After packing a small bag of snacks and other goodies, Shift headed down to Kione's Tech lab where he found Raph, Kione, and Athira discussing a few last-minute details.
"The Surges are always stronger below ground," Athira was saying as Shift entered. She sat sideways with her legs tucked up on the chair, one hand lightly tapping across the keyboard linked to one of Kione's guest consoles. "By the time I realised it, they were too strong for me to be anywhere near them when they peaked."
Raph stood against one of the walls, his eyes moving over the various maps and blueprints of today's Surge site. "If something below ground is causing the Surges, Talia should be able to sense it."
It'd been four days since Athira's Keeper trial had been accepted. In that time, Indigo had only received a few minor alerts, giving Athira plenty of time to catch them up on the finer details of the Surges. When she wasn't in the training room running through drills with Raph, Zoe, or Shift, she'd been in Kione's Tech lab. The two of them had made substantial amounts of progress, including a highly detailed map of previous Surge locations and several other data points that Shift could never quite make sense of.
Even so, their progress hadn't been without its hitches. Athira had fried the first guest console Kione had put her on the day after her interview. It was still half-out of the floor, creating an interesting sculpture to her Colour's destructive capabilities.
Raph glanced at Shift. "You ready?"
Shift lifted the bag in his hand and let his hair glow as he gave it a dramatic flick. "Snacks acquired, Zoe's Yellow shifted, just waiting on whatever you slowpokes are doing in here."
Raph rolled his eyes.
Despite a unanimous agreement from everyone except Athira that Reader was likely causing the Surges, they'd decided to play it safe.
Athira had scouted the location of the next Surge in her mindscape, and if it stuck to schedule, the next one was due sometime in the next few hours. Kione would create two fake alerts — one that sent Raph, Zoe, and Talia to the Surge site, and another that would get Shift and Athira as far from it as they could without leaving Indigo's zone.
In short, Shift was on babysitting duty while the rest of his team did the interesting stuff.
Raph pushed off the wall. "You two should probably get going. If a real alert comes up, we'll adapt as necessary, but until then, we stick to the plan."
Shift held out a hand towards Athira. "Shall we depart?"
Kione whirled around and pointed the finger of doom at Shift. "Put that hand down. No one is phasing through the walls of my lab until I've figured out how to Athira-proof it. You can both get your butts up to the roof before you zip off into the sky."
Shift retracted his hand, holding both up in surrender. "Understood. Please don't murder me."
Kione grumbled something incoherent under his breath as he turned back to his console. "Athira, do you remember what I told you about that tracking Frame I put in your wristlet?"
Athira finished typing whatever she'd been working on and placed a hand on the back of her chair, floating herself up and over in one, neat movement. "Activate my Black when the Surge begins to see if it helps the tracker pick up on anything."
Kione nodded, satisfied. "The Frame is still rough, but if I can figure out what kind of energy we're dealing with, there won't be anywhere in this city it can hide from me." He called back over his shoulder as Athira moved towards the door. "Oh, and don't worry about breaking it. I made sure it'll transmit data back live."
A wry smile tweaked Athira's mouth as she followed Shift out of the room. "Appreciated."
Shift headed out of the storage room with Athira close behind.
"How are you and Kione getting along?" asked Shift as they headed up the seven floors of stairs to the roof. "Break any more of his stuff?"
"Fine," she said. "He says I don't take up much space, and he seemed more excited than mad when I broke that console. Something about making a Frame I couldn't overload being the key to solving some unsolvable Colourformer capacity issue?" She shook her head. "I lost track of it after a while."
"And what about you?" asked Shift. "How are you doing with everything?"
Athira set her gaze on the floor ahead. "Rathe's fine. Still hasn't reformed properly, though that'll probably change after the Surge hits."
Shift nudged her with an elbow. "As happy as I am to hear that, I wasn't asking with the code in mind. I was trying to ask how you were doing."
"Oh." She tugged on the fabric of her Keeper suit covering her pinkie and ring fingers for an awkward moment. "Still getting used to the suit, but I'm fine." She puffed out her cheek. "And... I guess it's been kind of nice having someone to talk to about the Surges that has access to information outside my head."
Shift bit down on a smug smile. Though he managed to restrain himself from saying the words that so desperately wanted to come out, he couldn't help glancing in her direction — just to see if the sentiment was understood regardless.
Her eyes, still firmly fixed ahead, narrowed. "Even when we aren't in the mindscape, you still manage to think too loudly."
"Think what too loudly?" said Shift innocently as a grin broke loose. "It wouldn't happen to be 'I told you —'"
Before he could finish the sentence, Athira grabbed his wrist. "Okay, that's enough."
She took off, pulling Shift through the last few floors and into the sky along with her.
"— sooooo!"
The sensation of being yanked off his feet and through several solid objects was no less terrifying now than it'd been at Starpoint, but once Shift's stomach had caught up to the rest of him, he found himself enjoying it. He felt strangely weightless, like the Black that kept Athira airborne also extended to him as she wove between the high-rise buildings.
There might have only been one person's grip between him and certain death, but this far up, with the wind in his face and the windows glinting as they zoomed by, it was almost kind of peaceful.
Absolutely freezing, but peaceful.
It didn't take Athira long to reach their destination: the top of a skyscraper that was currently closed for repairs. The rooftop was flat, and with the exception of the roof access building and the thick, chest-high wall that ringed the edge of the roof, it was entirely bare.
Athira flew just high enough to graze Shift's feet against the roof before she released his hand. He landed heavy, staggering a few steps to stay on his feet as she touched down light-footed beside him.
"Keep making that kind of noise and it won't be long before we have a real alert to check this building for intruders," she said, smirking at him.
Shift slapped the feeling back into his cheeks and gave Athira a playful scowl. "It's not my fault you dropped me without warning. I'm sure it's a whole lot easier to land nicely when you're the one doing the flying."
Athira raised an eyebrow at him. "I doubt you'd land quietly even if you had the Black shifted."
"Oh yeah?" said Shift, taking a step closer. He held out a hand towards her with a grin. "Wanna make a bet? Give me five minutes to practise and I'll make you eat those words."
Athira's eyes flicked to his hand. "You have a lot of confidence for someone who's usually wrong," she said. Her smirk slipped, the spark of amusement dying. "Anyway, you need to keep Zoe's Yellow shifted in case this goes badly."
She turned away from him, drifting towards the edge. With a hand on the wall, she swung herself up to sit on top of it, one leg hanging off the side of the building with the other tucked loosely beneath her.
Shift walked towards her, a little more hesitant of the height. After a glance downwards, he decided the leg-swinging lifestyle wasn't for him. He shrugged off the bag, placing it at his feet and leaned against the wall, folding his arms on top beside Athira.
"Y'know, I was thinking," he said, attempting to channel his inner Raph. Diplomatic, sensible, trustworthy Raph who could manipulate Discord into doing pretty much anything and leave him thinking it was his own idea. "The Yellow might not be the best thing to have shifted if something goes wrong today."
"And how do you figure that?"
"Well," said Shift. "Zoe's Yellow only helps with Rathe, and he's not around right now. Even if the Surge does revive him, you said it'd be unlikely that he'd be as strong as he was after Starpoint."
"Still not seeing a reason you shouldn't keep that Yellow shifted."
"Your Black nullifies other Colours, right?" said Shift, to which Athira frowned. "And at the last Surge, Rathe wasn't the problem. The Black got out of control, and Zoe's Yellow had no effect, but if someone else were able to use the Black, maaaybe the Black wouldn't nullify itself — especially if that person got some practice in beforehand, eh?"
He'd attempted to approach the topic of practice shifting her Black few times in the past few days, especially when he'd caught her in the training room. His Green depended on being able to shift the Colours of his team, which now included Athira. It usually didn't take him long to figure out how someone's Colour worked — and often wield it better than they did — but the last time he'd shifted Athira's Black, he'd been unable to use it at all, let alone effectively.
It irked him, and while he did need to learn to use her Black, he also wanted redemption. Her comparison to a bazooka turtle was still fresh in his mind, but so far, her only responses had been multiple counts of 'No' and one 'Don't you have anything better to do than try to ambush me on the way to my room?'.
Athira rolled her head towards him. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"What else are we gonna do for the next hour?"
"Sit here in perfect silence and ponder the mysteries of the universe?"
"Are you telling me you'd rather ponder than potentially watch me faceplant while trying to fly?"
She pursed her lips. "You do have a convincing argument there."
Shift held out a hand towards her, wiggling his fingers. "Sooo... that's a yes?"
"If only because it'll shut you up." Athira grabbed his arm and pulled him into the air. "But I'm not letting you swan dive off a skyscraper in case your fans notice you falling before I catch you."
Athira flew him to the top of the roof access building, which was maybe two metres higher than the main roof of the skyscraper itself. She released his hand in what Shift considered to be a deliberate attempt to destabilise him, and when he'd finally regained his feet, he found her floating in front of him, an arm's length off the edge of the access building's roof.
"You did that on purpose," he said, pointing an accusing finger at her.
She smirked. "Did what on purpose?"
Shift narrowed his eyes. "I might surprise you with how quickly I can pick things up, y'know."
"I doubt it."
He pointed a finger towards her. "Then let's make a bet. If I figure out how to fly without any assistance, I get to ask any question I want and you have to answer it."
"Fine," she said with an infuriatingly casual shrug. "Luckily for you, seeing you faceplant will be a reward upon itself."
Athira held out her hand in a gesture that was more like a dare than an offer, and utterly determined to prove her wrong, Shift took it.
Recalling the near-uncontrollable frenzy his Green had shifted her Black in last time, he was careful to keep his Green restrained as their skin made contact. He felt the Black immediately, not quite the raging, stormy sea it'd been in the training room, but a vast, endless presence — an ocean, trapped within a seashell.
He decided to start small, shifting maybe a handful of Colour. The Black prickled his skin all over, like he'd eaten a slightly-too-hot chilli. He released Athira's hand and allowed his Green to prod the shifted Black, searching for the instinct that usually came with any Colour he copied.
Nothing.
"Any hints?" he asked Athira, who remained hovering around his height.
"And ruin your chance of any question you want?" said Athira. "I couldn't possibly take that away from you so early, Shift."
Shift frowned, continuing his attempts to make the Black cooperate. He tried pulling little pieces of that ocean out of its shell with zero results. It was almost infuriating, feeling the Black sitting there beneath his skin and refusing to budge, almost like it was judging him.
"Maybe you should just commit to the jump," said Athira. "See if that works."
Shift eyed her, attempting to read exactly what kind of smirk she was smirking. Was she baiting him into jumping before he'd figured it out, or did she think that regardless of how much she helped him, he was doomed to an inevitable faceplant?
After a few more minutes with no sign of progress, Shift began to consider the second option. He often saw her jump or push off the ground before she flew, so perhaps there was something to it. A leap of faith, as it were. She'd placed him on top of the access building. That gave him height. Maybe the Black responded to the momentum.
Well, he was out of other ideas.
With a steadying breath, Shift ran and jumped as high as he could off the roof of the access building.
For a brief, glorious moment, he thought he felt it. The Black, surging around him, lifting him up, sending him soaring into the air — and then he started to drop.
He'd thrown himself into the jump with zero thought towards his self-preservation, swallowed by the belief that he would fly, but he wasn't. He was plummeting, plunging towards a certain pain-filled faceplant, and he knew from one look at the ground that he wasn't going to be able to break this fall neatly.
He braced himself for impact — only, it never came.
A Black tendril was coiled around his chest, holding him a few centimetres off the ground.
"Well, you were right about one thing," said Athira, amused. With a flick of her fingers, the Black tendril linked to her hand tilted Shift back onto his feet, though it remained looped around him. "You did surprise me. I wasn't expecting you to actually try that."
"I knew you were baiting me."
"And yet, you tried it anyway."
Shift swallowed his pride. "Okay, maybe you have some kind of point. Put me back up so I can try again."
"Why, so I can keep playing catch all day?" said Athira. "You don't need to jump off a roof to figure out how to fly, genius. That was entirely for my own amusement."
Shift attempted to wiggle out of the tendril, which held firm. He gave her a withering look. "So, if you won't let me go, do you have any other helpful tips? Bend your pinkie finger to turn left, perhaps?"
Still floating above him, Athira raised an eyebrow. "I don't think turtles who can't figure out how to use their shifted Colour should be sassing the only person who can get them off the building in one piece."
"What else am I supposed to do to get a hint?" he said. "I tried asking nicely. I tried taking your comments at face value. Aside from attempting to charm you, sarcasm is all I have left."
The tendril pressed on his chest, forcing him to take step after step backwards or fall until his back hit the wall of the access building behind him.
Athira drifted down in front of him, close enough that, had there not been a tendril currently pinning his arms in place, he could have reached a hand around her waist and pulled her in — which from the dangerous look glittering in her eyes, was probably not the first thing that should have come to mind.
"You want a hint?" she said softly. "You can't force the Black. It's bigger than you or I will ever be. You have to give yourself to it, to dive into its depths and be strong enough to not lose yourself within it."
"I think I can handle a little Colour," said Shift. "I shifted Rathe's power and handled that just fine."
"With one of my memories protecting you."
"Team effort all round."
She gave him a slash of a smile. "Most people are usually a little more careful with their words when they find themselves on top of a skyscraper with me." She pressed a fingertip against his chest. "This high up, no one would even know you need help until I was done with you, turtle boy."
Shift was vaguely aware of a small, Talia-like voice in the back of his head screaming at him that this entire situation was a bad idea as he leaned ever so slightly forward, bringing his face just that bit closer to Athira's as he said in a low voice, "And who says I need help?"
Athira's hand slid up his chest to grab the side of his suit's collar, using it to anchor herself as she pulled her face closer to his.
"I do." She smirked. "Have fun trying to get out."
Athira shoved him backwards, phasing him through the wall of the access building — alone.
"Wha —" said Shift, grabbing for the tendril as it snaked back through the wall with the rest of the Black. "That's cheating!"
He tried the door and found it locked. A glance down the dark stairwell said that likely wouldn't help him — even if there was an unlocked door at the bottom, the room would probably be alarmed, and what was the plan? Walk down some seventy-five flights of stairs?
"Athira, pull me out!" he called. "Hello?"
As the moments passed with no reply, Shift realised that even if she could hear him, she had zero intention of helping.
He glanced down at his hand, flexing his fingers, still able to feel that uncomfortably warm prickle of the Black that lay just beneath his skin.
Fine. He could figure this out.
Shift closed his eyes, delving down into the place in his mind's eye where his Green lay beside the shifted Black. He prodded it again, trying to find the piece that made it tick, the thing that would draw the ocean out of its seashell — but maybe that was the problem.
Athira had said he couldn't force it, that he had to give himself to it. He was hovering outside the shell, expecting it to come to him when instead, he needed to dive into that endless ocean and hope he could hold his breath long enough to surface again.
And so, with the all too familiar bite of nerves in his stomach, Shift dove into the Black.
Even in such a small amount — a puddle instead of the ocean she held — it swallowed him whole. It felt loose almost, like whatever bounds that limited most individual Colours to one or two abilities were non-existent. It was everything, all at once, and while the Black wasn't about to start glowing or shooting laser beams, the potential within it felt endless.
With half a thought, the Black coated his hands easily — almost too easily. Other Colours often felt like tools, powerless unless wielded. The Black felt more like an animal. It could be tamed, but it was still sentient in a way a hammer never would be.
Shift gave his hands an experimental push, unable to help his grin when they phased through the wall. His leg went next, followed by his head, and as he took his first breath of warm, sunshine air, he caught sight of Athira.
She was still floating where she'd pushed him through the wall, looking as though she were laying back across some invisible recliner a metre off the ground. Her head was tilted back, hands covering her face with zero sign of effort.
Athira peeked through her fingers, looking down at Shift as he emerged from the wall.
"Honestly," she said, folding her arms. "I thought that'd take you longer."
Shift gave her a triumphant smile as he phased the rest of himself through the wall. "I told you I was —"
With one leg still in the wall, he ran out of shifted Black.
Shift frowned. He attempted to pull his leg free, only to be met with a blinding stab of pain where his leg met the wall. Bracing himself against the wall, he was barely able to keep his balance as he blinked through the pain.
"Hey, uh," he said, gasping out the word as the shock of it passed. "I'm out of Black. Little help?"
Athira dropped, landing soundlessly beside him.
"You made it this far," she said, holding out a hand palm up. "I wouldn't want to take it away from you now."
Shift took her hand. His Green shifted her Colour quickly, and this time, the dive into the Black was almost effortless, if somewhat daunting. It coated his trapped leg, and still holding onto Athira's hand, he stepped out of the wall and stood in front of her.
"Surprised yet?" he asked, gazing down at her with a grin.
The corner of her mouth tweaked upwards. "Maybe you aren't entirely useless after all."
They remained like that, his hand in hers, close enough that he could see every detail the sunlight brought out in her grey eyes, for maybe a few seconds longer than necessary. The moment broke only when Shift, somewhat reluctantly, lifted his hand from hers and coated his fingers in Black, where the slightly-too-hot chilli sensation of the Black prickling beneath his skin served as a reminder about what exactly he was supposed to be focusing on right now.
"So," said Shift, slowly flexing his fingers that appeared as an off-white inside their Colour-formed glove. He flashed Athira a smile. "What else do you think you could teach me?"
*+*+*+*
A/N - The Shifthira begins >:)
Next chapter: Ice rinks are pretty cool