Shade: Unbound

It was past midnight when Finn reached his home, and like always, he managed to enter unseen.

After changing out of his costume, he was tempted to go to bed immediately, but decided to take a quick shower first.

And quick it was, taking him only a couple of minutes to wash and get himself ready to sleep. As he stepped out into the dark hallway, though, he found his mother standing there.

“You know, I was going to ask where you’ve been, but I have a feeling you won’t give me a straight answer. And yes, I know you weren’t with Jack,” she said, arms crossed.

“How do you know I wasn’t with Jack?” Finn countered.

She held up her phone. “He got home hours before you did, that’s how.”

Well, he couldn’t say Jack hadn’t warned him.

“That’s because I stayed after Jack left,” he said, trying to think of something on the fly.

“Stayed where?”

What to say here, the hospital? No, that would just worry her more, but it was the closest thing to the truth he could say without giving himself away.

“At someone else’s house,” he said.

“So vague,” his mother responded, frowning. “You know you can come to me if you’re dealing with something. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t keep me in the dark. Maybe I’ll go ask Jack about it tomorrow.”

“No, Mom. I,’ he began, “was just hanging out.”

Her response was a flat stare.

“We had a… friend who needed help,” he continued. “I lost track of time while I was there.”

She raised her eyebrows at that. “You have other friends?”

Finn sighed. “Is that so surprising?”

“Not as much as it would’ve been a few months ago, but yes, somewhat.”

He didn’t know why he even bothered asking. They were both well aware of the size of his social circle the past few years.

It was time to go to sleep, anyway. “You don’t need to know everything about her.” And he realized his slip-up as soon as it left his mouth.

She pushed a red lock out of her face.“Her? Finn, are you seeing someone?”

Right before instinctually denying it, he reconsidered. He had no experience with that kind of thing, but it would be a good excuse for sneaking off at these late hours.

“...Yeah, I am.” That didn’t make it any less embarrassing to say, though.

His mother paused for a moment, then stepped forward. “Really?”

He nodded, adjusting his pajamas. She just had to make him double down, didn’t she?

“You really like her?”

“Of course,” he lied, trying to prevent his expression from contorting like he’d just swallowed a mouthful of lemon.

She ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know what to say. I had a suspicion, but now that it’s actually happening I’m shocked.”

He would’ve added a “she’s great” in there as well, but that was too much. “Stop asking about it,” he said instead.

“Okay, fine,” she said as she put a hand on his shoulder. “But be safe. I’m not ready to become a grandmother yet.”

His eyes widened. Best not to grace that with a verbal response, though, going by his mother’s knowing smile.

And before he knew it, he had been pulled into a hug.

“I’m so relieved,” she kept saying, over and over. And every time she did, the guilt piled on just a bit more. But it was fine.

As long as Mom didn’t find out the truth, she’d be fine.

*******

It was still dark when Finn woke up to the sound of his phone’s ringtone. He immediately knew something was off. It could only be his mother or Jack, and his mother had no reason to call him at this hour.

He picked up.

“—ome on, yes! Okay, Finn, listen,” came Jack’s voice.

“What?” Finn replied, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It was hours before his usual time, and his usual time wasn’t particularly late.

There was a deep breath on the other side of the line. “I can’t make it to school today.”

“Why?” he asked, while also noting today was apparently a school day. With everything that went down yesterday, he’d almost forgotten. He supposed that came with the territory of planning a major mission on the last day of the weekend, but there really wasn’t a more opportune moment in their allotted time frame.

“Family member died.”

“...Who was it?”

“My great aunt,” Jack explained. He didn’t sound particularly sad about it. “Don’t think you’ve ever met her, but her children expect us to attend the ceremony this evening. Thing is though, they live in a coastal district, so we’ll be traveling all day to get there.”

“And you wanted to tell me not to do anything reckless while you’re away,” Finn guessed.

“Yup. So, promise me you’ll stay home just for tonight? If you wanna run a bit longer tomorrow night to make up for it, that’s fine with me.”

“Sure.” It was too early to argue, and they’d already more or less gone over it.

“Cool. Okay, see ya. Oh, actually, catch some more sleep if you can; I just realized what time it is.”

“How are you going to stay awake all day?” he asked, knowing Jack had pulled an all-nighter.

“Copious amounts of coffee and excitement. I’m working on a new project. I’d tell you about it now, but you really have to experience the whole thing at once. But yeah, that’s about it. See ya tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Finn agreed, then hung up.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he pushed his hair out of his face and thought. He could go back to sleep, but if there were no missions to prepare for until tomorrow, he might as well spend a few hours practicing with his powers until he had to go to class. So that was exactly what he did.

In the time since he’d first manifested his ability, he hadn’t made much progress with expanding its versatility. He was still mostly using it for misdirection and communication. But he knew there was more to it. Because there was no other way. He simply could not accept a reality where this was all he could do.

As he mulled over his untapped potential, he kept up the regular control exercises he always did when he had the chance. In that aspect, he’d been making steady progress. His range and control were improving, and he was getting a better grasp of the concept of boundaries which he could use as a frame for his power.

That one time where he stopped a fire had been a clue, but the problem with that was that it didn’t work on every energy source. After all, it wasn’t like the majority of his opponents used fire. The only reason it had worked in that one instance was because he had been able to mentally distinguish the flames from the surrounding air.

Obviously, he and Jack had looked into it, and the conclusion they came to was that he had prevented the particles from emitting heat by giving them absorptive properties with his power and thereby ended the fire.

They had tried to replicate that feat with small things like lighters and matches, but the problem was that he never had a medium through which to guide the energy. And even if he did, he didn’t have the slightest clue how he would go about doing that, assuming he could.

Electricity and light had been subsequently attempted, with little in the way of success. He had already known he could surround light sources with his power to darken the environment. And electricity seemed strictly impossible to affect. At least directly. He could change its color when it was within a contained environment, but that didn’t stop it from doing whatever it would’ve done originally.

Which wasn’t to say he was incapable of affecting all machinery powered by electricity. In that aspect, he’d already seen some measure of success. Especially with light sensors. He was becoming quite comfortable with those.

However, he wouldn’t be able to put that into practice unless he knew the internal structure of the device he was trying to use his power on. After all, there weren't many situations where flooding a machine in a single color would be useful.

What they hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of was his uncanny ability to see through his own power as he pleased, at least under certain circumstances. For example, if he colored his entire eyeball, pupil included, white, there should logically be no light reaching his retinas, and yet that technique didn't render him blind. At first, Jack had thought Finn was making his power transparent to only himself, but that didn't explain their later tests where it turned out that light did not actually get into his eyes.

If he wasn’t using ocular vision to perceive the world around him, then what allowed him to see?

When he colored his eyes black in the beginning, he'd simply blackened his whole eyeball and left a small hole for his pupil to see, then soon found that wasn't necessary.

Jack had posited the idea that it was actually his color receiving visual feedback and sending it back to his brain. But he had dismissed it, arguing that, if that were the case, why did that not apply to all the other things he applied his power to?

Or maybe it did, and he merely hadn’t trained his ability to the point where he could sense that.

If that was true, then learning the internal structure of inanimate objects would become trivial.

To test out his hypothesis, he brought his attention to the wall. Closing his eyes for extra concentration, he changed its color slightly and tried to sense the material.

Was it working? It felt like he was just imagining it, but the only point of reference he had was his not-quite-vision.

It certainly wasn’t like he could suddenly see the wall without perceiving light. Though, perhaps that wasn’t necessary. If he managed to get some mental feedback of its shape, he could go from there.

And lo and behold, it was indeed possible.

In his mind, he perceived the tiny ridges of the colored wallpaper pattern. The surprising amount of detail caught him off guard, but he supposed this sense would be just as effective as his own precision allowed.

As it turned out, the rest of the room was just as easy to map out, like the rest of his house. Granted, he was more careful with the latter, using unnoticeable colors to navigate the other rooms, but they were just as effective.

After getting ready, he left the house after his mother went to work, eager to experiment with his new discovery outside.

It worked on practically everything. Cars, street lights, roads, sidewalks, buildings, trash cans, whatever he saw, he could feel out. Except other people. He had expected this, of course. It wouldn’t make sense to be able to sense something which the sensory “organ” couldn’t interact with. And it didn’t seem like that was going to change anytime soon. Best to prioritize what he could do for now.

Internal structures were tricky. He could flood an object with his power just fine, even one that wasn’t hollow on the inside, but most of the time he had no clue what it was he was actually sensing. Given that he wasn’t an engineer, he didn’t know how the average car was constructed, and that meant he didn’t know what every moving part on the inside was doing.

Not to mention trapped air. If there wasn’t an opening allowing airflow to the outside, air was perfectly within his reach, since it was surrounded by a boundary. So that meant it was just as obtrusive to his senses as solids or liquids would be. The phase of matter wasn’t the determining factor for whether he could use his power on something or not. So anything within an enclosed system that wasn’t a living being, was susceptible to color manipulation.

At this point, he was comfortable enough to walk to school with his eyes closed. The only thing stopping him from doing that was the fact that he could still bump into other people. And it would’ve looked extremely suspicious. He knew Lyra didn’t need her eyes to navigate her surroundings.

As if she’d heard that thought, he received a message from her on his phone that very moment. He responded right away.

(L):

(F):

(L):

(F):

(L):

(F):

(L):

(L):

(F):

(L):

(F):

(L):

“Who’re you texting?” Ines asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“No one,” he turned his screen off and took a step away from her.

“That’s not what it looked like,” she said, skipping up to his side.

“You must have seen it wrong,” he said absently, withdrawing his power from the nearby school building.

“Was it another woman? You’d better not be cheating on Casey, mister.”

“I am not in a relationship with Casey. Or anyone else.”

“Suuuure,” she got in front of him, walking backwards up the steps as they headed to class together. “It’s okay, Finn. I’m a super reasonable friend. I’ll give you all day to tell her about your mistake, and if you’re lucky, she’ll forgive you.”

He gave her an unamused stare.

“What? It might be harder than you think. We don’t have PE today, so don’t go thinking you can charm her with your dodgeball talent again.”

“It’s been over a month.”

“Well, to her, it feels like yesterday.”

“I doubt that.”

“Hmph. You’re heartless.” She looked at him with a sly smile before settling in on the opposite end of the hallway, apparently satisfied.

He gave Lyra an affirmative response before going back to his tests. The good news was that he would never need to look at another floor plan in his life. The bad news was that he knew Jack was going to force him to study a bunch of books about all sorts of different machinery to get the most out of this power.

A few minutes later, the teacher arrived and opened the door for everyone. Some of the boys in the back were talking about the raid on a Venin base yesterday. Wait, what?

“I thought you said they were never going big? I told you Shade was the real deal. You owe me twenty apos, dude,” Jules was saying when Finn strode up to them. The other boy turned around. “Oh hey there, Asswipe. The fuck do you want?”

“Where did you hear about this?” Finn asked the others, ignoring him.

“The forums, where else? I thought your buddy was really into hero stuff,” Dean answered.

He nodded, pulled out his phone and walked away. He knew they weren’t talking about Aegis forums, but instead one of the other websites people his age would be likely to frequent.

Sure enough, not even two seconds after filtering for A23G on the first community site on his list, he saw an action shot of Shade and Calliope escaping that first explosion Havoc set off.

From what he could tell scrolling through the comments, Lyra’s injury was still unknown to the public as of now. It was already surprising that people knew they were behind this stunt in the first place. He had to hand it to those truly dedicated fanatics risking their lives to get good footage.

When the teacher called on them to start the lesson, he put his phone away. From that point onwards, the morning passed uneventfully. He attended his classes like normal until lunch rolled

around.

He opened his phone again, realizing it was still on that same website. The page refreshed. And he saw.

A post titled, ‘Homeland Assault on Apexia Properties. Potential Hostage Situation’ on the front page.

His mother worked there.

Finn was gone before anyone noticed.