Nisha nodded sternly. She had her own budding ideas as well. If Carolyne said she could control a body through manipulating their essence of life, and Nisha was able to control a severed finger, well….

Sam suddenly let out a loud noise. Something between a gasp and a yell, almost barking in its volume.

“Something is here!” He let out, his breath panting as he looked around wildly. His entire body joined in the movement, torso turning and twisting. He would pause for a second, calculation visible in his eyes, before he would jump and turn around again. Nisha jumped as well, the motion of breaking contact with the finger and jolting her head upwards made her vision swim. She placed a hand on the first shoulder she could feel (Finley’s, probably) in an act of steadying herself.

Kendra jumped into action, the quick response time of someone who had seen many dangers in their life. “Valeria! Kira! Into position!” She shouted, turning to both the tall woman and young girl in succession. She froze for a moment, her eyes moving as she visibly deliberated where this threat was coming from. She stopped and pointed to a doorway that lead to a hallway further down (leading to the rest of the building).

“Right.” The tall woman (Valeria?) responded curtly, stepping forward to the direction Kendra pointed. She stiffened her stance, placing one leg in front of the other and pulled a small flask out from the pocket in her skirt. Making a pulling motion with her fingers, water came flowing out of the flask until it hovered as a strange and organic blob in front of Valeria. Elemental superhumans were common, or at least expected, but Nisha hadn’t really seen one in action like this before. One time when she was a child, a building near her school caught on fire. It was later revealed to be arson, caused by someone with fire powers, so an elemental with water had to come in to counteract. She never saw any of this happen of course, but it was a subject of deep fascination to everyone in primary school.

The less experienced group took the opportunity to try and get in formation themselves, which was to sort of huddle around each other and nervously wait. Even James moved from his spot in the corner he seemed almost glued to, his height making him almost hover over everyone at the edge of the group. Nisha kept her eyes on Sam, who seemed to know where this mysterious thing was coming from and what its movements were. He pulled on Finley’s sleeve and made a few very fast signs. She nodded and tried her best to speak as he signed, her voice barely above a whisper. So low, only those in the huddled group could hear her.

“The creature isn’t human, but Sam doesn’t know what it is” she explained. “He says it’s large and moving erratically. It should be here any minute, okay now it’s rounding the corner oh wait it’s coming through the doorway!-“

Finley was cut off by a small scream. The group turned in near perfect unison to see Kira disappearing and appearing in the same spot repeatedly, almost flickering (some sort of nervous habit?).

In front of Valeria, at the entryway was some strange large creature. It was taller than even James, having to bend just to fit under the ceiling of the room they were in. It was also black, but in an almost translucent way, as if a shadow had taken form and come to life. The shadow-substance was in a fairly rectangular shape, except for long arms and legs which flowed like ribbons. Around the middle of its body (?) were what looked like two eyes, pure blue and glowing. There was no mouth or similar orifice that Nisha could recognize, but it somehow made a small chirping sound that went up as it ended, almost sounding like a question to the group of human creatures.