The feeling of Void Severance settling into Lucifer was unnerving.
It was a complete absence, a cold, empty potential that felt alien compared to the warmth of his Basic Empath connection or the heavy pressure of his Tier 8 Force Field.
It was the antithesis of the Joker's chaos—absolute, instant order through emptiness.
Lucifer deactivated his stealth suit, pulling Harley Quinn out of the sewer and into the back alley where Raven had an unmarked, heavily shielded logistics van waiting.
Raven was already at the wheel. She took the van from one of the hostile force.
Lucifer thought it might be the time to say goodbye to the scooter and bought a good car instead.
'Maybe let Tony build one for me…'
"The Speedster is contained in a minor temporal loop; the Flier is being collected by his employer,"
Raven reported crisply, glancing at Harley in the rearview mirror.
"But the containment agency that issued the contract will be back. We are now hostile to a relatively high level organization."
"I know,"
Lucifer said, securing Harley in the back seat.
He looked exhausted, the tactical victory hollowed out by the psychological defeat.
"Drive. Take us home."
The drive back to his quiet, anonymous apartment building was silent.
Lucifer monitored Harley using his Basic Empath, bracing for the inevitable outburst of manic energy or a desperate attempt to escape.
But none came.
When they reached the apartment—a sterile, minimalist space designed for total operational security—Harley stepped out of the van and walked straight past the front door.
She bypassed the living room, ignoring the kitchen, and headed directly for the smallest, dustiest spare bedroom used for file storage.
"This one,"
Harley announced, her voice surprisingly soft.
She threw her bag—which somehow still contained spray paint and glitter—onto the twin mattress.
"This is going to be my lair."
She turned to Lucifer, her eyes filled with a new, quiet determination.
"I'm not leaving, Luce. You proved you love me. Now I'm going to prove to you that we can be family without the Bro... eventually. I'll stay. I'll be tame. I'll even clean up... maybe. Just watch me."
The shift was profound.
She wasn't fighting; she was settling in. The manic energy had been channeled into a fiercely possessive, deeply rooted desire for the 'normal' family life Lucifer represented.
Raven watched the entire exchange, her gaze intense. When Lucifer closed the door to Harley's self-proclaimed "lair," Raven turned to him in the hallway.
Her usual calm, logistical demeanor was subtly disrupted. She didn't look angry or worried, but her shoulders were taut.
"She's staying,"
Raven stated, the simple fact sounding like a strategic disaster.
"She is,"
Lucifer confirmed, running a hand over his face.
"We are now housing a high-value, unpredictable target, wanted by a dangerous organization, who happens to be my… sister."
Raven crossed her arms, a slight frown touching her lips.
"I... feel irritated,"
She confessed, her voice slightly strained.
"But not at the security breach. Not at the logistics nightmare. Just... annoyed. I don't know why."
Lucifer recognized the confusion.
Raven, whose existence was defined by logic and strategic planning, rarely felt emotions that weren't tied to the successful execution of a plan.
Her frustration was tied to the presence of the unpredictable, chaotic element—Harley.
"Ignore it,"
Lucifer advised, though he knew she couldn't.
"It's the natural result of chaos intersecting with order. Now, let's focus on the actual power I gained.
"Void Severance."
The space distortion covered his hand.
"Void Severance?"
Raven examining his power.
"The ability to instantaneously pull the air from a point, generating a vacuum. Highly efficient for disabling biological targets or disrupting low-level energy shields."
She tilted her head, a familiar professional gleam returning to her eye.
The training was a problem she could solve.
"This is not a simple power, Lucifer. It requires precise spatial recognition and control to prevent the vacuum from backfiring. But it perfectly counters the Joker's close-range fighting style."
Raven stepped forward, pointing to the empty kitchen counter.
"We start now. That power needs to be integrated into your kinetic movement. If the cooldown is 10 seconds, we need to treat the Force Field and the Void Severance as a sequence."
Phase 1 (Defense): Deploy Tier 8 Force Field (Duration 4 min, Cooldown 3 min) to absorb the initial high-tier strike.
Phase 2 (Offense): Use Void Severance (Duration 3 sec, Cooldown 10 sec) immediately upon Force Field disengagement.
"Your goal is to use the emptiness as a weapon,"
Raven instructed, her eyes glowing faintly.
"Try to create a vacuum around that sugar shaker—no bigger than your hand. Focus the feeling of absolute absence into a point. Do not use your hands."
Lucifer closed his eyes, filtering out the constant low emotional hum radiating from Harley's new lair.
He focused on the cold, empty potential of his new power. He felt the space around the shaker, and willed that space to cease to exist.
In the kitchen, the sugar shaker suddenly imploded. It didn't explode; it compressed and collapsed inward as the air pressure around it instantly vanished. The sound was a sharp, final thwump.
"Impressive,"
Raven acknowledged, examining the shattered glass.
"The initial deployment is high-impact. Now, let's see the cooldown."
Lucifer could feel the 10-second timer counting down internally.