The Storm Within - Chapter 1

Many thanks to Cathi, my most dedicated proof reader.

To Fury Brightwell, Cassidy Saint-James, Anja Reed, Charlie-Rose Hurn, Alana Bleness, and Nat for their invaluable feedback. Thank you for being my beta readers.

And to Kevin, without whom I never would have finished this story.

         

I - Headquarters.

The morning sky was aflame, the ground below frozen. Frost cracked under the boots of the determined figure striding across a white meadow. An icy breeze bit at her face, tugging at her scarf, whipping brown curls into her face. She relished the ferocity of the wind around her.

Not a soul could be seen on this clear December morning. Lyra scanned her surroundings regardless, wary from experience. Nothing stirred. She closed her eyes and let her mind reach outward. Her kanoth - the superhuman ability she had been born with - allowed her to detect the slightest thought of anyone in her vicinity. With time and training, so she had been told, she'd develop her powers into more than merely sensing someone's thoughts. But for now, this would have to make do.

She sensed nothing aboveground, save for one lonely oak, which stood in the middle of the field a couple hundred feet away. The idea of a sentient tree made Lyra chuckle. She knew the culprits of that interference, trudging towards it through the snow.

The gnarly tree loomed over her like a sentinel. Lyra couldn't remember if it had ever borne leaves. A circle of roots at least fifteen feet around lay exposed to the elements, too massive to be covered entirely by snow.

Lyra gave the trunk an affectionate pat. Reaching into a hollow amidst its roots, she heaved open a heavy trap door, then looked over her shoulder a final time. Nothing.

With one quick movement, the girl who had stood in the middle of the snowy pasture had vanished.

An iron ladder led her downwards, home. The metal under her fingers was cold, the surrounding walls a little too close for comfort. A wet, musky scent greeted her. Bang! The heavy trapdoor slammed shut overhead and darkness choked out the world, forcing her to rely on her sense of touch. A familiar meow echoed through the shaft. After about ten feet, faint light filtered in from below. Another five feet and she dropped into a poorly lit corridor.

Dim electric lights were fastened to blank concrete walls, an orange lamp illuminating the entryway of their headquarters. A narrow corridor stretched out in front of Lyra, about as wide as the shaft she had climbed through. A small creature sat to her left, pressed close to the wall.

"Mrrrph?"

The black she-cat headbutted her leg. Her tabby fur, streaked with ginger, looked like a vat of ink in this light. She continued brushing around Lyra's legs.

"Are you my escort today, Pumpkin?"

Pumpkin the cat responded with a blink of her trusting amber eyes. As Lyra bent down and pet her fuzzy little head, she couldn't help but smile. She wasn't huge on animals in general, but Pumpkin had a special place in her heart. That cat had been a part of these halls for as long as Lyra could remember. When the Order had first moved in, as she had been told, they had found the she-cat fast asleep in a corner; it would have been rude to evict her from her home. By now, they had come to accept her as part of the inventory, the unofficial eighth member of the Order.

Pumpkin started purring but ducked out of the way when Lyra tried to lift her up. Tail held high, she pranced down the corridor, occasionally glancing back to see if Lyra was keeping pace.

They followed the tunnel deeper into the earth. Lyra wondered, not for the first time, about the true dimensions of this burrow. After all, they had enough space for a two-storey library, a twenty-foot-high training hall, dormitories, a kitchen, a dining room, storage facilities, a lounge area, and countless more locked rooms she had never entered. There had to be more entries, considering Pumpkin scarcely had enough strength or skill to lift the heavy trap door Lyra had entered through. Her eyes fell on the cat, and for a moment she wished her telepathy extended to animals. She'd love to know Pumpkin's every thought. Alas, she could only glimpse the thoughts of humans.

Most of the time, that meant picking up fleeting thoughts and ideas from those within close vicinity. Unless she actively chose to listen, everyone else's thoughts were the equivalent of white noise to her; she felt like a radio, aware of a broad spectrum of garbled frequencies around her, but rarely actively tuning in on one. Then again, some people were better at mentally shielding themselves than others, and it was always a little harder to tune out some of the louder signals.

The corridor opened up ahead, and Lyra stood in the heart of their base. The hexagonal room also had bare concrete walls, no dor or wallpaper allowed. They served a much more practical use, being plastered with bulletin boards and white boards, some still covered in files and drawings respectively. An elaborate baroque chandelier lit the room with garish white light. A flatscreen TV hung overhead, a modern installation glaringly out of place in this room built in the eighties. At the centre stood a massive six-sided ebony table, the sole focal point of the room. Twelve seats were located around the table, two on each side, each of them in a distinctive style. The entire room had a lovely make-shift feel to it, as if every past tenant had added whatever they wanted to their base.

"Oh no, you don't." Pumpkin had jumped onto the table. Lyra dropped her coat over a chair and lifted her down. Within the Order, they had agreed to keep the cat off the table. Pumpkin knew this rule as well. She began to purr.

"Stop it. You are being punished," she sternly told the cat, who snuggled into her arms, purring even louder. "This is punishment." Lyra crossed the room, still petting the cat. A diverse mixture of thoughts echoed to her from the opposite door. She opened it, revealing a narrow tunnel that led even deeper underground.

A text message had woken her up that morning, a summon from her friend Jane. At the ripe old age of sixteen, Jane was the oldest of them, making her de facto leader. She had sent one of her usual messages: HQ now, mission ready.

To Lyra's sleep-addled brain, that text had made her feel like a secret agent. Of course, their motley group of friends was far from being the well-structured secret society of their predecessors.

The scope of their base hinted at the glory of past days, when the real Crystal Order had been around. Now that's what you could call a secret organisation. The original Order had disbanded long ago, forced apart by internal conflict. Siblings Jane and Neiro, inspired by childhood stories, had re-founded this modern iteration of the Order. They had discovered this abandoned outpost; it had become the headquarters of a new generation, working to restore the glories of old.

Lyra entered her favourite part of HQ. A single ceiling lamp bathed the circular room in yellowish light. Round tables of varying sizes were scattered around the room, some surrounded by office chairs, some by armchairs and sofas. Four ventilation shafts supplied this underground room with fresh air. A mini fridge stood in the far corner, clearly out of place, moved there by herself and her friends. Beside it, lounging in armchairs, were two of said friends, both facing away from the hallway.

Neiro sat to the left, stray black locks sticking up at odd angles. He was leaning forward, tension expressing his interest in their card game. His older sister was his visual opposite, lounging back in an armchair, a lazy hand trailing over an armrest. Only the top of her head was visible, her matte black hair shaved on one side of her head.

"You're awfully active at seven in the morning." Lyra stifled a yawn.

Neiro, fixated on the game, didn't react. His sister, however, sat up and turned around, her pale and piercing eyes boring into Lyra.

"We had to find some way to stay awake," she mused with a thin eyebrow raised. Her narrow, unsmiling lips made it hard to interpret Jane's unmoving mask of a face. Her pale skin and high cheekbones could give her an ethereal appearance, especially in this artificial lighting. But Lyra had learned how to read her friend during their time spent together. Jane was amused. "You took way too long."

"If only we knew a teleporter." Lyra looked pointedly at Neiro. She hadn't appreciated him ignoring her request to pick her up. His kanoth allowed him to travel great distances within the blink of an eye. A handy power in theory, when he could be bothered to use it responsibly. Not so handy when its wielder preferred a cosy bed to his duties.

"Lyra, you can fly," Jane pointed out, the corners of her mouth drawing up into a mocking smile.

"I'm not flying across the countryside in the middle of winter! Do you know how cold it gets up there?"

Jane clicked her tongue, a mixture of pity and apathy.

Meanwhile, Pumpkin the cat, growing fidgety in Lyra's arms, jumped down and ran towards her favourite human.

"Ah, good morning, Pumpkin," Neiro greeted the cat, a faint accent audible.

"Bom dia, Neiro," said Lyra, pointedly using what little Portuguese she knew from her mother. Neiro had been overjoyed to learn they spoke the same language, albeit with different accents. Nevermind the fact that Lyra barely knew enough to help her get through a conversation.

Neiro started, looking at the cat with surprise, as if thinking Pumpkin had spoken. When he finally looked up, a mischievous grin spread across his olive-toned face, making the scars on his left cheek wrinkle.

"Ah, pequena, you're finally here!"

"Neiro, I swear to god, if you're not going to stop calling me that - "

Neiro had already teleported away, leaving behind a startled Pumpkin. Sure, now he was fine with using his kanoth. Jane rolled her eyes and started packing up their card game.

"Lyra, can you tell where he went?"

Did she even care? "I think he's in the - "

Neiro reappeared in the centre of the room, now completely drenched. His baggy jeans and shirt clung to his body, highlighting his belly in an unflattering manner. His gleeful grin made his pointed face look like that of a maniac elf. Neiro shook his wet curls like a dog and spread his arms.

"Water you expecting?"

Lyra smiled, her annoyance melting away. His sister on the other hand looked anything but amused.

"Que diabo tu est fazendo?!"

Neiro glanced from Lyra's smile to his sister and back again. Before anyone else could speak, a dark figure materialized out of the far wall. Her best friend Gabe marched towards them, wearing a bright yellow towel, soap bubbles still in his hair. A layer of water droplets coated his coppery brown skin. He seemed less than thrilled. His light green eyes shone yellow in this light, his bushy eyebrows were furrowed. He punched Neiro in the side.

"What the hell, dude?!"

While angry, Gabe was normally an intimidating force to be reckoned with. His kanoth allowed him to pass through solid material, granting him access to any material place in the world. Despite being their newest member, his powers within the Order were matched only by Jane and Falco. He enjoyed a certain unspoken respect from his friends. That couldn't save his grace this time, however. Surprised laughter erupted in the room at his appearance.

"Oh, shut up!" Bubbles began popping in his frizzy hair. Gabe punched Neiro in the side. "Who just appears when someone is taking a shower?" he demanded. "Who? Does? That?!" Three more blows.

Neiro teleported to the other end of the room. "Yeah, whatever. Look, I'm sorry," he added when Gabe began phasing through a table between them with a homicidal look in his eyes. "But look who's finally here." He gestured in Lyra's direction.

"Oh, I see. You guys are having a grand ol' time here," he said when he saw how Lyra fought to keep a straight face. She put her hands up in an apologetic gesture.

"Look, Gabe, I just got here. I don't even know what's going on."

"I can set that straight, when you're all done with your nonsense," Jane chimed in, annoyance cooling her amused tone of voice. Neiro froze, and even Gabe raised an eyebrow at her. The grin vanished from Lyra's face. It wasn't that Jane didn't have a sense of humour, but this was business. She expected everyone to act accordingly.

"Neiro, dry yourself off, you're soaking wet. Gabriel, put some clothes on."

"You're not my boss." Gabe crossed his arms, his lower body half still very much stuck inside a table. They locked eyes, Jane considering him for a second. The air stood still. Finally, Jane shrugged after what felt like an eternity, her hand waving dismissively.

"You're right, I'm not. Suit yourself."

Neiro's face lit up. "Does that mean -"

She cut her brother off. "Jchega! You will dry yourself and this room and you will do it now."

Muttering something under his breath, Neiro teleported away, reappearing somewhere deeper within their base. Gabe took one look down his still wet body, changed his mind, and stalked through the wall he had appeared through.

Suddenly someone plopped into existence right next to Lyra, causing her to jump five feet into the air. Instinct had made her use her crystal powers.

Every member of the Crystal Order was the wielder and guardian of a nominal crystal shard. Each elemental shard allowed its wielder a certain extent of control over parts of the physical world, as long as they kept physical contact to their crystal. Their powers, as far as Lyra could tell, were practically unlimited, proportional to the wielder's creativity and experience, precision dictated by a wielder's level of self-control. The Order had found seven of twelve known shards so far, Lyra's being the most recent one. Her crystal granted her aerokinesis, the ability to control the air around her. It allowed her to fly at will or channel powerful winds. Or jump to the ceiling when startled, like when her friend teleported right next to her.

She jumped like a normal person did when startled, and the gemstone on her necklace responded, amplifying her surprise. She shot upwards, cursing when her head connected with the low ceiling. Pain shot through her spine like lightning. Instinctively, she spread out her hands to cushion her fall, compressing the air to unnaturally slow her decent. Wind blew around her, whipping her hair around. Her entire body tingled with adrenaline. A burning sensation gathered in her chest, the type of automatic response the body has to a sudden injury. It was the same reaction one has to hitting their toe against furniture, disproportional anger taking hold over the body for a few seconds to process the sudden pain.

The furniture in the room was scattered or knocked over. Loose objects were flying around the room as air was pushed away from below her. Jane pressed close to the wall, her eyes squinted, one hand raised to shield her face. Neiro had dived behind a fallen chair for protection.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," he said as he got up slowly, his hands raised, shoulders drawn up. His eyes were wide with alarm. "I overshot, sorry."

Lyra barely heard him. Her pulse echoed through her head, pain clouding her senses. The gemstone against her collarbone grew bright. At the edge of her vision, she was dimly aware of Jane shouting something at her.

As quickly as it had come on, her body relaxed, relinquishing the power coursing through her veins. Her eyes fell on Neiro again, and something inside her melted. The fear in his face brought her back to reality. She had seen him afraid before, and it had been the worst sight in the world. And now his fear was directed at her.

Her feet touched the ground, unsteady. Her muscles were sore, her cranium ablaze. Her vision doubled for a second, then turned sideways. Strong arms caught her from behind.

"Steady," someone muttered in her ear.



She couldn't remember laying down, but when she next opened her eyes, her friends' concerned hazy faces rimmed her field of vision. Her ears were ringing. The ceiling light was way too bright. Someone pressed a cool hand against her forehead.

"I think she should be fine." Gabe's voice cut through the mist. "She hit her head real' bad is all."

A groan escaped Lyra's lips as she raised a hand to her scalp. The throbbing inside her head had subsided, fading into a low background hum. Gabe was right, nothing too serious. She sat up slowly.

Blinking sluggishly, Lyra looked around the room. Scattered bits of paper decked the floor, armchairs were knocked over. Broken bits of what used to be a table were scattered in the corner. Their mini fridge had been knocked over, moved by a foot. Pumpkin was nowhere to be found. She guessed that smart cat had bolted out of the room at the first sign of trouble.

"Did - did I do that?"

Lyra looked down at the crystal around her neck, resting innocently against her collarbone. Heat flared up her neck, flushing her cheeks. Embarrassment prickled her skin at how easily she had lost control of her powers. What would Falco think when he found out?

"I'll say." Gabe's voice chimed in from behind her. He had managed to get dressed. "I go get ready and suddenly we get hurricane Lyra in our base. Seen worse, though. One time, I flooded an entire alleyway with sewage water because I got scared during the night. Turns out that street cat really wasn't happy about being doused with water and - "

"Lyra..." Jane's soft voice interrupted Gabe before he could finish his story. Lyra shot him a quick smile for his attempt to cheer her up. Jane sighed, her mouth set in a strict line. Her eyes were not unkind, however. "I know sudden injury can trigger a momentary loss of control. This wasn't the worst outburst I've encountered."

All movement in the room stopped. Neiro glimpsed aside, trying to hide the old burn marks on one side of his face. Needles prickled against the base of Lyra's skull as she accidentally picked up Jane's thoughts: the accident Jane had caused while wielding her fire crystal; understanding and disappointment wrestling with each other; the high expectations she had in Lyra to be better than herself. All these impressions came within a second, none of them complete thoughts. Jane suddenly looked very tired.

Lyra shifted her position to sit upright on the floor, meeting Jane's gaze steadily.

"I'll learn to control this." After six months of training, I shouldn't even have this problem anymore. She knew of the temptation the crystal offered, like it was sentient with a will to corrupt. It was easy to give in to its power, but, as Aila had explained to her, being a kanothi made her more resilient to its influences. After all, naturally having superhuman abilities should desensitize her such influences. In theory.

"I'm sorry," she said to Neiro, who now faced back towards her. The burn marks that licked down his cheek were barely visible in this light. "I'm so sorry for scaring you." Neiro's face, twisted with fear, would forever be burned into her mind.

She looked around the room and sighed. This would take forever to clean up. "I guess I should get right to this?"

"I'm afraid there isn't time for cleaning," said Jane, matter-of-fact. "There is a reason I called you here this early."

"At this rate," Neiro said, a forced light-heartedness in his voice, "it'll be a miracle if you meet Falco on time."

Jane sighed. "Let's just get this over with. We'll discuss everything in the main room."



"Time is of the essence here," she told them when they had seated themselves, taking their usual seats around the hexagonal table. Lyra sat in a simple padded chair, one that allowed her to sit upright and look taller than her 5'4". Gabe had claimed the swivel chair to her left, wiggling back and forth as he listened to their leader. He'd filled up his waterskin and fetched his scarf and winter jacket. Neiro lounged in a semi-reclined seat across the table, his leg draped over an armrest, his hands squeezing a stress ball to help him focus. The excitement from earlier was almost forgotten. Typical Neiro: always moving forwards, never looking back.

Jane also stood opposite of Lyra and Gabe, pacing back and forth as she briefed them.

"We have reason to suspect one of the crystals has found its way into a small countryside town called Hollowston. Most likely a fire crystal, one that burned down the village during the Conflict. You'll need to be swift and efficient if we want to prevent that from happening again."

"That's one dramatic way to put it," Gabe chimed in, his brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Lyra sensed Jane considering a sarcastic response before thinking better of it. Instead, she let down her barriers.

"I saw a wall of flame moving towards a village. It's going to be soon. Didn't know where, but I saw snowy landscapes in the distance and connected the dots. My fires can burn in the snow, so my guess is that it's another crystal. And we're still missing two fire shards, if you'll remember."

Regret scurried over Gabe's face when he realised what he touched upon. Unlike his and Lyra's kanoth, Jane's was a lot less straightforward, and Jane herself was a lot more cryptic about it. All they knew was that their friend occasionally had visions of the past or a potential future, though how exactly her time powers worked no one was sure about, least of all Jane. It didn't help that Jane refused to experiment with her kanoth, citing her fear of disrupting spacetime as reason not to do anything with her kanoth ever.

"And we know it's this place because she shared her vision with me," Neiro chimed in, saving Gabe from having to respond. Kanothi, once trained sufficiently, had the ability to briefly share their powers with other kanothi. Lyra herself had only ever gotten as far as telepathically communicating with her friends, like a metaphysical group chat, and that had only worked within a five-foot range.

Neiro continued. "And I found it. It matches up with where we know a couple of the battles went down. You know..." he made a vague gesture, "... back then."

'Back then' referred to what they called the Conflict, though that didn't seem to be the best name for it. People had lost their lives 'back then'. Lyra still didn't know what exactly had happened or who they'd had a conflict with, but she had been told betrayal and greed had torn the original Crystal Order apart, scattering its members and their crystal shards all around the world.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Lyra saw Gabriel purse his lips. His crystal shard had been a gift from his mother when he was a child, before she had disappeared. Though none of them knew for certain, it was fair to assume his mother had been part of the original Order, Gabe's parentless childhood being collateral damage of the Conflict.

"I've been doing some research, and there seem to have been some fires around the village recently," Jane continued, snapping Lyra out of her thoughts. "Nothing serious yet, an abandoned farm house, a couple of trees in a nearby forest, an old car; but it is a bit unusual in the middle of winter. If it's some kid that's literally playing with fire, it is our duty to interfere."

Lyra rolled her eyes. Leave it to Jane to add pizzazz to a simple retrieval mission. They'd probably arrive to find some brat playing with a shiny quartz, not realising the damage they caused, and just take their new toy away. Hardly something to merit a six o'clock summons. And yet, she had been selected for this task, not Scott or Mila or Neiro. This would be her first official retrieval, and she felt excitement bubbling to her chest despite herself.

"And Falco will meet us there?" she asked, eager to get this briefing over with. Jane nodded. "Great. Let's go."

"Try to find the crystal as soon as possible. I have a feeling whoever it is might do a lot more damage if left unchecked."

Lyra nodded, slowly getting to her feet. Neiro immediately jumped out of his chair, his bored expression melting into excitement. Gabe slowly pushed his swivel chair backwards. "So we'll just, what, say we're investigating the fires? A bunch of teenagers? Won't that be suspicious?"

"I trust you'll find a reasonable excuse," Jane responded. "Falco is with you, he's done this before."

Gabe nodded, not quite satisfied, but Neiro grabbed Lyra's and Gabe's hand, suddenly standing between them. "Let's go!"

Lyra was just quick enough to grab her red coat before she was whisked away, the ground dissolving under her feet.




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