Pt. 089.b— Day 10 Lizzy Challenge

Lizzy's boots met polished tile, and something with six arms turned to look at her.

The concourse stretched beneath a great roof of glass and steel ribs. Departure boards flickered between train times and evacuation warnings, while an announcement repeated through speakers that kept losing power. Across the hall, an Alter nearly seven feet tall was tearing a vending machine apart. Two others battered a café shutter. She counted six before the far lighting failed and swallowed the rest of the hall.

The purple sleeve of her uniform caught the warning lights when she reached for Van. The Alters looked ready for a fight. Lizzy was considerably less certain they were.

Two Alters turned toward them.

“Van, sorry.”

“For wha—”

She was already slipping through the floor and caught his trouser leg as she fell.

Silver-white ghostlight traced her outline as tile and concrete slipped past. Van made a startled noise, and his momentum tipped her sideways. Phasing hadn't given her the ability to float; gravity still wanted both of them.

She made them solid again just above the lower level and they landed in a tangled heap beside a bank of dead escalators, Van braced over her on his elbows.

“Sorry,” she said again, breathless enough to giggle. “I thought that was better than fighting six Alters.”

“Better than a lot of things,” he said under his breath. Their closeness was unplanned, but not unwelcome.

She discovered he was smiling down at her. “You're on top of me.”

“I noticed.” He showed no sign of moving.

“This is a terrible time to flirt.” Her own smile betrayed her. She pressed her lips to his in a quick kiss before she could lose her nerve. “Now we really do need to move.”

Van got to his feet and offered his hand. She took it, brushed dust off her uniform, and listened.

An automated voice was repeating an evacuation order overhead, sometimes losing whole syllables when the lights dimmed. Somewhere beyond the empty escalators, people were shouting. A steady metallic banging came from farther away, followed by a child's frightened cry.

“People,” she said.

Van had heard them too. They headed toward the noise.

The lower level was not entirely dark. Emergency strips traced the edges of the passage, but the overhead lights alternated between full brightness and a weak, dirty flicker. Several kiosks stood abandoned, their shutters half lowered. Someone had dropped a suitcase in the middle of the corridor. A paper cup lay on its side, bleeding coffee across a departure map.

They turned past a row of locked service doors and found the crowd.

There must have been more than a hundred people in the underground waiting area. Travelers sat on luggage or crowded against the walls. Transit employees passed out bottles of water. Two security officers guarded reinforced shutters that shuddered under heavy blows from the other side.

Lizzy began to pick out faces. A little boy had wrapped both arms around his father's neck. A woman in a wheelchair struggled to back away from the doors on a damaged wheel. A teenage employee pressed a radio button again and again, but heard only static.

“It's one of the Empowered!” someone called.

The sudden attention made Lizzy want to vanish. She remembered that she'd come here to help, not impress anyone, and made herself speak.

“I'm Wisp. Can someone tell me what's happened?”

The station supervisor was a gray-haired man with MARTINEZ on his reflective vest. He glanced at Van in confusion. “You're Empowered too?”

“No,” Van said. “Just trying to help.”

Martinez seemed too tired to argue over qualifications. He led them to a map spread beneath a portable lamp.

“Alters broke into the upper concourse. The shutters are holding, but the local controls down here are dead. We've got an incoming train in the east tunnel that isn't responding to radio contact.”

A conductor in a torn cap pointed along the route. “Something hit the train between stations. Last transmission said the cab controls were smashed. They couldn't get the brakes to respond, and then contact went out.”

“Can you stop it remotely?” Lizzy asked.

“From central operations. There's a separate emergency braking system, but the controls are upstairs, north side of the main concourse. If the train hits the underground terminus at speed, everyone in the platforms and connecting tunnels is at risk.”

“How long?”

“Maybe twenty minutes. Could be less. Tracking keeps dropping.”

A blow rang through the shutters. The little boy began to cry, and Lizzy's eyes traveled involuntarily to the red line on the map ending at the platform below them.

“You've called for help?”

“Immediately. But it's worse on the streets, and this level is recorded as secure. They're helping the exposed people first. We haven't been able to get a full report through about the train.”

Lizzy considered phasing outside, circling the station, and coming back in nearer the control room. But she couldn't reliably identify the room from outside, and the streets would expose Van to hordes of unknown Alters. Following the internal route would at least let her look ahead before taking each risk.

She moved a few steps away from the supervisor to speak to Van.

“I can't decide for you. We have to stay within ten meters of each other. If I go upstairs, you come with me, and I can't promise that phasing will protect you from everything. I think I can get us to the controls, but I need to know you're willing.”

He looked at the families behind the shutters. “I can't do what you can. But I want to help. We can't leave all those people waiting for a train to hit them.”

She hadn't expected an easy answer. His certainty still steadied her.

“Ok, but I might have to tell you what to do in the blink of an eye. Keep your ears open and stay ready.” Then in a softer voice, “Please.”

“You've got it.”

The conductor indicated the service stairs and traced the route through the concourse. Lizzy studied the turns until she could hold them in memory.

As they left, the woman in the wheelchair reached for Lizzy. “My daughter's on that train. Her name's Anika.”

Lizzy paused. She could not promise a happy ending.

“I'll do everything I can to stop it,” she said.

The woman nodded. Lizzy carried the name with her toward the stairs.

The supervisor began to speak, then merely nodded. “Service stairs through that door. North side on the upper level. And Wisp—”

She stopped.

“Thank you.”

Lizzy couldn't think of anything worth saying in answer. She took Van's hand and led him away.

---

The service stairs were sealed behind a reinforced steel shutter. Deep grooves scored the paint and one hinge had bowed outward under repeated impacts.

Van tested it with a gloved knuckle. “Those things really wanted in.”

“If that had opened, everyone downstairs would be in danger.” Lizzy took his hand. His black fingerless glove closed around her purple one. “Hold tight. I need contact to phase you with me.”

“Couldn't you just phase upward to the control room?”

“I can't fly. And I can't see through solid walls to know where I'll come out. If we follow the stairs and corridors, I can see what we're approaching instead of guessing.”

He nodded, then glanced again at the claw marks.

“And we have to be quiet,” she added. “Some Alters detect power use, and some have attacks phasing won't protect us from. We don't know which ones are up there.”

They stepped into the shutter together. Silver-white ghostlight traced their joined hands as the steel lost its resistance, and Lizzy concentrated on keeping the phase steady around both of them. Bringing another person through something so dense took more effort than passing alone.

On the far side, the stairwell smelled of concrete dust and old rainwater. A handrail hung partly torn from its brackets. The door at the top had lost its handle and was dented all around its frame.

Lizzy started climbing, one careful step at a time.

She couldn't shake the knowledge that the people below were counting on her. During training, Coach Rainer had always insisted that a power was only part of a rescue. You still needed to know where everyone was, what could go wrong, and how you intended to get them home.

Breathe first. Then move.

She reached the upper landing, caught sight of the damaged door, and stopped so abruptly that Van nearly stepped into her.

She pressed him against the wall beside her and brought a finger to her lips.

Through the hole where the handle had been, she could see a narrow slice of the concourse. A band of light flashed across scattered glass, then vanished. Beyond it lay a shadow that didn't match the angle of the kiosk beside it.

The shadow shifted.

Lizzy put her mouth close to Van's ear. “One waiting outside. Facing the door.”

His answering whisper was barely audible. “How do you know?”

“It's watching for someone to come out. I need to test something.”

She crouched and slipped one hand a few inches into the concrete floor. Through the handle hole, she watched the shape beyond the door. It didn't move.

“Probably not sensing the phase,” she murmured. “We can go around him, but be quiet.”

She checked the floor visible through the missing handle before committing them to the wall. She peeked out of the concrete and looked around. When she saw no second creature or dangerous debris where they would emerge, she kept hold of Van's wrist and led him through, several yards behind the waiting Alter. The silver-white haze vanished from her sleeve.

The creature was a knot of hunched limbs and hooked ridges. Its head remained angled toward the ruined stair door, listening. Lizzy heard its damp, rattling breath below the alarms.

A station display briefly recovered enough power to show that the incoming train was less than fifteen minutes away.

The creature began to turn.

She spotted an empty soda can beneath an overturned bench, picked it up, and sank her arm back through the wall. She let the can fall inside the stairwell.

It struck the concrete steps with three ringing clatters.

The Alter hurled itself through the broken doorway. Van caught a burst of bright cartoonish speech from the plush shape—“Who rattled my snack box?”—just before it disappeared.

Lizzy pulled him after her. They crossed the first open stretch at a run. Behind them came a metallic crash, then another, as the creature reached the shutter below and attacked it.

“Didn't like that,” Van whispered.

“Good. It'll spend time being angry at a door.”

They ducked behind a freestanding departure board. Ahead lay the north concourse, a long open hall broken by columns, ticket machines, and a central information kiosk. Lizzy found a sign for STATION OPERATIONS pointing beyond the far end.

The route might as well have been a mile.

!

---

Alters prowled among the ruins in ones and twos. Some moved on all fours, others in hunched approximations of human posture. One battered a vending machine each time its advertising screen flickered to life. Another stood below a ceiling speaker, twitching whenever the evacuation announcement crackled into another repetition.

The changing lights were worse than darkness. A broad patch of the hall would glow for two seconds, revealing a creature thirty yards away, then dissolve into shadow before Lizzy could tell where it had gone. Every alarm hid footsteps. Every sudden announcement threatened to send the nearest Alter into motion.

They moved between pillars, waiting for the lights to cycle before crossing exposed patches of floor. Each announcement concealed their footsteps but also sent nearby Alters into unpredictable motion. Lizzy could hear one attacking a ticket machine every time its screen lit up. Another stood under a speaker and struck the wall when the recorded voice repeated.

Van stayed beside her without complaining. Once, while she watched a prowling creature, he touched her elbow and pointed toward the glass of a deserted ticket booth. The sign for operations above it was broken, but a reflected arrow revealed the correct north passage farther along.

“Good catch,” she whispered. She'd been about to lead them toward the escalators.

He gave her a small shrug. “Thought I should look at something while you were watching everything else.”

They were nearing the information kiosk when an Alter climbed onto the countertop.

Lizzy shoved Van beneath the desk and followed him.

The cramped space was barely large enough for one person. They had to fold around a chair leg and a stack of brochures, Van's armored shoulder against Lizzy's chest and his hand caught at her hip where he'd braced himself. His eyes widened when he realized the position.

She pressed one finger lightly against his wrist. Stay still.

Above them, claws clicked on the desk. A dark chin hung briefly over its edge. Lizzy could feel each tap through the counter, along with Van's careful breathing. He began to move his hand away, but she shook her head. The scrape of fabric might bring the creature down on them.

She tried to concentrate on its shadow rather than the warmth of his hand through her suit.

A speaker over the kiosk crackled: “Attention. All passengers are advised—”

The Alter launched itself at the sound. Van's plush version announced in an aggrieved squeak, “The ceiling is talking again!” Glass shattered across the hall.

They crawled out and hurried behind the ticket gates. Neither mentioned the hiding place. Lizzy's cheeks were still warm when a faint train horn echoed through the concrete.

Van looked at her, suddenly sober.

“We're running out of time,” she whispered, already checking the path ahead.

There was a platform crossing between them and operations. Most of the overhead lighting there had failed, leaving the track area in darkness. Lizzy checked both directions, listened for movement, and led him across the open floor.

Halfway across the platform, a ceiling lamp snapped into full brightness.

Three Alters turned toward the pool of light around them.

“Run!”

They raced down the platform. The closest creature vaulted a bench and swung at them, fast enough to make Lizzy drag Van around a concrete pillar. The claws struck tile and left deep gouges behind.

She pulled him toward a structural post near the platform edge. Below them, the covered third rail ran alongside the track. The traction power remained live despite the overhead lighting failures.

“Stay away from the third rail,” she warned.

Van glanced down. “Isn't this when we phase?”

“Electricity and phasing don't mix. Low-voltage wiring is usually all right. That isn't.” She pointed to the post. “Stay there, please. Out of its path.”

She'd watched the Alter overcommit to two attacks. It threw its whole weight forward, and each time it struggled to change direction. Lizzy stepped toward the platform edge, carefully keeping the track behind her rather than Van. She could see an opening in the third rail's cover immediately below.

The creature advanced. She dodged another swipe without phasing, letting it believe she had nowhere left to run.

Then she stopped.

“Lizzy!” Van called.

She waited until its feet were off the floor and the lunge could no longer be checked.

Silver-white light shimmered around her as the Alter passed through her body. Its momentum carried it past the platform edge, down into the track bed, where its leg struck the exposed third rail.

A blue-white arc flashed. The creature convulsed, fell away from the contact, and lay still.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

To Van it was a stuffed creature with crooked button eyes and singed felt patches. It complained, “I don't like this playground!”

Van stared. “You fooled it!”

“Yes.” Her hands were shaking. She folded her fingers to hide it. “I couldn't have won a fight, now come on.”

From deep in the tunnel came a low vibration, steady enough to feel through her boots.

The other Alters were still coming.

---

They were close enough to read the smaller signs now. OPERATIONS. STAFF ONLY. CONTROL ROOM ACCESS. The sounds behind them multiplied; claws scuffed against tile, a metal rubbish bin flew into a wall, and something howled over the alarms.

Van saw the wall beside the operations corridor. “Can't we just go through there?”

“Not yet. This way.”

Lizzy dragged him through a service doorway into a storage room lined with shelves and cleaning supplies. She slammed the door and shot its heavy bolt closed.

The first impact rattled the shelves. The second bent the metal around the lock.

“Help me hold it!”

Van planted his boots and set his armored shoulder beside hers. His weight kept the door in place, though he had to adjust his stance with every blow.

“We could just go through the back wall,” he said through his teeth.

“That's what we're doing. They have to believe we're trapped in here first.”

Van looked at the wall, then back at the door. Understanding dawned; he shifted his weight to the strongest part of the frame, making the door harder to break just yet.

A second Alter joined the first. The blows came from two heights. A can slid off a shelf, and Lizzy caught it before it could ring against the floor and draw the creatures deeper into the room.

The metal hinge began to tear free. Lizzy waited one more heartbeat, long enough for the Alters outside to commit to getting through.

“Now,” she whispered.

They released the door together. Lizzy caught his hand and led him straight through the far wall, returning to the concourse beyond the corner. They emerged behind a fallen maintenance trolley and crouched.

The door in the next room gave way with a crash.

Several Alters piled inside, scrambling over boxes and ripping open cabinets. One attacked a mop bucket. Another hurled a crate against the wall Lizzy and Van had just crossed.

Van's grin was brief but genuine. “You made them chase an empty room.”

“They're good at chasing things. Not so good at remembering why.”

“Remind me never to play hide-and-seek with you.”

They were about to leave cover when something crossed the hall ahead.

This Alter was different.

It stood nearly upright, narrower through its middle than the others and smooth across the shoulders, as if someone had finished shaping it instead of abandoning the work halfway through. It passed the vandalized storage room without looking at the commotion inside.

Even Van's plush version had an unsettling neatness about it: precise seams, symmetrical limbs, dark polished button eyes fixed in a face without expression.

It glanced once toward the operations corridor and ran.

Lizzy rose. “Go!”

They sprinted for the control room. The creature cut across their route rather than following behind and reached the doorway ahead of them. It turned, one hand resting on the frame, and crouched to meet their approach.

“It's smart enough to know about the controls?” Van asked.

“Probably not. But it knows where we're going.”

Through the wired-glass window behind it Lizzy could see the red emergency handle, the track diagram, and a speed readout changing faster than she wanted to watch.

The wall beside the doorway carried a heavy electrical service duct. Warning signs marked the high-voltage feed. Her earlier trick with the third rail had depended on staying clear of the current. This one required doing the opposite.

She looked for another route. Luring the Alter away would cost time they no longer had. Phasing through alone would leave Van exposed and more than likely lose them the challenge. The room was visible, the destination certain. The danger lay in the short stretch of electrical feed between them and it.

“Remember what I said about electricity?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I have to take us through that wall. I can't promise it'll be comfortable.”

Van followed her gaze to the warning signs. His jaw tightened. “Do it.”

The Alter launched itself toward them.

Lizzy seized his hand and pulled him through the partition. The concrete yielded. The electrical feed did not. Something fierce and prickling raced across every part of her that passed through it. Her phasing stuttered. Silver-white light flickered around her shoulders, and the grip of Van's hand almost slipped as his balance shifted. She clenched tighter and forced the last inches of the wall behind them.

They staggered into central operations, Van catching himself on a console and Lizzy against his arm.

MASTER PROTECTION COMPROMISED

Protection Award Remaining: 2/3 VP

No injury appeared on either of them. Instead, Verena's promised replacement effect swept through Lizzy, an abrupt accumulating arousal that made every brush of her fitted uniform against her skin unbearably distracting. Her breath snagged. She had to brace both palms on the console while she fought to recover her concentration.

Van looked scarcely better. His face was flushed and his breathing uneven. When she steadied him with a hand against his bare upper arm, the touch sent another unwanted surge through her.

“That's—” He swallowed. “That's a terrible alternative to getting electrocuted.”

“It really is.” She pulled her hand away before the sensation consumed another second. “We have to stop the train first.”

A display announced the train was still inbound. Something struck the door behind them. Lizzy ran for the lever.

---

The emergency stop lever was secured behind a clear hinged cover. Lizzy flipped it open and hauled the handle down with both hands.

A new warning sounded beneath the evacuation alarm. The route diagram filled with red bars, and a line of text appeared on the main console.

EMERGENCY BRAKE COMMAND SENT.

Then:

TRAIN RESPONSE RECEIVED.

The velocity number began to fall.

“It's slowing!” she said.

The door came apart in a shower of glass and twisted metal. The Alter broke through at the same instant that reinforced shutters began descending across the control-room windows and adjoining passages. The emergency system was sealing the area against further intrusions.

It had caught this one inside with them.

The creature rushed across the room, head low and claws open. Lizzy grabbed Van and pulled him toward the far wall. The persistent replacement effect sent her pulse racing when his exposed arm brushed hers. There was no waiting for it to ease.

“Van, move!”

She shoved him away and retreated to the wall. The Alter's claws swept toward her with preternatural speed.

Lizzy phased.

The strike passed through her shoulder, carving through her ghostly body. A high pitched screech sounded as claws tore something apart within her. A hiss screamed into the air and white smoke blasted from her, rushing out in a blinding fan.

When she had backed up to the wall, she had covered a mounted fire extinguisher with her phased body, leaving the cylinder solid within her to hide it from the Alter.

A dense jet of white extinguisher powder filled the space between them.

The creature recoiled, hissing as it clawed at its eyes. Lizzy spun in place to grab the rattling extinguisher from its bracket. She yanked it loose and stumbled a step sideways. Her senses were so heightened that she could feel each seam of her glove against the metal handle. She made herself keep hold of it.

Van had recovered from being shoved towards the wall, coming face to face with a fire axe strapped in place near the sealed door. He freed the axe from the wall with a powerful tug and rounded on the beast.

He raised the axe and struck half blind into the choking cloud of smoke and powder, aiming by instinct more than effort. The axe crashed down with a terrible sound, biting into the tough flesh of the monster. The blade bit into bone and came to a shuddering halt causing Van’s hands and arms to tremble with the denied force of the blow.

The Alter reeled against a control panel. In Van's reality, its tightly sewn plush face twisted with indignation. “You've ruined my best stitching!” it cried.

Van was too focused on the creature to answer.

Lizzy turned on one boot and swung the extinguisher with both hands, using the weight of the cylinder and the momentum of her body. The blow struck the side of the Alter's head with a hard metallic crack.

It collapsed across the damaged console, slid to the floor, and went still.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

She held the cylinder for another breath, watching for any movement. Van lowered the axe but stayed beside her.

Then the control display chimed again. The speed readout for the inbound train showed zero.

Lizzy let the extinguisher settle against the floor. She thought of Martinez waiting downstairs, the boy in his father's arms, and the woman who had asked her to save Anika. Someone would tell them the train had stopped. Perhaps the station radio was already carrying the news.

Her hands were shaking. She'd been afraid from the moment they appeared in the upper concourse, and that fear hadn't vanished just because the job was done. But for the first time since their arrival she could stop calculating the next movement and simply look at Van, standing safe beside her.

Lizzy stared at the notification.

Van laid the axe on an empty console and turned to her. White powder covered his black-and-red armor and one cheek. He was breathing hard, but he was smiling.

“Are you all right?”

Lizzy meant to answer immediately. Instead she stared at the powder on his face and remembered the moment she'd pushed him toward the axe, trusting him to understand what she needed. She'd never actually fought an Alter before. She had practiced for years, learned to escape, learned to keep others safe, and watched heroines with far more obvious combat powers do the fighting.

Her arms ached from the weight of the extinguisher. She'd done it herself.

“You were amazing,” Van said. “I wouldn't even have thought of the extinguisher.”

It was the specific praise that undid her. He'd noticed the decision she'd made, not simply the result. She wanted to explain how close she'd come to losing her balance, and how frightened she'd been when the creature entered the room.

Instead she dropped the extinguisher and crossed the space between them. She caught the front of his armor and kissed him.

The first kiss downstairs had been a brief, nervous laugh. This one was fueled by relief, excitement, pride, and a desire she'd been carrying long before the challenge began. She drew closer when he answered, wanting him to understand that she was choosing him, even in the middle of a situation neither of them would have chosen.

The arousal replacement made every sensation stronger. His hand settling against her waist, the warmth of his bare arm, the pressure of her glove against the reinforced chest of his armor—each touch demanded attention she could scarcely spare. She opened herself to the kiss and found her tongue seeking his .

A gold notification brightened at the edge of her vision.

FIRST FRENCH KISS

+2 VP

Lizzy barely noticed.

Van kissed her back, then drew away gently, his hands still resting at her waist. He looked affectionate and a little unsteady.

“Maybe,” he said, “we save the rest for somewhere with fewer monsters and less magical Viagra?”

Lizzy closed her eyes, caught somewhere between laughing and hiding her face against his chest.

“I know you're right,” she admitted. Her words came more slowly. “I just want you to know that I have been looking for an excuse to do that for days now.”

His expression softened. “I know. I wanted to kiss you too.”

She held his gaze a moment longer. The magical sensation remained as strong as ever, but she was able to step back before she reached for him again.

Van rubbed the back of his neck. “For what it's worth, that was a pretty good first fight.”

“The extinguisher was ugly.”

“It worked.”

She looked from the unconscious creature to the mess covering their uniforms. Her purple sleeves were dusty, black leg panels streaked with grime, and something dark had splashed onto one boot. Van looked as if he'd rolled through a maintenance closet.

She began to laugh, first quietly and then with enough force that she had to cover her mouth.

“What?” he asked.

“We're filthy, there's an Alter on the floor, and I'm acting like this is a date.” She attempted to brush powder from his shoulder but only spread it farther. “This is hardly the time for romance.”

Van smiled and let her have the moment without another joke.

A warm gold light gathered behind her shoulder.

Lizzy turned to read it.

CHALLENGE COMPLETE

ALTERS DEFEATED: 2

MASTER PROTECTION: 2/3 VP

CHALLENGE AWARD: 4 VP

ELIZA QUINN

TOTAL SEASON VP: 19

A faint silver-white ripple crossed the purple fabric near her hip and vanished under the gold light. Lizzy was already reading the score again, barely believing it.

Van opened his mouth to congratulate her, but the world froze around him.

Dust hung motionless in the air. The alarm light was fixed halfway through its pulse, and even the loose strands of Lizzy's hair had stopped moving.

A thin line of gold drew his attention toward the floor at her feet. Something pale lavender lay amid the extinguisher powder.

It was a pair of panties. He stared in disbelief as a translucent panel appeared over them.

SECRET BOUNTY - PANTY SNATCHER

Secretly retrieve the item: +250 BP

Leave the item behind: −500 BP

Van read the instructions twice, hoping he'd misunderstood.

Then time resumed with a lurch.

Lizzy was still reading her score. Van crouched as though adjusting a fastening on his boot, snatched up the lavender fabric, and stuffed it into his pocket in one desperate motion. He straightened before she turned.

“Four challenge points,” she said with a delighted, disbelieving smile. “We did all right, didn't we?”

“Yeah.” His mouth felt dry. “We really did.”

She reached for his hand as white light began to fill the damaged control room. He took it, making very sure to keep his other hand away from his pocket.

Lizzy squeezed his fingers, entirely unaware.

Together they faded from the station.