34 - Tactical Retreat//Lea

"Hand over your medals, I say," Mr. Foley repeated. "Or face justice by my hand! I won't hold back because you're children; when you don those suits, you might as well be weapons of mass destruction!"

"Get him!" Nora yelled, shooting off a slew of her signature neon ropes as she rushed forward.

"Stand back!" Mr. Foley yelled, putting out one hand to defend himself. At his call, a dozen blades of light appeared between them.

They were pointed every which way, cutting and blocking Nora's ropes. The ropes rippled and crumpled away. All that was left of them was shards of green light.

"Ha!" Mr. Foley shouted triumphantly.

His confidence didn't last long. Paxton quickly closed the gap between them and jumped over the fence of swords with little effort. Shouting in surprise, Mr. Foley directed one hand at Paxton, all of his swords quickly made him their target.

Though Paxton was in danger, Mr. Foley was now wide open, and Lea took the opportunity to make full use her red darts. Just as the swords were about to come into contact with Paxton, he gestured towards them with a single hand, not even bothering to look.

A blue wave of sound flew out of his hands, easily deflecting the blades.

As Mr. Foley attempted to redirect his blades, he was hit by a full on assault of tiny red darts, each making a vocal or instrumental sound as they hit. They didn't pierce his skin, but they each hit him with the force of a bullet. By the time Lea's third volley was done, he'd been bowled over.

Paxton raised his hand high and grabbed a trumpet out of the blue light, his eyes still glowing violently. He took one huge breath and blew into it. At his call, a set of large blue circles appeared all around Mr. Foley. Without any further direction, they began to play a wide variety of EDM songs in a perfect mix.

Though it was going well for them, something gnawed at Lea's conscience. When she listened closely to Paxton's circles, she let out a gasp.

"Stop!" she shouted. "Paxton!"

He didn't stop, but he turned to look at her. His eyes were even wilder now.

"Why?" he asked, his voice booming around them. "He tricked me, tricked all of us! Used that conman Navy to do it!"

"Your Volume keeps going up and this is his first time transforming!" she shouted. "If you keep going and break his transformation, you might kill him!"

"How do you know that?" Nora asked, looking from Lea to Paxton.

"I can hear it," Lea said. "In the music."

"Why do you care what happens to him anyway?" Paxton asked, his voice practically a growl. "If we don't take his Noiz, how will we make the Very Great Thing happen?"

Lea didn't have any time to answer. She barely had time to react as an oversized pink shield make an arc around them and hit Paxton square on the side of the head. Though it wasn't strong enough to knock him out, it did manage to break his concentration for a moment.

His sonic assault on Mr. Foley stopped just as the old man's transformation broke. As Paxton reached for his head, the blue light that had been emanating from his body disappeared. Like a puppet off it's strings, he took a tumble to the ground.

Without any regard for the dangerous situation, Navy quickly sprinted across the parking lot and grabbed Mr. Foley. Before Lea could react, a large black van pulled up, with Deanney behind the drivers seat. Navy grabbed Mr. Foley and heaved the homely old man into the back of the van with almost superhuman strength before getting in himself.

Lea finally got a volley of darts off at them, but they had already driven halfway across the lot. When she turned to her two friends to ask them why they had let Paxton's kidnapper go, she noticed that they were both staring at someone.

The rose gold phantom.