CHAPTER 16

Nighttime is a bit darker at North End Park

The forested area of North End Park was half a mile long if one walked the length of the pathway that cut through it. Pike ran the entire length of it in a panic. For someone as physically unfit as he was, the distance seemed longer.

He didn’t have time to write up an alert to send to the bulletin board. Instead, he sent a hasty, urgent message (“HELP NORTH END PARK SHADE”) and prayed that the app’s indication of Mindie being Active Now wasn’t just because her notification display sent her a blip.

In the promenade where the park’s fountain was, couples and students alike found their leisure time rudely interrupted as Pike scrambled into the clearing, hollering like a madman.

“Shade! Run! Get out of here now!”

He rushed past a bench, where a couple watched him in idle regard. The boyfriend shot a condescending scowl in his direction. “What’s this guy blabbering a—…bout…?”

He abruptly found himself out cold.

His girlfriend recoiled in shock. “Babe?! What’s wro—…ng…?”

She collapsed too, the two of them sprawled out over the bench like a pair of ragdolls. The overall dark of night concealed how two shadowy tendrils wrapped themselves around them, draining their energy and siphoning it away. The source of chaos emerged from the wooded pathway, absorbing this new fuel. The red glow in its eyes indicated it was hungry for more.

Upon seeing the couple faint and connecting their plight to the new, unsettling presence, others in the vicinity began to flee in terror.

“It’s one of those Shades!”

“Run for it!”

As they all fled the scene, one poor boy tripped before he could get too far. When he tried to get up again, he found that his legs wouldn’t listen, numb with fear and panic. He only managed to sit on his bottom, wide-eyed and helpless. This Shade may have been a full head shorter than he was, but it loomed over him. It exuded an energy so thick and terrifying that it was as if he were staring directly at a doorway into the chaotic realm.

“Don’t want no short people ‘round here…”

Suddenly, a glowing figure skidded between him and the Shade. It was Pike. He made a sweeping gesture with a pencil shape formed from his luminescence, and a sheet of light streaked across the air, creating a quick barrier that caused the Shade to recoil in surprise.

Pike looked over his shoulder and shooed the boy away with a sharp wave of his free hand. “Get out of here!”

The bewildered boy nodded and, finding that his legs were listening to him again, scrambled to his feet and scampered off. Pike then returned his attention to his foe, watching as the Shade’s aura grew larger from the new energy it had just leeched. It fanned out like the hairs of a gorgon, flailing at the head’s full command.

The park promenade was a good, open space that was now devoid of potential victims. Pike needed to make sure the Shade didn’t try to leave and find more people to drain. Although he only ever used his luminescence to create barriers and obstacles, there were still ways he could deal with chaos. Maybe if he could trap it in a luminescent globe and compress it until it was destroyed…

Suddenly, the will he had begun to solidify melted away. Another thought flashed through his mind. What if the Shade was luminescent too?

Its flaming red eyes were a clear indication that it should just be a normal person. If it were luminescent, it would have eyes the color of its host. But what if there was something he didn’t know that would prove him wrong?

The memory came back—the Shade he had encountered in high school. The one he saw decimated by a single, green streak of light. He had seen someone’s entire existence erased in the blink of an eye.

Did he really want to do that too?

Distracted by his hesitation, Pike realized too late that he was in the line of fire. The Shade took a swipe at him with one of its gorgon-like tendrils and smacked him clean in the chest. He hurtled through the air and crashed into a bench, knocking it over. The glow of his aura flickered before going completely out. His luminescence broke.

Gritting his teeth, he cursed his wavering resolve. The red eyes were already telltale; he shouldn’t be doubting what he already knew.

Suddenly, out from the bench’s direction leaped a wily Mindie Tachibana-Callahan, who soared through the air like a sudden ray of sunlight. She dove at the assailing Shade and, after briefly landing in front of it, whirled around and rammed a solid foot into it. It was the Shade’s turn to be sent flying, landing in the fountain and causing a brief geyser of water.

Mindie twirled to a halt, taking a moment to make sure the Shade wasn’t getting back up right away. When she was sure of that, she phased back to normal and glided over to Pike on her rollerblades.

“You okay, Pike?”

Pike groaned and pulled himself upright. “Ugh… Yeah, I will be. My lumi state just broke on me.”

A low, guttural Gwoooh carried through the air from the fountain. The two friends looked towards the source. For a moment, they caught a glimpse of the possessed girl through a translucent haze of chaotic energy as she crawled out of the water. Her hair was drenched and heavy, and her scrawny limbs reached over the side of the fountain in a scene that was reminiscent of a certain horror movie that involved a TV, a well, and something about rings. As she tumbled back out onto the pavement, her aura of chaos once again grew dense, completely enshrouding her.

Mindie held out a hand in a barring gesture. “Hang back, partner. I’ll handle this.”

“Wait, Minz!”

Pike grabbed her by the wrist before she could put any distance between them, prompting her to abruptly stop and face him again. He pulled something out of the pocket of his hoodie. Then he placed it into her hand.

Mindie held it up curiously. “My earring?”

“See if it helps.” A small grin touched Pike’s face—and then those dark, tired eyes behind his glasses narrowed in a hint of determination. “Go lumi.”

The emerald-eyed Star raised an inquisitive eyebrow, trying for a brief moment to discern what her partner had done to her jewelry. But the ominous rumble of chaos behind her nearby snapped her back into urgency. She hooked her prized trinket back into her earlobe and swiveled back around to face her foe, who eyed her warily and was no doubt deciding how best to begin its assault on her. With her fingers still lingering on the heart-shaped piece on her ear, Mindie’s eyes began to once again glow yellow.

A wave of certainty and clarity washed over her as she transitioned into her luminescent state. A new, solid feeling of confidence sharpened her concentration. A threat to something she cared about... A desire to confront that threat head-on... The first time those feelings came so strongly to her in the midst of dueling hockey players in a dark high school gym…

All at once, the energy she had so much trouble manipulating to her will rushed from all corners of her being and into her ear—then shot down her arm like an electric current that finally had a wire to course along, falling into place in the palm of her hand. It extended outwards in her grip, forming a shape like a glowing hockey stick. Mindie held this newfound instrument and felt no surprise—like acknowledging an old friend that had never been far behind. She looked back at the one who brought it to her.

Pike simply nodded. “Do your thing, partner.”

With his blessing, Mindie brandished the hockey stick like some sort of combat quarterstaff before holding it properly and facing the Shade once more. She hunched over and widened her stance as if she were at the center of an ice rink, ready for the puck to drop. A cocky grin curled along her face.

“Game on.”

The Shade hadn’t preempted any strikes as it warily considered the Star. Mindie didn’t give her foe the same courtesy though. As soon as she was ready, she shot herself forward and swung her hockey stick, scoring a clean hit to the midsection.

A dollop of chaos ripped away from the Shade’s aura, and the force of the blow sent it backwards several feet. Provoked by how immediate the feisty Star’s retaliation was, it let out another Gwoooh! and unleashed its tendrils of chaos. They lashed out and began whipping at their glowing target, swinging wildly through the air—a few times transcending their intangible boundaries so that they cracked real-world benches or caused nearby lampposts to bend with a sharp creak.

With rollerblades joined in her brilliant aura and a hockey stick in hand, Mindie wove her way across the promenade, twirling and deftly evading the chaotic mess of whips that attempted to strike her from every direction. She swung and beat back the ones that got dangerously close and axed a few more, sending the darker energy dispersing harmlessly and further chipping away at the aura that menaced her. All the while, she closed the distanced between them.

When she was close enough to the center, she lunged forward and jabbed the Shade with the top end of her hockey stick. The Shade flinched backwards and fell over clumsily, its aura of gorgon hairs fanning out in disarray.

Seeing her chance, Mindie pressed forward. Concentrating as much luminescence as she could into her stick, she whirled around and leaped into the air—maximizing the momentum she could infuse into her next strike.

“HYAH!”

As if wielding a sledgehammer instead of a hockey stick, Mindie brought her weapon down with all the force of determination she could muster. All at once, the aura of chaotic energy burst like a bubble of midnight fog, and a shockwave rippled outwards as all the chaos that had been harbored was jettisoned in all different directions. The energy that fled its source dispersed and immediately vanished into virtual nothingness.

Mindie phased out of her luminescence, her aura fading as she did. The concentrated bit of energy that had formed her hockey stick retracted into her earring before invisibly redistributing itself everywhere else. The world around her returned to its normal view as she looked at the opponent she had just bested.

The girl once shrouded in chaos was now simply normal again—and flat on her back. Her long, messy hair fanned out in different directions, and her eyes were dazed behind the round, owl-like eyeglasses that sat crooked on her face.

“Nngh… What’s happening…?”