"Wow!" he said when she finally relented. "You must have saved a lot of people today."
"I stopped four burglaries, two bar fights, three vandals, a stabbing, and yes, I did save a child from a burning building." She pushed him into his room and onto the floor. Her eyes were alight with energy.
As she laid down on top of him on the soft carpet, he stopped her. "Listen, I don't want you to think I am using you. This is just so fast. Some days you come in all amped up and... I just don't want to ruin what we've got."
She looked at him. "Hey, if anything, its me who is using you. Let me know and I can hit the brakes. Don't feel like you are doing something wrong. You're doing this for me. You're the sweetest guy I've ever met... I love you."
Evan's breath hitched, and he felt her muscles tighten in hesitation. She didn't know if she went too far. He smiled at her. It wasn't as big of a deal as they made it out to be in the stories, and he had never felt stronger about anything in his life. "I love you too." She dove on him, and they continued their make-out session.
There was a knock at the door. "You kids better not be doing anything naughty in there."
"MOOOOM!" Evan groaned at the door. His mother laughed and walked away, her job done. Evan and Sierra looked at each other while blushing and started to giggle. Diana Ray had made nearly a full recovery since she was rescued from the laboratory. She still retreated to her room for a few hours each day with bouts of illness, but she was back to her usual light-hearted self. She didn't know anything at all about what happened to her, and Evan had not told her about Sierra's powers or how they rescued her. They told her the same story that they told the police: An unknown caller had contacted Evan after finding her along with some of her folders that contained her contact information. Diana had taken a health related leave of absence from her work to recover, and Evan found a lot of free time to spend with her.
Their fun interrupted, Evan set up his computer and loaded his work. Life had been good for them since the disaster. Sierra had unleashed her alter ego upon the waking world and loved every second of it. Even the darkness that shrouded the city could not hold back her newfound light. Now graduated, Evan had taken up work as Pearl's mild mannered assistant. He was never into computers, but now he found that he had a knack for it. He navigated databases, news reports, and internet traffic while writing his own codes to monitor crime around the city. Many criminals that got away with patterns of illegal acts were tracked down, and they were ambushed by Pearl at their next adventure. He was also trying to trace the big fish.
The Dark Sun had taken most of his attention recently. The terrorist organization had spouted some rather generic dialogue about tyrannical government, but half of their attacks seemed to be at random around the city. Evan spent nights awake attempting to find any pattern in their movements.
"Nothing?" Sierra asked.
"Well, I think I have something, but it is pretty unlikely. They seem to hit chemical facilities more frequently with smaller scale hits. Things like medical labs. They also haven't hit any of those types of facilities with huge attacks using that creature."
"I feel bad for it" Sierra lamented. "I saw her at the lab. I looked into her eyes. I didn't see hate there. I saw pain. She is their weapon, and I don't think it is her choice."
"Maybe" mused Evan. "But the scattered reports you collected said they used a telepathic Powered to keep her in check, and that one hasn't been seen since the disaster. Anyways, this is probably nothing. With a small sample size, lots of fake patterns emerge. Look here" he pointed at a graphic. "They've hit an ice cream shop every Friday for the last three weeks. I need more data on them."
"That chemical stuff still might be worth following up on" Sierra responded. "Maybe I can stumble on some more information by chasing all the potential loose ends." She turned off the computer, and he turned in annoyance, but his frown was quickly replaced by lust. "You owe me a snog" she said seductively, laying on the ground.
As they continued their session, they both thought about how good life was. There was still darkness in the city, but there was also hope.
In the corner of the room, Evan's pet puffersquid ELM shed the last of his exoskeleton. The first and last of his species, the puffersquid was made with unknown genetical tampering. No one know how large he would grow or whether he had other forms. He looked much less like a pufferfish now. The spines were completely withdrawn into his body, and the squid like portion had grown much longer. He was almost too big for the tank now, and his primary tentacles stretched almost the length of a forearm.
He watched the couple making out on the floor. His tentacles twitched and a flicker of color ran along his body. His entire gelatinous body suddenly contorted and morphed into a base approximation of a human form. The original colors revealed themselves, and then he tried again. The chameleon of the tank waved his almost human looking limbs while watching the commotion. Throughout the night, he camouflaged into a human shape looking better each time.
Chapter 20: It Grows
The wind was steady at this height. His hair and cloak flapped cinematically on his high perch. The Angler stood like a hawk on the edge of a fancy restaurant's roof. He was flanked by several darkly clad associates. Their costumes were simple. Their hooded cloaks came with a cowl around the neck that pulled up over their noses to hide all but their eyes. Mottled grey like the steel oasis they prowled, the cloaks had become synonymous with fear. The front of their chests were covered by a black sun embroidered with a white liner to make it stand out. The Dark Sun was on the hunt.
The Angler made a motion to another group of operatives on an adjacent roof. They began to move in. Their target this fine evening was a seafood marketplace. A large multistory plaza was lined with stores, restaurants, aquariums, and anything else seafood related. The Dark Sun reached their set positions. Their directive was clear: chaos.
A dozen smoke bombs were thrown into the central clearing, and alarms began to ring out and echo between the tall walls. Sparkling fireworks added to the confusion as they executed their assault. Trios of Dark Sun operatives dropped into almost every storefront. They ransacked the registers for cash, took any expensive looking items, and terrorized the customers cowering behind counters. When they had their fill, the whole place was set ablaze.
The entire operation was over in less than two minutes. Every operative had vanished in the haze. No one was killed this time, but haggard emergency crews were too late to save the property. The Dark Sun was already moving to hit the second of five stops that night. Unpredictability was the name of the game, and a sudden burst of hits would keep all their potential opponents guessing.
The Angler thought silently about their mission. Despite being massacred in the ill-fated attack on the Light zone, and the illegal laboratory they happened to wreck, the shadow organization had decided to reform the Dark Sun to act as their cover. The Angler was raised to a position of great power and given the resources to rebuild his army and unleash havoc upon the city. He wasn't complaining, but he had grown wary of his position. He was being used, and if he didn't make himself indispensable soon, he would be discarded along with the Dark Sun when it's mission had run its course.
For now though, he was having the time of his life. The entire city had devolved into a cesspool of depravity which made his job so much easier. Attack after attack went unanswered, and the sheer magnitude of his success allowed him to smuggle in his own operations. He glanced over to the operative on his right.
Alina was casting a narrow sonic pulse to the glass factory they were attacking. The air was filled with a high pitched roar of shattering and crashing glasswork. He nodded in approval. He had spent three months figuring out her character. She had been sheltered her entire life, but her free spirited personality had burst out at every opportunity. She struggled at first when he tried to manipulate her into becoming one of them, but it turns out that a lifetime of rebelling against authority makes for poor moral restraint once freed. Her naivete was putty in his hands. She was still conflicted, but he was successfully keeping her on a leash. Her desperate search for her lost brother had consumed her.
