"Sam... Where's Danny?"
Danny snapped back to full attention, hearing Tuck's voice as though he were close by.
"He went off to fight that monster. Last I saw of him was when he flew back into the dust to look for it..."
He looked around; he was still falling, thousands of feet above the surface of the lake, but closing in on it fast.
"I'm afraid, Tuck... I'll admit it... That creature is so powerful... I'm afraid he's not going to make it out of this... And... And that I'll never see him again..."
He heard her break down into tears.
Don't cry, Sam. You'll see me again. I make that promise to you.
He turned over in the air, putting his back toward the water below. He spread his arms and legs out, attempting to create resistance. His shredded wings underneath him cried out to him in protest, but he ignored it. Instead, he closed out all feelings, all sounds, shutting down each of his senses, and concentrated on one thing and one thing only.
His aura began to flare brighter, trailing toward the sky above like the shimmering dust tail of a falling star as he fell. Gradually he began to feel a decrease in speed; it was as though time itself were slowing down for him. The rush of the wind against his body slowly began to die away. His body became less tense, and for a moment he felt as though he had become absolutely weightless...
He opened his eyes. He lay still, floating in mid-air. He turned over in the air and looked down; he had come to a complete stop only a few feet above the water's surface. Giving a shout of joy, he reached down and swatted the water with one hand. He had regained his ability to levitate.
A red light shining down on him brought him back to alertness. He gave himself a second mental command, and the lower half of his body suddenly began to lose its stability and form, dissolving into a stream of black spectral matter. Putting his arms behind him, he turned and bolted, taking off through the air like a rocket. Behind him, the dragon's twin beams struck the water, causing it to boil and send up a white-hot cloud of vapor. Seemingly infuriated by Danny's display of power and control, the dragon screamed out a challenge, diving to give chase.
Sam felt a hand on her shoulder. She raised her head, having had it face down in her arms, against the bed upon which Tuck lay. Around her, she could feel the ambulance slowing to a stop; soon the doors to her left would open, and once again there would be a flurry of movement to remove them from the vehicle and direct them to safety. All that passed through her mind like a vague memory; she was too lost in her emotions to care.
Once outside, she could tell they were far from the commercial center of Amity Park. Because of the evacuation, they were taken to a hospital on the outskirts of the city, out near the interstate yet still close to the lakeshore. She did not have much time to look around as a number of hospital staff members were ushering her inside the building, behind the few who were wheeling Tuck's cot through the halls toward the emergency room.
Everything since then passed by as though she were in a dream. She found herself a few moments later, leaning against a wall, standing next to the double doors that led into the room where she knew Tuck had been taken. She was alone, save for the occasional doctor, nurse, or person in scrubs who walked past her through the doors, leaving or entering.
She looked at the swinging doors, yet did not see them, being lost in her thoughts. All of a sudden, she felt a sense of apprehension, some kind of strange morbid desire driving her to do action. Having no other preference, she turned and walked away from the emergency room doors, turned the corner, her pace increasing to a jog, then a hard run. She soon found the elevator. Hitting the upstairs button, she was hardly surprised when the doors slid open soon afterward, the car having already been stationed at that floor. She darted inside, reaching out to touch the button that would take her to the highest floor.
Danny turned his head, getting a good look at the giant winged shadow in pursuit of him. He raised one hand, aimed his index finger, and fired a bolt of ectoplasmic energy toward the dragon's head. The beam struck the dragon's head, hitting it in one of its eyes. It responded with a cry of pain, then followed up with another pair of energy blasts from its mouths. Danny swerved upward, the beams striking the water below him. The dragon continued to fire upon him, missing as he was gaining altitude.
He had an idea for a way that would eventually give him an advantage over the creature, having remembered something else he had learned long ago as a result of his aspirations to become an astronaut. The first thing he had to do was drive the monster to attack him again, which he had already easily accomplished; the next part involved flying straight up with the creature following right behind him. He hoped his attack on the dragon had given it enough incentive to want to follow him where he was planning on going.
He brought himself completely vertical, heading straight up into the clouds. Soon his surroundings had become cold, damp, and murky. Unable to see through the thick shroud of water vapor, he had to rely on the pull of gravity behind him in order to ensure that he was still heading in the right direction. Muffled through the clouds, the sound of the monster's cries gave testimony to the fact that the dragon was still behind him.
After a long while of traveling through the clammy darkness, he finally reached the lower levels of the upper atmosphere, bursting out of the low-flying cloudbank. He was then startled by a sleek white shape entering his peripheral vision. He turned his head; he was directly in the path of a commercial jet. The resulting mental impulse was instantaneous. He hardly felt the airplane's wing as it slashed completely through his midsection, causing no harm to him as he was able to make himself intangible at the last moment. He stopped and turned to watch as the aircraft flew away, hoping beyond hope that his passing through any part of the plane didn't do anything that would cause it to malfunction later on; even though he had phased through a plane once before, conditions were not the same for him this time around. He continued to watch the rapidly departing plane, his mind fixed on the safety of its passengers.
An infernal blast of crimson light flying past him brought him back to the matter at hand. He swung his arms back behind him and took off into the sky, climbing like a homesick angel. Soon he had disappeared into a higher cloudbank, the black monster following right behind, roaring for its prey to surrender.