Shade: Unbound

For the second time that night, Finn regained consciousness. His entire body felt lighter, enveloped in softness, as though he were floating. He opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut again at the noises around him.

“See? I told you he would be well,” an accented voice said next to him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” another voice came. He recognized it as Lyra.

Cracking his eyes open, he squinted to see her sitting next to him, one of her legs held out over the cloud they were on. Cradling it was a woman wearing a green robe with small tree symbols above the eye holes of her mask, almost resembling eyebrows. He knew who she was, too, though he’d never met her in person before.

So Mistral must have still been nearby. They’d had front row seats for the man’s unbelievable might, and Finn was now keenly aware of just how far he still had to go. Or even more aware; it wasn’t like he’d needed the reminder.

But those were things he could worry about later. Right now, they needed to get out of here. He didn’t feel the least bit comfortable being surrounded by a team of DHD heroes.

“The captain has some questions for you, and I must ensure you are of sound mind and body before you answer to him,” Radi continued, stalling his plans of escape.

“Are we?” Finn asked impatiently, sitting up. It was as if he had wool under his skin instead of blood and muscles, soft and tingly.

The older heroine turned to him. “You are concussed. And bruised. So relax your body, please. It will help you recover.”

“Uhm, how long will it take for your power to set in?” Lyra asked.

“You need to nourish your bodies. More than normal. The more you eat, the faster my power will work through your injuries,” Radi said. “And you, girl, should not be walking on that leg for forty hours minimum.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lyra said.

Radi tilted her head. “But will it not be hard for you to reach home now? Vigilantes really don't have it easy.”

“We’ll be fine,” Finn cut in.

“Yes, I know you will. You are welcome,” Radi chuckled.

Finn wanted to stand, but Mistral descended at that moment. Looking up, he saw the man in his gray bodysuit lined with armor near his vitals, and a blue helmet with a visor that obscured his face. Today marked Finn’s second time seeing the man in real life, as he had seen the hero flying overhead on his way to that fateful first encounter with Lyra, but it was likely Mistral’s first time noticing him.

“So,” began the most powerful man in the district, “while it pains me that you had to go through all of that, I’m still going to have to ask you a few questions.”

Finn just waited. He appreciated the help these people had given him, but he didn’t trust them. The thing was, there wasn’t much he could realistically do to put himself in a different position, at the moment. He was way out of his depth, even more so than he had been against the primebeast.

Mistral crossed his arms. “First things first. What were you doing here?”

Controlling the flow of information was one of the few things Finn could do in this situation, so he didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity. “We spotted a team of villains preparing for an attack and jumped in to stop them when they tried to steal the primebeast from the boat.”

“You arrived here by happenstance, then?”

It seemed Mistral really was curious about how they’d just happened to be in the right place at the right, and Finn was trying to avoid lying here. Not because it would weigh on his conscience, but because he wasn’t sure if the senior hero could detect it.

But he supposed he shouldn't assume everyone was a walking lie detector. Most likely, the best Mistral could do was check security footage around the city and spot them traveling in a certain route.

Still, it was best to give away as little about their investigation as possible.

Or was it? He obviously wasn’t equipped to deal with threats of this caliber, and going by that manager’s phone call, this super-powered octopus might have been part of a larger project.

And was the DHD actually untrustworthy? They hadn’t ever given him concrete evidence that they were. Maybe it was simply in his nature to assume they were corrupt, since he couldn't picture a world where nothing was wrong with them as an organization. Besides, Aegis had to have some ties with them, no?

That thought gave him pause. He knew it was probably just a coincidence, but after his first operation that didn't have anything to do with an Aegis mission objective, the strongest hero team available had shown up rather quickly. Heroes of that caliber tended to be occupied at times like this.

And right after another, independent hero had shown up and died alongside a bunch of police officers.

But maybe it hadn’t been quick at all. It wasn't like he'd been conscious of the time while fighting and running for his life.

“We were on patrol,” he ended up saying, his tone noncommittal.

Mistral stayed silent for a moment. “Sure, sure, be that way. I don’t even blame you, given the position that you’re in. You either have a long-term contract with an Aegis client and all the resources that would entail, or you have another team member doing reconnaissance for you. The second option would explain the drones I found.”

Using every muscle he knew how to use in his face, Finn tried to school his expression into something that wasn’t surprise, and it worked. But they knew about Jack now, somehow.

Holding up a hand, Mistral continued. “I’m not here to bring you behind bars. You don’t have to be concerned about us trying to lock you up or whatever worries you might have in that regard. The truth is, we’re rather understaffed for how much is going on in the district. I’m already taking a risk by staying here so long, but this investigation is dangerous enough to take priority, which is why I’m going to take it out of your hands.”

Radi, who had been nursing Lyra’s leg, was now standing straight with her hands folded in front of her as she observed the not-interrogation. Lyra was also looking at him, and at that point, Finn was somewhat glad to see she wasn’t chiming in and making this any harder for both of them. It also would have been bad if they had questioned her before he woke up.

He stopped that train of thought. Now he was just being rude. How low was his opinion of her? What had she done to warrant such treatment? If it hadn’t been for her, he would have drowned to death. Holding his teammates to his standard was his preferred way of doing things, but that held no weight when he couldn’t even live up to those same standards himself.

“The primebeast came by boat, in a container,” Finn said as these thoughts raced through his head. “It broke out while the fight was happening, and then everyone else tried to run away.”

“Which villains were present?”

“Deft and Panel. Deft got away in time. Panel… didn’t.”

“I am sorry you had to see that,” Radi spoke up. “It’s not right for children to see so much.”

“I agree with my colleague,” Mistral said. “If it were up to me, you never would have come anywhere near this place, but it isn’t. You kids are not under my jurisdiction. But you could be, if you were so inclined.”

There it was. The obligatory recruitment offer. Finn had wondered when it would happen, and it seemed the answer was now. But he didn’t plan to change his mind. “We’re not,” he refused.

“Is that so?” Mistral responded, turning to Lyra.

She nodded. Finn didn’t know why that surprised him, but it did. He would have expected her to hesitate, or give the two adult heroes some signal that they might interpret as hesitation, but no such thing happened. She was on his side.

“In that case, I have two more questions. I’ll conclude the questioning about the beast first: can you tell me anything about the people who were supposed to receive the shipment?”

“Their leader moved like he had some sort of sensory power for danger,” Finn informed him. “His subordinates were coordinated enough to hold off the villains.”

Finn could part with that information, at least. It wouldn’t be traced back to him in any way, nor would it give away much about what he could do on the field. And he wanted to know what power the guy was using. Future sight? If so, Finn was curious how exactly it worked. It was one of his favorite powers.

Upon receiving such an ability, wouldn’t it add a whole other dimension to combat? No longer just having to worry about the past and present, but also that which would happen later. Were there specific moments where the ability could be triggered deliberately, or did it activate automatically when there was impending danger? How did the ability itself determine that? Did it have a range, or was it global? Was it predetermined, or could the projected outcomes be altered through active intervention? Could the power itself display potential futures in direct response to what the user might do, or did it force a reactionary fighting style?

“That sounds impressive,” Mistral said, and Finn agreed. “But I’m still going to arrest him.” He looked toward Radi. “As for the second question, I believe Radi knows how to handle this one.”

“I do,” Radi nodded, apparently not having to ask for clarification as to what he was talking about. She turned to Finn and Lyra. “Do your parents know about your powers?”

“Why?” Finn responded warily.

“Because when the rejuvenation period ends in two hours, you will need to be checked on every few hours for a whole day.”

And that was how they were planning to catch him, wasn’t it? They helped heal him, but the effects of Radi’s power would be evident on his body for the next day, so if anyone saw that after he took his mask off, his secret would be out. That was why Radi asked them whether his parents knew.

It could have been a mere warning, but he suspected this woman was bound by a medical oath that forced her to say these things regardless.

“Do we need to do anything while we’re recovering?” Lyra asked.

“You need a lot of rest, and your bodies will demand nutrition as it burns energy to get better.”

As Lyra asked a few more questions for clarification, Finn’s eyes started to get heavy. The weight of the night was finally settling on him. And what a night it had been. To think he’d been planning to go on another mission after this one was over.

Tonight had been his first confrontation with real death, and he found it so… abruptly brutal. Those guys had been gunning each other down and moving on methodically after each kill, as though they hadn’t just obliterated the years of life experience, relationships, and knowledge their victim had.

From the primebeast, he hadn’t expected anything else. Honestly, he saw the thing more as a natural disaster than a living being; it was there to kill, and they all knew it. Despite that, it had caused mass devastation. He didn’t think the images of all the mutilated and drowned corpses would be leaving his memory anytime soon.

He tried to get off the cloud, but Mistral stopped him and offered to fly them home. They couldn’t afford to let him know where they lived, so they ended up settling on a location that was a fair distance from their houses, but still closer than the canal.

When they reached an accord, the man wasted no time and flew there. This was definitely not his top speed, but he did have two injured patients in tow, so it made sense that he wasn’t racing through the air. They made good time, too.

They touched down in the park and watched Mistral leave. That left the two of them by themselves.

“Gridlock?” Finn tried for the first time in what felt like forever. “Are you there?”

It took a few seconds, but the other boy got back to him. “Wha? Oh, yeah I’m here. I was just focused on securing the drones. Someone tried to ping their location and trace them back to me, so I was trying not to get us all caught.” After a few more seconds, he added, “And I was pretty useless during that whole fight you guys were in. Better to put my mind to something I have control over.”

There wasn’t much any of them could have done against that prime beast, and Jack had called the authorities for them, which was more than enough help, but Finn didn’t think such platitudes would cheer his friend up. If he was being honest, he felt a bit useless himself, at the moment. He needed more power.

“You’re not useless,” he simply stated. “Did you hear what Radi said?”

“Yeah, you can’t go home. I would offer you to stay with me, but that would leave Calliope unattended, and my parents are home, so…” Jack trailed off.

Lyra then turned her head to Finn, fidgeting with her hands behind her back. “Uhm, I might have an idea.”

“You do?” Jack said.

“Y- yeah, if Shade wants to,” she said, looking away.

“If I want what?” Finn prodded.

She inhaled deeply, then rapidly spoke in a single breath, “If you want to stay at my place?”