AN- Each chapter has been retooled and edited. So prayerfully the story and dialogue flows a bit better btw I know I haven’t posted any new chapters in quite sometime but I am working on the latest chapter and I should be able to post it very soon.

-Warning- Lots of violent action. this chapter is blazing fast though sooo... Read & Review!"

To Illuminate Shade

Shadow crouched down on the ceiling, pressing his left palm hard against the sheer concrete surface. After lifting his right hand to the com unit in his ear, he pressed down. "Shadow to Dual, do you read me over?"

Shadow's inner ear vibrated with the onset of Dual's voice, "Yeah, I'm here. What's with the ‘by the book' introduction?"

"I don't know, I figure we need to work on our inter-office etiquette."

"Oh shut up... what's your current status?"

"Well I must say, this new Sticky Fiber suit is quite interesting. It's working just like Mobius One said it would. You know, I had my doubts... In any case I've successfully infiltrated the West Wing." Shadow looked up at the ground and scaned the room.

The area was mostly concrete. Rectangular steel columns protruded from the floor and touched the ceiling. No pictures adorned the walls, only unchanging white paint. Shadow frowned as he thought of how miserable a place this was to die.

Through one of the pillars Shadow's HUD outlined a solider's body in yellow.

"The IR (Interpret Reality) goggles framed four potential targets in this area."

"Only four, that's cake you pansy. You better be quick about this, I'll be ready to kill the power in there soon. The electromagnetic effect should last about fifteen minutes. I'll hold my position here until communications come back online."

"Understood"

"Be clean, be silent, be quick. Okay I'm ready. Igniting EM pulse in three... two... one... precious you know you are my heart so... be safe and don't die..."

"Hey! I thought we agreed no love chatter while were working... I love you too you big baby."

"Company at my posi-! Cannot comply with pre- dir-tives! On th mo!." Dual's transmission ended in audible snow.

"Babe!?... Just great..." Shadow's body, now tense, relaxed slowly as he recalled Dual's more than capable abilities. He knew she could take care of herself; now the necessary task was at hand.

Shadow's leg and ab muscles contracted taut as he rose to a straight stance. Meanwhile his mind drifted back on what Mobius One said.

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"Look I'm not telling you to go do back flips across the ceiling, all I'm saying is that the suit works. It hasn't been tested so I don't know its full potential of course... But that's where you come in right."

Shadow furrowed his brow. "So exactly what makes it stick to things?"

"Well it's kind of complicated but to put it simply... suction cups."

"Suction... Cups...?" Shadow shook his head in disappointment.

"Look I told you it was complicated, you haven't even seen it yet! It's jet black with this slick nylon pullover, It's really going to make you look epic."

"Suction... Cups...?"

"Argh, look it's complicated. They're microscopic suction cups you can't even tell that they're there. Soooo will you wear it? I need the test data."

"Fine I'll wear it."

"Great, don't worry about the size it‘ll compress to your body just right."

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Shadow smiled faintly as he stood on the ceiling, arms crossed, gravity playing trillions of Tug-O-War battles with the sticky fibers along his feet. As he looked around the room, Shadow's IR goggles plotted strategic waypoints for his enemies. His pulse raced as the framed enemy soldiers became connected by numbered lines in his HUD.

As the last soldier's death was plotted, the power was cut to the entire development facility.

Shadow honed his entire body in preparation for the awkward maneuvers that had been set. While the soldiers fumbled about confused in the sudden darkness; Shadow sprinted across the ceiling. After releasing both feet he summersaulted down to his first victim. The soldier's knees buckled as Shadow's amplified body weight landed. Grabbing the man's head, he snaped the soldier's neck before the corpse could collapse limp to the floorboards.

Mentally Shadow counted the downed enemy as his Heads Up Display showed the terminated life signs.

He heard a soldier's shout, "Vwat was dot!"

Recognizing the accent as Drakin, Shadow leaped onto a nearby pillar. Swinging around the column, he caught the inquiring guard by surprise. As he landed on the guard's shoulders, Shadow jabed his wrist knife grip deep into the soldier's spinal shaft paralyzing him instantly. Knowing the Drake would soon die, Shadow continued his mental tally.

Before the paralyzed Drake could fall listless to the floor, Shadow bounded off, running up the side of another support beam. The final two guards ran around an adjacent strut, their flashlights dancing spastically on their fallen comrades remains.

Shadow released his flat sword from the locking mechanism on his back. Spinning in an arc off the column he slashed downward decapitating the third Drakes head before the man knew he was there.

Stunned, the fourth Drakin soldier stared in horror as his companions head rolled unattached to the floor. While the Drake fumbled for the riffle looped around his neck, his trigger arm was quickly dispatched from his body. Hissing in pain, the guard turned to run. In his retreat the Drakin suddenly crumpled to the floor.

Shadow calmly crossed the distance to the fourth Drake and removed his throwing knife from the Drakin soldier's spine. Internally, he concluded his count.

As Shadow walked through his dead's pooling blood, into the rooms back corridor, he breathed a calming sigh. Seeing the safe there just like Intel predicted Shadow bent down to begin hacking. After some time the safe poped open with a satisfying cakclank. The fortified box contained assorted currency, a few documents and a long hard-shelled briefcase. Ignoring everything else Shadow removed the briefcase and checked its contents.

"Everything seems to be intact."

Shadow taped his ear longing for some minute vibration but nothing came; anxious again, he forced himself calm.

Moonlight splashed through the open hole in the rooftop window. Shadow pondered the inclusion of such a thing, concluding that maybe this wasn't the worst place to die after all. Without the light pollution, a person could witness the full moon and stray stars in all their glory.

As Shadow's head rose through the cutout window he created a semi-perfect lunar eclipse on the floor below.

Pulling himself onto the roof Shadow felt one of his eerie triggers. It originated in the base of his spine and moved slowly upward creating cold sweat. They always came just before unfortunate events. "Always..." Shadow said to himself, lips barely moving.

Rejecting the possibility that Dual was in trouble, Shadow willed his body forward. Creeping across the rooftop, he silently vaulted from the west wing down to the adjoining courtyard.

The courtyard was covered with a gauzy haze and was still damp from daytime showers. The moist grass was pleasantly warm beneath Shadow's feet; however, it reeked of sweaty mold.

A dark thick blur in the distance represented the forest through which Shadow would reach the extraction point. His HUD tells him his mobility has dropped seventeen percent, here in the boggy loam.

Reaching up and twisting the dial on his goggles, Shadow turned on his Thermal Imaging matrix. Almost before the warning lights could relay the message, Shadow's body responded to a hot glowing red chunk of tossed marshy soil. His hand planting a crescent flip left; he instinctively evaded the attack.

About the only thing that could throw something like that was a Forcer. But how would the Drakin have activated an Illicit Elegy without Joint-intelligence knowing? Demonic assistance was plausible but it all gave Shadow a sinking feeling of de’ja-vu. Forcers were emotionless telekinetic monstrosities and an abomination to God's I-D (Intelligent Design). Joint-intelligence should have prepared them for an Elegy of that strength. Shadow Sighed deeply.

Two grotesquely massive humanoids hovered inches from the ground, only a span or two away from Shadow; their features registered simply as nondescript red and green dots in his Thermal Matrix Display.

Brilliant arcs of heat emanated from their bodies warping and distorting the air around their forms.

An unfamiliar feeling flared through Shadow's body as he gaped at the things in shock. Unable to control the overwhelming force, he questioned his pure terror. It had been so long since he had seen a Forcer; he simply was not ready for this, not now at least.

Shadow's Way Point generator displayed the word INCONCLUSIVE across his peripherals.

The Forcers faced Shadow speaking in unison, "We Must Feed". Their voices scratched like harmonious nails on a chalk board.

The Drakin briefcase fell to the soggy soil as Shadow reached behind his head to clutch the sword hilt resting there.

The Forcers' heat waves bursted, displaying new levels of orange and red. Under a normal vision matrix Shadow would see the coutyard flaring with randomized spouts of lightning.

In harmony, the twin Forcers atomized two bolts of light. They compressed the illuminations into orbs. The luminous globes pulsed scarlet in Shadow's Heat Matrix.

Crying out, "Die!" in raspy agreement the Forcers launched their spheres almost simultaneously. The radiant suns screamed as they perpetually illumed the sodden ground they flew over.

There was no time to blink. In one motion Shadow unsnapped his flat sword and flung it end over end toward the balls of daylight. The steel blade passed smoothly through the first sun, splitting it into two halves that dispersed harmlessly to either side. The second orb was missed entirely.

Shadow fell flat to his stomach, avoiding the second glow ball; it exploded thunderously against the brick weapons edifice. In a fleeting thought he musingly projected Mobius One's reaction to the muddy Sticky Suit. His eerie dread quickly returned.

The Forcers seemingly drifted aside avoiding Shadow's spinning flat sword. He could hear the sword flaying several trees before coming to rest somewhere in the dense woods.

Unarmed Shadow's body ached with his uncanny feeling.

"Again!"

The pained screech of the twins was almost unbearable. Shadow whirled into an upright position. "Well Dual... I was quiet... One out of three aint bad right."

Two barely incandescent green specks followed by two moving flashes of glinting steal, streaked in an arc towards the fiends.

Shadow immediately confirmed the shape of the heat signature. It was Dual. He watched as Dual stamped into one of the Forcers, smashing her custom Katanas deep into the things assumed flesh. Gushers of heated fluid spurted forth, creating wet tinges of yellow and orange in Shadow's goggles.

Both grotesque Forcers cried out, shrill and sonorous, like newborns with strong lungs. Somehow their feelings were linked.

Twin bellows reached out between the Forcers pathetic sobs, "Pain!?"

Dual, still pressing her meter long blades into what would be considered the thing's side, looked over at Shadow.

"Were moving!" Her voice pulsated painfully in Shadow's inner ear.

Touching a hand to the sensation, Shadow joyfully replied, "Confirmed".

As Shadow dashed toward the woods briefcase in tow, his eerie sensitivity doubled him over. Beginning to dry heave, he struggled to look up, scarcely he was able to mouth the word "Always..."

In an instant, the physically unharmed Forcer swiped the air creating a crest of light. The ridge of brightness covered the small distance to Dual in less than a moment. The wave, while unable to complete its goal of splicing Dual in half, settled for loping off her left arm.

Shadow heard Dual's cry without the aid of the Com speaker.

With every ounce of strength he could muster, Shadow pushed toward the place where Dual lay, grabbing for her arm that was no longer there. Breaking stride only to roll and scoop Dual from the frothy ground, he carried her noticeably lighter frame briskly into the woods.

An almost sad moan could be heard from the ever distancing courtyard.

Following the wake of tree fodder created by his flat sword, Shadow taped from tree top to tree top silently consoling Dual's pained weeping. As the trail came to a head he saw his weapon hacked deep into a granddaddy pine. Moving past it, he listened while the electromagnetic recall within the swords locking mechanism began to whine. As the locks whirr drew to a maximum he braced himself for the coming impact.

Before the flat sword rested back with its owner, three trees unfortunately fell victim to its super heated blade.

Crashing into place with a bang, the sword just looked right on Shadow's back.

Landing gracefully under an unknown wintergreen, Shadow laid Dual gently on the forest lawn.

"Baby I... Oh God, it's going to be ok love". He swallowed hard trying to rid his voice of puberty.

"My arm lovely, those bastard things took it. They weren't even supposed to be here. I thought J-i was supposed to know every detail of its missions beforehand. They should have warned us. Look at me, my God what am I now?" Thick sloppy tears rolled away from her beautiful olive stained eyes. Her lavender hair was drawn up into a tight disheveled pony tail. She was an ageless twenty two.

Dual's melancholy state made her seem even more enchanted to Shadow. He focused on her soft features. Running his eyes over her full cheerless lips, he remembered why he'd married her, however; He couldn't recall the last time he'd seen her cry.

"It's going to be all right" Shadow said, lightly stroking away a few tears, his poly-gloved hand barely felt her skin.

The numbing agents were warring off. Protocol for every mission, to eliminate dips in performance due to inflicted physical harm.The mantra echoed in his mind.

Dual’s suit had closed and knitted itself together around her wound. He knew Dual wasn't crying from the tremendous pain signals her brain was failing to receive. Rather she was crying because she'd just lost her focal ability.

Shadow glanced at the row of pistols along each of her dark leather clad thighs. She was the fatal ambidextrous weapon. Now what was she?

"You are my wife love", Shadow said as he bent down to kiss her. Dual's lips accepted his and quivered at their meeting. Shadow passionately allowed the small sleeping pill behind his molar to pass onto her tongue.

"Thank you lovely... I will see you..." Dual's breathing slowed as Shadow kissed her forehead.

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He understood the risks, he had weighed the odds.

"Emergency extraction is possible and I can't afford to wait. There's the possibility that Forcers are following us. The Force Light Elegy is beyond what we are currently equipped to handle."

Artimis' voice buzzed smoothly in his ear. "Not saying it tis impossible but tis very risky. We could loose you both, yes. J-i does't want your judgment to be comp-"

"Shut up and tell me you're ETA", clearly pissed, Shadow concluded that the intelligence agency was full of pricks.

At the edge of Gutnin Valley, Shadow looked down from a cliff nearly eighty spans high. He could see the thistles of yet to bloom buds and pin woods as the sun was slowly starting to bear its face. They looked like a green, brown and orange portrait hung far out of reach.

The space between the cliff and the Gutnin tree tops, barley looked deep enough for a successful base jump. Add to that the fact he would be carrying his sleeping wife; maybe he was ‘compromised'. But now wasn't the time for self-doubt.