"Squeak."

"Lucille, don't."

"Squeak."

"I'm sorry but, unlike you, I need a large living space to feel comfortable."

"Squeak."

"Ok, I admit I didn't anticipate this result, but can you blame me? I'm not an architect!"

James had merrily spent the last few hours digging at the walls of the nest to expand it, keeping the entry hole small for now - the only residents being a goopy shapeshifter and five young rats, there was no need for a bigger entrance - but digging down to level the floor of the nest with the rest of the sewers.

Of course, digging all willy-nilly as he had, James had overlooked a very important detail : support. Sometime after he had begun to dig upward to make the ceiling higher - which would allow him to stand at his regular human height - the nest, which had now become a small cave, collapsed.

It was obvious in hindsight. The tunnels in this area were in such a bad condition, digging through the bricks had been too easy and, of course, most underground structures required some sort of support pillars.

Luckily the rats, James, and even the - now deactivated - mechanical spider had been spared from the rubbles. Well, technically it did fall on James but the impact merely squished him into his puddle form, he had just had to become a shadow and slip under all the fallen stone to go back at the entrance where he emerged with no problem - aside from a judgemental rat who was not amused.

"I just... I just have to clean the rubble and it'll all be ok!"

"Squeak."

"Of course I have no idea what I'm doing, do I like some kind of cave dweller?"

"Sque-"

"Don't."

James stretched his back, twisted his body left and right, and rolled his neck before approaching the mess of fallen stone before him. He "kneeled" and formed a single arm to pick up a small rock among the rubble. As he straightened back up he held the rock close to his face, wondering how he could solve this predicament.

"I can't just throw all of this away in the sewers, not only would this much rock probably cause some issues in the canal but I would also need to expand the entrance to make some of those fit..."

James formed a small tentacle to rub his chin as he pondered.

Could I just put it all back on the walls and ceiling? I would need some kind of very strong glue, but couldn't I improvise something? I started out as some sort of slug, didn't I?

James focused on the rock in his hand and tried to will his body onto it, which resulted in his fingers fusing to form a ball around the rock.

This... isn't what I planned. Maybe instead of thinking of my body, I should think of its properties?

He tried once more and failed again. This time nothing happened at all.

Maybe this isn't the right state to do this?

He attempted the operation once more, first with a full solid body, then a fully liquid one, then a fully gas one, then with different mixes of the different states, and yet, the result was always the same : sheer and utter failure

Ok, only one last thing to try... I don't know how shadows could do this but, since it's my most "magical" ability, it could find some way to work, right?

Back in his spooky humanoid form, James stared at the rock in his hand as he willed his flesh on the surface of the palm to become shadows and used them to envelop the rock. He now had a rock fully covered in darkness, which wasn't exactly what he wanted.

Now, how could I turn this shadowy membrane into some sort of permanent glue? Maybe I could-

"SQUEAK!"

Surprised, James instinctively clutched his hand as he turned around.

"DAVID!"

The little trouble maker had apparently attempted - again - to enforce his authority upon his sisters and, once more, they had ganged up on him and were reminding him that, alone against three, there wasn't much he could do.

James sighed and shook his head. He really had to train to get used to his new sensing "domain". He was so used to regular human sight that he often overlooked things that he should be able to perceive but didn't because he was focused on one spot. Oh well, he would deal with it another day. Right now he was experimenting with-

Oh no, the rock!

James focused on the rock and... Well... Something had definitely happened. The rock, even once freed from James' shadowy grasp, was much, MUCH darker than before, going from a light grey to a light black or very dark blue. It even seemed to be of better quality now, gone was the dusty brick, it was now some kind of simili-marble. But THIS, this was only the external changes.

James could feel it. That thing definitely wasn't a simple rock anymore. It was... More. Not only was it much stronger now, but he could also vaguely sense things in a small perimeter around the rock. He tried to get further away but it didn't seem to affect this new sensing property of the rock.

Then he had a crazy idea : if he could sense via the rock, could he act through it? He tried and, somehow, it worked. He could manifest a small tentacle from the modified rock. It was clumsier than if it had actually been part of his body but this was already incredible.

With this, I could improvise a very nice security system... But it would still be limited, the perception isn't that great compared to a camera and, if stuff like ME can exist, things that can bypass my tentacles - whether because of strength, agility, or whatever - are probably around too. Hell, there's already that giant crocodile.

James shuddered as he remembered his encounter with that giant scarred crocodile - even now the oversized reptile would probably defeat him with no issue if they met. James shook his head to chase that thought away and came back to the matter at hand.

But yeah, apparently the trick was forcing the shadows into it. But I don't think it consumed any of those made out of my body, so what shadow did it use? Regular shadows wouldn't work, right?

They did actually. James tried a few more times and the result was always the same : he just had to envelop what he wanted to alter with his own shadows and then, with a small push, he could infuse the surroundings shadows into it. The best part? There technically wasn't any light in this part of the sewers and therefore, he had an endless supply of darkness.

Brick by brick, stone by stone, and cloud of dust by cloud of dust, soon all of the rubble within the nest had been infused with shadows. It was still a massive pile of rubble in the middle of the room though.

Ok, everything's been shadowed. Now what? Maybe... If I can create tentacles out of shadowed stuff, maybe I could fuse it together somehow?

James flared his Will and tentacles, slime and strings emerged from each piece of the rubble, slithering among each other, blocks of fallen stone, broken bricks, and piles of dust began to levitate - or rather gave the illusion they did, in truth they were suspended to the surrounding darkness by small threads - and to form links connecting them all as they slowly "floated" back to their original places - all of which occurred under the awed gaze of five small rodents.

A slight issue arose, however : the shadowed stone fused with itself without any trouble but it wasn't the case with regular stone. James hurriedly infused every exposed part of the room with shadows, letting the darkness surround each brick through cracks and holes, and the rubble finally connected with the walls and ceiling of the nest.

The process had been surprisingly silent and, now that it was all over, did not leave any trace - aside from the newly darkened and improved material. Truly, no onlooker could ever guess that this room had once been victim to a collapse - and, thanks to the newly upgraded stone, there was no need for support pillars of any sort to ensure none would happen again. Truly a solely beneficial scenario.

The nest was now a large single room, as high as a human and a half and as wide and long as a bus' length. Every surface was made of bricks of black marble - or at least looked like they were - and the ceiling was curved, giving it somewhat of a dome-like shape.

"See Lucille? I dealt with it. I cleaned it all up and now everything is even better."

The small rat at James' feet looked up to his not-quite-a-face and glared.

"Squeak."

"Me not knowing any of this would happen beforehand doesn't matter if it all turns out fine in the end."

Her stare grew harsher.

"Squeak."

James held his ground for a second, a brave and incredible second... Before ultimately sighing and lowering his "shoulders".

"I know, it's just a worthless excuse, but cut me some slack, ok? I never had to do any of that as a pizza delivery boy. I didn't have to dig my own home - especially underground - or deal with any of the wonky magic stuff I seem to be able to do."

The small rat climbed up his weird body - she was surprisingly agile for her age and, thankfully, James' body was solid enough for her to climb - and came to a stop at his shoulders, where she sat upon one before patting his back.

"Am I going insane due to isolation or are you way too smart and humane for a rat? And you're not even an adult yet."

Lucille squeaked and shrugged before climbing down to nibble on one of the dead cockroaches stored in the robot spider.

This one, in particular, had a peculiar feature - aside from a cartoonishly radioactive green glow that one out of ten cockroaches down there had apparently : its antennae had, for some reason, turned into a pair of serrated knives - that glowed blue for Lovecraft-knows-why. James watched the little sewer rat genius go and feast upon her little prize before simply giving up.

"You know what? I give up. I adopted a litter of intelligent rats, my neighbor is a crocodile the size of a bus and covered in more scars than there is hair on a bear and I turned into a black shape-shifting blob of darkness and despair. Logic died and madness ate its corpse. Flying white horned blue striped pigs? Perfectly normal. Zombie weresquirrels with guns? Just a Tuesday !"

As James went off on a wild tangent under the eyes of five more or less worried ratlings, events had been put in motion elsewhere.

An old, decrepit warehouse in the slums. The building had been abandoned for as long as anyone could remember and was now covered in tags and graffiti of all kinds. Whether the artists were slum kids who just wanted to have fun in their otherwise miserable life or thugs and goons putting on a little artistic cold war between the various gangs and Villains, the result was undeniably a thing of beauty.

Words and pictures covered each other on this unique canvas, different styles, symbols, words, and pictures fusing in this chaotic mess and somehow creating a marvel for the eyes. Still, in the center of this masterpiece of street art, there were four graffiti that none had dared to defile.

The silhouette of a crowned woman on a mechanical throne, surrounded by cogs and gears. The symbol of one of the core members of the Tarot gang, leader of the Mechanical Empire faction, and one of the three current major powers among Zalcien's Villains : The Empress.

A yellow flower surrounded by green vines with red thorns and a swarm of blue bees. The logo of a mysterious group, The Hivines, also one of the three major Villainous powers of Zalcien, a sect that praised nature and mutation under the guidance of their spiritual leader : Biflora.

A white four-pronged star surrounded by crescent moons, each located between two prongs and pointing away from the star, a small colored sphere located between the two tips : a red one on the upper-right, a blue one on the lower-left, a green one on the upper-left and a brown one on the lower-right. The insignia of Wicked Witchcraft, the last of the three major Villain powers, a group of mages led by one of Zalcien's most well-known Villains : Abrakaboom.

And, in the center of it all, merely a name. A red-tagged name. Natrashka, the man, the legend-

"Stop daydreaming and do your job, Joe!"

Joe huffed. What job? He was supposed to help move crates around and they had finished doing exactly that two hours ago. Brad seriously got on his nerves sometimes.

"Brad, they finished doing that a long time ago. Let the guy enjoy his break, alright?"

On the other hand, Joe really liked Mikey. The man was nice, polite, did his job without complaining, and defended everyone from Brad's tantrums.

Joe looked around him, observing the decrepit warehouse filled with thugs, and sighed. He dreamed to be a writer and narrating things in his head was one of the few ways to advance his goal when on the job. Job which consisted of moving crates around for the Blood Angels.

They weren't the best guys to work for but at least they had bearable work conditions. He was paid by the job but that also meant he was free to refuse the more dangerous ones - like when he had been asked if he could fight a novice Hero to distract the Union from a heist. Plus, they put at least one Cored on every job - and considering some of the stuff that ran around in the slums, Joe was VERY glad to have Mikey around, like most of the team. You quickly got used to the horns, scales, and fur.

"Say Joe, did you also feel the ground shaking an hour ago, or am I just losing my mind?"

And there came Bob. He technically was also a Cored but his power just involved summoning an infinite supply of cigarettes. Not the most useful thing considering that Bob didn't smoke and his cigarettes were immune to fire.

"Nah, I felt it. Probably The Blind and The Marked duking it out. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Thank Navam!"

"Still, you spend so much time around that stuff. Maybe you should ignore Dust jobs for a while?"

Red Dust, Blood Spice, Orange Sand- the stuff had a lot of names, most of which didn't make sense past the first two, with the third only being used to make everything seem legal on the paperwork. Joe wasn't proud to be involved in the distribution of the stuff but hey, if he didn't do it someone else would. At least the Blood Angels' stocks were clean - well, as clean as a drug could be.

If everything went well they would deliver some of it in the next few days before moving what was left to another warehouse - no building truly belonged to anyone in the slums, not even them were above that law of the street. No Hero had been tipped off - and the chances of one of them coming to the slums were next to none - and none of their rivals had caught on to their current location.

Yes, everything was fine and going according to plan.