Indigo's Keeper [Indigo B2]

Chapter 1 - Shadow

Three weeks later

A few minutes from midnight, Shift had finally decided that he was, in fact, not having a good day.

It'd started off like every day in the past few weeks. He'd woken up, made it to the kitchen, and been halfway through his morning coffee before the first alert had sounded through the base. Annoying, but workable. He'd long since perfected the art of finishing his coffee while shoving on his Keeper gear.

Then the second alert had come in before he'd made it out the door, and from there, the day had spiralled from bad to 'currently running down a warehouse hallway blind with half a laser of shifted Colour left and at least six bad guys on his tail' levels of unredeemable.

Shift rounded a corner and ducked into an open side-room door, figuring at least this way, he could take the bad guys one at a time as they filed in through the doorway. He'd have to make the last of Zoe's shifted Yellow count. If he got injured, he'd need the self-healing more than a laser—and given that he'd seen at least two Reds in the group chasing him, injury was almost guaranteed.

He could hear their footsteps getting closer as he quickly moved what furniture he could to extend the bottleneck and give himself cover. "Raph, Kione, Zoe—anyone read me?"

They didn't, of course. One of the bad guys had an ability that blocked comms, something Indigo hadn't realised until they'd split. Shift knew the plan, of course, but that didn't exactly help him now, not when everything had gone hopelessly wrong.

"Always me, isn't it?" Shift muttered to himself as he readied himself for a fight.

Except it never came. The footsteps halted, replaced by a rapid series of thuds and groans. Shift waited, listening for a hint of anything before he eventually crept forward and peeked out into the hall.

The six that'd been chasing him were down for the count, scattered around in a terrifying display of efficiency. Three of them hadn't even had the chance to turn around before they'd been knocked unconscious, face-down on the floor. Two more slumped nearby against the wall, while the last had keeled over backwards, sprawled starfish on the floor with an impressively bloody nose.

Shift glanced down the suspiciously empty hallway. He knew they hadn't knocked themselves out, but he couldn't see—

"Shift? Shift, can you hear me?"

Shift almost jumped at the sound of Raph's voice coming through his headset comms. "I hear you. Did you guys take out the comm blocker?"

"We assumed you did," said Raph. "Zoe and I are still pinned down with the hostages. Do you think you can make it to the control room we talked about earlier?"

Shift stepped over the limp bodies and started heading back the way he'd come. "Should be able to. Moving now."

"Good. I'll—Zoe, on your left!"

Shift tried to focus on his own situation. "Kione, which way? I got a little turned around."

Kione's end was suspiciously silent for a few moments before Shift heard anything, like Kione's mic had been muted. Stranger still. "Straight past the next two turns, then the door on your right to get up the stairs. Third floor balcony, big maroon door. Can't miss it."

Shift followed the directions, passing another three unconscious armed guards as he headed up the stairs. "Raph, I think we have a shadow."

"I figured as much," said Raph with a small, almost resigned sigh. "Focus on the main task. If you happen to see said shadow..."

"I know," said Shift, and kept running.

The third floor balcony wasn't much of a balcony by the time Shift got there. It overlooked the main, open floor of the warehouse, and someone had decided to take out most of the balcony floor between him and the maroon door he needed to get to.