The following day, Ruta sadly stepped back into her room after a long day of school. She would have to head back out again for her destiny at the convention soon; she hoped she could commiserate with Sarika one last time.

They did have an argument, though. The memory made Ruta upturn her nose and hmph to herself, but then she just let out a sigh. But then she blinked.

The room was empty - no Sarika to be found. Which was extremely odd because this was the only place Sarika could be found for the past few weeks. Ruta hoped nothing bad happened to her best friend, but then she upturned her nose again.

Ruta wished Sarika left a note to explain where she headed off to, but Ruta wasn’t her mother. Ruta was Ruta, and Sarika was Sarika. Perhaps the boundary between two different people was the greatest boundary of all.

Sarika was miles away, exiting a county bus that came to a stop in front of a particular motel. The bus drifted off into the darkness of the early night, its lone orange headlight charting a course for it back onto the freeway. That just left Sarika in a quiet parking lot, only a few parked cars keeping her company.

Lonely Light Motel, a sign above the parking lot proclaimed in bright letters. The motel consisted of two stories of rooms stacked on top of each other; Sarika’s destination would be at the far end of the second story.

While standing in the parking lot, Sarika reached into her - silver on the outside, brown on the inside - longcoat, perfect for those autumn conditions (and her own Talent) and ran a steadying hand taped up in white bandages across the invitation that brought her here. She had found it in the mail that morning, tucked away inside the bills and college letters.

Sarika stared at the letter for a long time in her room. It was “written” via individual letters cut out of various magazines, spelling a simple chain of words that probably took the author too long to paste it all together:

IF YOU WANT CONNOLLY, LONELY LIGHT MOTEL. ROOM 216B. TONIGHT.

Sarika’s hand tightened around the letter as she looked up at Room 216B, a flickering orange light sending long shadows across its doorway. She knew that this was most likely a trap. Perhaps the culprit that stole her notebooks hadn’t been satisfied, and now needed to capture Sarika to finish the job.

Was Sarika a fool for coming along, suspecting it was a trap? Not entirely. Because Sarika didn’t intend on walking away from this meeting without some information. It was the only lead she had; the foolish thing would have been to pass up on it.

Sarika took her first step past the point of return. And then another, and then another, until she arrived at the metal, creaking staircase that took her up to the second floor. Heading down the walkway seemed to take forever, her face falling in and out of the shadows with every step. Every door she passed seemed like a silent guard assembled in formation, watching her march to her ultimate destination. Would it be her execution? Her turning point? Who knew?

But she arrived at the doorway. She looked around to make sure nobody was watching; with the coast clear, she took a deep breath. She gave a confident knock on the door, perhaps too confident.

Sarika heard muffled footsteps from inside. She could imagine the person on the other side looking through the keyhole, confirming her identity. Then she heard the sound of several locks…well, unlocking.

The door opened slowly. Sarika stepped into the unknown and was immediately greeted with darkness. Not your average, everyday darkness, but advanced darkness. Unnatural, even. The lights were off, sure, but it was as if the entire room was pitch-black.

The door slammed shut behind her.

“You fool-”

Having done the same trick to Ruta, Sarika immediately swung an elbow backwards. She struck something that felt like a face; a cry went out. Sarika’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and she saw a ninja now on the ground, clutching at his nose.

“Hey, he’s uninsured!” Quaid complained, standing at the other end of the room. He himself wore all black, only his eyes visible through a balaclava. The three ninjas next to him dressed the same way. Even their weapons were all black. Actually, come to think of it, the entire motel room had been painted black, even the light bulbs in the ceiling. There was not a single source of color inside of it.

“You figured out my power’s weakness,” Sarika presumed.

“When we fought at PE, I saw that you left behind a black color on whatever you used your powers on,” Quaid explained. “But according to my boss, black’s not a color. It’s the absence of color. How can you steal colors in a place like this?”

Sarika narrowed her eyes. “What’s the point of this?”

“You chose to investigate further. And now you must face the consequences. Two tons of eels are currently slithering behind the door out on the walkway. You’re locked in here for good now.”

“You’re the one who stole my notebooks,” Sarika concluded. When Quaid nodded and grinned, she cracked her knuckles and advanced on her enemies. “I wouldn’t want this any other way.”

The three ninjas advanced. Sarika simply caught the first one by the throat and slammed him into the ground, his sai dropping to the ground.

“I’m not messing around,” she warned as the two other ninjas circled her, each of them armed with kunai colored dark as night.

Sarika eyed both of them, then kicked the fallen sai up towards the ceiling, right into the light bulbs. The sudden collision created sparks; Sarika couldn’t make anything out of them, but an unexpected explosion of light into an unnaturally pitch-black room made the remaining ninjas involuntarily recoil. Sarika made quick work of them, precise chops to the neck sending both of them to the floor.

Quaid, unfazed by the scene, simply clapped. Sarika took a step toward him, but then leapt backwards; the formerly fallen ninjas all tried to jump on her in a heap. Sarika slid backwards across the room and tilted her head; the ninjas suddenly looked beefier, their black uniforms tight against their larger frames.

No, that wasn’t right; there were bits and pieces where their uniforms ripped from the change in size, but what should’ve been exposed skin was exposed…fur? Black fur.

Sarika readied her hands in a boxer’s pose as the pieces fell together. Her opponents were actually half-ninja, half-gorilla. The ninjas roared like apes, their vocals strong enough to send a car alarm honking outside. Then they advanced, mixing ninja-like precision with gorilla-like strength in their attacks.

Sarika ducked and weaved, then slid a hand across her bandages, which ran all the way up to her arm. The bandage disintegrated as Sarika stole its color and transformed it into something else colored white - tear gas.

The toxic cloud immediately covered the entire room. Gorillas are brick-shithouse animals, but not immune to that gas; tears immediately covered their faces as they clawed at their burning eyes. Sarika kept her own eyes closed until she converted some of the brown on the inside of her longcoat into a gas mask and placed it over her head.

Sarika had enough time to feel satisfied with her beatdown of whatever the hell the gorilla-ninjas were before she suddenly received a faceful of brass to the chest. The collision knocked the breath out of her and certainly cracked a few things inside her along the way.

She stumbled backward, but managed to regain her footing and maneuvered herself away to the other side of the room. Quaid stood before her, wearing an old-timey deep sea diving helmet painted in all black.

“Never leave home without it,” came his static-y sounding voice. “Now…EEL TIME!”

Dozens of black-colored American eels burst out of the walls. Sarika tried the same trick with the gas again, only to receive several eel-blows to the chest.

“You fool!” Quaid exclaimed. “You think fish have the ability to cry? Your tear gas is useless-”

Sarika transformed the sleeve of longcoat into a fork and launched it at the viewing window of Quaid’s deep-sea diving helm. The fork didn’t make it through the glass, but remained in place, sending cracks in several directions.

Sarika rolled under an eel attack and kicked out the leg of a table. Sure enough, only the outsides had been painted - the hole where the leg was inserted into had remained a murky yellowish wood color.

The eels reached Sarika right as she placed a hand on the color. The force of them knocked her away, but she slid her hand across the patch in the process, transforming it into something much more ominous.

Eels were certainly not immune to mustard gas. As the new chemical weapon covered the room, the eels dropped one by one like flies. Sarika created brown gloves out of her longcoat so her skin would remain safe, covering them just as the cloud engulfed her.

All that remained in the room were Sarika, Quaid, and the dying sounds of dozens of eels. The two opponents circled each other, stepping over writhing eels and fallen gorilla-ninjas, moving through dirty-yellow and white colored chemical clouds, all against a pitch-black background.

“You forced my hand,” Quaid declared.

Sarika wanted answers. “Who are you working for? Is it Holloway?”

“My employer wanted you out of the way,” Quaid answered. “I don’t ask questions. He’s funding my life’s work. I’ll do anything to achieve my dream.”

Sarika didn’t care about any dreams besides her own. “Out of the way?”

“I’ll let my boss explain it in person,” Quaid taunted. Below the helmet, Sarika caught a hint of fire in his eyes, then the roof above them exploded. Hundreds of eels burst out of it, showering splinters of wood and asbestos onto Sarika (it wasn’t a very upscale motel).

All those eels came for her at once, so fast that Sarika didn’t have time to move out of the way. Not that she had any time to move out of the way since the eels fell everywhere, even onto Quaid, who simply let them ensconce him.

Sarika felt like she was in a hydraulic press as the eel-valanche pinned her to the floor. Drowning in eels; she was sure that there was some irony in that somehow. The floor below her creaked from the added weight, then suffered a similar collapse as the floor gave way.

Sarika fell into the room below. As eels also fell all around her, she managed to get to her feet, knocking away several falling onto her with an elbow. Then she felt jaws clamp around her arm; grimacing, she saw several moray eels chomping through the sleeve and bandages. She tore the eels off, stealing their purple colors in the process, her teeth gritting from the pain.

Sarika took a step forward, but immediately stumbled. Her vision grew blurry as both the eels and room swam around her; she felt a stinging sensation in her arm.

“Moray eels are toxic,” Quaid proudly proclaimed, having landed on his feet in their new battleground. Eels writhed around on the floor; sprinklers still in the areas of the ceiling not destroyed dropped their watery payloads over the two fighters. “You only have a few minutes left before you go night-night.”

Sarika didn’t intend on going night-night just yet. The eels coiling around her arms and legs made that tough, though. Gathering her strength, Sarika managed to raise an arm and point it right at Quaid’s helmet.

The purple she stole shot out of her arm, transforming back into what it was stolen from - a giant moray eel. The eel, jaws wide, smashed right into the part of the helmet’s viewing glass weakened by the fork attack. Quaid screamed as the moray clamped down on his eyes, nose, and mouth.

As eels coiled around her face, Sarika could see Quaid thrash around, slamming himself into walls, trying to get the eel off of him. Finally, he tore it away, taking a whole chunk of face with it.

But that was the most Sarika could do. The eels covered her entirely, and the toxin did its dirty work to her insides. The last thing she saw before the toxin took her was Quaid falling to one knee.