Alexandra nodded to Megan acknowledging the other girl. Then she laid the card facing up on her open palm. Her body swiftly went though the change that had earlier taken her a few minutes. However this transformation was a little different, her clothes didn't change except to grow larger to accommodate the few extra inches of height. This woman slipped the card back into the pouch.
"Do you have a card for every character," Wally asked jokingly, but the woman proceeded to pull out a massive deck of tarot cards from the bag at her waist.
"We have many that Alexandra thought would be useful, but not all of them."
There were plenty of shocked expressions at this revelation. Most off the team realized that Alexandra would have had to hand draw all of the cards and they knew each one was a tiny master piece. But Robin was staring wide eyed at this woman because of her voice. Her voice was soft and almost devoid of emotion and it had the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Then she looked up at him and he swallowed hard by what he saw in her eyes. Lightning crackled across her irises like bright blue veins on a purple backdrop.
"What do I call you," Robin managed to ask.
The woman glared at him and she looked like she was about to say something very rude when her mouth opened Alexandra's voice snapped across the room, "Answer him."
The woman scowled at even the mere thought. "He has the feel of my sister's husband. The one who betrayed her to her death." Her words were a slap across Robin's face. It was a reminder of how much he had failed Jessie and a reminder of his ignorance all in one. All the sudden the air around Robin was gone as if it had been sucked in by a vacuum. Robin dropped to one knee and clawed at his throat desperately trying to get Oxygen into his empty lungs. A look of anger passed over the woman's face.
Alexandra shouted, "That's enough!" With a wave of her hand Alexandra returned the air to Robins starved burning lungs. Most of the rest of the team moved aggressively towards Alexandra. Robin coughed and dragged gulps of air down into his shaking body. He waved off the rest of his team. They respected him but continued to watch Alexandra with suspicion and anger.
"I'm sorry," the woman replied grudgingly. "I'm just eager to have my sister returned to me. I shouldn't have taken my anger out on you. That was uncalled for. You may call me by my given name, Mirra."
The rest of the crew still looked on Mirra with anger, except Megan who had not only been in Alexandra's mind, but read Mirra's story. She knew the trauma Mirra had gone through at witnessing her sister's murder and rebirth. It worried her that this was the character Alexandra had chosen, but she sighed and pushed that thought aside as the bio ship buzzed.
"We have reached the drop location." Megan pushed a button and a small hole opened up in the floor of the bio ship.
Below them was a seemingly endless stretch of ocean. Mirra placed the small breathing device in her pouch before stepping out into the air. She plunged into the icy water below ignoring Robin's surprised yell pleading with her to put on the breathing apparatus. The salt water burned her eyes for only a moment before an air bubble pushed the water away from her face and hovered around her head like a strange mask.
A splash above Mirra had her looking up to find Robin swimming desperately toward her. She resisted the urge to smile and waved her hand. Another bubble rose up to greet Robin and wrapped around him allowing him to breath. He touched the bubble in wonder and testing its strength when it held even under the force of his hand he turned to her and asked,
"This is your doings?"
Mirra smiled this time and nodded.
"I do have control over water and air so it is a simple thing to draw air around us to breath. This should help you see and by extension react better." Mirra turned away from him and seemed to scan the black water around them.
Robin was double checking the location of the shockwave on GPS in his watch when a current slammed into his side. It knocked him sideways a few feet and knocked the wind out of him. He turned to yell at Mirra when a huge gray shape blurred past him leaving only bubbles where he had just been floating. The breathing apparatus dropped out of his mouth as he coughed and dragged air back into his lungs. A hiss came from Mirra as she was floated closer to Robin, almost protectively.
"What was that," Robin coughed as he just barely managed to catch the breathing apparatus before it disappeared into the depths of the ocean. Mirra growled like a wild animal her gaze following the gray burr as it swam away.
"An enemy who would seek to use my sister's children against us."
Robin restrained the urge to point out that didn't answer his question because of what he heard in her voice. There was rage and grief in Mirra's voice that bordered on insanity. There was something different about her too. Robin looked closer and noticed her eyes were actually glowing. Under her wet suit a strange pattern glowed. It looked like a sun with symbols of the different elemental natures at its heart. Mirra's gaze shifted suddenly to below them.
"Beware, the shark comes again. I'll look for the one controlling it."
It was on the tip of his tongue to point out he had no real way of battling a giant shark underwater when a cage formed around him. The bars were made of lightening and Robin gently reached out to touch them. His hand passed harmlessly through the center of the hissing electricity.
"Wow."
"That should protect you and allow you to keep the shark distracted. Try not to kill it."
Robin bit back the snarky remark as the shark came speeding back up from the depths of the ocean for another go at him. He gaped at the sheer size of the monster. It was as least fifty feet long. Its huge jaws were open and heading straight for him. This time the monster slammed nose first into the bars and jerked away almost instantly. It floated in the water for a few minutes and twitched slightly. He couldn't help but pity the poor creature. It had rammed the most sensitive part of its body directly into the magically charged bars and clearly suffered from it. The shark made an odd almost groaning sound before it shook itself and swam away. Hopefully for good, Robin thought.
Sighing in relief Robin turned away from the beast and looked for Mirra. She was grappling with a small man a few feet away and below him. He held a serrated blade with strange symbols etched into its surface. The man attempted to gut Mirra with it, though she was able to move out of the wicked looking blade's path just in time. With a delicate wave of her hand bubbles sprung up from the deep. They created two separate cages around each combatant. Mirra floated gracefully in her bubble and brought her hand to her mouth. She bit the soft flesh between her thumb and her pointer finger until blood welled up. Allowing the blood well up into her palm before she swiftly began writing in a strange language down both arms and the side of the bubble. At the sight of the strange words the man renewed his efforts to escape. He made signs with his hands and would mutter strange things. Power would lash at the bubble causing it to bulge and swell, but it did not break.
"Amazing," Robin whispered in awe. He was a little startled when a voice chuckled light heartedly in his mind.
"Yes, we are."
It was not Alexandra, Jessie, or even Mirra's voice. This voice shook Robin to his very core because of its raw power. It hurt to listen and yet the voice was so beautiful he craved to hear it again.
"Who are you," he asked hoping the voice wouldn't answer and yet a less sane part of him was praying it would. He noticed when the voice spoke again the sign on Mirra's stomach glowed brighter. This time when she answered Robin got the impression of tempered strength, and his ears didn't hurt.
"I am in her. I am an ancient being and yet I'm younger than you. I am powerful beyond your comprehension, yet I'm greatly limited as I am. Your young author friend had no idea what she created when she gave my siblings and I life." The voice paused and was suddenly very thoughtful when she answered again. "Or maybe she did. Curious."
"That doesn't exactly answer my question."
There was amusement in the voice when it answered again,
"I know. Now watch."
Robin felt the voice fade from his mind. Mirra had finished drawing on the bubble. Mirra's cage moved quickly to hover only inches from the man's cage. He redoubled his fruitless efforts to free himself as Mirra reached through her bubble. When she laid her open palm on the barrier that held her foe her lips began to move like she was chanting. Bloody letters slid down her arm over the surface of the second bubble. The letters skimmed across the surface of the bubble to create a bloody seal. The seal forced the bubble to gradually shrink in size until the prisoner was forced into a fetal position.
"Don't kill him," yelled Robin. He suddenly feared Mirra intended to crush the man. Mirra shot him a confused look.
"I have no intention of killing this man. Don't you recognize him?"
Now that she mentioned it the book that Alexandra had created opened in his mind. There was a flurry of pages as the book flipped open to the page with this man's picture and description. This man was a mercenary for hire, the notes said this man was not actually evil. Quite the opposite actually, this man and the group he came from were very honorable. But once they were hired for a job they completed it or died trying.
"This will simply hold him securely and ensure he cannot inform to his employer until we can release the man within him. However I may not be so generous to some of the other men we run across." It was a very unsubtle reminder that Mirra came from a very different world and way of life than him or Alexandra.
"Killing is not our way, Mirra."
"Correction, killing is not your way. It is my way if the circumstances call for it. Even a shield can be used to slay monsters."
"These are men, not monsters."
Mirra looked at him for a long moment. Robin couldn't even begin to guess what she was thinking. He supposed not knowing could be very dangerous.
"You truly are a lot like my sister. She saw a spark of good even the blackest heart and fought tooth and nail to save that spark, even when it cost her. She couldn't understand that humans are some of the worst monsters to walk the earth." She turned back to the direction she had been heading before they were interrupted and said, "Come on, I am eager to finally free my sister." With a wave of her hand she dispelled the lightening around him and the larger bubble around her. Together the two of them dived deeper into the cold depths of the ocean.