Denouement

ONE

      Shade gritted her teeth as she evaporated into smoke and shadow. She appeared again twenty feet away, just as a talon grazed the tip of her ear, drawing blood. How she had gotten herself into this brawl, consequently was a normal Tuesday night for Shade.

     She had been minding her own business, or as much as she could in a city overrun with the pests that called themselves prodigies. She was scaling a wall, two blocks from the Empire state building when Falcon, a decently skilled prodigy, saw the opportunity to drag a villain, such as Shade. But she wasn't about to get beat by some asshat in a cape.

She cast a glance to Falcon, who was now charging at her head first. And very fast. Shade couldn't blame him as she had severely aggravated him, but it would be a costly mistake on his end. She was perched on a lamppost, idly swinging her legs in a taunting manner. Just as Falcon was about to leap the fifteen feet up the lamppost to where she sat, Shade vanished from her spot. Appearing behind him, she grabbed the end of his cape, yanking Falcon back with a jolt so fast his breath caught.

Shade couldn't understand the fad of the capes, but it definitely made for easy picking of superheroes. She held no sympathy for Falcon as she spun him around, looking into his rich brown eyes. It was a shame because he was actually good looking if a bit stocky in the shoulders.

Falcon's eyes widened as she let go of his cape, only to send one hell of a left hook to his pretty face. Shade felt a satisfying crunch as blood poured from his nose like a river. He spit blood out of his mouth and then said something that rattled her to her core, something from her past.

"Démêlez le fil pour vous retrouver." Unravel the thread to find yourself.

It was one of the very last things her father had told her before he was killed.

Fury and rage boiled through her, threatening to spill over. Shadows cascaded over the two of them in the deserted alley. Then in a low, steely voice, she seethed, "who told you that?"

"That's for me to know," he said, leering at her.

Shade crouched low to him, inches from his bloody face. She narrowed her gold, cat-like eyes, searching...searching for any tell to give him away. He wouldn't budge. Then in a moment of frustration, she quickly brought up her knee to his chin and sent him against the brick wall he was leaning on for support. He slid to the ground and slumped over.

She called up her power, nestling into it like a familiar form. Smoke and shadows erupted from her core, leaving Falcon alone in the deserted alley. "Let him suffer," she thought, as she dispersed into the biting November wind.

💫💫💫

Aurelia groaned as the dreaded tapping on her bedroom door sounded from her uncle, signaling the start of another day. "I'm up, Grant!" she called from under the covers. The knocking stopped, only for Grant to come into her room with a steaming cup of coffee. That sent her shooting out of bed, reaching for the mug. Grant pulled it back from her grasp.

"Not so fast, Relia," he said, using the name he had called since he took her in, which earned him a scowl. "You were up late last night. I heard you in the kitchen around two in the morning, care to explain?"

It was a simple question, which should have deserved a direct answer. But Aurelia had always been a private person, and preferred to keep her uncle in the dark should he ever find out what she was actually doing around the city in the early hours of the morning. So lying through her teeth she said, "I was getting a glass of water," with a half-convincing shrug.

Grant seemed to buy it, if half-heartedly. He handed her the mug and she smiled in reply. "Be home tonight for dinner so we can actually have a conversation, and you can inform me what you were really doing in the kitchen last night. Have a good day, Relia." With that he walked out of her bedroom, leaving Aurelia to come up with a good, plausible lie over the next ten hours.

She heard the front door close and peeked out the window to see Grant round the corner and hail a taxi to Luminae Laboratories; where he headed the research and development program. All of which he kept information of from Aurelia, "for safety, Relia" he had always chided her when her questions became relentless. If he didn't tell her what his job consisted of, then why should she be obligated to recall the events of her days and nights to him. Though, more often than not, the two blurred together.

Sighing, Aurelia dumped the mug of coffee into the potted plant on her nightstand. Yes, she felt guilty about completely ignoring the nice gesture her uncle had made, but coffee had no effect on her. She didn't sleep, a side effect of the dark power that roiled inside of her. Everything was a give and take, constantly rewiring to maintain some semblance of balance. So she had made the nights her time to be productive, spending hours to try and forget her parents' murders.

Back in Paris, where she was born and raised for seven years before everything happened. They had been coming back from an art exhibition at the Musèe d'Orsay when they had been robbed at gunpoint. Aurelia had been carted off to live with a mysterious uncle who lived in the states, leaving the only home she had ever known. Her parents had cut themselves off from both sides of the family, as a result of a less than desirable career choices. And Grant was the only person willing to take in the child of Nathalie and Girade Symone. So that's how it had been for the last ten years. Though Aurelia was well aware that her parents were criminals, but to her, they would always be Mamon et Papa.

Shaking away her dreary thoughts of the past, she began to get ready for her day.

💫💫💫

Aurelia sat down at her regular lunch table with Grayson, Rachel, Kamryn, and Keenan. This had been her group of friends as they met over the course of three years in secondary school. Kamryn and Grayson had been neighbors, turned best friends when eventually their feelings had gotten the best of them last spring.

Keenan, ever the flirt, glanced at Aurelia, and quirked his mouth to the side, a sure sign of what was to come. "I take it you slept well, princess. Late night painting your naked dreams of me, Re?"

The quiet chattering of their small table halted abruptly. No one moved, and Keenan realized his mistake too late. No one brought up Aurelia's paintings, or art in general, as it was a sensitive subject that held her together, and one loose thread would have her unraveling.

But after last night's fight with Falcon, and this morning's talk with Grant, she didn't have the mental capacity to scold Keenan. So she let it slide.

Rachel reached out a tentative hand, offering sympathy that Aurelia soaked up. She began eating as the tension past as fast as it had come.

Keenan and Kamryn dominated the conversation about what had happened last night in the world of heroes. Fission busted Bandit, which had Aurelia rolling her eyes as she thought "What an original name". Viper caught two thugs beating a woman, but what had surprised everyone was the villain calling herself Shade. She had pummeled Falcon that rumor had it he would be out of commission for at least a week. Keenan was arguing for Shade, while Kamryn was for Falcon.

"I'm not saying I approve of what she did," began Keenan "but you have to admit it's a sick power. Like, if Mrs. Kaufman assigned you an extra lab, you wouldn't just blow smoke in her eyes?" he asked, eyes alight with mischief.

"Fair point," Kam conceded "but I wouldn't go around pummeling the good guys who protect the city."

Aurelia interjected, "but who's to say Falcon is good?"

"What do you mean?" asked Rachel, innocently.

"I...I don't know, just some late night blog theories I was looking at late last night." She fidgeted with her hands in her lap.

"I didn't peg you for a prodigy fangirl, Re," Grayson said teasingly.

Aurelia let out a small breath of relief, "yeah, neither did I until I saw his eyes..." she lied, laughing lightly.

The others laughed easy and carefree. Rachel started talking about what she would do if she had a date with him. Kam took a swing at that too, only to earn a warning look from Grayson.

And just like that, the heat was off Aurelia. She never was one for the spotlight anyway, she preferred her shadows and smoke much more.