Silhouette

The Hero Union's Zalcien Headquarters great hall was magnificent, with its marble pillars hiding elevator shafts and the illusion of a sunless sky. It was a symbol. It was a place of legends, yet all could enter unobstructed, for these very legends were at the service of the people and not the other way around. Some would call the grand decor tacky, but it brought hope and reassurance all the same.

As people walked to and fro, navigating between desks and exits to attend to their affairs, they were all under the benevolent surveillance of multiple Heroes, some hidden and others out in the open. They weren't some specific group formed for this sole purpose, those that stood guard were randomly selected each day, with some care taken to ensure their abilities would mesh well and that none got assigned the post for too long. It was wasteful, undeniably, but the risks posed by an antagonistic force storming the building were too great. Many civilians had their offices on the upper floors. Countless secrets and dangerous items were kept under heavy surveillance. No, leaving the base's defense to guards unfit to fight against Villains would be pure folly.

Of those tasked with this important duty on that day, one was hard to miss. A man wearing some form of high-tech armor, golden and black metal decorating a body that ended in a head with a singular glowing red eye on its mask, and though he often changed suit, this one was familiar enough for the inhabitants to recognize easily. Mecha Man was dashing in his King Bee look, sadly the heroic aesthetic was greatly diminished by the way he was propped against one of the pillars, casually scrolling through his phone with one hand while the other held up his head, his elbow resting on one of his many insectile drones buzzing around.

Next to him, a much more professional man wasn't pleased with his colleague's nonchalance. In a full red and blue bodysuit, wearing yellow gauntlets and boots of a rigid non-metallic material, with a face hidden away by the black glass at his helmet's front. While less popular, his attire made him equally easy to identify, even to those who weren't overly familiar with him: Firefighter. The simple name fit his simple theme, he was a hydrokinesist who focused on supporting the mundane firefighters of the city.

The stern older Hero turned his head toward his younger counterpart, his arms crossed, his fingers drumming on his heavy forearms. Behind the two, a small group of trainees watched the duo, reduced to nervous silence from both the tension emanating from the lesser-known Hero and the awe of standing next to a legendary figure.

Scareowl, a humanoid bird of prey, slowly turned his head from one man to the next. Maledicta, a drow dark sorcerer, uninterested in the debate watched what happened around them. Kopper Kid, a young black man with incredible strength, did his utmost to lay low, and a mean-spirited observer might have likened his attempt to a demented turtle struggling to retract its head. Glicer Glitter, a young girl with fiery hair and a flamboyant personality, was the only trainee to be happy about the ordeal, silently squealing to herself as she did a little dance. Elaimant, an alien crystalline lifeform levitating above a body composed of magnetized scraps covered by one of the flexible white suits all the trainees wore, seemed fully impassible, yet their fellow trainees could tell the non-organic was silently screaming in anguish.

And Sarah just stood there, hoping her uncle wouldn't murder one of Zalcien's top three Heroes under the eyes of her team.

The young woman with light powers had no doubt her uncle, despite his relative anonymity in their local Union branch, would be more than capable of giving the inventor a lesson. His powers might not be as destructive as the other man's inventions, but water still packed a punch. The older man might not win in a serious all-out fight but in a spar or a surprise attack? She wasn't quite as certain. It'd be painful for Mecha Man either way and if her uncle's rants were to be believed, the man wasn't quite as durable as his inventions, whereas the Super firefighter faced disasters head-on almost daily. In a fistfight with no power, the result was much easier to predict.

"Mecha..."

"What? I'm standing guard."

"While playing on your phone?"

"What, it's not my fault you can't multitask."

"I know you can still monitor your surroundings. What I dislike is your attitude. You are on duty, act like it."

"Okay, boomer."

"What is that even supposed to mean? I don't have fire powers."

"It means the future is now, old man."

"Mecha. Please, for one time in your life, be a proper authority figure. Be a good example for once, we have trainees."

"Come on, they like my vibe. They prefer cool Uncle Mecha over grumpy Grandpa Firefighter. Isn't that right kids?"

As the master mechanic turned from his phone to look at the assembled team under their shared watch, most of them fidgeted on the spot, even Elaimant's crystalline true form in their protective bubble.

"Uh..."

"How to say..."

"Diversion: you are both Heroes."

"Yeah, what the big guy said."

Maledicta huffed as she turned her gaze away from a dog pleading with its owner for a treat to level a cold stare at the two men.

"Gods, is this your fiftieth anniversary or something?"

Firefighter groaned behind his yellow helmet, though he was fully serious when he glanced at his colleague when he realized the otherwise bratty man had stayed silent.

"Mecha. Incoming?"

"Not sure. Spooky dude for sure, but nothing openly aggressive yet. Carrying some big luggage though."

"Bomb?"

"No mundane explosives according to the drones. But the ones keeping an eye on the sky just spotted crows."

The hydrokinesist groaned once more.

"Black. Kids, get ready. If a fight breaks out, escort everyone up. Don't try to join in."

Scareowl nodded, his steely gaze lacking any of the previous nervousness. Maledicta wasn't as quick to accept the plan.

"What's the point of having us stand guard if we can't do anything?"

"Maybe you could handle the threat. Maybe we're being overly cautious."

"But if that guy's as nasty as Sunburn, y'all are getting evaporated. So, be Heroes and save folks before you kick the bucket."

Perhaps convinced by their argument or surprised by the sudden agreement between the two who had bickering less than a minute ago, the confrontational drow stilled her tongue.

A minute that felt like an eternity later, what Mecha Man had seen on the holographic screens inside his helmet through the cameras of his drones entered the hall. Sarah always pictured a situation like this to be a spectacle, and when the dark featureless figure came in like a ghost cloaked in shadows and gliding through black mist, she could easily picture the world going dark, with the sunlight breaching in from the entrance vanishing.

But nothing happened.

The strange silhouette was an odd sight, and the way light and shadows worked around it was undeniably twisted, but that was it. No dark clouds followed, no night in the middle of the day, no dreadful cold or mad whispers. The thing that had the small team on edge was no horrifying lord of darkness twisting the world to endless night, just a strange person with unusual and admittedly offputting powers. The thing it carried over its shoulder looking like a pale carpet didn't help, what with the popular depiction of such things being used to mask the transport of bodies.

Yes, that was what her mind settled on once its initial fight or flight response kicked in at the sight of the announced threat. This didn't feel like a Villain making a dramatic entrance, more like someone unlucky suffering from deceiving appearances.

The thought reminded her of another person cursed with a dark look by fate she had met online not so long ago. Could it be?

"Mister Firefighter, he doesn't seem like a threat."

Oblivious to Sarah, her uncle didn't share her view. To the experienced Hero, the way the newcomer behaved didn't scream innocent civilian. Even the other people he passed by took care to put some distance between themselves and the mysterious stranger. There was a mix of confidence and wariness in how he acted, and though there were no eyes to check on to keep track of where he looked, the older man could almost feel the way a paranoid and manic gaze swept over the room over and over. The hydrokinesist felt his skin crawl as his instincts sensed the dark figure's sight locking onto him as well as the others. Yes, he was sure of it. This was someone ready for a fight. Someone with blood on their hands.

Mecha Man wasn't quite as unsettled, but he still stood wary of the approaching living shade. Yes, both men were sure of it now, the thing was actively choosing to approach them. It hadn't been when it first entered, but now the drones' prediction of his movements confirmed their fear.

"Firefly, was it? I know right now we look like jerks judging a book by its cover or whatever, but when you've been doing this long enough, you get a sixth sense. Or a seventh if you already had six, and so and so on. This dude's radiating bad vibes, and I ain't risking it. If he leaves without making a ruckus, I'll go to bed thinking to myself 'Man, that was uncool'. If he starts something but we ain't ready for it? People can die."

Sarah grimaced, unconvinced, and the white domino mask on her face did little to hide her displeasure. Kopper seemed to share her displeasure on that topic, judging by the way he rubbed at his shoulder and looked away from everything. It took Scareowl faking a cough in his wing to bring the two uncomfortable members of the team back to the situation at hand. They may not like it, but they had to be ready for an emergency as their supervisors ordered.

Before long the strange thin yet wide-shouldered featureless creature with a bare imitation of a humanoid torso arrived at their little corner of the hall. The living shadow stopped some small distance from them, and for the first time, it was close enough for Sarah to realize it wasn't carrying its strange luggage with a limb but rather tendrils emerging directly from its side and binding the ivory cylinder like a net.

Right as that thought began to make its way through her brain, the darkness spoke.

"Excuse me, would you happen to be official Union Heroes?"

The voice was odd. Not terrifying, just strange. There was a light echoing quality to its decidedly smooth masculine tone, and while deep it still felt within a reasonable human range. And yet, there was something else, an underlying something that made it stand out. Thinking back on her time around magic users, it felt like every word spoken was a spell being cast.

Mecha Man scoffed before taking on one of the many heroic poses he had developed over the years, one that was often featured on promotional posters and merchandise.

"Sure are."

Firefighter cleared his throat and stepped forward to replace his colleague in the conversation.

"Firefighter and Mecha Man, at your service. Though I'd recommend going to one of our desks, what can we do for you, mister...?"

"You may call me Silhouette. Forgive me for disturbing you, but I was unsure as to how to deliver this piece of news."

While some focused on how new tentacles emerged from the tar-like body to pat the carpet-like object, Sarah instead focused on the name. She had heard - or more accurately read - it before. On the HardCored forum, her friend MagicIsTragic had shared the news of some new crime lord in the slums, one responsible for the column of darkness that had sent the city in a panic for a few hours some time ago. Nothing had been directly damaged by it as far as she knew, but the point stood. Her small hope of meeting James in person vanished. There was no way the timid lost guy and this dramatic performer were the same.

"Alright, spooks, what's the deal?"

"This, I believe, is your Nightsnatcher."

The name barely registered before the figure undid the netting, unleashing the curled-up cylinder that went to unfurl and reveal a strange flat alien thing with some purple crystals growing out of its back. What awed the trainees however was the way the underside of the creature wasn't the same white as the rest of its flesh but rather perfectly see-through, exposing what was behind the flat thing as though it didn't exist, like some sort of invisibility cape.

"Take care not to touch the unseeable part, it pulls apart all matter that isn't its own."

Glicer, who had been sneaking her hand forward to touch the bizarre body, quickly pulled it back.

Mecha Man stepped closer and bent to better study the sight while Firefighter stayed still, his arms crossed.

"That's a very bold claim, sir."

"I know. It's why I brought it to you. Though, if possible, I'd like to get it back when the media circus is over."

"I'll see what we can do. You are quite confident about its identity."

"It attacked one of my employees in the dead of night, unseen until it struck. Once I made sure it was dead, I had it appraised by a competent mage. He went on to tell me this eldritch beast was the likely culprit behind those disappearances."

"Any chance you could give us a name on that?"

"Mesker Duskenfer."

"Mecha?"

"Dude's in the database. And, so far, this thingie looks like the real deal. It's there yet my drones struggle to perceive it, even the normal parts. I already pinged Saline and the ghost boys to check on stuff."

From behind his visor, Firefighter grimaced. The risk of a fight had lowered, but that sounded like an awful mess in the making. The Nightsnatcher business was bad enough, but whatever it was about this Silhouette that set him on edge wasn't going away. If anything, it was getting worse.

Out of sight, he began to weave water in patterns on his palm hidden within his closed fists. He had the nasty feeling he should go ahead and apply for an unofficial nemesis for the first time soon.