Chapter 6 - "Special"

21.2K 1.2K 191
                                    

Dedicated to palenomian101 ~ Check out 'Sparrow, Sparrow' for NaNo (and it's amazing hand-drawn cover!)

---

Chapter 6 - “Special”

---

Shift fist-bumped Kione, leaving their knuckles intact for a few more seconds than was customary.

The green flecks swirled around Shift’s curled fingertips before recognising the orange colour in Kione and morphing to meet his shade. As usual, the orange colour made Shift want to cringe. He tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the task Kione had set - making one of his tinkering toys come to life and cross the table.

“You gotta feel it,” said Kione after a few productive seconds of nothing. “Get all up in that machinery, feel its gears, the way they move and respond to the colour.”

“Y’no it’s a little weird when you talk about it like that,” said Shift. “Especially while I’m ‘all up in there’ as you put it.”

“Hey man, the tech feels as the tech feels.”

Shift rolled his eyes and concentrated. Somehow, he worked the colour into the machine, creating it as an extension of his senses that could interact with each individual part of the tech Kione had created. He pushed on the gear, causing something to start spinning.

Figuring a second poke could only help, he did so and promptly snapped two internal belts, crossed a wire and caused the whole thing to explode.

The things leg landed across the table. “The whole thing didn’t have to get across, right?” asked Shift.

Kione picked up the pieces and stared at them. “Apparently these things aren’t spark-proof after all. Remind me to demo test the new equipment I design on you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Kione gathered the pieces, holding them up. “Go again or done?”

“Done,” said Shift, leaning back in the chair. “If I have to shift any more orange colour today I think I’m going to explode.”

Kione clapped him on the shoulder and laughed. “Bah, I don’t know what you find so hard about orange in particular. It’s one of the more versatile colours--“

“Yea, yea, I’ve heard that before,” said Shift. He shook his hand, trying to get rid of the last remnants of orange colour from his system. His own green was much more comfortable. “I still hate shifting it, even more than purple.”

“Hey, you’re still the only green colour I know that’s capable of doing it,” said Kione. He offered a hand and pulled Shift to his feet. “Most of them just turn parts of their body into some other material or do the animal aspect thing. Impressive until you’ve seen it six hundred times.”

“Heh. Give me the usual green colour abilities any day if it means I don’t have to shift orange,” said Shift.

“You’d miss it if you couldn’t shift,” said Kione. “Any idea how Raph’s girl is today?”

“Well enough to hold my OmNom bars to ransom before we came here.” Shift caught Kione’s suspicious look. “She was playing around, chill.”

“I ran that background scan on her last night like Raph asked. It was as he suspected, she dropped off when she was fourteen, eventually written off as killed by a villain named Shutdown. Since then, this girl’s been living completely off the grid.”

“Fairly impressive for someone that young in this day and age,” said Shift. He waved Kione after him and started walking to where Raph was talking to Athira.

Indigo (NaNoWriMo13)Where stories live. Discover now