Scorpio

TWENTY THREE - Connection Loss

It was dark. Terribly dark.

Alycs spun around, trying to keep his movements in control. A second ago he was snapping wires into the walls, the next, Estella had vanished. Her comm had gone into an incessant buzz - the machine equivalent of a heart flatlining. His own comm couldn't reach Peter's over the noise.

"Stel?" He questioned the darkness, his fingers gingerly brushing the shadows around him. "Hey Stel, you alright?" Fishing through his pockets, Alycs cursed quietly upon realizing he hadn't thought to bring his flashlight along before his Triple-S pride and joy shut down into micro-mode. He would have to improvise.

Drifting his gaze around his confinements, he found a metal grate in the side of the caboose. His legs felt like jelly as he waded his way below it, and his head felt like exploding as his entire lower body combined into one tall stilt, boosting him upwards.

Outside, he could hear the wind whistling as the train rumbled by. The glue beneath the grate seemed cheap enough to pry off, but with the limited time, all the explosives on board and no telling if Estella had disabled them all, he went for the safer option. Alycs pulled back a fist and punched the chilled metal panel.

He felt, rather than heard, the subtle warping motion as it sucked itself onto the exterior of the vehicle, only to be ripped away by the wind and lost for miles.

Alycs shivered, the natural breeze of the outside a welcome change from the freezing AC of the inside. There was only an estimated time of two minutes left before they approached the next turn, so with reluctance only rivalled by his concern for his friends Alycs peeled himself from the wall, stumbling around a shelf in search of Estella.

He froze when he heard a sloshy sound, and looked down. His shoe had landed in some sort of unidentifiable luminescent purple goop, and as he pulled his foot back, the goop bounced back into a face.

Estella.

She didn't seem to be present, though - at least not completely. Her purple outline was glitching like a bad connection and she was struggling to breathe like a fish out of water. Alycs instantly knelt beside her, trying to take her pulse, perform CPR, take her hand and get her out of there, but each time he reached for her the amoeba was adamant to evade him.

Did she faint from panic again? Heat exhaustion? They had been in the caboose too long for the former, and the harsh AC ruled out the latter. Was it allergies? Not that he could tell.

His fingers finally made contact with the shying jello-like substance, and instead of a liquid, she seemed to be no denser than a hologram. However, a thin trail of silver sparks followed his fingertips, surrounded by some sort of void-like aura. He froze, heart hammering, as his own hand raised to catch in the light from the grate.

The same trail of silver sparks echoed from his palm.

Alycs looked to Estella, solid fury rising in his chest. If what he suspected was true, then she had been kidnapped. Tricked. Brainwashed, in the lovely favour of a desperate promise.

Leave the hulking-out for later, Kyle. We've got to move. Alycs exhaled, anchoring an arm over Estella's kangaroo pocket only to console himself with her presence.

He closed his eyes, concentrating, drawing up that familiar thrum of power coursing through his veins and pumping from his very soul. He could feel the molecules of everything moving around his, and nearly chickened out from the enormity of his task until his mind scolded him, reminding him that this wasn't for his sake - it was for Estella's.

Alycs could feel the sluggish pulse of Estella's existence beside him, the angry march of his own vibrating through the caboose. He could feel the commotion outside, the faux connector attached to the butt of the train, the many moving mouths as black market weapons dealers screeched, "That's him! That's Spiderman!"