Far Away – Chapter Four

"I've found more of this jelly trail along Mariposa."

Chris nodded at Sam's voice. "I'll mark it," he announced back, pausing from his task to slide over to the computer and typed in a new trail marker. He braced his good foot against the ground and slid back to the analyzer.

He ran the analyzer against his hand again, programming the computer to take his data and exclude it. The program ran the code, and Chris frowned as he isolated a few more problems. Cathy called another trail, and Chris absent-mindedly marked it while his new program ran another test.

"Here's another jelly trail heading north, but how do we tell if it's fresh or not?"

"Poke it with a stick Cath and find out." Danny's retort made Chris smile as he propped his foot up again.

"Let's see if this works," Chris said to himself.

"See if what works?" Danny's voice came out of the blue, surprising Chris a bit that he was listening.

"Just testing a new program," Chris replied as he held the gel sample vial in his hand and scanned them both. The computer separated Chris' data perfectly, and Chris grinned at the analyzer started to run on just the gel data. "Awe-"

A shrill squeal cut him off, like someone running a nail down an endless chalkboard. Chris dropped the gel vial in surprise and clapped his hands to his ears.

"What is that?" Sam demanded, her wincing almost audible over the comm.

"I don't know!" Chris called back, his eyes rapidly searching the computer. "The analyzer is just running!"

"It sounds like a Harpserico whistle!"

"It's annoying, that's what it is! Chris, make it stop!"

"If I knew what was causing it, I would!"

Cathy suddenly screeched then yelled, "A Zerellian worker worm just charged past me! It's going south!"

"Follow it Cathy, see where it's heading," Sam ordered. "We've converge to meet up with you."

While they kept babbling, Chris tried to pin one ear against his shoulder and block the other with one hand while his other hand flew across the keyboard, running diagnostics to figure out what could be making the sound. "It's not the computer!" he called out, although he was pretty sure the others were otherwise occupied at the moment. "It's none of our equipment!" The squeal just kept going, and it was about to drive Chris crazy.

"Chris! Chris!" Sam's frantic voice cut in on his own panicking through his attempts to block the noise. "There's another worm!" As she spoke, the A-scan popped up on the screen and Chris gaped at the trails highlighted.

"They're headed for the clubhouse!"

"Why would they go there?" Cathy demanded.

"Chris, get out of there!"

Danny's order didn't really register as Chris shoved his chair across the room again, still trying to find the source of the noise. "I think the squeal is what's drawing them here – if we stop that-"

The analyzer cheerily beeped it was done, a strange noise to hear amid the squeal and shouting of the club members. Chris whirled around, his injured leg dragging, and almost knocked over the vial of jelly he barely caught in time. The vial vibrated in his hand, and it clicked in his head.

"You guys! It's the jelly! The worm jelly!" he yelled, but the clubhouse floor rocked and the machines flickered. Chris flew off his chair into the computer desk, the vial in his hand smashing on the ground. The comm crackled with static, his friends' voices broken apart amid the squeal. The floor beneath him shuddered, and suddenly broke into pieces and erupted as feathery tendrils broke through the floor like plants through soil, the holes breaking larger as the tendrils got thicker and attached to worm bodies.

Chris tried to stagger to his feet, the pain screaming up his bad leg second to the fear in his head. "MBC, Power-" A tendril caught him across his stomach and threw him across the room into the wall. Everything went fuzzy and black for a time Chris wasn't sure about, before he heard Danny yelling his name. He opened his eyes and saw the clubhouse was wrecked, one of the worms was screeching over the spilled jelly on the floor and absorbing it, and another's tendrils were wrapped around his good leg and arms.

Chris screamed and kicked to get away. A blaster ray pierced through the madness and the tendrils immediately retracted. Chris scrambled backwards before a hand grabbed his shirt collar and dragged him back. He looked up to see the red visor across green eyes, wide with fear.

"Chris! You okay?"

"Y-Yeah," Chris stammered, although he didn't really know. But one of the worms cut them off, smashing it's tendrils between them an this time snapping at both of the boys.

"Danny!" Chris yelled, and his hand grasped for the blaster that didn't appear. He had to morph into his MBC blaster armor-

A tendril hoisted him in the air by his waist, by the worm that had been hovering over the jelly which was now smeared on it's feathering, as if gathered from the spill. Chris wasn't sure how a worm expressed itself, but right now he knew without a doubt that it was pissed.

He jerked against the tendril holding him upside down, trying to free himself enough to morph and help Danny who was struggling with his own worm, also caught in tendrils as he blasted away. But then the worm suddenly lifted its head and opened it's mouth as Chris lowered towards the slime-filled opening. Chris gave a strangled cry.

"Chris!"

The worm's mouth slammed against a purple shield, forming around Chris. The worm let out a hideous scream itself, like an intensified version of the jelly's squeal, as Chris dropped inside the bubbled with writhing tendrils about him, dissected from the worm's body.

Chris stared in shock up from the safety shield, before the worm lunged past the shield. Chris flipped over to see it's target: Danny, his blaster changed into the shield generator.

"Dan-" Chris could barely gasp out the first syllable. For a split second, the look on Danny's face – satisfaction, pride, relief – Chris would never forget. Then the worm grabbed Danny's waist, who didn't have time to change the blaster back, and Chris could only scream as Danny was swiftly swallowed whole.

"DANNY!"

To Be Continued

A/N: Now would be a great time to take a break to do my homework... Don't ya think?