Chapter Two: City Noise

The way you describe Annie's feelings of numbness really resonated with me, it really does put you in shock when something terrible happens and the world just seems to move on. You write trauma beautifully, as beautifully as trauma could be written, this fanfic series you wrote is uncomfortably relatable and perfect because of it

Hi there shima, happy Monday!

I haven't read the first chapter of this (often a curse of novels on YWS) so I'm just going off this one chapter. If I happen to mention anything that you've already addressed in chapter one then please feel free to ignore it! Overall, this prose shows promise, and there are several aspects that worked exceptionally well. However, I also noticed a few areas where improvements could be made to further enhance the overall impact of your writing. So let's get into them

One of the strengths of your writing lies in the fast-paced and engaging narrative. The way you delve into action scenes, particularly during the hostage situation, is captivating and really made me want to read on! The tension and urgency are palpable, and you effectively draw readers into the heart of the conflict. Furthermore, the internal conflict experienced by Annie adds depth and complexity to the character, and I appreciate the exploration of her struggle and the influence of Stormfront. I think you're really setting up the dynamic between them well.

In terms of improvement, I would suggest paying attention to sentence structure and paragraph transitions. Occasionally, sentences become long and convoluted, making the prose a bit challenging to follow. By simplifying and breaking them down into smaller, more concise sentences, you can enhance readability and clarity. Additionally, smoother transitions between paragraphs would help guide readers through the story more seamlessly. Consider establishing clear connections or using transitional phrases to ensure a smooth flow of ideas. One example of this could look like the following:

They arrived quickly, Maeve and Homelander bursting through the front door, in full view of the hostage takers. They were the stars of the show, and their entrance was loud, and glamorous, and even beautiful, in its own way. Annie heard the screams of the bank-robbers and the oh-so-unmistakable sound of laser vision tearing through something, probably a gun.

They arrived quickly, Maeve and Homelander bursting through the front door, in full view of the hostage takers. The stars of the show, their entrance was loud, glamorous, and even beautiful in its own way. Annie's ears filled with the screams of the bank robbers and the unmistakable sound of laser vision tearing through something—probably a gun.

Hey there,

I'm here to leave you a review!



First of all, I read part one before reviewing part two and I must say, this was a very nice and intruiging piece. I liked the action, thoughts and interesting pacing of the story very much. Your titles say a lot and are very on point. I love the names of the characters too and their codenames. (I am also writing some action pieces in my story profile/Rinisha/portfolio/477966 . I really got some great inspiration from you for codenames. Bc tbh my codenames are just random Julian, Calypso and Whisper stuff.

Now off the story,

Cheek to cheek, the bittersweet, commit your crime in your deadly time

It's a violent reaction

The mixtape in your heart

The answer you should know

How we complicate, a simple mistake

It's the face you make when I go

- City Noise, Scarling, 2005.

The following few days passed her in a blur. She barely noted what happened to her. Stopping several small-time crimes, going on a couple of talk-shows.

Regular.



Simple.



It felt the world just continued turning, despite what had happened. The rest of the Seven barely registered the Deep’s death, more concerned with who would potentially replace A-Train and how long they would still be the Six. A-Train’s replacement choice seemed to be as pedestrian as it was obvious, the third fastest Speedster in the United States, Shockwave and A-Train’s bitter rival. The solution was probably already predetermined before Homelander approved it, born out of the collective minds of the board of Directors and Ashley’s little psychotic PR - brain. A-Train would be written out during that bland, carbon-cut movie they were filming, “the Dawn of the Seven.”, unless his heart managed to fully heal beforehand.

Which Annie doubted.

As for who would take up the remaining spot, there were rumors of a reality show coming in a month or so, contestants from all over the U.S competing to get into the Seven.

Typical. Everything a race to the top. Be better than the other guy.

To keep up appearances, the Seven were called upon to deal with a hostage situation. It was rather simple, as far as robberies went. Six idiots convinced that holding up a Goldman and Sachs office was the best way to go and get some extra dough.

It was also when Annie January took her second life.

They arrived quickly, Maeve and Homelander bursting through the front door, in full view of the hostage takers. They were the stars of the show, and their entrance was loud, and glamorous, and even beautiful, in its own way. Annie heard the screams of the bank-robbers and the oh-so-unmistakable sound of laser vision tearing through something, probably a gun. One of the men flew through the wall, thrown around as a ragdoll by Maeve, probably dead or at least paralyzed for life.

Good for the news, a nice video for the 7’o clock on the Vought News Network.


Stormfront and Starlight arrived at a much more subdued pace, and their targets were strictly secondary. Starlight had to apprehend a subject on the fourth floor, his rifle normally barely a threat to her superhuman abilities.

And this is where it all went wrong.

Annie should know how to do this. She had been trained to do this since she was old enough to fight crooks. And still, she froze when she saw the robber, looking at him from behind the corner. When she saw his gun. When she saw the terror-stricken office workers in front of her.

She could not move because a part of her, a part of her she wanted to repress, asked, no, begged her to end his life. The same disgusting snake twisted inside the depths of her system that teased her the day she killed the Deep, reminding her how long she sought positive comments from Stormfront.

If he didn’t live, why was this piece of shit better?

Looking him into his cold, disgusting, uncaring eyes, Starlight seemed to only get angrier. She remembered the Deep – smelling of the deep sea, covered in animal viscera. He looked ready.

This man, however, didn’t seem to have thought this through, betting on the hero’s requirement to have minimal casualties.

She jumped out; arm outstretched. The automatic rifle in his possession wasn’t a match for her powers – in minutes the room smelled of molten plastic and iron. Horrified, the man grabbed one of the women in front of him by her collar, pulling her up, pressing a secondary gun against her head.

“Make one more move and she dies!”

His voice gave him away – trembling, syllables barely forming into words, let alone a sentence. Even despite Starlight’s, fairly, ridiculous, appearance – white leotard, golden gloves, boots with high heels, long hair cascading down her back in curled, product-soaked, waves – her powers had seeded fear within the man’s soul.

The snake inside her stretched out, expanding, filling every part of her body, taking over her soul, ecstatic at this development.

“Oh-la-la. See who’s the Master Chef now.” She heard Stormfront’s disgustingly sweet voice coming from a mile away. “You like your crooks raw, medium or well-done, sweetheart?”

Starlight looked at her slowly strutting towards her, grinning like a cat.

Her gaze then returned to the horrified face of the robber before her, gun cocked, pressed against the temple of some innocent bank worker. But his hands were shivering, lips quivering, on the verge of tears. He was scared.

The light inside her collected itself, strands combining from various parts of her body, every little bit focused on what she was about to do. Her anger, her need for attention, tying themselves together, forming streams of burning bright. It scorched her body, flowing together into rivers of pain, coiling into one singular whole, breaking itself free, forcing, demanding her to release it.

She thought of the Deep, standing there, without any emotions on his face. If she killed him, who was this piece of shit to beg for mercy? He was prepared to shoot that innocent woman to escape. He barely deserved to walk upon this earth.

She felt ready.

Stormfront’s body pressed against her back, her cool cheek against Starlight’s, crooning in her ears and her warm breath on her skin. “He’s a pathetic waste of space. Why should you give him anything but just desserts? Trust me” voice delicate, quiet as a whisper “it is the best feeling in the world.”

Watching her hesitation, Stormfront slowly marched over to the terrified man, grabbing his head with cool, leathered, hands, still smiling.

“Maybe I should do it, if you’re too scared.”

And then, it seemed as if Annie woke up from a slumber. She looked at how amused Stormfront was, her hands wrapped around the man’s head in an iron grasp. Her gaze followed those leather gloves down, looking at a mask of sheer fright.

Jesus, Annie. You are not like this. You do not kill a scared human being. You don’t have that right. Stormfront doesn’t either.

Annie grunted, energy shooting out of her hands, but instead of the man, she focused on Stormfront, with her flying backwards into the wall behind them. The man dropped his hostage and ran, Annie in pursuit, until his back was pressed against a huge window. Pulling out his tertiary weapon, hands shaking, barely able to hold it, he pointed it at Annie.

Annie grunted, energy shooting out of her hands, but instead of the man, she focused on Stormfront, with her flying backwards into the wall behind them. The man dropped his hostage and ran, Annie in pursuit, until his back was pressed against a huge window. Pulling out his tertiary weapon, hands shaking, barely able to hold it, he pointed it at Annie.

Looking at the terrified man, she tried desperately to calm him down.

First there was a gunshot.

Then, there was light.

Finally, there was the sound of shattering glass.

Annie was standing there, her brain seemingly purposefully slow on the uptake, only letting the terror of what just happened sink in minutes after she had done it.

She barely saw him, looking down, a tiny ant, lying on some poor passerby’s car, body weirdly contorted, dripping red fluid on the pavement.

She could’ve saved him.


Hard, leather, boots, echoed of the floor, getting louder and louder. Turning around, she saw Stormfront, grinning, looking at Annie’s shell-shocked face.

“Well, it is not exactly what I wanted, but…” and with these words she wrapped an arm around Starlight’s shoulders, as if consoling her, in her own twisted way” …the results are still beautiful.”

And then she was gone, leaving Annie alone with her thoughts.

During the press-conference, Annie was mostly silent, letting the other members speak for her, only replying when asked. The answers she gave were all extremely false, prerecorded phrases custom-made to look good in journals, her just trying to escape the reverbing sound of shattering glass piercing her eardrums and nesting in her mind.

“Do you think you could’ve done anything else?” She barely noticed Cameron Coleman sitting there, in the front row, as he always did.

The bastard knew how hard it was for her. Ashley probably told him.


“No, it was an accident. I could not have done anything else.”

This was, somehow, the perfect moment for her brain to regurgitate a piece from a song that Annie had thought she had long forgotten, Bruise Violet.

The hammering drums, beating in her ears. The fuzzy, grating, guitar on repeat. And the lyrics, not even sung, calmly repeating one singular word.


Liar. Liaar. Liaaaar.


Annie rarely dreamt, or at least dreams she could remember the morning afterwards. This night was different. It was a strange vision, seemingly raking through the deepest confines of her mental space, trying to find something to hook on to.

She imagined her 16-year-old self, edgy teen Starlight, standing on a Capes for Christ podium, hugging her boyfriend, Hughie, who somehow was also a teenager. He did not look that much different, only clean shaven and with a slightly less matured face.

All the people around her though were the repeating faces of the Deep and the robber, dripping with blood.

Looking to the side, she saw Stormfront backstage, winking to her.

The brunette raised her gloved hand to the sky and the roof of the venue became clouded and gray, the heavens collecting themselves, ready to burst. One godly finger, a giant bolt, struck the middle of the room, sending chairs flying everywhere.

Looking over at Hughie Annie screamed, seeing how he fell apart in a rain of gray mist, fried to a crisp, the dust flying everywhere, her desperately trying to hold on to it.

She stood, looking Stormfront in the black holes where her eyes should be. The brunette ripped off her costume and underneath she was dressed in the suit that her prom date, Drummer Boy, wore. Instead of the Des Moines Civic Centre she stood in the doors of her old High School.

Annie walked over, and hand in hand, they entered the blinding golden light.

And for the first time since she talked to Hughie in that café, she felt happy.

One more kiss

Before we die

Face to face

And dream of flying

A/N: Nightmares, every cheap author’s excuse to show the conflict within a character’s soul, what gives.

But yeah, I had some difficulty deciding certain elements of the bank robbery, especially the particulars of the death scene. A friend of mine suggested it would be more in line with the general tone of the Boys if it was framed more as an accident, so here we are.

As for the Babes in Toyland reference – it an authorial pet peeve. I doubt that Annie would listen to grrrl-rock or grunge, she really does not seem to be the kind of person to rebel like that against her parents.