Playing With Fire (EDITING)

Enemies and Allegiances

I was woken up when the sound of alarms filled the Helicarrier. People were rushing around and Dr. Banner was rummaging in a box underneath his bunk for something I couldn't see. "Doc? What's going on?"

He turned his head to see me over his shoulder. "Lyrica, you're awake, good. Suit up. We're going to need you."

"Why? What's going on?" I asked, standing and rolling my shoulders.

"We don't exactly know," he replied.

"What set off the alarm?"

He hesitated before answering, and from the way his muscles tensed, he didn't like what was happening. "You'll see. Just get ready."

I narrowed my eyes but nodded and grabbed a change of clothes. When Dr. Banner stood up, he spotted the bundle of cloth and shook his head. "Not that. We found something a little more battle-friendly for you." He opened a compartment door and pulled out a bag before handing it to me.

Inside was a suit with my measurements and dimensions that fit perfectly. I could tell it had been specifically designed not for me as Lyrica, but for me as Aquila. The pants were a golden brown material like a cross between leather and denim with all the flexibility and durability I could ever want. The tight fitting tank top was gold but not sparkly, flashy, or low cut. I pulled on the suit and tied my hair into a long French braid down my back before tugging my arms through the sleeves of my dark brown leather jacket. I finished by tying up my brown leather boots and donning my sword and belts.

I raced out of the bunk room and followed the flow of the crowd to the top deck where chaos swallowed all semblance of order. I was lost as to what to do until Romanoff jogged past and beckoned for me to follow her. "Just do as much damage to them as you can," she shouted at me over the noise of a lightning bolt being shot from Mjolnir.

"Them?" I shouted back in confusion. "Who's them?"

But Romanoff was already gone, and I was left alone on the top deck in the middle of absolute disorder. Scraps of metal flew through the air and narrowly missed agents as they darted about like ants at a drowning anthill. I forced myself to focus and waited for the next attack. When it came in the form of a blast of superheated light that knocked Thor into the ocean, I followed the blast backwards to see the source.

As soon as I spotted the source of the attack, I was blasted backwards off my feet by a ball of hot air and into a pile of rubble. When I regained my feet, I was unable to straighten when something large and leathery began to beat me round the head. Slipping a knife from my sleeve, I stabbed upwards in the direction of the source of my assailant. The beating disappeared and I spun to my right.

Before me was a reptilian creature roughly the size of a large house cat with thick purple skin and menacing yellow eyes. His wings beat unevenly and one bled from a large slash wound inflicted by my knife. It opened its jaws and I knew what would happen quickly enough to kick the monster in the face. It spiraled away from me and I sprinted toward the center of the battle.

In the air flew a girl dressed in a yellow spandex suit with long auburn hair and a glowing orange aura about her. As I watched, she condensed this aura and hurled it at the Captain who was desperately trying to fend off another lady in a spandex outfit.

"Cap! Watch out!!" I shouted, flinging my knife at the girl in yellow. She knocked it aside ten feet from her person with a flick of her wrist.

At the same time, Captain Rogers ducked behind his shield and used the momentum to swing his shield arm into the other woman's ribs, throwing her fifteen feet to the hard top deck.

Before I could react, a girl with shoulder length pink hair and butterfly wings socked me in the gut and knocked my feet from beneath me. I landed on the deck with a grunt before rolling backwards and kicking her in the face. She tossed a handful of glittery powder at me, but I dodged it and unsheathed my sword.