just call someone up and we can head over there... what?"

Lyra's keys had turned silver.

Roxy winced. "Yeah. I was afraid that would happen."

"What are you talking about?"

"Listen, we moved a universe," Roxy said carefully. "That's a powerful thing. You've got to be prepared to lose something."

"You lost your powers?"

"Most of them. I've still got some Luck and Doom on my side, and my speed's fine, and my strength. But most of my magic? Poof."

"I don't believe it," Lyra growled. "It's impossible!" She held up her Camp Half-Blood key, and tried to summon the daughter of Janus.

Nothing.

Lyra went through all the keys, but nothing happened. Nobody came.

"No!" She yelled. "I refuse."

"Uh, Lyra," Benny said. "I'm really sorry, but I don't think--"

"Shut up!" Lyra yelled. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" She hunched over her keys. "It's impossible," she whispered fiercely, stroking her keys. "You know it's impossible. Come back to me..."

"Lyra?"

Andesine walked through the door. His head and fists were wrapped in layers of bandages.

"Go away, Andy," Lyra mumbled. Roxy explained in hushed tones while Lyra stared at her keys, daring them to stay silver.