Chapter Text
The mission was supposed to be routine.
Secure the intel.
Clear the site.
Extract.
But routine means nothing when chaos decides to intervene. They hit an old lab at dawn. The enemy had gone quiet for weeks in the region, which usually meant one of two things: withdrawal… or a trap.
Oh, what Reyna would have given for the first one.
She was calm when the first turret snapped down from the ceiling. She ducked instinctively, fingers crackling with violet energy, hearing the hiss of bullets slice the air above her head. Behind her, Gekko pulled out a familiar yellow friend and sent Wingman forward to cover the left flank. Ahead, Neon was already moving—thunder and light, a streak of blue surging down the hallway, tearing past tripwires before they could even arm.
Reyna’s eyes swept the battlefield.
Her breathing stayed even.
Her heart didn’t race.
She didn’t need to see her teammates to know they were alive. She heard them.
Not voices.
Not footsteps.
Heartbeats.
To anyone else, they were background noise. To her, they were the battlefield’s rhythm.
Gekko’s heart is strong, but nervous, like a drummer second-guessing the tempo but still keeping the beat. Always a little off-center, a little uncertain, but never out of rhythm. It pulsed with concern, not fear. He fought with heart, quite literally, and Reyna could hear it in every step he took.
Neon’s?
Sharp. Fast. Reckless, but cautious.
She hit the battlefield like her pulse hit Reyna’s ears bursting, impulsive, but contained. Each beat a lightning strike: unpredictable, yet precise. Her heart was a sprint, not a march. Dangerous, yes, but alive in a way Reyna had never learned to be. Neon danced with risk like it was her partner, always a second from tipping too far, but somehow never slipping. That heartbeat had become Reyna’s metronome in chaos.
Sage’s was different.
A lullaby. Steady. Deep. Almost meditative.
When they spent nights together reading, sharing tea, or simply sitting in silence, Sage’s heartbeat became Reyna’s anchor. A quiet rhythm she didn’t know she craved until she realized she’d memorized it. A living reminder that peace could exist without surrender.
Clove’s heartbeat was chaos.
Erratic. Light. Unapologetic.
It sounded like a cluster of butterflies in her awareness, fluttering, darting, vibrant. It changed tempo constantly, spiking and dipping for no apparent reason. At first, it was unsettling. Now, it made her smile. Clove didn’t fear death. Not really. And maybe that’s why their heartbeat felt so free, like it wasn’t bound by the same rules the rest of them followed. Sometimes Reyna listened to it just for fun. Like eavesdropping on a soul that had never been told what it couldn't do.
They didn’t know she could hear them. Not like this, not individual heartbeats, not distinguishable like notes in a song and Reyna had no intention of ever telling them.
Even if Sage was suspicious. Some powers weren’t meant for discussion.
She wasn’t listening out of sentiment.
It was control.
It helped her calculate. Anchor. Execute.
Even in the worst missions when visibility dropped, when smokescreens clogged the halls, when the ground shook from detonations she could always locate her squad by listening.
It wasn’t a crutch.
It was just… a comfort.
A secret one.
Until it failed.
They were almost at the extraction point when the trap triggered.
Four enemies dropped from a skylight above them, pushing Reyna and Sage back. At the same moment, turrets rose from floor panels, locking the team between gunfire and walls.
Neon didn’t hesitate - of course she didn’t. Mierda. She dove forward in a streak of blue, throwing a static field to disable the first gun.
“Going right!” she shouted over the comms.
Gekko followed after her, Dizzy launching in the opposite direction to blind the attackers. Wingman rushed toward the console to grab the encrypted data.
Reyna shifted into Empress form: eyes glowing, claws drawn and began cutting through the chaos.
Gekko’s heart: fast but steady.
Neon’s: sharp, controlled, high voltage.
Sage’s: focused. Calm. Soothing.
Clove’s: fluttering. Untethered. Like butterflies in a wind tunnel, no fear, no hesitation. Just chaotic, and so very alive.
Clove was laughing over the comms, even as they dropped enemies with controlled bursts “I love a dramatic twist ending!”
Reyna slashed an enemy across the chest, turned, struck another, still there, still in rhythm. The fight was brutal, but manageable.
Then came the blast.
A scream.
A flash of white.
An explosion that tore through the far end of the corridor.
Everything went quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that comes from sound loss.
The kind that comes from absence.
Reyna staggered slightly. One hand on the wall. Eyes darting.
Gekko: still there. Slightly off-tempo, but alive.
Clove: fluttering. Startled, but steady.
Sage: sharp intake of breath, then centered again.
Neon:...
Nothing.
Reyna froze. Right there in the middle of combat. It wasn’t panic. Not at first, at least. More like disbelief. She strained her senses...
Nothing.
No pulse. No spark. Just a void.
For the first time in years, her own heart skipped.
“Neon?” she said sharply into the comms. “Neon, respond.”
No answer.
Her control cracked.
“Sage. Fall back with Clove. Now.”
She didn’t wait for acknowledgment. Her legs were already moving, boots scraping across scorched tile as she stormed through the wreckage. There was no thought only instinct. She traced the spot where Neon’s heartbeat had last been. Smoke clung to the walls. The scent of ionized blood hung heavy in the air. Dizzy’s unconscious body blinked softly nearby.
Then she saw it. A collapsed support beam. Rubble. Two figures.
Neon lay beneath a sheet of debris, half-conscious. The front of her surge protector was destroyed, wires melted, metal warped from the blast. Her chest was open and bloody. There was a lot of blood. Too much. Somehow, she was still breathing but barely, each breath was shallow, hitched, too painful to watch.
Her eyes… those bright, defiant eyes that always lit up before a charge, before a joke, before she sprinted into chaos without a second thought - Had lost their spark. They were open, but dull. Flickering like a dying filament.
Reyna stood frozen for a moment, dropping her Vandal in the process.
She’d seen injuries before. She’d seen death, had dealt it more times than she could count.
But this... This was a direct hit to the heart.
She couldn’t hear her grounding point. Not even slip away. Just… gone.
She couldn’t hear the rapid-fire rhythm that danced like static in her ears. Not the pulse that crashed like thunder every time Neon charged into danger. Not the heartbeat she’d unconsciously tethered herself to.
Not from her.
Not from Neon.
Gekko was beside her, face bleeding, trying to push a chunk of concrete off her with shaking arms.
“Sh-she shielded me,” he choked out. “She didn’t even think. Just… jumped.”
His voice cracked.
“She’s not answering. I—I think her heart—”
Reyna dropped beside Neon without a word.
Her hand hovered just above the girl’s bloodied chest.
She reached.
Nothing.
No pulse.
No rhythm.
Not even a flutter.
Just a destroyed silence.
Reyna’s throat tightened. Her breath caught halfway through her ribs.
No...
No.
This wasn’t just any silence.
This was void.
A cutout in the world where life used to be.
Her fingers trembled.
Not from fear but from knowing.
Neon was the sound Reyna had learned to trust.
The wild, fast heartbeat that kept her grounded in the storm.
And now...
There was nothing.
In that moment, something broke.
Not loudly. Not visibly. But deeply.
She should’ve been thinking about Lucía.
About her sister, still in the sanctuary back in Mexico, kept alive by souls she collects and borrowed time.
But all she could feel… was this silence.
A silence that pressed into her bones, hollow and sharp. “Sage...” Reyna said her voice was the most human Sage and Gekko had ever heard. “We need you. Now.”
She didn’t yell.
She didn’t plead.
She commanded.
Sage arrived seconds later, but by the time she knelt beside them.
Neon had stopped breathing.
Sage with a heavy sigh put the resurrection ritual in motion. When the light of the resurrection spell began to bloom, Reyna didn’t move. She didn't blink. She kept her palm on Neon’s bloodied chest until...
Thump.
She felt it.
A flutter.
A beat.
Alive.
Her fingers in her free hand curled inward.
Nails pressing into her palm until her skin broke.
The silence started to fade with each Thump.
But the fear didn’t.