The Light

Part 3

Written by Zelda

 

                The sound nearly caused the walls to shake, and both of them stopped what they were doing to take notice.

                "You... hear that?" Tanya's voice dropped to a nasal whisper.

                "Hard not to." Mallory frowned out into the black hallway.

                There was a nervous pause.

                "That sounded like Dragaunus... and he didn't sound too happy." Tanya spoke again.

                "Maybe that's a good thing." Mallory nodded. "All I know is that I want outta here!"

                "This would be much easier if they hadn't taken my OmniTool..."

                "Well at least you had your bobby-pins in, let's see how far we can get. Keep holding the door."

                Tanya nodded and braced herself against the heavy metal bars, trying to push the whole door up.   Mallory looped an arm through, fumbling and clicking until she finally got the bobby pin into the lock. "This would be much easier of we had Duke with us too..." she grumbled, trying to pick the thing from the inside.

                "I wonder where the others are." Tanya looked out into the blackness again.

                "Can't find 'em if we don't get out first..." Her patience obviously wearing thin with the lock picking. There had to be a better way! "This is getting us nowhere."

                "Well, we've gotta think of something..." Tanya frowned. "I mean, before they come back for us..."

                A shiver went through Mallory as she heard that. Yeah, she didn't want to be anywhere near here when Dragaunus came looking for them again. She didn't even fully comprehend what had happened to them before! One moment she was walking through the halls of this place, the next she was in here, and in a heap of pain to boot. What had caused it all, and why had she and Tanya woken up from it so quickly? She didn't even want to think about it now, there was too much of a need to get out of here first. She had priorities to follow.

                But Tanya wasn't as focused. She had her priorities too, and the strange weapon that had put them here was morbidly curious to her. It seemed like just a few moments ago, they had landed, Wildwing ordering them cautiously into the entrance of an abandoned building... it was all so fuzzy though. Tanya couldn't even recall where they were, or if they were looking for Dragaunus in the first place. They must have been, though. But Tanya couldn't remember that far back. All she could recall was that blinding flash, and then she woke up here, in the blackness and reeling with some mysterious pain. The weapon Dragaunus had pointed at them... what on Puckworld was it? Did it do this? The confusion was frustrating and terrible. With a snort, she stood and backed away from the door.

                Mallory gave up too, relenting to putting her hands on her hips and glaring at the bars. "Any other suggestions?" she asked.

                Tanya searched what little was left in her belt pockets over for the twentyith time. "I'm telling you Mal, I've got next to nothing on me."

                "Me too. Those Saurians are getting too smart." she shook her head and let out a defeated sigh. "Maybe the others'll find us..."

                "If they can." Tanya sighed back. "This whole situation is just too weird."

                "Agreed." Mallory leaned against a cold cinder block wall. "I'm still trying to figure out what happened to us back there!"         

                "I can only remember a little." Tanya nodded. "But there was that weapon, that bright light..."

                "Yeah, you think that's what did this to us? Just a flash of light?"

                Tanya fell to thinking. "I don't remember... But the little that I do, I believe so."

                "But Tanya, the thing was a big floodlight." Mallory shook her head. "How could that have done this much damage?"

                "But it didn't do any damage." Tanya corrected. "Nothing permanent, anyway."

                "Still, a light couldn't do that."

                "No light we know about, anyway."

                "Well then, explain this!" Mallory was getting visibly flustered again.

                "Hey, calm down." Tanya gave a small snort, and brushed back her hair. "In case you don't remember, things happened pretty fast back there. I... I can't even remember where we are on a map..."

                "Wherever we are." Mallory growled. "All I care about is that Dragaunus is out there, we're stuck in here, and the others are somewhere in-between."

                "Yeah, and we can either get out and join the others, or wait here and join Dragaunus." Tanya started searching her belt pockets for the twenty-first time.

                "Pardon me if I'd rather skip that latter option." Mallory sniffed and looked out into the hallway again.

                "Don't blame ya." Tanya nodded. She leaned against the bars of the cell, running her hand over the peeling gray paint slathered over them. This place must be old, unused. It certainly looked run down. Tanya absently peeled a chip of paint and inspected it. Surely there was lead in this paint. Resting her elbows in-between the dusty bars, Tanya fell to thinking again. Where were they, and how had they gotten here? Had they flown here, maybe right into a trap? She couldn't remember anything back beyond that bright flash of light... it was all just a blur. That light must have had some meaning, could it possibly have been what got them into this confusing mess?

                "Looks like you're pondering something." Mallory interrupted her.

                Slightly irritated, Tanya turned to face her. "Just thinking about how we got here, that's all." she started. "It has to be that light we saw."

                "Tanya, it was just a bright light."

                "Maybe not." Tanya cut her off. "There's more to it than just that. If that light was as bright as I remember it... Well... Lemme see how I can explain it. There's a spectrum of visible light, you know?"

                "Yeah, rainbow colors, I know that."

                "Well white light is actually the combination of the entire spectrum in one form. That's why you can break it apart with a prism. White light's highly concentrated, and contains all the spectrum's wavelengths. I guess you could say it's the most powerful of the visible form."

                "Yeah, so?" Mallory asked. "Don't remember having my heart nearly stop last time I turned on my lamp."

                "Lightbulbs are filtered." Tanya sniffed. "Besides, the wattage isn't high enough to hurt your eyes much anyway. That's not even real white light. If Dragaunus were able to rig up a beam of pure light with a high enough power...." she trailed off into thought again. "What I'm trying to figure out is if simple light could react with something underneath the surface that absorbs it..."

                "Whoa, in English girl." Mallory frowned.

                "If that light was what caused us all of that pain... well... um... it would have had to affected our bodies somehow. But I don't see how, especially because it wasn't permanent..."

                "So that rules it out, doesn't it?"

                "Not entirely." Tanya rubbed under her bill. "If that light was bright enough, unfiltered enough... it might have actually gone through us, not all of it being absorbed..."

                "Whoa, hang on a sec." Mallory stood from leaning against the wall. "Light can pass through opaque things?"

                "Absolutely." Tanya nodded. "Visible light differs only from X-rays and microwaves in wavelength. Those other forms of light pass right through us all the time, while visible light is usually either just absorbed or reflected. But if there was enough power put into a beam of visible light, it could pass through us on the molecular level...." She nodded, as if she had locked onto something. "All atoms have a lot of space in them, the only real solid mass is the very small nucleus. Smaller atoms, or atomic particles, can easily pass through the spaces between nuclei, they've been able to prove that since the 1800s on this planet."

                "But atoms are tiny." Mallory struggled to understand it. "I mean, we're a lot more complex than a few atoms."

                "Much more complex." Tanya agreed. "Our nerve cells are what cause us to feel pain. I don't know exactly how you'd design something like that, but it is possible that the frequency of that light was targeted to pass through larger cells and affect only small ones like nerve cells."

                "That's crazy." Mallory shook her head. "Just crazy. I've never heard of a simple light that could do that. Then again, by the way you describe it, this is far from simple."

                Tanya nodded back, and then concentrated on the bars again. "Yeah, and if we wait around here long enough, Dragaunus'll come and explain it to us himself."

                Mallory joined her at the bars. "I'll pass on that one too. But we can't pick the lock, what other options do we have?"

                "If we had our coms..." Tanya shook her head. "I'd love to know where the others are. Maybe they're in the same situation as us... or worse."

                "Well we don't have them, or our weapons, or your OmniTool either." Mallory narrowed her eyes at the blackness of the hallway. "So we're gonna have to deal."

                "Why don't you try looking through your pockets for something." Tanya suggested. "Because nothing's going to magically appear in mine, and I'm fresh out of ideas."

                With a frustrated sigh, Mallory started pulling out whatever she had stored away. "I don't even know what half this stuff is." she grumbled. "Gimme a standard launcher or cannon any day." Growing even more frustrated, Mallory simply started tossing things on the floor.

                "Hey wait a second!" Tanya quickly jerked a hand out and caught a small device. "You had this on you the whole time?!"

                Mallory shrugged and put a hand on a hip. "Yeah, so what is that thing anyway?"

                "This is my holotarget generator!" Tanya mused. "And it may just offer us a way out of here."

                "What do you mean by may?" she frowned lightly.

                "Because this idea of mine is going to be tricky." Tanya adjusted her glasses.

                "Better than no idea at all." Mallory nodded decisively. "I'm game."

 

                "WHAT?!" The surprise of the Overlord was indeed genuine. "Wraith, you fool, what are you doing in there!?" As he started coming towards the cell, Tanya continued to punch and kick the frail old Saurian, she and Mallory easily beating him down into the corner, blocking the view of most of his body. Her mind was on overdrive, above all wishing that Chameleon was fiddling at the cell door lock instead of Dragaunus. She had not planned on him coming. How could she and Mallory fight him off by themselves?! But it was too late for that now. They'd have to get out of here... or they'd pay dearly for trying. Still punching, Tanya gave a quick glance over to Mallory as she heard Dragaunus undo the lock, swing open the door, and come charging for them.

                Mallory stayed put, never breaking eye contact as they both could feel the Saurian's footfalls growing closer. When Dragaunus roared, so close they could feel the rush of air from his jaws, Mallory gave the signal.

                Tanya shoved backwards from Wraith, nearly flattening herself against the wall. She didn't even have the time to look back and see Draguanus not be able to stop and retarget his charge in time. Dragaunus went slamming into the corner, falling right on top of Wraith, as she and Mallory made a dash back for the door.

                With a confused and angry look on his face, the Overlord glanced down, and wondered how he could be sitting amidst Wraith, as if he were merely air, and couldn't be touched.

                Tanya saw the look on his face as he put two and two together, and Mallory shut her holotarget generator off.

                With a furious roar, he found his legs and sprung for them off of his powerful haunches, running back for the cell door as the two Ducks scrambled to get out.

                It took both of their effort to be able to slam the cell door right in Dragaunus's face, and then hold it, as it locked against his struggle.

                "FOOLS!" he snarled at them, clawing through the bars as they pulled back. "You think you've tricked ME?!" With that, he slammed one hand on the wrist of the other, and materialized into a green veil of nothingness.

                Gasping for breath, Tanya looked back into the empty cell, and dusted herself off. "Well... it worked."

                "At least we're out." Mallory nodded. "But I think we just got ourselves out of the frying pan, and into the fire..."

                With that point made, the two went off running, as fast as the could, into the increasing darkness of the hallway to their left.

 

                Her legs were really beginning to hurt, and Tanya could have imagined the two of them running forever. Of course, they didn't seem to be getting anywhere. DuCaine himself, they could have been going in circles this whole time! But at least Draguanus wasn't following them, and he didn't have that... thing... with him. She was immensely relieved that he didn't have that in tow with him when he fell into their trap in the cell. But, of course, that meant it was somewhere else. Tanya wheeled around a corner, only footsteps behind Mallory, and continued to think. Her mind was struggling to work out the mechanics of such a weapon, still trying to complete her theory on how light could be designed to effect nerves. Even if that was the way it worked, why was it only temporary? And why did the effects fade so quickly? Tiring, Tanya concluded that she'd simply have to see the weapon itself to understand it. And she was in no rush to encounter that kind of pain again. There had to be a better way, and Tanya didn't have time to think with all of this running. Mallory was barely visible ahead of her in all the blackness. "Hey..." she panted in a whisper. "We there yet?..."

                Mallory spun around and hissed back at her. "Shhh! You wanna get us caught?!"

                Tanya shook her head. "Course not... but a rest... would be nice..." She let herself stop running and bent over, bracing her arms on her knees.

                Mallory stopped too, without much reluctance, and leaned against the cold wall to try and catch her breath.

                "This is worse than practice..." Tanya sniffled, her voice amused.

                "Yeah..." Mallory grinned back. "Well you defensemen are slow anyways...."

                "You try skating backwards for three-fourths of the game..." she retorted, leaning up.

                "Well... we won't be playing for a while if Dragaunus finds us..." Mallory reminded.

                "We're not getting anywhere Mal..." Tanya shook her head. "We don't even know where we are... Dragaunus can probably track us in here..."

                "We don't know that..."

                "We should be trying to find the others..."

                "We don't even know where we are." Mallory frowned.

                "So why all the running?" Tanya asked, rhetorically.

                Turning back to face her, Mallory put a hand on her hip, and used the other to gesture back down the way they had come. "Look, if you wanna stay here and wait for Draguanus to come back here with that thing and---" She broke off quickly, and froze.

                Tanya frowned nervously back. "What?" she whispered.

                "I thought I heard something..." Mallory pointed down the other way, the way they were going.

                Tanya turned back that way as well, falling silent, and she heard something too. It was a faint sound, almost like a tapping, slightly organized. There was another sound too... she couldn't make it out. Behind her, Mallory was drawing back against the wall. There was a corner they had turned around, just a few dozen feet back. They could make a break for it. Tanya inched backwards as well, increasing her speed as the sounds came increasingly closer. She glanced at Mallory behind her, wanting to ask her if she could identify the noise. But it was too close, they'd be caught... if they weren't being followed in the first place. Thinking about that made Tanya's pulse quicken, a lump rising in her throat. The faint noises became lost in the pounding of her own heart, and once she could no longer hear them, Tanya started to panic. If Mallory wanted to run again, she'd be right behind her....

                But Mallory was also quickly losing the sounds ahead of her as well, trying to focus on them as well as keeping herself calm. If Dragaunus had cut them off, he must have been able to follow them the whole time! If that was true, then they had run all this way for nothing. What was worse, it wouldn't make a difference if they ran now.  It wouldn't make a difference at all! As she continued to back slowly down the hallway, she closed her eyes and wished she either had a launcher or a lot more backup right now... Trying to focus, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to stare straight ahead, where the noise was coming from.

 

                Nosedive could tell that she was growing more and more nervous by the step. He still kept a tight grip on the skin of her wing, both to reassure her that he was still with her, and to reassure himself that she still had some clue as to what was going on around them. He couldn't see or hear a thing, and was really starting to get worried. He was burning with curiosity as to what Zelda could or couldn't see up ahead, but caution made him keep his beak shut. She had softened her walk a lot, snuffling along on the ground from time to time. Why was she being so quiet? Why had she slowed down so much? Did she hear someone up ahead? Were they walking into a trap? Dive's burning curiosity was quickly beginning to turn into fear. Slowly, he felt his way around a corner as Zelda turned, and suddenly she let out a snort and started in surprise. She had found something. Nosedive was on the jump.

                "Mallory? Tanya?" her whisper was barely audible.

                "Zelda?!" Mallory's reply was the same.

                Nosedive suddenly felt Zelda abandon her caution and jump forward, and seconds later he nearly slammed into something!

                "Ow! Watch where you're going, hotshot." Tanya growled, although her reprimand was greatly softened by relief.

                Mallory leaned down and hugged Zelda around the neck. "Are we ever glad to see you two!"

                "You guys okay?" Zelda whispered.

                "Yeah, we had a time getting out of our cell though." she answered.

                "Dude, so did we!" Nosedive nodded, now able to make out the two in the darkness. "This place is too creepy!"

                "Have you seen the other guys?" Tanya asked.

                "We were hoping they were with you." Zelda sighed, swinging her head around. "Seems like we've been walking around here forever, no luck."

                "Same with us, 'cept we've been running." Tanya sniffed. "Dragaunus is probably on our tail."

                "Let's keep moving, then." Zelda nodded. "I can see a little in here."

                "But which way should we go?" Mallory shrugged. "Either direction, we'd be doubling back."

                "Not quite." Dive whispered. "We didn't take a turn a little ways back, remember Zel?"

                "I remember." she nodded. "We all have to talk, let's do it on the way."

                Dive once again took hold of the dragon's wing, and offered a hand to Mallory.

                Mallory did the same to Tanya, and so they were all off, feeling down the hallway again in an odd chain.

                "I've been thinking about the weapon Dragaunus used against us." Tanya started off. "I might know how it works, but it seems way too complicated."

                "I still don't get it." Mallory shook her head.

                "Doesn't offer much hope for me either." Dive smirked.

                "Anyway, I'm thinking that this weapon is a special kind of light, pure white, powerful enough to be able to actually get through our skins, effecting our nervous system."

                "You know..." Zelda chewed on the thought. "That might actually make sense... although I don't see how it's possible. Then again, you're the one who thinks from the mechanical standpoint Tanya, not me."

                "I told you I couldn't figure it through." she sighed.

                "'Least it's something." Dive shrugged back at her. "Better than not knowing what the heck happened to us."

                "True." Mallory nodded.

                "It's not just nerves though..." Zelda started, thinking aloud. "I'm worried as to why I wasn't able to feel you guys out. I had no idea it was you two, down the hall, until I smelled the tracks you left..." She paused and thought further. "It's too coincidental."

                "Regardless." Mallory spoke up. "We're regrouping, and that's a start to getting the heck out of here."

                "And a start to stopping Dragaunus." Dive nodded curtly.

                And then, even before Zelda could react to the rotting, predator stench, a growl cut through the air, and a pair of beady yellow eyes blazed from the darkness ahead.

                "Whoever said that I could be stopped?"

 

                "My aura is clearing slightly." Grin spoke up from the back of the pack, as the three kept a brisk jog as they rounded another corner, plunging further into darkness.

                "Shh!" Duke reprimanded him quickly, barely audible. "You wanna get us caught?!"

                "Something is not right here." Grin spoke back.

                Duke nearly ran right into Wildwing, as his leader quickly stopped ahead of him.

                "There are a lot of things that aren't right here." he whispered, turning to Grin. "But some things are more serious than others. What's getting to you?"

                Grin gave an audible sigh of frustration as he shook his head. "Nothing's making sense..."

                Duke threw his hands up. "We should be looking for the others." he hissed. "Not waiting for Dragaunus to catch up!"

                "I agree." Wildwing nodded. "But this place is huge, we've been running and we have no idea of where we're going!"

                "Running will get us nowhere." Grin spoke up. "We need to let ourselves be found, rather than trying to hide."

                "Top notch thinking." Duke snorted. "So you-know-who won't have to run as much!"

                Although he could barely see his teammates, Wildwing's eyes glanced between the both of them, thinking hard. "Both of you make good points." he sighed. "Let's try taking our time and thinking things over, but we've gotta be careful." With a wave of his hand, he started walking off, Duke and Grin following close behind. "Now Grin, you said before that you actually saw that new weapon Dragaunus has..."

                "So I did." he nodded, still keeping his voice low. "I got a quick glimpse of it... and to me, it looked like a giant flashbulb."

                "You mean like on a camera?" Duke asked. "But how does that hurt us?"

                "That's what I still do not understand." he shugged back. "Something is not right here."

                "That's obvious." Wildwing nodded. "We just don't have enough information. Getting it could be a problem too, if we don't find the others soon."

                And then, the same noise that had sent them fleeing down the dark halls in terror, only twenty minutes before, came again. But it wasn't the same this time. And it wasn't from behind them.

                Only then did things finally snap back together in Grin's head.

                "The others..." he whispered, his voice blank. "He didn't go after us..."

 

                There was the crack of a blow in the darkness, and the pit of fear that had sprung into Nosedive's stomach dropped through the floor as he felt an object go flying past him. As it hit the ground with a loud thump and let out a sharp cry, the object identified itself as Mallory. Zelda let out a terribly loud roar and charged, her wing tearing out of Nosedive's hand, his panic increasing further. Mallory grunted softly and her boots scraped against the floor, Zelda crashed into her target and latched in her teeth with a muffled snarl. Other than the sound, Nosedive had nothing to go on, nothing at all! By DuCaine himself, it was like fighting a ghost. An eight foot tall, six hundred pound ghost, with claws that could disembowel you if they caught at the right spot. Maybe that's why Wing opted to wear the full chest armor. Smart choice.

                "Any ideas?" Tanya's hand somehow found Dive's shoulder, her worried voice breaking his chain of thought.

                There was another noise, the wet ripping of flesh, and a sharp cry as Zelda hit the wall across the corridor, hard.

                "Zelda?!" By now Mallory was on her feet, rubbing her shoulder, and back with Tanya and Nosedive.

                The reply came as an angry yowl, directed more at Dragaunus than at them. Another scuffle of claws, and she had pounced again in the darkness, her attack producing an echoing yowl from Dragaunus.

                "They're in front of us." Tanya spoke quickly. "About ten feet, we've gotta help Zel out!"

                "What, you want us to just run in and hope we hit the guy?" Nosedive asked. "I can't see a thing!"

                "Better than standing here!" Mallory nodded. "Everybody, on three!"

                Her countdown was pretty quick, barely allowing Nosedive time to crouch down and get himself ready. But he went off with the others like a shot, running completely blind, arms out defensively in front of him as if he were about to throw a huge check. Luckily, he hit something, and it was definitely heavier than Zelda.

                Dragaunus let out a surprised "Oomph!" as he was slammed into, getting knocked backwards and losing his balance. He hit the floor, several unidentifiable feet trampling over him in the darkness. Someone lost his balance and fell on top of him, he wasted no time in bringing a foot up and kicking them powerfully away. He had a definite advantage over them in the darkness, with his animal sight and smell, only matched in senses by Zelda. And the dragon was still clinging tenaciously onto him, trying to gnaw and get at the spot on his left shoulder where the armor didn't cover well. Frustrated, he tried to reach up and claw at her, as the other Ducks quickly began to get a sense of where he was, lying on the floor. Ignoring the tearing sensation in his arm as Zelda latched her jaws in, he rolled backwards and up, letting out a roar so loud that he knew it would make everyone's ears hurt. It worked. Pitting his weight, Dragaunus spun, lashing out his tail and whipping it against all three Ducks, slamming them into each other and then into the bars of a nearby cell.

                "Idiots!" he howled at them. "Did you really think you could get away from me?!" Ignoring the pain, he reached up and tore the dragon off of his arm, holding her in front of him by the back of her neck.

                Zelda snapped at him, flashing her bloodstained teeth, because she knew he could see them in the darkness. Painfully twisting her own neck, Zelda tried to maneuver around, throwing her tail at his face in the same move he had made against her teammates seconds earlier. It worked, partially, and he let her go as he stumbled backwards. But the force of the mere seventy pound dragon couldn't compare to someone who was five hundred and thirty pounds her senior, and Dragaunus quickly gave a replying blow by kicking her savagely back against her recovering friends.

                "Zelda?!" It was Nosedive that caught and straightened her as she rolled back against his legs. His hip was aching from where one of the cell's bars had hit it. Still, he stood tall and tried to pinpoint Dragaunus again in the pitch black hallway.

                Zelda was up again, and roared into the darkness.

                "Your plan isn't going to work, Dragaunus!" Tanya announced to him. "I've figured out your little toy!"

                "Have you?" A brooding voice sneered back at her. "You Ducks are ssooo clever. But even if you've been able to decipher the Light, it won't help you escape. You're still my prisoners."

                "Not for long, we won't be." Mallory growled back at him.

                "Assuming you're all still alive, of course."

                That simple, nonchalant statement from the Overlord sent a cold rush through Zelda's spine. She was gripped in a sudden flash of terror, because she couldn't tell whether or not he was lying. She had been a member of this team for almost six years now, not since she had first joined did she feel so scared when she thought about the safety of her teammates. She had been able to know, to simply tell, whether or not they were in danger. But she couldn't tell now. Being the only one able to see Dragaunus's beady yellow eyes and bone white teeth in the darkness, she was terrified by the grin he wore. The coppery taste of his blood on her teeth was nauseating, almost biting her back with its sharpness. And although she had lost her senses for her friends, he knew perfectly well how scared she was. But Nosedive gave her a nudge with his leg, and she broke her stare to glance back up at him.

                Mallory was holding a hand behind her back, silent counting down with her fingers, assembling another charge. Three... two... one...

 

                He wished he knew where he was going. He wished that he could be sure. But as Wildwing spun around another corner, he had no idea of where he was headed. Hopefully, they hadn't been swung too far off course by all of these twists and turns, the darkness and the bars of the cells. He hoped he was getting closer to Dragaunus, to the others. Duke and Grin ran behind him, silent except for their footfalls. Duke's feet were pretty silent too.

                "We still goin' the right way?" Duke whispered, his breathing heavy.

                "I hope so..." Wildwing glanced behind him long enough to reply, and then was forced to take another turn. At this rate, they could have gone around in a complete circle, and not known. Just as he was about to slow down and reconsider his options, another loud roar came bouncing through the maze of halls. And it wasn't Dragaunus, not this time.          

                "We're close, let's go!" Duke quickened his pace, running around another corner.

                The two others charged after him, trying to stay together as they dodged around corners, still listening to the growing sounds of what seemed to be a struggle, somewhere ahead.

                Wildwing retook the lead from Duke, wheeling around another corner, and suddenly, out of the darkness, something came at him. The leader let out a surprised yelp as something very heavy slammed him backwards, sending him to the floor. The weight that crushed him was unmistakable, and the loud growl that followed was even more so. Wildwing pushed back, shoving the Saurian Overlord off of him and to the side, scrambling to his feet in the darkness as another angry roar shook the walls.

                "Guys?" he called out.

                "Wildwing?" Tanya replied, an obvious sound of relief in her voice.

                "Over here, bro!" Dive chirped, and something grabbed and pulled on Wildwing's arm.

                In a matter of seconds, the whole team had been reunited in the darkness.

                Zelda scrabbled up onto Wildwing's shoulder and nuzzled him, relieved.

                He fumbled a little to pet her back, and came away with something wet and a little sticky on his gloved fingers. "Zel, you're bleeding--"

                "I know." she grunted. "Trust me, we've got bigger problems."

                "Indeed you do!!" Dragaunus suddenly howled to life out of the black. 

                The whole team drew together, feeling his footfalls ring on the concrete floor.

                "And now that the gang's all here." he sneered. "What more efficient way to send you out could you ask for?"

                Only Zelda could see him reach down for his wrist com, and activate it.

                "Chameleon?" he snarled. "They're all here. Bring it in." And as soon as his jaws closed, a green light erupted between him and the team, and suddenly everyone could see again. Out of the sparkling green came a shadow, quickly materializing into the form of the Chameleon.

                And in his hands, he was holding the Light.

 

To be continued...

 

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