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Chapter 26 - Underground

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The rain drenched just about everything long before they reached their destination.

It masked the sound of Shift’s feet hitting the roof, which Athira was grateful for. No matter how carefully she placed him, he always sounded five times his weight and this time was no different.

She dropped his wrist and landed in a crouch beside him, keeping low to the rooftop so her form would be concealed by the higher roof arch behind her. The wet cement pressed against her knee, soaking through the thin material of the leggings as she settled down. It would have annoyed her, if not for the fact that her colour was already evaporating it from the fabric.

“What now?” asked Shift.

Athira’s eyes scanned the skywalk below. She shifted her position, unsure what to do with another person at her side. This was usually the part where she sat alone except for Talon, for hours at a time if it became necessary. Having someone else to talk to changed the entire experience.

Without taking her gaze from the location, she decided on two simple words.

“We wait.”

That seemed to be enough for Shift, who accepted it with a small shrug and turned back to the skywalk.

From her vantage point atop one of the middle-sized scrapers, Athira figured she’d be able to see anything that mattered. The skywalk she knew her contact would cross was in plain sight, as were the insides of the buildings it linked, thanks to the glass panelling the place had installed recently. Something about making it seem more ‘legit’ when inspection time came around, although she knew it was anything but.

Beside her, Shift tried to lean back against the out-of-use clock tower that sprouted up out of the scraper’s roof. Under the movement, a section of roof came loose and plunged to the ground below.

Athira snatched at his wrist, but her green colour didn’t need it. He righted himself easily, displaying an agility she often forgot he possessed.

“Being in the heart of the city, you forget how neglected some of these buildings get out near the outskirts,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I don’t think they even use cement in buildings now.”

“Just be careful,” muttered Athira, dropping her hold on him. “These aren’t quite Starpoint tower status yet, but they’re getting there. Above ground, at least.”

“Above ground? What about under it?”

“That’s what you’re going to find out tonight.”

By now, the section of roof covered by Athira’s cloak was dry as she imagined the inside to be. Like her amulet, the fabric was warm with her colour. Drops of rain sizzled into oblivion upon touching it.

The same couldn’t be said for Shift. As a larger rivulet of raindrops fell off his face, she took pity on him and erected a small shell of colour above his head to keep him dry. With a second quick flick of her wrist, a wave of colour combed through his dark blonde hair and took the remaining water with it.

Shift shook his head in surprise before he realised what she’d done. Apparently it was worthy of a smile.

“Thanks, Thira.”

Athira was about to reply when she caught herself. She gave him a quick nod and went back to scanning the skywalk beneath her before Shift could find the smile pressing against her own lips.

First new clothes, now you’re keeping him out of the rain... Gosh, Athira. I never knew you cared so much about him.

Shut up, Talon. No one asked you.

A pair of women passed through the skywalk. Athira scrutinised every movement they made the entire way across before dismissing them.

The minutes dragged by.

He’ll be here, she told herself. All you have to do is wait.

She had one advantage to this entire situation, and that was her contact wasn’t expecting her to have completed his task so soon, if at all. Most mercenaries would have waited, scouted the route the Elite patrol took several times -- not just jumped on the first one that happened to pass by after receiving the mission.

That, and no one in their right mind would usually be waiting outside in a storm like this. On top of a scraper, nonetheless.

Athira sighed. Talon, I swear--

Then she saw them.

Three figures stepped on to the skywalk. They stayed in step with each other as equals, but one was clearly the leader. Athira narrowed her eyes. The one in the centre. The other two were just muscle, the brawn to the brain that had all too much money.

She transferred her weight on to her hands and leant forward, studying their every detail.

Blue coat. Dark grey trousers with those stupid buckles they’re all obsessed with. Black hair.

 “Is that them?” asked Shift. He fidgeted. “The ones we’re, uh, hunting?”

Athira rocked back, having almost forgotten he was with her. She’d been a second away from ghosting after her first target of the night.

 “He’s my contact,” said Athira. The trio reached the other end of the skywalk. They approached a solitary figure that looked like she was simply waiting for someone in the lobby, but Athira knew better. “He supposedly knows where our target is, and I’ve spent the last week earning his favour.”

The leader exchanged a few words with the woman, who quickly waved them away and went back to her nails.

“And if he doesn’t know where the... target is?” asked Shift.

The trio disappeared into the elevator, confirming what she already knew.

Athira stood up. “Then he’s going to regret it.”

Shift copied her movement. Hesitantly, he touched her shoulder. “Athira, we’re not going to... I don’t know, hurt anyone, are we?”

Athira glanced at him. “We’re going to impale them across the Elite HQ’s spire and then burn their livers to appease the gods above.” Seeing the look of horror that crossed his face, she rolled her eyes. “No, Shift, we’re not. That’s the specific reason I brought you along, so I wouldn’t have to hurt anyone.”

Shift looked confused. “But I thought you didn’t want to bring me in the first place.”

Athira couldn’t help the smirk that moved her lips against her will. “Mm hmm. And that’s why I already had a suit made to your measurements.”

“Seems a rather time consuming process for just one night.”

Athira sighed. “If you knew the lengths I’ve gone to avoid upsetting the hive, you’d say a lot more than that.”

“And yet I’m the one standing on a roof with you without anything but an explanation of ‘we’re hunting someone down’,” said Shift. “Something that usually goes against what I do.”

Athira glanced at him, catching the strange note in his voice.  He looked good in the Owl-style outfit she’d had the tailor make him, but there was something in the way he clenched his fists and jaw that he wasn’t entirely comfortable in it.

She placed a hand on the side of his arm. Shift looked at it for a moment before trying to find an explanation in her face.

“You trust me, right?” she asked. Admitted relief flooded her when he slowly nodded. “Then you need to trust that I’m doing this for Zoe and everyone else on Thols. I gave Raph’s methods a chance, but now it’s my turn to figure out what the Elites are doing.”

Shift closed his eyes for a second. “And you promise that whatever we’re doing here, whoever we’re... hunting,” he said awkwardly. “We’re not going to hurt them?”

Athira nodded, hoping she wasn’t lying.

He seemed to accept that more easily. “Well, I guess what we’re doing can’t be entirely legal, else you wouldn’t have lured me out in the middle of the night.”

They should be at the bottom by now. “Legal I can’t promise.”

Shift cracked a smile at that. “I’ve always been a bit of a rulebreaker.”

Athira held out a hand to Shift. “You’ve got nothing on me, lizard brain. Let’s go.”

He took it. “Time to go to talk to a lonely lady?”

 “I thought we might just stand her up.”

*+*+*+*

Shift wished he could get the hang of this flying thing so Athira wouldn’t have to drag him around. It would have given him some feeling of accomplishment to the utter confusion he was feeling at the situation on hand.

You’re not supposed to be here, running around with an acclaimed villain in the middle of the night, said the voice in the back of his head. Not unless it’s to catch them.

Yea, he replied. Aren’t I all too aware of that.

Athira floated them to the floor below where the elegant woman had sat preening herself on the lounges without ever making a sound. Faced with the wall, she pressed herself up against the glass and melted through as if it were water, black colour cocooning her skin for the tiniest second. It peeled back once she was through, remaining at her hand that gripped his and spreading over his own body once she turned back to pull him through effortlessly.

Shift winced as the solid-but-not surface passed through him. Still feels like I’m being pressed into butter.

The change in temperature and just about everything else was immediate as ‘inside’ became a thing. He expected Athira to head straight for her next destination, but instead she dropped his hand and leant against the wall in an almost casual manner, staring into the empty lobby.

Shift glanced around, wondering if he was missing something. Some kinda old hotel, I think. “Any reason why we’re hanging around here?”

“Waiting for the elevator to come back up,” came her reply. “Should be about a minute.”

“And we avoided the woman because...”

“She’s a gatekeeper,” said Athira, making a clear effort to curb her annoyance. “A blue colour. No one gets in or out of the Underground without her or one of her sisters knowing about it. Unless you’re me, of course.”

“What, you have a favour from her, too?” asked Shift.

“Nope,” said Athira. “I don’t think she believes I exist, because the only evidence she gets of me is the word of mouth and a broken rune.”

From the wall on the opposite side of the room, a clunked rumbling noise shot from floor to the ceiling. Athira seemed to take some kind of cue from it, pushing herself off the wall and walking calmly towards the source.

“So, you break the rune, then we go down the shaft into some secret club where we meet your contact?” asked Shift. “Is that it?”

Athira pressed her hands against the wall and set her colour about forming tendrils that snaked across, over and finally into the wall. “Then we find our actual target, you shift some of her colour and we’ll be on our way.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

The black colour had spread across the room in a peculiar pattern that a few moments later, Shift recognised as one of the more obscure runic patterns blues could harness. He’d never been good at reading specifics, but the general idea of the shape was to protect and barricade.

Shield the elevator shaft, leave only one way in or out, figured Shift. Probably some alarm hidden in there too if it’s tampered with. Too bad she’s never met a black colour before.

Athira stepped away from the wall, shaking her arms. Shift reached out to touch it but an arm stopped him.

“Not until it’s done,” she said. “Can get rather messy sometimes, depending on which sister repaired the rune. They’re all blues, but one of them has something slightly different about her colour and it always reacts badly.”

The black patterned colour swelled, like someone had injected tubing with water. Its surface writhed in attempt to contain whatever had caused the change but it was clear there was no competition. When her colour withdrew, any trace of whatever it’d eaten was gone. Only a dark, scorch like mark was left to mourn the rune that had almost literally been burned from the wall.

Athira released a loud breath. “Wasn’t the bad one. Ready?”

“No isn’t really an answer here, is it?”

“Nope.”

Shift tried to redirect the anxiety into enthusiasm. “Then hell yes!”

Athira reached for his hand, presumably to drag him through more wall butter before she stopped. The distant expression gave away her debate with Talon.

“All good in there?” asked Shift.

Athira’s eyes refocused. Her hands reached up for the mottled cowl, slipping it back just enough so he could see her face clearly, then rested on his shoulders.

“Unless I say otherwise, stay close to me and I won’t let anything happen to you,” she said. “Don’t wander off and whatever happens, don’t lose the mask. The last thing I want is your pretty boy face to get recognised, because then I’m going to have to kill a bunch of people to protect you which I’d rather not do for several reasons.”

Shift returned her gesture, but instead placed his hands on her hips. “I can just say it was an off-duty misadventure to the Elites, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Athira was already shaking her head. “The Elites are nothing. I’m worried about how many of these people’s friends you’ve put behind Elite bars, and how slowly they’ll try to kill you if they find out it’s you.”

Shift froze as the pieces came together. “Please tell me we’re not going into a nest.”

Athira could have won the national poker championships with her face. “We’re not going into a nest.”

A nest. She was seriously taking him, a recognisable Colour with a unique ability into the middle of a villain hideout club.  “No other way except to go in there?”

“You think I’d be taking you in if there were?”

Shift took a deep breath to calm himself. “And I can’t tell the Elites about this nest either, can I?”

“Not unless you want me to never speak with you again.”

“Speaking I can handle, but what about kiss--“

Athira clapped a hand over his mouth. Her eyes narrowed, but he could see the blush at her cheeks. The cowl wasn’t far enough over to conceal that.

“Finish that sentence and I’m going to throw you down this elevator shaft right now.”

Shift held up his hands in a placating gesture, and Athira removed her hand. She turned sharply from him, pulled up her cowl and stuck her wrist out behind her without looking at him. Shift got the idea and took it, colour engulfing him soon after as they passed into the elevator shaft.

As Athira had predicted, the elevator was above their heads, leaving the rest of the shaft clear for their descent. She kept their downward pace controlled, and Shift sensed, slow, which didn’t make any sense.

He looked up at her from where he hung by her side. “We could just fall.”

“Not after what happened earlier, we can’t.”

Shift decided it was in his best interests to drop it before she dropped him.

What felt like hours later but was actually minutes, Athira deposited Shift on the floor and dragged him through yet another wall without a word. He found himself in what looked like a storage room for confiscated items, with only a single exit sign over the closed door for light.

No, he though, glancing at Athira. That’s not our only source of light.

Without dropping his hand, Athira led him across the room. Despite the lack of light from traditional sources, Shift could see every scattered item thanks to the runes across Athira’s arms, exposed from her mottled grey cloak.

She didn’t bother sidestepping the desk against the wall, opting to walk through it instead and effectively cutting herself in half to his eye, which looked strange. Athira’s upright torso and accompanied clothing was not a desk decoration Shift ever thought he’d see.  

On the other side, the rest of the room concealed by a heavy drape, Athira finally stopped. The dull thud of music hidden in some nearby room pounded against his head, a low constant beat that he’d heard at a few of the newer clubs around Sirah.

“Remember what I told you,” she said quietly. “Mask stays on. Keep some black colour shifted at all times if you need to prove a point, but that you’re here with me should be enough. Stay close.”

With that, Athira pushed the drape aside and strode forward.

Shift kept pace with her confidently quiet stride while trying not to look too enthralled with his surroundings.

Heads turned to see the source of the movement as they advanced forward on the thick red carpet. Most were seated in various leather lined booths pressed up against the walls, but a few stood in groups in the centre of the room with some beverage or another clutched in their hand. Whatever conversation or activity they’d been engaged in stopped dead as Athira swept past them, heading for a heavy wooden door to the right of the bar.

Wood, thought Shift. That’s expensive right there.

She didn’t reach for the handle, instead pushing it down with her colour to open it without ever slowing her step. What did slow it was the large, imposing man in the narrow hall other side of it.

He looked as surprised as Shift felt until he recovered, a moment marked by the folding of his arms.

“Owl,” he said. “What brings you back so soon?”

“Not business with you, that’s for certain,” replied Athira dryly.

The man glanced back at Shift. “Who’s the new one?”

“My apprentice, if you don’t mind,” said Athira.

That got a sneer out of him. “This thing? You’re kiddin’ me, right?”

“He lasted more than two seconds against me, unlike you and the rest of your clan.” Athira sounded bored. “And unless you want to go round two in the Arena right now, get out of my way.”

The man stepped to the side with a grunt. Athira continued past him without another word. Shift could feel the man’s eyes in his back long after they left him behind, but Athira seemed unconcerned.

The hall opened up into a large room, several times the size of the bar with a ceiling higher than Shift would have expected from a club underneath the city. Runes flashed and danced across its surface, alluding to the illusion that he suspected was in place, sometimes sending a shower of blue colour into the space below.

The music he’d heard since entering was coming from a DJ in the far corner who commanded the writhing crowd with his beat. Lights of every colour tinted their skin as they moved, while those not on the floor hung around at the edges engaging each other in conversation. Athira moved through the fringes of people with ease, exchanging a word with a chosen few but leaving most with only silence.

Only one thing was on Shift’s mind.

This is so much more... normal than I imagined these nests to be.

He leant down to her ear. “This is a lot more people than I ever expected.”

 “Big, isn’t it?” she said. “This isn’t the half of it, either. The sheer number of rooms here is astounding.”

“Shouldn’t we have seen more people coming in then?”

“Most of these people board here, running errands for the head. They get in and out through other points with special runes to grant them access.

“Which nest is this, anyway?” asked Shift. “We know their names, just not where they are.”

“The Underground,” muttered Athira. “Also known as one the most infamous villain nests east of the Break. It moves every so often, which is why you Colours can probably never find it.”

 The Underground. “That how you get things done? By doing errands for people?”

Athira shook her head as she opened another door and walked into the room. “The Owl doesn’t do favours for anyone. They do it because I tell them to. Usually, anyway. This happens to be an exception to that rule, where I offered to solve a problem for someone in exchange for information.”

“Why not just tell him to tell you?”

“Because it’s not worth the drama that comes with it.”

Shift’s would be reply was drowned out as a trio emerged from the corner.

“Ah, my little Owl has returned!”

*+*+*+*

A/N - Please show it some love with a vote or a comment if you feel it deserves one <3 [If not, throw a subway cookie at me, pile is over there --->]