On the rare occasion that Helena Tseng experienced any second thoughts about life as a superhero, a single visit to Miller’s Lane was all it took to remind her that her double life as Nightshadow was a vital one.
Miller’s Lane was a microcosm for everything that was wrong in Spire City; a place of endless poverty and shocking neglect, a neighbourhood seemingly determined to poison the rest of the city, like some malignant, cancerous growth. It was a place decent citizens and anyone of sense went out of their way to avoid, and for good reason. Between the drug dealers lurking in the shadows, the desperate homeless ready to kill for a crust of bread to ease their hunger, and the full-fledged criminal syndicates who called the district home, it was a mess, and not even the dedicated efforts of the famed Spire Guardians had managed to set things to rights. As Helena Tseng, she’d never stepped foot in Miller’s Lane. As Nightshadow, she’d spent more time lurking about its rooftops and fighting in its warehouses than she cared to admit.
Such as tonight. The beautiful Chinese superheroine went entirely unnoticed above the darkened streets, any errant eye that glanced upwards in her direction only noticing a faint shadow moving in the night, her black costume largely invisible against the midnight sky. Whenever she came across a larger gap that could not be jumped or a crowd that could not be normally evaded, she put her darkness manipulating powers to good effect, slipping through one shadow to emerge in another on the other side of the street. With her usual swiftness, she made her way to the abandoned warehouse, one of the many that loomed over Miller’s Lane like dead oaks in midwinter. A quick, practiced check told her the skylight had not been wired to traps or alarms, and she slipped in insubstantial as mist, reforming into the darkness behind some shelving, brown eyes widening in shock at the sight that greeted her at the centre.
For it was not every day she saw a friend, teammate and lover left helplessly ensnared and left as bait for a trap. Beneath the burning intensity of a series of floodlights, Rachael Morrigan, aka Fireborn, had been suspended by her wrists with a series of thick cables that hung down from the roof, leaving her swaying helplessly fifteen feet off the floor. Additional cables bound her ankles, while beneath her close-fitting red mask, Nightshadow glimpsed the outline of tape pressed over her mouth, muffling her sleepy moans. She’d been kidnapped out on the middle of a routine patrol, her form-fitting red and gold costume still in place, and the metal collar almost hidden by her luscious mane of red hair suggested some form of power-dampening tech was keeping her that way. That, and she’s probably drugged, Nightshadow mused inwardly, forcing herself to remain calm and focused in the growing heat of her outrage. Now, how to get her out of this without getting ensnared myself?
A harsh burst of feedback crackled from a nearby speaker before she could consider the question further, and her blood boiled at the familiar maniacal laughter that emerged. “Are you out there, Nightshadow?” the Hitch-Hiker demanded, and it was all the Chinese woman could do not to defiantly shout in answer. “This pretty one did such a good job saving you from that oncoming train, I’d have figured coming to her rescue was the least you could do. Still, try and have fun disabling all the traps I’ve set around her. Assuming you can find them, of course…”
Bastard, Nightshadow spat inwardly. With the utmost care, she began to examine the warehouse for any such obstacles, forever sticking to the shadows rather than tip the supervillain off… and perhaps doom her fellow Spire Guardian in the process. For though she was not bound like Fireborn was, the redhead’s presence meant she was all but ensnared herself…