Author's Note: Thank you to the lovely KLoves2Read her her beta-reading talent, and to Lustrex for telling me many reviews ago to watch my POV flops and inspiring some serious rewriting for this poor chapter.
CHAPTER 27 - ESCAPE TO GUNKANJIMA
Previously
"Islands! Fang, she said Genitex has been buying islands!" He ran his hands over his head until his hair stood on end. "I've been looking over the mainland this whole time!" His breaths came in shallow as his eyes darted frantically around the room. His gaze settled on one of the walls and his whole body tensed.
Fang had the grate unscrewed and lying on the desk when Dylan's face went ashen, good eye glazing over even as the other swelled shut.
"Oh...Oh, no..."
Dylan's hissed words made Fang run cold.
"I found her."
. . . . . . . . .
There was a moment, just then, where everything felt infinite. The distance separating Fang from Max; the time he'd spent searching; the breath he held in his lungs as if they had turned to stone. Dust motes and tufts of fur swam lazily in front of the backdrop of blood and bodies.
Then it all crashed down. His world imploded, his lungs ballooned, and he was so close to her that he could feel his soul melting and reaching out to her across time and space. The urgency was like an iron fist around his heart.
He launched himself up into the vent tunnel, yanking his legs inside and crawling on his elbows fast enough to make his skin catch and burn. He was relieved to hear Dylan slide in behind him a second later, echoing in the aluminum tunnel. He called back lowly, "Is she close?"
"Just off the coast. Ten, twenty minute flight at the-" Dylan sucked in a breath and wrapped his fingers around Fang's ankle, pulling him to a halt.
Fang twisted to look over his shoulder at Dylan, who was Staring worriedly through the aluminum sheeting beneath him.
"Robots," he whispered, barely audible. "Like 300 of them. Yume's in that room that was closed off, messing with some sort of panel..." His whisper grew strained, laced with urgency that made Fang's mouth go dry. "We have to move." He released Fang and pushed frantically against the soles of his shoes. "MOVE!"
"Grab my ankle," Fang hissed, reaching back to bunch his pant leg up to his knee and shoving his sock down with his thumb. As soon as Dylan's cold fingers grasped the exposed skin, the vent shaft was plunged into eerie silence. Fang had pulled them into that tiny tear in the atmosphere where they were Imperceptible, hidden from the eyes and ears of the enemy. The metal sheeting rippled soundlessly beneath invisible knees as they barreled clumsily forward. Fang hardly noticed Dylan's short fingernails digging into his skin. He was laser-focused, following the faint currents of fresh air through the shaft system until they rounded a corner and his shoulders pressed against the exterior vent. He slammed into it bodily until the screws torqued and the metal rent jaggedly with a scraping screech.
Fang fell headfirst from the side of the building. He landed roughly on the pavement ten feet below. Dylan, still attached to his ankle, dropped in a heap on top of him. The area was mercifully empty, but when Dylan let go of Fang to roll off of him, his eyes were wide and fixed on the building.
"They're coming!"
"We won't be here." Fang stood up and made a grab for Dylan. He hauled him up by his wrist and tightened his grip, bracing them together. He unfurled his wings, big and dark and powerful, and they vanished before the down stroke.
Dylan was flapping frantically beneath him, knocking Fang's wings with his own before finding a rhythm as he was dragged upward. Fang glanced down, ignoring the familiar twist in his stomach as he saw right through his body to the building below. He could hear into the heart of the building via the open air vent; could hear the smooth, rhythmic clicking of metal on metal; and then an airy wail from Yume that stuttered and then grew into an echoing, snarling shout.
She'd found the dead Erasers.
Below them, a door was flung open and smooth metal flashed as titanium mercenaries poured out, raising featureless faces up toward the sky. It was an actual robot army, like something out of a low budget SyFy series or a bad science fiction novel. All smooth curves and exposed joints with weaponized limbs. A dark strip spanned their smooth egg heads at eye level.
Fang really, really hoped his power hid them from robot-vision.
He pushed against the sky, straining to get them as high as possible so that he could let go of Dylan without worrying about being seen. The robots moved jerkily, but they moved together. Fang wasn't about to bet against the accuracy of their weaponry.
They were at least 4,000 feet overhead when Fang reappeared and released Dylan from his death grip. It was high enough that they would have looked like tiny black specs against the clouds to anyone below, if they were even spotted in the first place. He scanned the ground, homing in on the robots and taking his first real breath in minutes when none of the weapons fired. None of them were even looking in the right direction.
Danger aside for now, his head swiveled toward a green-tinged Dylan. He called ahead, straining over the rush of the wind, over the pounding of his heart, "How far?"
"Just a couple of miles," Dylan yelled back, angling his wings toward the coast and sprinting ahead.
Fang surged forward after him, squinting into the wind, watching Dylan's sandy blonde hair whip around his head like it was a living thing.
"She's alone in a crate. She's alive, but she doesn't look good, man."
"Do you see a way in?"
"There's an open window, same floor," Dylan called, rocking from side to side with the force of each wing stroke. "Just one guy in there, no trouble – but Max's room is guarded and the place is full – whitecoats, Erasers, some outside with guns-"
"We'll draw them out," Fang interrupted, "make a diversion."
Dylan paused before nodding. "That could work."
"We've done it before." Granted, the last time, Gazzy had bombs in his hoodie pocket and the whole flock was involved, but the idea was simple enough. Fang coughed roughly, vocal chords tight from the air and the cold and the volume. "We'll distract them. I'll go after one of the Erasers outside, get their attention. You go in through the window and take out the guy. I'll go Imperceptible and meet you there."
Dylan nodded and barreled ahead. Fang was right on his heels, working furiously to pour on the speed. Dylan's wings were broader, faster, moving more air, and Fang found himself riding in Dylan's slipstream as they sped along above the coast.
"I think they know," Dylan called over his shoulder, "about us. There's a couple Erasers outside Max's room, and more moving outside. They know we're coming."
Yume. The way she yelled when she found them missing, probably half of Japan knew. They needed to be higher, high enough that there was no chance they'd be spotted. "They'll be watching for us. C'mon." Fang's arms flew out in front of him as he angled up, climbing higher and higher with Dylan on his tail. High enough that the ocean was a featureless glass beneath them. High enough to disappear in the clouds. He passed into a warm column of air and bowed his wings, letting the rising thermal fill them and lift him effortlessly. He and Dylan soared weightlessly on borrowed power. In seconds, they sprung up over a group of fluffy whites and powered ahead, Dylan in the lead again.
He pulled back long before Fang saw anything, wheeling around in a big, looping arc above a towering nimbus. Fang sailed past, taking a hairpin turn and falling opposite Dylan in small gliding circles, close enough that he could reach out and grab Dylan by the foot.
Dylan pointed down through the cloud, speaking normally now that they'd slowed. "It's right down there."
Fang eyed the billowing white below them. "You sure?"
"Positive," Dylan said, nodding definitively.
"Okay. And the window?"
"North end," Dylan replied. "It's the only one that's open, you can't miss it."
"Awesome. Don't go until you're sure they won't see you." Fang thwapped the back of his hand against Dylan's shoe twice and tipped forward, streamlining his body and pulling his Imperceptibility back on as he plummeted through the cloud. Tendrils of mist trailed behind him as he punched through the bottom. He took in the little island: maybe a hundred and fifty yards across and twice as long. Decorated with ruins and crumbling stone. Then the gleaming concrete courtyard and a state-of-the-art facility that took up a third of the island, butting right up against the sea wall on one side.
He zeroed in on one of the outside guards. One of the Erasers. His victim stood distracted on the pavement, in view of the front doors. He was busy fiddling with the settings on the semi-automatic in its claws. Its back was hunched in a way that couldn't be comfortable as it hung out somewhere between man and wolf. There were a few other guards close enough to see, but not close enough to help right away if a Bird Man dropped out of the sky.
There was a split second where he thought he caught sight of the open window - less fly-right-through and more pretend-you're-Spiderman-and-wriggle-inside - but then he was close enough to his target to swing his legs out beneath him, falling back into visibility with just twenty yards to go. He gave a mighty battle cry as the soles of his shoes slammed into the Eraser's shoulders from behind, sending the thing face-first into the pavement.
It didn't move. Fang hovered over the prone form, toeing its ribs with one foot. That was less dramatic than he'd hoped.
But then he heard the crackle of a walkie talkie just yards away. Something on the Eraser's hip beeped. Fang jerked his head up and saw another guard, a human, frozen in place and frantically fumbling with the radio. Fang dropped into a crouch. He stretched his wings to their full length and pulling his face into an unholy grin. There was a shout around the corner of the building and then a phalanx of five tore into the courtyard, slinging guns on their hips. They rushed for Fang.
He was up in a flash, turning and sprinting through the courtyard. His palm slapped an Eraser's shoulder as he bolted past, flirting with death and working hard to draw the attention of every guard. He heard the click of a weapon readying behind him and spread his wings, pumping twice before leaping into the air and vanishing before their very eyes. There was a second of silence and another second of frenzied fire, but Fang was already wheeling around to the north side of the building to the open window.
This kind of thing was always easier said than done. He twisted until his feet were running against the side of the building, wings out and dragging and slowing him down enough that he could wrap his fingers around the windowsill when he reached it. His momentum swung him around and slammed him into the side of the building, shoulders screaming with the effort of holding on. He let out a stuttering moan and pulled his chest up onto the sill, rocking his shoulders to wiggle the rest of the way in.
He grinned anyway when he saw Dylan, kneeling over a scrawny guy in a white coat with acne pock-marked across his face. Dylan gave a violent start when Fang reappeared, hopping down from the filing cabinets and walking towards him. His grin faded when he saw the tightness around Dylan's eyes.
"Whitecoat give you a hard time?"
Dylan shook his head. "It's her. Max. After Looking for her all week, making myself 'tune in' to her or whatever, I just..." He let out a shuddering sigh and pulled his hands through his hair, grabbing the skin on his cheeks and looking up at the ceiling. He let go after a second, standing up and hauling the whitecoat with him. "It's fine. I'm fine. I can do this. Let's go."
Fang watched him for a second, not really sure what to do with that, but not sure how to help, either. Really, there wasn't anything he could do about it.
Dylan heaved the unconscious whitecoat up a little higher, securing one limp arm around his shoulders and balancing the body against his side. "This guy's our key."
Fang hummed and went ahead, threading through the cluttered lab desks, feet crinkling over papers that littered the entire floor. He paused at the door and asked, "Are we good to go?"
Dylan nodded, bending to pull the whitecoat across his shoulders. He stood up with a groan and led the way out the door. "It was a good distraction."
They stopped in front of a door all the way down the hall. Dylan stooped so Fang could grab the whitecoat's hand to wave it in front of the scanner by the door. There was one mind-numbing second in which nothing happened, but then a light glowed green and something inside the door clicked. Dylan dropped the whitecoat unceremoniously. Fang grabbed the door handle and pulled, heart pounding so hard that he could feel it in his fingertips, hot against the cool metal of the handle.
The door opened to a brightly lit, bare room. The only thing inside was a large plastic crate, lying crooked in the middle of the room. The soft rattle of sleep breathing drifted out of the oval vents along the top. Fang almost looked back at Dylan, standing behind him, but he couldn't tear his eyes off the crate.
"That's her?"
"Yep," Dylan whispered gruffly. "Yeah, that's Max."
A/N: There aren't very many good verbs for someone becoming invisible willfully. There just aren't. It's something I've fought with any time Fang's power comes up in the story; how to describe it without sounding like a fifty-cent comic book. Why is "going invisible" the most prevalent thing out there? It sounds kinda dumb. But "slip into invisibility" sounds pretentious, or like misguided seduction, like, "Why don't you...slip into some invisibility and join me in the lounge?" What even? I've been trying to use more active verbs for Fang's power, like pushing or pulling or gripping or holding onto it, since it takes effort on his part to maintain the illusion. Do you guys have any fantastic verbs for using invisibility?
Also, if you're curious, I put the evil lab on a real island. Hashima Island, unofficially called Gunkanjima (Battleship Island), is an abandoned undersea coal mining town. No one's lived there for at least forty years, so it's conceivable that Genitex bought this (along with other abandoned islands) to get some under-the-table research done without anyone prying too much. The island is just off the coast of the Nagasaki Peninsula, about the size of two or three football fields, and if you plug "Hashima Island" into Google, you can look at it on satellite view. The surrounding area comes into play a little bit over the next few chapters.
Lustrex: You're right, that was such a short chapter! Because the information Max gives us is so limited, because she is so static, it's a challenge to draw them out. I'm learning to let some chapters (like the Max ones) stay small to emphasize the emotional impact. And I'd had a few ideas to extend the trope's prevalence, but they were all sincerely dark and anyway, that's not meant to be the focus of the story. It does get addressed in the final chapter, but it's not as important as the things that happen between Fang & Dylan. And yes, the reunion will be SO bittersweet!
Nola96: Aw, haha, well this is not a story for steamy reunion relations, sorry. You'll see when it comes, but their circumstances will make it hard to focus on anything but immediate danger. Plus, they're both wounded and ragged and bloody at this point. Sex is the last thing on their brains. BUT it will be clingy and needy and tender and protective. All of those things. You know how I do Fax.
j4bb3rwocky: Thanks for your notes on the past three chapters. You've given me several good things to think about for when I go back and polish everything up, so thank you for that. You've got a couple of interesting theories for how the endgame might play out. I will simply sit and smile at them and then post what I have anyway. I hope what follows somehow manages to exceed your expectations.
WithoutWings: Yes, Flyboys! That's it. Erasers, mechanical erasers, winged erasers, flyboys (mechanical winged erasers?), M-Geeks... and the Flock. So much to keep track of. I have this on-going project that I update whenever I'm researching canon for continuity with my stories, where I try to record a timeline in the books of what happens in which order and where characters get introduced, or major character traits. There's just so much material, and it's not always consistent, and it's often repetitious, and that makes it hard to keep track of which villain group they're fighting this time. Anyway, I'm glad you figured out the point of the flashbacking in the last chapter. It's meant to simulate the feeling of drifting in and out, which Max is doing with all those drugs in her system, and while some people maybe didn't enjoy the effect, it at least functioned the way it was supposed to.
thestupidgenius1123: Girl, lookit you go. You are so busy, and yet you still make the time to come and review literally six chapters in a row. I originally HAD written in a time skip between the GH fight and the hospital scene. But I couldn't figure out how to hint at it in a way that felt believable, and I needed some time to pass between events in the story, so I just went for it. I'm glad you think it worked. And Fang's breakdown was seriously one of my favorites to write. He's been building, building, building, and mostly suppressing, towards this emotional outburst. Let's be honest, he's already at the end of his rope when he's greeting the flock in the hospital, with his defenses all broken down, and then Val gets that fax and BOOM! Cathartic release. And then it's done, and he can move on to actually rescuing Max.
KLoves2Read: I'm glad the new version of the chapter was clearer! I seriously loved the notes you gave me for that one, they really helped make everything shine.
