Shade: Unbound

Stepping into the elevator, Matilda leaned back against the mirror, a frown crossing her veiled mouth as Josiah followed her in.

“There really isn’t much you could’ve done. I know it’s not easy to come to terms with, but this is for the best,” he was saying.

“He was overdosing,” she ground out, trying her level best not to snap at him. It was hard, but she managed it with clenched fists at her side. The elevator doors closed, and they began their ascent.

“Look at me, Damsel,” Josiah said, prompting her to lift her head. He was a man in his late thirties, wearing a turtleneck sweater under his clean-shaven face and shaggy haircut. His calm demeanor, his kind eyes, the lines on his face that spoke of years of experience. All in all, his appearance made him very approachable, which was no doubt intentional.

“It’s not your fault,” her supervisor continued. “While reckless, your attempt to save him was admirable, but sometimes there isn’t anything you can do. To me, this outcome is relieving. You are not responsible for what happened to that man.”

Man? The guy hadn’t looked much older than her. But she kept that to herself. “You’re making it sound as though it’s a good thing that he died.”

“It’s not.” It took Josiah longer to admit that than she would have liked. “But your safety is my priority, and that is non-negotiable.”

“He only saw my face…” she protested weakly. Just because he had seen what she looked like didn’t mean he deserved to die to ensure he would take that secret to his grave.

"Only saw your face? Matilda, you’re more than smart enough to realize the consequences of your identity being exposed to the public,” Josiah replied, his voice soft but firm. His gaze held a mixture of concern and understanding, as if he had seen this scenario unfold many times before. “It sounds terrible to weigh the value of a human life like this, but I mean it when I say your well-being comes first. You don’t realize how much you’re already worth to the DHD at such a young age.”

“I’m not that special,” Matilda retorted. And she meant it, too. Damsel was just a poor attempt to cover up who she really was. A scared, broken girl.

Her armor was tough, hard to break through. It made her feel safe and protected, and it was easy to hide behind. But it would be impolite to arrive with her face hidden. And Josiah was talking to her now, no longer to Damsel.

Plate rustled as she took off her metal helmet, chainmail clinking against the hard surface of the elevator. Her strawberry blonde hair spilled out, draping over her shoulders.

With her face now exposed, she saw herself in the mirror reflection. That little button nose, the round cheeks, and a pair of too-large amber eyes. They often garnered compliments, but those people didn’t know. About her…

She felt dirty.

Matilda looked at the floor, one arm hugging the other. She could see Josiah reaching out a hand to touch her, and she flinched.

He thought better of it and lowered it again, then said, “You may not realize it now, but you are very special for more reasons than one. Your abilities aside, I’ve rarely seen someone with as much grit and commitment as you.”

She did work hard to convey that image, but that was to secure her place on the team. After spending so long in therapy, she was quite tired of Allen treating her like she was made of glass. It had been a struggle to convince him to let her attend try-outs, and that close call on her first patrol hadn’t helped either.

If he learned of what happened today, he might actually revoke her privileges as a member of the Junior Aces. And then she would be back to being herself, all the time. She could scarcely imagine a worse outcome if she tried.

However, just because Josiah was willing to hide the fact that a drug addict had seen her use her powers in an attempt to get medical attention as he was on the verge of death, did not mean she should let him.

Yet at the same time, she was aware of the close call she’d had, having stumbled upon the man in her civilian clothing. But what was she supposed to do? The ambulance wouldn’t have gotten there in time.

Ultimately, though, it made no difference. That person had not survived, and no matter how much the haunting memory of his corpse in her arms compelled her to take responsibility, he would never come back.

The DHD was not going to let stories like that reach front page news. And deep down, she was glad the situation turned out the way it did, despite her arguments to the contrary. Her relief outweighed the grief she felt for that poor guy. She hated that she felt that way.

Out loud, she muttered a “thank you” and turned to face the elevator door. This was her stop.

At the chime of the elevator, Josiah waved. “It looks like we’ve arrived. If you ever need to talk again, I’m here for you. Now go say hi to your teammates.”

With a short goodbye, Matilda stepped onto the plush carpet with the Junior Ace logo depicted on it—a stylized letter “A” in dark purple against a golden backdrop. The elevator doors slid shut behind her, and she walked towards the door on the other side of the short corridor.

Although various methods of authentication had been established here, she opted for the retinal scan, since she already had her face exposed. A moment after she looked into the lens, the door opened on its own. When she came in, she immediately spotted two people sitting at the large round table in the middle of the large room.

“Hey, Matilda!” A boy slightly younger than her greeted with a wave, face lighting up as he did so. His name was Benjamin. He was playing some game on his phone, going by the way it was tilted sideways. That was a feat he could only manage in his human form, which he always assumed when he wasn’t on patrol as Scalestrike.

“‘Sup, Tilly,” said the person a few seats over. This one’s name was Dolen, though he went by Warp whenever he had his mask on. Looking down at his hands, she could see he was similarly engaged in whatever game Benjamin was playing. Multiplayer, then. While she herself wasn’t really one for video games, she was glad her team was getting along again. After all, tensions had run quite high for a while after her debut, but their next confrontation with Homeland had more or less set things straight.

Granted, they probably wouldn’t have succeeded if Shade hadn’t drawn Trooper out, but still. She was feeling a lot better about her performance this time around.

“Don’t call me that,” she replied in a subdued tone.

Dolen looked up at her, then frowned. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said with a strained smile. “Do you know where Aquiveil is?”

“Juuuuuust around the corner,” came another voice. A tanned boy with drenched locks clinging to his forehead came up to her. “What’s wrong? You look upset. Are you upset? Because if so, it’s definitely not my fault, as far as I know. Or is that not why you were looking for me? Either way, it’s good that you’re here because I just started this little art project which I wanted to ask your help for. You know, since I’m working with some pretty tough materials you’d be able to cut, no sweat. But even if you did sweat, I could just wash it off no problem. With my power, not in a creepy way. So if you really think about it, there’s no downside to helping me out here.”

This guy liked to talk. But she was starting to appreciate his energy a lot more on this particular day. It was nice to know he was still the same after what happened today.

Realizing he was giving her a chance to respond, she said, “Well, Seth, I wanted to revise some of our strategies for the new split patrol arrangement.” Honestly, she didn’t care that much if they got any tangible results today. She just needed to take her mind off of everything else.

“Riiight, yeah, of course. Of course, I had some things in mind for that, and I can tell you about them later, but I might be able to think of more if…” He trailed off and watched her through narrowed eyes with a finger gun pointed at her.

“I’ll cut those materials for your art project,” she agreed.

Seth snapped his fingers. “Yes! I promise it won’t take more than a few minutes.” He turned around and started walking back, then stopped midway when the elevator chimed again.

A new figure appeared from its doors. She didn’t have to look to see who it was, since that telltale jingle sounded with every one of his steps. But she found herself unable to look anywhere else, anticipating his arrival despite having interacted with him many times already. There was just something about him, something she couldn’t quite articulate.

She addressed the gold-clad hero as he stepped into the room. “Team captain…”

“Junior,” Nar replied without missing a beat. She couldn’t see his expression, since it was hidden by the dotted smile of his mask. It was an unspoken rule for them to take it off while in their team room, but Nar rarely bothered, since he was so busy and rarely stayed here for long.

Or maybe he simply thought he was above such rules.

No, she was just projecting. It was clearly because of his hero work. He’d done more for Apexia than she ever had—and maybe even more than she ever would. The thought carried a wave of anxiety, but she had a hard time denying it.

“Anything new?” Dolen asked while she dwelled on that.

Before explaining, Nar walked over to the round table and leaned forward with both his gloved hands on the smooth surface. “A noticeable uptick, yes. I’ve been disrupting quite a number of exchanges, so to speak. But no progress on identifying the laboratory the Venin is using for production, so far. They’re being careful.”

Right… the Venin, Matilda thought. She’d had her little episode with Josiah earlier because of them. After all, they were the ones supplying this terrible drug across the district. They were the reason that man was dead.

“You’ve noticed it too, haven’t you? They’re getting desperate, like someone lit a fire under them,” Seth replied, his tone suddenly grave. An easygoing babbler he may have been, but he knew when to get serious. Besides, he was still the second oldest member on their team. And soon to be the oldest.

“I have indeed noticed,” said their leader. “But it’s not as if Viperia will just tell us what’s going on if we approach her, now is it?”

They fell silent for a few moments after that, each stewing in their own thoughts. Nar was right. Viperia wouldn’t just tell them what she was planning. And if there ever came a point where she felt ready to deal with the government, it would be a situation where she made the demands, using some kind of leverage. Typical villain behavior, really.

“It sucks,” Benjamin eventually spoke up. They all turned to him. One of his hands was turning over his phone between his fingers while the other rested on his lap. “Just when we’re about to lose our best team member, everyone in the city starts going insane. It hasn’t even been two weeks since Homeland hit that uh… real estate agency building, and now the Venin are causing a drug frenzy. Or epidemic, however you wanna say it.”

“We’ll be fine,” Matilda tried to say, but the words rang hollow. “We still have Allen. The adults are going to be doing most of the work, regardless of what happens.”

“Not trying to be negative here, but Ben’s right,” Dolen said. “Much as I don’t like it, our squad’s power is about to be halved with the loss of one guy. More than halved, if I’m not bullshitting.” His eyes found the jester standing among them, but the captain wasn’t saying anything in response yet.

Why was Nar leaving the Junior Aces? The answer was rather simple: age. After turning eighteen, the DHD’s hero program for minors made their members eligible for recruitment to hero teams across the entire megacity.

Nar’s ability made it so he was a famous rising star around the globe and in high demand basically everywhere. Which was why it was a foregone conclusion that he would be leaving district A23G when his time was up.

The problem was, his time had been up for a while now. His eighteenth birthday had passed last month, and while nobody actually moved teams on that exact date, he couldn't delay more than the rest of this semester. Meaning they had a few months before Apexia’s golden child spread his wings.

They could try and get him to stay, and some of them had, a few times. Yet, they all knew it was no use. Even if he could stay here, it was only a matter of time before he grew too big for this small pond.

Not to mention, it wouldn't be fair of them to ask him to stay. He had by far put in the most hours out of the whole team. As one would expect from a boy who’d become a hero when he was barely eleven years old.

Nar pulled back a chair and sat down. “Don’t worry, everyone. When the time of my departure comes, I will have made sure there’s nothing left here that you can't handle without me.”

“Just the four of us?” Benjamin asked.

“You’re more capable than you know. And you aren’t the only ones fighting the good fight.”

Matilda couldn’t deny that. They still had Allen and the other adult heroes, just like she’d said earlier. But it also brought her mind to something she had been wondering about.

“Have you sighted Calliope lately?” she asked. With his current power combination, his vision was probably the best in the district, and he could fly, so he covered a lot of ground every time he went out.

The captain looked at her, and she could almost feel him smirking behind his mask. “Why her, specifically? Is there something you’d like to tell us?”

She crossed her arms. “No particular reason, I was just curious. She hasn’t been seen by the public for a while. So have you?”

“I haven’t,” he admitted.

“What about Shade?” Benjamin asked. The boy had been curious about him ever since he learned of his help against the Homeland hostage situation and later Trooper himself. “You rescued him, right? He didn’t say anything about her?”

“That’s right. She didn't exactly come up in conversation between us. In fact, I barely had the chance to speak to him at all. Not that I think he’s the chatty type either way.” Nar paused. “Maybe they just decided to retire early.”

She very much doubted that, but it was clear that Nar didn’t think they should worry too much, for whatever reason. Maybe he was teaching them to have faith in their peers. Or there was more to the story than he let on. It wouldn't be the first time he was privy to information he wasn’t allowed to tell the rest of the team.

That was to be expected, however. Not only due to his level of competence, but also because of his personal background. She couldn’t say he lived the life of a normal teenager, even under his civilian identity.

As though he heard that thought and wanted to punctuate it, Nar took off his mask. Removing the golden jester hat, he bared to them a face Matilda had to admit was very handsome. Light blonde hair, bright green eyes, captivating features, he had it all.

“All of you, on the other hand, will not be retiring anytime soon,” Aiden Wardell said. He made eye contact with each of his teammates, who all felt growing trepidation. “I know precisely how to keep you sharp in the coming days. You should see what I have in mind for squad training!”