First Song

I noticed rifts were opening in the ceiling and support beams as the dust settled from the last tremor. The basement wasn’t designed to withstand the kind of punishment that it was going to receive if one of those shards landed anywhere near it.

As the tremors subsided, coughs and groans took their place.

Oh Goddess, we’re sitting ducks down here. What do we do now?

‘We go above,’ she answered.

Muse clearly had a plan, even if she wasn’t explaining it to me right now.

Casey and Sebastian were still fixated on the glowing device strapped to my arm, but they snapped out of it when I spoke.

“I need to go topside,” I told them, eyes flicking from one to the other. “We won’t be able to help everyone here if the basement collapses.”

“I’m coming with,” Casey added, with a firm, determined nod.

I wanted to object, to keep her safe, but the resolve in her eyes told me that she wouldn’t accept anything less than walking up those stairs by my side.

“We’ll be right behind you, but I will need to look after the injured first,” Sebastian smiled, dragging his focus from Casey to me.

Compared to me they were a fair bit taller, and I was forced to tilt my neck back to see them both. It felt strange to be given the position of leadership like this, with an expectation that I would take charge.

The half-minute gaps between impacts didn’t leave us much time to prepare, and Jacques and Nicole helped us to move the barricades out of the way of the doors as quickly as possible. The equipment was heavy, and without the two of us, it would have taken way too long to get everything cleared enough for us to leave.

While all that was happening, I could hear the rumbling of rolling thunder, combined with the juddering of another tremor. This one felt like it was the furthest away yet, so I wasn’t as worried for now. I had been wondering whether the machines didn’t know exactly where Apollo was, or if they were struggling to control the exact landing location of their missiles.

Once the doors were unbolted and opened, the two of us slipped outside into the stairwell. I could see pieces of broken glass littering the steps already, plus signs of dust and rubble that hadn’t been there only ten minutes before.

Jacques gave us a wink, “Give ‘em hell.”

I smirked, then he closed the door behind us.

“Let’s go,” Casey ordered, leading the way above ground. As I looked up, I noticed that the building seemed to be darker than it had before – something had to be blocking out even more of the sunlight.

The sound of crunching glass followed every footstep as we passed through the doors at the top of the stairs. As I’d suspected, the windows here had been blown in, much like everywhere else in the building. The wind was howling past us, funneled through the corridors and broken window frames.

‘We need to reach the roof to make full use of our storm,’ Muse instructed.

Wait, our storm? What did she mean by that? Goddess, there was so much that she and I needed to talk about once we had some time.

‘I’ll have my secretary arrange a meeting.’

I grumbled aloud as we made our way back into the atrium. One of the walls, made up entirely of a bank of windows, was gone. It’s absence revealed a panorama of the town around us. Mushroom clouds peppered the landscape around the town, including one that towered over the buildings around us. That one must have been responsible for all the shattered glass.

“Shit. It’s almost like they’re nuking the place,” Casey commented, her eyes wide.

‘My preliminary analyses of the objects in space, plus their relative velocity, tells me that these are likely not the result of thermonuclear detonations,’ Muse whispered in my ear. So at least we wouldn’t have to worry about radiation sickness.

“We have to get to the roof,” I told Casey, reaching for her arm to pull her towards the staircase in the corner. It would be stupid to try to use a lift right now, so the stairs were our only option.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a blindingly bright explosion. I hadn’t been able to see anything except a streak where it had burned into my retina. Whatever had hit the ground must have been moving so fast that my eyes couldn’t even register it before it struck.

Tremors shook the building as we reached the third floor, but we didn’t stop. It took about twenty more seconds for a loud rip-crack and muffled explosion to reach us – followed shortly by another gale of wind.

We staggered our way up to the top floor, then took the ladder, climbing up to the hatch that opened onto the roof. Lightning was crackling across the stormy sky above us when I flipped it open – rumbles of thunder were echoing between the buildings that crowded around us.

“So, what’re we doing up here?” Casey asked me, shouting through the wind.

I shot her a grin, my russet-coloured hair billowing around me. Now, where did I put that hairband?

---

As is usually the case, I remembered where I’d put my earbuds and hairband after I’d found them – nestled into the corner of one of my thigh pockets. Casey had watched me with confused amusement as I frisked myself down trying to find them.

From our current vantage point, we saw several more blinding flashes announcing the arrival of more of the space shards. We were never able to follow the projectile’s path as anything but a searing line of white fire that ran from the ground, up to the black clouds above. Lightning would arc an instant later, following the path of superheated plasma that had just been carved into the atmosphere.

I found it to be equal parts fascinating and terrifying.

While their impact points had looked random to start with, they seemed to be working towards our position with each successive strike.

‘Get ready, Erin,’ Muse instructed, distracting me from my thoughts.

Right. We were up here to do something.

It was practically a ritual for me now. Whenever I really needed to be able to connect with Muse, I would take out my earbuds and wedge them in tightly. My playlists were already arranged, and I selected one that I thought would be most apt – hard rock and anime theme songs.

The battery level indicator was actually starting to get low, so I’d have to remember to make sure it gets charged at some point.

As we waited for the strikes to come closer, I took the hairband and wrapped it three times around my bunched up hair, making a basic ponytail. Casey and I exchanged glances, but she was already rolling her eyes at me, smirking.

I squinted back, making me smile even more, then took a deep breath, and allowed myself to fall into the music.

So. Now what?

‘Now we learn how to use the Aegis, together,’ Muse told me as yet another impact landed. I’d started to lose count of how many it had been so far, but we had to be somewhere in the fifteen or sixteen range by now.

From what I could remember, the Aegis was a shield sometimes given to Athena by her father: Zeus, the king of the gods.

But, how could a shield even stop one of these meteors from hitting the ground? They were going way too fast.

‘We will have to redirect it.’

Redirecting was all well and good, but wouldn’t the earthquake still cause the basement to collapse?

There was silence as I waited for her reply, then a voice said beside me said, “Yes, it would.”

Startled, I snapped my head around. I’d heard Muse’s voice even though my music was blaring, and the wind was buffeting my ears. Beside me was a young woman with dark black hair, gently billowing around her shoulders in a light breeze. She was dressed in a modern-day combat uniform, complete with body armour and combat helmet.

I’d only seen her appear like this to me once before, so it took me a moment to recover from the surprise. She tilted her head slightly, her dark eyes feeling like they were staring into my soul.

“So, maybe we should give Sebastian a little help?” I asked once I’d recovered my composure.

Her reply was a solemn nod of her head, and then she turned to watch the newest mushroom cloud as it continued to rise up into the sky. It was incredibly dark now, with lightning crackling and thunder booming almost constantly. There was still no rain though, which I thought was odd.

I turned to Casey, making gestures to her and mouthing for her to get everyone out from the basement. She squinted at me and looked like she was about to refuse, but Hunter must have persuaded her and she caved in. We embraced and fell into each other for far too brief a hug before she disappeared back down below.

A bolt of lightning chose that moment to jump from above, striking an antenna on one of the nearby rooftops. The thunder almost deafened me.

“You will need to flow energy through the Aegis,” Muse instructed without even looking at me. Her attention was taken as another shard fell, releasing its garish light. I had to admit that she looked much more like Athena, the goddess of war in this form – the identity that she’d been hiding from me since we first met. That she was silhouetted against the backdrop of another impact just added to her divine presence.

She twisted to peer at me over her shoulder, a half-smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

A blast of air pushed me back, forcing me to cover my face and crouch down just to remain standing on the rooftop. If the windows downstairs hadn’t been blown out already, they probably would have been.

“It’s time,” she announced, stepping over to face me.

I nodded as I opened my eyes and rose back up to my full height.

Taking a moment to catch my breath, I could feel myself opening up to the energy currents around me. Right now, in this place, they were like a hurricane swirling around us, threatening to overwhelm me almost immediately. I tried to relax into the music, letting it nudge my emotions and bring the power flowing through me under control.

“The storm is our fuel. The Aegis has been creating it for us most of the afternoon, amplifying a depression that was here already. I should have recognised it sooner, but it has been so long since I last felt it.”

The Aegis’s dim glow brightened as I redirected more of the storm into it until its radiance was almost blinding to my eyes. I instinctively held my arm above my head, not entirely sure what to do with it now.

“Leave it in my hands. I am able to directly interface with our technology, so you may focus on other things,” Athena clarified, gesturing towards the device on my arm that she kept referring to as ‘The Aegis’. “It will be the same with the protective plating that we asked Hephaestus to craft for us.”

The clouds above us had begun to swirl and roil, flashes of lightning bubbling inside the darkness of the storm. I could feel it now – something was cutting through the energy field at immense speed.

Everything slowed down for me, except for Athena. She was still moving around as if nothing had changed at all. My music was distorted all to hell.

Several flickers of lightning began, veins of light branching down in steps from the sky. I could feel something drawing them to me, a tingling at the back of my neck, and they all turned to converge on our rooftop.

As the veins reached about halfway to the ground, a glowing object pierced through the cloud cover, hurtling directly at me.

Shouldn’t we be doing something by now?

Athena smiled at me, but shook her head, “Wait.”

It was agonising, watching the race between the lightning darts and the incandescent meteor.

They crept closer, and closer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Athena pretend to inspect the nails of one hand, while the other was held behind her back.

She was clearly not bothered by what was happening.

Just as the darts were about to touch me, they each exploded outwards, connecting with the rooftop several meters away.

---

Casey

Erin was doing that adorable thing she does when listening to music – she was making hand gestures and mouthing instructions in the hope that I’d understand what she was saying. This time seemed different – almost frantic. From what I could work out, she wanted me to go back downstairs.

She was mouthing something about ‘help Sebastian’.

I was on the verge of refusing when Hunter said, ‘We should do as she asks, even if we do not understand why.’

Despite every nerve in my body telling me not to, I agreed and gave her a reluctant smile.

We pulled each other into a brief, yet emotional hug – my heart-wrenching at the idea of having to leave her to face all of this alone. But I knew there was nothing I could really do to help her here, and I would be hella more helpful downstairs. With a single glance backwards I dashed for the access hatch, using it to drop down to the floor below.

I’d made it a couple flights lower when I heard a thunderous explosion somewhere outside – the whole building reverberated with its echo. My mind switched directly to worrying about Erin, and I had to grit my teeth hard to give myself the determination to keep going.

There were groups of people huddling around in the atrium when I reached the first floor. Sebastian was among them, and it looked like he’d done as promised in guiding them all back up to safety. He noticed me an instant after, his eyes focussed on me as he put on a grim half-smile.

We didn’t have time to talk – the urgency in Erin’s eyes and the near-frantic way she’d been gesturing at me had driven that home. I dove for the corridor and bolted back down into the basement, leaping three steps at a time.

The floor shuddered again at another impact, much closer than the last. A sizable chunk of the ceiling broke free, smashing into the floor and sending up a cloud of thick dust.

There were only a handful of people left below, and they were mostly gathering personal belongings. I needed to make sure that they all made it upstairs safely.

“Out! Get the hell out!” I yelled, pointing towards the doorway.

My thoughts turned to horror as I remembered the bed-ridden patients, and I spun around to assess the situation. But as my eyes fell on their beds, nestled into various alcoves, I found all but one of them was already empty.

A group of medics was struggling with an elderly man. His eyes were open and fearful, and he had an oxygen mask covering his lower face to help him breathe.

If Erin’s behaviour was anything to go by, we’d already run out of time and needed to get him out of here ASAP. The flow of energy around us was a whirling maelstrom when I tried to tap into it, making it a piece of cake for me to single-handedly pick the guy up by myself.

The doctors stared at me, their eyes wide in expressions of shock.

“Get the fuck out of here!” I shouted at them as I broke for the door, the old guy carried protectively in my arms.

There was an explosion of sound above us, and I placed myself between him and the concussive blast that screamed through the building. The air was carrying cries of terror from the direction of the atrium, and I backed my way through the gale to reach it.

What the fuck had Erin gotten herself into up there?

I closed my eyes and pushed onwards.

The wind died down after a few seconds, but a fresh tremor made me trip backwards over a piece of fallen masonry. I stumbled and was only stopped from tumbling over by a strong pair of arms as they wrapped around the both of us.

Sebastian was holding us in his arms, and his eyes glowed as he looked me up and down, appraisingly.

‘Apollo was always the best brother I could have hoped for,’ Artemis told me, her voice more vulnerable than the Hunter persona I’d grown used to.

A flood of emotion passed through me, but this wasn’t what I’d felt when I was with Erin. There was no desire or lust here, only a sense of safety and warmth.

“Are you okay?” he shouted after a moment of silence. He was already moving to take the now limp form of the elderly patient from me.

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” I replied, cracking a smile and returning a thumbs up.

He awkwardly returned it, the old man held in his arms.

I rolled my eyes, and went back to making sure everyone had escaped safely from downstairs.

---

Erin

Nearly a dozen forks of lightning sprang upwards, half blinding me in the process. The shock waves they produced were incredible and would have thrown me from the roof if I hadn’t used a little energy to keep myself rooted.

Mere fractions of a second later, Aegis finally activated – the light inside dimming as it did its work.

The surge of power passing through me was incredible, and I screamed into the roaring vortex that had formed around me. Athena was pulling in all of the free energy around us, passing it through me. The instant that the lightning strikes came to an end, a wide dome of light flickered to life far above us, bright blue against the dark thunderclouds.

I knew that I was on the very edge of losing control. The burning shard was bearing down at a shallow angle and clipped the tip of the shield. I wanted to close my eyes and bare my teeth, but everything was happening too slowly.

The collision, when it came, was a deep booming noise to my ears. Rippling lines undulated away from the point of impact, but the shard’s trajectory was reflected away from us in that single instant.

Time began to flow normally once more, and I was finally able to squeeze my eyes shut. The heat from a brilliant flash of light swept across my skin, and I felt the ground begin to shake itself apart.

“Hold on to it, Erin,” Athena instructed, taking me by the shoulders. I could actually feel her hands on me, but I kept my eyes firmly closed. Everything I had went into maintaining the flow of energy through me.

The building beneath me was rocking from side to side, then shuddered in agony – the tormented brick and steel had started to crumble, but I refused to allow it to distract me.

As I cracked open my eyes again, I saw the shockwave ripping through buildings like they were nothing, reducing them to clouds of rubble. Within half a second it had reached the unyielding outer edge of the Aegis shield.

The dome had collapsed down to only cover a little past the building that I was perched on, protecting me and everyone within, but leaving the rest of the hospital complex exposed.

The wave ran around its perimeter, passing by without misplacing a single blade of grass, but the other structures around us weren’t so lucky. They began to buckle and break as the wall of overpressure struck them.

“You did well,” Athena reassured me, turning around to face the direction of the explosion. The barrier flickered and then died, the aegis glowing brightly on my arm once more. “I do believe that was the final one.”

Athena pulled out a pair of binoculars, making a spectacle of scanning the impact site.

With the reduced drain from the Aegis, I managed to bring the energy surge within me under control, avoiding complete catastrophe. I did feel utterly exhausted afterwards, though, and dropped down to my knees.

Fires had started to spring up around the town. Smoke from incinerated buildings, furniture, and abandoned vehicles was rising up into the foreboding sky.

Athena turned to glance at me again, slipping into a compassionate smile. I returned it to her, completely forgetting that she wasn’t really standing in front of me, but was actually just a mental projection.

Just as I was struggling back to my feet again, the heavens opened up into a torrential downpour.

I pulled out my earbuds, catching my breath. Off in the distance, I could hear the grinding of collapsing architecture, but there was something else, too – a low, far-off whine accompanied by flashes of lightning that were brightening the eastern horizon.

Athena had turned to look in that direction, her hair still perfect while mine was already soaked and clinging to my neck.

The growl of jet engines flashed past so suddenly that I ducked down into a crouch out of pure instinct. Missiles were cruising low overhead, hugging the terrain as they streaked eastwards.

“Hmmm,” Athena remarked, pensive.