What We Do in the Shadows

*January 5, 2020*

Ernest slides into the passenger seat of the Jackal van, pulling up directions to Halcyon Nature Reserve’s visitor center on his phone. He angles the screen so Melody can see and points out a few locations. “There’s a parking lot here, and from there we can take a trail out to that place I was telling you about.”

As Melody starts the van, he tries to turn on the radio, but receives a burst of sage green static for his efforts. He winces and switches to the cassette player. The gold polka dots of “Hero Takes a Fall” by The Bangles fill the air for half a minute before he turns it off.

“So, you said you got your new powers from a bunch of ghosts? That’s...” he searches for the appropriate word to capture the magnitude of the situation, but comes up short. “That’s cool.”

Melody giggles as she pulls onto the highway, the Jackal van groaning in protest as she accelerates to a decent speed. “Not ghosts, I think? I mean like, they had bodies? Just, made out of shadows. And I’ve only run into them in these weird upside-down shadow dimensions? But yeah, they were cool.” She lets the words hang in the air as she considers how strange they might sound to other people in her life. “Thanks for being, like, chill to tell stuff to? I feel like it sounds weird or scary or whatever when I describe it. But I don’t worry about you thinking that, I guess.” Melody looks to Ernest and smiles before snapping her attention back to the road.

Ernest smiles back, leaning an arm against the window. “We’ve gone through some pretty weird and scary stuff together, I think it would take more than a few not-ghost shadows to phase me. But yeah, I know what it’s like to worry that people won’t react well to hearing about powers and whatever. So I’m glad you don’t mind talking about it with me.” He looks out the window, watching the buildings grow shorter and further apart as they reach the outskirts of the city. “Sounds like these shadow things didn’t give you an instruction manual to go with the new power they dumped on you, though, huh?”

“Yeah, uh, no. I wish.” Melody looks to the line of snow-capped mountains in the distance as her mind wanders to a couple weeks earlier, to the ancient stone walls and one particular trap in The Pharaoh’s treasure vault. She thinks back to her vision blurring, her shadow chains going wild, lashing out and wrapping around Ernest in response to her pain. She remembers the flash of lightning that broke her chains... and cradling Ernest’s unconscious body after. Melody shudders and shakes her head, fixing on the treeline of the Halcyon Nature Reserve ahead.

“I… I know you said it was okay or whatever, but sorry again, dude. Still kinda surprised you’d wanna train with me after that.” Melody sighs. “Well, train with shadow stuff, at least.”

“Hey, don’t blame it all on yourself, I panicked back there too.” When the chains had closed in on him, the only thing he could think about was getting out. His powers had responded to his fear, surging outward to clear the chains, but completely draining him in the process. “I’m just glad I didn’t catch you in the blast when I let that lightning loose. And I probably would have, if I wasn’t used to my powers yet. That’s the kind of thing training can help with. If I had better control, maybe I wouldn’t have passed out on you. I should be apologizing to you for making you carry me up all those stairs,” he says, only half joking. He still regrets being the one to hold them back from chasing down the Red Falcon.

“Pffff, like carrying you anywhere slows me down at all, string bean.” Melody playfully elbows Ernest’s bicep as a grin spreads across her face. Her head quickly cranes up at a road sign before flicking the turn signal. A dull yellow click click click emanates from the dashboard as she turns the van toward the entrance of the visitor’s center.

“Hey, you told me that I was finally putting on some muscle from all our training,” Ernest objects, but he can’t help grinning at the nickname.

“Oh fineee, you are. I just gotta give you a hard time so you keep working.” Melody laughs. “Oh! You visited family and stuff in NYC for Christmas, right? Do anything fun?” she continues as she pulls the van into a mostly-gravel parking spot. “You missed out on some dope latkes back in Halcyon.”

Ernest tries to hide his conflicted expression by opening the door and jumping down to the ground. “Yeah, it went... well. I met up with a friend that I lost touch with when I moved to Halcyon, so that was nice. Too bad about the latkes though, they sounded delicious.”

He holds up his phone, twisting the map on the screen to match their orientation. Eventually, he points towards a gap in the trees off to their right. “Okay, that’s the one.”

The trail is clearly a lesser used one, more of a divot winding its way around tree roots. A light dusting of snow covers the ground.

“Sweet, looks like nobody else has been down that one today.” Melody’s eyes follow the undisturbed snow covering the path ahead. She begins walking down the trail at a quick pace, then turns back to Ernest. “Dude, this reminds me of like, camping with my parents before we moved to Halcyon. You ever do that with your family?”

Ernest follows after, trying his best to step in the series of footprints that Melody leaves in her wake. “Not that often, you have to get pretty far out of New York City before you reach any place good for camping. I remember we used to rent a cabin by a lake upstate in the summer sometimes, though.” His voice grows quiet and a bit wistful as he thinks about the unlikelihood of such a trip happening in the future.

“Aww, that’s cool, we did that with Aman’s family a few times for summer too,” Melody responds obliviously. “Man... one time we had this big-ass roach in our cabin, and Aman was like…” She trails off as she thinks back to a much smaller Aman hiding behind her and holding on to her for support as she faced down the roach, shoe in hand. Melody smiles at the memory, her cheeks turning a bit red as her thoughts begin drifting back to the present version of her friend. At the sudden snap of a branch underfoot, Melody’s attention fully returns as she takes in a snowy clearing beside the winding trail. “Oooh, wait dude. Is this the place you were talking about?”

The cobalt snap pulls Ernest’s mind away from sunny lakeside memories and back to the frosty present. “Yeah! I haven’t been here in a while. It takes a lot longer to get out here without a car. But before I joined Big Team and had access to the Danger Room, this was where I tried to practice using my powers.” He extends his hands and a stiff breeze picks up some of the snow, revealing the very scorched tops of a few tree stumps. “I figured we might as well stay out of the way of all the construction going on at the Base. Plus training outside is always fun.”

“Yeah dude, I love training outside! This place is like, extra pretty, too.” Melody’s head swivels back and forth as she takes in the field of snow-laden pine trees and charred stumps in front of her. “Before I joined the team, I used to just train in an abandoned warehouse with The Jackal. I wouldn’t really call that scenic? Maybe like, scene-where-a-crime-will-definitely-happen-ic. If that counts.”

Melody rolls her shoulders before letting loose a series of lightning-fast jabs at the air, then turns back to Ernest with a grin. “Alright, ready for--” She pauses for a few moments, lowering her guard before she clears her throat. “Wait. You’re in charge, and I have no idea how training powers works. Do you just hit trees with your stuff until you learn to control it?”

Ernest instinctively mimics Melody’s stance before he also remembers that they’re here for a different type of training. “Actually, a lot of those trees I hit by accident, which tells you a little about how well I could control my powers back then.” He walks across the clearing, turning back to face Melody when he reaches the center. “I was thinking we’d start with something more simple, just practicing summoning and dissipating powers to get a feel for it. You have to be able to stand up steadily before you can work on your kicking accuracy, you know?”

“Yeah… yeah, makes sense,” Melody nods along. “Like starting with stance training before strikes. Need a good foundation before getting to the fancy stuff with powers too, I guess.” She tucks her hands into her jacket pockets and looks attentively at Ernest. “Alright, how do I start standing?”

He closes his eyes and presses the palms of his hands together. “My powers have always responded to my emotions, but it took me a while to figure out how to get them to actually do what I want instead of their own thing.” A cloud begins forming in the air between him and Melody. “It’s still not perfect, but I’ve found that if I picture myself tugging at the storms I can nudge them in the direction I want.” Snow begins gently falling from the cloud as Ernest opens his eyes again. “So, how does summoning your shadow chains work for you?”

“It’s… hard to explain?” Melody sighs as she stares forward, transfixed by the low-hanging cloud gently snowing in front of her. Her mind begins to race as she thinks of the different situations in which she’d conjured her shadow chains-- willingly or not. “Sometimes I just… try to imagine them shooting up out of the ground. Other times… you know how I told you there was like, a shadow version of Halcyon? And of Big High? I… think there might be a shadow version of everything. Just a weird, upside-down shadowy mirror of our dimension or whatever.” Melody scratches the back of her head as she puffs up her cheeks and exhales. “I should probably ask Seb next time I see him, he knows lots about time travel and alternate dimensions and stuff. Not really my thing.”

“Anyway… sometimes I just… imagine the shadow version of where I am. Then think of like… a portal opening from there to here, bringing the chains with them. Then there’s like…” Melody gives a guilty look to Ernest before she turns away and lowers her voice. “Sometimes I just… get hurt, and everything goes dark for a bit. And I sort of… feel the shadow attached to me, and it feels bizarre, and awful, like my head is foggy and the shadows are crushing me. And when I can see again… the chains are wrapped around someone else. Sometimes they’re around bad guys, but… not always, obviously.”

“Sorry,” Melody digs at the snowy ground with the tip of her boot. “I just gave like, five totally different answers for how my shadow chains come out. That probably doesn’t help.”

“No, that’s great!” Ernest smiles at her encouragingly. “If you already knew exactly how they worked, then you wouldn’t need to train how to use them. We can start from there, and hopefully you’ll be able to figure out a reliable way to summon them.” He starts concentrating on his cloud again, shaping it into a swirl. “I usually imagine puppet strings between me and my storms, and use that to help me pull them where I want them. It sounds like you’ve got something similar with picturing the shadow mirror dimension. How about you try summoning them now? You don’t have to do anything with them yet, just let them chill out if you can.”

“Sounds like a plan…” Melody smiles softly at Ernest’s words of encouragement. She closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath, peeking open an eye to look at Ernest waiting safely on the other side of his cloud before shutting her eyes even tighter. *Please don’t fuck this up. Please don’t hurt him again.*

Melody feels her stomach rise up into her chest as she’s overtaken by the sensation of floating, but she resists the urge to open her eyes. She imagines the snow-covered clearing still in front of her, sky and trees wreathed in shadow. Holding out a hand toward Ernest’s cloud, she hesitatingly begins willing the chains to rise from the snow.

She opens her eyes and readjusts to the sunny field of snow around her. Five long, shadowy chains rise up from beneath Ernest’s cloud, cresting over the top of it as they aimlessly dangle in the air, seemingly unsure of where to go. Melody exhales in relief and looks over to Ernest. “Okay, that worked better. And they’re not around you this time, that’s a good start. Now what?”

Ernest shivers as the chains pass through the cloud. It isn’t quite a concrete feeling, more of the fleeting impression of a sensation. He holds a hand out, wondering if touching the chains themselves would have a similar effect, and takes half a step forward before realizing that might not be the best idea.

“That’s amazing, Melody!” He says, continuing to admire the chains from a distance. They aren’t whipping around or threatening to tear down the nearby forest. Much more manageable than his own early attempts at training his powers.

“Do they… okay, this might sound weird, but do they feel anything? In terms of emotions, I mean. My storms usually have some kind of emotion that I can sense. I don’t know if it’s just a reflection of my emotions, or if they actually have their own, but I have to be careful because if I panic and my powers start to go haywire and the storm feels panicky then I start to panic worse…” Even thinking about it sends the edges of his cloud curling upward. “Sorry if that doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I guess it’s something to watch out for, when you feel like you might lose control.”

“Yeah... “ Melody focuses intently as the wisps of cloud continue drifting upwards, momentarily obscuring her chains. “I mean… yeah, I never thought of describing it like that? But they definitely feel stuff. Like… they never hurt me, but sometimes I feel them sorta… wanting to drift toward everyone else. The Jackals mentioned like… protecting the shadow against trespassers or something? So... maybe they just try to grab everyone that doesn’t have shadow powers?” She sighs loudly as she thinks about the chains wrapping around Ernest a couple weeks before. “That would explain why they like, tried to hurt you too? Cause I lose control when I get hit really hard sometimes.”

A dull rattling noise emerges from inside Ernest’s cloud as Melody stares off into the forest, lost in thought. “They go out of control when I get super upset too…” she hangs on the last word as she thinks back to her shadow itself wildly smashing through building floors in her desperate search for Aman some months ago, even before she was given the power to use her chains. A familiar sense of dread from the memory starts to set in as a few of the chains snake their way out of the cloud, slowly gravitating towards Ernest.

Ernest eyes the motion of the chains, but stands his ground. “I can teach you some things to try and help you calm down when you’re feeling upset like that. Breathing techniques work really well for me.” He takes a slow breath, holds it for a few moments, then quietly releases it, letting any anxiety about the chain’s movement wash away. He knows that Melody doesn’t want to hurt him, and acting scared about that won’t do anything to help her learn control. “Or like, I listen to music to calm down, so focusing on a particular tune in my head can help keep the panic from overwhelming me. I can’t promise they’ll work all the time– I mean, you’ve seen me wreck stuff when I get too emotional– but they’re a lot better than nothing.”

“As for them trying to grab everyone… do you think you could convince them that some people without shadow powers aren’t a threat? What if you had them pick me up right now, when you aren’t in danger or anything?” Ernest stands perfectly still, waiting for Melody and her shadow chains to respond.

“I don’t… I…” Melody’s heart drums faster as panic sets in at the thought of her chains wrapping around Ernest again. She thinks back to the inside of Flyby Girl’s mind and the hospital that Gambite had attacked-- where she was the only person who could interact with the shadowy chains binding memories and dimensions-- when even touching the chains caused such intense feelings of nausea and wrongness that she’d fainted.

*That was months ago. They’re your powers now. Just copy what he did... the slow breathing thing. You know how important breathing is for volleyball and fighting already. Makes sense if it works for controlling powers and not panicking out about stuff too.*

Melody mimics Ernest, drawing in a deep breath before holding it, then slowly exhales. The sense of dread still lingers, but it’s fainter now as her chains stop advancing towards Ernest. She continues practicing deep controlled breaths as her shadow chains oscillate up and down with her inhaling and exhaling.

“Okay dude, umm… I mean, they usually feel really icky to touch? Like… physically, mentally, all that. I can try to tell them that you’re cool and stuff, but I don’t know if they’ll listen. So… I’ll try to pick you up, but if it hurts or feels bad or whatever, just say something and I’ll let go.”

*I hope they’ll listen to me when I want them to let go, but I can’t keep worrying about the worst thing that’ll happen. I’ll never learn how to control them if I don’t try. And at least I know Ernest is really tough. He can handle this even if it goes bad. He already did a couple weeks ago.* Melody exhales loudly as a chain wraps snugly around Ernest’s waist and lifts him off the ground.

As soon as the chain touches him, panic begins bubbling in his stomach – or maybe it’s just nausea, something akin to his usual motion sickness but ten times worse. The sensation that something is about to go horribly wrong is nearly overwhelming.

His cloud gathers around him, the light gray billows darkening and beginning to crackle with lightning. He can feel the tension building in the atmosphere, ready to strike out – against the chains, against the one wielding them, indiscriminately across the forest if he wasn’t careful. But he won’t let that happen.

Despite the intense feelings, he’s not being crushed or flung around by the chains. Melody clearly has some level of control here, and he couldn’t let his own powers throw that off. Ernest closes his eyes and hums the opening bars of a soothing song to himself, concentrating on the splotches of indigo and letting everything else fade away. The cloud quiets, neon pink leaving his vision as the buzz of electricity fades. Soon, it breaks apart into fine wisps that vanish into the sunlight.

He opens his eyes again and flashes a strained smile down towards Melody. “See? I’m fine! You’re doing great!” his voice comes out slightly higher pitched than usual, creeping into lavender.

“If you say so, dude!” Melody winces. She had been on enough missions with Ernest to know that the faint smell of burnt ozone wafting from where his cloud had been was never a sign that things were going great.

*At least he sounds better than I thought he would? I mean, he isn’t knocked out and nobody got zapped. That’s better than I expected. Definitely still fucked something up though.*

“Okay, gonna… hmm. Bring you over and set you down?” Melody gives an appreciative smile as her chains retract towards her, dragging Ernest through the air until he’s a few yards away before setting him down in the clearing. “Thanks, Ernest. Sorry if they still felt weird or whatever. But hopefully less, like, hurty and weird than last time? That or you’ve been eating your Wheaties, dude. Good shit either way.” She grins and coils up her arm for a fist-bump.

Ernest stumbles slightly as the chain releases him, but he manages to stay upright. “Yeah, way better than last time! You did amazing!” He walks over to fist-bump Melody, but misjudges the height of a tree root and trips into a snowbank. “I meant to do that. It’s, uh, balance training,” he says, rolling onto his back but making no move to stand up. “I think that’s enough training powers for today.”

“Ah--” Melody reaches out a hand to help Ernest up before stifling a laugh. “Yeah, getting tired too. Balance training though, that’s a good idea. I usually practice by falling off buildings and down giant fissures and stuff. Definitely on purpose every time,” she nods sagely.

As her feet crunch down through the soft-packed snow, Melody bends down and fist-bumps Ernest. She looks out toward the trail they’d approached from before she stretches her arms dramatically over her head and falls backwards into the snow. Melody drags her arms and legs back and forth to form a snow angel as the fatigue sets in, and she too lies still.

“Okay dude, I don’t know what muscles powers use, but they’re tired. I’m just gonna like, chill out here for a few minutes, then we can drive home?” Melody turns her head in the direction she thinks Ernest is, but can’t see him over the snow. “I can like, carry you back to the car if you’re still tired then, string bean.”

“I’m gonna start thinking this is all a plot to make me lose all the muscles I have gained by carrying me everywhere,” Ernest snorts. “I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” A hand stretches above the snow, pointing upwards. “Hey, what do you think that cloud looks like?”

When they finally return to the van, clouds in the shape of two figures with their fists raised for a sparring match hang in the sky.