"There is no light without darkness ,no hope without despair, no day without night, no lie without truth and no 'peace' without anarchy. "

Propaganda. Cecilia called it propaganda.

You have food. You have water. You have homes. Be grateful or we'll take that away. It could be worse. Things might be bad but at least there's some good, complain and we'll make it worse.

The streets were a mess. It was a fight or flight world now and the
Superpowered held the upper hand. The common folk were suffering. Cecilia couldn't care less about them. It was a pretty fun world, she got what she wanted as long as she kept out of the Imperium's way.

What Cecilia did care about was the whispers of the wind. She had heard the plot, the other day. The wind usually brought nonsense like "The Chases are having pancakes for dinner!" or "A new cafe is opening downtown". Honestly, the wind was downright useless half the time yet yesterday, it had finally proven its worth.

The Imperium were planning to leave earth and blow it up while they were at it. Cecilia was ok with the Imperium take over the world and let anarchy rule idea. She didn't care who reigned. "But blow up the world?!," that was Cecilia's thing. Sure, she hadn't done destroyed the world yet, but it was soon to be done in the foreseeable future and the Imperium were gonna do it instead? Oh hell no.

"Rrrwargh," her stomach grumbled. She'd been meaning to drop by the bank soon anyway... Get some cash for food and transport and maybe a hired merc to work with her and the world would be kaboom-free for a while.

There's no time better than the pres- oh no, it was night. She'd have to wait. Urgh. Maybe she'd break into a random hotel room and stay there...

*time skip*

"AAAARGHHH," a loud scream woke Cecilia up. Oops, looks like room service had found her.

"Ciao," she waved bye as she flew out the window. Money, Money, Sweet Honey, here she comes!

The bank was pretty empty. She wouldn't have hostages then, but Cecilia wouldn't need them either.

"Hey, I'm pretty broke,can you help me?" she said to the bank teller. They were like zombies. All the bank tellers simultaneously walking to the vault and taking the cash. Some were whimpering, others were too shocked to speak. Hmm, losing control of their body and watching it do things could be terrifying. Hmph. Cecilia wouldn't know.

Time to fly off with her money. It's not like the "police" could track her anyway.

Caden

The world has always been broken.

Caden watched through the limousine's window as they passed by the commoners' homes, disinterested eyes not really registering anything. The sky was a perpetual dark grey, casting a shadowed gloom over the ruined city. Well, not quite ruined. This district had electricity, food, water - the bare necessities needed to survive. All with a price tag attached, of course. He couldn't say the same for the rest of Palm City. The ones at the top hardly cared for the ones under their rule.

It was ridiculous. Clearly, the Overlord, the asinine villain who had taken over this particular city, had no clue what he was doing. What was the point of ruling over a city if one did not make use of it properly? He robbed the citizens of all their money, flaunted his strength and manpower, and was completely ignorant of the potential the city offered. He lacked the finesse of a true villain, one who was truly in control. "Overlord", his foot. He wouldn't know opportunity even if it smacked him in the face.

Caden, however, could. So it was inevitable that he would take this chance the Overlord offered him by being the fool he was and steadily build his own growing organisation on the ashes of the city the Overlord had left to burn. No, he wasn't stupid enough to grapple for power with a big shot like the Overlord, but he could form alliances here and there and claim his spot at the top right under the buffoon's nose. It wasn't going to be easy but then again, nothing worth gaining ever was. Recently, his organisation, the Penumbra, had successfully claimed the Branch district as of late. In the face of the world, it was hardly anything, but it was a start.

Yes, the world was broken, but he'd be damned if he let it disintegrate before it was under his rule.

They were still ironing out the bugs, though. Where there was authority, there would surely be entropy to counter against it. Like right now. He shifted, straightening up. They had arrived.

"What's the current situation?" he asked as Geryll, his trusty right hand man, opened the passenger door. He got out, his gaze settling on the bank as Geryll answered.

"Lone girl. Some body manipulation power. Possibly also has control over the weather."

The bank doors were closed. The building looked untouched. The robber hadn't just blindly busted her way in, then.

"If it's body manipulation, then that just makes things harder," muttered Caden. He ran a gloved hand over his face. "Stay outside the entrance and keep the more curious people from nosing around. If things get bad, intervene." A few commoners were already staring, whispering about "why the Shadow Master was here". Caden certainly hadn't come up with that name; people had caught a glimpse of him in battle, rumours had spread, and he'd been feared as the ominous Shadow Master. It served him well in the sense that such a cliche title had managed to induce intimidation into the people he ruled and he'd made no move to correct the misnomer.

"Got it, boss."

Without anymore hesitation, he strode forward. The reports may have stated there to be one girl in there, but it was one girl casually stealing from his bank, with his guards and his hired guns in there. He was not one to scrape from the bottom of the barrel when it came to manpower. Quality over quantity, as they say. This was different, though. This was someone who possibly had elemental powers and was, as usual, abusing them. He huffed as he swung the bank doors open. That was the problem with bull-headed overpowered people. They tended to use their powers and not their brains.

They'd gotten there just in time. The girl had already gathered most, if not all of the money in the bank. His dark eyes narrowed.

"That's a lot of money you've got there," he called out, not stopping his pace. The doors swung back and forth behind him a few times before finally shutting. When he was within conversational distance, he stopped.

Truth be told, it was a little unnerving to see his men moving around with such rigid movements, obviously forced by an outside source. Strong, talented men reduced to puppets at the hands of this girl. Most of his men cried out at his presence, some in relief, most in self-righteous anger. He lifted up a hand to silence them; he needed to assess the current situation and their unneeded input was distracting. His gaze returned to the girl.

"How are you going to carry it all back, may I ask?"

"None of your beeswax." The fact that he had asked meant he didn't know Cecilia's power. Cecilia had the upper hand.

"Shadow Master! Shadow Master!" She could hear the chanting outside. He must be of a decent power level to be well known. Shit. Closed rooms weren't her element.

She quirked the side of her lips.
"On second thought, how about I show you?" She flew out the window.

She took her phone out from her pocket (actually, the phone flew out and hovered in the air).

"Iris, who is Shadow Master?"
"Shadow Master,a superhuman with the ability to affect the victim's state of mind. In a manner of speaking, turn them into shells of their former selves and vice versa. The power is, however rarely used and Shadow Master is shown to rely more on gadgets of his own innovation." She had been too focused on Iris to realise there was a skyscraper in front of her. Up! She willed the wind. Talk about a close save.

He couldn't get this high, could he? Welp, She would deal with him if she had to. She wasn't called Cyclone for no reason.

Caden

As the girl crashed out through a window, he cursed, turned on his heel, and dashed back through the doors, all in one fluid motion. He hardly registered the chanting of his title by the commoners who'd gathered, which died down as soon as he stepped out the bank.

"Geryll, hoverlimo, now!" he barked, running towards his right hand man. Geryll immediately fished out a car remote from his pocket and slammed his thumb down on the appropriate button. In a few seconds and with no more than a few quiet clicks, the limo was off the ground, its wheels gone, and its overall build had taken on a suitably streamlined shape. Without further ado, Caden and Geryll climbed into it and it took off with nary a hushed whisper from its thrusters.

"You saw where she went, right?"

Geryll nodded. "Did you figure out her ability?"

"Wind manipulation." It had been obvious. The second Caden had stepped into the bank, he had felt the harsh brushes of wind, something one did not usually find in banks. It had been all over the place, weak, scattered gusts of wind, but he'd suspected that had he been closer to any of his men or the girl, it would have felt stronger. "Clearly, she has some idea of how to use it. She was puppeting my men with the wind alone."

They were getting closer. The hoverlimo - or "Andy" as Geryll had come to affectionately call it - was experiencing a bout of turbulence that did not seem to be letting up any time soon. Caden braced himself on the smooth dashboard. He was glad that neither of them were in the habit of ornamenting the car with bobble-heads or other useless doodads for any one of those would have surely jumped into a window or one of their faces with the car's severe shuddering.

Perhaps this was a bad idea. They were in the air, and any idiot with half a brain could tell that they were in the girl's territory now. A sack of cash wasn't worth risking everything he'd worked for after coming so far. However, if he let her go, fresh rumours would spread, gleeful, mocking whispers of how the supposedly fearsome Shadow Master had been trounced by some rookie. Aspiring ruffians would take it as an invitation to rise against him and no matter how amateur they were, it would be annoying to have to wipe off those worthless pests. It would get in the way of his plans and he had much bigger dreams than wasting his time dealing with small-time crooks. They wouldn't even be considered as training exercise.

There she was. She didn't seem to be in much of a hurry, drifting in the air like that, with what seemed to be her phone floating before her. Eyes darkening, he rolled the window down and was met with a rush of wind, ruffling his short hair. Geryll glanced over to him as he manoeuvred as best as he could around the harsh wind trails the girl left in her wake.

“You got something?”

Caden reached into the holster secured on his hip, pulling out a pistol. From appearances alone, one could already tell that it was no ordinary handgun. He reached once more, this time into a pocket on the inside of his black overcoat. When his hand retreated back out into the open, his fingers were curled around a few bullets. He loaded his gun.

“I’ve always got something.”

He opened the car door, simultaneously pressing a button just by the handle. The car floor extended beneath him, just enough so he could crouch behind the door, half out the car. His arms stretched through the open window and he took aim. He fired. The wind was still whipping around something fierce but if he couldn’t tinker a gun to cause enough propulsion to withstand something as simple as the air, then he’d be a fool to try and claim a seat among the top villains at the Imperium. True to his aim, the bullet zipped through the air, shoving back against the irritated nudges the wind attempted to give, crossing the distance between them and the girl in mere milliseconds.

Then it wasn’t a bullet anymore. Right before it would hit its target, the casing split apart and a metallic netting of sorts was flung open. Inertia propelled it forwards and as soon as it had its target, its magnetic ends would click together, effectively trapping the target. Simple. Caden was rather proud of this one, honestly – it paid off to see the laughable expressions on idiots who were expecting to dodge a bullet and didn’t foresee the expansive length of the net in their way.

She heard the pull of the trigger. In fact, Cecilia could hear everything, even heart rate.

'Shadow Master' as they called him was panicking -just a little. His heart rate was 88 bpm. If he was the 'Master of Shadows', a little money probably didn't mean anything. He was not after the money.

He was after her.

Cecilia was fairly used to combat. Never let your guard down. She never left her defences down. There was always a wall of high pressure around her. Nothing could hit her, he could try but nothing has ever penetrated the wall. It would get flung back in the opposite direction at higher speeds.

"Click." Now, it was flying back at the Shadow Servant.

If he was bringing out his guns, time for her to bring out her big guns. Literally.

She was the eye. The calm before the storm. The lightning before the thunder.

Peace.
Calm.
Tranquility.

The wind was her eyes, ears and hands.

"Steal." The wind snaked itself around, tightening its grip before yanking.

Every weapon in a 10km radius was hers now. They circled around her. Knives, guns, swords and...even whips?

"Initiate." This city she was in-- all it needed was a little push. A little push and a cyclone would start. There was an abundance of hot air. Good. She wouldn't have to put too much effort into controlling the wind.

She was in the middle of it all. He would be stupid to try and get past walls of weapons and freezing air just to get to her.