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Chapter 44 - Gone 

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With Athira out of range, Shift turned his attention to the door. 

Nerves clenched his stomach. He'd seen the people who the Wardens had tested the gas on, if you could call them that. They were shells stuffed with meat, housing a shrunken consciousness that waited for the oblivion of sleep to take them. Hopeless, defeated and broken--and in the back of his mind, Shift couldn't stop them from taking Zoe's face. 

"Tal, can you get the door open with a rune or something?" asked Shift. He glanced down at his clothes. "I'd shift it, but I'm full of black colour at the moment." 

Talia nodded and shook out her hands, eyes scanning the door. "They took my bag of pre-runed earth, but I should be able to come up with something." She spared him a glance and smiled. "I hate to say it, but the clothes make you look kinda badass, even if the mask is a little much." 

Reader stood behind them, leaning against the wall. "You may want to get on with it. The yellow Spectrum doesn't have forever in there, since Athira took out the Wardens supposed to get her out."

Talia placed her palms on the door gently, stretching her fingers over them. "Shouldn't be too hard. The door's made to respond to blue, I should just be able to rune 'open' and it'll--"

She cut off. Her hands shifted slightly across the metal. Her ponytail flicked Shift in the head, to his annoyance. A second after that, the tips of her fingers went white as she pressed them further into the metal. 

"No...that can't be right," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else as her head began making small, quick movements to examine the entirety of the door. 

The same frustration crossed her face, slowly melting panic. She straightened her back, stood up and slid her hands over the runes, over the smooth metal surface of the door, to the tiles and back before Shift felt like he had to intervene. 

"What's wrong, Tal?" asked Shift, placing a hand on her shoulder. 

Talia blinked furiously, her chin quivering as she managed to squeeze out the quivering words. 

"I can't feel my colour," she said. Her hand came off and slammed back down, harder this time. "I can't feel it! It's gone, Shift!" 

Shift froze. Oh colours. She didn't.

"It's not the runes?" he asked, keeping his voice calm. "They aren't just blocking it, like the anti-colour the Wardens used?" 

Talia's head shook. "I could still feel it then! It just wouldn't stick!" 

"Okay, Tal, breathe--"

She staggered away, grabbing her wrists and rubbing them like it'd summon the blue light. Her hand clutched her hair, pulling the end over her shoulder like it gave her an idea. 

"Maybe, maybe if I try to rune something else, I could--"

She ripped out her hair tie, spilling golden locks down her back. A look of intense focus crossed her face as she stared at it, but she dropped it a moment later, defeated.

"It's not there, Shift," she said, shaking. "My colour isn't there."

"Let me see," said Shift.

He took her trembling hands and let his colour consume him, that tiny part that never shifted into anything, always green at his core. It swelled up past the black as he called it forward to find Talia's, melding with his consciousness. He'd shifted her colour before when Raph had forced him. He had a vague idea of what her blue felt like. It was protective and stubborn, solid as any mountain could claim to be. 

But now, no matter how or where he searched, his colour came up with nothing. He couldn't sense it, couldn't feel it thrumming within her. He could have been holding a rock for all his colour knew.

Shift kept her hands in his. Were they colder than they had been before? He didn't know. It felt like he'd lost all sense of touch. He couldn't believe what his colour was, or rather wasn't telling him. 

Tears streamed down Talia's cheeks, the edges of her eyes pinched by the skin around them. 

Shift swallowed, remaining silent. She already knew what he'd found. There was no point rubbing the salt in with words. 

"What did she do to me, Shift?" whispered Talia, twisting her fingers into the fabric covering his chest. "What did Athira do to my colour? I felt something when her colour was around me, but... but I didn't think..." 

It was the first time he'd ever seen Talia truly terrified, and Shift had no idea how to make it better. 

He just... knew what he had to say. What they had to do.

"Tal," he said, reciprocating her squeeze. "I don't know. But... we have to get Zoe out. We don't have time..." Guilt choked the rest of the words out. 

Talia broke. There wasn't another way to describe it. Her legs gave way as her features collapsed, her back hitting the wall behind her hard before Shift could stop it. She slid down its length, hands tucked under her chin so tight the skin across her neck distorted and quiet, sobbing breaths struggled past her clenched lips. 

Each one... each one tore Shift open a little bit more. 

"Talia--" he tried, crouching beside her.

She turned away from him, hair curtaining her face from view. 

"Just get Zoe out. Don't..." Talia paused. She breathed. "Don't make...this for nothing."

Shift sat there, staring, and never feeling further away. 

"There may yet be something I can do to assist you, Talia," said Reader, taking Shift's place beside Talia and sitting cross legged on the floor. "If you'll trust me, of course. It may be difficult, since you're an elemental and I'm a purple, but I'm willing to try if you are."

Shift shut out the honeyed words. He channeled his anger they were generating into clenching his back muscles as he went back to the problem of the door, ignoring every instinct telling him to turn around and get Reader and his manipulation the hell away from Talia. 

He had black colour to open this with. Shifting something else wasn't an option at this point, by the time the black degraded enough to shift something else, Zoe's time would be up. 

Which is a problem, thought Shift, examining the windows for potential faults, because black colour will react with the gas and--wait, no.

The sleeper gas hadn't affected him like it had Athira back at the facility. He'd smelled the lavender, felt the tiredness pulling him down, but his shifted black colour remained relatively stable. It hadn't evoked the same volatile reaction in him.

It's Rathe reacting to the Sleeper, he realised. Not the colour. He shoved his colour coated hands through the wall and grinned. And Rathe doesn't have any control over me. 

Shift stepped the rest of his body through. The lavender assaulted his nostrils without mercy, the full arsenal of hand weapons and rocket launchers going open warfare on any oxygen molecules naieve enough to wander into the territory. 

He coughed, already swaying on his feet. He didn't have minutes--he had seconds before he joined Zoe for naptime on the floor. He reached down for her, grabbing under her arms and praying he had enough colour to get her the whole way through the wall. He'd never moved anything but himself through the physical with Athira's colour, and that'd been completely by accident. 

Zoe mumbled, vaguely aware of someone lifting her off the ground. 

"C'mon, dammit... Zoe!" 

Shift let various expletives rip loose as he hugged a deadweight Zoe to his chest. He pulled more colour than he knew was necessary, covered them both and ran at the wall, hoping the extra force would somehow translate into success. 

The slipping-through-butter sensation crossed his body as he staggered through the wall, holding on to Zoe like she was made of glass. Outside the room was literally a breath of fresh air. The oxygen felt pure and cleared his head. The world around him stopped spinning until he got his foot tangled in Zoe's legs and almost fell over. 

Shift caught himself and swore, lowering Zoe to the ground against the wall. He put his hand against her face to try and bring her attention to the front. She was awake, if barely. 

"Zo?" he said, gently tapping her cheek. How had Athira brought him back from his mindscape? Could he do that? "Zoe, can you hear me? It's Shift."

Her head lolled to the side and her eyelids sank. When Shift thought he'd lost her to dreamland, Zoe's chest heaved and the full circle of her iris became visible. 

"Shif..t," she breathed. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to lift her head to glance around, worry striking her. "Other...in room."

Shift was running out of curses as he remembered the second figure slouched inside the room. He jumped to his feet and pressed his face to the glass, trying to see through the foggy texture. He didn't like his chances walking the entire length of that room, but since the guy was against the wall...

He got a lock on their position and ran to the outside length of wall closest to the figure. From there, it was a simple move accompanied by praying to the colours for Shift to stick his arms through the wall and grab the man's shoulders before pulling him through. 

Unlike Zoe, there was no waking him up, and Shift wasn't game enough to try and find his mindscape. He'd probably wake up and think he was a chicken, knowing Shift's luck. 

But Zoe was awake, and Shift forced himself to believe Talia's possibly lost colour was worth it. She was still curled, leaning against the wall with her hand in Reader's, whose face was a blank mask. 

Shift took a manual breath. It's done. Now to get Zoe out before the Wardens overrun us. 

Zoe had managed to sit up and was scrubbing her face with her hands. Yellow colour flickered around her body countering the Sleeper gas with her inbuilt regeneration, or so Shift was hoping. She didn't seem to be aware of Talia yet, and Shift was just hoping he wouldn't have to be the one to explain.

"How did you get out?" said Zoe. "I remember the Wardens taking you all, then I woke up alone, they took me to the room..."

Shift lifted up his hair, revealing the edge of the still-open wound on his head. "Short version, the Wardens weren't ready to handle Athira." He offered Zoe a hand and pulled her to her feet, holding her steady. "We need to get you out. You and Talia, as soon as possible." 

"Talia?" asked Zoe, glancing around. Her eyes caught Reader and she visibly recoiled. "Shift, what's he doing here?" 

Reader didn't move. Shift adjusted himself to stand between him and Zoe, though her wide green eyes never left Reader for a second. 

"He's...helping us, I guess," said Shift. "I won't let him hurt you, Zo. He's the reason we found you at all."

He rarely saw Zoe so tense. "I don't trust him, Shift."

"Neither do I," Shift agreed. He steadied Zoe against the wall and moved over behind Talia, crouching and touching her shoulder. "Tal, you coming?" 

Talia's body had uncoiled, resting with crossed legs, hands still in Reader's. Her head moved side to side mechanically, her voice even more so. 

"I'll get out myself. Leave me alone." 

"But--"

"Leave me," said Talia without looking at him once. "Athira will need you outside." 

As if summoned by her words, the walls around them trembled. Shift backed up, searching for Zoe's hand with his while his eyes scanned the ceiling. The wall shook a second time, barely settling before the third one took hold. 

Incoherent shouting came from outside. Shift found Zoe's arm and grabbed her, pulling her back from the wall just in time as the section between Talia and him was completely ripped away, the brighter, artificial light pouring in from the outside speckled with flashed of other colour across the floor tiles. 

"I said," came Athira's familiar voice. "That area is off limits!" 

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A/N - Short, but chapter breaks and things, yay! For those of you who wanted Talia dead, well... I can tell you, the loss of her colour is possibly the only thing worse. I feel like I need to state again - elemental abilities aren't tied to any colour. You can be a red colour and still have earth powers, they're two separate things. Kay? Kay. Onward! 

Also, speedwriting. 

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