Shade: Unbound

A primebeast of untold power was out of his league, the fight proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They couldn’t outrun it, couldn’t outfight it. Not even tactics were working. Yet he kept trying and trying, until help arrived on the scene. He’d been creating more distance between them, but then came a wave, towering and unavoidable.

That was the last thing he saw before the world went black.

When he awoke, he was a gurgling, sputtering, coughing mess. His body ached all over. It would’ve been easier to identify spots that didn’t hurt than ones that did. He didn’t even remember where he was, only feeling that there was something blocking his mouth.

Aching for breath, he pulled it all the way off and coughed water out of his lungs, rolling over to his side. Blearily, he opened his eyes, finding he was face-to-face with a sparrow. No, not a sparrow, a mask.

Calliope.

Wait, the investigation, the villains, the monster. His eyes widened, and he raised a gloved hand to his cheek. It touched bare skin.

His face was exposed, and Lyra was staring.

For a moment, he stayed in that position, one elbow supporting him as he watched her.

Then he hurriedly pulled his mask back over his dripping wet hair, forcing his aching body to move. There was no time to worry about getting exposed now.

Nothing felt broken, but the waves had battered him thoroughly. He endured the nausea setting in and stood.

His earpiece was on the ground, so he picked it up and shook it. Putting it back on, he heard Jack’s voice come through.

“...to move! Just hide for now!”

Finn tried to talk, but it just devolved into more coughing. He stumbled away, shooting a grappling hook to get some distance from the primebeast, which was currently going berserk against the last remaining police car.

When he felt the familiar pull, he immediately became lightheaded. He failed to stabilize his landing, rolling over the street, the world spinning around him. He writhed as his body exploded with agony, suppressing a groan.

“Shade!” Lyra said, but he couldn’t muster the energy to respond to her.

Black spots clouded his vision, and it wasn’t his power this time. He tried to get his arm under him again, but it gave way, and Finn collapsed onto the pavement. The pain coursing through his body was overwhelming, threatening to consume him entirely. He fought to stay conscious, to keep his mind focused on the active threat.

Lyra's voice was distant, barely audible amidst the throbbing ache. He could feel her presence nearby, her concern and urgency palpable, but his body refused to cooperate. He felt weak and helpless, like a puppet with its strings cut.

The sound of rushing water came closer, and he knew it was over at that point. They looked back, seeing the hulking form of the sea creature rush at them on a tidal wave, raising a limb to cut them apart with another flying slash.

He saw Lyra standing over him, holding her shield aloft, prepared to defend him. The lethal, transparent blade swept through the air, making Lyra’s knees buckle when it hit, but it still splashed off, the clear liquid splashing over the shield like rain over an umbrella.

Clear liquid…

Finn extended a hand toward the giant sphere of water encompassing the octopus, coloring a tiny spot. It did nothing to harm his enemy, but it didn’t need to; it was just a proof of concept.

Fighting back the wave of nausea, he grabbed Lyra and used his grappling hook to carry them away one more time. The pain was nearly unbearable, but he couldn’t afford to break here.

As expected, the creature used that power again, its entire body glowing and attracting the surrounding water. He managed to find cover this time so as not to get hit by another wave, but they were still drenched.

With full concentration, he focused on the creature and channeled his ability, turning the entire bubble around it to the color of his choice: white.

He didn’t hold back, channeling maximum power to create as much reflectivity as possible, disorienting the creature by leaving it trapped in an impromptu lightshow of its own making.

It worked better than expected. The milky mass of water popped, and the creature flopped around on land, grasping at everything and nothing, glowing and dimming at random. Water rushed this way and that, sometimes even exploded, but it didn’t reach them.

“Holy shit,” he could hear Jack say as he tried his best to run through all the pain, exhaustion and dizziness. He’d probably come close to burning out his colors again, but the mental strain wasn’t that bad yet. “It actually worked! Just a bit more, help is almost there.”

But it wasn’t enough. The primebeast got up, rising on its tentacles and crawling their way at a terrifying pace. Finn clenched his fists in frustration. No matter what they did, this thing kept getting up.

It wasn’t even using water this time, merely dragging its gigantic body over to the puny rodents in front of it. They used their powers and gadgets to create more distance, but it leapt through the air to cut them off.

The landing shook the ground, causing them to lose their balance. Lyra turned and futilely tried to run, only to have a tentacle wrap around her leg. A blood-curdling scream filled the air as her leg cracked.

Finn shot his grappling hook at her and tried to pull her free, even knowing his strength could never stand up to it in a tug-of-war or literally anything else. His feet slid over the wet pavement, the monster dragging him forward as if he weren’t even there.

On the verge of devouring Lyra, it opened that monstrous maw, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.

Lyra tossed in a shock wave.

It shuddered and slackened its grip, allowing Finn to get her free from those suction cups with much effort. Since he didn’t have the energy to catch her properly, she slammed into him, and they fell back in a heap together.

The creature moved again, and Finn tried to fire his hook again, but the beast caught it. Lyra raised her shield, which it slapped out of her hand. She kept firing shock waves at its uncovered form, though Finn could see they had little effect. It drew closer, looming over them, weathering the attacks to consume its prey. Even though it had given up on using its ability, they still didn’t have a chance of killing it, but it was still perfectly capable of snuffing out their lives.

Right next to him, he heard an irregular hiccups and sniffles. His teammate was crying, even as she tried to fend off what would be their demise.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I- I wanted to... This wasn’t how...” And the rest was unintelligible.

Not like it was her fault, either way. It was strange. He didn’t feel at peace, per se, and he certainly didn’t accept death, but he was able to stare it in the face, knowing he’d done what he thought was best to achieve his goals. While it hadn’t been enough, it was better than the alternative of sitting in his room and wasting away in mediocrity.

Ultimately, they lay there, a tangle of broken and bruised limbs, being dragged across the ground like helpless lambs to a slaughterhouse.

Suddenly, they stopped.

A wall of gray enveloped them.

*******

Allen was furious.

The night had started off easily enough, regular patrol, a heist, educating his charges.

What ruined it was the alert that followed. A primebeast, of all things, sighted near the edge of the district, beside the canal.

That alone would have been enough to send him racing toward the scene, but it got worse. Not just because the reinforcements that had arrived were promptly obliterated by a threat the DHD should have taken more seriously, but also because they’d been about to let the Junior Aces go there, right under his nose.

The nerve.

Who in their right mind would allow such a thing? The classification wasn’t even confirmed, they had no idea how dangerous it was.

And worse yet, two vigilantes, two children, were engaging it in combat at this very moment.

Which was why he couldn’t wait a second longer.

His team was also on the way, but he was ahead of them, as he was both the captain and their fastest member. The world beneath him zipped by, blending together in a canvas of concrete and light.

Though he’d heard the news later than he would have preferred, he at least managed to arrive soon after the alert. And when he did, the scene he bore witness to was one of utter devastation. Huge furrows were carved in the earth, the building ahead was damaged beyond repair, the canal looked half empty, the trees were flattened, and the whole area was soaked. He even spotted a bloody corpse.

His eyes narrowed. There, ahead in the distance, he spotted the monster approaching two small figures. It looked like an octopus scaled up to ridiculous proportions, hollow eyes and red skin with muscles rolling grotesquely underneath it.

Far from the worst he’d seen.

He slowed his storm cloud and generated more of it to separate the kids from the monster, lifting them up gently. They floated up behind him, away from that abomination.

With another cloud, he rained down a lightning bolt on the beast. It writhed and glowed brightly, beckoning the water in the environment towards its position.

Switching strategies, Allen created more of his gray clouds, which were pulled toward it just like the water. When it was within his grasp, he lifted it into the air and sent it crashing back down to the ground. It formed a massive crater, but the beast wasn’t dead.

Blades of water flew from the dust, and they were promptly blocked by a wall of condensed storm clouds. The crescent shapes were dispersed and absorbed, allowing the clouds to grow darker.

Lowering them, Allen commanded them to rain down a hail of icy daggers, faster than the projectiles they had absorbed their fuel from. And they obeyed, raining down a crystalline barrage on the beast, which was now moving to the side. Some of that water shielded it, but the deadly downpour still drew blood.

Again, the beast tried to counter by forming a water cyclone around itself. It was useless, of course. Allen generated more clouds and sent them down to both unravel its creation and replace it with his own version.

It struggled against the heavy winds buffeting it, burrowing arms into the ground to steady itself. Allen slapped it away, and it rolled much like the jellyfish he used to play with at the beach when he was just a boy.

Hilariously, it tried to camouflage itself with a sort of pseudo-invisibility to escape. That was never going to work. Allen had enough experience with invisible opponents to know how to deal with them. He dispersed an enormous cloud omnidirectionally and watched the beast’s outline present itself.

With a flourish of his hand, the clouds darkened and arranged themselves into the form of a weapon. He compressed and released them, and they disappeared, revealing a train-sized glacial lance, fit to be wielded by a giant.

It rocketed down, leaving a gust of wind in its wake that would have thrown a normal person off their feet. The primebeast had been jumping into the water, and got hit right when it hit the surface, creating a splash taller than the nearby company building.

The instant Allen got a clear view of it again, he saw it was dead. Like the overgrown fish it was, it had died on a skewer, hanging there lifelessly for the world to see.

Granted, they would check and contain it later, but the public was allowed to take pictures, and he had no doubt they would.

“Ah, sir Mistral?” he heard behind him.

“Yes?” He turned to the masked girl on the other cloud. Calliope, if he recalled correctly. Her bodysuit was wet, and her leg was twisted unnaturally. Her friend, Shade, was lying face-down next to her, though Allen could see him breathing.

“Thank you, for saving us. I really thought we were going to… die,” she spoke through a strange filter.

“You’re safe with me, young lady,” Allen said before switching to his team comms. “Radi, I have some people I’ll be leaving in your care. And Zeta?”

“Captain?” sounded the raspy voice in his ear.

“Sweep the area for clues before the forensics team arrives. I want all possible leaks that could have allowed a primebeast to breach district security identified as soon as you can manage.” Which was very soon, but there was no point in feeding Zeta’s ego right now. He needed the guy to stay productive.

They should have been thankful this monster hadn’t been stronger. If a colossal—or god forbid, a titanic class—had managed to get anywhere near the district, the consequences would have been disastrous. And if he was being honest, he wanted this problem dealt with before the military decided they needed to meddle where they didn’t belong.

It was a shame the culprits were either dead or missing, or they could have gotten leads more easily. He paused, his gaze landing on the two young heroes once more.

He supposed these kids could tell him what they knew.