The beach had never been a place that Kari enjoyed. After all, the salty air was a killer, there was always too many screaming kids there for her liking and of course the universal irritating sensation of getting sand in your shoes. Well, it wasn’t as if it mattered any more. Still, at the very least the breeze was nice, that was one thing she could enjoy. If only there was any less sodium.

She had no intention of going down there initially, seeing as there was no easy way to traverse the sands now that she was confined to a wheelchair. However, there was something just so alluring about a shipwrecked vessel that caught her attention. Kari was immediately reminded of the Saturday morning cartoons that she watched when she was young, full of jewels and golden coins stolen from land from far away. Of course, the pirate dream was nothing more than a living fantasy but… what if it could be real?

Her family was running at hard times after the fight, and medical bills had sapped at their already meager savings. Even though Kari knew that her father was far too kind to ever even think about asking her to help out financially, she was also well aware of the burden that it placed on his mental health. Plus, she still wasn’t at a place where she was mentally able to even consider getting a job. It wouldn’t hurt at least to just have a peek, even there was nothing there to begin with.

Getting down to the vessel was the hard part. At the very least it was late at night when Kari had decided to go for a stroll and get some fresh air. No one should be out here to bother her. Plus, she knew the law enough. Snooping around some wrecks wasn’t against the law, even if it was frowned about. Fortunately though, she had a feeling there was no one nearby. Now it was time for her to focus on navigating there.

Almost immediately, the wheels of her chair got snagged at the soft mounds of the sand, making advancing further almost impossible. Great, Kari grumbled as she tried to force the wheelchair forward. Even with her powerful arms, it refused to yield. Any harder and she definitely would break the only piece of equipment she had. They definitely couldn’t afford another one and being confined to her room until they got the money seemed like a living hell.

As such, a new plan came to her mind. It was night time, the moon high up in the sky meaning its gentle light had illuminated the beach. Lifting up her arms, shadows began to bend to her will, tendrils shooting upward to grab at the chair and lifted Kari up from her sandy prison. Seeing as she was focused on moving, it didn’t take much effort to maintain concentration, allowing her passage to the shipwrecked vessel far smoother.

Now that she was up close, Kari could now inspect the nature of this vessel. It was still a bunch of metal to sort with, but it was something at the very least. With another wave of her hand, the tendrils set her back down on the ground, far more rough than she would like but hey she was rusty. Aside from the coffee shop encounter, she hadn’t used her powers in quite awhile.

It was time for the fun part now. Now that she had set herself down, Kari would begin to call more shadows to form these shadowy tendrils once again. It would bend to her will, picking up random pieces of scrap metal and throwing them out of the way. Not too far out, but just enough so that she could see what was hiding behind them. It was likely the junk collectors would deal with this the next morning, and that would mean any potential treasure that she couldn’t find would be taken away then. As such, Kari really wanted to see if there was anything golden here in the meanwhile.

Some of the larger pieces of scrap were a little bit more difficult to grab, causing a sweat to break from her forehead from the strain, but it wasn’t all terrible. It was likely that nothing was here to begin with, all of this was nothing but wasted potential. But hey, Kari had been meaning to practice using her powers again. If anything this was a great workout for her. At least she wouldn’t waste too much of her time moving debris around.

And yet, somehow it wasn’t all futile. Something caught her eye as a tendril picked up a metal piece, thinking it was junk. That was until it began to shimmer. She froze, bringing the shadow form closer to inspect. Was that?

She had heard of it at her history class back in university once before. It was rusted, so Kari hadn’t been able to really process what it was until now. Yes, now that she was looking, she could see the letters engraved into this. Was this one of the first space pods that had dropped down to Earth when visitors from other planets came? Honestly, Kari wasn’t expecting to find something as valuable as this, especially when it looked like scrap to begin with!

Who knew how much this could fetch her. Immediately, Kari had enough. This alone was enough to provide her with enough money to bring home for half a year at least! Besides, honestly she felt guilty for searching for more treasure. With a giant smile on her face, Kari moved back to the sidewalk with her shadows, the rusted space pod trailing besides her. For now she was on her phone, finding the best places she could sell vintage vehicles like this…