BACKDATED TO 6/21

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BACKDATED TO 6/21

WHO: Artemis (

real_archer), The Shade (

foreshadower) and Kid Flash (

runningstart)
WHERE: Heropa High football stadium
WHEN: Early morning (2:00 AM), June 21st
WHAT: Robin disappears, so Kid Flash and Artemis go on a culprit hunt while Wally overreacts. Artemis and Wally conclude there's obviously nobody but the Shade to blame. Clearly. The Shade indulges the children.
WARNINGS: PROBABLY NOTHING.

Kid Flash knows he's not going to have to wait long for the Shade to show up. He agreed pretty easily to meeting in the football stadium; is it because he thinks Wally is alone, and therefore can't possibly spring a trap? Or is it because he just (rightly so) believes that Kid Flash is absolutely no threat to him whatsoever?

Or maybe he's just bored. Must get boring, living forever and not sleeping at all during it.

Either way, Wally is hoping against all common sense that this won't come to blows, because after what Jay and Flash have told him, Wally's pretty sure he won't be able to take on the Shade, not even with Artemis's help. The best he can hope for is cooperation, maybe some info on where Robin could be because he's sure as hell nowhere in the county.

It's to find Robin, Kid tells himself. He's not picking a fight. He's not trying to live up to any inane expectations he sets for himself. He's trying to find Robin.

Yeah.

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His assumption was right, of course, Shade was bored. Shade was often bored, but Heropa was a new, special kind of bored. The sort that left him aching for something to do, and then someone like Kid Flash had come his way, calling for him to actually attack, or fight, or maybe just for information.

Shade didn't really care. While he could kidnap Robin -- or even Power Girl -- it wasn't something he was interested in doing. Things like that tended to end in trouble, or at least superheroics, and he wasn't a villain, not anymore. Even Jay had figured out that Shade was in it for the fun of it, and hadn't their jousts been amazing?

The football field was still crisp, grass still wet from the sprinklers when Shade materialized, shadows pulling from the field goal into a longer, heavier shadow, before it wasn't a shadow at all, but a man, and he slipped free, traces of shadow fabric drifting from him in a slow, lazy haze, before they dissipated in the air. It wasn't really shadow fabric, but the effect was the same, even if it wasn't a portal to the shadowlands, even still.

"Someone called?" he asked, conversationally, even while he leaned on his eagle-headed cane, nonchalant.

A chill ran down Artemis's spine as the shadows began to coalesce and solidify. Well, that was creepy... She'd already been fairly certain they were biting off more than two teenage heroes (one with basically no powers) could chew, but here was proof. If it weren't for Robin...

Even from her place, hidden by the master switch for the stadium lights, Artemis could clearly make out the Shade's face as the shadows fluttered away. He looked familiar, and for a sick moment Artemis thought that perhaps she'd seen him with her dad. It was bad enough they were probably hopelessly overmatched, she did not want to get outed as Sportsmaster's daughter at the same time.

... But no, she realized. She didn't remember him from home, it was more recent than that. Wait... was he the annoying old-fashioned guy who'd responded to her first post on the network? She'd sassed the Shade and she hadn't even known it. Somehow the thought wasn't particularly comforting.

Everything Kid Flash knows about the Shade is completely second-hand from Jay and Barry's personal accounts, and they didn't tell him much. The Shade was retired long before Wally ever came onto the hero scene, and Barry and Jay only told him about the guy in case he -for some reason- decided to come out of retirement. And then only enough so Wally could get away from him and get someone else.

Lot of good that does me now, Wally thinks bitterly. If they weren't always being sheltered by their mentors, he wouldn't be in this mess.

The shadows twist and solidify and Wally swallows and folds his arms to try and look more in control than he feels. It's not the loud display other villains like to put on; smashing buildings or explosions or huge, grandiose traps but somehow that makes it feel more threatening. Wally usually isn't scared off by the big bads and he never feels like he needs to be rescued, but...yeah. He'd be okay with Barry here with him, in this case.

"Yeah. I figured face-to-face would be better." Wally shifts his weight like he's about to run without realizing it. "Remember when we were talking about MOs a couple weeks ago?"

"Indeed, I think that conversation is still fresh in my mind," he offered, his tone was conversational, to put it lightly. Shade didn't appear at all concerned, but then again, fighting the Flash hadn't been about proving worth or proving who was stronger, it was about fun. Jay -- or even Barry -- wouldn't kill, which was hardly his concern, but creating shadows and slipping around them with the Flashes had always set the ichor pumping, and it was always exciting.

Even now, he was thrumming with excitement, the curl of his lips said enough. He wasn't into this for the villainy, it was for the fun. Despite what Jack Knight had said, that he was going to be a hero, he still didn't believe it. For nobody but Opal, at least, and she'd always been special.

He peered across the field, not quite catching Artemis, his eyes did dart away from the lights. Naturally. He was made of shadows, after all.

"And you think I am interested in a kidnapping? For old times sake?"

Kid Flash looked so small and so bright in the middle of the field wearing his mustard-and-ketchup costume as he faced off against the Shade. And the Shade looked creepily eager. Artemis's grip on the master switch tightened, ready to throw it at a moment's notice. There was enough ambient light in the stadium to cast shadows, but let's see him try to hide from three-hundred and sixty degrees of full-on stadium floodlights once she threw the switch.

They were far enough away that, although she could see them with perfect clarity, she could only hear them in snatches. Shade was also outside of the range of her (admittedly, pretty limited) flashbang arrows.

"Come on," she muttered under her breath. "Bring him closer..."

She didn't want to jump the gun and throw the switch too soon, but it would be worse to throw it too late.

There's something about how this feels, something about the charge in the air (or maybe that's him, maybe it's something about how the shadows keep stretching like a thug cracking his knuckles) that tastes like a fight. The Shade wants a fight. "No, I don't think you care at all about Robin or kidnapping. But I know you're in it for the thrills. And after that video they showed us? Nothing stirs up a hornets' nest of heroes like beating down a couple of hero kids."

Wally glances around; he's too far from Artemis. Shade isn't advancing anymore. He has to move him back into her range.

"Maybe I picked up too quick on it or maybe you just haven't done anything with it yet. Or maybe Robin's the teaser and all the people who come after him are the bait." Wally shrugs and spreads his hands, taking a few steps back as casually as he can manage.

He's not going to get Shade to spill his guts without pinning him down. The more Shade stands there, darkness coiling around him like a loving cat, the more convinced Wally is that if Shade didn't do it, per se, then he might know something or might be able to find out.

Or...maybe Wally is just telling himself that. Maybe he's got something to prove.

"Am I getting warm?"

"Dangling him in front of you? Vanished without a trace, so I can have my fill of fun little fights with the next generation of superheroes, before you become fully adept at your powers?" he asked, his voice low, almost giddy in the way he asked it. Shade was excited, it was true. He liked fights. He liked fighting and dangling little prizes in front of heroes.

They all thought they had a number on Shade, while he stole in secret, and did what he wished, when he wouldn't get caught. He had the perfect life, honestly, tucked away into Opal, before he'd been ripped to the City, and then here to Heropa. Ugh.

What else was he supposed to do. Older heroes knew he was all hot air, at this point. These children didn't, did they?

"Do you feel warmer, Flash?" he dropped the 'Kid', finding it unnecessary, even while he took one step back, the shadows almost swooping to take the field, running the lines, like it was going to swallow the entire field in a black maw. He didn't fear much, honestly, and hadn't thought to look up still, but the snapping jaws on the shadows said enough.

Shade wanted to fight.

That was it--that was more than close enough. Artemis might not have been able to hear what they were saying, but the encroaching shadows were a clear signal. She only hoped it wasn't too late.

Artemis threw the switch.

A loud buzzing came from the enormous stadium lights ringing the field and they began to come on, though at first only a dim bluish version of their full powered brightness. Artemis swore--a word she'd often heard her dad use, though she rarely used it herself--and took off running down to the field. Why didn't they test this first? Robin would have tested the lights. Aqualad would have tested the lights.

She was still too far to use the flashbangs, which had been designed for much closer combat, but she snatched a flare out of her quiver and shot it into the sky over the field. The sparking light seemed to hang over the center of the field, giving everything a weird red cast while the floodlights came to full power.

He's got to be responsible. He's too eager. Shade must have taken Robin.

That alone is enough to get KF's righteous blood boiling. He realizes his error too late when Shade steps back, because of course he wouldn't draw closer, with those shadows he's a long range fighter. He's about to try and bolt to the side, to where the moonlight is falling a little more heavily on the grass when something clanks and the floodlights flicker on...too dim.

Too dim. Something cracks overhead, casts everything scarlet and Wally's brain might process at super speeds but it's always focused on the sensory input and sometimes the cognitive lags a little. That means he's already moving for Shade before his brain catches up and supplies helpfully, Artemis probably just saved you again you know and it sounds like Robin being insufferably smug.

No point trying to feint. He should take the element of surprise and use it to try and ram Shade down to the ground before he can gather shadows back around him. Wally has to keep him from leaving, get him isolated in the center of the lights and keep him there.

The issue with lights, as some would figure out, wasn't that they made the shadows impossible. They made them all the more stark. The flare of red light was a surprise, as was the hum of the lights, but Shade? Shade laughed at first. Being near light, in light wasn't nearly enough to harm him. He was out, after all, most days. Perhaps, if he were on the surface of the sun, there would be an issue.

But there was no need to let them in on that, was there?

Shade had been entertained out of making himself look a lot less than what he was. Instead of dipping into the shadows, and swiftly taking care of the lights one, after another, after another, he let them continue to brighten, holding his cane up, with a fierce smile that sprang to life on his lips.

"This is your plan!?" he asked, sidestepping quickly. A half-movement that wasn't really a human movement, but from one point, to another, Flash catching only the shreds of shadows that were left in the dust, and he slid from the ground behind him. "Light?"

Well, the plan had been to encircle him with bright lights and effectively cut him off from shadows.

It... hadn't been much a plan to start with. But it had clearly just gone from "bad plan" to "suicide run."

Although Artemis had little trouble processing a speedster's movement, the way the Shade moved was completely different. It was disorienting and profoundly creepy. If they survived this, Artemis might never sleep with the lights off again.

If.

She spotted the shadowy figure just behind Kid Flash.

"Move!" she yelled, drawing a flashbang. Maybe she could break up the shadows, drive them back...

Plan B looked an awful lot like Plan A.

KF's snappy comeback -not that he had one, because from here the plan is starting to look pretty rotten- is going to have to wait. Artemis shouting battlefield orders isn't something he's all that used to, but when an archer tells someone to move then the best plan is to do that. Wally turns his second charge into a skid; drops to his knees and slides across wet grass behind Shade. He ends up toppling over but that's the point, it always happens, so he can grab the opponent from behind and trip them and maybe if Artemis gets that flashbang off just right he can-!

They were clever, he'd give them that. They had a notion, of course, that the shadows would drive him back, drive back his power, but perhaps they didn't realize that he was shadows, a dark fabric that made him up just as surely as the shadowy, snapping jaws that formed in the patch behind him.

The "creature", as it were, loomed, a dark canine rising from the darkness to arc forward, after the flashbang, like it were a frisbee -- or more likely: a fresh kill. It went for it, but the explosion would surely rip it to shreds, but the intention was not to keep it alive -- but to envelop it. The initial burst would really only hurt one, instead of many.

Shade, however, only moved backward somewhat, his steps a saunter, like he was entirely unconcerned with the battle, but the smile on his face was in contrast -- something obvious that said what he thought about the fight.

They were young, and perhaps inexperienced, but they were innovative -- their perspectives fresh. Like Jack Knight.

When Kid Flash went into the slide, Artemis let loose the flashbang... only to watch it get swallowed by darkness like a firefly. She drew up to a halt, minding racing on. The lights hadn't worked, the flare hadn't worked, the flashbangs hadn't worked... what else could she use to shoot a shadow? You couldn't catch a shadow in a net or trap it in foam. Sure, she could try just blowing it up, but with Kid Flash on the field she would also risk hurting him and that wasn't acceptable.

Plus, she had a feeling it wouldn't work. What could an archer and a kid who ran really fast do to fight shadows?

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear her sister laughing.

She froze like she hadn't frozen since the Reds.

Kid was going to try and grab Shade, but that giant set of teeth just leaps up and snatches the flashbang out of the air, chomps on it like it's made out of matter and KF slides across the wet grass on his side a foot before he skids to a stop and gapes.

Shit.

Shit.

The floodlights for the stadium come up and throw everything into starker relief, and from this angle Kid Flash can see the grin on Shade's face and he realizes with a sinking feeling that they didn't think about how many shadows the light makes. It's not bright enough.

"Not the right angle," Kid whispers under his breath, shoving himself up. They can't shine the light down on Shade, it just throws more shadows across the ground. They have to get Shade to stand on the light; then the shadows have nowhere to go.

"Artemis!" Kid shouts, looking over at her only to see her absolutely frozen, her bow still half-raised as she stares down at Shade. "Dammit, Artemis, go hide!" He shoves himself up and slips on the wet grass as he tries to bolt over to her before Shade gets bored of playing around and goes after one of them.

The creature itself, the one that swallowed the flashbang only looked at the two of them, its dark eyes, almost more like a blacklight than eyes themselves looked from Flash to Artemis, before it almost looked pained, and then the thing exploded. It burst into shreds of shadows that drifted to the floor, but they didn't move when they hit the ground, only faded to nothing.

Of course, Shade was giving them some hope. They were starting to look scared, and they were outclassed, but Shade wasn't exactly the sort that was going to meet his class often, or even at all. It was a good thing he was more interested in paling around with Oscar Wilde than he was with taking over the world.

Shade, of course, turned to find Kid Flash dashing at him, and he laughed, as he started to fade. "Running only goes so far, Flash! Did Jay teach you nothing?" he asked, but even as he faded, he let the fabric drift slower and slower, and when Flash's fingers found his arm, coat, leg, whatever, it solidified, under his fingers, and he let off a dramatic hiss of disapproval.

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BACKDATED TO 6/21

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asdkf I'm so sorry this took so long!!