As the gun rose a second time, beneath the armoured man his shadow began to darken, stretching out behind him as though he stood before a great light. The shade crept outward, spreading along the floor and coating the wall in ink-like blackness. As the blackness consumed the wall, with it came a creeping darkness that crawled along the room and a total silence of the outside world as if the black film had separated them from the world outside of this coffee shop. It crept along the ground, mingling with the shadows of two metas who just witnessed the two boys drop dead and was slithering along the ground like a serpent toward the frigid girl behind the counter. The blonde began to move her hands as the armoured man pulled the trigger a second time, dropping the second boy. As she moved the shadow at her feet lurched up from the ground, tendrils of blackness roping around her wrists, clenching them tightly.

"[i][color=SlateGray]The bold and impotent are only rewarded with death[/color][/i]," a lukewarm voice whispered into the ear of the blonde, as if someone were standing on both sides of her, their lips on the edge of her earlobes. The blackness had nearly consumed her at this point, as if aiming to swallow her whole in the way the tide does a sandcastle. 

The man in armour had noticed the shade and drew a blade of psionic energy that hummed a crackled with a fierce intensity. He recognized what was happening and that if he had made a move toward the children now it would only be a wasted effort. A figure of what looked like billowing smoke emerged from the blackness before the gunman. His body lean and textured like charred bark. His aquiline face looked more like a helmet that bore a pair of red eyes that smoldered like burning coals. The texture of his body was constantly shifting as if his body wasn't a solid object. Its body spread wider beyond its waist, resembling a loose robe of shifting blackness. Along the lower half of his body grasped hands while agonized faces appeared in the shifting surface like the faces of men drowning in water, continuously bobbing to the surface and being dragged down beyond sight. Its gaunt arms hung limply at its sides, ended with claws that resembled rakes dipped in ink. 

Shades rose from the darkness behind the three metas, standing silently and watching them as the events unfolded before them. The gunman moved first, swiping his blade at the shade who lurched backward, its body shifting around the blade. The man moved further and further toward the shade who glided backwards, its body shifting and twisting around the blade letting it only cut air. "[color=SlateGray][i]Much too slow, Phi,[/i][/color]" the being mocked, its voice filling the room, emanating wherever the blackness had spread. "[color=SlateGray][i]You've already killed the only omega among the group. These Alphas are mine to take[/i][/color]." its movement slowed if only a for a moment, the blade managing to catch the shade, cutting it open to reveal pale ghostly white flesh beneath it, a spray of blood coming from where the blade met the skin. "[color=SlateGray][i]You dog[/i][/color]," the being snarled, the being suddenly collapsing into the darkness leaving only a splatter of blood on the wall behind it as evidence of it ever existing. The shades standing behind the children jerked forward as the blackness began to dissipate, consuming them in a shroud much like the being.

In the shroud, the children would feel weightless and as if they were sinking in a pit of tar. The experience would feel like hours for the children. The first time was always the worst.

They were spilled out onto the floor of a barren room with gray concrete slabs for walls, the floor, and the ceiling. The blackness was gone, though the only source of light was a naked bulb hanging in the center of the room, bathing the three young metas in light. At the edge of the light hand a silhouette of a man, his back only slightly visible from the light. His skin was white like freshly fallen snow, the whiteness tainted by the black tattoo of the Greek letter of the alphabet for Epsilon covering the entirety of his back. He was quietly humming as his hands worked away out of the vision of the three and only when he reached for a bottle hydrogen peroxide sitting next to a wad of bloodied cotton, a pile of bandages, and a sewing kit did it become clear that he was in the process of doing some back-alley surgery on himself. Besides his first-aid equipment sat three cellphones, their batteries sitting next to them.

A trickle of smoke rose from in front of him and when he glanced behind him the red tip of a cigarette giving more of an outline to the silhouette of his face. He had an aquiline nose and a sharp chin, the sides of his head were shaven and a pastel blue mohawk ran from the peak of his hairline to the base of his neck like a headdress, the dream-catcher tattoo on the left side of his neck and head only further adding to the motif. He parted his lips as if to say something and closed them, his eyes studying the three of them. Eventually he spoke, his voice soft and warm "[color=LightBlue]Sorry about your friends.[/color]" He turned away from them and returned to his first-aid, returning the brown jug to his side and grabbing a needle with a length of thread. "[color=LightBlue]Go ahead and ask any questions you might have.[/color]"