Midnight Experiments[open]

Shadow held up the jar, shaking the small jar of luminescent bugs. He reached forward hesitantly with his powers, not knowing if he could dim the light of life. He had no idea of the effects the altering of the light of the winged insects would have. He tapped the glass, agitating them. The flew around inside, bumping into their invisible cage. He retracted his power, thinking. These bugs are like me... no place to go without someone outsides help. Shadow sighed and twisted open the lid.

The fireflies flew out, to be swallowed by the all encompassing night. Night, the friend of many, if they cared to realize it. Shadow didn't have to use his powers out here. The night was his home. He let a very slight smile touch his lips for just an instant and stared out into the stars, the tiny pinpricks of light that interrupted the silent guardian. The moon an usurper attempting to take the universe's peace.

Shadow closed his eyes for a moment, his past years flashing across his eyelids, burned into his memory for all eternity. The horrible experiments turned to the horror of finding out his parents were dead, the fear of the sun and of the regular people that cast him out of every dwelling, and lastly, the most lurid image, Jordan's body, swinging from a short rope. He opened his eyes suddenly, wrenching himself out of the image. There were some things that he tried not to dwell on. He leaned out over the edge of the rooftop, peering into the darkness. My life is all darkness...

It was becoming much colder outside, Miller decided to keep near the school and stay inside as much as possible, climate change was something new to him. He was still wearing his dirty blood stained green t-shirt which gave him the appearance of some kind of psychopath, the bladed arm didn’t help against this assumption. He was on his usual midnight wanderings until he came to the roof top, there was someone there he had never seen before. Out of curiosity he slowly began to walk towards him.

Based on the appearance of the guy he seemed more of the violent variety, but Miller knew better than to judge people by their appearance. His own appearance doesn’t give off a friendly aura either. But he will still view Shadow as a threat until he assures himself that he isn’t, it was sort of a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ type of deal with him. He wasn’t planning to attack him or anything of that sort, he was just being cautious and watching the man’s movements as well as searching for potential weapons.

He got close enough to him and thought that it seemed safe enough to talk to the guy. He approached to the left side of Shadow making his normal arm more visible than his bladed left arm. He had no idea how to start off the conversation with him, so glanced at the first thing that caught his eyes, the jar. “What exactly are you doing up here at this time of night?”

Shadow was surprised by the approaching person, people usually tried to stay away from him. He instinctively darkened the area around him, very slightly. His eyes flashed to the man, student, who ever it was, and attempted to assess him. His eyes narrowed and his nose flared at the bitter smell of crimson blood. The shadows around him darkened.

The man spoke, "What exactly are you doing up here at this time of night?" Shadow glanced at the open jar in his hands and put it in his coat.

"Why? Why should I tell you?"

The scent of blood made his eyes twitch. He narrowed his eyes again.
"I could ask you the same thing."

Shadow slowly put his hand in his pocket, fingering the small knife there. Suddenly, he was glad he had taken the time to grab it before he left his ship. He knew that if the guy attacked, he wouldn't have time to do much. Shadow turned to face him, gauging his every move. He caught a glimpse of something shining from the guy's left side. He gripped the knife more firmly. Now he was really glad he grabbed it.
"What do you want?"

Miller’s eyes widened revealing more of his pure black eyes as the area around the man began to darken, it felt much better on his enlarged light sensitive pupils. He stood up straight now feeling more comfortable in the darkness. He kept an eye on the other guy’s hand which was now reaching into his pocket, thinking that his previous prediction of the guy might have been right.

“I was just curious about what you were doing” Miller answered “I walk around this school all the time and haven’t seen you before”.

He was never exactly that great at trying to explain his actions to other people. This was probably a bad idea now that he thought about it, he had to come up with a way to get himself out of this situation before someone would get hurt. The first thing that came to his mind was intimidation, so he raised his left arm revealing the massive blade that replaced his fore arm. It would have shined its metallic silver colour, but there was no light around them to reflect onto it.

He assumed that Shadow thought he was here to fight why else would he reach for a weapon “calm down, if I was here to attack you, I’d have done it by now” he said in the calmest tone he could.

Shadow almost gasped aloud when he saw the guys arm. He pulled the dagger out, shifting into a fighting stance. However, he knew that the guy was right, he could have killed him long before he had pulled out the small blade in his hand. That thing on the mans arm was massive though. He glared at the man, angry for that man making him feel defenseless. It would not happen again.

Seeing the mans eyes relax a little when he used his power, Shadow began to let up on his power, making it lighter. he was used to the change now and was ready to drop a ball of darkness on the scene. "I come here for the solitude of the night. Here is where I can truly reside." Shadow lowered the dagger and put it in his pocket. There was nothing he could do with a small a thing as that.

"You haven't seen me before because I didn't exist here before last week. This is one of the few places that I can practice my 'gift.'" He reached into his other pocket slowly as to not alarm the man. "Who are you...?"

Miller did not expect his plan to work as effectively as it did. He lowered his bladed arm now knowing that Shadow wasn’t going to attempt an attack seeing as he retracted his weapon as fast as he revealed it. Miller didn’t usually like using his arm for the use of intimidation and fear, but if it was to get him out of a battle he preferred it. He still didn’t completely trust this man to not attack and eyed the other hand reaching into his pocket for a brief moment. His eyes went back onto the man.

“I’m Miller, I myself have only been here for about a couple months” He replied. It was at this moment that Miller noticed the sudden change in his surroundings, it had become a bit lighter, with the kind of eyes he had it was easily noticeable. “I mostly use this place as a form of protection, I don't exactly have a form of 'gift' that would need to be practiced”.

The mention of Shadow’s gift sparked curiosity within Miller’s mind. “What exactly is your ‘gift’?”. He had already predicted that it might have something involving light because it would explain the sudden changes in lighting around the two, also he has had met other light manipulators in the past. Though this was still just an assumption, he wasn’t completely sure of this unless Shadow was to confirm it.

Shadow narrowed his eyes again. "You want to know my power?" Shadow hadn't yet been asked anything like that. He looked Miller straight into his fully blackened eyes. Your eyes reflect the soul of my power. I can't exactly make things lighter, I can just relieve the darkness. However... I can do this." Shadow dropped the ball of darkness at his feet.

Instantly, the area around the two was completely devoid of light, the light rays just bounced off a sphere with a radius of roughly an average man. Shadow smirked inside this globe. He dropped down to the ground, prone, in case Miller reacted badly to his power as people often did.

Shadow let up on his powe, dispersing it suddenly, releasing his namesake back into the night, while at the same time he slid easily back into a straight face. "I am Shadow Ombra. Or, as some call me, the Shadow Lord."

When Shadow removed all the light from the area Miller experienced something that he has never had happen to him before, it was too dark for him to see. His eyes were designed to see in very low lighted settings, but the area was now completely absent of light. He didn’t like this feeling and started to shuffle his feet backwards in attempt to get away from the dark aura as quickly as possible. He was in sort of a panic, but as soon as he got out of the bubble of darkness he began to calm down.

“It doesn’t seem like you would need to practice such a power if you have already perfected it” Miller commented with a slight amount of heavy breathing ending his statement.

He heard the man’s name and questioned the oddity of it as well as how precisely accurate it was, in his mind. But then again he shouldn’t be the one questioning names when he himself didn’t truly have a name. “Who exactly refers to you as ‘The Shadow Lord’ anyway?”