The Difficult Task of Raising a Weapon

Shadow: Declassified

I blink my eyes open, immediately feeling something odd. I close my eyes again, waiting for the oddness to subside. But, it doesn't, and I eventually open my eyes again. I feel like my thoughts aren't moving... I sit up, tilting my head. The sensation of empty calm still plagues me, and I frown, trying to return my mind to normal. Geez. How weird. I roll my tongue around in my mouth, folding my arms on my crossed legs. My limbs complain at the stretch, and I frown; I'm almost never sore. Instead of comforting, the silence of my cell seems long and nerve wracking, and I am not appreciative of the change.

I don't like this. This feeling. It's like dread; empty dread, the kind you feel when you're awaiting something awful you have no control over. I look around, a pit of nervousness fluttering into existence in my stomach. I just noticed: The lights are making that slight humming they only have when they've been on for a while. But, I only just woke up, and I never sleep through them coming on. How did they not wake me up? I grimace, trying to figure out why I'm feeling this way, why everything seems abnormal. And, it's only after a good half hour spent considering my plight that I remember.

I look up, worried, as Topaz comes into the training facility, my previously happy mood at having discovered my power of teleportation long gone. I'm done with my work for the day, and I've been sitting on the floor for the greater portion of an hour now. She walks towards me, and I stand up, shakily.

"Come on, Shadow. I've got to take you somewhere," she says, and she sounds tired and a bit irritated. I let her hook on my leash, padding after her towards the door. She seems in a foul mood, and I eventually work up the courage to ask her about it.

"Topaz?" I ask uncertainly, and she looks down at me in surprise. "Did...did I do something wrong? Normally you're happy when I discover a new power, but you don't seem happy at all."

"It's not you, Shadow," she sighs, and my ears swivel automatically, perking up to hear what she's going to say. "I was going to wait until we were at the Mobian research lab, but I might as well tell you now."

"T-Tell me what?" I nearly squeak out my question as fear fills me.

"Oh, don't worry, we're not going to harm you," she adds quickly, and I gulp, eyes wide. "You see, now that you've discovered your power of teleportation, we'll need to take some precautions with you. But, that's not what we spent so long talking about in there.

"You were very accurate with your teleporting for having first discovered it, more so than we'd expected. So, we've decided to accelerate your training and place you on the special operations team."

"Special operations team?" I ask, feeling very confused. "As in, with you? Why aren't you happy about that?"

"I am happy about that. I think you'll be a very good partner." She pauses in her speech to rub my head affectionately as we step in the elevator, and I giggle slightly. "You're going to be put on my special unit force. But, for us to feel confident doing that, we need to make sure we can't lose you."

"Lose me?" I ask, and Topaz nods as she responds to the elevator voice like usual. When she continues, there's a small edge to her voice.

"I'm...not very pleased with the amount of precautions the higher ups want to use, but it's not my place to resist them. To summarize, we're going to put you under temporarily and outfit your body with several things: Trackers and power controllers."

"'Outfit' me? What's a power controller?" I ask, not sure how much I like this idea.

"A power controller is something like your collar, that can turn your powers off and on. In other words, you won't have to wear a bulky device like that collar any longer. Instead, the devices will be inside your body."