Indigo's Owl [Indigo Rewrite]

Chapter 40 - Faultline

Shift glanced over the scene, trying to work out if he'd missed something as Raph similarly hesitated beside him.

"Well?" said the Red Warden. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to convince Yellow to let me take her binders off?"

"Stop calling me that!" snapped Zoe. "My name is Zoe, not Yellow."

"Zo," said Raph slowly. "You know this guy?"

"This charming idiot calls himself Red." Zoe stood up, her gaze still locked on the Warden. "Apparently he's the Red Spectrum, but he has a lot to learn before I'm ready to put up with him on any team of mine."

The Red Warden — Red — didn't look like anything special. Everything about him looked like a cookie-cutter lackey who was paid to punch things with his mouth shut. He was roughly their age and just short of Raph's height, clean-shaven with dark hair cut close to his head, but it was the blank, thousand-yard stare about his gaze that made Shift second guess his initial judgement.

"The Spectrum is hardly your team," replied Red.

"Oh, I beg to differ," said Zoe, eyeing Red with a glare that would have sent a smarter individual running. "You didn't help me before. Why now?"

"I am committed to stopping Rathe at any cost," he replied automatically. "As a Spectrum, you are a key part of that goal, and I have a feeling you meant what you said earlier about hitting your breaking point. Though I find the sentiment ridiculous, your survival trumps my loyalty to the Wardens."

Zoe huffed and approached him, holding out her hands. "I should have guessed."

Red laid a hand on her binders. They opened, and Zoe tossed them to the floor. She walked over to Shift and Raph, pulling her Keeper suit — or what was left of it — the rest of the way up.

"What happened to your suit?" asked Shift, eyeing her missing sleeve. The scorched fabric cut off near her shoulder, just above the armband around her bicep.

"I tried to get this damned thing off," said Zoe, tugging at the Sloth-infused armband. It didn't budge. "Thought maybe it was attached to the skin, so I tried melting it, which hurt like hues and obviously didn't work."

"What caused that decision?" said Raph, inspecting the armband.

"My self-healing is using as much Colour as I regenerate just to keep me awake," said Zoe, directing an annoyed glance towards Red as she stuffed the chain of her locket back inside her shirt. "Until I get this armband off, my Colour is effectively not regenerating, and I'm almost out." She looked back to Raph and Shift. "So, now you know what I've been dealing with for the last five hours, is everyone else okay?"

"Well, we're alive, at least for now," muttered Raph, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know about okay, though."

Shift glanced at his shoulder and gave Zoe a small smile. "Think I can shift some Yellow?"

Zoe held out a hand in reply, and Shift took it. Her Yellow felt like it always did — sunlight that warmed his insides. It began healing him the instant he shifted it, quickly repairing whatever had snapped in his shoulder along with every other ache and pain he'd accumulated in the last few hours.

"The others should be waiting outside," said Raph, jerking his head. "Let's go."

Raph turned to leave back the way they'd come, Shift and Zoe close behind him when a fourth set of footsteps followed after them.

Zoe stopped and turned back to glare at the Red Spectrum. "Where do you think you're going?"

Red blinked, confused. "I'm... coming with you?"